One of the greatest medieval warriors Harald Sigurdsson, nicknamed Hardrada, fell in battle in an attempt to snatch the crown of England. This book reconstructs his military career spanning three and a half decades and involving encounters with a range of allies and enemies in sea-fights and land battles, sieges and raids. Views: 539
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is the story of a dramatic year in Virginia's Blue Ridge valley. Annie Dillard sets out to see what she can see. What she sees are astonishing incidents of "mystery, death, beauty, violence." Views: 539
Empirically proving that -- no matter where you are -- kids wanna rock, this is Chuck Klosterman's hilarious memoir of growing up as a shameless metalhead in Wyndmere, North Dakotoa (population: 498). With a voice like Ace Frehley's guitar, Klosterman hacks his way through hair-band history, beginning with that fateful day in 1983 when his older brother brought home Mötley Crüe's Shout at the Devil. The fifth-grade Chuck wasn't quite ready to rock -- his hair was too short and his farm was too quiet -- but he still found a way to bang his nappy little head. Before the journey was over, he would slow-dance to Poison, sleep innocently beneath satanic pentagrams, lust for Lita Ford, and get ridiculously intellectual about Guns N' Roses. C'mon and feel his noize. Views: 539
The final novel in the Cahokian story cycle, Star Path is an evocative tale about America's greatest pre-Columbian city by New York Times bestselling authors W. Michael and Kathleen O'Neal GearCan you say no to a living god? The answer for Blue Heron, former matron of the Four Winds Clan, is not really. She and the master thief Seven Skull Shield are sent to far off Cofitachequi, for an old threat has arisen on the other side of the great eastern mountains. Journeying down the Mississippi to the Tennessee, and then upstream to the Appalachians, Blue Heron's party must not only face the treacherous river, festering resentment in the newly formed colonies, and hostile barbarian tribes, but a more sinister threat travels among them. A man with his own agenda, and he will do anything to destroy Blue Heron. Star Path, the final book in the Gears' Morning Star series, takes the reader out of the great city of Cahokia... Views: 539
"The emotional and moral complexity that [Jane Smiley] uncovers in the characters of these resonant novellas confirms [her] singular talent. ORDINARY LOVE & GOOD WILL is an extraordinary achievement."
THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
ORDINARY LOVE
At a reunion with her grown children, a woman recalls the long-ago affair that ended her relationship with their father--and changed all their lives irrevocably.
GOOD WILL
Despite the carefully self-sufficient life he has designed for his small family, a man discovers that even the right choices have unexpected consequences--sometimes heart-breaking ones.
From the Paperback edition. Views: 539
OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT PONKAPOG BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH When I saw the little house building, an eighth of a mile beyond my own, on the Old Bay Road, I wondered who were to be the tenants. The modest structure was set well back from the road, among the trees, as if the inmates were to care nothing whatever for a view of the stylish equipages which sweep by during the summer season. For my part, I like to see the passing, in town or country; but each has his own unaccountable taste. The proprietor, who seemed to be also the architect of the new house, superintended the various details of the work with an assiduity that gave me a high opinion of his intelligence and executive ability, and I congratulated myself on the prospect of having some very agreeable neighbors. It was quite early in the spring, if I remember, when they moved into the cottage—a newly married couple, evidently: the wife very young, pretty, and with the air of a lady; the husband somewhat older, but still in the first flush of manhood. It was understood in the village that they came from Baltimore; but no one knew them personally, and they brought no letters of introduction. (For obvious reasons, I refrain from mentioning names.) It was clear that, for the present at least, their own company was entirely sufficient for them. They made no advance toward the acquaintance of any of the families in the neighborhood, and consequently were left to themselves. That, apparently, was what they desired, and why they came to Ponkapog. For after its black bass and wild duck and teal, solitude is the chief staple of Ponkapog. Perhaps its perfect rural loveliness should be included. Lying high up under the wing of the Blue Hills, and in the odorous breath of pines and cedars, it chances to be the most enchanting bit of unlaced disheveled country within fifty miles of Boston, which, moreover, can be reached in half an hour\'s ride by railway. But the nearest railway station (Heaven be praised!) is two miles distant, and the seclusion is without a flaw. Ponkapog has one mail a day; two mails a day would render the place uninhabitable. The village—it looks like a compact village at a distance, but unravels and disappears the moment you drive into it—has quite a large floating population. I do not allude to the perch and pickerel in Ponkapog Pond. Along the Old Bay Road, a highway even in the Colonial days, there are a number of attractive villas and cottages straggling off toward Milton, which are occupied for the summer by people from the city. These birds of passage are a distinct class from the permanent inhabitants, and the two seldom closely assimilate unless there has been some previous connection. It seemed to me that our new neighbors were to come under the head of permanent inhabitants; they had built their own house, and had the air of intending to live in it all the year round. "Are you not going to call on them?" I asked my wife one morning. "When they call on us," she replied lightly. "But it is our place to call first, they being strangers." This was said as seriously as the circumstance demanded; but my wife turned it off with a laugh, and I said no more, always trusting to her intuitions in these matters.... Views: 538
‘Laws are silent in times of war.’
Cicero
There was a time when Cicero held Caesar’s life in the palm of his hand. But now Caesar is the dominant figure and Cicero’s life is in ruins.
Exiled, separated from his wife and children, his possessions confiscated, his life constantly in danger, Cicero is tormented by the knowledge that he has sacrificed power for the sake of his principles.
His comeback requires wit, skill and courage – and for a brief and glorious period, the legendary orator is once more the supreme senator in Rome.
But politics is never static and no statesman, however cunning, can safeguard against the ambition and corruption of others.
Riveting and tumultuous, DICTATOR encompasses some of the most epic events in human history yet is also an intimate portrait of a brilliant, flawed, frequently fearful yet ultimately brave man – a hero for his time and for ours. This is an unforgettable tour de force from a master storyteller. Views: 537
This short story is narrated by the antagonist of my novel Carpathian Vampire. It contains much of the mythology behind the race of vampires. The events of this story occurred within the same time frame as that of the novel.So it was that one day just after sundown she was in a meadow caring for a lost bunny rabbit, when a nasty old vampire happened upon her cooing to the cuddly creature. She was all bent over on the ground making over it when she looked up and saw me standing over her. Such a fright I've never before seen, and since I was still going through my cruel stage, this delighted me no end. I let her run, only getting close enough to encourage her panic so that she might renew her futile effort to outdistance me. I drew up behind her as she faltered from fatigue, and when she fell, I was upon her before she could resign herself to her fate and her panic was still in full bloom, her heart racing beyond itself. She was hot and sweaty, her neck salty and oily and smoother than a newborn's. I suckled her first, just to taste the deliciousness of her femininity, and then my teeth crashed through to the warm nectar, and all her life flowed from that gorgeous little body into old Alu, disgusting corruptor of all things fair. Views: 534
Take a man waiting - waiting between the two worlds of civilian life and the army, suspended between two identities - and you have a man who, perhaps for the first time in his life, is truly free. However, freedom can be a noose around a man's neck. Views: 534
In 1975 Annie Dillard took up residence on an island in Puget Sound in a wooded room furnished with "one enormous window, one cat, one spider and one person." For the next two years she asked herself questions about time, reality, sacrifice death, and the will of God. In Holy the Firm she writes about a moth consumed in a candle flame, about a seven-year-old girl burned in an airplane accident, about a baptism on a cold beach. But behind the moving curtain of what she calls "the hard things -- rock mountain and salt sea," she sees, sometimes far off and sometimes as close by as a veil or air, the power play of holy fire.
This is a profound book about the natural world -- both its beauty and its cruelty -- the Pulitzer Prize-winning Dillard knows so well. Views: 534
A young rider encounters well-known horses and new friends in the final installment of the Ellen and Ned trilogy by Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley.Ellen's family has moved to a new town...but some things, like her love for horses, remain the same. Ellen is now the proud owner of her own horse, Tater. She's learning new skills and challenging herself as a rider...but she still can't stop thinking about Ned, the fiesty former racehorse she sees on the ranch during her lessons.In the meantime, Ellen's making new friends and encountering old ones. Most exciting of all is Da, a boy from a riding family who has a spirit of mischief and daring and knows his own mind.Ellen still has a lot to learn...about horses, friendship, and herself. And will she ever be able to get Ned off her mind? Views: 534
The Order of the Soul has been disbanded for years, the sisterhood of the Warriors scattered to the winds. But when Makena wished to learn the Warrior's Way, Jhyssa took the young neophyte under her tutelage. Now the impossible has happened -- war has broken out in the land, and the battlecry sounds once more. Will Makena heed the Warrior's teachings or seek her own way?Actor, a young man of Ancient Greece looking to make a name for himself, ends up on a trail of side-kicking for some of the greatest heroes ever. However, each one seems to be a little off from their legend. Jason is a jerk. Perseus is an old fart. Theseus is a liar. And so on and so on. Only by the skin of his teeth is he able to survive each time, but when will he be the hero? When will he deserve to become a legend?This is a play in One Act intended for a minimum of two actors. It is a comedy-farce, and it requires a few basic props, blackbox theatre, some costume change for second (or more) actor(s), and repeatedly breaking the fourth wall. It's a good small piece for a mildly mature to fully mature audience.ATTN: Reading it is free. Producing it requires you to contact me the author. Please. Views: 532
Across the odd contours of the American landscape-Jim Harrison's country--its natives search for that which isn't quite irretrievably lost, for the incandescent beneath the ordinary. An ex-Bible student with raucously asocial tendencies rescues the miraculously preserved body of an Indian chief from the frigid depths of Lake Superior, in a caper that nets a wildly unexpected bounty; a band of sixties radicals, now approaching middle-age, reunites to free an old comrade from a Mexican jail and rewrite their common history; a fifty-year-old suburban housewife flees quietly from her abusive businessman husband at a highway rest stop, climbs a fence, and explores the bittersweet pageant of the preceding years within the sanctuary of an Iowa cornfield. "Brown Dog" Views: 532
He has one chance to find the facts he's searched for his entire life. All he has to do is prove his Number One enemy is not a killer... Daniel Pike has fought his entire legal career to ensure no wrongly convicted person dies in prison like his father did. But he's still no closer to uncovering his own painful family secrets. And after a terrible twist of fate, he's hired to defend his arch-nemesis who's been charged with a gruesome murder... With a string of grisly clues placing his client squarely in the frame, Pike's investigations incur the fury of a powerful and callous cartel. After a key defense witness is brutally slain, not even this talented attorney stands a chance of convincing any jury that his defendant's hands are not blood-stained. And the cartel's next target is Pike...and everyone he loves. Will Pike's most challenging assignment destroy everything he's struggled to achieve? Final... Views: 532
Over a quarter of a century after its first publication, the great and simple wisdom in this book continues to influence women's lives.
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 532
