We're the D'Artigo Sisters: Half-human, half-Faerie, we're savvy--and sexy--operatives for the Otherworld Intelligence Agency. But our mixed-blood heritage short-circuits our talents at all the wrong times. My sister Camille is a wicked-good witch whose magic is as unpredictable as the weather. My sister Delilah transforms into a tabby cat when she's under stress. And me? I'm Menolly, acrobat-extraordinaire-turned-vampire. And I'd give my right fang to make my sire pay for killing me. That is, if he doesn't find me first. . . "All over Seattle, humans have been going missing, only to turn up as newborn vampires--the sure sign of a rogue vamp on the loose. It looks like Dredge is to blame. The same sadistic Dredge who gave me my scars, and who may well be in cahoots with the demon Shadow Wing. If so, Otherworld and Earth are screwed. The only way we can hope to defeat Dredge is for me to travel home to Otherworld, where I must face my own demons. Because unless I sever the ties that bind me to Dredge, all hell is going to break loose. . . " Views: 506
“A perfectly executed, exquisitely reported parable of the Internet age and the wild, mad adventure that is start-up culture.”—Charles Duhigg
Fortune, mania, genius, philanthropy—the bestselling author of Mountains Beyond Mountains gives us the inspiring story of Paul English, the founder of Kayak.com and Lola.
Tracy Kidder, the “master of the nonfiction narrative” (The Baltimore Sun) and author of the bestselling classic The Soul of a New Machine, now tells the story of Paul English, a kinetic and unconventional inventor and entrepreneur, who as a boy rebelled against authority. Growing up in working-class Boston, English discovers a medium for his talents the first time he sees a computer. As a young man, despite suffering from what would eventually be diagnosed as bipolar disorder, he begins his pilgrim’s journey through the ups and downs in the brave new world of computers. Relating to the Internet as if it’s an extension of his own mind, he discovers that he has a talent for conceiving innovative enterprises and building teams that can develop them, becoming “a Pied Piper” of geeks. His innovative management style, success, and innate sense of fair play inspire intense loyalty. Early on, one colleague observes: “Someday this boy’s going to get hit by a truck full of money, and I’m going to be standing beside him.” Yet when English does indeed make a fortune, when the travel website Kayak is sold for almost two billion dollars—the first thing he thinks about is how to give the money away: “What else would you do with it?” The second thing he thinks is, What’s next?
With the power of a consummate storyteller, Tracy Kidder casts a fresh, critical, and often humorous eye on the way new ideas and new money are reshaping our culture and the world. A Truck Full of Money is a mesmerizing portrait of an irresistibly endearing man who is indefatigable, original, and as unpredictable as America itself.
Praise for *A Truck Full of Money*
“Kidder’s prose glides with a figure skater’s ease, but without the glam. His is a seemingly artless art, like John McPhee’s, that conceals itself in sentences that are necessary, economical, and unpretentious.”—The *Boston Globe*
“Kidder’s portrayal of living with manic depression is as nuanced and intimate as a reader might ever expect to get. . . . You can’t help admiring Mr. English and cheering for him.”*—The New York Times
“[A] powerful and insightful tale that makes the Internet era entertaining, and defines English as an endearing, generous and eccentric geek.”*—USA Today
“At times, the narrative of the young technologist, at least in Kidder’s hands, seems the modern equivalent of the story of the godless wayfarer who stumbles into a cathedral in a distant city, only to find that its vaulting arches and organ music bring on exaltations of mind and spirit.”*—The New York Times Book Review
“What kind of entrepreneur talks about making money as if it’s, well, kind of a bummer? You’ll ask yourself that question about a dozen or so pages into A Truck Full of Money, Tracy Kidder’s expertly reported, deftly written new book that tracks the rise of unconventional software executive and Kayak.com co-founder Paul English. Views: 505
It's 2328 and in Brighton, England, they call their society Audric -- a place where crime is non-existent and bad financial decisions are met with a bracelet shock and a mind-altering dream. Pierre na, the only seventeen year old with no shocks, known by his friends as Pure Pierre, wakes up in an infirmary and is told he fell thirteen stories and lived. Pierre is agreed by all to be an Audricsuccess, but is he really the success everyone supposes? With no memory of the thirteen floor fall, he'll have to find out what happened, who would want to kill him, and why. His quest will lead him to infiltrate a rogue group that lives among them called Gamblers, and to befriend a beautiful mysterious girl who seems to possess some of the answers he needs. For the first time in his life, he will question everything about the society he's always taken for granted. Views: 504
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. Views: 503
Infamous for the murder of Maria Iribarne, the artist Juan Pablo Castel is now writing a detailed account of his relationship with the victim from his prison cell: obsessed from the first moment he saw her examining one of his paintings, Castel had become fixated on her over the next months and fantasized over how they might meet again. When he happened upon her one day, a relationship was formed which swiftly convinced him of their mutual love. But Castel's growing paranoia would lead him to destroy the one thing he truly cared about...Sabato's first novel El Túnel (translated as 'The Outsider' or 'The Tunnel'), written in 1948, is framed as the confession of the painter Juan Pablo Castel, who has murdered the only woman capable of understanding him. Sabato's novels were praised by authors such as Albert Camus and Graham Greene. Views: 501
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, the final novel in the trilogy that also includes Valis and The Divine Invasion, is an anguished, learned, and very moving investigation of the paradoxes of belief. It is the story of Timothy Archer, an urbane Episcopal bishop haunted by the suicides of his son and mistress - and driven by them into a bizarre quest for the identity of Christ. Views: 501
In Victorian Britain, a group of eminent scientists got together to found a society expressly to prove the existence of ghosts.
The age of Darwin represented the greatest scientific advances known to man. The tension between science and religion was exposed by Darwin's On the Origin of the Species in 1859, which challenged the basic tenets of belief.
Yet many of those in the forefront of the scientific revolution could not give up the idea of a higher reality. Life after death was the unknown frontier. Victorian society was full of mediums claiming they could communicate with the spirits of the dead. Baffling psychic phenomena occurred every day at séances: mysterious rappings were heard, furniture moved, ghostly forms appeared, the mediums spoke in the altered voices of the dead with information only their nearest could possibly know. Pyschometry involving locks of hair and watches and children's toys; telepathy; ouija boards; apparitions; astral projection: all were commonplace.
In 1882 the Society of Psychical Research was founded in London to investigate all these phenomena: it was a group led by some of the greatest scientists of the age but its membership also included Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Leslie Stephen, Virginia Woolf's father, John Ruskin, the Reverend Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) and Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain). Six months later William James, Professor of Psychology at Harvard, and the brother of Henry James visited London and went on to set up American branch.
Their experiments went on for years. Many mediums, like the notorious Madame Blavatsky, were exposed as charlatans yet there were some mediums who continued to communicate directly with another world, who despite every rigorous scientific test seemed to prove that souls survived death. This is the story of this group of forward thinkers: many of whom were driven to the spirit world by personal tragedy, some whose feeling of loss lead to their own suicides. It is the story of the greatest ghost hunt of any age. Views: 500
Thirty years ago, ecstasy and torment took hold of John Rivers, shocking him out of "half-baked imbecility into something more nearly resembling the human form." He had an affair with the wife of his mentor, Henry Maartens--a pathbreaking physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize, and a figure of blinding brilliance--bringing the couple to ruin. Now, on Christmas Eve while a small grandson sleeps upstairs, John Rivers is moved to set the record straight about the great man and the radiant, elemental creature he married, who viewed the renowned genius through undazzled eyes. Views: 498
in recognition of this pulitzer prize–winning author’s lauded career as a master essayist, a landmark collection, including her most beloved pieces and some rarely seen work the abundance includes the best of Annie Dillard’s essays, delivered in her fierce and muscular prose, filled with absorbing detail and metaphysical fact. Intense, vivid, and fearless, her work endows the true and seemingly ordinary aspects of life—a commuter chases snowball-throwing children through backyards, a bookish teenager memorizes the poetry of Rimbaud—with beauty and irony. These essays invite readers into sweeping landscapes, to join Dillard in exploring the complexities of time and death, often with wry humor. On one page, an eagle falls from the sky with a weasel attached to its throat; on another, a man walks into a bar.
Marking the vigor of this powerful writer, The Abundance highlights Annie Dillard’s elegance of mind. Views: 498
Forbidden romance, an unlikely martyr, and an even more unlikely heroOrphaned four years earlier when their parents, active in the African National Congress (ANC) movement against apartheid, were murdered—16-year-old Chioma and her 15-year-old brother Masozi now live and work on an Afrikaner family's farm. When Chioma and Andrew, the farm owner's son, find themselves attracted to one another, tragedy revisits their lives. Chioma escapes to join an ANC rebel band in her effort to survive and gain revenge for her family and culture. When cultures clash in life-or-death struggles, Chioma must choose between violence and revenge—or forgiveness and selfless love. Loosely based on historical events and set near Pretoria, South Africa, in the violent upheaval prior to ANC leader Nelson Mandela's release from prison in 1990 and his ascendance to the presidency of South Africa, this story of forbidden romance produces an unlikely martyr who is replaced by one even more unlikely. Views: 498
The tenth in the fun new 12-book collectible series for young readers from survival expert and Chief Scout BEAR GRYLLS.A mysterious compass with a fifth direction transports a young girl to a mountain top high above sea level, where the air is thin, the steep drops are treacherous and the conditions tough. Luckily, survival expert Bear Grylls is on hand to guide her safely down the mountain, facing her fears and gaining in confidence along the way.Each book in this fun new 12-book series from BEAR GRYLLS follows a different child on the outdoor activity camp. Once they are given the magical compass, they meet the inspirational adventurer in an amazing place and learn new skills and facts they can take with them back to their real life. Views: 497
He's having a hard time minding his own business when it comes to the one woman he's never been able to get out of his head…or his heart.Eva Channing had no idea that a trip to see an old friend, to visit old haunts, to relive a past she'd been too young to appreciate and too inexperienced to handle would flip her current life upside down but it has. Now everywhere she turns, Carson Brandt is there reminding her of what they had. What she's never been able to forget…and isn't sure she wants to.Carson put Eva behind him ages ago—or so he thought. But when their paths cross again unexpectedly, he's forced to face the truth: He's never gotten over her. He shouldn't have looked her up afterward. He should've kept her consigned to the part of his life that's long gone. He's good at doing that. Thing is, she's been keeping a secret all this time. One she had no right to keep. Not from him.A secret named Zack. Views: 497
Many thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's works has continued to mount and his reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of critical attention. The Philip K. Dick Award is now given annually to a distinguished work of science fiction, and the Philip K. Dick Society is devoted to the study and promulgation of his works.
This collection includes all of the writer's earliest short and medium-length fiction (including some previously unpublished stories) covering the years 1954-1964. These fascinating stories include Service Call, Stand By, The Days of Perky Pat, and many others.
Contents:
Autofac --
Service call --
Captive market --
The mold of Yancy --
The minority report --
Recall mechanism --
The unreconstructed M --
Explorers we --
War game --
If there were no Benny Cemoli --
Novelty act --
Waterspider --
What the dead men say --
Orpheus with clay feet --
The days of Perky Pat --
Stand-by --
What'll we do with Ragland Park? --
Oh, to be a Blobel! --
"A useful acquisition for any serious SF library or collection" -- Kirkus
"The collected stories of Philip K. Dick is awe inspiring". -- The Washington Post
"More than anyone else in the field, Mr. Dick really puts you inside people's minds". -- Wall Street Journal Views: 497
Things are looking great for Greg Donner, a Chicago freelance writer. He's got a terrific project, and he's met the woman of his dreams -- literally, his dreams (though they're rather odd ones). But then, one night, he falls asleep and awakes . . . to the beginning of a nightmare he just can't seem to wake up from. . . . Views: 497
Super Man and the Bug Out By Cory Doctorow Views: 496
