"FAST-PACED . . . PIERCY BREATHES LIFE INTO THE ACTUAL HISTORICAL FIGURES WHO SHAPED THE REVOLUTION."
--San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle
In her most splendid, thought-provoking novel yet, Marge Piercy brings to vibrant life three women who play prominent roles in the tumultuous, bloody French Revolution--as well as their more famous male counterparts.
Defiantly independent Claire Lacombe tests her theory: if men can make things happen, perhaps women can too. . . . Manon Philipon finds she has a talent for politics--albeit as the ghostwriter of her husband's speeches. . . . And Pauline Léon knows one thing for certain: the women must apply the pressure or their male colleagues will let them starve. While illuminating the lives of Robespierre, Danton, and Condorcet, Piercy also opens to us the minds and hearts of women who change their world, live their ideals--and are prepared to die for them.
"MASTERFUL . . . PIERCY BRINGS THE BLOOD AND GUTS, THE IDEAS AND PASSIONS, OF THE REVOLUTION TO LIFE."
--The Women's Review of Books
"PIERCY'S STORYTELLING POWERS CAPTURE THE TURBULENCE AND EXCITEMENT OF [THIS] LIBERATING ERA."
--The Boston Herald
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 239
Francis Bret Harte (August 25, 1836[1] – May 5, 1902) was an American author and poet, best remembered for his short fiction featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush. In a career spanning more than four decades, he wrote poetry, fiction, plays, lectures, book reviews, editorials, and magazine sketches in addition to fiction. As he moved from California to the eastern U.S. to Europe, he incorporated new subjects and characters into his stories, but his Gold Rush tales have been most often reprinted, adapted, and admired. Views: 238
Nicholas snatches success from failure, but as the celebrations begin the Marshal reveals his ultimate weapon...Jerusalem, 1989: After his best friend dies of a drug overdose, a Georgia Tech student walks away from his life, eventually winding up in the ancient and narrow streets of Jerusalem during the first Palestinian Intifada. At the crossroads of most of the world's major religions and conflicts, Charles merely wants to submerge himself in work and discovery of a different culture, but every step takes him back toward himself.This is an early short story written by Charles Sheehan-Miles, author of the surprise indie bestseller Republic: A Novel of America's Future. Originally written in 1989 while the author was living in the Old City of Jerusalem, this is the first time the story has been released to the public. Views: 238
They had all known him as a shiftless, worthless creature. From the time he first entered Redwood Camp, carrying his entire effects in a red handkerchief on the end of a long-handled shovel, until he lazily drifted out of it on a plank in the terrible inundation of \'56, they never expected anything better of him. In a community of strong men with sullen virtues and charmingly fascinating vices, he was tolerated as possessing neither—not even rising by any dominant human weakness or ludicrous quality to the importance of a butt. In the dramatis personae of Redwood Camp he was a simple "super"—who had only passive, speechless roles in those fierce dramas that were sometimes unrolled beneath its green-curtained pines. Views: 237
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) may have traveled more than the characters in some of his critically acclaimed and world renowned novels. Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, and traveling writer who wore classics like Treasure Island, Kidnapped and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Stevenson was so accomplished that he was a celebrity during his lifetime, and he left an influence on great writers who followed him, including Hemingway and Kipling. At the same time, his works are easy enough to read that they can be taught in classrooms across the world to teenagers. Views: 237
Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Holman Day is in the English language, and may not include graphics or images from the original edition. If you enjoy the works of Holman Day then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. Views: 237
Not a story about me through their eyes then. Find the beginning, the slight silver key to unlock it, to dig it out. Here then is a maze to begin, be in. (p. 20)
Funny yet horrifying, improvisational yet highly distilled, unflinchingly violent yet tender and elegiac, Michael Ondaatje’s ground-breaking book The Collected Works of Billy the Kid is a highly polished and self-aware lens focused on the era of one of the most mythologized anti-heroes of the American West. This revolutionary collage of poetry and prose, layered with photos, illustrations and “clippings,” astounded Canada and the world when it was first published in 1969. It earned then-little-known Ondaatje his first of several Governor General’s Awards and brazenly challenged the world’s notions of history and literature.
Ondaatje’s Billy the Kid (aka William H. Bonney / Henry McCarty / Henry Antrim) is not the clichéd dimestore comicbook gunslinger later parodied within the pages of this book. Instead, he is a beautiful and dangerous chimera with a voice: driven and kinetic, he also yearns for blankness and rest. A poet and lover, possessing intelligence and sensory discernment far beyond his life’s 21 year allotment, he is also a resolute killer. His friend and nemesis is Sheriff Pat Garrett, who will go on to his own fame (or infamy) for Billy’s execution. Himself a web of contradictions, Ondaatje’s Garrett is “a sane assassin sane assassin sane assassin sane assassin sane assassin sane” (p. 29) who has taught himself a language he’ll never use and has trained himself to be immune to intoxication. As the hero and anti-hero engage in the counterpoint that will lead to Billy’s predetermined death, they are joined by figures both real and imagined, including the homesteaders John and Sallie Chisum, Billy’s lover Angela D, and a passel of outlaws and lawmakers. The voices and images meld, joined by Ondaatje’s own, in a magnificent polyphonic dream of what it means to feel and think and freely act, knowing this breath is your last and you are about to be trapped by history.
I am here with the range for everything
corpuscle muscle hair
hands that need the rub of metal
those senses that
that want to crash things with an axe
that listen to deep buried veins in our palms
those who move in dreams over your women night
near you, every paw, the invisible hooves
the mind’s invisible blackout the intricate never
the body’s waiting rut.
(p. 72)
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 236
Hamlin Garland was a popular 20th century American writer best known for writing about hardscrabble life on the Plains and the frontier. His stories resonated in an era known for the Depression and the Dust Bowl. Views: 236
Keeper is a breathtaking, magical novel from National Book Award finalist and Newbery Honoree Kathi Appelt.
To ten-year-old Keeper the moon is her chance to fix all that has gone wrong ... and so much has gone wrong.
But she knows who can make things right again: Maggie Marie, her mermaid mother, who swam away when Keeper was just three. A blue moon calls the mermaids to gather at the sandbar, and that's exactly where Keeper is headed - in a small boat. In the middle of the night, with only her dog, BD (Best Dog), and seagull named Captain. When the riptide pulls at the boat, tugging her away from the shore and deep into the rough waters of the Gulf of mexico, panic sets in and the fairy tales that lured her out there go tumbling into the waves. Maybe the blue moon won't sparkle with mermaids and maybe - Oh, no ... "Maybe" is just too difficult to bear. Views: 236
Passions flare in a most unlikely love triangle between three remarkable characters facing arduous life challenges in this engrossing novel by bestselling author Marge Piercy
Heartbroken after her girlfriend leaves her for another woman, Leslie, a history grad student, follows her thesis advisor from Grand Rapids to Detroit for a fresh start. There she befriends seventeen-year-old Honor, who sparks a familiar passion within her. Feeling that she can’t act on her desire, she sleeps with Honor’s older friend, Bernard, a gay former street hustler who resents his past and, to make matters more complicated, also lusts for Honor.
As the three grapple with issues of sexuality and identity, author Marge Piercy manages to be both intimately attuned to her characters’ emotions and aware of their role in a larger social and economic context. Leslie, Honor, and Bernard struggle financially in a city that doesn’t offer many opportunities, and they discover that expressing their sexuality and finding love may be privileges they cannot afford.
“A novel as ambiguous and fascinating as life itself.” —The New York Times
“Piercy goes over her subjects with a fine-tooth comb and provides food for thought about some of our directions, feelings and values.” —Publishers Weekly Views: 236
The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Hamlin Garland is in the English language, and may not include graphics or images from the original edition. If you enjoy the works of Hamlin Garland then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. Views: 235
A forbidden romance. A modern mystery. Wuthering Heights as you’ve never seen it before.
Catherine is tired of struggling musicians befriending her just so they can get a gig at her Dad’s famous Manhattan club, The Underground. Then she meets mysterious Hence, an unbelievably passionate and talented musician on the brink of success. As their relationship grows, both are swept away in a fiery romance. But when their love is tested by a cruel whim of fate, will pride keep them apart?
Chelsea has always believed that her mom died of a sudden illness, until she finds a letter her dad has kept from her for years—a letter from her mom, Catherine, who didn’t die: She disappeared. Driven by unanswered questions, Chelsea sets out to look for her—starting with the return address on the letter: The Underground.
Told in two voices, twenty years apart, Catherine interweaves a timeless forbidden romance with a compelling modern mystery. Views: 235
Excerpt from Cedric, the ForesterNow he raised himself on his arm and claimed the victory; Two huge stones, hurled by Alan the Armorer, came down on the heads of the luckless churls in the moat; Dame Franklin and the old soldier were frozen in their places; The force of my blow drove him backward, but my weapon pierced him not; We had gone scarce half a mile when \'twas plainly to be seen that my little mare was no match for the long-limbed steeds of the Carletons; When I spoke my mother had grown pale as death; Then Elbert did come to the mark and, with a merry grin, sent five arrows toward the target; We made a procession through the field, all the men and maidens shouting and dancing and making a most merry and heartening din; He gave no inch of ground save to leap from side to side in avoiding my downward strokes; In a twinkling armed and mounted men were all about us; Old Marvin had his cross-bow ready drawn, and he shot young Montalvan through the face at the very first onset.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Views: 235
