The land of Hybron has fallen into an abyss of political and religious strife that have kept it embroiled in conflict. It has floundered in a dark age for centuries, the former grand kingdom falling into a collection of city-states. An ancient prophecy has reappeared, a prophecA queen in peril. An outsider priest. A young girl who dreams of adventure.The land of Hybron, once the cultural center of the Red Planet, has fallen into an abyss of political and religious strife that have kept it embroiled in conflict. It has floundered in a dark age for centuries, the former grand kingdom falling into a collection of city-states. An ancient prophecy has reappeared, a prophecy that promises to deliver them from the corruption and increasing violence that permeates the land. However, there are those who have their own plans and “savior prophecies” only get in the way of the more pragmatic concerns of acquiring power.The ancient capital, Assenna, has been in ruins for many ages and the line of kings that ruled from it are nearly forgotten. The very words, Red Kings, have become a curse and it is forbidden to even speak of them but it is precisely the blood of this kingly line, it was foretold, that would rule Hybron again and raise it up to its former glory. The Ainash priesthood, a powerful and ruthless faction in Jhis have fallen in power after a barbarian warrior has overrun the city-states, making himself king of the land. Under his rule Hybron has once again been reunited under one power. Is he, a wild tribesman of the desert, the future Red King of prophecy? As the kingdom remains embroiled in corruption and violence it does not seem so and his queen, a devout woman of the Aishanna-La has borne him no heirs. She has her own schemes that put her at odds with everyone at court: the priesthood, who seek to regain power and the king, who plans to carve out a great name for himself in the world. The queen becomes embroiled in a controversy that will have long-reaching effects on the fate of the kingdom and her own.Ilim, one of the Ainash, is thrown out of the Golden Temple. Afterward, he has a prophetic dream with a commission to tell a dire message that most people do not want to hear, least of all the Ainash priesthood. His new spiritual path leads him back into the desert among the tribal peoples. He believes it will lead him to the answer that will save the kingdom from ruin – but, disappointingly, it leads him, not to a great warrior and a holy army but to a little girl at the fortress city of Gamina. Visions are never straight forward, paths are perilous and the grand purpose of prophecy seems impossible, yet many are now seeking it; some strive mightily to make it come about while others are working just as powerfully against it and there are those who seek to insert themselves in it. All are caught in the river of Destiny and Purpose. Some will rise and others will drown. Who will triumph? Views: 863
Metamorphoses (from Greek μετά meta and μορφή morphē, meaning "changes of shape"), is a Latin narrative poem in fifteen books describing the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. Completed in AD 8, it is recognized as a masterpiece of Golden Age Latin literature.
This cohesive collection of stories from Greek and Roman mythology recounts tales of recorded transformations. Comprised of over fifty stories, it chronicles the legends of King Midas, Daedalus, Icarus, Hercules, and the Trojan War. Views: 863
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge is Rilke’s major prose work and was one of the earliest publications to introduce him to American readers. The very wide audience which Rilke’s work commands today will welcome the reissue in paperback of this extremely perceptive translation of the Notebooks by M. D. Herter Norton. A masterly translation of one of the first great modernist novels by one of the German language's greatest poets, in which a young man named Malte Laurids Brigge lives in a cheap room in Paris while his belongings rot in storage. Every person he sees seems to carry their death within them and with little but a library card to distinguish him from the city's untouchables, he thinks of the deaths, and ghosts, of his aristocratic family, of which he is the sole living descendant. Suffused with passages of lyrical brilliance, Rilke's semi-autobiographical novel is a moving and powerful coming-of-age story. Views: 863
Here are the interlocking affairs of four men: Robin Woodfield, an architect in his late forties trying to build an idyllic life in Dorset with his young lover, Justin, a would-be actor increasingly disenchanted with the countryside; Robin's attractive and dangerously volatile twenty-two-year-old son Danny; and Justin's former boyfriend Alex, whose life is unexpectedly transformed by a night of house music and a tab of ecstasy.As each falls under the spell of romance or drugs, country living or rough trade, a richly ironic picture emerges of the illusions of love, and of the clashing imperatives of modern gay life: the hunger for contact and the fear of commitment, the need for permanence and the continual disruptions of sex. Ultimately, The Spell details the restlessness of every human heart. Views: 863
The bestselling author of The Paris Wife returns to the subject of Ernest Hemingway in a novel about his passionate, stormy marriage to Martha Gellhorn—a fiercely independent, ambitious young woman who would become one of the greatest war correspondents of the twentieth century
In 1937, twenty-eight-year-old Martha travels alone to Madrid to report on the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War and becomes drawn to the stories of ordinary people caught in devastating conflict. She also finds herself unexpectedly—and uncontrollably—falling in love with Hemingway, a man already on his way to becoming a legend. In the shadow of the impending Second World War, and set against the tumultuous backdrops of Madrid, Finland, China, Key West, and especially Cuba, where Martha and Ernest make their home, their relationship and professional careers ignite. But when Ernest publishes the biggest literary success of his career, For Whom the Bell Tolls, they are no longer equals, and Martha must make a choice: surrender to the confining demands of being a famous man's wife or risk losing Ernest by forging a path as her own woman and writer. It is a dilemma that will force her to break his heart, and her own. Views: 862
Perhaps no other of his novels better reveals Giono's perfect balance between lyricism and narrative, description and characterization, the epic and the particular, than The Horseman on the Roof. This novel, which Giono began writing in 1934 and which was published in 1951, expanded and solidified his reputation as one of Europe's most important writers.
This is a novel of adventure, a roman courtois, that tells the story of Angelo, a nobleman who has been forced to leave Italy because of a duel, and is returning to his homeland by way of Provence. But that region is in the grip of a cholera epidemic, travelers are being imprisoned behind barricades, and exposure to the disease is almost certain.
Angelo's escapades, adventures, and heroic self-sacrifice in this hot, hallucinatory landscape, among corpses, criminals and rioting townspeople, share this epic tale. Views: 862
Un débris de hameau où quatre maisons fleuries d'orchis émergent des blés drus et hauts. Ce sont les Bastides Blanches, à mi-chemin entre la plaine et le grand désert lavandier, à l'ombre des monts de Lure. C'est là que vivent douze personnes, deux ménages, plus Gagou l'innocent. Janet est le plus vieux des Bastides. Ayant longtemps regardé et écouté la nature, il a appris beaucoup de choses et connaît sans doute des secrets. Maintenant, paralysé et couché près de l'âtre, il parle sans arrêt, « ça coule comme un ruisseau », et ce qu'il dit finit par faire peur aux gens des Bastides. Puis la fontaine tarit, une petite fille tombe malade, un incendie éclate. C'en est trop! Le responsable doit être ce vieux sorcier de Janet. Il faut le tuer... Dans Colline, premier roman de la trilogie de Pan (Un de Baumugnes, Regain), Jean Giono, un de nos plus grands conteurs, exalte dans une langue riche et puissante les liens profonds qui lient les paysans à la nature. Views: 861
Antic Hay is one of Aldous Huxley's earlier novels, and like them is primarily a novel of ideas involving conversations that disclose viewpoints rather than establish characters; its polemical theme unfolds against the backdrop of London's post-war nihilistic Bohemia. This is Huxley at his biting, brilliant best, a novel, loud with derisive laughter, which satirically scoffs at all conventional morality and at stuffy people everywhere, a novel that's always charged with excitement. Views: 860
This collection of ten connected stories or dreams has a surrealistic atmosphere. Some are weird, others are grotesquely funny. Among the ten nights, the first, second, third, and fifth nights start with the same sentence "This is the dream I dreamed." Whether Sosecki actually had these dreams or whether they were complete fictions is not known. Views: 860
You are never truly alone. While you sleep, nocturnal creatures stir. A couple discovers that things have changed overnight, and they are no longer in control. Their house is full of cobwebs, and they are being moved little by little in this suspenseful horror tale.After inheriting a house, a husband and wife encounter a frightful surprise. They are surrounded by layer upon layer of silk crawling with arachnids. What lies beyond the cellar door? Find out in SPIDER SOUP, a quirky story from the horror collection ODDS AND ENDS by Lori R. Lopez, author of THE FAIRY FLY and AN ILL WIND BLOWS. Can a relationship survive being pushed past the brink? How far is too far over the edge? Alternately tense and humorous, this short story presents a very sticky situation! Views: 858
Amid the cactus wilds some two hudred miles from Hollywood lies a privileged oasis called Desert D'Or. It is a place for starlets and would-be starlets, directors, studio execs, and the well-groomed lowlifes who cater to them. And, as imagined by Norman Mailer in this blistering classic of 1950s Hollywood, Desert D'Or is a moral proving ground, where men and women discover what they really want--and how far the are willing to go to get it.
"The Deer Park" is the story of two interlacing love affairs. Sergius O'Shaugnessy is a young ex-Air Force pilot whose good looks and air of indifference launch him into the orbit of the radiant actress Lulu Meyers. Charles Eitel is a brilliant director wounded by accusations of communism--and whose liaison with the volatile Elena Esposito may supply the coup de grace to his career. As Mailer traces their couplings and uncouplings, their uneasy flirtation with success and self-extinction, he creates a legendary portrait of America's machinery of desire. Views: 858
A contemporary noir, Already Dead is the tangled story of Nelson Fairchild Jr., disenfranchised scion to a northern California land fortune. A relentless failure, Nelson has botched nearly every scheme he's attempted to pull off. Now his future lies in a potentially profitable marijuana patch hidden in the lush old-growth redwoods on the family land.
Nelson has some serious problems. His marriage has fallen apart, and he may lose his land, cash and crop in the divorce. What's more, in need of some quick cash, he had foolishly agreed to smuggle $90,000 worth of cocaine through customs for Harry Lally, a major player in a drug syndicate. Chickening out just before bringing the drugs through, he flushed the powder. Now Lally wants him dead, and two goons are hot on his trail. Desperate, terrified and alone, for Nelson, there may be only one way out.
This is Denis Johnson's biggest and most complex book to date, and it perfectly showcases his signature themes of fate, redemption and the unraveling of the fabric of today's society. Already Dead, with its masterful narrative of overlapping and entwined stories, will further fuel the acclaim that surrounds one of today's most fascinating writers. Views: 856
The most celebrated and controversial French novelist of our time now delivers his magnum opus—about art and money, love and friendship and death, fathers and sons.
The Map and the Territory is the story of an artist, Jed Martin, and his family and lovers and friends, the arc of his entire history rendered with sharp humor and powerful compassion. His earliest photographs, of countless industrial objects, were followed by a surprisingly successful series featuring Michelin road maps, which also happened to bring him the love of his life, Olga, a beautiful Russian working—for a time—in Paris. But global fame and fortune arrive when he turns to painting and produces a host of portraits that capture a wide range of professions, from the commonplace (the owner of a local bar) to the autobiographical (his father, an accomplished architect) and from the celebrated (Bill Gates and Steve Jobs Discussing the Future of Information Technology) to the literary (a writer named Houellebecq, with whom he develops an unusually close relationship).
Then, while his aging father (his only living relative) flirts with oblivion, a police inspector seeks Martin’s help in solving an unspeakably gruesome crime—events that prove profoundly unsettling. Even so, now growing old himself, Jed Martin somehow discovers serenity and manages to add another startling chapter to his artistic legacy, a deeply moving conclusion to this saga of hopes and losses and dreams. Views: 855
Screams from the Balcony is a collection of letters chronicling Charles Bukowski's life as he tries to get published and work at a postal office, all while drinking and gambling. Views: 855
About thirty years ago, a mother laid her newborn baby in a shoebox and left it in the backyard of an Italian restaurant. Now the baby, Rebecca, is a mother herself. A child of no one and nowhere, she has created her own unorthodox but tender family. Then this hopeful life is dealt a blow that could shatter even the strongest of ties. Now, Rebecca must face the future by delving into her mysterious past.
Dunmore's most ambitious work to date, Mourning Ruby is a meditation on memory and history-both personal and public. It's an unforgettable tale of love, loss, and the transcendent power of storytelling itself. Views: 854
