Darkness Lay Ahead

A girl runs to escape her mundane life. She embarks on a journey into the unknown to free herself from a life she can no longer tolerate, and does not desire.As a Prequel to the Aislyn's War book series, this is a short chapter to the character Jakin's first sight of Aislyn when her story starts and what he is thinking. With Jakin's unspoken love for Aislyn and his desperate need to keep her safe all without being allowed to be near her, Jakin remembers back to one of his best and worst days of his life. Jakin knows Rangdrone has nothing but villainous intentions towards Aislyn and feels he must warn her best friend before the situation is gets worse.
Views: 718

Stoner

The son of a Midwestern farmer, William Stoner comes to the University of Missouri in 1910 to study agriculture. He had intended to return home and take over his father's farm - but instead, inspired by the professor of English literature, he remains at the university to teach. Stoner tells of love and conflict, passion and responsibility against the backdrop of academic life in the early 20th century. Powerfully and movingly written, Stoner is a study of a dedicated man relentlessly committed to honesty in himself and in his dealings with others. The truth of one man's unassuming life can rarely have been captured with such skill and beauty.
Views: 717

The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)

"I may assert Eternal Providence And justify the ways of God to men" John Milton was a master of almost every type of verse, from the classical to the religious and from the lyrical to the epic. His early poems include the devotional 'On the Morning of Christ's Nativity', 'Comus', a masque, and the pastoral elegy 'Lycidas'. After Cromwell's death and the dashing of Milton's political hopes, he began composing Paradise Lost, which reflects his profound understanding of politics and power. Written when Milton was at the height of his abilities, this great masterpiece fuses the Christian with the classical in its description of the fall of Man. In Samson Agonistes, Milton's last work, the poet draws a parallel with his own life in the hero's struggle to renew his faith in God. In this edition of the Complete Poems, John Leonard draws attention to words coined by Milton and those that have changed their meaning since his time. He also provides full notes to elucidate Biblical, classical and historical allusions and has modernized spelling, capitalization and punctuation. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. **
Views: 717

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe

A classic work that has charmed generations of readers, this collection assembles Carson McCullers's best stories, including her beloved novella "The Ballad of the Sad Café." A haunting tale of a human triangle that culminates in an astonishing brawl, the novella introduces readers to Miss Amelia, a formidable southern woman whose café serves as the town's gathering place. Among other fine works, the collection also includes "Wunderkind," McCullers's first published story written when she was only seventeen about a musical prodigy who suddenly realizes she will not go on to become a great pianist. Newly reset and available for the first time in a handsome trade paperback edition, The Ballad of the Sad Café is a brilliant study of love and longing from one of the South's finest writers.
Views: 715

Nightfall in the Kingdom of Winter

Each night Natalie dreams...and journeys to a magical world where she faces a challenge: sixteen doors that she must open, one each night. But should she open the doors? And is it really just a dream? Things are getting worse- in her dreams and in the real world. Should she open the final door?Natalie had been twelve for seven days when the dreams began...if she is dreaming. Each night she is supposed to open another door, and each door offers a challenge, and a gift.But is she dreaming? Should she be opening the doors? Things in her world- the real world- are getting stranger and stranger, and there are consequences to opening the doors. Her guide insists that she must open all of them, but there are others telling her not to, and willing to fight to stop her.What should Natalie do? Should she open the last door?
Views: 715

Go Down, Moses

“I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.” —William Faulkner, on receiving the Nobel Prize Go Down, Moses is composed of seven interrelated stories, all of them set in Faulkner’s mythic Yoknapatawpha County. From a variety of perspectives, Faulkner examines the complex, changing relationships between blacks and whites, between man and nature, weaving a cohesive novel rich in implication and insight. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Views: 714

Jesus' Son

Jesus' Son, the first collection of stories by Denis Johnson, presents a unique, hallucinatory vision of contemporary American life unmatched in power and immediacy and marks a new level of achievement for this acclaimed writer. In their intensity of perception, their neon-lit evocation of a strange world brought uncomfortably close to our own, the stories in Jesus' Son offer a disturbing yet eerily beautiful portrayal of American loneliness and hope. Contains: Car Crash While Hitchhiking Two Men Out on Bail Dundun Work Emergency Dirty Wedding The Other Man Happy Hour Steady Hands at Seattle General Beverly Home'
Views: 714

Payback

Ex con, Frank Collins, had a new life and a new love. Until the day his daughter's suicide brings his whole world tumbling down.Ex con, Frank Collins, had a new life and a new love. Until the day his daughter's suicide brings his whole world tumbling down.Determined to find out why his daughter had done such a terrible thing, he returns to a life he thought long behind him. Desperately trying to deal with emotions that threatened his new found stability, he follows his daughter's lonely downward journey into drugs and prostitution.Finally discovering that a London gang had used and abused her, he has a choice to make. Will he seek justice from the courts, or evoke his own deadly payback?His decision will turn his whole future on its head.
Views: 714

The Digital Future

Technology is everywhere; in almost everything we do, everything we see and everything we have there is some form of technology. Think, for a moment, what life would be like without technology. How would you communicate? How would you live? Where would you live? When it comes down to it, technology is responsible for our present. This then stems the question: how will technology shape our future?I don’t even remember hitting the ground. I remember the hyper drive cutting out and I remember the jet engines failing as I tried to land this old crate. But I don’t remember the damn thing hitting the surface of the planet. I suppose that’s what I get for stealing it in the first place. But I just couldn’t work for those jerks for another second. I open my eyes to be met with a belting headache. One so bad it feels like I’ve been out on the drink last night, and I’ve had a very good time. Shame that isn’t true. I’m starting to wish this had all been a dream. My back hurts like I’ve snapped every one of my vertebrae on the way to the floor and all of my muscles are burning in pain.
Views: 714

Currents of Thunder

Melienda, an immortal being, is hunted by her ex-lover because she broke the Law. The battle has raged for a millennium. But now it may come to a grisly end unless Melienda can outwit the beast that can devour her life force – the only way an immortal can truly die.It’s raining in Port Isabel and everyone’s indoors except Larry Monkey, a brilliant young chimp deeply troubled by the past. He wanders the winding laneways of the old stone town to be alone. And it’s a good thing, because trouble’s brewing and he might be the only one able to stop it. Flossy Fairweather, a remarkable girl with courage beyond her years, has seen something lurking in the shadows too and goes to investigate, sword in hand. It could be a trap and if the pirates are back they’ll want revenge. But Flossy’s not afraid because she’s amongst friends, mostly anyway.By the end of the next ice age, all that remains of the once great, world-spanning human civilisation are myths and ancient, inexplicable artefacts lying at the feet of melting glaciers. Thanks to the red-hot Heat Tree reefs that keep the ice at bay, the lands above the Gulf of Mexico are some of the few places still warm enough to support life. On the western shores of the Gulf is Port Isabel, a town conceived and built by owls who mysteriously vanished hundreds of years before without even bothering to say goodbye. The animals that live there are industrious, peaceful and vegetarian; except for those that aren't, which is where all the trouble starts.Mark Douglas Stafford is an award winning writer living in Sydney, Australia. His novels, fables and short stories are adored by children and adults alike.
Views: 713

Souls Touched - Reasonable Rates

In 1933, C.L. Moore published her most famous short story, Shambleau. This is an homage to that immortal story. When an ancient Earthman arrives back on Mars after decades away, he finds things have changed....more than he could have imagined.Lt. Edward Philips is a Pyrrianaut, one of the elite soldiers used by ColAdmin to guard their off-world colonies.And he has a problem; well, two problems:At 22 he's getting too old, and his mind too set in it's ways, for the neural link to his armour, and he's going to have to retire soon, and he's not sure what to do, but that's going to have to wait until he resolves the more immediate problem: a gigantic alien pseudo-dinosaur is about to fly into his colony, and he's going to have to stop it.
Views: 713

Vexyna's Awakening

The sins of the mothers are visited upon the daughters. The daughters, descendants of the Scorpion-Dragon and Tiger-Dragon gods, must use their cunning, skill, and magic to overcome both lesser and greater evils. Pan-dimensional talking cats, crystal-generated entities, and Elemental beings with a penchant for puns aside; no one knows who will survive "Vexyna's Awakening"Angered earth, provoked by the power of the Red Empress, evicts Vexyna from her home and forces her to confront the truth about her family line. Along the way Vexyna meets a perpetually hungry thief, a woman who’s generated by a crystal, and many more unique individuals. She also learns of a woman who drains men of their vital essences and discovers that her own eyes have the power to... Two legendary dragon gods reveal more of Vexyna’s heritage. Ancient conflicts arise anew. Alliances are formed and broken. The three noble houses continue their centuries old conflict. The Red Empress marks Vexyna for death, but can even the mighty Empress survive Vexyna’s Awakening?
Views: 713

You die; I die - Love Poems - Part 14

This Book which has 40 differently titled Poems is actually Part 14 of the Book titled – You die; I die – Love Poems ( 1600 pages ) .Poems symbolizing the immortality of love and at times its fickleness. Parekh takes the reader through a paradise naturally embellished with the ingredients of eternal romance and its sporadic failures. As they say life and death are two sides of the coin, similarly with every true anecdote of love there also comes fretful divorce—a thing which has been most sensitively described throughout this great collection of poems for the heart. Written and dipped in each ingredient of his passionate blood, Parekh comes out with startling revelations about the truest of love stories and their failures. Each verse has been delicately intertwined with a boundless aspects of relationships, romance, cheating, betrayal and goes on to prove that Immortal Love towers over every shattered heart. A start to finish with some of the most heart-rendering love poems ever, this makes a great collection for ever true lover breathing and desiring to be loved on earth and beyond. This collection of poems aims at perpetually uniting every heart on this Universe in the spirit of Immortal love and friendship. Because these are the two quintessential ingredients to lead life till its last breath. Irrespective of whatever color, faith or religion, it is only the rainbow of love which can transform the ghastliest monsters and perpetrators of humanity into peaceful lovers. Therefore this book inexhaustibly endeavors to speak and preach the language of love even after its last embossed alphabet.
Views: 713

Dreamweaving

Dreamweaving pits Diamondixi, a Dreamweaver, and Amehana, a storm ryuugami and priestess, together with Diamondixi's companion ice phoenix in an effort to save the halfbreed selkie Justin from the fate of ultimately becoming a Finman. But, is the effort real, or is it just a dream? Or is it both and perhaps something more all at once?Part of the Selkies' Skins universe.Dreamweaving pits Diamondixi, a Dreamweaver, and Amehana, a storm ryuugami and priestess, together with Diamondixi's companion ice phoenix in an effort to save the halfbreed selkie Justin from the fate of ultimately becoming a Finman. But, is the effort real, or is it just a dream? Or is it both and perhaps something more all at once?The story is a standalone short story that is part of the Selkies' Skins universe.This story is written at the request of Kristina Stumpf, who was a backer for the Selkies' Skins Kickstarter project.Starting in the area of Mt. Rhiana in the realm of Dragon Hearts, the three erstwhile heroes cross from one world to another and into the reality of Selkies' Skins. There, Diamondixi crosses into the dream of a young lad that had been kidnapped long ago.
Views: 712

Flight

Sherman Alexie is one of our most gifted and accomplished storytellers and a treasured writer of huge national stature. His first novel in ten years is the hilarious and tragic portrait of an orphaned Indian boy who travels back and forth through time in a charged search for his true identity. With powerful and swift, prose, Flight follows this troubled foster teenager--a boy who is not a "legal" Indian because he was never claimed by his father--as he learns that violence is not the answer. The journey for Flight's young hero begins as he's about to commit a massive act o violence. At the moment of decision, he finds himself shot back through time to resurface in the body of an FBI agent during the civil rights era, where he sees why "Hell is Re driver, Idaho, in the 1970s." Red River is only the first stop in an eye-opening trip through moments in American history. He will continue traveling back to inhabit the body of an Indian child during the battle at Little Bighorn and then ride with an Indian tracker in the nineteenth century before materializing as an airline pilot jetting through the skies today. During these furious travels through time, his refrain grows: "Who's to judge?" and "I don't understand humans." When finally, blessedly, our young warrior comes to rest again in his own life, he is mightily transformed by all he has seen. This is Sherman Alexie at his most brilliant--making us laugh while he's breaking our hearts. Time Out has said that "Alexie, like his characters, is on a modern-day vision quest," and in Flight he seeks nothing less than an understanding of why human beings hate. Flight is irrepressible, fearless, and groundbreaking Alexie.
Views: 709