Written at the height of his powers immediately after Brave New World, Aldous Huxley's highly acclaimed Eyeless in Gaza is his most personal novel. Huxley's bold, nontraditional narrative tells the loosely autobiographical story of Anthony Beavis, a cynical libertine Oxford graduate who comes of age in the vacuum left by World War I. Unfulfilled by his life, loves, and adventures, Anthony is persuaded by a charismatic friend to become a Marxist and take up arms with Mexican revolutionaries. But when their disastrous embrace of violence nearly kills them, Anthony is left shattered—and is forced to find an alternative to the moral disillusionment of the modern world. Views: 675
From the award-winning author of Mistress of Spices, the bestselling novel about the extraordinary bond between two women, and the family secrets and romantic jealousies that threaten to tear them apart.
Anju is the daughter of an upper-caste Calcutta family of distinction. Her cousin Sudha is the daughter of the black sheep of that same family. Sudha is startlingly beautiful; Anju is not. Despite those differences, since the day on which the two girls were born, the same day their fathers died--mysteriously and violently--Sudha and Anju have been sisters of the heart. Bonded in ways even their mothers cannot comprehend, the two girls grow into womanhood as if their fates as well as their hearts were merged.
But, when Sudha learns a dark family secret, that connection is shattered. For the first time in their lives, the girls know what it is to feel suspicion and distrust. Urged into arranged marriages, Sudha and Anju's lives take opposite turns. Sudha becomes the dutiful daughter-in-law of a rigid small-town household. Anju goes to America with her new husband and learns to live her own life of secrets. When tragedy strikes each of them, however, they discover that despite distance and marriage, they have only each other to turn to.
Set in the two worlds of San Francisco and India, this exceptionally moving novel tells a story at once familiar and exotic, seducing readers from the first page with the lush prose we have come to expect from Divakaruni. Sister of My Heart is a novel destined to become as widely beloved as it is acclaimed.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 675
An international literary phenomenon, The Elementary Particles is a frighteningly original novel–part Marguerite Duras and part Bret Easton Ellis-that leaps headlong into the malaise of contemporary existence.
Bruno and Michel are half-brothers abandoned by their mother, an unabashed devotee of the drugged-out free-love world of the sixties. Bruno, the older, has become a raucously promiscuous hedonist himself, while Michel is an emotionally dead molecular biologist wholly immersed in the solitude of his work. Each is ultimately offered a final chance at genuine love, and what unfolds is a brilliantly caustic and unpredictable tale.
Translated from the French by Frank Wynne.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 675
All of the published poetry of James Baldwin, including six significant poems previously only available in a limited edition
During his lifetime (1924–1987), James Baldwin authored seven novels, as well as several plays and essay collections, which were published to wide-spread praise. These books, among them Notes of a Native Son, The Fire Next Time, Giovanni’s Room, and Go Tell It on the Mountain, brought him well-deserved acclaim as a public intellectual and admiration as a writer. However, Baldwin’s earliest writing was in poetic form, and Baldwin considered himself a poet throughout his lifetime. Nonetheless, his single book of poetry, Jimmy’s Blues, never achieved the popularity of his novels and nonfiction, and is the one and only book to fall out of print.
This new collection presents James Baldwin the poet, including all nineteen poems from Jimmy’s Blues, as well as all the poems from a limited-edition volume called Gypsy, of which only 325 copies were ever printed and which was in production at the time of his death. Known for his relentless honesty and startlingly prophetic insights on issues of race, gender, class, and poverty, Baldwin is just as enlightening and bold in his poetry as in his famous novels and essays. The poems range from the extended dramatic narratives of “Staggerlee wonders” and “Gypsy” to the lyrical beauty of “Some days,” which has been set to music and interpreted by such acclaimed artists as Audra McDonald. Nikky Finney’s introductory essay reveals the importance, relevance, and rich rewards of these little-known works. Baldwin’s many devotees will find much to celebrate in these pages. Views: 675
Book two of the Chronicles of Amon. This continues the life of the first man on earth, Amon, and how he befriends Pharaoh Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid, and how together they defeat the Kushites and preserve civilization.Anne Jones -- ordinary name of an ordinary person starting an ordinary office job. Was it her, or was every one of her colleagues completely insane? Was it her? Views: 674
This insightful collection is the perfect gift for Michael Morpurgo fans who want to understand how writing works and where stories begin. Revealing essays from Michael about more than twenty of his most popular novels are combined with key extracts from his books along with historical context and illuminating background information from Michael’s brother Mark. Stunning illustrations from Michael Foreman, photographs and facsimiles complete the immersive experience. Views: 674
Molloy is Samuel Beckett’s most celebrated novel, and his first published work to be written in French, ushering in a period of concentrated creativity in the late 1940s and early 1950s which included the companion novels Malone Dies and The Unnamable .
The tale of Molloy, old and ill, remembering and forgetting, scarcely human, begets a double plot involving the spinsterish Moran, a private detective sent to search him out, whose own deterioration during the quest shadows that of the hero.
Above all, the eponymous narrator of Molloy calls into being a world and its tribulations at the end of a pencil, with finicking and irresistible certainty, while trading larger uncertainties with the reader. Views: 674
England, 1069.
The nation is still recovering from the Norman invasion three years earlier - and adjusting to life under its sometimes brutal new rulers.
A young girl trembles in the shadows of what was once her home.
Avis is homeless and penniless, and with no family left alive she is forced to become a ward of Richard, the Norman lord who has taken her home. But when King William decrees that Norman lords must marry Anglo-Saxon women Avis must make a terrible choice.
Either marry the repulsive Richard or take a else chance on another Norman, Melville, a man she has never met.
Soon she realises that survival in a time of turmoil and war depends of putting aside the prejudices of the past And if she can do so, kingdoms and hearts can still be among her 'Conquests'. Views: 673
The New York Times bestselling author of The Monogram Murders and Woman with a Secret returns with a disturbing tale of psychological suspense and obsession that hits at the heart of some of our most precious relationships.What if having a best friend could put you in the crosshairs of a killer?A psychopath the police have dubbed "Billy Dead Mates" is targeting pairs of best friends, and killing them one by one. Before they die, each victim is given a small white book.For months, detectives have failed to catch Billy, or figure out what the white books symbolize and why the killer leaves them behind. The police are on edge; the public in a panic. Then a woman, scared by what she's seen on the news, comes forward. What she reveals shocks the investigators and adds another troubling layer to an already complex case.Stand-up comedian Kim Tribbeck has one of Billy's peculiar little books. A stranger gave it to her at a gig she did last year. Was the... Views: 673
This is the story of Father Damien Modeste, priest to his beloved people, the Ojibwe. Modeste, nearing the end of his life, dreads the discovery of his physical identity -- for he is a woman who has lived as a man.
For more than a half century, Father Damien Modeste has served his beloved people, the Ojibwe, on the remote reservation of Little No Horse. To complicate his fears, his quiet life changes when a troubled colleague comes to the reservation to investigate the life of the perplexing, difficult, possibly false saint Sister Leopolda. Father Damien alone knows the strange truth of Sister Leopolda's piety and is faced with the most difficult decision of his life: Should he reveal all he knows and risk everything? Or should he manufacture a protective history though he believes Leopolda's wonder-working is motivated by evil? Views: 673
This Book which has 50 differently titled Poems , is actually part 7 of the Book titled – Hide and Seek – Rhyming & Non Rhyming Poems ( 702 pages ) .Parekh's earliest collection of verse. Written in unparallelled fervor, this collection is a delectable blend of topics from love to death, probing into countless infinitesimal aspects of existence which make a significant impact to it. The beauty of this compendium lies in its magical brevity at places and in the most mundane things of life around us brought to the fore like a magicians wand, in brilliant poetic flair by Parekh. Contains poems on topics impossible for one to envisage that a poem could be written about such an inconspicuous little thing-but Parekh evolves bountiful rhyme from the word go and coalesces vivacious color in the little tid-bits of the chapter called life to optimum effect. A must read for all those who find color, charm and significance in even the smallest things of life and are enthused by even the most mercurial bit of stray paper loitering around. A poetic tribute to the ordinary, projecting its colorful extraordinary bit to the planet with raw panache. This book tingles every living being's imagination to fantasize beyond the ordinary. Look at all those meaningful tid-bits around us which have a complete book written in each one of them. All those joyous and unfortunate anecdotes around us which make us blossom into the true spirit of existence; into the amazing celebration of omnipotent life. Views: 672
When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at nineteen, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starkadders: cousin Judith, heaving with remorse for unspoken wickedness; Amos, preaching fire and damnation; their sons, lustful Seth and despairing Reuben; child of nature Elfine; and crazed old Aunt Ada Doom, who has kept to her bedroom for the last twenty years. But Flora loves nothing better than to organize other people. Armed with common sense and a strong will, she resolves to take each of the family in hand. A hilarious and merciless parody of rural melodramas, Cold Comfort Farm (1932) is one of the best-loved comic novels of all time. Views: 672