The only novel from Alice Munro-award-winning author of The Love of a Good Woman--is an insightful, honest book, "autobiographical in form but not in fact," that chronicles a young girl's growing up in rural Ontario in the 1940's. Del Jordan lives out at the end of the Flats Road on her father's fox farm, where her most frequent companions are an eccentric bachelor family friend and her rough younger brother. When she begins spending more time in town, she is surrounded by women-her mother, an agnostic, opinionted woman who sells encyclopedias to local farmers; her mother's boarder, the lusty Fern Dogherty; and her best friend, Naomi, with whom she shares the frustrations and unbridled glee of adolescence. Through these unwitting mentors and in her own encounters with sex, birth, and death, Del explores the dark and bright sides of womanhood. All along she remains a wise, witty observer and recorder of truths in small-town life. The result is a powerful, moving, and humorous demonstration of Alice Munro's unparalleled awareness of the lives of girls and women. Views: 67
In these fifteen short stories--her eighth collection of short stories in a long and distinguished career--Alice Munro conjures ordinary lives with an extraordinary vision, displaying the remarkable talent for which she is now widely celebrated. Set on farms, by river marshes, in the lonely towns and new suburbs of western Ontario, these tales are luminous acts of attention to those vivid moments when revelation emerges from the layers of experience that lie behind even the most everyday events and lives. "Virtuosity, elemental command, incisive like a diamond, remarkable: all these descriptions fit Alice Munro."--"Christian Science Monitor" "How does one know when one is in the grip of art--of a major talent?....It is art that speaks from the pages of Alice Munro's stories."--"Wall Street Journal" Views: 67
Haunting and disturbingly powerful, these stories established Ann Beattie as the most celebrated new voice in American fiction and an absolute master of the short-story form. Beattie captures perfectly the profound longings that came to define an entire generation with insight, compassion, and humor.From the Trade Paperback edition.Review"Magnificant, a pleasure, a significant literary debut." --The New York Times"Life as it is lived...One doesn't know whether to cheer or weep, but one goes on reading." --Detroit Free Press"[Beattie is] a writer's writer." --Boston Evening Globe"Ann Beattie is both painful and funny. She is a writer for all audiences, combining a remarkable array of skills with mateial of wide popular appeal. Her characters inhabit our contemporary world and brood like us about their loves, families, and lives. They compose a wide-screen panorama of life in these United States." --The New York Times Book ReviewFrom the Trade Paperback edition.From the Publisher6 1.5-hour cassettes Views: 67
The Battle of Crecy, the start of the Hundred Years' Wars. The beginning of a new series for Michael Jecks The year is 1346 and King Edward III is restless. Despite earlier victories his army has still not achieved a major breakthrough and the French crown remains intact. Determined to bring France under English rule and the French army to its knees he has regrouped and planned a new route of attack.And on the beaches of Normandy his men now mass, ready to march through France to victory. But the French are nowhere to be seen. Edward knows that the worst thing he could do would be to take the battle to the French, where they will have the advantage and so he sets up camp near a small hill at Crecy and waits.The Battle of Crecy will be a decisive turning point in the Hundred Years' Wars. This is the story of that battle and the men who won it.Praise for Templar's Acre'A cracking read in the best style of Conn Iggulden and Bernard Cornwell, this will... Views: 66
A man stood on a streetcorner with a crimson hatbox in his hand. An archbishop approached him and asked what was in the box."Wah Lee's skull. I cracked Vann's pete," is the enigmatic reply. From this simple encounter stems the trial of the century. The crimson box does indeed hold the skull of a long-dead Chinaman (or is it?), and the man did break into D.A. Vann's safe (or did he?) One thing is certain: a man died when the safe was cracked, and now somebody has to pay.And it just may be the man's lawyer, Elsa Moffit, attorney-at-law with no cases under her belt — yet! Views: 66
H. P. Lovecraft pioneered a fusion of terror and science fiction themes, and is widely credited as having invented the sub-genre of ‘cosmic horror’. While America’s New England was the focus and setting for many of Lovecraft’s tales, the Southern Hemisphere held a fascination for him. Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica were featured locations in his Mythosian novellas.In tribute to this, presented here is an assortment of the finest Australian dark fiction, bringing you a second volume of Lovecraftian stories of wonder and dread. Featured are new tales by ROBERT HOOD, LEE MURRAY, KIRSTYN McDERMOTT and SILVIA BROWN.Cthulhu Deep Down Under Volume 2 takes us back below the equator, into the bizarre and headlong towards horror. From mist-shrouded peaks and canyons of Melanesian islands, through rainforests and scorching deserts of the island continent of Terra Australis, and across the Tasman Sea to the inhospitable hinterlands of New Zealand.Tales of terror by:Kirstyn McDermottRobert HoodLee MurrayJason NahrungBill CongreveJ ScherpenhuizenSilvia BrownT.S.P. SweeneyGeoff BrownDavid KurariaAlso an introduction by Mythos fiction guru and horror author, Peter Rawlik. Views: 66
Revolving around the opera, these tales are an "archaeological excavation of the slag-heaps of our collective existence" (W. G. Sebald)Combining fact and fiction, each of the one hundred and two tales of Alexander Kluge's Temple of the Scapegoat (dotted with photos of famous operas and their stars) compresses a lifetime of feeling and thought: Kluge is deeply engaged with the opera and an inventive wellspring of narrative notions. The titles of his stories suggest his many turns of mind: "Total Commitment," "Freedom," "Reality Outrivals Theater," "The Correct Slowing-Down at the Transitional Point Between Terror and an Inkling of Freedom," "A Crucial Character (Among Persons None of Whom Are Who They Think They Are)," and "Deadly Vocal Power vs. Generosity in Opera." An opera, Kluge says, is a blast furnace of the soul, telling of the great singer Leonard Warren who died onstage, having literally sung his heart out. Kluge introduces a Tibetan scholar who realizes that... Views: 66
This is why I have had to come back now, traveling these dusty old back roads one more time. For I mean to tell my story, and I mean to tell the truth. I am a believer in the Word, and I am not going to flinch from telling it, not even the terrible things… Florida Grace Shepherd, eleventh child of the itinerant, snake-handling Reverend Virgil Shepherd, grew up traveling across the Appalachian South. In her heart, she raged against the constant hardships that her parents insisted were part of the Lord?™s plan. As she got older, she learned of her father?™s “backsliding” with other women, and watched as it drove her mother to an early grave. Returning to Scrabble Creek, where her happiest memories took place, Grace recounts the harrowing journey of her life with the Lord, from her travels with her father to the day she finally broke free of him only to marry another preacher much older than she, as well as her own stumbles along the rocky and... Views: 66
Nebula Award-winning author Walter Jon Williams returns to the sweeping space opera adventure of his Praxis universe with Impersonations, an exciting new novel featuring the hero of Dread Empire's Fall!Having offended her superiors by winning a battle without permission, Caroline Sula has been posted to the planet Earth, a dismal backwater where careers go to die. But Sula has always been fascinated by Earth history, and she plans to reward herself with a long, happy vacation amid the ancient monuments of humanity's home world.Sula may be an Earth history buff, but there are aspects of her own history she doesn't want known. Exposure is threatened when an old acquaintance turns up unexpectedly. Someone seems to be forging evidence that would send her to prison. And all that is before someone tries to kill her.If she's going to survive, Sula has no choice but to make some history of her own.Reviews:"Well told... Views: 66
Is it really possible to invent a machine that does the job of a writer? What is it about a landlady's house that makes it so hard for her guests to leave? Does Sir Basil Turton value most his wife or one of his priceless sculptures? Here are thirteen of Roald Dahl's most unexpected tales, offering young readers the perfect introduction to the adult writing of a storytelling genius. From the sensitivity of stories such as 'Katina' to the surprising creepiness of 'Taste', these stories are full of all the fun, excitement and wonder of Roald Dahl's writing, offering originality, ingenuity, horror, unexpected twists and turns, a touch of the macabre – and much more besides. Views: 66
