Booker Prize Finalist"Sweeping and evocative--. An unconventional love story."--The Times (London)With her first novel, In the Eye of the Sun, Ahdaf Soueif garnered comparisons to Tolstoy, Flaubert, and George Eliot. In her latest novel, which was shortlisted for Britain's prestigious Booker Prize, she combines the romantic skill of the nineteenth-century novelists with a very modern sense of culture and politics--both sexual and international. At either end of the twentieth century, two women fall in love with men outside their familiar worlds. In 1901, Anna Winterbourne, recently widowed, leaves England for Egypt, an outpost of the Empire roiling with nationalist sentiment. Far from the comfort of the British colony, she finds herself enraptured by the real Egypt and in love with Sharif Pasha al-Baroudi. Nearly a hundred years later, Isabel Parkman, a divorced American journalist and descendant of Anna and Sharif has fallen in love with... Views: 38
Roald Dahl can stand on your head, twist you in knots, tie up your hands and leave you gasping for more. In this, his latest selection of short stories the surprises are as wicked and witty as ever. Taken from someone like you, Kiss Kiss and the wonderful world of Henry Sugar, plus four brand new stories, they lure you into a world as full of unease, coincidence and black humour as you could wish. Stories are: Poison; The Sound Machine; Georgy Porgy; Genesis and Catastrophe; The Hitch-Hiker; The Umbrella Man; Mr Botibol; Vengeance in Mine Inc.; The Butler. Views: 38
"Morales wrestles with nothing less than the parameters of the human soul."—Luis Alberto Urrea"You will not forget Drowning Tucson. The characters will haunt you, and even after you know the stories are getting to you, you won't be able to stop reading this book." —Leslie Marmon SilkoSet in Tucson's toughest neighborhoods during the late 1980s, this riveting debut follows the disintegration of the Nuñez family and the people whose paths they cross. From young gangbangers to crooked cops, and from murderous vigilantes to prostitutes plying their trade along the "Miracle Mile," each character's destiny is linked by crushing poverty, the brutal codes of the street, and the harsh nature of the desert. In this small city with major metropolis problems—a place of both drought and flood—"civilization" is every bit as dangerous as its surroundings. Like a southwest version of HBO's The Wire, this heartrending novel is an. . . Views: 38
The New York Times bestselling author of The Last Girls presents one of her most compelling novels, acclaimed by Anne Tyler, Annie Dillard, and more... Everywhere about her, from the traffic on Highway 460 to the river that's gone black with coal dust, Crystal Spangler sees a current flowing from the mountain town of Black Rock into the wider world. As a teenager, she is elected beauty queen, gets good grades, and-despite her many enviable qualities-manages also to be well-loved. Everyone knows that she is destined to leave town and do great things.And she does.But no one expects her return; drawn back home by some sort of memory, as if the current that had taken her away had changed its mind...Review"The closest thing to reading this would be reading Madame Bovary while listening to Loretta Lynn."(-Roy Blount, Jr. )"Black Mountain Breakdown is like a country song. It is true and real; it is loving and sad."(-Annie Dillard ) From the Inside FlapCrystal Spangler lives in rural Appalachia. She's the apple of her mother's eye -- not yet beautiful, but she will be. She's the most popular girl at Black Rock High. She makes cheerleader, gets good grades, and is elected beauty queen. Crystal discovers God, goes to college, and falls in love. When she comes home, she's disheveled and confused. Crystal becomes a wealthy politician's wife. But there's something calling her, drawing her back to where it all began, in the shadow of Black Mountain . . .From the Paperback edition. Views: 38
Sarah Hartford always dreamed of a grand adventure. She just never expected to find it in the arms of an outlaw. Colton Avery spent months planning the perfect heist. Nothing could go wrong. That is until he comes face to face with a determined woman holding a shotgun. Views: 38
Dubus's masterful first collection, in which he brings to life the human condition—in all its sorrow and beautyFor the men and women in Andre Dubus's poignant debut collection, life and love are not without their tribulations. The devout endeavor to reconcile the demands of their faith with their most basic human inclinations. A doctor is confronted with his limitations as a man. Husbands and wives seek solace in the beds of others, even as their infidelities expose them to further heartbreak.Etched in austere prose that is punctuated with powerful emotional moments, the richly drawn characters of Separate Flights command both compassion and admiration, which readers are helpless to deny them. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Andre Dubus including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author's estate. Views: 38
An erotic short story of a certain proposal/proposition, by a global superstar, to one lucky fan. * * * ‘The Gift’ features in Jess’s multiple-genre-crossing erotic short story collection, 4:Play. Tone of this story is more erotic/romantic, than pornographic. * * * By author/artist/non-conformist, Jess C Scott. Views: 38
This compilation contains three complete novels and eight major short stories from the canon of one of the twentieth century's most enduringly popular fiction writers.From London to Hong Kong, from Paris to Pago Pago, in Samoa or Malaya or on a Tahitian tropical isle, the men and women in this collection of masterfully crafted tales inhabit exotic, mysterious worlds—and at their own peril invade the dark territory of the human heart.Somerset Maugham, a noted English novelist, playwright, and author of masterly short stories, spent several months in the Pacific in 1916 and 1917 during an interlude in his service in British intelligence during World War I. Several of his works have been made into movies and plays, including Razor's Edge, Of Human Bondage, Cakes and Ale, Rain, and The Moon and Sixpence. Views: 38
Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. This volume presents the first nonfiction collection in the series, curated by acclaimed novelists Tim McLoughlin and Thomas Adcock.Brand-new stories by: Robert Leuci, Dennis Hawkins, Tim McLoughlin, Thomas Adcock, Errol Louis, Denise Buffa, Patricia Mulcahy, C.J. Sullivan, Reed Farrel Coleman, Aileen Gallagher, Christopher Musella, Kim Sykes, Robert Knightly, Jess Korman, Constance Casey, and Rosemarie Yu."There is a difference, as editor, between cheering the literary accomplishment of a fiction writer who has delivered a brilliant story about a serial killer or hit man, and reading the true account, however beautifully written, of a young woman raped, murdered, and forgotten. So this book, though it has its light moments (and thank God for those), is for me the darkest of the Brooklyn Noir series. These pieces remind us that crime is personal. It happens to us and to our neighbors. Sometimes it happens because we do nothing to prevent it. Life does not always offer the moral arc we so desperately crave in fiction. If it did, we’d have no need for myths and fables, religion or miracles . . ."Read this book. Enjoy it. Be horrified by it. Carry it with you always. And the next time you’re watching a particularly bizarre and salacious news item on the television set in your neighborhood pub, and the guy on the next stool says, “You can’t make this shit up,” smack him with it."--Tim McLoughlin, from the introduction Views: 38
