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Showing 281 - 300 of 16996 items
By Pearson, T. R.. 1985
Marvelously funny, bittersweet, and beautifully evocative, the original publication of A Short History of a Small Place announced the arrival…
of one of our great Southern voices. Although T. R. Pearson's Neely, North Carolina, doesn't appear on any map of the state, it has already earned a secure place on the literary landscape of the South. In this introduction to Neely, the young narrator, Louis Benfield, recounts the tragic last days of Miss Myra Angelique Pettigrew, a local spinster and former town belle who, after years of total seclusion, returns flamboyantly to public view-with her pet monkey, Mr. Britches. Here is a teeming human comedy inhabited by some of the most eccentric and endearing characters ever encountered in literature. .By Stephen Graham Jones. 2011
Women being murdered in El Paso, TX, and Marta Villarreal, newbie crime tech on the scene, is dragged into the…
investigation as her Detective boyfriend, extremely familiar with cases from the past this killer's work resembles, has disappeared as a possible suspect. Filled with energy, Jones' frenetic story doesn't let you put your eReader down.By Ismael Cala. 2014
Segundo libro de la serie Cala Contigo Rompe paradigmas para transformar tu vida ¿Hijo de p...? No, no es lo…
que piensas. Las pes de las que hablamos aquí son otras muy diferentes. Tras el enorme éxito de su primer libro El poder de escuchar, el presentador de CNN en Español y conferencista en desarrollo humano Ismael Cala vuelve con una fábula inspiradora sobre el desarrollo humano, los significados reales de nuestras historias de vida, la inteligencia emocional, la búsqueda del éxito y el bienestar interior que nos ayudará a transformar la manera en que vivimos nuestras vidas. A través de la historia y las conversaciones de dos personajes, Arturo y Chris, Cala nos enseña como sólo nosotros mismos tenemos el poder de transformar nuestras vidas y que con el poder de la mente y el amor, todo es posible. Esta forma de vivir queda encapsulada en las tres pes: la pasión, la paciencia y la perseverancia, que nos permitirán no sólo llegar a nuestra cima, sino aprovecharla y disfrutarla. ¿Estás dispuesto a convertirte en buen hijo de p...?By Tom Hanks. 2017
A collection of seventeen wonderful short stories showing that two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks is as talented a writer as…
he is an actor. A gentle Eastern European immigrant arrives in New York City after his family and his life have been torn apart by his country's civil war. A man who loves to bowl rolls a perfect game--and then another and then another and then many more in a row until he winds up ESPN's newest celebrity, and he must decide if the combination of perfection and celebrity has ruined the thing he loves. An eccentric billionaire and his faithful executive assistant venture into America looking for acquisitions and discover a down and out motel, romance, and a bit of real life. These are just some of the tales Tom Hanks tells in this first collection of his short stories. They are surprising, intelligent, heartwarming, and, for the millions and millions of Tom Hanks fans, an absolute must-have! A New York Times BestsellerBy Kathryn Harrison. 2012
From Kathryn Harrison, one of America's most admired literary voices, comes a gorgeously written, enthralling novel set in the final…
days of Russia's Romanov Empire. St. Petersburg, 1917. After Rasputin's body is pulled from the icy waters of the Neva River, his eighteen-year-old daughter, Masha, is sent to live at the imperial palace with Tsar Nikolay and his family--including the headstrong Prince Alyosha. Desperately hoping that Masha has inherited Rasputin's miraculous healing powers, Tsarina Alexandra asks her to tend to Aloysha, who suffers from hemophilia, a blood disease that keeps the boy confined to his sickbed, lest a simple scrape or bump prove fatal. Two months after Masha arrives at the palace, the tsar is forced to abdicate, and Bolsheviks place the royal family under house arrest. As Russia descends into civil war, Masha and Alyosha grieve the loss of their former lives, finding solace in each other's company. To escape the confinement of the palace, they tell stories--some embellished and some entirely imagined--about Nikolay and Alexandra's courtship, Rasputin's many exploits, and the wild and wonderful country on the brink of an irrevocable transformation. In the worlds of their imagination, the weak become strong, legend becomes fact, and a future that will never come to pass feels close at hand. Mesmerizing, haunting, and told in Kathryn Harrison's signature crystalline prose, Enchantments is a love story about two people who come together as everything around them is falling apart.From the Hardcover edition.By Dan Chaon. 2017
Two sensational unsolved crimes—one in the past, another in the present—are linked by one man’s memory and self-deception in this…
chilling novel of literary suspense from National Book Award finalist Dan Chaon. “We are always telling a story to ourselves, about ourselves.” This is one of the little mantras Dustin Tillman likes to share with his patients, and it’s meant to be reassuring. But what if that story is a lie? A psychologist in suburban Cleveland, Dustin is drifting through his forties when he hears the news: His adopted brother, Rusty, is being released from prison. Thirty years ago, Rusty received a life sentence for the massacre of Dustin’s parents, aunt, and uncle. The trial came to epitomize the 1980s hysteria over Satanic cults; despite the lack of physical evidence, the jury believed the outlandish accusations Dustin and his cousin made against Rusty. Now, after DNA analysis has overturned the conviction, Dustin braces for a reckoning.Meanwhile, one of Dustin’s patients has been plying him with stories of the drowning deaths of a string of drunk college boys. At first Dustin dismisses his patient's suggestions that a serial killer is at work as paranoid thinking, but as the two embark on an amateur investigation, Dustin starts to believe that there’s more to the deaths than coincidence. Soon he becomes obsessed, crossing all professional boundaries—and putting his own family in harm’s way. From one of today’s most renowned practitioners of literary suspense, Ill Will is an intimate thriller about the failures of memory and the perils of self-deception. In Dan Chaon’s nimble, chilling prose, the past looms over the present, turning each into a haunted place.Advance praise for Ill Will “Dan Chaon’s new novel is subtly, steadily unnerving—like a scalpel slipping under your skin and prying it, ever so slowly, from the muscle beneath. Ill Will is a dark Möbius strip of a thriller that will leave you questioning what’s perceived and what’s imagined, and whether the reverberations of tragedy ever truly come to an end.”—Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You “Ill Will not only confirms Chaon as among our country’s finest writers but makes clear that he is one of our bravest and most inventive. He embraces risks that would have most novelists turning pale and making the sign of the cross. It’s stunning. Read it right now.”—Peter Straub, author of The Throat “Dan Chaon’s darkly stunning Ill Will ensnares you from its very first pages. It’s both a bone-chilling literary thriller and a complicated tale of family secrets and the strange and dangerous paths grief and guilt can take us on—and it is not to be missed.”—Megan Abbott, author of You Will Know Me “‘I believe in bad places,’ one narrator of Ill Will confesses, and he’s right. Dan Chaon’s damaged characters stalk the elusive truth and what may be a serial killer through a nightmarish Cleveland populated by drug addicts and sexual predators. Intimate and unsparing, this is one of the creepiest books I've ever read.”—Stewart O’Nan, author of Songs for the Missing “With impressive skill, across multiple narratives that twine, fracture, and reset, Chaon expertly realizes his singular vision of American dread.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)Please note that sections of Ill Will incorporate unconventional formatting, spacing, and punctuation choices. These are intentional design elements in the ebook file.By Victor Pelevin. 2005
The world?s first Zen Buddhist paranormal romance?published to coincide with Halloween One of the most progressive writers at work today,…
Victor Pelevin?s comic inventiveness has won him comparisons to Kafka, Calvino, and Gogol, and Time has described him as a ?psychedelic Nabokov for the cyberage. ? In The Sacred Book of the Werewolf, a smash success in Russia and Pelevin?s first novel in six years, paranormal meets transcendental with a splash of satire as A Hu-Li, a two-thousand-year-old shape-shifting werefox from ancient China meets her match in Alexander, a Wagner-addicted werewolf who?s the key figure in Russia?s Big Oil. Both a supernatural love story and an outrageously funny send-up of modern Russia, this stunning and ingenious work of the imagination is the sharpest novel to date from Russia?s most gifted literary malcontent. .By Albert Camus, Carol Cosman. 2007
From a variety of masterfully rendered perspectives, these six stories depict people at painful odds with the world around them.…
A wife can only surrender to a desert night by betraying her husband. An artist struggles to honor his own aspirations as well as society's expectations of him. A missionary brutally converted to the worship of a tribal fetish is left with but an echo of his identity. Whether set in North Africa, Paris, or Brazil, the stories in Exile and the Kingdom are probing portraits of spiritual exile, and man's perpetual search for an inner kingdom in which to be reborn. They display Camus at the height of his powers. Now, on the 50th anniversary of the book's publication, Carol Gasman's new translation recovers a literary treasure for our time. Albert Camus won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.By Javier Marias. 1996
Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me is a riveting novel of infidelity and a man trapped by a terrible…
secret.Marta has only just met Victor when she invites him to dinner at her Madrid apartment while her husband is away on business. When her two-year-old son finally falls asleep, Marta and Victor retreat to the bedroom. Undressing, she feels suddenly ill; and in his arms, inexplicably, she dies. What should Victor do? Remove the compromising tape from the answering machine? Leave food for the child for breakfast? These are just his first steps, but he soon takes matters further; unable to bear the shadows and the unknowing, Victor plunges into dark waters. And Javier Marías, Europe's master of secrets, of what lies reveal and truth may conceal, is on sure ground in this profound, quirky, and marvelous novel.By Emily Carr, Susan Musgrave. 2004
Emily Carr was primarily a painter, but she first gained recognition as an author for her seven books about her…
journeys to remote Native communities and stories about life as an artist, as a small child in Victoria at the turn of the last century-and as a reluctant landlady.Before winning recognition for her painting and writing, Carr built a small apartment building with four suites (she lived in one of them) that she hoped would earn her a living. But things turned out worse than expected, and in her forties, the gifted artist found herself shoveling coal and cleaning up after people for 23 years.The House of All Sorts is a collection of 41 stories of those hard-working days and the parade of tenants- young couples, widows, sad bachelors and rent evaders- all the tears and travails of being a landlady confronted with the startling foibles of humanity. Carr is at her most acerbic and rueful, but filled with energy and inextinguishable hope.Carr's writing is vital and direct, aware and poignant, and as well regarded today as when The House of All Sorts was first published in 1944 to critical and popular acclaim. The book has been in print ever since.By Andrea Adler. 2012
Pushing Upward is a remarkable debut novel that will sweep you along on one woman s unforgettable spiritual…
quest The year is 1974 While trying to eke out a living as an actress in L A 21-year-old Sandra Billings discovers the I Ching the ancient Chinese oracle and uses it as her GPS to navigate a torrid love affair battle with demons of the past and search for meaning and truth She places a fateful newspaper ad Drama student in need of RM and BRD in exchange for housekeeping and encounters an assortment of outrageous and inappropriate individuals But it is one unlikely stranger who will change the course of her life Events ultimately build to a stunning climax where everything Sandra has gained is challenged by a poignant and surprising twist of fateBy Jeff Hobbs. 2007
Meet the tourists, former classmates at Yale who, seven years later, must confront the people they've become while forging lives…
in Manhattan. David, a hedge fund wunderkind who forfeited idealism for wealth, hopes that a more fulfilling life lies ahead in the suburbs. His wife, the beautiful Samona, to whom David returns home nightly with nothing left for her, wonders whether her marriage is stripping away her best years. Ethan, a successful furniture designer with a magnetic sexuality, seeks something darker and more uncertain than the power lunches, needy family, and unsatisfying relationships that comprise his life. Rounding out the group is the story's unnamed narrator, a freelance reporter struggling to stay afloat -- financially, professionally, and emotionally -- who shares complicated histories with each of them. When Ethan and Samona have a chance encounter at a gallery opening, they meet each other's needs. As our narrator traverses the city and gradually reconstructs the events that underlie the present circumstances, his own mysterious role comes into ever sharper focus. Only later, after David commissions Ethan to design some conference rooms at his firm and a secret triangle is formed, does our narrator begin to tie all the pieces together. WithThe Tourists, Jeff Hobbs delivers a striking and stylish debut about the dark and sometimes destructive aspects of physical attraction and love, marital disillusionment, and the inevitable disappointments life can bring.By Sarah Ellis, Emily Carr. 1876
The legendary Emily Carr was primarily a painter, but she first gained recognition as an author. She wrote seven popular,…
critically acclaimed books about her journeys to remote Native communities and about her life as an artist-as well as her life as a small child in Victoria at the turn of the last century.The Book of Small is a collection of 36 short stories about a childhood in a town that still had vestiges of its pioneer past. With an uncanny skill at bringing people to life, Emily Carr tells stories about her family, neighbours, friends and strangers-who run the gamut from genteel people in high society to disreputable frequenters of saloons-as well as an array of beloved pets. All are observed through the sharp eyes and ears of a young, ever-curious and irrepressible girl, and Carr's writing is a disarming combination of charm and devastating frankness.Carr's writing is vital and direct, aware and poignant, and as well regarded today as when she was first published to both critical and popular acclaim. The Book of Small has been in print ever since its publication in 1942, and, like Klee Wyck, has been read and loved by a couple of generations.By Jonas Karlsson. 2016
A heartfelt exploration of the cost of life and love--and the importance of the little things--from the author of the…
international bestseller, The Room Hilarious, profound, and achingly true-to-life, Jonas Karlsson's new novel explores the true nature of happiness through the eyes of hero you won't soon forget. A passionate film buff, our hero's life revolves around his part-time job at a video store, the company of a few precious friends, and a daily routine that more often than not concludes with pizza and movie in his treasured small space in Stockholm. When he receives an astronomical invoice from a random national bureaucratic agency, everything will tumble into madness as he calls the hotline night and day to find out why he is the recipient of the largest bill in the entire country. What is the price of a cherished memory? How much would you pay for a beautiful summer day? How will our carefree idealist, who is content with so little and has no chance of paying it back, find a way out of this mess? All these questions pull you through The Invoice and prove once again that Jonas Karlsson is simply a master of entertaining, intelligent, and life-affirming work.From the Hardcover edition.By Irina Reyn. 2008
A mesmerizing debut novel that reimagines Tolstoy's classic tragedy, Anna Karenina, for our time Vivacious thirty-seven-year-old Anna K. is comfortably…
married to Alex, an older, prominent businessman from her tight-knit Russian-Jewish immigrant community in Queens. But a longing for freedom is reignited in this bookish, overly romantic, and imperious woman when she meets her cousin Katia Zavurov's boyfriend, an outsider and aspiring young writer on whom she pins her hopes for escape. As they begin a reckless affair, Anna enters into a tailspin that alienates her from her husband, family, and entire world. In nearby Rego Park's Bukharian-Jewish community, twenty-seven-year-old pharmacist Lev Gavrilov harbors two secret passions: French movies and the lovely Katia. Lev's restless longing to test the boundaries of his sheltered life powerfully collides with Anna's. But will Lev's quest result in life's affirmation rather than its destruction? Exploring struggles of identity, fidelity, and community, What Happened to Anna K. is a remarkable retelling of the Anna Karenina story brought vividly to life by an exciting young writer.By Suzy Witten. 2009
Something terrible happened in Salem in 1692 ... but it isn't what you think! The Afflicted Girls, A Novel of…
Salem, by author-researcher Suzy Witten presents a startling new theory of the Salem Village witch-hunts, which is certain to put this 300-year-old unsettled mystery to rest ... by expertly guiding readers through The Historical Record to revelation. Part parable, part star-crossed romance, and part supernatural venture, this is an intuitive human history--and inhuman--spun with a modern twist. A controversial debut by a new Historical storyteller. A Walt Disney Studios Fellowship Finalist. Historical Fiction, 456 pages, A Paperback Original from Dreamwand (also available as an eBook) www.theafflictedgirls.com About the Author: Suzy Witten's career spans more than twenty years in the entertainment industry: as a filmmaker, screenwriter, story analyst, and an editor for both film and television. She has also taught meditation. Currently, she works as a writer and researcher during disasters for FEMA (United States Federal Emergency Management Agency) Public Affairs. She resides in Los Angeles, California. The Afflicted Girls is her first novel.By Yukio Mishima. 1973
By James Lee Burke. 2016
From New York Times bestselling author James Lee Burke--an atmospheric, coming-of-age story set in 1952 Texas, as the Korea War…
rages. On its surface, life in Houston is as you would expect: drive-in restaurants, souped-up cars, jukeboxes, teenagers discovering their sexuality. But beneath the glitz and superficial normalcy, a class war has begun, and it is nothing like the conventional portrayal of the decade. Against this backdrop Aaron Holland Broussard discovers the poignancy of first love and a world of violence he did not know existed. When Aaron spots the beautiful and gifted Valerie Epstein fighting with her boyfriend, Grady Harrelson, at a Galveston drive-in, he inadvertently challenges the power of the Mob and one of the richest families in Texas. He also discovers he must find the courage his father had found as an American soldier in the Great War. Written in evocative prose, The Jealous Kind may prove to be James Lee Burke's most encompassing work yet. As Aaron undergoes his harrowing evolution from boy to man, we can't help but recall the inspirational and curative power of first love and how far we would go to protect it. A New York Times BestsellerBy Emily Carr, Ira Dilworth, Rosemary Neering. 2005
A collection of short stories about people and animals by the legendary Emily Carr that mingle the sad and the…
joyous, the cruel and the tender, in her unique style.The Heart of a Peacock is a collection of 51 short stories by the legendary writer and painter Emily Carr. The stories are arranged in themes such as her experiences with Native people, her adventures with various beloved creatures (particularly birds), her love of nature, and a whole section of stories about her mischievous pet monkey Woo. Together, they underline Emily Carr's place as a writer with the sharp yet tender eye of an artist, with a deep feeling for the tragedies of life and with a rich sense of the comic. The Heart of a Peacock has been in print ever since its publication in 1953, and, like her other books, has been read and loved by a couple of generations. The book is enhanced by seven of Carr's own line drawings of scenes from nature.Carr's first book, published in 1941, was titled Klee Wyck, won the Governor General's Literary Award for non-fiction. Her writing is vital and direct, aware and poignant, as well regarded today as when first published.By Nadeem Aslam. 2013
The acclaimed author of The Wasted Vigil now gives us a searing, exquisitely written novel set in Pakistan and Afghanistan…
in the months following 9/11: a story of war, of one family's losses, and of the simplest, most enduring human impulses. Jeo and Mikal are foster brothers from a small town in Pakistan. Though they were inseparable as children, their adult lives have diverged: Jeo is a dedicated medical student, married a year; Mikal has been a vagabond since he was fifteen, in love with a woman he can't have. But when Jeo decides to sneak across the border into Afghanistan--not to fight with the Taliban against the Americans, rather to help care for wounded civilians--Mikal determines to go with him, to protect him. Yet Jeo's and Mikal's good intentions cannot keep them out of harm's way. As the narrative takes us from the wilds of Afghanistan to the heart of the family left behind--their blind father, haunted by the death of his wife and by the mistakes he may have made in the name of Islam and nationhood; Mikal's beloved brother and sister-in-law; Jeo's wife, whose increasing resolve helps keep the household running, and her superstitious mother--we see all of these lives upended by the turmoil of war. In language as lyrical as it is piercing, in scenes at once beautiful and harrowing, The Blind Man's Garden unflinchingly describes a crucially contemporary yet timeless world in which the line between enemy and ally is indistinct, and where the desire to return home burns brightest of all.