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The Delicate Prey, and Other Stories
By Paul Bowles. 2016
First published in 1950, this book is a collection of exemplary short stories that reveal the bizarre, the disturbing, the…
perilous, and the wise in other civilizations--from one of America's most important writers of the twentieth century."Paul Bowles has opened the world of Hip. He let in the murder, the drugs, the incest, the death of the Square...the call of the orgy, the end of civilization."--NORMAN MAILER"Paul Bowles's sense of what can go wrong is as acute as that of any American writer since Poe....Bowles's sensibility is classical in its aloofness, his prose as hard-edged and dazzling as a desert landscape at noon."--JAY McINERNEY"The Delicate Prey is in fact one of the most profound, beautifully wrought, and haunting collections in our literature....Bowles's tales arc at once austere, witty, violent, and sensuous. They move with the inevitability of myth."--TOBIAS WOLFFLost Horizon [Trilogy Edition]
By James Hilton. 2016
First published in 1933, this novel by award-winning author James Hilton tells the story of Hugh Conway, a veteran member…
of the British diplomatic service who finds inner peace, love, and a sense of purpose in Shangri-La, an Eden-like valley high in the Himalayas in Tibet.Said to have been inspired by reading the National Geographic Magazine articles of a botanist and ethnologist who explored the southwestern Chinese provinces and Tibetan borderlands, the name "Shangri-La" has become a by-word for a mythical utopia, a permanently happy land, isolated from the world, and one that captivated the world's imagination--from Roosevelt naming his Maryland presidential retreat "Shangri-La" to the Zhongdian mountain region of Southwest China being renamed Shangri-La (Xianggelila).The novel won James Hilton the Hawthornden Prize in 1934 and was also immortalized in a movie version in 1937 by influential director Frank Capra."Hilton's premise strikes a deep chord in today's 'everything is relative' society. His utopia retains all its charm and, in his creation of Shangri-La, he added something permanently to the language"--Guardian"Lost Horizon introduced the world to a Tibetan paradise where people live extraordinarily long lives of peace, harmony and wisdom. Expertly plotted and deftly written, Hilton's book suggests mysteries without spelling them out - and leaves us wanting more"--New York Times"James Hilton invented the name Shangri-La for a paradise on earth in a book that captured the imagination of a public dealing with financial hardships and the threat of Nazism"--Observer"The important thing to note about this very fine novel--the tale of an adventure in Tibet--is that it is unusual and the product of a first-class mind...a wildly exciting story, nightmare, fantasy, or what you will"--Daily ExpressCress Delahanty (Contemporary Classics By Women Ser.)
By Jessamyn West. 2016
The tenderly funny story of a modern girl's growing up.Cress Delahanty, growing up on a California ranch, might have been…
you at sixteen, your teenage daughter or niece, or the girl next door. You will watch her progress, as her parents did, with amusement and an occasional touch of exasperation and a twinge of heartache at the memory of your own growing pains.She's the girl who invented Delahanty's Law for Saving Time. The high-school kid who decided craziness would be her trademark. The love-smitten adolescent who found a unique way to attract the boys.Not since Penrod--that classic by another Indiana author--has the magic, the humor and the seriousness of adolescence been so warmly and sympathetically portrayed in an American novel."An enchanting novel...those still capable of feeling the absurdity and the beauty of growing up will find it a book well worth treasuring in that library of libraries, the heart."--CLIFTON FADIMAN, The book-of-the-Month Club News"Cress Delahanty has all the makings of a classic."--Hartford Courant"An extraordinarily engaging, humorous and touching book about a teenage girl."--The New York Times"It does for an adolescent girl what Salinger's Catcher in the Rye did for her male counterpart."--Los Angeles MirrorOld Herbaceous: A Story
By Reginald Arkell. 2016
"Old Herbaceous," they called him when they thought he wasn't listening. But crusty Bert Pinnegar, head gardener at the Manor,…
didn't care what liberties they took. His first love had always been his lady's garden, throughout his eighty years on God's green earth; and if he had made it a little greener, why, that was all that mattered.This is the story of a gardener, from the day when he won a prize for wild flowers at the village show, to the day when he himself was judging flower shows all over the county; from the day when he refused to follow his schoolmates to a job as a farmhand and won the post of garden boy at the Big House, to the day when he could sit back among his cushions in his little cottage and criticize the younger generation's attitude towards tulips.Old Herbaceous is more than a story of gardeners and gardening. Times changed in England, and even a village institution like Old Herbaceous found himself--the symbol of a more gracious era--with no place to go; for even gardens can change hands.Anyone who loved the England of Goodbye Mr. Chips and Mrs. Miniver will love Mr. Arkell's England, too. But the central character is not peculiar to the English countryside; wherever there is a garden, there you will find Old Herbaceous."Old Herbaceous is delightful. A book to warm the heart of anyone who loves earth or gardens!"--Loui Bromfield"Old Herbaceous is enchanting--fresh as an English spring, fragrant as sweet lavender!"--A. J. Cronin"What a great pair of cronies Old Herbaceous and Mr. Chips would make! There are chuckles and heart-tugs in these pages. The perfect book to give your friends!"--John KieranThe Crack in the Picture Window
By John Keats. 2016
In this amusingly written yet serious report about housing developments, author John C. Keats discusses every aspect of life in…
a development. His account is supported by solid facts and figures and presented in personal terms to convey an existence that combines all of the worst aspects and none of the advantages of suburban living."If you ever wondered what goes on under those regimented roofs, this book will tell you. And if you already know, it will make you want to get up and break something. Fortunately the book also tells you how to put the pieces back together."Random Harvest [Trilogy Ed.]
By James Hilton. 2016
This completes the trilogy of classic James Hilton novels (the other two being "Lost Horizon" and "Goodbye Mr. Chips") which…
were all made into movies during Hollywood's Golden Era. It is the lesser known of the three novels, although "Random Harvest" is his most complete work.The story is a romance, a mystery, a critique of England's class structure, and a parable. Hilton uses the lost years of Charles Rainier as a metaphor for the lost years of the 1920/1930's when England failed to prepare for the next war. Told in flashbacks and bookended by World War I and World War II, the resolution is only revealed in its final sentence that will shock you and change everything that you have just read & thought you understood. You will go back and re-read the book as your perception of all the characters are altered by the surprise ending...As a Man Grows Older (New York Review Books Classics #No. 25)
By Italo Svevo, Beryl De Zoete. 2016
Not so long ago Emilio Brentani was a promising young author. Now he is an insurance agent on the fast…
track to forty. He gains a new lease on life, though, when he falls for the young and gorgeous Angiolina--except that his angel just happens to be an unapologetic cheat. But what begins as a comedy of infatuated misunderstanding ends in tragedy, as Emilio's jealous persistence in his folly--against his friends' and devoted sister's advice, and even his own best knowledge--leads to the loss of the one person who, too late, he realizes he truly loves.Marked by deep humanity and earthy humor, by psychological insight and an elegant simplicity of style, As a Man Grows Older (Senilità, in Italian; the English title was the suggestion of Svevo's great friend and admirer, James Joyce) is a brilliant study of hopeless love and hapless indecision. It is a masterwork of Italian literature, here beautifully rendered into English in Beryl de Zoete's classic translation.-Print ed."The poem of our complex modern madness."--EUGENIO MONTALE"Svevo has the capacity--so rare as to be almost unknown in the English novel--of handling emotional relationships with a combined tenderness, humour and realism."--THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT"Time did not exist; or if it did it did not mater. Our world then was both wide and narrow--wide…
in the immensity of the sea and mountain; narrow in that the boat was very small, and we lived and camped, explored and swam in a little realm of our own making..."This is the fascinating true adventure story of a woman who packed her five children onto a twenty-five-foot boat and explored the coastal waters of British Columbia summer after summer in the 1920s and 1930s. Acting single-handedly as skipper, navigator, engineer and of course, mother, Muriel Wylie Blanchet saw her crew through exciting--and sometimes perilous--encounters with fog; rough seas, cougars, bears and whales, and did so with high spirits and courage. On these pages an independent woman with a deep respect for the native cultures of a region, and a refreshing wonderment about the natural world, comes to life. In The Curve of Time, she has left us with a sensitive and lyrically written account of their journeys and a timeless travel memoir not to be missed.Viper’s Tangle
By François Charles Mauriac, Warre B. Wells. 2016
The masterpiece of one of the twentieth century's greatest Catholic writers, Vipers' Tangle tells the story of Monsieur Louis, an…
embittered aging lawyer who has spread his misery to his entire estranged family. Louis writes a journal to explain to them--and to himself--why his soul has been deformed, why his heart seems like a foul nest of twisted serpents. Mauriac's novel masterfully explores the corruption caused by pride, avarice, and hatred, and its opposite--the divine grace that remains available to each of us until the very moment of our deaths. It is the unforgettable tale of the battle for one man's soul."a modern masterpiece."--St. Louis Star-Times"It is a magnificent novel, beautifully and skilfully written."--Integrity"Mauriac is one of the few who can touch the supernatural and write superb fiction simultaneously...Perhaps no one reader will see all that is taught in this book. But that is the nature of great literature. We are satisfied in knowing that any serious reader of mature intelligence will find the story profound and yet exciting in a tense, still sort of way. Few novels bring one so close to the soul of man; fewer have such a profound grasp of basic supernatural values."--Rev. Demetrius Manousos, O.F.M.Cap. The Cowl"extraordinary Catholic novel"--Commonwealth"Both as a novelist in the tradition of Dostoevsky and as a poet in that of Baudelaire, Mauriac deserves his present position as one of the world's greatest writers."--The New York Times"One of the most human and Catholic of Mauriac's works, Vipers' Tangle could well be his greatest."--Best SellersYeats, The Man And The Masks: The Man And The Masks
By Richard Ellmann. 2016
"The book helps fill in the picture of a complex and fascinating man...indispensable for the serious study of the subject."--Edmund…
Wilson, The New Yorker The most influential poet of his age, Yeats eluded the grasp of many who sought to explain him. In this classic critical examination of the poet, Richard Ellmann strips away the masks of his subject: occultist, senator of the Irish Free State, libidinous old man, and Nobel Prize winner.Holy Barbarians
By Lawrence Lipton. 2015
Mr. Lipton's book is the first complete and unbiased survey of the beat generation and its role in our society.…
Here are the intimate facts about these people and their attitudes toward sex, dope, jazz, art, religion, parents, landlords, employers, politicians, draft boards, the law and, most important, toward the "square". The author presents a picture of their way of life, their individual backgrounds, the language they have appropriated, in terms made clear for the first time to those of us who have been confused and puzzled about them. He also provides a balanced discussion of their literature, art and music, of what they produce and fail to produce in the arts they practice.--Print Ed."America's preeminent writer of prehistoric history [writes] ... . a book of hearts and minds." Grace Cavalieri, award-winning author, host…
of The Poet and the Poem from the US Library of Congress.After years of abuse from his father, Wing leaves the only home he's ever known. As the male lion leaves its pride, he must find a new home or die. He is sixteen, frail, injured, and alone in the mountainous untamed and untouched wilderness of Mexico of 250,000 BC. Wing struggles to survive, proving himself against a bear, where he learns elementary freedom. Award-winning writer of prehistoric fiction Bonnye Matthews' novella, Freedom, 250,000 BC, brings to life primitive early Americans through Wing's growing understanding of what freedom is and its importance for life.Freedom, 250,000 BC is dedicated to the archaeological site south of Puebla, Mexico at the Valsequillo Reservoir. The site is an amazingly rich prehistoric view of the glory and infamy of human life in the Americas, specifically Mexico, in 250,000 BC. "The outstanding Winds of Change series is highly and enthusiastically recommended for personal reading lists, as well as both community and academic library historical fiction collections." Midwest Book ReviewShe Came to the Valley
By Cleo Dawson. 2018
Originally published in 1943, SHE CAME TO THE VALLEY by Cleo Dawson became an instant bestseller. It is a story…
of the visions and successes, the heartbreaks and joys of pioneers who established the Texas-Mexican Border town of Mission Texas. Many of the incidents recounted in this book actually happened in the area at the time when thousands of “homeseekers” found in the rich Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas a place to start a new and challenging life for their families in the first decade and a half of the Twentieth Century.One such family was that of Ed and Willy Dawson and their two little girls who arrived by covered wagon through the brush country between “the Valley” and Laredo. At that time, Mission was near the end of the western end of the railroad whose beacon attracted those pioneer dreamers. Markets would now be possible for the fruits and vegetables growing in the lush Delta formed by thousands of years in the flow of the Rio Grande on its way to the Gulf of Mexico.A delightful read, SHE CAME TO THE VALLEY aims to provide a new generation an appreciation of their heritage from those early pioneers.The Greatest Stories of Robert Louis Stevenson: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Suicide Club, The Body Snatcher, and Other Short Stories
By Herman Graf, Robert Louis Stevenson. 2018
The Best Short Works of One of English Literature’s Most Masterful Storytellers Collected in a Single Volume Known mostly for…
his seminal full-length works, such as the famous classics Treasure Island and Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson’s masterful short fiction is often overshadowed. Now these pioneering works in the English short story tradition are presented here, collected in a single volume. Including the beloved novella "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," which G. K. Chesterton called “a double triumph,” and “The Merry Men,” as well as stories like “The Suicide Club” and “The Rajah’s Diamond” from the acclaimed 1882 collection New Arabian Nights, The Greatest Stories of Robert Louis Stevenson immerses you in Stevenson’s extraordinary worlds—thrilling tales of pure adventure and suspense, glorious evocations of the beauty of the Scottish countryside, and characters painted with the same vigor and energy as his most well-known creations. Showcasing his brilliant and lucid prose, his dramatic skill, and his perfect sense of pace that made him a celebrity during his time and a landmark author in the history of English literature, Stevenson’s enduring stories continue to capture the imagination of the contemporary reader and rightly belong to popular mythology today.Le ombre dell'Africa
By Bianca Aparicio Vinsonneau. 2019
Alla fine del XVIII secolo, nelle remote terre africane, il villaggio di Kofi viene selvaggiamente attaccato ed egli viene catturato…
e reso schiavo. Grazie a un’insperata svolta del destino, scampa alla morte e all’imbarco verso le piantagioni del Nuovo Mondo. In cambio, però, resta prigioniero nel castello di Cape Coast. Da lì, a rischio della sua stessa vita, riesce a mantenere una corrispondenza segreta con la donna che ama. Duecento anni dopo, l’antropologa Claudia Carpio viene inviata in quella che un tempo era nota come la Costa D’Oro. Mentre è occupata nella stesura dell’articolo più importante della sua carriera, le lettere misteriose arrivano nelle sue mani. Sconvolta dal loro brusco e sconcertante finale, si vede costretta a indagare nel torbido passato per scoprire cos’è successo a Kofi e perché ha smesso di scrivere. Non può sapere, però, che alcuni aspetti della storia non sono ancora conclusi e la coinvolgeranno in un gioco pericoloso. Un romanzo che ci trasporterà in luoghi esotici, in un intenso viaggio attraverso il tempo e le emozioni umane più profonde.Shadows out of Africa
By Bianca Aparicio Vinsonneau. 2019
Near the end of the eighteenth century, Kofi’s village in a remote part of Africa is brutally attacked and he…
is captured and sold into slavery. Thanks to an unexpected twist of fate, he is saved from being shipped to the plantations of the New World to instead remain a prisoner of Cape Coast Castle. From there, he risks his life to maintain a secret correspondence with the love of his life. Two hundred years later, anthropologist Claudia Carpio is sent to what was once known as the Gold Coast. She is immersed in working on the most important publication of her career when she learns of some mysterious letters. Troubled by their abrupt and disconcerting ending, she finds herself compelled to investigate the murky past in order to discover what happened to Kofi and why he stopped writing. What she doesn’t suspect, however, is that you can’t close the book so easily on certain chapters of history, and she soon finds herself entangled in a dangerous game.Waiting for Nothing
By Tom Kromer. 1986
Waiting for Nothing, first published in 1935, is a sobering, first-hand account of the author's life as a homeless man…
during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The book, a classic portrayal of the brutality and inhumaness of the time, was written while author Tom Kromer (1906-1969) was working at a Civilian Conservation Corps camp in California, and was his only completed novel. Waiting for Nothing describes Kromer's travels on the rails, his encounters with small-time cooks, prostitutes and homosexuals, and the endless search for enough food to eat and a warm place to sleep. Throughout the book, Kromer describes the plight of a vast army of unemployed workers, left to fend for themselves in a largely uncaring society.The Judges of the Secret Court: A Novel About John Wilkes Booth
By David Stacton. 2011
b>The Judges of the Secret Court, first published in 1961, is a historical novel about John Wilkes Booth and the…
aftermath of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. The book vividly portrays the setting and sentiments of the time, as well as Wilkes’ befuddled thinking and his short-lived escape from justice, followed by the trial of those involved in the assassination.David Stacton’s The Judges of The Secret Court is a long-lost triumph of American fiction as well as one of the finest books ever written about the Civil War. Stacton’s gripping and atmospheric story revolves around the brothers Edwin and John Wilkes Booth, members of a famous theatrical family. Edwin is a great actor, himself a Hamlet-like character whose performance as Hamlet will make him an international sensation. Wilkes is a blustering mediocrity on stage who is determined, however, to be an actor in history, and whose assassination of Abraham Lincoln will change America. Stacton’s novel about how the roles we play become, for better or for worse, the lives we lead, takes us back to the day of the assassination, immersing us in the farrago of bombast that fills Wilkes’s head while following his footsteps up to the fatal encounter at Ford’s Theatre. The political maneuvering around Lincoln’s deathbed and Wilkes’s desperate flight and ignominious capture then set the stage for a political show trial that will condemn not only the guilty but the—at least relatively—innocent. For as Edwin Booth broods helplessly many years later, and as Lincoln, whose tragic death and wisdom overshadow this tale, also knew, “We are all accessories before or after some fact....We are all guilty of being ourselves.”Jamie
By Jack Bennett. 2019
Jamie, first published in 1963, is a moving novel set in South Africa and centered on 12-year-old Jamie Carson. The…
region is experiencing a severe drought, forcing wild animals to approach farmsteads in their search for water. Sadly, Jamie’s father is killed by a wild buffalo, and Jamie is determined to seek revenge. The boy receives sympathy from the adults, but they offer no help in his securing a rifle and ammunition, as he is determined to find and kill the rogue animal. He is eventually able to buy a poorly made gun and several bullets from a native African, and goes into the bush accompanied by a native boy to seek his prey. An excellent book for both teenagers and adults, Jamie evokes a strong sense of place, and the reader will feel a part of the hot dry landscape as Jamie wanders the scrubland in search of the buffalo.Linden on the Saugus Branch (American Autobiography Ser.)
By Elliot Paul. 2018
That you will be completely charmed by Elliot Paul’s recollections of his boyhood is a matter beyond speculation. The turn-of-the-century…
scenes are not only dear to his heart but clear to his mind—albeit sometimes suspiciously so. But who will quarrel with so elegant a storyteller as Mr. Paul? Out of the sow’s ear of common occurrence he makes a silken purse to hold the coins of our enchantment. Rare is the reader who will not delight in these fortified memories.Those who recall The Last Time I saw Paris know that Elliot Paul is incapable of being banal or tiresome. Thus there is nothing of the diary-like march of events in this record of his early years in the Boston suburb where he was born. Instead you will find a series of neatly dovetailed stories, anecdotes, character sketches, comedies, tragedies and singularly embellished observations all set out for your allurement like gems in a jeweler’s window.Some of Mr. Paul’s tales of the people who lived out their lives in Linden will make you laugh, some may even tempt a tear. There are a few—such as the story of Alice Townsend, the schoolteacher who found that her name had been written in snow with a stylus of strange origin—that may inspire the sincerest suggestion of a blush.Linden on the Saugus Branch, a volume complete in itself, is another segment in what will ultimately be Elliot Paul’s life story: Items on the Grand Account. Both The Last Time I Saw Paris and The Life and Death of a Spanish Town are other books in this group.