Best of
Fiction
1990
Gabriel García Márquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude
Michael Wood - 1990
Published in 1967, the novel was an instant success, running to hundreds of editions, winning four international prizes and being translated into 27 languages. In 1982, its author received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Michael Wood places the novel in the context of modern Colombia's violent history, and helps the reader to explore the rich and complex vision of the world which Garcia Marquez presents in it. Close reference is made to the text itself (in English translation), and there is a guide to further reading.
Good Omens
Dirk Maggs - 1990
Next Saturday in fact. Just after Any Answers on Radio 4….Events have been set in motion to bring about the End of Days. The armies of Good and Evil are gathering and making their way towards the sleepy English village of Lower Tadfield. The Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse - War, Famine, Pollution and Death - are assembling. Witchfinder Shadwell and his assistant Newton Pulsifier are also en route to Tadfield to investigate unusual phenomena in the area, while Anathema Device, descendent of prophetess Agnes Nutter, tries to decipher her ancestor’s cryptic predictions.Atlantis is rising; fish are falling from the sky; everything seems to be going to the Divine Plan. Everything, that is, but for an unlikely angel and demon duo, who have been living on Earth for several millennia and have become rather fond of the place. If they are to prevent Armageddon they’ve got to find and kill the one who will bring it about: the Antichrist himself. There’s just one small problem: someone seems to have mislaid him…Adapted, sound designed and co-directed by Dirk Maggs (Neverwhere, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) this first ever dramatisation of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s novel features a large cast including Peter Serafinowicz, Mark Heap, Josie Lawrence and Paterson Joseph.
The Left Behind Collection
Tim LaHaye - 1990
. .of the end of the world.“This is the most successful Christian-fiction series ever.”—Publishers Weekly“Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins . . . are doing for Christian fiction what John Grisham did for courtroom thrillers.”—Time“Combines Tom Clancy–like suspense with touches of romance, high-tech flash, and biblical references.”—New York Times“Wildly popular—and highly controversial.”—USA Today“Call it what you like, the Left Behind series . . . now has a label its creators could have never predicted: blockbuster success.”—Entertainment WeeklyContains the following titles:#1: Left Behind#2: Tribulation Force#3: Nicolae#4: Soul Harvest#5: Apollyon#6: Assassins#7: The Indwelling#8: The Mark#9: Desecration#10: The Remnant#11: Armageddon#12: Glorious Appearing
The Hyperion Omnibus
Dan Simmons - 1990
Invasion by the warlike Ousters looms, and the mysterious schemes of the secessionist AI TechnoCore bring chaos ever closer.On the eve of disaster, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set fourth on a final voyage to the legendary Time Tombs on Hyperion, home to the Shrike, a lethal creature, part god and part killing machine, whose powers transcend the limits of time and space. The pilgrims have resolved to die before discovering anything less than the secrets of the universe itself.THE FALL OF HYPERIONThe mysterious Time Tombs are opening and the Shrike that has risen from them may well control the fate of all mankind. The Ousters are laying siege to the Hegemony of Man and the AIs we created have turned against us to build the Ultimate Intelligence; God. The God of Machines. His genesis could mean annihilation for man.Something is drawing the Hegemony, the Ousters, the Als, the entire universe to the Shrike.Here is a superb vision of future technology and ancient religions, of scientific revelation and timeless mystery, of transcendent joy and mind-bending horror. Here is a Hugo Award-winning landmark in Science Fiction.
The Complete Stories, Vol. 1
Isaac Asimov - 1990
Volume One contains the following 48 short stories:- The Dead Past- The Foundation of S. F. Success- Franchise- Gimmicks Three- Kid Stuff- The Watery Place- Living Space- The Message- Satisfaction Guaranteed- Hell-Fire- The Last Trump- The Fun They Had- Jokester- The Immortal Bard- Someday- The Author's Ordeal- Dreaming Is a Private Thing- Profession- The Feeling of Power- The Dying Night- I'm in Marsport Without Hilda- The Gentle Vultures- All the Troubles of the World- Spell My Name with an S- The Last Question- The Ugly Little Boy- Nightfall- Green Patches- Hostess- Breeds There a Man…?- C-Chute- In a Good Cause—- What If—- Sally- Flies- Nobody Here But—- It's Such a Beautiful Day- Strikebreaker- Insert Knob A in Hole B- The Up-to-Date Sorcerer- Unto the Fourth Generation- What Is This Thing Called Love?- The Machine That Won the War- My Son, the Physicist- Eyes Do More Than See- Segregationist- I Just Make Them Up, See!- Rejection Slips.
The Outsiders (the Play)
Christopher Sergel - 1990
From the book by S.E. Hinton.Cast: 10m., 8w. (extras as desired.) Some variations possible. S.E. Hinton, who wrote this modern classic when she was 16 years old, comments: "The Outsiders, like most things I write, is written from a boy's point of view. That's why I'm listed as S.E. Hinton rather than Susan. (I figured most boys would look at the book and think 'What can a chick know about stuff like that!') None of the events are taken from life, but the rest—how kids think and live and feel—is for real. The characters—Dallas, who wasn't tough enough; Sodapop, the happy-go-lucky dropout; Bob, the rich kid whose arrogance cost him his life; Ponyboy, the sensitive, green-eyed Greaser who didn't want to be a hood—they're all real to me. Many of my friends are Greasers, but I'm not. I have friends who are rich, too, but nobody will ever call me a Soc—I've seen what money and too much idle time and parental approval can do to people. Cool people mean nothing to me—they're living behind masks and I'm always wondering "Is there a real person underneath?" This entirely practical stage adaptation deals with real people, seen through the eyes of young Ponyboy, a Greaser on the wrong side of life, caught up in territorial battles between the have-it-made rich kids—the Socs—and his tough, underprivileged "greaser" family and friends. In the midst of urban warfare, somehow Ponyboy can't forget a short poem that speaks of their fragile young lives:Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold.Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour.Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief,so dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay."Robert Frost wrote it," Ponyboy tells Johnny. "I always remembered it because I never quite got what he meant by it." Cherry, a beautiful Soc, comes to share a special sensitivity with Ponyboy as she discovers that he remembers poems and needs to watch sunsets. At the same time, Cherry's attracted to the older, tougher Dallas, and in a sense she's caught in the violent space between the Greasers and the Socs. While the Socs appear to have everything, the only thing a Greaser has is his friends. As these young people try to find themselves and each other, as the sadness of sophistication begins to reach them and their battles and relationships reach a resolution, Ponyboy's dying friend, Johnny, sends him a last message … I've been thinking about the poem that guy wrote. He meant you're gold when you're a kid, like green. When you're a kid everything's new, dawn. It's just when you get used to everything that it's day. Like the way you dig sunsets, Pony. That's gold. Keep it that way. It's a good way to be. This is a play about young people who are not yet hopeless about latent decency in the midst of struggle. Area staging. Approximate Running Time: 2 hours.
Phantom
Susan Kay - 1990
This incredible portrait of Erik--the Phantom--recreates his entire life, from his survival as a child in a carnival freak show to his creative genius behind the Paris Opera House--and its labyrinthine world below--to his discovery of love.
Family
J. California Cooper - 1990
In this wise, beguiling, beautiful novel set in the era of the Civil War, an award-winning playwright and author paints a haunting portrait of a woman named Always, born a slave, and four generations of her African-American family.
Vorkosigan's Game: The Vor Game \ Borders of Infinity
Lois McMaster Bujold - 1990
Omnibus of The Vor Game and the novella "Borders of Infinity".
Three Plums In One
Janet Evanovich - 1990
Three Plums In One: One for the Money, Two for the Dough, Three to Get Deadly (Stephanie Plum Novels)
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Terry Pratchett - 1990
They don’t let you go around again until you get it right.’People have been predicting the end of the world almost from its very beginning, so it’s only natural to be sceptical when a new date is set for Judgement Day. But what if, for once, the predictions are right, and the apocalypse really is due to arrive next Saturday, just after tea?You could spend the time left drowning your sorrows, giving away all your possessions in preparation for the rapture, or laughing it off as (hopefully) just another hoax. Or you could just try to do something about it.It’s a predicament that Aziraphale, a somewhat fussy angel, and Crowley, a fast-living demon now finds themselves in. They’ve been living amongst Earth’s mortals since The Beginning and, truth be told, have grown rather fond of the lifestyle and, in all honesty, are not actually looking forward to the coming Apocalypse.And then there’s the small matter that someone appears to have misplaced the Antichrist…
V for Vendetta
Alan Moore - 1990
Crafted with sterling clarity and intelligence, V for Vendetta brings an unequaled depth of characterization and verisimilitude to its unflinching account of oppression and resistance.
Axiomatic
Greg Egan - 1990
Contents:The Infinite Assassin (1991)The Hundred Light-Year Diary (1992)Eugene (1990)The Caress (1990)Blood Sisters (1991)Axiomatic (1990)The Safe-Deposit Box (1990)Seeing (1995)A Kidnapping (1995)Learning to Be Me (1990)The Moat (1991)The Walk (1992)The Cutie (1989)Into Darkness (1992)Appropriate Love (1991)The Moral Virologist (1990)Closer (1992)Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies (1992)
The Jeeves Omnibus Vol. 2: Right Ho, Jeeves / Joy in the Morning / Carry On, Jeeves
P.G. Wodehouse - 1990
The paragon of Gentlemen's Personal Gentlemen shimmers through these fat pages in much the same way as he did through the first Jeeves Omnibus. This volume contains one brilliant collection of short stories and two hilarious novels: Right Ho, Jeeves, Joy in the Morning and Carry On, Jeeves.
Robot Visions
Isaac Asimov - 1990
Meet all of Asimov’s most famous creations including: Robbie, the very first robot that his imagination brought to life; Susan Calvin, the original robot psychologist; Stephen Byerley, the humanoid robot; and the famous human/robot detective team of Lije Bailey and R. Daneel Olivaw, who have appeared in such bestselling novels as The Robots of Dawn and Robots and Empire.Let the master himself guide you through the key moments in the fictional history of robot-human relations—from the most primitive computers and mobile machines to the first robot to become a man.(back cover)Contents: Robot Visions • cover and interior artwork by Ralph McQuarrie Introduction: The Robot Chronicles • essay by Isaac Asimov Robot Visions / short story by Isaac Asimov Too Bad! (1989) / short story by Isaac Asimov Robbie (1940) / short story by Isaac Asimov (variant of Strange Playfellow) Reason [Mike Donovan] (1941) / short story by Isaac Asimov Liar! [Susan Calvin] (1941) / short story by Isaac Asimov Runaround [Mike Donovan] (1942) / novelette by Isaac Asimov Evidence [Susan Calvin] (1946) / novelette by Isaac Asimov Little Lost Robot [Susan Calvin] (1947) / novelette by Isaac Asimov The Evitable Conflict [Susan Calvin] (1950) / novelette by Isaac Asimov Feminine Intuition [Susan Calvin] (1969) / novelette by Isaac Asimov The Bicentennial Man (1976) / novelette by Isaac Asimov Someday (1956) / short story by Isaac Asimov Think! (1977) / short story by Isaac Asimov Segregationist (1967) / short story by Isaac Asimov Mirror Image [Elijah Bailey/R. Daneel Olivaw] (1972) / short story by Isaac Asimov Lenny [Susan Calvin] (1958) / short story by Isaac Asimov Galley Slave [Susan Calvin] (1957) / novelette by Isaac Asimov Christmas Without Rodney (1988) / short story by Isaac Asimov Essays by Isaac Asimov: Robots I Have Known (1954); The New Teachers (1976); Whatever You Wish (1977); The Friends We Make (1977); Our Intelligent Tools (1977); The Laws of Robotics (1979); Future Fantastic (1989); The Machine and the Robot (1978); The New Profession (1979); The Robot As Enemy? (1979); Intelligences Together (1979); My Robots (1987); The Laws of Humanics (1987); Cybernetic Organism (1987); The Sense of Humor (1988); Robots in Combination (1988).The volume features many black-and-white illustrations by Ralph McQuarrie.
Bella Mafia
Lynda La Plante - 1990
When a series of murders tear the family apart, its women group get together to gain revenge on those responsible for the carnage.Don Roberto Luciano turns informer for the biggest Mafia trial in history, but his family pays a terrible price. The head of his family, his three sons, his two grandsons and his nephew are all killed leaving the five widows to reclaim their inheritance from a dangerous Mafioso.
The Eye of the World
Robert Jordan - 1990
What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.When The Two Rivers is attacked by Trollocs-a savage tribe of half-men, half-beasts- five villagers flee that night into a world they barely imagined, with new dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light.
To Dance with the White Dog
Terry Kay - 1990
From author Terry Kay."A deftly shaped and vivid book...a tender and bracing tale of an octogenarian fighting to live a connected and purposeful life." ―The New York Times"A hauntingly beautiful story about love, family and relationships...I found it all such a moving experience, a lovely enduring tribute to love." ―The Most Reverend Desmond M. Tutu"Terry Kay is a perfect writer for those who love to read. His prose contains music and passion and fire. His work is tender and heartbreaking and memorable." ―Pat Conroy, New York Times best-selling authorThe elderly Sam Peek is still mourning the death of his beloved wife when a mysterious white dog appears. Seen only by Sam, White Dog becomes a part of Sam's grief. Though it's unclear if White Dog is real or phantom, the creature eases Sam's sorrow, brings him closer to his family, and helps him reconcile with his own mortality.Bestselling author Terry Kay brings Northeast Georgia to life through his elegant prose, and the thought-provoking themes of family, love, and loss will make readers come back to this touching story again and again.Also an Emmy Award-winning Hallmark Hall of Fame movie starring Hume Cronyn and Academy Award-winner Jessica Tandy.
The Solitaire Mystery
Jostein Gaarder - 1990
On the way, Hans Thomas receives a mysterious miniature book—the fantastic memoir of a sailor shipwrecked in 1842 on a strange island where a deck of cards come to life.Structured as a deck of cards—each chapter is one in the deck—"The Solitaire Mystery" weaves together fantasy and reality, fairy tales and family history. Full of questions about the meaning of life, it will spur its listeners to reexamine their own.
Back to Barbary Lane: The Tales of the City Omnibus
Armistead Maupin - 1990
No matter what Maupin writes next, he can look back on the rare achievement of having built a little world and made it run.”—Walter Kendrick, Village Voice Literary Supplement Armistead Maupin's uproarious and moving Tales of the City novels have earned a unique niche in American literature and are considered indelible documents of cultural change from the seventies through the first two decades of the new millennium. The nine classic comedies, some of which originally appeared as serials in San Francisco newspapers, have won Maupin critical acclaim around the world and enthralled legions of devoted fans.Back to Barbary Lane comprises the second omnibus of the series—Babycakes (1984), Significant Others (1987), and Sure of You (1989)—continuing the saga of the tenants, past and present, of Mrs. Madrigal's beloved apartment house on Russian Hill. While the first trilogy celebrated the carefree excesses of the seventies, this volume tracks its hapless, all-too-human cast across the eighties—a decade troubled by plague, deceit, and overweening ambition.Like its companion volumes, 28 Barbary Lane and Goodbye, Barbary Lane, Back to Barbary Lane is distinguished by what The Guardian of London has called "some of the sharpest and most speakable dialogue you are ever likely to read."
Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
Jim TurnerFritz Leiber - 1990
His chilling mythology established a gateway between the known universe and an ancient dimension of otherworldly terror, whose unspeakable denizens and monstrous landscapes - dread Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, the Plateau of Leng, the Mountains of Madness - have earned him a permanent place in the history of the macabre.In Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, a pantheon of horror and fantasy's finest authors pay tribute to the master of the macabre with a collection of original stories set in the fearsome Lovecraft tradition.Contents:- Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn! (1990) by Jim Turner [as by James Turner] - The Call of Cthulhu (1928) by H.P. Lovecraft- The Return of the Sorcerer (1931) by Clark Ashton Smith- Ubbo-Sathla (1933) by Clark Ashton Smith- The Black Stone (1931) by Robert E. Howard- The Hounds of Tindalos (1929) by Frank Belknap Long- The Space-Eaters (1928) by Frank Belknap Long- The Dweller in Darkness (1944) by August Derleth- Beyond the Threshold (1941) by August Derleth- The Shambler from the Stars (1935) by Robert Bloch- The Haunter of the Dark (1936) by H.P. Lovecraft- The Shadow from the Steeple (1950) by Robert Bloch- Notebook Found in a Deserted House (1951) by Robert Bloch- The Salem Horror (1937) by Henry Kuttner- The Terror from the Depths (1976) by Fritz Leiber- Rising with Surtsey (1971) by Brian Lumley- Cold Print (1969) by Ramsey Campbell- The Return of the Lloigor (1969) by Colin Wilson- My Boat (1976) by Joanna Russ- Sticks (1974) by Karl Edward Wagner- The Freshman (1979) by Philip José Farmer- Jerusalem's Lot (1978) by Stephen King- Discovery of the Ghooric Zone (1977) by Richard A. LupoffCover illustration by John Jude Palencar
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
James Tiptree Jr. - 1990
Revisions from the author's notes are included, allowing a deeper view into her world and a better understanding of her work. The Nebula Award–winning short story Love Is the Plan, the Plan Is Death, the Hugo Award–winning novella The Girl Who Was Plugged In, and the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning novella Houston, Houston, Do You Read? are included.The stories of Alice Sheldon, who wrote as James Tiptree Jr. ( Up the Walls of the World ) until her death in 1987, have been heretofore available mostly in out-of-print collections. Thus the 18 accomplished stories here will be welcomed by new readers and old fans. ''The Screwfly Solution'' describes a chilling, elegant answer to the population problem. In ''Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death,'' the title tells the tale--species survival insured by imprinted drives--but the story's force is in its exquisite, lyrical prose and its suggestion that personal uniqueness is possible even within biological imperatives. ''The Girl Who Was Plugged In'' is a future boy-meets-girl story with a twist unexpected by the players. ''The Women Men Don't See '' displays Tiptree's keen insight and ability to depict singularity within the ordinary. In Hugo and Nebula award-winning ''Houston, Houston, Do You Read?'' astronauts flying by the sun slip forward 500 years and encounter a culture that successfully questions gender roles in ours.ContentsIntroduction by Michael SwanwickThe Last Flight of Doctor Ain (1969)The Screwfly Solution (1977)And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side (1972)The Girl Who Was Plugged In (1973)The Man Who Walked Home (1972)And I Have Come Upon This Place by Lost Ways (1972)The Women Men Don’t See (1973)Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light! (1976)Houston, Houston, Do You Read? (1976)With Delicate Mad Hands (1981)A Momentary Taste of Being (1975)We Who Stole the Dream (1978)Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (1974)Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death (1973)On the Last Afternoon (1972)She Waits for All Men Born (1976)Slow Music (1980)And So On, and So On (1971)
Take this Woman
Josephine Cox - 1990
In the tiny front parlour fourteen-year-old Laura Blake watches her beloved father die. But not before he tells her she will make something of her life. Laura never forgets his words. Yet her path to success proves to be a rocky one. Forced to trundle a cart around the back streets, selling other folk's cast-offs to support her family, Laura learns enough to start work in her uncle's furniture shop. But then fate deals another cruel blow when Laura is brutally raped. Bearing the child of her attacker in secret, she vows to make the world pay for its injustice towards her.As she grows older her protective shell hardens even as her beauty blossoms, and her new toughness helps her forge a successful career in the antiques business. But it is in affairs of the heart that Laura stumbles...
Under the Hawthorn Tree
Marita Conlon-McKenna - 1990
The potatoes are black and rotten, and the people have nothing to eat. Eily, Michael and Peggy are alone in their cottage. Their parents went out in search of work and food, but never returned. Now the children must fend for themselves. Desperate to avoid being sent to the workhouse, they set out on a journey to find their great-aunts. On their journey, they encounter the devastation caused by famine people scrabbling for food, abandoned children, soup kitchens, beggars, disease, wild dogs, death. Led by twelve-year-old Eily, the children use all their strength and ingenuity to survive and find their way to Castletaggart.
Trial
Clifford Irving - 1990
A twisting, relentless thriller, Trial follows Texas lawyer Warren Blackburn as he defends two accused murderers in two separate cases. One of his clients is a former beauty queen and brazen owner of a topless nightclub, who shot her multimillionaire doctor lover - she claims - in self-defense; the other is a homeless illegal alien accused of killing a man for his wallet. Without warning, the two cases merge and become one, and Warren's entire life and career are threatened. William Safire in The New York Times called this "the novel of the year."
With Love From Ma Maguire
Ruth Hamilton - 1990
For although Philly and Richard were on opposite sides of the mill floor, they recognised - both of them - that they were equally matched in strength of character and the capacity for overwhelming sexual passion.
Thus began the forty years of conflict between the two families - the Swainbanks, cushioned by wealth but tearing each other to pieces with the violence of their emotions - and the Maguires, proud, betrayed, and led by the vibrant and magnificent Philly.
A major saga of the Lancashire cotton mills - of the strong, violent, real people who both owned them, and worked in them - and of the dangerous things that love can do to families throughout the generations.
Weatherman
Lois McMaster Bujold - 1990
When the commander orders his men to enter a facility that is leaking poisonous radiation, the men revolt, and it's up to Miles to use his wits to avoid a massacre. A story later incorporated into the Hugo Award-winning novel THE VOR GAME.NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHORBujold's "work remains among the most enjoyable and rewarding in contemporary SF."- Publishers Weekly“Bujold has a gift, nearly unique in science fiction, for the comedy of manners.” - Chicago Sun Times“Bujold is not just a master of plot, she is a master of emotion.”- SF Site"Bujold is one of the best writers of SF adventures to come along in years."- LocusLois McMaster Bujold was born in 1949, the daughter of an engineering professor at Ohio State University, from whom she picked up her early interest in science fiction. She now lives in Minneapolis, and has two grown children. She began writing with the aim of professional publication in 1982. She wrote three novels in three years; in October of 1985, all three sold to Baen Books, launching her career. Bujold went on to write many other books for Baen, mostly featuring her popular character Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, his family, friends, and enemies. Her books have been translated into over twenty languages. Her fantasy from Eos includes the award-winning Chalion series and the Sharing Knife series.
Immortality
Milan Kundera - 1990
It is one of those great unclassifiable masterpieces that appear once every twenty years or so.'It will make you cleverer, maybe even a better lover. Not many novels can do that.' Nicholas Lezard, GQ
September
Rosamunde Pilcher - 1990
The invitations summon home the group of people Violet Aird has cared for most in her long life. The oldest, strongest and wisest of them all, she sees Alexa, her vulnerable granddaughter, find love for the first time, while the decision to send her little grandson away to school is driving parents Edmund and Virginia even further apart. Far from them all is Pandora, the glamorous, exciting girl who ran away twenty years before. All will converge on Scotland this September.
The Things They Carried
Tim O'Brien - 1990
In this, his second work of fiction about Vietnam, O'Brien's unique artistic vision is again clearly demonstrated. Neither a novel nor a short story collection, it is an arc of fictional episodes, taking place in the childhoods of its characters, in the jungles of Vietnam and back home in America two decades later.
Expedition: Being an Account in Words and Artwork of the 2358 A.D. Voyage to Darwin IV
Wayne Barlowe - 1990
Now his long-awaited account of that historic journey has been published. More vivid than the holos and more interpretive than the videos, these extraordinary paintings, plus numerous drawings, studies, and sketchbook pages, transport the reader to a wild, beautiful, untouched world-a planet teeming with incredible beasts and exotic vegetation.Expedition is the most important travel book of the 24th century. Selection of the Science Fiction Book Club and the Astronomy Book Club.
Works of Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens - 1990
An active table of contents makes it easy to navigate the book and find the work you are looking for. Works include: American Notes for General Circulation/Barnaby Rudge/The Battle of Life/Bleak House/A Budget of Christmas Tales/Captain Boldheart & the Latin-Grammar Master/A Child's History of England/The Chimes/A Christmas Carol/Contributions to All the Year Round/The Cricket on the Hearth/David Copperfield/Doctor Marigold/Dombey and Son/George Silverman's Explanation/Going into Society/Great Expectations/Hard Times/The Haunted Man and the Ghost's BargainHoliday RomanceThe Holly-Tree/Hunted Down/The Lamplighter/Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices/Letters of Charles Dickens: Volume 1/Letters of Charles Dickens: Volume 2/Letters of Charles Dickens: Volume 3/The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit/The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby/Little Dorrit/The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman/The Magic Fishbone/Master Humphrey's Clock/A Message from the Sea/Miscellaneous Papers/Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy/Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings/Mudfog and Other Sketches/Mugby Junction/The Mystery of Edwin Drood/No Thoroughfare/The Old Curiosity Shop/Oliver Twist/Our Mutual Friend/The Perils of Certain English Prisoners/The Pickwick Papers/Pictures from Italy/Reprinted Pieces/The Seven Poor Travelers/Sketches by Boz/Sketches of Young Couples/Sketches of Young Gentlemen/Somebody's Luggage/Some Christmas Stories/Speeches: Literary and Social/Sunday Under Three Heads/A Tale of Two Cities/Tales from Dickens/Three Ghost Stories/To Be Read At Dusk/Tom Tiddler's Ground/The Uncommercial Traveller/The Wreck of the Golden Mary
The Hawk and the Dove
Penelope Wilcock - 1990
Father Peregrine is appointed Abbot of St Alcuin's Benedictine abbey. An arrogant, impatient man, a hawk trying hard to be a dove - his name in religion is "Columba" - he is respected, but not loved. A sudden, shocking act of violence changes everything. As the story unfolds, this community of monks, serious about their calling but as flawed and human as we are, come to love their ascetic but now vulnerable leader. They lived six centuries ago, yet their struggles are our own. Finding our niche; coping with failure; living with impossible people; and discovering that we are the impossible ones.
Bilbo's Last Song
J.R.R. Tolkien - 1990
As Bilbo Baggins takes his final voyage to the Undying Lands, he must say goodbye to Middle-earth. Poignant and lyrical, the song is both a longing to set forth on his ultimate journey and a tender farewell to friends left behind. Pauline Baynes’s jewel-like illustrations lushly depict both this final voyage and scenes from The Hobbit, as Bilbo remembers his first journey while he prepares for his last.
As the Crow Flies
Jeffrey Archer - 1990
That day comes suddenly when his grandfather dies leaving him the floundering business. With the help of Becky Salmon, an enterprising young woman, Charlie sets out to make a name for himself as "The Honest Trader". But the brutal onset of World War I takes Charlie far from home and into the path of a dangerous enemy whose legacy of evil follows Charlie and his family for generations.Encompassing three continents and spanning over sixty years, As the Crow Flies brings to life a magnificent tale of one man's rise from rags to riches set against the backdrop of a changing century.
Kindred Crimes
Janet Dawson - 1990
Jeri Howard finds herself investigating in a puzzling missing persons case that sprawls throughout the grittier sections of Northern California. For a woman who told her husband she had no relatives, Renee Foster’s actually well-stocked with them….and doozies at that. The whole family—criminals, abusers, and kindly aunts alike-- comes alive in Janet Dawson’s first novel, prompting the New York Times to hail it as “a welcome addition to this tough genre.” There’s clearly a lot more here than the simple matter of a wife disappearing with the grocery money. Smelling a rat or two right from the beginning of this complex and intriguing mystery, the red-haired private detective follows many a twisty trail as Dawson weaves an equally twisty tale, which, to the reader’s delight, just keeps winding back on itself, revealing brand new secrets as fast as ancient skeletons can fall out of closets. Dawson’s Oakland is damp and properly sinister and Jeri’s as savvy as Sam Spade, with something of Spade’s seen-it-all outlook. What she doesn't know, her chic lawyer pal, Cassie, can supply; and her cop ex-husband’s on hand to make trouble. As winner of Private Eye Writers of America’s jointly sponsored contest with St. Martin’s Press for Best First Private Eye Novel, KINDRED CRIMES was a sensation even before it was published. It quickly went on to garner Shamus, Anthony, and Macavity nominations. Fans of female sleuths like Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone will particularly enjoy it, as well as aficionados of Marcia Muller’s fellow Bay Area detective, Sharon McCone.
The Witching Hour
Anne Rice - 1990
and The Witching Hour begins.It begins in our time with a rescue at sea. Rowan Mayfair, a beautiful woman, a brilliant practitioner of neurosurgery—aware that she has special powers but unaware that she comes from an ancient line of witches—finds the drowned body of a man off the coast of California and brings him to life. He is Michael Curry, who was born in New Orleans and orphaned in childhood by fire on Christmas Eve, who pulled himself up from poverty, and who now, in his brief interval of death, has acquired a sensory power that mystifies and frightens him.As these two, fiercely drawn to each other, fall in love and—in passionate alliance—set out to solve the mystery of her past and his unwelcome gift, the novel moves backward and forward in time from today's New Orleans and San Francisco to long-ago Amsterdam and a château in the France of Louis XIV. An intricate tale of evil unfolds—an evil unleashed in seventeenth-century Scotland, where the first "witch," Suzanne of the Mayfair, conjures up the spirit she names Lasher... a creation that spells her own destruction and torments each of her descendants in turn.From the coffee plantations of Port au Prince, where the great Mayfair fortune is made and the legacy of their dark power is almost destroyed, to Civil War New Orleans, as Julien—the clan's only male to be endowed with occult powers—provides for the dynasty its foothold in America, the dark, luminous story encompasses dramas of seduction and death, episodes of tenderness and healing. And always—through peril and escape, tension and release—there swirl around us the echoes of eternal war: innocence versus the corruption of the spirit, sanity against madness, life against death. With a dreamlike power, the novel draws us, through circuitous, twilight paths, to the present and Rowan's increasingly inspired and risky moves in the merciless game that binds her to her heritage. And in New Orleans, on Christmas Eve, this strangest of family sagas is brought to its startling climax.
Parable of the Sower / Parable of the Talents / Kindred
Octavia E. Butler - 1990
Final Approach
John J. Nance - 1990
Nance In the control tower at Kansas City International Airport, all the radar displays are red. But for the experienced pilots of North America Airlines, the thunderstorms aren’t the problem: NAA has been cutting costs to stave off bankruptcy, and will do anything to keep their planes in the air. Unfortunately, no matter what they do, one is on its way down. After the aircraft collides with another plane on the Kansas City runway, in one of the worst aviation disasters of the decade, National Transportation Safety Board investigator Joe Wallingford arrives on the scene. As he studies the wreckage and pieces together the events that led to the tragedy, he realizes there’s far more at play than pilot error or equipment malfunction. Wallingford will have to risk his career—and perhaps even his life—to solve the puzzle of the crash.
Two For Three Farthings
Mary Jane Staples - 1990
Slightly against his better judgement he took them in, fed them cocoa, and put them to sleep in his bed. A few days later he found that - somehow - he had become the unofficial guardian of Horace and Ethel. It was him, the orphanage, or separation for the gutsy little pair who would have to be farmed out to anyone who would take them, and Jim felt a sudden affinity for the two cheeky cockney kids. The first thing he had to do was find fresh lodgings for them all.Miss Rebecca Pilgrim was a woman of strict Victorian principles, eminently respectable, and determined to keep her privacy intact. She had reckoned without her new lodgers - Horace, Ethel and, above all, the irrepressible Jim Cooper. And thus began the humanizing of Miss Pilgrim, who turned out to be younger, prettier, and far gentler than any of them had suspected.
Novels 1936–1940: Absalom, Absalom! / The Unvanquished / If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem / The Hamlet
William Faulkner - 1990
They explore the tragic and comic aspects of a South haunted by its past and uncertain of its future.In the intricate, spellbinding masterpiece Absalom, Absalom! (1936), Quentin Compson descends into a vortex of images, voices, passions, and doomed desires as he and his Harvard roommate re-create the story of Thomas Sutpen and the insane ambitions, romantic hopes, and distortions of honor and conscience that trap Sutpen and those around him, until their grief and pride and fate become the inescapable and unbearable legacy of a past that is not dead and not even past.In seven episodes, The Unvanquished (1938) recounts the ordeals and triumphs of the Sartoris family during and after the Civil War as seen through the maturing consciousness of young Bayard Sartoris. The indomitable Granny Millard, the honor-driven patriarch Colonel Sartoris, the quick-witted and inventive Ringo, the ferociously heroic Drusilla, and the scheming, mendacious Ab Snopes embody the inheritance that Bayard must reconcile with a new, but diminished, South.If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem (published in 1939 as The Wild Palms) tells of desperate lovers fleeing convention and of a convict escaping the chaos of passion. In “The Wild Palms,” an emotional and geographic odyssey ends in a Mississippi coastal town. In counterpoint, “Old Man” recounts the adventures of an inarticulate “tall convict” swept to freedom by a raging Mississippi flood, but who then fights to return to his simple prison life.In The Hamlet (1940), the first book of the great Snopes family trilogy, the outrageous scheming energy of Flem Snopes and his relatives is vividly and hilariously juxtaposed with the fragile communal customs of Frenchman’s Bend. Here are Ike Snopes, in love with a cow, the sexual adventures of Eula Varner Snopes, and the wild saturnalia of the spotted horses auction, a comic masterpiece.The Library of America edition of Faulkner’s work publishes for the first time new, corrected texts of The Unvanquished, If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem, and The Hamlet. (The corrected text of Absalom, Absalom! was published by Random House in 1986.) Manuscripts, typescripts, galleys, and published editions have been collated to produce versions that are faithful to Faulkner’s intentions and free of the changes introduced by subsequent editors.
The First Man in Rome
Colleen McCullough - 1990
The reader is swept into the whirlpool of pageantry, passion, splendor, chaos and earth-shattering upheaval that was ancient Rome. Here is the story of Marius, wealthy but lowborn, and Sulla, aristocratic but penniless and debauched -- extraordinary men of vision whose ruthless ambition will lay the foundations of the most awesome and enduring empire known to humankind.A towering saga of great events and mortal frailties, it is peopled with a vast, and vivid cast of unforgettable men and women -- soldiers and senators, mistresses and wives, kings and commoners -- combined in a richly embroidered human tapestry to bring a remarkable era to bold and breathtaking life.
Falkenberg's Legion
Jerry Pournelle - 1990
Soon they will rip the Codomminium apart—and Earth will die.In the face of that inevitability the fate of humanity lies with the Colony Worlds—a few of which are equipped for more than barest survival. Thrown upon their own resources, their futures seem as limited as their pasts. They—and humanity—have one hope: that somehow, someone will have both the vision and the strength to grasp the tattered remnants of civilization and weld them into a single galaxy-spanning society.
Venom
Colin Falconer - 1990
I will survive and come back to haunt you. All of you ... A beautiful French girl and her Indian lover locked in the white heat of illicit passion. The result is Michel. Thrown out onto the dangerous streets, he grows to ferocious manhood in the alleys of Saigon.He survives to wreak the most extreme vengeance for every beating, every betrayal. Possessed of a raw sexuality and the flair of a master criminal, driven by a pitiless hidden violence, he leaves a trail of blood that stretches from the backstreets of Bombay even to the boulevards of Paris. But when the judge's gavel cracks across a Delhi courtroom and the world waits for justice, his destiny will hang on one last ironic twist of fate ... "Exotic, exciting, darkly suspenseful - a splendid novel." - Campbell Armstrong.
Gold Coast
Nelson DeMille - 1990
Here two men are destined for an explosive collision: John Sutter, Wall Street lawyer, holding fast to a fading aristocratic legacy; and Frank Bellarosa, the Mafia don who seizes his piece of the staid and unprepared Gold Coast like a latter-day barbarian chief and draws Sutter and his regally beautiful wife, Susan, into his violent world. Told from Sutter's sardonic and often hilarious point of view, and laced with sexual passion and suspense, The Gold Coast is Nelson DeMille's captivating story of friendship and seduction, love and betrayal.
Stephen King 6: The Bachman Books/Thinner/The Tommyknockers
Stephen King - 1990
Complete Short Stories
Graham Greene - 1990
Including four previously uncollected stories, this new complete edition reveals Graham Greene in a range of contrasting moods, sometimes cynical and witty, sometimes searching and philosophical. Each of these forty-nine stories confirms V. S. Pritchett’s declaration that Greene is “a master of storytelling.”This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by Pico Iyer.
Tigana
Guy Gavriel Kay - 1990
It is the tale of a people so cursed by the black sorcery of a cruel despotic king that even the name of their once-beautiful homeland cannot be spoken or remembered... But years after the devastation, a handful of courageous men and women embark upon a dangerous crusade to overthrow their conquerors and bring back to the dark world the brilliance of a long-lost name...Tigana. Against the magnificently rendered background of a world both sensuous and barbaric, this sweeping epic of a passionate people pursuing their dream is breathtaking in its vision, changing forever the boundaries of fantasy fiction.
Collected Stories
Wallace Stegner - 1990
Each of the thirty-one stories contained in this volume embody some of the best virtues and values to be found in contemporary fiction, demonstrating why the author is acclaimed as one of America's master storytellers.The traveler --Buglesong --Beyond the glass mountain --The berry patch --The women on the wall --Balance his, swing yours --Saw gang --Goin' to town --The view from the balcony --Volcano --Two rivers --Hostage --In the twilight --Butcher bird --The double corner --The colt --The Chink --Chip off the old block --The sweetness of the twisted apples --The blue-winged teal --Pop goes the alley cat --Maiden in a tower --Impasse --The volunteer --A field guide to the western birds --Something spurious from the Mindanao Deep --Genesis --The wolfer --Carrion spring --He who spits at the sky --The city of the living.
The Sisters O'Donnell
Lyn Andrews - 1990
New lives. New troubles. Throughout County Tipperary the three sisters were known as the Sisters O'Donnell. They all have red hair, but little else in common. Together they move to Liverpool in the 1920s to make a new life for themselves - although each sister intends to go about it in her own sweet way. Gina wants to be a star of the theatre, Mary-Kate wants to find a husband, and Bridget, shy, gentle Bridget, just wants to escape the Troubles.But when they get to Liverpool they realise that fame and fortune are thin on the ground as, indeed, is work. And their money is running out fast... The sisters have a long way to go before they fulfil their dreams - will the bonds of sisterhood be enough to hold them together?
At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom: Stories
Amy Hempel - 1990
Amy Hempel's collection of 16 stories seems to ask: "What if people could be just a little more like dogs - -forever loyal, ardent and loving in our hearts?"
Message from Nam
Danielle Steel - 1990
We follow her from high school in Savannah to college in Berkeley and then to work in Saigon.For the soldiers she knew and met there, Viet Nam would change their lives in ways they could never have imagined. For the men in her life, Viet Nam would change their lives in ways hey could not escape or deny. Peter Wilson, fresh from law school, was a new recruit who would confont his fate in Da Nang. Ralph Johnson, a seasoned AP correspondent, had been in Saigon since the beginning. He knew Vietnam and the war inside out. Bill Quinn, captain of the Cu Chi tunnel rats, was on his fourth tour of duty and it seemed nothing could touch him. Sergeant Tony Campobello had come to Vietnam from the streets of New York to vent a rage that had followed him all the way to Saigon.For seven years Paxton Andrews would write an acclaimed newspaper column from the front before finally returning to the States and then attending the Paris peace talks. But for her and the men who fought in Viet Nam, life would never be the same again.
Borgel
Daniel Pinkwater - 1990
Melvin Spellbound's humdrum life suddenly becomes extraordinary when 111-year-old Borgel arrives and takes him and the talking dog, Fafner, on a rollicking trip through Time, Space, and The Other in search of The Great Popsicle, Anthropoid Bloboforms and Grivnizoids!
The Events at Poroth Farm
T.E.D. Klein - 1990
He rents an outbuilding from Mennonite couple Sarr and Deborah Poroth, and at first his holiday is happy and productive, but then odd things begin to happen...
Stone Junction
Jim Dodge - 1990
An assortment of sages sharpen Daniel's wide-eyed outlook until he has the concentration of a card shark Zeta master, via apprenticeships in meditation, safecracking, poker, and the art of walking through walls. Wizards are made, not born, and this unconventional education sets Daniel on the trail of mysteries ancient and modern.A strange, six-pound diamond sphere held by the U.S. government in a New Mexico vault, rumored to be the Philosopher's Stone or the Holy Grail, becomes the AMO's obsession. In time, Daniel perfects his powers and heads off to steal the magic stone, and what happens changes his life forever.Stone Junction is a bravura act of storytelling, both a free-spirited adventure and a parable about the powers within all of us.
The House Of Bonneau
Elvi Rhodes - 1990
They knew they had struggles of a practical nature ahead of them - trying to build the bankrupt mill into a new and thriving business - but Madeleine felt that, providing everything was right between her and Leon, they could face whatever lay ahead. But trouble and disruption were still to be part of her future - for Leon's family in France bitterly resented the Yorkshire girl who had taken their son away from them. And Hortense Murer, who had thought she would be Leon's wife, resented her even more. And over all hung the shadow of a foolish curse made by her old enemy, Sophia Parkinson - that Madeleine would never bear a son - a curse that, against all the tenets of common sense, seemed to be coming true.
Like Life
Lorrie Moore - 1990
These men and women, unsettled and adrift and often frightened, can't quite understand how they arrived at their present situations. Harry has been reworking a play for years in his apartment near Times Square in New York. Jane is biding her time at a cheese shop in a Midwest mall. Dennis, unhappily divorced, buries himself in self-help books about healthful food and healthy relationships. One prefers to speak on the phone rather than face his friends, another lets the answering machine do all the talking. But whether rejected, afraid to commit, bored, disillusioned or just misunderstood, even the most hard-bitten are not without some abiding trust in love.
Jurassic Park
Michael Crichton - 1990
Now humankind’s most thrilling fantasies have come true. Creatures extinct for eons roam Jurassic Park with their awesome presence and profound mystery, and all the world can visit them—for a price. Until something goes wrong. . . . In Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton taps all his mesmerizing talent and scientific brilliance to create his most electrifying technothriller.
Breaking Ice: An Anthology of Contemporary African-American Fiction
Terry McMillanJ. California Cooper - 1990
Williams- Al Young
Three Jim Chee Mysteries: People of Darkness / The Dark Wind / The Ghostway
Tony Hillerman - 1990
In The Dark Wind, a seemingly routine stakeout at a vandalized windmill thrusts Chee into the center of a dangerous web of drugs, witchcraft, and betrayal. And in The Ghostway, a felon relocated under the Federal Witness Relocation Program sets off a chain of treachery and killings, and only Chee has the knowledge of the people and the landscape to understand the clues.
Friend of My Youth
Alice Munro - 1990
An adulterous couple stepping over the line where the initial excitement ends and the pain begins. A widow visiting a Scottish village in search of her husband's past - and instead discovering unsettling truths about a total stranger. The ten stories in this collection not only astonish and delight but also convey the unspoken mysteries at the heart of all human experience.
I Cannot Get You Close Enough: Three Novellas
Ellen Gilchrist - 1990
But the passionate, independent Rhoda begins to realize that life is more than her comfortable, secure existence would suggest. As Rhoda strains against the confinements of home and family, she becomes reckless, flinging herself on a rebellious course toward destruction.
The Presence
T. Davis Bunn - 1990
Case, a North Carolina lawyer and politician, soon finds himself propelled into the middle of Washington politics in an effort to help reshape twisted lives and challenge corrupt systems.
A Place Called Home
Lori Wick - 1990
With the death of her grandfather, Christine experienced a deep loneliness she'd never felt before.The words of his will rang in her ears: "In the event of my granddaughter's death, everything will go to Vince Jeffers." Jeffers watched her with an evil look that made her shiver.Now, afraid of what might happen, she was obeying a note she had received saying she was in danger and must leave town immediately.After escaping to the community of Baxter, Christine begins to piece together a new life. The love she finds there, along with newfound faith, sustains her as she faces the threat of danger.
Sweet Talk
Stephanie Vaughn - 1990
Readers have come to these stories over the years through word of mouth, posting glowing reviews to their Goodreads pages and on their blogs—unanimously agreeing that this collection is a modern classic that deserves to be in print. Crafted in graceful, honest prose, Vaughn’s stories go straight to the heart of how people live, grow and survive.
The Great Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan Doyle - 1990
Watson grapple with treachery, murder, and ingenious crimes of all kinds. But no case is too challenging, no mystery insoluble, for the immortal detective's unique powers of dedution.(back cover)Solitary cyclist --Charles Augustus Milverton --Black Peter --Golden pince-nez --Priory school --Beryl coronet --Engineer's thumb --Red-headed league.
Animal Dreams
Barbara Kingsolver - 1990
If you want sweet dreams, you've got to live a sweet life." So says Loyd Peregrina, a handsome Apache trainman and latter-day philosopher. But when Codi Noline returns to her hometown, Loyd's advice is painfully out of her reach. Dreamless and at the end of her rope, Codi comes back to Grace, Arizona to confront her past and face her ailing, distant father. What she finds is a town threatened by a silent environmental catastrophe, some startling clues to her own identity, and a man whose view of the world could change the course of her life. Blending flashbacks, dreams, and Native American legends, Animal Dreams is a suspenseful love story and a moving exploration of life's largest commitments. With this work, the acclaimed author of The Bean Trees and Homeland and Other Stories sustains her familiar voice while giving readers her most remarkable book yet.
Circle of Friends
Maeve Binchy - 1990
Their one thought is to get to Dublin, to university and to freedom...On their first day at University College, Dublin, the inseparable pair are thrown together with fellow students Nan Mahon, beautiful but selfish, and handsome Jack Foley. But trouble is brewing for Benny and Eve's new circle of friends, and before long, they find passion, tragedy - and the independence they yearned for.
Skinny Legs and All
Tom Robbins - 1990
This is a gutsy, fun-loving, and provocative novel in which a bean can philosophises, a dessert spoon mystifies, a young waitress takes on the New York art world, and a rowdy redneck welder discovers the lost god of Palestine.
Nightfall
Isaac Asimov - 1990
The story was called "Nightfall", and many years later it has long been recognized as a classic, its author a legend. Now, the Gran Master of Science Fiction teams with Robert Silverberg, one of the field's top award-winning authors, to explore and expand an apocalyptic tale that is more spellbinding today than ever before -- Nightfall: The Novel.Imagine living on a planet with six suns that never experiences Darkness. Imagine never having seen the Stars. Then, one by one the suns start to set, gradually leading into Darkness for the first time ever. Kalgash is a world on the edge of chaos, torn between the madness of religious fanaticism and the unyielding rationalism of scientists. Lurking beneath it all is a collective, instinctual fear of the Darkness. For Kalgash knows only the perpetual light of day; to its inhabitants, a gathering twilight portends unspeakable horror. And only a handful of people on the planet are prepared to face the truth, their six suns are setting all at once for the first time in over two thousand years, signaling the end of civilization as it explodes in the awesome splendor of Nightfall.Encompassing the psychology of disaster, the tenacity of the human spirit, and, ultimately, the regenerative power of hope, Nightfall is a tale rich in character and suspense that only the unique collaboration of Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg could create.
The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts
Louis de Bernières - 1990
When the haughty Dona Constanza decides to divert a river to fill her swimming pool, the consequences are at once tragic, heroic, and outrageously funny.
The Cat Who...: Could Read Backwards; Ate Danish Modern; Turned On and Off
Lilian Jackson Braun - 1990
Three complete and unabridged novels featuring Jim Quillerin and his brilliant Siamese cat Koko.
Crow and Weasel
Barry Lopez - 1990
Set in the mythic past and inspired by the traditions of the North American Plains people, this fable of self-discovery follows Crow and Weasel as they face unfamiliar perils on a quest for knowledge and wisdom. Conquering their innermost fears, the two heroes come of age and learn more than they ever could have imagined--about humanity's relationship to the land, the importance of respecting other peoples and giving thanks, and even the ery nature of friendship itself.
Longshot
Dick Francis - 1990
A starving writer turns to work that will at least pay the bills, but he soon discovers the perils of rural England. His agent had warned that his impulses would kill him, but he didn't listen--not by a longshot.
Fantastic Tales
Mircea Eliade - 1990
One is set in Bucharest in 1944, another in the Transylvanian Alps, and the third in the Greek Isles. As a study aid this is intended primarily for English speaking people who have some knowledge of Romanian, but it could also be useful to Romanian students of English.
Tower of Babylon
Ted Chiang - 1990
During his journey, Hillalum discovers entire civilizations of tower-dwellers on the tower—there are those who live inside the mists of clouds, those who raise their vegetables above the sun, and those who have spent their lives under the oppressive weight of an endless, white stratum at the top of the universe. “Tower of Babylon” is a rare gem—a winner of the prestigious Nebula award, the first story Ted Chiang ever published, and the brilliant opening piece to Chiang’s much-lauded first collection, Stories of Your Life and Others, which is soon to be a major motion picture starring Amy Adams. An eBook short.
Friedman's Fables (with Booklet)
Edwin H. Friedman - 1990
Friedman has woven 24 illustrative tales that offer fresh perspectives on familiar human foibles and reflect the author's humor, pathos, and understanding. Friedman takes on resistance and other "demons" to show that neither insight, nor encouragement, nor intimidation can in themselves motivate an unmotivated person to change. These tales playfully demonstrate that new ideas, new questions, and imagination, more than accepted wisdom, provide each of us with the keys to overcoming stubborn emotional barriers and facilitating real change both in ourselves and others. Thought-provoking discussion questions for each fable are included. Sure to intrigue and inform, this book belongs in the resource library of public speakers, teachers, trainers, and clergy, as well as general readers.
The Fever
Wallace Shawn - 1990
While visiting a poverty-stricken country far from home, the unnamed narrator of The Fever is forced to witness the political persecution occurring just beyond a hotel window. In examining a life of comfort and relative privilege, the narrator reveals, “I always say to my friends, We should be glad to be alive. We should celebrate life. We should understand that life is wonderful.” But how does one celebrate life—take pleasure in beauty, for instance—while slowly becoming aware that the poverty and oppression of other human beings are a direct consequence of one’s own pleasurable life? In a coruscating monologue, The Fever is most of all an eloquent meditation on whether it is possible to live in an ethical relationship with others in the world.
The Stories Of Tobias Wolff
Tobias Wolff - 1990
Tobias Wolff is the author of In Pharoah's Army and This Boy's Life.
Bitter Sweet
LaVyrle Spencer - 1990
To be there for her teenaged daughter. And to face life again. When she returned to her Wisconsin hometown, she never expected to feel a spark of longing-for her old high school sweetheart ...ERICHis marriage to a driven career woman had left him childless and unhappy-he knew there had to be more to life than always wanting what you couldn't have. Seeing Maggie again filled him with hope. Maybe the answer to his dreams had just come to town....Their memory of young love blossomed into an affair that would shake both their lives-and would challenge everything; they believed about loving each other. Could they follow a dream from the past? Or had they missed the chance of a lifetime?
The Walled Orchard
Tom Holt - 1990
and achieves a deeply felt authenticity' NEW YORK TIMES
Escapes
Joy Williams - 1990
These prize winning stories confirm what readers of 'State Of Grace' and 'Taking Care' already suspected: that Joy Williams is a writer of unparalleled empathy and emotional candor, who can render the 'hopeless and uncomprehending love' between a little girl and her alcoholic mother, the panicky restlessness of a couple trying to outrun the exhaustion of their marriage, or the quiet unease of a man watching a vintage car disintegrate in his living room with a sureness of pitch that it at once heartbreaking and elating.
An Omnibus: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant / The Accidental Tourist / Breathing Lessons
Anne Tyler - 1990
This first omnibus edition of three full-length novels, all set in the respectable Baltimore streets she has made so particularly her own, encompasses the range of eccentricities and compromises to which they are driven. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant follows the disintegration and eventual reaffirmation of the Tull family - fierce, embittered Pearl, left by Beck to raise handsome, thrusting Cody, Jenny, the pediatrician losing herself in devotion to others, and docile Ezra, whose attempts to unite them all around a table at his eccentric Homesick Restaurant are the focus of their differences and their bond. In The Accidental Tourist, Macon - a man of habit and routine, who writes guide books for businessmen who hate to leave home - is confronted by chaos in his own family life. Between aching sadness and glorious absurdity, Macon hesitantly emerges from his sage cocoon into the vibrant, unpredictable world of the outrageous Muriel...And Breathing Lessons, which won the Pulitzer Prize, lays bare the anatomy of a marriage. On the round trip to a friend's funeral, Maggie and Ira Moran make detours literal and metaphorical - into the lives of grown children, old friends, total strangers and their own past - and, despite Ira's disappointments and Maggie's optimistic determination to rearrange life as she would like it to be, an old married couple fall in love all over again.
Black for Remembrance
Carlene Thompson - 1990
Twenty years ago, her five-year-old daughter, Hayley, was the light of her life, her treasure, her angle. Then came the terrible day when Hayley was kidnapped from her favorite swing. More than a month passed before her burned, lifeless body was found. All that remained was the silence of Caroline's heartache--and her guilt...Now, Caroline has started over with a new husband. She even has another precious daughter, Melinda. She thinks she has put the ghosts of her past behind her. But without warning, those ghosts once again start to echo in the night. Suddenly, Hayley's favorite doll reappears...strange murders rock the Webbs' small town...Caroline even claims she has heard the voice of the little girl she lost all those years ago. Could Hayley still be out there somewhere, somehow? Now a killer waits in the wings--waiting to make Caroline live her worst nightmare yet...
The Art Lover
Carole Maso - 1990
Caroline, the novel's protagonist, returns to New York after the death of her father ostensibly to wrap things up and take care of necessary "business" where her memory and imagination conspire to lay before her all her griefs and joys in a rebellious progression. In different voices, employing a collage-like fragmentation, Maso gently unfolds The Art Lover in much the same way the fragile and prehistoric fiddlehead fern unfolds throughout the novel, bringing with subtle grace the ever-entangled feelings of grief and love into full and tender view. Various illustrations throughout.
The Cooper Kids
Frank E. Peretti - 1990
Four-volume set of Frank Peretti's "Indiana Jones-style" adventure stories that build sound values in kids while keeping them glued to their seats.
The Books of Great Alta
Jane Yolen - 1990
Of the tragic myths and glorious histories that time will make of their lives--and their deaths.
Kirsten's Boxed Set
Janet Beeler Shaw - 1990
Everything looks so different from the life Kirsten knew back in Sweden--the ways people talk and dress seem strange! Getting lost in a big city and parting with her best friend only add to Kirsten’s worry. Will she ever feel at home here? It is only when the Larsons arrive at a tiny farm on the edge of the frontier that Kirsten believes Papa’s promise--America will be a land filled with opportunity for them all.6 book boxed set featuring 1854 Kirsten, An American Girl.
Collected Stories
John Cheever - 1990
Stories of love and of squalor, they include masterpieces such as 'The Swimmer' and 'Goodbye, My Brother' and date from the time of his honourable discharge from the Army at the end of the Second World War.
The Face of a Stranger
Anne Perry - 1990
But the accident that felled him has left him with only half a life; his memory and his entire past have vanished. As he tries to hide the truth, Monk returns to work and is assigned to investigate the brutal murder of a Crimean War hero and man about town. Which makes Monk's efforts doubly difficult, since he's forgotten his professional skills along with everything else...
The Coast of Chicago
Stuart Dybek - 1990
A child's collection of bottle caps becomes the tombstones of a graveyard. A lowly rightfielder's inexplicable death turns him into a martyr to baseball. Strains of Chopin floating down the tenement airshaft are transformed into a mysterious anthem of loss. Combining homely detail and heartbreakingly familiar voices with grand leaps of imagination, The Coast of Chicago is a masterpiece from one of America's most highly regarded writers.
The Gillyvors
Catherine Cookson - 1990
By all appearances they were a close and loving family. Yet across the happy facade lay a shadow that had lengthened and darkened with the passing years. For the father and mother were not husband and wife, which meant that, to the narrow and bigoted minds of the Victorian rural community, the offspring of Nathaniel Martell and Maria Dagshaw were base-born gillyvors - in country parlance, bastards.Anna, the elder daughter, was entering womanhood resolved to face the legacy of her birth and the challenges it must continue to bring her. Her journey through life would not be an easy one and only her inborn courage and zest for life would sustain her quest for fulfilment and happiness.
Brian Boru: Emperor of the Irish
Morgan Llywelyn - 1990
His people, plagued by warfare, were weary not only from the Vikings' brutal raids along the coast, but also from the continuous warring among local chieftains. The Irish had become a downtrodden race.But a real-life hero changed the destiny of Ireland. This is the story of Brian Boru, who as a young man took it upon himself to revolutionize tenth-century Ireland, striving to create a peaceful land where his fellow Irish men and women cold be safe from harm. And succeed he did. Brian, crowned High King, restored peace and fostered prosperity in the country that was his home--and his heart. Brian Boru: Emperor of the Irish is a beautiful and compelling true story of Irish history.
Lamplight on the Thames
Pamela Evans - 1990
Since the end of the war, when Bob Brown had taken over the car workshop in London, Frank Bennett had been trying to get his hands on it. An East Ender made good, Frank was determined to get the prime site - whatever the cost.As children, Bob's daughter Bella and Frank's son Dezi became unlikely friends, though both families disapproved. Years later, their love blossomed, and it seemed that nothing, not even the feud between their fathers, could prevent their marriage. Until Bob's tragic death and his dying request to Bella . . .
The Woman Lit by Fireflies
Jim Harrison - 1990
Across the odd contours of the American landscape -- Jim Harrison's country -- its natives search for the incandescent beneath the ordinary in three novellas: Brown Dog, Sunset Limited, and The Woman Lit by Fireflies.
Losing Joe's Place
Gordon Korman - 1990
No rules. No problems.Right?Wrong.And Jason's brother hasn't even found out what happened to his apartment. Yet.
Ottoman
Christopher Nicole - 1990
English master-gunner John Hawkwood uproots his family from their native land and journeys to this fabled city.With the city under threat by the Ottoman Turks, the Byzantine emperor is in desperate need of men like Hawkwood and the knowledge of cannon and gunpowder he brings. For a time, the Hawkwoods enjoy status and privilege in return for John’s superior abilities as an artillerist. But all good things must come to an end. When tragedy strikes, even the close relationship John shares with the emperor cannot absolve the family of their sins, and with little more than the clothes on their backs, the Hawkwoods flee Constantinople. Captured by the savage Turks, John Hawkwood swiftly changes his allegiance, and once more applies his considerable skills…this time serving the conquerors in their victorious surge across eastern Europe and Mediterranean shores.No man lives forever, but the Hawkwood line never dies. For five generations, the Hawkwood men serve their Turkish leaders faithfully as military leaders and envoys. Although showered with wealth and privilege and accorded honours commensurate with their rank, their fates lie in the often capricious hands of the Ottoman empire’s cruel leaders. Over a span of nearly one hundred and fifty years, the Hawkwoods must employ every ounce of political cunning they possess to survive the swirling intrigues and bloody massacres that dominate the world in which they live. For their wives and concubines, the uncertainties and dangers of life are no less severe: the punishment meted out to a Hawkwood man who fails his duty likewise falls upon his family.Beyond the gleaming wealth and the veneer of power lie grim spectres of betrayal and sudden death, the threat of ravishment and torture lurking behind the gilded pillars of their palaces and harems. And when the time comes to choose between Ottoman and Hawkwood, no one can say what the future might bring…Christopher Nicole was born and brought up in British Guyana and the West Indies. His output of books has been prolific and many of his novels are historical with a Caribbean background. This book was previously published under the pseudonym Alan Savage.Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.
Postmortem
Patricia Daniels Cornwell - 1990
Four brutalized victims of a brilliant monster - a "Mr. Nobody", moving undetected through a paralyzed city, leaving behind a gruesome trail of carnage . . . but few clues. With skilled hands, an unerring eye, and the latest advances in forensic research, an unrelenting female medical examiner - Kay Scarpetta - is determined to unmask a maniac. But someone is trying to sabotage Kay's investigation from the inside. And worse yet, someone wants her dead . . .