Best of
Fiction

1998

Collected Fictions


Jorge Luis Borges - 1998
    Now for the first time in English, all of Borges' dazzling fictions are gathered into a single volume, brilliantly translated by Andrew Hurley. From his 1935 debut with The Universal History of Iniquity, through his immensely influential collections Ficciones and The Aleph, these enigmatic, elaborate, imaginative inventions display Borges' talent for turning fiction on its head by playing with form and genre and toying with language. Together these incomparable works comprise the perfect one-volume compendium for all those who have long loved Borges, and a superb introduction to the master's work for those who have yet to discover this singular genius.

The Godfather


Chris Rice - 1998
    His business is built on fear and murder. Vito's son Michael wants a quiet life away from the family business. But that's not easy, and slowly Michael becomes the most dangerous gangster of them all

Gates of Fire


Steven Pressfield - 1998
    Theirs was a suicide mission, to hold the pass against the invading millions of the mighty Persian army.Day after bloody day they withstood the terrible onslaught, buying time for the Greeks to rally their forces. Born into a cult of spiritual courage, physical endurance, and unmatched battle skill, the Spartans would be remembered for the greatest military stand in history—one that would not end until the rocks were awash with blood, leaving only one gravely injured Spartan squire to tell the tale. . . .“A novel that is intricate and arresting and, once begun, almost impossible to put down.”—Daily News “A timeless epic of man and war . . . Pressfield has created a new classic deserving a place beside the very best of the old.”—Stephen Coonts

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird


Harold Bloom - 1998
    Along with a collection of some of the best criticism available on his work, this text includes a brief biography of the author, structural and thematic analysis, an index of themes and ideas, and more. This series is edited by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University; Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Professor of English, New York University Graduate School. These texts are the ideal aid for all students of literature, presenting concise, easy-to-understand biographical, critical, and bibliographical information on a specific literary work. Also provided are multiple sources for book reports and term papers with a wealth of information on literary works, authors, and major characters.

The Color Purple, Alice Walker: Notes


Neil McEwan - 1998
    

These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901


Nancy E. Turner - 1998
    Scrupulously recording her steps down the path Providence has set her upon—from child to determined young adult to loving mother—she shares the turbulent events, both joyous and tragic, that molded her, and recalls the enduring love with cavalry officer Captain Jack Elliot that gave her strength and purpose.Rich in authentic everyday details and alive with truly unforgettable characters, These Is My Words brilliantly brings a vanished world to breathtaking life again.

Hyperion / The Fall of Hyperion / Endymion / Rise of Endymion


Dan Simmons - 1998
    

Last Days of Summer


Steve Kluger - 1998
    A boy looking for a hero, Joey decides to latch on to Charlie Banks, the all-star third basemen for the New York Giants. But Joey's chosen champion doesn't exactly welcome the extreme attention of a persistent young fan with an overactive imagination. Then again, this strange, needy kid might be exactly what Banks needs.

The Essential Ellison: A 50 Year Retrospective


Harlan Ellison - 1998
    But his range is much broader than that, encompassing stories, novels, essays, reviews, reminiscences, plays, even fake autobiographies. The Essential Ellison, a special limited edition personally signed and numbered by Ellison, contains 74 unabridged works, including such classics as "A Boy and His Dog," "Xenogenesis," and "Mefisto in Onyx."

Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale


Hélène Greven-Borde - 1998
    This is not the novel The Handmaid's Tale. The Handmaid's Tale (1985), by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, revisits the Anglo-American utopian/dystopian tradition. Appealing to imaginative fiction and the novel of ideas, the construction of perfect - or nightmarish - worlds rouses the reader's socio-political awareness of the present and invites questions on the shape of the near furure. The Handmaid's Tale deconstructs the utopian narrative by breaking the chronological order of the female protagonist's experience into a time-shifting testimony, a quest for meaning and an exploration of self versus the other. The intricate play on word and symbol can be read against the historical background of seventeenth-century New England Puritanism, as well as the twentieth-century New Right and women's rights movements, while inviting reference to the postmodernist outlook. This volume includes a bibliography, a study of the book's context, as well as essays and commentaries; the approach has been adapted to the needs of Capes and Agregation students.

Autobiography of Red


Anne Carson - 1998
    As he grows older, Geryon escapes his abusive brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother, finding solace behind the lens of his camera and in the arms of a young man named Herakles, a cavalier drifter who leaves him at the peak of infatuation. When Herakles reappears years later, Geryon confronts again the pain of his desire and embarks on a journey that will unleash his creative imagination to its fullest extent. By turns whimsical and haunting, erudite and accessible, richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red is a profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is."A profound love story . . . sensuous and funny, poignant, musical and tender." -- The New York Times Book Review"A deeply odd and immensely engaging book. . . . [Carson] exposes with passionate force the mythic underlying the explosive everyday."  -- The Village VoiceA NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEARNational book Critics Circle Award Finalist

The Wake of the Wind


J. California Cooper - 1998
    California Cooper's third novel, is her most penetrating look yet at the challenges that generations of African Americans have had to overcome in order to carve out a home for themselves and their families. Set in Texas in the waning years of the Civil War, the novel tells the dramatic story of a remarkable heroine, Lifee, and her husband, Mor. When Emancipation finally comes to Texas, Mor, Lifee, and the extended family they create from other slaves who are also looking for a home and a future, set out in search of a piece of land they can call their own. In the face of constant threats, they manage not only to survive but to succeed--their crops grow, their children thrive, they educate themselves and others. Lifee and Mor pass their intelligence, determination, and talents along to their children, the next generation to surge forward. At once tragic and triumphant, this is an epic story that captures with extraordinary authenticity the most important struggle of the last hundred years.

The Hedge Knight


George R.R. Martin - 1998
    Set in the world of the Song of Ice and Fire series eighty-nine years before the events of the main cycle, the story relates the adventures of Dunk (eponymously called Ser Duncan the Tall) and his squire, Egg.

Addicted


Zane - 1998
    But Zoe feels helpless in the grip of an overpowering addiction...to sex. Finding a compassionate woman therapist to help her, Zoe finally summons the courage to tell her torrid story, a tale of guilt and desire as shocking as it is compelling. From the sensitive artist with whom she spends stolen hours on rumpled sheets to the rough and violent man who draws her toward destruction, Zoe is a woman desperately searching for fulfilment -- and something darker, deeper, and perhaps deadly. As her life spins out of control and her sexual escapades carry her toward a dangerous choice, Zoe is racing against time to uncover the source of her "fatal attraction" -- as chilling secrets tumble forth from the recesses of a woman's mind, and perilous temptations lead toward a climax that can threaten her sanity, her marriage...and her life.

Rosie


Lesley Pearse - 1998
    But when housekeeper Heather Farley arrives, Rosie finds a mother - and a friend - to look after her.Several years later, Thomas Farley comes to find his sister. Rosie can only tell him that she disappeared in mysterious circumstances, abandoning her small son Alan. Determined to get young Alan and Rosie out of the clutches of Cole and his sons, Thomas helps unearth a terrible truth about the family. A truth that forces Rosie away from the farm and out into a cruel world where she must somehow come to terms with her shocking past. Is it possible that the man who brought ruin on her family might also bring happiness to Rosie?

The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox


Barry Hughart - 1998
    Omnibus edition including the three novels in the series.

Alone Beneath the Heaven


Rita Bradshaw - 1998
    A powerful and absorbing saga, moving from Sunderland to London in the 1940s, as Sarah Brown dreams of a better life.

Dangerous Angels


Francesca Lia Block - 1998
    These post-modern fairy tales chronicle the thin line between fear and desire, pain and pleasure, cutting loose and holding on in a world where everyone is vulnerable to the most beautiful and dangerous angel of all: love.

Searching for David's Heart: A Christmas Story


Cherie Bennett - 1998
    Then she meets the boy who received David's heart in an organ transplant, and learns that life truly does go on.A journey of faith, hope, and love.Life at Darcy's house isn't always easy. Money is tight, and her parents argue a lot. Darcy's shy and quiet with most people, but it's not like that with her brother, David. He and Darcy are soul mates. Until David gets a girlfriend, that is, and starts to treat Darcy as if she were a pest. Darcy is hurt and humiliated, and one day after a huge fight, Darcy runs off. David chases after her and is killed in a shocking accident. Darcy is sure his death is her fault.Then Darcy's parents decide to donate David's heart for transplant. Darcy believes that if she can find David's heart, even if it's beating in someone else's body, she will have found her brother, and in some way he will still be alive. And so the search for David's heart begins.

Standing at the Scratch Line


Guy Johnson - 1998
    But when the teenage King mistakenly kills two white deputies during a botched raid on the DuMonts, the Tremains' fear of reprisal forces King to flee Louisiana. King thus embarks on an adventure that first takes him to France, where he fights in World War I as a member of the segregated 369th Battalion—in the bigoted army he finds himself locked in combat with American soldiers as well as with Germans. When he returns to America, he battles the Mob in Jazz Age Harlem, the KKK in Louisiana, and crooked politicians trying to destroy a black township in Oklahoma. King Tremain is driven by two principal forces: He wants to be treated with respect, and he wants to create a family dynasty much like the one he left behind in Louisiana. This is a stunning debut by novelist Guy Johnson that provides a true depiction of the lives of African-Americans in the early decades of the twentieth century.

I Know This Much Is True


Wally Lamb - 1998
    . . .One of the most acclaimed novels of our time, Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True is a story of alienation and connection, devastation and renewal, at once joyous, heartbreaking, poignant, mystical, and powerfully, profoundly human.

The Handmaid's Tale


Margaret Atwood - 1998
    

Jessica


Bryce Courtenay - 1998
    One quiet day, the peace of the bush is devastated by a terrible murder. Only Jessica is able to save the killer from the lynch mob – but will justice prevail in the courts?Nine months later, a baby is born … with Jessica determined to guard the secret of the father's identity. The rivalry of Jessica and her beautiful sister for the love of the same man will echo throughout their lives – until finally the truth must be told.Set in the harsh Australian bush against the outbreak of World War I, this novel is heartbreaking in its innocence, and shattering in its brutality.'A deserved bestseller, based on fact, a story told with heartbreaking honesty.' Australian Women's Weekly'Courtenay draws on the social satire of Jane Austen and the dark forces of Thomas Hardy, and his tragic heroine parallels Antigone … ' Herald Sun

Story of Your Life


Ted Chiang - 1998
    Its major themes are language and determinism.

The Little Sisters of Eluria


Stephen King - 1998
    It is issued in a foil-stamped slipcase. Published in a larger format than the Dark Tower series which enhances Michael Whelan's thirteen full-color plates and over twenty-three black & white designs."The Man in Black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed." This is our introduction to Roland Deschain, the last Gunslinger, published by Donald M. Grant in THE DARK TOWER: THE GUNSLINGER in 1982. Twenty years later Stephen King revised and expanded this volume. In his own words: "What I did want to do was to give newcomers to the tale of the Tower (and old readers who want to refresh their memories) a clearer start and a slightly easier entry into Roland's world. I also wanted them to have a volume that more effectively foreshadowed coming events.This volume contains that expanded version as well as the novella THE LITTLE SISTERS OF ELURIA which chronicles an earlier adventure of Roland's as he pursued the Man in Black.

Breaking The Silence


Diane Chamberlain - 1998
    A woman who remembers nothing—except the distant past. Visiting Sarah Tolley seemed a small enough sacrifice to make.But Laura's promise results in another death. Her husband's. And after their five-year-old daughter, Emma, witnesses her father's suicide, Emma refuses to talk about it…to talk at all.Frantic and guilt ridden, Laura contacts the only person who may be able to help. A man she's met only once—six years before. A man who doesn't know he's Emma's real father.Guided only by a child's silence and an old woman's fading memories, the two unravel a tale of love and despair, of bravery and unspeakable evil. A tale that's shrouded in silence…and that unbelievably links them all.

When Tomorrow Dawns


Lyn Andrews - 1998
    The people of Liverpool, after six years of terror and grief and getting by, are making the best of the hard-won peace, none more so than the ebullient O'Sheas. They welcome widowed Mary O'Malley from Dublin, her young son Kevin, and Breda, her bold strap of a sister, with open arms and hearts.Mary is determined to make a fresh start for her family, despite Breda, who is soon up to her old tricks. At first all goes well, and Mary begins to build an understanding with their new neighbour Chris Kennedy - until events take a dramatic turn that puts Chris beyond her reach. Forced to leave the shelter of the O'Sheas' home, humiliated and bereft, Mary faces a future that is suddenly uncertain once more. But she knows that life has to go on...

Tomorrow the World


Josephine Cox - 1998
    He is caring, loyal and dependable - everything a woman could ask for. But she can't quite forget Harry - the one that got away - and when a snow storm drives her into his arms, the inevitable happens. Nine months later a child is born.Overcome with remorse, Bridget is determined that her husband should know the truth, but her confession can lead only to heartbreak. Although he allows his wife and her child to continue living in his home, Tom Mulligan makes it clear that their marriage is over. Lonely and afraid, Bridget finds comfort in the friendship of Fanny, a feisty young mother who knows what it is to be alone. But Bridget's life can never be complete until she has the love of the only man she ever really wanted...

Let Not The Deep


Mike Lunnon-Wood - 1998
    On board, a passenger whose presence means the world is watching. Only the skill, determination and raw courage of a lifeboat crew and the British military forces despatched to save them offer any hope of survival. But set against the savagery of the Atlantic even that might not be enough... If you like Frederick Forsyth, Tom Clancy, Andy McNab, Chris Ryan, Rowland White or Damien Lewis then you’ll love Mike Lunnon-Wood. What readers are saying about Mike Lunnon-Wood and Let Not The Deep: 'Never has a book twisted my emotions as much as this book has. What a brilliant author Mike Lunnon-Wood is. Scarily, I LIVED every minute of this drama. I am exhausted and emotionally drained! This account of a rescue at sea by an RNLI Arun class lifeboat from the Scilly Isles was truly magnificent. Bravery will take on a new meaning after reading this book! 'Spellbinding' 'This is a gripping account of a very courageous, skilful and determined lifeboat rescue in appalling weather and is a fitting tribute to the magnificent work done by RNLI crews.' 'First-rate adventure' 'I found the writing to be excellent, the story exceptionally well crafted, the characters three dimensional, and genuinely people you could care about, not cardboard cut-outs. As I bought this book along with the others in the British Military Quartet by Mike Lunnon-Wood, I look forward to reading the other volumes, as this was a very entertaining and believeable read.' 'Great story' 'A must for anyone who likes to read about life at sea' 'Superb. Brilliantly written, and powerful.'

The Christmas Box Collection: The Christmas Box / Timepiece / The Letter


Richard Paul Evans - 1998
    His exquisite prequel, Timepiece, and The Letter complete the glorious trilogy of the Parkin family. Now all three magical stories are compiled in one extraordinary treasury that “reaches into that place where all broken heart will forever be made whole” (The Star, Chicago).THE CHRISTMAS BOXA Christmas story unlike any other, The Christmas Box is the poignant tale of a widow and the young family who moves in with her. Together, they discover the first gift of Christmas --- and what the holiday is really all about.TIMEPIECE Tracing the lives of a young couple as they discover love, loyalty, and the power of forgiveness, Timepiece is a tale of wisdom and of hope --- and a gentle reminder that the connections from one generation to the next are indelible.THE LETTER A mysterious letter is found at the grave of a couple's only child in this unforgettable conclusion to the collection. As they face love's greatest challenge, they find its truest meaning and learn the lessons that are echoed throughout.

Early Novels & Stories: Go Tell It on the Mountain / Giovanni’s Room / Another Country / Going to Meet the Man


James Baldwin - 1998
    His historical importance is indisputable.” Here, in a Library of America volume edited by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, is the fiction that established James Baldwin’s reputation as a writer who fused unblinking realism and rare verbal eloquence.His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), tells the story, rooted in Baldwin’s own experience, of a preacher’s son coming of age in 1930’s Harlem. Ten years in the writing, its exploration of religious, sexual, and generational conflicts was described by Baldwin as “an attempt to exorcise something, to find out what happened to my father, what happened to all of us.”Giovanni’s Room (1956) is a searching, and in its day controversial, treatment of the tragic self-delusions of a young American expatriate at war with his own homosexuality. Another Country (1962), a wide-ranging exploration of America’s racial and sexual boundaries, depicts the suicide of a gifted jazz musician and its ripple effect on those who knew him. Complex in structure and turbulent in mood, it is in many ways Baldwin’s most ambitious novel.Going to Meet the Man (1965) collects Baldwin’s short fiction, including the masterful “Sonny’s Blues,” the unforgettable portrait of a jazz musician struggling with drug addiction in which Baldwin came closest to defining his goal as a writer: “For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it must be heard. There isn’t any other tale to tell, it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness.”

The Transall Saga


Gary Paulsen - 1998
    As Mark searches for a pathway back to his own time on Earth, he must make a new life in a new world. His encounters with primitive tribes bring the joy of human bonds, but violence and war as well—and, finally, a contest in which he discovers his own startling powers.

Sailing to Sarantium


Guy Gavriel Kay - 1998
    Summoned to Sarantium by imperial request, he bears a Queen's secret mission, and a talisman from an alchemist. Once in the fabled city, with its taverns and gilded sanctuaries, chariot races and palaces, intrigues and violence, Crispin must find his own source of power in order to survive-and unexpectedly discovers it high on the scaffolding of his own greatest creation.

The Essential Tales of Chekhov


Anton Chekhov - 1998
    Included are the familiar masterpieces--"The Kiss," "The Darling," and "The Lady with the Dog"--as well as several brilliant lesser-known tales such as "A Blunder," "Hush!," and "Champagne." These stories, ordered from 1886 to 1899, are drawn from Chekhov's most fruitful years as a short-story writer. A truly balanced selection, they exhibit the qualities that make Chekhov one of the greatest fiction writers of all time: his gift for detail, dialogue, and humor; his emotional perception and compassion; and his understanding that life's most important moments are often the most overlooked."The reason we like Chekhov so much, now at our century's end," writes Ford in his perceptive introduction, "is because his stories from the last century's end feel so modern to us, are so much of our own time and mind." Exquisitely translated by the renowned Constance Garnett, these stories present a wonderful opportunity to introduce yourself--or become reaquainted with--an artist whose genius and influence only increase with every passing generation.

The Orphan Train


Aurand Harris - 1998
    A highly theatrical story, moving, amusing, and always tellingly human of nine orphans on an Orphan Train that left New York City on May 28, 1914, and traveled to midwestern towns in search of homes for the children. Open stage, period costumes of the day. Written for 3 boys and 6 girls (one dressed as a boy), 7 men and 8 women - - who may be played by as few as 1 man and 1 woman.Orphaned, unwanted children, seeking a hope of home, any home, anywhere. There's Mary, Evie, spunky Pegeen, Annie, and Little Lucy, a quiet one. There's Frank (who later becomes Frankie a small girl), Raymond, Lucky, and Danny the song-and-dance boy. And there are the men and women hoping for children. The lonesome whistle wails as the train chugs between encounters of anxiety, laughter, wistfulness, rejection and acceptance. Eight stories unfold, each a memorable surprise. Premiered at Northwestern University in Evanston, and acclaimed throughout Chicago, THE ORPHAN TRAIN is a charming heart-warmer, all we expect from Aurand Harris, the great playwright of and for children in the twentieth century.

Crimson Rivers


Jean-Christophe Grangé - 1998
    The highly-regarded but unpredictable ex-commando Pierre NiTmans is sent from Paris to the French Alps to investigate. Meanwhile, Karim Abdouf, a young Arab policeman, is trying to find out why the tomb of a young child has been desecrated. When a second body is found, high up in a glacier, the paths of the two policemen are joined in their search for the killers, a trail that embroils them with the mysterioius cult of the Crimson Rivers.

Lord of the Barnyard: Killing the Fatted Calf and Arming the Aware in the Cornbelt


Tristan Egolf - 1998
    Now available in paperback, Tristan Egolf's manic, inventive, and painfully funny debut novel is the story of a town's dirty laundry -- and a garbagemen's strike that lets it all hang out. Lord of the Barnyard begins with the death of a woolly mammoth in the last Ice Age and concludes with a greased-pig chase at a funeral in the modern-day Midwest. In the interim there are two hydroelectric dam disasters, fourteen tavern brawls, one shoot-out in the hills, three cases of probable arson, a riot in the town hall, and a lone tornado, as well as appearances by a coven of Methodist crones, an encampment of Appalachian crop thieves, six renegade coal-truck operators, an outraged mob of factory rats, a dysfunctional poultry plant, and one autodidact goat-roping farm boy by the name of John Kaltenbrunner. Lord of the Barnyard is a brilliantly comic tapestry of a Middle America still populated by river rats and assembly-line poultry killers, measuring into shot glasses the fruits of years of quiet desperation on the factory floor. Unforgettable and linguistically dizzying, it goes much farther than postal.

Homecoming


Carolyne Aarsen - 1998
    Can a trip to the ranch give her a second chance with both? Sheryl Kyle isn’t the trusting type. After all, her abusive late husband and her disapproving stepfather haven’t given her much reason to feel otherwise. But when a rugged rancher named Mark seeks her out she learns her stepfather is on his deathbed. And his dying wish is for her to return to Sweet Creek for one last chance to reconcile…Mark can’t help but be fascinated by Sheryl. Despite hearing the worst about her from her stepbrother, he’s drawn to the hauntingly beautiful woman. When his ranching partner suffers an injury at the worst possible time, he’s surprised and delighted that Sheryl agrees to work by his side…As Sheryl and Mark’s friendship deepens, she suppresses her growing feelings toward him. Can she forgive her family and herself before Mark too becomes a man of her past?Homecoming is the first book in the Sweet Creek Series of Christian romances. If you like chemistry on the ranch, moving tales of redemption, and second chances, then you’ll love Carolyne Aarsen’s tale of old wounds and new loves. Buy Homecoming today to rediscover the sweetness of life at Sweet Creek

Where Yesterday Lives


Karen Kingsbury - 1998
    Sadly, though, her skill as a journalist far surpasses her ability to sort out her troubled past. When she returns to picturesque Petoskey, Michigan, for her beloved father’s funeral, it’s a traumatic emotional and spiritual journey for Ellen—a rediscovery of what is truly important and eternal. Will facing her past tear Ellen apart—or teach her what is truly important in her life? Ellen Barrett, thirty-one, is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist with an uncertain marriage, a forgotten faith, and haunting memories of her picturesque hometown and the love she left behind. The eldest of five siblings, Ellen longs for the time, long ago, when they were happy—when they were a family. Then tragedy strikes. Now Ellen’s beloved father is dead, and she must leave Miami and return to her childhood home on the shores of Little Traverse Bay in Petoskey, Michigan. As she returns to a world that was, an avalanche of memories is unleashed. And so Ellen’s quest begins—a quest to make peace with the people who still live there, with the losses and changes that time has wrought, and with the future God has set before her.

The Skin I'm In


Sharon G. Flake - 1998
    Miss Saunders is tough and through this, Maleeka learns to stand up to tough-talking Charlese.

The Savage Detectives


Roberto Bolaño - 1998
    Their quest: to track down the obscure, vanished poet Cesárea Tinajero. A violent showdown in the Sonora desert turns search to flight; twenty years later Belano and Lima are still on the run.The explosive first long work by “the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time” (Ilan Stavans, Los Angeles Times), The Savage Detectives follows Belano and Lima through the eyes of the people whose paths they cross in Central America, Europe, Israel, and West Africa. This chorus includes the muses of visceral realism, the beautiful Font sisters; their father, an architect interned in a Mexico City asylum; a sensitive young follower of Octavio Paz; a foul-mouthed American graduate student; a French girl with a taste for the Marquis de Sade; the great-granddaughter of Leon Trotsky; a Chilean stowaway with a mystical gift for numbers; the anorexic heiress to a Mexican underwear empire; an Argentinian photojournalist in Angola; and assorted hangers-on, detractors, critics, lovers, employers, vagabonds, real-life literary figures, and random acquaintances.A polymathic descendant of Borges and Pynchon, Roberto Bolaño traces the hidden connection between literature and violence in a world where national boundaries are fluid and death lurks in the shadow of the avant-garde. The Savage Detectives is a dazzling original, the first great Latin American novel of the twenty-first century.

Madame


Antoni Libera - 1998
    Madame is an unexpected gem: a novel about Poland during the grim years of Soviet-controlled mediocrity, which nonetheless sparkles with light and warmth.Our young narrator-hero is suffering through the regulated boredom of high school when he is transfixed by a new teacher --an elegant "older woman" (she is thirty-two) who bewitches him with her glacial beauty and her strict intelligence. He resolves to learn everything he can about her and to win her heart.In a sequence of marvelously funny but sobering maneuvers, he learns much more than he expected to--about politics, Poland, the Spanish Civil War, and his own passion for theater and art--all while his loved one continues to elude him. Yet without his realizing it, his efforts--largely bookish and literary--to close in on Madame are his first steps to liberation as an artist. Later, during a stint as a teacher-in-training in his old school, he discovers that he himself has become a legendary figure to a new generation of students, and he begins to understand the deceits and blessings of myth, and its redemptive power.A winning portrait of an artist as a young man, Madame is at the same time a moving, engaging novel about strength and weakness, first love, and the efforts we make to reconcile, in art, the opposing forces of reason and passion.

Private Justice


Terri Blackstock - 1998
    First one, then another of the town firemen's wives has been murdered, and a third has barely escaped an attempt on her life. Incredible as it seems, a serial killer is stalking this sleepy little southern community. And Mark Branning's wife may be next on the list.Mark is determined to protect her. But keeping Allie alive won't be easy—not with their marriage already dying a bitter death.Unless they renew their commitment to each other and to God, someone else may settle their problems ... permanently. And time to decide is running out.'This tense and exciting thriller is more than a fabulous read; it has an underlying message about the place of religion within a marriage. Highly recommended.'—Library Journal Private Justice is book one in the Newpointe 911 series by award-winning novelist Terri Blackstock. Newpointe 911 offers taut, superbly crafted novels of faith, fear, and close-knit small-town relationships, seasoned with romance and tempered by insights into the nature of relationships, redemption, and the human heart. Look also for Shadow of Doubt, Line of Duty, Word of Honor, and Trial by Fire.

Saving Private Ryan


Jacqueline Kehl - 1998
    While vast military forces converge for one of the most decisive battles of the war, a squad of U.S. Army soldiers undertake a mission to save one man: paratrooper James Ryan, the last survivor of a family of four brothers, the others having already been killed in action. Based on the screenplay by Robert Rodat and Frank Darabont.

A Shelter of Hope


Tracie Peterson - 1998
    Jeffery is torn, however, when he suspects that Simone may harbor a disturbing secret. Westward Chronicles Book 1.

Jessie


Anna Jacobs - 1998
    Times are changing, railways are being built across the land bringing new freedom and possibilities. Jessie tastes that freedom when she meets an ambitious young navvy, newly arrived in Yorkshire. The attraction between them is overwhelming. And Jared Wilde is determined to make Jessie his wife. The primitive, colourful shanty towns that spring up around the railway works are nothing like the safe world Jessie once knew. But in spite of the hardness of life there, she finds happiness with Jared. Until another navvy becomes determined to destroy their future together...

The Depressed Person


David Foster Wallace - 1998
    "The Depressed Person" was published in Harper's Magazine, January 1998.

Blood Work


Michael Connelly - 1998
    He's recuperating from a heart transplant and avoiding anything stressful. But when Graciella tells him the way her sister Gloria was murdered, it leaves Terry no choice. Now the man with the new heart vows to take down a predator without a soul. For Gloria's killer shatters every rule that McCaleb ever learned in his years with the Bureau--as McCaleb gets no more second chances at life...and just one shot at the truth.

Love Me or Leave Me


Josephine Cox - 1998
    When a tragic accident turns Eva's world upside down, Patsy is the only one she can turn to.A hated figure from the past comes to reclaim the farm and business that Eva had always believed were her parents'. Not even Bill, still in love with Eva, can stop Eva being thrown out on the streets. Together with Patsy, Eva starts a new life far away.Luckily, they find work and lodgings wherever they settle. But when Eva arrives in Blackburn her past mistakes rise up to haunt her. Yet even when threatened from all sides Eva will never accept that her chances of happiness have been destroyed. Determined and optimistic, she fights on to change her life for the better.

Learning To Swim


Clare Chambers - 1998
    In dramatic contrast to her own conventional family, the Radleys were extraordinary, captivating creatures transplanted from a bohemian corner of North London to outer suburbia, and the young Abigail found herself drawn into their magic circle: the eccentric Frances, her new best friend; Frances' mother, the liberated, headstrong Lexi; and of course the brilliant, beautiful Rad.Abigail thought she'd banished the ghost of her life with them and the catastrophe that ended it, but thirteen years later a chance encounter forces her to acknowledge that the spell is far from broken ...

Charlie


Lesley Pearse - 1998
    Charlie meets kind, funny student Andrew, whose love helps her through the hard times and further unexpected tragedy. Together, can they unravel the mysteries of the past that haunt the Welsh family? And will facing up to those mysteries destroy their love for each other or make it stronger?

Our Dumb Century: The Onion Presents 100 Years of Headlines from America's Finest News Source


Scott DikkersMike Loew - 1998
    The Onion has quickly become the world's most popular humor publication, misinforming half a million readers a week with one-of-a-kind social satire both in print (on newsstands nationwide) and online from its remote office in Madison, Wisconsin.Witness the march of history as Editor-in-Chief Scott Dikkers and The Onion's award-winning writing staff present the twentieth century like you've never seen it before.

Dream Sellers


Ruth Hamilton - 1998
    Edward Shawcross absented himself as much as possible and kept a red-haired mistress in Tintern Avenue. Alice, his wife, sought solace in chocolate and continually carped at Connie, her beautiful daughter. And Connie and Gilbert, their children, formed an uneasy alliance in the face of their parents' antipathy.Twenty years before, Edward Shawcross had been an impoverished millhand, born in a slum to feckless parents. Overnight his fortunes had changed. To everyone's surprise he had married the plain and awkward daughter of the wealthy Fishwick family. Almost at once the Fishwicks, owners of a lucrative mill and a grand house, went to live abroad leaving Edward in charge of all their business interests. No-one could understand why Edward had suddenly made this leap of fortune.But as the new generation began to grow up, so the truth behind old scandals began to emerge. Then, after many years, the Fishwicks returned and violence swiftly followed. Before Connie and Gilbert could throw off the legacies of the past and build their own lives, there were to be many shocking revelations.

A House of Many Rooms


Marius Gabriel - 1998
    Nor was seeing her in the headlines, fifteen years later, accused of burning her adoptive mother to death. For Dr Rebecca Carey, no longer a troubled teenager, but now a dedicated pediatrician, there was only one choice: Find out the truth about her child.

Looking Forward


Marcia Willett - 1998
    Freddy's brother-in-law, Theo, a minister, is also ready to help, while her three grandchildren try to find a way out of the grief to move forward in life."Looking Forward" is the first book in the saga of the unforgettable Chadwick family.

The Hork-Bajir Chronicles


K.A. Applegate - 1998
    "Strange," says his mother. "A seer," says the Old One, Tila Fashat. "A seer is one who is born to show a new way. Many, many seasons pass, then our father, the Deep, and our mother, the Sky, say, 'Send a seer to the people. The people have need.' And so one is born who is different." When strange and different Dak meets Aldrea, the clever Andalite daughter of Prince Seerow, they learn together of the dangerous plot of the Yeerks, and of Esplin 9466, who will stop at nothing to build his empire. Learn more about Prince Seerow's Kindness, find out how Andalites kiss, and plumb the mysteries of the Deep in this suspense-filled story of good, evil, and interspecies love. (Ages 9 to 12)

The Locket


Richard Paul Evans - 1998
     Michael faces his own challenges when he loses his greatest love, Faye. When Michael is falsely accused of abusing one of the Arcadia's residents, he learns important lessons about faith and forgiveness from Ester -- and her gift to him of a locket, once symbolic of one person's missed opportuninites, becomes another's second chance. Richard Paul Evans, author of the beloved #1 bestselling classic The Christmas Box, begins a wonderful new series with this stunning New York Times bestseller -- a bittersweet reminder of life's most precious gifts....

Into the Wilderness


Sara Donati - 1998
    Elizabeth Middleton leaves her comfortable English estate to join her family in a remote New York mountain village. It is a place unlike any she has ever experienced. And she meets a man unlike any she has ever encountered - a white man dressed like a Native American, Nathanial Booner, known to the Mohawk people as Between-Two-Lives. Determined to provide schooling for all the children of the village, she soons finds herself locked in conflict with the local slave owners as well as her own family. Interweaving the fate of the Mohawk Nation with the destiny of two lovers, Sara Donati's compelling novel creates a complex, profound, passionate portrait of an emerging America.

Ice Station


Matthew Reilly - 1998
    On one edge of Antarctica is Wilkes Station. Beneath Wilkes Station is the gate to hell itself...A team of U.S. divers, exploring three thousand feet beneath the ice shelf has vanished. Sending out an SOS, Wilkes draws a rapid deployment team of Marines-and someone else...First comes a horrific firefight. Then comes a plunge into a drowning pool filled with killer whales. Next comes the hard part, as a handful of survivors begin an electrifying, red-hot, non-stop battle of survival across the continent and against wave after wave of elite military assassins-who've all come for one thing: a secret buried deep beneath the ice...

The Last Window Giraffe - Hari-hari Terakhir Sang Diktator


Péter Zilahy - 1998
    Don't wait. Climb aboard the rollercoaster today. Read The Last Window-Giraffe as an elaborate, erudite, gut-wrenching belly-laugh at everything that went wrong and all the people who failed to fix it.' Lawrence Norfolk, author of ‘In the Shape of a Boar’This book is about the madness of everyday life under a dictatorship. It shifts in theme and time, testing the borderlines of prose and poetry, fiction and non-fiction, history and autobiography - all in the unassuming guise of a child’s ABC. Filled with his own striking photographs, Péter Zilahy gives fascinating insight into whole other universe behind the Iron Curtain. The Last Window-Giraffe is one of the most unusual, beguiling books you will ever read. 'Wonderful!' Victor Pelevin, author of ‘Babylon’ ‘'In these bittersweet pages you will find the fall of the regimes, and the last twenty years of Eastern Europe.' Enrico Remmert, Rolling Stone Magazine 'Péter Zilahy, wanderer, adventurer, initiator of a great many performances and provocations, much resembles Jean-Arthur Rimbaud during the Commune of Paris.' Yuri Andrukhovych, author of ‘Twelve Rings’ and ‘The Secret’

Birds of America


Lorrie Moore - 1998
    Stories remarkable in their range, emotional force, and dark laughter, and in the sheer beauty and power of their language.From the opening story, "Willing", about a second-rate movie actress in her thirties who has moved back to Chicago, where she makes a seedy motel room her home and becomes involved with a mechanic who has not the least idea of who she is as a human being, Birds of America unfolds a startlingly brilliant series of portraits of the unhinged, the lost, the unsettled of our America. In the story "Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People" ("There is nothing as complex in the world--no flower or stone--as a single hello from a human being"), a woman newly separated from her husband is on a long-planned trip through Ireland with her mother. When they set out on an expedition to kiss the Blarney Stone, the image of wisdom and success that her mother has always put forth slips away to reveal the panicky woman she really is. In "Charades," a family game at Christmas is transformed into a hilarious and insightful (and fundamentally upsetting) revelation of crumbling family ties. In "Community Life,"a shy, almost reclusive, librarian, Transylvania-born and Vermont-bred, moves in with her boyfriend, the local anarchist in a small university town, and all hell breaks loose. And in "Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens," a woman who goes through the stages of grief as she mourns the death of her cat (Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Haagen Dazs, Rage) is seen by her friends as really mourning other issues: the impending death of her parents, the son she never had, Bosnia.In what may be her most stunning book yet, Lorrie Moore explores the personal and the universal, the idiosyncratic and the mundane, with all the wit, brio, and verve that have made her one of the best storytellers of our time.

Tempest Rising


Diane McKinney-Whetstone - 1998
    Clarise, Finch, and their three adolescent daughters are living the dream life of the black financially privileged. Then everything changes with the suddenness of a violent summer thunderstorm. Finch's lucrative catering business falls on hard times. Finch is lost at sea, Clarise suffers an apparent nervous collapse, and the girls -- Shern, Bliss, and Victoria -- are discharged into the foster care of politically connected cardsharp Mae and her beautiful, dark-spirited daughter Ramona. A world rich in love, pride, and joy has been abruptly exchanged for another -- one coarser and meaner, suffused with an air of jealousy, malignity, and brutal secrets that permeate every room of Mae's unhappy home. But pain and cruelty cannot destroy a determination to survive -- and a driving need to recapture a wounded lost thing called family.

Sweet Baby


Sharon Sala - 1998
    Abandoned as a little girl and bounced from foster home to foster home, photojournalist Tory Lancaster has finally found someone to love in Brett Hooker, an investigator for the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office. Then Tory takes a photo that triggers memories she didn’t know she had. The old man she spots standing in the crowd, with his distinctive tattoo, sets off nightmares and glimpses of a past she refused to remember. When her dark thoughts start taking over, Brett is her lifeline to sanity. With his help she might be able to face her past, but her journey to remembering might just tear them apart . . .

Prelude to Glory, Vol. 1: Our Sacred Honor


Ron Carter - 1998
    In Our Sacred Honor, the first volume in the series, master storyteller Ron Carter presents the early events of the Revolutionary War through the eyes of common people. We meet the heroes, but we see them through the eyes and hearts of the soldiers and the sailors, men and women, who came out of the shops, fields, and forests and paid the price. No human mind could ever have created a plot so diverse, so intensely gripping, so inspiring as the story of the American Revolution. The history of the Mormon people is inseparably connected with the establishment of a free nation wherein the gospel could be restored. Through fictional as well as real-life characters, Prelude to Glory powerfully depicts that dramatic story.

Stardust


Neil Gaiman - 1998
    But to do so, he must enter the unexplored lands on the other side of the ancient wall that gives their tiny village its name. Beyond that old stone wall, Tristran learns, lies Faerie—where nothing not even a fallen star, is what he imagined.

Sadie was a Lady


Joan Jonker - 1998
    The neighbours avoid her parents like the plague and Sadie has no friends to turn to for help. But when Harry, the kind-hearted boy next door, sees Sadie crying because her father has lost all their money, he offers to pay her sixpence for a kiss. With coins in her pocket, Sadie goes to Paddy's market to buy underclothes she so desperately needs and it is there that she meets Mary Ann and a lively bunch of Liverpudlian stallholders who are to be her salvation. Even though she is rescued by Mary Ann's friends and starts a new life, Sadie's thoughts still return to her brothers and sisters back at home. And no matter how many admirers she has, there's a place in her heart for just one lad whose kisses she can't seem to forget...

Liverpool Annie


Maureen Lee - 1998
    Starting with a market stall, she discovers a talent for designing clothes that develops into a successful business.But there comes a time amid the success when Annie feel she can no longer go on. Then a chance meeting leads to events she has no control over, and at last she finds the happiness that has previously eluded her.

The Last Sin Eater


Francine Rivers - 1998
    All that matters for Cadi Forbes is finding the one man who can set her free from the sin that plagues her, the sin that has stolen her mother's love from her and made her wish she could flee life and its terrible injustice. But Cadi doesn't know that the “sin eater” is seeking as well. Before their journeys are over, Cadi and the sin eater must face themselves, each other, and the One who will demand everything from them in exchange for the answers they seek. A captivating tale of suffering, seeking, and redemption.

Milk in My Coffee


Eric Jerome Dickey - 1998
    When he shares a ride with a vivacious young white girl, a romance grow between the unlikely pair--much to the chagrin of Jordan's friends and family. Love on the other side of the color bar forces him to examine his own values and makes him stand up against what everyone expects him to do. In this brightly entertaining and emotionally complex novel, Dickey again demonstrates why he is one of the hottest voices in African-American fiction today.

Pretense


Lori Wick - 1998
    When she discovers that the void is spiritual, she is afraid to tell her husband. Will he understand that he cannot meet all of her needs, and that she cannot meet all of his?Covering the lives of Marrell and her two daughters, Mackenzie and Delancey, from the 1970s to the 1990s, Pretense is a character–rich novel written from Lori’s heart that shows the patient love of God and the promise of His forgiveness for all who seek Him.This bestselling, character-rich novel--now reissued for a brand-new generation of readers--features the Bishop sisters, whose unexpected difficulties threaten their world. Will their life-changing experiences bring them together or tear them apart?- PublisherMeet the Bishop sisters -- Two women at the crossroads of life On the outside, the Bishop girls appear as different as sisters can be. Mackenzie is a mahogany-haired beauty who's inherited the determined nature of her Army officer father. Her infectious sense of humor and rare gift of imagination are often hidden by a reserved manner. Radiant, blond Delancey views the world through an artist's eyes, drawing what she sees with wide sweeps of emotion. Her charming and trusting personality easily wins friends and admirers, but also leaves her sensitive heart vulnerable to hurt. As the girls grow, unexpected difficulties threaten their world. Will their life-changing experiences bring them together or tear them apart? Where will they find the love they seek?- Publisher

There's a Hair in My Dirt!: A Worm's Story


Gary Larson - 1998
    It was a cartoon that appeared for many years in daily newspapers and was loved by millions. (And was confusing to millions more.) But one day he stopped.Gary went into hiding. He made a couple short films. He played his guitar. He threw sticks for his dogs. They threw some back.Yet Gary was restless. He couldn't sleep nights. Something haunted him. (Besides Gramps.) Something that would return him to his roots in biology, drawing and dementia--a tale called There's a Hair in My Dirt! A Worm's Story.It begins a few inches underground, when a young worm, during a typical family dinner, discovers there's a hair in his plate of dirt. He becomes rather upset, not just about his tainted meal but about his entire miserable, wormy life. This, in turn, spurs his father to tell him a story--a story to inspire the children of invertebrates everywhere.And so Father Worm describes the saga of a fair young maiden and her adventuresome stroll through her favorite forest, a perambulator's paradise. It is a journey filled with mystery and magic. Or so she thinks.Which is all we'll say for now.What exactly does the maiden encounter?Does Son Worm learn a lesson?More important, does he eat his plate of fresh dirt?Well, you'll have to read to find out, but let's just say the answers are right under your feet.Written and illustrated in a children's storybook style, There's a Hair in My Dirt! A Worm's Story is a twisted take on the difference between our idealized view of Nature and the sometimes cold, hard reality of life for the birds and the bees and the worms (not to mention our own species).Told with his trademark off-kilter humor, this first original non--Far Side book is the unique work of a comic master.Now Larson can finally sleep at night.Question is, will you?(from the back cover)

The Mark of the Assassin


Daniel Silva - 1998
    A body is discovered near the crash site with three bullets to the face: the calling card of a shadowy international assassin. Only agent Michael Osbourne has seen the markings before—on a woman he once loved.Now, it's personal for Osbourne. Consumed by his dark obsession with the assassin, he's willing to risk his family, his career, and his life—to settle a score....

The Poisonwood Bible


Barbara Kingsolver - 1998
    They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.

The Simple Truth


David Baldacci - 1998
    But when his memory is jogged by a letter from the army, he has a shocking realization: he's not guilty. From prison, Rufus secretly files an appeal with the Supreme Court, unaware that the real killers are onto him. But the long-time convict knows he's running out of time when his lawyer and the Supreme Court clerk--the first person to see Rufus's appeal--are murdered. Escaping with his brother's help, Rufus must now elude capture long enough to expose a shocking cover-up and save his own life.

Alexander: Child of a Dream


Valerio Massimo Manfredi - 1998
    From boyhood, the prince was trained by the finest scholars and mightiest soldiers to attain extraordinary strength of body and spirit. A descendant of Heracles and Achilles, Alexander aimed to surpass his ancestors' heroism and honor, and his chosen companions strove to be worthy to share his godlike fate. Even as a youth, Alexander's deeds were unequaled. In a single day, he tamed the fierce steed Bucephalus. In his first battle, his troops defeated the invincible Sacred Band. And as he grew to manhood, surrounded by deadly plots and intrigue, his friends pledged to follow him to the ends of the world. With the support of that loyal group of men, Alexander's might would transform dreams of conquest into reality amid the fabled cities of Persia and the mysterious East...and his destiny would carry them all to glory.

Any Old Iron


Lynda Page - 1998
    Her mother is dying and needs constant care; her father has returned to Leicester from the Second World War but is an emotional wreck; and her brother Mickey has turned to a life of crime that is putting the whole family at risk. Kelly's boyfriend Rodney and his sister Glenda know that she's scared of what Micky might do next. But they turn a blind eye to her fears - with disastrous consequences for them all. When Kelly has lost eveything she holds dear, she and Glenda pick up the pieces and start again. And one man in particular, Alec Alderman, is there when she needs him most. But Alec has problems of his own...

Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader


William S. Burroughs - 1998
    Beginning with his very early writing (including a chapter from his and Jack Kerouac's never-before-seen collaborative novel), Word Virus follows the arc of Burroughs's remarkable career, from his darkly hilarious "routines" to the experimental cut-up novels to Cities of the Red Night and The Cat Inside. Beautifully edited and complemented by James Grauerholz's illuminating biographical essays, Word Virus charts Burroughs's major themes and places the work in the context of the life. It is an excellent tool for the scholar and a delight for the general reader. Throughout a career that spanned half of the twentieth century, William S. Burroughs managed continually to be a visionary among writers. When he died in 1997, the world of letters lost its most elegant outsider.

The Industry of Souls


Martin Booth - 1998
    Eventually freed from the gulag in the 1970's, he finds he has no reason to return to the West-he has become Russian in everything but birth. Now, on the day of his 80th birthday, Russia has changed. Communism has evaporated. In the aftermath, information has come to light that Alex is still alive. This moving story weaves together the events of Alex's life, exploring this momentous day, his harrowing past in the camp and his life in the village. And it ends with his having to make a personal choice, perhaps for the first time in his life, and the climax is shattering.

Nora Roberts Collection: Daring to Dream; Holding the Dream; Finding the Dream; Homeport


Nora Roberts - 1998
    

Kiss Chase


Fiona Walker - 1998
    But he has one nasty habit he can't seem to break: a sadistic tendency to ride rough-shod over any girl foolish enough to fall for him.

The Farming of Bones


Edwidge Danticat - 1998
    Amabelle Desir, Haitian-born and a faithful maidservant to the Dominican family that took her in when she was orphaned, and her lover Sebastien, an itinerant sugarcane cutter, decide they will marry and return to Haiti at the end of the cane season. However, hostilities toward Haitian laborers find a vitriolic spokesman in the ultra-nationalist Generalissimo Trujillo who calls for an ethnic cleansing of his Spanish-speaking country. As rumors of Haitian persecution become fact, as anxiety turns to terror, Amabelle and Sebastien's dreams are leveled to the most basic human desire: to endure. Based on a little-known historical event, this extraordinarily moving novel memorializes the forgotten victims of nationalist madness and the deeply felt passion and grief of its survivors.

Judas Child


Carol O'Connell - 1998
    This hasn't happened for fifteen years, since Rouge Kendall's twin sister was murdered. The killer was found, but now Rouge, twenty-five and a policeman, is forced to wonder: was he really the one? Also wondering is a former classmate named Ali Cray, a forensic psychologist with scars of her own. The pattern is the same, she says: a child called out to meet a friend. The friend is the bait, the Judas child, and is quickly killed. But the primary victim lives longer. . .until Christmas day. Rouge doesn't want to hear this. He's spent the last fifteen years trying to avoid the memories. A little girl has haunted his dreams all these years - and he has three days to finally put her to rest. Filled with rich prose, resonant characters, and knife-edged suspense that have won so many fans, Judas Child is Carol O'Connell's most powerful novel yet.

Island of Ghosts


Gillian Bradshaw - 1998
    The victims of a wartime pact struck with the emperor Marcus Aurelius to ensure the future of Sarmatia, Ariantes and his troop of accomplished horsemen are sent to Hadrian's Wall. Unsurprisingly, the Sarmatians hate Britain--an Island of Ghosts, filled with pale faces, stone walls, and an uneasy past.Struggling to command his own people to defend a land they despise, Ariantes is accepted by all, but trusted by none. The Romans fear his barbarian background, and his own men fear his gradual Roman assimilation. When Ariantes uncovers a conspiracy sure to damage both his Roman benefactors and his beloved countrymen, as well as put him and the woman he loves in grave danger, he must make a difficult decision--one that will change his own life forever.

The Face of Deception


Iris Johansen - 1998
    Her own daughter murdered and her body never found, the job is Eve's way of coming to terms with her personal nightmare. But more terror lies ahead when she accepts work from billionaire John Logan. Beneath her gifted hands a face emerges from the skull he has given her to reconstruct—a face no one was ever meant to see. Now Eve is trapped in a frightening web of murder and deceit. Powerful enemies are determined to cover up the truth, and they will make certain that truth goes to the grave...even if Eve gets buried with it.

The Complete Talking Heads


Alan Bennett - 1998
    In Bed Among the Lentils, a vicar's wife discovers a semblance of happiness with an Indian shop owner. In A Chip in the Sugar, a man's life begins to unravel when he discovers his aging mother has rekindled an old flame. In A Lady of Letters, a busybody pays a price for interfering in her neighbor's life.First produced for BBC television in 1988 to great critical acclaim, the Talking Heads monologues also appeared on the West End Stage in London in 1992 and 1998. In 2002, seven of the pieces were performed at the Tiffany Theater in Los Angeles for a highly praised brief engagement, and in 2003 a selection of the monologues premiered in New York at the Minetta Lane Theatre. These extraordinary portraits of ordinary people confirm Alan Bennett's place as one of the most gifted, versatile, and important writers in the English Language.

Eudora Welty: Stories, Essays, and Memoirs


Eudora Welty - 1998
    "A Curtain of Green and Other Stories" (1941), her first book, includes many of her most popular stories, such as "A Worn Path, " "Powerhouse, " and the farcical "Why I Live at the P.O." "The Wide Net and Other Stories" (1943), in which historical figures such as Aaron Burr ("First Love") and John James Audubon ("A Still Moment") appear as characters, shows her evolving mastery as a regional chronicler. "The Golden Apples" (1949) is a series of interrelated stories about the inhabitants of the fictional town of Morgana, Mississippi. It was Welty's favorite among her books. The stories of "The Bride of the Innisfallen and Other Stories" (1955) are set both in the South and in Europe. Also included are two stories from the 1960s, "Where Is the Voice Coming From?," based on the shooting of Medgar Evers, and "The Demonstrators." A selection of nine literary and personal essays includes evocations of the Jackson of her youth that is essential to her work and cogent discussions of literary form.

Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World


Kathleen Ragan - 1998
    Gathered from around the world, from regions as diverse as sub-Saharan Africa and Western Europe, from North and South American Indian cultures and New World settlers, from Asia and the Middle East, these 100 folktales celebrate strong female heroines.Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters is for all women who are searching to define who they are, to redefine the world and shape their collective sensibility. It is for men who want to know more about what it means to be a woman. It is for our daughters and our sons, so that they can learn to value all kinds of courage, courage in battle and the courage of love. It is for all of us to help build a more just vision of woman.

Walking My Baby Back Home


Joan Jonker - 1998
    But when John Kershaw turns up on her doorstep, she can't blame her kids, Katy and Colin, for wanting another man about the house. John's the boss of a local factory, and a kind and caring man who can't seem to do enough for the Bakers and their friends and neighbours. He defends Mary Campbell when she is attacked by her violent husband; he encourages Colin and Katy in all that they do; and he puts a smile on Dot's face that's been missing since her husband's death. Everyone in the street can see they're meant to be together, but the one person who's blind to John's charm is Dot herself. What's it going to take to make her realise where her happiness lies...?

House of Day, House of Night


Olga Tokarczuk - 1998
    When the narrator moves into the area, she discovers everyone--and everything--has a story. With the help of Marta, her enigmatic neighbor, the narrator accumulates these stories, tracing the history of Nowa Ruda from the its founding to the lives of its saints, from the caller who wins the radio quiz every day to the man who causes international tension when he dies straddling the border between Poland and Czechoslovakia.Each of the stories represents a brick and they interlock to reveal the immense monument that is the town. What emerges is the message that the history of any place--no matter how humble--is limitless, that by describing or digging at the roots of a life, a house, or a neighborhood, one can see all the connections, not only with one's self and one's dreams but also with all of the universe.Richly imagined, weaving anecdote with recipes and gossip, Tokarczuk's novel is an epic of a small place. Since its publication in 1998 it has remained a bestseller in Poland. House of Day, House of Night is the English-language debut of one of Europe's best young writers.

The Brothers' War


Jeff Grubb - 1998
    The Magic.Dominarian legends speak of a mighty conflict, obscured by the mists of history. Of a conflict between the brothers Urza and Mishra for supremacy on the continent of Terisiare. Of titantic engines that scarred and twisted the very planet. Of a final battle that sank continents and shook the skies.The saga of the Brothers' War.Linked to the Antiquities expansion of the Magic: The Gathering trading card game.

If You Come Softly


Jacqueline Woodson - 1998
    Ellie is wrestling with family demons, and Miah is one of the few African American students. The two of them find each other, and fall in love -- but they are hesitant to share their newfound happiness with their friends and families, who will not understand. At the end, life makes the brutal choice for them.

Footprints on the Sand


Judith Lennox - 1998
    Faith, the eldest child of the family, longs for a proper home. But in 1940 Germany invades France and the Mulgraves are forced to flee to England. Faith and her brother Jake go to London while Ralph reluctantly settles in a Norfolk cottage with the remnants of his family. In the intense and dangerous landscape of wartime London Faith finds work as an ambulance driver, and meets once again one of Ralph's retinue from those distant and, in retrospect, golden days of childhood. Through war and its aftermath, it is Faith on whom the family relies, Faith who offers support and succour, and Faith who is constant and true in her love.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Vol. I


Arthur Conan Doyle - 1998
    A king blackmailed by his mistress, dark dealings in opium dens, stolen jewels, a missing bride - these are cases so fiendishly complex that only Sherlock Holmes would dare to investigate.

The Prairie Trilogy: O Pioneers!; The Song of the Lark; My Antoniá


Willa Cather - 1998
     - O Pioneers! is a powerful early Cather novel that tells the compelling tale of a young girl with the tough task of taking care of her frontier family after their father's death. - The Song of the Lark is the self-portrait of an artist in the making. It revolves around the fascinating story of a young girl who heads to the big city in search of the American dream. - My Antoniá is one of Cather's earliest novels. It tells the moving story of immigrant pioneers whose persistence and strength helped to build America. - Just as accessible and enjoyable for today's modern readers as they would have been when first published well over a century ago, the novels are some of the great works of American literature and continue to be widely read and studied throughout the world. - This meticulous digital edition from Heritage Publishing is a faithful reproduction of the original texts.

Mama Flora's Family


Alex Haley - 1998
    Mama Flora, born to poor sharecroppers in Tennessee, is forced to raise her children alone after the murder of her husband. But it will not be Willie, her son, who fulfills her ambitions, but Ruthana, the niece she raises as her own. Inspired by her love for the radical poet Ben, Ruthana seeks her soul in Africa even as Willie's son and daughter embrace Black Power and drugs in their embattled coming-of-age. Throughout all the seasons of their lives, it is Mama Flora who prevails, whose quiet determination and love bring them back, as she leads her own quest for justice in tumultuous times.From the Paperback edition.

Saving Private Ryan


Max Allan Collins - 1998
    Military forces converge on the beaches of Normandy for one of the most decisive battles of World War II. America would call it a victory. History would call it D-Day. But for Captain John Miler and his squad of young soldiers, this fateful day would become something much more. Washington has sent them on a personal mission to save one life. One paratrooper missing in action. One soldier who has already lost three brothers in the war. Captain Miller and his men quickly realize this is not a simple rescue operation. It is a test of their honor and their duty. Their sole obsession - and their last hope for redemption. In a war of devastating proportions, saving one life could make all the difference in the world.

Pandora / Vittorio the Vampire


Anne Rice - 1998
    In Pandora, fledgling vampire David Talbot chronicles the history of Pandora, a two-thousand-year-old vampire, and in fifteenth-century Renaissance Florence, Vittorio finds his world shattered when his entire family is destroyed in an act of unholy violence and embarks on a desperate quest for revenge, in Vittorio, the Vampire, in an omnibus edition.From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Lesson: A Fable for Our Times


Carol Lynn Pearson - 1998
    Original edition has sold more than 85,000 copiesTold in the charming, straightforward tradition of a classic fable, and illustrated as richly as a favorite children’s story, Pearson’s modern-day tale will inspire every adult facing his or her own life challenges.

Caucasia


Danzy Senna - 1998
    The sisters are so close that they have created a private language, yet to the outside world they can't be sisters: Birdie appears to be white, while Cole is dark enough to fit in with the other kids at the Afrocentric school they attend. For Birdie, Cole is the mirror in which she can see her own blackness. Then their parents' marriage falls apart. Their father's new black girlfriend won't even look at Birdie, while their mother gives her life over to the Movement: at night the sisters watch mysterious men arrive with bundles shaped like rifles.One night Birdie watches her father and his girlfriend drive away with Cole—they have gone to Brazil, she will later learn, where her father hopes for a racial equality he will never find in the States. The next morning—in the belief that the Feds are after them—Birdie and her mother leave everything behind: their house and possessions, their friends, and—most disturbing of all—their identity. Passing as the daughter and wife of a deceased Jewish professor, Birdie and her mother finally make their home in New Hampshire.Desperate to find Cole, yet afraid of betraying her mother and herself to some unknown danger, Birdie must learn to navigate the white world—so that when she sets off in search of her sister, she is ready for what she will find. At once a powerful coming-of-age story and a groundbreaking work on identity and race in America, "Caucasia deserves to be read all over" (Glamour).

The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy


Terry Pratchett - 1998
    However, he hasn't been playing for long when the ScreeWee Empire surrenders to him. After accepting the surrender he finds himself inside the game in his dreams, where he must deal with the suspicious Gunnery Officer as well as the understanding Captain, and work out exactly what they're all supposed to do now. This might all be the result of an over-active imagination except that the ScreeWee have disappeared altogether from everyone else's copy of the game. With the help of another player, Kirsty, who calls herself "Sigourney" (as in Weaver), Johnny must try to get the ScreeWee home.Book 2: Johnny and the Dead (1993) is the second novel by Terry Pratchett to feature the character Johnny Maxwell. The other novels in the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy are Only You Can Save Mankind (1992) and Johnny and the Bomb (1996). In this story, Johnny sees and speaks with the spirits (they object to the term "ghost") of those interred in his local cemetery and tries to help them when their home is threatened. Book 3: After Johnny Maxwell, a boy in his early teens, finds Mrs. Tachyon, an old bag lady, by a cinema he discovers that her trolley is in fact a time machine. He goes back to his town, Blackbury, during the time of The Blitz with his friends Stephen, aka Wobbler, Bigmac, Kirsty and Yo-less (possibly because Johnny has been obsessing about the destruction of Paradise Street in a German raid). Wobbler gets left behind in 1941, and when they return for him, Johnny tries to prevent the deaths caused in the raid.