Best of
Modern

1986

A Book of Memories


Péter Nádas - 1986
    But it is more: Peter Nadas has given us a superb contemporary psychological novel that comes to terms with the ghosts, corpses, and repressed nightmares of Europe's recent past. "A Book of Memories" is made up of three first-person narratives: the first that of a young Hungarian writer and his fated love for a German poet; we also learn of the narrator's adolescence in Budapest, when he experiences the downfall of his once-upper-class but now pro-Communist family and of his beloved but repudiated father, a state prosecutor who commits suicide after the 1956 uprising. A second memoir, alternating with the first, is a novel the narrator is composing about a refined Belle Epoque aesthete, whose anti-bourgeois transgressions seem like emotionally overcharged versions of the narrator's own experiences. A third voice is that of a childhood friend who, after the narrator's return to his homeland, offers an apparently more objective account of their friendship. Together these brilliantly colored lives are integrated in a powerful work of tragic intensity.

The Other Side of Paradise


Noel Barber - 1986
    Enchanted by the island and its people, Kit falls in love with the daughter of the island princess, and dreams of building a hospital. But all is under threat as war approaches.

Industrial Robotics: Technology, Programming, and Applications


Mikell P. Groover - 1986
    One of the first such volumes designed specifically as a textbook,it differs from the strictly professional robotics book in its use of learning aids. Example problems,case studies,and end-of-chapter exercises serve to reinforce important concepts.

The Moth


Catherine Cookson - 1986
    Life with domineering Uncle John and his family did not always prove easy, however, and on Sunday Robert was glad to set off alone exploring the Durham countryside. At a friendly wayside inn he heard talk about Foreshaw Park, the sadly run-down estate of the once wealthy Thorman family, and walking home in the moonlight he had his first strange encounter with Millie, the ethereal girl-child of that house whose odd ways and nocturnal wanderings had led to her being known locally as 'Thorman's Moth'. The time came when a sudden and dramatic turn in Robert's affairs brought him a much closer involvement with the Thormans of Foreshaw, and especially with the elder daughter Agnes who shouldered so many of the burdens of this troubled household and who alone of all her family loved and protected the frail unworldly Millie. But this was 1913, and anything beyond the most formal relationship between servant and mistress had to face the barriers and injustices of a rigid social hierarchy that was soon to perish in the flames of war.

Low Life: A Kind of Autobiography


Jeffrey Bernard - 1986
    The complete collection of 'the Tony Hancock of journalism' Jeffrey Bernard s first 'Low Life' Spectator series, with all the original illustrations"

Wild Gratitude


Edward Hirsch - 1986
    The language is, throughout, simple, sensuous, and direct. We can be grateful for this book and this poet." --Jay Parini"I have known the poetry of Edward Hirsch for some time, and have greatly admired it. But I even more greatly admire his Wild Gratitude as a general collection, and I am convinced that the best poems here are unsurpassed in our time." --Robert Penn Warren

Best Detective Stories of Agatha Christie


Agatha Christie - 1986
    - The Mystery of Hunter's Lodge- The Million Dollar Bond Robbery - The Adventure of the Clapham Cook- Accident - The Lernean Hydra - The Stymphalean Birds- Tape-Measure Murder

But Do Blondes Prefer Gentlemen?: Homage to Qwert Yuiop and Other Writings


Anthony Burgess - 1986
    

The Free Frenchman


Piers Paul Read - 1986
    The mothers of the young couple had been childhood friends, but the differences in outlook of the children are exacerbated by the political polarisation that has come over France at the time. We are in the 1930s with Communists and fascists fighting in the streets. The marriage does not last and France goes to war. Bertrand, now a Prefect, is refused permission to join the army; but after France’s defeat and the armistice with the Germans, he decides that he cannot serve under Marshal Petain. He escapes over the Pyrenees and eventually reaches London where he places himself at the disposal of General de Gaulle. Bertrand’s life in France has introduced the reader to spies, priests, academics, criminals, politicians, prostitutes, policemen and refugees from the Spanish Civil War. In London, he becomes involved with the English and, when sent back to France by de Gaulle, with the different factions in the French Resistance. Bertrand becomes enmeshed in political infighting and mired in moral paradox as the story proceeds to a dramatic denouement. Awarded the Enid McLeod Literary Prize by the Franco-British Society

Dirt Rich


Clark Howard - 1986
    Crossing America in the early twenties, midwesterners Georgia and Sam Sheridan unknowingly take the first steps on a quest for identity and a search for an ocean of oil that will make them rich.

The Philosophic Roots of Modern Ideology: Liberalism, Communism, Fascism, Islamism


David E. Ingersoll - 1986
    It offers analyses of some of the major political thinkers of the modern age: Hobbes, Locke, Burke, Jefferson, Madison, Rousseau, Marx, Lenin, Gorbachev, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Hitler, Mussolini, Khomeni, and more. For anyone who wants a better understanding of the conflicts and actions of groups and individuals who see the world through different ideological lenses.

Neither Right Nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France


Zeev Sternhell - 1986
    Listed by Le Monde as one of the forty most important books published in France during the 1980s, this explosive work asserts that fascism was an important part of the mainstream of European history, not just a temporary development in Germany and Italy but a significant aspect of French culture as well. Neither right nor left, fascism united antibourgeois, antiliberal nationalism, and revolutionary syndicalist thought, each of which joined in reflecting the political culture inherited from eighteenth-century France. From the first, Sternhell's argument generated strong feelings among people who wished to forget the Vichy years, and his themes drew enormous public attention in 1994, as Paul Touvier was condemned for crimes against humanity and a new biography probed President Mitterand's Vichy connections. The author's new preface speaks to the debates of 1994 and reinforces the necessity of acknowledging the past, as President Chirac has recently done on France's behalf.

Dark Fields


T.J. MacGregor - 1986
    James thought she knew her lover, thought nothing about Grant's life could surprise her. But in his death she finds herself confronted by a series of shocks . . . and questions. Helping her to answer them is police detective Mike McCleary, whose other primary case involves a search for a serial killer -- a woman with a knife, who picks up her victims in singles' bars.As St. James and McCleary join forces, the murderer circles closer and closer, hovering just beyond their vision -- in the dark field.

All Things Are Lights


Robert Shea - 1986
    "In tournaments all over Europe, Count Amalric has bested hundreds of knights. Many times he has killed men. Of course, it is against the rules. But he is a master at making it look like an accident." He looked at Roland with an almost fatherly kindness. "Indeed, Messire, the best advice I could give you would be not to enter the tournament at all."Roland laughed. "Such cautious advice from a Templar?""We fight for God, Messire. Have you as great a motive?""Yes, I do," said Roland, seeing Nicolette's eyes shining in the darkness before him. "I fight for love."

The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA


John Ranelagh - 1986