It is a stunning work: a complex tapestry of family tensions, baseball, politics and religion, by turns hilariously funny and agonizingly sad. Highly inventive formally, the novel is mainly narrated by Kincaid Chance, the youngest son in a family of four boys and identical twin girls, the children of Hugh Chance, a discouraged minor-league ballplayer whose once-promising career was curtained by an industrial accident, and his wife Laura, an increasingly fanatical Seventh-Day Adventist. The plot traces the working-out of the family's fate from the beginning of the Eisenhower years through the traumas of Vietnam.

    Friedrich Nietzsche, Europe's greatest philosopher, is on the brink of suicidal despair, unable to find a cure for the headaches and other ailments that plague him. When he agrees to treat Nietzsche with his experimental "talking cure", Breuer never expects that he, too, will find solace in their sessions. Only through facing his own inner demons can the gifted healer begin to help his patient.In When Nietzsche Wept, Irvin Yalom blends fact and fiction, atmosphere and suspense to unfold an unforgettable story about the redemptive power of friendship.

    This searing novel, originally banned in China but later named one of that nation's most influential books, portrays one man's transformation from the spoiled son of a landlord to a kindhearted peasant. After squandering his family's fortune in gambling dens and brothels, the young, deeply penitent Fugui settles down to do the honest work of a farmer. Forced by the Nationalist Army to leave behind his family, he witnesses the horrors and privations of the Civil War, only to return years later to face a string of hardships brought on by the ravages of the Cultural Revolution. Left with an ox as the companion of his final years, Fugui stands as a model of gritty authenticity, buoyed by his appreciation for life in this narrative of humbling power.

    Vail is certain to lose, but Vail uses his unorthodox ways to good advantage when choosing his legal team—a tight group of men and women who must uncover the extraordinary truth behind the archbishop's slaughter. They do, in a heart-stopping climax unparalleled for the surprise it springs on the reader...

     It all begins with The Original Sin... Mercedes Eduard--rich, powerful and still beautiful--lives quietly on her Costa Brava estate, her turbulent past behind her. Until the package from America arrives: the graphic photo of her daughter Eden, and the impossible demand for ten million dollars. This is no ordinary kidnapping. Its roots go back beyond the Spanish Civil War to an original sin which has shadowed three generations and now links its heirs in a twisted chain of revenge. Will it end in damnation or salvation? Triumph or tragedy? The answer lies in a passionate love story, an ancient mystery--and a secret which will change lives forever. Also by Marius Gabriel: A HOUSE OF MANY ROOMS ‘A sexy, gripping thriller that doesn't miss a beat.’ Kirkus Reviews THE SEVENTH MOON ‘Few thrillers have as strong a sense of atmosphere and adventure as this fascinating tale.’ Chicago Tribune

    She is taught to worship the old gods and to "scry" into the future and the past. Eleyne's second sight, however, involves her in the destinies of England, Scotland and Wales.

    In this volume, Dr. Leatherbarrow shows that far from being merely a philosophical religious tract, The Brothers Karamazov is an enjoyable and accessible novel. He discusses its major themes, including atheism and belief, the nature of man, socialism and individualism, and the state of European civilization, focusing particulary on those themes of justice, order and disorder, in whose revolutionary treatment he sees the real significance of this literary landmark.

    Abounding in philosophical, psychological and theological inquiries - yet laced with humour that is as infectious as it is wilful - The Discovery of Heaven convinces us that it just might be possible to bring order into the chaos of the world through a story.

    But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last—inexorably—into evil.

    But gradually, as Sebald's precise, almost dreamlike prose begins to draw their stories, the four narrations merge into one overwhelming evocation of exile and loss.Written with a bone-dry sense of humour and a fascination with the oddness of existence The Emigrants is highly original in its heady mix of fact, memory and fiction and photographs.

    Featuring: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gary Snyder, Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, Diane Di Prima, Bob Dylan, Ken Kesey, Charles Bukowski, Michael McClure, and more.

    Bertie has an unfailing talent for getting into sticky situations, but Jeeves never fails to come to his rescue, be it from the threat of matrimony, relatives or Aunts.

    At the heart of this story is Ruth Anne Boatwright, known simply as Bone, a bastard child who observes the world around her with a mercilessly keen perspective. When her stepfather Daddy Glen, "cold as death, mean as a snake," becomes increasingly more vicious toward her, Bone finds herself caught in a family triangle that tests the loyalty of her mother, Anney—and leads to a final, harrowing encounter from which there can be no turning back.

    She is the pride of Fort Hadley until, one morning, her body is found, naked and bound, on the firing range.Paul Brenner is a member of the Army's elite undercover investigative unit and the man in charge of this politically explosive case. Teamed with rape specialist Cynthia Sunhill, with whom he once had a tempestuous, doomed affair, Brenner is about to learn just how many people were sexually, emotionally, and dangerously involved with the Army's "golden girl." And how the neatly pressed uniforms and honor codes of the military hide a corruption as rank as Ann Campbell's shocking secret life.

    Galvin describes the seasons, the weather, the wildlife, and the few people who do not possess but are themselves possessed by this terrain. In so doing he reveals an experience that is part of our heritage and mythology. For Lyle, Ray, Clara, and App, the struggle to survive on an independent family ranch is a series of blameless failures and unacclaimed successes that illuminate the Western character. The Meadow evokes a sense of place that can be achieved only by someone who knows it intimately.

    This collection of Jeffrey Archer novels includes "Kane and Abel" the sequel "The Prodigal Daughter" and the novel "Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less".

    Filled with the "sacred hunger" to expand its empire and its profits, England entered full into the slave trade and spread the trade throughout its colonies. In this Booker Prize-winning work, Barry Unsworth follows the failing fortunes of William Kemp, a merchant pinning his last chance to a slave ship; his son who needs a fortune because he is in love with an upper-class woman; and his nephew who sails on the ship as its doctor because he has lost all he has loved. The voyage meets its demise when disease spreads among the slaves and the captain's drastic response provokes a mutiny. Joining together, the sailors and the slaves set up a secret, utopian society in the wilderness of Florida, only to await the vengeance of the single-minded, young Kemp.

    But this unruly utopia is imperiled when the demon-harried Cardinal Guzmán decides to inaugurate a new Inquisition, with Cochadebajo as its ultimate target.       On his side, the Cardinal has an army of fanatics who are all too willing to destroy bodies in order to save souls. The Cochadebajeros have precious little ammunition, unless you count chef Dolores's incendiary Chicken of a True Man, and a civil defense that deems nothing more crucial than the act of love. Part epic, part farce, The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzmán confirms de Bernières's reputation as England's answer to Gabriel García Márquez.

    As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible worlds. In one, time is circular, so that people are fated to repeat triumphs and failures over and over. In another, there is a place where time stands still, visited by lovers and parents clinging to their children. In another, time is a nightingale, sometimes trapped by a bell jar.Now translated into thirty languages, Einstein’s Dreams has inspired playwrights, dancers, musicians, and painters all over the world. In poetic vignettes, it explores the connections between science and art, the process of creativity, and ultimately the fragility of human existence.

    In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like braille. I like to keep my body rolled away from prying eyes, never unfold too much, tell the whole story. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book.

    I sat in the crematorium, listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmont to bach's Mass in B Minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Gallanach." Prentice McHoan has returned to the bosom of his complex but enduring Scottish family. Full of questions about the McHoan past, present and future, he is also deeply preoccupied: mainly with death, sex, drink, God and illegal substances...

    His beat is a rough New Jersey neighborhood where the drug murders blur together, until the day Victor Dunham — a twenty-year-old with a steady job and a clean record — confesses to a shooting outside a fast-food joint. It doesn't take long for Rocco's attention to turn to Victor's brother, a street-corner crack dealer named Strike who seems a more likely suspect for the crime. At once an intense mystery, and a revealing study of two men on opposite sides of an unwinnable war, Clockers is a stunningly well-rendered chronicle of modern life on the streets.

    Ninety three weeks on the best-seller list.Sotah introduces a family with three daughters approaching the age of marriage: Devorah, Dina and Chaya Leah. In the strict orthodoxy of their world, a Sotah is a wife suspected of infidelity who can be tried by ordeal to prove she is guiltless. Which sister could be capable of such a thought, let alone the act? Into the pious world of strict chaperoning and modest clothing, where a married woman's hair must never be seen by a man other than her husband--insinuates this serpent suggestion of evil. Ragen's powerful tale of three sisters spins endless questions: Which one? Could she? Did she? What changes could come into this orderly world because of unthinking actions?

    In a seedy D.C. porno house a patron is swiftly garroted to death... The next day America learns that two of its Supreme Court justices have been assassinated. And in New Orleans, a young law student prepares a legal brief... To Darby Shaw it was no more than a legal shot in the dark, a brilliant guess. To the Washington establishment it was political dynamite. Suddenly Darby is witness to a murder -- a murder intended for her. Going underground, she finds there is only one person she can trust -- an ambitious reporter after a newsbreak hotter than Watergate -- to help her piece together the deadly puzzle. Somewhere between the bayous of  Louisiana and the White House's inner sanctums, a violent cover-up is being engineered. For someone has read Darby's brief. Someone who will stop at nothing to destroy the evidence of an unthinkable crime.

    Includes four tales - Wolf in Shadow, as John Shannow seeks revenge, The Last Guardian, a reptilian army swarms the post-holocaust world, Ghost King in which Culain and a boy face the terror of the Witch Queen and the Last Sword of Power in which a new age dawns over Roman Britain.

    Across the border Mexico beckons—beautiful and desolate, rugged and cruelly civilized. With two companions, he sets off on an idyllic, sometimes comic adventure, to a place where dreams are paid for in blood.

    Godwin Baxter's scientific ambition to create the perfect companion is realized when he finds the drowned body of Bella, but his dream is thwarted by Dr. Archibald McCandless's jealous love for Baxter's creation.The hilarious tale of love and scandal that ensues would be "the whole story" in the hands of a lesser author (which in fact it is, for this account is actually written by Dr. McCandless). For Gray, though, this is only half the story, after which Bella (a.k.a. Victoria McCandless) has her own say in the matter. Satirizing the classic Victorian novel, Poor Things is a hilarious political allegory and a thought-provoking duel between the desires of men and the independence of women, from one of Scotland's most accomplished author.

    His feverish and singular pursuit of this goal has come to define his life. Now an old man, he is looked on with suspicion and shame by his family-until his ambitious young nephew intervenes.Seeking to understand his uncle's mysterious mind, the narrator of this novel unravels his story, a dramatic tale set against a tableau of brilliant historical figures-among them G. H. Hardy, the self-taught Indian genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, and a young Kurt Gödel. Meanwhile, as Petros recounts his own life's work, a bond is formed between uncle and nephew, pulling each one deeper into mathematical obsession, and risking both of their sanity.

    Among the effects of a dead passenger, they come across a set of notebooks that tell of his life. As the boy reads the story to his elderly companion, this story and their own develop in tandem. Written in 1992, Mia Couto’s first novel is a powerful indictment of the suffering war brings.

    Juan knows little of the interior life of his father Ranz; but when Juan marries, he begins to consider the past anew, and begins to ponder what he doesn't really want to know. Secrecy—its possible convenience, its price, and even its civility—hovers throughout the novel. A Heart So White becomes a sort of anti-detective story of human nature. Intrigue; the sins of the father; the fraudulent and the genuine; marriage and strange repetitions of violence: Marías elegantly sends shafts of inquisitory light into the shadows and on to the costs of ambivalence. ("My hands are of your colour; but I shame/To wear a heart so white"—Shakespeare's Macbeth.)

    Cassie put her life on hold to attend to her family's needs while Laura and Aileen soared in their careers. Now they were together again as Cassie dared to start her own business and make her impossible dream come true.

    He answers an ad in a local newspaper from a teacher looking for serious pupils, only to find himself alone in an abandoned office with a full-grown gorilla who is nibbling delicately on a slender branch. "You are the teacher?" he asks incredulously. "I am the teacher," the gorilla replies. Ishmael is a creature of immense wisdom and he has a story to tell, one that no other human being has ever heard. It is a story that extends backward and forward over the lifespan of the earth from the birth of time to a future there is still time save. Like all great teachers, Ishmael refuses to make the lesson easy; he demands the final illumination to come from within ourselves. Is it man's destiny to rule the world? Or is it a higher destiny possible for him-- one more wonderful than he has ever imagined?

    This virtual sorcerers' manual is a pioneering work of women's spirituality.

     The landmark bestseller Think and Grow Rich established Napoleon Hill as one of the world's most revered and trusted authorities on personal development. Now, in this rare collection of original recordings, Hill shares the success secrets he learned from the achievers who influenced him -- Carnegie, Edison, Ford and the other legendary leaders of the early 20th century -- and the common set of universal principles that Hill discovered at the root of their success. The proven wisdom of these timeless principles, revealed in this remarkable program, offer a road map to achievement that will help you: * Unleash the power of positive thinking * Gain an unflinching belief in yourself and your ideas * Motivate others with your enthusiasm and faith * Develop mental skills needed to transform your ideas into realized accomplishments You don't need to forge the path to success on your own; with The Science of Personal Achievement, the master will show you the way!

    This first-ever hardcover edition of three of his most popular books features Hellfire, The Unwanted and Sleepwalk. All three stories explore supernatural mysteries of suspense and horror.Appearences are definitely deceiving in John Saul's world. Stories are set in typical, all-American towns, but well-woven plots reveal an eerie array of characters with deeply hidden secrets. Their unspeakable pasts hide unavenged evils--and warrant terrifying justice. The spine-tingling novels in this volume prove that John Saul's talent for writing suspense fiction stands unequalled.

    Set in a diner where the food isn't very good and the ambience veers between heaven and hell, this bestselling novel from the author of Mama Day and The Women of Brewster Place is a feast for the senses and the spirit.

    Something deadly is hiding in U.S. waters, and the Navy brass would rather bury the truth than face it.It's Montgomery's war now. Brash and unconventional, Mike Montgomery is hardly regulation Navy. At his side, Diane Martinson, the Chief of Staff's wife-smart, tough...and his lover. Under his command, the USS Goldsborough-a WWII-era destroyer thundering toward a showdown of water and fire.With the arrival of P.T. Deutermann-retired Navy captain, former arms control negotiator within the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and ex-commander of at destroyer squadron-today's naval thriller just climbed to a whole new level.

    The story of friendship between four African American women who lean on each other while "waiting to exhale": waiting for that man who will take their breath away.

    This book may have occasional imperfectionssuch as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed worksworldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ Catherine De Medici; Or, The Queen Mother (part II, Marguerite De Valois). Alexandre Dumas Century, 1909

    But while he was gone on his travels, looking for God, Kate couldn't help herself, and began fiddling for her three children. For the love of music, Kate is willing to defy anyone who tries to stop her. From generation to generation, the gift and love of music cannot be stopped, and no Malone is immune from its spell.

    Ben’s one-time best friend, Peter Aaron, begins to retrospectively investigate the transformation that led Ben from his enviable stable life, to one of a recluse. Both were once intelligent, yet struggling novelists until Ben’s near-death experience falling from a fire escape triggers a tumble in which he becomes withdrawn and disturbed, living alone and building bombs in a far-off cabin. That is, until he mysteriously disappears, leaving behind only a manuscript titled Leviathan, pages rustling in the wind.

    At the center of the story is a crucial decision Lumi makes in the last days of the Second World War: he has a chance to leave Albania on a refugee ship headed to Italy, but at the last moment he disembarks and returns home to his village. As it happens, he has chosen a grim existence. To survive, he is forced to work in a concrete factory, from which he watches friends and family members run afoul of repressive new laws. But even as the book skillfully depicts the slow suffocation of a whole society, it also celebrates the moments of love and hope that sustain the people and holds out the possibility that Lumi may have been right to remain at home.

    Capturing the violence, tragedy, history, and drama of the French Revolution, this novel focuses on the families and loves of three men who led the Revolution--Danton, the charismatic leader and orator; Robespierre, the cold rationalist; and Desmoulins, the rabble-rouser.

    In an age of conformity and innocence, the 19-year-old is tired of conventional virtue. Resisting her easy life, she yearns for meaning and beauty, profundity and mystery. Impulsive and adventurous, she attends a midnight meeting of the Klan, and then repelled, hurls herself into the civil rights movement.Half-conscious of her unmet needs and desires, she vacillates between the world of her family and that of her dreams, flirting with danger, pressing against the edge -- with disturbing and tragic consequences."To say that Ellen Gilchrist can write is to say that Placido Domingo can sing. All you need to do is listen." (The Washington Post)

    Movie tie-in.

    A monster assembled by a scientist from parts of dead bodies develops a mind of his own as he learns to loathe himself and hate his creator.Adapted for young readers.

    a lovely blend of humour, sexual comedy and pathos' Daily Express 'A rollicking tale of a Welsh sailor with a girl in every port, but only one true love at home...Thomas has a rare gift for words...This is his best book and a celebration of his robust talents, which combine flesh with imagination. He always had a narrative verve, and this saga develops it into a turn of the wheel of life. Revolving Jones comes back at last to his eternal miss, and hopefully, Leslie Thomas will achieve a revolution in his reputation' The Times 'This exciting adventure story is also one man's pilgrimage, a lifetime's odyssey, a ritually layered tale of the quest for humour and love' Daily Mail 'He inhabits that "bestseller author" territory that includes the likes of Jeffrey Archer, Jack Higgins and Ken Follett, but he is a far better writer than any of them' Marcel Berlins, Sunday Times

    But not even Father Gunn, the parish priest, who knows most of what goes on behind Shancarrig's closed doors, or Dr. Jims, the village doctor, who knows all the rest, realizes that not everything in the placid village is what it seems. From the Hardcover edition.

    Shannon always shared so much with her father--why wasn't her love enough to make him want to live? As Shannon and her mother try to make sense of his death, they courageously renew their commitment to living in the face of their loss. Despite the hardships life may bring, they know they will forgive and love again.From the Paperback edition.

    His comfortable world is being jarred to the breaking point.He's caught his producer fabricating a story and lying to cover her tracks—and she seems to be hiding something much bigger. His supposedly professional and objective colleagues have descended into a dogfight over the meaning of truth. His father's "accidental" death suddenly isn't looking so accidental. And John's estranged son, Carl, has returned to get the truth about the man behind the TV image. All of these events pale in comparison to the mysterious voices that John is hearing.

    Carlson uncannily captures the complexity of his characters' inner lives.

    Francis. National ad/promo.

    He hired Stevens Anderson, an editor, who hired college professors and other bookworms who loved to read. The result was the The Great American Bathroom Book, Vol I, a collection of 130 2-page summaries from great books of all genres, from Don Quixote to The Road Less Traveled. Volume I also features 90 research overviews on subjects like "Putting Spark in Your Relationships", "Managing Conflict", "Time-saving Tips", and more.Volume II features over 220 book summaries and a section of Quotes and Anecdotes. Volume III has more than 180 new summaries, as well as 8 Thought Collections and sections of Facts and Inquiries.

    Paulsen's prose is realistic and down-to-earth....Ruth Wright Paulsen's paintings are an invitation to pause and imagine...a delight (Christian Science Monitor). Illustrations by Ruth Wright Paulsen."

    Then, for her, everything changed…as the world ended. The earthquakes, the global floods and the devastating fires arrived first. The human race, displaced and panicked, at first fled, migrating to any place there was food and shelter. Then the worldwide plague arrived with its waves of death. And as mankind suffered and died out, vampires, their numbers dwindling from the same sickness, struggled and fought fiercely among themselves to survive in a world where there weren’t enough humans left to feed upon. As the months went by the vampires become fewer, more desperate and ruthless. Emma, as the world disintegrated around her, found herself alone, the old life she’d known, her family and friends all dead…and fighting off an unnatural hunger as she became one of the undead. Defying her unwanted destiny she was determined to resist the increasing bloodlust, the need to kill and feed on human blood, of losing her humanity, for as long as she could bear it, but she was so hungry, and the night, the wolves, called. And then she met Matthew and was no longer alone…but could the love she felt for him protect him from her hunger; could her love protect him from the other vampires?

    Distanced from her heritage, Amparo is nevertheless spellbound by the histories of her grandmother, aunt, and mother. Listening to the ancestral music, Amparo learns to hear its strains woven throughout her life.

    

    The Great War has ended, tragically for many, but for some, Africa holds the prospect of vast estates, fabulous wealth, and limitless opportunity in this powerful, wonderfully crafted novel of the natural and human perils that await pioneers in a promised land. In colonial Kenya the paths of these new settlers cross at Lord Penfold's White Rhino Hotel. Here they meet the cunning dwarf Olivio Alevado, a man whose lustful desires and vengeful schemes make him a formidable adversary to his enemies and a subtle ally to his friends. Here the destinies of the gypsy adventurer Anton Rider and courageous, war-hardened Gwen Llewelyn intersect. Here hope is corrupted by greed, love by revenge, and loyalty by betrayal as the future is trampled into history. "A wing-ding adventure story.... The kind of book that creates one of the elemental delights of fiction - a complete other world where, unlike our own, all the parts add up to something." - Boston Globe; "A genuine epic centered in Africa, by a writer who knows how to write, who knows his terrain intimately, who knows how to paint his characters convincingly, and who knows how to spin a good yarn." - Forbes Magazine.

    Get everything. When their best friend commits suicide over her divorce, Elise, Brenda and Annie decide enough is enough. Each was crucial to her husband's career. But now that the men are successful, they've traded in their wives for newer, blonder models. Over lunch one day they form the First Wives Club. But this is no support group. This is the SAS in Chanel. Painstakingly, inexorably, they plan the downfall of the men who've wrecked their lives—and know that revenge has never tasted sweeter...

    Gradually she embarks upon a "personal project": she digs pits in the rectory garden and "looks for the dead." Her story, which has brevity and magical intensity of a fairy tale, is marked equally by tragedy and dark humor.Forever Valley is one of three novels that are the first works to appear in English by Marie Redonnet, one of France's most original new authors (the other novels are Hôtel Splendid and Rose Mellie Rose, both also available from the University of Nebraska Press). Translator Jordan Stump notes that these books "unmistakably fit together, although they have neither characters nor setting in common." In all three novels, Redonnet has said, "it is the women who fight, who seek, who create."

    With great deftness and precision Hamilton exposes how his dupes’ own naivete, snobbery or greed make them perfect targets. These three novels are shot through with the brooding menace and sense of bleak inevitability so characteristic of the author. There is also vivid satire and caustic humour. Gorse is thought to be based on the real-life murderer Neville Heath, hanged in 1946. Patrick Hamilton was born in 1904, and achieved early success as a novelist and playwright, his first novel published in his early twenties. He wrote several other novels and a play, Rope, before he was thirty. Both Rope and another play, Gaslight, were adapted for the big screen, the former by Alfred Hitchcock. His novels include Craven House, The Midnight Bell, The Siege of Pleasure, The Plains of Cement (a trilogy later published together under the title Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky), Hangover Square and The Slaves of Solitude. He died in 1962, aged fifty-eight, alcoholism undoubtedly a factor in his early death. ‘The entertainment value of this brilliantly told story could hardly be higher’ L.P. HARTLEY ‘a marvellous novelist who’s grossly neglected’ DORIS LESSING ‘A riveting dissector of English life’ KEITH WATERHOUSE

    Peter LaNague and his Robin Hood underground had successfully toppled the tryanny of the repressive Imperium, only to enounter an even greater nemesis--an ancient alien enemy who planned to annihilate the human race altogether.

    The Secret Service melds alternative history and speculative physics (morphing) in a fabulist fiction about secret agents turned to objects.

    S. Merwin vividly conveys his intimate knowledge of the people and the countryside in this ancient part of France (home of the Lascaux caves). In three narratives of small-town life, Merwin shows with matchless poetic and narrative power how the past is still palpably present.On its original publication in 1992 Jane Kramer wrote, "These stories are a gift from one of the great poets of the English language, a chronicle of the heartstopping seasons of one small corner of La France Profonde and of its stubborn and illusive characters. Merwin’s French peasants are a force of nature, like the blackberry brambles that used to choke his garden, and he cultivates them both with that attentive, exacting, and relentlessly patient genius that great poets and great gardeners share. This is, simply, the most beautiful writing about France I know."

    The shantytown established by Marie-Sophie is menaced from without by hostile landowners and from within by the volatility of its own provisional state. Hers is a brilliant polyphonic rendering of individual stories informed by rhythmic orality and subversive humor that shape a collective experience.A joyous affirmation of literature that brings to mind Boccaccio, La Fontaine, Lewis Carroll, Montaigne, Rabelais, and Joyce, Texaco is a work of rare power and ambition, a masterpiece.

    She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Stranded in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally orbits into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before she really goes under.

    Milne's delightful stories of lovable Pooh, timid Piglet, melancholy Eeyore and their trusted friend Christopher Robin have been Favourites with children for generations. In this unique collection, six of the most famous stories are brought together with some of A.A. Milne's best-loved poems. Illustrated throughout in colour from Ernest Shepard's delightful drawings, this beautiful treasury will captivate young children everywhere.

    Twelve-year-old Clare flees an unhappy home life and tries to survive on the streets of Atlantic City with a small gang of homeless kids, each of whom has his own secret reason for distrusting society.

    In a time of robber-baron industrialists and rapid territorial expansion both at home and abroad, the new music called “ragtime” is the soundtrack for a confident nation of ambitious dreamers. It is 1904 and the nation’s eyes are on the St. Louis World's Fair, which features an astounding variety of modern marvels. The enormous exhibition brings together the best minds the country has to offer, each of them with something to lose and opportunities to seize: Bob Canfield, a young and wealthy landowner who is willing to risk his honor and his fortune to make a profit out of the desert; Eric Twainbough, a solitary young cowboy riding the rails East from Wyoming, innocently bringing disaster with him; Terry Perkins, a reporter desperate to get the scoop on the story in St. Louis; Connie Bateman, one of the politically conscious new women fighting for freedom, bravely defending their right to equality.

    Accessible language and carefully controlled vocabulary build students' reading confidence. Introductions at the beginning of each story, illustrations throughout, and glossaries help build comprehension. Before, during, and after reading activities included in the back of each book strengthen student comprehension. Audio versions of selected titles provide great models of intonation and pronunciation of difficult words.

    What this does to their lives, families, team, and the President of the US is hilarious, poignant, brilliant, and dazzling fun.

    Omon is chosen to be trained in the Soviet space program the fulfillment of his lifelong dream. However, he enrolls only to encounter the terrifying absurdity of Soviet protocol and its backward technology: a bicycle-powered moonwalker; the outrageous Colonel Urgachin; and a one-way assignment to the moon.

    Best known for his novel The Sheltering Sky, he has for over forty-five years worked in a variety of genres, writing novels, stories, travel accounts, essays, poetry, journals, and autobiography, each distinctively shaped by his arresting vision and style. Since 1947 he has lived as an American expatriate in Tangier, Morocco, and his groundbreaking work has formed an important departure point for an international array of writers - most notably the Beats, whose literature and lifestyle he influenced greatly. Long heralded as a writer's writer and once considered primarily a literary cult figure, Bowles has in recent years been recognized as an original - an enduring visionary whose stark, often violent tales and dispassionate objectivity prefigured and shaped much of our current literary landscape. This striking and comprehensive collection documents the range of his influence and highlights his remarkable virtuosity, what Joyce Carol Oates calls "the rich and unexpectedly variegated achievement of a major American writer." First published in 1949 and included here in its entirety, The Sheltering Sky established Bowles as one of the most singular and promising of an extraordinary post-war generation of writers. His first collection of stories, The Delicate Prey, published in 1950, solidified that reputation. Too Far from Home: The Selected Writing of Paul Bowles is a testament to how forcefully and brilliantly he delivered on that early promise. Taking its title from a new novella published here for the first time, this volume also brings together a dozen of Bowles's best stories; excerpts from his three othernovels, Let It Come Down, The Spider's House, and Up Above the World; excerpts from Points in Time, Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue, Days, and Without Stopping; as well as a group of poems, a selection of previously unpublished letters, and an interview conducted by

    An exhilarating, fiercely honest, ultimately devastating book, The Furies confronts the claims of family and the lure of desire, the difficulties of independence, and the approach of death.Janet Hobhouse's final testament is beautifully written, deeply felt, and above all utterly alive.

    H . Lawrence, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle & Tolstoy, as well as fro m more modern masters of the genre such as Monica Dickens & Michael Morpurgo. '

    Marine Corps' elite Raiders - the men in the vanguard of the island-hopping campaign to wrest control of the Pacific from the Japanese. A veteran of some of the war's bloodiest fighting, he tells the story of a gallant band of young Marines coming of age in a crucible of fire, lead, and steel. For Privates Moe, Cole, Cannon, and the other riflemen of the 3d Squad, 3d Platoon, Dog Company, the war was not all killing or being killed. While camped on islands far from the focus of battle, these free spirits hatched many a plan to foil the officers struggling to rein them in. Their hilarious misadventures provide a dramatic contrast to the sobering accounts of close-quarters combat.

    This huge oratorio of a novel unfolds over seven days in the life of Joubert Jones, an aspiring playwright making ends meet tending bar at his Aunt Eloise's Night Lounge. A Rabelaisian cast of characters and a Shakespearean range of voices crowd the pages of this book, an infinitely rich and suggestive tapestry of Black-American life and identity.

    With no time to spare, American forces must remobilize to locate and neutralize the underground laboratory where a lethal super-virus is ready to be unleashed. But an eleventh-hour disaster thrusts the entire mission into the hands of two Air Force comradesColonel Will Westerman and Reserve Colonel-turned-commercial pilot Doug Harris. Flying into the heart of Iraqi power, they must depend on both their skills and each other as never before in order to complete a mission that may be a suicide run."Exciting."–United Press International

    The story teaches us once again that the pain of coming of age is the purchase price of mature joy.

    captures what it's like to grow up too fast amid the crushing poverty of the South Bronx. A gritty slice of New York Latino life—now reissued with a striking new cover.

    His talent soon caught the eye of 16th-century rulers, and he moved on to the imperial courts of Ferdinand I, Maximilian II, and Rudolf II in Prague, where he created the scenes for his Seasons. In Arcimboldo's allegorical paintings, Spring appears as a young man composed entirely of flowers, Summer as a composition of fruits, Autumn as a head made of grapes, and Winter as a gnarled old man twined with ivy. Arcimboldo remained true to the allegorical principles informing the artistic and philosophical world view of the 16th century. His paintings are not only full of references to ancient classical gods and goddesses, but above all they reflect the courtly cosmos of the art chambers and wonder cabinets in which countless exotic and bizarre objects were housed. With the decline of this allegorical world vision between the Renaissance and Mannerism, Arcimboldo was forgotten- only to be rediscovered by modern artists.

    Marvinder has already saved her brother's life once, but now they both face a daily fight for survival.Together they escape across India and nearly halfway around the world to England, to find a father they hardly know in a new, hostile culture...This book was runner-up for the Guardian Children's Fiction Award.

    His sole companion was Shimamoto, also an only child. Together they spent long afternoons listening to her father's record collection. But when his family moved away, the two lost touch. Now Hajime is in his thirties. After a decade of drifting he has found happiness with his loving wife and two daughters, and success running a jazz bar. Then Shimamoto reappears. She is beautiful, intense, enveloped in mystery. Hajime is catapulted into the past, putting at risk all he has in the present.

    From the Trinity River brakes to Denver, they’ll battle endless miles of flooded rivers, parched desert, and whiskey-crazed Comanches. And come face-to-face with Judge Roy Bean and legendary gunslingers like Clay Allison. For McCaleb and his hard-riding crew, the drive is a fierce struggle against the perils of an untamed land. A fight to the finish where the brave reach glory—or die hard.

    Forster captured the temperament of Englands upper-middle class and the tension of challenges to its stifling conventions. His tales of sophisticated socialites beguiled by uninhibited members of other classes and cultures, and of morally serious men and women struggling with their impulsive emotions, are among the most elegant and entertaining works of literature produced in the Edwardian era.The four novels collected in this volumeWhere Angels Fear to Tread, The Longest Journey, A Room with a View, and Howards Endrepresent the best of Forsters early fiction. Distinguished by their wit and irony, and memorable for their sensitive character studies, they are the enduring legacy of an artist who has been hailed as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. BiographyA graceful writer with a keen eye for the bittersweetness bound in differences of class and culture, E. M. Forster had an abbreviated but remarkably successful career as a novelist and established himself as one of England's most insightful 20th-century writers.

    Painstakingly honest, Littlejohn is "a character as fully rounded in his quirks and imperfections, in his quiet determination and bravery, as any in recent fiction."--Washington Post. National reading tour.

    Certain Things Last is the first one-volume edition of Anderson's stories. But what makes this book truly remarkable is that five of Anderson's very best stories appear in print here for the first time. They are: "Certain Things Last," "Fred," "The Red Dog," "Mrs. Wife," and "The Masterpiece." The discovery of these new stories makes Certain Things Last an unprecedented publishing event. The short story, not the novel or autobiography, was the form in which Sherwood Anderson excelled. And the American short story probably owes more to Sherwood Anderson than to any other American writer. It was Anderson who wrested short fiction from the upbeat conventionality of the popular magazines of the 1920s and '30s and molded it to express the isolation of individual people. Certain Things Last contains 30 stories in all, chosen from previously unpublished manuscripts and from Anderson's three story volumes, The Triumph of the Egg, Horses and Men, and Death in the Woods. Numerous stories have been meticulously restored to Anderson's original version by Professor Modlin.

    After years of being nagged about lumpy gravy, abused wife Lois pulls out a shotgun to wrap up breakfast her way. In a tender moment, an old man speaks from beyond the grave about his wife’s final goodbye at his funeral. Experience, memory, and town-consciousness bind this collection of ten stories spanning twenty-five years in fictitious Cedar, Oklahoma. From the fears and discoveries of childhood, through the revelations of adolescence, into the troubled years of adulthood and decline into old age and death, Rilla Askew uncannily makes each of her characters’ experiences our own.

    In Rome, the Eternal City, he meets Diana. Their attraction is intense and immediate. A passionate relationship is born and soon they are inseparable, reveling in their shared love of art and Italian culture. But storm clouds hang over their union: dark secrets of abuse from his youth, her pain over her brother’s death, and James’s open admission that he has known other men sexually.Back in New York, their relationship falls apart. For James and Diana, it is time to move on; to come to terms with the ghosts that haunt their lives and family histories; to find new paths and new lovers. But the darkness of their relationship is inescapable and persistent even though their love is gone. James has received news that will impact both their lives in devastating ways: He is HIV positive.Joseph Olshan’s The Sound of Heaven is an extraordinary novel, at once romantic and troubling, terrifying and compassionate.

    Another fine action adventure western from one of America's finest historians and authors...and a horse lover.

    A saying made up by a Marine expressing the frustration of having to make up a pack with blanket roll (camouflaged, with one side predominately green, the other brown). Having followed instructions, he made up his pack with "green side out" only to have the word changed, resulting in having to do it all over again, "brown side out."These are the titles of the sea-stories in four books, stories which accurately reflect the Marine Corps from 1950 to 1979, comical, sad, and stories to bring back memories of the older Marines and paint a vivid picture for the newer ones. You'll meet some real characters -- Monk Monaco, Trash Eleven, Russell Wilcox, and many others who served their Corps proudly -- and with a real sense of honor -- and humor.

    The other pups laugh at him. How can such a small dog possibly guard a home? Especially when his bark is the most earsplitting racket they have ever heard!

    Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, called it "a rich Scotch broth of language, steaming with metaphor...and pungent dialect." Winner of Britain's Whitbread Book of the Year Award.

    David Battles and life in a mythical Midwest town caused a sensation when it was first released. With over 55,000 copies in print and a review in the New York Times, it remains a favorite for Christian readers.

    In a novel set in the majestic Himalayas, ten men and two women brave the treacherous "dark side" of Mount Everest--a high-stakes adventure that pits climbers against their own fears.

    On the turbulent flight back to south Louisiana, Rory finds herself relating her family's past and its particular, poisonous brew of money, passion, infidelity, alcohol, religion, and Irish insanity. The Cades of Covington -- a dashing, drunken father; a mother and stepmother both dead at an early age; three young daughters raised in genteel chaos; a live-in grandmother and fiery maiden aunt. This broken, brave m�nage and their attendant circle of friends, lovers, and servants are realized with amazing penetration and deftness in a stirring, stinging survey of the cruel, humorous, unpredictable human heart.

    Frank Baum and the strangely resonant 1939 film. WAS traverses the American landscape to reveal how the human imagination transcends the bleakest circumstance.

    But when Anya becomes critically ill, fifteen-year-old Miriam finds herself alone and at the mercy of the cruel Miss Grimshaw, matron of Greytowers Orphanage. Only the strength of her devotion to Hashem, imbued in her by her beloved mother, enables her to withstand the torments and bleakness of Greytowers and to rekindle the light of Yiddishkeit in the hearts of her young companions.

    Their love conquers the pain of constant separations and overcomes the horrors of the Tsarist regime and the Revolution.

    Now, in 1968, she is in her seventies, with the avowed intent of living to be a hundred. And, as she has always done, she continues to rule the roost, for apart from herself three generations of the Funnell family live in the house - all of them women.There is widowed daughter Victoria, increasingly a hypochondriac; granddaughter Lizzie, who bears the brunt of running the house, as well as enduring a loveless marriage to Len Hammond; and Peggy, her sixteen-year-old daughter, now trying to find the courage to drop the bomb-shell of her pregnancy into their midst.This explosive situation provides the springboard for a powerful and absorbing novel that explores, over a period of fifteen years, all that fate holds in store for the dwellers in the house of women, reaching its climax with a frank confrontation of a major social issue of today.