As he analyzes the opening sections of novels and short stories by such writers as Agnon, Gogol, Kafka, Chekhov, García Márquez, and Raymond Carver, Oz instructs, challenges, and guides. He writes about the notion of "beginnings," what the beginning of a novel or short story might "mean" to the author and how important it is. And best of all-he entertains. He highlights opening paragraphs in which authors make promises they may or may not deliver later in the work, or deliver in unexpected ways, or they may deliver more than they have promised. It is a game that miraculously and playfully engages both writer and reader. The Story Begins is a resourceful, accessible, and friendly companion for all students of literature and writing and for all book lovers.

    Readers everywhere welcomed Pearl's encyclopedic but discerning filter on books worth reading, and her Rule of 50 (give a book 50 pages before deciding whether to continue; but readers over 50 must read the same number of pages as their age) became a standard MO. Once again organized by topic, this sprightly follow-up includes an array of titles in nearly 150 eclectic categories, including Plots for Plotzing (highly unusual storylines), Animal Love (in which humans fall in love with animals), The Autobiographical Gesture (memoirs about complex lives), Child Prodigies (child characters who are called on to perform great and sometimes heroic acts), Nagging Mothers, Crying Children (true tales from the frontlines of parenting), and Libraries and Librarians. Both a valuable reference and a vastly enjoyable read, More Book Lust offers a wealth of enthusiastic, quirky reading recommendations.

    He's sacrificed relationships in pursuit of adventure, fame, and money. Now the very lives of those he loves depend on his ability to decipher a centuries-old puzzle encrypted in the colorful hand-painted illuminations that adorn three rare Gutenberg Bibles.It's a secret that could yield unimaginable wealth, undermine two major religions, and change the course of Western civilization. Two ruthless, ancient organizations are willing to do anything to get their hands on it. And August has the span of one transatlantic flight to figure it out.

    With elegance, humor, and sophistication, Gardner describes the life of a working novelist; warns what needs to be guarded against, both from within the writer and from without; and predicts what the writer can reasonably expect and what, in general, he or she cannot. "For a certain kind of person," Gardner writes, "nothing is more joyful or satisfying than the life of a novelist." But no other vocation, he is quick to add, is so fraught with professional and spiritual difficulties. Whether discussing the supposed value of writer's workshops, explaining the role of the novelist's agent and editor, or railing against the seductive fruits of literary elitism, On Becoming a Novelist is an indispensable, life-affirming handbook for anyone authentically called to the profession. "A miraculously detailed account of the creative process."—Anne Tyler, Baltimore Sun

    Torn between his loyalty to his family, his faith in God, and his terror of this vicious disease, Jacob Hansen struggles to preserve his sanity amid the chaos and violence around him.

    Written only months before Austen's death in 1817, Sanditon tells the story of the joyously impulsive, spirited and unconventional Charlotte Heywood and her spiky relationship with the humorous, charming (and slightly wild!) Sidney Parker. When a chance accident transports her from her rural hometown of Willingden to the would-be coastal resort of the eponymous title, it exposes Charlotte to the intrigues and dalliances of a seaside town on the make, and the characters whose fortunes depend on its commercial success. The twists and turns of the plot, which takes viewers from the West Indies to the rotting alleys of London, exposes the hidden agendas of each character and sees Charlotte discover herself... and ultimately find love.

    Adams describes God's Debris as a thought experiment wrapped in a story. It's designed to make your brain spin around inside your skull. Imagine that you meet a very old man who you eventually realize knows literally everything. Imagine that he explains for you the great mysteries of life: quantum physics, evolution, God, gravity, light psychic phenomenon, and probability in a way so simple, so novel, and so compelling that it all fits together and makes perfect sense. What does it feel like to suddenly understand everything? You may not find the final answer to the big question, but God's Debris might provide the most compelling vision of reality you will ever read. The thought experiment is this: Try to figure out what's wrong with the old man's explanation of reality. Share the book with your smart friends, then discuss it later while enjoying a beverage.

    This is not one of those books. On the contrary, this is a collection of terrible, awkward, and laughably unreadable excerpts that will teach you what to avoid—at all costs—if you ever want your novel published.In How Not to Write a Novel, authors Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman distill their 30 years combined experience in teaching, editing, writing, and reviewing fiction to bring you real advice from the other side of the query letter. Rather than telling you how or what to write, they identify the 200 most common mistakes unconsciously made by writers and teach you to recognize, avoid, and amend them. With hilarious "mis-examples" to demonstrate each manuscript-mangling error, they'll help you troubleshoot your beginnings and endings, bad guys, love interests, style, jokes, perspective, voice, and more. As funny as it is useful, this essential how-NOT-to guide will help you get your manuscript out of the slush pile and into the bookstore.

    Topics range from ruminations on why Charles Dickens was among the best of writers and the worst of men to the haunting science fiction of J.G. Ballard; from the enduring legacies of Thomas Jefferson and George Orwell to the persistent agonies of anti-Semitism and jihad. Hitchens even looks at the recent financial crisis and argues for the enduring relevance of Karl Marx. The book forms a bridge between the two parallel enterprises of culture and politics. It reveals how politics justifies itself by culture, and how the latter prompts the former. In this fashion, Arguably burnishes Christopher Hitchens' credentials as (to quote Christopher Buckley) our "greatest living essayist in the English language."

     From the author of the bestselling WHEN GOD WAS A RABBIT comes this spellbinding new novel. Marvellous Ways is eighty-nine years old and has lived alone in a remote Cornish creek for nearly all her life. Lately she's taken to spending her days sitting by the river with a telescope. She's waiting for something - she's not sure what, but she'll know it when she sees it. Drake is a young soldier left reeling by the Second World War. When his promise to fulfil a dying man's last wish sees him wash up in Marvellous' creek, broken in body and spirit, the old woman comes to his aid. A Year of Marvellous Ways is a glorious, life-affirming story about the magic in everyday life and the pull of the sea, the healing powers of storytelling and sloe gin, love and death and how we carry on when grief comes snapping at our heels.

    Finally, all the years of law school and countless hours dedicated to studying are over and she’s working the case she hoped she’d get. This could make or break her career. She’s ready for it. What she doesn’t expect is the ominous threats and the very real possibility she could lose her life because of it.Cairo sacrificed everything for his career. Now it’s time to say goodbye and walk away with his head held high. That is, it will be after one final case, but this is no ordinary case and the attorney is no ordinary woman. She’s smart, sexy, and naïve about the danger she’s in.Notorious mob kingpin Moses Giovanni never loses. People are expendable to him. And the hot young attorney with a chip on her shoulder is next on his list of people who need to be erased.Find out how one case brings Bria, Cairo, and Moses face-to-face. The fight is on. Will Cairo’s last case end in disaster? Can he keep Bria safe from harm or is he in over his head?

    He resigns himself to taking over his brother’s role and spending the rest of his days ‘with his head under a cow’. After his old, worn-out father has been transferred upstairs, Helmer sets about furnishing the rest of the house according to his own minimal preferences. ‘A double bed and a duvet’, advises Ada, who lives next door, with a sly look. Then Riet appears, the woman once engaged to marry his twin. Could Riet and her son live with him for a while, on the farm? The Twin is an ode to the platteland, the flat and bleak Dutch countryside with its ditches and its cows and its endless grey skies. Ostensibly a novel about the countryside, as seen through the eyes of a farmer, The Twin is, in the end, about the possibility or impossibility of taking life into one’s own hands. It chronicles a way of life which has resisted modernity, is culturally apart, and yet riven with a kind of romantic longing.

    And they’re all yours…They’re the Bear Justice MC. They’re like paid vigilantes, on the hush-hush end of things, making sure that justice is served in this world. But underneath that leather jacket… underneath that rough exterior is something magnetic… They will draw you in, drive you insane, and make you want to do nothing but climb on their bikes and do very bad things…Sold to the BeastShe’s been bought by a monster. Her pack has sold her to science, but I will break her out of here. Let them try to stop me. I’ll tear their throats out. I’ll fight to the end. ‘Cause she belongs to me.Mated to the BeastI was never one for the innocent type. Until I met her. I’ll tear them to pieces for touching her. I’ll rip off their faces for looking at her. I don’t care about the consequences. Nobody touches my mate.Broken Out by the BeastShe’s a good girl. I’m a bad guy. It’s the worst of combinations. It can only end in disaster. Too bad it’s the only thing that can satisfy my Bear…Claimed by the BeastI kissed a biker, and I liked it. But it was also the stupidest idea I’ve ever had. I don’t need someone like him in my life. I hope he’s not going to kiss me again, because I don’t know that I can resist...Rescued by the BeastI knew I loved her the moment I met her. In my dreams, her deliciously curved body is aching for my touch. In reality, she’s gone, and there’s nothing I can do to get her back. Until we meet again…Kidnapped by the BeastIt’s been years since my hands were on her hips, but I’ve never forgotten. I don’t know what she wants. But I know what I want. I know I’m crossing lines, but it’s been so long. And I can’t stop…Tamed by the BeastI stopped by the roadside to be her knight on a bike. The effect of her almost knocked me off my feet.But she isn’t someone to claim, however much I want to. I’ve got to play this right to earn her…Secret Baby of the BeastShe had me hooked since I laid eyes on her. And now, here on her doorstep, I am smitten all over again. She tells me that she has a baby, that the baby has disappeared. And I’ll protect my family if it kills me…Rocked by the BeastI have a job to do, but I can’t help myself around her. Any sense I have goes straight out of the window. Her body sends too many thoughts through my head, none of them professional…Protected by the BeastI’ve hired him to help with a humongous problem. I’m not going to admit that I want to drink him in like ice tea. Not that I want to be animals in the wilderness with him. Because I never break the rules…WARNING: Intended for 18+ readers.

    While searching for a job, her lifelong interest in cinema is sparked by an ad about a projector for sale, and something happens that mysteriously changes everything.Emily not only starts remembering her dreams, she finds herself transforming them into reality, and her life inexplicably begins to blossom. She travels around the world searching for answers, encountering people and experiencing life-changing events that she's dreamed about before, forming relationships that could last a lifetime.But new, powerful dreams compel her to abandon the path she'd hoped to follow, and Emily must now face a final, frightening question. Can she determine her own destiny or will it be written by processes she simply cannot control?

    The fate of her beloved family home, Marshfield Manor, is tossed to the wind as she discovers upon his death that he has flittered all the family fortune away. She must now summon up the strength to hold everything together; after all, she has a young daughter and an aged aunt to care for. The only thing that is now legally hers is the little cottage in Wakeford where she and the Lord once conducted a passionate affair whilst his first wife lay sick on her death bed. As a consequence, some of the villagers have never forgiven her and nor have most of the staff at the manor house. Cassandra's appearance in Wakeford will have a far reaching effect on certain people living in the village as she encroaches on their lives, even those who despise her.Outcast and unwelcome in Wakeford, Cassandra fights for survival and before the chiming of Christmas bells, she realises she has a very important decision to make...