His father died shortly afterward, long before Spooner had even a memory of his face, and was replaced eventually by a once-brilliant young naval officer, Calmer Ottosson, recently court-martialed out of service. This is the story of the lifelong tie between the two men, poles apart, of Spooner's troubled childhood, troubled adolescence, violent and troubled adulthood and Calmer Ottosson's inexhaustible patience, undertaking a life-long struggle to salvage his step-son, a man he will never understand.

    His friend, Steven Turner is the Brooklyn-born local reporter who will bear witness to the city's successes and failures. Between them come Jack's beautiful fiancee Anne--an artist with secrets of her own - and his undisciplined brother Harris, hired by Jack to remove the suspicious barrels of waste from Lakeland's broken heart.As the town struggles to find a new identity, these four characters must find their way through their own unexpected transformations and along the way attempt to answer the questions that plague us all: what is the price of loyalty, filialty, goodness and love?

    When the nameless narrator botches an assignment for the clandestine organization that employs him, everyone in his life—including his new girlfriend—is revealed to be either true-blue, double operative, or both.With the literary coyness of Paul Auster and the dark absurdity of Kafka, Hunt's debut is a daring, memory-driven narrative that is as fittingly spare as a bare ceiling light—and just as pendulous. On the surface, the narrator is a simple man, fixing his washer and dryer, strolling through city parks, falling in love at an office supply store. But in The Impossibly, the mundane gives way to outrageous misconduct, and with each unexpected visitor or cryptic note, the tension reaches tantalizing heights. As the narrator frugally doles out clues about his dangerous work in an unnamed European city, the reader inevitably becomes confidante and fellow gumshoe. The narrator's final assignment—to identify his own assassin—dismantles the reader's own analysis of the evidence.

    He arrives at his friends' house without knowing how he got there. Nor do they. He seems to be having an affair with his secretary which is exciting, but unlikely. Further unsettled by leaps in logic and time, Carl wonders if he's actually reacting to the outside world, or if he's terribly mistaken. So begins a psychological adventure that stretches the boundaries of conciousness.

    But when a shocking revelation rips apart the family of her closest friend, Sarah finds herself welcoming yet another troubled young boy into her already tumultuous life.Jordan, a quiet, reclusive elementary school classmate of Sarah's son Danny, has survived a terrible ordeal. By agreeing to become Jordan's foster mother, Sarah will be forced to question the things she has long believed. And as the delicate threads that bind their family begin to unravel, all the Ladens will have to face difficult truths about themselves and one another—and discover the power of love necessary to forgive and to heal.

    This collection comprises of the first six titles in Harry Harrison's brilliantly entertaining Stainless Steel Rat series, containing:A Stainless Steel Rat Is BornThe Stainless Steel Rat gets DraftedThe Stainless Steel Rat Sings the BluesThe Stainless Steel RatThe Stainless Steel Rat's RevengeThe Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World

    My heart suddenly grew heavy with sadness. I 'felt that the entire system needed a complete change. Education should mean teaching to love nature. A system that can produce many more Noor-bhāis should be evolved. Man, too, should be able to inspire in birds and beasts the same confidence and trust that the black drongo inspired in the smaller birds. But who would be able to bring about that big a change? Could I, one who had come here on an assignment to draw up blueprints of a chemical industrial zone, affect that change? ...