The narrative begins in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, when twin boys, Shiva and Marion, are born to a nun (who dies) and a surgeon (who runs away). The babies, conjoined at the head, are successfully separated immediately after birth. The original conjoinment and separation of the boys becomes the operating theme of the novel and we are given situation after situation in which to consider the concepts of fusion and partition. Bookclub-in-a-Box looks at all that Verghese provides: history (Ethiopia and Eritrea), medicine (blood and liver disease), psychology (the search for identity), sociology (human relationships) and philosophy (of both science and religion). The narrative's real facts and descriptions are especially interesting for their thematic implications. Every Bookclub-in-a-Box printed discussion guide includes complete coverage of the themes and symbols, writing style, and interesting background information on the novel and the author.

    John Darnielle hears [Black Sabbath's Master of Reality] through the ears of Roger Painter, a young adult locked in a southern California adolescent psychiatric center in 1985; deprived of his Walkman and hungry for comfort, he explains Black Sabbath as one might describe air to a fish, or love to an android, hoping to convince his captors to give him back his tapes.

    Covering fiction, poetry, science and science fiction, memoir, travel writing, biography, children’s books, history, and more, 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die ranges across cultures and through time to offer an eclectic collection of works that each deserve to come with the recommendation, You have to read this. But it’s not a proscriptive list of the “great works”—rather, it’s a celebration of the glorious mosaic that is our literary heritage. Flip it open to any page and be transfixed by a fresh take on a very favorite book. Or come across a title you always meant to read and never got around to. Or, like browsing in the best kind of bookshop, stumble on a completely unknown author and work, and feel that tingle of discovery. There are classics, of course, and unexpected treasures, too. Lists to help pick and choose, like Offbeat Escapes, or A Long Climb, but What a View. And its alphabetical arrangement by author assures that surprises await on almost every turn of the page, with Cormac McCarthy and The Road next to Robert McCloskey and Make Way for Ducklings, Alice Walker next to Izaac Walton.  There are nuts and bolts, too—best editions to read, other books by the author, “if you like this, you’ll like that” recommendations , and an interesting endnote of adaptations where appropriate. Add it all up, and in fact there are more than six thousand titles by nearly four thousand authors mentioned—a life-changing list for a lifetime of reading.

    The Telfairs are stonemasons and have been for generations. Ben Telfair has given up his education to apprentice himself to his grandfather, Papaw, a man who knows that "true masonry is not held together by cement but...by the warp of the world." Out of the love that binds these two men and the gulf that separates them from the Telfairs who have forsaken -- or dishonored -- the family trade, Cormac McCarthy has crafted a drama that bears all the hallmarks of his great fiction: precise observation of the physical world; language that has the bite of common speech and the force of Biblical prose; and a breathtaking command of the art of storytelling.

    Taking advantage of the absolute latest advances in wood pulp technology, Building Stories is a book with no deliberate beginning nor end, the scope, ambition, artistry and emotional prevarication beyond anything yet seen from this artist or in this medium, probably for good reason.

    Irene, a lonely nineteen-year-old in rural North Carolina, works long nights at the local pool hall, serving pitchers and dodging drunks. One evening, her hilarious, magnetic coworker Luce invites her on a joy ride through the mountains to take revenge on a particularly creepy customer. Their adventure not only spells the beginning of a dazzling friendship, it seduces both girls into the mysterious world of pills and the endless hustles needed to fund the next high.Together, Irene and Luce run nickel-tossing scams at the county fair and trick dealers into trading legit pharms for birth-control pills. Everything is wild and wonderful until Luce finds a boyfriend who wants to help her get clean. Soon the two of them decide to move away and start a new, sober life in Florida—leaving Irene behind.Told in a riveting dialogue between the girls' addicted past and their hopes for a better future, Bewilderness is not just a brilliant, funny, heartbreaking novel about opioid abuse, it's also a moving look at how intense, intimate friendships can shape every young woman's life.

    None of these he allows to overwhelm his spirit or his poems, which demonstrate, through breath and cadence and unrepentant enthrallment, that a gentle palm on a chest can calm the fiercest hungers.

    Most of it was written between 1915 and 1962, although much of the early work was abandoned and the early cantos, as finally published, date from 1922 onwards. It is a book-length work, widely considered to be an intense and challenging read. The Cantos is generally considered one of the most significant works of modernist poetry in the 20th century. As in Pound's prose writing, the themes of economics, governance and culture are integral to the work's content.The most striking feature of the text, to a casual browser, is the inclusion of Chinese characters as well as quotations in European languages other than English. A close reader will normally require a scholarly commentary to help understand the text. The range of allusion to historical events is broad, and abrupt changes occur with little transition.There is also wide geographical reference. Pound added to his earlier interests in the classical Mediterranean culture and East Asia selective topics from medieval and early modern Italy and Provence, the beginnings of the United States, England of the 17th century, and details from Africa he had obtained from Leo Frobenius. Many references in the text lack explanation. Pound initially believed that he possessed poetic and rhetorical techniques which would themselves generate significance, but as time passed he became more concerned with the messages he wished to convey.The section he wrote at the end of World War II, begun while he was interned in American-occupied Italy, has become known as The Pisan Cantos. It was awarded the first Bollingen Prize in 1948. There were many repercussions, since this in effect honoured a poet who was under indictment for treason. :::Delmore Schwartz said about The Cantos, "They are one of the touchstones of modern poetry." William Carlos Williams said, "[Pound] discloses history by its odor, by the feel of it—in the words; fuses it with the words, present and past, to MAKE his Cantos. Make them."Since the 1969 revised edition, the Italian Cantos LXXII and LXXIII (as well as a 1966 fragment concluding the work) have been added. Now appearing for the first time is Pound's recently found English translation of Italian Canto LXXII.

    His parents retired and moved to Florida. That doesn't mean his family isn't still in Jersey. In fact, he sees both sets of his grandparents every Sunday for dinner. This is routine until he has to tell them that he's been offered a dream job. The job he's been waiting for - marketing executive - would take him away from his beloved, but annoying, grandparents. He tells them. The news doesn't sit so well. Thus begins a series of schemes to keep Nick around. How could he betray his family's love to move to Seattle for a job, wonder his grandparents? Well, Frank, Aida, Nunzio, and Emma do their level best, that includes bringing the lovely - and single - Caitlin O'Hare as bait.

    Howard was both a successful author of popular boxing stories and an avid amateur boxer himself. The sixteen stories and three poems collected in this volume show the full range of his talents for action, humor, and fistic philosophy. Ten of the stories feature the sailor Steve Costigan, a lovable, hard-fisted, and innocent semipro pugilist, who takes on dastardly villains in exotic ports of call. Howard’s brilliant blue-collar humor belies his preoccupation with the real-life issues near and dear to his heart—death, honor, pride, and a man’s love for his dog Other stories are more dramatic and somber, including “Iron Men,” which Howard called “the best fight story I ever wrote—in many ways the best story of any kind I ever wrote.” Severely edited and truncated for its original publication in 1930 in Fight Stories magazine, the tale has never been published in its original form—until now. It appears here, completely restored from Howard’s original typescript, in an authoritative version that Howard fans everywhere will appreciate. In these stories Howard created a realistic, richly populated boxing universe, with intertwining characters and histories that carry on from tale to tale. With them he takes his place in a tradition of American boxing writers but always with a uniquely Howardian twist, a gritty brooding atmosphere, and a reserve of humor that captures the often brutal ambiance of the 1930s.

    In this pair of classic Nero Wolfe mysteries, Stout is at his unparalleled best as the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth and his trusty man-about-town, Archie Goodwin, are served two lethally appetizing cases. Too Many CooksEveryone knows that too many cooks spoil the broth, but you’d hardly expect it to lead to murder. But that’s exactly what’s on the menu at a five-star gathering of the world’s greatest chefs. As guest of honor, Wolfe was lured from his brownstone to a posh southern spa to deliver the keynote address. He never expected that between courses of haute cuisine he and Archie would be compelled to detect a killer with a poison touch—a killer preparing to serve the great detective his last supper.Champgne for OneFaith Usher talked about taking her own life and even kept cyanide in her purse. So when she died from a lethal champagne cocktail in the middle of a high society dinner party, everyone called it suicide—including the police. But Nero Wolfe isn’t convinced—and neither is Archie. Especially when Wolfe is warned by four men against taking the case. Deception, blackmail, and a killer who may have pulled off the perfect crime…it’s a challenge Nero Wolfe can’t resist.

    Le Guin—selected with an introduction by the author, and combined in one volume for the first time.The Unreal and the Real is a collection of some of Ursula K. Le Guin’s best short stories. She has won multiple prizes and accolades from the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to the Newbery Honor, the Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, and PEN/Malamud Awards. She has had her work collected over the years, but this is the first short story volume combining a full range of her work. Stories include: -Brothers and Sisters -A Week in the Country -Unlocking the Air -Imaginary Countries -The Diary of the Rose -Direction of the Road -The White Donkey -Gwilan’s Harp -May’s Lion -Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight -Horse Camp -The Water Is Wide -The Lost Children -Texts -Sleepwalkers -Hand, Cup, Shell -Ether, Or -Half Past Four -The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas -Semely’s Necklace -Nine Lives -Mazes -The First Contact with the Gorgonids -The Shobies’ Story -Betrayals -The Matter of Seggri -Solitude -The Wild Girls -The Flyers of Gy -The Silence of the Asonu -The Ascent of the North Face -The Author of the Acacia Seeds -The Wife’s Story -The Rule of Names -Small Change -The Poacher -Sur -She Unnames Them -The Jar of Water

    Butler established themes of identity and transformation that echo throughout her distinguished career. Now collected for the first time in one volume, these four novels take readers on a wondrous odyssey from a mythic, prim/ordial past to a fantastic far future.In ancient Africa, a female demigod of nurture and fertility mates with a powerful, destructive male entity. Together they birth a race of madmen, visionaries, and psychics who cling to civilization's margins and back alleys for millenia, coming together in a telepathic Pattern just as Earth is consumed by a cosmic invasion. Now these new beings--no longer mearly human--will battle to rule the transfigured world.

    With attendance now hitting the double digits, nothing can stop the Bolster express.When Bolster gets invited to teach at The Gathering, a prestigious yoga retreat run by the renowned Tom Hart, it seems like things can’t get any better. Bolster is a little dubious about the cultish atmosphere, but, as they say in L.A., it’s an honor just to be nominated. What starts off as a relaxing, decadent retreat quickly spirals into deadly chaos that forces Bolster to use all his yoga-detective powers, and also his fists.Open Your Heart, like Neal Pollack's first Matt Bolster book, Downward-Facing Death, is a biting satire of trendy, sexually-driven yoga culture, where ancient principles of loving enlightenment clash with the darkest corners of human nature. The latest in the Matt Bolster Yoga Mystery series will thrill readers, whether they read it while in Crow Pose or on the couch.