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The Geek by Alice Louise Ramirez


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Picnic on Paradise


Joanna Russ - 1968
    Chrono-hurled to a steep winter planet swept by an eerie future war. Middle-aged (at 26), tiger-tough (at 4'9"), walking a wild Universe on Time-long legs. This is the story of a woman named Alyx.

Holding Wonder


Zenna Henderson - 1971
    In this many-dimensioned new collection of speculative fiction, Zena Henderson introduces us to a boy who "calls" his mother, despite the fact that the nearest phone is miles away.--and reads the distress call from an orbiting astronaut's mind; to the amazing cures of Aunt Sophronia--pills for the living dead; and to Loo Ree, the imaginary friend of a first grader -- who tuns out to be all too real...Contents:The Indelible Kind (1968)J-Line to Nowhere (1969)You Know What, Teacher? (1954)The Effectives (1965)Loo Ree (1953)The Closest School (1960)Three-Cornered and Secure (1971)The Taste of Aunt Sophronia (1971)The Believing Child (1970)Through a Glass - Darkly (1970)As Simple as That (1971)Swept and Garnished (1971)One of Them (1971)Sharing Time (1971)Ad Astra (1971)Incident After (1971)The Walls (1971)Crowning Glory (1971)Boona on Scancia (1971)Love Every Third Stir (1971)

Waiting for Nothing and Other Writings


Tom Kromer - 1986
    It tells the story of one man drifting through America, east coast to west, main stem to side street, endlessly searching for "three hots and a flop"--food and a place to sleep. Kromer scans, in first-person voice, the scattered events, the stultifying sameness, of "life on the vag"--the encounters with cops, the window panes that separate hunger and a "feed," the bartering with prostitutes and homosexuals.In "Michael Kohler," Kromer's unfinished novel, the harsh existence of coal miners in Pennsylvania is told in a committed, political voice that reveals Kromer's developing affinity with leftist writers including Lincoln Steffens and Theodore Dreiser. An exploration of Kromer's proletarian roots, "Michael Kohler" was to be a political novel, a story of labor unions and the injustices of big management. Kromer's other work ranges from his college days, when he wrote a sarcastic expose of the bums in his hometown titled "Pity the Poor Panhandler: $2 an Hour Is All He Gets," to the sensitive pieces of his later life--short stories, articles, and book reviews written more out of an aching understanding of suffering than from the slick formulas of politics.Waiting for Nothing remains, however, Kromer's most powerful achievement, a work Steffens called "realism to the nth degree." Collected here as the major part of Kromer's oeuvre, Waiting for Nothing traces the author's personal struggle to preserve human virtues and emotions in the face of a brutal and dehumanizing society.

The Tin Men


Michael Frayn - 1965
    Whether it’s resolving ethical dilemmas, writing pornographic novels, saying prayers, or watching sports, these automation experts are developing machines to handle it all, enabling us to enjoy more free time. And when it’s announced that the Queen will be paying a royal visit and the Institute’s madcap bunch of researchers decide to program the computers to receive her, what could possibly go wrong?Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, The Tin Men (1965) is the brilliantly comic first novel from Michael Frayn, author of the Booker Prize-nominated Headlong, Spies, and Skios, and Noises Off, ‘the funniest farce ever written’ (NY Times). This 50th anniversary reissue features a new introduction by the author.WHAT CRITICS ARE SAYING‘Continuously funny . . . The fun of The Tin Men is outrageous because it is so serious.’ – Anthony Burgess, Guardian‘A fast swooping performance by one of our very serious satirists . . . This is a very funny book and delightful to read.’ – William Trevor, The Listener‘Dazzlingly funny . . . perfect pieces of comedy.’ – Observer

Crum


Lee Maynard - 1985
    This novel, named after a real-life, gritty little coal town on the West Virginia-Kentucky border, offers a sometimes shocking, often outrageous, always irreverent look at this young man’s attempt to escape his home.In Crum, the boys fight, swear, chase - and sometimes catch girls, and have unflattering things to say about their neighbors across the river in Kentucky. The adults are cramped and clueless, hemmed in by the mountains that loom over this tiny suffocating town. And to boys flush with the hormones of youth, this situation is full of wonder, dejection, and even possibility.Lee Maynard, a native of Crum in Wayne County, West Virginia, spins this tale of a young man whose rebellion against the people and the place of his childhood allows him to reject the comfort and familiarity of his home in search of his place in a larger world.This novel stirred deep feelings in West Virginia, as readers reacted in different ways to the poetry and reality of Maynard's creation. Since its highly successful first publication, this novel has become an underground classic, with used copies now scarce and costly. Maynard adds a brief epilogue to this new edition, and West Virginia writer Meredith Sue Willis provides an introduction. Crum shot to number eight on the Doubleday Best Seller list within its first month of publication, despite its ban in West Virginia. He has since published a sequel to Crum entitled Screaming with the Cannibals.

The Citizen Kane Book


Pauline Kael - 1971
    Mankiewicz and Orson Welles --Notes on the shooting script / prepared by Gary Carey --RKO cutting continuity of the Orson Welles production, Citizen Kane.

Memoirs of a Midget


Walter de la Mare - 1921
    tells of her early life as a dreamy orphan and, in particular, of her tempestuous twentieth year—in which she falls in love with a beautiful and ambitious full-sized woman and is courted by a male dwarf. Concluding that she must choose either to simply tolerate her difference or grow callous to it, Miss M. resolves to become independent by offering herself up as a spectacle in a circus.[Walter de la Mare (1873–1956) wrote numerous novels, short stories, essays, and poems. He was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Memoirs of a Midget. Other major works include the children’s novel, The Three Royal Monkeys, Henry Brocken, The Return, and Desert Islands.][Alison Lurie is the author of many highly praised novels as well as two collections of essays on children’s literature, Don’t Tell the Grown-Ups and Boys and Girls Forever. She has taught children’s literature and folklore at Cornell University.]

Up from Liberalism


William F. Buckley Jr. - 1959
    Introduction by Barry Goldwater. [adapted from jacket blurb]

Dragon's Winter


Elizabeth A. Lynn - 1997
    He was named Karadur Atani - Fire-bringer. But Karadur Atani would never become a dragon. In a bitter betrayal, his twin brother stole his talisman and disappeared, leaving Karadur trapped - a king with the heart of a dragon, trapped in the body of an ordinary man. Now, rumors of an evil sorcery have reached Dragon Keep. A powerful wizard has risen out of legend. From his stronghold in the great ice, he rains death and destruction upon the people of Ippa. Once he was called Ankoku, the Hollow One. But Karadur Atani knows him as brother.

The Day of St. Anthony's Fire


John G. Fuller - 1968
    Many of the most highly regarded citizens leaped from windows or jumped into the Rhone, screaming that their heads were made of copper, their bodies wrapped in snakes, their limbs swollen to gigantic size or shrunken to tiny appendages. Others ran through the streets, claiming to be chased by "bandits with donkey ears", by tigers, lions & other terrifying apparitions. Animals went berserk. Dogs ripped bark from trees until their teeth fell out. Cats dragged themselves along the floor in grotesque contortions. Ducks strutted like penguins. Villagers & animals died right & left. Bit by bit, the story behind the tragedy in Pont-St-Esprit--a tiny Provencial village of twisted streets that looks much today as it did in the Middle Ages--unfolded to doctors & toxcologists. That story, one of the most bizarre in modern medical history, is movingly recounted in The Day of St. Anthony's Fire. Throughout the Middle Ages & during other times in history, similar hallucinatory outbreaks occurred. They were called St. Anthony's Fire because it was believed that only prayers to the saint could hold the disease in check. Even modern medicine could find no way to check the disease. Drugs failed to bring even temporary relief. Hundreds in the village suffered for weeks, with total agonizing insomnia, never knowing when they might once more suddenly go berserk. The cause of St. Anthony's Fire was known since early history to be ergot, a mold found on rye grain that at rare times inexplicably became posionous enough to create monstrous hallucinations & death. In '51 little significance was attached to the fact that the base of ergot was lysergic acid, also the base for LSD, a drug just coming to the attention of scientists at the time--a drug so powerful that one eye-dropperful could cause as many as 5000 people to hallucinate for hours. At this point, the story becomes a vividly absorbing medical detective story demonstrating the possibility that a strange, spontaneous form of LSD might have caused the human tragedy that came to the hapless villagers of Pont-St-Esprit.

Love Me Do!: The Beatles' Progress


Michael Braun - 1964
    John, Paul, George and Ringo celebrate their new found success with a hectic six-week tour, briefly interrupted by an historic live appearance at the "Royal Variety Performance" at the London Palladium. This is the beginning of "Beatlemania" and American writer, Mike Braun, is there to chronicle events and watch as the drama unfolds. A year later, The Beatles are the world's biggest pop group. This book details what really happened in those first magic weeks.

Hitler Victorious: Eleven Stories of the German Victory in World War II


Gregory Benford - 1986
    Kornbluth The Fall of Frenchy Steiner/ Hilary BaileyThrough road no whither/ Greg Bear Weihnachtsabend/ Keith Roberts Thor meets Captain America/ David BrinMoon of ice/ Brad Linaweaver Reichs-peace/ Shelia Finch Never meet again/ Algis BudrysDo ye hear the children weeping?/ Howard GoldsmithEnemy transmissions/ Tom Shippey Valhalla/ Gregory Benford

Sensors And Transducers


D. Patranabis
    This text is a lucid presentation of the principles of working of all types of sensors and transducers which form the prime components of the instrumentalisation systems.

The History of Surrealism


Maurice Nadeau - 1945
    I believe, Andre Breton said, in the future resolution of the states of dream and reality--in appearance so contradictory--in a sort of absolute reality, or "

Earthman's Burden


Poul Anderson - 1957
    Meet the Hokas!...the most lovable - and the zaniest - characters you'll ever encounter in the entire Universe! Imagine how you would feel to be suddenly shipwrecked on a planet 500 light-years from the Solar System - and to walk into a 19th century, Old West frontier town! And then, to really shake your senses, you find the local citizens - in tremendous red bandanas, ten-gallon hats, chaps, high-heel boots and spurs - are pistol-toting teddy bears!