An Insane Love


Bianca - 2018
    From a young child up until his teenage years, Frank struggles to find love and was lucky to find it in Alexandria Ware. While the secretive Frank doesn’t make her privy to his past, he loves Alex in his own way and plans to make her part of his future. Frank is convinced that after five years of being together, Alex is the one for him, but little does he know, she has an agenda of her own. While dealing with Frank’s emotionally unavailable nature, Alex’s love for him is purely conditional and has an expiration date set on whenever her boyfriend is finished stacking his money. Despite her fleeting feelings for Frank, she has no problem using him as an ATM, but when her boyfriend comes up with a plan for the perfect payday for them, will she end up on the wrong side of Frank’s love story? 
While Frank is building with Alex, Taiwan is living in Italy with her sugar daddy of over a decade, Romero Santiago. Being the sugar baby of a well-known cartel leader has its perks, and while Taiwan is enjoying the perks of her lifestyle, she finds herself craving more. As she approaches thirty, expensive trips and shopping trips courtesy of AMEX no longer enthrall her the way they did in her younger years. What Taiwan wants is one of the few things the happily married Romero can’t buy: a family. With a desire to stop sharing someone else’s husband and have one of her own, Taiwan tenders her resignation to a less than pleased Romero. But as a man of means with an endless amount of resources, Romero is able to offer her the deal of a lifetime. The question is, will Taiwan accept?
 Former gang member Rubee Bailey changed her life for the better when she becomes a mother to her daughter, Raylee, and couldn’t have a better father in Bash James. Rubee loves Bash with all her heart, but Bash has some hidden motives of his own when it comes to being with a Bailey. A secret from his pre-Rubee life almost catches up to him, causing him to move differently. When Bash breaks one straw too many, Rubee is sent straight into the arms of another man, with no feelings of remorse. This leaves Rubee asking herself if she’s willing to leave Bash or continue fighting for a lopsided love?

Edgar Allan Poe: The Strange Man Standing Deep in the Shadows


Charlotte Montague - 2015
    Poe is viewed as the ultimate doomed romantic whose last days are shrouded in sordid mystery. His life was a disaster, but his achievements in writing are amazing. He is widely recognized as father of the modern short story, inventor of the detective story and the master of horror. A Boston born writer, editor, and literary critic, he's best known for his creepy and macabre tales as well as being one of the central figures in the Romanticism movement in the United States.  Accurately being dubbed as the ultimate doomed romantic, Poe was a drunk, his last days are shrouded in mystery akin to that of his short stories.  During his lifetime, Edgar Allan Poe didn't make a dime out of writing, but his legacy to the world is one of never-ending riches.  He left behind seventy-three wonderfully gruesome stories and a novel filled with suspense and brilliantly twisted plots.  Hist stories and poems are now read and revered globally.  As another master of horror, Stephen King, has said, we are all "the children of Poe." Abraham Lincoln, Josef Stalin, Michael Jackson, and Bart Simpson all have one thing in common; they are fans of the nineteenth century American writer and poet, Edgar Allan Poe.  The writer of "The Raven" has legions of such devotees across the globe.  The list of authors inspired by Poe is long and varied, but his profound influence reaches much further-into music, film, and art just as much as modern day literature.  There have been more than a dozen film adaptations of his story "The Fall of the House of Usher," and his works have inspired composers ranging from Claude Debussy to Lou Reed.  More than 160 years after his death, Charlotte Montague has written a fascinating account of Poe's life and times, in which she uncovers a strange man, standing deep in the shadows, who's unique imagination and macabre writing have changed popular culture forevermore.  n the process, she uncovers a strange man, standing deep in the shadows, whose macabre stories and twisted plots changed literature forever. The Oxford People series offers deep dives into the most influential people, subjects, and cultures from history. From horror-fiction legends like H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe, to historical heavyweights like Houdini and JFK, to the supernatural world of vampires, werewolves, and ghosts—Oxford People encompasses it all. Other titles in this series include: Angels, Che, Creating Sherlock Holmes, Extreme Science, Gettysburg, Ghosts, Gunfighters, Houdini, HP Lovecraft, John F. Kennedy, Myths and Legends, Privates and Privateers, Roosevelt and Churchill, Royal Weddings, Skies of WWII, Tesla, Tesla vs. Edison, Vampires, Vikings, Werewolves, Women of Invention, Zombies.

God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian


Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - 1999
    In God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian, Vonnegut skips back and forth between life and the Afterlife as if the difference between them were rather slight. In thirty odd "interviews," Vonnegut trips down "the blue tunnel to the pearly gates" in the guise of a roving reporter for public radio, conducting interviews: with Salvatore Biagini, a retired construction worker who died of a heart attack while rescuing his schnauzer from a pit bull, with John Brown, still smoldering 140 years after his death by hanging, with William Shakespeare, who rubs Vonnegut the wrong way, and with socialist and labor leader Eugene Victor Debs, one of Vonnegut's personal heroes.What began as a series of ninety-second radio interludes for WNYC, New York City's public radio station, evolved into this provocative collection of musings about who and what we live for, and how much it all matters in the end. From the original portrait by his friend Jules Feiffer that graces the cover, to a final entry from Kilgore Trout, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian remains a joy.

Barbara


Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen - 1939
    The only novel by the Faroese author, yet an international best-seller remaining one of the best-loved twentieth century classics in Danish and Faroese literature.

Luna


Garon Whited - 2007
    It's not as bad as we thought. From the very first line, "Luna" grabs the reader. Where most books start with a world in trouble and ride the story on into a happy ending or to the ultimate destruction, "Luna" starts with the end of the world. Things can only get better, right? With the world destroyed, the story centers on six survivors in the first lunar shuttle, on their way to shake down and tune up a robot-built underground tunnel complex on the Moon. They have to face a number of issues, not the least of which is the self-destruction of their homeworld and the survival of the species. Fortunately, any culture advanced enough to have a lunar colony and the capability to destroy its own civilization is likely to have people who are not on the planet at any given time. From these few survivors, the human race will have to either survive and grow, or wither away into nothing. They have to face many difficulties, ranging from purely scientific ones such as genetics, mechanics, chemistry, and nutrition, to the more complex difficulties of human nature, such as love, sex, and loneliness. The conflict between politics and military command also rears its ugly head, with uncertain results, aside from the obvious: War. Told from the point of view of Max, the officer in charge of the mechanical aspects of the lunar base, "Luna" takes us on a fast-paced tour of our own Moon, the LaGrange points, a number of habitable satellites, as well as the light and dark places in the human soul. Any science fiction reader will delight in the near-future possibilities of lunar colonization, along with the superb character development, snappy dialogue, and the dry humor that are so characteristic of Garon Whited's work.A gripping page-turner, Whited's "Luna" is more than a little reminiscent of Robert Heinlein, mixed with a dash of E.E. "Doc" Smith, and stirred with a sardonic sense of humor uniquely his own. Fans of Garon Whited's "Nightlord: Sunset" will want to add this one to the collection!

Foundation / I, Robot


Isaac Asimov - 1984
    The stories originally appeared in the American magazines Super Science Stories and Astounding Science Fiction between 1940 and 1950 and were then compiled into a book for stand-alone publication by Gnome Press in 1950, in an initial edition of 5,000 copies. The stories are woven together by a framing narrative in which the fictional Dr. Susan Calvin tells each story to a reporter (who serves as the narrator) in the 21st century. Although the stories can be read separately, they share a theme of the interaction of humans, robots, and morality, and when combined they tell a larger story of Asimov's fictional history of robotics.Foundation was originally a series of eight short stories published in Astounding Magazine between May 1942 and January 1950. According to Asimov, the premise was based on ideas set forth in Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and was invented spontaneously on his way to meet with editor John W. Campbell, with whom he developed the concepts of the collapse of the Galactic Empire, the civilization-preserving Foundations, and psychohistory.[1] Asimov wrote these early stories in his West Philadelphia apartment when he worked at the Philadelphia Naval Yard.

The Complete Short Stories


J.G. Ballard - 2001
    Ballard has been one of Britain's most celebrated novelists. From the beginning he has been equally admired for his distinctive and highly influential short stories, the first of which - "Prima Belladonna" and "Escapement" - appeared in Science Fantasy and New Worlds in 1956. Now, all of his published stories - including four not previously featured in a collection - have been arranged in the order of original publication, providing an unprecedented opportunity to review the career of one of Britain's greatest writers.A Washington Post Best Book of 2009, Boston Globe Best Book, Los Angeles Times Favorite Book, and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book.Contents:- Prima Belladonna [Vermilion Sands] (1956)- Escapement (1956)- The Concentration City (1957, variant of Build-Up)- Venus Smiles [Vermilion Sands] (1957)- Manhole 69 (1957)- Track 12 (1958)- The Waiting Grounds (1959)- Now: Zero (1959)- The Sound-Sweep (1960)- Zone of Terror (1960)- Chronopolis (1960)- The Voices of Time (1960)- The Last World of Mr. Goddard (1960)- Studio 5, The Stars [Vermilion Sands] (1961)- Deep End (1961)- The Overloaded Man (1961)- Mr F. is Mr F. (1961)- Billennium (1961)- The Gentle Assassin (1961)- The Insane Ones (1962)- The Garden of Time (1962)- The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista [Vermilion Sands] (1962)- Thirteen to Centaurus (1962)- Passport to Eternity (1962)- The Cage of Sand (1962)- The Watch-Towers (1962)- The Singing Statues [Vermilion Sands] (1962)- The Man on the 99th Floor (1962)- The Subliminal Man (1963)- The Reptile Enclosure (1963)- A Question of Re-Entry (1963)- The Time-Tombs (1963)- Now Wakes the Sea (1963)- The Venus Hunters (1963)- End-Game (1963)- Minus One (1963)- The Sudden Afternoon (1963)- The Screen Game [Vermilion Sands] (1963)- Time of Passage (1964)- Prisoner of the Coral Deep (1964)- The Lost Leonardo (1964)- The Terminal Beach (1964)- The Illuminated Man (1964)- The Delta at Sunset (1964)- The Drowned Giant (1964)- The Gioconda of the Twilight Noon (1964)- The Volcano Dances (1964)- The Beach Murders (1966)- The Day of Forever (1966)- The Impossible Man (1966)- Storm-Bird, Storm-Dreamer (1966)- Tomorrow Is a Million Years (1966)- The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race (1966)- Cry Hope, Cry Fury! [Vermilion Sands] (1967)- The Recognition (1967)- The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D [Vermilion Sands] (1967)- Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan (1968)- The Dead Astronaut (1968)- The Comsat Angels (1968)- The Killing Ground (1969)- A Place and a Time to Die (1969)- Say Goodbye to the Wind [Vermilion Sands] (1970)- The Greatest Television Show on Earth (1972)- My Dream of Flying to Wake Island (1974)- The Air Disaster (1975)- Low-Flying Aircraft (1975)- The Life and Death of God (1976)- Notes Towards a Mental Breakdown (1976)- The 60 Minute Zoom (1976)- The Smile (1976)- The Ultimate City (1976)- The Dead Time (1977)- The Index (1977)- The Intensive Care Unit (1977)- Theatre of War (1977)- Having a Wonderful Time (1978)- One Afternoon at Utah Beach (1978)- Zodiac 2000 (1978)- Motel Architecture (1978)- A Host of Furious Fancies (1980)- News from the Sun (1981)- Memories of the Space Age (1982)- Myths of the Near Future (1982)- Report on an Unidentified Space Station (1982)- The Object of the Attack (1984)- Answers to a Questionnaire (1985)- The Man Who Walked on the Moon (1985)- The Secret History of World War 3 (1988)- Love in a Colder Climate (1989)- The Enormous Space (1989)- The Largest Theme Park in the World (1989)- War Fever (1989)- Dream Cargoes (1990)- A Guide to Virtual Death (1992)- The Message from Mars (1992)- Report from an Obscure Planet (1992)

The Ender Wiggin Saga (Ender's Saga, #1-3)


Orson Scott Card - 1993
    In Ender's Game, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin begins his life as the result of genetic experimentation created for the sole purpose of saving the earth from an alien race seeking to destroy all humankind.After three thousand years have passed, Ender Wiggin continues his destiny to win humanity's war. In part two of The Ender Wiggin Saga, Speaker for the Dead, Ender becomes known as Ender Xenocide: the man who killed an entire race of thinking, feeling beings -- the only other sapient race found in the galaxy, until Lusitania was discovered. Wiggin finds himself having to unravel the secrets of the Pequeninos and face the specter of war against an alien race once again, threatening the lives of sapient beings.The third episode of The Ender Wiggin Saga is Xenocide. The Starways Congress declares war on Descolada (a deadly virus that thrives on the three sapient races co-existing on the planet Lusitania) and sends a fleet to destroy Lusitania. Mysteriously, the fleet disappears, and only a young girl, who is one of the godspoken humans gifted with enhanced intelligence, can unlock the mystery.Now included for the first time is the fourth installment, Card's Children of the Mind. Lusitania is threatened by a fleet carrying planet-destroying weapons that were used by Ender thousands of years in the past, and Ender's oldest friend, Jane, a computer intelligence that evolved with him for over 3,000 years, has her power threatened by the Starways Congress. Ender's siblings, Peter and Valentine, created by Enderon his first trip Outside, have come to join in the battle to save Lusitania and Jane.The Ender Wiggin Saga unleashes a millenium-long epic tale of loyalty, conflict, and deadly games -- a science-fiction buff's treasure.

Twenty Years Before the Mast


Charles Erskine - 1888
     He would go on to travel to some of the most unexplored regions, meeting men and women who had never seen westerners before. Along the journey the crew meet Patagonians, Fijians, Tahitians, Aborigines, and many other peoples. Although the Wilkes expedition was largely scientific mission, the ships were not always peaceful, indeed there were a number of armed conflicts with Pacific Islanders as the United States began to assert its authority across the globe. The ships and their crews had to withstand some of the most appalling conditions as they continued their expedition, from the heat-driven mirages of the South Atlantic to the brutal cold of the Antarctic seas. What makes Erskine’s narrative so remarkable is that he is not writing from the perspective of an admiral or a scientific explorer, but instead from the viewpoint of a common sailor. Interspersed throughout the narrative are short ditties and sailor’s songs that provide a vivid picture of the mentality of nineteenth century seamen. After the Wilkes expedition landed back in the United States Erskine spent only brief moments on dry land as he frequently registered under new ships and continued his journeys. Erskine’s book is a fascinating first-hand account of exploration and maritime life aboard a tall ship. Twenty Years Before the Mast was published in 1896 towards the end of Erskine’s life.

Ack-Ack Macaque: The Complete Trilogy


Gareth L. Powell - 2017
    Every day the cynical, cigar-chomping, hard-drinking monkey climbs into his Spitfire to do battle with the waves of German ninjas parachuting over the gentle fields of Kent. But life is not all the joyous rattle of machine guns and the roar of the engine, as Ack-Ack is about to find out… Because it is not 1944. It is the 21st century, in a world where France and Germany merged in the late 1950s, where nuclear-powered Zeppelins circle the globe, where technology is rapidly changing humanity, and Ack-Ack has lived his whole life in a videogame. Ex-journalist Victoria Valois finds herself drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse with the man who butchered her husband and stole his electronic soul. The heir to the British throne is on the run after an illegal break-in at a research laboratory, and Ack-Ack has been rudely awakened from his game world to find the doomsday clock ticking towards Armageddon… Two unlikely heroes and one mightily pissed-off monkey come together in a sci-fi trilogy full of action, adventure, bananas and bottles of rum. Includes the original Ack-Ack Macaque short story and a brand new epilogue, The Last Macaque.

Halo: Contact Harvest


Joseph Staten - 2019
    Harvest is a peaceful, prosperous farming colony on the very edge of human-controlled space. But humanity has unknowingly trespassed on holy ground—straying into the path of the aggressive, theocratic empire known as the Covenant. What begins as a chance encounter between an alien privateer and a human freighter soon catapults all of mankind into a struggle for its very existence. But humanity is also currently locked in a bitter civil war of its own: the Insurrection. With resources strained to the breaking point, the ultimate survival of Harvest’s citizens falls to a squad of battle-weary UNSC Marines and their inexperienced colonial militia trainees. In this unlikely group of heroes, one will stand above the rest—a young Marine staff sergeant named Avery Johnson....

Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude - Book Summary in 1,000 Words


Read Less Know More - 2013
    “Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude - Book Summary in 1,000 Words” is exactly what it suggests – a 1,000-word summary of “One Hundred Years of Solitude”. This download will give you a first-person view into the story of this book. It will give you better insight into whether this is something that you want to read and even better, you can do it all within 15 minutes or less. It’s literally the twitter of the e-book world. What makes Salinger - Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude - Book Summary in 1,000 Words different from other books is that we have combined the essence of book summary and our love for books, creating a way for readers to pre-read books before buying them. If you’ve ever wasted your time reading a book that wasn’t interesting, you know how big of a difference this could make. Knowing exactly what you’re about to read without getting too many spoilers will help readers make better decisions about the books they download. Now, you’ll be able to get the gist of any story in 1,000 words or less. If you would like to read more book summaries in 1,000-word (all the most famous books - best classics of all times) – please search for book summaries published by 'Read Less Know More'. A lot of people buy e-books without having this useful insight and this sometimes leads to disappointment. Now, you can minimize this probability with our innovative form of e-book publishing using 1,000-word Book Summaries.

The Divine Arsonist: A Tale of Awakening


Jacob Nordby - 2012
    The main character is a burned-out businessman who takes an unplanned retreat to his cabin in the mountains of Idaho.On the first evening of his getaway, a mysterious stranger appears beside his campfire and delivers a summons: "Drop everything and attend a rendezvous of destiny...the fate of the world may depend upon it."He is confronted with a terrifying choice: believe this stranger and take a journey into the unknown, or ignore the whole thing and perhaps miss his call of destiny?Join the main character on an adventure of the spirit. With him, you will meet a cast of divine helpers, shaman monks and ragged teachers who will captivate your imagination. Rich with insights, quotations and teachings of sources ranging from ancient to modern, this book is a breath of fresh air for the soul.Like the hero in this tale of awakening, you may never see life the same way again.Author's note: This book tells a story using symbolic language and fictional situations. It is my own tale of spiritual awakening, though. In it, I share some of my most personal and exciting discoveries. I hope you enjoy it...and I hope you burn it when you're done. Find out why in Chapter 15.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond and Related Readings


Elizabeth George Speare
    The Witch of Blackbird Pond with related readings.

Nikolai Dante: The Romanov Dynasty


Robbie Morrison - 1998
    That man is Nikolai Dante lover, rogue and thief, son of a pirate-queen and altogether too cool to kill! Created by Robbie Morrison (BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHTS) and Simon Fraser (Lux and Alby), this collection features art by Chris Weston (THE FILTH), Charlie Adlard (THE ESTABLISHMENT) and Henry Flint (Judge Dredd/Aliens).When chance leaves him working with the Tsar's beautiful daughter Jena, Dante discovers his heritage bio-bonding with the alien Weapons Crest, which grants him astonishing abilities. But with the new enemies he's making much less the family he never knew about can Dante keep his head?