Book picks similar to
The Blowtop by Alvin Schwartz


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Walkers: A Serious Parody of the Walking Dead Series


G.B. Banks - 2013
    It is the start of the journey for an entirely different group of survivors and begins with their desperate battle to escape what has become ground zero for the sudden apocalypse, the mecca for hundreds upon hundreds of the Walking Dead.

Show Me Good Land


Shonna Milliken Humphrey - 2011
    Loosely linked through a grisly murder, its characters must navigate the ambiguous moral landscape of a waning community. It is a moving, sometimes melancholy, often funny novel about family, community, loss, redemption, and coming home. The pleasure lies in exploring the personalities of the characters, none of whom are all good or all bad, and eventually deciding where the reader's own moral lines are drawn. Not since Carolyn Chute's The Beans of Egypt, Maine, has a cast of characters been so shocking, beautifully rendered, and ultimately likeable.

Memories of Malgudi


R.K. Narayan - 2002
    

All the Tomorrows


Nillu Nasser - 2017
    Sometimes we are the architects of our own fall.Akash Choudry wants a love for all time, not an arranged marriage. Still, under the weight of parental hopes, he agrees to one. He and Jaya marry in a cloud of colour and spice in Bombay. Their marriage has barely begun when Akash embarks on an affair. Jaya cannot contemplate sharing her husband with another woman, or looking past his indiscretions as her mother suggests. Cornered by sexual politics, she takes her fate into her own hands in the form of a lit match.Nothing endures fire. As shards of their past threaten their future, will Jaya ever bloom into the woman she can be, and will redemption be within Akash’s reach?

The Land of Women


Regina McBride - 2003
     She tries to remember her mother's voice and the pitch and treble of it passes through her; the rhythm of it so clear that for a moment they are...connected by frail strings. So begins The Land of Women, and we are swept into Fiona O'Faolain's last summer in Ireland, the season of her burgeoning sexuality. It is a time, too, when mother and daughter step toward friendship among the voluminous gowns they make for local brides. Yet that giddy summer also delivers betrayal. Fiona's journey from the shame that ended her girlhood takes her to Santa Fe and to Carlos Aragon, a restorer of antiquities, whose ancestry is mysteriously linked to hers. As he explores their pasts with the precision of an artisan, Fiona must face her excruciating memory. In The Land of Women the past lives in the present, and physical and emotional geography touch.

Great American Stories: Ten Unabridged Classics


Ambrose Bierce - 1994
    The following stories are included in this collection: "The One Million Pound Bank Note" by Mark Twain"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" by Mark Twain"A Visit to Niagara" by Mark Twain"Mysterious Visit" by Mark Twain"The Blue Hotel" by Stephen Crane"The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" by Stephen Crane"The Eyes of the Panther" by Ambrose Bierce"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce"The Love of Life" by Jack London"To Build a Fire" by Jack London

Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses


Harold Bloom - 2003
    This comprehensive study guide also features "The Story Behind the Story" which details the conditions under which All the Pretty Horses was written. This title also includes a short biography on Cormac McCarthy and a descriptive list of characters.

The Bright Forever


Lee Martin - 2005
    Fact, speculation, and contradiction play off one another as the details about Katie's disappearance--and about the townspeople--unfold, creating a fast-paced story that is as gripping as it is richly human. A nuanced portrayal of the complicated give and take among people struggling to maintain their humanity in the shadow of a loss, The Bright Forever is a compelling and emotional tale about the human need to know even the hardest truth.

The Replacement Bridesmaid


Laurie Ralston - 2012
    But she has no purpose, nothing to do. She is resigned to this safe and boring existence when she gets a chance to chuck it all for just a little while and run off to Ireland to be a replacement bridesmaid.Once in Ireland, her old dreams and aspirations come back to her, and so does love. Jill rediscovers herself and ends up finding herself having do choose between her old safe life, or her new risky life and the possibility of heartbreak - or love and fame.Authors note: The first edition of this book had a multitude of mistakes, but this version has been professionally proofread. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did dreaming it up.

Black Pine Creek


David Haynes - 2016
    Gold and darkness. A lifetime of mining has broken his life, estranged him from his daughter and left two dead men behind. One last opportunity might turn things around – an abandoned mine in the icy Alaskan wilderlands. If he can bring his old crew together to help, they could all end up rich. Draper knows that darkness always follows the gold. What he doesn’t know is that something even darker than his past, something nightmarish and ravenous, is waiting for them all in the shadows of Black Pine Creek.

The Wooden Nickel


William Carpenter - 2002
    He can identify every car in town from the sound of its engine, but his world is changing faster then he can fathom. His wife has become an artist, selling sea-glass sculptures to tourists. His daughter is bound for college, while his son has turned angry and lawless. Lucky's own heart is failing him, too. An operation has kept it ticking, but he can't run the boat alone any more. As the spring lobster season opens, the only deckhand Lucky can find to help load his traps is Ronette, the not-quite-divorced wife of the local lobster wholesaler. When the two make it out to the fishing grounds, someone else's buoys are bobbing in his ancestral waters. Before he knows it, Lucky is in a lobster war and has abandoned all the rules: family, health, finance, even the rules of the sea that have guided him throughout his life. As waves of trouble turn into a flood tide, Lucky's pride propels him into an epic confrontation with his enemies and a rogue whale -- a battle his unreliable heart may not survive. The Wooden Nickel is a classic story of a man raging against a changing world, full of pathos and comedy. It is a remarkable novel by a writer with a powerful, distinct, and original voice.

Manananggal Terrorizes Manila and Other Stories


Jessica Zafra - 1992
    The first collection of fifteen short stories by the popular tri-media personality.

A Matter of Honour / Shall We Tell the President? / First Among Equals


Jeffrey Archer - 1988
    Complete & Unabridged

So Far from Heaven


Richard Bradford - 1973
    The Tafoyas include a physician philosopher, a radical daughter with a degree from Bryn Mawr, a clumsy, stupid son, and a governor of New Mexico. From these elements Bradford creates a story as funny and tender as RED SKY AT MORNING, also set in New Mexico, also well worth reading.

Lying Game Complete Collection: The Lying Game; Never Have I Ever; Two Truths and a Lie; Hide and Seek; Cross My Heart, Hope to Die; Seven Minutes in Heaven; First Lie; Truth Lies


Sara Shepard - 2014
    This collection contains all six Lying Game novels, plus two digital original novellas, The First Lie and True Lies.Separated at birth, twin sisters Emma Paxton and Sutton Mercer never had a chance to meet. And now they never will. Someone murdered Sutton and forced Emma into taking her place. Sutton can only watch from beyond the grave as Emma tries to figure out who killed her—and why.But as Emma digs deeper, the girls discover that the truth may be far more terrible than they'd ever imagined—and the killer may be a lot closer to home….