Seeing an elderly woman crushed to death under a baby grand piano is not the best start to anyone’s day, and Max Dempsey’s is about to get a whole lot worse.When sacked bank manager turned bank robber Max Dempsey (aka Simon Golightly) finds himself deep in debt to dodgy undertaker Danny Bishop, he’s prepared to do almost anything to pay it off and keep all of his fingers.But he’s likely to lose a lot more than his fingers when he agrees to do a “little job” for Danny and unintentionally crosses psychopathic Greek gangster, Nikos Spiropoulos.Meanwhile, Bernard Pemberton and his granddaughter Tess are on a road trip to scatter their beloved Dottie’s ashes on a Scottish hilltop, but is it really her ashes in the cremation urn or something else altogether?Cremains is a crime caper that twists and turns its way towards a conclusion that even Max himself couldn’t have predicted.

    Fleeing from pirates, Robinson Crusoe is swept ashore in a storm possessing only a knife, a box of tobacco, a pipe-and the will to survive. His is the saga of a man alone: a man who overcomes self-pity and despair to reconstruct his life; who painstakingly teaches himself how to fashion a pot, bake bread, build a canoe; and who, after twenty-four agonizing years of solitude, discovers a human footprint in the sand... Consistently popular since its first publication in 1719, Daniel Defoe's story of human endurance in an exotic, faraway land exerts a timeless appeal.

    Each casebook reprints documents relating to a work's historical context and reception, presents the best critical studies, and, when possible, features an interview with the author. Accessible and informative to scholars, students, and nonspecialist readers alike, the books in this series provide a wide range of critical and informative commentaries on major texts. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude is arguably the most important novel in twentieth-century Latin American literature. This Casebook features ten critical articles on Garcia Marquez's great work. Carefully selected from the most important work on the novel over the past three decades, they include pieces by Carlos Fuentes, Iris Zavala, James Higgins, Jean Franco, Michael Wood, and Gene H. Bell-Villada. Among the intriguing aspects of the work discussed are its mythic dimension, its "magical" side, its representations of women, its relationship with past chronicles of exploration and discovery, its portrayals of Western power and imperialism, its astounding diffusion throughout the globe and the media, and its simple truth-telling, its fidelity to the tangled history of Latin America. The book incorporates several theoretical approaches--historical, feminist, postcolonial; the first English translation of Fuentes's renowned, oft-cited, eight page meditation on the work; a general introduction; and a 1982 interview with Garcia Marquez.

    He is an extremely wealthy man, although no one knows where he or his money have come from. But Gatsby has a purpose: he is following a dream of love. Will his dream come true?

    Swirling voices and skeins of story, laughter and rage, ferocious attention to detail and sweeping nuttiness, tears and chortling—these stories will remind readers of the late giant David Foster Wallace, in their straightforward accounts of anything-but-straightforward events; of modern short story pioneer Raymond Carver, a bit, in their blunt, unadorned dialogue; and of Julia Whitty, a bit, in their willingness to believe what is happening, even if it absolutely shouldn’t be. Funny, piercing, unique, memorable, this is a collection of stories readers will find nearly impossible to forget:... The barber who shaves the heads of the thugs in Bin Laden’s cave tells cheerful stories of life with the preening video-obsessed leader, who has a bald spot shaped just like Iceland.... A husband gathers all of his wife’s previous boyfriends for a long day on a winery-touring bus.... A teenage boy drives off into the sunset with his troubled sister’s small daughters…and the loser husband locked in the trunk of the car.... The late Joseph Kennedy pours out his heart to a golf-course bartender moments before the stroke that silenced him forever.… A man digging in his garden finds a brand-new baby boy, still alive, and has a chat with the teenage neighbor girl whose son it is.... A man born on a Greyhound bus eventually buys the entire Greyhound Bus Company and revolutionizes Western civilization.... A mountainous bishop dies and the counting of the various keys to his house turns… tense.... A man discovers his wife having an affair, takes up running to grapple with his emotions, and discovers everyone else on the road is a cuckold too.And many others.

    Five other tales describe folk in Britain's lowest professional class between the late-1950s and 60s.

    The wind tries first, but however hard it blows it fails to make any progress because the traveller simply buttons his coat even tighter than before. Only when the sun shines brightly does he finally remove it, and the wind roars away in a bad temper.

    Toni Morrison uses modernist techniques of stream-of-consciousness, multiple perspectives, and deliberate fragmentation. Two different narrators tell the story. The first is Claudia MacTeer, who narrates in a mixture of a child’s and an adult’s perspectives, and the second is an omniscient narrator. Claudia’s and Pecola’s points of view are dominant, but the reader also sees things from other character’s points of view.The subtext of the first part of the novel ('Autumn' and 'Winter') suggests various topics. In my presentation, I mainly focus on the “Dick and Jane narrative” by means of which the novel opens. Furthermore, I will explore the themes “whiteness as the standard of beauty” and “seeing versus being seen” which are sometimes closely connected.'The Bluest Eye' provides an extended depiction of the ways in which internalized white beauty standards deform the lives of black girls and women. Implicit messages that whiteness is superior are everywhere, including the white baby doll given to Claudia, the idealization of Shirley Temple, the consensus that light-skinned Maureen is cuter than the other black girls, and the idealization of white beauty in the movies. Pecola eventually desires blue eyes in order to conform with these white beauty standards imposed on her.However, by wishing for blue eyes, Pecola indicates that she wishes to see things differently as much as she wishes to be seen differently.

    13:55 EST makes - she counts on her fingers - about 6pm in Berlin. He'll be on his way home. Alice settles into the armchair and dials the number...If Alice hadn't bumped into Will then she would probably never have phoned that afternoon. And if Alice hadn't called, then Michael, poor Michael, might still be alive today...In a digital age of world-spanning communications and easy travel these stories explore how interconnected and yet fragmented our lives have become, and how - no matter where we live or what we do, no matter how different our lifestyles - the universal desires for love and happiness draw us ever onward.Both short story collection and novel, 13:55 Eastern Standard Time finds Nick Alexander at his best. Sometimes disturbing, sometimes funny, these are stories of lives that cross and collide in life-ending drama, or simply run peacefully alongside for a few hours - lives filled with characters who are attracted and repelled, hopeless and yet inspired. Narrated in Alexander's trademark tense prose, these interwoven stories explore the ripples emanating from our every act, ripples that alter distant destinies, and occasionally bounce back, catching us from behind to haunt or inspire.13:55 Eastern Standard Time repeats the success of Alexander's first novel, 50 Reasons to Say Goodbye because again, as with life itself, the whole is mysteriously greater than the sum of the parts.

    Download both ebooks for a special low price. Birdman Five bodies, all young women, all ritualistically murdered and dumped near the Millennium Dome in southeast London. A post-mortem examination tells the police they’re dealing with a sexual serial killer. Detective Inspector Jack Caffery knows he has only limited time before the sadistic killer strikes again. The Treatment In a residential neighbourhood in south London, a husband and wife are found tied up and imprisoned in their house. Their young son is missing. Detective Jack Caffery is called in to investigate. When the child’s body is found, he attempts to unravel the motive and sequence of events, especially when he discovers that a tragedy in his own past is indirectly connected to the murder.

    He's got to find a cure. That’s right—Adam's 13 years old, and he's about to change the world.From the Publisher: The follow-up to D.K. Brantley’s I’m 12 Years Old And I Saved The World, this book tackles the difficult topics of childhood cancer, dealing with death, and battling addiction. I’m 13 Years Old And I Changed The World is an open admission that bad things happen to good people. And while you often can’t fix the bad situation, you can make it better if you’re willing to be a friend.We hope this book comforts those who are dealing with childhood cancer, death, or addiction and increases empathy for all.

    I INCLUDE VOCABULARY WORDS AND EXPLAIN THE WORK IN A SIMPLE FASHION. I endeavor to go beyond a cheat sheet, and encourage the reader through the process of learning. If you are a student or a parent of a student, and are looking for easy guidance, this book is for you. I happen to teach personal development and approach the book from a teacher's angle- with the goal of making the information easily available with an encouragement into the excitement of learning. THIS SUMMARY BOOK COMBINES HISTORY AND NEW VOCABULARY WHILE EXPLORING THE THEMES AND METAPHORS OF THE BOOK. AND IT IS WRITTEN IN A LANGUAGE THAT CAN BE EASILY UNDERSTOOD.

    Eighteen-year-old twins Marie and Vesta Haskins work at the local shoe factory to bring in a few pennies for the family, but they've never given up on their dream of treading the boards in the West End. When a brand new East End club opens its doors, the girls audition for the show and are over the moon to land two nights a week with their cabaret act. But little do they realise that the villainous Scoresby brothers are using the club as a front for a very different line of business.Seeing what is going on behind the smoke and lights of the stage, sensible Marie vows to leave her job at the club before it is too late, but headstrong Vesta has fallen for the Scoresby's handsome right-hand man, Teddy, and unwittingly leads her whole family into the Scoresby's clutches. Will Marie be able to save her family from disaster? Or will Vesta's determination to become a star tear the Haskins family apart?

    

    The heady mix of human depravity, humour, satire, tragedy, revenge and drama makes these stories an essential cocktail of emotions.Review:“Breezy, Flippant, Poignant... Tales of pleasurable wickedness.”-Salil Desai, author of Inspector Saralkar Mystery Series“Although not all sugar and sunshine, Dalvi's voice is an important one, because he chooses to tell stories that others would normally shy away from. There's a serene resignation in his tales, one that is completely devoid of both hope as well as regret. I thoroughly enjoyed the stories.”-Bhaskar Chattopadhyay, author of Patang, Penumbra, Here Falls the Shadow, The Disappearance of Sally Sequeira and Best Served Cold“Gripping short-stories by Rafaa Dalvi. I am both intrigued and scared by his plot-twists. Thrilled to have read this book.”-Sanhita Baruah, author of The Art of Letting Go and The Art of Healing“Some of the best stories I have read so far. Rafaa has a gift of telling complex stories in a very intuitive and straightforward and are easy to read. This book is the best thing that has come out during these current circumstances.”-S. G. Kabe, author of Everything is Normal“Rafaa Dalvi is a flash fiction expert.”-T.F. Carthick, author of Carthick’s Unfairy Tales and More Unfairy Tales“Taut, propulsive and riveting, Rafaa’s mesmerising stories pack a big punch. Chasing Nirvana has been carefully crafted for maximum impact. A highly compelling read.”-Vivek Banerjee, author of ‘The Long Road’ and ‘The Other Side’