While around them crime and unrest surge, the Lovatts are certain that their old-fashioned contentment can protect them from the world outside—until the birth of their fifth baby. Gruesomely goblin-like in appearance, insatiably hungry, abnormally strong and violent, Ben has nothing innocent or infant-like about him. As he grows older and more terrifying, Harriet finds she cannot love him, David cannot bring himself to touch him, and their four older children are afraid of him. Understanding that he will never be accepted anywhere, Harriet and David are torn between their instincts as parents and their shocked reaction to this fierce and unlovable child whose existence shatters their belief in a benign world.

    Neither as pretty as cousin Alicia nor as domineering as mother Drusilla, she seems doomed to a quiet life of near poverty at Missalonghi, her family's pitifully small homestead in Australia's Blue Mountains. But it's a brand new century--the twentieth--a time for new thoughts and bold new actions. And Missy Wright is about to set every self-righteous tongue in the town of Byron wagging. Because she has just set her sights on a mysterious, mistrusted, and unsuspecting stranger... who just might be Prince Charming in disguise.

    I would go so far as to compare it to the works of Stephen King.” -Amazon/Goodreads Reviewer”The action leaps off the page and smacks you in the face. Once you start reading it's very hard to find a stopping point.” Amazon/Goodreads ReviewerIt was supposed to be the opportunity of a lifetime—the chance to be on a reality show and win a million dollars. Ten contestants are dropped individually on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean with one goal in mind—SURVIVE. But, there are more dangers lurking in the shadows than just the wolves, bears, isolation and harsh environment. Nobody expected a murderer among them. The last survivor standing will win the million dollar prize, but the real prize might be merely coming home alive when all communication with the outside world is lost and sleeping bags start turning into body bags. The Cast:Derrick Bond- A twenty-nine year-old ex-Marine from Texas. He’s come to Isolation Island to escape the demons of his past and prove he still has what it takes to adapt, overcome, and survive. Jillian Hill- 49 years-old. A self-proclaimed badass. She’s a wife and mother of six from Kentucky, full of grit and determination. She signed up for the ultimate test of endurance to prove to her kids anything is possible.Tucker Jordan- A yoga instructor from Vermont looking to become one with nature and test his ability to live off the land. But, Isolation Island’s harsh climate does not welcome visitors with open arms. Can he find peace and harmony among the hungry wild animals?Stephanie Hamilton- An artist and experienced survivalist from Colorado. She can survive anywhere, but what she wants most is to win the million dollars so she can live off the grid on a Caribbean island. Wes Wood- A farmer from Mississippi looking to strike it rich on his first trip outside the country. Will his shady past catch up with him in a competition where mental toughness is as important as physical ability?Kimmie Arden- A burnt-out nurse from New York who’s sick of the daily grind and work-related stress. If she can outlast the others, it can mean a more peaceful life for her whole family.Seaton Rogers- A screenwriter and self-described introvert—perhaps the type of personality most suited for months of isolation. He wants the million dollars so he can distance himself from society and live a self-sustaining life on his own terms. Zoey Price- A dance instructor and the youngest person in the competition entering at twenty-four years-old. She’ll have to learn quickly and adapt if she wants a shot at beating the older, more experienced survivalists. Floyd Benson- A pizza delivery man from Florida with two young children depending on him. Can his energy-conserving strategy help him survive longer than the others?Ezra Greer- A hard-nosed truck driver from Alaska. He’s come to Isolation Island to escape his dark past and make a new start. One million dollars would surely go a long way. Ten contestants. One million dollars up for grabs. The last person remaining wins.Welcome to Isolation Island. Let the game begin.

    At the time, only the most prescient would have predicted the events that led to her extraordinary final novel Suite Française and her death at Auschwitz. Yet the clues are there in this astonishingly mature story of an elderly Jewish businessman who has sold his soul.Golder is a superb creation. Born into poverty on the Black Sea, he has clawed his way to fabulous wealth by speculating on gold and oil. When the novel opens, he is at work in his magnificent Parisian apartment while his wife and beloved daughter, Joy, spend his money at their villa in Biarritz. But Golder’s security is fragile. For years he has defended his business interests from cut-throat competitors. Now his health is beginning to show the strain. As his body betrays him, so too do his wife and child, leaving him to decide which to pursue: revenge or altruism?Available for the first time since 1930, David Golder is a page-turningly chilling and brilliant portrait of the frenzied capitalism of the 1920s and a universal parable about the mirage of wealth.

    Not that it has wanted for spirited advocates; but, despite all efforts, it has remained firmly on the periphery. The one signal exception is Goethe's novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers usually rendered as 'The Sorrows of Young Werther'. Werther was an extraordinary and immediate bestseller both in Germany and abroad.

    The narrator, unable to stop himself, tries to track Ruiz-Tagle down, and sees signs of his activity over and over again. A corrosive, mocking humor sparkles within Bolaño's darkest visions of Chile under Pinochet. In Bolaño's world there's a big graveyard and there's a big graveyard laugh. (He once described his novel By Night in Chile as "a tale of terror, a situation comedy, and a combination pastoral-gothic novel.")Many Chilean authors have written about the "bloody events of the early Pinochet years, the abductions and murders," Richard Eder commented in the The New York Times: "None has done it in such a dark and glittering fashion as Roberto Bolaño."

    This is the premise of Boccaccio's Decameron, a landmark of early Renaissance literature and one of the world's great story collections. Vast in scope, teeming with colorful characters, and rich in worldly wisdom, these 25 tales from the original 100 encompass a variety of genres — folktales, ancient myths, fables, and anecdotes ranging from earthy satires of hypocritical clergy to gripping tales of murder and revenge and stories of passionate love. Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Keats drew upon Boccaccio's masterpiece for inspiration, and the grand old storyteller’s fables continue to captivate modern readers.

    Many people knew things about Sebastian Knight as a distinguished novelist, but probably fewer than a dozen knew of the two love affairs that so profoundly influenced his career, the second one in such a disastrous way. After Knight's death, his half brother sets out to penetrate the enigma of his life, starting with a few scanty clues in the novelist's private papers. His search proves to be a story of mystery and intrigue as any of his subject's own novels, as baffling, and, in the end, as uniquely rewarding.

    Sommer. Moving through the landscape in silent haste, like a man possessed, with his empty rucksack and his long, odd-looking walking stick, Mr Sommer runs like a black thread through the boy's days.

    I was only four then. I never thought I'd hear from him again, but now we're writing a book together'To Georg Røed, his father is no more than a shadow, a distant memory. But then one day his grandmother discovers some pages stuffed into the lining of an old red pushchair. The pages are a letter to Georg, written just before his father died, and a story, 'The Orange Girl'. But 'The Orange Girl' is no ordinary story - it is a riddle from the past and centres around an incident in his father's youth. One day he boarded a tram and was captivated by a beautiful girl standing in the aisle, clutching a huge paper bag of luscious-looking oranges. Suddenly the tram gave a jolt and he stumbled forward, sending the oranges flying in all directions. The girl simply hopped off the tram leaving Georg's father with arms full of oranges. Now, from beyond the grave, he is asking his son to help him finally solve the puzzle of her identity.

    This inexpensive volume comprises "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz," "The Ice Palace," "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," "May Day," "The Jelly-Bean," and "The Offshore Pirate." Publisher's Note.

    . .’ Enduring myths of vengeful gods and tragically flawed mortals from ancient Rome’s great poet. Ovid tells the tales of Theseus and the Minotaur, Daedalus and Icarus, the Calydonian Boar-Hunt, and many other famous myths.(Taken from Books VIII and IX of Mary M. Innes’s translation of Metamorphoses.)[ Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) 43 BC–17 AD ]Little Black Classics celebrates Penguin’s 80th birthday, introducing 80 works from the classics.

    Bukowski's last journals candidly and humorously reveal the events in the writer's life as death draws inexorably nearer, thereby illuminating our own lives and natures, and to give new meaning to what was once only familiar. Crumb has illustrated the text with 12 full-page drawings and a portrait of Bukowski.

    The place is Alexandria, an Egyptian city that once housed the world's greatest library and whose inhabitants are dedicated to knowledge. But for the obsessed characters in this mesmerizing novel, their pursuits lead only to bedrooms in which each seeks to know--and possess--the other. Since its publication in 1957, Justine has inspired an almost religious devotion among readers and critics alike.

    The Floating Opera and The End Of The Road are John Barth's first two novels.  Their relationship to each other is evident not only in their ribald subject matter but in the eccentric characters and bitterly humorous tone of the narratives.  Both concern strange, consuming love triangles and the destructive effect of an overactive intellect on the emotions.  Separately they give two very different views of a universal human drama.