She was lonely and unsettled - her parents had been killed in a car accident, her boyfriend had decided to go back to his wife, and as a painter she led a solitary life in her North Yorkshire home town. But she felt immediately at home in the gracious stone house that had been bequeathed to her, and was made welcome by the local residents - in particular, by the members of the Mindon Amateur Dramatic Society (somewhat appropriately known as MADS) presided over by the formidable Ursula. Ursula liked to run things her way, and brooked no opposition when the ambitious decision was made (largely by herself) to put on A Midsummer Night's Dream as their next production. Petra , to her surprise and pleasure, was put in charge of the wardrobe. Rivalries, squabbles, love affairs and seething resentments threatened to scupper the production, and all Ursula's managerial skills were needed to prevent disaster. But Petra had more pressing things on her mind than the costumes for the cast. A mystery from her past began to haunt her - and the answer to that mystery might solve the puzzle of why she had been left such a beautiful house by a total stranger.

    Most of his friends are dead or disappeared. Corrupt CIA Director Marcus Cain is poised to ascend to the highest levels of power, and the shadowy group known as the Circle is causing chaos across the globe.

    The Stories, set in Calcutta, bring to the fore the darkness lurking in the human psyche and bare the baser instincts. The stories, compactly written and marked by insightly dialogues that raise contemporary issues like man-woman relationships and its strains, moral and ethics, environmental degradation, class inequality, rapid and mass-scale unmindful urbanisation, are devoid of sentimentalisation. The result is they remained focused and move around the central character who is named Rahul in all the stories. We encounter the events that shape, mar, guide Rahul's life and also the lives of those around him, making us question the very essence of existence. Rahul symbolises modern man; he is not just one character, but all of us rolled into one. The story cycle stands out for two reasons - its brilliant narrative and the dispassionate style with which betrayal in personal relationships and resultant loneliness has been handled. The poems weave a maze of dreams, images, reflections and stories. They are written in a reflective and many a time in a narrative tenor within a poetic idiom. The poems are inseparable in a hidden way and are magically sequenced like various kinds of flowers in a garland or chapters of differing shades in a novel. Calcutta features in some of the poems like the looming backdrop of Gotham City in a Batman movie.

    Even when Jackie's family leave for Australia, Daisy cannot forget her childhood sweetheart.She determines to follow her love to Australia - after all, she would follow him to the ends of the earth if she had to.Though Daisy and Jackie are destined never to marry, their love affair continues. In Australia they both make their fortunes - Jackie in the opal mines and Daisy through the outback bar she runs with her husband. And as time goes on, their various children start new lives thousands of miles away from their East End roots . . .

    This is a short collection of poetry from the pen and mind of Nyles Adams, most of which originally appeared in other Alexandria House works.Read, absorb and snap your fingers if you are so inclined.

    The Arthurian tales of chivalry, romance, and tragedy have left a lasting impact on English literature. This collection contains Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (trans. 1898), The Lady of Shallot (1833), The Founding of the Round Table (trans. 1914), The Passing of Arthur (trans. 1914), The Morte D'arthur (1914), The Lady of the Fountain (trans. 1877), Arthurian Songs: 1. Avalon (1894), and Sir Galahad, a Christmas Mystery (1858).

    

    Transported to a dingy basement in Kolkata to identify the body of her murdered husband she has no explanation for his presence in India. As she searches for answers about who the man she married really was she finds his death surrounded by allegations of drug smuggling, child trafficking and murder. Unsure of what is true and who she can trust, Rachel has no idea of the danger her husband's hidden life has put her in.

    This series features classic tales retold with color illustrations to introduce literature to struggling readers. Each 64-page eBook retains key phrases and quotations from the original classics. You'll be kept in suspense with these four Edgar Allan Poe short stories! The Pit and the Pendulum, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Cask of Amontillado, The Murders in the Rue Morgue.

    . . [will] take a place on my shelves beside the stories of Narayan — Graham GreeneThis volume presents two celebrated novels by Manoj Das, one of India’s most illustrious authors, who has been writing in English and Oriya (Odia)for over six decades.In A Tiger at Twilight the erstwhile raja of Samargarh returns to his abandoned palace in Nijanpur, after years of self-exile, with his sick daughter and his supposed half-sister, and immediately assumes the responsibility of killing a man-eating tiger. Assisting him are a few noted men of the valley including Dev the owner and manager of a resort. But as the hunt intensifies Dev realizes that things aren’t as they seem: Heera, the raja’s sister, has an inexplicable power over the men in the hunting party and a strange connection with the tiger. As the men get closer to killing the beast, bizarre things begin to happen, hinting at the influence of the supernatural.Cyclones is set in Kusumpur, a small coastal village, during the struggle for Independence. The village is devastated by a cyclone and Sandip, the scion of the zamindar (land-lord) family, helps restore it. The war-time colonial government, though, wants to turn the sleepy hamlet into a busy port town. They plan to fill up the river that flows by it, in the process angering all the villagers, including Sandip. But when the contractor for the project is found murdered, Sandip is accused of the crime, forcing him to flee from the authorities. This is the start of a series of adventures that take him from a remote ashram in a forest to the city where communal violence is rife. Cyclones is a powerful novel about the metaphorical storms that gripped the nation during the most turbulent period of its modern history.

    Powerful, poignant and impossible to ignore or gloss over, the fifty-two threads that make up Suspected Poems unfold across the entire political spectrum—from the disturbed climate in the country and the culture of intolerance to the plight of the aam aadmi, from the continued oppression of Dalits and minority communities to fluctuating Indo–Pak relations. Written with Gulzar’s characteristic incisiveness and his unique perspective and translated marvelously into English by Pavan K. Varma, Suspected Poems, made available in a special keepsake bilingual edition, will delight every reader of poetry and Gulzar’s many fans.

    The poems range in tone from the spiritual longing of an isolated monk to the erotic ecstasy of a court princess—but share the extraordinary simplicity and luminosity of language that marks Kenneth Rexroth's verse style. An introduction by the poet and translator Sam Hamill, the editor of this collection, and short biographies of the poets are included. The Shambhala Library is a series of exquisitely designed and produced cloth editions of the world's spiritual and literary classics, both ancient and modern. Perfect for collecting or as gifts, each volume features a sewn binding, decorative endsheets, and a ribbon marker—a delightful-to-hold 4 ¼ x 6 ¾ trim size.

    A man and a woman sit at the same dinner table, an ocean of worry separating them. An iceberg sets out to dance. A sword swallower ponders his dating prospects. "The vessel is simple, a rowboat among yachts," the poet observes in "Ukulele." "No one hides a Tommy gun in its case. / No bluesman runs over his uke in a whiskey rage."Beasley's voice is pithy and playful, with a ferocious intelligence that invites comparison to both Sylvia Plath and Dorothy Parker. In one of six signature sestinas, she warns, "You must not use a house to build a home, / and never look for poetry in poems." The collection’s centerpiece is a haunting sequence that engages The Traveler's Vade Mecum, an 1853 compendium of phrases for use by mail, telegraph, or the enigmatic “Instantaneous Letter Writer."Assembled over ten years and thousands of miles, these poems illuminate how intimacy is lost and gained during our travels. Decisive, funny, and as compassionate as she is merciless, Beasley is a reckoning force on the page.

    Harshwardhana, the leader, believes they will win…Until he falls upon a sinister secret of the dark forces.Centuries later… Prithvi Sen is a regular college-going boy. His growth from childhood to adulthood has been plagued by an uncanny disease. Although medicines have it under control, Prithvi feels that the illness hasn’t revealed its truest nature yet. During his existential crisis, a drastic series of events occur and bring the most unexpected twist into his life. Could there be a link between Prithvi and the Dharmayodhas?

    Times are changing, railways are being built across the land bringing new freedom and possibilities. Jessie tastes that freedom when she meets an ambitious young navvy, newly arrived in Yorkshire. The attraction between them is overwhelming. And Jared Wilde is determined to make Jessie his wife. The primitive, colourful shanty towns that spring up around the railway works are nothing like the safe world Jessie once knew. But in spite of the hardness of life there, she finds happiness with Jared. Until another navvy becomes determined to destroy their future together...