Paris


Edward Rutherfurd - 2013
    As he did so brilliantly in London: The Novel and New York: The Novel, Edward Rutherfurd brings to life the most magical city in the world: Paris. This breathtaking multigenerational saga takes readers on a journey through thousands of years of glorious Parisian history.

Smouldering Charcoal


Paul Tiyambe Zeleza - 1992
    The middle-class pair become victims of the same brutal violence that the poor and powerless suffer.

The Death and Life of Miguel de Cervantes


Stephen Marlowe - 1991
    Marlowe gives it to us. The backdrop is Renaissance Europe, a world alive with creative ferment, triple-crossing intrigue, and the passionate quest for novelty. Lofty tragedy and lyric poetry still reign as queens of the literary arts, but young writers heady with ambition seek live action to give substance to their teeming imaginations. It is scoundrel time, and the novel is in gestation. To enter Cervantes's world we cross a threshold that is Shakespearean and quixotic into a metaphysical wonderland where time expands to become space and vast vaulted distances bend back on themselves, where the threads of fiction and the strands of history shuttle back and forth in the great loom of the artist's imagination. Marlowe's Cervantes is a towering creation: flesh and blood and living legend, actor in and creator of the events in his own fantastical life story. He not only survives war, prison, torture, and poverty, he survives death itself, growing inexorably toward the writing of Don Quixote, which would bring both him and his character immortal fame.

And Quiet Flows the Don, Vol 1 of 5


Mikhail Sholokhov - 2001
    

I Who Have Never Known Men


Jacqueline Harpman - 1995
    if indeed there were crimes.The youngest of forty - a child with no name and no past - she survives for some purpose long forgotten in a world ravaged and wasted. In this reality where intimacy is forbidden - in the unrelenting sameness of the artificial days and nights - she knows nothing of books and time, of needs and feelings.Then everything changes... and nothing changes.A young woman who has never known men - a child who knows of no history before the bars and restraints - must now reinvent herself, piece by piece, in a place she has never been... and in the face of the most challenging and terrifying of unknowns: freedom.

Empire of the Ants


Bernard Werber - 1991
    Unique, daring, and unforgettable, it tells the story of an ordinary family who accidentally threaten the security of a hidden civilization as intelligent as our own--a colony of ants determined to survive at any cost....Jonathan Wells and his young family have come to the Paris flat at 3, rue des Sybarites through the bequest of his eccentric late uncle Edmond. Inheriting the dusty apartment, the Wells family are left with only one warning: Never go down into the cellar.But when the family dog disappears down the basement steps, Jonathan follows--and soon his wife, his son, and various would-be rescuers vanish into its mysterious depths.Meanwhile, in a pine stump in a nearby park, a vast civilization is in turmoil. Here a young female from the russet ant nation of Bel-o-kan learns that a strange new weapon has been killing off her comrades. To find out why, she enlists the help of a warrior ant, and the two set off on separate journeys into a harsh and violent world. It is a world where death takes many forms--savage birds and voracious lizards, warlike dwarf ants and rapacious termites, poisonous beetles and, most bizarre of all, the swift, murderous, giant guardians of the edge of the world: cars.Yet the end of the female's desperate quest will be the eerie secret in the cellar at 3, rue des Sybarites--a mystery she must solve in order to fulfill her special destiny as the new queen of her own great empire. But to do so she must first make unthinkable communion with the most barbaric creatures of all. Empire of the Ants is a brilliant evocation of a hidden civilization as complex as our own and far more ancient. It is a fascinating realm where boats are built of leaves and greenflies are domesticated and milked like cows, where citizens lock antennae in "absolute communication" and fight wars with precisely coordinated armies using sprays of glue and acids that can dissolve a snail. Not since Watership Down has a novel so vividly captured the lives and struggles of a fellow species and the valuable lessons they have to teach us.From the Hardcover edition.

Strong at the Broken Places


Clayton Lindemuth - 2018
    Lindemuth did a magnificent job with this intensely personal story." --San Francisco Book Review Nick Fister's the winningest ultra-runner ever, but he's paid a price. His daughter Tuesday took her own life. His wife is sleeping with his crew chief, Floyd. And his "greatest fan" — an ex-Marine sniper — has progressed from creepy stalker to deadly menace. Nick's chosen Death Valley's Badwater 135 as the brutal capstone to his career. When Floyd fails to show at race start, Nick begins without him — and learns shortly later Floyd was stabbed to death the night before. Nick Fister always wins, and his relentless focus keeps him in the race. But soon the Inyo County Deputies learn about Nick's cheating wife. The troubled business partnership. The life insurance. Did Nick murder Floyd, while queuing a psychotic sniper to take the fall? Or is Nick Fister running for his life? Grab STRONG AT THE BROKEN PLACES and prepare for a marathon reading session. "One of those books that’s going to stick with me for a while." --Manhattan Book Review "A story about finding yourself, facing your inner demons, forgiving, dealing with loss, and despite all that, still moving forward." --Seattle Book Review ★★★★★ "Wrenching... Relentless... Cathartic... Enlightening..." ★Praise for Clayton Lindemuth★ Clayton Lindemuth's works have been smashingly reviewed by Publishers Weekly (starred review and best of the week), Indie Next List, Kirkus, BlueInk Review, Foreword Reviews, Seattle Book Review, Manhattan Book Review, Indie Reader, Reader Views, Spinetingler Magazine, Hardboiled Wonderland, various independent best of the year mentions, (Spinetingler and DoSomeDamage, among others). Clayton's novels Cold Quiet Country and My Brother's Destroyer have been published in France by Le Seuil, and have been charmingly reviewed by Le Monde, La Croix, Le Figaro.

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.

FARTHER: A Fabulous Tale of a Troubled Father


Chaitanya Desale - 2021
    Fortunate’?Or will you keep blaming your insecurities & failures and choose to be a fiasco?"A sweet couple, Manbir & Nivia, were living with their toddler, Ruhi. They stayed farther from their respective families, cursed by both their parents for having an inter-caste marriage. Manbir was a robotics engineer and while working hard on his dream project to make India’s first AI robot, he failed in his family responsibilities, which was followed by his wife, Nivia’s demise. And when all options were lost, Manbir had to struggle to look after his daughter Ruhi, while continuing to work on his company projects.Will he ever be able to be a great father for his motherless child? Will he ever be able to make India’s first AI robot? And how will he find a way to look after his child during his office hours? To know more, read ‘FARTHER - A Fabulous Tale of a Troubled Father.’

Dorothea Benton Frank Collection: Sullivan's Island \ Plantation \ Isle of Palms \ Shem Creek


Dorothea Benton Frank - 2005
    Contents:Sullivan's IslandPlantationIsle of Palms

Gut Symmetries


Jeanette Winterson - 1997
    Jonathan Lethem mined similar territory earlier this year in his delightful book, As She Climbed Across the Table, and now Winterson enters the lists with not one, but two physicists populating the pages of her equally wonderful book, Gut Symmetries. If you think about it, physics does make a good metaphor for love, encompassing as it does the principles of attraction, the exchange of energy, and unification. At the center of this meditation on "the intelligence of the universe" and "the stupidity of humankind" are Jove, a married physicist; Alice, a single physicist who becomes his mistress; and Stella, Jove's wife and later, Alice's lover. They meet on the QE2 and from there the three participants in the story take turns telling their versions of it. Gut Symmetries is a collage of memories, snippets of scientific theory, meditations on abstract concepts like truth, and the events surrounding Jove, Alice, and Stella's affair. This is a book that demands your attention, jumping as it does from one seemingly tangential topic to another; but whereas physics still seeks a grand unification theory (GUT) to explain how everything in the universe fits together, Winterson actually finds one of her own in this satisfyingly complete fictional world.

Schrödinger's Cat 1: The Universe Next Door


Robert Anton Wilson - 1979
    Strangelove) threatens to detonate nuclear devices in major cities all over Unistat. Also mirroring Dr. Strangelove, Unistat has an automated device that will send nuclear missiles to Russia in the event of such an attack. Russia has a similar device to bomb China, and so on.

The Edge of the Alphabet


Janet Frame - 1962
    A native of New Zealand, she is the author of eleven novels, four collections of stories, a volume of poetry, a children's book, and her heartfelt and courageous autobiography -- all published by George Braziller. This fall, we celebrate our thirty-ninth year of publishing Frame's extraordinary writing.

The Cedar Post


Jack R. Rose - 2000
    It is not about terrorism, the holocaust, or understanding death. They are the framework for this heartwarming story about a never-a-serious-thought high school senior and his best friend, a Deaf-blind, legless old man, who teaches him how to capture and hold, The Pristine American Dream. Pristine, "Characteristics of the earliest period or condition: original: still pure: uncorrupted: unspoiled [Pristine beauty]." Webster's New World Dictionary. Sometime, somehow, somewhere, we, as a people, stopped living and dreaming The Pristine American Dream as our Founding Fathers knew it. Like colors fading from a handkerchief long forgotten on a cedar post, the Dream has faded from our thoughts and aspirations. The change has been imperceptible, yet over time all of the brilliance has faded to the dull, uninspiring and common. The Pristine American Dream has taken on a different hue. To some, the American Dream has become a passionate search for easy wealth by hitting it big in the lottery, sweepstakes, a big lawsuit, or receiving an inheritance. To others it is landing a professional sports contract, or achieving prominence in politics, business or popularity without any thought to inherent rights. As important as these achievements may be to some people, The Pristine American Dream is much better. This story showcases The Pristine American Dream, which is those inalienable or inherent rights guaranteed to each American by virtue of their birth, and the diligence, hard work and determination required to obtain and enjoy the privileges of life. Simply put, inherent rights are the rights to be and to do good. Everything that is good is right, an inherent right. Nobody ever has the right to do bad; they only have the power to choose it. Many people see goodness as the result of religious dedication instead of the catalyst that fires the furnace of happiness. No matter what circumstances' individuals, families, communities or nations find themselves in, they always enjoy more peace of mind and happiness when they maintain their inherent rights. Privileges are the sweet things of life for which one must work to receive. This is a fiction story. The setting is Declo, Idaho during the years of 1966 and 1967. All the characters are fiction, but like many great fiction characters they may resemble living or dead individuals whose lives have impacted that of the author. Most family names are indigenous to the Declo community, yet there should not be any inference made that any of the characters are living or have ever lived. There are, however, certain authenthic individuals who make cameo appearances to add color to its historical setting.

Claudine at School


Colette - 1900
    Along with her friends the lanky Anais, the cheerful Marie and the prim Joubert twins Claudine wreaks havoc on her small school. Always clever, witty and charming Claudine is more than a match for her formidable headmistress as they fight for the attention of the pretty assistant Aimee. The horrors of examinations and good-humoured bullying are the backdrops in this immensely funny and delightful novel with which Colette established the captivating character of Claudine. Through the games, the fun and the intricacies of school life Claudine emerges as a true original; lyrical and intelligent she is one of the twentieth century's most beguiling emancipated women.