Book picks similar to
Leap Year by Peter Cameron
fiction
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The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
J.R.R. Tolkien - 1962
They tell of Tom's encounters with Goldberry, with Old Man Willow, who tries to trap Tom inside his trunk, with the Badger-folk, and with the ghostly Barrow-wight, as well as with a princess, trolls, dwarves and legendary beasts.
The Orange-Yellow Diamond
J.S. Fletcher - 1920
But then it's found the pawnbroker had had in his possession an extraordinary South African diamond worth over eighty-thousand pounds -- a diamond that's now missing. It falls to Melky Rubenstein to unravel the mystery and prove the young man's innocence. But what is the significance of the Spanish manuscript? What part do the Chinese medical students play? And what about the mysterious Mr. Mori Yada? Find the answers in The Orange-Yellow Diamond! This classic book was edited by Resurrected Press. Resurrected Press is dedicated to bringing high quality classic books back to the readers who enjoy them. These are not scanned versions of the originals, but, rather, quality checked and edited books meant to be enjoyed! Please search Amazon for "Resurrected Press" to find both print and Kindle editions of all of our books!
The Wapshot Chronicle
John Cheever - 1957
There is Captain Leander Wapshot, venerable sea-dog and would-be suicide; his licentious older son, Moses; and Moses's adoring and errant younger brother, Coverly. Tragic and funny, ribald and splendidly picaresque, and partly based on Cheever's adolescence in New England, The Wapshot Chronicle is a stirring family narrative in the finest traditions of Trollope, Dickens, and Henry James
The Ginger Man
J.P. Donleavy - 1955
P. Donleavy's first novel is now recognized the world over as a masterpiece and a modern classic of the highest order. Set in Ireland just after World War II, The Ginger Man is J. P. Donleavy's wildly funny, picaresque classic novel of the misadventures of Sebastian Dangerfield, a young American ne'er-do-well studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Dangerfield's appetite for women, liquor, and general roguishness is insatiable--and he satisfies it with endless charm.
Alan Lennox and the Temp Job of Doom
Brian Olsen - 2013
But Alan’s new job proves to be anything but boring when his co-workers start turning up dead. The mysterious megacorporation Amalgamated Synergy has taken a deadly interest in Alan and his three roommates, and the hapless quartet are woefully unequipped to deal with the psychotic secretaries, murderous middle managers, and villainous vice-presidents hunting them down. Their investigation leads them deep into Amalgamated Synergy’s headquarters, but can Alan and his friends stay alive long enough to discover who – or what – waits for them on the top floor?
We Disappear
Scott Heim - 2008
. . . It’s not hyperbole to suggest that We Disappear is the eeriest Kansas-set story since Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood." — Chicago Sun-TimesA dark and compelling novel of addiction, obsession, love, and family from the acclaimed author of
Mysterious Skin
The body of a teenage boy is discovered in a Kansas field. The murder haunts Donna—a recent widow battling cancer—calling forth troubling details from long-suppressed memories of her past. Hoping to discover more about "disappeared" people, she turns to her son, Scott, who is fighting demons of his own. Addicted to methamphetamines and sleeping pills, Scott is barely holding on—though the chance to help his mother in her strange and desperate search holds out a slim promise of some small salvation.But what he finds is a boy named Otis handcuffed in a secret basement room, and the questions that arise seem too disturbing even to contemplate. With his mother's health rapidly deteriorating, Scott must surrender to his own obsession, and unravel Otis's unsettling connections to other missing teens . . . and, ultimately, to himself.
The Good Neighbor
Jay Quinn - 2006
This is the good gay novel about suburbia and its torments that John Updike won't ever write.”—Richard Labonte“In rich, languid and perfectly nuanced prose, author Jay Quinn traces the arc of each character . . . casting a unique spell over many of the assumptions and stereotypes of suburban family life.”—Curled Up With a Good BookPraise for Back Where He Started:“Jay Quinn’s masterpiece. You don’t have to be gay, Catholic, or Southern to enjoy this wonderful book. Engrossing and inspiring.”—Gay TodayRory Fallon is walking his dog when he notices activity at the house next door. New neighbors, namely, the Hardens, are moving in—Austin and his wife Meg, along with their two kids. Rory introduces himself, and can’t help but notice how intrigued Austin is when it’s mentioned just who Rory lives with: his partner of many years, handsome Bruno Griffin. Indeed, the last thing Austin expected in this small Florida enclave was having a gay couple for neighbors. But life has more surprises in store, for Austin and for Rory, and soon new questions are asked, about love and about marriage, and how their roles help define—and alter—the people around them.A main selection of the InsightOut Book Club.
Eleven
Mark Watson - 2010
Xavier Ireland is a radio DJ who by night listens to the hopes, fears and regrets of sleepless Londoners and by day keeps himself very much to himself - until he is brought into the light by a one-of-a-kind cleaning lady and forced to confront his own biggest regret.
Another Side of Paradise
Sally Koslow - 2018
Scott Fitzgerald and his longtime lover, Sheilah Graham, in this dazzling novel of romance, celebrity, and Gatsby-esque self-creation in 1930s HollywoodIn 1937 Hollywood, gossip columnist Sheilah Graham’s star is on the rise, while literary wonder boy F. Scott Fitzgerald’s career is slowly drowning in booze. But the once-famous author, desperate to make money penning scripts for the silver screen, is charismatic enough to attract the gorgeous Miss Graham, a woman who exposes the secrets of others while carefully guarding her own. Like Scott’s hero Jay Gatsby, Graham has meticulously constructed a life far removed from the poverty of her childhood in London’s slums. And like Gatsby, the onetime guttersnipe learned early how to use her charms to become a hardworking success feted and feared by both the movie studios and their luminaries.A notorious drunk famously married to the doomed “crazy Zelda,” Fitzgerald fell hard for his “Shielah” (he never learned to spell her name), a shrewd yet soft-hearted woman—both a fool for love and nobody’s fool—who would stay with him and help revive his career until his tragic death three years later. Working from diaries and other primary sources from the time, Sally Koslow revisits their scandalous love affair, bringing Graham and Scott gloriously alive in this compelling page-turner saturated with the color, glitter, magic, and passion of 1930s Hollywood and Sheilah’s dramatic transformation in London.
Mother Land
Paul Theroux - 2017
To her husband and seven children, she is the selfish, petty tyrant of Mother Land. She excels at playing her offspring against each other. Her favorite, Angela, died in childbirth; only Angela really understands her, she tells the others. The others include the officious lawyer, Fred; the uproarious professor, Floyd; a pair of inseparable sisters whose devotion to Mother has consumed their lives; and JP, the narrator, a successful writer whose work she disparages. As she lives well past the age of 100, her brood struggles with and among themselves to shed her viselike hold on them. Mother Land is a piercing portrait of how a parent’s narcissism impacts a family. While the particulars of this tale are unique, Theroux encapsulates with acute clarity and wisdom a circumstance that is familiar to legions of readers. And beyond offering the shock and comfort of recognition, Mother Land presents for everyone an engrossing, heartbreaking, and often funny saga of a vast family that bickers, colludes, connives, and ultimately overcomes the painful ties that bind them.
BUtterfield 8
John O'Hara - 1935
Was it an accident, a murder, a suicide? The circumstances of her death were never resolved, but O’Hara seized upon the tragedy to imagine the woman’s down-and-out life in New York City in the early 1930s. “O’Hara understood better than any other American writer how class can both reveal and shape character,” Fran Lebowitz writes in her Introduction. With brash honesty and a flair for the unconventional, BUtterfield 8 lays bare the unspoken and often shocking truths that lurked beneath the surface of a society still reeling from the effects of the Great Depression. The result is a masterpiece of American fiction.
The First Billion
Christopher Reich - 2002
Now the New York Times bestselling author whose work has been called “gripping” (Chicago Tribune), “chilling” (The Denver Post), “wonderful” (The New York Times Book Review), ratchets up the stakes in an ingeniously plotted story of nerve-jangling intrigue and hot-wired suspense. Using today’s cutthroat global economy as a backdrop, The First Billion explodes into a breakneck tale of betrayal, revenge, and redemption...John “Jett” Gavallan is a former fighter pilot, now the high-flying CEO of Black Jet Securities, an investment firm that earned its first billion before the techno dream crashed and burned. Poised for an offering crucial to his company’s survival, Gavallan is banking on the riskiest gamble of his dazzling career. In exactly six days, he will take Mercury Broadband, Russia’s leading media company, public on the New York Stock Exchange. But rumors of fraud have suddenly surfaced that could send the deal south. Gavallan makes a preemptive strike by dispatching his number-two man--fellow Desert Storm fighter pilot Grafton Byrnes--to Moscow to penetrate the shadowy Russian multinational. When Byrnes fails to return, Gavallan fears the worst. But the truth is even more diabolical than he can imagine.Plunging into a desperate search for his best friend, the renegade top gun is suddenly fighting a different kind of war, where there is no safe harbor and no one he can trust. Not Konstantin Kirov, the elusive head of Mercury Broadband who may not be what he seems. Not the bankers and traders Gavallan does business with every day. Not the exotic beauty who has told him all her deepest secrets--except one. Suddenly Jett finds himself trapped in a conspiracy that could shatter the delicate balance between nations--and plunge the global economy into chaos. Hunted by the F.B.I. and a band of elite killers, Jett races from Palm Beach to Zurich to Moscow in a desperate search for answers. But for this brave ex-commando haunted by visions of war, the truth comes at a terrible price. With Mercury rising and the hours ticking down, he is moving closer to a place where murder and revenge are the currency of choice...and where the first billion is the ultimate insider secret--and the deadliest obsession of all.With breakneck plotting, stunning realism, and a sense of danger that keeps the heart racing, The First Billion is a knockout of a novel that will linger long after the final shocking twist is revealed.From the Hardcover edition.
Meet Me Here
Bryan Bliss - 2016
His father was Army. His brother, Jake, is Army—is a hero, even, with the medals to prove it. Everyone expects Thomas to follow in that fine tradition. But Jake came back from overseas a completely different person, and that has shaken Thomas’s certainty about his own future. And so when his long-estranged friend Mallory suggests one last night of adventure, Thomas takes her up on the distraction. Over the course of this single night, Thomas will lose, find, resolve, doubt, drive, explore, and leap off a bridge. He’ll also face the truth of his brother’s post-traumatic stress disorder and of his own courage. In Bryan Bliss’s deft hands, graduation night becomes a night to find yourself, find each other, find a path, and know that you always have a place—and people—to come back to.
The Golem
Gustav Meyrink - 1915
The red-headed prostitute Rosina; the junk-dealer Aaron Wassertrum; puppeteers; street musicians; and a deaf-mute silhouette artist.Lurking in its inhabitants’ subconscious is the Golem, a creature of rabbinical myth. Supposedly a manifestation of all the suffering of the ghetto, it comes to life every 33 years in a room without a door. When the jeweller Athanasius Pernath, suffering from broken dreams and amnesia, sees the Golem, he realises to his terror that the ghostly man of clay shares his own face...The Golem, though rarely seen, is central to the novel as a representative of the ghetto's own spirit and consciousness, brought to life by the suffering and misery that its inhabitants have endured over the centuries. Perhaps the most memorable figure in the story is the city of Prague itself, recognisable through its landmarks such as the Street of the Alchemists and the Castle.