You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Man's longing for paradise.

    But Vidal was also a terrific conversationalist; indeed Dick Cavett once described him as “the best talker since Oscar Wilde.” Vidal was never more eloquent, or caustic, than when let loose on his favorite topic: the history and politics of the United States.This book is made up from four interviews conducted with his long-time interlocutor, the writer and radio host Jon Wiener, in which Vidal grapples with matters evidently close to his heart: the history of the American Empire, the rise of the National Security State, and his own life in politics, both as a commentator and candidate.The interviews cover a twenty-year span, from 1988 to 2008, when Vidal was at the height of his powers. His extraordinary facility for developing an argument, tracing connections between past and present, and drawing on an encyclopedic knowledge of America’s place in the world, are all on full display. And, of course, it being Gore Vidal, an ample sprinkling of gloriously acerbic one-liners is also provided.

    

    

    As Lucile explores these two versions of love, she vacillates in confusion, but in the end she must choose, and her heart’s instinct is surprising and poignant. Originally published under the title La Chamade, this new translation by Douglas Hofstadter returns a forgotten classic to English.In Translator, Trader, Douglas Hofstadter reflects on his personal act of devotion in rewriting Françoise Sagan’s novel La Chamade in English, and on the paradoxes that constantly plague any literary translator on all scales, ranging from the humblest of commas to entire chapters. Flatly rejecting the common wisdom that translators are inevitably traitors, Hofstadter proposes instead that translators are traders, and that translation, like musical performance, deserves high respect as a creative act. In his view, literary translation is the art of making subtle trades in which one sometimes loses and sometimes gains, often both losing and gaining at the same time. This view implies that there is no reason a translation cannot be as good as the original work, and that the result inevitably bears the stamp of the translator, much as a musical performance inevitably bears the stamp of its artists. Both a companion to the beloved Sagan novel and a singular meditation on translation, Translator, Trader is a witty and intimate exploration of words, ideas, communication, creation, and faithfulness.

    He believes it is every gull's right to fly, to reach the ultimate freedom of challenge and discovery, finding his greatest reward in teaching younger gulls the joy of flight and the power of dreams. The special 20th anniversary release of this spiritual classic!

    Noor isn't prepared for the village that seems deeply rooted in magic — where villagers pray to local ghosts, spend their evenings watching live possessions in the middle of a forest clearing, have innumerable stories of encounters with demons, or where she is told of people who are haunted to death. Then there's Kalki, the boy from the wrong side of the tracks, the local black magician, who is always in her way. He may be trouble, but Noor knows he can help her unravel the mystery of her friend’s death, or so she tells herself. Caught between magic and reality, Noor is increasingly drawn to the mysticism and drama of her hometown, even as dark forces gather and danger closes in on her. Will she be able to run away? Will she want to?

    Sanchariyude Daivam is Fr. Boby's first book. It has a forword by V G Thampi. Notes by Dr Rosy Thampi and veteran journalist K M Roy are appended.

    Writing in the intensely lyrical prose style that is his trademark, the man, Jean Cocteau, dubbed France's "Black Prince of Letters" here reconstructs his early adult years - time he spent as a petty criminal and vagabond, traveling through Spain and Antwerp, occasionally border hopping across to the rest of Europe, always trying to stay one step ahead of the authorities.

    Introduction by Richard Bach. Translated by Lewis Galantière and Stuart Gilbert.

    Readers and critics were enchanted; as NPR commented, “Towles writes with grace and verve about the mores and manners of a society on the cusp of radical change.”A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him a doorway into a much larger world of emotional discovery.Brimming with humour, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavour to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.

    Michener’s masterly chronicle of South Africa is an epic tale of adventurers, scoundrels, and ministers, the best and worst of two continents who carve an empire out of a vast wilderness. From the Java-born Van Doorn family tree springs two great branches: one nurtures lush vineyards, the other settles the interior to become the first Trekboers and Afrikaners. The Nxumalos, inhabitants of a peaceful village unchanged for centuries, unite warrior tribes into the powerful Zulu nation. And the wealthy Saltwoods are missionaries and settlers who join the masses to influence the wars and politics that ravage a nation. Rivalries and passions spill across the land of The Covenant, a story of courage and heroism, love and loyalty, and cruelty and betrayal, as generations fight to forge a new world.

    Without any really ties to his last life Ash has looked at this new world as a chance to start over. At first everything goes smoothly thanks to a friend he had made but that friend also brings with them their own troubles. When faced with the choice to either run or fight for his first real friend he picks up his sword and decides to stand his ground.

    But from Pearl Harbor on, he often wrote passionate accounts of America's wars based on his own firsthand experience. Vietnam was no exception.Thomas E. Barden's Steinbeck in Vietnam offers for the first time a complete collection of the dispatches Steinbeck wrote as a war correspondent for Newsday. Rejected by the military because of his reputation as a subversive, and reticent to document the war officially for the Johnson administration, Steinbeck saw in Newsday a unique opportunity to put his skills to use. Between December 1966 and May 1967, the sixty-four-year-old Steinbeck toured the major combat areas of South Vietnam and traveled to the north of Thailand and into Laos, documenting his experiences in a series of columns titled Letters to Alicia, in reference to Newsday publisher Harry F. Guggenheim's deceased wife. His columns were controversial, coming at a time when opposition to the conflict was growing and even ardent supporters were beginning to question its course. As he dared to go into the field, rode in helicopter gunships, and even fired artillery pieces, many detractors called him a warmonger and worse. Readers today might be surprised that the celebrated author would risk his literary reputation to document such a divisive war, particularly at the end of his career.Drawing on four primary-source archives--the Steinbeck collection at Princeton, the Papers of Harry F. Guggenheim at the Library of Congress, the Pierpont Morgan Library's Steinbeck holdings, and the archives of Newsday--Barden's collection brings together the last published writings of this American author of enduring national and international stature. In addition to offering a definitive edition of these essays, Barden includes extensive notes as well as an introduction that provides background on the essays themselves, the military situation, the social context of the 1960s, and Steinbeck's personal and political attitudes at the time.