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Complete Works - Volume IV - Bufe Kur (the Blind Owl) by Sadegh Hedayat


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Cat O' Nine Tales: And Other Stories


Jeffrey Archer - 2006
    Ingeniously plotted, with richly drawn characters and Jeffrey Archer's trademark of deliciously unexpected conclusions, this new collection has the added bonus of thirteen charming illustrations by the internationally acclaimed artist Ronald Searle. Some of these twelve stories were inspired by the two years Jeffrey Archer spent in prison, including the story of a company chairman who tries to poison his wife while on a trip to St. Petersburg---with unexpected consequences. "The Red King" is a tale about a con man who discovers that an English lord requires one more chess piece to complete a set that would be worth a fortune. In another tale of deception, "The Commissioner," a Bombay con artist ends up in the morgue after he uses the police chief as bait in his latest scam. "The Perfect Murder" reveals how a convict manages to remove an old enemy while he's locked up in jail, and then set up two prison officers as his alibi. In "Charity Begins at Home," an accountant realizes he has achieved nothing in his life, and sets out to make a fortune before he retires. And then there is Archer's favorite, "In the Eye of the Beholder," in which a handsome star athlete falls in love with a three-hundred-pound woman . . . who happens to be the ninth-richest woman in Italy. Jeffrey Archer is the only author to have topped international bestseller lists with his fiction, nonfiction, and short stories. "Cat o'Nine Tales" is Archer at his best: witty, poignant, sad, surprising, and unforgettable.

Corner House Girls


Lilian Harry - 2000
    They are whisked from family life in Woolwich to digs in London; they are transported from a factory and a grocer's shop to the wonderful dining rooms of Lyons, Marble Arch, and they swap their old overalls for the smart uniforms of the Corner House girls.Jo and Phyl settle in and make friends with both waitresses and customers. There are boyfriends, lovers and fiancés, friendship and romance, but as the Second World War becomes increasingly imminent, the future of these men and women seems more and more uncertain.

In Hanuman's Hands: A Memoir


Cheeni Rao - 2008
    You are now in Hanuman's hands." These are the words author Cheeni Rao hears his Indian immigrant mother sob as he stands locked outside his family home. A brilliant, promising young man who is the product of a devout Hindu family from a long line of Brahmin priests, Rao has been reduced to the life of a homeless drug addict and petty criminal on the back streets of Chicago's Southside.The freedoms and temptations of life on an elite American college campus send Rao spiraling down into a hedonistic nightmare of drugs, sex, and crime. Desperate and alone, he is visited by Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god his mother evoked, and comes to realize that this unlikely guide may be his last resort. On his long journey to recovery, Rao is guided by visions of this clever, divine monkey, best known from the Indian epic poem, the Ramayana.In Hanuman's Hands is a gritty, hauntingly beautiful memoir. Bringing India whole-heartedly into America, Rao weaves his own story of Western culture clash with mythic tales of his Hindu ancestors who served in the ancestral temples of Kali. With Hanuman as his loyal companion, the author finds his way back to recovery at a halfway house run by a mug named Tats and shared by an unforgettable gang of streetwise characters. In Hanuman's Hands is a striking debut from a new literary voice.

A Wolf at the Table


Augusten Burroughs - 2008
    He buried it and told me I must never tell. It was the only thing we’d ever done together as father and son, and I promised not to tell. But unlike most dreams, the memory of this one never left me. And sometimes…I wasn’t altogether sure about one thing: was it just a dream?”When Augusten Burroughs was small, his father was a shadowy presence in his life: a form on the stairs, a cough from the basement, a silent figure smoking a cigarette in the dark. As Augusten grew older, something sinister within his father began to unfurl.  Something dark and secretive that could not be named. Betrayal after shocking betrayal ensued, and Augusten’s childhood was over. The kind of father he wanted didn’t exist for him. This father was distant, aloof, uninterested…And then the “games” began.With "A Wolf at the Table", Augusten Burroughs makes a quantum leap into untapped emotional terrain: the radical pendulum swing between love and hate, the unspeakably terrifying relationship between father and son. Told with scorching honesty and penetrating insight, it is a story for anyone who has ever longed for unconditional love from a parent. Though harrowing and brutal, "A Wolf at the Table" will ultimately leave you buoyed with the profound joy of simply being alive. It’s a memoir of stunning psychological cruelty and the redemptive power of hope.

Breathing in Colour


Clare Jay - 2009
    This is an emotional and gripping story set in India, about a synaesthesiac girl and the fractured relationship she has with her mother.Clare Jay is the novelist name of Dr Clare Johnson, expert in Lucid Dreaming

Gaga


Johnny Morgan - 2010
    This lavish volume examines the Lady's history and phenomenal rise, her music and videos, and her unique look and chameleon-like nature. Chock-full of photos that capture Gaga from childhood through stardom, it also includes images of those who have influenced her style and an appraisal of her place in the pantheon of performance artists.Gaga is a must-have for the millions who love this very special performer and celebrity.

Tuk-Tuk to the Road


Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent - 2007
    With white knuckles and ringing ears you'll have stepped out at the end and vowed to take a regular taxi next time. But one summer Jo Huxster and Ants Bolingbroke-Kent decided to drive a tuk tuk that little bit further – to Brighton, a mere 12,561 miles away. Their mission: to raise £50 000 for the mental health charity Mind.Tuk Tuk to the Road is the inspirational story of the ultimate road trip – the countries they traverse, the people that help them, the nail-biting border crossings, the extremely friendly policemen… Every detail of their record-breaking tukathon is chronicled in colourful and often hilarious detail.Twelve countries, two continents, one earthquake and the odd snapped accelerator cable later, this is the entertaining, honest, and above all, remarkable story of two girls who proved that with a little bit of determination, anything is possible.

Can't Get Enough of You


Bette Ford - 2010
    Ms. Ford knows how to turn up the heat.”—Romantic Times   In Can’t Get Enough of You, perennial favorite Bette Ford revisits the group of friends she introduced in Unforgettable, and enthralls readers once more with a tale about the chances we take for love, and what we’re willing to risk for a second shot at happiness. Can’t Get Enough of You is a sizzling hot love story about a brilliant and beautiful professor who’s life is turned upside-down when the ex-love of her life, who once chose an NBA career over her, re-enters her world—and it reestablishes Bette Ford as a major force in African American romance fiction.

Lines in the Sand: Collected Journalism


A.A. Gill - 2017
    Lines in the Sand

God Never Blinks: 50 Lessons for Life's Little Detours


Regina Brett - 2009
    When Regina Brett turned 50, she wrote a column on the 50 lessons life had taught her. She reflected on all she had learned through becoming a single parent, looking for love in all the wrong places, working on her relationship with God, battling cancer and making peace with a difficult childhood. It became one of the most popular columns ever published in the newspaper, and since then the 50 lessons have been emailed to hundreds of thousands of people. Brett now takes the 50 lessons and expounds on them in essays that are deeply personal. From "Don't take yourself too seriously-Nobody else does" to "Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift," these lessons will strike a chord with anyone who has ever gone through tough times--and haven't we all?

Ramshackle Rose


Cathy Marie Hake - 2004
    Each of these mass market paperback novels is a top-quality romance reflecting Christian values through realistic stories. Available in both contemporary and historic settings, Heartsong Presents novels offer something for every romance reader--at a tremendous value price.

A Mother Like Alex


Bernard Clark - 2008
    They said it couldn't be done, but somehow Alex Bell has managed to adopt and raise a family of children with special needs.

Totally, Tenderly, Tragically


Phillip Lopate - 1998
    As an undergraduate at Columbia, he organized the school's first film society. Later, he even tried his own hand at filmmaking. But it was not until his ascent as a major essayist that Lopate found his truest and most lasting contribution to the medium. And, over the past twenty-five years, tackling subjects ranging from Visconti to Jerry Lewis, from the first New York Film Festival to the thirty-second, Phillip Lopate has made film his most cherished subject. Here, in one place, are the very best of these essays, a joy for anyone who loves movies.

Any Bitter Thing


Monica Wood - 2005
    One of its greatest strengths is its continuous ability to defy expectations. It's not what you think. It is worse. Lizzy Mitchell was raised from the age of two by her uncle, a Catholic priest. When she was nine, he was falsely accused of improprieties with her and dismissed from his church, and she was sent away to boarding school. Now thirty years old and in a failing marriage, she is nearly killed in a traffic accident. What she discovers when she sets out to find the truths surrounding the accident and about the accusations that led to her uncle's death does more than change her life. With deft insight into the snares of the human heart, Monica Wood has written an intimate and emotionally expansive novel full of understanding and hope.

Have a Little Faith: a True Story


Mitch Albom - 2009
    Feeling unworthy, Albom insists on understanding the man better, which throws him back into a world of faith he'd left years ago. Meanwhile, closer to his current home, Albom becomes involved with a Detroit pastor--a reformed drug dealer and convict--who preaches to the poor and homeless in a decaying church with a hole in its roof. Moving between their worlds, Christian and Jewish, African-American and white, impoverished and well-to-do, Albom observes how these very different men employ faith similarly in fighting for survival: the older, suburban rabbi embracing it as death approaches; the younger, inner-city pastor relying on it to keep himself and his church afloat.As America struggles with hard times and people turn more to their beliefs, Albom and the two men of God explore issues that perplex modern man: how to endure when difficult things happen; what heaven is; intermarriage; forgiveness; doubting God; and the importance of faith in trying times. Although the texts, prayers, and histories are different, Albom begins to recognize a striking unity between the two worlds--and indeed, between beliefs everywhere.In the end, as the rabbi nears death and a harsh winter threatens the pastor's wobbly church, Albom sadly fulfills the rabbi's last request and writes the eulogy. And he finally understands what both men had been teaching all along: the profound comfort of believing in something bigger than yourself.Have a Little Faith is a book about a life's purpose; about losing belief and finding it again; about the divine spark inside us all. It is one man's journey, but it is everyone's story. Ten percent of the profits from this book will go to charity, including The Hole In The Roof Foundation, which helps refurbish places of worship that aid the homeless.