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The Love Song of Monkey
Michael S.A. Graziano - 2008
Part magic realism, part science fiction, part theater of the absurd, and part over-the-top, unrepentant spoof, this novel packs more into its few short pages than do most epic trilogies. Graziano has fabricated the rare kind of tale that the reader can honestly say ends much too quickly. Perfectly woven, self-enclosed, multifaceted . . . Kosinski’s Being There sprinkled with a strong dose of Frankenstein . . . the kind of simplicity that speaks volumes.”—Michael Mirolla, author of The Formal Logic of Emotion“An amalgam of fairy tale, satire, science fiction, medical thriller, and soap opera. . . . It is difficult to fathom that a novel so brief can be so epic in scope. Inventive and deftly crafted, The Love Song of Monkey is a tale no reader will soon forget.”—Eric Linder, Yellow Umbrella Books, Chatham, MassachusettsIn a surreal exile on the floor of the Atlantic, a young man faces his own death and his wife’s infidelity. The Love Song of Monkey is a meditation on the simple, inexplicable, and lasting power of love, cast in the metaphor of a journey to the depths of the ocean floor. Precise and beautifully crafted, this modern fable is rich with humor and deep thought.Michael S. A. Graziano, professor of neuroscience at Princeton University, is the author of the novella Hiding Places (New England Review), The Seclusion Zone (2007 fi nalist in the William Faulkner–William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition), and The Intelligent Movement Machine (2008, Oxford University Press).
The Joyful Environmentalist
Isabel Losada - 2020
And to do this wholeheartedly, energetically and joyfully.’ Finally! A book about saving our planet that is fast, funny and inspiring too. Isabel doesn’t bother with an examination of the problem but gets right on with the solutions. Her aim: to look for every single way that we can take care of the planet; how we live and work, travel, shop, eat, drink, dress, vote, play, volunteer, bank – everything. The feel-good book of the year for anyone who loves nature and knows that one person can make a HUGE difference. ‘This is the joy we need in our lives.’ - George Monbiot ‘She gave my spirit a lift and my feet somewhere to stand.’ - Sir Mark Rylance ‘Practical and realistic as well as visionary.’ - Dr Rowan Williams ‘A manifesto of brilliant advice offered with humility and good grace. A practical guide to empower us all.’ - Isabella Tree ISABEL LOSADA is the bestselling author of six previous books including The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment.
The Illumination
Kevin Brockmeier - 2011
I love the soft blue veins on your wrist. I love your lopsided smile. I love watching TV and shelling sunflower seeds with you. The six recipients - a data analyst, a photojournalist, a schoolchild, a missionary, a writer, and a street vendor - inhabit an acutely observed, beautifully familiar yet particularly strange universe, as only Kevin Brockmeier could imagine it: a world in which human pain is expressed as illumination, so that one's wounds glitter, fluoresce, and blaze with light. As we follow the journey of the book from stranger to stranger, we come to understand how intricately and brilliantly they are connected, in all their human injury and experience.
A Wake For The Dreamland
Laurel Deedrick-Mayne - 2015
It is a Canadian summer in 1939 and Robert and Annie’s love has blossomed, even as the inevitability of the boys joining up means separation and the first of many losses. Fearing he might not return, Robert makes William promise to take care of Annie. Every arena of their lives is infiltrated by the war, from the home front to the underground of queer London to the bloody battlefields of Italy. Even in the aftermath, in the shadow of The Dreamland, these friends fight their own inner battles: to have faith in their right to love and be loved, to honour their promises and ultimately find their way “home.”
The Operative
Willard Boyd Gardner - 2007
Desperate to escape his anguish, he takes a job halfway across the world and leaves everything behind: his home, his career, and his beautiful, bewildered wifeCIA agent Rhiana Daniels.When an undercover operative is kidnapped by a fanatical Arab faction in Yemen, Kams knowledge of the language and culture prove to be invaluable, and he is recruited to help rescue the agent. However, the mission becomes even more complicated when he learns that one of theteam members is his estranged wife.Traveling with a research group sponsored by Brigham Young University, Kam and Rhiana attempt to navigate the obstacles that distance and time have placed between them, even as they confront dangerous militants determined to prevent the agents rescue by any means necessary.From the lethal deserts of the Middle East to the battlefield of a troubled soul, best-selling author Willard Boyd Gardner delivers an unforgettable story of action and conspiracy, of heartbreak and betrayal, and of faith and forgiveness.
Red Clocks
Leni Zumas - 2018
One question. What is a woman for?In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is once again illegal in America, in-vitro fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo. In a small Oregon fishing town, five very different women navigate these new barriers alongside age-old questions surrounding motherhood, identity, and freedom.Ro, a single high-school teacher, is trying to have a baby on her own, while also writing a biography of Eivør, a little-known 19th-century female polar explorer. Susan is a frustrated mother of two, trapped in a crumbling marriage. Mattie is the adopted daughter of doting parents and one of Ro's best students, who finds herself pregnant with nowhere to turn. And Gin is the gifted, forest-dwelling homeopath, or "mender," who brings all their fates together when she's arrested and put on trial in a frenzied modern-day witch hunt.
Love and Other Thought Experiments
Sophie Ward - 2020
The couple spend many happy evenings together planning for the future.One night Rachel wakes up screaming and tells Eliza that an ant has crawled into her eye and is stuck there. She knows it sounds mad - but she also knows it's true. As a scientist, Eliza won't take Rachel's fear seriously and they have a bitter fight. Suddenly their entire relationship is called into question.Inspired by some of the best-known thought experiments in philosophy, particularly philosophy of mind, Love and Other Thought Experiments is a story of love lost and found across the universe.
The Measure
Nikki Erlick
All the boxes feature the same inscription, “The measure of your life lies within,” and vary in only two ways: the name of the recipient and the length of the single string inside. Instantly, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy, first to ascertain their origin and meaning, and then to confront the truth of the strings.Told through multiple perspectives, The Measure introduces an unforgettable cast of characters whose lives weave and interlock with one another upon the arrival of the strings: a doctor who cannot save himself, a couple who thought they didn’t have to rush, best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, pen pals finding refuge in the unknown, and a politician whose string becomes a powder keg in an increasingly turbulent world.As society divides itself, the truth has the power to unravel their long-held beliefs and relationships all while forging new alliances and philosophies about our time on this earth and our place in the community. Both heartbreaking and profoundly uplifting, The Measure is a sweeping, ambitious meditation on life, family, and society that challenges us to consider the best way to live life to the fullest.
Gods Without Men
Hari Kunzru - 2011
It is God without men.- Honoré de Balzac, Une passion dans le désert, 1830 Jaz and Lisa Matharu are plunged into a surreal public hell after their son, Raj, vanishes during a family vacation in the California desert. However, the Mojave is a place of strange power, and before Raj reappears inexplicably unharmed - but not unchanged - the fate of this young family will intersect with that of many others, echoing the stories of all those who have traveled before them. Driven by the energy and cunning of Coyote, the mythic, shapeshifting trickster, Gods Without Men is full of big ideas, but centered on flesh-and-blood characters who converge at an odd, remote town in the shadow of a rock formation called the Pinnacles. Viscerally gripping and intellectually engaging, it is, above all, a heartfelt exploration of the search for pattern and meaning in a chaotic universe.
Good Intentions: A Supervillain Story
Michael Crider - 2015
I recommend you read this book in full before beginning your journey, as approximately six out of ten villains are captured or killed before completing their third extra-legal activity. Any portion of these instructions you neglect to read before then will represent a small waste of money on your part. - excerpt from Villainy for Dummies! by Professor ParasiteShawn Simmons lives in a world of superpowers. Until now he's always been content to walk beneath as his Heroes fly over, happy in the knowledge that he was making a contribution. But when his job hands him an opportunity for some much-needed heroics of his own, Shawn finds himself press ganged into the company of the world's largest villainous organization. Before long he's on the wrong side of both the super-powered and the powers that be. Now caught in the cruel clutches of a comic book cabal, Shawn is trapped between the criminal intentions of the planet's most feared supervillains and a woman with even higher aspirations. Can he escape from his poor decisions before he loses his family, his identity, and his life?Good Intentions: A Supervillain Story is a novel that celebrates and lampoons the conventions of superhero comic books, while approaching the subject from a completely new angle. It's full of interesting bad guys, kick-ass women of both virtuous and dubious nature, heart-pounding action, and a protagonist who would really prefer to avoid it.
Deviations
Crystal C. Johnson - 2014
They’re trying to limit the amount of people in the world.” I watch him stand and turn for the door. “There’s a lot about your parents that you don’t know and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can start doing something about it.”From the day we’re born, we’re introduced to the marvels of modern medicine. It is amazing how a simple vaccine can prevent polio, hepatitis B, rotavirus—the list is almost endless. But, what if that were no longer the case? What if the government unleashed each virus for the sole purpose of controlling the population? Henly Sawyer finds herself discovering this truth for the first time, and as she does, the world that she thought she knew shatters. She wakes in Aurora, a quarantine miles from home, and is forced into a grueling reality. Henly strives to piece together the truth about her parents and their involvement in the unfolding chaos. With the help of her new friends, Renner and Dex, Henly sets out to understand a world that is now filled with Deviations—an infected group of violent, murderous humans.
The History of Bees
Maja Lunde - 2015
William is a biologist and seed merchant who sets out to build a new type of beehive, one that will give both him and his children honor and fame.United States, 2007. George is a beekeeper fighting an uphill battle against modern farming, but he hopes that his son can be their salvation.China, 2098. Tao hand paints pollen onto the fruit trees now that the bees have long since disappeared. When Tao's young son is taken away by the authorities after a tragic accident, she sets out on a grueling journey to find out what happened to him.Haunting, illuminating, and deftly written, The History of Bees joins these three very different narratives into one gripping and thought-provoking story that is just as much about the powerful bond between children and parents as it is about our very relationship to nature and humanity.
The Freedom Factor
Gerald N. Lund - 1987
When Nathaniel Gorham, one of the original Founding Fathers, appears to him, he is transported into a world where the Constitution was never ratified. In this strange world of oppression and fear, Bryce begins to learn the true value of the Constitution and the price of freedom. But will he be able to pay that price? Or will it cost him the love of Leslie Adams and her politically powerful family? Fans of Gerald Lund everywhere will enjoy The Freedom Factor, a gripping novel of courage and love that goes to the heart of the political strategem and maneuvers of present-day Washington, D.C.
After the Flood
Kassandra Montag - 2019
After years of slowly overtaking the continent, rising floodwaters have obliterated America’s great coastal cities and then its heartland, leaving nothing but an archipelago of mountaintop colonies surrounded by a deep expanse of open water.Stubbornly independent Myra and her precocious seven-year-old daughter, Pearl, fish from their small boat, the Bird, visiting dry land only to trade for supplies and information in the few remaining outposts of civilization. For seven years, Myra has grieved the loss of her oldest daughter, Row, who was stolen by her father after a monstrous deluge overtook their home in Nebraska. Then, in a violent confrontation with a stranger, Myra suddenly discovers that Row was last seen in a far-off encampment near the Arctic Circle. Throwing aside her usual caution, Myra and Pearl embark on a perilous voyage into the icy northern seas, hoping against hope that Row will still be there.On their journey, Myra and Pearl join forces with a larger ship and Myra finds herself bonding with her fellow seekers who hope to build a safe haven together in this dangerous new world. But secrets, lust, and betrayals threaten their dream, and after their fortunes take a shocking—and bloody—turn, Myra can no longer ignore the question of whether saving Row is worth endangering Pearl and her fellow travelers.A compulsively readable novel of dark despair and soaring hope, After the Flood is a magnificent, action packed, and sometimes frightening odyssey laced with wonder—an affecting and wholly original saga both redemptive and astonishing.
Where Would You Be Now?
Carrie Vaughn - 2018
Among the doctors and nurses of a clinic-turned-fortress, Kath is coming of age in this new world, and helping define it. But that doesn't make letting go of the old any easier.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.