Book picks similar to
The Master Blaster by P.F. Kluge
fiction
tournament-of-books
u-s-literature
sampled-and-discarded
The Forgotten Song: A feel-good summer escape to Greece
Richard Clark - 2021
Seedtime and Harvest
Mary E. Pearce - 1984
But a terrible accident and a surprise inheritance put pressure on the happy couple's relationship. "Sheer country magic." James Herriott The advent of the Second World War brings changes to the farm, with one depature and a new arrival. Charlie's good intentions to help a young boy, and the Truscotts' struggling neighbour, drive him and his wife further apart. And Linn's worries about her beloved son, Robert, are difficult to bear. A moving and often heart-rending account of life on a country farm in 1940s war-torn England. The fifth and final book in the Apple Tree Saga.
The Lion and the Leopard (The Lion and the Leopard Trilogy, #3)
Brian Duncan - 2016
"The Lion and the Leopard" takes place during the Great 1914-18 War when German forces invaded Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Portuguese East Africa. Martin Russell ("The Settler") and his step-daughter, Clare, travel to the war front, while the Spaight family (Alan, from "Lake of Slaves", and his son Drew, and daughters Mandy and Kirsty) are also drawn into the conflict. A young British officer falls in love with Mandy, but she finds her true love elsewhere. Kirsty's friend, a Britsh naval reservist, joins the gunboat flotilla on Lake Tanganyika. The Chilembwe Uprising in Nyasaland provides an unwelcome distraction early in the war. The loves and tragedies in the families unfold during the long and bitter campaign.
The Return of the Hippy
David Luddington - 2010
He thought he understood the way the world worked, but now, as a sacrificial lamb of the credit crunch he finds himself drifting... drifting into the clutches of the ever resourceful Pete who could find the angle in a Fairy Liquid bubble... and into the arms of the enigmatic hippy girl, Astrid, who’s about to introduce Tony to rabbits, magic caves and the joys of mushrooms. eBook of the Month Club describes ‘The Return of the Hippy’ as “The funniest and most heart warming novel of the year.”
Paragon Place
Harry Bowling - 1990
But it's taken its toll on a hard-working and tight-knit community. Despite going through the very worst of times - the never-ending fight against poverty, rationing and bombs - the residents of Paragon Place have been brought closer together by laughter and tears in the face of despair. There is Sally Brady, who is torn between two men, local drunk Alf Porter, the prim Carey sisters, the gossips and the villains. After surviving the horror of the war, they face new dramas as they rebuild their lives together...
Man Found Dead in Park
Margaret Coel - 2017
I love Margaret Coel’s writing because there’s never a misplaced step. She balances two opposing cultures with little room for compromise, which is good because this chick works without a safety net. It’s human nature, or certainly the nature of writers, to analyze another’s work when reading it, in an attempt to take the story apart like an acrobatic trick—kick off your shoes and try it out. Every once in a while you second guess them and follow them out onto that tightrope just to find where they might’ve slipped up, but Margaret never does and just when you think she has she’ll turn and wink, so keep reading. Like Catherine McLeod, the reporter protagonist of Man Found Dead in Park, Margaret embraces both the mainstream and native cultures, all the while maintaining the aspect of her writing that transcends the genre with a deep understanding of human nature. When a man is found dead in an Indian section of Denver where no one is talking, McLeod finds herself in conflict with Mexican drug cartels and an investigation that leads north into Wyoming's Wind River Reservation and what turns out to be her roots. Transformative for both McLeod and the reader, the width and breath of the story is easy to miss, because Coel’s writing has a heady narrative that holds a sense of wonder and romance—a place that a lot of other writers fear to tread. I sometimes wonder if she knows how good she is, but I think probably not. The humility of a few artists is what keeps them grounded, and even when she’s out there flying high, I’m pretty sure she has her head up but is feeling every twitch of the story through the soles of her feet. Navigating with the finesse of a Flying Wallenda, Coel never misses a thing, because the devil is in the details, and like her character, Detective Nick Bustamante, Margaret knows that these indiscernible little slights of hand are the thing that makes for great drama under the Big Top. So join Margaret Coel out onto that high wire where she works without a safety net. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out there will be moments of insecurity, thoughts that will disconcert, and you might be tempted to look down, but don’t. If things get too hairy just reach out and take this daredevil performer’s hand, and she’ll grin that signature smile and make sure you make it back to safety. --Craig Johnson
Lights Of London
Gilda O'Neill - 1998
Until the feisty young prostitute, Tibs Tyler, takes her under her wing, and the two girls, one dark, one fair, set themselves up as a music hall act. As they desperately try to break free from Tibs's violent pimp, and to avoid the educated and wealthy yet sinister Dr Tressing, they are also hoping to make a new life for themselves as the new century breaks.
Tennis and the Masai
Nicholas Best - 1987
Drop him into a ghastly Kenya prep school in the middle of Rider Haggard country. A school where cricketing news comes by carrier pigeon, leopards are assaulted with a red-hot poker, and runaway boys are hunted down with spearmen and a pack of foxhounds... For Martin Riddle, the experience is unforgettable. For the riding mistress, Lady Bullivant, it is all part of the day's work. And for the headmaster, a disreputable ex-Guards officer, it is simply a means of staving off bankruptcy for a few more weeks. As for the Masai, tennis may be on the curriculum at Haggard Hall, but midnight meetings with naked warriors definitely are not! 'The funniest book I have read since David Lodge's Small World' - Sunday Times 'Wickedly funny' - Daily Mail 'Less savage than Evelyn Waugh, Best is every bit as sharp... an immensely enjoyable book' - Evening Standard 'Very good entertainment' - Sir Alec Guinness (Sunday Times book of the year) Nicholas Best's books have been translated into many languages. He was the Financial Times's fiction critic for ten years and was long-listed in 2010 for the Sunday Times-EFG Bank 30,000 award, the biggest short story prize in the world. For more details, see www.nicholasbest.co.uk
The Passing of Morse
Susan Masters - 2012
Its purpose is one of certitude with a little dash of homage thrown in for good measure. For some, it may just be seen as an extended or alternate ending. For others, it may be taken as Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse's final will and testament. Your choice...
The Darker Side of Love
Jessica Ruston - 2011
To mask betrayal, or deceit. But what happens when those lies start to catch up with us? When our lives begin to be shaped by the lies of others?The late 'noughties'. A global recession looms. A group of old friends, all leading outwardly successful, interesting lives. All in apparently loving, secure relationships. Yet all, in some way, lying to those closest to them, concealing secret worries, jealousies, desires. This group of friends is about to discover that the truth won't stay buried for ever...Welcome to the darker side of love.
After Annie
Michael Tucker - 2012
Herbie Aaron is one half of a celebrity marriage. He and Annie have been famous, nobodies, and mingled with the rich and crazy. Through it all, they've been passionate lovers and fast friends. But when Annie dies of cancer, Herbie is lost.If you think this is going to be a tragic tale about grief, think again. Herbie is too cantankerous, sly, and charming to keel over. Enter Olive, a beautiful bartender who just might be a great actress; Candy, Herbie and Annie's neurotic daughter; and a woman named Billy, the tough-talking golf pro who teaches Herbie more about his psyche than about his lousy swing.After Annie is a hilarious and beautifully rendered novel about a man off the rails, battling through the middle-aged wilderness days he hoped never to face alone. It is a book that examines the inevitable passing of time with clarity and wry brilliance, and a story of surprising power.
Misfortune's Daughters
Joan Collins - 2005
Beginning in the Golden Era of Hollywood, the beautiful and talented actress Laura Marlowe meets the young, dashing, and rich shipping magnate Nicholas Stephanopolis. After a whirlwind courtship, the two marry and move to the private Stephanopolis Island in the south of Greece. Yet heartache and tragedy soon find them and extend into the lives of their two very different but willful and ambitious daughters, Venetia and Atlanta. One is a beautiful and favored daughter who's bent on self-destruction; the other is a wallflower who buries herself in books and shies away from her privileged world. But both must confront the legacy and tragedy of the lives of their parents.Sweeping across almost 60 years and jetting from New York to Paris, Los Angeles, and Greece, Misfortune's Daughters is an irresistible, page-turning tale that reveals the glittering life of show business and the grittiness of the journalistic profession. Drawing on her own knowledge and experience, Collins takes the reader deep inside the exclusive gates of wealth and luxury, exposing dark secrets and forbidden desires as two young women vie to break free from their family's shadow and become independent women in their own right.
The Hurting Circus: Blood Red Turns Dollar Green Volume 3
Paul O'Brien - 2014
Twelve years since millions of dollars were lost because of a single bullet. Twelve years since Lenny Long last saw his family before being thrown in jail for killing Danno Garland. Now, Lenny has walked out of jail a changed man.Back on the outside, things haven’t gotten any easier. Danno’s death has made the spotlight shine on the world of professional wrestling a little too brightly for the comfort of many. Senator Tanenbaum is leading the charge to shut the whole thing down, while the other wrestling bosses haven’t wasted any time in trying to consolidate their territories and grab new ones. But Danno’s old crew isn’t about to let the other promoters take what is rightfully theirs, at least not without a fight. And, try as he might to get home, Lenny’s role in it all isn’t over.In this thrilling final chapter of Paul O’Brien’s gritty Blood Red Turns Dollar Green trilogy, it all comes down to Lenny. And twelve years is a long time to think and to plan.
Little Follies: The Personal History, Adventure, Experiences and Observations of Peter Leroy
Eric Kraft - 1992
Among the books surrounding him, he began to dream...of a nameless boy, sitting on a dilapidated dock in the warm sun of a summer day, playing a game: He was trying to bring the soles of his bare feet as close as he could to the surface of the water, without touching it.That boy became Peter Leroy, and from Kraft's dream grew one of the most delightful, unusual projects in contemporary literature. Funny, touching, witty, mythic, and profound, Kraft's novels, featuring Peter, his friends and family, and the seaside town of Babbington create an alternate reality-a world in which we see ourselves, darkened and wavering, as reflected by deep water.Little Follies gathers nine Peter Leroy novellas into one volume: the perfect introduction to an irresistible cycle of books by an author sometimes compared to Cheever, Proust, Twain, Borges, Russel Baker, and Garrison Keillor, but who is uniquely Eric Kraft.
The Gods of Greenwich
Norb Vonnegut - 2011
Now Vonnegut sets his electrifying follow-up in the high-rolling world of hedge funds, lending his seasoned perspective to a riveting thriller.Jimmy Cusack is the tough kid from a blue-collar neighborhood who made good on Wall Street. Well, almost. After a sterling start to his career, things have soured. His hedge fund has collapsed. The bank is foreclosing on his upscale condominium. And his wife is two months pregnant. That's the good news. When Cusack takes a "must-have" job with Leeser Capital, a Greenwich fund impervious to the capital market woes, his real troubles begin.Vonnegut's unique insider's perspective and his intuitive, darkly humorous writing are once again on full display in this fast-talking suspense thriller. A high-stakes poker game of a book, "The Gods of Greenwich "is a timely and gripping read that will keep you glued to the edge of your seat until the last card is played.