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Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
Tom Robbins - 1994
From the author of EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES.
Severed
Scott Snyder - 2011
A man haunts the roads; a man with sharp teeth and a hunger for flesh. When 12 year-old Jack Garron runs away from home, he'll see how quickly the American Dream becomes a nightmare. Collecting all 7 issues of the critically acclaimed series, and featuring never-before-seen bonus material, this hardcover deluxe version is sure to be a classic.
God Knows
Joseph Heller - 1984
You already know David as the legendary warrior king of Israel, husband of Bathsheba, and father of Solomon; now meet David as he really was: the cocky Jewish kid, the plagiarized poet, and the Jewish father. Listen as David tells his own story, a story both relentlessly ancient and surprisingly modern, about growing up and growing old, about men and women, and about man and God. It is quintessential Heller.
720 Heartbeats
Jaka Tomc - 2017
His worldview and his common sense are being defied by an adversary who seems to know everything about him.From the moment he discovers an obscure icon on his desktop, everyday life seems to unravel. Everything he holds dear appears to slip through his fingers and is about to disappear from his life. Unless he manages to make the right defining decisions while working on a challenging drug trafficking case from this point forward. Is knowledge true power?This gripping novel simultaneously plays with your imagination, the fringes of theoretical physics and philosophy. You will be devouring every word, absorbing page by page, positioned on the edge of your seat. Buckle up! "Tomc uses an intriguing story to question the impact of every decision a person can make." - Independent Book Review"The book is truly captivating and unique in the way it weaves genres together." - Literary Titan"You should expect to be impressed and pleasantly shocked." - Indie Book UprisingFinalist in the 2019 IAN Book of the Year Awards in the "Novella" category.Winner of 2018 Breakthrough Fiction Award in the Suspense/Thriller category.
There's Something I Want You to Do
Charles Baxter - 2015
They are cast with characters who appear and reappear throughout the collection, their actions equally divided between the praiseworthy and the loathsome. They take place in settings as various as Tuscany, San Francisco, Ethiopia, and New York, but their central stage is the North Loop of Minneapolis, alongside the Mississippi River, which flows through most of the tales. Each story has at its center a request or a demand, but each one plays out differently: in a hit-and-run, an assault or murder, a rescue, a startling love affair, or, of all things, a gesture of kindness and charity. Altogether incomparably crafted, consistently surprising, remarkably beautiful stories.
Absinthe of Malice
Pat Browning - 2001
When Krill Press bought the rights in 2008 they repackaged the story with a new cover and marketed it as "Absinthe of Malice".Old crimes come back to haunt a small California town in this intriguing urban cozy. ABSINTHE OF MALICE introduces Penny Mackenzie, Lifestyle reporter for The Pearl Outrider, and a cast of unforgettable characters who find their lives turned upside down when old secrets and new secrets all come to light after chance discovery of a skeleton in a cotton field leads to murder...and romance.
Mr Midshipman Fury
G.S. Beard - 2006
A shadow hangs over John Thomas Fury in this his first voyage as a midshipman aboard the 32-gun frigate Amazon. Fury is already seen as a pariah by his fellow sailors. Ten years earlier his father, a brig commander in the Service, became mentally unbalanced and violent and his ships crew mutinied and went over to the French. Now, as Amazon heads southwards on her voyage to India, Fury is involved in a dreadful shipboard accident and he finds himself working doubly hard to prove that he isn't cursed just like his father.
Redemption arrives when Amazon reaches Bombay, only to discover that ships of the East India Company have disappeared, including the Company's warships - somewhere in the Indian Ocean a very powerful privateer is at work and the Governor despatches Amazon to find and destroy her. Soon afterwards Amazon is in a fight for her life against a much stronger foe, resulting in many of her officers killed. Fury finds himself, in his first ever combat, in charge of the gun deck. In such crucibles of fire are the officers in His Majesty's Service forged. Showing exceptional courage and coolness, the shadows of the past are forever banished and Fury's naval career begins in glory as he becomes a leader of men.
Far as the Eye Can See
Robert Bausch - 2014
After the war, he sets his sights on California, but only makes it to Montana. As he stumbles around the West, from the Wyoming Territory to the Black Hills of the Dakotas, he finds meaning in the people he meets-settlers and native people-and the violent history he both participates in and witnesses. Far as the Eye Can See is the story of life in a place where every minute is an engagement in a kind of war of survival, and how two people-a white man and a mixed-race woman-in the midst of such majesty and violence can manage to find a pathway to their own humanity.Robert Bausch is the distinguished author of a body of work that is lively and varied, but linked by a thoughtfully complicated masculinity and an uncommon empathy. The unique voice of Bobby Hale manages to evoke both Cormac McCarthy and Mark Twain, guiding readers into Indian country and the Plains Wars in a manner both historically true and contemporarily relevant, as thoughts of race and war occupy the national psyche.
The Visiting Privilege: New and Collected Stories
Joy Williams - 2015
A literary event of the highest order. Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing as a given from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the incredible scope of her singular achievement is put on display: thirty-three stories drawn from three much-lauded collections, and another thirteen appearing here for the first time in book form. Forty-six stories in all, far and away the most comprehensive volume in her long career, showcasing her crisp, elegant prose, her dark wit, and her uncanny ability to illuminate our world through characters and situations that feel at once peculiar and foreign and disturbingly familiar. Virtually all American writers have their favorite Joy Williams stories, as do many readers of all ages, and each one of them is available here.
Pelican Road
Howard Bahr - 2008
Along an isolated stretch of railway between Meridian, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana, two locomotives travel toward one another through the dark winter landscape. A.P. Dunn, engineer aboard the 4512 southbound freight, reminisces about the last trip he made through the snow. And though he can remember every detail about that voyage in 1923, what he can’t recall are the events of a few hours ago — where he ate breakfast, how he got the gash on his forehead, or what he did to make his crew treat him so strangely.On the northbound Silver Star, a luxury passenger train packed with returning college students and gift-bearing families, brakeman Artemus Kane has his own memories to contend with: French trenches and German snipers, a failed marriage, and a too-short layover spent with Anna, the brilliant and lonely woman he has just left behind in the Crescent City.In Pelican Road, Howard Bahr returns to his greatest theme — the tragic nobility of those attempting to overcome difficult situations through love, honor, and sacrifice — and shows that on the railway, catastrophe is never more than a distracted moment away.
Daditude: The Joys & Absurdities of Modern Fatherhood
Chris Erskine - 2018
And that's exactly the way he likes it, except when he doesn't. Every week in the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune (and now and then in many other papers), Erskine distills, mocks, and makes us laugh at the absurdities of suburban fatherhood. And now, he's gathered the very best of these witty and wise essays—and invited his kids (and maybe even Posh) to annotate them with updated commentary, which they promise won't be too snarky. This handsome book is the perfect gift for the father who would have everything—if he hadn't already given it all to his kids.
City of Refuge
Tom Piazza - 2008
Reaching across America—from the neighborhoods of New Orleans to Texas, Chicago, and elsewhere—City of Refuge explores this turning point in American culture, one whose reverberations are only beginning to be understood.
Between Them: Remembering My Parents
Richard Ford - 2017
Married in 1928, they lived “alone together” on the road, traveling throughout the South. Eventually they had one child, born late, in 1944.For Ford, the questions of what his parents dreamed of, how they loved each other and loved him become a striking portrait of American life in the mid-century. Between Them is his vivid image of where his life began and where his parents’ lives found their greatest satisfaction.Bringing his celebrated candor, wit, and intelligence to this most intimate and mysterious of landscapes—our parents’ lives—the award-winning storyteller and creator of the iconic Frank Bascombe delivers an unforgettable exploration of memory, intimacy, and love.
Do You Speak American?
Robert MacNeil - 2004
Do You Speak American?, the companion volume to a PBS special, is the tale of the surprising discoveries they made while interviewing a host of native speakers and observing everyday verbal interactions across the country. Examining the histories and controversies surrounding both written and spoken American English, MacNeil and Cran address highly emotional anxieties and assumptions about our language-and offer some unpredictable responses. With insight and wit, MacNeil and Cran bring us a compelling follow-up to The Story of English that is at once a celebration and a potent study of our singular language.
Barn Blind
Jane Smiley - 1980
But the horses that graze there have become the obsession of a woman who sees them as the fulfillment of every wish: to win, to be honored, to be the best. Her ambition is the galvanizing force in Jane Smiley's first novel, a force that will drive a wedge between her and her family, and bring them all to tragedy. Written with the grace and quiet beauty of her Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel, A Thousand Acres, Barn Blind is a spellbinding story on the classic American themes of work, love, and duty, and the excesses we commit to achieve success.