Standing at the threshold of adulthood, she enters a new world of erotic adventure, profound but unexpected friendship, and inexplicable, frightening acts of madness. Lily's story is also the story of a small town--Webster, Minnesota--where people are brought together by a powerful sense of place, both geographical and spiritual. Here gossip, secrets, and storytelling are as essential to the bond among its people as the borders that enclose the town.The real secret at the heart of the book is the one that lies between reality and appearances, between waking life and dreams, at the place where imagination draws on its transforming powers in the face of death.

    Hank is his long-time student. The aging Jake hopes that Hank will take over teaching for him. But the commitment-phobic Hank doesn’t feel up to the job, and Jake is beginning to exhibit behavior that looks suspiciously like Alzheimer’s disease. Is a guy with as many “issues” as Hank even capable of being a Zen teacher? And are those paradoxical things Jake keeps doing some kind of koan-like wisdom . . . or just dementia? These and other hard questions confront Hank, Jake, and the colorful cast of characters they meet during a week-long trip to the funky neighborhood of Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As they trek back and forth from bar to restaurant to YMCA to Zen Center to doughnut shop, answers arise—in the usual unexpected ways.

    Eight year old John watches his beloved West Ham win the cup, whilst at the same time, Kenny tumbles out the front door of the house opposite, blood all over his face.Fourteen years later, both boys' childhoods ripped apart in the broken streets of London's East End, John and Kenny find themselves frontin up local gangster, Ronnie Swordfish.John's got a lifetime of hurt to put right - for him and for Kenny.But with John layin on the ground half unconscious and Ronnie with a sword to Kenny's head, whatever way you look at it, it don't look good . . .ABIDE WITH ME is the story of two boys forced to walk blind into the darkness of their shattered lives . . .. . . and their struggle to emerge as men.

    I want to be big. I want to be gracious and cool. I want to be the Audrey Hepburn of cancer…” Gail Konop Baker was a runner, yoga practitioner, and lifelong subscriber to Prevention magazine. As her forty-sixth birthday approached, she looked forward to a time when she could at last take a deep breath, with one child heading off to college and the other two busy with their lives. She finally felt as if she was getting her life back.Then, right before Valentine’s Day 2006, she heard the words that would forever change her: Just to be safe, I think we should biopsy.It was the beginning of her year-long struggle with breast cancer and its fallout—one that would upstage any midlife crisis she’d fretted was waiting in the wings. “I want to feel bad about my neck. I do,” she writes. “But I feel bad I may not ever get to feel bad about my neck.” Gail was suddenly faced with the truth that awaits us all—this was her life, and she would do anything to hold on to it. As a doctor’s wife, she knew more than she should about her diagnosis and treatment. As a mother, she found unbearable the idea of not being there for the next birthday, next graduation, next anything. And as a woman who’d put her dreams on hold for years, she was determined to make every minute count.But Cancer Is a Bitch is about much more than the “C” word; it's about the outrageous challenges of marriage, the joys and unpredictability of motherhood, about figuring out what it is you want to do with your life, about wanting to live now.Funny, raw, and moving, this story will resonate with every mother and wife, and with anyone who has been affected by cancer. It is one woman’s unforgettable, beautifully told account of juggling midlife and motherhood with a rogue boob—and, ultimately, triumphing.

    Despite her pride, independence, and honesty, Charity Royall feels shadowed by her past--especially in her ardent relationship with the educated and refined Lucius Harney. Can passion overcome the effects of heredity and environment?With its frank treatment of a woman's sexual awakening, Summer created a sensation upon its 1917 publication. Edith Wharton — the author of Ethan Frome and a peerless observer and chronicler of society — completely shattered the standards of conventional love stories with this novel's candor and realism. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author declared Summer a personal favorite among her works, and liked to refer to it as "the Hot Ethan." Over a century later, it remains fresh and relevant.

    Among them is Zoyd Wheeler who is preparing for his annual act of televised insanity (for which he receives a government stipend) when an unwelcome face appears from out of his past.An old nemesis, federal prosecutor Brock Vond, storms into Vineland at the head of a heavily armed strike force. Soon Zoyd and his daughter, Prairie, go into hiding while Vond begins a relationship with Zoyd's ex-wife and uses Prairie as a pawn against the mother she never knew she had.Part daytime drama, part political thriller, Vineland is a strange evocation of a twentieth-century America headed for a less than harmonic future.

    Includes the stories "Where I Live," "Harrison Bergeron," "Who Am I This Time?," "Welcome to the Monkey House," "Long Walk to Forever," "The Foster Portfolio," "Miss Temptation," "All the King's Horses," "Tom Edison's Shaggy Dog," "New Dictionary," "Next Door," "More Stately Mansions," "The Hyannis Port Story," and "D.P."

    In 1983 Little, Brown and Company's posthumous publication of this book electrified the literary world with a force that still resounds across two decades. A collection of stories that depict the world of Pancake's native rural West Virginia with astonishing power and grace, The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake has remained continuously in print and is a perennial favorite among aspiring writers, participants in creative writing programs, and students of contemporary American fiction. "Trilobites", the first of Pancake's stories to be published in The Atlantic, elicited an extraordinary immediate response from readers and continues to be widely anthologized.

    But someone wants to stop him from pursuing it. Meanwhile on Earth, a monk of the Citadel discovers a strange ancient artwork. Could it lead to truth of the myth of the Moon Men? Finding out the truth could kill him.

    Interwoven with their stories are those of inhabitants of the living world: a retired sea captain, a psychotic former child actor (possibly the sea captain’s illegitimate son?), and the technicians who monitor the Burrow, making sure its occupants have a constant supply of oxygen and food. Through all of their stories, and the ways in which their lives, past and present, intertwine, Krusoe creates a poignant story about what constitutes a life, what remains when we die, and what we possibly carry with us into the next world.

    Though his curious mind proves surprisingly adept at intercepting Canadian pot smugglers and potentially dangerous illegals, years of security hysteria and cross-border resentment - and a fascinating young Canadian who has turned her green thumb to a more lucrative crop - complicate Brandon’ s world in ways even he might not be able to see past.Border Songs is that rare delight: a gently satirical portrait, an extraordinary love story and a celebration of the coincidental and the miraculous.From the Hardcover edition.

    Nelson - praised as "a master of both his period and the English language" by Patrick O'Brian - returns to the world of sea and sail in The French Prize, a page-turning historical novel.Jack Biddlecomb has much to live up to, being as he is the eldest son of the esteemed Captain Isaac Biddlecomb, wealthy merchant captain, leading light of the War for American Independence, and newly minted congressman. Jack finds himself off to a promising start, however, when he's given command of the merchant vessel Abigail bound from Philadelphia for Barbados.But even before the dock lines are cast off, the voyage, which should have been routine, begins to look like a stormy passage indeed. Jack is saddled with two passengers, one as unpleasant as he is highborn, the other a confidant of the Abigail's owner who cannot help meddling in the running of the ship. What's more, with the French making prizes of American merchantmen, Abigail's owner has armed the ship and instructed Jack to fight if need be, thrusting the first-time captain and his small crew into a naval war for which they are totally unprepared.What Jack does not know, but soon begins to suspect, is that he is being used as part of a bigger plot, one that will have repercussions on an international scale.

    

    A highly unlikely menage a trois unites a brilliant, handsome, and ambitious lawyer, a smart, curious, and sexually inventive American woman, and an ingenious thief named Thirst, in this dark and erotic psychological thriller reminiscent of Josephine Hart's Damage.

    Description:- The Girl in the Spider's Web: Continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist have not been in touch for some time.Then Blomkvist is contacted by renowned Swedish scientist Professor Balder. Warned that his life is in danger, but more concerned for his son's well-being, Balder wants Millennium to publish his story - and it is a terrifying one.More interesting to Blomkvist than Balder's world-leading advances in Artificial Intelligence, is his connection with a certain female superhacker. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest Salander is plotting her revenge - against the man who tried to kill her, and against the government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life. But it is not going to be a straightforward campaign. After taking a bullet to the head, Salander is under close supervision in Intensive Care, and is set to face trial for three murders and one attempted murder on her eventual release. The Girl Who Played with Fire Lisbeth Salander is a wanted woman. Two Millennium journalists about to expose the truth about sex trafficking in Sweden are murdered, and Salander's prints are on the weapon. Her history of unpredictable and vengeful behaviour makes her an official danger to society - but no-one can find her. Mikael Blomkvist, editor-in-chief of Millennium, does not believe the police.