A genius of social satire delivered with a very dry wit, Powell builds his comedies on the foibles of British high society between the wars, delving into subjects as various as psychoanalysis, the film industry, publishing, and (of course) sex. More explorations of relationships and vanity than plot-driven narratives, these slim novels reveal the early stirrings of the unequaled style, ear for dialogue, and eye for irony that would reach their caustic peak in Powell’s epic A Dance to the Music of Time.  From a View to a Death takes us to a dilapidated country estate where an ambitious artist of questionable talent, a family of landed aristocrats wondering where the money has gone, and a secretly cross-dressing squire all commingle among the ruins.   Written from a vantage point both high and necessarily narrow, Powell’s early novels nevertheless deal in the universal themes that would become a substantial part of his oeuvre: pride, greed, and what makes people behave as they do. Filled with eccentric characters and piercing insights, Powell’s work is achingly hilarious, human, and true.

    The short stories included in this selection are representative not only of Tagore's range, but they also enable us to revise the conventional view of Tagore as a short story writer. Writing them at a time when the form was not yet popular, Tagore eschewed the romantic strain prevalent in his day. His stories are fables of modern man, where fairy tale meets hard ground, where myths are reworked, and the religion of man triumphs over the religion of rituals and convention, where the love of a woman infuses the universe with humanity. He writes with concern about such issues as the Hindu revivalism in the late nineteenth century and the bondage of women. The rhythms of daily life, his rural encounters and childhood reminiscences, unfold in his tales, as does a sense of history, the reality of the political situation and its impact on individual lives. Tagore wishes to see the world of humanity not only reflected in his own life but also actualized in Bengali literature. His profound sensibility led him beyond the merely regional, his humanity stretching across east and west, fulfilling the purpose of his Jibandebata, his life's deity, Edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, a well-known scholar and translator, this is an authoritative and readable translation of Tagore's short stories. An essential Tagore for the collector, it is one that will find its place on every discerning reader's shelf.

    Fleeing from pirates, Robinson Crusoe is swept ashore in a storm possessing only a knife, a box of tobacco, a pipe-and the will to survive. His is the saga of a man alone: a man who overcomes self-pity and despair to reconstruct his life; who painstakingly teaches himself how to fashion a pot, bake bread, build a canoe; and who, after twenty-four agonizing years of solitude, discovers a human footprint in the sand... Consistently popular since its first publication in 1719, Daniel Defoe's story of human endurance in an exotic, faraway land exerts a timeless appeal.

    Victor Hatherly enters Dr. Watsons office with a missing thumb, he says the story is so unbelievable he cant go to the police. So, Watson brings Hatherly to Holmes who can solve unsolvable cases. Join Holmes and Watson on the hunt for the engineers thumb. Graphic Planet is an imprint of Magic Wagon, a division of ABDO Group. Grades 3-8.

    She wrote some best-selling novels and well-received columns in national magazines, such as McCalls. Her works were translated into several languages, including Braille, and Stratton-Porter was estimated to have had 50 million readers around the world. She used her position and income as a well-known author to support conservation of Limberlost Swamp and other wetlands in the state of Indiana. Her novel A Girl of the Limberlost was adapted four times as a film, most recently in 1990 in a made-for-TV version.This Edition Contains 11 Works:● The Song of the Cardinal ● Freckles ● At the Foot of the Rainbow ● A Girl of The Limberlost ● The Harvester ● Moths of the Limberlost ● Laddie ● Michael O'Halloran ● A Daughter of the Land ● Her Father's Daughter ● The Fire Bird

    Each casebook reprints documents relating to a work's historical context and reception, presents the best critical studies, and, when possible, features an interview with the author. Accessible and informative to scholars, students, and nonspecialist readers alike, the books in this series provide a wide range of critical and informative commentaries on major texts. Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude is arguably the most important novel in twentieth-century Latin American literature. This Casebook features ten critical articles on Garcia Marquez's great work. Carefully selected from the most important work on the novel over the past three decades, they include pieces by Carlos Fuentes, Iris Zavala, James Higgins, Jean Franco, Michael Wood, and Gene H. Bell-Villada. Among the intriguing aspects of the work discussed are its mythic dimension, its "magical" side, its representations of women, its relationship with past chronicles of exploration and discovery, its portrayals of Western power and imperialism, its astounding diffusion throughout the globe and the media, and its simple truth-telling, its fidelity to the tangled history of Latin America. The book incorporates several theoretical approaches--historical, feminist, postcolonial; the first English translation of Fuentes's renowned, oft-cited, eight page meditation on the work; a general introduction; and a 1982 interview with Garcia Marquez.

    

    Make sure the caterers don't serve devil's food cake to the Christian Women's Alliance- check. Tell my mother that having a séance to get rid of any unwanted spirits in the kitchen during dinnertime is not okay- check. Send a friendly reminder to all staff that the pens are colour coded for everyone's enjoyment, and therefore it is not a good idea to put them all in one jar in order to spice things up as was anonymously suggested- check. But, when an acclaimed hotel critic dies at the Inn, just before she's about to publish a scathing review that would ruin the business, Kate's life and checklists are thrown into disarray. And it doesn't help matters that the detective assigned to the case is messy, unorganized, and too charming for his own good. Now Kate has to prove her innocence and save her Inn, or else the only thing that she'll be organizing is the prison's next bake sale.

    0-935906-00-2$5.00 / Javan Press

    Hal SpacejockAn incompetent space pilot, a massive debt and a twenty-four hour deadline...Freighter pilot Hal Spacejock has a life to die for: His very own cargo ship, a witty and intelligent flight computer ... and a debt so big it makes the GFC look like a rounding error.Hal's an upright sort of guy, and he won't take jobs from gun runners, drug smugglers or politicians. On the other hand, the finance company's brutal enforcer is on his doorstep, and Hal has barely twenty-four hours to pay him off. Miss the deadline and he - and his ship - will go under. Way, way, under.Faced with an impossible choice, Hal chooses an impossible job ... and gains an impossible new co-pilot into the bargain.Hal Spacejock is the first novel in the Hal Spacejock series (80,000 words, approx 350 pages)2. Hal Spacejock: Second CourseRex Curtis is trying to save his freight company from bankruptcy, and the last thing he needs is a cheeky freelancer stealing his best customers.Hal Spacejock, cheeky freelancer, is fighting for survival in the cut-throat interstellar cargo business. The last thing he needs is a powerful enemy.Two headstrong men on a collision course, in a Galaxy barely room enough for one.Hal Spacejock: Second Course is book two in the Hal Spacejock series. (80,000 words, approx 350 pages)3. Hal Spacejock Just DessertsPlanet Cathua has a proud history where robots are concerned. Their legendary factories produced the best, the fastest, the most efficient robots in the Galaxy ... but no longer.Now they must go cap in hand to neighbouring planets, haggling and bartering for the very  robots they used to be so famous for.One Cathuan patriot is determined to reverse this embarrassing situation, and Hal Spacejock lands in the middle of his sinister plot ...Hal Spacejock: Just Desserts is book three in the Hal Spacejock series. (80,000 words, approx  350 pages)Plus ... Hal Spacejock: VisitHal returns to his ship after a shopping expedition, and finds Clunk in a right old state. Break out the crayons and colouring sheets ... they're booked in for a school visit!Hal and Clunk, stars of the Hal Spacejock comedy series, feature in this 3500-word short story. Visit slots into the series any time after Hal Spacejock (book one), but can be read and enjoyed as a stand-alone.

    Her voice lit up Radio 4's News Quiz, she was brilliant on QI and she tirelessly travelled the UK as one of the most respected and loved comics on the circuit.' STEPHEN FRYStephen Fry spoke for much of middle England when he responded to the news of Linda Smith's tragic death of cancer, aged 48, earlier this year. Linda was the brilliant mainstay of Radio 4's The News Quiz, Just a Minute, and I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue for many years. She was just establishing her career on TV through blistering performances on Have I Got News for You, QI and Room 101, when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.Linda was one of the few women to conquer the male dominated world of comedy and she had the wit and the charm to win over millions of male and female fans in equal measure. She had an eye for the absurdities of modern life and loved to prick the egos of the pompous and the vain. She could be savage about the people she despised too. When she spoke of the "dead devil-eyes of Nicky Campbell" she meant it. When she called David Mellor, "the thinking woman's fat ugly bastard", she meant it even more. When she called David Blunkett "Satan's bearded folk singer", it was a simple statement of fact. No wonder then Linda was voted the 'wittiest person alive' by Radio 4 listeners in 2002.In this brilliant anthology, we go right back to the start of Linda's career and re-live her very best material from the picket lines of the Miners' Strike, to the Edinburgh Festival and on to her mainstream success on BBC radio and TV, and as touring comedian loved up and down the country. The Very Best of Linda Smith is being compiled and edited by her partner of twenty-three years, Warren Lakin. The book also carries contributions from her extensive fan club including: Paul Merton, Graham Norton, Clive Anderson, Bill Bailey, Jo Brand, Alan Davies, Jack Dee, Dawn French, Stephen Fry, Tony Hawks, Eddie Izzard, Matt Lucas, Nicholas Parsons and Alexei Sayle amongst others. It will be the must-have gift for comedy fans and Radio 4 listeners this Christmas.

    It's home to all sorts of people, with all the stresses and joys of modern life, but with a town square and a proper butcher's. It also has, for our purposes, a rash of gory murders ...  Jess Castle is running away. Again. This time she's running back home, like she swore she never would.   Castle Kidbury, like all small towns, hums with gossip but now it's plagued with murder of the most gruesome kind. Jess instinctively believes that the hippyish cult camped out on the edge of town are not responsible for the spate of crucifixions that blights the pretty landscape. Her father, a respected judge, despairs of Jess as she infiltrates the cult and manages, not for the first time, to get herself arrested.  Rupert Lawson, a schooldays crush who's now a barrister, bails her out. Jess ropes in a reluctant Rupert as she gatecrashes the murder investigation of DS Eden. A by-the-book copper, Eden has to admit that intuitive, eccentric Jess has the nose of a detective.   As the gory murders pile up, there’s nothing to connect the victims. And yet, the clues are there if you look hard enough.

    Gary Handler has issues. His boss hates him, his mother hounds him, and his cat thinks he’s an idiot. But that’s okay because Gary’s got the perfect solution to all of life’s troubles: a porn site subscription and his right hand.Sadly, all habits grow old, even the fun ones. Gary soon finds himself at the doorstep of a creepy old pawn shop where he buys a used adult novelty toy to spice up his one-man sex life.Pity for him that it’s cursed by the angry spirits of all the “kids” he’s flushed down the toilet. Needless to say, hairy palms are about to become the least of his worries.----------Jack on, jack off ... with the Jacklight in book 2 of Shingles, the horror comedy series that’s not for those with faint hearts or weak bladders.

    While his courtiers were jealous of Birbal, the emperor was quick to notice his agile mind. While the two men loathed hypocrisy and deceit; they also relished a good joke.

    Suitable for ages 4 to 8 years, this work is illustrated so that the child easily understands the story.