A group of friends that hasnt seen one another in years isreunited through tragedy. Working through their grief together,they find that each of their lives is impacted in ways they couldhave never foreseen, in this story of friendship, family, and lifecoming full circle.
With these words, Washington Irving expresses the dilemma ofevery American artist in the nineteenth century. The Sketch-Book(1820-1) looks simultaneously towards audiences on both sides ofthe Atlantic, as Irving explores the uneasy relationship of anAmerican writer to English literary traditions. He sketches aseries of encounters with the cultural shrines of the parentnation, and in two brilliant experiments with tales transplantedfrom Europe creates the first classic American short stories, 'RipVan Winkle' and 'The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow'. The result wasnot only a hugely successful travel book; it exerted a strongformative influence on American writers from Nathaniel Hawthorneand Edgar Allan Poe to Henry James, and is well worth rediscoveryin its own right today. Based on Irving's final revision of hismost popular work, this new edition includes comprehensiveexplanatory notes of The Sketch-Book's sources for the modernreader. In her introduction, Susan Manning suggests that the authorforged a new idiom
An odd, amusing and still provocative fantasy. The narrator is aSquare who lives in a world of two dimensions, and whose vision ofa third gets him into grave trouble with the authorities. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition ofthis title.
Grade 9 Up–Johnson begins this exceptional novel in a lightweight fashion but quickly segues into more serious issues that affect the three young women who make up the Bermudez Triangle. It is the summer before their senior year in Saratoga Springs, NY. At first, organized, serious Nina has trouble adjusting to her leadership workshop at Stanford University. Although she desperately misses Avery and Mel, who are waitresses at a restaurant back home, she quickly falls head over heels for eco-warrior Steve, who has grown up in a commune on the West Coast–so different from Nina's secure middle-class experience. When she returns to New York, she immediately senses that Mel and Avery are keeping secrets and soon discovers that they have become lovers. Rocked to the core, Nina wishes them happiness, but feels excluded and lonely, especially as her long-distance relationship begins to deteriorate. As is typical for teens, the girls obsess ad nauseam over their romantic relationships. Yet this narrow focus
Hans Christian Andersen was the profoundly imaginative writerand storyteller who revolutionized literature for children. He gaveus the now standard versions of some traditional fairy tales - withan anarchic twist - but many of his most famous tales sprangdirectly from his imagination. The thirty stories here range fromexuberant early works such as "The Tinderbox" and "The Emperor'sNew Clothes" through poignant masterpieces such as "The LittleMermaid" and "The Ugly Duckling," to more subversive later talessuch as "The Ice maiden" and "The Wood Nymph."
Chinese edition of A Thousand Splendid Suns by Hosseini (author of the Kite Runner) has occupied a spot on the New York Times bestselling fiction list since its publication in May 2007. Whereas "the Kite Runner" focuses on the relationships among men, "Thousand" is about two women, a generation apart, being challenged by war-torn Kabul over thirty years. Distributed by Tsai Fong Books, Inc.
Ruth Anne "Bone" Boatwright, an illegitimate young girl,dreams of escaping her Greenville County, South Carolina, home, hernotorious, hard-living family, and the unwanted attentions of herabusive stepfather, Daddy Glen. A first novel. Reprint. NationalBook Award finalist. NYT.
Bill Canavan rode into the valley with a dream to start hisown ranch. But when he managed to stake claims on the three bestwater holes, the other ranchers turned against him. No one is moredetermined to see Canavan dead than Star Levitt. Levitt is anunscrupulous businessman who has been accumulating cattle at analarming rate. Suspicious after witnessing a secret meeting betweenthe riders of warring ranches, Bill begins noticing other dubiousbehavior: Why is Levitt's fiancee, Dixie Venable, acting more likea hostage than a willing bride-to-be? Canavan doesn't have muchtime to figure out what's going on. The entire valley is againsthim, and everyone is ready to shoot on sight.
Drawn from the wondrous tales told to Kipling as a child byhis Indian nurses, "Just So Stories" creates the magicalenchantment of the dawn of the world, when animals could talk andthink like people.
Harry Bernstein started chronicling his life at the age ofninety-four, after the death of his beloved wife, Ruby. In hisfirst book, The Invisible Wall , he told a haunting story offorbidden love in World War I-era England. Then Bernstein wrote The Dream , the touching tale of his family’s immigrantexperience in Depression-era Chicago and New York. Now Bernsteincompletes the saga with The Golden Willow , a heart-liftingmemoir of his life with Ruby, a romance that lasted nearly seventyyears. They met at a dance at New York’s legendary Webster Hall, fellinstantly and madly in love, and embarked on a rich and rewardinglife together. From their first tiny rented room on the Upper WestSide to their years in Greenwich Village, immersed in the artscene, surrounded by dancers, musicians, and writers, to their lifein the newly burgeoning suburbs, Harry and Ruby pursued theAmerican dream with gusto, much as Harry’s late mother would havewanted. Together, through a depression, a world war, and the McCarthy era
"LITERATE AND SAVVY . . . BRIMS WITH WARTIME INTRIGUE."--TheWashington Post Book WorldEngland 1943. Much of the infamous NaziEnigma code has been cracked. But Shark, the impenetrableoperational cipher used by Nazi U-boats, has masked the Germans'movements, allowing them to destroy a record number of Alliedvessels. Feeling that the blood of Allied sailors is on theirhands, a top-secret team of British cryptographers works feverishlyaround the clock to break Shark. And when brilliant mathematicianTom Jericho succeeds, it is the stuff of legend. . . ."A TENSE ANDTHOUGHTFUL THRILLER."--San Francisco ChronicleUntil the unthinkablehappens: the Germans have somehow learned that Shark has beencracked. And they've changed the code. . . ."SUSPENSEFUL ANDFASCINATING."--The Orlando SentinelAs an Allied convoy crosses theU-boat infested North Atlantic . . . as Jericho's ex-lover Clairedisappears amid accusations that she is a Nazi collaborator . . .as Jericho strains his last resources to break Shark again, hecannot esca
The autobiographical novel of a journey from the Britishcolony of Trinidad to the ancient countryside of England.
A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which sparesno one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital,but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealingfood rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to thisnightmare who guides seven strangers-among them a boy with nomother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears-through the barrenstreets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundingsare harrowing. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation anda vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth century,Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayalof man's worst appetites and weaknesses-and man's ultimatelyexhilarating spirit. The stunningly powerful novel of man's will tosurvive against all odds, by the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize forLiterature
