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.
Thomas Hardy's richly evocative novel opens with the arrival of Bathsheba in the village of Weatherbury to work the large, dilapidated farm that is her inheritance. The plot turns on her sentimental education, her infatuation for Sergeant Troy, a dazzling young cavalry officer, and her relationship with the shepherd-farmer, Gabriel Oak. Gabriel's strong presence permeates a drama of temptation,treachery and passion in which Bathsheba achieves a painful but necessary self-knowledge.
Undeniably powerful, an enormously affecting and intenselyhuman story. --The Washington Post Book World "A GUT-WRENCHING PIECE OF WORK. . . Carcaterra's graphic narrativegrips like gunfire in a dark alley." --The Atlanta Journal Constitution "In his controversial memoir SLEEPERS, Carcaterra remembersharrowing months in the Wilkinson Home for Boys and the elaboratevengeance he and his friends exacted against the guards. He tellsit all in spare, stylish prose . . . [with] relentless momentum andsheer drama. . . . SLEEPERS is a thriller, to be sure, but it isequally a wistful hymn to another age." --The Washington Post Book World "A TERRIFYING ACCOUNT OF BRUTALITY AND RETRIBUTION, searing in itsemotional truth, peopled with murderers, sadists, and thugs, butbiblical in its passion and scope." --People "SLEEPERS is so many things: a Dickensian portrait of coming of agein Hell's Kitchen, a terrifying and heartbreaking account of thebrutalization of youth, a shocking--and disturbinglysatisfying--climax worthy of
Oliver Twist is born in a workhouse and lives there until the day he pleads for more gruel Cast out into a harsh world, Oliver is taught to survive in London by Fagin and his gang of thieves. But can wits alone over-come poverty on the dangerous city streets?PENGUIN POPULAR CLASSICS are the per-fect introduction to the world-famous PENGUIN CLASSICS series - which en-compasses the best books ever written,from Homer's Odyssey to Orwell's 1984 and everything in between. For a full list and ideas on what to read next, visit www.penguinclassics.com
‘I am writing to a rhythm and not to a plot’，Virginia Woolf stated of her eighth novel，The Waves。 Widely regarded as one of her greatest and most original works，it conveys the rhythms of life in synchrony with the cycle of nature and the passage of time。 Six children-Bernard，Susan，Rhoda，Neville，Jinny and Louis-meet in a garden close to the sea，their voices sounding over the constant echo of the waves that roll back and forth from the shore。 The subsequent continuity of these six main characters，as they develop from childhood to maturity and follow different passions and ambitions，is interspersed with interludes from the timeless and unifying chorus of nature。 In pure stream-of-consciousness style，Woolf presents a cross-section of multiple yet parallel lives，each marked by the disintegrating force of a mutual tragedy。 The Waves is her searching exploration of individual and collective identity，and the observations and emotions of life，from the simplicity and sur
A Tdle of Two Cities(1859) Dickens greatest historical novel, traces the private ires of a group of people caught up in the cataclysm of the French Revolution and the Terror. Dickens based his historical detail on Carlyles great work - The French Revolution - and also on his own observations and investigations during numerous visits to Paris. The best story have written was Dickens own verdict on A Tale of Two Cities. and the reader is cinlikely to disagree with this judgement of a story which combines historical tact with the authors unsurpassed genius for poignant tales of human suffering,self-sacrifice, and redemption.
Past midnight, Chyna Shepherd, twenty- six, gazed out a moonlitwindow, unable to sleep on her first night in the Napa Valley homeof her best friend's family. Instinct proves reliable. A murderoussociopath, Edgler Forman Vess, has entered the house, intent onkilling everyone inside. A self-proclaimed "homicidal adventure,"Vess lives only to satisfy all appetites as they arise, to immensehimself in sensation, to live without fear, remorse or limits, tolive with intensity. Chyna is trapped in his deadly orbit. Chyna is a survivor, toughened by a lifelong struggle for safetyand self-respect. Now she will be tested as never before. At firsther sole aim is to get out alive-until, by chance, she learns theidentity of Vess's next intended victim, a faraway innocent onlyshe can save. Driven by a newly discovered thirst for meaningbeyond mere self-preservation, Chyna musters every inner resourceshe has to save an endangered girl—as moment by moment, theterrifying threat Edgler Foreman Vess intensifies.
Set during the Napoleonic wars, Vanity Fair (1847-8) famously satirizes worldly society. The novel revolves around the exploits of the impoverished but beautiful and devious Becky Sharp, and Amelia Sedley, pampered child of a rich City merchant. Despite the differences in their fortunes and characters, they find their lives entangled from childhood. As Becky's maneuvering ingratiates her with high society, the financial ruin of Amelia's father forces Amelia into poverty. Destiny, of course, has further adventures in store for both women, whose lives Thackeray (1811-63) uses as theatres for the whims and foibles of their contemporaries. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 作者简介： WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY was born in India to a long line of Yorkshire gentry recently mixed with equally ancient gentry. In 1817, two years after the death of his father a prosperous official of the East India Company, the boy was sent back to England. There he underwent
In the latest offering from the Magic Tree House series, Mary Pope Osborne treats readers to an inside look at one of her favorite subjects—the theater. Jack and Annie are whisked back to Elizabethan England where they meet the Bard of Avon himself, William Shakespeare, and luckily for them he is desperate for two small actors for his latest play! A wonderful adventure as well as the perfect introduction to Shakespeare for young readers.
After U.S. Air Force Major Joe Mack is forced down in Russiaand later escapes from a Soviet prison camp, he calls upon theskills of his Sioux Indian forebears to evade Alekhin, the Yakutnative and legendary tracker, on his trail.
Tom Sawyer, a shrewd and adventurous boy, is as much at home in the respectable world of his Aunt Polly as in the self-reliant and parentless world of his friend Huck Finn. The two enjoy a series of adventures, accidentally witnessing a murder, establishing the innocence of the man wrongly accused, as well as being hunted by Injun Joe, the true murderer, eventually escaping and finding the treasure that Joe had buried. Huckleberry Finn recounts the further adventures of Huck, who runs away from a drunken and brutal father, and meets up with the escaped slave Jim. They float down the Mississippi on a raft,participating in the lives of the characters they meet, witnessing corruption, moral decay and intellectual impoverishment. Sharing so much in background and character, these two stories,the best of Twain, indisputably belong together in one volume.Though originally written as adventure stories for young people,the vivid writing provides a profound commentary on provincial American life in the mid- 19
Cervantes’tale of the deranged gentleman who turns knight-errant,tilts at windmills and battles with sheep in the service of the lady of his dreams, Dulcinea del Toboso, has fascinated generations of readers, and inspired other creative artists such as Flaubert, Picasso and Richard Strauss. The tall, thin knight and his short, fat squire, Sancho Panza, have found their way into films, cartoons and even computer games. Supposedly intended as a parody of the most popular escapist fiction of the day, the "books of chivalry", this precursor of the modern novel broadened and deepened into a sophisticated, comic account of the contradictions of human nature. On his "heroic" journey Don Quixote meets characters of every class and condition, from the prostitute Maritornes, who is commended for her Christian charity, to the Knight of the Green Coat,who seems to embody some of the constraints of virtue. Cervantes’ greatest work can be enjoyed on many levels, an suffused with a subtle irony that reaches out
Castigated for offending against public decency, Madame Bovary has rarely failed to cause a storm. For Flaubert"s contemporaries, the fascination came from the novelist"s meticulous account of provincial manners. For the writer,subject matter was subordinate to his anguished quest for aesthetic perfection. For his twentieth-century successors the formal experiments that underpin Madame Bovary look forward to the innovations of contemporary fiction. Flaubert s protagonist in particular has never ceased to fascinate. Rornantic heroine or middle-class neurotic, flawed wife and mother or passionate protestor against the conventions of bourgeois society, simultaneously the subject of Flaubert s admiration and the butt of his irony - Emma Bovary remains one of the most enigmatic of fictional creations. Flaubert s meticulous approach to the craft of fiction, his portrayal of contemporary reality, his representation of an unforgettable cast of characters make Madame Bovary one of the major landmarks of mode
Born into poverty and obscurity, DavidCopperfield fights hard to find his place inlife. Only the intercession of a stern butkindly aunt sets him out on the road to goodfortune, but it is a route lined with roguesand friends in equal measure. PENGUIN POPULAR CLASSICS are the per-fect introduction to the world-famousPENGUIN CLASSICS series - which en-compasses the best books ever written,from Homer's Odyssey to OrweJi's 1984and everything in between. For a full listand ideas on what to read next, isitwww.penguinclassics.com
In the stillness of a golden September afternoon, deep in thewilderness of the Rockies, a solitary craftsman, Grady Adams, andhis magnificent Irish wolfhound, Merlin, step from shadow intolight...and into an encounter with mystery. That night, a pair ofsingular animals will watch Grady's isolated home, waiting to maketheir approach. A few miles away, Camillia Rivers, a local veterinarian, beginsto unravel the threads of a puzzle that will bring to her door allthe forces of a government in peril. At a nearby farm, long-estranged identical twins come togetherto begin a descent into darkness...In Las Vegas, a specialist inchaos theory probes the boundaries of the unknowable...On a Seattlegolf course, two men make matter-of-fact arrangements formurder...Along a highway by the sea, a vagrant scarred by the pastbegins a trek toward his destiny. In a novel that is at once wholly of our time and timeless,fearless and funny, Dean Koontz takes readers into the momentbetween one turn of the world and the next, acros
Revolution is in the air. The king's court sorcerer is beingeyed with suspicion. Not for dabbling in the black arts...not forconsorting with a demon...not for having a dragon as a pet...noteven for being mobbed up. But for the greatest crime of all:raising taxes. Who is this terrible tyrant? None other than Skeevethe Great. Oh, how the mighty have fallen...
A writer is held hostage by his number-one fan in the novel that"demand[s] that we take King seriously as a writer with a deeplyfelt understanding of human psychology" ( Publishers Weekly ).His deeply felt understanding of what terrifies us doesn't hurteither.
Middlemarch is a complex tale of idealism, disillusion,profligacy, loyalty and frustrated love. This penetratinganalysis of the life of an English provincial town is setduring the time of social unrest prior to the first ReformBill of 1832. It is told through the lives of DorotheaBrooke and Dr Tertius Lydgate and includes a host ofother paradigm characters who illurninate the conditionof English life in the mid-nineteenth century. Henrylames described Middlemarch as a 'treasure-house ofdetail' while Virginia Woolf famously endorsed GeorgeEliot's masterpiece as 'one of the few English novelswritten for grown-up people'.
Matagorda Tap Duvarney lost his innocence in the War Between theStates, then tested his skills in the frontier army. Now he'ssettled on the Texas coast, working a ranch as the partner of hisold friend Tom Kittery--and finding himself in the middle of a feudbetween Kittery and a neighboring family. But the danger fromoutside is nothing compared to the threat within, as Duvarneysuspects Kittery's woman isn't all she appears to be. Tap may haveto go to war again. But this time will it be with his closestfriend? The First Fast Draw East Texas wasn't much of a home forCullen Baker. Few liked him, and some even tried to kill him. Yetafter three years of wandering, he's back to farm the land that isrightfully his. But Cullen's neighbors have long memories, and hisworst adversary has teamed up with a vicious outlaw. With enemiesclosing in on all sides and threatening the woman he loves, Cullenwill have to be faster than lightning--and twice as deadly--just tosurvive.
Des employés de ministère étriqués, une jeunesse bruyante quedistrait le canotage sur la Seine, des petits boutiquiers qui nerêvent que pêche à la ligne, des paysans ?pres au gain de laHaute-Normandie : c'est l'univers familier de Maupassant que nousretrouvons ici dans sa diversité. Et cependant, un thème unit cescontes : la destruction de l'individu. C'est en effet la mort quir?de dans ces quatre récits de la cruauté ordinaire que Maupassantfait para?tre de 1881 à 1883. Mais cette dureté n'empêche pas lagaieté, ni que la farce se mêle au tragique. Séduisante etgrin?ante tour à tour, la réalité que mettent en scène ceshistoires de la vie quotidienne n'est donc banale qu'en apparence.L'inquiétante étrangeté n'est jamais très loin et, dans ces contessi réalistes, Maupassant nous conduit aux frontières où s'effacentles explications les plus naturelles
Book De*ion Dean Koontz’s uniquetalent for writing terrifying thrillers with a heart and soul isnowhere more evident than in this latest suspense masterpiece thatpits one man against the ultimate deadline. If there were speedlimits for the sheer pulse-racing excitement allowed in one novel,Velocity would break them all. Get ready for the ride of yourlife. From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. A diabolic killer plays a harrowing game of catand mouse with a reclusive bartender in Koontz's latest grippingsuspense thriller. Billy Wiles, a 30-something bartender and formerwriter, is content with his solitary Napa County existencelistening to "beer-based psychoanalysis" from tavern regulars;visiting his hospitalized, comatose fiancée, Barbara; and carvingwood sculptures. But the simple life gets mighty complicated whenhe finds a note with a deadly, time-sensitive ultimatum: he mustchoose between the death of a young schoolteacher or an elderlyhumanitarian in six hours. Reluctant local s
Quasimodo, the hunchback bellringer of Notre-Dame Cathedral, is devoted to the beautiful gypsy dancer, La Esmerelda. When the demented archdeacon Frollo hatches a devilish plot to abduct La Esmerelda, Quasimodo will go to any lengths to protect the woman he loves.
Filled with exciting tales of the frontier, the chronicle ofthe Sackett family is perhaps the crowning achievement of one ofour greatest storytellers. In Treasure Mountain Louis L’Amourdelivers a robust story of two brothers searching to learn the fateof their missing father — and finding themselves in a struggle justto stay alive. Orrin and Tell Sackett had come to exotic New Orleans looking foranswers to their father’s disappearance twenty years before. Touncover the truth, the brothers enlisted the aid of a trailwisegypsy and a mysterious voodoo priest as they sought to re-createtheir father’s last trek. But Louisiana is a dangerous land, and with one misstep thebrothers could disappear in the bayous before they even set foot onthe trail that led to whatever legacy their father had left behind... and a secret worth killing for.
Innocence and beauty ignite with evil and terror as a younggirl exhibits signs of a wild and horrifying force.
