Eighteen witty and brilliant essays on France from Julian Barnes; Julian Barnes's long and passionate relationship with France began more than forty years ago. As sceptical observer on family motoring holidays, assistant in a school in Brittany, student of the language and literature, author of Flaubert's Parrot and Cross Channel, he has criss-crossed the country and its culture The essays collected here, written over a twenty-year period, attest to his cleareyed appreciation of the Land Without Brussels Sprouts. He ranges widely, from landscape to literature, food to Flaubert, film and song to the Tour de France. His humour, timing and intelligence never falter. When Picador published his Letters from London, the Financial Times called him 'our finest essayist'. Something to Declare confirms that judgment: it is a great literary delight.
EXCITEMENT AND SUSPENSE FROM THE HEART OF THE JUNGLE Archaeologist Leo Mallory is on a dig. But this is no ordinary assignment. He’s deep in the heart of the Mexican jungle uncovering another centuries-old Mayan city. Like a surgeon performing a most-intricate operation, Leo and his team skilfully remove each crumb of earth with the utmost precision. THE JAGUAR MASK In France, Declan Carberry is busy trying to solve a string of ritual serial murders. Horrific in the extreme, the questions are who and why? Declan needs to move fast, for time is running out. Delving into the history of the Conquistadors and the Maya of South America, this vertiginous tale of snaring and netting, old rituals and modern codes, blood-letting and immortality is Easterman at his dizzying best. “A master of spooky suspense and of the chapter cliffhanger”THE SCOTSMAN 'The Jaguar Mask' will satisfy anyone who appreciates an old-fashioned well plotted adventure thriller which has been given a hard moder
After traveling the world to exotic lands, Alexandra, Jane,and Sukie–now widowed but still witches–return to the Rhode Islandseaside t own of Eastwick, “the scene of their primes,” site oftheir enchanted mischief more than three decades ago. DiabolicalDarryl Van Horne is gone, and what was once a center of license andliberation is now a “haven of wholesomeness” populated by hockeymoms and househusbands acting out against the old ways of their ownabsent, experimenting parents. With spirits still willing but fleshweaker, the three women must confront a powerful new counterspellof conformity. In this wicked and wonderful novel, John Updike isat his very best–a legendary master of literary magic up to his olddelightful tricks.
Starred Review. Ripped from the headlines doesn't begin todescribe Updike's latest, a by-the-numbers novelization of the lastfive years' news reports on the dangers of home-grown terror thatpacks a gut punch. Ahmad Mulloy Ashmawy is 18 and attends CentralHigh School in the New York metro area working class city of NewProspect, N.J. He is the son of an Egyptian exchange student whomarried a working-class Irish-American girl and then disappearedwhen Ahmad was three. Ahmad, disgusted by his mother's inability toget it together, is in the thrall of Shaikh Rashid, who runs astorefront mosque and preaches divine retribution for "devils,"including the "Zionist dominated federal government." The list ofdevils is long: it includes Joryleen Grant, the waywardAfrican-American girl with a heart of gold; Tylenol Jones, a blacktough guy with whom Ahmad obliquely competes for Joryleen'sattentions (which Ahmad eventually pays for); Jack Levy, a CentralHigh guidance counselor who at 63 has seen enough failure,including
Deep in the jungles of Peru the contest of the century is underway.It's a race to locate a legendary Incan idol-one carved out of a strange kind of stone.But a stone which,in the present age,could be used as the basis for a terrifying new weapon. The US Army wants this prize at any cost.But they are not alone... The only clue to the idol's final resting place is to be found in a 400-year-bld maun*.Which introduces Professor William Race,a mild-mannered but brilliant young linguist,who is unwillingly recruited to interpret the document taht could lead the US team to the idol itself. So begins the mission that will lead Race and his armed companions to a mysterious stone temple hidden in the foothills of the Andes.This is a carefully contrived sanctuary seething with menace and unexpected dangers.But it is not until the silence of the temple is breched that Race and his team discover they have broken a golden rule...
aNo other popular writer of his time did any better writingthan you will find in The Call of the Wild.a--H. L. Mencken One ofthe greatest American storytellers, Jack London enjoyed phenomenalpopularity in his own time and remains widely read throughout theworld. His work is characterized by thrilling action, an intuitivefeeling for animal life, and a sense of justice that oftenmanifests itself through violence. "The Call of the Wild," perhapsthe best novel ever written about animals, traces a dogas suddenentry into the wild and his education in survival among the wolves.Library of America Paperback Classics feature authoritative textsdrawn from the acclaimed Library of America series and introducedby todayas most distinguished scholars and writers. Each bookfeatures a detailed chronology of the authoras life and career, andessay on the choice of the text, and notes. The contents of thisPaperback Classic are drawn from "Jack London: Novels and Stories,"volume number 6 in The Library of America series. I
Published to coincide with the centenary of Tolstoy's death,here is an exciting new edition of one of the great literary worksof world literature. Tolstoy's epic masterpiece captures withunprecedented immediacy the broad sweep of life during theNapoleonic wars and the brutal invasion of Russia. Balls andsoirées, the burning of Moscow, the intrigues of statesmen andgenerals, scenes of violent battles, the quiet moments of everydaylife--all in a work whose extraordinary imaginative power has neverbeen surpassed. The Maudes' translation of Tolstoy's epicmasterpiece has long been considered the best English version, andnow for the first time it has been revised to bring it fully intoline with modern approaches to the text. French passages arerestored, Anglicization of Russian names removed, and outmodedexpressions updated. A new introduction by Amy Mandelker considersthe novel's literary and historical context, the nature of thework, and Tolstoy's artistic and philosophical aims. New, expandednotes provid
These three masterworks placed the great seventeenth-centuryEnglish poet Milton beside Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, andVirgil in the pantheon of world literature. A monumental achievement,Parudise Lost is the epic poem about the magnificent Lucifer, whose failed rebellion against Heaven's tyranny casts him into thedarkness of Hell and leads to man's fall from grace. SamsonAgonistes, the greatest English drama modeled on the Greekclassics, depicts blinded, once-mighty Samson regaining his strength as God's champion and delivering his people-whilede-stroying himself and his captors. And "Lycidas" is animmortal elegy on lost hopes and the nature of fate. Written in a grandstyle of superb power, these works display a majesty of lan- guage, a sublime wealth of detail, and the unmistakable genius ofone of literature's greatest minds.
Slaughterhous-Five is one of the world's great anti-warbooks. Centering on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden, BillyPilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of ourown fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraidto know.
Set in sixteenth-century England, Mark Twain’s classic “talefor young people of all ages” features two identical-looking boys—aprince and a pauper—who trade clothes and step into each other’slives. While the urchin, Tom Canty, discovers luxury and power,Prince Edward, dressed in rags, roams his kingdom and experiencesthe cruelties inflicted on the poor by the Tudor monarchy. AsChristopher Paul Curtis observes in his Introduction, The Princeand the Pauper is “funny, adventurous, and exciting, yet alsochock-full of . . . exquisitely reasoned harangues againstsociety’s ills.” This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the Mark TwainProject edition, which is the approved text of the Center forScholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association.