Recent Yale graduate Megan Smith comes to Manhattan with bigplans for a career in journalism and even bigger student loan debt:$75,000. When she flails at her trashy tabloid job, she's given anescape hatch: tutor seventeen-year-old identical twins Rose andSage Baker--yes, the infamous Baker heiresses of Palm Beach,Florida, best known for their massive fortunes and their penchantfor drunkenly flashing the paparazzi -- and get their SAT scores upenough to get into Duke. Impossible job -- yes. But if shesucceeds, her student debts are history. Unfortunately for Megan,the Baker twins aren't about to curtail their busy social schedulesfor basic algebra. And they certainly aren't thrilled to have tosit down for a study session with dowdy Megan. Megan quicklydiscovers that if she's going to get her money, she'll have tolearn her Pucci from her Prada. And if she can look the part,maybe, just maybe, she can teach the girls something along theway.
Two classic plays translated by a Pulitzer Prize-winning poetinto English verse. In The Misanthrope, society itself is indictedand the impurity of its critics motives is exposed. In Tartuffe,the bigoted and prudish Orgon falls completely under the power ofthe wily Tartuffe. Introductions by Richard Wilbur.
Vicki Forman gave birth to Evan and Ellie, weighing just a poundat birth, at twenty-three weeks gestation. During the delivery shebegged the doctors to "let her babies go" she knew all too wellthat at twenty-three weeks they could very well die and, if theysurvived, they would face a high risk of permanent disabilities.However, California law demanded resuscitation. Her daughter diedjust four days later; her son survived and was indeed multiplydisabled: blind, nonverbal, and dependent on a feeding tube. ThisLovely Life tells, with brilliant intensity, of what became of theForman family after the birth of the twins the harrowing medicalinterventions and ethical considerations involving the sanctity oflife and death. In the end, the longdelayed first steps of afive-year-old child will seem like the fist-pumping stuff of atriumph narrative. Formans intelligent voice gives a sensitive,nuanced rendering of her guilt, her anger, and her eventualacceptance in this portrait of a mothers fierce love for herchildren.
The only novel from Alice Munro-award-winning author of The Love of a Good Woman--is an insightful, honest book, "autobiographical in form but not in fact," that chronicles a young girl's growing up in rural Ontario in the 1940's. Del Jordan lives out at the end of the Flats Road on her father's fox farm, where her most frequent companions are an eccentric bachelor family friend and her rough younger brother. When she begins spending more time in town, she is surrounded by women-her mother, an agnostic, opinionted woman who sells encyclopedias to local farmers; her mother's boarder, the lusty Fern Dogherty; and her best friend, Naomi, with whom she shares the frustrations and unbridled glee of adolescence. Through these unwitting mentors and in her own encounters with sex, birth, and death, Del explores the dark and bright sides of womanhood. All along she remains a wise, witty observer and recorder of truths in small-town life. The result is a powerful, moving, and humorous demo
Perhaps the most famous of Lawrence's novels, the 1928 LadyChatterley's Lover is no longer distinguished for theonce-shockingly explicit treatment of its subject matter--theadulterous affair between a sexually unfulfilled upper-classmarried woman and the game keeper who works for the estate owned byher wheelchaired husband. Now that we're used to reading about sex,and seeing it in the movies, it's apparent that the novel ismemorable for better reasons: namely, that Lawrence was a masterfuland lyrical writer, whose story takes us bodily into the world ofits characters. --This text refers to an alternate Paperbackedition.
Set in Cairo around the end of World War I, as Egypt, a Britishprotectorate, clamors for independence, 1988 Nobel Prize-winnerMahfouz's epic family drama explores deep fissures in thepatriarchal structure of one household. Prosperous merchant AhmadAbd al-Jawad, a tyrant at home, roams Cairo's tawdry entertainmentdistrict by night seeking illicit pleasures. His submissive wifeAmina is chained to the house; he throws her out on the streetafter she commits the sin of going outdoors for a walk. His twodaughters constantly bicker, and his three sons are beyond hiscontrol: Yasin commits sexual assaults on servants; Fahmy becomesan activist in the nationalist movement, while Kamal befriendsBritish soldiers. The first volume in Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy(1956-57), this dense novel charts an Egypt lurching into themodern age. Mahfouz is a master at building up dramatic scenes andat portraying complex characters in depth. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This textrefers to an out of print or unavailable
Taking his title from the wounded cry of the once great MaxBialystock in The Producers -- "Look at me now Look at me now I'mwearing a cardboard belt " -- the charming essayist Joseph Epsteingives us his largest and most adventurous collection to date. Withhis signature gifts of sparkling humor and penetratingintelligence, he issues forth as a memoirist, polemicist, literarycritic, and amused observer of contemporary culture. In deeplyconsidered examinations of writers from Paul Valery to TrumanCapote, in incisive take-downs of such cultural pooh-bahs as HaroldBloom and George Steiner, and in personally revealing essays abouthis father and about his years as a teacher, this remarkablecollection from one of America's best essayists is a book to besavored.
You know the authors’ names. You recognize the title. You'veprobably used this book yourself. And now The Elements of Style–themost widely read and employed English style manual–is available ina specially bound 50th Anniversary Edition that offers the title'svast audience an opportunity to own a more durable and elegantlybound edition of this time-tested classic. Offering the same content as the Fourth Edition, revised in 1999,the new casebound 50th Anniversary Edition includes a briefoverview of the book's illustrious history. Used extensively byindividual writers as well as high school and college students ofwriting, it has conveyed the principles of English style tomillions of readers. This new deluxe edition makes the perfect giftfor writers of any age and ability level.
Whether you are working on the novel that's been in the back ofyour mind for years or simply facing an increasing demand to writewell at work or school, the fact remains: more and more of us arewriting more often these days-reports, e-mails, faxes, andnewsletters. But despite the increase in written communication,something has been lost-the fundamentals of good writing. Grammarmaven Patricia T. O'Conner comes to the rescue with the mostpainless, practical, and funny writing book ever written. In short,snappy chapters filled with crystal-clear examples, amusingcomparisons, and humorous allegories that cover everything from"Pronoun Pileups" and "Verbs That Zing" to "What to Do When You'reStuck," O'Conner provides simple, straightforward tips to help yousort your thoughts and make sentences that make sense. Push asidethose stuffy old-fashioned rule books, because O'Conner has writtenthe most accessible and enjoyable book yet for today's writer.
The Fortress of Solitude is the story of Dylan Ebdus growingup white and motherless in downtown Brooklyn in the 1970s. It's aneighborhood where the entertainments include muggings along withgames of stoopball. In that world, Dylan has one friend, a blackteenager, also motherless, named Mingus Rude. As Lethem follows theknitting and unraveling of their friendship, he creates anoverwhelmingly rich and emotionally gripping canvas of race andclass, superheros, gentrification, funk, hip-hop, graffiti tagging,loyalty, and memory. The Fortress of Solitude" "is the first greaturban coming of age novel to appear in years.
Drawing from decades of work, travel, and research in Russia,Robert Alexander re-creates the tragic, perennially fascinatingstory of the final days of Russian monarchs Nicholas and Alexandraas seen through the eyes of the Romanov's young kitchen boy,Leonka.
If you had to pick the top-ten iconic sporting events, whatwould they be? Jim Gorant asked himself this question, and theanswer resulted in a yearlong journey into the heart of sports.From the Kentucky Derby to the Super Bowl, from a day game atWrigley Field to a fortnight at Wimbledon, from the NCAA Final Fourto the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field, Gorant takes us along forthe ride, evoking the best (and sometimes the worst) sports has tooffer. He enters the inner sanctum of NASCAR, witnesses JackNicklaus teeing off for the last time at the Masters, and takespart in one of college football’s biggest rivalries—Ohio Stateversus Michigan. Fanatic is a rollicking story of the ultimatesports road trip. Jim Gorant captures these ten unforgettableevents in all their color and commotion and gives sports fanseverywhere reason to cheer.
Brand New Book with Free Worldwide Delivery. This is a storyof heroism, love, honour, loyalty and betrayal, reaching from theoffice of the Hat Creek Cattle Company of the Rio Grande to theheart and the wilderness of the American West. This book won thePulitzer Prize.
In his introduction to the The BestAmerican Noir of the Century , James Ellroywrites, “noir is the most scrutinized offshoot of thehard-boiled school of fiction. It’s the long drop off theshort pier and the wrong man and the wrong woman in perfectmisalliance. It’s the nightmare of flawed souls with bigdreams and the precise how and why of the all-time sure thing thatgoes bad.” Offering the best examples of literary surethings gone bad, this collection ensuresthat nowhere else can readers find a darker, morethorough distillation of American noir fiction.
From America's most inventive novelist, Jonathan Lethem, comesthis compelling and compulsive riff on the classic detective novel.Lionel Essrog is Brooklyn's very own self-appointed HumanFreakshow, an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark,count, and rip apart our language in startling and original ways.Together with three veterans of the St. Vincent's Home for Boys, heworks for small-time mobster Frank Minna's limo service cumdetective agency. Life without Frank Minna, the charismatic King ofBrooklyn, would be unimaginable, so who cares if the tasks he setsthem are, well, not exactly legal. But when Frank is fatallystabbed, one of Lionel's colleagues lands in jail, the other twovie for his position, and the victim's widow skips town. Lionel'sworld is suddenly topsy-turvy, and this outcast who has troubleeven conversing attempts to untangle the threads of the case whiletrying to keep the words straight in his head. Motherless Brooklynis a brilliantly original homage to the classic detective novel b
The Spartans is a compelling narrative that explores theculture and civilization of the most famous "warrior people": theSpartans of ancient Greece, by the world's leading expert in thefield. Sparta has often been described as the original Utopia--aremarkably evolved society whose warrior heroes were forbidden anyother trade, profession, or business. As a people, the Spartanswere the living exemplars of such core values as duty, discipline,the nobility of arms in a cause worth dying for, sacrificing theindividual for the greater good of the community (illustrated bytheir role in the battle of Thermopylae), and the triumph of willover seemingly insuperable obstacles--qualities that today arefrequently believed to signify the ultimate heroism. Paul Cartledgeis the distinguished scholar and historian who has long been seenas the leading international authority on ancient Sparta. He tracesthe evolution of Spartan society--the culture and the people, aswell as the tremendous influence they had on their worl
For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about herlife in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was onlythree when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldierand went to live with him in Minnesota. Trudy's sole evidence ofthe past is an old photograph: a family portrait showing Anna,Trudy, and a Nazi officer, the Obersturmfuhrer of Buchenwald. Driven by the guilt of her heritage, Trudy, now a professor ofGerman history, begins investigating the past and finally unearthsthe dramatic and heartbreaking truth of her mother's life. Combining a passionate, doomed love story, a vivid evocation oflife during the war, and a poignant mother/daughter drama, ThoseWho Save Us is a profound exploration of what we endure tosurvive and the legacy of shame.
You love the boy body and soul, plainly, directly, as he lovesyou ...'. Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for heruntil she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, andfinds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Her eyes areopened by the unconventional characters she meets at the PensionBertolini: flamboyant romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish, the CockneySignora, curious Mr Emerson and, most of all, his passionate sonGeorge. Lucy finds herself torn between the intensity of life inItaly and the repressed morals of Edwardian England, personified inher terminally dull fiance Cecil Vyse. Will she ever learn tofollow her own heart? "A Room with a View" is a sunny, brilliantlywitty comedy of manners.