"Whether Alice Munro's The Beggar Maid is a collection of stories or a new kind of novel I'm not quite sure, but whatever it is, it's wonderful. The psychological precision...is a delight, and the startling twists -- the unexpected leaps in time, the transformation of familiar characters -- they make the book what books ought to be, a little wild, a little mysterious." -- John Gardner In this exhilarating series of interweaving stories, Alice Munro re-creates the evolving bond -- one that is both constricting and empowering -- between two women in the coupe of almost forty years. One is Flo, practical, suspicious of other people's airs, at times dismayingly vulgar. The other is Rose, Flo's stepdaughter, a clumsy, shy girl who somehow-in spite of Flo's ridicule and ghastly warnings -- leaves the small town she grew up in to achieve her own equivocal success in the larger world. "The stories are absolutely wonderful-every word she writes is interesting." -- Alice Adams "The best stories of the year." -- The
全书由一篇简介开始，简介的内容其实就象是聊天，作者与读者之间的聊天。写这篇文章时候的小花絮，那篇文章的灵感来自哪里，另外一篇写完之后的感受，诸如此类的话题，对于阅读理解后面的文章有一定的帮助。 这本集子的标题“烟与镜”的含义是，魔术师靠镜子与烟雾来表演，镜子能映照出实像，而45度斜放的镜子会让你看到假象，让你以为你所看到的是真的，这个概念在若干篇里都有出现。小说都是镜子，用来反映这个世界，而奇幻小说也是镜子，是魔术师常用的45度斜放的镜子，甚至是凹凸不平的变形镜，它们可以告诉我们一些事情，一些平时看不到的事情。读完所有的故事，你是不是也会看到一些平时看不到的事情呢？ An elderly widow finds the Holy Grail beneath anold fur coat. A stray cat fights and refights a terrible nightlybattle to protect his unwary adoptive fami
Twelve Years a Slave, a chronicle of the amazing ordeal of a free African-American kidnapped from Washington, D.C., and impressed into slavery in Louisiana, is one of the most compelling and detailed slave narratives in existence. Although a best-selling book in its time, Solomon Northup’s narrative has existed in the shadow of more academically prominent and popularly celebrated narratives like The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845). Nonetheless, Northup’s account of his kidnapping and enslavement is a masterpiece of historical detail, and the narrative has been noted for its easily researched and widely corroborated elements. The text and story were virtually unchallenged by Southern apologists or partisans of the era. Northup resists the urge to laud himself as an exemplary character or focus solely his own experience, giving contemporary readers a remarkable account of the lives of the slave community as a whole. As an educated man, torn from freedom and plunged into slavery, he
Beautiful Chiara is smitten by the brilliant but pennilessdoctor Salvatore. Desiring the unwilling Salvatore as a futurehusband, she engages in a series of comic attempts to land herobject of affection, only to create a greater chasm between thestar-crossed would-be lovers.
David Baldacci lives with his family in Virginia. He and hiswife have founded the Wish You Well Foundation, a nonprofitorganization dedicated to supporting literacy efforts acrossAmerica. He invites you to visit him at www.david-baldacci.com andhis foundation at www.wishyouwellfoundation.org, and to look intoits program to spread books across America atwww.FeedingBodyandMind.com.
From the moment these two legendary players took the court onopposing sides, they engaged in a fierce physical and psychologicalbattle. In Celtic green was Larry Bird, the hick from French Lick,with laser-beam focus, relentless determination, and a deadly jumpshot, a player who demanded excellence from everyone around him andwhose caustic wit left opponents quaking in their high-tops. MagicJohnson was Mr. Showtime, a magnetic personality with all the rightmoves. Young, indomitable, he was a pied piper in purple and gold.And he burned with an inextinguishable desire to win. Their uncommonly competitive relationship came to symbolize themost thrilling rivalry in the NBA—East vs. West, physical vs.finesse, old school vs. Showtime, even white vs. black. Each pushedthe other to greatness, and together Bird and Johnson collectedeight NBA Championships and six MVP awards, helping to save afloundering NBA. At the start they were bitter rivals, but alongthe way they became lifelong friends.
In this "ingenious" novel (New York Times) by "one of Europe'smost original and remarkable writers" (Los Angeles Times), aproofreader's deliberate slip opens the door to romance-andconfounds the facts of Portugal's past. Translated by GiovanniPontiero.
On the eve of the Russian Revolution, Frank Reid, a strugglingBritish-born printer in Moscow, is abandoned by his wife and isleft to care for his three children while keeping his businessafloat.
The young life of Daoud Hari–his friends call him David–hasbeen one of bravery and mesmerizing adventure. The Translator is asuspenseful, harrowing, and deeply moving memoir of how one personhas made a difference in the world, an on-the-ground account of oneof the biggest stories of our time: the brutal genocide under wayin Darfur. In 2003, Daoud Hari, a Zaghawa tribesman, was among the hundredsof thousands of villagers attacked and driven from their homes bySudanese-government-backed militia groups. Though Hari’s villagewas burned to the ground, his family decimated and dispersed, hehimself escaped, eventually finding safety across the border. Withhis high school knowledge of languages, Hari offered his servicesas a translator and guide. In doing so, however, he had to returnto the heart of darkness–and he has risked his life again and againto help ensure that the story of his people is told while there isstill time to save them.
More than twenty-five years after the groundbreaking movie "StarWars: A New Hope" first hit the silver screen, "Star Wars" remainsone of the most beloved sagas ever told. Together, the threeoriginal "Star Wars" movies-"A New Hope," "The Empire StrikesBack," and "Return of the Jedi"-told one epic: a heroic tale ofinnocence lost and wisdom gained, of downfall and redemption, ofthe never-ending fight between the forces of good and evil. Readthe story of the movies-all three in one trade paperback volume-andrediscover the wonder of the legend that begins: "A long time ago,in a galaxy far, far away . . ."Luke Skywalker lived and worked onhis uncle's farm on the remote planet of Tatooine, but he yearnedto travel beyond the farthest reaches of the universe to distant,alien worlds. Then Luke intercepted a cryptic message from abeautiful, captive princess . . . and found himself catapulted intothe adventure of a lifetime. Luke Skywalker, proud Princess Leia,and headstrong Han Solo . . . merciless Darth Vader, wise Ob
From the author of "On The Road" comes this story of two menenganged in a passionate search for Dharma or truth. Their majoradventure is the pursuit of the Zen Way, which takes them climbinginto the high sierras to seek the lesson of solitude.
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.
Alice Munro mines her rich family background, melding it with her own experiences and the transforming power of her brilliant imagination, to create perhaps her most powerful and personal collection yet. A young boy, taken to Edinburgh’s Castle Rock to look across the sea to America, catches a glimpse of his father’s dream. Scottish immigrants experience love and loss on a journey that leads them to rural Ontario. Wives, mothers, fathers, and children move through uncertainty, ambivalence, and contemplation in these stories of hopes, adversity, and wonder. The View from Castle Rock reveals what is most essential in Munro’s art: her compassionate understanding of ordinary lives.
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
Here for the first time, the original, complete Star Warstrilogy in a special 25th anniversary collector's editionhardcover.Twenty-five years after the phenomenon was born, StarWars remains one of the greatest fantasy epics ever told. Here inone collector's edition are the original stories from the firstthree classic films -- Star Wars: A New Hope, Star Wars: The EmpireStrikes Back, and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi -- each a New YorkTimes bestseller with over one million copies in print. Read thesethrilling novels to see where it all began with Luke Skywalker, afarm boy looking for adventure in a galaxy far, far away....
The novel that defined the Beat generation, this exuberanttale of two men traversing America is as fresh and fantastic asever.
