Tertuliano Maximo Afonso is a divorced, depressed historyteacher. To lift his spirits, a colleague suggests he rent acertain video. Tertuliano watches the film, unimpressed. But duringthe night, when he is awakened by noises in his apartment, he goesinto the living room to find that the VCR is replaying the video.He watches in astonishment as a man who looks exactly like him-or,more specifically, exactly like he did five years before,mustachioed and fuller in the face-appears on the screen. He sleepsbadly. Against his better judgment, Tertuliano decides to pursuehis double. As he roots out the man's identity, what begins as awhimsical story becomes a "wonderfully twisted meditation onidentity and individuality" (The Boston Globe). Saramago displayshis remarkable talent in this haunting tale of appearance versusreality.
They were just kids when they stumbled upon the hidden horror oftheir hometown. Now, as adults, none of them can withstand theforce that has drawn them all back to Derry, Maine, to face thenightmare without end, and the evil without a name.
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.
One of the greatest French novelists, Balzac was also anaccomplished writer of shorter fiction. This volume includes twelveof his finest short stories many of which feature characters fromhis epic series of novels the Comedie Humaine. Compelling tales ofacute social and psychological insight, they fully demonstrate themastery of suspense and revelation that were the hallmarks ofBalzac's genius. In The Atheist's Mass, we learn the true reasonfor a distinguished atheist surgeon's attendance at religiousservices; La Grande Breteche describes the horrific truth behindthe locked doors of a decaying country mansion, while The Red Innrelates a brutal tale of murder and betrayal. A fascinatingcounterpoint to the renowned novels, all the stories collected herestand by themselves as mesmerizing works by one of the finestwriters of nineteenth-century France.
Cipriano Algor, an elderly potter, lives with his daughterMarta and her husband Marcal in a small village on the outskirts ofThe Center, an imposing complex of shops, apartments, and officesto which Cipriano delivers his pots and jugs every month. On onesuch trip, he is told not to make any more deliveries. Unwilling togive up his craft, Cipriano tries his hand at making ceramic dolls.Astonishingly, The Center places an order for hundreds, andCipriano and Marta set to work-until the order is cancelled and thethree have to move from the village into The Center. Whenmysterious sounds of digging emerge from beneath their apartment,Cipriano and Marcal investigate, and what they find transforms thefamily's life. Filled with the depth, humor, and the extraordinaryphilosophical richness that marks each of Saramago's novels, TheCave is one of the essential books of our time.
Stephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of themworldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are Full Dark, NoStars; Under the Dome; Just After Sunset; DumaKey; Lisey's Story; Cell; and the last threenovels in the Dark Tower saga: Wolves of the Calla, Song ofSusannah, and The Dark Tower. His acclaimed nonfictionbook On Writing is also a bestseller. In 2003, he wasawarded the National Book Foundation Medal for DistinguishedContribution to American Letters, and in 2007 he received the GrandMaster Award from the Mystery Writers of America. He lives in Mainewith his wife, novelist Tabitha King.
In eight new stories, a master of the form extends and magnifies her great themes--the vagaries of love, the passion that leads down unexpected paths, the chaos hovering just under the surface of things, and the strange, often comical desires of the human heart. Time stretches out in some of the stories: a man and a woman look back forty years to the summer they met--the summer, as it turns out, that the true nature of their lives was revealed. In others time is telescoped: a young girl finds in the course of an evening that the mother she adores, and whose fluttery sexuality she hopes to emulate, will not sustain her--she must count on herself. Some choices are made--in a will, in a decision to leave home--with irrevocable and surprising consequences. At other times disaster is courted or barely skirted: when a mother has a startling dream about her baby; when a woman, driving her grandchildren to visit the lakeside haunts of her youth, starts a game that could have dangerous consequences.
First came the days of the plague. Then came the dreams. Dark dreams that warned of the coming of the dark man. The apostate of death, his worn-down boot heels tramping the night roads. The warlord of the charnel house and Prince of Evil. His time is at hand. His empire grows in the west and the Apocalypse looms.
A lifesaving handbook for parents of children who areoccasionally, or too often, "out of control" Includes a bound-intwenty-minute DVD featuring Dr. Kazdin and his staff illustratingkey concepts of the Kazdin Method Most child-behavior books arefilled with advice that sounds reasonable, fits with what parentsalready believe about child-rearing, and is--as Dr. Kazdin proves--guaranteed to fail. The Kazdin Method for Parenting the DefiantChild makes available to parents for the first time Dr. Kazdin'sproven program--one backed up by some of the most long-term andrespected research devoted to any therapy for children.Kazdinshatters decades' worth of accumulated myths about tantrums,time-outs, punishments fitting the crime, and much more.With thepracticality of Ferber and the warmth of Brazelton, Kazdin leadsparents through every step of the Kazdin Method in action--how touse tone of voice, when and how to touch, how to lead your child ina "practice" session, how to adjust your approach for different-agechildren
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.
This beautiful and eloquent story tells of a simple peasantwoman in a primitive village in India whose whole life is a gallantand persistent battle to care for those she loves-an unforgettablenovel that "will wring your heart out" (Associated Press).
In this, her first collection of nonfiction, Alice Walkerspeaks out as a black woman, writer, mother, and feminist inthirty-six pieces ranging from the personal to the political. Amongthe contents are essays about other writers, accounts of the civilrights movement of the 1960s and the antinuclear movement of the1980s, and a vivid memoir of a scarring childhood injury and herdaughters healing words.
Misery Chastain was dead. Paul Sheldon had just killed her -- with relief, with joy. Misery had made him rich; she was the heroine of a string of bestsellers. And now he wanted to get on to some real writing. That's when the car accident happened, and he woke up in pain in a strange bed. But it wasn't hospital. Annie Wilkes had pulled him from the wreck, brought him to her remote mountain home, splinted and set his mangled legs. The good news was that Annie was a nurse and had pain-killing drugs. The bad news was that she had long been Paul's Number One Fan. And when she found out what Paul had done to Misery, she didn't like it. She didn't like it at all. And now he had to bring Misery back to life. Or else ...
FBI Special Agent Pendergast is taking a break from work to takeConstance on a whirlwind Grand Tour, hoping to give her closure anda sense of the world that she's missed. They head to Tibet, wherePendergast intensively trained in martial arts and spiritualstudies. At a remote monastery, they learn that a rare anddangerous artifact the monks have been guarding for generations hasbeen mysteriously stolen. As a favor, Pendergast agrees to trackand recover the relic. A twisting trail of bloodshed leadsPendergast and Constance to the maiden voyage of the Britannia , the world's largest and most luxurious oceanliner---and to an Atlantic crossing fraught with terror.
This story of a modest, peace-loving Indian, forced to side withrebels to save his family—only to become a compulsivemilitarist—has been compared to the works of Chekhov and Gorky as apowerful and insightful portrait of social upheaval.
Karen Wynn Fonstad's THE ATLAS OF MIDDLE-EARTH is an essentialvolume that will enchant all Tolkien fans. Here is the definitiveguide to the geography of Middle-earth, from its founding in theElder Days through the Third Age, including the journeys of Bilbo,Frodo, and the Fellowship of the Ring. Authentic and updated --nearly one third of the maps are new, and the text is fully revised-- the atlas illuminates the enchanted world created in THESILMARILLION, THE HOBBIT, and THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Hundreds oftwo-color maps and diagrams survey the journeys of the principalcharacters day by day -- including all the battles and keylocations of the First, Second, and Third Ages. Plans andde*ions of castles, buildings, and distinctive landforms aregiven, along with thematic maps describing the climate, vegetation,languages, and population distribution of Middle-earth throughoutits history. An extensive appendix and an index help readerscorrelate the maps with Tolkien's novels.
The pivotal sixth instalment in King's bestselling epic fantasy saga provides the key to the quest that defines Roland's life. In the next part of their journey to the tower, Roland and his band of followers face adversity from every side: Susannah Dean has been taken over by a demon-mother and uses the power of Black Thirteen to get from the Mid-World New York City. But who is the father of her child? And what role will the Crimson King play? Roland sends Jake to break Susannah's date with destiny, while he himself uses 'the persistence of magic' to get to Maine in the Summer of 1977. It is a terrible world: for one thing it is real and bullets are flying. For another, it is inhabited by the author of a novel called 'SALEM'S LOT. SONG OF SUSANNAH is driven by revelation and by suspense. It continues THE DARK TOWER series seamlessly from WOLVES OF THE CALLA and the dramatic climax will leave readers desperate to read the quest's conclusion.
Seventeen-year-old Veronica 'Ronnie' Miller's life was turnedupsidedown when her parents divorced and her father moved fromNewYork to Wilmington, North Carolina. Since then she hasremainedangry and alienated from her parents, until her motherdecides sheshould spend the summer with her father. Ronnie's lather, a former concert pianist and teacher, is livinga quietlife in the beach town, immersed in creating a work of artthat willbecome the centrepiece of a local church. What unfolds is an unforgettable story about love - first loveand thelove between parents and children that demonstratesthe many waysthat relationships can break our hearts …… and healthem.
Nine strokes from an old country church toll out the death ofan unknown man and call Lord Peter Wimsey to one of his mostbaffling cases. Set in the strange, flat fen-country of EastAnglia, this is a classic tale of suspense by a master ofmystery.
In this collection of five Christmas-themed stories, belovedauthor Mary Balogh brings together tales of love, marriage,friendship, loneliness, and healing. Includes four Balogh holidayclassics, "The Star of Bethlehem," "The Best Gift," "PlayingHouse," and "No Room At the Inn," as well as "A Family Christmas,"which is only available in this anthology.
