books tagged “death”

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All Quiet on the Western Front
by Erich Maria Remarque

ISBN 0449213943 (0-449-21394-3)
Softcover, Fawcett Books

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Book summary:
Considered by many the greatest war novel of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front is Erich Maria Remarques masterpiece of the German experience during World War I.

I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. . . .

This is the testament of Paul Bäumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army during World War I. They become soldiers with youthful enthusiasm. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught breaks in pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches.

Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another . . . if only he can come out of the war alive.

The world has a great writer in Erich Maria Remarque. He is a craftsman of unquestionably first rank, a man who can bend language to his will. Whether he writes of men or of inanimate nature, his touch is sensitive, firm, and sure.The New York Times Book Review [via]
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Cliffsnotes All Quiet on the Western Front
by Susan Van Kirk

ISBN 0764586718 (0-7645-8671-8)
Softcover, Cliff Notes

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Book summary:
The original CliffsNotes study guides offer expert commentary on major themes, plots, characters, literary devices, and historical background. The latest generation of titles in this series also features glossaries and visual elements that complement the classic, familiar format.
In CliffsNotes on All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque takes you inside the gruesome realities of World War I through the eyes of Paul Baumer, a sensitive teenager and typical infantryman in the German army.
This study guide will help you begin to consider how Remarque's views on war might relate to modern-day conflicts. You'll also gain insight into the life and cultural background of the author. Other features that help you study include
Character analyses of major players
A character map that graphically illustrates the relationships among the characters
Critical essays
A review section that tests your knowledge
A Resource Center full of books, articles, films, and Internet sites
Classic literature or modern modern-day treasure you'll understand it all with expert information and insight from CliffsNotes study guides.
[via]
More editions of Cliffsnotes All Quiet on the Western Front:
- Cliffsnotes All Quiet on the Western Front: ISBN 0764586718 (0-7645-8671-8)
  Softcover, Cliff Notes
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Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying
by Maggie Callanan, Patricia Kelley

ISBN 0553378767 (0-553-37876-7)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group

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Book summary:
Offers families, friends, and care-givers of terminally ill patients suggestions for facilitating a peaceful death with advice on listening to the dying in order to understand their needs. 25,000 first printing. Tour. [via]
More editions of Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying:
- Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying: ISBN 0671700065 (0-671-70006-5)
  Hardcover, Simon & Schuster
- Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying: ISBN 0553378767 (0-553-37876-7)
  Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
by J. K. Rowling, Mary Grandpre

ISBN 0439139600 (0-439-13960-0)
Softcover, Scholastic Paperbacks

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Book summary:
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire CD Set tells the story of Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in 18 CDs. The audio book is also available in two volumes, Part 1 and Part 2, each containing 9 CDs.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the long-awaited, heavily hyped fourth instalment of a phenomenally successful series that has captured the imagination of millions of readers, young and old, across the globe. For J K Rowling the pressure is certainly on to continue to come up with thrilling, pacey storylines that allow her hero to mature into a young man without detracting from the magical secret that has made Harry into a superstar. In this book, the teenage Harry has a certain gawky charm that fits well with his advancing adolescence. As the story moves on, Harry too moves on to a new level of maturity that leaves the reader wondering how he will learn from his experiences, and liking him all the more as a character.
Once returned to Hogwarts after his summer holiday with the dreadful Dursleys and an extraordinary outing to the Quidditch World Cup, the 14-year-old Harry and his fellow pupils are enraptured by the promise of the Triwizard Tournament: an ancient, ritualistic tournament that brings Hogwarts together with two other schools of wizardry--Durmstrang and Beauxbatons--in heated competition. But when Harry's name is pulled from the Goblet of Fire, and he is chosen to champion Hogwarts in the tournament, the trouble really begins. Still reeling from the effects of a terrifying nightmare that has left him shaken, and with the lightning-shaped scar on his head throbbing with pain (a sure sign that the evil Voldemort, Harry's sworn enemy, is close), Harry becomes at once the most popular boy in school. Yet, despite his fame, he is totally unprepared for the furore that follows.
This is a hefty volume: 636 pages, of which probably at least 200 could have been cut without detracting from the story. The weight and complexity of the book is perhaps a hint that Rowling now has her eye sharply focused on her adult audience, and the average child-reader (particularly one who is coming to Harry Potter for the first time) may well find its girth daunting. Rowling's ironic and pointed observations on tabloid journalism and the nature of media hype is just one of the references littered through the book that will tickle the grown-ups but may well fly over the heads of her young fans.
However, after a slow start, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire really starts to sparkle halfway through with Rowling's familiar magic (and yes, there is a death--sudden and tragic--and yes, Harry does start to notice girls). The crux of this story, however, is Harry's gradual coming-of-age and his handling of the increasingly determined threats to his own life.
This book is pivotal, not just for the author for whom the heat is well and truly on, but for Harry and his readers who, by the last chapter, are left in little doubt that there is much more to come. (Ages 10 to adult) --Susan Harrison [via]
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Harry Potter Et La Coupe De Feu / Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
by J. K. Rowling, Jean-Francois Menard

ISBN 0320048381 (0-320-04838-1)
Softcover, French & European Pubns

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Book summary:
Dans ce quatrième tome, Harry et la Coupe de feu, le plus populaire des apprentis sorciers fait sa rentrée pour une quatrième année trépidante au collège de sorcellerie. Une fois de plus, J. K. Rowling nous effraye autant qu'elle nous ravit avec sa pléiade de dragons, d'elfes et de combats contre la mort.
Il ne reste à son héros orphelin âgé aujourd'hui de 14 ans que deux semaines à passer dans sa famille de moldus avant de retourner au collège de sorcellerie Poudlard. Mais une nuit, une vision suffisamment obsédante pour réveiller sa cicatrice en forme d'éclair met les nerfs de Harry à vif et le pousse à contacter son parrain en sorcellerie, Sirius Black. Heureusement, la perspective d'assister au grand événement sportif de la saison, la Coupe du monde de Quidditch, suffit à faire oublier pour quelque temps à Harry que Lord Voldemort et ses sinistres comparses, les mangeurs de Mort, sont en route pour tuer.
Lecteurs, nous allons maintenant recouvrir le reste de l'intrigue d'une immense cape d'invisibilité et nous nous bornerons à vous révéler que Qui-Vous-Savez est à la poursuite de Harry, et que cette année, il n'y aura pas de matchs de Quidditch entre Gryffondor, Serdaigle, Poufsouffle et Serpentard. Cette fois c'est Poudlard qui disputera un tournoi de sorcellerie contre deux autres écoles de magiciens, les Élégants de Beauxbaton et les Glaçons de Durmstrang. Les candidats sélectionnés devront passer trois ultimes épreuves. Harry fera-t-il partie des heureux élus ?
Quant à vous, fans de Quidditch, ne soyez-pas déçus : nous retrouvons ce grand jeu au moment de la Coupe du monde. 100 000 sorcières et magiciens soucieux d'incognito et tentant de se faire passer pour des moldus se rassemblent sur une "charmante lande déserte". Rowling nous enchante comme toujours avec ce souci des détails qui rend son univers si vivant et si drôle. Les tentes où s'abritent des spectateurs, par exemple, sortent vraiment de l'ordinaire. L'une d'elles est un palais miniature rempli de vrais paons ; une autre est composée de trois étages surplombés de nombreuses tourelles. Sans parler de tous les accessoires et gadgets proposés au public : des badges qui couinent le nom des joueurs, des modèles réduits de balais Éclairs de feu qui volent vraiment, ainsi que des figurines de joueurs célèbres à collectionner, qui déambulent dans la paume de la main en se pavanant... Il va sans dire que les deux équipes ne se ressemblent pas du tout, et leurs mascottes non plus. La Bulgarie est soutenue par les magnifiques Veela qui enchantent en un instant tous les spectateurs - y compris les supporters d'Irlande - jusqu'à ce que des milliers de petits lutins se lancent dans un spectacle explosif de leur cru en formant une main géante pour adresser un signe vraiment très mal élevé aux Veela, à l'autre bout du terrain...
Bien avant la parution du quatrième volume de la série, Rowling avait prévenu qu'il serait plus sombre que le précédent et il est vrai qu'à chaque moment d'hilarité correspond un moment de frayeur où nous craignons pour la vie de Harry, les émotions soulevées par la lecture du livre étant à la mesure des dangers encourus par le héros. Au cours de l'histoire sont évoqués de nouveaux personnages tel Alastor "Oeil fou", Moody, un chasseur de sorciers qui pourrait bien sombrer avec l'âge dans une totale paranoïa, ou encore Rita Skeeter qui tourne autour de Poudlard à la recherche d'un article sensationnel. (Cette as du scoop du Daily Prophet possède une plume féroce qui a l'art de transformer le moindre propos innocent en rumeur de tabloïd.)
En prévision du cinquième livre, Rowling ne dénoue pas tous les fils de l'intrigue jusque dans sa conclusion, éblouissante. Ce fan qui vous parle est prêt à parier que l'auteur elle-même est à moitié Veela - son stylo est sa baguette magique, elle habite vraiment cet univers qu'elle a créé. À partir de 9 ans. --Kerry Fried [via]
More editions of Harry Potter Et La Coupe De Feu / Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire:
- Harry Potter Et La Coupe De Feu / Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: ISBN 0320048381 (0-320-04838-1)
  Softcover, French & European Pubns
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How the Dead Live
by Will Self

ISBN 0802138489 (0-8021-3848-9)
Softcover, Grove Pr

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Book summary:
In April 1988, 65-year-old Lily Bloom quickly succumbs to cancer in the Royal Ear Hospital. ("Where do they keep the Royal Ear, I wonder? I think of it as very large--as big as a dinner tray--and very red, angrily red.") But after life there's death. Guided by an aborigine named Phar Lap Jones, she is transported by a Greek Cypriot minicab driver to the North London dead neighborhood of Dulston. There, accompanied by her dead son, Rude Boy, she's introduced to the 12-step Personally Dead meetings, and she watches over her living daughters--the cold, ambitious Charlotte, and her favorite, the heroin-addicted Natasha. "Natasha is peculiarly charged by the drug--and even by the mere anticipation of its effects. She shifts from being vulnerable and skittish and withdrawn to being strong and steady and extrovert. She's told me before that it makes her feel 'complete' and 'confident,' and I can see what she means. When she's off heroin she's a fucking nightmare--when she's on it she's a peach."
Since Will Self's face, voice, and, notoriously, life story are familiar to many who will never pick up his fiction, there's always the risk of reading How the Dead Live as autobiography. In which case, he's clearly based Lily on his New York-born Jewish mother, and he's wittily retooled large chunks of his own much-publicized addictions, transmuting himself into the beautiful and glamorously doomed Natasha. But Lily is feisty and articulate, with a complex history spanning two continents, two husbands, and a constantly re-created personality--a great literary creation. Self's sympathetic account of Lily's decline into her morphine-laden deathbed is deeply affecting, and his long-term obsession with London provides us with the utterly convincing Dulston. His treatment of modern Jewish life in North London (rather than New York) will find its fans and critics, but the novel grows beyond such local concerns. Ultimately, it is about the vexed relationship between the worries of contemporary Western life and a more transcendent spirituality--signaled by Self's opening gesture to The Tibetan Book of the Dead and by the all-seeing Phar Lap Jones. How the Dead Live is a big book with big ideas, and quite definitely Will Self's most ambitious and mature work to date. --Alan Stewart [via]
More editions of How the Dead Live:
- How the Dead Live: ISBN 080211671X (0-8021-1671-X)
  Hardcover, Grove Pr
- How the Dead Live: ISBN 0802138489 (0-8021-3848-9)
  Softcover, Grove Pr
Into the Wild
by Jon Krakauer

ISBN 0385486804 (0-385-48680-4)
Softcover, Vintage Books

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Book summary:
What would possess a gifted young man recently graduated from college to literally walk away from his life? Noted outdoor writer and mountaineer Jon Krakauer tackles that question in his reporting on Chris McCandless, whose emaciated body was found in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness in 1992.
Described by friends and relatives as smart, literate, compassionate, and funny, did McCandless simply read too much Thoreau and Jack London and lose sight of the dangers of heading into the wilderness alone? Krakauer, whose own adventures have taken him to the perilous heights of Everest, provides some answers by exploring the pull the outdoors, seductive yet often dangerous, has had on his own life. [via]
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The Summer of the Great-Grandmother
by Madeleine L'Engle

ISBN 006254506X (0-06-254506-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins

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More editions of The Summer of the Great-Grandmother:
- The Summer of the Great-Grandmother: ISBN 0374271747 (0-374-27174-7)
  Hardcover, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
- The Summer of the Great-Grandmother: ISBN 006254506X (0-06-254506-X)
  Softcover, Harpercollins
The Virgin Suicides
by Jeffrey Eugenides

ISBN 0446670251 (0-446-67025-1)
Softcover, Grand Central Pub

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Book summary:
THIS EDITION IS INTENDED FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Eugenides, Jeffrey Juxtaposing the common with the gothic, and the humorous with the tragic, the author creates a vivid and compelling portrait of youth and lost innocence. The sensational, b [via]
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Western Attitudes Toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present
by Philippe Aries

ISBN 0801817625 (0-8018-1762-5)
Softcover, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

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More editions of Western Attitudes Toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present:
- Western Attitudes Toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present: ISBN 0801815665 (0-8018-1566-5)
  Hardcover, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr
- Western Attitudes Toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present: ISBN 0801817625 (0-8018-1762-5)
  Softcover, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr
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A Widow for One Year: A Novel
by John Irving

ISBN 0345424719 (0-345-42471-9)
Softcover, Ballantine Books

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Book summary:
John Irving fans will not be startled to find that A Widow for One Year is a sprawling farce-tragedy crawling with characters who are writers. In the opening scene, 4-year-old Ruth Cole walks in on her melancholy mother, Marion, who is in flagrante with 16-year-old Eddie, the driver for drunken Ted (Ruth's dad and Marion's estranged, womanizing husband).
Eddie spends the rest of his life obsessively writing novels like Sixty Times, his roman à clef about his 60 seductions by Marion. Ted is a failed novelist who gets rich and famous writing creepy children's stories based on tales he tells Ruth (such as The Mouse Crawling Between the Walls). Marion abandons Ruth, Ted, and Eddie and becomes a successful pseudonymous novelist. And Ruth becomes the most richly celebrated writer of them all because of her early training by Ted, who not only told her stories, but also helped her craft narratives to explain their home's many photographs of her brothers, who died in a gory car wreck the year before she was born. Grief over the boys is why Ruth's mother does not dare to love her.
Ruth, Irving's first female main character, works brilliantly, first as an imaginative, almost Salingeresque child coming to terms with her bewildering family, then as a grownup striving to understand her mother's motives--or at least to track her down. Ted is a mordantly funny caricature, interestingly sinister and plausibly self-justifying when most inexcusable. Eddie is a lovable schlemiel, yet not too sentimentally drawn. And what set pieces Irving can write! The story of the boys' death is horrific and effective in dramatizing the character of Ted, who narrates it. Ted's attempted murder by a spurned lover is as hilarious as the VW-down-the-marble-stairway scene in A Prayer for Owen Meany (which has been adapted by Disney Studios), though not quite on a par with the celebrated "Pension Grillparzer" episode in The World According to Garp (reissued in a 20th anniversary edition by Modern Library).
Irving has the effrontery to get away with practically any scene that comes into his head--Ruth winds up an eyewitness to a hooker's murder in Amsterdam, a Dutch detective starts tracking her down (just as Ruth is hunting Marion), and the multiple plot strands all converge in a finale that neatly echoes the opening scene. It's all done with the outrageously coincidental yet minutely realistic brio of Charles Dickens, with a sad, self-conscious jokiness like that of Irving's mentor, Kurt Vonnegut. --Tim Appelo [via]
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The World's Great Classics

ISBN 0717200019 (0-7172-0001-9)
Hardcover, Xs Books

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Book summary:
Odyssey, The: The World's Great Classics, by Homer; tr. by S.H. Butcher and Andrew Lang [via]
More editions of The World's Great Classics:
- The World's Great Classics: ISBN 0717200019 (0-7172-0001-9)
  Hardcover, Xs Books
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Wuthering Heights
by Emily Bronte

ISBN 0140366946 (0-14-036694-6)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA

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Book summary:
Published a year before her death at the age of thirty, Emily Brontës only novel is set in the wild, bleak Yorkshire Moors. Depicting the relationship of Cathy and Heathcliff, Wuthering Heights creates a world of its own, conceived with an instinct for poetry and for the dark depths of human psychology.

@HeathBar The house is now mine. Since the neighbor has Catherine, Ill seduce his sister. Well see how brave he is when shes got Heathcock in her.

Girl is preggers. Catherine is dead. My world is over. Ive become an evil, evil man. Naming my son Heathcliff Jr.

From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less
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Wuthering Heights
by Outlet Book Company Staff, Random House Value Publishing Staff

ISBN 0517415119 (0-517-41511-9)
Hardcover, Random House Value Publishing

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More editions of Wuthering Heights:
- Wuthering Heights: ISBN 0517415119 (0-517-41511-9)
  Hardcover, Random House Value Publishing