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books tagged “german”
books tagged “german”
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The 10 Dumbest Mistakes Smart People Make and How to Avoid: Simple and Sure Techniques for Gaining Greater Control of Your Lifeby Arthur Freeman, Rose DewolfISBN 0060921994 (0-06-092199-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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The Assistantby Bernard MalamudISBN 0060958308 (0-06-095830-8)
Softcover, Perennial
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The Awakeningby L. J. SmithISBN 0061020001 (0-06-102000-1)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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The Black Roodby Steve LawheadISBN 0061051101 (0-06-105110-1)
Softcover, Eos
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Bridgeby Iain M. BanksISBN 0061001082 (0-06-100108-2)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers Limited
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The Burgermeister's Daughter: Scandal in a Sixteenth-Century German Townby Steven OzmentISBN 0060977213 (0-06-097721-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Burgermeister's Daughter: Scandal in a Sixteenth-Century German Town'Book summary:The tragic but uplifting story of Anna Buschler, whose rebellion against the constricting mores of her times is reconstructed in this vivid social portrait of Germany at the end of the Middle Ages. [via]
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By the Pricking of My Thumbby Agatha ChristieISBN 0061003352 (0-06-100335-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Weptby Paulo Coelho, Alan R. ClarkeISBN 0060977264 (0-06-097726-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept'Book summary:This first United States paperback of By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept comes after huge worldwide sales of the novel of faith, romance, miracles, and the importance of following the heart's true path. The inspirational tale follows Pilar, a young woman from the Spanish countryside who, sparked by the teachings of a now-mysterious man she has known and loved since childhood, leaves her graduate studies and embarks on a spiritual pilgrimage through the Pyrenees Mountains and reevaluates her life and her future. Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho, author of the international bestseller The Alchemist, is considered to be one of the most widely-read Latin American writers in the world. [via]
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Byzantium: Library Editionby Stephen R. LawheadISBN 0061057541 (0-06-105754-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Byzantium: Library Edition'Book summary:Born to rule
Although born to rule, Aidan lives as a scribe in a remote Irish monastery on the far, wild edge of Christendom. Secure in work, contemplation, and dreams of the wider world, a miracle bursts into Aidan's quiet life. He is chosen to accompany a small band of monks on a quest to the farthest eastern reaches of the known world, to the fabled city of Byzantium, where they are to present a beautiful and costly hand-illuminated manuscript, the Book of Kells, to the Emperor of all Christendom.
Thus begins an expedition by sea and over land, as Aidan becomes, by turns, a warrior and a sailor, a slave and a spy, a Viking and a Saracen, and finally, a man. He sees more of the world than most men of his time, becoming an ambassador to kings and an intimate of Byzantium's fabled Golden Court. And finally this valiant Irish monk faces the greatest trial that can confront any man in any age: commanding his own Destiny.
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Carpe Jugulum: Una Novela Del Mundodiscby Terry PratchettISBN 0061020397 (0-06-102039-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Carpe Jugulum: Una Novela Del Mundodisc'Book summary:MASS-MARKET PAPERBACK,BY TERRY PRATCHETT. [via]
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The Compass Roseby Ursula K. Le GuinISBN 0060914475 (0-06-091447-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Compass Rose'Book summary:1st Harper Prism edition paperback fine condition [via]
Crooked Houseby Agatha ChristieISBN 0061002771 (0-06-100277-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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The Crying of Lot 49by Thomas PynchonISBN 0060931671 (0-06-093167-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Crying of Lot 49'Book summary:The highly original satire about Oedipa Maas, a woman who finds herself enmeshed in a worldwide conspiracy, meets some extremely interesting characters, and attains a not inconsiderable amount of self knowledge.
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The Dark Windby Tony HillermanISBN 0061000035 (0-06-100003-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Daughter of Fortuneby Isabel Allende, Margaret Sayers PedenISBN 0060932759 (0-06-093275-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Daughter of Fortune'Book summary:Oprah Book Club® Selection, February 2000: Until Isabel Allende burst onto the scene with her 1985 debut, The House of the Spirits, Latin American fiction was, for the most part, a boys' club comprising such heavy hitters as Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges, and Mario Vargas Llosa. But the Chilean Allende shouldered her way in with her magical realist multi-generational tale of the Trueba family, followed it up with four more novels and a spate of nonfiction, and has remained in a place of honor ever since. Her sixth work of fiction, Daughter of Fortune, shares some characteristics with her earlier works: the canvas is wide, the characters are multi-generational and multi-ethnic, and the protagonist is an unconventional woman who overcomes enormous obstacles to make her way in the world. Yet one cannot accuse Allende of telling the same story twice; set in the mid-1800s, this novel follows the fortunes of Eliza Sommers, Chilean by birth but adopted by a British spinster, Rose Sommers, and her bachelor brother, Jeremy, after she is abandoned on their doorstep.
"You have English blood, like us," Miss Rose assured Eliza when she was old enough to understand. "Only someone from the British colony would have thought to leave you in a basket on the doorstep of the British Import and Export Company, Limited. I am sure they knew how good-hearted my brother Jeremy is, and felt sure he would take you in. In those days I was longing to have a child, and you fell into my arms, sent by God to be brought up in the solid principles of the Protestant faith and the English language."
The family servant, Mama Fresia, has a different point of view, however: "You, English? Don't get any ideas, child. You have Indian hair, like mine." And certainly Eliza's almost mystical ability to recall all the events of her life would seem to stem more from the Indian than the Protestant side.As Eliza grows up, she becomes less tractable, and when she falls in love with Joachin Andieta, a clerk in Jeremy's firm, her adoptive family is horrified. They are even more so when a now-pregnant Eliza follows her lover to California where he has gone to make his fortune in the 1849 gold rush. Along the way Eliza meets Tao Chi'en, a Chinese doctor who saves her life and becomes her closest friend. What starts out as a search for a lost love becomes, over time, the discovery of self; and by the time Eliza finally catches up with the elusive Joachin, she is no longer sure she still wants what she once wished for. Allende peoples her novel with a host of colorful secondary characters. She even takes the narrative as far afield as China, providing an intimate portrait of Tao Chi'en's past before returning to 19th-century San Francisco, where he and Eliza eventually fetch up. Readers with a taste for the epic, the picaresque, and romance that is satisfyingly complex will find them all in Daughter of Fortune. --Margaret Prior [via]
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The Dispossessedby Ursula K. Le GuinISBN 0061054887 (0-06-105488-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Dispossessed'Book summary:Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. he will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have isolated his planet of anarchists from the rest of the civilized universe. To do this dangerous task will mean giving up his family and possibly his life. Shevek must make the unprecedented journey to the utopian mother planet, Anarres, to challenge the complex structures of life and living, and ignite the fires of change.
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Dragonflightby Anne McCaffrey, C. Martin, Lela Dowling, F. Von TobelISBN 0061050032 (0-06-105003-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Dynamics of Faithby Paul TillichISBN 0060937130 (0-06-093713-0)
Softcover, Perennial
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dynamics of Faith'Book summary:One of the greatest books ever written on the subject, Dynamics of Faithis a primer in the philosophy of religion. Paul Tillich, a leading theologian of the twentieth century, explores the idea of faith in all its dimensions, while defining the concept in the process.
This graceful and accessible volume contains a new introduction by Marion Pauck, Tillich's biographer.
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Emmaby Jane AustenISBN 0060956933 (0-06-095693-3)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Emma'Book summary:Of all Jane Austen's heroines, Emma Woodhouse is the most flawed, the most infuriating, and, in the end, the most endearing. Pride and Prejudice's Lizzie Bennet has more wit and sparkle; Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey more imagination; and Sense and Sensibility's Elinor Dashwood certainly more sense--but Emma is lovable precisely because she is so imperfect. Austen only completed six novels in her lifetime, of which five feature young women whose chances for making a good marriage depend greatly on financial issues, and whose prospects if they fail are rather grim. Emma is the exception: "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her." One may be tempted to wonder what Austen could possibly find to say about so fortunate a character. The answer is, quite a lot.
For Emma, raised to think well of herself, has such a high opinion of her own worth that it blinds her to the opinions of others. The story revolves around a comedy of errors: Emma befriends Harriet Smith, a young woman of unknown parentage, and attempts to remake her in her own image. Ignoring the gaping difference in their respective fortunes and stations in life, Emma convinces herself and her friend that Harriet should look as high as Emma herself might for a husband--and she zeroes in on an ambitious vicar as the perfect match. At the same time, she reads too much into a flirtation with Frank Churchill, the newly arrived son of family friends, and thoughtlessly starts a rumor about poor but beautiful Jane Fairfax, the beloved niece of two genteelly impoverished elderly ladies in the village. As Emma's fantastically misguided schemes threaten to surge out of control, the voice of reason is provided by Mr. Knightly, the Woodhouse's longtime friend and neighbor. Though Austen herself described Emma as "a heroine whom no one but myself will much like," she endowed her creation with enough charm to see her through her most egregious behavior, and the saving grace of being able to learn from her mistakes. By the end of the novel Harriet, Frank, and Jane are all properly accounted for, Emma is wiser (though certainly not sadder), and the reader has had the satisfaction of enjoying Jane Austen at the height of her powers. --Alix Wilber [via]
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The Essential Rilkeby Rainer Maria Rilke, Galway Kinnell, Hannah LiebmannISBN 0060956542 (0-06-095654-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Essential Rilke'Book summary:German poet Rainer Maria Rilke(1875-1926) enjoys ever-increasing popularity. His Duino Elegies is considered on of the greatest long poems of the twentieth century. Yet translations from his native German have always presented challenges: the elusiveness of Rilke's imagery, the playful way he both distorts and subverts his own language, and the depth and complexity of his poetry make it difficult for translators to preserve the beauty and meaning of the original text. In his stunning bilingual selection that includes the entire Duino Elegies as well as a number of favorite and less familiar shorter poems, Galway Kinnell and Hannah Liebmann manage to retain power and grace of Rilke's words. Throughout his poetry, Rilke addresses questions of how to live in and relate to a world in a voice that is simultaneoulsy prophetic and intensely personel. These translations offer new insight into this enigmatic German poet whose work will continue to be read and admired throughout the world.
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Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evilby Ron RosenbaumISBN 006095339X (0-06-095339-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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The Fifth Elephantby Terry PratchettISBN 0061020400 (0-06-102040-0)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Fifth Elephant'Book summary:Everyone knows that the world is flat, and supported on the backs of four elephants. But weren't there supposed to be five? Indeed there were, and what happened to the fifth elephant is only one of the many perplexing mysteries solved in this new novel by today's most celebrated fantasy humorist.
Terry Pratchett's profoundly irreverent Discworld novels have been number one bestsellers in England for more than a decade, securing him a position in the pantheon of satire and parody alongside Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen. Pratchett's fame, like his imagination, is now going global--if such a term can be used in connection with an author whose creation is so uncompromisingly (though no longer quite so unfashionably) flat.
Which brings us back to the missing mythical pachyderm. The Fifth Elephant begins, like so many of Pratchett's satirical inventions, with an invitation. This one is both royal and engraved, requiring that Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork constabulary attend as both detective and diplomat. The one role he relishes; the other, well, requires ruby tights.
Where cops (even those clad in tights) go, crime of course, follows--and an attempted assassination and a theft soon lead to a desperate chase from the low halls of Discworld royalty to the legendary fat mines of Uberwald, where lard is found in underground seams along with tusks and teeth and other precious ivory artifacts.
Vimes's "elephant" adventure is as profound as it is hilarious, sending up every aspect of modern life from royalty (a British specialty) to bureaucrats (inescapable anywhere), from cops (especially those unusually dressed) to criminals (who, like fools, have their own guild), from fantasy literature to satire itself.
The world is busy discovering Terry Pratchett. Shouldn't you be doing your part? [via]
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Forgotten Fatherland: The Search for Elisabeth Nietzscheby Ben MacIntyreISBN 006097561X (0-06-097561-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Foundation's Fearby Gregory BenfordISBN 0061056383 (0-06-105638-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Foundation's Fearby Isaac Asimov, Gregory BenfordISBN 0061052434 (0-06-105243-4)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Foundation's Fear'Book summary:This is the first installment of The Second Foundation Trilogy, based on Isaac Asimov's famous Foundation series. Acclaimed hard science fiction writers Gregory Benford, David Brin, and Greg Bear will each produce a work for the trilogy. Benford kicks off exploring the beginnings of the Foundation itself and its creator, Hari Seldon. Seldon is working on a project to ease the inevitable collapse of the universe-spanning Empire and the Dark Ages that will ensue. But the current emperor has other plans, like appointing Seldon first minister and thus thrusting him into a world of political intrigues and assassination attempts that ultimately will bring him up against future history's greatest threat. [via]
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Foundation's Triumphby David BrinISBN 0061056391 (0-06-105639-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Foundation's Triumph'Book summary:Isaac Asimov's 1951-53 Foundation trilogy is a rough-hewn classic of far future SF, honored with a unique 1965 Hugo for Best All-Time Series. It begins with "psychohistorian" Hari Seldon mapping the best possible course for humanity's next millennium, after the fall of the doomed Galactic Empire. Late in life Asimov revisited the series and awkwardly linked it with his popular robot stories--introducing vast conspiracy theories to explain the Empire's total lack of visible robots.
Asimov's estate authorized three SF notables to fill out Seldon's life in the Second Foundation Trilogy, which David Brin here wraps up after Gregory Benford's Foundation's Fear and Greg Bear's Foundation and Chaos. Chaos is the new keyword, because chaos theory seemingly makes nonsense of psychohistorical prediction. Whole planetary populations can lapse into chaotic rebellion despite secret mind-controlling agencies behind the scenes. So Seldon makes his last interstellar journey, harried, lectured, and even kidnapped by the warring factions of robots and not-quite-robots that have long manipulated humanity. The robots' dilemma:
"We are loyal, and yet far more competent than our masters. For their own sake, we have kept them ignorant, because we know too well what destructive paths they follow, whenever they grow too aware."
Brin does his best with Asimov's overcrowded legacy, skillfully steering Seldon to an insight about the much-foretold future that satisfies both the old man and the reader, with a spark of human free will and constructive chaos shining through the grayness of predestination. Asimov would have approved. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk [via]
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Further Tales of the Cityby Armistead MaupinISBN 0060924926 (0-06-092492-6)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Further Tales of the City'Book summary:The calamity-prone residents of 28 barbary lane are at it again in this deliciously dark novel of romance and betrayal. While anna madrigal imprisons an anchorwoman in her basement, michael tolliver looks for love at the national gay rodeo, dede halcyon day and mary ann singleton track a charismatic psychopath across alaska, and society columnist prue giroux loses her heart to a derelict living in san francisco park [via]
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Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chaptersby Matt RidleyISBN 0060932902 (0-06-093290-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters'Book summary:Science writer Matt Ridley has found a way to tell someone else's story without being accused of plagiarism. Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters delves deep within your body (and, to be fair, Ridley's too) looking for dirt dug up by the Human Genome Project. Each chapter pries one gene out of its chromosome and focuses on its role in our development and adult life, but also goes further, exploring the implications of genetic research and our quickly changing social attitudes toward this information. Genome shies away from the "tedious biochemical middle managers" that only a nerd could love and instead goes for the A-material: genes associated with cancer, intelligence, sex (of course), and more.
Readers unfamiliar with the jargon of genetic research needn't fear; Ridley provides a quick, clear guide to the few words and concepts he must use to translate hard science into English. His writing is informal, relaxed, and playful, guiding the reader so effortlessly through our 23 chromosomes that by the end we wish we had more. He believes that the Human Genome Project will be as world-changing as the splitting of the atom; if so, he is helping us prepare for exciting times--the hope of a cure for cancer contrasts starkly with the horrors of newly empowered eugenicists. Anyone interested in the future of the body should get a head start with the clever, engrossing Genome. --Rob Lightner [via]
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German Humor: On the Fritzby John Louis AndersonISBN 0060964030 (0-06-096403-0)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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![[???]: German Phrase Book & Dictionary](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0061003131.01._SL160_SCLZZZZZZZ__.jpg "German Phrase Book & Dictionary (0061003131) by [???]")
German Phrase Book & DictionaryISBN 0061003131 (0-06-100313-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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God of Small Thingsby Arundhati RoyISBN 0060977493 (0-06-097749-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'God of Small Things'Book summary:The story of the tragic decline of an Indian family whose members suffer the terrible consequences of forbidden love, The God of Small Things is set in the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India. Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, the twins Rahel and Esthappen fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family -- their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts). When their English cousin and her mother arrive on a Christmas visit, the twins learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever. The brilliantly plotted story uncoils with an agonizing sense of foreboding and inevitability. Yet nothing prepares you for what lies at the heart of it. [via]
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Harpercollins Pocket German Dictionary: German/English English/Germanby Harper CollinsISBN 0060937521 (0-06-093752-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Hija De La Fortuna / Daughter of Fortuneby Isabel AllendeISBN 0060932767 (0-06-093276-7)
Softcover, Perennial
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hija De La Fortuna / Daughter of Fortune'Book summary:Eliza Sommers es una joven chilena que vive en Valparaíso en 1849, el año en que se descubre oro en California. Su amante, Joaquín Andieta, parte hacia el norte decidido a encontrar fortuna, y ella decide seguirlo. El viaje infernal, escondida en la cala de un velero, y la búsqueda de su amante en una tierra de hombres solos y prostitutas atraídos por la fiebre del oro, transforman a la joven inocente en una mujer fuera de lo común. Eliza recibe ayuda y afecto de Tao Chi'en, un médico chino, quien la conducirá de la mano en un itinerario memorable por los misterios y contradicciónes de la condición humana. hija de la fortuna es un retrato palpitante de una época marcada por la violencia y la codicia en la cual los protagonistas rescatan el amor, la amistad, la compasión y el valor.
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Hitler: A Study in Tyrannyby Alan BullockISBN 0060920203 (0-06-092020-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hitler: A Study in Tyranny'Book summary:The classic biography of Hitler that remains, years after its publication, one of the most authoritative and readable accounts of his life. Here in an abridged edition. [via]
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Hogfatherby Terry PratchettISBN 0061059056 (0-06-105905-6)
Softcover, Harper Prism
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hogfather'Book summary:Better watch out ...
It's that time of year again. Hogswatchnight. Tis the season to be jolly, to hang mistletoe and holly, and other stuff ending in olly.
Tis the season when the Hogfather himself dons his red suit and climbs in his sleigh pulled by--of course!--eight hogs and brings gifts to all the boys and girls of Discworld.
But this year, there's a problem. A stranger has taken the place of the Hogfather. Well, not exactly a stranger. He's actually pretty well known. He carries a scythe along with his bag of toys, and he's going to SLEIGH everyone he sees tonight.
Ho ho ho.
Even the laugh is wrong. The switch has been arranged by the Auditors, mysterious superbeings who want our universe to be a collection of rocks swinging in curves through space. Life is messy. Why not get rid of it? And who better than--you know who?
Somebody has to rescue the real Hogfather before this morbid impostor tracks soot on the world's carpets. It's up to Ankh-Morpork's intellectual elite, the assembled wizards of Unseen University--with the help of a monster-bashing nanny, the world's worst inventor, plus a bona-fide, honest-to-god god (the oh god of hangovers, to be precise)--to come up with a plan to save the universe.
And they'd better hurry. The bogus Hogfather is asking the wrong questions. Like: How come rich kids get all the nice toys? How come the poor kids are left with the cheap stuff?
"That's life," he is told.
Which cuts no ice with Death. [via]
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Identityby Milan Kundera, Linda AsherISBN 0060930314 (0-06-093031-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Identity'Book summary:The reader sits down to dinner with Chantal, who is waiting for her lover, Jean-Marc, in a seaside hotel. While waiting to be served, she overhears two waitresses discuss the unexplained disappearance of a family man. This blatant foreshadowing posits the central question of Identity: what we think we know about our intimates is predicated on projection, primal yearnings, and the deep denial of life's impermanence. Identity reads like a musical exercise; its playing out of themes is reminiscent of a fugue. An image dropped into the narrative will be revisited from a different vantage point, tossed back and forth between the lovers; out of it will be teased every possible meaning. The 51 sparse, tiny chapters reinforce the fuguelike feel.
The plot is simple: Jean-Marc arrives at the hotel; Chantal is out walking. Near misses and mistaken identities characterize his frantic search for her, offering Kundera the opportunity to philosophize on the unknowability of the "other." They reunite; Chantal blurts out the distressing thought that's plagued her day: "Men don't turn to look at me anymore." This launches the protagonists into sketchy flashbacks, stilted dialogues, and interior monologues, all loosely bound by their embarkation on an erotic journey.
Key bits from the characters' pasts become signature refrains. Chantal, for example, has buried a son, who died at the age of 5. Strands such as this are dropped lightly in the narrative, to be pulled through later chapters like a needle with different colored threads. Later, for example, the boy's death will trigger her unpleasant realization--that it was, in the end, a "dreadful gift." Children, she thinks, keep us hopeful in the world, because "it's impossible to have a child and despise the world as it is; that's the world we've put the child into." Thus, her child's death has set her free to live out her genuine disdain of the world. Although the illogical extremes of Kundera's thought can be wildly dissonant and wondrously shocking, this reiterative device of Identity lacks energy. There's no sense of discovery about these characters. They remain flat; the style effects one like an Ingmar Bergman film when one is in the mood for Sam Peckinpah.
As if in serendipitous response to her pain in getting older, Chantal receives an anonymous "love" note. More notes follow. Will they prove Jean-Marc's attempt to sweeten her sad disclosure? Her sexual awakening begins to blur the boundaries of what's real. All well and good, but somewhere along the line, Kundera concludes that Chantal is weak because she's older. Age, we are asked to believe, becomes a wedge between the lovers, even though Chantal is only a few years older than Jean-Marc, who is himself only 42. And in the exploration of her sexuality on the wax and wane, Kundera succumbs to cliché: she is consumed too often by too many flames, and red is all used up as a symbol of violent passion. On the subject of male and female desire, Kundera is incomparably funny, and the novel sports some nervy images--masturbating fetuses; our human community joined in a sea of saliva; the ubiquity of spying eyes, harvesting information for profit; the human gaze itself, a marvel, jaggedly interrupted by the mechanical action of the blink. Kundera betrays a witty revulsion for the values and mores of the late 20th century.
But with sentences such as, "This is the real and the only reason for friendship: to provide a mirror so the other person can contemplate his image from the past, which, without the eternal blah-blah of memories between pals, would long ago have disappeared," the reading experience reduces to an annoyance. Perhaps this is the fault of the translator attempting a breezy, colloquial tone. But it's sloppy and careless. Still the novel's an entertainment, a good companion. Reading it is like passing an afternoon in a sidewalk café, catching up with an old friend, say, with whom one has shared youthful cynicism and diatribes against the ignominies of human behavior. One will look back on such an afternoon and remember too many Galloises smoked, too many cups of coffee, moments of intense engagement that fell, alas, into the indulgence of a "retro" ennui. [via]
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The Infinite Planby Isabel Allende, Margaret Sayers PedenISBN 0060924985 (0-06-092498-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Interesting Timesby Terry PratchettISBN 0061056901 (0-06-105690-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Interesting Times'Book summary:"May you live in interesting times." -- Ancient Curse
Another outrageously clever installment in the Discworld files, Interesting Times reminds the world why Terry Pratchett is considered the best fantasy and humor writer in the English speaking world.
When a carrier albatross arrives from the Counterweight Continent with an Urgent Request for a "Great Wizard," Rincewind is "volunteered." Along his absurdly delicious travels, he meets a colorful band of characters only Terry Pratchett could compile. Their mission is to either defend or destroy the Forbidden City of Hunghung. The instructions are not entirely clear.
In this international bestseller, the funniest writer in fantasy strikes again with a rollicking tale of murder and mayhem in Discworld.
"The funniest parodist working in the field today, period." -- The New York Review of Science Fiction [via]
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The Iron Lanceby Stephen LawheadISBN 0061051098 (0-06-105109-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Iron Lance'Book summary:Most of Stephen Lawhead's popular historical fantasies are part of one or another of his sagas, trilogies, or cycles. For readers who enjoy big galloping yarns set in distant lands, and don't mind having their hands held by the author every step of the way, the first volume of his new Christian trilogy should hit the spot.
The framing device begins at the end of the nineteenth century, in Edinburgh, where Gordon Murray is about to be inducted into an ancient brotherhood whose secret rites involve a sacred relic: the iron lance of the title. The main narrative is set in eleventh century Orkney. When Pope Urban II calls for the retaking of Jerusalem from the infidel, the local lord, Ranulf, joins the Crusade with his elder sons, leaving behind young Murdo to oversee the family holdings. When the Church, through a nefarious scheme, confiscates the house and holdings, Murdo has no choice but to follow the Crusaders to the Holy Land and bring his father home to fix the whole mess.
Lawhead paints a vast and exotic canvas of medieval world politics, then peoples it with colorful characters--cunning Byzantine rulers, bluff Norman knights, gap-toothed, shaggy-brained Saxon peasants--who encounter visions and miracles, brutality and ambition, love and justice. At the end of the main narrative, Murdo gets what he wants but not in the ways expected. The framing narrative ends with hints that, as the world lurches towards a new millennium, Gordon Murray's Christian secret society is the world's only hope for survival, and the time nears for the brotherhood to reveal itself. --Luc Duplessis [via]
Knight's Crossby David FraserISBN 0060925973 (0-06-092597-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883by Simon WinchesterISBN 006093736X (0-06-093736-X)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883'Book summary:In Krakatoa, the author of The Map That Changed the World and The Professor and the Madman focuses his considerable research powers on one of the most cataclysmic events of modern history: the volcanic eruption, in 1883, of the Southeast Asian island of Krakatoa, which resulted in the deaths of 36,000 people and sent shock-waves around the world. But what at the time was a mysterious, almost supernatural phenomenon has become, under the precepts of the contemporary science of plate tectonics, explicable if no less tragic. Winchester veers between eyewitness accounts by survivors and the limited scientific measurements of the time in an attempt to describe the indescribable. The event "is still said to be the most violent explosion ever recorded and experienced by modern man," he writes. "Six cubic miles of rock had been blasted out of existence, had been turned into pumice and ash and uncountable billions of particles of dust." Yet words and numbers can barely hint at the scale of the calamity, which resulted in tsunamis that washed whole villages into the ocean and forever changed the very topography of the area. The author also explores the social and cultural topography, noting, "Orthodox Islam, its revival in part triggered by tragic events such as the great cataclysm, was totally transformed in Java during the nineteenth century, with fundamentalism, militancy, and profound hostility to non-Muslims its watchwords." At times Winchester seems to overstate his case, and the link he finds between Krakatoa and the rise of anti-Western sentiment in the Islamic world isnt especially convincing. But, by weaving together the disaster with science, communications, politics, religion, and economics, he has come up with a comprehensive and often fascinating glimpse into the way the world, and our perception of it, can change in an instant. --Shawn Conner [via]
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The Last Continentby Terry PratchettISBN 0061059072 (0-06-105907-2)
Softcover, Harper Prism
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Last Continent'Book summary:Something is seriously amiss at Unseen University, Ankh-Morpork's most prestigious (i.e., only) institution of higher learning.
A professor is missing--and not just any professor. The Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography. Also the University Librarian, who transmuted (you know how things change!) into an ape (a handy configuration for a librarian, don't you think?) so long ago that no one exactly remembers his name, least of all himself.
But fear not, the search is on! The Lecturer in Recent Runes and the Chair of Indefinite Studies, as well as the Dean and the Archchancellor, will follow the trail wherever it leads--even to the other side of Discworld, where the Last Continent, Fourecks, is under construction.
Imagine a magical land as bald as a baby's bottom, where there are no trees; where rain is but a myth; where there are precious few animals (and few of them precious). You have just imagined Fourecks (EcksEcksEcksEcks) where even the ordinary is strange (the four legged duck, for example,) as though evolution is being hurried up with the intention of sorting things out as soon as possible.
Experience the terror as the University's bold would-be rescuers encounter the cowardly Wizard Rincewind, a Mad Dwarf armed with a crossbow, Death, Death of Rats, and even a Creator or two.
Feel the passion as the bizarre denizens of the Last Continent learn what happens when rain falls out of the sky and rivers actually fill with water. (It utterly spoils regattas, for one thing.)
Thrill to the promise of next year's regatta, in remote, rustic Didjabringabeeralong. It'll be absolutely gujeroo. [via]
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Laughable Lovesby Milan Kundera, Suzanne RappaportISBN 0060997036 (0-06-099703-6)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Laughable Loves'Book summary:Milan Kundera is a master of graceful illusion and illuminating surprise. In one of these stories a young man and his girlfriend pretend that she is a stranger he picked up on the road--only to become strangers to each other in reality as their game proceeds. In another a teacher fakes piety in order to seduce a devout girl, then jilts her and yearns for God. In yet another girls wait in bars, on beaches, and on station platforms for the same lover, a middle-aged Don Juan who has gone home to his wife. Games, fantasies, and schemes abound in all the stories while different characters react in varying ways to the sudden release of erotic impulses.
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Life Is Elsewhereby Milan Kundera, Aaron AsherISBN 0060997028 (0-06-099702-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Life Is Elsewhere'Book summary:The author initially intended to call this novel The Lyrical Age. The lyrical age, according to Kundera, is youth, and this novel, above all, is an epic of adolescence; an ironic epic that tenderly erodes sacrosanct values: childhood, motherhood, revolution, and even poetry. Jaromil is in fact a poet. His mother made him a poet and accompanies him (figuratively) to his love bed and (literally) to his deathbed. A ridiculous and touching character, horrifying and totally innocent ("innocence with its bloody smile"!), Jaromil is at the same time a true poet. He's no creep, he's Rimbaud. Rimbaud entrapped by the communist revolution, entrapped in a somber farce.
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The Lions Of Al-rassanby Guy Gavriel KayISBN 0061056219 (0-06-105621-9)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lions of Al-Rassan'Book summary:A sweeping epic of Renaissance Spain is culled from the legends of El Cid and follows a time of tumultous change, strife, heroism, political intrigue, war, and courtly delights. By the author of A Song for Arbonne. [via]
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Lords and Ladiesby Terry PratchettISBN 0061056928 (0-06-105692-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lords and Ladies'Book summary:Although they may feature witches and wizards, vampires and dwarves, along with the occasional odd human, Terry Pratchett's bestselling Discworld novels are grounded firmly in the modern world. Taking humorous aim at all our foibles, each novel reveals our true character and nature.
It's a dreamy midsummer's night in the Kingdom of Lancre. But music and romance aren't the only things filling the air. Magic and mischief are afoot, threatening to spoil the royal wedding of King Verence and his favorite witch, Magrat Garlick. Invaded by some Fairie Trash, soon it won't be only champagne that's flowing through the streets ...
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Madame Bovaryby Gustave FlaubertISBN 006095695X (0-06-095695-X)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Madame Bovary'Book summary:Emma Bovary has proved one of the most compelling heroines in modern literature. Unhappily married to a loyal but bumbling provincial doctor, she revolts against her boredom by pursuing unbridled passion. Inevitably, Emma's sensual desires lead to suffering, corruption and her eventual tragic downfall. [via]
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Maskeradeby Terry PratchettISBN 006105691X (0-06-105691-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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More Tales of the Cityby Armistead MaupinISBN 0060929383 (0-06-092938-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'More Tales of the City'Book summary:The tenants of 28 Barbary Lane have fled their cozy nest for adventures for afield. Mary Ann Singleton finds love at sea with a forgetful stranger, Mona Ramsey discovers her doppleganger in a desert whore-house, and Michael Tolliver bumps into a certain gynecologist in a seedy Mexican Bar. Meanwhile, their venerable landlady takes the biggest journey of all'without ever leaving home. A new, full color 16-page insert makes this seamless work complete.
"Maupin has always been a humane storyteller, and an accessible one. His life-is-good-but-sloppy soap operas are marked by solid craft, superb dialogue, and what used to be called heart."
--Entertainment Weekly"Maupin writes with warmth, acuity and tremendous wit about ordinary people learning to live with themselves and one another. Read him."
--Harpers & Queen"Sparkling entertainments...lit by a glowing humanity that brings each character to vivid, poignant life."
--Publishers WeeklyDon't miss the much anticipated continuation of the classic miniseries "Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City" premiering June 1998 and airing all summer on SHOWTIME. Check your local listings for times.
Visit the Tales of the City website at www.talesofthecity.com [via]
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The Mysteries Of Pittsburghby Michael ChabonISBN 0060972122 (0-06-097212-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh'Book summary:The acclaimed New York Times bestseller. [via]
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The Mystic Roseby Steve LawheadISBN 0061050318 (0-06-105031-8)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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The Night Listenerby Armistead MaupinISBN 006093090X (0-06-093090-X)
Softcover, Perennial
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Night Listener'Book summary:Many years ago, when the first volume of Tales of the City was going to press, Christopher Isherwood compared its author's narrative gifts to those of Charles Dickens. This has proven to be the blurb of a lifetime, an ever-renewable currency appearing on almost all of Armistead Maupin's subsequent books. Yet it has held up well--Dickens's gentle satire and broad good humor live on in Maupin more than in any other English-speaking writer. The Night Listener is his most ambitious work to date. While not strictly autobiographical, the story does teasingly suggest correspondences to the author's own life in a way that will delight and frustrate his many fans. The main character, Gabriel Noone, is a professional storyteller who broadcasts roughly autobiographical sketches for a long-running PBS series, "Noone at Night," stories about people "caught in the supreme joke of modern life who were forced to survive by making families of their friends." When the novel opens, Gabriel is still reeling from the announcement that his much younger, longtime partner Jess (a.k.a. Jamie in the "Noone at Night" stories, and a.k.a. Terry Anderson, Maupin's real-life, much-younger partner, for those who like to track associations) wants to move into his own apartment and start dating other men. With the success of his HIV cocktail, Jess has exceeded his own life expectancy. Having prepared himself so well to die, he now needs to learn how to live again. To Gabriel's distress, Jess's new life involves leather, multiple piercings, and books on men's drumming circles.
When an editor sends Gabriel yet another book to blurb, he reluctantly opens the package to find a long, rending memoir by Pete Lomax, an HIV-positive 13-year-old survivor of incest, rape, and sexual slavery. The book is called The Blacking Factory, after the miserable London bottling factory where Dickens spent part of his poverty-stricken childhood. As Gabriel reflects:
Pete thinks we all have a blacking factory, some awful moment, early on, when we surrender our childish hearts as surely as we lose our baby teeth. And the outcome can't be called. Some of us end up like Dickens; others like Jeffrey Dahmer. It's not a question of good or evil, Pete believes. Just the random brutality of the universe and our native ability to withstand it.
After Pete escaped from his parents and was adopted by a therapist named Donna Lomax, his slow recovery was helped along by his memoir-writing and by frequent doses of "Noone at Night."Touched by Pete's devotion to his stories, as well as the boy's obvious need for a father figure, Gabriel finds himself drawn into an intense relationship with his young fan, involving long, late-night phone calls that begin to worry Gabriel's friends. And, other than their mutual need, how much does he really know about Pete, anyway? As Gabriel begins to question his own motives, as well as those of the boy, The Night Listener transforms itself from an absorbing but quotidian story of loss and midlife angst into a dark and suspenseful page-turner with a playful metaphysical aspect and an un-Dickensian sexual candor. --Regina Marler [via]
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The Odyssey of Homerby Homer, Richmond LattimoreISBN 0060931957 (0-06-093195-7)
Softcover, Perennial
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Odyssey of Homer'Book summary:The most eloquent translation of Homer's Odyssey into modern English.
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Paulaby Isabel AllendeISBN 0060927208 (0-06-092720-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Paula'Book summary:"Listen, Paula. I am going to tell you a story so that when you wake up you will not feel so lost." So says Chilean writer Isabel Allende (The House of the Spirits) in the opening lines of the luminous, heart-rending memoir she wrote while her 28-year-old daughter Paula lay in a coma. In its pages, she ushers an assortment of outrageous relatives into the light: her stepfather, an amiable liar and tireless debater; grandmother Meme, blessed with second sight; and delinquent uncles who exultantly torment Allende and her brothers. Irony and marvelous flights of fantasy mix with the icy reality of Paula's deathly illness as Allende sketches childhood scenes in Chile and Lebanon; her uncle Salvatore Allende's reign and ruin as Chilean president; her struggles to shake off or find love; and her metamorphosis into a writer. [via]
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Penthesilea : A Tragic Dramaby Heinrich Von KleistISBN 0060956321 (0-06-095632-1)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Penthesilea : A Tragic Drama'Book summary:An army of Amazons sets out to conquer Greek heroes for the purpose of stocking their women's state with new female offspring. They blast into the midst of the Trojan War, confusing Greeks and Trojans alike and for a moment forcing those enemies into a terrified alliance. When Achilles, the pride and mainstay of the Greeks, and Penthesilea (Pen-te-sil-lay-uh), queen of the Amazons, meet, a chase begins,
The like of which not even the wildest storms
Set loose to thunder across the plain of heaven
Have yet presented to the astonished world,and it is the queen who is hunting Achilles, to the uncomprehending horror of the Greeks. Thus begins a tragedy of love in a world governed by the rules of war, on which "the gods look down but from afar."
For the first time, in this splendidly illustrated book, an English translation recreates the audaity, romance, and poetry of one of the strangest and most beautiful works of Western literature. [via]
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Perpetrators Victims Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe 1933-1945by Raul HilbergISBN 0060995076 (0-06-099507-6)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Portrait in Sepiaby Isabel Allende, Margaret Sayers PedenISBN 0060936363 (0-06-093636-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Portrait in Sepia'Book summary:Isabel Allende has established herself as one of the most consummate of all modern storytellers, a reputation that is confirmed in her novel Portrait in Sepia. Allende offers a compelling saga of the turbulent history, lives, and loves of late 19th-century Chile, drawing on characters from her earlier novels, The House of Spirits and Daughter of Fortune.
In typical Allende fashion, Portrait in Sepia is crammed with love, desire, tragedy, and dark family secrets, all played out against the dramatic backdrop of revolutionary Chile. Our heroine Aurora del Valle's mother is a Chilean-Chinese beauty, while her father is a dissolute scion of the wealthy and powerful del Valle family. At the heart of Aurora's slow, painful re-creation of her childhood towers one of Allende's greatest fictional creations, the heroine's grandmother, Paulina del Valle. An "astute, bewigged Amazon with a gluttonous appetite," Paulina holds both the del Valle family and Allende's novel together as she presides over Aurora's adolescence in a haze of pastries, taffeta, and overweening love.
One of the most interesting aspects of the novel is Allende's decision to turn her heroine into a photographer: "through photography and the written word I try desperately to conquer the transitory nature of my existence, to trap moments before they evanesce, to untangle the confusion of my past." There is little confusion in Allende's elegantly crafted and hugely enjoyable novel. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk [via]
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Pride and Prejudiceby Jane AustenISBN 0060933259 (0-06-093325-9)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Pride and Prejudice'Book summary:"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
Next to the exhortation at the beginning of Moby-Dick, "Call me Ishmael," the first sentence of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice must be among the most quoted in literature. And certainly what Melville did for whaling Austen does for marriage--tracing the intricacies (not to mention the economics) of 19th-century British mating rituals with a sure hand and an unblinking eye. As usual, Austen trains her sights on a country village and a few families--in this case, the Bennets, the Philips, and the Lucases. Into their midst comes Mr. Bingley, a single man of good fortune, and his friend, Mr. Darcy, who is even richer. Mrs. Bennet, who married above her station, sees their arrival as an opportunity to marry off at least one of her five daughters. Bingley is complaisant and easily charmed by the eldest Bennet girl, Jane; Darcy, however, is harder to please. Put off by Mrs. Bennet's vulgarity and the untoward behavior of the three younger daughters, he is unable to see the true worth of the older girls, Jane and Elizabeth. His excessive pride offends Lizzy, who is more than willing to believe the worst that other people have to say of him; when George Wickham, a soldier stationed in the village, does indeed have a discreditable tale to tell, his words fall on fertile ground.
Having set up the central misunderstanding of the novel, Austen then brings in her cast of fascinating secondary characters: Mr. Collins, the sycophantic clergyman who aspires to Lizzy's hand but settles for her best friend, Charlotte, instead; Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr. Darcy's insufferably snobbish aunt; and the Gardiners, Jane and Elizabeth's low-born but noble-hearted aunt and uncle. Some of Austen's best comedy comes from mixing and matching these representatives of different classes and economic strata, demonstrating the hypocrisy at the heart of so many social interactions. And though the novel is rife with romantic misunderstandings, rejected proposals, disastrous elopements, and a requisite happy ending for those who deserve one, Austen never gets so carried away with the romance that she loses sight of the hard economic realities of 19th-century matrimonial maneuvering. Good marriages for penniless girls such as the Bennets are hard to come by, and even Lizzy, who comes to sincerely value Mr. Darcy, remarks when asked when she first began to love him: "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." She may be joking, but there's more than a little truth to her sentiment, as well. Jane Austen considered Elizabeth Bennet "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print". Readers of Pride and Prejudice would be hard-pressed to disagree. --Alix Wilber [via]
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A Quiver Full of Arrowsby Jeffrey ArcherISBN 0061007153 (0-06-100715-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Shining Throughby Susan IsaacsISBN 0061030155 (0-06-103015-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Slownessby Milan Kundera, Linda AsherISBN 0060928417 (0-06-092841-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Slowness'Book summary:After the gravity of The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Immortality, Slowness comes as a surprise: it is certainly Kundera's lightest novel, a divertimento, with, as the author himself says, "not a single serious word in it."
Disconcerted and enchanted, the reader follows the narrator through a midsummer's night in which two tales of seduction, sperated by more than two-hundred years, interweave and oscillate between the sublime and the comic, finally culminating in poignant cross-century encounter sure to linger in the reader's mind
Despite Kundera's disclaimer about the novel's seriousness, Slowness resonates with a profound meditation on contemporary life, the secret bond between slowness and memory, the connection between our era's desire to forget and the way we have given ourselves over to the demon of speed. [via]
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Soul Musicby Terry PratchettISBN 0061054895 (0-06-105489-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Soul Music'Book summary:Soul Music is the 16th book in the bestselling Discworld series, with close ties to the fourth book, Mort. Susan Sto Helit is rather bored at her boarding school in the city of Ankh-Morpork, which is just as well, since it seems that her family business--she is the granddaughter of Death--suddenly needs a new caretaker. --Blaise Selby [via]
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Strong Poisonby Dorothy L. SayersISBN 0061043508 (0-06-104350-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Strong Poison'Book summary:Love and mystery surround Lord Peter Wimsey in this intriguing case of murder. It's up to him to solve the case - and save mystery novelist Harriet Vane. When her fiance dies exactly in the way described in one of her novels, she naturally becomes the chief suspect. Can Wimsey save her - and win her heart? [via]
The Struggleby L. J. SmithISBN 006102001X (0-06-102001-X)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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Tales of the Cityby Armistead MaupinISBN 0060964049 (0-06-096404-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tales of the City'Book summary:Since 1976, Maupin's Tales of the City has etched itself upon the hearts and minds of its readers, both straight and gay. From a groundbreaking newspaper serial in the San Francisco Chronicle to a bestselling novel to a critically acclaimed PBS series, Tales (all six of them) contains the universe--if not in a grain of sand, then in one apartment house. [via]
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To Cut a Long Story Shortby Jeffrey ArcherISBN 0061014990 (0-06-101499-0)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'To Cut a Long Story Short'Book summary:To Cut a Long Story Short reads like a series of modern fairy tales. In each story, Jeffrey Archer presents a moral problem, and a character finds himself tested in a dark hour. Evil manifests itself in the form of selfish relatives, corrupt cops, racist men. Good arrives in the form of unselfish minor characters who suddenly emerge as the real center of the story, or lost souls who come out the other side of corruption and renounce their old ways.
In "The Endgame" Cornelius Barrington decides to fake a bankruptcy. As one of the richest men in his small town, he hopes his sudden plunge into poverty will reveal the true character of his friends and relatives. He calls in debts, asks to borrow money from those he has lent to in the past, only to be turned away time and again.
After lunch Cornelius took a bus into town--a novel experience. It was some time before he located a bus stop, and then he discovered that the conductor didn't have change for a twenty pound note. His first call after he had been dropped off in the town centre was to the local estate agent, who didn't seem surprised to see him. Cornelius was delighted to find how quickly the rumour of his financial demise must be spreading.
"The Endgame" is a complex tale with a clear message. Not all the stories in To Cut a Long Story Short attempt such weightiness. "The Expert Witness" is a delightful parody of the legal system, a portrait of two pub mates--a lawyer and an expert witness--who often find themselves facing off in the courtroom, pretending not to know each other. Certain pieces (glimpses, vignettes) last a mere two pages, but whatever the length or weight of the story, throughout this collection Archer has a light touch, a quick wit, and a thorough understanding of the mechanics of suspense. --Emily White [via]More editions of To Cut a Long Story Short:
To Paint Her Life: Charlotte Salomon in the Nazi Eraby Mary Lowenthal FelstinerISBN 0060926287 (0-06-092628-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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A Tree Grows in Brooklynby Betty SmithISBN 006092988X (0-06-092988-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'Book summary:Francie Nolan, avid reader, penny-candy connoisseur, and adroit observer of human nature, has much to ponder in colorful, turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. She grows up with a sweet, tragic father, a severely realistic mother, and an aunt who gives her love too freely--to men, and to a brother who will always be the favored child. Francie learns early the meaning of hunger and the value of a penny. She is her father's child--romantic and hungry for beauty. But she is her mother's child, too--deeply practical and in constant need of truth. Like the Tree of Heaven that grows out of cement or through cellar gratings, resourceful Francie struggles against all odds to survive and thrive. Betty Smith's poignant, honest novel created a big stir when it was first published over 50 years ago. Her frank writing about life's squalor was alarming to some of the more genteel society, but the book's humor and pathos ensured its place in the realm of classics--and in the hearts of readers, young and old. (Ages 10 and older) --Emilie Coulter [via]
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Turbulent Mirror: An Illustrated Guide to Chaos Theory and the Science of Wholenessby John Briggs, F. David PeatISBN 0060916966 (0-06-091696-6)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Turbulent Mirror: An Illustrated Guide to Chaos Theory and the Science of Wholeness'Book summary:Until recently, such phenomena as the volatility of weather systems, the fluctuation of the shock market, or the random firing of neurons in the brain were considered too "noisy" and complex to be probed by science. But now, with the aid of high-speed computers, scientists have been able to penetrate a reality that is changing the way we perceive the universe. Their findings -- the basis for chaos theory -- represent one of the most exciting scientific pursuits of our time.
No better introduction to this find could be found than John Briggs and F. David Peat's Turbulent Mirror. Together, they explore the many faces of chaos and reveal how its law direct most of the processes of everyday life and how it appears that everything in the universe is interconnected -- discovering an "emerging science of wholeness."
Turbulent Mirror introduces us to the scientists involved in study this endlessly strange field; to the theories that are turning our perception of the world on its head; and to the discoveries in mathematics, biology, and physics that are heralding a revolution more profound than the one responsible for producing the atomic bomb. With practical applications ranging from the control of traffic flow and the development of artifical intelligence to the treatment of heart attacks and schizophrenia, chaos promises to be an increasingly rewarding area of inquiry -- of interest to everyone.
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Understanding Comicsby Scott McCloudISBN 006097625X (0-06-097625-X)
Softcover, Kitchen Sink Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Understanding Comics'Book summary:As all good card-carrying comic-book fans know, their sheer passion will never overcome narrow-minded critics and their baying cries of derision. There is far more to this perpetually underrated medium than a mix of art and prose. With this indispensable, spellbinding tome, writer/artist Scott McCloud rises to the challenge of dissecting what remains the most enigmatic of art forms. After all, says McCloud, "No other art form gives so much to its audience while asking so much from them as well". Over the course of 215 impeccably formed pages, McCloud joyously exposes and deconstructs a hidden world of icons in a most literate and valid manner. His charming guidance finds a place where Time and Space is effortlessly malleable and the reader is both a willing accomplice and necessary vessel for comics' singular magic. Cunningly presented in comic form, McCloud (or his comic equivalent) conducts a journey that spans thousands of years, taking in art from Prehistoric Man to the Egyptians to Van Gogh to Jack Kirby. Never has psychological and cultural analysis been so understandably clear, beautifully aided by clever visuals and his truly infectious love for the medium. By the end of this funny, charming, rare and exciting book, you'll not doubt the notion that a comic book "...is a vacuum into which our identity and awareness are pulled ... an empty shell that we inhabit which enables us to travel to another realm". A fine exchange for a little faith and a world of imagination. --Danny Graydon [via]
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Valentine Pontifexby Robert SilverbergISBN 0061054860 (0-06-105486-0)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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When Nietzsche Wept/a Novel of Obsessionby Irvin D. YalomISBN 0060975504 (0-06-097550-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'When Nietzsche Wept/a Novel of Obsession'Book summary:A richly evocative novel that portrays an astutely imagined relationship between Europe's greatest philosopher and one of the founding fathers of psychoanalysis. [via]
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Whirlwindby Charles L. GrantISBN 0061054151 (0-06-105415-1)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Languageby Steven PinkerISBN 0060958405 (0-06-095840-5)
Softcover, Perennial
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language'Book summary:At least until very recently, the human brain was a black box. The only way we could see how it worked, was to look at how people acted--and listen to what they said.
Steven Pinker has a very good ear. You know it instantly from his prose: elegant, accessible and very witty indeed. In Words and Rules,Pinker picks apart our language to reveal profound truths about how we think.
Do we deduce rules from the world around us and behave rationally? Or do we free-associate, discovering the world through experience and creative analogy? The obvious answer is "both". But proof of the obvious answer has long eluded philosophers of mind. Pinker, though, believes he has found it--in the English past tense.
English verbs come in two flavours. Regular verbs have past tense forms that look like the present-tense verb with -ed on the end. Today I walk,yesterday I walked. The second kind of English verb is irregular. Irregular pasts follow no rules. Today I buy, but yesterday Ibought. Today I hold, yesterday I held.
The way children distinguish between these different sorts of verbs as they learn to talk suggests they learn both by rule and by association. Proving it is Pinker's task--and it's a bravura performance.
It takes nothing away from that other recent lit-hit, Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue, to say that Pinker's book achieves an altogether deeper level of profundity. It says much for Pinker that in doing so, he can still match Bryson for wit and readability. --Simon Ings [via]
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Wyrd Sistersby Terry PratchettISBN 0061020664 (0-06-102066-4)
Softcover, Harper Prism
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Wyrd Sisters'Book summary:Terry's Pratchett's profoundly irreverent novels are consistent number one bestsellers in England, where they have catapulted him into the highest echelons of parody next to Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen.
Meet Granny Weatherwx, the most highly regarded non-leader a coven of non-social witches could ever have. Generally, these loners don't get involved in anything, mush less royal intrigue. but then there are those times they can't help it. As Granny Weatherwzx is about to discover, though, it's a lot harder to stir up trouble in the castle than some theatrical types would have you think. Even when you've got a few unexpected spells up your sleave.
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Cuentos De Eva Luna/the Stories of Eva Lunaby Isabel AllendeISBN 0060951311 (0-06-095131-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cuentos De Eva Luna/the Stories of Eva Luna'Book summary:Eva Luna -- amante, revolucionaria, narradora -- reclinada en la cama con su amante, le cuenta una historia "que nunca ha contado antes a nadie," en veintitres vivdos y fascinantes relatos sobre guerrilleros y nigromantes, seductores y tiranos, diplomáticos y acróbatas. En esta estupenda colección de cuentos, Isabel Allende continúa la magia de su muy elogiada novela Eva Luna. [via]
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De Amor Y De Sombra / Of Love and Shadowsby Isabel AllendeISBN 006095129X (0-06-095129-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'De Amor Y De Sombra / Of Love and Shadows'Book summary:Desarrollada en un país latinamericano sin nombre que vive bajo el dominio de una dictadura militar, la segunda, hipnotizante, novela de Allende cuenta la historia de una mujer y un hombre que están destinados, bajo las circunstancias más espeluzantes, a compartir un amor excepcional. Irene Beltrán es fruto de la clase alta, una bien intencionada, aunque algo ingenua, reportera en una revista para mujeres. Francisco Leal, hijo de exiliados españoles, es un fotógrafo partidario de la resistencia clandestina. Durante el curso de un trabajo rutinario, esta pareja descubre, literalmente, un crimen que resulta en desafío -- y provocación -- al terrorismo oficial del gobierno, y que también pone en grave peligro sus vidas.
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El Plan Infinito / The Infinite Planby Isabel AllendeISBN 0060951273 (0-06-095127-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Plan Infinito / The Infinite Plan'Book summary:El Plan Infinito, de la celebrada escritora latinoamericana Isabel Allende, es su primera novela situada en los Estados Unidos y con personajes nortemamericanos. Es la hipnozitizante y conmovedora saga de un hombre que, durante los largos años de su juventud y madurez, busca amor y aceptación. Allende traza la pobreza y abandono de la niñez de su protagonista, la persecuzion de las pandillas de un barrio de Los Angeles,el horror de sus experiencias en Vietnam, su vida frenética como abagodo en San Francisco---una serie de frustraciones que por fin se resuelven en acogida y redención.
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Retrato En Sepiaby Isabel AllendeISBN 0060936355 (0-06-093635-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Retrato En Sepia'Book summary:A finales del siglo XIX en Chile, Aurora del Valle sufre de un trauma brutal que borra de su mente los primeros cinco años de su vida. Criada por su ambiciosa abuela, Paulina del Valle, crece en un ambiente privilegiado, pero se ve atormentada por horribles pesadillas. Cuando debe afrontar la traición del hombre que ama, y la soledad, decide explorar el misterio de su pasado.
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