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› Find signed collectible books: 'Adultery & Other Choices'
This second book of short stories by Andre Dubus established him as a master of the genre in the lineage of Hemingway and Chekhov, even as its gritty truths and spiritual attentiveness served to set his voice apart. The opening stories focus on the fragile nature of youth, exemplified in struggles with a father, a friend, an enemy, and obesity. In part two, Dubus contends with more adult forms of discipline: the military, the police, and fate and then leaves us with the most wrenchingof all emotional challenges in the final novella, "Adultery." Poignant as parables, alive as fiction, and compelling as pure narrative, these familiar stories never fail to entertain while, at the same time, leaving the reader breathless with the immediacy and depth of real life in real America. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Amorous Initiation'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Beloved'
Set in post-Civil War Ohio, this is the story of Sethe, an escaped slave who has risked death in order to wrench herself from a living death; who has lost a husband and buried a child; who has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Black Book'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Black Swan'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Book of Fantasy'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Book of Nights'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Breathing Lessons'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Captain Blood'
More exciting than the Errol Flynn movie! "Captain Blood" is a classic swashbuckler -- filled with swordplay and adventure. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Checkmate'
The grand finale to Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles, "Checkmate" finds Francis Crawford returning to France to lead an army against England. But even as the soldier-scholar succeeds brilliantly on the battlefield, his haunted past becomes a subject of intense interest to forces in both the French and English courts. "Checkmate" is a masterly evocation of the intrigue and pageantry of sixteenth-century Europe--and a triumphant conclusion to the Lymond saga. 1 map. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Child of the Morning'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Child's Christmas in Wales'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Complete Short Stories of Saki'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Crock of Gold'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Death of a Salesman'
FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. An unsuccessful traveling salesman in his early 60s finally confronts his shattered dreams. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Devils of Loudun'
In 1634 Urbain Grandier, a handsome and successful seducer of women and priest of the parish of Loudun, was tried, tortured and burnt at the stake. He had been found guilty of being in league with the devil and seducing an entire convent of nuns in what was the most sensational case of mass possession and sexual hysteria in history. Grandier maintained his innocence to the end and four years after his death the nuns were still being subjected to exorcisms to free them from their demonic bondage. Huxley's vivid account of this bizarre tale of religious and sexual obsession transforms our understanding of the medieval world. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Disorderly Knights'
The third volume in The Lymond Chronicles, the highly renowned series of historical novels by Dorothy Dunnett, Disorderly Knights takes place in 1551, when Francis Crawford of Lymond is dispatched to embattled Malta, to assist the Knights of Hospitallers in defending the island against the Turks. But shortly the swordsman and scholar discovers that the greatest threat to the Knights lies within their own ranks, where various factions vie secretly for master. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Doctor Copernicus'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dune: La Batalla De Corrin'
This Hugo and Nebula Award winner tells the sweeping tale of a desert planet called Arrakis, the focus of an intricate power struggle in a byzantine interstellar empire. Arrakis is the sole source of Melange, the "spice of spices." Melange is necessary for interstellar travel and grants psychic powers and longevity, so whoever controls it wields great influence.
The troubles begin when stewardship of Arrakis is transferred by the Emperor from the Harkonnen Noble House to House Atreides. The Harkonnens don't want to give up their privilege, though, and through sabotage and treachery they cast young Duke Paul Atreides out into the planet's harsh environment to die. There he falls in with the Fremen, a tribe of desert dwellers who become the basis of the army with which he will reclaim what's rightfully his. Paul Atreides, though, is far more than just a usurped duke. He might be the end product of a very long-term genetic experiment designed to breed a super human; he might be a messiah. His struggle is at the center of a nexus of powerful people and events, and the repercussions will be felt throughout the Imperium.
Dune is one of the most famous science fiction novels ever written, and deservedly so. The setting is elaborate and ornate, the plot labyrinthine, the adventures exciting. Five sequels follow. --Brooks Peck [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Emily Davis'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Fairacre Festival'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Farther Afield'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fevers and Chills'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Finding a Girl in America'
In his third Godine collection, the author of Separate Flights (1975) and Adultery & Other Choices (1977) deepens his hold on our attention. His people, the ones we see everyday but hardly know, deliver those recurrent shocks of recognition that are the mark of a seasoned storyteller. His largely coastal New England world more and more feels like a permanent part of the modern literary landscape.
The novella, 'Finding a Girl in America,' continues the life of Hank Allison, a central character in Dubus' earlier long tales, 'We Don't Live Here Anymore' and 'Adultery.' Hank is a man haunted by his failures as a husband, his concern for his daughter, and his need for a new marriage that can survive his obsessive writer's absorption with himself.
Other stories including 'Killings,' a swift and wholly successful tale of revenge; 'Townies,' about a young man whose affair with an undergraduate girl ends in deadly fury; 'At Saint Croix,' the story of a man and woman, both divorced, whose Caribbean spring vacation fails to exorcise his ghosts; 'The Pitcher,' where a baseball player can manage his arm but not his wife; and 'The Winter Father,' a story of overwhelming tenderness dealing with a divorced father and his weekend attempts to re-establish contact with his two children.
Subtle and haunting, Dubus concentrates his Chekhovian and utterly American attention on the residual anguish and momentary elation of deep attachments. Nothing in current American writing seems more genuine that this increasingly celebrated writer's rueful and chastened fictions. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Five Women'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Fixer'
A classic that won Malamud both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award
"The Fixer (1966) is Bernard Malamud's best-known and most acclaimed novel -- one that makes manifest his roots in Russian fiction, especially that of Isaac Babel.
Set in Kiev in 1911 during a period of heightened anti-Semitism, the novel tells the story of Yakov Bok, a Jewish handyman blamed for the brutal murder of a young Russian boy. Bok leaves his village to try his luck in Kiev, and after denying his Jewish identity, finds himself working for a member of the anti-Semitic Black Hundreds Society. When the boy is found nearly drained of blood in a cave, the Black Hundreds accuse the Jews of ritual murder. Arrested and imprisoned, Bok refuses to confess to a crime that he did not commit.
[via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Four Adventures of Richard Hannay'

› Find signed collectible books: 'Fresh from the Country'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Game of Kings'
Praised for her historical fiction by critics and devoted fans alike, author Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles took the romance world by storm some 30 years ago, firmly fixing Dunnett's reputation as a master of the historical romance. The Game of Kings, the first story in The Lymond Chronicles, sets the stage for what will be a sweeping saga filled with passion, courage, and the endless fight for freedom. The setting is 1547, in Edinborough, Scotland. Francis Crawford of Lymond returns to the country despite the charge of treason hanging over his head. Set on redeeming his reputation, He leads a company of outlaws against England as he fights for the country he loves so dearly. Dangerous, quick-witted, and utterly irresistible, Lymond is pure pleasure to watch as he traverses 16th-century Scotland in search of freedom. The Game of Kings is a must-have for the historical romance connoisseur. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Good Bones'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Green Man'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Grimus'
› Find signed collectible books: 'Haunting of Hill House'
Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has unnerved readers since its original publication in 1959. A tale of subtle, psychological terror, it has earned its place as one of the significant haunted house stories of the ages.
Eleanor Vance has always been a loner--shy, vulnerable, and bitterly resentful of the 11 years she lost while nursing her dying mother. "She had spent so long alone, with no one to love, that it was difficult for her to talk, even casually, to another person without self-consciousness and an awkward inability to find words." Eleanor has always sensed that one day something big would happen, and one day it does. She receives an unusual invitation from Dr. John Montague, a man fascinated by "supernatural manifestations." He organizes a ghost watch, inviting people who have been touched by otherworldly events. A paranormal incident from Eleanor's childhood qualifies her to be a part of Montague's bizarre study--along with headstrong Theodora, his assistant, and Luke, a well-to-do aristocrat. They meet at Hill House--a notorious estate in New England.
Hill House is a foreboding structure of towers, buttresses, Gothic spires, gargoyles, strange angles, and rooms within rooms--a place "without kindness, never meant to be lived in...."
Although Eleanor's initial reaction is to flee, the house has a mesmerizing effect, and she begins to feel a strange kind of bliss that entices her to stay. Eleanor is a magnet for the supernatural--she hears deathly wails, feels terrible chills, and sees ghostly apparitions. Once again she feels isolated and alone--neither Theo nor Luke attract so much eerie company. But the physical horror of Hill House is always subtle; more disturbing is the emotional torment Eleanor endures. Intense, literary, and harrowing, The Haunting of Hill House belongs in the same dark league as Henry James's classic ghost story, The Turn of the Screw. --Naomi Gesinger [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'High Rise'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Honeymoon'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Horse's Mouth'
Joyce Cary wrote two trilogies, or triptychs as he later preferred to call them. The first comprises: Herself Surprised, To Be a Pilgrim and The Horse's Mouth. The Horse's Mouth is a portrait of an artistic temperament. Its principal character, Gulley Gimson, is an impoverished painter who scorns conventional good behaviour. He may be a bad citizen, but he is a good artist, so wholly preoccupied with his art that he is willing to endure any privation for its sake. Such is his contempt for orthodox mores, he takes a delight in cocking a snook at them. For him there is only one morality: to be a painter. 'Mr Joyce Cary is an important and exciting writer; there's no doubt about that. To use Tennyson's phrase, he is a Lord of Language ... if you like rich writing full of gusto and accurate original character drawing, you will get it from The Horse's Mouth.' John Betjeman, Daily Herald [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'In the Heart of the Heart of the Country & Other Stories'
IN THIS SUITE of five short pieces -- one of the unqualified literary masterpieces of the American 1960s -- William Gass finds five beautiful forms in which to explore the signature theme of his fiction: the solitary souls poignant, conflicted, and doomed pursuit of love and community. In their obsessions, Gasss Midwestern dreamers are like the "grotesques" of Sherwood Anderson, but in their hyper-linguistic streams of consciousness, they are the match for Joyces Dubliners.
First published in 1968, this book begins with a beguiling thirty-three page essay and has five fictions: the celebrated novella "The Pedersen Kid," "Mrs. Mean," "Icicles," "Order of Insects," and the title story. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Intimates'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Jane Eyre'
"Jane Eyre," Charlotte Brontë's most beloved novel, describes the passionate love between the courageous orphan Jane Eyre and the brilliant, brooding, and domineering Rochester. The loneliness and cruelty of Jane Eyre's childhood strengthens her natural independence and spirit, which prove invaluable when she takes a position as a governess at Thornfield Hall. But after she falls in love with her sardonic employer, her discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a heart-wrenching choice. Ever since its publication in 1847, "Jane Eyre" has enthralled every kind of reader, from the most critical and cultivated to the youngest and most unabashedly romantic. "Jane Eyre" lives as one of the great triumphs of storytelling and as a moving and unforgettable portrayal of a woman's quest for self-respect. "At the end we are steeped through and through with the genius, the vehemence, the indignation of Charlotte Brontë." -Virginia Woolf [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Just So Stories'
› Find signed collectible books: 'Kepler'
'Superbly illuminates the man, the time, and the everlasting quest for knowledge' - "Observer". Johannes Kepler, born in 1571 in south Germany, was one of the world's greatest mathematicians and astronomers. This novel brilliantly recreates his life and his incredible drive to chart the orbits of the planets and the geometry of the universe while being driven from exile to exile by religious and domestic strife. At the same time it illuminates the harsh realities of the Renaissance world; rich in imaginative daring but rooted in poverty, squalor and the tyrannical power of emperors. 'Narrative art at a positively symphonic level' - "Guardian". 'One knows one is in the presence of a writer extraordinary. Wearing his vast research lightly, Mr Banville not only summons Kepler and his company of vivid souls but leads us into the small dark rooms' - "Sunday Telegraph". 'This very distinguished novel ...is done with very considerable skill; it suggests that this is what such a life must indeed have been like and the result is a wonderfully human figure, rife with feelings, principles, regrets and courage' - "Sunday Times". 'An outstandingly good novel ...a novel that dramatizes and celebrates intellectual passion. Which makes it a very rare novel indeed' - "Irish Press". [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'LA Chute'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'
Perhaps the most famous of Lawrence's novels, the 1928 Lady Chatterley's Lover is no longer distinguished for the once-shockingly explicit treatment of its subject matter--the adulterous affair between a sexually unfulfilled upper-class married woman and the game keeper who works for the estate owned by her wheelchaired husband. Now that we're used to reading about sex, and seeing it in the movies, it's apparent that the novel is memorable for better reasons: namely, that Lawrence was a masterful and lyrical writer, whose story takes us bodily into the world of its characters. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Letters of Evelyn Waugh'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Life'
Set in a Paris apartment block, this novel describes in minute detail the lives of the inhabitants and the apartments they inhabit at a specific moment in time. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Little World of Don Camillo'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lost Horizon'
Lost Horizon is a novel by English writer James Hilton. It is best remembered as the origin of Shangri-La, a fictional utopian lamasery high in the mountains of Tibet. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Master I Margarita'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Meet Mr. Mulliner'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Miss Clare Remembers'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'New Olympia Reader'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'News from Thrush Green'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Newton Letter'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Niccolo Rising'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Nightcharmer: And Other Tales of Claude Seignolle'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'No Holly for Miss Quinn'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Obscene Bird of Night'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Over the Gate'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Passage to India: Library Edition'
What really happened in the Marabar caves? This is the mystery at the heart of E.M. Forster's 1924 novel, A Passage to India, the puzzle that sets in motion events highlighting an even larger question: Can an Englishman and an Indian be friends?
"It is impossible here," an Indian character tells his friend, Dr. Aziz, early in the novel.
"They come out intending to be gentlemen, and are told it will not do.... Why, I remember when Turton came out first. It was in another part of the Province. You fellows will not believe me, but I have driven with Turton in his carriage--Turton! Oh yes, we were once quite intimate. He has shown me his stamp collection.Written while England was still firmly in control of India, Forster's novel follows the fortunes of three English newcomers to India--Miss Adela Quested, Mrs. Moore, and Cyril Fielding--and the Indian, Dr. Aziz, with whom they cross destinies. The idea of true friendship between the races was a radical one in Forster's time, and he makes it abundantly clear that it was not one that either side welcomed. If Aziz's friend, Hamidullah, believed it impossible, the British representatives of the Raj were equally discouraging."He would expect you to steal it now. Turton! But red-nosed boy will be far worse than Turton!
"I do not think so. They all become exactly the same, not worse, not better. I give any Englishman two years, be he Turton or Burton. It is only the difference of a letter. And I give any Englishwoman six months. All are exactly alike."
"Why, the kindest thing one can do to a native is to let him die," said Mrs. Callendar.Despite their countrymen's disapproval, Miss Quested, Mrs. Moore, and Mr. Fielding are all eager to meet Indians, and in Dr. Aziz they find a perfect companion: educated, westernized, and open-minded. Slowly, the friendships ripen, especially between Aziz and Fielding. Having created the possibility of esteem based on trust and mutual affection, Forster then subjects it to the crucible of racial hatred: during a visit to the famed Marabar caves, Miss Quested accuses Dr. Aziz of sexually assaulting her, then later recants during the frenzied trial that follows. Under such circumstances, affection proves to be a very fragile commodity indeed.
"How if he went to heaven?" asked Mrs. Moore, with a gentle but crooked smile.
"He can go where he likes as long as he doesn't come near me. They give me the creeps."
Arguably Forster's greatest novel, A Passage to India limns a troubling portrait of colonialism at its worst, and is remarkable for the complexity of its characters. Here the personal becomes the political and in the breach between Aziz and his English "friends," Forster foreshadows the eventual end of the Raj. --Alix Wilber [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Pawn in Frankincense'
The fourth title in the LYMOND CHRONICLES series, originally published in 1969. Set in 1552, Frances Crawford is searching for his son, who has been hidden somewhere in slavery. While he searches, his enemy waits with an elaborate plan of humiliation and violence. Follows THE GAME OF KINGS, QUEEN'S PLAY and THE DISORDERLY KNIGHTS. [via]
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![[???]: Pearl Medieval Text & Notes [???]: Pearl Medieval Text & Notes](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0882950037.01._SL160_SCLZZZZZZZ__.jpg)
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Queen's Play'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ringed Castle'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Scaramouche'
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Screwtape Letters'
This adaptation of C.S. Lewis's biting satire received a 1999 Grammy nomination for best spoken-word performance, and it's easy to see why--the story fits the format perfectly. It's relatively brief (the unabridged reading takes a mere four hours), and contains only one character--the demon Screwtape, who writes letters to his novice nephew Wormwood, instructing him on how to best tempt his "patient" (a wayward soul on earth) into the bosom of "our Lord below."
Obviously, the book wasn't written with former Monty Python John Cleese in mind, but it's hard to imagine a better Screwtape. Cleese's voice provides the perfect vehicle for Lewis's dry, razor-edged wit. His uncanny comic timing and ability to milk each phrase for maximum effect betray an infectious enthusiasm for the story. It's clear that he's having a great time reading, and it's impossible not to laugh along with him. This inspired pairing of two of the 20th century's greatest wits makes for a meditation on the dark side of spiritual guidance that's as relevant and funny today as it was in Lewis's war-torn England. (Running time: 4 hours, 3 cassettes) --Andrew Neiland [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Sea-Hawk'
An English gentleman from the Cornish coast becomes a Barbary corsair. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Siddhartha'
A young Indian mystic, a contemporary of Buddha, sacrifices everything to search for the true meaning of life. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Sporting With Amaryllis'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Tartar Steppe'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Thrush Green'

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Venetian Glass Nephew'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Virginie'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The War of the Worlds'
This is the granddaddy of all alien invasion stories, first published by H.G. Wells in 1898. The novel begins ominously, as the lone voice of a narrator tells readers that "No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's..."
Things then progress from a series of seemingly mundane reports about odd atmospheric disturbances taking place on Mars to the arrival of Martians just outside of London. At first the Martians seem laughable, hardly able to move in Earth's comparatively heavy gravity even enough to raise themselves out of the pit created when their spaceship landed. But soon the Martians reveal their true nature as death machines 100-feet tall rise up from the pit and begin laying waste to the surrounding land. Wells quickly moves the story from the countryside to the evacuation of London itself and the loss of all hope as England's military suffers defeat after defeat. With horror his narrator describes how the Martians suck the blood from living humans for sustenance, and how it's clear that man is not being conquered so much a corralled. --Craig E. Engler [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Waste Land and Other Poems'
After sitting through T.S. Eliot's reading of "The Waste Land," listeners may be inclined to hang up the earphones for a spell. There are no flaws to Eliot's steady-toned interpretation; in fact, his delivery is quite remarkable in its ability to match the poem's constant, somber mood. It's just that 25-plus minutes of Eliot's desolate landscapes--rendered even more real by the author's incessant tones--can wear on the emotions.
In addition to the full-length version of "The Waste Land," this recording includes Eliot's stirring narration of "The Hollow Men," "Sweeney Among the Nightingales," and "Macavity the Mystery Cat." Listen to Eliot read from "The Waste Land." Visit our audio help page for more information. (Running time: 47 minutes, 1 cassette) --Rob McDonald [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle'
Visitors call seldom at Blackwood House. Taking tea at the scene of a multiple poisoning, with a suspected murderess as one's host, is a perilous business. For a start, the talk tends to turn to arsenic. "It happened in this very room, and we still have our dinner in here every night," explains Uncle Julian, continually rehearsing the details of the fatal family meal. "My sister made these this morning," says Merricat, politely proffering a plate of rum cakes, fresh from the poisoner's kitchen. We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson's 1962 novel, is full of a macabre and sinister humor, and Merricat herself, its amiable narrator, is one of the great unhinged heroines of literature. "What place would be better for us than this?" she asks, of the neat, secluded realm she shares with her uncle and with her beloved older sister, Constance. "Who wants us, outside? The world is full of terrible people." Merricat has developed an idiosyncratic system of rules and protective magic, burying talismanic objects beneath the family estate, nailing them to trees, ritually revisiting them. She has made "a powerful taut web which never loosened, but held fast to guard us" against the distrust and hostility of neighboring villagers.
Or so she believes. But at last the magic fails. A stranger arrives--cousin Charles, with his eye on the Blackwood fortune. He disturbs the sisters' careful habits, installing himself at the head of the family table, unearthing Merricat's treasures, talking privately to Constance about "normal lives" and "boy friends." Unable to drive him away by either polite or occult means, Merricat adopts more desperate methods. The result is crisis and tragedy, the revelation of a terrible secret, the convergence of the villagers upon the house, and a spectacular unleashing of collective spite.
The sisters are propelled further into seclusion and solipsism, abandoning "time and the orderly pattern of our old days" in favor of an ever-narrowing circuit of ritual and shadow. They have themselves become talismans, to be alternately demonized and propitiated, darkly, with gifts. Jackson's novel emerges less as a study in eccentricity and more--like some of her other fictions--as a powerful critique of the anxious, ruthless processes involved in the maintenance of normality itself. "Poor strangers," says Merricat contentedly at last, studying trespassers from the darkness behind the barricaded Blackwood windows. "They have so much to be afraid of." --Sarah Waters [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Winter in Thrush Green'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Within Heaven's Gates'
Rebecca Springer shares the wonders and joys of her glorious vision of heaven as she offers hope for the future of mankind. Through this uplifting book, get a glimpse of the eternal home that awaits believers as well as inspiration to continue in your spiritual walk. Come venture Within Heaven's Gates! [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Wodehouse on Crime'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The World Within the Word: Essays'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Wyvern'
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