Download or read book Commonwealth written by Ann Patchett and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Exquisite. . .Commonwealth is impossible to put down.” — New York Times #1 New York Times Bestseller | NBCC Award Finalist | New York Times Best Book of the Year | USA Today Best Book | TIME Magazine Top 10 Selection | Oprah Favorite Book | New York Magazine Best Book of The Year The acclaimed, bestselling author—winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize—tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families’ lives. One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother, Beverly—thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families. Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them. When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another. Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.

Download or read book Commonwealth written by Ann Patchett and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly--thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families --

Download or read book Commonwealth written by Ann Patchett and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-09-08 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Dazzling ... life-affirming and compulsively readable' Sunday Times 'Patchett blends wisdom and humanity jointly with the icy forensic gaze of someone not afraid to expose the frailties of human behaviour ... Read it' Jojo Moyes 'An outstanding novel ... a master of her art' Observer It is 1964: Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited and notices a heart stoppingly beautiful woman. When he kisses Beverly Keating, his host's wife, he sets in motion the joining of two families, whose shared fate will be defined on a day seven years later. In 1988, Franny Keating, now twenty-four, is working as a cocktail waitress in Chicago. When she meets the famous author Leon Posen one night at the bar, and tells him about her family, she unwittingly relinquishes control over their story...

Download or read book Commonwealth Novel in English written by and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Rise Decline and Future of the British Commonwealth written by K. Srinivasan and published by Springer. This book was released on 2005-11-07 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by a senior Indian diplomat who has until recently also served as Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General, this book provides a unique and far-reaching exploration of the British Commonwealth, and its impact since the second World War on the process of Britain adjusting to a world without Empire. Whither the Commonwealth now? What is its record of achievement; what are the benefits of membership to countries in terms of collective political influence, trade, investment, aid, travel and education? Can any practical good be envisaged for this nearly moribund post-colonial organization? Britain, which brought the association into being and is central to it, would have to play a key part in determining its future. But in coming to such decisions, the British Government faces great problems of perception, both from the Monarchy and the British public.

Download or read book Commonwealth written by Joey Goebel and published by MacAdam/Cage Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Somewhere in the middle of America dwells Blue Gene Mapother, a mullet-headed patriot who staunchly supports the American war effort without question. Besides his patriotism, little enlivens Blue Gene except for pro wrestling, cigarettes, and any instance in which he thinks his masculinity is at stake. Nothing out of the ordinary there-except that he hails from the eleventh wealthiest family in the country." "Long estranged from the rest of the Mapothers, Blue Gene is called back into the fold after his mother, a fanatical Christian socialite, has a dream in which she sees her oldest son, the handsome but anxious John Hurstbourne Mapother, becoming an apocalyptic world savior - or, in this case, a United States congressman. Asked to add a little common man credibility to his brother's campaign, Blue Gene is happy to help - that is, until a charming, politically-savvy, punk rock girl encourages him to really ponder, for the first time in his life, why his family's interests don't always line up with his own." "With his trademark combination of searing wit and genuine sentiment, Joey Goebel's Commonwealth captures the many faces of Middle America-from flea markets to mansions to gigantic Wal-Marts-and lays bare the bizarre relationship between the"high"and "low" classes of our (sometimes) great nation."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book The Secret Commonwealth of Elves Fauns and Fairies written by Robert Kirk and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2007 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Secret Commonwealth is a guide to fairies, doppelgängers, wraiths, and other beings that its author Robert Kirk, an unusually inquisitive seventeenth-century Scottish minister, identifies as being ?of a middle nature betwixt man and angel.? Circulated in manuscript by its author, whose religious and scientific interests drew him at some genuine personal risk to investigate the hidden realities of the spiritual world, this short work was first published by Sir Walter Scott and then again in the late nineteenth century in an edition prepared by the famous collector of fairy tales, Andrew Lang, and dedicated to Robert Louis Stevenson. Nonetheless, Kirk’s work, which is a fine example of English prose, an important document in the history of ideas, and an enchanting introduction to fairy lore has remained a rarity"--Publisher description.

Download or read book The Book of Dust The Secret Commonwealth Book of Dust Volume 2 written by Philip Pullman and published by Knopf Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2019-10-03 with total page 658 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The #1 New York Times Bestseller! Return to the world of His Dark Materials—now an HBO original series starring Dafne Keen, Ruth Wilson, Andrew Scott, and Lin-Manuel Miranda—in the second volume of Philip Pullman’s new bestselling masterwork The Book of Dust. The windows between the many worlds have been sealed and the momentous adventures of Lyra Silvertongue’s youth are long behind her—or so she thought. Lyra is now a twenty-year-old undergraduate at St. Sophia’s College and intrigue is swirling around her once more. Her daemon Pantalaimon is witness to a brutal murder, and the dying man entrusts them with secrets that carry echoes from their past. The more Lyra is drawn into these mysteries, the less she is sure of. Even the events of her own past come into question when she learns of Malcolm Polstead’s role in bringing her to Jordan College. Now Lyra and Malcolm will travel far beyond the confines of Oxford, across Europe and into the Levant, searching for a city haunted by daemons, and a desert said to hold the truth of Dust. The dangers they face will challenge everything they thought they knew about the world, and about themselves. Praise for The Book of Dust “It’s a stunning achievement, this universe Pullman has created and continues to build on.” —The New York Times “Pullman’s writing is simple, unpretentious, beautiful, true. The conclusion to The Book of Dust can’t come soon enough.”—The Washington Post

Download or read book Bodin On Sovereignty written by Jean Bodin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-04-24 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume translates four chapters of Bodin's Six livres de la république, a vast synthesis of comparative public law and politics.

Download or read book Commonwealth Novel in English written by and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Phylogenesis written by Alan Dean Foster and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2006-11-28 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bestselling author Alan Dean Foster takes us back to the unplanned beginnings of the extraordinary Humanx Commonwealth… In the years after first contact, humans and the intelligent insectlike Thranx agree to a tentative sharing of ideas and cultures despite the ingrained repulsion they have yet to overcome. Thus, a slow, lengthy process of limited contact begins. Yet they never plan for a chance meeting between a misfit artist and a petty thief. Desvendapur is a talented Thranx poet who is bored with his life and needs new inspiration for his work. Venturing beyond the familiar, Desvendapur runs into Cheelo Montoya, a small-time criminal with big dreams of making a fast buck. Together they will embark upon a journey that will forever change their beliefs, their futures, and their worlds . . .

Download or read book Providence Lost written by Paul Lay and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-01-09 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A compelling and wry narrative of one of the most intellectually thrilling eras of British history' Guardian. ***************** SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2020 England, 1651. Oliver Cromwell has defeated his royalist opponents in two civil wars, executed the Stuart king Charles I, laid waste to Ireland, and crushed the late king's son and his Scottish allies. He is master of Britain and Ireland. But Parliament, divided between moderates, republicans and Puritans of uncompromisingly millenarian hue, is faction-ridden and disputatious. By the end of 1653, Cromwell has become 'Lord Protector'. Seeking dragons for an elect Protestant nation to slay, he launches an ambitious 'Western Design' against Spain's empire in the New World. When an amphibious assault on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1655 proves a disaster, a shaken Cromwell is convinced that God is punishing England for its sinfulness. But the imposition of the rule of the Major-Generals – bureaucrats with a penchant for closing alehouses – backfires spectacularly. Sectarianism and fundamentalism run riot. Radicals and royalists join together in conspiracy. The only way out seems to be a return to a Parliament presided over by a king. But will Cromwell accept the crown? Paul Lay narrates in entertaining but always rigorous fashion the story of England's first and only experiment with republican government: he brings the febrile world of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate to life, providing vivid portraits of the extraordinary individuals who inhabited it and capturing its dissonant cacophony of political and religious voices. ***************** Reviews: 'Briskly paced and elegantly written, Providence Lost provides us with a first-class ticket to this Cromwellian world of achievement, paradox and contradiction. Few guides take us so directly, or so sympathetically, into the imaginative worlds of that tumultuous decade' John Adamson, The Times. 'Providence Lost is a learned, lucid, wry and compelling narrative of the 1650s as well as a sensitive portrayal of a man unravelled by providence' Jessie Childs, Guardian.

Download or read book Inventing a Republic written by Sean Kelsey and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The character and appearance of English governance were changed utterly in 1649, when Charles I was executed and the monarchy abolished. At a stroke, legitimate authority in the nation was stripped of the charismatic focus from whence it had derived much of its apparently ageless dignity. This volume provides a study of how England's political culture was reinvented by the new parliamentary republic. It describes how government members colonized and revived the abandoned royal palace at Whitehall, and describes the imaginative and consistently iconographic and ceremonial languages with which they replaced the imagery and spectacle of the monarchy. It makes a case for the comprehensive revision of the historio-graphical preconceptions surrounding England's only lengthy period of kinglessness.

Download or read book Silverlock written by John Myers Myers and published by Wildside Press LLC. This book was released on 2017-03-25 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SILVERLOCK is one of the all-time great fantasy classics. In this richly picaresque story of a modern man's fruitful adventurings in legendary realms of gold, John Myers Myers has presented a glowing tapestry of real excitement and meaning. In essence, this is the tale of Silverlock's wanderings in the Commonwealth, the land of immortal heroes real and imagined, in search of his true destiny. In form, it is sheer headlong narrative, with occasional clangorous verses woven into its fabric. In content, it is something between a many-peopled, incident-studded story of high emprise, and a morality for our time. Always it is fresh and bold in concept, superb in its execution ... How A. Clarence Shandon came to the Commonwealth, exchanging his everyday name and Chicago-bound life for that of a traveler beyond time; what great ones of old legend and modern story he encountered, and to what purpose; what loves he knew and what fights he fought; what trials befell him in the Pit, and what truth he discovered when at last he won to the Hippocrene Spring--these are matters of such crowding variety and implicit significance as the reader must discover for himself ... And in the discovering, the literate reader will have a wonderful time. He will be amused by the wicked wit that illumines the vast panorama, and intrigued by the challenge it offers his own learning. Most of all, he will be impressed by its profound knowledge, of our cultural heritage, and stirred by its vital interpretations

Download or read book The Remains of the Day written by Kazuo Ishiguro and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2009-01-08 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel Klara and the Sun is now available*WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZEA contemporary classic, The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro's beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House. In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the countryside and into his past. 'A triumph . . . This wholly convincing portrait of a human life unweaving before your eyes is inventive and absorbing, by turns funny, absurd and ultimately very moving.' Sunday Times'A dream of a book: a beguiling comedy of manners that evolves almost magically into a profound and heart-rending study of personality, class and culture.' New York TImes Book Review

Download or read book Little Bee written by Chris Cleave and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-02-16 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Millions of people have read, discussed, debated, cried, and cheered with Little Bee, a Nigerian refugee girl whose violent and courageous journey​ puts a stunning face on the worldwide refugee crisis​. “Little Bee will blow you away.” —The Washington Post The lives of a sixteen-year-old Nigerian orphan and a well-off British woman collide in this page-turning #1 New York Times bestseller, book club favorite, and “affecting story of human triumph” (The New York Times Book Review) from Chris Cleave, author of Gold and Everyone Brave Is Forgiven. We don’t want to tell you too much about this book. It is a truly special story and we don’t want to spoil it. Nevertheless, you need to know something, so we will just say this: It is extremely funny, but the African beach scene is horrific. The story starts there, but the book doesn’t. And it’s what happens afterward that is most important. Once you have read it, you’ll want to tell everyone about it. When you do, please don’t tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds.

Download or read book A Golden Age written by Tahmima Anam and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2008-01-08 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As she plans a party for her son and daughter, Rehana Haque's life will be transformed forever in a story of one family caught in the middle of the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence, as they face changes and decisions that will have a profound impact on their lives forever.