Download or read book First Love Last Rites written by Ian McEwan and published by Rosetta Books. This book was released on 2011-02-11 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Somerset Maugham Award winner: Dark early fiction by the author of Nutshell—“A splendid magician of fear” (The Village Voice Literary Supplement). Taut, brooding, and densely atmospheric, the stories here show us how murder can arise out of boredom, perversity from adolescent curiosity—and how sheer evil can become the solution to unbearable loneliness. These short fiction pieces from the early career of the New York Times–bestselling and Man Booker Prize–winning author of Atonement and On Chesil Beach are claustrophobic tales of childhood, twisted psychology, and disjointed family life as terrifying as anything by Stephen King—and finely crafted with a lyricism and an intensity that compels us to confront our secret kinship with what repels us. “A powerful talent that is both weird and wonderful.” —The Boston Sunday Globe “Ian McEwan’s fictional world combin[es] the bleak, dreamlike quality of de Chirico’s city-scapes with the strange eroticism of canvases by Balthus. Menace lies crouched between the lines of his neat, angular prose, and weird, grisly things occur in his books with nearly casual aplomb.” —The New York Times

Download or read book Lessons written by Ian McEwan and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2022-09-13 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A NEW YORKER ESSENTIAL READ • From the best-selling author of Atonement and Saturday comes the epic and intimate story of one man's life across generations and historical upheavals. From the Suez Crisis to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current pandemic, Roland Baines sometimes rides with the tide of history, but more often struggles against it. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Vogue • The New Yorker “Masterful.... McEwan is a storyteller at the peak of his powers…. One of the joys of the novel is the way it weaves history into Roland’s biography…. The pleasure in reading this novel is letting it wash over you.” —Associated Press When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. Two thousand miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade. Now, when his wife vanishes, leaving him alone with his tiny son, Roland is forced to confront the reality of his restless existence. As the radiation from Chernobyl spreads across Europe, he begins a search for answers that looks deep into his family history and will last for the rest of his life. Haunted by lost opportunities, Roland seeks solace through every possible means—music, literature, friends, sex, politics, and, finally, love cut tragically short, then love ultimately redeemed. His journey raises important questions for us all. Can we take full charge of the course of our lives without causing damage to others? How do global events beyond our control shape our lives and our memories? And what can we really learn from the traumas of the past? Epic, mesmerizing, and deeply humane, Lessons is a chronicle for our times—a powerful meditation on history and humanity through the prism of one man's lifetime.

Download or read book First Love Last Love written by Ginna Gray and published by Harlequin Books. This book was released on 1985-06 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Enduring Love written by Ian McEwan and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-07-20 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In one of the most striking opening scenes ever written, a bizarre ballooning accident and a chance meeting give birth to an obsession so powerful that an ordinary man is driven to the brink of madness and murder by another's delusions. Ian McEwan brings us an unforgettable story—dark, gripping, and brilliantly crafted—of how life can change in an instant.

Download or read book The Short Stories written by Ian McEwan and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1995 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains the stories from both of McEwan's previous collections: First Love, Last Rites and In Between the Sheets. The former was awarded the Somerset Maugham Award.

Download or read book The Innocent written by Ian McEwan and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2010-12-22 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A member of a British-American surveillance team in Cold War Berlin finds himself in too deep in this "wholly entertaining" work (The Wall Street Journal) from the Booker Prize winner and bestselling author of Atonement. Twenty-five-year-old Leonard Marnham’s intelligence work—tunneling under a Russian communications center to tap the phone lines to Moscow—offers him a welcome opportunity to begin shedding his own unwanted innocence, even if he is only a bit player in a grim international comedy of errors. His relationship with Maria Eckdorf, an enigmatic and beautiful West Berliner, likewise promises to loosen the bonds of his ordinary life. But the promise turns to horror in the course of one terrible evening—a night when Marnham learns just how much of his innocence he's willing to shed. Don’t miss Ian McEwan’s new novel, Lessons.

Download or read book Ian Mcewan s Short Story First Love Last Rites As a Story of Initiation and Adolescence written by Nina Jungmann and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2011-06 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Trier (Anglistik), course: British Short Stories, language: English, abstract: "A young boy, determined to cleanse himself of the embarrassing stigma of his virginity, seduces and beds his 10-year-old sister. A husband, who treasures a nineteenth-century criminal's penis in a jar, "disappears" his wife into a surfaceless plane. A man revenges himself by pouring a pan of boiling oil into the lap of an antagonizing co-worker. An Aunt forces her nephew to don dress and blonde wig before coming down to dinner. Welcome to the world of Ian McEwan" (Slay 9). Ian Russell McEwan was born on the 21st of June in 1948 in Aldershot, England, as the only son of David and Rose McEwan. He spent most his childhood in military outposts such as Singapore and Libya because his father was a soldier of the British army. After having attended a boarding school in Suffolk, he enters the University of Sussex in 1966 where he began writing fiction and also achieved his BA degree in English literature in 1970. One year later he obtained his MA degree at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. In 1975 he published his first short story collection, First Love, Last Rites, which was his Master thesis in the subject 'creative writing'. The shocking stories that are arranged in First Love, Last Rites brought him immediate critical compliments and he won the Somerset Maugham Award for their intelligent skills and originality. Most of these stories deal with abnormal sexuality, disorganized family life or claustrophobic tales. In his Short Stories, McEwan wrote at the beginning of his career, the protagonists are mostly children or young persons who tell the stories as first person narrators. Wolfgang G. Müller says in his interpretation of the Short story First Love, Last Rites that "the attention is drawn to the developmental stage of adolescence with its psychological problems

Download or read book Saturday written by Ian McEwan and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2009-02-24 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Dazzling. . . . Profound and urgent" —Observer "A book of great maturity, beautifully alive to the fragility of happiness and all forms of violence. . . . Everyone should read Saturday" —Financial Times Saturday, February 15, 2003. Henry Perowne, a successful neurosurgeon, stands at his bedroom window before dawn and watches a plane—ablaze with fire like a meteor—arcing across the London sky. Over the course of the following day, unease gathers about Perowne, as he moves among hundreds of thousands of anti-war protestors who’ve taken to the streets in the aftermath of 9/11. A minor car accident brings him into confrontation with Baxter, a fidgety, aggressive man, who to Perowne’s professional eye appears to be profoundly unwell. But it is not until Baxter makes a sudden appearance at the Perowne family home that Henry’s earlier fears seem about to be realized. . .

Download or read book My Purple Scented Novel written by Ian McEwan and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-06-19 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A jewel of a short story from the bestselling, award-winning author of Atonement—“My Purple Scented Novel” follows the perfect crime of literary betrayal, scrupulously wrought yet unscrupulously executed. Published to celebrate Ian McEwan’s 70th birthday. “You will have heard of my friend the once celebrated novelist Jocelyn Tarbet, but I suspect his memory is beginning to fade. . . . You’d never heard of me, the once obscure novelist Parker Sparrow, until my name was publicly connected with his. To a knowing few, our names remain rigidly attached, like the two ends of a seesaw. His rise coincided with, though did not cause, my decline. . . . I don’t deny there was wrongdoing. I stole a life, and I don’t intend to give it back. You may treat these few pages as a confession.”

Download or read book The Cockroach written by Ian McEwan and published by Knopf Canada. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliant, of-the-moment political satire like no other, from the Booker Prize winner and bestselling author of Atonement. Kafka meets the world of Brexit in this bitingly funny novel centered on a cockroach transformed into the prime minister of England. That morning, Jim Sams, clever but by no means profound, woke from uneasy dreams to find himself transformed into a giant creature. Jim Sams has undergone a metamorphosis. In his previous life he was ignored or loathed, but in his new incarnation he is the most powerful man in Britain--and it is his mission to carry out the will of the people. Nothing must get in his way; not the opposition, nor the dissenters within his own party. Not even the rules of parliamentary democracy. In this bitingly funny Kafkaesque satire, Ian McEwan engages with scabrous humor a very recognizable political world and turns it on its head. Don’t miss Ian McEwan’s new novel, Lessons.

Download or read book In Between the Sheets written by Ian McEwan and published by RosettaBooks. This book was released on 2011-02-08 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Darkly brilliant short fiction by the New York Times-bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of Machines Like Me and Atonement. A two-timing pornographer becomes the unwilling object in the fantasies of one of his victims. A jaded millionaire buys himself the perfect mistress and plunges into a hell of jealousy and despair. Over the course of a weekend, a guilt-ridden father with his teenage daughter discovers the depths of his own blundering innocence. Whether these are the written transcripts of dreams or deadly accurate maps of the tremor zones of our psyche, all seven stories in this collection implicate us in the most fearful ways imaginable. “His stories are complex and his prose, like Orwell’s, is as clear as windowpane… McEwan’s comic edge gives these stories a moral force. They are not meant simply to shock and horrify middle-class readers. Rather, like all good satire, they seek to unmask hypocrisy and cruelty.”—The Washington Post Book World

Download or read book The Child in Time written by Ian McEwan and published by RosettaBooks. This book was released on 2011-02-08 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A child’s abduction sends a father reeling in this Whitbread Award-winning novel that explores time and loss with “narrative daring and imaginative genius” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Stephen Lewis, a successful author of children’s books, is on a routine trip to the supermarket with his three-year-old daughter. In a brief moment of distraction, she suddenly vanishes—and is irretrievably lost. From that moment, Lewis spirals into bereavement that effects his marriage, his psyche, and his relationship with time itself: “It was a wonder that there could be so much movement, so much purpose, all the time. He himself had none at all.” In The Child in Time, acclaimed author Ian McEwan “sets a story of domestic horror against a disorienting exploration in time” producing “a work of remarkable intellectual and political sophistication” that has been adapted into a PBS Masterpiece movie starring Benedict Cumberbatch (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). “A beautifully rendered, very disturbing novel.” —Publishers Weekly

Download or read book The Cement Garden written by Ian McEwan and published by RosettaBooks. This book was released on 2011-02-08 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Orphaned siblings create a macabre secret world for themselves in this “irresistibly readable” novel by the New York Times-bestselling author (The New York Review of Books). This “powerful and disconcerting” novel by the Booker Prize-winning author of The Children Act and Atonement (The Daily Telegraph) tells the story of a dying family who live in a dying part of the city. A father of four children decides, in an effort to make his garden easier to control, to pave it over. In the process, he has a heart attack and dies, leaving the cement garden unfinished and the children to the care of their mother. Soon after, the mother too dies and the children, fearful of being separated by social services, decide to cover up their parents’ deaths: they bury their mother in the cement garden. The story is told from the point of view of Jack, one of the sons, who is entering adolescence with all of its attendant curiosity and appetites. Julie, the eldest, is almost a grown woman. Sue is rather bookish and observes all that goes on around her. And Tom is the youngest and the baby of the lot. The children seem to manage in this perverse setting rather well—until Julie brings home a boyfriend who threatens their secret by asking too many questions. “[A] beautiful but disturbing novel.”—The AV Club “McEwan’s evocative detail and perfect British prose lend a genteel decorum to the death and decay that surround the family.”—The New Yorker

Download or read book Sweet Tooth written by Ian McEwan and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2012-11-13 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the Booker Prize winner and bestselling author of Atonement, an “effortlessly seductive” novel (The New York Times) that masterfully entwines espionage and desire in an unforgettable story of intrigue, betrayal and love. Cambridge student Serena Frome's beauty and intelligence make her the ideal recruit for MI5. The year is 1972. The Cold War is far from over. England's legendary intelligence agency is determined to manipulate the cultural conversation by funding writers whose politics align with those of the government. The operation is code named "Sweet Tooth." Serena, a compulsive reader of novels, is the perfect candidate to infiltrate the literary circle of a promising young writer named Tom Haley. At first, she loves the stories. Then she begins to love the man. How long can she conceal her undercover life? To answer that question, Serena must abandon the first rule of espionage: trust no one. Don’t miss Ian McEwan’s new novel, Lessons.

Download or read book Last Rites written by John Harvey and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a convicted murderer out on compassionate leave turns up at his mother's funeral and abruptly disappears, the local cops don't have much time to spare for a manhunt. This is Charlie Resnick's final case--and it's Resnick at his finest.

Download or read book Sadvertising written by Ennis Cehic and published by Random House Australia. This book was released on 2022-03 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A man grows tired of his open-plan office and builds a fort made of stationery. A woman's euphoria at finally achieving Desktop Zero is quickly replaced with despair. A group of copywriters dream of being poets, and a disillusioned sales executive overthinks his think piece. In the mind-bendingly upside-down world of Sadvertising, iPhones have feelings, brands come to life, creative directors disappear into parallel universes and lowly freelancers become immortal. It's a world where gods, ghosts and muses stalk the corridors of bland and placeless offices, and the wondrous exists alongside the mundane. Short, punchy and direct, Ennis Cehic's satirical fables are box-fresh and shot through with pitch-black humour, existential dread and late capitalist yearning for meaning. They grapple with love and loneliness, art and commerce, dream and reality, and reflect the absurdity of the modern condition. Sadvertising is a surreal, subversive and utterly contemporary literary debut from an unforgettable new voice.

Download or read book The Imitation Game and Other Plays written by Ian McEwan and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: