Download or read book The Thinnest Air written by Minka Kent and published by Thomas & Mercer. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A woman's disappearance exposes a life of secrets in a twisting novel of psychological suspense from the author of The Memory Watcher. Meredith Price is the luckiest woman alive. Her husband, Andrew, is a charming and successful financial broker. She has two lovely stepchildren and is living in affluence in a mountain resort town. After three years of marriage, Meredith's life has become predictable. Until the day she disappears. Her car has been discovered in a grocery store parking lot--purse and phone undisturbed on the passenger seat, keys in the ignition, no sign of struggle, and no evidence of foul play. It's as if she vanished into thin air. It's not like Meredith to simply abandon her loved ones. And no one in this town would have reason to harm her. When her desperate sister, Greer, arrives, she must face a disturbing question: What if no one really knows Meredith at all? For Greer, finding her sister isn't going to be easy...because where she's looking is going to get very, very dark.
Download or read book Into Thin Air written by Jon Krakauer and published by Anchor. This book was released on 1998-11-12 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The epic account of the storm on the summit of Mt. Everest that claimed five lives and left countless more—including Krakauer's—in guilt-ridden disarray. "A harrowing tale of the perils of high-altitude climbing, a story of bad luck and worse judgment and of heartbreaking heroism." —PEOPLE A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong. By writing Into Thin Air, Krakauer may have hoped to exorcise some of his own demons and lay to rest some of the painful questions that still surround the event. He takes great pains to provide a balanced picture of the people and events he witnessed and gives due credit to the tireless and dedicated Sherpas. He also avoids blasting easy targets such as Sandy Pittman, the wealthy socialite who brought an espresso maker along on the expedition. Krakauer's highly personal inquiry into the catastrophe provides a great deal of insight into what went wrong. But for Krakauer himself, further interviews and investigations only lead him to the conclusion that his perceived failures were directly responsible for a fellow climber's death. Clearly, Krakauer remains haunted by the disaster, and although he relates a number of incidents in which he acted selflessly and even heroically, he seems unable to view those instances objectively. In the end, despite his evenhanded and even generous assessment of others' actions, he reserves a full measure of vitriol for himself. This updated trade paperback edition of Into Thin Air includes an extensive new postscript that sheds fascinating light on the acrimonious debate that flared between Krakauer and Everest guide Anatoli Boukreev in the wake of the tragedy. "I have no doubt that Boukreev's intentions were good on summit day," writes Krakauer in the postscript, dated August 1999. "What disturbs me, though, was Boukreev's refusal to acknowledge the possibility that he made even a single poor decision. Never did he indicate that perhaps it wasn't the best choice to climb without gas or go down ahead of his clients." As usual, Krakauer supports his points with dogged research and a good dose of humility. But rather than continue the heated discourse that has raged since Into Thin Air's denouncement of guide Boukreev, Krakauer's tone is conciliatory; he points most of his criticism at G. Weston De Walt, who coauthored The Climb, Boukreev's version of events. And in a touching conclusion, Krakauer recounts his last conversation with the late Boukreev, in which the two weathered climbers agreed to disagree about certain points. Krakauer had great hopes to patch things up with Boukreev, but the Russian later died in an avalanche on another Himalayan peak, Annapurna I. In 1999, Krakauer received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters--a prestigious prize intended "to honor writers of exceptional accomplishment." According to the Academy's citation, "Krakauer combines the tenacity and courage of the finest tradition of investigative journalism with the stylish subtlety and profound insight of the born writer. His account of an ascent of Mount Everest has led to a general reevaluation of climbing and of the commercialization of what was once a romantic, solitary sport; while his account of the life and death of Christopher McCandless, who died of starvation after challenging the Alaskan wilderness, delves even more deeply and disturbingly into the fascination of nature and the devastating effects of its lure on a young and curious mind."
Download or read book Like Oysters Observing the Sun written by Brenda Sieczkowski and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Animals rebel. Our senses rebel. The syllables of outcry are in open rebellion against our words. All this Sieczkowski documents with prophetic rigor and then, in poems of the damnedest, dearest insouciance I have ever encountered, begins to play."-Donald Revell From "Exhume": Pale children in nightscape, heads cocked, burying toys. This is the way we hide our toys, hide our toys-Smudge of dirty moon when you bend to kiss me-so early in the morning-on the neighbor's porch. Blue flames waver over the giant refinery. The hollow-eyed children titter and clap dirt from their kid gloves.
Download or read book The Dark Side of the Road written by Simon R. Green and published by Severn House Publishers Ltd. This book was released on 2015-05-01 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introducing Ishmael Jones - a detective with a difference - in this compelling murder mystery. Ishmael Jones is someone who can’t afford to be noticed, someone who lives under the radar, who drives on the dark side of the road. He’s employed to search out secrets, investigate mysteries and shine a light in dark places. Sometimes he kills people. Invited by his employer, the enigmatic Colonel, to join him and his family for Christmas, Ishmael arrives at the grand but isolated Belcourt Manor in the midst of a blizzard to find that the Colonel has mysteriously disappeared. As he questions his fellow guests, Ishmael concludes that at least one of them – not least Ishmael himself - is harbouring a dangerous secret, and that beneath the veneer of festive cheer lurk passion, jealousy, resentment and betrayal. As a storm sets in, sealing off the Manor from the rest of the world, Ishmael must unmask a ruthless murderer before they strike again.
Download or read book The American Love Lyric After Auschwitz and Hiroshima written by B. Estrin and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-30 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Citing the massive horrors of the Nazi death camps and the domestic violence behind a woman's suicide, Adrienne Rich challenges a fellow poet: 'would it relieve you to decide/Poetry doesn't make this happen?' In this provocative reassessment of the modern American love lyric, Barbara L. Estrin chronicles the return of three major American poets (Wallace Stevens in the late forties and fifties, Robert Lowell in the Seventies, and Adrienne Rich in the nineties) to the mid-century catastrophes that gave rise to such thorny questions. Through close readings of individual poems (and drawing upon the gender and genre theories of Jean François Lyotard, Judith Butler, Melanie Klien, and Jacques Lacan), Estrin counters the usual presuppositions that the lyric remains sequestered in a-political isolation, and offers a new, revisionist critique of American poetry.
Download or read book The Stillwater Girls written by Minka Kent and published by Thomas & Mercer. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wren and Sage have been left to fend for themselves in their isolated, off-the-grid, primitive cabin in upstate New York after their mother leaves with their sick younger sister to get help from the nearest town. As the months pass their hope vanishes when a stranger comes. The stranger claims to be looking for the girls' mother, and he won't leave without them. The sisters break the rule to never go beyond the forest in order to escape. But once on the other side the sisters must confront what has been hidden from them, and what they're running from. -- adapted from book jacket
Download or read book The Phantom Tollbooth written by Norton Juster and published by Yearling. This book was released on 1988-10-12 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With almost 5 million copies sold 60 years after its original publication, generations of readers have now journeyed with Milo to the Lands Beyond in this beloved classic. Enriched by Jules Feiffer’s splendid illustrations, the wit, wisdom, and wordplay of Norton Juster’s offbeat fantasy are as beguiling as ever. “Comes up bright and new every time I read it . . . it will continue to charm and delight for a very long time yet. And teach us some wisdom, too.” --Phillip Pullman For Milo, everything’s a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only because he’s got nothing better to do. But on the other side, things seem different. Milo visits the Island of Conclusions (you get there by jumping), learns about time from a ticking watchdog named Tock, and even embarks on a quest to rescue Rhyme and Reason. Somewhere along the way, Milo realizes something astonishing. Life is far from dull. In fact, it’s exciting beyond his wildest dreams!
Download or read book Night Train to Murder written by Simon R. Green and published by Severn House Publishers Ltd. This book was released on 2020-01-01 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a body is discovered in a locked toilet cubicle on the late-night train to Bath, Ishmael Jones is faced with his most puzzling case to date. When Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny are asked to escort a VIP on the late-night train to Bath, it would appear to be a routine case. The Organisation has acquired intelligence that an attempt is to be made on Sir Dennis Gregson’s life as he travels to Bath to take up his new position as Head of the British Psychic Weapons Division. Ishmael’s mission is to ensure that Sir Dennis arrives safely. How could anyone orchestrate a murder in a crowded railway carriage without being noticed and with no obvious means of escape? When a body is discovered in a locked toilet cubicle, Ishmael Jones has just 56 minutes to solve a seemingly impossible crime before the train reaches its destination.
Download or read book Dear Justyce written by Nic Stone and published by Ember. This book was released on 2022-01-04 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The stunning sequel to the #1 New York Times bestseller Dear Martin. Incarcerated teen Quan writes letters to Justyce about his experiences in the American juvenile justice system. Perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds and Angie Thomas. In the highly anticipated sequel to her New York Times bestseller, Nic Stone delivers an unflinching look into the flawed practices and silenced voices in the American juvenile justice system. Vernell LaQuan Banks and Justyce McAllister grew up a block apart in the Southwest Atlanta neighborhood of Wynwood Heights. Years later, though, Justyce walks the illustrious halls of Yale University . . . and Quan sits behind bars at the Fulton Regional Youth Detention Center. Through a series of flashbacks, vignettes, and letters to Justyce--the protagonist of Dear Martin--Quan's story takes form. Troubles at home and misunderstandings at school give rise to police encounters and tough decisions. But then there's a dead cop and a weapon with Quan's prints on it. What leads a bright kid down a road to a murder charge? Not even Quan is sure. "A powerful, raw, must-read told through the lens of a Black boy ensnared by our broken criminal justice system." -Kirkus, Starred Review
Download or read book Net of Jewels written by Ellen Gilchrist and published by Diversion Books. This book was released on 2013-11-22 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Home for the summer in Dunleith, Alabama, Rhoda Manning’s life appears at ease. But the headstrong, passionate 19-year-old refuses to settle for a comfortable, conventional existence. Yearning for a life of profundity, adventure, and beauty, Rhoda breaks from the seemingly secure world of her family to recklessly follow her dreams—but not without tragic and disturbing consequences. A failed marriage, shady abortion, an impulsive decision to sneak into a midnight meeting of the Klan, dates with her shrink, a deluge of booze, and a bout of repentance all seem to vie as the means to Rhoda's own liberation. Gilchrist unflinchingly takes us through the turbulence of Rhoda’s formative years, on an outrageous coming-of-age journey of a young white woman in the 1960’s South—digging through the bone to reveal the chill of human experience. PRAISE: “One of the lies we enjoy telling ourselves is that when we were young, we were crazy and wild. But hey, sensitive, too, and reflective, full of conscience, already evolving into the mature human beings we are now. Ellen Gilchrist`s novel, Net of Jewels, provides an uncomfortable reminder that, more likely, we were controlled by brute forces-our raw emotions and emerging libidos, our parents and our desperate need to fit in, whatever that meant where and when we grew up.” —Chicago Tribune “Ellen Gilchrist refracts life through a prism of precious gems, a net of jewels. Her fiction is always a kind of prose poem, a dance of seven veils. Like all of Gilchrist’s work, her latest novel dazzles and pulsates, and even in the few passages of below-normal sheen, Net of Jewels still qualifies as an almost imperceptibly flawed diamond.” —Los Angeles Times In her ninth book, which begins in the mid-50's, Ellen Gilchrist tracks a 19-year-old who drinks too much, marries too young, and is bored by her own children. The plucky Rhoda Manning has appeared in many of Gilchrist's short stories; in Net of Jewels she positively struts. ...She struggles to free herself from the constraints of upper-crust Southern society, yet insists on enjoying all its advantages. Interestingly, Gilchrist chooses not describe Rhoda's transformation into a ''better'' person ... ''If we could understand one thing entirely, we might understand it all.'' Rhoda philosophizes. ... An engaging novel [with] beauty and emotional horsepower. —Entertainment Weekly
Download or read book Shadows Bright as Glass written by Amy Ellis Nutt and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-04-05 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a sunny fall afternoon in 1988, Jon Sarkin was playing golf when, without a whisper of warning, his life changed forever. As he bent down to pick up his golf ball, something strange and massive happened inside his head; part of his brain seemed to unhinge, to split apart and float away. For an utterly inexplicable reason, a tiny blood vessel, thin as a thread, deep inside the folds of his gray matter had suddenly shifted ever so slightly, rubbing up against his acoustic nerve. Any noise now caused him excruciating pain. After months of seeking treatment to no avail, in desperation Sarkin resorted to radical deep-brain surgery, which seemed to go well until during recovery his brain began to bleed and he suffered a major stroke. When he awoke, he was a different man. Before the stroke, he was a calm, disciplined chiropractor, a happily married husband and father of a newborn son. Now he was transformed into a volatile and wildly exuberant obsessive, seized by a manic desire to create art, devoting virtually all his waking hours to furiously drawing, painting, and writing poems and letters to himself, strangely detached from his wife and child, and unable to return to his normal working life. His sense of self had been shattered, his intellect intact but his way of being drastically altered. His art became a relentless quest for the right words and pictures to unlock the secrets of how to live this strange new life. And what was even stranger was that he remembered his former self. In a beautifully crafted narrative, award-winning journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Amy Ellis Nutt interweaves Sarkin’s remarkable story with a fascinating tour of the history of and latest findings in neuroscience and evolution that illuminate how the brain produces, from its web of billions of neurons and chaos of liquid electrical pulses, the richness of human experience that makes us who we are. Nutt brings vividly to life pivotal moments of discovery in neuroscience, from the shocking “rebirth” of a young girl hanged in 1650 to the first autopsy of an autistic savant’s brain, and the extraordinary true stories of people whose personalities and cognitive abilities were dramatically altered by brain trauma, often in shocking ways. Probing recent revelations about the workings of creativity in the brain and the role of art in the evolution of human intelligence, she reveals how Jon Sarkin’s obsessive need to create mirrors the earliest function of art in the brain. Introducing major findings about how our sense of self transcends the bounds of our own bodies, she explores how it is that the brain generates an individual “self” and how, if damage to our brains can so alter who we are, we can nonetheless be said to have a soul. For Jon Sarkin, with his personality and sense of self permanently altered, making art became his bridge back to life, a means of reassembling from the shards of his former self a new man who could rejoin his family and fashion a viable life. He is now an acclaimed artist who exhibits at some of the country’s most prestigious venues, as well as a devoted husband to his wife, Kim, and father to their three children. At once wrenching and inspiring, this is a story of the remarkable human capacity to overcome the most daunting obstacles and of the extraordinary workings of the human mind.
Download or read book Spring written by Ali Smith and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Man Booker Prize Finalist comes the third novel in her Seasonal Quartet—a New York Times Notable Book and longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2020 What unites Katherine Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, Shakespeare, Rilke, Beethoven, Brexit, the present, the past, the north, the south, the east, the west, a man mourning lost times, a woman trapped in modern times? Spring. The great connective. With an eye to the migrancy of story over time and riffing on Pericles, one of Shakespeare's most resistant and rollicking works, Ali Smith tell the impossible tale of an impossible time. In a time of walls and lockdown, Smith opens the door. The time we're living in is changing nature. Will it change the nature of story? Hope springs eternal.
Download or read book Death Shall Come written by Simon R. Green and published by Severn House Large Print. This book was released on 2018-05 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ishmael and Penny go to Cardavan House for the unveiling of an Egyptian mummy. When a body is found, Ishmael doesn't believe the mummy's curse is to blame. He sets out to find the human killer, but how can he explain the odd footsteps creeping along the corridors? Who is playing games with them and why?
Download or read book Good Luck with That written by Kristan Higgins and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-08-07 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Purewow’s “Best Beach Reads of Summer 2018” Winner for Best Book of 2018 of the Fresh Fiction Awards! New York Times bestselling author Kristan Higgins is beloved for her heartfelt novels filled with humor and wisdom. Now, she tackles an issue every woman deals with: body image and self-acceptance. Emerson, Georgia, and Marley have been best friends ever since they met at a weight-loss camp as teens. When Emerson tragically passes away, she leaves one final wish for her best friends: to conquer the fears they still carry as adults. For each of them, that means something different. For Marley, it's coming to terms with the survivor's guilt she's carried around since her twin sister's death, which has left her blind to the real chance for romance in her life. For Georgia, it's about learning to stop trying to live up to her mother's and brother's ridiculous standards, and learning to accept the love her ex-husband has tried to give her. But as Marley and Georgia grow stronger, the real meaning of Emerson's dying wish becomes truly clear: more than anything, she wanted her friends to love themselves. A novel of compassion and insight, Good Luck With That tells the story of two women who learn to embrace themselves just the way they are.
Download or read book Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube written by Blair Braverman and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rich and revelatory memoir of a young woman reclaiming her courage in the stark landscapes of the north. By the time Blair Braverman was eighteen, she had left her home in California, moved to arctic Norway to learn to drive sled dogs, and found work as a tour guide on a glacier in Alaska. Determined to carve out a life as a “tough girl”—a young woman who confronts danger without apology—she slowly developed the strength and resilience the landscape demanded of her. By turns funny and sobering, bold and tender, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube brilliantly recounts Braverman’s adventures in Norway and Alaska. Settling into her new surroundings, Braverman was often terrified that she would lose control of her dog team and crash her sled, or be attacked by a polar bear, or get lost on the tundra. Above all, she worried that, unlike the other, gutsier people alongside her, she wasn’t cut out for life on the frontier. But no matter how out of place she felt, one thing was clear: she was hooked on the North. On the brink of adulthood, Braverman was determined to prove that her fears did not define her—and so she resolved to embrace the wilderness and make it her own. Assured, honest, and lyrical, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube paints a powerful portrait of self-reliance in the face of extraordinary circumstance. Braverman endures physical exhaustion, survives being buried alive in an ice cave, and drives her dogs through a whiteout blizzard to escape crooked police. Through it all, she grapples with love and violence—navigating a grievous relationship with a fellow musher, and adapting to the expectations of her Norwegian neighbors—as she negotiates the complex demands of being a young woman in a man’s land. Weaving fast-paced adventure writing and ethnographic journalism with elegantly wrought reflections on identity, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube captures the triumphs and the perils of Braverman’s journey to self-discovery and independence in a landscape that is as beautiful as it is unforgiving.
Download or read book The Memory Watcher 5th Anniversary Edition written by Minka Kent and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2022-01-14 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Fifth Anniversary Edition contains: A foreword from the author The Memory Watcher An extended ending with three brand-new chapters Book club questions Sample of The Watcher Girl Press, tap, refresh... When Autumn Carpenter stumbles upon the social media account of the family who adopted her infant daughter years ago, she finds herself instantly drawn into their picture-perfect existence. From behind a computer screen, Autumn watches Grace's every memory, from birthdays to holidays to bedtime snuggles. But what starts as an innocent fascination soon spirals into an addictive obsession that comes to a screeching halt the day the McMullen family closes their Instaface account without so much as a warning. Frantic and desperate to reconnect with her daughter, Autumn applies for a nanny position with the McMullens, manipulating herself into Grace's life under false pretenses. And it's only then that Autumn discovers pictures lie, the perfect family doesn't exist, and beautiful people? They have the ugliest secrets.
Download or read book The Overstory A Novel written by Richard Powers and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction Winner of the William Dean Howells Medal Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize Over One Year on the New York Times Bestseller List A New York Times Notable Book and a Washington Post, Time, Oprah Magazine, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year "The best novel ever written about trees, and really just one of the best novels, period." —Ann Patchett The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of—and paean to—the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.
