Download or read book My Family and Other Animals written by Gerald Durrell and published by Penguin Books Limited. This book was released on 2011-04-07 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'What we all need,' said Larry, 'is sunshine . . . a country where we can grow.' 'Yes, dear, that would be nice,' agreed Mother, not really listening. 'I had a letter from George this morning - he says Corfu's wonderful. Why don't we pack up and go to Greece?' 'Very well, dear, if you like,' said Mother unguardedly. Escaping the ills of the British climate, the Durrell family - acne-ridden Margo, gun-toting Leslie, bookworm Lawrence and budding naturalist Gerry, along with their long-suffering mother and Roger the dog - take off for the island of Corfu. But the Durrells find that, reluctantly, they must share their various villas with a menagerie of local fauna - among them scorpions, geckos, toads, bats and butterflies. Recounted with immense humour and charm My Family and Other Animals is a wonderful account of a rare, magical childhood. 'Durrell has an uncanny knack of discovering human as well as animal eccentricities' Sunday Telegraph

Download or read book Deadly Thyme written by R. L. Nolen and published by SkipJack Publishing. This book was released on 2014-01-15 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Ruth Butler escaped Texas for a sleepy seaside village in the south of England, it was to rescue her infant daughter from the perverted demon she'd married. Bu after ten peaceful years in Perrins Point, her daughter Annie disappears. Not far away, a madman has been trying in vain to turn back time. When Ruth turns out to be a dead ringer for his mother, the voices in his head haunt him day and night. The only way to stop his mother's nagging is to kill her all over again. Ruth must rely on her instincts and the ally she finds in an undercover detective who's in town on unrelated business, but neither can search for Annie's kidnapper openly. Ruth could be deported for living under an alias and Detective Inspector Jon Graham would blow his cover. Nevertheless, the trail leads from a faceless body in Annie's clothes to a smugglers' cave, where the killer drains his victims' blood an ounce at a time. But he's got a special purpose for little Annie. He is patient. He will wait - until her mother comes to save her.

Download or read book The Lake Wobegon Virus written by Garrison Keillor and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bestselling author and humorist Garrison Keillor returns to one of America's most beloved mythical towns, beset by a contagion of alarming candor. A mysterious virus has infiltrated the good people of Lake Wobegon, transmitted via unpasteurized cheese made by a Norwegian bachelor farmer, the effect of which is episodic loss of social inhibition. Mayor Alice, Father Wilmer, Pastor Liz, the Bunsens and Krebsbachs, formerly taciturn elders, burst into political rants, inappropriate confessions, and rhapsodic proclamations, while their teenagers watch in amazement. Meanwhile, a wealthy outsider is buying up farmland for a Keep America Truckin’ motorway and amusement park, estimated to draw 2.2 million visitors a year. Clint Bunsen and Elena the hometown epidemiologist to the rescue, with a Fourth of July Living Flag and sweet corn feast for a finale. In his newest Lake Wobegon novel, Garrison Keillor takes us back to the small prairie town where for so long American readers and listeners have found laughter as well as the wry airing of our foibles and most familiar desires and fears—a town where, as we know, "all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."

Download or read book Pretty Good Joke Book written by Garrison Keillor and published by Blackstone Publishing. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 2,200 Jokes from America’s favorite live radio show A treasury of hilarity from Garrison Keillor and the cast of public radio’s A Prairie Home Companion. A guy walks into a bar. Eight Canada Geese walk into a bar. A termite jumps up on the bar and asks, “Where is the bar tender?” Drum roll. The Sixth Edition of the perennially popular Pretty Good Joke Book is everything the first five were and more. More puns, one-liners, light bulb jokes, knock-knock jokes, and third-grader jokes (have you heard the one about Elvis Parsley?). More religion jokes, political jokes, lawyer jokes, blonde jokes, and jokes in questionable taste (Why did the urologist lose his license? He got in trouble with his peers). More jokes about chickens, relationships, and senior moments (the nice thing about Alzheimer’s is you can enjoy the same jokes again and again). It all started back in 1996, when A Prairie Home Companion fans laughed themselves silly during the first Joke Show. The broadcast was such a hit that it became an almost-annual gagfest. Then fans wanted to read the jokes, share them, and pass them around, and the first Pretty Good Joke Book was born. With over 200 new and updated jokes, the latest edition promises countless giggles, chortles, and guffaws anyone—fans of the radio show or not—will enjoy.

Download or read book Animal Wife written by Lara Ehrlich and published by Red Hen Press. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this award-winning debut collection, fifteen magical realism stories portray girls and women searching for an escape from their everyday lives. “In villages where women bore most of the weight of a constricted life, witches flew by night on broomsticks,” said Italo Calvino of the way imagination bridges the gap between everyday existence and an idealized alternative . . . The fifteen stories of Animal Wife are unified by girls and women who cross this threshold seeking liberation from family responsibilities, from societal expectations, from their own minds. A girl born with feathers undertakes a quest for the mother who abandoned her. An indecisive woman drinks Foresight, only to become stymied by the futures branching before her. A proofreader cultivates a cage-fighting alter ego. A woman becomes psychologically trapped in her car. A girl acts on her desire for a childhood friend as a monster draws closer to the shore. A widow invites a bear to hibernate in her den . . . Animal Wife was selected as the winner of the Red Hen Fiction Award by New York Times– bestselling author Ann Hood, who says, “From the first sentence Animal Wife grabbed me and never let go. Sensual and intelligent, with gorgeous prose, it made me dizzy with its exploration and illumination of the inner and outer lives of girls and women.” Praise for Animal Wife “Whimsy and fantasy meet the way things really turn out in stories from a strong new voice.” —Kirkus Reviews “Strange, funny, fearsome, Animal Wife is a gorgeous book, weird in its very bones.” —Elizabeth McCracken, author of Bowlaway: A Novel “Lara Ehrlich has written a collection of stories that allow for escapism.” —F(r)iction “I was particularly intrigued by the way Lara beautifully portrays the inner struggle between wildness and domesticity, the surreal elements of each story lending a mythical complexity to these conflicts. Really lovely and thought-provoking. Perfect for fans of Aimee Bender, Karen Russell, and Angela Carter.” —Joy Baglio, founder of Pioneer Valley Writer’s Workshop

Download or read book Shit Cassandra Saw written by Gwen E. Kirby and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Kirby has mastered the art of short fiction…A stunning collection from a writer whose talent and creativity seem boundless.” —NPR “Kirby takes joy in subverting the reader’s expectations at every turn. Her characters might be naïve, even reckless, but they aren’t about to be victims: They’re strong, and brave, and nearly always capable of rescuing themselves.” —New York Times Book Review Margaret Atwood meets Buffy in these funny, warm, and furious stories of women at their breaking points, from Hellenic times to today. Cassandra may have seen the future, but it doesn't mean she's resigned to telling the Trojans everything she knows. In this ebullient collection, virgins escape from being sacrificed, witches refuse to be burned, whores aren't ashamed, and every woman gets a chance to be a radioactive cockroach warrior who snaps back at catcallers. Gwen E. Kirby experiments with found structures--a Yelp review, a WikiHow article--which her fierce, irreverent narrators push against, showing how creativity within an enclosed space undermines and deconstructs the constraints themselves. When these women tell the stories of their triumphs as well as their pain, they emerge as funny, angry, loud, horny, lonely, strong protagonists who refuse to be secondary characters a moment longer. From "The Best and Only Whore of Cym Hyfryd, 1886" to the "Midwestern Girl Is Tired of Appearing in Your Short Stories," Kirby is playing and laughing with the women who have come before her and they are telling her, we have always been this way. You just had to know where to look.

Download or read book World War Z written by Max Brooks and published by Broadway Books. This book was released on 2013 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of the decade-long conflict between humankind and hordes of the predatory undead is told from the perspective of dozens of survivors who describe in their own words the epic human battle for survival, in a novel that is the basis for the June 2013 film starring Brad Pitt. Reissue. Movie Tie-In.

Download or read book Permanent Present Tense written by Suzanne Corkin and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1953, 27-year-old Henry Gustave Molaison underwent an experimental "psychosurgical" procedure -- a targeted lobotomy -- in an effort to alleviate his debilitating epilepsy. The outcome was unexpected -- when Henry awoke, he could no longer form new memories, and for the rest of his life would be trapped in the moment. But Henry's tragedy would prove a gift to humanity. As renowned neuroscientist Suzanne Corkin explains in Permanent Present Tense, she and her colleagues brought to light the sharp contrast between Henry's crippling memory impairment and his preserved intellect. This new insight that the capacity for remembering is housed in a specific brain area revolutionized the science of memory. The case of Henry -- known only by his initials H. M. until his death in 2008 -- stands as one of the most consequential and widely referenced in the spiraling field of neuroscience. Corkin and her collaborators worked closely with Henry for nearly fifty years, and in Permanent Present Tense she tells the incredible story of the life and legacy of this intelligent, quiet, and remarkably good-humored man. Henry never remembered Corkin from one meeting to the next and had only a dim conception of the importance of the work they were doing together, yet he was consistently happy to see her and always willing to participate in her research. His case afforded untold advances in the study of memory, including the discovery that even profound amnesia spares some kinds of learning, and that different memory processes are localized to separate circuits in the human brain. Henry taught us that learning can occur without conscious awareness, that short-term and long-term memory are distinct capacities, and that the effects of aging-related disease are detectable in an already damaged brain. Undergirded by rich details about the functions of the human brain, Permanent Present Tense pulls back the curtain on the man whose misfortune propelled a half-century of exciting research. With great clarity, sensitivity, and grace, Corkin brings readers to the cutting edge of neuroscience in this deeply felt elegy for her patient and friend.

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

Download or read book The Sadness of Spirits written by Aimee Pogson and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-22 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What power does misery play in daily life? In this sorrowful yet intriguing collection of stories, Aimee Pogson explores journeys of suffering through magical realism. A preschool teacher contends with the stream of salmon that keep appearing on her windowsill, in her closet, tucked in her shoes. An invisible boy swallows nails, buttons, and tree bark in a misguided attempt to grow stronger. Spirits cling to a Ouija board, restlessly hoping that someone will remove it from the closet and ask them a question. A young girl who has an existential crisis burns her Barbie dolls at the stake. And a short, dancing man manipulates the melody of molecules in an attempt to bring his loved ones back to life. While sadness weighs heavy in The Sadness of Spirits, Pogson's writing provokes strong emotions, leaving the reader with hope and admiration as the characters are awakened to the nuance and possibility melancholy can bring.

Download or read book All Things Consoled written by Elizabeth Hay and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Elizabeth Hay, one of Canada's most beloved novelists has written a poignant, complex, and hugely resonant memoir about the shift she experienced between being her parents' daughter to their guardian and caregiver. As the daughter takes charge, and the writer takes notes, her mother and father are like two legendary icebergs floating south. They melt into the ocean of partial, painful, inconsistent, and funny stories that a family makes over time. Hay's eloquent memoir distills these stories into basic truths about parents and children and their efforts of understanding. With her uncommon sharpness and wit, Elizabeth Hay offers her insights into the peculiarities of her family's dynamics--her parents' marriage, sibling rivalries, miscommunications that spur decades of resentment all matched by true and genuine love and devotion. Her parents are each startling characters in their own right--her mother is a true skinflint who would rather serve up wormy soup (twice) than throw away an ancient packet of "perfectly good" mix; her father is a proud and well-mannered man with a temper that can be explosive. When All Thing's Consoled is a startlingly beautiful memoir that addresses the exquisite agony of family, the unstoppable force of dementia, and the inevitability of aging."--

Download or read book The Shape of Things to Come written by H. G. Wells and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2016-09-14 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1933, "The Shape of Things to Come" is science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells. Within it, world events between 1933 and 2106 are speculated with a single superstate representing the solution to all humanity's problems. A classic example of Wellsian prophesy, this volume is highly recommended for fans of his work and of the science fiction genre. Herbert George Wells (1866 - 1946) was a prolific English writer who wrote in a variety of genres, including the novel, politics, history, and social commentary. Today, he is perhaps best remembered for his contributions to the science fiction genre thanks to such novels as "The Time Machine" (1895), "The Invisible Man" (1897), and "The War of the Worlds" (1898). Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this book now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

Download or read book Invisible Boys written by Holden Sheppard and published by Fremantle Press. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An emotional tale of identity, sexuality and suicide derived from personal experience about three teenage boys who struggle to come to terms with their homosexuality in a small Western Australian town. On the surface, nerd Zeke, punk Charlie and footy wannabe Hammer look like they have nothing in common. But scratch that surface and you'd find three boys in the throes of coming to terms with their homosexuality in a town where it is invisible. Invisible Boys is a raw, confronting YA novel that explores the complexities and trauma of rural gay identity with painful honesty, devastating consequences and, ultimately, hope.

Download or read book Kangaroo written by D. H. Lawrence and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-04-11 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A critical edition of Kangaroo, D. H. Lawrence's eighth novel, set in Australia.

Download or read book Forty Years of Spy written by Sir Leslie Ward and published by Castrovilli Giuseppe. This book was released on 1915 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author reflects on the notable people he met during his career as a caricaturist and portrait artist, including his work for Vanity Fair. Using the pseudonym "Spy," he published over 1300 portraits in the magazine.

Download or read book Gre Vocab Capacity written by Vince Kotchian and published by Createspace Independent Pub. This book was released on 2012-06-12 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2015 version published on 12/29/14. Need a good way to remember that the word "prodigal" means "wasteful"? Just think ofprada gal - a girl who spends all of her money on designer clothes. Brian McElroy (Harvard, '02) and Vince Kotchian (Boston College, '97), two of San Diego's most sought after test-prep tutors, provide a series of clever, unconventional, and funny memory devices aimed toward helping you to improve your vocabulary and remember words long-term so that you don't ever forget their meanings. Brian and Vince, combined, have been tutoring the test for over 20 years. They have analyzed all available official GRE tests to select the words that appear in this book. The vocabulary words in this book are best suited for students at a 9th-grade level or above. The words in this edition are specifically targeted toward the GRE exam, but they are also helpful for students who are preparing for other standardized tests such as the SAT, ACT, ISEE, SSAT, GMAT, LSAT or MCAT, or anyone at any age who simply wants to improve his/her knowledge of English vocabulary. Disclaimer: a few of our mnemonics might not be appropriate for kids – some contain adult language or situations. Over 950 of the words in this book appear in our other mnemonics book,SAT Vocab Capacity. So if you're easily offended, the SAT version might be a better choice. Why This Book Is Different If you're studying for the GRE, SAT, or for any other standardized test that measures your vocabulary, you may be feeling a little bit anxious – especially if you've taken a practice test and encountered words you didn't know (or maybe never even saw before)! Whether you have seven days or seven months to prepare for the test, you're going to want to boost your vocabulary. But it's not that simple – you've got to remember the words you learn. And on many GRE text completion and sentence equivalence questions, getting the right answer comes down to knowing the precise definition of the words. You could make vocabulary flashcards. You could look up words you don't know. You could read a book with lots of big words. But unless you give your brain a way to hold on to the words you learn, it will probably have a harder time remembering them when they appear on the test. That's the problem with most vocabulary books: the definitions and sentences in the books aren't especially memorable. That's where this book is different. We've not only clearly defined the words but we've also created sentences designed to help you remember the words through a variety of associations - using mnemonics. Mnemonic Examples A mnemonic is just a memory device. It works by creating a link in your brain to something else, so that recall of one thing helps recall of the other. This can be done in many ways – but the strongest links are through senses, emotions, rhymes, and patterns. Consider this example: Quash (verb): to completely stop from happening. Think: squash. The best way to quash an invasion of ants in your kitchen is simple: squash them. Now your brain has a link from the word quash (which it may not have known) to the word squash (which it probably knows). Both words sound and look the same, so it's easy to create a visual and aural link. If you picture someone squashing ants (and maybe get grossed out), you also have another visual link and an emotional link. Here's another example: Eschew (verb): to avoid. Think: ah-choo! Eschew people who say "ah-choo!" unless you want to catch their colds. The word eschew sounds similar to a sneeze (ah-choo!), so your brain will now link the two sounds. If you picture yourself avoiding someone who is about to sneeze in your face, even better! Again, the more connections you make in your brain to the new word, th

Download or read book Everyone in Silico written by Jim Munroe and published by . This book was released on 2017-08-14 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Vancouver in 2036, people are tired of the rain. They're willing to give up a lot for guaranteed sunshine, a life with no wasted hours. A life free of crime and disease. A life that ends when you want it to, not when some faceless entity decides it's your time. Those who don't buy in - the poor, the old, the paranoid - have to watch as their loved ones, their friends, and their jobs leave the city. They have to watch as the latest prestige technology, Self, changes everything - not just the world but humanity itself. On the bright side, the rents have dropped. And in several unexpected ways, resistance is growing. This fascinating work of fiction tells what can happen when the cyberworld becomes more important than the real world.Munroe is a Canadian science fiction author, who publishes his works independently under the imprint No Media Kings. He was managing editor at the magazine Adbusters in the 1990s, before publishing his debut novel Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask in 1999. The following he release Angry Young Spaceman through his No Media Kings imrpint and, in the U.S., Four Walls Eight Windows. A couple of years later he published Everyone in Silico, which was promoted partly by Munroe's attempt to invoice corporations mentioned in the novel for product placement. Munroe's most recent books are graphic novels set in post-Rapture Chicago and Detroit.Munroe was the founder of Perpetual Motion Roadshow, a North American indie touring circuit that sent 100 writers, performers and musicians on the road between 2003-2007. A former video games columnist for Eye Weekly, he is a founding board member of the Hand Eye Society and has produced projects such as the Torontron.