Download or read book A Long Way Down written by Nick Hornby and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-05-06 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wise, affecting novel from the beloved, award-winning author of Dickens and Prince, High Fidelity, and About A Boy. New York Times-bestselling author Nick Hornby mines the hearts and psyches of four lost souls who connect just when they've reached the end of the line. A Long Way Down is now a major motion picture from Magnolia Pictures starring Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Aaron Paul, and Imogen Poots. Meet Martin, JJ, Jess, and Maureen. Four people who come together on New Year's Eve: a former TV talk show host, a musician, a teenage girl, and a mother. Three are British, one is American. They encounter one another on the roof of Topper's House, a London destination famous as the last stop for those ready to end their lives. In four distinct and riveting first-person voices, Nick Hornby tells a story of four individuals confronting the limits of choice, circumstance, and their own mortality. This is a tale of connections made and missed, punishing regrets, and the grace of second chances. Intense, hilarious, provocative, and moving, A Long Way Down is a novel about suicide that is, surprisingly, full of life.
Download or read book The Worst Hard Time written by Timothy Egan and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2006-09-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a tour de force of historical reportage, Timothy Egan’s National Book Award–winning story rescues an iconic chapter of American history from the shadows. The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Timothy Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, he does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, “the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respect” (New York Times). In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, The Worst Hard Time is “arguably the best nonfiction book yet” (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and a powerful reminder about the dangers of trifling with nature. This e-book includes a sample chapter of THE IMMORTAL IRISHMAN.
Download or read book Garden Hopping written by Jonathan Rendall and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Garden hopping was when you leapt through a line of people's gardens in the dead of night. Only a few boys did it. The air rushed through you. You were like a phantom. You could have been anyone. It is an apt metaphor for the adoption business. Jonathan Rendall was adopted in the 1960s when it was easy. People could just pick out the children they wanted, right down to the colour of their hair. But what of the children themselves? And what happens when years later they trace their real parents? Garden Hopping is a harrowing, and often shocking, journey into the dark night of identity.
Download or read book Be Near Me written by Andrew O'Hagan and published by Emblem Editions. This book was released on 2010-06-11 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Canadian debut of the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Our Fathers and Mayflies. In a small Scottish parish in a post-industrial town by the sea, an English priest with secrets in his own past becomes stalked by the fear of scandal, class hatred, and lost ideals. When Father David Anderton takes over a Scottish parish, not everyone is ready to accept him. Over the spring and summer of 2003, Father David befriends two young, troubled students, Mark and Lisa. Their natural energy and response to the world bring out his own feelings of protectiveness, as well as longings for parts of himself—and his past—that he has come to lose. This relationship and the way it develops leads to the book’s climax, as Father David finds himself facing accusations of abuse. Told from the point of view of Father David, we feel, beneath his need for order and emotional distance, the passionate undercurrents that have brought him to where he is. In this riveting novel, where every word counts, Andrew O’Hagan’s brilliant writing leads us into a story of art and politics, love and faith. Be Near Me possesses a depth of feeling and a literary artistry that render it O’Hagan’s masterpiece.
Download or read book Self made Man written by Norah Vincent and published by Viking Adult. This book was released on 2006-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Los Angeles Times columnist recounts her eighteen-month undercover stint as a man, a time during which she underwent considerable personal risks as she worked a sales job, joined a bowling league, frequented sex clubs, dated, and encountered firsthand the rigid codes and rituals of masculinity. 80,000 first printing.
Download or read book The Night Watch written by Sarah Waters and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-07-28 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I thought everything would change, after the war. And now, no one even mentions it. It is as if we all got together in private and said whatever you do don't mention that, like it never happened. It's the late 1940s. Calm has returned to London and five people are recovering from the chaos of war. In scenes set in a quiet dating agency, a bombed-out church and a prison cell, the stories of these five lives begin to intertwine and we uncover the desire and regret that has bound them together. Sarah Waters's story of illicit love and everyday heroism takes us from a dazed and shattered post-war Britain back into the heart of the Blitz, towards the secrets that are hidden there. Olivier-nominated playwright Hattie Naylor has created a thrilling and theatrically inventive adaptation of a great modern novel. The stage adaptation of The Night Watch was premiered at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, on 16 May 2016.
Download or read book Poetry Notebook written by Clive James and published by Picador. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clive James is one of our finest critics and best-loved cultural voices. He is also a prize-winning poet. Since he was first enthralled by the mysterious power of poetry, he has been a dedicated student. In fact, for Clive, poetry has been nothing less than the occupation of a lifetime, and in this book he presents a distillation of all he's learned about the art form that matters to him most. With his customary wit, delightfully lucid prose style and wide-ranging knowledge, Clive explains the difference between the innocuous stuff that often passes for poetry today and a real poem: the latter being a work of unity that insists on being heard entire and threatens never to leave the memory. A committed formalist and an astute commentator, Clive offers close and careful readings of individual poems and poets (from Shakespeare to Larkin, Keats to Pound), and in some case second readings or re-readings late in life - just to be sure he wasn't wrong the first time! Whether discussing technical details of metaphorical creativity or simply praising his five favourite collections of all time, he is never less than captivating. Filled with insight and written with an honest, infectious enthusiasm, Poetry Notebook is the product of over fifty years of writing, reading, translating and thinking about poetry.
Download or read book Vernon God Little written by DBC Pierre and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2012-08-07 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “If Huckleberry Finn were set on the Mexican-American border and written by the creators of South Park, it might read something like this.” —San Francisco Chronicle Hailed by critics and lauded by readers for its riotously funny and scathing portrayal of America in an age of trial by media, materialism, and violence, Vernon God Little was an international sensation when it was first published in 2003 and awarded the prestigious Man Booker Prize. The memorable portrait of America is seen through the eyes of a wry, young protagonist. Fifteen-year-old Vernon narrates the story with a cynical twang and a four-letter barb for each of his townsfolk, a medley of characters. With a plot involving a school shooting and death-row reality TV shows, Pierre’s effortless prose and dialogue combine to form a novel of postmodern gamesmanship. “A dangerous, smart, ridiculous, and very funny first novel . . . Pierre renders adolescence brilliantly, capturing with seeming effortlessness the bright, contradictory hormone rush of teenage life.” —Sam Sifton, The New York Times
Download or read book Londonstani written by Gautam Malkani and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-08-28 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A talented new writer whose portrayal of the serious business of assimilation and young masculinity is disturbing and hilarious Hailed as one of the most surprising British novels in recent years, Gautam Malkani's electrifying debut reveals young South Asians struggling to distinguish themselves from their parents' generation in the vast urban sprawl that is contemporary London. Chronicling the lives of a gang of four young middle-class men-Hardjit, the violent enforcer; Ravi, the follower; Amit, who's struggling to come to terms with his mother's hypocrisy; and Jas, desperate to win the approval of the others despite lusting after Samira, a Muslim girl-Londonstani, funny, disturbing, and written in the exuberant language of its protagonists, is about tribalism, aggressive masculinity, integration, alienation, bling-bling economics, and "complicated family-related shit."
Download or read book A Girl is a Half Formed Thing written by Eimear McBride and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking the literary world by storm, Eimear McBride’s internationally praised debut is one of the most acclaimed novels in recent years; it is “subversive, passionate, and darkly alchemical. Read it and be changed” (Eleanor Catton). Eimear McBride’s debut tells, with astonishing insight and in riveting detail, the story of a young woman’s relationship with her brother, the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumour, and her harrowing sexual awakening. Not so much a stream-of-consciousness, as an unconscious railing against a life that makes little sense, and a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and chaotic sexuality of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist, A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing plunges inside its narrator’s head, exposing her world firsthand. This isn’t always comfortable—but it is always a revelation. Touching on everything from family violence to religion to addiction, and the personal struggle to remain intact in times of intense trauma, McBride writes with singular intensity, acute sensitivity, and mordant wit. A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing is moving, funny, and alarming. It is a book you will never forget.
Download or read book The Lay of the Land written by Richard Ford and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2006-10-24 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Independence Day and The Sportswriter brings back the unforgettable Frank Bascombe in this astonishing meditation on modern-day America. A sportswriter and a real estate agent, husband and father—Frank Bascombe has been many things to many people. His uncertain youth behind him, we follow him through three days during the autumn of 2000, when his trade as a realtor on the Jersey Shore is thriving. But as a presidential election hangs in the balance, and a post-nuclear-family Thanksgiving looms before him, Frank discovers that what he terms “the Permanent Period” is fraught with unforeseen perils. An astonishing meditation on America today and filled with brilliant insights, The Lay of the Land is a magnificent achievement from one of the most celebrated chroniclers of our time. Also available in the Bascombe Trilogy: The Sportswriter and Independence Day
Download or read book American Wife written by Curtis Sittenfeld and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2009-02-10 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A gorgeously written novel that weaves class, wealth, race, and fate into a brilliant portrait of a first lady—from the author of Rodham and Eligible “Terrific . . . an intelligent, bighearted novel about a controversial political dynasty.”—Entertainment Weekly NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time • People • Entertainment Weekly A kind, bookish only child born in the 1940s, Alice Lindgren has no idea that she will one day end up in the White House, married to the president. In her small Wisconsin hometown she learns the virtues of politeness, but a tragic accident when she is seventeen shatters her identity and changes the trajectory of her life. More than a decade later, when the charismatic son of a powerful Republican family sweeps her off her feet, she is surprised to find herself admitted into a world of privilege. And when her husband unexpectedly becomes governor and then president, she discovers that she is married to a man she both loves and fundamentally disagrees with—and that her private beliefs increasingly run against her public persona. As her husband’s presidency enters its second term, Alice must confront contradictions years in the making and face questions nearly impossible to answer. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review • Chicago Tribune • NPR • Rocky Mountain News • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Washington Post Book World
Download or read book Portrait with Keys The City of Johannesburg Unlocked written by Ivan Vladislavic and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2009-06 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dazzling portrait of Johannesburg is "one of the best things ever written about a great, if schizophrenic, city, and an utterly true picture of the new South Africa" (Christopher Hope).
Download or read book The Paying Guests written by Sarah Waters and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-09-16 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling novel that has been called “a tour de force” (Wall Street Journal), “unputdownable” (The Washington Post), “a delicious hothouse of a novel” (USA Today), “effortless” (The Economist), “seductive” (Vanity Fair) and “pitch perfect” (Salon) “Superb, bewitching…Forget about Fifty Shades of Grey; this novel is one of the most sensual you will ever read, and all without sacrificing either good taste or a "G" rating” – NPR “One of the year’s most engrossing and suspenseful novels…a love affair, a shocking murder, and a flawless ending … Will keep you sleepless for three nights straight and leave you grasping for another book that can sustain that high.” — Entertainment Weekly (A rating) “Volcanically sexy, sizzingly smart, plenty bloody and just plain irresistible." —USA Today (4 stars) It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned; the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa—a large, silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and even servants—life is about to be transformed as impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers. With the arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the “clerk class,” the routines of the house will be shaken up in unexpected ways. Little do the Wrays know just how profoundly their new tenants will alter the course of Frances’s life—or, as passions mount and frustration gathers, how far-reaching, and how devastating, the disturbances will be. Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize three times, Sarah Waters has earned a reputation as one of our greatest writers of historical fiction, and here she has delivered again. A love story, a tension-filled crime story, and a beautifully atmospheric portrait of a fascinating time and place, The Paying Guests is Sarah Waters’s finest achievement yet.
Download or read book The Nasty Bits written by Anthony Bourdain and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2008-12-10 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller The good, the bad, and the ugly, served up Bourdain-style. Bestselling chef and Parts Unknown host Anthony Bourdain has never been one to pull punches. In The Nasty Bits, he serves up a well-seasoned hellbroth of candid, often outrageous stories from his worldwide misadventures. Whether scrounging for eel in the backstreets of Hanoi, revealing what you didn't want to know about the more unglamorous aspects of making television, calling for the head of raw food activist Woody Harrelson, or confessing to lobster-killing guilt, Bourdain is as entertaining as ever. Bringing together the best of his previously uncollected nonfiction--and including new, never-before-published material--The Nasty Bits is a rude, funny, brutal and passionate stew for fans and the uninitiated alike.
Download or read book The Road written by Cormac McCarthy and published by Vintage Books. This book was released on 2007 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a novel set in an indefinite, futuristic, post-apocalyptic world, a father and his young son make their way through the ruins of a devastated American landscape, struggling to survive and preserve the last remnants of their own humanity
Download or read book Nora Webster written by Colm Toibin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of contemporary literature’s bestselling, critically acclaimed, and beloved authors: a “luminous” novel (Jennifer Egan, The New York Times Book Review) about a fiercely compelling young widow navigating grief, fear, and longing, and finding her own voice—“heartrendingly transcendant” (The New York Times, Janet Maslin). Set in Wexford, Ireland, Colm Tóibín’s magnificent seventh novel introduces the formidable, memorable, and deeply moving Nora Webster. Widowed at forty, with four children and not enough money, Nora has lost the love of her life, Maurice, the man who rescued her from the stifling world to which she was born. And now she fears she may be sucked back into it. Wounded, selfish, strong-willed, clinging to secrecy in a tiny community where everyone knows your business, Nora is drowning in her own sorrow and blind to the suffering of her young sons, who have lost their father. Yet she has moments of stunning insight and empathy, and when she begins to sing again, after decades, she finds solace, engagement, a haven—herself. Nora Webster “may actually be a perfect work of fiction” (Los Angeles Times), by a “beautiful and daring” writer (The New York Times Book Review) at the zenith of his career, able to “sneak up on readers and capture their imaginations” (USA TODAY). “Miraculous...Tóibín portrays Nora with tremendous sympathy and understanding” (Ron Charles, The Washington Post).
