Download or read book Thirst written by Kerry Hudson and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-07-17 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the prize-winning author of Tony Hogan Bought Me An Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma Winner of the Prix Femina Etranger London, in the frayed heat of summer. Alena is shoplifting shoes when Dave catches her in the act and so begins an unlikely relationship between two people with little in common and everything to lose. But the past is a dark place. And both of them have secrets they’ve no idea how to live with – or leave behind. Yet still they find themselves fighting with all they’ve got for a future together. But is love enough? 'Accomplished... Beautiful... Heart-wrenching' Independent on Sunday Shortlisted for the Prix Femina Prize

Download or read book Lowborn written by Kerry Hudson and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author grew up in all-encompassing, grinding and often dehumanizing poverty. Twenty years later, her life is unrecognizable. She's a prizewinning novelist who has travelled the world. Lowborn is her exploration of where she came from. She revisits the towns she grew up in to try to discover what being poor really means in Britain today and whether anything has changed

Download or read book Summer of 76 written by Isabel Ashdown and published by Myriad Editions (US&CA). This book was released on 2013-07-01 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this intense novel of secrets and simmering passions the acclaimed author of Glasshopper and Hurry Up and Wait takes us back to the legendary heat wave of 1976. It's the start of one of the hottest summers on record, with soaring temperatures and weeks without rain; the summer of Abba, T-Rex, David Bowie, and Demis Roussos; of Martinis, cheesecake, and chicken chasseur; of the Montreal Olympics and the Notting Hill riots—the summer Big Ben stopped dead. Luke Wolff is about to turn 18 and is all set to enjoy his last few months at home on the Isle of Wight before leaving for college. Life is looking good; his job at a holiday camp promises new friendships, even the possibility of romance, and his parents are too preoccupied with their own problems to worry much about their son's growing independence. But with windows and doors constantly open and life increasingly lived outside, secrets become hard to hide. As Luke listens in, his parents' seemingly ordered existence comes unstuck. Soon the community is gripped by scandal, and everything Luke thought he knew about friendship and family is turned on its head. Winner of the Mail on Sunday Novel Competition, Isabel Ashdown once again unravels the complexity of her characters' lives—and reveals what really lies beneath the surface.

Download or read book This Book Is Full of Spiders written by David Wong and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-10-02 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fan favorite Wong takes readers to a whole new level with this blistering sequel to the cult sensation "John Dies at the End," soon to be a movie starring Paul Giamatti.

Download or read book Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma written by Kerry Hudson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-01-28 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A witty and lively novel set somewhere between the worlds of Roddy Doyle and Irvine Welsh.” —William Dalyrymple, The Guardian Reminiscent of early Roddy Doyle, Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma begins with our singular heroine’s less than idyllic birth and quickly moves to a spectacular fight that lands Janie and her mother in a local women’s shelter. From there it’s on to a dodgy council flat and a succession of unsuitable men, including the hard-drinking, drug-dealing, ice-cream-buying Tony Hogan. Kerry Hudson’s arrestingly original debut will enthrall readers with Janie’s tragicomic and moving story about coming of age in a non-traditional family amid the absurdities of the 1980s and Thatcherite Britain.

Download or read book A Fairy Tale written by Jonas T. Bengtsson and published by Other Press, LLC. This book was released on 2014-03-25 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a Europe without borders, where social norms have become fragile, a son must confront the sins of his father and grandfather, and invent new strategies for survival A young boy grows up with a loving father who has little respect for the law. They are always on the run, and as they move from place to place, the boy is often distraught to leave behind new friendships. Because it would be dicey for him to go to school, his anarchistic father gives him an unconventional education intended to contradict as much as possible the teachings of his own father, a preacher and a pervert. Ten years later, when the boy is entering adulthood, with a fake name and a monotonous job, he tries to conform to the demands of ordinary life, but the lessons of the past thwart his efforts, and questions about his father’s childhood cannot be left unanswered. Spanning the mid-1980s to early-twenty-first-century in Copenhagen, this coming-of-age novel examines what it means to be a stranger in the modern world, and how, for better or for worse, a father’s legacy is never passed on in any predictable fashion.

Download or read book Life Part 2 written by S. W. Hubbard and published by . This book was released on 2019-10-22 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lydia Eastlee has skipped a decade of her life.When she married a much older man, Lydia took a shortcut from grad student to middle-aged matron. Do not pass go. Do not drink jug wine or buy Ikea bookshelves.Now Lydia finds herself a 45-year-old widow. She's got a suburban McMansion she doesn't want, a hole in her day where her job used to be, and a bunch of married-couple friends eligible for Social Security.Lydia wants to start over and recapture the endless possibilities life offers at age 25.She adopts a shelter dog with issues.Buys a charming little starter home on the verge of collapse.And accepts a job she doesn't know how to do.Lydia soon learns that youth isn't for the faint-hearted. Her dead husband is trying to control her future through the terms of his will. And her impulsive decisions may cost her some new friendships she can't bear to lose.But with the help of a quirky dog trainer, a hilarious colleague, and a hunky young carpenter, Lydia may get a second chance at the life she missed.

Download or read book A Pleasure and a Calling written by Phil Hogan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-02-27 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You won’t remember Mr Heming. He showed you round your comfortable home, suggested a sustainable financial package, negotiated a price with the owner and called you with the good news. The less good news is that, all these years later, he still has the key. That’s absurd, you laugh. Of all the many hundreds of houses he has sold, why would he still have the key to mine? The answer to that is, he has the keys to them all. William Heming’s every pleasure is in his leafy community. He loves and knows every inch of it, feels nurtured by it, and would defend it - perhaps not with his life but if it came to it, with yours...

Download or read book The Spider King s Daughter written by Chibundu Onuzo and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2012-03-13 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of a Betty Trask Award Shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Commonwealth Book Prize Longlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize The Spider King's Daughter is a modern-day Romeo and Juliet set against the backdrop of a changing Lagos, a city torn between tradition and modernity, corruption and truth, love and family loyalty. Seventeen-year-old Abike Johnson is the favourite child of her wealthy father. She lives in a She lives in a sprawling mansion in Lagos, protected by armed guards and ferried everywhere in a huge black jeep. But being her father's favourite comes with uncomfortable duties, and she is often lonely behind the high walls of her house. A world away from Abike's mansion, in the city's slums, lives a seventeen-year-old hawker struggling to make sense of the world. His family lost everything after his father's death and now he runs after cars on the roadside selling ice cream to support his mother and sister. When Abike buys ice cream from the hawker one day, they strike up an unlikely and tentative romance, defying the prejudices of Nigerian society. But as they grow closer, revelations from the past threaten their relationship and both Abike and the hawker must decide where their loyalties lie.

Download or read book The Onion Book of Known Knowledge written by The Onion and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2012-10-23 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are you a witless cretin with no reason to live? Would you like to know more about every piece of knowledge ever? Do you have cash? Then congratulations, because just in time for the death of the print industry as we know it comes the final book ever published, and the only one you will ever need: The Onion's compendium of all things known. Replete with an astonishing assemblage of facts, illustrations, maps, charts, threats, blood, and additional fees to edify even the most simple-minded book-buyer, The Onion Book of Known Knowledge is packed with valuable information -- such as the life stages of an Aunt; places to kill one's self in Utica, New York; and the dimensions of a female bucket, or "pail." With hundreds of entries for all 27 letters of the alphabet, The Onion Book of Known Knowledge must be purchased immediately to avoid the sting of eternal ignorance.

Download or read book Fast Food Nation written by Eric Schlosser and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2012 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the fast food industry in the United States, from its roots to its long-term consequences.

Download or read book The Death of Bees written by Lisa O'Donnell and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-01-02 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today is Christmas Eve. Today is my birthday. Today I am fifteen. Today I buried my parents in the backyard. Neither of them were beloved. Marnie and her little sister, Nelly, are on their own now. Only they know what happened to their parents, Izzy and Gene, and they aren't telling. While life in Glasgow's Maryhill housing estate isn't grand, the girls do have each other. Besides, it's only a year until Marnie will be considered an adult and can legally take care of them both. As the New Year comes and goes, Lennie, the old man next door, realizes that his young neighbors are alone and need his help. Or does he need theirs? Lennie takes them in—feeds them, clothes them, protects them—and something like a family forms. But soon enough, the sisters' friends, their teachers, and the authorities start asking tougher questions. As one lie leads to another, dark secrets about the girls' family surface, creating complications that threaten to tear them apart. Written with fierce sympathy and beautiful precision, told in alternating voices, The Death of Bees is an enchanting, grimly comic tale of three lost souls who, unable to answer for themselves, can answer only for one another.

Download or read book The Everything Store written by Brad Stone and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authoritative account of the rise of Amazon and its intensely driven founder, Jeff Bezos, praised by the Seattle Times as "the definitive account of how a tech icon came to life." Amazon.com started off delivering books through the mail. But its visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, wasn't content with being a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the everything store, offering limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To do so, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition and secrecy that's never been cracked. Until now. Brad Stone enjoyed unprecedented access to current and former Amazon employees and Bezos family members, giving readers the first in-depth, fly-on-the-wall account of life at Amazon. Compared to tech's other elite innovators -- Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg -- Bezos is a private man. But he stands out for his restless pursuit of new markets, leading Amazon into risky new ventures like the Kindle and cloud computing, and transforming retail in the same way Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing. The Everything Store is the revealing, definitive biography of the company that placed one of the first and largest bets on the Internet and forever changed the way we shop and read.

Download or read book Cinema of Confinement written by Thomas J. Connelly and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-15 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Thomas J. Connelly draws on a number of key psychoanalytic concepts from the works of Jacques Lacan, Slavoj Žižek, Joan Copjec, Michel Chion, and Todd McGowan to identify and describe a genre of cinema characterized by spatial confinement. Examining classic films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Rope and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, as well as current films such as Room, Green Room, and 10 Cloverfield Lane, Connelly shows that the source of enjoyment of confined spaces lies in the viewer's relationship to excess. Cinema of Confinement offers rich insights into the appeal of constricted filmic spaces at a time when one can easily traverse spatial boundaries within the virtual reality of cyberspace.

Download or read book The Bonfire of the Vanities written by Tom Wolfe and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2002-02-21 with total page 708 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vintage Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities, the #1 bestseller that will forever define late-twentieth-century New York style. "No one has portrayed New York Society this accurately and devastatingly since Edith Wharton" (The National Review) “A page-turner . . . Brilliant high comedy.” (The New Republic) Sherman McCoy, the central figure of Tom Wolfe's first novel, is a young investment banker with a fourteen-room apartment in Manhattan. When he is involved in a freak accident in the Bronx, prosecutors, politicians, the press, the police, the clergy, and assorted hustlers high and low close in on him, licking their chops and giving us a gargantuan helping of the human comedy, of New York in the 1980s, a city boiling over with racial and ethnic hostilities and burning with the itch to Grab It Now. Wolfe's novel is a big, panoramic story of the metropolis that reinforces the author's reputation as the foremost chronicler of the way we live in America. Adapted to film in 1990 by director Brian De Palma, the movie stars Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, and Morgan Freeman.

Download or read book Life Upended written by S W Hubbard and published by . This book was released on 2020-07-27 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can one word upend a life? A series of setbacks has left adjunct college professor Roz Schmidt one blown tire away from total financial collapse. Then she lands her dream job as a full-time professor at a local college. Good-bye to robbing Peter to pay Paul. Hello to a sunny new apartment and honest-to-goodness health insurance. The bonus for curvy, self-conscious Roz: her new-found confidence attracts a hunky fireman with romance potential. Enter the word. When a student misinterprets a comment, Roz stands to lose everything she's worked so hard to attain. How can she be right back where she started? Maybe it's time to put her PhD on the shelf and start waiting tables. Or maybe it's time for Roz to find the strength, and the friends, to remake herself and claim the life she deserves. This second installment of the Life in Palmyrton women's fiction series focuses on Roz Schmidt while continuing the story-line of her best friend, Lydia Eastlee, the heroine of Life, Part 2.

Download or read book Meatspace written by Nikesh Shukla and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2014-07-03 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second novel from Costa First Novel Award shortlisted author Nikesh Shukla.