Download or read book Understanding Unreliable Narrators written by Michael William Smith and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intended for high school literature teachers, this book reviews research in educational psychology and reading comprehension, and outlines classroom activities for direct instruction and practice of interpretive strategies. The book cites studies which reveal that if teachers distrust students' ability to interpret literature effectively, they may dominate classroom discussion and bore students by confining them to short answers. It describes direct-teaching experiments in which students' comprehension of literature improved when they were taught to distinguish between different kinds of questions. The book discusses research in which students successfully used a set of questions to detect irony in literature, and offers another set of questions to help students understand that in fiction, they will encounter fallible narrators. The book maintains that discussions, small-group work, and other activities help students get below the surface of literature, relate it to life, and move toward independent interpretations. The book offers interpretive units constructed around three short stories, and provides checklists, reproducible handouts, and a bibliography. (MG)
Download or read book Rules for Visiting written by Jessica Francis Kane and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An elegant and deeply moving meditation on friendship, family, and life on earth. Rules for Visiting is a wonderful novel.” —Emily St. John Mandel, author of Sea of Tranquility, The Glass Hotel, and Station Eleven The national bestseller and an Indie Next List pick Name a Best Book of the Year by O Magazine • Good Housekeeping • Real Simple • Vulture • Chicago Tribune Named a Best Book of the Summer by The Today Show • Good Morning America • Wall Street Journal • San Francisco Chronicle • Southern Living Shortlisted for the 2020 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize Long-listed for the 2020 Tournament of Books Dry, witty, and unapologetic, May Attaway loves literature and her work as a botanist for the university in her hometown. More at home with plants than people, May begins to suspect she isn’t very good at friendship and wonders if it’s possible to improve with practice. Granted some leave from her job, she sets out on a journey to spend time with four long-neglected friends. Smart, funny, and full of compassion, Rules for Visiting is the story of a search for friendship in the digital age, a singular look at the way we stay in touch. While May travels, she studies her friends’ lives and begins to confront the pain of her own. With simplicity and honesty, Jessica Francis Kane has crafted an exquisite story about a woman trying to find a new way to be in the world. This nourishing book, with its beautiful contemplation of travel, trees, family, and friendship, is the perfect antidote to our chaotic times.
Download or read book How To Be a Good Wife written by Emma Chapman and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How To Be a Good Wife by Emma Chapman is a haunting literary debut about a woman who begins having visions that make her question everything she knows Marta and Hector have been married for a long time. Through the good and bad; through raising a son and sending him off to life after university. So long, in fact, that Marta finds it difficult to remember her life before Hector. He has always taken care of her, and she has always done everything she can to be a good wife—as advised by a dog-eared manual given to her by Hector's aloof mother on their wedding day. But now, something is changing. Small things seem off. A flash of movement in the corner of her eye, elapsed moments that she can't recall. Visions of a blonde girl in the darkness that only Marta can see. Perhaps she is starting to remember—or perhaps her mind is playing tricks on her. As Marta's visions persist and her reality grows more disjointed, it's unclear if the danger lies in the world around her, or in Marta herself. The girl is growing more real every day, and she wants something.
Download or read book Duchess of Nothing written by Heather McGowan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-03-06 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even after leaving her husband and a suffocating marriage for a new lover in Rome, a woman finds herself trapped by the routines of life and coping with her past and her self-absorbed lover, Edmund, with the only break in her routine being Edmund's defiant, precocious seven-year-old brother. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.
Download or read book How Not to Die Alone written by Richard Roper and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Smart, darkly funny, and life-affirming, How Not to Die Alone is the bighearted debut novel we all need, for fans of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, it's a story about love, loneliness, and the importance of taking a chance when we feel we have the most to lose. "Wryly funny and quirkily charming."--Eleanor Brown, author of The Weird Sisters Sometimes you need to risk everything...to find your something. Andrew's been feeling stuck. For years he's worked a thankless public health job, searching for the next of kin of those who die alone. Luckily, he goes home to a loving family every night. At least, that's what his coworkers believe. Then he meets Peggy. A misunderstanding has left Andrew trapped in his own white lie and his lonely apartment. When new employee Peggy breezes into the office like a breath of fresh air, she makes Andrew feel truly alive for the first time in decades. Could there be more to life than this? But telling Peggy the truth could mean losing everything. For twenty years, Andrew has worked to keep his heart safe, forgetting one important thing: how to live. Maybe it's time for him to start.
Download or read book The Listeners written by Harrison Demchick and published by Bancroft Press. This book was released on 2012-12 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Before the plague, and the quarantine, fourteen-year-old Daniel Raymond had only heard of the Listeners. They were a gang, or at least that's what his best friend Katie's police officer father had said. They were criminals, thieves, monsters--deadly men clearly identifiable by the removal of their right ears.That's what Daniel had heard. But he didn't know.He didn't know much in those early days. He didn't know how the plague began, but then, no one did. The doctors and emergency medical personnel said it was airborne, and highly contagious. They said those infected became distorted both inside and out, and very, very dangerous.Then the helicopters came and took the doctors away, and no one said much of anything after that.Except the police officers. They said they'd provide food and order, in exchange for guns and, ultimately, anything else they felt like taking.Daniel's mother went out for toilet paper. She never came back. He hasn't heard from Katie since the phones went dead. And with his real family gone and surrogate family unreachable, Daniel, scared and alone, has nothing except the walls of his apartment, the window shattered, the poisonous air seeping in.That's when the Listeners arrive. Derek, the one-eared man with the big, soulful eyes, promises protection, and hope, and the choice not to sit alone and wait to die in some horrific way. He offers a brotherhood under the watch of their leader, the prophet Adam. He offers a place in the world to come.A harrowing work of literary horror, The Listeners, Harrison Demchick's electrifying debut, is a dark and terrifying journey into loneliness, desperation, and the devastating experience of one young boy in a world gone mad."
Download or read book Poor Things written by Alasdair Gray and published by Dalkey Archive Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Alasdair Gray's most brilliant creations, Poor Things is a postmodern revision of Frankenstein that replaces the traditional monster with Bella Baxter--a beautiful young erotomaniac brought back to life with the brain of an infant. Godwin Baxter's scientific ambition to create the perfect companion is realized when he finds the drowned body of Bella, but his dream is thwarted by Dr. Archibald McCandless's jealous love for Baxter's creation.The hilarious tale of love and scandal that ensues would be "the whole story" in the hands of a lesser author (which in fact it is, for this account is actually written by Dr. McCandless). For Gray, though, this is only half the story, after which Bella (a.k.a. Victoria McCandless) has her own say in the matter.Satirizing the classic Victorian novel, Poor Things is a hilarious political allegory and a thought-provoking duel between the desires of men and the independence of women, from one of Scotland's most accomplished authors.
Download or read book Stephen Florida written by Gabe Habash and published by Coffee House Press. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 499 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A troubled college wrestler in North Dakota falls in love and becomes increasingly unhinged during his final season. Stephen Florida follows a college wrestler in his senior season, when every practice, every match, is a step closer to greatness and a step further from sanity. Profane, manic, and tipping into the uncanny, it's a story of loneliness, obsession, and the drive to leave a mark. Stephen is in his final wrestling season at his North Dakota school, and he intends to win the divisional championship in his weight class. He thinks about little else, in fact. It will make up for the failures of the past. It will prove something to the world. It will be the fulfillment of a promise to himself, and a tribute to his late grandmother, who raised him after his parents’ fatal car crash. As the competition in Kenosha, Wisconsin, grows ever closer, Stephen will grow ever more consumed—and unsure of what comes next—in this “utterly engrossing” literary debut" (Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will).
Download or read book Sydney Bridge Upside Down Text Classics written by David Ballantyne and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2012-04-26 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A great, untamed story about childhood, a summer holiday and a sinister tragedy that looms over everything.
Download or read book Spares written by Michael Marshall Smith and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2009-05-01 with total page 11 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Talking fridges, human clone farms, flying shopping malls – we must be in the Michael Marshall Smith zone. A world all too close to our own...
Download or read book House of Leaves written by Mark Z. Danielewski and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2000-03-07 with total page 738 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York Times Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children. Now this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and second and third appendices. The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.
Download or read book The False Prince written by Jennifer A. Nielsen and published by Scholastic UK. This book was released on 2012-06-07 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you love the danger and sword-fighting of MERLIN, you'll like this! In a discontent kingdom, civil war is brewing. To unify the divided people, Conner, a nobleman of the court, devises a cunning plan to find an impersonator of the king's long-lost son and install him as a puppet prince. Four orphans are recruited to compete for the role, including a defiant boy named Sage. Sage knows that Conner's motives are more than questionable, yet his life balances on a sword's point - he must be chosen to play the prince or he will certainly be killed. As Sage's journey continues, layer upon layer of treachery and deceit unfold, until finally a truth is revealed that proves more dangerous than all of the lies put together.
Download or read book The Rhetoric of Fiction written by Wayne C. Booth and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-05-15 with total page 573 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first edition of The Rhetoric of Fiction transformed the criticism of fiction and soon became a classic in the field. One of the most widely used texts in fiction courses, it is a standard reference point in advanced discussions of how fictional form works, how authors make novels accessible, and how readers recreate texts, and its concepts and terms—such as "the implied author," "the postulated reader," and "the unreliable narrator"—have become part of the standard critical lexicon. For this new edition, Wayne C. Booth has written an extensive Afterword in which he clarifies misunderstandings, corrects what he now views as errors, and sets forth his own recent thinking about the rhetoric of fiction. The other new feature is a Supplementary Bibliography, prepared by James Phelan in consultation with the author, which lists the important critical works of the past twenty years—two decades that Booth describes as "the richest in the history of the subject."
Download or read book Mister B Gone written by Clive Barker and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Think of a darker, more aggressive version of C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters. . . . Filled with wicked mischief and dark dares.” — Kansas City Star From Clive Barker, the great master of horror and the macabre, comes a brilliant and truly unsettling tour de force of the supernatural—a terrifying work that escorts the reader on an intimate and revelatory journey to uncover the shocking truth of the battle between Good and Evil. “Burn this book!” So warns Jakerbok, the spellbinding narrator of this fabulously original “memoir,” a tale of good and evil deliberately “lost” for nearly six hundred years. Jakerbok is no ordinary soul; he is a minion of hell with a terrifying plan to cast the world into darkness and despair—a plan thwarted by a young apprentice of Johannes Gutenberg who buried the one and only copy of this damnable manuscript that his master printed in 1438. Compelling and direct, Jakerbok shares the secrets of his life, going back centuries to recall the events that shaped his childhood, including the traumas he suffered at the hands of his parents, super demons themselves. He explains how he rose from “minor” to “major” demon status, and gleefully reveals his nefarious plot to “invade” the minds and hearts of unwitting humans everywhere thanks to the ingenious Gutenberg and his invention. “Burn this book!” he advises throughout—a taunt, a warning, and a command that will actually unleash the evil with which he has hidden in every word and every page, infusing the very ink and paper upon which they are printed. Inventive and irresistible, Mister B. Good reaffirms Clive Barker is one of our most brilliant and original voices, an artist with a keen insight into mysteries deep within the human heart.
Download or read book Only Forward written by Michael Marshall Smith and published by Harper Voyager. This book was released on 2015-05-07 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Marshall Smith's surreal, groundbreaking, and award-winning debut which resonates with wild humour interlaced with dark recollections of an emotional minefield. May we introduce you to Stark. Oh, and by the way -- good luck. Stark is the private investigator who goes to work when Something Happens to you. And when a Something happens it's no good chanting 'go away go away go away' and cowering in a corner, because a Something always comes from your darkest past and won't be beaten until you face it. And that's not easy in a city where reality is twisting and broken, a world in which friends can become enemies in a heartbeat -- and where your most secret fear can become a soul-shredding reality. And the worst of it is, for this nightmare you don't even have to be asleep... Considered a modern classic, and consistently featured in lists of Books To Read Before Your Head Explodes, ONLY FORWARD is a novel you'll never forget.
Download or read book The Great Gatsby Mystery written by Anne Crow and published by . This book was released on 2010-09-20 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is not necessary to know the novel "The Great Gatsby" to enjoy this sequel, but the play is closely based on Fitzgerald's story. The narrator, Nick Carraway, has died, and his manuscript been given to Daisy Buchanan, who blames herself for her lover's death. She was driving Gatsby's car when it killed Myrtle Wilson, the wife of the man assumed to have shot Gatsby. Daisy's friend, Jordan Baker, is determined to prove that Daisy is not responsible for Gatsby's death. Jordan realises that Carraway has left clues which suggest that the inquest jumped to a hasty conclusion. Wouldn't the airbed have been punctured when Gatsby was shot? Did Wilson have the gun and the skill to kill him? Why does Carraway repeat that the servants were Wolfshiem's people, and that they already knew Gatsby was dead when he arrived? Why didn't Wolfshiem, bootlegger, gambler and Gatsby's partner-in-crime, attend his funeral? Who did kill Gatsby and how? ... and why did Daisy and her husband, Tom, have to leave Chicago?
Download or read book Untitled Rothfuss 3 Of 3 written by Patrick Rothfuss and published by Gollancz. This book was released on 2012-04-01 with total page 896 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third in 'The Kingkiller Chronicle' series of fantasy novels by Patrick Rothfuss.
