Showing titles in Contemporary Fiction

From an unusual weight-losing recipe found in an old notebook - and used with alarming consequences - to the queen of copy-cats who drives her neighbour mad with anger, Over The Gate is a hugely entertaining collection of tales from Fairacre, past and present.

79-year-old Martha Anderson, with the aid of her Zimmer frame, is robbing a bank. She’s not past it yet and intends to fund her way to a much more exciting life-style. Except all the cashier can see is a little old lady. So Martha is bundled into a cab and sent back to her atrocious care home...

"Elos von Bergen war nicht einfach irgendein Spurensucher. Er war es, der das Rätsel des Obelisken von Tarnok gelöst hat. Er brachte der Gräfin von Oberlinden ihren Greifen zurück. Er fing den Traummörder von Altschwanenberg. Er war der berühmteste Spurensucher der Verlorenen Provinzen. Wobei er sich selbst nie als Spurensucher bezeichnet hätte. Elos von Bergen war Spurenfinder." Elos von Bergen hat das Spurenfinden eigentlich an den Nagel gehängt, seit ein Fall mit einem nachtragenden Nachtmagier ihn und seine Kinder Ada und Naru fast das Leben gekostet hätte.

Professor Perl invites you in these eight lectures to abandon your preconceptions and consider some of the most controversial authors of the 20th century: the Modernists.Who were they? How did "classical" Modernists like Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and James Joyce differ from "neo-Modernists" like Gertrude Stein and William Carlos Williams? What made them believe and write as they did? Why were political extremism, war, and self-destructive behavior such defining forces in their writing (and their personal demons)? What do they have to say to us today in the 21st century?These lectures place literary Modernism within the wide-ranging context of the philosophy, literature, politics, and morality of its time. In doing so, they allow you to look more clearly at the writers and works who have contributed to the definition of human culture. You'll see Eliot, Joyce, Pound, Yeats, James, Lawrence, and others spring to life with their radical beliefs about art and their unforgettable novels and stories. These lectures do not shrink from the challenges imposed by exploring Modernism, or from challenging the answers that scholars have routinely accepted. Nor do they shy away from the difficulties of literary Modernism itself; a literary genre that intimidates many. But despite all this, these lectures are brilliantly organized, crystal clear, and an invaluable tool for finally wrapping your brain around a dramatic roster of authors and an enduring canon of literature.

"There's a secret to mastery that you may have never heard, a single little thing that only the very best in the world know how to do. In fact, I believe it is the only thing anyone can do to gain true mastery at anything, and it's an equal opportunity principle. It can be applied to fulfill your potential in business, in sports, in your relationships, as well as your overall life. Do you want to know what it is?"

Kitty Montrose is packing up her house and the memories that go with it. Under this roof, she's seen her children grow up, her grandchildren arrive, and her marriage come and go. Kitty knows better than most that the twists and turns of life can bring joy, despair and everything in between. But when she was a little girl, she had hoped for more. She dreamed of finding her true soul mate. Someone to laugh with, cry with and share her twilight years.

Lucy, staying in a beautiful home overlooking Venice Beach, can find no peace from her misery - not in therapy, not in Tinder hookups, not in her sister's dog's unquestioning devotion, not in ruminating on the ancient Greeks. Yet everything changes when Lucy becomes entranced by an eerily attractive swimmer one night while sitting alone on the beach rocks....

Newly married and having recently taken over the management of a hotel in Honolulu, a former writer is drawn into the lives of his guests and the distinctive customs and rhythms of the distant island. As witness to the many contrasting chronicles of the hotel's characters, he ultimately returns to writing once again. The result is this novel in 80 distinct episodes, a Chaucerian sequence of strange pilgrims and islanders confronting each other and their fates in the rooms of the seedy hotel.

In 1919 Emily Ehrlich watches as two young airmen, Alcock and Brown, emerge from the carnage of World War One to pilot the very first nonstop transatlantic flight from Newfoundland to the west of Ireland. In 1845 Frederick Douglass, a black American slave, lands in Ireland to champion ideas of democracy and freedom, only to find a famine unfurling at his feet. And in 1998 Senator George Mitchell criss-crosses the ocean in search of an elusive Irish peace.

An ordinary family man, geologist, and Mormon, Soren Johansson has always believed he'll be reunited with his loved ones after death in an eternal hereafter. Then, he dies. Soren wakes to find himself cast by a God he has never heard of into a Hell whose dimensions he can barely grasp: a vast library he can only escape from by finding the book that contains the story of his life. In this haunting existential novella, author, philosopher, and ecologist Steven L. Peck explores a subversive vision of eternity.

The novel is set in Varanasi. Chetan Bhagat initiates the story through the central character of Gopal. It is through Gopal's narration of his life to the author that we are introduced to Raghav and Aarti. The story revolves around these three characters. While Gopal comes from a poor family, Raghav comes from a well-off family. Both set out to achieve success and realise their dreams.

Jasper Jones has come to my window. I don't know why, but he has. Maybe he's in trouble. Maybe he doesn't have anywhere else to go.Late on a hot summer night at the tail end of 1965, Charlie Bucktin, a precocious and bookish boy of thirteen, is startled by a knock on his window. His visitor is Jasper Jones. Rebellious, mixed-race and solitary, Jasper is a distant figure of danger and intrigue for Charlie.

In the world of interconnected novels by Louise Erdrich, Four Souls is most closely linked to Tracks. All these works continue and elaborate on the intricate story of life on a reservation peopled by saints and false saints, heroes and sinners, clever fools and tenacious women. Louise Erdrich...

Mit blinkenden Warnlichtern fährt die Erzählerin, eine namenlose Schriftstellerin, an den Straßenrand, als ein unerwarteter Anruf sie erreicht. Am Apparat ist ein gefeierter Theatermacher, der sie für sein neuestes Vorhaben zu gewinnen versucht – ein in den Tropen angesiedeltes Stück, die Rekonstruktion eines Falls. Wenige Wochen später bricht sie auf, um sich der Theatergruppe auf ihrem Gang ins tiefe Innere des Urwalds anzuschließen.

From the best-selling author of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, a ghost story, a psychological thriller and a tale of love rediscovered. Elizabeth has been married to Michael for ten years. She has adjusted to a fairly monotonous routine with her wealthy, decent but boring husband. Part of this routine involves occasional visits to Beinn Caorrun, the dank and gloomy house in a Scottish glen that Michael inherited. There are memories there that Michael will not share with her. But then Michael begins to change. It starts when he thinks he sees, in a picture, the figure of a girl on a landing.

Julian Treslove and Sam Finkler are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they've never quite lost touch with each other - or with their former teacher, Libor Sevick. Now all three are recently widowed, in their own way, and spend sweetly painful evenings together reminiscing. Until an unexpected violent attack brings everything they thought they knew into question.

Светлана Алексиевич "Время секонд хэнд" - завершающая книга знаменитого цикла "Голоса утопии" от лауреата Нобелевской премии по литературе. "У коммунизма был безумный план, — рассказывает автор, — переделать "старого" человека, ветхого Адама. И это получилось… Может быть, единственное, что получилось.

The unmissable third and final instalment of Jenny Colgan's return to the Little School by the Sea - perfect for anyone who ever dreamed of going to boarding school!

Discover a bedtime story for adults that calms the mind and gently prepares the heart for rest. The Florist Who Named the Wind is a quiet, poetic tale from the Before Your Dream series, written for slow evenings, softened thoughts, and unhurried breathing.

Who is Vernon Subutex? An urban legend. A fall from grace. The mirror who reflects us all. Vernon Subutex was once the proprietor of Revolver, an infamous music shop in Bastille. His legend spread throughout Paris. But by the 2000s his shop is struggling. With his savings gone, his unemployment benefit cut and the friend who had been covering his rent suddenly dead, Vernon Subutex finds himself down and out on the Paris streets. He has one final card up his sleeve.