Delectus is a short and eclectic anthology ideal for passing the time while you're stuck in line at the bank or bogged down in traffic. Mainstream to westerns, Delectus is well worth a read.Barbie says, “I saw a bloody lady. Do you want to be scared Tiffany?” Tiffany says, “Sure why not, I’ve come this far, might as well, see what you are talking about.” Barbie says, “Well follow me, I will show you, what it means to be scared.” The girls go on their way. It’s getting dark, all of the sudden.The full moon is out. There’s even, dog’s howling at the moon. Tiffany says, “Man is it just me, or did it get dark awful fast?” Eve says, “I think it did get dark, a lot faster than normal.”

A young man with a mission: to get himself killed, to subvert the established order in the name of the one true faith. What can come between him and the virgins he has been promised, if not the Angels in his heart? Dark humour lightens this tale of teenage longing taken to the extreme.Lee Soylent is a young man with a mission: to get himself killed. In the England of the very near future, his task is to subvert the established order in the name of the one true faith. He knows that only the next world matters. What can possibly come between him and the virgins he has been promised, if not the Angels in his heart? Dark humour lightens this tale of teenage longing taken to the extreme.

In an effort to bring his family together after a death in the family, a father and son hike Mount of the Holy Cross in order to bring their family together. What they find when they get to the summit, will shape both of their lives.David and his father, Sam, are both trying to rebuild their lives after David's mother and Sam's wife died. After a failed attempt at the summit of Mount of the Holy Cross, Sam's last 14er to climb and David's first, both are eager to try to climb it again.But this climb is for more than just joy. This is about reviving a family and paying respect to others.What happens when the two reach the summit, however, will shape their lives forever.

Short Story - An intrepid Times Picayune reporter finds himself going toe to toe with a demonic gangster who is surprisingly light on his feet despite what is actually on his feet. The man has a master, and it's not anyone you would ever want to meet.Short Story - An intrepid Times Picayune reporter finds himself going toe to toe with a demonic gangster who is surprisingly light on his feet despite what is actually on his feet. The man has a master, and it's not anyone you would ever want to meet.For the record - this story appears in Fossils in the Asphalt V2.

Join Thomas in his search to make sense of fragments of conversations and letters from his English students. A short story for lovers of quotations, fables, and anyone who has ever been a teacher or a student.Kayla Covington is a Private Eye for all occasions on the alien world of Pheros. She is the one you hire to find what you have lost, to glean information on a rival to use against them, or to discreetly remove something that could cause embarrassment. She thought she had seen and heard it all, that was until she was hired to infiltrate a secret society to uncover their secrets and steal their prized artifact. Now the only question that she cares about is, will she make it out of this alive?

Ollie Turner vows to ensnare the entire population of the small town of Beckmire into his servant ranks. He will lure them beneath his sway through the boxes of chocolate cakes and the pizza slices sold from his general store's register. Those remaining to claim Beckmire home are listless, lazy and dim, and so they present little challenge to a boneshaker working to multiply his zombies.Rose Pilger wakes every morning before the crack of dawn to peek between her window’s curtains upon the zombies who shuffle down the road running passed her home. She hates the zombies, for their limping souls represent the ruin that has befallen her town of Beckmire. If Rose had her way, she would forever hide in her home’s shadows, where she could gather amid all the treasure and trash her life has accumulated upon her floor, where she could whisper to her husband’s ghost. Only Rose runs dangerously low on food, and she is forced to make her own journey along that road that runs passed her home to reach ugly Ollie Turner’s general store. There, hunger forces Rose into a transaction that will reserve her own spot in that parade that each morning shambles by her home.

Seven blistered corpses are found in a derelict hogweed field. Seventy-four years prior, a family of seven suddenly vanished and left their establishment - the "Grau Kiefer" inn - in the hands of fate. Are these cases related? Or the killer just wants everyone to believe they are? Those are the questions the detectives are asking.Seven people, two adults and five children, found dead in a hogweed field. A video of the grueling crime scene is leaked online and becomes a viral sensation, thus putting even more pressure on the police to find the killer. As the investigation unfolds, it becomes clear that this is not the only shady business local residents are involved in. On top of that, a question that looms over everyone's head is: Why did the killer try to relate these murders to the disappearances of the owners of the "Grau Kiefer" inn and their five children seventy-four years ago?Rebecca tries to indulge Albert by discussing the case with him. Yet the former assassin questions his motivation for helping her and the police in general.

After relocating from the sticks to Manhattan, Kari discovers that the strangely serene members of the secretive religious organization that hired her mother are deeply intertwined with her life. Driven to unravel their mystery and what it means for her future, she finds herself ensnared in a web that reaches further than she could possibly have imagined.Kari Marriner’s earliest memory is her father’s death in a car crash back in small-town Wisconsin. Now, 12 years later, her mother has been hired by a pseudo-religious organization in Manhattan called the Temple of Truth (a.k.a. the ToT). At Chelsea Prep, Kari develops a crush on classmate Cruz. But when she realizes that Noon, another attractive guy at school, is involved with the ToT, her curiosity gets the better of her. Kari stumbles upon a secret tunnel leading from her apartment to another in the building, where an ancient book holds images she can scarcely believe, and a cavernous room contains... something inexplicable. As Kari pieces together the incredible evidence, she discovers that the ToT is run by other-worldly beings called The Embodied who influence human behavior and have established a global long-term human breeding program. But why? And what is her role in all this? Just as she starts wondering whether the love she feels for Cruz is genuine or if her emotions are being controlled by The Embodied, her mother is kidnapped and Kari has to figure out who is human, who is Embodied, and who she can count on to help rescue her mother. Silent Symmetry is the exciting first novel in JB Dutton’s EMBODIED trilogy. The second installment, Starley’s Rust, was published to critical acclaim in January 2015, followed by book 3, Diamond Splinters in May 2016. Goodreads ravesGoodreads raves“so hard to put down” 5-star review“The concept is unique, interesting, gripping” 5-star review“a bizarre and scary world” 5-star review“Kari's adventure was thrilling!” 4-star review“It's unique (never read anything like it before)” 5-star review“really, really good” 5-star review“filled with mystery and danger” 5-star review“can't wait for the sequel.” 5-star review“Who doesn't love hot aliens?” 5-star review

A collection of one hundred poems of different forms and lengths.Have a seat before the fire place of old Peter Perry's cabin as he opens the first of seven Journals. The Journals were in an old leather trunk soaked with storm water from a flood that entered his little cabin in Alaska. A young man named Patrick encourages old Peter to restore the wet Journals by retelling the story associated with each one. As old Peter Perry leaned back in his rocking chair he opens his mouth by saying, "it began here in Alaska, it was here where I discovered FAITH ON ICE". Old Peter began his story in San Diego CA as a youth with a hunger and endeavor to be a fisherman as his grandfather. Yet God had something else planned for Peter as he started his journey toward the north, toward the Alaska frontier, it was there where he found the old rugged cross.

The "Hollywood" where Sammy Santos and Juliana Rios live is not the West Coast one, the one with all the glitz and glitter. This Hollywood is a tough barrio at the edge of a small town in southern New Mexico. Sammy and this friends--members of the 1969 high school graduating class--face a world of racism, dress codes, war in Vietnam and barrio violence. In the summer before his senior year begins, Sammy falls in love with Juliana, a girl whose tough veneer disguises a world of hurt. By summer's end, Juliana is dead. Sammy grieves, and in his grief, the memory of Juliana becomes his guide through this difficult year. Sammy is a smart kid, but he's angry. He's angry about Juliana's death, he's angry about the poverty his father and his sister must endure, he's angry at his high school and its thinly disguised gringo racism, and he's angry he might not be able to go to college. Benjamin Alire Saenz, evoking the bittersweet ambience found in such novels as McMurtry's "The Last Picture Show," captures the essence of what it meant to grow up Chicano in small-town America in the late 1960s. Benjamin Alire Saenz--novelist, poet, essayist and writer of children's books--is at the forefront of the emerging Latino literatures. He has received both the Wallace Stegner Fellowship and the Lannan Fellowship, and is a recipient of the American Book Award. Born Mexican-American Catholic in the rural community of Picacho, New Mexico, he now teaches at the University of Texas at El Paso, and considers himself a "fronterizo," a person of the border.

With the same ebullient storytelling, luxuriant prose, and irrepressible eroticism he brought to The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts and Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord, Louis de Bernières continues his chronicle of Cochadebajo, the Andean village where macho philosophers, defrocked priests, and reformed (though hardly inactive) prostitutes cohabit in cheerful anarchy. But this unruly utopia is imperiled when the demon-harried Cardinal Guzmán decides to inaugurate a new Inquisition, with Cochadebajo as its ultimate target.        On his side, the Cardinal has an army of fanatics who are all too willing to destroy bodies in order to save souls. The Cochadebajeros have precious little ammunition, unless you count chef Dolores's incendiary Chicken of a True Man, and a civil defense that deems nothing more crucial than the act of love. Part epic, part farce, The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzmán confirms de Bernières's reputation as England's answer to Gabriel García Márquez.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Anne Tyler's The Beginner's Goodbye. In the small town of Larksville, the Pike family is hopelessly out of step with the daily rhythms of life after the tragic, accidental death of six-year-old Janie Rose. Mrs. Pike seldom speaks, blaming herself, while Mr. Pike is forced to come out of his long, comfortable silence. Then there is ten-year-old Simon, who is suddenly without a baby sister -- and without understanding why she's gone. Those closest to this shattered family must learn to comfort them -- and confront their own private shadows of hidden grief. If time cannot draw them out of the dark, then love may be their only hope....

Bertram had no belief in luck. He was not superstitious. A conspicuously unsuccessful assistant accountant, he was planning to get married for the second time. Quite quietly: St Luke's, Maida Hill, and then two weeks in Bournemouth. But Dreuther, a director of Bertram's firm, whimsically switches wedding and honeymoon to Monte Carlo. Inevitably Bertram visits the Casino. Inevitably he loses. Then suddenly his system starts working . . . For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Olivia Kaspen has just discovered that her ex-boyfriend, Caleb Drake, has lost his memory. With an already lousy reputation for taking advantage of situations, Olivia must decide how far she is willing to go to get Caleb back. Wrestling to keep her true identity and their sordid past under wraps, Olivia’s greatest obstacle is Caleb’s wicked, new girlfriend; Leah Smith. It is a race to the finish as these two vipers engage in a vicious tug of war to possess a man who no longer remembers them. But, soon enough Olivia must face the consequences of her lies, and in the process discover that sometimes love falls short of redemption.

Thomas Wolfe contended that The Web and the Rock, the precursor to You Cant Go Home Again, was "not only a turning away from the books I have written in the past, but a genuine spiritual and artistic change." To demonstrate his commitment to a new literary direction, he transformed his protagonist Eugene Gant into the more mature and aware George Webber.The Web and the Rock continues Wolfe's own story through George, a young writer whose works resemble Wolfe's own. The first half of this posthumously published novel describes George's evolution from small-town southern boy to struggling New York novelist and attempts to answer the brooding protagonist's question, "What is it that a young man wants?" The second half is devoted to his tempestuous affair with a sophisticated married woman. Ultimately, George, repulsed by the frivolous lifestyle of his wealthy mistress and her circle, retreats to Europe. But, once again, his idealism is shattered as Hitler rises to power in Germany. Disillusioned, George dreams of returning to the South of his childhood but realizes that "you can't go home again."

«Una pareja de jóvenes apuestos, acuciados por pasiones urgentes como la vida, se mira a los ojos al bailar un tango aún no escrito, en el salón silencioso y desierto de un transatlántico que navega en la noche. Trazando sin saberlo, al moverse abrazados, la rúbrica de un mundo irreal cuyas luces fatigadas empiezan a apagarse para siempre.» Un extraño desafío entre dos músicos, que lleva a uno de ellos a Buenos Aires en 1928; un asunto de espionaje en la Riviera francesa durante la Guerra Civil española; una inquietante partida de ajedrez en el Sorrento de los años sesenta... El tango de la Guardia Vieja narra con pulso admirable una turbia y apasionada historia de amor, traiciones e intrigas, que se prolonga durante cuatro décadas a través de un siglo convulso y fascinante, entre la luz crepuscular de una época que se extingue.

London teenager Will Hodge is miserable. His mother is dead, his father's political leanings have grown radical, and his friends barely talk to him. To top it off, he's having nightmares about things like concentration camps. Then Will notices he's being followed by a group of people who claim to know him from another time in history. It turns out they are Returners, reincarnated people who carry with them the memory of atrocities they have witnessed in the past. Will realizes that he, too, is a Returner. But something about his memories is different, and with dawning horror, Will suspects that he wasn't just a witness to the events, he was instrumental in making them happen. Set in the near future, with the world on the verge of a new wave of ethnic cleansing, Will must choose to confront the cruelty he's known in his past lives, or be doomed to repeat it...

Originally written in Bahasa, The Rainbow Troops was first published in 2005 and sold a record-breaking five million copies in Indonesia. The novel tells the inspiring and closely autobiographical tale of the trials and tribulations that the ten motley students (nicknamed the Rainbow Troops) and two teachers from Muhammadiyah Elementary School on Belitong Island, Indonesia, undergo to ensure the continuation of the children’ s education. The poverty-stricken school suffers the constant threat of closure by government officials, greedy corporations, natural disasters and the students’ own lack of self-confidence. The story is written from the perspective of Ikal, who is six years old when the novel opens. Just as the author himself did as a young man, Ikal goes to college and eventually wins a scholarship to go abroad, beating incredible odds to become a writer. This delightful, inspiring book has a fable-like quality that reminds us why we love stories— heartwarming stories, funny stories, stories that remind us of the precious things in life. Ikal and his band of plucky cohorts face obstacles large and small, and the reader can’t help but root for them to beat the odds and get the education— and life— they deserve. The setting is as compelling and memorable as the characters, and a rare window into a world we know little about. The Rainbow Troops is the first of a tetralogy of novels that have all become bestsellers in Indonesia. It was adapted for the screen and shown at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2009.

From the critically acclaimed author of Beneath a Marble Sky and Beside a Burning Sea--the new novel from "a master storyteller,"* set in contemporary Asia. From John Shors comes an unforgettable story of redemption set in modern-day Vietnam. Dragon House tells the tale of Iris and Noah--two Americans who, as a way of healing their own painful pasts, open a center to house and educate Vietnamese street children. In the slums of a city that has known little but war for generations, Iris and Noah befriend children who dream of nothing more than of going to school, having a home, and being loved. Learning from the poorest of the poor, the most silent of the unheard, Iris and Noah find themselves reborn. Resounding with powerful themes of suffering, sacrifice, friendship, and love, Dragon House brings together East and West, war and peace, and celebrates the resilience of the human spirit.

At thirty-five, Abigail Simmons has mastered only one thing—running. When tragedy strikes, she runs. This time her urge to flee brings Abi back to her hometown, where she hopes she can find the peace she’s always searched for. That hope is dashed when Abi’s ex, Sam Forrester, bumps his way back into her life. Sam has flourished in ways Abi hasn’t. From the outside, he has it all—a successful medical practice, a beautiful daughter, and a charming wife. Who is dying. Sara Forrester is dying and her final wish is for Sam to find love again so she can meet the woman who will finish raising her daughter and grow old with her husband. Abi seems like the perfect fit, but what Sara doesn’t know is that Abi has a secret, a secret no one could guess. And it’s a deal breaker.

The latest in Kathryn Lasky's hit series - a stunning spin-off set among the wolves of Ga'hoole. A great cold has seized the Beyond. The warmth of summer, the smell of sweet grass and the great caribou migrations are distant memories. Now the wolves know only ice, dark, snow and endless cold. The order that kept the wolf clans strong for thousands of years has broken down completely. The wolves have only one chance for survival. They must find their way to a new land, a land of warmth and summer. But the journey will take them over a frozen sea and through thousands of miles of perilous territory. Will the wolves trust young Faolan to lead them?