*'The brown bears paced, brushing their thick coats against the bars; their heads swayed low to the ground, in rhythm with some ritual of stealth they were born knowing and pointlessly never forgot'* It is 1967 and two Viennese university students decide to liberate the Vienna Zoo, as was done after World War II. The eccentric duo, Graff and Siggy, embark on an adventure-filled motorbike tour of Austria as they prepare for "the great zoo bust." But their grand scheme will have both comic and gruesome consequences, as they are soon to find out...

Hailed as one of the best short story writers of his generation, T.C. Boyle presents sixteen stories--nine of which appeared in The New Yorker--that highlight the evolving excellence of his inventive, modern, and wickedly witty style. In After the Plague, Boyle exhibits his maturing themes through an amazing array of subjects in a range of emotional keys. He taps today's headlines, from air rage ("Friendly Skies") to abortion doctors ("Killing Babies"), and delves into more naturalistic themes of quiet power and passion, from a tale of first love ("The Love of My Life") to a story about confronting old age ("Rust"). Combining joy and humor with the dark, intense scenarios that Boyle's audience has come to love, After the Plague reveals a writer at the top of his form.

On the brink of a life-changing decision, Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother's past. But Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a small Cretan village before moving to London. When Alexis decides to visit Crete, however, Sofia gives her daughter a letter to take to an old friend, and promises that through her she will learn more. Arriving in Plaka, Alexis is astonished to see that it lies a stone's throw from the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga - Greece's former leper colony. Then she finds Fotini, and at last hears the story that Sofia has buried all her life: the tale of her great-grandmother Eleni and her daughters and a family rent by tragedy, war and passion. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island, and how secrecy holds them all in its powerful grip...

A thrilling, plot-twisting novel from the author of Restless, a national bestseller and winner of the Costa Novel of the Year Award. It is May in Chelsea, London. The glittering river is unusually high on an otherwise ordinary afternoon. Adam Kindred, a young climatologist in town for a job interview, ambles along the Embankment, admiring the view. He is pleasantly surprised to come across a little Italian bistro down a leafy side street. During his meal he strikes up a conversation with a solitary diner at the next table, who leaves soon afterwards. With horrifying speed, this chance encounter leads to a series of malign accidents through which Adam will lose everything - home, family, friends, job, reputation, passport, credit cards, mobile phone - never to get them back. A heart-in-mouth conspiracy novel about the fragility of social identity, the corruption at the heart of big business and the secrets that lie hidden in the filthy underbelly of the everyday city.

New York Times bestselling author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs and Downtown Owl, “the Ethicist” of the New York Times Magazine, Chuck Klosterman returns to fiction with his second novel—an imaginative page-turner about a therapist and her unusual patient, a man who can render himself invisible. Therapist Victoria Vick is contacted by a cryptic, unlikable man who insists his situation is unique and unfathomable. As he slowly reveals himself, Vick becomes convinced that he suffers from a complex set of delusions: Y__, as she refers to him, claims to be a scientist who has stolen cloaking technology from an aborted government project in order to render himself nearly invisible. He says he uses this ability to observe random individuals within their daily lives, usually when they are alone and vulnerable. Unsure of his motives or honesty, Vick becomes obsessed with her patient and the disclosure of his increasingly bizarre and disturbing tales. Over time, it threatens her career, her marriage, and her own identity. Interspersed with notes, correspondence, and transcriptions that catalog a relationship based on curiosity and fear, The Visible Man touches on all of Chuck Klosterman’s favorite themes—the consequence of culture, the influence of media, the complexity of voyeurism, and the existential contradiction of normalcy. Is this comedy, criticism, or horror? Not even Y__ seems to know for sure.

A stunning new translation—the first in more than forty years—of a major novel by the father of modern Japanese fiction Natsume Sōseki's Kusamakura follows its nameless young artist-narrator on a meandering walking tour of the mountains. At the inn at a hot spring resort, he has a series of mysterious encounters with Nami, the lovely young daughter of the establishment. Nami, or "beauty," is the center of this elegant novel, the still point around which the artist moves and the enigmatic subject of Sōseki's word painting. In the author's words, Kusamakura is "a haiku-style novel, that lives through beauty." Written at a time when Japan was opening its doors to the rest of the world, Kusamakura turns inward, to the pristine mountain idyll and the taciturn lyricism of its courtship scenes, enshrining the essence of old Japan in a work of enchanting literary nostalgia.

"The Story of the Stone (c. 1760)", also known by the title of "The Dream of the Red Chamber", is the great novel of manners in Chinese literature. Divided into five volumes, of which "The Warning Voice" is the third, it charts the glory and decline of the illustrious Jia family (a story which closely accords with the fortunes of the author's own family). The two main characters, Bao-yu and Dai-yu, are set against a rich tapestry of humour, realistic detail and delicate poetry, which accurately reflects the ritualized hurly-burly of Chinese family life. But over and above the novel hangs the constant reminder that there is another plane of existence - a theme which affirms the Buddhist belief in a supernatural scheme of things.

Jamal is middle-aged, though reluctant to admit it. He has an ex-wife, a son he adores, a thriving career as a psychoanalyst and vast reserves of unsatisfied desire. "Secrets are my currency," he says. "I deal in them for a living." And he has some of his own. He is haunted by Ajita, his first love, whom he hasn't seen in decades, and by an act of violence he has never confessed. With great empathy and agility, Kureishi has created an array of unforgettable characters -- a hilarious and eccentric theater director, a covey of charming and defiant outcasts and an ebullient sister who thrives on the fringe. All wrestle with their own limits as human beings; all are plagued by the past until they find it within themselves to forgive. Comic, wise and unfailingly tender, Something to Tell You is Kureishi's best work to date, brilliant and exhilarating.

SO CONSUMING, SO RAW, SO DARK, SO INTENSE, SO GRITTY, SOOOOOO EPIC!! - Kitty Kats Crazy About Books Meadow I was four years old when I learnt what evilness the world could bring. I fought through life with my scarred soul, wrangled through the dark empty nights where I’d pray I didn’t wake up the next morning. I would shut my eyes and mentally take myself to my happy place. *Red roses The sound of waves crashing on the sand under my feet. * The final time the cold blade pushed up against my thigh, and I waited for my blood to trickle over the other One hundred and thirty-six scars that covered my skin— never came. Who was this man who just saved me? He had no idea how close I came to ending myself that day. I was ready to blow my brains all over the bedroom walls and I had a nine sitting under my pillow to prove it. Beast Some people have families, I had engineered human killing machines surrounding me my whole life. I’d been a part of this unit since I was a baby, raised in a community that was shut off from the real world. A community where we were nothing but empty vessels, until Hella (my best friend) and I escaped. Hella took us to a girl who was in foster care with him before he was summoned into The Army. After finding out yet another complication in my life, I needed space. I booked in to a run down apartment, ready to clear my head. Only my head didn’t clear, because I was haunted every night from the screams that would vibrate through my walls. This is not a story of a perfect man coming in to save the day. This is a story of what happens when fate interferes and two completely broken souls collide. Potential triggers lie within this book. This book is gritty* and contains dark content.**

A tragedy with two characters, unfolds in fast rhythmic exchanges. A play and poem that treats the tale of belittled feminism and hyped masculinity, reassures of justice's persistence. It touches on the seemingly unsafe nature of life, as people manage the simplest things and still tend not to really mend the silly holes of doubts they breed, seeking to even the odds life throws at them.This is both a play and a continuous poem. It is a tragedy with only two visible characters in its entirety. There is NE, a young disposed prince out to reclaim his family throne, and BI; his much younger sister and only sibling, who got tangled up in NE's struggles. The pair's dialogue unfolds the age old tale of belittled feminism and the over-hyped masculinity of the world that habitually swallows up all the laudable efforts of the women folk.The story emerges from their fast paced rhythmic exchanges within a small portion of a single day. Shrouded therein is the mischievous hypocritical malice of the many ordinary people surrounding the few notables ones and it all comes out as though it is true for everyone else, notable and ordinary folks alike.The struggles of people on the spot appears endless as everyone around them seems to wait to hear about their travails, desirous of finding out if they win their battles or not, if their wars can be classed as successful or disasters. People simply relish jeering at others when they fail and leer at them when they are triumphant.This is a tale that seemingly reassures that justice tends to resurrect subsequently, and put everything correct again. It is a poem that places destiny in both the hands of the particular individual and still puts fate in the unclear whril and thrill of luck. Set in the embattled order of seemingly medieval times, when life ironically felt less unsecured despite being certainly very unsure, the play asks more questions than it answers. The siblings' revealed experiences in the play, by extension hints of how everyone else appears to be at the mercy of chance, and yet living out a predestined order of events.Life feels unsafe because sometimes it turns out to vaguely be one instead of the assumed another or the expected other. It is odious to manage the simplest things and people can not really mend the silly holes of doubt they endlessly tend. Dubious questions appear to be posed for readied answers and answers altered to snugly suit unassailable queries as people continuously seek to even the odds life naturally throws at them. These answers appear to lurk in some exact and obscure faith, either or neither conventional or unorthodox. Still the logic of it does not fill the rational gaps that abound in ordinary human life, they simply confuse it farther.

Were you there when "A Hard Day's Night" opened in America? Remember Wolfman Jack? Hit the streets of a desert town circa the '60s and '70s as the teen siblings from A Phantom Herd go mad for the Beatles, dance to rock and roll, and try to give LSD to a cowboy movie star. A zany, nostalgic look at American life in the southwest.Hit the streets of a desert town circa the 1960s and 1970s as the teen siblings from A Phantom Herd go mad for the Beatles, dance to rock and roll, and try to give LSD to a cowboy movie star. After Meredith receives a girdle, she switches her priorities to everything teen, claiming she never disliked Easterners. The narrator struggles to retrieve memories of Rancho Supremo and the phantom herd, the big hook she received from Meredith. Eventually Jack and Meredith abandon the southwest, leaving the narrator to battle library mashers who are determined to stop the process of remembering. This is a second novel in a two-part series and should be read following A Phantom Herd.

Seventy from the 70s is a unique collection of poems written by a teenage girl in the UK over forty years ago. These are not typical love poems: categories include Myth & Legend, Hoping and In My World. Seventy from the 70s...easy to read poems from harder to understand times.Seventy from the 70s is a collection of poems written by a 1970's schoolgirl, presented just as they appear on the poet's original handwritten copies. They offer a fascinating glimpse into the psyche of a teenage girl in the early 1970's, with subjects as diverse as kittens, seagulls and witchcraft, plus the recurring topic of love both gained and lost. Let Seventy from the 70s take you back to your own teenage years: to all the confusion, exhilaration and wonder!Julie Stamp lives in SE Kent and is still writing poetry.

Heaven’s Orphans is a tale of the unborn. It is a tale of those miscarried, aborted, and stillborn, and it explores possibilities related to the fate of those who never make it to the earth. Little is known or discussed in religion or otherwise about what happens to these children, and Heaven’s Orphans provides a glimpse into their world, into an important piece of the grand tapestry of humanity.Heaven’s Orphans. There are millions of children who never make it to this earth, millions of children unable to communicate or share their fate. Heaven’s Orphans is a short story that provides a glimpse into their existence, into the souls of the children orphaned before birth.Heaven’s Orphans is a tale of the unborn. It is a tale of those miscarried, aborted, and stillborn, and it explores possibilities related to their fate. Little is known or discussed in religion or otherwise about what happens to these children, and Heaven’s Orphans paints a picture to help consider their fate, their world, and their reality.Ultimately, Heaven’s Orphans speaks to the eternal nature and reality of the human existence, to the importance of family, and to a source of happiness. Children make life beautiful, and their fate is an important piece in the grand tapestry of humanity.

An adapted version of the life and ministry of Paul the Apostle, not in chronological order to the Book of Acts, but still authentic to the Bible.Paul the Apostle set the world aflame with his zeal and passion. Initially he persecuted the early church, hunting down and arresting all those who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. He went from being zealous and passionate about protecting the Jewish customs, traditions and the Law of Moses, to preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ. His zeal and passion was transferred from being a murderer, to a minister of the Gospel to the early church.See his out of the ordinary conversion, when he comes face to face with the Messiah on the Damascus road. So great was his encounter with the Light, that it left him blinded for three days. Go with him on his travels as he journeys with friends to preach the Good News to the ends of the earth. Feel his conviction and passion for his fellow countryman, the Jews. Endure with him during his trials and hardships. Identify with his struggles. Feel his agony and pain as he is beaten, stoned, ship-wrecked and imprisoned. Listen to his teachings and sermons. Hear his heartbeat with every prayer that he prays. Cry tears with him when he is separated from his brothers. Walk with him on his journeys and travel with him to Rome. Meet Cassius Catullus, the Praetorian Guard who guards him. Watch him face his executioners and discover the Jesus that Paul knew.

**Before you get down on bended knee…** …you should be pretty darn sure the answer will be yes. For ten years, Connor O'Rourke has been waiting for Jessica Dunn to take their on-again, off-again relationship public, and he thinks the time has come. His restaurant is thriving, she's got her dream job at Blue Heron Vineyard—it's the perfect time to get married. When he pops the question, however, her answer is a fond but firm no. If it ain't broke, why fix it? Jess has her hands full with her younger brother, who's now living with her full-time, and a great career after years of waitressing. What she and Connor have *is* perfect: friends with an excellent benefits package. Besides, with her difficult past (and reputation), she's positive married life isn't for her. But this time, Connor says it's all or nothing. If she doesn't want to marry him, he'll find someone who does. Easier said than done, given that he's never loved anyone but her. And maybe Jessica isn't quite as sure as she thinks…