Isla Negra

      Pablo Neruda
     Isla Negra

Few writers are as integrally bound to a place as Pablo Neruda was to the landscape of Isla Negra on Chile’s coast. From his arrival there in the late 1930s to his death in 1973, Neruda captured Isla Negra in images fundamental to an understanding of his work. It was, according to Martin Espada, at Isla Negra where Neruda "in the company of his muse, walked alongside the source of his most lyrical inspiration, the sea...and discovered a new way of seeing, as the ocean became a living metaphor for the infinite riches of the world." The poems, selected from three volumes of Neruda’s work, are presented with photographs of Neruda and his house in an attractive gift format. Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda, who died in 1973, remains one of the most influential voices in world literature.

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    The Boys Next Door

      Jennifer Echols
     The Boys Next Door

Cute, available, and one cabin over.... Lori lives for summertime on the lake. She spends all season wakeboarding, swimming, and hanging with her friends—including the two hotties in the house next door. With the Vader brothers, Lori's always been one of the guys. But while Lori and the "baby" brother, Adam, are inseparable friends, she can't deny a secret crush on Sean, the older Vader boy. This year Sean's been paying Lori a lot of attention, and not in a brotherly way. But just as Lori decides to prove to Sean she's girlfriend material, she realizes that her role as girlfriend to Adam may be even more important. And by trying so hard for the perfect summer romance, she could be going way overboard....

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    Summer People

      Marge Piercy
     Summer People

Dinah, Willie, and Susan have long outlived the scandal associated with their ten-year-old menage-a-trois. Dinah, an avante-garde compler, treasures her independence. Yet it takes Willie's kindness and Susan's fire to sustain her. Willie is a left-wing sculptor in a right-wing age. And Susan, his wife, is a fabric designer who craves glamour, wealth, and the attentions of the summer people who visit Cape Cod every year. Then one summer, the balance shifts. Passions are tested, honesty forsaken, and the trio must face the changes brought by their beautiful visitors . . .

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    Tethered Souls: A Nine Minutes Spin-Off Novel

      Beth Flynn
     Tethered Souls: A Nine Minutes Spin-Off Novel

My family has secrets. I’m always the good girl, doing what’s necessary to keep my loved ones safe. I've kept the darkest secrets from everyone I know. As painful as it is to hold them all inside where they live and gnaw away at me, that’s where they must stay. I haven't seen my closest childhood friend, Christian Bear, since I was a teenager—he hasn't changed a bit. He’s still temperamental and plays by his own rules with the law following two steps behind him. Christian remembers me. But he doesn’t know the first thing about me anymore. I should've shared my feelings with him the day before I moved away with my family, promising him I'd stay in touch. It broke my heart when he didn't keep his end of the bargain. As a consequence, we haven't spoken in years. Even though Christian and I have always had undeniable chemistry, I won't let him shatter my heart a second time. Christian has shown up in my life again with secrets of his own, and demanding answers. That doesn't mean I'm willing to give them. He'll know my secrets when I’m ready. Our secrets, the risks we’re taking, and the danger he imposes make it impossible to know what our future holds. Either our tethered souls will bind back together, or our secrets will separate us forever.

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    30 Days in Sydney: A Wildly Distorted Account

      Peter Carey
     30 Days in Sydney: A Wildly Distorted Account

Peter Carey captures our imagination with a brilliant and unexpected portrait of Sydney. Bloomsbury is pleased to announce the second title in the phenomenally well-received Writer in the City series-in which some of the world's finest novelists reveal the secrets of the city they know best. In the midst of the 2000 Olympic games, Australia native Peter Carey returns to Sydney after a seventeen-year absence. Examining the urban landscape as both a tourist and a prodigal son, Carey structures his account around the four elements-Earth, Air, Fire, and Water-insisting on the primacy of nature to this unique Australian cityscape. As his quixotic account unfolds, Carey looks both inward into his past (as well as Sydney's own violent history) and outward onto the city's familiar landmarks and surroundings-the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, the Blue Mountains-achieving just the right alchemy of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water to tell Sydney's extraordinary story.

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    Unraveling the Darkness

      Palvi Sharma
     Unraveling the Darkness

From light to dark, sixteen tales will unravel the dark mysteries of the night.Three friends are challenged to spend a night in a haunted forest. A magical creature grants a tempting wish. In the dead of the night, a knock on the door leads to a peculiar encounter. A courageous stand has a deadly consequence. These stories and more as the darkness starts to unravel...

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    The Canterville Ghost: Annotated

      Oscar Wilde
     The Canterville Ghost: Annotated

The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde is a light-hearted novella that parodies gothic horror as well as cultural differences between the United States and the United Kingdom. The Family Otis from USA decided to purchase Canterville Chase from England, however the Lord Canterville warned Hiram Otis of the existence of one ghost........... **

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    Passage West

      Ruth Ryan Langan
     Passage West

On a wagon train heading West, a mysterious gunman, Rourke, is hired to protect the train from the many dangers they will face. Abby Market must be the son her father never had, and the mother her family lost. But on this perilous journey, she becomes a woman in Rourke's arms. These two survive disease, disaster and deception, only to face the most painful trial of their lives.A Ruth Ryan Langan Historical Romance Classic.Abby Market and her family join a wagon train heading West, leaving behind all that is familiar. A gunman named Rourke, a loner, a battle-scarred Union veteran, hires on to guard the wagon train to its final destination, California. Rourke finds himself drawn against his will to the tough, determined Abby. Across the miles, as they face the perils of death, disease and attack by those who would destroy them, Abby and Rourke band together to survive, and discover a love as fierce as the land itself. But when Rourke's bitter past threatens to destroy them, they must do everything in their power to survive, even at the cost of the love they have come to treasure above all else.

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    A Waltz Yes, a Heart No

      Barry Rachin
     A Waltz Yes, a Heart No

Following his divorce, Dr. Stanley Gilford, chief of cardiology at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital, restructured his life on the guiding principle of maximum gain, minimum pain. So what is the well-heeled doctor doing with Ruby, a high school dropout and waitress at the local greasy spoon, and what are his options visa vie the pallid, five year old boy whose damaged heart beats in three-four time?Donal's school trip to the zoo turns into an unexpected journey across space. Accompanied only by a lofty camel and a stowaway lemming, he finds himself trapped on a alien spaceship which is hurtling towards a distant planet.The little green Meerie who greet him look friendly enough. But when they send him on a quest to find their missing space fleet, it means a dangerous journey across the desert where far more terrifying aliens live... An exciting and humorous science fiction story for ages 8 to 12.

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    The Man Within

      Graham Greene
     The Man Within

The Man Within tells the story of Andrews, a young man who has betrayed his fellow smugglers and fears their vengeance. Fleeing from them, with no hope of pity or salvation, he takes refuge in the house of a young woman, also alone in the world. She persuades him to give evidence against his accomplices in court, but neither she nor Andrews is aware that to both criminals and authority treachery is as great a crime as smuggling.

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    Photobombed

      William Hrdina
     Photobombed

Photobombed is an after-school special in short story form about a girl named Alaya whose innocent selfie leads to the gravest of unintended consequences.Five short stories of friendship and love from the author of Since You've Been Gone.1. Emily finds comfort in the words of a wise old gentleman when her marriage hits the rocks.2. A modern adaption of John Keats 'The Eve of St Agnes'. Madeline and Porphyro, two star-crossed lovers from opposing families must find a way out of their lives so that they can be together.3. Alice discovers that Heaven isn't what she thought it was when she takes on the higher order of angels in an attempt to overthrow their ruling, in this amusing tale of heavenly disorder and a Divine Deity unlike any you've read about.4. Scarlett finds her job at the morgue gets a little too lively when Robbie turns up to haunt her into helping him solve the mystery of his death.5. Friends come together for a school reunion. Secrets, old loves and long-held jealousies come to the fore as the evening wears on.

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    The Hillbrow Election, 1987

      Luc Iver de Vil
     The Hillbrow Election, 1987

This is a first hand account of how the election in Hillbrow was fought in 1987, paying for the privilege with a criminal record.Politics, prostitutes, and the pleasures of challenges; my buddies and I were not into politics, but when the politicians decided to have a contest for our votes, we decided to join in the fun! Damn, you can meet some interesting people, and pretty girls, while canvassing for votes! We turned the General Election in Hillbrow in 1987 into a circus, despite of what the ‘educated’ people across the world wrote in their thesis on this happening, they got it wrong! The National Party hated us for canvassing the homosexual voters, even though the learned people called it a NP strategy years later, it was us, the non-politicians that wanted to prove a point; you can win an election by breaking the rules. Was it worth the criminal records that followed? It was fun!

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    Zen 96

      Alexander Goldstein
     Zen 96

The well-known in the West term Zen was empty right from the start -- miss even one of its three letters and the whole notion goes wrong. Looking inward yourself or outward, all the same, you see there is no fixed Self -- the centripetal emotion turns into the centrifugal and conversely. So, break into the purgatory of your soul through the front gate if you want to take your proper place in Hell.Today, more and more people want to know what Zen is. The problem is that it is not an easy task to describe it, as Zen is beyond wording. It is something that cannot be talked about nor expressed in written form. The moment language is used we are no longer dealing with the spirit of Zen. However, Zen cannot be left unexpressed. In order to introduce the reader to the world of Zen, there is no alternative but to resort to the use of language; and that language is poetry. That's why there are so many poems written by the numerous adepts of Zen.On the other hand, if Zen could be presented to another, men would all present it to their superiors; if it could be served up to others, men would all serve it up to their parents; if it could be told to others, men would all tell it to their brothers; if it could be given to others, men would all give it to their sons and grandsons. The reason why it cannot be transmitted is no other but this: that 'if,' within, there be not the presiding principle, it will not remain there, and if, outwardly, there be not the correct obedience, it will not be carried out. When that which is given out from the mind in possession of it is not received by the mind without, the sagely minded man will not give it out; and when, entering in from without, there is no power in the receiving mind to entertain it, the sagely minded man will not permit it to lie hidden there. The point here is that the ordinary intellect is unable to function on this frequency of interpretation, and in its unenlightened or unevolved state, views the Buddha’s logic as gibberish, or ‘mystical’ inspired nonsense, when in fact, the Buddha’s logic has more in common with higher science (i.e. quantum theory), than it does with theistic religion or the imaginations of superstitious based thinking. Therefore, better known in the West as Zen, it is a Western art-based movement that serves as the antithesis to established norms and conventions. It is a vague sense of performing a function, skill or art in the secular form that is devoid of strenuous effort, or somehow new or unexpected. In fact, Zen is not the experience, nor the realm, less still any heretical forms of Buddhist practice that ignores Buddhist conventions. Zen is just Zen, and that's it.

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