Drafted Into Darkness

      Robert A. Van Buskirk
     Drafted Into Darkness

What sets a man down the path to becoming an evil warlock? For Igon, it starts with an injustice, and making the acquaintance of a pagan shaman called Zaharo. Set in Moorish occupied medieval Spain, this tale shows revenge need not be a dish served cold. Properly cooked, it might even smell like bacon!Though they'll try to mimic what we are, in the core of our souls, writing our very memories for us, they will never be able to replace the truth and the reality as it existed before they've tampered with it. They cannot write our histories for us, our very thoughts, feelings, emotions, and actions. There will be no questions. We'll always know the difference between the real and the imagined.Attributed to a skeptic (In reaction to the initial press release issued by Synchro Systems about their Synchronicity Drive treatment tests)What if the greatest love of your life never existed?What if they did, but someone was trying to erase them from your memory?[Corentine] follows the narrator, a man who wants to forget his past, as he searches for his missing girlfriend, a woman who is unable to recall her own. All signs point to the involvement of a company named Synchro Systems, where doctors have been working with volunteers using experimental, cutting edge treatments for memory disorders.

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    The Living Hell of Teddy the Table

      Richards Hall
     The Living Hell of Teddy the Table

There's a new game in town, and they're calling it 'tag.' The boys at Triton are getting physical with surreal gaming, and the game is getting physical back at them.When everyone was telling about their own heroic stories, however, what does it mean? I have got nothing to say, this world exists as it is supposed to be, my story won’t end so far.I used to dream about such a world, totally free, no limitation, excited and exhilarated. Now look at it, I have lost everything...

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    Hide and Seek - part 3 - Rhyming & Non Rhyming Poems

      Nikhil Parekh
     Hide and Seek - part 3 - Rhyming & Non Rhyming Poems

This Book which has 50 differently titled Poems , is actually part 3 of the Book titled – Hide and Seek – Rhyming & Non Rhyming Poems ( 702 pages ) .Parekh's earliest collection of verse. Written in unparallelled fervor, this collection is a delectable blend of topics from love to death, probing into countless infinitesimal aspects of existence which make a significant impact to it. The beauty of this compendium lies in its magical brevity at places and in the most mundane things of life around us brought to the fore like a magicians wand, in brilliant poetic flair by Parekh. Contains poems on topics impossible for one to envisage that a poem could be written about such an inconspicuous little thing-but Parekh evolves bountiful rhyme from the word go and coalesces vivacious color in the little tid-bits of the chapter called life to optimum effect. A must read for all those who find color, charm and significance in even the smallest things of life and are enthused by even the most mercurial bit of stray paper loitering around. A poetic tribute to the ordinary, projecting its colorful extraordinary bit to the planet with raw panache. This book tingles every living being's imagination to fantasize beyond the ordinary. Look at all those meaningful tid-bits around us which have a complete book written in each one of them. All those joyous and unfortunate anecdotes around us which make us blossom into the true spirit of existence; into the amazing celebration of omnipotent life.

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    Saturday

      Ian Mcewan
     Saturday

In his triumphant new novel, Ian McEwan, the bestselling author of Atonement, follows an ordinary man through a Saturday whose high promise gradually turns nightmarish. Henry Perowne–a neurosurgeon, urbane, privileged, deeply in love with his wife and grown-up children–plans to play a game of squash, visit his elderly mother, and cook dinner for his family. But after a minor traffic accident leads to an unsettling confrontation, Perowne must set aside his plans and summon a strength greater than he knew he had in order to preserve the life that is dear to him. From the Trade Paperback edition.

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    The Fitz-Boodle Papers

      William Makepeace Thackeray
     The Fitz-Boodle Papers

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair (1847), a panoramic portrait of English society. Thackeray began as a satirist and parodist, with a sneaking fondness for roguish upstarts like Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair, Barry Lyndon in Barry Lyndon (1844) and Catherine in Catherine (1839). In his earliest works, writing under such pseudonyms as Charles James Yellowplush, Michael Angelo Titmarsh and George Savage Fitz-Boodle, he tended towards the savage in his attacks on high society, military prowess, the institution of marriage and hypocrisy. His writing career really began with a series of satirical sketches now usually known as The Yellowplush Papers, which appeared in Fraser's Magazine beginning in 1837. Between May 1839 and February 1840, Fraser's published the work sometimes considered Thackeray's first novel, Catherine also notable among the later novels are The Fitz-Boodle Papers (1842), Men's Wives (1842), The History of Pendennis (1848), The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., (1852), The Newcomes (1853) and The Rose and the Ring (1855) .

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    Shadow Lover

      Anne Stuart
     Shadow Lover

A woman holds vigil over her wealthy, dying step-mother. Tensions -- already high with greedy relatives appearing to claim their inheritances -- are further strained by the appearance of the dying woman's long-lost son, who ran away 18 years ago. His mother greets him with joy, the relatives with resentment, but the woman alone knows he is hiding something...that he is not who he says he is. As she uncovers secrets and deceptions of the past and present, she knows only one thing in her heart -- that the irresistible appeal and seductive power of this mysterious stranger may be more dangerous than she thinks!

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    Fly on the Wall: How One Girl Saw Everything

      E. Lockhart
     Fly on the Wall: How One Girl Saw Everything

At the Manhattan School for Art and Music, where everyone is “different” and everyone is “special,” Gretchen Yee feels ordinary. She’s the kind of girl who sits alone at lunch, drawing pictures of Spider-Man, so she won’t have to talk to anyone; who has a crush on Titus but won’t do anything about it; who has no one to hang out with when her best (and only real) friend Katya is busy. One day, Gretchen wishes that she could be a fly on the wall in the boys’ locker room–just to learn more about guys. What are they really like? What do they really talk about? Are they really cretins most of the time? Fly on the Wall is the story of how that wish comes true. From the Hardcover edition.

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    The Romance of Violette

      Alexandre Dumas
     The Romance of Violette

I have spent thousands of years in this earthly world, it would appear, and the spiritualistic component of my own being must have been successively transmitted in the continuity of human creatures, before it became my privilege to be one of the denizens of the planet of Mars, my present dwelling. "How happy he will be," will exclaim those unfortunate mortals who still weep on earth, "for has he not left our vale of tears?" No such thing! You are entirely mistaken, for I feel very dull here, in spite of the evident superiority, as a place of residence, of the planet I am now exploring. Indeed, I frequently suffer from fits of depression, and often glance back longingly on a past which was not unmixed with bliss. That is why you behold me now with pen in hand, calling up the most pleasurable recollections of my earthly life and trying to retrace them to the reader

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    Far From Xanadu

      Julie Anne Peters
     Far From Xanadu

In this fresh, poignant novel, Mike is struggling to come to terms with her father's suicide and her mother's detachment from the family. Mike (real name: Mary Elizabeth) is gay and likes to pump iron, play softball, and fix plumbing. When a glamorous new girl, Xanadu, arrives in Mike's small Kansas town, Mike falls in love at first sight. Xanadu is everything Mike is not -- cool, confident, feminine, sexy.... straight. Julie Anne Peters has written a heartbreaking yet ultimately hopeful novel that will speak to anyone who has ever fallen in love with someone who can't love them back.

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    The Bell

      Iris Murdoch
     The Bell

A lay community of thoroughly mixed-up people is encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an enclosed order of nuns. A new bell, legendary symbol of religion and magic, is rediscovered. Dora Greenfield, erring wife, returns to her husband. Michael Mead, leader of the community, is confronted by Nick Fawley, with whom he had disastrous homosexual relations, while the wise old Abbess watches and prays and exercises discreet authority. And everyone, or almost everyone, hopes to be saved, whatever that may mean...Iris Murdoch's funny and sad novel is about religion, the fight between good and evil, and the terrible accidents of human frailty.

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    Love and Lists

      Tara Sivec
     Love and Lists

Love and Lists is the first book in the Chocolate Lovers spinoff - Chocoholics: The foul-mouthed offspring tell their stories. Twenty-five-year-old Gavin Ellis has always had the love and support of his family ever since he was a little boy and couldn't stop talking about his penis. He's also always had their unsolicited advice and uncanny knack of embarrassing him at all costs. Now that he's an adult and trying to convince the love of his life to love him back, things haven't changed very much from when he was younger. When Gavin's best friend Tyler suggests he make a to-do list of items that will ensure he wins the girl, Gavin is one-hundred-percent on board: after a few six packs. After puking in the shrubs, a bad experience with Viagra, a Sex-Ed course gone wrong, and a slew of other mishaps courtesy of his family and friends, Gavin is pretty sure this list will be the death of him. Sometimes, trying to make someone love you with a list isn't always the best idea. Especially when "Show her your penis" is the first "to-do" item...

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    Hygiene and the Assassin

      Amélie Nothomb
     Hygiene and the Assassin

Written nearly two decades ago, this is the first novel of the award-winning Nothomb to be translated into English (beautifully so, by Alison Anderson). The shocking, morbid tale follows Prétextat Tach, a brilliant Nobel Prize–winning author who's also an obese, embittered, reclusive, racist, and sexist old man dying of a rare form of cancer. When the world learns Tach has only months left to live, journalists scramble for an interview. Five are selected, and the first four leave their interviews humiliated by the offensive author. But then the fifth journalist arrives. Unlike the others, Nina has not only read Tach's work but also investigated his life, discovering appalling secrets the author had thought were buried forever. As Nina slowly peels Tach's life apart in front of him, his hatred for her turns to respect. Nina's arrival obliterates the book's languid pacing, bringing much more than a strong-willed persona to the proceedings. Her startling revelations lead to a dramatic and unexpected ending that illuminates why the world, if not always its English-speaking inhabitants, loves Nothomb.

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    The End of Your Life Book Club

      Will Schwalbe
     The End of Your Life Book Club

“What are you reading?” That’s the question Will Schwalbe asks his mother, Mary Anne, as they sit in the waiting room of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. In 2007, Mary Anne returned from a humanitarian trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan suffering from what her doctors believed was a rare type of hepatitis. Months later she was diagnosed with a form of advanced pancreatic cancer, which is almost always fatal, often in six months or less. This is the inspiring true story of a son and his mother, who start a “book club” that brings them together as her life comes to a close. Over the next two years, Will and Mary Anne carry on conversations that are both wide-ranging and deeply personal, prompted by an eclectic array of books and a shared passion for reading. Their list jumps from classic to popular, from poetry to mysteries, from fantastic to spiritual. The issues they discuss include questions of faith and courage as well as everyday topics such as expressing gratitude and learning to listen. Throughout, they are constantly reminded of the power of books to comfort us, astonish us, teach us, and tell us what we need to do with our lives and in the world. Reading isn’t the opposite of doing; it’s the opposite of dying. Will and Mary Anne share their hopes and concerns with each other—and rediscover their lives—through their favorite books. When they read, they aren’t a sick person and a well person, but a mother and a son taking a journey together. The result is a profoundly moving tale of loss that is also a joyful, and often humorous, celebration of life: Will’s love letter to his mother, and theirs to the printed page.  This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide. 

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    The Turnbulls

      Taylor Caldwell
     The Turnbulls

Taylor Caldwell's unforgettable novel of John Turnbull, who fled Victorian England in heartbreak and disgrace, his life broken by one night of drunken lust, to build an empire of wealth and power in a brash new world... and Eugenia MacNeill, whose naked passion could not be crushed by bitter betrayal, whose hungry desire reached across an ocean to defy the morals of an age. This is the story of two rebellious spirits, bound together by a forbidden love that spanned two decades and warped the destinies of many. It is a big novel, vivid with color and bold with the turbulent life that only a great writer could give it.

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