Lotus Shoes

      Ashley Redden
     Lotus Shoes

The story of Mei Lian. A beautiful girl born in a remote Chinese village, her feet bound from an early age and sold into servitude bound for America a midst the growth pains and civil injustices of a burgeoning new land early in the nineteenth century.When good Southern girls get divorced, they go back home to Mama... Stacey "Strawberry Top" Fields is home again in small town Willowbrook, TN. Divorced, she's already earned her amateur sleuth badge by proving her super rich ex-husband cheated on her (and getting her share of the money per the pre-nup). A prize winning cook and blue ribbon baker, she was a fabulous wife and hostess but now she's starting over. It’s fun to be home with friends and family but even quiet little towns have problems. Secrets and lies make people do desperate things-small towns just hide them better. When someone steals Grammy's precious family recipe book, Stacey must track it down or never hear the end of it. That book means the world to the family and, since cooking is Stacey's future, no one is going to steal her family's culinary heritage and get away with it!

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    You die; I die - Love Poems - Part 2

      Nikhil Parekh
     You die; I die - Love Poems - Part 2

This Book which has 50 differently titled Poems , is actually Part 2 of the Book titled - You die; I die - Love Poems ( 1600 pages ) .Poems symbolizing the immortality of love and at times its fickleness. Parekh takes the reader through a paradise naturally embellished with the ingredients of eternal romance and its sporadic failures. As they say life and death are two sides of the coin, similarly with every true anecdote of love there also comes fretful divorce—a thing which has been most sensitively described throughout this great collection of poems for the heart. Written and dipped in each ingredient of his passionate blood, Parekh comes out with startling revelations about the truest of love stories and their failures. Each verse has been delicately intertwined with a boundless aspects of relationships, romance, cheating, betrayal and goes on to prove that Immortal Love towers over every shattered heart. A start to finish with some of the most heart-rendering love poems ever, this makes a great collection for every true lover breathing and desiring to be loved on earth and beyond. This collection of poems aims at perpetually uniting every heart on this Universe in the spirit of Immortal love and friendship. Because these are the two quintessential ingredients to lead life till its last breath. Irrespective of whatever color, faith or religion, it is only the rainbow of love which can transform the ghastliest monsters and perpetrators of humanity into peaceful lovers. Therefore this book inexhaustibly endeavors to speak and preach the language of love even after its last embossed alphabet .

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    Nights in Rodanthe

      Nicholas Sparks
     Nights in Rodanthe

**NOW WITH A NEW LOOK CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF NICHOLAS SPARKS!** Adrienne Willis is 45 and has been divorced for three years, abandoned by her husband for a younger woman. The trials of raising her teenage children and caring for her sick father have worn her down, but at the request of a friend and in hopes of respite, she's gone to the coastal village of Rodanthe in North Carolina to tend the local inn for the weekend. With a major storm brewing, the time away doesn't look promising...until a guest named Paul Flanner arrives. At 54, Paul is a successful surgeon, but in the previous six months his life has unraveled into something he doesn't recognize. Estranged from his son and recently divorced, he's sold his practice and his home and has journeyed to this isolated town in hopes of closing a painful chapter in his past. Adrienne and Paul come together as the storm brews over Rodanthe, but what begins between them over the weekend will resonate throughout the rest of their lives, intertwining past and future, love and loss.

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    Wicked Dirty

      J. Kenner
     Wicked Dirty

*Sometimes, it feels so damn good to be bad...* **From New York Times and #1 International bestselling author J. Kenner, the first in an all new series of fast-paced, provocative novels centering around the ambitious, wealthy, and powerful men who work in the glamorous and exciting world of the Stark International conglomerate … and the sexy and passionate women who bring them to their knees.** On the outside, Lyle Tarpin is a clean-cut Hollywood actor whose star is on the rise. Inside, he’s battling his own demons, shunning relationships and finding solace in the arms of a string of anonymous women paid very well for their discretion. But when he’s photographed in a compromising position by an over-eager reporter, the only way to save his career is to say that the woman he was with is his fiancée. And now Lyle has to play a very public game with the only woman who’s ever managed to get under his skin. Struggling waitress Sugar Laine agrees to spend one night with Lyle—but only because she’s desperate to save her family home. She never expects that a night of passion will turn into a pretend engagement … or that the heat between them will blossom into love. But sometimes love has a price. And now the only question is—can Lyle and Sugar afford to pay it?

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    My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories, From Chekhov to Munro

      Jeffrey Eugenides
     My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories, From Chekhov to Munro

"When it comes to love, there are a million theories to explain it. But when it comes to love stories, things are simpler. A love story can never be about full possession. Love stories depend on disappointment, on unequal births and feuding families, on matrimonial boredom and at least one cold heart. Love stories, nearly without exception, give love a bad name.... It is perhaps only in reading a love story (or in writing one) that we can simultaneously partake of the ecstasy and agony of being in love without paying a crippling emotional price. I offer this book, then, as a cure for lovesickness and an antidote to adultery. Read these love stories in the safety of your single bed. Let everybody else suffer." --Jeffrey Eugenides, from the introduction to My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead All proceeds from My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead will go directly to fund the free youth writing programs offered by 826 Chicago. 826 Chicago is part of the network of seven writing centers across the United States affiliated with 826 National, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.

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    Three Tales

      Gustave Flaubert
     Three Tales

First published in 1877, these three stories are dominated by questions of doubt, love, loneliness, and religious experience—together they confirm Flaubert as a master of the short story. "A Simple Heart" relates the story of Félicité, an uneducated serving-woman who retains her Catholic faith despite a life of desolation and loss. "The Legend of Saint Julian Hospitator," inspired by a stained-glass window in Rouen cathedral, describes the fate of a sadistic hunter destined to murder his own parents. The blend of faith and cruelty that dominates this story may also be found in "Herodias," a reworking of the tale of Salome and John the Baptist.

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    The Wings of the Dove

      Henry James
     The Wings of the Dove

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time Set amid the splendor of London drawing rooms and gilded Venetian palazzos, The Wings of the Dove is the story of Milly Theale, a naïve, doomed American heiress, and a pair of lovers, Kate Croy and Merton Densher, who conspire to obtain her fortune. In this witty tragedy of treachery, self-deception, and betrayal, Henry James weaves together three ill-fated and wholly human destinies unexpectedly linked by desire, greed, and salvation. As Amy Bloom writes in her Introduction, “The Wings of the Dove is a novel of intimacy. . . . [James] gives us passion, he gives us love in its terrible and enchanting forms.”

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    Maggie, a Girl of the Streets and Other New York Writings

      Stephen Crane
     Maggie, a Girl of the Streets and Other New York Writings

This harrowing tale of a young girl in the slums is a searing portrayal of turn-of-the-century New York, and Stephen Crane's most innovative work. Published in 1893, when the author was just twenty-one, it broke new ground with its vivid characters, its brutal naturalism, and its empathic rendering of the lives of the poor. It remains both powerful, severe, and harshly comic (in Alfred Kazin's words) and a masterpiece of modern American prose. This edition includes Maggie and George's Mother, Crane's other Bowery tales, and the most comprehensive available selection of Crane's New York journalism. All texts in this volume are presented in their definitive versions.

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    Ravenspur: Rise of the Tudors

      Conn Iggulden
     Ravenspur: Rise of the Tudors

England, 1470. A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. The Yorkist king Edward IV is driven out of England, his wife and children forced to seek sanctuary from the House of Lancaster. Yet rage and humiliation prick Edward back to greatness. He lands at Ravenspur, with a half-drowned army and his brother Richard at his side. Though every hand is against them, though every city gate is shut, they have come home. The brothers York will not go quietly into banishment. Instead, they choose to attack. Yet neither Edward nor Richard realize that the true enemy of York has yet to reveal himself. Far away, Henry Tudor has become a man. He is the Red Dragon - 'the man of destiny' who seeks to end the Wars of the Roses. His claim will carry him to Bosworth Field. There will be silence and the mourning of queens. There will be self-sacrifice and terrible betrayals. Two royal princes will be put to death. There will be an ending -- and a new royal house will stand over them all. Praise for Conn Iggulden's Wars of the Roses series: 'A tough, pacy chronicle of bloody encounters, betrayals and cruelties. Superb' Daily Mail 'Iggulden is a master storyteller and makes our blood flow faster' Sunday Express 'Iggulden breathes new life into the darkest and most dramatic of times, with a flair for both the huge scale and human interest of it all' Star 'Pacey and juicy, and packed with action' Sunday Times 'Iggulden is in a class of his own when it comes to epic, historical fiction' Daily Mirror 'Absorbing and bloody' The Times 'One of our finest historical novelists' Daily Express

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    The Porcupine

      Julian Barnes
     The Porcupine

In his latest novel, Julian Barnes, author of Talking It Over and A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, trains his laser-bright prose on the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. Stoyo Petkanov, the deposed Party leader, is placed on trial for crimes that range from corruption to political murder. Petkanov's guilt -- and the righteousness of his opponents -- would seem to be self-evident. But, as brilliantly imagined by Barnes, the trial of this cunning and unrepentant dictator illuminates the shadowy frontier between the rusted myths of the Communist past and a capitalist future in which everything is up for grabs. From the Trade Paperback edition.

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    Rabbit Redux

      John Updike
     Rabbit Redux

In this sequel to Rabbit, Run, John Updike resumes the spiritual quest of his anxious Everyman, Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom. Ten years have passed; the impulsive former athlete has become a paunchy thirty-six-year-old conservative, and Eisenhower’s becalmed America has become 1969’s lurid turmoil of technology, fantasy, drugs, and violence. Rabbit is abandoned by his family, his home invaded by a runaway and a radical, his past reduced to a ruined inner landscape; still he clings to semblances of decency and responsibility, and yearns to belong and to believe.

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    Beach Blondes: June Dreams / July's Promise / August Magic

      Katherine Applegate
     Beach Blondes: June Dreams / July's Promise / August Magic

Three months. Three guys. One amazing summer. Summer Smith is in for the best summer of her life. Between the cold weather and her boyfriendless existence in Minnesota, Summer is ready for sun, sand, and boys in the Florida Keys. And by the end of the first day, she has more than enough to keep her busy: Adam, the senator's son, has looks, power, and all the money in the world. Diver, the mystery man, is mellow, intriguing, and definitely unique. And Seth, the perfect guy...only he has a girlfriend. But with new friends, cute guys, and miles of hot white sand, Summer's in for more trouble than she thinks....

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    The Wonderful O

      James Thurber
     The Wonderful O

Great American humorist James Thurber's beloved and madcap fairy tale about an island society robbed of the wonders of the letter O—in a stunning Deluxe Edition featuring the original, full-color illustrations Littlejack has a map that indicates the existence of a treasure on a far and lonely island, and Black has a ship to get there. So the two bad men team up and sail off on Black's vessel, the Aeiu. The name, Black explains, is all the vowels except for O—which he hates since his mother got wedged in a porthole: They couldn't pull her in, so they had to push her out. Black and Littlejack arrive at the port and demand the treasure. No one knows anything about it, so they have their henchmen ransack the place—to no avail. But Black has a better idea: He will take over the island and purge it of O. The harsh limits of a life sans O (where shoe is she and woe is we) and how finally with a little luck and lots of pluck the islanders...

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    The Dead School

      Patrick McCabe
     The Dead School

From the award-winning author of "The Butcher Boy" comes a new novel of extraordinary power that, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, "confirm[s] McCabe's standing as one of the most brilliant writers to ever come out of Ireland".In "The Dead School", Patrick McCabe returns to the emotionally dense landscape of small-town Ireland to explore the inner lives of two men: a headmaster and a schoolteacher, each man the product of a soul-stifling culture, each battling his own demons of loss and betrayal. Tension coils--until tragedy strikes a young student in their charge, and the latent despair and rage that has festered in their hearts explodes onto the page. As in "The Butcher Boy", McCabe demonstrates his remarkable command of the vernacular and an uncanny ability to pinpoint the exact moment when ordinary minds take flight into madness. Equally compelling, equally heartbreaking in its impact", The Dead School" has established McCabe as one of the most celebrated writers of literary fiction today. "A spellbinding story of betrayal and broken dreams narrated to a wonderfully menacing effect...the sheer force of his language...positively thrums with life".-- "Los Angeles Times" " "The Dead School" makes compelling literature....The writing is seamless, the effect shocking: Imagine "Apocalypse Now" cheerfully narrated by Jimmy Stewart".-- "The Seattle Times" "McCabe [is] as skilled and significant a novelist as Ireland has produced in decades".-- "Kirkus Reviews" (starred review)

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    Measuring Sticks

      Sandra Householder
     Measuring Sticks

A humorous little book with a big story! Bible study discussion included.A humorous little book that tells the tale of the people of Exacta--a group of people obsessed with measuring everything! This is a humorous short Christian story with a liberating message of grace. The story can easily be made into a skit. Excellent for all ages. Bible study notes and discussion questions are included.

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