War - The Battle for West Germany

War - The Battle for West Germany

Charles Miller

History / Nonfiction / Cultural

The fear, brutality, and excitement of modern war captured with intricate detail. A story for those who are looking for a shot of excitement and those who love the details. The setting is based off of the novel "Red Storm Rising" by Tom Clancy.Of course, please leave a comment or review on the book, and what you did / didn't like about it!Cindy Adams makes the same dish every year for the hometown picnic. This year it's the same only she's divorced and starting over. She finds strength in the stability of family and friends. Sometimes when you're not looking for love, it finds you.Can forever be found over a time honored dish?Originally targeted for magazine publication at 1,000 words, this is a short story.
Read online
  • 1 002
Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul

Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul

Jack Canfield

Nonfiction / Self Help / Inspirational

Animals bring out the goodness, humanity and optimism in people and speak directly to our souls. This joyous, inspiring and entertaining Chicken Soup collection relates the unique bonds between animals and the people whose lives they've changed. Such as the dolphins who helped a paralyzed woman heal when doctors offered little hope; the dog who brought life into a failing marriage; the kitten who helped a mother mourn; and the flying squirrel who taught a man the power of laughter. Packed with celebrity pet-lore, Chicken Soup for the Soul relates the unconditional love, loyalty, courage and companionship that only animals possess. Just like our furry, feathered and four-legged friends, this enchanting book will bring a smile to any pet lover's face ... and it's housebroken!
Read online
  • 997
Chicken Soup for the Bride's Soul

Chicken Soup for the Bride's Soul

Jack Canfield

Nonfiction / Self Help / Inspirational

Your wedding day is one of the most memorable of your life--especially if you're the bride. From unique proposals to hilarious and touching tales of actual ceremonies and receptions, this book will inspire anyone looking ahead to the big day. Chicken Soup for the Bride's Soul features a final section on Anniversaries will give it a long shelf life, and open the market to those remembering the joy of their wedding day in later years. It's the perfect gift for bridal showers, weddings and anniversaries.
Read online
  • 996
An Area of Darkness

An Area of Darkness

V. S. Naipaul

Fiction / Nonfiction / Travel

A classic of modern travel writing, An Area of Darkness is Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul’s profound reckoning with his ancestral homeland and an extraordinarily perceptive chronicle of his first encounter with India. Traveling from the bureaucratic morass of Bombay to the ethereal beauty of Kashmir, from a sacred ice cave in the Himalayas to an abandoned temple near Madras, Naipaul encounters a dizzying cross-section of humanity: browbeaten government workers and imperious servants, a suavely self-serving holy man and a deluded American religious seeker. An Area of Darkness also abounds with Naipaul’s strikingly original responses to India’s paralyzing caste system, its apparently serene acceptance of poverty and squalor, and the conflict between its desire for self-determination and its nostalgia for the British raj. The result may be the most elegant and passionate book ever written about the subcontinent. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Read online
  • 994
Trojan Odyssey

Trojan Odyssey

Clive Cussler

Literature & Fiction / Adventure / Nonfiction

Long hailed as the grand master of adventure fiction, Clive Cussler has continued to astound with the intricate plotting and astonishing set pieces of his novels. Now, with a surprising twist, he gives us his most audacious work yet. In the final pages of Valhalla Rising, Dirk Pitt discovered, to his shock, that he had two grown children he had never known-twenty-three-year-old fraternal twins born to a woman he thought had died in an underwater earthquake. Both have inherited his love of the sea: the girl, Summer, is a marine biologist; the boy, himself named Dirk, is a marine engineer. And now they are about to help their father in the adventure of a lifetime. There is a brown tide infesting the ocean off the shore of Nicaragua. The twins are working in a NUMA(r) underwater enclosure, trying to determine its origin, when two startling things happen: Summer discovers an artifact, something strange and beautiful and ancient; and the worst storm in years boils up out of the sky, heading straight not only for them but also for a luxurious floating resort hotel square in its path. The peril for everybody concerned is incalculable, and, desperately, Pitt, Al Giordino, and the rest of the NUMA(r) crew rush to the rescue, but what they find in the storm's wake makes the furies of nature pale in comparison. For there is an all-too-human evil at work in that part of the world, and the brown tide is only a by-product of its plan. Soon, its work will be complete-and the world will be a very different place. Though if Summer's discovery is to be believed, the world is already a very different place...
Read online
  • 992
The Moss Garden Journal Of Chan Wing Tsit

The Moss Garden Journal Of Chan Wing Tsit

Richard Bell

History / Nonfiction / Crime

1750. A young Buddhist priest traveling to Korea is caught in storms, driven across the Pacific and shipwrecked. Lacking survival skills, he is taken in by the local people who are far from the barbarians he expected; they are complex, political, sophisticated, urbane and multilingual; a community of traders and priests with deep cultural and spiritual ways and little need for his Buddhist dharma.What does a Buddhist priest have to offer a complex, sophisticated culture steeped in political and commercial intrigue? Shipwrecked and alone among people of an ancient tradition with deep understanding of spiritual and pragmatic ways, who speak numerous languages and are preeminent traders maintaining deep and powerful social and spiritual customs, a young priest is forced to come to grips with the deeper teachings of his own path. This historical novel follows him as his assumptions of superiority fall away and he explores both the deeper aspects of Buddhism and the complex indigenous spiritual and cultural traditions he finds himself immersed in. The Chinook people were among the most sophisticated and successful trading communities of the nations of not only the Pacific Northwest, but of the entire Continent. Their business and political machinations rivaled those of any empire or culture in history. Murder, love, intrigue and endless plots drive our protagonist's journey of personal and cultural discovery as he comes to grips with both his own and his new family's challenges, strengths and weaknesses.
Read online
  • 988
The Marsh of the Little Blue Heron

The Marsh of the Little Blue Heron

Anne Spackman

Nonfiction / Travel

The short story of nature-loving John, a young teenage photographer, who encounters a little blue heron in a Florida wetland marsh. Soon after, John is in a car accident, and can't return to the marsh for a while....A tale of a brother's dedication set in the time period of the Irish rebellion of the 1900s.A sort-of a Irish ghost story told to me by my mother who lived her life in Ireland. This story involves a brother and sister who dedicate love and caring towards each other.
Read online
  • 988
A Chicken Soup for the Soul Christmas

A Chicken Soup for the Soul Christmas

Jack Canfield

Nonfiction / Self Help / Inspirational

Children experience Christmas through magic, anticipation, and learning about the baby Jesus. As we mature, we experience Christmas through the gifts we give, the love we share, and the magic we create for others. A Chicken Soup for the Soul Christmas brings back the memories of childhood through the eyes of children on Christmas day and inspires good deeds by reminding us how the smallest gesture can truly change a life.
Read online
  • 987
More Awesome Than Money

More Awesome Than Money

Jim Dwyer

Nonfiction / History / North American Hi...

David versus Goliath in Silicon Valley—an epic attempt to take back the Internet Their idea was simple. Four NYU undergrads wanted to build a social network that would allow users to control their personal data, instead of surrendering it to big businesses like Facebook. They called it Diaspora. In days, they raised $200,000, and reporters, venture capitalists, and the digital community’s most legendary figures were soon monitoring their progress. Max dreamed of being a CEO. Ilya was the idealist. Dan coded like a pro, and Rafi tried to keep them all on track. But as the months passed and the money ran out, the Diaspora Four fell victim to errors, bad decisions, and their own hubris. In November 2011, Ilya committed suicide. Diaspora has been tech news since day one, but the story reaches far beyond Silicon Valley to the now urgent issues about the future of the Internet. With the cooperation of the surviving partners, New York Times bestselling author Jim Dwyer tells a riveting story of four ambitious and naÏve young men who tried to rebottle the genie of personal privacy—and paid the ultimate price.
Read online
  • 987
The Twilight of the Bombs

The Twilight of the Bombs

Richard Rhodes

Science / Nonfiction / History

The culminating volume in Richard Rhodes’s monumental and prizewinning history of nuclear weapons, offering the first comprehensive narrative of the challenges faced in a post–Cold War age. The past twenty years have transformed our relationship with nuclear weapons drastically. With extraordinary depth of knowledge and understanding, Rhodes makes clear how the five original nuclear powers—Russia, Great Britain, France, China, and especially the United States—have struggled with new realities. He shows us how the stage was set for a second tragic war when Iraq secretly destroyed its nuclear infrastructure and reveals the real reasons George W. Bush chose to fight a second war in Iraq. We see how the efforts of U.S. weapons labs laid the groundwork for nuclear consolidation in the former Soviet Union, how and why South Africa secretly built and then destroyed a small nuclear arsenal, and how Jimmy Carter’s private diplomacy prevented another Korean War. We also see how the present day represents a nuclear turning point and what hope exists for our future. Rhodes assesses the emerging threat of nuclear terrorism and offers advice on how our complicated relationships with North Korea and South Asia should evolve. Finally, he imagines what a post-nuclear world might look like, suggesting what might make it possible. Powerful and persuasive, The Twilight of the Bombs is an essential work of contemporary history. From the Hardcover edition.
Read online
  • 986
The Lost Daughter: A Memoir

The Lost Daughter: A Memoir

Mary Williams

Nonfiction / Biography / Autobiography

“I always hoped [Mary Williams] would tell her incredible story. She's a writer of uncommon clarity and humor, and the arrival of her memoir is cause for celebration."—Dave Eggers, author of What is the What As she grew up in 1970s Oakland, California, role models for Mary Williams were few and far between: her father was often in prison, her older sister was a teenage prostitute, and her hot-tempered mother struggled to raise six children alone. For all Mary knew, she was heading down a similar path. But her life changed when she met Jane Fonda at summer camp in 1978. Fonda grew attached to the bright girl and eventually invited her to become part of her family, becoming the mother Mary never had. Mary’s life since has been one of adventure and opportunity—from hiking the Appalachian Trail solo, working with the Lost Boys of Sudan, and living in the frozen reaches of Antarctica. Her most courageous trip, though, involved returning to Oakland and reconnecting with her biological mother and family, many of whom she hadn’t seen since the day she left home. The Lost Daughter is a chronicle of her journey back in time, an exploration of fractured family bonds, and a moving epic of self-discovery.
Read online
  • 983
Literary Occasions: Essays

Literary Occasions: Essays

V. S. Naipaul

Fiction / Nonfiction / Travel

Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul brings his signature gifts of observation, his ferocious impatience with received truths, and his masterfully condensed prose to these eleven essays on reading, writing, and identity—which have been brought together for the first time. Here the subject is Naipaul’s literary evolution: the books that delighted him as a child; the books he wrote as a young man; the omnipresent predicament of trying to master an essentially metropolitan, imperial art form as an Asian colonial from a New World plantation island. He assesses Joseph Conrad, the writer most frequently cited as his forebear, and, in his celebrated Nobel Lecture, “Two Worlds,” traces the full arc of his own career. Literary Occasions is an indispensable addition to the Naipaul oeuvre, penetrating, elegant, and affecting. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Read online
  • 981
The Jaguar's Children

The Jaguar's Children

John Vaillant

Nonfiction

From the best-selling author of The Tiger and The Golden Spruce, this debut novel  is  a gripping survival  story of a young man trapped, perhaps fatally, during a border crossing. Héctor is trapped. The water truck, sealed to hide its human cargo, has broken down. The coyotes have taken all the passengers’ money for a mechanic and have not returned. Those left behind have no choice but to wait. Héctor finds a name in his friend César’s phone. AnniMac. A name with an American number. He must reach her, both for rescue and to pass along the message César has come so far to deliver. But are his messages going through? Over four days, as water and food run low, Héctor tells how he came to this desperate place. His story takes us from Oaxaca — its rich culture, its rapid change — to the dangers of the border. It exposes the tangled ties between Mexico and El Norte — land of promise and opportunity, homewrecker and unreliable friend. And it reminds us of the power of storytelling and the power of hope, as Héctor fights to ensure his message makes it out of the truck and into the world. Both an outstanding suspense novel and an arresting window into the relationship between two great cultures, The Jaguar’s Children shows how deeply interconnected all of us, always, are.
Read online
  • 976
234