4 fiction playback a graphic novel raymond chandler adapted by ted benoit and illustrated by françois ayroles a heart-pounding tale of betrayal blackmail and murder that will take you to the edge of your seat on a storyboard ride through raymond chandler s last thriller unearthed from the universal studios archives and adapted as a graphic novel the script for playback is classic chandler exposing the highs and lows of the human heart in the raw light of a hard-boiled crime story betty mayfield is blond and beautiful and has just been found guilty of the murder of her husband but the judge realizes the jury is terrified of her father-in-law the man who owns everything in this small north carolina town and overturns the verdict her father-in-law swears vengeance and betty flees seeking a new life she meets larry mitchell a brash but charming gigolo on the train to vancouver he brings her to the vancouver royal hotel where she stays in a room beneath the penthouse of a rich playboy clark
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8 fiction the good works of ayela linde a novel in stories charlotte forbes from an o henry prizewinner this dazzling novel in stories marks the arrival of a powerfully original and beguiling new voice in american fiction the linked stories that make up this spare and beautifully written novel follow the life of ayela the illegitimate daughter of a mexican dressmaker born in 1933 in the texas border town of santa rosalia raised by her mother and superstitious grandmother thought to be a witch by the townsfolk ayela is breathtakingly striking aloof fearful flamboyant and headstrong and her stories are told by those who know her or think they do a girlhood friend her housekeeper the pork butcher members of the altar guild a travel agent her daughter-in-law and others the stories begin when ayela is 17 and move through her marriage to an idealistic bostonian held captive in town by her beauty and end with her last and most dubious good work at the moment of her death together they cre
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11 non fiction voyage to a stricken land reporting from iraq a woman s inside story sara daniel for over three years sara daniel star foreign correspondent for france s weekly news magazine l observateur has been covering iraq daring to venture where few have gone here is her revealing first-hand report starting in june 2002 when war clouds loomed but saddam hussein was still in power sara daniel has followed the fast-evolving events in iraq with a keen eye and probing mind she has traveled the country from one end to the other interviewing people from all sides from the kurds in the north to the rising new politicians in baghdad and beyond from the insurgents in sadr city and fallujah to the police chief in basra from the hospital doctors tending the maimed and wounded to the directors of museums whose collections have been ruthlessly pillaged from ordinary men and women in the streets to those vying to fill the void of power from american soldiers on deadly street patrol to middle an
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14 fiction the gold of the sunbeams and other stories tito rajarshi mukhopadhyay introduction by soma mukhopadhyay in a world where the number of children diagnosed with autism is growing each year tito s stories offer a beacon of hope and provide an important window onto the autistic mind this powerful collection of stories filled with poetry beauty and startling leaps of imagination is extraordinary for two reasons the author is just seventeen years old and he is severely autistic tito defies the perception that people with autism trapped within their own bodies cannot communicate with the outside world he has been writing insightful and eloquent stories since before he was eight in these stories tito commands an astonishing range of voices and styles in the broken mirror he tells the history of a room from the perspective of a broken mirror that hangs on the wall and that he imbues with emotions and memories in grey apple green and white he gives life and character to colors the
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17 non fiction across the savage sea the first woman to row across the north atlantic maud fontenoy preface by gérard d aboville over 1,000 men have climbed mount everest 12 have walked on the moon and only six have rowed the atlantic from west to east no woman had yet accomplished this feat until now a barnes noble discover great new writers program selection in june 2003 maud fontenoy set out from newfoundland in her 24-foot-long boat pilot to row across the atlantic her goal to prove that a woman could do the impossible she knew how hazardous the trip would be but the reality was far more harrowing than even she had imagined violent storms and crashing 15-foot waves that capsized her sturdy but vulnerable craft dozens of times intense cold hunger and sheer exhaustion from long days of rowing near-freezing waters circling sharks huge freighters that suddenly emerged out of the thick fog almost ramming her then there was her map updated daily that constantly reminded her how far she
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20 non fiction daughter of heaven a memoir with earthly recipes leslie li a powerful touching memoir of a chinese-american woman and her chinese grandmother by an extraordinarily talented author who has drawn comparisons to amy tan and maxine hong kingston a borders original voices program selection leslie li belongs to the illustrious li family of guilin china her grandfather li zongren was china s first democratically elected vice president to whom chiang kai-shek handed over control of the country when he fled to formosa in 1949 leslie s father was studying in the u.s where he met and married leslie s americanborn mother in 1958 leslie s grandmother nai-nai came to live with her son s family in new york bringing with her a new world of sights smells and tastes nai-nai s wonderfully exotic new cooking opened leslie s heart and mind to her chinese heritage and to the world as leslie grew taste became the stronghold of memory and food the keeper of culture it was through her grandmothe
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24 non fiction the candy men the rollicking life and times of the notorious novel candy nile southern a thoroughly entertaining account of the creation evolution and publication of one of the most notorious and successful novels of the twentieth century a publishers weekly best nonfiction pick for may 2004 finalist for the colorado book award once upon a time in the 1950s a writer named terry southern met fellow expat mason hoffenberg in paris and wrote a sexual satire based on voltaire s candide for rogue french publisher maurice girodias they called it candy the book drew the attention of the french censors was banned renamed reissued rebanned and reissued again it became one of the most talked-about novels of the tumultuous 1960s selling millions of copies in america alone in the candy men terry s son nile recounts the authors self-destructive dealings with their wily french publisher the book s chaotic and controversial publication the blatant piracy that plagued it from the start
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27 non fiction nehru the invention of india shashi tharoor a revealing new biography of the great man who led india to independence from british rule and ushered his new nation into the modern world in this fascinating biography tharoor author of india from midnight to the millennium casts an unflinching eye on nehru s stewardship of an independent india born into a wealthy influential family in the waning years of the raj jawaharlal nehru grew up on western secularism and the ideals of the enlightenment under his father s careful guidance after meeting gandhi in 1916 nehru threw himself into the fight for india s independence a fight he didn t win until 1947 india had found a perfect political complement to her more spiritual advocate but neither nehru nor gandhi could prevent the horrific price for independence partition and the bloody conflict between india and pakistan that threatens to boil over into nuclear war immensely stimulating fascinating and enjoyable i hardly thought
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30 non fiction the essence of provence the story of l occitane pierre magnan the remarkable rags-to-riches tale of olivier baussan and the roadside soap stand that became l occitane one of the world s most successful purveyors of bath and beauty products olivier baussan founded the world-renowned fragrance company l occitane which means a woman of provence in 1976 taking his inspiration from the honeysuckle lavender rosemary sage and thyme from his childhood home in the south of france since the mid 1950s provence had been working its magic on the baussan family who left city living for farm life when olivier was only six months old blessed with an acute sense of smell olivier realized that he d been born to distill and disseminate the many luscious scents of the region his epiphany came when he was 22 on the side of the road he found an abandoned still that he bought for a song and using the countryside s natural ingredients he began manufacturing colognes essences shampoos and soap
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33 non fiction alternating current octavio paz translated by helen lane a key figure in the latin american literary renaissance octavio paz examines literature and art drugs and the murder of god winner of the 1973 national book award for translation winner of the 1990 nobel prize for literature in the first part of this acclaimed work octavio paz sets forth his credo as an artist and a poet part two deals with themes more specific to the late sixties and seventies drugs and atheism in part three paz concerns himself with politics and ethics in no way diminished by time every chapter in this book is an adventure of the mind paz is an intellectual literary one-man band and alternating current is full of energy curiosity intelligence new york times book review front page it reads like a poet s prose quick flashing and idiosyncratic a stimulating book electric in its energies the shock of its thought the new yorker boston globe with the translation of alternating current readers
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36 non fiction the monkey grammarian octavio paz translated by helen lane written while paz was the mexican ambassador to india the monkey grammarian is a dazzling mind-journey to the temple-city of galta winner of the 1990 nobel prize for literature hanuman the red-faced monkey god and ninth grammarian of hindu mythology is the protagonist of this dazzling meditation a mind-journey to the temple city of galta in india and the occasion for octavio paz the celebrated mexican poet and philosopher to explore the nature of time and reality fixity and decay and the eternally intriguing question is language the concept of grammar god given or did man invent it on his own with powers borrowed from the divine realm the world as seen in this book is not very remote from that seen by gabriel garcía márquez new york times book review one of a kind a consistently valuable and fascinating piece of writing a sumptuous feast of visual imagery los angeles times san francisco chronicle octavio
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