The italian secretary
En Anglais – Mycroft Holmes’s encoded message to his brother, Sherlock, is unsubtle enough even for Dr. Watson to decipher: a matter concerning the safety of Queen Victoria herself calls them to Edinburgh’s Holyrood House to investigate the confounding and gruesome deaths of two young men–horrific incidents that took place with her highness in residence. The victims were crushed in a manner surpassing human power. And while recent attempts on her majesty’s life raise a number of possibilities, these intrigues also seem strangely connected to an act of evil that took place centuries earlier … For indeed, the slaying of David Rizzio, music master and friend to Mary Queen of Scots, was an extraordinarily brutal and treacherous act–even for a time when brutality and treachery were the order of the day. Now, the ghosts of Holyrood House are being reawakened by someone with a diabolical agenda of greed, madness, and terror as Holmes and Watson set out to trap a killer who is eager to rewrite history in blood…
Something borrowed, something blue
En Anglais – Twenty-seven, single and living with her mum, Jenny’s not happy with her life. Then she meets Hugo – her very first boyfriend – at a wedding, and not only has he grown up to be the sexiest man in Ireland but amazingly, he too is ready for a fresh start. However ……
Oh, Play that thing
En Anglais – Praised as “a masterpiece” by the Washington Post, A Star Called Henry introduced the unforgettable Henry Smart and left Roddy Doyle’s innumerable fans clamoring for more. Now, in his first novel set in America, Doyle delivers. Oh, Play That Thing opens with Henry on the run from his Irish Republican paymasters, arriving in New York City in 1924. But in New York, and later Chicago—where he meets a man playing wild, happy music called Louis Armstrong—Henry finds he cannot escape his past.A highly entertaining cross-country epic and a magnificent follow-up to A Star Called Henry, this prodigious, energetic, sexy novel is another Roddy Doyle triumph.
Yukon by Northen Light
En Anglais – Does it take a residency of five years, ten years, or even 25 years ? Is it a membership in Yoop, the Yukon Order of Pioneers ? Do you have to be born on Yukon soil ? ….. Nice pictures …
The flame trees of Thika
En Anglais – In an open cart Elspeth Huxley set off with her parents to travel to Thika in Kenya. As pioneering settlers, they built a house of grass, ate off a damask cloth spread over packing cases, and discovered—the hard way—the world of the African. With an extraordinary gift for detail and a keen sense of humor, Huxley recalls her childhood on the small farm at a time when Europeans waged their fortunes on a land that was as harsh as it was beautiful. For a young girl, it was a time of adventure and freedom, and Huxley paints an unforgettable portrait of growing up among the Masai and Kikuyu people, discovering both the beauty and the terrors of the jungle, and enduring the rugged realities of the pioneer life.
Aztec autumn
En Anglais – The magnificent Aztec empire has fallen beneath the brutal heal of the Spaniards. But one proud Aztec, Tenamaxtli, refuses to bow to his despised conquerors. He dreams of restoring the lost glory of the Aztec empire, and recruits an army of rebels to mount an insurrection against the seemingly invincible power of mighty Spain. Tenamaxtli’s courageous quest takes us through high adventure, passionate women, unlikely allies, bright hope, bitter tragedy, and the essence of 16th century Mexico. This incredible rebellion has been little remembered, perhaps because it shed no glory on the men who would write the history book, but on its outcome depended the future of all North America. Aztec Autumn recreates this forgotten chapter of history in all its splendor and unforgettable passion.
Small wars permitting
En Anglais – Christina Lamb is one of Britain’s most highly regarded journalists. This selection of her work as a correspondent for The Financial Times and The Sunday Times represents non-fiction writing about foreign lands at its finest, by turns edifying, moving and horrifying. »
Marker, segnali d’allarme
En italien – New York, Manhattan General Hospital: persone sane e giovani, sottoposte a interventi di routine, muoiono ventiquattr’ore dopo l’operazione. La cosa insospettisce Laurie Montgomery, medico legale dell’ospedale. La dottoressa si getta a capofitto nell’indagine, anche se ostacolata da superiori e colleghi che pensano si tratti di pure coincidenze. Le morti però aumentano e Laurie è sempre più convinta che sia opera di un serial killer: tutte le vittime hanno infatti mappe genetiche simili. Che qualcuno abbia bisogno di materia su sui fare esperimenti? Il tempo scorre rapido ed è necessario trovare una soluzione all’enigma anche per salvare la vita alla stessa Laurie, che, positiva a un marker tumorale, scoprirà di avere un legame particolare con la vicenda…
Trainspotting
En italien – Un pugno di ragazzi a Edimburgo e dintorni: il sesso, lo sballo, la rabbia, il vuoto delle giornate. Sono i dannati di un modernissimo inferno « chimico », con la loro vita sfilacciata e senza scampo. Alla ricerca di un riscatto, di un senso da dare alla propria esistenza – che non sia il vicolo cieco fatto di casa, famiglia e impiego ordinario – trovano nella droga e nella violenza l’unica risposta possibile. Sboccato, indiavolato, travolgente: l’esordio di un talento letterario, il romanzo shock che ha fatto epoca e dato voce a una nuova generazione.
Kaffir Boy
En Anglais – The classic story of life in Apartheid South Africa. Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa’s most desperate ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police raids were his rites of passage. Like every other child born in the hopelessness of apartheid, he learned to measure his life in days, not years. Yet Mark Mathabane, armed only with the courage of his family and a hard-won education, raised himself up from the squalor and humiliation to win a scholarship to an American university. This extraordinary memoir of life under apartheid is a triumph of the human spirit over hatred and unspeakable degradation. For Mark Mathabane did what no physically and psychologically battered « Kaffir » from the rat-infested alleys of Alexandra was supposed to do — he escaped to tell about it.
The complete prophecies of Nostradamus
En Anglais – Here are the complete prophecies of Nostradamus. Nostradamus is the best known and most accurate mystic and seer of all times. There are those who say that he predicted Napoleon and even the attack on the World Trade Center.
The complete Scarsdale medical diet
En Anglais – You’ll get the simple basics of diet chemistry…An easy plan for losing up to twenty pounds on two weeks… A Two-On-Two-Off Program for maintaining a healthy weight… And new diet-variation menus: gourmet, money-saver, vegetarian and international. Five complete 14-day menu plan.
En Anglais – Nowhere is Patricia Highsmith’s affinity for animals more apparent than in The Animal-Lover’s Book of Beastly Murder, for here she transfers the murderous thoughts and rages most associated with humans onto the animals themselves … You will meet, for example, in « In the Dead of Truffle Season, » a truffle-hunting pig who tries to whet his own appetite for a while; or Jumbo in « Chorus Girl’s Absolutely Final Performance, » a lonely, old circus elephant who decides she’s had enough of show business and cruel trainers for one lifetime. In this satirical reprise of Kafka, cats, dogs, and breeding rodents are no longer ordinary beings in the happy home, but actually have the power to destroy the world in which we live.
Strange affair
En Anglais – A bullet to the brain abruptly halted a terrified young woman’s desperate flight. In her pocket is the name of a policeman whose own life was brutally invaded, mercilessly shaken, and very nearly erased—a policeman who has since gone missing. The dead woman in the car had been running from something—but she didn’t run far or fast enough. Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot would like to question the man the victim was apparently racing to meet: Annie’s superior—and former lover—Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. But Banks has vanished into the anonymous chaos of the city, drawn into a mad whirl of greed, inhumanity, and death, by a frantic phone call from the brother he no longer knows. Banks is unaware that the threads connecting a sinister kidnapping with a savage slaying are as thick as rope . . . and long enough for a haunted and broken rogue cop to hang himself.
Teacher man
En Anglais – Nearly a decade ago Frank McCourt became an unlikely star when, at the age of sixty-six, he burst onto the literary scene with Angela’s Ashes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir of his childhood in Limerick, Ireland. Then came ‘Tis, his glorious account of his early years in New York. Now, here at last, is McCourt’s long-awaited book about how his thirty-year teaching career shaped his second act as a writer. Teacher Man is also an urgent tribute to teachers everywhere. In bold and spirited prose featuring his irreverent wit and heartbreaking honesty, McCourt records the trials, triumphs and surprises he faces in public high schools around New York City. His methods anything but conventional, McCourt creates a lasting impact on his students through imaginative assignments (he instructs one class to write « An Excuse Note from Adam or Eve to God »), singalongs (featuring recipe ingredients as lyrics), and field trips (imagine taking twenty-nine rowdy girls to a movie in Times Square!). McCourt struggles to find his way in the classroom and spends his evenings drinking with writers and dreaming of one day putting his own story to paper. Teacher Man shows McCourt developing his unparalleled ability to tell a great story as, five days a week, five periods per day, he works to gain the attention and respect of unruly, hormonally charged or indifferent adolescents. McCourt’s rocky marriage, his failed attempt to get a Ph.D. at Trinity College, Dublin, and his repeated firings due to his propensity to talk back to his superiors ironically lead him to New York’s most prestigious school, Stuyvesant High School, where he finally finds a place and a voice. « Doggedness, » he says, is « not as glamorous as ambition or talent or intellect or charm, but still the one thing that got me through the days and nights. »
‘Tis a memoir
En Anglais – The sequel to Frank McCourt’s memoir of his Irish Catholic boyhood, Angela’s Ashes, picks up the story in October 1949, upon his arrival in America. Though he was born in New York, the family had returned to Ireland due to poor prospects in the United States. Now back on American soil, this awkward 19-year-old, with his « pimply face, sore eyes, and bad teeth, » has little in common with the healthy, self-assured college students he sees on the subway and dreams of joining in the classroom. Initially, his American experience is as harrowing as his impoverished youth in Ireland, including two of the grimmest Christmases ever described in literature. McCourt views the U.S. through the same sharp eye and with the same dark humor that distinguished his first memoir: race prejudice, casual cruelty, and dead-end jobs weigh on his spirits as he searches for a way out. A glimpse of hope comes from the army, where he acquires some white-collar skills, and from New York University, which admits him without a high school diploma. But the journey toward his position teaching creative writing at Stuyvesant High School is neither quick nor easy. Fortunately, McCourt’s openness to every variety of human emotion and longing remains exceptional; even the most damaged, difficult people he encounters are richly rendered individuals with whom the reader can’t help but feel uncomfortable kinship. The magical prose, with its singing Irish cadences, brings grandeur and beauty to the most sorrowful events, including the final scene, set in a Limerick graveyard. –Wendy Smith
The Bourne ultimatum
En Anglais – The world’s two deadliest spies in the ultimate showdown. At a small-town carnival two men, each mysteriously summoned by telegram, witness a bizarre killing. The telegrams are signed Jason Bourne. Only they know Bourne’s true identity and understand the telegram is really a message from Bourne’s mortal enemy, Carlos, known also as the Jackal, the world’s deadliest and most elusive terrorist. And furthermore, they know that the Jackal wants: a final confrontation with Bourne. Now David Webb, professor of Oriental studies, husband, and father, must do what he hoped he would never have to do again—assume the terrible identity of Jason Bourne. His plan is simple: to infiltrate the politically and economically Medusan group and use himself as bait to lure the cunning Jackal into a deadly trap—a trap from which only one of them will escape.
Orlando
En Anglais – Virginia Woolf’s Orlando ‘The longest and most charming love letter in literature’, playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf’s close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West. Spanning three centuries, the novel opens as Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabeth’s England, awaits a visit from the Queen and traces his experience with first love as England under James I lies locked in the embrace of the Great Frost. At the midpoint of the novel, Orlando, now an ambassador in Costantinople, awakes to find that he is a woman, and the novel indulges in farce and irony to consider the roles of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. As the novel ends in 1928, a year consonant with full suffrage for women. Orlando, now a wife and mother, stands poised at the brink of a future that holds new hope and promise for women.
Neither here nor there
En Anglais – Bill Bryson’s first travel book, The Lost Continent, was unanimously acclaimed as one of the funniest books in years. In Neither Here nor There he brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia. Fluent in, oh, at least one language, he retraces his travels as a student twenty years before…Whether braving the homicidal motorist of Paris, being robbed by gypsies in Florence, attempting not to order tripe and eyeballs in a German restaurant, window-shopping in the sex shops of the Reeperbahn or disputing his hotel bill in Copenhagen, Bryson takes in the sights, dissects the culture and illuminates each place and person with his hilariously caustic observations. He even goes to Liechtenstein…
The caretaker
En Anglais – The Caretaker is a play in three acts by Harold Pinter. Although it was the sixth of his major works for stage and television, this psychological study of the confluence of power, allegiance, innocence, and corruption among two brothers and a tramp, became Pinter’s first significant commercial success.It premiered at the Arts Theatre Club in London’s West End on 27 April 1960 and transferred to the Duchess Theatre the following month, where it ran for 444 performances before departing London for Broadway. In 1964, a film version of the play based on Pinter’s unpublished screenplay was directed by Clive Donner. The movie starred Alan Bates as Mick and Donald Pleasence as Davies in their original stage roles, while Robert Shaw replaced Peter Woodthorpe as Aston. First published by both Encore Publishing and Eyre Methuen in 1960, The Caretaker remains one of Pinter’s most celebrated and oft-performed plays.
My Mother-City
En Anglais – For three decades, Gerald Dawe has chronicled the difficult yet exhilarating interface where personal experience meets political and cultural realities.The title essay; My Mother-City, traces the altering map of Belfast in the late 50s and 60s, through to the critical years of the Troubles and beyond, with some of the city’s leading artists profiled, including Van Morrison, Stewart Parker and Brian Moore. Bit Parts is a familial exploration with Dawe uncovering the actual past underneath the clutter of northern stereotypes. The lives of his great-grandparents and grandparents reveal a teeming and vibrant world often ignored by politicians and cultural critics alike.
Once were warriors
En Anglais – The Hekes are a family in turmoil. A tyrannical, alcoholic, violent patriarch, an alcoholic, ever-trying-to-reform mother, and three degenerate children. Can the draw Maori ritual and tradition pull them back from the brink?
Jack Reacher – One shot
En Anglais – Six shots. Five dead. One heartland city thrown into a state of terror. But within hours the cops have it solved: a slam-dunk case. Except for one thing. The accused man says: You got the wrong guy. Then he says: Get Reacher for me. And sure enough, from the world he lives in—no phone, no address, no commitments–ex–military investigator Jack Reacher is coming. In Lee Child’s astonishing new thriller, Reacher’s arrival will change everything—about a case that isn’t what it seems, about lives tangled in baffling ways, about a killer who missed one shot–and by doing so give Jack Reacher one shot at the truth.…
Dreams, counselling and healing
En Anglais – New research is re-establishing the importance of the ‘inner’ knowledge our bodies contain and our dreams express. Emotions, we now discover, influence the production of healing or destructive opiates within the body, and we can no longer deny the power of personal perspectives and experiences over our well-being. Dreams are central because they reflect not only our physical experience, but also the emotional, and often the spiritual, transpersonal dimension as well. In this practical and in-depth exploration of the use of dreams in the healing process, Brenda Mallon shows how dream content reveals crucial insights that enhance healing in mind, body and spirit. She draws on counselling sessions, material from workshops and groupwork and from first-hand personal accounts, reinforced by findings from current research in dreaming, psycho-social care and therapy. ‘Dreams, Counselling and Healing’ is the first book to link the three areas together, and the first also to use extensive personal accounts. It is invaluable for all those who wish to focus on dreams and their dynamic application to healing and wellbeing. Other books by Brenda Mallon Venus Dreaming.
In search of Ireland
En Anglais – One of the classic travel books about Ireland by one of the century’s best-selling writers. Shortly after the declaration of the Irish Free State, H. V. Morton goes in search of Ireland by motor-car and finds, amongst other things, a Norman village in Galway, lobster fishermen, a shy girl in need of an apron in Connemara, and a great many beds in which Michael Collins is said to have slept. Full of local stories and wayside conversations, Morton’s witty and enticing travelogue recalls a way of life not quite disappeared even at the beginning of a new century. Anecdotal, leisurely, full of character and event, insight, and opinion, this is travel writing of the very highest order.
Killer’s wedge
En Anglais – Her game was death – and her name was Virginia Dodge. She was out to put a bullet through Steve Carella’s brain, and she didn’t care if she has to kill all the boys in the 87th Precinct to do it. So Virginia, armed with gun and bottle of nitroglycerin, spent a quiet afternoon in the precinct house, terrorizing Lieutenant Byrnes and his detectives with her clever little homemade bomb. They all sat there waiting for Steve Carella. Could all the men of the 87th, prisoners of one crazy broad, be powerless to save Carella from his rendezvous with death…?
In this thy day
En Anglais – In « In this thy land » (1945) McLaverty explores the effects of the famine on the consciousness of the Irish rural poor after the passage of the Wyndham Land Act (1903) enabled to possess land. For them, it symbolized autonomy, social respectability, and the ability to resist the disasters and starvation of the past …..
The mottled lizard
En Anglais – This sequel to THE FLAME TREES OF THIKA continues the story of Elspeth Huxley’s childhood in Kenya. British settlers, called to serve in WW I, return to their neglected farms and ranches. For Tilly and Robin it is back to the struggle. For their daughter, now 11, it is back to the ponies, lessons at home, wild pets (this time a cheetah named Rupert), and hunting trips with Njombo, the Kikuyu headman. But more is happening. The child narrator is growing into a woman. We lose the wide-eyed child narrator of Thika, but gain in her place a thoughtful and prescient observer of the rapidly changing continent.
When the lion feeds
En Anglais – ‘Something always dies when the lion feeds and yet there is meat for those that follow him.’ The lion is Sean, hero of this tremendous drama of the men who took possession of South Africa in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Sean and his twin-brother Garrick grew up on their father’s farm in Natal. The first part of the book deals with his childhood and youth and his longing to become a successful farmer and hard-hitting fighter like his father. The tough life of cattle-farming is brusquely interrupted by the Zulu Wars, when Sean and his brother see fighting for the first time. Wilbur Smith vividly recreates the excitement of the war for the young men-their hope of winning their own cattle, the horror of the massacre at Isandhlwana, the heroism of the defence at Rorkes Drift. ‘Witwatersrand’ is the name of the second part of this book ……
The triumph of the sun
En Anglais – They’ve come from out of the shifting sands and down from ancient mountains. Mounted on horse and camel, carrying gleaming swords and plundered rifles, the sons of Allah are led by a holy warrior imbued with jihad, driving his army of thousands to wipe out the last Englishmen from the isolated Nile city… But in Khartoum is a legendary British general, a brilliant, mercenary trader, a beautiful woman and a courageous soldier whose fates have become one. They know that time is running out and rescue is improbable. So they prepare for one last stand–and the beginning of an epic journey of survival… From a passionate rivalry for a woman to an unforgettable face-off between warriors, TRIUMPH OF THE SUN is adventure fiction writ large–alive with the sounds of throngs, the terror of battle, and the mystical fire of human courage in the darkest moments of all.
Oscar and Lucinda
En anglais – Peter Carey’s Booker Prize winning novel imagines Australia’s youth, before its dynamic passions became dangerous habits. It is also a startling and unusual love story…Oscar is a young English clergyman who has broken with his past and developed a disturbing talent for gambling. A country girl of singular ambition, Lucinda moves to Sydney, driven by dreams of self-reliance and the building of an industrial Utopia. Together this unlikely pair create and are created by the spectacle of mid-nineteenth century Australia…Peter Carey’s visionary brilliance, and his capacity to delight and surprise, propel this story to its stunning conclusion.
We are still married
En anglais – Tales of love lost and found, satiric comments on society and the media, and letters on marriage and fatherhood–Garrison Keillor reflects on the world around him with wit, warmth, and wonder.
The orange mocha-chip frapuccino years
En anglais – Part of a cult series of books, the eponymous hero of Paul Howard’s tale is a boorish, snobbish, chauvinistic individual with a distinctly below-average IQ. The story opens with this postmodern hero out on the streets awaiting the next unpleasant incident to come along and trip him up.
Walden Two
En Anglais – Walden Two is a utopian novel written by behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner, first published in 1948. In its time, it could have been considered science fiction, since science-based methods for altering people’s behavior did not yet exist. Such methods are now known as applied behavior analysis. Walden Two is controversial because its characters speak of a rejection of free will, including a rejection of the proposition that human behavior is controlled by a non-corporeal entity, such as a spirit or a soul. Walden Two embraces the proposition that the behavior of organisms, including humans, is determined by environmental variables, and that systematically altering environmental variables can generate a sociocultural system that very closely approximates utopia.
The political ideas of St Thomas Aquinas
En Anglais – St. Thomas Aquinas, the chief spokesman of medieval scholasticism, was born at Aquino, a tiny place near Naples and from the name of the place he received the title Aquinas. But he is better known as Thomas and his thought is known to us as Thomism. He belonged to an aristocratic Italian family which had connections with European kings and emperors. In order to be a church father and to devote his life to the cause of Christianity and study he surrendered his title “Count.” He joined the Dominican Order at the age of nineteen and for this purpose he had to fight his family. He studied in Naples, Cologne and Paris and in the last mentioned place he delivered several lectures on philosophy and theology. At the age of forty- eight he died.
Man and Superman, Arms and the Man, …..
En Anglais – 1898. Most of Shaw’s early plays were either banned by the censor or refused production. With Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant he sought a reading audience. He also began the practice of writing the challenging, mocking, eloquent prefaces to his plays, which were sometimes longer than the play itself. This volume contains the Unpleasant: Widowers’ Houses; The Philanderer; and Mrs. Warren’s Profession.
Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead
En Anglais – Philospher, mathematician & general man of science, Whitehead was a polymath whose interests & sympathies encompassed entire worlds. Here, modelled on Eckermann’s conversations with Goethe & recorded in Whitehead’s own home, are some of the landmarks, signposts, milestones & scenery of that extraordinary mind. His approach to life & science provides a compass for the modern world. In these pages the reaches of his thought–in philosophy, religion, science, statesmanship, education, literature, art & conduct of life–are gathered & edited by the writer Lucien Price, a journalist whose own interests were as eclectic as Whitehead’s & whose memory for verbatim conversation was nothing short of miraculous. The scene, the Cambridge of Harvard from 1932-47 (with flashbacks to London, Cambridge, England & his native Ramsgate in Kent); the cast, often eminent men & women, who join him for these penetrating, audacious & exhilarating verbal forays. The subjects range from the homeliest details of living to the greatest ideas that have animated minds over the past 30 centuries. Featuring a new preface & an introduction–previously unavailable in this country–this book stands alongside Boswell’s as a model of biography, shaped jointly by the acuity of the biographer & the genius of the subject. It also stands as an accessible monument to a mind that never stopped working, a man whose life & career no writer could have invented & no serious reader can afford to overlook.
The captive
En Anglais – He doesn’t even recognize her, and she in turn feels nothing for him. Renee is now living as an independent woman on a small income from an inheritance. She has left the music hall and is thinking once again of writing seriously. This time, however, she falls in love with her friend May’s lover Jean. Renee is resigned to putting on the shackle when she becomes his mistress. It is the shackle you wear when you fall in love, and cannot extract yourself emotionally.
Those Barren Leaves
En Anglais – Aldous Huxley spares no one in his ironic, piercing portrayal of a group gathered in an Italian palace by the socially ambitious and self-professed lover of art, Mrs. Aldwinkle. Here, Mrs. Aldwinkle yearns to recapture the glories of the Italian Renaissance, but her guests ultimately fail to fulfill her naive expectations. Among her entourage are: a suffering poet and reluctant editor of the « Rabbit Fanciers' Gazette » who silently bears the widowed Mrs. Aldwinkle's desperate advances; a popular novelist who records every detail of her affair with another guest, the amorous Calamy, for future literary endeavors; and an aging sensualist philosopher who pursues a wealthy yet mentally-disabled heiress. Stripping the houseguests of their pretensions, Huxley reveals the superficiality of the cultural elite. Deliciously satirical, Those Barren Leaves bites the hands of those who dare to posture or feign sophistication and is as comically fresh today as when first published.
The europeans
En Anglais – A sketch is a short novel by Henry James, published in 1878. It is essentially a comedy contrasting the behaviour and attitudes of two visitors from Europe with those of their relatives living in the ‘new’ world of New England. The novel first appeared as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly for July–October 1878. James made numerous minor revisions for the first book publication.
A passage to India
En Anglais – A Passage to India (1924) is a novel by English author E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. It was selected as one of the 100 great works of 20th century English literature by the Modern Library[1] and won the 1924 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.[2] Time magazine included the novel in its « All Time 100 Novels » list.[3] The novel is based on Forster's experiences in India, deriving the title[4] from Walt Whitman's 1870 poem « Passage to India »[5] in Leaves of Grass. The story revolves around four characters: Dr. Aziz, his British friend Mr. Cyril Fielding, Mrs. Moore, and Miss Adela Quested. During a trip to the fictitious Marabar Caves (modeled on the Barabar Caves of Bihar),[6] Adela thinks she finds herself alone with Dr. Aziz in one of the caves (when in fact he is in an entirely different cave), and subsequently panics and flees; it is assumed that Dr. Aziz has attempted to assault her. Aziz's trial, and its run-up and aftermath, bring to a boil the common racial tensions and prejudices between Indians and the British who rule India.
En Anglais – A beautifully written book about the life of the incredibly brilliant and gifted D.H. Lawrence. Highly recommend for anyone who wants to learn more of the man and read some of his most glorious writing.
The cereal murders
Thanks to her recent adventures in Dying for Chocolate, Goldy Bear, the premier caterer of Aspen Meadow, Colorado, is no stranger to violence — or sudden death. But when she agrees to cater the first College Advisory Dinner for Seniors and Parents at the exclusive Elk Park Preparatory School, the last thing she expects to find at the end of the evening is the battered body of the school valedictorian. Who could have killed Keith Andrews, and why? Goldy’s hungry for some answers — and not just because she found the corpse. Her young son, Arch, a student at Elk Park Prep, has become a target for some not-so-funny pranks, while her eighteen-year-old live-in helper, Julian, has become a prime suspect in the Andrews boy’s murder. As her investigation intensifies, Goldy’s anxiety level rises faster than homemade donuts. . .as she turns up evidence that suggests that Keith knew more than enough to blow the lid off some very unscholarly secrets. And then, as her search rattles one skeleton too many, Goldy learns a crucial fact: a little knowledge about a killer can be a deadly thing.
Corsair
For five novels, Clive Cussler has brought readers into the world of the « Oregon, » a seemingly dilapidated ship packed with sophisticated equipment, and captained by the rakish, one-legged Juan Cabrillo. And now the « Oregon » and its crew face their biggest challenge yet. Corsairs are pirates, and pirates come in many different varieties. There are the pirates who fought off the Barbary Coast in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the contemporary pirates who infest the waters of Africa and Asia, and the pirates . . . who look like something else. When the U.S. secretary of state's plane crashes while bringing her to a summit meeting in Libya, the CIA, distrusting the Libyans, hire Juan Cabrillo to search for her, and their misgivings are well founded. The crew locates the plane, but the secretary of state has vanished. It turns out Libya's new foreign minister has other plans for the conference, plans that Cabrillo cannot let happen. But what does it all have to do with a two- hundred- year-old naval battle and the centuries-old Islamic scrolls that the Libyans seem so determined to find? The answers will lead him full circle into history, and into another pitched battle on the sea, this time against Islamic terrorists, and with the fate of nations resting on its outcome.
Lanty Hanlon
Blood money
En Anglais – When Amber, Li, Paulo, Hex and Alex visit India, they discover a terrible abuse of human rights – the deliberate theft of human organs for transplant surgery. Organs like a child’s eyes so that the corneas can be used. Alpha Force are determined to stop the illegal thefts – but it means tracking down some very ruthless people indeed to get the evidence needed to stop them.
Hemingway Adventure
En Anglais – … Fueled by intensive reading for his bestselling novel, Hemingway’s Chair, and, as always, driven by a desire to discover new places, Michael Palin attempts to put himself into Hemingway’s world. The past and the present intertwine, sometimes to startling effect, as Michael travels from Chicago to the forests and lakes of north Michigan, and from the First World War battlefields in Italy to Paris and Spain, where he pauses to learn about the art of bullfighting and to experience Pamplona during the feria and the infamous running of the bulls. He visits Venice at Carnival time, and samples the infectious madness of the unique Fallas festival in Valencia with its burning effigies and ear-splitting fireworks. Hemingway’s wanderlust draws Michael to the island of Key West in Florida, once unspoilt, but where the Hemingway industry now flourishes and a look-alike competition is the high point of the centenary celebrations. It takes him fishing in the Gulf Stream, on safari in Africa — where shooting wild animals once meant guns not cameras — and on to the Big Country of Montana and Wyoming, where the world-famous author escaped from the pressures of fame.