万本电子书0元读

万本电子书0元读

Blackbox
Blackbox
Walker, Nick
¥85.05
Cross a road, take a train, or get on an airplane and you put your life in the hands of a stranger -- every bit as screwed up, every bit as fallible and as human as you are. Then the person turns out not to be a stranger at all, and suddenly it's much worse.In America and Britain and the sky in between, an apparently disparate group of people is connected, whether intimately or by chance, to the tragic death of a stowaway on board flight AF266.As the action veers across countries and time zones, the stowaway's real identity is revealed through stolen black box recordings, answering machine messages, sitcom outtakes, and court tran*s. Told in a shifting, circular narrative, the interwoven lives make up a jolting and layered puzzle that builds to a heart-stopping, chilling climax.An intelligent and invigorating novel with a bizarre menu of dysfunctional characters, Blackbox is the story of an attempt to erase a life on tape.
The Princess of Nowhere
The Princess of Nowhere
Borghese, Lorenzo
¥85.05
Princess Pauline Borghese was one of the most fascinating women of her day. Now her story is unforgettably told by one of her descendants....The sister of Napoleon Bonaparte, Pauline knows that her sole purpose has always been to make an advantageous marriage to further her ambitious brother's goals. But her joie de vivre cannot be contained—much to the dismay of her new husband, Prince Camillo Borghese. Pauline and Camillo's relationship is tempestuous at best, with Pauline constantly seeking the attention of other men—especially after a heartbreaking loss leaves her devastated, desperate for attention, and searching for answers. Yet despite everything, the love that brought Pauline and Camillo together, as imperfect as it might be, can never truly be stifled. As seen through the eyes of the young woman who served as Pauline's lady-in-waiting and surrogate daughter, The Princess of Nowhere is an unforgettable tale of a remarkable life that was a study in the excesses of the time and of the power of a woman strong enough to defy expectations.
Matters of Chance
Matters of Chance
Haien, Jeannette
¥85.05
Matters of Chance is a glorious, aptivating novel about Morgan and Maude Shurtliff, who fall in love and marry in the years before World WarII. Unable to have children of their own, Morgan and Maude adopt twin girls. The four go home to their beautiful house in the country outside ofNew York City and begin to settle into what they hope will be a long and happy life. When the twins are still young, Morgan is called to serve inWorld War II, leaving Maude to raise her daughters alone. Jeannette Haien has rendered Morgan's war experiences with astonishing detail, just as she has captured the American post-war era with a precision that is unrivaled in recent fiction.
What's Your Number?
What's Your Number?
Bosnak, Karyn
¥85.05
How many men does it take to find true love?When Delilah Darling reads a survey revealing that most people have 10.5 sexual partners in their lifetime, she begins to feel like a tramp. She’s slept with nineteen men so far—almost twice the national average. During a self-help moment, she vows to cap her “number” at twenty, swearing she’ll save her last spot for the right guy. But after losing her job and having a wild night on the town, she falls into bed with Mr. Wrong. Unwilling to up her number, but also unable to imagine a life of celibacy, Delilah does the only thing a girl in her situation can do: she tracks down every man she’s ever slept with in a last-ditch effort to make it work with one of them.A hilarious romp through Delilah’s past loves, What’s Your Numbershines a spotlight on every woman’s dirty little secret and proves that, when it comes to matters of the heart, sometimes numbers tell only a fraction of the story.
The Scatter Here Is Too Great
The Scatter Here Is Too Great
Tanweer, Bilal
¥85.05
A vivid and intricate novel-in-stories, The Scatter Here Is Too Great explores the complicated lives of ordinary people whose fates unexpectedly converge after a deadly bomb blast at a train station in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city.Comrade Sukhansaz, an old communist poet, is harassed on a bus full of college students minutes before the blast. His son, a wealthy, middle-aged businessman, yearns for his own estranged child. A young man, Sadeq, has a dead-end job snatching cars from people who have defaulted on their bank loans, while his girlfriend spins tales for her young brother to conceal her own heartbreak. An ambulance driver picking up the bodies after the blast has a shocking encounter with two strange-looking men whom nobody else seems to notice. And in the midst of it all, a solitary writer, tormented with grief for his dead father and his decimated city, struggles to find words.Bilal Tanweer reveals the pain, loneliness, and longing of these characters and celebrates the power of the written word to heal lives and communities plagued by violence. Elegantly weaving together these voices into a striking portrait of a city and its people, The Scatter Here Is Too Great is a tale as vibrant and varied in its characters, passions, and idiosyncrasies as the city itself.
The Dog Fighter
The Dog Fighter
Bojanowski, Marc
¥85.05
The anonymous narrator of this remarkable debut novel is a young drifter in search of his future. The son of a passionate beauty and gentle doctor, he roams the border between the United States and Mexico, eventually settling in a sleepy Baja town on the verge of transformation. Here he learns to stand face-to-face with dogs in a makeshift ring, to fight for money and fame, and becomes involved with a powerful and corrupt entrepreneur. But when he finds friendship with a revolutionary old poet and love with a beautiful, innocent girl, everything changes. Caught between the ways of his past and the dreams of his future, he must make a devastating choice that could cost him everything.The Dog Fighter is an exhilarating tale of brutality and violence, love and wisdom, heartbreak and redemption.
I Was a Revolutionary
I Was a Revolutionary
Milward, Andrew Malan
¥85.05
Grounded in place, spanning the Civil War to the present day, the stories in I Was a Revolutionary capture the roil of history through the eyes of an unforgettable cast of characters: the visionaries and dreamers, the radical farmers and socialist journalists, the quack doctors and protesters who haunt the past and present landscape of the American heartland.In these stories, each set in the author's home state of Kansas, Andrew Malan Milward traces how we live amid the inconvenient ghosts of history. "The Burning of Lawrence" vibrates with the raw terror of a town pillaged by pro-Confederate raiders. "O Death" recalls the harrowing, desperate journey of the exodusters—African-American migrants who came to Kansas to escape oppression in the South. And, in the collection's haunting title piece, a professor of Kansas history surveys his decades-long slide from radicalism to complacency, a shift that parallels the landscape around him.Using his own home state as a prism through which to view both a nation's history and our own universal battles as individuals, Milward has created a fresh and complex new palimpsest of the American experience.
The Portland Vase
The Portland Vase
Brooks, Robin
¥85.05
For thousands of years an enigmatic and astonishingly beautiful piece of Roman art has captivated those who have come in contact with it.Made before the birth of Christ, the Portland Vase, as it is called, is renowned for both its beauty and its mystery.In The Portland Vase, Robin Brooks takes us on a vivid journey across Europe and through the centuries, as this delicate piece of glass, less than ten inches in height, passes through the hands of a stunning cast of characters, including the first Roman emperor, Augustus; a notorious tomb raider; a reckless cardinal; a princess with a nasty gambling habit; the ceramics genius Josiah Wedgwood; the secretive Duchess of Portland; and a host of politicians, dilettantes, and scam artists.Rich with passion, inspiration, jealousy, and endless speculation, the story of The Portland Vase spans more than two thousand years and remains one of the art world's greatest enigmas.
Dark Cosmos
Dark Cosmos
Hooper, Dan
¥85.05
The twentieth century was astonishing in all regards, shaking the foundations of practically every aspect of human life and thought, physics not least of all. Beginning with the publication of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, through the wild revolution of quantum mechanics, and up until the physics of the modern day (including the astonishing revelation, in 1998, that the Universe is not only expanding, but doing so at an ever-quickening pace), much of what physicists have seen in our Universe suggests that much of our Universe is unseen that we live in a dark cosmos.Everyone knows that there are things no one can see the air you're breathing, for example, or, to be more exotic, a black hole. But what everyone does not know is that what we can see a book, a cat, or our planet makes up only 5 percent of the Universe. The rest fully 95 percent is totally invisible to us; its presence discernible only by the weak effects it has on visible matter around it.This invisible stuff comes in two varieties dark matter and dark energy. One holds the Universe together, while the other tears it apart. What these forces really are has been a mystery for as long as anyone has suspected they were there, but the latest discoveries of experimental physics have brought us closer to that knowledge. Particle physicist Dan Hooper takes his readers, with wit, grace, and a keen knack for explaining the toughest ideas science has to offer, on a quest few would have ever expected: to discover what makes up our dark cosmos.
The End of Anger
The End of Anger
Cose, Ellis
¥85.05
From a venerated and bestselling voice on American life comes a contemporary look at the decline of black rage; the demise of white guilt; and the intergenerational shifts in how blacks and whites view, and interact with, each otherIn the heady aftermath of President Obama's election, conventional wisdom suggested that the bitter, angry, and destructive elements of discrimination were ebbing at last and America was becoming a postracial nation. But with this dawning age that promised so much came shifting demographics and a newfound seat of rage in the polarizing Tea Party movement, even as black optimism gained ground, giving rise to questions about assumed truths concerning race in America.Combining the talents earned from a lifetime in journalism with the insights and thoughtfulness of a close observer of the American experience, renowned author Ellis Cose offers a fresh, original appraisal of our nation at this extraordinary time, tracking the diminishment of black anger and investigating the "generational shifting of the American mind." Weaving material from myriad interviews as well as two large and ambitious surveys that he conducted one of black Harvard MBAs and the other of graduates of A Better Chance, a program offering elite educational opportunities to thousands of young people of color since 1963 Cose offers an invaluable portrait of contemporary America that attempts to make sense of what a people do when the dream, for some, is finally within reach as one historical era ends and another begins. In short, The End of Anger is not just about blacks but about America its past and its hoped-for future and may well be the most important book dealing with race to be published in recent decades.
Nothing
Nothing
Butler, Blake
¥85.05
One of the most acclaimed young voices of his generation, Blake Butler now offers his first work of nonfiction: a deeply candid and wildly original look at the phenomenon of insomnia.Invoking scientific data, historical anecdote, Internet obsession, and figures as diverse as Andy Warhol, Gilles Deleuze, John Cage, Anton LaVey, Jorge Luis Borges, Brian Eno, and Stephen King, Butler traces the tension between sleeping and conscious life. And he reaches deep into his own experience from disturbing waking dreams, to his father's struggles with dementia, to his own epic 129-hour bout of insomnia to reveal the effect of sleeplessness on his imaginative landscape. The result is an exhilarating exploration of dream and awareness, desperation and relief, consciousness and conscience a fascinating maze-map of the borders between sleep and the waking world by one of today's most talked-about writers.
The Gospel of Food
The Gospel of Food
Glassner, Barry
¥85.05
For many Americans, eating is a religion. We worship at the temples of celebrity chefs. We raise our children to believe that certain foods are good and others are bad. We believe that if we eat the right foods, we will live longer, and if we eat in the right places, we will raise our social status. Yet what we believe to be true about food is, in fact, quite contradictory.Part expose, part social commentary, The Gospel of Food is a rallying cry to abandon the fads and fallacies in favor of calmer, more pleasurable eating. By interviewing chefs, food chemists, nutritionists, and restaurant critics about the way we eat, sociologist Barry Glassner helps us recognize the myths, half-truths, and guilt trips they promulgate, and liberates us for greater joy at the table.
Queen of the Oddballs
Queen of the Oddballs
Carlip, Hillary
¥85.05
A hilariously offbeat memoir about an adventurous young woman's escapades as she defies conventions and transforms an ordinary Los Angeles life into a star-studded, extraordinary miracle of self-discovery.Queen of the Oddballs forms a chronology of Hillary Carlip's habitual straying from roads more traveled -- from a wisecracking third-grader suspended from school for smoking (while imitating Holly Golightly) to a headline-making teen activist, juggler and fire eater, friend (NOT "fan") of Carly Simon and Carole King, grand prize-winning Gong Show contestant, cult rock star, and seeker of spiritual and romantic truths that definitely defy expectations.Illustrated with ephemera -- from diary entries and photographs to a handwritten letter from Carly Simon -- Queen of the Oddballs presents a virtual time capsule of pop culture's last four decades and celebrates a creative life lived to the hilt.
Casa Nostra
Casa Nostra
Manzo, Caroline Seller
¥85.05
Englishwoman Caroline Seller met Marcello Manzo at a Halloween party in London in the mid-seventies. Although she spoke little Italian and he spoke practically no English, the chemistry between them was undeniable, and it wasn't long before Caroline was invited to visit Marcello's family in Mazara del Vallo, Sicily. A large, eccentric, and loving clan living in a magnificent, crumbling villa, Santa Maria, the Manzos welcomed Caroline warmly, and soon she and Marcello were married. Together they traveled the world and started a family, but through it all, Santa Maria was never far from their thoughts. So when the Manzo brothers united to save the family's deteriorating estate, Marcello and Caroline eagerly signed on to the project not entirely prepared for what they were getting into!As seen through the eyes of Caroline Seller Manzo an outsider who is often surprised and always delighted by her Italian family and adopted hometown Casa Nostra is the captivating story of a villa's difficult, glorious rebirth and a celebration of the unique beauty and history of western Sicily and its people.
The Fine Wisdom and Perfect Teachings of the Kings of Rock and Roll
The Fine Wisdom and Perfect Teachings of the Kings of Rock and Roll
Edmundson, Mark
¥85.05
"I was at a point of crossing in my life then a liminal moment, as the anthropologists like to say. I was trying to figure out what the world was about and what my place in it was going to be. And somehow I got the idea that these characters, these kings, could help me along." After graduating from college in 1974, Mark Edmundson leaves his small Vermont campus determined to fulfill his destiny a quest he knows involves rock and roll and America's high court of mischief and ambition, New York City. Under the wing of a carousing, Marx-quoting friend, Edmundson moves into a grungy uptown apartment and embarks on a career lugging amps in a New Jersey arena for rock's biggest acts: the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, and the Allman Brothers.But as his first year after college wears on, Edmundson finds himself increasingly at odds with life in his adopted city and drifts through a regimen of late-night cab driving and radical politics that leaves him cold and neglectful of the hopes he nursed back in school. Prodded and enlightened along the way by a cast of rogue mentors his "Kings (and Queens) of Rock and Roll" Edmundson checks out of New York, detouring through the Colorado mountains (in a hapless attempt to reconnect with nature), and tending the front door of a Northampton disco (witnessing the death throes of the sexual revolution), before landing in Vermont to teach English at a progressive boarding school.It's here that Edmundson begins to grasp, with the help of the charismatic headmaster and the dazed student body, the inkling of a valuable lesson. It's here, rather surprisingly, that he finds his "it": the perfect vocation his slightly crazy, ideal way of life.A coming-of-age memoir that asks enduring questions about the world and our role in it, The Fine Wisdom and Perfect Teachings of the Kings of Rock and Roll is a soulful, whip-smart, and resonant testament of the postcollege years and the challenges of navigating one's own dreams.
A Broom of One's Own
A Broom of One's Own
Peacock, Nancy
¥85.05
For the twice-published novelist, reading an article about herself in the National Enquirer under the headline "Here's One for the Books: Cleaning Lady Is an Acclaimed Author" was more than a shock. It was an inspiration. In A Broom of One's Own, Nancy Peacock, whose first novel was selected by the New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year, explores with warmth, wit, and candor what it means to be a writer. An encouragement to all hard-working artists, no matter how they make a living, Peacock's book provides valuable insights and advice on motivation, craft, and criticism while offering hilarious anecdotes about the houses she cleans.
The Best Seat in the House
The Best Seat in the House
Rucker, Allen
¥85.05
Like the day Elvis died or O.J. was acquitted, the Tuesday you wake up paralyzed is not a day you soon forget. For writer Allen Rucker baby boomer, husband, father of two, aging Hollywood also-ran life started over that Tuesday when, at the age of fifty-one, he was struck by a rare disorder transverse myelitis that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Why himWas he being punishedWas it his stressful lifeHis frustrating careerTelling too many Christopher Reeve jokesDazed and paralyzed, he was forced to reevaluate everything, from the simplest bodily functions to the mysteries of the universe. In a style that is at once funny and moving, The Best Seat in the House offers an unpretentious and unapologetic account of learning to live with paralysis. Without trivializing his situation, and without sermons or clichs, Rucker invites all readers, whether disabled or not, to identify with him for better or for worse. This remarkably comic and heartfelt book speaks to the fragility of life and to the resilience and adaptability of a single, ordinary human being. Lucky for us, this human being has a sense of humor. At first, it may not look like the best seat in the house, but read on. You might be surprised.
Síla v kordech rodu Wellnsburg?:Odcizené dvoj?e
Síla v kordech rodu Wellnsburg?:Odcizené dvoj?e
Erika P. Hamlet
¥85.05
Hrdá Patricie, která p?ichází bydlet na panství svého vzdáleného str?ce, hraběte Balareta, ?árlí na p?vabnou Elizabeth, dceru Katarine a Martreka, kte?í pro tuto hraběcí rodinu pracují. Nem??e p?enést p?es srdce, ?e oba pohlední ?lechtici, jak Febien tak i Federik se p?edbíhají v?tom, kdo bude obda?en pouh?m pohledem, nebo úsměvem od této chudé dívky, jen? zdědila vyt?íben? talent po své matce, která jí rovně? nau?ila i mistrovskému ?ermu. Elizabeth ale neví nic o sv?ch p?edcích. Kdykoliv se zeptala na své staré rodi?e, bylo jí ?e?eno, ?e zem?eli. Febien potají prchá z?hraběcího sídla a zanechává svému bratrovi Federikovi zmate?n? dopis, kterému nikdo nerozumí. Samotná náhoda tomu chtěla, aby se tyto dvě rivalky, Elizabeth a Patricie sp?átelily na ?ivot a na smrt, hned poté co jedna druhé zachrání ?ivot. Spole?ně odchází pry?, v?p?estrojení mlad?ch ?lechtic?, proto?e chtějí najít te? ji? oba ode?lé bratry, Febiena a Federika, kte?í jim chybí. Na své dobrodru?né cestě budou ?elit mnoha ?ivotním v?zvám, které zvládnou spole?n?mi silami. Na ma?karním bále vévody Darlivena, hrabě Richard, Katarinin otec, kter? bude uhánět za stopa?em, jeho? si najal do sv?ch slu?eb, aby na?el jeho dceru a své vnou?ata, pokud nějaké má, tě?ce zraní neznámého mladého ?lechtice, kter?m nebude nikdo jin?, ne? jeho vnuk o kterém si ka?d? myslel, ?e zem?el.....
The Organ Grinders
The Organ Grinders
Fitzhugh, Bill
¥84.97
Bill Fitzhugh strikes again! Following his widely acclaimed debut novel, Pest Control (The [London] Times called it "one of the funniest, most off-beat thrillers in years"), Fitzhugh turns his satirical eye to the merging of medical science and big business -- with hilarious and outrageous results.Paul Symon is an environmentalist who's out to make the world a better place, but he faces too much disjointed information, public apathy, and self-serving talk. Not to mention greedy despoiler Jerry Landis, a venture capitalist dying of a rare disease that accelerates the aging process.Landis cares only about making more money and finding a way to arrest his medical condition. That brings him and his fortune to the wild frontier of biotechnology, where his people are illegally experimenting with cross-species organ transplantation in California while breeding genetically altered primates at a secret site in the piney woods of south-central Mississippi.There's also an eco-terrorist on the loose, bent on teaching hard lessons to people who think the Earth and its creatures are theirs to destroy. These forces, together with fifty thousand extra-large chacma baboons, collide in an explosion of laughter and wonder that Bill Fitzhugh's growing league of admirers is coming to recognize as his very own.
The Flat Stanley Collection (Four Complete Books)
The Flat Stanley Collection (Four Complete Books)
Brown, Jeff
¥84.97
Stanley Lambchop is an ordinary boy. At least he was, until the night his bulletin board fell off the wall and flattened him. At only half an inch thick, Stanley can slide under doors, mail himself across the country in an envelope, and fly like a kite!And that's only the start of Stanley's adventures. In these four tales, Stanley also becomes invisible and helps nab some bank robbers, journeys to outer space to rescue aliens, and, after being rounded out, turns flat—again! One thing is for sure: There's nothing Stanley Lambchop can't do!
Cross Dressing
Cross Dressing
Fitzhugh, Bill
¥84.97
Big-shot ad exec Dan Steele feels entitled to the best life has to offer -- even if he has to live way beyond his means to acquire it. But there's hope on the horizon. Dan has just stolen what's sure to be an award-winning idea for a multimillion-dollar account. If he can keep the creditors at bay long enough, he'll get the keys to the executive restroom and all his problems will be solved.Unfortunately, that's when his brother, a Catholic priest, shows up at Dan's door in need of a loan to pay for some essential medical attention. Being both financially and morally challenged, Dan hands over his insurance card instead of his credit card. But it's too late. After running up a bill for $300,000, Father Michael goes the way of all flesh.Now Dan has a choice: go to prison for insurance fraud or take a vow of poverty and become a man of the cloth. Before he can say "God bless," Dan finds himself pursued by a relentless insurance investigator, the psychopathic copywriter whose idea he stole, and a deadly killer from his brother's mysterious past. And, as if that wasn't enough, Dan finds himself falling in love with a gun-toting nun. Let us pray.