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万本电子书0元读

Revenge of the Rose
Revenge of the Rose
Galland, Nicole
¥94.10
Welcome to a world of intrigue of the most intriguing kind, where emperors and popes desperately vie for power, even as their subjects and servants engage in behind-the-scenes machinations of their own.The Holy Roman Empire circa 1200 A.D.Impoverished young knight Willem of Dole believed he would spend his life in rural Burgundy, struggling to provide for his widowed mother and younger sister, Lienor. And so it's with surprise—and apprehension—that he obeys a summons to the magnificent court of Konrad, Holy Roman Emperor, whose realm spans half of Europe. Willem's mischievous friend Jouglet, Konrad's favorite minstrel, is no doubt behind it somehow . . . but what's in it for Jouglet?Court life is overwhelming to the idealistic young Willem, who is shocked by the behavior of his fellow knights, for whom chivalry is a mere game. Yet under Jouglet's witty, relentless tutelage, the na?ve knight quickly rises in Emperor Konrad's esteem—until suddenly his sister, Lienor, becomes a prospect for the role of Empress. This unexpected elevation of the sibling "nobodies" delights Jouglet, but threatens three powerful—and dangerous—men at the court: the Emperor's brother, Cardinal Paul, who has in mind a different bride for Konrad; the Emperor's uncle, Alphonse, Count of Burgundy, who would keep secret certain things that only Willem can reveal; and most especially the Emperor's own steward Marcus, who is hopelessly in love with Konrad's cousin Imogen. For if Willem's star keeps rising, Imogen will be betrothed to the knight by royal decree—and Willem's star will surely continue to rise, unless Marcus figures out a way to stop it. But that would entail outscheming clever Jouglet, ablest of schemers.Gossip, secrets, and lies are the fuel of daily life in Konrad's court. As Konrad edges closer to proclaiming Lienor his bride, those around Willem play a perilous game of cat-and-mouse as they attempt to secure their own fortunes, knowing that even the slightest move can shift the playing field entirely. And through it all, Jouglet remains Willem's most maddening yet staunchest ally. But what, really, does Jouglet stand to gain . . . or lose?Transporting the reader to the brilliant, conniving heart of the largest empire of medieval Europe, Revenge of the Rose is a novel rich in irony and tongue-in-cheek wit, and reveals all the grit and color, politics and passion, of court life in the Holy Roman Empire.
If Today Be Sweet
If Today Be Sweet
Umrigar, Thrity
¥94.10
The recent death of her beloved husband, Rustom, has taken its toll on Tehmina Sethna. Now, while visiting her son, Sorab, in his suburban Ohio home, she is being asked to choose between continuing her old life in India and starting a new one in this unfamiliar country with her son, his American wife, and their child. Her destiny is uncertain, and soon the plight of two troubled young children next door will force the most difficult decision she has ever faced. Ultimately the journey is one that Tehmina must travel alone.
Sleeping Beauty's Daughters
Sleeping Beauty's Daughters
Zahler, Diane
¥94.10
The classic fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty is transformed into a dazzling new story of two sisters fighting a powerful curse by Diane Zahler, the acclaimed author of The Thirteenth Princess. Briskly paced and full of lush de*ions, readers who enjoy the work of Shannon Hale and Gail Carson Levine will be swept away by this spellbinding novel.The daughters of Sleeping Beauty, Princesses Aurora and Luna, have grown up in a cliff-top palace by the sea, where they are carefully protected by their parents. No one visits, the girls cannot stray beyond the castle walls, and all sharp objects are forbidden here.But accidents will happen—particularly when an old curse still has power. Soon, in spite of all precautions, Aurora is struggling not to slip into an enchanted sleep.Frantic, the princesses accept the help of a young fisherman named Symon and embark on a daring ocean voyage to find their aunt—a fairy who may be able to break the spell. From fearsome beasts to raging storms, many dangers befall them, yet they must not give up . . . for if Aurora sleeps, she will not wake for one hundred years.
Original Fire
Original Fire
Erdrich, Louise
¥94.10
In this important new collection, her first in fourteen years, award-winning author Louise Erdrich has selected poems from her two previous books of poetry, Jacklight and Baptism of Desire, and has added nineteen new poems to compose Original Fire.
The Pearl that Broke Its Shell
The Pearl that Broke Its Shell
Hashimi, Nadia
¥94.10
A luminous and unforgettable tale of two women, destiny, and identity in AfghanistanKabul, 2007: The Taliban rules the streets. With a drug-addicted father and no brothers, Rahima and her sisters can rarely leave the house or attend school. Their only hope lies in the ancient Afghan custom of bacha posh, which allows young Rahima to dress and be treated as a son until she is of marriageable age. As a boy, she has the kind of freedom that was previously unimaginable . . . freedom that will transform her forever.But Rahima is not the first in her family to adopt this unusual custom. A century earlier, her great-great-grandmother Shekiba, left orphaned by an epidemic, saved herself and built a new life in the same way—the change took her on a journey from the deprivation of life in a rural village to the opulence of a king's palace in the bustling metropolis of Kabul.Crisscrossing in time, The Pearl That Broke Its Shell interweaves the stories of these two remarkable women who are separated by a century but share the same courage and dreams. What will happen once Rahima is old enough to marryHow long can Shekiba pass as a manAnd if Rahima cannot adapt to life as a bride, how will she survive?
Portrait in Sepia
Portrait in Sepia
Allende, Isabel
¥94.10
In nineteenth-century Chile, Aurora del Valle suffers a brutal trauma that erases all recollections of the first five years of her life. Raised by her regal and ambitious grandmother Paulina del Valle, Aurora grows up in a privileged environment but is tormented by horrible nightmares. When she is forced to recognize her betrayal at the hands of the man she loves, and to cope with the resulting solitude, she explores the mystery of her past.
The Sum of Our Days
The Sum of Our Days
Allende, Isabel
¥94.10
In this heartfelt memoir, Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of tragic loss—the death of her daughter, Paula. Recalling the past thirteen years from the daily letters the author and her mother, who lives in Chile, wrote to each other, Allende bares her soul in a book that is as exuberant and full of life as its creator. She recounts the stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her that becomes a new kind of family.Throughout, Allende shares her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory. Here, too, are the amazing stories behind Allende’s books, the superstitions that guide her writing process, and her adventurous travels. Ultimately, The Sum of Our Days offers a unique tour of this gifted writer’s inner world and of the relationships that have become essential to her life and her work.Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, The Sum of Our Days is a portrait of a contemporary family, bound together by the love, fierce loyalty, and stubborn determination of a beloved, indomitable matriarch.
The Hardness Factor
The Hardness Factor
Lamm, Steven
¥94.10
Hard is good, harder is better -- for your health, your libido, your life. Such is the provocative premise behind Dr. Steven Lamm's The Hardness Factor, a groundbreaking book that will change the way men live and love. The Hardness Factor measures male health through the quality of an erection -- perhaps the greatest male motivator for better living (more so than fear of cancer, heart attack, or stroke). The Hardness Factor asks, Can men be hard and in shape for sex their entire livesThe answer is, absolutely. Here for the first time are scientific, evidence-based regimens -- emphasizing nutrition, supplements, and exercise -- to increase erectile quality. By following the programs in The Hardness Factor, you willimprove overall health;produce stronger, harder, and longer-lasting erections;increase strength, fitness, flexibility, and vitality;restore self-confidence; andachieve maximum sexual gratification with your partner.A renowned New York clinician, bestselling author, and a favorite expert on the television show The View, Dr. Lamm offers straight talk for men of all ages in "The Four-Day Insurance Policy," which can provide a quick fix for that upcoming Saturday night (or any other dating emergency), and the more detailed "Six-Week Hardness Factor Program," which will improve a man's sex drive, stamina, hardness, and, most of all, health. This comprehensive guide also includes numerous recipes created by acclaimed chef Waldy Malouf, aimed at promoting nutritional health and jump-starting the libido.After following The Hardness Factor, you will not only achieve optimal health and sexual fitness but also understand why the penis is the best barometer of a man's health.
Factotum
Factotum
Bukowski, Charles
¥94.10
One of Charles Bukowski's best, this beer-soaked, deliciously degenerate novel follows the wanderings of aspiring writer Henry Chinaski across World War II-era America. Deferred from military service, Chinaski travels from city to city, moving listlessly from one odd job to another, always needing money but never badly enough to keep a job. His day-to-day existence spirals into an endless litany of pathetic whores, sordid rooms, dreary embraces, and drunken brawls, as he makes his bitter, brilliant way from one drink to the next.Charles Bukowski's posthumous legend continues to grow. Factotum is a masterfully vivid evocation of slow-paced, low-life urbanity and alcoholism, and an excellent introduction to the fictional world of Charles Bukowski.
Gods and Monsters
Gods and Monsters
Bram, Christopher
¥94.10
Previously titled Father of Frankenstein, this acclaimed novel was the basis for the 1998 film starring Sir Ian McKellen, Lynn Redgrave, and Brendan Fraser. It journeys back to 1957 Los Angeles, where James Whale, the once-famous director of such classics as Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, is living in retirement, haunted by his past. Rescuing him from his too-vivid imagination is his gardener, a handsome ex-marine. The friendship between these two very different men is sometimes tentative, sometimes touching, often dangerous—and always captivating.This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
Tropic of Night
Tropic of Night
Gruber, Michael
¥94.10
Jane Doe lives in the shadows under an assumed name. A once-promising anthropologist and an expert on shamanism, everyone thinks she's dead. Or so she hopes.Jimmy Paz is a Cuban-American police detective. Straddling two cultures, he understands things others cannot.When the killings start -- a series of ritualistic murders -- all of Miami is terrified. Especially Jane. She knows the dark truth that Jimmy must desperately search to uncover. As their lives slowly interconnect, Jane and Paz are soon caught in a cataclysmic battle between good and an evil as unimaginable as it is terrifying . . .
Two Times the Fun
Two Times the Fun
Cleary, Beverly
¥94.10
Jimmy and Janet are twins, but that doesn't mean they are just alike.When we first meet Jimmy, he wants to dig a real hole. He likes to use a real, grown-up shovel. While he's working, his sister, Janet, pretends to be a bird! She likes to use her imagination. But the twins both like silly jokes, brand- new boots, and talking to Mr. Lemon, the mailman.As Beverly Cleary writes about Jimmy and Janet's doings, the unique understanding of children that she brings to all of her beloved books is coupled with a keen awareness of duo dynamics that comes from raising twins herself.Originally published as four separate picture books (The Real Hole, Two Dog Biscuits, The Growing-Up Feet, and Janet's Thingamajigs), these are stories that a Jimmy would like because they are so true-to-life, and that a Janet would love because they are so believable.
The Scientist In The Crib
The Scientist In The Crib
Gopnik, Alison
¥94.10
This exciting book by three pioneers in the new field of cognitive science discusses important discoveries about how much babies and young children know and learn, and how much parents naturally teach them.It argues that evolution designed us both to teach and learn, and that the drive to learn is our most important instinct. It also reveals as fascinating insights about our adult capacities and how even young children -- as well as adults -- use some of the same methods that allow scientists to learn so much about the world. Filled with surprise at every turn, this vivid, lucid, and often funny book gives us a new view of the inner life of children and the mysteries of the mind.
Supernatural: John Winchester's Journal
Supernatural: John Winchester's Journal
Irvine, Alex
¥94.10
Sam and Dean Winchester know all the secrets their father recorded in his journal. Now you can, too. On November 2, 1983, Sam and Dean Winchester lost their mother to a demonic supernatural force. In the wake of the tragedy, their father, John, set out to learn everything he could about the paranormal evil that lives in the dark corners and on the back roads of America . . . and how to kill it. In his personal journal, he not only compiled folklore, legend, and superstition about all manner of otherworldly enemies but he also recorded his experiences hunting the creature that killed his wife even as he raised his two sons. Part prequel, part resource guide, John Winchester's Journal finally gives fans the ultimate companion book for Supernatural . It's all here: the exorcism Sam and Dean used in "Phantom Traveler," John's notes on everything from shape-shifters to Samuel Colt, Dean's first hunt, Sam's peewee soccer team . . . and John's single-minded pursuit of a growing and deadly evil.
Sharpe's Battle
Sharpe's Battle
Cornwell, Bernard
¥94.10
As Napoleon threatens to crush Britain on the battlefield, Lt. Col. Richard Sharpe leads a ragtag army to exact personal revenge against a French general known for his acts of terror. Sharpe's Battle takes Richard Sharpe and his company back to the spring of 1811 and one of the most bitter battles of the Peninsular War, a battle on which all British hopes of victory in Spain will depend. Sharpe is given responsibility to lead an Irish battalion of the king of Spain's household guard, ceremonial troops untrained and unequipped for battle. While quartered in the crumbling fort of San Isidro, they are attacked by murderous Brigadier General Guy Luop's elite French brigade. Sharpe has witnessed General Loup's despicable was crimes before; to put an end to them, and to settle another more personal score, Sharpe must lead his company into the blood-gutted streets of Fuentes de O?oro, where thousands of French troops have amassed, in a battle to the death.
Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette
Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette
Naslund, Sena Jeter
¥94.10
Marie Antoinette was a child of fourteen when her mother, the Empress of Austria, arranged for her to leave her family and her country to become the wife of the fifteen-year-old Dauphin, the future King of France. Coming of age in the most public of arenas—eager to be a good wife and strong queen—she warmly embraces her adopted nation and its citizens. She shows her new husband nothing but love and encouragement, though he repeatedly fails to consummate their marriage and in so doing is unable to give what she and the people of France desire most: a child and an heir to the throne. Deeply disappointed and isolated in her own intimate circle, and apart from the social life of the court, she allows herself to remain ignorant of the country's growing economic and political crises, even as poor harvests, bitter winters, war debts, and poverty precipitate rebellion and revenge. The young queen, once beloved by the common folk, becomes a target of scorn, cruelty, and hatred as she, the court's nobles, and the rest of the royal family are caught up in the nightmarish violence of a murderous time called "the Terror." With penetrating insight and with wondrous narrative skill, Sena Jeter Naslund offers an intimate, fresh, heartbreaking, and dramatic reimagining of this truly compelling woman that goes far beyond popular myth—and she makes a bygone time of tumultuous change as real to us as the one we are living in now.
Death in Venice
Death in Venice
Mann, Thomas
¥94.10
The world-famous masterpiece by Nobel laureate Thomas Mann -- here in a new translation by Michael Henry HeimPublished on the eve of World War I, a decade after Buddenbrooks had established Thomas Mann as a literary celebrity, Death in Venice tells the story of Gustav von Aschenbach, a successful but aging writer who follows his wanderlust to Venice in search of spiritual fulfillment that instead leads to his erotic doom.In the decaying city, besieged by an unnamed epidemic, he becomes obsessed with an exquisite Polish boy, Tadzio. "It is a story of the voluptuousness of doom," Mann wrote. "But the problem I had especially in mind was that of the artist's dignity."
The Fallen Angels
The Fallen Angels
Cornwell, Bernard
¥94.10
The streets of Paris run bloodred—while in England, the noble Lazenders hide from history's violent storm behind the walls of their opulent “little kingdom.” But Toby Lazender, the family's heir, is hunting the brutal murderers of the woman he loved in revolution-torn France, leaving Lazen Castle vulnerable to secret cabal of assassins conspiring to bring the chaos across the channel. There is an obstacle, however, to the Fallen Angels' dark plan: Toby's sister, Lady Campion Lazender. Drawn by a mysterious horseman into a realm of fascination and desire, she sees treachery everywhere—and her heart could be leading her to destruction . . . by the hand of the only man she dares to trust.
A Crowning Mercy
A Crowning Mercy
Cornwell, Bernard
¥94.10
The civil war that is tearing England asunder in the year 1643 has not yet touched Dorcas Slythe, a secretly rebellious young Puritan woman living in the countryside south of London. She aches to escape the safe, pious tyranny of her father—and the opportunity appears with the arrival of Toby Lazender, dashing scion of a powerful royalist family, who awakens her to her passionate destiny. Her adventure truly begins with the discovery of an intricately wrought gold seal—one of four that, when joined, will reveal a great secret. Suddenly grave danger lies before her—not from Cromwell's advancing armies, but from relentless enemies who covet the great treasure to which she now holds the key.
This Charming Man
This Charming Man
Keyes, Marian
¥94.10
The lives of four very different women have been shaped—and battered—by one charming man. . . .Ireland's debonair politician Paddy de Courcy—the "John F. Kennedy Jr. of Dublin"—has captured tabloid headlines and the imagination of his country with his charm and charisma. But the crushed hearts he's left behind him reveal more about his character than his winning, votegetting smile. Lola, Grace, Marnie, and Alicia have all suffered from his selfishness and cruelty. But with Paddy's political star ascending, the time is finally ripe for redemption . . . and perhaps a bit of revenge.
Angel's Tip
Angel's Tip
Burke, Alafair
¥94.10
Thrilled to spend the final hours of her spring break in the VIP room of an elite Manhattan club, fresh-faced Indiana college student Chelsea Hart remains behind when her girlfriends call it a night. The next morning, joggers find her body in East River Park, her blond hair brutally hacked off.NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher believes the group of privileged men last seen plying Chelsea with free-flowing alcohol most likely includes a murderer. But after building a tight case against a young hedge-fund manager, Ellie has her doubts, because Chelsea's slaying is eerily similar to three other murders from nearly a decade ago. Continuing the investigation long after the department brass is satisfied with their case, hard-headed Ellie plunges into a late-night party world of conspicuous wealth and hedonistic consumption to catch the real killer—unaware that a psychopath is watching her every move...and eager to kill again.