万本电子书0元读

万本电子书0元读

Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing
Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing
Peelle, Lydia
¥85.05
In "Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing", a young woman becomes fascinated with reptiles and finds a way to relate them to her life.
Far From Home
Far From Home
DeGrace, Anne
¥85.05
After a shocking family betrayal and an unexpected pregnancy, Jo leaves home,college, and everything she knows. Far from home, she finds her way to Cass'sRoadside Café, an isolated diner on a mountain pass. Cass's seems as good aplace as any for Jo to get her bearings, as near to nowhere as it is possible to be. Here, Jo finds a rough sort of kindness in diner regulars such as Archie, a long-haul trucker, and Bob, a cop with a secret. But Cass's is also a way station through which an odd assortment of travelers blow: the water witcher, coming to terms with a talent he'd denied; the old woman who expected to die, and didn't; and the hippie whose rule of the road is to let the wind blow him where it will. The stories of these strangers open Jo's eyes to life lessons, and what it really means to follow your heart—and, ultimately, give Jo the strength to face her past, and find the direction she needs to step into her future.
Pain Killers
Pain Killers
Stahl, Jerry
¥85.05
From the acclaimed and controversial author of Permanent Midnight comes one of the most vividly subversive, savagely funny, and explosive novels yet unleashed in our tender century. Pain Killers is a violent and mind-wrenching masterpiece in the gonzo noir style that has earned Jerry Stahl his legion of avid fans. Down-and-out ex-cop and not-quite-reformed addict Manny Rupert accepts a job going undercover to find out if an old man locked up in a California prison is who he claims to be: the despicable—and allegedly dead—Josef Mengele, aka the Angel of Death. What if, instead of drowning thirty years ago, the sadistic legend whose Auschwitz crimes still horrify faked his own death and is now locked up in San Quentin, ranting and bitter about being denied the adulation he craves for his contribution to keeping the Master Race pure—if no longer masterfulAfter accidentally reuniting with ex-wife and love of his life, Tina, at San Quentin—they first met at the crime scene where Tina murdered her first husband with Drano-laced Lucky Charms—Manny spends a bad night imbibing boxed wine and questionable World War One morphine, hunched over a trove of photos showing live genital dissections that plant him in the middle of a conspiracy involving genocide, drugs, eugenics, human experiments, and America's secret history of collusion with German believers in Nordic superiority. Manny's quest sends him careening from one extreme of apocalypse-adjacent reality to the other: from SS-inked Jewish shotcallers to meth-crazed virgin hookers, from Mexican gangbangers to Big Pharma–financed prison research to an animal shelter that gasses more than stray dogs and cats . . . Pain Killers captures one man's struggle against a perverse and demented scheme of global proportions, in a literary tour de force as outrageous, compelling, and dangerous as history itself. Not for the faint of heart, the novel hurtles readers into a disturbing, original, and alarmingly real world filled with some of the kinkiest sex, most horrific violence, and screaming wit ever found on the page—proving yet again that Stahl is, as The New Yorker described him, "a better-than-Burroughs virtuoso."
The King's Rifle
The King's Rifle
Bandele, Biyi
¥85.05
It's winter 1944 and the Second World War is entering its most crucial state. A few months ago fourteen-year-old Ali Banana was a blacksmith's apprentice in his rural hometown in West Africa; now he's trekking through the Burmese jungle. Led by the unforgettably charismatic Sergeant Damisa, the unit has been given orders to go behind enemy lines and wreak havoc. But Japanese snipers lurk behind every tree—and even if the unit manages to escape, infection and disease lie in wait. Homesick and weary, the men of D-Section Thunder Brigade refuse to give up. Taut and immediate, The King's Rifle is the first novel to depict the experiences of black African soldiers in the Second World War. This is a story of real life battles, of the men who made the legend of the Chindits, the unconventional, quick-strike division of the British Army in India. Brilliantly executed, this vividly realized account details the madness, sacrifice, and dark humor of that war's most vicious battleground. It is also the moving story of a boy trying to live long enough to become a man.
Sex for America
Sex for America
Elliott, Stephen
¥85.05
Sex for America takes us to the intersection of our desires and our political beliefs. These provocative stories by some of today's best writers, including Anthony Swofford, Jerry Stahl, Rick Moody, and Jonathan Ames, will inspire new discussions of sexual freedom and fascination. A surprising encounter between a lesbian and a young man shipping off to war, a liberal Hill staffer falling for the wife of a Republican senator, and Dick Cheney's duck hunt accident as jilted lover's revenge. See your government—and your most recent sex partners—as you've never seen them before.
The Last War
The Last War
Menendez, Ana
¥85.05
A breathtaking novel of love, war, and betrayalFlash, a photojournalist, chases conflicts around the globe with her war correspondent husband, Brando. Now Brando is in Iraq, awaiting her arrival. Yet instead of racing to join him, Flash idles in Istanbul, vaguely aware that her marriage is faltering.Losing herself in a fog of memory and recrimination, Flash ponders her life with the ambitious and handsome husband she calls "Wonderboy." Her malaise is compounded by the arrival of a mysterious letter informing her that Brando has been unfaithful to her in Baghdad. Devastated and unwilling to confront him over the phone, Flash spirals deeper into regret, anger, and indecision. Were she and Brando ever happy?Wandering the strange, shimmering streets of Istanbul, Flash is followed by a woman in a black abaya—Alexandra, a fierce and captivating colleague who shared dangerous days with the couple in Afghanistan. Their meeting rekindles long-buried secrets and forces Flash to face hard truths about her marriage, her husband, and herself. The Last War is a haunting and intense novel that reveals the personal costs of combat journalism while probing crucial questions of cruelty and violence, love and identity.
Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing
Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing
Peelle, Lydia
¥85.05
With this first book of fiction, a gifted young writer brings together eight superbly crafted stories that peer deeply into the human heart, exploring lives derailed by the loss of a vital connection to the land and to the natural world of which they are a part. "Mule Killers" evokes the end of an era and of a grandfather's dreams when he decides to replace animal power on his farm with tractors. Two restless young girls in "Sweethearts of the Rodeo" live out their last summer of innocence, riding ponies recklessly and spying on their boss and the wealthy women who visit him. In "Phantom Pain," the Tennessee woods are a sliver of what they once were, men now hunt with GPS and cell phones, and the rumor of a dangerous panther on the loose stirs up a small town. An unexpected vision of the beauty and mystery of life redeems the darkest moments in this stellar debut collection, a book that readers will want to read and reread.
Kissing the Virgin's Mouth
Kissing the Virgin's Mouth
Gershten, Donna M.
¥85.05
Guadalupe Magdalena Molina Vásquez -- wife, scoundrel, courtesan, mother -- is full of contradictions: she believes in love but is suspicious of men; she rejects religion but admires the Virgin Mary; she respects tradition while breaking all the rules. Here, in the Golden Zone of Teatán, Mexico, Magda tells her extraordinary life story -- from a poor Mexican barrio to American affluence, from wide-eyed childhood to worldly courtesan life, from full-blooded youth to oncoming blindness -- and bewitchingly imparts the hard-earned wisdom she has gained through the years.
Names on a Map
Names on a Map
Saenz, Benjamin Alire
¥85.05
The Espejo family of El Paso, Texas, is like so many others in America in 1967, trying to make sense of a rapidly escalating war they feel does not concern them. But when the eldest son, Gustavo, a complex and errant rebel, receives a certified letter ordering him to report to basic training, he chooses to flee instead to Mexico. Retreating back to the land of his grandfather—a foreign country to which he is no longer culturally connected—Gustavo sets into motion a series of events that will have catastrophic consequences on the fragile bonds holding the family together. Told with raw power and searing bluntness, and filled with important themes as immediate as today’s headlines, Names on a Map is arguably the most important work to date of a major American literary artist.
Puff
Puff
Flaherty, Bob
¥85.05
Meet John Gullivan, age thirteen, obsessed with the moles that dot most of his body. Meet his brother Gully, who can't stop laughing at them. Now meet the brothers ten years later, in the middle of the most ferocious blizzard anyone can remember. Set in an Irish working-class suburb of Boston in the 1960s and 1970s, Puff centers on a quest as the soon-to-be-orphaned brothers, posing as rescue personnel, attempt to steer their dilapidated van through insurmountable snow, all to score a bag of pot.Trapped in their own ruse and forced to act the part of the saviors they are pretending to be, the brothers run into an endless stream of foes and obstacles: the cops, their childhood priest, a knife-wielding maniac, and the ill all stand in the way of their elusive high. A raucous caper, Puff is as hilarious as it is heartfelt and will resonate with old and young alike.
Point of Entry
Point of Entry
Schechter, Peter
¥85.05
With calculated cunning, renegade Syrian intelligence operatives have discovered how to smuggle uranium-235—the key material required to manufacture an atomic weapon—into the United States undetected, exploiting a network of the most experienced and sophisticated smugglers the world has ever known.As the CIA repeatedly misinterprets numerous intelligence warnings, only Marta Pradilla—Colombia's beautiful, hard-minded new president—can assist the United States' conservative, isolationist President Stockman in finding the terrorists and their deadly cargo before it's too late. Set in Washington, D.C., Bogotá, Rome, and Tbilisi, and featuring a cast of major international figures, Point of Entry brings readers into an intensely treacherous world that reads less like fiction every day.
Get Some Love
Get Some Love
Foxx, Nina
¥85.05
Dark and lovely Angelica Chappee was brought up right by her loving grandparents. Still reeling from the shock of losing the two people she cared for most in this world, she's anything but ready for what's waiting for her in her dear departed "Pop-pop's" will. It turns out her grandfather was rich -- millionaire-rich! And it's all coming to Angelica -- if the innocent, almost-21-and-never-been-kissed Baton Rouge baby can prove that she's no longer a ...Well this is just crazy -- and the last thing she would have expected from that sweet old man! And six days is so little time to go from being Ms. Don't-Touch-Me to Hot Lady Love! But a cool couple mil is a strong incentive. And Juan Delgado, that fine black Puerto Rican prince from the Bronx, NYC, who's down South on family business, would be turning her head anyway, fortune or no.Still, Angelica's a "good" girl -- and gettin' it on with a stranger seems wrong! And now the money is attracting some shady characters with very bad motives ... so Angelica's got something else to worry about besides her virtue!Smart, sexy, fast, and fun, Nina Foxx's Get Some Love is a pure delight.
The Girls' Almanac
The Girls' Almanac
Franklin, Emily
¥85.05
The Girls' Almanac chronicles the lives of Jenna and Lucy—two thirty-something women who desperately long for a true friend—as well as the lives of the women and men who have touched them: friends, lovers, parents, and neighbors. Set across the Northeast—through suburban neighborhoods, preppy camps, island resorts, and Ivy League colleges—as well as far flung locales like Ecuador and Iceland, The Girls' Almanac traces the friendships of women willing to risk both self-consciousness and intimacy, loss and betrayal, in pursuit of a proper best friend. Exploring the fascinating closeness and distance that female friendships encompass, The Girls' Almanac reveals the map of Jenna and Lucy's interconnected lives, and ultimately their pathways to each other.
Three Delays
Three Delays
Smith, Charlie
¥85.05
Billy Brent and Alice Stephens are star-crossed like all great lovers. Their need for each other drives them from Istanbul to Miami, Venice to Mexico. After years of encounters and escapes, they lose themselves deep in a desert wilderness, searching for a way forward, only to learn that sometimes the trail simply forks.From Charlie Smith, author of three New York Times Notable Books, comes his long-awaited new novel, his first in more than a decade. An exploration of the true particulars of obsession, Three Delays is a book of the spirit, of how broken people love and persist from darkness to darkness.
Noise
Noise
Wild, Peter
¥85.05
For more than twenty-five years, the antimelodic “noise” of Sonic Youth has assaulted us, exhilarated us, inspired us. Why?Katherine Dunn says it's because they operate in the foggy world between the real and the surreal. Mary Gaitskill says that Sonic Youth caught her, years ago, when she was falling. J. Robert Lennon says it's because Sonic Youth rip it apart. Emily Maguire was hooked because once she was in love with chaos. Their sound is caustic, elemental, nihilistic—and quite unlike any other cult band ever to achieve rock godhood. In Noise, twenty-one great literary voices offer short fiction based on or inspired by songs from Sonic Youth—a raucous coupling of music and literature featuring marrow-colored goo, severed hands and abandoned babies, Patty Hearst watching the apocalypse on TV, and other unruly images of the Zeitgeist.Contributors Hiag Akmakjian Christopher Coake Katherine Dunn Mary Gaitskill Rebecca Godfrey Laird Hunt Shelley Jackson J. Robert Lennon Samuel Ligon Emily Maguire Tom McCarthy Scott Mebus Eileen Myles Catherine O'Flynn Emily Carter Roiphe Kevin Sampsell Steven Sherrill Matt Thorne Rachel Trezise Jess Walter Peter Wild
Correcting the Landscape
Correcting the Landscape
Cole, Marjorie Kowalski
¥85.05
The editor of a small weekly newspaper in Fairbanks, Alaska, Gus Traynor is an independent spirit whose idealism has survived numerous tests. When big business interests threaten the breathtaking wilderness he cherishes, he joins forces with his best friend—an often self-serving developer—to take on the forces of progress. Soon, in his determination to preserve the dignity and heritage of his community, Gus is learning more than he has ever imagined about the region's colorful mix of opportunists, dreamers, and artists. But his mission is complicated by the discovery of a young woman's body floating in the river . . . and by the blossoming of an unexpected love.
The Predictions
The Predictions
Zander, Bianca
¥85.05
Gaialands, a bucolic vegan commune in the New Zealand wilderness, is the only home fifteen-year-old Poppy has ever known. It's the epitome of 1970s counterculture—a place of free love, hard work, and high ideals . . . at least in theory. But Gaialands's strict principles are shaken when new arrival Shakti claims the commune's energy needs to be healed and harnesses her divination powers in a ceremony called the Predictions. Poppy is predicted to find her true love overseas, so when her boyfriend, Lukas, leaves Gaialands to fulfill his dream of starting a punk rock band in London, she follows him. In London, Poppy falls into a life that looks very like the one her prediction promised, but is it the one she truly wants?The Predictions is a mesmerizing, magical novel of fate, love, mistakes, and finding your place in the world.
The Blind Side of the Heart
The Blind Side of the Heart
White, Michael C.
¥85.05
From the author of the critically acclaimed novel A Brother's Blood, comes a haunting story about an Irish housekeeper who must discover the truth when her friend, the parish priest, is accused of horrible crimes.Maggie Quinn has had her share of misfortune: Having grown up poor and fatherless in Galway, she was forced to quit school early and find work to support her ailing mother and her own child. But when a tragedy of her own making strikes, it is too much for her to bear. Plagued by feelings of guilt and sorrow and by losing her faith in God, she runs from her past; first by fleeing Ireland for America and later by drowning her sorrows with the bottle. Maggie hits rock bottom when she makes an unsuccessful suicide attempt.While recuperating in a hospital bed, she meets the remarkable Father Jack Devlin. With his compassion and love, Maggie once more finds her faith and a reason to live.For the past eighteen years, Maggie has devoted herself to the man who saved her life. But now Father Jack, the beloved if controversial priest in the small town of Hebron Falls, Massachusetts, is accused of having done terrible things to altar boys many years before. At first Maggie is convinced that the accusations are only lies brought out by Father Jack's enemies. Yet as she sifts through the memories of her life with Father Jack, doubts begin to emerge: Could she have been blind to a darker side of her friend all these yearsAnd when new information surfaces regarding the unsolved murder of a young altar boy with possible links to Father Jack, her faith is once again put to the test. Maggie must search her memory and her heart to help her decide what to believe. The Blind Side of the Heart poignantly captures one woman's struggle to remain loyal to a friend while at the same time she is forced to examine her conscience to arrive at the truth.
The Perfect Fit
The Perfect Fit
Kean, Louise
¥85.05
Sunny Weston always wanted to be perfect . . . and that meant being thin. Now, after what seemed like a million years on the treadmill—and a million miles from the nearest brownie—she finally fits into those slinky black dresses she's been eyeing for years. But being a perfect size doesn't necessarily equal a perfect life. Suddenly Sunny's best friends are all bitter and jealous. She's become a stranger in her own body. And though her longtime work crush, Adrian, is finally her boyfriend, she's totally confused now that charming, daringly dapper Cagney has appeared on the scene. Worst of all, she's worried that the recipe for a happy life might not be low-calorie after all.Maybe it's time for Sunny to discover that the true secret to happiness isn't constantly feeling hollow.
The Wrecking Ball
The Wrecking Ball
Spens, Christiana
¥85.05
Armed with trust funds and pedigrees but bent on rebellion, twenty-somethings Alice, Harry, Rose, and Hugo are teetering on the brink of self-destruction. With Manhattan and London as their playgrounds, they chase oblivion—and their next high—through a glittering blur of nightclubs, decadent parties, high fashion, and underground music scenes, hard-partying on the razor's edge with a never-ending cocktail of drugs and booze. Insomniacs and unstoppable, these four lost souls ride the extreme highs and devastating lows of a summer that quickly reaches a crescendo of music, heat, and hedonism. Wavering between moments of revelation and ruin, they illuminate a generation given everything—except an answer to the timeless question: Who am IFrom a remarkable new literary voice comes a startling, fresh, strikingly candid novel of addiction and excess.
The Original 1982
The Original 1982
Carson, Lori
¥85.05
It's 1982, and Lisa is twenty-four years old, a waitress, an aspiring singer-songwriter, and the girlfriend to a famous musician. That year, she makes a decision, almost without thinking about it.But what would have happened if she had chosen differentlyThirty years later, haunted by regret, Lisa revisits her past to reimagine it.Alternating between two very different possibilities, The Original 1982 is a novel about how the choices we make affect the people we become—and about how the people we are affect the choices we make.