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万本电子书0元读

Domestic Violets
Domestic Violets
Norman, Matthew
¥84.16
Tom Violet always thought that by the time he turned thirty-five, he’d have everything going for him. Fame. Fortune. A beautiful wife. A satisfying career as a successful novelist. A happy dog to greet him at the end of the day. The reality, though, is far different. He’s got a wife, but their problems are bigger than he can even imagine. And he’s written a novel, but the manu* he’s slaved over for years is currently hidden in his desk drawer while his father, an actual famous writer, just won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His career, such that it is, involves mind-numbing corporate buzzwords, his pretentious archnemesis Gregory, and a hopeless, completely inappropriate crush on his favorite coworker. Oh . . . and his dog, according to the vet, is suffering from acute anxiety.Tom’s life is crushing his soul, but he’s decided to do something about it. (Really.) Domestic Violets is the brilliant and beguiling story of a man finally taking control of his own happiness—even if it means making a complete idiot of himself along the way.
How Much Does Your Soul Weigh?
How Much Does Your Soul Weigh?
McCubbrey, Dorie
¥84.16
You hold in your hands a life-changing weight control revelation -- a holistic approach to help you overcome all eating and weight problems from anorexia to obesity. This innovative book will shed light on your unsuccessful attempts at dieting and help you begin to heal from the inside out, once and for all!How many "miracle diets" have you triedHow many minutes and hours have you spent worrying about the numbers on the bathroom scaleHow many times have you lost weight only to gain it back along with renewed disappointment and frustrationYou've worried about how much your body weighs, but have you asked: How Much Does Your Soul Weigh?Dr. Doric McCubbrey, a weight-issues specialist whose practice boasts a 95 percent success rate, reveals that the weight of your soul may be preventing you from effecting the changes you want to see in your appearance and self-esteem. By starting Dr. Dorie's plan for "Intuitive Self-Care," you can begin to unburden your soul of all the "weighty attitudes" of the diet mentality -- rigid rules, negative self-talk, and unrealistic goals -- that lead to very real feelings of disappointment and hopelessness.With empathy and insight, Dr. Doric explores and explains the importance of a soulful attitude toward your eating, exercise, and weight. You'll discover:the "games" dieters play -- and why none of them worksthe four archetypal weight problems and how to overcome them for goodthe secrets of naturally thin people -- and how you can incorporate them into your lifea 30-day plan of therapeutic "recipes" designed especially to nourish your soulPacked with stories from Dr. Dorie's own 15-year struggle with overeating, anorexia, and bulimia, and the experiences of her clients, How Much Does Your Soul Weighshows you how to generate the happiness, health, balance, and confidence that will put your weight worries to rest for good!
Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling
Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling
Boccacino, Michael
¥84.16
When the nanny to the young Darrow boys is found mysteriously murdered on the outskirts of the village of Blackfield, Charlotte Markham, the recently hired governess, steps in to take over their care. During an outing in the forest, they find themselves crossing over into The Ending, "the place for the Things Above Death," where Lily Darrow, the late mother of the children, has been waiting. She invites them into the House of Darkling, a wondrous place filled with enchantment, mystery, and strange creatures that appear to be, but are not quite, human.However, everything comes with a price, and as Charlotte begins to understand the unspeakable bargain Mrs. Darrow has made for a second chance at motherhood, she uncovers a connection to the sinister occurrences in Blackfield and enters into a deadly game with the master of Darkling—one whose outcome will determine the fate of not just the Darrows but the world itself.Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling is a Victorian Gothic tale about family ties, the realm beyond the living, and the price you pay to save those you love.
Charlotte Street
Charlotte Street
Wallace, Danny
¥84.16
Jason Priestley (no, not that Jason Priestley) is in a rut. He gave up his teaching job to write snarky reviews of cheap restaurants for the free newspaper you take but don't read. He lives above a video-game store, between a Polish newsstand and that place that everyone thinks is a brothel but isn't. His most recent Facebook status is "Jason Priestley is . . . eating soup." Jason's beginning to think he needs a change. So he uncharacteristically moves to help a girl on the street who's struggling with an armload of packages, and she smiles an incredible smile at him before her cab pulls away. What for a fleeting moment felt like a beginning is cruelly cut short—until Jason realizes that he's been left holding a disposable camera. And suddenly, with prodding and an almost certainly disastrous offer of assistance from his socially inept best friend Dev, a coincidence-based, half-joking idea—What if he could track this girl down based on the photos in her camera?—morphs into a full-fledged quest to find the woman of Jason's dreams.
Things Remembered
Things Remembered
Bockoven, Georgia
¥84.16
To face the future, a woman must let go of the past. . . .Returning to her childhood home in the golden hills of Northern California means regret and pain for Karla Esterbrook. Yet she can’t refuse when her ailing grandmother, Anna, asks her to help settle her affairs. After all, Anna raised Karla and her younger sisters after their parents’ death twenty years before. But from the beginning a powerful clash of wills separated Karla and her grandmother, leaving them both bitter and angry.Little does Karla know that a very determined Anna will do everything in her power to bridge the chasm between them. But can the wounds of the past truly be healedFor Karla, opening her heart could lead to more hurt—or perhaps to reconciliation . . . and a love the likes of which she has never known.
Black Dahlia & White Rose
Black Dahlia & White Rose
Oates, Joyce Carol
¥84.16
A wildly inventive new collection ofstories by Joyce Carol Oates that chartsthe surprising ways in which the worldwe think we know can unexpectedlyreveal its darker contoursThe New York Times has hailed Joyce Carol Oates as "adangerous writer in the best sense of the word, one whotakes risks almost obsessively with energy and relish."Black Dahlia & White Rose, a collection of eleven previouslyuncollected stories, showcases the keen rewards ofOates's relentless brio and invention. In one beautifullyhoned story after another, Oates explores the menace thatlurks at the edges of and intrudes upon even the seeminglysafest of lives—and maps with rare emotional acuity thetransformational cost of such intrusions.Unafraid to venture into no-man's-lands both real andsurreal, Oates takes readers deep into dangerous territory,from a maximum-security prison—vividly delineatingthe heartbreaking and unexpected atmosphere of such aninstitution—to the inner landscapes of two beautiful andmysteriously doomed young women in 1940s Los Angeles:Elizabeth Short, otherwise known as the Black Dahlia,victim of a long-unsolved and particularly brutal murder,and her roommate Norma Jeane Baker, soon to becomeMarilyn Monroe. Whether exploring the psychologicalcompulsion of the wife of a well-to-do businessman whois ravished by, and elopes with, a lover who is not what heseems or the uneasily duplicitous relationships betweenyoung women and their parents, Black Dahlia & White Roseexplores the compelling intertwining of dread and desire,the psychic pull and trauma of domestic life, and resonatesat every turn with Oates's mordant humor and hertrenchant observation.
Night Night, Sleep Tight
Night Night, Sleep Tight
Ephron, Hallie
¥84.16
From the award-winning author of There Was an Old Woman comes a mystery tinged with Hollywood glamour, set in a town where fame and infamy are often interchangeableLos Angeles, 1985. When Deirdre Unger makes the drive from San Diego to Beverly Hills to help her father put his dilapidated house on the market, she's expecting to deal with his usual kvetching and dark moods. But she gets a lot more than she expected. . . . In a cruel Sunset Boulevard–in a twist, Deirdre arrives home to find her father facedown in his too-small swimming pool—dead.At first, Deirdre assumes her father's death was a tragic accident. But the longer she stays in town, the more Deirdre begins to suspect that everything isn't as open-and-closed as she first presumed. The sudden resurfacing of Deirdre's childhood BFF Joelen Nichol—daughter of the famous and infamous Elenor "Bunny" Nichol—seems like more than a coincidence. Back in 1963, Joelen confessed to killing her movie-star mother's boyfriend. Deirdre was at the Nichols' house the night of the murder, which was also the night she suffered her own personal tragedy. Could all these events be connected?As Deirdre digs deeper into the past, she becomes increasingly convinced that her father's death is merely the deadly third act in a story that has long been in development. And if she isn't careful, she might be its final victim.
Triburbia
Triburbia
Greenfeld, Karl Taro
¥84.16
Thrown together by circumstance, a group of fathers—a sound engineer, a sculptor, a film producer, a chef, a memoirist, a gangster—meets each morning at a local Tribeca coffee shop after walking their children to their exclusive school. The sound engineer looks uncomfortably like the guy on the sex offender posters strewn around the neighborhood; the memoirist is on the verge of being outed for fabricating his experiences; and the narcissistic chef puts his quest for the perfect quail-egg frittata before his children's well-being. Over the course of a single school year, we are privy to their secrets, passions, and hopes, and learn of their dreams deferred as they confront harsh realities about ambition, wealth, and sex. And we meet their wives and children, who together with these men are discovering the hard truths and welcome surprises that accompany family, marriage, and real estate at midlife.Fascinatingly layered and multidimensional, these linked stories, arranged like puzzle pieces, create a powerful portrait of unlikely friends and their neighborhood in transition. Striking chords that range from haunting and heartbreaking to darkly funny and deeply poignant, Triburbia marks the start of a brilliant literary career.
My Jane Austen Summer
My Jane Austen Summer
Jones, Cindy
¥84.16
Lily has squeezed herself into undersized relationships all her life, hoping one might grow as large as those found in the Jane Austen novels she loves. But lately her world is running out of places for her to fit. So when her bookish friend invites her to spend the summer at a Jane Austen literary festival in England, she jumps at the chance to reinvent herself.There, among the rich, promising world of Mansfield Park reenactments, Lily finds people whose longing to live in a novel equals her own. But real-life problems have a way of following you wherever you go, and Lily's accompany her to England. Unless she can change her ways, she could face the fate of so many of Miss Austen's characters, destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. My Jane Austen Summer explores how we fall in love, how we come to know ourselves better, and how it might be possible to change and be happier in the real world.
The Ninth Wife
The Ninth Wife
Stolls, Amy
¥84.16
What sane woman would consider becoming any man's ninth wife?Bess Gray is a thirty-five-year-old folklorist and amateur martial artist living in Washington, DC. Just as she's about to give up all hope of marriage, she meets Rory, a charming Irish musician, and they fall in love. But Rory is a man with a secret, which he confesses to Bess when he asks for her hand: He's been married eight times before. Shocked, Bess embarks on a quest she feels she must undertake before she can give him an answer. With her bickering grandparents (married sixty-five years), her gay neighbor (himself a mystery), a shar-pei named Stella, and a mannequin named Peace, Bess sets out on a cross-country journey—unbeknownst to Rory—to seek out and question the wives who came before. What she discovers about her own past is far more than she bargained for. The Ninth Wife is a smart, funny, eye-opening tale of love, marriage, and the power of stories to unlock the true meaning of home and family.
After I'm Gone
After I'm Gone
Lippman, Laura
¥84.16
The acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Most Dangerous Thing, I'd Know You Anywhere, and What the Dead Know returns with an addictive story that explores how one man's disappearance echoes through the lives of the five women he left behind—his wife, his daughters, and his mistressDead is dead. Missing is gone.When Felix Brewer meets nineteen-year-old Bernadette "Bambi" Gottschalk at a Valentine's Day dance in 1959, he charms her with wild promises, some of which he actually keeps. Thanks to his lucrative—if not all legal—businesses, she and their three little girls live in luxury. But on the Fourth of July in 1976, Bambi's comfortable world implodes when Felix, facing prison, vanishes. Though Bambi has no idea where her husband—or his money—might be, she suspects one woman does: his devoted young mistress, Julie. When Julie disappears ten years to the day after Felix went on the lam, everyone assumes she's left to join her old lover—until her remains are discovered in a secluded park.Now, twenty-six years later, Roberto "Sandy" Sanchez, a retired Baltimore detective working cold cases for some extra cash, is investigating her murder. What he discovers is a tangled web of bitterness, jealousy, resentment, greed, and longing stretching over five decades. And at its center is the man who, though long gone, has never been forgotten by the five women who loved him: the enigmatic Felix Brewer.Felix Brewer left five women behind. Now there are four. Does at least one of them know the truth?
You or Someone Like You
You or Someone Like You
Burr, Chandler
¥84.16
Anne Rosenbaum leads a life of quiet Los Angeles privilege, the wife of Hollywood executive Howard Rosenbaum and mother of their seventeen-year-old son, Sam. Years ago Anne and Howard met studying litera-ture at Columbia—she, the daughter of a British diplo-mat from London, he a boy from an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. Now on sleek blue California evenings, Anne attends halogen-lit movie premieres on the arm of her powerful husband. But her private life is lived in the world of her garden, reading books.When one of Howard's friends, the head of a studio, asks Anne to make a reading list, she casually agrees—though, as a director reminds her, "no one reads in Hollywood." To her surprise, they begin calling: screen-writers; producers, from their bungalows; and agents, from their plush offices on Wilshire and Beverly. Soon Anne finds herself leading an exclusive book club for the industry elite. Emerging gradually from her seclu-sion, she guides her readers into the ideas and beauties of Donne, Yeats, Auden, and Mamet, with her brilliant and increasingly bold opinions. But when a crisis of identity unexpectedly turns an anguished Howard back toward the Orthodoxy he left behind as a young man, Anne must set out to save what she values above all else: her husband's love. At once fiercely intelligent and emotionally grip-ping, You or Someone Like You confronts the fault lines between inherited faith and personal creed, and, through the surprising transformation of one exceptional, unfor-gettable woman, illuminates literature's power to change our lives.
The Web and The Root
The Web and The Root
Wolfe, Thomas
¥84.16
Shortly before his death at a tragically young age, author Thomas Wolfe presented his editor with an epic masterwork that was subsequently published as three separate novels: You Can't Go Home Again, The Hills Beyond, and The Web and the Rock.The Web and the Root features the three initial sections of the The Web and the Rock, widely considered to be the book's strongest material. A prequel to You Can't Go Home Again, it is the story of George Webber's momentous journey from Libya Falls, North Carolina, to the Golden City of the North—offering vivid, sometimes cutting depictions of rural pleasures and small-town clannishness while exploring boundless urban possibility and the complex, violent undercurrents of the metropolis.
Infidelities
Infidelities
Novakovich, Josip
¥84.16
Tragicomedy of the highest order, this stellar collection is Croatian writer Novakovich's best ever. Hailed as one of the best short story writers of the 1990s, Josip Novakovich was praised by the New York Times for writing fiction that has "the crackle of authenticity, like the bite of breaking glass." In his new collection, he explores a war–torn Balkan world in which a schoolchild's innocence evaporates in a puff of cannon smoke, lust replaces love, and the joy of survival overrides all other pleasures. As Serb, Croat, and Bosnian Muslim armies clash in the cities and countryside of the former Yugoslavia, it's hard to tell the front lines from the home front. The characters in Infidelities––soldiers and civilians alike––are caught in the ridiculous, often cruelly whimsical contradictions of war and the paranoia and folly of those who conduct it. In "Ribs," a Croatian woman whose husband has already been taken by the war will go to any length to keep her son out of the army, including sleeping with the draft officer, a tryst that leads to an unexpected, and disturbing, spiritual vision. A Buddhist soldier in the Bosnian Muslim military isly accused of being an informer to the enemy Serbs after his detachment ambushes itself in "Hail." A draft dodger is in the hospital for a transplant, in "A Purple Heart," when a high–ranking Croatian general steals the heart for himself (and dies) while the dodger suddenly discovers a new thirst for life. In "Spleen," a Bosnian émigré in America learns that even in the throes of passion she cannot find release from the haunting memories of her homeland. These stories cover a broad sweep of time, reaching back to the first shots of World War I in Sarajevo and forward to the plight of Balkan immigrants in contemporary America. Throughout, acts of compassion, gallows humour, even desire arise from a landscape devastated by tragedy.
Out Backward
Out Backward
Raisin, Ross
¥84.16
Sam Marsdyke is a lonely young man, dogged by an incident in his past and forced to work his family farm instead of attending school in his Yorkshire village. He methodically fills his life with daily routines and adheres to strict boundaries that keep him at a remove from the townspeople. But one day he spies Josephine, his new neighbor from London. From that moment on, Sam's carefully constructed protections begin to crumble—and what starts off as a harmless friendship between an isolated loner and a defiant teenage girl takes a most disturbing turn.
Squeeze Play
Squeeze Play
Leavy, Jane
¥84.16
Inspired by the author's career as a sportswriter for the Washington Post, Squeeze Play tells the story of female reporter A. B. Berkowitz, who is assigned to cover the men of the Washington Senators -- the worst team in major league baseball. Life in the locker room shows her not just the players'…um…assets but also their all-too-human frailties. Love for the game and love for the newspaper business are the stars in this hilarious and heartbreaking novel that "will have you singing a rousing chorus of 'Take Me Out to the Locker Room'"(People).
Inside Out Girl
Inside Out Girl
Cohen, Tish
¥84.16
Rachel Berman wants everything to be perfect. An overprotective single mother of two, she is acutely aware of the statistical dangers lurking around every corner—which makes her snap decision to aid a stranded motorist wholly uncharacteristic. Len Bean is stuck on the shoulder with Olivia, his relentlessly curious, learning disabled ten-year-old daughter. To the chagrin of Rachel's children, who are about to be linked to the most-mocked girl in school, Rachel and Len begin dating. And when Len receives terrible news, little Olivia needs a hero more than ever.But the world refuses to be predictable. When personal crisis profoundly alters Rachel's relationship with a wild, very special little girl, this perfectionist mother finds herself drawn into a mystery from her past and toward a new appreciation for her own children's imperfect lives.
Story Starters
Story Starters
Stanek, Lou W., PhD
¥84.16
What If . . . . . . every classmate passed the bar exam—except one. . . the killer left a calling card—the ace of spades. . . she was a sleeping beauty— but it wasn't prince's kiss that woke her up. . .he had history of obsessive behavior— and then he developed a passion for. . . Thousands of Stories Are Just Waiting to be Told—By You If you have the passion and energy to write fiction, but have trouble finding an idea and getting started, this is the perfect book for you. Lou Willett Stanek has helped scores of new authors in her acclaimed writing workshops—and now she shows you how to look and listen, how to find stories and begin shaping them like a writer. Here's how to find inspiration from neighbors and strangers, reshape classic tales, cull current events and use other tricks of the writing trade so effectively you'll soon find yourself brimming with ideas, your imagination revved to its full potential. Begin with a snippet of overheard conversation, an unexpected event, a simple character trait, a place, a problem—Ms. Stanek teaches you to get past "what really happened" and reinvent reality in ways that will astound and delight you, and hold a reader's attention. Here too are hundreds of "what-ifs," simple situations you can guide to endlessly different conclusions—and use to learn new ways to fashion plot, describe character, develop conflict, paint with language, create a setting, employ flashbacks, build suspense, and much, much more. For every writer who could use a jump-start, from novice to pro, here is a book that will help you keep the faith and. . . Get Started!
The Epidemic
The Epidemic
Shaw, Robert, M.D.
¥84.16
A call for parents to take responsibility for their children and give them what they truly need in order to grow, thrive, and love.Take a good look around you: you can't go into stores or restaurants without seeing joyless children screaming and sulking while their parents ignore them. According to esteemed child psychiatrist Robert Shaw, this epidemic has become so much the norm that we often don't recognize its warning signs. This bold and timely book tells you how to save your child and your family with a commonsense approach that cuts to the core of the problem and shows us the cure. The Epidemic covers: Developing your child's ability to love Managing child care and minimizing the damage Raising cooperative, joyful, and creative children Promoting self-esteem and confidence rather than self-centeredness Avoiding the harmful effects of electronic media Healing angry, contemptuous, withdrawn, and out-of-control children
Baking Soda Bonanza
Baking Soda Bonanza
Ciullo, Peter A.
¥84.16
Learn how to soothe sunburns, dry-clean your dog, and perform other household miracles with baking soda Want to relieve your stuffy noseMake your musty old books smell betterKill roaches without pesticideYou can do it all with baking soda, and this updated edition of Baking Soda Bonanza shows you how! Cheap, ecologically sound, and more effective than most household cleaners, baking soda can be used to fix all sorts of household problems, from baking the perfect muffins to soothing bee stings to clearing out clogged drains. With a history of baking soda and many popular recipes for baking included, this is a book every household should have.
Digital Barbarism
Digital Barbarism
Helprin, Mark
¥84.16
World-renowned novelist Mark Helprin offers a ringing Jeffersonian defense of private property in the age of digital culture, with its degradation of thought and language, and collectivist bias against the rights of individual creators. Mark Helprin anticipated that his 2007 New York Times op-ed piece about the extension of the term of copyright would be received quietly, if not altogether overlooked. Within a week, the article had accumulated 750,000 angry comments. He was shocked by the breathtaking sense of entitlement demonstrated by the commenters, and appalled by the breadth, speed, and illogic of their responses. Helprin realized how drastically different this generation is from those before it. The Creative Commons movement and the copyright abolitionists, like the rest of their generation, were educated with a modern bias toward collaboration, which has led them to denigrate individual efforts and in turn fueled their sense of entitlement to the fruits of other people's labors. More important, their selfish desire to stick it to the greedy corporate interests who control the production and distribution of intellectual property undermines not just the possibility of an independent literary culture but threatens the future of civilization itself.