万本电子书0元读

万本电子书0元读

Cassandra and Jane
Cassandra and Jane
Pitkeathley, Jill
¥83.03
They were beloved sisters and the best of friends. But Jane and Cassandra Austen suffered the same fate as many of the women of their era. Forced to spend their lives dependent on relatives, both financially and emotionally, the sisters spent their time together trading secrets, challenging each other's opinions, and rehearsing in myriad other ways the domestic dramas that Jane would later bring to fruition in her popular novels. For each sister suffered through painful romantic disappointments—tasting passion, knowing great love, and then losing it—while the other stood witness. Upon Jane's death, Cassandra deliberately destroyed her personal letters, thereby closing the door to the private life of the renowned novelist . . . until now.In Cassandra & Jane, author Jill Pitkeathley ingeniously reimagines the unique and intimate relationship between two extraordinary siblings, reintroducing readers to one of the most intriguing figures in the world of literature, as seen through the eyes of the one person who knew her best.
City of Refuge
City of Refuge
Piazza, Tom
¥83.03
In the heat of late summer, two New Orleans families—one black and one white—confront a storm that will change the course of their lives.SJ Williams, a carpenter and widower, lives and works in the Lower Ninth Ward, the community where he was born and raised. His sister, Lucy, is a soulful mess, and SJ has been trying to keep her son, Wesley, out of trouble. Across town, Craig Donaldson, a Midwestern transplant and the editor of the city's alternative paper, faces deepening cracks in his own family. New Orleans' music and culture have been Craig's passion, but his wife, Alice, has never felt comfortable in the city. The arrival of their two children has inflamed their arguments about the wisdom of raising a family there.When the news comes of a gathering hurricane—named Katrina—the two families make their own very different plans to weather the storm. The Donaldsons join the long evacuation convoy north, across Lake Pontchartrain and out of the city. SJ boards up his windows and brings Lucy to his house, where they wait it out together, while Wesley stays with a friend in another part of town. But the long night of wind and rain is only the beginning—and when the levees give way and the flood waters come, the fate of each family changes forever. The Williamses are scattered—first to the Convention Center and the sweltering Superdome, and then far beyond city and state lines, where they struggle to reconnect with one another. The Donaldsons, stranded and anxious themselves, find shelter first in Mississippi, then in Chicago, as Craig faces an impossible choice between the city he loves and the family he had hoped to raise there.Ranging from the lush neighborhoods of New Orleans to Texas, Missouri, Chicago, and beyond, City of Refuge is a modern masterpiece—a panoramic novel of family and community, trial and resilience, told with passion, wisdom, and a deep understanding of American life in our time.
Empress
Empress
Sa, Shan
¥83.03
Such is the voice of Shan Sa's unforgettable heroine in her latest literary masterpiece, Empress. Empress Wu, one of China's most controversial figures, was its first and only female emperor, who emerged in the seventh century during the great Tang Dynasty and ushered in a golden age. Throughout history, her name has been defamed and her story distorted by those taking vengeance on a woman who dared to become emperor. But now, for the first time in thirteen centuries, Empress Wu (or Heavenlight, as we come to know her) flings open the gates of the Forbidden City and tells her own astonishing tale—revealing a fascinating, complex figure who in many ways remains modern to this day.Writing with epic assurance, poetry, and vivid historic detail, Shan Sa plumbs the psychological and philosophical depths of what it means to be a striving mortal in a tumultuous, power-hungry world. Empress is a great literary feat and a revelation for the ages.
The Water Dancers
The Water Dancers
Gamble, Terry
¥83.03
A stunning debut novel from a new voice in literary fiction, set on Lake Michigan following World War II, The Water Dancers limns the divide between the worlds of the wealthy elite "summer people" and the poor native population who serve them–and what happens when those worlds collide. When Rachel Winnapee first comes to work at the March family summer home on vast and beautiful Lake Michigan, she quickly learns her place. Servants are seen and not heard as they bring the breakfast trays, wash and iron luxurious clothes, and serve gin and tonics to the wealthy family as they lounge on the deck playing bridge. Orphaned as a poverty–stricken young girl from the nearby band of Native Americans, Rachel is in awe of the Marches' glamorous life–and quite enamored of the family's son Woody. Rachel is soon assigned the task of caring for Woody, a young man whose life has been changed utterly by his experience as a soldier in WWII. The war has cost Woody not only his leg, but, worse, the older brother he loved and admired. Now back at home, Woody cannot bear to face the obligations of his future – especially when it comes to his bride–to–be Elizabeth. Woody finds himself drawn to Rachel, who is like no one he's ever known. The love affair that unites these two lost souls in this Great Gatsby–esque portrait of class division will alter the course of their lives in ways both heartbreaking and profound. This novel's richness is due, in part, to the author's memories of summers spent at her family's house on Lake Michigan, home to six generations of Gambles (as in Procter & Gamble). THE WATER DANCERS, told in a voice as clear and cool as lake water, is a luminescent tale of love, loss and redemption, and heralds the arrival of a remarkable new talent.
Dracula, My Love
Dracula, My Love
James, Syrie
¥83.03
Acclaimed author Syrie James approaches Bram Stoker's classic Dracula with a breathtaking new perspective—as, for the first time, Mina Harker records the shocking story of her scandalous seduction and sexual rebirth.Who is this magnetic, fascinating manAnd how could one woman fall so completely under his spell?Mina Harker is torn between two men. Struggling to hang on to the deep, pure love she's found within her marriage to her husband, Jonathan, she is inexorably drawn into a secret, passionate affair with a charismatic but dangerous lover. This haunted and haunting creature has awakened feelings and desires within her that she has never before known, which remake her as a woman.Although everyone she knows fears him and is pledged to destroy him, Mina sees a side to him that the others cannot: a tender, romantic side; a man who's taken full advantage of his gift of immortality to expand his mind and talents; a man who is deeply in love, and who may not be evil after all. Yet to surrender is surely madness, for to be with him could end her life. It may cost Mina all she holds dear, but to make her choice she must learn everything she can about the remarkable origins and sensuous powers of this man, this exquisite monster, this . . . Dracula!
In Open Spaces
In Open Spaces
Rowland, Russell
¥83.03
Set in the vast and unforgiving prairie of eastern Montana from 1916 to 1946, In Open Spaces is the compelling story of the Arbuckle brothers:GeorgeA rising baseball star who mysteriously drowns in the riverJackA World War I veteran who abandons his family only to return to reclaim the family ranchBobThe youngest brother, whose marriage to Helen creates a fault line between him and the rest of his familyBlakeA shrewd, observant man burdened with growing suspicions of Jack's role in his brother's deathWith breathtaking de*ions of the Montana landscape, Russell Rowland masterfully weaves a fascinating tale of the psychological wars that can rip a family apart...and, ultimately, the redemption that can bring them back together.
When We Danced on Water
When We Danced on Water
Fallenberg, Evan
¥83.03
At eighty-five, Teo is ready to retire from the bombast and romance of life as one of the world’s most influential choreographers. But when he meets Vivi, a fortyish waitress at a Tel Aviv café, the fires of his youth flare back to life—his passion for a woman’s touch, his long-buried anguish at his wartime experiences, and his complex engagement with dance. Vivi’s life will change, too, as the warmth of Teo’s affection counterbalances her harrowing time as an Israeli soldier in an illicit relationship. For both, their investment in art, and indeed in life itself, will reawaken as the ghosts of their suppressed pasts—from Warsaw to Copenhagen, Berlin to Tel Aviv—cry out for forgiveness and healing.With lustrous prose capturing the grit and fury of history and the breathtaking power of passion, When We Danced on Water is a compelling novel of intimacy and identity, art and ambition, and how love can truly transcend tragedy.
Bird in Hand
Bird in Hand
Kline, Christina Baker
¥83.03
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train comes a novel about the choices we make,?how they shape our lives, and how they can change them forever.It was dark. It was raining. It was just an accident. On the drive home from a rare evening out, Alison collides with another car running a stop sign, and—just like that—her life turns upside down.When she calls her husband from the police station, his accusatory tone reveals cracks in their relationship she'd never noticed were there. Now she notices everything. And she begins to realize that the life she carefully constructed for herself is as tenuous as a house of cards. Exquisitely written, powerful, and thrilling, Bird in Hand is a novel about love and friendship and betrayal, and about the secrets we tell ourselves and each other.
Cold Light
Cold Light
Ashworth, Jenn
¥83.03
I’m sitting on my couch, watching the local news. There’s Chloe’s parents, the mayor, the hangers on, all grouped round the pond for the ceremony. It’s ten years since Chloe and Carl drowned. You can tell from their faces that something has gone wrong. But I’m the one who knows straightaway that the mayor has found a body. And I know who it is.Jenn Ashworth’s gripping and unforgettable Cold Light is the story of a friendship unsettling in its intensity and of one terrible summer when lies, secrets, jealousy, and perversion result in tragedy more twisted and evil than one unsuspecting community can handle. A dark tale with a surreal edge, it follows two fourteen-year-old girls, best friends, as they confront the dangers of a predatory adult world, where truth is cruelly sacrificed in the name of innocence.
The Templar Knight
The Templar Knight
Guillou, Jan
¥83.03
A knight in the Holy Land. A woman in the frozen north. A war that kept them apart . . .The second volume in the internationally bestselling trilogy begun with The Road to Jerusalem—the critically acclaimed epic "destined to become a classic" (Sharon Kay Penman)Exiled to the Holy Land for two decades, Arn Magnusson has risen in the ranks of the Knights Templar, serving as master of the order's Gaza fortress. Among the last bastion of God's holy warriors determined to save Jerusalem from the Muslims, Arn has cultivated a shrewd understanding of his enemy. Known as Al-Ghouti among the Saracens—Saladin and his Muslim followers—he is renowned as a man of compassion, strength, and faith. Yet neither time nor distance can lessen the pain of separation from his beloved Cecilia. Confined to a cloister back home in western G?taland, Arn's betrothed is a pawn in a war between clans vying for control of the crown. Yearning for him and their newborn son, who is being raised by relatives, Cecilia must also endure the cruelties of a vindictive abbess from a rival clan.When an accident of fate brings together Arn and Saladin, a friendship is forged that will alter the course of the Templar knight's life, and the history of Jerusalem itself. After the bloody Battle of Hattin, Arn finally becomes a free man. But the road home is long and treacherous, and he is uneasy about the fate that awaits him and uncertain whether his betrothed still lives.Broadening the scope of Arn's epic path to redemption, The Templar Knight continues the story of the founding of a nation—and of the warrior and the love that made it possible.
All the Colors of Darkness
All the Colors of Darkness
Robinson, Peter
¥83.03
Detectives Alan Banks and Annie Cabbot return in another electrifying novel from the acclaimed award-winning author of the New York Times bestseller Friend of the DevilWhen the body of a man is discovered hanging from a tree in the woods near Eastvale, all signs point toward suicide. At least that's what it initially looks like to Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot. The man is soon identified as Mark Hardcastle, the set and costume designer for the local amateur theater company. Mark was successful and well liked in the community, but enough remains mysterious about his background that suicide isn't completely out of the question. But when Mark's older and wealthier lover is discovered bludgeoned to death in his home, Annie begins to think differently. Could it have been a crime of passion, or did overwhelming grief lead to a man taking his own lifeIncreasingly confounded, she calls in the vacationing Chief Inspector Alan Banks—even if it means prying him away from his new girlfriend.Once on the investigation, Banks finds himself plunged into a case where nothing is as it seems. More and more his own words about the victim's latest production, Othello, are coming back to haunt him, for "jealousy, betrayal, envy, ambition, greed, lust, revenge—all the colors of darkness" are quickly becoming his world as well.
Sick City
Sick City
O'Neill, Tony
¥83.03
Meet Jeffrey and Randal, two desperate junkies and your guides on this top-to-bottom fun-house tour of Hollywood's underbelly. From infamous crime scenes to celebrity treatment centers, Sick City is an outrageous page-turning adventure set in the sun-bleached wilds of LA.
Gillespie and I
Gillespie and I
Harris, Jane
¥83.03
From the award-winning author of The Observations comes a beautifully conjured and wickedly sharp tale of art and deception in nineteenth-century Scotland. As she sits in her Bloomsbury home with her two pet birds for company, elderly Harriet Baxter recounts the story of her friendship with Ned Gillespie—a talented artist whose life came to a tragic end before he ever achieved the fame and recognition that Harriet maintains he deserved. In 1888, young Harriet arrives in Glasgow during the International Exhibition. After a chance encounter with Ned, she befriends the Gillespie family and soon becomes a fixture in their lives. But when tragedy strikes, culminating in a notorious criminal trial, the certainty of Harriet’s new world rapidly spirals into suspicion and despair.Infused with rich period detail, shot through with sly humor, and featuring a memorable cast of characters, Gillespie and I is an absorbing, atmospheric tale of one young woman’s friendship with a volatile artist and her place in the controversy that consumes him—a tour de force from one of the emerging names of modern fiction.
The Cottage at Glass Beach
The Cottage at Glass Beach
Barbieri, Heather
¥83.03
The Cottage at Glass BeachMarried to the youngest attorney general in Massachusetts state history, Nora Cunningham is a picture-perfect political wife and a doting mother. But her carefully constructed life falls to pieces when she, along with the rest of the world, learns of the infidelity of her husband, Malcolm.Humiliated and hounded by the press, Nora packs up her daughters—Annie, seven; and Ella, twelve—and takes refuge on Burke's Island, a craggy spit of land off the coast of Maine. Settled by Irish immigrants, the island is a place where superstition and magic are carried on the ocean winds, and wishes and dreams wash ashore with the changing tides.Nora spent her first five years on the island but has not been back to the remote community for decades—not since that long ago summer when her mother disappeared at sea. One night while sitting alone on Glass Beach below the cottage where she spent her childhood, Nora succumbs to grief, her tears flowing into the ocean. Days later she finds an enigmatic fisherman named Owen Kavanagh shipwrecked on the rocks nearby. Is he, as her aunt's friend Polly suggests, a selkie—a mythical being of island legend—summoned by her heartbreak, or simply someone who, like Nora, is trying to find his way in the wake of his own personal struggles?Just as she begins to regain her balance, her daughters embark on a reckless odyssey of their own—a journey that will force Nora to find the courage to chart her own course and finally face the truth about her marriage, her mother, and her long-buried past.
Forgotten
Forgotten
McKenzie, Catherine
¥83.03
Emma Tupper is a dedicated lawyer with a bright future. But when she takes a month-long leave of absence to go on an African vacation, she ends up facing unexpected consequences. After she falls ill and spends six months trapped in a remote village thanks to a devastating earthquake, Emma returns home to discover that her friends, boyfriend, and colleagues thought she was dead—and that her life has moved on without her.As she struggles to re-create her old life, throwing herself into solving a big case for a client and trying to reclaim her beloved apartment from the handsome photographer who assumed her lease, everyone around her thinks she should take the opportunity to change. But is she willing to sacrifice her job, her relationships, and everything else she worked so hard to build?In Forgotten, Catherine McKenzie tweaks a classic tale of discovering who we really are when everything that brings meaning to our lives is lost.
The Thirteen
The Thirteen
Moloney, Susie
¥83.03
Haven Woods is suburban heaven, a great place to raise a family. It's close to the city, quiet, with great schools and its own hospital right up the road. Property values are climbing, and the crime rate is practically nonexistent. Paula Wittmore hasn't been back to Haven Woods since she left as a disgraced teenager. Now she's returning to care for her suddenly ailing mother, and she's bringing her daughter and a pile of emotional baggage. She's also bringing, unknowingly, the last chance for her mother's closest frenemies . . . twelve women bound together by a powerful secret that requires the sacrifice of a thirteenth.
Marya: A Life
Marya: A Life
Oates, Joyce Carol
¥83.03
Marya Knauer is a famous author and member of the intellectual elite. She is, by turns, admired, envied, and resented. She is also a woman haunted. Haunted by early memories of violence and abandonment. Haunted by painful feelings of longing and loss. Now Marya is about to embark on a search for her past—and for the mother who gave her away more than a quarter of a century before.... Vividly evoking the beauty of rural New York, the shattered reflections of childhood, and the complex emotions of a female artist, Marya: A Life is one of Joyce Carol Oates's most deeply personal and brilliantly observed novels.
The Rosedale Diet
The Rosedale Diet
Rosedale, Ron, M.D.
¥83.03
Finally the ultimate diet for fast, safe weight loss, lifelong health, and longer life, based on more than twenty years of research and the latest findings on appetite and weight. Metabolic specialist Ron Rosedale, M.D., has designed the Rosedale Diet to regulate the powerful hormone leptin, which controls appetite and weight loss by telling the brain when to eat, how much to eat and when to stop. New research shows that leptin may be one of the body's most important hunger control mechanisms. Control leptin, and you control your weight.Most people's leptin levels are out of control, causing them to overeat and to store fat rather than burn it. The only way to flip the "hunger switch" back to normal is through a diet high in healthy fats and low in carbohydrates, saturated fat, and trans-fatty acids often found in processed food plus just 15 minutes of daily exercise.Dr. Rosedale's 21-day diet plan is simple: Just select from the many foods on his "A" list, including "healthy-fat" foods such as avocados, nuts, olives, lobster, crab, shrimp, goat cheese, Cornish game hen, venison, and more. Then gradually add foods from the "B" list, such as steak, lamb chops, fruits, beans, and so on. A 28-day menu plan and more than 100 recipes, such as Dilled Salmon and Fresh Asparagus, Gingery Chicken Soup, Lasagna, Black Bean Wrap, Raspberry Mousse Cake, and French Silk Pie, make eating the Rosedale way deliciously easy.Weight loss is just the beginning. The Rosedale Diet will make you feel satisfied, reduce cravings, and put you in control of your "sweet tooth." It can even help eliminate or reduce heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and other conditions associated with "natural" aging, as many of Dr. Rosedale's patients can attest. You'll find inspiring stories from them and the power to control your weight and improve your health in this groundbreaking book.
On the Run
On the Run
DiBenedetto, David
¥83.03
Each autumn, one of nature's most magnificent dramas plays out when striped bass undertake a journey, from the northeastern United States to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, in search of food and warmer seas. Writer and angler David DiBenedetto followed this great migration -- the fall run -- for three months in the autumn of 2001. On the Run offers vivid portrayals of the zany and obsessive characters DiBenedetto met on his travels -- including the country's most daring fisherman, an underwater videographer who chucked his corporate job in favor of filming striped bass, and the reclusive angler who claims that catching the world-record striper in 1982 sent his life into a tailspin. Along his route, DiBenedetto also delves into the natural history and biology of this great game fish, and depicts the colorful cultures of the seaside communities where the striped bass reigns supreme.
When Did I Get Like This?
When Did I Get Like This?
Wilson, Amy
¥83.03
When Did I Get Like Thisis the hilarious story of one mother's struggle to shrug off the ridiculous standards of modern parenting, and remember how to enjoy her children Over the last seven years of long days with little children, I have had many moments of joy, calm, and peaceful reverie.This book is about the other moments.Before I became a mother, failing at something did not shake my fundamental belief in my capabilities as a human being. But now that I am the mother of three children under the age of seven, I have one overriding daily thought: I suck at this.What kind of mother feeds her kids dinosaur chicken nuggetsThree times a weekWhat kind of mother lets hand washing after using the toilet slide, as long as it was just Number OneAnd then I wonder: When did I get like thisWhy do I doubt my parenting abilities, day after dayWhy does motherhood, a job as old as Eve, have me teetering daily on the edge of sanity?With each new stage of motherhood, I tell myself I will never again be suckered by the question, "Don't you want what's best for your children?" And yet, time after time, I am. Sometimes, I am right to obsess. Other times, the record will show, it has been distinctly counterproductive.I'm working on it . . .
Whatever...Love Is Love
Whatever...Love Is Love
Bello, Maria
¥83.03
Am I damagedAm I resilientAm I enoughQuestioning the labels we wear when it comes to partnership, career, love, and sexuality is at the heart of Maria Bello’s Whatever . . . Love Is Love. Written as a series of provocative questions and thoughtful answers, Whatever . . . Love Is Love is filled with deeply personal, often funny, and even passionate stories, stories in which Maria bares her soul and shares what she’s learned—not only about romantic love, but also about her relationship with her parents, her feelings about spirituality, her sexual identity, the highs and lows of her career, her humanitarian work, and her worth as a mother. Using her experiences as a gateway to a larger conversation, Maria encourages you to think about the life you lead, who you love, what you do, what you believe in, and what you call yourself . . . and helps you to realize that the only labels that matter are the ones we place on and accept for ourselves, even if they don’t fit the mold of “typical.” “Whatever . . . Love Is Love isn’t your typical celebrity memoir. . . . Instead, each chapter, through charming candor and humor, challenges a series of ‘labels’ that represent impossible standards to which we hold ourselves.”—Marie Claire “Never preachy, in this book [Bello] diligently and methodically deconstructs where her values have come from. . . . Personal, provocative, and inspiring.”—Patricia Arquette, Oscar?-nominated actor