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My Ántonia (First Avenue Classics ™)
by Willa CatherWhen Jim Burden writes a memoir of his childhood in Black Hawk, Nebraska, his story keeps returning to Ántonia—the Bohemian immigrant girl who became his closest friend. Together, Jim and Ántonia endured heartbreaks and hardships on the Nebraska frontier, developing a deep bond that lasted across the years. Looking back, Jim tries to sort reality from nostalgia and come to terms with his feelings for Ántonia—realizing what she truly meant to him. Taken from the 1918 edition with illustrations by W. T. Benda, this is an unabridged version of American author Willa Cather's historical tale that explores the experience of growing up as a pioneer.
The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Picture Of Dorian Gray By Oscar Wilde (First Avenue Classics ™ #Vol. 2)
by Oscar WildeIs the price of eternal youth worth a man's soul? The exceptionally handsome Dorian Gray is a model—and the muse—for a young artist, Basil Hallward. Through Basil, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, who values only the pleasurable things in life with no regard for morality. He makes Dorian realize that one day his famed beauty will fade, and he will be left with nothing. Dorian decides to sell his soul so that a portrait of him will age in his place. As he indulges in every vice and selfish whim, his portrait grows increasingly hideous. But will he learn the true cost of his corruption in time to change his ways? This unabridged edition of British playwright Oscar Wilde's only novel, first published in 1891, begins with his famous preface, in which he justifies his artistic philosophy.
The Prince: The Prince; Power; The Art Of War (First Avenue Classics ™)
by Niccolò Machiavelli"It is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity." In this sixteenth-century treatise to aspiring rulers, Italian author Niccolò Machiavelli offers advice for how to gain and maintain power, unencumbered by values and moral conventions. In this separation of politics and ethics, Machiavelli's revolutionary ideas have often been criticized as ruthless and evil, though some scholars argue that the treatise is a satire. Machiavelli's practical guide for rulers was first published in book form in 1532. This unabridged version is taken from the 1908 translation by W. K. Marriott.
The Republic: The Statesman Of Plato (First Avenue Classics ™)
by PlatoWhat is justice? And what is its relation to happiness? These two questions form the central themes of this philosophic text, written by the Greek philosopher Plato around 380 BCE. It is framed as a Socratic dialogue—a conversation and argument led by Plato's teacher Socrates. In his attempt to define the concept of both societal and individual justice, Plato covers ethics, political philosophy, and even epistemology and metaphysics. This is an unabridged version of the English translation by Benjamin Jowett, published in 1908.
Richard II (First Avenue Classics ™)
by William ShakespeareThe year is 1398, and the people of England are in a state of unrest. Richard II is not a popular king, as he puts his own interests before the interests of his people. Now he's gone a step too far; he has seized the lands and money of his dead uncle. Richard's cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, was meant to be the heir to this inheritance, and he is incensed that Richard has taken what is rightfully his. When Richard leaves for Ireland to fight a war, Henry takes advantage of his cousin's absence. He assembles an army and awaits Richard's return. A tale of rivalries and shifting power structures, this unabridged edition of the history play by English playwright William Shakespeare was written around 1595 and published in 1597.
Richard III: Large Print (First Avenue Classics ™)
by William ShakespeareTrouble is brewing for King Edward IV. Edward's youngest brother, Richard, is jealous of Edward's power and influence. Richard will do anything to overthrow the king: He manipulates a noblewoman into marrying him. He arranges for his brother Clarence to be executed, then blames Clarence's death on King Edward. After Edward becomes ill and dies, Richard attains the throne through villainous means. But Richard's trail of deception, manipulation, and murder might eventually be the cause of his own downfall. This unabridged edition of the history play written by English playwright William Shakespeare was written around 1592 and first published in 1597.
The Taming of the Shrew: Being The Original Of Shakespeare's 'taming Of The Shrew' Edited (classic Reprint) (First Avenue Classics ™)
by William ShakespeareLucentio comes to Padua to attend the university, but his attention is quickly captured by the lovely Bianca. He would do anything to marry her, including disguise himself as her Latin teacher. But a major obstacle stands in the way of Lucentio's intentions: Bianca's father will only allow Bianca to marry after her sister, Katherine, is married. Katherine is everything Bianca is not. She is ill-tempered, opinionated, and objects to the idea of marriage. When bold Petruchio arrives in Padua, however, he might just be the kind of suitor who could succeed in marrying Katherine. This is an unabridged version of English playwright William Shakespeare's romantic comedy, which was first published in 1623.
The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories (First Avenue Classics ™)
by Edgar Allan PoeThis collection of sixteen short stories includes some of Edgar Allan Poe's most boundary-pushing and blood-chilling work. Selections range from "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," which launched the detective mystery genre, to "The Tell-Tale Heart," a Gothic classic about a murderer's overwhelming guilt. Discover tales of creatures that return from the dead, ghastly diseases that claim their victims within half an hour, and secret messages that lead to buried treasure. This curated compilation contains unabridged versions of the American author's finest tales; the short stories were originally published between 1832 and 1849.
Eclipse: The Horse That Changed Racing History Forever
by Nicholas CleeA chestnut with a white blaze is scorching across the turf towards the finishing post. His four rivals are so far behind him that, in racing terms, they are "nowhere." Watching Eclipse is the man who wants to buy him. An adventurer and rogue who has made his money through gambling, Dennis O'Kelly is also companion to the madam of a notorious London brothel. While O'Kelly is destined to remain an outcast to the racing establishment, his horse will go on to become the undisputed, undefeated champion of his sport. Eclipse's male-line descendants include Secretariat, Barbaro, and all but three of the Kentucky Derby winners of the past fifty years.
Eclipse
by Nicholas CleeMay 3, 1769, Epsom Downs. A chestnut brown thoroughbred with a white blaze is scorching across the turf towards the finishing post. His four rivals are so far behind him that, in racing terms, they are "nowhere. " Watching Eclipse is the man who wants to buy him. An adventurer and rogue who has made his money through gambling, Dennis O'Kelly is also a known companion to the madam of a notorious London brothel. Under O'Kelly's management, Eclipse would go on a winning streak unparalleled for the next two centuries. As journalist Nicholas Clee explores in this captivating romp, while O'Kelly was destined to remain an outcast to the racing establishment, his horse would go on to become the undisputed, undefeated champion of the sport. Not only a consummate winner, Eclipse exemplified the perfect thoroughbred -- a status he retains even today. Eclipse's male-line descendants include Secretariat, Barbaro, and all but three of the Kentucky Derby winners of the past fifty years. .
Any Day Now: A Novel
by Terry BissonPublishers Weekly has called Bisson's prose "a wonder of seemingly effortless control and precision," and John Crowley hails Bisson as a "national treasure!" Any Day Now is truly a literary tour de force. It is a poignant excursion into the last days of the Beats and the emerging radicalized culture of the sixties from Kentucky to New York City and daringly unique. This road movie of a novel, which begins as a fifties coming-of-age story and ends in an isolated hippy commune under threat of revolution, provides a transcendent commentary on America then and now.
Timebomb: One Man Stands Between the World and Armageddon
by Gerald SeymourHard on the heels of last year's brilliant thriller, "The Collaborator," comes this excellent multilayered thriller. In 1992, after being fired from a top-secret nuclear facility, a top KGB man buried a nuclear suitcase. Sixteen years later he has found a buyer for it. Traveling with the buyer is an undercover policeman, working for MI6. But as their shadowy journey begins, it becomes clear to a top psychiatrist that their man may be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and the whole operation is very likely to be thrown into jeopardy. Displaying a fast- paced narrative and an in-depth knowledge of international politics, "Timebomb" is thrilling Seymour to keep a reader up late into the night.
A Quiet Vendetta: A Thriller
by R. J. ElloryBy award-winning thriller heavyweight R. J. Ellory, this ambitious crime novel takes his skill for suspense to a spellbinding level. When Catherine Ducane disappears in New Orleans, the cops react fast--she is the governor's daughter, after all. But the case quickly grows strange. Her bodyguard turns up horribly mutilated, and when the kidnapper calls, he doesn't want money: he wants time alone with a minor government functionary. By the time the pieces fall into place, it's already too late . . . A Quiet Vendetta is both the epic story of one mobster's life-- ranging from Cuba to Chicago-- and equally a powerful thriller of rage, love, and loss. With tension to match the best of Cussler, Patterson, and his own best-selling work, A Quiet Vendetta confirms R. J. Ellory's place at the forefront of the genre. .
Christopher's Ghosts (The\paul Christopher Ser. #Bk. 7)
by Charles MccarryWith ferocious suspense and masterful pacing, Charles McCarry delivers a haunting parable of a man confronted with the ghosts of an entire generation's brutal history. It is the late 1930s, and a young Christopher bears witness to an unspeakable atrocity committed by a remorseless SS officer. When the action moves forward to the height of the Cold War, the SS man emerges out of the ruins of post-war Germany to destroy the last living witness to his crime. It's a case of tiger chasing tiger as Christopher is pursued by the only man who can match his craft or his instincts.
The Old Boys (The\paul Christopher Ser. #Bk. 6)
by Charles MccarryThey start with a photo found in Paul’s study: a woman’s hand holding a centuries-old scroll, once in the possession of the Nazis and now sought by the U.S. government and Muslim extremists alike. Charles McCarry is considered by many to be the master of American spy fiction, brilliantly staking his claim with such international bestsellers as The Tears of Autumn and The Miernik Dossier. A spy writer’s spy writer, he has been lauded extravagantly by the critics and his peers. George V. Higgins wrote “Charles McCarry is the Lord's best combination of spellbinding storyteller and silken prose writer.” “Intelligent and enthralling,” said Eric Ambler, and Jeffrey Archer praised writing that “makes one put the book down and gasp.” In his magnificent new novel, with rights sold in six countries before publication, McCarry returns to the world of his legendary character, Paul Christopher, the crack intelligence agent who is as skilled at choosing a fine wine as he is at tradecraft, at once elegant and dangerous, sophisticated and rough-and-ready. As the novel begins, Paul Christopher, now an aging but remarkably fit 70ish, is dining at home with his cousin Horace, also an ex-agent. Dinner is delicious and uneventful. A day later, Paul has vanished. The months pass, Paul’s ashes are delivered by a Chinese official to the American consulate in Beijing and a memorial service is held in Washington. But Horace is not convinced that Paul is dead and, enlisting the support of four other retired colleagues—a sort of all-star backfield of the old Outfit—Horace gets the “Old Boys” back in the game to find Paul Christopher. Harassed by American intelligence, hunted by terrorists, Horace Christopher and the Old Boys travel the globe, from Xinjiang to Brazil, from Rome to Tel Aviv, Budapest to Moscow, in search of Paul and the unspeakably dangerous truth.
Shelley's Heart: A Thriller
by Charles MccarryThe first presidential election of the twenty-first century, bitterly contested by two men who are implacable political rivals but lifelong personal friends, is stolen through computer fraud. On the eve of the Inauguration the losing candidate presents proof of the crime to his opponent, the incumbent President, and demands that he stand aside. The winner refuses and takes the oath of office, thereby setting in motion what may destroy him and his party, and even bring down the Constitution. From this crisis, master storyteller Charles McCarry, author of such classic thrillers as The Tears of Autumn and The Last Supper weaves a masterpiece of political intrigue. Shelley's Heart is so gripping in its realism and so striking in its foresight that McCarry's devoted readers may view this tale of love, murder, betrayal, and life-or-death struggles for the political soul of America as an act of prophecy.
The Last Supper (Paul Christopher Novels #Bk. 4)
by Charles MccarryPerhaps the most richly complex of McCarry’s renowned Paul Christopher novels, The Last Supper is an epic recreation of the history of an organization ensnared by a culture of conspiracy, deceit, and senseless violence. On a rainy night in Paris, Paul Christopher’s lover Molly Benson falls victim to a vehicular homicide minutes after Christopher boards a jet to Vietnam. To explain this seemingly senseless murder, The Last Supper takes its readers back not only to the earliest days of Christopher's life, but also to the origins of the CIA in the clandestine operations of the OSS during World War II. Moving seamlessly from tales of refugee smuggling in Nazi Germany, to OSS-coordinated guerilla warfare against the Japanese in Burma, to the chaotic violence of the Vietnam War, McCarry creates an intimate history of the shadow world of deceit and betrayal that penetrates the psyches of the men and women who live within it.
The Secret Lovers: A Paul Christopher Novel (Paul Christopher Novels #Bk. 3)
by Charles MccarryA nervous courier delivers the handwritten manuscript of a dissident Russian novel to Paul Christopher early one morning in West Berlin. Minutes after the handoff, the courier’s spine is neatly snapped by an impact with a passing black sedan. Meanwhile in Rome, Christopher's wife Cathy takes a famous film director as a lover to stir her husband out of the stoicism that defines his personality. These two seemingly discrete events set in motion a spiral of operational and personal intrigue that leads Christopher from meetings with an aging agent in the cafes of old Europe to a rendezvous with an operative on the front lines of the Cold War in the Congo as he secretly arranges the publication of a novel that could bring the Soviet system to its knees and races to identify the leak that compromised the messenger—and possibly his entire mission. The Secret Lovers is McCarry at his best—an exploration of the epic scope of "the great game," but also a riveting psychological portrait of a man ensnared by a profession that never failed to exert its insidious influence outside the professional boundaries that, like the facade of diplomacy that outwardly held the Cold War in check, could never contain its violence essence.
Monty and Rommel: Parallel Lives
by Peter Caddick-AdamsTwo men came to personify Allied and German generalship in the Second World War: Bernard Montgomery and Erwin Rommel. They fought a series of extraordinary battles across several theaters of war that established them as two of the greatest generals of their age. Born four years apart, their lives were remarkably similar--from their shared provincial upbringings to each nearly dying in but emerging from the first World War with glowing war records. They would begin to fight each other as divisional commanders in 1940 and as they came to prominence, first in North Africa, then at the Normandy D-Day allied invasion. Caddick-Adams tracks and compares their military talents and personalities in battle. Monty and Rommel explores how each general was raised to power by their war leaders, Churchill and Hitler, and how the innovative military strategy and thought of both permeate down to today's armies.
The White-Luck Warrior: The Aspect Emperor (The Aspect-Emperor Trilogy #0)
by R. Scott BakkerThe dazzling second book in Bakker's "exquisitely intelligent and beautifully written" (Steven Erikson) saga. Praised by readers and critics around the world, R. Scott Bakker has become one of the most celebrated voices in fantasy fiction. The Aspect-Emperor trilogy follows on from the acclaimed Prince of Nothing saga, and The White-Luck Warrior is the chilling second book in the new series. Ruler Anasurimbor Kellhus and his Great Ordeal march ever farther into the Ancient North, as his consort Esmenet finds herself at war. Exiled wizard Achamian, meanwhile, leads his own ragtag mission to the legendary ruins of Sauglish. Into this tumult walks the White-Luck Warrior, assassin and messiah both . . . . . . In this ambitious volume, Bakker delves even further into his richly imagined universe of myth, violence, and sorcery. .
The African Safari Papers
by Robert SedlackThe African Safari Papers is an intense and outrageous portrait of a family so troubled that their vacation is, in a word, torture. Richard Clark, the narrator of this sharp and sometimes madcap novel is nineteen--a drug-addicted, foul-mouthed, sex-crazed young man in Africa on a safari with his parents. Obviously, this is a mistake. As Richard smolders with resentment, he documents the trip in a series of journal entries that are funny, sad, and piercingly insightful. Juxtaposed with the hostile environment, the tense situation becomes explosive: with raw energy and acuity, somewhere between Hunter S. Thompson and David Sedaris, we see Mom going insane, Dad drinking compulsively, and Richard busy getting high on smuggled drugs. Anything can happen, and it does, in this family travelogue for the twenty-?rst century.
The African Safari Papers
by Robert SedlackThe African Safari Papers is an intense and outrageous portrait of a family so troubled that their vacation is, in a word, torture. Richard Clark, the narrator of this sharp and sometimes madcap novel is nineteen--a drug-addicted, foul-mouthed, sex-crazed young man in Africa on a safari with his parents. Obviously, this is a mistake. As Richard smolders with resentment, he documents the trip in a series of journal entries that are funny, sad, and piercingly insightful. Juxtaposed with the hostile environment, the tense situation becomes explosive: with raw energy and acuity, somewhere between Hunter S. Thompson and David Sedaris, we see Mom going insane, Dad drinking compulsively, and Richard busy getting high on smuggled drugs. Anything can happen, and it does, in this family travelogue for the twenty-?rst century.
African Safari Papers
by Robert SedlackThe African Safari Papers is an intense and outrageous portrait of a family so troubled that their vacation is, in a word, torture. Richard Clark, the narrator of this sharp and sometimes madcap novel is nineteen--a drug-addicted, foul-mouthed, sex-crazed young man in Africa on a safari with his parents. Obviously, this is a mistake. As Richard smolders with resentment, he documents the trip in a series of journal entries that are funny, sad, and piercingly insightful. Juxtaposed with the hostile environment, the tense situation becomes explosive: with raw energy and acuity, somewhere between Hunter S. Thompson and David Sedaris, we see Mom going insane, Dad drinking compulsively, and Richard busy getting high on smuggled drugs. Anything can happen, and it does, in this family travelogue for the twenty-?rst century. .
Titus Groan (The Gormenghast Trilogy)
by Mervyn PeakeAn undisputed classic of epic fantasy, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast novels represent one of the most brilliantly sustained flights of Gothic imagination. As the novel opens, Titus, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just been born. He stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle. Inside, all events are predetermined by a complex ritual whose origins are lost in history and the castle is peopled by dark characters in half-lit corridors. Dreamlike and macabre, Peake's extraordinary novel is one of the most astonishing and fantastic works in modern English fiction.
Gormenghast (Gormenghast #2)
by Mervyn Peake'A gloriously impossible realization of Mervyn Peake's soaring flight of fancy. ' - Guardian In a world bound by iron laws and dead rituals, two young men are struggling to make their way: Steerpike, the renegade kitchen-boy who seduces and murders his way up the social ladder, and Titus Groan, heir to Gormenghast, who comes to threaten its very existence.