Title: Sellevision Author: Augusten Burroughs File Type: Mobi Subject:Fiction Description:Amazon.com ReviewLight and funny, with a bitter aftertaste, the action of Sellevision takes place behind the scenes (and on the set) of a successful television shopping network, where a feminine role model, Peggy Jean Smythe, the married, Christian mother of three, begins receiving suspicious e-mail from a viewer who insists that Peggy's hairy earlobe is obscuring her presentation of jewelry during the broadcast. When Peggy fails to respond to the e-mail, but silently waxes her lobe, the cruel notes escalate, until Peggy believes herself to be suffering from a hormonal crisis that has given her a mustache, a gruff voice, and the manner of a lumberjack. Meanwhile, one of her cohosts, Max Andrews, has been fired for accidentally exposing himself during a children's special, and learns just how undesirable a commodity a penis-baring ex-Sellevision host can be on the job market. The book is an unusually smooth read for a first novel, with six or seven truly inspired lines. --Regina MarlerFrom Publishers WeeklyA relentless spoof of cable's home-shopping mania shamelessly borrows from gossip tabloids, TV talk shows and the endlessly loopy world of advertising. This first novel dives behind the scenes of Sellevision, America's premier retail broadcasting network, as the channel confronts its first juicy scandal. Much-loved and handsome host Max Andrews has accidentally exposed his private parts during a Toys for Tots segment, and the flood of invective from outraged viewers forces the network to fire him. Though Max struggles to find another job, he bounces back nicely by segueing into an adult-film career. Meanwhile, another beloved host, prim and perky Peggy Jean Smythe, receives insulting e-mail from a mysterious fan named Zoe, whose snide commentary about Peggy's hairy earlobes and clumpy mascara sends Peggy over the edge into Valium addiction and heavy drinking. Peggy Jean's picture-perfect family is on the rocks, too: her husband, John, is happily seducing the nubile and willing 16-year-old next door. While Peggy Jean seeks solace through the guidance of Debby Boone and rehab, someone else must step in to peddle the Princess Diana memorabilia and the Dazzling Diamonelle merchandise. Either of two lead candidates for the job may also be the creepy e-mail stalker: Trish Mission, the innocent, young newcomer, or Leigh Bushmore, executive producer Howard Toast's mistress. This kaleidoscope of gleefully salacious intrigue aims to titillate and amuse in a purposefully over-the-top way. Advertising copywriter Burroughs throws in some witty zingers but, overall, the energy of this satire of commercial madness almost peters out before the last FuturePop Popcorn Popper or Moisture-Whik Control Panties are sold. (Sept.) br 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Title: The Guns of August
Author: Barbara Wertheim Tuchman
File Type: Mobi
Subject:History
Description:Review
“Fascinating . . . One of the finest works of history written . . . A splendid and glittering performance.”br
–_The New York Timesbr
_br
“MORE DRAMATIC THAN FICTION . . . A MAGNIFICENT NARRATIVE . . . elegantly phrased, skillfully paced and sustained . . . The product of painstaking and sophisticated research.”br
–_Chicago Tribune_
Test Data
“A BRILLIANT PIECE OF MILITARY HISTORY which proves up to the hilt the force of Winston Churchill’s statement that the first month of World War I was ‘a drama never surpassed.’ A writer with an impeccable sense of telling detail, Mrs. Tuchman is able to evoke both the enormous pattern of the tragedy and the minutiae which make it human.”br
–_Newsweek_
Test Data
“[A] BEAUTIFULLY ORGANIZED, COMPELLING NARRATIVE.”br
–_San Francisco Chroniclebr
_br
“AN EPIC NEVER FLAGGING IN SUSPENSE . . . It seemed hardly possible that anything new of significance could be said about the prelude to and the first month of World War I. But this is exactly what Mrs. Tuchman has succeeded in doing . . . by transforming the drama’s protagonists as well as its immense supporting cast, from half-legendary and half shadowy figures into full-dimensional, believable persons.”br
–_The Christian Science Monitor_
Test Data
“EXCELLENT . . . [_The Guns of August_] has a vitality that transcends its narrative virtues.”br
–_The Wall Street Journal_br
Test Data
Test Data
Test Data
Test Data
More dramtatic than fiction...THE GUNS OF AUGUST is a magnificent narrative--beautifully organized, elegantly phrased, skillfully paced and sustained....The product of painstaking and sophisticated research.br
CHICAGO TRIBUNEbr
Historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman has brought to life again the people and events that led up to Worl War I. With attention to fascinating detail, and an intense knowledge of her subject and its characters, Ms. Tuchman reveals, for the first time, just how the war started, why, and why it could have been stopped but wasn't. A classic historical survey of a time and a people we all need to know more about, THE GUNS OF AUGUST will not be forgotten.
Test Data
Title: Cat Among the Pigeons
Author: Agatha Christie
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Mystery
Description:
Unpleasant things are going on in an exclusive school for girls - things like murder! Late one night, two teachers investigate a mysterious flashing light in the sports pavilion, while the rest of the school sleeps. There, among the lacrosse sticks, they stumble upon the body of the unpopular games mistress -- shot through the heart from point blank range. The school is thrown into chaos when the cat strikes again. Unfortunately, schoolgirl Julia Upjohn knows too much. In particular, she knows that without Hercule Poirots help, she will be the next victim!
Title: The Complete Short Stories of Evelyn Waugh
Author: Evelyn Waugh
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Short Stories
Description:'One of the century's great masters of English prose . . . It is never too late to read or reread Evelyn Waugh' Time In this unique collection of short stories composed between 192562, Evelyn Waugh's stand-alone tales are brought together with some of the pieces which later became the inspirations for his novels. 'Mr Loveday's Little Outing' is a blackly comic tale of a mental asylum and its favourite resident; 'Cruise' sees a hilarious series of letters from a naive young woman as she travels with her family; 'A House of Gentlefolks' observes a group of elderly eccentric aristocrats and their young heir; and in 'The Sympathetic Passenger' a radio-loathing retiree picks up exactly the wrong hitchhiker. These witty and immaculately crafted stories display the finest writing of a master of satire and comic twists.
Title: Crosscurrent
Author: Paul S. Kemp
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Science-Fiction
Description:
An ancient Sith ship hurtles into the future carrying a lethal cargo that could forever destroy Luke Skywalker’s hopes for peace. The Civil War is almost over when Jedi Knight Jaden Korr experiences a Force vision so intense he must act. Enlisting two salvage jocks and their ship, Jaden sets out into space. Someone—or something—appears to be in distress.But what Jaden and his crew find confounds them. A five-thousand-year-old dreadnaught—bringing with it a full force of Sith and one lone Jedi—has inadvertently catapulted eons from the past into the present. The ship’s weapons may not be cutting-edge, but its cargo, a special ore that makes those who use the dark side nearly invincible, is unsurpassed. The ancient Jedi on board is determined to destroy the Sith. But for Jaden, even more is at stake: for his vision has led him to uncover a potentially indestructible threat to everything the Jedi Order stands for.
Title: The Emperor of All Maladies_ A Biography
Author: Siddhartha Mukherjee
File Type: Mobi
Subject:History
Description:Amazon.com ReviewThe Emperor of All Maladies illustrates how modern treatments--multi-pronged chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, as well as preventative care--came into existence thanks to a centurys worth of research, trials, and small, essential breakthroughs around the globe. While The Emperor of All Maladies is rich with the science and history behind the fight against cancer, it is also a meditation on illness, medical ethics, and the complex, intertwining lives of doctors and patients. Mukherjees profound compassion--for cancer patients, their families, as well as the oncologists who, all too often, can offer little hope--makes this book a very human history of an elusive and complicated disease. --Lynette Mong hr From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Mukherjees debut book is a sweeping epic of obsession, brilliant researchers, dramatic new treatments, euphoric success and tragic failure, and the relentless battle by scientists and patients alike against an equally relentless, wily, and elusive enemy. From the first chemotherapy developed from textile dyes to the possibilities emerging from our understanding of cancer cells, Mukherjee shapes a massive amount of history into a coherent story with a roller-coaster trajectory: the discovery of a new treatment--surgery, radiation, chemotherapy--followed by the notion that if a little is good, more must be better, ending in disfiguring radical mastectomy and multidrug chemo so toxic the treatment ended up being almost worse than the disease. The first part of the book is driven by the obsession of Sidney Farber and philanthropist Mary Lasker to find a unitary cure for all cancers. (Farber developed the first successful chemotherapy for childhood leukemia.) The last and most exciting part is driven by the race of brilliant, maverick scientists to understand how cells become cancerous. Each new discovery was small, but as Mukherjee, a Columbia professor of medicine, writes, Incremental advances can add up to transformative changes. Mukherjees formidable intelligence and compassion produce a stunning account of the effort to disrobe the emperor of maladies. (Nov.) (c) br Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
Title: The Crystal Seas
Author: Jeffrey Lord
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Pulp Adventure
Description:The Richard Blade novels were a series of adventures featuring the titular character (MI6A's special agent Richard Blade), who was teleported into a random alternate dimension at the beginning of each novel and forced to rely on his wits and strength. Richard Blade was distinctly British, and all the stories are set in England (at least at the beginning and end, with Blade being teleported to some other dimension for the bulk of each tale).
Title: The Dark Symphony
Author: Dean Koontz
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Science-Fiction
Description:Mutants from the atomic bomb ridden Earth meet Mankind from the stars who escaped just before the destruction. The mutants won't give up and let space-man rule Earth once again.