You're an Animal, Viskovitz
Title | You're an Animal, Viskovitz PDF eBook |
Author | Alessandro Boffa |
Publisher | Vintage |
Pages | 173 |
Release | 2007-12-18 |
Genre | Fiction |
ISBN | 0307430359 |
In this wickedly hilarious collection of fables, Alessandro Boffa introduces us to Viskovitz and his never-ending search for his true love, Ljuba. As he changes from a lovelorn lion to a jealous finch, from a confused dung beetle to an enlightened police dog, Viskovitz embraces his metamorphoses with wry humor and an oftentimes painful sense of self. As an ant, Viskovitz fights his way to the top where his egotism calls on the colony to create a monument to his greatness out of a piece of bread. As a sponge, he is horrified by the inbreeding in his family—“I’m my own mother-in-law!!!”—and yearns for a change in current so he can mate with Ljuba, who lies downstream. As a mantis, he asks his mother what his father was like, only to hear, “Crunchy. A bit salty. High in fiber.” Unfortunately, when he meets Ljuba shortly thereafter, he follows his father’s fate. And as a scorpion, his uncontrollably deadly efficiency meets its match in Ljuba and finds “no way to escape this intolerable, sinister happiness.”
You're an Animal, Viskovitz!
Title | You're an Animal, Viskovitz! PDF eBook |
Author | Alessandro Boffa |
Publisher | Turtleback Books |
Pages | |
Release | 2003-06-01 |
Genre | Fiction |
ISBN | 9781417648764 |
Nothing to be Frightened Of
Title | Nothing to be Frightened Of PDF eBook |
Author | Julian Barnes |
Publisher | Vintage Canada |
Pages | 258 |
Release | 2010-05-28 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 0307368440 |
"I don’t believe in God, but I miss him." So begins Julian Barnes’s brilliant new book that is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with his brother (a philosopher), a meditation on mortality and the fear of death, a celebration of art, an argument with and about God and a homage to the writer Jules Renard. Barnes also draws poignant portraits of the last days of his parents, recalled with great detail, affection and exasperation. Other examples he takes up include writers, "most of them dead and quite a few of them French," as well as some composers, for good measure. The grace with which Barnes weaves together all of these threads makes the experience of reading the book nothing less than exhilarating. Although he cautions us that "this is not my autobiography," the book nonetheless reveals much about Barnes the man and the novelist: how he thinks and how he writes and how he lives. At once deadly serious and dazzlingly playful, Nothing to Be Frightened Of is a wise, funny and constantly surprising tour of the human condition.
The Witch's Children and the Queen
Title | The Witch's Children and the Queen PDF eBook |
Author | Ursula Jones |
Publisher | |
Pages | 32 |
Release | 2004 |
Genre | Children |
ISBN | 9781843620365 |
When the two older witch's children use their magic to create trouble in the park, the Little One knows how to fix the problem.
More Information Than You Require
Title | More Information Than You Require PDF eBook |
Author | John Hodgman |
Publisher | Penguin |
Pages | 376 |
Release | 2008 |
Genre | Humor |
ISBN | 9780525950349 |
The best-selling author of The Areas of My Expertise presents a tongue-in-cheek compendium of made-up facts that fall under such headings as "The Method by Which We Elect Our Presidents," "How to Be a Famous Minor Television Personality," and "Gambling: The Sport of the Asthmatic Man." 150,000 first printing.
Kentucky Straight
Title | Kentucky Straight PDF eBook |
Author | Chris Offutt |
Publisher | Vintage |
Pages | 146 |
Release | 2011-04-13 |
Genre | Fiction |
ISBN | 0307791815 |
Kentucky straight is bourbon with no mixer. Kentucky Straight is Kentucky seen without nostalgic gloss. These riveting, often heartbreaking stories, take us through country that is unmapped. They are set in a nameless Appalachian community too small to be called a town, a place where wanting an education is a mark of ungodly arrogance and dowsing for water a legitimate occupation; where hunting is not a sport but a means of survival. These are stories of coal miners and backwoods medicine men, of gamblers and marijuana farmers, tales of real tragedy and unutterable strangeness that convey their sense of place so vividly that we feel its ground rise beneath our feet. Offutt has received a James Michener Grant and a Kentucky Arts Council Award.
Observatory Mansions
Title | Observatory Mansions PDF eBook |
Author | Edward Carey |
Publisher | Vintage |
Pages | 368 |
Release | 2010-02-24 |
Genre | Fiction |
ISBN | 030755872X |
"Easily the most brilliant fiction I've seen this year -- it proves the potential brilliance of the novel form." -- John Fowles, author of The Magus Observatory Mansions, once the Orme family's magnificent ancestral home set on beautiful grounds, is now a crumbling apartment block stranded on a traffic island, peopled with eccentrics. Thirty-seven-year-old Francis Orme lives in Observatory Mansions with his peculiar parents and a collection of misfits. By day he is a street performer, earning money as "a statue of whiteness" in the park, wearing white gloves to ensure that his skin never touches anything. He steals items for his museum of significant objects (996 in all), not for their monetary value but because they have been loved, often bringing grief to their erstwhile owners. His bedridden mother, Alice, who has created for herself an alternative time frame called "fiction," and his father, Francis, are among the occupants set apart from the rest of the busy city by their histories, their memories, and their relationships with the other seven inhabitants of the flats. Each of the house dwellers has his or her own story, as seen through Francis's eyes, and the careful routine and harmony of the house are shaken when along comes a new resident, the half-blind, vulnerable Anna Tap. She is sympathetic and resourceful, and slowly the desperately lonely residents begin to open up their long-closed hearts. As the delicate balance of Observatory Mansions begins to shift, Francis finds himself having to protect the secrets of his past and the sanctity of his collection, while growing emotionally closer to Anna. Hailed as no less than a tour de force, Observatory Mansions is a debut novel of immense originality--a strangely haunting landscape occupied by compelling and unforgettable characters.