Title: The Way of Kings Author: Brandon Sanderson File Type: Mobi Subject:Fantasy Description: According to mythology mankind used to live in The Tranquiline Halls. Heaven. But then the Voidbringers assaulted and captured heaven, casting out God and men. Men took root on Roshar, the world of storms. And the Voidbringers followed . . .They came against man ten thousand times. To help them cope, the Almighty gave men powerful suits of armor and mystical weapons, known as Shardblades. Led by ten angelic Heralds and ten orders of knights known as Radiants, mankind finally won.Or so the legends say. Today, the only remnants of those supposed battles are the Shardblades, the possession of which makes a man nearly invincible on the battlefield. The entire world is at war with itself and has been for centuries since the Radiants turned against mankind. Kings strive to win more Shardblades, each secretly wishing to be the one who will finally unite all of mankind under a single throne.On a world scoured down to the rock by terrfiying hurricanes that blow through every few day a young spearman forced into the army of a Shardbearer, led to war against an enemy he doesnt understand and doesnt really want to fight. What happened deep in mankinds past? Why did the Radiants turn against mankind, and what happened to the magic they used to wield?
Title: The Ayatollah Begs to Differ
Author: Hooman Majd
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Politics
Description:From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. In this critical but affectionate portrait of Iranian politics and culture, Majd, the Western-educated grandson of an ayatollah, delves into the very core of Iranian society, closely examining social mores and Farsi phrases to identify the Persian sensibility, which, Majd determines, cherishes privacy, praise and poetry. Nothing is too small or too sweeping for Majd to consider, and although he announces his allegiance to the former president Khatami, he remains scrupulously even-handed in assessing his successor Ahmadinejad, shedding light on the Iranian president's obsession with the Holocaust and penchant for windbreakers and why the two are (surprisingly) intertwined. The author's brisk, conversational prose is appealing; his book reads as if he is chatting with a smart friend, while strolling around Tehran, engaged in ta'arouf (an exaggerated form of self-deprecation key to understanding Persian society). Although Majd seems to gloss too quickly over realities that don't engage his interest—women's voices are only intermittently included—this failing scarcely mars this remarkable ride through what is often uncharted territory. (Oct.) br Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. ReviewPraise for _The Ayatollah Begs to Differbr _br “In this delightful book, Hooman Majd, a gifted storyteller, takes us on a tour of his own private Persia, which is also the Iran of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The results are illuminating, humorous, sobering, and ultimately reassuring.” br —Jon Lee Anderson, author of The Fall of Baghdad “Hooman Majd is a stylish and engaging guide through the by-ways of Iranian life. Leading us from seminary to opium den to the presidential compound, his wry sense of humor makes this book a pleasure to read.” —Gary Sick, Ph.D., senior research scholar at Columbia University and member of the National Security Council staff under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan “A witty, timely perspective on the nation posing the greatest challenge to our next President.”br —Bill White, mayor of Houston and U.S. secretary of energy under President Clinton
Title: Watership Down
Author: Richard Adams
File Type: Mobi
Subject:classics
Description:First published in 1972, Richard Adams extraordinary bestseller Watership Down takes us to a world we have never truly seen: to the remarkable life that teems in the fields, forests, and riverbanks, far beyond our cities and towns. It is a powerful saga of courage, leadership, and survival; and epic tale of a hardy band of Berkshire rabbits forced to flee the destruction of their fragile community and their trials and triumphs in the face of extraordinary adversity as they pursue a glorious dream called home
Amazon.com ReviewWatership Down has been a staple of high-school English classes for years. Despite the fact that its often a hard sell at first (what teenager wouldnt cringe at the thought of 400-plus pages of talking rabbits?), Richard Adamss bunny-centric epic rarely fails to win the love and respect of anyone who reads it, regardless of age. Like most great novels, Watership Down is a rich story that can be read (and reread) on many different levels. The book is often praised as an allegory, with its analogs between human and rabbit culture (a fact sometimes used to goad skeptical teens, who resent the challenge that they wont get it, into reading it), but its equally praiseworthy as just a corking good adventure.The story follows a warren of Berkshire rabbits fleeing the destruction of their home by a land developer. As they search for a safe haven, skirting danger at every turn, we become acquainted with the band and its compelling culture and mythos. Adams has crafted a touching, involving world in the dirt and scrub of the English countryside, complete with its own folk history and language (the book comes with a lapine glossary, a guide to rabbitese). As much about freedom, ethics, and human nature as it is about a bunch of bunnies looking for a warm hidey-hole and some mates, Watership Down will continue to make the transition from classroom desk to bedside table for many generations to come. --Paul HughesReviewQuite Marvelous...A Powerful New Vision of the Great Chain of Being. -- --The New York Times Book Review Spellbinding...Marvelous...A Taut Tale of Suspense, Hot Pursuit, and Derring-Do. -- --Chicago Tribune Spellbinding...Marvelous...A taut tale of suspense, hot pursuit, and derring-do. -- --Chicago Tribune
Title: Fatelessness
Author: Imre Kertesz
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Fiction:Historical
Description:
**One of *Publishers Weekly's* Fifty Best Books of 1992***Fateless *is a moving and disturbing novel about a Hungarian Jewish boy’s experiences in German concentration camps and his attempts to reconcile himself to those experiences after the war. Upon his return to his native Budapest still clad in his striped prison clothes, fourteen-year-old George Koves senses the indifference, even hostility, of people on the street. His former neighbors and friends urge him to put the ordeal out of his mind, while a sympathetic journalist refers to the camps as the lowest circle of hell. The boy can relate to neither cliche and is left to ponder the meaning of his experience alone.George's response to his experience is curiously ambivalent. In the camps he tries to adjust to his ever-worsening situation by imputing human motives to his inhumane captors. By imposing his logic--that of a bright, sensitive, though in many ways ordinary teenager - he maintains a precarious semblance of normalcy. Once freed, he must contend with the banality of evil to which he has become accustomed: when asked why he uses words like naturally, undeniably, and without question to describe the most horrendous of experiences, he responds, In the concentration camp it was natural. Without emotional or spiritual ties to his Jewish heritage and rejected by his country, he ultimately comes to the conclusion that neither his Hungarianness nor his Jewishness was really at the heart of his fate: rather, there are only given situations, and within these, further givens.
Title: Any way you want me
Author: Jamie Sobrato
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Romance
Description:
She's learned the hard way that following her impulses lands her in trouble. But being a by-the-book girl has never been so hard for Yasmine Talbot since the hot new guy started at work. Meeting deadlines is impossible with that delicious bod around. It's time to corner him under the mistletoe with a naughty suggestion or two!
Alex DiCarlo is so hot for Yasmine, he's almost forgotten that he's undercover investigating her. He tells himself that spending the holidays with her is perfect for some intimate observation. Truth is, he's so enjoying this sinfully sexy weekend, he wants it to continue. Too bad flings weren't meant to last....
Title: City of Hope & Despair_ City of a Hundred Rows
Author: Ian Whates
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Fantasy
Description:
A SECOND VISIT TO THAIBURLEY: THE CITY OF DREAMS, THE FABLED CITY OF A HUNDRED ROWS. Dark forces are gathering in the shadowy depths, and the whole city is under threat. The former street-nick, Tom, embarks on a journey to discover the source of the great river Thair, said to be the ultimate power behind all of Thaiburley. Accompanying him are the assassin Dewar and the young Thaistess Mildra. It soon becomes evident that their journey has more significance than any of them realise, as past secrets catch up with them and unknown adversaries hunt them... to the death! File Under: Fantasy [ Towering City | Ancient Secrets | Assassins & Gods | Soul Thief! ]
Title: The Hobbit_ Or There and Back Again
Author: J. R. R. Tolkien
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Fantasy
Description:
Written for J.R.R. Tolkien's own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when first published more than sixty years ago. Now recognized as a timeless classic with sales of more than 40 million copies worldwide, this introduction to Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the Wizard, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth tells of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent.
Title: Cruddy
Author: Lynda Barry
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Fiction
Description:
On a September night in 1971, a few days after getting busted for dropping two of the 127 hits of acid found in a friend's shoe, a sixteen-year-old who is grounded for a year curls up in the corner of her ratty bedroom, picks up a pen, and begins to write. Once upon a cruddy time on a cruddy street on the side of a cruddy hill in the cruddiest part of a crudded-out town in a cruddy state, country, world, solar system, universe. The cruddy girl named Roberta was writing the cruddy book of her cruddy life and the name of the book was called Cruddy. Now the truth can finally be revealed about the mysterious day long ago when the authorities found a child, calmly walking in the boiling desert, covered with blood. She could not give the authorities any information about why she was the only survivor and everyone else was lying around in hacked-up pieces. Roberta Rohbeson, 1971. Her overblown, drug-induced teenage rant against a world bounded by the cruddy top bedroom of a cruddy rental house on a very cruddy mud road behind cruddy Black Cat Lumber soon becomes a detailed account of another story. It is a story about which Roberta has kept silent for five years, until, under the influence of a pale hippie called the Turtle and a drug called Creeper, her tale giddily unspools... Roberta Rohbeson, 1967. The world of Roberta, age eleven, is terrifyingly unbounded, a one-way cross-country road trip fueled by revenge and by greed, a violent, hallucinatory, sometimes funny, more often horrific year of killings, betrayals, arson, and a sinister set of butcher knives, each with its own name. Welcome to Cruddy, Lynda Barry's masterful tale of the two intertwined narratives set five years -- an eternity -- apart, which form the backbone of Roberta's life. Cruddy is a wild ride indeed, a fairy tale-cum-low-budget horror movie populated by a cast of characters that will remain vivid in the reader's mind long after the final page: Roberta's father, a dangerous alcoholic and out-of-work meat cutter in search of his swindled inheritance; the frightening owners of the Knocking Hammer Bar and sometime slaughterhouse; and two charming but quite mad escapees from the Barbara V. Herrmann Home for Adolescent Rest. Written with a teenager's eye for freakish detail and a nervous ability to make the most horrible scenes seem hilarious, Roberta's two stories -- part Easy Rider and part bipolar Wizard of Oz -- painfully but inevitably converge in a surprising denouement in a nightmarish Dreamland in the Nevada desert. By turns terrifying, darkly funny, and resonant with humanity, propelled by all the narrative power of a superior thriller and burnished by the author's pitch-perfect ear for dialogue, Cruddy is a stunning achievement.