Erik Larson--In the Garden of Beasts_ Love, Terror, a
Title: In the Garden of Beasts_ Love, Terror, a Author: Erik Larson File Type: Mobi Subject:History Description:Amazon.com ReviewstrongAmazon Best Books of the Month, May 2011strong: In the Garden of Beasts is a vivid portrait of Berlin during the first years of Hitler’s reign, brought to life through the stories of two people: William E. Dodd, who in 1933 became America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s regime, and his scandalously carefree daughter, Martha. Ambassador Dodd, an unassuming and scholarly man, is an odd fit among the extravagance of the Nazi elite. His frugality annoys his fellow Americans in the State Department and Dodd’s growing misgivings about Hitler’s ambitions fall on deaf ears among his peers, who are content to “give Hitler everything he wants.” Martha, on the other hand, is mesmerized by the glamorous parties and the high-minded conversation of Berlin’s salon society—and flings herself headlong into numerous affairs with the city’s elite, most notably the head of the Gestapo and a Soviet spy. Both become players in the exhilarating (and terrifying) story of Hitler’s obsession for absolute power, which culminates in the events of one murderous night, later known as “the Night of Long Knives.” The rise of Nazi Germany is a well-chronicled time in history, which makes In the Garden of Beasts all the more remarkable. Erik Larson has crafted a gripping, deeply-intimate narrative with a climax that reads like the best political thriller, where we are stunned with each turn of the page, even though we already know the outcome. --_Shane Hansanuwat_Review“Reads like an elegant thriller…utterly compelling… marvelous stuff. An excellent and entertaining book that deserves to be a bestseller, and probably will be.”—_The Washington Post_ “A master at writing true tales as riveting as fiction.”--_People_ (3 12 stars) Larson has done it again, expertly weaving together a fresh new narrative from ominous days of the 20th century.--Associated Press [L]ike slipping slowly into a nightmare, with logic perverted and morality upended….It all makes for a powerful, unsettling immediacy.--Bruce Handy, _Vanity Fair “Dazzling….Reads like a suspense novel, replete with colorful characters, both familiar and those previously relegated to the shadows. Like Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories or Victor Klemperer’s Diaries, IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS is an on-the-ground documentary of a society going mad in slow motion.--The Chicago Sun-Times_“[G]ripping, a nightmare narrative of a terrible time. It raises again the question never fully answered about the Nazi era—what evil humans are capable of, and what means are necessary to cage the beast.”--_The Seattle Times_In this mesmerizing portrait of the Nazi capital, Larson plumbs a far more diabolical urban cauldron than in his bestselling The Devil in the White City...a vivid, atmospheric panorama of the Third Reich and its leaders, including murderous Nazi factional infighting, through the accretion of small crimes and petty thuggery.--_Publishers Weekly_(Starred Review) strongPraise for Erik Larsonstrong strongTHUNDERSTRUCKstrong“A ripping yarn of murder and invention.”—_Los Angeles Times_ “Larson’s gift for rendering an historical era with vibrant tactility and filling it with surprising personalities makes...
Title: An Aegean Prophecy
Author: Jeffrey Siger
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Fiction:Thriller
Description:St John wrote the apocalyptic Book of Revelation over 1900 years ago in a cave on Greece's eastern Aegean island of Patmos. When a revered monk from that holy island's thousand-year-old monastery is murdered in Patmos's town square during Easter Week, Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis is called upon to find the killer.Andreas's impolitic search for answers brings him face-to-face with a scandal haunting the world's oldest surviving monastic community. On the pristine Aegean peninsula of Mount Athos, isolated from the rest of humanity, twenty monasteries sit protecting the secrets of Byzantium amid a way of life virtually unchanged for more than 1500 years. But today this sacred refuge harbours modern international intrigues that threaten to destroy the very heart of the Church . . . in a matter of days.
Title: The Venetian Judgement
Author: David Stone
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Fiction:Religous
Description:Apr 2009
At the start of bestseller Stone's formulaic third thriller to feature CIA cleaner Micah Dalton (after The Orpheus Deception), Dalton takes revenge late one night outside Venice's Piazza San Marco on one of the Serbian thugs responsible for the death of his lover, Cora Vasari. Dalton's actions result in his becoming involved in the search for a high-level traitor in the CIA's ranks, who's believed to be behind the brutal murder of elderly Mildred Durant, an unofficial adviser to an NSA decryption team known as the Glass Cutters, in her London home. Durant worked on the Venona Project, the interception of Soviet cable traffic, during the cold war. It appears Stalin had a source close to Roosevelt who was never exposed. While no one will mistake Stone for John le Carré, series fans are sure to root for the unstoppable Dalton, compared at one point to the newly risen Christ, only blond and not quite so loving, with a bullet scar on one cheek and no intention at all of turning the other.
Title: The Long Goodbye
Author: Raymond Chandler
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Mystery
Description:From Library JournalChandler is not only the best writer of hardboiled PI stories, hes one of the 20th centurys top scribes, period. His full canon of novels and short stories is reprinted in trade paper featuring uniform covers in Black Lizards signature style. A handsome set for a reasonable price. br 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. ReviewRaymond Chandler is a master. --_The New York Times_br _br ?[Chandler] wrote as if pain hurt and life mattered.? --The New Yorker ?Chandler seems to have created the culminating American hero: wised up, hopeful, thoughtful, adventurous, sentimental, cynical and rebellious.? --Robert B. Parker, The New York Times Book Review ?Philip Marlowe remains the quintessential urban private eye.? --Los Angeles Timesbr _br ?Nobody can write like Chandler on his home turf, not even Faulkner. . . . An original. . . . A great artist.? ?_The Boston Book Reviewbr _br ?Raymond Chandler was one of the finest prose writers of the twentieth century. . . . Age does not wither Chandler?s prose. . . . He wrote like an angel.? --_Literary Reviewbr _br ?[T]he prose rises to heights of unselfconscious eloquence, and we realize with a jolt of excitement that we are in the presence of not a mere action tale teller, but a stylist, a writer with a vision.? --Joyce Carol Oates, _The New York Review of Books _?Chandler wrote like a slumming angel and invested the sun-blinded streets of Los Angeles with a romantic presence.? ?Ross Macdonaldbr _br _?Raymond Chandler is a star of the first magnitude.? --Erle Stanley Gardnerbr _br _?Raymond Chandler invented a new way of talking about America, and America has never looked the same to us since.? --Paul Auster ?[Chandler]?s the perfect novelist for our times. He takes us into a different world, a world that?s like ours, but isn?t. ? --Carolyn Seebr _br _ -- Review
Title: Tom Clancy's Op-Center_ State of Siege
Author: Tom Clancy
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Fiction:War
Description:
Driven by greed, a group of U.N. peacekeeping soldiers called Keepers devises a shocking scheme to get the worlds attention after their tour of duty ends. Op-Center head Paul Hood has to put retirement on hold because the Keepers have taken over the U.N., where his daughter is performing for ambassadors at a gala function. This time the Keepers have made it personal, and the Op-Center forces will strike with deadly vengeance.
Title: Sandworms of Dune
Author: Brian Herbert
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Science-Fiction:Dune
Description:From Publishers WeeklyLongtime collaborators Herbert and Anderson set themselves a steep challenge—and, in the end, fail to meet it—in this much anticipated wrapup of the original Dune cycle (after 2006's Hunters of Dune). A large cast scattered across the cosmos must be brought together so that the final, all-powerful Kwisatz Haderach may be revealed in the ultimate face-off between humankind and the machine empire ruled by the implacable Omnius. Though pacing is brisk and the infrequent action scenes crackle with tension, only two minor characters—gholas, who are young clones with restored memories, of Suk doctor Wellington Yueh and God-Emperor Leto II—acquire real depth. Everyone else is too busy reacting to mostly irrelevant subplots like sabotage aboard the no-ship Ithaca, a plague devastating the planet of Chapterhouse and the genetic engineering of marine-dwelling sandworms. The lengthy climax relies on at least four consecutive deus ex machina bailouts, eventually devolving into sheer fairy tale optimism. Series fans will argue the novel's merits for years; others will be underwhelmed. (Aug.) Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. FromBy the time of this second volume of the third Dune prequel trilogy, battles and plagues have nearly destroyed humans and their planets. Sheanna revives the ghola cloning project to pit genius against numbers. Almost all the saga principals have been re-created—Paul, Jessica, Letos I and II, Chani, Stilgar, even Wellington Yueh and Baron Harkonnen—and are hiding on the no-ship. The eleventh ghola of Duncan Idaho keeps an eye on things. Naturally, such a crew generates intrigue, dissension, and many actions unintentionally at cross-purposes. Some of the re-creations learn from the past, some don't. Meanwhile, Omnius and Erasmus, leaders of the thinking machines, search for the no-ship; failing to find it, they finish the destruction of any planet capable of supporting human life. When the clones and the thinking machines finally confront each other, the conflict proves pretty gripping. Its plot derived from Frank Herbert's notes, Sandworms should fascinate Dune fans. The series' long run by now begs the question of whether, since Sandworms ties up so many loose ends, more of what has been learned about the construction and destruction of ecologies, and about thinking machines, in the 42 years since Dune was first published couldn't figure in the promised ninth prequel volume, Paul of Dune. Murray, Frieda
Title: The Fires of Heaven
Author: Robert Jordan
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Fantasy
Description:
In this sequel to the phenomenal New York Times bestseller The Shadow Rising, Robert Jordan again plunges us into his extraordinarily rich, totally unforgettable world:. ... Into the forbidden city of Rhuidean, where Rand alThor, now the Dragon Reborn, must conceal his present endeavor from all about him, even Egwene and Moiraine. ... Into the Amyrlins study in the White Tower, where the Amyrlin, Flaida do Avriny aRoihan, is weaving new plans. ... Into Andor, where Siuan Sanche and her companions, including the false Dragon Logain, have been arrested for barn-burning. ... Into the luxurious hidden chamber where the Forsaken Rahvin is meeting with three of his fellows to ensure their ultimate victory over the Dragon. ... Into the Queens court in Caemlyn, where Morgase is curiously in thrall to the handsome Lord Gaebril. For once the Dragon walks the land, the fires of heaven fall where they will, until all mens lives are ablaze. And in Shayol Ghul, the Dark One stirs.