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Title: The Enchantress of Florence_ A Novel Author: Salman Rushdie File Type: Mobi Subject:Fiction:Historical Description:Amazon.com ReviewThe Enchantress of Florence is about the power of story--whether it is the imagined life of a Mughal queen, or the devastating secret held by a silver-tongued Florentine. Make no mistake, it is Rushdie who is the true enchanter of this story, conjuring readers into his gilded fairy tale from the very first sentence: In the days last light the glowing lake below the palace-city looked like a sea of molten gold. At once bawdy, gorgeous, gory, and hilarious, The Enchantress of Florence is a study in contradiction, highlighted in its barbarian philosopher-king who detests his bloodthirsty heritage even while he carries it out. Full of rich sentences running nearly the length of a page, Rushdies 10th novel blends fact and fable into a challenging but satisfying read. --Daphne Durham From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Renaissance Florences artistic zenith and Mughal Indias cultural summit—reached the following century, at Emperor Akbars court in Sikri—are the twin beacons of Rushdies ingenious latest, a dense but sparkling return to form. The connecting link between the two cities and epochs is the magically beautiful hidden princess, Qara Köz, so gorgeous that her uncovered face makes battle-hardened warriors drop to their knees. Her story underlies the books circuitous journey.A mysterious yellow-haired man in a multicolored coat steps off a rented bullock cart and walks into 16th-century Sikri: he speaks excellent Persian, has a stock of conjurers tricks and claims to be Akbars uncle. He carries with him a letter from Queen Elizabeth I, which he translates for Akbar with vast incorrectness. But it is the story of Akbars great-aunt, Qara Köz, that the man (her putative son) has come to the court to tell. The tale dates to the time of Akbars grandfather, Babar (Qara Közs brother), and it involves her relationship with the Persian Shah. In the Shahs employ is Janissary general Nino Argalia, an Italian convert to Islam, whose own story takes the narrative to Renaissance Florence. Rushdie eventually presents an extended portrait of Florence through the eyes of Niccolò Machiavelli and Ago Vespucci, cousin of the more famous Amerigo. Rushdies portrayal of Florence pales in comparison with his depiction of Mughal court society, but it brings Rushdie to his real fascination here: the multitudinous, capillary connections between East and West, a secret history of interchanges thats disguised by standard histories in which West discovers East.Along the novels roundabout way, Qara Köz does seem more alive as a sexual obsession in the tales swapped by various men than as her own person. Genial Akbar, however, emerges as the most fascinating character in the book. Chuang Tzu tells of a man who dreams of being a butterfly and, on waking up, wonders whether he is now a butterfly dreaming he is a man. In Rushdies version of the West and East, the two cultures take on a similar blended polarity in Akbar as he listens to the tales. Each culture becomes the dream of the other. (June) br Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.

Title: Consider Phlebas Author: Iain M. Banks File Type: Mobi Subject:Science-Fiction Description:Dazzlingly original. -- Daily MailGripping, touching and funny. -- TLSThe war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender. Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, actually to find it, and with it their own destruction.

Title: The Hound of Death Author: Agatha Christie File Type: Mobi Subject:Mystery Description:A dog-shaped gunpowder mark an omen from the other side a haunted house a chilling seance a case of split personalities a recurring nightmare an eerie wireless mesage an elderly ladys hold over a young man a mysterious SOS - unexplained phenomena with no apparent earthly explanation.