Xlibris feb 2008 (32 risultati)

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - SynopsisMAHAYK AND THE BARBER OF LYLEThis literary novel is about a twelve-year-old Japanese violinist, who has lost everything when 360 B-29 bombers have burned Tokyo in 1945, becomes a Gamigaze pilot. During his mission, US Task Force 78 shot him down in Korea Strait. General Ma Halbin who survived Tragic Long March of the Red Army and fought the Japanese all his life until being fatally wounded and disabled by the Japanese attacks in Yenan, saves this enemy boy. The boy fights Korean War; becomes a commander; and exiles to America accused of plotting a coup d'etat.…

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - These journal entries comprise two volumes of selections (1973-1982, 1982-1988). Volume I includes an Introduction and some biographical memories. As Stephane Mallarme considered literature the antithesis of journalism, a journal is often the antithesis of a diary. It is of less interest to record moods and events, or barriers to self-realization, than to have ideas and insights about these. As a journal-keeper, I am generally disinterested in diurnal details, unless these form the compost of deeper exploration or revelation, seeking insight into my condition, not simply its description. A journal, therefore, is often more complex and difficult than a diary, far less personal in depictions of daily fortune, using everyday experiences as a stepstool (at the least) to peer beyond the walls of psychological enclosure. I did not choose the journal form to mask the personal, to belittle or avoid it, but to reflect my most intimate assessment of the personal as contributing to something greater: comprehension. It is not enough merely to record the frustrations, joys or barriers of living, without appraising these for what they represent and suggest, where we learn not merely reiterate. The ideal criteria of selection and discrimination apply not only to one's journal, but to life as well, adding a mythological drama and perspective that immersion alone does not permit. In some ways, journalizing is similar in impulse to the pastoral ethos or motif familiar in contemplative writing from Virgil to Thoreau: one withdraws from active society, toward natural or rural settings, in search of some form of respite, then returns to tell of their discoveries. Some critics have seen this as the organizing design of most North American fables--in fact, as the American mythology, seeking to heal the serious schism between our natural psyche and its more devastated environment; that is, a search for a middle ground (or via media) between the primitive and the technologically complex. This volume of journal selections resembles that motif, focusing on the withdrawal phase of a generally recuperative metaphysical cycle. Such solitude is intentional, a critical phase in the live/withdraw/live-again cycle of spiritual refreshment. A recuperative isolation can be experienced daily, if one is discriminating in how their time is spent, but is usually gained more intensely over long, purposefully reclusive periods. The motivations for my withdrawal were several, perhaps the strongest a propensity (as described of another Irish writer) for being nearly overcome by the variety of life. If not overcome, certainly fatigued by events in and of themselves. A reflective silence seemed essential to examine the roots of this propensity. An ideal of pure time, free of most distractions (human or otherwise), was also necessary for writing of the sort that interested me, the personally contemplative or mystical. Only through such reflection could I ever achieve a meaningful connection with the more active life that surrounded me. The predominant experience of solitude--especially in a society where the value of withdrawal is suspect or sporadic--is the figurative isolation one experiences throughout the entire cycle of withdrawal and re-emergence. It is generally difficult for lovers of action to comprehend this attraction to non-doing. One of the aims of solitude is to reunite philosophy and religion, or rather philosophy and awe, to not accept the social impoverishment of these universal needs for knowledge and worship. The asceticism of retreat was not solely the traditional and philosophical appeal of simplicity, but the freedom from income-producing and time-consuming work it permitted. For the solitary, however, an ideal of pure time must be united with an ideal of intimate association, if the mystical quest is to be emotionally as well as spiritually and intellectually fulfilling. This search for integrality encompasses the richness. …

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - WEB EXCERPT - Letters in Blood - # 40739Tom Larkin paid fifty grand for his brilliant red casket monthsbefore they planned a sailor's funeral for him that night. His coffin cruisedat 120 mph with its dash lit like a jet's cockpit, where the most-importantreading to Larkin glowed on his Porsche's digital clock--4:00 AM. Perhapsit was his darkest moment before dawn, but he had other plans. Hedrove recklessly, hydroplaning northbound on Manhattan's flooded FDRDrive through sheets of pouring rain.The drive home took an hour, but, with minimal visibility in a torrential downpour, the flooded Harlem River Drive leading to the GeorgeWashington Bridge concealed potholes rattling the fine suspension of hisGerman-made wet dream. Larkin's greater problem-DWI-was a giventhey had counted on. Still, they drugged his last sour mash at Rao's, just toup the prelude's tempo to an evening dirge. With the bad weather, his inebriation, and hallucinations from a subtle drug taking hold of his senses, thedistance between Larkin and home lengthened as time became his enemy.Vera, his wife, told him she'd kill him the next time he stumbled inafter daybreak. It was no idle threat. He knew she could kill in a crime ofpassion, especially him. Death lurked at the start and finish of his racehomeward, but, with two strikes against him, only he could fathom the thirdhis bent to self destruction.If all went as planned, Harbor Police would find Tom Larkin deadbehind the wheel after hitting the muddy bottom of the East River, or anyother river. They just wanted him gone, stateside or overseas, no matterwhat.Larkin still felt sharp an hour after downing his third double JackDaniels. In his mind, past, present, and future were clear. Rememberinghis hat size, Social Security number, and the measurements of a dozenbimbos was no problem. He could read his driver's license number fromthree paces, backward, upside down, with either eye or both-withoutglasses.He'd been sharp for two hours before he started driving, but anhour after his last belt, the one first kicked in with the drugs andcompounded his usual buzz. Seeing Vera as more dangerous than the roadhe sped recklessly despite the hazardous conditions. He had no idea anyonewanted to kill him for anything other than his flagrant infidelities.To his right, the black depths of the East River was a fatal attraction.He could be a loser on two counts, but there was a third alternative, theloser's hat trick--call strike-three without a swat to stay alive. His ownworst enemy, he knew they might find him dead before dawn on all threecounts.'Bastards,' he grumbled, cursing his so called buddies who lethim get behind the wheel after he had been pumping drinks for hours. Theirnames escaped him. So much for clarity. Sharp as a rose thorn hewondered. My ass.Where were those faceless nonentities They were friends enough tobuy his fourth drink in a dingy saloon, yet, they had turned their backs whenhe squinted to read the address on his parking stub. Had they callouslywatched him stumbling to his Porsche trying to get the himself home So much for twenty-twenty fucking vision, he thought. Vera will killme if I'm not out of here. What time you got, Pal I can't read my damnwatch.'His mind and car sped out of control at a mile a minute. The EastRiver beckoned. Who could ever see clearly in a dim twilight betweenhappy hour and an untimely death He shrugged and imagined seeing his own hands clutching thesteering wheel but saw no flesh, only bone. In the rearview mirror, he caughtthe malicious grins of three Mexican capungos, banditswho'd kill as soon as spit.'Fuck off!' he shouted, shaking their image from his mind. Adjustingthe mirror to be sure they were gone, he saw his own reflection as a skeletonand swerved toward the rive.…

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - A Boy's Journey is the poignant, often humorous, memoir of Jackie, a child growing up in the Midwest during the 1930s and early 1940s. The boy's story initially focuses on the joys and sorrows of a motherless working class family striving to cope with the hardships of the Great Depression. However, the chronicle takes a macabre turn when Jackie's alcoholic father loses his job and attempts to commit suicide. Jackie and two of his brothers are taken to the county orphanage. The author's bittersweet account of his life in the orphanage and subsequent experiences as an adopted teenager concludes as the Depression ends and he enters the U. S. Navy during World War II.…

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - A plane is found in the Utah desert with the passengers -- minus one -- having no recollection of what happened the past few days. Meanwhile, an obstetrician learns that there has been a gradual decline in the world's birthrate, and that the decline is accelerating. Is there a connection between the two Get ready to be intrigued by John Lee's Stigma. …

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware.