The Abstainer

The Abstainer PDF

Author: Ian McGuire

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2020-09-15

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0593133897

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“This is Dickens in the present tense, Dickens for the twenty-first century.”—Roddy Doyle, The New York Times Book Review An Irishman in nineteenth-century England is forced to take sides when his nephew joins the bloody underground movement for independence in this propulsive novel from the acclaimed author of The North Water. NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY CHICAGO TRIBUNE AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times • The New York Public Library • New Statesman • Publishers Weekly Manchester, England, 1867. The rebels will be hanged at dawn, and their brotherhood is already plotting its revenge. Stephen Doyle, an Irish-American veteran of the Civil War, arrives in Manchester from New York with a thirst for blood. He has joined the Fenians, a secret society intent on ending British rule in Ireland by any means necessary. Head Constable James O’Connor has fled grief and drink in Dublin for a sober start in Manchester. His job is to discover and thwart the Fenians’ plans whatever they might be. When a long-lost nephew arrives on O’Connor’s doorstep looking for work, he cannot foresee the way his fragile new life will be imperiled—and how his and Doyle’s fates will become fatally intertwined. In this propulsive tale of the underground war for Irish independence, the author of The North Water once again transports readers to a time when blood begot blood. Moving from the dirt and uproar of industrial Manchester to the quiet hills of rural Pennsylvania, The Abstainer is a searing novel in which two men, haunted by their pasts and driven forward by the need for justice and retribution, must fight for life and legacy.

The Radleys

The Radleys PDF

Author: Matt Haig

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2011-09-20

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 1451610335

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Includes a "Reading group guide" ([12] p.).

The North Water

The North Water PDF

Author: Ian McGuire

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2016-03-15

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 1627795944

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One of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year National Bestseller Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Winner of the RSL Encore Award Finalist for the Los Angeles Book Prize A New York Times and Wall Street Journal Bestseller Named a Best Book of the Year by Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, New Statesman, Publishers Weekly, and Chicago Public Library Behold the man: stinking, drunk, and brutal. Henry Drax is a harpooner on the Volunteer, a Yorkshire whaler bound for the rich hunting waters of the arctic circle. Also aboard for the first time is Patrick Sumner, an ex-army surgeon with a shattered reputation, no money, and no better option than to sail as the ship's medic on this violent, filthy, and ill-fated voyage. In India, during the Siege of Delhi, Sumner thought he had experienced the depths to which man can stoop. He had hoped to find temporary respite on the Volunteer, but rest proves impossible with Drax on board. The discovery of something evil in the hold rouses Sumner to action. And as the confrontation between the two men plays out amid the freezing darkness of an arctic winter, the fateful question arises: who will survive until spring? With savage, unstoppable momentum and the blackest wit, Ian McGuire's The North Water weaves a superlative story of humanity under the most extreme conditions.

The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven

The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven PDF

Author: Nathaniel Ian Miller

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2021-10-26

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0316592560

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In this "briskly entertaining" (New York Times Book Review), "transporting and wholly original" (People Magazine) novel, one man banishes himself to a solitary life in the Arctic Circle, and is saved by good friends, a loyal dog, and a surprise visit that changes everything. In 1916, Sven Ormson leaves a restless life in Stockholm to seek adventure in Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago where darkness reigns four months of the year and he might witness the splendor of the Northern Lights one night and be attacked by a polar bear the next. But his time as a miner ends when an avalanche nearly kills him, leaving him disfigured, and Sven flees even further, to an uninhabited fjord. There, with the company of a loyal dog, he builds a hut and lives alone, testing himself against the elements. The teachings of a Finnish fur trapper, along with encouraging letters from his family and a Scottish geologist who befriended him in the mining camp, get him through his first winter. Years into his routine isolation, the arrival of an unlikely visitor salves his loneliness, sparking a chain of surprising events that will bring Sven into a family of fellow castoffs and determine the course of the rest of his life. Written with wry humor and in prose as breathtaking as the stark landscape it evokes, The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven is a testament to the strength of our human bonds, reminding us that even in the most inhospitable conditions on the planet, we are not beyond the reach of love. #1 Indie Next Pick Finalist for the Vermont Book Award Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

Incredible Bodies

Incredible Bodies PDF

Author: Ian McGuire

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2016-05-05

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 1408882469

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______________ 'Hugely entertaining' - The Times 'A wincingly entertaining portrayal of academe with its pants down. And a reminder that when things are at their worst they're also at their funniest' - Liz Jensen 'Covering familiar territory in this sardonic academic novel, McGuire wittily exposes his characters' pretensions and frustrations ... Outwitted and exploited at every step of the way, Gutman and his story are at once very funny and disconcertingly sad' - Sunday Times ______________ Thirty-something Morris Gutman is a chronically indecisive temporary lecturer at the University of Coketown. Life hasn't turned out as he planned: he has a demanding wife, an insomniac child and teaches demeaning courses to ungrateful English students. However, he is willing to do whatever it takes to negotiate a permanent departmental job, even if it means finding his way through the minefield that is academia and winning over the alluring and manipulative research fellow Zoe Cable.

Sacred Hunger

Sacred Hunger PDF

Author: Barry Unsworth

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2012-01-10

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0307948447

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Winner of the Booker Prize A historical novel set in the eighteenth century, Sacred Hunger is a stunning, engrossing exploration of power, domination, and greed in the British Empire as it entered fully into the slave trade and spread it throughout its colonies. Barry Unsworth follows the failing fortunes of William Kemp, a merchant pinning his last chance to a slave ship; his son who needs a fortune because he is in love with an upper-class woman; and his nephew who sails on the ship as its doctor because he has lost all he has loved. The voyage meets its demise when disease spreads among the slaves and the captain's drastic response provokes a mutiny. Joining together, the sailors and the slaves set up a secret, utopian society in the wilderness of Florida, only to await the vengeance of the single-minded, young Kemp.

Mindful Drinking

Mindful Drinking PDF

Author: Rosamund Dean

Publisher: Orion

Published: 2017-12-28

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 140917879X

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With an easy three-step plan, Mindful Drinking: How To Break Up With Alcohol is here to help the 64% of Brits who want to drink less, and cultivate a new, healthy and more mindful relationship with alcohol. You CAN drink less, without giving up! Journalist Rosamund Dean combines scientific expertise with practical advice in a game-changing three step guide: The Problem, The Incentive, and The Plan. By following this guide you will be able to experience the benefits of drinking less - drinking less will improve your mood, your skin, your sex-drive and your body as well as reduce stress and anxiety. Whether you are sober-curious, or just want to cut down - Mindful Drinking: How To Break Up With Alcohol shows not only why you should, but also how you can, in a way that will change your life forever. What readers have been saying about Mindful Drinking: How to Break Up With Alcohol: 'Brilliant book; realistic and creating real positive change' 'Would highly recommend for anyone who is concerned about the amount they drink, but doesn't want to completely stop.' 'A brilliantly straightforward and realistic approach to cutting down sensibly.' 'Really broke a cycle for me of just drinking every weekend.'

Fortunate Life

Fortunate Life PDF

Author: A.B. Facey

Publisher: Fremantle Press

Published: 2018-04-21

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1925591417

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Albert Facey’s story is the story of Australia.Born in 1894, and first sent to work at the age of eight, Facey lived the rough frontier life of a labourer and farmer and jackaroo, becoming lost and then rescued by Indigenous trackers, then gaining a hard-won literacy, surviving Gallipoli, raising a family through the Depression, losing a son in the Second World War, and meeting his beloved Evelyn with whom he shared nearly sixty years of marriage.Despite enduring unimaginable hardships, Facey always saw his life as a fortunate one.A true classic of Australian literature, Facey’s simply penned story offers a unique window onto the history of Australian life through the greater part of the twentieth century – the extraordinary journey of an ordinary man.

Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile

Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile PDF

Author: Gyles Brandreth

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2009-09-01

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 1416987207

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Playwright and raconteur Oscar Wilde embarks on another adventure as he sets sail for America in the 1880s on a roller coaster of a lecture tour. But the adventure doesn't truly begin until Oscar boards an ocean liner headed back across the Atlantic and joins a motley crew led by French impresario Edmond La Grange. As Oscar becomes entangled with the La Grange acting dynasty, he suspects that all is not as it seems. What begins with a curious death at sea soon escalates to a series of increasingly macabre tragedies once the troupe arrives in Paris to perform Hamlet. A strange air of indifference surrounds these seemingly random events, inciting Oscar to dig deeper, aided by his friends Robert Sherard and the divine Sarah Bernhardt. What he discovers is a horrifying secret -- one that may bring him closer to his own last chapter than anyone could have imagined. As intelligent as it is beguiling, this third installment in the richly historical mystery series is sure to captivate and entertain.

Garden of Earthly Bodies

Garden of Earthly Bodies PDF

Author: Sally Oliver

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2022-06-07

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 164700568X

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An exquisitely eerie and unsettling speculative novel that grapples with questions of trauma, identity, and the workings of memory Months after her sister’s death, Marianne wakes up to find a growth of thick black hairs along her spine. They defy her attempts to remove them, instead proliferating, growing longer. The hairs, Marianne’s doctor tells her, are a reaction to trauma, developed in the wake of the loss of her sister, Marie. Her doctor recommends that Marianne visits Nede, a modern, New Age rehabilitation center in a remote forest in Wales where the patients attend unorthodox therapy sessions and commune with nature. Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and the other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kind. As the hairs on her back continue to grow, the past starts to entangle itself with the present and the borders of her consciousness threaten to disintegrate. She finds herself drawn back compulsively to the memory of Marie, obsessing over the impulse that drew her sister toward death and splintered her family apart. As Marianne’s memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a terrible price: that of identity itself. Haunting, lyrical, and introspective, Garden of Earthly Bodies is a startlingly accomplished and original debut about the bond between two sisters, love and its limits, and our inability to ever truly to know the minds of others. With an intense and precise attention to the internal workings of minds and bodies and a disturbing speculative plot, the novel welcomes an assured new voice to the genre.