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Short stories and science writing from a Robert A. Heinlein Award winner: Allen Steele is among the best. St. Louis Post-Dispatch   In Rude Astronauts, Allen Steele presents some of his finest storiesincluding the Diamondback Jack Trilogy and his first published story, Live from the Mars Hotelalong with excerpts of the nonfiction science writing with which he made his name. In Steeles universe, the stars are cold, space is big, and its the normal people who make things interesting. 

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A journey through the glorious Italian citys scenery, history, and culture, from the New York Timesbestselling author of Venice Observed and The Group. Mary McCarthys classic celebrates the Italian city often looked upon as the provincial sister to the better-dressed, more feminine Venice. To McCarthy, Florence, or Firenze, is a place of ageless enchantment, from the Duomo to the fortressed palaces. The Renaissance began here; art and architecture flourished. From its roots as a center of medieval trade to its transformation into one of the worlds wealthiest cities, McCarthy charts Florences rich and turbulent history. She introduces a cast of towering real-life characters. Through her probing writers lens, the poetry of Dante and the magnificent artistry of Raphael and Botticelli come vibrantly alive. Along this illuminating journey, McCarthy offers fascinating bits of trivia: There are no ruins in Florence because the Florentines arent sentimental about their past; America took its name from a Florentine traveler named Amerigo Vespucci. From Michelangelo to the Medicis to the story behind a statues missing head, The Stones of Florence is Mary McCarthys hymn to this unique city. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the authors estate. 

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From Madame Bovary to Macbeth, this collection by Mary McCarthy offers surprising revelations about some of the worlds most beloved worksShakespeare, Nabokov, Orwell, and Burroughs are just a few of the literary immortals featured in this engaging and thought-provoking volume.In one remarkable essay, McCarthy provides a lively discourse on the true nature of evil in Shakespeares plays. Focusing on the character of Macbeth, she reveals why Lady Macbeth, who has to unsex herself and wear the pants, is the more human of the two. She tells us why the often-overlooked character of Madame Bovarys husband, Charles, is the true hero, and not Emma Bovary, whom Flaubert once famously said was himself. Also included here is McCarthys impassioned defense of Hannah Arendts controversial book Eichmann in Jerusalem, as well as a discussion of the reactionary leftist writers, and a look at why J. D. Salinger was the obvious successor to Hemingway.Distinguished by McCarthys savage intelligence, clarity of thought, and utter lack of pretension, The Writing on the Wall is a timeless gem from an author who reveres the written word.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the authors estate.

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It seems like Ryan, Zeke, Miles, and Eli have been friends forever. They spend practically every afternoon together playing basketball or just hanging out. But this year is different. All four friends are trying out for the basketball team.With so many good players in the running, Ryan is concerned that he wont make the team. But hes even more worried about what will happen to his group of friends if all of them dont make the final cut.

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Jake Daley loves baseball. He loves playing for the Red Sox in the Woodside Baseball League. He loves playing short stop. Most of all, he loves to win.So Jake is excited when new kid Adam Hull joins the team. Adam can do it allpitch, hit and field. But soon Jakes excitement beings to fade. As the Red Sox rack up win after win, Adams talents dominate every game. Jake cant help but wonder:Do he and the other players even matter? 

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The Tigers are in trouble.Baseball season is underway and Coach Skelly just quit.When Scott and his teammates cant find anyone to coach the team, it looks as if the Tigers season might be over before it really begins.But then the Tigers have an idea: what if one of them became coach? After all, some of the biggest names in baseball history were player-coaches. Why not a kid coach? 

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More than anything, T. J. wants to be a pitcher. But hes smaller than his teammates, and his pitches just dont pack the power they need to strike out the batters. When T. J. learns about one of baseballs early heroes, Pittsburgh Pirate Rip Sewell, he decides to try Sewells secret weapon. But will his teammates give T. J. the chance to prove that he can be a pitcher? And will T. J.s secret pitch help lead his team to victory?

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Tyler is angry when his best friend Zack, their teams hotshot midfielder, leaves to play for the Panthers, an elite travel team. Hes sure the Cougars season will tankbefore it even begins. The Cougars lose their season openerand their next game, too. Tyler blames Zack, but its clear his team needs a new attitudeand a lot more practice. Can Tyler help make a difference before its too late?

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Sam loves football. Theres nothing better than the rush he gets when his team, the Cowboys, are working togethermoving closer and closer to the end zone.In a key game, the Cowboys beat their arch rivals to remain undefeated, thanks to a major play by Sam. But the celebration ends when he and his teammates make an unwelcome discovery.Is the Cowboys perfect season in jeopardy?

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A dark and beautiful tale of a most unusual schoolWolf Walker is the director of the Suicide Academy. Troubled individuals come to his school for just one day and must decide whether to end their lives. As for Wolf himself, he is suffering a kind of death-in-life. The Academys board members have involved him in a policy skirmish, and the depressed employee he had an affair with is not getting any better. When his ex-wife, Jewel, and her husband come on the scene, ostensibly to make a film about the Academy, he is racked by old jealousiesand he also wonders, might she secretly be checking in?Packed with meaning, The Suicide Academy is a gripping existential parable about souls adrift in modern life.

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A witty novel about art, morality, and the midlife crisis of an earnest man who works at an advertising agency, by an original and accomplished writer (Los Angeles Times).  Wolf Walker is that noblest of creatures: the unrealized artist. He is also ethical advisor to the Lester & French Advertising Agencya professional conscience. After reading an alarming entry in his wifes diary on his fortieth birthday, Wolf sets out to reclaim his sense of identity. His resulting midlife crisis is both surreal and hilarious, poignant and imaginative. The Rose Rabbi is a fable about the relation between morals, art, and life, from one of Americas best writers of fiction.

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Jamie has the perfect glove. No matter the play, he can make the catch. Hes oiled the glove all winter and, as the season approaches, heand his gloveare in top form.But when the golden glove mysteriously disappears, so do Jamies confidence and his baseball skills.Will Jamie find his glove in time for the big game? Was the golden glove really the secret of his success?

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Elly Kaufman is too young, too beautiful, and too intense to accept life on its own terms; instead, she creates havoc in the world around herIn postwar Indianapolis, young dreamer Elly is navigating adolescence in a tight-knit family. Her search for truth leads her through a variety of experiencesand loves. To a famous architect, she is a symbol of undying youth; to a struggling actor, she is the unspoiled image of creative will; to an ex-GI, she is a thief; to a young musician, she is the source of inspiration. But what will Elly be to herself?

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A young carpenter finds himself in turmoil as his wife rapidly descends into mental illnessThe Deer at the River follows an especially intense period in the life of Noah Dubbins, a young carpenter and father of three living in rural New Hampshire. Noahs life changes drastically when he returns from work one day to find his wife, Ruth, behaving erratically and reenacting the birth of their youngest son. Ruth is committed to a psychiatric hospital and Noah is left to look after their children on his own. In his loneliness, he wrestles with his lust for an old flame and a burgeoning confusion about his sexuality. With financial problems, a family to raise, and increasing grief over his wifes condition, how will Noah cope? The Deer at the River is a wrenching parable of everyday spiritual turmoil. 

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An American opera singer travels to Naples and becomes embroiled in his strangest role yetMichael Ruane is an obscure American opera singer who arrives in Naples to play a small part in an important production of Tosca and star in his own staging of a little-known Benjamin Britten opera. The work comes at a particularly trying time, when hes still raw with grief after his New York lovers death from AIDS. As the productions get under way, Ruane is offered an unusual part: that of the uncle from Rome at a local wedding. According to tradition, the presence of the uncle from Rome at important events confers prestige on the family. However, Ruane is soon enmeshed in a drama that surpasses any role he has played on the stage.The Uncle from Rome is a brilliant and colorfully imagined novel filled with theatrics of operatic proportions.

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Hollywoodand the tangled passions of men and womentakes center stage in this unconventional thriller, the final book of Sally Beaumans seductive and irresistible trilogy of page-turnersExpertly weaving a cast of compelling characters with a moody, multilayered plot, Sally Beauman once again shows why shes the reigning mistress of drama and suspense. Part mystery, part allegory, and part love story, Sextet reveals the yearnings and dangerous desires of the human heart as it hurtles to a stunning climax.

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A novel of second love between Americans abroada monumental achievement from the New York Timesbestselling author of The Womens Room (Cosmopolitan).  Dolores Durer, a divorced English professor and the mother of two adult children, has sworn off love after a series of disastrous affairs. Electronics executive Victor Morrissey is in England to open a branch office. He has four children and is unhappily married. From the moment they meeton a traintheir connection is instant and passionate. The two Americans abroad embark on an affair that will have consequences in both their lives. Each carries baggage. Dolores is haunted by family tragedy; Victor is tormented by marital estrangement. Driven by an impending sense of urgency, knowing their time together is finite, they struggle to transform their pasts into a hopeful future. 

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The story of a troupe of actors in seventeenth-century Italy, from one of a handful of truly indispensable American writers (Gary Shteyngart).The Glorious Ones are an unlikely troupe of actors, traveling up and down the seventeenth-century Italian countryside performing commedia dellarte for kings, for peasants, for anyone with coin. There is Armanda, the cheerful dwarf and ex-nun; chattering Columbina; Pantalone the miser; and the wicked Brighellaall led by Flaminio Scala, the self-proclaimed most courageous man in Christendom.But for all their wild differences, not one of them is prepared for the arrival of Isabella, their mysterious new director, who is about to turn their whole world upside down.Dramatic and imaginative, this tale of adventure, love, and theater is a historical romp from the award-winning, New York Timesbestselling author of novels, including Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932, and Household Saints, as well as the literary guide book Reading Like a Writer.

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From the wonderfully quirky imagination of the New York Timesbestselling author: A tabloid reporter is surprised to find magic in a mundane world (The New York Times).   Vera Pearl is a staff writer for This Week, a supermarket tabloid which trades in the bizarre and the absurdthough rarely, if ever, the true. No one is better than Vera at imagining these weird, wild stories, because more than anything, she wants them to be real.   During one particularly slow week, Vera takes a photograph snapped by a colleague showing two children selling lemonade outside their Brooklyn home and drafts up a scoop to fit the snap, the story of two enterprising children who have discoveredand are profiting off ofthe literal Fountain of Youth. By astonishing coincidenceor perhaps by magicthe details she concocts about the children (except for the properties of the tap water) turn out to be true, and hundreds of miracle-seekers descend upon this modern Lourdes-in-Flatbush.   The resulting lawsuit sends this master of hoaxes into a very real tailspin: she is fired, her estranged husband flies in from Los Angeles to whisk away their precocious young daughter, and Vera takes off for Arizona to attend a meeting of the Cryptobiological Society, hoping for evidence of their furry quarry, Bigfoot. Just one glance, and Veras longing to finally transcend the quotidian may come true . . .  

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The Allied Invasion of France, 194243 (An Alternative History)

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What would have happened if Churchills Mediterranean strategy was overruled? This novel of an alternate D-Day explores this fascinating scenario. One of the great arguments of World War II took place among Allied military leaders over when and where to launch a second front against Germany in Europe. Stalin, holding on by his teeth in Russia, urged a major invasion from the west as soon as possible. The Americans, led by Marshall and Wedemeyer, argued likewise. It was Churchill who got his way, however, with his Mediterranean strategy, including a campaign on the Italian peninsula, which he mistakenly called the soft underbelly of Europe. This realistic, fact-based work posits what would have happened had Churchill been overruled, and that rather than invading North Africa in the fall of 1942, then Sicily and Italy, the Allies had hit the coast of southern France instead. The key element that enables the alternative scenario is the cooperation of Vichy, which was negotiated at the time but refused. If the Allies had promised sufficient force to support the French, however, the entire southern coastline of France would have been undefended against a surprise invasion. In this book, once the Allied armies are ashore, Germans stream toward the front, albeit through a gauntlet of Maquis, Allied paratroopers, and airpower. Meantime the Allied forces push up the Rhone Valley and titanic armored clashes take place near Lyons. Already in desperate straits at Stalingrad, where they had committed their air and armored reserves, the Germans had also yet to switch to a full total-war economy, with tanks like the Panther and Tiger not yet deployed. This fascinating alternative history comes close to informing us exactly what might have happened had D-Day in Europe come as early as some had wished.