Showing results by narrator "Stephen Mendel" in All Categories

In this valedictory volume, Yale professor Harold Bloom — who for more than half a century was regarded as America's most daringly original and controversial literary critic — gives us his only book devoted entirely to the art of the novel. With his hallmark percipience, remarkable scholarship, and extraordinary devotion to sublimity, Bloom offers meditations on 48 essential works spanning the Western canon.

Peter Ash came home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with only one souvenir: crippling claustrophobia due to PTSD. After years of living rough, he's trying hard to get back to a normal life—one where people aren't trying to kill him. And then he meets Helene, a young pregnant woman stranded on a remote Nebraska road. With no other rescuers in sight, Peter offers her a ride. But Helene's angry ex-cop husband is hot on her trail.

Described as both “one of the most important novels ever written” and “the gospel of evil,” 120 Days of Sodom was written by the Marquis de Sade, a notorious eighteenth-century aristocrat who waged a campaign of mayhem and debauchery across France, evaded execution, and inspired the word “sadism,” which came to mean receiving pleasure from pain. Despite all his crimes, Sade considered this work to be his greatest transgression.

Peter Ash is wearing an armored vest, has a pistol strapped to his leg, a semi-automatic rifle by his side, and a large stash of drugs money behind him. It's hot, the static is buzzing and he's trying not to think about what happened last week. Ash is riding shotgun in a truck leased to Heavy Metal Protection, a security firm that protects cash-rich cannabis entrepreneurs from modern-day highwaymen. Just seven days ago, Heavy Metal lost an entire vehicle, crew and cargo, disappearing without a trace.

In one swift moment, a fall wiped away his memory. All he knew for certain was that someone wanted him dead - and that he had better learn why. But everywhere he turned there seemed to be more questions - or people too willing to hide the truth behind a smoke screen of lies. He had only the name he had been told was his own, his mysterious skill with a gun, and a link to a half million dollars’ worth of buried gold as evidence of his past life. Was the treasure his? Was he a thief? A killer? He didn’t have the answers, but he needed them soon. Because what he still didn’t know about himself, others did....

Peter Ash came home from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan with claustrophobia due to PTSD. He always needs to move and to have a purpose. When war correspondent Wanda Wyatt is in trouble, Peter jumps at the chance to go to her aid. He arrives in Memphis to find that a truck has been driven into Wanda's house. Someone is clearly determined to drive her from her home by any means necessary. Before he can investigate, Peter finds himself held at gunpoint. Caught between gangsters and whoever is threatening Wanda, he will need his special skills more than ever if he's going to save lives.

With two governments out to get him, ex-soldier Peter Ash has been keeping a low profile. His quiet existence in Milwaukee is far from the action-packed life he's been used to, but perhaps that's no bad thing. But when he spots a suspicious armed man walking into a busy market, Peter can't stand by and do nothing. He manages to prevent a tragedy, but the gunman escapes and his intended victim vanishes into the crowd. Then a powerful associate from Peter's past appears and makes him an irresistible offer.

In arguably his most personal and lasting work, America's most daringly original and controversial critic gives us brief, luminous readings of more than 80 texts by canonical authors - texts he has had by heart since childhood.

Eight years a soldier, Peter Ash came home from Iraq and Afghanistan with only one souvenir: what he calls 'white static', a buzzing claustrophobia due to post-traumatic stress that has driven him to spend a year roaming the Pacific coast's mountains and forests, sleeping under the stars. But when a friend from the Marines commits suicide, Ash returns to civilisation to help the man's widow and two young children. While repairing her dilapidated porch, he makes two unwelcome discoveries.

Deep in north California's redwood forests, June Cassidy is hiding. She's no idea who's after her, why they want her or how much longer she can survive. But she's not the only fugitive hiding in the woods. After eight years a soldier, Peter Ash came home with only one souvenir: what he calls 'white static', a crippling claustrophobia due to post-traumatic stress that has driven him far from conventional life and deep into the wilderness, living rough, sleeping under the stars.

Two months after D-Day, the Allies found themselves in a stalemate in Normandy, having suffered enormous casualties attempting to push through hedgerow country. Troops were spent, and American tankers, lacking the tactics and leadership to deal with the terrain, were losing their spirit. General George Patton and the other top US commanders needed an officer who knew how to break the impasse and roll over the Germans - they needed one man with the grit and the vision to take the war all the way to the Rhine. Patton and his peers selected Maurice Rose.

It’s Christmas time, and Mary Valley is in a funk. She’s a writer for home magazines, but she’s lost touch with what home means. Her life seems meaningless. The last house she wrote about was a gazillion-dollar mansion with a moat! Plus, she’s estranged from her daughter, CC, and granddaughter, Larkin, and mired in a dead-end relationship with her boss. Daniel is a man adrift since his son Timmy was killed in Afghanistan. He’s living on a houseboat in Florida with Timmy’s three-legged dog, Tripod, and taking tourists out on fishing charters. But his life is on the edge.

A man wanted by two governments, Peter Ash has found a simple, low-profile life in Milwaukee, living with his girlfriend, June, and renovating old buildings with his friend Lewis. Staying out of trouble is the key to preserving this fragile peace...but when Peter spots a suspicious armed man walking into a crowded market, he knows he can't stand by and do nothing. Peter does interrupt a crime, but it wasn't at all what he'd expected. The young gunman appeared to have one target and one mission.

When a music mogul is found strangled to death in his apartment, there's little that would give seasoned professionals Barry Gilbert and Joe Lombardo reason to pause, but this is no ordinary murder victim. Glen Boyd, the sly music producer whom even Gilbert once threatened to kill after the man nearly destroyed his venerable marriage, seems to have a shopping list of enemies a mile long.

A man, hanging from a tree at the edge of the forest that surrounds Dockerty, Newry County, has been shot with arrows, two of which pin his belly to the tree trunk. Orwell Brennan, Dockerty’s chief of police, questions the validity of it being a hunting accident when a sergeant tells him it’s been ruled a murder. He also tells the chief that the investigation is now in the hands of Metro Homicide and outside his concern.

From Hugo- and Nebula-winning author David Brin comes this extraordinary collection of tales and essays about the near and distant future, as humans and other intelligences encounter the secrets of the cosmos - and of their own existence. What happens when an urban archaeologist discovers a terrible secret under the landfills of Los Angeles? Will there still be a purpose for "biologicals" when cybernetic humans become mighty and smart? Come explore these and another dozen startling and provocative tomorrows with a modern master of science fiction.

In the midst of a February cold snap and the political maneuverings of a new government that threatens the jobs of good officers including his young partner, Detective Barry Gilbert of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force Homicide Squad is called to investigate the murder of Cheryl Latham, the stepdaughter of a prominent government official. Cheryl, her body frozen, is found on a snow-swept pier at the harbor with a bullet in her chest. Autopsy reveals a bizarre clue - Cheryl froze to death first and was shot later.

Detectives Barry Gilbert and Joe Lombardo return after their highly praised debut, Cold Comfort. This time the two are plunged into Toronto's Chinatown district where they are called to investigate the death of Edgar Lau, a man whose history and connections take the detectives on a ride across continents and cultures, deep into the story of one family's struggle to survive against terrible odds

In small-town Maine, unhappily retired Howard Woods is shaken awake one morning by his wife, who confesses to a devastating affair. To the utter dismay of his family, Howard refuses to forgive her. Instead, he vows to travel to Pamplona, Spain, in the footsteps of Hemingway to join the annual running of the bulls. His life promptly descends into chaos. But how does a middle-aged homebody, who has never even done his own laundry, salvage his manhood and pride and learn how to rebuild his life on his own?

On January 26, 1996, Dave Schultz, Olympic gold medal winner and wrestling golden boy, was shot three times by du Pont family heir John E. du Pont at the famed Foxcatcher Farms estate in Pennsylvania. Following the murder, there was a tense standoff when du Pont barricaded himself in his home for two days before he was finally captured. Foxcatcher is gold medal winner Mark Schultz's memoir, revealing what made him and his brother champion and what brought them to Foxcatcher Farms.