This Pulitzer Prize–winning novel follows two American academics in London—a young man and a middle-aged woman—as they each fall into unexpected romances. In her early fifties, Vinnie Miner is the sort of woman no one ever notices, despite her career as an Ivy League professor. She doubts she could get a man’s attention if she waved a brightly colored object in front of him. And though she loves her work, her specialty—children’s folk rhymes—earns little respect from her fellow scholars. Then, alone on a flight to London for a research trip, she sits next to a man she would never have viewed as a potential romantic partner. In a Western-cut suit and a rawhide tie, he is a sanitary engineer from Tulsa, Oklahoma, on a group tour. He’s the very opposite of her type, but before Vinnie knows it, she’s spending more and more time with him. Also in London is Vinnie’s colleague, a young, handsome English professor whose marriage and self-esteem are both on the rocks. But Fred Turner is also about to find consolation—in the arms of the most beautiful actress in England. Stylish and highborn, she introduces Fred to a glamorous, yet eccentric, London scene that he never expected to encounter. The course of these two relationships makes up the story of Foreign Affairs—a finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award as well as a Pulitzer Prize winner, and an entertaining, poignant tale from the author of The War Between the Tates and The Last Resort, “one of this country’s most able and witty novelists” (The New York Times). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Alison Lurie including rare images from the author’s personal collection.
Can anyone be truly herself - or truly in love - in a language that's not her own? Sixteen-year-old Josie knows a lot of languages- she speaks High School, College, Friends, Boyfriends, Break-ups, and even the language of Beautiful Girls. But none of these is her native tongue - the only people who speak that are her best friend Stu and her sister, Kate. So when Kate gets engaged to an insufferable guy, how can Josie see it as anything but the mistake of a lifetime? As battles are waged over secrets and semantics, Josie is forced to examine her feelings for the boy who says he loves her, the sister she loves but doesn't always like, and the best friend who hasn't said a word - at least not in a language Josie understands. 'A true-blue lovable weirdo, Josie is the type of character I really enjoy seeing . . . authentically herself, even when being herself gets her into trouble.' Hellogiggles
‘The Green Flag’ is a collection of short stories from the much-loved ‘Sherlock Holmes’ author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. First published in 1895, stories in the collection include archaeology thriller ‘The New Catacomb’, pirate tale ‘Captain Sharkey’ and the suspenseful ‘The Lord of Chateau Noir’. An enjoyable collection from the prolific author. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was a British author, best known as the creator of the world-famous detective Sherlock Holmes. Born in Edinburgh, he was educated in England and Austria before studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh. It was during his time at university that Doyle began writing short stories, submitting them to magazines and journals. His first Sherlock Holmes novel, ‘A Study in Scarlet’ was written in just three weeks and published in 1887 to favourable reviews, and more Sherlock adventures followed. By 1893, Doyle was growing tired of Sherlock and attempted to kill him off in the story ‘The Final Problem’, but public outcry caused him to resurrect the famous detective. He featured in a total of 56 short stories and four novels along with his trusty sidekick Dr Watson and made Doyle one of the best-paid authors of the time. The stories have been adapted multiple times; most recently in the successful BBC series ‘Sherlock’ starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. Later literary works included the Professor Challenger series which began with ‘The Lost World’, in which Challenger sets out to find evidence of prehistoric life. The book inspired numerous adaptations, including the films ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘The Lost World’. In later life Doyle became captivated by the world of spiritualism and the occult and published non-fiction works about his beliefs including ‘The Coming of the Fairies’. Arthur Conan Doyle died at home in 1930.
This is an account of the wanderings of a spiritualist, geographical and speculative. Should the reader have no interest in psychic things—if indeed any human being can be so foolish as not to be interested in his own nature and fate,—then this is the place to put the book down. It were better also to end the matter now if you have no patience with a go-as-you-please style of narrative, which founds itself upon the conviction that thought may be as interesting as action, and which is bound by its very nature to be intensely personal. I write a record of what absorbs my mind which may be very different from that which appeals to yours. But if you are content to come with me upon these terms then let us start with my apologies in advance for the pages which may bore you, and with my hopes that some may compensate you by pleasure or by profit. I write these lines with a pad upon my knee, heaving upon the long roll of the Indian Ocean, running large and grey under a grey streaked sky, with the rain-swept hills of Ceylon, just one shade greyer, lining the Eastern skyline. So under many difficulties it will be carried on, which may explain if it does not excuse any slurring of a style, which is at its best but plain English. There was one memorable night when I walked forth with my head throbbing and my whole frame quivering from the villa of Mr. Southey at Merthyr. Behind me the brazen glare of Dowlais iron-works lit up the sky, and in front twinkled the many lights of the Welsh town. For two hours my wife and I had sat within listening to the whispering voices of the dead, voices which are so full of earnest life, and of desperate endeavours to pierce the barrier of our dull senses. They had quivered and wavered around us, giving us pet names, sweet sacred things, the intimate talk of the olden time. Graceful lights, signs of spirit power had hovered over us in the darkness. It was a different and a wonderful world. Now with those voices still haunting our memories we had slipped out into the material world—a world of glaring iron works and of twinkling cottage windows. As I looked down on it all I grasped my wife's hand in the darkness and I cried aloud, "My God, if they only knew—if they could only know!" Perhaps in that cry, wrung from my very soul, lay the inception of my voyage to the other side of the world. The wish to serve was strong upon us both. God had given us wonderful signs, and they were surely not for ourselves alone. I had already done the little I might. From the moment that I had understood the overwhelming importance of this subject, and realised how utterly it must change and chasten the whole thought of the world when it is whole-heartedly accepted, I felt it good to work in the matter and understood that all other work which I had ever done, or could ever do, was as nothing compared to this. Therefore from the time that I had finished the history of the Great War on which I was engaged, I was ready to turn all my remaining energies of voice or hand to the one great end. At first I had little of my own to narrate, and my task was simply to expound the spiritual philosophy as worked out by the thoughts and experiences of others, showing folk so far as I was able, that the superficial and ignorant view taken of it in the ordinary newspapers did not touch the heart of the matter. My own experiences were limited and inconclusive, so that it was the evidence of others which I quoted. But as I went forward signs were given in profusion to me also, such signs as were far above all error or deception, so that I was able to speak with that more vibrant note which comes not from belief or faith, but from personal experience and knowledge.
"Romance on the road is the most complete look ever at women who travel to love foreign men, from beach boys to maharajas. Wild, shocking, yet tender and hopeful, love journeys by women tell a story of a worldwide Affection Defection Disorder, a revolution in mating behavior, and a poignant search for traditional romance."--Publisher description.
Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.
These are the last twelve stories Conan Doyle wrote about Holmes and Watson. They reflect the disillusioned world of the 1920s and also include some of the wittiest passages in the series.
