The graded readers series of original fiction, adapted fiction and factbooks especially written for teenagers. Andy and Kim are twins. During the school holidays, they accompany their mother on a business trip to Amsterdam. Andy and Kim witness what they believe to be two criminals hiding a painting from an art robbery. But they can't prove anything and nobody will believe them. This paperback is in American English. Audio recordings of the text are available on our website at: www.cambridge.org/elt/discoveryreaders/ame Cambridge Experience Readers, previously called Cambridge Discovery Readers, get your students hooked on reading.
No one has written more feelingly and more beautifully than Nescio about the madness and sadness, courage and vulnerability of youth: its big plans and vague longings, not to mention the binges, crashes, and marathon walks and talks. No one, for that matter, has written with such pristine clarity about the radiating canals of Amsterdam and the cloud-swept landscape of the Netherlands. Who was Nescio? Nescio—Latin for “I don’t know”—was the pen name of J.H.F. Grönloh, the highly successful director of the Holland–Bombay Trading Company and a father of four—someone who knew more than enough about respectable maturity. Only in his spare time and under the cover of a pseudonym, as if commemorating a lost self, did he let himself go, producing over the course of his lifetime a handful of utterly original stories that contain some of the most luminous pages in modern literature. This is the first English translation of Nescio’s stories.
Valerie Vane was an up-and-coming lifestyle reporter at a prominent New York City daily. Then she stumbled, rather publicly, and lost it all—her column, her fiancé, her access behind the city's velvet ropes. Now she's on the obituary desk writing death notices, and it feels like a dead end. However, when she writes about a recently deceased once-famous graffiti artist, the phone calls start. A mysterious voice on the other end of the line tells her the artist's death was a murder—and if she were a real reporter, she'd investigate. But can Valerie trade her stilettos for gumshoes?
"I have 15 tailor made suits and over 50 shirts that I can wear for work. To ensure that I don't repeat the same combinations too often, I keep a spreadsheet that notes which suits were worn with which shirts and ties on which day." When his best friend describes him as being as shallow as a worms grave, and challenges him to keep a diary for a month to see what a hollow life he's leading, Simon Woolcot, a spoilt forty something British Expat rises to the challenge. For a month he keeps a diary of his life in Amsterdam, a tale of fine dining, womanizing, romps in sex clubs, bespoke tailoring and office politics. The book is divided into the seven deadly sins, lust, greed, gluttony, sloth, envy, pride and wrath all of which are committed during the course of this book. Based on the popular blog, the Amsterdam confessions of a shallow man, the book provides plenty of insights into life in the Netherlands through the eyes of that cities shallowest man. An adult comedy for a mature audience amsterdamshallowman.com
Michael Williams, in Melbourne’s The Age, wrote of this award-winning, dazzling debut collection, “By turns horrific and beautiful . . . Humanity at its most fractured and desolate . . . Often moving, frequently surprising, even blackly funny . . . Things We Didn’t See Coming is terrific.” This is just one of the many rave reviews that appeared on the Australian publication of these nine connected stories set in a not-too-distant dystopian future in a landscape at once utterly fantastic and disturbingly familiar. Richly imagined, dark, and darkly comic, the stories follow the narrator over three decades as he tries to survive in a world that is becoming increasingly savage as cataclysmic events unfold one after another. In the first story, “What We Know Now”—set in the eve of the millennium, when the world as we know it is still recognizable—we meet the then-nine-year-old narrator fleeing the city with his parents, just ahead of a Y2K breakdown. The remaining stories capture the strange—sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes funny—circumstances he encounters in the no-longer-simple act of survival; trying to protect squatters against floods in a place where the rain never stops, being harassed (and possibly infected) by a man sick with a virulent flu, enduring a job interview with an unstable assessor who has access to all his thoughts, taking the gravely ill on adventure tours. But we see in each story that, despite the violence and brutality of his days, the narrator retains a hold on his essential humanity—and humor. Things We Didn’t See Coming is haunting, restrained, and beautifully crafted—a stunning debut.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE PRIME MINISTERS LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION 2017 SHORTLISTED FOR THE ALS GOLD MEDAL 2017 LONGLISTED FOR THE INDIE AWARD FOR FICTION 2017 LONGLISTED FOR THE MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY AWARD 2017 LONGLISTED FOR THE ABIA AWARD LITERARY FICTION 2017 'Amsterdam is so damn good. He is up there with the best, Delillo and the like, original as Tsolkias, but most importantly he is a master storyteller in his own right, assured and compelling, he somehow articulates things you know deep down but never been able to put your finger on. I never want to stop reading him.' - Anna Krien, bestselling author of NIGHT GAMES, INTO THE WOODS and US and THEM If you could help someone in pain, would you? Evan is a nurse, a suicide assistant. His job is legal . . . just. He's the one at the hospital who hands out the last drink to those who ask for it. Evan's friends don't know what he does during the day. His mother, Viv, doesn't know what he's up to at night. And his supervisor suspects there may be trouble ahead. As he helps one patient after another die, Evan pushes against legality, his own morality and the best intentions of those closest to him, discovering that his own path will be neither quick nor painless. He knows what he has to do. In this powerful novel, award-winning author Steven Amsterdam challenges readers to face the most taboo and heartbreaking of dilemmas. Would you help someone end their life? 'The Easy Way Out is a perfect storm of a novel. Superbly written and instantly engaging, with great characters and a killer (excuse the pun) premise' - Sydney Morning Herald 'There's something fresh and engaging about Steven Amsterdam's writing ' - Australian Women's Weekly
This bestselling and award-winning novel about a teenage girl in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam speaks powerfully to the realities of grief, heartbreak, and bravery, perfect for fans of Kristin Hannah and Ruta Sepetys. Amsterdam, 1943. Hanneke spends her days procuring and delivering sought-after black market goods to paying customers, her nights hiding the true nature of her work from her concerned parents, and every waking moment mourning her boyfriend, who was killed on the Dutch front lines when the Germans invaded. She likes to think of her illegal work as a small act of rebellion. On a routine delivery, a client asks Hanneke for help. Expecting to hear that Mrs. Janssen wants meat or kerosene, Hanneke is shocked by the older woman's frantic plea to find a person—a Jewish teenager Mrs. Janssen had been hiding, who has vanished without a trace from a secret room. Hanneke initially wants nothing to do with such dangerous work, but is ultimately drawn into a web of mysteries and stunning revelations that lead her into the heart of the resistance, open her eyes to the horrors of the Nazi war machine, and compel her to take desperate action. Beautifully written, intricately plotted, and meticulously researched, Girl in the Blue Coat is an extraordinary novel about courage, grief, and love in impossible times.
Srila Prabhupada And His Disciples In Germany – wherever Prabhupada went on tour to see his ISKCON temples all over the world, splendent with unswerving dedication to the order of his spiritual master. red his followers by his spiritual presence, his spotless character, and his promising devotion to Krsna. Prabhupada’s disciples in Germany good fortune of receiving him in ntry only twice. The first time, in 1969, the small setting was – almost informal. Sivananda, right Krsna consciousness to and the first two German Vasudeva and Sucandra (now pheasant Swami), give us an of Prabhupada’s daily routine in g and tell of unforgettable of personal service to their master.
