In the third of the Foxy Four series, Charu, Padma, Jahan and Mandy are at it again: solving mysteries, breaking the rules, dodging eagle-eyed gatekeepers, careening around in Aunt Razia’s car, and driving their school principal crazy! Travel with our four feisty friends to a crumbling old haveli in Bhopal; to the Kalakshetra dance school in Chennai; pandalhopping at Durga Puja; and crime-busting in the gullies of Old Delhi. Each story is narrated by one of the girls. Mandy, the fashionista babe, reveals a surprising brain beneath that perfect hair. Padma may be a computer geek, but she knows a thing or two about classical music. Jahan seems like the coolheaded type, but even she gets the shivers in a haunted haveli. And then there’s Charu, who everyone knows, is just destined to be a writer. Published by Zubaan.
The guys of No Authority have a pretty cool job. They get to do what they love (sing and perform) all the time. They get to work alongside their best buds (each other). And they have a pretty cool boss (Michael Jackson). Plus, with their sweet, slammin' music and super-hot good looks, these boys have throngs of screaming girls chasing them everywhere they go. Not bad for a boy band of four teenagers from Cali! Now find out what goes on off-state and behind the scenes, their plans for the future, their favorite things to do, and the kind of girls they think are fine!
Within the walls of a weathered Malibu beach house, Alexandria Manning pens in a small secret leather confessional, the first premonition flecked account of the events already shifting her existence. Deceit, abandonment, disregard. No price was too high for Anthony Scarelli, no stakes too corrupt or risky, if it led to celebrity, wealth, acclaim. Now time moves like a stealthy enemy as a house literally built on sand, becomes both a refuge and a stage, as a man dances around his reality. As the secrets of Alex's handwritten journal scrawl throughout the pages of this riveting true story, the emotional chess pieces of two spirits layered one upon the other, slide across the dark edges of life's game board, casting long, dusky shadows of dread. Time is a cadence that embezzles from the rhythm of every heart beat, as a necessary challenge of the most important undertaking must be fulfilled...the chiseled in granite clarification of a life lived without explanations, excuses or compromises.
Sex in the woods is not as simple as it sounds. Sure, you know the basics (after all, if you don't, you probably shouldn't try it in the wilderness), but what about all the little details that should be considered before embarking on an alfresco rendezvous that can make the difference between love under the moon and stars and love on the cold, hard ground? For example, what sex essentials should be part of your first-aid kit? What kind of camping equipment provides particular comfort for two? What are the effects of the elements on condoms, spermicides, and other contraceptives? How do you find that perfect spot for your love den? And how about foreplay, personal hygiene, and protection from pesky plants or adverse weather conditions while you're exposed? How to Have Sex in the Woods answers these and other questions for the millions of hikers, backpackers, and campers who know that there's more than one way to commune with nature and that a campfire is good for more than just roasting marshmallows. How to Have Sex in the Woods is full of useful, factual information, covering all the practical how-tos that every amorous camper should know but may have been afraid to ask. It is a must for anyone looking forward to his or her next outing a deux.
Not since Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show has a novelist captured the poignant contradictions of young manhood in the American West the way Bud Shrake does in Billy Boy. And no novel has ever combined history, spirituality and golf into so potent a triumph of the human spirit. There are tough times ahead for sixteen-year-old Billy. He's just come to Fort Worth with his father, Troy, after the death of his mother back in Albuquerque. Troy's drinking and gambling will leave them all but penniless, and he'll soon move on and abandon Billy in this strange town to fend for himself. With only a vague idea of how he's going to live, Billy heads over to Colonial Country Club, where he hopes he can get work as a caddie and where he just might see his hero, Ben Hogan. What he finds there, under the watchful eye of his guardian spirit, teaches him unforgettable lessons about golf, life, love and honor. In Billy Boy, longtime novelist and screenwriter Bud Shrake takes us back to the early 1950s, in a story thick with the Texas dust. Hardscrabble Billy, tough as he thinks he is and smarter than he knows, makes a place for himself behind the walls of privilege at Colonial. He first draws the approval, then the ire, of the club's most eccentric millionaire member, while his looks and manner draw the attention of the millionaire's beautiful granddaughter -- to the displeasure of her boyfriend, the club champion. Billy survives a fierce initiation and a dreadful scene with his drunken father -- but most important, he comes in contact with two of the greatest figures in the history of golf in Texas, Ben Hogan and John Bredemus, each of whom takes Billy under his wing for different reasons and with different results. Shrake skillfully weaves these historical figures and his richly drawn characters into the fabric of the town and the tenor of the time. Billy must face down his fears and doubts, and he does so in a climactic confrontation that combines the yearnings of youth with the redemption of the spirit. Billy Boy is an unforgettable novel of coming of age in a time and a place filled with mythic echoes and frontier dreams.
