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Jack Pagano has always felt he is different. Smart and physically talented, the normal pursuits of youth - women and sports - have always come a little too easy to him and left him unfulfilled. At age seventeen, Jack is eager to leave high school and begin his college career. But the schooling that lies ahead of him is of a far different variety than he could have ever imagined. Albert Anastasia, the notorious leader of Murder, Inc., appears and claims Pagano as his son. But before Jack can make heads or tails of his new-found father, Anastasia is gunned down at the Park Sheraton Hotel. Under the tutelage of his late father's associates, Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello, Jack enters a world w...
A compelling investigation into supernatural events and local lore on Vancouver Island. Vancouver Island is known worldwide for its arresting natural beauty, but those who live here know that it is also imbued with a palpable supernatural energy. Researcher Shanon Sinn found his curiosity piqued by stories of mysterious sightings on the island—ghosts, sasquatches, sea serpents—but he was disappointed in the sensational and sometimes disrespectful way they were being retold or revised. Acting on his desire to transform these stories from unsubstantiated gossip to thoroughly researched accounts, Sinn uncovered fascinating details, identified historical inconsistencies, and now retells thes...
"THE LAST GREAT CONTENDERS" -The heavyweight division of the 1970s was arguably the most competitive in boxing history. Joe Frazier, George Foreman and Muhammad Ali all earned the title of Heavyweight Champion of the World during this time period. But in order to be the "baddest man on the planet" they had to survive a crucible of contenders unlike any other in the division''s history. Names like Ken Norton, Jerry Quarry, Earnie Shavers, Jimmy Young and others dotted the landscape. No fighter who competed during this era emerged from these battles unscathed. "I AVOIDED HIM..." Jerry Quarry was named by George Foreman as the greatest fighter to never win a title and Foreman freely admits to h...
"Long ago in 1945 all the nice people in England were poor, allowing for exceptions," begins The Girls of Slender Means, Dame Muriel Spark's tragic and rapier-witted portrait of a London ladies' hostel just emerging from the shadow of World War II. Like the May of Teck Club itself—"three times window shattered since 1940 but never directly hit"—its lady inhabitants do their best to act as if the world were back to normal: practicing elocution, and jostling over suitors and a single Schiaparelli gown. The novel's harrowing ending reveals that the girls' giddy literary and amorous peregrinations are hiding some tragically painful war wounds. Chosen by Anthony Burgess as one of the Best Modern Novels in the Sunday Times of London, The Girls of Slender Means is a taut and eerily perfect novel by an author The New York Times has called "one of this century's finest creators of comic-metaphysical entertainment."
At the age of 24, Maura O'Halloran travelled to Japan, where she spent three years studying Zen Buddhism. On her way back to Ireland, she was tragically killed, and is now venerated as a Buddhist saint.
‘Intelligent, thoughtful, resourceful’ WASHINGTON POST Filmmaking student Buddy Whyte never visited his mother’s hometown while she was alive. But in the wake of her tragic death, he can no longer resist the lure of Naples, Virginia. He packs up his car and drives south from New York City with his camera. He means to make a short film about the town – and perhaps learn why Beth Whyte left it, and why she never went back. Many people in the close-knit community are devastated to learn of the death of Buddy’s mother –not least two brothers, Jack and Gil, who knew her best. Although they live and work side by side, a dark secret divides them, and they have not spoken to one another in years. Through his camera lens, Buddy captures an unexpected story, including glimpses of his mother that challenge everything he thought he knew. But in a small town where even disparate voices agree that the past is best kept hidden from outsiders, will he actually learn the truth? Near Canaan is an intricate and multi-layered novel of secrets and memory which explores the far-reaching, inescapable effects of the past.
A terrifying 1930s ghost story set in the haunting wilderness of the far north. January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely and desperate to change his life. So when he's offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun. At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year. Gruhuken. But the Arctic summer is brief. As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. He faces a stark choice. Stay or go. Soon he will see the last of the sun, as the polar night engulfs the camp in months of darkness. Soon he will reach the point of no return - when the sea will freeze, making escape impossible. And Gruhuken is not uninhabited. Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark...
"A young drama teacher in the West of Scotland suffers deep psychological problems which affect all areas of her life. She fails to find meaning in anything around her, but in her search she strips situations of their conventional values and sees them in a sharp, new light." --Publisher's description.
WINNER OF THE WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE 2018 Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2017 A stunning new non-fiction voice tackles an urgent question... what next for mankind? 'Troubling and humorous, this is one of my current give-it-to-everyone books - I buy six copies at a time' Jeanette Winterson
From the astonishingly talented writer of The Accidental and Hotel World comes Ali Smiths brilliant retelling of Ovids gender-bending myth of Iphis and Ianthe, as seen through the eyes of two Scottish sisters. Girl Meets Boy is about girls and boys, girls and girls, love and transformation, and the absurdity of consumerism, as well as a story of reversals and revelations that is as sharply witty as it is lyrical. Funny, fresh, poetic, and political, Girl Meets Boy is a myth of metamorphosis for a world made in Madison Avenues image, and the funniest addition to the Myths series from Canongate since Margaret Atwoods The Penelopiad.