“I EITHER WRITE THE BOOK OR SELL THE JEWELS,” Ava Gardner told her coauthor, Peter Evans, “and I’m kinda sentimental about the jewels.” So began the collaboration that led to this remarkably candid, wickedly sardonic memoir. Ava Gardner was one of Hollywood’s great stars during the 1940s and 1950s, an Oscar-nominated lead­ing lady who co-starred with Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster, and Humphrey Bogart, among others. Her films included Show Boat, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, The Barefoot Contessa, and On the Beach. But her life off the screen was every bit as fabulous as her film roles. Born poor in rural North Carolina, Gardner was given a Hollywood tryout thanks to a stunning photo of her displayed in a shop window. Not long after arriving in Hollywood, she caught the eye of Mickey Rooney, then America’s #1 box-office draw. Rooney was a womanizer so notorious that even his mother warned Gardner about him. They married, but the marriage lasted only a year (“my shortest husband and my biggest mistake”). Ava then married band leader and clarinetist Artie Shaw, who would eventually marry eight times, but that marriage, too, lasted only about a year (“he was a dominating son of a bitch… always putting me down”). She carried on a passionate affair with Howard Hughes but didn’t love him, she said. Her third marriage was a tempestuous one to Frank Sinatra (“We were fighting all the time. Fighting and boozing. It was madness…. But he was good in the feathers”). Faithfully recording Ava’s reminiscences in this book, Peter Evans describes their late-night conver­sations when Ava, having had something to drink and unable to sleep, was at her most candid. So candid, in fact, that when she read her own words, she backed out and halted the book. Only now, years after her death, could this frank and revealing memoir be published. “If I get into this stuff, oh, honey, have you got something coming,” Ava told Evans. Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations is the stunning story of a legendary star’s public and private lives. “I read Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversations in a delirious gulp. It is absolutely terrific. I couldn’t put it down. Gardner comes across as a flamboyant but tragic figure who always spoke the truth no matter how painful. And the way writer Peter Evans has shaped their conversations is truly remarkable.” “Jaw-dropping anecdotes about film legends and the studio system in its heyday make this an irresistible read…. Even seasoned fans will learn fresh tidbits about ex-husbands Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra, as well as her tumultuous relationships with Howard Hughes and George C. Scott…. Gardner is funny and frank, and Evans’s diligence makes the book not only one of the more revealing celebrity autobiographies published recently, but a candid glimpse into the world of a ghostwriter, star handler, and late-night confidante.” “An unvarnished account of [Gardner’s] marriages and affairs in golden-age Hollywood…. Give[s] a vivid sense of Gardner’s salty, no-BS personality…. Juicy.” “A complete delight…. [Gardner’s] quotes exude the musk of a woman supremely indifferent to the social proprieties and expectations of her era…. Hers is the heartbreaking memoir of the ultimate heartbreaker.” Peter Evans was a columnist and foreign correspondent with the Daily Express (UK), and wrote for the Los Angeles Times and Vogue, as well as every major newspaper in Britain. His books include Peter Sellers: The Man Behind the Mask and Nemesis. He died in 2012. Ava Gardner was born in Grabtown, North Carolina, in 1922. Her films include The Killers, Showboat, Mogambo, The Barefoot Contessa, The Sun Also Rises, and On the Beach. She died in London in 1990

A ragtag group of teenage mercenaries who crew the spaceship Avalon stumble upon a conspiracy that could threaten the entire galaxy in this fascinating and fast-paced sci-fi adventure from author Mindee Arnett. Of the various star systems that make up the Confederation, most lie thousands of light-years from First Earth-and out here, no one is free. The agencies that govern the Confederation are as corrupt as the crime bosses who patrol it, and power is held by anyone with enough greed and ruthlessness to claim it. That power is derived from one thing: metatech, the devices that allow people to travel great distances faster than the speed of light. Jeth Seagrave and his crew of teenage mercenaries have survived in this world by stealing unsecured metatech, and they're damn good at it. Jeth doesn't care about the politics or the law; all he cares about is earning enough money to buy back his parents' ship, Avalon, from his crime-boss employer and getting himself and his sister, Lizzie, the heck out of Dodge. But when Jeth finds himself in possession of information that both the crime bosses and the government are willing to kill for, he is going to have to ask himself how far he'll go to get the freedom he's wanted for so long. Avalon is the perfect fit for teens new to sci-fi as well as seasoned sci-fi readers looking for more books in the YA space-and a great match for fans of Joss Whedon's cult hit show Firefly

It has been fortold: In the hour of Britain’s greatest need, King Arthur will return to rescue his people. In Portugal, the reprobate King Edward the Ninth has died by his own hand. In England, a dark scenario conceived by the power-hungry Prime Minister, Thomas Waring, is about to be realized: the total destruction of the British monarchy in the twenty-first century. And in the Scottish Highlands, a mystical emissary named Mr. Embries — better known as “Merlin” — informs a young captain that he is next in line to occupy the throne. For James Arthur Stuart is not the commoner he has always believed himself to be — he is Arthur, the legendary King of Summer, reborn. But the road to England’s salvation is rocky and dangerous, with powerful waiting to ambush: Waring and his ruthless political machine ... and the agents of an ancient, far more potent evil. For Arthur is not the only one who has returned from the mists of legend. And Merlin’s magic is not the only sorcery that has survived the centuries

Kirils Partiks Avalona Žurnālists - neveiksminieks aizbraucis uz vientuļu taigas ciematu, lai ar tautas medicīnas līdzekļiem izārstētu augoni smadzenēs. Izrādās, ka attālajā nomalē notiek mežonīga taigas mežu izciršana, kurai aktīvi pretojas žurnālista paziņa, vietējais mežsargs. Viņi arī ticēja maģijai, t.i. zināšanām par lietu slepeno spēku... Īpaši liela bija ticība Vārda slepenajam spēkam. N. I. Komtomarovs. "Krievijas vēsture" Tulkojis Imants Ločmelis

Un esperimento scientifico induce un temporaneo spostamento della percezione collettiva. Improvvisamente tutti gli abitanti della Terra vanno avanti nel tempo di ventun anni, e possono così vedere alcuni minuti del loro futuro mentre i loro corpi rimangono in stato d’incoscienza. Quando il mondo si risveglia c’è chi ha osservato eventi devastanti o deprimenti, chi ha visto realizzare i suoi sogni e desideri, chi non ha trovato assolutamente nulla… Un romanzo che affronta con sicurezza e profondità molte questioni di interesse scientifico e filosofico sulla responsabilità morale, sulla causalità degli eventi e sulla natura umana, rinnovando la tradizione della fantascienza classica di Isaac Asimov e Robert Heinlein

Это стихотворение было создано в 1868 году, когда Суинберн узнал о кончине французского поэта Ш.Бодлера. Наполнено реминисценциями на стихи Бодлера и образами эллинских мифов. Перевод Эдуарда Ермакова

Преподаватель кафедры истории Древнего мира Глеб Стольцев в результате несчастного случая приобретает неожиданный дар – взяв в руки любую вещь, он способен испытать то, что чувствовали люди, прикасавшиеся к этому предмету в прошлом. Теперь Стольцеву предстоит выяснить, каким образом античная монета времен Юлия Цезаря связана с чередой жутких преступлений, совершенных в наши дни

Situada en la mítica ciudad de Sparta, en Nueva York, Ave del paraíso es una punzante y vívida combinación de romance erótico y violencia trágica en la Norteamérica de finales del siglo XX. Cuando Zoe Kruller, una joven esposa y madre, aparece brutalmente asesinada, la policía de Sparta se centra en dos principales sospechosos, su marido, Delray, del que estaba separada, y su amante desde hace tiempo, Eddy Diehl. Mientras tanto, el hijo de los Kruller, Aaron, y la hija de Eddy, Krista, adquieren una mutua obsesión, y cada uno cree que el padre del otro es culpable. Una clásica novela de Oates, autora también de La hija del sepulturero, Mamá, Infiel, Puro fuego y Un jardín de poderes terrenales, en la que el lirismo del intenso amor sexual está entrelazado con la angustia de la pérdida y es difícil diferenciar la ternura de la crueldad

Всё началось с объявления в газете — организация ищет склонных к риску и не слишком законопослушных граждан для участия в некой игре. Специальных навыков и умений не требуется, пол и внешность не имеют значения, вознаграждение беспрецедентное. И вот восемь отобранных мужчин и женщин прибывают на остров, где им оглашают правила игры и штрафные санкции за их нарушение

A young American aid volunteer, Billy Colenso, is brutally murdered in former Yugoslavia. His grandfather, the Canadian billionaire Steven Edmond, is bent on revenge. The quest to find Billy's murderer leads Edmond to Cal Dexter, ex-Vietnam Special Forces, the one man who could bring the killer to justice. But what starts as a personal, domestic tragedy soon explodes into a terrifying drama on the centre stage of world terrorism. From the battlefield of Vietnam via war-torn Serbia to the jungles of Central America, Avenger is packed with riveting detail, breathtaking action and political suspense, while in Cal Dexter we meet an unforgettable hero in the most dynamic Forsyth tradition

Tirant un gros pistolet de sa ceinture, le policier noir tendit le bras, visant soigneusement. Malko se souvint de ce qu’avait dit Jim Dexter. C’était un tireur d’élite. Le rétroviseur lui renvoya l’image du pistolet braqué sur lui. Une détonation claqua et il se dit qu’il allait mourir

Les Aventures de trois Russes et de trois Anglais (1872) mettent en scène six astronomes dont la tâche est de mesurer une portion de méridien terrestre. Il s'agit donc plus de géodésie que d'astronomie, mais historiquement, ce genre de travail a toujours échu aux astronomes. Les héros utilisent la méthode de triangulation exposée en détail dans l'Astronomie Populaire d'Arago. On retrouve le thème des grandes expéditions scientifiques des Picard, Lacaille, Maupertuis, Bouguer, Godin, La Condamine, Méchain, Delambre, Arago… commanditées par l'Académie des sciences, aux époques où le métier d'astronome était un métier dangereux

Ilustraĵoj de Josef Lada

John Irving returns to the themes that established him as one of our most admired and beloved authors in this absorbing novel of fate and memory. As we grow older — most of all, in what we remember and what we dream — we live in the past. Sometimes, we live more vividly in the past than in the present. As an older man, Juan Diego will take a trip to the Philippines, but what travels with him are his dreams and memories; he is most alive in his childhood and early adolescence in Mexico. “An aura of fate had marked him,” John Irving writes, of Juan Diego. “The chain of events, the links in our lives — what leads us where we’re going, the courses we follow to our ends, what we don’t see coming, and what we do — all this can be mysterious, or simply unseen, or even obvious.” Avenue of Mysteries is the story of what happens to Juan Diego in the Philippines, where what happened to him in the past — in Mexico — collides with his future

David Ryan is the designer of ELOPe, an email language optimization program, that if successful, will make his career. But when the project is suddenly in danger of being canceled, David embeds a hidden directive in the software accidentally creating a runaway artificial intelligence. David and his team are initially thrilled when the project is allocated extra servers and programmers. But excitement turns to fear as the team realizes that they are being manipulated by an A.I. who is redirecting corporate funds, reassigning personnel and arming itself in pursuit of its own agenda. WINNER SCIENCE FICTION DIY BOOK FESTIVAL 2011–2012 “A tremendous book that every single person needs to read. In the vein of Daniel Suarez’s Daemon and Freedom(TM), William’s book shows that science fiction is becoming science fact. Avogadro Corp describes issues, in solid technical detail, that we are dealing with today that will impact us by 2015, if not sooner. Not enough people have read these books. It’s a problem for them, but not for the [emergent] machines.” “A highly entertaining, gripping, thought inspiring book. Don’t start without the time to finish — it won’t let you go.” “An alarming and jaw-dropping tale about how something as innocuous as email can subvert an entire organization. I found myself reading with a sense of awe, and read it way too late into the night.” “Hertling builds a picture of how an AI could emerge, piece by piece, from technology available today. A fascinating, logical, and utterly believable scenario — I just hope nobody tries this at home.”

Scarlet remembers. Everything. Her past lives, Tristan, Gabriel, Nate: she remembers it all--including how to get to the Fountain of Youth. But time is running out. Heather and Gabriel have been kidnapped by Raven, while the curse that has plagued Scarlet and Tristan for centuries has shifted, putting the star-crossed lovers in more danger than ever before. Water from the Fountain of Youth is the only thing that can save Scarlet and her loved ones. But the water comes at a price. With lives--and hearts--at stake, Scarlet leads her friends on a dangerous journey to the Fountain of Youth. Where eternal life is possible, but death is certain

The movie, scheduled to be released in October, 2004, is being directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, a veteran of this genre (Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat, Soldier, Event Horizon, and Shopping. It also stars Lance Henriksen of X-Files, Millenium and previous Alien films fame. A team of drillers, scientists and archaeologists led by a billionaire industrialist travel to Antarctica to investigate ancient pyramid ruins where they not only discover terrorized human skeletons among the fossilized remains of these alien creatures, but they also find further evidence that these aliens are still alive! As if that’s not frightening enough, vicious Predators lay in wait above for the release of these aliens from the centuries-old ice in which they’ve been preserved! Thus begins the show-down between two of the greatest film horrors of all time

Бомбардировщик «Ланкастер» вызывает у англичан и жителей Британского Содружества чувство привязанности, смешанное с гордостью – примерно так же, как В-17 «Летающая Крепость» у американцев. Если «Спитфайр» олицетворял боевой дух Содружества перед лицом казавшегося неизбежным поражения, то вид и звук моторов армад «Ланкастеров», отправлявшихся в ночной рейд в центр нацистской Германии. воплощали желание измученных войной людей увидеть немецкую военную машину уничтоженной