Usually, this is where the rhapsody would begin; strings would swell; breasts would be clasped with great feeling: The short story isn't dead; it lives! I will abstain. If you're interested in The O. Henry Prize Stories 2005 at all, you're already an adherent of short prose, and know that it's alive and flourishing (as long as you can track it down on the smaller and smaller presses to which it's often relegated). If the short story's cachet has evinced some decline over the course of the past century, it's a decline in public exposure and lucrative potential, not in quality. In terms of sales and public profile, the short story collection can't keep apace with the novel or pop nonfiction, but it's still absolutely kicking poetry's ass on all fronts, and, like poetry, remains in general more adventurous, fluid, and vitally modern than its novelistic big brother. To review these stories in terms of their quality seems redundant – that they're terrific is a no-brainer. Entering its eighty-fifth year, The O. Henry Prize Stories consistently collects – I won't say the finest short fiction, but it collects inarguably exquisite short fiction published in the U.S. and Canada. We'll concede that there may be better stories out there, simmering under the radar or even (gasp!) unpublished, which does nothing to detract from the eminence of the ones collected here. This is a damn good read. This year's edition was edited and introduced by Laura Furman, with a jury consisting of celebrated writers Cristina Garcia, Ann Patchett and Richard Russo. It's dedicated to Chekov upon the centenary of his death, which is forgivably predictable, given his pervasive influence on the short form. Besides illuminating notes from the writers on their work, the 2005 edition contains an essay by each of the judges on their favorite story, and a glossary of literary journals big and small that will be a valuable resource for writers and readers alike. If quality is a given, it seems the best utility a review of the The O. Henry Prize Stories can have is to pick out the affinities between them and see (a) what writers were compelled to write about in the past year, (b) what editors were compelled to publish, and (c) which literary organs are currently in vogue. Word to the wise: If you'd like to win an O. Henry Prize, relentlessly submit to the New Yorker, which originally published no less than six of the twenty stories here, comfortably vanquishing silver-medallists The Kenyon Review and Zoetrope, who clock in with an admirable (if measly by comparison) two stories apiece. No less than four stories in the volume revolve around music, all of which are deeply appreciative, none entirely trusting. Michael Palmer's atmospheric tale, "The Golden Era of Heartbreak", is haunted by a lovelorn trucker's song that carries everywhere in a town flattened by the departure of the narrator's wife. "My house filled to the eaves with this song," he states in his spare, lyrical tone, and the story is filled with it as well: The prose, like the town, is "flat as an envelope," and the trucker's song stretches spectrally across it. A personal favorite of mine, Ben Fountain's "Fantasy for Eleven Fingers", is an elliptical, richly detailed character sketch in the vein of Millhauser or Hemon, about the intertwined destinies of two eleven-fingered pianists in nineteenth century Vienna, steeped in all the paranoia, political and ethnic tensions, and obsolete superstitions of the day. In Timothy Crouse's "Sphinxes", a remarkably confident and unclassifiable tale, piano lessons, love affairs and subtle emotional maneuvering are braided together with increasing complexity until they become indistinguishable. In each of these stories, music is salvation and undoing, pure force and calculated metaphor: a paradox, a chimera, a sphinx. And Gail Jones's "Desolation" is about a primal, alienating sexual encounter at a Death in Vegas concert, although it cross-references with the second type of story that heavily informs this year's volume, the community / exile story, which we're coming to just now. Many stories in The O. Henry Prize Stories 2005 revolve around issues of community, but not the traditional, fixed community – these stories are about the provisional communities that arise in times of crisis, and the communities forged by travelers, strangers, souls in spiritual and physical exile. Judge favorite "Mudlavia", a coming of age tale by Elizabeth Stuckey-French, finds a young boy and his mother in a health resort filled with questionable, exciting characters of colorful mien and shady provenance – slowly, away from their domineering father and husband, we watch them come alive to their own desires, desires that this alien context was necessary to draw out. Another judge favorite, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's period piece "Exile in London", evokes the faded aura of postwar London by way of the young narrator's recollections of the ragged diaspora in her aunt's boarding house. And Nell Freudenberger's "The Tutor" details the tensions, both sexual and cultural, between a prototypically American teenager in Bombay and her native Indian tutor. But the finest story in The O. Henry Prize Stories 2005 has to be Sherman Alexie's "What You Pawn I Will Redeem", which describes the plight of a homeless, admittedly "crazy" Spokane Native American as he embarks on a day-long quest to raise one-thousand dollars to buy back his Grandmother's tribal regalia from a pawn shop. That the story's themes are large and poignant is obvious; what's remarkable is that it manages funny, hopeful, angry, and redemptive at once. The narrator's refusal to lapse into self-pity or misanthropy at his pathetic plight is counterintuitive yet rings true, and by the time the story reaches its conclusion, not-at-all inevitable and uncommonly generous of spirit, one feels every inch of his joy. In the end, this is the short-story function that trumps all the others: The ability to vault the reader into realms of unanticipated joy. While not all the stories in The O. Henry Prize Stories 2005 achieve this as viscerally as Alexie's fable, each one loudly debunks any nonsense about the short story's obsolescence

The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2011 contains twenty unforgettable stories selected from hundreds of literary magazines. The winning tales take place in such far-flung locales as Madagascar, Nantucket, a Midwestern meth lab, Antarctica, and a post-apocalyptic England, and feature a fascinating array of characters: aging jazzmen, avalanche researchers, a South African wild child, and a mute actor in silent films. Also included are essays from the eminent jurors on their favorite stories, observations from the winners on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines

The Twenty-Ninth Knights Templar Mystery 1326. In an England riven with conflict, knight and peasant alike find their lives turned upside down by the warring factions of Edward II, with his hated favourite, Hugh le Despenser, and Edward's estranged queen Isabella and her lover, Sir Roger Mortimer. Yet even in such times the brutal slaughter of an entire family, right down to a babe in arms, still has the power to shock. Three further murders follow, and bailiff Simon Puttock is drawn into a web of intrigue, vengeance, power and greed as Roger Mortimer charges him to investigate the killings. Michael Jecks brilliantly evokes the turmoil of fourteenth-century England, as his well-loved characters Simon Puttock and Sir Baldwin de Furnshill strive to maintain the principles of loyalty and truth

"A particularly strong plot." – Los Angeles Times "Topical and full of intrigue." – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Doctor Eric Kensing is living in fear that he is about to be indicted for the death of a patient. That patient was his boss, Tim Markham. But Kensing and Markham aren't just connected by work – Kensing's wife is one of Markham 's many lovers. It's not looking good for Kensing, so he enlists the help of lawyer Dismas Hardy. Some say Kensing is not worth saving, although others say that Kensing is a special doctor, prepared to do anything to save a patient's life, even defying proper medical procedure. Despite all the damning evidence, Hardy becomes increasingly sure that Kensing is innocent. Against mounting pressure for an arrest, Hardy knows that the only way to save Kensing is to find the real murderer. And like Kensing, he seems to be working within a system that is set up to thwart him and any attempt at real justice…

The second novel in a new fantasy trilogy by Hugo, Nebula & World Fantasy Award nominated author N.K. Jemisin. THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS… FOR THE LAST TIME. The season of endings grows darker as civilization fades into the long cold night. Alabaster Tenring — madman, world-crusher, savior — has returned with a mission: to train his successor, Essun, and thus seal the fate of the Stillness forever. It continues with a lost daughter, found by the enemy. It continues with the obelisks, and an ancient mystery converging on answers at last. The Stillness is the wall which stands against the flow of tradition, the spark of hope long buried under the thickening ashfall. And it will not be broken

To make a workable data-gathering system, you must understand what kind of information is being sought, why it's being sought, and — ultimately — who is the seeker

A Tragic Disappearance After a harrowing otherworldly confrontation on the shores of Exmouth, Massachusetts, Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast is missing, presumed dead. A Shocking Return Sick with grief, Pendergast's ward, Constance, retreats to her chambers beneath the family mansion at 891 Riverside Drive — only to be taken captive by a shadowy figure from the past. An International Manhunt Proctor, Pendergast's longtime bodyguard, springs to action, chasing Constance's kidnapper through cities, across oceans, and into wastelands unknown. But in a World of Black and White, Nothing Is as It Seems And by the time Proctor discovers the truth, a terrifying engine has stirred — and it may already be too late…

Was she his only hope? He had to know and time was running out

When Patrick Modiano was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature he was praised for using the 'art of memory' to bring to life the Occupation of Paris during the Second World War. Born just after the war, Modiano was an angry young man in his twenties when these three brilliant, angry novels burst onto the Parisian literary scene and caused a storm. The epigraph to his ambitious first novel, among the first to seriously question both wartime collaboration in France and the myths of the Gaullist era, reads: 'In June 1942 a German officer goes up to a young man and says: 'Excuse me, monsieur, where is La Place de l'Étoile?' The young man points to the star on his chest.' The Night Watch tells the story of a young man, caught between his work for the French Gestapo, his work for a Resistance cell informing on the police and the black market dealers whose seedy milieu he shares. Ring Roads recounts Serge's search for his father, who disappeared from his life ten years earlier. He finds him trying to survive the war years in the unlikely company of spivs, anti-Semites and prostitutes, putting his meagre business skills at the service of those who have no interest in him or his survival. These brilliant, almost hallucinatory evocations of the Occupation, attempt to exorcise the past by exploring the morally ambiguous worlds of collaboration and resistance

Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy. Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what. A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark

The Ocean Dark is a riveting novel of suspense from Christopher Golden, author of Tin Men, written under the pseudonym Jack Rogan. In the uncharted waters of the Caribbean, far from the usual shipping lanes, lies a mysterious island surrounded by a graveyard of sunken ships — an island so remote that it’s the perfect rendezvous point for a handful of Central American arms dealers and the Antoinette, a gun-smuggling cargo ship out of Miami. Amid the wreckage of ships new and old, the crew of the Antoinette — and the undercover FBI agent on board — enter what looks like a haven for modern pirates, only to discover that it hides something far more terrifying. In Washington, two Department of Defense scientists might understand what is about to happen. On an FBI ship monitoring the Antoinette’s illegal trade, armed agents might be able to intervene. But this assumes that the Antoinette’s crew survives their first encounter with a creature virtually unknown to man, yet whose eerie songs nevertheless echo down the corridors of mankind’s darkest legends

As war engulfs Europe, 1,500 passengers risk everything to find a brighter future. Cousins Masha and Rachel Morgenstern board the luxury liner the SS Manhattan bound for New York, desperate to escape the concentration camps that claimed the rest of their family. America offers a safe haven, but to reach it they must survive a hazardous Atlantic crossing. Among their fellow passengers fleeing the war, each with their own conflicts, secrets and surprises, are the composer Igor Stravinsky, making a new start after a decade of tragedy, and Rose Kennedy, determined to keep her four children from harm. Particularly worrying to Rose is her daughter Rosemary, a vivacious but troubled woman whose love for a Californian musician may derail her family’s political ambitions. And then there’s young Thomas, a Nazi with a secret… But, under the waves, the Manhattan is being stalked by a German U-boat. Will any of those aboard the ocean liner ever achieve their dream of a new life in America?

… that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coalbins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain…

Рассказ вошёл в сборники: Long After Midnight (Далеко за полночь) The Stories of Ray Bradbury (И грянул гром: 100 рассказов)

Gabriela waits desperately for news of her abducted daughter. At last, the door opens. But it’s not the negotiators. It’s not the FBI. It’s the kidnapper. And he has a gun. How did it come to this? Two days ago, Gabriela’s life was normal. Then, out of the blue, she gets word that her six-year-old daughter has been taken. She’s given an ultimatum: pay half a million dollars and find a mysterious document known as the “October List” within 30 hours, or she’ll never see her child again. A mind-bending novel with twists and turns that unfold from its dramatic climax back to its surprising beginning, THE OCTOBER LIST is Jeffery Deaver at his masterful, inventive best

A memoir of self-discovery and the dilemma of connection in our time, The Odd Woman and the City explores the rhythms, chance encounters, and ever-changing friendships of urban life that forge the sensibility of a fiercely independent woman who has lived out her conflicts, not her fantasies, in a city (New York) that has done the same. Running steadily through the book is Vivian Gornick's exchange of more than twenty years with Leonard, a gay man who is sophisticated about his own unhappiness, whose friendship has "shed more light on the mysterious nature of ordinary human relations than has any other intimacy" she has known. The exchange between Gornick and Leonard acts as a Greek chorus to the main action of the narrator's continual engagement on the street with grocers, derelicts, and doormen; people on the bus, cross-dressers on the corner, and acquaintances by the handful. In Leonard she sees herself reflected plain; out on the street she makes sense of what she sees. Written as a narrative collage that includes meditative pieces on the making of a modern feminist, the role of the flaneur in urban literature, and the evolution of friendship over the past two centuries, The Odd Woman and the City beautifully bookends Gornick's acclaimed Fierce Attachments, in which we first encountered her rich relationship with the ultimate metropolis

The suicide of an elderly German Jew explodes into revelation after revelation: a Mafia-life organization called Odessa, a real-life fugitive known at the “Butcher of Riga”, a young German journalist turned obsessed avenger… and ultimately, of a brilliant, ruthless plot to reestablish the worldwide power of SS mass murders and to carry out Hitler’s chilling “Final Solution.” [Contain a table. Best viewed with CoolReader.]

June 1812. Napoleon Bonaparte begins his invasion of Russia leading the largest army Europe has ever seen. But amongst the troops of the Grande Armée is a savage murderer whose bloodlust is not satisfied in battle. When a Polish woman is brutally stabbed, Captain Quentin Margont of the eighty-forth regiment is put in charge of an investigation to unmask the perpetrator. Armed with the fact that the killer is an officer, Margont knows that he faces an impossible task and the greatest challenge of his military career

The Official Report on Human Activity by kim d. hunter, which is neither official nor a report, is a collection of long stories that are linked by reoccurring characters and their personal struggles in societies rife with bigotry, in which media technology and capitalism have run amok. These stories approach the holy trinity of gender, race, and class at a slant. They are concerned with the process and role of writing intertwined with the roles of music and sound. The four stories range from the utterly surreal—a factory worker seeking recognition for his writing gives birth to a small black elephant with a mysterious message on its hide—to the utterly real—a nerdy black teen’s summer away from home takes a turn when he encounters half-white twins on the run from the police. Prominently known as a Detroit poet, hunter creates illusions and magic while pulling back the curtain to reveal humanity—the good, bad, and absurd. Readers will find their minds expanded and their conversations flowing after finishing The Official Report on Human Activity. The Official Report on Human Activity is sure to appeal to readers of literary fiction, particularly those interested in postmodernism and social justice

Дорис Лессинг (родилась в 1919 году) — прогрессивная английская писательница, автор двух романов и сборника новелл. Детство и юность провела в Южной Родезии (Юго-Восточная Африка). После окончания колледжа работала на телефонной станции, в конторах и пр. В 1950 году вышел первый роман Д. Лессинг — «Поющая трава», привлёкший внимание к молодой писательнице. Одна из основных тем её творчества — жизнь и быт негритянского населения Южной Родезии, угнетаемого белыми колонизаторами. В настоящее время Д. Лессинг живёт в Англии, участвует в движении сторонников мира, сотрудничает в прогрессивных изданиях. В прошлом году [1952] вместе с группой английских писателей побывала в Советском Союзе. (Из Предуведомления к публикации рассказа "Старый вождь Мшланга" в журнале "Новый мир".)

This amusing and fascinating children’s book is often called the Russian “Thousand and One Nights.” Who is the old Genie Hottabych? This is what the author has to say of him: “In one of Scheherazade’s tales I read of the Fisherman who found a copper vessel in his net. In the vessel was a mighty Genie — a magician who had been imprisoned in the bottle for nearly two thousand years. The Genie had sworn to make the one who freed him rich, powerful and happy. “But what if such a Genie suddenly came to life in the Soviet Union, in Moscow? I tried to imagine what would have happened if a very ordinary Russian boy had freed him from the vessel. “And imagine, I suddenly discovered that a schoolboy named Volka Kostylkov, the very same Volka who used to live on Three Ponds Street, you know, the best diver at summer camp last year… On second thought, I believe we had better begin from the beginning…”

Piloting a space ship called for nerves of steel and an instantaneous set of reflexes; in addition there was a tougher requirement…

The last novel Ernest Hemingway saw published, The Old Man and the Sea has proved itself to be one of the enduring works of American fiction. It is the story of an old Cuban fisherman and his supreme ordeal: a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Using the simple, powerful language of a fable, Hemingway takes the timeless themes of courage in the face of defeat and personal triumph won from loss and transforms them into a magnificent twentieth-century classic

Рассказ Вильяма В. Джекобса "Старый моряк" на английском языке

The Old Patagonian Express tells of Paul Theroux’s train journey down the length of North and South America. Beginning on Boston’s subway, he depicts a voyage from ice-bound Massachusetts to the arid plateau of Argentina’s most southerly tip, via pretty Central American towns and the ancient Incan city of Macchu Pichu. Shivering and sweating by turns as the temperature and altitude rise and plummet, he describes the people he encountered — thrown in with the tedious, and unavoidable, Mr Thornberry in Limón and reading to the legendary blind writer, Jorge Luis Borges, in Buenos Aires. Witty, sharply observed and beautifully written, this is a richly evocative account of travelling to ‘the end of the line’

Moldenke is sent to the "free" prison town at Altobello with an indeterminate sentence. He has a rare bowel condition. Altobello is full of "Jellyheads" and features an old nuclear reactor on the edge of town. No one seems to remember what the reactor really is, until it's almost too late

Taking a winter break in the Yorkshire moors and staying at The Old Silent Inn, Superintendent Richard Jury witnesses a most perplexing murder. Fascinated by the lovely widow of the victim, Jury is sufficiently intrigued to undertake his own unofficial and very unpopular investigation

1908. It is generally conceded by critics, and certainly it is staunchly maintained by hosts of readers, that Arnold Bennett's most notable literary achievement is The Old Wives' Tale. This chronicle of the Five Towns and France during the Siege of Paris is a project of heroic proportions, accomplished with infinite skill, and of a scope that invites comparison with the greatest novels of the Victorian era. It is a tale of ordinary people during extraordinary times, told with an insight encountered only in the works of the masters of fiction

2012 came and went. The world prepared itself for impending disaster—and nothing happened. Or so it seemed. But by 2020, energy from a supernova is disrupting the sun. Solar storms ravage the globe with unprecedented ferocity, and debris in the form of comets and asteroids threaten to end life on earth. The wealthy of the world hide in vast underground bunkers, but even they know that they cannot survive without a miracle. It all comes down to one man—a young psychiatrist named David Ford—who may hold the power to save the world. Newly employed at the extravagant Acton Clinic, Ford encounters people who seem to understand what’s happening… some may even possess an extraordinary knowledge of what’s to come. One of them is the beautiful and enigmatic Caroline Light, who demands more from Ford than he could possibly give… another is cunning ex-CIA operative Mack Graham, a skilled killer with questionable loyalties… December 21, 2012 was not the end. The end is The Omega Point: where time stops

Dr Damon Zeno: microbiologist… American defector… a dedicated and dangerous enemy. That was about all Nick Carter knew about the man he was hunting — except that Zeno was set up in a secret lab, perfecting a chilling new weapon for the destruction of the United States. The weapon was the 'Omega mutation' — a microscopic bug. It multiplied quickly and it could not be destroyed. It would kill a man in a matter of days. Zeno planned to turn it loose in the United States — and Nick Carter had no choice but to destroy Zeno before 'Omega Day'. Soon Carter was in Tangier, hot on Zeno's trail — with his automatic snug in its holster… a beautiful girl named Gabrielle close at his side… and a death trap waiting for him at every turn

Only a vampire is man enough to teach werewolves how to fight. Pretty librarian Sugar wants her life to stay quiet. That's hard enough when friends and neighbors turn into furry wolves every full moon. But when a hot vampire gets involved, life's bound to get complicated. The Omega have always been the pansies of the paranormal. Now Chicago's top werewolf pack has issued them a life or death challenge. Their only option: hire a vampire warrior to teach them the moves. Daedalus has been a powerful vampire for ages. Intrigued by the chance to train the geeks of the underworld, he wasn't bargaining on losing his heart to a human. Can he make the Omegas a success, fit into Sugar's quiet life, and avoid being ripped to shreds in the process?

Hannis Arc, working on the tapestry of lines linking constellations of elements that constituted the language of Creation recorded on the ancient Cerulean scroll spread out among the clutter on his desk, was not surprised to see the seven etherial forms billow into the room like acrid smoke driven on a breath of bitter breeze. Like an otherworldly collection of spectral shapes seemingly carried on random eddies of air, they wandered in a loose clutch among the still and silent mounted bears and beasts rising up on their stands, the small forest of stone pedestals holding massive books of recorded prophecy, and the evenly spaced display cases of oddities, their glass reflecting the firelight from the massive hearth at the side of the room. Since the seven rarely used doors, the shutters on the windows down on the ground level several stories below stood open as a fearless show of invitation. Though they frequently chose to use windows, they didn’t actually need the windows any more than they needed the doors. They could seep through any opening, any crack, like vapor rising in the early morning from the stretches of stagnant water that lay in dark swaths through the peat barrens. The open shutters were meant to be a declaration for all to see, including the seven, that Hannis Arc feared nothing

THE SELECTION changed the lives of thirty-five girls forever. Now, only one will claim Prince Maxon’s heart… It’s swoon meets the Hunger Games in the final instalment of THE SELECTION trilogy! For the four girls who remain at the palace, the friendships they’ve formed, rivalries they’ve struggled with and dangers they’ve faced have bound them to each other for the rest of their lives. Now, the time has come for one winner to be chosen. America never dreamed she would find herself anywhere close to the crown – or to Prince Maxon’s heart. But as the competition approaches its end and the threats outside the palace walls grow more vicious, America realises just how much she stands to lose – and how hard she’ll have to fight for the future she wants. The breathtaking finale to THE SELECTION trilogy will make you swoon!

"The most important Argentinian writer since Borges." — The Independent The One Before is a triptych of sorts, consisting of a series of short pieces — called "Arguments" — and two longer stories—"Half-Erased" and "The One Before" — all of which revolve around the ideas of exile and memory. Many of the characters who populate Juan José Saer's other novels appear here, including Tomatis, Ángel Leto, and Washington Noriega (who appear in La Grande, Scars, and The Sixty-Five Years of Washington, all of which are available from Open Letter). Saer's typical themes are on display in this collection as well, as is his idiosyncratic blend of philosophical ruminations and precise storytelling. From the story of the two characters who decide to bury a message in a bottle that simply says "MESSAGE," to Pigeon Garay's attempt to avoid the rising tides and escape Argentina for Europe, The One Before evocatively introduces readers to Saer's world and gives the already indoctrinated new material about their favorite characters

When their mother starts to date the mystery man on the fifth floor, who has been instructed by his agent to "eliminate the children" by the first of May, eleven-year-old Caroline and her older brother figure they're targeted to be the victims of a savage crime

Suppose your life sucks. Your husband has done a vanishing act, your stepson is being bullied and your daughter has a once in a lifetime opportunity . . . that you can't afford to pay for. So imagine you found and kept some money that didn't belong to you, knowing it would pay for your daughter's happiness. But how do you cope with the shame? Especially when the man you've lied to decides to help you out in your hour of need . . . Jess is in hell - Ed has saved her family - but is their happiness worth a lifetime's soul-searching?

The heroic, real-life personal account of Chris Ryan's most famous mission, The One That Got Away, is now reworked for a new generation. Some authors just write about it. Chris Ryan has been there, done it — and here is the gripping real-life tale… During the Gulf War in 1991, Chris Ryan became separated from the other members of the SAS patrol, Bravo Two Zero. Alone, he beat off an Iraqi attack and set out for Syria. Over the next seven days he walked almost 200 miles, his life constantly in danger. Of the eight SAS members involved in this famous mission, only one escaped capture. This is his story…

The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller  Jay Papasan   Since its April, 2013 publication The ONE Thing has made more than 125 appearances on national bestseller lists, including #1 Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Publisher’s Weekly, Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles Times, Reuters, BookScan, and 800CEOREAD. The ONE Thing was chosen one of the Top 5 Business Books of 2013 by Hudson’s Booksellers and one of Top 30 Business Books of 2013 by Executive Book Summaries.  People are using this simple, powerful concept to avoid overwhelming distractions in their personal and work lives so they can focus on what matters most. Companies are helping their employees be more productive with study groups, training, and coaching. Churches are conducting classes and recommending from the pulpit.  YOU WANT LESS. You want fewer distractions and less on your plate. The daily barrage of e-mails, texts, tweets, messages, and meetings distract you and stress you out. The simultaneous demands of work and family are taking a toll. And what’s the cost? Second-rate work, missed deadlines, smaller paychecks, fewer promotions—and lots of stress. ·       Failing to think big can limit your opportunities. ·       Prioritize your to-dos – they are not all equally important. ·       Asking the “focusing question” will help you to prioritize, create actionable tasks and achieve your goals. ·       The secret to a disciplined life is sequential habit forming. ·       Multitasking is horribly inefficient: pick one thing and give it your undivided attention. ·       Your willpower is like a fuel tank: choose carefully where you use it or you may run out when you really need it. ·       Saying “no” to unimportant tasks is vital if you are to focus your efforts on the most important ones. ·       Living with purpose and visualizing the steps to get to your goal will set you on the path to extraordinary results. ·       Never compromise your personal life for your professional goals – instead, prioritize your work time ruthlessly. ·       To focus on your ONE thing, you need effective time-management strategies, and to accept some chaos in other areas. ·       Final Summary & Actionable advice

Thomas Covenant and Linden Avery begin their search for the One Tree that is to be the salvation of the Land. Only he could find the answer and forge a new Staff of Law—but fate decreed that the journey was to be long, the quest arduous, and quite possibly a failure…

Рассказ вошёл в сборники: The Machineries of Joy (Механизмы радости) The Stories of Ray Bradbury (И грянул гром: 100 рассказов)