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Joseph Anton: A Memoir
A compelling and frank account of one of the most extraordinary stories in recent literary history - Salman Rushdie and the fatwa. On 14 February 1989, Valentine's Day, Salman Rushdie was telephoned by a BBC journalist and told that he had been 'sentenced to death' by the Ayatollah Khomeini. For the first time he heard the word fatwa. His crime? To have written a novel called The Satanic Verses, which was accused of being 'against Islam, the Prophet and the Quran'. So begins the extraordinary story of how a writer was forced underground, moving from house to house, with the constant presence of an armed police protection team. He was asked to choose an alias that the police could call him by. He thought of writers he loved and combinations of their names; then it came to him: Conrad and Chekhov - Joseph Anton. How do a writer and his family live with the threat of murder for over nine years? How does he go on working? How does he fall in and out of love? How does despair shape his thoughts and actions, how and why does he stumble, how does he learn to fight back? In this remarkable memoir Rushdie tells that story for the first time; the story of one of the crucial battles, in our time, for freedom of speech. He talks about the sometimes grim, sometimes comic realities of living with armed policemen, and of the close bonds he formed with his protectors; of his struggle for support and understanding from governments, intelligence chiefs, publishers, journalists, and fellow writers; and of how he regained his freedom. It is a book of exceptional frankness and honesty, compelling, provocative, moving, and of vital importance. Because what happened to Salman Rushdie was the first act of a drama that is still unfolding somewhere in the world every day.
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Winter of The World
Five linked families live out their destinies as the world is shaken by tyranny and war in the mid-twentieth century Berlin in 1933 is in upheaval. Eleven-year-old Carla von Ulrich struggles to understand the tensions disrupting her family as Hitler strengthens his grip on Germany. Into this turmoil steps her mothers formidable friend and former British MP, Ethel Leckwith, and her student son, Lloyd, who soon learns for himself the brutal reality of Nazism. He also encounters a group of Germans resolved to oppose Hitler - but are they willing to go so far as to betray their country? Such people are closely watched by Volodya, a Russian with a bright future in Red Army Intelligence. The international clash of military power and personal beliefs that ensues will sweep over them all as it rages from Cable Street in Londons East End to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, from Spain to Stalingrad, from Dresden to Hiroshima. At Cambridge Lloyd is irresistibly drawn to dazzling American socialite Daisy Peshkov, who represents everything his left-wing family despise. But Daisy is more interested in aristocratic Boy Fitzherbert - amateur pilot, party lover and leading light of the British Union of Fascists. Back in Berlin, Carla worships golden boy Werner from afar. But nothing will work out the way they expect as their lives and the hopes of the world are smashed by the greatest and cruellest war in the history of the human race.
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Park Avenue Scandals
721 Park Avenue the ultimate address for top-price secrets & affairs! Secret Pregnancy Manhattan millionaire Max Roland didnt do relationships...until a one-night fling had a surprising result. He suggested a temporary marriage. For one year. That way hed have an heir and a sexy bed- mate. Front Page Engagement Media mogul Trent Tanford has one week to find a wife...or lose his empire. But none of his New York flings would do. However, the innocent house-sitter next door, Carrie Gray, just might. How was he going to propose to this total stranger? Princes Seduction Crown prince, billionaire businessman and bachelor Sebastian Stone needs his assistant Tessa Banks to hold his life together. So, to stop her leaving him, hell shower her in sensual pleasures and jewels.
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A Perfect Family
Scandal, seduction and shocking secrets...welcome to the Chrighton Dynasty As three generations of the Chrighton family gather for a special birthday celebration, no one could possibly have anticipated that their secure world was about to be rocked by the events of one fateful weekend. One dramatic revelation leads to another a secret war-time liaison, a carefully concealed embezzlement scam, the illicit seduction of somebody elses wife. The results are going to be explosive..
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Shattered Dreams
A twisting paranormal thriller steeped in the atmosphere of New Orleans Trinity has never known who she really is. Strange dreams haunt her nights, and she has always been able to sense things that others cant. When Jessica, the most popular girl at school, disappears, Trinity realises she will have to draw on her secret abilities to help find her. Soon, Trinity is subject to visions that terrify her and make the police sceptical. As her dreams grow darker and the visions more frightening, Trinity realizes she must risk her reputation and her sanity to save a girl who hates her.
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Cell 8
A capital crime A chilling conspiracy A convicted murderer dies awaiting execution on Ohios death row. Six years later, the same man walks into a Stockholm police station. Hes defeated death. Hes played the unplayable system. And now Detective Superintendent Ewert Grens must discover how.
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Breaking the Bow
Breaking the Bow is a collection of brilliant, original and beautifully told tales, guaranteed to enlighten and entertain. A long time ago, a young prince, the heir to a great South-Asian kingdom, wielded Sivas mighty bow and won the heart of a brave princess. The story of what happened next to the married couplethe Ramayanatold and re-told countless times over the centuries, begins where most stories end. The twenty-five stories in Breaking the Bow take a similar courageous leap into the unknown. Inspired by the Ramayana and its cultural importance, the anthology dares to imagine new worlds. Here you will find magic realist and surreal stories. Robot and cyberpunk stories. Fantasy and science fiction stories. Hard-to-classify stories. Stories by some of the best writers in contemporary south-Asian fiction, including Abha Dawesar, Rana Dasgupta, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Tabish Khair, Kuzhali Manickavel, Mary Anne Mohanraj and Manjula Padmanabhan. Stories from India, Sri Lanka and Thailand, but also Holland, Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States.
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Walking on Glass
'Her eyes were black, wide as though with some sustained surprise, the skin from their outer corners to her small ears taut. Her lips were pale, and nearly too full for her small mouth, like something bled but bruised. He had never seen anyone or anything quite so beautiful in his life.' Graham Park is in love. But Sara Fitch is an enigma to him, a creature of almost perverse mystery. Steven Grout is paranoid - and with justice. He knows that They are out to get him. They are. Quiss, insecure in his fabulous if ramshackle castle, is forced to play interminable impossible games. The solution to the oldest of all paradoxical riddles will release him. But he must find an answer before he knows the question. Park, Grout, Quiss - no trio could be further apart. But their separate courses are set for collision.
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Coastliners
When Grosjean's estranged daughter Mado returns to Le Devin, a tiny island caught like a crab in the shallow seas of northern France, she brings with her an air of energy and change that ruffles the crusty local fisherman. Divided squarely into two warring communities, the people from La Houssiniere on the near side and those from Les Salants on the far side, the islanders' traditional feuds and superstitions persist. More menacing is the powerful Brismand, whose ruthless interests threaten the very survival of Les Salants, the community to which Mado belongs. In enterprising spirit, Mado arranges to build a huge reef diverting the tide that has been gradually shifting the Salannais' beach towards their rivals, the Houssins, on the other side of the island, and steals it back. In doing so, she sparks off a chain of events that brings not only hope to the dying Salannais community, but also revelations of a past tragedy that still haunts the elderly Grosjean. Mado is determined to find out what plagues her mute father, and to stop the cunning Brismand whose business plans threaten her family's land. But her head is turned by the attractive, free-spirited Flynn. How far can she trust this flame-haired stranger, who claims he is without roots, yet whose connections with the island seem to run so deep? Inspired by the island Joanne Harris used to visit as a child, good battles against evil in this tale of bitter poetry that proves no man is ever an island. Rich with coastal imagery and smells, its twists and turns are salty and powerful, and utterly compelling.