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The Last Lecture
A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy? When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living. In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.
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Girls Of Riyadh
An inside peek into a hidden world: four young women navigate the narrow straits between love, desire and Islamic tradition. Every week after Friday prayers, an email circulates among a group of female subscribers to an online chat group. Over the course of a year, the realities of four university students from Riyadh’s elite classes, Gamrah, Michelle, Sadim and Lamis, are revealed. Living in a society with strict cultural traditions while Sex and the City, dating and sneaking around behind their parents backs consume their lives, these four young girls face numerous social, romantic, professional and sexual tribulations. Never-ending cultural conflicts underscore the difficulties of being an educated modern female growing up in the 21st century in a culture firmly rooted to an ancient way of life. Girls of Riyadh presents a rare and unforgettable insight into the complicated lives of these young Saudi women, whose amazing stories are unfolding in a culture so very different from our own.
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The Fifth Mountain
Fleeing his from persecution, 23-years-old Elijah takes refuge with a young widow and her son the beautiful town of Akbar. Already struggling to maintain his sanity in a chaotic world of tyranny and war, he is now forced to choose between his-new found love and his overwhelming sense of duty. Evoking all the intrigue of the colourful, chaotic Middle East, Paulo Coelho turns the trials of Elijah into an inspiring story of how faith and love can ultimately triumph over suffering. A gripping and moving story of how one man can surmount tragedy and inspire a war torn city to rebuild itself.
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The Alchemist
Every few decades a book is published that changes the lives of its readers forever. This is such a book a magical fable about learning to listen to your heart, read the omens strewn along life's path and, above all, follow your dreams. This is the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who dreams of travelling the world in search of a worldly treasure as fabulous as any ever found. From his home in Spain he journeys to the markets of Tangiers, and from there into the Egyptian desert, where a fateful encounter with the alchemist awaits him With Paulo Coelho's visionary blend of spirituality, magical realism and folklore, The Alchemist is a story with the power to inspire nations and change people's lives
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Difficult Daughters
Set around the time of Partition and written with absorbing intelligence and sympathy, Difficult Daughters is the story of a woman torn between family duty, the desire for education, and illicit love. Virmati, a young woman born in Amritsar into an austere and high-minded household, falls in love with a neighbour, the Professor--a man who is already married. That the Professor eventually marries Virmati, installs her in his home (alongside his furious first wife) and helps her towards further studies in Lahore, is small consolation to her scandalised family. Or even to Virmati, who finds that the battle for her own independence has created irrevocable lines of partition and pain around her.
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Lajja
The Duttas - Sudhamoy, Kironmoyee, and their two children, Suranjan and Maya - have lived in Bangladesh all their lives. Despite being part of the country's small Hindu community, that is terrorized at every opportunity by Muslim fundamentalists, they refuse to leave their country, as most of their friends and relatives have done. Sudhamoy, an atheist, believes with a naive mix of optimism and idealism that his motherland will not let him down... And then, on 6 December 1992, the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya in India is demolished by a mob of Hindu fundamentalists. The world condemns the incident but its fallout is felt most acutely in Bangladesh, where Muslim mobs begin to seek out and attack the Hindus... The nightmare inevitably arrives at the Duttas' doorstep - and their world begins to fall apart.
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The Appeal
In a landmark trial in Mississippi, a jury returns a shocking verdict against the giant Krane chemical company: its dumping of toxic waste has caused the worst cancer cluster in history. The verdict is a triumph for Wes and Mary Grace Payton, the small husband and wife legal team who have fought Krane for years. Now nothing stands in the way of million dollar settlements for all of Krane’s victims. Except for one thing: The Appeal. Krane’s billionaire owner had decided not one cent will be paid to any of the plaintiffs. Instead he will buy himself some justice at the Supreme Court. Instead of a victory, the biggest legal battle of their lives is just beginning for the Paytons and their clients
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A Town Called Dehra
In this delightful collection, Ruskin Bond introduces us to the Dehradun he knows intimately and loves unreservedly—the town that he had spent many years of his childhood and youth in. A town which, when he knew it, was one of pony-drawn tongas and rickshaws; a town fond of gossip but tolerant of human foibles; a town of lush lichi trees, charming winter gardens and cool streams; a small town, a sleepy town, a town called ‘Dehra’. With classic stories and poems like ‘Masterji’, ‘Growing up with Trees’and ‘A Song for Lost Friends’ and previously unpublished treasures like ‘Silver Screen’, ‘Dilaram Bazaar’ and ‘Lily of the Valley’, this anthology is replete with journal entries, extracts from the author’s memoirs and, of course, poetry, non-fiction and stories set in or inspired by Dehra. Evocative, wistful and witty as only Ruskin Bond can be, A Town Called Dehra is a celebration of a dearly-loved town as well as an elegy for a way of life gone extinct.
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Death In The Clouds
From seat No.9, Hercule Poirot was ideally placed to observe his fellow air passengers. Over to his right sat a pretty young woman, clearly infatuated with the man opposite; ahead, in seat No.13, sat a Countess with a poorly-concealed cocaine habit; across the gangway in seat No.8, a detective writer was being troubled by an aggressive wasp. What Poirot did not yet realize was that behind him, in seat No.2, sat the slumped, lifeless body of a woman.
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Murder In Mesopotamia
When Amy Leatheran agrees to look after archaeologist Dr. Leidner’s wife at a dig near Hassanieh, she finds herself taking on more than just nursing duties – she also has to help solve murders. Fortunately for Amy, Hercule Poirot is visiting the excavation site. But will the great detective be ...
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The Bourne Sanction
For university professor David Webb - forever caught between two identities - life can never be ordinary. Lately he seems to have found some well-earned normality. But David is still haunted by the splintered nightmares his former life - as Jason Bourne. Soon he finds himself embroiled in a Central Intelligence operation to hunt down a terrorist organisation planning a major attack, and is plunged into the deadliest and most tangled assignment of his double life - and the murky underworld he's been trying to escape. With his own side trying to take him down, all the while an assassin as brilliant and damaged as himself is getting closer by the minute ...
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Bird
A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the thirties. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man's struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much...
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The Interpretation Of Murder
On the morning after Sigmund Freud arrives in New York on his first – and only – visit to the United States, a stunning debutante is found bound and strangled in her penthouse apartment, high above Broadway. The following night, another beautiful heiress, Nora Acton, is discovered tied to a chandelier in her parents’ home, viciously wounded and unable to speak or to recall her ordeal. Soon Freud and his American disciple, Stratham Younger, are enlisted to help Miss Acton recover her memory, and to piece together the killer’s identity. It is a riddle that will test their skills to the limit, and lead them on a thrilling journey – into the darkest places of the city, and of the human mind.
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The Clocks
A typist uncovers a man's body from behind the sofa...As instructed, stenographer Sheila Webb let herself into the house at 19 Wilbraham Crescent. It was then that she made a grisly discovery: the body of a dead man sprawled across the living room floor. What intrigued Poirot about the case was the time factor. Although in a state of shock, Sheila clearly remembered having heard a cuckoo clock strike three o'clock. Yet, the four other clocks in the living room all showed the time as 4.13. Even more strangely, only one of these clocks belonged to the owner of the house!
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Elephants Can Remember
Hercule Poirot stood on the cliff-top. Here, many years earlier, there had been a tragic accident. This was followed by the grisly discovery of two more bodies – a husband and wife – shot dead.But who had killed whom? Was it a suicide pact? A crime of passion? Or cold-blooded murder? Poirot delves back into the past and discovers that ‘old sin leave long shadows’.
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Why Didn't They Ask Evans?
While playing a round of golf, Bobby Jones slices his ball over the edge of a cliff. His ball is lost, but on the rocks below he finds the crumpled body of a dying man. With his final breath the man opens his eyes and says, ‘Why didn’t they ask Evans?’
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And Then There Were None
Ten…..Ten strangers are lured to an isolated island mansion of the devon cost by a mysterious u.n.owen. Nine…..at dinner a recorded message accuses each of them in turn of having a guilty secreat, and by the end of the night one of the guest is dead. Eight.... stranded by a violent storm, and hunted by an acient nursery rhyme counting down one by one.... as one by one.... they begin to die. Seven..... which amongst them is the killer and will any of them survive.
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The Body In The Library
The very-respectable Colonel and Mrs Bantry have awakened to discover the body of a young woman in their library. She is wearing evening dress and heavy make-up, which is now smeared across her cold cheeks. But who is she? How did she get there? And what is her connection with another dead girl, whose charred remains are later discovered in an abandoned quarry? The Bantrys turn to Miss Marple to solve the mystery.
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The Hallow
Christie described this novel as the one "I had ruined by the introduction of Poirot." It was first published in 1946 in London. In the USA it was published under the title Murder after Hours. Christie adapted the novel for the stage though with the omission of Hercule Poirot.
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The Big Four
Framed in the doorway of Poirot’s bedroom stood an uninvited guest, coated from head to foot in dust. The man’s gaunt face stared for a moment, then he swayed and fell. Who was he? Was he suffering from shock or just exhaustion? Above all, what was the significance of the figure 4, scribbled over and over again on a sheet of paper? Poirot finds himself plunged into a world of international intrigue, risking his life to uncover the truth about ‘Number Four’
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N or M?
World War II, and while the RAF struggles to keep the Luftwaffe at bay, Britain faces an even more sinister threat from ‘the enemy within’ – Nazis posing as ordinary citizens. With pressure mounting, the Intelligence service appoints two unlikely spies, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. Their mission: to seek out a man and a woman from among the colourful guests at Sans Souci, a seaside hotel. But this assignment is no stroll along the promenade. After all, N and M have just murdered Britain’s finest agent…
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Miss Marple's Final Cases
First, the mystery man in the church with a bullet-wound… then, the riddle of a dead man’s buried treasure… the curious conduct of a caretaker after a fatal riding accident… the corpse and a tape-measure… the girl framed for theft… and the suspect accused of stabbing his wife with a dagger… Six gripping cases with one thing in common – the astonishing deductive powers of Jane Marple. ‘When it all becomes clear as day, the reader can only say, “Now why didn’t I think of that?” But he never does. Agatha Christie at her best.’ Springfield Republican
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Poirot
The dapper, moustache–twirling little Belgian with the egg–shaped head, curious mannerisms and inordinate respect for his own 'little grey cells' has solved some of the most puzzling crimes of the century. Yet despite being familiar to millions, Poirot himself has remained an enigma – until now. From his first appearance in 1920 to his last in 1975, from country–house drawing–rooms to opium dens in Limehouse, from Mayfair to the Mediterranean, Anne Hart stalks the legendary sleuth, unveiling the mysteries that surround him. Sifting through 33 novels and 56 short stories, she examines his origins, tastes, relationships and peculiarities, revealing a character as fascinating as the books themselves.
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Dead Man's Folly
Whilst organising a mock murder hunt for the village fete hosted by Sir George and Lady Stubbs, a feeling of dread settles on the famous crime novelist Adriane Oliver. Call it instinct, but it's a feeling she just can't explain or get away from. In desperation she summons her old friend, Hercule Poirot and her instincts are soon proved correct when the 'pretend' murder victim is discovered playing the scene for real, a rope wrapped tightly around her neck But it's the great detective who first discovers that in murder hunts, whether mock or real, everyone is playing a part