The Accidental Apprentice: A Novel

The Accidental Apprentice: A Novel

Vikas Swarup

Fiction / Cultural / India

From the author of the book behind the blockbuster movie Slumdog Millionaire, a brilliant novel about life changing in an instant. Life pivots on a few key moments. This is one of them. Sapna Sinha works in an electronics store in downtown Delhi. She hates her job, but she is ambitious and determined to succeed, and she knows without the money she brings in, her family won't be able to survive. Little does she know it but her life is about to change forever. As she leaves the shop on her lunch break one day, she is approached by a man who claims to be CEO of one of India's biggest companies. He tells her he is looking for an heir for his business empire. And that he has decided it should be her. There are just seven tests she must pass. And then the biggest lottery ticket of all time will be hers.
Read online
  • 1 143
The Age of Magic

The Age of Magic

Ben Okri

Fiction / Cultural / Africa

This novel takes us on a journey, a magical, and a literal one. A tightly knit group of filmmakers travel from Paris together to make a documentary. Unknown to themselves they carry a lot of unwanted baggage - fear, anger, jealousy, love. When they arrive in an idyllic Swiss village ringed by mountains and reflected in a lake, they discover a haunted world that will compel them to confront the demons they have been trying to escape. A mind-blowingly beautiful book, full of unexpected, poetic and metaphysical revelations. See more at: http://headofzeus.com/books/The+Age+o...
Read online
  • 1 129
Six Suspects

Six Suspects

Vikas Swarup

Fiction / Cultural / India

Vicky Rai, the son of a high-profile Minister, has been shot dead by one of the guests at his own party. They are a glitzy bunch, but among them the police find six strange, displaced characters with a gun in their possession. each of them steaming with a secret motive. India's wiliest investigative journalist, Arun Advani, makes it his mission to nail the murderer. In doing so, the amazing, tender and touching, techni-colour lives of six eccentric personalities unravel before our eyes. But can we trust Advani? Or does he have another agenda in mind...?
Read online
  • 1 083
War - The Battle for West Germany

War - The Battle for West Germany

Charles Miller

History / Nonfiction / Cultural

The fear, brutality, and excitement of modern war captured with intricate detail. A story for those who are looking for a shot of excitement and those who love the details. The setting is based off of the novel "Red Storm Rising" by Tom Clancy.Of course, please leave a comment or review on the book, and what you did / didn't like about it!Cindy Adams makes the same dish every year for the hometown picnic. This year it's the same only she's divorced and starting over. She finds strength in the stability of family and friends. Sometimes when you're not looking for love, it finds you.Can forever be found over a time honored dish?Originally targeted for magazine publication at 1,000 words, this is a short story.
Read online
  • 1 002
The Dreamer Wakes

The Dreamer Wakes

Cao Xueqin

Classics / Fiction / Cultural

The Story of the Stone (c. 1760), also known as The Dream of the Red Chamber, is one of the greatest novels of Chinese literature. The fifth part of Cao Xueqin's magnificent saga, The Dreamer Awakes, was carefully edited and completed by Gao E some decades later. It continues the story of the changing fortunes of the Jia dynasty, focussing on Bao-yu, now married to Bao-chai, after the tragic death of his beloved Dai-yu. Against such worldly elements as death, financial ruin, marriage, decadence and corruption, his karmic journey unfolds. Like a sleepwalker through life, Bao-yu is finally awakened by a vision, which reveals to him that life itself is merely a dream, 'as moonlight mirrored in the water'.
Read online
  • 990
Selection Day

Selection Day

Aravind Adiga

Fiction / Cultural / India

Manju is fourteen. He knows he is good at cricket -- if not as good as his elder brother Radha. He knows that he fears and resents his domineering and cricket-obsessed father, admires his brilliantly talented brother and is fascinated by CSI and curious and interesting scientific facts. But there are many things, about himself and about the world, that he doesn't know . . . Everyone around him, it seems, has a clear idea of who Manju should be, except Manju himself. But when Manju begins to get to know Radha's great rival, a boy as privileged and confident as Manju is not, everything in Manju's world begins to change and he is faced by decisions that will challenge both his sense of self and of the world around him. As sensitively observed as The White Tiger -- Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2008 -- was brilliantly furious, Selection Day reveals another facet of Aravind Adiga's remarkable talent.
Read online
  • 969
Tales of Freedom

Tales of Freedom

Ben Okri

Fiction / Cultural / Africa

As one of Britain's foremost poets, Ben Okri is rightly acclaimed for his use of language. And as a Booker Prize winning novelist, this skill was shown to particular effect in both Starbook (his most recent work) and in The Famished Road. In Tales of Freedom he brings both poetry and story together in a fascinating new form, using writing and image pared down to their essentials, where haiku and story meet. Thus we discover Pinprop, the slave to an old couple lost in a clearing, who holds the keys to the universe in his quirky hands. Then there is the beautifully dressed black Russian on the train, helping to film a new version of 'Eugene Onegin'. Later, in the chaos of the aftermath of war, orphaned children paint mysterious shapes of bulls, birds, hybrid creatures, and we wonder if grief has unhinged them into genius...And who is that woman, who hardly speaks, who presses a tiny flower into the palm of the young boy on the bus, and then leaves his life forever? Tales of Freedom offers a haunting necklace of images which flash and sparkle as the light shines on them. Quick and stimulating to read, but slowly burning in the memory, they offer a different, more transcendent way of looking at our extreme, gritty world - and show the wealth of freedom that's available beyond the confines of our usual perceptions.
Read online
  • 961
Between the Assassinations

Between the Assassinations

Aravind Adiga

Fiction / Cultural / India

In his compelling new work of fiction, Aravind Adiga has imagined the small Indian city of Kittur, an everytown nestling on the coast south of Goa and north of Calicut. Through the myriad and distinctive voices of its inhabitants, an entire Indian world comes vividly and unforgettably to life. From a middle-aged Communist to an Islamic terrorist; from the young children of a Tamil building-site worker to a privileged and alienated schoolboy; from an idealistic journalist to a Brahmin housemaid, Adiga has produced a microcosm of Indian life in the 80s, the years between the assassinations of Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv. Muslim, Christian and Hindu, high-caste and low-caste, rich and poor: all of Indian life - the 'sorrowful parade of humanity' - is here. Journeying through Kittur's streets and schoolyards, bedrooms and businesses, its inner workings and outer limits, Adiga conjures a remarkable fictional landscape. Sizzling with acid observations, and textured with wicked humour and gentle humanity, Between the Assassinations is a triumph of voice and imagination.
Read online
  • 948
Last Man in Tower

Last Man in Tower

Aravind Adiga

Fiction / Cultural / India

A tale of one man refusing to leave his home in the face of property development. Tower A is a relic from a co-operative housing society established in the 1950s. When a property developer offers to buy out the residents for eye-watering sums, the principled yet arrogant teacher is the only one to refuse the offer, determined not to surrender his sentimental attachment to his home and his right to live in it, in the name of greed. His neighbours gradually relinquish any similar qualms they might have and, in a typically blunt satirical premise take matters into their own hands, determined to seize their slice of the new Mumbai as it transforms from stinky slum to silvery skyscrapers at dizzying, almost gravity-defying speed.
Read online
  • 916
Songs of Enchantment

Songs of Enchantment

Ben Okri

Fiction / Cultural / Africa

One great thought can change the dreams of the world. One great action, lived out all the way to the sea, can change the history of the world. The adventures of Azaro, the spirit child, continue. From the bestselling author of The Famished Road comes this radiant sequel.
Read online
  • 885
Dangerous Love

Dangerous Love

Ben Okri

Fiction / Cultural / Africa

From the Booker Prize-winner Ben Okri: a classic love story set in a country trying to come to terms with its past. An epic of daily life, DANGEROUS LOVE is a story of doomed love, of star-crossed lovers, separated not by their families, but by the very circumstances of their lives. 'I hope among my novels this one achieves something I have long sought.' BEN OKRI.
Read online
  • 860
Kingpin Wifeys Volume -1-3

Kingpin Wifeys Volume -1-3

K Elliott

Urban / Cultural / African American

Lani, Starr and Jada are girlfriends to some of Atlanta's biggest drug dealers but they are friends. Proceeds from drug dealing allow them to live a fabulous lifestyle. But all is not great in the land of milk and honey.Lani, Starr and Jada are girlfriends to some of Atlanta's biggest drug dealers but they are friends. Proceeds from drug dealing allow them to live a fabulous lifestyle. But all is not great in the land of milk and honey. In this first segment, Starr finds out a secret her boyfriend Trey has been hiding. Jada learns of an evil plan by her boyfriend Shamari, while trying to keep him from learning a secret of her own. And Lani's ex-boyfriend Black, another drug dealer, is still in love with her, but she's moved on to Chris, a man that treats her very well. Follow the ups and downs of these three women as they lead the King Pin Wifey Lifestyle.In Part 2, all three women have big decisions to make. Starr is force to decide her future. Does she stay with Trey, the man she loves, who hasn't been the most faithful boyfriend? Will Jada's boyfriend, Shamari get out of jail? Or will she move on without him? Lani's ex-boyfriend Black vows to win his woman back. Will she give in to temptation or will she stay true to Chris? Follow these women as they continue to give you the non-stop drama that comes with the Kingpin Wifey lifestyle!In Kingpin Wifeys Part 3, Trey gets some news that may change the way he operates his business. Chris and his brother Mike are out to get back at the people that robbed Chris. And Jada and Shamari's love is further tested because he is running out of money. Jada returns home to face some unresolved issues of her past and makes the biggest mistake any woman can make in a relationship. Part 3 may be the juiciest part yet. Follow the Wifeys as they continue to live the Kingpin Wifey Lifestyle.
Read online
  • 844
Witching Again!

Witching Again!

Stephanie Dagg

Cultural / France / Nonfiction

In this third story about Cackling Carol the witch, Big Roddy her dog and Broom, her witch's broom, of course, the three friends are reunited again. But along the way they run into trouble in the shape of Egbert, the wicked blue wizard. Carol is nearly out of magic. Can she save her faithful friends from Egbert's fury? Or will Broom have to stay a floor cloth and Big Roddy a toy dog for ever?Cackling Carol sets out to find her dog Big Roddy ad her broom. After she was moved out of her cavern and into a flat by social workers, Carol became de-witched. She forgot about her friends so they set off to find a new home. But Cackling Carol is hot on their trail now. She realises how silly she's been. Unfortunately Broom and Big Roddy bump into Egbert, the wicked blue wizard, again. Can Carol save her friends from his evil magic? Can she even save herself? Fun and adventure in this last story in the Witch's Dog trilogy. The Witch's Dog is the first story, and De-Witched is the second.
Read online
  • 823
155