A Fistful of Fig Newtons

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Author :
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0385188439
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (851 download)

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Book Synopsis A Fistful of Fig Newtons by : Jean Shepherd

Download or read book A Fistful of Fig Newtons written by Jean Shepherd and published by Crown. This book was released on 1987-11-17 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the wild and wacky world of favorite funnyman Jean Shepherd, a dozen truer-than-life tales of tailgating on the Jersey Tumpike, infuriating infants, and other everyday catastrophes, defeats, and humiliations that are the familiar fate of Americans everywhere. Jean Shepherd was one of America’s favorite humorists, his most notable achievement being the creation of the indefatigable Ralphie Parker and his quest for a BB gun in the holiday classic A Christmas Story. But he was so much more, a comic Garrison Keillor–like figure whose unique voice transcended the airwaves and affected a whole generation of nostalgic Americans. A Fistful of Fig Newtons is classic Jean Shepherd—sidesplittingly funny and sardonically irreverent. It is a brilliant comic assessment of American life—all of them delivered in Jean Shepherd’s witty, classy, unforgettable style.

A Fistful of Fig Newtons

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Author :
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0307768708
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis A Fistful of Fig Newtons by : Jean Shepherd

Download or read book A Fistful of Fig Newtons written by Jean Shepherd and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-11-10 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the wild and wacky world of favorite funnyman Jean Shepherd, a dozen truer-than-life tales of tailgating on the Jersey Tumpike, infuriating infants, and other everyday catastrophes, defeats, and humiliations that are the familiar fate of Americans everywhere. Jean Shepherd was one of America’s favorite humorists, his most notable achievement being the creation of the indefatigable Ralphie Parker and his quest for a BB gun in the holiday classic A Christmas Story. But he was so much more, a comic Garrison Keillor–like figure whose unique voice transcended the airwaves and affected a whole generation of nostalgic Americans. A Fistful of Fig Newtons is classic Jean Shepherd—sidesplittingly funny and sardonically irreverent. It is a brilliant comic assessment of American life—all of them delivered in Jean Shepherd’s witty, classy, unforgettable style.

A Fistful of Fig Newtons

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Author :
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0307768708
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis A Fistful of Fig Newtons by : Jean Shepherd

Download or read book A Fistful of Fig Newtons written by Jean Shepherd and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-11-10 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the wild and wacky world of favorite funnyman Jean Shepherd, a dozen truer-than-life tales of tailgating on the Jersey Tumpike, infuriating infants, and other everyday catastrophes, defeats, and humiliations that are the familiar fate of Americans everywhere. Jean Shepherd was one of America’s favorite humorists, his most notable achievement being the creation of the indefatigable Ralphie Parker and his quest for a BB gun in the holiday classic A Christmas Story. But he was so much more, a comic Garrison Keillor–like figure whose unique voice transcended the airwaves and affected a whole generation of nostalgic Americans. A Fistful of Fig Newtons is classic Jean Shepherd—sidesplittingly funny and sardonically irreverent. It is a brilliant comic assessment of American life—all of them delivered in Jean Shepherd’s witty, classy, unforgettable style.

Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories

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Author :
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0307575365
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (75 download)

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Book Synopsis Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories by : Jean Shepherd

Download or read book Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories written by Jean Shepherd and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-05-12 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bestselling classic of humorous and nostalgic Americana and the basis of the movie A Christmas Story. “Mr. Shepherd has the true satirist’s grip on his pen: he is humorous, sympathetic,and ironic all at once.”—Boston Globe Before Garrison Keillor and Spalding Gray there was Jean Shepherd: a master monologist and writer who spun the materials of his all-American childhood into immensely resonant—and utterly hilarious—works of comic art. Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories represents one of the peaks of his achievement, a compound of irony, affection, and perfect detail that speaks across generations. Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories is a universal (and achingly funny) orchestration of Midwestern puberty rites. From the gut-wrenching playground antics of one Delbert Bumpus and the almighty sacrifice of the Easter ham, to taffy-apple binges at the state fair and the supernatural glow surrounding unapproachable high school beauty Daphne Bigelow, to the memorable disaster that was Shepherd’s (and everyone else’s) junior prom—these are some of the archetypal legends of childhood that Shepherd evokes from his nostalgic Indiana muse. A timeless and enduring classic, Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories captures the sweet cacophonous roar of youth tempered with the wit and honesty of a grown boy

A Christmas Story

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Author :
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0307768732
Total Pages : 122 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis A Christmas Story by : Jean Shepherd

Download or read book A Christmas Story written by Jean Shepherd and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-10-27 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A beloved, bestselling classic of humorous and nostalgic Americana—the book that inspired the equally classic Yuletide film and the live musical on Fox. The holiday film A Christmas Story, first released in 1983, has become a bona fide Christmas perennial, gaining in stature and fame with each succeeding year. Its affectionate, wacky, and wryly realistic portrayal of an American family’s typical Christmas joys and travails in small-town Depression-era Indiana has entered our imagination and our hearts with a force equal to It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street. This edition of A Christmas Story gathers together in one hilarious volume the gems of autobiographical humor that Jean Shepherd drew upon to create this enduring film. Here is young Ralphie Parker’s shocking discovery that his decoder ring is really a device to promote Ovaltine; his mother and father’s pitched battle over the fate of a lascivious leg lamp; the unleashed and unnerving savagery of Ralphie’s duel in the show with the odious bullies Scut Farkas and Grover Dill; and, most crucially, Ralphie’s unstoppable campaign to get Santa—or anyone else—to give him a Red Ryder carbine action 200-shot range model air rifle. Who cares that the whole adult world is telling him, “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid”? The pieces that comprise A Christmas Story, previously published in the larger collections In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories, coalesce in a magical fashion to become an irresistible piece of Americana, quite the equal of the film in its ability to warm the heart and tickle the funny bone.

Shep's Army

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Author :
Publisher : Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN 13 : 1623160138
Total Pages : 215 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (231 download)

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Book Synopsis Shep's Army by : Jean Shepherd

Download or read book Shep's Army written by Jean Shepherd and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2013-07-01 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Book). Disclaimer: No U.S. Military Personnel were harmed during the making of these fictional reminiscences. No warrior is more forgotten than he who has been left behind by the war department. Most men who have never tasted combat beyond the occasional fistfight on poker night quickly learn to lay low and zip the lip when battlefield stories are unfurled by the Purple Hearters at the dinner table. Except, of course, for our man Jean Shepherd. Fearless in his uncombativeness, he manfully fought his dearth of frontline duty with the weapons he wielded unmatched by even the most decorated dogface: rapid-fire griping and explosive laughter. Jean Shepherd was, and remains, a pervasive part of American culture. His quirky individuality was portrayed for posterity by Jason Robards in the play and film, A Thousand Clowns , written by Shep's close pal, Herb Gardner. Jack Nicholson embodied a Shepherd-like late-night radio talker in The King of Marvin Gardens . While in Network , by Paddy Chayefsky (another of Shep's comic cohorts), the television newscaster beseeches his listeners to open their windows and yell, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore," an unmistakable echo of Shepherd's radio habit of "hurling an invective" like a hand grenade out into the nation's air waves. Shepherd was a spiritual father to Garrison Keillor, Daniel Pinkwater, Bill Harley, Paul Krassner and Joe Frank. Tens of thousands of rabid fans stayed up past their bedtime with transistor radios stashed under their pillows to follow Shep's always unpredictable, usually extemporaneous, verbal forays into current events, social mores, idle thoughts, stories about his childhood in northern Indiana ("I was this kid, see..."), his army days, and his idiosyncratic take on his world-wide travels. Shepherd once bamboozled an innocent public, and gullible publishing world, by promoting a non-existent book ( I, Libertine ) and author (Frederick R. Ewing), then co-writing it with sci-fi author Theodore Sturgeon. It sold in best-seller numbers. Shepherd wrote nearly two dozen stories for Playboy and even interviewed the Beatles for the magazine. He published several best-selling books of his stories and articles; he appeared at Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, and in hundreds of jam-packed college auditoriums. Shep's Army is the first volume of new Shepherd tales to be published in a quarter century.

In God We Trust

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Author :
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 030776866X
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis In God We Trust by : Jean Shepherd

Download or read book In God We Trust written by Jean Shepherd and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-10-27 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of humorous and nostalgic Americana stories—the beloved, bestselling classics that inspired the movie A Christmas Story Before Garrison Keillor and Spalding Gray there was Jean Shepherd: a master monologist and writer who spun the materials of his all-American childhood into immensely resonant—and utterly hilarious—works of comic art. In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash represents one of the peaks of his achievement, a compound of irony, affection, and perfect detail that speaks across generations. In God We Trust, Shepherd's wildly witty reunion with his Indiana hometown, disproves the adage “You can never go back.” Bending the ear of Flick, his childhood-buddy-turned-bartender, Shepherd recalls passionately his genuine Red Ryder BB gun, confesses adolescent failure in the arms of Junie Jo Prewitt, and relives a story of man against fish that not even Hemingway could rival. From pop art to the World's Fair, Shepherd's subjects speak with a universal irony and are deeply and unabashedly grounded in American Midwestern life, together rendering a wonderfully nostalgic impression of a more innocent era when life was good, fun was clean, and station wagons roamed the earth. A comic genius who bridged the gap between James Thurber and David Sedaris, Shepherd may have accomplished for Holden, Indiana, what Mark Twain did for Hannibal, Missouri.

The Ferrari in the Bedroom

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Author :
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0307755312
Total Pages : 263 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis The Ferrari in the Bedroom by : Jean Shepherd

Download or read book The Ferrari in the Bedroom written by Jean Shepherd and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-06-16 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jean Shepherd was one of America’s favorite humorists, his most notable achievement being the creation of the indefatigable Ralphie Parker and his quest for a BB gun in the holiday classic A Christmas Story. But he was so much more, a comic Garrison Keillor–like figure whose unique voice transcended the airwaves and affected a whole generation of nostalgic Americans. The Ferrari in the Bedroom is Shepherd’s wry, affectionate look at the hang-ups and delusions of Americans in the 1970s. From his sardonic assessment of fads such as the nostalgia craze (“Thinking that the old days were good is a terrible sickness. Everything was just as bad then as it is now.”) to a modest proposal for the foundation of S.P.L.A.T. (The Society for the Prevention of the Leaving of Animal Turds), Jean Shepherd provides a generous measure of his special brand of wise and warm humor as an antidote for some of America’s more ridiculous obsessions.

Setting Free the Bears

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Author :
Publisher : Ballantine Books
ISBN 13 : 1984800086
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (848 download)

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Book Synopsis Setting Free the Bears by : John Irving

Download or read book Setting Free the Bears written by John Irving and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Truly remarkable . . . encompasses the longings and agonies of youth . . . a complex and moving novel.”—Time “Astonishing . . . a writer of uncommon imaginative power. Whatever [John Irving] writes, it will be worth reading.”—Saturday Review It is 1967. Two Viennese university students, Siggy and Hannes, roam the Austrian countryside on their motorcycles—on a quest: to liberate the bears of the Vienna Zoo. But their good intentions have both comic and gruesome consequences in this first novel from John Irving, already a master storyteller at twenty-five years old. “Imagine a mixture of Till Eulenspiegel and Ken Kesey . . . and you've got the range of the merry pranksters who hot rod through Mr. Irving's book . . . tossing flowers, stealing salt shakers, and planning the biggest caper of their young lives.”—The New York Times

Swallowing Stones

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Author :
Publisher : Laurel Leaf
ISBN 13 : 0307816826
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis Swallowing Stones by : Joyce McDonald

Download or read book Swallowing Stones written by Joyce McDonald and published by Laurel Leaf. This book was released on 2012-05-22 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You can’t change the past. . . . When Michael fires his new rifle into the air on his seventeenth birthday, he never imagines that the bullet will end up killing someone. But it does—and Michael’s world is changed forever. Desperate, he wrestles with his guilt and keeps silent as his life begins to fall apart. When Jenna’s father is killed in a freak Fourth of July accident, she’s devastated. As she grieves, she tries to understand why she no longer feels comfortable with her boyfriend, Jason, and why a guy named Michael keeps appearing in her dreams. . . . Swallowing Stones is a haunting novel about choices . . . and devastating consequences.

Callings

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Author :
Publisher : Harmony
ISBN 13 : 0609803700
Total Pages : 349 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (98 download)

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Book Synopsis Callings by : Gregg Michael Levoy

Download or read book Callings written by Gregg Michael Levoy and published by Harmony. This book was released on 1998-09-08 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do we know if we're following our true callings? How do we sharpen our senses to cut through the distractions of everyday reality and hear the calls that are beckoning us? is the first book to examine the many kinds of calls we receive and the great variety of channels through which they come to us. A calling may be to do something (change careers, go back to school, have a child) or to be something (more creative, less judgmental, more loving). While honoring a calling's essential mystery, this book also guides readers to ask and answer the fundamental questions that arise from any calling: How do we recognize it? How do we distinguish the true call from the siren song? How do we handle our resistance to a call? What happens when we say yes? What happens when we say no? Drawing on the hard-won wisdom and powerful stories of people who have followed their own calls, Gregg Levoy shows us the many ways to translate a calling into action. In a style that is poetic, exuberant, and keenly insightful, he presents an illuminating and ultimately practical inquiry into how we listen and respond to our calls, whether at work or at home, in our relationships or in service. Callings is a compassionate guide to discovering your own callings and negotiating the tight passages to personal power and authenticity.

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection

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Author :
Publisher : St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN 13 : 1429903821
Total Pages : 672 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

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Book Synopsis The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection by : Gardner Dozois

Download or read book The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection written by Gardner Dozois and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2002-07-23 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twenty-first century has so far proven to be exciting and wondrous and filled with challenges we had never dreamed. New possibilities previously unimagined appear almost daily . . . and science fiction stories continue to explore those possibilities with delightful results: Collected in this anthology are such compelling stories as: "On K2 with Kanakaredes" by Dan Simmons. A relentlessly paced and absorbing tale set in the near future about three mountain climbers who must scale the face of K2 with some very odd company. "The Human Front" by Ken MacLeod. In this compassionate coming-of-age tale the details of life are just a bit off from things as we know them-and nothing is as it appears to be. "Glacial" by Alastair Reynolds. A fascinating discovery on a distant planet leads to mass death and a wrenching mystery as spellbinding as anything in recent short fiction. The twenty-six stories in this collection imaginatively takes us far across the universe, into the very core of our beings, to the realm of the gods, and the moment just after now. Included here are the works of masters of the form and of bright new talents, including: Eleanor Arnason Chris Beckett Michael Blumlein Michael Cassutt Brenda W. Clough Paul Di Filippo Andy Duncan Carolyn Ives Gilman Jim Grimsley Simon Ings James Patrick Kelly Leigh Kennedy Nancy Kress Ian R. MacLeod Ken MacLeod Paul J. McAuley Maureen F. McHugh Robert Reed Alastair Reynolds Geoff Ryman William Sanders Dan Simmons Allen M. Steele Charles Stross Michael Swanwick Howard Waldrop Supplementing the stories are the editor's insightful summation of the year's events and a lengthy list of honorable mentions, making this book a valuable resource in addition to serving as the single best place in the universe to find stories that stir the imagination and the heart.

Excelsior, You Fathead!

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Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1476848823
Total Pages : 496 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (768 download)

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Book Synopsis Excelsior, You Fathead! by : Eugene B. Bergmann

Download or read book Excelsior, You Fathead! written by Eugene B. Bergmann and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jean Shepherd (1921-1999) master humorist is best known for his creation ÊA Christmas StoryÊ the popular movie about the child who wants a BB gun for Christmas and nearly shoots his eye out. What else did Shepherd do? He is considered by many to be the Mark Twain and James Thurber of his day. For many thousands of fans for decades Shep talked on the radio late at night keeping them up way past their bedtimes. He entertained without a script improvising like a jazz musician on any and every subject you can imagine. He invented and remains the master of talk radio. Shepherd perpetrated one of the great literary hoaxes of all time promoting a nonexistent book and author and then brought the book into existence. He wrote 23 short stories for ÊPlayboyÊ four times winning their humor of the year award and also interviewed The Beatles for the magazine. He authored several popular books of humor and satire created several television series and acted in several plays. He is the model for the character played by Jason Robards in the play and movie ÊA Thousand ClownsÊ as well as the inspiration for the Shel Silverstein song made famous by Johnny Cash A Boy Named Sue. Readers will learn the significance of innumerable Shepherd words and phrases such as Excelsior you fathead and observe his constant confrontations with the America he loved. They will get to know and understand this multitalented genius by peeking behind the wall he built for himself ä a wall to hide a different and less agreeable persona. Through interviews with his friends co-workers and creative associates such as musician David Amram cartoonist and playwright Jules Feiffer publisher and broadcaster Paul Krassner and author Norman Mailer the book explains a complex and unique genius of our time. Shepherd pretty much invented talk radio ... What I got of him was a wonder at the world one man could create. I am as awed now by his achievement as I was then. ä Richard Corliss ÊTimeÊ magazine online

I, Libertine

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Author :
Publisher : Open Road Media
ISBN 13 : 1480410101
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis I, Libertine by : Theodore Sturgeon

Download or read book I, Libertine written by Theodore Sturgeon and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2013-06-18 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVThe novel that began as a radio hoax, Theodore Sturgeon’s I, Libertine is a hilarious erotic romp through the royal boudoirs of eighteenth-century London/divDIV Inspired by a notorious radio hoax in the mid-1950s, popular radio host and prankster Jean Shepherd exhorted his faithful listeners to approach their local booksellers the next morning and request copies of the historical novel I, Libertine by Frederick R. Ewing—a book that had never been written, by an author who had never been alive. The hoax was so successful that I, Libertine became the talk of the town, even earning the unique distinction of being banned by the Archdiocese of Boston, despite the fact that it didn’t yet exist. Now there was nothing left to do but write the thing . . . and fantasy and science fiction legend Theodore Sturgeon was called in to work his magic./divDIV /divDIVOriginally written pseudonymously, Sturgeon’s I, Libertine is a glorious tale of close shaves, daring escapes, and wildly licentious behavior. It covers the bawdy misdeeds of Captain Lance Courtenay as he carelessly romps through the royal court and the bedchambers of London’s finest ladies. Chock-full of wicked wit and Sturgeon’s trademark twists and turns, it is a hilarious, picaresque adventure that Ewing himself would certainly have been proud to call his own, if he had existed./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Theodore Sturgeon including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the University of Kansas’s Kenneth Spencer Research Library and the author’s estate, among other sources./div

The Phantom of the Open Hearth

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Author :
Publisher : Doubleday Books
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Phantom of the Open Hearth by : Jean Shepherd

Download or read book The Phantom of the Open Hearth written by Jean Shepherd and published by Doubleday Books. This book was released on 1978 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Down Through the Years

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780944391068
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Down Through the Years by : Jean Shepard

Download or read book Down Through the Years written by Jean Shepard and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Never-Open Desert Diner

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Author :
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 1101906901
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (19 download)

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Book Synopsis The Never-Open Desert Diner by : James Anderson

Download or read book The Never-Open Desert Diner written by James Anderson and published by Crown. This book was released on 2016-11-08 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A singularly compelling debut novel, about a desert where people go to escape their past, and a truck driver who finds himself at risk when he falls in love with a mysterious woman. Ben Jones lives a quiet, hardscrabble life, working as a trucker on Route 117, a little-travelled road in a remote region of the Utah desert which serves as a haven for fugitives and others looking to hide from the world. For many of the desert’s inhabitants, Ben's visits are their only contact with the outside world, and the only landmark worth noting is a once-famous roadside diner that hasn’t opened in years. Ben’s routine is turned upside down when he stumbles across a beautiful woman named Claire playing a cello in an abandoned housing development. He can tell that she’s fleeing something in her past—a dark secret that pushed her to the end of the earth—but despite his better judgment he is inexorably drawn to her. As Ben and Claire fall in love, specters from her past begin to resurface, with serious and life-threatening consequences not only for them both, but for others who have made this desert their sanctuary. Dangerous men come looking for her, and as they turn Route 117 upside down in their search, the long-buried secrets of those who’ve laid claim to this desert come to light, bringing Ben and the other locals into deadly conflict with Claire’s pursuers. Ultimately, the answers they all seek are connected to the desert’s greatest mystery—what really happened all those years ago at the never-open desert diner? In this unforgettable story of love and loss, Ben learns the enduring truth that some violent crimes renew themselves across generations. At turns funny, heartbreaking and thrilling, The Never-Open Desert Diner powerfully evokes an unforgettable setting and introduces readers to a cast of characters who will linger long after the last page.