Black Swan Affair

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Author :
Publisher : K.L. Kreig
ISBN 13 : 9781943443147
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (431 download)

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Book Synopsis Black Swan Affair by : K. L. Kreig

Download or read book Black Swan Affair written by K. L. Kreig and published by K.L. Kreig. This book was released on 2016-09 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I've loved him as long as I can remember. The gangly boy with big brown eyes and unruly hair who grew up into an intoxicating man. He wears scruff like he invented it and ambles with a swagger that makes panties drop. Killian Shepard. Shep. We grew up together. We played Ghost in the Graveyard. Had our own rock band. It didn't matter that he was five years older than me. It didn't matter that he looked at me as a kid sister even as I grew into woman. It didn't even matter when he left me behind to go to college and start his adult life. He'd be back. He was always meant to be mine. He came back, all right. But instead of smelling of promises, he stunk of betrayal. And he destroyed me-us-the day he married my sister instead of me. So I did the only thing a girl like me in my position could do. I got my revenge. I married his brother, Kael. Now we're one big happy f**king family.

White Swan, Black Swan

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Author :
Publisher : Ballantine Books
ISBN 13 : 0307493105
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis White Swan, Black Swan by : Adrienne Sharp

Download or read book White Swan, Black Swan written by Adrienne Sharp and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2008-12-18 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world's most famous choreographer becomes infatuated with a coltish young dancer who proves both siren and muse. A rising star plunges into an affair with a principal but finds that ecstasy on the stage can't be surpassed in the bed. A dying legend reflects on the evanescent beauty of a life of gesture, lost to everything but memory. Each bittersweet story plants the reader amid a cast of dancers and choreographers who struggle—valiantly, playfully, fiercely—to find in the rigorous discipline and animating beauty of ballet a counterbalance to the chaos of unscripted life. Many of the tales dare to imagine the inner lives of the century's titans—Balanchine, Fonteyn and Nureyev—which rival in emotional complexity and pathos the classic dramas they enacted onstage: La Bayadere, Don Quixote, Swan Lake. White Swan, Black Swan translates the pure and essential gestures of ballet into starkly elegant prose while showing the sweat and sex beneath the serene surface. Adrienne Sharp's debut is a bravura performance.

Black Swan Green

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Author :
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 158836528X
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (883 download)

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Book Synopsis Black Swan Green by : David Mitchell

Download or read book Black Swan Green written by David Mitchell and published by Random House. This book was released on 2006-04-11 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas | Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Selected by Time as One of the Ten Best Books of the Year | A New York Times Notable Book | Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post Book World, The Christian Science Monitor, Rocky Mountain News, and Kirkus Reviews | A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist | Winner of the ALA Alex Award | Finalist for the Costa Novel Award From award-winning writer David Mitchell comes a sinewy, meditative novel of boyhood on the cusp of adulthood and the old on the cusp of the new. Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys’ games on a frozen lake; of “nightcreeping” through the summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigré who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason’s search to replace his dead grandfather’s irreplaceable smashed watch before the crime is discovered; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran LPs, and first deaths; of Margaret Thatcher’s recession; of Gypsies camping in the woods and the hysteria they inspire; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons. Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell’s subtlest and most effective achievement to date. Praise for Black Swan Green “[David Mitchell has created] one of the most endearing, smart, and funny young narrators ever to rise up from the pages of a novel. . . . The always fresh and brilliant writing will carry readers back to their own childhoods. . . . This enchanting novel makes us remember exactly what it was like.”—The Boston Globe “[David Mitchell is a] prodigiously daring and imaginative young writer. . . . As in the works of Thomas Pynchon and Herman Melville, one feels the roof of the narrative lifted off and oneself in thrall.”—Time

Black Swans

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Author :
Publisher : Catapult
ISBN 13 : 1640090517
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Black Swans by : Eve Babitz

Download or read book Black Swans written by Eve Babitz and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2018-04-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Babitz’s talent for the brilliant line, honed to a point, never interferes with her feel for languid pleasures." —The New York Times Book Review A new reissue of Babitz’s collection of nine stories that look back on the 1980s and early 1990s—decades of dreams, drink, and glimpses of a changing world. Black Swans further celebrates the phenomenon of Eve Babitz, cementing her reputation as the voice of a generation. With an introduction by Stephanie Danler, bestselling author of Sweetbitter. "On the page, Babitz is pure pleasure—a perpetual–motion machine of no–stakes elation and champagne fizz." —The New Yorker

Black Swan, White Raven

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Author :
Publisher : Wildside Press
ISBN 13 : 9780809572540
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (725 download)

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Book Synopsis Black Swan, White Raven by : Ellen Datlow

Download or read book Black Swan, White Raven written by Ellen Datlow and published by Wildside Press. This book was released on 2008-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers contemporary retellings of traditional fairy tales, including Gregory Frost's "Sparks," "The Dog Rose" by Sten Westgard, and other works by Jane Yolen, Joyce Carol Oates, Nancy Kress, and John Crowley.

Swan for the Money

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Author :
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 9780312377182
Total Pages : 356 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (771 download)

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Book Synopsis Swan for the Money by : Donna Andrews

Download or read book Swan for the Money written by Donna Andrews and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-08-03 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The brilliantly funny and talented Andrews delivers another winner in the acclaimed avian-themed Meg Langlsow series readers have come to love. Martin's Press.

Lost In Between

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Author :
Publisher : Kl Kreig
ISBN 13 : 9781943443239
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (432 download)

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Book Synopsis Lost In Between by : K. L. Kreig

Download or read book Lost In Between written by K. L. Kreig and published by Kl Kreig. This book was released on 2017-02-13 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We all have one. A price. That magic number that will get us to agree to do anything, be anything. Don't sit on your gold-plated high horse and say you don't because you do. Everyone does. Each of us has something we covet enough that we'd sell ourselves to have it. What's my tipping point, you ask? Apparently a cool quarter mil will do the trick. What does one do for 250 large, you wonder? Anything the infamous, gorgeous playboy of Seattle wants. For the next four months I'll be Shaw Mercer's arm candy, his beck and call girl, his faux girlfriend. I'll be his to command, mold, push and pull in any direction he sees fit. I'll fight falling into bed with him. I'll fight falling in love with him even harder. I'll fail at both. And when my past and present collide in the most unexpected of ways, I'll learn that while one man's love for me has never died, the only man's love I really want will never be mine. *Due to mature content, 18+ years only.

High Society

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Author :
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 1448167507
Total Pages : 388 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (481 download)

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Book Synopsis High Society by : Ben Elton

Download or read book High Society written by Ben Elton and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-11-08 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The war on drugs has been lost but for want of the courage to face the fact that the whole world is rapidly becoming one vast criminal network. From pop stars and princes to crack whores and street kids. From the Groucho Club toilets to the poppy fields of Afghanistan, we are all partners in crime. HIGH SOCIETY is a story or rather a collection of interconnected stories that takes the reader on a hilarious, heart breaking and terrifying journey through the kaleidoscope world that the law has created and from which the law offers no protection.

The Black Swan of Paris

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Author :
Publisher : MIRA
ISBN 13 : 1488055335
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis The Black Swan of Paris by : Karen Robards

Download or read book The Black Swan of Paris written by Karen Robards and published by MIRA. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exquisite WWII novel illuminating the strength of three women in occupied Paris, for fans of The Nightingale, The Alice Network and The Lost Girls of Paris. "A truly outstanding novel...reminds us of the power of love, hope and courage."—Heather Morris, #1 bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz Paris, 1944 Celebrated singer Genevieve Dumont is both a star and a smokescreen. An unwilling darling of the Nazis, the chanteuse’s position of privilege allows her to go undetected as an ally to the resistance. When her estranged mother, Lillian de Rocheford, is captured by Nazis, Genevieve knows it won’t be long before the Gestapo succeeds in torturing information out of Lillian that will derail the upcoming allied invasion. The resistance movement is tasked with silencing her by any means necessary—including assassination. But Genevieve refuses to let her mother become yet one more victim of the war. Reuniting with her long-lost sister, she must find a way to navigate the perilous cross-currents of Occupied France undetected—and in time to save Lillian’s life. In this heart-wrenching novel, bestselling author Karen Robards showcases the extraordinary lengths one goes to save their family from a German prison. A web of spies, the resistance and a vivid portrayal of Paris in wartime.

The Rome Affair

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Author :
Publisher : Pan Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 1509838031
Total Pages : 350 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (98 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rome Affair by : Karen Swan

Download or read book The Rome Affair written by Karen Swan and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2017-07-13 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The glamorous capital city of Italy is brought to startling life in The Rome Affair, a compelling novel by bestselling author Karen Swan. 1974 and Elena Damiani lives a gilded life. Born to wealth and a noted beauty, no door is closed to her, no man can resist her. At twenty-six, she is already onto her third husband when she meets her love match. But he is the one man she can never have, and all the beauty and money in the world can't change it. 2017 and Francesca Hackett is living la dolce vita in Rome, leading tourist groups around the Eternal City and forgetting the ghosts she left behind in London. When she finds a stolen designer handbag in her dustbin and returns it, she is brought into the orbit of her grand neighbour who lives across the piazza – famed socialite Viscontessa Elena dei Damiani Pignatelli della Mirandola. Elena greets the return of the bag with exultation for it contains an unopened letter written by her husband on his deathbed, twelve years earlier. Mutually intrigued by each other, the two women agree to collaborate on a project, with Cesca interviewing Elena for her memoirs. As summer unfurls, Elena tells her sensational stories, leaving Cesca in her thrall. But when a priceless diamond ring found in an ancient tunnel below the city streets is ascribed to Elena, Cesca begins to suspect a shocking secret at the heart of Elena's life. 'Glittering jewels, designer labels galore and the most mouth-watering pizza in Rome make this a satisfying summer beach read' – Veronica Henry, Daily Express Enjoy more of Karen Swan's captivating seasonal novels with The Greek Escape and The Paris Secret.

Incerto 4-Book Bundle

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Author :
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0812997697
Total Pages : 1377 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (129 download)

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Book Synopsis Incerto 4-Book Bundle by : Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Download or read book Incerto 4-Book Bundle written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 1377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series is an investigation of luck, uncertainty, probability, opacity, human error, risk, disorder, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand, in nonoverlapping and standalone books. All four volumes—Antifragile, The Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, and the expanded edition of The Bed of Procrustes, updated with more than 50 percent new material—are now together in one ebook bundle. ANTIFRAGILE “Startling . . . richly crammed with insights, stories, fine phrases and intriguing asides.”—The Wall Street Journal Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, many things in life benefit from disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls “antifragile” is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. What is crucial is that the antifragile loves errors, as it incurs small harm and large benefits from them. Spanning politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine in an interdisciplinary and erudite style, Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. THE BLACK SWAN “[A book] that altered modern thinking.”—The Times (London) A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random and more predictable. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. In this groundbreaking and prophetic book, Taleb shows that black swan events underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives, and yet we—especially the experts—are blind to them. FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS “[Fooled by Randomness] is to conventional Wall Street wisdom approximately what Martin Luther’s ninety-five theses were to the Catholic Church.”—Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker Are we capable of distinguishing the fortunate charlatan from the genuine visionary? Must we always try to uncover nonexistent messages in random events? Fooled by Randomness is about luck: more precisely, about how we perceive luck in our personal and professional experiences. Set against the backdrop of the most conspicuous forum in which luck is mistaken for skill—the markets—Fooled by Randomness is an irreverent, eye-opening, and endlessly entertaining exploration of one of the least understood forces in our lives. THE BED OF PROCRUSTES “Taleb’s crystalline nuggets of thought stand alone like esoteric poems.”—Financial Times This collection of aphorisms and meditations expresses Taleb’s major ideas in ways you least expect. The Bed of Procrustes takes its title from Greek mythology: the story of a man who made his visitors fit his bed to perfection by either stretching them or cutting their limbs. With a rare combination of pointed wit and potent wisdom, Taleb plows through human illusions, contrasting the classical views of courage, elegance, and erudition against the modern diseases of nerdiness, philistinism, and phoniness.

A Summer Affair

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Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 0316032670
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (16 download)

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Book Synopsis A Summer Affair by : Elin Hilderbrand

Download or read book A Summer Affair written by Elin Hilderbrand and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2008-07-02 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The perfect wife and mother finds the perfect temptation in this "perfect summer cocktail of sex, sun, and scandal" (Kirkus Reviews). Claire has a problem with setting limits. All her life she has taken on every responsibility, assumed every burden, granted every request. Claire wants it all—and in the eyes of her friends, she has it: a devoted husband, four beautiful children, even a successful career as an artist. So when she agrees to chair the committee for Nantucket's social event of the year, she knows she can handle it. Claire can handle anything. But when planning the gala propels her into the orbit of billionaire Lock Dixon, unexpected sparks begin to fly. Lock insists on working closely with Claire—often over a bottle of wine—and before long she can't ignore the subtle touches and lingering looks. To her surprise, she can't ignore how they make her feel, either. Claire finds the gala, her life, and herself spinning out of control. A Summer Affair captures the love, loss, and limbo of an illicit romance and unchecked passion as it takes us on a brave and breathless journey into the heart of one modern woman. "Think you know where this is going? Think again. Hilderbrand is way too smart to give away the whole story in her title." —Elisabeth Egan, New York Times

The Invention of Angela Carter

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190626860
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (96 download)

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Book Synopsis The Invention of Angela Carter by : Edmund Gordon

Download or read book The Invention of Angela Carter written by Edmund Gordon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Widely acknowledged as one of the most important English writers of the last century, Angela Carter's work stands out for its bawdiness and linguistic zest, its hospitality to the fantastical and the absurd, and its extraordinary inventiveness and range. Her life was as vigorously modern and unconventional as anything in her fiction. This is the story of how Angela Carter invented herself - as a new kind of woman and a new kind of writer - and how she came to write such seductive and distinctive masterworks as The Bloody Chamber, Nights at the Circus, and Wise Children. Because its subject so powerfully embodied the spirit of the times, the book also provides a fresh perspective on Britain's social and cultural history in the second half of the twentieth century. It examines such topics as the 1960s counterculture, the social and imaginative conditions of the nuclear age, and the advent of second wave feminism. Author Edmund Gordon has followed in Angela Carter's footsteps - travelling to the places she lived in Britain, Japan, and the USA - to uncover a life rich in adventure and incident. With unrestricted access to her manuscripts, letters, and journals, and informed by interviews with Carter's friends and family, Gordon offers an unrivalled portrait of one of the twentieth century's most dazzlingly original writers. This sharply written narrative will be the definitive biography for years to come.

Time Stamps

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Publisher : K.L. Kreig
ISBN 13 : 9781943443314
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (433 download)

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Book Synopsis Time Stamps by : K. L. Kreig

Download or read book Time Stamps written by K. L. Kreig and published by K.L. Kreig. This book was released on 2021-08-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Time stamps. Our life is marked by them. Significant milestones to the seemingly mundane. All of them have a place. A purpose. Moments and chapters stacking on each other, building scars and memories. Creating stories that are only ours to tell. But those stamps are finite, pre-determined. And eventually our allotment runs out. This is our story. Our collection of time stamps. The culmination of our love, our struggles, our redemption and our heartbreak. This story isn't always easy, but it is real. A genuine account of utter devotion, where every page is crammed with pure emotion and truth and the gift of loving another person more than yourself. Share with us in our dreams, our laughter. Cry with us in our sorrows, our pain. Take this journey through our time stamps with Laurel and I, and I will meet you at the end.~ Roth Warren Keswick

Boss Bitch

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Author :
Publisher : Currency
ISBN 13 : 0451495861
Total Pages : 402 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (514 download)

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Book Synopsis Boss Bitch by : Nicole Lapin

Download or read book Boss Bitch written by Nicole Lapin and published by Currency. This book was released on 2017-03-21 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Nicole Lapin is back with a sassy and actionable guide empowering women to be the boss of their own lives and careers. You don’t need dozens or hundreds of employees to be a boss, says financial expert and serial entrepreneur Nicole Lapin. Hell, you don’t even need one. You just need to be confident, savvy, and ready to get out there and make your success happen. You need to find your inner Boss Bitch — your most confident, savvy, ambitious self—and own it. A Boss Bitch is the she-ro of her own story. She is someone who takes charge of herself and her future and embraces being a “boss” in all senses of the word: whether as the boss of her own life, a boss at work, or the literal boss of her own company (or all three). Whichever she chooses, being a Boss Bitch isn’t something to apologize for—it’s something to be proud of! We all have what it takes to be a boss bitch, says Lapin. The problem is: we don’t learn how to do it in school. Even if we study business, we’re not getting enough real-deal business education. Until now. Here, Lapin draws on raw and often hilariously real stories from her own career and experiences starting businesses—the good, the bad, and the ugly—to show what it means to be a "boss" in twelve easy steps. In her refreshingly honest and relatable style, she first shows how to embrace the boss-of-you mentality by seizing the power that comes from believing in yourself and expanding your personal skillset. Then she offers candid no-nonsense advice on how to kill it as the boss at work whether you have a high-up role or not. And finally, for those who want to take the plunge as an entrepreneur, she lays out the nuts and bolts of how to be the boss of your own business—from raising money and getting it off the ground to hiring a kickass staff and dealing office drama to turning a profit. Being a rock star in your career is something that should be worn as a badge of honor. Here Lapin shows how to crush it in our careers like like a Boss Bitch!

A Love Affair

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Author :
Publisher : New York Review of Books
ISBN 13 : 1681377136
Total Pages : 247 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (813 download)

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Book Synopsis A Love Affair by : Dino Buzzati

Download or read book A Love Affair written by Dino Buzzati and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2023-05-23 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Accomplished in his career but unaccomplished in love, a middle-aged architect is torn apart by his obsession with an enigmatic young woman in this delicately told story of desire and abjection by a titan of Italian literature. Antonio Dorigo is a successful architect in Milan, nearing fifty, who has always been afraid of women. A regular at an upscale brothel for years, he mourns the lack of close female companionship in his life. One afternoon, the madam at the brothel introduces Tonio to “a new girl,” Laide. Tonio sees nothing especially remarkable about her, though it intrigues him that she dances at La Scala and also at a strip club, and yet in a very short time he becomes completely obsessed with her. Laide leads Antonio on, confounds him, uses and humiliates him, treats him tenderly from time to time, lies to him, makes no apologies to him, and he loves her ever more. This helpless and hopeless love, he feels, is what he is, even as it prevents him from ever seeing Laide for who she is. Because Who is she? is the question at the heart of Buzzati’s clear-eyed and darkly comic tale of infatuation. Is A Love Affair a love story or is it a story of anything but love? Buzzati’s novel, with its psychological subtleties, vivid cityscapes, unsettling comedy, and compassion, keeps the reader guessing till the end.

The Bettencourt Affair

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Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 110198449X
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (19 download)

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Book Synopsis The Bettencourt Affair by : Tom Sancton

Download or read book The Bettencourt Affair written by Tom Sancton and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-08-07 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An NPR Best Book of 2017 Heiress to the nearly forty-billion-dollar L’Oréal fortune, Liliane Bettencourt was the world’s richest woman and the fourteenth wealthiest person. But her gilded life took a dark yet fascinating turn in the past decade. At ninety-four, she was embroiled in what has been called the Bettencourt Affair, a scandal that dominated the headlines in France. Why? It’s a tangled web of hidden secrets, divided loyalties, frayed relationships, and fractured families, set in the most romantic city—and involving the most glamorous industry—in the world. The Bettencourt Affair started as a family drama but quickly became a massive scandal, uncovering L’Oréal’s shadowy corporate history and buried World War II secrets. From the Right Bank mansions to the Left Bank artist havens; and from the Bettencourts’ servant quarters to the office of President Nicolas Sarkozy; all of Paris was shaken by the blockbuster case, the shocking reversals, and the surprising final victim. It all began when Liliane met François-Marie Banier, an artist and photographer who was, in his youth, the toast of Paris and a protégé of Salvador Dalí. Over the next two decades, Banier was given hundreds of millions of dollars in gifts, cash, and insurance policies by Liliane. What, exactly, was their relationship? It wasn’t clear, least of all to Liliane’s daughter and only child, Françoise, who became suspicious of Banier’s motives and filed a lawsuit against him. But Banier has a far different story to tell... The Bettencourt Affair is part courtroom drama; part upstairs-downstairs tale; and part characterdriven story of a complex, fascinating family and the intruder who nearly tore it apart.