Contemporary Books - Page 5

Night of Thunder: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel (Bob Lee Swagger Novels)

Stephen Hunter

Amazon Price: $17.16 List Price: $26.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Amazon Marketplace: 45 new & used starting at $13.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Action & Adventure
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> Thrillers -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR STEPHEN HUNTER RETURNS WITH HIS MOST RIVETING BOB LEE SWAGGER VOLUME TO DATE.

Talk about a ride!

Woe unto he who crosses Bob Lee Swagger, especially when his daughter's life is at stake. Forced off the road and into a crash that leaves her in a coma, clinging to life, reporter Nikki Swagger had begun to peel back the onion of a Southernfried conspiracy bubbling with all the angst, resentment, and dysfunction that Dixie gangsters can muster. An ancient, violent crime clan, a possibly corrupt law enforcement structure, gunmen of all stripes and shapes, and deranged evangelicals rear their ugly heads and will live to rue the day they targeted the wrong man's daughter. It's what you call your big-time bad career move. All of it is set against the backdrop of excitement and insanity that only a weeklong NASCAR event can bring to the backwoods of a town as seemingly sleepy as Bristol, Tennessee.

A master at the top of his game, Hunter provides a host of thrilling new reasons to read as fast as we can. When Swagger picks up peeling where his daughter left off, and his swift sword of justice is let loose, we find a true American hero in his most stunning action to date. And -- in the form of Brother Richard, a self-decreed "Sinnerman" out of the old fire-and-brimstone tradition -- Hunter offers up his most diabolical, engaging villain yet. A triumph of story, character, and style, Night of Thunder is Stephen Hunter at his very best.

Unaccustomed Earth

Jhumpa Lahiri

Amazon Price: $16.50 List Price: $25.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Knopf Amazon Marketplace: 88 new & used starting at $10.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> United States -> Asian American -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> United States

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 117 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they enter the lives of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers.

In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father, who carefully tends the earth of her garden, where he and his grandson form a special bond. But he’s harboring a secret from his daughter, a love affair he’s keeping all to himself. In “A Choice of Accommodations,” a husband’s attempt to turn an old friend’s wedding into a romantic getaway weekend with his wife takes a dark, revealing turn as the party lasts deep into the night. In “Only Goodness,” a sister eager to give her younger brother the perfect childhood she never had is overwhelmed by guilt, anguish, and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family. And in “Hema and Kaushik,” a trio of linked stories—a luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love, and fate—we follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later in Rome.

Unaccustomed Earth is rich with Jhumpa Lahiri’s signature gifts: exquisite prose, emotional wisdom, and subtle renderings of the most intricate workings of the heart and mind. It is a masterful, dazzling work of a writer at the peak of her powers.

Nineteen Minutes

Jodi Picoult

Amazon Price: $10.20 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Washington Square Press Amazon Marketplace: 162 new & used starting at $3.47

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Literary

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 446 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Best known for tackling controversial issues through richly told fictional accounts, Jodi Picoult's 14th novel, Nineteen Minutes, deals with the truth and consequences of a smalltown high-school shooting. Set in Sterling, New Hampshire, Picoult offers reads a glimpse of what would cause a 17-year-old to wake up one day, load his backpack with four guns, and kill nine students and one teacher in the span of nineteen minutes. As with any Picoult novel, the answers are never black and white, and it is her exceptional ability to blur the lines between right and wrong that make this author such a captivating storyteller.

On Peter Houghton's first day of kindergarten, he watched helplessly as an older boy ripped his lunch box out of his hands and threw it out the window. From that day on, his life was a series of humiliations, from having his pants pulled down in the cafeteria, to being called a freak at every turn. But can endless bullying justify murder? As Picoult attempts to answer this question, she shows us all sides of the equation, from the ruthless jock who loses his ability to speak after being shot in the head, to the mother who both blames and pities herself for producing what most would call a monster. Surrounding Peter's story is that of Josie Cormier, a former friend whose acceptance into the popular crowd hangs on a string that makes it impossible for her to reconcile her beliefs with her actions.

At times, Nineteen Minutes can seem tediously stereotypical-- jocks versus nerds, parent versus child, teacher versus student. Part of Picoult's gift is showing us the subtleties of these common dynamics, and the startling effects they often have on the moral landscape. As Peter's mother says at the end of this spellbinding novel, "Everyone would remember Peter for nineteen minutes of his life, but what about the other nine million?" --Gisele Toueg

The 19th Wife: A Novel

David Ebershoff

Amazon Price: $17.16 List Price: $26.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Random House Amazon Marketplace: 61 new & used starting at $12.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 36 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Faith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many, and never easy to explain.

Sweeping and lyrical, spellbinding and unforgettable, David Ebershoff’s The 19th Wife combines epic historical fiction with a modern murder mystery to create a brilliant novel of literary suspense.

It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of a family’s polygamous history is revealed, including how a young woman became a plural wife.

Soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds–a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death.

And as Ann Eliza’s narrative intertwines with that of Jordan’s search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love and faith.

Marked (House of Night, Book 1)

PC Cast, Kristin Cast

Amazon Price: $8.95 List Price: $8.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: St. Martin's Griffin Amazon Marketplace: 80 new & used starting at $4.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Children's Books -> Literature -> Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery & Horror -> Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Magic
Subjects -> Children's Books -> Literature -> Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery & Horror -> Spine-Chilling Horror
Subjects -> Children's Books -> Literature -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 124 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Good story line! 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I love this story line. I can't wait to see what is next for Zoey Redbird...

Editorial Review:

The House of Night series is set in a world very much like our own, except in 16-year-old Zoey Redbird's world, vampyres have always existed. In this first book in the series, Zoey enters the House of Night, a school where, after having undergone the Change, she will train to become an adult vampire--that is, if she makes it through the Change. Not all of those who are chosen do. It’s tough to begin a new life, away from her parents and friends, and on top of that, Zoey finds she is no average fledgling. She has been Marked as special by the vampyre Goddess, Nyx. But she is not the only fledgling at the House of Night with special powers. When she discovers that the leader of the Dark Daughters, the school's most elite club, is misusing her Goddess-given gifts, Zoey must look deep within herself for the courage to embrace her destiny--with a little help from her new vampyre friends.

Just After Sunset: Stories

Stephen King

Amazon Price: $18.48 List Price: $28.00 Not yet published By: Scribner

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Horror -> United States
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Horror -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary

Editorial Review:

Stephen King-who has written more than fifty books, dozens of number one New York Times bestsellers, and many unforgettable movies-delivers an astonishing collection of short stories, his first since Everything's Eventual six years ago. As guest editor of the bestselling Best American Short Stories 2007, King spent over a year reading hundreds of stories. His renewed passion for the form is evident on every page of Just After Sunset. The stories in this collection have appeared in The New Yorker, Playboy, McSweeney's, The Paris Review, Esquire and other publications.

Who but Stephen King would turn a Port-a-San into a slimy birth canal, or a roadside honky-tonk into a place for endless love? A book salesman with a grievance might pick up a mute hitchhiker, not knowing the silent man in the passenger seat listens altogether too well. Or an exercise routine on a stationary bicycle, begun to reduce bad cholesterol, might take its rider on a captivating-and then terrifying-journey. Set on a remote key in Florida, "The Gingerbread Girl" is a riveting tale featuring a young woman as vulnerable-and resourceful-as Audrey Hepburn's character in Wait Until Dark. In "Ayana," a blind girl works a miracle with a kiss and the touch of her hand. For King, the line between the living and the dead is often blurry, and the seams that hold our reality intact might tear apart at any moment. In one of the longer stories here, "N.," which recently broke new ground when it was adapted as a graphic digital entertainment, a psychiatric patient's irrational thinking might create an apocalyptic threat in the Maine countryside . . . or keep the world from falling victim to it.

Just After Sunset-call it dusk, call it twilight, it's a time when human intercourse takes on an unnatural cast, when nothing is quite as it appears, when the imagination begins to reach for shadows as they dissipate to darkness and living daylight can be scared right out of you. It's the perfect time for Stephen King.

Fireproof

Eric Wilson, Alex Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick

Amazon Price: $10.19 List Price: $14.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Thomas Nelson Amazon Marketplace: 23 new & used starting at $7.49

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> United States
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> United States -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Message Worth Fighting For 5 out of 5 stars.
16 of 16 people found this review helpful.

Fireman Caleb Holt puts his life on the line every day to save others. Despite his hard work ethic and dedication to his job, the flames that were once so evident in his marriage have begun to sizzle out. After eight years of mediocrity and disappointment Catherine Holt has filed for divorce. Caleb now comes to a crossroads where he must decide between giving up and staying to fight for the woman he loves. Searching for answers, Caleb reaches out to his father never anticipating how his life will soon change. Caleb is now ready to set out on the ultimate dare to fight for his marriage like his has never fought for anything before.

Firpeproof is the third collaboration between novelist Eric Wilson and filmmakers Alex and Stephen Kendrick (the team behind Facing the Giants and Flywheel). As with the previous film projects, Eric Wilson does a masterful job of taking a screenplay and transforming it into a fantastic story with inspiring characters and a challenging message.

We live in a society where the marriage relationship is not appreciated or taken very seriously. The easy thing to do when things get difficult is to divorce, and we see this pattern played out over and over again for so many couples. Fireproof is a story written to challenge our culture's perspective on marriage. Yes, we get some great action sequences and suspenseful moments throughout, but the heart of this story is found in Caleb's resolve to save his marriage and fight for the woman he loves.

Eric Wilson brings this struggle to life throughout the pages, drawing us deeper into Caleb and Catherine's problems. I really appreciate the way that neither Caleb nor Catherine is shouldered with the blame, rather we see how both are equally responsible for the plight they are in. Wilson takes us into the depths of Caleb's struggle with purity and the darkness that resides there. Our glimpses of Catherine's flirtations with infidelity are eye-opening and equally as frightening.

Fireproof is certainly different than the suspense/supernatural thrillers we've come to expect from Eric Wilson. However, in many ways this may be one of the most important messages Wilson has tackled in his writing career. This story has the potential to change the way our culture looks at marriage and it is my sincere hope and prayer that this novel and the film will work together to do just that. My hat's off to Eric Wilson and The Kendrick Brothers for treating us with yet another soul stirring reminder of what is truly important and what it takes to fight for it.

(By the way, if you enjoyed Eric's writing in this book....then you will be blown away by his novel, Field of Blood. AMAZING!!!)

Editorial Review:

Inside burning buildings, Captain Caleb Holt lives by the firefighter's adage:  Never leave your partner.

Yet at home, in the cooling embers of his marriage, he lives by his own rules.

Growing up, his wife Catherine always dreamed of marrying a loving, brave firefighter . . . just like her father.  Now, after seven years of marriage, she wonders when she stopped being "good enough."  Countless arguments and anger have them wanting to move on to something with more sparks. 

As they prepare for divorce, Caleb's father challenges him to commit to a 40-day experiment:  "The Love Dare."  Wondering if it's even worth the effort, Caleb agrees, for his father's sake more than for his marriage.

Surprised by what he discovers about the meaning of love, Caleb realizes that his wife and marriage are worth fighting for.  His job is to rescue others.  Now Captain Holt is ready to face his toughest job      ever . . . rescuing his wife's heart.

The Book of Lies

Brad Meltzer

Amazon Price: $17.15 List Price: $25.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Grand Central Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 85 new & used starting at $6.48

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> Thrillers -> General
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Brad Meltzer--author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Book of Fate--returns with his most thrilling and emotionally powerful novel to date.


In Chapter Four of the Bible, Cain kills Abel. It is the world's most famous murder. But the Bible is silent about one key detail: the weapon Cain used to kill his brother. That weapon is still lost to history.

In 1932, Mitchell Siegel was killed by three gunshots to his chest. While mourning, his son dreamed of a bulletproof man and created the world's greatest hero: Superman. And like Cain's murder weapon, the gun used in this unsolved murder has never been found.

Until now.

Today in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Cal Harper comes face-to-face with his family's greatest secret: his long-lost father, who's been shot with a gun that traces back to Mitchell Siegel's 1932 murder. But before Cal can ask a single question, he and his father are attacked by a ruthless killer tattooed with the anicent markings of Cain. And so begins the chase for the world's first murder weapon.

What does Cain, history's greatest villain, have to do with Superman, the world's greatest hero? And what do two murders, committed thousands of years apart, have in common? This is the mystery at the heart of Brad Meltzer's riveting and utterly intriguing new thriller

My Sister's Keeper: A Novel

Jodi Picoult

Amazon Price: $10.20 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Washington Square Press Amazon Marketplace: 325 new & used starting at $1.48

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Literary

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1021 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her keen insights into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she tells the emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a passionate love that triumphs over human weakness.

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate -- a life and a role that she has never challenged...until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister -- and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.

My Sister's Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life, even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart, or let others lead you? Once again, in My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult tackles a controversial real-life subject with grace, wisdom, and sensitivity.

Things Fall Apart: A Novel

Chinua Achebe

Amazon Price: $8.76 List Price: $10.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Anchor Amazon Marketplace: 627 new & used starting at $0.48

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> British
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> African -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> African -> West African

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 533 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

One of Chinua Achebe's many achievements in his acclaimed first novel, Things Fall Apart, is his relentlessly unsentimental rendering of Nigerian tribal life before and after the coming of colonialism. First published in 1958, just two years before Nigeria declared independence from Great Britain, the book eschews the obvious temptation of depicting pre-colonial life as a kind of Eden. Instead, Achebe sketches a world in which violence, war, and suffering exist, but are balanced by a strong sense of tradition, ritual, and social coherence. His Ibo protagonist, Okonkwo, is a self-made man. The son of a charming ne'er-do-well, he has worked all his life to overcome his father's weakness and has arrived, finally, at great prosperity and even greater reputation among his fellows in the village of Umuofia. Okonkwo is a champion wrestler, a prosperous farmer, husband to three wives and father to several children. He is also a man who exhibits flaws well-known in Greek tragedy:

Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children. Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo's fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.

And yet Achebe manages to make this cruel man deeply sympathetic. He is fond of his eldest daughter, and also of Ikemefuna, a young boy sent from another village as compensation for the wrongful death of a young woman from Umuofia. He even begins to feel pride in his eldest son, in whom he has too often seen his own father. Unfortunately, a series of tragic events tests the mettle of this strong man, and it is his fear of weakness that ultimately undoes him.

Achebe does not introduce the theme of colonialism until the last 50 pages or so. By then, Okonkwo has lost everything and been driven into exile. And yet, within the traditions of his culture, he still has hope of redemption. The arrival of missionaries in Umuofia, however, followed by representatives of the colonial government, completely disrupts Ibo culture, and in the chasm between old ways and new, Okonkwo is lost forever. Deceptively simple in its prose, Things Fall Apart packs a powerful punch as Achebe holds up the ruin of one proud man to stand for the destruction of an entire culture. --Alix Wilber