Norman Dietz
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Set before the Civil War, in the first half of the nineteenth century, this novel of Mark Twain's delves into the ironies of racial prejudice. A young would-be lawyer, Wilson, sets out to solve a murder using the (at that time) unproven method of fingerprinting. Thought to be a simpleton or 'puddenhead', he eventually makes his critics look like puddenheads themselves. The main focus of the novel, however, deals with the identities of two young...
5) The Odyssey
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The first great adventure story in the Western canon, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty and power; about marriage, family and identity; and about travellers, hospitality and the changing meanings of home in a strange world. This vivid new translation - the first by a woman - matches the number of lines in the Greek original, striding at Homer's sprightly pace. Emily Wilson employs elemental, resonant...
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Albert Honigs most constant companions have always been his bees. A never-married octogenarian, he makes a modest living as a beekeeper, as his father and his fathers father did before him. Deeply acquainted with the workings of the hives, Albert is less versed in the ways of people, especially his friend Claire, whose presence and absence in his life have never been reconciled. When Claire is killed in a seemingly senseless accident during a burglary...
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Drawing on thousands of government documents and personal letters, featuring original maps and over sixty photographs, this book reconstructs the diverse and remarkable ways in which Americans have interacted with this alluring yet often hostile land stretching from Morocco to Iran, from the Persian Gulf to the Bosporus.--From publisher description.
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"Mark Twain's classic The Adventures of Tom Sawyer has been enjoyed by generations of readers across the world since its publication in 1876. With its humorous glimpses into life in nineteenth-century, small-town America, this novel has provided unique social commentary that continues to be discussed in classrooms today. Tom Sawyer, a mischievous boy growing up in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, Missouri, is constantly getting in and out of...
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Drawing on both native and Spanish chronicles, the author describes the story of the conquest of the largest native empire of the New World. Describes the story of the modern search for Vilcabamba, how Machu Picchu was discovered, and how a trio of American explorers only recently discovered the lost Inca capital of Vilcabamba.
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Called "the veriest trash" by a member of the Concord, Massachusetts Library Board that banned the novel when it was first published, Huckleberry Finn has come to be viewed, as H.L. Mencken put it, as "one of the great masterpieces of the world." Ernest Hemingway wrote that "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn....There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." A daringly ironic...
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Joshua Arnold and his mother move to their summer home in Corazon Sagrado, New Mexico, when Joshua's father joins the Navy during World War II. Joshua copes with the Mexican and Anglo customs and is concerned with his mother's drinking. When his father dies in the war, he takes responsibility for his mother, his own life, and his father's business.
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In 1948, a mysterious and charismatic man arrives in a small Virginia town carrying two suitcases; one contains his worldly possessions, the other is full of money. He soon inserts himself into the town's daily life, taking a job in the local butcher shop and befriending the owner and his wife and their son. But the passion that develops between the man and the wife of the town's wealthiest citizen sets in motion a series of events that not only upset...
13) The rifle
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A priceless, handcrafted rifle, fired throughout the American Revolution, is passed down through the years until it fires on a fateful Christmas Eve of 1994.
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In this collection of essays, McManus ponders the strange allure of the RV, a thirtieth-century hunting trip, the art of wrestling toads, the existential implications of being lost, the baffling tendency of animals to outsmart those who wish to hunt them, the singular pleasure of doubling the size of every fish one doesn't catch, and what happens when a bear named Pooky decides to hibernate in the attic.
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[1996]
Description
In a world of TQM, reengineering, and empowered secretaries. Dilbert has become the poster boy of corporate America. Millions of office dwellers tack Scott Adams's comic strip to their walls when murdering the boss is not an acceptable option. After seventeen years of working in a cubicle and reading thousands of e-mail messages from readers who've been "downsized", "rightsized", "flattened", and put in charge of "quality teams", Scott Adams can no...