Modern Fiction

Welsh baker Poppy Davies is happily living her best life in London. Passionate about her work, there is nothing more she could possibly want - except to land the coveted job of baking the official biscuits for the upcoming royal wedding for Prince Christian, second in line to the throne. It's an assignment that could change the entire trajectory of her professional career. But what about her personal life? An accidental meeting with Prince Alexander of Wales, the future king, changes everything.

Boswell is Stanley Elkin's first and funniest novel: the comic odyssey of a twentieth-century groupie who collects celebrities as his insurance policy against death. James Boswell - a strong man and professional wrestler (his most heroic match is with the Angel of Death) - is a con man, a gate crasher, and a moocher of epic talent.

Val is expanding her horizons as she settles into her new abode. Her jewelry business is taking off, and she's also found a pub or two for relaxing. Plus, she's got the bodyguard business, and the occasional bouncing gig. Busy dwarf! She's also learning the art and science of having friends. One of them, Stella, will be moving, which forces Val to make a choice. Has she finally found a world that will accept her? Does she want to make it her home? Then Anne, her first client who is now a friend as well, calls her about another protection job, and she can't say no.

More than 1,500 years after his disappearance into the mists of Avalon, King Arthur has returned. This time, he's prepared to rule the Camelot of a new millennium: New York City. Handsome, charismatic Arthur Penn is running for mayor on a platform of common sense, humor, and knightly virtues. His advisors include a gifted 10-year-old named Merlin; Percival, an immortal accountant; and Gwen, a lovely young woman with no end of problems.

In this modern retelling of a fairy tale classic, Goldie Lax is a safecracking prodigy who learned her craft from her father and her grandfather before him. When she pairs up with Richard Campbell, who can hack any system, together they make the perfect team, mixing both business and pleasure. When Goldie's grandfather, who survived the Holocaust only to end up in a nursing home in his 80s, tells her about a horrific crime that robbed a good friend of his family's inheritance, Goldie enlists Campbell's help.

In her scenic hometown of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Anne is comfortable focusing on her successful career: filling her late mother’s shoes as town councilor and executive director of her theater company. She certainly keeps busy as the all-around wrangler of eccentric locals, self-centered family members, elaborate festivals, and the occasional attacking goose. But the more she tries to convince herself that her life is fine as is, the more it all feels like a show—and not nearly as good as the ones put on by her theater company.

Mysterious happenings to a small handicapped boy in a little Somerset village, way back in the 1930s, suddenly repeat themselves in the 21st Century. At the first event the villagers kept quiet about what they thought was either hallucination, witchcraft or a little boy’s mischief. They suspected, quite rightly, that they wouldn’t be believed. However, silence turns out to be impossible in the present media and online culture, with the result that the lives of two families are disrupted and changed forever.

Author of the New York Times Notable The Great Glass Sea (“The most unexpected second book by a writer of note to appear in years.” –John Freeman, Boston Globe) returns with a gripping adventure story that probes the expansive, shifting wilds of the Sierra Nevada during the Gold Rush...

Each of the best-selling writers represented in Legends II return to the special universe of the imagination that its author has made famous throughout the world. Whether set before or after events already recounted elsewhere, whether featuring beloved characters or compelling new creations, these masterful short novels are both mesmerizing stand-alones (perfect introductions to the work of their authors) and indispensable additions to the epics on which they are based.

In the early 17th century, a crippled, graying, almost toothless veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a novel. It was the story of a poor nobleman, his brain addled from studying too many novels of chivalry, who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off on hilarious adventures. That story, Don Quixote, went on to sell more copies than any other book beside the Bible, making its author, Miguel de Cervantes, the single most-read author in human history.

A deafening explosion. A shining metal disc crashed into a cornfield. A mysterious little girl with a cryptic mission. Longing to be like the heroes in his storybooks, Robbie Flynn embarks on a quest he hopes will lead him to his missing father. But nothing is as it seems. As the moments of this mythic journey divide and intertwine, Robbie is faced with an extraordinary realization: not all paths always lead ahead.

The story concerns a scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who conducts a great experiment to see if he can create a living being from the body parts of corpses. Only whe the experiment is successful does he begin to think of the ethics and consequences of what he has done. The creature he created becomes embittered when he finds that no one will love him becuase of his appearance.

Victor Frankenstein learns how to create life and creates a being in the likeness of man, but larger and more powerful than the average man. Frankenstein rejects the creature, and lives to regret his desire to create life, after it kills his brother William. Frankenstein is a warning against the "over-reaching" of modern man and the Industrial Revolution, alluded to in the novel's subtitle, The Modern Prometheus.

During the rainy summer of 1816, the "Year Without a Summer", the world was locked in a long cold volcanic winter caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815. Mary Shelley, aged 18, and her lover (and later husband) Percy Bysshe Shelley, visited Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in Switzerland. The weather was consistently too cold and dreary that summer to enjoy the outdoor holiday activities they had planned, so the group retired indoors until dawn.

How do you get people to appreciate what is right in front of them? In The Tale of the Mandarin Duck, it takes a mysterious, beautiful duck and a clear-eyed kid to point out the obvious! This audiobook will have listeners of all ages coming back to visit the fantastical interpretation of New York City and its odd ducks - both feathered and human.

“Love at first sight wasn’t meant for millennials.” So thinks Alice Aberdeen - art student, recovering addict, David Bowie enthusiast. Alice is among the recently dumped and just wants to keep her nose down until she finishes her degree. Her sister, Emma, has other ideas and sets her up with new-in-town Warinder “Will” Murphy - tall, dark, and aloof. To say it isn’t love at first sight is an overstatement. He finds her too abrasive, with her sharp tongue and a don’t-screw-with-me attitude. She thinks he’s too reserved, too damn serious.

Eine moderne Weihnachtsgeschichte. Es geht um einen jungen Mann, der einen ungewöhnlichen Weihnachtswunsch hegt. Er möchte so gerne bis Weihnachten seine Unschuld verlieren. Ob und wie ihm das gelingt, davon wird hier erzählt. "Ich hörte meinen Namen und sah mich um, und da stand sie, die Stille Schöne, zwischen dem Kettenkarussell und der Fischbude. Ganz lautlos kam sie im frischen Schnee auf mich zu, nahm die Kapuze dabei ab und schüttelte ihr langes Haar, entfernte Bart und Augenbrauen und sagte einfach: "Folg' mir!" Und ich folgte ihr, ohne biblischen Nebengedanken."

For all of us who've crammed yoga, meditation, and self-care into our lives, there's just one thing missing on our daily slog toward serenity: a laugh. With rainbow-free visualizations ripped from real life, Very Modern Mantras will have you mastering the meditations that really matter, like "Mantra for Starbucks", "Mantra for the Airport Security Line", "Mantra for Open-Plan Office", and "Mantra for Public Transportation". Finally, a way to find inner peace without losing your sense of humor.

Alt bliver med ét helt mørkt. Den moderne mand slår øjnene op, da pæren i hans lysterapilampe med indbygget fuglekvidder-option går. Bag de nedrullede mørklægningsgardiner i sit soveværelse må han nu famle sig hen til lyskontakten for at tage hul på det morgenritual, der skal gøre ham fit for fight til endnu en dag i spotlightet. Men denne morgen er det, som om uheldet bliver ved med at forfølge ham.

I've wasted years waiting to get my life back, and I finally have an opportunity. It's a simple undercover job-but with a catch. A thirteen month-old, crying, diaper-wearing catch. Because I'm not going undercover as a cook, or a driver. I'm the new manny. If it will get me back in the royal family's good graces, I'll grin and bear it. Even on the worst days, I know this will be worth it. I'll keep my head down and do my job. But it's getting harder and harder to ignore my forbidden attraction to the baby's mother.