Helen Hanff, a New York writer with a passion for literature, writes to a London bookstore in search of rare English classics. Frank Doel, a reserved English bookseller, answers her request. Thus begins an extraordinary relationship that spans two continents and two decades.
In A.D. 77, Marcus Didius Falco, agent to the Emperor Vespasian, investigates the mysterious death of the head librarian of the world-famous library of Alexandria, bringing him into immediate conflict with the darker side of academic life.
Gathering at the Minneapolis hospital where one of them is a patient, five women remember the endless winter thirty years earlier, when they started the Freesia Court Book Club and became friends for life. Like life itself, the book has both funny and sad moments. It follows the women and their families through the personal and societal changes of the late twentieth century.
By Estelle Ellis, Caroline Seebohm, Christopher Simon Sykes
Color photographs and lively conversation welcome the reader into impressive home libraries and a charming British "book town." Though full of practical advice on categorizing, displaying, and caring for a home library, this book is also about passionate readers and the books they love.
"I've been reading in the tub since I was nine. I've dropped books in the water, wrecked many, and may even drown someday reading in the tub. What a wonderful way to go." --Clothing designer Joan Vass, quoted on p. 117
For one fateful weekend, the annual science fiction and fantasy convention, Rubicon, has all but taken over a usually ordinary hotel. Now the halls are alive with Trekkies, tech nerds, and fantasy gamers in their Viking finery, all of them eager to hail their hero, bestselling fantasy author Appin Dungannon: a diminutive despot whose towering ego more than compensates for his 5' 1" height . . . and whose gleeful disdain for his fawning fans is legendary.
Hurling insults and furniture with equal abandon, the terrible, tiny author proceeds to alienate ersatz aliens and make-believe warriors at warp speed. But somewhere between the costume contest and the exhibition Dungeons & Dragons game, Dungannon gets done in. While die-hard fans of Dungannon's seemingly endless sword-and-sorcery series wonder how they'll go on and hucksters wonder how much they can get for the dead man's autograph, a hapless cop wonders, Who would want to kill Appin Dungannon? But the real question, as the harried convention organizers know, is, who wouldn't?
Homicide detective Cliff Janeway, a rare book collector, quits the police force while
under suspension. He opens his own bookstore and continues to investigate a case
for which the police have no leads: the murder of a local book scout.
This collection contains stories by nineteen writers including Ray Bradbury, Ursula Le Guin, John Cheever, and Jorge Luis Borges. From serious to mysterious, from humorous to romantic, here is a variety of stories for a variety of readers.
In this comic mystery Maggie, a mystery writer, finds herself up to her neck in trouble. She discovers that the "fictional" character that made her a bestselling author is hanging out at her apartment, and meantime a couple of her colleagues meet very untimely deaths.
Mystery bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Annie Darling serves as author liaison for the Dixie Book Festival on Hilton Head. Problems arise when a self-serving, small-time publisher promises to write a scandalous roman a clef featuring Annie's five charges--all quite famous.
She may be a bestselling author, but ex-librarian Jacqueline Kirby's views on the publishing biz aren't fit to print. In fact, she's thinking of trading celebrity for serenity and a house far away from fiendish editors and demented fans when her agent whispers the only words that could ever make her stay: Naked in the Ice.
Seven years ago, this blockbuster skyrocketed Kathleen Darcy to instant fame. Now the author's heirs are looking for a writer to pen the sequel. It's an opportunity no novelist in her right mind would pass up, and there's no doubting Jacqueline's sanity...until she starts digging through the missing woman's papers and her past. Until she gets mixed up with Kathleen enigmatic lover. Until a series of nasty accidents convince her much too late that someone wants to bring Jacqueline's story--and her life--to a premature end.
