Don't Bug Me; I'm Reading


Book Description

My cathedral is in an isolated wilderness, away from contemporary blight. After several years of marriage my wife describes me as odd. I prefer eccentric. She calls me a cheapskate. I am frugal. I also choose to be different; we put way too much emphasis on the words; Hall of Fame, legend, glamour, champion, celebrity, and famous. I may admire but never idolize, Heroes arent on golf courses nor in stadiums but in the uniforms of our firefighters, military and police officers. There are no idols in my life. Stars are to be revered only in the night sky, not in Hollywood. Rather than sit in a night-club involved in inane conversations I would rather see hummingbirds performing aerobatics, canoe a rogue river, watch a moose cavorting with her calf in a turbulent stream, see the Aurora Borealis fire streamers of color across a darkening sky, study undulating lines of snow geese, buffeted by lofty winds, honking their way to their mysterious destinations. There are yet unseen wonders in nature. My adventurous nature was established when I lived for a month on a Chipewyan reservation in Manitoba hunting seal and bear from a dog sled, using harpoons and bow and arrows, living the way of their ancestors. Frogs in a well have a limited view of the limitless sky. Beyond every horizon there is a horizon. I have canoed the Mackenzie River in Canadas Northwest Territory, the Churchill in Manitoba, Fraser River in British Columbia, the Deschutes in Oregon and the Wolverine in Nunavut. I lust to explore each wilderness on earth where overpopulation has not contaminated the environment. Time away from the fallacies of civilization is regenerative.




Don't Bug Me!


Book Description

When Megan must collect twenty-five insects for a school project, her little brother's interference and a classmate's teasing make the task difficult, and reveal that she does not know either of them as well as she thought.




Reason for Living


Book Description




Margreete's Harbor


Book Description

Winner of the Maine Literary Award for Fiction A literary novel set on the coast of Maine during the 1960s, tracing the life of a family and its matriarch as they negotiate sharing a home. Eleanor Morse's Margreete’s Harbor begins with a fire: a fiercely-independent, thrice-widowed woman living on her own in a rambling house near the Maine coast forgets a hot pan on the stovetop, and nearly burns her place down. When Margreete Bright calls her daughter Liddie to confess, Liddie realizes that her mother can no longer live alone. She, her husband Harry, and their children Eva and Bernie move from a settled life in Michigan across the country to Margreete’s isolated home, and begin a new life. Margreete’s Harbor tells the story of ten years in the history of a family: a novel of small moments, intimate betrayals, arrivals and disappearances that coincide with America during the late 1950s through the turbulent 1960s. Liddie, a professional cellist, struggles to find space for her music in a marriage that increasingly confines her; Harry’s critical approach to the growing war in Vietnam endangers his new position as a high school history teacher; Bernie and Eva begin to find their own identities as young adults; and Margreete slowly descends into a private world of memories, even as she comes to find a larger purpose in them. This beautiful novel—attuned to the seasons of nature, the internal dynamics of a family, and a nation torn by its contradicting ideals—reveals the largest meanings in the smallest and most secret moments of life. Readers of Elizabeth Strout, Alice Munro, and Anne Tyler will find themselves at home in Margreete’s Harbor.




Awards and Bravos (ENHANCED eBook)


Book Description

Motivate students to excel with this fun-filled, practical collection of PRINTABLE AWARDS AND BRAVOS for K-5 classrooms, with every day themes and notes for encouraging, recognizing and rewarding good behavior, good work and special achievement in school subjects . . . math, science, reading, spelling, social studies and language. The black and white pages are great for quick copying, and the included CD (print books) or .zip file (eBooks) provides interactive black and white as well as full-color PDF files for creating personalized awards for individual students. Included on the CD or in the .zip file are 72 printable full-color stickers.




Cracked


Book Description

At the age of 14, Lynsey Calderwood suffered a traumatic brain injury that left her physically unmarked but destroyed her memory. Thrust back into an apparently nonsensical world of which she had no recollection; Lynsey spiralled downwards into depression and eating disorders as she became socially ostracized.




House of Leaves


Book Description

“A novelistic mosaic that simultaneously reads like a thriller and like a strange, dreamlike excursion into the subconscious.” —The New York Times Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children. Now this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and second and third appendices. The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.




Foe


Book Description

*Now a major motion picture starring Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal* A taut, psychological thriller from Iain Reid, “one of the most talented purveyors of weird, dark narratives in contemporary fiction” (Los Angeles Review of Books). Severe climate change has ravaged the country, leaving behind a charred wasteland. Junior and Henrietta live a comfortable if solitary life on one of the last remaining farms. Their private existence is disturbed the day a stranger comes to the door with alarming news. Junior has been randomly selected to travel far away from the farm, but the most unusual part is that arrangements have already been made so that when he leaves, Henrietta won’t have a chance to miss him. She won’t be left alone—not even for a moment. Henrietta will have company. Familiar company. Told in Iain Reid’s sparse, biting style, Foe is a “mind-bending and genre-defying work of genius” (Liz Nugent, author of Unraveling Oliver) that will stay with you long after you turn the final page.




California's Girl, Book Two


Book Description

California’s Girl, Book Two is the continuing saga of a young woman growing up on the beach during the early 1970s. It is told through journal entries, short stories, poetry, and associated recollections. It offers a deeply personal glimpse into the female experience within the unique beach culture of Southern California. On the cusp of womanhood, amid the hot sand and cool ocean, she searches for personal identity, lasting love, and the meaning of life. As she struggles to reconcile her childhood fantasies with the bittersweet reality of life and human entanglements, she discovers a deep connection to the natural world. Nature becomes her sanctuary, inspiring and nourishing her soul while teaching valuable lessons of self-worth and independence.




The Walking Dead #80


Book Description

'NO WAY OUT' BEGINS! Being surrounded by a wall keeps things out-but it also keeps you in.