Notes from the Other Side of Night


Book Description

Notes from the Other Side of Night is a diary-memoir written upon Juliana Geran Pilon's return to her native Romania in 1975, which she had left along with her family when she was just fourteen. Poetically weaving together modern insight and realities with childhood perceptions, Pilon tells the haunting stories of her parents, grandparents, neighbors, and friends. Although the scenery of her native home had remained essentially unchanged since her childhood, Pilon recalls streets that are no more, homes and churches that have been demolished. Yet, the hills and forests, the flowers and mountains, the heat of old Bucharest, remained the same. The scenes and characters described in this book are simply unforgettable. Despite the many tragedies it describes—anti-semitism, political imprisonment, and judicial execution were ruthless realities under communism—Notes from the Other Side of Night is not a depressing book. Pilon writes with a detached melancholy about events and characters that illustrate Hannah Arendt's terrifying "banality of evil." But she remembers, as well, those few who managed to remain human beings until the end. Ultimately, hope triumphs in this memoir. This edition includes a new foreword, which discusses the initial writing and publication of this and previous editions.




Notes from the Night


Book Description

Here in New York, a good night never ends. We will not let it. Though the hour is late, we are more awake than we have ever been in our lives, we are wild-eyed and grinning and dancing around like fools, and the music is thumping and the lights are flashing and the whole place is pulsating like a massive beating heart, and we do not want to go home, we do not want to go to sleep. Above all, we do not want to miss anything. So begins Notes from the Night, Taylor Plimpton's account of a night out in New York City. Passionately engaged and endlessly curious, Plimpton is part participant, part observer, a student and uniquely apt chronicler of human behavior--particularly at its most absurd. Accompanied by his best friend Zoo and a tight-knit band of other mischief-makers, and fueled by drinks, drugs and big dreams, Plimpton journeys from one Manhattan hotspot to the next with boundless energy and an eye for the dark, often comic realities of club culture. Exploring the myriad pleasures, mysteries and pitfalls of that elusive world, Notes from the Night is guide to a place ― and a state of mind ― that has never been mapped. With savvy advice and point-on commentary, the book ushers the reader through the velvet ropes to experience New York's most exclusive nightclubs. Surrounded by celebrities, models, and the best of friends, the reader will feel the rush of the party , the wonderful, heart-thumping panic of approaching a beautiful woman and the often forgotten joy of simply having a good time. By relentlessly pursuing the truth of his own experience, Plimpton uncovers the sexy, and seamy, lining of the city that never sleeps, and in so doing exposes what at heart is sought by all those who leave their home well after dark -- the singular thrill of being young and free and full of desire in a world where anything can happen. Plimpton is both an unlikely clubber and a likely seeker--a little bumbling and somewhat aloof, often naïve and unusually erudite. He's an insider who remembers what it was like to be an outsider, and from this unique perspective he invites you to experience the splendor, sorrow and possibility of New York after hours. Lyrically written and vividly described, this brisk, surprising and confident debut will stay with you long after the sun has risen. From the Hardcover edition.




The Other Side of the Night


Book Description

The New York Times–bestselling author of Unsinkable “recounts the disaster from the vantage point of nearby vessels” (Publishers Weekly). A few minutes before midnight on April 14, 1912, the “unsinkable” RMS Titanic, on her maiden voyage to New York, struck an iceberg. Less than three hours later, she lay at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. While the world has remained fascinated by the tragedy, the drama of those fateful hours was not only played out aboard the doomed liner. It also took place on the decks of two other ships, one fifty-eight miles distant from the sinking Titanic, the other barely ten miles away. The masters of the steamships Carpathia and Californian, Capt. Arthur Rostron and Capt. Stanley Lord, were informed within minutes of each other that their vessels had picked up the distress signals of a sinking ship. Their actions in the hours and days that followed would become the stuff of legend, as one would choose to take his ship into dangerous waters to answer the call for help, while the other would decide that the hazard to himself and his command was too great to risk responding. After years of research, Daniel Allen Butler now tells this incredible story, moving from ship to ship on the icy waters of the North Atlantic—in real time—to recount how hundreds of people could have been rescued, but in the end, only a few outside of the meager lifeboats were saved. He then looks at the US Senate investigation in Washington, and ultimately, the British Board of Trade inquiry in London, where the actions of each captain are probed, questioned, and judged, until the truth of what actually happened aboard the Titanic, the Carpathia, and the Californian is revealed. “Powerful . . . very, very well-done.” —New York Times–bestselling author Clive Cussler




Notes from the Burning Age


Book Description

“ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I'VE READ IN RECENT YEARS. THOUGHT PROVOKING, IMAGINATIVE AND PACKS A HELL OF AN EMOTIONAL PUNCH.” —Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of Children of Time From one of the most imaginative writers of her generation comes an extraordinary vision of the future… Ven was once a holy man, a keeper of ancient archives. It was his duty to interpret archaic texts, sorting useful knowledge from the heretical ideas of the Burning Age—a time of excess and climate disaster. For in Ven's world, such material must be closely guarded so that the ills that led to that cataclysmic era can never be repeated. But when the revolutionary Brotherhood approaches Ven, pressuring him to translate stolen writings that threaten everything he once held dear, his life will be turned upside down. Torn between friendship and faith, Ven must decide how far he's willing to go to save this new world—and how much he is willing to lose. “A riveting tale of subterfuge and deadly self-indulgence” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) from award-winning author Claire North, Notes from the Burning Age puts dystopian fiction in a whole new light. Also by Claire North: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August Touch The Sudden Appearance of Hope The End of the Day 84K The Gameshouse The Pursuit of William Abbey




The Other Side of Midnight


Book Description

The Other Side of Midnight is Sidney Sheldon at his best. This page-turner is full of tortured romantic entanglements, reverses of fortune, thrilling suspense, and ultimate justice. In Paris, Washington, and a fabulous villa in Greece, an innocent American becomes a bewildered, horror-stricken pawn in a game of vengeance and betrayal. She is Catherine Douglas, a woman caught in a web of four lives intertwined by passion as her handsome husband pursues an incredibly beautiful film star . . . and as Constantin Demeris, a legendary Greek tycoon, tightens the strands that control them all.




Nobody's Son


Book Description

Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and an Anglo mother, Urrea moved to San Diego at age three. In this memoir of his childhood, Urrea describes his experiences growing up in the barrio and his search for cultural identity.




Small Spaces


Book Description

New York Times bestselling adult author of The Bear and the Nightingale makes her middle grade debut with a creepy, spellbinding ghost story destined to become a classic. Now in paperback. After suffering a tragic loss, eleven-year-old Ollie who only finds solace in books discovers a chilling ghost story about a girl named Beth, the two brothers who loved her, and a peculiar deal made with "the smiling man"—a sinister specter who grants your most tightly held wish, but only for the ultimate price. Captivated by the tale, Ollie begins to wonder if the smiling man might be real when she stumbles upon the graves of the very people she's been reading about on a school trip to a nearby farm. Then, later, when her school bus breaks down on the ride home, the strange bus driver tells Ollie and her classmates: "Best get moving. At nightfall they'll come for the rest of you." Nightfall is, indeed, fast descending when Ollie's previously broken digital wristwatch begins a startling countdown and delivers a terrifying message: RUN. Only Ollie and two of her classmates heed these warnings. As the trio head out into the woods—bordered by a field of scarecrows that seem to be watching them—the bus driver has just one final piece of advice for Ollie and her friends: "Avoid large places. Keep to small." And with that, a deliciously creepy and hair-raising adventure begins.




The City in the Middle of the Night


Book Description

LOCUS AWARD FINALIST! “This generation’s Le Guin.” —Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less Charlie Jane Anders, the nationally bestselling author of All the Birds in the Sky delivers a brilliant new novel set in a hauntingly strange future with #10 LA Times bestseller The City in the Middle of the Night. "If you control our sleep, then you can own our dreams... And from there, it's easy to control our entire lives." January is a dying planet—divided between a permanently frozen darkness on one side, and blazing endless sunshine on the other. Humanity clings to life, spread across two archaic cities built in the sliver of habitable dusk. But life inside the cities is just as dangerous as the uninhabitable wastelands outside. Sophie, a student and reluctant revolutionary, is supposed to be dead after being exiled into the night. Saved only by forming an unusual bond with the enigmatic beasts who roam the ice, Sophie vows to stay hidden from the world, hoping she can heal. But fate has other plans—and Sophie's ensuing odyssey and the ragtag family she finds will change the entire world. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




The Other Side


Book Description

There are two sides to every story. The surface reality that's presented to the world... And then there's the other side. The real one. The one that matters.Seventeen-year-old, self-proclaimed asshole, Toby Page, is alone. No friends. No family. He trades maintenance work in exchange for room and board.Every day he fights demons no one else can see. Every day he wants to give up. But he can't.Not yet.When Alice Eliot moves in downstairs, she offers Toby some light in his dark world. At a crossroads and barely hanging on, it's hard to have perspective. It's difficult to see your own worth when you're the villain in your story. Luckily for Toby, Alice brings things out in him that no one else ever has.As the two sides of Toby's story are revealed, and the full reality comes into view, truth is gained, unlikely heroes emerge, and improbable alliances prove that kindness is fundamentally human.The question is, will it all be enough to save him?




Why We Sleep


Book Description

"Sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life, wellness, and longevity ... An explosion of scientific discoveries in the last twenty years has shed new light on this fundamental aspect of our lives. Now ... neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker gives us a new understanding of the vital importance of sleep and dreaming"--Amazon.com.