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Laid to waste by drink, Agathon, a seer, is a shell of a man. He sits imprisoned with his apprentice, Peeker, for his presumed involvement in a rebellion against the Spartan tyrant Lykourgos. Confined to a cell, the men produce extraordinary writings that illustrate the stories of their lives and give witness to Agathon’s deterioration and the growth of Peeker from a bashful young apprentice to a self-assured and passionate seer. Captivating and imaginative, is a tribute to author John Gardner’s passion for ancient storytelling and those universal themes that span the course of all human civilization.<

Velveteen Vargas is eleven years old, a Fresh Air Fund kid from Brooklyn. Her host family is a couple in upstate New York: Ginger, a failed artist on the fringe of Alcoholics Anonymous, and Paul, an academic who wonders what it will mean to “make a difference” in such a contrived situation. illuminates the couple’s changing relationship with Velvet over the course of several years, as well as Velvet’s powerful encounter with the horses at the stable down the road, as Gaitskill weaves together Velvet’s vital inner-city community and the privileged country world of Ginger and Paul.

This is the Abstract (a summary) of the book. Easy reading for 15 minutes.

Category: Philosophy | Inspiration & Motivation | Personal Growth

For more than half a century, in such books as The Art of Happiness and The Dalai Lama’s Little Book of Inner Peace, the Dalai Lama has guided us along the path to compassion and taught us how to improve our inner lives. In A Force for Good, with the help of his longtime friend Daniel Goleman, the New York Times bestselling author of Emotional Intelligence, the Dalai Lama explains how to turn our compassionate energy outward. This revelatory and inspiring work provides a singular vision for transforming the world in practical and positive ways.

Much more than just the most prominent exponent of Tibetan Buddhism, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama is also a futurist who possesses a profound understanding of current events and a remarkable canniness for modern social issues. When he takes the stage worldwide, people listen. A Force for Good combines the central concepts of the Dalai Lama, empirical evidence that supports them, and true stories of people who are putting his ideas into action — showing how harnessing positive energies and directing them outward has lasting and meaningful effects. Goleman details the science of compassion and how this singular guiding motivation has the power to

• break such destructive social forces as corruption, collusion, and bias

• heal the planet by refocusing our concerns toward our impact on the systems that support all life

• reverse the tendency toward systemic inequity through transparency and accountability

• replace violence with dialogue

• counter us-and-them thinking by recognizing human oneness

• create new economic systems that work for everyone, not just the powerful and rich

• design schooling that teaches empathy, self-mastery, and ethics

Millions of people have turned to the Dalai Lama for his unparalleled insight into living happier, more purposeful lives. Now, when the world needs his guidance more than ever, he shows how every compassion-driven human act — no matter how small — is integral for a more peaceful, harmonious world, building a force for a better future.

Revelatory, motivating, and highly persuasive, A Force for Good is arguably the most important work from one of the world’s most influential spiritual and political figures.

Praise for A Force for Good

“A Force for Good offers ideas that every individual can work with and build on, ranging from things that help the environment to things that help the less fortunate. [It’s] a long-range, global plan from a brilliant futuristic thinker, so this is a book that can be of value to any human living on Earth. When you’re ready for a jolt of optimism, pick up this book.”—Pop Culture Nerd

“Far from being a self-help book, this examines specific ideas espoused by the Dalai Lama, such as emotional hygiene, compassionate economy, and education of the heart that can make the world a better place. An optimistic and thoughtful primer with practical applications.”—Booklist.

Novelist Bohumil Hrabal (1914-97) was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, and spent decades working at a variety of laboring jobs before turning to writing in his late forties. From that point, he quickly made his mark on the Czech literary scene; by the time of his death he was ranked with Jaroslav Hašek, Karel Capek, and Milan Kundera as among the nation's greatest twentieth-century writers. Hrabal’s fiction blends tragedy with humor and explores the anguish of intellectuals and ordinary people alike from a slightly surreal perspective. His work ranges from novels and poems to film scripts and essays.

The Abstract for the Book. Blinkist summary.

Have you ever wondered how one day the media can assert that alcohol is bad for us and the next unashamedly run a story touting the benefits of daily alcohol consumption? Or how a drug that is pulled off the market for causing heart attacks ever got approved in the first place? How can average readers, who aren't medical doctors or Ph.D.s in biochemistry, tell what they should be paying attention to and what's, well, just more bullshit?

Ben Goldacre has made a point of exposing quack doctors and nutritionists, bogus credentialing programs, and biased scientific studies. He has also taken the media to task for its willingness to throw facts and proof out the window. But he's not here just to tell you what's wrong. Goldacre is here to teach you how to evaluate placebo effects, double-blind studies, and sample sizes, so that you can recognize bad science when you see it. You're about to feel a whole lot better.

Emma is a soldier on reserve in Fort Benning. Regina is the Mayor of Storybrooke. Through a pen pal program designed to ease the ache of homesick soldiers, Emma and Regina begin sending letters to one another as their relationship grows from cordial acquaintance to something neither woman would have expected - until the letters stop coming.<

David Binder is a young, successful writer living in Chicago and suffering from writer’s block. He stares at the blank page, and the blank page stares back — until inspiration strikes in the form of a ghost story that captivated him as a child.

With his pregnant wife and young daughter in tow, he sets out to explore the myth of Virginia Beale, Faery Queen of the Haunted Dell. But as his investigation takes him deeper and deeper into the legacy of blood and violence that casts its shadow over the old Beale farm, Binder finds himself obsessed with a force that’s as wicked as it is seductive.

A stirring literary rendition of Tennessee’s famed Curse of the Bell Witch, skillfully toes the line between Southern Gothic and horror, and further cements William Gay’s legacy as not only one of the South’s finest writers, but among the best that American literature has to offer.

They had gone to a lot of trouble. They had Mason’s private number, woke him up and persuaded him to meet them at his office in the middle of the night. There he found a man and a girl; a man who knew exactly what he wanted but wouldn’t explain; a girl who wore a man’s overcoat, a mask — and wouldn’t speak. It was the girl who kept the other half of the ten-grand note. When and if they needed Perry Mason he’d get her half. Not until then would he know who his client was. Perry suspected he was being played for a sucker, but he was too interested to swim away.

The next morning, he felt the hook. It was murder, a murder obviously linked to his mysterious visitors. And the barb on the hook was that Perry couldn’t discover who his client was or what he was supposed to do. Della Street’s mocking jibes were hard to take.

A racing Gardner story full of action, suspense and one of the most original plots Gardner has ever created.

Sal Cupertine is a legendary hit man for the Chicago Mafia, known for his ability to get in and out of a crime without a trace. Until now, that is. His first-ever mistake forces Sal to botch an assassination, killing three undercover FBI agents in the process. This puts too much heat on Sal, and he knows this botched job will be his death sentence to the Mafia. So he agrees to their radical idea to save his own skin.

A few surgeries and some intensive training later, and Sal Cupertine is gone, disappeared into the identity of Rabbi David Cohen. Leading his growing congregation in Las Vegas, overseeing the population and the temple and the new cemetery, Rabbi Cohen feels his wicked past slipping away from him, surprising even himself as he spouts quotes from the Torah or the Old Testament. Yet, as it turns out, the Mafia isn't quite done with him yet. Soon the new cemetery is being used as both a money and body-laundering scheme for the Chicago family. And that rogue FBI agent on his trail, seeking vengeance for the murder of his three fellow agents, isn't going to let Sal fade so easily into the desert.

Gangsterland is the wickedly dark and funny new novel by a writer at the height of his power — a morality tale set in a desert landscape as ruthless and barren as those who inhabit it.

Eine Insel außerhalb der Zeit.

Die Pfaueninsel in der Havel ist ein künstliches Paradies. In seinem opulenten, kundigen und anrührenden Roman erzählt Thomas Hettche von dessen Blüte, Reife und Verfall aus der Perspektive des kleinwüchsigen Schlossfräuleins Marie, in deren Lebenslauf sich die Geschichte eines ganzen Jahrhunderts verdichtet.

Es mutet an wie ein modernes Märchen, denn es beginnt mit einer Königin, die einen Zwerg trifft und sich fürchterlich erschrickt. Kaum acht Wochen nach dieser Begegnung auf der Pfaueninsel, am 19. Juli 1810, ist die junge Königin Luise tot – und der kleinwüchsige Christian und seine Schwester Marie leben fortan weiter mit dem entsetzten Ausruf der Königin: »Monster!«

Damit ist die Dimension dieser Geschichte eröffnet. Am Beispiel von Marie, die zwischen den Befreiungskriegen und der Restauration, zwischen Palmenhaus und Menagerie, Gartenkunst und philosophischen Gesprächen aufwächst und der königlichen Familie bei deren Besuchen zur Hand geht, erzählt Thomas Hettche von der Zurichtung der Natur, der Würde des Menschen, dem Wesen der Zeit und der Empfindsamkeit der Seele und des Leibes.

Dabei geht es um die Gestaltung dieses preußischen Arkadiens durch den Gartenkünstler Lenné und um all das, was es bevölkerte: Palmen, Kängurus und Löwen, Hofgärtner, Prinzen, Südseeinsulaner, Riesen, Zwerge und Mohren – und es geht um die Liebe in ihren mannigfaltigen Erscheinungsformen.

Thomas Hettche ist das Kunststück gelungen, mit dem historisch verbürgten Personal seiner Geschichte von uns Heutigen zu erzählen. Atmosphärisch, detailgetreu und voller Lust an der phantasievollen Ausschmückung.

Mit letzter Kraft flohen die Menschen aus dem ewigen Eis zurück in die südlicheren Gefilde Nangogs - besiegt und gedemütigt von den Kriegern der Daimonen. Erst als ein einzigartiger Wolkensammler mit einer mysteriösen Fracht über Volodis Palast vor Anker geht, schöpfen der Unsterbliche und sein bester Freund Aaron wieder Hoffnung. Es gibt eine Waffe gegen die scheinbar unbesiegbaren Drachen!

Doch auch die mächtigen Himmelsschlangen sind auf diese Waffe aufmerksam geworden. Während sie eine Armee von Zwergen in die Hafenstadt Asugar senden, um die Menschen endgültig zu schlagen, soll einer einzigen Drachenelfe, Nandalee, das Unmögliche gelingen: noch vor den Menschen die Waffe finden und bergen. Aber wird es Nachtatem, ihrem Herrn, wirklich gelingen, die Elfe noch einmal für seine Ziele in den Kampf zu schicken? Dieselbe Elfe, die ihm nahe kam wie niemand sonst und die zugleich sein Ende bedeuten könnte? Als aus dunklen Prophezeiungen Gewissheit wird, zeigt sich: Das Schicksal aller wird sich auf der magischen Welt Nangog entscheiden …

Israel describes itself as a Jewish state. What, then, is the status of the one-fifth of its citizens who are not Jewish? Are they Israelis, or are they Palestinians? Or are they a people without a country? How will a Palestinian state — if it is established — influence the sense of belonging and identity of Palestinian Israeli citizens? Based on conversations with Palestinians in Israel, , like , is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the Middle East today.<

Arnon Grunberg is one of the most subtly outrageous provocateurs in world literature. , which chronicles the evolution of one Xavier Radek from malcontent grandson of a former SS officer, to Jewish convert, to co- translator of Hitler's into Yiddish, to Israeli politician and Israel's most unlikely prime minister, is his most outrageous work yet. Taking on the most well-guarded pieties and taboos of our age, is both a great love story and a grotesque farce that forces a profound reckoning with the limits of human guilt, cruelty, and suffering. It is without question Arnon Grunberg's masterpiece.

This well-drawn tale of espionage is set in West Berlin, 15 years after the end of WW II. Quiller, a British agent who works without gun, cover or contacts, takes on a neo-Nazi underground organization and its war criminal leader. In the process, he discovers a complex and malevolent plot, more dangerous to the world than any crime committed during the war.

On its publication in 1966, THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM received the Edgar Award as best mystery of the year.

In a literary voice that is both original and powerfully unsettling, William Gay tells the story of Nathan Winer, a young and headstrong Tennessee carpenter who lost his father years ago to a human evil that is greater and closer at hand than any the boy can imagine — until he learns of it first-hand. Gay's remarkable debut novel, The Long Home, is also the story of Amber Rose, a beautiful young woman forced to live beneath that evil who recognizes even as a child that Nathan is her first and last chance at escape. And it is the story of William Tell Oliver, a solitary old man who watches the growing evil from the dark woods and adds to his own weathered guilt by failing to do anything about it. Set in rural Tennessee in the 1940s, The Long Home will bring to mind once again the greatest Southern novelists and will haunt the reader with its sense of solitude, longing, and the deliverance that is always just out of reach.<

In Miami, on the waterfront, a long-time agent has been turned. Quiller gets the call to find out why. It looks like a simple job.

But with Quiller, nothing is ever simple. That's because he digs. He finds a gigantic conspiracy, one of global importance, with nothing less than the future of the White House at stake!

"Tense, intelligent, harsh, surprising." (The New York Times)

Eleisha Clevon has the face of a teen angel, but she is no angel. Unlike most vampires, she doesn't like to kill, but self-preservation comes first.

When an old friend destroys himself by walking into sunlight right in front of her, Eleisha is shocked. And what she finds afterwards points to how very sick of his existence her friend had become — piling drained corpses in the basement and keeping records of other vampires' real names and addresses. That's a problem.

Because now, there are policemen on the case: two very special humans with some gifts of their own. They know who Eleisha is, and, even more dangerous, what she is.

A memoir of self-discovery and the dilemma of connection in our time, explores the rhythms, chance encounters, and ever-changing friendships of urban life that forge the sensibility of a fiercely independent woman who has lived out her conflicts, not her fantasies, in a city (New York) that has done the same. Running steadily through the book is Vivian Gornick's exchange of more than twenty years with Leonard, a gay man who is sophisticated about his own unhappiness, whose friendship has "shed more light on the mysterious nature of ordinary human relations than has any other intimacy" she has known. The exchange between Gornick and Leonard acts as a Greek chorus to the main action of the narrator's continual engagement on the street with grocers, derelicts, and doormen; people on the bus, cross-dressers on the corner, and acquaintances by the handful. In Leonard she sees herself reflected plain; out on the street she makes sense of what she sees.

Written as a narrative collage that includes meditative pieces on the making of a modern feminist, the role of the flaneur in urban literature, and the evolution of friendship over the past two centuries, beautifully bookends Gornick's acclaimed , in which we first encountered her rich relationship with the ultimate metropolis.

This enchanting, Gassian journey begins with "In Camera," an investigation into what is likely to develop when a possibly illicit collection of photographs becomes the object of a greedy salesman's loving eyes. . In "Charity," a young lawyer, whose business it is to keep hospital equipment honestly produced, offers a simple gift and is brought to the ambiguous heart of charity itself. "Don't Even Try, Sam" tells of the battered, old piano Dooley Wilson plays in  as it complains in an interview of its treatment during the making of the picture. "Soliloquy for a Chair" is just that, a rumination by a folding chair in a barber shop that is ultimately bombed. . and in "The Toy Chest," Disneylike creatures take on human roles and worries and live in an atmosphere of a child's imagination.

A glorious fantasia; each, quintessentially Gass; each, a virtuoso delight.