A Spot Of Bother

Author : Mark Haddon
Publisher : Anchor Canada
ISBN 13 : 0307373703
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.00/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Spot of Bother written by Mark Haddon and published by Anchor Canada. This book was released on 2009-09-17 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George Hall is an unobtrusive man. A little distant, perhaps, a little cautious, not quite at ease with the emotional demands of fatherhood or of manly bonhomie. “The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.” Some things in life can’t be ignored, however: his tempestuous daughter Katie’s deeply inappropriate boyfriend Ray, for instance, or the sudden appearance of a red circular rash on his hip. At 57, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden and enjoying the freedom to be alone when he wants. But then he runs into a spot of bother. That red circular rash on his hip: George convinces himself it’s skin cancer. And the deeply inappropriate Ray? Katie announces he will become her second husband. The planning for these frowned-upon nuptials proves a great inconvenience to George’s wife, Jean, who is carrying on a late-life affair with her husband’s ex-colleague. The Halls do not approve of Ray, for vague reasons summed up by their son Jamie’s observation that Ray has “strangler’s hands.” Jamie himself has his own problems — his tidy and pleasant life comes apart when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to Katie’s wedding. And Katie, a woman whose ferocious temper once led to the maiming of a carjacker, can’t decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob. Unnoticed in the uproar, George quietly begins to go mad. The way these damaged people fall apart — and come together — as a family is the true subject of Haddon’s hilarious and disturbing portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely. A Spot of Bother is Mark Haddon’s unforgettable follow-up to the internationally beloved bestseller The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Once again, Haddon proves a master of a story at once hilarious, poignant, dark, and profoundly human. Here the madness — literally — of family life proves rich comic fodder for Haddon’s crackling prose and bittersweet insights into misdirected love.

Author : Jonathan Emmett
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781406365498
Total Pages : 32 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Spot of Bother written by Jonathan Emmett and published by . This book was released on 2016-05 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pig is very proud of his neat appearance, so he's horrified to discover a spot of squashed cherry on his side. But when his farmyard friends try to help - with disastrous results - the spot of bother soon becomes a truly calamitous catastrophe! Children will love following the exploits of Cow, Goat, Sheep and Pig in this hilarious pig-ture book romp. Brilliantly entertaining follow-up to the acclaimed The Pig's Knickers ; "An entertaining and funny story with a joyous message about sharing your feelings with friends and learning that it is what is on the inside that counts." - The Bookseller on The Pig's Knickers.

Author : Mark Haddon
Publisher : Anchor Canada
ISBN 13 : 0307371565
Total Pages : 182 pages
Book Rating : 4.60/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time written by Mark Haddon and published by Anchor Canada. This book was released on 2009-02-24 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bestselling modern classic—both poignant and funny—narrated by a fifteen year old autistic savant obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, this dazzling novel weaves together an old-fashioned mystery, a contemporary coming-of-age story, and a fascinating excursion into a mind incapable of processing emotions. Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, Christopher is autistic. Everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning for him. At fifteen, Christopher’s carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds his neighbour’s dog Wellington impaled on a garden fork, and he is initially blamed for the killing. Christopher decides that he will track down the real killer, and turns to his favourite fictional character, the impeccably logical Sherlock Holmes, for inspiration. But the investigation leads him down some unexpected paths and ultimately brings him face to face with the dissolution of his parents’ marriage. As Christopher tries to deal with the crisis within his own family, the narrative draws readers into the workings of Christopher’s mind. And herein lies the key to the brilliance of Mark Haddon’s choice of narrator: The most wrenching of emotional moments are chronicled by a boy who cannot fathom emotions. The effect is dazzling, making for one of the freshest debut in years: a comedy, a tearjerker, a mystery story, a novel of exceptional literary merit that is great fun to read.

Author : Mark Haddon
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0385535856
Total Pages : 255 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Red House written by Mark Haddon and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-06-12 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Mark Haddon, the bestselling author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, comes a dazzlingly inventive novel about modern family life. Richard, a wealthy doctor, invites his estranged sister and her family to join his family for a week at a vacation home in the English countryside. Against the backdrop of a strange family gathering, Haddon skillfully weaves together the stories of eight very different people forced into close quarters. The Red House is a symphony of long-held grudges, fading dreams and rising hopes, tightly guarded secrets and illicit desires, painting a portrait of contemporary family life that is at once bittersweet, comic, and deeply felt.

Author : Mark Haddon
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0385544324
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.20/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Porpoise written by Mark Haddon and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-06-18 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a bravura feat of storytelling, Mark Haddon calls upon narratives ancient and modern to tell the story of Angelica, a young woman trapped in an abusive relationship with her father. When a young man named Darius discovers their secret, he is forced to escape on a boat bound for the Mediterranean. To his surprise he finds himself travelling backwards over two thousand years to a world of pirates and shipwrecks, of plagues and miracles and angry gods. Moving seamlessly between the past and the present, Haddon conjures the worlds of Angelica and her would-be savior in thrilling fashion. As profound as it is entertaining, The Porpoise is a stirring and endlessly inventive novel from one of our finest storytellers.

Author : Mark Haddon
Publisher : David Fickling Books
ISBN 13 : 0375893644
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.43/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Boom! written by Mark Haddon and published by David Fickling Books. This book was released on 2010-05-11 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An explosive, highly charged, and hilarious middle-grade adventure from Mark Haddon, acclaimed author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. From the moment that Jim and his best friend, Charlie, bug the staff room and overhear two of their teachers speaking to each other in a secret language, they know there's an adventure on its way. But what does "spudvetch" actually mean, and why do Mr. Kidd's eyes flicker with fluorescent blue light when Charlie says it to him? Perhaps Kidd and Pearce are bank robbers talking in code. Perhaps they're spies. Perhaps they are aliens. Whatever it is, Jimbo and Charlie are determined to find out. There really is an adventure on its way. A nuclear-powered, one-hundred-ton adventure with reclining seats and a buffet car. And as it gathers speed and begins to spin out of control, it can only end one way . . . with a BOOM!

Author : Mark Haddon
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0385540760
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Pier Falls written by Mark Haddon and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-05-10 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, A Spot of Bother, and The Red House, nine dazzling stories diverse in style but united in emotional power The tales in Mark Haddon’s lyrical and uncompromising new collection take many forms—Victorian adventure story, science fiction, morality tale, contemporary realism—but they all showcase his virtuoso gifts as a stylist and the deep well of empathy that made his three bestselling novels so compelling. The characters here are often isolated physically or estranged from their families, yet they yearn for connection. In aggregate the stories become a meditation on the essential aloneness of the human condition but also on the connections, however tenuous and imperfect, that link people to one another. In the title story, an unnamed narrator describes with cool precision a catastrophe that strikes a seaside town, both tearing lives apart and bringing them together. In the prizewinning story “The Gun,” a boy’s life is marked by the afternoon he encounters a semiautomatic pistol belonging to his friend’s older brother; in “The Island,” a Greek princess is abandoned on an island by her abductor; in “The Boys Who Left Home to Learn Fear,” a group of adventurers travel deep into the Amazonian jungle but discover the gravest danger lurking among their own number; and in “The Woodpecker and the Wolf,” a woman wonders whether she has chosen to travel to Mars only to escape the entanglement of human relationships back here on Earth. Drawing inventively from history, myth, folktales, and modern life, The Pier Falls showcases Haddon’s immense gifts of invention and penetrating insight.

Author : Ted Kerasote
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 0156034506
Total Pages : 429 pages
Book Rating : 4.00/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Merle's Door written by Ted Kerasote and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2008 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes how the author adopted a wild dog by installing a dog door so that the dog could live both inside and outside, in a study of human-dog partnership, and animal consciousness and behavior.

Author : Kevin Hearne
Publisher : Del Rey
ISBN 13 : 1984821261
Total Pages : 347 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ink & Sigil written by Kevin Hearne and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author Kevin Hearne returns to the world of his beloved Iron Druid Chronicles in a spin-off series about an eccentric master of rare magic solving an uncanny mystery in Scotland. “A terrific kick-off of a new, action-packed, enchantingly fun series.”—Booklist Al MacBharrais is both blessed and cursed. He is blessed with an extraordinary white moustache, an appreciation for craft cocktails—and a most unique magical talent. He can cast spells with magically enchanted ink and he uses his gifts to protect our world from rogue minions of various pantheons, especially the Fae. But he is also cursed. Anyone who hears his voice will begin to feel an inexplicable hatred for Al, so he can only communicate through the written word or speech apps. And his apprentices keep dying in peculiar freak accidents. As his personal life crumbles around him, he devotes his life to his work, all the while trying to crack the secret of his curse. But when his latest apprentice, Gordie, turns up dead in his Glasgow flat, Al discovers evidence that Gordie was living a secret life of crime. Now Al is forced to play detective—while avoiding actual detectives who are wondering why death seems to always follow Al. Investigating his apprentice’s death will take him through Scotland’s magical underworld, and he’ll need the help of a mischievous hobgoblin if he’s to survive.

Author : Renée Carlino
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1501105787
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.84/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Before We Were Strangers written by Renée Carlino and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-08-18 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the USA TODAY bestselling author of Sweet Thing and Nowhere But Here comes a love story about a Craigslist “missed connection” post that gives two people a second chance at love fifteen years after they were separated in New York City. To the Green-eyed Lovebird: We met fifteen years ago, almost to the day, when I moved my stuff into the NYU dorm room next to yours at Senior House. You called us fast friends. I like to think it was more. We lived on nothing but the excitement of finding ourselves through music (you were obsessed with Jeff Buckley), photography (I couldn’t stop taking pictures of you), hanging out in Washington Square Park, and all the weird things we did to make money. I learned more about myself that year than any other. Yet, somehow, it all fell apart. We lost touch the summer after graduation when I went to South America to work for National Geographic. When I came back, you were gone. A part of me still wonders if I pushed you too hard after the wedding… I didn’t see you again until a month ago. It was a Wednesday. You were rocking back on your heels, balancing on that thick yellow line that runs along the subway platform, waiting for the F train. I didn’t know it was you until it was too late, and then you were gone. Again. You said my name; I saw it on your lips. I tried to will the train to stop, just so I could say hello. After seeing you, all of the youthful feelings and memories came flooding back to me, and now I’ve spent the better part of a month wondering what your life is like. I might be totally out of my mind, but would you like to get a drink with me and catch up on the last decade and a half? M