Canterbury Tales Guesthouse

[Daveo]

Point to Point Navigation by Gore Vidal.

 

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The brilliant sequel to Gore Vidal's acclaimed, bestselling memoir, "Palimpsest."

In "Point to Point Navigation," the celebrated novelist, essayist, critic, and controversialist Gore Vidal ranges freely over his remarkable life with the signature wit and literary elegance that is uniquely his.

The title refers to a form of navigation he resorted to as a first mate in the Navy during World War II.

As he says, "As I was writing this account of my life and times since "Palimpsest," I felt as if I were again dealing with those capes and rocks in the Bering Sea that we had to navigate so often with a compass made inoperable by weather."

It is a beautifully apt analogy for the hazards (mostly) eluded during his eventful life and for the way this memoir proceeds, far from linear but always on course.

From his desks in Ravello and the Hollywood Hills, Gore Vidal travels in memory through the arenas of literature, television, film, theater, politics and international society where he has cut a broad swath, recounting achievements and defeats, friends and enemies made (and on a number of occasions lost).

Among the gathering of notables to be found in these pages, sketched with a draftsman's ease and evoked with the panache of one of our great raconteurs, are Jack and Jacqueline Kennedy, Tennessee Williams (the "Glorious Bird"), Eleanor Roosevelt, Orson Welles, Johnny Carson, Greta Garbo, Federico Fellini, Rudolph Nureyev, Elia Kazan, and Francis Ford Coppola. Some of the book's most moving pages are devoted to the illness and death of his partner of five decades, Howard Austen, and indeed the book is, among other things, a meditation on mortality written in the spirit of Montaigne.

Elegiac yet vital and even ornery, "Point to Point Navigation" is a summing up of Gore Vidal's time on the planet that manages to be at once supremely entertaining, endlessly provocative, and thoroughly moving.

[Daveo]

 

Return to Paradise by James A. Michener.

 

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James A. Michener, the master of historical fiction, revisits the scenes of his first great work, Tales of the South Pacific, the Pulitzer Prize winner that brought him international acclaim.

In this sequel collection, Michener once again evokes the magic of the extraordinary isles in the Pacific, from Fiji and Guadalcanal to New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, through stories that burst with adventure, charm, and local color.

For Michener’s many fans around the globe, Return to Paradise is a precious second look at a land of enchantment by one of the most gifted storytellers of the twentieth century.

Edited May 8, 2017 by Daveo

[Daveo]

A Biography of Donald Maclean by Robert Cecil.

 

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This is a biography of one of the last of the ideological spies, belonging to the important group the author calls "the Cambridge Comintern".

Robert Cecil, a close acquaintance of Maclean at Cambridge and in the Diplomatic Service with him at the time of his defection, also knew Philby, Blunt and Burgess.

He sees Maclean as Stalin's best source in Washington from 1944-48, where decisions about the post-war world were being made.

"A Divided Life" also aims to shed light on Maclean's breakdown in Cairo and the disastrous impact on Anglo-American relations of his defection in 1951.

Robert Cecil was created a Companion of St Michael and St George in 1959.

He has also written "The myth of the Master Race" and "Hitler's Decision to Invade Russia".

[Daveo]

Born to Steal: When the Mafia Hit Wall Street

by Gary Weiss.

 

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This is the true story of Staten Island bad boy Louis Pasciuto meteoric rise to the top of Wall Street's notorious chop houses, by the award-winning journalist who broke it.

Hood brokers.

Monthly million dollar paychecks.

Thirty-six hour cocaine binges.

"Rocky" themed pep rallies.

Run-ins with Mafia thugs toting Mac 10 machine pistols.

This was the life of Louis Pasciuto, a fast talking Staten Island kid who, from the age of 19 to 25, moved stocks for 17 different brokerage houses, most of the time without a fake license.

This inside account of the Mafia's infiltration of Wall Street details Louis' career as the consummate liar, selling phantom stocks to naive Americans and leading a lifestyle worthy of Caligula.

To avoid a long prison sentence, Pasciuto eventually became state witness.

Now, Gary Weiss shares the inside story of Wall Street's notorious "chop houses", best known as the crooked Mob run brokerages, where rampant thievery netted several billion dollars from gullible investors.

[Daveo]

Comedy in a Minor Key by Hans Keilson,

 

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A penetrating study of ordinary people resisting the Nazi occupation and, true to its title, a dark comedy of wartime manners.

Comedy in a Minor Key tells the story of Wim and Marie, a Dutch couple who first hide a Jew they know as Nico, then must dispose of his body when he dies of pneumonia.

This novella, first published in 1947 and now translated into English for the first time, shows Hans Keilson at his best: deeply ironic, penetrating, sympathetic, and brilliantly modern, an heir to Joseph Roth and Franz Kafka.

In 2008, when Keilson received Germany’s prestigious Welt Literature Prize, the citation praised his work for exploring “the destructive impulse at work in the twentieth century, down to its deepest psychological and spiritual ramifications.”

 

Published to celebrate Keilson’s hundredth birthday, Comedy in a Minor Key and The Death of the Adversary, reissued in paperback will introduce American readers to a forgotten classic author, a witness to World War II and a sophisticated storyteller whose books remain as fresh as when they first came to light.

[Daveo]

The Golden Egg: by Donna Leon.

 

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When making routine enquiries into a possible bribery case that could embarrass the mayor, a humiliation Vice-Questore Patta is very keen to avoid, Commissario Brunetti receives a call from his wife, Paola, who is evidently very upset.

The middle aged deaf mute with the mental age of a child who helped out at the Brunetti’s dry cleaners has been found dead, an ‘accidental’ overdose of his mother’s sleeping pills and Paola is distraught by the news.

To the neighbourhood he was just the ‘boy’ who helped out, but nobody knew much about him, not even his name.

That a soul could have lived such a joyless life is too much for Paola to bear, and she asks Guido if he can find out what happened.

 

It is a surprise to Brunetti just how little was known about this man child, there are no official records to show he even existed.

The man’s mother is angry and contradictory when questioned about his death, and Brunetti senses that there much more to the story than she is willing to tell.

With the help of Inspector Vianello and the ever resourceful Signorina Elettra, perhaps Brunetti can get to the truth and find some measure of solace.

[Daveo]

Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert K. Massie.

 

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Against the monumental canvas of seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe and Russia unfolds the magnificent story of Peter the Great, crowned co-tsar at the age of ten.

Robert K. Massie delves deep into the life of this captivating historical figure, chronicling the pivotal events that shaped a boy into a legend, including his “incognito” travels in Europe, his unquenchable curiosity about Western ways, his obsession with the sea and establishment of the stupendous Russian navy, his creation of an unbeatable army, his transformation of Russia, and his relationships with those he loved most: Catherine, the robust yet gentle peasant, his loving mistress, wife, and successor; and Menshikov, the charming, bold, unscrupulous prince who rose to wealth and power through Peter’s friendship.

Impetuous and stubborn, generous and cruel, tender and unforgiving, a man of enormous energy and complexity, Peter the Great is brought fully to life.

[Daveo]

The Ripper Code by Thomas Toughill.

 

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Thomas Toughill applies his detective skills to one of the greatest mysteries, the identity of Jack the Ripper.

The result is a book which is as original as it is enthralling.

Toughill suggests that Jack the Ripper was a former "friend" of Oscar Wilde and that Wilde dropped hints about this in several of his works, most notably The Picture of Dorian Gray, which Wilde wrote in 1889, the year after the Ripper murders took place.

In fascinating detail, the author argues that Wilde's story, that of a privileged man whose life of vice in the East End of London turns him into a murderer, is in fact a coded message about the Ripper's identity.

However, The Ripper Code is not just a fascinating voyage through the writings of Oscar Wilde and others.

It is also a striking example of original detective work.

Here, as in his previous books, Toughill unveils stunning evidence from a hitherto untapped source and uses it to devastating effect in arguing his case.

[Daveo]

The Ripper Code by Thomas Toughill.

 

Traded in recently @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange Pattaya, Thailand..

 

Thomas Toughill applies his detective skills to one of the greatest mysteries, the identity of Jack the Ripper.

The result is a book which is as original as it is enthralling.

Toughill suggests that Jack the Ripper was a former "friend" of Oscar Wilde and that Wilde dropped hints about this in several of his works, most notably The Picture of Dorian Gray, which Wilde wrote in 1889, the year after the Ripper murders took place.

In fascinating detail, the author argues that Wilde's story, that of a privileged man whose life of vice in the East End of London turns him into a murderer, is in fact a coded message about the Ripper's identity.

However, The Ripper Code is not just a fascinating voyage through the writings of Oscar Wilde and others.

It is also a striking example of original detective work.

Here, as in his previous books, Toughill unveils stunning evidence from a hitherto untapped source and uses it to devastating effect in arguing his case.

[Daveo]

The Ripper Code by Thomas Toughill.

 

Traded in recently @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange Pattaya, Thailand..

 

Thomas Toughill applies his detective skills to one of the greatest mysteries, the identity of Jack the Ripper.

The result is a book which is as original as it is enthralling.

Toughill suggests that Jack the Ripper was a former "friend" of Oscar Wilde and that Wilde dropped hints about this in several of his works, most notably The Picture of Dorian Gray, which Wilde wrote in 1889, the year after the Ripper murders took place.

In fascinating detail, the author argues that Wilde's story, that of a privileged man whose life of vice in the East End of London turns him into a murderer, is in fact a coded message about the Ripper's identity.

However, The Ripper Code is not just a fascinating voyage through the writings of Oscar Wilde and others.

It is also a striking example of original detective work.

Here, as in his previous books, Toughill unveils stunning evidence from a hitherto untapped source and uses it to devastating effect in arguing his case.

[Daveo]

The Elephant to Hollywood by Michael Caine.

 

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It's been a long journey for Maurice Micklewhite, born with rickets in London's poverty stricken Elephant & Castle, to the bright lights of Hollywood.

With a glittering career spanning more than five decades and starring roles which have earned him two Oscars, a knighthood, and an iconic place in the Hollywood pantheon, the man now known to us as Michael Caine looks back over it all.

Funny, warm, honest, Caine brings us his insider's view of Hollywood (where there's neither holly nor woods).

He recalls the films, the legendary stars, the off-screen moments with a gift for story-telling only equalled by David Niven. Hollywood has been his home and his playground.

But England is where his heart lies.

And where he blames the French for the abundance of snails in his garden.

A plaque now celebrates him at the Elephant in London.

His handprint is one of only 200 since 1927 to decorate the hallowed pavement outside that mecca of Hollywood stars, Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

A very British star, The Elephant to Hollywood is the remarkable full circle of Michael Caine's life.

[Daveo]

Oneness With All Life: Inspirational Selections from A New Earth

by Eckhart Tolle.

 

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When Oprah announced A New Earth as her 61st Book Club selection, it skyrocketed to #1 on the bestseller list, selling over five million copies in paperback and remaining at the top of the list for twenty-two consecutive weeks .

In A New Earth, renowned spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle describes how our current ego-based state of consciousness operates.

The purpose of this book is to bring about a shift in consciousness, or in his words, an awakening.

An essential part of this awakening is the recognition of the ego, and our attachment to things, the past, and enemies.

 

In Oneness With All Life, Eckhart Tolle has picked the essential phrases and paragraphs-the gems of the book-that he feels are most important and reorganized them so readers can focus on the most powerful ideas.

Beautifully packaged with evocative artwork and design, it is the perfect gift for anyone with a well-worn copy of A New Earth who wants deeper insight into this seminal work.

[Daveo]

John Le Carré : Three Complete Novels, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy / The Honourable Schoolboy / Smiley's People. by John Le Carre.

 

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[Daveo]

Women Out of Control: How the Girls Next Door Became Some of the World's Most Notorious Criminals; by Linda G. Stunell.

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Lorena Bobbitt, Karla Homolka, Pamela Smart, Mary Letourneau, and Karla Faye Tucker, their names are recognized internationally and their stories continue to grab the headlines. 
How could these attractive, feminine, girl next door stereotypes be capable of such crimes as rape, torture and sexual assault? 
Women Out of Control details the continuing story of these convicted women, their sex crimes, their excuses, their dramatic lives, and their twisted notions of love. 
Supported by court transcripts, research studies, psychiatric reports and expert opinions, Linda Stunell's extraordinary book dares to tell the truth about female sex crimes and female sexuality. 
It exposes the myths about love, power, and gender differences, and reveals how the media hype results in making celebrity superstars out of attractive women criminals. 
Stunell, a certified clinical hypnotherapist and sex counselor, takes the reader on a fascinating journey inside the minds of women who lost control and committed sexual crimes that seem completely at odds with their nature and appearance and who became some of the world's most notorious female criminals.

[Daveo]

The Yard: Scotland Yard Murder Squad Book 1 by Alex Grecian.

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Victorian London is in the grip of a wave of crime and murder, with its citizens no longer able to trust the police to protect them. 
The newly formed Murder Squad of Scotland Yard, made up of just twelve detectives, battles in vain against the tide of violence and cruelty.

When the body of a Yard detective is found in a suitcase, his lips sewn together and his eyes sewn shut, it becomes clear that not even the police are safe from attack. 
Has the Ripper returned, or is a new killer at large?

Walter Day, the squad's newest recruit, is assigned the case and finds a strange ally in the Yard's first forensic pathologist, Dr Bernard Kingsley. 
Can they find the murderer before it's too late? 
Or is London at the mercy of a serial killer even deadlier than Jack the Ripper?

Fans of Interpretation of Murder and The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher will love Alex Grecian's first crime novel: The Yard. The Yard will take you into the dark side of Victorian London and offers a fascinating insight into the birth of CSI.

[Daveo]

The Siege of Malta: An Historical Novel

by Walter Scott (Author), S. Fowler Wright.

 

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The island of Malta is key to the control of the central Mediterranean Sea. For five months in 1561 a Turkish force attacked Malta and was defied, in a great epic of endurance, by the Knights of St. John. Sir Walter Scott visited the island a year before his death, and gathered material to write a novel about it, dying before it was complete.

Now S. Fowler Wright has finished Scott's last great historical romance.

This is a story of high courage and deep faith.

At its centre stands the old Grand Master of the Order, La Vallette (after whom Valetta was named), grim and unshakeable.

But it is also a story of love undaunted amid fearful perils; of a girl who, rather than be separated from the man she loves, learns to wield a sword, and, escaping by a hairsbreadth from the clutches of the infidel, finally wins even the Grand Master's grudging admiration.

Here is a novel to stir the blood and stimulate the imagination.

[Daveo]

Served between 8am to 7pm 7 days a week

[Daveo]

The Cut (Spero Lucas #1) by George Pelecanos.

 

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Spero Lucas has a new line of work.

Since he returned home after serving in Iraq, he has been doing special investigations for a defense attorney.

He's good at it, and he has carved out a niche: recovering stolen property, no questions asked, his cut is forty percent.

 

A high profile crime boss who has heard of Lucas's specialty hires him to find out who has been stealing from his operation.

It's the biggest job Lucas has ever been offered, and he quickly gets a sense of what's going on.

But before he can close in on what's been taken, he tangles with a world of men whose amorality and violence leave him reeling, is any cut worth your family, your lover, your life?

 

Spero Lucas is George Pelecanos greatest creation, a young man making his place in the world one battle and one mission at a time. The first in a new series of thrillers featuring Spero Lucas, The Cut is the latest confirmation of why George Pelecanos is "perhaps America's greatest living crime writer.

[Daveo]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. by J. K. Rowling.

 

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Readers beware. The brilliant, breathtaking conclusion to J.K. Rowling's spellbinding series is not for the faint of heart, such revelations, battles, and betrayals await in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that no fan will make it to the end unscathed. Luckily, Rowling has prepped loyal readers for the end of her series by doling out increasingly dark and dangerous tales of magic and mystery, shot through with lessons about honor and contempt, love and loss, and right and wrong.

Fear not, you will find no spoilers in our review, to tell the plot would ruin the journey, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is an odyssey the likes of which Rowling's fans have not yet seen, and are not likely to forget.

But we would be remiss if we did not offer one small suggestion before you embark on your final adventure with Harry, bring plenty of tissues.

The heart of Book 7 is a hero's mission, not just in Harry's quest for the Horcruxes, but in his journey from boy to man and Harry faces more danger than that found in all six books combined, from the direct threat of the Death Eaters and you-know-who, to the subtle perils of losing faith in himself.

Attentive readers would do well to remember Dumbledore's warning about making the choice between "what is right and what is easy," and know that Rowling applies the same difficult principle to the conclusion of her series.

While fans will find the answers to hotly speculated questions about Dumbledore, Snape, and you-know-who, it is a testament to Rowling's skill as a storyteller that even the most astute and careful reader will be taken by surprise.

 

A spectacular finish to a phenomenal series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a bittersweet read for fans.

The journey is hard, filled with events both tragic and triumphant, the battlefield littered with the bodies of the dearest and despised, but the final chapter is as brilliant and blinding as a phoenix's flame, and fans and skeptics alike will emerge from the confines of the story with full but heavy hearts, giddy and grateful for the experience.

[Daveo]

Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story, by Kurt Eichenwald.

 

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From an award winning Reporter comes the full, mind boggling story of the lies, crimes, and ineptitude behind the spectacular scandal that imperiled a presidency, destroyed a marketplace, and changed Washington and Wall Street forever . .

[Daveo]

Unfinished Tales by J. R. R. Tolkien.

 

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The popular edition of this fascinating collection of stories, which continue the tales of The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion and contains an alternative version of The Children of Hurin.

Unfinished Tales is a collection of narratives ranging in time from the Elder Days of Middle earth to the end of the War of the Ring, and provides those who have read The Lord of the Rings with a whole collection of background and new stories from the twentieth century's most acclaimed popular author.

The book concentrates on the realm of Middle earth and comprises such elements as Gandalf's lively account of how it was that he came to send the Dwarves to the celebrated party at Bag-End, the emergence of the sea-god Ulmo before the eyes of Tuor on the coast of Beleriand, and an exact description of the military organization of the Riders of Rohan.

Unfinished Tales also contains the only story about the long ages of Numenor before its downfall, and all that is known about such matters as the Five Wizards, the Palantiri and the legend of Amroth. The tales were collated and edited by JRR Tolkien's son and literary heir, Christopher Tolkien, who provides a short commentary on each story, helping the reader to fill in the gaps and put each story into the context of the rest of his father's writings.

[Daveo]

Fame in the 20th Century by Clive James.

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As an accompaniment to an upcoming PBS television series, this volume examines the nature of fame in the twentieth century, commenting on the notoriety of such figures as Madonna, Charles Lindbergh, and Walt Disney.

[Daveo]

Michael Palin Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years

by Michael Palin.

 

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Michael Palin has kept a diary since newly married in the late 1960s.

This volume of his diaries reveals how Python emerged and triumphed, how he, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, the two Terrys, Jones and Gilliam and Eric Idle came together and changed the face of British comedy.

 

But this is but only part of Palin's story.

Here is his growing family, his home in a north London Victorian terrace, which grows as he buys the house next door and then a second at the bottom of the garden; here, too, is his solo effort , as an actor, in Three Men in a Boat, his writing endeavours (often in partnership with Terry Jones) that produces Ripping Yarns and even a pantomime.

 

Meanwhile Monty Python refuses to go away: the hugely successful movies that follow the TV (his account of the making of both The Holy Grail and the Life of Brian movies are page-turners), the at times extraordinary goings on of the many powerful personalities who coalesced to form the Python team, the fight to prevent an American TV network from bleeping out the best jokes on U.S. transmission, and much more, all this makes for funny and riveting reading.

 

The birth and childhood of his three children, his father's growing disability, learning to cope as a young man with celebrity, his friendship with George Harrison, and all the trials of a peripatetic life are also essential ingredients of these diaries.

A perceptive and funny chronicle, the diaries are a rich portrait of a fascinating period.

[Daveo]

The Falcon and the Snowman: A True Story of Friendship and Espionage by Robert Lindsey.

 

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Tense, intriguing, & darkly compelling, this is a true story of murder plots, betrayal, & the consequences of impulsive decisions.

Bright & idealistic, the son of a former FBI agent, 21-year-old Boyce was adrift in the malaise of the late 1960's.

His friend Dalton Lee had become a successful drug dealer looking for the big score.

In 1974, Boyce's father helped his son get a job at TRW, a co. that was developing & manufacturing satellites used by the CIA. Less than a year later Boyce & Lee launched a plan to sell the CIA's Secrets to the Russians & began a career as Soviet agents.

This book draws on 100's of interviews with all the principals involved, on letters, & on materials from Boyce & Lee's eventual trials.

A gripping & suspenseful real-life spy story.

[Daveo]

Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 by Michio Kaku.

 

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Space elevators.

Internet enabled contact lenses.

Cars that fly by floating on magnetic fields.

This is the stuff of science fiction, it’s also daily life in the year 2100.

 

Renowned theoretical physicist Michio Kaku details the developments in computer technology, artificial intelligence, medicine, space travel, and more, that are poised to happen over the next hundred years.

He also considers how these inventions will affect the world economy, addressing the key questions: Who will have jobs? Which nations will prosper?

Kaku interviews three hundred of the world’s top scientists

working in their labs on astonishing prototypes.

He also takes into account the rigorous scientific principles that regulate how quickly, how safely, and how far technologies can advance.

In Physics of the Future, Kaku forecasts a century of earth shaking advances in technology that could make even the last centuries’ leaps and bounds seem insignificant.