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Books > Fiction > Genre fiction > War fiction > General
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Final Spin
(Paperback)
Jocko Willink
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R285
R258
Discovery Miles 2 580
Save R27 (9%)
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Ships in 5 - 10 working days
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Number one New York Times bestselling author Jocko Willink's
fast-paced and exciting thriller Final Spin is a story of love,
brotherhood, suffering, happiness and sacrifice - a story about
life. Johnny . . . Shouldn't be in a dead-end job. Shouldn't be in
a dead-end bar. Shouldn't be in a dead-end life. But he is. It's a
hamster-wheel existence. Stocking warehouse store shelves by day,
drinking too much whisky and beer by night. In between, Johnny
lives in his childhood home, making sure his alcoholic mother
hasn't drunk herself to death, and looking after his idiosyncratic
older brother Arty, whose world revolves around his laundromat job.
Rinse and repeat. Then Johnny's monotonous life takes a tumble. The
laundromat where Arty works, and the one thing that gives him
happiness, is about to be sold. Johnny doesn't want that to happen,
so he takes measures into his own hands. Johnny, along with his
friend Goat, come up with a plan to get the money to buy the
laundromat. But things don't always go as planned . . .
Families are like snowflakes, in that no two are exactly alike.
Each individual has a part to play on the stage of family drama,
and those characters can be so different and yet so much alike as
they share that clan identity. An individual can change the name or
wear a mask, and move away to seek obscurity or fashion some other
identity on near or distant frontiers or foreign shores, to dwell
among strangers. Fame and fortune are calling, and for some a
hermit's life is more attractive. The American traditions of love
and romance, marriage and creation of another family institution
have conventional conservative designs, but occasionally there is
the unorthodox merger of opposites or the union of similar spirits
in a compatible but unconventional connubial design. Children are
born and grow up in these milieus to inaugurate their own family
dramas, taking with them into those relationships all the features
that genetics, nature and nurture have provided to equip them for
assuming their place to play their part in the drama of human life
in the American family tradition. This story is about one of those
resulting families of unconventional design.
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Eli
(Hardcover)
Charles F. David
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R720
Discovery Miles 7 200
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Andy Bishop's quest begins promisingly when he leaves Columbus,
Ohio, in 1914 after graduating from the University of Notre Dame.
In Austria, Hungary, his goals are threefold: make contact with
distant Austrian relatives, practice his nascent journalistic
skills, and discover why his aristocratic ancestor, Matthias zu
Windischgratz, immigrated to America so long ago. The scenery
changes drastically as Andy witnesses the last stand of imperial
Austrian society. He arrives just three weeks before the
assassination of the Kaiser's nephew, the Habsburg Archduke Franz
Ferdinand, and his wife, Sophie. This event sparks the fateful
slide toward world war and chaos for both family and friends.
Andy's fateful decision to remain in the doomed Habsburg Empire
after the war begins-and his irresistible attraction to a young
Austrian countess-lead him to Budapest, Rome, and finally Paris, as
Europe is convulsed by the greatest war since the defeat of
Napoleon. Told from the perspective of Andy Bishop, "An American in
Vienna" presents historical insight into the Austrian court, royal
society, and the demise of a once-powerful empire as it becomes
embroiled in the Great War.
"The Last Hookers" is intrigue, danger, action, and romance about
aviators in Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Laos Colonel Dunn who were
awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Their story shines light
into dark corners of the NSA and CIA during covert operations in
Southeast Asia.
Thessaly alienates her husband Karl, an American air force officer
stationed in England, as she defends her mother, a bitter
war-widow. Mum attempts to dominate Karl as she does Thessaly. The
stress between the trio builds when Mum follows her daughter and
Karl to the United States and Gloucester, Massachusetts.
As Karl and Thessaly's children grown up, Thessaly suffers
seizures while being haunted by images of Shadowbrooks, the country
house where she and her mother fled to during the stepped up
bombing in World War II.
Plagued by sleepless nights, Thessaly wonders if the years she
can't remember could be connected to this haunting Shadowbrooks
house.
Mum comes to stay with them for a month each August which
disrupts Thessaly, Karl and their children as Mum distorts and
denies the life she and Thessaly had led at Shadowbrooks. Thessaly
profoundly dreads her mother coming as she still attempts to
dominate them. When Mum suddenly dies, Thessaly's seizures
accelerate, but her medical tests are negative.
Convinced her illness is to do with Shadowbrooks. Thessaly sees
a Boston psychiatrist who brilliantly unravels her Shadobrooks
hauntings. After a trip back to Shadowbrooks, England, Thessaly not
only discovers the disturbing story behind her mother and herself,
but also the cover-up that had sent both into decades of denial
Sumia Sukkar's The Boy From Aleppo Who Painted The War is about a
14-year-old boy with Asperger Syndrome who attempts to understand
the Syrian conflict and its effect on his life by painting his
feelings. Yasmine, his beautiful older sister, devotes herself to
him, but has to cope with her own traumas when she is taken by
soldiers. Their three brothers also struggle - on whether or not to
take sides and the consequences of their eventual choices. The book
has recently been dramatised by BBC Radio 4. The Boy From Aleppo
Who Painted The War is the powerful and deeply moving debut novel
from 21-year- old Sumia Sukkar. It chronicles the intimate
sufferings of a family in the midst of civil war with uncommon
compassion, wit and imaginative force. Told mainly from a
challenged young man's perspective, it achieves the timeless
dignity of a true report from an unpredictable and frightening
place. It will take its place among the list of necessary books to
read about how we preserve love and beauty during brutal times. The
story is sure to become a beloved classic, as it follows in the
footsteps of other novels touching on the lives of young people
during war. "Writing my timely novel was a way for me to express my
grief towards the tragedies of what's happening in my country,"
says Sumia. "Readers will find it interesting to experience the
traumatising events of war through the eyes of an innocent young
autistic boy who has lived his whole life completely dependent on
his family and then having to be separated from them. It contains a
blend of political events, emotional drive and Arabian tradition."
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