This brilliant first novel, brimming with humour and charm, is a chronicle of Englishman David Dunlop's mostly incompetent attempts to rise to even the most basic challenges of living in the remote Scottish Highlands. Interspersed with wry cameos from his past life as an aspiring junior executive in southern England, his absurd predicaments not only portray the vast cultural contrast between the English suburbanite and the West Coast Gael, but also highlight his own personal inadequacies. The frustrations of the unsatisfactory marriage, career and materialistic existence he left behind are replaced by equally frustrating new perversities of climate, inanimate objects and West Coast mores. You'll shed a tear from both laughter and pathos as the plot slides from wry humour to a climax of pure farce.

In 16th-century Istanbul, master miniaturist and illuminator of books Enishte Effendi is commissioned to illustrate a book celebrating the sultan. Soon he lies dead at the bottom of a well, and how he got there is the crux of this novel. A number of narrators give testimony to what they know about the circumstances surrounding the murder. The stories accumulate and become more detailed as the novel progresses, giving the reader not only a nontraditional murder mystery but insight into the mores and customs of the time. In addition, this is both an examination of the way figurative art is viewed within Islam and a love story that demonstrates the tricky mechanics of marriage laws. Award-winning Turkish author Pamuk (The White Castle) creatively casts the novel with colorful characters (including such entities as a tree and a gold coin) and provides a palpable sense of atmosphere of the Ottoman Empire that history and literary fans will appreciate

This text includes statistical data and observations of cultures in Oceania. For each culture, it examines its history, settlements, economy, cultural relations, land tenure kinship, marriage and family, religion and sociopolitical organization.

REUPLOADED

Four young ladies enter London society with one common goal: they must use their feminine wit and wiles to find a husband.So a daring husband-hunting scheme is born.

Annabelle Peyton, determined to save her family from disaster, decides to use her beauty and wit to tempt a suitable nobleman into making an offer of marriage. But Annabelle's most intriguing—and persistent—admirer, wealthy, powerful Simon Hunt, has made it clear that while he will introduce her to irresistible pleasure he will not offer marriage. Annabelle is determined to resist his unthinkable proposition . . . but it is impossible in the face of such skillful seduction.

Her friends, looking to help, conspire to entice a more suitable gentleman to offer for Annabelle, for only then will she be safe from Simon—and her own longings. But on one summer night, Annabelle succumbs to Simon's passionate embrace and tempting kisses . . . and she discovers that love is the most dangerous game of all.