H. M. Tomlinson

War diary, August 1939 to August 1941.

British journalist took time off to make an ocean passage delivering coal to the upper reaches of the Amazon. The book is an account of his voyage. His skills waxed and waned through the book but at his best the writing is reminiscent of Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness. Wonderful descriptive passages I still have a taste of in my memory.

Whitbread Award winner Claire Tomalin's seminal biography of the enigmatic novelist and poet Thomas Hardy.Today Thomas Hardy is best known for creating the great Wessex landscape as the backdrop to his rural stories, starting with Far from the Madding Crowd, and making them classics. But his true legacy is that of a progressive thinker. When he published Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure late in his career, Hardy explored a very different world than that of his rural tales, one in which the plight of lower classes and women take center stage while the higher classes are damned. Ironically, though, Hardy remained cloaked in the arms of this very upper class during the publication of these books, acting at all times in complete convention with the rules of society. Was he using his books to express himself in a way he felt unable to do in the company he kept, or did he know sensationalism would sell? Award-winning author Claire Tomalin expertly reconstructs the life that led Hardy to maintain conventionality and write revolution.Born in Dorset in 1840, Hardy came of age in rather meager circumstances. At sixteen, he left home for London and slowly worked his way through many rejections to become a published writer. Despite his mother's admonitions to never marry, he wed Emma Lavinia Gifford in 1874 and, even though he fell easily in love, stayed true to her till her death in 1912. He frequently toured London society, but few felt they knew the true Hardy, and it is this very core of self that Tomalin elegantly brings us to know so completely.Hardy's work consistently challenged sexual and religious conventions in a way that few other books of his time did. Though his personal modesty and kindness allowed some to underestimate him or even to pity him, they did not prevent him from taking on the central themes of human experience-time, memory, loss, love, fear, grief, anger, uncertainty, death. And it was exactly his quiet life, full of the small, personal dramas of family quarrels, rivalries, and at times, despair, that infuses his works with the rich detail that sets them apart as masterpieces. In this engrossing biography, Tomalin skillfully identifies the inner demons and the outer mores that drove Hardy and presents a rich and complex portrait of one of the greatest figures in English literature.

London River is a collection of essays about life along the Thames and the docks in East London. It is an important work because the area that he wrote about was destroyed during the Blitz irrevocably changing the area forever.

In her deliciously steamy novellas, Lori Foster introduced the sinfully attractive-and sensual-Winston brothers. Now she continues their story-as sexy Zane Winston sets his roving eyes on the lady of his dreams...Zane Winston is used to fielding women's not-so-subtle advances. But he's still shocked when an exotic gypsy whispers some very suggestive words in his ear-and surprised to find that he's aroused by her words rather than amused. After all, she's not exactly his type...But he soon discovers that Tamara Tremayne's not really all that exotic. Her so-called psychic powers are (mostly) made up. Her waist-length black mane is a wig. And underneath the witchy makeup is a very stubborn, seductive woman-who may be in very serious danger...Tamara refuses to accept Zane's help-but he's still sure she's the woman for him. She may not be supernatural. But she's sassy. Sexy. And totally wild...