A Booker finalist and Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize winner, David Mitchell was called "prodigiously daring and imaginative" by Time and "a genius" by the New York Times Book Review.
The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the "highwalled, fanshaped artificial island" that is the Japanese Empire's single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay; the farthest outpost of the warravaged Dutch East Indies Company; and a de facto prison for the dozen foreigners permitted to live and work there. To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, costly courtesans, earthquakes, and typhoons comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancee back in Holland.
But Jacob's original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and midwife to the city's powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur, until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken. The consequences will extend beyond Jacob's worst imaginings. As one cynical colleague asks, "Who ain't a gambler in the glorious Orient, with his very life?"
Against the sumptuous backdrop of Charleston, South Carolina, South of Broad gathers a unique cast of sinners and saints....
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Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cuttingedge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure....
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Once again, Bourdain pulls back the curtain, but never pulls his punches, on the modern gastronomical revolution, as only he can....
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"What should we have for dinner?" To one degree or another, this simple question assails any creature faced with a wide choice of things to eat....
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At the end of her bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe, a Brazilianborn man of Australian citizenship....
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Last Call is capacious, meticulous, and thrillingly told. It stands as the most complete history of Prohibition ever written and confirms Daniel Okrent's rank as a major American writer....
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In 1799, the artificial island of Dejima lies in Nagasaki Harbor as Japan's outpost for the Dutch East Indies Company....
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This is how wars are fought now: by children, hoppedup on drugs and wielding AK47s. Here is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty....
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Dorothea Benton Frank is a native of the South whose novels vividly capture the wild beauty, laidback atmosphere, earthy characters, and charming eccentricities of life in South Carolina's Lowcountry....
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In South America a 96yearold man of great wealth reads a book late one night and an hour later he lies dead in his bed, the secrets of his past starkly revealed....
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Navy SEAL turned covert operative Scot Harvath is called to action once again in Brad Thor's hottest political thriller yet....
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Two Pulitzer Prize winners expose the most pervasive human rights violation of our era the oppression of women in the developing world and tell us what we can do about it....
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Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers" the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful....
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It was wonderful to be young and working on Wall Street in the 1980s never had so many 24yearolds made so much money in so little time....
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Why I Recommend
Audible by Alan Twigg
Audible (an Amazon.com company) is the world's leading online
audio-book provider. Audible is responsible for supplying audio
content to Apple's ITunes service. I have been listening,
enjoying and creating audio books for many years. With
the arrival of the internet and portable digital devices,
audio-books began to become availalbe for download.
Having tried most of
the other download services myself, I finally came to
the conclusion that Audible offers the best and most
reliable service. Whether you are using an IPod, IPhone,
mobile phone, Dune or one of the many other MP3 players
availalbe, Audilbe makes downloading great quality audio
content easy and umcomplicated.
In addition to this, Audible also boasts the most comprehensive collection
of audio books anywhere. Depending on the promotion currently on
offer, you can download any audiobook of your
choice for free (including almost
certainly the title on this
page, too).
This link will take you to Audible...
All about Audiobooks and how they can make your life more
enjoyable.
Books in audio format are a fantastic alternative to reading.
Indeed, now that the digital age is upon, listening to your
favourite novel, biography or factual book has become
incredibly easy. Digital audiobooks weigh nothing and can be
easily downloaded in mp3, wma or other format to an almost
limitless number of mobile devices, including ipods, iphone,
zune, android, laptops, PCs and mobile phones.
Just imagine listening to a bestselling classic while
driving. Good audiobooks really do take the boredom out of
travel and long car journeys. Thanks to Ipod and co. you
don’t even need a CD player anymore! And there are many
thousands of great audiobooks to choose in an incredibly
diverse range of categories. From comedy to business and
from children’s to Adult, you are guaranteed to find your
downloadable favourite.
Here at Playtime Books we offer lots unabridged talking
books that can be downloaded from audible. At audible
audiobooks you get your own online library, which makes
downloading a piece of cake. You can then easily move them
over to your Ipod or mp3 player. You can also sign up for
the trial and get a
free audiobook.
