Books at Bookhabit.com http://www.bookhabit.com 2008-08-28 07:37:08 Ten soldiers, trapped in the jungles of China during a military invasion, forgo trying to be rescued in favor of staging a beauty pageant in this short satire of war, vanity, and the masculine mystique. http://www.bookhabit.com/book_details.php?book_id=238 In the sleepy, southern England village of Wiggleswood, there are ghosts. After a car accident, involving two neighbours, Ralph and Fred, both await their turn to cross over to the 'other side'. However, only one is really dead. The other was merely in a bit of a hurry. In the confusion, the metaphorical gate is slammed in both their faces. But when Ralph goes 'back', he finds his body already has a new occupant; his dead neighbour, Fred. Confused and on the verge of panic a cry for help sees a guide, in the form of a small black cat, materialise out of thin air and offer assistance. The cat, which is merely part of Ralph's memory, explains that Ralph is currently neither ghost nor 'solid', but something called, dead-not-really. Trapped between here and there the cat outlines what Ralph has to do to get his body back, a simple process that requires Fred to vacate voluntarily. But how do you do that, whilst you're a dead-not-really sort-of ghost? For Fred, dying at sixty-six after a heart attack then suddenly finding himself in a thirty- something healthy body presents a host of possibilities. Especially now that he doesn't have to worry about his former erectile dysfunction. But being alive again is not so easy, especially whilst occupying someone else's body. When Ralph/Fred walks out of hospital without even a scratch to show for his accident, the local police are more than a little curious, especially as one of the officers, Bill Williams was Fred's long time friend. And it does not take long before Bill begins to ask some very awkward questions. But Ralph is/was not merely the freelance computer programmer he claims to be. Ralph is/was the CEO of a large computer software company who, prior to the accident was 'undercover' and hot on the trail of someone calling himself 'Teddy Remback', the mysterious designer of a computer game known as Treasure Chest. Remback is offering five million euros to anyone who is able to crack all the clues of a ten-disc series. With newspapers offering the same amount to anyone who can provide the identity of Teddy Remback, the public besiege Ralph's company headquarters, convinced that he or one of the staff is the mysterious character. The race is on. Will 'Ralph' discover Remback's identity and more importantly, will he get his body back. There is one major problem. He only has two weeks. After that, his status as a dead-not-really person is revoked and he has to cross over to the other side. But somebody knows whats going on and that's Albert, the street sweeper. However, everyone knows Albert is a bit soft in the head, so no one's asking him http://www.bookhabit.com/book_details.php?book_id=386 where the inflated dreams that carry us on the road to progress hit the asphalt of reality and fall apart. a record of a life lived through the dreams of others and by the means of luxury afforded in a modern unbalanced industrial society. to describe the trials of the senseless, homeless and lifeless. contents includes: three prisons. childless blues, use of books, clever prophecies, homeless again, alley angels, use of children, roll me again, the herd heads south, every story ends in death, seeking good death, death writes clear obits, death practices by phone, death takes a vacation, picnic at swan point, death the final diet, and death has a crisis. [Violet Reason died homeless in 2004. For more information, see the dedication. I have edited her poetry and put it in one volume.] http://www.bookhabit.com/book_details.php?book_id=557 The further frenetic mythopoetic adventures of Coyote in post-modern industrial civilization as he steals a car, invents television, runs for office, works on wall street, goes mouse hunting, and meets interesting new people, like Bombay Chevrolet and Forest Trump, as well as Baglady, Death, Legba, and the New Gods. http://www.bookhabit.com/book_details.php?book_id=222 The new new Coyote backslides into the bad bad behaviors of the old old Coyote made famous over thousands of years and thousands of fires in American Indian lore. (And you can buy a hard copy of this book for $10 at www.amazon.com or www.3musesbooks) http://www.bookhabit.com/book_details.php?book_id=95 Cupid is a Love God with problems. Jane feels she is unlovable, and is Cupid's most difficult client. Their worlds collide on Earth when they both seek therapy from the same woman, with mixed results. Can Cupid save his marriage? Can Jane find love? And what the hell has Keats got to do with it? http://www.bookhabit.com/book_details.php?book_id=93 Sarah wanted to escape the city life and her wealthy family. Moving from mainland Australia, she purchased a farm in Tasmania. Persistent, yet green to rural living, the new next door neighbour has her attention and she's out to win his heart in the most embarrassing ways. A family tragedy turns her life upside down and her little farm into spook central. Learn the secrets of the after life; you too may have many freeloaders at your address and not all were once human. Though the characters in this book are fictitious, many of the incidents took place and by yours truly. The farm itself is real, right down to every description. I ought to know, I once owned it. CJ Paranormal Comedy Read more about the author here and listen her speak about her books http://bookhabit.com/newsdetail.php?nid=30 http://www.bookhabit.com/book_details.php?book_id=68 "I'm doing 'terribly' very well indeed. I'm doing 'terribly' fantastically well. Haven't you been watching? In fact I'm starting to think that "terribly" is the only bloody thing I can do well." Welcome to the world of Colin Hollings. It's a world which will make you shudder. It will make you cringe It will make you glad it isn't happening to you - yet. Success, sex, power, clandestine relationships, high flying careers, the fickle finger of fate and some big, big questions! This story has all of that and more. But poor old Colin, the central character and 'anti hero', plays only a peripheral role in all that stuff. It's true, he wanted a change. It's also true that he wanted a bit of excitement. He got both. This book charts a three week period during which Colin Hollings finds his ordinary, middle class, sub-urban life blown apart. As he leaves the birthday party of one of his five year old son's friends, he is asked to take a parcel addressed to Heather, the mum of one of the other children at the party. From this point on nothing will be the same again. Jimmy, Colin's son, opens the package as they travel home in the car. To Colin's horror, he finds it contains love letters, intimate photos and a 'dodgy' DVD. It transpires that this collection is being returned to Heather by her former lover. Colin tries to do the right thing and return the parcel to Heather but is thwarted at every turn. He loses the incriminating video in his son's DVD collection and Melissa, his assertive and successful wife, finds one of the love letters. She accuses him of having an affair with Heather and throws him out. From hereon, Colin's main preoccupation is sidestepping the banana skins that seem to litter his path as he seeks to reassure his wife that he's not having an affair and sort out the mess of complications he has created for himself and everyone else as a result of taking Heather's portfolio of love letters. http://www.bookhabit.com/book_details.php?book_id=414 "Don't Cry For Me, B. F. Skinner" is a 42 day epiphany of B. F. Hughes, a slightly delusional teenager. While his peers idolize rock stars, William Francis Hughes selects the renowned behaviorist, B. F. Skinner, as his hero. Convinced that his hero possesses the ability to solve almost any problem, William Francis Hughes concocts a scheme to travel 1200 miles to stalk B. F. Skinner at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. http://www.bookhabit.com/book_details.php?book_id=492 The Plot: Four friends graduate with doctorates from the University of Yale. Life should be easy and the world should be at their feet or so tells the American business graduate Ed Tellers, to his friend, the English Historian James Andrews. Unfortunately James can see what no else can; the challenges that await them. For a start, Ed's father is a leading US Senator and newspaper magnate who detests the French. But Ed's close girlfriend and the third member of the group, Sophie, is the daughter of a leading French academic who decries the negative effect of US culture. How on earth is Ed to explain that he wants to marry the enemy and what will be the reaction of this powerful American politician? International Relations are sure to be affected. At least this was Ed's problem. Or was it? James was relying on his best friend's support while he sought a grant for his academic career. The money wasn't only needed for daily subsistence but to prove that James could support his girlfriend. Helena, an English Literature Doctor, the final member of the quartet and the love of James' life, didn't need support but the views of her stern self made Greek millionaire were different. Mikos Mikarios was a hard man, a hero during the Cypriot Insurgency against the British and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, and a holder of 'traditional' views who disliked trivia. The Greek father was also a large man with a huge intimidating chest. On top of that, the Mikarios family was the sworn enemy of the Catholic Church. James was out on all three strikes: the dislike of trivia extended to disdain for that most impractical of subjects, history; James was a man without means; and his area of historical research was the Catholic Church. Best not even to mention the British thing. Naturally, Mikos didn't know about James's research. A visit to the Mikarios household revealed a family sponsored rival for Helena's affections - Gregor Leonides the Great, an overly confident Greek playboy. Could matters get worse? They certainly could. The only way to secure an income was to win a grant from the Catholic Church which allowed for further funding from the European Union. A top Yale history doctor could reasonably expect to win the grant. But there was a problem. Several problems in fact, but the leading one was Bishop Harris. This unforgiving Judge-General held 'good character' as the deciding criterion for the competition, and he disliked James. James hadn't previously had problems with character references but that was before they came. 'They' were a rationale man's nightmare. 'They' were the fruitcakes of fruitcakes and the enemy of academic study. 'They' were the Brotherhood of the Society of the Four Horses! The Brotherhood's aims were to expose the conspiracy of the Catholic Church; a two thousand year conspiracy leading back to the Holy Cross, enhanced by the knights of the Fourth Crusade and their pillage of Constantinople in 1204. And 'they' were blackmailing James into assisting their cause. What if Bishop Harris found out? If he lost the competition, James could never face down Helena's father, not that he wanted to face down a former guerilla commander. This was all very tense and James didn't like tension. Ed thrived under pressure but James cowered and developed over active powers of imagination. How on earth were all these strands to be managed, all the fathers and the Catholic Church kept apart and James found secure employment? This is a clever international comedy and the perfect antidote to conspiracy theorists everywhere. http://www.bookhabit.com/book_details.php?book_id=525 Written in a similar style to Catch 22, Robert Black in his first novel has added a persistent dark cloud to a clever humorous satirical look at the New Zealand justice system and laws seen through the eyes of a young barrister: "BUT as he started to drive home he changed his mind. He drove up the hilly coastal dirt road and parked overlooking the sea below him. He waited until the last remnants of light died. He got out of the car, climbed over the wire fence and walked a short distance to the edge of the cliff. This part of the cliff was well known, as occasionally people would commit suicide there by jumping. Below him, the ocean roared and foamed white against the blackness. And it occurred to him then, sadly, that those brave souls who jumped had been mistaken, that the ocean would not have cared about their demise at all, not even blinked, though that may have been their last dying wish. But why had they jumped? Flint said suicide was the only true crime, as it was the only unnatural act that a human being was capable of doing. In such a simple, beautiful country as New Zealand, why did so many people take their own lives? Especially young ones? Perhaps Dodds was right. Maybe there were too many controls, too many laws, too many restrictions on our behaviour. In such a small population, was it too hard to say what we really felt and do what we really wanted to do? Maybe it was like a sickness, as he had said，a control sickness." The author is a lawyer with nearly ten years of criminal defence and family law experience in New Zealand. This novel, written by a lawyer, gives the reader a rare insight into the true world of criminal law, the lawyers, judges and police. It also deals with the sad realities that family lawyers face: "IN child custody cases the welfare of the child was paramount. At the end of a case the prize for the jubilant parent was day to day care of the child. A fucked up child, but still a child. A perfect mould for their flesh and blood. But far from a whole person. The wounds and scars were easily observed by anyone who cared to look except the applicant and respondent. Each parent had their own special brand of poison invisible ink that splintered like glass and sliced red beneath the soft skin and trusting eyes." At last a down to earth lawyer has ripped down the pretentious veils of mystery that lawyers and judges hide behind and written an entertaining, satirical, chillingly truthful book, that exposes them painfully close to the core. http://www.bookhabit.com/book_details.php?book_id=182 Written in the customary Robert Black flavour of darkness, a debaucherous, no holds barred tale of booze, sex, drugs and prostitutes in China, as a Kiwi English teacher stumbles from place to place and adventure to adventure, drunkenly navigating his way through early stages of culture shock. This is is a hard hitting controversial book exposing many of the truths about China, the mainland Chinese, their culture and thinking. From teaching in Shenyang to being holed up in his apartment during SARS time in Beijing, to beautiful coconut beaches and sexual debauchery in tropical Hainan Island. Fans of Charles Bukowski should enjoy this book but be warned it is not for the squeamish or easily offended. This is no touchy-feely travel book: "ONE morning you wake up feeling dead. You are thirty-five. Single. Lonely. The dreams you had as a boy never came true. Your mind, body, soul and spirit have been savaged by years of drugs and alcohol and sin. You sweat for no reason. You cannot remember the last time you felt good. Or the last time you really laughed. You had the girl then you lost her. Then you had another and lost her too. You despise most human beings. This is nothing new. But now you realise with horror, that you have become one of the very crawling abominations that used to nauseate you, and that every word uttered from your lips over the last few years was bullshit. And not even real bullshit. Weak, watered down bullshit. But you believed it because you were too lazy and lifeless to bother to think. Years ago you had the secret. You knew about purity. About love and power. But, day by day, it all slipped away. This morning when you look at your tired, hung over flesh in the mirror and study the lines of disappointment and failure, you know you can no longer call yourself a good person. God has you on your knees, but you still fight him. You are desperate. You need friends. You need clean air and beaches and solitude. You need a cold night in a country cottage, with the sound of heavy icy rain on the roof, a log fire burning, and a beautiful girl who loves you, curled up next to you, purring like a kitten. But the last woman who agreed to sleep with you wanted money and, like a nightmare, like the worst joke anyone has ever played on you, you remember. It is hot. It is dirty. There are mosquitoes. There are lies and there is money. You are in Shenyang and this is China. Fuck China, fuck the world, fuck life, fuck yourself, fuck anything if it helps!" Reading this novel it is easy to see Robert Black has matured as a writer and found his voice. A compelling second novel and follow up to The Control Sickness. Also available as a paperback at: http://www.poseidonbooks.com http://www.bookhabit.com/book_details.php?book_id=181 “Yes, pirates,” agreed Federi with a dark grin. Trouble - yes, Hungarian sea devil Radomir Lascek, Captain of the Pirate Ship Solar Wind, is trouble. But not half as much trouble as he has loaded on himself by hiring Shawn, Paean and Ronan Donegal, three musicians fleeing Dublin... Books in the series of the Solar Wind: 1. The Mystery of the Solar Wind 2. The Assassin Coming soon: 3. Freedom Fighter http://www.bookhabit.com/book_details.php?book_id=585 It was a dark and soon to be stormy night- well it would be, wouldn't it? There was a light swell on the water but heavy clouds were rolling in from the west. As Remillard made his way forward along the deck, it began to rain. Just as he was about to light a cigarette, he thought he saw something in the water. An intermittent flash caught his eye. It looked like a small red light. Yes, there it was again. Pulling a torch from a pocket of his oilskin, he shone it on the dark object floating less than twenty metres from the boat. 'Merde!' he swore� So begins a most unusual chapter in the life of Jensen Pourne, marine biologist and soon to be most wanted person on the planet. The crew of a small fishing vessel, Le Petit Cochon, find him floating unconscious in the Mediterranean. After his rescue, Jensen discovers he has amnesia, remembering nothing of his former life. However, he is able to speak fluent French, and tie intricate knots in his bootlaces. Why was he floating half dead in the Mediterranean Sea, and more importantly why is he carrying a Viagra tablet inside a small silver locket around his neck? The only clue to his past is an inscription on the tablet, Le Grande Pharmacy de Nice. Once Le Petit Cochon docks at Marseille, Jensen sets out to discover his identity. When he reaches Nice, he begins to run into people who know him, including a young woman named Nicky. Nicky has just returned to Nice after fleeing from her former employer, an African head of state named Moreham Godafti, who has a penchant for making voyeuristic recordings of his female employees. Nicky has stolen two discs that she believes are recordings of her. However, one of the discs contains information about a clandestine American plot, called the Treadmill Project, which aims to use alien technology, to clone the heads, (and probably the rest of their bodies) of every major oil-producing nation. Prior to the theft, Moreham Godafti was involved in a spot of blackmail with the Americans. His luxury yacht, supposedly with all hands, blows up under mysterious circumstances. Only afterwards do the Americans discover that one crewmember was not on board. Jensen and Nicky unwittingly find themselves targets for assassination from a secret American intelligence (?) organisation, the International Aid Agency, which embark on one bungled attempt after another to recover the disc. Nicky turns to her friend, Uncle Bob Lumlud for help. Bob, a former spy chief for the French government, is currently part of a secret organisation that once worked on the alien spacecraft that crash-landed at Roswell. Bob and his collegues agree to help Jensen and Nicky by devising a plan to expose the Treadmill Project to the world. All Jensen and Nicky have to do is get to Paris in one piece and they will be safe. Compared to these two, Matt Damon had it easy! http://www.bookhabit.com/book_details.php?book_id=415 Snakelex is a first class demon on assignment to a small country town in Australia. Spiritual warfare will be battled out between good and evil. Snakelex must use every dirty trick in the book to cause chaos in the community and sway those from attending the only church in town. The elite at Hell's head office take an interest in Snakelex and aid him to learn the truth about their enemy and Hell's best kept secrets that mislead and control the lower ranks of Satan's establishment. Read more about the author here and listen her speak about her books http://bookhabit.com/newsdetail.php?nid=30 http://www.bookhabit.com/book_details.php?book_id=69