In the new country, Shirley and her family all have big dreams. Take the family store: Shirley has great ideas about how to make it more modern! Prettier! More profitable! She even thinks she can sell the one specialty no one seems to want to try: Mama's homemade gefilte fish.But her parents think she's too young to help. And anyway they didn't come to America for their little girl to work. "Go play with the cat!" they urge.This doesn't stop Shirley's ideas, of course. And one day, when the rest of the family has to rush out leaving her in the store with sleepy Mrs. Gottlieb...Shirley seizes her chance!

Innocent abroad Stuart Ward becomes a backpacker in peril when he travels to French Polynesia and the island of Bora Bora as the first stop on a Round-the-World itinerary. Arriving hopeful of adventure and romance, instead Stuart is unwittingly drawn into a conspiracy and he quickly discovers that the beautiful paradise islands are no Eden as one by one his fellow travellers begin to disappear...Big Fish fits neatly into the expanding genre of 'backpacker in peril' novels, which perhaps began with Alex Garland's The Beach and which found further commercial success with Emily Barr's Backpack. Stuart Ward - the innocent abroad protagonist of Osmond's novel - is far less cocksure than Garland's traveller, though.On a Gap Year from work, Stuart arrives in French Polynesia as the first stop on a Round-the-World itinerary. Hopeful of adventure and romance, instead he finds himself unwittingly drawn into a conspiracy to cover up a fatal road accident, and he quickly discovers that the beautiful, paradise islands are no Eden. Events take an even more perilous turn for Stuart, when one-by-one his co-conspirators begin to disappear...The descriptions of the Polynesian islands - and later of New Zealand, where the dramatic climax of the story occurs - are particularly evocative, and make the reader want to immediately contact their nearest travel agent to check on the latest flight availability, but the beauty of the surroundings are countered by the ever-present threat of menace which appears to stalk the young backpacker. Parents beware! It is probably best not to know what horrors await your Gap Year travelling offspring!Andrew Osmond proves to have both a light, comic touch in his observations of the discomforts and embarrassments of travel, but also reveals a darker side, reminiscent of some of the writings of J G Ballard, when he explores the isolation associated with travelling alone in a far flung country, many thousands of miles from home.A must for wannabe globe-trotters, armchair travellers and mystery fans, alike.Read it on the beach on your iBook reader.

When his attempts to get to know his dying father fail, William Bloom makes up stories that recreate his father's life in heroic proportions.Amazon.com ReviewIn Big Fish, Daniel Wallace angles in search of a father and hooks instead a fictional debut as winning as any this year. From his son's standpoint, Edward Bloom leaves much to be desired. He was never around when William was growing up; he eludes serious questions with a string of tall tales and jokes. This is subject matter as old as the hills, but Wallace's take is nothing if not original. Desperate to know his father before he dies, William recreates his father's life as the stuff of legend itself. In chapters titled "In Which He Speaks to Animals," "How He Tamed the Giant," "His Immortality," and the like, Edward Bloom walks miles through a blizzard, charms the socks off a giant, even runs so fast that "he could arrive in a place before setting out to get there." In between these heroic episodes, Bloom dies not once but four times, working subtle variations on a single scene in which he counters his son's questions with stories--some of which are actually very witty, indeed. After all, he admits, "...if I shared my doubts with you, about God and love and life and death, that's all you'd have: a bunch of doubts. But now, see, you've got all these great jokes." The structure is a clever conceit, and the end product is both funny and wise. At the heart of both legends and death scenes live the same age-old questions: Who are you? What matters to you? Was I a good father? Was I a good son? In mapping the territory where myth meets everyday life, Wallace plunges straight through to fatherhood's archaic and mysterious heart. --Mary ParkFrom Publishers Weekly"People mess things up, forget and remember all the wrong things. What's left is fiction," writes Wallace in his refreshing, original debut, which ignores the conventional retelling of the events and minutiae of a life and gets right to the poetry of a son's feelings for and memories of his father. William Bloom's father, Edward, is dying. He dies in fact in four different takes, all of which have William and his mother waiting outside a bedroom door as the family doctor tells them it's time to say their goodbyes. He intersperses the four takes with stories (all filtered through William's mind and voice) about the elusive Edward, who spent long periods of time on the road away from home and admitted once to his son that he had yearned to be a great man. The father and son deathbed conversations have son William playing earnest straight man, while his father is full of witticisms and jokes. In a plainspoken style dotted with transcendent passages, Wallace mixes the mundane and the mythical. His chapters have the transformative quality of fable and fairy tale, and the novel's roomy structure allows the mystery and lyricism of the story to coalesce. Agent, Joe Regal; author tour. (Oct.) FYI: Wallace is an illustrator who designs T-shirts, refrigerator magnets and greeting cards.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

First published in 1985 and long out-of-print, Big Fish, one of Thomas Perry’s most sought-after titles, is now available to readers in an e-book format. Powerfully-plotted and funny, Big Fish follows dangerous and mysterious Los Angeles entrepreneur Altmeyer, and his wife Rachel whose quiet lives in the Hollywood hills are disrupted when a multi-million dollar gunrunning deal goes bad. Under most circumstances, Altmeyer might be mildly amused by the audacity of the double-cross. But whoever cheated Altmeyer may also be planning to destroy the world. With so much at stake, Altmeyer and Rachel and their friend, super-agent to the stars Bucky Carmichael, set off on a perilous adventure in search of the identity of the Big Fish. What they find is shocking and horrifying and all too credible. Reviews: “A fast-reading, big-time, silky thriller.” - People “A new contender for top tough guy… We wanted to sell our house and buy the film rights, we were that impressed. Big Fish features a dashing, upscale couple… the Nick and Nora Charles of gunrunning… Altmeyer and Rachel have a chemistry that reaches critical mass on the opening page.” – Playboy “Written with the same expertise as Mr. Perry’s previous successes… and that should keep his fans happy. All men will want to be Altmeyer and all women his Rachel.” – New York Times Book Review **

Big River, Little Fish is a compelling tale of a boy growing up into manhood set against the dramatic and beautiful scenery of the Murray River in South Australia.The compelling and cinematic second novel from Belinda Jeffrey, author of Brown Skin Blue. Big River, Little Fish is the highly anticipated second novel from Belinda Jeffrey. Set in South Australia during the 1956 Murray River flood, it tells the story of Tom Downs, a boy trapped between his way of reading the world and the world's way of seeing him. He lives in the town but likes it best down by Old Mother Murray, talking to his best friend, Hannah, and helping the outcasts who live in the shacks on her banks. But there's a big river coming and Tom feels like everything he loves and understands might be swept away and lost. From the moment Tom Downs was born backwards – the moment of his mother's death – time has held him the wrong way round, like he's caught inside a fractured story. But the thing...