The Color Purple

The Color Purple

Alice Walker

Fiction

Celie has grown up in rural Georgia, navigating a childhood of ceaseless abuse. Not only is she poor and despised by the society around her, she’s badly treated by her family. As a teenager, she begins writing letters directly to God in an attempt to transcend a life that often seems too much to bear. Her letters span twenty years and record a journey of self-discovery and empowerment through the guiding light of a few strong women and her own implacable will to find harmony with herself and her home. *The Color Purple*’s deeply inspirational narrative, coupled with Walker’s prodigious talent as a stylist and storyteller, have made the novel a contemporary classic of American letters.  This ebook features a new introduction written by the author on the twenty-fifth anniversary of publication, and an illustrated biography of Alice Walker including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.
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By the Light of My Father's Smile

By the Light of My Father's Smile

Alice Walker

Fiction

"By The Light Of My Father's Smile" presents a celebration of sexuality, its absolute usefulness in the accessing of one's mature spirituality, and the father's role in assuring joy or sorrow in this arena for his female children, " says Walker. "It examines the ways imposed religion almost always acts to inhibit and harden the hearts of those who would instinctively love, and presents the richness and coherence of an alternative culture's experience of sexuality as a celebration of life, " she adds.The story begins at an outpost in the remote Sierras in Mexico, where an African American family (two daughters and their partners) from the United States come to live for several years. The father, who narrates much of the novel from the grave, finds his fifteen-year-old daughter Magdalena, having sex with a local boy named Manuelito. He beats her in a scene witnessed by her sister, Susannah. While both daughters are wounded by the beating, it is Magdalena who remains scarred throughout her life by this incident. However, it is because of Manuelito and his tradition that reconciliation between father and daughters eventually happens. Manuelito is a Mundo, a deeply spiritual and wise tribe of mixed race, both Black and Indian. The Mundo are unimpressed by a world concerned primarily with exploitation and monetary gain. They treasure their relationship to the earth and ultimately teach the father, who believes his daughter's sexuality is evil, that in fact sexuality is a blessing. In the end, it is the Mundo way of life that leads the father back to his daughters.
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You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down

You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down

Alice Walker

Fiction

A natural evolution from the earlier, much-acclaimed collection *In Love & Trouble*, these fourteen provocative and often humorous stories show women oppressed but not defeated. These are hopeful stories about love, lust, fame, and cultural thievery, the delight of new lovers, and the rediscovery of old friends, affirmed even across self-imposed color lines.
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The Temple of My Familiar

The Temple of My Familiar

Alice Walker

Fiction

**In Walker’s follow-up to **** *The Color Purple* ****,**** webs of characters are drawn toward critical confrontations with history **  In* The Temple of My Familiar*, Celie and Shug from *The Color Purple* subtly shadow the lives of dozens of characters, all dealing in some way with the legacy of the African experience in America. From recent African immigrants, to a woman who grew up in the mixed-race rainforest communities of South America, to Celie’s own granddaughter living in modern-day San Francisco, all must come to understand the brutal stories of their ancestors to come to terms with their own troubled lives.   As Walker follows these astonishing characters, she weaves a new mythology from old fables and history, a profoundly spiritual explanation for centuries of shared African-American experience. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Alice Walker including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.
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Meridian

Meridian

Alice Walker

Fiction

Meridian Hill is a young woman at an Atlanta college attempting to find her place in the revolution for racial and social equality. She discovers the limits beyond which she will not go for the cause, but despite her decision not to follow the path of some of her peers, she makes significant sacrifices in order to further her beliefs. Working in a campaign to register African American voters, Meridian cares broadly and deeply for the people she visits, and, while her coworkers quit and move to comfortable homes, she continues to work in the deep South despite a paralyzing illness. Meridian's nonviolent methods, though seemingly less radical than the methods of others, prove to be an effective means of furthering her beliefs.
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The Third Life of Grange Copeland

The Third Life of Grange Copeland

Alice Walker

Fiction

Despondent over the futility of life in the South, black tenant farmer Grange Copeland leaves his wife and son in Georgia to head North. After meeting an equally humiliating existence there, he returns to Georgia, years later, to find his son, Brownfield, imprisoned for the murder of his wife. As the guardian of the couple's youngest daughter, Grange Copeland is looking at his third -- and final -- chance to free himself from spiritual and social enslavement.
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James and the Giant Peach

James and the Giant Peach

Roald Dahl

Children's Books / Literature & Fiction / Short Stories

*James and the Giant Peach* is a favourite tale of the most marvelous adventure by Roald Dahl. An enormous escaped rhinoceros from London Zoo has eaten James's parents. And it gets worse! James is packed off to live with his two really horrible aunts, Sponge and Spiker. Poor James is miserable, until something peculiar happens and James finds himself on the most wonderful and extraordinary journey he could ever imagine . . .
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My Uncle Oswald

My Uncle Oswald

Roald Dahl

Children's Books / Literature & Fiction / Short Stories

**Meet Oswald Hendryks Cornelius, Roald Dahl's most disgraceful and extraordinary character . . . ** Aside from being thoroughly debauched, strikingly attractive and astonishingly wealthy, Uncle Oswald was the greatest bounder, bon vivant and fornicator of all time. In this instalment of his scorchingly frank memoirs he tells of his early career and erotic education at the hands of a number of enthusiastic teachers, of discovering the invigorating properties of the Sudanese Blister Beetle, and of the gorgeous Yasmin Howcomely, his electrifying partner in a most unusual series of thefts . . . 'Raunchy and cheeky entertainment' *Sunday Express* 'Immense fun' *Daily Telegraph* * * * *Roald Dahl, the brilliant and worldwide acclaimed author of *Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda,* and many more classics for children, also wrote scores of short stories for adults. These delightfully disturbing tales have often been filmed and were most recently the inspiration for the West End play, *Roald Dahl's Twisted Tales* by Jeremy Dyson. Roald Dahl's stories continue to make readers shiver today.
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The Magic Finger

The Magic Finger

Roald Dahl

Children's Books / Literature & Fiction / Short Stories

What happens when the hunter becomes the hunted? To the Gregg family, hunting is just plain fun. To the girl who lives next door, it's just plain horrible. She tries to be polite. She tries to talk them out of it, but the Greggs only laugh at her. Then one day the Greggs go too far, and the little girl turns her Magic Finger on them. When she's very, very angry, the little girl's Magic Finger takes over. She really can’t control it, and now it's turned the Greggs into birds! Before they know it, the Greggs are living in a nest, and that's just the beginning of their problems…
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The Witches

The Witches

Roald Dahl

Children's Books / Literature & Fiction / Short Stories

*The Witches* by Roald Dahl has made many a child quiver with fear and delight! Witches really are a detestable breed. They disguise themselves as lovely ladies, when secretly they want to squish and squelch all the wretched children they despise. Luckily one boy and his grandmother know how to recognize these vile creatures - but can they get rid of them for good?
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Kiss Kiss

Kiss Kiss

Roald Dahl

Children's Books / Literature & Fiction / Short Stories

**In Kiss Kiss you will find eleven devious, shocking stories from the master of the unpredictable, Roald Dahl. ** What could go wrong when a wife pawns the mink coat that her lover gave her as a parting gift? What happens when a priceless piece of furniture is the subject of a deceitful bargain? Can a wronged woman take revenge on her dead husband? In these dark, disturbing stories Roald Dahl explores the sinister side of human nature: the cunning, sly, selfish part of each of us that leads us into the territory of the unexpected and unsettling. Stylish, macabre and haunting, these tales will leave you with a delicious feeling of unease. 'Roald Dahl is one of the few writers I know whose work can accurately be described as addictive' *Irish Times* Roald Dahl, the brilliant and worldwide acclaimed author of *Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda,* and many more classics for children, also wrote scores of short stories for adults. These delightfully disturbing tales have often been filmed and were most recently the inspiration for the West End play, *Roald Dahl's Twisted Tales* by Jeremy Dyson. Roald Dahl's stories continue to make readers shiver today.
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The BFG

The BFG

Roald Dahl

Children's Books / Literature & Fiction / Short Stories

Captured by a giant! The BFG is no ordinary bone-crunching giant. He is far too nice and jumbly. It's lucky for Sophie that he is. Had she been carried off in the middle of the night by the Bloodbottler, the Fleshlumpeater, the Bonecruncher, or any of the other giants-rather than the BFG-she would have soon become breakfast. When Sophie hears that they are flush-bunking off in England to swollomp a few nice little chiddlers, she decides she must stop them once and for all. And the BFG is going to help her!
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