Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
I want to read the book!
All characters reduced
Heloise And Bellinis - A Novel - cover

We are sorry! The publisher (or author) gave us the instruction to take down this book from our catalog. But please don't worry, you still have more than 500,000 other books you can enjoy!

Heloise And Bellinis - A Novel

Harry Cipriani

Publisher: Arcade Publishing

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

This charmingly inventive, deliciously improbable seriocomic novel opens at eleven o’clock in the morning of July 14 in the year 2000 on the Avenue d’Angleterre in Beirut. Private George Smith of the American Peace-Keeping Forces in Lebanon is breathlessly chasing a hand grenade—which he threw in the line of duty—down the street. It seems he forgot to pull the pin. At that very moment, one Heloise Svejk is crossing the street from east to west, bearing an empty coffin on her shoulder. From this unlikely encounter is born one of the great love stories of the first year of the twenty-first century, not completely unworthy of that of Heloise’s namesake nine centuries earlier.Private Smith is a reasonably sane soldier, as sane at least as any oversized American of mixed Swedish and Austro-Hungarian descent from Alabama who has not been with a beautiful for two years can be. Now Smith knows, inevitably and irrevocably, why fate has posted him to this godforsaken city. He disappears with Heloise for all the right reasons, but for General Custer, Private Smith’s commanding officer, when you’re gone for five days you’re gone for good, fellow, and Washington is so informed. When news spreads that Smith is not dead but only hopelessly in love, the plot does not merely thicken but gets downright sticky. What will Custer tell the President? What will he tell George’s next of kin, and how will he get back the posthumous award for unusual bravery he sent her? And yes, what about this Heloise they are all drooling over? In page after page, chapter after chapter, these and countless other cosmic questions are discussed and dealt with—with mixed results, as the author is quick to point out.Interspersed with the chapters are intermezzi in which the author muses and comments on George, Heloise, life, love, Harry’s Bar, his father Giuseppe, peach nectar and champagne cocktails (aka “bellinis”), and Cousin Wanda—not to mention Abelard himself, the inquisitive, inflexible, and highly unimaginative friend of the author to whom the intermezzi are addressed.
Available since: 02/07/2012.

Other books that might interest you

  • Abbott and Costello: Lou Shoots an Orange Picker - cover

    Abbott and Costello: Lou Shoots...

    Bud Abbott, Lou Costello

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Mrs. Beanbag is suing Costello for shooting at her. He tries to settle for fifty cents, but Abbott hires Mr. Kitzel, the lawyer to defend Costello.
    Show book
  • Car Talk Classics: The Pinkwater Files - cover

    Car Talk Classics: The Pinkwater...

    Tom Magliozzi, Ray Magliozzi

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    The hands-down highlight of many a Car Talk episode, Daniel Pinkwater is responsible for some of the all-time greatest moments of the program’s storied history on public radio. Whether discussing man’s best friend (but worst passenger) or searching for the perfect vehicle for those who are “horizontally challenged,” Pinkwater keeps Tom and Ray in stitches, along with the show’s far-flung audience.  The latest time-wasting Car Talk collection features the official designation of the Pinkwater seating standard, the strange case of the motorhead boyfriend, the presentation of the first Car Talk Peace Prize, Stump the Chumps, a puzzler from the Lying Used Car Salesman series, a stirring recitation from a BMW owner’s manual, a discussion of puking pooches, and more. It’s four perfectly good hours of laughter and conversation.A HighBridge Audio production.
    Show book
  • House at Pooh Corner The - Winnie-the-Pooh Book #4 - Unabridged - cover

    House at Pooh Corner The -...

    A. A. Milne

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Presented here is the fourth and final Winnie-the-Pooh book - The House at Pooh Corner - as originally written by Pooh's creator, the legendary children's author A.A. Milne.  Pooh and all of his friends are here: Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit, Owl, Kanga, Roo...and of course, Christopher Robin. In this volume, a new character is introduced: the bouncy, lovable Tigger finds his way into the Hundred Acre Wood and quickly joins up with Pooh and his friends!  Easily one of the most popular children's books of all time, The House at Pooh Corner is presented here in its original and unabridged format.
    Show book
  • Microserfs - A Novel - cover

    Microserfs - A Novel

    Douglas Coupland

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    From the era-defining author of Generation X comes a novel of overworked coders who escape the serfdom of Bill Gates to forge their own path. 
 
They are Microserfs—six code-crunching computer whizzes who spend upward of sixteen hours a day “coding” and eating “flat” foods (food which, like Kraft singles, can be passed underneath closed doors) as they fearfully scan company e-mail to learn whether the great Bill is going to “flame” one of them. But now there’s a chance to become innovators instead of cogs in the gargantuan Microsoft machine.  
 
The intrepid Microserfs are striking out on their own—living together in a shared digital flophouse as they desperately try to cultivate well-rounded lives and find love amid the dislocated, subhuman whir and buzz of their computer-driven world.
    Show book
  • Work Ethic Up In Smoke - cover

    Work Ethic Up In Smoke

    Finn Briscoe

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Finn and Drew, partners from the Rookie Reefer Bandidos caper smuggling pot from Mexico to Massachusetts, hook up again, this time in Florida. With good numbers in the Vietnam lottery, they're free to drop out of college and pursue simple hedonism. When they get on tying steel at a construction site in Delray Beach, it turns out their colleagues are a jovial lot of prisoners on work release from the Florida State Penitentiary. The boys live nearby and at lunch they all get high; a good time is had by all. But every now and then, you can imagine that the work ethic...just...goes...up in smoke!
    Show book
  • Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream - cover

    Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas -...

    Hunter S. Thompson

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Maverick author Hunter S. Thompson introduced the world to "gonzo journalism" with this cult classic that shot back up the best-seller lists after Thompson's suicide in 2005. No book ever written has more perfectly captured the spirit of the 1960s counterculture. In Las Vegas to cover a motorcycle race, Raoul Duke (Thompson) and his attorney Dr. Gonzo (inspired by a friend of Thompson) are quickly diverted to search for the American dream. Their quest is fueled by nearly every drug imaginable and quickly becomes a surreal experience that blurs the line between reality and fantasy. But there is more to this hilarious tale than reckless behavior-for underneath the hallucinogenic facade is a stinging criticism of American greed and consumerism.
    Show book