The Old Man And Mr Smith

From the late and great Peter Ustinov comes a story full of wit, satire and insight.An increasingly decrepit God and a merely ill-tempered Satan are reconciled and attempt a mission to Earth, where their misadventures point up the comedy and tragedy of modern life, as they travel to a variety of countries in the guise of the Old Man (God) and Mr. Smith (Satan), with the FBI and Interpol in hot pursuit.

Jonathan Fairchild saw a side of his father that he'd never seen before on April 3, 1974-the night the tornadoes touched down in Oakwood Falls, Alabama. The coming of the tornadoes seems to foretell a terrifying passage in young Jonathan's life, and all too soon he learns the dark secrets of his small town.

On Auburn Avenue, downtown Atlanta, a person can get just about anything life has to offer. You can buy groceries, get your teeth fixed or cop a vial of crack cocaine; you can get a seven-dollar haircut, a good game of nine-ball and a partner for the night, all on the same block. But things are changing, for white people are moving into the historically black neighbourhood, threatening to price-out the local residents, and Barlowe Reed, a single, forty-something African American, is not happy at all. When Sean and Sandy Gilmore, a young white couple move in next door to his ramshackle rented home, Barlowe and Sandy develop a reluctant friendship as they hold frustrating conversations over the backyard fence. But fear and suspicion build all around them as more and more white people move in, changing the face of the neighbourhood. House by house, street by street, battle lines are drawn; it's only a matter of time before someone gets really hurt.