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<div><p>This gripping history is the definitive account of the battle that shifted the tide of World War II. <br></p><p>Historians and reviewers worldwide have hailed Antony Beevor's magisterial <em>Stalingrad</em> as the definitive account of World War II's most harrowing battle. In August 1942, Hitler's huge Sixth Army reached the city that bore Stalin's name. In the five month siege that followed, the Russians fought to hold Stalingrad at any cost, then caught their Nazi enemy in an astonishing reversal. <br></p><p>As never before, Stalingrad conveys the experience of soldiers on both sides as they fought in inhuman conditions, and of civilians trapped on an urban battlefield. Antony Beevor has interviewed survivors and discovered completely new material in a wide range of German and Soviet archives, including reports of prisoner interrogations, desertions, and executions. The battle of Stalingrad was the psychological turning point of World War II; as Beevor makes clear, it also changed the face of modern warfare. As a story of cruelty, courage, and human suffering, Stalingrad is unprecedented and unforgettable.<br>"A fantastic and sobering story . . . fully and authoritatively told." -Richard Bernstein, <em>The New York Times</em></p></div>


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<p>In this brilliant synthesis of social, political, and cultural history, Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper present a vivid and compelling portrayal of the City of Lights after its liberation. Paris became the diplomatic battleground in the opening stages of the Cold War. Against this volatile political backdrop, every aspect of life is portrayed: scores were settled in a rough and uneven justice, black marketers grew rich on the misery of the population, and a growing number of intellectual luminaries and artists- including Hemingway, Beckett, Camus, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Cocteau, and Picasso-contributed new ideas and a renewed vitality to this extraordinary moment in time.</p>


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<p class="description">"Glorious, horrifying...D-Day is a vibrant work of history that honors the sacrifice of tens of thousands of men and women"  -Time  Antony Beevor-the man who "single-handedly transgormed the reputation of military history" (The Guardian)-presents the first major account of the Normandy invasion and the liberation of Paris in more than twenty years. D-Day: The Battle for Normandy is the first book to describe not only the experiences of the American, British, Canadian, and German soldiers, but also the terrible suffering of the French civilians caught up in the fighting. Beevor draws upon research in more than thirty archives in six countries, going back to original accounts and interviews to produce the consummate account of the invasion and the ferocious offensive that led to Paris's liberation.</p>


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<h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; ">Fraser is a highly regarded British biographer, and the late Harold Pinter, her husband, was a Nobel-winning British playwright. So, the circle they generally traveled in was made up of not only fellow writers but also, because of their individual and combined celebrity, fellow celebrities. Fraser’s latest book is both joyous and sad. The former because she shares diary entries concerning her relationship with Pinter (they lived together from August 1975 until Christmas 2008), and it was obviously a stimulating love-match. And sad because the book ends when it does because of Pinter’s death from cancer; his struggle with the disease had been years-long. As expected, given their fame and the fame of their associates, lots of name-dropping goes on here. This is not, of course, the story of two starving artists trying to scratch together a living in some cold-water flat. But privileged as they were, they nevertheless experienced the normal highs and lows together, and the result is a poignant read. Serious readers will generate demand for this title, and they will respond with gratitude to Fraser’s intimacy.</span></h3>


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<div><p>The superb historian and biographer Antonia Fraser, author of <strong>Marie Antoinette</strong>, casts new light on the splendor and the scandals of the reign of Louis XIV in this dramatic, illuminating look at the women in his life.</p><p>The self-proclaimed Sun King, Louis XIV ruled over the most glorious and extravagant court in seventeenth-century Europe. Now, Antonia Fraser goes behind the well-known tales of Louis’s accomplishments and follies, exploring in riveting detail his intimate relationships with women.</p><p>The king’s mother, Anne of Austria, had been in a childless marriage for twenty-two years before she gave birth to Louis XIV. A devout Catholic, she instilled in her son a strong sense of piety and fought successfully for his right to absolute power. In 1660, Louis married his first cousin, Marie-Thérèse, in a political arrangement. While unfailingly kind to the official Queen of Versailles, Louis sought others to satisfy his romantic and sexual desires. After a flirtation with his sister-in-law, his first important mistress was Louise de La Vallière, who bore him several children before being replaced by the tempestuous and brilliant Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan. Later, when Athénaïs’s reputation was tarnished, the King continued to support her publicly as Athénaïs left court for a life of repentance. Meanwhile her children’s governess, the intelligent and seemingly puritanical Françoise de Maintenon, had already won the King’s affections; in a relationship in complete contrast to his physical obsession with Athénaïs, Louis XIV lived happily with Madame de Maintenon for the rest of his life, very probably marrying her in secret. When his grandson’s child bride, the enchanting Adelaide of Savoy, came to Versaille she lightened the King’s last years – until tragedy struck.</p><p>With consummate skill, Antonia Fraser weaves insights into the nature of women’s religious lives – as well as such practical matters as contraception – into her magnificent, sweeping portrait of the king, his court, and his ladies.</p><p><em></em></p></div>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">A language carries a people's memories, whether they are recounted as individual reminiscences, as communal history, or as humorous tales. This collection of stories from Anishinaabe elders offers a history of a people at the same time that it seeks to preserve the language of that people. Based on interviews Treuer conducted with ten elders this anthol-ogy presents the elders' stories transcribed in Ojibwe with English translation on facing pages. These stories contain a wealth of information, including oral histories of the Anishinaabe people and personal reminiscences, educational tales, and humorous anecdotes. Treuer's translations of these stories preserve the speakers' personalities, allowing their voices to emerge from the page. Treuer introduces each speaker, offering a brief biography and noting important details concerning dialect or themes; he then allows the stories to speak for themselves. This dual-language text will prove instructive for those interested in Ojibwe language and culture, while the stories themselves offer the gift of a living language and the history of a people.</span></h3>

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<div><p>Perfect for fans of <em>The Great Gatsby</em>, <em>Tigers in Red Weather</em>, and Curtis Sittenfield... 1930s America, southern high society: Part love story, part coming-of-age novel, this is the moving, raw and exquisitely vivid story of an uncommon girl navigating a treacherous road to womanhood. <br></p><p>Thea Atwell is fifteen years old in 1930, when, following a scandal for which she has been held responsible, she is 'exiled' from her wealthy and isolated Florida family to a debutante boarding school in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. As Thea grapples with the truth about her role in the tragic events of 1929, she finds herself enmeshed in the world of the Yonahlossee Riding Camp, with its complex social strata ordered by money, beauty and equestrienne prowess; where young women are indoctrinated in the importance of 'female education' yet expected to be married by twenty-one; a world so rarified as to be rendered immune (at least on the surface) to the Depression looming at the periphery, all overseen by a young headmaster who has paid a high price for abandoning his own privileged roots...</p></div>


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Max Parkman—autistic and whip-smart, emotionally fragile and aggressive—is perfect in his mother's eyes. Until he's accused of murder.Attorney Danielle Parkman knows her teenage son Max's behavior has been getting worse—using drugs and lashing out. But she can't accept the diagnosis she receives at a top-notch adolescent psychiatric facility that her son is deeply disturbed. Dangerous.Until she finds Max, unconscious and bloodied, beside a patient who has been brutally stabbed to death.Trapped in a world of doubt and fear, barred from contacting Max, Danielle clings to the belief that her son is innocent. But has she, too, lost touch with reality? Is her son really a killer?With the justice system bearing down on them, Danielle steels herself to discover the truth, no matter what it is. She'll do whatever it takes to find the killer and to save her son from being destroyed by a system that's all too eager to convict him.


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<div><p>Called the greatest of short story writer, Anton Chekhov changed the genre itself with his spare, impressionistic depictions of Russian life and the human condition. Now, thirty of his best tales from the major periods of his creative life are available in this outstanding one volume edition. Included are Chekhov's characteristically brief, evocative early pieces such as "The Huntsman" from 1885, which brilliantly conveys the complex texture of two lives during a meeting on a summer's day. Four years later, Chekhov produced the tour de force "A Boring Story" (1889), the penetrating and caustic self-analysis of a dying professor of medicine. Dark irony, social commentary, and symbolism mark the stories that follow, particularly "Ward No. 6" (1892), where the tables turn on the director of a mental hospital and make him an inmate. Here, too, is one of Chekhov's best -known stories. "The Lady with the Little Dog" (1899), a look at illicit love, as well as his own favorite among his stories, "The Student," a moving piece about the importance of religious tradition.<br></p><p>Atmospheric, compassionate, and uncannily wise, Chekhov's short fiction possesses the transcendent power of art to awe and change the reader. This monumental edition, expertly translated, is especially faithful to the meaning of Chekhov's prose and the unique rhythms of his writing, giving readers an authentic sense of his style-and, in doing so, a true understanding of his greatness.</p><p><i><br></i></p></div>


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From Antoinette May, a New York Times bestselling author and striking new voice in literature, comes PILATE'S WIFE, the amazing story of Claudia, the seer who foresaw the persecution of Christians at the hand of the Romans and tried to stop the crucifixion of Jesus.  In the hours before Jesus' trial, Claudia, wife to Pontius Pilate, Roman magistrate of Jerusalem, has a vision in her sleep. She sees a man she has met before, Jesus, the husband of her friend Mary of Magdala, nailed to a crucifix, writhing in pain and offered only vinegar to quench his thirst. She sees men marching off to war, crosses emblazoned on their chests as they pillage foreign lands. She sees men and women fed to lions and burned alive. And she hears the name of her husband passed down through history... "suffered under Pontius Pilate." Pulling from extensive research, Antoinette May recreates the known world of two–thousand years ago and puts an imaginative new twist on "the greatest story ever told." PILATE'S WIFE follows the life of Claudia as she travels to the battlefield of Gaul, the coliseum in Rome, the temples of Isis in Alexandria, and the holy temple in Jerusalem. The novel tells the story of Claudia's life as a mystic, describing the visions she saw leading up to her great vision of the crucifixion, but also her life as a woman, one torn between her duties as the wife of a Roman magistrate and her desires for the true love she has found with a gladiator. Weaving together a vivid portrait of the Roman Empire at the beginning of the first millennium, the infighting and passions of the Roman royalty and upper–class, and an awe–inspiring recreation of the last days of Jesus, PILATE'S WIFE will offer a shocking new look at a story we thought we once new.


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<p class="description">The highest standards in editing and production have been applied to the Wordsworth Children's Classics, while the low price makes them affordable for everyone. Wordsworth's list covers a range of the best-loved stories for children, from nursery tales, classic fables, and fairy tales to stories that will appeal to older children and adults alike. Many of these volumes have contemporary illustrations, and while they are ideal for shared family reading, their attractive format will also encourage children to read for themselves. Like all Wordsworth Editions, these children's books represent unbeatable value.</p>


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<p class="description">With their lives drastically remodeled by World War II, the characters of The Dance to the Music of Time series continue their colorful exploits. Nicholas Jenkins, the narrarator, now in his thirties, is second-lieutenant in an infrantry regiment and life in the army is examined at startingly close range. Like its predecessors, this volume in the series is witty, sparkling, entertaining, but adds a new twist as a whole new world of wartime people and circumstances are investigated.</p>


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<div><p><strong>A Dance to the Music of Time</strong> – his brilliant 12-novel sequence, which chronicles the lives of over three hundred characters, is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England. </p><p>The novels follow Nicholas Jenkins, Kenneth Widmerpool and others, as they negotiate the intellectual, cultural and social hurdles that stand between them and the “Acceptance World.”</p></div>


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<div><p><strong>A Dance to the Music of Time</strong> – his brilliant 12-novel sequence, which chronicles the lives of over three hundred characters, is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England.</p><p>The novels follow Nicholas Jenkins, Kenneth Widmerpool and others, as they negotiate the intellectual, cultural and social hurdles that stand between them and the “Acceptance World.”</p></div>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">“I think it is now becoming clear that <strong>A Dance to the Music of Time</strong> is going to become the greatest modern novel since Ulysses.”</span></h3><p>“I would rather read Mr Powell than any English novelist now writing.”</p></div>


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<p class="description">Who is Widmerpool? The question that is to dog Nicholas Jenkins crystallizes as he sees the gawky figure of his schoolmate huffing through the mists on a solitary cross-country run. So unexceptional, unsmart -- even unpopular -- Widmerpool continues to drop in and out of Jenkins life through school, university and London in the 1920's. A Question of Upbringing is the first volume of A Dance to the Music of Time.</p>


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He was the last of his kind-an old-world mob boss steeped in omerta, the mob code of silence. While his arrogant friend John Gotti was being secretly recorded by the FBI, Joseph Massino, head of the Bonanno family, quietly became known as "The Ear" by ordering his men to point to their ear instead of saying his name out loud.


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<div><p>CHAOS ERUPTS at the U.S. Supreme Court when an assassin guns down six justices as they are hearing a case. <br></p><p>Solicitor General Jefferson McKenna, the government's top lawyer in the Supreme Court, is appointed to the multiagency commission investigating the murders. As Congress draws battle lines over who will replace the slain justices, the commission follows clue after clue, each one pointing to an unlikely suspect:  McKenna himself. <br></p><p>In a desperate bid to prove his innocence, McKenna, on the run with his deputy, Kate Porter, must track down a disgraced law clerk with ties to hidden Saudi assets. But their search leads to unexpected alliances, unearthing dark secrets and corruption at the highest levels -- and the people with clues to the riddle keep turning up dead.  From the marble halls of the high court to the inner corridors of the West Wing, from the D.C. housing projects to the desolate back roads of a New York Indian reservation, McKenna and Porter are on a collision course with a shadowy enemy who will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried. <br></p><p>From its explosive first page to its haunting conclusion, THE LAST JUSTICE explores the politics of law, the bounds of friendship and love, and the frightening price of unbridled ambition.</p></div>


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The city of Isca is set like a dark jewel in the crown of the Duchy of Stonehold. In this sprawling landscape, the monsters one sees are nothing compared to what’s living in the city’s sewers.Twenty-three-year-old Caliph Howl is Stonehold’s reluctant High King. Thrust onto the throne, Caliph has inherited Stonehold’s dirtiest court secrets. He also faces a brewing civil war that he is unprepared to fight. After months alone amid a swirl of gossip and political machinations, the sudden reappearance of his old lover, Sena, is a welcome bit of relief. But Sena has her own legacy to claim: she has been trained from birth by the Shradnae witchocracy—adept in espionage and the art of magical equations writ in blood—and she has been sent to spy on the High King.Yet there are magics that demand a higher price than blood. Sena secretly plots to unlock the Cisrym Ta, an arcane text whose pages contain the power to destroy worlds. The key to opening the book lies in Caliph’s veins, forcing Sena to decide if her obsession for power is greater than her love for Caliph.Meanwhile, a fleet of airships creeps ever closer to Isca. As the final battle in a devastating civil war looms and the last page of the Cisrym Ta waits to be read, Caliph and Sena must face the deadly consequences of their decisions. And the blood of these conflicts will stain this and other worlds forever.


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A collection of contemporary and classic horror stories by authors such as Pete Johnson, Robert Westall, Roald Dahl and Stephen King.


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<p>Nobody knows the Middle East like Lonely Planet. From Egyptian oases, hidden gorges in 'the other Iraq' and hamams in Istanbul, to the old city of Jerusalem and the labyrinth of Aleppo's souq, we've got the whole region covered.<p>Lonely Planet guides are written by experts who get to the heart of every destination they visit. This fully updated edition is packed with accurate, practical and honest advice, designed to give you the information you need to make the most of your trip.<p><B>In This Guide:</B><p>Expert authors share their best experiences in Middle East Stories chapter<p>In-Depth itineraries that take you from country to country<p>Unique Green Index highlights the best eco-tourism options


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In an alternate Atlanta where magic is practiced openly, where witches sip coffee at local cafes, shapeshifters party at urban clubs, vampires rule the southern night like gangsters, and mysterious creatures command dark caverns beneath the city, Dakota Frost's talents are coveted by all. She's the best magical tattooist in the southeast, a Skindancer, able to bring her amazing tats to life. When a serial killer begins stalking Atlanta's tattooed elite, the police and the Feds seek Dakota's help. Can she find the killer on the dark fringe of the city's Edgeworld? Among its powerful outcasts and tortured loners, what kind of enemies and allies will she attract? Will they see her as an invader, as a seducer, as an unexpected champion ... or as delicious prey? FROST MOON is Book One of the SKINDANCER fantasy series by debut author Anthony Francis. Filled with unforgettable characters, spine-tingling action, kinky rebellion and edgy love, FROST MOON is classic storytelling at its best, and Dakota Frost is an irresistible new star of fantasy fiction. Anthony Francis is a computer scientist who works at the 'Search Engine That Starts With A G'. By day he studies human and other minds to design intelligent machines and emotional robots; by night he writes fiction and draws comic books. He received his Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence from Georgia Tech. He lives in San Jose with his wife and cats but his heart will always belong in Atlanta.


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<p class="description">A vicious fifteen-year-old "droog" is the central character of this 1963 classic, whose stark terror was captured in Stanley Kubrick's magnificent film of the same title. In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. When the state undertakes to reform Alex--to "redeem" him--the novel asks, "At what cost?" </p>


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<div><p>From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant <em>New York Times</em> bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.  </p><p>Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.  </p><p>In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.</p></div>


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<div><p>On assignment for his first cover story for Rolling Stone, the very first national cover story on Eminem, Anthony Bozza met a young blond kid, a rapper who would soon take the country by storm. But back in 1999, Eminem was just beginning to make waves among suburban white teenagers as his first single, “My Name Is,” went into heavy rotation on MTV.</p><p>Who could have predicted that in a mere two years, Eminem would become the most reviled and controversial hip-hop figure ever? Or that twelve months after that, Eminem would sit firmly at the pinnacle of American celebrity, a Grammy winner many times over and the recipient of an Oscar.</p></div>


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<p class="description">A lot has changed since Kitchen Confidential- for the subculture of chefs and cooks, for the restaurant businessand for Anthony Bourdain. Medium Raw explores these changes, moving back and forth from the author's bad old days to the present. Tracking his own strange and unexpected voyage from journeyman cook to globe-travelling professional eater and drinker, Bourdain compares and contrasts what he's seen and what he's seeing, pausing along the way for a series of confessions, rants, investigations, and interrogations of some of the most controversial figures in food. And always he returns to the question: 'Why cook?' Or the harder one to answer: 'Why cook well?' Beginning with a secret and highly illegal after-hours gathering of powerful chefs he compares to a Mafia summit, Bourdain, in his distinctive, no-holds-barred style, cuts to the bone on every subject he tackles.</p>


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<p class="description">Most diners believe that their sublime sliver of seared foie gras, topped with an ethereal buckwheat blini and a drizzle of piquant huckleberry sauce, was created by a culinary artist of the highest order, a sensitive, highly refined executive chef. The truth is more brutal. More likely, writes Anthony Bourdain in Kitchen Confidential, that elegant three-star concoction is the collaborative effort of a team of "wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts, and psychopaths," in all likelihood pierced or tattooed and incapable of uttering a sentence without an expletive or a foreign phrase. Such is the muscular view of the culinary trenches from one who's been groveling in them, with obvious sadomasochistic pleasure, for more than 20 years. CIA-trained Bourdain, currently the executive chef of the celebrated Les Halles, wrote two culinary mysteries before his first (and infamous) New Yorker essay launched this frank confessional about the lusty and larcenous real lives of cooks and restaurateurs. He is obscenely eloquent, unapologetically opinionated, and a damn fine storyteller--a Jack Kerouac of the kitchen. Those without the stomach for this kind of joyride should note his opening caveat: "There will be horror stories. Heavy drinking, drugs, screwing in the dry-goods area, unappetizing industry-wide practices. Talking about why you probably shouldn't order fish on a Monday, why those who favor well-done get the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel, and why seafood frittata is not a wise brunch selection.... But I'm simply not going to deceive anybody about the life as I've seen it." --Sumi Hahn</p>


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<p class="description">This very special Kindle collection covers all the culinary ground, from barbecue, grilling, garden vegetables, holiday roasts, potatoes, soups, stews, stir-fries, pasta sauces, pizza, appetizers, salads, shrimp and shellfish, to pies, layer cakes, cookies and brownies, holiday desserts, ice cream, simple fruit desserts, and lots more. It's all you really need in the kitchen and it all sits nice and handy on a Kindle as well. Now your own definitive recipe collection is portable and easy to access, the perfect helper in the kitchen.</p>


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<div><p>Widely regarded as the first true masterpiece of English literature, <em>Beowulf</em> describes the thrilling adventures of a great Scandinavian warrior of the sixth century. Its lyric intensity and imaginative vitality are unparalleled, and the poem has greatly influenced many important modern novelists and poets, most notably J. R. R. Tolkien, author of <em>The Lord of the Rings</em>.</p><p>Part history and part mythology, <em>Beowulf</em> opens in the court of the Danish king where a horrible demon named Grendel devours men in their sleep every night. The hero Beowulf arrives and kills the monster, but joy turns to horror when Grendel’s mother attacks the hall to avenge the death of her son. Ultimately triumphant, Beowulf becomes king himself and rules peacefully for fifty years until, one dark day, a foe more powerful than any he has yet faced is aroused—an ancient dragon guarding a horde of treasure. Once again, Beowulf must summon all his strength and courage to face the beast, but this time victory exacts a terrible price.</p></div>


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<p class="description">Until recently, I led a pretty normal life. But then I did something that kind of changed things for me: I had a one night stand with a vampire. Things got a little carried away and he bit me, turning me into a vampire too. I guess you can say I learned the hard way that love bites, and once bitten there's no going back.</p>


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<p class="description">The Arabian Nights, by Anonymous, is part of the Barnes &amp; Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes &amp; Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices &amp; Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes &amp; Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. Once upon a time, the name Baghdad conjured up visions of the most magical, romantic city on earth, where flying carpets carried noble thieves off on wonderful adventures, and vicious viziers and beautiful princesses mingled with wily peasants and powerful genies. This is the world of the Arabian Nights, a magnificent collection of ancient tales from Arabia, India, and Persia. The tales—often stories within stories—are told by the sultana Scheherazade, who relates them as entertainments for her jealous and murderous husband, hoping to keep him amused and herself alive. In addition to the more fantastic tales which have appeared in countless bowdlerized editions for children and have been popularized by an entire genre of Hollywood films, this collection includes far more complex, meaningful, and erotic stories that deal with a wide range of moral, social, and political issues. Though early Islamic critics condemned the tales’ “vulgarity” and worldliness, the West has admired their robust, bawdy humor and endless inventiveness since the first translations appeared in Europe in the eighteenth century. Today these stories stand alongside the fables of Aesop, the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, and the folklore of Hans Christian Andersen as some of the Western literary tradition’s most-quoted touchstones. Muhsin J. Al-Musawi is Professor of Arabic Studies at Columbia University in New York City and University Professor at the American University of Sharjah. He is the editor of the Journal of Arabic Literature and the author of twenty-seven books in Arabic and English. He was the recipient in 2002 of the Owais Award in literary criticism, the most prestigious nongovernmental literary award in the Arab World.</p>


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<div><p><em>What does it say about me that the thing that has finally made me "cool" among my foster son's pals is my ability to portion corn chips out of a warehouse-club monster bag, then drown said corn chips in pasteurized melted cheese product? I'll tell you what it says. It says welcome to Nacho Mama's House . . . </em></p><p>Soccer mom, budding journalist, dutiful doctor's wife and mother of two  Hannah Bartlett feels she's suddenly been handed a full plate from the buffet of life. A new baby alone could overwhelm, but add a nine-year-old foster son, meddling neighbors and Hannah's nagging self-doubt, and you've got a recipe for disaster. What else can a mom do . . . but go AWOL?</p><p>Multi-award winning author Annie Jones lives in Kentucky with her husband, two children, two dogs and way too many characters inside her head waiting for her to tell their story.</p></div>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; ">Leonard examines conspicuous consumption and its human and environmental costs in an expansion of her short documentary of the same name. The analysis is accessible, and Leonard is skilled at breaking down large and abstruse concepts for the listeners. She's less winning as a reader, however: her bubbly voice and predilection for overemphasis are grating—and occasionally, her explanations and prescriptions veer into condescension. These failings aside, here is a wealth of very important information. As a bonus, the MP3 CD includes the original video, but omits the charts and graphics in the book. </span></h3>

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<div><p>In the small town of Larksville, the Pike family is hopelessly out of step with the daily rhythms of life after the tragic, accidental death of six-year-old Janie Rose. Mrs. Pike seldom speaks, blaming herself, while Mr. Pike is forced to come out of his long, comfortable silence. Then there is ten-year-old Simon, who is suddenly without a baby sister -- and without understanding why she's gone.<br></p><p>Those closest to this shattered family must learn to comfort them -- and confront their own private shadows of hidden grief. If time cannot draw them out of the dark, then love may be their only hope....</p></div>


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<div><p>Imogen Hebden knew she was no diamond of the <em>ton</em>. A clumsy, gangling spinster more like! This last-chance Season was sure to be a disaster. What sort of suitor could she hope to catch?</p><p>Viscount Mildenhall, son of the Earl of Corfe, the most eligible, most arrogant rake in London, claimed to find her guileless ways irresistible. But even as inexperienced as she was, Imogen could tell he was in an indecent hurryparticularly when it came to producing an heir. </p></div>


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<div><p>Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting, and deeply moving new novel in which she explores how a middle-aged man, ripped apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances—in their house, on the roadway, in the market.<br><br>Crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron spent his childhood fending off a sister who wants to manage him. So when he meets Dorothy, a plain, outspoken, self-dependent young woman, she is like a breath of fresh air. Unhesitatingly he marries her, and they have a relatively happy, unremarkable marriage. But when a tree crashes into their house and Dorothy is killed, Aaron feels as though he has been erased forever. Only Dorothy’s unexpected appearances from the dead help him to live in the moment and to find some peace. <br><br>Gradually he discovers, as he works in the family’s vanity-publishing business, turning out titles that presume to guide beginners through the trials of life, that maybe for this beginner there is a way of saying goodbye. <br><br>A beautiful, subtle exploration of loss and recovery, pierced throughout with Anne Tyler’s humor, wisdom, and always penetrating look at human foibles.</p></div>


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<p class="description">Caleb Peck vanished in 1912, a voluntary refugee from an all-embracing Peckness of the Pecks. Sixty-one years later his half brother Daniel is still on trial, helped by his grand-daughter Justine, a character cursed with a Peckish necessity to see every side of a question. The moving search for the family's deepest roots, from the ragtime era at the end of the last century to small town America in the mid seventies is a haunting story about growing up and breaking away, rebellion and acceptance.</p>


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<div><p>From the inimitable Anne Tyler, a rich and compelling novel about a mismatched marriage—and its consequences, spanning three generations.</p><p>They seemed like the perfect couple—young, good-looking, made for each other. The moment Pauline, a stranger to the Polish Eastern Avenue neighborhood of Baltimore (though she lived only twenty minutes away), walked into his mother’s grocery store, Michael was smitten. And in the heat of World War II fervor, they are propelled into a hasty wedding. But they never should have married.</p><p>Pauline, impulsive, impractical, tumbles hit-or-miss through life; Michael, plodding, cautious, judgmental, proceeds deliberately. While other young marrieds, equally ignorant at the start, seemed to grow more seasoned, Pauline and Michael remain amateurs. In time their foolish quarrels take their toll. Even when they find themselves, almost thirty years later, loving, instant parents to a little grandson named Pagan, whom they rescue from Haight-Ashbury, they still cannot bridge their deep-rooted differences. Flighty Pauline clings to the notion that the rifts can always be patched. To the unyielding Michael, they become unbearable.</p><p>From the sound of the cash register in the old grocery to the counterculture jargon of the sixties, from the miniskirts to the multilayered apparel of later years, Anne Tyler captures the evocative nuances of everyday life during these decades with such telling precision that every page brings smiles of recognition. Throughout, as each of the competing voices bears witness, we are drawn ever more fully into the complex entanglements of family life in this wise, embracing, and deeply perceptive novel.</p></div>


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<p><em><em>Scarred by grief after their 12-year-old son's senseless murder (he was shot by a holdup man in a Burger Bonanza), Macon and Sarah Leary are losing their marriage too. Macon is unable to cope when she leaves him, so he settles down <code>safe among the people he'd started out with,'' moving back home with two divorced brothers and spinster sister Rose. Author of a series of guidebooks called</code>Accidental Tourist'' for businessmen who hate to travel, Macon is Tyler's focus here, as she gently chronicles his journey from lonely self-absorption to an ``accidental'' new life with brassy Muriel, a dog trainer from the Meow Bow Animal Hospital, who renews and claims his heart. Not a character, including Macon's dog Edward, is untouched by delightful eccentricity in this charming story, full of surprises and wisdom. </em></em></p>


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<h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; ">Although Tyler ( Breathing Lessons ; Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant ) is again writing about families--the way they cleave together in times of trouble and muddle through with stoic courage--her eminently satisfying new novel breaks her familiar mold, giving us ordinary, not eccentric characters who are shaped by disastrous events into quietly heroic behavior. The Bedloes are cheerful and count their blessings, even if they are far from rich and live on a slightly seedy street in Baltimore. But when 17-year-old Ian rashly informs his older brother Dan that the latter's wife was undoubtedly pregnant before their marriage, Dan commits suicide, and Ian is left with profound guilt--especially since Dan's wife dies soon after. Asking God's forgiveness, he receives spiritual guidance at the endearingly shabby Church of the Second Chance. He drops out of college, becomes a carpenter and helps his parents care for the three orphaned children; as the years pass, that burden falls primarily on Ian's shoulders. Wondering when God will signal that his atonement can end, Ian has an epiphany: "You could never call it a penance, to have to care for those three." Ian eventually does construct a life for himself, in one of Tyler's most appealing endings. The narrative also enjoys her whimsical humor (although the group role of the "foreigners" who live in the neighborhood verges on caricature). Since her characters' foibles never overwhelm their homespun simplicity, the reader is emotionally involved and touched as never before. </span></h3>


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From the incomparable Anne Tyler, a wise, gently humorous, and deeply compassionate novel about a schoolteacher, who has been forced to retire at sixty-one, coming to terms with the final phase of his life.Liam Pennywell, who set out to be a philosopher and ended up teaching fifth grade, never much liked the job at that run-down private school, so early retirement doesn’t bother him. But he is troubled by his inability to remember anything about the first night that he moved into his new, spare, and efficient condominium on the outskirts of Baltimore. All he knows when he wakes up the next day in the hospital is that his head is sore and bandaged.His effort to recover the moments of his life that have been stolen from him leads him on an unexpected detour. What he needs is someone who can do the remembering for him. What he gets is—well, something quite different.We all know a Liam. In fact, there may be a little of Liam in each of us. Which is why Anne Tyler’s lovely novel resonates so deeply.


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<p>Morgan Gower works at Cullen's hardware store in north Baltimore. He has seven daughters and a warmhearted wife, but as he journeys into the gray area of middle age, he finds his household growing tedious. Then Morgan meets two lovely young newlyweds under some rather extreme circumstances--and all three discover that no one's heart is safe....</p>


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<p>Ben Joe Hawkes is a worrier. Raised by his mother, grandmother, and a flock of busy sisters, he's always felt the outsider. When he learns that one of his sisters has left her husband, he heads for home and back into the confusion of childhood memories and unforseen love....</p>


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<p>Charlotte Emory has always lived a quiet, conventional life in Clarion, Maryland. She lives as simply as possible, and one day decides to simplify everything and leave her husband. Her last trip to the bank throws Charlotte's life into an entirely different direction when a restless young man in a nylon jacket takes her hostage during the robbery--and soon the two are heading south into an unknown future, and a most unexpected fate....</p>


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<p>BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Anne Tyler's *The Beginner's Goodbye.<strong>*<br /></strong>  </p><p>A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK  </p><p>BALTIMORE WOMAN DISAPPEARS DURING FAMILY VACATION, declares the headline. Forty-year-old Delia Grinstead is last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing nothing more than a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To her husband and three almost-grown children, she has vanished without trace or reason. But for Delia, who feels like a tiny gnat buzzing around her family's edges, "walking away from it all" is not a premeditated act, but an impulse that will lead her into a new, exciting, and unimagined life . . . .   </p><p>"TYLER DETAILS DELIA'S ADVENTURE WITH GREAT SKILL . . . As so often in her earlier fiction--Celestial Navigation, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Accidental Tourist, and her nine other novels--[she] creates distinct characters caught in poignantly funny situations. . . .Tyler writes with a clarity that makes the commonplace seem fresh and the pathetic touching."<br />--The New York Times  </p><p>"UTTERLY COMPELLING. . .WONDERFULLY SATISFYING. . .Ladder of Years is virtually flawless."<br />--Chicago Tribune  </p><p>"A 'PAGE-TURNER' IN THE BEST SENSE . . . One wants to lightly caress the pages of the story because one cares for Ms. Tyler's touchingly flawed characters. . . . Both madcap and genteel, Anne Tyler knows as well as anyone that 'human beings lead many lives.' Casually, delightfully, Ladder of Years will tell you just how we humans manage this trick."<br />--The Baltimore Sun</p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>At 40, Delia Grinstead seems more likely to have an attack of anxiety, or of whimsy, than to become a runaway wife. Yet, in Tyler's 13th beguiling novel, Delia's impulse to escape her disapproving physician husband and three surly children turns into an adventure that sweeps her from her staid Baltimore orbit into a new existence as Ms. Grinstead, spinster, in the Delaware community of Bay Borough. It's the unexamined life that's Delia's problem, and when she finally strips away layers of hurt, resentment, guilt and anger, she confronts her inner self and begins to deal with the chronic insecurity that has kept her childlike, flighty and dependent. Gradually, she becomes part of her new community, and has the courage to take a job caring for Noah Miller, an appealing 12-year-old whose mother has also run away from home and family. Over the course of a year, Delia discards her timorous personality and gains an understanding of the person she wants to be. One of the satisfactions of this novel is Tyler's evocation of typical family life. While in the past some of her characters have been too eccentric or fey, Delia and her family and friends all have both feet planted in the real world, even if their heads and hearts are sometimes elsewhere. Some readers may have difficulty accepting Delia's ability to absent herself from her children, but Tyler engages our sympathy and growing respect for a character who finally realizes that "the ladder of years" is a time trip to the future. BOMC main selection; major ad/promo; Random House Audio Book. <br />Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Perhaps no one writing fiction today can so clearly evoke middle-age angst as Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Tyler. As in 12 earlier Tyler novels, this work peers intimately into a seemingly ordinary family life. The family here is the Grinsteads, more particularly restless 40-year-old wife and mom Celia Grinstead. Feeling unappreciated and unnoticed by her husband, a family doctor who took over Celia's father's practice, and increasingly unnecessary in the lives of her nearly grown children, Celia wanders off during a family beach vacation and starts a new life in a small town. She's sad and uncertain about her break with her previous life but oddly determined. Poignant, warm, and quirky, this novel will be on a lot of spring reading lists.<br /><em>-?Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va.</em><br />Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<p>I first read this book back in 1984, long before I was in the publishing business. I was traveling through Greece with a friend and our hotel had shelves of books that other guests had left behind and were free for the taking.. I picked up Dinner.... knowing absolutely nothing about it. What a wonderful surprise and discovery!. I felt I had never read anything quite like it.The characters were so real, so familiar that I felt I did actually know them. In fact, for weeks after I finished the book, I had dreams about Ezra, one of the characters in the book and the owner of the Homesick Restaurant. In the dreams, he was my brother and he was just as sweet and vulnerable as he was in the book. I never re-read books because I'm usually disappointed the second time around because the sense of newness and discovery is gone. But I did read Dinner.... again and loved it as much, and even found new things I hadn't noticed before. This novel is truly a classic.</p>


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<div><p>Anne Tyler’s richest, most deeply searching novel–a story about what it is to be an American, and about Iranian-born Maryam Yazdan, who, after 35 years in this country, must finally come to terms with her “outsiderness.”</p><p>Two families, who would otherwise never have come together, meet by chance at the Baltimore airport – the Donaldsons, a very American couple, and the Yazdans, Maryam’s fully assimilated son and his attractive Iranian wife. Each couple is awaiting the arrival of an adopted infant daughter from Korea. After the instant babies from distant Asia are delivered, Bitsy Donaldson impulsively invites the Yazdans to celebrate: an “arrival party” that from then on is repeated every year as the two families become more and more deeply intertwined. Even Maryam is drawn in – up to a point. When she finds herself being courted by Bitsy Donaldson’s recently widowed father, all the values she cherishes – her traditions, her privacy, her otherness–are suddenly threatened.</p><p>A luminous novel brimming with subtle, funny, and tender observations that immerse us in the challenges of both sides of the American story. </p></div>


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<h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; ">Mrs. Pamela Evans lives a lonely new widowhood outside of Baltimore, with only a house full of ticking clocks for company. Then she hires eccentric Elizabeth Abbott as a handyman and both discover that parts don't have to be a perfect match to work.</span></h3>


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<p>Maggie and Ira Moran have been married for twenty-eight years–and it shows: in their quarrels, in their routines, in their ability to tolerate with affection each other’s eccentricities. Maggie, a kooky, lovable meddler and an irrepressible optimist, wants nothing more than to fix her son’s broken marriage. Ira is infuriatingly practical, a man “who should have married Ann Landers.” And what begins as a day trip to a funeral becomes an adventure in the unexpected. As Maggie and Ira navigate the riotous twists and turns, they intersect with an assorted cast of eccentrics–and rediscover the magic of the road called life and the joy of having somebody next to you to share the ride . . . bumps and all.</p>


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<div><p>"Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered that she had turned into the wrong person." So Anne Tyler opens this irresistible new novel.<br></p><p>The woman is Rebecca Davitch, a fifty-three-year-old grandmother. Is she an impostor in her own life? she asks herself. Is it indeed her own life? Or is it someone else’s?<br></p><p>On the surface, Beck, as she is known to the Davitch clan, is outgoing, joyous, a natural celebrator. Giving parties is, after all, her vocation—something she slipped into even before finishing college, when Joe Davitch spotted her at an engagement party in his family’s crumbling nineteenth-century Baltimore row house, where giving parties was the family business. What caught his fancy was that she seemed to be having such a wonderful time. Soon this large-spirited older man, a divorcé with three little girls, swept her into his orbit, and before she knew it she was embracing his extended family plus a child of their own, and hosting endless parties in the ornate, high-ceilinged rooms of The Open Arms. <br></p><p>Now, some thirty years later, after presiding over a disastrous family picnic, Rebecca is caught un-awares by the question of who she really is. How she answers it—how she tries to recover her girlhood self, that dignified grownup she had once been—is the story told in this beguiling, funny, and deeply moving novel.<br></p><p>As always with Anne Tyler’s novels, once we enter her world it is hard to leave. But in <strong>Back When We Were Grownups</strong> she so sharpens our perceptions and awakens so many untapped feelings that we come away not only refreshed and delighted, but also infinitely wiser.</p></div>


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<div><p>"Tyler is steadily raising a body of fiction of major dimensions."<br></p><p>THE NEW YORK TIMES<br></p><p>Thirty-eight-year-old Jeremy Pauling has never left home. He lives on the top floor of a Baltimore row house where he creates collages of little people snipped from wrapping paper. His elderly mother putters in the rooms below, until her death. And it is then that Jeremy is forced to take in Mary Tell and her child as boarders. Mary is unaware of how much courage it takes Jaremy to look her in the eye. For Jeremy, like one of his paper creations, is fragile and easily torn--especially when he's falling in love....</p></div>


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<p>“It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon. . .” This is how Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The Whitshanks are one of those families that radiate togetherness: an indefinable, enviable kind of specialness. But they are also like all families, in that the stories they tell themselves reveal only part of the picture. Abby and Red and their four grown children have accumulated not only tender moments, laughter, and celebrations, but also jealousies, disappointments, and carefully guarded secrets. From Red’s father and mother, newly arrived in Baltimore in the 1920s, to Abby and Red’s grandchildren carrying the family legacy boisterously into the twenty-first century, here are four generations of Whitshanks, their lives unfolding in and around the sprawling, lovingly worn Baltimore house that has always been their anchor.  </p><p>Brimming with all the insight, humor, and generosity of spirit that are the hallmarks of Anne Tyler’s work, <em>A Spool of Blue Thread</em> tells a poignant yet unsentimental story in praise of family in all its emotional complexity. It is a novel to cherish.  </p><p>This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.  </p><p>**</p>


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<p>"Without Anne Tyler, American fiction would be an immeasurably bleaker place."<br>NEWSDAY<br>Evie Decker is a shy, slightly plump teenager, lonely and silent. But her quiet life is shattered when she hears the voice of Drumstrings Casey on the radio and becomes instantly attracted to him. She manages to meet him, bursting out of her lonely shell--and into the attentive gaze of the intangible man who becomes all too real....</p>


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<div><p>In this, her fourteenth novel--and one of her most endearing--Anne Tyler tells the story of a lovable loser who's trying to get his life in order. <br></p><p>Barnaby Gaitlin has been in trouble ever since adolescence. He had this habit of breaking into other people's houses. It wasn't the big loot he was after, like his teenage cohorts. It was just that he liked to read other people's mail, pore over their family photo albums, and appropriate a few of their precious mementos.<br></p><p>But for eleven years now, he's been working steadily for Rent-a-Back, renting his back to old folks and shut-ins who can't move their own porch furniture or bring the Christmas tree down from the attic. At last, his life seems to be on an even keel.<br></p><p>Still, the Gaitlins (of "old" Baltimore) cannot forget the price they paid for buying off Barnaby's former victims. And his ex-wife would just as soon he didn't show up ever to visit their little girl, Opal. Even the nice, steady woman (his guardian angel?) who seems to have designs on him doesn't fully trust him, it develops, when the chips are down, and it looks as though his world may fall apart again.<br></p><p>There is no one like Anne Tyler, with her sharp, funny, tender perceptions about how human beings navigate on a puzzling planet, and she keeps us enthralled from start to finish in this delicious new novel.</p></div>


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<p class="description">Few outsiders will ever witness the dark misdeeds of the Heavenly Host. And among this secret society, where exiled Georgian aristocrats gather to indulge their carnal desires, fewer still can match the insatiable appetite of their chief provocateur, the mysterious Viscount Rohan.Pursuit of physical pleasure is both his preferred pastime and his most pressing urge, until he encounters the fascination of a woman who won't be swayed. And while his dark seduction appalls the pure and impoverished Elinor Harriman, she finds herself intrigued…and secretly drawn to the man behind the desire.</p>


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<p class="description">The first full scale biography of Wallis Simpson to be written by a woman, exploring the mind of one of the most glamorous and reviled figures of the Twentieth Century, a character who played prominently in the blockbuster film The King’s Speech.This is the story of the American divorcee notorious for allegedly seducing a British king off his throne.  “That woman,” so called by Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, was born Bessie Wallis Warfield in 1896 in Baltimore.  Neither beautiful nor brilliant, she endured an impoverished childhood, which fostered in her a burning desire to rise above her circumstances.Acclaimed biographer Anne Sebba offers an eye-opening account of one of the most talked about women of her generation.  It explores the obsessive nature of Simpson’s relationship with Prince Edward, the suggestion that she may have had a Disorder of Sexual Development, and new evidence showing she may never have wanted to marry Edward at all. Since her death, Simpson has become a symbol of female empowerment as well as a style icon.  But her psychology remains an enigma.  Drawing from interviews and newly discovered letters, That Woman shines a light on this captivating and complex woman, an object of fascination that has only grown with the years.</p>


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<p>Every August, four women would gather together to spend a week at the beach, renting a new house each year. The ritual began when they were in their twenties and their husbands were in medical school, and became a mainstay of every summer thereafter. Their only criteria was oceanfront and isolation, their only desire to strengthen their far-flung friendships. They called themselves the Girls of August. But when one of the Girls dies tragically, the group slowly drifts apart and their vacations together are brought to a halt. Years later, a new marriage reunites them and they decide to come together once again on a remote barrier island off the South Carolina coast. There, far from civilization, the women make startling discoveries that will change them in ways they never expected.</p>


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<div><p>With <strong>Pandora</strong>, Anne Rice began a magnificent new series of vampire novels. Now, in the second of her New Tales of the Vampires, she tells the mesmerizing story of Vittorio, a vampire in the Italian Age of Gold. </p><p>Educated in the Florence of Cosimo de' Medici, trained in knighthood at his father's mountaintop castle, Vittorio inhabits a world of courtly splendor and country pleasures--a world suddenly threatened when his entire family is confronted by an unholy power.</p><p>In the midst of this upheaval, Vittorio is seduced by the vampire Ursula, the most beautiful of his supernatural enemies. As he sets out in pursuit of vengeance, entering the nightmarish Court of the Ruby Grail, increasingly more enchanted (and confused) by his love for the mysterious Ursula, he finds himself facing demonic adversaries, war and political intrigue.</p><p>Against a backdrop of the wonders--both sacred and profane--and the beauty and ferocity of Renaissance Italy, Anne Rice creates a passionate and tragic legend of doomed young love and lost innocence. </p></div>


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<div><p>Demonstrating once again her gift for spellbinding stoyrtelling, Anne Rice makes real a family of witchesa family given to poetry and incest, to murder and philsophy, a family that is itself haunted by a powerful, dangerous and seductive being.<br></p></div>


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<div><p>The tale of THE WOLF GIFT continues . . .  </p><p>In Anne Rice’s surprising and compelling best-selling novel, the first of her strange and mythic imagining of the world of wolfen powers (“I devoured these pages . . . As solid and engaging as anything she has written since her early vampire chronicle fiction” —Alan Cheuse, <em>The</em> <em>Boston Globe;</em> “A delectable cocktail of old-fashioned lost-race adventure, shape-shifting and suspense” —Elizabeth Hand, <em>The Washington Post</em>), readers were spellbound as Rice imagined a daring new world set against the wild and beckoning California coast.  </p><p>Now in her new novel, as lush and romantic in detail and atmosphere as it is sleek and steely in storytelling, Anne Rice brings us once again to the rugged coastline of Northern California, to the grand mansion at Nideck Point—to further explore the unearthly education of her transformed Man Wolf.  </p><p>The novel opens on a cold, gray landscape. It is the beginning of December. Oak fires are burning in the stately flickering hearths of Nideck Point. It is Yuletide. For Reuben Golding, now infused with the wolf gift and under the loving tutelage of the Morphenkinder, this Christmas promises to be like no other . . . as he soon becomes aware that the Morphenkinder, steeped in their own rituals, are also celebrating the Midwinter Yuletide festival deep within Nideck forest.  </p><p>From out of the shadows of the exquisite mansion comes a ghost—tormented, imploring, unable to speak yet able to embrace and desire with desperate affection . . . As Reuben finds himself caught up with the passions and yearnings of this spectral presence and the preparations for the Nideck town Christmas reach a fever pitch, astonishing secrets are revealed, secrets that tell of a strange netherworld, of spirits—centuries old—who possess their own fantastical ancient histories and taunt with their dark, magical powers .</p></div>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; ">The time is the present.</span></h3><p style="font-size: 13px; "><br>The place, the rugged coast of Northern California. A bluff high above the Pacific. A grand mansion full of beauty and tantalizing history set against a towering redwood forest.<br><br>A young reporter on assignment from the <em>San Francisco Observer </em>. . . An older woman welcoming him into her magnificent family home that he has been sent to write about and that she must sell with some urgency . . . A chance encounter between two unlikely people . . . An idyllic night—shattered by horrific unimaginable violence, the young man inexplicably attacked—bitten—by a beast he cannot see in the rural darkness . . . A violent episode that sets in motion a terrifying yet seductive transformation, as the young man, caught between ecstasy and horror, between embracing who he is evolving into and fearing what he will become, soon experiences the thrill of the wolf gift.<br><br>As he resists the paradoxical pleasure and enthrallment of his wolfen savagery and delights in the power and (surprising) capacity for good, he is caught up in a strange and dangerous rescue and is desperately hunted as “the Man Wolf” by authorities, the media, and scientists (evidence of DNA threatens to reveal his dual existence) . . . As a new and profound love enfolds him, questions emerge that propel him deeper into his mysterious new world: questions of why and how he has been given this gift; of its true nature and the curious but satisfying pull towards goodness; of the profound realization that there may be others like him who are watching—guardian creatures who have existed throughout time who possess ancient secrets and alchemical knowledge. And throughout it all, the search for salvation for a soul tormented by a new realm of temptations, and the fraught, exhilarating journey, still to come, of being and becoming, fully, both wolf and man. </p></div>


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In the latest installment of The Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice summons up dazzling worlds to bring us the story of Armand - eternally young, with the face of a Botticelli angel. Armand, who first appeared in all his dark glory more than twenty years ago in the now-classic Interview with the Vampire, the first of The Vampire Chronicles.Now, we go with Armand across the centuries to the Kiev Rus of his boyhood - a ruined city under Mongol dominion - and to ancient Constantinople, where Tartar raiders sell him into slavery. And in a magnificent palazzo in the Venice of the Renaissance we see him emotionally and intellectually in thrall to the great vampire Marius, who masquerades among humankind as a mysterious, reclusive painter and who will bestow upon Armand the gift of vampiric blood.As the novel races to its climax, moving through scenes of luxury and elegance, of ambush, fire, and devil worship to nineteenth-century Paris and today's New Orleans, we see its eternally vulnerable and romantic hero forced to choose between his twilight immortality and the salvation of his immortal soul.


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<div><p>Returning to the hypnotic world she so brilliantly created in <strong>Interview with the Vampire</strong>, Anne Rice demonstrates once again her power to enthrall.  With the same richness of drama, atmosphere and incident, she tells the fantastic story of the vampire Lestat, whom we first perceived as the seductive devil-vampire of <strong>Interview with the Vampire</strong> and whom we now follow through the ages as he searches for the origin and meaning of his own dark immortality.  And who, more and more, engages our sympathy until he stands revealed as a questing romantic, a vampire-hero with his own strange and passionate courage and morality.</p><p>As the novel opens, Lestat, having risen from the earth after a fifty-five years' sleep,  and infatuated with the modern world, presents himself in all his vampire brilliance as a rock star, a superstar, a seducer of millions.  And, in this blaze of adulation, daring to break the vampire oath of silence, he determines to tell his story, to rouse the generations of the living dead from their slumbers and to penetrate the riddle of his own existence.</p><p>As he speaks we are plunged back into eighteenth-century France, into the castle where we meet the young Lestat: child of impoverished aristocrats, heroic hunter of wolves, at odds with his tyrannical father, running away to join a traveling troupe of actors.  We see him in the licentious Paris of the day, first apprentice at a boulevard theater, then its most celebrated actor, idolized, adored by many and--night after night--watched by one . . . until, in a sleep filled with dreams of the wolves he killed as a boy, he is shocked awake by a dark figure and suddenly, horribly, eternally joined to the unholy brotherhood.</p><p>We follow Lestat as he searches for others like him--in churches and brothels, in gambling houses, huts and palaces--sometimes joined by the vampire-angel Gabrielle, who is bound to him both by blood and by passion; sometimes traveling with his adored Nicolas, the violinist whose music and beauty are equally transcendent.  We follow Lestat as he travels from the snowcapped mountains of the Auvergne and the primeval forest of ancient Gaul to Sicily, Istanbul, Venice and Cairo, searching for his origins, sometimes finding clues to the birth of the vampire race, knowing always that the central truth eludes him.</p><p>But all the while, throughout his travels, through many lands and many times, Lestat has made enemies among his brethren--vampires who are in terror of his questions, who fear he will disturb the uneasy balance in which they exist with the mortal world, and who suspect in him a desire to rule.  And when, in the caves below a craggy Greek island, in a sanctuary whose walls are covered with gold-flecked murals, the very first of the living dead awake, the truth at the heart of his quest is at last revealed.  Ancient forces held immobile through the ages are irreversibly set in motion, and as the novel rushes to its stunning climax, Lestat's vampire foes converge in pursuit of him on the demonic freeways of the twentieth century.</p></div>


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In a new feat of hypnotic storytelling, Anne Rice continues the extraordinary Vampire Chronicles that began with the now classic "Interview with the Vampire" and continued with "The Vampire Lestat" and "The Queen of the Damned." Lestat speaks. Vampire-hero, enchanter, seducer of mortals. For centuries he has been a courted prince in the dark and flourishing universe of the living dead. Lestat is alone. And suddenly all his vampire rationale - everything he has come to believe and feel safe with - is called into question. In his overwhelming need to destroy his doubts and his loneliness, Lestat embarks on the most dangerous enterprise he has undertaken in all the danger-haunted years of his long existence. "The Tale of the Body Thief" is told with the unique - the mesmerizing - passion, power, color, and invention that distinguish the novels of Anne Rice.


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<p class="description">INQUIRERA feat of mesmerizing storytelling, a chilling entertainment, THE QUEEN OF THE DAMNED unleashes Akasha, the Queen herself, who has risen from a six-thousand year sleep to let loose the powers of the night. Akasha has a marvelously devious plan to "save" mankind and destroy Lestat--in this extraordinarily sensual novel of the complex, erotic, electrifying world of the undead.</p>


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<div><p>In the days before the Civil War, there lived in New Orleans the gens de couleur libre - copper-skinned half-casts, liberated by their owners, but confined by their color to a life of political nonexistence and social subordination. Still, an aristocracy would emerge in this society: artist, poets, and musicians, plantation owners, scientists and craftsmen whose talents and reputations would extend far beyond the limits of their small world. </p><p>Mega-selling author Anne Rice's probing, lyrical style sweeps us into their midst as she introduces Marcel, the sensitive, blue-eyed scholar, Marie, his breathtakingly beautiful sister, whose curse is to pass for white; Christophe, novelist and teacher, the idol of all young gens and stunning Anna Bella, whose allure for the well-to-do white man would become legend.</p><p>Here is a compelling and richly textured tale of a people forever caught in the shadows between black and white.<br></p></div>


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<p>In the traditional folktale of "Sleeping Beauty," the spell cast upon the lovely young princess and everyone in her castle can only be broken by the kiss of a Prince. It is an ancient story, one that originally emerged from and still deeply disturbs the mind's unconscious. Now Anne Rice's retelling of the Beauty story probes the unspoken implications of this lush, suggestive tale by exploring its undeniable connection to sexual desire. Here the Prince awakens Beauty, not with a kiss, but with sexual initiation. His reward for ending the hundred years of enchantment is Beauty's complete and total enslavement to him...as Anne Rice explores the world of erotic yearning and fantasy in a classic that becomes, with her skillful pen, a compelling experience. </p>


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<div><p>"ANNE RICE WILL LIVE ON THROUGH THE AGES OF LITERATURE."<br>San Francisco Chronicle<br>"TALTOS IS THE THIRD BOOK IN A SERIES KNOWN AS THE LIVES OF THE MAYFAIR WITCHES . . . Their haunted heritage has brought the family great wealth, which is exercised from a New Orleans manse with Southern gentility; but of course such power cannot escape notice . . . or challenge. . . Rice is a formidable talent. . .<br>[Taltos] is a curious amalgam of gothic, glamour fiction, alternate history, and high soap opera."<br>The Washington Post Book World<br>"AN INTRICATE, STUNNING IMAGINATION."<br>Los Angeles Times Book Review<br>"SPELLBINDING . . . MYTHICAL . . . Anne Rice is a pure storyteller."<br>Cosmopolitan<br>"BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN."<br>Kirkus Reviews (starred)<br>"Her power of invention seems boundless. . . . She has made a masterpiece of the morbid, worthy of Poe's daughter. . . . It is hard to praise sufficiently the originality of Miss Rice."<br>The Wall Street Journal</p></div>


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<p class="description">"[Rice] has a real gift for rendering psychically charged mood and melancholy atmosphere".--The New York Times Book ReviewHaving created fantastic universes of vampires and witches, the incomparable Anne Rice now carries us into new realms of the mystical and the magical--and into the presence of a dark and luminous new hero: the powerful, witty, smiling Azriel, Servant of the Bones. He is a ghost, demon, angel--in love with the good, in thrall to the evil. He pours out his heart to us, telling his astonishing story when he finds himself--in present-day New York City--a dazed witness to the murder of a young girl and inexplicably obsessed by the desire to avenge her.Then he takes us back to his mortal youth in the magnificent city of Babylon, where he is plucked from death by evil priests and sorceresses and transformed into a genii commanded to do their bidding. Challenging these forces of destruction, Azriel embarks on his perilous journey through time--from Babylon's hanging gardens to the Europe of the Black Death to Manhattan in the 1990s. And as his quest approaches its climactic horror, he dares to use and to risk his supernatural powers in the hope of forestalling a world-threatening conspiracy and redeeming, at last, what was denied him so long ago: his own eternal human soul. . . .</p>


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<p>A stunning departure, a surprising and compelling return…From Anne Rice, perennial best seller, single-handed reinventor of the vampire cosmology--a new, exhilarating novel, a deepening of her vampire mythology, and a chillingly hypnotic mystery-thriller.  </p><p>"What can we do but reach for the embrace that must now<br />contain both heaven and hell: our doom again and again and<br />again…" --from <em>The Vampire Lestat</em>  </p><p>Rice once again summons up the irresistible spirit-world of the oldest and most powerful forces of the night, invisible beings unleashed on an unsuspecting world able to take blood from humans, in a long-awaited return to the extraordinary world of the Vampire Chronicles and the uniquely seductive <em>Queen of the Damned </em>("mesmerizing" --<em>San Francisco Chronicle</em>), a long-awaited novel that picks up where <em>The Vampire Lestat</em> ("brilliant…its undead characters are utterly alive" --<em>New York Times</em>) left off more than a quarter of a century ago to create an extraordinary new world of spirits and forces--the characters, legend, and lore of all the Vampire Chronicles.  </p><p>The novel opens with the vampire world in crisis…vampires have been proliferating out of control; burnings have commenced all over the world, huge massacres similar to those carried out by Akasha in <em>The Queen of the Damned</em>…Old vampires, roused from slumber in the earth are doing the bidding of a Voice commanding that they indiscriminately burn vampire-mavericks in cities from Paris and Mumbai to Hong Kong, Kyoto, and San Francisco.  </p><p>As the novel moves from present-day New York and the West Coast to ancient Egypt, fourth century Carthage, 14th-century Rome, the Venice of the Renaissance, the worlds and beings of all the Vampire Chronicles-Louis de Pointe du Lac; the eternally young Armand, whose face is that of a Boticelli angel; Mekare and Maharet, Pandora and Flavius; David Talbot, vampire and ultimate fixer from the secret Talamasca; and Marius, the true Child of the Millennia; along with all the other new seductive, supernatural creatures-come together in this large, luxuriant, fiercely ambitious novel to ultimately rise up and seek out who-or what-the Voice is, and to discover the secret of what it desires and why…  </p><p>And, at the book's center, the seemingly absent, curiously missing hero-wanderer, the dazzling, dangerous rebel-outlaw--the great hope of the Undead, the dazzling Prince Lestat…</p><p>**</p>


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<p class="description">Anne Rice, creator of the Vampire Lestat, the Mayfair witches and the amazing worlds they inhabit, now gives us the first in a new series of novels linked together by the fledgling vampire David Talbot, who has set out to become a chronicler of his fellow Undead.The novel opens in present-day Paris in a crowded café, where David meets Pandora. She is two thousand years old, a Child of the Millennia, the first vampire ever made by the great Marius. David persuades her to tell the story of her life. Pandora begins, reluctantly at first and then with increasing passion, to recount her mesmerizing tale, which takes us through the ages, from Imperial Rome to eighteenth-century France to twentieth-century Paris and New Orleans. She carries us back to her mortal girlhood in the world of Caesar Augustus, a world chronicled by Ovid and Petronius. This is where Pandora meets and falls in love with the handsome, charismatic, lighthearted, still-mortal Marius. This is the Rome she is forced to flee in fear of assassination by conspirators plotting to take over the city. And we follow her to the exotic port of Antioch, where she is destined to be reunited with Marius, now immortal and haunted by his vampire nature, who will bestow on her the Dark Gift as they set out on the fraught and fantastic adventure of their two turbulent centuries together.</p>


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In Anne Rice's extraordinary novel, the Vampire Lestat--outsides, canny monster, hero-wanderer--is at last offered the chance to be redeemed. He is brought into direct confrontation with both God and the Devil, and into the land of Death. We are in New York. The city is blanketed in snow. Through the whiteness Lestat is searching for Dora, the beautiful and charismatic daughter of a drug lord, the woman who arouses Lestat's tenderness as no mortal ever has. While torn between his vampire passions and his overwhelming love for Dora, Lestat is confronted by the most dangerous of adversaries he has yet known. He is snatched from the world itself by the mysterious Memnoch, who claims to be the Devil. He is invited to be a witness at the Creation. He is taken like the ancient prophets into the heavenly realm and is ushered into Purgatory. He must decide if he can believe in the Devil or in God. And finally, he must decide which, if either, he will serve. In the first four Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice summoned up for us worlds that are fantastic and distant, making them as resonant, real, and immediate as our own. In this, her most daring and darkest novel, she takes us, with Lestat, into the mythical world that is most important to us--into the realms of our own theology.


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<p class="description">“I dreamed a dream of angels. I saw them and heard them in a great and endless galactic night. I saw the lights that were these angels, flying here and there, in streaks of irresistible brilliance . . . I felt love around me in this vast and seamless realm of sound and light . . . And something akin to sadness swept me up and mingled my very essence with the voices who sang, because the voices were singing of me . . . ”Thus begins Anne Rice’s lyrical, haunting new novel, a metaphysical thriller of angels and assassins that once again summons up dark and dangerous worlds set in times past. Anne Rice takes us to other realms, this time to the world of fifteenth-century Rome, a city of domes and rooftop gardens, rising towers and crosses beneath an ever-shifting layer of clouds; familiar hills and tall pines . . . of Michelangelo and Raphael, of the Holy Inquisition and of Leo X, second son of a Medici, holding forth from the papal throne . . . And into this time, into this century, Toby O’Dare, former government assassin, is summoned by the angel Malchiah to solve a terrible crime of poisoning and to search out the truth of a haunting by an earthbound restless spirit—a diabolical dybbuk.O’Dare soon discovers himself in the midst of dark plots and counterplots surrounded by a darker and more dangerous threat as the veil of ecclesiastical terror closes in around him.As he embarks on a powerful journey of atonement, O’Dare is reconnected with his own past, with matters light and dark, fierce and tender, with the promise of salvation and with a deeper and richer vision of love.</p>


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At the center is the beautiful, unconquerable witch, Merrick. She is a descendant of the gens de colors libres, a cast derived from the black mistresses of white men, a society of New Orleans octaroons and quadroons, steeped in the lore and ceremony of voodoo, who reign in the shadowy world where the African and the French--the white and the dark--intermingle. Her ancestors are the Great Mayfair Witches, of whom she knows nothing--and from whom she inherits the power and magical knowledge of a Circe.Into this exotic New Orleans realm comes David Talbot, hero, storyteller, adventurer, almost mortal vampire, visitor from another dark realm. It is he who recounts Merrick's haunting tale--a tale that takes us from the New Orleans of the past and present to the jungles of Guatemala, from the Mayan ruins of a century ago to ancient civilizations not yet explored.Anne Rice's richly told novel weaves an irresistible story of two worlds: the witches' world and the vampires' world, where magical powers and otherworldly fascinations are locked together in a dance of seduction, death, and rebirth.


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<p class="description">From the day her first Vampire Chronicle was published, critics and readers - readers by the hundreds of thousands - have been mesmerized by the writings of Anne Rice. And with the publication of "The Witching Hour," she created for us yet another world and legend, and both the chorus of praise (see back of jacket) and the multitudes of her readers once more increased. Now, in her new novel, Anne Rice brings us again - even more magically - into the midst of the dynasty of witches she introduced in "The Witching Hour." At the center: the brilliant and beautiful Rowan Mayfair, queen of the coven, and "Lasher," the darkly compelling demon whom she finds irresistible and from whose evil spell and vision she must now flee. She takes with her their terrifying and exquisite child, one of "a brood of children born knowing, able to stand and talk on the first day." Rowan's attempt to escape Lasher and his pursuit of her and their child are at the heart of this extraordinary saga. It is a novel that moves around the globe, backward and forward through time, and between the human and demonic worlds. Its many voices - of women, of men, of demons and angels, present and past - haunt and enchant us. With a dreamlike power, the novel draws us through twilight paths, telling a chillingly hypnotic story of occult and spiritual aspirations and passion.</p>


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<p class="description">In this mesmerizing novel, the acclaimed author of THE VAMPIRE CHRONICLES and the LIVES OF THE MAYFAIR WITCHES makes real for us the exquisite and otherworldly society of the eighteenth-century castrati, the delicate and alluring male sopranos whose graceful bodies and glorious voices brought them the adulation of the royal courts and grand opera houses of Europe, men who lived as idols, concealing their pain as they were adored as angels, yet shunned as half-men.As we are drawn into their dark and luminous story, as the crowds of Venetians, Neopolitans, and Romans, noblemen and peasants, musicians, prelates, princes, saints, and intriguers swirl around them, Anne Rice brings us into the sweep of eighteenth-century Italian life, into the decadence beneath the shimmering surface of Venice, the wild frivolity of Naples, and the magnetic terror of its shadow, Vesuvius. It is a novel that only Anne Rice could have written, taking us into a heartbreaking and enchanting moment in history, a time of great ambition and great suffering--a tale that challenges our deepest images of the masculine and the feminine.</p>


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<div><p>The time is now.</p><p>We are in a small room with the vampire, face to face, as he speaksas he pours out the hypnotic, shocking, moving, and erotically charged confessions of his first two hundred years as one of the living dead. . . </p><p>He speaks quietly, plainly, even gently . . . carrying us back to the night when he departed human existence as heiryoung, romantic, cultivatedto a great Louisiana plantation, and was inducted by the radiant and sinister Lestat into the other, the "endless," life . . . learning first to sustain himself on the blood of cocks and rats caught in the raffish streets of New Orleans, then on the blood of human beings . . . to the years when, moving away from his final human ties under the tutelage of the hated yet necessary Lestat, he gradually embraces the habits, hungers, feelings of vampirism: the detachment, the hardened will, the "superior" sensual pleasures.</p><p>He carries us back to the crucial moment in a dark New Orleans street when he finds the exquisite lost young child Claudia, wanting not to hurt but to comfort her, struggling against the last residue of human feeling within him . . .</p><p>We see how Claudia in turn is made a vampireall her passion and intelligence trapped forever in the body of a small childand how they arrive at their passionate and dangerous alliance, their French Quarter life of opulence: delicate Grecian statues, Chinese vases, crystal chandeliers, a butler, a maid, a stone nymph in the hidden garden court . . . night curving into night with their vampire senses heightened to the beauty of the world, thirsting for the beauty of deatha constant stream of vulnerable strangers awaiting them below . . . </p><p>We see them joined against the envious, dangerous Lestat, embarking on a perilous search across Europe for others like themselves, desperate to discover the world they belong to, the ways of survival, to know what they are and why, where they came from, what their future can be . . .</p><p>We follow them across Austria and Transylvania, encountering their kind in forms beyond their wildest imagining . . . to Paris, where footsteps behind them, in exact rhythm with their own, steer them to the doors of the Théâtre des Vampiresthe beautiful, lewd, and febrile mime theatre whose posters of penny-dreadful vampires at once mask and reveal the horror within . . . to their meeting with the eerily magnetic Armand, who brings them, at last, into intimacy with a whole brilliant and decadent society of vampires, an intimacy that becomes sudden terror when they are compelled to confront what they have feared and fled . . . </p><p>In its unceasing flow of spellbinding storytelling, of danger and flight, of loyalty and treachery, <strong>Interview with the Vampire</strong> bears witness of a literary imagination of the first order. </p></div>


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In her new novel, perennial bestseller Anne Rice fuses her two uniquely seductive strains of narrative -- her Vampire legend and her lore of the Mayfair witches -- to give us a world of classic deep-south luxury and ancestral secrets. Welcome to Blackwood Farm: soaring white columns, spacious drawing rooms, bright, sun-drenched gardens, and a dark strip of the dense Sugar Devil Swamp. This is the world of Quinn Blackwood, a brilliant young man haunted since birth by a mysterious doppelgänger, “Goblin,” a spirit from a dream world that Quinn can’t escape and that prevents him from belonging anywhere. When Quinn is made a Vampire, losing all that is rightfully his and gaining an unwanted immortality, his doppelgänger becomes even more vampiric and terrifying than Quinn himself. As the novel moves backwards and forwards in time, from Quinn’s boyhood on Blackwood Farm to present day New Orleans, from ancient Athens to 19th-century Naples, Quinn seeks out the legendary Vampire Lestat in the hope of freeing himself from the spectre that draws him inexorably back to Sugar Devil Swamp and the explosive secrets it holds. A story of youth and promise, of loss and the search for love, of secrets and destiny, Blackwood Farm is Anne Rice at her mesmerizing best.


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Anne Rice continues her astonishing Vampire Chronicles in a new novel that begins whereBlackwood Farmleft off and tells the story of Lestat's quest for redemption, goodness, and the love of Rowan Mayfair. Welcome back to Blackwood Farm. Here are all of the brilliantly conceived characters that make up the two worlds of vampires and witches: Mona Mayfair, who's come to the farm to die and is brought into the realm of the undead; her uncle, Julian Mayfair, guardian of the family, determined to forever torment Lestat for what he has done to Mona; Rowan Mayfair, brilliant neurosurgeon and witch, who finds herself dangerously drawn to the all-powerful Lestat; her husband, Michael Curry, hero of the Mayfair Chronicles, who seeks Lestat's help with the temporary madness of his wife; Ash Templeton, a 5,000-year-old Taltos who has taken Mona's child; and Patsy, the country-western singer, who returns to avenge her death at the hands of her son, Quinn Blackwood. Delightfully, at the book's centre is the Vampire Lestat, once the epitome of evil, now pursuing the transformation set in motion withMemnoch the Devil. He struggles with his vampirism and yearns for goodness, purity and love, as he saves Patsy's ghost from the dark realm of the Earthbound, uncovers the mystery of the Taltos and unselfishly decides the fate of his beloved Rowan Mayfair. A story of love and loyalty, of the search for passion and promise,Blood Canticleis Anne Rice at her finest.


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In the best Anne Rice tradition, the great Vampire Marius returns to tell us the mesmerizing story of his life through the ages, from the time of Caesar Augustus to the present. The Vampire Marius, child of the Millenea, has lived two thousand years. He tells his story to Thorne, a lone vampire who was a Viking in a mortal life tells of his birth into the Senatorial Class at the time of Caesar Augustus, and how he was transformed into a "dark god" by Druids in the forests of Gaul; how he created the Vampire Armand and became guardian of Akasha and Enkil, the Queen and the King of Vampires, who hold within themselves the secret core of the life of the undead "destroy them and you destroy all vampires." He relates how he became the voice of reason among the vampires, and how he created Pandora, the vampire he still grieves for... We see Marius as a mortal boy in the teeming streets of second-century Rome, and in young manhood in the time of Constantine and his battle to save Rome from the Visigoths. We follow him through the Dark Ages and the Black Death, and through another thousand years to Venice and to Florence, where he seeks out the great Botticelli and becomes a painter, working in a glorious palazzo a blood drinker in the thick of a rich and brilliant mortal life. Worlds within worlds unfold historic, fantastic, cultural, vampiric, from the London of Henry VIII to 17th-century Paris and Weimar as the novel moves to its splendid finale in an Aegean kingdom ruled by the great vampire: the magician Marius.


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Anne Michaels's fiercely beautiful debut novel tells the interlocking stories of three men of different generations whose lives are transformed by the events and shifting effects of the same war. At its center is poet Jakob Beer: traumatically orphaned as a young boy during the Second World war, rescued from the mud of a buried Polish city and secreted to a Greek island by Athos Roussos, scientist, scholar, and, above all, humanist. After the war, in Toronto, where Athos has accepted a teaching post at the University, Jakob is faced with the tangible, insistent nature of the recent past: his own surfacing in all its darkness and profundity, the question of his beloved sister's fate its harrowing focus. Yet this is also the time when he meets the woman who will become his first wife, and begins his life-long work as a translator and poet. And in this layered process of reentering life, Jakob learns the power of language - to destroy, to omit, and to obliterate; but also to witness and tell, conjure and restore. And it is in Toronto as well that, late in his life, Jakob will cross paths with Ben: a young professor, expert in the dramas of weather and biography but naive in the drama of his own life. The quiet elation Ben senses in the older man, and Ben's own connection to the wounding legacies of the war, kindle a fascination with Jakob and his writing, upsetting and then opening that part of himself long since shut down against his knowledge of the past.


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Anne Rice returns to the mesmerizing storytelling that has captivated readers for more than three decades in a tale of unceasing suspense set in time past--a metaphysical thriller about angels and assassins. The novel opens in the present. At its center: Toby O'Dare--a contract killer of underground fame on assignment to kill once again. A soulless soul, a dead man walking, he lives under a series of aliases--just now: Lucky the Fox--and takes his orders from "The Right Man." Into O'Dare's nightmarish world of lone and lethal missions comes a mysterious stranger, a seraph, who offers him a chance to save rather than destroy lives. O'Dare, who long ago dreamt of being a priest but instead came to embody danger and violence, seizes his chance. Now he is carried back through the ages to thirteenth-century England, to dark realms where accusations of ritual murder have been made against Jews, where children suddenly die or disappear . . . In this primitive setting, O'Dare begins his perilous quest for salvation, a journey of danger and flight, loyalty and betrayal, selflessness and love.


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<p><strong>From the bestselling author of <em>Stitches </em>and <em>Help, Thanks, Wow </em>comes her long-awaited collection of new and selected essays on hope, joy, and grace.</strong>  </p><p>Anne Lamott writes about faith, family, and community in essays that are both wise and irreverent. It’s an approach that has become her trademark. Now in <em>Small Victories</em>, Lamott offers a new message of hope that celebrates the triumph of light over the darkness in our lives. Our victories over hardship and pain may seem small, she writes, but they change us—our perceptions, our perspectives, and our lives. Lamott writes of forgiveness, restoration, and transformation, how we can turn toward love even in the most hopeless situations, how we find the joy in getting lost and our amazement in finally being found.  </p><p>Profound and hilarious, honest and unexpected, the stories in <em>Small Victories </em>are proof that the human spirit is irrepressible.</p><p>**</p>


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<div><p>From Norway’s #1 bestselling crime writer comes a suspenseful locked-room mystery, the U.S. debut of a new series, set in an isolated hotel where guests who are stranded during a monumental snowstorm begin turning up dead. </p><p>A train on its way to the northern reaches of Norway careens off the track during a massive blizzard, 1,222 meters above sea level. The passengers abandon the train for a nearby centuries-old hotel, which is practically empty, except for the staff. With plenty of food and shelter from the storm, the passengers think they are safe—until one of them turns up dead. With no sign of rescue, and the storm continuing to rage, retired police inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen is asked to investigate. Paralyzed by a bullet lodged in her spine, Hanne has no wish to return to police work. Bitter and anti-social, she is slowly coaxed back to her old habits as her curiosity and natural talent for observation compel her to take an interest in the passengers and their secrets. When another body turns up, Hanne realizes that time is running out, and she must act fast before panic takes over. Trapped in her wheelchair, trapped by the storm, and now trapped with a killer, Hanne has to fit the pieces of the puzzle together before the killer strikes again.</p></div>


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<div><p class="description">Tessa had loved Paul Demetrius from the start, but from the moment she introduced him to her beautiful sister Lucinda he had had eyes for no one else. At last, unable to bear seeing the two of them together, Tessa had gone away.</p>
<p class="description">Now, two years later, she was home again, expecting to hear that they were married -- only to learn that they had never in fact married, that after a terrible accident in which Paul had been blinded, Lucinda had walked out on him and he was now living the life of a recluse in Cyprus. So Tessa took her courage in both hands, went out to Cyprus pretending to be Lucinda, begged Paul's forgiveness -- and married him.</p>
<p class="description">Would her love be strong enough to stand the strain of living such a lie? And what if Paul ever found out?</p></div>


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This guide is organized to help readers understand and reflect on Anne Frank's diary. Background information, time lines, and the glossary provide historical context for the years of Anne's life and are designed to place her diary within the framework of the events taking place during World War II and the Holocaust. Special details have been included to highlight the twenty-five month period during which Anne and her family hid in the Secret Annex, as well as the aftermath. The study questions for students are arranged in three parts. The first set of questions relates to facets contributing to Anne's personal identity. The second set of questions examines the relationship of Anne to the world outside the Annex. The final set of questions considers the ongoing issues that Anne raised in her diary over fifty years ago. For additional educational materials, including teacher's notes and activities, please contact the Anne Frank Center USA, 584 Broadway, Suite 408, New York, NY, 10012.


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; "> Fortier bobs and weaves between Shakespearean tragedy and popular romance for a high-flying debut in which American Julie Jacobs travels to Siena in search of her Italian heritage--and possibly an inheritance--only to discover she is descended from 14th-century Giulietta Tomei, whose love for Romeo defied their feuding families and inspired Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Julie's hunt leads her to the families' descendants, still living in Siena, still feuding, and still struggling under the curse of the friar who wished a plague on both their houses. Julie's unraveling of the past is assisted by a Felliniesque contessa and the contessa's handsome nephew, and complicated by mobsters, police, and a mysterious motorcyclist. To understand what happened centuries ago, in the previous generation, and all around her, Julie relies on relics: a painting, a journal, a dagger, a ring. Readers enjoy the additional benefit of antique texts alternating with contemporary narratives, written in the language of modern romance and enlivened by brisk storytelling. Fortier navigates around false clues and twists, resulting in a dense, heavily plotted love story that reads like a Da Vinci Code for the smart modern woman.</span></h3>

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<p class="description">Agnes Grey was published in 1847 and was the first book by Anne Bronte, the youngest of the Bronte sisters. Anne wrote this book while her sisters were working on their books. Emily Bronte is likely the best known for her book Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Bronte for the book The Professor. Agnes Grey centers on a governess who is also a rector's daughter. It follows the challenges in her life as she ends up in charge of taking care of unruly children. Agnes copes wit her challenges through her romantic relationship and appreciate for nature. Bronte spends a great deal of the book making subtle commentary on the attitudes of the upper class.</p>


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"The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan gather in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother Liam. It wasn't the drink that killed him -- although that certainly helped -- it was what happened to him as a boy in his grandmother's house, in the winter of 1968. His sister Veronica was there then, as she is now: keeping the dead man company, just for another little while." "The Gathering is a family epic, condensed and clarified through the remarkable lens of Anne Enright's unblinking eye. It is also a sexual history: tracing the line of hurt and redemption through three generations -- starting with the grandmother, Ada Merriman -- showing how memories warp and family secrets fester. This is a novel about love and disappointment, about thwarted lust and limitless desire, and how our fate is written in the body, not in the stars." "The Gathering sends fresh blood through the Irish literary tradition, combining the lyricism of the old with the shock of the new. As in all Anne Enright's work, fiction and non-fiction, this is a book of daring, wit and insight: her distinctive intelligence twisting the world a fraction, and giving it back to us in a new and unforgettable light." --Back cover.


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; ">Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum was born to Jewish parents in 1905 Russia. Ayn Rand left Russia in 1926 for America and founded her anticollectivist philosophy, Objectivism, a philosophy of free market capitalism and the pursuit of self-interest as a moral good. Depressive, pill-taking, chain-smoking and manipulative, Rand's life was defined by a longtime Sunset Boulevard–like affair with Nathaniel Branden, who went on to start the self-esteem movement. At the same time, the combustible Rand was married to a passive man with matinee-idol looks. Magazine editor and journalist Heller competently describes Rand's feuds with William F. Buckley and with her sister, who had remained in the U.S.S.R., and the more courtly relationship Rand had with publisher Bennett Cerf. This objective account of the Objectivist Rand will interest her still large and devoted readership. </span></h3>

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In this hilarious and ultimately moving memoir, comedians and real-life married couple Annabelle Gurwitch and Jeff Kahn prove that in marriage, all you need is love-and a healthy dose of complaining, codependence, and pinot noir. After thirteen years of being married, Annabelle and Jeff have found “We're just not that into us.” Instead of giving up, they've held their relationship together by ignoring conventional wisdom and fostering a lack of intimacy, by using parenting as a competitive sport, and by dropping out of couples therapy. The he-said/she-said chronicle of their intense but loving marriage includes an unsentimental account of the medical odyssey that their family embarked upon after their infant son was diagnosed with VACTERL, a very rare series of birth defects. Annabelle and Jeff's unforgivingly raw, uproariously funny story is sure to strike both laughter and terror in the hearts of all couples (not to mention every single man or woman who is contemplating the connubial state). Serving up equal parts sincerity and cynicism, You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up is a laugh-out-loud must-read for everyone who has come to realize that being “in love” can only get you so far. On Cohabitation He says: “Within days of Annabelle's arrival, I became very aware that she demanded solitude and had the housekeeping habits of a feral animal.” She says: “The guy had some sort of nudity radar. When I would take my clothes off for even a second, Jeff would be in front of me cheering as if he'd scored box seats at Fenway Park.” On Sex He says: “I want to have sex every day, but Annabelle only wants to do it once a week. So we compromise: we have sex once a week.” She says: “Jeff says talking about money before you have sex is a turnoff, but it's only a turnoff if you're talking about not having money. Talking about money before you have sex when you have money is actually a turn-on.” On Pregnancy He says: “For God's sake, all I wanted to do was have sex without a condom for a little whi≤ now we were moments from bringing a new life into the world!” She says: “My ass was expanding so fast it was like a Starbucks franchise. On every corner of my ass there was a new branch of ass opening up.”


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<p class="description">The Gulag—the vast array of Soviet concentration camps—was a system of repression and punishment whose rationalized evil and institutionalized inhumanity were rivaled only by the Holocaust.The Gulag entered the world’s historical consciousness in 1972, with the publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s epic oral history of the Soviet camps, The Gulag Archipelago. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, dozens of memoirs and new studies covering aspects of that system have been published in Russia and the West. Using these new resources as well as her own original historical research, Anne Applebaum has now undertaken, for the first time, a fully documented history of the Soviet camp system, from its origins in the Russian Revolution to its collapse in the era of glasnost. It is an epic feat of investigation and moral reckoning that places the Gulag where it belongs: at the center of our understanding of the troubled history of the twentieth century.Anne Applebaum first lays out the chronological history of the camps and the logic behind their creation, enlargement, and maintenance. The Gulag was first put in place in 1918 after the Russian Revolution. In 1929, Stalin personally decided to expand the camp system, both to use forced labor to accelerate Soviet industrialization and to exploit the natural resources of the country’s barely habitable far northern regions. By the end of the 1930s, labor camps could be found in all twelve of the Soviet Union’s time zones. The system continued to expand throughout the war years, reaching its height only in the early 1950s. From 1929 until the death of Stalin in 1953, some 18 million people passed through this massive system. Of these 18 million, it is estimated that 4.5 million never returned.But the Gulag was not just an economic institution. It also became, over time, a country within a country, almost a separate civilization, with its own laws, customs, literature, folklore, slang, and morality. Topic by topic, Anne Applebaum also examines how life was lived within this shadow country: how prisoners worked, how they ate, where they lived, how they died, how they survived. She examines their guards and their jailers, the horrors of transportation in empty cattle cars, the strange nature of Soviet arrests and trials, the impact of World War II, the relations between different national and religious groups, and the escapes, as well as the extraordinary rebellions that took place in the 1950s. She concludes by examining the disturbing question why the Gulag has remained relatively obscure, in the historical memory of both the former Soviet Union and the West.Gulag: A History will immediately be recognized as a landmark work of historical scholarship and an indelible contribution to the complex, ongoing, necessary quest for truth.</p>


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<div><p>She was the first woman to inherit the throne of England, a key player in one of Britain’s stormiest eras, and a leader whose unwavering faith and swift retribution earned her the nickname “Bloody Mary.” Now, in this impassioned and absorbing debut, historian Anna Whitelock offers a modern perspective on Mary Tudor and sets the record straight once and for all on one of history’s most compelling and maligned rulers.<br><br>Though often overshadowed by her long-reigning sister, Elizabeth I, Mary lived a life full of defiance, despair, and triumph. Born the daughter of the notorious King Henry VIII and the Spanish Katherine of Aragon, young Mary was a princess in every sense of the word—schooled in regal customs, educated by the best scholars, coveted by European royalty, and betrothed before she had reached the age of three. Yet in a decade’s time, in the wake of King Henry’s break with the pope, she was declared a bastard, disinherited, and demoted from “princess” to “lady.” Ever her deeply devout mother’s daughter, Mary refused to accept her new status or to recognize Henry’s new wife, Anne Boleyn, as queen. The fallout with her father and his counselors nearly destroyed the teenage Mary, who faced imprisonment and even death. </p><p>It would be an outright battle for Mary to work herself back into the king’s favor, claim her rightful place in the Tudor line, and ultimately become queen of England, but her coronation would not end her struggles. She flouted the opposition and married Philip of Spain, sought to restore Catholicism to the nation, and fiercely punished the resistance. But beneath her brave and regal exterior was a dependent woman prone to anxiety, whose private traumas of phantom pregnancies, debilitating illnesses, and unrequited love played out in the public glare of the fickle court. <br><br>Anna Whitelock, an acclaimed young British historian, chronicles this unique woman’s life from her beginnings as a heralded princess to her rivalry with her sister to her ascent as ruler. In brilliant detail, Whitelock reveals that Mary Tudor was not the weak-willed failure as so often rendered by traditional narratives but a complex figure of immense courage, determination, and humanity. </p></div>


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<p class="description"> In this breathtaking and beautiful novel, the #1 *New York Times* bestselling author Anna Quindlen creates an unforgettable portrait of a mother, a father, a family, and the explosive, violent consequences of what seem like inconsequential actions. Mary Beth Latham is first and foremost a mother, whose three teenaged children come first, before her career as a landscape gardener, or even her life as the wife of a doctor. Caring for her family and preserving their everyday life is paramount. And so, when one of her sons, Max, becomes depressed, Mary Beth becomes focused on him, and is blindsided by a shocking act of violence. What happens afterwards is a testament to the power of a woman’s love and determination, and to the invisible line of hope and healing that connects one human being with another. Ultimately, in the hands of Anna Quindlen’s mesmerizing prose, **Every Last One** is a novel about facing every last one of the the things we fear most, about finding ways to navigate a road we never intended to travel, to live a life we never dreamed we’d have to live but must be brave enough to try.  In this breathtaking and beautiful novel, the #1 *New York Times* bestselling author Anna Quindlen creates an unforgettable portrait of a mother, a father, a family, and the explosive, violent consequences of what seem like inconsequential actions. Mary Beth Latham is first and foremost a mother, whose three teenaged children come first, before her career as a landscape gardener, or even her life as the wife of a doctor. Caring for her family and preserving their everyday life is paramount. And so, when one of her sons, Max, becomes depressed, Mary Beth becomes focused on him, and is blindsided by a shocking act of violence. What happens afterwards is a testament to the power of a woman’s love and determination, and to the invisible line of hope and healing that connects one human being with another. Ultimately, in the hands of Anna Quindlen’s mesmerizing prose, **Every Last One** is a novel about facing every last one of the the things we fear most, about finding ways to navigate a road we never intended to travel, to live a life we never dreamed we’d have to live but must be brave enough to try.</p>


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A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR"Elaborate and playful...Honest and deeply felt....Here is the Quindlen wit, the sharp eye for the details of class and manners, [and] the ardent reading of domestic lives."THE NEW YORK TIMESIt is the 1960s, in suburban New York City. Maggie and her family, are in the thrall of her powerful grandfather Jack Scanlan. In the summer of her twelfth year, Maggie is despertately trying to master the object lessons her grandfather fills her head with. But there is too much going on to concentrate. Everything at home is in upheaval, her grandfather is changing, and Maggie is unsure if what she wants is worth having....


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<p class="description">LETTING GO FOR GOOD . . . Once, Jane Moore and Alexandra Walsh were inseparable, sharing secrets and stolen candy, plotting their futures together. But when Jane became pregnant at seventeen, they drifted slowly apart. Jane has spent the years since raising her son, now seventeen himself, on her own, running a gallery, managing her sister’s art career, and looking after their volatile mother—all the while trying not to resent the limited choices life has given her. Then a quirk of fate and a faulty elevator bring Jane into contact with Tom, Alexandra’s husband, who has some shocking news. Alexandra disappeared from a south Dublin suburb months ago, and Tom has been searching fruitlessly for her. Jane offers to help, as do the elevator’s other passengers—Jane’s brilliant but self-absorbed sister, Elle, and Leslie Sheehan, a reclusive web designer who’s ready to step back into the world again. And as Jane quickly realizes, Tom isn’t the only one among them who’s looking for something . . . or traveling toward unexpected revelations about love, life, and what it means to let go, in every sense. In this insightful and irresistible novel, by turns profound, poignant, and laugh- out-loud funny, acclaimed Irish writer Anna McPartlin tells a story of friendship and love, of the families we are born into and the ones we create for ourselves, and of the hope and strength that remain when we fi nd the courage to leave the past behind at last.</p>


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The year is 1929. New York is ruled by the Bright Young Things: flappers and socialites seeking thrills and chasing dreams in the anything-goes era of the Roaring Twenties.   Letty Larkspur and Cordelia Grey escaped their small Midwestern town for New York's glittering metropolis. All Letty wants is to see her name in lights, but she quickly discovers Manhattan is filled with pretty girls who will do anything to be a star. . . .   Cordelia is searching for the father she's never known, a man as infamous for his wild parties as he is for his shadowy schemes. Overnight, she enters a world more thrilling and glamorous than she ever could have imagined—and more dangerous. It's a life anyone would kill for . . . and someone will.   The only person Cordelia can trust is ­Astrid Donal, a flapper who seems to have it all: money, looks, and the love of Cordelia's brother, Charlie. But Astrid's perfect veneer hides a score of family secrets.   Across the vast lawns of Long Island, in the ­illicit speakeasies of Manhattan, and on the blindingly lit stages of Broadway, the three girls' fortunes will rise and fall—together and apart. From the New York Times bestselling author of The Luxe comes an epic new series set in the dizzying last summer of the Jazz Age.


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From the author of The Shoe Queen comes a jazz-age tale of love set in the world of London’s high society.London, 1927. Diamond Sharp writes a racy newspaper column, using a fake name to conceal her identity. When she meets two charismatic American men who are bitter enemies, her life is turned upside down. She is drawn to both of them but isn’t sure whom she can trust. As she becomes increasingly involved with both, Diamond begins to uncover a nest of secrets that puts both her heart and her reputation at risk.Blending the rich historical detail of Philippa Gregory’s novels with the sophisticated glamour of Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic books, The Jewel Box is romantic historical fiction at its finest.


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<div><p>Celebrity journalist Amelia Stone is the quintessential Hollywood party girl: she stays out late, rubs shoulders (and occasionally more) with celebrities, and ingests copious amounts of cocaine.</p><p>But after losing her job, her friends, and much of her mind, Amelia makes the drastic decision to end her drug abuse. Once sober, she's hired by a big-name magazine to write a column detailing her wild adventures and she starts seeing the man who could be her Mr. Right.</p><p>There's just one problem. Overnight, Amelia has become the new face of Hollywood nightlife, and her editors—who don't know she's come clean —want her to play the part. As the lure of her former fast-and-furious lifestyle begins to pull at her, she must decide whether to save herself or salvage her reputation as the ultimate party girl.</p></div>


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FROM TRUE-CRIME LEGEND ANN RULE comes this riveting story of a young woman whose life ended too soonand a determined mother's eleven-year crusade to clear her daughter's name. It was nine days before Christmas 1998, and thirty-two-year-old Ronda Reynolds was getting ready to travel from Seattle to Spokane to visit her mother and brother and grandmother before the holidays. Ronda's second marriage was dissolving after less than a year, her career as a pioneering female Washington State Trooper had ended, but she was optimistic about starting over again. "I'm actually looking forward to getting on with my life," she told her mother earlier the night before. "I just need a few days with you guys." Barb Thompson, Ronda's mother, who had met her daughter's second husband only once before, was just happy that Ronda was coming home. At 6:20 that morning, Ron Reynolds called 911 and told the dispatcher his wife was dead. She had committed suicide, he said, although he hadn't heard the gunshot and he didn't know if she had a pulse. EMTs arrived, detectives arrived, the coroner's deputy arrived, and a postmortem was conducted. Lewis County Coroner Terry Wilson, who neither visited the death scene nor attended the autopsy, declared the manner of Ronda's death as "undetermined." Over the next eleven years, Coroner Wilson would change that manner of death from "undetermined" to "suicide," back to "undetermined"and then back to "suicide" again. But Barb Thompson never for one moment believed her daughter committed suicide. Neither did Detective Jerry Berry or ballistics expert Marty Hayes or attorney Royce Ferguson or dozens of Ronda's friends. For eleven grueling years, through the ups and downs of the legal system and its endless delays, these people and others helped Barb Thompson fight to strike that painful word from her daughter's death certificate. On November 9, 2009, a precedent-setting hearing was held to determine whether Coroner Wilson's office had been derelict in its duty in investigating the death of Ronda Reynolds. Veteran true-crime writer Ann Rule was present at that hearing, hoping to unbraid the tangled strands of conflicting statements and mishandled evidence and present all sides of this haunting case and to determine, perhaps, what happened to Ronda Reynolds, in the chill still of that tragic December night.


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<p>Sabine-- twenty years a magician's assistant to her handsome, charming husband-- is suddenly a widow. In the wake of his death, she finds he has left a final trick; a false identity and a family allegedly lost in a tragic accident but now revealed as very much alive and well. Named as heirs in his will, they enter Sabine's life and set her on an adventure of unraveling his secrets, from sunny Los Angeles to the windswept plains of Nebraska, that will work its own sort of magic on her.</p><h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><em>The Magician's Assistant</em> sustains author Ann Patchett's proven penchant for crafting colorful characters and marrying the ordinary with the fantastic. When Parsifal, Sabine's husband of more than 20 years and the magician of the title, suddenly dies, she begins to discover how she's glimpsed him only through smoke and mirrors. He has managed to keep hidden the existence of a family in Nebraska--his mother, two sisters, and two nephews. Sabine approaches them hungrily, as if they are a bridge to her beloved husband and a key to the mysteries he left behind. </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>After working as his assistant for more than 20 years, Sabine marries her beloved boss, Parcifal, knowing that he's gay and has just lost his lover. What she doesn't find out until after his death from AIDS is that Parcifal was actually Guy Fettera from Alliance, Neb., and had a family he never spoke about. Karen Ziemba creates an appropriately light tone for the narrator, despite some dark events that Sabine discovers when she visits Parcifal's sweet, dysfunctional family. She crafts clear, flat Midwest accents for the magician's mother and sisters and her pace and annunciation are excellent. Ziemba's men all sound alike, but they play minimal roles. She is an experienced and professional reader with just the right stuff for Patchett's 1997 novel, which probes the complex motives of Parcifal and his assistant. A Harcourt paperback (Reviews, July 14, 1997) <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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<div><p>Ann Patchett has dazzled readers with her award-winning books, including <em>The Magician's Assistant</em> and the <em>New York Times</em> bestselling <em>Bel Canto</em>. Now she raises the bar with <em>State of Wonder</em>, a provocative and ambitious novel set deep in the Amazon jungle. </p><p>Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist with a Minnesota pharmaceutical company, is sent to Brazil to track down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have all but disappeared in the Amazon while working on what is destined to be an extremely valuable new drug, the development of which has already cost the company a fortune. Nothing about Marina's assignment is easy: not only does no one know where Dr. Swenson is, but the last person who was sent to find her, Marina's research partner Anders Eckman, died before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insect-infested jungle in hopes of finding her former mentor as well as answers to several troubling questions about her friend's death, the state of her company's future, and her own past. </p><p>Once found, Dr. Swenson, now in her seventies, is as ruthless and uncompromising as she ever was back in the days of Grand Rounds at Johns Hopkins. With a combination of science and subterfuge, she dominates her research team and the natives she is studying with the force of an imperial ruler. But while she is as threatening as anything the jungle has to offer, the greatest sacrifices to be made are the ones Dr. Swenson asks of herself, and will ultimately ask of Marina, who finds she may still be unable to live up to her teacher's expectations. </p><p>In a narrative replete with poison arrows, devouring snakes, and a neighboring tribe of cannibals, <em>State of Wonder</em> is a world unto itself, where unlikely beauty stands beside unimaginable loss. It is a tale that leads the reader into the very heart of darkness, and then shows us what lies on the other side.</p></div>


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Gracie McLaughlin is an advice columnist who finds it difficult to live by the advice she gives. Within Arm’s Reach follows three generations of the McLaughlins, an Irish Catholic family who is jarred into crisis by Gracie’s unexpected pregnancy. This lyrical first novel is told through six different points of view: the unmarried Gracie, her sister Lila, their parents, their matriarchal grandmother, and a family outsider with a curious connection. As the McLaughlins respond to the profound change in Gracie’s life, their own memories and personal stories begin to emerge. Ann Napolitano creates a family quilt of sorts, each person’s life and actions closely woven throughout the fabric of the past, present, and future. Within Arm’s Reach is a rich and deeply satisfying narrative of guilt, love, betrayal, and the ultimate loyalty—that of blood.


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<p>Rose Howard is obsessed with homonyms. She's thrilled that her own name is a homonym, and she purposely gave her dog Rain a name with two homonyms (Reign, Rein), which, according to Rose's rules of homonyms, is very special. Not everyone understands Rose's obsessions, her rules, and the other things that make her different - not her teachers, not other kids, and not her single father.</p><p>When a storm hits their rural town, rivers overflow, the roads are flooded, and Rain goes missing. Rose's father shouldn't have let Rain out. Now Rose has to find her dog, even if it means leaving her routines and safe places to search. <br />Hearts will break and spirits will soar for this powerful story, brilliantly told from Rose's point of view.</p><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Gr 4–6—Rose is different from the other children in her class in many ways. She struggles to control the obsessions and outbursts that are symptomatic of her high-functioning autism. She is fascinated by homophones, or homonyms, as most people know them, and prime numbers. Rose uses patterns and habits to gain some control over her days. Her mother left when Rose was two, so she lives with her father, and is also cared for by her Uncle Weldon, who lives nearby, and who often shows Rose the most understanding and compassion. When her father brings home a lost dog, Rose names her Rain, since she was found in the rain, and "rain" is a homonym (with "reign"). During a superstorm, her father lets Rain out, and Rose's beloved companion is lost. Rose and her uncle finally find Rain after a long and difficult search, but they learn that Rain is actually Olivia, the pet of a family who lost everything in the storm. Told through Rose's voice, the story gives readers the perspective of someone who sees life in black-and-white, and who struggles when rules are broken, or routines are changed. The characters around Rose develop incrementally as readers witness their reactions to her obsessions and her struggles. Though Rose's story is often heartbreaking, her matter-of-fact narration provides moments of humor. Readers will empathize with Rose, who finds strength and empowerment through her unique way of looking at the world. A first purchase.—MaryAnn Karre, West Middle School, Binghamton, NY </p><h3>Review</h3><p>Rose is a character we root for every step of the way. She is resilient, honest, and, in her own odd way, very perceptive; a most reliable narrator. (<em>The Horn Book, starred review</em>)  </p><p>Though Rose's story is often heartbreaking, her matter-of-fact narration provides moments of humor. Readers will empathize with Rose, who finds strength and empowerment through her unique way of looking at the world. (<em>School Library Journal, starred review</em>)  </p><p>Simplicity, clarity, and emotional resonance are hallmarks of Rose's first-person narrative, which offers an unflinching view of her world from her perspective . . . A strong story told in a nuanced, highly accessible way. (<em>Booklist, starred review</em>)  </p><p>Martin has penned a riveting, seamless narrative in which each word sings and each scene counts. (<em>Kirkus Reviews, starred review</em>)  </p><p>Newbery Honor author Martin (<em>A Corner of the Universe</em>) is extremely successful in capturing Rose's perspective and personality... (<em>Publishers Weekly, starred review</em>) </p>


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<div><p>Journeying to Smuttynose Island, off the coast of New Hampshire, to shoot a photo essay about a century-old double murder, a photographer becomes absorbed by the crime and increasingly obsessed with jealousy over the idea that her husband is having an affair.</p></div>


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<p class="description">From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and The Last Summer (of You and Me) comes an imaginative, inspired, magical book-a love story that lasts more than a lifetime.   Daniel has spent centuries falling in love with the same girl. Life after life, crossing continents and dynasties, he and Sophia (despite her changing name and form) have been drawn together-and he remembers it all. Daniel has "the memory", the ability to recall past lives and recognize souls of those he's previously known. It is a gift and a curse. For all the times that he and Sophia have been drawn together throughout history, they have also been torn painfully, fatally, apart. A love always too short.  Interwoven through Sophia and Daniel's unfolding present day relationship are glimpses of their expansive history together. From 552 Asia Minor to 1918 England and 1972 Virginia, the two souls share a long and sometimes torturous path of seeking each other time and time again. But just when young Sophia (now "Lucy" in the present) finally begins to awaken to the secret of their shared past, to understand the true reason for the strength of their attraction, the mysterious force that has always torn them apart reappears. Ultimately, they must come to understand what stands in the way of their love if they are ever to spend a lifetime together.  A magical, suspenseful, heartbreaking story of true love, My Name is Memory proves the power and endurance of a union that was meant to be.</p>


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<div><p>A rookie paramedic pulls a young woman alive from her totaled car, a first rescue that begins a lifelong tangle of love and wreckage. Sheila Arsenault is a gorgeous enigmastreetwise and tough-talking, with haunted eyes, fierce desires, and a never-look-back determination. Peter Webster, as straight an arrow as they come, falls for her instantly and entirely. Soon Sheila and Peter are embroiled in an intense love affair, married, and parents to a baby daughter. Like the crash that brought them together, it all happened so fast. </p><p>Can you ever really save another person? Eighteen years later, Sheila is long gone and Peter is raising their daughter, Rowan, alone. But Rowan is veering dangerously off track, and for the first time in their ordered existence together, Webster fears for her future. His work shows him daily every danger the world contains, how wrong everything can go in a second. All the love a father can give a daughter is suddenly not enough. </p><p>Sheila's sudden return may be a godsendor it may be exactly the wrong moment for a lifetime of questions and anger and longing to surface anew. What tore a young family apart? Is there even worse damage ahead? The questions lifted up in Anita Shreve's utterly enthralling new novel are deep and lasting, and this is a novel that could only have been written by a master of the human heart. </p></div>


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Newlyweds Margaret and Patrick set off on a great adventure -- a year living in Kenya in a dizzying and sometimes dangerous city. Shuttling between expat suburbs and squalid shantytowns, Margaret realizes there is a great deal she doesn't know about the complex culture of her new home, and about her husband. The newlyweds eagerly take part in a climbing expedition to the summit of Mount Kenya. But during their arduous ascent a horrific accident occurs. In its aftermath, Margaret struggles to understand what happened on the mountain and how it has transformed her and her marriage, perhaps for ever.When small actions have unintended, catastrophic consequences, where does responsibility lie, and can blame ever truly be laid to rest? With stunning language and striking emotional intensity, A Change in Altitude illuminates the inner landscape of a couple, the irrevocable impact of tragedy and the elusive nature of forgiveness.


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<p class="description">As she has done in her novels Eden Close, Strange Fits of Passion, and Where or When, Anita Shreve once again leads readers into a harrowing world where lives are catastrophically overturned by emotion. Set in a Belgian village amid the wreckage of World War II, Resistance is a powerful exploration of passion, self-discovery, and sacrifice from one of our most accomplished storytellers. Just as the Nazi occupation forces have drained her village of coffee, meat, and chocolate, the war has also depleted whatever joy there may have been in Claire Daussois's marriage. On their small farm in the south of Belgium, Claire and her husband, Henri, shelter refugees - Jews, Allied pilots, and fleeing Belgian soldiers - before passing them along toward France and freedom. Claire nurses the wounded, acts as interpreter, and waits for the war to end - and, in a way she finds difficult to admit even to herself, for her own life to change. And it does, when an American B-17 bomber is downed near their village. The pilot, badly injured, is found by a young boy who turns to Claire for help in saving him. Henri is away on Resistance work. As the pilot heals and recovers in her attic hiding place, Claire begins to awaken to the possibility of love. Over the course of a mere twenty days, closed off from the world and the war in her farmhouse, Claire and Lieutenant Ted Brice experience a life-changing passion that neither has felt before. That their love is also haunted and impossible only makes it more precious. The war recedes in the face of their joy - before imposing itself once more with shocking suddenness and inconceivable horror. Resistance is the story of a young Belgian woman, an American pilot, and the small war-torn village that shelters them. Richly peopled and fearlessly, gorgeously passionate, it is a powerful exploration of emotion at odds with commitment. No reader who has loved - or resisted love - will forget this lucid and moving tale.</p>


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A New York Times Bestseller A decade after the publication of this hugely popular international bestseller, Picador releases the tenth anniversary edition of The Red Tent. Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis that tell of her father, Jacob, and his twelve sons. Told in Dinah's voice, Anita Diamant imagines the traditions and turmoils of ancient womanhood--the world of the red tent. It begins with the story of the mothers--Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah--the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that sustain her through childhood, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land. Dinah's story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates an intimate connection with the past. Deeply affecting, The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable achievement in modern fiction: a new view of biblical women's lives.


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<p>From the <em>New York Times</em> bestselling author of <em>The Red Tent </em>and<em> Day After Night</em>, comes an unforgettable novel about family ties and values, friendship and feminism told through the eyes of a young Jewish woman growing up in Boston in the early twentieth century.  </p><p>Addie Baum is The Boston Girl, born in 1900 to immigrant parents who were unprepared for and suspicious of America and its effect on their three daughters. Growing up in the North End, then a teeming multicultural neighborhood, Addie’s intelligence and curiosity take her to a world her parents can’t imagine—a world of short skirts, movies, celebrity culture, and new opportunities for women. Addie wants to finish high school and dreams of going to college. She wants a career and to find true love.  </p><p>Eighty-five-year-old Addie tells the story of her life to her twenty-two-year-old granddaughter, who has asked her “How did you get to be the woman you are today.” She begins in 1915, the year she found her voice and made friends who would help shape the course of her life. From the one-room tenement apartment she shared with her parents and two sisters, to the library group for girls she joins at a neighborhood settlement house, to her first, disastrous love affair, Addie recalls her adventures with compassion for the naïve girl she was and a wicked sense of humor.  </p><p>Written with the same attention to historical detail and emotional resonance that made Anita Diamant’s previous novels bestsellers, <em>The</em> <em>Boston Girl</em> is a moving portrait of one woman’s complicated life in twentieth century America, and a fascinating look at a generation of women finding their places in a changing world.</p><p>**</p>


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<p>When he's caught stealing, young Alan Dale is forced to leave his family and go to live with a notorious band of outlaws in Sherwood Forest. Their leader is the infamous Robin Hood. A tough, bloodthirsty warrior, Robin is more feared than any man in the county. And he becomes a mentor for Alan; with his fellow outlaws, Robin teaches Alan how to fight - and how to win. But Robin is a ruthless man - and although he is Alan's protector, if Alan displeases him, he could also just as easily become his murderer...From bloody battles to riotous feast days to marauding packs of wolves, Outlaw is a gripping, action-packed historical thriller that delves deep into the fascinating legend of Robin Hood.</p>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'MS Shell Dlg 2'; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; "><p>In 1192 A.D., with the Third Crusade over, Richard the Lionheart is headed back home to England, only to be betrayed, captured, and held for ransom.  Now with the princes of Europe lining up against him, the fate of the greatest warrior in Christendom lies in the hands of a renegade earl and former outlaw:  Robin Hood.</p><p>The mission is deadly and the enemies are powerful and numerous.  But for king and country, Robin and his loyal lieutenant Alan Dale will face great risks—from battles on blood-soaked fields to deadly assassins—in a heroic bid to restore the Lionheart to his rightful throne.</p><p>A brilliant novel of the dark ages, one that brings some of the best-known figures in history to wondrous, vivid life.</p></span></h3></div>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; ">King Richard the Lionheart has been crowned, and his loyal subject Robin Hood is preparing an army to take on the Third Crusade with Richard's forces to free the Holy Land from the grip of Saladin and his victorious Saracen army.In Sicily, en route to the Holy Land, the crusaders sack the town of Messina and Alan rescues and then falls in love with a beautiful Muslim slave-girl. But someone is trying to assassinate Robin - possibly the duo's old enemy Sir Richard Malbisse, who joins King Richard's army in Sicily and very soon has the royal ear as a favoured courtier.As Alan and Robin fight their way through the conquest of Cyprus, the siege of Acre and the climatic carnage of the battle of Arsuf near modern-day Tel Aviv, Alan discovers that Robin's motive for coming to the Holy Land is not as honourable as he had imagined.</span></h3></div>


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<p>Newly anointed with demon-fighting powers and suddenly able to hear the thoughts of her hilarious Jack Russell terrier, a preschool teacher finds a whole new world of dark and dangerous, including a sexy shape-shifting griffin she's not entirely sure she can trust. </p>


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<p class="description">Ferocious fantasy from a real-life hardman come to claim the post-Gemmell world. THEY CAME FROM THE NORTH AND THE CITY FELL. It is a time for warriors, a time for heroes. Kell's axe howls out for blood. The land of Falanor has been invaded by an albino army, the Army of Iron. A small group set off to warn the king: Kell, a magnificent and brutal hero; his granddaughter, Nienna and her friend, Katrina; and Saark, the ex-Sword Champion of King Leanoric, disgraced after his affair with the Queen. Fighting their way south, betrayal follows battle, battle follows deviation, and they are attacked from all quarters by deadly warriors, monstrous harvesters who drain blood from their victims to feed their masters. As Falanor comes under heavy attack and invasion, only then does Nienna begin to learn the truth about grandfather Kell -- that he is anything but a hero. Ferocious fantasy from a real-life hardman come to claim the post-Gemmell world. File Under: Epic Fantasy [ A City Besieged | A Dangerous Hero | Bloodsucking Hordes | Sweeping Battles ]</p>


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<div><p class="description">Edited with an Introduction by Pat Hackett</p><p class="description">Cruel, sexy and sometimes heartbreaking . . . Warhol is no neutral observer, but a character in his own right'NewsweekAndy Warhol kept these diaries faithfully from November 1976 right up to his final week, in February 1987. Written at the height of his fame and success, Warhol records the fun of an Academy Awards party, nights out at Studio 54, trips between London, Paris and New York, and surprisingly even the money he spent each day, down to the cent. With appearances from and references to everyone who was anyone, from Jim Morrison, Martina Navratilova and Calvin Klein to Shirley Bassey, Estee Lauder and Muhammad Ali, these diaries are the most glamorous, witty and revealing writings of the twentieth century.</p></div>


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<div><p><strong>Bring these four authors together and it's sure to ignite a spark... </strong></p><p><strong>Angela Knight</strong> pairs a vampire warrior and his seductive captor in a battle against demonic predators. </p><p><strong>Nalini Singh</strong> returns to the world of her Psy-Changeling series as a woman in lethal danger finds an unlikely protector-and lover. </p><p><strong>Virginia Kantra</strong> continues the haunting tales of the Children of the Sea in her story of a wounded soldier rescued by an enigmatic young woman. </p><p><strong>Meljean Brook</strong> launches a bold new steampunk series about a woman who strikes a provocative-and terrifying-bargain for freedom.</p></div>


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Sometimes the toughest battle you fight is with yourself...Two tours of Iraq under his belt, Sergeant Dave Henley has seen something of how modern battles are fought. But nothing can prepare him for the posting to Forward Operating Base Senzhiri, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. This is a warzone like even hes never seen before.Hes in charge of 1 Platoon, a ragbag collection of rookies who he must meld into a fighting force, and fast. The Afghanistan conflict is as harsh and unforgiving as the country itself. Their convoy is ambushed before they even reach the FOB, and two of his men are grievously wounded, one scorched beyond recognition, the other left with only one leg.Back at home, the families of the men and women at the front wait anxiously for news. Daves wife, Jenny, seven months pregnant, must try to hold together the fragile lives of those they left behind, all of whom remain in constant dread of the knock on the door and the visit from the Families Officer, whose job it is to deliver the bad newsWar Torn traces the interwoven stories of one platoons experience of warfare in the Twenty First Century. Packed with the searing danger and high-octane excitement of modern combat, it also explores the impact of its aftershocks upon the soldiers themselves, and upon those who love them. It will take you straight into the heat of battle and the hearts of those who are burned by it.


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For three days in January 2007, the most e-mailed article in The New York Times was "Appreciations: Mr. Noodle," an editorial noting the passing, at age ninety-six, of billionaire Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant ramen. The very existence of the noodle inventor came as a shock to many, but not to Andy Raskin, who had spent nearly three years trying to meet Ando. Why?To fix the problems that plagued his love life.The Ramen King and I is Raskin's memoir about how despair - and a series of bizarre adventures at Japanese restaurants - led him to confront the truth of his romantic past, and how Ando became his unlikely spiritual guide. Through letters ostensibly penned to the culinary sage, Raskin reveals a relationship history riddled with infidelity, jealousy, and betrayal. After devouring Ando's essays (with titles such as "Peace Follows from a Full Stomach" and "Mankind Is Noodlekind"), he sets out to meet the food pioneer - and to discover the secret to a committed relationship.Raskin's quest takes him to some unexpected places - from the Wharton School and Kmart headquarters, to the Instant Ramen Invention Museum and a Milky Way-themed funeral. Along the way, he's spurred on by a stubborn sushi chef, a canceled Japanese TV show, and the writing of Haruki Murakami. Ultimately, Raskin discovers he's been suffering from what Ando identified - just prior to inventing instant ramen - as the Fundamental Misunderstanding of Humanity.


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In 1983 Andy McNab was assigned to B Squadron, one of the four Sabre Squadrons of the SAS, and within it to Air Troop, otherwise known as SEVEN TROOP. This is Andy McNab's gripping account of the time he served in the company of a remarkable group of men - from the day, freshly badged, he joined them in the Malayan jungle, to the day, ten years later, that he handed in his sand-coloured beret and started a new life. The links they forged then bound them inextricably together, but the things they saw and did during that time would take them all to breaking point - and some beyond - in the years that were to follow. He who dares doesn't always win . . . From the Trade Paperback edition.


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Kevin Dodds leads a dull uneventfull life. He has a steady job at the bank, a nice house and car. His wife goes to Bingo on a Saturday night, but he usually stays in to save money.But one Saturday night Kevin decides he's like a night out himself. And he's not talking about a pint and a packet of peanuts down at the local. He's going to attempt to pull off one of the biggest bank robberies in history.The priceless "Augusta' necklace is being held in the safe of the bank where Kevin works. Kevin is about to take a heart-thumping step into the unknown. For once, he's going to stop being the grey man . . . .


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The biggest military author introduces real-life voices from the battlefields of Afghanistan. Spoken from the Front is the story of the Afghan Campaign, told for the first time in the words of the servicemen and women who have been fighting there. With unprecedented access to soldiers of all ranks, as well as pilots, reservists, engineers, medics, Royal Military police, mechanics, cooks and other military personnel, Andy McNab has assembled a portrait of modern conflict like never before. This is the full experience of British troops on the ground and in the air. The horrors, cruelties, drudgery, excitement and banter of these soldiers' lives combine to form a chronological narrative of all the major events in Helmand during the British Army's time there. From their action-packed, dramatic, moving and often humorous testimonies in interviews, diaries, letters and emails written to family, friends and loved ones, merges a 360-degree picture of guerrilla warfare up close and extremely personal. It is as close to the real thing as you can get.


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Few writers know the intricate landscape of special operations like Andy McNab. A member of the crack elite force the Special Air Service for seventeen years, McNab saw duty all over the world--and was the British Army's most highly decorated serving soldier when he resigned in 1993. Now, in Remote Control, his explosive fiction debut, McNab has drawn on his personal experience and unique knowledge to create a thriller of gripping authenticity, high-stakes intrigue, and unstoppable action. After his mission is suddenly terminated in Washington, D.C., British Intelligence agent Nick Stone decides to visit an old colleague, Kev Brown. But when Stone arrives at his friend's eerily quiet suburban home, he discovers a chilling scene of carnage. Every member of the Brown family has been brutally slaughtered except one: seven-year-old Kelly Brown. His instincts on red alert and adrenaline in overdrive, Stone grabs the girl and runs--with anonymous assassins in hot pursuit. But whom do they wish to silence: Stone, the innocent child, or both? During a heart-pounding chase that takes the resourceful, sometimes ruthless seasoned pro and his frightened young charge from Washington to Florida, and across the Atlantic to England, Stone begins to piece together a shocking global conspiracy. Thrust into a lethal game of cat-and-mouse, Stone is certain of two things: He and Kelly are on their own. No one can be trusted. And his darkest fears about the shadowy link between politics, money, and terrorism are about to be realized. Combining relentless action, daring escapes, and breathless plotting with chillingly authentic operational detail rarely seen in thrillers, Remote Control is a novel so real and so suspenseful it sets a new standard for the genre.


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A series of high-profile suicide bombings are devastating London and frustrating British Intelligence. But that doesn’t matter to seventeen-year-old Danny Watts and his former SAS hero grandfather, Fergus, who are living undercover in southern Spain, knowing that the slightest slip could expose their whereabouts to the ruthless killers on their trail. All too soon, Danny and Fergus have their cover blown and are on the run again, with their enemies closing in fast. Suddenly, Danny and Fergus are forced to return to London and clear the family name. But once back in the UK, it appears that Danny is somehow connected to the bombings, and now they both must struggle to bring the truth to light before it’s too late for payback.


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The final installment of the Watts family adventures is the most action-packed yet! Once again, Danny Watts and his grandfather Fergus are on the run. But when Dudley, a top MI5 agent, tracks them down for help with a new mission, they finally have the chance to clear their names once and for all. Danny and Fergus must find the makers of a dangerous new drug called Meltdown and destroy it before it can enter the mainstream, or even worse, fall into the hands of a radical terrorist group. But in order to do this, they must infiltrate the drug production network and once again get behind enemy lines, even fighting alongside their nemesis, Special Agent Deveraux. After all that they have been through, will Danny and Fergus finally be able to stop running? Filled with all the action, excitement and SAS special operations techniques that have kept this series on the UK bestseller lists, Meltdown completes the Watts saga in grand fashion.


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CONTENTS: November 2001. A Zodiac inflatable slips away from a submarine off the North African coast. If he hadn't needed American citizenship so badly, Nick Stone wouldn't have agreed to do this one last job, but the CIA's offer of a new life in the United States, and the chance to share it with Carrie, the woman he's fallen in love with, is one he cannot refuse. The job seems simple enough for a man of his particular skills: infiltrate into the hostile and violent republic of Algeria, kill a money-laundering local businessman, and bring back his severed head to the West. Stone isn't told why the man has to die like this, and he doesn't want to know. He just guesses it's got something to do with the democratic world's fightback after the terrible events of 11 September. But as events unfold alarmingly fast, Stone realizes that by no means has he been told the full story - and that in reality the job has only just begun. Then comes the devastating news that Carrie, enraged by his broken promise never to work with the CIA again, has turned her back on him for ever. Operating in the dangerous underworld of the south of France, where al-Qaeda has embarked on a panicked round-up of funds using the ancient banking system of hawalla, Stone is in at the deep end of a very dirty war. In the most daunting mission he has ever undertaken, as one bloody twist leads to another, Stone ultimately finds himself confronted by the most desperate dilemma a man could ever face.


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A new Quick Read title from the author ofBravo Two Zero. Afghanistan, 2009. A Rifle section is halfway through their six-month tour of duty in Helmand Province. Sixteen men from their Battalion have already been killed. Forty-seven others have been wounded and flown back home. The last three months have been tough and it shows. Their kit is in a bad way. They are in a bad way. Young men with tans, scruffy beards, peeling noses and lips burnt raw by the Afghan sun. Despite the hardships they are enjoying their time out here learning how to fight the Taliban. The lads are on their way to becoming the best soldiers in the Army. Last Night Another Soldier... is the story of four of the young men in this Rifle section, partly told from the point of view of eighteen-year-old squaddie, David 'Briggsy' Briggs.


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Aborting an officially-sanctioned assassination attempt at the Houses of Parliament when he realises who the target is, Secret Intelligence Service 'deniable operator' Nick Stone is given a chilling ultimatum by his bosses: fly to Panama and complete the task, or he and Kelly, the 11-year-old girl in his guardianship, will be killed. In Central America, Stone prepares for his mission. But he has made powerful enemies, and as the hunter turns into the hunted, Nick gradually uncovers a far-reaching conspiracy involving Colombian rebels, the US government, and Chinese big business. In an explosive denouement at the Panama Canal, with everyone's true colours ultimately revealed, Nick Stone faces the toughest decision of his life.


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He is one of the most highly decorated soldiers alive.  He is also the first to break the code of silence about the most elite fighting force in the world. What Andy McNab has to say is so explosive that the British government tried to stop him.A street fighter, a hard case, and a flawless soldier, Andy McNab became one of the elite fighting men in "the Regiment"--Britain's covert SAS.   His actions behind the lines in the Gulf War made him a hero.   But the full story of his life and his amazing career in Special Forces has remained a secret...until now.In harrowing detail, McNab takes us inside the Regiment, chronicling nine years of covert operations on five continents.   Plunging us into a world of surveillance, counterintelligence, and hostage rescue, he takes us behind the scenes on some of their top secret missions.   For the first time, he reveals the shocking details of their training--physically severe, mentally grueling, and sometimes deadly.   And he dares to expose some of their highly confidential codes and rules--including the one that sanctions murder.This is the story of the fighting men of the SAS.  Here is how they live.   And here is how they die...


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The breathtaking new Nick Stone thriller from the bestselling author ofBravo Two Zero. Three tons of Saddam Hussein's gold sit in an unguarded warehouse in Dubai. For two of Nick Stone's closest ex-SAS comrades, it was to have been the perfect, victimless crime. But when they're double-crossed and the robbery goes devastatingly wrong, only Stone can identify his friends' killer and track him down. As one harrowing piece of the complex and sinister jigsaw slots into another, Stone's quest for vengeance becomes a journey to the heart of a chilling conspiracy. Ticking like a time-bomb, brimming with terror and threat, Andy McNab's latest Nick Stone adventure is a high-voltage story of corruption, cover-up and blistering suspense - the master thriller writer at his electrifying, unputdownable best.


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Ethan Blake is seventeen and desperate to escape from his dead-end life. When he sees someone B.A.S.E. jump from the top of his block of flats, it changes the way he sees the world for ever. Soon, Ethan is caught up in the adrenaline-fuelled world of skydiving. He's a natural, so it's no surprise when he's invited to join an elite skydive team, but is he signing up for more than just jumping out of planes? The team's involved in covert military operations - missions that require a special kind of guts, missions so secret even MI5 denies all knowledge.


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When maverick agent Nick Stone is despatched to Malaysia by the CIA to assassinate a shadowy biochemist, he expects his mission to be a straightforward part of the fight against Osama Bin Laden's network of terror. But there are complications not least the attractive woman who he is working alongside. Target neutralized, Stone returns to the USA and a maelstrom of personal problems. Kelly, the fourteen-year-old orphan to whom he is joint guardian, cannot escape the ghosts of her traumatic past; she has a prescription drug habit that's spiralling out of control, and Stone knows he is the only one who can help her. He takes her to recuperate in England, but the terrible consequences of what happened in Penang are never far behind. Before very long, the conspiracy he has uncovered unravels to reveal a doomsday threat against the populations of New York, London and Berlin. And Stone finds himself facing the ultimate trade-off: the life of someone he loves, against those of millions he doesn't even know...


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My head was forced under and I swallowed a mouthful of freezing river. I kicked back to the surface, forcing myself to breathe in through my nose, only to choke as I inhaled yet more water. I let go of her. We each had to fight our own battle now. She looked at me, her eyes the size of saucers as she realized what I had done. That wasn't my problem; it would only become one if I couldn't get her body out of the water and they found out who she was.Nick Stone, ex-SAS, now a 'K' working for British Intelligence on deniable operations, is tough, resourceful, ruthless, highly trained - a master of his trade.Sarah is beautiful, steel willed, intelligent, cunning - the only woman that Stone has ever let under his guard. And now he's been sent to hunt her down ... As the pair are pursued through the backwoods of the American South, Stone's mission becomes a journey to the heart of a dark and deadly conspiracy to which only Sarah holds the key. And as the tension builds to breaking point, the two are led to a confrontation that echoes our worst nightmares.


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In January 1991, eight members of the SAS regiment embarked upon a secret mission that was to infiltrate them deep behind enemy lines. Under the command of Seargent Andy McNab, they were to sever the underground communication link between Baghdad and north-east Iraq, and to seek and destroy mobile Scud launchers. Their call sign: BRAVO TWO-ZEROBravo Two-Zero is a breathtaking account of Sepcial Forces soldiering: a chronicle of superhuman courage, endurance and dark humour in the face of overwhelming odds. Believed to be the most highly decorated patrol since the Boer War, Bravo Two-Zero is already part of SAS legend


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Danny Watts grandfather, Fergus, was a traitor. One of the worst sort. An SAS explosives expert who betrayed his country and his regiment for money. Drug money. He was arrested and left to rot and die in a Columbian jail. At least, thats what seventeen year-old Danny is told when his hopes of becoming a soldier are destroyed forever. But he knows something the Army doesnt seem to know. Fergus Watts is alive and in the UK, living in secret under an assumed name - but where? Fergus is Dannys only living relative. Burning with fury and desire for revenge, Danny sets out to track down his grandfather and expose him. In doing so he sets in train an explosive sequence of events which throw Danny and Fergus together on the run from the people who want Fergus, and now Danny, dead. Packed with breathtaking action, SAS procedures, surveillance and survival techniques, this is a fast-moving, action-packed thriller for teenagers. There will be four books in the BOY SOLIDER sequence. TV rights have been sold to Zenith, makers of Inspector Morse, Hamish McBeth and Byker Grove.


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Nick Stone's eleventh adventure is McNab at his explosive best! A cargo ship is apprehended by the authorities off the coast of Spain, loaded to the gunwales with enough arms and ammunition to start a war... Twenty years later, an unknown aggressor seems intent on eradicating those responsible for the treachery, one by one. And Nick Stone ex-SAS, tough, resourceful, ruthless, highly trained is next on the killer's list... The fuse is lit... and Stone is catapulted into his most daunting mission yet a quest that takes him across two continents, and into the darker recesses of his own complex past. But first he must find a man who shared that past, and who may know more about the present threat than he is prepared to reveal. As the two find themselves pursued across sea and desert, they become ever more enmeshed in a deadly network of betrayal, to which Stone himself unwittingly holds the key. And in a final confrontation that echoes his worst nightmares, only he can stop the unthinkable and save the lives of those he holds most dear. From the Trade Paperback edition.


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Having proved his grandfather Fergus’ innocence, Danny Watts and his friend Elena have now been recruited by the British government for a dangerous assignment. Elena must impersonate a would-be suicide bomber to win the confidence of Black Star, the master computer hacker who is behind the rash of teenage bombings that have swept the globe. When Black Star sends Elena to New York, Danny and Fergus come along to keep an eye on her. But Fergus knows that once this mission is over, the government will have them all eliminated. As Elena begins to fall under Black Star’s spell, it will take all of Danny’s survival training to find a way out. Having scored smash bestsellers in Britain with Traitor and Payback, the adventure continues in Avenger with all the authentic Special Ops details that made the previous books stand out.


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<p class="description">The stunning new thriller from the master of the genre. Nick Stone seems to be living his dream, not a care in the world as he steers his camper van round the surfing and parachuting centres of Australia, a board on the roof, freefall rig behind him, and a beautiful young backpacker at his side. But when he witnesses on TV the massacre of children in a terrorist siege on the other side of the world, long-suppressed memories are triggered and Nick finds himself catapulted once more into working for the American secret services only this time, of his own free will. As events unfold in the bleak, medieval villages of Azerbajhan, and the teeming streets of modern Istanbul, it isn't long before Nick discovers the true objective of the mission on which he has embarked. His talents are being misused by those who stalk the corridors of power, and he is determined to make a stand. Hurtled at breakneck pace through a deadly landscape of greed, violence and ever-shifting allegiances, the reader will be left in no doubt that McNab is the master of the genre andAggressoris McNab at his searing, blockbusting best. </p>


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<hr /><p><strong>A year in the whirlwind life of the beloved pop icon Andy Cohen, in his own cheeky, candid, and irreverent words</strong><br />As a TV Producer and host of the smash late night show <em>Watch What Happens Live</em>, Andy Cohen has a front row seat to an exciting world not many get to see. In this dishy, detailed diary of one year in his life, Andy goes out on the town, drops names, hosts a ton of shows, becomes codependent with <em>Real Housewives</em>, makes trouble, calls his mom, drops some more names, and, while searching for love, finds it with a dog. We learn everything from which celebrity peed in her WWHL dressing room to which Housewives are causing trouble and how. Nothing is off limits - including dating. We see Andy at home and with close friends and family (including his beloved and unforgettable mom). Throughout, Andy tells us not only what goes down, but exactly what he thinks about it. Inspired by the diaries of another celebrity-obsessed Andy (Warhol), this honest, irreverent, and laugh-out-loud funny book is a one-of-a-kind account of the whos and whats of pop culture in the 21st century.</p><p>**</p>


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<p class="description">Separate from the government; outside the police, beyond the United Nations; Torchwood sets its own rules. A team of investigators, using alien technology to solve crime - both alien and human. This new British sci-fi crime thriller, created by Russell T. Davies, sees them delve into the unknown. A group of people fighting the impossible. The series stars Captain Jack Harkness, last seen in Doctor Who. This novel is a brand-new Torchwood story.</p>


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In his most original and compelling book yet, Andrew Vachss presents an electrifying tale of corruption in a devastated mill town.  It is 1959--a moment in history when the clandestine, powerful forces that will shape America to the present day are about to collide.Walker Dett is a hired gun, known for using the most extreme measures to accomplish his missions. Royal Beaumont is the "hillbilly boss" who turned Locke City from a dying town into a thriving vice capital. But organized crime outsiders are moving in on Beaumont's turf, so he reaches out for Dett in a high-risk move to maintain his power at all costs. Add a rival Irish political machine, a deeply entrenched neo-Nazi "party", the nascent black power movement, turf-disputing juvenile gangs, a muck-raking journalist who doubles as a blackmailer, the FBI--a covert observer and occasional participant which may itself be under surveillance-- and Locke City is about as stable as a nitroglycerin truck stalled on the railroad tracks.


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Andrew Vachss returns with a mesmerizing novel about a hard-core thief who’s about to embark on a job that will alter his life forever.  Sugar is that rarest of commodities: an old-school professional thief, as tough and loyal as a pit bull, packing 255 pounds of muscle. When he’s picked out of a photo array in a vicious rape case, the cops find his apartment empty. A stakeout catches Sugar when he returns . . . carrying a loaded pistol. The sex-crime cops get nothing from their interrogation, but a streetwise detective figures out why Sugar offers no alibi: at the time of the rape, a holiday-weekend break-in job was being pulled at a jewelry store. The DA offers Sugar two options: give up his partners in the jewelry heist and walk, or plead to the rape he didn’t commit—and he’ll toss in the gun charge. For Sugar, that’s not two options; he takes the weight.  When Sugar finishes his time, his money is waiting for him, held by Solly, the mastermind behind the jewelry heist. But Solly tells Sugar that one of the heist crew was actually sent by another planner—and that planner has just died. In Sugar’s world, all loose threads must be cut. He suspects that there’s more to this job than what Solly is telling him. But nothing he suspects or imagines can prepare him for what he finds . . .


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<div><p>Here is the first panoptic history of the long struggle between the Christian West and Islam.<br></p><p>In this dazzlingly written, acutely nuanced account, Andrew Wheatcroft tracks a deep fault line of animosity between civilizations. He begins with a stunning account of the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, then turns to the main zones of conflict: Spain, from which the descendants of the Moors were eventually expelled; the Middle East, where Crusaders and Muslims clashed for years; and the Balkans, where distant memories spurred atrocities even into the twentieth century. Throughout, Wheatcroft delves beneath stereotypes, looking incisively at how images, ideas, language, and technology (from the printing press to the Internet), as well as politics, religion, and conquest, have allowed each side to demonize the other, revive old grievances, and fuel across centuries a seemingly unquenchable enmity. Finally, Wheatcroft tells how this fraught history led to our present maelstrom. We cannot, he argues, come to terms with today's perplexing animosities without confronting this dark past.</p></div>


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<p class="description">A smart, entertaining, and eye-opening look at the science of love. Relationships should be so simple. You meet someone. You fall in love. If all goes well, that person falls in love with you. You live happily every after. As Andrew Trees reveals in Decoding Love, this “romantic storyline” has shaped our thinking about relationships for centuries. But the fairy tale is deeply flawed. Researchers today are making shocking discoveries about how and why we choose the people we love. Drawing from the latest studies in economics, brain science, game theory, evolutionary psychology, and other fields, Decoding Love takes on a topic we all think we understand—how we fall in love—and illustrates that most of our assumptions are wrong. Along the way, Andrew Trees offers surprising new insights into the nature of attraction and desire as well as an intimate look at the strange intersection of romance and the modern world of dating. Throughout, Decoding Love reveals the frequently bizarre scientific findings about human attraction from the powerful influence of smell to a mathematical theory that one must date twelve people before happening upon Mr. or Ms. Right. Everything from a genetic marker for infidelity to the way the pill can sway a woman’s choice of her partner is explored in this astonishing and thoroughly amusing account of what goes into determining why one person falls in love with another. Page-turning, thought-provoking, and sparkling with wit, Decoding Love is an uncommon look at that most common of human pursuits: falling in love.</p>


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This fascinating book explores British imperial unity at the outbreak of the Second World War and how this ultimately led to its own dissolution in post-war years. In September 1939, four of the five dominions took the decision to support Neville Chamberlain's London-based government and declare war on Nazi Germany. This was to be the last great outpouring of British imperial unity. Entering the fray as 'self-autonomous' they finished it as fledgling states whose long-held political, military, economic and cultural ties with the Mother Country were now uncertain. The Second World War brought military triumphs and catastrophes for the Imperial Coalition. More importantly, it also brought political awareness and a weakening of central power. The war that defeated the Nazi Reich also helped destroy the historically accepted unity of the British Empire.Using government records, private letters and diaries and contemporary media sources, this book examines the key themes affecting the relationship between Britain and the Dominions during the Second World War, the Empire's last great conflict. It asks why this political and military coalition was ultimately successful in overcoming the challenge of the Axis powers but, in the process, proved unable to preserve itself. Although these changes were inevitable the manner of the evolution was sometimes painful, as Britain's wartime economic decline left its political position exposed in a changing post-war international system.


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<p>Spot your hotel room from the twinkling heights of the Peak<p>Hang out in a maze-like walled village, where prostitution and gambling once thrived<p>Escape from the skyscrapers to the trees as you hike the region's mountain, coast and jungle trails<p>Savor the finest Portuguese egg-custard tarts in Macau<p><B>In This Guide:</B><p>Insider tips and perspectives through interviews with locals, from a film director to a restauranteur<p>New coverage of nearby Guangzhou<p>The only guide with Chinese characters in map keys - navigation is easy!


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<p class="description">Robert, recently returned to live in Chicago, is contacted by a childhood friend who has just completed more than twenty years in prison for a horrific crime.Without Prejudiceis a compulsive story of race and the dangers that can lie in the past.</p>


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<div><p><strong>From the National Book Award–winning author of <em>The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression </em>comes a monumental new work, a decade in the writing, about family. In <em>Far from the Tree, </em>Andrew Solomon tells the stories of parents who not only learn to deal with their exceptional children but also find profound meaning in doing so.</strong></p><p>Solomon’s startling proposition is that diversity is what unites us all. He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, multiple severe disabilities, with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender. While each of these characteristics is potentially isolating, the experience of difference within families is universal, as are the triumphs of love Solomon documents in every chapter. </p><p>All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent parents should accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves. Drawing on forty thousand pages of interview transcripts with more than three hundred families, Solomon mines the eloquence of ordinary people facing extreme challenges. Whether considering prenatal screening for genetic disorders, cochlear implants for the deaf, or gender reassignment surgery for transgender people, Solomon narrates a universal struggle toward compassion. Many families grow closer through caring for a challenging child; most discover supportive communities of others similarly affected; some are inspired to become advocates and activists, celebrating the very conditions they once feared. Woven into their courageous and affirming stories is Solomon’s journey to accepting his own identity, which culminated in his midlife decision, influenced by this research, to become a parent. </p><p>Elegantly reported by a spectacularly original thinker, <em>Far from the Tree </em>explores themes of generosity, acceptance, and tolerance—all rooted in the insight that love can transcend every prejudice. This crucial and revelatory book expands our definition of what it is to be human.</p></div>


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<p class="description">Grilling is a science, and it's only when you understand the science of grilling that you can transform it into an art. That's what makes Mastering the Grill a standout on the cookbook shelf. From equipment (grill types and tools) to fire (wood, charcoal, or gas) to ingredients (meat, poultry, fish, and vegetables), the authors have shared their impressive grilling know-how to explain the whys and the hows and guarantee the wows clearly and comprehensively. In addition to hundreds of tips and techniques, this ultimate guide is packed with how-to illustrations and mouthwatering photographs plus 350 surefire recipes everything from rubs and marinades to appetizers, entrees, side dishes, and desserts. Mastering the Grill is a master class in cooking, destined to become a sauce-stained, well-thumbed classic.</p>


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<div><p>From "Britain's finest military historian" (<em>The Economist</em>) comes a magisterial new history of World War II and the flawed axis strategy that led to their defeat. </p><p>The Second World War lasted for 2,174 days, cost $1.5 trillion, and claimed the lives of more than 50 million people. What were the factors that affected the war's outcome? Why did the Axis lose? And could they, with a different strategy, have won? Andrew Roberts's acclaimed new history has been hailed as the finest single-volume account of this epic con?ict. From the western front to North Africa, from the Baltic to the Far East, he tells the story of the warthe grand strategy and the individual experience, the cruelty and the heroismas never before. </p><p>In researching this magnificently vivid history, Roberts walked many of the key battlefields and wartime sites in Russia, France, Italy, Germany, and the Far East, and drew on a number of never-before-published documents, such as a letter from Hitler's director of military operations explaining the reasoning behind the Führer's order to halt the Panzers outside Dunkirka delay that enabled British forces to evacuate. Roberts illuminates the principal actors on both sides and analyzes how they reached critical decisions. He also presents the tales of many little-known individuals whose experiences form a panoply of the extraordinary courage and self-sacrifice, as well as the terrible depravity and cruelty, of the Second World War. </p><p>Meticulously researched and masterfully written, <em>The Storm of War</em> gives a dramatic account of this momentous event and shows in remarkable detail why the war took the course it did. </p></div>


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<h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">This summary narrative supplies basic data about Waterloo and evaluates mistakes by both Wellington and Napoleon that make the historic battle one of the most worked-over topics for speculation in military history. A <em>Saturday Night Live</em> skit once parodied the phenomenon by wondering, What if Napoleon had a B-52 at the Battle of Waterloo? Roberts' original contribution to historical contingency--for such an exhaustively studied battle, his research, amazingly enough, turned up new evidence--is that a cavalry charge by Marshal Ney, possibly the gravest error the French made during the battle, was a spontaneous assault rather than an intended one. Smoothly integrating the what-ifs into the chronology, Roberts joins the essential facts about Waterloo, such as its area and relief, to the morale of individual units involved. Emphasizing the courage and fear that rippled over the battlefield during its daylong course, Roberts instills an appreciation for Waterloo as a horrific experience saturated with alternative possible outcomes. A must for the military shelf. </span></h3>


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<h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">Roberts offers an outstanding example of a joint biography in this study of the actions and interactions of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, George Marshall and Alan Brooke. The president, the prime minister and their respective army chiefs of staff were the vital nexus of the Anglo-American alliance in WWII. The path was anything but smooth. London-based historian Roberts (_A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900_) demonstrates his usual mastery of archival and printed sources to show how the tensions and differences among these four strong-willed men shaped policy within a general context of consensus. The politicians had to master strategy; the soldiers had to become political. The result was a complicated minuet. The increasing shift of power in America's direction coincided with the achievement of the central war aims agreed on for the Mediterranean and with the viability of a cross-channel attack. Last-minute compromises continued to shape grand strategy, a good example being the choice of Dwight Eisenhower over Brooke to command Operation Overlord. Flexibility and honesty, Roberts concludes, enabled focus on a common purpose and established the matrix of the postwar Atlantic world. </span></h3>


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<div><p>On the first day of the Somme enlisted railwayman Jim Stringer lies trapped in a shell hole, smoking cigarette after cigarette under the bullets and the blazing sun. He calculates his chances of survival -- even before they departed for France, a member of Jim's unit had been found dead.<br></p><p>During the stand-off that follows, Jim and his comrades must operate by night the vitally important trains carrying munitions to the Front, through a ghostly landscape of shattered trees where high explosive and shrapnel shells rain down. Close co-operation and trust are vital. Yet proof piles up of an enemy within, and as a ferocious military policeman pursues his investigation into the original killing, the finger of accusation begins to point towards Jim himself.</p></div>


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<p class="description">God is great-for your mental, physical, and spiritual health. Based on new evidence culled from brain-scan studies, a wide-reaching survey of people's religious and spiritual experiences, and the authors' analyses of adult drawings of God, neuroscientist Andrew Newberg and therapist Mark Robert Waldman offer the following breakthrough discoveries: " Not only do prayer and spiritual practice reduce stress, but just twelve minutes of meditation per day may slow down the aging process. " Contemplating a loving God rather than a punitive God reduces anxiety and depression and increases feelings of security, compassion, and love. " Fundamentalism, in and of itself, can be personally beneficial, but the prejudice generated by extreme beliefs can permanently damage your brain. " Intense prayer and meditation permanently change numerous structures and functions in the brain, altering your values and the way you perceive reality. Both a revelatory work of modern science and a practical guide for readers to enhance their physical and emotional health, How God Changes Your Brain is a first-of-a-kind book about faith that is as credible as it is inspiring.</p>


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<p>Patrick Rush is a single father, unhappy with his career, devoted to his young son but haunted by the loss of his wife, when he joins a local writing group. In the candlelit studio where the circle meets, he finds one writer's work far more powerful than the others--a young woman named Angela, who writes about a girl stalked by a killer named the Sandman. But Angela's stories may be more autobiography than tall tale: soon the members of the group are being hunted by a shadowy figure resembling the Sandman, and the line between fiction and real life beings to dissolve. When his own son is taken, Patrick is forced to chase down the Sandman for himself and to discover the ending to his own terrifying story.</p>


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<div><p>When railwayman Jim Stringer moves to the garish and tawdry London of 1903, he finds his duties are confined to a mysterious graveyard line. The men he works alongside have formed an instant loathing for him - and his predecessor has disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Can Jim work out what is going on before he too is travelling on a one-way coffin ticket aboard the Necropolis Railway?</p><p>Guaranteed to make the flesh creep and the skin crawl, a masterful novel about a mad, clanking, fog-bound world.</p></div>


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<div><p>They are two sworn enemies with a single obsession: a woman on the run from them both.</p><p>Scott Weiss is a private detective. John Foy is a profes­sional killer. The woman is Julie Wyant, a hooker with the face of an angel.</p><p>Julie spent one night with Foya night of psycho­pathic cruelty that Foy called love. Desperate to get away from him, she vanished without a trace. And Foy wants her back.</p><p>There’s only one man who can find her: Weiss, the best locate operative in the business. She’s begged him not to look for her, fearing he’ll bring the killer in his wake. But Weiss can’t stay away.</p><p>Now, from a town called Paradise, through a wilder­ness that feels like hell, Weiss searches for Julieand the killer follows, waiting for his chance.</p><p>They are two expert hunters matching move for moveuntil it ends on Damnation Street.</p></div>


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<p>The US decision to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima remains one of the most controversial events of the twentieth century. But as this fascinating new history shows, the bomb dropped by an American pilot that hot August morning was in many ways the world's bomb, in both a technological and a moral sense. And it was the world that would have to face its consequences, strategically, diplomatically, and culturally, in the years ahead. In this fast-paced and insightful narrative, Andrew J. Rotter tells the international story behind the development of the atom bomb, ranging from the global crises that led to the Second World War to the largely unavailing attempts to control the spread of nuclear weapons and the evolution of the nuclear arms race after the war had ended. He details the growth in the 1930s and '40s of a world-wide community of scientists dedicated to developing a weapon that could undo the evil in Nazi Germany, and he describes the harnessing of their efforts by the US wartime government. Rotter also sheds light on the political and strategic decisions that led to the bombing itself, the impact of the bomb on Hiroshima and the endgame of the Pacific War, the effects of the bombing and the bomb on society and culture, and the state of all things nuclear in the early 21st-century world. </p>


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<div><p>A horrible family tragedy that may not be what it seems . . . </p><p>A past encounter with an infamous killer turns deadly today . . . </p><p>An ordinary man must risk his own family to find the truth. </p><p>Jay Erlich's nephew has been found at the bottom of a cliff at Morrow Bay. It's all just a tragic suicide, until secrets from the past begin to rear up again. Did a notorious killer, jailed for many decades, have his hand in this? </p><p>Years ago, Jay Erlich's older brother, Charlie, a wayward child of the sixties, set out for California, where he fell under the sway of a charismatic but deeply disturbed cultlike figure. Tragedy ensued and lives were destroyed, but as the decades passed, Charlie married and raised a family and lived a quiet, secluded life under the radar. Yet the demons that nearly destroyed him never completely disappeared. </p><p>When Jay heads out west to help his grieving brother, he is pulled back into Charlie's past—and begins to suspect that his nephew's suicide may not have been that at all. With eyes wide open, Jay puts his own life at risk to uncover the truth, a quest that goes beyond the edge of madness and a family haunted by a secret past . . . and into the depths of evil. </p><p>Drawing on two real-life experiences from his own past, Gross has crafted a richly personal, yet utterly terrifying tale of two brothers, one successful, one wayward, trying to bridge the gap of what tore them apart.</p></div>


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<div><p>“Modern noir at its best…Here’s hoping Grant is hard at work on the next installment featuring his thoroughly compelling tough guy hero, David Trevellyan.” </p><p>—Jeffery Deaver, on Even</p><p> In his gritty, action-packed debut, Even, Andrew Grant introduced readers to David Trevellyan, a James Bond for the twentyfirst century. Now, Trevellyan returns in Grant’s latest, a fastpaced, modern thriller fueled by adrenaline and revenge. </p><p>Obliged to leave New York City in the aftermath of his previous mission, David Trevellyan is summoned to the British Consulate in Chicago. To the same office where, just a week before, his new handler was attacked and shot by a Royal Navy Intelligence operative gone bad. Assigned the job of finding the rogue agent and putting an end to his treacherous scheme, Trevellyan soon finds that once again, his only hopes of saving countless innocent lives lie not within the system, but in his own instincts and skills. Trust is an illusion—trust the wrong person, and it could get you killed. </p><p>Drawing comparisons to Robert Ludlum, and his own brother, Lee Child, Andrew Grant’s remarkably seasoned voice cuts a new path through the crime thriller genre, continuing to test the limits in this groundbreaking new series.</p></div>


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<p class="description">A brilliant new reading of the Bayeux Tapestry that radically alters our understanding of the events of 1066 and reveals the astonishing story of the survival of early medieval Europe's greatest treasure. The Bayeux Tapestry was embroidered (it's not really a tapestry) in the late eleventh century. As an artefact, it is priceless, incomparable -- nothing of it's delicacy and texture, let alone wit, survives from the period. As a pictorial story it is delightful: the first feature-length cartoon. As history it is essential: it represents the moment of Britain's last conquest by a foreign army and celebrates the Norman victory over the blinded Saxon Harold. Or does it?In this brilliant and dogged piece of detective interpretation, Andrew Bridgeford looks at the narrative contained within the tapestry and has discovered a wealth of new information. Who commissioned it? Who made it? Who is the singular dwarf named as Turold? Why, in a work that celebrates a Norman conquest is the defeated Harold treated so nobly? Is Harold indeed the victim of the arrow from the sky? And who is the figure depicted in the tapestry who, at the moment of crisis for the Normans rallies the army just at the point when it mistakenly believes William is dead and it will be defeated?Using the tapestry, the book retells with vivid characterisation the story of the remaking of England in and after 1066. It is a compelling story, as is the tale of the extraordinary survival of the tapestry itself: history has rarely been writ so large, with such fine detail and yet been so veiled in mystery.</p>


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<p>Pause on the Grand Stairway at Persepolis and imagine trumpeters heralding your arrival<p>Indulge in rosewater ice cream as you stroll between centuries-old bridges in Esfahan<p>Believe it when you see it: check out the world's most unexpected ski resorts<p>Rent a room with a view in a mountain village and watch life unfold as it has for centuries<p><B>In This Guide:</B><p>Two authors, five months of on-the-ground research, 379 invitations to tea<p>Packed with tips for overlanders, women, and solo travelers<p>Incorporates Farsi words and script throughout<p>Get up-to-the-minute info from other travelers on the Iran branch of the Thorn Tree: <B>lonelyplanet.com</B>


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<p>One young food writer's search for America's lost wild foods, from New Orleans croakers to Illinois Prairie hen, with Mark Twain as his guide. In the winter of 1879, Mark Twain paused during a tour of Europe to compose a fantasy menu of the American dishes he missed the most. He was desperately sick of European hotel cooking, and his menu, made up of some eighty regional specialties, was a true love letter to American food: Lake Trout, from Tahoe. Hot biscuits, Southern style. Canvasback-duck, from Baltimore. Black-bass, from the Mississippi. When food writer Andrew Beahrs first read Twain's menu in the classic work A Tramp Abroad, he noticed the dishes were regional in the truest sense of the word-drawn fresh from grasslands, woods, and waters in a time before railroads had dissolved the culinary lines between Hannibal, Missouri, and San Francisco. These dishes were all local, all wild, and all, Beahrs feared, had been lost in the shift to industrialized food. In Twain's Feast, Beahrs sets out to discover whether eight of these forgotten regional specialties can still be found on American tables, tracing Twain's footsteps as he goes. Twain's menu, it turns out, was also a memoir and a map. The dishes he yearned for were all connected to cherished moments in his life-from the New Orleans croakers he loved as a young man on the Mississippi to the maple syrup he savored in Connecticut, with his family, during his final, lonely years. Tracking Twain's foods leads Beahrs from the dwindling prairie of rural Illinois to a six-hundred-pound coon supper in Arkansas to the biggest native oyster reef in San Francisco Bay. He finds pockets of the country where Twain's favorite foods still exist or where intrepid farmers, fishermen, and conservationists are trying to bring them back. In Twain's Feast, he reminds us what we've lost as these wild foods have disappeared from our tables, and what we stand to gain from their return. Weaving together passages from Twain's famous works and Beahrs's own adventures, Twain's Feast takes us on a journey into America's past, to a time when foods taken fresh from grasslands, woods, and waters were at the heart of American cooking.</p>


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<p>Hang onto your Mickey hat while careening down Space Mountain<p>Try on Pamela Anderson's tank top or designer shoes from <I>Alias</I><p>Dangle your sandy feet over a concrete wall and watch a surfer-skater-dog parade<p>Swirl, sip, savor and spit your pinot on a sustainable wine tour<p><B>In This Guide:</B><p>Covers LA, Disneyland, Orange County, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Palm Springs and Joshua Tree!<p>Three local authors; 1500 hours of on-the-ground research; 56 more pages; 65 detailed maps<p>New Southern California for Kids chapter packed with tips for families<p>Content updated daily - visit <I><B>lonelyplanet.com</I></B> for up-to-the-minute reviews, updates and traveler suggestions


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<p>Nobody knows Germany like Lonely Planet. From Alpine villages to Berlin's clubs, Moselle Valley vineyards to Heidelberg's historic buildings and beer quaffing to sausage savoring, this 6th edition gives you all the information you need to enjoy the best of Germany.<p>Lonely Planet guides are written by experts who get to the heart of every destination they visit. This fully updated edition is packed with accurate, practical and honest advice, designed to give you the information you need to make the most of your trip.<p><B>In This Guide:</B><p>Top insider tips on a perfect day in Munich, Hamburg's harbor sound and Berlin's eclectic highlights<p>Detailed itineraries help you get the most out of your trip<p>Unique Green Index picks out the top sustainable travel options


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<p class="description">Told in the irresistibly willful and intimate voice of Miss July, with some editorial assistance from her son, Thomas, The Long Song is at once defiant, funny, and shocking. The child of a field slave on the Amity sugar plantation, July lives with her mother until Mrs. Caroline Mortimer, a recently transplanted English widow, decides to move her into the great house and rename her “Marguerite.” Resourceful and mischievous, July soon becomes indispensable to her mistress. Together they live through the bloody Baptist war, followed by the violent and chaotic end of slavery. Taught to read and write so that she can help her mistress run the business, July remains bound to the plantation despite her “freedom.” It is the arrival of a young English overseer, Robert Goodwin, that will dramatically change life in the great house for both July and her mistress.</p>


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<h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; ">Drawing on the letters of his great-great-great-great-grandmother Lucia Mocenigo, a Venetian aristocrat, di Robilant paints a vivacious picture of the Napoleonic age. The fifteen-year-old Lucia’s correspondence with her new fiancé, the nobleman Alvise Mocenigo, includes a glissando from formality to rapture that gives an idea of the narrative’s pitch: "My most esteemed spouse, my good father having informed me of your favourable disposition towards me, and having told me of your worthy qualities . . . I felt such agitation in my heart that for a brief moment I even lost consciousness." Over the years, as Lucia travelled throughout Europe, this girlish enthusiasm was whittled away by a selfish, neglectful, and manipulative husband; on discovering, after Alvise’s death, letters from an impressive array of lovers, she filed them alphabetically by author. Back in Venice, living in an apartment where, she complained, rats were her only reliable company, Lucia became Byron’s landlady.</span></h3>


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Five years ago, Andrea Gillies— writer, wife, and mother of three—seeing that her husband's parents were struggling to cope, invited them to move in.  She and her newly extended family relocated to a big Victorian house on a remote, windswept peninsula in the far north of Scotland, leaving behind their friends and all that was familiar;  hoping to find a new life, and new inspiration for work. Her mother-in-law Nancy was in the middle stages of Alzheimer's Disease, and Keeper charts her journey into dementia, its impact on her personality and her family, and the author's researches into what dementia is.   As the grip of her disease tightens, Nancy's grasp on everything we think of as ordinary unravels before our eyes. Diary entries and accounts of conversations with Nancy track the slow unravelling.  The journey is marked by frustration, isolation, exhaustion, and unexpected black comedy. For the author, who knew little about dementia at the outset, the learning curve was steeper than she could have imagined. The most pernicious quality of Alzheimer’s, Gillies suggests, is that the loss of memory is, in effect, the loss of one’s self, and Alzheimer’s, because it robs us of our intrinsic self-knowledge, our ability to connect with others, and our capacity for self-expression, is perhaps the most terrible and most dehumanizing illness. Moreover, as Gillies reminds us, the effects of Alzheimer’s are far-reaching, impacting the lives of caregivers and their loved ones in every way imaginable.Keeper is a fiercely honest “glimpse into the dementia abyss”—an endlessly engrossing meditation on memory and the mind, on family, and on a society that is largely indifferent to the far-reaching ravages of this baffling disease.


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<p><em><em>Rarely has the process of becoming a writer seemed as organic and--dare I say it--moral as it does in Andre Dubus III's clear-eyed and compassionate memoir, <em>Townie</em>. You might think that following his father's trade would have been natural and even obvious for the son and namesake of Andre Dubus, one of the most admired short story writers of his time, but it was anything but. His father left when he was 10, and as his mother worked long hours to keep them fed, her four children mostly raised themselves, stumbling through house parties and street fights in their Massachusetts mill town, so cut off from the larger world that when someone mentioned "Manhattan" when Andre was in college he didn't know what they were talking about. What he did know, and what he recalls with detailed intensity, were the battles in bars and front yards, brutal to men and women alike, that first gave him discipline, as he built himself from a fearful kid into a first-punch, hair-trigger bruiser, and then empathy, as, miraculously, he pulled himself back from the violence that threatened to define him. And it was out of that empathy that, wanting to understand the stories of the victims of brutality as well as those whose pain drove them to dish it out, he began to write, reconciling with his father and eventually giving us novels like <em>House of Sand and Fog</em> and now this powerful and big-hearted memoir. </em></em></p>


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<div><h3>From</h3><p><em>Starred Review</em> Piet Hoffman is a devoted husband and the father of two young sons. He’s also an ex-con who has been working undercover for the Stockholm police for nine years. Code named “Paula,” Piet has risen through the ranks of the Polish mafia and is chosen to lead the Poles’ effort to control the supply of amphetamines in Sweden’s prisons. To do that, Paula must get himself arrested and sent to a maximum security prison, wipe out the existing supplier, and keep himself alive until he has all the information needed for the police to move on the gang. Roslund, a former journalist, and Hellstrom, a former criminal, have concocted a brilliant thriller that posits a nearly literal invasion of Sweden by East European criminals allied with former state security agents. Combine that with a morally compromised police and Ministry of Justice effort to combat the invasion, and you have a genuine crisis. Piet’s growing fear of discovery or betrayal and his angst at his beloved wife’s ignorance of his work ratchet up the story’s tension page by page and make the novel extremely difficult to put down. Named the Swedish Crime Novel of the Year in 2009, Three Seconds puts Roslund and Hellstrom in the company of Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson. Crime fiction rarely gets as good as this. --Thomas Gaughan </p><h3>Review</h3><p>The shady dealings between the Swedish police and their deep-cover informants propel the latest thriller from the writing team of Roslund and Hellström (Box 21). Ex-con Piet Hoffman, now a “covert human intelligence source” for Stockholm City Police, is close to breaking up the Polish Mafia’s attempt to control drug distribution in Sweden’s prisons. When the operative is involved in a botched drug deal that leads to murder, investigating detective Ewert Grens inadvertently threatens to derail the mission. Afraid that Hoffman will disclose the government’s illegal involvement in his assignment, his handlers blow his cover while he’s trapped in a maximum-security lockup. With the police, Mafia, and prisoners all wanting him dead, Hoffman makes Grens an unwitting tool in his desperate plan for escape. VERDICT Readers who persevere through the glacial pace of the book’s first third will be rewarded with a terrific, nail-biting climax that demonstrates why it won the prize for Sweden’s best crime novel in 2009. Give this to Stieg Larsson fans and any reader fond of morally complex thrillers. [Silver Oak is the new fiction imprint of Sterling and Quercus.—Ed.]—Annabelle Mortensen, Skokie P.L., IL—_Library Journal_</p>

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<h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">Lieven (Chechnya), who has reported on Pakistan off and on for 20 years, offers a compelling argument for reorienting Western interests (and investments) in its wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Given its enormous population (six times that of Afghanistan), the key role Pakistani intelligence plays in Western efforts against terrorism, the strong ties between Pakistan and Western countries (especially Britain), and the fact that Pakistan's army is one of Asia's strongest (complete with nuclear weapons), Lieven writes, "Pakistan is quite simply far more important to the region, the West and the world than is Afghanistan: a statement which is a matter not of sentiment but of mathematics." His extensive history and cartography of the country comes equipped with solid policy prescriptions—for drone attacks to be ceased and for the U.S. to acknowledge how powerfully the bungled invasion of Afghanistan contributed to instability in the region—and particularly the growth of the Taliban. Though his language can occasionally be patronizing, Lieven's writing is generally excellent. He wrestles huge amounts of material into a coherent whole, cogently explaining the intricate and interconnected roles played by kinship, regional allegiances, religion, and the military, shedding light on the country "in all its complex patchwork of light and shadow." </span></h3>


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<p class="description">A New York Times Bestseller In 1949 four Chinese women - drawn together by the shadow of their past - begin meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks, eat dim sum, and "say" stories. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club. Nearly forty years later, one of the members has died. When her daughter comes to take her place, she learns of her mother's lifelong wish, and the tragic way in which it has come true.</p>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; ">While observing exotic animal trainers for her acclaimed book <em>Kicked, Bitten, and Scratched</em>, journalist Amy Sutherland had an epiphany: What if she used these training techniques with the human animals in her own life–namely her dear husband, Scott? In this lively and perceptive book, Sutherland tells how she took the trainers’ lessons home.</span></h3><p>The next time her forgetful husband stomped through the house in search of his mislaid car keys, she asked herself, “What would a dolphin trainer do?” The answer was: nothing. Trainers reward the behavior they want and, just as important, ignore the behavior they don’t. Rather than appease her mate’s rising temper by joining in the search, or fuel his temper by nagging him to keep better track of his things in the first place, Sutherland kept her mouth shut and her eyes on the dishes she was washing. In short order, Scott found his keys and regained his cool. “I felt like I should throw him a mackerel,” she writes. In time, as she put more training principles into action, she noticed that she became more optimistic and less judgmental, and their twelve-year marriage was better than ever.<br></p><p>What started as a goofy experiment had such good results that Sutherland began using the training techniques with all the people in her life, including her mother, her friends, her students, even the clerk at the post office. In the end, the biggest lesson she learned is that the only animal you can truly change is yourself.<br></p><p>Full of fun facts, fascinating insights, hilarious anecdotes, and practical tips, <em>What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage </em>describes Sutherland’s Alice-in-Wonderland experience of stumbling into a world where cheetahs walk nicely on leashes and elephants paint with watercolors, and of leaving a new, improved Homo sapiens.</p></div>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; ">A tree that sheds poison daggers; a glistening red seed that stops the heart; a shrub that causes paralysis; a vine that strangles; and a leaf that triggered a war. In <em>Wicked Plants</em>, Stewart takes on over two hundred of Mother Nature’s most appalling creations. It’s an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend. You’ll learn which plants to avoid (like exploding shrubs), which plants make themselves exceedingly unwelcome (like the vine that ate the South), and which ones have been killing for centuries (like the weed that killed Abraham Lincoln's mother).</span></h3><p>Menacing botanical illustrations and splendidly ghastly drawings create a fascinating portrait of the evildoers that may be lurking in your own backyard. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, this compendium of bloodcurdling botany will entertain, alarm, and enlighten even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers.  </p></div>


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IN A PERFECT WORLD...We’d get to hang out with Amy Poehler, watching dumb movies, listening to music, and swapping tales about our coworkers and difficult childhoods. Because in a perfect world, we’d all be friends with Amy — someone who seems so fun, is full of interesting stories, tells great jokes, and offers plenty of advice and wisdom (the useful kind, not the annoying kind you didn’t ask for, anyway). Unfortunately, between her Golden Globe-winning role on Parks and Recreation, work as a producer and director, place as one of the most beloved SNL alumni and cofounder of the Upright Citizens Brigade, involvement with the website Smart Girls at the Party, frequent turns as acting double for Meryl Streep, and her other gig as the mom of two young sons, she’s not available for movie night.Luckily, we have the next best thing: Yes Please, Amy’s hilarious and candid book. A collection of stories, thoughts, ideas, lists, and haiku from the mind of one of our most beloved entertainers, Yes Please offers Amy’s thoughts on everything from her “too safe” childhood outside of Boston to her early days in New York City, her ideas about Hollywood and “the biz,” the demon that looks back at all of us in the mirror, and her joy at being told she has a “face for wigs.” Yes Please is a chock-full of words and wisdom to live by.


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From the acclaimed author of A Breath of Fresh Air, this beautiful novel takes us to modern India during the height of the summer’s mango season. Heat, passion, and controversy explode as a woman is forced to decide between romance and tradition.Every young Indian leaving the homeland for the United States is given the following orders by their parents: Don’t eat any cow (It’s still sacred!), don’t go out too much, save (and save, and save) your money, and most important, do not marry a foreigner. Priya Rao left India when she was twenty to study in the U.S., and she’s never been back. Now, seven years later, she’s out of excuses. She has to return and give her family the news: She’s engaged to Nick Collins, a kind, loving American man. It’s going to break their hearts.Returning to India is an overwhelming experience for Priya. When she was growing up, summer was all about mangoes—ripe, sweet mangoes, bursting with juices that dripped down your chin, hands, and neck. But after years away, she sweats as if she’s never been through an Indian summer before. Everything looks dirtier than she remembered. And things that used to seem natural (a buffalo strolling down a newly laid asphalt road, for example) now feel totally chaotic.But Priya’s relatives remain the same. Her mother and father insist that it’s time they arranged her marriage to a “nice Indian boy.” Her extended family talks of nothing but marriage—particularly the marriage of her uncle Anand, which still has them reeling. Not only did Anand marry a woman from another Indian state, but he also married for love. Happiness and love are not the point of her grandparents’ or her parents’ union. In her family’s rule book, duty is at the top of the list.Just as Priya begins to feel she can’t possibly tell her family that she’s engaged to an American, a secret is revealed that leaves her stunned and off-balance. Now she is forced to choose between the love of her family and Nick, the love of her life.As sharp and intoxicating as sugarcane juice bought fresh from a market cart, The Mango Season is a delightful trip into the heart and soul of both contemporary India and a woman on the edge of a profound life change.


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; ">Chua (Day of Empire) imparts the secret behind the stereotypical Asian child's phenomenal success: the Chinese mother. Chua promotes what has traditionally worked very well in raising children: strict, Old World, uncompromising values--and the parents don't have to be Chinese. What they are, however, are different from what she sees as indulgent and permissive Western parents: stressing academic performance above all, never accepting a mediocre grade, insisting on drilling and practice, and instilling respect for authority. Chua and her Jewish husband (both are professors at Yale Law) raised two girls, and her account of their formative years achieving amazing success in school and music performance proves both a model and a cautionary tale. Sophia, the eldest, was dutiful and diligent, leapfrogging over her peers in academics and as a Suzuki piano student; Lulu was also gifted, but defiant, who excelled at the violin but eventually balked at her mother's pushing. Chua's efforts "not to raise a soft, entitled child" will strike American readers as a little scary--removing her children from school for extra practice, public shaming and insults, equating Western parenting with failure--but the results, she claims somewhat glibly in this frank, unapologetic report card, "were hard to quarrel with." </span></h3></div>


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<div><p>JASON PROSPER grew up in the elite world of Manhattan penthouses, Maine summer estates, old-boy prep schools, and exclusive sailing clubs. A smart, athletic teenager, Jason maintains a healthy, humorous disdain for the trappings of affluence, preferring to spend afternoons sailing with Cal, his best friend and boarding-school roommate. When Cal commits suicide during their junior year at Kensington Prep, Jason is devastated by the loss and transfers to Bellingham Academy. There, he meets Aidan, a fellow student with her own troubled past. They embark on a tender, awkward, deeply emotional relationship.</p><p>When a major hurricane hits the New England coast, the destruction it causes brings with it another upheaval in Jason’s life, forcing him to make sense of a terrible secret that has been buried by the boys he considers his friends.</p><p>Set against the backdrop of the 1987 stock market collapse, <strong>The Starboard Sea </strong>is an examination of the abuses of class privilege, the mutability of sexual desire, the thrill and risk of competitive sailing, and the adult cost of teenage recklessness. It is a powerful and provocative novel about a young man finding his moral center, trying to forgive himself, and accepting the gift of love.</p></div>


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<div><p>Discover how human beings react to danger–and what makes the difference between life and death<br></p><p>Today, nine out of ten Americans live in places at significant risk of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, terrorism, or other disasters. Tomorrow, some of us will have to make split-second choices to save ourselves and our families. How will we react? What will it feel like? Will we be heroes or victims? <br></p><p>In her quest to answer these questions, award-winning journalist Amanda Ripley traces human responses to some of recent history’s epic disasters, from the explosion of the Mont Blanc munitions ship in 1917–one of the biggest explosions before the invention of the atomic bomb–to the journeys of the 15,000 people who found their way out of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. To understand the science behind the stories, Ripley turns to leading brain scientists, trauma psychologists, and other disaster experts. She even has her own brain examined by military researchers and experiences, through realistic simulations, what it might be like to survive a plane crash into the ocean or to escape a raging fire.<br></p><p>Ripley comes back with precious wisdom about the surprising humanity of crowds, the elegance of the brain’s fear circuits, and the stunning inadequacy of many of our evolutionary responses. Most unexpectedly, she discovers the brain’s ability to do much, much better–with just a little help.</p></div>


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<h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; "> It is the second time in the last two weeks that someone tried to kill Evangeline Ames. Fortunately, when she hears someone breaking into Fern Cottage, she has enough time to escape through her bedroom window, and she immediately heads for Crystal Gardens. Evangeline had already done some “exploring” at the abandoned estate, and her plan is to lose her assailant in the gardens surrounding the house. What Evangeline hasn’t planned on was running into Lucas Sebastian, the new owner of Crystal Gardens. Nor does she realize that he will prove to be far more dangerous to Evangeline’s plans for a quiet rest in the country than any mysterious intruder. Crystal Gardens, the latest danger-rich, paranormal-spiced historical romance from best-selling Quick (Burning Lamp, 2010), is an absolute delight. From the entertaining battle of wits between the story’s intriguing heroine and mysterious hero to the botanically inspired plot and its deliciously gothic setting, all the literary components add up to a romance worth savoring.</span></h3>


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<p class="description">In this second novel of the Dreamlight Trilogy from New York Times-bestselling author Amanda Quick, psychic power and passion collide as a legendary curse comes to a burn...  The Arcane Society was born in turmoil when the friendship of its two founders evolved into a fierce rivalry. Nicholas Winters's efforts led to the creation of a device of unknown powers called the Burning Lamp. Each generation of male descendents who inherits it is destined to develop multiple talents-and the curse of madness.  Plagued by hallucinations and nightmares, notorious crime lord Griffin Winters is convinced he has been struck with the Winters Curse. But even has he arranges a meeting with the mysterious woman Adelaide Pyne, he has no idea how closely their fates are bound, for she holds the missing lamp in her possession.  But their dangerous psychic experiment makes them the target of forces both inside and outside of the Arcane Society. And though desire strengthens their power, their different lives will keep them apart-if death doesn't take them together.</p>


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<div><p>Amanda Knox spent four years in a foreign prison for a crime she did not commit.<br><br>In the fall of 2007, the 20-year-old college coed left Seattle to study abroad in Italy, but her life was shattered when her roommate was murdered in their apartment.<br><br>After a controversial trial, Amanda was convicted and imprisoned. But in 2011, an appeals court overturned the decision and vacated the murder charge. Free at last, she returned home to the U.S., where she has remained silent, until now.<br></p><p>Filled with details first recorded in the journals Knox kept while in Italy, <em>Waiting to Be Heard</em> is a remarkable story of innocence, resilience, and courage, and of one young woman’s hard-fought battle to overcome injustice and win the freedom she deserved.<br><br>With intelligence, grace, and candor, Amanda Knox tells the full story of her harrowing ordeal in Italy—a labyrinthine nightmare of crime and punishment, innocence and vindication—and of the unwavering support of family and friends who tirelessly worked to help her win her freedom.</p></div>


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<div><p>From the acclaimed author of <em>How to Be Lost</em> comes a gorgeous new novel about love, memory, and motherhood. </p><p>Nadine Morgan travels the world as a journalist, covering important events, following dangerous leads, and running from anything that might tie her down. Since an assignment in Cape Town ended in tragedy and regret, Nadine has not returned to South Africa, or opened her heart–until she hears the story of Jason Irving.</p><p>Jason, an American student, was beaten to death by angry local youths at the height of the apartheid era. Years later, his mother is told that Jason’s killers have applied for amnesty. Jason’s parents pack their bags and fly from Nantucket to Cape Town. Filled with rage, Jason’s mother resolves to fight the murderers’ pleas for forgiveness.</p><p>As Nadine follows the Irvings to beautiful, ghost-filled South Africa, she is flooded with memories of a time when the pull toward adventure and intrigue left her with a broken heart. Haunted by guilt and a sense of remorse, and hoping to lose herself in her coverage of the murder trial, Nadine grows closer to Jason’s mother as well as to the mother of one of Jason’s killers–with profound consequences. In a country both foreign and familiar, Nadine is forced to face long-buried demons, come to terms with the missing pieces of her own family past, and learn what it means to truly love and to forgive.</p><p>With her dazzling prose and resonant themes, Amanda Eyre Ward has joined the ranks of such beloved American novelists as Anne Tyler and Ann Patchett. Gripping, darkly humorous, and luminous, <em>Forgive Me</em> is an unforgettable story of dreams and longing, betrayal and redemption.</p></div>


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<div><p>Symir  the Drowning City. home to exiles and expatriates, pirates and smugglers. And violent revolutionaries who will stop at nothing to overthrow the corrupt Imperial government.</p><p>For Isyllt Iskaldur, necromancer and spy, the brewing revolution is a chance to prove herself to her crown. All she has to do is find and finance the revolutionaries, and help topple the palaces of Symir. But she is torn between her new friends and her duties, and the longer she stays in this monsoon-drenched city, the more intrigue she uncovers  even the dead are plotting. </p><p>As the waters rise and the dams crack, Isyllt must choose between her mission and the city she came to save. </p></div>


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<p class="description">Death is no stranger in the city of Erisín, but some deaths attract more attention than others.When a prostitute dies carrying a royal signet, Isyllt Iskaldur, necromancer and agent of the Crown, is called to investigate. Her search leads to desecrated tombs below the palace, and the lightless vaults of the vampiric vrykoloi. But worse things than vampires are plotting in Erisín - a long-dead sorceress is making a bid not only for renewed life but for the throne as well, and Isyllt's former lover is caught in her schemes. As a sorcerous plague sweeps the city, Isyllt must decide who she's prepared to betray - the man she still loves, or the royal family she's sworn to defend.</p>


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<div><p><strong>Another Warriors of Poseidon novel for romance lovers to dive into... </strong></p><p>What could Christophe, powerful Warrior of Poseidon, have in common with Fiona Campbell, the notorious jewel thief known as the Scarlet Ninja? Answer: The Siren, a legendary Crown Jewel that Fiona has targeted for her next heist. It's said to be worth millions, but to Christophe it's invaluable. For the Siren also happens to be one of the missing jewels from Poseidon's trident. But breaking into the Tower of London is a two-person job, and Christophe and Fiona must team up to commit the crime of the century. </p></div>


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<p class="description">As a gawky teenager, Rosie knew she never stood a chance with heartthrob Cameron Kelly. She had pigtails and glasses, and washed dishes by night to help support her and her mother, while Cameron came from one of the richest and most revered families in Brisbane.Years later they meet again, and Rosie finds herself on a date with the devastatingly attractive billionaire! There's something different about him—he's darker, more intense, dangerous. But she's determined to ignore his three-dates-only rule and get to the heart of the rebel tycoon….</p>


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<div><p><em>Lucy Kincaid is back—with a vengeance. </em></p><p><strong>A Washington Sex Scandal</strong></p><p>It has been seven years since Lucy was attacked—and almost killed—by an online predator. Today, she is well on her way toward a new life.</p><p>While waiting to begin her training at the FBI Academy, Lucy’s is tireless in her fight against cyber sex crime. Her current mission: to find out who killed a high-priced call girl linked to a powerful Congressman.  </p><p><strong>A Cold-Blooded Killer</strong></p><p>A number of known prostitutes—with scores of high profile clients—are turning up dead all over D.C. Is this the work of a depraved killer? Or the result of an inside job? Lucy’s investigation will take her into an underground network of prostitutes, the chambers of the country’s most powerful players, and her own dark past to confront an unknown enemy who’s always one step ahead of her. With the help of her P.I. boyfriend Sean Rogan, Lucy must find and protect the only witness who can identify the killer and end the conspiracy, but can the witness be trusted? Lucy will risk everything to expose the truth and ensure justice is served, even if that means putting herself in the line of fire.</p></div>


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An abduction...a trail of disturbing clues...Politics are about to become deadly.As the controversial mayor of the beautiful coastal community of Santa Rita, Madison 'Maddy' Glenn likes to face things head-on. But nothing can prepare her for a hostile visit from the chief of police---or his terrible news. Lisa Truccoli, Maddy's friend and the treasurer of her last campaign, has been kidnapped. All that remains at the crime scene is a shocking clue...with Maddy's name on it.The ensuing hunt for answers only turns up more sinister clues in a terrifying game the abductor wants to play...with Maddy. Caught between a haunting past and a dangerous present, Maddy finds the walls that keep her from faith beginning to crumble.The stakes turn lethal with a second abduction and a clue that reveals inside information about Maddy's run for Congress---a decision she has not made yet. Someone is going to dangerous lengths to make the choice for her...but it is a choice she'll survive?


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">A TRIP TO THE DARK SIDE</span></h3><p>Aspiring FBI agent Lucy Kincaid and her P.I. boyfriend, Sean Rogan, are heading to the Adirondack Mountains for a pleasant romantic getaway when they detour to help troubled friends, owners of a new resort who are battling malicious vandals. After Lucy and Sean pursue an arsonist into an abandoned mine shaft, Lucy stumbles upon an even more heinous crime—and the perfectly preserved remains of its victim.<br></p><p>The only thing more disturbing than the discovery of the corpse is its sudden disappearance. While the local police remain skeptical, Lucy is dead certain that there’s a connection between the sabotage at the resort and the murder—one that the less-than-neighborly citizens of Spruce Lake seem to have a stake in keeping hidden. Then, when a cold-blooded sniper targets Sean and Lucy, FBI agent Noah Armstrong enters the fray to ensure that more bodies don’t hit the ground. Now three outsiders race to untangle a violent conspiracy before they end up like the rest of Spruce Lake’s secrets: dead and buried.</p></div>


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<p class="description">"Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages for yr own joy." Many of Ginsberg's most famous poems. Wake-up nightmares in Lower East Side, musings in public library, across the U.S. in dream auto, drunk in old Havana, brooding in Mayan ruins, sex daydreams on the West Coast, airplane vision of Kansas, lonely in a leafy cottage, lunch hour on Berkeley, beer notations on Skid Row, slinking to Mexico, wrote this last night in Paris, back on Times square dreaming of Times Square, bombed in NY again, loony tunes in the dentist chair, screaming at old poets in South America, aethereal zigzag Poesy in blue hotel room in Peru-a wind-up book of dreams, psalms, journal enigmas &amp; nude minutes from 1953 to 1960 poems scattered in fugitive magazines here collected.</p>


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<div><p>From the acclaimed Civil War historian, a brilliant new history—the most intimate and richly readable account we have had—of the climactic three-day battle of Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), which draws the reader into the heat, smoke, and grime of Gettysburg alongside the ordinary soldier, and depicts the combination of personalities and circumstances that produced the greatest battle of the Civil War, and one of the greatest in human history.<br></p><p>Of the half-dozen full-length histories of the battle of Gettysburg written over the last century, none dives down so closely to the experience of the individual soldier, or looks so closely at the sway of politics over military decisions, or places the battle so firmly in the context of nineteenth-century military practice. Allen C. Guelzo shows us the face, the sights, and the sounds of nineteenth-century combat: the lay of the land, the fences and the stone walls, the gunpowder clouds that hampered movement and vision; the armies that caroused, foraged, kidnapped, sang, and were so filthy they could be smelled before they could be seen; the head-swimming difficulties of marshaling massive numbers of poorly trained soldiers, plus thousands of animals and wagons, with no better means of communication than those of Caesar and Alexander.<br></p><p>What emerges is an untold story, from the trapped and terrified civilians in Gettysburg’s cellars to the insolent attitude of artillerymen, from the taste of gunpowder cartridges torn with the teeth to the sounds of marching columns, their tin cups clanking like an anvil chorus. Guelzo depicts the battle with unprecedented clarity, evoking a world where disoriented soldiers and officers wheel nearly blindly through woods and fields toward their clash, even as poetry and hymns spring to their minds with ease in the midst of carnage. Rebel soldiers look to march on Philadelphia and even New York, while the Union struggles to repel what will be the final invasion of the North. One hundred and fifty years later, the cornerstone battle of the Civil War comes vividly to life as a national epic, inspiring both horror and admiration.</p></div>


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KING OF KINGS, LORD OVER MEN AND DEMONS ALIKEOnly one ruler had ever held that title, and now Iraj Protarus, an orphaned prince exiled to a small village high in the Valley of the Clouds, dreamed of being the next great conqueror. The key to his destiny would be Safar Timura, a youth with an awesome gift for sorcery, whose visions foretold Iraj's rise to power. And in those visions, Safar stood at Iraj's side, his soul-blasting spells enabling his friend to attain his dreams.  But Safar had other visions with darker portents, and his spellbound knowledge raised secrets better left buried. The road the two men followed would be rich in titles and fortunes, but it would also be rich in death and disaster, in intrigue--and in unforgivable betrayal . . .Let the Wizard of the Winds sweep you away with a tale of such power and passion that you will forget every other fantasy you've ever read. Enter a world where humans and demons are deadly enemies, where the destiny of entire dynasties is buffeted mercilessly by the stormy winds of sorcery powerful beyond imagination. Like the masters who have come before him, Allan Cole has created a haunting and unique world peopled with characters you will hate to love and love to hate . . . a unique world whose siren song will be irresistible to fantasy lovers everywhere . . .


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Captain Rali Emilie Antero came from an illustrious and wealthy trading family whose members included a wizard, long dead, and a famous adventurer, Amalricvery much alive and regaling rapt audiences with tales of his quest to the legendary Far Kingdoms. Much was expected of an Antero...But Rali cared little for magic and magicians, and even less for journeying, particularly on the ocean. She was a soldier, committed to defending Orissa, the city of her birth, and to winning respect for her command, the elite, all-women Maranon Guard. Winning battles was no problem for the Guard; but there were too many jealous men who wanted the women warriors out of the way. So just when Rali should have been at home, resting on the laurels of her latest victory, she found herself assigned to lead a suicide mission: a seagoing odyssey in search of an evil master wizardthe last Archon of Lycanthwho had fled with a doomsday spell, a secret that could destroy all of civilization. And so Rali Antero and her Maranon warriors set out to sea, with the wizard Gamelan, on an epic hunt for Orissa's most deadly enemy. It would be Rali's greatest challenge: a desperate pursuit, raging across the great Western Sea, past the barbaric caravan port of Jeypur, past Tiger Bay and the Lemon Coast, past even the Jasmine Islands, to the great fire reefs that marked the end of the worldand beyond, to places unmarked even in legend.


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<div><p>Alistair Urquhart was a soldier in the Gordon Highlanders, captured by the Japanese in Singapore. Forced into manual labor as a POW, he survived 750 days in the jungle working as a slave on the notorious "Death Railway" and building the Bridge on the River Kwai. Subsequently, he moved to work on a Japanese "hell-ship," his ship was torpedoed, and nearly everyone on board the ship died. Not Urquhart. After five days adrift on a raft in the South China Sea, he was rescued by a Japanese whaling ship.</p><p>His luck would only get worse as he was taken to Japan and forced to work in a mine near Nagasaki. Two months later, he was just ten miles from ground zero when an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. In late August 1945, he was freed by the American Navy—a living skeleton—and had his first wash in three and a half years.</p><p>This is the extraordinary story of a young man, conscripted at nineteen, who survived not just one, but three encounters with death, any of which...</p></div>


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<p>A wealthy Englishman mistakes Lady Kate Cole's love for novels as a desire for adventure and whisks her into an investigation that ultimately uncovers she's stolen his heart. </p>


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<p>The tempestuous, bloody, and splendid reign of Henry VIII of England (1509-1547) is one of the most fascinating in all history, not least for his marriage to six extraordinary women. In this accessible work of brilliant scholarship, Alison Weir draws on early biographies, letters, memoirs, account books, and diplomatic reports to bring these women to life. Catherine of Aragon emerges as a staunch though misguided woman of principle; Anne Boleyn, an ambitious adventuress with a penchant for vengeance; Jane Seymour, a strong-minded matriarch in the making; Anne of Cleves, a good-natured and innocent woman naively unaware of the court intrigues that determined her fate; Catherine Howard, an empty-headed wanton; and Catherine Parr, a warm-blooded bluestocking who survived King Henry to marry a fourth time.</p><p>**</p>


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"A SURPRISINGLY FRESH AND TREMENDOUSLY THOROUGH CONTRIBUTION to the debate...Weir's book is, no doubt, not the last on this subject, but it might be the best....[She] constructs a devastating case...[and] brilliantly illuminates the nature of late-medieval political power."--The Boston GlobeDespite five centuries of investigation by historians, the sinister deaths of the boy king Edward V and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, remain two of the most fascinating murder mysteries in English history. Did Richard III really kill "the Princes in the Tower," as is commonly believed, or was the murderer someone else entirely? Carefully examining every shred of contemporary evidence as well as dozens of modern accounts, English historian Alison Weir reconstructs the entire chain of events leading to the double murder. We are witnesses to the rivalry, ambition, intrigue, and struggle for power that culminated in the imprisonment of the prince and the hushed-up murders that secured Richard's claim to the throne as Richard III. A masterpiece of historical research and a riveting story of conspiracy and deception, The Princes in the Tower at last provides a solution to this age-old puzzle."Weir takes on this delicious mystery with a fearsome vengeance. The result is a fascinating and completely credible account."--Milwaukee Journal"Did Richard III do in his nephews or didn't he? How much of the evil-uncle legend was later Tudor propaganda and how much was true?...This is exciting reading."--The Denver Post"A fascinating historical whodunit in which truth is more sordid than fiction."--Kirkus ReviewsA MAIN SELECTION OF THE BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB


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<p class="description">Following the tremendous success of her first novel, Innocent Traitor, which recounted the riveting tale of the doomed Lady Jane Grey, acclaimed historian and New York Times bestselling author Alison Weir turns her masterly storytelling skills to the early life of young Elizabeth Tudor, who would grow up to become England’s most intriguing and powerful queen.Even at age two, Elizabeth is keenly aware that people in the court of her father, King Henry VIII, have stopped referring to her as “Lady Princess” and now call her “the Lady Elizabeth.” Before she is three, she learns of the tragic fate that has befallen her mother, the enigmatic and seductive Anne Boleyn, and that she herself has been declared illegitimate, an injustice that will haunt her. What comes next is a succession of stepmothers, bringing with them glimpses of love, fleeting security, tempestuous conflict, and tragedy. The death of her father puts the teenage Elizabeth in greater peril, leaving her at the mercy of ambitious and unscrupulous men. Like her mother two decades earlier she is imprisoned in the Tower of London–and fears she will also meet her mother’s grisly end. Power-driven politics, private scandal and public gossip, a disputed succession, and the grievous example of her sister, “Bloody” Queen Mary, all cement Elizabeth’s resolve in matters of statecraft and love, and set the stage for her transformation into the iconic Virgin Queen. Alison Weir uses her deft talents as historian and novelist to exquisitely and suspensefully play out the conflicts between family, politics, religion, and conscience that came to define an age. Sweeping in scope, The Lady Elizabeth is a fascinating portrayal of a woman far ahead of her time–an orphaned girl haunted by the shadow of the axe, an independent spirit who must use her cunning and wits for her very survival, and a future queen whose dangerous and dramatic path to the throne shapes her future greatness.</p>


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Nearly five hundred years after her violent death, Anne Boleyn, second wife to Henry VIII, remains one of the world's most fascinating, controversial, and tragic heroines. Now acclaimed historian and bestselling author Alison Weir has drawn on myriad sources from the Tudor era to give us the first book that examines, in unprecedented depth, the gripping, dark, and chilling story of Anne Boleyn's final days.The tempestuous love affair between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn scandalized Christendom and altered forever the religious landscape of England. Anne's ascent from private gentlewoman to queen was astonishing, but equally compelling was her shockingly swift downfall. Charged with high treason and imprisoned in the Tower of London in May 1536, Anne met her terrible end all the while protesting her innocence. There remains, however, much mystery surrounding the queen's arrest and the events leading up to it: Were charges against her fabricated because she stood in the way of Henry VIII making a third marriage and siring an heir, or was she the victim of a more complex plot fueled by court politics and deadly rivalry?    The Lady in the Tower examines in engrossing detail the motives and intrigues of those who helped to seal the queen's fate. Weir unravels the tragic tale of Anne's fall, from her miscarriage of the son who would have saved her to the horrors of her incarceration and that final, dramatic scene on the scaffold. What emerges is an extraordinary portrayal of a woman of great courage whose enemies were bent on utterly destroying her, and who was tested to the extreme by the terrible plight in which she found herself.     Richly researched and utterly captivating, The Lady in the Tower presents the full array of evidence of Anne Boleyn's guilt—or innocence. Only in Alison Weir's capable hands can readers learn the truth about the fate of one of the most influential and important women in English history.


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Eleanor of Aquitaine was a remarkable woman. She was an important factor in the reign of four kings, lived to the ripe old age of 82, bore 10 children and outlived all but two of them. Her sons were kings of England and her daughters queens of Castile and Sicily, while her later descendants included a Holy Roman emperor and kings of France and Spain, as well as a couple of saints. In an age of men, she was indeed a powerful woman. Born in 1122 into the sophisticated and cultured court of Poitiers, Eleanor of Aquitaine came of age in a world of luxury, bloody combat, and unbridled ambition. At only fifteen, she inherited one of the great fortunes of Europe - the prize duchy of Aquitaine - yet was forced to submit to a union with the handsome but sexually withholding Louis VII, the teenage king of France. The marriage endured for fifteen fraught years, until Eleanor finally succeeded in having it annulled - only to enter an even stormier match with Henry of Anjou, who would soon ascend to the English throne as Henry II. With astonishing historic detail, mesmerizing pageantry, and irresistible accounts of royal scandal and intrigue, Weir re-creates not only a remarkable personality, but a magnificent past era. As Weir traces the fascinating intersection of public and private lives in Europe's twelfth-century courts, Eleanor comes to life as a complex, boldly original woman who transcended the mores of society. Later, after sixteen years of imprisonment for plotting to overthrow Henry, the humbled Queen emerged, at age sixty-seven, to rule England.


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<p class="description">At his death in 1547, King Henry VIII left four heirs to the English throne: his only son, the nine-year-old Prince Edward; the Lady Mary, the adult daughter of his first wife Katherine of Aragon; the Lady Elizabeth, the teenage daughter of his second wife Anne Boleyn; and his young great-niece, the Lady Jane Grey. In this riveting account Alison Weir paints a unique portrait of these extraordinary rulers, examining their intricate relationships to each other and to history. She traces the tumult that followed Henry's death, from the brief intrigue-filled reigns of the boy king Edward VI and the fragile Lady Jane Grey, to the savagery of "Bloody Mary," and finally the accession of the politically adroit Elizabeth I.As always, Weir offers a fresh perspective on a period that has spawned many of the most enduring myths in English history, combining the best of the historian's and the biographer's art."Like anthropology, history and biography can demonstrate unfamiliar ways of feeling and being. Alison Weir's sympathetic collective biography, The Children of Henry VIII does just that, reminding us that human nature has changed--and for the better. . . . Weir imparts movement and coherence while re-creating the suspense her characters endured and the suffering they inflicted."</p>


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<div><p><strong>A new romantic fantasy of magic, manners, and espionage that is also a "fast-paced thriller" </strong></p><p>For the Darkborn, sunlight kills. For the Lightborn, darkness is fatal. Living under a centuries-old curse, the Darkborn and the Lightborn share the city of Minhorne, coexisting in an uneasy equilibrium but never interacting. When Darkborn physician Balthasar Hearne finds a pregnant fugitive on his doorstep just before sunrise, he has no choice but to take her in. Tercelle Amberley's betrothed is a powerful Darkborn nobleman, but her illicit lover came to her through the daytime. When she gives birth to twin boys, they can see, something unheard of among the Darkborn. When men come for the boys, Balthasar is saved by the intervention of his Lightborn neighbor-and healed by the hands of his wife, Telmaine. Soon he finds himself drawn deeper into political intrigue and magical attacks, while Telmaine must confront a power she can no longer keep sheathed in gloves, a power she neither wants nor can control. </p></div>


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<div><p><strong>AS INDIVIDUALS, CONGRESSWOMAN GABRIELLE GIFFORDS</strong> and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, showed Americans how optimism, an adventurous spirit, and a call to service can help change the world. As a couple, they became a national example of the healing power to be found in deeply shared love and courage. Their arrival in the world spotlight came under the worst of circumstances. On January 8, 2011, while meeting with her constituents in Tucson, Arizona, Gabby was the victim of an assassination attempt that left six people dead and thirteen wounded. Gabby was shot in the head; doctors called her survival “miraculous.”</p><p>As the nation grieved and sought to understand the attack, Gabby remained in private, focused on her against-all-odds recovery. Mark spent every possible moment by her side, as he also prepared for his final mission as commander of space shuttle <em>Endeavour</em>.</p><p>Now, as Gabby’s health continues to improve, the couple is sharing their remarkable untold story. Intimate, inspiring, and unforgettably moving, <em>Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope</em> provides an unflinching look at the overwhelming challenges of brain injury, the painstaking process of learning to communicate again, and the responsibilities that fall to a loving spouse who wants the best possible treatment for his wife. Told in Mark’s voice and from Gabby’s heart, the book also chronicles the lives that brought these two extraordinary people together—their humor, their ambitions, their sense of duty, their long-distance marriage, and their desire for family.</p><p>Gabby and Mark made a pledge to tell their account as honestly as possible, and they have done so in riveting detail. Both Gabby and Mark have lived large public lives, but this book takes readers behind many closed doors—from the flight deck of the space shuttle to the cloakrooms of Congress to the hospital wards where Gabby struggled to reclaim herself with the help of formidable medical teams and devoted family and friends.</p><p>Questions are answered with unvarnished candor. How do Gabby and Mark feel about the angry political discourse that was swirling in America at the time of the shooting, and that remains prevalent today? How do they see government living up to the highest possible ideals? And how do they understand and mourn the loss of the people who did not survive that day? <em>Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope</em> is a reminder of the power of true grit, the patience needed to overcome unimaginable obstacles, and the transcendence of love. In the story of Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly, we all can see the best in ourselves. As Mark and Gabby’s friends have said: “The two of them are America as we dream it can be.”</p></div>


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<p>Wander among 19th-century masks and view the Pacific from an architectural landmark in Golden Gate Park<p>Update your wardrobe courtesy of chic boutiques located in a former cow pasture<p>Submerge in an aromatherapy mud bath after a day of imbibing biodynamic wines<p>Picnic on panini among parrots and poets on a North Beach stairway garden<p><B>In This Guide:</B><p>Two local authors, 28 detailed maps and 39 burritos eaten<p>The only guide with a dedicated Gay/Lesbian/Bi/Trans chapter - more clubs, more bars, more fun<p>In-depth coverage of SF's dining scene, from haute cuisine to tamale carts, and an interview with celebrity chef Traci des Jardins


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<div><p>For seven years, Alison Arngrim played a wretched, scheming, selfish, lying, manipulative brat on one of TV history's most beloved series. Though millions of <em>Little House on the Prairie</em> viewers hated Nellie Oleson and her evil antics, Arngrim grew to love her character—and the freedom and confidence Nellie inspired in her.</p><p>In <em>Confessions of a Prairie Bitch</em>, Arngrim describes growing up in Hollywood with her eccentric parents: Thor Arngrim, a talent manager to Liberace and others, whose appetite for publicity was insatiable, and legendary voice actress Norma MacMillan, who played both Gumby and Casper the Friendly Ghost. She recalls her most cherished and often wickedly funny moments behind the scenes of <em>Little House</em>: Michael Landon's "unsaintly" habit of not wearing underwear; how she and Melissa Gilbert (who played her TV nemesis, Laura Ingalls) became best friends and accidentally got drunk on rum cakes at 7-Eleven; and the only time she and Katherine MacGregor (who played Nellie's mom) appeared in public in costume, provoking a posse of elementary schoolgirls to attack them.</p><p>Arngrim relays all this and more with biting wit, but she also bravely recounts her life's challenges: her struggle to survive a history of traumatic abuse, depression, and paralyzing shyness; the "secret" her father kept from her for twenty years; and the devastating loss of her "<em>Little House</em> husband" and best friend, Steve Tracy, to AIDS, which inspired her second career in social and political activism. Arngrim describes how Nellie Oleson taught her to be bold, daring, and determined, and how she is eternally grateful to have had the biggest little bitch on the prairie to show her the way.</p></div>


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<p class="description">Getting your dream job in the arts is no mean feat these days. In this book, the author explores the world of museums and galleries, focusing on contemporary issues and current options for employment in this field. This down-to-earth guide will help you work out what kind of job you would be best suited to, and how to prepare for a career in your chosen field. Featuring many case studies and real life examples, this book takes a practical approach to finding the right job for you. It includes advice on creating an eye-catching CV, applying for an advertised post, finding work experience, the interview itself, and creating the career you really want. </p>


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<div><p>SHE KNOWS WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE.</p><p>Manhattan veterinarian Abra Barrow has more sense about animals than she has about men. So when her adored journalist husband returns from a research trip to Romania and starts pacing their apartment like a caged wolf, Abra agrees to move with him to a rural mansion upstate in order to save her marriage.</p><p>But while there are perks to her new life, particularly in the bedroom,<br>Abra soon discovers that nothing in the bucolic town of Northside is what it seems. The local tavern serves a dangerous, predatory underworld. Her husband has developed feral new appetites and a roving eye, and his lack of humanity isn’t entirely emotional. As the moon waxes full, Abra must choose between trusting the man she married, taking a chance on a seductive stranger, or following her own animal instincts. </p></div>


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<p>Life in the court of King Henry VIII is a complex game. When fifteen-year-old Catherine Howard catches the king’s eye, she quickly transforms from pawn to queen. But even luxury beyond imagination loses its luster as young Catherine finds her life—and her heart—threatened by the needs of an aging king and a family hungry for power. Will their agendas deliver Catherine to the same fate as her infamous cousin, Anne Boleyn—sacrificed at the altar of family ambition?<p>Engaging historical fiction with a throbbing YA heartbeat, this thrilling novel will draw readers into the intrigues and dangers of the Tudor court.


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<div><p>Some instincts are too powerful to deny.</p><p>In the past year, veterinarian Abra Barrow has gone through some major changes: She’s left Manhattan for the deceptively quiet small town of Northside, ditched her cheating husband, and discovered that he has infected her with the rare werewolf virus. Now Abra is finally beginning to feel as if she has her life under control–except when the moon is full.</p><p>But then, all of a sudden, Abra starts losing her temper–and her inhibitions–even when the sun is shining. Her new man, shape-shifting wildlife expert Red Mallin, seems to know more about her condition than he’s letting on, but he’s a little preoccupied with strange creatures that have been crossing the dimensional border. </p><p>With her hormones in overdrive, Abra finds herself releasing the beast in all the men around her. As life in Northside becomes increasingly more peculiar–and more perilous–she must decide whom she can trust . . . when she’s not even sure she can trust herself. </p></div>


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<div><p>When we first meet 14-year-old Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. This was before milk carton photos and public service announcements, she tells us; back in 1973, when Susie mysteriously disappeared, people still believed these things didn't happen. In the sweet, untroubled voice of a precocious teenage girl, Susie relates the awful events of her death and her own adjustment to the strange new place she finds herself. It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. With love, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie watches her family as they cope with their grief, her father embarks on a search for the killer, her sister undertakes a feat of amazing daring, her little brother builds a fort in her honor and begin the difficult process of healing. In the hands of a brilliant novelist, this story of seemingly unbearable tragedy is transformed into a suspenseful and touching story about family, memory, love, heaven, and living.</p></div>


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<p>Here is THE book recounting the life and times of one of the most respected men in the world, Warren Buffett. The legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but now he has allowed one writer, Alice Schroeder, unprecedented access to explore directly with him and with those closest to him his work, opinions, struggles, triumphs, follies, and wisdom. The result is the personally revealing and complete biography of the man known everywhere as “The Oracle of Omaha.”</p><p>Although the media track him constantly, Buffett himself has never told his full life story. His reality is private, especially by celebrity standards. Indeed, while the homespun persona that the public sees is true as far as it goes, it goes only so far. Warren Buffett is an array of paradoxes. He set out to prove that nice guys can finish first. Over the years he treated his investors as partners, acted as their steward, and championed honesty as an investor, CEO, board member, essayist, and speaker. At the same time he became the world’s richest man, all from the modest Omaha headquarters of his company Berkshire Hathaway. None of this fits the term “simple.”</p><p>When Alice Schroeder met Warren Buffett she was an insurance industry analyst and a gifted writer known for her keen perception and business acumen. Her writings on finance impressed him, and as she came to know him she realized that while much had been written on the subject of his investing style, no one had moved beyond that to explore his larger philosophy, which is bound up in a complex personality and the details of his life. Out of this came his decision to cooperate with her on the book about himself that he would never write.</p><p>Never before has Buffett spent countless hours responding to a writer’s questions, talking, giving complete access to his wife, children, friends, and business associates—opening his files, recalling his childhood. It was an act of courage, as <strong>The Snowball </strong>makes immensely clear. Being human, his own life, like most lives, has been a mix of strengths and frailties. Yet notable though his wealth may be, Buffett’s legacy will not be his ranking on the scorecard of wealth; it will be his principles and ideas that have enriched people’s lives. This book tells you why Warren Buffett is the most fascinating American success story of our time.</p><p><em></em></p>


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<div><p><strong>A brilliant new collection of stories from one of the most acclaimed and beloved writers of our time. </strong><br></p><p>Alice Munro’s peerless ability to give us the essence of a life in often brief but always spacious and timeless stories is once again everywhere apparent in this brilliant new collection. In story after story, she illumines the moment a life is forever altered by a chance encounter or an action not taken, or by a simple twist of fate that turns a person out of his or her accustomed path and into a new way of being or thinking. A poet, finding herself in alien territory at her first literary party, is rescued by a seasoned newspaper columnist, and is soon hurtling across the continent, young child in tow, toward a hoped-for but completely unplanned meeting. A young soldier, returning to his fiancée from the Second World War, steps off the train before his stop and onto the farm of another woman, beginning a life on the move. A wealthy young woman having an affair with the married lawyer hired by her father to handle his estate comes up with a surprising way to deal with the blackmailer who finds them out.     <br>         While most of these stories take place in Munro’s home territory—the small Canadian towns around Lake Huron—the characters sometimes venture to the cities, and the book ends with four pieces set in the area where she grew up, and in the time of her own childhood: stories “autobiographical in feeling, though not, sometimes, entirely so in fact.” A girl who can’t sleep imagines night after wakeful night that she kills her beloved younger sister. A mother snatches up her child and runs for dear life when a crazy woman comes into her yard.   <br>         Suffused with Munro’s clarity of vision and her unparalleled gift for storytelling, these tales about departures and beginnings, accidents and dangers, and outgoings and homecomings both imagined and real, paint a radiant, indelible portrait of how strange, perilous, and extraordinary ordinary life can be.</p></div>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; ">Yael was born of a dead mother and father who knows how to become invisible. Revka learned silence when her grandsons lost their voices after witnessing their mother’s brutal murder. Aziza became a boy to protect herself, and hates being forced to turn back into a woman. And Shirah will do anything to protect those she loves from the horrors of the world. The power and violence of these women is evident in every word of <em>The Dovekeepers</em>. Hoffman’s prose is vivid and unforgettable, scorching like the desert heat, and will stay with you long after you finish the last page. A story of sacrifice, endurance, and above all, survival, <em>The Dovekeepers</em> is homage to anyone who’s ever held fast to their beliefs in the face of nearly insurmountable adversity. </span></h3></div>


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From the Whitbread Award-winning author of "The Accidental" and "Hotel World" comes this stunning collection of stories set in a world of everyday dislocation, where peoplenevertheless find connection, mystery, and love. These tales are of ordinary but poignant beauty: at the pub, strangers regale each other with memories of Christmases past; lovers share talesover dinner about how they met, their former lovers, and each other; a woman even tells a story to her fourteen-year-old self. As Smith explores the subtle links between what we know and whatwe feel, she creates an exuberant, masterly collection that is packed full of ideas, humor, nuance, and compassion. Ali Smith and the short story are made for eachother. "From the Trade Paperback edition."


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; "><strong>A book that will change the way we think about al-Qaeda, intelligence, and the events that forever changed America.</strong></span></h3><p>On September 11, 2001, FBI Special Agent Ali H. Soufan was handed a secret file. Had he received it months earlier—when it was requested—the attacks on New York and Washington could have been prevented. During his time on the front lines, Soufan helped thwart plots around the world and elicited some of the most important confessions from terrorists in the war against al-Qaeda—without laying so much as a hand on them. Most of these stories have never been reported before, and never by anyone with such intimate firsthand knowledge. <br></p><p>This narrative account of America's successes and failures against al-Qaeda is essential to an understanding of the terrorist group. We are taken into hideouts and interrogation rooms. We have a ringside seat at bin Laden's personal celebration of the 9/11 bombings. Such riveting details show us not only how terrorists think and operate but also how they can be beaten and brought to justice. 16 pages of black-and-white illustrations</p></div>


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Ali Eteraz's Children of Dust is a spellbinding portrayal of a life that few Americans can imagine. From his schooling in a madrassa in Pakistan to his teenage years as a Muslim American in the Bible Belt, and back to Pakistan to find a pious Muslim wife, this lyrical, penetrating saga from a brilliant new literary voice captures the heart of our universal quest for identity. Children of Dust begins in rural Islam at the lowest levels of Pakistani society in the turbulent eighties. This intimate portrayal of rustic village life is revealed through a young boy's eyes as he discovers magic, women, and friendship. After immigrating with his family to the United States, Eteraz struggles to be a normal American teenager under the rules of a strict Muslim household.  In 1999, he returns to Pakistan to find the villages of his youth dominated by the ideology of the Taliban, filled with young men spouting militant rhetoric, and his extended family under threat. Eteraz becomes the target of a mysterious abduction plot when he is purported to be a CIA agent, and eventually has to escape under military escort. Back in the United States, with his fundamentalist illusions now shattered, Eteraz tries to find a middle way within American Islam. At each stage of Eteraz's life, he takes on a different identity to signal his evolution. From being pledged to Islam in Mecca as an infant, through Salafi fundamentalism, to liberal reformer, Eteraz desperately struggles to come to terms with being a Pakistani and a Muslim.  Astonishingly honest, darkly comic, and beautifully told, Children of Dust is an extraordinary adventure that reveals the diversity of Islamic beliefs, the vastness of the Pakistani diaspora, and the very human search for home.


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<p>Jesse Pasadoble, a former infantry soldier who served his country with honor and courage, is now a defense attorney living in San Francisco. It was in Vietnam that Jesse learned to "hate death and to develop an almost anguished love of the living" during a horrific siege in which he should have died but didn't. For Jesse, the battle still rages: in his tortured memories; in the gang wars that are erupting on Potrero Hill; and now, in the cold-blooded execution of two women - one black, one Vietnamese - on the edge of a San Francisco ghetto.</p><p>Jesse's defense of the young man accused of the brutal double murder will take him back across the years and miles. Finding the truth will mean weaving together the disparate strands of his own haunted life, as the atrocities of the present day become inextricably linked with a battle that took place on a hilltop on the Laotian border two decades before. It is in this fragile link between the two worlds that Jesse dares to seek his own redemption. </p>


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<p class="description">In the year 2301, the wealthiest man in the universe is determined to commit murder in a world in which telepaths are used to detect possible crimes before they can happen. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.</p>


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<p class="description">In this pulse-quickening novel, Alfred Bester imagines a future in which people "jaunte" a thousand miles with a single thought, where the rich barricade themselves in labyrinths and protect themselves with radioactive hit men--and where an inarticulate outcast is the most valuable and dangerous man alive.</p>


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After centuries of calm, the Nameless One is stirring. An army is gathering: giants, ogres and other creatures joining forces from across the Desolate Lands, united for the first time in history under one black banner. By the spring, or perhaps sooner, the Nameless One and his forces will be at the walls of the great city of Avendoom. Unless Shadow Harold, master thief, can find some way to stop them. Epic fantasy at its best, Shadow Prowler is the first in a trilogy that follows professional thief Shadow Harold on his quest for a magic Horn that will restore peace to the kingdom of Siala. Accompanied by an elfin princess, ten Wild Hearts - the most experienced and dangerous royal fighters - and the King's court jester (who may be more than he seems ... or less), Harold must outwit angry demons, escape the clutches of a band of hired murderers, survive ten bloody skirmishes ... and reach the burial grounds before dark. Can he escape a fate worse than death?


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<p class="description">Twenty Years After(1845), the sequel toThe Three Musketeers, is a supreme creation of suspense and heroic adventure. Two decades have passed since the musketeers triumphed over Cardinal Richelieu and Milady. Time has weakened their resolve, and dispersed their loyalties. But treasons and strategems still cry out for justice: civil war endangers the throne of France, while in England Cromwell threatens to send Charles I to the scaffold. Dumas brings his immortal quartet out of retirement to cross swords with time, the malevolence of men, and the forces of history. But their greatest test is a titanic struggle with the son of Milady, who wears the face of Evil. The only edition in print, David Coward sets both the author and his exciting tale in their historical and cultural contexts. About the Series:For over 100 yearsOxford World's Classicshas made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.</p>


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<p>Mixing a bit of seventeenth-century French history with a great deal of invention, <strong>Alexandre Dumas</strong> tells the tale of young D’Artagnan and his musketeer comrades, Porthos, Athos and Aramis. Together they fight to foil the schemes of the brilliant, dangerous Cardinal Richelieu, who pretends to support the king while plotting to advance his own power. Bursting with swirling swordplay, swooning romance, and unforgettable figures such as the seductively beautiful but deadly femme fatale, Milady, and D’Artagnan’s equally beautiful love, Madame Bonacieux, <em>The Three Musketeers</em> continues, after a century and a half of continuous publication, to define the genre of swashbuckling romance and historical adventure.</p>


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One of France's best-selling writers at the time of the novel's composition, Dumas here combines what he considered to be life's essentials - `l'action et l'amour'. This historical romance is the climax of his epic of chivalry and valour that began with The Three Musketeers, and it is here that Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and their friend d'Artagnan, once invincible, meet their destinies. This edition provides background information and notes crucial to an understanding of the legend and the novel's setting.


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<div><p><em>A terrifying novel of suspense based on the Rhine parapsychology experiments at Duke University</em></p><p>After experiencing a precognitive dream that ends her engagement and changes her life forever, a young psychology professor from California decides to get a fresh start by taking a job at Duke University in North Carolina. She soon becomes obsessed with the files from the world-famous Rhine parapsychology lab experiments, which attempted to prove ESP really exists. </p><p>Along with a handsome professor, she uncovers troubling cases, including one about a house supposedly haunted by a poltergeist, investigated by another research team in 1965. Unaware that the entire original team ended up insane or dead, the two professors and two exceptionally gifted Duke students move into the abandoned mansion to replicate the investigation, with horrifying results.</p><p><em>The Unseen </em>is Alexandra Sokoloff's most thrilling novel to date: a story of deception, attraction, and the unknown. </p></div>


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<div><p>Set against the tumultuous years of the Post-Napoleonic era, Dumas's grand historical romance recounts the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dantes, a dashing young sailor falsely accused of treason. The story of his long imprisonment, dramatic escape, and carefully wrought revenge offers up a vision of France that has become immortal. </p><p>Sent to prison on a false accusation in 1815, Edmond Dantes escapes many years later and finds a treasure which he uses to exact his revenge. </p></div>


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Louise de la Valliere is the middle section of The Vicomte de Bragelonne, or, Ten Years After. Against a tender love story, Dumas continues the suspense which began with The Vicomte de Bragelonne and will end with The Man in the Iron Mask. Set during the reign of Louis XIV and filled with behind-the-scenes intrigue, the novel brings the aging Musketeers and d'Artagnan out of retirement to face an impending crisis within the royal court of France. This new edition of the classic English translation is richly annotated and places Dumas's invigorating tale in its historical and cultural context.


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<div><p>Homicide detective Adam Garrett is already a rising star in the Boston police department when he and his cynical partner, Carl Landauer, catch a horrifying case that could make their careers: the ritualistic murder of a wealthy college girl that appears to have Satanic elements. </p><p>The partners make a quick arrest when all evidence points to another student, a troubled musician in a Goth band who was either dating or stalking the murdered girl. But Garrett's case is turned upside down when beautiful, mysterious Tanith Cabarrus, a practicing witch from nearby Salem, walks into the homicide bureau and insists that the real perpetrator is still at large. Tanith claims to have had psychic visions that the killer has ritually sacrificed other teenagers in his attempts to summon a powerful, ancient demon.  </p><p>All Garrett's beliefs about the nature of reality will be tested as he is forced to team up with a woman he is fiercely attracted to but cannot trust, in a race to uncover a psychotic killer before he strikes again. </p></div>


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What if you found your soulmate... and then discovered you couldn't lose him?When Lucy meets Nate aged 18, it is love at first sight. As far as she's concerned, he's The One. Caught up in the whirlwind of first love, they kiss under the Bridge of Sighs in Venice at sunset and according to the legend are tied together indefinitely. But ten years later, they ve almost forgotten about each other. That is, until fate starts to bring them together. Again. And again. And again. It doesn't seem as wonderful as it had before, but if Nate's not The One then why on earth is it proving so hard to break up with him?A funny and magical romantic comedy about what happens when every girl's dream of finding her dream man comes very true indeed...


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<div><p>Never Tempt Fate</p><p>It's been a hell of a day for Abby Barlow. In just a few hours, she's survived an explosion, watched her employer die, had a startling dream, and now she finds herself in a seedy Chicago hotel with the sexy, unearthly Dante, a man she both desires and fears.</p><p>For 341 years, Dante has stood as guardian to The Chalice, a mortal woman chosen to hold back the darkness. A terrible twist of fate has now made Abby that woman. Three hours ago, Dante would have used all his charms to seduce her. Now she is his to protect. And he will do so until his very death.</p><p>A terrifying plan has been set in motion, one that will plunge Dante and Abby into an epic battle between good and evil—and a desperate race to save their love...</p></div>


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<div><p>The Guardians of Eternity are vampire warriors without equal, bound by their loyalties and sworn to protect their charges from every danger...except those posed by their own hungry desires...</p><p>A scarred recluse, Jagr makes no secret of his disdain for others' company. But now, as a member of Chicago's powerful vampire clan, he has certain obligations to fulfill. The latest: track down a missing were pureblood and return her to her sister. The problem: Regan Garrett has no intention of complying. And though Jagr agreed not to harm an inch of this stubborn female's distractingly tempting body, he'll gladly kiss her into submission, awakening an urge he hasn't felt in years. Hell, in centuries...</p><p>Regan vowed never to be at the mercy of another man. That goes double for arrogant, steel-muscled vampires with eyes of ice. All Regan wants is revenge against those who imprisoned her. She doesn't need an ally. She certainly doesn't need a mate. But soon Regan will have to choosebetween a lust for vengeance, and a passion as dark and dangerous as the night...</p></div>


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<div><p><strong>Is He Her Mortal Enemy</strong></p><p>Lady Shay is the last of her kind. Half human, half Shalott, her blood is a precious aphrodisiac to vampires, who consider it more precious than gold. Though Shalotts are renowned assassins, a curse held over Shay lands her on the slave auction block, where her fate is uncertain...</p><p><strong>Or The Man Who Will Risk All...</strong></p><p>Viper, the beguiling chief of a deadly vampire clan, can't explain his longing to possess the beautiful Shalott who once saved his life, but now he is free to do anything he wants with her. Strangely, while he desires both Shay's blood and body, he wants her to surrender willingly.</p><p><strong>To Save Her Life? </strong></p><p>A hidden evil has been stalking Shay since she left the slave market with Viper. It is an evil that endangers the very existence of Viper's kind, and there's no reason he should court such danger just to protect a Shalott. But the love he feels for Shay is enough to make him willing to go to hell and back if it means spending an eternity with her in his arms....</p><p><strong>Praise for Alexandra Ivy and When Darkness Comes...</strong></p><p>"Not to be missed...Ivy is definitely an author with huge potential in the paranormal genre."<em>Romantic Times</em> (Top Pick!)</p><p>"Alexandra Ivy is already in a league of her own."Lynn Viehl, author of <em>Night Lost</em></p></div>


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<div><p><strong>The One Man She Can't Trust</strong></p><p>Two hundred years have passed since Anna Randal gave herself to Conde Cezar in a night of relentless passion. Since then, Anna has become filled with unearthly power she can't begin to comprehend. And the sexy, charming vampire responsible has eluded all of her efforts to track him down, until now...</p><p><strong>Is The Only One</strong></p><p>Cezar's blissful encounter with Anna cost him two centuries of penance. But one thing hasn't changedhis body's response to her is as urgent as ever. Now, commanded by the Oracles to keep watch over Anna, Cezar finds himself torn between his need to protect herand to possess her...</p><p><strong>Who Can Keep Her Safe</strong></p><p>Someone wants Anna dead. And as an ancient enemy prepares to wage a terrifying battle, Anna must decide whether to succumb to a dark, burning desireand accept a destiny that could change the world forever...</p><p><strong>Praise for Alexandra Ivy's Embrace The Darkness...</strong></p><p>"Ivy creates such vivid and complex characters, their emotional struggles feel real even though their exploits are supernatural. A true gift to the genre!"<em>Romantic Times</em></p><p>"Delivers plenty of atmosphere and hot-blooded seduction."<em>Publishers Weekly </em></p><p>"A darkly erotic adventure with a vampire hero who can bite me anytime! Readers will adore Cezar's deliciously romantic craving for feisty, idealistic Anna Randal." <em>New York Times</em> bestselling author Angela Knight </p></div>


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<div><p>TWO MEN.</p><p>Darcy Smith always sensed she was different from everyone else-if only she knew how different. Possessing a secret strong enough to end an entire race of demons, Darcy unwittingly becomes a pawn in an epic battle between the vampires and the weres as she discovers a new world filled with ecstasy-and dark passions.</p><p>ONE DESIRES HER LOVE.</p><p>Consumed with lust for Darcy, Styx-the Anasso of vampires-will do everything in his power to keep her out of the lair of Salvatore Giuliani, the deadly leader of the weres. But protecting the woman he loves could cost Styx the ultimate price. </p><p>THE OTHER.HER LIFE.</p><p>Salvatore Giuliani knows time is running out for the weres. Pushed to the brink of extinction, he will stop at nothing to make Darcy his ultimate conquest and queen-for she alone holds the key to his survival. But which of these men can Darcy truly trust? For all it takes is one bite to plunge her into a lifetime of servitude-or a lifetime of pleasure... </p></div>


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<p class="description">What do dogs know? How do they think? The answers will surprise and delight you as Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist, explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human.Inside of a Dog is a fresh look at the world of dogs -- from the dog's point of view. As a dog owner, Horowitz is naturally curious to learn what her dog thinks about and knows. And as a scientist, she is intent on understanding the minds of animals who cannot speak for themselves.In clear, crisp prose, Horowitz introduces the reader to dogs' perceptual and cognitive abilities and then draws a picture of what it might be like to be a dog. What's it like to be able to smell not just every bit of open food in the house but also to smell sadness in humans or even the passage of time? How does a tiny dog manage to play successfully with a Great Dane? What is it like to hear the bodily vibrations of insects or the hum of a fluorescent light? Why must a person on a bicycle be chased? What's it like to use your mouth as a hand? In short, what is it like for a dog to experience life from two feet off the ground, amidst the smells of the sidewalk, gazing at our ankles or knees?Inside of a Dog explains these things and much more. The answers can be surprising -- once we set aside our natural inclination to anthropomorphize dogs. Inside of a Dog also contains up-to-the-minute research -- on dogs' detection of disease, the secrets of their tails, and their skill at reading our attention -- that Horowitz puts into useful context. Although not a formal training guide, Inside of a Dog has practical application for dog lovers interested in understanding why their dogs do what they do.The relationship between dogs and humans is arguably the most fascinating animal-human bond because dogs evolved from wild creatures to become our companions, an adaptation that changed their bodies, brains, and behavior. Yet dogs always remain animals, familiar but mysterious. With a light touch and the weight of science behind her, Alexandra Horowitz examines the animal we think we know best but may actually understand the least. This book is as close as you can get to knowing about dogs without being a dog yourself.</p>


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When the ship veered into the Cape of Good Hope, Mum caught the spicy, heady scent of Africa on the changing wind. She smelled the people: raw onions and salt, the smell of people who are not afraid to eat meat, and who smoke fish over open fires on the beach and who pound maize into meal and who work out-of-doors. She held me up to face the earthy air, so that the fingers of warmth pushed back my black curls of hair, and her pale green eyes went clear-glassy. “Smell that,” she whispered, “that’s home.” Vanessa was running up and down the deck, unaccountably wild for a child usually so placid. Intoxicated already. I took in a faceful of African air and fell instantly into a fever. In Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight , Alexandra Fuller remembers her African childhood with visceral authenticity. Though it is a diary of an unruly life in an often inhospitable place, it is suffused with Fuller’s endearing ability to find laughter, even when there is little to celebrate. Fuller’s debut is unsentimental and unflinching but always captivating. In wry and sometimes hilarious prose, she stares down disaster and looks back with rage and love at the life of an extraordinary family in an extraordinary time. From 1972 to 1990, Alexandra Fuller–known to friends and family as Bobo–grew up on several farms in southern and central Africa. Her father joined up on the side of the white government in the Rhodesian civil war, and was often away fighting against the powerful black guerilla factions. Her mother, in turn, flung herself at their African life and its rugged farm work with the same passion and maniacal energy she brought to everything else. Though she loved her children, she was no hand-holder and had little tolerance for neediness. She nurtured her daughters in other ways: She taught them, by example, to be resilient and self-sufficient, to have strong wills and strong opinions, and to embrace life wholeheartedly, despite and because of difficult circumstances. And she instilled in Bobo, particularly, a love of reading and of storytelling that proved to be her salvation. A worthy heir to Isak Dinesen and Beryl Markham, Alexandra Fuller writes poignantly about a girl becoming a woman and a writer against a backdrop of unrest, not just in her country but in her home. But Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is more than a survivor’s story. It is the story of one woman’s unbreakable bond with a continent and the people who inhabit it, a portrait lovingly realized and deeply felt.


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K is, seemingly, a man of contradictions; tattooed, battle scarred, and weathered by farm work, he is a lion of a man, feral and bulletproof. Yet he is also a born-again Christian, given to weeping when he recollects his failed romantic life, and more than anything else welling up inside with memories of battle. For his war, like all wars, was a brutal one, marked by racial strife, jungle battles, unimaginable tortures, and the murdering of innocent civilians - and K, like all the veterans of the war, has blood on his hands. Driven by K's memories, Fuller and K decide to enter the heart of darkness in the most literal way - by traveling from Zambia through Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and Mozambique to visit the scenes of the war and to meet other veterans. It is a strange journey into the past, one marked at once by somber reflections and odd humor and featuring characters such as Mapenga, a fellow veteran who lives with his pet lion on a little island in the middle of a lake and is known to cope with his personal demons by refusing to speak for days on end.


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<div><p>Like an irresistible siren, the veiled dancer with the bewitching green eyes lures dukes and earls down into London's underworld to see her danceand succumb to her spell. Some say she's a princess, but only one man knows her darkest secret. </p><p>She is Amy Peel, an orphan from the city's rookeries, and she believes the bold rogue who unmasks her to be nothing but a scoundrelalbeit a dangerously handsome one. He may have rescued her from an attempted kidnapping, but she will not give in to his sensual seduction or to the wicked desire she begins to feel . . . </p><p>He is Edmund Hawkins, swashbuckling pirate turned reluctant gentleman, and he will not let the lovely Amy slip through his grasp, especially when he learns she's in greater peril than she could possibly know. He will do everything in his power to protect herfor this notorious scoundrel has truly, unbelievably, lost his heart . . . </p></div>


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<p class="description">Three angels are sent down to bring good to the world: Gabriel, the warrior; Ivy, the healer; and Bethany, a teenage girl who is the least experienced of the trio. But she is the most human, and when she is romantically drawn to a mortal boy, the angels fear she will not be strong enough to save anyone—especially herself—from the Dark Forces. Is love a great enough power against evil?</p>


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From Alexander Waugh, the author of the acclaimed memoir Fathers and Sons, comes a grand saga of a brilliant and tragic Viennese family.The Wittgenstein family was one of the richest, most talented, and most eccentric in European history. Karl Wittgenstein, who ran away from home as a wayward and rebellious youth, returned to his native Vienna to make a fortune in the iron and steel industries. He bought factories and paintings and palaces, but the domineering and overbearing influence he exerted over his eight children resulted in a generation of siblings fraught by inner antagonisms and nervous tension. Three of his sons committed suicide; Paul, the fourth, became a world-famous concert pianist, using only his left hand and playing compositions commissioned from Ravel and Prokofiev; while Ludwig, the youngest, is now regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. In this dramatic historical and psychological epic, Alexander Waugh traces the triumphs and vicissitudes of a family held together by a fanatical love of music yet torn apart by money, madness, conflicts of loyalty, and the cataclysmic upheaval of two world wars. Through the bleak despair of a Siberian prison camp and the terror of a Gestapo interrogation room, one courageous and unlikely hero emerges from the rubble of the house of Wittgenstein in the figure of Paul, an extraordinary testament to the indomitable spirit of human survival. Alexander Waugh tells this saga of baroque family unhappiness and perseverance against incredible odds with a novelistic richness to rival Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks.


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The witty and utterly delightful follow up to the national bestsellerThe World According to Bertie, this fifth instalment of the 44 Scotland Street series, McCall Smith once again brings us an absorbing and entertaining tale of some of Scotland's most quirky and beloved characters - all set in the beautiful, stoic city of Edinburgh. The Unbearable Lightness of Sconesfinds Bertie, the precocious six-year-old, still troubled by his rather overbearing mother, Irene, but seeking his escape in the Cub Scouts. Matthew is rising to the challenge of married life with newfound strength and resolve, while Domenica epitomizes the loneliness of the long distance intellectual. Cyril, the gold-toothed star of the whole show, succumbs to the kind of romantic temptation that no dog can resist and creates a small problem, or rather six of them, for his friend and owner Angus Lordie.


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<p class="description">The twelfth installment in the beloved, best-selling series is once again a beautiful blend of wit and wisdom, and a pro­foundly touching tale of the human heart.  Precious Ramotswe is haunted by a dream in which she is driving her dear old white van. Grace Makutsi dreams that her 97 percent on the Botswana Secre­tarial College exam was a mistake. When Mma Ra­motswe discovers that her van is actually still in use (and, of course, sets out to retrieve it), Mma Makutsi wonders whether her dream will turn out to be pro­phetic as well. They can only wait and see, but, in the meantime, one of Phuti Radiphuti’s apprentices has gotten a girl pregnant and, under pressure to marry her, has run away. Naturally, it is up to Precious and Grace to help the couple work things out. In other developments, Mma Ramotswe investigates a case of rural jealousy in which cattle are being poisoned. Add to the mix Violet Sephotho’s newly begun, already unstoppable run for the Botswana Parliament and the possibility that wedding bells may finally ring for Phuti Ra­diphuti and Grace Makutsi—whose love for each other is as great as their love for Botswana—and we have a charming and delightful tale in the inimitable style of Alexander McCall Smith.</p>


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<p>In this latest episode in the beloved, best-selling series, the kindest and best detective in Botswana faces a tricky situation when her personal and professional lives become entangled.<br><br>Precious Ramotswe is haunted by a repeated dream: a vision of a tall, strange man who waits for her beneath an acacia tree. Odd as this is, she’s far too busy to worry about it. The best apprentice at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors is in trouble with the law and stuck with the worst lawyer in Gaborone. Grace Makutsi and Phuti Radiphuti are building the house of their dreams, but their builder is not completely on the up and up. And, most shockingly, Mma Potokwane, defender of Botswana’s weak and downtrodden, has been dismissed from her post as matron at the orphan farm. Can the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency help restore the beloved matron to her rightful position?<br><br>As wealthy and powerful influences at the orphan farm become allied against their friend, help arrives from an unexpected visitor: the tall stranger from Mma Ramotswe’s dreams, who turns out to be none other than the estimable Clovis Andersen, author of the No. 1 Ladies’ prized manual, <em>The Principles of Private Detection.</em> Together, Mma Ramotswe, Mma Makutsi, and their teacher-turned-colleague help right this injustice and in the process discover something new about being a good detective.</p>


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<p class="description">This first novel in Alexander McCall Smith’s widely acclaimed The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series tells the story of the delightfully cunning and enormously engaging Precious Ramotswe, who is drawn to her profession to “help people with problems in their lives.” Immediately upon setting up shop in a small storefront in Gaborone, she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and follow a wayward daughter. But the case that tugs at her heart, and lands her in danger, is a missing eleven-year-old boy, who may have been snatched by witchdoctors.</p>


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Readers will agree that this touching and dramatic new installment in Alexander McCall Smith’s beloved and best-selling series is the finest yet. In this story, Precious Ramotswe deals with issues of mistaken identity and great fortune against the beautiful backdrop of Botswana’s remote and striking Okavango Delta. Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi head to a safari camp to carry out a delicate mission on behalf of a former guest who has left one of the guides a large sum of money. But once they find their man, Precious begins to sense that something is not right. To make matters worse, shortly before their departure Mma Makutsi’s fiancé, Phuti Radiphuti, suffers a debilitating accident, and when his aunt moves in to take care of him, she also pushes Mma Makutsi out of the picture. Could she be trying to break up the relationship? Finally, a local priest and his wife independently approach Mma Ramotswe with concerns of infidelity, creating a rather unusual and tricky situation. Nevertheless, Precious is confident that with a little patience, kindness and good sense things will work out for the best, something that will delight her many fans.


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<p><strong>CORDUROY MANSIONS - Book 2<br /></strong><br /><strong>In the Corduroy Mansions series of novels, set in London’s hip Pimlico neighborhood, we meet a cast of charming eccentrics, including perhaps the world’s most clever terrier, who make their home in a handsome, though slightly dilapidated, apartment block. </strong></p><p>The second installment in Alexander McCall Smith’s newest beloved series follows the further adventures of Freddie de la Hay, Pimlico terrier, and the wonderfully motley crew of his fellow residents in the elegantly crumbling London mansion block, Corduroy Mansions.<br /><br />A pair of New Age operators has determined that Terence Moongrove’s estate is the ideal location for their Centre for Cosmological Studies. Literary agent Barbara Ragg has decided to represent a man who is writing a book about his time “hanging out” with the abominable snowman. And our small, furry, endlessly surprising canine hero, Freddie de la Hay, has been recruited by MI6 to infiltrate a Russian spy ring. Needless to say, the other denizens of Corduroy Mansions have issues of their own. But all of them will be addressed with the wit, charm, and insight into the foibles of the human condition that have become the hallmark of this truly peerless storyteller.</p>


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The latest installment of this universally beloved and best-selling series finds Precious Ramotswe in personal need of her own formidable detection talents . . . . Mma Ramotswe's ever-ready tiny white van has recently developed a rather disturbing noise. Of course, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoniher estimable husband and one of Botswana's most talented mechanicsis the man to turn to for help. But Precious suspects he might simply condemn the van and replace it with something more modern. Can she find a way to save her old friend? In the meantime, Mma Makutsi discovers that her old rival Violet Sephotho, who could not have gotten more than fifty percent on her typing final at the Botswana Secretarial College, has set her sights on none other than Mma Makutsi's fiance, Phuti Radiphuti. Can Mma Ramotswe's intuition save the day? Finally, the proprietor of a local football team has enlisted the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency to help explain its dreadful losing streak. The owner of the team is convinced he as a traitor in his midst. But how is Mma Ramotswe, who has never seen a football match in her life, going to discern who is throwing the game? Help, it turns out, may come from an unexpected quarter. There are few mysteries that can't be solved and fewer problems that can't be fixed when the irrepressible Precious Ramotswe puts her mind to them. A good cup of red bush tea might be the best solution of all.


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TALES THAT SPEAK FROM THE AFRICAN HEARTA man with a tree growing out of his head? A woman with children made of wax? A bird that can be milked?Let Alexander McCall Smith once again take you to a land where the bizarre is everyday and magic is real, with more illustrated stories from The Girl Who Married A Lion, his celebration of African folktales.


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<p class="description">With his wife expecting their first child, Bolitho is loath to quit land for the demands of duty. But with the Peace of Amiens already showing signs of strain, he is ordered to the Caribbean to hand over San Felipe to the French.</p>


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La's Orchestra Saves the Worldis another delightful story celebrating friendship and the healing power of music, told with the warmth and charm we've come to love from this favourite storyteller. It's 1939 and the war in Europe casts a long, all-encompassing shadow. In a sleepy town in Suffolk, La, the generous and determined widow, forms an amateur orchestra to entertain the locals and soothe her own broken heart. She recruits Feliks, a refugee from Poland, to play the flute, and a touching friendship emerges. When the war is over and the orchestra disbands, La is left pondering her next move. What role can she play in her community now that the war is over? And can she let herself love again?


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A delightful new setting—London—a wonderful new cast of characters and one incredibly clever dog. Corduroy Mansions is the affectionate nickname given to a genteel, crumbling mansion block in London’s vibrant Pimlico neighborhood and the home turf of a captivating collection of quirky and altogether McCall-Smithian characters. There’s the middle-aged wine merchant William, who’s trying to convince his reluctant twenty-four-year-old son, Eddie, to leave the nest; and Marcia, the boutique caterer who has her sights set on William. There’s also the (justifiably) much-loathed Member of Parliament Oedipus Snark; his mother, Berthea, who’s writing his biography and hating every minute of it; and his long-suffering girlfriend, Barbara, a literary agent who would like to be his wife (but, then, she’d like to be almost anyone’s wife). There’s the vitamin evangelist, the psychoanalyst, the art student with a puzzling boyfriend and Freddie de la Hay, the Pimlico terrier who insists on wearing a seat belt and is almost certainly the only avowed vegetarian canine in London. Filled with the ins and outs of neighborliness in all its unexpected variations, Corduroy Mansions showcases the life, laughter and humanity that have become the hallmarks of Alexander McCall Smith’s work.


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<div><p>A classic of American political thought, <em>The Federalist</em> is a series of eighty-five essays by three authors—Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay—the purpose of which was to gain support for the proposed new Constitution of the United States, a document that many considered too radical. Most of the “papers” were published in periodicals as the vote on approving it drew near. Without the support of these powerfully persuasive essays, the Constitution most likely would not have been ratified and America might not have survived as a nation.</p><p>Beginning with an assault upon the country’s first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, the authors of <em>The Federalist </em>present a masterly defense of the new system. Hamilton, Madison, and Jay—three of our most influential founders—comment brilliantly on issue after issue, whether it be the proper size and scope of government, taxation, or impeachment. Today lawmakers and politicians frequently invoke these commentaries, more than 200 years after they first appeared.</p><p>Written in haste and during a time of great crisis in the new American government, the articles were not expected to achieve immortality. Today, however, many historians consider <em>The Federalist </em>as the third most important political document in American history, just behind the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution itself. They have become the benchmark of American political philosophy, and the best explanation of what the Founding Fathers were trying to achieve.</p></div>


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2008: Deep in the mountain forests of Wyoming, Julian Cooke stumbles across the rotting remains of a wooden wagon. He's discovered what's left of the Preston Group, a convoy of settlers that vanished in the winter of 1856. It's clear that something horrific happened here all those years ago, but Cooke can only find a few tantalising clues.1856: as early snows descend, the eclectic group of settlers that form the Preston wagon train are forced to dig in. Miles from any kind of civilisation, they see the group of Native Americans also trapped nearby as their greatest threat. But they soon realise what true danger is. When a woman is found murdered, one of the Indian party struggles wounded back to camp, whispering of unspeakable evil as he dies. United by fear, the settlers and the Indians must protect themselves against whatever is lurking in the woods. But as suspicion and panic grow, perhaps their own terror will be just as dangerous. Or maybe, whatever's out there is worse than anything they can imagine.Back in the present day, as Cooke unravels the mystery, he must question if the horror he is uncovering was in fact only the start of something much worse...


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It's early April 1945, deep in the bloodied days of World War II. The Nazi regime is being slowly throttled by the oncoming Russian and Allied armies and Hitler rages uselessly in his Berlin bunker. But the high command have one more throw of the dice to make. An audacious plan is hatched to save the Fatherland and beat off the oncoming apocalypse. All it will take is a hodge-podge squadron of escort fighters, a captured U.S. bomber, and one brave but suicidal pilot to fly it over the Atlantic into the beating heart of America. Half a century later, a rusting plane is discovered, sunk with its crew, off the coast of New Yorka relic from a bygone age. Chris Roland, a brilliant young photographer, is sent to take photos of this time capsule. But it is only when he discovers that the fragments of Nazi uniforms on the decaying corpses that he realizes that he has come across a secret so terrible that even 50 years later it could still kill him.


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<p class="description">First published in 1904, "A Kidnapped Santa Claus" by L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wizard of Oz, describes the action of some uncommon events in the land of Santa. Not far from the Laughing Valley where Santa and all his magical helpers live, and beyond the Forest of Burzee, there stands a huge mountain that contains the Cave of Demons. Each demon has a specialty: Selfishness, Envy, Hatred, Malice, and Repentance. Because the promise of Santa puts all girls and boys on their best behavior, the demons have hardly any visitors to their caves. In order to remedy their dismal foot traffic, they conspire to kidnap Santa! But oh! even when it looks as if the demons might win, one can never underestimate the power of devoted (and magical!) friends.  Adapted by Alex Robinson, author of several graphic novels, the action and menace of the tale will be enhanced and lightly spoofed. It seems a most appropriate treatment of Baum's work -- he was an author who often let his profound and unsettling meanings roil beneath the surface of his otherwise fanciful stories.</p>


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<p class="description">Human civilisation as we know it has ended. What next? The world lies devastated after the massive oil crisis that was described in LAST LIGHT. Human society has more or less entirely broken down and millions lie dead of starvation and disease. There are only one or two beacon communities that have managed to fashion a new way of living.Jenny Sutherland runs one of these groups. Based on a series of decaying offshore oil-rigs - for safety - a few hundred people have rebuilt a semblance of normality in this otherwise dead world.But as she and her people start to explore their surroundings once again, they start to realise not every survivor has the same vision of a better future than their catastrophic past. There are people out there who would take everything they have. War is coming, and the stakes are truly massive...</p>


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<p>Filled with hundreds of lush, full-color photographs, <em>150 Best Minimalist Interior Ideas</em> profiles beautiful minimalist rooms around the globe and presents tips, tricks, and techniques revealing how to create your own gorgeous, sophisticated interiors.</p><p>One of the most popular contemporary interior design trends, minimalism highlights the essence of a room, stressing clean lines, clutter-free spaces, and a limited color palette.</p><p>In <em>150 Best Minimalist Interior Ideas</em>, photographs and floor plans of minimalist homes around the world are featured. The images are of stunning bedrooms, living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, and bathrooms; and insightful text complements them to reveal why the minimalist rooms are so eye-catching, cathartic, and desirable. The text includes a wealth of both big picture and more focused ideas. It covers subjects such as walls (if and when to use them), doors, and partitions, flooring, lighting, furniture, and staircases, and explores color, patterns, materials, and texture.</p><p>The homes featured in this extraordinary volume were developed by distinguished international designers at the forefront of the minimalist movement. The result is a guide that offers both inspiration and how-to advice for creating maximum beauty using minimal elements.</p><p>**</p>


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<div><p>One by one they go missing. And in the lake a voice cries out: “Save them. . . .”<br><br><br>In the darkness, in a lake in the middle of a prosperous college town, Rachel Matre feels the water caressing her bare skin, teasing her senses, drawing her body into a lush erotic embrace. For twenty years she has communed with the lake spirits this way—and told no one. The price is simple: She must help those in need.</p><p>But now a series of young women have gone missing. The police don’t have any bodies, or even a single suspect. Only the spirits seem to sense the truth. Through them, Rachel finds herself drawn into a madman’s web. She alone can save the missing women. But who can save her? </p></div>


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<p><B>65 of the Region's Best Trips!</B><p>Whether you're a local looking for a long weekend escape, a visitor looking to explore or you simply need some ideas when family and friends come to visit, Lonely Planet's Trips series offers the best itineraries - and makes it easy to plan the perfect trip time and again.<p><B>Theme icons</B> make finding the perfect trip simple - no matter what your interest<p><B>Easy-to-use maps</B> for every trip, plus driving times and directions<p><B>Explore the region</B> with trips ranging from two to eight days, and day trips from Charleston, New Orleans, Atlanta and more<p><B>Local experts</B> share their favorite trip ideas, including a bourbon historian's distillery tour and a place to remember Martin Luther King, Jr from his daughter<p><B>Iconic Trips</B> chapter covers must-do trips across the region, from antebellum mansions to Southern cooking<p><B>Tune In</B><p>on the road with our regional music playlists<p><B>Family-friendly</B> and...


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From Alex Kava-- the critically acclaimed author of A PERFECT EVIL and SPLIT SECOND--comes the bestselling thriller THE SOUL CATCHER. First time in paperback. FBI profiler Maggie O'Dell is called to the crime scene of a murdered young girl who was assaulted, strangled and left to die near the FDR Memorial in Washington, D.C. Her investigation leads Maggie to Reverend Everett, the charismatic leader of a religious group who had held a prayer meeting the night before the murder--a meeting that had attracted many young people, including the victim. Searching for leads with her partner, Tully, Maggie begins to realize that this case may strike close to home--her own mother is involved with Everett, and she may be the key to solving the case.


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Veteran FBI profiler Maggie O'Dell and Assistant Director Cunningham believed the threat targeted Quantico. It targeted them.A deadly virus—virtually undetectable until it causes death from a million internal cuts. The victims appear random, but Maggie wonders if vengeance isn't the guiding hand.An aficionado of contemporary killers, using bits and pieces from their crimes—the Beltway Sniper's phrases, the Unabomber's clues, the Anthrax Killer's delivery.Maggie knows dangerous minds, but she must tackle this new opponent from within a biosafety isolation ward—while waiting to see if death is already multiplying inside her body. She just fears her last case might end with the most intelligent killer she's ever faced escalating from murder…to epidemic.


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<p class="description">On a crisp Autumn evening in western Nebraska, what started as a group of kids filming their drug-fuelled party ends in an explosive light show, leaving the victims apparently electrocuted, with odd scorch marks being the only evidence. While Maggie tries to make sense of the different stories, sifting through what is real and what is hallucination, she realises that the surviving teens are being targeted and systematically eliminated. Meanwhile on the East Coast, Army colonel Benjamin Platt is at the scene of a deadly outbreak, desperate to identify the pathogen that has infected children at a Virginia elementary school. Despite the miles that separate them, the two cases collide as Maggie and Platt uncover secrets that were meant to stay hidden...</p>


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On the busiest shopping day of the year, a group of idealistic college students believe they're about to carry out an elaborate media stunt at the largest mall in America. They think the equipment in their backpacks will disrupt stores' computer systems, causing delays and chaos, disrupting capitalism, if only for a moment.What they don't realize is that instead of jamming devices, their backpacks contain explosives. And they're about to become unwitting suicide bombers.FBI profiler Maggie O'Dell must put her own political troubles aside to work with Nick Morrelli and figure out who's behind this terrorist plot—a massacre that's all the more frightening when a tip reveals that Maggie's brother is one of the doomed protestors.


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While investigating the ritualistic murders of Catholic priests across America, Maggie O'Dell stumbles upon an Internet role-playing game for youths who have been victims of male authority figures.


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In the tomblike silence of an abandoned rock quarry someone is trying to hide their dirty little secret. A secret that reveals the depths of human depravity. A secret that is about to be discovered. FBI Special Agent Maggie O'Dell is just starting a hard-earned vacation when she gets a call from her friend, psychologist Dr. Gwen Patterson. One of Gwen's patients is missing on a trip to Connecticut. Can Maggie look into Joan Begley's disappearance? At first Maggie dismisses Gwen's concern. But when the body of a woman is discovered buried in an abandoned rock quarry in Connecticut, Maggie heads to the small town on "unofficial" business to see if there's a connection to Joan Begley. Soon the shocking news surfaces that more bodies have been discovered. And before she realizes it, Maggie is drawn into a case that confounds both local law enforcement and a seasoned criminal profiler like herself. The question remains: Where is Joan Begley? Is she in fact the woman discovered buried in the quarry? Or is she the unwilling guest of a killer obsessed with possessing an unimaginable prize from his victims?


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Convicted serial killer Ronald Jeffreys was executed for three heinous murders. Three months later, another body is found, killed in the same style as Jeffreys' victims. Sheriff Nick Morrelli and one of the FBI's best criminal profilers, Maggie O'Dell, start to put together the gruesome picture of a killer. Has a cold-blooded killer been given the chance to perfect his crime?


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<p>The Khao San Road, Bangkok -- first stop for the hordes of rootless young Westerners traveling in Southeast Asia. On Richard's first night there, in a low-budget guest house, a fellow traveler slashes his wrists, bequeathing to Richard a meticulously drawn map to "the Beach."  </p><p>The Beach, as Richard has come to learn, is the subject of a legend among young travelers in Asia: a lagoon hidden from the sea, with white sand and coral gardens, freshwater falls surrounded by jungle, plants untouched for a thousand years. There, it is rumored, a carefully selected international few have settled in a communal Eden.  </p><p>Haunted by the figure of Mr. Duck -- the name by which the Thai police have identified the dead man -- and his own obsession with Vietnam movies, Richard sets off with a young French couple to an island hidden away in an archipelago forbidden to tourists. They discover the Beach, and it is as beautiful and idyllic as it is reputed to be. Yet over time it becomes clear that Beach culture, as Richard calls it, has troubling, even deadly, undercurrents.  </p><p>Spellbinding and hallucinogenic, <strong>*The Beach</strong> *by Alex Garland -- both a national bestseller and his debut -- is a highly accomplished and suspenseful novel that fixates on a generation in their twenties, who, burdened with the legacy of the preceding generation and saturated by popular culture, long for an unruined landscape, but find it difficult to experience the world firsthand.</p><p>**</p>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">After saving New York City in 2009's <em>The Silent Man</em>, CIA agent John Wells, the hero of bestseller Berenson's exceptional espionage series, retreats to rural New Hampshire in his compelling fourth outing. He hikes and thinks, accompanied only by his dog, Tonka, but soon enough, John hears from Ellis Shafer, his sort-of boss at the agency, who calls him back to Washington, D.C., for a new assignment. An unknown assassin is targeting members of Task Force 673, a now-disbanded secret unit whose job was interrogating terrorists, in particular high-value detainees, by any necessary means. Five of the 10-person squad are missing or dead, with the rest in mortal danger. In his pursuit of the killer, John encounters all manner of political intrigue, including convoluted plots set in motion by agency chiefs vying for control of America's security apparatus, who rely on low-level field spies to carry out their various and bloody plans. </span></h3>

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<p>A killer is on the loose ...In 2009, the CIA officers in Afghanistan's Kabul Station received information from a reliable source regarding the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. But when they followed the informant to bin Laden's apparent location, they discovered it was a deadly trap. The man blew himself up, taking the chief of station and several senior officers with him. Two years later, the station still hasn't recovered and the situation has deteriorated. Every initiative meets with failure. No one knows who to trust. In desperation, John Wells' old CIA bosses ask him to go over and investigate. Reluctantly, Wells agrees but what he finds when he gets there is more than a station in disarray. There is a full-blown military drug-smuggling operation underway, and worse, a traitor is leaking information to the Taliban. Americans are dying, and an American is responsible - and this is just the beginning. Only Wells stands in the traitor's way ...for now.</p>


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<div><p>When the novel <em>Brave New World</em> first appeared in 1932, its shocking analysis of a scientific dictatorship seemed a projection into the remote future. Here, in one of the most important and fascinating books of his career, Aldous Huxley uses his tremendous knowledge of human relations to compare the modern-day world with his prophetic fantasy. He scrutinizes threats to humanity, such as overpopulation, propaganda, and chemical persuasion, and explains why we have found it virtually impossible to avoid them. <em>Brave New World Revisited</em> is a trenchant plea that humankind should educate itself for freedom before it is too late.</p></div>


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<h3 style="text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; ">When an FBI agent is found dead on the white slopes of Quandary Peak in Colorado, a brilliant but volatile agent is drafted in from Denver to lead the investigation. Fighting personal demons, pressure from Washington and dwindling leads, the case stalls and a career falters But as summer comes, Quandary Peak has disturbing new secrets to give up. And as one agent fights failure and hopelessness, another has left behind a trail that leads to a man with a dark past and even darker intentions.</span></h3>


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A murdered real estate agent. Unsatisfied home buyers. A possible celebrity scam. A secret society! Join retired police chief Henry Wright in figuring out who killed Palm Springs real estate mogul Rex Thornbird in this page turning thriller that will keep you guessing. This first book in the Henry Wright Mystery Series takes our detective from Palm Springs to the Silicon Valley to find the killer!


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Aldous Huxley's tour de force, Brave New World is a darkly satiric vision of a "utopian" future—where humans are genetically bred and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively serve a ruling order. A powerful work of speculative fiction that has enthralled and terrified readers for generations, it remains remarkably relevant to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying entertainment.


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<h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; ">Nash culls reminiscences from long-term girlfriends, starlets like Ann-Margret and Cybill Shepherd, and assorted strippers, showgirls and groupies for this gossipy, besotted biography of rock's original sex god. They attest to the allure that had females lining up for access to the young Elvis's bed: devastating looks, pelvic gyrations and a bad-boy sneer combined with a romantic soul, sublime kissing technique and a courtliness that lulled parents into handing over their underage daughters. (He was attracted to 14-year-old brunettes, Nash argues, like future wife Priscilla.) And there's the indefinable magnetism—i.e., celebrity—that kept them coming through the drugs and debauchery, the bizarre monologues and random gunplay, the impotence and incontinence and vomit and bloat of the King's declining years. Nash's mix of breathless melodrama (his voice was soft and sensuous, and he had a mischievous grin on his face, and he was looking straight at her) with rote psychoanalysis (Elvis could never really let go of [his mother] Gladys) often reads like a fan magazine. Her shallow but vivid portrait nonetheless manages to evoke much of what made Elvis so enthralling.</span></h3>


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Alastair Reid is a word magician. BILL BUFORD Now 82 years old, Alastair Reid is one of Scotlands foremost literary figures but his work is currently out of print in the UK (his most recent publication is Canongates Oases from 1997 but this represented only a fraction of his work). The bulk of his prose has long been unavailable, so this wide-ranging new collection of prose will present a fresh and comprehensive overview of his achievements, and will appeal to existing fans and new readers.Admired worldwide as a supreme craftsman in poetry, prose and translation, Reid is a key figure in modern Scottish literature, a man who represents through his life and work the cosmopolitan internationalism Scotland aspires to. Friend and confidant of some of the giants of 20th-century literature, he has written definitive appreciations of Robert Graves, Pablo Neruda, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Cabrera Infante and Mario Vargas Llosa, as well as proving to be one of the most acute and acerbic observers of modern Scotland and what it is to be Scottish. As Scotland finds and defines its place in the global scene, his work has never been more relevant.Alastair Reid was born in Whithorn in 1926. After serving in the navy, he studied at St Andrews University and since then has lived in America, France, Spain, Switzerland, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. He contributed over 150 pieces to the New Yorker magazine in 1951 and joined its staff, eventually becoming South American Editor. He has published over 40 books in many languages, including essays, poetry, sports writing, childrens books and translations of some of the worlds most distinguished poets and literary figures.


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<p class="description">If human beings disappeared instantaneously from the Earth, what would happen? How would the planet reclaim its surface? What creatures would emerge from the dark and swarm? How would our treasured structures--our tunnels, our bridges, our homes, our monuments--survive the unmitigated impact of a planet without our intervention? In his revelatory, bestselling account, Alan Weisman draws on every field of science to present an environmental assessment like no other, the most affecting portrait yet of humankind's place on this planet.</p>


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<p>Modern Western culture and technology is inextricably tied to the belief in the existence of a self as a separate ego, separated from and in conflict with the rest of the world. In this classic book, Watts provides a lucid and simple presentation of an alternative view based on Hindi and Vedantic philosophy.</p>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; ">This monumental study combines history, geography, mythology, archaeology and anthropology with biblical text analysis. Segal, a professor of Jewish studies at Barnard College, spent 10 years on this project, but the erudition he displays is undoubtedly the result of a lifetime of scholarship. In every culture, people ask the same fundamental questions about their existence, including "what happens after we die?" Although Segal maintains that answers to that question lie "beyond confirmation or disconfirmation in the scientific sense," he offers a comprehensive overview of how the afterlife is understood in the three main Western religions. He thoroughly examines early influences from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Canaan, Iran and Greece, then analyzes Jewish views as expressed in the first and second temple periods, the book of Daniel, the Dead Sea scrolls and writings from and about New Testament times, the early rabbis, mysticism and fundamentalism. For Christianity, systematic attention is given to Paul, the Gospels, the pseudepigraphic literature and the Church Fathers. Segal also scans Muslim beliefs as they appear in the Qur'an and the writings of Shi'a mystics and modern fundamentalists. The introductory and concluding chapters provide the essence of the presentation, enlivened by quotations from Shakespeare. Impatient readers may begin with these two chapters as a guide to determining which other sections of the book warrant further scrutiny. Careful readers, however, will take the trouble and the time to pore over this impressive contribution to our understanding of human belief and behavior. </span></h3><p><em></em></p></div>


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Slap bang in the middle of the hottest day of the year, the zoo's drains have blocked up and there's nowhere for the animals' poo to go! Mr Pickles the zoo keeper (who is looking distinctly green) must decide what to do with it all... before the naughty chimps beat him to it!


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; ">In this entertaining memoir, Paul recounts an unanticipated life-changing experience that began when his wife accepted a three-year work assignment in Beijing. After resettling their three young children from suburban New Jersey to China, Paul, a music and basketball journalist who played guitar only as a hobby, embarked on an exploration of local culture and music. The search prompted his transition from writing about music to being a bona fide rock star in the band Woodie Alan, a cross-cultural blues group named after Alan and his Chinese band member, Woodie Wu, a guitarist with a Stevie Ray Vaughn tattoo. Paul blogged about his Chinese experience and also wrote a column on it for the Wall Street Journal's Web site. His story, however, is much more than a musical and journalistic victory dance. It's equal parts family memoir, travelogue, personal analysis of globalization and expatriate communities, and a view of the world's most populous nation through American eyes. </span></h3>

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<p>Journalist, presenter, broadcaster, husband, father, vigorous all-rounder – Alan Partridge – a man with a fascinating past and an amazing future. Gregarious and popular, yet Alan’s never happier than when relaxing in his own five-bedroom, south-built house with three acres of land and access to a private stream. But who is this mysterious enigma?Alan Gordon Partridge is the best – and best-loved – radio presenter in the region. Born into a changing world of rationing, Teddy Boys, apes in space and the launch of ITV, Alan’s broadcasting career began as chief DJ of Radio Smile at St. Luke’s Hospital in Norwich. After replacing Peter Flint as the presenter of Scout About, he entered the top 8 of BBC sports presenters.But Alan’s big break came with his primetime BBC chat show Knowing Me, Knowing You. Sadly, the show battled against poor scheduling, having been put up against News at Ten, then in its heyday. Due to declining ratings, a single catastrophic hitch (the killing of a guest on air) and the dumbing down of network TV, Alan’s show was cancelled. Not to be dissuaded, he embraced this opportunity to wind up his production company, leave London and fulfil a lifelong ambition to return to his roots in local radio.Now single, Alan is an intensely private man but he opens up, for the second time, in this candid, entertaining, often deeply emotional – and of course compelling – memoir, written entirely in his own words. (Alan quickly dispelled the idea of using a ghost writer. With a grade B English Language O-Level, he knew he was up to the task.)He speaks touchingly about his tragic Toblerone addiction, and the painful moment when unsold copies of his first autobiography, Bouncing Back, were pulped like ‘word porridge’. He reveals all about his relationship with his ex-Ukrainian girlfriend, Sonja, with whom he had sex at least twice a day, and the truth about the thick people who make key decisions at the BBC.A literary tour de force, I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan charts the incredible journey of one of our greatest broadcasters. </p>


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<p>You'll find plenty of bodies stretched out on a summer beach - but they're not usually dead...In a British seaside holiday resort at the height of the season, you would expect to find a promenade and a pier, maybe some donkeys, 'Kiss-Me-Quick' hats, candy floss and kids building sandcastles. You would not expect to find a naked corpse, punctured with stab wounds, lying on the sand. Chief Inspector George Gently is called in to investigate the disturbing murder. The case has to be wrapped up quickly to calm the nerves of concerned holidaymakers. No one wants to think that there is a maniac on the loose in the town but with no clothes or identifying marks on the body, Gently has a tough time establishing who the victim is, let alone finding the killer. In the meantime, who knows where or when the murderer might strike again?</p>


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<p>With the publication of the international bestseller <strong>The Selfish Gene</strong> some thirty years ago, Richard Dawkins powerfully captured a newly emerging way of understanding evolution—a gene's eye view. Dawkins went on to publish five more bestselling books, including <strong>The Blind Watchmaker</strong> and <strong>Unweaving the Rainbow</strong>. He is one of the most high profile public intellectuals today and any attempt to understand the scientific view of the world must grapple with his ideas.<br>Now, in this exciting collection of original essays, some of the world's leading thinkers offer their take on how Dawkins has changed the way we think. Readers will find stimulating pieces by Daniel Dennett, the renowned philosopher of mind and author of <strong>Darwin's Dangerous Idea</strong>; Steven Pinker, the brilliant Harvard linguist who wrote <strong>The Language Instinct</strong> and <strong>The Blank Slate</strong>; Matt Ridley, author of the bestselling <strong>Genome</strong>; and James Watson, who with Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA, arguably the greatest scientific discovery of the last century. Dawkins' widely admired literary style forms the subject of several pieces, including one from novelist Philip Pullman (author of the bestselling <strong>His Dark Materials</strong> trilogy). As one of the world's best known rationalists, Dawkins' stance on religion is another theme in this collection, explored by Simon Blackburn, Michael Ruse, Michael Shermer, and the Bishop of Oxford. Numbering twenty in all, these articles are not simply rosy tributes, but explore how Dawkins' ideas have shaped thinking and public debate, and include elements of criticism as well as thoughtful praise.</p>


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<p class="description">Greece, 1940. Not sunny vacation Greece: northern Greece, Macedonian Greece, Balkan Greece—the city of Salonika. In that ancient port, with its wharves and warehouses, dark lanes and Turkish mansions, brothels and tavernas, a tense political drama is being played out. On the northern border, the Greek army has blocked Mussolini’s invasion, pushing his divisions back to Albania—the first defeat suffered by the Nazis, who have conquered most of Europe. But Adolf Hitler cannot tolerate such freedom; the invasion is coming, it’s only a matter of time, and the people of Salonika can only watch and wait.At the center of this drama is Costa Zannis, a senior police official, head of an office that handles special “political” cases. As war approaches, the spies begin to circle, from the Turkish legation to the German secret service. There’s a British travel writer, a Bulgarian undertaker, and more. Costa Zannis must deal with them all. And he is soon in the game, securing an escape route—from Berlin to Salonika, and then to a tenuous safety in Turkey, a route protected by German lawyers, Balkan detectives, and Hungarian gangsters. And hunted by the Gestapo.Meanwhile, as war threatens, the erotic life of the city grows passionate. For Zannis, that means a British expatriate who owns the local ballet academy, a woman from the dark side of Salonika society, and the wife of a local shipping magnate. Declared “an incomparable expert at his game” by The New York Times, Alan Furst outdoes even his own finest novels in this thrilling new book. With extraordinary authenticity, a superb cast of characters, and heart-stopping tension as it moves from Salonika to Paris to Berlin and back, Spies of the Balkans is a stunning novel about a man who risks everything to right—in many small ways—the world’s evil.</p>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; "><strong>A good cop. A bad choice. Let history be the judge.</strong></span></h3><p>In 1943, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Sam Miller is a cop supporting a family and trying to stay on the right side of his boss, the law, and his conscience. Then a body is found by the railroad tracks, a number tattooed on the victim’s wrist. It is a case Sam could walk away from. It is a case he will be ordered to drop. And it is case that leads him into a lethal vortex of politics, espionage, rebellion, and international intrigue.<br></p><p>As war rages in Europe, a new power rises in America. And the people Sam thinks he knows best—his wife, his brother, his colleagues—reveal new identities. In a formerly close-knit city by the sea, where no one is above suspicion and no one is safe, a global summit is about to take place. On that day, history will be changed. And millions of people will live or die, all because Sam Miller has been a very good cop—faced with a very bad choice.</p></div>


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<p>It is the late summer of 1938, Europe is about to explode, the Hollywood film star Fredric Stahl is on his way to Paris to make a movie for Paramount France. The Nazis know he’s coming—a secret bureau within the Reich Foreign Ministry has for years been waging political warfare against France, using bribery, intimidation, and corrupt newspapers to weaken French morale and degrade France’s will to defend herself.<br><br>For their purposes, Fredric Stahl is a perfect agent of influence, and they attack him. What they don’t know is that Stahl, horrified by the Nazi war on Jews and intellectuals, has become part of an informal spy service being run out of the American embassy in Paris.<br><br>From Alan Furst, the bestselling author, often praised as the best spy novelist ever, comes a novel that’s truly hard to put down. <em>Mission to Paris</em> includes beautifully drawn scenes of romance and intimacy, and the novel is alive with extraordinary characters: the German Baroness von Reschke, a famous hostess deeply involved in Nazi clandestine operations; the assassins Herbert and Lothar; the Russian film actress and spy Olga Orlova; the Hungarian diplomat and spy, Count Janos Polanyi; along with the French cast of Stahl’s movie, German film producers, and the magnetic women in Stahl’s life, the socialite Kiki de Saint-Ange and the émigré Renate Steiner.<br><br>But always at the center of the novel is the city of Paris, the heart and soul of Europe—its alleys and bistros, hotels grand and anonymous, and the Parisians, living every night as though it was their last. As always, Alan Furst brings to life both a dark time in history and the passion of the human hearts that fought to survive it.</p>


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<p class="description">Paris, Moscow, Berlin, and Prague, 1937. In the back alleys of nighttime Europe, war is already under way. André Szara, survivor of the Polish pogroms and the Russian civil wars and a foreign correspondent for Pravda, is co-opted by the NKVD, the Soviet secret intelligence service, and becomes a full-time spymaster in Paris. As deputy director of a Paris network, Szara finds his own star rising when he recruits an agent in Berlin who can supply crucial information. Dark Star captures not only the intrigue and danger of clandestine life but the day-to-day reality of what Soviet operatives call special work.</p>


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When Steve Jobs became the acting CEO of Apple Computers, it was hemorrhaging more than a billion dollars a year. His return after twelve years of exile to the company he cofounded completely revitalized Apple. Based on interviews with scores of people--rivals, colleagues, friends--who have worked with Jobs over the years, "The Second Coming of Steve Jobs" presents the most revealing portrait yet of this extraordinarily complex man.


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<p class="description">The Super Summary of World History is a very compact history of the world emphasizing western culture and political processes. The Super Summary is for the thinking person. This new history raises exciting questions and puts events into new perspectives to stimulate real thinking about history rather than accepting that the past as set in stone. History isn't just names and dates, but a range of decisions and actions that often turn on the smallest circumstance. The Super Summary analyzes a few events in depth but most are put into their historical framework so the reader discern where and how all of this action escorts us to the present day. If history seems dull, pick up The Super Summary to discover that Western History is alive with controversy and consequence. The book has 544 pages, 76 Figures - 65 of which are maps - a detailed Table of Contents, a time line of essential events, a list of important on-line sources, an extensive index, and 329 footnotes. At the end of key chapters is a list of reading and on-line sources to help the reader expand their knowledge of history. Throughout the text, critical names are in bold, and extremely important events are in bold and italic print.</p>


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<p>Cheuse's busy follow-up to To Catch the Lightning reaches frantically in multiple directions but lacks a center of narrative gravity, resulting in a florid and off-kilter tale of slavery and forbidden love. Nathaniel Pereira, son of a New York Jewish merchant, gets dispatched to revive an uncle's South Carolina plantation, but his story is derailed by the interspersed accounts of several generations of women driven from slavery in Timbuktu to bondage in the United States. On a slave voyage, the brutality is as vivid as the prose is lurid ("What happened next, we can never truly know, unless we find ourselves forced into the immediate degradation sometimes suffered by the victim, usually female, when man turns beast and instinct—raw, foul, animal, devilish, destructive instinct—overpowers her"), and once the plantation slave Liza becomes an object of purplish desire for Nathaniel (a "tincture of desire now flavoring the spittle that we mingled in our mouths"), readers will realize that things cannot end well. After the convoluted story finds its way to a fiery conclusion, Cheuse tacks on a rushed and tidy resolution that undermines the novel's strongest feature: its depiction of the horrors of slavery. </p>


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<p class="description">Acclaimed historian Alan Brinkley gives us a sharply realized portrait of Henry Luce, arguably the most important publisher of the twentieth century.As the founder of Time, Fortune, and Life magazines, Luce changed the way we consume news and the way we understand our world. Born the son of missionaries, Henry Luce spent his childhood in rural China, yet he glimpsed a milieu of power altogether different at Hotchkiss and later at Yale. While working at a Baltimore newspaper, he and Brit Hadden conceived the idea of Time: a “news-magazine” that would condense the week’s events in a format accessible to increasingly busy members of the middle class. They launched it in 1923, and young Luce quickly became a publishing titan. In 1936, after Time’s unexpected success—and Hadden’s early death—Luce published the first issue of Life, to which millions soon subscribed.Brinkley shows how Luce reinvented the magazine industry in just a decade. The appeal of Life seemingly cut across the lines of race, class, and gender. Luce himself wielded influence hitherto unknown among journalists. By the early 1940s, he had come to see his magazines as vehicles to advocate for America’s involvement in the escalating international crisis, in the process popularizing the phrase “World War II.” In spite of Luce’s great success, happiness eluded him. His second marriage—to the glamorous playwright, politician, and diplomat Clare Boothe—was a shambles. Luce spent his later years in isolation, consumed at times with conspiracy theories and peculiar vendettas. The Publisher tells a great American story of spectacular achievement—yet it never loses sight of the public and private costs at which that achievement came.</p>


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<p class="description">Who are the pivotal figures in American historythe men and women who have helped shape who we are as a people and how we look at ourselves as Americans? In this companion to his popular 1001 Events That Made America, Alan Axelrod suggests we can answer this question only after we look with an open mind into all the areas of our collective past. 1001 People Who Made America does just that, highlighting the famous as well as the infamous, the virtuous as well as the notorious, from the nation's earliest days to the present. Serving up history in lively, accessible bits, the book presents a who's who of American politics, arts, science, business, religion, and pop culture, along with concise explanations of each figure's historical significance. Featured personalities range from Jesse James to Al Capone, Harriet Beecher Stowe to Betty Friedan, George Washington to George W. Bush, Harriet Tubman to Martin Luther King, Jr., Stephen Foster to Elvis, John L. Sullivan to Muhammad Ali, Edwin Booth to Marlon Brando, Washington Irving to Thomas Pynchon, Jacob Aster to Bill Gates. Axelrod's writing is packed with information and insight, giving readers a deeper understanding of what it means to be an American. The appealing design and easy-to-read format invite browsing and make this book a great gift for history buffs and all thoughtful Americans.</p>


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<div><p>Any Baedeker will tell us <em>where</em> we ought to travel, but only Alain de Botton will tell us <em>how</em> and <em>why. </em>With the same intelligence and insouciant charm he brought to <strong>How Proust Can Save Your Life</strong><em>, </em>de Botton considers the pleasures of anticipation; the allure of the exotic, and the value of noticing everything from a seascape in Barbados to the takeoffs at Heathrow.   </p><p>Even as de Botton takes the reader along on his own peregrinations, he also cites such distinguished fellow-travelers as Baudelaire, Wordsworth, Van Gogh, the biologist Alexander von Humboldt, and the 18th-century eccentric Xavier de Maistre, who catalogued the wonders of his bedroom. <strong>The Art of Travel</strong> is a wise and utterly original book. Don't leave home without it.</p></div>


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<div><p>In this highly entertaining and insightful memoir, one of television’s most respected broadcasters interweaves the story of his life and career with lively firsthand tales of some of the most thrilling events and fascinating figures in modern sports.</p><p>No sportscaster has covered more major sporting events than Al Michaels. Over the course of his forty-plus year career, he has logged more hours on live network television than any other broadcaster in history, and is the only play-by-play commentator to have covered all four major sports championships: the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals, and the Stanley Cup Final. He has also witnessed first-hand some of the most memorable events in modern sports, and in this highly personal and revealing account, brings them vividly to life.</p><p>Michaels shares never-before-told stories from his early years and his rise to the top, covering some of the greatest moments of the past half century—from the “Miracle on Ice”—the historic 1980 Olympic hockey finals—to the earthquake that rocked the 1989 World Series. Some of the greatest names on and off the field are here—Michael Jordan, Bill Walton, Pete Rose, Bill Walsh, Peyton and Eli Manning, Brett Favre, John Madden, Howard Cosell, Cris Collinsworth, and many, many more.</p><p>Forthright and down-to-earth, Michaels tells the truth as he sees it, giving readers unique insight into the high drama, the colorful players, and the heroes and occasional villains of an industry that has become a vital part of modern culture.</p><p>**</p></div>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">Taking her very personal brand of pessimistic magical realism to new heights (or depths), Bender's second novel (following <em>An Invisible Sign of My Own</em>) careens splendidly through an obstacle course of pathological, fantastical neuroses. Bender's narrator is young, needy Rose Edelstein, who can literally taste the emotions of whoever prepares her food, giving her unwanted insight into other people's secret emotional lives—including her mother's, whose lemon cake betrays a deep dissatisfaction. Rose's father and brother also possess odd gifts, the implications of which Bender explores with a loving and detailed eye while following Rose from third grade through adulthood. Bender has been called a fabulist, but emerges as more a spelunker of the human soul; carefully burrowing through her characters' layered disorders and abilities, Bender plumbs an emotionally crippled family with power and authenticity. Though Rose's gift can seem superfluous at times, and Bender's gustative insights don't have the sensual potency readers might crave, this coming-of-age story makes a bittersweet dish, brimming with a zesty, beguiling talent. </span></h3>

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<div><p><strong>MO' META BLUES</strong><br><em>The World According to Questlove</em><br></p><p><em>Mo' Meta Blues</em> is a punch-drunk memoir in which Everyone's Favorite Questlove tells his own story while tackling some of the lates, the greats, the fakes, the philosophers, the heavyweights, and the true originals of the music world. He digs deep into the album cuts of his life and unearths some pivotal moments in black art, hip hop, and pop culture.<br></p><p>Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson is many things: virtuoso drummer, producer, arranger, <em>Late Night with Jimmy Fallon </em>bandleader, DJ, composer, and tireless Tweeter. He is one of our most ubiquitous cultural tastemakers, and in this, his first book, he reveals his own formative experiences--from growing up in 1970s West Philly as the son of a 1950s doo-wop singer, to finding his own way through the music world and ultimately co-founding and rising up with the Roots, a.k.a., <strong>the last hip hop band on Earth. </strong><em>Mo' Meta Blues </em>also has some (many) random (or not) musings about the state of hip hop, the state of music criticism, the state of statements, as well as a plethora of run-ins with celebrities, idols, and fellow artists, from Stevie Wonder to KISS to D'Angelo to Jay-Z to Dave Chappelle to...you ever seen Prince roller-skate?!?<br></p><p>But <em>Mo' Meta Blues </em>isn't just a memoir. It's a dialogue about the nature of memory and the idea of a post-modern black man saddled with some post-modern blues. It's a book that questions what a book like *Mo' Meta Blues<strong>* </strong>really is. It's the side wind of a one-of-a-kind mind.<br></p><p>It's a rare gift that gives as well as takes.<br></p><p>It's a record that keeps going around and around.</p></div>


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Was it a misstep that sent a handsome stranger plummeting to his death from a cliff? Or something more sinister? Fun-loving adventurers Bobby Jones and Frances Derwent's suspicions are certainly roused--espeically since the man's dying words were so peculiar: Why didn't the ask Evans? Bobby and Frances would love to know. Unfortunately, asking the wrong people has sent the amateur sleuths running for their lives--on a wild and deadly pursuit tod discover who Evans is, what it was he wasn't asked, and why the mysterious inquiry has put their own lives in mortal danger...


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A Brand New Collection Of Nine Previously Unpublished Stories By The Queen Of Crime Now In Paperback, The Book Of Lost Agatha Christie Stories Written For 1920S Magazines Contains Seven New Stories Which Have Never Been Published Anywhere In The World Since Their Original Appearances, Plus Early Versions Of Two Poirot Stories Which She Later Reworked For Book Publication. The House Of Dreams Is The First Story Agatha Christie Ever Wrote (During The First World War) And Recounts The Effects Of A Macabre Recurring Dream On A Man S Life. The Actress Tells Of A Woman Who Turns The Tables On Her Blackmailer, The Edge Is A Gripping Tale Of Jealousy And Infidelity, The Lonely God Is An Unlikely Love Story About Two Lost Souls Who Meet In The British Museum, And Within A Wall Tells Of A Tragic Love Triangle Between A Portrait Painter, His Wife And His Daughter S Godmother. Christmas Adventure And The Mystery Of The Baghdad Chest See Hercule Poirot Caught Up In Some Unseasonal Mayhem, And In Manx Gold, Commissi Oned From Christie For A Real-Life Treasure Hunt On The Isle Of Man In 1930, Two Young Heroes Race Against Time To Discover Buried Treasure. The Book Concludes With While The Light Lasts, In Which A Rhodesian Tobacco Plantation Is The Setting For An Unexpected Visitor From Beyond The Grave& Also Available From Harpercollinsaudiobooks, Read By Isla Blair


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AGATHA CHRISTIE is more than the most popular mystery writer of all time. In a career that spans over half a century, her name is synonymous with brilliant deception, ingenious puzzles, and the surprise denouement. By virtually inventing the modern mystery novel she has earned her title as the Queen of Crime. Curious? Then you're invited to read...A blinding snowstorm -- and a homicidal maniac -- traps a small party of friends in an isolated estate. Out of this deceptively simple set-up, Agatha Christie fashioned one of her most ingenious puzzlers, which, in turn, would provide the basis for The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in history. From this classic title novella to the deliciously clever gems on its tail (solved to perfection by Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple), this rare collection of murder most foul showcases the inimitable Christie at her inventive best, proving her reputation as "the champion deceiver of our time". (The New York Times)


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<p class="description">"I like a good detective story, but they begin in the wrong place! They begin with the murder. But the murder is the end. The story begins long before that." So remarks esteemed criminologist Mr. Treves. Truer words have never been spoken, for a psychopathic killer has insinuated himself , with cunning manipulation, into a quiet village on the river Tern. But who is his intended victim? What are his unfathomable motives? And how and when will he reach the point of murder...the zero point? --from publisher description</p>


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A facsimile first edition hardback of one of the best 1930s Poirot books, published to mark the 80th anniversary of his first appearance.Thirteen guests arrived at dinner at the actor's house. It was to be a particularly unlucky evening for the mild-mannered Reverend Stephen Babbington, who choked on his cocktail, went into convulsions and died.But when his martini glass was sent for chemical analysis, there was no trace of poison - just as Poirot had predicted. Even more troubling for the great detective, there was absolutely no motive...To mark the 80th anniversary of Hercule Poirot's first appearance, and to celebrate his renewed fortunes as a primetime television star, this title in a collection of facsimile first editions is the perfect way to experience Agatha Christie. Reproducing the original typesetting and format of the first edition from the Christie family's own archive, this book sports the original cover which has been painstakingly restored to its original glory.


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A desperate woman seeks the aid of Hercule Poirot in a matter of life and death. A near-lethal does of poison, a blood-stained knife, a revolver, and a family who aren't what they seem all figure in an extraordinary case that takes the celebrated Belgian detective from a village estate to the bohemian streets of London.


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When Jane goes to stay with her friend Carrie-Louise at her home she soon begins to realise that all is not well there. Not only is this the family home but it is also a rehabilitation centre for delinquent boys and there are definitely some odd characters living there. Then an attempt is made on the life of Carrie-Louise's husband, her step-son is murdered and someone tries to poison Carrie-Louise....


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<p class="description">Agatha Christie first visited Baghdad as a tourist in 1927; many years later she would become a resident of the exotic and then open city, and it was here, and while on archaeological digs throughout Iraq with her husband, Sir Max Mallowan, that Agatha Christie wrote some of her most important works."They Came to Baghdad" is one of Agatha Christie's highly successful forays into the spy thriller genre. In this novel, Baghdad is the chosen location for a secret superpower summit. But the word is out, and an underground organisation is plotting to sabotage the talks.Into this explosive situation stumbles Victoria Jones, a young woman with a yearning for adventure who gets more than she bargains for when a wounded secret agent dies in her hotel room. Now, if only she could make sense of his final words: 'Lucifer ... Basrah ... Lefarge ...'</p>


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Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time with her works outsold only by Shakespeare and the Bible. She is regarded by generations of fans as the greatest mystery writer ever, and her novels are read and cherished the world over. Clarissa, the young wife of a Foreign Office Diplomat, delights in tweaking the sensibilities of her more serious friends and for playing a game she calls "supposing" - imagining a difficult situation and figuring out how people would respond. But Clarissa's lighthearted game becomes deadly serious when she discovers the dead body of an unknown person in her own drawing room. If that wasn't bad enough, her husband is on the way home with an important foreign politician and the attendant scandal of the dead body would irrevocably damage his career at the very least. Therefore, Clarissa decides to dispose of the body and persuades her three houseguests to help. But before she can get the body off the premises, a policeman arrives at her front door. The police received an anonymous tip about a murder in the house and have shown up to investigate. Now Clarissa must keep the body hidden, convince the skeptical police inspector that there has been no murder, and, in the meantime, find out who has been murdered, why, and what the body is doing in her house.


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Miss Jane Marple has gathered together an intimate group of friends and family for an evening of fun, games, mystery, and suspicion. What results is a baker's dozen of fiendishly told tales of malicious misdeeds and delightful deductions -- and twice as many suspects, airtight alibis, and tantalizing clues. Thirteen stories in which the indomitable sleuth plays host to some of the most clever crimes -- and criminals....


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<p>M-U-R-D-E-R. It began as an innocent parlor game intended to while away the hours on a bitter winter night. But the message that appeared before the amateur occultists snowbound at the Sittaford House was spelled out as loud and clear as a scream. Of course, the notion that they had foretold doom was pure bunk. Wasn't it? And the discovery of a corpse was pure coincidence. Wasn't it? If they're to discover the answer to this baffling murder, perhaps they should play again. But a journey into the spirit world could prove terribly dangerousespecially when the killer is lurking in this one.</p>


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As a practical joke, fellow houseguests put eight alarm clocks under Gerry Wade's bed, only to find a missing clock and a dead man


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AGATHA CHRISTIE is more than the most popular mystery writer of all time. In a career that spans over half a century, her name is synonymous with brilliant deception, ingenious puzzles, and the surprise denouement. By virtually inventing the modern mystery novel she has earned her title as the Queen of Crime. Curious? Then you're invited to read...A bit of adventure and quick cash is all that good-natured drifter Anthony Cade is looking for when he accepts a messenger job from an old friend. It sounds so simple: deliver the provocative memoirs of a recently deceased European count to a London publisher. But the parcel holds more than scandalous royal secrets. It contains a stash of letters that suggest blackmail -- and lead to the murder of a stranger who's been shadowing Anthony's every move. Discovering the dead man's identity means retracing his steps -- to the rambling estate of Chimneys where darker secrets, and deadlier threats, await anyone who dares to enter.


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Full of energy and short of funds, old chums Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley decide to form the "Young Adventurers," and advertise themselves as willing to "go anywhere and do anything." Asked by a British Intelligence official to find a woman named Jane Finn, who disappeared with sensitive government documents, they soon find that their whimsical idea has drawn them into a complicated web of intrigue, intelligence agents, dubious identities, missing government papers, false clues  and all-too-real danger.


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Heiress-turned-bohemian-beat-girl Thomasina Tucker meets an unfortunate end in a brawl with another woman. But her death would have passed unnoticed if not for Father Gorman dying at the hands of a stranger days later. The connection? A list of names hidden in the priest's shoe--Thomasina's among them--which leads to an inn called The Pale Horse and three unusual ladies who each has a secret of her own. Reissue.


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<p class="description">A millionaire strikes a deal on the seedier side of Paris and gives to his heartsick daughter, Ruth Kettering, the "Heart of Fire," one of the world's legendary jewels. Legend has it that the possession of the jewel leads to death - but despite her father's protests, young Ruth decides to take it with her on the Blue Train to the French Riviera, where she has planned a reunion with her former lover. A few days into the journey, Ruth is found dead and her priceless rubies stolen. The suspects line up: could the murderer be Derek, her weak and greedy husband; Ruth's former lover, the Comte de la Roche; or the beautiful but tempestuous dancer Mirelle? Only master sleuth Hercule Poirot can unravel the mystery and find the truth.</p>


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A conjurer of skill with an instinct for detection, Mr. Harley Quin has an almost magical flair for appearing at the scene of the most remarkable crimes. But is it just a trick of light that haunts his shadow with a ghostly apparition? Is it fate that invites him to a New Year's murder? And what forces are at work when his car breaks down outside Royalston Hall, an isolated estate with a deadly history?


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<p class="description">This first mystery by Dame Agatha Christie introduces dapper, brilliant Hercule Poirot. Retired as the Chief of Belgian police, he is summoned to a magnificent country estate to solve a murder. The victim: a wealthy heiress. The suspects: her fortune-hunting husband, her jealous relatives, her hired companion. The solution: a deadly scheme that is revealed by the master detective himself. </p>


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"In the village of King's Abbot, a widow's sudden suicide sparks rumors that she murdered her first husband, was being blackmailed, and was carrying on a secret affair with the wealthy Roger Ackroyd. The following evening, Ackroyd is murdered in his locked study-but not before receiving a letter identifying the widow's blackmailer. King's Abbot is crawling with suspects, including a nervous butler, Ackroyd's wayward stepson, and his sister-in-law, Mrs. Cecil Ackroyd, who has taken up residence in the victim's home. It's now up to the famous detective Hercule Poirot, who has retired to King's Abbot to garden, to solve the case of who killed Roger Ackroyd-a task in which he is aided by the village doctor and narrator, James Sheppard, and by Sheppard's ingenious sister, Caroline."--BOOK JACKET.


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<div><p class="description"></p>
<p class="description">Agatha Christie's audacious murder mystery, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers.  One minute, silly Heather Badcock had been gabbling on at her movie idol, the glamorous Marina Gregg. The next, Heather suffered a massive seizure. But for whom was the deadly poison really intended?  Marina's frozen expression suggested she had witnessed something horrific. But, while others searched for material evidence, Jane Marple conducted a very different investigation -- into human nature.</p></div>


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Seasoned sleuth Miss Marple must discover the author of a series of poison pen letters that are being sent to the quiet village of Lymstock, spreading vicious rumors of illicit love affairs, causing scandals, and leaving death in their wake. Reissue.


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AGATHA CHRISTIE is more than the most popular mystery writer of all time. In a career that spans over half a century, her name is synonymous with brilliant deception, ingenious puzzles, and the surprise denouement. By virtually inventing the modern mystery novel she has earned her title as the Queen of Crime. Curious? Then you're invited to read...How odd, Anne Beddingfeld thought, that the stranger caught her eye, recoiled in horror, and fell to his death on the rails of Hyde Park Underground Station. Odder still was a doctor in a brown suit who pronounced him dead and vanished into the crowd. But what really aroused Anne's suspicion was when she learned of the doctor's link to the murder of a famous ballerina, a fortune in hidden diamonds, and a crime-lord embroiled in blackmail. And most frightening of all was the attempt made on Anne's own life. But she is unable to resist the lure of an isolated mansion that could hold the solution to the bizarre mystery -- even if she becomes the next victim...


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<p class="description">Hercule Poirot decided it was fitting to retire while at the height of his career--but before he bows out of public life, he sets himself a challenge modelled on the twelve labors of the mythical Hercules. Poirot carefully selects twelve unusual cases that will challenge him to parallel, equal and perhaps evern surpass the feats of the ancient hero. From a kidnapper of expensive pets, to a deceitful Russian countess, to the blackmailer of a powerful Englishman, the Herculean tasks Poirot chooses keep the indefatigable detective far from retirement.</p>


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Presents a collection of short stories that the author herself referred to as 'light-hearted thrillers'. This work features twelve ingenious mysteries showing the author at her best, including: the curious disappearance of Lord Listerdale, the strange meeting on a train of a feckless man and a beautiful girl, and more.


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<p class="description">A dog-shaped gunpowder mark; an omen from "the other side"; a haunted house; a chilling seance; a case of split personalities; a recurring nightmare; an eerie wireless mesage; an elderly lady's hold over a young man; a mysterious SOS - unexplained phenomena with no apparent earthly explanation.</p>


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A priceless treasure for collectors and fans, "The Harlequin Tea Set" brings together nine brilliant Christie stories that have remained long out of print--until now. Featuring beloved Christie detectives such as Hercule Poirot and Mr. Harley Quin, as well as new characters, these stories will charm and fascinate the millions of Christie fans around the world.


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Sheila Webb, typist-for-hire, has arrived at 19 Wilbraham Crescent in the seaside town of Crowdean to accept a new job. What she finds is a well-dressed corpse surrounded by five clocks. Mrs. Pebmarsh, the blind owner of No. 19, denies all knowledge of ringing Sheila's secretarial agency and asking for her by name -- yet someone did. Nor does she own that many clocks. And neither woman seems to know the victim. Colin Lamb, a young intelligence specialist working a case of his own at the nearby naval yard, happens to be on the scene at the time of Sheila Webb's ghastly discovery. Lamb knows of only one man who can properly investigate a crime as bizarre and baffling as what happened inside No. 19 -- his friend and mentor, Hercule Poirot.


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">“Professional detectives are no match for elderly spinsters… it is hard not to be impressed.”</span></h3><p>“Genuine old-crusted Christie.<br></p><p>“One of the most ingeniously contrived of all her murder stories.<br></p><p>“Agatha Christie has made it awfully hard for the rest of us, because whenever we think of a clever twist—she’s already done it.</p></div>


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<p class="description">A ruthless international cartel seeks world domination...Framed in the doorway of Poirot's bedroom stood an uninvited guest, coated from head to foot in dust. The man's gaunt face stared for a moment, then he swayed and fell. Who was he? Was he suffering from shock or just exhaustion? Above all, what was the significance of the figure 4, scribbled over and over again on a sheet of paper? Poirot finds himself plunged into a world of international intrigue, risking his life to uncover the truth about 'Number Four'.</p>


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<p class="description">There's a serial killer on the loose, bent on working his way through the alphabet. And as a macabre calling card he leaves beside each victim's corpe the ABC Railway Guide open at the name of the town where the murder has taken place. Having begun with Andover, Bexhill and then Churston, there seems little chance of the murderer being caught - until he makes the crucial and vain mistake of challenging Hercule Poirot to frustrate his plans.</p>


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<p>Clarissa, the wife of a Foreign Office diplomat, is given to daydreaming. 'Supposing I were to come down one morning and find a dead body in the library, what should I do?' she muses. Clarissa has her chance to find out when she discovers a body in the drawing-room of her house in Kent. It becomes necessary to dispose of the body before her husband comes home with an important foreign politician, so Clarissa persuades her three houseguests to become accessories and accomplices. It seems that the murdered man was not unknown to certain members of the house party (but which ones?), and the search begins for the murderer and the motive, while at the same time trying to persuade a police inspector that there has been no murder at all... </p>


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A Few Weeks After Marrying An Attractive Young Widow, Gordon Cloade Is Tragically Killed By A Bomb Blast In The London Blitz. Overnight, The Former Mrs Underhay Finds Herself In Sole Possession Of The Cloade Family Fortune. Shortly Afterwards, Hercule Poirot Receives A Visit From The Dead Man S Sister-In-Law Who Claims She Has Been Warned By Spirits That Mrs Underhay S First Husband Is Still Alive. Poirot Has His Suspicions When He Is Asked To Find A Missing Person Guided Only By The Spirit World. Yet What Mystifies Poirot Most Is The Woman S True Motive For Approaching Him&


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Agatha Christie's genius for detective fiction isunparalleled. Her worldwide popularity isphenomenal, her characters engaging, her plotsspellbinding. No one knows the human heart-orthe dark passions that can stop it-better thanAgatha Christie. She is truly the one and onlyQueen of Crime.Sparlkling Cyanide"Rosemary that's for remembrance" Six people are thinkingabout beautiful Rosemary Barton, who died nearly a yearbefore. There's the loving sister, the long-suffering husband, thedevoted secretary, the lovers, and the betrayed wife. None ofthem can forget Rosemary But did one of them murder her?


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Originally published the year of Agatha Christie's death, Sleeping Murder is a novel as legendary as its lead character and its creator...A novel that adheres to the classic mystery formula, and transcends it... A novel that is a must for every mystery reader, marking the final bow of Christie's beloved sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Now Sleeping Murder is back in a special trade edition, sure to delight old and new fans alike....


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<p class="description">Elinor Carlisle and Roddy Welman are the model English couple, perfect companions set for a life of ease when they inherit Aunt Laura's considerable fortune. But a poison pen letter begins a chain of events which is to end in tragedy. Enter Hercule Poirot to investigate. John Moffatt stars as the great Belgian detective in this BBC full-cast radio drama.</p>


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A collectionof short stories featuring some of Agatha Christie's best-loved detectives - Hercule Poirot, Parker Pyne, Mr Satterthwaite and Harley Quin!  All great crime writers have their favourite creations. Similarly, every great sleuth has his, or her, own preferred method of deduction.  Take the charming Parker Pyne, who relies upon an intuitive knowledge of human nature to solve the Problem at Pollensa Bay. Or Mr Satterthwaite, who seeks inspiration through his collaboration with the enigmatic Mr Quin in The Harlequin Tea Set mystery. Then, of course, there's Poirot, whose measured analysis of motive and opportunity is tested to the full in Yellow Iris, when he receives an anonymous call about a matter of life and death.


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<p class="description">Hercule Poirot has a hard time finding a single suspect in the murder of an old lady everyone loved.</p>


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<p class="description">The murder masquerading as suicide. A fraud disguised as robbery. The witnesswho does not exist. A murder weapon that played no part in the crime. All arediabolical red herrings. All are successful in throwing every pursuer off thescent. Everyone but the incomparable Hercule Poirot.</p>


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Hercule Poirot is vacationing on the Cornish coast when he meets Nick Buckly. Nick is the young and reckless mistress of End House, an imposing structure perched on the rocky cliffs of St. Loo.   Poirot has taken a particular interest in the young woman who has recently narrowly escaped a series of life-threatening accidents. Something tells the Belgian sleuth that these so-called accidents are more than just mere coincidences or a spate of bad luck. It seems all too clear to him that someone is trying to do away with poor Nick, but who? And, what is the motive? In his quest for answers, Poirot must delve into the dark history of End House. The deeper he gets into his investigation, the more certain he is that the killer will soon strike again. And, this time, Nick may not escape with her life.


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<p>It was an unusual predicament for Sir Stafford Nye-to awaken in a stupor after being drugged, only to find his passport stolen. There was also no trace of the fascinating woman he encountered in Frankfurt who begged him to help save her life. But Sir Stafford's troubles are only just beginning. The target of two murder attempts, he now seeks the help of the stranger who so urgently sought his. If he can locate her. What he finds is a woman of numerous identities and twice as many secrets, who ushers him into the shadows of an international conspiracy that could well prove to be the death of them.</p>


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Agatha Christie_s complete Tommy and Tuppence short story collection, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers.Tommy and Tuppence Beresford were restless for adventure, so when they were asked to take over Blunt_s International Detective Agency, they leapt at the chance.After their triumphant recovery of a pink pearl, intriguing cases kept on coming their way: a stabbing on Sunningdale golf course; cryptic messages in the personal columns of newspapers; and even a box of poisoned chocolates.


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The personal ad posed a simple question: Are you happy? If not, consult Mr. Parker Pyne. The answer is a resounding no for a jealous wife who suspects her husband of infidelity...for a lonely widow driven to assume a new identity...for a distraught mother whose son has been kidnapped...and for the finance of a strangely reclusive bride-to-be. But what sort of detective would solicit in the personals? The sort who has a knack for investigating affairs of the heart. For therein lie the darkest motives for murder. And they are proving most lucrative for the hopelessly romantic--an highly suspicious--inspector Parker Pyne. The personal ad posed a simple question: Are you happy? If not, consult Mr. Parker Pyne. The answer is a resounding no for a jealous wife who suspects her husband of infidelity...for a lonely widow driven to assume a new identity...for a distraught mother whose son has been kidnapped...and for the finance of a strangely reclusive bride-to-be. But what sort of detective would solicit in the personals? The sort who has a knack for investigating affairs of the heart. For therein lie the darkest motives for murder. And they are proving most lucrative for the hopelessly romantic--an highly suspicious--inspector Parker Pyne.


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Evidence that clears the name of a boy sentenced for killing his adopted mother arrives too late to save his life - so who did kill her? Dr. Arthur Calgary takes a ferry across the Rubicon River to Sunny Point, the home of the Argyle family. A year before, the matriarch of the family was murdered and a son, Jack, was convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. Throughout the trial Jack had maintained his innocence, claiming he was hitchhiking on the night of the murder and he had been picked up by a middle-aged man in a dark car. Unable to locate this mystery man the police viewed Jack's as a lie. Calgary was the stranger in question, but he arrives to late for Jack -- who succumbs to pneumonia after serving just six months of his sentence. Feeling a sense of duty to the Argyles, Calgary is surprised when his revelation has a disturbing effect on the family -- it means one of the family is a murderer!


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The Dentist Was Found With A Blackened Hole Below His Right Temple. A Pistol Lay On The Floor Near His Outflung Right Hand. Later, One Of His Patients Was Found Dead From A Lethal Dose Of Local Anaesthetic. A Clear Case Of Murder And Suicide. But Why Would A Dentist Commit A Crime In The Middle Of A Busy Day Of Appointments? A Shoe Buckle Holds The Key To The Mystery. Now In The Words Of The Rhyme Can Poirot Pick Up The Sticks And Lay Them Straight?


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The final words of the dying man...the code names of Hitler's most dangerous agents...the elusive clue that sends that elegant detective team, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, to a fashionable seaside resort on a mission of wartime intelligence. But not as husband and wife. As strangers, meeting by chance, setting an elaborate trap for an elusive killer.


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One of Agatha Christie’s most famous mysteries, Murder on the Orient Express was inspired by two real-life crimes and the author’s own experience being stranded on the Orient Express during Christmas of 1931. While traveling to Paris, a wealthy American is stabbed to death in his cabin on the Orient Express. With the train stuck in a snowdrift, there is no easy escape for the killer. Fortunately, detective Hercule Poirot is aboard and launches a clever investigation into the curious assortment of passengers, of whom each seems to have a motive.


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<p class="description">This BBC Radio full-cast dramatization stars John Moffatt as Hercule Poirot. When Poirot arrives in France, following an urgent appeal for help, he finds he is too late. His client, a South American millionaire, has been stabbed to death and his body flung into a freshly dug open grave on the golf course adjoining the property. Meanwhile the millionaire's wife is found bound and gagged in her room. Poirot launches an investigation and the baffling mystery begins to unfold.</p>


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AGATHA CHRISTIE is more than the most popular mystery writer of all time. In a career that spans over half a century, her name is synonymous with brilliant deception, ingenious puzzles, and the surprise denouement. By virtually inventing the modern mystery novel she has earned her title as the Queen of Crime. Curious? Then you're invited to read...It was just Luke Fitzwilliam's luck to be stuck next to a dotty old woman like Miss Fullerton on the London-bound train -- although he found himself quite entertained with her tall tales about a series of perfect murders in the quaint village of Wychwood. But when he reads the next day of the freak accident that killed her, too, Fitzwilliam's amusement turns to grave concern. A visit to the isolated village confirms his worst fears. For Wychwood seems to be divided by an eccentric lot of locals: those who are in on a dark and dangerous secret -- and those who don't live long enough to share it.


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Crime sleuth Hercule Poirot returns in a thrilling BBC radio dramatization. Amy Leatheran has never felt the lure of the mysterious East, but when she travels to an ancient site deep in the Iraqi desert to nurse the wife of a celebrated archaeologist, events prove stranger than she could ever have imagined. Her patient's bizarre visions and nervous terror seem unfounded, but as the oppressive tension in the air thickens, events come to a terrible climax--in murder...


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How Did A Woman Holding A Pistol In Her Right Hand Manage To Shoot Herself In The Left Temple? What Was The Link Between A Ghost Sighting And The Disappearance Of Top Secert Military Plans? How Did The Bullet That Killed Sir Gervase Shatter A Mirror In Another Part Of The Room? And Who Destroyed The Eternal Triangle Of Love Involving Renowned Beauty, Valentine Chantry? Hercule Poirot Is Faced With Four Mystifying Cases Murder In The Mews, The Incredible Theft, Dead Man S Mirror And Triangle At Rhodes Each A Miniature Classic Of Characterisation, Incident And Suspense.


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Colonel Protheroe, St. Mary Mead's most loathed magistrate, has been found shot through the head. It isn't his murder that raises eyebrows, but rather the scandalous secrets it exposes which send Miss Marple on the trail of a killer with something to hide. Reissue.


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" Sanctuary " Strange Jest " Miss Marple Tells A Story " Tape-Measure Murder " The Case Of The Perfect Maid " The Case Of The CaretakerThe Lady From St Mary Mead Is Back. She Requires All Her Powers Of Detection To Solve Her Final Six Mysteries:The Man Found Dying In The Church SanctuaryThe Puzzle Of Uncle Henry S Hidden LegacyThe Baffling Mystery Of The Stabbing Of Mrs RhodesThe Question Of The Murderer With The Tape-MeasureThe Case Of Miss Skinner S MaidThe Curious Conduct Of The Caretaker


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<p class="description">In this classic Hercule Poirot mystery from the Queen of Crime, a kindly widow is bludgeoned to death. Is her lodger guilty? Or is he being framed? Either way, the condemned man's time is running out.</p>


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Poirot Had Been Present When Jane Bragged Of Her Plan To Get Rid Of Her Estranged Husband. Now The Monstrous Man Was Dead. And Yet The Great Belgian Detective Couldn T Help Feeling That He Was Being Taken For A Ride. After All, How Could Jane Have Stabbed Lord Edgware To Death In His Library At Exactly The Same Time She Was Seen Dining With Friends? And What Could Be Her Motive Now That The Aristocrat Had Finally Granted Her A Divorce?


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<p>Sure, actress Jane Wilkinson wants out of a miserable marriage, but is 
she guilty of stabbing her way out of it? She claims she's innocent. 
Hercule Poirot wonders if she's giving the performance of a lifetime.</p>


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<p class="description">There's more than petty theft going on in a London youth hostel...An outbreak of kleptomania at a student hostel was not normally the sort of crime that aroused Hercule Poirot's interest. But when he saw the list of stolen and vandalized items -- including a stethoscope, some old flannel trousers, a box of chocolates, a slashed rucksack and a diamond ring found in a bowl of soup -- he congratulated the warden, Mrs Hubbard, on a 'unique and beautiful problem'. The list made absolutely no sense at all. But, reasoned Poirot, if this was merely a petty thief at work, why was everyone at the hostel so frightened?</p>


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<div><p>Hercule Poirot doesnt need all his detective skills to realize something is troubling his secretary, Miss Lemonshe has made three mistakes in a simple letter. It seems an outbreak of kleptomania at the student hostel in which her sister works is distracting his usually efficient assistant. </p><p>Deciding that desperate times call for desperate measures, the great detective agrees to investigate. Unknown to Poirot, however, desperation is a motive he shares with a killer. . . .</p></div>


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It Is Christmas Eve. The Lee Family Reunion Is Shattered By A Deafening Crash Of Furniture, Followed By A High-Pitched Wailing Scream. Upstairs, The Tyrannical Simeon Lee Lies Dead In A Pool Of Blood, His Throat Slashed. But When Hercule Poirot, Who Is Staying In The Village With A Friend For Christmas, Offers To Assist, He Finds An Atmosphere Not Of Mourning But Of Mutual Suspicion. It Seems Everyone Had Their Own Reason To Hate The Old Man&


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Take one dead lothario; add his jealous wife accused of his murder; toss in a devoted daughter who wants to clear her mother's name, and you get one of the greatest challenges of Hercule Poirot's career.


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<p class="description">John Moffatt stars as the great Belgian detective in a BBC Radio full-cast dramatization. When a young girl is found drowned at a Halloween party after boasting about a murder she had seen, Ariadne Oliver, the famous crime novelist, sends for her old friend Hercule Poirot. But has Poirot one death to investigate--or two?</p>


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<div><blockquote><p>Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to endless night . . .</p></blockquote><p>When penniless Michael Rogers discovers the beautiful house at Gypsys Acre and then meets the heiress Ellie, it seems that all his dreams have come true at once. But he ignores an old womans warning of an ancient curse, and evil begins to stir in paradise. As Michael soon learns: Gypsys Acre is the place where fatal accidents happen.</p></div>


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An exclusive hotel on a tiny picturesque island seems to be the ideal retreat for Hercule Poirot from the stresses of criminal detection. But with the appearance of the beautiful Arlena Stuart, the quiet and peaceful atmosphere becomes charged with an indefinable erotic tension. And when she is found viciously strangled in a secluded cove, there are few, especially among the women, who seem to feel either surprise or regret. As Poirot follows a twisting path of bizarre and bewildering clues, his only certainties are that the solution lies within Arlena herself, and that there is evil under the sun. John Moffatt is Hercule Poirot in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatization with an all-star cast including Iain Glen, Fiona Fullerton, Robin Ellis, Wendy Craig, George Baker and Joan Littlewood.


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<div><p>American scientist Thomas Betterton has disappeared form a conference in Paris—only the latest in a series of notable men to vanish into thin air. Equally strange is the death of his new bride in Casablanca. To discover the secret she took to her grave, British Intelligence enlists the aide of an unlikely secret agent—an enigmatic young woman with nothing left to lose. The proposal for Hilary Craven? Impersonate the late Mrs. Betterton. But the masquerade means embarking on an unknown escapade, hiding from an unknown enemy, and retracing a stranger's steps to an unavoidable death...</p><p>When a famous scientist vanished, conflicting reports of sightings of the missing man come in from all over Europe in this different mystery. Previously published as So Many Steps to Death. </p></div>


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Miss Emily was old, rich, and afraid--and now, she's dead. Her terrified plea to Hercule Poirot came a little too late. All that's left is a house full of greedy heirs, and a very strange letter that could solve the mystery--or add to it.


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<div><p class="description">Hercule Poirot is determined to solve an old husband and wife double murder that is still an open verdict...Hercule Poirot stood on the cliff-top. For here, many years earlier, there had been a tragic accident -- the broken body of a woman was discovered on the rocks at the foot of the cliff.  This was followed by the grisly discovery of two more bodies -- a husband and wife -- shot dead.  But who had killed whom? Was it a suicide pact? A crime of passion? Or cold-blooded murder?  Poirot delves back into a crime committed 15 years earlier and discovers that, when there is a distinct lack of physical evidence, it's just as well that 'old sins leave long shadows'!</p></div>


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The first of a new-look series of Hercule Poirot books for the 21st century From seat No.9, Hercule Poirot was ideally placed to observe his fellow air passengers. Over to his right sat a pretty young woman, clearly infatuated with the man opposite; ahead, in seat No.13, sat a Countess with a poorly-concealed cocaine habit; across the gangway in seat No.8, a detective writer was being troubled by an aggressive wasp. What Poirot did not yet realize was that behind him, in seat No.2, sat the slumped, lifeless body of a woman.


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<p class="description">Whilst organising a mock murder hunt for the village fete hosted by Sir George and Lady Stubbs, a feeling of dread settles on the famous crime novelist Adriane Oliver. Call it instinct, but it's a feeling she just can't explain...or get away from. In desperation she summons her old friend, Hercule Poirot -- and her instincts are soon proved correct when the 'pretend' murder victim is discovered playing the scene for real, a rope wrapped tightly around her neck.But it's the great detective who first discovers that in murder hunts, whether mock or real, everyone is playing a part.</p>


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Linnet Doyle is young, beautiful, and rich. She's the girl who has everything—including the man her best friend loves. Linnet and her new husband take a cruise on the Nile, where they meet the brilliant detective Hercule Poirot. It should be an idyllic trip, yet Poirot has a vague, uneasy feeling that something is dangerously amiss...


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<p class="description">Considered a classic, this murder mystery is set in Thebes, Egypt, in the year 2000 B.C.</p>


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<p class="description">The house guests at Styles seemed perfectly pleasant to Captain Hastings - there was his own daughter Judith, an inoffensive ornithologist called Norton, dashing Mr Allerton, brittle Miss Cole, Doctor Franklin and his fragile wife Barbara, Nurse Craven, Colonel Luttrell and his charming wife Daisy, and the charismatic Boyd-Carrington. So Hastings was shocked when Poirot declared that one of them was a five-times murderer. True, that ageing detective was crippled with arthritis, but had his deductive instincts finally deserted him?</p>


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<p class="description">When the patriarch of a large family dies under mysterious circumstances, no one escapes suspicion.</p>


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<p class="description">Unpleasant things are going on in an exclusive school for girls - things like murder!  Late one night, two teachers investigate a mysterious flashing light in the sports pavilion, while the rest of the school sleeps. There, among the lacrosse sticks, they stumble upon the body of the unpopular games mistress -- shot through the heart from point blank range.  The school is thrown into chaos when the 'cat' strikes again. Unfortunately, schoolgirl Julia Upjohn knows too much. In particular, she knows that without Hercule Poirot's help, she will be the next victim!</p>


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<p class="description"> Hercule Poirot, along with three other luminaries from the world of crime detection, is invited to dinner by the renowned London socialite Dr. Shaitana. Also on the guest list are four members of what Shaitana calls his Black Museum--a collection of murderers who have each succeeded in "getting away with it." After midnight, when the guests prepare to leave, they make a terrible discovery. Their host is dead in his armchair, stabbed in the chest. The four sleuths are thus faced with one murder and a quartet of likely suspects. Working both together and independently, they investigate the past of the Black Museum's finest in order to determine the most likely killer. Poirot finds that many distractions are thrown in his way, as he attempts to read the meaning of the cards which each suspect has placed on the table.</p>


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<p class="description"><br>An old woman in a nursing home speaks of a child buried behind the fireplace...When Tommy and Tuppence visited an elderly aunt in her gothic nursing home, they thought nothing of her mistrust of the doctors; after all, Ada was a very difficult old lady. But when Mrs Lockett mentioned a poisoned mushroom stew and Mrs Lancaster talked about 'something behind the fireplace', Tommy and Tuppence found themselves caught up in an unexpected adventure involving possible black magic!</p>


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<p>The Queen of Mystery has come to Harper Collins! Agatha Christie, the acknowledged mistress of suspense—creator of indomitable sleuth Miss Marple, meticulous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, and so many other unforgettable characters—brings her entire oeuvre of ingenious whodunits, locked room mysteries, and perplexing puzzles to Harper Paperbacks. The unstoppable Poirot finds himself in the Middle East with only one day to solve a murder in the classic Agatha Christie mystery, <em>Appointment with Death.<br /></em></p>


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Sir Claud Amory's formula for a powerful new explosive has been stolen, presumably by a member of his large household. Sir Claud assembles his suspects in the library and locks the door, instructing them that the when the lights go out, the formula must be replaced on the table -- and no questions will be asked. But when the lights come on, Sir Claud is dead. Now Hercule Poirot, assisted by Captain Hastings and Inspector Japp, must unravel a tangle of family feuds, old flames, and suspicious foreigners to find the killer and prevent a global catastrophe.


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When Jane Marple comes up from the country for a holiday in London, she finds what she's looking for at Bertram's: a restored London hotel with traditional decor, impeccable service -- and an unmistakable atmosphere of danger behind the highly polished veneer. Yet not even Miss Marple can foresee the violent chain of events set in motion when an eccentric guest makes his way to the airport on the wrong day ...


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<p class="description">First there were ten--a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unkonwn to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they're unwilling to reveal--and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. One by one they fall prey. Before the weekend is out, there will be none. And only the dead are above suspicion. </p>


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<p class="description">Dame Agatha offers vivid descriptions of her childhood, family life, contemporaries, and travels abroad as well as discussing her own struggles as a writer and the general problems of creative writing</p>


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<p class="description">A child's nursery rhyme holds three clues to finding a cunning killer when a well-to-do household becomes infested with murder.</p>


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<p class="description">After the reading of a will at a Victorian mansion, the sister of the deceased patriarch suspects he met with foul play. But before long, Cora is banished from the family tree--with eight blows of a hatchet. And detective Hercule Poirot suspects she won't be the last to go.</p>


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<p class="description">An invitation to partake in a "murder" at the home of Letitia Blacklock comes as a surprise to Letitia's friends--and a bigger surprise to Letitia herself. When the lights go down, a gunshot rings out. Now, Miss Jane Marple wants to play a game of whodunit. Reissue.</p>


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<p class="description">First came a sinister warning to Poirot not to eat any plum pudding...then the discovery of corpse in chest...next, an overheard quarrel that led to murder...the strange case of the of the dead man who altered his eating habits..and the puzzle of the victim who dreamt his own suicide. What links these six baffling cases? </p>


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<p class="description">For an instant the two trains ran together, side by side. In that frozen moment, Elspeth witnessed a murder. Helplessly, she stared out of her carriage window as a man remorselessly tightened his grip around a woman's throat. The body crumpled. Then the other train drew away.  But who, apart from Miss Marple, would take her story seriously? After all, there were no suspects, no other witnesses . . . and no corpse.</p>


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"Would you like to see a picture of a murderer?" So asks a stranger of Miss Jane Marple while she is vacationing on luxurious St. Honore. Before she has a chance to answer, the mystery man vanishes, only to be found dead the following day. Now Miss Marple is asking the questions: What happened to the curious photo? Why is the hotelier prone to nightmares? Why doesn't the most-talked-about guest, a reclusive millionaire, ever leave his room? And why is Miss Marple fearing for her own life?


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<p class="description">If you have ever heard phrases like, "look before you leap," "necessity is the mother of invention," or "two wrongs don't make a right," you are not alone. These phrases and many like them, which have become so commonplace, were first coined by Aesop. Born into slavery in ancient Greece, Aesop supposedly won his freedom with his learned wit. Collected here are his famous fables translated by George Fyler Townsend with a short biography of Aesop and a preface to the fables.</p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>I can say without reservation that it's a wonderful reading experience, as bracing as a tonic, the perfect holiday gift for adventure-loving men and women. A finalist for [the 2009] National Book Award, it's drenched in imaginative violence and disaster, but it also wears the blameless vestments of culture and antiquity. You can have all the fun of reading about a greedy villain being put to death by being made to 'drink' molten gold, but still hide safe behind the excuse that you're just brushing up on your classics. -- Carolyn See, Washington Post  </p><p>Mayor gives us a more nuanced view of the so-called Poison King, placing him in his proper context as a Greco-Persian ruler following in the footsteps of his purported ancestor Alexander the Great. The most compelling aspect of this story is Mayor's engaging style. A true storyteller, she makes Mithradates's world come alive. This distinctive and compelling book is sure to fascinate all readers interested in the ancient world or in understanding the historical politics of the Caucasus region. -- Library Journal  </p><p>Thanks be to Adrienne Mayor for a definitive biography, blazing with color, presenting a magnificent cast headed by a hero who caused Rome to tremble for a quarter-century. . . . [H]is splendidly produced book is a cavalcade of intrigue, action, and slaughter. Danger, hope, fear, and love and lust are never absent. -- ForeWord Reviews  </p><p>Mayor has specialized in writing well-researched, readable scholarship in the history of ancient science and technology, including the pre-eminent work on ancient chemical and biological warfare. It is fitting, therefore, that her first major biography tackles the life of Mithridates VI of Pontus, known for his knowledge of poisons. It is difficult to weave personal anecdotes (the lifeblood of good biography) with the technical tidbits of science, but Mayor carries it off brilliantly, as evidenced by sections describing Mithridates' youth and early scientific education in Sinope, and his extraordinary chemical knowledge at the peark of his reign. . . . The work is a marvel: part biography, part campaign history, and part scientific exploration, written in a style that makes the book a true page-turner. -- Choice  </p><p>Mayor has done an extraordinary job of filling many gaps in the history of this contentious and foggy period. Rightly so, <em>The Poison King</em> was a finalist for the prestigious National Book Award and is an effort worthy of any student of history. -- Lee Scott, Florida Times--Union  </p><p>Mayor has solid research credentials, and her command of the ancient and modern sources is extensive and impressive. The digressions offered in footnotes are enjoyable and valuable, as are the appendices offering a modern checklist for evaluating Mithradates' psychological condition. Good maps at key points in the narrative are very helpful, and the text is well written and organized chronologically. The author's interest in ancient poisons, chemicals, explosives technology, geography and regional flora and fauna allow her to expound on these subjects while telling her story. . . . Mayor's approach to the material blurs the line between history and historical fiction; one can easily imagine the narrative being turned into a television or movie script. -- Richard Gabriel, Military History  </p><p>This is a highly coloured portrait and a very readable account of a complex individual with whom Mayor plainly has considerable empathy. The book therefore should find a wide audience and serve as an attractive introduction to its subject. . . . [Mayor] herself says, 'Mithridates' incredible saga is a rollicking good story' and she has narrated it with verve, panache and scholarly skill. -- Arthur Keaveney, Bryn Mawr Classical Review  </p><p>Newcomers to the field will fall in love with Mayor's <em>Mithradates</em>. For more sober-if less compelling-accounts, they will turn to the recent studies listed in the very good, up-to-date bibliography included in <em>The Poison King</em>. -- Laurence Totelin, Isis </p><h3>From the Inside Flap</h3><p>"Mithradates should be a household name alongside his fellow rebels Hannibal, Cleopatra, Spartacus, and Attila. This detailed, juicy, entertaining, yet painstaking work of superb scholarship should finally give Mithradates the recognition he deserves."--Margaret George, author of <em>Helen of Troy: A Novel</em></p><p>"Meticulous in its research, exciting in its narration, ambitious in its conception, <em>The Poison King</em> re-creates an era when much of the Mediterranean world rebelled against Rome. At the center of it all is the fascinating and frightening king who rallied the resistance: Mithradates. Mayor has written a terrific book."--Barry Strauss, author of <em>The Spartacus War</em></p><p>"A fascination with the byways of ancient science, a wonderful eye for the telling detail, and a relish for floating theories that is almost buccaneering: these have always been the trademarks of Adrienne Mayor. Now, with this stirring biography of the toxicologist's favorite tyrant, she parades her gift for narrative as well. Thanks to Mayor, Mithradates has emerged from the shadows at last as one of Rome's most potent and remarkable enemies."--Tom Holland, author of <em>Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic</em></p><p>"'He died old'--so A. E. Housman refers to the subject of Adrienne Mayor's latest enthralling book, Mithradates VI, king of Pontus. Pursuing her interest in deadly chemical and biological substances, she focuses here on the life and times of the hammer of the mighty Romans in the last century of the Republic, the hellenized oriental ruler finally nailed by Pompey the Great. Ruthless, aggressive, charming, manipulative, callous--was Mithradates a textbook sociopath? Read this exhilarating and penetrating biography to find out."--Paul Cartledge, author of <em>Alexander the Great</em></p><p>"Adrienne Mayor's <em>The Poison King</em> is an intriguing and highly readable new biography of one of the most controversial figures of antiquity, Mithradates--ruthless Hellenistic king, genocidaire, terrorist, alchemist, implacable enemy of Rome. It is an important contribution to our understanding of the desperate measures some rulers were prepared to take to resist Rome's iron-fisted pursuit of empire."--R. Bruce Hitchner, Tufts University</p>


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<p class="description"> Adriana Trigiani's bestselling novels are beloved by millions of readers around the world. From the Big Stone Gap series to *Lucia, Lucia*, each is a sumptuous treat as Trigiani tells hilarious and romantic stories that we want to return to again and again. *Very Valentine*, an instant *New York Times* bestseller, introduced the contemporary family saga of the Roncalli and Angelini families, artisans of handcrafted wedding shoes in Greenwich Village since 1903. As *Brava, Valentine* begins, snow falls like glitter over Tuscany at the wedding of her grandmother, Teodora, and longtime love, Dominic. Valentine's dreams are dashed when Gram announces that Alfred, "the prince," Valentine's only brother and nemesis, has been named her partner at Angelini Shoes. Devastated, Valentine falls into the arms of Gianluca, a sexy Tuscan tanner who made his romantic intentions known on the Isle of Capri. Despite their passion for one another and Gianluca's heartfelt letters, a long-distance relationship seems impossible. As Valentine turns away from romance and devotes herself to her work, mentor and pattern cutter June Lawton guides her through her power struggle with Alfred, while best friend and confidante Gabriel Biondi moves into 166 Perry Street, transforming her home and point of view. Savvy financier Bret Fitzpatrick, Valentine's first love and former fiancÉe who still carries a torch for her, encourages Valentine to exploit her full potential as a designer and a business woman with a plan that will bring her singular creations to the world. A once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity takes Valentine from the winding streets of Greenwich Village to the sun-kissed cobblestones of Buenos Aires, where she finds a long-buried secret hidden deep within a family scandal. Once unearthed, the truth rocks the Roncallis and Valentine is determined to hold her family together. More so, she longs to create one of her own, but is torn between a past love that nurtured her, and a new one that promises to sustain her. *Brava, Valentine*, Trigiani's best novel yet, delivers a hilarious and poignant mix of colorful worlds and unforgettable characters as only she can create them.  Adriana Trigiani's bestselling novels are beloved by millions of readers around the world. From the Big Stone Gap series to *Lucia, Lucia*, each is a sumptuous treat as Trigiani tells hilarious and romantic stories that we want to return to again and again. *Very Valentine*, an instant *New York Times* bestseller, introduced the contemporary family saga of the Roncalli and Angelini families, artisans of handcrafted wedding shoes in Greenwich Village since 1903. As *Brava, Valentine* begins, snow falls like glitter over Tuscany at the wedding of her grandmother, Teodora, and longtime love, Dominic. Valentine's dreams are dashed when Gram announces that Alfred, "the prince," Valentine's only brother and nemesis, has been named her partner at Angelini Shoes. Devastated, Valentine falls into the arms of Gianluca, a sexy Tuscan tanner who made his romantic intentions known on the Isle of Capri. Despite their passion for one another and Gianluca's heartfelt letters, a long-distance relationship seems impossible. As Valentine turns away from romance and devotes herself to her work, mentor and pattern cutter June Lawton guides her through her power struggle with Alfred, while best friend and confidante Gabriel Biondi moves into 166 Perry Street, transforming her home and point of view. Savvy financier Bret Fitzpatrick, Valentine's first love and former fiancÉe who still carries a torch for her, encourages Valentine to exploit her full potential as a designer and a business woman with a plan that will bring her singular creations to the world. A once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity takes Valentine from the winding streets of Greenwich Village to the sun-kissed cobblestones of Buenos Aires, where she finds a long-buried secret hidden deep within a family scandal. Once unearthed, the truth rocks the Roncallis and Valentine is determined to hold her family together. More so, she longs to create one of her own, but is torn between a past love that nurtured her, and a new one that promises to sustain her. *Brava, Valentine*, Trigiani's best novel yet, delivers a hilarious and poignant mix of colorful worlds and unforgettable characters as only she can create them.</p>


