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<p class="description">Honest and heartbreaking, a mother's story of tears, joy, and her greatest love of all—her daughter, Whitney On the eve of the 2012 Grammy Awards, the world learned of a stunning tragedy: Whitney Houston, unquestionably one of the most remarkable and powerful voices in all of music, had been silenced forever. Over the weeks and months that followed, family, friends, and fans alike tried to understand how such a magnificent talent and beautiful soul could have been taken so early and so unexpectedly. Glamorous and approachable, captivating and sweet, Whitney had long ago won the hearts of America, but in recent years her tumultuous personal life had grabbed as many headlines as her soaring vocal talents. Her sudden death left behind not only a legacy of brilliance, but also painful questions with no easy answers.Now, for the first time, the beloved superstar's mother, Cissy Houston—a gospel legend in her own right—relates the full, astonishing scope of the pop icon's life and career. From Whitney's earliest days singing in the church choir to her rapid ascent to the pinnacles of music stardom, from her string of number one hits to her topping the Hollywood box office, Cissy recounts her daughter's journey to becoming one of the most popular and successful artists of all time. Setting the record straight, Cissy also speaks candidly about Whitney's struggles in the limelight, revealing the truth about her turbulent marriage to singer Bobby Brown, her public attempts to regain her celebrated voice, and the battle with drugs that ultimately proved too much. In this poignant and tender tribute to her "Nippy," Cissy summons all her strength to reveal not only Whitney the superstar, but also Whitney as a sweet girl, a bright-eyed young woman, and a deeply caring mother. Complete with never-before-seen family photographs, Remembering Whitney is an intimate, heartfelt portrait of one of our most revered artists, from the woman who cherished her most.</p>


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There's not a man Rachel Westover can't tame. Or at least transform from a sloppy, sports-loving, self-absorbed male into the perfect mate. Then she meets Garret Kelly, aka The Wild Man. Talk about a challenge-- in a gorgeous package, no less. Can her behavior-modification techniques take on a guy this set in his rumpled-- and surprisingly irresistible-- ways? Rachel's hormones, er, "ambitions," are jumping at the chance. If she succeeds in domesticating Garret, she gets her own TV show. If she fails... Well, failure isn't an option. Sure, he's more resistant than she expected. And withholding pleasure as punishment affects "her" so much, she's abandoned that strategy. But she's determined one of them is going to their knees. She just hopes it isn't her!


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A three-day bed-in is the perfect way for aspiring DJ Erica Gibson to get on air. This promotional stunt could even lead to her having her own show on the radio. Too bad she's cohosting with the station Lothario rather than hottie Adam "the Hawk" Hawkins.

Her wish is granted when Adam shows up on location. Dream job *and* dream guy...does life get any better? After everyone leaves and the lights go out, Erica seduces him. While their steamy after-dark activities go against the station's rules, they agree that what happens in the bed stays in the bed. Back at work those forbidden adventures still tempt them. Then again, there's nothing like the thrill of the forbidden....


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āMy Best Friends have Hairy Legsā is the story of my dog and I overcoming abusive relationships. It is a story about his growth from a fearful puppy into a confident adult dog ā and mine ā from a psychologically abused wife into a confident woman who can look back at my past with laughter and no regrets.I donāt believe my story is unique. Our stories might differ, the details change, but the emotions and feelings are the same.I wanted to tell our story because we have survived. I wanted to tell it to give hope to others who are struggling to find their way. There is a light out there. There arenāt any bras burnt at the end of this book ā or dog collars ā but the metaphor is the same. We are happy with who we are.


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<p>"Tell-All" is many things: a Sunset Boulevard-inflected homage to Old Hollywood when grand dames like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford ruled the roost. It is a Douglas Sirk-inspired melodrama full of big gestures and muted psychic torment. It is a veritable Tourette's Syndrome of rat-tat-tat name-dropping, from the A-list to the Z-list. It is a merciless send-up of Lillian Hellman's habit of butchering the truth that will have Mary McCarthy cheering from the beyond. Our narrator is Hazie Coogan, who for decades has tended to the outsized needs of Katherine 'Miss Kathie' Kenton, a star of the wattage of Elizabeth Taylor and the emotional torments of Judy Garland. The survivor of multiple marriages, career comebacks and cosmetic surgeries, Miss Kathie lives the way legends should. But danger lurks when gentleman caller Webster Carlton Westward III arrives and worms his way into Miss Kathie's heart and boudoir. Hazie discovers that this bounder has already written his celebrity tell-all memoir and that it foretells her death in a forthcoming Lillian Hellman-penned World War II musical extravaganza "Unconditional Surrender", in which Miss Kathie portrays Lily defeating Japanese forces from Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki. As the body count mounts, Hazie must execute a plan to save Katherine Kenton for her fans - and for posterity. A dark reimagining of "All About Eve" and an hilarious assault on celebrity, "Tell-All" is vintage Palahniuk.</p><p>**</p>


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<p>On May 2, 2011, at 1:03 a.m. in Pakistan, a satellite uplink was sent from the town of Abbottabad crackling into the situation room of the White House in Washington, D.C.: “Geronimo, Echo, KIA.” These words, spoken by a Navy SEAL, put paid to Osama bin Laden’s three-decade-long career of terror. SEAL Target Geronimo is the story of Bin Laden’s relentless hunters and how they took down the terrorist mastermind, told by Chuck Pfarrer, a former assault element commander of SEAL Team Six and author of the bestselling Warrior Soul: The Memoir of a Navy SEAL. After talking to members of the SEAL team involved in the raid, Pfarrer shares never-before-revealed details of the historic raid and the men who planned and conducted it in an exclusive boots-on-the-ground account of what happened during each minute of the mission— both inside the building and outside. Pfarrer takes readers inside the operation as the SEALs flew over the wall of Bin Laden’s shabby, litter-strewn compound and then penetrated deeper and deeper into the terrorist’s lair, telling us just what it looked, sounded, and smelled like in that sweltering Pakistani suburb. He takes us out to the courtyard to witness the near-disaster of the malfunctioning helicopter and brings us to the exact spot where the al-Qaeda leader was cowering when the bullet entered his head. SEAL Target Geronimo is an explosive story of unparalleled valor, clockwork military precision, and deadly accuracy carried out by the most elite fighting force in the world—the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team Six.</p>


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<p>Tender Branson — last surviving member of the so-called "Creedish Death Cult" — is dictating his incredible life story into the flight recorder of Flight 2039, cruising on autopilot at 39,000 feet somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. He is all alone in the plane, which will shortly reach <strong>terminal velocity</strong> and crash into the vast Australian outback. Before it does, he will unfold the tale of his journey from an obedient Creedish child and humble domestic servant to an ultra-buffed, steroid- and collagen-packed media messiah, author of a best-selling autobiography, <strong>Saved from Salvation</strong>, and the even better selling <strong>Book of Very Common Prayer</strong> (The Prayer to Delay Orgasm, The Prayer to Prevent Hair Loss, The Prayer to Silence Car Alarms). He'll even share his insight that "the only difference between suicide and martyrdom is press coverage," and deny responsibility for the Tender Branson Sensitive Materials Landfill — a 20,000-acre repository for the nation's outdated pornography. Among other matters both bizarre and trenchant.</p><p>Not since Kurt Vonnegut's <strong>Mother Night</strong> and Jerzy Kosinski's <strong>Being There</strong> has there been as black and telling a satire on the wages of fame and the bedrock lunacy of the modern world. Survivor is Chuck Palahniuk at his deadpan peak, and it marks him as a blazing talent for the new millennium. </p>


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<p>Buster “Rant” Casey just may be the most efficient serial killer of our time. A high school rebel, Rant Casey escapes from his small town home for the big city where he becomes the leader of an urban demolition derby called Party Crashing. Rant Casey will die a spectacular highway death, after which his friends gather the testimony needed to build an oral history of his short, violent life. With hilarity, horror, and blazing insight, <em>Rant </em>is a mind-bending vision of the future, as only Chuck Palahniuk could ever imagine. </p>


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<p class="description">From the master of literary mayhem and provocation, a full-frontal Triple X novel that goes where no American work of fiction has gone beforeCassie Wright, porn priestess, intends to cap her legendary career by breaking the world record for serial fornication. On camera. With six hundred men. Snuff unfolds from the perspectives of Mr. 72, Mr. 137, and Mr. 600, who await their turn on camera in a very crowded green room. This wild, lethally funny, and thoroughly researched novel brings the huge yet underacknowledged presence of pornography in contemporary life into the realm of literary fiction at last. Who else but Chuck Palahniuk would dare do such a thing? Who else could do it so well, so unflinchingly, and with such an incendiary (you might say) climax?</p>


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<p class="description">The Manchurian Candidate meets South ParkChuck Palahniuk's finest novel since the generation-defining Fight Club. "Begins here first account of operative me, agent number 67 on arrival Midwestern American airport greater _____ area. Flight _____. Date _____. Priority mission top success to complete. Code name: Operation Havoc." Thus speaks Pygmy, one of a handful of young adults from a totalitarian state sent to the United States, disguised as exchange students, to live with typical American families and blend in, all the while planning an unspecified act of massive terrorism. Palahniuk depicts Midwestern life through the eyes of this thoroughly indoctrinated little killer, who hates us with a passion, in this cunning double-edged satire of an American xenophobia that might, in fact, be completely justified. For Pygmy and his fellow operatives are cooking up something big, something truly awful, that will bring this big dumb country and its fat dumb inhabitants to their knees. It's a comedy. And a romance.</p>


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<p class="description">Ever heard of a culling song? It’s a lullaby sung in Africa to give a painless death to the old or infirm. The lyrics of a culling song kill, whether spoken or even just thought. You can find one on page 27 of Poems and Rhymes from Around the World, an anthology that is sitting on the shelves of libraries across the country, waiting to be picked up by unsuspecting readers.Reporter Carl Streator discovers the song’s lethal nature while researching Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and before he knows it, he’s reciting the poem to anyone who bothers him. As the body count rises, Streator glimpses the potential catastrophe if someone truly malicious finds out about the song. The only answer is to find and destroy every copy of the book in the country. Accompanied by a shady real-estate agent, her Wiccan assistant, and the assistant’s truly annoying ecoterrorist boyfriend, Streator begins a desperate cross-country quest to put the culling song to rest.Written with a style and imagination that could only come from Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby is the latest outrage from one of our most exciting writers at work today.</p>


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<p>For the first time in hardcover, an expanded, radically refashioned "director's cut" of a favorite Chuck Palahniuk novel.</p><p>Injected with new material and special design elements, <em>Invisible Monsters Remix</em> fulfills Chuck Palahniuk’s original vision for his 1999 novel, turning a daring satire on beauty and the fashion industry into an even more wildly unique reading experience. Palahniuk’s fashion-model protagonist has it all—boyfriend, career, loyal best friend—until an accident destroys her face, her ability to speak, and her self-esteem. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from becoming a bona-fide woman. Laced in are new chapters of memoir and further scenes with the book’s characters. Readers will jump between chapters, reread the book to understand the dissolve between fiction and fact, and decipher the playful book design, embarking on a ride they’ll never forget. All type irregularities in the text are intended.</p><h3>Review</h3><p>“Palahniuk’s stories don’t unfold. They hurtle headlong, changing lanes in threes and banging off the guard rails of modern fiction.” (James Sullivan - San Francisco Chronicle) </p><h3>Review</h3><p>Palahniuk 's stories don t unfold. They hurtle headlong, changing lanes in threes and banging off the guard rails of modern fiction. --James Sullivan </p>


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The fashion-model protagonist of Invisible Monsters has just about everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But one day she's driving along the freeway when a sudden "accident" leaves her with half her face, no ability to speak, and next to no self-esteem. From being the beautiful center of attention she becomes an invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she exists. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from becoming a real woman; Brandy will teach her that reinventing yourself means erasing the past and making up something better. And that salvation hides in the last places you'll ever want to look.In this hilarious and daringly unpredictable novel, the narrator must exact revenge upon Evie, her best friend and fellow model; kidnap Manus, her two-timing ex-boyfriend; and hit the road with Brandy in search of a brand-new past, present, and future. Changing names and stories in every city, they catapult toward a final confrontation with a rifle-toting Evie-by which time the narrator will have learned that loving and being loved are not mutually exclusive, and that nothing, on the surface, is ever quite what it seems.By turns witty, poignant, and exhilarating, Invisible Monsters will take you on a ride you'll never forget.


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Want to know where Chuck Palahniuk’s tonsils currently reside?Been looking for a naked mannequin to hide in your kitchen cabinets?Curious about Chuck’s debut in an MTV music video?What goes on at the Scum Center?How do you get to the Apocalypse Café?In the closest thing he may ever write to an autobiography, Chuck Palahniuk provides answers to all these questions and more as he takes you through the streets, sewers, and local haunts of Portland, Oregon. According to Katherine Dunn, author of the cult classic Geek Love, Portland is the home of America’s “fugitives and refugees.” Get to know these folks, the “most cracked of the crackpots,” as Palahniuk calls them, and come along with him on an adventure through the parts of Portland you might not otherwise believe actually exist. No other travel guide will give you this kind of access to “a little history, a little legend, and a lot of friendly, sincere, fascinating people who maybe should’ve kept their mouths shut.”Here are strange personal museums, weird annual events, and ghost stories. Tour the tunnels under downtown Portland. Visit swingers’ sex clubs, gay and straight. See Frances Gabe’s famous 1940s Self-Cleaning House. Look into strange local customs like the I-Tit-a-Rod Race and the Santa Rampage. Learn how to talk like a local in a quick vocabulary lesson. Get to know, I mean really get to know, the animals at the Portland zoo. Oh, the list goes on and on.


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Chuck Palahniuk's outrageous and startling debut novel that exploded American literature and spawned a movement. Every weekend, in the basements and parking lots of bars across the country, young men with white-collar jobs and failed lives take off their shoes and shirts and fight each other barehanded just as long as they have to. Then they go back to those jobs with blackened eyes and loosened teeth and the sense that they can handle anything. Fight club is the invention of Tyler Durden, projectionist, waiter, and dark, anarchic genius, and it's only the beginning of his plans for violent revenge on an empty consumer-culture world.


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<p class="description">Victor Mancini's a medical school dropout with a problem. He needs to 
pay for elder care for his mother, who's got Alzheimer's. So he comes up
 with the perfect scam: pretending to choke in upscale restaurants and 
getting “saved” by fellow diners who, feeling responsible for Victor's 
life, offer him financial support.Meanwhile, he cruises sexual addiction
 recovery workshops and spends his days working at Colonial Dunsboro, 
where his stoner colleagues are sentenced to the stocks for any 
deviation from the colonial lifestyle. Oh, yeah, and he's desperate to 
find the truth of his paternity, which his addled mother suggests may be
 divine.</p>


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Misty Wilmot has had it. Once a promising young artist, she’s now stuck on an island ruined by tourism, drinking too much and working as a waitress in a hotel. Her husband, a contractor, is in a coma after a suicide attempt, but that doesn’t stop his clients from threatening Misty with lawsuits over a series of vile messages they’ve found on the walls of houses he remodeled.Suddenly, though, Misty finds her artistic talent returning as she begins a period of compulsive painting. Inspired but confused by this burst of creativity, she soon finds herself a pawn in a larger conspiracy that threatens to cost hundreds of lives. What unfolds is a dark, hilarious story from America’s most inventive nihilist, and Palahniuk’s most impressive work to date.


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Countless writers and artists have spoken for a generation, but no one has done it quite like Chuck Klosterman. With an exhaustive knowledge of popular culture and an almost effortless ability to spin brilliant prose out of unlikely subject matter, Klosterman attacks the entire spectrum of postmodern America: reality TV, Internet porn, Pamela Anderson, literary Jesus freaks, and the real difference between apples and oranges (of which there is none). And don't even get him started on his love life and the whole Harry-Met-Sally situation.Whether deconstructing Saved by the Bell episodes or the artistic legacy of Billy Joel, the symbolic importance of The Empire Strikes Back or the Celtics/Lakers rivalry, Chuck will make you think, he'll make you laugh, and he'll drive you insane -- usually all at once. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is ostensibly about art, entertainment, infotainment, sports, politics, and kittens, but -- really -- it's about us. All of us. As Klosterman realizes late at night, in the moment before he falls asleep, "In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever 'in and of itself.'" Read to believe.


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<div><p>Chuck Klosterman has walked into the darkness. As a boy, he related to the cultural figures who represented goodness—but as an adult, he found himself unconsciously aligning with their enemies. This was not because he necessarily liked what they were doing; it was because they were doing it on purpose (and they were doing it better). They wanted to be evil. And what, exactly, was that supposed to mean? When we classify someone as a bad person, what are we really saying (and why are we so obsessed with saying it)? How does the culture of deliberate malevolence operate? <br></p><p>In <em>I Wear the Black Hat</em>, Klosterman questions the modern understanding of villainy. What was so Machiavellian about Machiavelli? Why don’t we see Bernhard Goetz the same way we see Batman? Who is more worthy of our vitriol—Bill Clinton or Don Henley? What was O. J. Simpson’s <em>second-worst</em> decision? And why is Klosterman still haunted by some kid he knew for one week in 1985? <br></p><p>Masterfully blending cultural analysis with self-interrogation and imaginative hypotheticals, I Wear the Black Hat delivers perceptive observations on the complexity of the antihero (seemingly the only kind of hero America still creates). I Wear the Black Hat is a rare example of serious criticism that’s instantly accessible and really, really funny. Klosterman continues to be the only writer doing whatever it is he’s doing.</p><p><em></em></p></div>


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A Book of All-New Pop Culture Pieces by Chuck KlostermanChuck Klosterman has chronicled rock music, film, and sports for almost fifteen years. He's covered extreme metal, extreme nostalgia, disposable art, disposable heroes, life on the road, life through the television, urban uncertainty and small-town weirdness. Through a variety of mediums and with a multitude of motives, he's written about everything he can think of (and a lot that he's forgotten). The world keeps accelerating, but the pop ideas keep coming. In Eating the Dinosaur, Klosterman is more entertaining and incisive than ever. Whether he's dissecting the boredom of voyeurism, the reason why music fan's inevitably hate their favorite band's latest album, or why we love watching can't-miss superstars fail spectacularly, Klosterman remains obsessed with the relationship between expectation, reality, and living history. It's amateur anthropology for the present tense, and sometimes it's incredibly funny.Q: What is this book about?A: Well, that's difficult to say. I haven't read it yet - I've just clicked on it and casually glanced at this webpage. There clearly isn't a plot. I've heard there's a lot of stuff about time travel in this book, and quite a bit about violence and Garth Brooks and why Germans don't laugh when they're inside grocery stores. Ralph Nader and Ralph Sampson play significant roles. I think there are several pages about Rear Window and football and Mad Men and why Rivers Cuomo prefers having sex with Asian women. Supposedly there's a chapter outlining all the things the Unabomber was right about, but perhaps I'm misinformed.Q: Is there a larger theme?A: Oh, something about reality. "What is reality," maybe? No, that's not it. Not exactly. I get the sense that most of the core questions dwell on the way media perception constructs a fake reality that ends up becoming more meaningful than whatever actually happened.Q: Should I read this book?A: Probably. Do you see a clear relationship between the Branch Davidian disaster and the recording of Nirvana's In Utero? Does Barack Obama make you want to drink Pepsi? Does ABBA remind you of AC/DC? If so, you probably don't need to read this book. You probably wrote this book. But I suspect everybody else will totally love it, except for the ones who absolutely hate it.


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From "Fargo Rock City;""Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs"; "Chuck Klosterman IV"; and "Eating the Dinosaur," these essays are now available in this ebook collection for fans of Klosterman's writing on rock music.


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From "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs"; "Chuck Klosterman IV"; and "Eating the Dinosaur," these essays are now available in this ebook collection for fans of Klosterman's writing on film and television.


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<p>From <em>Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs</em>; <em>Chuck Klosterman IV</em>; and <em>Eating the Dinosaur</em>, these essays are now available in this ebook collection for fans of Klosterman’s writing on media and culture.</p>


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<p>From <em>Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs</em>; <em>Chuck Klosterman IV</em>; and <em>Eating the Dinosaur</em>, these essays are now available in this ebook collection for fans of Klosterman’s writing on pop music. </p>


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<div><p><strong>The men wear masks. Their guns are drawn on the bank manager. She nervously recites the alarm code, and the tumblers within the huge vault fall. The timing and execution are brilliant. It could be the perfect heist. But as the huge sum of cash is stolen, so too is one man's heart -- and that man is the Prince of Thieves... </strong> Charlestown, a blue-collar Boston neighborhood, produces more bank robbers and armored car thieves than any square mile in the world. In this gripping, intricately plotted thriller, Claire Keesey, the branch manager for a Boston bank and one of an influx of young professionals chipping away at the neighborhood's insularity, is taken hostage during a robbery. She is released, but Doug MacRay, the brains behind the tough, tight-knit crew of thieves, can't get her out of his mind. Tracking her down without his mask and gun, Doug introduces himself, and as soon as he and Claire meet, their mutual attraction is undeniable -- as are the risks of a relationship. </p><p>Meanwhile, Doug's crew pulls off another audacious, meticulously planned job. Frustrated by their ingenuity and brazen ambition, FBI Agent Adam Frawley begins to zero in on Doug and his pals -- and against his own better judgment, he, too, develops more than a professional interest in Claire. </p><p>Under pressure from Frawley's ever-closer investigation, Doug imagines a life for himself away from bank robberies and Charlestown. But before that can happen, the crew learns that there may be a way to rob Boston's venerable baseball stadium, Fenway Park. It's a magnificently dangerous and utterly irresistible opportunity -- yet for Doug, pursuing his former hostage may be the most dangerous act of all... </p><p>Chuck Hogan's brash tale of four men -- thieves, rivals, friends -- being hunted through the streets of Boston by a tenacious FBI agent, and the woman who may destroy them all, is a spectacular, stylish, heart-pounding thriller. </p></div>


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<div><p>In the city of New Orleans it is the corrupt who govern, and ex-cop Ray Shane is no stranger to those in charge. After five years in prison, he is finally free--and determined to stay out of trouble.<br></p><p>But it's tough to stay straight. The Messina crime family runs the House of the Rising Sun, a strip bar that hides far more than it reveals, and Ray's job is to protect it. So when four gunmen rob the House and kill the mob boss's nephew, Ray--in the wrong place at the right time--takes the heat. Targeted by both mob goons and the law, he must slog through the city's gritty underbelly to clear his name. But the lies go far deeper than he imagines, and soon there will be nowhere to turn.</p></div>


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A historical novel of the legendary Eleanor of Aquitaine and the one person she loved more than power-her rival for the throne.  At only nine, Princess Alais of France is sent to live in England until she is of age to wed Prince Richard, son of King Henry II and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. Alais is an innocent pawn on the chessboard of dynastic marriage, her betrothal intended to broker an uneasy truce between the nations.  Estranged from her husband, Eleanor sees a kindred spirit in this determined young girl. She embraces Alais as a daughter, teaching the princess what it takes to be a woman of power in a world of men. But as Alais grows to maturity and develops ambitions of her own, Eleanor begins to see her as a threat-and their love for each other becomes overshadowed by their bitter rivalry, dark betrayals, conflicting passions, and a battle for revenge over the throne of England itself.


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<p>A serial killer calling himself “The Lamb of God” is stalking the streets of New Orleans, but city officials want to keep the murders quiet. So it's up to homicide detective Sean Murphy to stop him the only way he knows how—by getting inside his head, thinking the way he thinks, anticipating his next move. But thinking like a madman brings with it some huge risks...as Murphy's about to find out. And the risks will only get deadlier when the killer learns Murphy's secret. Now the Lamb of God recognizes in Murphy a worthy opponent. Or perhaps a kindred spirit?</p>


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<div><p class="description">"She is my rock—the one person who keeps it real." —Barack   "I don't want anybody to think that it's easy. . . . We have a strong marriage, but it's not perfect." —Michelle </p><p class="description">They exploded onto the world scene and within a matter of a few short years captured the ultimate political prize. In so doing, they became a First Couple like no other: He—the biracial son of a free-spirited Kansas-born woman and a mercurial Kenyan father who abandoned him at an early age—was raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, educated at Columbia and Harvard, and launched his political career in America's heartland. She, by contrast, was the product of a solidly middle-American family with roots planted firmly in Chicago's working-class South Side—paving the way for her to achieve her dreams of an Ivy League education and a position at one of the nation's top law firms.   By the time they claimed the White House in one of the most hotly contested presidential races in modern history, Barack and Michelle Obama were seen by millions around the world as the new Jack and Jackie Kennedy—brilliant, attractive, elegant, youthful, exciting. Accompanied by their two young daughters, Malia and Sasha, the Obamas would arrive at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with the promise of a new Camelot all but assured.   Given the obvious historic significance of what they have accomplished together, the marriage of Barack and Michelle stands as one of the great personal and political partnerships in American history. Yet, incredibly, the true nature of that relationship has remained a mystery. Until now.   In the style of his No. 1 New York Times bestsellers The Day Diana Died and The Day John Died, as well as his bestselling books about the Kennedys, the Clintons, and the Bushes, author Christopher Andersen draws on important sources—some speaking here for the first time—to paint the first complete, compelling portrait of America's first black First Family.   Among the many intriguing insights and stunning revelations:    New behind-the-scenes details of the Obamas' courtship and marriage—and the lovers who went before.   The early tragedies that shaped both Barack's and Michelle's personalities, and how those events haunt them to this day. Also, new information about Barack's rootless childhood, at times tortured adolescence, and the true extent of his early drug use.   How Barack's ambition put a strain on their relationship from the very beginning, how close the Obamas really came to breaking up, and how Michelle made the difficult decision that saved their marriage.   The little-known near-tragedy that brought Barack and Michelle closer than they had ever been.    How Michelle may have saved her husband's presidential campaign, and her surprising behind-the-scenes role as the president's chief advisor.    The pressures and delights of raising two young girls in the relentless glare of the media, and how, like Jack and Jackie Kennedy before them, Barack and Michelle strive to make the lives of America's two most famous children as "normal" as possible.     Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage is an intimate and ultimately riveting look at their unique partnership, and the humor, faith, fortitude, and grace that defines it. It is, above all, an extraordinary American love story.</p></div>


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In 1878, two young stage magicians clash in the dark during the course of a fraudulent séance. From this moment on, their lives become webs of deceit and revelation as they vie to outwit and expose one another.Their rivalry will take them to the peaks of their careers, but with terrible consequences. In the course of pursuing each other's ruin, they will deploy all the deception their magicians' craft can command--the highest misdirection and the darkest science.Blood will be spilled, but it will not be enough. In the end, their legacy will pass on for generations...to descendants who must, for their sanity's sake, untangle the puzzle left to them.Soon to be a major motion picture starring HUGH JACKMAN, SCARLETT JOHANSSON, CHRISTIAN BALE, DAVID BOWIE, MICHAEL CAINE, ANDY SERKIS and directed by CHRISTOPHER NOLAN!


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Bestselling Newbery Medalist Christopher Paul Curtis delivers a powerful companion to his multiple award-winning ELIJAH OF BUXTON. Benji and Red couldn't be more different. They aren't friends. They don't even live in the same town. But their fates are entwined. A chance meeting leads the boys to discover that they have more in common than meets the eye. Both of them have encountered a strange presence in the forest, watching them, tracking them. Could the Madman of Piney Woods be real? In a tale brimming with intrigue and adventure, Christopher Paul Curtis returns to the vibrant world he brought to life in Elijah of Buxton. Here is another novel that will break your heart -- and expand it, too. *"Humor and tragedy are often intertwined, and readers will find themselves sobbing and chuckling, sometimes in the same scene. Though this story stands alone, it will be even more satisfying for those who have read Elijah of Buxton." KIRKUS, starred review *"Woven throughout this profoundly moving yet also at times very funny novel are themes of family, friendship, community, compassion, and, fittingly, the power of words"- THE HORN BOOK MAGAZINE, starred review


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<p class="description">Being undead sucks. Literally. Just ask C. Thomas Flood. Waking up after a fantastic night unlike anything he's ever experienced, he discovers that his girlfrind, Jody, is a vampire. And surprise! Now he is one, too.</p>


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<p class="description">Christmas crept into Pine Cove like a creeping Christmas thing: dragging garland, ribbon, and sleigh bells, oozing eggnog, reeking of pine, and threatening festive doom like a cold sore under the mistletoe. 'Twas the night (okay, more like the week) before Christmas, and all through the tiny community of Pine Cove, California, people are busy buying, wrapping, packing, and generally getting into the holiday spirit. It is the hap-hap-happiest time of the year, after all. But not everybody is feeling the joy. Little Joshua Barker is in desperate need of a holiday miracle. No, he's not on his deathbed; no, his dog hasn't run away from home. But Josh is sure that he saw Santa take a shovel to the head, and now the seven-year-old has only one prayer: Please, Santa, come back from the dead. But hold on! There's an angel waiting in the wings. (Wings, get it?) It's none other than the Archangel Raziel come to Earth seeking a small child with a wish that needs granting. Unfortunately, our angel's not sporting the brightest halo in the bunch, and before you can say "Kris Kringle," he's botched his sacred mission and sent the residents of Pine Cove headlong into Christmas chaos, culminating in the most hilarious and horrifying holiday party the town has ever seen. Only Christopher Moore, the man who brought you the outrageous lost gospel Lamb and the hysterical fish tale Fluke could have devised a new holiday classic that tugs at the heartstrings and serves up a healthy slice of fruitcake to boot. Move over, Charles Dickens -- it's Christopher Moore time.</p>


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<p class="description">The town psychiatrist has decided to switch everybody in Pine Cove, California, from their normal antidepressants to placebos, so naturally—well, to be accurate, artificially—business is booming at the local blues bar. Trouble is, those lonely slide-guitar notes have also attracted a colossal sea beast named Steve with, shall we say, a thing for explosive oil tanker trucks. Suddenly, morose Pine Cove turns libidinous and is hit by a mysterious crime wave, and a beleaguered constable has to fight off his own gonzo appetites to find out what's wrong and what, if anything, to do about it.</p>


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<div><p>It is the color of the Virgin Mary's cloak, a dazzling pigment desired by artists, an exquisite hue infused with danger, adventure, and perhaps even the supernatural. It is . . . </p><p>SacrÉ Bleu </p><p>In July 1890, Vincent van Gogh went into a cornfield and shot himself. <em>Or did he?</em> Why would an artist at the height of his creative powers attempt to take his own life . . . and then walk a mile to a doctor's house for help? Who was the crooked little "color man" Vincent had claimed was stalking him across France? And why had the painter recently become deathly afraid of a certain shade of blue? </p><p>These are just a few of the questions confronting Vincent's friends—baker-turned-painter Lucien Lessard and bon vivant Henri Toulouse-Lautrec—who vow to discover the truth about van Gogh's untimely death. Their quest will lead them on a surreal odyssey and brothel-crawl deep into the art world of late nineteenth-century Paris. </p><p><em>Oh lÀ lÀ, quelle surprise</em>, and <em>zut alors!</em> A delectable confection of intrigue, passion, and art history—with cancan girls, baguettes, and fine French cognac thrown in for good measure—<em>SacrÉ Bleu</em> is another masterpiece of wit and wonder from the one, the only, Christopher Moore.</p></div>


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<p class="description">Take a wonderfully crazed excursion into the demented heart of a tropical paradise—a world of cargo cults, cannibals, mad scientists, ninjas, and talking fruit bats. Our bumbling hero is Tucker Case, a hopeless geek trapped in a cool guy's body, who makes a living as a pilot for the Mary Jean Cosmetics Corporation. But when he demolishes his boss's pink plane during a drunken airborne liaison, Tuck must run for his life from Mary Jean's goons. Now there's only one employment opportunity left for him: piloting shady secret missions for an unscrupulous medical missionary and a sexy blond high priestess on the remotest of Micronesian hells. Here is a brazen, ingenious, irreverent, and wickedly funny novel from a modern master of the outrageous.</p>


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<p class="description">"This is a bawdy tale. Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity, as well as nontraditional grammar, split infinitives, and the odd wank . . . If that's the sort of thing you think you might enjoy, then you have happened upon the perfect story!"  Verily speaks Christopher Moore, much beloved scrivener and peerless literary jester, who hath writteneth much that is of grand wit and belly-busting mirth, including such laurelled bestsellers of the "Times of Olde Newe Yorke" as "Lamb," "A Dirty Job," and "You Suck" (no offense). Now he takes on no less than the legendary Bard himself (with the utmost humility and respect) in a twisted and insanely funny tale of a moronic monarch and his deceitful daughters--a rousing story of plots, subplots, counterplots, betrayals, war, revenge, bared bosoms, unbridled lust . . . and a ghost (there's always a bloody ghost), as seen through the eyes of a man wearing a codpiece and bells on his head.  Fool  A man of infinite jest, Pocket has been Lear's cherished fool for years, from the time the king's grown daughters--selfish, scheming Goneril, sadistic (but erotic-fantasy-grade-hot) Regan, and sweet, loyal Cordelia--were mere girls. So naturally Pocket is at his brainless, elderly liege's side when Lear--at the insidious urging of Edmund, the bastard (in every way imaginable) son of the Earl of Gloucester--demands that his kids swear their undying love and devotion before a collection of assembled guests. Of course Goneril and Regan are only too happy to brownnose Dad. But Cordelia believes that her father's request is kind of . . . well . . . stupid, and her blunt honesty ends up costing her her rightful share of the kingdom and earns her a banishment to boot.  Well, now the bangers and mash have really hit the fan. The whole damn country's about to go to hell in a handbasket because of a stubborn old fart's wounded pride. And the only person who can possibly make things right . . . is Pocket, a small and slight clown with a biting sense of humor. He's already managed to sidestep catastrophe (and the vengeful blades of many an offended nobleman) on numerous occasions, using his razor-sharp mind, rapier wit . . . and the equally well-honed daggers he keeps conveniently hidden behind his back. Now he's going to have to do some very fancy maneuvering--cast some spells, incite a few assassinations, start a war or two (the usual stuff)--to get Cordelia back into Daddy Lear's good graces, to derail the fiendish power plays of Cordelia's twisted sisters, to rescue his gigantic, gigantically dim, and always randy friend and apprentice fool, Drool, from repeated beatings . . . and to shag every lusciously shaggable wench who's amenable to shagging along the way.  Pocket may be a fool . . . but he's definitely not an idiot.</p>


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<p class="description">A budding young writer falls in love with a vampire. He is Tommy of Indiana who moved to San Francisco in search of inspiration and is working in a supermarket. Shopping there is Jody, a secretary still trying to adjust to her new vampire status, after being bitten by one on her way home. A zany tale by the author of Coyote Blue.</p>


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<p class="description">Sam Hunter, a yuppie salesman who has everything he needs except the beautiful Calliope's love, confronts Coyote, the Indian trickster god, and his own forgotten and buried life as Samson Hunts Alone, a native American outlaw. </p>


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<p class="description">Just why do humpback whales sing?That's the question that has marine biologist Nate Quinnand his crew poking, charting, recording andphotographing very big, wet, gray marine mammals. Thatis, until the extraordinary day when a whale lifts itstail into the air to display a cryptic message spelledout in foot-high letters: BITE ME.Trouble is, Nate's beginning to wonder if he hasn't spentjust a little too much time in the sun. 'Cause no oneelse saw a thing- not his longtime partner, ClayDemodocus; not their saucy young research assistant; noteven the spliff-puffing white-boy Rastaman Kona (nePreston Applebaum). But later, when a roll of filmreturns from the lab missing the crucial tail shot- andhis research facility is trashed- Nate realizes somethingvery fishy indeed is going on.</p>


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<p class="description">Charlie Asher, a neurotic and anxious hypochondriac who hates change, confronts the challenges of being a widower and a single parent when his wife dies of a freak medical condition on the day his new daughter, Sophie, is born.</p>


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The city of San Francisco is being stalked by a huge shaved vampyre cat named Chet, and only I, Abby Normal, emergency backup mistress of the Greater Bay Area night, and my manga-haired love monkey, Foo Dog, stand between the ravenous monster and a bloody massacre of the general public.   

 Whoa. And this is a love story? Yup. 'Cept there's no whining. See, while some lovers were born to run, Jody and Tommy were born to bite. Well, reborn, that is, now that they're vampires. Good thing theirs is an undying love, since their Goth Girl Friday, Abby Normal, imprisoned them in a bronze statue.  

 Abby wants to be a bloodsucking fiend, too, but right now she's really busy with other stuff, like breaking in a pair of red vinyl thigh-high Skankenstein® platform boots and wrangling her Ph.D.-candidate boyfriend, Steve (the love monkey). And then there's that vampire cat Chet, who's getting bigger and smarter—and thirstier—by the minute. Abby thought she and Steve could handle the kitty cat on their own, *mais non* . . .  

 Before you can say "OMG! WTF?" Tommy and Jody are sprung from captivity, and join forces with Abby, Steve, the frozen-turkey-bowling Safeway crew, the Emperor of San Francisco and his trusty dogs Lazarus and Bummer, Abby's gay Goth friend Jared, and SF's finest Cavuto and Rivera to hunt big cat and save the city. And that's when the fun really begins.


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<p class="description">Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, *Born to Run *is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: *Why does my foot hurt? *In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world?s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong.Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico?s deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by uncanny health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern existence. With the help of Caballo Blanco, a mysterious loner who lives among the tribe, the author was able not only to uncover the secrets of the Tarahumara but also to find his own inner ultra-athlete, as he trained for the challenge of a lifetime: a fifty-mile race through the heart of Tarahumara country pitting the tribe against an odd band of Americans, including a star ultramarathoner, a beautiful young surfer, and a barefoot wonder.With a sharp wit and wild exuberance, McDougall takes us from the high-tech science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America, where ever-growing numbers of ultrarunners are pushing their bodies to the limit, and, finally, to the climactic race in the Copper Canyons. *Born to Run* is that rare book that will not only engage your mind but inspire your body when you realize that the secret to happiness is right at your feet, and that you, indeed all of us, were born to run.</p>


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<div><p>In the aftermath of World War II, Prussia--a centuries-old state pivotal to Europe's development--ceased to exist. In their eagerness to erase all traces of the Third Reich from the earth, the Allies believed that Prussia, the very embodiment of German militarism, had to be abolished. </p><p>But as Christopher Clark reveals in this pioneering history, Prussia's legacy is far more complex. Though now a fading memory in Europe's heartland, the true story of Prussia offers a remarkable glimpse into the dynamic rise of modern Europe.</p><p>What we find is a kingdom that existed nearly half a millennium ago as a patchwork of territorial fragments, with neither significant resources nor a coherent culture. With its capital in Berlin, Prussia grew from being a small, poor, disregarded medieval state into one of the most vigorous and powerful nations in Europe. <em>Iron Kingdom</em> traces Prussia's involvement in the continent's foundational religious and political conflagrations: from the devastations of the Thirty Years War through centuries of political machinations to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, from the enlightenment of Frederick the Great to the destructive conquests of Napoleon, and from the "iron and blood" policies of Bismarck to the creation of the German Empire in 1871, and all that implied for the tumultuous twentieth century.</p><p>By 1947, Prussia was deemed an intolerable threat to the safety of Europe; what is often forgotten, Clark argues, is that it had also been an exemplar of the European humanistic tradition, boasting a formidable government administration, an incorruptible civil service, and religious tolerance. Clark demonstrates how a state deemed the bane of twentieth-century Europe has played an incalculable role in Western civilization's fortunes. <em>Iron Kingdom</em> is a definitive, gripping account of Prussia's fascinating, influential, and critical role in modern times.</p></div>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">In the mid-1990s, Chris Kimball moved into an 1859 Victorian townhouse on the South End of Boston and, as he became accustomed to the quirks and peculiarities of the house and neighborhood, he began to wonder what it was like to live and cook in that era. In particular, he became fascinated with Fannie Farmer's <em>Boston Cooking-School Cook Book</em>. Published in 1896, it was the best-selling cookbook of its age--full of odd, long-forgotten ingredients, fascinating details about how the recipes were concocted, and some truly amazing dishes (as well as some awful ones).</span></h3><p>In <em>Fannie's Last Supper</em>, Kimball describes the experience of re-creating one of Fannie Farmer's amazing menus: a twelve-course Christmas dinner that she served at the end of the century. Kimball immersed himself in composing twenty different recipes--including rissoles, Lobster à l'Américaine, Roast Goose with Chestnut Stuffing and Jus, and Mandarin Cake--with all the inherent difficulties of sourcing unusual animal parts and mastering many now-forgotten techniques, including regulating the heat on a coal cookstove and boiling a calf's head without its turning to mush, all sans food processor or oven thermometer. Kimball's research leads to many hilarious scenes, bizarre tastings, and an incredible armchair experience for any reader interested in food and the Victorian era. </p><p><em>Fannie's Last Supper</em> includes the dishes from the dinner and revised and updated recipes from <em>The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book</em>. A culinary thriller. it offers a fresh look at something that most of us take for granted--the American table.</p></div>


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From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of God Is Not Great, a provocative and entertaining guided tour of atheist and agnostic thought through the ages--with never-before-published pieces by Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.Christopher Hitchens continues to make the case for a splendidly godless universe in this first-ever gathering of the influential voices--past and present--that have shaped his side of the current (and raging) God/no-god debate. With Hitchens as your erudite and witty guide, you’ll be led through a wealth of philosophy, literature, and scientific inquiry, including generous portions of the words of Lucretius, Benedict de Spinoza, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Mark Twain, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, H. L. Mencken, Albert Einstein, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and many others well-known and lesser known. And they’re all set in context and commented upon as only Christopher Hitchens--“political and literary journalist extraordinaire” (Los Angeles Times)--can. Atheist? Believer? Uncertain? No matter: The Portable Atheist will speak to you and engage you every step of the way.


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<div><h3>From</h3><p>Christopher Hitchens stands alone among 20th- and 21st-century pundits for his enthusiastic enmity and political flip-flopping, but while he makes no apologies for his beliefs, he does acknowledge their intrinsic contradictions. Critics praised Hitchens's frankness in sharing the details of his mother's suicide and of his breezy bisexuality, but they simultaneously balked at his decision to omit significant people and events (i.e., his wives, his children, and his role in Bill Clinton's impeachment). They also objected to his relentless name-dropping and some overly dense prose, and a few were appalled that Hitchens would continue to insist that Saddam Hussein did indeed possess WMDs. Despite these complaints, <em>Hitch-22</em> is a sharp, rebellious, and sometimes bawdy account of the making of a modern mastermind. </p><h3>From</h3><p><em>Starred Review</em> Hitchens, who, in his earlier books, has expressed contempt for both God and Mother Teresa (although not in that order), is often described as a contrarian. In fact, in his book Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001), he himself noted that he “can appear insufferable and annoying,” albeit without intending to. This memoir, bracing, droll, and very revealing, gives him yet another description: storyteller. He writes with a voice you can hear clearly, warmed by smoke and whiskey, and draws readers into his story, which proves as personal as it is political. As with many memoirs, it is not the public moments that are so fascinating, though there are plenty of those. Hitchens takes readers with him to Havana and Prague, Afghanistan and Iraq; tests himself by being waterboarded (he was disappointed in his early capitulation); and hobnobs with politicians and poets. He almost gets himself beaten up by defacing a poster in Iraq with a Hitler mustache. But the most intriguing stories are the personal ones, both from his early days, at home and at boarding school, and from his later life, when he learns that his mother was Jewish, which, if only technically, makes him Jewish as well. This revelation leads Hitchens on a quest to learn the story of his family, many of whom died in the Holocaust. How this new identity squares with his oft-proclaimed atheism sheds a different light on the meaning of religious identity. (He struggles mightily with his political identity as well.) Few authors can rile as easily as Hitchens does, but even his detractors might find it difficult to put down a book so witty, so piercing, so spoiling for a fight. He makes you want to be as good a reader as he is a writer. --Ilene Cooper </p></div>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; "><strong>The first book to reveal and dissect the technical aspect of many social engineering maneuvers</strong></span></h3><p>From elicitation, pretexting, influence and manipulation all aspects of social engineering are picked apart, discussed and explained by using real world examples, personal experience and the science behind them to unraveled the mystery in social engineering. </p><p>Kevin Mitnick—one of the most famous social engineers in the world—popularized the term “social engineering.” He explained that it is much easier to trick someone into revealing a password for a system than to exert the effort of hacking into the system. Mitnick claims that this social engineering tactic was the single-most effective method in his arsenal. This indispensable book examines a variety of maneuvers that are aimed at deceiving unsuspecting victims, while it also addresses ways to prevent social engineering threats. </p><ul><li>     Examines social engineering, the science of influencing a target to perform a desired task or divulge information  </li> <li>     Arms you with invaluable information about the many methods of trickery that hackers use in order to gather information with the intent of executing identity theft, fraud, or gaining computer system access  </li> <li>     Reveals vital steps for preventing social engineering threats  </li></ul><p><em>Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking</em> does its part to prepare you against nefarious hackers—now you can do your part by putting to good use the critical information within its pages.</p></div>


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<p class="description">Christopher Hitchens, described in theLondon Observeras "one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time" takes on his biggest subject yetthe increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell'sWhy I Am Not a Christianand Sam Harris's recent bestseller,The End Of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope's awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.</p>


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<h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">From one of the most admired public intellectuals of our time, and a multi-award winning and #1 bestselling author, comes a collection of his most important and controversial essays on the theme of culture and politics and how the two relate.</span></h3>


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From two masters of dark fantasy comes a chilling tale of magic and possession, set in—and beneath—fabulous Venice, a city slowly being swallowed by the very waters that have made it one of the wonders of the world.   Geena Hodge is an American archaeologist working to salvage Venice’s past from the encroaching Adriatic Sea. When she and her lover, Nico, discover the lost library of Petrarch under the Piazza San Marco, they rejoice not only at the historical significance of the find but at the opportunity to bring worldwide attention—and much-needed funding—to their endeavors.But that find soon leads to another, a room buried more deeply still: the fabled Chamber of Ten, where centuries ago the secret rulers of Venice, in their quest for absolute power, met to plot betrayals and murders. After entering the Chamber, Geena and Nico are thrust into the midst of an ancient feud, a deadly battle of wills and black magic that threatens to poison the city’s future with the evils of its past.


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From using crackpot psychics to cutting-edge forensics, Arthur Bryant and John May are famous for their maddeningly unorthodox approach to solving crimes that the ordinary police cannot. Now Christopher Fowler, “a new master of the classical detective story,”* brings back crime detection’s oddest—and oldest—couple to solve the ultimate locked room mystery.It’s an “impossible” crime—a member of the Peculiar Crimes Unit killed inside a locked autopsy room populated only by the dead and to which only four PCU members had a key. And to make matters worse, the Unit has been shut down for a forced “vacation” and Bryant and May are stuck in a van miles away in the Dartmoor countryside during a freak snowstorm on their way to a convention of psychics.Now, with Sergeant Janice Longbright in charge at headquarters, Bryant and May must crack the case by cell phone while trying to stop a second murder without freezing to death. For among the line of snowed-in vehicles, a killer is on the prowl, a beautiful woman is on the run from a man who seeks either redemption or another victim, and an innocent child is caught in the middle.Weaving together two electrifying cases, White Corridor is an unforgettable triumph—by turns hilarious and harrowing—as two of detective fiction’s most marvelous characters confront one of human nature’s darkest mysteries: the ability to deceive, deny, and destroy.


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<p>They are detection’s oddest couple: two cranky detectives whose professional partnership dates back half a century. Now Arthur Bryant and John May return in a case of multiple murder that twists through a subterranean course of the secrets, lies, and extreme passions that drive even ordinary men and women to the most shocking crimes….</p><p>They are living legends with a reputation for solving even the trickiest cases using unorthodox, unconventional, and often completely unauthorized methods. But the Peculiar Crimes Unit headed by Detectives John May and Arthur Bryant is one mistake away from being shut down for good. And when the elderly sister of Bryant’s friend is found dead in the basement of her decrepit house in Kentish Town, they find themselves on the verge of making exactly that mistake.</p><p>According to the coroner, Ruth Singh’s heart simply stopped beating. But why was a woman who rarely left the house fully dressed for an outing? And why was there river water in her throat? Convinced that the old lady didn’t die a natural death, the detectives delve into a murky case with no apparent motive, no forensics, and no clues. And they’ve barely launched their investigation when death claims another victim. Suddenly they discover some very unnatural behavior surrounding Ruth Singh’s death by “natural” causes—from shady real estate developers and racist threats to two troubled marriages, from a dodgy academician working London’s notorious “grey economy” to a network of antiquities collectors obsessed with Egyptian mythology. And running beneath it all are the sweeping tentacles of London’s vast and forgotten underground river system. As the rains pour down and the water rises, Bryant and May must rely on instinct, experience, and their own very peculiar methods to stem a tide of evil that threatens to drown them all.</p><p><em></em></p>


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<hr /><p><em />*The Peculiar Crimes Unit is no more. After years of defying the odds and infuriating their embarrassed superiors, detectives Arthur Bryant and John May have at last crossed the line. This is the twenty-first century and not even their eccentric genius or phenomenal success rate solving London’s most unusual crimes can save them. While Bryant takes to his bed, his bathrobe, and his esoteric books, the rest of the team take to the streets looking for new careers—leading one of them to stumble upon a gruesome murder.</p><p>It isn’t so much the discovery of the headless corpse that’s potentially so politically explosive as where it’s found. Still it takes the bizarre sightings of a great horned creature—half man, half stag—carrying off young women to convince Bryant that this is a case worth getting dressed and leaving the house to solve. The Home Office has reluctantly authorized the PCU to reunite for one last encore performance—in a rented office with no computer network, no legal authority, and a broken toilet. They’ve got until the end of the week to solve a murder with unlikely links to gangland crime, Slavic mythology, the 2012 London Olympics, and the sort of corruption only obscene amounts of money and power can buy.</p><p>It’s the kind of case that Bryant and May live to solve—and it could be just the case that kills them. </p>


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<p>An original and horrific slice of urban terror from one of the masters of the genre... All is not well at SymaxCorp. The work is piled high, people are toiling overnight to meet deadlines, and the supervisors are keeping their beady eyes on everyone. But staff are complaining of feeling sick, and the last health and safety officer disappeared one evening never to be seen again. It's down to new boy Ben, together with temp Miranda, kick-boxing Meera and overweight June to try and get to the bottom of the problem. As colleagues are progressively transformed into mindless, blood crazed zombies, Ben and his friends discover that there really is something in the air... </p>


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<h3>From The New Yorker</h3><p>In 1894, fifteen years before his storied expedition to the North Pole, Robert Peary crossed a treacherous expanse of ice in Greenland in search of another prize: a massive meteorite laden with rare metals from outer space. In this hefty, industrious book, Cokinos retraces Peary’s steps, and those of other meteor “obsessives,” in an idiosyncratic hunt of his own. The book pairs, sometimes awkwardly, exciting tales of scientific adventure and unself-conscious rumination—particularly on the subject of the author’s failed first marriage, the pain of which, he insists, is “part and parcel of the hunt, my hunt, for the meteorite hunters.” As often as not, though, the original meteorite hunters had a more prosaic view of their quests. Peary, for instance, had a simple desire for glory and riches; when he finally found that meteorite, which the local Inuits had dubbed Woman (another, nearby, they called Dog), he called it “the brown mass.” </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"I've always wanted to read a first-class book about meteorites. Chris Cokinos has finally written that book. It's a shooting star, and I stayed up late reading it."<br />-Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of <em>The Making of the Atomic Bomb</em> and <em>Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb</em>  </p><p>"Christopher Cokinos goes from pole to pole in his search for the bits of cosmos that fall onto the Earth, and the remarkable people who collect and study them. He is a natural philosopher and gifted writer who sprinkles his own kind of stardust on every page. If you have ever wished upon a falling star, this is your chance to know just what is falling, where it comes from, what it tells us about our place in the universe-and what things in life are worth wishing for." <br />-Chet Raymo, former <em>Boston Globe</em> science columnist and bestselling author of <em>The Dork of Cork</em> and <em>Walking Zero</em></p>


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<p class="description">Two is trapped: hooked on heroin, held as property, forced to sell her body to feed the addiction. Time brings her ever closer to what seems an inevitable death and Two waits, uncaring, longing only for the next fix.That's when Theroen arrives, beckoning to his Ferrari and grinning his inscrutable grin. He is handsome. Confident. Eager to help lift her out of the life that's grinding her down.The only problem? Theroen is a vampire.His blood can cure her addiction, grant her powers she has never had, change her forever into something greater than she was. But when he sinks his teeth into her neck, Theroen also thrusts Two into a world of danger, violence, madness and despair. The powerful, twisted elder Abraham will use her arrival to shatter the uneasy peace that exists in his mansion, bringing an end to the dark game he has been playing for centuries.</p>


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<div><p>Failed academic Frank Nichols and his wife, Eudora, have arrived in the sleepy Georgia town of Whitbrow, where Frank hopes to write a history of his family's old estate-the Savoyard Plantation- and the horrors that occurred there. At first, the quaint, rural ways of their new neighbors seem to be everything they wanted. But there is an unspoken dread that the townsfolk have lived with for generations. A presence that demands sacrifice. </p><p>It comes from the shadowy woods across the river, where the ruins of Savoyard still stand. Where a longstanding debt of blood has never been forgotten. </p><p>A debt that has been waiting patiently for Frank Nichols's homecoming... </p></div>


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Nick Naylor likes his job. In the neo-puritanical nineties, it's a challenge to defend the rights of smokers and a privilege to promote their liberty. Sure, it hurts a little when you're compared to Nazi war criminals, but Nick says he's just doing what it takes to pay the mortgage and put his son through Washington's elite private school St. Euthanasius. He can handle the pressure from the antismoking zealots, but he is less certain about his new boss, BR, who questions whether Nick is worth $150,000 a year to fight a losing war. Under pressure to produce results, Nick goes on a PR offensive. But his heightened notoriety makes him a target for someone who wants to prove just how hazardous smoking can be. If Nick isn't careful, he's going to be stubbed out.


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<p class="description">The senior pupils of St Peter's High School are on retreat to a secluded outdoor activity centre, coming to terms with the murder of a fellow pupil through the means you would expect: counselling, contemplation, candid discussion and even prayer ? not to mention booze, drugs, clandestine liaisons and as much partying as they can get away with. Not so far away, the commanders of a top-secret military experiment, long-since spiralled out of control, fear they may have literally unleashed the forces of Hell.Two very different worlds are on a collision course, and will clash in an earthly battle between science and the supernatural, philosophy and faith, civilisation and savagery.The bookies are offering evens.</p>


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<p class="description">The bestselling author who made mincemeat of political correctness in Thank You for Smoking, conspiracy theories in Little Green Men, and Presidential indiscretions No Way to Treat a First Lady now takes on the hottest topic in the entire world–Arab-American relations–in a blistering comic novel sure to offend the few it doesn’t delight.Appalled by the punishment of her rebellious friend Nazrah, youngest and most petulant wife of Prince Bawad of Wasabia, Florence Farfarletti decides to draw a line in the sand. As Deputy to the deputy assistant secretary for Near East Affairs, Florence invents a far-reaching, wide-ranging plan for female emancipation in that part of the world.The U.S. government, of course, tells her to forget it. Publicly, that is. Privately, she’s enlisted in a top-secret mission to impose equal rights for the sexes on the small emirate of Matar (pronounced “Mutter”), the “Switzerland of the Persian Gulf.” Her crack team: a CIA killer, a snappy PR man, and a brilliant but frustrated gay bureaucrat. Her weapon: TV shows.The lineup on TV Matar includes A Thousand and One Mornings, a daytime talk show that features self-defense tips to be used against boyfriends during Ramadan; an addictive soap opera featuring strangely familiar members of the Matar royal family; and a sitcom about an inept but ruthless squad of religious police, pitched as “Friends from Hell.”The result: the first deadly car bombs in the country since 1936, a fatwa against the station’s entire staff, a struggle for control of the kingdom, and, of course, interference from the French. And that’s only the beginning.A merciless dismantling of both American ineptitude and Arabic intolerance, Florence of Arabia is Christopher Buckley’s funniest and most serious novel yet, a biting satire of how U.S. good intentions can cause the Shiite to hit the fan.</p>


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<div><p>In September 1945, after the fall of the atomic bomb—and with it, the Japanese empire—Asia was dominated by the British. Governing a vast crescent of land that stretched from India through Burma and down to Singapore, and with troops occupying the French and Dutch colonies in southern Vietnam and Indonesia, Britain's imperial might had never seemed stronger.</p><p>Yet within a few violent years, British power in the region would crumble, and myriad independent nations would struggle into existence. Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper show how World War II never really ended in these ravaged Asian lands but instead continued in bloody civil wars, anti-colonial insurrections, and inter-communal massacres. These years became the most formative in modern Asian history, as Western imperialism vied with nascent nationalist and communist revolutionaries for political control.</p><p><em>Forgotten Wars</em>, a sequel to the authors' acclaimed <em>Forgotten Armies</em>, is a panoramic account of the bitter wars of the end of empire, seen not only through the eyes of the fighters, but also through the personal stories of ordinary people: the poor and bewildered caught up in India's Hindu-Muslim massacres; the peasant farmers ravaged by warfare between British forces and revolutionaries in Malaya; the Burmese minorities devastated by separatist revolt. Throughout, we are given a stunning portrait of societies poised between the hope of independence and the fear of strife. <em>Forgotten Wars</em> vividly brings to life the inescapable conflicts and manifold dramas that shaped today's Asia.</p></div>


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<p class="description">Science and technology have made our lives easier, cured diseases, with achievements that an earlier age would have considered impossible. But once in a while, the law of unintended consequences breaks loose. Christopher Anvil considers the two faces of technological innovation: Sometimes the result is a literal life-saver; but at other times a breakthrough may not break quite the way it was supposed to. A new wonder drug has the unexpected side effect of making people happy. Not a problemeverybody should want to be happy, right? But should people be happyallof the time? Suppose being happy required youneverto disappoint anyone, no matter what they're requesting. . . . Then there was the energy source for every home that would free the country from its dependence on foreign oilexcept that the prototype was rushed into production a bit too fast. Back on the bright side, another device not only couldn't possibly work by every known law of science, but didn't have any obvious uses. Then alien invaders landed and suddenly the crackpot device was the world's only hope. The upside and downside of marvelous new gadgets, as told by a master of science fiction adventure with a prescription for fun.</p>


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<p>The Centran Empire was both benevolent and complacent. Benevolent, even as it overwhelmed every new inhabited planet it encountered with its military might-but once the planet was pacified, its inhabitants were uplifted to Centran standards of living and the benefits of membership in the Empire. Complacent, because the Empire had long been expanding without encountering more than minor obstacles. And then they came across Pandora's Planet, that is, Earth.... In spite of the Centran superiority in technology, the conquest of Earth took over three months, when the invaders were used to wrapping things up in less than two weeks. But "conquest" might be too optimistic a term to use, since the locals were still waging guerrilla warfare and sabotage, and the Centrans were hanging on by their equivalent of fingernails. And then the Centran scientists tested a group of humans and found that the humans were more intelligent than the Centrans. One Centran leader had an idea that might save the Centrans from being ignominiously kicked off the planet again. Since the humans were good at war, why not put together teams of humans to go out to the fringes of Centran space and handle planets that were proving difficult The teams performed magnificently-but back in the heart of the Empire, humans and their weird new ideas were spreading like wildfire, and if something weren't done soon, the humans would end up running the former Centran Empire....</p>


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<p>To mark the centenary of its foundation, the British Security Service, MI5, has opened its archives to an independent historian, the first time any of the world's leading intelligence or security services has taken such a step. "The Defence of the Realm", the book which results, is an unprecedented publication. It reveals the precise role of the Service in twentieth-century British history, from its foundation by Captain Kell of the British Army in October 1909 to root out 'the spies of the Kaiser' up to its present role in countering Islamic terrorism. It describes the distinctive ethos of MI5, how the organization has been managed, its relationship with the government, where it has triumphed and where it has failed. In all of this, no restriction has been placed on the judgements made by the author. The book also casts new light on many events and periods in British history, showing for example that through well-placed sources MI5 was probably the pre-war department with the best understanding of Hitler's objectives, and had a remarkable willingness to speak truth to power; how it was so astonishingly successful in turning German agents during the Second World War; and that it had much greater roles than has hitherto been realized during the end of the Empire and in responding to the recurrent fears of successive governments (both Conservative and Labour) and or Cold War Communist subversion. It has new information about the Profumo affair and its aftermath, about the 'Magnificent Five' and about a range of formerly unconfirmed Soviet contacts. It reveals that though MI5 had a file on Harold Wilson it did not plot against him, and it describes what really happened during the failed IRA attack in Gibraltar in March 1988. When Rab Butler was appointed Home Secretary with responsibility for the Security Service in 1957 he didn't even know where its headquarters were. "The Defence of the Realm" now describes this previously extremely secretive organization more fully than any previous book - and identifies all its main buildings on the end papers.</p>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">John Merrick had lived for more than twenty years imprisoned in a body that condemned him to a miserable life in the workhouse and to humiliation as a circus sideshow freak. But beneath that tragic exterior, within that enormous and deformed head, thrived the soul of a poet, the heart of a dreamer, the longings of a man. Based on the extraordinary motion picture that captured the heart of America.</span></h3><p><i><br></i></p></div>


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<p class="description">From the bestselling author of *The Double Bind*, *Midwives,* and *Skeletons at the Feast* comes a novel of shattered faith, intimate secrets, and the delicate nature of sacrifice."There," says Alice Hayward to Reverend Stephen Drew, just after her baptism, and just before going home to the husband who will kill her that evening and then shoot himself. Drew, tortured by the cryptic finality of that short utterance, feels his faith in God slipping away and is saved from despair only by a meeting with Heather Laurent, the author of wildly successful, inspirational books about . . . angels. Heather survived a childhood that culminated in her own parents' murder-suicide, so she identifies deeply with Alice’s daughter, Katie, offering herself as a mentor to the girl and a shoulder for Stephen – who flees the pulpit to be with Heather and see if there is anything to be salvaged from the spiritual wreckage around him.But then the State's Attorney begins to suspect that Alice's husband may not have killed himself. . .and finds out that Alice had secrets only her minister knew.*Secrets of Eden* is both a haunting literary thriller and a deeply evocative testament to the inner complexities that mark all of our lives.  Once again Chris Bohjalian has given us a riveting page-turner in which nothing is precisely what it seems.  As one character remarks, “Believe no one.  Trust no one.  Assume all of our stories are suspect.”</p></div>


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<p class="description">Lethally sexy undercover agent Stefan Prakenskii knows a thousand ways to kill a man-and twice as many ways to pleasure a woman. So he's looking forward to his new mission: arrive in the coastal town of Sea Haven and insinuate himself in the life of Judith Henderson, an ethereal beauty with mysterious ties to his past...</p>


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<p class="description">A new Carpathian novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author.   Dominic of the Dragonseeker Carpathians is on a desperate mission, in the very heart of enemy territory. Solange Sangria is one of the last of the jaguar people. She has long been fighting to save women who are able to shift from the hands of the man who slaughtered her family and everyone she loved-her own father. They are two warriors who have lived their lives alone. Now, a the end of their time, they find each other, a complication neither saw coming.</p>


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<h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">Danger lurks in the shadows and desire shimmers in the sultry heat as leopard shifter Drake Donovan is sent to a Louisiana bayou to investigate a murder. He's ready for anything except the insatiable hunger that rocks him when he meets Saria Boudreaux, a woman with a compelling motive-and ability-to distract him from the task at hand...</span></h3>


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<p class="description">Late on a Monday night, editor Lucy Newroe answers the phone in the Capital Tribune newsroom. The caller is the notorious Scanner Lady---an anonymous elderly tipster whose hobby is to phone the newspaper with gossip from her police scanner. The old woman tells Lucy she heard two Santa Fe cops discussing a dead body. But when Lucy checks out the tip, she discovers Scanner Lady has been killed. She tries to enlist the help of Detective Gil Montoya, but his mind is on another death. He has just been handed the case of Melissa Baca, a seventh-grade teacher whose body was thrown off the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. Over the course of the next few days, as Lucy and Gil hunt down the culprits in each murder, they discover their cases are intertwined in the most intimate ways. Rich with details of New Mexico and the people who live there, The Replacement Child is the perfect novel for anyone who has fallen in love with the Southwest that Tony Hillerman described so artfully in his Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee mysteries.</p>


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<p class="description">"Christine Barber is new to the Southwest in the sense that The Replacement Child is her first novel. But she has a great feel for the territory and for the family connections that enforce its strong community bonds."—THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW Every year, the people of Santa Fe gather together for the burning of a four-story-tall figure called Zozobra, a local custom that that takes place during the Fiesta de Santa Fe. Early the next morning, as the sounds of the Fiesta celebration still echo through the streets, skull is discovered in the ashes of Zozobra.  As Detective Sergeant Gilbert Montoya starts to investigate the case, disturbing displays of human bones begin appearing at religious sites around the city. With a possible psychopath on the loose, Gil goes to newspaper editor Lucy Newroe for help to find the person responsible in a case that will take them into the highest and lowest levels of Santa Fe society. Christine Barber was highly praised for her first book, The Replacement Child, which won the first annual Tony Hillerman Prize and was named a New York Times Notable Book. An intriguing, impressive new mystery, The Bone Fire captures the colorful New Mexican landscape and the unique world of Santa Fe.</p>


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<p class="description">Move over, Merlot. Craft beer has finally found a place at the fine dining table.Renowned beer sommeliers Hallie Beaune and Christina Perozzi offer a down-to-earth guide to craft and artisanal brews that celebrates beer for what it truly is: sophisticated, complex, and flavorful. Beaune and Perozzi cover everything from beer basics to the science behind beer, food and beer pairings, home brewing, and tips for perfecting one's palate. This edgy, no-nonsense guide exposes hidden truths, debunks every misconception, and reveals the power that comes with knowing an ale from a lager.</p>


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<div><p><strong>A charming British Playboy. A girl determined to finally live. And a secret liaison revealed in all too vivid color. Book two in the NYT Bestselling series. </strong></p><hr><p><strong></strong>Escaping a cheating ex, finance whiz Sara Dillon's moved to New York City and is looking for excitement without a lot of strings attached. So meeting the irresistible, sexy Brit at a dance club should have meant nothing more than a night's fun. But the manner--and speed--with which he melts her inhibitions turns him from a one-time hookup and into her Beautiful Stranger.<br></p><p>The whole city knows Max Stella loves women, not that he's ever found one he particularly wants to keep around. Despite pulling in plenty with his Wall Street bad boy charm, it's not until Sara--and the wild photos she lets him take of her--that he starts wondering if there's someone for him outside of the bedroom.<br></p><p>Hooking up in places where anybody could catch them, the only thing scarier for Sara than getting caught in public is having Max get too close in private.</p></div>


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<p class="description">A bombshell bookworm. A chronic Casanova. And a lesson in chemistry too scandalous for school. When Hanna Bergstrom receives a lecture from her overprotective brother about neglecting her social life and burying herself in grad school, she’s determined to tackle his implied assignment: get out, make friends, start dating. And who better to turn her into the sultry siren every man wants than her brother’s gorgeous best friend, Will Sumner, venture capitalist and unapologetic playboy? Will takes risks for a living, but he’s skeptical about this challenge of Hanna’s…until the wild night his innocently seductive pupil tempts him into bed- and teaches him a thing or two about being with a woman he can’t forget. Now that Hanna’s discovered the power of her own sex appeal, it’s up to Will to prove he’s the only man she’ll ever need.</p>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; "><strong>The Love Story of JFK Jr. and Christina Haag</strong></span></h3><p><strong>An elegy to first love, a lost New York, and a young man who led his life with surprising and abundant grace</strong>  </p><p>When Christina Haag was growing up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, John F. Kennedy, Jr., was just one of the boys in her circle of prep school friends, a skinny kid who lived with his mother and sister on Fifth Avenue and who happened to have a Secret Service detail following him at a discreet distance at all times. A decade later, after they had both graduated from Brown University and were living in New York City, Christina and John were cast in an off-Broadway play together. It was then that John confessed his long-standing crush on her, and they embarked on a five-year love affair. Glamorous and often in the public eye, but also passionate and deeply intimate, their relationship was transformative for both of them. With exquisite prose, Haag paints a portrait of a young man with an enormous capacity for love, and an adventurous spirit that drove him to live life to its fullest.<br>_<br>_A haunting book, <em>Come to the Edge</em> is a lasting evocation of a time and a place—of the indelible sting of the loss of young love, and of the people who shape you and remain with you, whether in person or in spirit. It is about being young and full of hope, with all the potential of your life as yet unfulfilled, and of coming of age at a moment in New York’s history when the city at once held danger, magic, and endless possibilities for self-discovery.    </p><p>Rarely has a love story been told so beautifully.  </p><p><em></em></p></div>


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<div><p>A captivating story of two very different women who build an unexpected friendship: a 91-year-old woman with a hidden past as an orphan-train rider and the teenage girl whose own troubled adolescence leads her to seek answers to questions no one has ever thought to ask.  </p><p>Nearly eighteen, Molly Ayer knows she has one last chance. Just months from "aging out" of the child welfare system, and close to being kicked out of her foster home, a community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvie and worse.  </p><p>Vivian Daly has lived a quiet life on the coast of Maine. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past. As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.  </p><p>The closer Molly grows to Vivian, the more she discovers parallels to her own life. A Penobscot Indian, she, too, is an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. As her emotional barriers begin to crumble, Molly discovers that she has the power to help Vivian find answers to mysteries that have haunted her for her entire life - answers that will ultimately free them both.  </p><p>Rich in detail and epic in scope, <em>Orphan Train</em> is a powerful novel of upheaval and resilience, of second chances, of unexpected friendship, and of the secrets we carry that keep us from finding out who we are.</p></div>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; ">From Africa to Asia and Latin America, the era of climate wars has begun. Extreme weather is breeding banditry, humanitarian crisis, and state failure.</span></h3><p>In <em>Tropic of Chaos</em>, investigative journalist Christian Parenti travels along the front lines of this gathering catastrophe--the belt of economically and politically battered postcolonial nations and war zones girding the planet's midlatitudes. Here he finds failed states amid climatic disasters. But he also reveals the unsettling presence of Western military forces and explains how they see an opportunity in the crisis to prepare for open-ended global counterinsurgency. </p><p>Parenti argues that this incipient "climate fascism"--a political hardening of wealthy states-- is bound to fail. The struggling states of the developing world cannot be allowed to collapse, as they will take other nations down as well. Instead, we must work to meet the challenge of climate-driven violence with a very different set of sustainable economic and development policies.</p></div>


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As Earth's ability to support human life diminishes, the Global Space Agency is formed with a single mandate: protect humanity from extinction by colonizing the solar system. Venus, being almost the same mass as Earth, is chosen over Mars as humanity's first permanent steppingstone into the universe.Arik Ockley is part of the first generation to be born and raised off-Earth. After a puzzling accident, Arik wakes up to find that his wife is three months pregnant. Since the colony's environmental systems cannot safely support any increases in population, Arik immediately resumes his work on AP, or artificial photosynthesis, in order to save the life of his unborn child.Arik's new and frantic research uncovers startling truths about the planet, and about the distorted reality the founders of the colony have constructed for Arik's entire generation. Everything Arik has ever known is called into question, and he must figure out the right path for himself, his wife, and his unborn daughter.


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The Weavers’ grip on Saramyr’s rulers has grown ever more powerful, and all the while, the blight they have brought grows harsher. The land is slipping into civil war. In the mounting chaos, Kaiku and the orphaned heir-Empress must fight for their destiny and their survival, as Saramyr succumbs to the twisting of the Weave and the unknowable ambitions of the secretive Weavers.


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Chris Stewart had a long and eclectic list of jobs. From some of the most glamorous careers - he was original drummer in Genesis - to the more offbeat - a sheep shearer and circus performer - he had done it all...or almost all. So when he is offered the chance to captain a sailboat in the Greek islands one summer, something he had never done before, he jumps at the chance. Ever the optimist, Stewart is undaunted by the fact that he'd never actually sailed before! So begins the hilarious and wild adventures of "Three Ways to Capsize a Boat." From setting the boat on fire not once, but several times in the Aegean Sea to his not-so-grand arrival in Spetses to meet the owners of the boat (who says it isn't graceful to plow into the docks as a means of coming to a stop?), Stewart quickly catches the sailing bug. By the end of the summer, as he is facing the dreary prospect of going back to sheep shearing, he jumps at the chance to be part of a crew to follow Viking Leif Eiriksson's historic journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Five months on a small sailboat with seven other people in the freezing waters of the Atlantic would sound like punishment to most people, but not Stewart! He takes it all in stride and always with his unfailing optimism and good spirits. From coming to terms with the long, cold nights at sea and unchanging cuisine to battling intense seasickness and managing to go to the bathroom during a massive storm (a lot harder than you'd think!), Stewart keeps his good humor...but learns, in the end, that perhaps the best things in life are worth coming ashore for. "Three Ways to Capsize a Boat" is travel writing at its best, crackling with Chris Stewart's zest for life, irresistible humor, and unerring lack of foresight. Dry land never looked more welcoming! ""Three Ways to Capsize a Boat"" is a charming and lyrical read, awash with the joy of discovery, and Stewart is an immensely likeable narrator...The key to his popularity is his honest and self-effacing determination - as discussed during a mid-Atlantic storm - to live a rewarding life." - "Guardian," UK


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No sooner had Chris Stewart set eyes on El Valero than he handed over a check.  Now all he had to do was explain to Ana, his wife that they were the proud owners of an isolated sheep farm in the Alpujarra Mountains in Southern Spain.  That was the easy part.Lush with olive, lemon, and almond groves, the farm lacks a few essentials—running water, electricity, an access road.  And then there's the problem of rapacious Pedro Romero, the previous owner who refuses to leave.  A perpetual optimist, whose skill as a sheepshearer provides an ideal entrée into his new community, Stewart also possesses an unflappable spirit that, we soon learn, nothing can diminish.  Wholly enchanted by the rugged terrain of the hillside and the people they meet along the way—among them farmers, including the ever-resourceful Domingo, other expatriates and artists—Chris and Ana Stewart build an enviable life, complete with a child and dogs, in a country far from home.


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<div><p>Ben gets the chance for a trip of a lifetime when his mum is invited to attend a big conference in Australia. In the midst of a drought, it's hot. And it's dry. Drier than it's been for years. And it only takes a spark to set off a fire... As world leaders gather and a student demo gathers pace, a small flame takes hold - and suddenly an unquenchable fire bursts into life and an inferno of flames up to l00 metres high tear through the streets, threatening homes and lives. And in the smoke and confusion, an important general is kidnapped! Ben - just learning to fly - finds himself at the controls of a microlite and on the trail of the kidnappers.</p></div>


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Two brothers.One mission.And a whole world of troubleSam and Jacob Redman. Two brothers, SAS through and through. They fight alongside each other; they watch each others backs. They are ruthlessly professional in the field of war, fiercely loyal wherever they are. But when Jacob is booted from the Regiment for a moment of madness, he disappears. Not even his family knows where he is, or even if hes still alive.All that is about to change. On his return from a brutal mission in Afghanistan, Sam is ordered to conduct another dangerous operation into an inhospitable part of the world. He soon learns, though, that his unit are not being told everything by their government paymasters; and so he is forced to choose between his duty to the men around him and his loyalty to the brother that he loves. Is Jacob part of a plan that threatens world peace? As the body count rises, only Sam can stop these events from reaching their terrifying conclusion.


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<div><p>Ben Tracey is having a well-deserved, restful week of birdwatching with his cousin, Annie. They're keen to catch a glimpse of the rare, nearly extinct Hen Harrier - and their wish comes true, but not in the way they'd hoped as they witness a man in an RAF uniform shoot one of the beautiful birds dead. When, later that day, Ben and Annie meet an old man full of conspiracy theories about the nearby RAF training base they're curious to know more and creep into the base - Spadeadam. But little do they know that they are in serious danger.Having walked into the middle of the real reason the Hen Harriers are being shot down, Ben and Annie are captured as intruders and taken to a secure unit on a deserted area of the camp. These birds are just helpless victims in a much bigger operation - they attract too many visitors to the area and there's a top-secret piece of warfare technology being developed that needs to be kept quiet. If this weapon gets into the wrong hands it could have catastrophic worldwide effects. Can Ben and Annie get out in time to spread the news?</p></div>


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<div><p>Ben Tracy is on holiday in the Cayman Islands when a hurricane warning means he and his new friend, the son of an oil billionaire, must fly out of range. But as the plane heads for Miami, an unfamiliar voice comes over the tannoy: the aircraft has been hijacked. If anyone tries to make their way into the cockpit, they will be instantly shot ...So begins this dramatic adventure, the fifth in the exciting "Code Red" series.</p></div>


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<div><p>Thirteen-year-old Ben Tracey is looking forward to spending the summer in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where his father has been hired to examine the valuable mineral Coltan that's being mined there. They soon realise that the people living in the village near the mine are frightened and it doesn't take long for Ben and his father to discover why: behind the door of every hut there is at least one person dying or seriously ill, and no one seems to be doing anything to help.As Ben's father falls ill, it's up to Ben and his new friend from the village, Halima, to try and tell the government what's going on so the village can be isolated before the sickness spreads further. Will they be able to prevent disaster?</p></div>


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<p>Ben's on a trip to London to meet his mum. But an accident at the Thames Barrier, combined with a tidal surge and a dramatic thunderstorm - and suddenly his trip turns into something totally different as the Barrier is breached and London is flooded. With streets underwater, communications down, rats pouring up out of the sewers and thousands of people in a state of panic, survival becomes a key issue. But as Ben tries to get across London to meet his mother, little does he know that two terrorists have a similar rendezvous.</p>


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<p>Nobody knows Japan like Lonely Planet. With more maps and language content than any other guidebook, this 11th edition unveils the very best of shopping in Tokyo, skiing in the Japan Alps, soaking in idyllic onsen (hot springs), trekking to Kansai's feudal castles, slurping soba at Kyushu food stalls, and so much more.<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>Architecture chapter leading you from ancient temples to modern towers<p>Reliable advice from resident and specialist authors - and locals!<p>Japanese script in text and on maps makes navigation easy


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<div><p>The brand new action-packed sixth Code Red adventure thriller for young readers<br></p><p>Fourteen-year-old Ben Tracy goes to Pakistan with his environmental-activist mother, who then travels across the border into Afghanistan, leaving Ben behind, where it’s safe. But Ben and his new friend, Aarya, are kidnapped and find themselves caught up in a terrifying planned Taliban attack that could destroy Southern Afghanistan killing thousands. And when Ben sees their kidnappers are carrying some sort of weapon that looks like a suitcase, he realizes that their lives are in serious danger.</p></div>


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<p><strong>From the creators of the Edge Chronicles comes the thrilling conclusion to the epic saga of Wyrmeweald!<br /></strong></p><p>The bone trail litters the barren lands of the wyrmeweald with the remains of dragon-like wyrmes, fortune-hunting kith bandits, and wyrme-protecting kin assassins alike—all viciously slaughtered in the gruesome quest for gold and power.</p><p>Micah and his friends have battled tirelessly against the kith bandits to protect the winged wyrmes. But the kith are getting bolder, trapping and killing wyrmes to take only their little flameoil sacs, then leaving the bodies to rot. Finally, deep in the heart of the weald, the whitewyrme has sent out a call to arms. The wyrmes are preparing for battle, ready to defend their home and themselves.</p><p>This will be war on every front: Wyrme against kith. Kith against kin. Even wyrme against wyrme. And former fortune-hunter Micah, now wyrme protector, must prepare for the fight of his life . . .</p><p>**</p>


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<p><strong>From the creators of the Edge Chronicles comes the second installment in the fantastic tale of Wyrmeweald!</strong></p><p>Winter is a dangerous time in the wyrmeweald. Once a magnificent wilderness, the home of the dragon-like wyrmes has become an icy wasteland. Brutal battles rage between the evil kith, intent on ravaging all that they can, and the wyrme-friendly kin.</p><p>Young Micah is safe in a winter den, sheltered from the intense cold, with kin Eli and the beautiful, dangerous wryme-rider Thrace. Thrace aches to leave the den and fly through the skies on her whitewyrme, but Micah knows they are safer indoors.</p><p>Meanwhile, a brutal assassin approaches, fueled by the invigorating liquor known as bloodhoney and seeking vengeance. Micah and his friends are being hunted—and nowhere in the wyrmeweald is truly safe.</p><p>**</p>


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<div><p>Don’t lose the will to become the person you want to be. <em>Choose to Lose</em> the weight, and start the next chapter of your life as the person you know you truly are.</p><p><strong>EAT MORE CARBS</strong></p><p><strong>BURN FAT</strong></p><p><strong>BUILD MUSCLE</strong></p><p><strong>QUICK-FIX RECIPES</strong></p><p><strong>NO GYM REQUIRED </strong></p><p><strong>CHEAT EVERY OTHER DAY</strong></p><p><strong>From celebrated fitness trainer Chris Powell, star of ABC’s <em>Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition</em>, comes this inspirational weight loss book to help anyone conquer their weight.</strong></p><p>You’ve seen him change lives on television. Now, in Choose to Lose, Powell presents fast and easy workouts, diet guidance, basic recipes, and insight into finding the true transformation mindset. Following his Carb Cycle Solution, you can drop pounds safely and quickly while learning how to ‘listen to your body’ to optimize your overall health and fitness.</p><p>Powell’s easy-to-follow Carb Cycle Solution contradicts everything you’ve heard about avoiding carbohydrates in an attempt to lose weight. Not only are you encouraged to eat carbs, but he will show you how to use them to amplify your weekly weight loss. By cycling between high-carb and low-carb days, your body will alternate boosting metabolism one day and burning fat the next. You will never feel deprived of the foods you love because you can fine-tune the solution to suit your needs. Powell gives you complete control over your nutrition, plus plenty of opportunities to indulge, and offers many delicious recipes to help you stay on track. If you work it, the Carb Cycle Solution may very well work for you—for the rest of your life. </p><p>With detailed exercises and accompanying photographs, as well as guidelines on how to revamp your environment, support system, and more, Powell not only shows you how to lose pounds, but also works with you as a coach and mentor, teaching you how to finally take control of the incredible machine that is your body. His words of encouragement will be there day after day as you build unstoppable momentum, guiding your body toward your ideal weight. Great physical change begins with a psychological one: change your mind, change your body.</p></div>


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<p>Second in the highly-acclaimed Richard Nottingham historical mystery series 1732. Richard Nottingham, Constable of the City of Leeds, is grieving the death of his daughter, but he must rouse himself from his lethargy when the body of wealthy wool merchant Samuel Graves is discovered, his throat slit, the skin razed from his back. Why would the killer want Graves’ skin? When Nottingham receives a slim, bound volume entitled The Journal of a Wronged Man he discovers the shocking answer – and it hurls him into a desperate battle for survival against a ruthless killer with old scores to settle.</p>


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<div><p>Bestselling author Chris Mooney uses cutting-edge research to explain the <em>psychology</em> behind why today’s Republicans reject reality—it's just part of who they are.</p><p>From climate change to evolution, the rejection of mainstream science among Republicans is growing, as is the denial of expert consensus on the economy, American history, foreign policy and much more. Why won't Republicans accept things that most experts agree on? Why are they constantly fighting against the facts?</p><p>Science writer Chris Mooney explores brain scans, polls, and psychology experiments to explain why conservatives today believe more wrong things; appear <em>more</em> likely than Democrats to oppose new ideas and <em>less</em> likely to change their beliefs in the face of new facts; and sometimes respond to compelling evidence by doubling down on their current beliefs.  </p><ul><li><p>Goes beyond the standard claims about ignorance or corporate malfeasance to discover the real, scientific reasons why Republicans reject the widely accepted findings of mainstream science, economics, and history—as well as many undeniable policy facts (e.g., there were no “death panels” in the health care bill).</p></li><li><p>Explains that the political parties reflect personality traits and psychological needs—with Republicans more wedded to certainty, Democrats to novelty—and this is the root of our divide over reality.</p></li><li><p>Written by the author of <em>The Republican War on Science</em>, which was the first and still the most influential book to look at conservative rejection of scientific evidence. But the rejection of science is just the beginning…</p></li></ul><p>Certain to spark discussion and debate, <em>The Republican Brain</em> also promises to add to the lengthy list of persuasive scientific findings that Republicans reject and deny.</p></div>


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<div><p><em>“What was he like?”</em><em>Jack Kennedy said the reason people read biography is to answer that basic question. With the verve of a novelist, Chris Matthews gives us just that. We see this most beloved president in the company of friends. We see and feel him close-up, having fun and giving off that restlessness of his. We watch him navigate his life from privileged, rebellious youth to gutsy American president. We witness his bravery in war and selfless rescue of his PT boat crew. We watch JFK as a young politician learning to play hardball and watch him grow into the leader who averts a nuclear war.What was he like, this person whose own wife called him “that elusive, unforgettable man”? The Jack Kennedy you discover here wanted never to be alone, never to be bored. He loved courage, hated war, lived each day as if it were his last.Chris Matthews’s extraordinary biography is based on personal interviews with those closest to JFK, oral histories by top political aide Kenneth O’Donnell and others, documents from his years as a student at Choate, and notes from Jacqueline Kennedy’s first interview after Dallas. You’ll learn the origins of his inaugural call to “Ask what you can do for your country.” You’ll discover his role in the genesis of the Peace Corps, his stand on civil rights, his push to put a man on the moon, his ban on nuclear arms testing. You’ll get, more than ever before, to the root of the man, including the unsettling aspects of his personal life. As Matthews writes, “I found a fighting prince never free of pain, never far from trouble, never accepting the world he found, never wanting to be his father’s son. He was a far greater hero than he ever wished us to know.”</em></p><em></em></div>


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<div><p><b>TIP AND THE GIPPER</b> is a magnificent personal history of a time when two great political opponents served together for the benefit of the country. Chris Matthews was an eyewitness to this story as a top aide to Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, who waged a principled war of political ideals with President Reagan from 1980 to 1986. Together, the two men forged compromises that shaped America’s future and became one of history’s most celebrated political pairings—the epitome of how ideological opposites can get things done. </p><p>When Ronald Reagan was elected to the presidency in a landslide victory over Jimmy Carter (for whom Matthews had worked as a speechwriter), Speaker O’Neill realized Americans had voted for a change. For the first time in his career, O’Neill also found himself thrust into the national spotlight as the highest-ranking leader of the Democratic Party—the most visible and respected challenger to President Reagan’s agenda of shrinking the government and lowering taxes. </p><p>At first, O’Neill doubted his ability to compete on the public stage with the charming Hollywood actor, whose polished speeches played well on TV, a medium O’Neill had never mastered. Over time, the burly Irishman learned how to fight the popular president on his key issues, relying on legislative craftiness, strong rhetoric, and even guerrilla theater. “An old dog can learn new tricks,” Tip told his staff. Of O’Neill, one of his colleagues said, “If Martians came into the House chamber, they’d know instantly who the leader was.” </p><p>Meanwhile, President Reagan proved to be a much more effective and savvy leader than his rivals had ever expected, achieving major legislative victories on taxes and the federal budget. Reagan and his allies knew how to work the levers of power in Washington. After showing remarkable personal fortitude in the wake of the assassination attempt against him, Reagan never let his political differences with Democrats become personal. He was fond of the veteran Speaker’s motto that political battles ended at 6 p.m. So when he would phone O’Neill, he would say, “Hello, Tip, is it after six o’clock?” </p><p>Together, the two leaders fought over the major issues of the day—welfare, taxes, covert military operations, and Social Security—but found their way to agreements that reformed taxes, saved Social Security, and achieved their common cause of bringing peace to Northern Ireland. O’Neill’s quiet behind-the-scenes support helped Reagan forge his historic Cold War–ending bond with Mikhail Gor­bachev. They each won some and lost some, and through it all they maintained respect for each other’s positions and worked to advance the country rather than obstruct progress. </p><p>As Matthews notes, “There is more than one sort of heroic behavior, and they don’t all look the same.” <em>Tip and the Gipper</em> is the story of the kind of heroism we need today.</p></div>


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<div><p>A RAZOR-SHARP THRILLER FROM THE EDGAR AWARD-NOMINATED AUTHOR WHO "BLURS THE LINES BETWEEN DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES" (<em>Abilene Reporter-News</em>, TX) </p><p>Darby McCormack was in high school when she first encountered the killer: someone murdered a woman in the woods where Darby and her two best friends were partying. His race to silence the witnesses was sure-footed and violent - but somehow Darby survived. </p><p>Twenty-five years later, Darby is a crime-scene investigator for the Boston Police Department, and a chilling case - a woman's late-night abduction - has her uncovering strange leads to missing women, past and present. As forensic clues lead her closer to a psychopath called the Traveler, Darby must finally resolve the nightmare of her past and come face-to-face with a killer who is determined to keep the missing - and the horrors they endured at his hands - from ever coming to light. </p></div>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; ">What do you learn when your brain goes pop?</span></h3><p>Chris Licht had always been ambitious. When he was only nine years old, he tracked down an NBC correspondent while on vacation to solicit advice for a career in television. At eleven, he began filming himself as he delivered the news. And by the time he was thirty-five, he landed his dream job: a fast-paced, demanding spot at the helm of MSNBC’s <em>Morning Joe—</em>one of the most popular shows on cable TV. He had become a real-life Jerry Maguire: hard-charging, obsessively competitive, and willing to sacrifice anything to get it done. He felt invincible. Then one day Chris heard a <em>pop </em>in his head, followed by a <em>whoosh </em>of blood and crippling pain. Doctors at the ER said he had suffered a near-deadly brain hemorrhage. Chris’s life had almost been cut short, and he had eight long days in a hospital bed to think about it.</p></div>


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<div><p>Chris Kyle—fallen hero and #1 bestselling author of <em>American Sniper</em>—reveals how ten legendary guns forever changed U.S. history.</p><p>At the time of his tragic death in February 2013, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, the top sniper in U.S. military history, was finishing one of the most exciting missions of his life: a remarkable book that retold American history through the lens of a hand-selected list of firearms. Kyle masterfully shows how guns have played a fascinating, indispensable, and often underappreciated role in our national story.</p><p>"Perhaps more than any other nation in the world," Kyle writes, "the history of the United States has been shaped by the gun. Firearms secured the first Europeans' hold on the continent, opened the frontier, helped win our independence, settled the West, kept law and order, and defeated tyranny across the world."</p><p>Drawing on his unmatched firearms knowledge and combat experience, Kyle carefully chose ten guns to help tell his story: the American long rifle, Spencer repeater, Colt .45 revolver, Winchester rifle, Springfield 1903 rifle, Thompson sub-machine gun, 1911 pistol, M1 Garand, .38 Special police revolver, and the M-16 rifle platform Kyle himself used as a SEAL. Through them, he revisits thrilling turning points in American history, including the single sniper shot that turned the tide of the Revolutionary War, the firearms designs that proved decisive at Gettysburg, the "gun that won the West," and the weapons that gave U.S. soldiers an edge in the world wars and beyond. This is also the story of how firearms innovation, creativity, and industrial genius has constantly pushed American history—and power—forward.</p><p>Filled with an unforgettable cast of characters, Chris Kyle's <em>American Gun</em> is a sweeping epic of bravery, adventure, invention, and sacrifice.</p></div>


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<p class="description">He is the deadliest American sniper ever, called "the devil" by the enemies he hunted and "the legend" by his Navy SEAL brothers . . .  From 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. The Pentagon has officially confirmed more than 150 of Kyles kills (the previous American record was 109), but it has declined to verify the astonishing total number for this book. Iraqi insurgents feared Kyle so much they named him "al-Shaitan" ("the devil") and placed a bounty on his head. Kyle earned legendary status among his fellow SEALs, Marines, and U.S. Army soldiers, whom he protected with deadly accuracy from rooftops and stealth positions. Gripping and unforgettable, Kyle's masterful account of his extraordinary battlefield experiences ranks as one of the great war memoirs of all time.  A native Texan who learned to shoot on childhood hunting trips with his father, Kyle was a champion saddle-bronc rider prior to joining the Navy. After 9/11, he was thrust onto the front lines of the War on Terror, and soon found his calling as a world-class sniper who performed best under fire. He recorded a personal-record 2,100-yard kill shot outside Baghdad; in Fallujah, Kyle braved heavy fire to rescue a group of Marines trapped on a street; in Ramadi, he stared down insurgents with his pistol in close combat. Kyle talks honestly about the pain of war--of twice being shot and experiencing the tragic deaths of two close friends.  "American Sniper" also honors Kyles fellow warriors, who raised hell on and off the battlefield. And in moving first-person accounts throughout, Kyles wife, Taya, speaks openly about the strains of war on their marriage and children, as well as on Chris.  Adrenaline-charged and deeply personal, "American Sniper" is a thrilling eyewitness account of war that only one man could tell.</p>


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The next exciting, action-packed thriller from the national bestselling author.   Michel de Nostredame, the French apothecary commonly known as Nostradamus, has gained a cult-like following, a loyal band of enthusiasts who credit him with predicting numerous world events-the Great Fire of London, the rise of Napoleon and Hitler, and the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima. However, his most important collection of prophetic verses has remained hidden...until now.  In the year 2009, a letter was mailed to a woman who does not understand why she has received the puzzling correspondence, written in a series of codes and ancient languages. She enlists the help of Jonathon Payne and David Jones. Relentlessly hunted by those determined to protect the secret, the duo has no choice but to fight back. In an adventure that spans two continents and several centuries, Payne and Jones must locate the sacred text that may change everything we know about the future.


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The first to disappear is a ski instructor, out for a morning jog in the secluded mountains of Colorado. Hours later, a pregnant woman is abducted from a crowded hospital and smuggled past security without a hitch. Two places, two incidents, a single motive. One by one, in cities across America, people of all ages are being taken from their homes, their cars, their lives. But these aren't random kidnappings. They're crimes of passion, planned and researched several months in advance, then executed with a singular objective in mind. Ariane Walker is one of the victims, dragged from her apartment with no obvious signs of a struggle. The cops said there is little they can do for her. There isn't enough evidence to go on. Not enough time has passed. But that isn't good enough for Jonathon Payne. He loves Ariane and isn't about to sit around while her trail runs cold. Using the skills that he learned in the Maniacs, a special branch of the U.S. military, Payne and his best friend, David Jones, give chase, trekking to New Orleans on little more than a whim, hoping that Payne's gut instinct pays off. It does. With the help of several locals, the duo slowly begin to uncover the mystery of Walker's abduction and the shocking truth behind Louisiana's best-kept secret; The Plantation.


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<div><p><strong>From the mountains of Bavaria to the secret tunnels under King Ludwig II's castles, no one is safe when they search for the Secret Crown. </strong></p><p>Hidden among the crates in a recently discovered World War II bunker are documents stamped with an elaborate black swan, the insignia of the murdered King Ludwig II. According to legend, Ludwig stockpiled a massive treasure in the years before his death, a cache of gold and jewels that would finance the construction of the largest castle of all time. But in the years since his death, no one has found any evidence that Ludwig had hidden anything. Until now. </p><p>Jonathon Payne and David Jones are pulled into the mystery by a colleague of theirs, a former supply sergeant in the U.S. military who asks them to investigate. They agree to help and quickly find themselves in a life-or-death struggle to uncover the truth about Ludwig's murder and his mythical treasure. </p></div>


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After a man with no indentification--who scribbles notes in ancient tongues--is admitted to an Italian hospital, ex-military agents Jonathon Payne and D. J. Jones must race to recover a lost treasure that could rewrite history, before it is destroyed by men who will stop at nothing to conceal the secret. Reprint.


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<p class="description">In a secret bunker, one of the world's most dangerous terrorists is under interrogation-until he is rescued, and his captors are slaughtered.  Ex-MANIAC honcho Jonathan Payne vows revenge-but there is more to the bloody atrocity than terrorist reprisal. There is a plot in motion that will burn the world in the fires of holy war.</p>


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On a Danish shore, a Vatican priest is found-hanging on a cross. The next day, the crime is repeated in Asia and Africa. Meanwhile, in the catacombs near Orvieto, Italy, an archeologist unearths a scroll revealing secrets that could rock the foundations of Christianity. Its discovery makes him the most wanted criminal in Europe. But his most dangerous enemies operate outside the law of man.


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<h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; ">An entertaining follow-up to their popular book A Lion's Tale, international wresting superstar Jericho and co-writer Fornatale continue their chronicle of Jericho's wild ride through the wacky world of professional wrestling. This book picks up where the earlier book ended—with Jericho in 1999 joining Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Enterprise, the most important venue in wresting—and ends with Jericho's return to the ring in 2007 after a two-year retirement. Jericho hilariously details these key years as WWE's resident bad guy. His feuds with WWE's colorful (and colorfully profane) cast, including the likes of X-Pac, Ken Shamrock, Chyna, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, and Christian, are solidly recounted, although most of this will be old news to hardcore WWE fans. But the most interesting stories involve his battles on- and off-stage with such better-known stars as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Goldberg—whom Jericho once had run over by a limousine during an episode of WWE's Raw series. It is here that Jericho shines and proves once again that, next to Mick Foley, he is an insightful and funny observer of pro wrestling's absurd universe. </span></h3>


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<p class="description"><br>Chris Jericho worked his way into the big time of wrestling after training in Canada. He had his first pro fight at just 19, but it wasn't until he was 25 that he made the big time, joining the WCW. Within a year he had won his first title. Finally, in August 1999 he moved to the WWF (now WWE) where he would eventually become one of the biggest names on their books, and bedcome the undisputed Heavyweight Champion.In this fascinating account, he relives his early days in the sport in Mexico and Japan, and working his way up alongside Chris Benoit and Lance Storm. He also recalls his rivalries with The Rock, Steve Austin and Triple H among others. He retired from the sport in August 2005, but there have been many rumours since then of a comeback. A Lion's Tale is as honest, outspoken and direct as the man himself.</p>


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<p class="description">As Commander of the International Space Station, Chris Hadfield captivated the world with stunning photos and commentary from space. Now, in his first book, Chris offers readers extraordinary stories from his life as an astronaut, and shows how to make the impossible a reality. Chris Hadfield decided to become an astronaut after watching the Apollo moon landing with his family on Stag Island, Ontario, when he was nine years old, and it was impossible for Canadians to be astronauts. In 2013, he served as Commander of the International Space Station orbiting the Earth during a five-month mission. Fulfilling this lifelong dream required intense focus, natural ability and a singular commitment to “thinking like an astronaut.” In An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, Chris gives us a rare insider’s perspective on just what that kind of thinking involves, and how earthbound humans can use it to achieve success and happiness in their lives.Astronaut training turns popular wisdom about how to be successful on its head. Instead of visualizing victory, astronauts prepare for the worst; always sweat the small stuff; and do care what others think. Chris shows how this unique education comes into play with dramatic anecdotes about going blind during a spacewalk, getting rid of a live snake while piloting a plane, and docking with space station Mir when laser tracking systems fail at the critical moment. Along the way, he shares exhilarating experiences, and challenges, from his 144 days on the ISS, and provides an unforgettable answer to his most-asked question: What’s it really like in outer space?Written with humour, humility and a profound optimism for the future of space exploration, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth offers readers not just the inspiring story of one man’s journey to the ISS, but the opportunity to step into his space-boots and think like an astronaut—and renew their commitment to pursuing their own dreams, big or small.</p>


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<div><p class="description">Sometimes, it takes a crisis to figure out who you really are.</p>
<p class="description">In the near future, an irreverent astronomer named Marcus Donovan discovers a strange relic hidden beyond Mars, and he commandeers an exploratory vessel under false pretenses to investigate.</p>
<p class="description">While Marcus and his crew venture off into the unknown, a mysterious alien legion appears in Earth orbit and invades.  Human civilization is dashed apart in the blink of an eye, and Jack Hernandez, a search and rescue specialist, is one of the lucky few survivors.  Along with a handful of friends, Jack joins the scattered resistance and wages a desperate terrorist war against the aliens, striking back any way they can.</p>
<p class="description">In the bloody struggle to reclaim their planet, Jack and Marcus are each thrust into roles they never could have imagined, in a conflict as old as time.  The fight takes them from China to Africa, and from Earth to Mars, while the secrets they uncover shake their understanding of humanity itself.</p>
<p class="description">Stars Rain Down is about the horrors of warfare, and what happens when idealism collides with a savage fight for survival.  Dominated by an enemy who shows neither compassion nor regret, the last remnants of mankind discover that every choice leads to unforeseen consequences, and mercy can triumph even in the face of mortal rage.</p></div>


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<p><strong>New from the author of the <em>New York Times </em>bestseller <em>Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library </em>and coauthor of the I Funny series with James Patterson! Celebrate the power of imagination with this action-packed adventure that shows that sometimes the real story starts after you close the book!  </strong><br /><br />What if your favorite characters came to life? Billy’s spending the summer in a lakeside cabin that belongs to the mysterious Dr. Libris. But something strange is going on. Besides the security cameras everywhere, there’s Dr. Libris’s private bookcase. Whenever Billy opens the books inside, he can hear sounds coming from the island in the middle of the lake. The clash of swords. The twang of arrows. Sometimes he can even feel the ground shaking. It’s almost as if the stories he’s reading are coming to life! But that’s impossible . . . isn’t it? <br /><br />“<strong>A wonderful tale</strong>. . . . This book is like no other I’ve read. It’s <strong>a complete original</strong>.” <strong>—James Patterson</strong>  </p><p>"Kids will enjoy the <strong>cartoonish mayhem</strong>, especially given Grabenstein's <strong>breezy narrative voice</strong> and <strong>jaunty wit</strong>....as in 'Lemoncello', there is a winning generosity and sweetness to the story's telling."<strong>--The New York Times</strong>  </p><p>"Chris Grabenstein gleefully plunders great works of literature for his cast of secondary characters . . . <strong>a madcap mash-up</strong> that 8-to-12 year olds will want to <strong>devour in big gulps</strong>."**—<strong><em><strong>The Wall Street Journal</strong><br /><em><br />"<strong>Effortlessly readable and a whole lot of fun</strong>." </em><em>— </em>Booklist Reviews</em></strong>  </p><p><em>From the Hardcover edition.</em></p><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Gr 4–7—Billy is not thrilled to be spending the summer in a cabin on a lake in the middle of nowhere. His mom and dad aren't together, and he's worried this change may be permanent. Their cabin is owned by Dr. Libris, who also owns the mysterious island in the lake. With a lack of technology, and bullies as neighbors, Billy resorts to searching for a key to open the bookcase in Dr. Libris' study. What he unlocks brings classic books to life—when he reads the books, he hears the action somehow occurring on the island. Curious, he ventures out to the island to explore and discovers the unbelievable—somehow the stories he is reading are actually happening. When he meets Hercules, Zeus, Robin Hood, Tom Sawyer, and others, he becomes embroiled in their adventures and unwittingly causes the storylines to collide. When Billy brings his neighbors, Walter, and Walter's sister, out to the island, they all face treacherous foes including the giant from Jack in the Beanstalk and a space lizard from Walter's comic book. Billy is left trying to figure out whether Dr. Libris is behind everything, whether his own mind may be the culprit, and whether or not he can use the island to help save his parents' marriage. While the plot is unique, the story feels too far-fetched to be believable, and lacks the magic of Grabenstein's Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library (Random, 2013).—Michele Shaw, Quail Run Elementary School, San Ramon, CA </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"A wonderful tale… This book is like no other I've read. It's a complete original." -- James Patterson  </p><p>"In this entertaining literary romp, the author includes references to over 20 classic tales, from Aesop's Fables to Holes. For curious readers, he's listed the titles at the end, but familiarity with these stories is not required to appreciate this fast-paced fantasy. Readers will wish their summers were so eventful." - <strong>Kirkus Reviews  </strong>  </p><p>"Readers will appreciate Billy’s cleverness in solving his ever-growing problems, as these literary characters make plenty of trouble outside the confines of their intended stories. Effortlessly readable and a whole lot of fun."<strong> - Booklist Reviews  </strong></p>


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<p>Ash Rashid is a former homicide detective who can't stand the thought of handling another death investigation. Another year, and he'll be out of the department completely. That's the plan, at least, until his niece's body is found in the guest home of one of his city's most wealthy citizens. The coroner calls it an overdose, but the case doesn't add up. Against orders, Ash begins a danger-filled investigation to find his niece's murderer, but the longer he searches, the more entangled he becomes in a case that hits increasingly close to home. If he doesn't solve it fast, his niece won't be the only family member he has to bury.</p>


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<p class="description">From the author of the international bestseller Incendiary comes a haunting novel about the tenuous friendship that blooms between two disparate strangers---one an illegal Nigerian refugee, the other a recent widow from suburban London.</p>


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<div><p>From the <em>New York Times</em> bestselling author of <em>Midwives</em> and <em>The Sandcastle Girls</em> comes a spellbinding novel of love, despair, and revenge—set in war-ravaged Tuscany.<br></p><p>1943: Tucked away in the idyllic hills south of Florence, the Rosatis, an Italian family of noble lineage, believe that the walls of their ancient villa will keep them safe from the war raging across Europe. Eighteen-year-old Cristina spends her days swimming in the pool, playing with her young niece and nephew, and wandering aimlessly amid the estate’s gardens and olive groves. But when two soldiers, a German and an Italian, arrive at the villa asking to see an ancient Etruscan burial site, the Rosatis’ bucolic tranquility is shattered. A young German lieutenant begins to court Cristina, the Nazis descend upon the estate demanding hospitality, and what was once their sanctuary becomes their prison.<br></p><p>1955: Serafina Bettini, an investigator with the Florence police department, has her own demons. A beautiful woman, Serafina carefully hides her scars along with her haunting memories of the war. But when she is assigned to a gruesome new case—a serial killer targeting the Rosatis, murdering the remnants of the family one-by-one in cold blood—Serafina finds herself digging into a past that involves both the victims and her own tragic history.<br></p><p>Set against an exquisitely rendered Italian countryside, <em>The Light in the Ruins</em> unveils a breathtaking story of moral paradox, human frailty, and the mysterious ways of the heart.</p></div>


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<p class="description">Chris Bohjalian, bestselling author of Midwives, presents his most ambitious and multi-layered novel to date--examining wildly divisive issues in today’s America with his trademark emotional heft and spellbinding storytelling skill.On a balmy July night in New Hampshire a shot rings out in a garden, and a man falls to the ground, terribly wounded. The wounded man is Spencer McCullough, the shot that hit him was fired–accidentally?–by his adolescent daughter Charlotte. With this shattering moment of violence, Chris Bohjalian launches the best kind of literate page-turner: suspenseful, wryly funny, and humane.</p>


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<p>Manchmal wünscht sie sich, sie wäre eine englische Pfundmünze: dann würde sich nämlich jeder freuen, sie zu sehen. Little Bee ist 16 Jahre alt und stammt aus Afrika. In ihrer Heimat ist ihr Schreckliches zugestoßen, und seit zwei Jahren lebt sie in einem englischen Abschiebelager für Asylbewerber. Trotz allem ist sie ein Mensch voll Lebensfreude, Witz und Intelligenz. In England kennt sie außerhalb des Lagers nur zwei Menschen: Vor Jahren hat sie in Nigeria das Ehepaar Sarah und Andrew, die im englischen Kingston-upon-Thames ein privilegiertes Leben führen, kennengelernt. Ein furchtbares gemeinsames Erlebnis hat eine tragische Verbindung zwischen ihnen geschaffen. Als Little Bee aus dem Lager entlassen wird, ruft sie bei Sarah und Andrew an. Ein Anruf, der unvorhersehbare Folgen hat: Einige Tage später bringt sich Andrew um. Und kurz darauf steht Little Bee vor Sarahs Tür ...</p>


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<p class="description">When Laurel Estabrook is attacked while riding her bicycle through Vermont’s back roads, her life is forever changed. Formerly outgoing, Laurel withdraws into her photography, spending all her free time at a homeless shelter. There she meets Bobbie Crocker, a man with a history of mental illness and a box of photographs that he won’t let anyone see. When Bobbie dies, Laurel discovers a deeply hidden secret–a story that leads her far from her old life, and into a cat-and-mouse game with pursuers who claim they want to save her. In a tale that travels between the Roaring Twenties and the twenty-first century, between Jay Gatsby’s Long Island and rural New England, bestselling author Chris Bohjalian has written his most extraordinary novel yet.</p>


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<p class="description">Love . . . sex . . . seduction. Of the three, only the last matters. Love is a meaningless word, and sex an ephemeral pleasure, but seduction is an amusing game in which victory means power and the ability to humiliate one’s enemies and revel with one’s friends. So it is for the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, two supremely bored aristocrats during the final years before the French Revolution. Together they concoct a wildly wicked wager: If Valmont can successfully seduce the virtuous wife of a government official, Madame de Tourvel, then Madame Merteuil will sleep with him again. But Madame Merteuil also wants Valmont to conquer the young and innocent former convent schoolgirl, Cécile Volanges. Can he do both?When Les Liaisons Dangereuses was first published in 1782, it both scandalized and titillated the aristocracy it was aimed against, who publicly denounced it and privately devoured it. Today we still recognize its relevance, for what could be more contemporary than its appalling image of everyday evil — small, selfish, manipulative, and mean.</p>


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"For the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont seduction is a game - the former lovers relish manipulating others to bring amusement to their jaded existences. While Valmont is determined to succeed in his conquest of a virtuous married woman, Merteuil challenges him to seduce an innocent convent girl who is to be married to her former lover. As their intrigues become increasingly duplicitous and they find their human pawns responding in ways they could not have predicted, the consequences prove to be more serious, and deadly, then the two conspirators could have guessed. Depicting decadence and moral corruption in pre-revolutionary France, Dangerous Liaisons (1782) is one of the most scandalous and controversial novels in European literature." "In her introduction, Helen Constantine discusses the amorality of Dangerous Liaisons, its epistolary structure and timeless appeal. This edition also includes a chronology of Laclos's life, works and literary antecedents, suggestions for further reading, and explanatory notes covering the background to the story."--BOOK JACKET.


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; "><strong>"Neill creates a strong-minded, sharp-witted heroine who will appeal to fans of Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series and Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake." -_Library Journal_</strong></span></h3><p>Times are hard for newly minted vampire Merit. Ever since shapeshifters announced their presence to the world, humans have been rallying against supernaturals-and they're camping outside of Cadogan House with protest signs that could turn to pitchforks at any moment. Inside its doors, things between Merit and her Master, green-eyed heartbreaker Ethan Sullivan are...tense. But then the mayor of Chicago calls Merit and Ethan to a clandestine meeting and tells them about a violent vamp attack that has left three women missing. His message is simple: get your House in order. Or else.   </p><p>Merit needs to get to the bottom of this crime, but it doesn't help that she can't tell who's on her side. So she secretly calls in a favor from someone who's tall, dark, and part of underground vamp group that may have some deep intel on the attack. Merit soon finds herself in the heady, dark heart of Chicago's supernatural society-a world full of vampires who seem ready to fulfill the protesting human's worst fears, and a place where she'll learn that you can't be a vampire without getting a little blood on your hands...   </p></div>


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<p>Part horror story, part historical document, part memoir, part political tract, one man's suffering gives eyewitness proof to an ongoing sorrowful chapter of modern history.</p>


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<div><p class="description">THINGS FALL APART tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around Okonkwo, a "strong man" of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first of these stories traces Okonkwo's fall from grace with the tribal world in which he lives, and in its classical purity of line and economical beauty it provides us with a powerful fable about the immemorial conflict between the individual and society. The second story, which is as modern as the first is ancient, and which elevates the book to a tragic plane, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries. These twin dramas are perfectly harmonized, and they are modulated by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul. </p><p class="description">THINGS FALL APART is the most illuminating and permanent monument we have to the modern African experience as seen from within.</p></div>


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<p>Nobody knows Thailand like Lonely Planet. Our 13th edition will have you soaking up the sun on the island paradises of the south, trekking among the hill tribes and riding elephants in Chiang Mai, discovering the ancient temples of Sukhothai and snapping up bargains or being pampered in a spa in Bangkok.<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>Detailed advice on everything from food & drink to transport & health<p>Special 'Thailand & You' chapter with tips on culture and etiquette<p>Extensive Deep South coverage eases your travels in the conflicted region


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A mythmaker of the highest order, China Miéville has emblazoned the fantasy novel with fresh language, startling images, and stunning originality. Set in the same sprawling world of Miéville’s Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel, Perdido Street Station, this latest epic introduces a whole new cast of intriguing characters and dazzling creations. Aboard a vast seafaring vessel, a band of prisoners and slaves, their bodies remade into grotesque biological oddities, is being transported to the fledgling colony of New Crobuzon. But the journey is not theirs alone. They are joined by a handful of travelers, each with a reason for fleeing the city. Among them is Bellis Coldwine, a renowned linguist whose services as an interpreter grant her passage—and escape from horrific punishment. For she is linked to Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, the brilliant renegade scientist who has unwittingly unleashed a nightmare upon New Crobuzon.For Bellis, the plan is clear: live among the new frontiersmen of the colony until it is safe to return home. But when the ship is besieged by pirates on the Swollen Ocean, the senior officers are summarily executed. The surviving passengers are brought to Armada, a city constructed from the hulls of pirated ships, a floating, landless mass ruled by the bizarre duality called the Lovers. On Armada, everyone is given work, and even Remades live as equals to humans, Cactae, and Cray. Yet no one may ever leave.Lonely and embittered in her captivity, Bellis knows that to show dissent is a death sentence. Instead, she must furtively seek information about Armada’s agenda. The answer lies in the dark, amorphous shapes that float undetected miles below the waters—terrifying entities with a singular, chilling mission. . . .China Miéville is a writer for a new era—and The Scar is a luminous, brilliantly imagined novel that is nothing short of spectacular.From the Trade Paperback edition.


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Beneath the towering bleached ribs of a dead, ancient beast lies New Crobuzon, a squalid city where humans, Re-mades, and arcane races live in perpetual fear of Parliament and its brutal militia. The air and rivers are thick with factory pollutants and the strange effluents of alchemy, and the ghettos contain a vast mix of workers, artists, spies, junkies, and whores. In New Crobuzon, the unsavory deal is stranger to none—not even to Isaac, a brilliant scientist with a penchant for Crisis Theory.Isaac has spent a lifetime quietly carrying out his unique research. But when a half-bird, half-human creature known as the Garuda comes to him from afar, Isaac is faced with challenges he has never before fathomed. Though the Garuda's request is scientifically daunting, Isaac is sparked by his own curiosity and an uncanny reverence for this curious stranger.While Isaac's experiments for the Garuda turn into an obsession, one of his lab specimens demands attention: a brilliantly colored caterpillar that feeds on nothing but a hallucinatory drug and grows larger—and more consuming—by the day. What finally emerges from the silken cocoon will permeate every fiber of New Crobuzon—and not even the Ambassador of Hell will challenge the malignant terror it invokes . . .A magnificent fantasy rife with scientific splendor, magical intrigue, and wonderfully realized characters, told in a storytelling style in which Charles Dickens meets Neal Stephenson, Perdido Street Station offers an eerie, voluptuously crafted world that will plumb the depths of every reader's imagination.From the Trade Paperback edition.


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<div><p>From the acclaimed author of <em>Still Missing</em> comes a psychological thriller about one woman’s search into her past and the deadly truth she uncovers.  </p><p>All her life, Sara Gallagher has wondered about her birth parents. As an adopted child with two sisters who were born naturally to her parents, Sara did not have an ideal home life. The question of why she was given up for adoption has always haunted her. Finally, she is ready to take steps and to find closure.  </p><p><strong>But some questions are better left unanswered. </strong></p><p>After months of research, Sara locates her birth mother---only to be met with horror and rejection. Then she discovers the devastating truth: Her mother was the only victim ever to escape a killer who has been hunting women every summer for decades. But Sara soon realizes the only thing worse than finding out about her father is him finding out about her. </p><p><strong>What if murder is in your blood? </strong></p><p><em>Never Knowing</em> is a complex and compelling portrayal of one woman’s quest to understand herself, her origins, and her family. That is, if she can survive.</p></div>


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With this outrageous new novel, China Miéville has written one of the strangest, funniest, and flat-out scariest books you will read this—or any other—year. The London that comes to life in Kraken is a weird metropolis awash in secret currents of myth and magic, where criminals, police, cultists, and wizards are locked in a war to bring about—or prevent—the End of All Things.In the Darwin Centre at London’s Natural History Museum, Billy Harrow, a cephalopod specialist, is conducting a tour whose climax is meant to be the Centre’s prize specimen of a rare Architeuthis dux—better known as the Giant Squid. But Billy’s tour takes an unexpected turn when the squid suddenly and impossibly vanishes into thin air.As Billy soon discovers, this is the precipitating act in a struggle to the death between mysterious but powerful forces in a London whose existence he has been blissfully ignorant of until now, a city whose denizens—human and otherwise—are adept in magic and murder.There is the Congregation of God Kraken, a sect of squid worshippers whose roots go back to the dawn of humanity—and beyond. There is the criminal mastermind known as the Tattoo, a merciless maniac inked onto the flesh of a hapless victim. There is the FSRC—the Fundamentalist and Sect-Related Crime Unit—a branch of London’s finest that fights sorcery with sorcery. There is Wati, a spirit from ancient Egypt who leads a ragtag union of magical familiars. There are the Londonmancers, who read the future in the city’s entrails. There is Grisamentum, London’s greatest wizard, whose shadow lingers long after his death. And then there is Goss and Subby, an ageless old man and a cretinous boy who, together, constitute a terrifying—yet darkly charismatic—demonic duo.All of them—and others—are in pursuit of Billy, who inadvertently holds the key to the missing squid, an embryonic god whose powers, properly harnessed, can destroy all that is, was, and ever shall be.


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Following Perdido Street Station and The Scar, acclaimed author China Miéville returns with his hugely anticipated Del Rey hardcover debut. With a fresh and fantastical band of characters, he carries us back to the decadent squalor of New Crobuzon—this time, decades later.It is a time of wars and revolutions, conflict and intrigue. New Crobuzon is being ripped apart from without and within. War with the shadowy city-state of Tesh and rioting on the streets at home are pushing the teeming city to the brink. A mysterious masked figure spurs strange rebellion, while treachery and violence incubate in unexpected places.In desperation, a small group of renegades escapes from the city and crosses strange and alien continents in the search for a lost hope.In the blood and violence of New Crobuzon’s most dangerous hour, there are whispers. It is the time of the iron council. . . .The bold originality that broke Miéville out as a new force of the genre is here once more in Iron Council: the voluminous, lyrical novel that is destined to seal his reputation as perhaps the edgiest mythmaker of the day.


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Years ago, noted science teacher and writer Chet Raymo embarked upon his own quest to reconcile the miracle stories he learned as a child with the science he learned as an adult.Skeptics and True Believersis the culmination of that searcha passionate, ever-inquisitive statement that science and religion can mutually reinforce the way we experience the world. Acknowledging that the scientific and the spiritual communities are increasingly split, Raymo builds strong bridges between them. He illustrates his argument with an array of thought-provoking stories, such as the remarkable migratory flight of a small bird called the red knot; the long, glorious glide of the Comet Hyakutake across the night sky; a hilarious alien abduction that didn't happen. Together, they are compelling evidence that religion should embrace the reliable knowledge of the world that science provides, while at the same time science should respect and nourish humankind's need for spiritual sustenance. "Miracles are explainable," Raymo paraphrases the writer Tim Robinson, "it is the explanations that are miraculous." For anyone drawn to reflect on life's meaning and purpose, Chet Raymo's uncompromising skepticism and reverence for mystery will affirm and inspire. Chet Raymois the author ofThe Dork of Cork,Honey from Stone, andThe Soul of the Night. He is a professor of physics and astronomy at Stonehill College in Massachusetts. Years ago, noted science teacher and writer Chet Raymo embarked upon his own quest to reconcile the miracle stories he learned as a child with the science he learned as an adult.Skeptics and True Believersis the culmination of that searcha passionate, ever-inquisitive statement that science and religion can mutually reinforce the way we experience the world. Acknowledging that the scientific and the spiritual communities are increasingly split, Raymo builds strong bridges between them. He illustrates his argument with an array of thought-provoking stories, such as the remarkable migratory flight of a small bird called the red knot; the long, glorious glide of the Comet Hyakutake across the night sky; a hilarious alien abduction that didn't happen. Together, they are compelling evidence that religion should embrace the reliable knowledge of the world that science provides, while at the same time science should respect and nourish humankind's need for spiritual sustenance. "Miracles are explainable," Raymo paraphrases the writer Tim Robinson, "it is the explanations that are miraculous." For anyone drawn to reflect on life's meaning and purpose, Chet Raymo's uncompromising skepticism and reverence for mystery will affirm and inspire. "These confessions of a wise religious humanist who also loves, practices, understands, and lives by the ideals and findings of science show us how to heal the false and unnecessary rifts in our intellectual cultures, and to bridge the gap between knowledge and morality."Stephen Jay Gould "His book is engaging, entertaining, and illuminating, filled with intelligence, humor, and refreshing humility."Boston Globe "Declaring himself a 'Skeptic who believes that words like God, soul, sacred, spirituality, sacrament, and grace can retain currency in an age of science,' noted science writer Raymo argues for a reconciliation between science and religion.Library Journal "Responding in part to the rise of millennial-driven New Age spirituality, Raymo (Honey from Stone: A Naturalist's Search for God) writes along the tender edges of mystery that bind off objective science from religious faith. Using a light journalistic style, Raymo seeks to find some common ground upon which to construct mutual appre


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<div><p>A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.</p><p><br>At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State—and to do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than “an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise.” But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone. <br><br>Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, <em>Wild </em>vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.</p></div>


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Nurse Mercy Lynch is elbows deep in bloody laundry at a war hospital in Richmond, Virginia, when Clara Barton comes bearing bad news: Mercy’s husband has died in a POW camp. On top of that, a telegram from the west coast declares that her estranged father is gravely injured, and he wishes to see her. Mercy sets out toward the Mississippi River. Once there, she’ll catch a train over the Rockies and—if the telegram can be believed—be greeted in Washington Territory by the sheriff, who will take her to see her father in Seattle.Reaching the Mississippi is a harrowing adventure by dirigible and rail through war-torn border states. When Mercy finally arrives in St. Louis, the only Tacoma-bound train is pulled by a terrifying Union-operated steam engine called the Dreadnought. Reluctantly, Mercy buys a ticket and climbs aboard.What ought to be a quiet trip turns deadly when the train is beset by bushwhackers, then vigorously attacked by a band of Rebel soldiers. The train is moving away from battle lines into the vast, unincorporated west, so Mercy can’t imagine why they’re so interested. Perhaps the mysterious cargo secreted in the second and last train cars has something to do with it?Mercy is just a frustrated nurse who wants to see her father before he dies. But she’ll have to survive both Union intrigue and Confederate opposition if she wants to make it off the Dreadnought alive.


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Maria Isabella Boyd's success as a Confederate spy has made her too famous for further espionage work, and now her employment options are slim. Exiled, widowed, and on the brink of poverty...she reluctantly goes to work for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in Chicago. Adding insult to injury, her first big assignment is commissioned by the Union Army. In short, a federally sponsored transport dirigible is being violently pursued across the Rockies and Uncle Sam isn't pleased. The Clementine is carrying a top secret load of military essentials--essentials which must be delivered to Louisville, Kentucky, without delay. Intelligence suggests that the unrelenting pursuer is a runaway slave who's been wanted by authorities on both sides of the Mason-Dixon for fifteen years. In that time, Captain Croggon Beauregard Hainey has felonied his way back and forth across the continent, leaving a trail of broken banks, stolen war machines, and illegally distributed weaponry from sea to shining sea. And now it sMaria's job to go get him.


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In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born. But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead. Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history. His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.


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<div><p class="description">**In this raucous collection of true-life stories, actress and comedian Chelsea Handler recounts her time spent in the social trenches with that wild, strange, irresistible, and often gratifying beast: the one-night stand.** You've either done it or know someone who has: the one-night stand, the familiar outcome of a night spent at a bar, sometimes the sole payoff for your friend's irritating wedding, or the only relief from a disastrous vacation. Often embarrassing and uncomfortable, occasionally outlandish, but most times just a necessary and irresistible evil, the one-night stand is a social rite as old as sex itself and as common as a bar stool. Enter Chelsea Handler. Gorgeous, sharp, and anything but shy, Chelsea loves men and lots of them. My Horizontal Life chronicles her romp through the different bedrooms of a variety of suitors, a no-holds-barred account of what can happen between a man and a sometimes very intoxicated, outgoing woman during one night of passion. From her short fling with a Vegas stripper to her even shorter dalliance with a well-endowed little person, from her uncomfortable tryst with a cruise ship performer to her misguided rebound with a man who likes to play leather dress-up, Chelsea recalls the highs and lows of her one-night stands with hilarious honesty. Encouraged by her motley collection of friends (aka: her partners in crime) but challenged by her family members (who at times find themselves a surprise part of the encounter), Chelsea hits bottom and bounces back, unafraid to share the gritty details. My Horizontal Life is one guilty pleasure you won't be ashamed to talk about in the morning.</p>
<p class="description">**In this raucous collection of true-life stories, actress and comedian Chelsea Handler recounts her time spent in the social trenches with that wild, strange, irresistible, and often gratifying beast: the one-night stand.**</p>
<p class="description">You've either done it or know someone who has: the one-night stand, the familiar outcome of a night spent at a bar, sometimes the sole payoff for your friend's irritating wedding, or the only relief from a disastrous vacation. Often embarrassing and uncomfortable, occasionally outlandish, but most times just a necessary and irresistible evil, the one-night stand is a social rite as old as sex itself and as common as a bar stool.</p>
<p class="description">Enter Chelsea Handler. Gorgeous, sharp, and anything but shy, Chelsea loves men and lots of them. My Horizontal Life chronicles her romp through the different bedrooms of a variety of suitors, a no-holds-barred account of what can happen between a man and a sometimes very intoxicated, outgoing woman during one night of passion. From her short fling with a Vegas stripper to her even shorter dalliance with a well-endowed little person, from her uncomfortable tryst with a cruise ship performer to her misguided rebound with a man who likes to play leather dress-up, Chelsea recalls the highs and lows of her one-night stands with hilarious honesty. Encouraged by her motley collection of friends (aka: her partners in crime) but challenged by her family members (who at times find themselves a surprise part of the encounter), Chelsea hits bottom and bounces back, unafraid to share the gritty details. My Horizontal Life is one guilty pleasure you won't be ashamed to talk about in the morning.</p>
<p class="description">**In this raucous collection of true-life stories, actress and comedian Chelsea Handler recounts her time spent in the social trenches with that wild, strange, irresistible, and often gratifying beast: the one-night stand.** You've either done it or know someone who has: the one-night stand, the familiar outcome of a night spent at a bar, sometimes the sole payoff for your friend's irritating wedding, or the only relief from a disastrous vacation. Often embarrassing and uncomfortable, occasionally outlandish, but most times just a necessary and irresistible evil, the one-night stand is a social rite as old as sex itself and as common as a bar stool. Enter Chelsea Handler. Gorgeous, sharp, and anything but shy, Chelsea loves men and lots of them. My Horizontal Life chronicles her romp through the different bedrooms of a variety of suitors, a no-holds-barred account of what can happen between a man and a sometimes very intoxicated, outgoing woman during one night of passion. From her short fling with a Vegas stripper to her even shorter dalliance with a well-endowed little person, from her uncomfortable tryst with a cruise ship performer to her misguided rebound with a man who likes to play leather dress-up, Chelsea recalls the highs and lows of her one-night stands with hilarious honesty. Encouraged by her motley collection of friends (aka: her partners in crime) but challenged by her family members (who at times find themselves a surprise part of the encounter), Chelsea hits bottom and bounces back, unafraid to share the gritty details. My Horizontal Life is one guilty pleasure you won't be ashamed to talk about in the morning.</p></div>


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<div><p>At the tender age of fifteen, groundbreaking lead singer Cherie Currie joined a group of talented girls—Joan Jett and Lita Ford on guitar, Jackie Fox on bass, and Sandy West on drums—who could rock like no one else.</p><p>Arriving on the Los Angeles music scene in 1975, The Runaways catapulted from playing small clubs to selling out major stadiums—headlining shows with opening acts like the Ramones, Van Halen, Cheap Trick, and Blondie while riding a wave of hit songs and platinum albums, and touring the world.</p><p>A shocking, funny, and touching re-creation of a bygone era of rock and roll that chronicles the Runaways' rise to fame and ultimate demise, <em>Neon Angel</em> is also an intensely personal account of Currie's struggles with drugs, sexual abuse, and violence in a decadent, high-pressure music scene—a world of uncontrolled excess where she and her unsupervised bandmates had to grow up fast and experience things that no teenage girls should.</p></div>


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WHAT . . . A RIOT!  Life doesn't get more hilarious than when Chelsea Handler takes aim with her irreverent wit. Who else would send all-staff emails to smoke out the dumbest people on her show? Now, in this new collection of original essays, the #1 bestselling author of Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea delivers one laugh-out-loud moment after another as she sets her sights on the ridiculous side of childhood, adulthood, and daughterhood.  Family moments are fair game, whether it's writing a report on Reaganomics to earn a Cabbage Patch doll, or teaching her father social graces by ordering him to stay indoors. It's open season on her love life, from playing a prank on her boyfriend (using a ravioli, a fake autopsy, and the Santa Monica pier) to adopting a dog so she can snuggle with someone who doesn't talk. And everyone better duck for cover when her beach vacation turns into matchmaking gone wild. Outrageously funny and deliciously wicked, CHELSEA CHELSEA BANG BANG is good good good good!  CHELSEA HANDLER ON... Being unpopular: "My parents couldn't have been more unreasonable when it came to fads or clothes that weren't purchased at a pharmacy."  Living with her boyfriend: "He's similar to a large toddler, the only difference being he doesn't cry when he wakes up." Appreciating her brother: "He's a certified public accountant, and I have a real life." Arm-wrestling a maid of honor: "It wasn't her strength that intimidated me. It was the starry way her eyes focused on me, like Mike Tyson getting ready to feed."


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<p class="description">When Chelsea Handler needs to get a few things off her chest, she appeals to a higher power—vodka. Seems reasonable, when considering that she discovered her boyfriend was having an affair with a Peekapoo and she had to pretend to be honeymooning with her father in order to upgrade to first class. Welcome to Chelsea’s world—a place where absurdity reigns supreme and a quick wit is the best line of defense..In this highly entertaining, deliciously skewed collection, Chelsea mines her past for stories about her family, relationships, and career that are at once singular and ridiculous. Whether she’s convincing her third-grade class that she has been chosen to play Goldie Hawn’s daughter in the sequel to Private Benjamin , deciding to be more egalitarian by dating a redhead, or looking out for a foulmouthed, rum-swilling little person who looks just like her...only smaller, Chelsea has a knack for getting herself into the most outrageous situations. Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea showcases the candor and irresistible turns of phrase that have made her one of the freshest voices in comedy today..</p>


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First in a series that takes readers into a new dimension in detective stories.He was once a second-rate cop, a mediocre husband, and an absent father. But ever since he was killed in a drug bust gone bad, Kevin Fahey's been a lost soul in limbo. Until he encounters a dead victim whose murder he thought he solved, a girl who points him to a fresh body. And Fahey realizes he imprisoned the wrong man—and the true killer is still on the loose.


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<p class="description">Kevin Fahey was once a second-rate cop, a mediocre husband, and an absent father. But, ever since he was killed in a drug bust gone bad, he's been a lost soul, in limbo, searching, and hoping for redemption. Maggie Gunn, the detective who replaced Kevin on the force, is searching for the murderer of a nurse, in her own home, and the perpetrator of the abduction of a young boy from the park. Kevin helps Maggie, with her investigations, since he can go places she can't, and knows things she doesn't.</p>


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<p class="description">With her final novel, Villette, Charlotte Bronte reached the height of her artistic power. First published in 1853, Villette is Bronte's most accomplished and deeply felt work, eclipsing even Jane Eyre in critical acclaim. Her narrator, the autobiographical Lucy Snowe, flees England and a tragic past to become an instructor in a French boarding school in the town of Villette. There, she unexpectedly confronts her feelings of love and longing as she witnesses the fitful romance between Dr. John, a handsome young Englishman, and Ginerva Fanshawe, a beautiful coquetter. This first pain brings others, and with them comes the heartache Lucy has tried so long to escape. Yet in spite of adversity and disappointment, Lucy Snowe survives to recount the unstinting vision of a turbulent life's journey--a journey that is one of the most insightful fictional studies of a woman's consciousness in English literature. "From the Paperback edition.</p>


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<h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">An indisputable musical icon and controversial celebrity figure, Amy Winehouse’s unique blend of jazz, pop, and soul singing and songwriting have brought her a host of awards—including two prestigious Ivor Novellos and five Grammys—as well as an army of committed fans who adore her rich voice and painfully honest lyrics. Meanwhile, wild stories about her turbulent and hedonistic personal life have kept Amy in the headlines. She is a daily fixture in the tabloids and a fascination of celebrity magazines, yet she also holds the respect of many serious musicians. This remarkable biography traces the life of the tattooed wonder from her childhood pranks in north London through her days at the Sylvia Young Theatre School and her time spent working with pop impresario Simon Fuller, up to the talented and rebellious Amy Winehouse of today.</span></h3>


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<p class="description">Having grown up an orphan in the home of her cruel aunt and at a harsh charity school, Jane Eyre becomes an independent and spirited survivor - qualities that serve her well as governess at Thornfield Hall. But when she finds love with her sardonic employer, Rochester, the discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a choice. Should she stay with him whatever the consequences or follow her convictions, even if it means leaving her beloved?</p>


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<div><p>Meet Patti Black, the most decorated cop in Chicago. On her ghetto beat, Patti Black redefines the word badass. But her steel-plated exterior  solitary, stoic, loveless  belies the wrenching legacy of her orphan childhood. Haunted by the horrifying abuse she suffered at the hands of her foster parents, Patti Black sublimates past torments into a meticulously maintained tough-gal persona.</p><p>When a series of unrelated cases  a drug bust gone bad, a mayoral assassination attempt, the murder of a state attorney, the exhumation of a long-concealed body from a tenement basement wall  all point in Patti Black's direction, she finds herself facing the dark truth: You can't hide from your history, no matter how far into the fog you run. For Patti Black, that history didn't die in the tenement wall; it's alive  and riding her down.</p><p>In researching this electrifying thriller, Charlie Newton rode in the squad car with real-life street cop Patti Black. The result is a powerful fiction debut that captures the precise emotional landscape of one cop's hard-bitten life in the trenches. This first-time author joins that rare breed whose fiction is suffused with profound authenticity<br></p></div>


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A hands-on guide to the ins and outs of raising and using vegetables Want to grow your own vegetables? You can do it the fun and easy way with this practical guide. From selecting the right spot to preparing the soil to harvesting, Vegetable Gardening For Dummies, 2nd Edition shows you how to successfully raise vegetables regardless of the size of your plot or your dietary needs. You'll discover how to plot your garden and get the soil in tip-top shape; select the types of vegetables you want to grow; plant the seeds properly; and care for them as they grow. You'll also know the right time to pick your vegetables and the best ways to enjoy them. Plus, you'll get tips on preserving foods grown at home.  Expert advice on planting, caring for, harvesting, and enjoying the fruits of your own vegetable garden Features environmentally friendly ways to combat pests in your garden Charlie Nardozzi is senior horticulturist and spokesperson for the National Gardening Association; he's also been the gardening expert on such programs as HGTV's Today at Home and Way to Grow and the Discovery Channel's Home Matters  Whether you have a green thumb or you've never grown a plant before, Vegetable Gardening For Dummies, 2nd Edition has all the information you need to create a healthy garden.


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<div><p>Back in his broken hometown, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Charlie LeDuff searches through the ruins for clues to its fate, his family’s, and his own. Detroit is where his mother’s flower shop was firebombed in the pre-Halloween orgy of arson known as Devil’s Night; where his sister lost herself to the west side streets; where his brother, who once sold subprime mortgages with skill and silk, now works in a factory cleaning Chinese-manufactured screws so they can be repackaged as “May Be Made in United States.”</p><p>Having led us on the way up, Detroit now seems to be leading us on the way down. Once the richest city in America, Detroit is now the nation’s poorest. Once the vanguard of America’s machine age—mass production, blue-collar jobs, and automobiles—Detroit is now America’s capital for unemployment, illiteracy, dropouts, and foreclosures. It is an eerie and angry place of deserted factories and abandoned homes and forgotten people. Trees and switchgrass and wild animals have come back to reclaim their right¬ful places. Coyotes are here. The pigeons have left. A city the size of San Francisco and Manhattan could neatly fit into Detroit’s vacant lots. After revealing that the city’s murder rate is higher than the official police number—making it the highest in the country—a weary old detective tells LeDuff, “In this city two plus two equals three.”  </p><p>With the steel-eyed reportage that has become his trademark and the righteous indignation only a native son possesses, LeDuff sets out to uncover what destroyed his city. He embeds with a local fire brigade struggling to defend its city against systemic arson and bureaucratic corruption. He investigates politicians of all stripes, from the smooth-talking mayor to career police officials to ministers of the backstreets, following the paperwork to discover who benefits from Detroit’s decline. He beats on the doors of union bosses and homeless squatters, powerful businessmen and struggling homeowners, and the ordinary people holding the city together by sheer determination.  </p><p>If Detroit is America’s vanguard in good times and bad, then here is the only place to turn for guid¬ance in our troubled era. While redemption is thin on the ground in this ghost of a city, <em>Detroit: An American Autopsy</em> is no hopeless parable. LeDuff shares an unbelievable story of a hard town in a rough time filled with some of the strangest and strongest people our country has to offer. Detroit is a dark comedy of the absurdity of American life in the twenty-first century, a deeply human drama of colossal greed and endurance, ignorance and courage.</p></div>


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Joe Pitt’s life sucks. He hasn’t had a case or a job in God knows how long and his stashes are running on empty. What stashes? The only ones that count to a guy like Joe: blood and money. The money he uses to buy blood; the blood he drinks. Hey, buddy, it’s that or your neck–you want to choose? The only way to lay his hands on both is to take a gig with the local Vampyre Clan. See, something new is on the streets, a new high, a high so strong it can send a Vampyre spazzing through Joe’s local watering hole. Till Joe sends him through a plate-glass window, that is.  So it’s time for Joe to gut up and swallow that pride and follow the leads wherever they go. It won’t be long before he’s slapping stoolies, getting sapped, and being taken for a ride above 110th Street. Someone’s pulling Joe’s strings, and now he’s riding the A train, looking to find who it is. He’s gonna cut them when he finds them–the strings and the hands that hold them.


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Nobody lives forever ... not even a Vampyre. Just ask Joe Pitt. After exposing the secret source of blood for half of Manhattan's Vampyres, he's definitely a dead man walking. He's been a punching bag and a bullet magnet for every Vampyre Clan in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, not to mention a private eye, an enforcer, an exile, and a vigilante, but now he's just a target with legs.  For a year he's sloshed around the subway tunnels and sewers, tapping the veins of the lost, while above ground a Vampyre civil war threatens to drag the Clans into the sunlight once and for all. What's it gonna take to dig him up? Just the search for a missing girl who's carrying a baby that just might be the destiny of Vampyre-kind. Not that Joe cares all that much about destiny and such. What he cares about is that his ex-girl Evie wants him to take the gig. What's the risk? Another turn playing pigeon in a shooting gallery. What's the reward? Maybe one shot of his own. What's he aiming for? Nothing much. Just all the evil at the heart of his world.


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There’s only so much room on the Island, only so much blood, and Manhattan’s Vampyre Clans aren’t interested in sharing. So when the Vyrus-infected dregs of New York’s outer boroughs start creeping across the bridges and through the tunnels, the Clans want to know why.  Bad luck for PI and general hard case Joe Pitt.  See, Joe used to be a Rogue, used to work off his own dime, picked his own gigs, but tight times and a terminally ill girlfriend pushed him into the arms of the renegade Society Clan. Now he has all the cash and blood he needs, but at a steep price. The price tonight is crossing the bridge, rolling to Coney Island, finding the Freak Clan, and figuring out what’s driving that bunch of savages to scratch at the Society’s door. No need to look far. The answer lies around the corner in Gravesend. Convenient, all those graves.  From uptown to the boardwalk, war drums are beating. Murderous family feuds and personal grudges are being drawn and brandished, along with the long knives. Blood will spill and, big surprise, Joe’s in the middle. But hey, why should this night be different from any other?  Sunset to sunrise: put off a war, keep your head attached to your neck, and save your girl. Check. Joe’s on the case.  Praise for Charlie Huston and his Joe Pitt novels:  “In conceiving his world (a New York City divided by vampire clans, each with different reasons to hate Pitt), Huston gives a fading genre a fresh afterlife. [Grade:] A.” –Entertainment Weekly  “[Huston] creates a world that is at once supernatural and totally familiar, imaginative, and utterly convincing.” –The Philadelphia Inquirer  “One of the most remarkable prose stylists to emerge from the noir tradition in this century.” –Stephen King  “Hard-boiled horror, pulp noir vampires, decaying urban souls– you’re gonna need a shower after this one. . . . [Huston] kicks down the door of horror.” –Fangoria, on Already Dead


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<p class="description">It’s like this: a series of bullet-riddled bad breaks has seen rogue Vampyre and terminal tough guy Joe Pitt go from PI for hire to Clan-connected enforcer to dead man walking in a New York minute. And after burning all his bridges, the only one left to cross leads to the Bronx, where Joe’s brass knuckles and straight razor can’t keep him from running afoul of a sadistic old bloodsucker with a bad bark and a worse bite. Even if every Clan in Manhattan is hollering for Joe’s head on a stick, it’s got to be better than trying to survive in the outer-borough wilderness.  So it’s a no-brainer when Clan boss Dexter Predo comes looking to make a deal. All Joe has to do to win back breathing privileges on his old turf is infiltrate an upstart Clan whose plan to cure the Vyrus could expose the secret Vampyre world to mortal eyes and set off a panic-driven massacre. Not cool. But Joe’s all over it. To save the Undead future, he just has to wade neck-deep through all the archenemies, former friends, and assorted heavy hitters he’s crossed in the past. No sweat? Maybe not, but definitely more blood than he’s ever seen or hungered for. And maybe even some tears–over the horror and heartbreaking truth about the evil men do no matter who or what they are.</p>


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<p class="description">Those stories you hear? The ones about things that only come out at night? Things that feed on blood, feed on us? Got news for you: they’re true. Only it’s not like the movies or old man Stoker’s storybook. It’s worse. Especially if you happen to be one of them. Just ask Joe Pitt.  There’s a shambler on the loose. Some fool who got himself infected with a flesh-eating bacteria is lurching around, trying to munch on folks’ brains. Joe hates shamblers, but he’s still the one who has to deal with them. That’s just the kind of life he has. Except afterlife might be better word.  From the Battery to the Bronx, and from river to river, Manhattan is crawling with Vampyres. Joe is one of them, and he’s not happy about it. Yeah, he gets to be stronger and faster than you, and he’s tough as nails and hard to kill. But spending his nights trying to score a pint of blood to feed the Vyrus that’s eating at him isn’t his idea of a good time. And Joe doesn’t make it any easier on himself. Going his own way, refusing to ally with the Clans that run the undead underside of Manhattan–it ain’t easy. It’s worse once he gets mixed up with the Coalition–the city’s most powerful Clan–and finds himself searching for a poor little rich girl who’s gone missing in Alphabet City.  Now the Coalition and the girl’s high-society parents are breathing down his neck, anarchist Vampyres are pushing him around, and a crazy Vampyre cult is stalking him. No time to complain, though. Got to find that girl and kill that shambler before the whip comes down . . . and before the sun comes up.</p>


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In Charlie Carillo's funny, insightful novel, a divorced man gets to know his seventeen-year-old son in a tale that rewrites the book on quality time together...Sammy Sullivan is working his way down the ladder of success. Divorced and pushing fifty, his relationships have the longevity of a fruit fly. But how many men can get themselves fired and have their only son expelled from prep school all in one day? Now, after almost eighteen years, he and Jake may finally get to know each other. (That's if his ex-wife - the super-achiever Sammy can only dream of being - doesn't find out.) Jake knows virtually nothing about his roots. So, Sammy shows him the old neighborhood in the far reaches of Queens. But it's been thirty years. The older woman Sammy lost his virginity to now uses a walker to get around. Most of his hangouts are long gone. It's dreary, born-to-lose stuff. But Jake is on a mission. Wise beyond his (and his dad's) years, he doesn't want his father to miss out the second time around on the good things he blew the first time. And they've got a whole weekend together - a journey where Sammy will confront his, dysfunctional childhood and Jake will face a past he never knew he had.


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">The science-fictional universe in question in this marvel of a novel is Minor Universe 31 (MU31). It's something of a second-rate universe, having been left unfinished by whoever was constructing it--the laws of physics were abandoned only 93 percent installed, Yu tells us, and the human inhabitants "seem to have been left with a lingering sense of incompleteness." This is a universe you need to visit. If by some happy chance you don’t already live there.</span></h3><p>The hero of this story, also named Charles Yu, ekes out a living there as a time travel repairman--"a certified network technician for T-class personal-use chronogramattical vehicles, and an approved independent affiliate contractor for Time Warner Time, which owns and operates this universe as a spatio-temporal structural and entertainment complex zoned for retail, commercial, and residential use." (Time Warner Time -- that's the kind of three-pointer Yu never misses.) Charles is a high-tech sad sack, whose only companions are a dog, who's mostly hypothetical, and a computer with a sexy feminine AI interface that Yu has a crush on.</p><p>The thing about time travel in MU31 is that it's not all wormholes and apocalypses and "look out that's a temporal anomaly off the starboard nacelle, Captain!" Human beings mostly use time machines to go back and eavesdrop on their own screwed-up lives, reliving key moments, bad decisions and missed opportunities, in the mistaken belief that they can change them. They can't. "I have job security," Yu explains, "because what the customer wants, when you get right down to it, is to relive his very worst moment, over and over again."</p><p>Not that Yu has it all figured out. His elderly mom is parked in a time loop, where she cooks a Sunday dinner over and over again. His father, a tragically frustrated inventor, is lost somewhere in the chronoverse. And Yu has a problem: one day he accidentally ran into his future self … and shot him. That's right: he shot himself. And one day, the laws of the universe dictate, that future self will be him.</p></div>


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<p>Fast-talking, backstabbing, womanizing art critic Jacques Figueras will do anything - blackmail, burglary, fencing, assassination - to further his career. Crossing the art world with the underworld, Willeford expands his noir palette to include hues of sunny Florida and weird tints of Surrealism when Figueras takes a job for an art collector who doesn't care how his art is collected, even if it involves murder.</p>


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<div><p>When Miami Homicide Detective Hoke Moseley receives an unexplained order to let his beard grow, he doesn't think much about it. He has too much going on at home, especially with a man he helped convict ten years before moving in across the street. Hoke immediately assumes the worst, and considering he has his former partner, who happens to be nursing a newborn, and his two teenage daughters living with him, he doesn't like the situation on bit. It doesn't help matters when he is suddenly assigned to work undercover, miles away, outside of his jurisdiction and without his badge, his gun, or his teeth. Soon, he is impersonating a drifter and tring to infiltrate a farm operation suspected of murdering migrant workers. But when he gets there for his job interview, the last thing he is offered is work.</p><p>In this final installment of the highly acclaimed Hoke Moseley novels, Charles Willeford's brilliance and expertise show on every page. Equally funny, thrilling, and disturbing, The Way We Die Now is a triumphant finish to one of the most original detective series of all time.</p><p>Life, as usual, is dishing out nothing but grief for Hoke Moseley. A killer he once put in prison has moved into the house across the street. His daughter has blue hair. And his boss has arranged for him to go undercover as a bum in the alligator-infested Everglades--to catch a beast of a killer. </p></div>


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<div><p>Hoke Moseley has had enough. Tired of struggling against alimony payments, two teenage daughters, a very pregnant, very single partner, and a low paying job as a Miami homicide detective, Hoke moves to Singer Island and vows never step foot on the mainland again. But on the street, career criminal Troy Louden is hatching plans of his own with a gang including a disfigured hooker, a talentless artist, and a clueless retiree. But when his simple robbery results in ruthless and indiscriminate bloodshed, Hoke quickly remembers why he is a cop and hurls himself back into the world he meant to leave behind forever.</p><p>A masterly tale of both mid-life crisis and murder, <strong>Sideswipe</strong> is a page-turning thriller packed with laughs, loaded with suspense, and featuring one of the truly original detectives of all time.</p><p>When his personal and professional life suddenly went to hell one morning, Florida homicide detective Hoke Moseley bailed out. But his reclusive lifestyle on Singer Island wouldn't last for long. Not a stone's throw away, a slick, handsome psychopath is planning his next armed robbery--a heist that would jolt the curmudgeon retiree back into a world gone very, very bad.</p></div>


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<div><p>In <strong>Pick-Up</strong>, Charles Willeford has created a work of psychological suspense that is at once poignant, terrifying, and utterly authentic in its depcition of alcoholic desire and destruction.</p></div>


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<div><p>From the master of Miami noir comes this tale of four regular guys living in a singles apartment building who experience firsthand that there's more than one type of heat in Miami.</p><p>Larry Dolman is a rather literal minded ex-cop who now works private security. Eddie Miller is an airline pilot who's studying to get his real estate license. Don Luchessi is a silver salesman who's separated from his wife but too Catholic to get a divorce. Hank Norton is a drug company rep who gets four times as many dames as any of the other guys. They are all regular guys who like to drink, play cards, meet broads, and shoot a little pool. But when a friendly bet goes horribly awry, they find themselves with two dead bodies on their hands and a homicidal husband in the wings—and acting more like hardened criminals than upstanding citizens.</p><p>They're just four regular guys who live in a "singles only" Miami Beach apartment building--ex-cop Larry Dolamn, airline pilot Eddie Miller, salesman Don Luchessi, and drug company rep Hank Norman. But their swinging lifestyles take a major dive when Hank's quest for a date lands him in the shark-infested dark side of murder, Miami style. </p></div>


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<div><p>Miami homicide detective Hoke Moseley is called to a posh Miami neighborhood to investigate a lethal overdose. There he meets the alluring stepmother of the decedant, and begins to wonder about dating a witness. Meanwile, he has been threatened with suspension by his ambitious new chief unless he leaves his beloved, if squalid, suite at the El Dorado Hotel, and moves downtown. With free housing hard to come by, Hoke is desperate to find a new place to live. His difficulties are only amplified by an assignment to re-investigate fifty unsolved murders, the unexpected arrival of his two teenage daughters, and a partner struggling with an unwanted pregnancy. With few options and even fewer dollars, he decides that the suspicious and beautiful stepmother of the dead junkie might be a compromised solution to all of his problems.</p><p>Packed with atmosphere and humor, <em>New Hope for the Dead</em> is a classic murder mystery by one of the true masters of the genre. Now back in print, Charles Willeford’s tour de force is an irresistible invitation to become acquainted with one of the greatest detective characters of all time.</p><p>Bucking for a promotion, Major Brownley has assigned Hoke Moseley and his pregnant partner a stack of old, unsolved murder cases. In the meantime, Hoke is trying to find a home for himself and his two daughters who have just shown up. Dead broke, he finds a glimmer of hope in a hot case regarding a dead junkie and a beautiful stepmother. </p></div>


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<div><p>After a brutal day investigating a quadruple homicide, Detective Hoke Moseley settles into his room at the un-illustrious El Dorado Hotel and nurses a glass of brandy. With his guard down, he doesn’t think twice when he hears a knock on the door. The next day, he finds himself in the hospital, badly bruised and with his jaw wired shut. He thinks back over ten years of cases wondering who would want to beat him into unconsciousness, steal his gun and badge, and most importantly, make off with his prized dentures. But the pieces never quite add up to revenge, and the few clues he has keep connecting to a dimwitted hooker, and her ex-con boyfriend and the bizarre murder of a Hare Krishna pimp.</p><p>Chronically depressed, constantly strapped for money, always willing to bend the rules a bit, Hoke Moseley is hardly what you think of as the perfect cop, but he is one of the the greatest detective creations of all time.</p><p>When Miami cop Hoke Moseley becomes the victim of a surprise attack in his squalid hotel room, he's left without his gun, his badge, or his dentures. Scrambling to hunt down his assailant, he reaches the trail of a couple whose romance is fueled by crime and violence. </p></div>


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<p class="description">Willeford's amazing novel of the Right Reverend Deuteronomy Springer, a white novelist who finds himself ministering to a black congregation in Florida.</p>


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<p>A former professional boxer, actor, horse trainer and radio announcer, Charles Willeford (1919-1988) is best known for his Miami-based crime novels featuring hard-boiled detective Hoke Moseley, including <em>Miami Blues</em> and <em>Sideswipe</em>. His career as a writer began in the late 1940s, but it was his 1972 novel <em>Cockfighter</em> that announced his name to a wider audience. Of that book, Harry Crews said, "Charles Willeford renders the sport with such knowledge and attention to detail that... I had the almost inexpressible impression of being on my knees again beside the great fighting pits of the southern circuit." Considered to be Willeford's masterpiece, <em>Cockfighter</em> is a brutal and beautiful fiction of the American South, loosely modeled, according to the author, on Homer's <em>Odyssey</em>. Frank Mansfield is the titular cockfighter: a silent and fiercely contrary man whose obsession with winning will cost him almost everything. Mansfield haunts the cockpits, bars and roads of the rural South in the early 1960s, adrift but always capable of nearly anything. First published in complete form in 1972, and adapted by Willeford for a Monte Hellman film in 1974 (which became infamous for its use of real animals in the fight scenes), the novel <em>Cockfighter</em> has been out of print for nearly 20 years. </p>


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New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd brings back Scotland Yard detective Ian Rutledge in another riveting mystery set in post-World War I England Lancashire, England, June 1920. In a house with a red door lies the body of a woman who has been bludgeoned to death. Rumor has it that two years earlier, she'd painted that door to welcome her husband back from the Front. Only he never came home. Meanwhile, in London, a man suffering from a mysterious illness first goes missing and then just as suddenly reappears. He is unable to explain his recovery. His family, supposedly searching for him, give conflicting accounts of where they were and why. What is the secret that nearly drove one man mad and turned his brothers and sister against one another with such unexpected savagery? Inspector Ian Rutledge, drawn into both cases and facing a wall of silence, must solve two mysteries before he can bring a ruthless killer to justice: Who was the woman who lived and died behind the red door? Who was the man who never came home from the Great War, for the simple reason that he might never have gone? And what have they to do with a man who cannot break the seal of his own guilt without damning those he loves most?


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The daughter of a distinguished soldier, Bess Crawford follows in his footsteps and signs up to go overseas as a nurse during the Great War, helping to deal with the many wounded. There, serving on a hospital ship, she makes a promise to a dying young lieutenant to take a message to his brother, Jonathan Graham: "Tell Jonathan that I lied. I did it for Mother′s sake. But it has to be set right." Later, when her ship is sunk by a mine and she′s sidelined by a broken arm, Bess returns home to England, determined to fulfill her promise.  It′s not so easy, however. She travels to the village in Kent where the Grahams live and passes on to Jonathan his brother′s plea. Oddly, neither Jonathan, his mother, nor his younger brother admit to knowing what the message means. Then Bess learns that there′s another brother, incarcerated in a lunatic asylum since the age of 14 when he was accused of brutally murdering a housemaid.  Bess rightly guesses that the dying soldier′s last words had something to do with the fourth brother. Because the family seems unwilling to do anything, she decides that she will investigate. It′s her own duty to the dead.


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World War I nurse Bess Crawford, introduced in A Duty to the Dead, returns in an exciting new mystery in which a murder draws her inexorably into the sights of a cunning killer   It is the early summer of 1917. Bess Crawford has returned to England from the trenches of France with a convoy of severely wounded men. One of her patients is a young pilot who has been burned beyond recognition, and who clings to life and the photo of his wife that is pinned to his tunic.   While passing through a London train station, Bess notices a woman bidding an emotional farewell to an officer, her grief heart-wrenching. And then Bess realizes that she seems familiar. In fact, she's the woman in the pilot's photo, but the man she is seeing off is not her husband.   Back on duty in France, Bess discovers a newspaper with a drawing of the woman's face on the front page. Accompanying the drawing is a plea from Scotland Yard seeking information from anyone who has seen her. For it appears that the woman was murdered on the very day Bess encountered her at the station.   Granted leave to speak with Scotland Yard, Bess becomes entangled in the case. Though an arrest is made, she must delve into the depths of her very soul to decide if the police will hang an innocent man or a vicious killer. Exposing the truth is dangerous—and will put her own life on the line.


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Centred around an original and previously unpublished novella, 'Palimpsest', Wireless is a showcase of some of the best short SF of the 21st century. With an introduction from the author and containing hitherto uncollected works such as 'Missile Gap', 'Trunk and Disorderly' and 'Rogue Farm', and some gems previously available only in small press publications, such as 'A Colder War' and 'Antibodies', Wireless illustrates perfectly why award-winning editor and anthologist, Gardner Dozois, once declared: 'Where Charles Stross goes today, the rest of science fiction will follow tomorrow.'


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Introduced to readers in the novels The Atrocity Archive and The Jennifer Morgue, the Laundry is a secret British government agency charged with preventing dark interdimensional entities from destroying the human race. Now, in "Overtime," the Laundry is on a skeleton staff for Christmas—leaving one bureaucrat to be all that stands between the world and annihilation by the Thing That Comes Down Chimneys. Written especially for Tor.com's holiday season, Charles Stross's novelette is a finalist for the 2010 Hugo Award. Charles Stross is the Hugo-winning author of some of the most acclaimed novels and stories of the last ten years, including Singularity Sky, Accelerando, Halting State, the "Merchant Princes" series beginning with The Family Trade, and the story collections Toast and Wireless.


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">Hetty Green (1835-1916) was the only woman to make her mark in the financial markets during the Guilded Age of the late 1800s. She parlayed an inheritance of $500,000 into $100 million ($2.5 billion in current money), amassing fortunes in U.S. bonds and real estate through impeccable timing. Immortalized in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "world's greatest miser," she kept her family living in modest tenements, dressed in drab clothes, and was a notorious penny-pincher. Dubbed the "Witch of Wall Street," she was widely believed to live an unhappy existence despite her riches. Slack's account reveals a much more multidimensional character than Green was popularly believed to be; yes, she was eccentric, but her wry wit and colorful personality bring humor and pathos to this story. She was unfairly </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; "><em>merican Library Association. All rights reserved</em></span></h3><h3><br></h3></div>


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<p>The author of Zero looks at the messy history of the struggle to harness fusion energy . When weapons builders detonated the first hydrogen bomb in 1952, they tapped into the vastest source of energy in our solar system--the very same phenomenon that makes the sun shine. Nuclear fusion was a virtually unlimited source of power that became the center of a tragic and comic quest that has left scores of scientists battered and disgraced. For the past half-century, governments and research teams have tried to bottle the sun with lasers, magnets, sound waves, particle beams, and chunks of meta. (The latest venture, a giant, multi-billion-dollar, international fusion project called ITER, is just now getting underway.) Again and again, they have failed, disgracing generations of scientists. Throughout this fascinating journey Charles Seife introduces us to the daring geniuses, villains, and victims of fusion science: the brilliant and tortured Andrei Sakharov; the monomaniacal and Strangelovean Edward Teller; Ronald Richter, the secretive physicist whose lies embarrassed an entire country; and Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, the two chemists behind the greatest scientific fiasco of the past hundred years. Sun in a Bottle is the first major book to trace the story of fusion from its beginnings into the 21st century, of how scientists have gotten burned by trying to harness the power of the sun.</p>


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<p class="description">True Grit tells the story of Mattie Ross, who is just fourteen when the coward Tom Chaney shoots her father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 in cash. Mattie leaves home to avenge her father¹s blood. With one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshal, by her side, Mattie pursues the killer into Indian Territory. True Grit is eccentric, cool, straight, and unflinching, like Mattie herself. From a writer of true status, this is an American classic through and through.</p>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">The swamp featured in this book is a vast marshy region in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. In 1763, a small group of investorsAincluding George WashingtonApurchased a huge chunk of this terrain. With the help of slave labor, they hoped to drain parts of the land to make room for farms for tobacco and other crops. They also planned to sell timber and wood shingles from the area's dense forests and to profit from roads and canals built through the land to transport commerce. The Dismal Swamp Company was largely a failure, not turning any profits until a decade after Washington's death. More than tracing the unhappy history of one business enterprise, this impressively annotated book by distinguished historian Royster (Louisiana State Univ.) provides a fascinating panorama of colorful characters (including numerous shady entrepreneurs), interesting glimpses into master-slave relations, and expert analyses of both American and British economic developments. Recommended for university and large public libraries.</span></h3></div>


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NATIONAL BESTSELLERThe three Great Premises of Idiot America:· Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units· Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough· Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it With his trademark wit and insight, veteran journalist Charles Pierce delivers a gut-wrenching, side-splitting lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States. Pierce asks how a country founded on intellectual curiosity has somehow deteriorated into a nation of simpletons more apt to vote for an American Idol contestant than a presidential candidate. But his thunderous denunciation is also a secret call to action, as he hopes that somehow, being intelligent will stop being a stigma, and that pinheads will once again be pitied, not celebrated. Erudite and razor-sharp, Idiot America is at once an invigorating history lesson, a cutting cultural critique, and a bullish appeal to our smarter selves.


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In 1612, Shakespeare gave evidence in a court case at Westminster—and it is the only occasion on which his actual spoken words were recorded. In The Lodger Shakespeare, Charles Nicholl applies a powerful biographical magnifying glass to this fascinating but little-known episode in the Bard's life. Drawing on evidence from a wide variety of sources, Nicholl creates a compellingly detailed account of the circumstances in which Shakespeare lived and worked amid the bustle of early seventeenth-century London. This elegant, often unexpected exploration presents a new and original look at Shakespeare as he was writing such masterpieces as Othello, Measure for Measure, and King Lear.


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; "><em>This is an immensely important and utterly gripping book. It deserves to be as much talked about as Murray's most controversial work (co-authored with Richard J. Herrnstein), <em>The Bell Curve</em>. Quite unjustly, that book was anathematized as "racist" because it pointed out that, on average, African-Americans had lower IQ scores than white Americans.</em></span></h3><p style="font-size: 13px; "><em>No doubt the same politically correct critics will complain about this book, because it is almost entirely devoted to the problem of social polarization within "white America." They will have to ignore one of <em>Coming Apart</em>'s most surprising findings: that race is <em>not</em> a significant determinant of social polarization in today's America. It is class that really matters.</em></p><p style="font-size: 13px; "><em>Murray meticulously chronicles and measures the emergence of two wholly distinct classes: a new upper class, first identified in <em>The Bell Curve</em> as "the cognitive elite," and a new "lower class," which he is too polite to give a name. And he vividly localizes his argument by imagining two emblematic communities: Belmont, where everyone has at least one college degree, and Fishtown, where no one has any. (Read: Tonyville and Trashtown.)</em></p><p style="font-size: 13px; "><em>The key point is that the four great social trends of the past half-century--the decline of marriage, of the work ethic, of respect for the law and of religious observance--have affected Fishtown much more than Belmont. As a consequence, the traditional bonds of civil society have atrophied in Fishtown. And that, Murray concludes, is why people there are so very unhappy--and dysfunctional.</em></p><p style="font-size: 13px; "><em>What can be done to reunite these two classes? Murray is dismissive of the standard liberal prescription of higher taxes on the rich and higher spending on the poor. As he points out, there could hardly be a worse moment to try to import the European welfare state, just as that system suffers fiscal collapse in its continent of origin.</em></p><p style="font-size: 13px; "><em>What the country needs is not an even larger federal government but a kind of civic Great Awakening--a return to the republic's original foundations of family, vocation, community, and faith.</em></p><p style="font-size: 13px; "><em><em>Coming Apart</em> is a model of rigorous sociological inquiry, yet it is also highly readable. After the chronic incoherence of Occupy Wall Street, it comes as a blessed relief. Every American should read it. Too bad only the cognitive elite will.</em></p></div>


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<div><p><strong>An unforgettable portrait of the diverse American community in Paris during the occupation. </strong></p><p>From the spring of 1940 to liberation in the summer of 1944, <em>Americans in Paris</em> recounts tales of adventure, intrigue, passion, deceit, and survival under the brutal Nazi occupation through the eyes of the Americans who lived through it all. Renowned journalist Charles Glass tells the story of a remarkable cast of five thousand expatriates-artists, writers, scientists, playboys, musicians, cultural mandarins, and ordinary businessmen-and their struggles in Nazi Paris. Glass's discovery of letters, diaries, war documents, and police files reveals as never before how Americans were trapped in a web of intrigue, collaboration, and courage. </p></div>


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<p><strong> From America’s preeminent columnist, named by the <strong><em><strong>Financial Times</strong> </em></strong>the most influential commentator in the nation, the long-awaited collection of Charles Krauthammer’s essential, timeless writings.</strong><br><strong>  </strong><br>A brilliant stylist known for an uncompromising honesty that challenges conventional wisdom at every turn, Krauthammer has for decades daz­zled readers with his keen insight into politics and government. His weekly column is a must-read in Washington and across the country. Now, finally, the best of Krauthammer’s intelligence, erudition and wit are collected in one volume.<br><br>Readers will find here not only the country’s leading conservative thinker offering a pas­sionate defense of limited government, but also a highly independent mind whose views—on feminism, evolution and the death penalty, for example—defy ideological convention. <em>Things That Matter </em>also features several of Krautham­mer’s major path-breaking essays—on bioeth­ics, on Jewish destiny and on America’s role as the world’s superpower—that have pro­foundly influenced the nation’s thoughts and policies. And finally, the collection presents a trove of always penetrating, often bemused re­flections on everything from border collies to Halley’s Comet, from Woody Allen to Win­ston Churchill, from the punishing pleasures of speed chess to the elegance of the perfectly thrown outfield assist.<br><br>With a special, highly autobiographical in­troduction in which Krauthammer reflects on the events that shaped his career and political philosophy, this indispensible chronicle takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the fashions and follies, the tragedies and triumphs, of the last three decades of American life.</p>


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<div><p>A radical and powerful reappraisal of the impact of Constantine's adoption of Christianity on the later Roman world, and on the subsequent development both of Christianity and of Western civilization.  </p><p>When the Emperor Contstantine converted to Christianity in 368 AD, he changed the course of European history in ways that continue to have repercussions to the present day. Adopting those aspects of the religion that suited his purposes, he turned Rome on a course from the relatively open, tolerant and pluralistic civilization of the Hellenistic world, towards a culture that was based on the rule of fixed authority, whether that of the Bible, or the writings of Ptolemy in astronomy and of Galen and Hippocrates in medicine. Only a thousand years later, with the advent of the Renaissance and the emergence of modern science, did Europe begin to free itself from the effects of Constantine's decision, yet the effects of his establishment of Christianity as a state religion remain with us, in many respects, today. Brilliantly wide-ranging and ambitious, this is a major work of history</p></div>


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Utterly beautiful, smart as a whip, and crooked down to her slightly round heels, here is the most fascinating confidence woman in suspense fiction, as portrayed by one of the classic masters of the form--Charles Williams. Welcome to the roller-coaster world of professional con men - and the one wild beauty who can out-swindle and outwit them all. Utterly beautiful, smart as a whip, here is the most fascinating confidence woman in modern suspense fiction. Her name is Cathy Dunbar - all soft and warm and ready for the taking, until one by one her men find out who is really being taken . . .


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While searching for $120,000 in stolen money, Lee Scarborough falls in with a ruthless femme fatale whose schemes threaten to destroy his life in this long-out-of-print classic by the author of "Dead Calm." Original.


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<div><p><strong>A glorious-and conclusive-chronicle of the wars waged by one of the most polarizing figures in military history</strong><br></p><p>Acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic as a new standard on the subject, this sweeping, boldly written history of the Napoleonic era reveals its central protagonist as a man driven by an insatiable desire for fame, and determined "to push matters to extremes." More than a myth-busting portrait of Napoleon, however, it offers a panoramic view of the armed conflicts that spread so quickly out of revolutionary France to countries as remote as Sweden and Egypt. As it expertly moves through conflicts from Russia to Spain, <em>Napoleon's Wars</em> proves to be history writing equal to its subject-grand and ambitious-that will reframe the way this tumultuous era is understood.</p></div>


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<p>A young woman walks into a laboratory. Over the past two years, she has transformed almost every aspect of her life. She has quit smoking, run a marathon, and been promoted at work. The patterns inside her brain, neurologists discover, have fundamentally changed.<br><br>Marketers at Procter &amp; Gamble study videos of people making their beds. They are desperately trying to figure out how to sell a new product called Febreze, on track to be one of the biggest flops in company history. Suddenly, one of them detects a nearly imperceptible pattern—and with a slight shift in advertising, Febreze goes on to earn a billion dollars a year.<br><br>An untested CEO takes over one of the largest companies in America. His first order of business is attacking a single pattern among his employees—how they approach worker safety—and soon the firm, Alcoa, becomes the top performer in the Dow Jones.<br><br>What do all these people have in common? They achieved success by focusing on the patterns that shape every aspect of our lives. <br><br>They succeeded by transforming habits.<br><br>In <em>The Power of Habit, </em>award-winning <em>New York Times</em> business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to distill vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation. <br><br>Along the way we learn why some people and companies struggle to change, despite years of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight. We visit laboratories where neuroscientists explore how habits work and where, exactly, they reside in our brains. We discover how the right habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil-rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr. We go inside Procter &amp; Gamble, Target superstores, Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, NFL locker rooms, and the nation’s largest hospitals and see how implementing so-called keystone habits can earn billions and mean the difference between failure and success, life and death.<br><br>At its core, <em>The Power of Habit</em> contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work. <br><br>Habits aren’t destiny. As Charles Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.</p>


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Little Nell Trent lives in the quiet gloom of the old curiosity shop with her ailing grandfather, for whom she cares with selfless devotion. But when they are unable to pay their debts to the loathsome Quilp, the shop is seized and they are forced to flee, thrown into a shadowy world in which there seems to be no safe haven. Dickens’s portrayal of the innocent, tragic Nell made 'The Old Curiosity Shop' an instant bestseller that captured the hearts of the nation, even while it was criticized for its sentimentality. Yet alongside the story’s pathos are some of Dickens’s greatest comic and grotesque creations; the ne’er-do’well Dick Swiveller, the mannish lawyer Sally Brass, the half-starved ‘Marchioness’ and the lustful, demonic Quilp himself.


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Reason, Facts, and statistics... Dickens' scathing portrait of Victorian industrial society and its misapplied utilitarian philosophy, Hard Times features schoolmaster Thomas Gradgrind, one of his most richly dimensional, memorable characters. Filled with the details and wonders of small-town life, it is also a daring novel of ideas—and ultimately, a celebration of love, hope, and limitless possibilities of the imagination.


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<div><p>GREAT EXPECTATIONS is Charles Dickens’s beloved, autobiographical tale of a poor boy haunted by a dark secret and harboring grand hopes for his future as a gentleman. Pip, the story’s narrator, takes us through his early life—from his brush with an escaped convict on the marshes of southeast England to his exposure to genteel society through the warped old Miss Havisham and her icy protégé, the alluring young Estella. Apprenticed to the blacksmith, the tender-hearted Joe, Pip’s  fortunes change dramatically thanks to a mysterious benefactor, and he must figure out what is real and what is false as he navigates his new world, while never quite escaping his old. Considered by many to be Dickens’s greatest work, GREAT EXPECTATIONS will transport you, move you, and stay with you forever.<br></p><p><br></p></div>


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<p class="description">This fiercely comic tale stands in marked contrast to its genial predecessor, "The Pickwick Papers." Set against London's seedy back street slums, "Oliver Twist" is the saga of a workhouse orphan captured and thrust into a thieves' den, where some of Dickens's most depraved villains preside: the incorrigible Artful Dodger, the murderous bully Sikes, and the terrible Fagin, that treacherous ringleader whose grinning knavery threatens to send them all to the "ghostly gallows." Yet at the heart of this drama is the orphan Oliver, whose unsullied goodness leads him at last to salvation. In 1838 the publication of "Oliver Twist" firmly established the literary eminence of young Dickens. It was, according to Edgar Johnson, "a clarion peal announcing to the world that in Charles Dickens the rejected and forgotten and misused of the world had a champion.</p>


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<p class="description">Hugely admired by Tolstoy, David Copperfield is the novel that draws most closely from Charles Dickens's own life. Its eponymous hero, orphaned as a boy, grows up to discover love and happiness, heartbreak and sorrow amid a cast of eccentrics, innocents, and villains. Praising Dickens's power of invention, Somerset Maugham wrote: "There were never such people as the Micawbers, Peggotty and Barkis, Traddles, Betsey Trotwood and Mr. Dick, Uriah Heep and his mother. They are fantastic inventions of Dickens's exultant imagination...you can never quite forget them.</p>


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<p class="description">Generations of readers have been enchanted by Dickens’s A Christmas Carol—the most cheerful ghost story ever written, and the unforgettable tale of Ebenezer Scrooge’s moral regeneration. Written in just a few weeks, A Christmas Carol famously recounts the plight of Bob Cratchit, whose family finds joy even in poverty, and the transformation of his miserly boss Scrooge as he is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future.From Scrooge’s “Bah!” and “Humbug!” to Tiny Tim’s “God bless us every one!” A Christmas Carol shines with warmth, decency, kindness, humility, and the value of the holidays. But beneath its sentimental surface, A Christmas Carol offers another of Dickens’s sharply critical portraits of a brutal society, and an inspiring celebration of the possibility of spiritual, psychological, and social change.</p>


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<p class="description">Bleak House is the ninth novel by Charles Dickens, published in twenty monthly installments between March 1852 and September 1853. It is held to be one of Dickens''s finest and most complete novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon. Dickens tells all of these both through the narrative of the novel''s heroine, Esther Summerson, and as an omniscient narrator. Memorable characters include the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn, the friendly but depressive John Jarndyce and the childish Harold Skimpole. The plot concerns.</p>


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<p>“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .” With these famous words, <strong>Charles Dickens</strong> plunges the reader into one of history’s most explosive eras—the French Revolution. From the storming of the Bastille to the relentless drop of the guillotine, Dickens vividly captures the terror and upheaval of that tumultuous period. At the center is the novel’s hero, Sydney Carton, a lazy, alcoholic attorney who, inspired by a woman, makes the supreme sacrifice on the bloodstained streets of Paris.</p>


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This new selection of Dickens's Christmas writings confirms his lasting influence upon our idea of the Christmas spirit: that Christmas is a time for celebration, charity, and memory. In addition to the beloved A Christmas Carol, this volume includes such festive works as "Christmas Festivities," "The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton," "A Christmas Tree," "The Seven Poor Travellers," The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, and a Christmas episode from Master Humphrey's Clock.


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Perhaps the most readable and accessible of the great works of scientific imagination, The Origin of Species sold out on the day it was published in 1859. Theologians quickly labeled Charles Darwin the most dangerous man in England, and, as the Saturday Review noted, the uproar over the book quickly "passed beyond the bounds of the study and lecture-room into the drawing-room and the public street." Yet, after reading it, Darwin's friend and colleague T. H. Huxley had a different reaction: "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that."Based largely on Darwin's experience as a naturalist while on a five-year voyage aboard H.M.S. Beagle, The Origin of Species set forth a theory of evolution and natural selection that challenged contemporary beliefs about divine providence and the immutability of species. A landmark contribution to philosophical and scientific thought, this edition also includes an introductory historical sketch and a glossary Darwin later added to the original text.Charles Darwin grew up considered, by his own account, "a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect." A quirk of fate kept him from the career his father had deemed appropriate--that of a country parson--when a botanist recommended Darwin for an appointment as a naturalist aboard H.M.S. Beagle from 1831 to 1836. Darwin is also the author of the five-volume work Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle (1839) and The Descent of Man (1871).From the Trade Paperback edition.


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<p class="description">There is grandeur in this view of life . . . whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.' Charles Darwin, writing in On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859) No book has changed our understanding of ourselves more than Darwin's Origin of Species. It caused a sensation on its first day of publication in 1859 and went on to become an international bestseller. The idea that living things gradually evolve through natural selection profoundly shocked its Victorian readers, calling into question what had been for many the unshakeable belief that there was a Creator. In this book, Janet Browne, Charles Darwin's foremost biographer, shows why Darwin's Origin of Species can fairly claim to be the greatest science book ever published. She describes the genesis of Darwin's theories, explains how they were initially received and examines why they remain so contentious today. Her book is a marvellously readable account of the work that altered forever our knowledge of what it is to be human.</p>


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<p class="description">Charles Darwin's Autobiography was first published in 1887, five years after his death. It was a bowdlerized edition: Darwin's family, attempting to protect his posthumous reputation, had deleted all the passages they considered too personal or controversial. The present complete edition did not appear until 1959, one hundred years after the publication of The Origin of Species . Upon its appearance, Loren Eiseley wrote: "No man can pretend to know Darwin who does not know his autobiography. Here, for the first time since his death, it is presented complete and unexpurgated, as it exists in the family archives. It will prove invaluable to biographers and cast new light on the personality of one of the world's greatest scientists. Nora Barlow, Darwin's granddaughter, has proved herself a superb editor. Her own annotations make fascinating reading." The daring and restless mind, the integrity and simplicity of Darwin's character are revealed in this direct and personal account of his life'his family, his education, his explorations of the natural world, his religion and philosophy. The editor has provided page and line references to the more important restored passages, and previously unpublished notes and letters on family matters and on the controversy between Samuel Butler appear in an appendix.</p>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; "><strong>Nathaniel Philbrick</strong> is the author of the <em>New York Times </em>bestsellers <em>The Last Stand</em>; <em>In the Heart of the Sea</em>, which won the National Book Award; <em>Sea of Glory</em>, winner of the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize; and <em>Mayflower</em>, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in history and one of the <em>New York Times'</em> ten best books of the year. He has lived on Nantucket since 1986._</span></h3><p>I’m a big fan of Charles Mann’s previous book <em>1491</em>, in which he provides a sweeping and provocative examination of North and South America prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus. It’s exhaustively researched but so wonderfully written that it’s anything but exhausting to read.</p><p>With his follow-up, <em>1493</em>, Mann has taken it to a new, truly global level. Building on the groundbreaking work of Alfred Crosby (author of <em>The Columbian Exchange</em> and, I’m proud to say, a fellow Nantucketer), Mann has written nothing less than the story of our world: how a planet of what were once several autonomous continents is quickly becoming a single, “globalized” entity.</p><p>Mann not only talked to countless scientists and researchers; he visited the places he writes about, and as a consequence, the book has a marvelously wide-ranging yet personal feel as we follow Mann from one far-flung corner of the world to the next. And always, the prose is masterful. In telling the improbable story of how Spanish and Chinese cultures collided in the Philippines in the sixteenth century, he takes us to the island of Mindoro whose “southern coast consists of a number of small bays, one next to another like tooth marks in an apple.”</p><p>We learn how the spread of malaria, the potato, tobacco, guano, rubber plants, and sugar cane have disrupted and convulsed the planet and will continue to do so until we are finally living on one integrated or at least close-to-integrated Earth. Whether or not the human instigators of all this remarkable change will survive the process they helped to initiate more than five hundred years ago remains, Mann suggests in this monumental and revelatory book, an open question.</p></div>


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<p class="description">A thrill-seeking Harvard linguistics professor and an ultrasecret branch of the Catholic Church go head-to-head in a race to uncover the secrets of the lost city of Atlantis. The ruins of the technologically-advanced, eerily-enigmatic ancient civilization promise their discoverer fame, fortune, and power… but hold earth-shattering secrets about the origin of man.  While world-famous linguist and archaeologist, Thomas Lourds, is shooting a film that dramatizes his flamboyant life and scientific achievements, satellites spot impossibly ancient ruins along the Spanish coast.  Lourds knows exactly what it means: the Lost Continent of Atlantis has been found.  The race is on, and Lourds' challengers will do anything to get there first.Whoever controls the Lost Continent will control the world.</p>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; "><em>1491</em> is not so much the story of a year, as of what that year stands for: the long-debated (and often-dismissed) question of what human civilization in the Americas was like before the Europeans crashed the party. The history books most Americans were (and still are) raised on describe the continents before Columbus as a vast, underused territory, sparsely populated by primitives whose cultures would inevitably bow before the advanced technologies of the Europeans. For decades, though, among the archaeologists, anthropologists, paleolinguists, and others whose discoveries Charles C. Mann brings together in <em>1491</em>, different stories have been emerging. Among the revelations: the first Americans may not have come over the Bering land bridge around 12,000 B.C. but by boat along the Pacific coast 10 or even 20 thousand years earlier; the Americas were a far more urban, more populated, and more technologically advanced region than generally assumed; and the Indians, rather than living in static harmony with nature, radically engineered the landscape across the continents, to the point that even "timeless" natural features like the Amazon rainforest can be seen as products of human intervention.</span></h3><p>Mann is well aware that much of the history he relates is necessarily speculative, the product of pot-shard interpretation and precise scientific measurements that often end up being radically revised in later decades. But the most compelling of his eye-opening revisionist stories are among the best-founded: the stories of early American-European contact. To many of those who were there, the earliest encounters felt more like a meeting of equals than one of natural domination. And those who came later and found an emptied landscape that seemed ripe for the taking, Mann argues convincingly, encountered not the natural and unchanging state of the native American, but the evidence of a sudden calamity: the ravages of what was likely the greatest epidemic in human history, the smallpox and other diseases introduced inadvertently by Europeans to a population without immunity, which swept through the Americas faster than the explorers who brought it, and left behind for their discovery a land that held only a shadow of the thriving cultures that it had sustained for centuries before.</p></div>


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He'd kept a promise to marry his best friend's widow. But even an obligatory marriage could not diminish the hunger vintner Tony Carlino still felt for Rena Montgomery. Foolishly, he'd walked away from her once before…and she had never forgiven him. As far as she was concerned, no one would be toasting this arrangement anytime soon.She had married Tony only for the safety his name—and money—would give her, her winery…and her unborn child. Never could she allow herself to reveal the desire she felt for her new husband. For their marriage was meant to be only about business. Neither dared speak one word about love.


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<p class="description">It's a simple if shocking question, and former librarian Aurora Teagarden is just the person to find the answer. Basking in an inheritance that makes her financially independent, Roe's looking for a new occupation. Her days as a librarian are over. Real estate might be fun, she thinks. And who better to teach her the tricks of the trade than her Lauren Bacall look-alike mother, Aida Brattle Teagarden Queensland, who happens to own one of the major real estate firms in town? Signing on as an apprentice, Roe agrees to show an expensive house to some out-of-town clients. The house has its charms, but the clients are not too thrilled with what's been left behind in the master bedroom: the corpse of real estate woman Tonia Lee Greenhouse. And Tonia's only the first victim. It quickly becomes clear that the killer is someone familiar with the real estate community in Lawrenceton, someone who has access to the houses that are on the market. Roe's not too sure she likes real estate, after all. She hadn't counted on murder. But she definitely likes her well-to-do client, Martin Bartell. In fact, it may be love at first sight. With memorable characters and lots of small-town southern charm, this witty and wise mystery proves that author Charlaine Harris is among the best of the new generation of crime writers.</p>


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<p class="description">Love at first sight turns into newlywed bliss for former librarian Aurora Teagarden— until violence cuts the honeymoon short.Wealthy businessman Martin Bartell gives Roe exactly what she wants for their wedding: Julius House. But both the house and Martin come with murky pasts. And when Roe is attacked by an ax-wielding maniac, she realizes that the secrets inside her four walls—and her brand-new marriage—could destroy her</p>


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<p class="description">Welcome back to Shakespeare - a charming Arkansas town with endless back roads, an eclectic mix of residents, and a dollop of noir. Featuring cleaning woman/karate expert Lily Bard, Charlaine Harris's series puts a unique spin on the traditional cozy to create mysteries that "work on every level. The writing and plotting are first rate [and] Lily is appealing in her own prickly way" --Washington TimesIn the latest installment, Lily discovers lifelong Shakespeare resident Deedra Dean murdered inside a car parked in a woodsy area outside town. Determined not to get involved, Lily wants to leave the police work to Sheriff Marta Schuster and her team of deputies, and concentrate on cleaning, high kicks, and her boyfriend Jack's impending visit. But when Deedra's notoriously promiscuous lifestyle provides an extensive list of suspects but very few clues, Lily has no choice but to resume the roll of amateur detective and join the investigation. In this fourth book in Charlaine Harris's highly acclaimed and darkly compelling series, Lily Bard delivers a hard-hitting mix of Southern charm and street smarts, a combination so alluring that long-time readers and newcomers will be dying to visit Shakespeare again.</p>


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<p class="description">Cleaning woman and karate expert Lily Bard is a woman with a complicated past. Trying her best to cope with her terrifying memories and horrible nightmares, she decides to join a weekly group therapy session in her hometown of Shakespeare, Arkansas. At first, Lily can hardly believe the number of her fellow Shakespeareans that share her life experiences. As it turns out, the group members' feelings aren't the only things that need sorting out -- they assemble for a session and find a woman dead, killed in bone-chilling fashion and deliberately left on display to send a twisted message. Who would commit such horrendous crime, and who is the intended recipient of the message?Before long, Lily becomes embroiled in this disturbing murder and its aftermath, one in which the brutal killer's motives are entirely unclear. The truth is, the situation has dredged up more than a few of her own terrible secrets, and she may not be able to rest until she can untangle the who and why of this terrible crime. But can she accomplish this before the killer strikes again, and before her nightmares send her over the edge? Shakespeare's Counselor is the most complex and absorbing installment yet in Charlaine Harris's engaging, original, and more than slightly dark mystery series.</p>


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A new series set in Shakespeare, Arkansas, featuring a heroine who runs a cleaning business. One night in a garbage bag she discovers the body of her landlord, which makes her a suspect. Now she must clear her name. A study in smalltown inhabitants.


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Determined to move beyonde her violent past, Lily heads to her hometown of Bartley for her estranged sister's Christmas Eve wedding. But there is something in the air besides holiday cheer - murder. The town's doctor and nurse have been bludgeoned to death - and Lily's detective boyfriend has followed an eight-year-old kidnapping case straight to Bartley. It just might have something to do with the murders. And her sister's widower fiancé. With only three days before the wedding, Lily must work fast to clean up the messy case before her sister promises to love, honor, and obey a killer.


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<p class="description">In this book, Lily Bard has started over in the sleepy town of Shakespeare, Arkansas, where she works at a job a cleaning lady, works through the pain of her past, and works out her anger with martial arts. For Lily, her gym is a place to get away from her troubles, not find more of them. But when she stumbles upon the well-built corpse of a local bodybuilder - his neck broken by a barbell - the town's underlying racial tension begins to boil over. The victim, who was white, was somehow connected to two unsolved murders of black residents of Shakespeare, and a dogged policeman is determined to stop the killing. But it is Lily herself who may have to decide whether to stay and fight for justice or run away one more time.</p>


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Though a small town at heart, Lawrenceton, Georgia, has its dark side-and crime buffs. One of whom is librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden, a member of the Real Murders Club, which meets once a month to analyze famous cases. It's a harmless pastime-until the night she finds a member killed in a manner that eerily resembles the crime the club was about to discuss. And as other brutal "copycat" killings follow, Roe will have to uncover the person behind the terrifying game, one that casts all the members of Real Murders, herself included, as prime suspects-or potential victims.


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On the way to a lunch meeting of her local book discussion group, the Uppity Women, small-town Southern librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden is shocked and dismayed to find her sister-in-law Poppy lying bloody and dead right outside her own back door. Poppy had her flaws, certainly-she and her husband were having trouble staying faithful to each other-but she didn't deserve to be so brutally murdered.Investigating a case like this is never easy, of course, given the gossipy atmosphere of any small town, what with Poppy and her husband's extramarital affairs, the local police detective (who also happens to be a former boyfriend of Roe's) and his seemingly unresolved feelings for Poppy, and the need to protect Poppy's family. But Roe is also coping with a burgeoning romantic relationship as well as the sudden appearance of her teenaged half brother. All in all, it's a lot for one woman to have on her plate, even one as together as Roe.Longtime readers and new fans alike will delight in Roe's exploits as she employs her impeccable knowledge of small town politics and enchanting Southern charm to solve the crime in this wonderful installment of Charlaine Harris' terrific cozy series.


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Cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse is on a streak of bad luck. First, her coworker is murdered and no one seems to care. Then she's face-to-face with a beastly creature that gives her a painful and poisonous lashing. Enter the vampires, who graciously suck the poison from her veins (like they didn't enjoy it). Point is, they saved her life. So when one of the bloodsuckers asks for a favor, she complies. And soon, Sookie's in Dallas using her telepathic skills to search for a missing vampire. She's supposed to interview certain humans involved, but there's just one condition - the vampires must promise to behave, and let the humans go unharmed. Easier said than done. All it takes is one delicious blonde and one small mistake for things to turn deadly.


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<p class="description">In the first installment of the Aurora Teagarden series, Real Murders, the small town of Lawrenceton, Georgia, was beset by a series of horrific murders. Librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden teamed up with true crime writer Robin Crusoe to catch the killer, and the results of their investigation have gone down in Lawrenceton history. Now Robin is back in town, set to begin filming the movie version of the terrible events of so many years ago. Of course he's not alone-he brings with him a cast and crew the size of which nearly overwhelms the tiny excitement-starved town. Roe is disturbed to discover that the film's crew includes her stepson, who despises her, as well as an actress set to play her in the film. Everyone in Lawrenceton suddenly goes movie crazy, mentally composing awards-acceptance speeches while prancing around the fringes of the set awaiting discovery. Roe's not so crazy about the whole thing...and neither is a secret, vicious murderer. When bodies start dropping, it's up to Roe to reprise her role as amateur sleuth and stop the carnage before it gets out of hand. It's no problem for the beloved small-town librarian in this wonderfully cozy installment in the adored Aurora Teagarden mystery series.</p>


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After the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina, and the manmade horror of the explosion at the vampire summit, Sookie Stackhouse is safe but dazed, yearning for things to get back to normal. But her boyfriend Quinn is among the missing. And things are changing, whether the weres and vamps in her corner of Louisiana like it or not. In the ensuing battles, Sookie faces danger, deathýand once more, betrayal by someone she loves. And when the fur has finished flying and the cold blood ceases flowing, her world will be forever altered.ýWithýan audacious wink of her eye, Harris creates a world that is both a weird possibility and a wild ride.ý ýANNISTON (AL) STARý[An] increasingly riotous series.ýýDALLAS MORNING NEWS


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In bestseller Harris's perky sixth Southern Vampire novel to star Sookie Stackhouse (after 2005's Dead as a Doornail), the telepathic waitress of Bon Temps, La., is off to (pre-hurricane) New Orleans to close out her dead cousin Hadley's apartment. Hadley's death six weeks earlier had been unexpected, since, as a vampire, she was already dead. Still, she'd led a lively existence as the main squeeze of the Queen of Louisiana, an omnisexual vampire, whose political marriage to the King of Arkansas occurred the night before Hadley's demise. Sookie and Amelia Broadway, Hadley's landlady and a pretty cool witch, immediately discover a mess of trouble left behind in Hadley's closet, and Sookie's soon neck-deep in even more. Though most of the intrigue doesn't come till halfway through, Harris keeps the action going nonstop in this bubbly brew of supernatural spice and whimsical whodunit that's more fun than a barrel of beignets.


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It really can be an endless summer - if you’re immortal. Though a vampire would be ill-advised to take a cruise to Bermuda, the possibilities for getting away from it all - and maybe snacking on some unsuspecting tourist - are many. Sookie Stackhouse and her vampire friend Pam take a weekend getaway to Mississippi in author Charlaine Harris’s 'Two Blondes.' And when they end up in a shady gentleman’s club, to escape in one piece they need to do something that wasn’t on their itinerary - something involving a stage, a pole, and very little clothing. Author Katie MacAlister’s 'The Perils of Effrijim' follows a demon whose vacation in Paris is disrupted when he’s banished to another plane, thus kicking off a crazy dimension-hopping road trip across Europe. Protecting an heiress from supernatural hit men isn’t Cat and Bones’s idea of a relaxing vacation in author Jeaniene Frost’s 'One for the Money', but it could get worse. And it does - when Cat’s mother shows up. Editors Harris and Kelner bring together a collection of tour guides who offer vacations frightening, funny, and touching - for the fanged, the furry, the demonic, and the grotesque.


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<div><p>It’s vampire politics as usual around the town of Bon Temps, but never before have they hit so close to Sookie’s heart…</p><p>Growing up with telepathic abilities, Sookie Stackhouse realized early on there were things she’d rather not know. And now that she’s an adult, she also realizes that some things she knows about, she’d rather not see—like Eric Northman feeding off another woman. A younger one.</p><p>There’s a thing or two she’d like to say about that, but she has to keep quiet—Felipe de Castro, the Vampire King of Louisiana (and Arkansas and Nevada), is in town. It’s the worst possible time for a human body to show up in Eric’s front yard—especially the body of the woman whose blood he just drank.</p><p>Now, it’s up to Sookie and Bill, the official Area Five investigator, to solve the murder. Sookie thinks that, at least this time, the dead girl’s fate has nothing to do with her. But she is wrong. She has an enemy, one far more devious than she would ever suspect, who’s set out to make Sookie’s world come crashing down.</p></div>


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<h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">With her knack for being in trouble's way, Sookie witnesses the firebombing of Merlotte's, the bar where she works. Since Sam Merlotte is now known to be two-natured, suspicion falls immediately on the anti-shifters in the area. Sookie suspects otherwise, but her attention is divided when she realizes that her lover Eric Northman and his "child" Pam are plotting to kill the vampire who is now their master. Gradually, Sookie is drawn into the plot-which is much more complicated than she knows...</span></h3>


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Sookie Stackhouse, a small-town cocktail waitress with a talent for reading minds, comes to the aid of Eric, a sexy vampire with amnesia, and finds herself caught up in a deadly struggle among werewolves, vampires, and witches as she tries to save Eric from whoever took his memory and who now wants his life.


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If you think your family relationships are complicated, think again: you haven't seen anything like the ones in Bon Temps, Louisiana. Sookie Stackhouse is dealing with a whole host of family problems, ranging from her own kin (a non-human fairy and a telepathic second cousin) demanding a place in her life, to her lover Eric's vampire sire, an ancient being who arrives with Eric's 'brother' in tow at a most inopportune moment. And Sookie's tracking down a distant relation of her ailing neighbour (and ex), Vampire Bill Compton. In addition to the multitude of family issues complicating her life, the werewolf pack of Shreveport has asked Sookie for a special favour, and since Sookie is an obliging young woman, she agrees. But this favour for the wolves has dire results for Sookie, who is still recovering from the trauma of her abduction during the Fairy War.


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Vampires, were-creatures, shifters, one fairy godmother and of course, Sookie are pitted against a sniper with an apparent aversion to nonhumans. If trying to discover who's behind the shootings isn't enough, the telepathic cocktail waitress from Bon Temps, La., has to cope with a few other distractions: her sexy "Were" friend, Alcide Herveaux, needs her help in his father's bid to become the next leader of the local werewolf pack; her boss, Sam Merlotte (a collie in his spare time), gets shot; her house partly burns down; and what's she to do about the handsome vampire bartender who dresses as a pirate at Sam's place? Between one mishap and another, Sookie is one busy gal.


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<p class="description">THE FINAL SOOKIE STACKHOUSE NOVEL   There are secrets in the town of Bon Temps, ones that threaten those closest to Sookie—and could destroy her heart....  Sookie Stackhouse  finds it easy to turn down the request of former barmaid Arlene when she wants her job back at Merlotte’s. After all, Arlene tried to have Sookie killed. But her relationship with Eric Northman is not so clearcut. He and his vampires are keeping their distance…and a cold silence. And when Sookie learns the reason why, she is devastated.   Then a shocking murder rocks Bon Temps, and Sookie is arrested for the crime.   But the evidence against Sookie is weak, and she makes bail. Investigating the killing, she’ll learn that what passes for truth in Bon Temps is only a convenient lie. What passes for justice is more spilled blood. And what passes for love is never enough…</p>


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<p class="description">What's the world coming to - when you can't relax with an ice-cold beverage in your own backyard without a body falling from the sky and landing in your garden?Part-time librarian and frequent amateur investigator Roe Teagarden has good reason to ask herself this question when the remains of one of the Lawrenceton, Georgia police department's finest catapults into her flower bed one beautiful sunny morning.Roe's friend and bodyguard, the long-legged, bikini-clad Angel Youngblood, is mowing the grass and Roe is reclining on a lounger when a small red-and-white plane flies low overhead and drops its unlikely debris more or less at Roe's feet.Roe's husband of two years, wealthy businessman Martin Bartell, immediately wonders if the killer chose his dumping place to send some kind of message to Roe. And the mystery deepens when two federal agents arrive in town to investigate the murder.It's only when Madeleine the cat provides a clue that Roe and Martin realize Roe herself may be in danger and that using Roe's yard as a temporary landfill for dead bodies was no accident.</p>


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<div><p class="description">Louisiana cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse has her hands full dealing with every sort of undead and paranormal creature imaginable. And after being betrayed by her longtime vampire love, Sookie must not only deal with a new man in her life-the shapeshifter Quinn-but also contend with the long-planned vampire summit.</p>
<p class="description">The summit is a tense situation. The vampire queen of Louisiana is in a precarious position, her power base weakened by hurricane damage to New Orleans. And there are some vamps who would like to finish what nature started. Soon, Sookie must decide what side she'll stand with. And her choice may mean the difference between survival and all-out catastrophe.</p></div>


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Now an HBO original series, True Blood—the New York Times bestselling Sookie Stackhouse series continues. Except for Sookie Stackhouse, folks in Bon Temps, Louisiana, know little about vamps—and nothing about weres. Until now. The weres and shifters have finally decided to reveal their existence to the ordinary world. At first all goes well. Then the mutilated body of a were-panther is found near the bar where Sookie works—and she feels compelled to discover who, human or otherwise, did it. But there's a far greater danger threatening Bon Temps. A race of unhuman beings—older, more powerful, and more secretive than vampires or werewolves—is preparing for war. And Sookie finds herself an all-too human pawn in their battle.


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A New York Times Bestselling Author An Anthony Award-winning AuthorThere's only one vampire Sookie Stackhouse is involved with (at least voluntarily) and that's Bill. But recently he's been a little distant - in another state, distant. His sinister and sexy boss has an idea where to look. But when Sookie finally finds Bill - caught in an act of serious betrayal - she's not sure whether to save him . . . or sharpen some stakes.


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<p class="description">Sookie Stackhouse enjoys her job as a cocktail waitress in Merlotte's, a small-town bar in small-town Bon Temps, deep in Louisiana. She's funny and pretty and, thanks to her grandmother, she's very well-mannered - but since not many people truly appreciate her ability to read their minds, the guys haven't exactly been beating down her door . . . And then along came Bill, tall, dark and handsome - and Sookie couldn't 'hear' a word he was thinking. He was exactly the type of guy she'd been waiting all her life for. Of course, Bill had a disability of his own: fussy about his food, not into suntans, bit of a night person: yep, Bill was a vampire. But at least now Sookie nows there *are* guys she can date who won't worry about her catching them thinking about other women . . . And that's going to make Sookie's life really interesting!</p>


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Everything in Aurora Teagarden's life finally seems to be going her way. She's newly and quite happily married to Martin Bartell, happy to be back at her part-time job at the library, and settled into her dream home. But when mild-mannered Darius Quattermain goes crazy in her back yard when he should be stacking firewood, things start to go downhill. Next Martin's flighty niece arrives unannounced, with a baby no one knew she was expecting. Then she disappears, leaving behind the baby -- and her husband, whose corpse is discovered on the steps outside their home.


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<div><p><em>Dead Ever After</em> marked the end of the Sookie Stackhouse novels—a series that garnered millions of fans and spawned the hit HBO television show <em>True Blood</em>. It also stoked a hunger that will never die…a hunger to know what happened next.<br><br>With characters arranged alphabetically—from the Ancient Pythoness to Bethany Zanelli—bestselling author Charlaine Harris takes fans into the future of their favorite residents of Bon Temps and environs. You’ll learn how Michele and Jason’s marriage fared, what happened to Sookie’s cousin Hunter, and whether Tara and JB’s twins grew up to be solid citizens.<br><br>This coda provides the answers to your lingering questions—including details of Sookie’s own happily-ever-after…  </p><p>The book will feature extensive interior art by acclaimed Sookie artist Lisa Desimini, including a Sookieverse Alphabet, color endpapers, and several full-page black and white interior illustrations.<br></p><p>**</p></div>


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<p class="description">Aurora Teagarden's life was pretty much in order, though she wouldn't have objected to a nice relationship. All things considered, however, there wasn't anything to complain about. Then Jane Engle died. Aurora and Jane had been friends - not particularly close friends, but they'd both been members of the Real Murder Society and on occasion had shared tea, as well as an interest in crime. So Aurora was surprised to discover that she was named in Jane's will as the heir to her home and some money . . . about a half million dollars, in fact. A nice house, a lot of money . . . things were looking up nicely. But the house held a secret - a fact that was frighteningly obvious the first time Aurora went there and realized that someone had broken in, had been searching for something. It didn't take long to discover the secret: Jane had hidden a skull, and Aurora had just found it. Aurora Teagarden was no stranger to a good mystery, but she wasn't quite certain what to do with this one. Before she has a chance to consider her next move, someone decides that she already knows too much. Now she has a few more questions to answer: Whodunit? Who was it done to? And who seemed to keep on wanting to do it?</p>


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<p class="description">In "Chosen," a young caseworker becomes increasingly entangled in the lives of adoptive and birth parents, with devastating results.  It all begins with a fantasy: the caseworker in her "signing paperwork" charcoal suit standing alongside beaming parents cradling their adopted newborn, set against a fluorescent-lit delivery-room backdrop. It's this blissful picture that keeps Chloe Pinter, director of the Chosen Child's domestic-adoption program, happy while juggling the high demands of her boss and the incessant needs of both adoptive and biological parents.  But the very job that offers her refuge from her turbulent personal life and Portland's winter rains soon becomes a battleground involving three very different couples: the Novas, well-off college sweethearts who suffered fertility problems but are now expecting their own baby; the McAdoos, a wealthy husband and desperate wife for whom adoption is a last chance; and Jason and Penny, an impoverished couple who have nothing--except the baby everyone wants. When a child goes missing, dreams dissolve into nightmares, and everyone is forced to examine what he or she really wants and where it all went wrong.  Told from alternating points of view, "Chosen" reveals the desperate nature of desire across social backgrounds and how far people will go to get the one thing they think will be the answer.</p>


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From the author of The Chosen and My Name Is Asher Lev comes an epic work of nonfiction chronicling the stormy lives of a Jewish father and son whose stories span the entire history of the Soviet Union. Solomon Slepak, an inflexible old-guard Bolshevik - military commander, diplomat, propagandist - not only miraculously survived the murderous purges of the thirties and late forties, despite his high visibility and his Jewish origins, but retained to the last his unwavering faith in the Communist Party. His son, Volodya, was raised as a true believer and easily entered the elite Moscow world of scientists and engineers - until, choosing the path of dissent, he became an internationally renowned "refusenik" hero. For eighteen years he and his wife, Masha, were the objects of government persecution for the "crime" of attempting to leave the Soviet Union - five of those years lost in Siberia as punishment for hanging a banner from the balcony of their Moscow apartment which read "Let us go to our son in Israel". The circumstances that shaped Solomon and Volodya Slepak - their personal and public histories and the clash of their ideologies - form the substance of this remarkable account of a family and a nation. Chaim Potok, who first met the younger Slepaks when they were still under siege in Moscow, tells their story with deep understanding and empathy.


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<div><p>At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended. </p><p>Henry's fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight, a longtime bachelor, has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne, Henry's gay roommate and teammate, becomes caught up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz, the Harpooners' team captain and Henry's best friend, realizes he has guided Henry's career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight, Guert's daughter, returns to Westish after escaping an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life.</p><p>As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. In the process they forge new bonds, and help one another find their true paths. Written with boundless intelligence and filled with the tenderness of youth, <em>The Art of Fielding</em> is an expansive, warmhearted novel about ambition and its limits, about family and friendship and love, and about commitment--to oneself and to others.</p><p><strong>One of the <em>New York Times Book Review</em>'s Top 10 Books of 2011</strong></p></div>


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<p class="description">Chanrithy Him felt compelled to tell of surviving life under the Khmer Rouge in a way "worthy of the suffering which I endured as a child." In the Cambodian proverb, "when broken glass floats" is the time when evil triumphs over good. That time began in 1975, when the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia and the Him family began their trek through the hell of the "killing fields." In a mesmerizing story, Him vividly recounts a Cambodia where rudimentary labor camps are the norm and technology, such as cars and electricity, no longer exists. Death becomes a companion at the camps, along with illness. Yet through the terror, Chanrithy's family remains loyal to one another despite the Khmer Rouge's demand of loyalty only to itself. Moments of inexpressible sacrifice and love lead them to bring what little food they have to the others, even at the risk of their own lives. In 1979, "broken glass" finally sinks. From a family of twelve, only five of the Him children survive. Sponsored by an uncle in Oregon, they begin their new lives in a land that promises welcome to those starved for freedom.</p>


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A stirring portrait of the decade when the Steelers became the greatest team in NFL history, even as Pittsburgh was crumbling around them.   In the 1970s, the city of Pittsburgh was in need of heroes. In that decade the steel industry, long the lifeblood of the city, went into massive decline, putting 150,000 steelworkers out of work. And then the unthinkable happened: The Pittsburgh Steelers, perennial also-rans in the NFL, rose up to become the most feared team in the league, dominating opponents with their famed "Steel Curtain" defense, winning four Super Bowls in six years, and lifting the spirits of a city on the brink.  In The Ones Who Hit the Hardest, Chad Millman and Shawn Coyne trace the rise of the Steelers amidst the backdrop of the fading city they fought for, bringing to life characters such as: Art Rooney, the owner of the team so beloved by Pittsburgh that he was known simply as "The Chief"; Chuck Noll, the headstrong coach who used the ethos of steelworkers to motivate his players; Terry Bradshaw, the strong-armed and underestimated QB; Joe Green, the defensive tackle whose fighting nature lifted the franchise; and Jack Lambert, the linebacker whose snarling, toothless grin embodied the Pittsburgh defense.  Every story needs a villain, and in this one it's played by the Dallas Cowboys. As Pittsburgh rusted, the new and glittering metropolis of Dallas, rich from the capital infusion of oil revenue, signaled the future of America. Indeed, the town brimmed with such confidence that the Cowboys felt comfortable nicknaming themselves "America's Team." Throughout the 1970s, the teams jostled for control of the NFL-the Cowboys doing it with finesse and the Steelers doing it with brawn-culminating in Super Bowl XIII in 1979, when the aging Steelers attempted to hold off the Cowboys one last time. Thoroughly researched and grippingly written, The Ones Who Hit the Hardest is a stirring tribute to a city, a team, and an era.


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From the bestselling author and star of National Geographic Channel's Dog Whisperer, the only resource you’ll need for raising a happy, healthy dog. For the millions of people every year who consider bringing a puppy into their lives–as well as those who have already brought a dog home–Cesar Millan, the preeminent dog behavior expert, says, "Yes, you can raise the perfect dog!" It all starts with the proper foundation in the early years. Here, Cesar tells you everything you need to know to create the best environment for a well-balanced dog in order to avoid behavior issues in the future, and shows you how to correct the most common behavior issues for young dogs. Based on Cesar’s own detailed experiences raising individual puppies from some of the most popular breeds, How to Raise the Perfect Dog is like having Cesar right beside you, as your own personal expert, coaching you and your dog from the first day of your life together. Packed with new information aimed specifically at the particular needs of puppies and adolescents, and written in Cesar's friendly, accessible style, How to Raise the Perfect Dog answers all the most commonly asked questions and guides you towards a loving, satisfying life-long relationship with your best friend. #1 New York Times bestselling author, Cesar Millan shows you how to raise the perfect dog and prevent behavior issues before they start, including:• what to expect from each stage of your puppy's development• quick and easy housebreaking• the essentials of proper nutrition• the importance of vaccinating–and of not over-vaccinating• creating perfect obedience from day one through rules, boundaries, and calm-assertive leadership• how to avoid the most common mistakes owners make raising puppies and young dogs• how to correct any issue before it becomes a problem• unique exercises and play to bring out the best in every breed


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<div><p>A desperate beauty enslaved . . . </p><p>Nadia Bessonova's career-criminal father has deadly enemies—and to save him, his devoted daughter is willing to make a bargain with the devil himself. She will surrender completely, body and spirit, to the dangerous Dominic Luder, and submit to his every whim. </p><p>A tormented beast enthralled . . . </p><p>Haunted by inner demons and hiding away in his dark, secluded manor, Dominic is mesmerized by his sensuous prisoner who inflames his bestial lust. But Nadia is no mere plaything. At once fearful, willing, and wildly passionate, she brings his most breathtaking erotic fantasies to life—and thaws his cold, wounded heart. </p><p>A perilous path to a happy ending . . . </p><p>But Nadia never dreamed she'd become slave to her own desires in a savage game of seduction and revenge. And now that he has tasted ecstasy, will a jealous, magnificent beast be able to relinquish his prize? </p></div>


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Fall in love with the unpredictable and irresistible dukes (and one dog named Duke) of Four Dukes and a Devil. Join New York Times bestselling authors Cathy Maxwell, Jeaniene Frost, and Tracy Anne Warren, along with USA Today bestselling author Elaine Fox and RITA® Award winner Sophia Nash, for tales of noble danger and devilish desire.   Delicate young ladies must be protected from him.   First he steals her clothes, then he steals her heart.   Most would be terrified of this powerful vampire—but not him.   He's "the catch of the century". . . but she's the only one he can't have.   A young miss demands a kiss. But he won't rest once she's touched her lips to his.   With four dukes and one devil, there's no limit on love.


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<div><p>An innocent beauty, trapped in sleep . . .</p><p>Sheltered from society, Aurora Jacquard has yet to feel the sweet release of physical love. Then, on the night she is about to give in to temptation, she inexplicably falls into a deep coma. </p><p>A handsome prince, determined to discover her secrets . . </p><p>Jacob White is one of the best neurologists in the world, and he intends to awaken Aurora from her virginal slumber. But when she begins to invade his dreams every night, beckoning him into a sensuous place of lust and danger, Jacob realizes there's more to this woman than meets the eye. </p><p>It will take more than a kiss to wake her up . .</p><p>Trapped in a world of erotic dreams, Aurora and Jacob must surrender to their deepest darkest desires . . but how far are they willing to go? </p></div>


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<p class="description">A digital innovator shows how we can thrive in the new technological age.   When Cathy Davidson and Duke University gave free iPods to the freshman class in 2003, critics said they were wasting their money. Yet when students in practically every discipline invented academic uses for their music players, suddenly the idea could be seen in a new light-as an innovative way to turn learning on its head.  This radical experiment is at the heart of Davidson's inspiring new book. Using cutting-edge research on the brain, she shows how "attention blindness" has produced one of our society's greatest challenges: while we've all acknowledged the great changes of the digital age, most of us still toil in schools and workplaces designed for the last century. Davidson introduces us to visionaries whose groundbreaking ideas-from schools with curriculums built around video games to companies that train workers using virtual environments-will open the doors to new ways of working and learning. A lively hybrid of Thomas Friedman and Norman Doidge, Now You See It is a refreshingly optimistic argument for a bold embrace of our connected, collaborative future.</p>


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<div><p><strong>A heartrending, gripping novel about two sisters in Belle Époque Paris.</strong><br></p><p>1878 Paris. Following their father’s sudden death, the van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinthe bottle, eviction from their lodgings seems imminent. With few options for work, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opéra, where for a scant seventeen francs a week, she will be trained to enter the famous ballet. Her older sister, Antoinette, finds work as an extra in a stage adaptation of Émile Zola’s naturalist masterpiece <em>L’Assommoir</em>.<br></p><p>Marie throws herself into dance and is soon modeling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her image will forever be immortalized as <em>Little Dancer Aged Fourteen</em>. There she meets a wealthy male patron of the ballet, but might the assistance he offers come with strings attached? Meanwhile Antoinette, derailed by her love for the dangerous Émile Abadie, must choose between honest labor and the more profitable avenues open to a young woman of the Parisian demimonde. <br></p><p>Set at a moment of profound artistic, cultural, and societal change, <em>The Painted Girls</em> is a tale of two remarkable sisters rendered uniquely vulnerable to the darker impulses of “civilized society.” In the end, each will come to realize that her salvation, if not survival, lies with the other.</p></div>


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<div><p>Tom Cole, the grandson of a legendary local hero, has inherited an uncanny knack for reading the Niagara River's whims and performing daring feats of rescue at the mighty falls. And like the tumultuous meeting of the cataract's waters with the rocks below, a chance encounter between Tom and 17-year-old Bess Heath has an explosive effect. When they first meet on a trolley platform, Bess immediately recognizes the chemistry between them, and the feeling is mutual.   </p><p>But the hopes of young love are constrained by the 1915 conventions of Niagara Falls, Ontario. Tom's working-class pedigree doesn't suit Bess's family, despite their recent fall from grace. Sacked from his position at a hydroelectric power company, Bess's father has taken to drink, forcing her mother to take in sewing for the society women who were once her peers. Bess pitches in as she pines for Tom, but at her young age, she's unable to fully realize how drastically her world is about to change.   </p><p>Set against the resounding backdrop of the falls, Cathy Marie Buchanan's carefully researched, capaciously imagined debut novel entwines the romantic trials of a young couple with the historical drama of the exploitation of the river's natural resources. The current of the river, like that of the human heart, is under threat: </p><blockquote><p><em>"Sometimes it seems like the river is being made into this measly thing," says Tom, bemoaning the shortsighted schemes of the power companies. "The river's been bound up with cables and concrete and steel, like a turkey at Christmastime."</em></p></blockquote><p>Skillfully portraying individuals, families, a community, and an environment imperiled by progress and the devastations of the Great War, <em>The Day the Falls Stood Still</em> beautifully evokes the wild wonder of its setting, a wonder that always overcomes any attempt to tame it. But at the same time, Buchanan's tale never loses hold of the gripping emotions of Tom and Bess's intimate drama. The result is a transporting novel that captures both the majesty of nature and the mystery of love.</p></div>


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<div><p>Although Jodie is only eight years old, she is violent, aggressive, and has already been through numerous foster families. Her last hope is Cathy Glass.<br>A Number 1 Sunday Times Bestseller.</p><p>At the Social Services office, Cathy (an experienced foster carer) is pressured into taking Jodie as a new placement. Jodie's challenging behaviour has seen off five carers in four months. Despite her reservations, Cathy decides to take on Jodie to protect her from being placed in an institution.</p><p>Jodie arrives, and her first act is to soil herself, and then wipe it on her face, grinning wickedly. Jodie meets Cathy's teenage children, and greets them with a sharp kick to the shins. That night, Cathy finds Jodie covered in blood, having cut her own wrist, and smeared the blood over her face.</p><p>As Jodie begins to trust Cathy her behaviour improves. Over time, with childish honesty, she reveals details of her abuse at the hands of her parents and others. It becomes clear that Jodie's parents were involved in a sickening paedophile ring, with neighbours and Social Services not seeing what should have been obvious signs.</p><p>Unfortunately Jodie becomes increasingly withdrawn, and it's clear she needs psychiatric therapy. Cathy urges the Social Services to provide funding, but instead they decide to take Jodie away from her, and place her in a residential unit.</p><p>Although the paedophile ring is investigated and brought to justice, Jodie’s future is still up in the air. Cathy promises that she will stand by her no matter what – her love for the abandoned Jodie is unbreakable.</p></div>


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Hannah and Joey have been best friends for ever. Joey's parents love rescuing things and making them beautiful - their house is full of things made from driftwood, old glass and shells from the beach. Which is why the scraggy kittens the girls find in a bin at school end up living there. And when Paul moves in as Joey's foster brother, everyone thinks that maybe he needs rescuing too. But nobody knows quite how badly. At first, it's great - Hannah's brother befriends Paul, and the four of them hang out together. But then things start to go wrong. Paul is being bullied. Subtly at first - but quickly it gets dangerous. People aren't like driftwood or abandoned kittens and Hannah doesn't know how to rescue him. Paul doesn't want to be rescued - but with help, he can find a way to save himself.


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<p class="description">Anya used to dream of moving to Britain to start a brand-new life. But as she sits in a school where nobody understands her, she dreams of Polish summer skies and the place where she once belonged.Then Anya meets bad boy Dan. Hes no angel, but shes sure theres a sweeter side to him. And when things begin to fall apart, Anya realizes shes not alone how can Dan be such bad news when being with him feels like heaven?</p>


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<div><p>In the south of France where hatred simmers in the heat, a man seemingly admired, and certainly feared, drops dead at a dinner party. All of the guests fall under suspicion, including Welsh-Canadian professor Cait Morgan. A criminologist who specializes in profiling victims, Cait sets out to solve the murder--clear her name. Add to this the disappearance of an ancient Celtic gold collar said to be cursed and there you have the ingredients for a Nicoise salad of death, secrets, and lies. Will Cait find the killer before she too falls victim to a murderer driven by a surprising and disturbing motive?</p><p><em>The Corpse with the Silver Tongue</em> is the first in the Cait Morgan mystery series, a classic whodunit series featuring the eccentric Professor Cait Morgan.</p></div>


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On the eve of her 12th birthday, Dizzy is about to see her greatest dream come true when her hippie mother, absent from the family for four years, returns to convince Dizzy's dad to let her come away for the summer. Dizzy is introduced to a life much different from the one back home.


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<p class="description">It's just one little bet. Winner takes...all. Pleasure Inn, Book 2 Tired of aspiring actors using her to get close to her movie-producer father, Candace Steele has sworn off relationships. At least until she's achieved her dream of restoring an old inn on the outskirts of Mason Creek. The new carpenter who's been hired to help her create bedroom furniture designed for...endurance...is throwing a kink into her plans. Watching his athletic body pound wood is doing things to her hormones that have her rethinking her vow. When he agreed to take the job, Marc Collins intended to keep the sexy spitfire at arm's length. But Candace is giving him a run for his money in more ways than one. It's tough to keep just his eyes on-and hands off-his boss's daughter when she's hell-bent on seducing him. And when she pulls a fast one and wins an impromptu bet, what's a red-blooded guy to do except let her collect her winnings...all of them. The heat they generate melts the fresh paint off the walls. But when seeds of doubt make Candace put on her running shoes to flee, Marc will have to talk fast-and run faster-to capture her heart. Warning: This red-hot story contains graphic sex, frank language, wet play, use of orgasm-enhancing props, and to top it all off, it's all caught on film-just in case you missed anything the first time.</p>


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<p class="description">Jane Austen’s beloved *Sense and Sensibility* has moved to Westport, Connecticut, in this enchanting modern-day homage to the classic novel</p>
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<p class="description">*When Joseph Weissmann divorced his wife, he was seventy eight years old and she was seventy-five . . . He said the words “Irreconcilable differences,” and saw real confusion in his wife’s eyes.*</p>
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<p class="description">*“Irreconcilable differences?” she said. “Of course there are irreconcilable differences. What on earth does that have to do with divorce?”*</p>
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<p class="description">Thus begins *The Three Weissmanns of Westport*, a sparkling contemporary adaptation of *Sense and Sensibility *from the always winning Cathleen Schine, who has already been crowned “a modern-day Jewish Jane Austen” by *People*’s Leah Rozen.</p>
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<p class="description">In Schine’s story, sisters Miranda, an impulsive but successful literary agent, and Annie, a pragmatic library director, quite unexpectedly find themselves the middle-aged products of a broken home. Dumped by her husband of nearly fifty years and then exiled from their elegant New York apartment by his mistress, Betty is forced to move to a small, run-down Westport, Connecticut, beach cottage. Joining her are Miranda and Annie, who dutifully comes along to keep an eye on her capricious mother and sister. As the sisters mingle with the suburban aristocracy, love starts to blossom for both of them, and they find themselves struggling with the dueling demands of reason and romance.</p></div>


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In Fox's titillating new series we enter Serene, a supernatural playground where sexy shape shifters live behind the white picket fences…Free spirited Jaclyn Vasenty is about to inherit a cosmetics empire, yet her scandalous personal history may ruin her chance for a corporate take-over. Saying goodbye to her naughty ways, she moves into a quaint gated community in Serene, New Hampshire. But these gates are locked at sunset… The town's dark sensuality rocks Jaclyn's insatiable appetite to the core—and stirs desires that are… inhuman. That's because Serene is home to demons, witches, vampires, lycans, and panthers, for whom primal exploration comes naturally. Especially for shape shifter Slyck, the cunning panther who's pushing Jaclyn to the brink of erotic possibilities and making her feel wildly…feral. As tension between species rises, Jaclyn learns she must draw on all her feminine wiles and join forces with Slyck if she wants to make it out alive.


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<p class="description">In the Cities of Coin and Spice and In the Night Garden introduced readers to the unique and intoxicating imagination of Catherynne M. Valente. Now she weaves a lyrically erotic spell of a place where the grotesque and the beautiful reside and the passport to our most secret fantasies begins with a stranger’s kiss.…Between life and death, dreaming and waking, at the train stop beyond the end of the world is the city of Palimpsest. To get there is a miracle, a mystery, a gift, and a curse—a voyage permitted only to those who’ve always believed there’s another world than the one that meets the eye. Those fated to make the passage are marked forever by a map of that wondrous city tattooed on their flesh after a single orgasmic night. To this kingdom of ghost trains, lion-priests, living kanji, and cream-filled canals come four travelers: Oleg, a New York locksmith; the beekeeper November; Ludovico, a binder of rare books; and a young Japanese woman named Sei. They’ve each lost something important—a wife, a lover, a sister, a direction in life—and what they will find in Palimpsest is more than they could ever imagine.</p>


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Think vampires are romantic, sexy, and powerful? Think again. Vampires are dead. And unless they want to end up staked, they have to give up fanging people, admit their addiction, join a support group, and reform themselves. Nina Harrison, fanged at fifteen and still living with her mother, hates the Reformed Vampire Support Group meetings every Tuesday night. Even if she does appreciate Dave, who was in a punk band when he was alive, nothing exciting ever happens. That is, until one of group members is mysteriously destroyed by a silver bullet. With Nina (determined to prove that vamps aren't useless or weak) and Dave (secretly in love with Nina) at the helm, the misfit vampires soon band together to track down the hunter, save a werewolf, and keep the world safe from the likes of themselves. The perfect anecdote to slick vampire novels, this murder-mystery comedy of errors will thrill fans of Evil Genius.


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<p>Fantastist Catherynne M. Valente takes on the folklore of artificial intelligence in this brand new, original novella of technology, identity, and an uncertain mechanized future. Neva is dreaming. But she is not alone. A mysterious machine entity called Elefsis haunts her and the members of her family, back through the generations to her great-great grandmother-a gifted computer programmer who changed the world. Together Neva and Elefsis navigate their history and their future, an uneasy, unwilling symbiote. But what they discover in their dreamworld might change them forever.</p>


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Alex Merrick is rich, handsome and one of the most successful property developers in the country. But to Sarah Carver the arrogant multimillionaire is her worst enemy: his business destroyed her family! When Sarah gets the chance to take one of Alex's business deals away from him, she relishes her moment of triumph. But the glory doesn't last long—because the gorgeous Alex has an ace up his sleeve. He'll propose a deal Sarah just can't refuse—and make her his mistress as part of the bargain!


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Isobel James, the last single girl (or so it seems!), can't believe she's come to Greece on her *own*, but she had to escape the wedding fever that's gripped her best friends.

When reclusive tycoon Lukas Andreadis finds Isobel washed up on his private beach, he thinks she's another journalist acting the "damsel in distress." He whisks her to his villa, where interrogation leads to seduction.

Now Isobel's struck down by something much more dangerous than wedding fever—a powerful infatuation with the legendary Greek….


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<div><p><strong>For the first time: the FBI thrillers <em>Riptide</em> and <em>Hemlock Bay</em> together in one volume. </strong><br></p><p>Catherine Coulter's FBI series "twists at every turn" (<em>San Diego Union-Tribune</em>). In two of her most gripping books-<em>Riptide</em> and <em>Hemlock Bay</em>- FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock face dangerous threats in both their professional and personal lives.<br></p><p>In <em>Riptide</em>, trouble follows an intrepid reporter to the quiet coastal Maine community, and Savich and Sherlock must face down a KGB agent to find the truth.<br></p><p>In <em>Hemlock Bay</em>, the two travel to Maryland to take down the satanic child-killing Tuttle twins.<br></p></div>


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<p class="description">Yale professor Dr. Edward Kender's father is undergoing chemotherapy when the supply of a critical accompanying drug suddenly runs out. Unwilling to accept the drug company's disingenuous excuse of production line problems, Dr. Kender hires private investigator Erin Pulaski to prove that something more sinister is going on at Schiffer Hartwin.  Meanwhile, in Maryland, married FBI agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich are investigating a rather unusual case: Senator David Hoffman is experiencing a ghostly apparition with possible malicious intent. The case is baffling, and Sherlock and Savich are not sure what to believe, even after witnessing the disturbing specter for themselves. They're no closer to cracking the case when a call comes in from Connecticut: A top foreign Schiffer Hartwin employee has been found murdered behind the drug company's U.S. headquarters.  Unbeknownst to the FBI, Erin Pulaski had uncovered a bombshell in her investigation: The Culovort shortage is set to bring in a windfall profit in excess of two billion dollars. Upon learning of the murder, Erin is certain it has something to do with her findings, but she risks exposing herself by coming forward. As the feds move in, the case becomes even more complicated for Erin, since the murder of a foreign national on federal land can mean only that the pharmaceutical house has a secret of epic proportions-one it would do anything to keep hidden.</p>


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<div><p>Natalie Black, the U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James, has returned to Washington, her job in jeopardy. Her fiancé, George McCallum, Viscount Lockenby, has died in a car accident, and mysterious rumors begin that she’s responsible begin to surface: she broke off the engagement and, heartbroken, he killed himself. Then someone tries to force her off the M-2 outside London. Again, rumors claim it was a sympathy ploy. When she returns to the United States, she’s nearly killed when a car tries to mow her down while she’s out for a run. No one believes her except FBI Special Agent Davis Sullivan.</p><p>Meanwhile someone is following Sherlock. A stalker? Then someone tries to shoot her from the back of a motorcycle, but the assailant gets away. Sherlock next gets a call from an Atlanta mental hospital warning her that Blessed Backman has escaped. This is not good news. Blessed is a talented psychopath out for revenge against the agents, primarily Sherlock, whom his dying mother begged him to kill since she and Savich brought down her cult.  </p><p>How to find out who’s trying to kill the ambassador to the U.K.? How can they get their hands on Blessed Backman before he succeeds and kills Sherlock? The clock is ticking and the danger intensifies.</p></div>


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<p class="description">Philip Hawksbury, the Earl of Rothermere, obeying his father's dying wish, hies himself to Scotland to offer for one of the daughters of the Earl of Ruthven. Warned of the earl's arrival and his mission, Frances Kilbracken disguises herself as a bespectacled dowd to avoid being chosen by him. But choose her he does, and for all the wrong reasons. When the newly married couple returns to England, Philip dumps Frances at his ancestral estate and heads back to his old life in London. Then guilt drives the earl home, only to discover his wife's deceit -- and begin an uproarious battle of the sexes.</p>


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<div><p>FBI Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith, last seen in Backfire, has been recruited by Dillon Savich to join his unit in Washington, D.C. Savich sees something special in Hammersmith, an almost preternatural instinct for tracking criminals.</p><p>While on his way to D.C., Hammersmith plans to visit his sister, Delsey, a student at Stanislaus School of Music in Maestro, Virginia. Before he arrives, he gets a phone call that Delsey was found naked, unconscious, and covered with blood after a wild party. The blood isn't hers—so who does it belong to?<br></p><p>Meanwhile, back in D.C., Savich and Sherlock have their hands full when the grandson of former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank is found murdered, every bone in his body broken, and frozen at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial. <br></p><p>Was Savich right—is Griffin gifted with a unique ability to "see" how criminals think? And will he figure out who was behind the attempt on Delsey's life—before it's too late?</p></div>


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<div><p>San Francisco Judge Ramsey Hunt, longtime friend to FBI agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich, is presiding over the trial of Clive and Cindy Cahill – accused in a string of murders – when the proceedings take a radical turn. Federal prosecutor Mickey O'Rourke, known for his relentless style, becomes suddenly tentative in his opening statement, leading Hunt to suspect he’s been threatened – suspicions that are all but confirmed when Hunt is shot in the back.<br></p><p>Savich and Sherlock receive news of the attack as an ominous note is delivered to Savich at the Hoover Building: YOU DESERVE THIS FOR WHAT YOU DID.  Security tapes fail to reveal who delivered the tapes.  Who is behind the shooting of Judge Ramsey Hunt?  Who sent the note to Savich? And what does it all mean?  Savich and Sherlock race to San Francisco to find out…watching their backs all the while.</p></div>


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<div><p><strong> Reclaim the pleasures and possibilities of great conversation with this sparkling guide from the witty pen of an Englishwoman wise to its art </strong> <br></p><p>Every day we use cell phones and computers to communicate, but it's easy to forget that we possess a communication technology that has been in research and development for thousands of years. Catherine Blyth points out the sorry state of disrepair that conversation has fallen into-and then, taking examples from history, literature, philosophy, anthropology, and popular culture, she gives us the tools to rebuild. <br></p><p><em>The Art of Conversation</em> isn't about etiquette, elocution, or knowing how to hold your teacup with your little finger crooked just so. It's about something simple and profound: connecting. Conversation costs nothing, but can bring you the world, because it transcends the ability to talk to anyone. What transforms encounters into adventures is how we listen, laugh, flirt, and flatter. Blyth celebrates techniques for reading and changing minds, whether you're in a bar or a boardroom. <br></p><p>As Alexander Pope nearly wrote, "True ease in talking comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learned to dance." When you have read <em>The Art of Conversation</em>, you'll not only know the steps, but hear the music like never before. </p></div>


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<p>Sarah has always been on the move. Her mother hates the cold, so every few months her parents pack their bags and drag her off after the sun. She's grown up lonely and longing for magic. She doesn't know that it's magic her parents are running from. </p><p>When Sarah's mother walks out on their family, all the strange old magic they have tried to hide from comes rising into their mundane world. Her father begins to change into something wild and beastly, but before his transformation is complete, he takes Sarah to her grandparents--people she has never met, didn't even know were still alive. <br />Deep in the forest, in a crumbling ruin of a castle, Sarah begins to untangle the layers of curses affecting her family bloodlines, until she discovers that the curse has carried over to her, too. The day she falls in love for the first time, Sarah will transform into a beast . . . unless she can figure out a way to break the curse forever.</p><p>**</p>


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<div><p>A city slicker like Burke had no business being on her Colorado ranch.</p><p>But Carolyn Carlisle knew she needed him. Not only was the Carlisle Ranch a target for sabotage just weeks before Christmas, but also her family had been threatened and danger lurked around every corner. Carolyn was used to being in charge, but incredibly sexy FBI agent J. D. Burke had other ideas. He was domineering, stubborn and vowed never to let an assignment turn personal. Still, with the enemy just as elusive as the agent's penetrating gaze, Carolyn secretly hoped Burke would let down his guard and act on their intense chemistry. Even if one amazing night ended up breaking her usually hardened heart.<br></p></div>


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<div><p>In the magical underworld of Victorian London, Tessa Gray has at last found safety with the Shadowhunters. But that safety proves fleeting when rogue forces in the Clave plot to see her protector, Charlotte, replaced as head of the Institute. If Charlotte loses her position, Tessa will be out on the street—and easy prey for the mysterious Magister, who wants to use Tessa’s powers for his own dark ends.</p><p>With the help of the handsome, self-destructive Will and the fiercely devoted Jem, Tessa discovers that the Magister’s war on the Shadowhunters is deeply personal. He blames them for a long-ago tragedy that shattered his life. To unravel the secrets of the past, the trio journeys from mist-shrouded Yorkshire to a manor house that holds untold horrors, from the slums of London to an enchanted ballroom where Tessa discovers that the truth of her parentage is more sinister than she had imagined. When they encounter a clockwork demon bearing a warning for Will, they realize that the Magister himself knows their every move—and that one of their own has betrayed them.</p><p>Tessa finds her heart drawn more and more to Jem, though her longing for Will, despite his dark moods, continues to unsettle her. But something is changing in Will—the wall he has built around himself is crumbling. Could finding the Magister free Will from his secrets and give Tessa the answers about who she is and what she was born to do?</p><p>As their dangerous search for the Magister and the truth leads the friends into peril, Tessa learns that when love and lies are mixed, they can corrupt even the purest heart.</p></div>


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Magic is dangerous—but love is more dangerous still. When sixteen-year-old Tessa Gray crosses the ocean to find her brother, her destination is England, the time is the reign of Queen Victoria, and something terrifying is waiting for her in London's Downworld, where vampires, warlocks and other supernatural folk stalk the gaslit streets. Only the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the world of demons, keep order amidst the chaos. Kidnapped by the mysterious Dark Sisters, members of a secret organization called The Pandemonium Club, Tessa soon learns that she herself is a Downworlder with a rare ability: the power to transform, at will, into another person. What’s more, the Magister, the shadowy figure who runs the Club, will stop at nothing to claim Tessa's power for his own. Friendless and hunted, Tessa takes refuge with the Shadowhunters of the London Institute, who swear to find her brother if she will use her power to help them. She soon finds herself fascinated by—and torn between—two best friends: James, whose fragile beauty hides a deadly secret, and blue-eyed Will, whose caustic wit and volatile moods keep everyone in his life at arm's length . . . everyone, that is, but Tessa. As their search draws them deep into the heart of an arcane plot that threatens to destroy the Shadowhunters, Tessa realizes that she may need to choose between saving her brother and helping her new friends save the world. . . . and that love may be the most dangerous magic of all.


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<p>Finally, after years as a struggling radio host, Cash Peters has been given his own TV adventure show on a big-time travel network. The idea is simple: "Let's dump him in an unfamiliar culture in a faraway land with no money and no place to stay, and see what happens."   </p><p>Unfortunately, there is one major problem: Cash doesn't want to go. Not only is he NOT the adventurous type, he is afraid of nearly everything and horribly allergic to the rest.   </p><p>Bottom line: they've given the show to the wrong guy.  </p><p>Naked in Dangerous Places is the story of one man's efforts to remain sane in an insane world. Told with wit and shameless honesty, it documents a yearlong journey through exotic lands, from Kenya to Cambodia, Morocco to Dubai, as Cash drops in on fascinating cultures, eating, drinking, even sleeping in cow-dung huts with the locals, and eventually proving the truth of the old saying "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Though, to be honest, killing you is more likely.  </p><p><em>From the Trade Paperback edition.</em></p>


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"Savannah is happily churning out some tricky puzzles in the rural beauty of North Carolina when a call comes for her husband, Zach--a retired police chief who now does consulting work. The Charlotte police need his help, and Savannah goes along for the ride--to support her loving hubby. Mayor Grady Winslow has been receiving sinister threats from a killer. The clues show that Winslow is intended to be the next victim in a twisted game. Savannah gets bumped from supporting role to key player as this is one puzzle she might be able to solve--before the next box to be filled is the mayor's coffin..."--P. [4] of cover.


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<p>Her job has been cut, she's low on cash, and her detective sometime- boyfriend refuses to even talk about her ability to see the dead and solve their murders. So Pepper is most certainly down for a vacation to get her spirits up. But when her cute scientist friend Dan is kidnapped, Pepper soon stumbles upon another deadly mystery that brings her to New Mexico. And she's after a clever murderer-one whose idea of Boot Hill has nothing to do with Jimmy Choo.</p>


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<p>What happened to a teenager named Lucy one night in 1966 after a Beatles concert? She rushed the stage, kissed Paul, started home with her friends, and was never seen again-until cemetery guide and unintentional PI to the dead Pepper Martin sees her as a ghost. Lucy's spirit can't rest in peace until her body is found and buried. But how will Pepper track down a missing corpse after forty-five years?<br></p>


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<div><p><strong>Fact:</strong> Chocolate contains the alkaloid theobromine, which in high doses can be toxic to humans, and in even small amounts can kill dogs, parrots, horses, and cats.<br><em>This means that despite its name, the Kit-Kat candy bar is not a recommended snack for your kitty-cat. I wonder how many cats have died because of this confusion.</em></p><p><strong>Fact:</strong> The most germ-laden place on your toilet isn't the seat or even the bowl:<br>It's the handle.<br><em>The solution: Don't flush. Let the next guy worry about it.</em></p><p>There are "just the facts"—and then there are just the facts that will frighten the bejeezus out of you. And thanks to this little gem of a bathroom book, you'll never look at the world the same way again, without, er, dry heaving a little bit.</p><p>From the sneaky fish that can swim up our genitals to the e coli bacteria lurking in the very water we drink, disturbing phenomena are everywhere we turn. Educational, entertaining, and undeniably horrifying, this book isn't guaranteed to help you, um, go to the bathroom, but it's certain to make your time there more . . . informed.</p></div>


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<p><em>NEW YORK TIMES</em> BESTSELLER  </p><p>From actor Cary Elwes, who played the iconic role of Westley in <em>The Princess Bride</em>, comes a first-person account and behind-the-scenes look at the making of the cult classic film filled with never-before-told stories, exclusive photographs, and interviews with costars Robin Wright, Wallace Shawn, Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, and Mandy Patinkin, as well as author and screenwriter William Goldman, producer Norman Lear, and director Rob Reiner.  </p><p><em>The Princess Bride</em> has been a family favorite for close to three decades. Ranked by the American Film Institute as one of the top 100 Greatest Love Stories and by the Writers Guild of America as one of the top 100 screenplays of all time, <em>The Princess Bride </em>will continue to resonate with audiences for years to come.  </p><p>Cary Elwes was inspired to share his memories and give fans an unprecedented look into the creation of the film while participating in the twenty-fifth anniversary cast reunion. In <em>As You Wish</em> he has created an enchanting experience; in addition to never-before seen photos and interviews with his fellow cast mates, there are plenty of set secrets and backstage stories.  </p><p>With a foreword by Rob Reiner and a limited edition original poster by acclaimed artist Shepard Fairey, <em>As You Wish</em> is a must-have for all fans of this beloved film.</p><p>**</p>


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<p><em>Wherever you need to go--the Map to Everywhere can take you there.</em>  </p><p>To Master Thief Fin, an orphan from the murky pirate world of the Khaznot Quay, the Map is the key to finding his mother. To suburban schoolgirl Marrill, it's her only way home after getting stranded on the Pirate Stream, the magical waterway that connects every world in creation. With the help of a bumbling wizard and his crew, they must scour the many worlds of the Pirate Stream to gather the pieces of the Map to Everywhere--but they aren't the only ones looking. A sinister figure is hot on their tail, and if they can't beat his ghostly ship to find the Map, it could mean the destruction of everything they hold dear!  </p><p>In Carrie Ryan and John Parke Davis's first installment of a fantastical new series, adventure, magic, and hilarity collide in the treacherous skies and dangerous waters of the Pirate Stream. Heart-pounding escapades and a colorful cast of characters will have readers setting sail through this wholly original and unforgettable tale.  </p><p>**</p>


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When Evie Walker goes home to spend time with her dying father, she discovers that his creaky old house in Hope's Fort, Colorado, is not the only legacy she stands to inherit. Hidden behind the old basement door is a secret and magical storeroom, a place where wondrous treasures from myth and legend are kept safe until they are needed again. The magic of the storeroom prevents access to any who are not intended to use the items. But just because it has never been done does not mean it cannot be done.And there are certainly those who will give anything to find a way in.Evie must guard the storeroom against ancient and malicious forces, protecting the past and the future even as the present unravels around them. Old heroes and notorious villains alike will rise to fight on her side or to undermine her most desperate gambits. At stake is the fate of the world, and the prevention of nothing less than the apocalypse. In the same month, along with this all-new hardcover, Tor will publish a new novel in Carrie Vaughn's popular, New York Times bestselling urban fantasy series featuring werewolf talk radio host, Kitty Norville. Kitty Goes to War will be the eighth book in this successful mass market series.


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From the bestselling author of The Dogs of Babel comes a dazzling literary mystery about the lengths to which some people will go to rewrite their past. Bestselling novelist Octavia Frost has just completed her latest book—a revolutionary novel in which she has rewritten the last chapters of all her previous books, removing clues about her personal life concealed within, especially a horrific tragedy that befell her family years ago. On her way to deliver the manuscript to her editor, Octavia reads a news crawl in Times Square and learns that her rock-star son, Milo, has been arrested for murder. Though she and Milo haven’t spoken in years—an estrangement stemming from that tragic day—she drops everything to go to him. The “last chapters” of Octavia’s novel are layered throughout The Nobodies  Album—the scattered puzzle pieces to her and Milo’s dark and troubled past. Did she drive her son to murder? Did Milo murder anyone at all? And what exactly happened all those years ago? As the novel builds to a stunning reveal, Octavia must consider how this story will come to a close. Universally praised for her candid explorations of the human psyche, Parkhurst delivers an emotionally gripping and resonant mystery about a mother and her son, and about the possibility that one can never truly know another person.


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The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman’s courageous flight to freedom with her eight children.When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn’s heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church that had settled in small communities along the Arizona-Utah border. Over the next fifteen years, Carolyn had eight children and withstood her husband’s psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives who were locked in a constant battle for supremacy.Carolyn’s every move was dictated by her husband’s whims. He decided where she lived and how her children would be treated. He controlled the money she earned as a school teacher. He chose when they had sex; Carolyn could only refuse—at her peril. For in the FLDS, a wife’s compliance with her husband determined how much status both she and her children held in the family. Carolyn was miserable for years and wanted out, but she knew that if she tried to leave and got caught, her children would be taken away from her. No woman in the country had ever escaped from the FLDS and managed to get her children out, too. But in 2003, Carolyn chose freedom over fear and fled her home with her eight children. She had $20 to her name.Escape exposes a world tantamount to a prison camp, created by religious fanatics who, in the name of God, deprive their followers the right to make choices, force women to be totally subservient to men, and brainwash children in church-run schools. Against this background, Carolyn Jessop’s flight takes on an extraordinary, inspiring power. Not only did she manage a daring escape from a brutal environment, she became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS. And in 2006, her reports to the Utah attorney general on church abuses formed a crucial part of the case that led to the arrest of their notorious leader, Warren Jeffs.


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<p class="description">The iconic French singer comes to life in this enthralling, definitive biography, which captures Edith Piaf’s immense charisma along with the time and place that gave rise to her unprecedented international career.Raised by turns in a brothel, a circus caravan, and a working-class Paris neighborhood, Piaf began singing on the city’s streets, where she was discovered by a Champs-Elysées cabaret owner. She became a star almost overnight, seducing Paris’s elite and the people of its slums in equal measure with her powerful, passionate voice. No Regrets explores her rise to fame and notoriety, her tumultuous love affairs, and her struggles with drugs, alcohol, and illness, while also drawing on new sources to enhance our knowledge of little-known aspects of her life. Piaf was an unlikely student of poetry and philosophy, who aided Resistance efforts in World War II, wrote the lyrics for nearly one hundred songs (including “La Vie en rose”) and was a crucial mentor to younger singers (including Yves Montand and Charles Aznavour) who absorbed her love of chanson and her exacting approach to their métier.Here is Piaf in her own world—Paris in the first half of the twentieth century—and in ours. Burke demonstrates how, with her courage, her incomparable art, and her universal appeal, “the little sparrow” endures as a symbol of France and a source of inspiration to entertainers worldwide.</p>


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<h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">In Leavitt’s (Girls in Trouble, 2005) compelling new novel, a car crash provides the catalyst for an examination of how well we know the people we love. April and Isabelle, both fleeing their marriages, collide on a foggy, deserted stretch of road. Only Isabelle survives, and though blameless, she is haunted by guilt. In search of healing, she finds herself drawn to Charlie and Sam, April’s grief-stricken husband and son. Complicated relationships develop, and Leavitt thoughtfully handles friendship and romance in scenes of emotional resonance. She understands the ache of loss, the elusiveness of forgiveness, and the triteness of words like “closure.” An expert storyteller, Leavitt alternates perspective among her three leading characters, providing insight into the thoughts, secrets, and dreams that they withhold from each other. Whether these individuals will arrive at happiness separately or together is the question that drives the narrative, and the reader, forward as Leavitt teases suspense out of the greatest mystery of all—the workings of the human heart. </span></h3>


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<div><p>In August 1914, days before the outbreak of the First World War, the renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty-seven set sail for the South Atlantic in pursuit of the last unclaimed prize in the history of exploration: the first crossing on foot of the Antarctic continent. Weaving a treacherous path through the freezing Weddell Sea, they had come within eighty-five miles of their destination when their ship, Endurance, was trapped fast in the ice pack. Soon the ship was crushed like matchwood, leaving the crew stranded on the floes. Their ordeal would last for twenty months, and they would make two near-fatal attempts to escape by open boat before their final rescue. </p><p>Drawing upon previously unavailable sources, Caroline Alexander gives us a riveting account of Shackleton's expedition--one of history's greatest epics of survival. And she presents the astonishing work of Frank Hurley, the Australian photographer whose visual record of the adventure has never before been published comprehensively. Together, text and image re-create the terrible beauty of Antarctica, the awful destruction of the ship, and the crew's heroic daily struggle to stay alive, a miracle achieved largely through Shackleton's inspiring leadership.</p><p>The survival of Hurley's remarkable images is scarcely less miraculous: The original glass plate negatives, from which most of the book's illustrations are superbly reproduced, were stored in hermetically sealed cannisters that survived months on the ice floes, a week in an open boat on the polar seas, and several more months buried in the snows of a rocky outcrop called Elephant Island. Finally Hurley was forced to abandon his professional equipment; he captured some of the most unforgettable images of the struggle with a pocket camera and three rolls of Kodak film.</p><p>Published in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural History's landmark exhibition on Shackleton's journey, <strong>The Endurance</strong> thrillingly recounts one of the last great adventures in the Heroic Age of exploration--perhaps the greatest of them all.</p></div>


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<div><p>In 1964, Jacqueline Kennedy recorded seven historic interviews about her life with John F. Kennedy. Now, for the first time, they can be heard and read in this deluxe, illustrated book and 8-CD set.</p><p>Shortly after President John F. Kennedy s assassination, with a nation deep in mourning and the world looking on in stunned disbelief, Jacqueline Kennedy found the strength to set aside her own personal grief for the sake of posterity and begin the task of documenting and preserving her husband s legacy. In January of 1964, she and Robert F. Kennedy approved a planned oral-history project that would capture their first-hand accounts of the late President as well as the recollections of those closest to him throughout his extraordinary political career. For the rest of her life, the famously private Jacqueline Kennedy steadfastly refused to discuss her memories of those years, but beginning that March, she fulfilled her obligation to future generations of Americans by sitting down with historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and recording an astonishingly detailed and unvarnished account of her experiences and impressions as the wife and confidante of John F. Kennedy. The tapes of those sessions were then sealed and later deposited in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum upon its completion, in accordance with Mrs. Kennedy s wishes. The resulting eight and a half hours of material comprises a unique and compelling record of a tumultuous era, providing fresh insights on the many significant people and events that shaped JFK s presidency but also shedding new light on the man behind the momentous decisions. Here are JFK s unscripted opinions on a host of revealing subjects, including his thoughts and feelings about his brothers Robert and Ted, and his take on world leaders past and present, giving us perhaps the most informed, genuine, and immediate portrait of John Fitzgerald Kennedy we shall ever have. Mrs. Kennedy s urbane perspective, her candor, and her flashes of wit also give us our clearest glimpse into the active mind of a remarkable First Lady.</p><p>In conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy s Inauguration, Caroline Kennedy and the Kennedy family are now releasing these beautifully restored recordings on CDs with accompanying transcripts. Introduced and annotated by renowned presidential historian Michael Beschloss, these interviews will add an exciting new dimension to our understanding and appreciation of President Kennedy and his time and make the past come alive through the words and voice of an eloquent eyewitness to history. </p></div>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">In <em>She Walks in Beauty</em>, Caroline Kennedy has once again marshaled the gifts of our greatest poets to pay a very personal tribute to the human experience, this time to the complex and fascinating subject of womanhood. Inspired by her own reflections on more than fifty years of life as a young girl, a woman, a wife, and a mother, <em>She Walks in Beauty</em> draws on poetry's eloquent wisdom to ponder the many joys and challenges of being a woman. Kennedy has divided the collection into sections that signify to her the most notable milestones, passages, and universal experiences in a woman's life, and she begins each of these sections with an introduction in which she explores and celebrates the most important elements of life's journey.</span></h3><p>The collection includes works by Elizabeth Bishop, Sharon Olds, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mary Oliver, Pablo Neruda, W. H. Auden, Adrienne Rich, Sandra Cisneros, Anne Sexton, W. S. Merwin, Dorothy Parker, Queen Elizabeth I, Lucille Clifton, Naomi Shahib Nye, and W. B. Yeats. Whether it's falling in love, breaking up, friendship, marriage, motherhood, or growing old, <em>She Walks in Beauty</em> is a priceless resource for anyone, male or female, who wants a deeper understanding and appreciation of what it means to be a woman.</p></div>


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<p>At last, it's Jasper John Dooley's turn to be Star of the Week at school. Unfortunately, nothing turns out as planned. His Show and Tell falls flat. A new baby at his friend Ori's house steals his spotlight. And worst of all, the new baby has only-child Jasper wondering if his own family is too small. When Jasper decides to build himself a brother (named Earl) out of wood, Earl's schoolyard shenanigans send Jasper to the principal's office! But with a little help from family and friends, things turn around for Jasper. And by the time Friday arrives, he is once again sure that he has what it takes to be a star. Jasper John Dooley: Star of the Week is the first in a series of chapter books featuring a charismatic and funny central character. An only child with active, loving parents (and a most impressive lint collection), Jasper John Dooley is a true original.</p><p>**</p>


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Isabel loves Jasper, and it&#39;s making life complicated. He just wants to play knights and dragons with Ori and Leon, but Isabel makes him play babies and tries to set up their wedding. The only good thing about Isabel is the trampoline at her house. But will the highs of their trampoline playdates be enough to cure Jasper&#39;s girl-itis? Jasper John Dooley: NOT in Love is the third in a series of chapter books featuring a charismatic and funny central character. An only child with active, loving parents (and a most impressive lint collection), Jasper John Dooley is a true original.


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<p>Every Wednesday, Jasper John Dooley plays Go Fish for jujubes with Nan at her apartment. They ride up and down in the elevator as many times as he wants. And they use a trunk of old clothes for games of Dress Up Nan. So how can she go away on a cruise to Alaska for a week and leave him behind? Thinking about it makes Jasper feel funny. It's like all the air is seeping out through a hole in his belly. "It just feels pththth." After Jasper accidentally staples his belly at school and gets two more holes, one Band-Aid alone isn't enough to keep the air inside him all week -- it takes thirty-four Band-Aids to patch him up! Will Jasper find a way to survive his time apart from Nan? This title from the chapter book series by Caroline Adderson beautifully and age-appropriately conveys how it feels to love someone dearly, and to miss them terribly. It would make an excellent starting point for classroom discussions or writing assignments about these emotions. With its engaging and entertaining story, it will also be a favorite for independent reading time. Jasper John Dooley is a quirky and memorable character who is funny and just a bit irreverent. And Adderson's depictions of life in early elementary school are spot-on: particularly hilarious are the capitalized descriptive names, such as when Jasper gets in trouble for "doing a Very Dangerous Thing at recess."</p><p>**</p>


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Zombies and Witches and Vamps . . . Oh, My! What happens in Vegas stays in Vegasat least that's Delilah Street's hope. With Sin City's vampire and werewolf mobs wanting to cash in her chips once and for all, she's retreating with her partner Ric Montoya and half-wolfhound Quicksilver to her Kansas birthplace. Unfortunately, when it comes to finding trouble, there's no place like home. . . . It doesn't take long before Delilah realizes she's not in Vegas anymore. Zombie cowboys and spectral cattle drives are kicking up dust, the local weather girls are total witches who forecast perfect storms, and some Hollywood fanatic is recasting zombies as the greatest stars of the silver screen. And speaking of silver, Delilah's special affinity for the all-purpose monster-repellent leads her posse straight down a silver brick roadand into a notso- fun house of mirrorsputting her face-to-face with her dicey past and a mystery woman named Lilith, who's a real dead ringer for Delilah. The key word being dead.


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<p class="description">The Stone Diaries is one ordinary woman's story of her journey through life. Born in 1905, Daisy Stone Goodwill drifts through the roles of child, wife, widow, and mother, and finally into her old age. Bewildered by her inability to understand her place in her own life, Daisy attempts to find a way to tell her story within a novel that is itself about the limitations of autobiography. Her life is vivid with incident, and yet she feels a sense of powerlessness. She listens, she observes, and through sheer force of imagination she becomes a witness of her own life: her birth, her death, and the troubling misconnections she discovers between. Daisy's struggle to find a place for herself in her own life is a paradigm of the unsettled decades of our era. A witty and compassionate anatomist of the human heart, Carol Shields has made distinctively her own that place where the domestic collides with the elemental. With irony and humor she weaves the strands of The Stone Diaries together in this, her richest and most poignant novel to date.</p>


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<p>Nobody knows Peru like Lonely Planet, and our unbeatable 7th edition gives you the key to its legendary past and exciting present. Watch the sun rise over Machu Picchu, shop at colorful crafts markets, puzzle over the mysterious Nazca Lines and sample sublime ceviche. We'll take you there - and beyond.<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>Full-Color Outdoors chapter features hiking, climbing and surfing<p>Extensive coverage of Lima's world-renowned culinary scene<p>Fascinating full-color chapter reveals Peru's ancient sites and cultures


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<p class="description">Charleen is a divorcee in her mid-thirties, eking out a living as a poet and part-time assistant for an obscure scientific journal. Although she is quick to count her blessings - a son whom she loves, a blossoming relationship with a man, and friends who care about her - Charleen wonders how her life turned out the way it did. Is she a failure? Or is she still struggling to escape the limited world of her childhood? Her search for answers is as exasperating as the meager paycheck she takes to the bank every week. But when she returns home to attend her mother's wedding, Charleen is caught up in a series of unexpected - and terrifying - events. And in coping with these big and small emergencies, she is forced to come to terms with the life she has led and the decisions she has made.</p>


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There once was a girl who liked to pretend she was lost. . . . Meg Rosenthal is driving toward the next chapter in her life. Winding along a wooded roadway, her car moves through a dense forest setting not unlike one in the bedtime stories Meg used to read to her daughter, Sally. But the girl riding beside Meg is a teenager now, and has exchanged the land of make-believe for an iPod and some personal space. Too much space, it seems, as the chasm between them has grown since the sudden, unexpected death of Meg's husband.  Dire financial straits and a desire for a fresh start take Meg and Sally from a comfortable life on Long Island to a tucked-away hamlet in upstate New York: Arcadia Falls, where Meg has accepted a teaching position at a boarding school. The creaky, neglected cottage Meg and Sally are to call home feels like an ill portent of things to come, but Meg is determined to make the best of it--and to make a good impression on the school's dean, the diminutive, elegant Ivy St. Clare. St. Claire, however, is distracted by a shocking crisis: During Arcadia's First Night bonfire, one of Meg's folklore students, Isabel Cheney, plunges to her death in a campus gorge. Sheriff Callum Reade finds Isabel's death suspicious, but then, he is a man with secrets and a dark past himself. Meg is unnerved by Reade's interest in the girl's death, and as long-buried secrets emerge, she must face down her own demons and the danger threatening to envelop Sally. As the past clings tight to the present, the shadows, as if in a terrifying fairy tale, grow longer and deadlier. In Arcadia Falls, award-winning author Carol Goodman deftly weaves a mesmerizing narrative of passion: for revenge, for art, for love.


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<p class="description">Every doctor dreaded recognizing someone in the emergency room--even coolheaded consultant James Morrell. But he was doubly shocked when the unconscious patient he had been asked to treat was instantly familiar. It was his ex-wife!Dr. Lorna McClelland hated being ill, hated being stuck in a hospital bed and, above all, hated having to rely on James. But as she recovered, all the wonderful things about their marriage came flooding back....</p>


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<div><p>“More than anything, we are remembered for our smiles: the ones we share with our closest and dearest, and the one we bestow on a total stranger who needs it right then, and God has put us there to deliver.” — Carrie Hamilton</p><p>You are about to meet an extraordinary young woman, Carrie Hamilton. The daughter of one of television’s most recognizable and beloved stars, Carol Burnett, Carrie won the hearts of everyone she met with her kindness, quirky sense of humor, and wonderfully unconventional approach to life. Living in the spotlight of celebrity, but in an era when personal troubles were kept private, Carrie and Carol made a brave display of honesty and love by going public with teenager Carrie’s drug addiction and recovery. Carrie lived her adult life of sobriety to the fullest, enjoying happy and determined independence and achieving a successful artistic career as an actress, writer, musician, and director. Carrie’s passion for life and her humorist’s view of the world never wavered as she aggressively battled cancer. Carrie died at the age of 38.</p><p><em>Carrie and Me</em> is Carol Burnett’s poignant tribute to her late daughter and a funny and moving memoir about mothering an extraordinary young woman through the struggles and triumphs of her life. Sharing her personal diary entries, photographs, and correspondence, Carol traces the journey she and Carrie took through some of life’s toughest challenges and sweetest miracles. Authentic, intimate, and full of love, <em>Carrie and Me</em> is a story of hope and joy that only a mother could write.</p></div>


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<p>Following a devastating moment in the hours after Carmen’s wedding, three siblings and their friends move through the next twenty-five years under its long shadow. Through friendships and love affairs; marriage and divorce; parenthood, holidays, and the modest calamities and triumphs of ordinary days, <em>Carry the One </em>shows how one life affects another, and how those who thrive and those who self-destruct are closer to each other than we’d expect. Whether they take refuge in art, drugs, social justice, or love, Carol Anshaw’s characters are sympathetic, funny, and uncannily familiar as they reflect back to us our deepest pain and longings, our joys, and our transcendent moments of understanding.</p>


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<div><p>It's Christmas, and half the Partickhill police squad is down with flu. Not good timing, with a series of cyanide poisonings in the area, plus two small boys reported missing in the space of a few days. And then there's the monumental task of providing concert security for rock legend Rogan O'Neill . . .</p><p>But for Detective Inspector Colin Anderson, the nightmare is about to get terrifyingly close to home. For a third boy has now gone missing – Colin's own son, Peter.</p><p>The team race to find the boys before it is too late. But how long will it be before they realize the key is hidden in the lyrics of a rock song – 'Tambourine Girl' by Rogan O'Neill?</p></div>


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<p>Duelling, derring-do, and dastardly deeds are all in a day's work for Liberty Lane: a new heroine for fans of Matthew Hawkwood and Sarah Waters's Victorian novels. June 1837. She should have remained in the care of her sour aunt in Chalke Bissett, but Liberty Lane was never one to obey instructions. Eager to be reunited with her beloved father, she heads for Dover. But her hopes of surprising him as he steps off the boat are dashed by an anonymous note informing her that he has been killed in a duel at Calais, and commanding her to remain where she is and speak to no one. Thomas Jacques Lane -- radical, romantic, scholar, republican, gambler and devoted father -had led an unconventional life. His movements in the days leading up to his death are a mystery, but of one thing Liberty is certain: he would never have taken part in a duel, for it went against everything he believed in. And if the author of the anonymous note expected her to swallow this lie and meekly obey his command to stay put, he had severely underestimated Liberty Lane. With no resources bar her own wits, she immediately sets sail for Calais in pursuit of the truth -- and her father's killer.There she encounters a mysterious stranger who promises information in return for her services as a spy, planted in the Windsor estate of the powerful and ambitious Lord Mandeville. And as the nation prepares to celebrate the coronation of young Queen Victoria, Liberty uncovers a treasonable plot which could lead to another vicious civil war!</p>


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<p class="description">A bitterly cold February in Glasgow. Hanging from a rope in the attic of a deserted tenement is the body of a criminal believed to have been hiding out on the Costa del Sol these last ten years. His face has been hideously disfigured.   Investigating officers DI Anderson and DS Costello believe the dead man to be a suspect in a decade-old case: the rape and attempted murder of a young student by two men. And there are other, similar cases on file.   But what has happened to the dead man's accomplice, Mr Click?  And with the discovery of another young woman who has been brutally attacked, detectives Anderson and Costello realize this terrifying psychopath has started working once more. They must use every trick in the book to stop him. For Mr Click has developed a taste for his bloodthirsty trade. And to satisfy his lust he will strike again and again .</p>


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<p class="description">Duelling, derring-do, and dastardly deeds are all in a day’s work for Liberty Lane, a new heroine for fans of Georgette Heyer and Sarah Waters’s Victorian novels.A public spat between two dancers at a London theatre has a dramatic conclusion that wasn’t in the script: one dead, the other arrested for murder. As far as the jury’s concerned, it’s an open-and-shut case, but Liberty Lane believes otherwise.Soon she’s leading her own investigation, in a desperate race against the hangman’s noose. And while the criminal underworld may be no place for a lady, there’s no place for a criminal to hide once Liberty’s on the case...</p>


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"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring." --**Chuck Palahniuk   **  

  Satan Burger is the international cult hit that has grown such an enormous following over the past 10 years that it not only launched the career of underground author Carlton Mellick III, but inspired an entire literary movement.    

  *Absurd philosophies, dark surrealism, and the end of the human race . . .*  

  God hates you. All of you. He closed the gates of Heaven and wants you to rot on Earth forever. Not only that, he is repossessing your souls and feeding them to a large vagina-shaped machine called the Walm--an interdimensional doorway that brings His New Children into the world. He loves these new children, but He doesn't love you. They are more interesting than you. They are beautiful, psychotic, magical, sex-crazed, and deadly. They are turning your cities into apocalyptic chaos, and there's nothing you can do about it ...  

  Featuring: a narrator who sees his body from a third-person perspective, a man whose flesh is dead but his body parts are alive and running amok, an overweight messiah, the personal life of the Grim Reaper, lots of classy sex and violence, and a motley group of squatter punks that team up with the devil to find their place in a world that doesn't want them anymore.


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<div><p>Welcome back to the town of Serendipity and the third Barron brothers novel.  I'm thrilled at the response I've received so far to the small town and its beloved characters!</p><p>KARMA<br><br>Police Officer Dare Barron has had a crush on Liza McKnight ever since he was a teenager. But despite his lifelong attraction, the closest he's ever come to interacting with her is watching Liza regularly bail out her brother at the station.<br><br>Dare's dark past with Liza's brother, Brian, has always kept him from pursuing her. But suddenly Liza finds herself in need of protection and Dare appoints himself as the man for the job.  And while the sizzling attraction between Dare and Liza draws them together, the past that  Dare and Brian share threatens to keep the two apart forever.</p></div>


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<p>Duelling, derring-do, and dastardly deeds are all in a day’s work for Liberty Lane: the plucky heroine for fans of Georgette Heyer and Sarah Waters’s Victorian novels.London. Summer 1839. And the temperature is rising as Liberty Lane takes on her strangest case yet.Deranged aristocrat Lord Brinkburn is nearing death and his elder son, Stephen, is expecting to inherit the title. But Lady Brinkburn's sudden announcement that Stephen is illegitimate throws the family into turmoil. Tensions reach boiling point between the two brothers, one of whom stands to gain everything, and they come to blows in public - much to the amusement of London Society.Liberty is engaged privately to get to the truth of the matter, but a macabre murder raises the stakes considerably…added to which she finds her own judgement being undermined by the beguiling ways of Lady Brinkburn. She is only too aware that time is running out - one of the brothers may be next, but which will it be?</p>


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<p class="description">The international literary sensation-a runaway bestseller in Spain, rights sold in more than 20 countries-about a boy's quest through the secrets and shadows of postwar Barcelona for a mysterious author whose book has proved as dangerous to own as it is impossible to forget. Barcelona, 1945-just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his eleventh birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again. Daniel's father coaxes him to choose a volume from the spiraling labyrinth of shelves, one that, it is said, will have a special meaning for him. And Daniel so loves the novel he selects, The Shadow of the Windby one Julian Carax, that he sets out to find the rest of Carax's work. To his shock, he discovers that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book this author has written. In fact, he may have the last one in existence. Before Daniel knows it his seemingly innocent quest has opened a door into one of Barcelona's darkest secrets, an epic story of murder, magic, madness and doomed love. And before long he realizes that if he doesn't find out the truth about Julian Carax, he and those closest to him will suffer horribly. As with all astounding novels, The Shadow of the Windsends the mind groping for comparisons- The Crimson Petal and the White?The novels of Arturo P rez-Reverte? Of Victor Hugo? Love in the Time of Cholera?-but in the end, as with all astounding novels, no comparison can suffice. As one leading Spanish reviewer wrote, "The originality of Ruiz Zaf n's voice is bombproof and displays a diabolical talent. The Shadow of the Wind announces a phenomenon in Spanish literature." An uncannily absorbing historical mystery, a heart-piercing romance, and a moving homage to the mystical power of books, The Shadow of the Windis a triumph of the storyteller's art. Translated by Lucia Graves.</p>


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<p class="description">From master storyteller Carlos Ruiz Zafón, author of the international phenomenon The Shadow of the Wind, comes The Angel’s Game—a dazzling new page-turner about the perilous nature of obsession, in literature and in love.“The whole of Barcelona stretched out at my feet and I wanted to believe that, when I opened those windows, its streets would whisper stories to me, secrets I could capture on paper and narrate to whomever cared to listen . . .”In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man, David Martín, makes his living by writing sensationalist novels under a pseudonym. The survivor of a troubled childhood, he has taken refuge in the world of books and spends his nights spinning baroque tales about the city’s underworld. But perhaps his dark imaginings are not as strange as they seem, for in a locked room deep within the house lie photographs and letters hinting at the mysterious death of the previous owner. Like a slow poison, the history of the place seeps into his bones as he struggles with an impossible love. Close to despair, David receives a letter from a reclusive French editor, Andreas Corelli, who makes him the offer of a lifetime. He is to write a book unlike anything that has ever existed—a book with the power to change hearts and minds. In return, he will receive a fortune, and perhaps more. But as David begins the work, he realizes that there is a connection between his haunting book and the shadows that surround his home.Once again, Zafón takes us into a dark, gothic universe first seen in the Shadow of the Wind and creates a breathtaking adventure of intrigue, romance, and tragedy. Through a dizzingly constructed labyrinth of secrets, the magic of books, passion, and friendship blend into a masterful story.</p>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; ">Eminent Cornell astronomer and bestselling author Sagan debunks the paranormal and the unexplained in a study that will reassure hardcore skeptics but may leave others unsatisfied. To him, purported UFO encounters and alien abductions are products of gullibility, hallucination, misidentification, hoax and therapists' pressure; some alleged encounters, he suggests, may screen memories of sexual abuse. He labels as hoaxes the crop circles, complex pictograms that appear in southern England's wheat and barley fields, and he dismisses as a natural formation the Sphinx-like humanoid face incised on a mesa on Mars, first photographed by a Viking orbiter spacecraft in 1976 and considered by some scientists to be the engineered artifact of an alien civilization. In a passionate plea for scientific literacy, Sagan deftly debunks the myth of Atlantis, Filipino psychic surgeons and mediums such as J.Z. Knight, who claims to be in touch with a 35,000-year-old entity called Ramtha. He also brands as superstition ghosts, angels, fairies, demons, astrology, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster and religious apparitions. </span></h3>

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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; ">Viruses are the smallest living things known to science, and yet they hold the entire planet in their sway. We’re most familiar with the viruses that give us colds or the flu, but viruses also cause a vast range of other diseases, including one disorder that makes people sprout branch-like growths as if they were trees. Viruses have been a part of our lives for so long, in fact, that <em>we</em> are actually part virus: the human genome contains more DNA from viruses than our own genes. Meanwhile, scientists are discovering viruses everywhere they look: in the soil, in the ocean, even in deep caves miles underground. </span></h3><p>This fascinating book explores the hidden world of viruses—a world that each of us inhabit. Here Carl Zimmer, popular science writer and author of <em>Discover</em> magazine’s award-winning blog <em>The Loom</em>, presents the latest research on how viruses hold sway over our lives and our biosphere, how viruses helped give rise to the first life-forms, how viruses are producing new diseases, how we can harness viruses for our own ends, and how viruses will continue to control our fate for years to come. In this eye-opening tour through the frontiers of biology, where scientists are expanding our understanding of life as we know it, we learn that some treatments for the common cold do more harm to us than good; that the world’s oceans are home to an astonishing 1,000,000,000,000,­000,000,000,000,000,000 viruses; and that the evolution of HIV is now in overdrive, spawning more mutated strains than we care to imagine. <br></p><p><i><br></i></p></div>


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The carpenter Gepetto has carved an extraordinary marionette called Pinocchio out of a special piece of wood. But what a scamp that Pinocchio turns out to be! He pulls off Gepetto's wig and races out the door in search of adventure. Pinocchio finds plenty, but he is so mischievous and so very disobedient that despite the advice of Cricket and the Blue Fairy, he always seems to land in trouble. Yet Pinocchio is also kindhearted and loving, traits that, if he can only learn to behave, may help him realize his dream of becoming a real boy. For over a hundred years, children have delighted in this tale, now in a handsome new edition for a new generation.


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<p>Key West is a smuggler's paradise. All that's needed are the captains to run the contraband and Breeze Albury is one of the best fishing captains on the Rock.  He's in no mood to become the Machine's delivery boy, however. So the Machine sets out to persuade him. It starts by taking away Albury's livelihood and his freedom. But when the Machine threatens Albury's son, the washed-out wharf rat turns into a raging, sea-going vigilante.</p>


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<p>Examines humankind's changing awareness of its place in the universe and the rich potential of human ventures into the world beyond Earth.   </p>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; "><em>Cosmos</em> was the first science TV blockbuster, and Carl Sagan was its (human) star. By the time of Sagan's death in 1996, the series had been seen by half a billion people; Sagan was perhaps the best-known scientist on the planet. Explaining how the series came about, Sagan recalled:</span></h3><blockquote><p>I was positive from my own experience that an enormous global interest exists in the exploration of the planets and in many kindred scientific topics--the origin of life, the Earth, and the Cosmos, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, our connection with the universe. And I was certain that this interest could be excited through that most powerful communications medium, television.</p></blockquote><p>Sagan's own interest and enthusiasm for the universe were so vivid and infectious, his screen presence so engaging, that viewers and readers couldn't help but be caught up in his vision. From stars in their "billions and billions" to the amino acids in the primordial ocean, Sagan communicated a feeling for science as a process of discovery. Inevitably, some of the science in <em>Cosmos</em> has been outdated in the years since 1980--but Sagan's sense of wonder is ageless. </p>

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<div><p>Somebody wants Mick Stranahan dead. But who? Could it be the plastic surgeon with the shaky hands; the ambulance-chasing lawyer; the host of TV's "In Your Face?" The whole thing is downright harrowing. </p></div>


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<p class="description">The only trace of the first victim was his Shriner's fez washed up on the Miami Beach. The second victim, the head of the city's chamber of commerce, was found dead with a toy alligator lodged in his throat. And that was just the beginning ...Now Brian Keyes, reporter turned private eye, must move from muckraking to rooting out murder ... in a caper that will mix football players, politicians, and police with a group of anti-development fanatics and a very, hungry crocodile.</p>


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<p class="description">When a ferocious hurricane rips through Southern Florida, the con artists and carpetbaggers waste no time swarming over the disaster area.Among the predators are Edie Marsh, an entrepreneurial young woman whose scheme to sleep with a Palm Beach Kennedy has fizzled, freeing her to concoct a colossal insurance rip-off; Lester Maddox Parsons, a murderous ex-con whose violent encounter with a game warden has left him with the fitting nickname of "Snapper"; and Avila, a crooked building inspector-turned-roofer, who dabbles somewhat unsuccessfully in the occult.Caught in the middle are Max and Bonnie Lamb, newlyweds torn in wildly different directions by the storm. It is Max's fateful decision to abort their Disney World honeymoon and race to Dade County to see the terrible devastation. Armed with a video camera, the ambitious young advertising executive can't wait to show his hurricane tapes to his buddies back in New York. Over Bonnie's objections, Max eagerly sets out through the rubble, debris, and mayhem -- and promptly vanishes. The only clue to his whereabouts: a runaway monkey. But there's also a man called Skink who has devoted his very strange existence to saving Florida from the kinds of people blown in by the hurricane. It is he, crazed and determined, who prowls the swath of the storm and forever changes the lives of Max, Bonnie, Edie, and the others.Their paths -- tangled before they even know it -- come together in a novel that continues the hilarious and scathing muckraking tradition that Carl Hiaasen has so mercilessly made his own. In Stormy Weather, there is no calm eye.</p>


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<p class="description">Charles "Chaz" Perrone fancies himself a take-charge kind of guy. So when this "biologist by default" suspects that his curvaceous wife, Joey, has stumbled onto a profitable pollution scam he's running on behalf of Florida agribusiness mogul Red Hammernut, he sets out right away to solve the problem--by heaving Joey off the deck of a luxury cruise liner and into the Atlantic Ocean, far from Key West. But--whoops!--Joey, a former swimming champ, doesn't drown. Instead, as Carl Hiaasen tells in his 10th adult novel, Skinny Dip, she makes her way back to shore, thanks both to a wayward bale of Jamaican marijuana and lonerish ex-cop Mick Stranahan (Skin Tight, 1989), and then launches a bogus blackmail campaign that's guaranteed to drive her lazy, libidinous hubby into a self-protective frenzy. You've got to hand it to Hiaasen: He's perfected a formula for crisply written, satirical crime fiction that makes the best use of imaginatively repulsive villains, as well as less thoroughly venal scoundrels and victims who ultimately overcome their antagonists, all while stumping for the preservation of Florida's environment, particularly the Everglades. In Skinny Dip, we find Chaz (who'd rather be golfing than puttering around the "hot, buggy, funky-smelling and treacherous" reaches of nature) falsifying water samples to help Hammernut turn the 'Glades into "God's septic tank." That scheme, though, is endangered not just by Joey's sudden disappearance, but by the suspicions of a python-loving police detective and Chaz's own outstanding inability to tame his Viagra-enhanced tumescence. Even by assigning Chaz a baby-sitter--the hulking, hirsute, and painkiller-addicted Tool--Hammernut can't keep his pet biologist out of trouble. As Joey and Stranahan unfold their revenge plot, and Tool's conscience grows in competition with Chaz's ego, the reader can only marvel at the extent of the train wreck ahead. As much fun as Hiaasen has delivering Chaz his climactic comeuppance, what's missing from Skinny Dip is a more complex, more credible development of Mick Stranahan's character and the relationship he builds with the much younger Joey Perrone. Like Erin Grant, from Strip Tease, Joey has far more going for her than her bra-cup size; but "hero" Stranahan is of far less interest here than any of his fellow players. </p>


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<div><p>After dispatching a pistol-packing intruder from his home with the help of a stuffed Marlin head, Mick Stranahan can't deny that someone is out to get him. His now-deceased intruder carries no I.D., and as a former Florida state investigator, Stranahan knows there are plenty of potential culprits. His long list of enemies includes an off point hit man, a personal injury lawyer of billboard fame, a notoriously irritating TV journalist, and a fumbling plastic surgeon.</p><p>Now, if he wants to keep fishing into his golden years, Stranahan has no choice but to come out of retirement to close this one last case...</p></div>


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<div><p>Meet 22-year-old Cherry Pye (née Cheryl Bunterman), a pop star since she was fourteen-and about to attempt a comeback from her latest drug-and-alcohol disaster. </p><p>Now meet Cherry again: in the person of her "undercover stunt double," Ann DeLusia. Ann portrays Cherry whenever the singer is too "indisposed" meaning wasted  to go out in public. And it is Ann-mistaken-for-Cherry who is kidnapped from a South Beach hotel by obsessed paparazzo Bang Abbott. </p><p>Now the challenge for Cherry's handlers (über-stage mother; horndog record producer; nipped, tucked, and Botoxed twin publicists; weed whacker-wielding bodyguard) is to rescue Ann while keeping her existence a secret from Cherry's public  and from Cherry herself. The situation is more complicated than they know. Ann has had a bewitching encounter with Skink, the unhinged former governor of Florida living wild in a mangrove swamp, and now he's heading for Miami to find her . . .</p><p>Will Bang Abbott achieve his fantasy of a lucrative private photo session with Cherry Pye? Will Cherry sober up in time to lip-synch her way through her concert tour? Will Skink track down Ann DeLusia before Cherry's motley posse does? All will be revealed in this hilarious spin on life in the celebrity fast lane. </p></div>


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<p class="description">Carl Hiaasen's characters ride and flail on little verbal hurricanes, and his literary storm shows no signs of dying down. Sick Puppy shares Dave Barry's giddy gift for finding humor in South Florida horrors, and a bit of Elmore Leonard's genius for pitch-perfect dialogue spouted smartly by criminals who are dumb as stumps. The title of Hiaasen's eighth novel could apply to most of its characters, but it chiefly refers to an ebullient Labrador retriever named Boodle and the millionaire eco-terrorist Twilly Spree. Let's just say that Twilly has a singular affliction: poor anger management in the face of environmental irresponsibility. When he spots Boodle's owner, Palmer Stoat, tossing litter from a car, Twilly goes to Stoat's home and removes the glass eyeballs from the animals that the bloated lobbyist had shot and mounted on his walls. Boodle gulps down the eyeballs, sustaining no small amount of digestive difficulties. Soon Boodle and Stoat's wife, Desie, are fugitives from Florida's nature despoilers (who include the Governor, a "gladhanding maggot," the amusingly slimy Stoat, the human bulldozer Krimmler, the cocaine-importer-turned-developer Clapley, and the hit man Mr. Gash, who's fond of sex with multiple beach bimbos in iguana-skin sex harnesses to the tunes of The World's Most Blood Curdling Emergency Calls). Desie, who has a knack for calamitous romance, is smitten with Twilly, but urges him not to kill any litterbugs or pelican molesters: "Jail would not be good for this relationship." What keeps pure farce at bay in a novel that romps with the abandon of a scent-crazed Labrador is the otherwise charming Twilly's creepy edge of implacable fanaticism. And what redeems the funny/ugly violence from cliché is its colorful bad guys (they're as iridescent as oil slicks), Hiaasen's excellent wit, and the music of his prose. To evoke a drunk asleep on the beach, he adds a pungent detail: "a gleaming stellate dollop of seagull shit decorated his forehead." Hiaasen is not unflawed. His original eco-terrorist character, ex-Florida governor Clinton "Skink" Tyree, seems like an interloper from the earlier books. But Hiaasen's the master of madcap ensembles (which is partly why the star-vehicle film of his fine book Strip Tease flopped). And even when you can see a chase scene's denouement coming for a beachfront mile, each paragraph packs descriptive delights to keep you going at breakneck pace. </p>


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<p>Bestselling author and columnist Carl Hiaasen returns with another hysterical mystery for kids set in Florida's Everglades.<br><br>Bunny Starch, the most feared biology teacher ever, is missing. She disappeared after a school field trip to Black Vine Swamp. And, to be honest, the kids in her class are relieved.<br><br>But when the principal tries to tell the students that Mrs. Starch has been called away on a "family emergency," Nick and Marta just don't buy it. No, they figure the class delinquent, Smoke, has something to do with her disappearance.<br><br>And he does! But not in the way they think. There's a lot more going on in Black Vine Swamp than any one player in this twisted tale can see. And Nick and Marta will have to reckon with an eccentric eco-avenger, a stuffed rat named Chelsea, a wannabe Texas oilman, a singing substitute teacher, and a ticked-off Florida panther before they really begin to see the big picture.<br><br>That's life in the swamp, kids.</p>


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<p>Architect Chris Meadows has the bad luck to see an old girlfriend get hit by a car full of drugland hitmen. He has the worse luck to see the face of her murderers. Because in a town as violent as Miami, a witness doesn't stand a chance--especially when the cops who ought to be protecting him are more interested in dangling him as live bait.</p>


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<p class="description">When a rude telemarketer calls while Honey Santana and her son are having dinner she decides to teach him a lesson in good behavior. She lures him and his mistress with a pitch for Florida real estate and includes her ex-husband and 12-year-old son in her plot.</p>


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<div><p>In South Florida, everyone wants to get a head. But not just any head. A very famous human head—severed and snugged away in a cryonic container. A head that could spark a revolution and change the course of history.</p><p>Everybody wants a piece of the noggin: rotund gangster Big Joey G., a 102-year-old environmentalist, hard-boiled Miami reporter Britt Montero, lawyer Jake Lassiter,  and a would-be dictator in exile—with ex-president Jimmy Carter and a lovable manatee named Booger thrown in for good measure.</p><p>With bodies piling up it's anybody's guess what will happen from one chapter to the next, as an all-star line-up of Florida's finest writers take turns at taking this outrageously original novel to the limit—and beyond.</p></div>


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<p class="description">Florida, is famous for its miracles--the weeping fiberglass Madonna, the Road-Stain Jesus, the stigmata man. And now it has JoLayne Lucks, unlikely winner of the state lottery.Unfortunately, JoLayne's winning ticket isn't the only one. The other belongs to Bodean Gazzer and his raunchy sidekick, Chub, who believe they're entitled to the whole $28 million jackpot. And they need it quickly, to start their own underground militia before NATO troops invade America.But JoLayne Lucks has her own plans for the Lotto money--an Eden-like forest in Grange must be saved from strip-malling. When Bode and Chub brutally assault her and steal her ticket, JoLayne vows to track them down, take it back--and get revenge.The only one who can help is Tom Krome, a big-city investigative journalist now bitterly consigned to writing frothy features for a midsized central Florida newspaper. With a persuasive nudge from JoLayne, Krome is about to become part of a story that's bigger and more bizarre than anything he's ever covered.Chasing two heavily armed psychopaths down the coast of Florida is reckless enough, but Tom's got other problems--the murderous attention of a jealous judge; an actress wife who turns fugitive to avoid divorce court; an editor who speaks in tongues; and Tom's own growing fondness for the future millionairess with whom he's risking his neck.The pursuit takes them from the surreal streets of Grange to a buzzard-infested island deep in Florida Bay, where they finally catch up with the fledgling militia--Chub, Bode Gazzer, a newly recruited convenience-store clerk and their baffled hostage, a Hooters waitress.The climax explodes with the hilarious mayhem that is Carl Hiaasen's hallmark. Lucky You is his funniest, most deliriously gripping novel yet.</p>


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<div><p>Readers who eagerly anticipate each new Carl Hiaasen novel will relish this selection of his Miami Herald columns, written with the same dark humor and satirical edge as Tourist Season, Strip Tease, Stormy Weather, and the rest of Hiaasen's brilliant and nationally acclaimed fiction. Known for evoking the disastrously flawed paradise of modern South Florida, Hiaasen proves in these columns that facts can indeed be stranger than the fiction they inspire.</p><p>In addition to South Florida color and world-class journalism, readers of Kick Ass will find one of Florida's staunchest defenders in action, and they'll take great pleasure in watching him work. </p></div>


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<p class="description">Unfortunately, Roy’s first acquaintance in Florida is Dana Matherson, a well-known bully. Then again, if Dana hadn’t been sinking his thumbs into Roy’s temples and mashing his face against the school-bus window, Roy might never have spotted the running boy. And the running boy is intriguing: he was running away from the school bus, carried no books, and–here’s the odd part–wore no shoes. Sensing a mystery, Roy sets himself on the boy’s trail. The chase introduces him to potty-trained alligators, a fake-fart champion, some burrowing owls, a renegade eco-avenger, and several extremely poisonous snakes with unnaturally sparkling tails.Roy has most definitely arrived in Carl Hiaasen’s Florida.</p>


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<div><p>This B&amp;N Exclusive Edition includes a mini-magazine featuring Carl Hiaasen interviewing Derek Badger, the reality-TV host from the book.</p><p>Wahoo Cray lives in a zoo. His father is an animal wrangler, so he's grown up with all manner of gators, snakes, parrots, rats, monkeys, snappers, and more in his backyard. The critters he can handle.  His father is the unpredictable one.</p><p>When his dad takes a job with a reality TV show called "Expedition Survival!", Wahoo figures he'll have to do a bit of wrangling himself—to keep his dad from killing Derek Badger, the show's boneheaded star, before the shoot is over. But the job keeps getting more complicated. Derek Badger seems to actually believe his PR and insists on using wild animals for his stunts. And Wahoo's acquired a shadow named Tuna—a girl who's sporting a shiner courtesy of her old man and needs a place to hide out.</p><p>They've only been on location in the Everglades for a day before Derek gets bitten by a bat and goes missing in a storm. Search parties head out and promptly get lost themselves. And then Tuna's dad shows up with a gun . . .</p><p>It's anyone's guess who will <em>actually</em> survive "Expedition Survival". . . .</p></div>


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<div><p>R.J. Decker, star tenant of the local trailer park and neophyte private eye is fishing for a killer. Thanks to a sportsman's scam that's anything but sportsmanlike, there's a body floating in Coon Bog, Florida — and a lot that's rotten in the murky waters of big-stakes, large-mouth bass tournaments. Here Decker will team up with a half-blind, half-mad hermit with an appetite for road kill; dare to kiss his ex-wife while she's in bed with her new husband; and face deadly TV evangelists, dangerously seductive women, and a pistol-toting redneck with a pit bull on his arm. And here his own life becomes part of the stakes. For while the "double whammy" is the lure, first prize is for the most ingenious murder.</p><p>Thanks to an unsportsmanlike scam, there's a body floating in Coon Bog, Florida -- and a lot that's rotten in the murky waters of big-stakes tournaments. </p></div>


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<p class="description">"Ruthlessly wicked...Wonderful...His best book yet."ATLANTA JOURNAL &amp; CONSTITUTIONWhen the precious clue-tongued mango voles at the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills on North Key Largo are stolen by heartless, ruthless thugs, Joe Winder wants to uncover why, and find the voles. Joe is lately a PR man for the Amazing Kingdom theme park, but now that the voles are gone, Winder is dragged along in their wake through a series of weird and lethal events that begin with the sleazy real-estate agent/villain Francis X. Kingsbury and can end only one way....</p>


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<p>Once a hotshot investigative reporter, Jack Tagger now bangs out obituaries for a South Florida daily, "plotting to resurrect my career by yoking my byline to some famous stiff." Jimmy Stoma, the infamous front man of Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, dead in a fishy-smelling scuba "accident" may be just the stiff Jack needs-if only he can figure out what happened. Standing in the way are [among others] an editor who wants Jack to "break her cherry," Stoma's ambitious pop-singer widow, and the soulless, profit-hungry newspaper owner Jack once publicly humiliated. As clues from Stoma's music give Jack Tagger the chance to trade obits for a story that could hit the front page, murder gives his career a new lease on life.</p>


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<div><p>Andrew Yancy—late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe County sheriff’s office—has a human arm in his freezer. There’s a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its shadowy owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it’s not called the roach patrol for nothing). But first—this being Hiaasen country—Yancy must negotiate an obstacle course of wildly unpredictable events with a crew of even more wildly unpredictable characters, including his just-ex lover, a hot-blooded fugitive from Kansas; the twitchy widow of the frozen arm; two avariciously optimistic real-estate speculators; the Bahamian voodoo witch known as the Dragon Queen, whose suitors are blinded unto death by her peculiar charms; Yancy’s new true love, a kinky coroner; and the eponymous bad monkey, who with hilarious aplomb earns his place among Carl Hiaasen’s greatest characters. <br></p><p>Here is Hiaasen doing what he does better than anyone else: spinning a tale at once fiercely pointed and wickedly funny in which the greedy, the corrupt, and the degraders of what’s left of pristine Florida—now, of the Bahamas as well—get their comeuppance in mordantly ingenious, diabolically entertaining fashion.</p></div>


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<div><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; ">Why is it so hard to beat the market? How can you avoid getting caught in bubbles and crashes? You will find the answers in Carl Futia’s new book, <em>The Art of Contrarian Trading</em>. This book will teach you Futia’s novel method of contrarian trading from the ground up.</span></h3><p>In 16 chapters filled with facts and many historical examples Futia explains the principles and practice of contrarian trading. Discover the Edge which separates winning speculators from the losers. Find out how to apply the No Free Lunch principle to identify profitable trading methods.  Learn about the wisdom and the follies of investment crowds – and how crowds are formed by information cascades that drive stock prices too high or too low relative to fair value. Discover the power of your Media Diary - and how to use it to spot these information cascades, measure the strength of the crowd’s beliefs, and decide when the crowd’s view is about to be proven wrong. </p><p>You will watch Futia apply these principles of contrarian trading to navigate safely and profitably through the last 26 tumultuous years of roller coaster swings in the U.S. stock market – a time during which Futia kept his own media diary and developed his Grand Strategy of Contrarian Trading.  See how this Grand Strategy worked during the Great Bull Market of 1982-2000. Watch the Contrarian Rebalancing technique in practice during the dot.com crash of 2000-2002. Find out when the Aggressive Contrarian Trader bought and sold during the bull market of 2002-2007. Read about the causes of the Panic of 2008 and ups and downs of contrarian trading during that dangerous time. </p><p>Futia shows you how the market turning points during the 1982-2008 period were foreshadowed by magazine covers and newspaper headlines that astonishingly and consistently encouraged investors to do the wrong thing at the wrong time. By monitoring crowd beliefs revealed by news media headlines – and with the guidance provided by the many historical examples Futia provides – a trader or investor will be well-equipped to anticipate and profit from market turning points.</p></div>


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<div><p>"In Red Capitalism, Carl Walter and Fraser Howie give a powerful, albeit controversial explanation of the fragile underpinnings of the financial edifice that financed the seemingly unstoppable rise of China on the global stage—which is all the more persuasive thanks to their careful mining of the data. Their thesis—that China has the trappings of a market system but not the substance—should be considered by anyone dealing with or investing in China—categories that embrace most of the world today. Their contention that China ultimately is a 'family business' explains much that is puzzling to outsiders."</p></div>


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<p><em>One act of kindness cements a destiny she couldn't fathom.</em></p><p>An <em>Enchanted</em> story.</p><p>As a child, the Lost Woods were Hannah's passion. A place where she dreamed of mysterious creatures, including one she saved-a man who magically changed into a wolf. Now, twelve years later, the woods are her refuge from a horde of marauders who killed her mother.</p><p>This time, it is the wolf who saves her. And he is no dream.</p><p>Stephan can't help but remember the time Hannah encouraged him to free his injured leg and continue the soul journey required of his kind. The child unwittingly bound herself to him, and now the woman tempts him like no other. Yet if she learns his secret, her fragile trust could be broken for all time.</p><p>Hannah doesn't see how she can possibly fit into Stephan's world-especially when their overwhelming passion reveals the one reason she should not trust him. Stephan has fought more than his share of battles, but the one for Hannah's heart is the one that could break his own . . . </p><p>Warning: Kickass, shape-shifting alphas will leave you breathlessly begging for Lost Woods. Be careful . . . they may know what you think!!! </p>


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<p>When a mysterious visitor promises contact with her long-lost mother, Aimée Leduc finds herself hot on the trail of the Seventies radicals with whom her mother was evidently associated. The result is not just good suspense but an affecting and realistic psychological study of a daughter's coming to terms with an absent parent. This is another high-class mystery from Black, whose previous works in the series (<em>Murder in Belleville</em>, <em>Murder in the Marais</em>) have the same indelible sense of place and sophisticated political context.</p>


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<p>Aimée is faced with a tight deadline on a computer security contract when a telephone call from a stranger leads her to an abandoned infant. She brings the baby to her home and names her Stella. She expects the mother to reclaim the child, but days pass as Aimée tries in vain to discover her identity. Her partner, René, urges her to turn the baby over to the authorities, but for Aimée this is too close to her own abandonment by her mother. <br><br>The search brings her among ecological protesters and oil company tycoons, newspapermen and would-be actresses, as demonstrators near her home on the Ile Saint-Louis, in the heart of Paris, march against the pollution of the North Sea only to be dispersed by armed police. <br><br>Two murders and an abortive bombing keep Aimée running until, in the sewers beneath the Seine, she finds the woman she has been looking for, only to discover that the man she has just fallen for is a cold-hearted criminal. </p>


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<p>In Black's riveting eighth Aimée Leduc mystery (after 2007's <em>Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis</em>), Aimée reconnects in the summer of 1995 with a former boyfriend, investigative journalist Yves Robert, while Paris still reels from the St.-Michel Metro bombings. But after a romantic evening when Yves even proposes marriage, Aimée is shocked to be called in to identify Yves's body at the morgue. Believing he was working undercover, Aimée ignores the sanitized police report and enlists her partner and best friend, René Friant, to help solve Yves's murder. Her investigation ignites a chain reaction that reveals assassination plots, informers and secret contracts surrounding the strained relationship of a militant Turkish group and the Kurdish Labor Party, all leading back to Yves. Aimée Leduc, smart, spirited and sassy, takes the reader on an action-packed ride fueled by the hidden secrets of her beloved Paris.</p>


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<p>Just as Aimée is about to leave for New York City to follow up on a lead about a possible younger brother, her partner in Leduc Detective, René Friant, is wounded by a near-fatal gun shot. Eyewitnesses identify Aimée as the culprit. The police have pegged her as the guilty party. Aimée is distraught over René’s condition and horrified to be under suspicion.<br><br>At the same time, a large, mysterious sum appears in their firm’s bank account, and the tax authorities descend upon Aimée. She has no idea who would have sent this money.<br><br>It seems that someone is impersonating Aimée, someone who wants revenge. But for what? Two murders ensue. How do they relate to the youth whom Aimée’s testimony sent to jail in the very first Aimée Leduc investigation, <em>Murder in the Marais</em></p>


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<div><p>Aimée Leduc, a Parisian private investigator, has always sworn she would stick to tech investigation—no criminal cases for her. Especially since her father, the late police detective, was killed in the line of duty. But when an old Jewish man approaches Aimée with a top-secret decoding job on behalf of a woman in his synagogue, Aimée unwittingly takes on more than she was expecting. When she goes to drop off her findings at her client's house in the Marais, Paris's historic Jewish quarter, she finds the old woman strangled to death, a swastika carved on her forehead. With the help of her partner, René, Aimée sets out to solve this horrendous crime, but finds herself in an increasingly dangerous web of ancient secrets and buried war crimes.</p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The initial installment of a projected series of mysteries set in Paris, this standout first novel introduces dauntless private investigator Aim?e Leduc. The French-American, whose specialty is computer forensics, is confronted with a seemingly mundane task: to decipher an encrypted photograph from the '40s and deliver it to an old woman in the Marais (the historic Jewish quarter of Paris). When Aim?e arrives at the home of Lili Stein to present the photo, however, she finds the woman dead, a swastika carved into her forehead. Thus begins a thrilling, quick-paced chase involving neo-Nazis, corrupt government officials and fierce anti-Semitism. With the help of her partner, Ren?, a computer hacking expert, Aim?e uncovers tantalizing clues relating to German war veteran Hartmuth Griffe, the Jewish girl he saved from Auschwitz, a French trade minister and other enigmatic figures. But the data Aim?e and Ren? come up with only takes them so far. In order to understand the true motive behind the killing, Aim?e must delve into history, confronting older residents of the quarterAwho'd prefer she leave the past aloneAand doing some undercover work. The suspense is high as she fraternizes dangerously with the enemy, even becoming briefly involved with an Aryan supremacist. Black knows Paris well, and in her first-rate debut she deftly combines fascinating anecdotes from the city's war years with classic images of the City of Lights. (July) <br>Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Although set in Paris in the early 1990s, Black's new series start harks back to World War II crimes. Private investigator Aim?e Leduc becomes involved when she discovers the body of an elderly Jewish woman whose forehead has been inscribed with a swastika. With the arrival of a German trade delegation, meanwhile, the existence of a powerful covert group comprising former SS officers becomes clear. Aim?e's subsequent investigation exposes the connection between a war-time romance gone wrong and the modern-day murder. Literate prose, intricate plotting, and multifaceted and unusual characters mark this excellent first mystery. Strongly recommended for most collections. <br>Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p></div>


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<div><p></p><h3><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; ">Two weeks after Princess Diana's death in Paris in 1997, an illegal Haitian immigrant named Mireille walks into Aimée Leduc's office, claiming that Aimée's late father was also her father. Before Aimée can learn more, Mireille disappears, leaving only a cryptic note with an address in the Latin Quarter, the setting for Black's twisty ninth Aimée Leduc investigation (after 2008's <em>Murder in the Rue de Paradis</em>). At the address, an old building housing a comparative anatomy research facility, Aimée finds the corpse of a well-dressed black man with his ear cut off. The complex plot, which involves Haitian politics, history and culture as well as world trade and geopolitical corruption (not to mention Aimée's quest to discover if Mireille is really her half-sister), at times threatens to overwhelm the book. Still, Black creates an indelible portrait of a Parisian neighborhood as she explores how the past continues to collide with the present, with unpredictable and far-reaching results</span></h3></div>


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<div><p>Aimée Leduc is all dressed up in her new Chinese silk jacket, supposedly an "exclusive," for dinner with a difficult client at an elegant restaurant in the Bastille district. She is chagrined to see that the woman seated at the very next table is wearing an identical jacket. When the woman leaves her cell phone on the table, Aimée follows her to return it and is attacked in the shadowy Passage Boule Blanche. When she regains consciousness, Aimée finds that she is blind. Nevertheless, she is told she is lucky; the woman she was following was found in the next passage, murdered. </p><p>Aimée is determined to identify her attacker. Was he actually a serial killer targeting showy blondes as the police insist? Was he really after the other woman? Or was Aimée his intended victim?</p></div>


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<p>The village-like neighborhood of Passy, home to many of Paris’s wealthiest residents, is the last place one would expect a murder. But when Aimée Leduc’s godfather, Morbier, a police<em> commissaire</em>, asks her to check on his girlfriend at her home there, that’s exactly what Aimée finds. Xavierre, a <em>haut bourgeois </em>matron of Basque origin, is strangled in her garden while Aimée waits inside. Circumstantial evidence makes Morbier the prime suspect, and to vindicate him, Aimée must identify the real killer. Her investigation leads her to police corruption; the radical Basque terrorist group, ETA; and a kidnapped Spanish princess.</p>


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<div><p>Spirited Aimée Leduc, a private investigator based in Paris, has been introduced to the Cao Dai temple by her partner, René, who urges her to learn to meditate as a counterbalance to her frenetic lifestyle. A Vietnamese nun asks her for a favor—to hand over a check and bring a package back to the temple. But this act of kindness ends in a stranger’s death and leaves her with a bullet wound in the arm, a check for 50,000 francs and a trove of ancient jade artifacts whose provenance is a mystery. </p><p>The French secret service, a group of veterans of the war in Indochina, some wealthy ex-colonials, and contending international oil companies all claim the jade. They will stop at nothing to gain possession of it. And the nun has disappeared. <br></p><p>Aimée has promised to avoid danger, but it continues to seek her out. </p></div>


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<div><p>Aimée’s childhood friend, Laure, is a policewoman. Her partner, Jacques, has set up a meeting in Montmartre with an informer. When Laure goes along as backup, Jacques is lured to a rooftop, where he is shot to death. Laure’s gun has been fired, gunpowder residue is on her hands, and she is charged with her partner’s murder. <br><br>The police close ranks against the alleged cop killer. Aimée is determined to clear Laure’s name. In doing so, she encounters separatist terrorists, Montmartre prostitutes, a surrealist painter’s stepdaughter, and a crooked Corsican bar owner, and learns of “Big Ears”—the French “ear in the sky” that records telephonic and electronic communications for the security services. Identifying Jacques’ murderer brings her closer to solving her own father’s death, which still haunts her. She cannot rest until she finds out who was responsible. </p></div>


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<div><p>April in Paris, 1994, is hardly the stuff of song: forget lilacs and lights twinkling along the Seine and think riots and firebombings. Private investigator Aimée Leduc specializes in corporate security, but when Anaïs, an old friend and wife of an interior minister, sends her a terrified SOS from Belleville, an immigrants' <em>quartier</em>, the racial violence festering in the city explodes on a very personal level. Anaïs had intended to confront Sylvie, her husband's mistress, but when a car bomb fueled by Algerian plastique takes Sylvie's life, Anaïs begs Aimée to unravel the tangled threads that led to her death.</p><p>Aimée's investigations take her into the heart of the unrest surrounding the political status of illegal Algerian immigrants, or <em>sans-papiers</em>. What was the connection between Sylvie (also known as Eugénie, a <em>pied-noir</em>, or Algerian-born French citizen) and Mustafa Hamid, charismatic leader of the <em>Alliance Fédération Libération</em>, a humanitarian mission bent on stopping the forced repatriation of North African <em>Magrébhins</em>? Was Anaïs' husband being blackmailed by a radical faction of the AFL?</p></div>


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<div><p>Aimée Leduc is happy her long-time business partner René has found a girlfriend. Really, she is. It’s not her fault if she can’t suppress her doubts about the relationship; René is moving way too fast, and Aimée’s instincts tell her Meizi, this supposed love of René’s life, isn’t trustworthy. And her misgivings may not be far off the mark: Meizi disappears during a Chinatown dinner to take a phone call and never comes back to the restaurant. Minutes later, the body of a young man, a science prodigy and volunteer at the nearby Musée, is found shrink-wrapped in an alleyway—with Meizi’s photo in his wallet.<br></p><p>Aimée does not like this scenario one bit, but she can’t figure out how the murder is connected to Meizi’s disappearance. The dead genius was sitting on a discovery that has France’s secret service keeping tabs on him. Now they’re keeping tabs on Aimée. A missing young woman, an illegal immigrant raid in progress, botched affairs of the heart, dirty policemen, the French secret service, cutting-edge science secrets and a murderer on the loose—what has she gotten herself into? And can she get herself—and her friends—back out of it all alive?</p></div>


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<p class="description">James A. Garfield may have been the most extraordinary man ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back. But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what hap­pened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in tur­moil. The unhinged assassin’s half-delivered strike shattered the fragile national mood of a country so recently fractured by civil war, and left the wounded president as the object of a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle for power—over his administration, over the nation’s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his con­dition worsened, Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, worked around the clock to invent a new device capable of finding the bullet. Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic will stand alongside The Devil in the White City and The Professor and the Madman as a classic of narrative history.</p>


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"Sushi for One? is an entertaining romp into the world of multi-culturalism. I loved learning the idiosyncrasies of Lex's crazy family-which were completely universal. Enjoy!" -Kristen Billerbeck, author of What a Girl Wants "In Lex Sakai, Camy Tang gives us a funny, plucky, volleyball-playing heroine with way too many balls in the air. I defy anyone to start reading and not root for Lex all the way to the story's romantic, super-satisfying end." -Trish Perry, author of The Guy I'm Not Dating Lex Sakai's family is big, nosy, and marriage-minded. When her cousin Mariko gets married, Lex will become the oldest single cousin in the clan. Lex has used her Bible study class on Ephesians to compile a huge list of traits for the perfect man. But the one man she keeps running into doesn't seem to have a single quality on her list. It's only when the always-in-control Lex starts to let God take over that all the pieces of this hilarious romance finally fall into place.


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<p>I'm Domino Riley, an enforcer for Shanar Rashan. </p><p>Like most mob bosses in L.A., he's a powerful sorcerer, battling for control of the city, gathering up the magic of violent and powerful emotions and storing it for his own use. Back in the day, Rashan saved me from the streets and made me his lieutenant. You could say I'm his go-to girl. </p><p>When a fellow gangster is ritually executed, I have to find out which of Rashan's enemies was behind it—and why. The cryptic messages I'm getting from the <em>Beyond</em> tell me it wasn't a simple hit. </p><p>With the bodies piling up, I need to win an occult gang war, take out the supernatural traitor within our outfit and, oh yeah, deal with the mixed messages I'm getting from the boss's son…. </p>


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Lilly, the main character of Camilla Gibb’s stunning new novel, has anything but a stable childhood. The daughter of English/Irish hippies, she was “born in Yugoslavia, breast-fed in the Ukraine, weaned in Corsica, freed from nappies in Sicily and walking by the time [they] got to the Algarve…” The family’s nomadic adventure ends in Tangier when Lilly’s parents are killed in a drug deal gone awry. Orphaned at eight, Lilly is left in the care of a Sufi sheikh, who shows her the way of Islam through the Qur’an. When political turmoil erupts, Lilly, now sixteen, is sent to the ancient walled city of Harar, Ethiopia, where she stays in a dirt-floored compound with an impoverished widow named Nouria and her four children.  In Harar, Lilly earns her keep by helping with the household chores and teaching local children the Qur’an. Ignoring the cries of “farenji” (foreigner), she slowly begins to put down roots, learning the language and immersing herself in a culture rich in customs and rituals and lush with glittering bright headscarves, the chorus of muezzins and the scent of incense and coffee. She is drawn to an idealistic half-Sudanese doctor named Aziz, and the two begin to meet every Saturday at a social gathering. As they stay behind to talk, Lilly finds her faith tested for the first time in her life: “The desire to remain in his company overwhelmed common sense; I would pick up my good Muslim self on the way home.” Just as their love begins to blossom, they are wrenched apart when the aging emperor Haile Selassie is deposed by the brutal Dergue regime. Lilly seeks exile in London, while Aziz stays to pursue his revolutionary passions.In London, Lilly’s life as a white Muslim is no less complicated. A hospital staff nurse, she befriends a refugee from Ethiopia named Amina, whose daughter she helped to deliver in a back alley. The two women set up a community association to re-unite refugees with lost family members. Their work, however, isn’t entirely altruistic. Both women are looking for someone: Amina, her husband, Yusuf, and Lilly, Aziz, who remains firmly, painfully, implanted in her heart. The first-person narrative alternates seamlessly between England (1981-91) and Ethiopia (1970-74), weaving a rich tapestry of one woman’s quest to maintain faith and love through revolution, upheaval and the alienation of life in exile.Sweetness in the Belly was universally praised for the tremendous empathy that Gibb brings to an ambitious story. Kirkus Reviews writes that the novel "reflect(s) the pain, cultural relocation and uncertainty of tribal, political and religious refugees the world over. Gibb's territory is urgently modern and controversial but she enters it softly, with grace, integrity and a lovely compassionate story. [It is a] poem to belief and to the displaced–humane, resonant, original, impressive." According to the Literary Review of Canada, Sweetness in the Belly is “…a novel that is culturally sensitive, consummately researched and deeply compassionate…richly imagined, full of sensuous detail and arresting imagery…Gibb has smuggled Western readers into the centre of lives they might never otherwise come into contact with, let alone understand.”


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<div><p><strong>Thirteen weeks. Thirteen virtues. </strong></p><p>Cameron Gunn considered himself a regular guy-a pretty good husband, father, attorney, and friend. </p><p>But was there room for improvement? </p><p>A reader of history and a fan of Ben Franklin (and weary of self-help advice that never seems to offer much help), Gunn decided to try a little experiment. He would attempt to live by Franklin's thirteen virtues, a list of lofty ideals the Founding Father held dear, as enumerated in his famous autobiography. </p><p>Would Gunn's plan to improve his life, Citizen Ben-style, prove to be a brilliant reinvention of the self-help movement or a boondoggle of revolutionary proportions? </p><p>By turns heartfelt, hilarious, and more than a little humbling, Gunn's adventure takes this ordinary man way outside his comfort zone and into a thicket of not-so-modern values. The result is an engaging mix of humor and history-with perhaps a lightning bolt of inspiration or two along the way. </p><p>Prepare to get up close and personal with everyone's favorite Founding Father. </p><p>Temperance <br>• Silence <br>• Order <br>• Resolution <br>• Frugality <br>• Industry <br>• Sincerity <br>• Justice <br>• Moderation <br>• Cleanliness <br>• Tranquility <br>• Chastity <br>• Humility </p></div>


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<p>1913 - Suffragette throws herself under the King's horse. 1969 - Feminists storm Miss World. Now - Caitlin Moran rewrites "The Female Eunuch" from a bar stool and demands to know why pants are getting smaller. There's never been a better time to be a woman: we have the vote and the Pill, and we haven't been burnt as witches since 1727. However, a few nagging questions do remain...Why are we supposed to get Brazilians? Should you get Botox? Do men secretly hate us? What should you call your vagina? Why does your bra hurt? And why does everyone ask you when you're going to have a baby? Part memoir, part rant, Caitlin Moran answers these questions and more in "How To Be A Woman" - following her from her terrible 13th birthday ('I am 13 stone, have no friends, and boys throw gravel at me when they see me') through adolescence, the workplace, strip-clubs, love, fat, abortion, TopShop, motherhood and beyond.</p>


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<div><p>JUST ANOTHER NIGHT IN SIN CITY</p><p>Candace Steele is as tough as she is alluring. For her, killing vampires isn’t just a job–it’s personal: She’s still haunted by erotic memories of an all-consuming affair with Ash, a seductive vampire who thrilled her–and then nearly destroyed her. Now, working undercover in a Las Vegas casino, she seduces the most powerful undead–right before she drives a stake through their unbeating hearts.</p><p>When hot-ticket singer Temptation McCoy sweeps into town for a major concert, Candace is tapped for security. But after meeting Temptation, Candace feels the cold, tingling sensation that can mean only one thing: There’s a vampire in the diva’s entourage. To complicate matters, Ash suddenly appears in Sin City, vowing to do anything and everything to draw Candace back into his arms. Overwhelmed by desire and suspicion, she lets down her guard . . . a move that could cost Candace her life. </p></div>


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<div><p class="description">Werewolf homicide detective Luna Wilder guards the fine line that separates Nocturne City's humans from the weres and witches that roam its streets. Now, Luna must thwart a new evil more dangerous than anything she's ever encountered.</p><p class="description">WITCH CRAFT Someone, or some"thing," is setting fire to the homes of the city's most infamous non-humans, racking up a body count that's growing by the day. And strange, otherworldly creatures no one has seen before--selkies trolls and harpies--are causing chaos throughout the city. Racing to stop the carnage, Luna turns to sexy federal agent Will Fagin for help. As they work to uncover the source of the bloodshed, Luna's attraction for Will deepens. But just as she learns Will's darkest secret, Nocturne City is thrust into total chaos--leaving Luna and Will in a path of destruction they may not be able to stop...or survive.</p></div>


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<p>Her name is Pete Caldecott. She was just sixteen when she met Jack Winter, a gorgeous, larger-than-life mage who thrilled her with his witchcraft. Then a spirit Jack summoned killed him before Pete’s eyes—or so she thought. Now a detective[MSOffice2] , Pete is investigating the case of a young girl kidnapped from the streets of London. A tipster’s chilling prediction has led police directly to the child…but when Pete meets the informant, she’s shocked to learn he is none other than Jack. Strung out on heroin, Jack a shadow of his former self. But he’s able to tell Pete exactly where Bridget’s kidnappers are hiding: in the supernatural shadow-world of the fey. Even though she’s spent years disavowing the supernatural, Pete follows Jack into the invisible fey underworld, where she hopes to discover the truth about what happened to Bridget—and what happened to Jack on that dark day so long ago…</p>


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<p class="description">When werewolves from Nocturne City's oldest packs start showing up shot through the head execution-style, police officer Luna Wilder must find out what's killing them and why...before she becomes the next victim. Luna traces the killings to a band of shapeshifters made of smoke and shadow who drink the blood of their victims for strength. Believed to exist only in legend, their race is all too realand now their leader, Lucas Kennuka, is out to wrest Luna's heart from her beloved Dmitri. To make matters worse, Dmitri is suffering from a mysterious illness brought on by a demon bite, and his condition grows more grave with each passing day. Now Luna must rely on Lucas to defeat an invisibleenemya serial were-killer bringing death and destruction to all who stand in its path...</p>


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In the shadows of Nocturne City, witches lurk and demons prowl, and homicide detective Luna Wilder must keep the peace--while living life as a werewolf. Now bodies are turning up all over town, the brutal murders linked by a cryptic message: "We see with empty eyes...""PURE BLOOD"""To make matters worse for Luna, she can't get wolfishly handsome Dmitri Sandovsky out of her mind. The last time he helped her with a case, Dmitri suffered a demon bite that infected him with a mysterious illness...and now his pack elders have forbidden him from associating with Luna. But she'll need his help when high-level witches start turning up slaughtered. Because a war is brewing between rival clans of blood witches and caster witches--a magical gang war with the power to burn Nocturne City to the ground. Praise for the Nocturne City series: ""Pure Blood" pounds along hard on the heels of "Night Life," and is every bit as much fun as the first in the series. With a gutsy, likable protagonist and a well-made fantasy world, "Pure Blood" is real enough to make you think twice about locking your doors at night. A swiftly-paced plot, a growing cast of solid supporting characters, and a lead character you can actually care about--Kittredge is a winner." --Jim Butcher"Dark and cutting edge" --"Romantic Times""I loved the mystery and the smart, gutsy heroine."--Karen Chance"" "Hot, hip, and fast-paced...I couldn't put it down"--Lilith Saintcrow


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<p class="description">Jack Winter's deadly past has come back to haunt him...and his only hope lies in the shadows of Black London, the supernatural underworld teeming with dark magic and fey glamour."Thirteen years ago, Jack Winter lay dying in a graveyard. Jack called upon a demon and traded his soul for his life...and now the demon is back to collect its due. But Jack has finally found something to live for. Her name is Pete Caldecott--and because of her, Jack's not going to Hell without a fight.DEMON BOUNDPete doesn't know about Jack's bargain, but she does know that something bigger and far more dangerous than Jack's demon is growing in the Black. Old gods are stirring and spirits are rising--and Jack doesn't stand a chance of stopping them without Pete's help...Praise for the Black London series: "This dark tale takes supernatural shadows to the next level." --"Publishers Weekly""Crackles with conflict and perilous magic...For those who love their urban fantasy hypnotically treacherous, this book's for you!"</p>


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The first book in a thrilling, addictive new series by a talented new voice in dark fantasy. Welcome to Nocturne City, where werewolves, black magicians, and witches prowl the streets at night... Among them is Luna Wilder, a tough-as-nails police officer whose job is to keep the peace. As an Insoli werewolf, Luna travels without a pack and must rely on instinct alone. And she's just been assigned to find the ruthless killer behind a string of ritualistic murdersa killer with ties to an escaped demon found only in legend...until now. But when she investigates prime suspect Dmitri Sandovsky, she can't resist his wolfish charms. Pack leader of a dangerous clan of Redbacks, Dimitri sends her animal instincts into overdrive and threatens her fiercely-guarded independence. But Luna and Dimiri will need to rely on each other as they're plunged into an ancient demon underworld and pitted against an expert black magician with the power to enslave them for eternity...


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As part of Nocturne City's Supernatural Crime Squad, werewolf homicide detective Luna Wilder is no stranger to scandal. But the brutal, high-profile murder of a young teen were, Lily Dubois, shakes her to her core. And it will pit Luna against the most wicked enemy she's ever encountered...Daemon's MarkWhen the Dubois investigation turns up an unexpected connection to the Russian mob, Luna finds herself heading down a terrifying path of no return. Soon she is held captive by the very evil she hunts--one that reaches far across the borders of Nocturne City to the seedy brothels of Europe and beyond. Now, with street smarts, seduction, and a sixth-sense for danger as her only weapons, Luna will enlist the help of her former lover Dmitri--who has his own reasons for bringing down this crime ring--and risk it all in the ultimate showdown.Praise for the Nocturne City series: "A nonstop thriller laced with ferociously deadly menace." --"Romantic Times""I loved the mystery and the smart, gutsy heroine."--Karen Chance"" "Hot, hip, and fast-paced."--Lilith Saintcrow


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<div><p>Eric Thompson’s wolf howl can ruin electronics and send aircraft tumbling from the sky.  Considered dangerous even by his fellow Sazi, Eric has become a lone wolf, living in self-imposed isolation.  Yet when the very foundations of Sazi life come under attack, Eric knows he must defend his fellow shapeshifters at any cost.</p><p>Attacked by a band of vicious Sazi, Holly Sanchez should have died.  Instead, she survives, emerging as a powerful Sazi healer. Sent to return Eric to the Sazi world he rejected, Holly finds herself by his side as the lone wolf tracks the monster that is killing the Sazi.  Holly soon realizes she must make a choice—between a Sazi life with Eric, and life as a “normal” human being.  But first, she must survive long enough to make that choice—and she must save her people, and the world, from evil. </p></div>


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<p class="description">C.S. Lewis has once again worked his magic in this sixth book of The Chronicles of Narnia. This master of fantasy brings us ever farther in an unforgettable world filled with adventure and mystery.</p>


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<p class="description">The adventure begins Narnia ... where Talking Beasts walk ... where a witch waits ... where a new world is about to be born. On a daring quest to save a life, two friends are hurled into another world, where an evil sorceress seeks to enslave them. But then the lion Aslan's song weaves itself into the fabric of a new land, a land that will be known as Narnia. And in Narnia, all things are possible ...</p>


