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How to be The Model Wife:1) Your Husband's happiness is your happiness2) Should you be His second wife, befriend His first wife3) Never ask Him when He'll be home4) Never ask Him where He's been Twentysomething Poppy became a cliche when an accidental pregnancy presented her with a forty-nine-year-old husband. But Luke Norton isn't any old husband - he's the anchorman for television's Seven O'Clock News and his ruggedly handsome face is beloved by the nation. Life isn't coming up roses thanks to the first Mrs Norton's popular column, 'My Husband, The Bimbo and Me'. Luke's having a mid-life crisis and going AWOL, his former lovers are circling like sharks and Poppy's left holding the baby, her once glitzy modelling career a horribly dim memory. It's time for her to fight back and show the world exactly what she's made of. . .


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

In his award-winning bestseller *The World of Normal Boys,* K.M. Soehnlein introduced readers to the richly compelling voice of teenager Robin MacKenzie. In *Robin and Ruby,* he revisits Robin and his younger sister, masterfully depicting the turbulence of the mid-1980s--and that fleeting time between youth and adulthood, when everything we will become can be shaped by one unforgettable weekend.

At twenty-years-old, Robin MacKenzie is waiting for his life to start. Waiting until his summer working at a Philly restaurant is over and he's back with his boyfriend Peter. . .until the spring semester when he'll travel to London for an acting program. . .until the moment when the confidence he fakes starts to feel real. 

Then, one hot June weekend, Robin gets dumped by his boyfriend and quickly hits the road with his best friend George to find his teenaged sister, Ruby, who's vanished from a party at the Jersey Shore. For years, his friendship with George has been the most solid thing in Robin's life. But lately there are glimpses of another George, someone Robin barely knows and can no longer take for granted. 

Ruby is on an adventure of her own, dressing in black, declaring herself an atheist, pulling away from the boyfriend she doesn't love--not the way she loves the bands whose fractured songs are the soundtrack to her life. Then a chance encounter puts Ruby in pursuit of a seductive but troubled boy who might be the key to her happiness, or a disaster waiting to happen. 

As their paths converge, Robin and Ruby confront the sadness of their shared past and rebuild the bonds that still run deep. In prose that is lyrical, compulsively readable, and exquisitely honest, K.M. Soehnlein brilliantly captures a family redefining itself and explores those moments common to us all--when freedom bumps up against responsibility, when sex blurs the line between friendship and love, and when what you stand for becomes more important than who you were raised to be.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**Four of today's hottest urban fantasy writers together for the first time! ** 



 From today's most provocative authors come four tales of urban fantasy and paranormal romance exploring body art that is more than it seems-in a world of magic and mayhem that always leaves its mark. 



 This captivating tattoo theme surrounds each author's popular characters and worlds: **Karen Chance**'s war mage Lia de Croissets, **Marjorie M. Liu**'s demon-hunter Maxine Kiss, **Yasmine Galenorn**'s Otherworld Intelligence Agency operative Camille D'Artigo, and **Eileen Wilk**'s Lupi world.


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"Karen Stabiner's GETTING IN [is] humorous (in a wry kind of way) but  pointed and surprisingly engaging novel about parental and teen  obsessiveness regarding the college application process in independent  schools and the debilitating, distorting impact of it on kids and  families. Must read for college-prep kids and their parents."   --Patrick Basset, President, National Association of Independent Schools

"A savvy insider's take on a high-stakes, cutthroat campaign--except it's not about getting into the White House, but about getting into the perfect college. Stabiner's sharp, witty tale is as essential as a good SAT prep course--but a hell of a lot more fun."  --Arianna Huffington    

"*Getting In* takes an edgy, knowing look inside the lives and minds of love-crazed parents--galvanized equally by desperation and devotion--as they try with all their might to thrust their cherished children into the universities of their dreams."  --Carolyn See, *Making a Literary Life*    

"Karen Stabiner has clearly been through the crazy circus that is college admissions, and lucky for the rest of us she took pitch-perfect notes. You will come away from her book reassured that all the other families of applicants are even loonier than yours--or reassured that you fit right in. What do you *mean*, this is fiction?"  --Lisa Belkin, *New York Times* parenting writer (and hardy survivor of her son's college application process)  

Q: What does a parent need to survive the college application process?    

A. A sense of humor.  B. A therapist on 24-hour call.  C. A large bank balance.  D. All of the above.    

*Getting In* is the roller-coaster story of five very different Los Angeles families united by a single obsession: acceptance at a top college, preferably one that makes their friends and neighbors green with envy. At an elite private school and a nearby public school, families devote themselves to getting their seniors into the perfect school--even if the odds are stacked against them, even if they can't afford the $50,000 annual price tag, even if the effort requires a level of deceit, and even if the object of all this attention wants to go somewhere else.  

*Getting In* is a delightfully smart comedy of class and entitlement, of love and ambition, set in a world where a fat envelope from a top school matters more than anything . . . almost.


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THE SPURNED VISCOUNTESS by Shelley Munro is a historical romance set in 1720 England.It is the revised version of The Second Seduction. It is well written with depth, details and is fast paced. It has betrayal, tragedy, sensuality, romance, suspense,paranormal, secrets, treachery and second chances. The hero, Lucien, is scarred, strong, determined to find the murderer of his first wife, memory lost, is married for convenience, and finds himself falling in love with his beautiful new wife. The heroine, Rosalind, is beautiful, comely to some, has the gift of sight(which people claim she is a witch),a healer, the spurned by others who believe her to be a witch, looking for love, marriage, children, happiness and finds herself married to the scarred, less than happy viscount, Lucien. Together they set out to find the mysterious "Hawk", a smuggler, evil man with secrets of his own.Lucien, although, fights not to love or care about Rosalind, finds he is falling in love with her. Rosalind helps Lucien remember his past, and move on toward his future with her.


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A sweeping novel set in war-torn 1928 China, with a star-crossed love story at its center. In a city full of thieves and Communists, danger and death, spirited young Lydia Ivanova has lived a hard life. Always looking over her shoulder, the sixteen-year-old must steal to feed herself and her mother, Valentina, who numbered among the Russian elite until Bolsheviks murdered most of them, including her husband. As exiles, Lydia and Valentina have learned to survive in a foreign land. Often, Lydia steals away to meet with the handsome young freedom fighter Chang An Lo. But they face danger: Chiang Kai Shek's troops are headed toward Junchow to kill Reds like Chang, who has in his possession the jewels of a tsarina, meant as a gift for the despot's wife. The young pair's all-consuming love can only bring shame and peril upon them, from both sides. Those in power will do anything to quell it. But Lydia and Chang are powerless to end it.


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Om haar doodzieke medegevangene midden 20e eeuw te kunnen redden uit een Siberisch werkkamp besluit een vrouw te ontsnappen en een beroep te doen op dier jeugdliefde.


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China, 1929. For years Lydia Ivanova believed her father was killed by the Bolsheviks. But when she learns he is captive in Stalin-controlled Russia, the fiery-haired girl is willing to leave everything behind - even her Chinese lover, Chang An Lo. Journeying with her half-brother Alexei, Lydia begins a dangerous search. Tension grows between the two, for while Alexei is searching for his past, Lydia is looking for her future. But when Alexei disappears, Lydia is left almost penniless in Soviet Russia - and doubting the choices she has made. Surrounded by dangers, she searches for information and soon finds herself entangled with a Russian officer.But Chang An Lo has not forgotten Lydia. He knows things about her father that she does not. And while he races to protect her, she is prepared to risk treacherous consequences to discover the truth . . .


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KATHARINE WEBER is the author of the novels "Triangle, The Little Women, The Music" "Lesson, "and "Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than" "They Appear." She lives in Connecticut with her husband, the cultural historian Nicholas Fox Weber, and is a thesis adviser in the graduate writing program at Columbia University. "From the Hardcover edition."


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**A forensics expert follows the historic evolution of CSI through a century of serial killers.**



 "Katherine Ramsland has brilliantly captured the insights and drama of some fascinating cases" (Dr. Henry Lee) in her previous bestselling books. Now she examines the case histories of twelve of the most notorious serial killers of the last one hundred years, and answers the questions: What clues did they leave behind? How were they eventually caught? How was each twist and turn of their crimes matched by the equally compelling weapons of science and logic?



 From exploring the nineteenth century's earliest investigative tools to remarkable twenty-first century CSI advances, *The Devil's Dozen* provides a fascinating window into the world of those who kill-and those who dedicate their lives to bringing them to justice.


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This Wild West adventure just might be the life she was meant to live.The future is clearly mapped out for New York socialite Eugenia “Gennie” Cooper, but she secretly longs to slip into the boots of her favorite dime-novel heroine and experience just one adventure before settling down. When the opportunity arises, Gennie jumps at the chance to experience the Wild West, but her plans go awry when she is drawn into the lives of silver baron Daniel Beck and his daughter and finds herself caring for them more than is prudent–especially as she’s supposed to go back to New York and marry another man. As Gennie adapts to the rough-and-tumble world of 1880s Colorado, she must decide whether her future lies with the enigmatic Daniel Beck or back home with the life planned for her since birth. The question is whether Daniel’s past–and disgruntled miners bent on revenge–will take that choice away from her. “The Confidential Life of Eugenia Cooper is a fast-paced story full of fun, action, drama, and love.”–Mary Connealy, author of Calico Canyon, Petticoat Ranch, and Gingham Mountain            “If you loved Cathy Marie Hake, give yourself a treat with The Confidential Life of Eugenia Cooper.”–Lauraine Snelling, author of the Red River Series and One Perfect Day


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It's said that if the ravens ever leave the Tower of London, then the Tower will crumble and the kingdom will fall. Resurrected sorcerer Matthew Swift is about to discover that this isn't so far from the truth... One by one, the protective magical wards that guard the city are falling. This is not good news. This array of supernatural defenses - a mix of international tourist attractions and forgotten urban legends - formed a formidable shield that protects the city of London from threats that are known to no one. But what could be so dangerous as to threaten an entire city? Matthew Swift is about to find out. And if he's lucky, he might just live long enough to do something about it...


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A QUICK READ - part of the WORLD BOOK DAY 2009 literacy initiative for emergent readers.March 1928. Freddie Smith is on a motoring holiday in the mountains of south west France. He is caught in a violent storm and his car crashes. He is forced to seek shelter in a boarding house in the nearby village of Axat.There he meets another guest in the tiny hotel, a pale and beautiful young woman called Marie. As the storm rages outside, she explains how the region was ripped apart by wars of religion in the 14th century. She tells how, one terrible night in March 1328, all the inhabitants of Axat were forced to flee from the soldiers into the mountains. The villagers took refuge in a cave, but when the fighting was over, no one came back. Their bodies were never found. Axat itself became a ghost town.When Freddie wakes the following morning, Marie has gone. Worse still, his car will take several days to repair and he has to stay at the boarding house for a few days more. To pass the time, he explores the mountains. Then he realises it is almost 600 years to the day since the villagers disappeared. He decides to go and look for the cave himself. Perhaps, he thinks, he might even find Marie? It is a decision he will live to regret.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**By the author of the *New York Times*-bestselling *Labyrinth*, a story of two lives touched by war and transformed by courage. ** 



 In the winter of 1928, still seeking some kind of resolution to the horrors of World War I, Freddie is traveling through the beautiful but forbidding French Pyrenees. During a snowstorm, his car spins off the mountain road. Dazed, he stumbles through the woods, emerging in a tiny village, where he finds an inn to wait out the blizzard. There he meets Fabrissa, a lovely young woman also mourning a lost generation. 



 Over the course of one night, Fabrissa and Freddie share their stories. By the time dawn breaks, Freddie will have unearthed a tragic, centuries-old mystery, and discovered his own role in the life of this remote town.


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**The dramatic story of the real-life murder that inspired the birth of modern detective fiction. 

**In June of 1860 three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. The crime horrified all England and led to a national obsession with detection, ironically destroying, in the process, the career of perhaps the greatest detective in the land.

At the time, the detective was a relatively new invention; there were only eight detectives in all of England and rarely were they called out of London, but this crime was so shocking, as Kate Summerscale relates in her scintillating new book, that Scotland Yard sent its best man to investigate, Inspector Jonathan Whicher. 

Whicher quickly believed the unbelievable—that someone within the family was responsible for the murder of young Saville Kent. Without sufficient evidence or a confession, though, his case was circumstantial and he returned to London a broken man. Though he would be vindicated five years later, the real legacy of Jonathan Whicher lives on in fiction: the tough, quirky, knowing, and all-seeing detective that we know and love today…from the cryptic Sgt. Cuff in Wilkie Collins’s *The Moonstone *to Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade. 

*The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher *is a provocative work of nonfiction that reads like a Victorian thriller, and in it Kate Summerscale has fashioned a brilliant, multilayered narrative that is as cleverly constructed as it is beautifully written.


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*New York Times* bestselling author and *Cosmopolitan*'s editor-in-chief returns with a sizzling, page-turning thriller in which an ordinary woman flees the scene of a murder—and realizes it's not just the law that's hunting her.   

 When Lake Warren learns that her husband, Jack, is suing for full custody of their two kids four months after their separation, she's pretty certain that things can't get any worse. The upside is that she's working with the Advanced Fertility Center as a marketing consultant, alongside the attractive, flirtatious Dr. Keaton. But the morning after their one-night stand, Lake finds Keaton with his throat slashed and discovers that things can indeed become worse—they can become deadly.  

 So as not to jeopardize her case for custody, Lake is forced to lie to the police. Having just been intimate with a man who has been murdered, and wanting to protect herself from being charged with the crime, she begins her own search for the truth. Meanwhile, the police start looking at her closely, people at the clinic start treating her with hostility, and strange clues begin dropping—quite literally—on her doorstep, and Lake realizes that she is dangerously close to dark secrets, both about Keaton and the clinic. But can Lake stop what she's started before it's too late?


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From the internationally acclaimed author of *An Unquiet Mind,* an exquisite, haunting meditation on mortality, grief, and loss.Perhaps no one but Kay Redfield Jamison—who combines the acute perceptions of a psychologist with a writerly elegance and passion—could bring such a delicate touch to the subject of losing a spouse to cancer. In direct, straightforward, and at times strikingly lyrical prose, Jamison looks back at her relationship with her husband, Richard Wyatt, a renowned scientist who battled debilitating dyslexia to become one of the foremost experts on schizophrenia. And with her characteristic honesty, candor, wit, and simplicity, she describes his death, her own long, difficult struggle with grief, and her efforts to distinguish grief from depression.But she also recalls the great joy that Richard brought her during the nearly twenty years they had together. Wryly humorous anecdotes mingle with bittersweet memories of a relationship that was passionate and loving—if troubled on occasion by her manic-depressive (bipolar) illness—as Jamison reveals the ways in which her husband encouraged her to write openly about her mental illness and, through his courage and grace taught her to live fully.A penetrating psychological study of grief viewed from deep inside the experience itself, *Nothing Was the Same* is also a deeply moving memoir by a superb writer.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Keith Donohue’s first novel, *The Stolen Child*, was a national bestseller hailed as “captivating” (USA Today), “luminous and thrilling” (Washington Post), and “wonderful...So spare and unsentimental that it’s impossible not to be moved (Newsweek. His new novel, *Angels of Destruction*, opens on a winter’s night, when a young girl appears at the home of Mrs. Margaret Quinn, a widow who lives alone. A decade earlier, she had lost her only child, Erica, who fled with her high school sweetheart to join a radical student group known as the Angels of Destruction. Before Margaret answers the knock in the dark hours, she whispers a prayer and then makes her visitor welcome at the door. The girl, who claims to be nine years old and an orphan with no place to go, beguiles Margaret, offering some solace, some compensation, for the woman’s loss. Together, they hatch a plan to pass her off as her newly found granddaughter, Norah Quinn, and enlist Sean Fallon, a classmate and heartbroken boy, to guide her into the school and town. Their conspiracy is vulnerable not only to those children and neighbors intrigued by Norah’s mysterious and magical qualities but by a lone figure shadowing the girl who threatens to reveal the child’s true identity and her purpose in Margaret’s life. Who are these strangers really? And what is their connection to the past, the Angels, and the long-missing daughter? Angels of Destruction is an unforgettable story of hope and fear, heartache and redemption. The saga of the Quinn family unfolds against an America wracked by change. As it delicately dances on the line between the real and the imagined, this mesmerizing new novel confirms Keith Donohue’s standing as one of our most inspiring and inventive novelists.


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Tanaya Shah longs for the wonderful world of Paris, the world that she fell in love with while   watching Audrey Hepburn in *Sabrina*—so when a proposal comes along for an arranged   marriage with a man who is living in Paris, Tanaya seizes the chance. But once she lands in the   city, she shuns the match. A stroke of luck turns Tanaya into a supermodel, and soon the   traditional girl is cavorting with rock stars and is disowned by her family.  

  In her new whirlwind life, she is reintroduced to the man she was supposed to marry, the man she   now realizes she should have never walked away from, the man who is her only connection to the   family she longs to reconcile with, if only it’s not too late.


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There are companies that create waves and those that ride or are drowned by them. This is a ride on the Google wave, and the fullest account of how it formed and crashed into traditional media businesses. With unprecedented access to Googles founders and executives, as well as to those in media who are struggling to keep their heads above water, Ken Auletta reveals how the industry is being disrupted and redefined. Auletta goes inside Googles closed-door meetings, introducing Googles notoriously private founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as well as those who work with and against them. In Googled, the reader discovers the secret sauce of the company's success and why the worlds of new and old media often communicate as if residents of different planets. It may send chills down traditionalists spines, but its a crucial roadmap to the future of media business: the Google story may well be the canary in the coal mine.Googled is candid, objective and authoritative. Crucially, its not just a history or reportage: its ahead of the curve and unlike any other Google books, which tend to have been near-histories, somewhat starstruck, now out of date or which fail to look at the full synthesis of business and technology.


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Is falling in love the beginning . . . or the end? Beautiful Creatures, a beautiful new young adult book by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl.In Ethan Wate's hometown there lies the darkest of secrets . . .There is a girl.Slowly, she pulled the hood from her head. Green eyes, black hair. Lena Duchannes.There is a curse.On the Sixteenth Moon, the Sixteenth Year, the Book will take what it's been promised.And no one can stop it.In the end, there is a grave.Lena and Ethan become bound together by a deep, powerful love. But Lena is cursed and on her sixteenth birthday, her fate will be decided.Ethan never even saw it coming.Web site: beautifulcreaturesthebook.com


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Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book AwardAn Orange Prize Finalist Nagasaki, August 9, 1945. Hiroko Tanaka watches her lover from the veranda as he leaves. Sunlight streams across Urakami Valley, and then the world goes white. In the devastating aftermath of the atomic bomb, Hiroko leaves Japan in search of new beginnings. From Delhi, amid India's cry for independence from British colonial rule, to New York City in the immediate wake of 9/11, to the novel's astonishing climax in Afghanistan, a violent history casts its shadow the entire world over. Sweeping in its scope and mesmerizing in its evocation of time and place, this is a tale of love and war, of three generations, and three world-changing historic events. Burnt Shadows is a story for our time by "a writer of immense ambition and strength. . . . This is an absorbing novel that commands in the reader a powerful emotional and intellectual response" (Salman Rushdie). Kamila Shamsie was born in 1973 in Karachi. She has studied and taught in the United States. Two of her previous novels, "Kartography "and "Broken Verses," have won awards from Pakistan's Academy of Letters. She writes for "The Guardian" (UK) and frequently broadcasts on the BBC. Anisfield-Wolf Book Prize Winner for FictionShortlisted for the Orange Prize for FictionHiroko Tanaka is twenty-one and in love with the man she is to marry, Konrad Weiss. As she steps onto her veranda, wrapped in a kimono with three black cranes swooping across the back, her world is suddenly and irrevocably altered. In the numbing aftermath of the atomic bomb that obliterates everything she has known, all that remains are the bird-shaped burns on her back, an indelible reminder of the world she has lost. In search of new beginnings, two years later, Hiroko travels to Delhi. It is there that her life will become intertwined with that of Konrad's half sister, Elizabeth, her husband, James Burton, and their employee Sajjad Ashraf, from whom she starts to learn Urdu. With the partition of India, and the creation of Pakistan, Hiroko will find herself displaced once again, in a world where old wars are replaced by new conflicts. But the shadows of history--personal and political--are cast over the interrelated worlds of the Burtons, the Ashrafs, and the Tanakas as they are transported from Pakistan to New York and, in the novel's astonishing climax, to Afghanistan in the immediate wake of 9/11. The ties that have bound these families together over decades and generations are tested by wars and disasters, with unforeseeable consequences. "Shamsie stitches together a sweeping saga that begins with a young Japanese woman in wartime Nagasaki and ends, more than half a century later, with a Pakistani prisoner about to be shipped to Guantanamo Bay. The tale unfolds through the lives of two unusually multinational (and multilingual) families: the Weiss-Burtons (German, British and American) and the Ashraf-Tanakas (Indian/Pakistani and Japanese). Not counting minor detours, their triumphs and tragedies span five countries and, without giving too much away, at least three world-changing historical events. On the face of it, collapsing so broad a canvas in a relatively slender novel is a recipe for chaos worthy of a subcontinental urban planner. But in Ms. Shamsie's self-assured hands this does not come to pass. The story line remains taut, the characters vividly etched. Even the implausible romance at the heart of the novel--between Hiroko Tanaka, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, and Sajjad Ashraf, a young aesthete forced to emigrate from Delhi to Karachi in the wake of the 1947 partition of British India--is somehow rendered believable. Ms. Shamsie is . . . as a cartographer of culture. She notes, for instance, that in Indo-Muslim society the emotional terrain of mourning is often communal rather than personal; Urdu contains no phrase for leaving a person alone with his grief. The siren call of modernity--with its implicit privileging of the nuclear family over the extended clan--can be deeply disturbing. As the matriarch of the undivided Ashraf family in pre-partition Delhi declares archly, 'maa-dern' is a word 'created only to cut you off from your people and your past.' Sajjad's failure to try sushi after 35 years with Hiroko tells you all you need to know about the persistence of inherited attitudes that span everything from the loyalty of taste buds to the mental geography of marriage. In the end, for all its insights into the cultural and familial, this is above all a political novel. The choice of a Japanese protagonist allows the author to question much of the received wisdom of what used to be called the War on Terror. As a young teacher in Nagasaki, Hiroko has known adolescent boys as eager to embrace the cult of martyrdom as any young mujahideen. In General Zia's concerted effort to drag Islam out of the home and into the public square, she sees the echo of Japanese emperor worship. The implication of these observations, of course, is that criticism of Islam is unwarranted. Not that long ago it was followers of Shintoism who were turning aircraft into missiles while dreaming of immortality . . . A cleverly constructed and powerfully imagined novel. Ultimately, as with any work of the imagination, the color of the politics matters much less than the quality of the prose."--"The"" ""Wall Street Journal Online, "Asia edition "Kamila Shamsie is a writer of immense ambition and strength. She understands a great deal about the ways in which the world's many tragedies and histories shape one another, and about how human beings can try to avoid being crushed by their fate and can discover their humanity, even in the fiercest combat zones of the age. "Burnt Shadows" is an absorbing novel that commands, in the reader, a powerful emotional and intellectual response."--Salman Rushdie ""Burnt Shadows" is audacious in its ambition, epic in its scope. A startling expansion of the author's intentions, imagination and craftsmanship. One can only admire the huge advances she has made, and helped us to make, in understanding the new global tensions."--Anita Desai "In this brilliant book Kamila Shamsie opens a vista onto the century we have just lived through--pointing out its terror and its solace. She is so extraordinary a writer that she also offers hints about the century we are living through--the dark corners that contain challenges, as well as the paths that lead to beauty's lair."--Nadeem Aslam, author of "Maps for Lost Lovers """Burnt Shadows" is a beautiful, beautiful book. I was entirely swept up in the story, and I feel, now that I've (so reluctantly) put it down, that I have traveled the world and spent the past six decades with Hiroko and her family. The book speaks boldly and powerfully of our age; I know it will stay with me for a long time to come."--Tahmima Anam, author of "The Golden Age ""An epic tale of two families whose lives are intertwined by conflict. As a young woman, Hiroko Tanaka survives the bombing of Nagasaki, which takes the life of her first love, German-born Konrad Weiss. Physically and mentally scarred, Hiroko flees to Konrad's sister Elizabeth, who lives with her English husband James Burton in Delhi. Sajjad Ashraf, who frequents the Burton household, gives Urdu lessons to Hiroko, and they fall in love. But arranged marriages are traditional in his Muslim family, so the couple elopes and flees to Istanbul. Later, after Partition ends Sajjad's hopes of returning to Delhi, they move to Karachi. There Hiroko bears a son, Raza, who grows into a precocious youth with a passion for languages. With the appearance at their door of James and Elizabeth's son Harry, the lines of the two families cross once more. Raza flubs a final exam and deviates from his college-bound path to befriend a young Afghani smuggler, with whom he attempts to join the mujahideen. Shamsie builds vivid contemporary scenes on a rich and sometimes sordid history; the modern characters' struggles attain tragic, even mythic resonance as parents' ordeals are visited on their children. Wit, formidable imagination and intricate, well-worked characterizations distinguish the twisty narrative. Raza experiences mixed emotions as he travels through the blasted hinterlands with Afghani arms smugglers. In a world fraught with duplicity and inside deals among militant tribesmen, military contractors and CIA operatives, he learns that morality is anything but straightforward. But the struggles of zealots and mercenaries are dwarfed by Hiroko's titanic journey. Having survived and suffered so much, she finds herself sitting with a crossword puzzle in a West Village bistro, contemplating the grand and hellish pattern of her loved ones' lives as she considers with horror the threat of nuclear proliferation between India and Pakistan. With a rare combination of skill and sensitivity, Shamsie generates pathos for outsiders and the displaced."--"Kirkus Reviews ""An engrossing story of resilience and humanity in the face of crushing tragedy, Shamsie's fifth novel follows the interconnected lives of two families brought together in Nagasaki near the end of World War II. Their fates are linked for 60 years through several countries and ultimately to a somewhat paranoid New York following 9/11. The allusion to recent historical events is not simply an overt device on which to hang a particular political viewpoint; these events are integral to the personal narratives presented here. Shamsie explores the meanings of cultural identity through characters who endure sacrifice, betrayal, and human-made disaster as they live and work in countries foreign to them. This critically acclaimed Pakistani author, who writes in English, is a powerful storyteller who deserves a wider U.S. audience. Readers who appreciate the cross-cultural scope and insight into global tensions in the works of Khaled Hosseini and Salman Rushdie will thoroughly enjoy this novel. Highly recommended."--Gwen Vredevoogd, "Library Journal" "Shamsie takes readers on a tour de force in this examination of the impact of war, following a trajectory from the devastation of Nagasaki in WWII through the conflict-ridden formation of Pakistan in the late 1940s to post-9/11 Manhattan and war-torn Afghanistan. Konrad Weiss, living in Nagasaki in the summer of 1945, hires a local woman, Hiroko Tanaka, to help him write a book about the city. The romance that blossoms is cut short when the atom bomb falls, killing Konrad, and after a while, Hiroko, feeling she can no longer stay in her country, travels to India to find Konrad's sister, Ilse, the wife of a British lawyer enjoying the privileges of the British raj's final days. From there, Shamsie brilliantly interweaves the lives of an array of characters as she brings the story forward to the 1980s, then to the beginning of the 21st century, exploring the clashes between loyalty to family, homeland and cause. Shamsie's unsparing look at how individuals respond when war affects their world makes for an intriguing, heartrending tale of human connection."--"Publishers Weekly" (starred review)


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In 1321, the English town of Ulewic teeters between survival and destruction, faith and doubt, God and demons. Against this intense backdrop, a group of women have formed a beguinage, a self-sustaining community of women. Led by the strong-willed Servant Martha, these women are committed to a code of celibacy and prayer, hard work and charity that is unsanctioned by the all-powerful church. Still, the villagers have come to rely on this remarkable group of women for their very lives. And seeking shelter among them now is the youngest daughter of Ulewic's lord, a man who holds power over them all. But when a series of natural calamities strikes, the beguinage's enemies make their move, stirring the superstitious villagers with dark rumors of unspeakable depravities and unleashing upon the defiant all-female community the full force of their vengeance in the terrifying form of the Owl Killers. Men cloaked in masks and secrecy, ruling with violence and intimidation--the Owl Killers draw battle lines. In this village ravaged by flood and disease, the women of the beguinage must draw upon their deepest strength if they are to overcome the raging storm of long-held secrets and shattering lies.


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London in 1900 is a sprawling, chaotic web of change and expansion, perfect for a man like Denton, an American with a violent past seeking anonymity as an outsider. But his notoriety as the author of several dark novels—and the well-known story that, decades before, he had gunned down four men in the American West—sometimes brings unwanted visitors to his door. When a terrified man shows up one evening and says that he is being pursued by the long-gone Jack the Ripper, Denton dismisses him as one more victim of London’s lunacy. But then the mutilated body of a teenaged prostitute named Stella Minter is found in London’s East End. . . .        Disappointed by the lack of police concern, Denton determines to pursue the murderer, even after it’s clear that he’s become the next target. As Denton begins to peel away the layers of the lurid and horrifying murder, he finds himself exploring the dark underbelly of the bursting metropolis, a place so vast that Denton is forced to follow nothing but his instincts through the maze of London—its pubs, its police offices, its dark alleys and disreputable neighborhoods—to find a murderer who is himself an agent of the city’s cancerous growth. And along the way Denton is lucky enough to find an ally in a woman with a past as haunted and a spirit as independent as his own.        Kenneth Cameron has brought turn-of-the-century London vividly to life in this intelligent and compelling crime novel. The Frightened Man delves far deeper than the mere circumstances of a murder to investigate the unseen—the secrets harbored in London’s immeasurable streets and in the dark side of human nature.


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For more than two years, he held Seattle in a terror grip - a cold-blooded killer who abducted young mothers right in front of their sons and murdered them execution style. Then, as suddenly as the killings began, they seemed to stop. Susan Blanchette is looking forward to a relaxing weekend getaway with her fiancee, Allen, and young son, Matthew. But something about the remote lake house doesn't feel right. A woman vanished from the area a year ago, and now Susan thinks she's spotted someone lurking around the property. And when Allen disappears, her fear grows. A psychopath has returned, ready to strike again. Someone who can't resist the urge to kill, who derives pleasure from others' pain, and who is drawing nearer to Susan as each minute of the weekend ticks by. But she's just one pawn at the heart of a killer's deadly game - a killer who is unrelenting, unstoppable, and absolutely vicious.


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Summoned home from Zimbabwe, Sophie Walker has returned to southern Ontario to nurse her dying mother. Her mother's farm borders on a tacky tourist spot called "Safari," and across from the kitchen window Sophie sees a herd of the immense Asian elephants playing in the snow. When the elephant keeper invites her to join in caring for the herd, she discovers a new human-animal relationship by recording and playing back the infrasound rumblings, bellows, and trumpets of the elephants. As she and her mother try to decode an Elephant-English dictionary, Sophie slowly uncovers an elephant culture, one which simultaneously honors the herd and the individual with Zen-like acceptance.


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How do you deal with someone you can't avoid and who makes it their business to constantly irk you? And how do you forgive yourself for getting involved with them in the first place?              How do you forgive yourself for surviving a fatal accident when deep inside, you believe you were the cause, and then someone unknown to you exploits that belief in order to keep you from discovering the truth?               Pam Harrington and Tom Jarrod shared a past that tore them apart fourteen years ago. Since then, they have separately struggled to right the individual wrongs they'd committed. Then an opportunity presents itself which could give them a second chance at love and a life together. But only if they can finally resolve the issues from their pasts.               Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.   Proverbs 3:5-6


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A captivating, heartwarming debut novel.   After the loss of her fiancé Steven, Jenny Beckinsdale has more than a broken heart to deal with-their fledgling seaplane service is going under. In debt to Steven's best friend and fellow Navy pilot, she plans to convince the sexy, cynical flyboy to help save the business...and in the process these two lost souls may find they're saving each other.


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Whoever saves a single life saves the entire world . . .  

 In 1592, as the Catholic Church and the Protestants battle for control of the soul of Europe, Prague is a relatively safe harbor in the religious storm. Ruled by Emperor Rudolph II, the city is a refuge for Jews who live within the gated walls of its ghetto. But their lives are jeopardized when a young Christian girl is found with her throat slashed in a Jewish shop on the eve of Passover. Charged with blood libel, the shopkeeper and his family are arrested. All that stands in the way of a rabid Christian mob is a clever Talmudic scholar, newly arrived from Poland, named Benyamin Ben-Akiva. Pleading the shopkeeper's innocence to the city's sheriff, Benyamin is given three days to bring the true killer to justice.  

 But the search will not be easy. Hampered by rabbinic law, and with no allies or connections, Benyamin has only his wits, knowledge, and faith to guide him on his quest—a trail that weaves from the city's teeming streets to the quiet of a shul, from the forbidden back rooms of a ghetto brothel to the emperor's lavish palace.  

 The Talmud says many things in life depend on *mazl*, luck. Fortunately, Benyamin is blessed, for an unlikely group of heroes will risk their own lives to help him discover the truth: Anya, a Christian butcher's daughter; the renowned reformist rabbi Judah Loew; a wise herbal healer known as Kassandra the Bohemian; and even the emperor himself.  

 Who would most profit from the girl's murder—and from having the entire ghetto sealed off? Is the killer a Christian indebted to the girl's apothecary father? Or a messianic Jew bent on the destruction of his people to precipitate the Messiah's coming? The desperate search for answers is complicated by the arrival of a new Holy Inquisitor determined to root out witchcraft and heresy, and reclaim the fractious Bohemian territory for Rome. With time running out, Benyamin must dare the impossible—and commit the unthinkable—to save the Jews of Prague . . . and his own life.  

 Infused with history and spiritual insight, rich in atmosphere and color, *The Fifth Servant* vividly re-creates sixteenth-century Prague—a bustling city where superstition, ignorance, and hatred clash with curiosity, knowledge, and tolerance; a world in which innocent lives are swept away by political and religious struggles, and righteous men and women sacrifice everything in the name of justice and truth.


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Anyone who has dealt with a strong-willed child knows that it is no easy task to turn bad behavior around. But the popularity of TV programs like Supernanny and Nanny 911 shows that parents have had it up to here and are ready to try anything to get their children to behave. Bestselling author and psychologist Dr. Kevin Leman is here to help. Have a New Kid by Friday shows parents how to reverse negative behavior in their children--fast! With his signature wit and encouragement, Dr. Leman offers hope and real, practical, doable strategies for regaining control and becoming the parents they always wanted to be. Focusing on changing a child's attitude, behavior, and character, it contains chapters for each day of the week and a special section with advice on everything from rolling eyes to sibling rivalry to talking back to punching walls and much, much more. This large section of more than 100 specific topics is indexed, allowing parents to flip immediately to any areas of concern for witty, straightforward, and gutsy plans of action.EXCERPT FROM CATALOGI've got news for you. Since the beginning of time, kids have been unionized, and they've got a game plan to drive you bonkers. Don't believe it? Take a look around....In today's society, kids even shorter than a yardstick are calling the shots. Some hedonistic little suckers of the ankle-biter battalion have even graduated to emeritus status and are holding down the hormone group division. Then there's the already-adult children who return home to your cozy little nest and stay and stay and stay.... You know all about that. If you picked up this book, you picked it up for a reason. You'd like to see a few things--or maybe many--change in your house. You may have small concerns, or big concerns, about your child at this point.... I'll be blunt. You got a big job to do as a parent, and a short window to do it in. If you believe that you, as a parent, are to be in healthy authority over your child, this book is for you. If you don't believe that you, as a parent, are to be in healthy authority over your child, put this book down right now and buy another.... But I've got a Midas muffler guarantee for you. If you stick to the simple strategies in this book--strategies that any parent can carry out--you'll have a new kid by Friday. You can have a great kid, and you can be a great parent. Your relationship with your child can change in just one week.


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When Denton, the famous American author and expatriate in turn-of-the-century London, receives a letter from a young woman saying shers"s in danger and needs his help, he doubts therers"s anything he can do. The letter is months old, and was only forwarded to him when the buyer of a painting found it stuck behind the frame. But why did she hide the note instead of sending it? The search for answers leads Denton into the heart of Bohemian London'the world of artists and their models, of brilliance and depravity, where the border between genius and madness is hard to discern but easy to cross. And before he has learned the shocking truth, Denton will discover what itrs"s like to be the object of a lethal obsession and endure a terrifying confrontation with his own demons.


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It is a lost art, passed down by the ancients in great secrecy: Dim-mak. It is death, by the lightest touch of a finger. Sano Ichiro, tenuous in the new regime as the shogun’s second-in-command, does not have the luxury of skepticism?another senior official is dead, a fingerprint lightly glazed into his skin. Sano’s wife Reiko has an investigation of her own: a beautiful, proud, and hopelessly poor woman has confessed to murdering her family. Yet the pieces do not fit, and as Reiko looks deeper into the woman’s life as a hinin?a moral outcast, shunned by the world?inexplicable connections appear between her investigation and Sano’s. As Reiko’s questions spiral her further into the squalor of life as a hinin, Sano and Hirata?his most loyal samurai?pursure their prey, uncovering an intricate tapestry of betrayal woven into the highest levels of the new regime. But they are no match for the one who has mastered dim-mak, a warrior who will strike all those who cross him or his path?even Reiko.


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Tokyo, 1698:** **Sano Ichiro, the samurai detective who has risen to become the shogun's second-in-command, is investigating rumors of a plot to overthrow the ruling regime. But conspiracy theories travel far too close to home when Sano discovers that Lord Mori, heir to the shogun, has been found murdered in his own bed…with Sano's pregnant wife, Reiko, lying naked beside him. Was Reiko Lord Mori's scorned mistress, and vengeful assassin, as Lady Mori alleges? Or is she involved in a stunning hoax with her husband--as the *ghost* of Lord Mori* *has charged? Now, in a desperate race against time, Sano must find the real killer or face execution for treason. . .unless he can solve the mystery of the*** RED CHRYSANTHEMUM***


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Japan, 1699: On a moonlit night on the northern frontier island of Ezogashima, a woman is running through the forest when an arrow strikes her dead. Meanwhile, in the city of Edo, the young son of Sano Ichiro, the samurai detective who has risen to power in the shogun's court, vanishes during a moon-watching festival. When one of Sano's political rivals hints that the boy was kidnapped'and may be in Ezogashima'he and his wife, Reiko, begin a desperate journey to find their son'Śonly to discover that the local ruler, Lord Matsumae, is holding the entire province hostage for another crime: The murder of his mistress. So Sano strikes a deal: He will solve the mistress's murder if Matsumae will free the hostages and return his son. Soon, however, Sano and Reiko find themselves caught up in a dangerous scheme that includes clan warfare, bitter jealousy, and murderous betrayal as they race to unravel the mystery of THE SNOW EMPRESS


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Japan, March 1700. Near a Shinto shrine in the hills, a windstorm knocks down a tree to uncover a human skeleton, long buried and forgotten. Meanwhile, in the nearby city of Edo, troops ambush and attack Lady Reiko, the wife of Sano Ichiro, the samurai detective who has risen to power and influence in the shogun's court. The troops who attacked Reiko appear to belong to Sano's fiercest enemy, Lord Matsudaira, who denies all responsibility. But if the rivals are not to blame for each other's misfortune, who is? Just as Sano's strife with Matsudaira begins to escalate to the brink of war, the shogun orders Sano to investigate the origins of the mysterious skeleton, buried with swords that identify it as belonging to the shogun's cousin, who disappeared forty years earlier on the night that a cursed kimono touched off a fire that nearly destroyed the city. Suddenly, Sano and Reiko are forced to confront dangerous, long-buried secrets that expose Sano's own mother as the possible culprit. The shogun gives Sano and Reiko just three days to clear her nameor risk losing not only their position at court but their families' lives.


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Japan, 1701. A woman is brutally attacked within a bamboo prison as clouds swirl around her head. Meanwhile, at Edo Castle, samurai detective turned chamberlain Sano Ichiro is suspicious of his old rival, Yanagisawa, who has been oddly cooperative since returning from exile.But just as Yanagisawa's true motives begin to emerge, Sano's estranged uncle comes to him for help: His daughter has disappeared, and he begs Sano and his wifewho once suffered through the kidnapping of their own sonto find her before it is too late.


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Seventeenth-century Tokyo is the setting for Rowland's first book in a murder mystery series featuring Sano Ichiro the Senior Police Commander in the district of Edo. Ichiro is a samurai whose academic background puts him at odds with most of his peers.When beautiful, wealthy Yukiko and low-born artist Noriyoshi are found drowned together in what seems to be a shinju, or ritual double suicide, everyone believes the cause was their forbidden love. Everyone, that is, but Sano Ichiro.Despite the official verdict and being warned off by his superiors, the shoguns Most Honourable Investigator of Events, Situations and People suspects this double death was not only a tragedy it was murder. Risking his familys good name and his own life, Sano will search for the killer across every level of society, determined to find answers to a mystery no one else seems to want solved . . .


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It is early spring, 1679, and the feudal Japanese capital, Edo, is beginning to blossom. But along its peaceful, misty streets evil lurks. With one stroke, the favored vassal of the ruling family is decapitated, his head taken for a bundori -- a war trophy. Sano Ichiro, the shogun's Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People, is called to find the culprit. In a city where danger and deceit lie just below the lush surface, Sano must rely on his mind, his instincts, and his noble training in Bushido -- the Way of the Warrior -- to solve this case that could bring him glory...or everlasting shame. Set against a backdrop of sumptuous castles, tawdry pleasure districts, and serene temples, and filled with unforgettable, rich characters, Bundori is breathtaking entertainment.


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A volatile, corrupt city threatened by toreign invasion and ru by an iron-fisted government, Nagasaki is the last place Sano Ichiro wants to be, Unfortunately, the shogun's Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People has been banished there by a wicked adversary in the shogun's court. Surrounded by spies, Sano must tread carefully. When the body of a Dutch trader washes ashore, he finds himself leading an investigation that could push Japan into war -- even as it thrusts his life into the hands of powerful enemies. Sano has to unmask a killer and prove his innocence, or his samurai head, and maybe his country, will fall.


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Twenty months spent as the shogun's sosakan-sama--most honorable investigator of events, situations, and people--has left Sano Ichiro weary. He looks forward to the comforts that his arranged marriage promises: a private life with a sweet, submissive wife and a month's holiday to celebrate their union. However, the death of the shogun's favorite concubine interrupts the couple's wedding ceremony and shatters any hopes the samurai detective had about enjoying a little peace with his new wife. After Sano traces the cause of Lady Harume's death to a self-inflicted tattoo, he must travel into the cloistered, forbidden world of the shogun's women to untangle the complicated web of Harume's lovers, rivals, and troubled past, and identify her killer. To make matters worse, Reiko, his beautiful young bride, reveals herself to be not a traditional, obedient wife, but instead, a headstrong, intelligent, aspiring detective bent on helping Sano with his new case. Sano is horrified at her unladylike behavior, and the resulting sparks make their budding love as exciting as they mystery surrounding Lady Harume's death. Amid the heightened tensions and political machinations of feudal Japan, Sano faces a daunting complex investigation.


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IN THE IMPERIAL CITY OF KYOTO, POWER IS MERELY CEREMONIAL. BUT AN ANCIENT EVIL STILL SURVIVES...Far from the shogun's court at Edo, Most Honorable Investigator Sano Ichiro begins the most challenging case of his career. Upon the insistence of his strong-willed and beautiful wife Reiko, Sano arrives with her at the emperor's palace to unmask the murderer-who possesses the secret of kiai-"the spirit cry"-a powerful scream that can kill instantly. A high Kyoto official is the victim. Treading carefully through a web of spies, political intrigue, forbidden passions, and intricate plots, Sano and Reiko must struggle to stay ahead of the palace storms-and outwit a cunning killer. But as they soon discover, solving the case means more than their survival. For if they fail, Japan could be consumed in the bloodiest war it has ever seen...A legendary land comes alive in this compelling murder mystery set in seventeenth-century Japan. Filled with finely drawn characters and suspenseful plot twists, THE SAMURAI'S WIFE is a novel as complex, vivid, and artful as the glorious, lost world it portrays.AUTHORBIO: LAURA JOH ROWLAND, the granddaughter of Chinese and Korean immigrants, grew up in Michigan. She is the author of four previous Sano Ichiro novels, The Concubine's Tattoo, Shinju, Bundori, and The Way of the Traitor, and lives in New Orleans with her husband and three cats.


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When veteran samurai-detective Sano Ichiro, the Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People, is called on to investigate the burning of a cottage belonging to the Black Lotus Temple, he makes a shocking discovery. The three victims of the blaze did not die in the fire, but were brutally murdered before the fire even began. With a triple homicide on his hands, Sano's search for a killer leads him to Haru, an orphan girl found at the scene of the crime. But Sano's wife, Reiko, investigating the case against Sano's wishes, is convinced of Haru's innocence. Reiko's investigation leads her behind the walls of the Black Lotus Temple, where she discovers a sect involved in extortion, prostitution, and hedonistic rituals. Could one of the sect's members be the killer? Now Reiko must risk her marriage to Sano in order to prove Haru's innocence...Set in the luscious finery of the samurai court of medieval Japan, this latest installment in the bestselling series by Laura Joh Rowland is filled with shocking surprises and suspense as readers are once again allowed access into the world of Sano Ichiro.AUTHORBIO: LAURA JOH ROWLAND is the granddaughter of Chinese and Korean immigrants. She grew up in Michigan and was educated at the University of Michigan, where she graduated with a B.S. in microbiology and a master's in public health. She lives in New Orleans with her husband, Marty, and their three cats. Her previous novels include The Samurai's Wife, The Concubine's Tattoo, and Shinju, all of which feature the samurai-detective Sano Ichiro.


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In feudal Japan, passion and secrets lead to murder. . .From A Remote, Exotic World. . . Sano Ichiro, Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People, awakens from a turbulent dream into a real-life nightmare. Lord Matsudaira Mitsuyoshi, the shogun's cousin and heir, has been murdered after a night of debauchery in the city's pleasure quarter... Comes A Danger All Too Close To Home. . .The matter requires Sano's personal attention-more personal than Sano at first imagines. For he soon discovers that Mitsuyoshi's companion for the evening was none other than the alluring Lady Wisteria, a woman whom Sano himself once knew intimately before he was married to his beloved wife, Reiko. But the memory of Wisteria still stirs him, and it is with both dismay and relief that he learns she has vanished along with her pillow book, a diary that may contain valuable clues. The circumstances trouble him, as does the possibility that he and Wisteria might meet again with dangerous consequences. . .


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On a whim of the shogun's mother, a procession has left the sweltering heat of Edo, bound for the cooler climate of Mount Fuji. Among her traveling companions are Reiko, the beautiful wife of Sano Ichiro, the shogun's Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People; Reiko's friend Midori, nine months pregnant; and Lady Yanagisawa, the deranged wife of the shogun's powerful second-in-command. None of them look forward to the trip. But their troubles have only begun when their procession is stopped suddenly on a deserted road. The entire retinue is viciously slaughtered and the four women are bound and taken away, imprisoned by a mysterious kidnapper.Sano now finds himself faced with the most important case of his career. The shogun demands quick action, and under the threat of death, Sano is forced to work with his bitter enemies-Chamberlain Yanagisawa and Police Commissioner Hoshina. The delivery of a ransom note only complicates matters-forcing both Sano and Reiko to take desperate measures.


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November 1694. The streets of Edo are erupting in violence as two factions struggle for control over the ruling Tokugawa regime. One is led by the shogun's cousin, Lord Matsudaira, and the other by the shogun's second-in-command, Chamberlain Yanagisawa. Each side pressures Sano Ichiro, the shogun's most honorable investigator, to join its ranks.When one of the shogun's most trusted advisers is found dead, Sano is forced to honor a posthumous request for a murder investigation. Senior Elder Makino believed that his death would be the result of assassination rather than natural causes. Although he and Sano were bitter enemies, Makino knew that the incorruptible Sano would be duty-bound to oblige his final wish.Under the watchful eyes and thinly veiled threats of both Lord Matsudaira and Chamberlain Yanagisawa, Sano moves with caution. Each is eager to implicate the other in Makino's death. Sano must discover whether the death was indeed murder, and if so, whether it was motivated by politics, love, or sex. The discovery of secret alliances, both romantic and military, further complicates matters. Sano's investigation has barely begun when violent death claims another of the shogun's favorites. With his wife, Reiko, working undercover, Sano and his chief retainer, Hirata, must not only investigate multiple deaths, but stem the tide of an impending civil war.


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**With penetrating insights for today, this vital history of the world economic collapse of the late 1920s offers unforgettable portraits of the four men whose personal and professional actions as heads of their respective central banks changed the course of the twentieth century**



 It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person’s or government’s control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions taken by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of the economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades.



 In *Lords of Finance*, we meet the neurotic and enigmatic Montagu Norman of the Bank of England, the xenophobic and suspicious Émile Moreau of the Banque de France, the arrogant yet brilliant Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank, and Benjamin Strong of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, whose façade of energy and drive masked a deeply wounded and overburdened man. After the First World War, these central bankers attempted to reconstruct the world of international finance. Despite their differences, they were united by a common fear—that the greatest threat to capitalism was inflation— and by a common vision that the solution was to turn back the clock and return the world to the gold standard.



 For a brief period in the mid-1920s they appeared to have succeeded. The world’s currencies were stabilized and capital began flowing freely across the globe. But beneath the veneer of boom-town prosperity, cracks started to appear in the financial system. The gold standard that all had believed would provide an umbrella of stability proved to be a straitjacket, and the world economy began that terrible downward spiral known as the Great Depression.



 As yet another period of economic turmoil makes headlines today, the Great Depression and the year 1929 remain the benchmark for true financial mayhem. Offering a new understanding of the global nature of financial crises, *Lords of Finance* is a potent reminder of the enormous impact that the decisions of central bankers can have, of their fallibility, and of the terrible human consequences that can result when they are wrong.


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**WELCOME TO THE SECOND “GOLDEN AGE” OF SUPERHEROES AND HEROINES **

Superheroes have come a long way since the “Man of Steel” was introduced in 1938. This brilliant new collection features original stories and novellas from some of today’s most exciting voices in comics, science fiction, and fantasy. Each marvelously inventive tale shows us just how far our classic crusaders have evolved—and how the greatest of heroes are, much like ourselves, all too human. 

In “Call Her Savage,” **MARJORIE M. LIU **enters the dark heart of a fierce mythic heroine who is forced, by war, to live up to her own terrible legend. 

In “A to Z in the Ultimate Big Company Superhero Universe (Villains Too),” **BILL WILLINGHAM **presents a fully-realized vision of a universe where epic feats and tragic flaws have transformed the human race. 

In “Vacuum Lad,” **STEPHEN BAXTER **unveils the secret origins of the first true child of the space age—and disproves the theory that “nothing exists in a vacuum.” 

In “Head Cases,” **PETER DAVID **and **KATHLEEN DAVID **blast through the blogosphere to expose the secret longings of a Lonely Superhero Wife. 

In “The Non-Event,” **MIKE CAREY **removes the gag order on a super-thief named Lockjaw . . . and pries out a confession of life-altering events. 

Also includes stories by Mike Baron • Mark Chadbourn • Paul Cornell • Daryl Gregory • Joseph Mallozzi • James Maxey • Ian McDonald • Chris Roberson • Gail Simone • Matthew Sturges . . . and an introduction by Lou Anders, “one of the brightest and best of the new generation of science fiction editors” (Jonathan Strahan, *The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year*).


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**A thrilling new voice in fantasy makes an unforgettable debut with this "intriguingly twisted tale of treachery and magic" (*New York Times *bestselling author L. E. Modesitt, Jr.). Liane Merciel’s *The River Kings’ Road *takes us to a world of bitter enmity between kingdoms, divided loyalties between comrades, and an insidious magic that destroys everything it touches. . . . **

*The wounded maidservant thrust the knotted blankets at him; instinctively, Brys stepped forward and caught the bundle before it fell. Then he glimpsed what lay inside and nearly dropped it himself. *

*There was a baby in the blankets. A baby with a tear-swollen face red and round as a midsummer plum. A baby he knew, even without seeing the lacquered medallion tucked into the swaddling—a medallion far too heavy, on a chain far too cold for an infant who had not yet seen a year. *

A fragile period of peace between the eternally warring kingdoms of Oakharn and Langmyr is shattered when a surprise massacre fueled by bloodmagic ravages the Langmyrne border village of Willowfield, killing its inhabitants—including a visiting Oakharne lord and his family—and leaving behind a scene so grisly that even the carrion eaters avoid its desecrated earth. But the dead lord’s infant heir has survived the carnage—a discovery that entwines the destinies of **Brys Tarnell**, a mercenary who rescues the helpless and ailing babe, and who enlists a Langmyr peasant, a young mother herself, to nourish and nurture the child of her enemies as they travel a dark, perilous road . . . **Odosse**, the peasant woman whose only weapons are wit, courage, and her fierce maternal love—and who risks everything she holds dear to protect her new charge . . . **Sir Kelland**, a divinely blessed Knight of the Sun, called upon to unmask the architects behind the slaughter and avert war between ancestral enemies . . . **Bitharn**, Kelland’s companion on his journey, who conceals her lifelong love for the Knight behind her flawless archery skills—and whose feelings may ultimately be Kelland’s undoing . . . and **Leferic**, an Oakharne Lord’s bitter youngest son, whose dark ambitions fuel the most horrific acts of violence. As one infant’s life hangs in the balance, so too does the fate of thousands, while deep in the forest, a Maimed Witch practices an evil bloodmagic that could doom them all. . . .


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*The Game On! Diet* is not a diet. It's a bold new approach to fitness that turns the latest, smartest, most successful health science into a fun, fierce, and exhilarating game. Developed by Az Ferguson, to help *Grey's Anatomy* writer Krista Vernoff shed forty pounds of postpregnancy weight, it is the ideal program for busy people who should be working out but have a thousand good excuses not to.  

Az keeps you motivated and Krista keeps you laughing as they show you how to organize opposing teams, set goals, and compete to earn points for daily exercise, healthy meal plans, and positive lifestyle changes. With *The Game On! Diet*, the process of losing weight, for the first time ever, is actually fun. After all, what's better than a bikini body . . . *and* bragging rights?  

Get out there and lose . . . to win! *Game on!*


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Lalita Tademy was a corporate vice president at a Fortune(r) 500 company when she decided to give notice and embark upon an odyssey to uncover her family's past. Through her exhaustive research, she would find herself transported back to the early 1800s, to an isolated, close-knit rural community on Louisiana's Cane River. Here, Tademy takes historical fact and mingles it with fiction to weave a vivid  account of what life was like for the four remarkable women who came before her. The result is a family saga that sweeps from the early days of slavery into a pre-Civil Rights South-a unique and moving slice of America's past that will resonate with readers for generations to come.


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In AD 476 the Roman Empire fell–or rather, its western half did. Its eastern half, which would come to be known as the Byzantine Empire, would endure and often flourish for another eleven centuries. Though its capital would move to Constantinople, its citizens referred to themselves as Roman for the entire duration of the empire’s existence. Indeed, so did its neighbors, allies, and enemies: When the Turkish Sultan Mehmet II conquered Constantinople in 1453, he took the title Caesar of Rome, placing himself in a direct line that led back to Augustus.For far too many otherwise historically savvy people today, the story of the Byzantine civilization is something of a void. Yet for more than a millennium, Byzantium reigned as the glittering seat of Christian civilization. When Europe fell into the Dark Ages, Byzantium held fast against Muslim expansion, keeping Christianity alive. When literacy all but vanished in the West, Byzantium made primary education available to both sexes. Students debated the merits of Plato and Aristotle and commonly committed the entirety of Homer’s Iliad to memory. Streams of wealth flowed into Constantinople, making possible unprecedented wonders of art and architecture, from fabulous jeweled mosaics and other iconography to the great church known as the Hagia Sophia that was a vision of heaven on earth. The dome of the Great Palace stood nearly two hundred feet high and stretched over four acres, and the city’s population was more than twenty times that of London’s.From Constantine, who founded his eponymous city in the year 330, to Constantine XI, who valiantly fought the empire’s final battle more than a thousand years later, the emperors who ruled Byzantium enacted a saga of political intrigue and conquest as astonishing as anything in recorded history. *Lost to the West* is replete with stories of assassination, mass mutilation and execution, sexual scheming, ruthless grasping for power, and clashing armies that soaked battlefields with the blood of slain warriors numbering in the tens of thousands.Still, it was Byzantium that preserved for us today the great gifts of the classical world. Of the 55,000 ancient Greek texts in existence today, some 40,000 were transmitted to us by Byzantine scribes. And it was the Byzantine Empire that shielded Western Europe from invasion until it was ready to take its own place at the center of the world stage. Filled with unforgettable stories of emperors, generals, and religious patriarchs, as well as fascinating glimpses into the life of the ordinary citizen, *Lost to the West* reveals how much we owe to this empire that was the equal of any in its achievements, appetites, and enduring legacy.*From the Hardcover edition.*


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On March 17, 2009, Laura Ling and her colleague Euna Lee were working on a documentary about North Korean defectors who were fleeing the desperate conditions in their homeland. While filming on the Chinese–North Korean border, they were chased down by North Korean soldiers who violently apprehended them. Laura and Euna were charged with trespassing and "hostile acts," and imprisoned by Kim Jong Il's notoriously secretive Communist state. Kept totally apart, they endured months of interrogations and eventually a trial before North Korea's highest court. They were the first Americans ever to be sentenced to twelve years of hard labor in a prison camp in North Korea.  

 When news of the arrest reached Laura's sister, journalist Lisa Ling, she immediately began a campaign to get her sister released, one that led her from the State Department to the higher echelons of the media world and eventually to the White House.  

 *Somewhere Inside* reveals for the first time Laura's gripping account of what really happened on the river, her treatment at the hands of North Korean guards, and the deprivations and rounds of harrowing interrogations she endured. She speaks movingly about the emotional toll inflicted on her by her incarceration, including the measures she took to protect her sources and her fears that she might never see her family again.  

 Lisa writes about her unrelenting efforts to secure Laura and Euna's release. Offering insights into the vast media campaign spearheaded on the women's behalf, Lisa also takes us deep into the drama involving people at the highest levels of government, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, Senator John Kerry, and Governor Bill Richardson—intense discussions that entailed strategically balancing the agendas and good intentions of the various players. She also describes her role in the back-and-forth between North Korea's demands and the dramatic rescue by former President Bill Clinton.  

 Though they were thousands of miles apart while Laura was in captivity, the Ling sisters' relationship became a way for the reclusive North Korean government to send messages to the United States government, which helped lead to Laura and Euna's eventual release.  

 Told in the sisters' alternating voices, *Somewhere Inside* is a timely, inspiring, and page-turning tale of survival set against the canvas of international politics that goes beyond the headlines to reveal the impact on lives engulfed by forces beyond their control. But it is also a window into the unique bond these two sisters have always shared, a bond that sustained them throughout the most horrifying ordeal of their lives.


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From the "New York Times" bestselling author of "City of Light" comes a compelling, richly detailed tale of passion and intrigue set in New York City during the tumultuous early days of World War II.  Claire Shipley is a single mother haunted by the death of her young daughter and by her divorce years ago. She is also an ambitious photojournalist, and in the anxious days after Pearl Harbor, the talented "Life" magazine reporter finds herself on top of one of the nation's most important stories. In the bustling labs of New York City's renowned Rockefeller Institute, some of the country's brightest doctors and researchers are racing to find a cure that will save the lives of thousands of wounded American soldiers and countless others--a miraculous new drug they call penicillin. Little does Claire suspect how much the story will change her own life when the work leads to an intriguing romance.  Though Claire has always managed to keep herself separate from the subjects she covers, this story touches her deeply, stirring memories of her daughter's sudden illness and death--a loss that might have been prevented by this new "miracle drug." And there is James Stanton, the shy and brilliant physician who coordinates the institute's top secret research for the military. Drawn to this dedicated, attractive man and his work, Claire unexpectedly finds herself falling in love. But Claire isn't the only one interested in the secret development of this medicine. Her long-estranged father, Edward Rutherford, a self-made millionaire, understands just how profitable a new drug like penicillin could be. When a researcher at the institute dies under suspicious circumstances, the stakes become starkly clear: a murder has been committed to obtain these lucrative new drugs. With lives and a new love hanging in the balance, Claire will put herself at the center of danger to find a killer--no matter what price she may have to pay.  Lauren Belfer dazzled readers with her debut novel, "City of Light," a "New York Times" notable book of the year. In this highly anticipated follow-up, she deftly captures the uncertainty and spirit, the dreams and hopes, of a nation at war. A sweeping tale of love and betrayal, intrigue and idealism, "A Fierce Radiance" is an ambitious and deeply engaging novel from an author of immense talent.


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*"If you have introvert inclinations and are doubting yourself, this is a must read. Or if you know someone who exhibits introvert symptoms, read this book before calling the shrink."* **- Bhante Yogavacara Rahula, author of One Night's Shelter: An Autobiography of an American Buddhist Monk** 

EMBRACE THE POWER INSIDE YOU Are you an introvert? Psychologist and introvert Laurie Helgoe reveals that more than half of all Americans are. Introverts gain energy and power through reflection and solitude. Our culture, however, is geared toward the extrovert. The pressure to enjoy parties, chatter, and interactions can lead people to think that an inward orientation is a problem instead of an opportunity. 

Helgoe shows that the exact opposite is true: Introverts can capitalize on this inner source of power. **INTROVERT POWER** is a groundbreaking call for an introvert renaissance, a blueprint for how introverts can take full advantage of this hidden strength in daily life. Supplemented by the voices of several introverts, Helgoe presents a startling look at introvert numbers, influence, and economic might. 

Revolutionary and invaluable, INTROVERT POWER includes ideas for how introverts can learn to:  Claim private space Carve out time to think Bring a slower tempo into daily life Create breaks in conversation and relationships Deal effectively with parties, interruptions, and crowds  

QUIET IS **MIGHT**. SOLITUDE IS **STRENGTH**. INTROVERSION IS **POWER**.


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From the sun-scorched sands of the Kalahari to the snake-infested jungles of the Amazon, Les Stroud has made a life of surviving in the harshest—and most remote—regions on Earth.  

 Now, the creator, producer, and host of the hit television program *Survivorman* transfers his decades of knowledge and experience to the pages of *Survive!*, a practical guide that gives everyday readers a no-nonsense look at the real world of survival.  

 Stroud offers readers the essential skills and tactics necessary to endure in any corner of the globe, along with a wealth of insider information born of his own experiences in the outdoors and unavailable in any other book. Readers will learn:   How to make a survival shelter and why a lean-to is largely a waste of time. Why survival kits are important, and why you should make your own. Where to find water and why drinking contaminated water is sometimes warranted. How to locate and trap small animals and why the notion of tracking and hunting large game is largely a pipe dream.  

 Whether seasoned in the outdoor arts or new to adventuring, all readers will learn something from *Survive!*. Stroud's many colorful anecdotes and cut-to-the-chase philosophy not only make for an entertaining read, but also enhance anyone's ability to focus on the main goal when everything else has gone wrong—survival.


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In her best-selling story collection, Birds of America (“[it] will stand by itself as one of our funniest, most telling anatomies of human love and vulnerability” —James McManus, front page of The New York Times Book Review), Lorrie Moore wrote about the disconnect between men and women, about the precariousness of women on the edge, and about loneliness and loss.Now, in her dazzling new novel—her first in more than a decade—Moore turns her eye on the anxiety and disconnection of post-9/11 America, on the insidiousness of racism, the blind-sidedness of war, and the recklessness thrust on others in the name of love.As the United States begins gearing up for war in the Middle East, twenty-year-old Tassie Keltjin, the Midwestern daughter of a gentleman hill farmer—his “Keltjin potatoes” are justifiably famous—has come to a university town as a college student, her brain on fire with Chaucer, Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beauvoir.Between semesters, she takes a job as a part-time nanny.The family she works for seems both mysterious and glamorous to her, and although Tassie had once found children boring, she comes to care for, and to protect, their newly adopted little girl as her own.As the year unfolds and she is drawn deeper into each of these lives, her own life back home becomes ever more alien to her: her parents are frailer; her brother, aimless and lost in high school, contemplates joining the military. Tassie finds herself becoming more and more the stranger she felt herself to be, and as life and love unravel dramatically, even shockingly, she is forever changed.This long-awaited new novel by one of the most heralded writers of the past two decades is lyrical, funny, moving, and devastating; Lorrie Moore’s most ambitious book to date—textured, beguiling, and wise.From the Hardcover edition.


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Claire's older brother, Daniel, has disappeared. He leaves work one Friday afternoon, shortly before Christmas, and vanishes into thin air. Married, successful, rich, there seems no reason why he would abandon his life. Has he been killed? Has he been kidnapped? Or has he just had enough?   Set between London and Miami, this is the story of a family with ghosts to bury. It opens on the day of the Challenger shuttle explosion at Cape Canaveral: a tragic moment that rips this family apart and sets Daniel's disappearance in motion some 18 years later. In the midst of it all sits Claire—divorced, irresponsible, fluent in six foreign languages yet hopeless at interpreting life. It is Claire who knows Daniel best. It is Claire who becomes convinced that she knows where her older brother is and sets off on a journey to find him.


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Acclaimed novelist Luanne Rice "touches the deepest, most tender corners of the heart" (Tami Hoag, author ofA Thin Dark Line). Her stories remind us how precious and fragile life can beand that we must risk our hearts every day to know happiness.Follow the Stars Homeis just such a novel: a story of poignancy and heartbreak, grace and courage. Being a good mother is never simple: each day brings new choices and challenges. For Dianne Robbins, being a devoted single mother has resulted in her greatest joy and her darkest hours. Weeks before her daughter was born, she and her husband, Tim McIntosh, received the news every parent fears. Tim had not reckoned on their child being anything less than perfect, and abruptly fled to a solitary existence on the sea, leaving Dianne with a newbornalmost alone. It was Tim's brother, Alan, the town pediatrician, who stood by Dianne and her exceptional daughter. Throughout years of waiting, watching, and caring, Alan hid his love for his brother's wife. But one of the many hard choices Dianne has made is to close her heart toward any manespecially one named McIntosh. It will take a very special twelve-year-old to remind them all that love comes in many forms and can be received with as much grace as it is given. As lyrical and moving as the poetry of nature,Follow the Stars Homeis a miracle of storytelling that will take your breath away. If words alone can dare us to confront our fears and to choose joy over sorrow, then Luanne Rice's magnificent novel is a benediction and a call to celebrate our lives. says acclaimed author Luanne Rice. "I always say the same thing: love. It's an easy answer, but like love itself, far from simple." And her new novel, FOLLOW THE STARS HOME, demonstrates that on each finely wrought page. Being a good mother is never simple: each day brings new choices and challenges. For Dianne Robbins, being a devoted single mother has resulted in her greatest joy and her darkest hours. Weeks before her child was born, she and her husband, Tim McIntosh, received the news every parent fears. Tim had not reckoned on their child being anything less than perfect, and abruptly fled to a solitary existence on the sea. Dianne was left with a newbornalmost alone. It was Tim's brother, Alan, the town pediatrician, who stood by Dianne and her exceptional daughter. Throughout these years of waiting, watching, and caring, Alan hid his love for his brother's wife. But Dianne has chosen to close her heart toward all menespecially those named McIntosh. It will take a very special twelve-year-old to remind them all that love comes in many forms, and can be received with as much grace as it is given. Film rights optioned by Hallmark for television.


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A crime caper in the tradition of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen, this fast and funny debut is the story of "Shake" Bouchon, fresh out of prison and ready for life on the straight and narrow—well, maybe after *one* last job. . . .   

 When Charles "Shake" Bouchon, professional wheel man, walks out of prison after a three-year stretch for grand theft auto, he's got only two problems: he's too nice a guy for the life he's led and not nice enough for any other.  

 So he says yes when he's asked to run a simple errand for his former boss and lover, Alexandra Ilandryan, the formidable *pakhan* of the Armenian mob in Los Angeles. All Shake has to do is deliver a package to Las Vegas and pick up a briefcase.  

 Only the package turns out to be a wholesome young housewife named Gina whose husband has run afoul of Dick Moby, aka "The Whale," an unpleasant four-hundred-pound Vegas strip-club owner. Shake hates to think what's going to happen to Gina when he delivers her to The Whale, so in a move that's as noble as it is boneheaded, he decides to set her free.  

 Now Shake and Gina are on the run to Panama, hoping to unload the very valuable—and highly unusual—contents of The Whale's briefcase. Shake could end up a rich man, but first he'll have to outmaneuver two angry crime bosses, a murderous Armenian thug plagued by erectile superfunction, a former pro football player who blames Shake for his romantic woes, and a billionaire swindler with a flair for the theatrical. Not to mention, and not the least, Shake will need to survive his own heart, since he's going to discover that wholesome housewife Gina is even more intriguing, and a lot more complicated, than he ever imagined.  

 Full of blindsided double-crosses and hard shots to the head, *Gutshot Straight* is a tale of love, luck, and larceny against the odds.


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From the author of the groundbreaking New York Times bestseller The Female Brain, here is the eagerly awaited follow-up book that demystifies the puzzling male brain. Dr. Louann Brizendine, the founder of the first clinic in the country to study gender differences in brain, behavior, and hormones, turns her attention to the male brain, showing how, through every phase of life, the "male reality" is fundamentally different from the female one. Exploring the latest breakthroughs in male psychology and neurology with her trademark accessibility and candor, she reveals that the male brain:     *is a lean, mean, problem-solving machine. Faced with a personal problem, a man will use his analytical brain structures, not his emotional ones, to find a solution.      *thrives under competition, instinctively plays rough and is obsessed with rank and hierarchy.      *has an area for sexual pursuit that is 2.5 times larger than the female brain, consuming him with sexual fantasies about female body parts.     *experiences such a massive increase in testosterone at puberty that he perceive others' faces to be more aggressive.The Male Brain finally overturns the stereotypes. Impeccably researched and at the cutting edge of scientific knowledge, this is a book that every man, and especially every woman bedeviled by a man, will need to own.Praise for The Female Brain:"Louann Brizendine has done a great favor for every man who wants to understand the puzzling women in his life. A breezy and enlightening guide to women and a must-read for men."—Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence        From the Hardcover edition.


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So begins the chilling last testament of Gus Landor, a retired New York City police constable, whose numerous talents include code-breaking, riot control and the 'gloveless interrogation'. A young cadet has been found hanged at a military academy on the shores of the Hudson River. Before his body could be buried, however, it was stolen and his heart brutally carved out. Fearing a scandal, the top brass at West Point have summoned Landor to help catch the culprit, and keep his discoveries away from prying eyes. As Landor embarks on a thrilling adventure to solve the case, he uncovers a series of dark secrets and finds unlikely assistance in the form of a mischievous young cadet named Edgar Allan Poe. THE PALE BLUE EYE is a brilliantly atmospheric historical mystery, full of drama and unexpected twists. From the events of one seemingly ordinary afternoon, Louis Bayard conjures a tale as haunting as it is entertaining.


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"Octavia E. Butler is one of the finest voices in fiction---period. . . . A master storyteller, Butler casts an unflinching eye on racism, sexism, poverty, and ignorance and lets the reader see the terror and beauty of human nature."--"The Washington Post Book World" "Readers familiar with . . . "Parable of the Sower" and "Bloodchild" will recall that [Butler] never asks easy questions or settles for easy answers."--Gerald Jonas in "The New York Times" "Fledgling," Octavia Butler's first new novel in seven years, is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly unhuman needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: She is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted--and still wants--to destroy her and those she cares for and how she can save herself. "Fledgling" is a captivating novel that tests the limits of "otherness" and questions what it means to be truly human. Octavia E. Butler is the author of 11 novels, including "Kindred," "Dawn," and "Parable of the Sower." Recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, and numerous other literary awards, she has been acclaimed for her lean prose, strong protagonists, and social observations that range from the distant past to the far future.


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**The literary event of Halloween: a book of otherworldly power from Russia's preeminent contemporary fiction writer**



Vanishings and aparitions, nightmares and twists of fate, mysterious ailments and supernatural interventions haunt these stories by the Russian master Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, heir to the spellbinding tradition of Gogol and Poe. Blending the miraculous with the macabre, and leavened by a mischievous gallows humor, these bewitching tales are like nothing being written in Russia-or anywhere else in the world-today.


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During the Christmas Truce of 1914, Hal Montgomery, a British soldier, is given a photo by a German soldier, Wilhelm Wetzlar, and they make a pact. Hal promises to find his enemy's English girlfriend, Sam, and let her know her fiance is alive and thinking of her. Several weeks later, Halnow injuredis discharged from the army and goes to Stratford on Avon to fulfill his promise. But things take an unexpected turn when he meets the woman in the photo and falls in love with her himself. As their romance blossoms, Sam shares with Hal her most private confidence: Her newborn son is of German lineage, information that threatens her reputation and her job as a schoolteacher. Fearful that he will lose Sam, Hal holds tight to the secretand the photographthat brought them together. The scene shifts to London, where Hal becomes involved with military intelligence and is introduced to Sam's sisters and a different kind of secrecy. Against the broader landscape of England in wartime,Gifts of Warcaptures the era and the fates of men and women caught in the sweep of history. A vivid tale of romance, adventure, and intrigue, the novel is a remarkable narrative that explores what made War World I so tragic, so revolutionary, and so exciting. It also announces a gifted new novelist.


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Not long before her fiftieth birthday, Mackenzie Phillips walked into Los Angeles International Airport. She was on her way to a reunion for *One Day at a Time*, the hugely popular 70s sitcom on which she once starred as the lovable rebel Julie Cooper. Within minutes of entering the security checkpoint, Mackenzie was in handcuffs, arrested for possession of cocaine and heroin.

Born into rock and roll royalty, flying in Learjets to the Virgin Islands at five, making pot brownies with her father's friends at eleven, Mackenzie grew up in an all-access kingdom of hippie freedom and heroin cool. It was a kingdom over which her father, the legendary John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas, presided, often in absentia, as a spellbinding, visionary phantom.

When Mackenzie was a teenager, Hollywood and the world took notice of the charming, talented, precocious child actor after her star-making turn in *American Graffiti*. As a young woman she joinedthe nonstop party in the hedonistic pleasure dome her father created for himself and his fellow revelers, and a rapt TV audience watched as Julie Cooper wasted away before their eyes. By the time Mackenzie discovered how deep and dark her father's trip was going, it was too late. And as an adult, she has paid dearly for a lifetime of excess, working tirelessly to reconcile a wonderful, terrible past in which she succumbed to the power of addiction and the pull of her magnetic father.

As her astounding, outrageous, and often tender life story unfolds, the actor-musician-mother shares her lifelong battle with personal demons and near-fatal addictions. She overcomes seemingly impossible obstacles again and again and journeys toward redemption and peace. By exposing the shadows and secrets of the past to the light of day, the star who turned up *High on Arrival* has finally come back down to earth -- to stay.


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A legendary island steeped in the mystery and wisdom of centuries... A runaway heiress learning to trust life, and love... A mother and daughter, separated for years, searching for a way to face the future together... "New York Times" bestselling author Luanne Rice tells a powerful story of love, family, and friendship through the lives of two women who reunite at a place where dreams begin--and where they may be fulfilled at last.... Years ago, Lyra Davis left behind a world of wealth and privilege and the people she loved most in the world, unable to reconcile the expectations of her celebrated family with the longings of her own wild heart. Now she lives quietly among a community of expatriates on the isle of Capri, slowly, carefully learning to live fully for the first time, flourishing in the friendship of a singular man who recognizes in her a kindred spirit. Granddaughter of the reigning doyenne of Newport, Rhode Island, wise beyond her sixteen years, Pell Davis is poised to take her place at the pinnacle of society. Yet she and her young sister still long for the mother who ran away from them when they were children so that they could be raised by the father they adored. Pell knows that Lyra felt she loved them best by leaving. But with her father now dead and her sister veering dangerously into fantasy, she will travel across an ocean to find the mother she remembers and the deeper truths they all need so desperately.... Lyrical, unforgettable, Luanne Rice's new novel unfolds against a background of timeless beauty, as an unlikely love affair reshapes the meaning of devotion and three generations of women resist the pull of memory and tradition to find a new way forward.


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From the author of All Souls’ Rising which The Washington Post called “A serious historical novel that reads like a dream,” comes a powerful new novel about Nathan Bedford Forrest, the most reviled, celebrated, and legendary, of Civil War generals. With the same eloquence, dramatic energy, and grasp of history that marked his previous works, Madison Smartt Bell gives us a wholly new vantage point from which to view this complicated American figure. Considered a rogue by the upper ranks of the Confederate Army, who did not properly use his talents, Forrest was often relegated to small-scale operations.In Devil's Dream, Bell brings to life an energetic, plainspoken man who does not tolerate weakness in himself or in those around him. We see Forrest on and off the battlefield, in less familiar but no less revealing moments of his life: courting the woman who would become his wife; battling a compulsion to gamble; overcoming his abhorrence of the army bureaucracy to rise to its highest ranks. We see him treating his slaves humanely even as he fights to ensure their continued enslavement, and in battle we see his knack for keeping his enemy unsettled, his instinct for the unexpected, and his relentless stamina.As Devil's Dream moves back and forth in time, providing prismatic glimpses of Forrest, a vivid portrait comes into focus: a rough, fierce man with a life fill of contradictions.


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The election of Don Albino Luciani to the papal throne in 1978 threatens the Vatican status quo in this routine thriller from Portuguese author Rocha, his first novel. John Paul I's views on papal infallibility and such controversial subjects as birth control, not to mention his resolve to clean house of those men of God who sullied the Roman Catholic church by financial chicanery with mob links, lead to his murder soon after he becomes pope. In the present-day, London journalist Sarah Monteiro receives a letter implicating the pope's killers. The same shadowy band turns out to be behind the attempt on the life of John Paul II as well as the assassination of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme. Sarah struggles to stay alive and keep the evidence out of the wrong hands amid predictable action sequences and hairbreadth escapes. An author interview at book's end claiming that John Paul I was actually murdered is sure to please conspiracy buffs.


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**The international bestseller from the author of *The Last Pope* ** 



 After the suspicious death of Pope John Paul I, British journalist Sarah Monteiro is drawn into the web of an international conspiracy, and must reluctantly reunite with the mysterious priest/assassin Rafael, and the sinister mastermind known only as JC. But Sarah and Rafael's determination could prove to be their downfall-and seal the doom of John Paul II. Especially if they discover the true power behind the papal throne.


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Narrative history at its most compelling, "After the Prophet" relates the dramatic tragic story at the heart of the ongoing rivalry between Shia and Sunni Islam. Even as Muhammad lay dying, the battle over his successor had begun. Pitting the family of his favorite wife, the controversial Aisha, against supporters of his son-in-law, the philosopher-warrior Ali, the struggle would reach its breaking point fifty years later in Iraq, when soldiers of the first Sunni dynasty massacred seventy-two warriors led by Muhammad's grandson Hussein at Karbala. Hussein's agonizing ordeal at Karbala was soon to become the Passion story at the core of Shia Islam. Hazleton's vivid, gripping prose provides extraordinary insight into the origins of the world's most volatile blend of politics and religion. Balancing past and present, she shows how these seventh-century events are as alive in Middle Eastern hearts and minds today as though they had just happened, shaping modern headlines from Iran's Islamic Revolution to the civil war in Iraq. "After the Prophet" is narrative nonfiction at its finest, and an emotional and political revelation for Western readers.


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When a group of people vanish without a trace from an old manse on an island off the Scottish coast, the British government sends in a team from Department 18, a unit designed to investigate paranormal activity. What they find is far worse than any mere haunted house!


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Lose weight without losing your mind!    *Cook Yourself Thin* is a healthy, delicious way to drop a dress size without  all the gimmicks. The ladies of "Cook Yourself Thin," a new Lifetime reality  show, offer 80 easy, accessible recipes in this companion cookbook that  teaches readers how to cut calories without compromising taste.  

For some of us, losing weight has always been a struggle. The challenge:  figuring out how to cook healthy, low-fat foods that won't leave you hungry,  bored, or running for a gallon of ice cream! *Cook Yourself Thin* shows how to  cut calories, change diets, and improve health without sacrificing the foods  we love.  

*Cook Yourself Thin* is not a fad diet. It gives skinny alternatives to your  cravings. You can't live without your chocolate cake or mac 'n' cheese? You  don't have to! (See Deep Dark Chocolate Cake, page 197.) There's never  enough time to cook? *Cook Yourself Thin* keeps it simple─with easy  instructions and fun recipes you'll want to make again and again.  

What are you waiting for? Cook Yourself Thin!


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Introducing Detective Inspector Darko Dawson: dedicated family man, rebel in the office, ace in the field-and one of the most appealing sleuths to come along in years. When we first meet Dawson, hers"s been ordered by his cantankerous boss to leave behind his loving wife and young son in Ghanars"s capital city to lead a murder investigation: In a shady grove outside the small town of Ketanu, a young woman-a promising medical student-has been found dead under suspicious circumstances. Dawson is fluent in Ketanurs"s indigenous language, so hers"s the right man for the job, but the local police are less than thrilled with an outsiderrs"s interference. For Dawson, this sleepy corner of Ghana is rife with emotional land mines: an estranged relationship with the family he left behind twenty-five years earlier and the painful memory of his own motherrs"s inexplicable disappearance. Armed with remarkable insight and a healthy dose of skepticism, Dawson soon finds his cosmopolitan sensibilities clashing with age-old customs, including a disturbing practice in which teenage girls are offered to fetish priests as trokosi, or Wives of the Gods. Delving deeper into the studentrs"s haunting death, Dawson will uncover long-buried secrets that, to his surprise, hit much too close to home.


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In the idyll of the English countryside, on a beautiful summer's evening in a Kent field, and around their two caravans, a little group of strawberry pickers is getting ready to celebrate a birthday. But who picks our strawberries these days? The Ukrainians: Irina, just off the coach from Kiev, and eager to improve her excellent English and find true love with a romantic Englishman; Andriy, the miner's son from the other Ukraine; the Poles: Bob Dylan fan, Tomasz, (whose smelly trainers will soon punish those in the men's caravan), Yola, the petite, voluptuous gangmistress and her religious niece Marta, who finds the wild mushrooms to cook with the sliced loaf; then there is Vitaly, king of the new mobilfon world of the shiny new Eastern Europe; two Chinese girls; Emanuel, the round eyed eighteen-year-old from Malawi, come to England to look for his sister. And although he can't exactly help pick strawberries, there's also the Dog...But these are a group leading dangerous lives - exploitative employers, British regulations and gang masters with guns will all threaten their existence as they take to the caravan road until each of them peels off to find their destiny.  Hilarious, gritty, moving, and slapstick by turns, "Two Caravans" has every bit of the extraordinary distinctiveness and wit and heart that made "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" so successful.


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From bonding to bondage, from B&Q to Belarus, along with seven smelly cats, three useless handymen, two slimy estate agents, social workers, a bonker lady. The story of a very unlikely friendship. Georgie Sinclair's husband has walked out; her sixteen-year-old son is busy surfing born-again websites; and all those overdue articles for Adhesives in the Modern World are getting her down. So when Georgie spots Mrs Shapiro, an eccentric old Jewish eacute;migreacute; neighbour with an eye for a bargain and a fondness for matchmaking, rummaging through her skip in the middle of the night, it's just the distraction she needs. And although they mistrust each other at first - Georgie doesn't like the look of that past-its-sell-by-date fish, while Mrs Shapiro thinks Georgie needs to smarten herself up and grab a new husband - a firm friendship is formed over the reduced-price shelf at the supermarket. Then Mrs Shapiro is admitted to hospital and to Georgie's surprise, she is named as her next of kin. But sorting out Mrs Shapiro's semi-derelict mansion in Highbury, home to seven stinky cats with agendas of their own, is no easy job when the handyman called in to change the locks turns out to be not what he seems and his two assistants, 'the Uselesses', are doing more breaking than fixing. And what about the two slimy estate agents (one with a charming taste for bondage) who start competing to trick Mrs Shapiro into selling her rickety old house, or the social worker determined to commit her to a nursing home? As Georgie steps in to help her new friend, she finds herself unravelling a mystery which takes her from Highbury to wartime Europe to the Middle East, and learning a bit about DIY along the way.


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One of the country's leading researchers updates his revolutionary approach to solving--and preventing--your children's sleep problems Here Dr. Marc Weissbluth, a distinguished pediatrician and father of four, offers his groundbreaking program to ensure the best sleep for your child. In Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, he explains with authority and reassurance his step-by-step regime for instituting beneficial habits within the framework of your child's natural sleep cycles. This valuable sourcebook contains brand new research that - Pinpoints the way daytime sleep differs from night sleep and why both are important to your child- Helps you cope with and stop the crybaby syndrome, nightmares, bedwetting, and more- Analyzes ways to get your baby to fall asleep according to his internal clock--naturally- Reveals the common mistakes parents make to get their children to sleep--including the inclination to rock and feed- Explores the different sleep cycle needs for different temperaments--from quiet babies to hyperactive toddlers- Emphasizes the significance of a nap schedule- Rest is vital to your child's health growth and development. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child outlines proven strategies that ensure good, healthy sleep for every age. Advises parents dealing with teenagers and their unique sleep problems "From the Trade Paperback edition."


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An amusing, astonishing debut . . . about how a family learns to let go of the past and live and love in the present. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution  With this wise, tender, and deeply funny novel, Marina Lewycka takes her place alongside Zadie Smith and Monica Ali as a writer who can capture the unchanging verities of family. When an elderly and newly widowed Ukrainian immigrant announces his intention to remarry, his daughters must set aside their longtime feud to thwart him. For their fathers intended is a voluptuous old-country gold digger with a proclivity for green satin underwear and an appetite for the good life of the West. As the hostilities mount and family secrets spill out, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian combines sex, bitchiness, wit, and genuine warmth in its celebration of the pleasure of growing old disgracefully.  A charming comedy of eros... A ride that, despite the bumps and curves in the road, never feels anything less than jaunty. Los Angeles Times Lewycka is a writer with a fundamentally optimistic vision of the future and a healthy curiosity about the past. Chicago Tribune Charming, poignantly funny. The Washington Post Book World


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Mark Jenkins's engrossing history draws on the latest science, anthropological and archaeological research to explore the origins of vampire stories, providing gripping historic and folkloric context for the concept of immortal beings who defy death by feeding on the lifeblood of others. From the earliest whispers of eternal evil in ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, vampire tales flourished through the centuries and around the globe, fueled by superstition, sexual mystery, fear of disease and death, and the nagging anxiety that demons lurk everywhere. In "Vampire Forensics, " Mark Jenkins probes vampire legend to tease out the historical truths enshrined in the tales of terror: sherds of Persian pottery depicting blood-sucking demons; the amazing recent discovery by National Geographic archaeologist Matteo Borrini of a 16th-century Venetian grave of a plague victim and suspected vampire; and the Transylvanian castle of "Vlad the Impaler," whose bloodthirsty cruelty remains unsurpassed. Jenkins navigates centuries of lore and legend, adding new chapters to the chronicle and weaving an irresistibly seductive blend of superstition, psychology, and science sure to engross everyone from Anne Rice's countless readers to serious students of archaeology and mythology.


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When a first-generation Basque fisherman pulls in the body of a beautiful young woman, his close-knit Long Island community will be irrevocably changed. As sweeping and haunting as its backdrop, Amagansett is an unforgettable evocation of life's epic forces.


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Ishawooa, Wyoming, is far from bucolic nowadays. The sheriff, Crane Carlson, needs no reminder of this but gets one anyway when he finds a kid not yet twenty murdered in a meth lab. His other troubles include a wife who's going off the rails with bourbon and pot, and his own symptoms of the disease that killed his grandfather. Einar Gilkyson, taking stock at eighty, counts among his dead a lifelong friend, a wife and--far too young--their only child; and his long-absent sister has lately returned home from Chicago after watching her soul mate die. His granddaughter, Griff, has dropped out of college to look after him, though Einar would rather she continue with her studies and her boyfriend, Paul. Completing this extended family are Barnum McEban and his ward, Kenneth, a ten-year-old whose mother--Paul's sister--is off marketing spiritual enlightenment. What these characters have to contend with on a daily basis is bracing enough, involving car accidents, runaway children, strokes and Lou Gehrig's disease, not to mention the motorcycle rallies and rodeos that flood the tiny local jail. But as their lives become even more strained, hardship foments exceptional compassion and generosity, and those caught in their own sorrow alleviate the same in others, changing themselves as they do so. In this gripping story, along with harsh truths and difficult consolation come moments of hilarity and surprise and beauty. No one writes more compellingly about the modern West than Mark Spragg, and in "Bone Fire "he is at the very height of his powers.


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In May 1915, Italy declared war on the Habsburg Empire. Nearly 750,000 Italian troops were killed in savage, hopeless fighting on the stony hills north of Trieste and in the snows of the Dolomites. To maintain discipline, General Luigi Cadorna restored the Roman practice of decimation, executing random members of units that retreated or rebelled.

With elegance and pathos, historian Mark Thompson relates the saga of the Italian front, the nationalist frenzy and political intrigues that preceded the conflict, and the towering personalities of the statesmen, generals, and writers drawn into the heart of the chaos. A work of epic scale, *The White War* does full justice to the brutal and heart-wrenching war that inspired Hemingway’s *A Farewell to Arms*.


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protect the diamondssurvive the clubsdig deep through the spadesfeel the hearts Ed Kennedy is an underage cabdriver without much of a future. He's pathetic at playing cards, hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey, and utterly devoted to his coffee-drinking dog, the Doorman. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery. That's when the first ace arrives in the mail. That's when Ed becomes the messenger. Chosen to care, he makes his way through town helping and hurting (when necessary) until only one question remains: Who's behind Ed's mission?A 2005 Michael L. Printz Honor Book and recipient of five starred reviews, *I Am the Messenger* is a cryptic journey filled with laughter, fists, and love.


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Amid the imperialist fervor of late 1941 Tokyo, Harry Niles is a man with a mission -- self-preservation. But Niles was raised by missionary parents and educated in the shadows of Tokyo's underworld -- making his loyalties as dubious as his business dealings.Now, on the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Niles must decide where his true allegiances lie, as he tries to juggle his Japanese mistress and an affair with the wife of a British diplomat; avoid a modern-day samurai who is honor-bound to kill him; and survive the Japanese high command, whose plans for conquest may just dictate his survival.Set in a maelstrom of personal temptations and mortal enemies, with a remarkable anti-hero caught in a land he can never call his own, DECEMBER 6 is a triumph of imagination, history, and riveting storytelling.


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For over two hundred years we have lived in a western-made world, one where the very notion of being modern was synonymous with being western. This original and ground-breaking new book argues that the twenty-first century will be different. With the rise of increasingly powerful non-Western countries, the west will no longer be dominant and there will be many ways of being modern. In this new era of 'contested modernity' the central player will be China.Far from becoming a western-style society, China will remain highly distinctive. Continental in size and mentality, and accounting for one-fifth of humanity, China is a 'civilization-state' whose characteristics, attitudes and values long predate its existence as a nation-state. China is already having a far-reaching and much discussed economic impact, but its influence will be far greater than this: China's rise signals the end of the global dominance of the western nation-state and the rise of a world which it will shape in a host of different ways. As it rapidly reassumes its traditional position at the centre of East Asia, the old tributary system will be resurface in a modern form, contemporary ideas of racial hierarchy will be redrawn and China's ages-old sense of superiority will reassert itself. China's rise will change the world as we know it, from one made in the west to one increasingly shaped by China.This profound and far-sighted book explains for the first time the deeper meaning of China's arrival as a global power.


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When Mary Yukari Waters's short-story collection, The Laws of Evening, was published, Maureen Corrigan of National Public Radio's Fresh Air said that "Waters's empathic imagination is so vivid she makes her reader feel like a silent witness to the small acts of cruelty and surrender that the history books can't record." In her exquisite first novel, Waters explores the complex relationships among three generations of women bound by a painful family history and a culture in which custom dictates behavior.Fourteen-year-old Sarah Rexford, half-Japanese and half-American, feels like an outsider when she visits her family in Japan. She quickly learns that in traditional Kyoto, personal boundaries are firmly drawn and actions are not always what they appear. Sarah learns of a family secret -- an interfamily adoption arranged in the throes of World War II. Her grandmother gave up one of her daughters to the matriarch of the family, and the two families have coexisted quietly, living on the same lane. While this arrangement is never discussed, it looms over the two households. In this carefully articulated world, where every gesture and look has meaning, Sarah must learn the rules by which her mother, aunts, and grandmother live.Delicately balancing drama and restraint, Waters captures these women -- their deep passions and tumultuous histories -- in this tender and moving novel about the power and beauty of mother-daughter relationships.


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FIRSTLY: don’t touch the hands of your cuckoo-clock heart. SECONDLY: master your anger. THIRDLY: never, ever fall in love. For if you do, the hour hand will poke through your skin, your bones will shatter, and your heart will break once more.Edinburgh, 1874. Born with a frozen heart, Jack is near death when his mother abandons him to the care of Dr. Madeleine—witch doctor, midwife, protector of orphans—who saves Jack by placing a cuckoo clock in his chest. And it is in her orphanage that Jack grows up among tear-filled flasks, eggs containing memories, and a man with a musical spine.As Jack gets older, Dr. Madeleine warns him that his heart is too fragile for strong emotions: he must never, ever fall in love. And, of course, this is exactly what he does: on his tenth birthday and with head-over-heels abandon. The object of his ardor is Miss Acacia—a bespectacled young street performer with a soul-stirring voice. But now Jack’s life is doubly at risk—his heart is in danger and so is his safety after he injures the school bully in a fight for the affections of the beautiful singer.Now begins a journey of escape and pursuit, from Edinburgh to Paris to Miss Acacia’s home in Andalusia. Mathias Malzieu’s The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart is a fantastical, wildly inventive tale of love and heartbreak—by turns poignant and funny—in which Jack finally learns the great joys, and ultimately the greater costs, of owning a fully formed heart.


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English Passengers (2000)
A novel by Matthew Kneale

Awards:
Whitbread Prize
The Booker Prize (nominee)

This novel tells two parallel stories: one of three eccentric Englishmen who set sail for Tasmania to find the garden of Eden; the other of a young Tasmanian aborigine and his tribe, struggling against the invading British, who prove as lethal in their good intentions as in their cruelty.

"English Passengers is an old-fashioned book in the best sense: epic in scale, crammed with outsize characters, set in a long-ago time and a faraway place... 'A-'"—Entertainment Weekly

"Robust and rollicking...unforgettable...It's tough to pull off a memorable epic, but Kneale has done it. So get comfortable, and be prepared to enter a fascinating world."—New York Post

When Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley and his band of rum smugglers from the Isle of Man have most of their contraband—but not all—confiscated by British Customs, they are forced to put their ship Sincerity up for charter. The only takers are two eccentric Englishmen who want to embark for the other side of the globe.The Reverend Geoffrey Wilson believes the Garden of Eden was on the island of Tasmania. His traveling partner, Dr. Thomas Potter, unbeknownst to Wilson, is developing a revolutionary, and sinister, thesis of his own, about the races of men. And these passengers are perhaps only slightly more odd than the crew itself, a diverse and lively bunch better equipped to entertain one another than to steer Sincerity around Cape Horn and across the Indian Ocean. Yet they set sail, pointed southward and bound for a thrilling, epic romp across the high seas and cultures of the nineteenth century.Meanwhile, an aboriginal in Tasmania named Peevay recounts his people's struggles against the invading British, who prove as lethal in their good intentions as in their cruelty. This is no Eden but a world of hunting parties and colonial ethnic cleansing. As the English passengers haplessly approach Peevay's land, their bizarre notions ever more painfully at odds with reality, we know a mighty collision is looming.Full of dangerous humor, English Passengers combines wit, adventure, and harrowing historical detail in a mesmerizing display of storytelling. Narrated by over twenty different characters, each one so distinct that the reader has the sense of a story not so much told as dazzlingly peopled, Matthew Kneale has created a buoyant tale, beautifully presented in a storm of voices that brings a past age to vivid and memorable life.


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The Liars' Club brought to vivid, indelible life Mary Karr's hardscrabble Texas childhood. Cherry, her account of her adolescence, 'continued to set the literary standard for making the personal universal' (Entertainment Weekly). Now Lit follows the self-professed blackbelt sinner's descent into the inferno of alcoholism and madness--and to her astonishing resurrection.    Karr's longing for a solid family seems secure when her marriage to a handsome, Shakespeare-quoting blueblood poet produces a son they adore. But she can't outrun her apocalyptic past. She drinks herself into the same numbness that nearly devoured her charismatic but troubled mother, reaching the brink of suicide. A hair-raising stint in 'The Mental Marriott,' with an oddball tribe of gurus and saviors, awakens her to the possibility of joy and leads her to an unlikely faith. Not since Saint Augustine cried, 'Give me chastity, Lord-but not yet!' has a conversion story rung with such dark hilarity.    Lit is about getting drunk and getting sober, becoming a mother by letting go of a mother, learning to write by learning to live. Written with Karr's relentless honesty, unflinching self-scrutiny, and irreverent, lacerating humor, it is a truly electrifying story of how to grow up--as only Mary Karr can tell it.


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Boston, 1870. When news of Charles Dickens’s sudden death reaches his struggling American publisher, James Osgood sends his trusted clerk, Daniel Sand, to await the arrival of Dickens’s unfinished final manuscript. But Daniel never returns, and when his body is discovered by the docks, Osgood must embark on a quest to find the missing end to the novel and unmask the killer. With Daniel’s sister Rebecca at his side, Osgood races the clock through a dangerous web of opium dens, sadistic thugs, and literary lions to solve a genius’s last mystery and save his own–and Rebecca’s–lives.


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In 1783 London, the destiny of an orphaned boy and girl becomes intertwined as the boy, Cirrus Flux, is pursued by a sinister woman mesmerist, a tiny man with an all-seeing eye, and a skull-collecting scoundrel, all of whom believe that he possesses an orb containing a divine power.


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The magnificent conclusion of Maureen Howard's ambitious quartet of novels. Maureen Howard is one of America's most esteemed authors, beloved both for the lyricism of her writing and her dazzling intellect. The Rags of Timeis a moving meditation on memory and imagination that, in its interplay of history, politics, art and life, explores the very necessity of telling stories. Focusing on a New York writer with an ailing heart as she reviews her own history and the lives she imagined in her fiction, the novel interlaces the sorrows and consolations of private moments with the undeniable memory of the public record. The result is nothing less than a deeply profound exploration of American life.


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When Johnny Richardson returns to Oakridge he has one thing on his mind--correcting a terrible mistake that caused him to flee his hometown eight years ago. Revisiting the past, though, is a dark and dangerous game in small-town America. When a careless sexual episode leads to the suicide of the town’s first lady, Johnny finds himself the target of a revenge campaign that threatens to tear apart the fragile world he’s built among the gold-bearing mountains of Northern California.

Left an unexplained piece of land when his father mysteriously disappears, Johnny must unravel its secrets in a desperate bid to protect those he loves. But his efforts to do this have deadly consequences and will ultimately force him to confront not only his own failings, but the very nature of guilt.

A searing meditation on the futility of trying to right the wrongs of the past, *Empty Mile* blends elements of thrilling urban noir with the wide-open spaces of outdoor adventure in a story that reflects America’s contemporary uncertainty about itself.


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Brooke Tyler knows a thing or two about secrets. Growing up, she'd sworn to keep certain skeletons in the family closet. But her silence came at a heavy price, not the least of which was giving up the love of her life. Today, Brooke is a small-town cop, sworn to uphold the law and uncover the truth. Until her latest investigation unearths another long-buried secret: a dead body. And then others. A virtual killing field. As she delves into these murders, Brooke discovers more than she bargained for--that every secret she's ever kept was based on a lie... .


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Small-town sheriff J.C. Harrow made headlines when he apprehended a would-be presidential assassin - only to come home that night and find his wife and son brutally murdered. This tragic twist of fate launched his career as the host of reality TV's smash-hit, "Crime Seen"! But while media star Harrow tracks down dangerous criminals coast to coast - with the help of viewers' tips - a killer with a twisted agenda is making his own bloody path to fame.


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Visionary, gripping, sumptuous and tantalizing, Grande Junction is a masterwork of hip, literary science fiction. On October 4, 2057, most electronic devices on Earth are infected and destroyed by unknown viruses, and billions of people dependent on machine interfaces are killed as a result. Twelve years later, the survivors are sunk in a new Dark Age, a grim afterworld in which the only law is the law of the jungle. In the sprawling ruins of Grande Junction, a thriving urban community centered on an abandoned spaceport, civilization is hanging on by its fingernails. In this last fragile outpost of knowledge and reason, hope and faith, a second wave of lethal viruses is unleashedviruses that attack human beings directly, stripping away language, thought, humanity itself. But it is also here that a young boy, a guitar-playing prodigy named Link de Nova, discovers within himself the power to fight a malevolent entity determined to remake the world in its own bleak image. Now, as the viruses spread and enemies converge on Grande Junction, Link and his friends and protectors, Chrysler Campbell and Yuri McCoy, prepare to fight for the survival of the human race with rifles, radios, and rock 'n' roll.


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Few works of literature are as universally beloved as" Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Now, in this spellbinding historical novel, we meet the young girl whose bright spirit sent her on an unforgettable trip down the rabbit hole-and the grown woman whose story is no less enthralling. But oh my dear, I am tired of being Alice in Wonderland. Does it sound ungrateful? Alice Liddell Hargreaves's life has been a richly woven tapestry: As a young woman, wife, mother, and widow, she's experienced intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy. But as she nears her eighty-first birthday, she knows that, to the world around her, she is and will always be only "Alice." Her life was permanently dog-eared at one fateful moment in her tenth year-the golden summer day she urged a grown-up friend to write down one of his fanciful stories. That story, a wild tale of rabbits, queens, and a precocious young child, becomes a sensation the world over. Its author, a shy, stuttering Oxford professor, does more than immortalize Alice-he changes her life forever. But even he cannot stop time, as much as he might like to. And as Alice's childhood slips away, a peacetime of glittering balls and royal romances gives way to the urgent tide of war. For Alice, the stakes could not be higher, for she is the mother of three grown sons, soldiers all. Yet even as she stands to lose everything she treasures, one part of her will always be the determined, undaunted Alice of the story, who discovered that life beyond the rabbit hole was an astonishing journey. A love story and a literary mystery, Alice I Have Been brilliantly blends fact and fiction to capture the passionate spirit of a woman who was truly worthy of her fictional alter ego, in a world as captivating as the Wonderland only she could inspire. "From the Hardcover edition."


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A breathtaking tale of love, loyalty, and intrigue set in the early days of World War II from the acclaimed "New York Times" Notable Book author of "Soul Catcher," which "USA Today" hailed as "a marvelous historical novel"  World War II threatens to engulf the globe. The beleaguered Soviets, struggling to hold back the rising German tide, face despair and defeat daily. Yet just as all seems lost, a fearless female sniper named Tat'yana Levchenko gains fame in the Battle of Sevastopol with her remarkable composure and stunning skill. Offering hope in her nation's darkest moments, she becomes a Soviet hero, and word of her beauty and prowess eventually reaches Washington, D.C. Soon, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt invites Tat'yana to visit America and tour the country with her.  For the Soviets, Tat'yana's newfound friendship with the wife of the most powerful man in the world is an opportunity to garner public support for a much-needed second front in the war--but it's also a chance to gather information about President Roosevelt's plans. Surrounded by those who would exploit her position, Tat'yana becomes a pawn in a battle for information, and she is forced to question the motivations of everyone she knows, including the American captain who has been assigned as her translator. But as quickly as she rises to fame, Tat'yana vanishes. Did she defect? Was she silenced--and if so, by whom? Decades later, a clever journalist will discover Tat'yana's story . . . and reveal the truth.  In "Beautiful Assassin," Michael White delivers a heartrending story of war, betrayal, and a mother's love that can never be extinguished. Lyrical, evocative, and powerfully moving, this is a tale you will not soon forget.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

“The author has written a truly complete reference book on options trading, from basics to strategies to taxes and theory. Newcomers to options can quickly find a clear explanation of terms or strategies they aren’t familiar with, and experienced traders can expand their understanding of how complex strategies are created.”  --**Jim Bittman, **author, *Trade Options Like a Professional*     “For a new perspective about options, I recommend Michael Thomsett’s comprehensive *The Options Trading Body of Knowledge*. Traders at all levels will enjoy his easy-to-read style as he explains options from A to Z. The options industry has needed a reference like this for a long time.”  --**Marty Kearney, **Senior Staff Instructor, The Options Institute     **The Comprehensive, Up-to-Date Reference for Every Options Trader**      By Michael C. Thomsett, author of the global best-seller *Getting Started in Options*    Illuminates virtually every technique and form of options trading--including options on futures and ETFs    Helps you consistently choose the right options strategies and understand your true risks     Options offer investors multiple opportunities to enhance their profits. However, options trading is complex, and the sheer scope of available strategies can overwhelm traders. Today, options can support a wide range of strategies, from high risk to conservative. Moreover, options are available not only for stock equities but also for futures, indices, and mutual funds. To trade successfully, traders need an authoritative, up-to-date guide to all the strategies available to them. Now, renowned options expert and best-selling author Michael C. Thomsett has created the definitive reference for options traders at all levels of experience.     Thomsett systematically illuminates each key technique and strategy: how trades are structured, how to assess risk, and when each strategy is most applicable. For most strategies, Thomsett presents detailed tables and illustrations identifying profit zones, loss zones, and breakeven points.      This book thoroughly explains how option premium develops based on various elements of value, walks through the calculation of returns on options trading, discusses how federal taxation works in the options market, shows how stocks are picked for options trading, and provides a complete glossary and additional resources for traders.       **Thoroughly Comprehend Options Trading Risks**    *Systematically evaluate risks associated with markets, volatility, inflation, taxation, portfolios, and knowledge*    **Understand All the Elements of Value in an Options Trade

***Master concepts ranging from time-to-expiration to implied volatility*    **Use the Right Strategies at the Right Time

***Know when to use covered calls, spreads, straddles, combinations, and synthetic positions*    **The Options Marketplace: History, Evolution, and Trends

***Understand both the “forest” and the “trees” *


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

It is autumn 1981 when the inconceivable comes to Blackeberg, a suburb in Sweden. The body of a teenage boy is found, emptied of blood, the murder rumored to be part of a ritual killing. Twelve-year-old Oskar is personally hoping that revenge has come at long last---revenge for the bullying he endures at school, day after day.

But the murder is not the most important thing on his mind. A new girl has moved in next door---a girl who has never seen a Rubik’s Cube before, but who can solve it at once. There is something wrong with her, though, something odd. And she only comes out at night. . . .Sweeping top honors at film festivals all over the globe, director Tomas Alfredsson’s film of *Let the Right One In* has received the same kind of spectacular raves that have been lavished on the book. American readers of vampire fiction will be thrilled!


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From the Introduction: ""Look around," the drill sergeant said. "In a few years, or even a few months, several of you will be dead. Some of you will be severely wounded or so badly mutilated that your own mother can't stand the sight of you. And for the real unlucky ones, you will come home so emotionally disfigured that you wish you had died over there."It was Week 7 of Basic Training . . . 18 years old and I was preparing myself to die."They say the Army makes a man out of you--but for 18-year-old SPC Michael Anthony, that fabled rite of passage proved a very dark journey. After soliciting his parents' approval to enlist at only 17, Anthony began his journey with an unshakeable faith in the military born of his family's long tradition of service. But when thrust into a medical unit of misfits as lost as he was, SPC Anthony not only witnessed the unspeakable horror of war--but the undeniable misconduct of the military--firsthand. Everything he ever believed in dissolved, forcing Anthony to rethink his loyalties, and ultimately risk his career--and his freedom--to challenge the military he had so firmly believed in.This searing memoir chronicles the iconic experiences that changed one young soldier forever. A seasoned veteran before the age of twenty-one, he faced the truth about the war--and himself--in this shocking and unprecedented eyewitness account.


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THE ASCENSION BEGINS. A Catholic bishop. A Quaker prayer leader. A Methodist minister. A Mormon ward leader. An entire congregation of Seventh Day Adventists. What do they have in common? They all minister to people's spiritual needs. And someone-or something-is ripping them to shreds for it. A BLOODY WARNING. Police detective Caldwell "Cal" Evans, still three weeks shy of completing rehab, is called in on the case. His only clue is a chilling message written in blood at the first murder scene: "Leave the Christ alone. He does not belong to you." THE SERPENT SHALL REIGN. With bodies piling up, Cal and his partner, Velvet Rabinowitz, chase leads involving snake-handling cults, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and an ancient ceremony left unfinished for two thousand years. With the help of a graduate student and an enigmatic Roman Catholic priest, the two detectives do more than fight for their lives. .THEY FIGHT FOR US ALL.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

***New York Times***** bestselling author Michael Gruber, a member of "the elite ranks of those who can both chill the blood and challenge the mind" (*The Denver Post*), delivers a taut, multilayered, riveting novel of suspense**

Somewhere in Pakistan, Sonia Laghari and eight fellow members of a symposium on peace are being held captive by armed terrorists. Sonia, a deeply religious woman as well as a Jungian psychologist, has become the de facto leader of the kidnapped group. While her son Theo, an ex-Delta soldier, uses his military connections to find and free the victims, Sonia tries to keep them all alive by working her way into the kidnappers' psyches and interpreting their dreams. With her knowledge of their language, her familiarity with their religion, and her Jungian training, Sonia confounds her captors with her insights and beliefs. Meanwhile, when the kidnappers decide to kill their captives, one by one, in retaliation for perceived crimes against their country, Theo races against the clock to try and save their lives.


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With technologies and weapon systems torn from the pages of DARPA's most advanced military programs, DOMINANT SPECIES is an explosive roller-coaster of futuristic military action. This fast-paced, character-driven novel will immerse you in the world of lethal powered armor aboard a ghostly abandoned starship buried miles underground. Somewhere amid the twisted, frozen decks, a group of elite Marines will find themselves trapped in an ancient mystery and a life-or-death battle to see who really is... the DOMINANT SPECIES.


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In the tradition of TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE and THE LAST LECTURE comes an inspiring book of life lessons from Michael J Fox. Michael J Fox didn t finish high school, but he has gone on to receive honorary degrees from several universities and has achieved the highest accolades for his acting, as well as his writing. In his new book, he inspires and motivates his readers to work hard, achieve the most they can and maximise their abilities - all with his trademark optimism, warmth and humour. From moving to Los Angeles fresh from Canada, without a high school degree and learning to live on a wage; to taking on roles in Family Ties and the Back to the Future movies and nearly crashing and burning; and then learning to cope first with the death of his father and then with his own diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, MJF shares what he's learned about life, work, love, family and happiness and everything else along the way.


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This stunning new novel from Tatiana de Rosnay, author of the acclaimed *New York Times* bestseller *Sarah’s Key*, plumbs the depths of complex family relationships and the power of a past secret to change everything in the present.

It all began with a simple seaside vacation, a brother and sister recapturing their childhood.  Antoine Rey thought he had the perfect surprise for his sister Mélanie’s birthday: a weekend by the sea at Noirmoutier Island, where the pair spent many happy childhood summers playing on the beach.  It had been too long, Antoine thought, since they’d returned to the island—over thirty years, since their mother died and the family holidays ceased.  But the island’s haunting beauty triggers more than happy memories; it reminds Mélanie of something unexpected and deeply disturbing about their last island summer.  When, on the drive home to Paris, she finally summons the courage to reveal what she knows to Antoine, her emotions overcome her and she loses control of the car.

Recovering from the accident in a nearby hospital, Mélanie tries to recall what caused her to crash.  Antoine encounters an unexpected ally: sexy, streetwise Angèle, a mortician who will teach him new meanings for the words life, love and death.  Suddenly, however, the past comes swinging back at both siblings, burdened with a dark truth about their mother, Clarisse.  

Trapped in the wake of a shocking family secret shrouded by taboo, Antoine must confront his past and also his troubled relationships with his own children.  How well does he really know his mother, his children, even himself?  Suddenly fragile on all fronts as a son, a husband, a brother and a father, Antoine Rey will learn the truth about his family and himself the hard way. By turns thrilling, seductive and destructive, with a lingering effect that is bittersweet and redeeming, *A Secret Kept *is the story of a modern family, the invisible ties that hold it together, and the impact it has throughout life.


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The Galactic Hegemony has been around a long time, and it likes stability--the kind of stability that member species like the aggressive, carnivorous Shongairi tend to disturb. So when the Hegemony Survey Force encountered a world whose so-called "sentients"—"humans," they called themselves—were almost as bad as the Shongairi themselves, it seemed reasonable to use the Shongairi to neutralize them before they could become a second threat to galactic peace. And if the Shongairi took a few knocks in the process, all the better.

Now, Earth is conquered. The Shongairi have arrived in force, and humanity’s cities lie in radioactive ruins. In mere minutes, more than half the human race has died.

Master Sergeant Stephen Buchevsky, who thought he was being rotated home from his latest tour in Afghanistan, finds himself instead prowling the back country of the Balkans, dodging alien patrols and trying to organize scattered survivors without getting killed. And in the southeastern US, firearms instructor and former Marine Dave Dvorak finds himself at the center of a growing network of resistance—putting his extended family at lethal risk, but what else can you do?

On the face of it, Buchevsky’s and Dvorak’s chances look bleak, as do prospects for the rest of the surviving human race. But it may well be that Shongairi and the Hegemony alike have underestimated the inhabitants of that strange planet called Earth…


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In this novel, Greek tragedy meets a dysfunctional family from Maryland, revealing how time and place matter little when it comes to the implacable logic of the darkest human emotions. The family matriarch–half Medea, half Clytemnestra–calls home her three children, who take turns narrating this story, for a final, bedside reunion. There’s the firstborn, Maury, who has Asperger’s, and whose poetic and offbeat reasoning is both endearing and heartbreaking; Candy, his sister, who takes care of their mother, having renounced marrying the man she loves; and Quinn, the wonder boy who left his white trash background to become a successful actor in London. Mother still lives in the house where she made their lives miserable as children and where their father was murdered–a crime for which Maury went to jail as a teenager. Once the family is reassembled in the childhood home, the pieces of a somber puzzle come together over brilliant and witty exchanges showing Irish humor at its best. Mewshaw invites us into the heart of a family dynamic, at times almost too close for comfort, exploding prejudices about murder and family love.


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The Football Fan's Ten Commandments You Must Choose Your Team by the Age of Eight. Value That Team Above All Else, Even Yourself. Under No Circumstances Can You Switch Teams (And Expect to Live). There is a Limit to the Amount of Merchandise You Can Own (But It's Very Generous). Sportsmanship is for the Athletes. Fans Can Gloat Endlessly. A Self-Induced Coma to Skip the Off-season is a Practical Solution to an Annoying Problem. An Inoffensive Fantasy Football Name is a Lame Fantasy Football Name. Wealth Doesn't Matter So Long As You Don't Have to Work Weekends. Respect Superstitions. If Your Team Lost, It's Because You Jinxed Them. In Life, the Order of Importance: Football First, Football Second, Football Third, Family . . . uh, I Don't Know, twelfth?  These are just the basics if you wish to be a True Football Fan. The full picture is much more complex and boozy. Thankfully, "The Football Fan's Manifesto" is your very own playbook to the strict rules and bylaws that must be scrupulously observed. After all, trash-talking is an intricate science and running onto the field a dangerous but irresistible pursuit. There are many lessons to be learned, especially that choosing a favorite team to live and die with is not a choice made easily: It's the most important decision of your life!


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In the spirit of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett,The Sheriff of Yrnameeris sci-fi comedy at its best-mordant, raucously funny, and a thrilling page-turner. Meet Cole: hapless space rogue and part-time smuggler. His sidekick just stole his girlfriend. The galaxyrs"s most hideous and feared bounty hunter wants to lay eggs in his brain. And the luxury space yacht Cole just hijacked turns out to be filled with interstellar do-gooders, one especially loathsome stowaway, and a cargo of freeze-dried orphans. Cole gathers a misfit crew for a desperate journey to the far reaches of the galaxy: the mysterious world of Yrnameer, the very last of the "your-name-heres"-planets without corporate sponsors. But little does Cole suspect that this legendary utopia is home to a band of outlaws bent on destroying the planetrs"s tiny, peaceful community.


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**A *Washington Post*, *Rocky Mountain News*, *Boston Globe* Best Book of the Year**Intrigue and subterfuge combine with bad luck and good in this darkly comic debut about love, betrayal, tyranny, family, and a conspiracy trying its damnedest to happen.Ali Shigri, Pakistan Air Force pilot and Silent Drill Commander of the Fury Squadron, is on a mission to avenge his father's suspicious death, which the government calls a suicide.Ali's target is none other than General Zia ul-Haq, dictator of Pakistani. Enlisting a rag-tag group of conspirators, including his cologne-bathed roommate, a hash-smoking American lieutenant, and a mango-besotted crow, Ali sets his elaborate plan in motion. There's only one problem: the line of would-be Zia assassins is longer than he could have possibly known.


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People say that Dr. Taylor Jenkins is the best there is. Devoted to his patients, he has given his life to the hospital. But any free time he has is spent searching out his latest high-adrenaline adventure--and successfully shielding his heart!So now he's in a fix. Not only has he been left in charge of his nephew, he's also been thrown for a loop by the new nurse who's arrived in Santa Fe. Beautiful, talented Piper is a natural with kids, but she's also only temporary. They have one summer and the clock is ticking. The adventure is only just beginning....


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"Unleashing the Power of Rubber Bands" is an engaging and insightful look into the qualities, attributes, and practices that turn ordinary leaders into extraordinary ones. Nancy Ortberg's unique twist on vision casting; managing tensions; nurturing healthy conflict; motivating those around you; fostering creativity, passion, and trust is unlike anything you've ever read before! At times challenging, at times candid, but always inspiring, "Unleashing the Power of Rubber Bands" will bring out the best in even the most seasoned leaders.


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List item 2: Never speak German on the upper decks of London buses. Jack Rosenblum is five foot three and a half inches of sheer tenacity. He's writing a list so he can become a Very English Gentleman. List item 41: An Englishman buys his marmalade from Fortnum and Mason. It's 1952, and despite his best efforts, his bid to blend in is fraught with unexpected hurdles - including his wife. Sadie doesn't want to forget where they came from or the family they've lost. And she shows no interest in getting a purple rinse. List item 112: An Englishman keeps his head in a crisis, even when he's risking everything. Jack leads a reluctant Sadie deep into the English countryside in pursuit of a dream. Here, in a land of woolly pigs, bluebells and jitterbug cider, they embark on an impossible task...


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From its unforgettable opening scene in the darkness of a forgotten cemetery in Buenos Aires, Nathan Englander's debut novel The Ministry of Special Cases casts a powerful spell. In the heart of Argentina's Dirty War, Kaddish Poznan struggles with a son who won't accept him; strives for a wife who forever saves him; and spends his nights protecting the good name of a community that denies his existence. When the nightmare of the disappeared children brings the Poznan family to its knees, they are thrust into the unyielding corridors of the Ministry of Special Cases, a terrifying, byzantine refuge of last resort. Through the devastation of a single family, Englander brilliantly captures the grief of a nation.


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From Neil Sheehan, author of the Pulitzer Prize—winning classic A Bright Shining Lie, comes this long-awaited, magnificent epic. Here is the never-before-told story of the nuclear arms race that changed history–and of the visionary American Air Force officer Bernard Schriever, who led the high-stakes effort. A Fiery Peace in a Cold War is a masterly work about Schriever’s quests to prevent the Soviet Union from acquiring nuclear superiority, to penetrate and exploit space for America, and to build the first weapons meant to deter an atomic holocaust rather than to be fired in anger.Sheehan melds biography and history, politics and science, to create a sweeping narrative that transports the reader back and forth from individual drama to world stage. The narrative takes us from Schriever’s boyhood in Texas as a six-year-old immigrant from Germany in 1917 through his apprenticeship in the open-cockpit biplanes of the Army Air Corps in the 1930s and his participation in battles against the Japanese in the South Pacific during the Second World War. On his return, he finds a new postwar bipolar universe dominated by the antagonism between the United States and the Soviet Union.Inspired by his technological vision, Schriever sets out in 1954 to create the one class of weapons that can enforce peace with the Russians–intercontinental ballistic missiles that are unstoppable and can destroy the Soviet Union in thirty minutes. In the course of his crusade, he encounters allies and enemies among some of the most intriguing figures of the century: John von Neumann, the Hungarian-born mathematician and mathematical physicist, who was second in genius only to Einstein; Colonel Edward Hall, who created the ultimate ICBM in the Minuteman missile, and his brother, Theodore Hall, who spied for the Russians at Los Alamos and hastened their acquisition of the atomic bomb; Curtis LeMay, the bomber general who tried to exile Schriever and who lost his grip on reality, amassing enough nuclear weapons in his Strategic Air Command to destroy the entire Northern Hemisphere; and Hitler’s former rocket maker, Wernher von Braun, who along with a colorful, riding-crop-wielding Army general named John Medaris tried to steal the ICBM program.The most powerful men on earth are also put into astonishing relief: Joseph Stalin, the cruel, paranoid Soviet dictator who spurred his own scientists to build him the atomic bomb with threats of death; Dwight Eisenhower, who backed the ICBM program just in time to save it from the bureaucrats; Nikita Khrushchev, who brought the world to the edge of nuclear catastrophe during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and John Kennedy, who saved it.Schriever and his comrades endured the heartbreak of watching missiles explode on the launching pads at Cape Canaveral and savored the triumph of seeing them soar into space. In the end, they accomplished more than achieving a fiery peace in a cold war. Their missiles became the vehicles that opened space for America.


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From two of our most fiercely moral voices, a passionate call to arms against our era's most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world. With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope. They show how a little help can transform the lives of women and girls abroad. That Cambodian girl eventually escaped from her brothel and, with assistance from an aid group, built a thriving retail business that supports her family. The Ethiopian woman had her injuries repaired and in time became a surgeon. A Zimbabwean mother of five, counseled to return to school, earned her doctorate and became an expert on AIDS. Through these stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women's potential. They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that, and how we can each do our part. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. Countries such as China have prospered precisely because they emancipated women and brought them into the formal economy. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it's also the best strategy for fighting poverty. Deeply felt, pragmatic, and inspirational, "Half the Sky" is essential reading for every global citizen.


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**A book guaranteed to touch anyone who has ever had a beloved pet… **    From instant *New York Times* bestseller, Dr. Nick Trout comes another touching and heartfelt story from the front lines of veterinary medicine—the story of two dogs who forever changed the way he thought about life, death, fate and love.   Helen is an older cocker spaniel found neglected and abandoned in a restaurant parking lot one rainy night.  Despite her mangy condition and terrible smell, Ben and Eileen fall in love with the pitiful creature and decide to take her in.  But just as Helen is rescued from a sad life on the streets and enveloped in a loving home with all the creature comforts an old dog could ask for, a tumor is discovered and she's given a devastating prognosis.  All Ben and Eileen want is for Helen to beat the odds and survive for one more summer so that she can have one chance to swim in the ocean on the family's annual trip to Prince Edward Island.  In short, they want a miracle.   Meanwhile, fourteen-month-old miniature pinscher Cleo keeps breaking one leg after another which devastates her poor owner, Sandi.  While Cleo is visiting Sandi's daughter, Sonja, in Bermuda, she succumbs to yet another fracture.  Distraught that the injury happened on her watch, Sonja makes a plan to fly Cleo to Boston to get the specialist care she needs before Sandi even finds out.  Enter Dr. Trout who presides over what should be a fairly routine surgery.   What happens next forever links two families, their dogs and a beloved veterinarian and teaches them all a lesson about grace that resonates to this day. *   Love is the Best Medicine* immerses you in the true life drama of beloved pets whose lives hang in the balance.  Every page underscores the profound bond we have with the animals in our lives and the incredible responsibility Nick carries as their healer.  Certainly Dr. Trout has an impressive array of fancy equipment, training and skills at his disposable, but his most important tool (as he persuasively illustrates here) is a fundamental belief in the power of hope, humility, and grace.     Wry, charming, and intensely affecting,* Love is the Best Medicine* is a one of a kind story only the winsome Dr. Trout could deliver and is destined to become a favorite for animal lovers.*From the Hardcover edition.*


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"I lovedSwimming. It's the most original novel I've read all year. I can't get Pip's voice out of my mind. Give yourself a treat this summerread this book." Judy Blume A spectacular debut about the rise of an Olympic championa novel about competition, obsession, the hunger for victory, and a young girl with an unsinkable spirit struggling to stay afloat in the only way she can. When we first meet Pip, the extraordinary heroine of Nicola Keegan's first novel, she is landlocked in a small town in the center of Kansas, literally swimming for her life. Pip is tall and flat and smart and funny and supernaturally buoyant. On land, she has her share of troubles: an agoraphobic mother, a lost father, a drug-addled sister, and a Catholic education dominated by a group of high-energy nuns. But in the water, Pip is unstoppable. In the water, her suffering and rage are transmuted into grace and speed and beauty. Swimmingis the story of Pip's journey from a small Midwestern swim team to her first state meet, her brutal professional training, and the final, record-breaking swims that lead to her dizzying ascent to the Olympic podium in Barcelona. It's the story of a girl who discovers, in the loneliness of adolescence, in the family tragedies that threaten to engulf her, the resilience of the human spirit and the spectacular power of her own body. A ferociously original novel, sparkling with wit and blazing with emotion, from a gifted new novelist.


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In one of the most unique memoirs of addiction ever published, Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx shares mesmerizing diary entries from the year he spiraled out of control in a haze of heroin and cocaine, presented alongside riveting commentary from people who were there at the time, and from Nikki himself.  When Motley Crue was at the height of its fame, there wasn't any drug Nikki Sixx wouldn't do. He spent days - sometimes alone, sometimes with other addicts, friends, and lovers - in a coke and heroin-fueled daze. The highs were high, and Nikki's journal entries reveal some euphoria and joy. But the lows were lower, often ending with Nikki in his closet, surrounded by drug paraphernalia and wrapped in paranoid delusions.  Here, Nikki shares those diary entries - some poetic, some scatterbrained, some bizarre - and reflects on that time. Joining him are Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars, Slash, Rick Nielsen, Bob Rock, and a host of ex-managers, ex-lovers, and more.  Brutally honest, utterly riveting, and shockingly moving, The Heroin Diaries follows Nikki during the year he plunged to rock bottom - and his courageous decision to pick himself up and start living again.


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One day in early spring, Dorrit Weger is checked into the Second Reserve Bank Unit for biological material. She is promised a nicely furnished apartment inside the Unit, where she will make new friends, enjoy the state of the art recreation facilities, and live the few remaining days of her life in comfort with people who are just like her. Here, women over the age of fifty and men over sixty–single, childless, and without jobs in progressive industries–are sequestered for their final few years; they are considered outsiders. In the Unit they are expected to contribute themselves for drug and psychological testing, and ultimately donate their organs, little by little, until the final donation. Despite the ruthless nature of this practice, the ethos of this near-future society and the Unit is to take care of others, and Dorrit finds herself living under very pleasant conditions: well-housed, well-fed, and well-attended. She is resigned to her fate and discovers her days there to be rather consoling and peaceful. But when she meets a man inside the Unit and falls in love, the extraordinary becomes a reality and life suddenly turns unbearable. Dorrit is faced with compliance or escape, and…well, then what?THE UNIT is a gripping exploration of a society in the throes of an experiment, in which the “dispensable” ones are convinced under gentle coercion of the importance of sacrificing for the “necessary” ones. Ninni Holmqvist has created a debut novel of humor, sorrow, and rage about love, the close bonds of friendship, and about a cynical, utilitarian way of thinking disguised as care.


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*People are dying* . . . Each victim has been a thorn in the side of the FBI, and, inexplicably, domestic terrorists who claim to be anti-Bureau are claiming responsibility—and threatening more murders if their huge financial demands aren't met.  

 The trap has been set. The Bureau's best agents attempt to follow the detailed demands of the blackmailers, only to be drawn into intricate mazes which are ingeniously riddled with hazards, ensuring that no one will emerge alive. The FBI has used every technological secret at their disposal to beat the killers at their game—and they have failed.  

 The clock is ticking. Deputy Assistant Director Kate Bannon knows that the solution will not be found by following the rules. It's time to call in someone from her past, someone who has routinely handled the impossible—a loose cannon ex-agent fired for insubordination but still the very best she has ever seen.  

 It's time to call in Steve Vail . . . *The Bricklayer*.


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Security expert Gates Bromley's number one priority is protecting art collector Dav Gianikopolis. But when he joins forces with CIA Agent Ana Burton tracing several pieces of stolen art, Gates is distracted by the leggy brunette who stirs up the raciest thoughts...After botching an operation that cost her colleagues' lives, Ana has been reassigned to cold cases. When news gets out that she's reopened a case involving stolen art and five brutal murders, Ana is almost killed. Seeking comfort in Gates' strong embrace is easy, but surrendering trust to the sexiest man she's ever known isn't - unless Gates can show her that an attraction this hot is worth all the risks. But first he'll have to stop a killer who's bent on keeping the past buried.


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Garnering international prizes and acclaim before its publication, "Ilustrado" has been called "brilliantly conceived and stylishly executed . . .It is also ceaselessly entertaining, frequently raunchy, and effervescent with humor" (2008 Man Asian Literary Prize panel of judges). It begins with a body. On a clear day in winter, the battered corpse of Crispin Salvador is pulled from the Hudson River--taken from the world is the controversial lion of Philippine literature. Gone, too, is the only manuscript of his final book, a work meant to rescue him from obscurity by exposing the crimes of the Filipino ruling families. Miguel, his student and only remaining friend, sets out for Manila to investigate. To understand the death, Miguel scours the life, piecing together Salvador's story through his poetry, interviews, novels, polemics, and memoirs. The result is a rich and dramatic family saga of four generations, tracing 150 years of Philippine history forged under the Spanish, the Americans, and the Filipinos themselves. Finally, we are surprised to learn that this story belongs to young Miguel as much as to his lost mentor, and we are treated to an unhindered view of a society caught between reckless decay and hopeful progress. Exuberant and wise, wildly funny and deeply moving, "Ilustrado" explores the hidden truths that haunt every family. It is a daring and inventive debut by a new writer of astonishing talent. Miguel Syjuco received the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize and the Philippines' highest literary honor, the Palanca Award, for the unpublished manuscript of "Ilustrado." Born and raised in Manila, he currently lives in Montreal. Tracing 150 years of Philippine history forged under the Spanish, the Americans and the Filipinos themselves, Miguel, the student and only remaining friend of Crispin Salvador, sets out for Manila to investigate Salvador's death. On a clear day in winter, the battered corpse of Crispin Salvador is pulled from the Hudson River and the only manuscript of his final book--a work meant to rescue him from obscurity by exposing the crimes of the Filipino ruling families--is lost. To understand the death, Miguel scours Salvador's former life in the Philippines, piecing together his story through his poetry, interviews, novels, polemics and memoirs. To his own surprise, the young Miguel learns this story belongs to him as much as to his lost mentor, as he and the reader are treated to an unhindered view of a society caught between reckless decay and hopeful progress. Exuberant and wise, wildly funny and deeply moving, "Ilustrado" explores the hidden truths that haunt every family. "Ambitious . . . In a daring literary performance, Syjuco weaves the invented with the factual . . . "Ilustrado" is being presented as a tracing of 150 years of Philippine history, but it's considerably more than that . . . Spiced with surprises and leavened with uproariously funny moments, it is punctuated with serious philosophical musings." --Raymond Bonner, "The New York Times Book Review ""A dazzling and virtuosic adventure in reading . . . The narrative is organised with immense confidence and skill . . . The author's post-modernist bag of tricks also contains a whip-crack narrative skill that's as reminiscent of Dickens as it is of Roberto Bolano . . . There's a capaciousness that makes the book richly attractive to wander into . . . [This] novel . . . fizzes with the effervescence a large book can have when its author is in total control of the material. This isn't a story; it's the unfolding of an entire world, a mirror-land that seems familiar but is always ineffably strange . . . Syjuco is a writer already touched by greatness . . . This is a remarkably impressive and utterly persuasive novel. Its author . . . may one day succeed with the Nobel committee."--Joseph O'Connor, "The Guardian" (UK) "An exuberant, complex, and fascinating ride through 150 years of Philippine history . . . Syjuco's writing is playful, smart, and confident . . . An inventive and exciting debut."--Grace Talusan, "Rumpus ""An extraordinary debut, at once flashy and substantial, brightly charming and quietly resistant to its own wattage . . . Syjuco's gifts for pastiche, his protean narrative energy, are in particular evidence in these pitch-perfect fictions of the fictions of his fictional author . . . An exuberant, funny novel that neither takes its grand ambitions too seriously, nor pretends to be measuring itself by any less a scale of intent. How Syjuco . . . has done this is foremost a testament to his prodigious gifts . . . With his dazzling first foray, Syjuco suggest how his new Asia, his new identity, must 'look' on the page and between the covers. That look is unexpected and fresh, quite unlike anything that has been seen before."--Charles Foran, "The Globe and Mail" (Canada) "Wildly entertaining . . . Engaging . . . Absolutely assured in its tone, literary sophistication and satirical humor . . . Syjuco is only on his mid-30s, and he already possesses the wand of the enchanter." --Michael Dirda, "The Washington Post """Ilustrado" will provoke audible oohs and ahhs from readers . . . The writing is gorgeous. Plus, there's an O. Henry twist in the epilogue. This is a great book. Read it."--Luis Clemens, Senior Editor, "Tell Me More ""Brilliantly conceived, and stylishly executed, ["Ilustrado"] covers a large and tumultuous historical period with seemingly effortless skill. It is also ceaselessly entertaining, frequently raunchy, and effervescent with humour."--2008 Man Asian Literary Prize Panel of Judges "Miguel Syjuco's dizzyingly energetic and inventive novel views his native Philippines with a merciless yet loving eye, its many voices a chorus illuminating the various facets of this chaotic, complicated country. An ambitious and admirable debut."--Janice Y. K. Lee, author of "The Piano Teacher ""Vulnerable and mischievous, sophisticated and naive, " Ilustrado" explores the paradoxes that come with the search for identity and throws readers into the fragile space between self-pursuit and self-destruction. A novel about country and self, youth and experience, it is elegiac, thoughtful, and original."--Colin McAdam, author of "Fall" and "Some Great Thing ""From the ruckus of rumors, blogs, ambitions, overweening grandparents, indifferent history, and personal crimes, Miguel Syjuco has innovatively reimagined that most wonderfully old-fashioned consolation: literature. "Ilustrado "is a great novel."--Rivka Galchen, author of "Atmospheric Disturbances ""Syjuco's exceptional novel exceeds its heightened expectations, serving notice that a brilliant new talent has arrived, somehow fully formed."--Jared Bland, "The Walrus ""Dazzling . . . It is a virtuoso display of imagination and wisdom, particularly remarkable from a 31-year-old author; a literary landmark for the Philippines and beyond."--Michele Leber, "Booklist" (starred review) "This imaginative first novel shows considerable ingenuity in binding its divergent threads into a satisfying, meaningful story."--"Publishers Weekly" (starred review) "Through his vivid use of language, Syjuco has crafted a beautiful work of historical fiction that's part mystery and part sociopolitical commentary. Readers who enjoyed Junot Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" will enjoy this literary gem."--"Library Journal" (starred review) "An ambitious debut novel, winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize, introduces an author of limitless promise . . . It dazzles as brightly as Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything Is Illuminated" . . . First novels rarely show such reach and depth."--"Kirkus Reviews"" (starred review)"


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Before the notorious Five Families who dominated U.S. organized crime for a bloody half century, there was the one-fingered criminal genius Giuseppe Morello–known as “The Clutch Hand”–and his lethal coterie of associates. In The First Family, historian, journalist, and New York Times bestselling author Mike Dash brings to life this little-known story, following the rise of the Mafia in America from the 1890s to the 1920s, from the lawless villages of Sicily to the streets of Little Italy. Using an impressive array of primary sources–hitherto untapped Secret Service archives, prison records, trial transcripts, and interviews with surviving family members–this is the first Mafia history that applies scholarly rigor to the story of the Morello syndicate and the birth of organized crime on these shores.Progressing from small-time scams to counterfeiting rings to even bigger criminal enterprises, Giuseppe Morello exerted ruthless control of Italian neighborhoods in New York, and through adroit coordination with other Sicilian crime families, his Clutch Hand soon reached far beyond the Hudson River.The men who battled Morello’s crews were themselves colorful and legendary figures, including William Flynn, a fearless Secret Service agent, and Lieutenant Detective Giuseppe “Joe” Petrosino of the New York Police Department’s elite Italian Squad, whose pursuit of the brutal gangs ultimately cost him his life. Combining first-rate scholarship and pulse-quickening action, and set amid rustic Sicilian landscapes and the streets of old New York, The First Family is a groundbreaking account of the crucial period when the American criminal underworld exploded with violent fury across the nation.From the Hardcover edition.


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When twenty-year-old Meng Ning declares that she wants to be a Buddhist nun, her mother is aghast. In her eyes, a nun's life means only deprivation - 'no freedom, no love, no meat'. But to Meng Ning, it means the chance to control her own destiny, and to live in an oasis of music, art, and poetry far from her parents' unhappy union. With an enigmatic nun known as Yi Kong, 'Depending on Emptiness', as her mentor, Meng Ning spends the next ten years studying abroad, disdaining men, and preparing to enter the nunnery. Then, a fire breaks out at her Buddhist retreat, and Meng Ning is carried to safety by Michael Fuller, a young American doctor. The unprecedented physical contact stirs her curiosity. And as their tentative friendship grows intimate, Meng Ning realizes she must choose between the sensual and the spiritual life.


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*The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love* is a Pulitzer Prize-winning contemporary American classic, a book that still captivates and inspires readers twenty years after its first publication. Now, in ***Beautiful Maria of My Soul***, Oscar Hijuelos returns to this indelible story, to tell it from the point of view of its beloved heroine, Maria. She's the great Cuban beauty who stole musician Nestor Castillo's heart and broke it, inspiring him to write the Mambo Kings' biggest hit, ''Beautiful Maria of My Soul.'' Now in her sixties and living in Miami with her pediatrician daughter, Teresa, Maria remains a beauty, still capable of turning heads. But she has never forgotten Nestor, and as she thinks back to her days--and nights--in Havana, an entirely new perspective on the Mambo Kings story unfolds.


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In the era before he created moody private investigator Matthew Scudder, burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, sleepless spy Evan Tanner, and the amiable hit man Keller—and years before his first Edgar Award—a young writer named Lawrence Block submitted a story titled "You Can't Lose" to Manhunt magazine. It was published, and the rest is history.   One Night Stands and Lost Weekends is a sterling collection of short crime fiction and suspense novelettes penned between 1958 and 1962 by a budding young master and soon-to-be Grand Master—an essential slice of genre history, and more fun than a high-speed police chase following a bank job gone bad.


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**An engrossing Danish literary thriller of intrigue, conspiracy, and the extraordinary power of reading******

 

Imagine that some people have the power to affect your thoughts and feelings through readingto seduce you with amazing stories, conjure up vividly imagined worlds, and manipulate you into thinking exactly what they want you to. When Luca Campelli dies a sudden and violent death, his son Jon inherits his second-hand bookshop, Libri di Luca, in Copenhagen. Jon had not seen his father for 20 yearssince the mysterious death of his mother. After Luca’s death is followed by an arson attempt on the shop, Jon is forced to explore his family’s past. Unbeknownst to him, the bookshop has for years been hiding a remarkable secret. It is the meeting place of a society of booklovers and readers who have maintained a tradition of immense power passed down from the days of the great library of ancient Alexandria. Now someone is trying to destroy them, and Jon finds he must fight to save himself and his new friends.


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The first authoritative and compulsively readable history of the rise of this legendary banking dynastyIn his rich and nuanced portrait of the remark- able, elusive Rothschild family, Oxford scholar and bestselling author Niall Ferguson uncovers the secrets behind the family's phenomenal economic success. He reveals for the first time the details of the family's vast political network, which gave it access to and influence over many of the greatest statesmen of the age. And he tells a family saga, tracing the importance of family unity and the profound role of Judaism in the lives of a dynasty that rose from the confines of the Frankfurt ghetto and later used its influence to assist oppressed Jews throughout Europe. A definitive work of impeccable scholarship with a thoroughly engaging narrative, *The House of Rothschild* is a biography of the rarest kind, in which mysterious and fascinating historical figures finally spring to life. "A great biography." --*Time magazine*"Absorbing. . . .Their enthralling story has been told before, but never in such authoritative detail." --*The New York Times Book Review*"Niall Ferguson's rich and compelling new book . . . is a feast." --*The Wall Street Journal** Chosen by *Business Week* as one of the Best Business Books of 1998* A finalist for the National Jewish Book Award


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Nick Hornby returns to his roots - music and messy relationships - in this funny and touching new novel which thoughtfully and sympathetically looks at how lives can be wasted but how they are never beyond redemption. Annie lives in a dull town on England's bleak east coast and is in a relationship with Duncan which mirrors the place; Tucker was once a brilliant songwriter and performer, who's gone into seclusion in rural America - or at least that's what his fans think. Duncan is obsessed with Tucker's work, to the point of derangement, and when Annie dares to go public on her dislike of his latest album, there are quite unexpected, life-changing consequences for all three.Nick Hornby uses this intriguing canvas to explore why it is we so often let the early promise of relationships, ambition and indeed life evaporate. And he comes to some surprisingly optimistic conclusions.


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An arresting story about starting over after a friend’s suicide, froma breakthrough new voice in YA fiction

 *dear caitlin, there are so many things that i want so badly to tell you but i just can’t.*

 Devastating, hopeful, hopeless, playful . . . in words and illustrations, Ingrid left behind a painful farewell in her journal for Caitlin. Now Caitlin is left alone, by loss and by choice, struggling to find renewed hope in the wake of her best friend’s suicide. With the help of family and newfound friends, Caitlin will encounter first love, broaden her horizons, and start to realize that true friendship didn’t die with Ingrid. And the journal which once seemed only to chronicle Ingrid’s descent into depression, becomes the tool by which Caitlin once again reaches out to all those who loved Ingrid—and Caitlin herself


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A riveting and moving memoir, written in crisp Hemingwayesque prose and set amid the wild, uninhibited surf culture of Malibu and Mexico in the late 1970s   From the age of three, Norman Ollestad was thrust into the world of surfing and competitive downhill skiing by the intense, charismatic father he both idolized and resented. Yet it was these exhilarating tests of skill that ultimately saved his life when the chartered Cessna carrying them to a ski championship ceremony crashed 8,000 feet up in the California mountains, leaving his father and the pilot dead. The devastated eleven-year-old Ollestad had to descend the treacherous, icy mountain alone.   Crazy for the Storm is a powerful and unforgettable true story that illuminates the complicated bond between an extraordinary father and his extraordinary son.


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In a small town on the Mexican border live two brothers, Don Fidencio and Don Celestino. Stubborn and independent, they now must face the facts: they are old, and they have let a family argument stand between them for too long. Don Celestino's good-natured housekeeper encourages him to make amends--while he still can. They secretly liberate Don Fidencio from his nursing home and travel into Mexico to solve the mystery at the heart of their dispute: the family legend of their grandfather's kidnapping. As the unlikely trio travels, the brothers learn it's never too late for a new beginning. With winsome prose and heartfelt humor, Oscar Casares's debut novel of family lost and found radiates with generosity and grace and confirms the arrival of a uniquely talented new writer.


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Sara B. is losing her cool.Not just in the momentary-meltdown kind of way—though there's that, too. At the helm of must-read Snap magazine, veteran style guru Sara B. has had the job—and joy—for the past fifteen years of eviscerating the city's fashion victims in her legendary DOs and DON'Ts photo spread.But now on the unhip edge of forty, with ambitious hipster kids reinventing the style world, Sara's being spit out like an old Polaroid picture: blurry, undeveloped and obsolete.Fueled by alcohol, nicotine and self-loathing, Sara launches into a cringeworthy but often comic series of blowups—personal, professional and private—that culminate in an epiphany. That she, the arbiter of taste, has made her living by cutting people down…and somehow she's got to make amends.


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For fifteen-year-old Haven, life is changing too quickly. She's nearly six feet tall, her father is getting remarried, and her sister&150the always perfect Ashley&150is planning a wedding of her own. Haven wishes things could just go back to the way they were. Then an old boyfriend of Ashley's reenters the picture, and through him, Haven sees the past for what it really was, and comes to grips with the future.


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Haunted by the death of her sister and wounded by her ex-fiance's accusations, Kate Lange throws herself into her new career at a high-powered law firm.When the grandmother of a lonely private school student seeks her counsel, Kate thinks it's just another custody case. But then the teen is brutally murdered. And it isn't only Kate who wonders if her legal advice led to the girl's death.Put on notice by Randall Barrett, the firm's charismatic managing partner, Kate must fight for her career, for her reputation--and for redemption.Unwilling to live with the damage she may have caused, Kate pursues the case on her own and unearths some chilling facts.Facts that lead straight to the heart of a legal conspiracy.Facts that lead Kate directly into the surgically skilled hands of the Body Butcher.


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Popular conservative blogger Pamela Geller and *New York Times *bestselling author Robert Spencer sound a wake-up call for Americans to stop the Obama administration from limiting our hard-won freedoms, silencing our democratic voices, and irreparably harming America for generations to come. 

America is being tested in a way that she has never been tested before. Since taking the oath of office in January 2009, President Barack Obama has cheered our enemies and demoralized our allies. He is hard at work "remaking" America by destroying the free-market system and nationalizing major segments of our economy, demonizing dissent and restricting freedom of speech, turning against our longtime friends, and above all, subjecting us to the determinations of foreign authorities. 

In this timely and urgent battle cry, Pamela Geller, founder of the widely popular website www.AtlasShrugs.com, and *New York Times *bestselling author Robert Spencer team up to expose the Obama administration’s destructive agenda—largely ignored by the mainstream media—and rally Americans to protect the sovereignty of a country that is under siege by the highest levels of its own government. As Americans see their paychecks shrinking every day, Obama ignores our forefathers’ founding principle: individual rights. Instead, he seeks to level the playing field—to transform both the global and national landscape in favor of our enemies—even if it means cutting America off at the knees. He envisions himself as more than just a president of the United States, but as a shaper of the new world order, an internationalist energetically laying the groundwork for global government: the president of the world. 

 

A vital guide to helping conservatives prepare for the tough battles ahead, *The Post-American Presidency *critically examines the Obama administration’s ominous and revealing moves against our basic freedoms, particularly as he seizes control of the three engines of the American economy: health care, energy, and education. The Shining City on a Hill has gone dark. But America is not dead. The time is NOW to stand up and fight.


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The eleven stories in Pump Six chart the evolution of Paolo Bacigalupi's work, including the Hugo nominated "Yellow Card Man" and the Sturgeon Award-winning story "The Calorie Man," both set in the world of his novel The Windup Girl.This collection also demonstrates the power and reach of the science fiction short story. Social criticism, political parable, and environmental advocacy lie at the center of Bacigalupi's work. Each of the stories herein is at once a warning and a celebration of the tragic comedy of the human experience.Paolo Bacigalupi has won the Nebula Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Award, the John W. Campbell Award, the Compton Crook Award, the Locus Award, and the Hugo Award. Between his award-winning debut novel and this landmark collection of short fiction, Paolo Bacigalupi demonstrates why he is one of the most celebrated science fiction writers of the twenty-first century.


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In 1990, a young woman was strangled on a jogging path near the home of Pat Brown and her family. Brown suspected the young man who was renting a room in her house, and quickly uncovered strong evidence that pointed to him--but the police dismissed her as merely a housewife with an overactive imagination. It would be six years before her former boarder would be brought in for questioning, but the night Brown took action to solve the murder was the beginning of her life's work.    

Pat Brown is now one of the nation's few female criminal profilers--a sleuth who assists police departments and victims' families by analyzing both physical and behavioral evidence to make the most scientific determination possible about who committed a crime. Brown has analyzed many dozens of seemingly hopeless cases and brought new investigative avenues to light.    

In *The Profiler*, Brown opens her case files to take readers behind the scenes of bizarre sex crimes, domestic murders, and mysterious deaths, going face-to-face with killers, rapists, and brutalized victims. It's a rare, up-close, first-person look at the real world of police and profilers as they investigate crimes--the good and bad, the cover-ups and the successes.    

**Praise for The Profiler**    

"Pat Brown takes us into the very minds of cold-blooded killers. Most people can't comprehend the `why' behind murder. Pat, utilizing her background as one of the country's leading criminal profilers, coaches the reader as to how a killer thinks, reacts, and kills! Incredible!"  --Nancy Grace, host of *Nancy Grace* on HLN and bestselling author of *The Eleventh Victim*    

"I've been in law enforcement for almost 18 years now, and after reading *The Profiler*, I realize how little I understood the mind of the criminal. Pat Brown exposes the methods and the means, the hows and the whys, and exactly what it is that makes a criminal tick--fascinating!"  --Stacy Dittrich, author of *Murder Behind the Badge: True Stories of Cops Who Kill* and veteran police officer and law enforcement media consultant    

"Anyone who has ever had a passion burning inside them to make a difference should read this book. Pat takes her life experience and brings it to the forefront to make a difference in the lives of crime victims and their families. Her insight into these cases takes profiling of criminals to a whole new level. From her work and wisdom comes the hope we all need to end the viciousness of killers who prey on the innocent.    

"In her new book, Pat Brown takes the reader along with her as she works to solve grisly crimes that have baffled others. In her relentless pursuit to illuminate what seem to be hopeless cases, she shows just how deep an investigator must dig and all the details that must be absorbed and interpreted."  --Stanton E. Samenow, Ph.D., author of *Inside the Criminal Mind*    

"In *The Profiler*, Pat Brown finally explains the sometimes spooky world of criminal profiling in a way that even an old-school, ex-flatfoot cop like me can understand. This book is a great insight into the mind of a serial killer hunter."  --Chuck Hustmyre, retired ATF agent and author of the true crime books *Killer with a Badge* and *An Act of Kindness*


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"They've said some crazy things about me over the years.  I mean, okay: 'He bit the head off a bat.'  Yes.  'He bit the head off a dove.'  Yes.  But then you hear things like, 'Ozzy went to the show last night, but he wouldn't perform until he'd killed fifteen puppies . . .'  Now *me*, kill fifteen puppies?  I love puppies. I've got eighteen of the f**king things at home.  I've killed a few cows in my time, mind you.  And the chickens.  I shot the chickens in my house that night. It haunts me, all this crazy stuff.  Every day of my life has been an event.  I took lethal combinations of booze and drugs for thirty f**king years.  I survived a direct hit by a plane, suicidal overdoses, STDs.  I've been accused of attempted murder.  Then I almost died while riding over a bump on a quad bike at f**king two miles per hour. People ask me how come I'm still alive, and I don't know what to say.  When I was growing up, if you'd have put me up against a wall with the other kids from my street and asked me which one of us was gonna make it to the age of sixty, which one of us would end up with five kids and four grandkids and houses in Buckinghamshire and Beverly Hills, I wouldn't have put money on me, no f**king way.  But here I am: ready to tell my story, in my own words, for the first time. A lot of it ain't gonna be pretty.  I've done some bad things in my time.  I've always been drawn to the dark side, me.  But I ain't the *devil*.  I'm just John Osbourne: a working-class kid from Aston, who quit his job in the factory and went looking for a good time."


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Sivakami was married at ten, widowed at eighteen, and left with two children. According to the dictates of her caste, her head is shaved and she puts on widow's whites. From dawn to dusk, she is not allowed to contaminate herself with human touch, not even to comfort her small children. Sivakami dutifully follows custom, except for one defiant act: She moves back to her dead husband's house to raise her children. There, her servant Muchami, a closeted gay man who is bound by a different caste's rules, becomes her public face. Their singular relationship holds three generations of the family together through the turbulent first half of the twentieth century, as India endures great social and political change. But as time passes, the family changes, too; Sivakami's son will question the strictures of the very beliefs that his mother has scrupulously upheld.  The Toss of a Lemon is heartbreaking and exhilarating, profoundly exotic yet utterly recognizable in evoking the tensions that change brings to every family.


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chapter oneNathalie DupreeThe first actual cooking teacher who took both my money and my grief for imparting culinary secrets to me was the inimitable, unclassifiable queen of the Southern kitchen, Nathalie Dupree. Though Nathalie does not know this, she is one of the few people in my life who seems more like a fictional character than a flesh-and-blood person.When my novel Beach Music came out in 1995, I had included a couple of recipes in the book, and had tried to impart some of my love of Roman cuisine and the restaurants of Rome. Several journalists who write about food for newspapers interviewed me about the food angle in the novel, curious about the fact that the book's protagonist, Jack McCall, wrote cookbooks and restaurant reviews. A woman from the Washington Post conducted a delightful interview over the phone, and during our conversation, I mentioned that I had taken Nathalie's course in the cooking school she ran in the old Rich's department store in downtown Atlanta. The woman called Nathalie after our interview, and Nathalie tracked me down to report on the nature of their conversation.Nathalie's voice is deep and musical and seductive. She possesses the rare ability to be both maddening and hilarious in the course of a single sentence. Her character is a shifting, ever-changing thing, and she reinvents herself all over again every couple of years. In one way, she seems the same, yet you are aware she is in the process of a complete transformation. When she tells about her life, you could swear she was speaking of a hundred women, not just one."Pat, darling," Nathalie said on the phone, "all my working life I've been scheming and plotting and dreaming of ways to get an interview with the food editor of the Washington Post. You can imagine my joy when I heard that the food editor of the Post had left a message on my answering machine. And I thought, Yes, it's finally happening; your prayers have been answered, Nathalie.""That's great, Nathalie," I said, not quite knowing where she was going with this. You never know where Nathalie is going with a train of thought; you simply know that the train will not be on time, will carry many passengers, and will eventually collide with a food truck stalled somewhere down the line on damaged tracks."Can you imagine my disappointment when I found out that they wanted to interview me about you, instead of about me. I admit, Pat, that after I got over the initial shock, it turned suddenly to bitterness. After all, what do I possibly get out of talking about you when I could be talking about my own cookbooks? Naturally, I did not let on a word about what I was really thinking, but I did suggest, very subtly I might add, that she might want to do a feature on me and my work sometime in the future. When were you in my class, Pat?""In 1980," I said."I don't remember that. Did you really take my class? Who else was in it?""My wife Lenore. Jim Landon. George Lanier. A nice woman who lived on the same floor as my dad in the Darlington Apartments.""It doesn't ring a bell for me," she said. "Was I good?""You were wonderful," I said."All my ex-students say that. It must be a gift.""You were a great teacher.""And sexy. I won't be happy until you tell me I was also extraordinarily sexy.""I could barely cook I was so aroused. All the other men in the class felt the same way. It's hard to make a perfect souffle when you're rutting.""Pat, you know the way to a young girl's heart," Nathalie said. "But I want you to know that I'll always be perfectly furious at you for getting into the Washington Post food world before I did. That's my bailiwick, not yours.""It will never happen again, Nathalie," I promised. "All your bailiwicks will be safe from poor Conroy."When Nathalie taught her cooking class at Rich's, I learned new lessons about insouciance, style, and lack of preparation. Always, at the last minute, Nathalie's worthy assistant, Kate Almand, would move in to provide a missing utensil or bag of flour or loin of veal that Nathalie had misplaced or left in her car. The joy of watching Nathalie's cooking shows on television has always come from her artless displays of confusion and disorganization, and her sheer bravado when she actually makes a mistake. Unlike Martha Stewart, Nathalie often looks beaten up when she completes a segment of her show. She can be covered with flour up to her elbows after baking a loaf of bread, can drop her perfectly roasted capon on the kitchen floor, or can garnish her pumpkin pie with cooked rice that she meant to put in her delicious cream of carrot soup. On her television show, Nathalie has turned the culinary mistake or misstep into her signature moment.Nathalie is always worth the price of admission and I love cooking with her. Disorder follows her around like a spaniel. There is no hum of quiet efficiency in her kitchen to intimidate me as I caramelize the onions or beat the egg whites to a stiff peak. She prides herself on being a hands-on cook, and I have seen her hands dripping with batter, red with blood, and crimson from handling baby beets. Like most good cooks, she is absolutely fearless, taking on each task with gusto. And her conversation mixes well with the mouthwatering aromas rising out of her kitchen as the meal takes shape around us. I personally do not believe Nathalie has ever enjoyed a quiet meal at home with her equally hospitable husband, the writer Jack Bass. When I knew her in Atlanta, the whole city in all its shapes, races, and classes seemed to pass by her dining room table. She attracts friends like a magnet does iron filings. Her desire to entertain and feed people seems insatiable to me, a mark of her character as striking as her beautiful almond-shaped eyes.On the night our class made a crown roast of pork, orange and fennel salad, turnip greens and grits, and crème brûlée for dessert, she told a story in fits and starts that ended only after she poured the dessert wine. I soon found myself looking forward to Nathalie's stories as much as I did her recipes. They ranged the world and involved famous chefs, cookbook writers of note, lovers and husbands and boyfriends of both the charming and monstrous varieties. I preferred the stories of her lovers because her voice could turn smoky and catlike as we, her students, chopped and shredded and prepared our meals according to her instructions. The story and the food comingled and exchanged properties.I can taste neither fennel nor crème brûlée without thinking of the story she told that night. I tell it from memory, but I will try to use Nathalie's ineffable voice. She could say the word "lover" and infuse it with all the savor and forbiddenness of a Frenchwoman recalling an affair with an Italian count. "I was living in Greenwich Village in New York," she told us. "I had taken up with a dashing, utterly charming man. He turned out to be a perfect cad, but didn't they all in those days, darling? Jim, I'd slice that fennel a little thinner. It looks too much like celery when you slice it that way. Yes, perfect. He was, by far, the most sophisticated, demanding lover I had ever been involved with up to that time. He was the consummate gourmet who had eaten in the finest restaurants in the world since he was a child. Well. I decided I was going to cook him a meal that he would never forget, one that would prove my love for him, yet honor his amazing sophistication."I went next door to get advice from the two gay men who lived in the most spectacular apartment. They knew everybody and everything, but they were of no help that day. Greenwich Village was astir, at least the gay portion of the Village--no small share, I assure you--with the news of a gay serial killer who would not only murder his poor victims, but would then mutilate them in ghastly ways. My neighbors' hysteria rendered them useless and I heard them turn all six locks in their door as soon as I left their apartment and began the search for the most unusual meal for my lover."There was a little butcher shop in the East Village that sold specialty meats and could usually come up with a surprise. Pat, use a whisk to beat your eggs for the crème brûlée. You're not scrambling eggs for a country brunch. This is a French dish, dearie. Oh, where was I? Yes. The butcher had a surprise for me. He had two things in his shop he had never carried before: live escargots and testicles freshly cut from yearling calves in upper New York State. 'Mountain oysters!' I shouted in triumph, and I was sure that every snail my lover had eaten had come from a can. I paid cash for everything. I spent a fortune. But that's what you do when you're in love. You're never yourself. You are possessed. You'll do anything. George, you need to get your pork into the oven. Less fanaticism with the presentation. It's lovely, but it's still pork. And trichinosis is a fact of life. I took the mountain oysters and snails back to my apartment, then left them in the sink and ran down to buy the wine for the meal. I threw some ice on the calves' testicles because organ meat is very perishable. But I got delayed when I asked the French chef who ran a restaurant on my street about the preparation of the escargots. He had a certain dark frisson and I soon realized he was flirting with me. This made me late in my return. My lover would be arriving with roses in a few hours. I opened the door of my apartment and I'll never forget what I saw there! I've had nightmares about it more than once. The snails had conspired to effect a vast breakout. They were everywhere. On the walls, on the ceiling, trailing their slimy bodies across my copper pans, and my cookbooks. My screams of repulsion and terror resounded throughout my apartment building."The two dear gay men next door were the first neighbors to arrive. But the escargots did not interest them. They were transfixed by the sight of a whole bucket of male genitalia in my sink. You could not blame them. They had never seen mountain oysters, nor did they know that anyone would cook and eat them. They thought they had stumbled into the lair of the serial killer who was preying on and mutilating gay males. The snails on the walls simply added a note of horror to it all. They fled screaming down the stairs and out into the streets. The police were called. It was an affair to remember. Pat, are you burning your greens? Good; it's sinful to burn greens. There's always a point of no return, you know."Did I fix my lover dinner that night? But of course. All the commotion simply made the evening more special. I served the escargots in their own shells with garlic, butter, and parsley--after I boiled and cleaned them, of course. I fried the mountain oysters, and they were superb. After dinner and cognac, my lover and I--ah, but that is personal, part of the night's mystery. There are parts of some stories that should never be told. Ah. Class, take a deep breath. Dinner is almost ready. Smell it. Breathe deeply. Now. Now."Though Nathalie Dupree did not remember much about my presence in her class, it marked me forever. I remain her enthusiast, her evangelist, her acolyte, and her grateful student. She taught me that cooking and storytelling make the most delightful coconspirators. Either was good alone, but in communion with each other, they could rise to the level of ecstasy.Three of Nathalie's recipes.MELON RING WITH MINT AND HONEY-LIME DRESSINGThe last time Nathalie Dupree invited me to dinner, she met me at the front door and told me with her most theatrical flourish that she felt "worse than a rabid dog or the parakeet that the proverbial cat dragged in." She is a woman of great entrances and exits, and said to me, "Pat, you must play the part of the gentleman and rescue this damsel in distress. You were my student, and you must cook the meal and save this night for me. If my guests realized I was about to begin projectile vomiting across the room, they'd just die.""I will fix the meal gladly, Nathalie," I said, moving toward the kitchen as she moved out to the living room and the sounds of her guests in conversation. I made the meal: a standing rib roast, a simple green salad, steamed asparagus, and fresh peaches with cream and a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream. To begin the meal, Nathalie asked, "I got a call from our good mutual friend from Atlanta, the one who's been married six times. Do you have any theories about why all her husbands have turned out to be gay?"• Serves 6 to 82 envelopes unflavored gelatin2 cups freshly squeezed orange juice1/2 cup sugar1/2 cup fresh lemon juice1/4 cup finely chopped mint leaves1 cup melon balls (preferably a mix of cantaloupe, honeydew, and/or similar kinds), plus additional (optional)For the dressing1 cup yogurt1/4 cup honey1/4 cup fresh lime juice1. Place the gelatin, 1 cup of the orange juice, and the sugar in a small pan and heat until the gelatin and sugar are dissolved. Do not let the mixture come to a boil.2. Remove the gelatin mixture from the heat and add the lemon juice, the remaining 1 cup orange juice, and the mint.3. Put the pan over a bowl of ice water and stir for a few minutes until the gelatin begins to thicken. Fold in the melon balls. Pour into a 4-cup ring mold and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.4. Unmold and fill the center with additional melon balls, if desired. To make the dressing: Mix all the ingredients together and serve with the ring and melon balls.*****From the Hardcover edition.


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“**Patrick Millikin**...as if to prove his witty claim that 'sunshine is the new noir,' offers one superb specimen, 'Whiteout on Van Buren,' in which [author] Don Winslow makes skillful use of a city street at high noon to provide the perfect metaphor for life and death.”—*New York Times Book Review* 

Brand-new stories by: Diana Gabaldon, Lee Child, James Sallis, Luis Alberto Urrea, Jon Talton, Megan Abbott, Charles Kelly, Robert Anglen, Patrick Millikin, Laura Tohe, Kurt Reichenbaugh, Gary Phillips, David Corbett, Don Winslow, Dogo Barry Graham, and Stella Pope Duarte. 

  

**Patrick Millikin** is a bookseller at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale. As a freelance writer, his articles, interviews, and reviews have appeared in *Publishers Weekly*, *Firsts Magazine*, *Paradoxa*, *Yourflesh Quarterly*, and other publications. Millikin currently lives in central Phoenix.


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Clive Cussler meets Dan Brown in this high voltage adventure thriller in which two ambitious young climbers stumble upon a great secret hidden in the depths of the Himalayas and find themselves on the run from the Chinese secret police. "From the Hardcover edition."


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An old man lies dying. Confined to bed in his living room, he sees the walls around him begin to collapse, the windows come loose from their sashes, and the ceiling plaster fall off in great chunks, showering him with a lifetime of debris: newspaper clippings, old photographs, wool jackets, rusty tools, and the mangled brass works of antique clocks. Soon, the clouds from the sky above plummet down on top of him, followed by the stars, till the black night covers him like a shroud. He is hallucinating, in death throes from cancer and kidney failure. A methodical repairer of clocks, he is now finally released from the usual constraints of time and memory to rejoin his father, an epileptic, itinerant peddler, whom he had lost seven decades before. In his return to the wonder and pain of his impoverished childhood in the backwoods of Maine, he recovers a natural world that is at once indifferent to man and inseparable from him, menacing and awe inspiring. Tinkers is about the legacy of consciousness and the porousness of identity from one generation to the next. At once heartbreaking and life affirming, it is an elegiac meditation on love, loss, and the fierce beauty of nature.


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'Listen. The Sanctuary of the Redeemers on Shotover Scarp is named after a damned lie for there is no redemption that goes on there and less sanctuary.' The Sanctuary of the Redeemers is a desolate place - a place where hope and joy are not welcome. Most of its occupants were taken there as young boys, against any will they might have once had. They cower under the terrifying regime of the Lord Redeemers, whose cruelty and violence have one singular purpose - to serve in the name of the Hanged Redeemer.No one knows their way around all of the Sanctuary, so vast and twisting is its maze of corridors - corridors filled with the stench of centuries-old religious fervour.Standing in one of these corridors is a boy, looking out of a dark window, looking out at the latest unfortunate arrivals to this hell. He is perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old - he is not sure, and neither is anyone else. He has long forgotten his real name, but now they call him Cale. He doesn't remember anything of his former life. He doesn't know anything of his future life . . .Meet the Angel of Death.


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**A fascinating and fearless memoir from an enduring comedy genius -- the legendary, controversial, inimitable Paul Mooney.**

Most comedians tell jokes. Paul Mooney tells the truth. And for more than forty years -- whether writing for Richard Pryor and *Saturday Night Live*, creating *In Living Color's* Homey D. Clown and *Chappelle's Show's* Negrodamus, or performing stand-up to sold-out crowds around the country -- he's been provocative, incisive, and always absolutely hilarious.

*Black Is the New White* is an unapologetically candid memoir from a talent whose influence has ranged far wider than his fame -- mostly by his own design. As head writer for *The Richard Pryor Show*, he helped tear down racial barriers and change the course of comedy. He helped Robin Williams and Sandra Bernhard break into show business. He paved the way for superstars like Eddie Murphy. And at every turn he's shunned the easy set-up and punch line in favor of comedy that's indisputably real and raw, reflecting the reality of race issues in America even when it's generated outrage.

While other stars soared only to crash and burn, Paul Mooney has stayed chiefly behind the scenes, and he's got a lifetime of stories to show for it. Few have witnessed as much comedy history as Mooney; even fewer could recount it with such riotous honesty and depth of insight. He reveals the truth about his celebrated partnership with the brilliant, self-destructive Richard Pryor, from their first meeting to the very last joke, and reflects on some of his most notorious moments, including organizing a performers' strike on the iconic Comedy Store and publicly giving up the n-word in his act after Michael Richards's onstage outbursts. Decades ago, Paul Mooney set out not just to make audiences laugh but to make them think. *Black Is the New White* is the blisteringly funny, no-holds-barred story of how he continues to succeed wildly at both.


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When two friends come clean about infidelity, what they learn will change everything.  .  .

Every other Sunday, best friends Aminah Anderson and Langston "Lang" Rogers get their nails done in trendy downtown Brooklyn and then go out for brunch. -The two share everything with each other--almost. Lang's been keeping a secret from Aminah. She's cheating on her husband. When Aminah learns about the affair, the news hits too close to home. For Aminah's husband has also been unfaithful. She thought Lang understood the hurt and humiliation infidelity causes. She was wrong. 

Lang can see the disappointment in Aminah's eyes when she comes clean. But she and Aminah have different views. Lang only calls it cheating if she gets caught. Her spouse is devoted to her, yet she needs more. Though Aminah doesn't understand, her friend's admission leads her to finally confront her husband. Now their friendship, their marriages, and their self-respect, will be put to the ultimate test.  .  .


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**From Paul Shaffer, lifelong music junkie, hipster, and longtime leader of David Letterman's band, comes a candid, endearing, hilarious, and star-studded memoir of a life in-and love of-show business.**How does a kid go from a remote Canadian town at the tip of Lake Superior to the bright lights of Broadway and a gig leading the band on *Letterman*? This book is Paul Shaffer's answer to that question. From playing seedy strip joints in Toronto, to his first legitimate job out of college-which found him working with future stars (and friends) Gilda Radner, Martin Short, and Eugene Levy-to being first musical director of the nascent *Saturday Night Live* and helping to form the Blues Brothers, to being onstage every night with Dave and playing with the greatest musicians of our time, Shaffer has lived the ultimate showbiz life. Now, in this hilarious, entertaining, and candid memoir-in which he dishes on everyone from John Belushi and Jerry Lewis to Mel Gibson and Britney Spears-Paul gives us the full behind-the-scenes story of his life, from banging out pop tunes on the piano at the age of twelve to leading the band every night at the Sullivan Theater.*From the Hardcover edition.*


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Thirteen years ago, Moab is my Washpot, Stephen Fry's autobiography of his early years, was published to rave reviews and was a huge bestseller. In those thirteen years since, Stephen Fry has moved into a completely new stratosphere, both as a public figure, and a private man. Now he is not just a multi-award-winning comedian and actor, but also an author, director and presenter. In January 2010, he was awarded the Special Recognition Award at the National Television Awards. Much loved by the public and his peers, Stephen Fry is one of the most influential cultural forces in the country. This dazzling memoir promises to be a courageously frank, honest and poignant read. It will detail some of the most turbulent and least well known years of his life with writing that will excite you, make you laugh uproariously, move you, inform you and, above all, surprise you.


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Follett takes you to a time long past with brio and razor-sharp storytelling. An epic tale in which you will lose yourself."  -The Denver Post on World Without End   Ken Follett's World Without End was a global phenomenon, a work of grand historical sweep, beloved by millions of readers and acclaimed by critics as "well-researched, beautifully detailed [with] a terrifically compelling plot" (The Washington Post) and "wonderful history wrapped around a gripping story" (St. Louis Post- Dispatch)  Fall of Giants is his magnificent new historical epic. The first novel in The Century Trilogy, it follows the fates of five interrelated families-American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh-as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage.  Thirteen-year-old Billy Williams enters a man's world in the Welsh mining pits...Gus Dewar, an American law student rejected in love, finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson's White House...two orphaned Russian brothers, Grigori and Lev Peshkov, embark on radically different paths half a world apart when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution...Billy's sister, Ethel, a housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts, takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German embassy in London...  These characters and many others find their lives inextricably entangled as, in a saga of unfolding drama and intriguing complexity, Fall of Giants moves seamlessly from Washington to St. Petersburg, from the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty. As always with Ken Follett, the historical background is brilliantly researched and rendered, the action fast-moving, the characters rich in nuance and emotion. It is destined to be a new classic.  In future volumes of The Century Trilogy, subsequent generations of the same families will travel through the great events of the rest of the twentieth century, changing themselves-and the century itself. With passion and the hand of a master, Follett brings us into a world we thought we knew, but now will never seem the same again.


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With his characteristic enthusiasm and erudition, Peter Ackroyd follows his acclaimed **London: A Biography** with an inspired look into the heart and the history of the English imagination. To tell the story of its evolution, Ackroyd ranges across literature and painting, philosophy and science, architecture and music, from Anglo-Saxon times to the twentieth-century.  Considering what is most English about artists as diverse as Chaucer, William Hogarth, Benjamin Britten and Viriginia Woolf, Ackroyd identifies a host of sometimes contradictory elements: pragmatism and whimsy, blood and gore,  a passion for the past, a delight in eccentricity, and much more.  A brilliant, engaging and often surprising narrative,  **Albion*** *reveals the manifold nature of English genius.


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When a young boy is found murdered in a park, the boys brother says that his sister was the murdererbut shes nowhere to be found. Constables Hart and Tain find evidence that the sister is innocent and is actually a potential victim herself. Now they need to find her before sheand the rest of her familyis killed.


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When it comes to relationships, Remy doesn’t mess around. After all, she’s learned all there is to know from her mother, who’s currently working on husband number five. But there’s something about Dexter that seems to defy all of Remy’s rules. He certainly doesn’t *seem* like Mr. Right. For some reason, however, Remy just can’t seem to shake him. Could it be that Remy’s starting to understand what those love songs are all about? From acclaimed author Sarah Dessen, this is a captivating novel about a tough-as-nails girl and the unexpectedly charming boy who’s determined to soften her up.


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THESE HEROES ARE 100 PERCENT RAW, DANGEROUS, AND . . . UNDENIABLY SEXY.New York Times bestselling authors Sherrilyn Kenyon, Dianna Love, and Cindy Gerard and rising romance star Laura Griffin mix seduction and suspense in three irresistible romantic adventures. From sultry international jungles to the rugged terrain of the American Southwest, join the larger-than-life, scorching-hot alpha heroes of the Bureau of American Defense, Black Ops, Inc., and the U.S. Navy SEALs for all the pulse-pounding, heart-racing, toe-curling excitement. They’re cool under pressure, steamy under the sheets, and when the enemy strikes, there’s not a lethal mission these gorgeous men can’t handle. . . . **Just Bad Enough

**Sherrilyn Kenyon and Dianna Love**Leave No Trace

**Cindy Gerard**Unstoppable

**Llaura Griffin


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Zoë Ferraris’s electrifying debut of taut psychological suspense offers an unprecedented window into Saudi Arabia and the lives of men and women there. When sixteen-year-old Nouf goes missing, along with a truck and her favorite camel, her prominent family calls on Nayir al-Sharqi, a desert guide, to lead a search party. Ten days later, just as Nayir is about to give up in frustration, her body is discovered by anonymous desert travelers. But when the coroner’s office determines that Nouf died not of dehydration but from drowning, and her family seems suspiciously uninterested in getting at the truth, Nayir takes it upon himself to find out what really happened to her.    This mission will push gentle, hulking, pious Nayir, a Palestinian orphan raised by his bachelor uncle, to delve into the secret life of a rich, protected teenage girl -- in one of the most rigidly gender-segregated of Middle Eastern societies. Initially horrified at the idea of a woman bold enough to bare her face and to work in public, Nayir soon realizes that if he wants to gain access to the hidden world of women, he will have to join forces with Katya Hijazi, a lab worker at the coroner’s office. Their partnership challenges Nayir, bringing him face to face with his desire for female companionship and the limitations imposed by his beliefs. It also ultimately leads them both to surprising revelations. Fast-paced and utterly transporting, Finding Nouf offers an intimate glimpse inside a closed society and a riveting literary mystery.


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**In one of the most impressive debuts of the year, Ru Freeman delivers an epic, searing novel about betrayal and salvation, the strength of the human spirit, and the boundlessness and limits of love.**

Set against the volatile events of the last forty years of Sri Lankan history, *A Disobedient Girl* traces the lives of three characters whose interwoven fates and histories force them to answer life's most difficult questions. Beautiful, haunting, alive, and brimming with truth, it is, above all, a novel about extraordinary circumstances that change life in an instant and the power of love to transcend time and place.

The story begins with two little girls, mistress and servant, one with every luxury and opportunity that money can buy and the other with nothing but her yearning for a better life. Together, they grow up bound by love, betrayal, resentment, and an impossible secret.

Then there is Biso, a devoted mother of three, who risks everything to escape from the hands of her tyrannical husband. But her journey, which begins with such hope, takes her on a disastrous path that ultimately leads her to give her life over to strangers she never imagined she would have reason to know, binding her story with that of the girls in the most unexpected and heartbreaking of ways.

*A Disobedient Girl* is a compelling exploration of personal desire set against the volatile backdrop of class and prejudice, as three women journey toward their future, united by a shared history but separated by different fates. A bold and deeply moving account that spans three decades of love and loss, it is a tale about the will to survive and the incredible power of the human spirit to transcend the unforgiving sweep of tragedy.


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Everything can change in the blink of an eye. . . On an ordinary London afternoon, a truck swerves across five lanes of traffic and creates a tangle of chaos and confusion. As loved ones wait to hear news and the hospital prepares to receive the injured, a dozen lives hang in the balance. A doctor is torn between helping the injured and hiding his young mistress; a bridegroom hopes to get to the church on time; a widow waiting to reunite with a lost love ponders whether she'll ever see him again; and the mysterious hitchhiker, the only person who knows what really happened, is nowhere to be found. Filled with suspense, romance, and more twists than a country highway, The Best of Times proves once again why Penny Vincenzi is the queen of happy endings.


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Hunter Liam McKiernan would do anything to lure vampire Jennifer Williams into his trap--even use her sister, Eve, against her. It was only fitting since he believed Jennifer killed his brother. But when he finally caught up with her, Jennifer was not the cold-hearted creature he expected. She was beautiful, warm...and lonely. Liam couldn't resist the urge to protect her--and the desire to make love to her.But a member of the Secret Vampire Society "had" killed Liam's brother--a vampire who also wanted Jennifer himself....


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It was Norfolk, 1920. Barbara Bosgrove has lived in the charming market town of Melsham all her life, and is looking forward to the annual Harvest Supper dinner and ball - the first since the dark days of the First World War. Her widowed father will be her escort, but it is not long before George Kennett seeks her out for a dance. He has had his eye on her since spotting her punting on the Cam with her great friend Penny, and Penny's charming brother Simon. George vows to win Barbara's hand in marriage - a woman of her prestige would help raise his prospects considerably, and George is nothing if not a man of ambition - and begins a slow and steady courtship. Little by little, Barbara is won over, and eventually agrees to marry George; although he can be rather serious at times - lacking the fun and spontaneity of Simon - she believes he is a man she can rely on. Little does she realize how wrong she can be. Worn down by several years of marriage, during which George has been continually unfaithful to her and callously ruthless in his business plans to the point of illegality, Barbara feels she has lost all the vitality of her youth.  But her old friend Simon is not prepared to let Barbara lose sight of the woman she really is - the woman he has always loved. He reawakens Barbara's passion and fighting spirit, but at what cost?


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Palindrome   When both your past and future spell fear.   Award-winning author Stuart Woods has crafted a masterful novel no reader will soon forget. For years, Liz Barwick has been battered by her brutal husband, a famous pro football player. This time it takes an emergency room to keep her from death. Now the beautiful and talented photographer retreats to an island paradise off Georgia’s coast to find solitude—and herself.   As she becomes increasingly involved with the strange and handsome twin scions of the powerful Drummond family, she feels her traumatic memories begin to fade. But when a killer launches a series of gruesome murders, Liz discovers that there is no place to hide—not even in her lover's arms.


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A psychologist and best-selling author gives us a myth-busting response to the self-help movement, with tips and tricks to improve your life that come straight from the scientific community.Richard Wiseman has been troubled by the realization that the self-help industry often promotes exercises that destroy motivation, damage relationships, and reduce creativity: the opposite of everything it promises. Now, in 59 Seconds, he fights back, bringing together the diverse scientific advice that can help you change your life in under a minute, and guides you toward becoming more decisive, more imaginative, more engaged, and altogether more happy.From mood to memory, persuasion to procrastination, resilience to relationships, Wiseman outlines the research supporting the new science of “rapid change” and, with clarity and infectious enthusiasm, describes how these quirky, sometimes counterintuitive techniques can be effortlessly incorporated into your everyday life. Or, as he likes to say: “Think a little, change a lot.”


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While the major fighting of the war moves to the south in the summer of 1779, a British force of fewer than a thousand Scottish infantry, backed by three sloops-of-war, sails to the desolate and fog-bound coast of New England. Establishing a garrison and naval base at Penobscot Bay, in the eastern province of Massachusetts that would become Maine, the Scots—the only British troops between Canada and New York—harry rebel privateers and give shelter to American loyalists.   In response, Massachusetts sends a fleet of more than forty vessels and some one thousand infantrymen to “captivate, kill or destroy” the foreign invaders. Second in command is Peleg Wadsworth, a veteran of the battles at Lexington and Long Island, once aide to General Washington, and a man who sees clearly what must be done to expel the invaders.   But ineptitude and irresolution lead to a mortifying defeat—and have stunning repercussions for two men on opposite sides: an untested eighteen-year-old Scottish lieutenant named John Moore, who will begin an illustrious military career; and a Boston silversmith and patriot named Paul Revere, who will face court-martial for disobedience and cowardice.   Grounded firmly in history, inimitably told in Cornwell’s thrilling narrative style, The Fort is the extraordinary novel of this fascinating clash between a superpower and a nation in the making.


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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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**An extraordinary cutting-edge thriller from the *New York Times*-bestselling grandmaster of international suspense. ** 



 Meticulous research, crisp narratives, plots as current as today's headlines-Frederick Forsyth has helped define the international thriller as we know it. And now he does it again. 



 What if you had carte blanche to fight evil? Nothing held back, nothing off the table. What would you do? For decades, the world has been fighting the drug cartels, and losing, their billions of dollars making them the most powerful and destructive organizations on earth. Until one man is asked to take charge. Paul Devereaux used to run Special Operations for the CIA before they retired him for being too ruthless. Now he can have anything he requires, do anything he thinks necessary. No boundaries, no rules, no questions asked. 



 The war is on-though who the ultimate winner will be, no one can tell...


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He was born Temujin, the son of a khan, raised in a clan of hunters migrating across the rugged steppe. Temujin’s young life was shaped by a series of brutal acts: the betrayal of his father by a neighboring tribe and the abandonment of his entire family, cruelly left to die on the harsh plain. But Temujin endured—and from that moment on, he was driven by a singular fury: to survive in the face of death, to kill before being killed, and to conquer enemies who could come without warning from beyond the horizon.Through a series of courageous raids against the Tartars, Temujin’s legend grew. And so did the challenges he faced—from the machinations of a Chinese ambassador to the brutal abduction of his young wife, Borte. Blessed with ferocious courage, it was the young warrior’s ability to learn, to imagine, and to judge the hearts of others that propelled him to greater and greater power. Until Temujin was chasing a vision: to unite many tribes into one, to make the earth tremble under the hoofbeats of a thousand warhorses, to subject unknown nations and even empires to his will.


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The #1 bestselling author Conn Iggulden, coauthor of the international sensation The Dangerous Book for Boys, delivers a masterful novel of the mighty Mongol conqueror—as Genghis Khan sets out to unify an entire continent under his rule. For centuries, Mongol tribes had warred with one another. But now, under Genghis Khan, they have united as one nation, setting their sights on a common enemy: the great, slumbering walled empire of the Chin. Genghis will lead his warriors across the Gobi Desert and into a realm his people had never seen before—with gleaming cities, soaring walls, and canals. Laying siege to one fortress after another, he will crush each enemy in a different way—until his army faces the ultimate test of all.In the city of Yenking—modern-day Beijing—the Chin will make their final stand, setting a trap for the Mongol raiders, confident behind their towering walls. But Genghis will strike with breathtaking audacity, never ceasing until the Emperor himself is forced to kneel.


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From Conn Iggulden, #1 bestselling author of six historical epics and coauthor of the international sensation The Dangerous Book for Boys, comes a magnificent new work of fiction. Here, the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan, stalked by enemies seen and unseen and plagued by a divided family, leads a sprawling force of horsemen beyond the realm of their known world. He will bring a storm to Arab lands and face the armies of the shah in all their strength.From the fierce cold plains of Mongolia to the Korean Peninsula, Genghis’s brothers, sons, and commanders have made emperors bow, slaughtering vast armies of fighting men. But as Genghis enters a strange new land of towering mountains and arid desert, he stirs an enemy greater than any he has met before. Under his command, Shah Ala-ud-Din Mohammed has thousands of fierce Arab warriors, teeming cavalry, and terrifying armored elephants. When Genghis strikes, the Arabs prove their mettle. On the verge of defeat, Genghis is forced to leave his own vast encampment, and the women and children in it, in the path of an enraged, savage enemy.While the Mongols—men, women, and children—fight back, as secret assassins are sent into the night, another battle is taking shape. Two of Genghis’s sons, Jochi and Chagatai, are steeped in enmity. Warriors choose between them, and a murderer commits an unspeakable crime. Soon the most powerful man in the world, who has brought devastation to this land, must choose a successor. And when he does, it will touch off the most bitter conflict of all.In a novel that ranges from the fertile lands of the Chin to the dust and rock of Afghanistan, Conn Iggulden weaves the epic story of history’s most enigmatic conqueror —those who feared him, those who defied him, and those whose bones he left behind.From the Hardcover edition.


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The year is 53 B.C. Fresh from victory in Gaul, Julius Caesar leads battle-hardened legions across the Rubicon river–threatening Rome herself.  Even the master strategist Pompey is caught unprepared by the strike, and forced to abandon his city.  The armies of Rome will face each other at last in civil war, led by the two greatest generals ever to walk the seven hills. Thus begins Conn Iggulden’s towering saga of Julius Caesar as he approaches his final destiny—a destiny that will be decided not by legions but by his friend Brutus and an Egyptian queen named Cleopatra, who will bear his only son....For Caesar, the campaign against Pompey will test his military genius and his appetite for glory to their limits, as the greatest fighting machine the world has ever seen divides against itself in a bloody conflict that will set brother against brother until victory or death.   But for Caesar, another kingdom beckons—a world of ancient mysteries and languid sensuality, where a beautiful, bewitching woman waits to snare his heart.      **The Gods of War** follows Julius Caesar through politics and passion, ruthless ambition and private grief, and into the corruption of power itself.  Those he has loved will play a part in his triumphs—as will the jealousy and hatred of his enemies.From the spectacles of the arena to the whispered lies of conspirators, Conn Iggulden brings to life a world of monumental drama. And at its heart is one extraordinary friendship—marked by fierce loyalty and bitter betrayal, with dark events shrouded in noble ideals.*From the Hardcover edition.*


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Rarely, if ever, does a new writer dazzle us with such a vivid imagination and storytelling, flawlessly capturing the essence of a land, a people, a legend. Conn Iggulden is just such a writer, bringing to vivid life one of the most fascinating eras in human history. In a true masterpiece of historical fiction, Iggulden takes us on a breathtaking journey through ancient Rome, sweeping us into a realm of tyrants and slaves, of dark intrigues and seething passions. What emerges is both a grand romantic tale of coming-of-age in the Roman Empire and a vibrant portrait of the early years of a man who would become the most powerful ruler on earth: Julius Caesar.On the lush Italian peninsula, a new empire is taking shape. At its heart is the city of Rome, a place of glory and decadence, beauty and bloodshed. Against this vivid backdrop, two boys are growing to manhood, dreaming of battles, fame, and glory in service of the mightiest empire the world has ever known. One is the son of a senator, a boy of privilege and ambition to whom much has been given and from whom much is expected. The other is a bastard child, a boy of strength and cunning, whose love for his adoptive family–and his adoptive brother–will be the most powerful force in his life.As young Gaius and Marcus are trained in the art of combat–under the tutelage of one of Rome’s most fearsome gladiators–Rome itself is being rocked by the art of treachery and ambition, caught in a tug-of-war as two rival generals, Marius and Sulla, push the empire toward civil war. For Marcus, a bloody campaign in Greece will become a young soldier’s proving ground. For Gaius, the equally deadly infighting of the Roman Senate will be the battlefield where he hones his courage and skill. And for both, the love of an extraordinary slave girl will be an honor each will covet but only one will win.The two friends are forced to walk different paths, and by the time they meet again everything will have changed. Both will have known love, loss, and violence. And the land where they were once innocent will be thrust into the grip of bitter conflict–a conflict that will set Roman against Roman...and put their friendship to the ultimate test. Brilliantly interweaving history and adventure, Conn Iggulden conjures a stunning array of contrasts–from the bloody stench of a battlefield to the opulence of the greatest city in history, from the tenderness of a lover to the treachery of an assassin. Superbly rendered, grippingly told, Emperor, The Gates of Rome is a work of vaulting imagination from a powerful new voice in historical fiction.From the Hardcover edition.


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Brilliant…stunning,” raved the Los Angeles Times about Conn Iggulden’s first novel, Emperor: The Gates of Rome. “Iggulden is a grand storyteller,” declared USA Today. Now Iggulden returns to the landscape of ancient Rome and the life of Julius Caesar in a new novel filled with all the sumptuous storytelling that distinguished his first book. Sweeping from the windswept, pirate-ruled seas to the stifling heat of the Roman senate, Iggulden takes us further down the path to glory as Julius Caesar comes into his own as a man, warrior, senator, husband, leader.  In a sweltering, sparsely settled region of North Africa, a band of disheveled soldiers turn their eyes toward one man among them. Ragged, dirty, and half starved, the men will follow their leader into the mad, glorious fight for honor and revenge that only he wants to fight. Their leader is named Julius Caesar. The soldiers are Roman legionaries. And their quarry is a band of pirates who made the mistake of seizing Julius Caesar—and holding him for ransom. Now, to get his revenge, Caesar will turn peasants into soldiers, building a shipborne fighting force that will not only decimate a pirate fleet but will dominate the Mediterranean, earning him the coveted title Military Tribune of Rome.While Caesar builds a legend far from Rome, his friend Gaius Brutus is fighting battles of another sort, rising to power in the wake of the shocking assassination of a dictator. Once Brutus and Caesar were as close as brothers, both devoted to the same ideals and attracted to the same forbidden woman. Now, when Caesar returns—with the winds of glory at his back—they will find themselves at odds. For each has built an army of elite warriors—Caesar’s forged in far-flung battles, Brutus’ from Rome’s political killing fields. But in an era when men die for their treachery and their allegiances, the two men will soon be united by a shock wave from the north. There, a gladiator named Spartacus is gathering strength, building an army of seventy thousand desperate slaves—to fight a cataclysmic battle against Rome itself.Filled with unforgettable images—from the death throes of a king to the birth of Caesar’s child, from the bloody battlefields of Greece to the silent passion of lovers—Emperor: The Death of Kings is an astounding work, a stunning blend of vibrant history and thrilling fiction.From the Hardcover edition.


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With his acclaimed Emperor novels, author Conn Iggulden brings a dazzling world to life–the rich, complex world of ancient Rome as seen through the eyes of one extraordinary man: Julius Caesar. Now Iggulden returns to the story of Julius Caesar and a realm that stretches from the sands of North Africa to the coast of Britain.  Against this magnificent backdrop, Caesar, his first victories under his belt and a series of key alliances in place, makes his move toward power and glory–and commands his famous legions on one of history’s bloodiest and most daring military campaigns.It is the heart of the first century B.C.  For Julius Caesar, the time has come to enter the treacherous political battleground that has become Rome.  Having proved his valor in the slaves’ revolt, Caesar is strengthened by the love and vision of a beautiful older woman, and by the sword of his loyal friend, Marcus Brutus. And when he is appointed to a new position of power, Caesar manages to do what none of the other great figures of his time could: capture the hearts of the Roman people themselves.  Crushing a rebellion, bringing order to the teeming city, Caesar then makes the move that will change history. He leaves Rome for the foothills of the Alps. And with an army made in his own image, he begins a daring charge through Gaul, across the English Channel, and to the wilds of tribal Britain.Here, in a series of cataclysmic clashes, the legend of Julius Caesar will be forged.  And while Caesar and Brutus pit their lives–and those of their men–against the armies of the wilderness, their political adversaries in Rome grow at once more fearful and more formidable.  So when the fighting at the dominion’s edge is over, the greatest danger to Julius Caesar will await him on the Tiber–with a man who wants Rome himself.From the clash of armies to the heat of a woman’s seduction, from the thunder of battle to the orgies of pleasure and plunder that follow in a warrior’s wake,** Emperor: The Field of Swords** captures in riveting detail a world being shaped by a brilliant civilization.  And in this extraordinary novel, the fate of Rome is being driven by the ambitions of a single man.  A man with an unmatched genius for power.


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A dark, chilling psychological thriller from the number one bestselling author of the Emperor series. Blackwater is being published as part of the Quick Reads initiative on World Book Day 2006.How do you know when you're in too deep?Davey has always lived in the shadow of his older brother, a smiling sociopath who will stop at nothing to protect himself and his family. But when the shadowy figure of Denis Tanter comes into Davey's life, how far will the bond of brotherhood reach?


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**If there were a God, he would have stopped me.**

 That's the message discovered atop an elementary school in downtown Atlanta. Across the street are the bodies of fourteen innocent men and women, each quickly and cleanly murdered. The sniper Galileo is on the loose. He can end a human life from hundreds of yards away. And he is just getting started. 

 Where others see puzzles, **Esme Stuart sees patterns**, and these outside-the-box inductive skills made her one of the FBI's top field operatives. But she turned her back on all that eight years ago to start a family and live a normal life. She now has a husband and a daughter and a Long Island home to call her own, far removed from the bloody streets of Atlanta. 

 But **Galileo's murders escalate** and her beleaguered old boss needs the help of his former protégée. But how can she turn her back on her well-earned quiet life? How would she ever be able to justify such a choice to her husband? To her daughter?

 And what will happen when Galileo turns his scope on them?


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Featuring David Sedaris's unique blend of hilarity and heart, this new collection of keen-eyed animal-themed tales is an utter delight. Though the characters may not be human, the situations in these stories bear an uncanny resemblance to the insanity of everyday life. In "The Toad, the Turtle, and the Duck," three strangers commiserate about animal bureaucracy while waiting in a complaint line. In "Hello Kitty," a cynical feline struggles to sit through his prison-mandated AA meetings. In "The Squirrel and the Chipmunk," a pair of star-crossed lovers is separated by prejudiced family members.Once again David Sedaris shows us the most outrageous, tender, absurd sides of ourselves in his "profoundly funny, well-crafted stories that somehow, magically, bring home a major point about fidelity or guilt or love" (Christian Science Monitor).


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A charming yet scathing portrait of young adulthood at the opening of the twenty-first century, *All the Sad Young Literary Men* charts the lives of Sam, Mark, and Keith as they overthink their college years, underthink their love lives, and struggle through the encouragement of the women who love and despise them to find a semblance of maturity, responsibility, and even literary fame.



 Heartbroken in his university town, Mark tries to focus his attention on his graduate work on the Russian Revolution, only to be lured again and again to the free pornography on the library computers. Sam binds himself to the task of crafting "the first great Zionist epic" even though he speaks no Hebrew, has never visited Israel, and is not a practicing Jew. Keith, more earnest and easily upset than the other two, is haunted by catastrophes both public and private--and his inability to tell the difference.



 At every turn, at each character's misstep, *All the Sad Young Literary Men* radiates with comedic warmth and biting honesty and signals the arrival of a brave and trenchant new writer.


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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 s Maria's job to go get him.He's dangerous quarry and she's a dangerous woman, but when forces conspire against them both, they take a chance and form an alliance. She joins his crew, and he uses her connections. She follows his orders. He takes her advice.And somebody, somewhere, is going to rue the day he crossed either one of them.


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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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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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In the beginning we were nine.We left when we were very young, almost too young to remember. Almost. And now . . .Three are gone.We are here to keep our race alive, which was almost entirely obliterated. Were just trying to survive.Six are left.But we are hunted, and the hunters wont stop until theyve killed us all.They caught Number One in Malaysia.Number Two in England.And Number Three in Kenya.I am Number Four.I know that I am next.


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A sweeping tale of abduction, battle, and courtship played out in a universe of deities and   demons, *The Ramayana* is familiar to virtually every Indian. Although the Sanskrit original   was composed by Valmiki around the fourth century BC, poets have produced countless versions   in different languages. Here, drawing on the work of an eleventh-century poet called Kamban,   Narayan employs the skills of a master novelist to re-create the excitement he found in the   original. A luminous saga made accessible to new generations of readers, *The Ramayana*   can be enjoyed for its spiritual wisdom, or as a thrilling tale of ancient conflict.


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Philip Caputo’s tragic and epically ambitious new novel is set in Sudan, where war is a permanent condition. Into this desolate theater come aid workers, missionaries, and mercenaries of conscience whose courage and idealism sometimes coexist with treacherous moral blindness. There’s the entrepreneurial American pilot who goes from flying food and medicine to smuggling arms, the Kenyan aid worker who can’t help seeing the tawdry underside of his enterprise, and the evangelical Christian who comes to Sudan to redeem slaves and falls in love with a charismatic rebel commander. As their fates intersect and our understanding of their characters deepens, it becomes apparent that Acts of Faith is one of those rare novels that combine high moral seriousness with irresistible narrative wizardry.


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*The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ* is the remarkable new piece of fiction from best-selling and famously atheistic author Philip Pullman. By challenging the events of the gospels, Pullman puts forward his own compelling and plausible version of the life of Jesus, and in so doing, does what all great books do: makes the reader ask questions. 



In Pullman’s own words, The story I tell comes out of the tension within the dual nature of Jesus Christ, but what I do with it is my responsibility alone. Parts of it read like a novel, parts like history, and parts like a fairy tale; I wanted it to be like that because it is, among other things, a story about how stories become stories.”

 

Written with unstinting authority, *The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ* is a pithy, erudite, subtle, and powerful book by a controversial and beloved author. It is a text to be read and reread, studied and unpacked, much like the Good Book itself.


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In a world of modern, involved, caring parents, why are so many kids aggressive and cruel? Where is intelligence hidden in the brain, and why does that matter? Why do cross-racial friendships decrease in schools that are more integrated? If 98% of kids think lying is morally wrong, then why do 98% of kids lie? What's the single most important thing that helps infants learn language? NurtureShock is a groundbreaking collaboration between award-winning science journalists Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. They argue that when it comes to children, we've mistaken good intentions for good ideas. With impeccable storytelling and razor-sharp analysis, they demonstrate that many of modern society's strategies for nurturing children are in fact backfiring--because key twists in the science have been overlooked. Nothing like a parenting manual, the authors' work is an insightful exploration of themes and issues that transcend children's (and adults') lives.


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Set in a beautiful but economically devastated Pennsylvania steel town, **American Rust** is a novel of the lost American dream and the desperation—as well as the acts of friendship, loyalty, and love—that arise from its loss. From local bars to trainyards to prison, it is the story of two young men, bound to the town by family, responsibility, inertia, and the beauty around them, who dream of a future beyond the factories and abandoned homes.Left alone to care for his aging father after his mother commits suicide and his sister escapes to Yale, Isaac English longs for a life beyond his hometown. But when he finally sets out to leave for good, accompanied by his temperamental best friend, former high school football star Billy Poe, they are caught up in a terrible act of violence that changes their lives forever.Evoking John Steinbeck’s novels of restless lives during the Great Depression, **American Rust** takes us into the contemporary American heartland at a moment of profound unrest and uncertainty about the future. It is a dark but lucid vision, a moving novel about the bleak realities that battle our desire for transcendence and the power of love and friendship to redeem us.**Newsweek's list of "Best. Books. Ever"Amazon Top 100 book of 2009A Washington Post Top Ten Book of 2009A New York Times Notable Book of 2009An Economist Best Book of 2009A Kansas City Star Top 100 book of 2009Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Best Books of 2009Idaho Statesman's Best Books of 2009**


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From the acclaimed author of "Acts of Faith" ("A miracle . . . You can hardly conceive of a more affecting reading experience"--"Houston Chronicle"), a blistering new novel about the brutality and beauty of life on the Arizona-Mexico border and about the unyielding power of the past to shape our lives. Taking us from the turn of the twentieth century to our present day, from the impoverished streets of rural Mexico to the manicured lawns of suburban Connecticut, from the hot and dusty air of an isolated ranch to New York City in the wake of 9/11, Caputo gives us an impeccably crafted story about three generations of an Arizona family forced to confront the violence and loss that have become its inheritance. When Gil Castle loses his wife in the Twin Tower attacks, he retreats to his family's sprawling homestead in a remote corner of the Southwest. Consumed by grief, he has to find a way to live with his loss in this strange, forsaken part of the country, where drug lords have more power than police and violence is a constant presence. But it is also a world of vast open spaces, where Castle begins to rebuild his belief in the potential for happiness--until he starts to uncover the dark truths about his fearsome grandfather, a legacy that has been tightly shrouded in mystery in the years since the old man's death. When Miguel Espinoza shows up at the ranch, terrified after two friends were murdered in a border-crossing drug deal gone bad, Castle agrees to take him in. Yet his act of generosity sets off a flood of violence and vengeance, a fierce reminder of the fact that while he may be able to reinvent himself, he may never escape his history. Searingly dramatic, bold and timely, "Crossers" is Philip Caputo's most ambitious and brilliantly realized novel yet.


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Allison Avery's cell phone is possessed--literally. Maybe. Growing up between two sisters of blond beauty, fiery and sarcastic Allison is fed up with being invisible. When the devil appears in a dream and offers to trade Allison good looks for her cell phone, she makes the deal. How much damage can a little phone do anyway?  Allison begins to get tons of attention: new friends, a boyfriend, a chance to win a modeling contest. Is it all the devil's work, or is something more mysterious happening?


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In this swiftly paced, breathlessly suspenseful debut novel, the bizarre rampage of an elusive serial killer sends shockwaves through Boston, igniting a harrowing police manhunt and resounding at the highest levels of the criminal justice system. Drawing on eleven years’ experience as a Boston assistant district attorney–and as chief prosecutor with the elite Gang Unit–Raffi Yessayan renders a stark, realistic, and gripping portrait of law enforcement professionals on the job, and under the gun, in a city at the mercy of a madman.The scene is perplexingly always the same: the home of a single woman, no signs of forced entry, no evidence of an intruder, and no victim–only a bathtub filled with blood. Newly promoted homicide detective Angel Alves wants to make his mark in the department and a difference on the streets. But juggling the needs of a family and the demands of a relentlessly driven partner tests the young cop’s commitment as sorely as tracking the killer challenges his skills. Meanwhile, assistant DA Conrad Darget has his own hands full–mentoring an ambitious young law student, whom he is also dating, rallying his fellow attorneys in their daily courtroom battles, and striving to win true justice in an imperfect system. With each new attack the twisted mystery only deepens, and the hunger for answers–and action–intensifies. No sane mind could comprehend the dark design behind it all. And no one can anticipate the final fateful strokes that will lead to a shocking endgame.From its chilling first pages to its heart-stopping home stretch, Eight in the Box thrills at every turn and surprises at every opportunity–racing at an ever increasing velocity to deliver a climax that pays off in devastating style.From the Hardcover edition.


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After a series of kidnappings and murders in Virginia Beach, newspaper reporter Catherine O'Rourke experiences disturbing dreams that detail each crime. In an effort to aid the investigation, she shares them with her confidential source—a detective working on the case. Catherine's intimate knowledge of the crimes immediately makes her a prime suspect. When scientific evidence corroborates her guilt, she's arrested and charged with murder. As she begins to doubt her own innocence, Catherine turns to Las Vegas lawyer Quinn Newberg, a high-priced specialist in the insanity defense. Quinn believes in justice, Vegas-style. But he doesn't believe in the supernatural, or that Catherine's dreams are anything other than the result of a fractured personality disorder. *Who can understand the human mind?* Quinn knows that insanity cases are unpredictable, but nothing had prepared him for *this!* To win, or even survive, Quinn will need more than his famed legal maneuvering and biting skepticism. On this case, he needs a miracle.


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 A serial killer the cops thought was long gone.A good detective racing the clock to stop the murders.A chilling and twisty thriller that will leave readers gasping. A major spike in gang homicides has Boston on edge, leaving a growing body count of bangers in its wake and the city’s police and DA’s office scrambling to catch up. Even the mayor’s Street Saviors taskforce of ex-cons, devoted to steering kids out of the thug life, are working overtime to stop the bloodshed. But who will stop the even greater threat that’s about to descend when a murderous psychopath steps out of the past?Memories of the infamous Blood Bath Killer still loom large, especially for homicide detective Angel Alves, who helped bring down the multiple-murderer whose rampage shocked the city. So when a pair of students turn up bizarrely slain, Alves fears that another serial killer is stalking Boston. A fear that becomes fact when his ex-partner, Wayne Mooney, recognizes the murders as the work of the Prom Night Killer—whose unsolved crimes have haunted Mooney for a decade. Now, with hands-on assistant DA Conrad Darget backing them, Alves and Mooney set out to stop grim history from repeating itself. But matching wits with a twisted mind is a dangerous game. Especially when there are no rules—and your allies really may be your enemies. Mixing edgy psychological suspense, hard-boiled realism, and staccato bursts of pulse-quickening action, 2 in the Hat makes another slam-dunk winning case for Raffi Yessayan, hailed by Robin Moore, author of The French Connection, as “the best prosecutor-turned-crime-writer to hit the streets since George V. Higgins and Scott Turow.”


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We all have questions about what heaven will be like. Randy Alcorn helps answer some of these questions by sharing his extensive research on the topic--all from a biblical perspective. His writing will surprise readers and stretch their thinking beyond anything they've imagined heaven to be like. And *Heaven* will help readers strive for eternity while they're living on earth.


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A story of huge emotional power set against the road to Magna Carta and the fight to bring a tyrant king to heel.The privileged daughter of one of the most powerful men in England, Mahelt Marshal's life changes dramatically when her father is suspected by King John. Her brothers become hostages and Mahelt is married to Hugh Bigod, heir to the earldom of Norfolk. Adapting to her new life is hard, but Mahelt comes to love Hugh deeply; however, defying her father-in-law brings disgrace and heartbreak. When King John sets out to subdue the Bigods, Mahelt faces a heartbreaking battle, fearing neither she, nor her marriage, is likely to survive the outcome . . .


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Were it simply a collection of fascinating, previously unpublished folktales, Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales would merit praise and attention because of its cultural rather than political approach to Palestinian studies. But it is much more than this. By combining their respective expertise in English literature and anthropology, Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana bring to these tales an integral method of study that unites a sensitivity to language with a deep appreciation for culture.As native Palestinians, the authors are well-suited to their task. Over the course of several years they collected tales in the regions of the Galilee, Gaza, and the West Bank, determining which were the most widely known and appreciated and selecting the ones that best represented the Palestinian Arab folk narrative tradition. Great care has been taken with the translations to maintain the original flavor, humor, and cultural nuances of tales that are at once earthy and whimsical. The authors have also provided footnotes, an international typology, a comprehensive motif index, and a thorough analytic guide to parallel tales in the larger Arab tradition in folk narrative. Speak, Bird, Speak Again is an essential guide to Palestinian culture and a must for those who want to deepen their understanding of a troubled, enduring people. Were it simply a collection of fascinating, previously unpublished folktales, Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales would merit praise and attention because of its cultural rather than political approach to Palestinian studies. But it is much more than this. By combining their respective expertise in English literature and anthropology, Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana bring to these tales an integral method of study that unites a sensitivity to language with a deep appreciation for culture.As native Palestinians, the authors are well-suited to their task. Over the course of several years they collected tales in the regions of the Galilee, Gaza, and the West Bank, determining which were the most widely known and appreciated and selecting the ones that best represented the Palestinian Arab folk narrative tradition. Great care has been taken with the translations to maintain the original flavor, humor, and cultural nuances of tales that are at once earthy and whimsical. The authors have also provided footnotes, an international typology, a comprehensive motif index, and a thorough analytic guide to parallel tales in the larger Arab tradition in folk narrative. Speak, Bird, Speak Again is an essential guide to Palestinian culture and a must for those who want to deepen their understanding of a troubled, enduring people.


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**Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of *The Last Templar***



*New York Times* bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, *The Last Templar*, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, *The Sanctuary*, was also a major national bestseller—returns with *The Sign*. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.



 In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.



 Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: *It can’t be*.



 Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?



 **Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview**



 STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, *THE SIGN*—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?



 RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it. 



 STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it? 



 RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover. 



 STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased. 



 RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad. 



 STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from. 



 RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—



 STEVE: —by intolerance—



 RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith. 



 STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it? 



 STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it? 



 RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—



 STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk. 



 RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right? 



 STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to *THE LAST TEMPLAR*. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core? 



 RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think. 



 STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel? 



 RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we? 



 STEVE: Guilty as charged. 



 RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for *THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT*, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story! 



 STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—



 RAYMOND: —I know! 



 STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again? 



 RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of *THE SANCTUARY* would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with *THE SIGN, I*initely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather. 



 STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book. 



 RAYMOND: Thank you.


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Built on the Upper West Side, the elegant Breviary claims a regal history. But despite 14B's astonishingly low rental price, the recent tragedy within its walls has frightened away all potential tenants . . . except for Audrey Lucas.   No stranger to tragedy at thirty-two—a survivor of a fatherless childhood and a mother's hopeless dementia— Audrey is obsessively determined to make her own way in a city that often strangles the weak. But is it something otherworldly or Audrey's own increasing instability that's to blame for the dark visions that haunt her . . . and for the voice that demands that she build a door? A door it would be true madness to open . . .


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Thomas Steinbeck has been praised by "Publishers Weekly "for his stylistic brilliance and "accomplished voice." Now, his enthralling novel "In the Shadow of the Cypress "blends history and suspense with literary mastery and brings vivid realism to California's rich heritage. In 1906, the Chinese in California lived in the shadows. Their alien customs, traditions, and language hid what they valued from their neighbors . . . and left them open to scorn and prejudice. Their communities were ruled--and divided--by the necessity of survival among the many would-be masters surrounding them, by struggles between powerful tongs, and by duty to their ancestors. Then, in the wake of natural disaster, fate brought to light artifacts of incredible value along the Monterey coast: an ancient Chinese jade seal and a plaque inscribed in a trio of languages lost to all but scholars of antiquity. At first, chance placed control of those treasures in the hands of outsiders--the wayward Irishman who'd discovered them and a marine scholar who was determined to explore their secrets. The path to the truth, however, would prove to be as tangled as the roots of the ancient cypress that had guarded these treasures for so long, for there are some secrets the Chinese were not ready to share. Whether by fate, by subtle design, or by some intricate combination of the two, the artifacts disappeared again . . . before it could be proved that they must have come there ages before Europeans ever touched the wild and beautiful California coast. Nearly a century would pass before an unconventional young American scientist unearths evidence of this great discovery and its mysterious disappearance. Taking up the challenge, he begins to assemble a new generation of explorers to resume theperilous search into the ocean's depth . . . and theshadows of history. Armed with cutting-edge, moderntechnology, and drawing on connections to powerful families at home and abroad, this time Americans and Chinese will follow together the path of secrets that have long proved as elusive as the ancient treasures that held them.This striking debut novel by a masterful writer weaves together two fascinating eras into one remarkable tale. "In the Shadow of the Cypress "is an evocative, dramatic story that depicts California in all its multicultural variety, with a suspense that draws the reader inexorably on until the very last page.


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What do you do after you write a #1 bestselling book about your drunken, sexual misadventures that makes you rich and famous? Celebrate by getting more drunk and having insane amounts of sex, obviously. And pretty soon you've got another fucking book on your hands. Stuffed full of ridiculous stories of bad decisions, debauchery, and sexual recklessness,Assholes Finish Firststarts whereI Hope They Serve Beer In Hellleft off, then proceeds to "some next-level shit." You already know how women react to confidence, game, and vodka, but what happens when you add money and fame to the mix? You get answers to the hard questions you've never thought of asking: What's it like to have sex with a midget? What about two midgets? How does it feel to get multiple requests to "fuck for charity"? What does it do to a man to watch a 19-year-old do wind sprints to sober up, so that she can have sex with you before her twin sister does? At what number of virgins does deflowering them stop being fun and start feeling like a job? When a girl you met three hours ago decides to tattoo your name next to her pussy, what is the appropriate reaction? Can you X-ray a blowjob? The answers are inside, they are absurd and hilarious, and they are the product of one man's experiences:His name is Tucker Max, and he is still an asshole.


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Droughts. Floods. Climate refugees. Global warming isn't just about polar bears anymore.   

 Let's assume we do nothing about climate change. Imagine that we just continue to emit carbon at our current levels or even exceed those levels. How would our weather change? What would our forecast be? Welcome to *The Weather of the Future*.  

 In this groundbreaking work, Dr. Heidi Cullen, one of the world's foremost climatologists and environmental journalists, puts a vivid face on climate change, offering a new way of seeing this phenomenon not just as an event set to happen in the distant future but as something happening right now in our own backyards. Arguing that we must connect the weather of today with the climate change of tomorrow, Cullen combines the latest research from scientists on the ground with state-of-the-art climate-model projections to create climate-change scenarios for seven of the most at-risk locations around the world.  

 From the Central Valley of California, where coming droughts will jeopardize the entire state's water supply, to Greenland, where warmer temperatures will give access to mineral wealth buried beneath ice sheets for millennia, Cullen illustrates how, if left unabated, climate change will transform every corner of the world by midcentury. What emerges is a mosaic of changing weather patterns that collectively spell out the range of risks posed by global warming—whether it's New York City, whose infrastructure is extremely vulnerable to even a relatively weak category 3 hurricane, or Bangladesh, a country so low-lying that millions of people could become climate refugees due to rising sea levels.  

 Provocative and convincing, *The Weather of the Future* makes climate change local, showing how no two regions of the country or the world will be affected in quite the same way, and demonstrating that melting ice is just the beginning.


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Our relationship with the ocean is undergoing a profound transformation. Whereas just three decades ago nearly everything we ate from the sea was wild, rampant overfishing combined with an unprecedented bio-tech revolution has brought us to a point where wild and farmed fish occupy equal parts of a complex and confusing marketplace. We stand at the edge of a cataclysm; there is a distinct possibility that our children's children will never eat a wild fish that has swum freely in the sea. In Four Fish, award-winning writer and lifelong fisherman Paul Greenberg takes us on a culinary journey, exploring the history of the fish that dominate our menus---salmon, sea bass, cod and tuna-and examining where each stands at this critical moment in time. He visits Norwegian mega farms that use genetic techniques once pioneered on sheep to grow millions of pounds of salmon a year. He travels to the ancestral river of the Yupik Eskimos to see the only Fair Trade certified fishing company in the world. He investigates the way PCBs and mercury find their way into seafood; discovers how Mediterranean sea bass went global; Challenges the author of Cod to taste the difference between a farmed and a wild cod; and almost sinks to the bottom of the South Pacific while searching for an alternative to endangered bluefin tuna. Fish, Greenberg reveals, are the last truly wild food - for now. By examining the forces that get fish to our dinner tables, he shows how we can start to heal the oceans and fight for a world where healthy and sustainable seafood is the rule rather than the exception.


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In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves. With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties.Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, **The Warmth of Other Suns** is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic.


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From the bestselling author of Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-up Bird Chronicles comes this superb collection of twenty-four stories that generously expresses Murakami’s mastery of the form. From the surreal to the mundane, these stories exhibit his ability to transform the full range of human experience in ways that are instructive, surprising, and relentlessly entertaining. Here are animated crows, a criminal monkey, and an iceman, as well as the dreams that shape us and the things we might wish for. Whether during a chance reunion in Italy, a romantic exile in Greece, a holiday in Hawaii, or in the grip of everyday life, Murakami’s characters confront grievous loss, or sexuality, or the glow of a firefly, or the impossible distances between those who ought to be closest of all.


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


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


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


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After his mission is suddenly terminated in Washington, D.C., British Intelligence agent Nick Stone decides to visit an old colleague, Kev Brown. But when Stone arrives at his friend's eerily quiet suburban home, he discovers a chilling scene of carnage. Every member of the Brown family has been brutally slaughtered except one: seven-year-old Kelly Brown. Stone grabs the girl and runs--with anonymous assassins in hot pursuit. Racing from Washington to Florida and finally across the Atlantic, Stone begins to piece together a shocking global conspiracy. Thrust into a lethal game of cat-and-mouse, Stone is certain of two things. No one can be trusted. He and Kelly are on their own. Now his darkest fears about the shadowy link between politics, money, and terrorism are about to be realized. . . .


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Aborting an officially-sanctioned assassination attempt at the Houses of Parliament when he realises who the target is, Secret Intelligence Service deniable operator Nick Stone is given a chilling ultimatum: fly to Panama and finish the job, or Kelly, the eleven-year-old orphan in his charge, will be killed. Stone is on the edge, struggling to pick up the pieces of his shattered life, trying to come to terms with a heartrending decision he has made about Kelly?s future. By the time he arrives in Panama, he is close to breaking point. And in the sweltering Central American jungle, Stone finds himself at the centre of a lethal conspiracy involving Colombian guerrillas, the US government and Chinese big business. At stake are hundreds of innocent lives. He has a critically injured friend to rescue and miles of dense rainforest to navigate. And in an explosive denouement at the Panama Canal, Nick Stone is forced to make the toughest decision of his life?


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November 2001. A Zodiac Inflatable Slips Away From A Submarine Off The North African Coast. If He Hadn'T Needed American Citizenship So Badly, Nick Stone Wouldn T Have Agreed To Do This One Last Job, But The Cia S Offer Of A New Life In The United States, And The Chance To Share It With Carrie, The Woman He S Fallen In Love With, Is One He Cannot Refuse. The Job Seems Simple Enough For A Man Of His Particular Skills: Infiltrate Into The Hostile And Violent Republic Of Algeria, Kill A Money-Laundering Local Businessman, And Bring Back His Severed Head To The West. Stone Isn T Told Why The Man Has To Die Like This, And He Doesn T Want To Know. He Just Guesses It S Got Something To Do With The Democratic World S Fightback After The Terrible Events Of 11 September. But As Events Unfold Alarmingly Fast, Stone Realizes That By No Means Has He Been Told The Full Story - And That In Reality The Job Has Only Just Begun. Then Comes The Devastating News That Carrie, Enraged By His Broken Promise Never To Work With The Cia Again, Has Turned Her Back On Him For Ever. Operating In The Dangerous Underworld Of The South Of France, Where Al-Qaeda Has Embarked On A Panicked Round-Up Of Funds Using The Ancient Banking System Of Hawalla, Stone Is In At The Deep End Of A Very Dirty War. In The Most Daunting Mission He Has Ever Undertaken, As One Bloody Twist Leads To Another, Stone Ultimately Finds Himself Confronted By The Most Desperate Dilemma A Man Could Ever Face.


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My Head Was Forced Under And I Swallowed A Mouthful Of Freezing River. I Kicked Back To The Surface, Forcing Myself To Breathe In Through My Nose, Only To Choke As I Inhaled Yet More Water. I Let Go Of Her. We Each Had To Fight Our Own Battle Now. She Looked At Me, Her Eyes The Size Of Saucers As She Realised What I Had Done. That Wasn T My Problem; It Would Only Become One If I Couldn T Get Her Body Out Of The Water And They Found Out Who She Was.Nick Stone, Ex-Sas, Now A K Working For British Intelligence On Deniable Operations, Is Tough, Resourceful, Ruthless, Highly Trained - A Master Of His Trade.Sarah Is Beautiful, Steel Willed, Intelligent, Cunning - The Only Woman That Stone Has Ever Let Under His Guard. And Now He S Been Sent To Hunt Her Down ... As The Pair Are Pursued Through The Backwoods Of The American South, Stone S Mission Becomes A Journey To The Heart Of A Dark And Deadly Conspiracy To Which Only Sarah Holds The Key. And As The Tension Builds To Breaking Point, The Two Are Led To A Confrontation That Echoes Our Worst Nightmares.


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Helsinki, December 1999. Nick Stone, Ex-Sas, Now A K Working For British Intelligence On Deniable Operations, Is Tough, Resourceful, Ruthless, Highly Trained And Desperately In Need Of Cash...Offered The Lucrative Freelance Job Of Kidnapping A Mafia Warlord And Delivering Him To St Petersburg, It Seems To Stone That His Problems Are Over. In Fact, They Are Only Just Beginning.Stone Enters The Bleak Underworld Of The Former Soviet Republic Of Estonia, Where Unknown Aggressors Stalk The Bitter Landscape, And He Soon Finds Himself Caught Between Implacable Enemies. For Russia Has Embarked Upon A Concerted Cyber-Espionage Offensive, Hacking Into Some Of The West S Most Sensitive Military Secrets. American And British Intelligence Agencies Are Determined To Thwart Them. And The Mafia Are Waiting In The Wings With Their Own Chillingly Brutal Solution...


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


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


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From the queen of the British bestseller lists comes the classic hit every Englishwoman remembers with a sigh -- Riders, the steamy, scandalous tale of sexual and equestrian competition within the heroic world of international show jumping.Welcome to a world of cutthroat competition populated by fearless athletes, wealthy sponsors, and beautiful starlets and set against the glorious Cotswold countryside and the playgrounds of the world. Within this arena we meet the brooding gypsy Jake Lovell, under whose magic hands the most difficult horse or woman becomes biddable, who is driven by his hatred of Rupert Campbell-Black, the handsome and supremely confident star of the show ring. They steal each other's horses and love each other's women as they push themselves and their mounts to impossible extremes, until their feud erupts, with devastating consequences, at the Los Angeles Olympics.


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If Emily hadn't gone to Annie Richmond's party, she would never have met the impossible irresistible Rory Balniel - never have married him and been carried off to the wild Scottish island of Irasa to live in his ancestral home along with his eccentric mother, Coco, and the dog, Walter Scott. She'd never have met the wild and mysterious Marina, a wraith from Rory's past, nor her brother, the disagreeable Finn Maclean; never have spent a night in a haunted highland castle, or been caught stealing roses in a see-through nightie...Yes, it all started at Annie Richmond's party.


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Shy, dreamy, and incurably romantic, HArriet Poole was shattered when her brief affair with Simon Villiers, Oxford's leading playboy undergraduate, ended abruptly, leaving her penniless, alone and pregnant. Still hopelessly in love with Simon, she took baby William and burried herself in deepest Yorkshire as nanny to the children of Cory Erskine, a somewhat eccentric scriptwriter.Local tongues were just beginning to wag when a whole host of visitors began to arrive to disrupt Harriet's peaceful routine: first Cory's estranged wife Noel, hellbent on winning Cory back, then Cory's glamorous brother Kit, whose old affair with Noel didn't stop him making passes at Harriet - and finally, of all people, Simon . . .


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*The Dumpling: A Seasonal Guide* by Wai Hon Chu and Connie Lovatt is the most comprehensive collection of dumpling recipes ever produced.  

 Discovering that dumplings—as a category of food—have never been properly defined, Chu and Lovatt developed a definition that takes into account the ingredients, cooking methods, and shapes that most commonly define dumplings, not just in a particular region or culture, but around the world.  

 *"A dumpling is a portion of dough, batter, or starchy plant fare, solid or filled, that is cooked through wet heat, and is not a strand or a ribbon"*  

 This exciting collection shows us that not only are pot stickers, pierogis, and shao mai dumplings but so too are tamales, steamed cakes, and steamed breads. From Chickpea Dumplings in a Tomato Sauce (India) to Leaf-Wrapped Rice Packages Stuffed with Peanuts and Sausage (China), from Chocolate Tamales (Mexico) to a "Napkin" Bread Dumpling with Cherries (Austria), from Cloud-Shaped Bread Buns (Tibet) to Potato Dumplings with Cabbage Layers (Hungary), dumplings, whether steamed or simmered, are as fun to make as they are to eat.  

 A truly passionate exploration of every dumpling type imaginable, *The Dumpling* contains dessert varieties, dumplings for gifts or entertaining, dozens of vegetarian and vegan options, fast and easy dumplings, as well as 21 pages of step-by-step dumpling making-illustrations. Arranged by month so as to encourage all of us to cook dumplings seasonally and year round, *The Dumpling* contains a recipe for every taste bud, table, and occasion.  

 Chapters 10, 11, and 12  

 October  

 No-Fuss Potato Dumplings • Spiced Carrot Pudding • Collard Greens with Corn Dumplings • Chicken Paprika with Dumplings • Bean Soup with Tiny Dumplings • Chickpea "Fish" in a Spicy Onion Sauce • Bacon and Sage Roly Poly • Daikon Cake • Cheddar Cheese and Potato Pierogi • Lentil and Onion Pierogi • Potato "Tamales" Stuffed with Chicken and Jalapeno • Beef-Stuffed Plantain Balls in a Cassava-Corn Soup  

 November  

 Dumplings and Cocky’s Joy • "Napkin" Bread Dumpling • Turkey Stew with Stuffing Dumplings • Cranberry Pudding • Lord Randall’s Pudding, An Apricot Dessert • Sticky Toffee Pudding • Potato Dumplings with Crouton Centers • Country Cabbage Soup with Large Cornmeal Dumplings • Philadelphia Pepperpot Soup with Dumplings • Large Beef- and Spinach-Filled Dumplings in Beef Broth • Dumplings Stuffed with Pears, Figs, and Chocolate • Pumpkin and Lentil Ravioli with Browned Butter and Rosemary • "Little Ear" Dumplings Stuffed with Mushrooms in a Beet Soup  

 December  

 Root Vegetable Bread Dumplings • Clootie Dumpling • Starchy Coconut Stew with Slippery Rice Balls • Guava Duff • Potato Dumplings with Cabbage Layers • John in the Sack • Classic Christmas Pudding • Chocolate Tamales • Siberian Meat Dumplings • Chestnut Ravioli with Sage Butter Sauce • Chicken-Filled Dumplings in an Escarole Soup • Dumplings Stuffed with "Stewed" Breadcrumbs


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In the 1960s Claudia Roden introduced Americans to a new world of tastes in her classic A Book of Middle Eastern Food. Now, in her enchanting new book, Arabesque, she revisits the three countries with the most exciting cuisines today—Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon. Interweaving history, stories, and her own observations, she gives us 150 of the most delectable recipes: some of them new discoveries, some reworkings of classic dishes—all of them made even more accessible and delicious for today’s home cook.From Morocco, the most exquisite and refined cuisine of North Africa: couscous dishes; multilayered pies; delicately flavored tagines; ways of marrying meat, poultry, or fish with fruit to create extraordinary combinations of spicy, savory, and sweet.From Turkey, a highly sophisticated cuisine that dates back to the Ottoman Empire yet reflects many new influences today: a delicious array of kebabs, fillo pies, eggplant dishes in many guises, bulgur and chickpea salads, stuffed grape leaves and peppers, and sweet puddings.From Lebanon, a cuisine of great diversity: a wide variety of mezze (those tempting appetizers that can make a meal all on their own); dishes featuring sun-drenched Middle Eastern vegetables and dried legumes; and national specialties such as kibbeh, meatballs with pine nuts, and lamb shanks with yogurt.Claudia Roden knows this part of the world so intimately that we delight in being in such good hands as she translates the subtle play of flavors and simple cooking techniques to our own home kitchens.


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I have a dark and dreadful secret. I write poetry... I believe poetry is a primal impulse within all of us. I believe we are all capable of it and furthermore that a small, often ignored corner of us positively yearns to try it. —Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled  Stephen Fry believes that if one can speak and read English, one can write poetry. Many of us have never been taught to read or write poetry and think of it as a mysterious and intimidating form. Or, if we have been taught, we remember uncomfortable silence when an English teacher invited the class to "respond" to a poem. In The Ode Less Travelled, Fry sets out to correct this problem by giving aspiring poets the tools and confidence they need to write poetry for pleasure.  Fry is a wonderfully engaging teacher and writer of poetry himself, and he explains the various elements of poetry in simple terms, without condescension. His enjoyable exercises and witty insights introduce the concepts of Metre, Rhyme, Form, Diction, and Poetics. Aspiring poets will learn to write a sonnet, on ode, a villanelle, a ballad, and a haiku, among others. Along the way, he introduces us to poets we've heard of, but never read. The Ode Less Travelled is a lively celebration of poetry that makes even the most reluctant reader want to pick up a pencil and give it a try. BACKCOVER: Advanced Praise: “Delightfully erudite, charming and soundly pedagogical guide to poetic form... Fry has created an invaluable and highly enjoyable reference book.” —Publishers Weekly  “A smart, sane and entertaining return to the basics... If you like Fry’s comic manner... this book has a lot of charm... People entirely fresh to the subject could do worse than stick with his cheerful leadership.” —The Telegraph (UK)  “...intelligent and informative, a worthy enterprise well executed.” —Observer (UK)  "If you learn how to write a sonnet, and Fry shows you how, you may or may not make a poem. But you will unlock the stored wisdom of the form itself." —Grey Gowrie, The Spectator (UK)  “...intelligent and informative, a worthy enterprise well executed.” —Observer (UK)


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


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Go forward in time: it's nearing the end of the century. Do you see a dramatically altered New Zealand? In GENESIS, Bernard Beckett, one of our most provocative writers for young adults, gives us his view of a brave new world. In a terrifying and stifling examination environment a young Academy candidate, Anaximander, is put through a gruelling exercise in interpreting the history and origins of her society. Through her answers, we learn that in 2052, New Zealand has been renamed The Republic after a reforming Governor, Plato. It has separated itself from a plague-ridden globe with a gargantuan ring fence guarded with military outposts. All approaching boats, exploratory air craft or refugees are shot on sight. Society is strictly divided and individuals deviate from their assigned roles at their peril. When one man, Adam Forde (2058-2077) insists on his right to independent thought and action, The Republic is set at grave risk. Adam is imprisoned: his sentence is to become the participant in a programming experiment with a new brand of artificial intelligence. Through Anaximander's rendition of Adam's debates with Artfink, the computer, and her own increasingly disturbing encounter with members of the Academy, we are confronted with unresolved questions raised by science and philosophy. Centuries old, these conundrums have gained new urgency in the face of rapidly developing technologies. What is consciousness? What makes us human? What separates us from the animal and mechanistic worlds? If artificial intelligence were developed to a high enough capability, what status could humanity still claim? As a species, we may have built in our own obsolescence, even if the planet itself is preserved. Outstanding and original, Beckett's dramatic narrative has a stunning closure that turns the reading experience on its head. Genesis will fuel intense debate about ethics and meaning between intellectually hungry young adults.


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Mark Doty's Fire to Fire collects the best of Mark Doty's seven books of poetry, along with a generous selection of new work. Doty's subjects—our mortal situation, the evanescent beauty of the world, desire's transformative power, and art's ability to give shape to human lives—echo and develop across twenty years of poems. His signature style encompasses both the plainspoken and the artfully wrought; here one of contemporary American poetry's most lauded, recognizable voices speaks to the crises and possibilities of our times.


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A vibrant collection of essays on the cosmos from the nation's best-known astrophysicist. “One of today’s best popularizers of science.”—Kirkus  Reviews.  Loyal readers of the monthly "Universe" essays in Natural History magazine have long recognized Neil deGrasse Tyson's talent for guiding them through the mysteries of the cosmos with stunning clarity and almost childlike enthusiasm. Here, Tyson compiles his favorite essays across a myriad of cosmic topics. The title essay introduces readers to the physics of black holes by explaining the gory details of what would happen to your body if you fell into one. "Holy Wars" examines the needless friction between science and religion in the context of historical conflicts. "The Search for Life in the Universe" explores astral life from the frontiers of astrobiology. And "Hollywood Nights" assails the movie industry's feeble efforts to get its night skies right.    Known for his ability to blend content, accessibility, and humor, Tyson is a natural teacher who simplifies some of the most complex concepts in astrophysics while simultaneously sharing his infectious excitement about our universe.


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Burned-out private dick Michael McGill needs to jump-start his career. What he gets instead is a cattle prod to the crotch. The president's heroin-addicted chief of staff wants McGill to find the Constitution—the real one the Founding Fathers secretly devised for the time of gravest crisis. And with God, civility, and Mom's homemade apple pie already dead or dying, that time is now. But McGill has a talent for stumbling into every imaginable depravity—and this case is driving him even deeper into America's darkest, dankest underbelly, toward obscenities that boggle even his mind.


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Why doesn't Batman just kill the Joker and end everyone's misery?        Can we hold the Joker morally responsible for his actions?        Is Batman better than Superman?        If everyone followed Batman's example,        would Gotham be a better place?        What is the Tao of the Bat?        Batman is one of the most complex characters ever to appear in comic books, graphic novels, and on the big screen. What philosophical trials does this superhero confront in order to keep Gotham safe? Combing through seventy years of comic books, television shows, and movies, Batman and Philosophy explores how the Dark Knight grapples with ethical conundrums, moral responsibility, his identity crisis, the moral weight he carries to avenge his murdered parents, and much more. How does this caped crusader measure up against the teachings of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Kierkegaard, and Lao Tzu?


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William Shakespeare's plays and poetry make up a vast repository of wit and wisdom, of insight and passion. For the momentous events in our lives—the ones that call for some memorable remarks or a great toast—the Bard is the perfect speechwriter. On any occasion, chances are there's a Shakespeare quote that's fitting. The challenge, of course, is finding the right one.  

 Enter Barry Edelstein. One of the top Shakespeare directors and teachers in the country, he can help you pick the perfect "Bardism," pronounce it with style, and craft an elegant speech, talk, or missive around it.  

 *Bardisms* provides the best of Shakespeare's wisdom, with passages that mark the special times as well as the everyday:   

 A wedding vow: "To you I give myself, for I am yours." —*As You Like It*  

 For your darling little girl: "You gods, look down / And from your sacred vials pour your graces / Upon my daughter's head." —*The Winter's Tale*  

 Birthday greeting: "To me, fair friend, you can never be old;" —*Sonnet 104*  

 Time to party: "Let's mock the midnight bell." —*Antony and Cleopatra*  

 On reputation: "Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, / Is the immediate jewel of their souls." —*Othello*   

 Edelstein takes the reader step by step through each Shakespeare quote, providing eminently helpful tips for speaking the lines like a pro. The book is organized chronologically, covering all stages of life—from childbirth to commencement, marriage, the workplace, old age, and all the significant events in between.  

 *Bardisms* celebrates Shakespeare's genius with a wealth of fascinating tidbits about his life and times, his work and his art. Edelstein explores what it is about Shakespeare's writing that makes it so fitting for important moments: his perfect balance of wit and sentimentality; his boundless imagination; his ability to express emotion at its purest; and his talent for communicating a complex thought in vivid and energetic terms.  

 Most of all, *Bardisms* makes Shakespeare infinitely more accessible, lending a freshness and vitality to his writing and fostering a new appreciation for its usefulness in our lives. For anyone struggling to come up with the perfect words, in any situation, *Bardisms* is the ultimate resource.


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** A story of food and love, injury and healing, *Keeping the Feast* is the triumphant memoir of one couple's nourishment and restoration in Italy after a period of tragedy, and the extraordinary sustaining powers of food, family, and friendship. ** 



 Paula and John met in Italy, fell in love, and four years later, married in Rome. But less than a month after the wedding, tragedy struck. They had transferred from their Italian paradise to Warsaw and while reporting on an uprising in Romania, John was shot and nearly killed by sniper fire. Although he recovered from his physical wounds in less than a year, the process of healing had just begun. Unable to regain his equilibrium, he sank into a deep sadness that reverberated throughout their relationship. It was the abrupt end of what they'd known together, and the beginning of a new phase of life neither had planned for. All of a sudden, Paula was forced to reexamine her marriage, her husband, and herself. 



 Paula began to reconsider all of her previous assumptions about healing. She discovered that sometimes patience can be a vice, anger a virtue. That sometimes it is vital to make demands of the sick, that they show signs of getting better. And she rediscovered the importance of the most fundamental of human rituals: the daily sharing of food around the family table. 



 A universal story of hope and healing, *Keeping the Feast* is an account of one couple's triumph over tragedy and illness, and a celebration of the simple rituals of life, even during the worst life crises. Beautifully written and tremendously moving, Paula's story is a testament to the extraordinary sustaining powers of food and love, and to the stubborn belief that there is always an afterward, there is always hope.


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Rebecca never felt safe as a child. In 1969, her father, Robert Nichols, moved to Sellerstown, North Carolina, to serve as a pastor. There he found a small community eager to welcome him-with one exception. Glaring at him from pew number seven was a man obsessed with controlling the church. Determined to get rid of anyone who stood in his way, he unleashed a plan of terror that was more devastating and violent than the Nichols family could have ever imagined. Refusing to be driven away by acts of intimidation, Rebecca's father stood his ground until one night when an armed man walked into the family's kitchen . . . and Rebecca's life was shattered. If anyone had a reason to harbor hatred and seek personal revenge, it would be Rebecca. Yet The Devil in Pew Number Seventells a different story. It is the amazing true saga of relentless persecution, one family's faith and courage in the face of it, and a daughter whose parents taught her the power of forgiveness.


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In this extraordinary true story, the haunting of a Long Island household forces a respected writer and editor to reevaluate the mysteries of life and death as he struggles with the frightening truths of his childhood home and his town's past. 

Growing up in Rockville Centre, Long Island, Gary Jansen never believed in ghosts. His mother - a devoutly Catholic woman with a keen sense for the uncanny - claimed that their family house was haunted. But Jansen never found anything inexplicable in how their doorbell would sometimes ring of its own accord; or in the mysterious sounds of footsteps or breaking glass that occasionally would fill their home; or even in his mother's sometimes unnervingly accurate visions of future events and tragedies. Though he once experienced a supernatural encounter in a Prague church as a young man, Jansen grew up into a rationalist, as well as a noted writer and editor. 

In 2001, Jansen moved back into the very same house where he had once grown up, to raise a family with his wife. One day in 2007 he encountered a weird physical sensation in his toddler son's bedroom - "like an electric hand rubbing the length of my back. I stopped and couldn't move, not because I was stuck but for the simple reason that the feeling was so strange. What the hell is that? Then the pressure seemed to break apart and for a brief moment I felt like I had a million little bugs crawling all over my back and neck." 

This became the first step in uncovering a frightening, full-blown haunting in his home-a phenomenon which lasted a full year and eventually included unveiling the identities of the spirits who occupied his house; reliving a tragic murder in his hometown; encountering mind-boggling coincidences between local history and episodes in his household; and finally, with the help of Mary Ann Winkowski, the real-life inspiration for TV's The Ghost Whisperer, ridding his house of these uninvited visitors. The events of that year, in which Jansen's family was terrified by ghosts in their own home, would forever change how he viewed the mysteries of life and death. 

Holy Ghosts is not only a gripping true-life ghost story but a wry and touching memoir, as well as a meditation on the relationship between religion and the paranormal, which are often considered at odds with each other, but which the author shows are intimately linked.


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Iwo Jima is one of the most famous battles in World War II, and the greatest battle fought by the U.S. Marine Corps in World War II. From that battle came the most famous image of the war, the raising of the flag on Mount Suribachi. Robert Leckie, the bestselling author of Helmet for My Pillow has written an extraordinary story of one of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history.


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Saudi Arabia is a country defined by paradox: it sits atop some of the richest oil deposits in the world, and yet the country s roiling disaffection produced sixteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers. It is a modern state, driven by contemporary technology, and yet its powerful religious establishment would have its customs and practices rolled back to match those of the Prophet Muhammed over a thousand years ago. In a world where events in the Middle East continue to have geopolitical consequences far beyond the region s boundaries, an understanding of this complex nation is essential. With Inside the Kingdom, British journalist and bestselling author Robert Lacey has given us one of the most penetrating and insightful looks at Saudi Arabia ever produced. More than twenty years after he first moved to the country to write about the Saudis at the end of the oil boom, Lacey has returned to find out how the consequences of the boom produced a society at war with itself. Filled with stories told by a broad range of Saudis, from high princes and ambassadors to men and women on the street, Inside the Kingdom is in many ways the story of the Saudis in their own words. It is a story of oil money that opened the door to Western ways, and produced a conservative backlash with effects that are still being felt today. It is a story of kings and princes who worried more about keeping power than the dangerous consequences of empowering radical clerics. It is a story of men who challenged orthodoxy and risked prison or death in the name of furthering open society, and of women who defied laws saying they should not write, drive, or play sports. And, at its heart, it is a story of a people attempting to reconcile the religious separatism of the past and the rapidly changing world with which they are increasingly intertwined. Their success or failure will have powerful reverberations in their own country, and across the globe.


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Lysander Hawkley Combined Breathtaking Good Looks With The Kindest Of Hearts. He Couldn'T Pass A Stray Dog, An Ill-Treated Horse, Or A Neglected Wife Without Rushing To The Rescue. And With Neglected Wives The Rescue Invariably Led To Ecstatic Bonking, Which Didn'T Please Their Erring Husbands One Bit. Lysander'S Mid-Life Crisis Had Begun At Twenty-Two. Reeling From The Death Of His Beautiful Mother, He Was Out Of Work, Drinking Too Much And Desperately In Debt. The Solution Came From Ferdie, His Fat, Fast-Operating Friend: If Lysander Was So Good At Making Husbands Jealous, Why Shouldn'T He Get Paid For It? So Ferdie Moved Him Into The Idyllic Rutshire Village Of Paradise, Which Teemed With Underserviced Wives Whose Husbands Were Whooping It Up In London. Not Only Did Lysander Cause Absolute Havoc, But As The Husbands Came Roaring Home To Protect Their Property He Was Soon Awash With Cash, Polo Ponies, Yachts And Ferraris Given Him By Grateful Wives. But Husband Rattling Has Its Complications. The Undisputed King Rat Of Rutshire Was A Fiendishly Temperamental, World-Famous Conductor Called Rannaldini, Who Lived In A Huge Haunted Abbey Overlooking Paradise With A Rottweiler Called Tabloid And A String Of Racehorses And Glamorous Groupies. Indeed, The Only Unglamorous Woman Around Rannaldini Was The One Who Ran His Life Like Clockwork, His Plump Young Wife Kitty. Soon Lysander Was Seriously Convinced That Kitty Must Be Rescued At All Costs From Rannaldini'S Sadistic Promiscuity. Frantic To Prove He Was Not Just A Far-From-Cheap Wife-Enhancer, Lysander Enlisted The Help Of Old Blue-Eyed Havoc Maker Rupert Campbell-Black, Who As A Successful Trainer Had His Own Reasons For Wanting To Bury Rannaldini - And The Battle Of The Giants Was On.


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One of the glorious Rutshire Chronicles.Into the cut-throat world of Corinium television comes Declan O’Hara, a mega-star of great glamour and integrity with a radiant feckless wife, a handsome son and two ravishing teenage daughters. Living rather too closely across the valley is Rupert Campbell-Black, divorced and as dissolute as ever, and now the Tory Minister for Sport. Declan needs only a few days at Corinium to realize that the Managing Director, Lord Baddingham, is a crook who has recruited him merely to help retain the franchise for Corinium. Baddingham has also enticed Cameron Cook, a gorgeous but domineering woman executive, to produce Declan’s programme. Declan and Cameron detest each other, provoking a storm of controversy into which Rupert plunges with his usual abandon. As a rival group emerges to pitch for the franchise, reputations ripen and decline, true love blossoms and burns, marriages are made and shattered, and sex raises its (delicious) head at almost every throw as, in bed and boardroom, the race is on to capture the Cotswold Crown.


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In the 1970s, New York City hit rock bottom. Crime was at its highest, the middle class exodus was in high gear, and bankruptcy loomed. Many people credit New York’s “master builder” Robert Moses with turning Gotham around, despite his brutal, undemocratic. and demolition-heavy ways.Urban critic and journalist Roberta Brandes Gratz contradicts this conventional view. New York City, Gratz argues, recovered precisely because of the waning power of Moses. His decline in the late 1960s and the drying up of big government funding for urban renewal projects allowed New York to organically regenerate according to the precepts defined by Jane Jacobs in her classic, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and in contradiction to Moses’s urban philosophy.As American cities face a devastating economic crisis, Jacobs’s philosophy is again vital for the redevelopment of metropolitan life. Gratz who was named as one of Planetizen’s Top 100 Urban Thinkers gives an on-the-ground account of urban renewal and community success.


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College-professor-cum-zombie Jack Barnes is a different breed of undead—he can think. In fact, he can even write. And the story he has to tell is a truly disturbing—yet strangely heartwarming—one.  

 Convinced he'll bring about a peaceful coexistence between zombies and humans if he can demonstrate his unique condition to Howard Stein, the man responsible for the zombie virus, Barnes sets off on a grueling cross-country journey to meet his maker. Along the way he recruits a small army of "super" zombies that will stop at nothing to reach their goal. There's Guts, the dreadlocked boy who can run like the wind; Joan, the matronly nurse adept at reattaching decaying appendages; Annie, the young girl with a fierce quick-draw; and Ros, who can actually speak. United they embark on an epic quest to attain what all men, women—and, apparently, zombies—yearn for: equality.  

 *Brains* is a blood-soaked, darkly humorous story that will have readers rooting for Barnes and his zombie posse to the very end.


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When she finds her coworker's body in front of the station doors, nighttime DJ Gabby Rogillio knows it was murder. But how can the police suspect the station's owner, a man who's been like a father to Gabby? She's determined to clear her friend's name, and will recruit anyone she can find to help. Even the mysterious newcomer in town, handsome businessman Clark McKay. Gabby doesn't quite trust Clark, but she can't crack the case alone. Especially when the killer threatens them both-either back down from the investigationhellip;or be silenced forever.


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New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Ron Rash is "a storyteller of the highest rank" (Jeffrey Lent) and has won comparisons to John Steinbeck, Cormac McCarthy, and Gabriel GarcÍa MÁrquez. It is rare that an author can capture the complexities of a place as though it were a person, and rarer still that one can reveal a land as dichotomous and fractious as Appalachia—a muse; a siren; a rugged, brutal landscape of exceptional beauty, promise, and suffering—with the honesty and precision of a photograph. "If you haven't heard of the Southern writer Ron Rash, it is time you should" (The Plain Dealer).   In Burning Bright, the stories span the years from the Civil War to the present day, and Rash's historical and modern settings are sewn together in a hauntingly beautiful patchwork of suspense and myth, populated by raw and unforgettable characters mined from the landscape of Appalachia. In "Back of Beyond," a pawnshop owner who profits from the stolen goods of local meth addicts—including his own nephew—comes to the aid of his brother and sister-in-law when they are threatened by their son. The pregnant wife of a Lincoln sympathizer alone in Confederate territory takes revenge to protect her family in "Lincolnites." And in the title story, a woman from a small town marries an outsider; when an unknown arsonist starts fires in the Smoky Mountains, her husband becomes the key suspect.   In these stories, Rash brings to light a previously unexplored territory, hidden in plain sight—first a landscape, and then the dark yet lyrical heart and the alluringly melancholy soul of his characters and their home.


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With rough miners for shipmates, Elizabeth Breckenridge sets sail to search for her brother in Alaska, wild with the 1890s gold rush. When she falls overboard midjourney, she is rescued by a man very unlike her minister brother— Clint Brady, a cynical bounty hunter who shoots to kill. Together, this unlikely couple struggles to survive the rugged dangers of the beautiful Alaskan frontier. Unexpectedly, Clint comes to love her, and proposes. Elizabeth returns his love, but unless she can help Clint see that heaven is no abstraction in the sky, the grip of the past could cost them a future together—.


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A dashing and feckless lord enters a marriage of convenience with the lovely and practical daughter of a wealthy merchant to salvage his family fortune, but they find themselves unprepared for scandal, rioting tenants, a menacing neighborand discovering a love that is neither convenient nor practical but entirely heartfelt and enduring.


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**A dazzling debut that is at once a lightly erudite novel of ideas and a darkly charming love story set on an island off the coast of Maine-the perfect sophisticated summer read. ** 



 By turns funny, charming, and tragic, Rosecrans Baldwin's debut novel takes us inside the heart and mind of Dr. Victor Aaron, a leading Alzheimer's researcher at the Soborg Institute on Mount Desert Island in Maine. Victor spends his days alternating between long hours in the sterile lab and running through memories of his late wife, Sara. He has preserved their marriage as a sort of perfect, if tumultuous, duet between two opposite but precisely compatible souls. 



 But one day, in the midst of organizing his already hyperorganized life, Victor discovers a series of index cards covered in Sara's handwriting. They chronicle the major "changes in direction" of their marriage, written as part of a brief fling with couples counseling. Sara's version of their great love story is markedly different from his own, which, for the eminent memory specialist, is a startling revelation. Victor is forced to reevaluate and relive each moment of their marriage, never knowing is the revisions will hurt or hearten. Meanwhile, as Victor's faith in memory itself unravels, so too does his precisely balanced support network, a group of strong women-from his lab assistant to Aunt Betsy, doddering doyenne of the island-that had, so far, allowed him to avoid grieving. 



 Rosecrans Baldwin shows himself here to be a young writer bursting with talent and imagination who deftly handles this aching love story with sensitivity and unexpected maturity. *You Lost Me There* is a treasure of a book filled with beautiful, intelligent prose, a book that wears its smarts lightly and probes its emotions deeply.


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Available in paperback for the first time.This Much Is True: You Have Been Lied To.



The government is expanding. Taxes are increasing. More senseless wars are being planned. Inflation is ballooning. Our basic freedoms are disappearing.

The Founding Fathers didn't want any of this. In fact, they said so quite clearly in the Constitution of the United States of America. Unfortunately, that beautiful, ingenious, and revolutionary document is being ignored more and more in Washington. If we are to enjoy peace, freedom, and prosperity once again, we absolutely must return to the principles upon which America was founded. But finally, there is hope . . . 



In THE REVOLUTION,**Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul has exposed the core truths behind everything threatening America, from the *real *reasons behind the collapse of the dollar and the looming financial crisis, to terrorism and the loss of our precious civil liberties. In this book, Ron Paul provides answers to questions that few even dare to ask. 



Despite a media blackout, this septuagenarian physician-turned-congressman sparked a movement that has attracted a legion of young, dedicated, enthusiastic supporters . . . a phenomenon that has amazed veteran political observers and made more than one political rival envious. Candidates across America are already running as "Ron Paul Republicans."



"Dr. Paul cured my apathy," says a popular campaign sign. THE REVOLUTION may cure yours as well.


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Never before has a journalist penetrated the wall of secrecy that surrounds the U.S. Secret Service, that elite corps of agents who pledge to take a bullet to protect the president and his family. After conducting exclusive interviews with more than one hundred current and former Secret Service agents, bestselling author and award-winning reporter Ronald Kessler reveals their secrets for the first time.Secret Service agents, acting as human surveillance cameras, observe everything that goes on behind the scenes in the president’s inner circle. Kessler reveals what they have seen, providing startling, previously untold stories about the presidents, from John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as well as about their families, Cabinet officers, and White House aides. Kessler portrays the dangers that agents face and how they carry out their missions–from how they are trained to how they spot and assess potential threats. With fly-on-the-wall perspective, he captures the drama and tension that characterize agents’ lives.In this headline-grabbing book, Kessler discloses assassination attempts that have never before been revealed. He shares inside accounts of past assaults that have put the Secret Service to the test, including a heroic gun battle that took down the would-be assassins of Harry S. Truman, the devastating day that John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas, and the swift actions that saved Ronald Reagan after he was shot.While Secret Service agents are brave and dedicated, Kessler exposes how Secret Service management in recent years has betrayed its mission by cutting corners, risking the assassination of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and their families. Given the lax standards, “It’s a miracle we have not had a successful assassination,” a current agent says.Since an assassination jeopardizes democracy itself, few agencies are as important as the Secret Service–nor is any other subject as tantalizing as the inner sanctum of the White House. Only tight-lipped Secret Service agents know the real story, and Ronald Kessler is the only journalist to have won their trust.


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Suskind's reporting continues to make him an indispensable chronicler of the Bush/Cheney debacle. (Tim Rutten, The Los Angeles Times )^"Incisive. . . . No journalist has more ably explored the dark crevices of the Bush administration's foreign policy. . . . Suskind has shown that faith -- the wrong kind of faith, anyway -- can produce disaster." (Salon )^"Suskind is a brilliant reporter and his investigation into the post- 9/11, pre-Iraq war period makes you think you're reading about it for the first time. . . . It's damning. Give this man another Pulitzer Prize." (Christopher Buckley, The Daily Beast )^"Moving. . . . Mr. Suskind is a prodigiously talented craftsman. . . . It's all here: a cast of characters that sprawls across class and circumstance to represent the totality of a historical moment. . . . These hard times, Mr. Suskind's book suggests, call for a nonfiction Dickens." (The New York Observer )^"Ron Suskind does not think small. . . . A sweeping examination of moral authority in a global world and how a post-9/11 America seems to have lost its way." (The Boston Globe )^"A vivid snapshot of a year, 2006-2007, in the life of a nation whose leaders have betrayed its high moral purpose. One of Suskind's Washington players cries into the darkness, "Can the great beast self-correct?" Can America, Suskind asks, recover its missionary rectitude? He clearly thinks it can." (The Sunday Times (London) )^"A bombshell book." (The Today Show )^"Extraordinary. . . . If Mr Suskind is correct, laws have been broken and President George W. Bush and/or Dick Cheney are implicated. . . . This is-or ought to be-a Watergate-sized scandal." (Clive Crook, The Financial Times )^"An explosive new book." (MSNBC.com )^"Outstanding. . . . A searching, globe-hopping masterpiece of investigative journalism and empathetic prose. Amidst the 'arabesque' of richly drawn characters, Suskind reveals a few bombshell discoveries regarding the Bush Administration's irresponsibility and outright lies." (The Huffington Post )^"An ambitious attempt to weave all the strands of our current conflict into a unified whole. . . . Ron Suskind's new book has earned buzz because of his arresting argument that the Bush administration actually forged evidence to buttress its case for war." (Andrew Sullivan )^"The leading chronicler of the forty-third president." (Esquire )^"There is much more to learn from Suskind's reporting, including new evidence that Bush and other officials knew there were no WMD in Iraq." (Joe Conason, Salon )^"Ron Suskind has traced the history of the Bush years with a novelist's ear. Now he looks at the tragedy through the eye of the victims." (The American Prospect )^"Startling. . . . Chilling. . . . A reportorial feat. . . . Suskind skillfully traces several interwoven stories of cultural clashes and cross-pollination, all of them pursuing the questions of whether America and the Muslim world can ever look past their differences and find understanding." (Michael Crowley, The New York Times Book Review )^"Complex, ambitious, provocative, risky. . . . In a crowded, highly talented field, Mr. Suskind bids fair to claim the crown as the most perceptive, incisive, dogged chronicler of the inner workings of the Bush administration." (Mark Danner, The New York Times )^"A touching story. . . . Suskind is a skilled reporter. . . The moral of Suskind's story, in short, is that nothing suceeds like truthfulness." (The Washington Post Book World ) 

From Pulitzer Prize??winning journalist and bestselling author Ron Suskind comes a startling look at how America lost its way and at the nation??s struggle, day by day, to reclaim the moral authority upon which its survival depends. From the White House to Downing Street, from the fault-line countries of South Asia to the sands of Guantánamo, Suskind offers an astonishing story that connects world leaders to the forces waging today??s shadow wars and to the next generation of global citizens. Tracking down truth and hope within the Beltway and far beyond it, Suskind delivers historic disclosures with this emotionally stirring and strikingly original portrait of the post-9/11 world. In a sweeping, propulsive, and multilayered narrative, The Way of the World investigates how America relinquished the moral leadership it now desperately needs to fight the real threat of our era: a nuclear weapon in the hands of terrorists. Truth, justice, and accountability become more than mere words in this story. Suskind shows where the most neglected dangers lie in the story of "The Armageddon Test" ??a desperate gamble to send undercover teams into the world??s nuclear black market to frustrate the efforts of terrorists trying to procure weapons-grade uranium. In the end, he finally reveals for the first time the explosive falsehood underlying the Iraq War and the entire Bush presidency. While the public and political realms struggle, The Way of the World simultaneously follows an ensemble of characters in America and abroad who are turning fear and frustration into a desperate??and often daring??brand of human salvation. They include a striving, twenty-four-year-old Pakistani émigré, a fearless UN refugee commissioner, an Afghan teenager, a Holocaust survivor??s son, and Benazir Bhutto, who discovers, days before her death, how she??s been abandoned by the United States at her moment of greatest need. They are all testing American values at a time of peril, and discovering solutions??human solutions??to so much that has gone wrong. For anyone hoping to exercise truly informed consent and begin the process of restoring the values and hope??along with the moral clarity and earned optimism??at the heart of the American tradition, The Way of the World is a must-read.


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Henry Grim has never been in trouble for borrowing a sword from the headmasterÕs private stores. He has never discovered a forbidden room in a foreign castle, or received a death threat over breakfast.  

 All Henry knows is life as an orphaned servant boy at the Midsummer School, bullied by the privileged sons of aristocracy. But all that changes when Henry is the first commoner to pass the entrance exam for the prestigious Knightley Academy, where he will be trained as a modern-day knight alongside the cleverest and bravest fourteen-year-olds in the country.  

 Henry and his roommates, two other students from decidedly un-Knightley backgrounds, are not exactly greeted with open arms by their classmates. In fact, it soon becomes apparent that someone is going to great lengths to sabotage the trioÕs chances at becoming knights. But Henry soon learns that there is more at stake than his future at Knightley, and only he can sound the alarm. Is anyone going to believe a former servant on the brink of expulsion?  

 Brimming with wry humor, page-turning suspense, and surprising twists, this first adventure in a memorable new series is sure to enthrall readers of all ages.


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BORN TO KILLEven trained warriors often feel an internal blink of resistance when the killing takes place within the zone of body heat.Not Ray Favor. He killed with the easeof flipping a light switch.ONE SHOT AT REDEMPTIONA decade ago, Ray Favor was a remorseless killer for theBlack Ops cell Bravo One Nine. He did what he was hiredt o do out of patriotism and duty. Now, having amassed a fortune but deeply troubled by his past and suspicious of his own nature, Favor is motivated by something more: a chance to r ight the wrongs he committed and restore balance .He get s that chance deep in the Philippines, where thedisappearance of two teenagers leads Favor and his Bravo team to confront an illegal operation by the Russian mob--and an evil so deplorable that it can only be righted by the means Favor once used to wreak destruction. Now, driven by a hungry sense of purpose, Ray Favor will seek retribution by any means necessary. And exact a violent justice without mercy--or regret.First in Phillip Finch's stunning new series, Devil's Keep is a suspense-packed international thriller introducing a powerful, complex, and memorable action hero.


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Hitler's Niece tells the story of the intense and disturbing relationship between Adolf Hitler and the daughter of his only half-sister, Angela, a drama that evolves against the backdrop of Hitler's rise to prominence and power from particularly inauspicious beginnings. The story follows Geli from her birth in Linz, Austria, through the years in Berchtesgaden and Munich, to her tragic death in 1932 in Hitler's apartment in Munich. Through the eyes of a favorite niece who has been all but lost to history, we see the frightening rise in prestige and political power of a vain, vulgar, sinister man who thrived on cruelty and hate and would stop at nothing to keep the horror of his inner life hidden from the world.


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If conducting a love affair in modern Iran is not a simple undertaking, then telling the story of that love may be even more difficult. In a country where mere proximity between a man and a woman may be the prologue to deadly sin, where illicit passion is punished by imprisonment, or even death, telling that most redemptive of human narratives becomes the greatest literary challenge. Shahriar Mandanipour evokes a pair of young lovers who find each other despite surreal persecution and repressive parents through coded messages and internet chat rooms; and triumphantly their story entwines with an account of their creatorrs"s struggle. Inventive, darkly comic and profoundly touching,Censoring an Iranian Love Storycelebrates both the unquenchable power of the written word and a love that is doomed, glorious, and utterly real.


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Inspired by the glory of Tang Dynasty China in the eighth century, Guy Gavriel Kay melds history and the fantastic into something both powerful and emotionally compelling. Under Heaven is a novel on the grandest narrative scale, encompassing the intimate details of individual lives in an unforgettable time and place. Shen Tai is the son of a general who led the forces of imperial Kitai in that empire's last war against their western enemies from Tagur, twenty years before. Forty thousand men on both sides were slain beside a remote mountain lake. General Shen Gao himself has died recently. To honour his father's memory, Tai has spent two years of official mourning alone at the battle site among the ghosts of the dead, laying to rest their unburied bones. One spring morning, he learns that others have taken note of his vigil. The White Jade Princess in Tagur is pleased to present him with two hundred and fifty Sardian horses, given, she writes, in recognition of his courage, and honour done to the dead. You gave a man one of the famed Sardians to reward him greatly. You gave him four or five to exalt him above his fellows, and earn him jealousy, possibly mortal. Two hundred and fifty is an unthinkable gift, a gift to overwhelm an emperor. Tai starts east towards the glittering, dangerous imperial capital and gathers his wits for a return from solitude by a mountain lake to his own forever-altered life.


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When Bill O'Reilly interviewed then-Senator Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential elections, the two had a lively debate about the nation's future.   Since that time, America has changed rapidly—some would even say seismically. And many believe these shifts are doing more than just rocking the political and social climate; they're rocking the American core.   What are these changes? Who, in addition to President Obama, have been the biggest forces behind them? What exactly do they mean for you, the everyday American citizen? How are they affecting your money, health, safety, freedom, and standing in this nation? Which are Pinheaded moves and which are truly Patriotic? In his latest spirited book, O'Reilly prompts further debate with the President and the American people on the current state of the union.   After five consecutive, no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is megabestsellers, you can count on Bill to offer blunt and constructive political commentary. And as he did in his popular memoir, he offers some introspection too, looking back at his own actions and those of past Pinheads and Patriots who have inspired a code of conduct for such taxing times.   As always, O'Reilly is fair, balanced, and uncompromisingly tough when guarding the American way. Only Pinheads would fail to fight for what they love most about this country or to embrace some measure of change to make it better. The rest of us Patriots will read this book to discover the difference between the two.


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"My Best Friends have Hairy Legs" is the story of my dog, Trooper, and me overcoming abusive relationships.  It is a story about his growth from a fearful puppy into a confident adult dog - and mine - from a psychologically abused wife into a confident woman who can look back at my past with laughter and no regrets.  I don't 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 aren't any bras burnt at the end of this book - or dog collars - but the metaphor is the same.  We are happy with who we are.


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rom America's premier fantasy writer-the #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Crossroads of Twilight-comes New Spring: The Novel.   Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time has captured the imagination of millions of readers who eagerly await each new volume of the saga. Now, Jordan gives us a glimpse of the events leading up to the first book of the Wheel of Time. New Spring: The Novel is a perfect introduction to the Wheel of Time.   For three days, battle has raged in the snow around the great city of Tar Valon. In the city, a Foretelling of the future is uttered. On the slopes of Dragonmount, the immense mountain that looms over the city, is born an infant prophesied to change the world. That child must be found before the forces of the Shadow have an opportunity to kill him. Moiraine Damodred, a young Accepted soon to be raised to Aes Sedai, and Lan Mandragoran, a young soldier fighting in the battle, are       set on paths that will bind their lives together. But those paths are filled with complications and dangers, for Moiraine, of the Royal House of Cairhien, whose King has just died, and Lan, considered the uncrowned king of a nation long dead, find their lives threatened by the plots of those seeking power. 'New Spring,' the novella first published in Legends, related some of these events, in compressed form. New Spring: The Novel tells the whole story.   Robert Jordan is a graduate of The Citadel. He lives in Charleston, South Carolina.


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This powerful, moving and well-controlled thriller follows the metamorphosis of Sara Burney, an abused, submissive and battered wife whose daily goal has been to keep her brutish husband Martin from still more violent assaults. Presumed dead when she is swept overboard from a sailboat in Manhasset Bay, Sara seizes the opportunity to escape from her husband and begin a new life. She rides the bus from Boston to the small university town of Cedar Falls, Iowa, where she finds a job as caretaker to Dr. Hazel Channing, a professor who is recovering from an accident that has left her both mute and paralyzed. Sara (now known as Laura Pray) gradually edges into independence. She reads Henry James to Dr. Channing and awakes her to sprightly dialogue. She finds the strength and the wisdom to counsel another woman in crisis. And she begins a tentative but promising relationship with her next-door neighbor, a perceptive professor. But her desire to visit her mother in a nursing home enables her murderously psychotic husband to trace her. Reveries, dreams and images of drowning form an effective counterpoint to chilling scenes of observation and pursuit, and the author of An Accomplished Woman brings the novel to a triumphant conclusion. Major ad/promo; film rights to Leonard Goldberg Productions.


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Amy Curry thinks her life sucks. Her mom decides to move from California to Connecticut to start anew--just in time for Amy's senior year. Her dad recently died in a car accident. So Amy embarks on a road trip to escape from it all, driving cross-country from the home she's always known toward her new life. Joining Amy on the road trip is Roger, the son of Amy's mother's old friend. Amy hasn't seen him in years, and she is less than thrilled to be driving across the country with a guy she barely knows. So she's surprised to find that she is developing a crush on him. At the same time, she's coming to terms with her father's death and how to put her own life back together after the accident. Told in traditional narrative as well as scraps from the road--diner napkins, motel receipts, postcards--this is the story of one girl's journey to find herself.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

At the dawn of history, an epic war is about to begin in the deadly quest for honour. The city of Sumer, ruled by a brutal murderer and his vicious, power hungry sister, is poised to give birth to the mightiest empire in history. No one stands a chance as it brings a bloody war to all those who stand in its way, determined to crush and enslave those on its borders. The little city state of Akkad must prepare its fledgling nation to fight for its very survival. Akkad's warriors are a loyal and courageous brotherhood, but this is not a battle of villages or of roving warrior bands; it is a battle for Empire and a fight to the death...


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Byzantium, 1096. A mysterious assassin releases an arrow aimed at the emperor---but he has more than just a man in his sights. A keystone of a crumbling empire, the emperor is the solitary figure holding all the enemies in check. And if he falls, the mightiest power in Christendom will be torn apart. Demetrios Askiates, unveiler of mysteries, is hired to catch the would-be-killer. But he is entering an unknown world; a babbling cauldron of princes, slaves, mercenaries, pimps, and eunuchs. Not all enemies are within the city walls, however, and with the Turks running rampant across Asia, the emperor has sent to the west for mercenaries to reinforce his position. When a great army, tens of thousands strong, appears before the city gates---the emperor gets more than he bargained for. From the depths of the slums to the golden towers of the city palace; from the sands of the hippodrome to the soaring domes of Ayia Sophia; Demetrios must edge his way through a glittering maze of treachery and deceit before time runs out. Intent on making their fortunes in war, and with no allegiance to this empire, the first crusaders have arrived with eyes full of jealousy and suspicion. As the armies of the east and west confront each other, and with the assassin creeping ever closer to his prey, Demetrios must untangle this golden web of intrigue that surrounds the emperor---before the city, and the empire, are drowned in blood. nbsp; “His portrayal of the Byzantine city and the intrigues that threaten its destruction is vivid and convincing.” ---The Sunday Times(UK) nbsp; “It’s a world that Harper brings exuberantly to life, clearly revelling in its teeming, tumultuous extravagance. But he also has a sharp eye for an intriguing mystery.” ---Yorkshire Post(UK) nbsp; “Tom Harper writes with strident clarity in this epic tale of murder and betrayal, bloodshed and romance. Gripping from the first page, the reader is swept up.... Well researched and cinematic in its imagery, this is a fast-paced and exciting debut.” ---INK (UK) nbsp; “A gripping tale...I look forward to Demetrios’s further adventures.” ---Elizabeth Hawksley,Historical Novels Review nbsp; “A lively adventure.... The imperial palace, with all its splendor and intrigue, is brought vividly to life.” ---Good Book Review(UK) nbsp; “An engaging romp---Byzantine not only in time and location but the ins and outs of the plot.” ---The Advertiser(Australia)


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Knights of the Cross follows Tom Harper’s critically acclaimed debut, The Mosaic of ShadowsByzantium, 1098. Two years prior, the legions of armies of the First Crusade were called upon by the Byzantine emperor to reinforce his position as the mightiest power in Christendom. Fighting as mercenaries, and claiming no particular allegiance, their presence was strained within the city walls of Byzantium. But with their differences now settled, the armies of the First Crusade leave the emperor---racing across the vast stretch of Asia Minor, chasing the Turkish armies of the East.            As they continue to route the Turks and reclaim the stolen land for Christendom, the powerful armies are quickly halted. On the Syrian border, their advance is blocked before the impregnable walls of Antioch. As winter draws on, they are forced to suffer a fruitless, interminable siege---gnawed upon by famine, and tormented by the Turkish defenders. The perilous season leaves the entire crusade on a precarious verge of collapse.            In the midst of this freezing misery, rivalries, and divisions appear. Lines are drawn between the ruling princes; the lords and the men they command; and between the Byzantines fighting alongside the Western crusaders. So when the Norman knight, Drago, is found murdered, his lord, the ruthlessly ambitious Bohemond, charges Demetrios Askiates, unveiler of mysteries, with finding the murderer. As Demetrios investigates further, the trail seems to lead ever deeper into the vipers’ nest of jealousy, betrayal, and fanaticism that lies at the heart of the crusade.            A separate army of Turkish infidels is sent to relieve Antioch. With danger looming within the crusader ranks, and impending battles headed their direction, time is running out, and Demetrios is forced to work with Bohemond to uncover the killer. And still the walls of Antioch are locked, with no key in sight---and no assurance that once the crusaders are inside, the battles will end.            The extraordinary story of the crisis of the First Crusade---a powerful novel of intrigue, sacrifice, savagery, and holy war. An amazing sequel to the acclaimed debut, The Mosaic of Shadows. “Gripping for its portrayal of the crusader leaders . . . this is a great example from a trustworthy historian.” ---Independent


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Starred Review. British author Harper brings to life the political and religious passions of the 11th-century in his excellent conclusion to his First Crusade trilogy (after The Mosaic of Shadows and Knights of the Cross). While series hero Demetrios Askiates, a Greek in service to the Byzantine emperor, doesn't have a mystery to solve as he did in the previous two books, Harper's gifts as a writer are more than equal to the task of sustaining interest and suspense without that plot device. As various warlords compete to be the first to reach Jerusalem, Askiates attempts to free himself of his obligations to the emperor and return home to Constantinople. A diplomatic mission to gain the ruling Fatimids as allies against the Turks sends Askiates to Egypt instead, where he must endure a harrowing trek through the desert to survive. This first-rate historical makes accessible the prosaic details of everyday life in a distant era. 
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.  --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. 

      
  " Tom Harper writes with strident clarity in this epic tale of murder and betrayal, bloodshed and romance. Gripping from the first page, the reader is swept up in this colourful and convincing portrayal of an Emperor and his realm, under siege.Well-researched, and cinematic in its imagery, this is a fast-paced and exciting debut." 
-- "Ink 
"" Tom Harper' s specialty is a hitherto unvisited era in historical crime fiction -- It' s a world which Harper brings exuberantly to life, cleanly reveling in its teeming, tumultuous extravagance." 
-- "Yorkshire Evening Post
"
" Harper effortlessly draws the reader into the court intrigues and conspiracies of eleventh-century Byzantium in his outstanding debut" 
-- " Publishers' Weekly
"
" Scholarly but speedy narrative, steeped in medieval horrors ranging from flogging to famine, all anchored in what feels like a passion for history and spelling out the way things were." 
-- "Literary Reviews"   

      
  &#8220;Tom Harper writes with strident clarity in this epic tale of murder and betrayal, bloodshed and romance. Gripping from the first page, the reader is swept up in this colourful and convincing portrayal of an Emperor and his realm, under siege.Well-researched, and cinematic in its imagery, this is a fast-paced and exciting debut.&#8221; 
&#8212; Ink

&#8220;Tom Harper&#8217;s specialty is a hitherto unvisited era in historical crime fiction &#8212; It&#8217;s a world which Harper brings exuberantly to life, cleanly reveling in its teeming, tumultuous extravagance.&#8221;
&#8212; Yorkshire Evening Post

&#8220;Harper effortlessly draws the reader into the court intrigues and conspiracies of eleventh-century Byzantium in his outstanding debut&#8221;
&#8212; Publishers&#8217; Weekly

&#8220;Scholarly but speedy narrative, steeped in medieval horrors ranging from flogging to famine, all anchored in what feels like a passion for history and spelling out the way things were.&#8221; 
&#8212; Literary Reviews


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Though he lives in the small town of Gentry, Mackie comes from a world of tunnels and black, murky water, a world of living dead girls ruled by a little tattoed princess. He is a replacement - left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago when it was stolen away by the fey. Now, because of fatal allergies to iron, blood and consecrated ground, Mackie is slowly dying in the human world. Mackie would give anything just to be normal, to live quietly amongst humans, practice his bass guitar and spend time with his crush, Tate. But when Tate's baby sister goes missing, Mackie is drawn irrevocably into the underworld of Gentry, known as Mayhem, where he must face down the dark creatures and find his rightful place - in our world, or theirs.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

THE CRIMSON SHADOW is an omnibus reissue of R.A. Salvatore's Crimson Shadow Trilogy, which consists of the novels The Sword of Bedwyr, Luthien's Gamble, and The Dragon King.  This trilogy follows the story of The Crimson Shadow, a Robin Hood-like figure causing mischief and protecting the innocent in a medieval fantasy setting.  There's magic, a humorous dwarf sidekick, and lots of adventure and fun.


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A great American love story, this warm, funny, revealing memoir introduces the world to Norman Mailer’s greatest inspiration, his wife of more than thirty years. Like Zelda Fitzgerald before her, Norris Church Mailer has led a life as large and as colorful as her husband’s—and every bit as engaging.Growing up a strict Free Will Baptist in the South of the 1950s, Norris Church, christened Barbara Jean Davis, was crowned “Little Miss Little Rock” at the age of three and always knew that life had more to offer her than the comforts of small-town Arkansas. But she could never have guessed that in her early twenties she would date future president Bill Clinton (and predict his national victory even after he lost his first run for Congress), or that the following year she would meet Norman Mailer, who was passing through town giving a lecture at the local college. They fell in love in one night—and their marriage lasted thirty-three years.Despite her enduring love for the man, Norris found life with the writer full of challenges—from carving out her own niche in the wake of five ex-wives and numerous former girlfriends, to easing her way into the hearts of her seven stepchildren, to negotiating the ferocious world of Mailer’s fame, friends, and literary life. The couple’s New York parties were legendary, and their social circle included such luminaries as Muhammad Ali, Jacqueline Kennedy, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, and Imelda Marcos. Their decades-long obsession with each other, as seen in the intimate letters that Norris reveals here for the first time, was not without tests and infidelities; theirs was a marriage full of friendship, betrayal, doubts, understanding, and deep, complicated, lifelong passion.With southern charm and wit, Norris Church Mailer depicts the full evolution of her life, from her childhood all the way through her intense marriage with Norman and his heartbreaking death. This unforgettable memoir will enchant readers with its honesty and insight into how we grow up and how we love.


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The complexities of a friendship. The unexplored doubts of a marriage. And the redemptive power of literature...Julie Buxbaum, the acclaimed author ofThe Opposite of Love,delivers a haunting, gloriously written novel about love, family, and the secrets we hide from each otherand ourselves. It happened on a tree-lined street in Notting Hill to a woman who seemed to have the perfect life. Ellie Lerner's best friend, Lucy, was murdered in front of her young daughter. And, as best friends do, Ellie dropped everythingher marriage, her job, her life in the Boston suburbsto travel to London and pick up the pieces of Lucy's life. While Lucy's husband, Greg, copes with his grief by retreating into himself, eight-year-old Sophie has simply stopped speaking. Desperate to help Sophie, Ellie turns to a book that gave her comfort as a child,The Secret Garden.As the two spend hours exploring the novel's winding passageways, its story of hurt, magic, and healing blooms around them. But so, too, do Lucy's secretssome big, some smallsecrets Lucy kept hidden, even from her best friend. Over a summer in London, as Ellie peels back the layers of her friend's life, she's forced to confront her own as well: the marriage she left behind, the loss she'd hoped to escape. And suddenly Ellie's carefully constructed existence is spinning out of control in a chain of events that will transform her lifeand those around her forever. A novel that will resonate in the heart of anyone who's had a best friend, a love lost, or a past full of regrets,After Youproves once again the unique and compelling talent of Julie Buxbaum.


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**The extraordinary new Joe Pickett novel from the Edgar Award-winning author.**

"Box's series is the gold standard," wrote *Library Journal* about *Below Zero*, but never has he written a novel as harrowing as Nowhere to Run.

Joe Pickett's in his last week as the temporary game warden in the town of Baggs, Wyoming, but there have been strange things going on in the mountains, and his conscience won't let him leave without checking them out: reports of camps looted, tents slashed, elk butchered. And then there's the runner who simply vanished one day. Joe doesn't mind admitting that the farther he rides, the more he wishes he could just turn around and go home. And he is right to be concerned. Because what awaits him is like nothing he's ever dealt with, like something out of an old story, except this is all too real and too deadly. When he'd first saddled up, he'd thought of this as his last patrol. What he hadn't known was just how accurate that thought might turn out to be.


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**An inspiring story of survival and our powerful bond with man's best friend, in the aftermath of the nation's most notorious case of animal cruelty. ** 



 Animal lovers and sports fans were shocked when the story broke about NFL player Michael Vick's brutal dog fighting operation. But what became of the dozens of dogs who survived? As acclaimed writer Jim Gorant discovered, their story is the truly newsworthy aspect of this case. Expanding on Gorant's *Sports Illustrated* cover story, *The Lost Dogs* traces the effort to bring Vick to justice and turns the spotlight on these infamous pit bulls, which were saved from euthanasia by an outpouring of public appeals coupled with a court order that Vick pay nearly a million dollars in "restitution" to the dogs. 



 As an ASPCA-led team evaluated each one, they found a few hardened fighters, but many more lovable, friendly creatures desperate for compassion. In *The Lost Dogs*, we meet these amazing animals, a number of which are now living in loving homes, while some even work in therapy programs: Johnny Justice participates in Paws for Tales, which lets kids get comfortable with reading aloud by reading to dogs; Leo spends three hours a week with cancer patients and troubled teens. At the heart of the stories are the rescue workers who transformed the pups from victims of animal cruelty into healing caregivers themselves, unleashing priceless hope. 



 **Includes an 8-page photo insert.**


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Published a year after his stunning debut novel, Carrie, 'Salem's Lot firmly cemented Stephen King's name in the literary lexicon of great American storytellers. His rich and finely crafted tale of a mundane New England town under siege by the forces of darkness is both a homage to Bram Stoker's classic Dracula and an allegory of our post-Vietnam society. Considered one of the most terrifying vampire novels ever written, it cunningly probes the shadows of the human heart -- and the insular evils of small-town America.


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**Now in paperback, Laura Moriarty's breakthrough novel of growing up and growing wise.**    

Critics and readers everywhere stood up and took notice when Laura Moriarty's captivating debut novel hit the stores in June '03. Janet Maslin of the *New York Times* praised *The Center of Everything* as "warm" and "beguiling." *USA Today* compared the scrappy yet tenderhearted Evelyn Bucknow to Scout Finch in *To Kill a Mockingbird*. It garnered extensive national attention; from *Entertainment Weekly* to the *Boston Globe* and the *San Francisco Chronicle*, the press raved about the wisdom and poignancy of Moriarty's writing. The Book-of-the-Month Club snatched it up as a Main Selection, as did the Literary Guild. It was a *USA Today* Summer Reading Pick, a BookSense Top 10 Pick, and a BN.com book club feature title. And still, months after *The Center of Everything's* original publication date, reviews and features of the book continue to run nationwide.    

With a reading group guide bound into the book and a stellar hardcover publication behind it, the paperback edition of *The Center of Everything* is poised to explode onto the scene again, and Evelyn Bucknow is ready to steal more hearts than ever.


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Written by Richard Bachman. In quiet Placerville, Maine, a slightly twisted boy named Charles Decker holds the 24 other students of his algebra class at gunpoint after shooting 2 teachers. 

Abused by his father as a child, he describes the important parts of his life, and in the process, lets a lot of the students he holds hostage tell the rest of the class their "Dirty Secrets". Things almost come to an early end when Charles is shot by a sniper, but the bullet hits a padlock he had placed in his pocket earlier.

As things progress, the students become more and more responsive to their captor, all except Ted Jones. The students get their own back, and play one last nasty trick on another student before being released unharmed. But Charles is out of luck...

This was initially titled "Getting it On" (After Deckers favourite saying) but was later renamed Rage, and released under Bachman's name. It has not been reprinted in the last few years as Stephen King thought it too violent, and similar to many killings in some American Schools. This is a pity as it is an excellent insight into the mind of someone that it walking the thin edge of sanity.


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<div><p class="description">EDITORIAL REVIEW:</p>
<p class="description">On the first day of May, one hundred teenage boys meet for an event known throughout the country as "The Long Walk." If you break the rules, you get three warnings. If you exceed your limit, what happens is absolutely terrifying.</p></div>


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

From the depths of darkness, where hideous rats defend their empire, to dizzying heights, where a beautiful girl hangs by a hair above a hellish fate, this chilling collection of twenty short stories will plunge readers into the subterranean labyrinth of the most spine-tingling, eerie imagination of our time.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

They're tearing down Bart Dawes's home, leveling his memories, and destroying his past, all for a new highway extension. Funny what that kind of progress can do to a man. Scary, too.


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Cujo is so well-paced and scary that people tend to read it quickly, so they mostly remember the scene of the mother and son trapped in the hot Pinto and threatened by the rabid Cujo, forgetting the multifaceted story in which that scene is embedded. This is definitely a novel that rewards re-reading. When you read it again, you can pay more attention to the theme of country folk vs. city folk; the parallel marriage conflicts of the Cambers vs. the Trentons; the poignancy of the amiable St. Bernard (yes, the breed choice is just right) infected by a brain-destroying virus that makes it into a monster; and the way the "daylight burial" of the failed ad campaign is reflected in the sunlit Pinto that becomes a coffin. And how significant it is that this horror tale is not supernatural: it's as real as junk food, a failing marriage, a broken-down car, or a fatal virus.


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From horror's master storyteller, Stephen King, comes the classic tale--PET SEMETARY. When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true: physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son--and now an idyllic home. As a family, they've got it all ... right down to the friendly car. But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth--more terrifying than death itself--and hideously more powerful. Annotation. "Sometimes dead is better ..." When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true: physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son -- and now an idyllic home. As a family, they've got it all ... right down to the friendly cat. But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth -- more terrifying than death itself ... and hideously more powerful.


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<div><p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>Different Seasons (1982) is a collection of four  novellas, markedly different in tone and subject, each on the theme of  a journey. The first is a rich, satisfying, nonhorrific tale about an  innocent man who carefully nurtures hope and devises a wily scheme to  escape from prison. The second concerns a boy who discards his  innocence by enticing an old man to travel with him into a reawakening  of long-buried evil. In the third story, a writer looks back on the  trek he took with three friends on the brink of adolescence to find  another boy's corpse. The trip becomes a character-rich rite of  passage from youth to maturity.</p>
<p class="description">These first three novellas have been made into well-received movies:  "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" into Frank Darabont's 1994  The Shawshank Redemption (available as a screenplay, a DVD film, and an audiocassette), "Apt  Pupil" into Bryan Singer's 1998 film Apt Pupil (also released  in 1998 on audiocassette), and "The  Body" into Rob Reiner's Stand by Me  (1986).<br>    The final novella, "Breathing Lessons," is a horror yarn told by a  doctor, about a patient whose indomitable spirit keeps her baby alive  under extraordinary circumstances. It's the tightest, most polished  tale in the collection. --Fiona Webster</p></div>


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<p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>Six weeks after an old gypsy man curses Billy Halleck for sideswiping his daughter, he's ninety-three pounds lighter. Now Billy is terrified-and desperate enough for one last gamble that will lead him to a nightmare showdown with the forces of evil that are melting his flesh away.</p>


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On a brisk autumn day, a thirteen-year-old boy stands on the shores of the gray Atlantic, near a silent amusement park and a fading ocean resort called the Alhambra. The past has driven Jack Sawyer here: his father is gone, his mother is dying, and the world no longer makes sense. But for Jack everything is about to change. For he has been chosen to make a journey back across America–and into another realm.One of the most influential and heralded works of fantasy ever written, *The Talisman *is an extraordinary novel of loyalty, awakening, terror, and mystery. Jack Sawyer, on a desperate quest to save his mother’s life, must search for a prize across an epic landscape of innocents and monsters, of incredible dangers and even more incredible truths. The prize is essential, but the journey means even more. *Let the quest begin*. . . .


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It was love at first sight. From the moment seventeen-year-old Arnie Cunningham saw Christine, he knew he would do anything to possess her. But Christine is no lady. She is Stephen King's ultimate vehicle of terror.


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Wonderfully gruesome. (New York Times Book Review)  Delightfully diabolical...King once again proves to be the consummate storyteller. (Associated Press)In the introduction to Skeleton Crew (1985), his second  collection of stories, King pokes fun at his penchant for "literary  elephantiasis," makes scatological jokes about his muse, confesses how  much money he makes (gross and net), and tells a story about getting  arrested one time when he was "suffused with the sort of towering,  righteous rage that only drunk undergraduates can feel." He winds up  with an invitation to a scary voyage: "Grab onto my arm now. Hold  tight. We are going into a number of dark places, but I think I know  the way."
    And he sure does. Skeleton Crew contains a superb short novel  ("The Mist") that alone is worth the price of admission, plus two  forgettable poems and 20 short stories on such themes as an evil toy  monkey, a human-eating water slick, a machine that avenges murder, and  unnatural creatures that inhabit the thick woods near Castle Rock,  Maine. The short tales range from simply enjoyable to surprisingly  good. 
    In addition to "The Mist," the real standout is "The Reach," a  beautifully subtle story about a great-grandmother who was born on a  small island off the coast of Maine and has lived there her whole  life. She has never been across "the Reach," the body of water between  island and mainland. This is the story that King fans give to their  friends who don't read horror in order to show them how literate, how  charming a storyteller he can be. Don't miss it. --Fiona  Webster


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From Gail Godwin, three-time National Book Award finalist and acclaimed "New York Times" bestselling author of Evensong and The Finishing School, comes a sweeping new novel of friendship, loyalty, rivalries, redemption, and memory. It is the fall of 1951 at Mount St. Gabriel's, an all-girls school tucked away in the mountains of North Carolina. Tildy Stratton, the undisputed queen bee of her class, befriends Chloe Starnes, a new student recently orphaned by the untimely and mysterious death of her mother. Their friendship fills a void for both girls but also sets in motion a chain of events that will profoundly affect the course of many lives, including the girls' young teacher and the school’s matriarch, Mother Suzanne Ravenel. Fifty years on, the headmistress relives one pivotal night, trying to reconcile past and present, reaching back even further to her own senior year at the school, where the roots of a tragedy are buried. In Unfinished Desires, a beloved author delivers a gorgeous new novel in which thwarted desires are passed on for generations-and captures the rare moment when a soul breaks free.   "From the Hardcover edition."


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**Look at the Birdie** is a collection of fourteen previously unpublished short stories  from one of the most original writers in all of American fiction. In this series  of perfectly rendered vignettes, written just as he was starting to find his comic  voice, Kurt Vonnegut paints a warm, wise, and funny portrait of life in post—World  War II America–a world where squabbling couples, high school geniuses, misfit office  workers, and small-town lotharios struggle to adapt to changing technology, moral  ambiguity, and unprecedented affluence.   Here are tales both cautionary and hopeful,  each brimming with Vonnegut's trademark humor and profound humanism. A family learns  the downside of confiding their deepest secrets into a magical invention. A man finds  himself in a Kafkaesque world of trouble after he runs afoul of the shady underworld  boss who calls the shots in an upstate New York town. A quack psychiatrist turned  "murder counselor" concocts a novel new outlet for his paranoid patients. While these  stories reflect the anxieties of the postwar era that Vonnegut was so adept at capturing– and provide insight into the development of his early style–collectively, they have  a timeless quality that makes them just as relevant today as when they were written.  It's impossible to imagine any of these pieces flowing from the pen of another writer;  each in its own way is unmistakably, quintessentially Vonnegut.   Featuring a Foreword  by author and longtime Vonnegut confidant Sidney Offit and illustrated with Vonnegut' s characteristically insouciant line drawings, **Look at the Birdie** is an unexpected  gift for readers who thought his unique voice had been stilled forever–and serves  as a terrific introduction to his short fiction for anyone who has yet to experience  his genius. Read "Hello, Red" and "The Petrified Ants," two of the stories from the collection, as single-story e-books before **Look at the Birdie** goes on sale.  Available wherever e-books are sold.


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Look at the Birdie is a collection of fourteen previously unpublished short stories from one of the most original writers in all of American fiction. In this series of perfectly rendered vignettes, written just as he was starting to find his comic voice, Kurt Vonnegut paints a warm, wise, and often funny portrait of life in post-World War II America-a world where squabbling couples, high school geniuses, misfit office workers, and small-town lotharios struggle to adapt to changing technology, moral ambiguity, and unprecedented affluence. Vonnegut explores the relationship between science's pursuit of truth and the state’s need to control it in ""The Petrified Ants,"" a darkly whimsical story about two Soviet researchers who stumble upon an amazing discovery, only to learn that natural history is also written by the hand that wields the power. ""The Petrified Ants"" and the thirteen other never-before-published pieces that comprise Look at the Birdie serve as an unexpected gift for devoted readers who thought that Kurt Vonnegut's unique voice had been stilled forever-and provide a terrific introduction to his short fiction for anyone who has yet to experience his genius. Other stories from Look at the Birdie available as single-story e-books: On sale August 25, 2009"Hello, Red" On sale October 20, 2009: "Confido""FUBAR""Shout About It from the Housetops""Ed Luby's Key Club""A Song for Selma""Hall of Mirrors""The Nice Little People""Little Drops of Water""The Honor of a Newsboy""Look at the Birdie" (Short Story)"King and Queen of the Universe""The Good Explainer"


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An exotic setting and a passionate, forbidden affair make The Clouds Beneath the Sun an irresistible page-turner that is sure to satisfy readers looking for an intelligent blend of history, romance, and intrigue.  Mackenzie Ford (a nom de plume) was introduced to readers in 2009 with the publication of Gifts of War, which was praised in USA Today as “an absorbing, morally complex read.” In a starred review, Library Journal said, “Ford keeps the reader on a knife’s edge as the lies build and the truth is only a word or misstep away. Highly recommended.”  Now Ford takes us to Kenya in 1961. As a small plane carrying Natalie Nelson lands at a remote airstrip in the Serengeti, Natalie knows she’s run just about as far as she can from home. Trained as an archeologist, she accepted an invitation to be included in a famous excavating team, her first opportunity to escape England and the painful memories of her past.  But before she can get her bearings, the dig is surrounded by controversy involving the local Masai people—and murder. Compounding the tension, Eleanor Deacon, friend of the Masai, who is leading the excavating mission, watches a rift grow between her two handsome sons. Natalie’s growing attrac­tion to Jack Deacon soon becomes a passionate affair that turns dangerous when she must give evidence in a trial that could spark even more violence and turmoil.  The startling beauty of the Kenyan setting, the tension of loom­ing social upheaval, and the dizzying highs and crushing lows of a doomed love affair are all captured brilliantly on every page of this extraordinary and utterly unforgettable novel.


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


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


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A knockout thriller...brilliant, compelling...grips you by the throat. (Flint Journal)In 1985, 39-year-old Stephen King announced in public that his  pseudonymous alter ego, Richard  Bachman, was dead. (Never mind that he revived him years later to  write The  Regulators.) At the beginning of The Dark Half (1989),  39-year-old writer Thad Beaumont announces in public that his own  pseudonym, George Stark, is dead. 
    Now, King didn't want to jettison the Bachman novel, titled Machine  Dreams, that was he working on. So he incorporated it in The  Dark Half as the crime oeuvre of George Stark, whose recurring  hero/alter ego is an evil character named Alexis Machine.
    Thad Beaumont's pseudonym is not so docile as Stephen King's, though,  and George Stark bursts forth into reality. At that point, two stories  kick into gear: a mystery-detective story about the crime spree of  George Stark (or is it Alexis Machine?) and a horror story about  Beaumont's struggle to catch up with his doppelganger and kill him  dead.
    This is not the first time that Stephen King has written a dark  allegory about the fiction writer's situation. As the New York  Times writes, "Misery (1987) is a  parable in chiller form of the popular writer's relation to his  audience, which holds him prisoner and dictates what he writes, on  pain of death. The Dark Half is a parable in chiller form of  the popular writer's relation to his creative genius, the vampire  within him, the part of him that only awakes to raise Cain when he  writes, the fratricidal twin who occupies 'the womblike dungeon' of  his imagination." --Fiona Webster


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After an automobile accident, novelist Paul Sheldon meets his biggest fan. Annie Wilkes is his nurse-and captor. Now, she wants Paul to write his greatest work-just for her. She has a lot of ways to spur him on. One is a needle. Another is an ax. And if they don't work, she can get really nasty...


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**The Royal Brat is in Trouble** 

 Roger Ramius Sergei Chiang MacClintock didn't understand. 

 He was young, handsome, athletic, an *excellent* dresser, and third in line for the Throne of Man...so why wouldn't anyone at Court *trust* him? 

 Why wouldn't even his own mother, the Empress, explain *why* they didn't trust him? Or why the very mention of his father's name was forbidden at Court? Or why his mother had decided to pack him off to a backwater planet aboard what was little more than a tramp freighter to represent her at a local political event better suited to a third assistant undersecretarv of state? 

 It probably wasn't too surprising that someone in his position should react by becoming spoiled, selfcentered and petulant. After all, what else did he have to do with his life? 

 But that was before a saboteur tried to blow up his transport. Then warships of the Empire of Man's worst rivals shot the crippled vessel out of space. Then Roger found himself shipwrecked on the planet Marduk, whose jungles were full of damnbeasts, killerpillars, carnivorous plants, torrential rain, and barbarian hordes with really *bad* dispositions. Now all Roger has to do is hike halfway around the entire planet, then capture a spaceport from the Bad Guys, somehow commandeer a starship, and then go home to Mother for explanations. 

 Fortunately, Roger has an ace in the hole: Bravo Company of Bronze Battalion of The Empress' Own Regiment. If anyone can get him off Marduk alive, it's the Bronze Barbarians. 

 Assuming that Prince Roger manages to grow up before he gets all of them killed.


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The first scream came from the snowbound railwayman who felt the fangs ripping at his throat. The next month there was a scream of ecstatic agony from the woman attacked in her snug bedroom. Now scenes of unbelieving horror come each time the full moon shines on the isolated Maine town of Tarker Mills. No one knows who will be attacked next. But one thing is sure. When the moon grows fat, a paralyzing fear sweeps through Tarker Mills. For snarls that sound like human words can be heard whining through the wind. And all around are the footprints of a monster whose hunger cannot be sated... "Cycle of the Werewolf"


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

A tale of archetypal heroes and sweeping adventures, of dragons and princes and evil wizards, here is epic fantasy as only Stephen King could envision it.


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 Extraordinarily vivid...an impressive tour de force, a sensitive character study that holds the reader rapt. 
PlayboyMore of a mystery than a horror novel, Dolores Claiborne contains  only the briefest glances at the supernatural.	The novel presents Stephen  King as a writer experimenting with style and narrative, time and  perspective.  Fans looking for a skin-crawling, page-turning fright or an  undead bloodbath will be disappointed, but a patient reader willing to  savor King's leisurely study of character and island life will find many  rewards.  And all of this is not to say that the book is without  suspense.
    The story unfolds in one continuous chapter, told in the first person by  the cranky, 65-year-old housekeeper, Dolores, who is explaining to  police officers and a stenographer how and why she killed her husband, Joe,  30 years ago.  At the same time, in her rambling monologue, she insists  that she did not kill her longtime employer, Vera  Donovan--notwithstanding what the residents of Little Tall Island may be  whispering.  Joe was a drinker, and, as Dolores gradually argues, he  deserved to die for the horrifying crimes he committed against his family.   But Vera, despite her cantankerous disposition as a lady governing her  decaying estate with her precise rules about even the most mundane  household chore ("Six pins! Remember to use six pins! Don't you let the  wind blow my good sheets down to the corner of the yard!"), was a good  woman--or at least not an evil one.  She was the woman who hired the young  Dolores and kept her on even after Dolores got pregnant again. Dolores  cleaned and cared for her even as the old matron faded into   senility.
    Dolores Claiborne is a rich novel that recalls the regionalist  writing of the turn of the century.  It is a fine place for a skeptical  newcomer--put off by King's reputation for outright terror--to start. And  for fans, it is a book that offers new insights into an author who's an old  favorite. --Patrick O'Kelley


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The scary story has never been the same since.     An extraordinary quartet of full-length novellas: *The Langoliers*, *Secret Window*, *Secret Garden*, *The Library Policeman*, and *The Sun Dog*.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

John Rayburn thought all of his problems were the mundane ones of an Ohio farm boy in his last year in high school. Then his doppelgänger appeared, tempted him with a device that let him travel across worlds, and stole his life from him. John soon finds himself caroming through universes, unable to return home—the device is broken. John settles in a new universe to unravel its secrets and fix it.



Meanwhile, his doppelgänger tries to exploit the commercial technology he’s stolen from other Earths: the Rubik’s Cube! John’s attempts to lie low in his new universe backfire when he inadvertently introduces pinball. It becomes a huge success. Both actions draw the notice of other, more dangerous travelers, who are exploiting worlds for ominous purposes. Fast-paced and exciting, this is SF adventure at its best from a rising star.


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<h3>From</h3><p><em>Starred Review</em> Connelly may be our most versatile crime writer. His Harry Bosch series has taken the hard-boiled cop novel to a new level of complexity, both in its portrayal of the hero’s inner life and in Connelly’s ability to intertwine landscape and meaning. His Mickey Haller novels, on the other hand, starring the maverick lawyer who uses his Lincoln Town Car as an office, are testaments to the sublime architecture of plot. With the crime novel now commonly rubbing elbows with literary fiction, it sometimes seems that pure story has become a forgotten stepchild. In his Haller novels, Connelly reminds us how satisfying it can be to follow the path of a well-constructed plot. So it is here, in the third Haller novel, which finds the antiestablishment attorney accepting an unlikely offer: a one-time gig as a prosecutor, retrying a case in which a killer’s 24-year-old conviction has been overturned on the basis of DNA. Taking second chair will be Haller’s ex-wife, the formidable Maggie, with Harry Bosch (identified in The Brass Verdict, 2008, as Haller’s half brother) serving as special investigator. The table is set for a straightforward legal thriller, albeit one starring three superbly multidimensional characters. And, yet, Connelly bobs and weaves around all our expectations. There is suspense, of course, and there are plenty of surprises, both in the courtroom and outside of it, but this is a plot that won’t be pigeonholed. Reading this book is like watching a master craftsman, slowly and carefully, brick by brick, build something that holds together exquisitely, form and function in perfect alignment. --Bill Ott </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Longtime defense attorney Mickey Haller is recruited to change stripes and prosecute the high-profile retrial of a brutal child murder. After 24 years in prison, convicted killer Jason Jessup has been exonerated by new DNA evidence. Haller is convinced Jessup is guilty, and he takes the case on the condition that he gets to choose his investigator, LAPD Detective Harry Bosch.  </p><p>Together, Bosch and Haller set off on a case fraught with political and personal danger. Opposing them is Jessup, now out on bail, a defense attorney who excels at manipulating the media, and a runaway eyewitness reluctant to testify after so many years.  </p><p>With the odds and the evidence against them, Bosch and Haller must nail a sadistic killer once and for all. If Bosch is sure of anything, it is that Jason Jessup plans to kill again. </p>


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Amid the screams of adulation for bandanna-clad wunderkind David Foster  Wallace, you might hear a small peep. It is the cry for some restraint. On  occasion the reader is left in the dust wondering where the story went, as  the author, literary turbochargers on full-blast, suddenly accelerates into  the wild-blue-footnoted yonder in pursuit of some obscure metafictional  fancy. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Wallace's latest  collection, is at least in part a response to the distress signal put out  by the many readers who want to ride along with him, if he'd only  slow down for a second.
    The intellectual gymnastics and ceaseless rumination endure (if you don't  have a tolerance for that kind of thing, your nose doesn't belong in this  book), but they are for the most part couched in simpler, less frenzied  narratives. The book's four-piece namesake takes the form of interview  transcripts, in which the conniving horror that is the male gender is  revealed in all of its licentious glory. In the short, two-part "The Devil  Is a Busy Man," Wallace strolls through the Hall of Mirrors that is human  motivation. (Is it possible to completely rid an act of generosity of any  self-serving benefits? And why is it easier to sell a couch for five  dollars than it is to give it away for free?) The even shorter glimpse into  modern-day social ritual, "A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial  Life," stretches the seams of its total of seven lines with scathing  economy: "She laughed extremely hard, hoping to be liked. Then each drove  home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist to their  faces." Wallace also imbues his extreme observational skills with a  haunting poetic sensibility. Witness what he does to a diving board and the  two darkened patches at the end of it in "Forever Overhead":    It's going to send you someplace which its own  length keeps you from seeing, which seems wrong to submit to without  even  thinking.... They are skin abraded from feet by the violence of the disappearance of  people with real weight.    Of course, not every piece is an absolute winner. "The Depressed Person"  slips from purposefully clinical to unintentionally boring. "Tri-Stan: I  Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko" reimagines an Arthurian tale in MTV terms and  holds your attention for about as long as you'd imagine from such a  description. Ultimately, however, even these failed experiments are a  testament to Mr. Wallace's endless if unbridled talent. Once he gets the  reins completely around that sucker, it's going to be quite a ride.  --Bob Michaels  --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. 

      
  Some of the 23 stories in Wallace's bold, uneven, bitterly satirical second collection seem bound for best-of-the-year anthologies; a few others will leave even devoted Wallace fans befuddled. The rest of the stories fall between perplexing and brilliant, but what is most striking about this volume as a whole are the gloomy moral obsessions at the heart of Wallace's new work. Like his recent essays, these stories (many of which have been serialized in Harper's, Esquire and the Paris Review) are largely an attack on the sexual heroics of mainstream postwar fiction, an almost religious attempt to rescue (when not exposing as a fraud) the idea of romantic love. In the "interviews," that make up the title story, one man after anotherAspeaking to a woman whose voice we never hearAreveals the pathetic creepiness of his romantic conquests and fantasies. These hideous men aren't the collection's only monsters of isolation. In "Adult World," Wallace writes of a young wife obsessed with fears that her husband is secretly, compulsively masturbating; in "The Depressed Person," one of Wallace's (rare) female narcissists whines that she is a "solipsistic, self-consumed, endless emotional vacuum"Athis, to a dying friend. If MacArthur Fellowship-winner Wallace's rendition of our verbal tics and trash is less astonishing now than in earlier work (Infinite Jest; A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again), that is because it has already become the way we hear ourselves talk. Wallace seems to have stripped down his prose in order to more pointedly probe distinct structures (i.e., footnoted psychotherapy journal, a pop quiz format). Yet these stories, at their best, show an erotic savagery and intellectual depth that will confound, fascinate and disturb the most unsuspecting reader as well as devoted fans of this talented writer. Author tour. 
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.  --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. 

      
  Following the success of his massive, much-acclaimed novel, Infinite Jest (LJ 1/96), Wallace returns to fiction with a similarly dense, cerebral, and self-reflexive set of short works. Wallace's characters are psychological grotesques, emotionally detached and sometimes, as with the na?ve young wife in "Adult World," finding an odd freedom in their distance. While the inauthenticity of male/female relations is a recurrent motif, the central theme is the nature of narrative itself, as in "Octet," where the author turns self-reflexiveness on itself, creating something that might be termed meta-meta-fiction. Fans of Thomas Pynchon and Donald Barthelme will find comparable challenges here. For libraries where Infinite Jest was popular.ALawrence Rungren, Merrimack Valley Lib. Consortium, Andover, MA 
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.  --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. 

      
  The structure of the short story intrigues and piques Wallace, prompting him to subvert it. He imitates academic writing by attaching substantial footnotes to "The Depressed Person," thus creating a contrapuntal story within the story. "Datum Centurio" is a set of definitions of the word date, purportedly found in Leckie & Webster's Connotationally Gender-Specific Lexicon of Contemporary Usage, copyright 2076. The title story, appearing in four installments, consists of a string of monologues in which men talk about women. Sex in its more disturbing modes is the collection's underlying theme. A man listens intently as a woman describes being raped. Another man goes into explicit detail in his rant against men's sexual selfishness, and a woman worries that her husband doesn't enjoy their lovemaking. Like Stephen Dixon, Wallace is adept at generating streams of consciousness, rendering mental states in almost psychedelic detail. And he practices this art to perfection in "Forever Overhead," in which a 13-year-old boy is nearly overwhelmed by sensory overload while awaiting his turn at the high dive.  Donna Seaman  --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. 

      
  A stimulating, if intermittently opaque, collection of discursive stories and even less fully fictionalized humorous pieces from the savvy-surrealistic author of Infinite Jest (1996), etc. Though few of the tales here contain conventionally developed characters or narrative situations, most feature instantly recognizable generic figures. Embattled parents and siblings dominate such eerie concoctions as ``Signifying Nothing,'' in which a primal scene perhaps expressing male dominance has a lasting effect on a son's relationship with his father; and a powerfully imaginative torrent of Oedipal rivalry spoken ``On his Deathbed . . . [by] the Acclaimed New Young Off-Broadway Playwright's Father . . . ,'' The Depressed Person'' blandly skewers the culture of self-absorption and psychotherapy (while neatly mocking the latter's passion for clinical precision), and ``Datum Centurio'' gets impressive comic mileage out of its brief parody of an etymological dictionary entry. Sex rears its comely, come-hither head in the chronicling (in Forever Overhead) of the perplexing sensations of adolescence in full eruption, and particularly in ``Adult World,'' a deliriously expanding Robert Cooverlike fantasy spun from a young wife's fretful confusion about pleasing-vs.- offending her docile husband. Most interesting are the title ``stories,'' divided into four installments scattered throughout, and variously delineating men's alienation from, and misunderstanding of, women: the amputee who considers his mutilated arm a ``Sexual Asset''; the self-consciousness of a hotel men's-room attendant (wreathed in ``The ghastly metastasized odors of continental breakfasts and business dinners''); the loves of Tristan and Isolde and Narcissus and Echo reshaped for the cable-TV audience by network executive ``Agon M. Nar.'' Postadolescent whimsy mingled with postmodernist horseplay: this isn't a book that can be consumed in sizable chunks. Still, Wallace is a witty guide to the fragmented, paranoid Way We Live Now, someone perhaps poised to become the 21st-century's Robert Benchley or James Thurberboth a frightening and a beguiling prospect.  -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.  --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. 

      
  ...a mixed bag of 23 essays and short stories that display a  range of intellect and talent that is unseemly for any one writer to  have, let alone show off.  -- Time, R.Z. Sheppard

...in his wild hits and misses, his eccentric obsessions and  his sinister experiments, he is beginning to resemble another mad  scientist of American literature: Edgar Allan Poe. -- The New York Times Book Review, Adam Goodheart

In this book he demonstrates his strengths as a stylist,  humorist and thinker.... None of these stories is easy, but all  display an intelligence and a swagger that make them hard to put down. -- The Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg  --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


