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<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><h3 class="productDescriptionSource" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 1.23em; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0.75em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.375em; margin-left: -15px; clear: both; ">Product Description</h3><div class="productDescriptionWrapper" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; "><p><b>What makes a house…a home?</b></p><p></p><p>Everything is falling to pieces for <b>Francesca Thayer. </b>Her beautiful, old house is full of leaks and in need of total restoration. Then her relationship with lawyer Todd collapses and he moves out. As the owner of a struggling art gallery she can’t possibly manage the mortgage alone, so she is forced to do the one thing she never imagined she would: she advertises for lodgers.</p><p></p><p>First arrives <b>Eileen</b> – a young, attractive schoolteacher who has just moved from LA.</p><p></p><p>Then comes <b>Chris</b>, a newly-divorced father struggling with a difficult ex-wife and the challenges of parenting his seven-year-old son who visits every other weekend.</p><p></p><p>Last to arrive is <b>Marya</b> – a famous cookery author who is hoping to rebuild her life after the death of her husband.</p><p></p><p>And so Francesca finds that her house has become a whole new world – and as things begin to turn around, she realises that her accidental tenants have become the most important people in her life. Over their year together, the house at 44 Charles Street fills with laughter, hope and heartbreak.</p><p></p><p>And Francesca discovers that she might be able to open her heart again after all…</p></div></span></div>


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There is no stronger argument for the death penalty than Nicholas Balagula, the bloodthirsty West Coast crime boss who has been charged with sixty-three counts of homicide, many of them children. And now reclusive rogue journalist Frank Corso -- the only non-participant invited to observe the closed court proceedings -- stands uncomfortably in the center of the most crazed media circus to hit Seattle in years . . . until a personal tragedy diverts his attention. When photojournalist Meg Dougherty -- once Corso's lover and still his dearest friend -- comes face-to-face with a pair of cold-blooded executioners and ends up clinging weakly to life in the I.C.U., the angry lone-wolf reporter vows to make all the guilty parties pay, by his own hand if necessary. But the black river of lies, secrets, corruption, and murder surrounding both the Balagula trial and Meg's "accident" is much deeper and more dangerous than even Frank Corso anticipated. And if he wades in over his head, the undertow could drag him to his death.


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Frank Corso already survived a defrocking by <em>The New York Times</em>, following his alleged fabrication of a major crime story. Having since re-created himself as a true-crime writer, he can ill afford to have his credibility questioned again. So when, in G.M. Ford's <em>A Blind Eye</em>, he is subpoenaed to back up his book-selling boast about a Texas high-society murder, Corso disappears into the upper Midwest with his photographer (and former lover), Meg Dougherty--only to stumble onto one of the most horrific stories of his career.</p><p>Seeking shelter after an SUV accident in tiny, blizzard-racked Avalon, Wisconsin, Corso discovers the bones of Eldred Holmes and his sons shoved beneath an abandoned barn. Neighbors thought the family had moved away 15 years before; instead, its males had been murdered. Bargaining with Avalon's sheriff to stay free of the Texas authorities, Corso agrees to investigate these killings. The solution may lie with Eldred's wife, Sissy, an exotic seductress whose skeleton isn't among the pile, and whose deliberately obscured--and bloody--trail leads the author and Dougherty to a slain nun in Pennsylvania, a family-destroying fire among isolated hill folk in New York, and a desperate, deadly ambush in northern Michigan. It doesn't take the rangy Corso long to realize that he's dealing with a protean and controlling killer, immune to remorse.</p><p>Ford is adept at dribbling out the sort of revelations that build fictional suspense. He enhances that with a mordant wit, oddball secondary players, and a protagonist whose gruffness is infrequently but intriguingly undermined by a warmth born of loyalty. Yet <em>A Blind Eye</em>, for all of its gripping darkness, pales beside its predecessors, <strong> and </strong>. The super-secret information source to which Corso turns here whenever he loses his quarry's scent is a contrivance beneath Ford's talents. And the assassination of an Avalon deputy, for which Corso is held responsible, is a complication with little purpose and no satisfactions. Fortunately, this book's chilling close makes the whole thing go down easier. <em>--J. Kingston Pierce</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The bestselling true-crime writer Frank Corso and his tattoo-covered Girl Friday, Meg Dougherty, literally fall into the hunt for a bizarre serial killer in this suspenseful fun-and-gun adventure from Ford (Fury; Black River). Snowed in for days at O'Hare, Corso impulsively decides to rent an SUV and drive out of the storm zone, but when he gets to Avalon, Wis., he plunges off the icy road and over a cliff. Tearing up the flooring for firewood in the abandoned farm they take refuge in, Corso uncovers the corpses of a family, merely one set of victims in a killing spree spanning 30 years. Following in the tradition of John D. MacDonald and the Travis McGee romps, Ford's eclectic plot sends his hero from state to state, from an inbred mountain enclave in New Jersey to a nunnery with a murder. Deep into the book, he pointedly has a cop say, "This is like something out of science fiction." Corso and Dougherty alternate between acting like ruthless hard cases and giddy teenagers sneaking a joint-any excuse for a good scene, an entertaining moment (such as the guy who "looked like he'd been captured by vampires and was being kept as a pet"). When Corso falls into the hands of the killer and faces torture, though, Ford achieves fever pitch ("Corso began to make noises in his chest like a gored animal"). This is a thrill ride, sure to please readers looking for fast-paced suspense.<br />Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Ford hits the ground running with his fourth solid Frank Corso novel (_Fury_; <em>Black River</em>; etc.). Someone has sprayed a modified <em>Ebola</em> virus into a Seattle bus tunnel, killing more than 100 people. Journalist Corso promptly descends into the deadly tunnels to see what's going on—because that's the kind of guy he is. The masterminds behind the plot have a pretty good reason for the destruction and are a welcome change from the genre's familiar wild-eyed Arab terrorists. It's all very straightforward, especially after a note warns that the next round of virus will become airborne in 30 hours and will live for 30 days—which makes the bus tunnel business look like child's play. Scientific modeling points to a doomsday scenario, with the death of virtually every human on the planet the probable result. From then on it's a race against the clock as Corso teams up with courageous Seattle cop Charly Hart to stop the terrorists. Ford creates likable characters, whom he has the nerve to subject to the worst, no matter how attached the reader has become to them. There's not a lot of flash, and the twists and turns are easily negotiated, which keeps the pace fast and the characters in the foreground, making this an entertaining read in a dependable series. FYI:_ Ford also writes the successful Leo Waterman series_. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Frank Corso would be way better off if he could only mind his own business, but mystery lovers would be very much the poorer. In this fourth installment of the series, the disgraced journalist turned successful crime novelist and inveterate snoop finds himself in the neighborhood when terrorists strike the Seattle bus tunnel with a ghastly mutation of the Ebola virus. Does he sensibly scamper away to safety, or does he somehow manage to purloin a haz-mat suit and masquerade as a member of the team investigating the scene of the carnage only to end up as the prime suspect? Readers of Ford's prior Corso novels will know the answer to that one, and they will also know to expect a great deal of mayhem to ensue as Corso pursues the terrorists while eluding the cops in an attempt to save his beloved Seattle from an infinitely more devastating attack. They won't be disappointed, either. Ford's intelligently constructed story, peopled with convincingly three-dimensional characters, gathers momentum like a runaway monorail car. You simply can't get off until the ride is over. <em>Dennis Dodge</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<div><h3>Review</h3><p>"A lightning-paced thriller with lean, tense writing... Mofina really knows how to make the story fly." - Tess Gerritsen on A Perfect Grave" </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>The sins of the past shall not be forgiven. 'A Murdered Nun' - The face Sister Anne sees behind her in the mirror belongs to a man she knew years ago; the cold blade against her throat guarantees her silence. The story of his career - The shocking murder of this local 'saint' draws the attention of reporter Jason Wade. He is sure the police are hunting the wrong man - and that it is up to him to track down the real killer. Secrets from the past - His father's demons tell Jason more about this murder than the police investigation ever could - revealing a story so twisted Jason will need all his wits to untangle the truth. </p>

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<div><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Orphaned at 10—his mother murdered, his father a suicide—Chase was raised by his grandfather Jonah, a grifter who has used Chase as a getaway driver. After Jonah shoots one of his crew during a poker game, Chase, at 21, realizing that the icy old man could easily turn on his own grandson, strikes off on his own. He works his way around the country stealing cars and driving for petty thieves until one night in Mississippi he runs up against deputy sheriff Lila Bodeen, who sees something in this brash young outlaw that she likes. Tragedy puts Chase back on the road, where he faces not only the killer but the truth—about himself and his shattered family. Piccirilli (_The Midnight Road_, etc.) tells the gritty, violent and dark tale in an appealingly noirish narrative style, highly economical yet bracingly intimate. <em>(May)</em> <br>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>“[Tom Piccirilli’s] prose has the visceral punch of the best pulp writers of the past century…. <strong>The Cold Spot</strong> is both funny and ferocious.”—_San Francisco Chronicle.<br>_<br>"A powerful, hard-hittng, fiercely original writer of suspense. I highly recommend him." —David Morrell, author of _Creepers<br>_<br>"Tom Piccirilli's fiction is visceral and unflinching, yet deeply insightful."—F. Paul Wilson, author of <em>The Keep </em>and <em>Bloodline </em>  </p><p>"<strong>The Cold Spot</strong> is truly dazzling. Piccirilli has taken the mystery to a whole other level."—Ken Bruen, award-winning author of _The Guards<br>_<br>"Blackest noir, the most minimal kind of minimalism, and at the same time deeply emotional: this is not easy to do. I loved <strong>The Cold Spot</strong>."—Peter Abrahams, bestselling author of _Nerve Damage<br>_<br>"Lean, brutal and completely arresting, Tom Piccirilli's <strong>The Cold Spot</strong> is a bull's-eye hardboiled tale."—Megan Abbott, author of _The Song is You<br>_<br>"<strong>The Cold Spot </strong>is crime fiction at its very best, an exceptional revenge story so vivid you feel like you're in the back seat of a getaway car with a master storyteller at the wheel."—Jason Starr, author of _The Follower<br>_</p>

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<h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>A dramatic account of the politics and personalities behind NBC's calamitous attempt to reinvent late-night television. </strong>   </p><p>When NBC decided to move Jay Leno into prime time to make room for Conan O'Brien to host the <em>Tonight</em> show-a job he had been promised five years earlier-skeptics anticipated a train wreck for the ages. It took, in fact, only a few months for the dire predictions to come true. Leno's show, panned by critics, dragged down the ratings-and the profits-of NBC's affiliates, while ratings for Conan's new <em>Tonight</em> show plummeted to the lowest levels in history. Conan's collapse, meanwhile, opened an unexpected door of opportunity for rival David Letterman. What followed was a boisterous, angry, frequently hilarious public battle that had millions of astonished viewers glued to their sets. In <em>The War for Late Night, New York Times</em> reporter Bill Carter offers a detailed behind-the-scenes account of the events of the unforgettable 2009/2010 late-night season as all of its players- performers, producers, agents, and network executives-maneuvered to find footing amid the shifting tectonic plates of television culture. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p><strong>Bill Carter</strong> joined <em>The New York Times</em> as a national media reporter in 1989. He is the author of the <em>New York Times</em> bestseller <em>The Late Shift</em>, two other books on the television industry, <em>Monday Night Mayhem</em> and <em>Desperate Networks</em>, and has written numerous articles for The New York Times Magazine and other publications. He has been a guest on <em>Nightline, Today</em>, CNN, <em>Charlie Rose, The NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams</em>, and many other shows. </p>


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<div><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>A Moorish slave cast out of her Spanish home by war, Awa is captured by a necromancer who forces her to learn his skills. When she eventually flees, she discovers the necromancer placed a curse on her that will destroy her soul in 10 years' time-unless she can find his book of secrets, which could be hidden anywhere in the world. During her quest, Awa befriends Manuel, a painter-turned-mercenary; Monique, a lesbian gunsmith-turned-madam; and others both dead and undead. Bullington (The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart) bounces almost giddily between gruesome and tongue-in-cheek, from more horrific aspects of raising the dead to the odd problems faced by a necromancer with a conscience. Spiritual terror, Awa's star-crossed loves, and Manuel's guilt over becoming a mercenary to pay for art supplies are all grist for a relentless dark humor blended with occasional tragedy. (Apr.) <br>(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>As the witch-pyres of the Spanish Inquisition blanket Renaissance Europe in a moral haze, a young African slave finds herself the unwilling apprentice of an ancient necromancer. Unfortunately, quitting his company proves even more hazardous than remaining his pupil when she is afflicted with a terrible curse. Yet salvation may lie in a mysterious tome her tutor has hidden somewhere on the war-torn continent.  </p><p>She sets out on a seemingly impossible journey to find the book, never suspecting her fate is tied to three strangers: the artist Niklaus Manuel Deutsch, the alchemist Dr. Paracelsus, and a gun-slinging Dutch mercenary. As Manuel paints her macabre story on canvas, plank, and church wall, the young apprentice becomes increasingly aware that death might be the least of her concerns. </p>

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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>The start of a brand new epic fantasy series from well known author Juliet Mckenna. Full of rich characters and high adventure, this new trilogy marks the next stage in the career of this popular writer. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>Juliet McKenna has been interested in fantasy stories since childhood, from Winnie the Pooh to The Iliad. An abiding fascination with other worlds and their peoples played its part in her subsequently reading Classics at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford. After combining bookselling and motherhood for a couple of years, she now fits in her writing around her family and vice versa. She lives with her husband and children in West Oxfordshire, England. </p>


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<h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>FBI profiler Avery Delaney has a case that really hits home: she must track down Aunt Carolyn, the woman who raised her, who has disappeared on her way to the spa. <br />Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>When it comes to gripping novels of unrelenting suspense, Julie Garwood is in a class by herself. In the course of her career, she has mastered the art of creating characters who live and breathe in compelling, page-burning stories that never fail to surprise. As her legion of fans can attest, she strikes the perfect balance between excitement and insight, action and heart. Now, in this breathless new novel, Garwood has written her most electrifying thriller to date.  </p><p><em></em>KILLJOY  </p><p><em></em>Avery Delaney has always tried to put the past far behind her. Abandoned by her rapacious, conniving mother when she was only three days old, Avery was raised by her grandmother and beloved aunt Carolyn. Then, when she was eleven, she witnessed her grandmother’s violent death, before Avery herself was shot and left for dead. Miraculously she survived. The man responsible is serving time in a Florida prison. This traumatic experience propels Avery into a life of law and order.  </p><p>Her razor-sharp mind and ability to gather data and decipher evidence has made Avery an expert crime analyst for the FBI. But soon she will have to use every one of her adroit skills on a case that hits painfully close to home.  </p><p>Avery’s workaholic aunt, Carolyn Salvetti, is certain her (hopefully soon-to-be ex) husband sent her the gold embossed reservation to the posh Utopia Spa in the mountains of Colorado. At first she is resistant, but then figures it will be a welcome respite from the cutthroat advertising business, not to mention a networking extravaganza. Plus she persuades her niece to join her for the two weeks of luxury and decadence.  </p><p>But Carolyn never makes it to Utopia. Under false pretenses, she is taken to an isolated retreat by a handsome stranger with a dazzling smile, suave demeanor, and the darkest of motives. His name is Monk, a hired assassin. Now, with scant clues and fewer resources, Avery must track down and save Carolyn—and outmaneuver a brilliant killer who is part of an elaborate plot of madness and lethal vengeance. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Regan Hamilton Madison is perfect. She’s gorgeous ("a knockout with those full, luscious lips, to say nothing about the soft curves and long legs") but doesn’t seem to be aware of it. She’s rich (her family owns a hotel empire), but as head of her family’s foundation, she spends her time giving money away. She even drives an old car. She doesn’t have a boyfriend, but she does have a stalker, a psychopath bent on killing her. Enter Alec Buchanan, a smart detective who just happens to be perfect himself. He’s gorgeous, "scruffy…sexy…he had impeccable manners, was obviously well-educated, and had a sense of humor." And he doesn’t have a lover either. Regan draws up the titular murder list at the request of a guru/messiah who preys on "rich but lonely vulnerable women" (it’s supposed to be cathartic) and who is the villain of a subplot. Although Regan is much too nice to want to murder anybody, she whimsically makes a list of the people she’d like to remove from her radar screen. When the people on Regan’s list begin to die, though, the plot moves into high gear. By that time the reader is pages ahead of the clearly telegraphed plot developments, and even the real mysteries—why Regan? who is the psycho killer?—are solved by the reader long before the characters see the light. Bestseller Garwood (Killjoy, etc.) has her shining moments, but she serves up a predictable woman-in-peril suspense novel this time around.<br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>There are few authors who can weave nail-biting thrills, edge-of-your-seat drama, and romantic suspense as masterfully as Julie Garwood. Now she ratchets up the tension with <em>Murder List</em>, in which evil is on the hunt– and proves to be methodically organized and chillingly successful.  </p><p>When Chicago detective Alec Buchanan is offered a prime position with the FBI, it is the perfect opportunity to leave the Windy City and follow in his brothers’ footsteps to the top echelons of law enforcement. But first he must complete one last assignment (and one that he is not too happy about): acting as a glorified bodyguard to hotel heiress Regan Hamilton Madison. The gorgeous exec has become entangled in some potentially deadly business. Someone has e-mailed her a graphic crime-scene photo–and the victim is no stranger.  </p><p>Regan suspects that the trouble started when she agreed to help a journalist friend expose a shady self-help guru who preys on lonely, vulnerable women. In fact, the smooth-as-an-oil-slick Dr. Lawrence Shields may be responsible for the death of one of his devotees, which was ruled a suicide. Hoping to find some damning evidence, Regan attends a Shields seminar.  </p><p>At the gathering, the doctor persuades his guests to partake in an innocent little “cleansing” exercise. He asks them to make a list of the people who have hurt or deceived them over the years, posing the question: <em>Would your world be a better place if these people ceased to exist?</em> Treating the exercise as a game, Regan plays along. After ten minutes, Shields instructs the participants to bring their sheets of paper to the fireplace and throw them into the flames. But Regan misses this part of the program when she exits the room to take a call–and barely escapes a menacing individual in the parking lot.  </p><p>The experience is all but forgotten–until the first person on Regan’s list turns up dead. Shock turns to horror when other bodies from the list start to surface, as a harrowing tango of desire and death is set into motion. Now brutal murders seem to stalk her every move–and a growing attraction to Alec may compromise her safety, while stirring up tender emotions she thought she could no longer feel. Yet as the danger intensifies and a serial killer circles ever closer, Regan must discover who has turned her private revenge fantasies into grisly reality. </p>


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<div><h3>Review</h3><p>“One of bestseller Garwood’s biggest strengths is her marvelous sense of dialogue and humor. When jumping into one of her incomparable romantic thrillers, all you can do is hang on for the wild ride.”—_Romantic Times<br>_<br>“A fantastic and exciting romantic thriller.”—_Best Reviews_</p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Skillfully blending searing suspense, characters with grit and heart, and a dynamic plot, bestselling author Julie Garwood has written another electrifying novel of romantic suspense.  </p><p>Kate MacKenna doesn’t have a bad bone in her body–or an enemy in the world. A woman who barely knew her father and has just lost her mother, Kate is a loving sister, a savvy business owner, and an unpretentious beauty who radiates kindness. So why are bombs igniting everywhere she goes?  </p><p>The first explosion brings her face-to-face with a handsome Charleston police detective. The second one sends her into the arms of her best friend’s brother–a Boston cop who’s a little too reckless and way too charming for comfort. But Dylan Buchanan won’t let emotion prevent him from doing his job: Someone is trying to kill Kate, and Dylan is the only one standing between her and the monster who wants her dead. For Kate to understand the danger, she must learn all about desire–desire for pleasure, desire for power, and someone’s desire to kill. </p>

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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Jordan Buchanan is thrilled that her brother and best friend are tying the knot. The wedding is a lavish affair–for the marriage of Dylan Buchanan and Kate MacKenna is no ordinary occasion. It represents the joining of two family dynasties. The ceremony and reception proceed without a hitch–until a crasher appears claiming to be a MacKenna guest. The disheveled and eccentric professor of medieval history warns that there’s “bad blood” between the couple’s clans, stemming from an ancient feud that originated in Scotland, and involving the Buchanan theft of a coveted MacKenna treasure.  </p><p>Jordan has always led a cautious life and has used her intelligence and reason to become a successful businesswoman. So she is intrigued but skeptical of the professor’s claims that the feud has been kept alive by the grave injustices the Buchanans have perpetrated over the centuries. But when Noah Clayborne, a close family friend and a man who has never let a good time or a pretty girl pass him by, accuses Jordan of being trapped in her comfort zone, she determines to prove him wrong and sets out on a spontaneous adventure to the small, dusty town of Serenity, Texas, to judge the professor’s research for herself.  </p><p>Maneuvering through a close-knit community in which everyone knows everyone else’s business, Jordan never anticipates the danger and intrigue that lie in her path, nor the threat that will shadow her back to Boston, where even in familiar surroundings, her life is at risk.  </p><p>A powerful thug who rules by fear, a man who harbors a simmering secret, and an unexpected romance that pierces all defenses–beloved author Julie Garwood weaves these dazzling elements into a brilliant novel of romantic suspense. Shadow Dance is a searing tango of passion and peril. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>Julie Garwood is the author of numerous New York Times bestsellers, including Slow Burn, Murder List, Killjoy, Mercy, Heartbreaker, Ransom, and Come the Spring. There are more than thirty-two million copies of her books in print. </p>


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<div><h3>Product Description</h3><p>The Cardinal's Blades is part historical novel, part old-fashioned swashbuckling high-action adventure, and part classic fantasy. Pierre Pevel has woven some of the best-loved fantasy tropes - musketeer-style adventuring, daring swordsmen, political intrigue, non-stop action and dragons - into a stunning new fantasy series. Paris, 1633. Louis XIII reigns over France ...and Cardinal Richelieu governs the country. One of the most dangerous and most powerful men in Europe, Richelieu keeps a constant, sharp eye on the enemies of the Crown to avoid their assassination attempts, thwart their spies and avert their warmongering. But he's up against people who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals, even going so far as to forge alliances with France's oldest and deadliest enemies. Spain, and the Court of Dragons. The nobility keep tiny dragonnets as pets; royal couriers ride tame wyverns, and lethal man-shaped scaled dracs ropam the country. But the power rising from the Court of Dragons is anything but mundane; the Black Claw sect draws on dragons as they once were: ancient, terrible, utterly merciless ...and poised to move against France. Faced with the growing threat from Spain, Richelieu summons Captain la Fargue, an exceptional swordsman, devoted officer and brilliant leader. If he's to turn aside the Black Claw's schemes, La Fargue and his legenday company of swashbucklers and rogues must be persuaded to once again risk their lives, fortunes and reputations for Richelieu, and for France. It's the biggest challenge yet for The Cardinal's Blades - and they'll need to be sharp ... </p>

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<p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>Gary Goodhew is intelligent, intuitive, and the youngest detective at Cambridge's Parkside Station. When Gary discovers the first body in a series of murders involving an eccentric Cambridge family, he gets his chance to work on a homicide investigation. He must use his own initiative to flush out the killer, even though it means risking his job and discovering the truth about the one person he hopes is innocent.Alison Bruce was born in Surrey, United Kingdom, and now lives in Cambridge. She is the author of two previous nonfiction books, "Cambridgeshire Murders" and "The Billingtons, Death in the Family."</p>


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<p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>St John wrote the apocalyptic Book of Revelation over 1900 years ago in a cave on Greece's eastern Aegean island of Patmos. When a revered monk from that holy island's thousand-year-old monastery is murdered in Patmos's town square during Easter Week, Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis is called upon to find the killer.Andreas's impolitic search for answers brings him face-to-face with a scandal haunting the world's oldest surviving monastic community. On the pristine Aegean peninsula of Mount Athos, isolated from the rest of humanity, twenty monasteries sit protecting the secrets of Byzantium amid a way of life virtually unchanged for more than 1500 years. But today this sacred refuge harbours modern international intrigues that threaten to destroy the very heart of the Church . . . in a matter of days.</p>


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<p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>A pacy literary thriller, 'The Buried Circle' is a gripping blend of fact and fiction, peopled with extraordinary characters.The village of Avebury is one of the most mysterious places in the English countryside. Surrounded by ancient standing stones, crop circles and burial mounds, this is a place where all is not as it seems.In 1938, the archaeologist Alexander Keiller ' a millionaire playboy with a passion for ritual magic ' plans to reconstruct the 5,000-year-old stone circle at Avebury. As war looms, Frannie Robinson and her boyfriend Davey are among those who fall under Keiller's spell, with fatal results.Seventy years later, Frannie's granddaughter India, filming in the area, survives a helicopter crash. Devastated, she decides to move back to Avebury and to her grandmother, setting out on a quest to discover the truth about her family. But why is her grandmother so reluctant to talk about Keiller and the war? And exactly whose past is India unearthing'Ś?</p>


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<h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Atlanta chef Deena Livingston returns home to the North Carolina cabin she inherited from her grandfather to start a new life far from the heartbreak she suffered in Georgia. But instead of becoming isolated in self-pity, Deena finds her grandfather's will also stipulates that she work with local middle-school children. Written with a seasoning of Southern charm and populated with richly drawn characters, Wisler's second novel (after <em>Rain Song</em>) mixes romance, humor, and drama and tackles such issues such as child abuse and self-image. Sure to appeal to fans of Susan May Warren, Lisa Wingate, Angela Hunt, and Rene Gutteridge. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Deena Livingston leaves behind a broken romance and her chef job in Atlanta to spend time at her grandfather's cabin in the mountains of North Carolina. But her grandfather has an odd request: he wants Deena to teach cooking classes to the ragtag group of middle-schoolers who attend the local afterschool program, The Center. Reluctantly, Deena agrees, but how is she supposed to convince these kids that cooking at home is better than eating at McDonalds? And after all she went through in Atlanta, why is she attracted to Zack, the social worker at The Center? Can a Dr. Seuss-quoting plumber, a curly-haired basketball player, and a group of middle-schoolers change Deena's outlook on life? </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>FBI Special Agent Ana Gray returns in this complex, involving thriller about a dedicated officer's search for a serial rapist that proceeds alongside her passionate and obsessive love affair with a fellow cop, Santa Monica detective Andrew Berringer. Before their relationship culminates in a violent episode that leaves him clinging for life and her accused of attempted murder, the deviant who brutalized the teenage girl Ana has taken into her heart and under her wing has found another victim, and Ana's efforts to stop him before he kills her drive Smith's stunning narrative to a shocking denouement. But the author has additional surprises in store for the reader that involve Andrew's motivations for escalating their passion--to keep Ana from reopening a closed case involving bank robbery, fraud, and deception, which will lead her to reevaluate the man, and the obsession, that has brought her to the brink of personal and professional oblivion. While many authors who feature the same protagonist in all their mysteries simply serve up the same character in different scenarios in each new outing, April Smith expertly illuminates aspects of her heroine's psychological life and devotion to justice that deepen our understanding about who she is--a complicated, brave, multidimensional woman it is a pleasure to meet in this engrossing and powerful novel. <em>--Jane Adams</em>. </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Intelligent and uncompromising, this second in a series by Smith reprises the successes of her acclaimed first thriller, North of Montana. Feisty, unconventional FBI Special Agent Ana Grey is teamed with tough but compassionate Police Det. Andrew Berringer on a kidnapping case involving Santa Monica teen Juliana Meyer-Murphy. Grey and Berringer continue the tempestuous personal relationship begun in Smith's first novel: "That's how we met. Working the same bank robbery, dubbed `Mission Impossible' because the bandit came in through the roof. We don't always catch the bad guys, but we're great with the nicknames." After Juliana is released alive but physically and psychologically devastated, the case becomes personal for Ana. Learning the harrowing particulars of Juliana's ordeal and observing the well-meaning but brutally invasive examinations the girl must undergo-described in clinical detail-she grows more and more obsessed with the demented killer/rapist, a charismatic ex-marine. As the chase intensifies, so does Ana's troubled relationship with Andrew. An argument that escalates into physical confrontation changes the lives of both when Ana pulls a gun and fires. While Ana is still in the middle of the fallout, the kidnapping case ends in a Silence of the Lambs-style standoff at the killer's private gallery of horrors. Smith's finely calibrated, unsentimental writing and tart humor make her a standout in the genre. She doesn't just tell a story; she illuminates the human condition through the pain and complex lives-and deaths-of her compelling characters.<br />Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. At the start of Smith's superb third thriller to feature Ana Grey (after 2003's <em>Good Morning, Killer</em>), the FBI special agent, who's still recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder after shooting a crazed detective on a suicide mission seven months earlier, learns that the skeletal remains of her missing onetime fiancé, fellow special agent Steve Crawford, have turned up in Oregon's Cascade Mountains. Ana later finds out Steve was murdered by members of an anarchist group with a penchant for homemade bombs. After training at the FBI's undercover school, Ana uses an alias to penetrate the group, which includes a former FBI agent gone bad, Dan Stone. As Allfather Stone plots a terrorist act he calls the Big One, Ana must burrow through layers of paranoia to discover the precise threat the FBI is dealing with. Ana's nuanced and coolly observational narrative voice perfectly complements the well-paced action, which builds to a satisfying conclusion that leaves open the next chapter of Ana's story. <em>5-city author tour. (Feb.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>“A genuinely scarifying thriller with a consistently vertiginous, through the looking glass mood. Every character is a hologram of sorts and every episode has the momentum of a theme-park ride. One of Smith’s cleverest tricks here is her unsettling depiction of unlikely alliances: Ana turns out to have more in common with the villain, Stone, than she might ever have imagined.” <br />–_Los Angeles Times  </p><p>_“A feverishly pitched adventure . . . With every dynamic scene, including a wild mustang roundup that thunders right off the page, the reader, like Ana, is reminded of the lost ideals and divided loyalties that make these mortal conflicts so bloody–and so sad.”<br />–Marilyn Stasio, _New York Times Book Review<br />_<br />“Why does the FBI still seem so sexy? Part of the reason is murder mysteries like April Smith’s <em>Judas Horse </em>. . . It’s creepy, chest-thumping stuff, with snitches and loyalty tests and the good guys and villains constantly in flux.”<br />–_Los Angeles Magazine  </p><p>_“A runaway but cagey novel that never lets up . . . The incidents with which Ana must deal [at FBI undercover school] are so fast, harrowing, and breathtaking that they are like skiing down the expert slope while juggling vials of nitroglycerine.”<br />–Otto Penzler, _New York Sun<br />_<br />“Smith’s superb third thriller to feature Ana Grey . . . Ana’s nuanced and coolly observational narrative voice perfectly complements the well-paced action, which builds to a satisfying conclusion that leaves open the next chapter of Ana’s story.”<br />–_Publishers Weekly _(starred)<br />_<br />_“Smith does a convincing job of conveying the trials of maintaining a dual identity . . . The narrative is fast-paced without becoming frantic, and the intertwining story lines are deftly handled. Highly recommended.”<br /><strong>–</strong><em>Library Journal </em>(starred)  </p><p>“A demonic ride through undercover terrain . . . Smith creates an undercover training regime for Ana that the FBI might do well to emulate. She’s so expert at implanting stress that you could become bipolar just from reading one chapter. Feisty, disturbing and exceptionally well done.”<br />_ –Kirkus Reviews _(starred) </p>


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In her 39th best-selling novel, Danielle Steel brings to life the story of three women, old roommates from college, who come together after twenty years, one summer at The Ranch.They had been inseparable in college, Mary Stuart, Tanya, and Zoe. But in the more than twenty years that followed, the three had moved on with their lives, settled in different cities, and found successful careers and new roles as mothers and wives. By chance, each would find herself alone for a few weeks one summer, wrestling with the present and the past. At a sprawling ranch in the foothills of Wyoming's Grand Teton Range, the three women come together and find courage, healing, and truth, and reach out to each other once again.Despite the honesty they once shared, now pretense between them runs high. Mary Stuart Walker, married for twenty-two years to a Manhattan lawyer, kept herself busy with volunteer work, and now masks the loneliness that consumes her life. A year has past, and Mary Stuart still hasn't gotten over the guilt, or the fear that her husband will never forgive her for their son's death... Tanya Thomas, an award winning singer and rock star, enjoys all the trappings of fame and success--a mansion in Bel Air, legions of fans, and a broken heart. All the Grammy awards in the world can't make up for the children she wanted but never had, the men who have taken advantage of her, and just gone along for the ride, and still are... Dr. Zoe Phillips has her hands full as a single mother to an adopted two-year-old, and as a doctor at an AIDS clinic in San Francisco. Predictably, as they all know, she is as liberal as she ever was, and marriage was never a dream she coveted or shared with them. Tending to her patients is a full-time job that leaves Zoe little time for herself--until unexpected news forces her to reevaluate both her future, and her current life.But despite the changes in their lives, their friendship is still a bond they all treasure and share. For each of the women, a few weeks at the ranch will bring healing and release, as old hurts are buried, ancient secrets revealed, and love replaced or renewed. In The Ranch, bestselling novelist Danielle Steel brings reality to the meaning of friendship, with dramas whose truths we all share.


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Ace Jones needs a vacation, but she's not going to get it. What she gets is a dose of scandalous small town politics that takes her on a quest for truth and redemption. In the meantime, the love of her life shows up 3 years after a bad breakup. Diary of a Mad Fat Girl is as adventurous as it is entertaining as Ace and her friends delve into illegal surveillance, stalking, and covert ops.


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<div><h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Terry McMillan's novels feature chatty, catty narrators who have a story they're just busting to tell you. The dominant voice in <em>A Day Late and a Dollar Short</em> is Viola Price, whose asthma just sent her to the ICU. And who came to visit? The Jheri Curl-wearing Cecil, "a bad habit I've had for thirty-eight years, which would make him my husband." Viola doesn't think Cecil's such a catch: "His midlife crisis done lasted about 20 years now," and "to set the record straight, Cecil look like he about four months pregnant." But somebody did catch Cecil--he recently left Viola for "some welfare huzzy" with three kids. And, as we soon find out in Cecil's first-person chapter, Viola has abundant flaws of her own. McMillan deftly sketches the exasperated intimacy of the long and unsuccessfully married.</p><p>She also has great dish about family dynamics. Have Cecil and Viola's kids got problems! When lovable, luck-free Lewis turns up to visit his mom, he's drunk, broke, and still whining about his ex, Donnetta, who "didn't have as much sense as a Christmas turkey" (though she did have the sense to dump Lewis). Now Lewis consoles himself with his Bobbing Betty doll. "How could somebody with an IQ of 146 be so stupid?" marvels Viola. And that Charlotte! Viola's daughter is "a bossy wench from the word go." (Gee, where could she have gotten that trait?) Charlotte feels like she never got her fair share of attention, having been born 10 months after the eldest daughter, Paris (now the driven mom of a brilliant athlete whose white girlfriend claims she's pregnant). Charlotte took it out on younger Lewis and Janelle, who's been in college 15 years with no degree in sight. </p><p>At first, you'll make ample use of the family charts in the endpapers to figure out who's who, but pretty soon you'll feel right at home with the squabbling, multiply dysfunctional, ultimately loving Price clan. You may agree with Viola: "Some folks got some stuff that can top ours. Hell, look at the Kennedys." <em>--Tim Appelo</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>her four adult kids, all of whom have their own children, and their various circumstances, relationships and dilemmas. Not about to give Viola the last word, the other family members take turns talking in each of the remaining chapters. At first it is a bit confusing trying to keep track of who's who (the audio book doesn't come with family charts, the hardcover does), but it all eventually becomes clear as this complex and entertaining story of family dynamics or as daughter Paris calls it, "As the World F*<em></em>ing Turns, again and again and again" gets fleshed out. McMillan is in her element, and readers Coleman and Willis do an excellent job of capturing the personalities of all the characters, be they surly, sassy, depressed or comic. Their talents guide the listener expertly through this captivating and ultimately optimistic tale of the ties that bind and the things that really matter. Simultaneous release with the Viking hardcover (Forecasts, Dec. 11, 2000). </p><p>Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.</p>

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<div><h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>The author of __ checks in again with a fresh, exuberant novel. Stella Payne is a Superwoman who has everything--except a man to rock her world, something she's convinced she can well do without. On a spur-of-the-moment Jamaican vacation she meets Winston, a man half her age, and finds, to her dismay, that her world is indeed well and truly rocked. Stella soon realizes that she's come to a cataclysmic juncture in her life, one that forces new and difficult questions about her passions and expectations. </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Her readers may be surprised that, after the gritty, tell-it-as-it-is Mama and Waiting to Exhale, McMillan has now written a fairy tale. Her "forty-fucking-two-year-old" heroine, divorcee Stella Payne, possesses a luxurious house and pool in northern California, a lucrative job as a security analyst, a BMW and a truck, a personal trainer and an adorable 11-year- old son-but no steady guy. On a whim, Stella decides to vacation in Jamaica, and she narrates the ensuing events in a revved-up voice, naked of punctuation, that alternates between high-voltage energy and erotic languor. Romance comes to Stella under tropical skies-but there's a problem. Gorgeous, seductive Winston, the chef-trainee with whom she enjoys passionate sex (explicitly detailed), is shockingly young: he's not quite 21. Naturally, Stella wonders if he really loves her; endless soul-searching and a few tepid complications occupy the remainder of the narrative. When Stella loses her job, it's no sweat; she has enough savings to maintain her lifestyle. When fate throws two other gorgeous men her way, she immediately decides they are boring and isn't tempted for a minute. Meanwhile, her intense preoccupation with feminine deodorant sprays and the smell of women's public bathrooms is rather strange, to say the least. McMillan's expletive-strewn narrative accommodates such musings, however, and readers who have been yearning for a Judith Krantz of the black bourgeoisie-albeit one with a dirty mouth and a more ebullient spirit-will be pleased with this fantasy of sexual fulfillment. 100,000 first printing; major ad/ promo; first serial rights to People and Essence; BOMC main selection; film rights to 20th Century Fox; author tour. <br>Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>

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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Terry McMillan's sixth novel, <em>The Interruption of Everything</em>, is every bit as enthralling and empowering as her earlier hits <strong> and </strong>. However, as McMillan matures as an author, her characters follow suit, which leads her to a wiser, more introspective lead character in the form of Marilyn Grimes. Our reward, as readers, is a tale of midlife crisis, mixed with family and personal drama, all told in the witty, honest, and inspiring style we've come to expect from this seasoned storyteller.</p><p>As Marilyn approaches middle-age, we follow her struggle to discover herself outside the constraints of a passionless marriage, a demanding family and an ever-growing list of dreams deferred. With three children in college, a husband who suffers from destructive professional and personal inertia, a demanding mother-in-law, a senile mother and a drug-addicted sister, Marilyn has more on her plate than she expected at this stage of the game. Torn between taking care of her friends and family and attending to her own needs, she's faced with choices, like deciding to finish her graduate degree, that never before seemed hers to make. Along the way, supporting characters like Marilyn's feisty little niece and supportive-yet-opinionated best friends Paulette and Bunny add humor and depth to our heroine's character. And as always, McMillan does a flawless job of incorporating humor into even the most traumatic situations, as evidenced by a scene in which Marilyn ends up babysitting her hairdresser's children while waiting twelve hours for new braids. ("At three, Blue has to make a run. Orange has to go to the bank to get a money order. I ask Lexus to find me a Pamper and I take the baby in the bathroom.")</p><p>Warm and witty, sincere and heartfelt, <em>The Interruption of Everything</em> is sure to delight McMillan devotees and attract a host of new fans. <em>--Gisele Toueg</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Marilyn Grimes is desperately frustrated with her life as a housewife and amateur crafts maker. The world seems to be conspiring against her, as she and her husband hit the emotional and physical rocks of middle age and her extended family keeps erupting in chaos. Emmy Award–winning Whitfield's attempt at husky male voices is awkward, but she does a great job with both older women (Marilyn's mother, who has Alzheimer's, and her sassy mother-in-law, who "elopes" with her new retirement home lover). Oddly, her voice as Marilyn is often not engaging. In some ways the weakness in her characterization is appropriate, as Marilyn claims her soul has been "in hiding" as she's catered to everyone else's needs. But some listeners may get bored by Marilyn's narration, especially compared to her lively girlfriends and family. Still, Whitfield was a natural choice for the part, and she mostly lives up to her reputation in delivering this journey of self-discovery. Also available unabridged on 10 CDs and narrated by Desiree Taylor. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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<div><h3>Review</h3><p>"Hammett's prose was clean and entirely unique. His characters were as sharply and economically defined as any in American fiction. His gift of invention never tempted him beyond the limits of credibility."  </p><p>-- The New York Times </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Paul Madvig was a cheerfully corrupt ward-heeler who aspired to something better: the daughter of Senator Ralph Bancroft Henry, the heiress to a dynasty of political purebreds. Did he want her badly enough to commit murder? And if Madvig was innocent, which of his dozens of enemies was doing an awfully good job of framing him? Dashiell Hammett's tour de force of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness.  </p><p>A one-time detective and a master of deft understatement, Dashiell Hammett virtually invented the hard-boiled crime novel.  This classic Hammet work of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness. </p>

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<h3>Product Description</h3><p><em></em><br /><em></em></p><p><strong>The inspirational true story of how one man led a football team—and a city—to triumph in Super Bowl XLIV.</strong></p><p>In the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Superdome became a national symbol of misery and hopelessness, where the truly desperate rode out the storm.<br />Four years later, in that very stadium, the New Orleans Saints won the NFC championship and earned their first-ever trip to the Super Bowl.<br />Two weeks later, the Saints soundly defeated the heavily favored Indianapolis Colts 31 - 17 in what would become the most-watched television event in history.<br />This is the inspirational story of a city recovering from disaster and a team with a history of heartbreak, seen through the eyes of the coach who taught them both how to win.</p><h3>About the Author</h3><p><strong>Sean Payton</strong> is the head coach of the Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints. <strong>Ellis Henican</strong> is a columnist for <em>Newsday</em> and an analyst on the Fox News Channel. </p>


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<p><strong>The All-in-One Resource for Infrastructure Jobs, Green Careers, Reliable Blue-Collar Work, and More!</strong><p>Not everyone is suited to a white-collar career or wants to get the four-year degree<br />that these jobs typically require. But that doesn't mean you have to turn your back<br />on a great salary, exciting work, and a profession that commands respect.<br />Joe Lamacchia is proof. After graduating high school, he said no to college--"and found<br />personal and professional success as the owner of a thriving landscaping company. He also started BlueCollarandProudofIt.com, a resource for people who want to find work in the skilled trades. Blue-collar workers build and maintain our bridges, keep our cars running, fix our plumbing, and provide vital services to every home. That's why Lamacchia<br />calls these 'necessary jobs.' Most blue-collar work simply cannot be outsourced to foreign<br />countries and it's often recession-proof. As Baby Boomers retire,...


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>With this taut and entertaining novel, London native Kunzru paints a satirized but unsettlingly familiar tableau, in which his alienated characters communicate via e-mail jokes and emote through pop culture, all the while dreaming of frothy lattes and designer labels. Arjun Mehta is an Indian computer programmer and Bollywood buff who comes to the U.S. with big dreams, but finds neither the dashing romance nor the heroic ending of his favorite movies—just a series of crushing disappointments. When he is told he will lose his job at the global security software company and thus may have to return to India, Arjun develops and secretly releases a nasty computer virus, hoping that he can impress his boss into hiring him back when he "finds" the cure. Arjun's desperate measures are, of course, far reaching, eventually affecting the lives of Guy Swift, an English new money entrepreneur; his girlfriend, Gabriella; and the young Indian movie star Leela Zahir. Kunzru weaves their narratives adroitly, finding humor and pathos in his misguided characters, all the while nipping savagely at consumer culture and the executives who believe in "the emotional magma that wells from the core of planet brand." While Guy Swift creates a marketing campaign for border police that imagines Europe as an "upscale, exclusive continent," Arjun Mehta is fighting to keep his scrap of the American dream. Kunzru's first novel, <em>The Impressionist</em>, was received enthusiastically (it was shortlisted for numerous awards, and won quite a few others, including the Somerset Maugham Award), and this follow-up will not disappoint fans of his stirring social commentary. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Adult/High School–Arjun Mehta, computer programmer and extreme Bollywood fan, dreams of a different life than his native India offers him. It seems like magic when a placement service in the U.S. offers to fly him to the states and help him find a job. After several weeks in limbo, he takes a position with a software developer specializing in virus protection. He befriends Chris, a heavily tattooed, bisexual rock-and-roll chick who takes pity on him. She exposes clueless Arjun to pieces of U.S. culture that challenge him in ways that are both humorous and thought-provoking. After a sexual interlude that ends his friendship with her, Arjun finds himself on a list of employees to be laid off. In desperation, he creates a computer virus around the image of a popular Bollywood star and unleashes it on the Internet. He plans to present a solution for it, making money for his company, saving his job, and turning himself into a hero. But, of course, things go awry as the virus takes on a life of its own. Kunzru's details of the technology are thrilling and accessible, bringing to mind William Gibson's classic cyberpunk novel <em>Neuromancer</em> (Ace, 1984). The point of view switches to other characters to show the effects of the virus on a more personal level. Ultimately, this is a mainstream-style novel with strong characters and situations that has just enough science-fiction elements to satisfy readers of both genres._–Matthew L. Moffett, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale_ <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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<div><h3>Review</h3><p>“Irresistible” (Boing Boing )  </p><p>“This collection of “deliciously gross food” from across the blogosphere is simultaneously disgusting, fascinating, and sometimes perversely drool-inducing.” (Chow Bella, Phoenix New Times )  </p><p>“Nothing illustrates our nation’s bipolar attitude toward eating more hilariously than this visual coronary. A stomach-turning delight.” (Entertainment Weekly )  </p><p>“Warning: Don’t eat before, during or after you’ve seen this blog.” (Time magazine )  </p><p>“If you dare to eat any of these, make sure you have a cardiologist on speed dial.” (CNN.com )  </p><p>“I love me some This Is Why You’re Fat. It’s hardcore, wet and sloppy, extreme, take-no-prisoners, get down and dirty food porn. And I, for one, cannot get enough of it.” (The Frisky ) </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Food was once the providence of celebrated chefs and critical connoisseurs. Cooking shows featured all gourmet creations and web sites displayed artfully photographed delights.</p><p>Then something changed.</p><p>Perhaps it was the desensitizing of web culture or perhaps it was a cry for help from the food-loving public. But by God - there came a day when fancy vegetable towers came crashing down and $50 mushrooms were no longer acceptable. Amason and Blakley wanted see the old stand-bys, the carnival foods of their childhoods, the sticky mess of a deep-fried candy bar, the indulgence of a greasy burger with all the fixins.</p><p>It was the birth of the nasty food web-trend. And it was delicious.</p><p>The website This is Why You′re Fat is an ode to this trend - whether seen as a commentary on North American dietary habits or a celebration of the deliciously bad - Amason and Blakey are devoted to the world′s newfound obsession with over-the-top food. Within its first month the site pulled in over ten million eye balls, and attracted major nation media including CNN. The world cooked, they listened.</p><p>www.thisiswhyyourefat.com</p>

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Modern Rome is a city rife with contradictions. Once the seat of ancient glory, it is now often the object of national contempt. It plays a significant part on the world stage, but the concerns of its residents are often deeply parochial. And while they live in the seat of a world religion, Romans can be vehemently anticlerical. These tensions between the past and the present, the global and the local, make Rome fertile ground to study urban social life, the construction of the past, the role of religion in daily life, and how a capital city relates to the rest of the nation.Michael Herzfeld focuses on Rome’s historic Monti district and the wrenching dislocation caused by rapid economical, political, and social change. Evicted from Eternity tells the story of the gentrification of Monti—once the architecturally stunning home of a community of artisans and shopkeepers now displaced by an invasion of rapacious real estate speculators, corrupt officials, dithering politicians, deceptive clerics, and shady thugs. As Herzfeld picks apart the messy story of Monti’s transformation, he ranges widely over many aspects of life there and in the rest of the city, richly depicting the uniquely local landscape of globalization in Rome.


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>A caustic expose of the deeply state of our colleges-America's most expensive Ponzi scheme. </strong>   </p><p>What drives a former English major with a creative writing degree, several unpublished novels, three kids, and a straining marriage to take a job as a night teacher at a second-rate college? An unaffordable mortgage.   </p><p>As his house starts falling apart in every imaginable way, Professor X grabs first one, then two jobs teaching English 101 and 102-composition and literature-at a small private college and a local community college. He finds himself on the front lines of America's academic crisis. It's quite an education.   </p><p>This is the story of what he learns about his struggling pupils, about the college system-a business more bent on its own financial targets than the wellbeing of its students-about the classics he rediscovers, and about himself. Funny, wry, self-deprecating, and a provocative indictment of our failing schools, <em>In the Basement of the Ivory Tower</em> is both a brilliant academic satire and a poignant account of one teacher's seismic frustration-and unlikely salvation-as his real estate woes catapult him into a subprime crisis of an altogether more human nature. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p><strong>Professor X</strong> has been teaching English composition and literature for a decade at two small colleges somewhere in America. His essay in <em>The Atlantic</em>, chosen by David Brooks for a Sidney Award and much trafficked and debated on the Web, inspired this book. </p>


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It's not just a game anymore-read the explosive new book series based on the video game Splinter Cell(tm). In response to the growing use of sophisticated digital encryption to conceal potential threats to the United States, the National Security Agency has ushered forth the new dawn of intelligence-gathering techniques. The top-secret initiative is dubbed Third Echelon. Its existence denied by the US government, Third Echelon deploys a lone field operative. He is sharp, invisible, and deadly. He has the right to spy, steal, destroy, and assassinate to protect American freedoms. His name is Sam Fisher. He is a Splinter Cell(tm). Sam Fisher works alone. But fights for us all.


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>As part of a top-secret initiative called Third Echelon, National Security Agency special operative Sam Fisher has been given license to spy, steal, destroy, and assassinate to protect America. And he does... </p>


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A radical Islamic leader who dreams of the past will do anything in his power to ensure that the future is destroyed--by hitting the technological world where it hurts: oil. Only one man stands in his way--Sam Fisher, Splinter Cell. Available in a Premium Edition. Original.


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<div><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Several disastrous missions have depleted the ranks of the Splinter Cells. Third Echelon is training new recruits when a stunning piece of evidence is uncovered. Evidence that points to the mole who sold out his government...Sam Fisher, Splinter Cell(r) operative.   </p>

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<div><h3>Product Description</h3><p>A half-dead Singapore pirate is plucked from the Celebes Sea in the Western Pacific, setting off alarms halfway around the world in Washington, D.C. Traces of radiation are found on the man, causing Australian officials to call in Op-Center for a top-secret investigation of nuclear disposal sights. When an empty drum from a recent drop-off is discovered near where the pirate's ship was destroyed, the Op-Center team comes to a terrifying conclusion: a multi-national corporation that has been hired to dispose of nuclear waste is selling it instead -- to a most unlikely terrorist... </p><p><em>A powerful profile of America's defense, intelligence, and crisis management technology, Tom Clancy's Op-Center is the creation of Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik -- inspiring this and other gripping novels.</em></p>

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<div><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Actor Jay O. Sanders provides an acceptable narration of best-selling author Clancy's (Debt of Honor, Audio Reviews, LJ 11/15/94) reactivation of hostilities between the United States and Russia. With widespread crop failures and the sudden death of Boris Yeltsin, the Russian situation is dire at best. Old-school communists see the opportunity to scuttle American relief efforts by launching a terrorist attack in Times Square. Roger Gordian, a U.S. businessman, finds his multinational corporation in peril and takes the initiative to prevent escalation to full-scale war. Sanders's Russian accents are shaky and seem more appropriate to a Rocky and Bullwinkle adventure. Clancy's abridged story is subject to frequent character shifts, and the action is difficult to follow. Libraries may skip this disjointed effort. Not recommended.?Ray Vignovich, West Des Moines P.L., IA<br>Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>The sudden death of Russia's president has thrown the Russian Federation into chaos. The country is in the grip of famine and an uprising is inevitable. One of the provisional leaders asks the American president for help, but the whole world is watching when a deadly terrorist attack stuns the USA. </p>

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<div><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Roger Gordian's troubles, which we heard about in Ruthless.com, continue in this work. Terrorists are out to get him, and this time they have a special microwave weapon. This clean, untraceable device cooks up some very big disasters involving, e.g., a space shuttle on the launch pad and a train in Brazil. The nonstop action in this story takes place in Florida, Brazil, and Kazakhstan. Like in Ruthless.com, the listener is given a great amount of detail concerning the weapons and equipment. Experienced actor J.K. Simmons displays his vocal versatility in this reading; he moves at a steady pace and is especially good with the narrative portions. For all action collections.AMichael T. Fein, Central Virginia Community Coll., Lynchburg <br>Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>In this novel, a near disaster prior to a space shuttle launch provides the first evidence of a global terrorist plan to bring the USA to its knees. </p>

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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Global stability and the New World order are in peril, and American businessman Roger Gordian, star of POLITIKA and SHADOW WATCH, must again mobilize the full resources of his multinatinoal corporation to counter the threat. Bearing all the hallmarks of classic Tom Clancy, the fifth Powerplays novel serves up another dose of international intrigue and political brinkmanship. Intricate plotting, exceptional authenticity and knife-edge suspense will see this book repeat the massive success of its four predecessors. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>Tom Clancy lives in Maryland, USA. His bestselling books include RAINBOW SIX and THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong><em>Unspoiled. Uninhabited. Under attack...</em></strong></p><p>On the wind-swept, Ice-covered continent of Antartica, Roger Gordian's UpLink Technologies has established a scientific research facility called Cold Corners. But its testing of potential robotic landing craft for use on Mars is disrupted when one of the rovers disappears -- along with the repair team sent out after it. </p><p>Fear of discovery has prompted a renegade consortium -- that is illegally using Antartica as a nuclear waste dump -- to wipe out the UpLink base. Now, the men and women of Cold Corners have only themselves to rely on as the consortium mounts its decisive strike against the ice station -- and the final sunset plunges them into the total darkness of a polar winter. </p>


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<div><h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>WIRED.</strong></p><p>Africa becomes the battleground of twenty-first-century war. As fiber-optic cable is laid down around the continent, two entities fight to control it. One is UpLink Communications, headed by Roger Gordian. The Pan-African fiber-optic ring is his most ambitious?and expensive?endeavor to date. </p><p>His nemesis, Harlan Devane, is penetrating the network. Devane trades in black-market commodities with terrorists and rogue states, and the cable offers him unlimited access to a most valuable product: information. To ensure his success, Devane makes his move halfway around the world. He hits Gordian where it hurts?and kidnaps his daughter. </p><p>Now, Gordian must trust his UpLink team as never before, as they fight on land and sea to save his daughter and turn the tables against Devane?once and for all. </p>

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In the year 2010, computers are the new superpowers. Those who control them control the world. To enforce the Net Laws, Congress creates the ultimate computer security agency within the FBI: the Net Force. A Union Jack appearing on computer screens all over the world is just a harbinger of the danger to come. As cyberspace is thrown into chaos, several computer experts suffer strokes while hunting the deadly hacker in virtual reality. One of them is the Net Force's own Jay Gridley. And now the Net Force operatives must track down a man capable of cracking every computer code in the world -- and pitting nation against nation. Read by Edward Herrmann


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>A New World Order.  </p><p>A New Global Threat.  </p><p>Beyond the Point of No Return.  </p><h1>5 in series.</h1><h3>About the Author</h3><p>Tom Clancy is the author of numerous #1 bestselling novels including <em>Rainbow Six, Executive Orders</em>, and <em>Debt of Honor.</em> Steve Pieczenik is the author of <em>State of Emergency </em>and co-creator of <em>Tom Clancy's Op-Center </em>series. </p>


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Contrôler le Net, c'est contrôler le monde. 2011. Black-out total de l'Internet après une série d'attaques parfaitement synchronisées contre tous les relais du réseau mondial. A peine la première phase exécutée, la seconde arrive, mortelle : les terroristes comptent maintenant s'en prendre aux personnes... Pour Jay Gridley et la Net Force, un seul coupable possible : Cybernation. Un groupe qui milite pour la reconnaissance internationale d'un Etat virtuel. Mais, derrière l'utopie libertaire, se cachent des motivations aussi mercantiles que criminelles... Entre réalité virtuelle et géopolitique, espionnage et technologie de pointe, Net Force se bat contre les dérives du Web du XXIe siècle...


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<div><h3>Product Description</h3><p>In the year 2010, computers are the new superpowers. Those who control them control the world. To enforce the Net Laws, Congress has created the ultimate computer security agency within the FBI: Net Force.</p><p>Minor viruses are eating away at the Net Force computers. The e-mial shut-downs and flickering monitors are hardly emergencies -- but they've been keeping the tech department hopping. Same with the sudden rash of time-consuming lawsuits. No one in the Net Froce has a moment to spare, which is exactly the way Mitchell Townsend Ames wants it. Because when the shadowy mastermind launches his master plan, he wants Net Force to be looking the other way...</p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>Tom Clancy is the author of numerous #1 bestselling novels including <em>Rainbow Six, Executive Orders</em>, and <em>Debt of Honor.</em> Steve Pieczenik is the author of <em>State of Emergency </em>and co-creator of <em>Tom Clancy's Op-Center </em>series. </p>

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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>At a holographic "old timer's" baseball game, Matt Hunter and several other Net Force Explorers are thrilled to see Babe Ruth swing for the fences. But when Ruth does his famous routine of pointing to the stands, four people dressed in 30's-style outfits stand up and open fire with Tommy guns! Even virtual bullets can kill you. Matt and his friends know that these "virtual vandals" must be stopped. But the stadium stunt is just the beginning. And even the teens of the Net Force might not be able to stop them next time!. </p>


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<p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>Net Force Explorers Megan O'Malley and Leif Anderson match wits with an unknown and sinister enemy who is targeting computer users playing the Net's most popular online wargame, "The Dominion of Sarxos"</p>


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<p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>The National Security Agency's top-secret initiative to protect the United States from potential threats has been dubbed the Third Echelon. It deploys a lone field operative. He is sharp, nearly invisible, and deadly. And he has the right to spy, steal, destroy, and assassinate to protect American freedoms. His name is Sam Fisher. He is a Splinter Cell娛hird Echlon. Operative Fisher knows that several disastrous missions have depleted the ranks of the Splinter Cells. What he doesn't know is that a stunning piece of evidence has been uncovered that points to the mole who sold out his government.</p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>The techno-teens of the Net Force Explorers are just as smart as their adult counterparts when it comes to 21st century crimes and misdemeanors.  </p><p>Now, the Explorers must delve into cyberspace--and the secrets of the past--to prove their commander innocent of murder....  </p><p>9th in the exciting young adult series </p>


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<div><h3>Product Description</h3><p>To save a prominent scientist and his son from a corrupt government's agents, the Net Force Explorers embark on a terrifying virtual hunt for their enemies--before it's too late....  </p><p>10th in the exciting young adult series </p>

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A computer game convention becomes a hunting ground when the monsters from a new game escape and attack two members of the Net Force Explorers in virtual reality. Though nobody believes the danger is real, Matt and Maj call in the rest of the Explorers to discover who is behind the deadly rampage.


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When the star of South Florida's spatball team is threatened by a ruthless gang of major bettors who stand to lose a fortune, Catie Murray and the Net Force Explorers delve into the cyber world to protect America's newest sports phenomenon. Original.


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>A penetrating look inside an armored cavalry regiment--the technology, the strategies, and the people... profiled by Tom Clancy.</p><p>His first nonfiction book, <strong>, captured the reality of life aboard a nuclear warship. Now, the #1 bestselling author of </strong> portrays today's military as only army personnel can know it.</p><p>With the same compelling, you-are-there immediacy of his acclaimed fiction, Tom Clancy provides detailed descriptions of tanks, helicopters, artillery, and more--the brilliant technology behind the U. S. Army. He captures military life--from the drama of combat to the daily routine--with total accuracy, and reveals the roles and missions that have in recent years distinguished our fighting forces. </p><p><em>Armored Cav</em> includes:  </p><ul> <li>     Descriptions of the M1A2 Main Battle Tank, the AH-64A Apache Attack Helicopter, and more  </li> <li>     An interview with General Frederick Franks  </li> <li>     Strategies behind the Desert Storm account  </li> <li>     Exclusive photograph, illustrations and diagrams  </li></ul><p>PLUS: From West Point cadet to Desert Storm commander, an interview with a combat cavalry officer on the rise. </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Today's cavalry has traded four-hoofed mounts for heavily armored tanks, fighting vehicles, and helicopters in a combined arms force that is prepared for combat against much larger forces. In this report, noted technothriller novelist Clancy takes readers on a tour of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. He explores the delicacies found in an MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) and describes such hardware as the Abrams battle tank, the Apache helicopter, and the nine-millimeter Beretta pistol. Through interviews with General Franks of the U.S. Army's Training and Doctrine Command and Captain McMaster of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, the author reveals what life was like during the Persian Gulf War. Clancy's thorough research makes a persuasive case for maintaining a strong post-Cold War military. For all public libraries and many academic libraries.<br /><em>Grant A. Fredericksen, Illinois Prairie Dist. P.L., Metamora</em><br />Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>They are floating cities with crews of thousands. They are the linchpins of any military strategy, for they provide what has become the key to every battle fought since World War I: air superiority. The mere presence of a U.S. naval carrier in a region is an automatic display of strength that sends a message no potential enemy can ignore. Now, Tom Clancy welcomes you aboard for a detailed look at how these floating behemoths function. With his trademark style and eye for detail, Clancy brings you naval combat strategy like no one else can. Carrier includes: * Takeoffs and landings: flying into the danger zone<br />* The aircraft onboard: their range, their power, their weaponry<br />* The role of the carrier in modern naval warfare<br />* Exclusive photographs, illustrations and diagrams<br />Plus: An interview with the U.S. Navy's Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Jay Johnson  </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>"In the lead-up to the Iraq War and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption." So says former U.S. Central Command commander in chief Zinni, who retired in September 2000 and has been outspoken ever since regarding the uses and abuses of the U.S. military. This book is the latest of Clancy's nonfiction Commanders series, which has previously featured collaborations with Gen. Fred Franks Jr. of the army, Gen. Chuck Horner of the air force and Gen. Carl Stiner, formerly U.S. Special Operations commander. As in those books, Clancy gives adequate background on his subject and his subject's context, then quotes him liberally, consigning tens of pages at a time to Zinni's italicized first-person reflections. Beginning the book with the 1998 CentCom-coordinated attack on Saddam Hussein (the unfortunately named Operation Desert Fox), Clancy and Zinni next move through 150 or so pages of Zinni's service as a Philadelphia-born (in 1947) Marine infantry officer during Vietnam and his racially charged Headquarters and Service stint on Okinawa in the early '70s. The book then flashes forward to the end of the Cold War and steams along from there, with details on Zinni's European command service, including 1990 meetings with a recently de-Sovietized Russian army and support operations during the Persian Gulf War. Zinni joined CentCom just in time for the Somalia debacle, and he is candid about its failings. Over the next years, Zinni traveled widely in parts of the world that were obscure to the U.S. then (Pakistan, Central Asia), but are central now, and played cat-and-mouse with Saddam regarding weapons inspections all through the late '90s. But it is Zinni's 24-page closing statement, "The Calling," that will sell the book to nonbuff civilians, summing up his service and the ways in which he feels his generation's legacy is in jeopardy. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>This is the fourth book in Clancy's nonfiction Commanders series; all have been cowritten with generals. This one chronicles the 40-year career of the now-retired Zinni, which includes two tours in Vietnam, two years as an instructor at the Basic School in the U.S., and his role as head of the U.S. Central Command. He also served in posts in Okinawa, Vieques Island, Germany, Turkey, and Somalia. Zinni reflects on the Vietnam War, saying, "Today we are seeing a stream of apologetic books by the policymakers and military leaders of that era--as though saying mea culpa enough will absolve them of the terrible responsibility they bear." On Operation Desert Storm, he says, "The only reason [that campaign] worked was because we managed to go up against the only jerk on the planet who was stupid enough to challenge us to refight World War II." On the Iraq war, he insists, "False rationales presented as justification, a flawed strategy, lack of planning, the unnecessary distraction from real threats, and the unbearable strain dumped on our overstretched military, all of these caused me to speak out." He warns that military conflict has changed in the twenty-first century and we have been reluctant to recognize it or to acknowledge it. Whether or not readers agree with Zinni, this is a book that demands our attention. <em>George Cohen</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>This Tom Clancy real-life military thriller is more nuanced than his novels, because its object is not simply to dramatize armed conflict but to relate the life lessons of his source, jet-pilot-turned-Desert-Storm-air-commander General Chuck Horner. Horner is no war cheerleader like General "Buck" Turgidson in <em>Dr. Strangelove</em>. He loathes the arrogance of the backwards, nuke-happy Strategic Air Command and the madly out-of-touch Vietnam War planner Robert McNamara. McNamara confesses his folly in two books, __ and <strong>, but Horner's you-are-there account more vividly demonstrates Vietnam's grim lessons. He flew an F-105 Thunderbird "Thud" fighter in the Wild Weasels, the unit with the highest medals-per-aircrew ratio, knew pilots who were stoned to death by villagers, and realized all the bombing did zero good. "All we really had to do was befriend Ho," says Horner sensibly. "Seems he wasn't part of a monolithic Communist plot, and hated the Chinese more than anything else." Horner is savvy about the screwups, the achievements, and the political maneuvering in and after the Gulf War, as leaders and branches of service battled for PR victories. His idea of a hero is Boomer McBroom's pilot Captain Gentner Drummond, who won a Flying Cross medal for refusing AWACS orders to down a jet that turned out to be a Saudi ally. Horner thinks the interservice and international cooperation in the Gulf War was way better than in Vietnam, but there's ample room for improvement. The action scenes aren't quite as brilliant as those in </strong>, but Clancy fans will find plenty to admire. Horner's improbable survival of a 150-m.p.h. near-crash in Libya in 1962 belongs in a Tom Clancy film. <em>--Tim Appelo</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Clancy's second study in high command of the U.S. armed forces (after Into the Storm, written with Army general Fred Franks) focuses on Air Force general Chuck Horner, the fighter pilot who was overall air commander for Desert Shield/Desert Storm. This book is less about the Gulf War than about the making of a modern fighter general and the remaking of a modern air force. Horner was part of a new Air Force generation that rejected the Strategic Air Command model of "predictability, order and control" in favor of a holistic approach to air power and air command. A firm believer in central control of air assets, Horner also regarded traditional distinctions between "strategic" and "tactical" air as no longer relevant. What mattered was the appropriate situational use of air power in an integrated war plan. The main text demonstrates Horner's success in implementing his concepts over Iraq. Though the narrative offers no startling insights or revelations, the authors make the important contribution of presenting command friction as a natural consequence of interaction among senior officers with high intelligence and strong wills. The implication is clear: to succeed in an unpredictable international environment, America's armed forces will need tigers at their head. Tigers are dangerous. They challenge each other. They take issue with higher wisdom and higher authority. And, according to the authors, they can be replaced by safely neutered house cats only at the country's peril. 500,000 first printing; $500,000 ad/promo; BOMC main selection; author tour. <br />Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Tom Clancy's latest love-letter to the military-industrial complex focuses on the Army--and Fred Franks, a general who helped smash Iraq in the Gulf War. In this first volume of a series on the intricacies of military command, Clancy traces the organizational success story of the U.S. Army's rise from the slough of Vietnam to the heights of victory in the Persian Gulf. In 1972, the Army lacked proper discipline, training, weapons, and doctrine; all these would be overhauled in the next 15 years. For those readers keen on such nuts and bolts, the book will be fascinating. But the book truly sparkles when Franks tells his story. A "tanker" who lost a foot in the invasion of Cambodia, he is a man of great courage, thoughtfulness, and integrity. One cannot help but wince when a civilian tells him, "You and those boys did that for nothing." And for all the acronyms and military history, that is what this book is about: healing the wounds Vietnam inflicted. "But this time [the Gulf War], it was going to end differently. They all would see to that." </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Having conquered the best sellers lists in both the fiction and nonfiction arenas, Clancy now offers the first in a series of historical accounts of American military leaders in times of war. His first target: the Gulf War.<br />Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><em>Shadow Warriors</em> is the third of Tom Clancy's commander books, and this time around Clancy teams up with General Carl Stiner, retired, to recount the recent history of U.S. Special Forces. Clancy notes that while Special Forces played important roles in World War II and Vietnam, the U.S. military has always been uncomfortable with "elites" and their unconventional methods and thus tended to view them primarily as a "sideshow." However, in 1980 when 53 Americans became hostages in Tehran, it became painfully clear that the conventional military tactics of the day, aimed at countering the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, simply could not deal with this new kind of threat. Most of the book revolves around Stiner's military career: its beginning in the late '50s, his tour in Vietnam as a Green Beret, various assignments in the Middle East, and his final stint as commander of SOCOM (U.S. Special Operations Command). Particularly interesting are Stiner's firsthand accounts of the <em>Achille Lauro</em> hostage rescue, the invasion of Panama, and operations in Desert Storm. Clancy fills in and adds context to Stiner's career and to the Special Forces themselves, including short stories of the Jedburgh teams in World War II and the formation of the Green Berets in the early '60s. Though at times disjointed, the result is a fascinating and timely glimpse into the evolution of U.S. Special Forces. <em>--Harry C. Edwards</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>This is the third volume in Clancy's series presenting modern war from the perspective of its commanders. Here the focus is on special warfare: Rangers, SEALs, Delta Force, the Green Berets and other less familiar organizations. Stiner headed the newly created Special Operations Command during the Gulf War. His experiences and Clancy's investigations combine to describe how the perennial outsider troops became frontline insiders. Many of the book's anecdotes from the 1950s and '60s support an image of a special operations community not exactly at war with the army, but trying to establish parameters for what its advocates considered a new approach to war, incorporating military, political and social elements under military control. Following about 40 pages on Vietnam, the second half the book takes us through accounts of the pinpoint strikes on the hijacked cruise ship Achille Lauro, two operations in Panama and Desert Storm activities that included Scud missile takedowns. The book ends with a 10-page chapter on September 11 and its aftermath, and appendixes on Special Ops Command history and "Leadership." Readers looking for an up-to-the-minute account of the ways and means of the war in Afghanistan will not find it here, but the plethora of insider history and firsthand operation specifics from insertion to "exfiltration" up to the early '90s will please the historically minded. (Feb. 4)Forecast: The Clancy name and events of September 11 have combined to make this a BOMC main selection, but the Gulf War material will have trouble competing with live television reports and newspaper accounts of current systems and teams. Expect a short run as a bestseller on the strength of Clancy alone.</p><p>Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.</p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Now, for the first time, an insider's look at an Air Force combat wing--the planes, the technology, and the people--with Tom Clancy as your guide. Tom Clancy's previous explorations of America's armed forces, <strong> and </strong>, revealed exclusive, never-before-seen information an the people and technology that protect our nation. Now, the acclaimed author of takes to the skies with the U.S. Air Force's elite: the <em>Fighter Wing</em>. </p><p>With his compelling style and unerring eye for detail, Clancy captures the thrill of takeoff, the drama of the dogfight, and the relentless dangers our fighter pilots face every day of their lives, showing readers what it really means to be the best of the best. </p><p><em>Fighter Wing</em> includes:  </p><ul> <li>     Detailed analyses of the Air Force's premier fighter planes, including the F-15 Eagle  </li> <li>     Exclusive photographs, illustrations, and diagrams  </li> <li>     An insider's look at the people behind the planes and weapons  </li> <li>     Combat strategies and training techniques used by the U.S. Air Force  </li></ul><h3>Product Description</h3><p>The #1 <em>New York Times</em> bestselling master of the military genre puts readers right in the cockpit.   </p><p>Tom Clancy's explorations of America's armed forces reveal exclusive, never- before-seen information on the people and technology that protect our nation. Here, the acclaimed author takes to the skies with the U.S. Air Force's elite: the Fighter Wing.   </p><p>With his compelling style and unerring eye for detail, Clancy captures the thrill of takeoff, the drama of the dogfight, and the relentless dangers our fighter pilots face every day of their lives- showing readers what it <em>really</em> means to be the best of the best. This is the ultimate insider's look at an Air Force combat wing-the planes, the technology, and the people...with Tom Clancy behind the stick. </p>


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<h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>In the tradition of novelist Clancy's previous nonfiction works, such as Fighter Wing (Berkley, 1995), comes an in-depth look at the United States Marine Corps (USMC). Clancy presents an insider's look at the most hallowed branch of the U.S. armed forces and those who serve on the front lines. First he offers an interview with Gen. Charles "Chuck" Cruller, 31st commandant of the Marine Corps. Clancy's main focus, however, is the Marine Expeditionary Unit-Special Operations Capable, or MEU (SOC). Currently, the USMC maintains seven MEU (SOC)s: three on each coast and one in Okinawa. Two or three of these units are deployed aboard ship into forward areas at any one time. These rapid-response units patrol a dangerous world while waiting for the president of the United States to get a "911" call for armed intervention. Clancy also offers a fascinating look at Marine Corps recruitment and training. Highly recommended for all libraries.?Michael Coleman, Regional Lib. for Blind &amp; Physically Handicapped, Montgomery<br />Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Since Clancy's fictional hero Jack Ryan began his career as a marine officer, few fans will be surprised that his creator now turns his attention to the corps and treats an aspect of it as effectively as he did the subjects of his three previous nonfiction military studies: <em>Submarine</em> (1993), <em>Armored Cav</em> (1994), and <em>Fighter Wing</em> (1995). After summarizing the marines' history, unique ethos, and weaponry--both specialized and borrowed, including the formidable ships of the amphibious navy--Clancy focuses on "the most `Marine' unit left in the Corps today," a Marine Expeditionary Unit--Special Operations Capable. Such a unit is one of the corps' and the country's seaborne emergency response teams, each with infantry, armor, air, and logistical components adding up to about 2,000 men and each able to carry out an astonishing variety of war-fighting and peacekeeping activities. Clancy amasses the information, writes clearly, provides an invaluable bibliography, and generally takes the lay reader where it would be very difficult to go without Clancy's guidance. Highly recommended. <em>Roland Green</em></p>


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<div><h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>The seventh in a series of books by Tom Clancy offering in-depth "tours" of the U.S. military, <em>Special Forces</em> surveys the soldiers who "are perhaps America's most professional and capable warriors." Who are they? They are the men--and only men, for women are not allowed to become SF soldiers--who are "specially selected, specially trained, specially equipped, and given special missions and support." The Army Special Forces--known to much of the public as Green Berets--are often the first troops on the scene in a crisis. They're also incredibly versatile: "If you're looking for a Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger, don't expect to find them in today's Army Special Forces." That's because specialized missions--involving anything from psychological operations meant to undermine enemy morale to guerilla warfare in remote jungles--require flexibility. "Specialized missions (paradoxically) require a broad range of general capabilities and skills," which means SF soldiers, "while physically fit, tend to be more balanced (like triathletes) than specialized (like marathoners and weightlifters)." </p><p>Clancy and his coauthor, John Gresham, describe how SF soldiers are recruited, trained, and assigned. There are plenty of interesting notes about SF culture: They don't especially like being called "Green Berets," for instance, even though most units carry a copy of the John Wayne movie </p><p><em>Special Forces</em> is replete with Clancy's tough-guy prose: "The overall media presentation of the Army Special Forces has generally been one of contrived crap." And the book is essentially a celebration of a premier fighting force, rather than a critical treatment of it. But this is not necessarily a weakness. <em>Special Forces</em> will appeal to anybody interested in the modern military, and it may bring civilians closer than they'll ever come to these important troops. <em>--John J. Miller</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>His now legendary reputation in military circles gives Clancy as complete access to events and sources as any civilian can expect. This is the seventh in Clancy's series investigating key institutions of the contemporary U.S. armed forces (Armored Cav; Fighter Wing; etc.), and the most comprehensive overview of the U.S. Army Special Forces available to general readers. Clancy, writing with regular series collaborator John Gresham, begins with a softball-tossing interview of Gen. Hugh Shelton--books like Clancy's are not written by antagonizing four-star generals--and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman establishes Special Forces evolution from the "snake eaters" of the Vietnam era to the "quiet professionals" described in the rest of Clancy's mostly first-person narrative. The first person is a big selling point here; discussions of equipment, "extreme" training and what Special Forces detachments actually do in peace, war and the gray areas in between are based on Clancy's own reportage often enough to maintain the "guided tour" conceit. Special Forces are shown training Venezuelan internal security forces, acting as coordinators for fire-support missions in Kuwait, cooperating with conventional U.S. units and, in a near-future scenario, defeating a nuclear-tipped terrorist revolution in Indonesia. Clancy's language slips into jargon often enough to confuse the target audience of interested generalists, and others may be disturbed by the implications of a military instrument able to do the things described here. But despite the drawbacks, Clancy remains a consummate storyteller, and this book is no exception to his oeuvre. (Feb.)Forecast: Pluses: It's a book by Tom Clancy in a series that regularly debuts on paperback bestseller lists. Minuses: It's not really a start-to-finish narrative, but a collection of field notes, albeit highly detailed and often compelling ones. Nitpick: the repeated phrase from title to subtitle reads badly.</p><p>Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.</p>

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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Never before seen by the general public: a rare glimpse inside a Los Angeles-class (SSN-688) nuclear submarine ... with Tom Clancy as your guide. Only the author of </p><p><em>Submarine</em> includes:  </p><ul> <li>     Exclusive photographs, illustration, and diagrams  </li> <li>     Mock war scenarios and weapons launch procedures  </li> <li>     An inside look at life on board, from captain to crew, from training exercises to operations  </li> <li>     The fascinating history and evolution of submarines  </li></ul><p><strong>PLUS:</strong> Tom Clancy's controversial views on submariner tactics and training methods. </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Best-selling author Clancy's first nonfiction book is a thorough, highly detailed examination of the technology employed by U.S. nuclear attack submarines. After months of lobbying, Clancy was granted security clearance by the navy to board and photograph the nuclear powered USS Miami. Every inch of this state-of-the-art vessel is covered, from the hull, control room, and engine room nuclear reactors to the communications/electronic warfare space and torpedo bays. Clancy shows readers how all the components are made and how they work. Also included is the fascinating history and evolution of submarines and an inside look at life on board, from captain to crew. Much of the information here has only recently been declassified, and Clancy's insightful views on the future of this type of warship in the post-Cold War era are interesting as well. Recommended.<br /><em>- Eric C. Shoaf, Brown Univ. Lib., Providence, R.I.</em><br />Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<p>They are America's front lines--serving proudly in forward areas around the world. Representing the very best from the Army and Air Force, the Airborne Task Force is an unstoppable combination of manpower and firepower. Now, Tom Clancy examines this elite branch of our nation's armed forces. With pinpoint accuracy and a style more compelling than any fiction, the acclaimed author of Executive Orders delivers an fascinating account of the Airborne juggernaut--the people, the technology, and Airborne's mission in an ever-changing world... * Two Tom Clancy "mini-novels"--real world scenarios involving the airborne task force * Airborne's weapons of the 21st century, including the Javelin anti-tank missile, the fiber-optically guided N-LOS fire support system, and the Joint Strike Fighter * 18 weeks: Life in an Airborne Alert Brigade * Exclusive photographs, illustrations, and diagrams PLUS: An in-depth interview with the incoming commander of the 18th Airborne Corps, General John Keen</p>


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<p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>The U.S. Army's Special Forces are known for their highy specialized training and courage behind enemy lines. But there's a group that's even more stealthy and deadly. Composed of the most feared operators on the face of the earth - they are the soldiers of Ghost Recon. Captain Scott Mitchell and his Ghost Recon team infiltrate China's eastern coast to seek and destroy the Spring Tiger Group. The small band of renegade Chinese military leaders is poised to execut 'Operation Pouncing Dragon', a plot to seize Taiwan and trigger a battle for dominance in the Pacific. But when Michell realizes that an old nemesis is assisting the cabal, World War III becomes personal.</p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Early one morning in February 2008, Oates drove her husband, Raymond Smith, to the Princeton Medical Center where he was admitted with pneumonia. There, he developed a virulent opportunistic infection and died just one week later. Suddenly and unexpectedly alone, Oates staggered through her days and nights trying desperately just to survive Smith's death and the terrifying loneliness that his death brought. In her typically probing fashion, Oates navigates her way through the choppy waters of widowhood, at first refusing to accept her new identity as a widow. She wonders if there is a perspective from which the widow's grief is sheer vanity, this pretense that one's loss is so very special that there has never been a loss quite like it. In the end, Oates finds meaning, much like many of Tolstoy's characters, in the small acts that make up and sustain ordinary life. When she finds an earring she thought she'd lost in a garbage can that raccoons have overturned, she reflects, "If I have lost the meaning of my life, and the love of my life, I might still find small treasured things amid the spilled and pilfered trash." At times overly self-conscious, Oates nevertheless shines a bright light in every corner in her soul-searing memoir of widowhood. (Feb.) <br />(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p><em>Starred Review</em> Brutal violence and catastrophic loss are often the subjects of Oates’ powerful novels and stories. But as she reveals in this galvanizing memoir, her creative inferno was sequestered from her joyful life with her husband, Raymond Smith. A revered editor and publisher who did not read her fiction, Smith kept their household humming during their 48-year marriage. After his shocking death from a “secondary infection” while hospitalized with pneumonia, Oates found herself in the grip of a relentless waking nightmare. She recounts this horrific “siege” of grief with her signature perception, specificity, and intensity, from epic insomnia and terrifying hallucinations to the torment of “death-duties,” painful recognitions of confidences unshared and secrets harbored, and a chilling evaporation of meaning. But Oates also rallies to offer droll advice on how to be a “good widow” and describes her struggles with mountains of lavish “sympathy gifts” and the attendant trash with a “widow’s slapstick-comedy.” In a stunning extension of the compelling disclosures found in The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates, 1973–1982 (2007), protean and unflinching Oates has created an illuminating portrait of a marriage, a searing confrontation with death, an extraordinarily forthright chronicle of mourning, and a profound “pilgrimage” from chaos to coherence. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The incomparable, best-selling Oates fascinates readers, and her memoir of sudden widowhood will have an impact similar to Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking (2005). --Donna Seaman </p>


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<h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Grade 4-7–Since her parents' divorce two years ago, Scarlett Flynn has been kicked out of five schools. After she ignites a food demonstration in the cafeteria, her mother has had enough. With her pierced tongue, black fingernails, and dyed tomato-soup-red hair, the 12-year-old is unwillingly sent from London to live with her father and his new family in Ireland. Aghast at her new school and new home in rural Connemara, Scarlett is angry. Her outlet is the lough where she meets mysterious gypsy boy Kian and his horse, Midnight. He allows her to express herself and provides the escape and friendship she needs. Her nine-year-old stepsister also sneaks her way into Scarlett's heart, helping her to adjust. As she grows more penitent about her behavior, she makes the effort to change and becomes an important player in the family. Infused with a bit of fairy-tale magic, this is a fast-paced yet thoughtful story. The heroine is feisty and troublesome, yet quirky and lovable. Her feelings are justified, and readers will sympathize with her. The character develops tremendously as her anger ebbs and flows, transforming into sincere love and acceptance. Cassidy has written a poignant and strong story about love, forgiveness, and resilience._–Jennifer Cogan, Bucks County Free Library, Doylestown, PA_ <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>After 12-year-old Scarlett gets into trouble at school again, her fed-up mother sends her off to Ireland to live with Scarlett's father, his new wife, and his nine-year-old stepdaughter. Scarlett is sure it will be horrible there, and at first it is, as she stubbornly rebuffs their attempts to welcome her. Then a mysterious boy helps Scarlett see herself in a new light, and when a crisis arises, she responds with courage and caring. Cassidy perfectly captures Scarlett's tough exterior, which hides years of hurt and neglect, and she creates a character who will easily captivate her audience. The idyllic Irish countryside adds to the story's appeal <em>Karen Hutt</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Smart, beautiful, and very rich, Kezia Saint Martin leads two lives: one as a glamorous socialite jetting between the poshest               places in Europe and America; the other, under a false name, as a dicated journalist committed to justice and her profession.  </p><p>But the two worlds are pulling her apart, leaving her conflicted about her identity and the lies she tells to every man she meets. Then she meets Lucas Johns, a bold, dynamic crusader for social change -- and an ex-con. Their attraction is immediate, but their love may be just one step from tragedy at any time. </p><h3>From the Publisher</h3><p>Smart, beautiful, and very rich, Kezia Saint Martin leads two lives: one as a glamorous socialite jetting between the poshest places in Europe and America; the other, under a false name, as a dedicated journalist committed to justice and her profession. But the two worlds are pulling her apart, leaving her conflicted about her identity and the lies she tells to every man she meets. Then she meets Lucas Johns, a bold, dynamic crusader for social change -- and an ex-con. Their attraction is immediate, but their love may be just one step from tragedy at any time. </p>


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<div><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p><em>Starred Review.</em> British author Peace (_GB84_, winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction) bases this riveting novel on a real-life serial-killer case in post-WWII Japan. When the nude body of a young woman turns up in a local park, Inspector Minami of the Tokyo police and his squad of detectives investigate. At the crime scene, Minami finds another woman's body nearby and begins to suspect there will be more to come. Minami, married and a father of two, is smart, tenacious and experienced; he's also addicted to sedatives, keeps a mistress, is in the pocket of a local crime lord and not above sampling the wares of prostitutes he encounters while roaming the city at night. Tokyo has been heavily damaged by Allied bombing, the populace is starving, the occupying victors are overbearing and brutal; for the Japanese, there's only an unrelenting struggle to stay alive in a nightmare world. Peace, whose complex style feels like a cross between Haruki Murakami and James Ellroy, delivers an expressionistic portrait of a harrowing, devastated time and place. <em>50,000 first printing. (Sept.)</em> <br>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>“Too often the mystery today seems ossified. How exhilarating, then, to discover David Peace through his brilliant, perplexing, claustrophobic and ambiguous seventh novel, <em>Tokyo Year Zero </em>. . . Peace’s masters would seem to be Dostoyevsky; postmodern collagists like William S. Burroughs and Kathy Acker; and practitioners of the French <em>nouveau roman </em>like Alain Robbe-Grillet . . . Marvelous.”<br>–_New York Times Book Review  </p><p>_“A writer can be psychologically penetrating, or socially significant, or spooky as hell (Stephen King, Patrick Suskind, Chuck Palahniuk). Noir novelists drench the whole affair in atmosphere. And then there is David Peace’s method–which is to be all these things, all at once . . . Once this hellish locomotive of a book hooks onto its tracks it becomes difficult to hop off.”<br>–_San Francisco Chronicle<em></em><br><em></em>_<br>“Astounding . . . <em>Tokyo Year Zero</em> is Peace’s most accessible work, the culmination of years of fine-tuning his idiosyncratic voice to its truest frequency . . . What we have here is not just a novel with voice, but also with rhythm, which must be learned and sharpened by the writer and is extraordinarily difficult to get right.”<br>–_Los Angeles Times Book Review<br>_<br>“The big post-war Japan novel, a fierce marriage of mood and narrative drive. David Peace continues to polish and advance his particular brand of literary crime fiction.”<br>–George Pelecanos  </p><p>“Riveting . . . Peace, whose complex style feels like a cross between Haruki Murakami and James Ellroy, delivers an expressionistic portrait of a harrowing, devastated time and place.”<br>–_Publishers Weekly _(starred)  </p><p>“Peace is clearly making something that is absolutely and unquestionably unique . . . His books are doubly exciting, and doubly disturbing, because Peace demonstrates what we instinctively know and fear to be true about the world: that there are, of course, moral absolutes, but that we all live, in our daily lives, as moral relativists. What Peace then adds to this already compelling schema is a vivid and detailed depiction of place and a strong poetic use of language.”<br>–_The Guardian_ (UK)_<br>_<br>“Out of the facts [of postwar Tokyo], Peace weaves a thriller that is both a gory psychological whodunit and a meditation on the origins of modern Japan. The result is something dark and bloody, the tone lying somewhere between Kurosawa’s <em>Macbeth</em> and the caricatures of the more violent manga cartoons.”<br>–_The Observer <em>(UK)</em>  </p><p>_“A stunning piece of writing, powerful, moving, unsentimental but deeply felt . . . A detective novel? Perhaps. A thriller? Certainly. But its core is more attuned to Dostoevsky than Conan Doyle . . . Peace controls everything with a poise that steals your breath . . . He is a writer whose dark, dramatic gifts have produced some of the most disturbing books of our time. His body of work is stacking up to become a landmark in modern fiction.”<br>_–The Scotsman <em>(UK)</em>  </p><p>_“A triumph, an audacious, dazzling, furiously-paced, admirably intelligent page-turner that both tugs at the heart and chills the blood. This is Peace at the peak of his form . . . It does David Peace a disservice to describe him as a crime writer. He is, quite simply, one of the most compelling and original contemporary authors anywhere, in any context. That he has chosen to write crime fiction is cause for fans of the genre to give thanks. And they should certainly give thanks for <em>Tokyo Year Zero</em>.”<br>–_Yorkshire Post <em>(UK)</em><br>_<br>“A lyrical tour through the dark, bubbling chaos of post—World War II Japan, <em>Tokyo Year Zero</em> is both an inquiry into a local atrocity and an investigation into the greatest collective identity crisis in modern history. By laying before us the black re-birth of a nation in 1946, Peace provides essential insight into the world of today.”<br>–John Burdett  </p><p>“_Tokyo Year Zero _is part historical stunner, part Kurosawa crime film, an original all the way. David Peace’s depiction of a war-torn metropolis both crumbling and ascendant is peerless, and the story itself is beautifully wrought.”<br>–James Ellroy </p>

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<div><h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>This first collection of short stories by Dick Francis (author of __ and more than 30 other horseracing mysteries) pulls together five new tales with eight that have appeared scattered in periodicals over the last three decades. One of the pleasures of his stories is witnessing the breadth and variety within Francis's racetrack milieu. In "Dead on Red," a jealous jockey named Davey Rockman hires Emil Jacques, a French assassin and gun collector, to kill the famed rider who stole his job; but Rockman is haunted by his deed much in the same way as is the protagonist in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart." "Raid at Kingdom Hill" tells of Tricksy Wilcox's scheme for a not-so-bright bomb scare, a plan that still might yield the payoff of a lifetime. "Collision Course" is free of murder but frames a delightful conflict between an out-of-work newspaperman and a bounder whose faux manners threaten to bring him down at the peak of his racing syndicate career. The Kentucky Derby story, "The Gift," follows Fred Collyer, a drunken writer who overhears plans for a major racing swindle and struggles against alcohol to publish the story by his deadline. And the collection ends with a what-if story called "Haig's Death" that examines the consequences of the sudden passing of Christopher Haig, an animal feed consultant and race-meeting judge.</p><p>Poe, who most historians of literature credit as the creator of the short story, declared that a good short story should have nothing extraneous. Francis's stories, for the most part, obey Poe's dictum. Each character and description fits tightly into an unfolding plan so that the mystery or twist is revealed with a satisfying economy of words. While <em>Field of 13</em> will appeal to Francis loyalists, newcomers, too, will find much to relish in the short fiction of this mystery grand master. <em>--Patrick O'Kelley</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Though nearly two score of his novels have come to print, Francis has published only eight short stories in his 41 years as a bestselling author. That octet, composed mostly in the 1970s and initially appearing in various journals (Sports Illustrated, the Times of London, etc.), is reprinted here, along with five new tales, each introduced in brief by Francis. There's not a slacker among them, though few champions either. The earliest yarn, "Carrot for a Chestnut," dating from 1970 (eight years after Francis's first novel), is typical, presenting a morally ordered universe in which malefactors get their due, albeit commonly through indirect means. Here, a jockey who bends a race by feeding a horse a drugged carrot receives his comeuppance by losing his concentration as a result of his crime and getting involved in a nasty accident; as in most of the stories, there's a light twist to the ending. Horse racing figures in every entry, of course. Sometimes it's the focus of a crime?as in "Blind Chance," in which a blind boy picks up on how bettors are getting inside info on races with photo finishes. Sometimes, it's only background, as in "Collision Course," about how a fired newspaper editor hoists poetic justice upon a horrid restaurateur/horse trainer. Most of the stories are superficially clever, but below the quick plotting there's emotional depth; in "Spring Fever," for instance, Francis plumbs the innocent desperation of unrequited December-May love. And throughout there is Francis's voice, strong, smart, ironic, developed even at the beginning but maturing in timbre as he hones his skill. Even more than the horse racing, this voice is the tie that binds these 13 tales into a charmed entertainment. <br>Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>

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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>This powerful book builds on the success of its predecessor - Writing the Breakout Novel - and takes readers to the next level: improving their work with practical, hands-on lessons and exercises. With patented techniques from his popular writing workshops, Donald Maass shows fiction writers exactly how to make their work stand out from the crowd. Readers will learn how to strengthen any novel-in-progress, with sections on: Building Plot Layers; Creating Inner Conflict; Strengthening Point of View and Voice; Discovering Larger Than Life Character Qualities; Developing the Psychology of Place; Every workbook exercise is followed by examples from real-life breakout novels. This is one of the most accessible novel-writing guides available today. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>Donald Maass as a leading literary agent, represents more than 100 fiction writers and sells more than 100 novels per year to top publishers in North America and overseas. He is the author of 14 pseudonymous novels and the books The Career Novelist and Writing the Breakout Novel. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Mary Elizabeth, a.k.a. Lola, is accustomed to playing the starring role in the fascinating production that is her life. Her pottery-making single mom and bratty twin sisters are merely bit players in Lola's dramatic existence. But all this changes when she is forced to move from her beloved Manhattan to the boring suburbs of New Jersey. According to Lola, "living in the suburbs is like being dead, only with cable TV and pizza delivery." The worst part is that someone has already snagged the coveted Drama Queen of Suburbia title--and that someone is Carla Santini. Carla, who is "sophisticated, beautiful, and radiates confidence the way a towering inferno radiates heat," isn't about to let anyone take away her hard-earned crown. Undaunted, Lola tries out for and wins the lead in the school play, a role much desired by Carla. In retaliation, Carla makes the entire student body give Lola the silent treatment (and in addition scores tickets to a sold-out concert of Lola's favorite rock band). Can Lola crash the concert, crush Carla, and still have enough energy to wow everyone in the school production of <em>Pygmalion</em>? It's all in a day's work for Lola, Teenage Drama Queen.</p><p>With <em>Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen</em>, Dyan Sheldon has written a classic good girl vs. bad girl story and a rib-tickling romp through the petty kingdom (or in this case, queen-dom) of small-town high school popularity politics. The wide-open ending will have young drama-queens-in-training eagerly searching the shelves for the next installment of Lola's adventures. (Ages 12 and older) <em>--Jennifer Hubert</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>When native New Yorker Mary Elizabeth Cep and her "astoundingly unimaginative" family move to New Jersey, Mary Elizabeth, who plans to be an actress some day, changes her name to Lola and zealously begins a campaign to enrich the "humdrum" lives of suburbanites. Unfortunately, Lola's new classmates are not quite ready to receive her guidance. They are too busy worshipping their reigning "drama queen," snooty Carla Santini, who is not about to share the spotlight on- or offstage with anyone, especially a loudmouthed city slicker named Lola. Thus begins the war between Carla and Lola to be No. 1. Carla is armed with sophistication, beauty, confidence and an entourage of admirers. Lola, on the other hand, has only a handful of weapons: an overactive imagination, the lead role in the school play and one loyal friend, Ella, "a free spirit waitingAno, beggingAto be released." Energetic, almost breathless first-person narrative relates Lola's bitter defeats and hard-earned triumphs in her rise to stardom at school. Pitting a deliciously despicable villainess against an irresistible heroine glittering with wit and charm, Sheldon (The Boy of My Dreams) pulls off a hilarious comedy of errors. Ages 12-up. <br />Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<div><h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>The author of the national bestselling <em>Vampire Earth</em> series presents the fiery fifth book in his epic dragons saga.</strong>  </p><p>Scattered across a continent, three dragon siblings are among the last of a dying breed-the final hope for their species' survival.  </p><p>Wistala, sister to the Copper who is now Emperor of the Upper World, has long thought humans the equal of dragons. She leads the Firemaids, fierce female fighting dragons who support the Hominids of Hypatia. Which puts her at odds with both her brothers, for the Copper has no use for the humans he now dominates and AuRon, the rare scale-less grey, would isolate himself and his family from both the world of men and the world of dragons. But as the Copper's empire roils with war, greed, and treachery, the time is fast approaching when Wistala will have to choose who to stand with- and fight for... </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p><strong> E. E. Knight</strong> lives in Chicago. Author websites: vampjac.com and vampireearth.com </p>

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<p>Meet Fletcher Moon. Half-pint schoolboy and fully qualified private investigator. Since graduating online, he has solved all sorts of minor mysteries at school and at home. It was only a matter of time before things got serious. When Fletcher investigates a spate of crimes in the town of Lock, the finger of suspicion is soon pointing in the direction of shady brothers Herod and Red Sharkey.</p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>How do some writers craft conversation so authentic, it feels like they've been eavesdropping? What's the secret behind getting characters to talk to each other? How can writers make their dialogue sing? </p><p>Answers to all of these questions and more can be found in Gloria Kempton's in-depth look at this crucial component of fiction. Readers will learn how to create dialogue that sizzles, with tips on: </p><ul> <li><p>Creating dialogue for specific genres </p> </li> <li><p>Bringing characters to life with revealing dialogue </p> </li> <li><p>Identifying and fixing common dialogue problems </p> </li></ul><p>Each chapter features numerous examples of successful dialogue drawn from bestselling novels, and chapter-ending exercises help readers apply the lessons learned. This is one book that will get readers talking! </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>The author of several young adult novels, Gloria Kempton conducts workshops each year at some of the most prestigious writing conference in the country, including the Maui Writer's Conference. She is also a contributing editor to Writer's Digest magazine. Gloria lives in Seattle, Washington. </p>


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<h3>From</h3><p><em>Starred Review</em> Hornfischer’s third outstanding book on the U.S. Navy’s surface forces in WWII will have a ready-made audience because its subject is the naval side of the Guadalcanal campaign of 1942. The campaign began when marines landed on that deservedly unfrequented island to halt the creation of a Japanese airbase that might threaten U.S. communications with Australia. The Japanese riposte inflicted a disaster on the U.S. Navy second only to Pearl Harbor, called the Battle of Savo Island. Over the next few months, the two navies went at each other hammer and tongs in what was probably the most intense naval campaign of the war. The Japanese had an ace up their sleeve in the Long Lance torpedo, the best in the world. The U.S. eventually counterbalanced the Japanese by learning (all too slowly) to use radar-directed gunfire to take back the night seas. The author offers balanced assessments of the leaders on both sides, but the real heroes are the American bluejackets, who too often paid with suffering and death for those leaders’ slowness to learn. And as in his first two books, the author’s narrative gifts and excellent choice of detail give an almost Homeric quality to the men who met on the sea in steel titans. --Roland Green </p><h3>Review</h3><p><strong>Advance praise for <em>Neptune’s Inferno</em></strong>  </p><p>The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and Boston Globe bestseller  </p><p>A main selection of the History Book Club and the Military Book Club   </p><p>“With the publication of <em>Neptune's Inferno</em>, a masterpiece of 20th century naval history, it's time to declare James Hornfischer a national treasure, a member of the distinguished band of brothers--Stephen Ambrose, Shelby Foote, Ken Burns, Spielberg and Hanks--whose sacred mission has been vital to America's journey, preserving the stories of our fathers and grandfathers for future generations, before those stories fade forever out of our consciousness into the shadows of time.”<br />Bob Shacochis, National Book Award winner, author of <em>The Immaculate Invasion</em>  </p><p>"Hornfischer has produced an account that is visceral, yet technical; sweeping, yet personal. It’s a terrific read, and an important new addition to the literature on this most important naval campaign in the Pacific." <br />—Jonathan Parshall, co-author of _Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway<br />_<br />"Hornfischer’s accounts of naval combat in the Pacific are simply the best in the business." <br />—Ian W. Toll, author of <em>Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy</em>  </p><p>"With this grand, sweeping, history-correcting book, James Hornfischer takes his place among the elite historians of the United States war in the Pacific during World War II. Like a Curtiss Helldiver, <em>Neptune’s Inferno</em> catapults the reader high into the skies for a clear perspective on the vast oceanic conflict, then dives relentlessly to propel us right into the smoke and fire and human valor of the brutal inferno known as Guadalcanal. Along the way, and drawing on newly available papers, Hornfischer clears up lingering misconceptions about this battle, including the full extent of the U.S. Navy’s role in victory. And in his character portraits of the brilliant, quirky top admirals and generals of the fractious Army-Navy command, Hornfischer offers a worthy counterpart to Doris Kearns Goodwin’s <em>Team of Rivals</em>."<br />—Ron Powers, author of <em>Mark Twain: A Life</em> and co-writer, _Flags of Our Fathers<br />_ <br />"_Neptune’s Inferno_ is a superb portrait of the U.S. Navy’s critical role in the Guadalcanal campaign, both the surface and aerial combat. Comprehensive with much that is new, yet immensely readable, it covers not only the admirals, but the junior officers and bluejackets as well. Highly recommended."<br />―John B. Lundstrom, author of _The First Team  </p><p>_“An epic work…In Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal, Hornfischer deftly captures the essence of the most pivotal naval campaign of the Pacific war…Compiling interviews with survivors, unpublished eyewitness accounts, and previously unavailable documents, [he] skillfully re-creates the bravery displayed by sailors who opposed the Japanese in what could be called America's finest hour of the Pacific campaign. The book is richly supported by meticulous source notes, a concise bibliography, rare photos and campaign maps…With Neptune's Inferno, Hornfischer…has earned his place among the hallowed ranks of military historians. [It] is a literary tour de force that is destined to become one of the most definitive works about the battle for Guadalcanal. It deserves a place of honor on every military bookshelf.” – San Antonio Express-News  </p><p>“Ambitious…entertaining…insightful…judicious…A vivid and engaging account…of war at sea in 1942.” —Ronald Spector, The Wall Street Journal <br />“Neptune’s Inferno is well written, packed with scene-setting details and clearly the product of extensive research, including interviews with some of the battle’s now-aged survivors… The author’s two previous WWII books, The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors and Ship of Ghosts, thrust him into the major leagues of American military history writers. Neptune’s Inferno is solid proof he deserves to be there.” –Dallas Morning News  </p><p>“Hornfischer (Ship of Ghosts) understands the human dynamics of the U.S. Navy in the Pacific war…[he] gives an empathetic but balanced account…[reconstructing] the fighting in a masterful synthesis of technical analysis, operational narrative, and tales of courage.” –Publishers Weekly   </p><p>“Outstanding… The author offers balanced assessments of the leaders on both sides, but the real heroes are the American bluejackets, who too often paid with suffering and death for those leaders’ slowness to learn. And as in his first two books, the author’s narrative gifts and excellent choice of detail give an almost Homeric quality to the men who met on the sea in steel titans.” –Booklist (starred review)  </p><p>“This work's major strengths are its careful organization, readable prose, and...well-reasoned conclusions. Depictions of battles and ships are enlivened with...apt comments from participants and relevant character sketches of the key figures.” –Proceedings Magazine  </p><p>“Neptune’s Inferno is an exceptional piece of military history. Hornfischer has broadened and deepened our understanding of the U.S. Navy’s role in the Solomons campaign in this eminently readable account of the bloody naval battles of attrition in the fall of 1942 that doomed the Imperial Japanese Navy to defeat and irrevocably shifted the strategic initiative in the Pacific War.” —Dr. Peter R. Mansoor, colonel, U.S. Army (ret.), Gen. Raymond E. Mason Jr. Chair in Military History, The Ohio State University  </p>


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<div><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The special-ops trained scientists of Sigma Force battle the criminals of the shadowy Guild in bestseller Rollins's lively third Sigma Force thriller (after <em>Black Order</em>). An ancient and deadly plague, the Judas Strain (which afflicted Marco Polo), has suddenly re-emerged. Gray Pierce, a Sigma operative, and Seichan, a Guild defector, pursue clues to the nature of the plague to the Vatican, Istanbul (with a fine shootout in the Hagia Sophia mosque), Marco Polo's tomb and, finally, Cambodia's Angkor Wat. Meanwhile, Guild members hijack a cruise ship full of plague victims (to provide experimental subjects for the weaponizing of the plague), and Gray's parents are taken hostage (though the senior Grays prove feistier than their kidnappers reckon). Sophisticated the plot isn't, but Rollins includes more than enough action and suspense to keep readers turning pages. <em>8-city author tour. (July)</em> <br>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>The crack, ultrasecret Sigma Force team returns in another adventure that, as usual, unfolds at breakneck speed. Sigma Force, made up of former Special Forces officers trained as experts in various scientific fields ("killer scientists," one of their number calls them), scours the world for technologies that could help or threaten the U.S. This time the group's mission involves a devastating bacteriological plague, a mysterious cryptogram that may predate humanity, and the deadly truth about what happened after Marco Polo's expedition to China. After a handful of Sigma Force novels, Rollins has fine-tuned the formula to precision: characters rendered in broad strokes, punchy dialogue, short paragraphs that propel us headlong through the story. The novels are like prose versions of comic books, or lightly fleshed out movie treatments. But this is not a criticism, at least not completely. The books' style perfectly matches their subject matter, and it's impossible not to be swept up by their energy and excitement. Action/adventure fans unfamiliar with Rollins' work should be emphatically urged to read this series. <em>David Pitt</em><br><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>

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<div><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Don't let the revision process intimidate you any longer. Discover how to successfully transform your first draft into a polished final draft readers won't be able to forget.</p><p>In Write Great Fiction: Revision &amp; Self-Editing, James Scott Bell draws on his experience as a novelist and instructor to provide specific revision tips geared toward the first read-through, as well as targeted self-editing instruction focusing on the individual elements of a novel like plot, structure, characters, theme, voice, style, setting, and endings. You'll learn how to:</p><ul><li>     Write a cleaner first draft right out of the gate using Bell's plotting principles </li> <li>     Get the most out of revision and self-editing techniques by honing your skills with detailed exercises </li> <li>     Systematically revise a completed draft using the ultimate revision checklist that talks you through the core story elements </li></ul><p>Whether you're in the process of writing a novel, have a finished draft you don't know what to do with, or have a rejected manuscript you don't know how to fix, Revision &amp; Self-Editing gives you the guidance you need to write and revise like a pro. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>James Scott Bell is the author of the Write Great Fiction: Plot &amp; Structure and a contributing editor to Writer?s Digest magazine. He is also the author of more than fifteen novels currently teaches fiction writing courses at Pepperdine University and is a regular speaker at writers conferences.  </p><p>www.jamesscottbell.com </p>

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John Truby is one of the most respected and sought-after story consultants in the film industry, and his students have gone on to pen some of Hollywood’s most successful films, including Sleepless in Seattle, Scream, and Shrek. The Anatomy of Story is his long-awaited first book, and it shares all of his secrets for writing a compelling script. Based on the lessons in his award-winning class, Great Screenwriting, The Anatomy of Story draws on a broad range of philosophy and mythology, offering fresh techniques and insightful anecdotes alongside Truby’s own unique approach for how to build an effective, multifaceted narrative. Truby’s method for constructing a story is at once insightful and practical, focusing on the hero’s moral and emotional growth. As a result, writers will dig deep within and explore their own values and worldviews in order to create an effective story. Writers will come away with an extremely precise set of tools to work with—specific, useful techniques to make the audience care about their characters, and that make their characters grow in meaningful ways. They will construct a surprising plot that is unique to their particular concept, and they will learn how to express a moral vision that can genuinely move an audience.The foundations of story that Truby lays out are so fundamental they are applicable—and essential—to all writers, from novelists and short-story writers to journalists, memoirists, and writers of narrative non-fiction. John Truby is Hollywood’s premiere story consultant and founder of Truby’s Writers Studio. He has worked as a story consultant and script doctor for Disney Studios, Sony Pictures, FOX, and HBO, among others, and has taught his 22-Step Great Screenwriting and Genre classes to over 20,000 students worldwide.  John Truby is one of the most respected and sought-after story consultants in the film industry.  His students have gone on to pen some of Hollywood’s most successful films, including Sleepless in Seattle, Scream, and Shrek. His first book, The Anatomy of Story is about the process of writing a compelling script. Based on the lessons in his award-winning class, Great Screenwriting, The Anatomy of Story draws on a broad range of philosophy and mythology and offers techniques and anecdotes alongside Truby’s own approach to developing an effective, multifaceted narrative.  Truby’s method for constructing a story is at once insightful and practical, focusing on the hero’s moral and emotional growth. As a result, writers will explore their own values and worldviews in order to create an effective story. Truby provides a precise set of tools—specific, useful techniques to make the audience care about their characters, and that make their characters grow in meaningful ways. Writers will learn to construct a surprising plot that is unique to their particular concept, and they will learn how to express a moral vision that can genuinely move an audience.The foundations of story that Truby lays out are applicable to all writers, from novelists and short-story writers to journalists, memoirists, and writers of narrative non-fiction. "If you're ready to graduate from the boy-meets-girl league of screenwriting, meet John Truby . . . [His lessons draw] epiphanies that make you see the contours of your psyche as sharply as your script."—LA Weekly "A veritable bible for screenwriters."—Backstage   "If you're ready to graduate from the boy-meets-girl league of screenwriting, meet John Truby . . . [His lessons draw] epiphanies that make you see the contours of your psyche as sharply as your script."—LA Weekly "The Anatomy Of Story is concrete and practical without resorting to simplistic 'Three Act Structure' screenwriting clichés. It will be an indispensable guide to writing your first great script. Then, the perfect survival manual to help you negotiate the often confusing, contradictory and cutthroat world of professional screenwriting."—Larry Wilson, co-writer and co-producer of Beetlejuice and co-writer of The Addams Family "Hollywood story consultant Truby commits his vast knowledge of screenwriting and storytelling to the page in this handy guide for aspiring writers of all types. Truby delves into the setup, from basic structure to the premise and the depth behind it. From there, he moves into character, emphasizing the importance of not only the hero but also the characters in the story who aid and oppose him. Truby illustrates the importance of setting to the story and how careful plotting is needed to weave the elements of the story together. He cautions that plot is not incidental and requires careful management and timely revelations. Although most of his examples are from movies, such as Tootsie, The Godfather, and Star Wars, Truby also draws from novels and plays, and his advice is applicable not only to the hopeful screenwriter but to the aspiring novelist as well. A comprehensive guide to writing stories of all kinds, Truby's tome is invaluable to any writer looking to put an idea to paper."—Kristine Huntley, Booklist


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<div><h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Jonathan Franzen's exhilarating novel <em>The Corrections</em> tells a spellbinding story with sexy comic brio, and evokes a quirky family akin to Anne Tyler's, only bitter. Franzen's great at describing Christmas homecomings gone awry, cruise-ship follies, self-deluded academics, breast-obsessed screenwriters, stodgy old farts and edgy Tribeca bohemians equally at sea in their lives, and the mad, bad, dangerous worlds of the Internet boom and the fissioning post-Soviet East. </p><p>All five members of the Lambert family get their due, as everybody's lives swirl out of control. Paterfamilias Alfred is slipping into dementia, even as one of his inventions inspires a pharmaceutical giant to revolutionize treatment of his disease. His stubborn wife, Enid, specializes in denial; so do their kids, each in an idiosyncratic way. Their hepcat son, Chip, lost a college sinecure by seducing a student, and his new career as a screenwriter is in peril. Chip's sister, Denise, is a chic chef perpetually in hot water, romantically speaking; banker brother Gary wonders if his stifling marriage is driving him nuts. We inhabit these troubled minds in turn, sinking into sorrow punctuated by laughter, reveling in Franzen's satirical eye: </p><blockquote><p>Gary in recent years had observed, with plate tectonically cumulative anxiety, that population was continuing to flow out of the Midwest and toward the cooler coasts.... Gary wished that all further migration [could] be banned and all Midwesterners encouraged to revert to eating pasty foods and wearing dowdy clothes and playing board games, in order that a strategic national reserve of cluelessness might be maintained, a wilderness of taste which would enable people of privilege, like himself, to feel extremely civilized in perpetuity. </p></blockquote><p>Franzen is funny and on the money. This book puts him on the literary map. <em>--Tim Appelo</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>If some authors are masters of suspense, others postmodern verbal acrobats, and still others complex-character pointillists, few excel in all three arenas. In his long-awaited third novel, Franzen does. Unlike his previous works, The 27th City (1988) and Strong Motion (1992), which tackled St. Louis and Boston, respectively, this one skips from city to city (New York; St. Jude; Philadelphia; Vilnius, Lithuania) as it follows the delamination of the Lambert family Alfred, once a rigid disciplinarian, flounders against Parkinson's-induced dementia; Enid, his loyal and embittered wife, lusts for the perfect Midwestern Christmas; Denise, their daughter, launches the hippest restaurant in Philly; and Gary, their oldest son, grapples with depression, while Chip, his brother, attempts to shore his eroding self-confidence by joining forces with a self-mocking, Eastern-Bloc politician. As in his other novels, Franzen blends these personal dramas with expert technical cartwheels and savage commentary on larger social issues, such as the imbecility of laissez-faire parenting and the farcical nature of U.S.-Third World relations. The result is a book made of equal parts fury and humor, one that takes a dry-eyed look at our culture, at our pains and insecurities, while offering hope that, occasionally at least, we can reach some kind of understanding. This is, simply, a masterpiece. Agent, Susan Golomb. (Sept.)Forecast: Franzen has always been a writer's writer and his previous novels have earned critical admiration, but his sales haven't yet reached the level of, say, Don DeLillo at his hottest. Still, if the ancillary rights sales and the buzz at BEA are any indication, The Corrections should be his breakout book. Its varied subject matter will endear it to a genre-crossing section of fans (both David Foster Wallace and Michael Cunningham contributed rave blurbs) and FSG's publicity campaign will guarantee plenty of press. QPB main, BOMC alternate. Foreign rights sold in the U.K., Denmark, Holland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Spain. Nine-city author tour.</p><p>Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.</p>

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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>With more than 120 writing exercises, this l earn-by-doing guide is designed to help students improve and expand their fiction according to individual needs and sche dules. ' </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>Josip Novakovich is the author of a novel (April Fool's Day, HarperCollins), three story collections (Infidelities: Stories of War and Lust, Yolk and Salvation and Other Disasters), two collections of narrative essays (Plum Brandy: Croatian Journeys and Apricots from Chernobyl), and was anthologized in Best American Poetry, Pushcart Prize, and O. Henry Prize Stories. He has received the Whiting Writer?s Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. Razor-sharp writing, laugh-out-loud humor, and a sturdy plot combine to make Thomson's sequel to Once a Spy a real treat for thriller fans tired of more of the same old same old. Charlie Clark has left his life as an inveterate gambler far behind as he and girlfriend Alice go on the lam in Switzerland from Alice's employer, the NSA, and a special CIA black ops unit known as Cavalry. The real star of the group is Charlie's father, Drummond Clark, who after a career as a CIA agent is sinking into the throes of early Alzheimer's, but who's able, when the occasion demands, to revive his old skills and save their skins. The plot surrounds the sale to terrorists of a small nuclear bomb disguised as a washing machine. The nonstop action and quirky, engaging characters will leave readers eager for the next installment and the next and the next. (Mar.) <br />(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p><em></em>PRAISE FOR _TWICE A SPY_:  </p><p><em></em>"[Thomson] writes fluid, vivid prose, good dialogue and first-rate action scenes."<br />—_The_ <em>Washington Post</em>  </p><p>"Razor-sharp writing, laugh-out-loud humor, and a sturdy plot combine to make [Twice a Spy] a real treat for thriller fans... The nonstop action and quirky, engaging characters will leave readers eager for the next installment and the next and the next."<br />—_Publishers Weekly, _starred review  </p><p>"Buoyant, fast and fun... Thomson again hits a sweet spot in this highly original thriller, balancing gripping action sequences with humor a step or two above what you'd expect from the genre."<br />—_Kirkus_   </p><p><strong>PRAISE FOR <em>ONCE A SPY</em>:</strong>  </p><p>“It takes a huge talent to blow dust from the corners of today’s comfortable thriller genre. Keith Thomson has that talent, in spades.” —Lincoln Child, author of <em>Deep Storm</em>  </p><p>“_Once a Spy_ is the most enjoyable book I’ve read this year. Utterly original, it is an adrenaline-fueled concoction of sidesplitting humor and genuine suspense. What a find! I can’t imagine not loving this gem of a novel.” —Christopher Reich, author of <em>Rules of Deception</em>  </p><p>“First-novelist Thomson has his tongue firmly in cheek in this clever, engaging, and frenetic tale . . . His knowledge of spooks’ tools, techniques, and mind-sets builds verisimilitude . . . A terrifically entertaining thriller.” —_Booklist_</p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>As seen on film and TV, the Phantom Zone where Superman's enemies are exiled is insubstantial and two-dimensional, much like this chronicle of the death of the cape-clad hero's home planet. Best known for sweeping space opera (the Seven Suns series; <em>Sandworms of Dune</em>), Anderson briskly and blandly narrates these events as if voicing a news documentary, completely removing the tension from otherwise dramatic turns of fate. After young artist Lara rescues gifted scientist Jor-El from the Zone, their courtship is lost among a host of fragmentary subplots and minor characters with names pulled straight from the acknowledgments page. Would-be dictator Zod, who twirls his mustache in mostly solitary musings for nearly half the book, disconcertingly insists on conducting the wedding before descending into tiresome megalomania. Frustrated Superman fans will wish that Anderson had instead expanded on Lara's brief private account of Zod's ascendance and Krypton's destruction. <em>(Oct.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Everyone knows how Kal-El—Superman—was sent to Earth just before his planet exploded. But what led to such a disaster? Now, in <em>The Last Days of Krypton</em>, Kevin J. Anderson presents a sweeping tale of the pomp and grandeur, the intrigue and passion, and the politics and betrayals of a doomed world filled with brave heroes and cruel traitors. </p><p>Against the spectacular backdrop of Krypton's waning halcyon days, there is the courtship and marriage of Kal-El's parents, the brilliant scientist Jor-El and his historian wife, Lara. Together they fight to convince a stagnant, disbelieving society that their world is about to end. Jor-El's brother, Zor-El, leader of the fabled Argo City, joins the struggle not only to save the planet but also to fight against the menace of the ruthless and cunning General Zod. </p><p>The diabolical Zod, future archenemy of Superman, avails himself of a golden opportunity to seize power when the android Brainiac captures the capital city of Kandor. As Zod's grip on the populace tightens and his power grows, he too is blind to all the signs that point to the death of the very civilization he is trying to rule. </p><p>Through all of this, Jor-El and Lara's love for each other, their history, and their son allows for Krypton to live on even as the planet is torn apart around them. For in the escape of their baby lies Krypton's greatest gift—and Earth's greatest hero. </p><p><em>The Last Days of Krypton</em> is a timeless, ground-breaking exploration of a world that has never been fully defined, and reveals the extraordinary origins of a legend that has never ceased to amaze and astound generation after generation. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p><em>Starred Review.</em> This stunning second novel from Desai (_Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard_) is set in mid-1980s India, on the cusp of the Nepalese movement for an independent state. Jemubhai Popatlal, a retired Cambridge-educated judge, lives in Kalimpong, at the foot of the Himalayas, with his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, and his cook. The makeshift family's neighbors include a coterie of Anglophiles who might be savvy readers of V.S. Naipaul but who are, perhaps, less aware of how fragile their own social standing is—at least until a surge of unrest disturbs the region. Jemubhai, with his hunting rifles and English biscuits, becomes an obvious target. Besides threatening their very lives, the revolution also stymies the fledgling romance between 16-year-old Sai and her Nepalese tutor, Gyan. The cook's son, Biju, meanwhile, lives miserably as an illegal alien in New York. All of these characters struggle with their cultural identity and the forces of modernization while trying to maintain their emotional connection to one another. In this alternately comical and contemplative novel, Desai deftly shuttles between first and third worlds, illuminating the pain of exile, the ambiguities of post-colonialism and the blinding desire for a "better life," when one person's wealth means another's poverty. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Desai's second novel is set in the nineteen-eighties in the northeast corner of India, where the borders of several Himalayan states—Bhutan and Sikkim, Nepal and Tibet—meet. At the head of the novel's teeming cast is Jemubhai Patel, a Cambridge-educated judge who has retired from serving a country he finds "too messy for justice." He lives in an isolated house with his cook, his orphaned seventeen-year-old granddaughter, and a red setter, whose company Jemubhai prefers to that of human beings. The tranquillity of his existence is contrasted with the life of the cook's son, working in grimy Manhattan restaurants, and with his granddaughter's affair with a Nepali tutor involved in an insurgency that irrevocably alters Jemubhai's life. Briskly paced and sumptuously written, the novel ponders questions of nationhood, modernity, and class, in ways both moving and revelatory. <br />Copyright © 2006 </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Yi Fan's tightly woven story delivers a manifest message promoting peace and freedom. Starring woodland bird characters, the saga pits the tyrannical hawk Turnatt, captor of "slavebirds" whom he shackles and puts to work building his fortress, against the cardinals and blue jays. Though once friendly, these two benign flocks are now at war: Turnatt's soldiers have stolen eggs and food from each flock (the hawk eats a purloined egg daily, believing this will "keep death away"), and have led each camp to believe the other is responsible for the thefts. One of the slavebirds, a robin named Miltin, escapes to tell Aska, a brave young jay, about Turnatt's evil doings and his plan to enslave all the local woodbirds. Blue jays and cardinals join forces to vanquish the despot, a mission that entails several diverting twists, including a search for the necessary elements to summon the Swordbird, the "mystical white bird, the son of the Great Spirit." The author occasionally relieves the tale's ample tension with snippets of humor. While feasting with a traveling troupe of winged thespians, for instance, the cardinals and blue jays drive away Turnatt's marauding forces by bombarding them with bean soup and raspberry pies. Experienced readers will recognize the familiar allegory here, but the book will likely appeal to Redwall fans, and this young writer is worth watching. Ages 8-12. <em>(Feb.) </em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Grade 4–6—The Stone-Run Country is in peril. The blue jays' Bluewingle tribe and their former friends, the cardinals of the Sunrise tribe, have gone to war. Each side believes the other to have stolen its food and eggs, little suspecting the malicious hawk, Turnatt, along with his hoard of crows and ravens. Now he is intent on forcing all of the local woodbirds to work on his magnificent fortress, and it's up to a variety of brave avians to upset the villain's plans. Their only hope lies in summoning the great warrior, Swordbird, to assist them in their time of need. Fan wrote the book when she was 11 as a response to a world at war; it goes without saying that she is very talented. However, the book essentially reuses old tropes in a new setting, making the plot, pacing, and characters more than a little predictable and, for all of its charms, the story is overly familiar. Dialogue runs to the clunky with lines like, "I'll get you, me and my crew will" and "You'll pay for that, scalawag!" The greatest credit should be given to the illustrator, who took the author's imagery and made it believable as well as attractive.—_Elizabeth Bird, New York Public Library_ <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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<h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Grade 4–6—In this good-versus-evil story, a prequel to <em>Swordbird</em> (HarperCollins, 2007), readers see a legend taking shape as evil forces attempt to conquer the inhabitants of a bird world. Prophecy says a hero will emerge on Hero's Day, but no one knows who it will be. Scattered in unknown regions of the world lay strategically placed Leasorn gems that hold clues to where the hero's sword waits. It is up to the hero to discover where and to retrieve it. The archaeopteryxes, an army of birds intent on cruelty and destruction, support the desires of the villainous leaders. Maldeor, a leader with a batlike wing forged from evil magic, has cast his eye toward claiming the sword. But unlikely birds lay down their lives to uncover the clues so they might save the sword for its true master. Fleydur, eagle prince of the Skythunder tribe, Stormac the mynah, and Ewingerale the woodpecker all play pivotal roles as companions to 013-Unidentified, a dovelike bird trapped as a slave. Readers will find the characters credible and well suited for their roles in this fabled adventure. The tightly crafted story line is nicely executed, but the most important element, and one that truly touches the heart, is the underlying theme of love.—_Robyn Gioia, Bolles School, Ponte Vedra, FL_ <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>In this good-versus-evil story, a prequel to Swordbird (HarperCollins, 2007), readers see a legend taking shape as evil forces attempt to conquer the inhabitants of a bird world. Prophecy says a hero will emerge on Hero's Day, but no one knows who it will be. Scattered in unknown regions of the world lay strategically placed Leasorn gems that hold clues to where the hero's sword waits. It is up to the hero to discover where and to retrieve it. The archaeopteryxes, an army of birds intent on cruelty and destruction, support the desires of the villainous leaders. Maldeor, a leader with a batlike wing forged from evil magic, has cast his eye toward claiming the sword. But unlikely birds lay down their lives to uncover the clues so they might save the sword for its true master. Fleydur, eagle prince of the Skythunder tribe, Stormac the mynah, and Ewingerale the woodpecker all play pivotal roles as companions to 013-Unidentified, a dovelike bird trapped as a slave. Readers will find the characters credible and well suited for their roles in this fabled adventure. The tightly crafted story line is nicely executed, but the most important element, and one that truly touches the heart, is the underlying theme of love. </p><p>--Robyn Gioia, School Library Journal --School Library Journal </p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>" Not since Exodus has there been such a raw powerful story of the Middle East" - Harold Robbins "A first-class suspense thriller" - Harrison E. Salisbury </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Lod Airport, Israel: Two Concorde jets take off for a U.N. conference that will finally bring peace to the Middle East. Covered by F-14 fighters, accompanied by security men, the planes carry warriors, pacifists, lovers, enemies, dignitaries -- and a bomb planted by a terrorist mastermind.  </p><p>Suddenly they're forced to crash-land at an ancient desert site. Here, with only a handful of weapons, the men and women of the peace mission must make a desperate stand against an army of crack Palestinian commandos -- while the Israeli authorities desperately attempt a rescue mission. In a land of blood and tears, in a windswept place called Babylon, it will be a battle of bullets and courage, and a war to the last death. </p>


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'When I was first approached by HBO to use Nelson Johnson's book as the basis for a TV series, my biggest challenge was choosing a time period in which to set it. Ultimately I settled on the 1920s of Atlantic City's legendary treasurer Nucky Johnson. A place of spectacle, shady politics, fast women and backroom deals' -Terence Winter, Emmy Award-winning writer of The Sopranos and Executive Producer of Boardwalk Empire From its humble beginnings as a fledgling seaside resort, Atlantic City grew to be America's playground - loud, brash, and dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure. In 1920 alcohol was banned across the States under Prohibition, yet, thanks to racketeers and corrupt politicians, the liquor in Atlantic City never stopped flowing. As the brothels, bars and gambling rooms flourished, the reputation of both the city itself and its most famous resident grew. Enoch 'Nucky' Johnson was a powerful political force and leading figure in organised crime. His corrupt alliance created a city where the rules just didn't apply, the dollar ruled and the law could be bought. The book that inspired the HBO series, Boardwalk Empire brings to life Nucky and the whole cast of his shady associates. Recounting the life of this fascinating city and its most colourful residents, it's a brilliantly told story of a city built on cards and dice, booze and broads.


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<h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Grade 9 Up—Todd Hewitt lives in a world in which all women are dead, and the thoughts of men and animals are constantly audible as Noise. Graphically represented by a set of scratchy fonts and sentence fragments that run into and over each other, Noise is an oppressive chaos of words, images, and sounds that makes human company exhausting and no thought truly private. The history of these peculiar circumstances unfolds over the course of the novel, but Ness's basic world-building is so immediately successful that readers, too, will be shocked when Todd and his dog, Manchee, first notice a silence in the Noise. Realizing that he must keep the silence secret from the town leaders, he runs away, and his terrified flight with an army in pursuit makes up the backbone of the plot. The emotional, physical, and intellectual drama is well crafted and relentless. Todd, who narrates in a vulnerable and stylized voice, is a sympathetic character who nevertheless makes a few wrenching mistakes. Manchee and Aaron, a zealot preacher, function both as characters and as symbols. Tension, suspense, and the regular bombardment of Noise are palpable throughout, mitigated by occasional moments of welcome humor. The cliff-hanger ending is unexpected and unsatisfying, but the book is still a pleasure for sophisticated readers comfortable with the length and the bleak, literary tone.—_Megan Honig, New York Public Library_ <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p><em>Starred Review</em> Chased by a madman preacher and possibly the rest of his townsfolk as well, young Todd Hewitt flees his settlement on a planet where war with the natives has killed all the women and infected the men with a germ that broadcasts their thoughts aloud for all to hear. This cacophanous thought-cloud is known as Noise and is rendered with startling effectiveness on the page. The first of many secrets is revealed when Todd discovers an unsettling hole in the Noise, and quickly realizes that he lives in a much different world than the one he thought he did. Some of the central conceits of the drama can be hard to swallow, but the pure inventiveness and excitement of the telling more than make up for it. Narrated in a sort of pidgin English with crack dramatic and comic timing by Todd and featuring one of the finest talking-dog characters anywhere, this troubling, unforgettable opener to the Chaos Walking trilogy is a penetrating look at the ways in which we reveal ourselves to one another, and what it takes to be a man in a society gone horribly wrong. The cliffhanger ending is as effective as a shot to the gut. Grades 8-12. --Ian Chipman </p>


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<h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Gr 9 Up–The first word of this conclusion to the trilogy is "war," and war between various factions takes up much of this book. The action begins immediately and is told from two and then three viewpoints with no backstory that might bring readers new to the series up to speed. Todd and Viola attempt to persuade Mayor Prentiss and Mistress Coyle, respectively, that peace is the better path to the future, peace with one another and with the vast army of Spackles that looms above the valley. Unfortunately, the Mayor and Mistress only want peace that comes with victory for their faction. A scout ship arrives from the approaching convoy of colonists, changing the balance of power. The Mayor uses his "Noise," the ability that male humans and all of the Spackle have to communicate mentally, to control his army and to influence Todd. Mistress Coyle and the other mistresses shelter under the protection of the scout ship and work to cure the infection of the bands that threaten the lives of many of the women, including Viola. Ness distinguishes his various narrators by the use of different fonts, further distinguishing Todd with a select few words misspelled. This is a complex and engrossing work that series fans will devour but which may be impenetrable to those who haven't read the earlier volumes._Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, WI_<br />© Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. </p><h3>From</h3><p><em>Starred Review</em> Ness, a forceful writer who chews through ideas at a blistering clip, takes on war, the heftiest of human follies, in the conclusion to his Chaos Walking trilogy. The genocidal tyrant Mayor Prentiss leads an army on one side, the terrorist healer Mistress Coyle heads a band of revolutionaries on another, and a massive legion of native Spackle threatens from a third. All three sides see only the complete annihilation of the others as the sole option for victory and survival, and they might be right, no matter how Todd and Viola use their formidable wills to advance peace as an influx of new colonists nears. It’s a thick book, approaching Russian-novel territory, but it rarely feels bloated; and readers invested in the story will likely concede that Ness has earned the space. His rapid-fire litany of impossible choices makes for captivating thought fodder, and what has already been a potent display of the power of voice to drive, amplify, and transform a story gets a third, unexpected soloist. And in so doing he shows just how deep and complex, as well as how versatile, a symbolic narrative device like Noise can be. For all the huge themes mauling at each other, though, it’s the characters that ultimately stand out in this final act—the connections that bind them and change them and ruin them and redeem them. This is science fiction at its best, and is a singular fusion of brutality and idealism that is, at last, perfectly human. Grades 9-12. --Ian Chipman </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>_The Lady has spoken to me.  </p><p>It has already begun_.  </p><p>Shadows move out of the shrinking desert, south to the rich and arrogant cities of Sembia.  </p><p>_“Be brave, little man,” says the shadowman, and the boy thinks his voice is surprisingly soft. “Stay with your mother. This will be over soon.”  </p><p>The shadows swallow him and he is gone.<br />_<br />On the edge of a war that will change the face of Faerûn, the world will find that not all shadows serve Shade. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>The invasion of the arch-wizards is on!  </p><p>The archwizards of Shade Enclave have come out of the desert with a message of peace, and an act of war. Split by petty disputes and causeless feuds, the merchant realm of Sembia is wide open for invasion, and with no shortage of Sembians more than happy to sell out to the Shadovar, can only one man--even if that man is Erevis Cale--do anything to stop it? </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>PAUL S. KEMP is a lawyer who lives in Michigan with his wife and twin sons. </p>


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<div><h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>In 1905, Stanley McCormick, heir to East Coast millions, is most definitely mad. Heredity and an early, horrifying glimpse of his naked sister have rendered him schizophrenic, incapable of being around women--right down to his wife, Katherine, "a newlywed who might as well have been a widow." Not even the dawn of modern psychiatry can save him. Instead, he's barred and carefully cosseted in Riven Rock, the California estate he helped design for his sister, the first of the McCormicks to crack. Will the 31-year-old patient be cured? His wife, the first female graduate of MIT, believes that he will. So, too, does his loyal head nurse, Eddie O'Kane, a preternaturally articulate, handsome Boston Irishman. Indeed, Eddie thinks himself blessed with good luck. Going to Montecito to care for Mr. McCormick will, he is convinced, enable him to take center stage in the drama of his own life. </p><p>Over the next 20 years, Stanley will go from catatonia to a semblance of normality (so long as there's no woman in sight and no sharp cutlery on the table). Eddie, however, will never play the leading role he'd envisioned, instead taking refuge in alcohol and recollections of the one woman he thinks he has let get away, the plainspoken, explosive Giovannella Dimucci. When Eddie first describes his patient's violent response to women, "he wondered if he'd gone too far, if he'd shocked her, but the mask dissolved and she leaned in close, her hand on his elbow. 'Sounds like the average man to me.'" As for Katherine McCormick, she will still visit every Christmas, hoping to at least see her husband if she can't see him get better. </p><p>Based on a true story, <em>Riven Rock</em> is unclassifiable, a discomforting and often hilarious mix of tragedy and comedy. (Only </p><p>Boyle has great empathy, but there is no avoiding his novel's comic energy. Stanley's first psychiatrist-jailer, Dr. Hamilton, is obsessed with primate sexuality and will go to Riven Rock only if Katherine funds a large living laboratory. He spends all of his time watching the imprisoned creatures copulate, a pathetic counterpoint to his patient's plight. The sight of the disheveled doctor following one animal encounter amuses even the suspicious Katherine. "To his credit, the doctor laughed too. And O'Kane, the bruiser, who'd gone absolutely pale at the tiny hominoids that couldn't have weighed a twentieth of what he did, joined in, albeit belatedly and with a laugh that trailed off into a whinny." Alas, all goes awry when Hamilton takes the joke too far and declares his chimps "the very devils--they're even worse than my patients." <em>Riven Rock</em> is a maximum-velocity study of love, primal energy, and what is sacrosanct in society: control. It is also about loyalty, absurdity, domesticity, and depravity, all of which, Boyle knows, coexist within the best of souls. </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>When Stanley McCormick, the brilliant but highly strung son of the inventor of the Reaper, marries Boston socialite and MIT graduate Katherine Dexter, the papers call it the wedding of the century. But the marriage is never consummated, and after a disastrous honeymoon, a catatonic Stanley is moved to Riven Rock, a prisonlike mission in Santa Barbara. Diagnosed as a schizophrenic sex maniac, Stanley is to be kept entirely separate from women, including Katherine, who may speak to him only by telephone. Katherine goes on to become a major figure in the burgeoning suffrage movement and even smuggles a steamer trunk full of contraceptives into the country in support of Margaret Sanger, but she never divorces her husband or gives up hoping for a cure. Riven Rock resembles The Road to Wellville (LJ 3/15/93) in its send-up of medical quackery in the early years of the century, but here the fact-based love story takes precedence over satire. This affecting and surprisingly mature novel is Boyle's best book since Water Music (1981). Recommended for most fiction collections.<br><em>-?Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles</em><br>Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>

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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Bestseller Green (_Kingdom Come_) introduces a tough, appealing hero in his action-packed 12th thriller. Jake Carlson, a correspondent for the tabloid TV news show <em>American Outrage</em>, based in New York City, has softened his hard line a bit after his wife's recent death, but is still capable of going for the jugular when necessary for a hot story. On the home front, to help his preteen adopted son, Sam, get over his grief, Jake agrees to try and track down Sam's biological mother. This simple request goes from bad to worse once pseudo-celebrity Jake starts asking questions about the boy's supposed Albanian roots. After Jake is drugged and shot at, his personal life becomes tabloid fodder as his own colleagues ruthlessly chase down the story. When Sam disappears, Jake gets serious and sets out to do whatever it takes to bring his son back, regardless of who pays the price. Green's tale is ripe with irony and full of barbs. <em>(Apr.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Sure, Jake Carlson is making big bucks as a reporter on the tabloid news show I^ American Outrage, but the former foreign correspondent is ashamed of his job, and his personal life is a mess, too. Widowed for a year, he's struggling to keep his 13-year-old adopted son, Sam, on the straight and narrow. Jake finds a renewed sense of purpose, though, when Sam convinces him to help find his birth mother. He knows the hunt will be difficult, but he doesn't realize just how challenging until he starts asking questions. The head of the agency Jake used for the adoption had died, and there's no trace of the agency, which had been operating slightly under the radar, funneling babies from Albania to the U.S. for couples desperate for children. As Jake attempts to tie his investigation into a story to bolster his waning popularity at I^ American Outrage, he and Sam become the target of violence and revenge. Genre veteran Green hits his stride here, with his best novel since his early football thrillers (I^ Outlaws, 1996). <em>Mary Frances Wilkens</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>One imagines many readers are still absorbing The Writer and the World, Naipaul's magisterial collection of deeply opinionated global political reports and cultural meditations that was released last August, covering the last four decades of the Nobel laureate's nonfiction work. The paperback of Writer pubs a month before this book, which collects Naipaul's literary prose, a mixed bag including everything from reminiscences of his laconic childhood approach toward writing to his 1983 foreword to his celebrated 1961 novel, A House for Mr. Biswas. Indeed, the most substantial piece here, "Prologue to an Autobiography," is also 20 years old and also previously published, as are the other 10 entries here. All touch on Naipaul's Trinidadian upbringing and coming-of-age or his adult writing life in one way or another; together, they form a literary autobiography that has its apotheosis in the most recent piece, Naipaul's 2001 Nobel lecture, "Two Worlds," which notes, "When I began I had no idea of the way ahead. I wished only to do a book." He has done many; this book is for readers interested in their sources.<br />Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From</h3><p>"I have trusted to intuition," Naipaul confides in "Two Worlds," his elegant and poignant 2001 Nobel Prize lecture, one jewel among many in this engrossing collection of four decades' worth of literary and autobiographical essays, a companion volume to <em>The Writer and the World</em> [BKL My 1 02]. Naipaul has also obeyed his unceasing need to understand life as lived outside the confines of the immigrant Indian community in the village of Chaguanas, Trinidad, in which he grew up. His sharp reminiscences reveal the source of his unflinching, often controversial analyses of cultural assumptions, the politics of prejudice, and the unreliability of history as he considers the confounding disconnection between his early desire to be a writer and his inability to lose himself in books because what he read had so little to do with his life. In writing about his painful struggle to find his writing voice, Oxford-educated Naipaul considers the legacy of imperialism and relates the incredibly moving story of his father, a self-taught writer. Naipaul's vigorous interpretations of Conrad, Dickens, and R. K. Narayan, and candid self-disclosure cogently explicate the mysterious call to write and celebrate the radiance literature brings to lives otherwise relegated to the shadows. <em>Donna Seaman</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<div><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>An intriguing, 200-year-old mystery propels this multilayered stand-alone from British author McDermid set in England's Lake District. Scholar Jane Gresham pursues her theory that HMS <em>Bounty</em> mutineer Fletcher Christian returned secretly from exile to his homeland in the late 18th century. A shriveled body found in a bog seems to bear resemblance to this dashing hero, right down to the South Sea tattoos that blacken his buttocks. Jane searches relentlessly for a lost manuscript by the poet Wordsworth that relates Christian's tale in tantalizing excerpts between chapters. Various subplots complicate her quest, including a fraught friendship with precocious 13-year-old Tenille, a lonely, mixed-race girl who also loves Romantic poetry. With a feminist, socially conscious spin, McDermid (_The Distant Echo_) vividly contrasts marginal subsistence in London's dismal Marshpool neighborhood with the Lake District's bucolic lifestyle. Boasting blurbs from such notable authors as Harlan Coben, Tess Gerritsen and Joseph Finder, this could be McDermid's break-out book. <em>100,000 printing; author tour. (Feb.)</em> <br>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Adult/High School—During an English summer of record-breaking rains, a peat bog in the Lake District opens to reveal a 200-year-old body bearing South Pacific island tattoos. The area, home to Romantic poets, is where Jane Gresham, Wordsworth scholar, grew up, and she finds her interest piqued by the news. She has long believed that Fletcher Christian, HMS <em>Bounty</em> mutineer, didn't die on Pitcairn Island but returned to England. She has theorized that Christian recounted his adventures to his old schoolmate Wordsworth, who wrote them down, and those documents and a related poem, now worth millions, lay forgotten in a local home. In the race to retrieve the valuable manuscripts, Jane finds herself competing against sinister forces that would stop at nothing, including murder, to reach them first. The suspenseful story and its subplots, which include Jane's friendship with 13-year-old poetry-loving Tenille, who lives in Jane's London public housing project, create an absorbing thriller. McDermid establishes a strong sense of place in the atmospheric and pastoral Lake District that contrasts sharply with the sprawling housing project. Historical and literary references to Wordsworth's life and work and to the South Pacific adventures of the <em>Bounty</em> mutineers all help to make this novel come alive. Teens will enjoy the lively characters, brisk pace, and careful unraveling of the centuries-old mystery with its satisfactory conclusion.—_Susanne Bardelson, Kitsap Regional Library, WA_ <br>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>

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<h3>Review</h3><p>"A skilled narrator with great powers of witty invention.... William Boyd has established himself as an accomplished and adventurous writer."?_The New York Times Book Review_ -- <em>Review</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Wiliam Boyd, winner of the Whitbread and Somerset Maugham Awards, introduces unlikely heroes desperate to redeem their unsatisfying lives.  </p><p>From California poolsides to the battlegrounds of Vietnam, here is a world populated by weary souls who turn to fantasy as their sole escape from life's inequities. Stranded in an African hotel during a coup, an oafish Englishman impresses a young stewardess with stories of an enchanted life completely at odds with his sordid existence in "The Coup." In the title story, an arrogant, sadistic American pilot in Vietnam underestimaets the power of revenge when he relentlessly persecutes a member of his maintenance crew. With droll humor and rare compassion, Boyd's enthralling stories remind us of his stature as one of contemporary fiction's finest storytellers. </p>


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<div><h3>Product Description</h3><blockquote><p>"Come to me–come to me entirely now," said he. "Make my happiness–I will make yours." </p></blockquote><p>Born into a poor family and raised by an oppressive aunt, young Jane Eyre becomes the governess at Thornfield Manor to escape the confines of her life. There her fiery independence clashes with the brooding and mysterious nature of her employer, Mr. Rochester. But what begins as outright loathing slowly evolves into a passionate romance. When a terrible secret from Rochester's past threatens to tear the two apart, Jane must make an impossible choice: Should she follow her heart or walk away and lose her love forever? </p><p>Unabashedly romantic and utterly enthralling, <em>Jane Eyre</em> endures as one of the greatest love stories of all time. This must-have edition of a timeless classic is beautifully presented for a modern teen audience. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>Charlotte BrontË was born in 1816 and grew up in a family that had a great passion for literature and talent for writing. She and her two sisters, Emily and Anne, began writing at young ages and pseudonymously published a collection of poetry in 1846. Immediately following, the sisters transitioned to writing novels, and in 1847 Charlotte published <em>Jane Eyre</em> under the pen name Currer Bell. It was quickly recognized as a work of genius and to this day remains one of English literature's most beloved classics. </p>

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<p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>Here are two thousand years of London's history and folklore, its chroniclers and criminals and plain citizens, its food and drink and countless pleasures. Blackfriar's and Charing Cross, Paddington and Bedlam. Westminster Abbey and St. Martin in the Fields. Cockneys and vagrants. Immigrants, peasants, and punks. The Plague, the Great Fire, the Blitz. London at all times of day and night, and in allkinds of weather. In well-chosen anecdotes, keen observations, and the words of hundreds of its citizens and visitors, Ackroyd reveals the ingenuity and grit and vitality of London. Through a unique thematic tour of thephysical city and its inimitable soul, the city comes alive. "From the Trade Paperback edition."</p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In Schlink's unremarkable stand-alone thriller, the fortunes of Georg Polger, a German living in France who's struggling to make ends meet as a translator, change after he receives an offer of steady employment translating technical manuals. The naïve Polger doesn't suspect anything untoward about the job, even after learning his employer has paid him to duplicate work already done. When he finds that his new lover, Françoise Kramsky, is covertly photographing confidential plans for a new military helicopter, Polger's search for the truth takes him to pre-9/11 New York City, where the plot goes somewhat off the rails. Schlink fails to make the transformation of his colorless, mild-mannered hero into an action figure convincing. Those looking for a more engaging protagonist will find one in the author's detective series featuring Gerald Self (Self's Murder, etc.). (Dec.) <br />(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Georg Polger is down and out in Provence. The translating assignments that pay his bills aren’t coming fast enough. When a new translation firm opens near his village, he finds work, money, and love with Francoise, the firm’s beautiful secretary. Soon, they’re living together, and Georg’s life is perfect. But that changes when he discovers Francoise photographing diagrams of a revolutionary new helicopter that are part of his latest assignment. Francoise disappears, and Georg understands that he’s been a pawn in an espionage operation. Impetuously, Georg travels to New York to find Francoise and try to understand what happened to his perfect life. Schlink, whose Holocaust novel The Reader (1997) was a best-seller, seems bent on defying genre categorization. Individual scenes in this novel might recall Kafka and Camus, but the primary focus is on quotidian events. There’s an espionage element, but naive, self-important Georg is the easiest of marks, and the erratic Francoise is hardly a practiced seductress. In the end, this offbeat, engaging novel is simply the moving story of two flawed people. --Thomas Gaughan </p>


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Hazel Bannock is the heir to the Bannock Oil Corp, one of the major oil producers with global reach. While cruising in the Indian Ocean, Hazel's private yacht is hijacked by African pirates. Hazel is not on board at the time, but her nineteen year old daughter, Cayla, is kidnapped and held to ransom. The pirates demand a crippling twenty billion dollar ransom for her release. Complicated political and diplomatic considerations render the civilized major powers incapable of intervening. When Hazel is given evidence of the horrific torture which Cayla is being subjected to, she calls on Hector Cross to help her rescue her daughter. Hector is the owner and operator of Cross Bow Security, the company which is contracted to Bannock Oil to provide all their security. He is a formidable fighting man. Between them Hazel and Hector are determined to take the law into their own hands.


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#1 New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen provides her trademark blend of seductive romance and pulse-pounding suspense in this classic tale of a woman who unexpectedly finds herself living—and loving—on the edge of danger.   Lisa Landon makes her living with her voice—a voice fueled by a heartbreak she vows never to experience again. But despite her renown, Lisa’s real ambition is to escape the memories that follow her from one sold-out engagement to the next. Perhaps that’s what brings her to the exotic desert nation of Sedikhan and the nightclub where she meets Clancy Donahue.  Clancy takes one look at the beautiful, vulnerable chanteuse and knows she is exactly the woman he’s been searching for. The Sedikhan security chief needs to bait a trap for a terrorist moneyman, and Clancy is certain that Lisa will be irresistible. What he doesn’t count on is that he won’t be able to resist her either—and that he’ll do anything to protect her, even if it means risking his own life. With deadly plans in motion and Lisa in the crosshairs, Clancy realizes that before their romance can get to always, it will first have to reach tomorrow.


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<div><h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>A trio of classic novels in the third omnibus from "the king of hard boiled crime fiction" (_USA Today_). </strong>   </p><p>"There's a kind of power about Mickey Spillane that no other writer can imitate" (_New York Times_), and it's in full force in this collection of three of his greatest Mike Hammer novels:   </p><p><em>The Girl Hunters</em>: Hammer's voluptuous, long-lost love is targeted by the mastermind assassin known as the Dragon.   </p><p><em>The Snake</em>: Protecting a runaway blonde, Hammer trades barbs and lead with crooked politicos, snarling hoods, and sex-hungry females.   </p><p><em>The Twisted Thing</em>: A kidnapping case links Hammer to a fourteen year-old mystery and the most venomous killer the private eye has ever faced. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p><strong>Mickey Spillane</strong> was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1918. Spillane won several awards including the Edgar Allen Poe Grand Master Award. He died in 2006, at his home in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. </p>

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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>At the start of this solid stand-alone from Freeman (Immoral and three other titles in his Duluth, Minn., crime series), former high school teacher Mark Bradley is on vacation in Florida with his wife, Hilary. The previous year, accusations of an affair with a female student ruined Mark's teaching career in Wisconsin's Door County, where he and Hilary had moved to escape Chicago. Even though Tresa Fischer insisted that her crush on Mark was nothing more than that, the tight-knit community shunned the Bradleys and labeled Mark a predator. When 16-year-old Glory, Tresa's wild-child younger sister, turns up dead on a beach near Mark and Hilary's hotel, Mark becomes the number one murder suspect. Det. Cab Bolton, who isn't one to jump to conclusions, travels from Florida to Wisconsin to unravel Mark—and Glory's—complicated lives. Well-developed characters and a thrilling climax help compensate for a plot that relies on too many coincidences. (Apr.) <br />(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Hilary and Mark Bradley are trapped in a web of suspicion. Last year, accusations of a torrid affair with a student cost Mark his teaching job and made the young couple into outcasts in their remote island town off the Lake Michigan coast. Now another teenage girl is found dead on a deserted beach. . . and once again, Mark faces a hostile town convinced of his guilt. </p><p>Hilary Bradley is determined to prove that Mark is innocent, but she’s on a lonely, dangerous quest. Even when she discovers that the murdered girl was witness to a horrific crime years earlier, the police are certain she’s throwing up a smoke screen to protect her husband. Only a quirky detective named Cab Bolton seems willing to believe Hilary’s story. </p><p>Hilary and Cab soon find that people in this community are willing to kill to keep their secrets hidden—and to make sure Mark doesn’t get away with murder. And with each shocking revelation, even Hilary begins to wonder whether her husband is truly innocent. Freeman’s first stand-alone thriller since his Stride novels is a knockout.</p>


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<div><h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><strong>Guest Reviewer: Walter Isaacson on <em>The Social Animal</em></strong>   </p><p>_<strong>Walter Isaacson</strong>, the CEO of the Aspen Institute, has been chairman of CNN and the managing editor of <em>Time</em> magazine. He is the author of __ and of <strong>, and the coauthor of </strong>. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and daughter._</p><p>David Brooks has written an absolutely fascinating book about how we form our emotions and character. Standing at the intersection of brain science and sociology, and writing with the wry wit of a James Thurber, he explores the unconscious mind and how it shapes the way we eat, love, live, vacation, and relate to other people. In <em>The Social Animal</em>, he makes the recent revolution in neuroscience understandable, and he applies it to those things we have the most trouble knowing how to teach: What is the best way to build true relationships? How do we instill imaginative thinking? How do we develop our moral intuitions and wisdom and character? Brooks has always been a keen observer of the way we live. Now he takes us one layer down, to why we live that way.</p><p><em>--Walter Isaacson</em> <em></em><br><em></em></p><p><strong>A Letter from Author David Brooks</strong>   </p><p>© Josh Haner, <em>The New York Times</em>   Several years ago I did some reporting on why so many kids drop out of high school, despite all rational incentives. That took me quickly to studies of early childhood and research on brain formation. Once I started poking around that realm, I found that people who study the mind are giving us an entirely new perspective on who we are and what it takes to flourish.</p><p>We’re used to a certain story of success, one that emphasizes getting good grades, getting the right job skills and making the right decisions. But these scientists were peering into the innermost mind and shedding light on the process one level down, in the realm of emotions, intuitions, perceptions, genetic dispositions and unconscious longings.</p><p>I’ve spent several years with their work now, and it’s changed my perspective on everything. In this book, I try to take their various findings and weave them together into one story.</p><p>This is not a science book. I don’t answer how the brain does things. I try to answer what it all means. I try to explain how these findings about the deepest recesses of our minds should change the way we see ourselves, raise our kids, conduct business, teach, manage our relationships and practice politics. This story is based on scientific research, but it is really about emotion, character, virtue and love. We’re not rational animals, or laboring animals; we’re social animals. We emerge out of relationships and live to bond with each other and connect to larger ideas.</p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>New York Times columnist Brooks (Bobos in Paradise) raids Malcolm Gladwell's pop psychology turf in a wobbly treatise on brain science, human nature, and public policy. Essentially a satirical novel interleaved with disquisitions on mirror neurons and behavioral economics, the narrative chronicles the life cycle of a fictional couple—Harold, a historian working at a think tank, and Erica, a Chinese-Chicana cable-TV executive—as a case study of the nonrational roots of social behaviors, from mating and shopping to voting. Their story lets Brooks mock the affluent and trendy while advancing soft neoconservative themes: that genetically ingrained emotions and biases trump reason; that social problems require cultural remedies (charter schools, not welfare payments); that the class divide is about intelligence, deportment, and taste, not money or power. Brooks is an engaging guide to the "cognitive revolution" in psychology, but what he shows us amounts mainly to restating platitudes. (Women like men with money, we learn, while men like women with breasts.) His attempt to inflate recent research on neural mechanisms into a grand worldview yields little except buzz concepts—"society is a layering of networks"—no more persuasive than the rationalist dogmas he derides. (Mar.) <br>(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </p>

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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><strong>Amazon Exclusive: Oliver Sacks on <em>The Age of Wonder</em></strong>   </p><p>Oliver Sacks is the author of <em>The Age of Wonder</em>:</p><p>I am a Richard Holmes addict. He is an incomparable biographer, but in <em>The Age of Wonder</em>, he rises to new heights and becomes the biographer not of a single figure, but of an entire unique period, when artist and scientist could share common aims and ambitions and a common language--and together create a "romantic," humanist science. We are once again on the brink of such an age, when science and art will come together in new and powerful ways. For this we could have no better model than the lives of William and Caroline Herschel and Humphry Davy, whose dedication and scientific inventiveness were combined with a deep sense of wonder and poetry in the universe. Only Holmes, who is so deeply versed in the people and culture of eighteenth-century science, could tell their story with such verve and resonance for our own time.</p><p>(Photo © Elena Seibert)</p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. The Romantic imagination was inspired, not alienated, by scientific advances, argues this captivating history. Holmes, author of a much-admired biography of Coleridge, focuses on prominent British scientists of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, including the astronomer William Herschel and his accomplished assistant and sister, Caroline; Humphrey Davy, a leading chemist and amateur poet; and Joseph Banks, whose journal of a youthful voyage to Tahiti was a study in sexual libertinism. Holmes's biographical approach makes his obsessive protagonists (Davy's self-experimenting with laughing gas is an epic in itself) the prototypes of the Romantic genius absorbed in a Promethean quest for knowledge. Their discoveries, he argues, helped establish a new paradigm of Romantic science that saw the universe as vast, dynamic and full of marvels and celebrated mankind's power to not just describe but transform Nature. Holmes's treatment is sketchy on the actual science and heavy on the cultural impact, with wide-ranging discussions of the 1780s ballooning craze, Mary Shelley's <em>Frankenstein</em> and scientific metaphors in Romantic poetry. It's an engrossing portrait of scientists as passionate adventurers, boldly laying claim to the intellectual leadership of society. Illus. <em>(July 14)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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Secret instructons written in invisible ink. Cigarettes that fire bullets. Covert communications slipped inside dead rats. Subminature cameras hidden in ballpoint pens. If these sound like the stuff of James Bond's gadget-master Q's trade, think again. They are all real-life devices created by the CIA's Office of Technical Services. Now, in the first book ever written about this ultrasecretive department, the former director of the OTS gives us an unprecedented look at the devices and operations from the history of the CIA - including many deemed 'inappropriate for public disclosure' by the CIA just two years ago. Spycraft tells amazing life and death stories about this little-known group, much of which has never before been revealed. Against the backdrop of some of the most critical international events of recent years - including the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the war on terror - the authors show the real techinical and human story of how the CIA carried out its most secret missions.


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<div><h3>Review</h3><p>"Wonderfully fresh and funny, and among examples of Victorian humor I would place it high in the pantheon, right up there with <em>The Importance of Being Earnest</em> and <em>The Diary of a Nobody</em> . . . triumphantly stands the test of time, with its comic flights of exaggeration, its occasional archness, and its entirely innocent hint of the camp."  <em>—Daily Telegraph</em></p><p>"I fell out of bed laughing at <em>Three Men in a Boat."  —Guardian</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Jerome Klapka Jerome (1859-1927) was an English author, best known for the humorous travelogue Three Men in a Boat. Three Men in a Boat begins: </p><p>THERE were four of us -- George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were -- bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course. </p><p>We were all feeling seedy, and we were getting quite nervous about it. Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of giddiness come over him at times, that he hardly knew what he was doing; and then George said that HE had fits of giddiness too, and hardly knew what HE was doing. With me, it was my liver that was out of order. I knew it was my liver that was out of order, because I had just been reading a patent liver-pill circular, in which were detailed the various symptoms by which a man could tell when his liver was out of order. I had them all. </p><p>It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form. The diagnosis seems in every case to correspond exactly with all the sensations that I have ever felt. </p>

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<h3>Review</h3><p>“Utterly charming and compulsively readable.” <br /><em>—Newsweek</em>  </p><p>“Kindness is paramount . . . Consistently satisfying . . . Genial [and] comforting.” <br /><em>—The Christian Science Monitor </em>  </p><p>“Endearing, amusing . . . Sparkles with African sunshine and wit.” <br /><em>—The Dallas Morning News</em>  </p><p>“Irresistible.” <br /><em>—The New York Times Book Review</em>  </p><p>“Charming, warmly affecting . . . As comfy cozy as can be.” <br /><em>—The Philadelphia Inquirer </em>  </p><p>“The pleasure of these sweet books lies in the clarity and gravity with which the characters reason through everyday dilemmas.” <br /><em>—Entertainment Weekly</em>  </p><p>“The best, most charming, honest, hilarious and life-affirming books to appear in years.” <br /><em>—The Plain Dealer</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>The latest installment in the beloved, best-selling series is once again a beautiful blend of wit and wisdom, and a profoundly touching tale of the human heart.  </p><p>At a remote cattle post south of Gaborone two cows have been killed, and Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s No. 1 Lady Detective, is asked to investigate by a rather frightened and furtive gentleman. It is an intriguing problem with plenty of suspects—including, surprisingly, her own client.  </p><p>To complicate matters, Mma Ramotswe is haunted by a vision of her dear old white van, and Grace Makutsi witnesses it as well. Is it the ghost of her old friend, or has it risen from the junkyard?  In the meantime, one of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s apprentices may have gotten a girl pregnant and, under pressure to marry her, has run away. Naturally, it is up to Precious to help sort things out. Add to the mix Violet Sephotho’s newly launched run for the Botswana Parliament and a pair of perfect wedding shoes—will wedding bells finally ring for Phuti Radiphuti and Grace Makutsi?—and we have a charming and delightful tale in the inimitable style of Alexander McCall Smith.</p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. Edgar-winner Coben's 10th Myron Bolitar novel (after Long Lost) is a perfect 10: providing readers with new information about the past of the former athlete turned agent and owner of MB Reps; a satisfyingly complex mystery; and the always entertaining, sometimes shocking exploits of Bolitar's partner and friend, Windsor Horne Lockwood III (aka Win). Suzze Tervantino, a former tennis prodigy and one of Bolitar's first clients, visits his New York office and shows him a Facebook posting that suggests that her husband, rock star Lex Ryder, isn't the father of the child she's carrying. When Ryder, also a client of MB Reps, disappears, Suzze begs Bolitar to find him. In the process, Bolitar catches a glimpse of his sister-in-law, Kitty, at a crowded nightclub, and begins a search for her and his estranged younger brother, Brad, whom he hasn't seen for 16 years. This explosively fast thriller will leave fans clamoring for more. (Mar.) <br />(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Coben, who has perfected the techno-thriller, in which social media tools are used in ingeniously devious ways (Hold Tight, 2008), has won the trifecta of mystery awards: the Edgar, the Shamus, and the Anthony�and is the only writer to have such a clutch at his command. Here, he returns to his humble roots and resurrects his sports agent and sleuth Myron Bolitar, who appeared in Coben�s debut, Deal Breaker, in 1995, and has starred in nine other novels. Coben may be a little too fond of Bolitar; over the years, he has transformed him from a struggling New Jersey sports agent to a wildly successful superagent who handles all forms of entertainment and, bad news for the reader, is now given to self-indulgent introspection, rumination, and endless dialogue with his sidekick, Win. This overwriting changes the Bolitar novel from spare and lively to a flabby 350-plus pager. A prime example of this work�s need for a less-indulgent author (or editor) is the cringe-inducing scene in which Win appears with two Asian beauties, named Mee and Yu. Bolitar and Win carry on with sophomoric puns and a forecast of sexual activity that is supposed to be hilarious but reads as incredibly insensitive. The plot is fairly standard, involving a client whose husband disappears, with a link to Bolitar�s sister-in-law and estranged brother. Bracing action, a Coben staple, is bogged down by bloated writing. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Coben takes a literary misstep with his return to series character Myron Bolitar, but his name-brand status ensures an audience. --Connie Fletcher </p>


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<div><h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><h3>Product Description</h3><p>In the summer of 1871, thirty-two whaling ships, carrying 12-year-old William Fish Williams, son of a whaling captain, and 1,218 other men, women, and children, were destroyed in an Arctic ice storm. In a rescue operation of unparalleled daring and heroism, not a single life was lost, but the impact on America's first oil industry was fateful and catastrophic.   </p><p>The harvesting of whale oil, which grew from occasional beachcombing into a multi-million dollar industry, made New Bedford, Massachusetts, the wealthiest town in the world. Quaker brothers George and Matthew Howland, the town's leading whaling merchants, believed they were toiling in a pact with God. As whale oil lubricated the industrial revolution and turned New Bedford into the Saudi Arabia of its day, this belief only grew stronger. But as their whaleships pushed ever farther into uncharted seas in putsuit of a fast-diminishing resource, this oil business was overtaken by new paradigms. When the search for cheaper energy sources produced a new and apparently inexhaustible resource--petroleum oil--the Howlands and many others did not see the change coming, or the devastating effect it would have on an industry that has flourished for two centuries. Almost overnight, it seemed, the world changed. Business and financial institutions collapsed. The Howland brothers saw their fortune vanish and ended their lives as paupers.   </p><p>For Willie Fish Williams, and the whalers and their families in the Arctic who watched as their floating community was crushed by the ice closing around them, that change came more swiftly.   </p><p>Drawing on previously unpublished material, <em>Final Voyage</em> splices together two compelling narratives: the Howland brothers' unprecedented rise and sudden fall with the fortunes of America's first oil industry--which eerily prefigures today's modern economic collapse-- and a 12-year-old boy's vivid observation of a maritime disaster set against the world's harshest seascape. <br><strong>Amazon Exclusive: Peter Nichols on the Collapse of the World's First Oil Industry</strong></p><p>As I was completing <em>Final Voyage</em> in the fall of 2008, the domino effect of the world's collapsing economies had begun. It was startling to read daily accounts of financial disasters, of the sudden impoverishment of wealthy institutions and financiers, while writing of the same process taking place one hundred and thirty years earlier.</p><p><em>Final Voyage</em> is in part about the collapse of the world's first oil industry - the whale oil business - and the fall from staggering wealth of the Howland brothers, Matthew and George Jr, of New Bedford, Massachusetts. For much of the 19th century, New Bedford was the Houston of the oil world, and the Howlands were its pre-eminent whaleship owners and oil merchants. At a time when the President of the United States' salary was $25,000, the Howlands were netting around $200,000 annually, with no income tax to pay.</p><p>Like many, then and now, they didn't see what was coming. They wouldn't admit or recognize the inherent instability in their market or its resources, and when the collapse came, they were unprepared.</p><p>After the fall of Lehman Brothers, in September of last year, it was impossible for me not to hear exactly the tone behind the words Matthew Howland wrote in letters to his family: "Hastings has failed." Hastings and Company was a New Bedford whale oil and candle manufacturer, one of the long-term bedrock commercial institutions of the town and its industry. The Howlands, along with many others, were deeply involved in its business and financial health, and they were devastated when Hastings went under. The failure sent shockwaves through their community, yet still the Howlands held fast and continued whaling.</p><p>"The business of America is business" said President Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s. This was as true in the 1880s, the Howlands' time, as it is now. To men like Matthew and George Jr, who defined themselves and their lives by business, failure, insolvency, and finally the complete ruin that overtook them in the space of a decade, was accompanied by a shame akin to moral transgression. Both died paupers, bankrupt.</p><p>Matthew's son, William Howland, made a good start as a textile manufacturer, but when his business also failed, he committed suicide. His son, Llewellyn Howland, had to leave Harvard after a single semester. A lifetime later, Llewellyn described to his grandson - Matthew's great-great grandson, Llewellyn Howland III - how he felt on being forced to withdraw from college because there was no more money for his education: "It was a nasty April day, raining, grey, bitter. I looked out of the train window and saw the old men picking through garbage in South Boston, and the ragged children playing in the streets. God! how it frightened me. The squalor of it, the hopelessness of being poor." The sight held a spectral terror for a Howland that was passed down through generations. "Don't ever forget," Llewellyn told his grandson, "how hard it is to rise, when you're really, truly down." </p><hr><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. Chronicling the downfall of the vast whaling industry developed in New England over the 18th and 19th centuries, author Nichols (A Voyage for Madmen) presents both an illuminating portrait of Quaker life and industry, and a heart-pounding tale of danger on the open sea. Nichols has a rich understanding of the whale oil ("oyl") industry, and recreates the atmosphere of whaling voyages and villages, particularly wealthy New Bedford, Mass., in sensuous detail: "Emissions of greasy particulate settled over the town like a glaze and gave it the permanent odor of burnt flesh and fat." A collection of ships' logbooks and letters from whaling captains give character to the phenomenal victories and challenges the seamen-and their family-faced. There is a lot to admire in the whalers; their captains "were master mariners and navigators, among the canniest and most skillful in human history," and their task enormous. Although death and loss were common in the hunt, the 1871 season recounted here marked the beginning of the end for the oyl industry, a major disaster in which an entire fleet was caught in a diabolical arctic weather system. </p>

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<div><h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><strong>A Letter from Author Sarah Addison Allen</strong>   </p><p><em>She put a penny on her windowsill and cracked the window, because her grandmother once said that ghosts often forget they’re ghosts and will go after money, but if they get close enough to an open window, the night air will suck them out.</em> <br>--Chapter Eight, <em>The Peach Keeper</em></p><p>The original title of <em>The Peach Keeper</em> was <em>God Eats Peaches</em>, which I took from the old saying, “When God eats peaches, He saves the pit.” I had a cousin who would never throw away a peach pit based on that saying. She thought it was bad luck. My family is full of strange Southern superstitions. My great-aunt never liked for company to come in through one door and leave through another because she said that meant the preacher would visit. </p><p>How many of us grew up seeing our mothers throw a pinch of salt over their shoulders when salt was spilled? How many of us remember when our grandmothers whispered that a bird tapping on a window meant someone was going to die? We took these things on trembling faith as children, believing them to be real because <em>everything</em> was real back then. Everything had possibilities. So how do we explain, with our skeptical grown-up natures, why we still make an X in the air when a black cat passes. Why we still have to eat something in the morning before we will tell someone about our bad dreams. Why we still worry about umbrellas being opened indoors. </p><p>What is it about superstitions that stay with us, that encourage us to pass them on? Flights of fancy, maybe. Or nostalgia. Or maybe the power of the unknown is just that strong. We can’t help but think: What if it’s true? <em>What if it just might be true?</em> So we take an ounce of prevention instead of a pound of cure. We knock on wood and avoid ladders and never break mirrors. Just in case. </p><h3>Review</h3><p><em></em>Praise for  _The Peach Keeper  </p><p>_<em></em>Allen juggles smalltown history and mystical thriller, character development and eerie magical realism in a fine Southern gothic drama. The underlying tension will please and unnerve readers, as well as leave them eager for Allen's next. <br>-_Publisher's Weekly_<br><em></em>  </p><p>Praise for Sarah Addison Allen’s <em>The Girl Who Chased the Moon</em><em></em>  </p><p>“Captivating . . . Sarah Addison Allen produces tantalizing fiction.”—_The Roanoke Times_  </p><p>“A dusting of magic, the aroma of sugary cakes swirling through the breeze, and a girl who unwittingly brings change to a town of misfits make for a sweet summer story filled with hope and forgiveness.”—Beth Hoffman, author of <em>Saving CeeCee Honeycutt</em>  </p><p>“Charming and entertaining . . . Don’t miss this spellbinding tale.”—_Asheville Citizen Times__ _  </p><p>“Allen clearly knows that all the fun is in the journey. . . . Sit back, open this book and join her.”—Greensboro _News &amp; Record <br> _<br>“An enjoyable read [with] doses of magical realism and romance.”—Associated Press  </p><p>“Easy to devour in one sitting.” —_The Atlanta Journal-Constitution_</p>

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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett must try to prove that his despised mother-in-law, Missy Alden, isn't guilty of murdering Earl Alden, her fifth husband, in Box's searing 11th Joe Pickett novel (after Nowhere to Run). Pickett's gruesome discovery of Alden's body is followed almost immediately by the stage-managed arrest of Missy by Sheriff Kyle McLanahan. Both Missy and Earl have done plenty to earn the enmity of their neighbors, so Missy's arrest benefits McLanahan's bid for re-election, but Pickett is surprised to find county attorney Lisa Rich already convinced the case is solid. Pickett could use the help of his friend Nate Romanowski, but they are on the outs. Meanwhile, Romanowski, hunted by the widow of a man he killed, finds his withdrawal from the world has endangered others. Box parlays a heady mix of Wyoming politics and the advent of wind power into a deadly brew. This engaging series just keeps getting better with each new entry. Author tour. (Mar.) <br />(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>When Joe Pickett�s mother-in-law is accused of murdering her latest husband, there�s a part of him that can�t believe his good luck: the social-climbing harpy has had it in for him ever since he married his beloved Marybeth. Unfortunately, it�s hard for him to believe she�s guilty. Could a petite woman in her midsixties really hoist a body to the top of a wind turbine and chain it to the spinning blade? What�s her motive, anyway? Reluctantly, the dogged Wyoming game warden begins his own investigation, one that seems to ruffle the feathers of just about everybody involved. The eleventh installment in Box�s superlative series returns Pickett to his old stomping grounds, Twelve Sleep County, and spins a complicated mystery that entangles familiar series characters in new and surprising ways. Despite Joe�s guess that �things are going to get real Western,� they end with a courtroom surprise (�like fuckin� Perry Mason!� as one old-timer observes). But a closing scene promises plenty of action in the next book, featuring fan favorite Nate Romanowski. Box�s many fans won�t be disappointed. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The 75,000-copy first printing may or may not cover all the devoted fans of Box�s long-running series. --Keir Graff </p>


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<div><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Clevenger's second novel (after 2002's <em>The Contortionist's Handbook</em>) opens with a classic grabber: an amnesiac man awakes in jail with a woman's name—Desiree—on his lips. Prodded by a pushy police detective, that man (his name is Eric Ashworth, he's told) must sift through the contents of his drug-addled brain to explain his only memory: "A ball of fire rising from a flaming house. Nails melting like slivers of silent wax. Beams and shingles collapsing into a pile of burning dust...." Released on bail, Eric checks into a flophouse and attempts to separate his ongoing drug hallucinations from reality. To aid him in this quest he turns to the doubtful promise of yet another drug, a powerful hallucinogen known on the street as Skin, Cradle or Derma. Eric's trip toward understanding, as well as the reader's, twists through exotic visions that may or not be real. It's a long, painful process, but eventually Eric puts it all together and learns who he is—and the terrible thing that he's done. This is a sometimes brilliant, heavily stylized novel whose psychedelic prose and labyrinthine story line will enthrall some readers and enrage others. At one point Clevenger counsels both Eric and the reader: "Anything is possible and nothing is possible. They're the same thing." Yes, that's it exactly. <em>(Oct.)</em> <br>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>...reminiscent of William Gibson's work, but Clevenger has his own attitude and a film-noirish literary style that is unique. -- <em>San Francisco Chronicle, August 28, 2005</em>  </p><p>Clevenger’s trademark voice and pace are as good as ever, but the settings are his greatest triumph. -- <em>Santa Barbara Independent, October 6, 2005</em>  </p><p>Dermaphoria advances Clevenger’s dark art, powerfully evoking the paranoia of a man attempting to reconstruct his life. -- <em>San Francisco Magazine, November 2005</em>  </p><p>Gloriously shifty puzzle-fiction whose resolution is much less important than the kaleidoscopic journey towards it. -- <em>Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2005</em></p>

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<div><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Great Lakes historian Schumacher (_Mighty Fitz: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald_) profiles another nautical tragedy. The <em>Carl D. Bradley</em>, a 638-foot limestone carrier, sank to Lake Michigan's cold bottom 50 years ago this November. Known as the "Queen of the Stone-Carrying Fleet," it was the most expensive wreck in the history of the Great Lakes, totaling $8 million. The human cost was far greater, as many of the 33 deceased lived in one city, the ship's port of Rogers City, Mich. Schumacher is a rigorous reporter and researcher, covering the ship's shaky state, the harrowing wreck and risky rescue with assurance and clarity. There are a few missteps, a chapter on the wreck of the <em>Cedarville</em> in 1965 feeling like padding. By profiling the <em>Carl D.</em>'s crew and detailing their lives in Rogers City, Schumacher gives a human face to the tragedy, infusing the book with dramatic substance to match the riveting narrative. <em>(Nov.)</em> <br>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>This chronicle of the November 1958 sinking of the limestone carrier Carl D. Bradley in Lake Michigan is sure to appeal to the many fans of Junger’s The Perfect Storm (1997). Almost the entire crew of 35 died when the ship was literally torn in half during a fierce storm; the book recounts the incident and its tragic aftermath, including a dramatic search-and-rescue effort. It’s a poignant story, made even more poignant by the fact that most of the crew’s families lived in the same small town, Rogers City; this isn’t just a story about a tragedy on the water, but about an entire town coming to terms with the sudden loss of so many of its friends and family. Schumacher, the author of several nonfiction books including Mighty Fitz (2005), about the more famous sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, writes with a steady hand, never letting the drama or emotion of the moment overwhelm the storytelling. A solid and sometimes heartbreaking addition to the maritime-tragedy genre. --David Pitt </p>

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<div><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Taking a position as a trainee in a posh London hair salon may not seem the ideal situation for finding Mr. Right, but this breezy, whimsical novel from best-selling British chick-lit author Mansell (An Offer You Can't Refuse) introduces just such a heroine, Miranda, to a wide range of men, from panhandler to racecar driver, on her way to true love (and true retaliation). In a series of escapades too over-the-top even for Bridget Jones, feisty but accident-prone Miranda joins forces with other unlucky-in-love ladies, including a pregnant woman abandoned by her no-good husband and an aging but still-game landlady with a terminally greedy son. Plotlines and characters interweave with unexpected but satisfying results, including delicious comeuppance for the offending males. Summarizing the girl-power revenge plot, however, fails to do justice to the shenanigans that fill it out, making this a winning read. While Mansell's British humor doesn't always translate, Miranda's got more than enough irresistible transoceanic charm to promise that this, the first of several Mansell novels Sourcebooks is introducing to the U.S., should net a passionate new audience eager for the more. <br>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>If you are on your way to the beach, Miranda's Big Mistake is a must-bring and will keep you reading long after the sun goes down. (_ForeWord_ 20090601)  </p><p>It is a fun, quirky read, that had my toes curling right up until the last sentence. (Bella McGuire <em>A Bibliophile's Bookshelf</em> 20090601)  </p><p>What a fun, flirty, fabulous summer read. <em>Miranda's Big Mistake</em> I can assure you will not be a mistake to read. (Cheryl Koch <em>Cheryl's Book Nook</em> 20090601)  </p><p>[F]ull of witty dialog. You get drawn right into the book. (Gabrielle Pantera <em>Hollywood Today</em> 20090602)  </p><p>I highly recommend this book for light, entertaining reading. It's a great pick for the beach bag and will be available just in time for summer! (Jani <em>I Just Finished</em> 20090602)  </p><p>Jill Mansel's writing style, with its many levels of humor, its multiple plots, and intriguing characters, makes <em>Miranda's Big Mistake</em> splendid reading. It is funny, sassy, and it lifts the spirit. GOOD READING! (Camellia <em>The Long and Short of It Reviews</em> 20090602)  </p><p>I couldn't get enough of MIRANDA'S BIG MISTAKE and characters; and I didn't want the book to end. (Julie Peterson <em>Booking Mama</em> 20090603)  </p><p>ou'll get a warm feeling from <em>Miranda's Big Mistake</em>... an absolute romp of a read! (Luanne Olliver <em>A Bookworm's World</em> 20090603)  </p><p>The story-lines that unexpectedly criss-cross, interconnect and zig-zag are what make them so delightful. Mansell knows how to create characters... (Jill Hart <em>Blog Critics</em> 20090601)  </p><p>All the characters are fleshed out completely and the humour just dances off the pages. I can't wait to read more books by Jill Mansell whose style is reminiscent of Marion Keyes and Sophie Kinsella but she also has a voice that is all her own... Bravo Jill Mansell. (Tamara Baff <em>Books by TJ Baff</em> 20090603)  </p><p>Perfect for this summer to read at the beach, or anywhere for that matter. A fantastic fun read! (Wendy Hines <em>Wendy's Minding Spot</em> 20090603)  </p><p>Mansell's novel  </p><p>proves the maxims that love is blind and there's someone for everyone, topped with a satisfying revenge  </p><p>plot that every jilted woman will relish.  </p><p>(_Booklist_ 20090605)  </p><p>This is a great summer read... I would recommend this book and think the author is a lot of fun. (Tracee Gleichner <em>The Review From Here</em> 20090605)  </p><p>[T[he quirky characters come to life and get themselves involved in all sorts of crazy situations. I found myself laughing out loud... (Sheri Stock <em>Bookopolis</em> 20090605)  </p><p><em>Miranda's Big Mistake</em> not only oozes modern romance, but also sarcasm and wit (Serena Cox-Augusto <em>Savvy Verse &amp; Wit</em> 20090608)  </p><p>highly recommend it to any fans of chick lit, especially those who love Brit chick lit. I can't wait to read more of Jill Mansell's work! (Swapna Krishna <em>S. Krishna's Books</em> 20090611)  </p><p>There's no doubt that Jill Mansell's books can be categorized as chick lit, but in my opinion, they're among the best written books in the genre... I absolutely loved Miranda's Big Mistake. (Anna Horner <em>Diary of an Eccentric</em> 20090611)  </p><p>I loved how all of the characters had their own small side story and I liked the ending for all of them! This would be a perfect summer beach read! (Andrea Mason <em>So Many Books, So Little Time</em> 20090623)  </p><p>Miranda's Big Mistake by Jill Mansell is a delightful example of chick lit. (Kathy Roberts <em>Bermuda Onion</em> 20090626)  </p><p>[H]er cast of characters are so lovable that you want them to be your friends! (Kristi Herbrand <em>Books and Needlepoint</em> 20090601)  </p><p>Lots of situational humor, tragedy, and foresight that you wish the characters could see. Mansell does a wonderful job of keeping me reading the book. (Zarabeth <em>Love Romance Passion</em> 20090917)  </p><p>With a full cast of entertaining characters, interesting secondary storylines, a few tears and more than a few smiles and laugh out loud moments, this is definitely a book that I would recommend to anyone who likes chick lit, or who just wants a fun beach read. (Margaret Bates <em>Reading Adventures</em> )  </p><p>If you are on your way to the beach, Mirandas Big Mistake is a must-bring and will keep you reading long after the sun goes down. (_ForeWord_ )  </p><p>Ms. Mansell's books are easy reading books, that pull you in to the lives of the characters and don't let go until you finish the story... Jill Mansell's books will turn you in to a chick -lit reader!! (Allison King <em>Allison's Attic of Books</em> ) </p>

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


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What lies beyond the worm hole is the devil incarnate...

Jake is a trainee Jump Pilot and war is rife in the galaxy...The Sentinels are very sensitive about a region of space, light years from their territorial boundaries. They are guided by the Betanica Sect, who seek to protect the galaxy and in particular the Tri Star Region from invasion by the Kryl. The Kryl are the devil incarnate. 

Jake is a final year Alpha Academy student and he has chosen Jump Ship Command to launch his career. He and Steve are two of the brightest academy pilots. They are also vying for the affection of the same girl. Carla is looking for her sister, who left home 6 years before to join the Collective, led by the sinister and mysterious Professor Winterburn. Winterburn casts a spell over everyone he meets.

The Sentinels and the Betanica Sect lock horns with Alpha in a battle to assume control of the Tri Star System. Alpha's aim is to open the Blue Worm hole; a gateway to another galaxy. The gathering masses are joined by Winterburn and his flock and by Jake and Steve whose sole intention is to rescue Carla Stevenson from Winterburn’s clutches.


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>The consequences of media saturation are the basis for an urban nightmare in <em>Lullaby</em>, Chuck Palahniuk's darkly comic and often dazzling thriller. Assigned to write a series of feature articles investigating SIDS, troubled newspaper reporter Carl Streator begins to notice a pattern among the cases he encounters: each child was read the same poem prior to his or her death. His research and a tip from a necrophilic paramedic lead him to Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate agent who sells "distressed" (demonized) homes, assured of their instant turnover. Boyle and Streator have both lost children to "crib death," and she confirms Streator's suspicions: the poem is an ancient lullaby or "culling song" that is lethal if spoken--or even thought--in a victim's direction. The misanthropic Streator, now armed with a deadly and uncontrollably catchy tune, goes on a minor killing spree until he recognizes his crimes and the song's devastating potential. <em>Lullaby</em> then turns into something of a road trip narrative, with Streator, Boyle, her empty-headed Wiccan secretary Mona, and Mona's vigilante boyfriend Oyster setting out across the U.S. to track down and destroy all copies of the poem.</p><p>In his previous works, including the cult favorite __, Palahniuk has demonstrated a fondness for making statements about the condition of humanity, and he uses <em>Lullaby</em> like a blunt object to repeatedly overstate his generally dim view. Such dogmatic venom undermines the persuasiveness of his thesis about mass communication and free will, but thankfully, Palahniuk offers some respite here by allowing for sympathy and love, as well as through his razor-sharp humor, such as his mock listings for Helen's possessed properties: "six bedrooms, four baths, pine-paneled entryway, and blood running down the kitchen walls...." At such moments, <em>Lullaby</em> casts a powerful spell. <em>--Ross Doll</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>"I need to rebel against myself. It's the opposite of following your bliss. I need to do what I most fear." Beleaguered reporter Carl Streator is stuck writing about SIDS and grieving for his dead wife and child; he copes by building perfect model homes and smashing them with a bare foot. But things only get worse: Carl accidentally memorizes an ancient African "culling song" that kills anyone he focuses on while mentally reciting it, until killing "gets to be a bad habit." His only friend, Nash, a creepy necrophiliac coroner, amuses himself with Carl's victims. Salvation of a sort comes in the form of Helen Hoover Boyle, a witch making a tidy living as a real estate broker selling-and quickly reselling-haunted houses. She, too, knows the culling song and finances her diamond addiction by freelancing as a telepathic assassin. Carl and Helen hit the road with Helen's Wiccan assistant, Mona, and her blackmailing boyfriend, Oyster, on a search-and-destroy mission for all outstanding copies of the culling song, as well as an all-powerful master tome of spells, a grimoire. Hilarious satire, both supernatural and scatological, ensues, the subtext of which seems to be Palahniuk's conviction that information has become a weapon ("Imagine a plague you catch through your ears"), and the bizarre love affair between Helen and Carl offers the lone linear thread in a field of narrative flak bursts. But the chief significance of this novel is Palahniuk's decision to commit himself to a genre, and this horror tale of both magic and mundane modernity plants him firmly in a category where previously he existed as a genre of one. <br />Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Screenwriter Depp's inspired if uneven debut, the first in a new crime series, introduces Hollywood PI David Spandau, a former stunt man too old and beat up to work for the movies any more. Spandau's latest job is to protect film star Bobby Dye from the blackmail attempts of Richie Stella, club owner, drug dealer and Mafia player. Like everyone else in Hollywood, Richie has written a movie script, and he makes it clear to Bobby that the actor will star in the project or else a certain dark secret involving a dead underage girl will hit the headlines. As things get nastier, we meet various characters straight out of central casting—the beautiful single mom who works in one of Stella's clubs and dreams of escape; the career criminal who meets the good woman who will help him go legit. Where Depp shines is his insider's look at the intricate machinations and sordid players who really run the Hollywood machine. <em>(Mar.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Rising Hollywood star Bobby Dye is being blackmailed by the reptilian, Mob-connected owner of Hollywood’s hottest nightspot for the rich and beautiful. Private investigator and former movie stuntman David Spandau has little interest in returning to the biz, especially after being insulted by the temperamental star, his pit-bull agent, and an arrogant producer, but he agrees after the star shows signs of humanity. There’s little mystery to this promising series debut, but it scarcely matters. So Cal, moviemaking, and the quirkiness of the supporting characters provide the appeal. Spandau prefers rodeoing to detecting. He’s engaging, but future books need to flesh him out. Dye careens between spoiled man-child and self-awareness. But the novel sparkles when the focus changes to a diminutive Irish lothario, a single mother who manages the hip nightclub, and a thoughtful but doomed hoodlum who hates L.A. Sadly, none of the three gets enough screen time. L.A. and the movies have long been fertile ground for crime fiction. If the author continues to create such vivid characters, this series will draw a loyal following. --Thomas Gaughan </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Every year, professor of antiquities Jack Hawthorne looks forward to the winter break as a time to hide away from his responsibilities. Even if just for a week or two. But this year, his plans are derailed when he's offered almost a blank check from a man chasing a rumor. </p><p>Billionaire Gordon Reese thinks he knows where the bones of the prophet Elisha are--bones that in the Old Testament brought the dead back to life. A born skeptic, Jack doesn't think much of the assignment but he could use the money, so he takes the first step on a chase for the legendary bones that will take him to the very ends of the earth. But he's not alone. Joined with a fiery colleague, Esperanza Habilla, they soon discover clues to a shadowy organization whose long-held secrets have been protected . . . at all costs. As their lives are threatened again and again, the real race is to uncover the truth before those chasing them hunt them down. </p><h3>From the Back Cover</h3><p>The bones of the prophet once raised the dead to life... but they vanished from history in a whisper. Now Jack Hawthorne, part-time skeptic and full-time professor of archaeology, is enlisted to sift them from the sands of time. Bankrolled by a dying man of unlimited means, Hawthorne's hunt spans the globe and leads him into a deadly conspiracy older than the church itself. And he soon discovers those sworn to keep the secret of the bones will do anything to protect them. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The Patterson bestseller factory has turned out another high-drama thriller, this time in collaboration with <em>Honeymoon </em>coauthor Roughan. Kristin Burns, a New York City nanny and aspiring photographer, is devoted to the two children under her care, but her desire for their father, Michael Turnbull, leads her to a risky, torrid affair with him. Kristin's anxiety about her guilty secret is heightened by a series of frightening nightmares centering on a vision of four body bags being loaded onto gurneys in front of a prominent Manhattan hotel. Her nightmares also feature recurring encounters with dead people, including her father and the pediatrician who abused her as a child. Kristin's breathless, superficial narration doesn't generate a lot of reader sympathy or interest in figuring out the source of her macabre experiences. <em>(Sept.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"You've Been Warned will keep yoy spellbound. Kadushin's haunting voice is spot on, and the echoing numbers set in the skin-crawiling tone for each chapter."... MyShelf.com </p>


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<h3>From</h3><p>Kaliss traces the former Sylvester Stewart from Denton, Texas, beginnings through fame as Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone to the present. After the band’s fourth album, Stand! yielded monster hits in the title song, Everyday People, and the Aquarian party anthem I Want to Take You Higher, Sly rivaled James Brown and George Clinton as a progenitor of funk. Unlike the Godfather of Soul’s and Dr. Funkenstein’s, Sly’s career fizzled in the mid-1970s as substance abuse and other problems facilitated a huge reputation for missing gigs and heightened tensions within the band. Recently, Stone granted Kaliss his first face-to-face interview in 20 years, spawning this book. Kaliss finds Stone enigmatic but planning a comeback. He never quit making music—or being mysterious. At one point, he deserts Kaliss mid-chat. Mindful of Sly’s tendency to disappear . . . on whim, Kaliss just picks up the conversation later. A psychedelic ethereality infuses the book and, given Stone’s internal workings, rather confirms Kaliss’ veracity. Good, if vague in places; an important piece of pop-music history. --Mike Tribby </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"Finally, the definitive and story of the life and times of Sly Stone is here.... Kaliss delivers a vivid tale of funky love, music and drugs that nails the tale of Sly Stone." -- <em>Rickey Vincent, author of Funk: The Music, The People, and The Rhythm of The One</em></p><p>[HTML_REMOVED][HTML_REMOVED]"It's amazing, although not exactly surprising, that Sly and the Family Stone's volatile story has never fully been told. But now it has, and the tellers include the elusive and elliptical Sly Stone himself. Whatever else he is, he's a stone genius; a major influence on R&amp;B, funk, pop and rock musicians since he emerged in 1968. Through Sly and his band, this book offers additional lessons, about traversing life as well as about making music." -- <em>Ben Fong-Torres, author of Not Fade Away: </em></p><p>A Backstage Pass to 20 Years of Rock &amp; Roll and Becoming Almost Famous: My Back Pages in Music, Writing and Life[HTML_REMOVED][HTML_REMOVED]</p><p>"Jeff Kaliss gives his readers a fascinating tour of the life of an errant, irreverent, and iridescent musical legend." -- <em>David Kapralik, former manager, Sly &amp; the Family Stone</em>[HTML_REMOVED][HTML_REMOVED]</p><p>"Jeff Kaliss's wonderful work captures the group, the times and its relevance." -- <em>Dennis Watlington author of Chasing America: Notes from a Rock 'n' Soul Integrationist</em>[HTML_REMOVED][HTML_REMOVED]</p><p>An account as upbeat as those early hits... it s a great tale. -- <em>Mojo</em> --Various  </p><p>Meticulously reported. --_Vibe_[HTML_REMOVED][HTML_REMOVED]Essential reading for anyone interested in a musician who reshaped popular music. --_SF Weekly_[HTML_REMOVED][HTML_REMOVED]</p><p>--Various[HTML_REMOVED][HTML_REMOVED]Jeff Kaliss's wonderful work captures the group, the times and its relevance." -- <em>Dennis Watlington author of Chasing America: Notes from a Rock 'n' Soul Integrationist</em>[HTML_REMOVED][HTML_REMOVED]An account as upbeat as those early hits... it s a great tale. -- <em>Mojo</em><br />Meticulously reported. --_Vibe_[HTML_REMOVED][HTML_REMOVED]Essential reading for anyone interested in a musician who reshaped popular music. --_SF Weekly_[HTML_REMOVED][HTML_REMOVED]Finally, the definitive and story of the life and times of Sly Stone is here.... Kaliss delivers a vivid tale of funky love, music and drugs that nails the tale of Sly Stone. -- Rickey Vincent, author of Funk: The Music, The People, and The Rhythm of The One. It's amazing, although not exactly surprising, that Sly and the Family Stone's volatile story has never fully been told. But now it has, and the tellers include the elusive and elliptical Sly Stone himself. Whatever else he is, he's a stone genius; a major influence on R&amp;B, funk, pop and rock musicians since he emerged in 1968. Through Sly and his band, this book offers additional lessons, about traversing life as well as about making music. --Ben Fong-Torres, author of Not Fade Away: A Backstage Pass to 20 Years of Rock &amp; Roll and Becoming Almost Famous: My Back Pages in Music, Writing and Life --Various  </p><p>Jeff Kaliss gives his readers a fascinating tour of the life of an errant, irreverent, and iridescent musical legend. -- David Kapralik, former manager, Sly &amp; the Family Stone Jeff Kaliss's wonderful work captures the group, the times and its relevance. -- Dennis Watlington author of Chasing America: Notes from a Rock 'n' Soul Integrationist An account as upbeat as those early hits... it s a great tale. -- Mojo Meticulously reported. -- Vibe Essential reading for anyone interested in a musician who reshaped popular music. --SF Weekly Finally, the definitive and story of the life and times of Sly Stone is here.... Kaliss delivers a vivid tale of funky love, music and drugs that nails the tale of Sly Stone. -- Rickey Vincent, author of Funk: The Music, The People, and The Rhythm of The One --Various </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>After three novels which centered around gastronomic pleasures, Joanne Harris's <em>Coastliners</em> focuses on more astringent joys. Sea, gritty sand, and adverse weather conditions replace __, <strong>, and </strong>. Set on a small, blustery fishing island off the coast of France, it tells the story of Mado, a young woman who returns to her childhood home to find the local community torn apart by family feuds, bad tides, and murky political machinations. </p><p>Passionate, stubborn Mado, whose "head is full of rocks," tries to save the livelihoods of the villagers of Les Salants by urging them to work together to save the beach from erosion, both natural and man-made. The villagers, written with endearing panache by Harris, are an eccentric, curmudgeonly bunch, who eventually cooperate with the help of Flynn, a charismatic stranger with a shady past. He's not the only man of mystery in Mado's life; her father, taciturn Grosjean, has a secretive heart that's as "prickly and tightly layered as an artichoke," and local, wealthy businessman Brismand also seems to be hiding something. Mado does her best to unravel these mysteries, while attempting to keep a hold on her own sense of self in the claustrophobic, close community. It's not only the shore line that takes a buffeting. The villagers and the island are so vividly described that it's impossible not to become engrossed in Mado's story. <em>Coastliners</em> is a book about longing to belong, and Joanne Harris charts that emotional voyage compellingly. <em>--Eithne Farry, Amazon.co.uk</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Family history meets village rivalry in Harris's poignant fourth novel, an understated passion play set on the provincial French island of Le Devin. Madeleine Prasteau leaves her Paris apartment to return to the island village of Les Salants, where she discovers that her father, a widowed boat owner, is going downhill along with the village itself as the rival town of La HoussiniŠre grows and prospers. Despite her father's chilly greeting, Madeleine spruces up the family home, and when she meets an attractive, mysterious stranger named Flynn she gets involved in a project to save Les Salants by building a homemade reef to restore the fast-eroding beach. The project gets complicated when Madeleine realizes that Flynn has ties to Brismand, a rival of her father's, who controls local commerce in La HoussiniŠre. The reef project succeeds, but with a bitter aftertaste when Madeleine's older sister, Adrienne, moves back to the island and her father becomes infatuated with Adrienne's children. Sibling rivalry fades to the background when Madeleine learns that Flynn's ties to Brismand extend into her own family history, and she discovers that Flynn was an integral part of a romantic triangle involving her father and Brismand. Harris develops her beguiling story in layers, drawing Madeleine into the village life she loves and loathes while exploring the nuances of island living. Despite the narrowly focused setting, Harris exposes a wide range of passions and emotions as Madeline gets involved with Flynn against the effective backdrop of the various family and village rivalries. This book lacks the lurid erotic power of Chocolat, but Harris compensates for the lowered levels of passion and eros by writing with power and grace about the family ties that bind.<br />Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><strong>Amazon Exclusive: Pat Conroy Reviews <em>Ford County</em></strong>   </p><p><strong>Pat Conroy is most recently the author of the #1 <em>New York Times</em> bestseller <em>Ford County</em>:</strong>   </p><p>In the mail last week, I received a copy of John Grisham’s latest fiction. It surprised me that the book was comprised of seven short stories. From the time I first began publishing at Doubleday, they have always made sure that I received a copy of a Grisham book long before it went on sale in the bookstores. He has written 22 books, and I’ve read them all as soon as they were available in crisp review copies.</p><p>I have loved the Grisham books for the same reason that I love the works of </p><p>John surprised me by entering the ring of danger that the short story represents for all writers. In the world of writing, the poets come first as they finger the language like worry beads and wonder where their next meal is coming from. The art of the short story writer is one of economy, concision, and the genius of trying to craft a whole world inside a mason jar. The modern world punishes the short story writer with inattention. The literary reviews keep the short story alive and finger-popping in America today, while the <em>New Yorker</em> tries to strangle the form with its bare hands. But a great short story is a source of joy, and the reading of </p><p><em>Ford County</em> is the best writing that John Grisham has ever done. One of the many things I’ve admired about his books is his intimate chronicle of Mississippi life in the generations following <em>Ford County</em> are that damned good._--Pat Conroy_</p><p>(Photo © David G. Spielman) </p><hr /><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Returning to the setting of his first novel, A Time to Kill, longtime bestseller Grisham presents seven short stories about the residents of Ford County, Miss. Each story explores different themes-mourning, revenge, justice, acceptance, evolution-but all flirt with the legal profession, the staple of (former attorney) Grisham's oeuvre. Fans will be excited to settle back into Grisham's world, and these easily digestible stories don't disappoint, despite their brevity. Full of strong characters, simple but resonant plotlines, and charming Southern accents, this collection is solid throughout; though his literary aspirations may seem quaint, Grisham succeeds admirably in his crowd-pleasing craft while avoiding pat endings or oversimplifying (perhaps best exemplified in "Michael's Room," which finds a lawyer facing the consequences of successfully defending a doctor against a malpractice suit). As always, Grisham balances his lawyerly preoccupations with a deep respect for his undereducated and overlooked characters. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>In 1970, small town newspaper <em>The Clanton Times</em> went belly up. With financial assistance from a rich relative, it's purchased by 23-year-old Willie Traynor, formerly the paper's cub reporter. Soon afterward, his new business receives the readership boost it needs thanks to his editorial efforts and coverage of a particularly brutal rape and murder committed by the scion of the town's reclusive bootlegger family. Rather than shy from reporting on the subsequent open-and-shut trial (those who oppose the Padgitt family tend to turn up dead in the area's swampland), Traynor launches a crusade to ensure the unrepentant murderer is brought to justice. When a guilty verdict is returned, the town is relieved to find the Padgitt family's grip on the town did not sway the jury, though Danny Padgitt is sentenced to life in prison rather than death. But, when Padgitt is released after serving less than a decade in jail and members of the jury are murdered, Clanton once again finds itself at the mercy of its renegade family.</p><p>When it comes, the dénouement is no surprise; <em>The Last Juror</em> is less a story of suspense than a study of the often idyllic southern town of Clanton, Mississippi (the setting for Grisham's first novel, __). Throughout the nine years between Padgitt's trial and release, Traynor finds acceptance in Clanton, where the people "don't really trust you unless they trusted your grandfather." He grows from a long-haired idealist into another of the town's colorful characters--renovating an old house, sporting a bowtie, beloved on both sides of the color line, and the only person to have attended each of the town's 88 churches at least once. <em>The Last Juror</em> returns Grisham to the courtroom where he made his name, but those who enjoyed the warm sentiment of his recent novels (<strong>, </strong>) will still find much to love here. <em>--Benjamin Reese</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Grisham has spent the last few years stretching his creative muscles through a number of genres: his usual legal thrillers (The Summons, The King of Torts, etc.), a literary novel (The Painted House), a Christmas book (Skipping Christmas) and a high school football elegy (Bleachers). This experimentation seems to have imbued his writing with a new strength, giving exuberant life to this compassionate, compulsively readable story of a young man's growth from callowness to something approaching wisdom. Willie Traynor, 23 and a college dropout, is working as a reporter on a small-town newspaper, the Ford County Times, in Clanton, Miss. When the paper goes bankrupt, Willie turns to his wealthy grandmother, who loans him $50,000 to buy it. Backed by a stalwart staff, Willie labors to bring the newspaper back to health. A month after his first issue, he gets the story of a lifetime, the murder of beautiful young widow Rhoda Kasselaw. After being raped and knifed, the nude Rhoda staggered next door and whispered to her neighbor as she was dying, "Danny Padgitt. It was Danny Padgitt." The killer belongs to an infamous clan of crooked highway contractors, killers and drug smugglers who live on impregnable Padgitt Island. Willie splashes the murder all over the Times, making him both an instant success and a marked man. The town is up in arms, demanding Danny's head. After a near miss (the Padgitts are known for buying themselves out of trouble), Danny is convicted and sentenced to life in prison. As he's dragged out of the courtroom, he vows revenge on the jurors. Willie finds, to his consternation, that in Mississippi life doesn't necessarily mean life, so in nine years Danny is back outâ€"and jurors begin to die. Around and through this plot Grisham tells the sad, heroic, moving stories of the eccentric inhabitants of Clanton, a small town balanced between the pleasures and perils of the old and the new South. The novel is heartfelt, wise, suspenseful and funny, one of the best Grishams ever. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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<h3>From</h3><p>Michaels is a RITA Award-nominated author of more than 75 romance novels, and she distills everything she has learned over the years into this useful writers' guide. After a short summary of the genre and a survey of the different kinds of romances, Michaels explores the process involved in writing a captivating love story. From creating convincing characters and understanding conflict to writing good dialogue and crafting an entertaining plot, <em>On</em> <em>Writing</em> <em>Romance</em> provides plenty of practical details and useful examples to help aspiring writers get started. Michaels even includes a concise guide to submitting a manuscript to a publisher and to marketing one's own work. A good basic introduction to a potentially gratifying pursuit suitable for most public library collections. <em>John Charles</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>This book gives comprehensive how-to information for novice romance writers. For those new to the genre and/or to writing, this book provides a starting point for developing the skill set essential to writing a best-selling romance novel. "On Writing Romance" is a thorough reference that will provide readers with detailed descriptions of more than 20 sub-categories within the romance genre, tips for avoiding cliches, specific instruction for creating the perfect romantic couple, guidelines for drafting those all-important love scene, submission information for breaking into the genre, and much, much more. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In Dunlap's subdued fourth mystery to feature San Francisco stunt double Darcy Lott (after 2009's Civil Twilight), Darcy's on-again/off-again boyfriend and fellow stuntman, Damon Guthrie, confesses part of a shameful secret about his past. Before revealing more, he asks the definitely alarmed Darcy to bring John, her cop brother, to a meeting at the Palace of the Fine Arts. En route to the meeting, Damon dies in a suspicious car accident, and once again Darcy turns sleuth. Darcy also resumes her overdue search for her brother, Mike, who's been missing for more than 20 years. As she nimbly juggles both investigations, Darcy's snooping puts her in the crosshairs of those responsible for Damon's murder. While Dunlap's appealing Zen detective retains her cool, some readers may find it hard to believe that the astute Darcy would date a man for six or seven years without knowing more about him than she does. A far-fetched subplot about collectible movie memorabilia adds some local color. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>In this fourth mystery starring Darcy Lott, a Buddhist stuntwoman working in San Francisco, the heroine’s sometime boyfriend, stunt driver Damon Guthrie, almost messes up a dangerous stunt at the Port of Oakland and then winds up dead in San Francisco. Darcy investigates Damon’s murder and quickly discovers that he had a life and home unknown to her. Meanwhile, Darcy’s family, including lawyer brother Gary and cop brother John, want her to search for Mike, their long-missing brother, which means trying to learn why he disappeared in the first place. The truth of what happened to Damon lies in the past, in a long-ago burglary in San Francisco, at a stunt ranch hidden in the Southern California desert, and in the words to a mysterious koan. Dunlap melds the two plots with the drama of Darcy continuing to work on rebuilding shattered relationships with her siblings, with information about stunt work, and with interesting bits of Zen Buddhist lore. An entertaining outing from tough yet vulnerable Darcy. --Kat Kan </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Kay ( The Fionavar Tapestry ) brings to life a layered, pragmatic world of magic and difficult choices, where brutality and beauty coexist. Eight of the nine provinces of the Peninsula of the Palm, on a world with two moons, have fallen to the warrior sorcerers Brandin of Ygrath and Alberico of Barbadior. Brandin's younger son is slain in a battle with the principality of Tigana, which the grief-stricken sorcerer then destroys. Years later, a small band of survivors, led by Alessan, last prince of Tigana's royal house, wages psychological warfare, planting seeds for the overthrow of the two tyrants. At the center of these activities are Devin, a gifted young singer; Catriana, a young woman pursued by suspicions of her family's guilt; and Duke Sandre d'Astibar, a wily resistance leader thought dead. Meanwhile, at Brandin's court, Dianora, his favorite concubine and--unknown to anyone, another survivor of Tigana--struggles between her growing love for the often gentle tyrant and her desire for vengeance. Gradually the scene is set for both conquerors to destroy each other and free a land. Tolkien protege Kay's brilliant and complex portrayal of good and evil, high and low, will draw readers to this consuming epic. <br />Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>In a desperate attempt to revive the memory of a land banished from existence and to restore freedom to a battered world, a wandering musician and his small band of compatriots traverse a countryside bowed under the weight of its sorcerer-conquerors. The author of "The Fionavar Tapestry" trilogy creates a brilliant single-volume epic fantasy, rich in intrigue and subtlety. Memorable characters and cultures add depth to a gracefully plotted story. Highly recommended.<br />Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In her second novel, Sheehan switches genres from her debut historical about Sojourner Truth to a contemporary tale of grief featuring Rocky Pelligrino, a woman reeling from her husband's death. After her husband dies of a heart attack, Rocky leaves behind her career as a psychologist in the Berkshire Mountains and moves to Peak's Island, Maine, taking a job as an Animal Control Warden. Her first catch is a black Lab with an arrow lodged in his shoulder. She takes him in, searches for his owner and tries to solve the mystery behind the arrow's origin. Rocky makes a few friends-anorexic teenage neighbor Melissa and strangely attractive archery instructor Hill Johnson-and her mission takes a surprisingly dark turn after she learns of Cooper's original owners. Dog lovers will adore Sheehan's portrayal of Cooper, who, in contrast to all the human suffering, comprises the bright spot in a melancholy novel. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>A poignant and unforgettable tale of love, loss, and moving on . . . with the help of one not-so-little dog </p><p>Rocky's husband Bob was just forty-two when she discovered him lying cold and lifeless on the bathroom floor . . . and Rocky's world changed forever. Quitting her job, chopping off all her hair, she leaves Massachusetts—reinventing her past and taking a job as Animal Control Warden on Peak's Island, a tiny speck off the coast of Maine and a million miles away from everything she's lost. She leaves her career as a psychologist behind, only to find friendship with a woman whose brain misfires in the most wonderful way and a young girl who is trying to disappear. Rocky, a quirky and fallible character, discovers the healing process to be agonizingly slow. </p><p>But then she meets Lloyd. </p><p>A large black Labrador retriever, Lloyd enters Rocky's world with a primitive arrow sticking out of his shoulder. And so begins a remarkable friendship between a wounded woman and a wounded, lovable beast. As the unraveling mystery of Lloyd's accident and missing owner leads Rocky to an archery instructor who draws her in even as she finds every reason to mistrust him, she discovers the life-altering revelation that grief can be transformed . . . and joy <em>does</em> exist in unexpected places. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Great writing carries this unusual story about the Explorer Corps., the branch of the League of Peoples responsible for investigating planets and contacting new life forms. The catch is that corp members usually die in the process. That's why the corps comprises the medical misfits of society--people healthy enough to function yet disfigured or deformed enough that no one cares all that much if they die. Festina Ramos is an "Expendable Crew Member" who has just been ordered to escort a soon-to-be-senile admiral to Melaquin, a planet with an impeccable record for killing Explorer teams. It was meant to be a one-way mission to rid the League of one more has-been admiral, but Festina has other ideas about how things will turn out. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Under the benevolent leadership of the League of Peoples, there is no war, little crime, and life is sacred...unless you're an Explorer. The ugly, the flawed, the misfit, the deformed, they are the unwanted, flung to the farthest corners of the galaxy to investigate hostile planets and strange, vicious creatures. Out there, there are a thousand different -- and terrible -- ways to die. </p><p>Festina Ramos belongs to the well-trained, always-dwindling ranks of ECMs (Expendable Crew Members). Now she and her partner, Yarrun Derigha, have been ordered to escort the unstable Admiral Chee to Melaquin -- the feared "Planet of No Return"-- which has swallowed up countless Explorers before them without a trace. </p><p>Obviously, this is meant to be the last mission for Ramos and Derigha. But it won't be, if Festina can help it.</p>


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<div><p>Dorothy thinks she is lost forever when a terrifying tornado crashes through Kansas and whisks her and her dog, Toto, far away to the magical land of Oz. To get home Dorothy must follow the yellow brick road to Emerald City and find the wonderfully mysterious Wizard of Oz. Together with her companions the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion whom she meets on the way, Dorothy embarks on a strange and enchanting adventure.</p><p>With a charming introduction by award-winning Cornelia Funke, The Wizard of Oz is one of the twelve wonderful classics being relaunched in Puffin Classics in March 2008.</p></div>


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<p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>In a raucous debut that summons up Britain's fabled Goon Squad comedies, writer and philosopher Lars Iyer tells the story of someone very like himself with a "slightly more successful" friend and their journeys in search of more palatable literary conferences and better gin. One reason for their journeys: the narrator's home is slowly being taken over by a fungus that no one seems to know what to do about. Before it completely swallows his house, the narrator feels compelled to solve some major philosophical questions (such as "Why?") and the meaning of his urge to write, as well as the source of the fungus ... before it is too late. Or, he has to move.</p>


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<div><h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><strong>Beth Kendrick and Susan Mallery: Author One-on-One</strong></p><p><strong>Beth:</strong> Okay, before we start this interview, I’d like to take a moment to talk to you about your Christmas card this year, which featured your adorable poodle, Nikki. Dressed up in an elaborate chiffon holiday neckpiece. Featuring jingle bells and ribbon. You and I both know that this is not an isolated incident. Oh yes, I’ve seen the photos of Miss Nikki making love to the camera in Halloween costumes and baseball jerseys. I think everyone here deserves to know the truth: does Nikki have a stylist? Or do poodles have an innate French flair for accessorizing?</p><p><strong>Susan:</strong> Yes, Nikki actually does have a personal stylist, a friend who sends her a new outfit at least once a year. Nikki is a star. Sigh. It’s getting to be a problem. She was born in a playpen in Albuquerque, but has grown so used to attention that she demands it. When she decides it’s time to cuddle, nothing will deter her. She bats my hands away from the keyboard with her nose. Like everyone else who meets her, I have fallen under her spell. I’m helpless to resist.</p><p><strong>Beth:</strong> Who gets more fan mail--you or Nikki?</p><p><strong>Susan:</strong> I get more, but hers tastes better.</p><p><strong>Beth:</strong> <em>Already Home</em> is technically women’s fiction, which means that in addition to the romance storyline, there’s a truckload of family drama. Oh, how I love family drama. The fictional kind, I mean. Give us a few hints about the book. What’s your favorite scene?</p><p><strong>Susan:</strong> : The story revolves around Jenna, recently divorced and in the midst of an unexpected career change. So her life is already in a state of flux when she’s hit with the sudden appearance of her birth parents who are, to put it mildly, nothing like Jenna’s “real” (aka, adoptive) parents. Jenna was raised in a conservative Texas town by loving but traditional parents. Her birth parents are throwbacks to the 1970s, vegetarian hippies who get messages from "the Universe" and have an unnatural dislike of dairy.   </p><p>One of the scenes I love best takes place when Jenna travels with them to their home on a California vineyard. There, she meets siblings and other family, and she gets a glimpse of the life she would have lived if they hadn’t given her up for adoption all those years ago. What I love about this scene is that this is where Jenna’s heart begins to open. First impressions can be wrong… or at least incomplete.   </p><p>But as Jenna is getting to know her birth family, she can’t help wondering why they seem to think they have to dive into deep family intimacy immediately. What’s the urgency? Why can’t they let their feelings develop over time?</p><p><strong>Beth:</strong> Jenna, the main character in <em>Already Home</em>, has invited Amy and Linnie, the main characters from my novel <em>The Bake-Off</em>, over for a dinner party. Discussion topics will include: dysfunctional families, cooking disasters, and truly unfortunate dating choices. What is your heroine cooking, and what can my characters bring?</p><p><strong>Susan:</strong> Jenna has discovered the joy of fusion cuisine. In the book, she experiments with Mexican-Indian fusion and comes up with a fabulous recipe for Curry Chicken Enchiladas. Served, of course, with chips and salsa and hummus and pita. As for your characters, they can bring dessert. It’ll have to be apple pie, since they are big old bake-off frauds and that is really the only recipe they can make, right?</p><p><strong>Beth:</strong> Well, yes. But they prefer the term “counterfeit confectionistas” to “frauds,” thank you very much. Since Jenna is a sous chef who wants to open her own cooking store, I assume you had to slog through hours of torturous research at places like Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table. (These are the sacrifices you make for your art!) What is your favorite kitchen implement or gadget?</p><p><strong>Susan:</strong> Two words: wine key.</p><p><strong>Beth:</strong> If you had a reality show, what would it be called, and what would a typical episode be like?</p><p><strong>Susan:</strong> I adore watching reality shows, and I’m not even embarrassed to admit it. (Okay, I’m a little embarrassed.) They’re just so grotesque. The situations are staged, but the emotions are real, and I’m an emotion junkie. But I would never go on a reality show because I don’t want people to feed off of my emotions, other than in my books, of course.</p><p><strong>Beth:</strong> I know, I know, but humor me. If you did…?</p><p><strong>Susan:</strong> I actually do have a reality dating show in <em>Only Mine</em>, an August release in my <em>Fool’s Gold</em> series of romance novels. It doesn’t go well.</p><p><strong>Beth:</strong> So in addition to being talented and witty, you’re prolific as all get-out. How many books do you have coming out in 2011? Five? Eighteen? What gives? Have you somehow figured out how to clone yourself or survive without sleep? I demand to know your secret. And don’t give me that song and dance about “hard work” and “self-discipline.”</p><p><strong>Susan:</strong> I have four books coming out in 2011. <em>Already Home</em> in April, and then I’ll continue the <em>Fool’s Gold</em> series in August, September, and October with <em>Only Mine</em>, <em>Only Yours</em>, and <em>Only His</em>. The Hendrix triplets will all fall in love this year.   </p><p>My secret? I have the attention span of a gnat. If I don’t write quickly, I get bored. I start thinking about the next story I want to write, and the next one after that. I don’t lack for ideas, so I have to be disciplined about completing each one. Working on the next one is my reward for finishing the current project.</p><h3>Review</h3><p>A delightful story about turning your life around. --Fresh Fiction  </p><p>5 Stars, Top Pick! Warm, snappy dialog...signature Susan Mallery. --Night Owl Reviews  </p><p>One of the best books I've read this year! --Roundtable Reviews  </p><p>This poignant tale of family dynamics, the jarring impact of change, and eventual acceptance and healing is sure to please Mallery's many, devoted fans. --Booklist-Starred Review </p>

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<div><h3>Review</h3><p>“an editor and grammar columnist’s funny but no-nonsense guide to better writing.” —St. Petersburg Times  </p><p>“Great writing starts with strong sentences. This is your guidebook to mastering the art.” <br>—DONALD MAASS, literary agent and author of _The Fire in Fiction<br>_ <br>“June mixes sassy fun with practical advice. You’ll laugh all the way to writing better.” <br>—MIGNON FOGARTY, author of <em>Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing</em>  </p><p>“_It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences_ is that incredibly rare breed of book: a guide to grammar and style that is simultaneously smart, engaging, and instructive. By tackling prose composition on a sentence-by-sentence level, June Casagrande has found a way to provide intensely practical advice for the novice writer—not to mention unexpected insights for the expert writer. It would make a welcome addition to any language lover’s library.”<br>—ELIZABETH LITTLE, author of <em>Biting the Wax Tadpole</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Great writing isn’t born, it’s built—sentence by sentence. But too many writers—and writing guides—overlook this most important unit. The result? Manuscripts that will never be published and writing careers that will never begin.   </p><p>In this wickedly humorous manual, language columnist June Casagrande uses grammar and syntax to show exactly what makes some sentences great—and other sentences suck.   </p><p>With chapters on “Conjunctions That Kill” and “Words Gone Wild,” this lighthearted guide is perfect for anyone who’s dead serious about writing, from aspiring novelists to nonfiction writers, conscientious students to cheeky literati. So roll up your sleeves and prepare to craft one bold, effective sentence after another. Your readers will thank you. </p>

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<div><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>McDevitt (_Seeker_) avoids flashy action scenes in this tale of two friends using a time machine to take a grand tour of history. When Adrian Shel Shelbourne's physicist father disappears and leaves behind a time-travel device, Shel and his friend Dave Dryden, a language expert, search for Shel's father in Galileo's Italy, Selma during the civil rights marches and other famous times and places. Realizing that time resists paradoxes and history can't be changed, the two friends seize the opportunity to live enriching, truly humane lives from Thermopylae to a few minutes in the future. As the paradoxes begin to pile up and their luck in dodging some of history's villains runs out, McDevitt ingeniously handles a tricky denouement that will leave readers satisfied. <em>(Nov.)</em> <br>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>When scientist Michael Shelburne vanishes, his son Adrian—Shel to his friends—suspects unusual circumstances but not that his father has discovered the secret of time travel. Figuring it out, however, Shel and friend David Dryden use Michael’s devices to find the missing man in a quest that takes them through Depression-era Philadelphia, Renaissance Italy, the bloody civil rights march at Selma, and the as-yet-unburned library of Alexandria’s collection of the classical Greek dramatists. Eventually they succeed, but Shel’s curiosity spurs him to travel into the future, where he discovers his impending death, and then to search for a way to avoid that fate. That search occupies the book’s latter half and becomes a masterpiece of storytelling and exploration of the paradoxes of time travel. In fact, the whole book ranks very highly in McDevitt’s quarter-century of work distinguished by high intelligence, fine world building, and superb characterization. --Roland Green </p>

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<p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>When the last of the Gravediggers, an elite imperial infiltration unit, are disbanded and hunted down by the emperor they once served, munitions expert Colonel Thomas Granger takes refuge in the unlikeliest of places. He becomes a jailer in Ethugra a prison city of poison-flooded streets and gaols in which a million enemies of the empire are held captive. But when Granger takes possession of two new prisoners, he realises that he can't escape his past so readily. Ianthe is a young girl with an extraordinary psychic talent. A gift that makes her unique in a world held to ransom by the powerful Haurstaf the sisterhood of telepaths who are all that stand between the Empire and the threat of the Unmer, the powerful civilization of entropic sorcerers and dragon-mounted warriors. In this war-torn land, she promises to make Granger an extremely wealthy man, if he can only keep her safe from harm. This is what Granger is best at. But when other factions learn about Ianthe's unique ability, even Granger's skills of warfare are tested to their limits. While, Ianthe struggles to control the powers that are growing in ways no-one thought were possible. Another threat is surfacing: out there, beyond the bitter seas, an old and familiar enemy is rising one who, if not stopped, will drown the world and all of humanity with it . .</p>


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<div><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The author, who in earlier books like _The Culture of Make Believe <em>discussed his experience of violence and abuse as a child, calls now for determined and even violent resistance to environmental degradation. Jensen comes across in volume I as a provocative but personable philosopher-activist who in lyrical and witty writing bemoans species extinction, sullied air quality, shrinking icecaps, expanding deserts and vanishing forests wrought by humans. But Jensen believes "this culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living." Civilization, he says in volume II, is killing the planet, so "[c]ivilization needs to be brought down now." Jensen dwells through several chapters on the need to destroy tens of thousands of river dams, whether with pickax-wielding citizen armies or through the use of well-placed explosive charges; other chapters consider how simple it would be to paralyze the American capitalist system if small activist cells were to disrupt railway, highway, pipeline and other elements of commercial infrastructure. Jensen clearly feels a close connection to nature, writes movingly about the hoped-for return of the salmon, the trees, the grizzly bears. But he has become so disgusted with what he calls "civiluzation" that he has more compassion for the salmon than for his fellow humans.</em> (June)_ <br>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Jensen, author of <em>A Language Older than Words</em> (2000) and <em>The Culture of Make Believe</em> (2002), has a deserved reputation as a writer of consequence and conscience who has pursued an environmentalist message with great fervor. In his latest work, however, a two-volume manifesto, he argues for the necessary destruction of civilization to save the world. Jensen posits his case against industrial development through discussion of everything from dams to the use of torture by the U.S. military. <em>Endgame</em> touches on numerous valid and necessary subjects, but Jensen's strident tone and heavy reliance on sources that fully support his message weaken his presentation. And when he offers solutions for the problems we face, he preaches violence. Clearly he is passionate, but apparently the success of his earlier books has led to his writing only for those who already agree with him, rather than crafting a balanced discussion that allows readers to come to their own conclusions. Jensen has become an extremist, and he may have done his cause the worst possible service by alienating the readers he most needs to inspire. <em>Colleen Mondor</em><br><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>

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<div><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Two essential language references integrated into one handy trade paperback volume. • Nearly 60,000 alphabetical dictionary entries. • More than 13,000 thesaurus entries including extensive synonym lists. • Clear and concise word guidance including abundant example phrases • Based on the best-selling Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>Les Hewitt, coauthor of The Power of Focus is an international workshop facilitator and popular motivational speaker. He founded The Achievers Coaching Program in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, which now includes 450 training programs operating in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. He is an active member of the North Calgary Community Church. </p>

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Raised in County Dublin,Jamie O'Neillis the author ofKilbrackandAt Swim, Two Boys,which won the Ferro-Grumley Award for Fiction and the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Men's Fiction. He lives in Galway, Ireland.


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p><em>Starred Review.</em> In this ingenious literary thriller from Gruber (_The Witch's Boy_), the lives of two men are changed forever by William Shakespeare and the letters of Richard Bracegirdle, a 16th-century English spy and soldier. Jake Mishkin, a Manhattan intellectual property attorney and a bit of a rake, goes on the run from Russian gangsters. Albert Crosetti, an aspiring filmmaker working for an antiquarian bookstore, finds that life is more exciting than movies—perhaps too exciting. Together, Mishkin and Crosetti travel to England in search of a previously unknown Shakespeare manuscript mentioned by Bracegirdle. Though the pace sometimes slows to allow Mishkin, Crosetti and Bracegirdle to divulge interesting aspects of their personal lives, these digressions only make the story more engaging. The suspense created around the double-crosses and triple-crosses works because of the close connection readers forge with Crosetti in particular. The mysterious murder of a Shakespearean scholar, shootouts in the streets of Queens and an unlikely romance all combine to make for a gripping, satisfying read. <em>(Apr.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>With literary-historical thrillers still piling up on bookstore shelves, Michael Gruber (_Night of the Jaguar_, *<em></em>1/2 July/Aug 2006) took a risk with <em>The Book of Air and Shadows</em>. While the novel will appeal to those who enjoyed <em>The Da Vinci Code </em>or <em>The Rule of Four</em>, critics agree that its lively dialogue, compellingly flawed characters, sense of humor, and intelligent exploration of religion and cryptology elevate it far above the genre's standard fare. Readers expecting car chases, kidnappings, globe trotting, sex, and murder won't be disappointed, either. A few reviewers stumbled a bit over the excerpts of the Jacobean-style letters, but all agreed that the novel "hits the ground running ? until disparate plot threads are brought together in a heart-stopping climax" (_Denver Post_).</p><p><em>Copyright © 2004 Phillips &amp; Nelson Media, Inc.</em></p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>"I'd understand if some people out there felt like another re-telling of the Oher story was flogging a dead horse, but personally, I feel like there's a need for Oher's own opus." <br />-Yahoo Sports   </p><p>"In a development I actually think is really great, Michael Oher will be publishing his own memoir now that his parents' story, <em>The Blind Side</em>, has been so thoroughly covered. It's long been my position that some of the uncomfortable things about the way that story gets covered are the simple result of the fact that he hasn't chosen to talk very much -- as this article points out, he contributed little in the way of interviews to either the book or the movie -- and I'll be happy to hear what the guy's got to say." <br />-Linda Holmes, NPR blogger. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>The football star made famous in the hit film <em>The Blind Side</em> reflects on how far he has come from the circumstances of his youth.</strong>   </p><p>Michael Oher is the young man at the center of the true story depicted in <em>The Blind Side</em> movie (and book) that swept up awards and accolades. Though the odds were heavily stacked against him, Michael had a burning desire deep within his soul to break out of the Memphis inner-city ghetto and into a world of opportunity. While many people are now familiar with Oher's amazing journey, this is the first time he shares his account of his story in his own words, revealing his thoughts and feelings with details that only he knows, and offering his point of view on how anyone can achieve a better life.   </p><p>Looking back on how he went from being a homeless child in Memphis to playing in the NFL, Michael talks about the goals he had for himself in order to break out of the cycle of poverty, addiction, and hopelessness that trapped his family for so long. He recounts poignant stories growing up in the projects and running from child services and foster care over and over again in search of some familiarity. Eventually he grasped onto football as his ticket out of the madness and worked hard to make his dream into a reality. But Oher also knew he would not be successful alone. With his adoptive family, the Touhys, and other influential people in mind, he describes the absolute necessity of seeking out positive role models and good friends who share the same values to achieve one's dreams.   </p><p>Sharing untold stories of heartache, determination, courage, and love, <em>I Beat the Odds</em> is an incredibly rousing tale of one young man's quest to achieve the American dream. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Fans of bestseller DeMille will welcome this sequel to <em>The Gold Coast</em> (1990), in which Susan Sutter, then the wife of tax attorney John Sutter, had a torrid affair with Frank Bellarosa, a powerful Mafia boss and the Sutters' neighbor on Long Island's tony Gold Coast, with fatal results for Bellarosa. After divorcing Susan, John sailed the world for three years, then built himself a new life in London. Now John has returned to the small gatehouse that was once part of his ex-wife's family estate, only to find Bellarosa's thuggish son, Anthony, living next door. In another coincidence, Susan has just reacquired the six-bedroom guest cottage where she and John lived as a married couple on her family's former property. Susan and John soon begin to explore an improbable reconciliation, even as they suspect she may be in Anthony's gun sights. The plot more than takes its time getting to its violent and predictable resolution, but DeMille devotees should have plenty of fun along the way. <em>(Oct.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>In this long-awaited but ponderous sequel to <em>The Gold Coast</em> (1990), it is ten years later, and John Sutter has returned for the funeral of a woman who isn't dead yet. He's also looking to restart his life and possibly hook up with his ex-wife, Susan, who'd had an affair with a local Mafia don she later killed. Confounding the problem is the don's son, who has taken over the family business and wants vengeance against both John and Susan. While there are interesting characters, and Sutter's first-person observations are clever, it takes forever for the action to get going. Even an exciting climax doesn't help. DeMille has developed a reputation for fast-paced action thrillers, and this is neither. His name will guarantee a level of success, and those patrons who enjoyed reading about the lives of the rich and decadent in <em>The Gold Coast</em> will enjoy this sequel. The rest will hope DeMille's next effort is more compelling. For larger collections. [See Prepub Alert, <em>LJ</em> 6/15/08.]—Robert Conroy, Warren, MI <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>"Dick was...one of the genuine visionaries that North American fiction has produced in this century." --_LA Weekly_  </p><p>"If there's such a thing as 'black science fiction,' Philip K. Dick is its Pirandello, its Beckett and its Pinter." --Harlan Ellison </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>A masterwork by Philip K. Dick, this is the final, expanded version of the novellla <em>The Unteleported Man</em>, which Dick worked on shortly before his death. In <em>Lies, Inc.</em>, fans of the science fiction legend will immediately recognize his hallmark themes of life in a security state, conspiracy, and the blurring of reality and illusion. This publication marks its first complete appearance in the United States.  </p><p>In this wry, paranoid vision of the future, overpopulation has turned cities into cramed industrial anthills. For those sick of this dystopian reality, one corporation, Trails of Hoffman, Inc., promises an alternative: Take a teleport to Whale's Mouth, a colonized planet billed as the supreme paradise. The only catch is that you can never comeback. When a neurotic man named Rachmael ben Applebaum discovers that the promotional films of happy crowds cheering their newfound existence on Whale's Mouth are faked, he decides to pilot a scapeship on the eighteen-year journey there to see if anyone wants to return. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><em>Indignation</em>, his 25th novel, he has constructed a taut, haunting (and, as always, funny) story that ranks among his best. Reading at times like a buttoned-down <em>Indignation</em> records a series of small explosions against '50s propriety and the dire consequences they lead to, capturing the misery of desire amid repression, along with the greater terror of being trapped in endless, relentless memory. <em>--Tom Nissley</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. Roth's brilliant and disconcerting new novel plumbs the depths of the early Cold War–era male libido, burdened as it is with sexual myths and a consciousness overloaded with vivid images of impending death, either by the bomb or in Korea. At least this is the way things appear to narrator Marcus Messner, the 19-year-old son of a Newark kosher butcher. Perhaps because Marcus's dad saw his two brothers' only sons die in WWII, he becomes an overprotective paranoid when Marcus turns 18, prompting Marcus to flee to Winesburg College in Ohio. Though the distance helps, Marcus, too, is haunted by the idea that flunking out of college means going to Korea. His first date in Winesburg is with doctor's daughter Olivia Hutton, who would appear to embody the beautiful normality Marcus seeks, but, instead, she destroys Marcus's sense of normal by surprising him after dinner with her carnal prowess. Slightly unhinged by this stroke of fortune, he at first shuns her, then pesters her with letters and finally has a brief but nonpenetrative affair with her. Olivia, he discovers, is psychologically fragile and bears scars from a suicide attempt—a mark Marcus's mother zeroes in on when she meets the girl for the first and last time. Between promising his mother to drop her and longing for her, Marcus goes through a common enough existential crisis, exacerbated by run-ins with the school administration over trivial matters that quickly become more serious.... The terrible sadness of Marcus's life is rendered palpable by Roth's fierce grasp on the psychology of this butcher's boy, down to his bought-for-Winesburg wardrobe. It's a melancholy triumph and a cogent reflection on society in a time of war. <em>(Sept.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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"It was all so honest, before the end of our collective innocence. Top Forty jocks screamed and yelled and sounded mightier than God on millions of transistor radios. But on FM radio it was all spun out for only you. On a golden web by a master weaver driven by fifty thousand magical watts of crystal clear power . . . before the days of trashy, hedonistic dumbspeak and disposable three-minute ditties . . . in the days where rock lived at many addresses in many cities." fromFM As a young man, Richard Neer dreamed of landing a job at WNEW in New Yorkone of the revolutionary FM stations across the country that were changing the face of radio by rejecting strict formatting and letting disc jockeys play whatever they wanted. He felt that when he got there, he'd have made the big time. Little did he know he'd have shaped rock history as well. FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio chronicles the birth, growth, and death of free-form rock-and-roll radio through the stories of the movement's flagship stations. In the late sixties and early seventiesat stations like KSAN in San Francisco, WBCN in Boston, WMMR in Philadelphia, KMET in Los Angeles, WNEW, and othersdisc jockeys became the gatekeepers, critics, and gurus of new music. Jocks like Scott Muni, Vin Scelsa, Jonathan Schwartz, and Neer developed loyal followings and had incredible influence on their listeners and on the early careers of artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Genesis, the Cars, and many others. Full of fascinating firsthand stories, FM documents the commodification of an iconoclastic phenomenon, revealing how counterculture was coopted and consumed by the mainstream. Richard Neer was an eyewitness to, and participant in, this history. FM is the tale of his exhilarating ride.


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<div><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Today's controversies over vaccinations pale beside the pitched battles fought at the turn of the 20th century, to judge by this probing work. Historian Willrich (City of Courts) revisits the smallpox epidemic that ravaged the United States from 1898 to 1904 and sparked a showdown between the burgeoning Progressive-era regulatory regime and Americans fearful of the new Leviathan state and the specter of "state medicine." Anxious to stamp out the contagion, public health officials in the South quarantined African-Americans in detention camps if they were suspected of carrying the disease and vaccinated others at gunpoint; in New York "paramilitary vaccination squads" raided immigrant tenements, forcibly inoculating residents and dragging infected children off to pesthouses; their coercive methods sparked occasional riots and lawsuits that helped remake constitutional law. Willrich sees merit on both sides: draconian public health measures saved thousands of lives, but resisters did have legitimate concerns about vaccine safety and side effects, racial targeting and bodily integrity. He does tend to romanticize anti-vaccine activists, whose movement he associates with feminism, free speech, and abolitionism, styling them as "libertarian radicals" engaging in "intimate acts of civil disobedience." Still, his lucid, well-written, empathetic study of a fascinating episode shows why the vaccine issue still pricks the American conscience. Photos. (Apr. 4) <br>(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>The untold story of how America's Progressive-era war on smallpox sparked one of the great civil liberties battles of the twentieth century. </strong>   </p><p>At the turn of the last century, a powerful smallpox epidemic swept the United States from coast to coast. The age-old disease spread swiftly through an increasingly interconnected American landscape: from southern tobacco plantations to the dense immigrant neighborhoods of northern cities to far-flung villages on the edges of the nascent American empire. In <em>Pox</em>, award-winning historian Michael Willrich offers a gripping chronicle of how the nation's continentwide fight against smallpox launched one of the most important civil liberties struggles of the twentieth century.   </p><p>At the dawn of the activist Progressive era and during a moment of great optimism about modern medicine, the government responded to the deadly epidemic by calling for universal compulsory vaccination. To enforce the law, public health authorities relied on quarantines, pesthouses, and "virus squads"-corps of doctors and club-wielding police. Though these measures eventually contained the disease, they also sparked a wave of popular resistance among Americans who perceived them as a threat to their health and to their rights.   </p><p>At the time, anti-vaccinationists were often dismissed as misguided cranks, but Willrich argues that they belonged to a wider legacy of American dissent that attended the rise of an increasingly powerful government. While a well-organized anti-vaccination movement sprang up during these years, many Americans resisted in subtler ways-by concealing sick family members or forging immunization certificates. <em>Pox</em> introduces us to memorable characters on both sides of the debate, from Henning Jacobson, a Swedish Lutheran minister whose battle against vaccination went all the way to the Supreme Court, to C. P. Wertenbaker, a federal surgeon who saw himself as a medical missionary combating a deadly-and preventable-disease.   </p><p>As Willrich suggests, many of the questions first raised by the Progressive-era antivaccination movement are still with us: How far should the government go to protect us from peril? What happens when the interests of public health collide with religious beliefs and personal conscience? In <em>Pox</em>, Willrich delivers a riveting tale about the clash of modern medicine, civil liberties, and government power at the turn of the last century that resonates powerfully today. </p>

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<div><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Before the Civil War, there lived in Louisiana, people unique in Southern history. For though they were descended from African slaves, they were also descended from the French and Spanish who enslaved them. In this dazzling historical novel, Anne Rice chronicles four of these so-called Free People of Color--men and women caught periolously between the worlds of master and slave, privilege and oppression, passion and pain.<br>"Anne Rice seems to be at home everywhere....She makes us believe everything she sees."<br>THE NEW YORK TIMES </p>

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<div><h3>Product Description</h3><p>The most talented Starfleet engineers of two generations unite to solve a two-hundred-year-old technological mystery that turns out to be only the beginning of a wider quest. </p><p>With the support of Guinan and Nog, as well as the crew of the <em>U.S.S. Challenger</em>, Geordi La Forge and Montgomery Scott soon find themselves drawn into a larger, deadlier, and far more personal adventure. Helped by old friends and hindered by old enemies, their investigation will come to threaten everything they hold dear. Seeking out the new, and going where no one has gonebefore, Geordi, Scotty, and Guinan find that their pasts are very much of the present, and must determine whether any sufficiently advanced technology is really indistinguishable from magic. </p><h3>Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.</h3>

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<div><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Swedish author Lindqvist's debut, a horror novel, offers few twists that won't already be familiar to readers of modern vampire fiction. Oskar, a much bullied 12-year-old schoolboy living in a Stockholm suburb, notices that his next-door neighbor, Eli, has some peculiar traits: Eli only comes out at night, smells like death warmed over and is of ambiguous gender. Eventually, Eli reveals he's a vampire who survives by feeding off the neighborhood lowlifes. Occasionally, his bite accidentally turns victims into undeads who, unaware of their vampirization, go on rampages that end in spectacularly gruesome fates. As sweet as the pure and wholesome friendship between Oskar and Eli may be, it's the gory set pieces that propel the predictable plot. <em>(Oct.)</em> <br>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Swedish TV and stage writer Lindqvist's first novel is set in a commonplace suburb of Stockholm, where 12-year-old Oskar lives with his mother, is bullied at school, shoplifts, and keeps a scrapbook of notes and clippings about gruesome murders. Eli, apparently about his age, moves in next door but doesn't go to school, leaving the flat only at night. Shortly after, the killings start. At first more fascinated than sorry, since one victim had bullied him, Oskar eventually discovers that Eli is a vampire, stuck permanently in childhood. What should Oskar do, especially when Eli is his friend as much as anyone is? Lindqvist develops the plot in rich detail. The characters, adult and child, are quite convincingly the sort that one would probably cross the street to avoid in any city. Lindqvist also realistically depicts the aftermath of brutal homicide on the nearby: shock and horror, some sleepless nights and bad dreams, despite which you must go to work and get the groceries; eventually, the police leave the neighborhood. Murray, Frieda </p>

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<div><p class="description">EDITORIAL REVIEW:</p>
<p class="description">The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks and military action.</p>
<p class="description">The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity and pushed him towards his present eminence, but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought.</p>
<p class="description">The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people.  It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner.  It believed the man to be a lost cause.  But not even its machine could see the horrors in his past.  </p>
<p class="description">Ferociously intelligent, both witty and horrific, USE OF WEAPONS is a masterpiece of science fiction.</p></div>


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<div><p class="description">EDITORIAL REVIEW:</p>
<p class="description">The Twin Novae battle had been one of the last of the Idiran war, and one of the most horrific: desperate to avert their inevitable defeat, the Idirans had induced not one but two suns to explode, snuffing out worlds and biospheres teeming with sentient life. They were attacks of incredible proportion -- gigadeathcrimes. But the war ended, and life went on.  </p>
<p class="description">  Now, eight hundred years later, light from the first explosion is about to reach the Masaq' Orbital, home to the Culture's most adventurous and decadent souls. There it will fall upon Masaq's 50 billion inhabitants, gathered to commemorate the deaths of the innocent and to reflect, if only for a moment, on what some call the Culture's own complicity in the terrible event.  </p>
<p class="description">  Also journeying to Masaq' is Major Quilan, an emissary from the war-ravaged world of Chel. In the aftermath of the conflict that split his world apart, most believe he has come to Masaq' to bring home Chel's most brilliant star and self-exiled dissident, the honored Composer Ziller.  </p>
<p class="description">  Ziller claims he will do anything to avoid a meeting with Major Quilan, who he suspects has come to murder him. But the Major's true assignment will have far greater consequences than the death of a mere political dissident, as part of a conspiracy more ambitious than even he can know -- a mission his superiors have buried so deeply in his mind that even he cannot remember it.  </p>
<p class="description">  Hailed by SFX magazine as "an excellent hopping-on point if you've never read a Banks SF novel before," *Look to Windward* is an awe-inspiring immersion into the wildly original, vividly realized civilization that Banks calls the Culture.</p></div>


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<p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>Iain M. Banks is a true original, an author whose brilliant speculative fiction has transported us into worlds of unbounded imagination and inimitable revelatory power. Now he takes us on the ultimate trip: to the edge of possibility and to the heart of a cosmic puzzle....Diplomat Byr Genar-Hofoen has been selected by the Culture to undertake a delicate and dangerous mission. The Department of Special Circumstances--the Culture's espionage and dirty tricks section--has sent him off to investigate a 2,500-year-old mystery: the sudden disappearance of a star fifty times older than the universe itself. But in seeking the secret of the lost sun, Byr risks losing himself.There is only one way to break the silence of millennia: steal the soul of the long-dead starship captain who first encountered the star, and convince her to be reborn. And in accepting this mission, Byr will be swept into a vast conspiracy that could lead the universe into an age of peace...or to the brink of annihilation.</p>


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<div><p class="description">EDITORIAL REVIEW:</p>
<p class="description">Iain M. Banks, the international bestselling author of *The Player of Games* and *Consider Phlebas,* is a true original, a literary visionary whose brilliant speculative fiction has transported us into worlds of unbounded imagination. Now, in his acclaimed new novel, Banks presents an engrossing portrait of an alien world, and of two very different people bound by a startling and mysterious secret.</p>
<p class="description">On a backward world with six moons, an alert spy reports on the doings of one Dr. Vosill, who has mysteriously become the personal physician to the king despite being a foreigner and, even more unthinkably, a woman. Vosill has more enemies than she first realizes. But then she also has more remedies in hand than those who wish her ill can ever guess.</p>
<p class="description">Elsewhere, in another palace across the mountains, a man named DeWar serves as chief bodyguard to the Protector General of Tassasen, a profession he describes as the business of "assassinating assassins." DeWar, too, has his enemies, but his foes strike more swiftly, and his means of combating them are more direct.</p>
<p class="description">No one trusts the doctor, and the bodyguard trusts no one, but is there a hidden commonality linking their disparate histories? Spiraling around a central core of mystery, deceit, love, and betrayal. *Inversions* is a dazzling work of science fiction from a versatile and imaginative author writing at the height of his remarkable powers.</p></div>


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In the late seventeenth century, famed teenage pirate Emer Morrisey was on the cusp of escaping the pirate life with her one true love and unfathomable riches when she was slain and cursed with "the dust of one hundred dogs," dooming her to one hundred lives as a dog before returning to a human body-with her memories intact.Now she's a contemporary American teenager and all she needs is a shovel and a ride to Jamaica.Exciting, fascinating, spellbinding. I'd follow Saffron into the briny deep.—Heather Brewer, author of The Chronicles of Vladimir TodA non-traditional pirate tale with a dangerously raw, mystical edge and a unique modern twist. Deliciously fresh and starkly unforgettable. —Lisa McMann, New York Times best-selling author of WakeSparkling, original, both swashbuckling and contemporary...This gripping adventure is sure to be devoured by both teens and adults. —Lauren Baratz-Logsted, author of Angel's Choice


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Freda and Brenda spend their days working in an Italian-run wine-bottling factory. A work outing offers promise for Freda and terror from Brenda; passions run high on that chilly day of freedom, and life after the outing never returns to normal. Beryl Bainbridge will dazzle readers in this offbeat, haunting yet hilarious novel.


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Wartime Liverpool is a place of ration books and jobs in munitions factories. Rita, living with her two aunts Nellie and Margo, is emotionally naïve and withdrawn. When she meets Ira, a GI, at a neighbour’s party she falls in love almost as much with the idea of life as a GI bride as with the man himself. But Nellie and Margo are not so blind …


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<p>A nervous breakdown seems like a great idea: all that lying in bed and watching daytime TV. But who's going to have it? Will it be housewife Clodagh, who spends her days microwaving pasta for her demanding toddlers and waiting for her beautiful husband Dylan to come home? Or Lisa, hard, brittle and shiny as an M&amp;M, reeling from the shock of a demotion from her fabulous job in London to a one-horse magazine in Dublin? Or Ashling, so normal she's weird?


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<h3>Review</h3><p>“Original, thorough and comprehensive...Should help to demystify the process of baking with whole grains.”<br />—The New York Times Book Review  </p><p>“Here at last is a readable source of information heretofore available only to professional bakers.”<br />—East West Journal  </p><p>“Sets a new standard with clear, easily followed recipes that not only tell you ‘how,’ but ‘why.’”<br />—Newsday   </p><p>“We get lots of requests for 100 percent whole-grain bread machine recipes. Thanks to Laurel, we can fulfill these requests. What a wonderful, well-researched book! There are many delicious and varied recipes, and best of all some really innovative ideas on how to make whole-grain bread machine baking easy and successful. This will definitely be added to our baking library.”<br />—Linda Rehberg and Lois Conway, authors of Bread Machine Magic </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>The Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book</strong> is the classic bestselling cookbook devoted to baking light, healthful, delicious bread entirely from whole grains. This specially updated edition includes an entirely new chapter on making excellent whole-grain loaves in a bread machine. Now even the busiest among us can bake the delectable loaves for which Laurel’s Kitchen is famous.  </p><p>New research proves what we’ve known all along: Eating whole grains really is better for your health! Here, the switch from “white” is made fun and easy.  </p><p>Like a good friend, the “Loaf for Learning” tutorial guides you step-by-step through the baking process. You’ll make perfect loaves every time, right from the start.  </p><p>Here you’ll find recipes for everything—from chewy Flemish Desem Bread and mouthwatering Hot Cross Buns to tender Buttermilk Rolls, foolproof Pita Pockets, tangy Cheese Muffins, and luscious Banana Bread—all with clear explanations and helpful woodcut illustrations.  </p><p>The brand-new chapter on bread machines teaches you to make light “electric” loaves from whole-grain flour. No matter what your schedule, you can come home to the wonderful smell of baking bread, fresh, hot, and ready to enjoy. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Biba Caggiano, Bologna-born and raised in the Emiglia-Romagna region, gives her audience the chance to cook like a native in Biba's Northern Italian Cooking. The author of six cookbooks and owner and chef of Biba restaurant in Sacramento, Calif., prepares simple to sumptuous meals, from antipasto to dessert, with dishes for all occasions. First she discusses essential Italian ingredients and equivalents and begins each course section with a brief account of what it entails. Her Green Lasagne Bologna Style, Shellfish Risotto, Pheasant with Gin and Juniper Berries and Pears Poached in Red Wine will lure eager diners to a bounteous table. </p><p>Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.</p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Italian-born Biba Caggiano takes readers under her wing with more than 200 recipes from Northern Italy-the center of great cooking. Simple-to-master recipes cover tortellini from scratch, authentic pasta sauces, savory meat dishes, luscious desserts and more. This new edition features everything from simple dishes for a family meal to more elaborate recipes for special occasions, including:   </p><ul> <li>     Homemade Minestrome   </li> <li>     Tagliatelle Bolognese Style   </li> <li>     Shellfish Risotto   </li> <li>     Bruschetta with Fresh Tomatoes and Basil   </li> <li>     Roasted Leg of Lamb with Garlic and Rosemary   </li></ul>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Written in the present tense, <em>First They Killed My Father</em> will put you right in the midst of the action--action you'll wish had never happened. It's a tough read, but definitely a worthwhile one, and the author's personality and strength shine through on every page. Covering the years from 1975 to 1979, the story moves from the deaths of multiple family members to the forced separation of the survivors, leading ultimately to the reuniting of much of the family, followed by marriages and immigrations. The brutality seems unending--beatings, starvation, attempted rape, mental cruelty--and yet the narrator (a young girl) never stops fighting for escape and survival. Sad and courageous, her life and the lives of her young siblings provide quite a powerful example of how war can so deeply affect children--especially a war in which they are trained to be an integral part of the armed forces. For anyone interested in Cambodia's recent history, this book shares a valuable personal view of events. <em>--Jill Lightner</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In 1975, Ung, now the national spokesperson for the Campaign for a Landmine-Free World, was the five-year-old child of a large, affluent family living in Phnom Penh, the cosmopolitan Cambodian capital. As extraordinarily well-educated Chinese-Cambodians, with the father a government agent, her family was in great danger when the Khmer Rouge took over the country and throughout Pol Pot's barbaric regime. Her parents' strength and her father's knowledge of Khmer Rouge ideology enabled the family to survive together for a while, posing as illiterate peasants, moving first between villages, and then from one work camp to another. The father was honest with the children, explaining dangers and how to avoid them, and this, along with clear sight, intelligence and the pragmatism of a young child, helped Ung to survive the war. Her restrained, unsentimental account of the four years she spent surviving the regime before escaping with a brother to Thailand and eventually the United States is astonishing--not just because of the tragedies, but also because of the immense love for her family that Ung holds onto, no matter how she is brutalized. She describes the physical devastation she is surrounded by but always returns to her memories and hopes for those she loves. Her joyful memories of life in Phnom Penh are close even as she is being trained as a child soldier, and as, one after another, both parents and two of her six siblings are murdered in the camps. Skillfully constructed, this account also stands as an eyewitness history of the period, because as a child Ung was so aware of her surroundings, and because as an adult writer she adds details to clarify the family's moves and separations. Twenty-five years after the rise of the Khmer Rouge, this powerful account is a triumph. 8 pages b&amp;w photos. <br />Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The Rita Award–winning author (as Barbara Samuel) of The Lost Recipe for Happiness returns with the absorbing story of Ramona Gallagher, a 40-year-old woman whose joy in running a bakery in Colorado Springs helps her transcend a life that's anything but perfect. Ramona has a prickly relationship with her large, restaurant-owning family and a deep love for her daughter, Sofia, who Ramona had as a teenager and is now grown and pregnant. When Sofia's husband is injured in Afghanistan and she flies to Germany to be with him, Ramona is left to care for Sofia's 13-year-old stepdaughter, Katie, a scrawny child whose drug-addicted mother is in jail. Over the summer, Ramona struggles to keep her business afloat and find some solid footing with her family, bonds with Katie, aches for what her daughter is enduring, and rekindles a romance from 25 years earlier. O'Neal's tale of strong-willed women and torn family loyalties is a cut above the standard women's fiction fare, held together by lovingly sketched characters and real emotion. (Dec.) <br />(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Ramona Gallagher does not do well with her family. Born into a long line of restaurant owners, shipped off to the country when 15 and pregnant, and skipped over for promotion in favor of her ex during an acrimonious divorce, she broke away from her family and opened her own bakery. She now leads a quiet life while residing with her pregnant daughter, Sofia, whose husband is stationed in Iraq. When Sofia receives a call that her husband has been injured, she flies to his side, leaving Ramona to take care of Sofia’s stepdaughter, Katie. Katie, 13, has had a rough life with her drug-addicted mother while her father is overseas, and Ramona, out of practice and remembering her own mother, tries her best to deal with the prickly teen. Under Ramona’s care, Katie slowly blossoms until another tragedy threatens to permanently ruin them all. O’Neal’s third novel is, like its predecessors (The Lost Recipe for Happiness, 2008; The Secret of Everything, 2010), a dramatic, emotional story with honest characters and a warm heart at its center. --Hilary Hatton </p>


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En midaldrende gift mands forhold til sin elskerinde trues af afsløring, da et middagsselskab hos hende udvikler sig til et gidseldrama.


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Only veteran author Danielle Steel can make dysfunction this fashionable! In <em>Malice</em>, her 37th potboiler, the gloves come off. Life is no fairy tale for teenager Grace Adams. The preternaturally quiet and dowdy daughter of Watseka's favorite son, lawyer John Adams, and his lovely, cancer-stricken wife Ellen, Grace has an ugly little secret that she's kept for four years. When her father brutally rapes her following her mother's funeral, Grace kills him. Only 17 years old, she faces the death penalty in a town all too willing to perpetrate the fiction of John Adams, even when it means prison for Grace. Upon release two years later, Grace heads for Chicago where life starts looking up when she finds a job as a receptionist in a downtown modeling agency. Unfortunately, Grace encounters an unscrupulous photographer and a slimy parole officer. As soon as her parole is over, Grace escapes again, running to New York City to disappear among the hordes. Working as a secretary in a law firm, she's asked to work for a partner. After a rocky start, Charles Mackenzie and Grace establish a comfortable routine. But when Grace is brutally beaten by the husband of a woman in the crisis center where she volunteers, Charles is at her side constantly, arranging for the finest medical care and talking her out of her coma. Love blooms as Grace slowly recuperates. Finally whole again, inside and out, Grace and Charles marry and start a family. Life couldn't get much better as Charles enters politics and Grace tends to their growing family. But when tabloids release the story of Grace's sordid past and explicit photos of Grace taken while she was drugged, their family is left reeling, with Charles's campaign in shambles and Grace's life crumbling around her. Danielle Steel doesn't even pretend that <em>Malice</em> is a piece of romantic fiction, but loyal fans will happily make the transition as she charts a new course! <em>--Alison Trinkle</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Sexual abuse in myriad forms imbues Steel's new novel with uncharacteristically dark tones. The narrative covers more than 20 painful years in the life of Grace Adams, an incest victim who, at age 17, shoots dead her abusive father. Sent to prison, Grace is rescued from a lesbian gang-rape by a pair of women who provide protection during her two-year sentence. Once released, she heads to Chicago, where she lands a job in a modeling agency, only to be sexually harassed by a series of men, including her parole officer, her boss and a wicked photographer. After her probation ends, Grace moves to New York; there, she works as secretary in a major law firm and volunteers in a shelter for abused women. Steel is careful not to let the nearly fatal beating that follows mar her heroine's good looks, or future. Grace emerges from a coma to find handsome Charles Mackenzie, her high-powered lawyer boss, at her bedside. A happy ending?which follows some satisfying vengeance on Grace's part?doesn't minimize the aura of victimization that surrounds this heroine. Only in a Danielle Steel novel would a 19-year-old ex-con show up at her first job interview in a "little Chanel knockoff" suit?but neither pseudo-high fashion nor the high-handed conclusion keep this yarn from being, ultimately, a big downer that earns its title in more ways than one. <br />Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Gr 8 Up–Liv went through more than mere pubescent changes on her 13th birthday, and as time goes on, she only feels like her true self when she is in the woods. While struggling to determine what really happened to her that fateful night, Liv, now 17, also grapples with being estranged from her parents, dating a boy they would not approve of, and keeping her best friend's secrets. Once she learns the truth–that she is a werewolf–Liv must determine where she really fits. Does she belong with her pack or can she make things work with the guy she loves? While many of the werewolf traits are reminiscent of Stephenie Meyer's “Twilight” series (Little, Brown), the similarities end there. Block's focus is not so much on the fact that Liv is a werewolf, but rather on how she deals with this information and how it impacts those she cares about. There are issues of friendship, difficulties with parents, questions about a love relationship, and even an underlying mystery about a string of serial murders that take place in Liv's beloved woods. Block does a nice job of weaving all these elements into a solid story that makes a quick but engaging read for fans of supernatural fiction. Reluctant readers will enjoy this story as well because of its pacing and manageable chapters.–Gina Bowling, South Gibson County High School, Medina, TN. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Red-haired Olivia doesn’t look like her parents and is locked in typical teen struggles with their values. But things aren’t normal otherwise. Liv’s hair is embarrassingly rich on every part of her body—even her toes—and her police-chief dad hasn’t been able to solve the brutal murders of four hunters in the local woods. Readers will figure out that Liv is a werewolf several chapters before she does, and Block’s spin on modern werewolf lore includes a dose of small-minded, small-town meanness that Liv—with a black boyfriend, a gay best friend who commits suicide, and a mom who is fashion sensitive and emotionally shallow—must deal with. From another writer, this would be passing fare for the magical-creature hungry, but missing here are Block’s insouciant and pithy dialogue, her usual stellar balancing of scene and action, and other hallmarks that readers adore in—and expect from—her writing. Werewolf fans will accept this, as will those who consume anything by a favorite author, but this is a mere a gateway to Block’s more creative titles. Grades 9-12. --Francisca Goldsmith </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. Many will greet this taut, clear-eyed memoir of grief as a long-awaited return to the terrain of Didion's venerated, increasingly rare personal essays. The author of <em>Slouching Towards Bethlehem </em>and 11 other works chronicles the year following the death of her husband, fellow writer John Gregory Dunne, from a massive heart attack on December 30, 2003, while the couple's only daughter, Quintana, lay unconscious in a nearby hospital suffering from pneumonia and septic shock. Dunne and Didion had lived and worked side by side for nearly 40 years, and Dunne's death propelled Didion into a state she calls "magical thinking." "We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss," she writes. "We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes." Didion's mourning follows a traditional arc—she describes just how precisely it cleaves to the medical descriptions of grief—but her elegant rendition of its stages leads to hard-won insight, particularly into the aftereffects of marriage. "Marriage is not only time: it is also, paradoxically, the denial of time. For forty years I saw myself through John's eyes. I did not age." In a sense, all of Didion's fiction, with its themes of loss and bereavement, served as preparation for the writing of this memoir, and there is occasionally a curious hint of repetition, despite the immediacy and intimacy of the subject matter. Still, this is an indispensable addition to Didion's body of work and a lyrical, disciplined entry in the annals of mourning literature. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Didion's husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, died of a heart attack, just after they had returned from the hospital where their only child, Quintana, was lying in a coma. This book is a memoir of Dunne's death, Quintana's illness, and Didion's efforts to make sense of a time when nothing made sense. "She's a pretty cool customer," one hospital worker says of her, and, certainly, coolness was always part of the addictive appeal of Didion's writing. The other part was the dark side of cool, the hyper-nervous awareness of the tendency of things to go bad. In 2004, Didion had her own disasters to deal with, and she did not, she feels, deal with them coolly, or even sanely. This book is about getting a grip and getting on; it's also a tribute to an extraordinary marriage. <br />Copyright © 2005 </p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>'So who was the real Larsson, and what would he have made of his success? His friend, the journalist and fellow activist Kurdo Baksi, goes some way to answering both in this short but powerful memoir. For Larsson geeks such as myself, the unearthed details of his past and the fond recollections of his ceaseless pursuit of justice are gripping ... [A] moving, well-paced and honest account of Larsson's life' Rosie Swash, Observer. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Five years after his death, Stieg Larsson is best known as the author of the Millennium Trilogy, but during his career as a journalist he was a crucial protagonist in the battle against racism and for democracy in Sweden, and one of the founders of the anti-facist magazine Expo. Kurdo Baksi first met Larsson in 1992; it was the beginning of an intense friendship, and a fruitful but challenging working relationship. In this candid and rounded memoir, Baksi answers the questions a multitude of Larsson's fans have already asked, about his upbringing; the recurring death threats; his insomnia and his vices; his feminism - so evident in his books - and his dogmatism. What was he like as a colleague? Who provided the inspiration for his now-immortal characters (Baksi is one of the few who appears in the trilogy as himself)? Who was Lisbeth Salander? </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>To amend the "official" history of Rock, the author focuses on the fascinating history and powerful influence that certain innovative, albeit generally under-appreciated, musicians have had on successive generations of bands. 50 illustrations. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Covering the writing waterfront-from basics on verb tense to the value of forming a "support group"-Poynter Institute vice president Clark offers tips, tricks and techniques for anyone putting fingers to keyboard. The best assets in Clark's book are in the "workshop" sections that conclude each chapter and list strategies for incorporating the material covered in each lesson (minimize adverbs, use active verbs, read your work aloud). Though some suggestions are classroom campy ("Listen to song lyrics to hear how the language moves on the ladder of abstraction" and "With some friends, take a big piece of chart paper and with colored markers draw a diagram of your writing process"), Clark's blend of instruction and exercise will prove especially useful for teachers. One exercise, for instance, suggests reading the newspaper and marking the location of subjects and verbs. Another provides a close reading of a passage from The Postman Always Rings Twice to look at the ways word placement and sentence structure can add punch to prose. Clark doesn't intend his guide to be a replacement for classic style guides like Elements of Style, but as a companion volume, it does the trick.<br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>The author, vice president of the Poynter Institute School of Journalism, wants you to understand that a tool isn't the same thing as a rule. A tool is something designed to help you, not constrict you. The 50 tools discussed here take writers through the process of storytelling in prose, from the basic (construct a sentence with a subject and a verb) to the advanced (make your characters archetypes, not stereotypes). Many of Clark's rules are technical, having to do with such matters as punctuation and tense, but some of them are more thematically oriented (for example, discussions of the proper uses of foreshadowing and suspense). Use the tools when you like, the author says, and throw them away when it suits you. Just know what it is you're throwing away and why. This is a useful tool for writers at all levels of experience, and it's entertainingly written, with plenty of helpful examples. <em>David Pitt</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p><strong>Best of 2010 Lists</strong> <em>The New York Times</em>, Michiko Kakutani's Top Ten of 2010 <br /><em>The Washington Post</em>, John Yardley's Best of 2010 <br /><em>Minneapolis Star Tribune</em>   </p><p>"It comes as no surprise to find that the great novelist was a great correspondent as well. I hungrily read the book through in three nights, as though I'd stumbled upon a lost Bellow masterpiece only recently unearthed." <br />?Philip Roth   </p><p>"In the <em>Letters</em>, as in everything he wrote, Saul Bellow never dipped below a certain level?and that level is stratospheric." <br />?Martin Amis   </p><p>"These aren't dashed-off notes, but letters that required considerable care and meant much to the author, as he expresses affection and support for other writers (Ellison, Roth, Malamud, Cheever, Amis et al.), takes critics and journalists to task with well-formed arguments and offers critical commentary on the culture that provides the context for his work (a culture that no longer values the art of writing letters)." <br />?_Kirkus Reviews_   </p><p>"Feisty, smart, but most of all thrillingly intimate, these letters ripen and mature as they go along, just as some people do." <br />?_Chicago Tribune_   </p><p>"Benjamin Taylor has done a superb job in both his selection and his introduction to these salient letters from a gone world when literature was all the rage." <br />?_Tablet Magazine_   </p><p>"Benjamin Taylor's introduction and frequent brief indentifying notes are models of elegant scholarly restraint." <br />?_Boston Globe_   </p><p>"Collected and annotated by Benjamin Taylor, these letters reveal in Saul Bellow a rare consistency: From the first letter in 1932 to the last in 2005, Bellow's ex-wives accrue, his fortunes rise and fall, but his character-as a man generous and preoccupied by literature-remains fixed." <br />?_Time Out New York_   </p><p>"Vibrant, witty, and revealing, the collection is truly captivating." <br />-Kiara, Bookseller, Booksmith   </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>A never-before-published collection of letters-an intimate self- portrait as well as the portrait of a century. </strong>   </p><p>Saul Bellow was a dedicated correspondent until a couple of years before his death, and his letters, spanning eight decades, show us a twentieth-century life in all its richness and complexity. Friends, lovers, wives, colleagues, and fans all cross these pages. Some of the finest letters are to Bellow's fellow writers-William Faulkner, John Cheever, Philip Roth, Martin Amis, Ralph Ellison, Cynthia Ozick, and Wright Morris. Intimate, ironical, richly observant, and funny, these letters reveal the influcences at work in the man, and illuminate his enduring legacy-the novels that earned him a Nobel Prize and the admiration of the world over. <em>Saul Bellow: Letters</em> is a major literary event and an important edition to Bellow's incomparable body of work. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>First-time novelist Berry weighs in with a hefty thriller that's long on interesting research but short on thrills. Atlanta judge Rachel Cutler and ex-husband Paul are divorced but still care for each other. Rachel's father, Karol Borya, knows secrets about the famed Amber Room, a massive set of intricately carved panels crafted from the precious substance and looted by Nazis during WWII from Russia's Catherine Palace. The disappearance of the panels, which together formed a room, remains one of the world's greatest unsolved art mysteries. Borya's secret gets him killed as two European industrialists/art collectors go head to head in a deadly race to find the fabled room. Searching for Borya's killer, Rachel and Paul bumble their way to Europe, where their naivet‚ triggers more deaths. Berry has obviously done his homework, and he seems determined to find a place for every fact he's unearthed. The plot slows for descriptions of various art pieces, lectures and long internal monologues in which characters examine their innermost feelings and motives in minute detail, while also packing in plenty of sex and an abundance of brutal killings. A final confrontation between all the principals ends in a looming Bavarian castle where Rachel is raped. All the right elements are in place, but the book is far too long and not as exciting as the ingredients suggest. Readers may end up wishing Berry had written a nonfiction account of the fascinating story of the Amber Room and skipped the fictional mayhem.<br />Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Give this man credit: whereas most lawyers who decide to write a novel stay fairly close to home, Berry, a Georgia trial attorney, wanders far off the beaten path. Although his debut novel features a trial judge as its central character and opens with a pretty typical courtroom scene, it soon steps outside the courtroom--way outside. When Judge Rachel Cutler's father dies under suspicious circumstances, he leaves his daughter tantalizing clues to a decades-old secret: the Amber Room, an exquisite treasure that, so the legend goes, was appropriated by the Nazis when they invaded the Soviet Union. Now, to find out why her father died, and who's responsible, Rachel (with her ex-husband, Paul) heads off to Germany, where she hopes to find the truth about the Amber Room. Based loosely, very loosely, on certain historical events, the novel is plotted cleverly and written with style and substance. A welcome change from the usual legal-thriller fare from wanna-be Turows. <em>David Pitt</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>With this second Russian suspense novel, which focuses on the restoration of the Romanov dynasty, Berry shows he's honed his craft since his somewhat shaky debut, <em>The Amber Room</em> (2003). Miles Lord, a workaholic African-American lawyer from Atlanta, is in Moscow to help Stefan Baklanov, the Romanov claimant his high-powered firm is backing. Since the new tsar will reign as an autocrat like his ancestors, both big rubles and big bucks are at stake—not to mention access to nuclear weapons. Lord soon discerns that Baklanov is corrupt, a tool of the <em>mafiya</em>. While digging through old files on the Russian Revolution, Lord comes to believe Baklanov is the "raven" Rasputin predicted would help save the royal house in 1916. Teaming with a beautiful acrobat, Akilina Petrov of the Moscow Circus, Lord attempts to discover whether any children of Nicholas II escaped Lenin's executioners. A series of exotic clues propel the pair on an international scavenger hunt. Berry uses Russia—past and present—to excellent effect and makes sharp observations about the contemporary Russian scene, such as the racism Lord encounters throughout the country. The book's villain needs a bit more development, but this doesn't detract much from a solid tale a cut above—and then some—many thrillers on the market. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p><em></em>Praise for Steve Berry  </p><p>_The Romanov Prophecy<br />_<em></em>“READERS WHO ENJOY THE BOOKS OF DAN BROWN AND DANIEL SILVA WILL ENJOY <em>THE ROMANOV PROPHECY</em>, TOO. This is a wild roller-coaster ride, with explosive action and compelling suspense, delving into one of the great mysteries of our time.”<br />–SHARON KAY PENMAN, author of <em>Time and Chance</em>  </p><p><em></em>_The Amber Room<br />_<em></em>“SEXY, ILLUMINATING, AND CONFIDENT . . . a globe-trotting treasure hunt packed with exotic locales, sumptuous art, and ruthless villains.<br />Steve Berry writes with the self-assured style of a veteran.”<br />–DAN BROWN, author of <em>The Da Vinci Code</em>  </p><p>“COMPELLING . . . ADVENTURE-FILLED . . . a fast-moving, globe-hopping tale of long-lost treasure and shadowy bad guys.”<br />–_San Francisco Chronicle_  </p><p>“MAGNIFICENTLY ENGROSSING, with wonderful characters and a plot that speeds, twists, and turns. Pure intrigue, pure fun.”<br />–CLIVE CUSSLER  </p><p><em>From the Hardcover edition.</em></p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>For Steve Berry, it's a fortuitous coincidence that his third novel, a Vatican-centered conspiracy thriller titled <em>The Third Secret</em>, was published in the immediate aftermath of Pope Benedict XVI's anointment in Rome. While this exuberantly contrived yarn would likely have drawn an audience at any time, it benefits from coming before readers just after they've been primed with news reports about papal succession, the relative influence and legacy of pontiffs, and the increasing tug-of-war between Roman Catholic progressives and conservative traditionalists.</p><p>Set in the near future, <em>Secret</em> introduces Jakob Volkner--Pope Clement XV--a German "caretaker pope" who, nearing the age of 80, was elected as John Paul II's successor. But three years into his papacy, the thoughtful Clement has begun to quietly express skepticism about papal infallibility and the Church's restrictive dogma, and to make odd requests of his longtime secretary, Monsignor Colin Michener, an Irish-born but American-reared priest whose vows of celibacy have been tested--and found wanting. Clement has also made repeated visits to a guarded sanctum within the Vatican archives, where sacred and historic documents are stored. And he's dispatched Michener to Romania to locate an elderly cleric who, in the 1950s, translated three cryptic prophecies, purportedly offered by the Virgin Mary in 1917 to a trio of children in Fatima, Portugal. Those secrets have since been fully disclosed to the world. Or have they? That’s the question facing Michener in the wake of Clement's shocking suicide, as he pursues a twisted trail of clues, crimes, and religious forecasts from Rome to Bosnia to Germany, accompanied by his former lover, journalist Katerina Lew. But making any additional secrets known to the world will put Michener in confrontation with doctrinal reactionaries, led by Cardinal Alberto Valendrea, the Vatican's Italian secretary of state, who's determined to follow Clement as the Vicar of Christ--even if that requires inventing a few new sins and flouting a 900-year-old prediction of doom for the next pope.</p><p>Attorney-author Berry, praised previously for <strong> and </strong>, enriches <em>The Third Secret</em> with glimpses behind the locked doors of a papal selection process and knowledge of centuries-old Catholic prognostications that, while employed judiciously in these pages, nonetheless suggest a prodigious amount of research. He's less successful with his casting. Valendrea is a wincingly unnuanced scoundrel, and Ms. Lew achieves scarce definition beyond being a raven-tressed temptress to powerful prelates. Thankfully, Berry does better by Michener, who finds himself at a crossroads, carrying on in Clement's name even as he searches for confirmation that his own life of devotion and service has been meaningful. Although the secrets "revealed" in this tale seem more controversial than plausible, and a potentially intriguing subplot about the excommunication of a maverick priest ends up as a throwaway device, <em>The Third Secret</em> builds to a conclusion that is as suspenseful and stunning as it is inevitable. Have faith. <em>--J. Kingston Pierce</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Visions of the Virgin Mary, secret documents and politicking in the highest echelons of the Catholic Church—Berry (_The Amber Room_) combines combustive elements in this well-researched thriller. In 1917, the Virgin Mary revealed herself to three children in Fatima, Portugal, disclosing three secrets to the eldest, Lucia, who shared the first two secrets soon after their revelation but left the last to be disclosed upon her death. This third secret was released to Pope John XXIII in 1960 and made public by Pope John Paul II in 2000... or was it? The novel's stolid protagonist—Msgr. Colin Michener, longtime secretary to Clement XV, the novel's near-future successor to John Paul II—has reason to doubt the accuracy of the public version of the secret. Beleaguered by radically dogmatic cardinals and bishops, the embattled Clement XV also appears distressed by recent knowledge of secret documents regarding the Fatima messages. Before his inexplicable suicide, Clement sends Michener to Romania in search of a Father Tibor, who translated the third secret for Pope John XXIII and may hold the key to its mystery. Also on the case, if a step behind, is the ambitious and traditionalist Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Valendrea, with an eye on the papal throne. <em>Da Vinci Code</em> fans hungry for more may want a taste of this. <em>Agent, Pam Ahearn. 10-city author tour. (June)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In Alexander's charming third novel of romantic suspense set in late Victorian England (after <em>The Poisoned Season</em>), Lady Emily Ashton is at a country house party when someone shoots her noxious host, Lord Basil Fortescue, with a dueling pistol. After the husband of a good friend is accused of the murder, Emily determines to find the real killer. The only clue, a threatening letter promising a political assassination, drives Emily to Vienna, where she meets the painter Gustav Klimt and shares stolen moments with her fiancé, diplomat Colin Hargreaves. But Emily never forgets her urgent mission—in the service of which she must match wits with double agents and anarchists as well as ally herself temporarily with Colin's former lover, the sexually sophisticated Kristiana von Lange. The appealing Emily at times comes across as too modern for even the most unconventional Victorian character, and the plot sags in mid-story despite several clever subplots. Still, the book's entertaining voice and accurate period detail will seduce most readers_. (June)_ <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Lady Emily Ashton is back in her third episode of romantic suspense set in the Victorian world of mannerly gentlemen, conniving mothers, and scandals behind closed doors. Forced to join a group of socialites at the home of formidable and odious Lord Fortescue, whom she loathes (and whose daughter covets Emily’s fiancé, Colin Hargreaves), Emily and others in the party feel little regret when Fortescue is murdered. Unfortunately, her best friend’s husband, Robert, is arrested and imprisoned in the Tower, after witnesses confirm his fight with the victim. Resolved to exonerate Robert, Emily heads for Vienna on the killer’s trail. Austria proves rich with intrigue, and this portion of the story really shines as readers take a tour of nineteenth-century Vienna—its parties and its cafés—in the wintertime, shadowed by decidedly evil characters. Emily’s sparkling wit makes up for the somewhat convoluted plot and large cast of characters who move from England to the Continent and back at the slightest provocation. This is a captivating addition to the adventures of an irresistible Victorian iconoclast. --Jen Baker </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>In his extraordinary debut novel of psychological suspense, Thomas O’Callaghan proves himself a worthy successor to Thomas Harris as he introduces one of the most compelling and terrifying serial killers since Hannibal Lecter in a book where every harrowing page crackles with the white-knuckle feel of a race against time and the gritty authenticity of a real forensic investigation. </p><p>A housewife snatched in broad daylight. A tattooed drifter displayed under a boardwalk. A wealthy, high-society heiress left in a city dump. A busy, young mother on her last errand. </p><p>The women seem to have no connection except one: they have all been the victims of the Bone Thief, a twisted madman who slays his victims and steals their bones as gruesome trophies. </p><p>Since tragedy struck his own family, Lieutenant John W. Driscoll has been a man on the edge of both sanity and life. But now, with New York City in the grip of panic, Driscoll is needed more than ever. With time running out and the stakes rising every hour, he’ll have to guide a troubled team while battling his own demons in order to hunt and catch the most cunning predator he’s ever faced—a serial killer who is the very soul of evil and whose most shocking revelation is yet to come… </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Thomas O'Callaghan drew rave reviews for Bone Thief, chilling debut. Now, in his riveting new thriller, a diabolical killer is terrorizing New York City... </p><p>The Screaming Room </p><p>John Driscoll has laid the ghosts of his past to rest. He's ready to start over--both personally and as a New York City homicide detective. But it seems that a serial killer has other plans for Driscoll. </p><p>The victims' bodies are found, brutally mutilated and carefully arranged. Someone has displayed the corpses for the world to see: on a Ferris wheel; in a dinosaur diorama; on a bridge--grotesque visions to all except for the depraved killer, who considers them masterpieces. These blood rituals spell out a message to Driscoll. And they are just the beginning... </p><p>Driscoll's investigation will lead him down the darkest of journeys, toward an evil beyond his worst nightmares. In a hellish landscape conceived by the all-too-clever mind of a twisted schemer, Driscoll must play a killer's deadly game. It's up to him to save his city--or die trying. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>For his first book Geist, from MSNBC's Way Too Early and Morning Joe, imagines private conversations, e-mail exchanges, Twitter feeds, speeches, and other scenarios involving top newsmakers from our time. Such luminaries as Hillary Clinton, Kate Gosselin, Tiger Woods, Levi Johnston, and "President" Sarah Palin are subjected to Geist's wooden, repetitive send-ups. As Geist tells it, most everyone-including all 20th century presidents-seem to be identical to each other, right down to their speech patterns: they are arrogant, lack self-awareness, and have a penchant for swearing. While they may, indeed, share certain qualities, individual personalities are lost on Geist. Occasional "true story" vignettes about real-life "freaks" feature much fresher and funnier content; while recounting a news story in which a man was arrested for pleasuring himself with a coin-operated car wash vacuum, Geist muses, "One assumes Whitesnake was playing on the radio." Clearly commentary, rather than storytelling, is Geist's strength, so it's a shame that narratives make up the bulk of this effort. <br />(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p><em>This is not the first book written about quantum mechanics, but it just might be the last. The theory presented inside these pages is so revolutionary that it has stunned the scientific community into reconsidering centuries of thought about the behavior of energy and matter. Prepare to have your mind blown.</em></p><p>Sorry, that's the introduction to Willie Geist's <em>next</em> book--the culmination of his life's work. Look for it next spring, just in time for Mother's Day. <em>This</em> book is about his other passion: freaks. </p><p>When he's not in the lab, Geist spends his time on MSNBC's <em>Morning Joe</em> sifting through the wreckage of American politics and popular culture. These days, that's a big job. With an Alaska hockey mom turning, almost overnight, into a national icon and threatening to move from Wasilla to the White House, with the world's most famous athlete now associated less with the Masters and more with the strippers, and with reality TV working around the clock to ensure the constitutional right of every man, woman, and child to fifteen minutes of fame, Geist's business is thriving.</p><p>In his hilarious first book, <em>American Freak Show</em>, Geist takes the smart, biting observation loved by his television audience to new satirical extremes. The real-life characters who now haunt our daily lives are cast as stars in completely made-up scenes that, frankly, are not all that far from reality. </p><p>Geist treats us to the first look at President Sarah Palin's unconventional inaugural address, performed live on WWE's <em>Monday Night Raw</em> after her renegade victory in the 2012 election. We go inside the ballroom for a Dean Martin-style welcome roast of Bernie Madoff upon his arrival in Hell, with Pol Pot serving as sidesplitting roastmaster. Geist provides us with never-before-seen FBI wiretap transcripts of the more mundane, but equally profane, telephone conversations of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. And George W. Bush's batting-cage-and-waterslide-themed plans for a presidential library are laid out publicly for the first time.</p><p>From Obama to Oprah, Afghanistan to Lohan, and Snooki to the Salahis, Willie Geist spares no one as our host of this wild <em>American Freak Show</em>. You'll laugh out loud while weeping for the future of America.</p>


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<div><h3>Review</h3><p>“Alison Arngrim is a talented actress and an author who has patched together a meaningful life and created a book whose pages…fly.” (Phyllis Diller)  </p><p>“As a city bitch myself, I loved this book! It’s nice to see how the other half lives. Alison Arngrim’s memoir is a hilarious, moving, and dishy Hollywood tale.” (Margaret Cho)  </p><p>“Alison Arngrim is a fine actress and a true comedienne. She has always been the kind of ‘Bitch’ who tells it like it is. So, readers beware, you are in for an eye-full of reality told with a remarkable sense of humor.” (Carol Channing)  </p><p>“Whoa, Nellie! “Confessions of a Prairie Bitch” is a book that you will keep stored under a haystack in the barn, to dip into whenever you need a shot of something that will keep you down on the farm.” (Bruce Vilanch)  </p><p>“Courage, moxie, chutzpah , cajones. Alison Arngrim has them all in spades. In “Confessions of a Prairie Bitch,” she bares her soul and manages to share her story with grace, dignity, and her inimitable humor. Simply put, I love this book and I love her. ” (Melissa Gilbert) </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>For seven years, Alison Arngrim played a wretched, scheming, selfish, lying, manipulative brat on one of TV history's most beloved series. Though millions of <em>Little House on the Prairie</em> viewers hated Nellie Oleson and her evil antics, Arngrim grew to love her character—and the freedom and confidence Nellie inspired in her. </p><p>In <em>Confessions of a Prairie Bitch</em>, Arngrim describes growing up in Hollywood with her eccentric parents: Thor Arngrim, a talent manager to Liberace and others, whose appetite for publicity was insatiable, and legendary voice actress Norma MacMillan, who played both Gumby and Casper the Friendly Ghost. She recalls her most cherished and often wickedly funny moments behind the scenes of <em>Little House</em>: Michael Landon's "unsaintly" habit of not wearing underwear; how she and Melissa Gilbert (who played her TV nemesis, Laura Ingalls) became best friends and accidentally got drunk on rum cakes at 7-Eleven; and the only time she and Katherine MacGregor (who played Nellie's mom) appeared in public in costume, provoking a posse of elementary schoolgirls to attack them. </p><p>Arngrim relays all this and more with biting wit, but she also bravely recounts her life's challenges: her struggle to survive a history of traumatic abuse, depression, and paralyzing shyness; the "secret" her father kept from her for twenty years; and the devastating loss of her "_Little House_ husband" and best friend, Steve Tracy, to AIDS, which inspired her second career in social and political activism. Arngrim describes how Nellie Oleson taught her to be bold, daring, and determined, and how she is eternally grateful to have had the biggest little bitch on the prairie to show her the way. </p>

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<div><div><h3 class="productDescriptionSource">From Publishers Weekly</h3> <div class="productDescriptionWrapper"> Starred Review. Connelly's compelling fourth legal thriller featuring Mickey Haller (after Reversal) finds the maverick L.A. lawyer who uses his Lincoln town car as an office specializing in "foreclosure defense." Haller's first foreclosure client, Lisa Trammel, is fighting hard to keep her home, maybe too hard. The bank has gotten a restraining order to stop Trammel's protests, and she becomes the prime suspect when Mitchell Bondurant, a mortgage banker, is killed with a hammer in his office parking lot. A ton of evidence points to Trammel, but Haller crafts an impressive defense that includes "the fifth witness" of the title. Connelly has a sure command of the legal and procedural details of criminal court, and even manages to make the arcane, shady world of foreclosure interesting. While the prose may lack some of the poetic nuance of his early novels, the plot is worthy of a master storyteller. The film of The Lincoln Lawyer, the first Mickey Haller novel, releases in March. (Apr.) <br>(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. <div class="emptyClear"> </div> </div> <h3 class="productDescriptionSource">From <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000027801">Booklist</a></h3> <div class="productDescriptionWrapper"> <p>*Starred Review* Crime-fiction megastar Connelly can always be counted on to try something a little different. In The Reversal (2010), his last Mickey Haller novel, starring the L.A. lawyer who prefers to work out of his Lincoln Town Car, Connelly offered a tour de force of plotting on multiple levels. Here, he narrows the focus considerably, concentrating almost exclusively on what happens inside the courtroom but bringing to the traditional give-and-take of prosecutor, defender, judge, and jury an altogether more complex commingling of personality and legal strategy than is typically on view in legal thrillers. He accomplishes this with a particularly rich first-person narration in which Haller takes us through the courtroom drama as it happens, noting his blunders and praising himself for quick-thinking improvisations. It doesn't hurt, either, that the plot is meaty: a woman whom Haller was representing in a suit against the bank attempting to foreclose on her mortgage is accused of killing the bank official in charge of foreclosures. Combining ripped-from-the-headlines information on the mortgage crisis with a cast of characters that defies stereotypes at every turn of the plot, Connelly shows once again that he will never simply ride the wave of past success. And, neither, apparently, will Mickey Haller, as he reveals a shocking change of direction in the novel's final pages. </p> <p>HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Connelly's latest Mickey Haller novel will benefit from the release in March of a movie version of The Lincoln Lawyer, the first Haller novel, starring Matthew McConaughey. 750,000 first printing. --Bill Ott</p></div></div>
<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. Connelly's compelling fourth legal thriller featuring Mickey Haller (after Reversal) finds the maverick L.A. lawyer who uses his Lincoln town car as an office specializing in "foreclosure defense." Haller's first foreclosure client, Lisa Trammel, is fighting hard to keep her home, maybe too hard. The bank has gotten a restraining order to stop Trammel's protests, and she becomes the prime suspect when Mitchell Bondurant, a mortgage banker, is killed with a hammer in his office parking lot. A ton of evidence points to Trammel, but Haller crafts an impressive defense that includes "the fifth witness" of the title. Connelly has a sure command of the legal and procedural details of criminal court, and even manages to make the arcane, shady world of foreclosure interesting. While the prose may lack some of the poetic nuance of his early novels, the plot is worthy of a master storyteller. The film of The Lincoln Lawyer, the first Mickey Haller novel, releases in March. (Apr.) <br>(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p><em>Starred Review</em> Crime-fiction megastar Connelly can always be counted on to try something a little different. In The Reversal (2010), his last Mickey Haller novel, starring the L.A. lawyer who prefers to work out of his Lincoln Town Car, Connelly offered a tour de force of plotting on multiple levels. Here, he narrows the focus considerably, concentrating almost exclusively on what happens inside the courtroom but bringing to the traditional give-and-take of prosecutor, defender, judge, and jury an altogether more complex commingling of personality and legal strategy than is typically on view in legal thrillers. He accomplishes this with a particularly rich first-person narration in which Haller takes us through the courtroom drama as it happens, noting his blunders and praising himself for quick-thinking improvisations. It doesn't hurt, either, that the plot is meaty: a woman whom Haller was representing in a suit against the bank attempting to foreclose on her mortgage is accused of killing the bank official in charge of foreclosures. Combining ripped-from-the-headlines information on the mortgage crisis with a cast of characters that defies stereotypes at every turn of the plot, Connelly shows once again that he will never simply ride the wave of past success. And, neither, apparently, will Mickey Haller, as he reveals a shocking change of direction in the novel's final pages. </p><p>HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Connelly's latest Mickey Haller novel will benefit from the release in March of a movie version of The Lincoln Lawyer, the first Haller novel, starring Matthew McConaughey. 750,000 first printing. --Bill Ott</p>

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<h3>From</h3><p><em>Starred Review</em> In Gone Tomorrow (2005), Rogers detailed everything that is wrong about wasteful packaging and choked landfills. Here she exposes how the “green” movement is failing to live up to the promise of sustainability and stewardship of the environment when the solutions are hijacked by economic and political interests. Industrial organic farms now resemble the conventional farms they were meant to replace; biofuels such as ethanol and palm oil raise food prices and replace precious rain forests, displacing indigenous peoples and creating more greenhouse gases than they save; carbon dioxide–offsetting projects are mismanaged into failure. Yet, despite the title, Rogers found solutions that do work, such as truly organic farming methods, cutting-edge green architecture in Germany and the UK, and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Yet our corporate and political leaders continue to incentivize what poses the least challenge to established power structures, leaving out those such as the dedicated, truly organic farmers, who can barely make ends meet. Once again Rogers’ clear-headed approach proves effective in uncovering the truths behind the mantle of greenwashing. --David Siegfried </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"The climate crisis is far too urgent to squander another decade on false solutions. This carefully researched, deeply human, and eminently sensible investigation arrives just in the nick of time. Let's hope it inspires a radical course correction."</p><p>--Naomi Klein, author of <em>The Shock Doctrine</em>  </p><p>“Heather Rogers reminds us with vivid examples that there's no way we can just subcontract our environmental conscience to the new breed of green marketers. We have a very narrow window to preserve some version of our planet, and we can't afford the kind of egregious mistakes this volume identifies with such precision. If it's too good to be true, it's not true--even if it comes with a shiny green wrapper.”</p><p>--Bill McKibben, author <em>Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet</em></p><p>"With deft and adventuresome reporting from around the world, Heather Rogers looks beneath the surface of today's market- based "solutions" to our environmental challenges and skillfully distinguishes between reality and illusion. Business as usual won't do, Rogers tells us, no matter how much we green it."</p><p>--Annie Leonard, author of <em>The Story of Stuff</em>  </p><p>"Heather Rogers brilliantly and lethally exposes "green" capitalism for the chicanery that it is. While it may be disappointing to find out that "organic" and even "fair trade" don't mean squat - not to mention, of course, "carbon offsetting," which turns out to be even stupider than it sounds - these pages make clear what the answer is: stop making colorful excuses for the system that's driving us off the cliff, and instead make shifts in our economic priorities to bring about real change. May Rogers's book guide our feet."</p><p>--The Yes Men  </p><p>"By going beyond exposÉ to analysis, Rogers gives a deeper assessment of environmental problems and solutions than the usual global-warming investigative book."</p><p>--Publishers Weekly  </p><p>Rogers “exposes how the “green” movement is failing to live up to the promise of sustainability and stewardship of the environment when the solutions are hijacked by economic and political interests. [Her] clear-headed approach proves effective in uncovering the truths behind the mantle of greenwashing.”</p><p>--Booklist </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><strong>Product Description</strong>  </p><p><strong><em>For a mother, life comes down to a series of choices.  </em></strong></p><p><strong><em>To hold on…</em></strong></p><p><strong><em>To let go..</em></strong></p><p><strong><em>To forget…</em></strong></p><p><strong><em>To forgive…</em></strong></p><p><strong><em>Which road will you take? </em></strong></p><p><strong><em>                                                            Night Road</em></strong></p><p>For eighteen years, Jude Farraday has put her children’s needs above her own, and it shows—her twins, Mia and Zach—are bright and happy teenagers.  When Lexi Baill moves into their small, close knit community, no one is more welcoming than Jude.  Lexi, a former foster child with a dark past, quickly becomes Mia’s best friend.  Then Zach falls in love with Lexi and the three become inseparable.    </p><p>Jude does everything to keep her kids on track for college and out of harm’s way.  It has always been easy-- until senior year of high school.  Suddenly she is at a loss.  Nothing feels safe anymore; every time her kids leave the house, she worries about them.  </p><p>On a hot summer’s night her worst fears come true. One decision will change the course of their lives.  In the blink of an eye, the Farraday family will be torn apart and Lexi will lose everything.  In the years that follow, each must face the consequences of that single night and find a way to forget…or the courage to forgive.</p><p>Vivid, universal, and emotionally complex, NIGHT ROAD raises profound questions about motherhood, identity, love, and forgiveness.  It is a luminous, heartbreaking novel that captures both the exquisite pain of loss and the stunning power of hope.  This is Kristin Hannah at her very best, telling an unforgettable story about the longing for family, the resilience of the human heart, and the courage it takes to forgive the people we love.</p><hr /><p><strong> Amazon Exclusive: A Conversation Between Kristin Hannah and Emily Giffin</strong>  </p><p><strong> <em>New York Times</em> bestselling novels, including </strong></p><p><strong><em>New York Times</em> bestselling author of eighteen novels, including </strong></p><p><strong>Kristin Hannah:</strong> Well, first, I have to say, Emily, that I am just the tiniest bit irritated with you. When I got the call to do this interview, I was thrilled, to say the least. It came at a really busy time for me--right after the holidays and we all know how crazy that is--and my work in progress was giving me fits. Then I picked up <em>Heart of the Matter</em>, and lost myself. No more writing, no more cooking, no getting my hair done or reading my email. Once I started the story I literally couldn't put it down. Brava, girlfriend, I say. Your characters are so real and compelling, and they always say exactly the right thing. With so much honest emotion, I just have to ask how much of your work comes from your own life? </p><p><strong>Emily Giffin:</strong> It never fails to thrill me when someone responds to one of my novels--especially when it's another writer. Writers understand the alchemy involved in making up something from nothing. And I just finished your book, <em>Night Road</em>, and I found it so emotional, so moving, and so terrifying--especially since I have three young children who will someday be teenagers. In terms of how much does my work come from my own life, I would say that I'm absolutely inspired by people, places, conversations, relationships, and issues that I observe, and that the "what if" part of my novel is very much inspired by these things in my life. But the details of my plots and the specifics of my characters come from my own head. How about you, Kristin? I'll ask you the million-dollar question that every author gets asked: where do you get your ideas? </p><p><strong>Kristin:</strong> Ah, the idea question. I don't want to sound coy, but the truth is, I don't quite know. It's the most magical part of the process for me. I'm a pretty analytical gal, and I approach writing in the same just-the-facts-ma'am way I approach most things. I need to find an issue that engages me on an intellectual level, and then I need to marry that curiosity with a kind of passion. I need to feel genuinely passionate about each story before I ever write a word, and I have to actually have something to say. It takes me at least a year to research and write a novel, and so I have to really adore each part of it--the characters, setting, story. Most of all, it has to make me feel something genuine. That's really the most important component. Usually it begins with a single "what if" question--what if you discovered your mother had a whole secret life about which you knew nothing (_Winter Garden_) or what if your husband were accused of a crime you believed he hadn't committed (_True Colors_)--and then I write and re-write until the characters seem as real to me as old friends.</p><p><strong>Kristin:</strong> I'm amazed by how much we have in common. We're both moms, both lawyers, both lived in London for a time. You're like a younger, cooler version of me. How did you make the transition from lawyer to writer, and do you think you'll ever practice law again? </p><p><strong>Emily:</strong> I would hardly say I'm cooler than you, Kristin! I hear you live in Hawaii part time! What is cooler than that? I made the transition from lawyer to writer because I was so miserable being a lawyer that I needed some escape from the day-to-day of it. And inventing stories was that escape. I can say, without hesitation, that I will never practice law again. Would you? What kind of law did you practice, and for how long? What did you find appealing (or discouraging) about law? Did you find that it gave you fodder for any of your novels? </p><p><strong>Kristin:</strong> Honestly, I have met very few lawyers who don't say that what they really want to do is write. Like you, I can say with certainty that I will never practice law again. Not that anyone would want me to. But I still keep my Bar membership up...just in case this whole writing thing doesn't work out. And yes, in the past few years, I have finally begun to put some of that law school education to work for me. I find that I'm really enjoying adding legal issues to my work. Of course, I have to talk to <em>real</em> lawyers to make sure I'm getting it right... </p><hr /><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Hannah follows up Winter Garden with a strained story of friendship, social pressures, love, and forgiveness. After a string of foster homes and the death of her heroin-addict mother, Lexi Baill is taken in by a newly discovered great-aunt who lives a spartan life near Seattle. Despite financial problems, the two are glad to have found each other, and though Lexi resolves to stay safely on the periphery at her new high school, she soon meets Mia, unhappy and awkward despite a solid family life, a loving twin brother, Zach, and a closetful of clothes. The friendship flourishes, and Mia's mother, Jude, relieved and pleased for her daughter, draws Lexi into the family circle. But trouble begins in senior year with a slowly growing attraction between Zach and Lexi, who take great pains to make Mia comfortable with the change in the dynamics. This familiar story takes an unfortunate turn deep into after-school-special territory when Lexi, Mia, and Zach collectively make a bad decision that results in a tragedy with extreme repercussions. Even readers who like their melodrama thick will have problems as Hannah pushes credibility to the breaking point, and more than once. (Mar.) <br />(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><strong> Amazon Exclusive: Lee Child Interviews Jacqueline Winspear </strong>   </p><p>Jacqueline Winspear, like her interviewer, the iconic, bestselling author <em>A Lesson in Secrets</em> is her eighth novel featuring psychologist-investigator and former WW1 nurse, Maisie Dobbs. Here she talks with Child about her work on the series, and her enduring interest in the aftermath of WW1. </p><hr /><p><strong> Lee Child:</strong> People are often surprised that I'm a huge Maisie Dobbs fan, because Jack Reacher is all about a kind of Spartan American masculinity, and Maisie Dobbs is all about a kind of feminine English refinement. But they're both strong, unconventional people. Perhaps that's the cross-genre appeal? Do you find that Maisie attracts an unusual mix of readers?</p><p><strong>Jacqueline Winspear:</strong> I’m thrilled you’re such a Maisie Dobbs fan--and you can count me among those millions of Jack Reacher fans. Maisie and Reacher are both unconventional, but I believe another factor in their cross-genre appeal is that both have endured life-changing challenges. Maisie attracts diverse readers: men and women, all age groups, veterans, nurses, college students, people who have faced troubles, and people interested in the era.</p><p><strong> LC:</strong> And in fact your novels are driven by violence far worse than mine--off the page, granted, but there’s no getting around the fact that at the heart of your books is the aftermath of a horrendous war, with its attendant violence and death. How do you see the role of violence in your novels?</p><p><strong> JW:</strong> I think you hit the theme there with “aftermath.” The violence in my books is that searing, painful residue left by the passing of a terrible time, when people were also crushed emotionally by the deep losses over a four-year period. In addition, there’s that element of violence that lingers--in <em>Among the Mad</em>, for example--when war’s tentacles will not let go. We see that again today in the stories of veterans who are still fighting their wars, but the conflict is raging inside them.</p><p><strong> LC:</strong> As a kid in England I remember seeing hundreds of maimed old men, and hundreds of lonely old women. My grandfather was an example of the first, and two great-aunts examples of the second - sad reminders of a terrible time. Was it something similar that drew you to the First World War and the “Between the Wars” era that followed?</p><p><strong> JW:</strong> I have the same memories--my grandfather was wounded at the Battle of the Somme, and my grandmother was partially blinded at the Woolwich Arsenal, in an explosion that wounded her sister and killed several girls working alongside her. There were the elderly spinsters in my neighborhood, and for each there was that old sepia photograph on the mantelpiece, of a sweetheart or brother lost to war. Those childhood memories led me to think a lot about what happens after war is done. As a character says in <em>Birds of a Feather</em>, “That’s the trouble with war; it lives on inside the living.”</p><p><strong> LC:</strong> I was introduced to Maisie Dobbs by my wife, who passed through an airport and picked up the first in the series. She loved it, and urged me to read it, and I'm glad I did. It's one of the very, very few series we both love equally--in fact, perhaps the only one. Is this typical of your readers?</p><p><strong>JW:</strong> I receive so many emails from fans who tell me that the books are read by all members of the family. And many women tell me that it was their husband who first discovered Maisie. The books are as accessible to readers aged about fourteen as they are to seniors. There are few things today that all age groups within a family can engage in, discuss and get excited about, so it’s lovely when I hear that family members are awaiting the next book so they can all read it.</p><p><strong> LC:</strong> Maisie is definitively feminine, but she's running a business, and poking around in a "man's world," which is true to the times, and indicative of the early stages of feminism in the West. Was that something you wanted to explore?</p><p><strong> JW:</strong> It would have been difficult to introduce a character such as Maisie and not explore the fact that the Great War left so many women to forge a life alone. If there was one thing I wanted to do, it was to bring the spirit of that generation to the character of Maisie Dobbs. Of course, some women floundered and lived lonely lives, but there were a great many who blazed a trail. I believe an archetype was born at that time--the stoic British woman who is independent and more than a little opinionated, with a heart of gold under a tough exterior, and who knows what it is to endure. Dame Maggie Smith has played that character in several films.</p><p><strong> LC:</strong> Maisie understands human psychology in a way that seems to be an early and experimental pre-echo of what we'd now call criminal profiling. It's a huge part of both her process and her appeal. Where did that come from?</p><p><strong>JW:</strong> That developed in a very organic way. Having established her as a “sensitive,” I wanted to give her real expertise--and there are historical underpinnings to this aspect of her character. Maisie studied the Moral Sciences curriculum at Girton College when psychology was in its infancy. I have the prospectus from 1913, and about one third of the course was the study of modern psychology. It was a time of great experimentation, so Maisie’s processes have their roots in real practices considered innovative at the time.</p><p><strong> LC:</strong> One of your decisions I admire is the way you have moved the series forward in time so firmly. Most writers would have continued mining the same immediate post-war seam forever. What was your thinking behind that? And how do you keep the character fresh as the series itself develops?</p><p><strong> JW:</strong> I once heard you say at a conference, “The reader comes back to a series, not to find out what the sleuth does with the case, but what the case does to the sleuth.” I agree. We are all impacted not only by our past, but by our current circumstances and those around us. You always put Reacher in a new area, be it small town or big city; and through his wandering we learn a lot about him. I work with the geography of time. Not everyone likes change and many readers would like Maisie Dobbs to stay as she is in a given book. But life’s not like that--the goalposts tend to move when we are at our most comfortable, and I want to keep the series fresh.</p><p><strong> LC:</strong> I’m often asked if I have a favorite book within my series, so now I’m turning the tables: Do you have favorites among your novels?</p><p><strong>JW:</strong> That’s such a difficult question, because each book not only represents a different place on my journey as a writer, but has been inspired by something that touched me. I think <em>Maisie Dobbs</em> will always be very tightly held in my affections, because it was my first book and was written at a difficult time in my life, when I was recovering from a horrible accident. The other choice would be The <em>Mapping of Love and Death</em>, because it was inspired by the true story of a soldier whose remains lay under Belgian soil for some 90 years until unearthed by a farmer. I learned more about him when I became involved in the quest to discover his origins. When I look at that book, I think of a young man lost to war who was never identified and who was eventually laid to rest as “A Soldier of The Great War, Known Unto God.” I ache for the parents who never knew where their son died, for he had probably been listed as “Missing, Presumed Dead.”</p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In Winspear's solid eighth Maisie Dobbs novel (after The Mapping of Love and Death), Maisie finds herself financially independent, thanks to a bequest from her late mentor, Dr. Maurice Blanche, and open to new challenges exactly at the moment the British Secret Service seeks to recruit her in 1932. Greville Liddicote, the author of a pacifist children's book that the government went to great pains to suppress during WWI, has founded a college in Cambridge devoted to maintaining peace in Europe. To keep tabs on Liddicote, Maisie infiltrates his school under the guise of a philosophy teacher. When a staff member is murdered, she reverts to her old profession and works to aid the police inquiry from the inside. Maisie's new affluence allows her to intervene benevolently in the lives of those she cares for and her romantic life intensifies, but these positive personal developments end up making her less interesting as a protagonist than formerly. 9-city author tour. (Apr.) <br />(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>This easy-to-use companion study guide helps the readers who approach Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict's <em>Jesus of Nazareth</em> without the benefit of extensive theological or biblical training. The goal is not to replace Benedict's book but to make it more accessible, more fruitful for the average reader--whether lay, religious, priest or deacon. </p><p>Designed for individual study or for group/parish discussion, this guide has the following features for each section and chapter of <em>Jesus of Nazareth</em>: </p><ul> <li><p>a reader-friendly summary  </p> </li> <li><p>an outline  </p> </li> <li><p>a list of key terms  </p> </li> <li><p>questions for understanding, reflection, application and discussion  </p> </li> <li><p>a section for readers to include their personal reflections on the reading </p> </li></ul><p>The guide also includes an ample introduction explaining the background for understanding Pope Benedict's approach and how to use this guide as an easy-to-use glossary that defines important terms and identifies key people discussed in <em>Jesus of Nazareth. </em></p>


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For Christians, Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God, who died for the sins of the world, and who rose from the dead in triumph over sin and death. For non-Christians, he is almost anything else-a myth, a political revolutionary, a prophet whose teaching was misunderstood or distorted by his followers.Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God, and no myth, revolutionary, or misunderstood prophet, insists Benedict XVI. He thinks that the best of historical scholarship, while it can't "prove" Jesus is the Son of God, certainly doesn't disprove it. Indeed, Benedict maintains that the evidence, fairly considered, brings us face-to-face with the challenge of Jesus-a real man who taught and acted in ways that were tantamount to claims of divine authority, claims not easily dismissed as lunacy or deception.Benedict XVI presents this challenge in his new book, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, the sequel volume to Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration.Why was Jesus rejected by the religious leaders of his day? Who was responsible for his death? Did he establish a Church to carry on his work? How did Jesus view his suffering and death? How should we? And, most importantly, did Jesus really rise from the dead and what does his resurrection mean? The story of Jesus raises many crucial questions.Benedict brings to his study the vast learning of a brilliant scholar, the passionate searching of a great mind, and the deep compassion of a pastor's heart. In the end, he dares readers to grapple with the meaning of Jesus' life, teaching, death, and resurrection."Only in this second volume do we encounter the decisive sayings and events of Jesus' life . . . I hope that I have been granted an insight into the figure of Our Lord that can be helpful to all readers who seek to encounter Jesus and to believe in Him." -Pope Benedict XVI"Working from Scripture, the Church Fathers and contemporary scholarship, Benedict XVI deftly brings together the historical and theological dimensions of the gospel portraits of Jesus. This is a splendid, penetrating study of the central figure of Christian faith; a learned and spiritual illumination not only of who Jesus was, but who he is for us today." +Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., Archbishop of Denver"What better guide could you find than Benedict XVI to lead you on the bracing adventure of exploring the historical Jesus and discovering, under the tutelage this most sage successor to Peter, the inner meaning of Jesus' death and resurrection. Faith and reason are the two wings Benedict XVI takes up to lead us to astonishingly fresh spiritual perspectives and dizzying heights. This book often takes ones breath away, while infusing in the reader the God-breathed Word, which is the Gospel." - Tm Gray, Ph.D., President , Augustine Institute"As is his first volume of Jesus of Nazareth, so, once again, in his second volume Pope Benedict XVI has authored a marvelous book, this time on the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. What makes this study so attractive is the depth of its biblical insight, its attention to historical issues, its keen theological acumen, and its lucid and precise expression. Moreover, as with the first volume, it is written in a serene and prayerful manner - a serenity and a prayerfulness that is conveyed to the heart and mind of the reader. This book fulfills Pope Benedict's ardent desire - that it would "be helpful to all readers who seek to encounter Jesus and to believe in him." -Thomas G. Weinandy, O.F.M., Cap., Executive Director for the Secretariat for Doctrine, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops


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<h3>Review</h3><p>I did not write Klee Wyck, as the reviewers said, long ago when I went to the West Coast Villages painting. I was too busy then painting from dawn till dusk. I wrote Klee Wyck...in hospital. They said I would not be able to go about painting here and there any more, lugging and tramping. I was sore about it, so, as I lay there, I relived the villages of Klee Wyck. It was easy for my mind to go back to the lovely places. After fifty years they were as fresh in my mind as they were then, because while I painted I had lived them deep. I could sail out of hospital and forget about everything."</p><p>When asked to write about the "struggle story" of her work out West in collaboration with a biographer, Emily replied:</p><h2>--- "Nobody could write my hodge-podge life but me. Biographers can only write up big, important people who have done great deeds to which the public can attach dates. I could not be bothered with collaborators, nor would they be bothered with the little drab nothings that have made up my life."</h2><p>Her first book, Klee Wyck won a Governor General's award for general literature, the year that it was published.</p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>The title of artist, writer, and rebel Emily Carr's first book means "Laughing One," the nickname given her by the Native people of Canada's west coast. She returned the favor with <em>Klee Wyck,</em> a collection of 21 "word portraits" of their lives and ways. The memoir describes in witty, vivid detail Carr's visits and travels as she painted their totem poles and villages and got to know a people whose "quiet strength healed my heart." The book is reissued here with restored text and features the original introduction by Ira Dilworth and a new introduction by Carr scholar Kathryn Bridge.</p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>"I believe in Jack and his ability to understand his mother in shades of gray. I believe in his ability to be fiercely independent: to try and try and try . . . and at the same time to recognize that he needs others. That others are right there, waiting to catch him."<br />- Jennifer Richard Jacobson — Quote </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>Jack's mom is gone, leaving him all alone on a campsite in Maine. Can he find his way back to Boston before the authorities realize what happened?</strong>  </p><p>Ever since Jack can remember, his mom has been unpredictable, sometimes loving and fun, other times caught in a whirlwind of energy and "spinning" wildly until it's over. But Jack never thought his mom would take off during the night and leave him at a campground in Acadia National Park, with no way to reach her and barely enough money for food. Any other kid would report his mom gone, but Jack knows by now that he needs to figure things out for himself - starting with how to get from the backwoods of Maine to his home in Boston before Social Services catches on. With nothing but a small toy elephant to keep him company, Jack begins the long journey south, a journey that will test his wits and his loyalties - and his trust that he may be part of a larger herd after all. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>The human race's most "devastatingly" popular humor series returns... </strong>   </p><p>With five previous books and more than 1.5 million copies sold, The Darwin Awards is a pop culture phenomenon. Honoring those who improve the species by accidentally removing themselves from it, The Darwin Awards countdown (to human extinction) is well under way-and we won't exit this mortal coil without one last laugh. In <em>The Darwin Awards Countdown to Extinction</em>, readers will find all-new stories chronicling humans who step onto the lowest rung on the evolutionary ladder, including:   </p><p>• Nine no's with power tools <br />• Eight ways to incinerate yourself <br />• Seven safety warnings you should not ignore <br />• Six romance tips for "safe" sex...   </p><p>Featuring illustrations and brilliant science-of-evolution essays, this latest volume of <em>The Darwin Awards</em> enumerates just how uncommon common sense still is. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p><strong>Wendy Northcutt</strong> is a scientist and graduate of UC Berkeley with a degree in molecular biology. She began collecting the stories that make up The Darwin Awards in 1993 while working at Stanford University, and is the founder of the popular Web site www.DarwinAwards.com. She is the author five previous Darwin Awards collections. </p>


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For many years now China's economy has seemed unstoppable. A slow appreciation of the renminbi in 2007 brought wave upon wave of liquidity into China and allowed its companies and banks to raise hundreds of billions in dollars via stock market listings. State banks that had started the new century as bankrupt relics of a communist past became the darlings of international investors. Even the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 and the ensuing global financial crisis seemed to have little impact on China as the government quickly responded with a huge stimulus package. But the Lehman collapse was a dramatic wake up call to the Chinese leadership. This model of bank and capital market reform had been studiously emulated for more than a decade and had brought great benefits to China. But now, although they believed it to be bankrupt, the Chinese government were bereft of new ideas. In the face of the global financial crisis the government returned to what it knows best, massive state intervention via the banking system. Ten years of banking and capital market reforms were dead.In Red Capitalism, Carl Walter and Fraser Howie detail how the Chinese government reformed and modeled its financial system in the 30 years since it began its policy of engagement with the west. Instead of a stable series of policies producing steady growth, China's financial sector has boomed and gone bust with regularity in each decade. The latest decade is little different. Chinese banks have become objects of political struggle while they totter under balance sheets bloated by the excessive state-directed lending and bond issuance of 2009.Looking forward, the government's response to the global financial crisis has created a banking system the stability of which can be maintained only behind the walls of a non-convertible currency, a myriad of off-balance sheet arrangements with non-public state entities and the strong support of its best borrowers--the politically potent National Champions--who are the greatest beneficiaries of the financial status quo.China's financial system is not a model for the west and, indeed, is not a sustainable arrangement for China itself as it seeks increasingly to assert its influence internationally. This is not a story of impending collapse, but of frustrated reforms that suggests that any full opening and meaningful reform of the financial sector is not, indeed cannot be, on the government's agenda anytime soon.


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Announcing a brand new, cover-to-cover revision of America's pregnancy bible. <em>What to Expect When You're Expecting</em> is a perennial <em>New York Times</em> bestseller and one of <em>USA Today</em>'s 25 most influential books of the past 25 years. It's read by more than 90% of pregnant women who read a pregnancy book--the most iconic, must-have book for parents-to-be, with over 14.5 million copies in print. </p><p>Now comes the Fourth Edition, a new book for a new generation of expectant moms--featuring a new look, a fresh perspective, and a friendlier-than-ever voice. It's filled with the most up-to-date information reflecting not only what's new in pregnancy, but what's relevant to pregnant women. Heidi Murkoff has rewritten every section of the book, answering dozens of new questions and including loads of new asked-for material, such as a detailed week-by-week fetal development section in each of the monthly chapters, an expanded chapter on pre-conception, and a brand new one on carrying multiples. More comprehensive, reassuring, and empathetic than ever, the Fourth Edition incorporates the most recent developments in obstetrics and addresses the most current lifestyle trends (from tattooing and belly piercing to Botox and aromatherapy). There's more than ever on pregnancy matters practical (including an expanded section on workplace concerns), physical (with more symptoms, more solutions), emotional (more advice on riding the mood roller coaster), nutritional (from low-carb to vegan, from junk food–dependent to caffeine-addicted), and sexual (what's hot and what's not in pregnant lovemaking), as well as much more support for that very important partner in parenting, the dad-to-be. </p><p>Overflowing with tips, helpful hints, and humor (a pregnant woman's best friend), this new edition is more accessible and easier to use than ever before. It's everything parents-to-be have come to expect from <em>What to Expect</em>... only better.   </p><hr /><p><strong>Amazon.com Exclusive</strong><br /><strong>An Essay from Heidi Murkoff</strong> <br /><em>What to Expect</em> started with information--or, actually, lack of information. In fact, when I found out I was expecting for the first time--I didn't have the slightest idea of what to expect. And back then, it wasn't as easy to find out what to expect as you'd think. I created <em>What to Expect When You're Expecting</em> because I couldn't find the answers to my questions or the reassurance for my worries that I was searching for in the pregnancy books I read (and believe me, I read plenty). I was a mom on a mission--a mission to help other moms and dads worry less and enjoy their pregnancies (and their babies, and their toddlers) more. And I've been on that mission ever since. </p><p>So what sent me back to recreate <em>What to Expect</em>--for a fourth time? Today, there's definitely no lack of information on pregnancy. In fact there's more information than ever before (a quick online search of pregnancy or a glance at pages and pages of pregnancy and parenting options right here on Amazon will clue you in on that). But often what's still hard to find is the right kind of information. Information that's accurate yet empathetic, reassuring yet realistic--that empowers you, but doesn't overwhelm or confuse you, that guides you but doesn't dictate to you. And it's not just about the right information, it's about information that's presented in the way that's most helpful--easy to access, easy to digest, easy to use. It's about information that makes your pregnant life less stressful--more enjoyable, and, well, easier. </p><p>The fourth edition is a new <em>What To Expect</em> for a new generation of readers--you!--and I'm excited to say it's the best <em>What To Expect</em> yet. It's packed with all new information, of course (since things tend to change quickly in the baby-making and baby-delivering business--something you're probably all too aware of already if you've made more than one trip to the birthing room). But it doesn't only take into account what's new in obstetrics and what's new in pregnancy; it takes into account what's relevant to pregnant women now. Lifestyle. Working. Eating on the run. Juggling the pregnant life with real life. Keeping up with relationships. Birthing options that are family friendly and pregnancy care that incorporates the best that complimentary and alternative medicine has to offer. Managing multiples (which more and more moms are carrying). Sorting out the information from the misinformation--the reality from the hype, fact from Internet legend. </p><p>The fourth edition also takes into account how you likely use books these days, so the format is even more accessible than ever. More geared to in-the-moment, find-it-in-a-flash reading. </p><p>Most important of all, the fourth edition celebrates pregnancy. I have a passion for pregnancy, and always have. I love moms, I love dads, and I love babies. But everything about this fourth edition from the happy, excited mom-to-be on the cover, proudly caressing her beautiful belly and its even more beautiful contents, to the adorable week-by-week description of the making of your baby, to the positive (yet realistic), mom-to-mom tone throughout--this fourth edition is not just an explanation of those 9 amazing (though often bewildering) months you have ahead of you. It's a celebration of them. </p><p><em>What to Expect When You're Expecting</em> fourth edition is everything moms and dads have come to expect from <em>What to Expect</em>... only better. And I can't wait to start sharing it with you. </p><p>I guess you can say--I'm a proud mama all over again. </p><p><em>--Heidi Murkoff</em>   </p><hr /><p><strong>More to Explore</strong></p><hr /><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Murkoff is back with yet another edition of the indispensable <em>What to Expect When You're Expecting</em>—this time with a largely rewritten and revised edition of the comprehensive guide she introduced 24 years ago. The book has undergone an extensive overhaul, beginning with the cover, which depicts a stylish expectant mom dressed in jeans and a form-fitting shirt—a far cry from the original text's comfy, frumpy mom seated in a rocking chair. Inside, the author has added a number of new features, including a chapter that draws upon current research to steer parents-to-be to a healthier lifestyle even before conception begins, chapters on healthy eating and giving birth to multiples (a growing trend) and expanded sections on working during pregnancy. While the general layout and appearance of the book will be familiar to readers, Murkoff has successfully broadened and sharpened the material while keeping the overall style and presentation intact. <em>(Apr.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>[A] comprehensive diagnosis of our failings as a democratic polity by one of our most seasoned and respected political philosophers. . . . Democracy Incorporated is a devastating critique of the contemporary government of the United States--including what has happened to it in recent years and what must be done if it is not to disappear into history along with its classic totalitarian predecessors. -- Chalmers Johnson, Truthdig  </p><p>[_Democracy Incorporated_ provides] a rare, chilling analysis of intellectual critics of democracy. If democracy means more than occasional elections and protection of those rights that are compatible with economic and political elites' interests, Wolin's analysis of our democratic predicament is shocking, solid, and fundamentally correct. -- C. P. Waligorski, Choice  </p><p>Sheldon Wolin has produced an ambitious and broad-ranging book that examines the current state of democracy in America. . . . Wolin argues that the unquestioned faith in the virtues of free market capitalism has dramatically narrowed the range of policy options that are on the table when debate turns to resolving the US's ills. . . .[T]his is a trenchant and powerful volume. -- Alex Waddan, International Affairs  </p><p>Of the many books I've read or skimmed in the past seven years that attempted to get inside the social and political debacles of the present, none has had the chilling clarity and historical discernment of Sheldon S. Wolin's <em>Democracy Incorporated</em>. Building on his fifty years as a political theorist and proponent of radical democracy, Wolin here extends his concern with the extinguishing of the political and its replacement by fraudulent simulations of democratic process. -- Jonathan Crary, Artforum  </p><p>[W]e need to understand the deep roots of our present troubles ourselves and Wolin's book is an excellent beginning. -- Toby Grace, Out in Jersey  </p><p><em>Democracy Incorporated</em> acts as an antidote to unconstrained corporate power and an elitist obsession and should be widely read by all those who cherish democracy and civil liberty. -- Shih-Yu Chou, Political Studies Review </p><h3>Review</h3><p>With his fundamental grasp of political theory and restless spirit to get at the essence of what threatens modern democracy, Wolin demonstrates that the threats to our democratic traditions and institutions are not always from outside, but may come from within. It is a book that policymakers and scholars of contemporary society should read and reflect upon.<br />(<strong>Rakesh Khurana, Harvard Business School, author of "From Higher Aims to Hired Hands"</strong> ) </p>


