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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3>
<p>Starred Review. <em>Washington Post</em> reporter Dobbs (_Saboteurs_) is a master at telling stories as they unfold and from a variety of perspectives. In this re-examination of the 1963 Bay of Pigs face-off between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., Dobbs combines visits to Cuba, discussions with Russian participants and fingertip command of archival and printed U.S. sources to describe a wild ride that—contrary to the myth of Kennedy's steel-nerved crisis management—was shaped by improvisation, guesswork and blind luck. Dobbs's protagonists act not out of malevolence, incompetence or machismo. Kennedy, Khrushchev and their advisers emerge as men desperately seeking a handle on a situation no one wanted and no one could resolve. In a densely packed, fast-paced, suspenseful narrative, Dobbs presents the crisis from its early stages through the decision to blockade Cuba and Kennedy's ordering of DEFCON 2, the last step before an attack, to the final resolution on October 27 and 28. The work's climax is a detailed reconstruction of the dry-mouthed, sweaty-armpits environment of those final hours before both sides backed down. From first to last, this sustains Dobbs's case that crisis management is a contradiction in terms. <em>(June 5)</em> <br />
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 
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<h3>From</h3>
<p>The 1962 Cuban missile crisis is probably the single most analyzed episode of the cold war. In the past decade, declassified American and Russian documents have proved that a nuclear exchange was even closer than most scholars had previously realized. Dobbs, a reporter for the Washington Post, has used those sources as well as numerous new ones gleaned from two years of research in the U.S., Cuba, and Russia. Although nothing presented here will change the overall view of the crisis, Dobbs presents new and often startling information that again confirms that the thirteen days in October brought the world to the edge of an unprecedented cataclysm. Dobbs spends little time describing the characters of the key players, but he does convey a sense of men under immense stress as events threaten to outstrip their ability to cope with them. This is a well-written effort to explain and understand our closest brush with nuclear war. --Jay Freeman 
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SUMMARY:
Michael Korda's Hero is the story of an epic life on a grand scale, a revealing, in-depth, and gripping biography of the extraordinary, mysterious, and dynamic Englishman whose daring exploits and romantic profile - including his sun-burnished blonde looks and flowing white robes - made him an object of intense fascination, known the world over as "Lawrence of Arabia". However, unlike other biographers, Korda does not seek to burnish or destroy the legend; rather he aims to demystify and reveal the real man - T.E. Lawrence - as he truly was.An Oxford Scholar and archaeologist, one of the five illegitimate sons of a British aristocrat who ran away with his daughters' governess, Lawrence was sent to Cairo as an intelligence officer in 1916, vanished into the desert in 1917, and re-emerged as the greatest and most colourful figure of WW1. A foreigner, he united and led the Arab tribes to defeat the Turks and eventually capture Damascus. Yet as he illuminates Lawrence's achievements, Korda digs further to expose the flesh-and-blood man and his contradictory nature: a born leader utterly fearless and seemingly impervious to pain, thirst, fatigue and danger who remained shy, modest, and retiring; a scholar and an aesthete who was also a bold and cold-blooded warrior. As Korda shows, Lawrence was not only a man of his times, but a visionary whose achievements - as a farsighted diplomat, brilliant military strategist, the first media celebrity, and acclaimed writer - transcended them.Korda analyses Lawrence's vision for the modern Middle East, plans that, if they had been carried through, might have prevented the hatred and bloodshed that have become ubiquitous in the region. Ultimately, as this magisterial work demonstrates, Lawrence remains the paradigm of the hero in modern times, the arch-heroic type whose life was at once a triumph and a sacrifice, and whose capacity to astonish remains undimmed.


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SUMMARY:
Experience New York Times bestselling author Richard A. Knaak's classic Dragonrealm series in this exciting omnibusthree unforgettable tales, plus an original bonus novella in print for the first time ever!SHADOW STEEDBetrothed to the disfigured King Melicard of Talak, Princess Erini begins to fear her burgeoning magical powers. She soon discovers that an obsessive vendetta has led the king to cast a sinister spell that conjures the shadow creature Darkhorse . . . and worse, the mad sorcerer Shade.THE SHROUDED REALMLong before the Dragonrealm, a race of master wizards ruled Nimth with little regard for the laws of nature. Forced into desperate escape to a mysterious world, the Vraad soon discover their new home is unyielding. Only Dru Zeree, with the aid of the shadowy creature who will become Darkhorse, may be able to save them.CHILDREN OF THE DRAKEBitterness between factions is tarnishing the Vraad's new home. As Lord Barakas attempts to rule all, the wizard Dru Zeree's daughter discovers their adopted world has another plan. Worse, her only hope is himself transforming into the enigma that will someday call itself Shade.SKINSMorgis, son of the Blue Dragon and comrade-in-arms to the legendary Gryphon, has lingered in the land of the Wolf Raiders to help fight the remnants of the dark empire. However, with the Aramites' fall from power, he is about to discover that other ancient, dread forces have risen again.


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Although it's billed as "the first great 19th-century novel of the 21st century," <em>The Crimson Petal and the White</em> is anything but Victorian. The story of a well-read London prostitute named Sugar, who spends her free hours composing a violent, pornographic screed against men, Michel Faber's dazzling second novel dares to go where George Eliot's __ and the works of Charles Dickens could not. We learn about the positions and orifices that Sugar and her clients favor, about her lingering skin condition, and about the suspect ingredients of her prophylactic douches. Still, Sugar believes she can make a better life for herself. When she is taken up by a wealthy man, the perfumer William Rackham, her wings are clipped, and she must balance financial security against the obvious servitude of her position. The physical risks and hardships of Sugar's life (and the even harder "honest" life she would have led as a factory worker) contrast--yet not entirely--with the medical mistreatment of her benefactor's wife, Agnes, and beautifully underscore Faber's emphasis on class and sexual politics. In theme and treatment, this is a novel that Virginia Woolf might have written, had she been born 70 years later. The language, however, is Faber's own--brisk and elastic--and, after an awkward opening, the plethora of detail he offers (costume, food, manners, cheap stage performances, the London streets) slides effortlessly into his forward-moving sentences. When Agnes goes mad, for instance, "she sings on and on, while the house is discreetly dusted all around her and, in the concealed and subterranean kitchen, a naked duck, limp and faintly steaming, spreads its pimpled legs on a draining board." Despite its 800-plus pages, <em>The Crimson Petal and the White</em> turns out to be a quick read, since it is truly impossible to put down. <em>--Regina Marler</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Faber's bawdy, brilliant third novel tells an intricate tale of love and ambition and paints a new portrait of Victorian England and its citizens in prose crackling with insight and bravado. Using the wealthy Rackham clan as a focal point for his sprawling, gorgeous epic, Faber, like Dickens or Hardy, explores an era's secrets and social hypocrisy. William Rackham is a restless, rebellious spirit, mistrustful of convention and the demands of his father's perfume business. While spying on his sickly wife's maid, whom he suspects of thievery, he begins a slow slide into depravity: he meets Sugar, a whore whose penetrating mind and love of books intrigues him as much as her beauty and carnal skills do. Faber (Under the Skin) also weaves in the stories of Agnes, William's delicate, mad and manipulative wife, and Henry, his pious, morally conflicted brother, both of whom seek escape from their private prisons through fantasies and small deceptions. Sin and vice both attract and repel the brothers: William, who becomes obsessed with Sugar, rescues her from her old life, while Henry, paralyzed by his love for Emmeline Fox, a comely widow working to rescue the city's prostitutes, slowly unravels. Faber's central characters, especially the troubled William and the ambitious Sugar, shine with life, and the author is no less gifted in capturing the essence of his many minor characters-the evil madam, Mrs. Castaway, and William's pompous father-in-law, Lord Unwin. The superb plot draws on a wealth of research and briskly moves through the lives of each character-whether major or minor, upstairs or downstairs-gathering force until the fates of all are revealed. A marvelous story of erotic love, sin, familial conflicts and class prejudice, this is a deeply entertaining masterwork that will hold readers captive until the final page. <br />Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Although Laymon died in 2001, his U.K. novels have only recently gotten an American release; this 1997 title is a sordid, flawed gem, both stomach churning and erotic, and not infrequently at the same time. Narrated by paranoid, defiant 26-year-old Alice, the book opens on a peaceful night of house-sitting—but as Alice warns, "You can <em>never</em> be sure it's safe." Indeed, shortly after midnight she spots a strange man emerge from the woods and go swimming naked in the family pool. A fortunately timed phone call that's a wrong number gives Alice the chance to drive off the stranger, but sets in motion a 24-hour whirlwind of murder, terror and madness, beginning when Alice splits open someone's head with a Civil War saber—and escalating precipitously from there. Alice's matter-of-fact attitude toward her grisly handiwork can make her hard to sympathize with ("I felt rotten about killing him, but not particularly guilty"); supporting characters are easier to like, but don't get too attached. As the night wears on, Laymon piles on gory details and violent sex with perverse, over-the-top glee; it's definitely not for everyone and can strain credibility, but Alice proves to be one of Laymon's most original and memorable protagonists, and should keep hardened horror fans reading well past the stroke of midnight. <em>(Mar.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>When Alice's friend Serena goes away she stays in her house, with its sunken bathtub and big-screen TV. Best of all is the outdoor swimming pool. But one night a stranger walks out of the woods and jumps naked into the pool. Alice hopes he won't be coming to get her, like so many have done before. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3>
<p>Neal Stephenson, author of the sprawling and engaging __, has written a manifesto that could be spoken by a character from that brilliant book. Primarily, <em>In the Beginning ... Was the Command Line</em> discusses the past and future of personal computer operating systems. "It is the fate of manufactured goods to slowly and gently depreciate as they get old," he writes, "but it is the fate of operating systems to become free." While others in the computer industry express similarly dogmatic statements, Stephenson charms the reader into his way of thinking, providing anecdotes and examples that turn the pages for you.
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<p>Stephenson is a techie, and he's writing for an audience of coders and hackers in <em>Command Line</em>. The idea for this essay began online, when a shortened version of it was posted on <em>Slashdot.org</em>. The book still holds some marks of an e-mail flame gone awry, and some tangents should have been edited to hone his formidable arguments. But unlike similar writers who also discuss technical topics, he doesn't write to exclude; readers who appreciate computing history (like __ or <em>Fire in the Valley</em>) can easily step into this book.
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<p>Stephenson tackles many myths about industry giants in this volume, specifically Apple and Microsoft. By now, every newspaper reader has heard of Microsoft's overbearing business practices, but Stephenson cuts to the heart of new issues for the software giant with a finely sharpened steel blade. Apple fares only a little better as Stephenson (a former Mac user himself) highlights the early steps the company took to prepare for a monopoly within the computer market--and its surprise when this didn't materialize. Linux culture gets a thorough--but fair--skewering, and the strengths of BeOS are touted (although no operating system is nearly close enough to perfection in Stephenson's eyes).
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<p>As for the rest of us, who have gladly traded free will and an intellectual understanding of computers for a clutter-free, graphically pleasing interface, Stephenson has thoughts to offer as well. He fully understands the limits nonprogrammers feel in the face of technology (an example being the "blinking 12" problem when your VCR resets itself). Even so, within <em>Command Line</em> he convincingly encourages us as a society to examine the metaphors of technology--simplifications that aren't really much simpler--that we greedily accept. <em>--Jennifer Buckendorff</em>
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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3>
<p>After reading this galvanizing essay, first intended as a feature for Wired magazine but never published there, readers are unlikely to look at their laptops in quite the same mutely complacent way. Stephenson, author of the novel Cryptonomicon, delivers a spirited commentary on the aesthetics and cultural import of computer operating systems. It's less an archeology of early machines than a critique of what Stephenson feels is the inherent fuzziness of graphical user interfacesAthe readily intuitable "windows," "desktops" and "browsers" that we use to talk to our computers. Like Disney's distortion of complicated historical events, our operating systems, he argues, lull us into a reductive sense of reality. Instead of the visual metaphors handed to us by Apple and Microsoft, Stephenson advocates the purity of the command line interface, somewhat akin to the DOS prompt from which most people flee in a technophobic panic. Stephenson is an advocate of Linux, the hacker-friendly operating system distributed for free on the Internet, and of BeOS, a less-hyped paradigm for the bits-and-bytes future. Unlike a string of source code, this essay is user-friendlyAoccasionally to a fault. Stephenson's own set of extended metaphors can get a little hokey: Windows is a station wagon, while Macs are sleek Euro-sedans. And Unix is the Gilgamesh epic of the hacker subculture. Nonetheless, by pointing out how computers define who we are, Stephenson makes a strong case for elegance and intellectual freedom in computing. (Nov.) <br />
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. 
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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>There's not a crime novelist around who writes cleaner prose than LaymonAand few who can jack up the tension the way he does. Yet despite his popularity overseas and a minor resurgence here (Bite, Forecasts, May 24), his readership has of late been limited in the States. This new novel, his first since The Midnight Tour, probably won't change that. Laymon likes to grasp readers by the neck with expert wordsmithery, then haul them into a diabolical situation. Here, foxy substitute teacher Sherry Gates goes searching for her boyfriend, who's late returning from a condom-run to a local L.A. market, and gets snatched by a homicidal, sex-crazed teen, Toby Bones. Many readers will find that too much of what ensues focuses, graphically, on Toby's violations of Sherry (and others), including rape, child molestation, slashings, beatings, shootings, a beheading and fratricidal murder by electric drill. Laymon's outrageousness is part of his appeal, but in his best books it's leavened by a gratifyingly sardonic sense of humor. That wickedness flashes at times here, as does a surprising tenderness: the series of scenes in which a naked Sherry is aided by two horny teen boys combines both qualities in a dashing display of emotionally complex writing. Once again, Laymon offers unexpected, well-rounded characters blown about in a narrative that moves like the wind. But the many scenes of sadistic torture cross the line from terror to lurid cruelty and will curdle the enjoyment of all but the most dedicated Laymon fans. <br />Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Kirkus Reviews</h3><p>The master of stomach-churning porno-violence (Quake, 1995, etc.) returns, unredeemed and of no social value whatsoever. Laymon fans must always be telling themselves, I'm sick. Im very sick. I must be absolutely worthless to be enjoying this, but, as the authors numerous villainous psychopaths would undoubtedly say, Kill em all! Let God sort em out! This time, the Santa Ana winds are blowing fire toward L.A., and tubby, teenaged Toby Bones, who with his brother murdered his wealthy parents, is on the loose. Teacher Sherry Gates and her boyfriend Duane are just about to make love when his condom falls to pieces. He'll be right back, Duane says, heading for the nearby convenience store for some fresh booties. He never comes back. After a while, Sherry goes looking for him and eventually is kidnaped by Toby, a student from a recent class. He beats and tries to rape her, then decides they need a bed. Sherry escapes, gets a stranger named Jim to help her get back to Duane's place. They find Duane in bed, his skull crushed, then Toby offs Jim with two butcher knives into his back, jumps a woman in Duane's hallway and knifes her in the back, then re-abducts Sherry for some real fun. And that's just for tasty openers as Laymon's novel slides in slime toward a big sweet hell of pain and orgasm. -- <em>Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.</em></p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>This highly charged espionage thriller gets off to a stunning start. On the road from Smolensk to Moscow, an American tourist, Gregory Fisher, is confronted by a man on the run: an Air Force major who was shot down over appears from his hotel and soon turns up dead, the victim of a suspicious car crash. Intelligence officer Sam Hollis, press attache Lisa Rhodes and CIA bureau chief Seth Alevy must discover for themselves what is going on at the Charm School. They must also decide whether public revelation of a horrifying KGB operation during the new era of glasnost might not damage American/Soviet relations. In this exciting, polemic novel, DeMille (Word of Honor) limns an authentic portrait of Russian society. He conveys the claustrophobic life of American Embassy officials impossibly restricted in movement, and he creates spirited American agents who dodge and spar wittily with coarse KGB men. Once DeMille brings readers into the Charm School itself, however, he cannot sustain the magic that has propelled the narrative for two-thirds of its generous length. At this point, the plot becomes predictable, and the finale differs little from standard adventure escapes, with a cruel resolution to boot. Still, it's riveting reading most of the way. 100,000 first printing; $150,000 ad/promo. <br />Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>The sustained action of this chilling vision of modern Russia starts with a young American tourist phoning the U.S. embassy in Moscow to report an unusual encounter with a U.S. Air Force major in the forest near Borodino. The tourist then vanishes and the officer is identified as a Vietnam MIA. Attaches Sam Hollis and Lisa Rhodes eventually uncover a spy school graduating several hundred "Americans" each year and staffed by an unwilling faculty made up of American servicemen missing from Vietnam. The blockbuster ends after a maverick CIA agent pulls off a hair-raising escape to the West, carrying proof of the camp's existence. John North, L.R.C., Ryerson Polytechnical Inst., Toronto<br />Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The texture, scents and sounds of the West Texas wilderness permeate this forceful debut, in which the murder of a National Park Service ranger illuminates the conflicts between those who want to place our country's open spaces and wildlife under government protection and those who want to profit from them. Anna Pigeon has fled New York City after the accidental death of her husband, and she now works as a law enforcement ranger at Guadaloupe Mountains National Park. There she finds the remains of fellow ranger Sheila Drury, who apparently was clawed to death by a mountain lion. Although an autopsy confirms this judgment, Anna becomes convinced that the claw marks have been faked. Her superiors discourage her from probing further, but another supposedly accidental death goads her into investigating Sheila's activities before her death--her campaign to open up the park to the public and her relationships with a young divorcee and with a powerful rancher opposed to Park Service policies. Anna is sure that clues reside in the thousands of snapshots the dead woman took--photos that show signs of having been rifled through. A park ranger herself, Barr develops a complex, credible and capable heroine who believes in truth and justice while remaining conscious of the ambiguities of human existence. <br />Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>YA-On a biannual trek, park rangers check for signs of mountain lions. While climbing along her assigned route, Anna sees a dozen vultures circle above a canyon. Checking on their carrion, she discovers the body of fellow ranger Sheila Drury, apparently killed by a mountain lion. Believing the animal tracks and scratches are a set-up, the young woman conducts her own investigation, putting her life in peril as she encounters ardent hunters. Anna Pigeon is a great new addition to the cadre of female detectives, especially since her job as park ranger involves hiking through the spectacular scenery of the Guadalupe Mountains of west Texas. Several dollops of ecology and conservation of resources mingle with the murder clues, making this an exciting, almost "good for you," book.<br /><em>Pam Spencer, Thomas Jefferson Sci-Tech, Fairfax County, VA</em><br />Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From</h3><p>The synonym for political cynicism, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote much more than <em>The Prince, </em>for which he is (in)famous. It leads off this anthology, which both spans his range of compositions--from state papers to histories to personal letters--and imparts a greater complexity to his insights on politics and human nature than his reputation would imply. To be sure, translator-editor Constantine includes Machiavelli's cold-eyed advice on how to plot a conspiracy, but that rumination on assassination is embedded in <em>The Discourses</em> (on ancient Roman historian Livy), which otherwise shows Machiavelli as antityranny and favorable toward liberty and republicanism. Machiavelli was more than a theorist, however. Constantine's healthy representation of Machiavelli's reports as, in effect, the foreign minister of Florence in the early 1500s--until thrown out of office and tortured by the Medici in 1513--illustrates Renaissance Italy's dangerous political environment, on which Machiavelli drew for his insights on political conduct. Since <em>The Prince</em> is a collection standard, you can get more bang for the buck with this fluently translated anthology. <em>Gilbert Taylor</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>FINALIST--2008 PEN TRANSLATION PRIZE<br />In <em>The Essential Writings of Machiavelli,</em> Peter Constantine has assembled a comprehensive collection that shows the true depth and breadth of a great Renaissance thinker. Refreshingly accessible, these superb new translations are faithful to Machiavelli’s original, beautifully crafted writings.  </p><p>The volume features essays that appear in English for the first time, such as “A Caution to the Medici” and “The Persecution of Africa.” Also included are complete versions of the political treatise, <em>The Prince</em>, the comic satire <em>The Mandrake</em>, <em>The Life of Castruccio Castracani</em>, and the classic story “Belfagor”, along with selections from <em>The Discourses, The Art of War,</em> and <em>Florentine Histories</em>. Augmented with useful features–vital and concise annotations and cross-references–this unique compendium is certain to become the standard one-volume reference to this influential, versatile, and ever timely writer.  </p><p>“Machiavelli's stress on political necessity rather than moral perfection helped inspire the Renaissance by renewing links with Thucydides and other classical thinkers. This new collection provides deeper insight into Machiavelli’s personality as a writer, thus broadening our understanding of him.”<br />–Robert D. Kaplan, author of W_arrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos _  </p><p>“Constantine’s selection is not only intelligent; his translations are astonishingly good. Thoughtfully introduced by Albert Russell Ascoli, this edition belongs in everyone’s library.”<br />–John Jeffries Martin, professor and chair, department of history, Trinity University  </p><p>“If one were to assign a single edition of Machiavelli's works, this most certainly would be it.”<br />–John P. McCormick, professor, department of political science, University of Chicago </p>


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For Rahotep, chief detective, life is about to get very complicated. On the shadowy city streets the cryptically mutilated bodies of several young people are discovered. These brutal acts are destabilizing a ruthless regime already made precarious by corruption and the appalling divide between rich and poor.Meanwhile, Tutankhamun has inherited an empire that should be at the height of power and glory. But the King, just eighteen, faces only the political conspiracies of the Court, and a bitter struggle for ascendancy. And when his own security is threatened by an intruder in the palace, he needs an outsider he can trust to track down the traitor.Rahotep receives a mysterious invitation to the labyrinthine halls of the Royal Palace. But what he discovers at the dark heart of power will put his life, and his family, in grave danger. . .


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Relating a gruesome story through the first-person narrative of an ingenuous 15-year-old boy, horror novelist Laymon ( The Stake ) appears to aim at the complex tone of Huckleberry Finn . He doesn't even come close, although that parallel might explain his London-born narrator's curiously un-British speech patterns ("gas lamps didn't give off a whole lot of light"). After witnessing Jack the Ripper's final murder on the streets of Whitechapel in 1888, Trevor Bentley is pursued by the psychopath into the Thames and ends up as his prisoner on a yacht bound for America. Improbable plot twists take both characters to Arizona, where the Ripper wreaks havoc while Trevor encounters a couple of snake-oil salesmen, rides with a bandit gang, becomes a crack shot and falls in love with pert, 16-year-old Jesse Sue Longley. The young couple survive a gore-splattered encounter with the Ripper in an Arizona cave, going on to marriage and a career in the snake-oil business. The grisly mutilation scenes induce no horror, Trevor's unrelenting innocence becomes tiresome, and his byplay with Jesse skirts soft-core kiddy-porn. <br />Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>In 1888, Following a disturbance at home, Trevor Bentley's mother sends the 15-year-old to find his uncle, a constable on the London police force. Trevor embarks on a bizarre sequence of adventures, beginning with his witnessing Jack the Ripper at work. Over the next few months, the Ripper and Trevor pursue each other across the Atlantic and on to Arizona, sometimes exchanging roles of hunter and the hunted. Laymon's other horror novels include The Stake (St. Martin's, 1992) and, under the pseudonym Richard Kelly, Midnight's Lair (St Martin's, 1991). He is an accomplished wordsmith, but Savage 's plot falters with too many improbabilities and the author's denigrating peep show presentation of his women characters. Not a necessary puchase.<br /><em>- Robert Jordan, Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City</em><br />Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>When Laymon (_Island_, etc.) died in 2001, he left behind numerous unpublished novels that Leisure has been issuing. This one is good but not great, combining the savagery of his earlier work (_Beast House_, etc.) with the spooky wonder of his later books (_The Traveling Vampire Show_, etc.). As the story begins, we see Candyman, a serial killer, at work, then observe teen Deana West watch in horror as her boyfriend is mowed down by a car—driven by Candyman? The narrative then flashes back 20 years to a summer Deana's mother, Leigh, spent in rural Wisconsin; this, the strongest section, details eerie, erotic nighttime forays by Leigh and her lover, a weird local boy, that result in the boy's accidental death. Back in the present, Leigh gets involved with a cop who's a wolf in sheep's clothing, and she and Deana, who's taken to nighttime jogging and who herself gets involved with a mysterious neighbor and his odd, psychic sister, are menaced by the driver of the car that killed Deana's boyfriend. The plot is too complicated, although Laymon does tie all the strands up in a messy knot; but what counts here, as usual for Laymon, is the white-hot pacing, the rivers of blood (which will dismay mainstream readers) and, above all, the memorable evocation of the fathomless mystery of the moonlit hours. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>“White-hot pacing (with) rivers of blood… memorable evocation of the fathomless mystery of the moonlit hours.” —_Publishers Weekly <em>on</em> The Lake_</p><p>“If you’ve missed Laymon, you’ve missed a treat!”  —Stephen King</p><p>“No one writes like Laymon.” —Dean Koontz</p><p>“The master of stomach-churning violence.” —_Kirkus_</p><p>“Laymon is, was, and always will be king of the hill.” —_Horror World_</p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3>
<p>Starred Review. Launched in 1935, at the bottom of the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) served as a linchpin of FDR's New Deal. Through the WPA, Roosevelt put millions of unemployed Americans to work on public construction projects, from dams and courthouses to parks and roads. The WPA's Federal Writers Project employed a host of artists and writers (among them Jackson Pollock, Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston and Studs Terkel); theater and musical artists also received funding. Taylor (_Ordinary Miracles: Life in a Small Church_) vividly and painstakingly paints the full story of the WPA from its inception to its shutdown by Congress in 1943, at which point the war boom in manufacturing had made it unnecessary. In an eloquent and balanced appraisal, Taylor not only chronicles the WPA's numerous triumphs (including New York's LaGuardia Airport) but also its failures, most notably graft and other chicanery at the local level. Taylor details as well the dicey intramural politics in Congress over which states and districts would get the largest slice of the WPA pie. All told, Taylor's volume makes for a splendid appreciation of the WPA with which to celebrate the upcoming 75th anniversary of the New Deal's beginnings in 1933. <em>(Mar. 4)</em> <br />
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 
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<p>When Franklin Roosevelt assumed the presidency in March 1933, the rate of unemployment was approximately 25 percent. Staples of today’s government support system for the needy, such as unemployment compensation and food stamps, did not exist. Roosevelt had not campaigned as a big government “liberal,” but he and his brain trust felt compelled to do something and do it fast. One of the cornerstones of the New Deal was the WPA, or Works Progress Administration. It was a controversial program. Conservative economists and politicians viewed it as an unwarranted and wasteful intrusion of government into the economy But as Taylor illustrates in this comprehensive analysis of the program, the short-term results, over the eight-year life of the program, were enormous. Dams, roads, and bridges were built; on a smaller scale, WPA workers painted murals, served hot meals to the indigent, and even repaired toys. Perhaps more important, hope was provided for the hopeless. Taylor has written a passionate defense of a program that millions saw as a godsend. --Jay Freeman 
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<h3>Product Description</h3>
<p>Allie Whitman is a professional whistleblower with a knack for sniffing out fraud in government contracts. Conner Norman is a gifted litigator and together they form Devil to Pay, Inc., a shell corporation that files lawsuits based on Allie s investigations. They soon find themselves fighting potentially fatal battles in and out of the courtroom, going great lengths to protect secrets that could ruin them both. 
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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. In this irresistible thriller full of deceit, duplicity, and vengeance, British author Goddard (_Name to a Face_) shifts effortlessly between 1976, when 68-year-old Eldritch Swan, thought killed in the Blitz, resurfaces from 36 years in an Irish prison, and 1940, when Eldritch, a cocksure secretary for an unscrupulous Antwerp diamond merchant, Isaac Meridor, prepares to leave for America. The older Eldritch, who appears as weird as his given name implies, assures his nephew, Stephen, he'd been framed in Dublin for unspecified offenses against the state, though he admits to helping steal Meridor's Picasso collection. Eldritch needs Stephen's help to prove the collection rightfully belongs to Meridor's wife, daughter, and granddaughter, Rachel Banner. Bit by tantalizing bit the convoluted tale of Eldritch's unknowing involvement in high wartime crimes and misdemeanors during Britain's finest hour emerges, deftly counterpointed by Stephen's growing attachment to Rachel. <em>(Mar.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>An ill-gotten family fortune culled from Congolese diamond mines, a forged Picasso, and a hellish Irish prison form the nexus of this eccentric thriller. There are two narrators: the first, speaking of events in 1976, is Stephen Swan, a geologist who has long worked in the booming Texas oil fields. On his return to England, he finds that an uncle, who he was told had lost his life during the Blitz, is alive but not well, having been just released from an extended stay in an Irish prison under suspicion of spying. The second narrator is the uncle himself, who tells his nephew about criminal plots hatched during the war that have taken on strength and danger through the decades. Goddard shuttles between 1976, when the forged Picasso and other stolen works are on public display and must be recovered for the wronged owners, and 1940, when the whole conspiracy began. Although the plot is complex, Goddard’s gift for suspense never flags. --Connie Fletcher </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3>

I will seek Vengeance upon those who betrayed my family. I am Ezio Auditore da Firenze. I am an Assassin Betrayed by the ruling families of Italy, a young man embarks upon an epic quest for vengeance. To eradicate corruption and restore his family's honour, he will learn the art of the assassins. Along the way, Ezio will call upon the wisdom of such great minds as Leonardo Da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli ? knowing that survival is bound to the skills by which he must live.To his allies, he will become a force for change - fighting for freedom and justice. To his enemies, he will become a threat dedicated to the destruction of the tyrants abusing the people of Italy. So begins an epic story of power, revenge and conspiracy.

 TRUTH WILL BE WRITTEN IN BLOOD


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<p>A teenage actress falls for a mysterious stranger in this haunting romance, reminiscent of The Phantom of the Opera. High-school senior Esti Legard and her mother have moved to the Caribbean after the death of Esti’s father, a famous Shakespearean actor. While playing Juliet at her prestigious performing-arts high school, Esti starts receiving acting instruction from a disembodied voice in the theater. Frightened that she is being courted by a jumbee, or ghost, Esti tries to switch her attention to charming flesh-and-blood Rafe, but she continues to be seduced by the velvety-voiced persona, which seems to read her mind. When Esti’s real and imagined worlds collide in the climax of a tropical hurricane, her secrets are revealed, along with those of her conflicted island community, where descendants of slaves and slave owners alike live in an uneasy peace. The lushly described exotic setting breathes new life into the classic star-crossed story line. Romance fans will enjoy the fascinating locale along with the slow-building suspense and incidental acting lessons. Grades 8-12. --Jennifer Hubert 
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<h3>Product Description</h3>
<p>When Esti Legard starts theater school on Cariba, she's determined to step out of the shadow of her late father, a famous Shakespearean actor. But on an island rife with superstition, Esti canÕt escape the darkness. In the black of the theater, an alluring phantom voiceÑknown only as AlanÑbecomes her brilliant drama tutor, while in the light of day Esti struggles to resist her magnetic attraction to Rafe, the local bad boy. Toppled sets, frightening rumors of jumbee ghosts, and brewing tropical storms culminate in a tantalizingly spooky finale where romance sizzles and truths are unmasked.
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<p>Laced with eerie mystery and the lush scenery of the West Indies, this modern Phantom is perfect for readers who like their love stories served with spine-tingling suspense. 
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<h3>Review</h3><p>"One of the great magicians of fiction . . . White's scope is vast and his invention endless."<br />-_The Observer_ (London) </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Hurtle Duffield, a painter, coldly dissects the weaknesses of any and all who enter his circle. His sister's deformity, a grocer's moonlight indiscretion, the passionate illusions of the women who love him-all are used as fodder for his art. It is only when Hurtle meets an egocentric adolescent whom he sees as his spiritual child does he experience a deeper, more treacherous emotion in this tour de force of sexual and psychological menace that sheds brutally honest light on the creative experience. </p>


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<h3>Review</h3>
<p>“The battle scenes have the breathless urgency of firsthand experience, and the . . . evil laced into the forces of good, the dangers latent in any promised salvation, the sense of the unavoidable onslaught of unpredictable events bear the marks of American national experience during the last three decades, just as the experience of the First World War and its aftermath gave its imprint to J. R. R. Tolkien’s work.”--_The New York Times_ on The Wheel of Time®
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<h3>Product Description</h3>
<p>The Last Battle has started. The seals on the Dark One’s prison are crumbling. The Pattern itself is unraveling, and the armies of the Shadow have begun to boil out of the Blight.  
</p>
<p>The sun has begun to set upon the Third Age.  
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<p>Perrin Aybara is now hunted by specters from his past: Whitecloaks, a slayer of wolves, and the responsibilities of leadership. All the while, an unseen foe is slowly pulling a noose tight around his neck. To prevail, he must seek answers in <em>Tel’aran’rhiod</em> and find a way--at long last--to master the wolf within him or lose himself to it forever.  
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<p>Meanwhile, Matrim Cauthon prepares for the most difficult challenge of his life. The creatures beyond the stone gateways--the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn--have confused him, taunted him, and left him hanged, his memory stuffed with bits and pieces of other men’s lives. He had hoped that his last confrontation with them would be the end of it, but the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills. The time is coming when he will again have to dance with the Snakes and the Foxes, playing a game that cannot be won. The Tower of Ghenjei awaits, and its secrets will reveal the fate of a friend long lost.  
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<p>This penultimate novel of Robert Jordan’s #1 <em>New York Times</em> bestselling series--the second of three based on materials he left behind when he died in 2007--brings dramatic and compelling developments to many threads in the Pattern. The end draws near.  
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<p><em>Dovie’andi se tovya sagain.</em> It’s time to toss the dice. 
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SUMMARY:
Luminous, passionate, expansive, an emotional tour de force Sunset Park follows the hopes and fears of a cast of unforgettable characters brought together by the mysterious Miles Heller during the dark months of the 2008 economic collapse.An enigmatic young man employed as a trash-out worker in southern Florida obsessively photographing thousands of abandoned objects left behind by the evicted families.A group of young people squatting in an apartment in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.The Hospital for Broken Things, which specializes in repairing the artifacts of a vanished world.William Wyler's 1946 classic The Best Years of Our Lives.A celebrated actress preparing to return to Broadway.An independent publisher desperately trying to save his business and his marriage.These are just some of the elements Auster magically weaves together in this immensely moving novel about contemporary America and its ghosts. Sunset Park is a surprising departure that confirms Paul Auster as one of our greatest living writers.


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3>
<p>Former FBI agent Wittman, who created the agency's Art Crime Team and pursued a lifelong interest in antiques and collectibles, goes undercover to hobnob with infamous art thieves. The ineffective, the stupid, the clever, and the dangerous; Wittman befriends them all, in order to betray them, a fact that causes him a certain amount of angst. Among other challenges are bumbling agency bureaucrats and government turf wars when attempting to recover stolen art abroad. A fatal car accident that Wittman was involved in early in his career shaped his perspective: "I understood that because someone made a mistake in judgment, it didn't make him evil. My newfound ability to see both sides of a situation-to think and feel like the accused-was invaluable." Wittman keeps the narrative interesting, and reveals himself as something of a renegade: "Under the FBI's strict undercover rules, you're only supposed to work one case at a time. I never followed that rule." Keep the lies to a minimum, he advises, and avoid working in your home town. <br />
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 
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<h3>Review</h3>
<p>“Almost every case he recounts has enough intrigue and suspense for a Hollywood screenplay.”--The Washington Post  
</p>
<p>"Genius... Riveting.... Should be a TV series."--Los Angeles Times  
</p>
<p>"A rollicking memoir... investigative details dazzle... PRICELESS can read at times, not unpleasantly, as if an art history textbook got mixed up at the printer with a screenplay for THE WIRE."--The New York Times  
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<p>"Riveting... superbly crafted... absolutely, hands down the best book ever written on art crime."--Associated Press  
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<p>“I can’t think of a better title for a book than this one, PRICELESS.  Because this non-fiction story is priceless, a spellbinding narrative of an FBI agent’s journey into the crazy murk of what is perhaps the most fascinating criminal activity of all, high-stakes art theft into the millions upon millions.”--Buzz Bissinger, New York Times bestselling author of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS and coauthor of SHOOTING STARS  
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<p>"Entertaining...crime buffs will receive a painless education while they enjoy a lively account of art thieves and the man who pursued them."--Kirkus Reviews  
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<p>"Wittman's memoir, PRICELESS, is a fast-paced, gripping narrative of stolen national treasures and those who traffic in them. An undercover lawman armed with wit and adrenalin, Wittman exposes the darkest corners of the art world and brings to justice the dangerous criminals who lurk there."--Laney Salisbury, co-author of PROVENANCE: HOW A CON  MAN AND A FORGER REWROTE THE HISTORY OF MODERN ART  
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<p>"In one riveting sequence after another, Robert Wittman reveals the art world’s underbelly as it has never been seen, through the eyes of an undercover agent whose investigative acumen is matched only by his art-history chops. A true page-turner."--Benjamin Wallace, New York Times bestseller author of THE BILLIONAIRE’S VINEGAR  
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<p>“With suspense, intrigue, and candor, FBI agent Robert Wittman takes us inside the secret world of stolen art as he goes undercover to solve some of the most notorious art thefts of our time.”—Ronald Kessler, New York Times bestselling author of THE BUREAU and IN THE PRESIDENT’S SECRET SERVICE  
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<p>“PRICELESS is a gem of a story, part James Bond, part art history.  If Robert Wittman didn’t already exist, Dan Brown would have made him up.”--George Anastasia, New York Times bestselling author BLOOD AND HONOR, THE LAST GANGSTER and THE SUMMER WIND  
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<p>"More realistic than THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, more entertaining than CATCH ME IF YOU CAN.  It's hard to believe one undercover FBI Agent rescued so many cultural and national treasures......but it's all true.”--Jack Garcia, former FBI undercover agent and New York Times bestselling author of MAKING JACK FALCONE  
</p>
<p><em>“</em>PRICELESS is a rare and riveting journey into the little-understood world of art crime.  A brilliant professional who sees both the big picture and all of its nuances, Wittman fascinates with tales of his daring adventures as an FBI undercover agent.  Demonstrating candor, humor, integrity, and sensitivity, Wittman strips away the myths, bares the truth, and tells it like it is.  He and PRICELESS are both precisely that--priceless!”--Andrea Kane, <em>New York Times </em>bestselling author of <em>DRAWN IN BLOOD</em>
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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>"The biggest sci-fi cult novel to come along since Dune."--The Village Voice. </p><h3>From the Publisher</h3><p>Filled with sex and violence--in and out of time and space--the three books of <em>The Illuminatus</em> are only partly works of the imagination. They tackle all the coverups of our time--from who really shot the Kennedys to why there's a pyramid on a one-dollar bill. </p>


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<div>
 
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 At the request of Scotland Yard, American philosopher William James, an expert in the science of the mind, travels to London to assist in solving the Jack the Ripper case. Once in London, William has access to the evidence collected at the crime scenes, and he travels with Inspector Abberline to interview witnesses. He then shares the particulars of the case with his brother, novelist Henry, and his sister, Alice, who is bedridden but feels she can still contribute to the identification of the madman. The story is told from multiple points of view, and Cohen seamlessly blends fact and fiction into fascinating looks at late-nineteenth-century London, the Jack the Ripper case, and the lives of the James siblings. In addition, she weaves in provocative details about the philosophy, literature, and art of the era and makes room for cameo appearances by such real-life figures as Oscar Wilde, John Singer Sargent, and Walter Sickert, once thought a suspect in the Ripper killings. For fans of historical fiction as well as historical mysteries. --Sue O'Brien
 
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 <h3>Product Description</h3>
 <div>
 <p>"A marvelously rich and intelligent read, atmospheric, witty, irreverent, and not least a sharply perceptive portrait of those three extraordinary Jameses."<br> -John Banville, author of <i>The Infinities</i></p> <p><b><i>Under Certain Circumstances, No One Is More Suited to Solving a Crime than a Woman Confined to Her Bed</i></b></p> <p>An invalid for most her life, Alice James is quite used to people underestimating her. And she generally doesn't mind. But this time she is not about to let things alone. Yes, her brother Henry may be a famous author, and her other brother William a rising star in the new field of psychology. But when they all find themselves quite unusually involved in the chase for a most vile new murderer-one who goes by the chilling name of Jack the Ripper-Alice is certain of two things:</p> <p>No one could be more suited to gather evidence about the nature of the killer than her brothers. But if anyone is going to correctly examine the evidence and solve the case, it will have to be up to her.</p> <p><b>Praise for Paula Marantz Cohen</b></p> <p>"Cohen's wit is sharp, smart, and satirical, and her characterizations are vividly on target."<br><i>-San Francisco Chronicle</i></p>
 
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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3>
<p>Social history reporting can get dull in the abstract; happily, journalist and family man Lovenheim (Portrait of a Burger as a Young Calf) makes a personal project of his investigation into the disappearance of community in suburban American, learning about the residents of his suburban Rochester, N.Y. street by sleeping over at their houses (his impetus was a murder-suicide on the street that helped reveal the extent to which his neighbors remained strangers). Throughout, Lovenheim's writing is genteel and elegantly detailed, revealing much about his subjects-issues of class, relationships, likes and gripes, obsessions and everyday struggles-that would be easy to miss in broad cultural assessments. His project also exposes the surprising variety of people in a neighborhood that seems, at first glance, a homogenous group of upper-middle-class professionals. Using the sleepover as an innovative sociological lens, Lovenheim provides a smart, from-the-front-lines update on Robert Putnam's suburban-alienation expose Bowling Alone, taking a personal look at what Americans tend to lose by "going about their lives largely detached from those living around them." <br />
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 
</p>

<h3>From</h3>
<p>After a tragic murder-suicide in his neighborhood, Lovenheim feels compelled to learn if closer relationships among neighbors might have saved a woman from death. The cultural study that follows is as much about sociology as it is about simple friendship as Lovenheim wonders why people can live side-by-side and know literally nothing about each other. He engages in long conversations both with those he has known (at least casually) for years and others he has never met. A retired doctor, harried real-estate agent, workaholic consultant, pathologist, radiologist fighting cancer, dog walkers, and others allow him into their homes and, at least a little bit, their hearts. He meets families and pets and witnesses daily routines, asking repeatedly just what it is that makes a place a home and a street more than merely an address. He reaches out and finds others also searching for connection and longing for what used to be. Lovenheim advances ideas about isolation in the modern world, and why a welcoming front porch is needed now more than ever. --Colleen Mondor 
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<h3>Review</h3><p>PRAISE FOR <em>INSTRUMENTS OF DARKNESS</em>  </p><p>"A witty, fast-moving and picaresque tale . . . peopled by deliciously shady characters."--Nelson DeMille  </p><p>"An atmospheric and absorbing debut ... Vividly paints a credible picture of a world I know almost nothing about. Now I feel I've been there." --Val McDermid  </p><p>PRAISE FOR <em>THE COMPANY OF STRANGERS:</em>  </p><p>"An espionage thriller of the first order--complex, exotic, romantic."_--San Francisco Chronicle_  </p><p>PRAISE FOR <em>A SMALL DEATH IN LISBON:</em>  </p><p>"A taut international thriller."_--Time_  </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>From the author of the national bestseller <em>A Small Death in Lisbon</em> and <em>The Company of Strangers</em> comes Wilson's compelling first novel, never before available in the United States. Bruce Medway's existence as a fixer and troubleshooter had been tough, but never life-threatening until he crossed paths with the mighty Madame Severnou. His life becomes even more complicated by his search for a missing fellow expat, Steven Kershaw. Against a backdrop of political disruption and endemic official corruption, Medway pursues the elusive phantom of Kershaw. <br /><em>Instruments of Darkness</em> powerfully evokes the atmosphere, politics, and people of West Africa. With Medway's ironic voice, flashes of humor that may recall Raymond Chandler, and unforgettable characters, this compulsively readable thriller is the beginning of a remarkable series.  </p>


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<p>It’s been almost 1,000 years since the forming of the Alliance—an agreement between humans and pegasi that they will live in peace and harmony. But as breathtaking and majestic as the pegasi are, a language barrier, only somewhat ameliorated by magicians, keeps them distant. That is, until 12-year-old princess Sylvi has her “binding” ritual with Ebon, her black, winged pegasus counterpart, and the two find themselves able to enjoy perfect telepathy. Their closeness shakes the foundations of the kingdom, and soon Sylvi is not only enjoying forbidden rides atop her pegasus but is also extended an invite of historic import: a trip to the pegasi’s mysterious Caves. McKinley’s storytelling is to be savored. She lavishes page after page upon rituals and ceremonies, basks in the awe of her intricately constructed world, and displays a masterful sense of pegasi physicality and mannerisms. The plot is very short on drama—a villain, established early, vanishes until the final pages, and with him goes the suspense—but an apparent sequel may add balance to the overall arc. Grades 8-11. --Daniel Kraus 
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<h3>Product Description</h3>
<p><strong>A gorgeously written fantasy about the friendship between a princess and her Pegasus. </strong>   
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<p>Because of a thousand-year-old alliance between humans and pagasi, Princess Sylviianel is ceremonially bound to Ebon, her own Pegasus, on her twelfth birthday. The two species coexist peacefully, despite the language barriers separating them. Humans and pegasi both rely on specially-trained Speaker magicians as the only means of real communication.   
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<p>But its different for Sylvi and Ebon. They can understand each other. They quickly grow close-so close that their bond becomes a threat to the status quo-and possibly to the future safety of their two nations.   
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<p><em>New York Times</em> bestselling Robin McKinley weaves an unforgettable tale of unbreakable friendship, mythical creatures and courtly drama destined to become a classic. 
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<h3>Review</h3>
<p>"The most brilliant sci-fi mind on any planet." --Rolling Stone 
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<h3>Product Description</h3>
<p>Jim Parsons is a talented doctor, skilled at the most advanced medical techniques and dedicated to saving lives. But after a bizarre road accident leaves him hundreds of years in the future, Parsons is horrified to discover an incredibly advanced civilization that zealously embraces death. Now, he is caught between his own instincts and training as a healer and a society where it is illegal to save lives. But Parsons is not the only one left who believes in prolonging life, and those who share his beliefs have desperate plans for Dr.Parsons' skills, and for the future of their society. Dr. Futurity is not only a thrilling rendition of a terrifying future but it is also a fantastic examination of the paradoxes of time-travel that could only have come from the mind of Philip K. Dick.  
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<p>Winner of both the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards for best novel, widely regarded as the premiere science fiction writer of his day, and the object of cult-like adoration from his legions of fans, Philip K. Dick has come to be seen in a literary light that defies classification in much the same way as Borges and Calvino. With breathtaking insight, he utlizes vividly unfamiliar worlds to evoke the hauntingly and hilariously familiar in our society and ourselves. 
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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Grammar is a subject that typically induces wincing, wheezing, or worse. Clark, a lifelong whiz at the subject, wants readers to fully appreciate the importance of good grammar and the qualities of superior writing. To that end, he has laid out several entertaining, easy-to-follow rules, governing everything from punctuation to alliteration, that promise to dramatically improve one's writing and develop an appreciation for language. Clark draws on examples ranging from DeLillo to Rowling, a breadth of text that readers will appreciate as much as the author's humorous approach. Who knew that a discussion of grammar could induce laughter? This is an eminently readable, extremely enjoyable guide that readers will find highly useful on their path to development, not just as writers, but as readers. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"Very much a manual for the 21st century...a welcome addition to the bookshelf of anyone who cares about language-and is willing to argue about it." (<strong>Ammon Shea, the <em>New York Times Book Review</em></strong> )  </p><p>"A fine common-sense guide to the proper use of language." (<strong>Barbara Fisher, the <em>Boston Globe</em></strong> )  </p><p>"An engaging and witty exploration of the shifting rules of English grammar...Clark shows breathtaking knowledge of how language is used in the real world and a passionate commitment to helping writers make good choices." (<strong>Chuck Leddy, <em>Minneapolis Star Tribune</em></strong> )  </p><p>"[Roy Peter] Clark takes readers through a well-paced presentation...he conveys the magic that is to be found in English, in its ever active evolution." (<strong>Margaret Heilbrun, <em>Library Journal</em></strong> )  </p><p>"Clark...has laid out several entertaining, easy-to-follow rules, governing everything from punctuation to alliteration, that promise to dramatically improve one's writing and develop an appreciation for language. Who knew that a discussion of grammar could induce laughter? This is an eminently readable, extremely enjoyable guide that readers will find highly useful on their path to development, not just as writers, but as readers." (<strong><em>Publishers Weekly</em></strong> )  </p><p>"What I learned from this book:   </p><p>1) That grammar has meant mastery of all arts and letters (to the Greeks) and power, magic, and enchantment (to the Scots). Wow.  </p><p>2) That for the artful writer, no decision is too small, including whether to use <em>a</em> or <em>the</em>. Awesome.  </p><p>3) That there are right-branching, left-branching, and middle-branching sentences. How cool!  </p><p>4) That Roy Peter Clark, a modern-day Pied Piper of grammar, makes good writing both approachable and doable. Phew!" (<strong>Constance Hale, author of <em>Sin and Syntax</em></strong> )  </p><p>"Who, other than a word-lover like Roy Peter Clark, would dare link "glamour" with (ugh) "grammar"? Here it is--a book of enchantment about words and how words work and what they mean and how to spell them, where even lowly semicolons get appreciated as "swinging gates" in a sentence. Who'd a thunk a book on grammar could be fun? And humorous. Check out "cleave" and "cleaveage."" (<strong>Sister Helen Prejean, author of <em>Dead Man Walking</em></strong> )  </p><p>"If grammar is medicine, then Roy Clark gives us the spoonful of sugar to help it go down. A wonderful tour through the labyrinth of language." (<strong>Anne Hull, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, <em>The Washington Post</em></strong> )  </p><p>"If 'Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne,' as Quentin Crisp once said, then Ralph Keyes has given word and language lovers a deeply fragrant-and thoroughly enjoyable-book." (<strong>Dr. Mardy Grothe, author of <em>Oxymoronica</em> and other quotation anthologies</strong> )  </p><p>"If there is indeed a glamour to grammar, I should have known Roy Peter Clark would be the one to spot it. Clark is a trusty guide for anyone wanting to avoid the (many) pitfalls and scale the (hard-won) peaks of perpetrating prose." (<strong>Ben Yagoda, author of _Memoir: A History <em>and</em> The Sound on the Page: Style and Voice in Writing_</strong> )  </p><p>"Roy Peter Clark takes the language so seriously he dares to play with it. What other English professor would seriously write 'A good pun is its own reword.'_The Glamour of Grammar_ is required fun, seriously." (<strong>Eugene C. Patterson, Pulitzer Prize-winning editor and retired chairman and CEO, <em>St. Petersburg Times</em></strong> )  </p><p>"Roy Peter Clark, the Jedi master of writing coaches, has delivered another indispensable classic for every author, young and old. <em>The Glamour of Gramma</em>r crackles with wit and wisdom and with page after page of rock-solid strategies to guide writers toward prose that sings with vivid clarity. Somehow, Clark makes grammar seem both playful and understandable, even for those who have trouble telling the difference between a dangling participle and a wandering antecedent." (<strong>Thomas French, author of <em>Zoo Story</em></strong> )  </p><p>"An indispensible book in this Twitter world where so few words must push your story forward. Roy Peter Clark shows you a fun way to say exactly what you mean." (<strong>Bob Dotson, NBC News National Correspondent for the <em>Today Show</em>'s "American Story with Bob Dotson"</strong> ) </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3>
<p>First published in 1985 by a small press, this realist (read: not sci-fi) early novel from dystopian master Dick (1928–1982) bears the following introductory author's note: This is actually a very funny book, and a good one, too, in that the funny things that happen happen to real people who come alive. The ending is a happy one. What more can an author say? What more can he give? To which one answers indeed, and quickly turns to the adventures of protagonist Bruce Stevens as he drives into the Pacific Northwest—the sales territory of a Willy Lomanesque man named Milton Lumky—looking for wholesale typewriters. <em>(May)</em> <br />
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 
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<h3>Review</h3>
<p>“A kind of pulp-fiction Kafka, a prophet.”<br />
--_The New York Times  
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<p>_“Remarkable. . .echoes of Dick’s contemporaries such as Ralph Ellison, Richard Yates, Rod Serling, Raymond Chandler and early Kurt Vonnegut Jr. resonate. . . . Dick fans will be in rapture.”<br />
--_Publishers Weekly_ [boxed review] on <em>Voices from the Street</em>
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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3>
<p>Starred Review. Paretsky's superb 14th novel featuring PI V.I. Warshawski (after Hardball) delves into Chicago's avant-garde art scene. At the trendy Club Gouge, where Warshawski is keeping an eye on Petra, a young cousin who caused trouble in the previous book, performance artist Karen Buckley (aka the Body Artist) invites members of the audience to step on stage to paint her nude body. The intricate design that one woman paints on Karen's back provokes a violent outburst from Chad Vishneski, a troubled Iraqi war veteran. When two nights later, someone shoots the woman who upset Chad outside the club, Chad is the logical murder suspect. Hired by Chad's estranged parents to clear his name, Warshawski straddles a minefield that reaches from the Windy City's neighborhoods to the Gulf War battlefields. Scenes with her aging neighbor and a new love interest give a much needed balance to the serious plot. This strong outing shows why the tough, fiercely independent, dog-loving private detective continues to survive. <br />
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 
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<h3>From</h3>
<p>V. I. Warshawski is "like Spider-Man with a P.I. License," claimed the <em>Chicago Sun-Times </em>of its home-based heroine, and critics agreed that, despite her age, Warshawski is no Miss Marple. Reviewers had little but praise for this newest entry in the popular series; of particular note is Paretsky's deep exploration of social and political issues--notably, homophobia; domestic violence; and the misdeeds spawned by the Iraq War. However, critics diverged in their opinion of these thematic strands. The <em>Los Angeles Times </em>called the plotting "ingenious," while the <em>New York Times Book Review </em>described it as "bloated." For readers interested in a complex, multistrand story, <em>Body Work </em>is another thoughtful, timely entry in the series. 
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<h3>Review</h3>
<p>"Taylor does a lovely job of setting an atmospheric scene and luring us inside."<br />
-Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review  
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<p>"A strikingly atmospheric debut. The writing is crisp and the characters all quite forcefully alive, especially Sweeney." -Denver Post  
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<p>"[O' Artful Death] rings subtle--and enormously satisfying--changes on the venerable tried-and-true." -Newsday  
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<p>"An elegantly wrought first mystery with layers within layers like carved ivory balls...Rich and rewarding reading."-Booklist   
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<p>"A nicely puzzled plot, a closely confined rural setting, remarkable characterizations, and eminently readable prose." -Library Journal  
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<p>"(Taylor) has an eye for the details of rural New England . . . Pull up an overstuffed chair and drift away." -The Boston Globe  
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<p>"A compelling mystery about a dark subject. One can hope she'll bring Sweeney for more sleuthing."-Sunday Oklahoman"  
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<p>"An academic cozy set in rural Vermont's Byzantium, a bygone artists colony replete with a Victorian mansion, rumors of murder plots past and present and a surfeit of oddballs marooned there for the winter."-Publishers Weekly  
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<p>"Pithy assessments of the Pre-Raphaelites, Tennyson, and Victorian mores, along with Christmas-card pretty scenes of winter in Vermont."-Kirkus Reviews  
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<p>"I could not put it down . . . Sweeney is a very human and appealing protagonist, and Sarah Stewart Taylor has a lovely, lyrical style. O' Artful Death will be one of the year's best first novels." -Deborah Crombie, author of And Justice There Is None   
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<p>"Literate and lyrical, O' Artful Death by Sarah Stewart Taylor is a stunning debut novel. Art Historian Sweeney St. George, Taylor's protagonist, is quirky, appealing, and intelligent. O' Artful Death vaults Sarah Stewart Taylor into the select company of Amanda Cross and Jane Langton."-Carolyn Hart, author of Engaged to Die  
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<p>"Sarah Stewart Taylor's debut mystery is an absolute delight. Sweeney St. George is the most intelligent, erudite, and sympathetic narrator to grace the academic mystery genre since Amanda Cross's Kate Fansler, and Taylor's complicated and multilayered plot is the perfect vehicle for her."-Ayelet Waldman, author of A Playdate with Death<br />
-- <em>Review</em>
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<h3>Product Description</h3>
<p>Sweeney St. George looks nothing like a university Professor with her unruly red curls and preference for vintage clothing. Single and wary of relationships, she pours her energy into her college teaching and a passionate interest in cemetery art. And now Sweeney is intrigued with a macabre graveyard statue of a beautiful woman-a carving that is at once astonishing, sinister, and perhaps hiding a one-hundred-year-old murder...  
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<p>Dying to find out more about the strange monument, Sweeney heads for a winter holiday among friends at a mansion in Vermont's historic Byzantium Art Colony. Her plan is to snoop in dusty archives and tromp through the tiny cemetery where the statue still stands. But what Sweeney finds in this isolated rural community is an emotional awakening, a chilling link between old and new crimes...and a clever killer reaching for her with deadly hands.  
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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3>
<p>The moral and the atmosphere of the recent Paramount Pictures film <em>Paycheck</em> differ significantly from those in the original short story performed here—a fact obscured by the movie-poster packaging and one that might confuse listeners. Jennings, a mechanic, signs on at Retherick Construction, agreeing to be paid richly on the condition that his memory will be wiped clean of everything he did after he completes his two years of service. When he awakes, his memory erased, he discovers that he had declined the money in favor of seven seemingly random items which he must use to avoid the Special Police, who are investigating Retherick Construction. Narrator Dullea does a fine job of evoking the story's tension as well as Jennings's puzzlement over his situation. However, he lends the story's one female character a saccharine, whispery voice that detracts from the narration. Although this audio adaptation may please fans of the movie who are interested in seeing how the original story has been altered for the silver screen, those looking for an introduction to the author's works would do better to pick up the collection on which this audio is based, <em>Paycheck: And Other Classic Stories</em>. <br />
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 
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<h3>Product Description</h3>
<p>PAYCHECK, originally written as a short story by Philip K. Dick and first published in 1953, centres on an electrician who wakes up to discover his employer has erased his memory of the past two years -- as a security measure. When he tries to collect his paycheck, he finds he has previously signed a release replacing the money with a bag of random objects. Previous film adaptations of Dick's short stories have included the box office smash hits MINORITY REPORT, TOTAL RECALL and BLADE RUNNER, released shortly after Dick died in 1982. 
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SUMMARY:
Philip K. Dick was a master of science fiction, but he was also a writer whose work transcended genre to examine the nature of reality and what it means to be human. A writer of great complexity and subtle humor, his work belongs on the shelf of great twentieth-century literature, next to Kafka and Vonnegut. Collected here are twenty-one of Dick's most dazzling and resonant stories, which span his entire career and show a world-class writer working at the peak of his powers. In "The Days of Perky Pat," people spend their time playing with dolls who manage to live an idyllic life no longer available to the Earth's real inhabitants. "Adjustment Team" looks at the fate of a man who by mistake has stepped out of his own time. In "Autofac," one community must battle benign machines to take back control of their lives. And in "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon," we follow the story of one man whose very reality may be nothing more than a nightmare. The collection also includes such classic stories as "The Minority Report," the basis for the Steven Spielberg movie, and "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale," the basis for the film Total Recall. Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick is a magnificent distillation of one of American literature's most searching imaginations. "From the Hardcover edition."


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<h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Grade 6 Up–There is something evil brewing in Bixby, and the teens from the previous Midnighters titles must save the world from the darklings. The monsters have found a way to expand midnight so that all humans will enter the blue time and become prey. Complicating the crisis is Rex's residual darkling characteristics that leave him with the unsettling notion that other humans are food, Jonathan's secret desire that the midnight hour could last forever so that he would always be free of the confining flatland gravity, and the fact that no one has yet figured out why the darklings wish to dispose of Jessica Day. <em>Blue Noon</em> has an end of the world premise that will appeal to Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans. Even though the characters are not completely developed, they all have distinct skills that set them apart from one another. Westerfeld doesn't rehash all the events of the earlier books. Instead, he subtly includes the information that is needed to follow the story. Since the characters' schemes never proceed according to plan, the plot maintains an exciting pace. However, it is never fully explained why everything works out the way it does. Despite this minor flaw, this is fun recreational reading._–Heather M. Campbell, Philip S. Miller Library, Castle Rock, CO_ <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>the darklings will hunt once again </p><p>The secret hour when time freezes arrives every night at midnight in Bixby, Oklahoma. It's a dangerous time, when five teenagers are the only humans awake and dark creatures crawl out of the shadows, but at least the midnight hour is regular and predictable. </p><p>Until suddenly, the blue time comes . . . in the middle of the day. </p><p>The noise of school stops. Cheerleaders are frozen in midair, teachers brought to a standstill. Everything is the haunted blue color of the midnight hour. </p><p>The Midnighters can't understand what's happening, but as they scramble for answers, they discover that the walls between the secret hour and real time are crumbling. Soon the dark creatures will have a chance to feed after centuries of waiting, unless these five teenagers can find a way to stop them. </p><p>A desperate race against time, a mind-blowing mystery of paranormal logic, a tale of ancient evil and spine-chilling sacrifice: blue noon is the exhilarating third volume in the Midnighters series by acclaimed author Scott Westerfeld. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>The Midnighters of Bixby, Oklahoma, know that their town is full of secrets. These five teenagers are the only ones who know about the mysterious hour at midnight when the world freezes, except for them and the creatures that inhabit the darkness.</p><p>But they do not know why earlier generations of Midnighters all disappeared, or why they are now the only Midnighters in town. As they learn more about the secret hour's twists and turns, they uncover terrifying mysteries woven into the very fabric of Bixby's history, and a conspiracy that touches both the midnight hour and the world of daylight.</p><p>At the same time, the Midnighters' own secrets start to emerge, including some that were never meant to come to light, changing the fragile dynamics among the five.</p><p>This time Jessica Day is not the only Midnighter in mortal danger, and if the group can't find a way to come together, they could lose one of their own -- forever.</p><p>A tale of betrayal, horrifying revelations, and powerful alliances, touching darkness is the second volume of the riveting Midnighters trilogy by acclaimed author <strong>Scott Westerfeld</strong>.</p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>Scott Westerfeld is the author of ten books for young adults, including <em>Peeps</em>, <em>The Last Days</em>, and the Midnighters trilogy. He was born in Texas in 1963, is married to the Hugo-nominated writer Justine Larbalestier, and splits his time between New York and Sydney. His latest book is <em>Extras</em>, the fourth in the bestselling Uglies series. </p>


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In The Crack in Space, a repairman discovers that a hole in a faulty Jifi-scuttler leads to a parallel world. Jim Briskin, campaigning to be the first black president of the United States, thinks alter-Earth is the solution to the chronic overpopulation that has seventy million people cryogenically frozen; Tito Cravelli, a shadowy private detective, wants to know why Dr Lurton Sands is hiding his mistress on the planet; billionaire mutant George Walt wants to make the empty world all his own. But when the other earth turns out to be inhabited, everything changes. Winner of both the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards for best novel, widely regarded as the premiere science fiction writer of his day, and the object of cult-like adoration from his legions of fans, Philip K. Dick has come to be seen in a literary light that defies classification in much the same way as Borges and Calvino. With breathtaking insight, he utilizes vividly unfamiliar worlds to evoke the hauntingly and hilariously familiar in our society and ourselves.


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What happened to Eden?   The New York Times bestselling author of Ahab's Wife, Four Spirits, and Abundance returns with an audacious and provocative novel that envisions a world where science and faith contend for the allegiance of a new Adam & Eve   Her books have been hailed as "exceptional" (People); "enchanting" (Entertainment Weekly); "of great cultural and historical importance" (New York Times Book Review); and "original and affecting" (Los Angeles Times). One of the most imaginative and inspired writers of our time, Sena Jeter Naslund masterfully uses her craft to lay bare the poignant complexity of humanity—the passion and despair, the ignorance and frailty, the genius and resilience that define us. From Victorian London to civil-rights-era Alabama, from nineteenth-century New England to revolutionary Paris, her novels offer profound insight and startling truths about human experience. Now, with Adam & Eve, she delivers her most ambitious and encompassing tale to date.   Hours before his untimely—and highly suspicious—death, world-renowned astrophysicist Thom Bergmann shares his discovery of extraterrestrial life with his wife, Lucy. Feeling that the warring world is not ready to learn of—or accept—proof of life elsewhere in the universe, Thom entrusts Lucy with his computer flash drive, which holds the keys to his secret work.   Devastated by Thom's death, Lucy keeps the secret, but Thom's friend, anthropologist Pierre Saad, contacts Lucy with an unusual and dangerous request about another sensitive matter. Pierre needs Lucy to help him smuggle a newly discovered artifact out of Egypt: an ancient codex concerning the human authorship of the Book of Genesis. Offering a reinterpretation of the creation story, the document is sure to threaten the foundation of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions . . . and there are those who will stop at nothing to suppress it.   Midway through the daring journey, Lucy's small plane goes down on a slip of verdant land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Middle East. Burned in the crash landing, she is rescued by Adam, a delusional American soldier whose search for both spiritual and carnal knowledge has led to madness. Blessed with youth, beauty, and an unsettling innocence, Adam gently tends to Lucy's wounds, and in this quiet, solitary paradise, a bond between the unlikely pair grows. Ultimately, Lucy and Adam forsake their half-mythical Eden and make their way back toward civilization, where members of an ultraconservative religious cult are determined to deprive the world of the knowledge Lucy carries.   Set against the searing debate between evolutionists and creationists, Adam & Eve expands the definition of a "sacred book," and suggests that true madness lies in wars and violence fueled by all religious literalism and intolerance. A thriller, a romance, an adventure, and an idyll, Adam & Eve is a tour de force by a master contemporary storyteller.


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3>
<p>Dick's Hugo Award-winning 1962 alternative history considers the question of what would have happened if the Allied Powers had lost WWII. Some 20 years after that loss, the United States and much of the world has now been split between Japan and Germany, the major hegemonic states. But the tension between these two powers is mounting, and this stress is playing out in the western U.S. Through a collection of characters in various states of posing (spies, sellers of falsified goods, others with secret identities), Dick provides an intriguing tale about life and history as it relates to authentic and manufactured reality. Tom Weiner reveals an impressive vocal range that delivers the host of characters with distinct culture, class and gender personas, which helps to sort the various plot strands. His prose reading is engaging, though sometimes lacks sufficient emphasis and energy. <br />
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 
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<h3>Product Description</h3>
<p>What if the Allies had lost the Second World War ...? The Nazis have taken over New York - the Japanese control California. In a neutral buffer zone existing between the two states an underground author offers his own vision of reality, an alternative world that offers hope to the disenchanted ...Hugo Award winner Philip K Dick is one of the most original contributors to American sci-fi, and his books were the basis for the critically acclaimed films "Blade Runner" and "Total Recall". 
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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>In <em>Six Moon Dance</em>, veteran fantasy and science fiction writer Sheri S. Tepper tells the tale of the strange planet Newholme. An intriguing human society occupies the metal-poor planet, a society with gender values quite different from Earth, resulting from a virus that kills 50 percent of baby girls at birth. Newholmians use the best and the worst of dogma, religion, and "patriarchy" to uphold a society where men manage the money but women hold the keys to power through church, reproductive control, and their own short supply. "Family men" pay exorbitant dowries in order to gain a temporary wife, contracted for wifely duties and reproduction for a number of years. When their marriage contracts are finished, the women, relieved of duty, retire to enjoy the sexual services of male "Consorts." </p><p>The plot here involves an official Questioner who visits Newholme to investigate reports of human rights abuses, the strange native inhabitants whose biology may hold the key to human survival on the planet, and a disastrous lunar alignment. Although quite creative, Tepper's plot is simply not as gripping as the sociology and society she invents for Newholme. She uses her feminist instincts and knowledge about the sexes and religion to create a world worth taking a look at. James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award judges should be sure to take a look at <em>Six Moon Dance</em> for its unique take on gender roles. <em>--Bonnie Bouman</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Ambitiously choreographed and executed without a misstep, Tepper's complex new novel follows her acclaimed The Family Tree into a profound ecological and sociological commentary on human individuality. Originally settled by now-vanished immigrants from the testosterone-rich planet of Thor, the matriarchal world of Newholme faces imminent volcanic destruction. To determine whether Newholme's ruling Hags and their society deserve to be saved, the galactic Council of Worlds dispatches a cybernetic super-grandma, the Great Questioner, who collects a brilliantly conceived multispecies team to probe mysteries deep in Newholme's past. Tepper courageously tackles touchy issues like gender dominance with grace and wit. Through handsome charmer Mouche, sold by his parents into Hunk toy-boy training, Tepper unveils the Hag-ridden female will-to-power, just as threatening to individual freedom as that of the horrid male supremacist-schemers she depicts. Tepper deftly conjoins a superb awareness of otherness with penetrating insight into selfhood in this shining, bravura performance. (July) FYI: Tepper's Beauty (1991) was voted Best Fantasy Novel of the Year by readers of Locus magazine.<br />Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Review</h3>
<p>?Dick [was] many authors: a poor man?s Pynchon, an oracular postmodern, a rich product of the changing counterculture.? --_The Village Voice_  
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<p>?Dick?s best books always describe a future that is both entirely recognizable and utterly unimaginable.? --_The New York Times Book Review_ -- <em>Review</em>
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<h3>Product Description</h3>
<p>Scaldingly sarcastic yet enduringly empathetic, <strong>The Zap Gun </strong>is Dick’s remarkable novel depicting the insanity of the arms race. Lars Powderdry and Lilo Topchev are counterpart weapons fashion designers for a world divided into two factions–Wes-bloc and Peep-East. Since the Plowshare Protocols of 2002, their job has been to invent elaborate weapons that only seem massively lethal. But when alien satellites hostile to both sides appear in the sky, the two are brought together in the dire hope that they can create a weapon to save the world, a task made all the more difficult by Lars falling in love with Lilo even as he knows she’s trying to kill him. 
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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><em>The Emperor of All Maladies</em> illustrates how modern treatments--multi-pronged chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, as well as preventative care--came into existence thanks to a century's worth of research, trials, and small, essential breakthroughs around the globe. While <em>The Emperor of All Maladies</em> is rich with the science and history behind the fight against cancer, it is also a meditation on illness, medical ethics, and the complex, intertwining lives of doctors and patients. Mukherjee's profound compassion--for cancer patients, their families, as well as the oncologists who, all too often, can offer little hope--makes this book a very human history of an elusive and complicated disease. <em>--Lynette Mong</em>  </p><hr /><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. Mukherjee's debut book is a sweeping epic of obsession, brilliant researchers, dramatic new treatments, euphoric success and tragic failure, and the relentless battle by scientists and patients alike against an equally relentless, wily, and elusive enemy. From the first chemotherapy developed from textile dyes to the possibilities emerging from our understanding of cancer cells, Mukherjee shapes a massive amount of history into a coherent story with a roller-coaster trajectory: the discovery of a new treatment--surgery, radiation, chemotherapy--followed by the notion that if a little is good, more must be better, ending in disfiguring radical mastectomy and multidrug chemo so toxic the treatment ended up being almost worse than the disease. The first part of the book is driven by the obsession of Sidney Farber and philanthropist Mary Lasker to find a unitary cure for all cancers. (Farber developed the first successful chemotherapy for childhood leukemia.) The last and most exciting part is driven by the race of brilliant, maverick scientists to understand how cells become cancerous. Each new discovery was small, but as Mukherjee, a Columbia professor of medicine, writes, "Incremental advances can add up to transformative changes." Mukherjee's formidable intelligence and compassion produce a stunning account of the effort to disrobe the "emperor of maladies." (Nov.) (c) <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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Time Out of Joint is Philip K. Dick's classic depiction of the disorienting disparity between the world as we think it is and the world as it actually is. The year is 1998, although Ragle Gumm doesn't know that. He thinks it's 1959. He also thinks that he served in World War II, that he lives in a quiet little community, and that he really is the world's long-standing champion of newspaper puzzle contests. It is only after a series of troubling hallucinations that he begins to suspect otherwise. And once he pursues his suspicions, he begins to see how he is the center of a universe gone terribly awry.


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<h3>From</h3><p>Things come undone with shocking rapidity when a flu pandemic ravages America. Cole, the son of liberal atheists and a smart, self-contained boy who loves to draw and counts explorer among his favorite words, narrates Nuñez’s sixth gripping novel, one of many recent literary postapocalyptic tales. Adept at matching psychological intricacy with edge-of-your-seat plots, the versatile Nuñez gracefully entwines a classic coming-of-age story with a terrifying medical catastrophe and a profound battle between secular and religious viewpoints. The pandemic orphans and nearly kills Cole, who ends up living with a kindhearted Evangelical pastor and his wife in Salvation City, a community preparing for the Rapture. It’s all bible studies, guns, rapture children, and saved adults, including fiercely tattooed, one-eyed Mason. As Cole emerges from a thicket of grief and the confusion of sexual awakening and recognizes and trusts his hunger for education and the larger world, however damaged and dangerous, Nuñez brilliantly contrasts epic social failure and tragedy with the unfurling of one promising life, reminding us that even in the worst of times, we seek coherence, discovery, and connection. --Donna Seaman </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"Nunez's writing is gorgeously spare, and she gets the life and the lingo of a teenage boy just right... In this gorgeously strange and apocalyptic coming-of- age novel, Nunez shows that the end of the world can offer a powerful possibility for a new beginning." <br />-_The Boston Globe_   </p><p>"It's the near future, and Evangelicals have flocked to the rural Indiana town of the title, a post-apocalyptic haven in a world ravaged by a flu pandemic. Among these sheltered souls is Cole Vining, 13, an orphan who has been taken in by a preacher and his ditzy wife. Brought up by atheist parents in Chicago, Cole is disoriented by small-town life. . . . In this highly recognizable portrait of adolescent angst, Cole learns to define faith and freedom on his own terms as Nunez offers a candid look at both the comforts of religion and the glaring hypocrisy of some of its mosst ardent practicioners." <br />-_More_   </p><p>"Nunez tells a fine tale, avoiding clichés and providing powerful insights. To our surprise, we are equally draw to the Wyatt family and to Cole's dead parents: being fallible is what they have in common. Through Cole's eyes, the redemption offered by religion is offset by its hypocrisy; he finds his enlightenment not from dogma but from his own painful experiences. By the end of this satisfying, provocative and very plausible novel, Cole doesn't believe that the world is about to end. Instead 'he saw himself living a long time and going many places and doing many different things. 'Your whole life ahead of you'- never more than just an expressing before-now came to him with the ring of blessing." <br />-Abraham Verghese, <em>The New York Times Book Review</em>   </p><p>"Cole Vining is one of the fortunate few. After a flu pandemic kills tens of thousands, including his parents, he's taken in by Pastor Wyatt, an evangelical leader in the Indiana town that gives the novel its title... With a cool, evenhanded tone, Nunez conjures a near future dark around the edges." <br />-_The New York Times_   </p><p>"A flu pandemic kills millions and leaves surviviors to a chaos of shortages, looting, and violence-and that's just the beginning of Sigrid Nunez's wise and richly humane coming-of-age novel." <br />-_O, the Oprah Magazine_   </p><p>"Atheists, a flu pandemic and a coming-of-age story collide in Nunez's sixth-and perhaps best-novel, <em>Salvation City</em>." <br />-_Time Out New York_   </p><p>"_Salvation City_ is not only timely and thought-provoking but also generous in its understanding of human nature. When apocalypse comes, I want Nunez in my lifeboat." <br />-_Vanity Fair_   </p><p>"Things come undone with shocking rapidity when a flu pandemic ravages America. Cole, the son of liberal atheists and a smart, self-contained boy who loves to draw and counts explorer among his favorite words, narrates Nunez's sixth gripping novel, one of many recent literary postapocalyptic tales. Adept at matching psychological intricacy with edge-of-your-seat plots, the versatile Nunez gracefully entwines a classic coming-of-age story with a terrifying medical catastrophe and a profound battle between secular and religious viewpoints. . . . Nunez brilliantly contrasts epic social failure and tragedy with the unfurling of one promising life, reminding us that even in the worst of times, we seek coherence, discovery, and connection."<br />-_Booklist_   </p><p>"_Salvation City_ is a wonderful, great-hearted novel that finds love and hope in the unlikeliest of circumstances. Cole Vining is a latter-day Huck Finn, and we grieve and cheer for him as he makes his journey, both physical and spiritual, through a devastated world." <br />-Ron Rash, author of <em>Serena</em>   </p><p>"Sigrid Nunez has long been one of my favorite authors because she writes with the deepest intelligence, the truest heart and the most surprising sense of humor. Salvation City is a tale of an American near-apocalypse that brings out the best of all these qualities. It reads beautifully, at time joyously, and it makes one reconsider the ordering of our world." <br />-Gary Shteyngart, author of <em>Super Sad True Love Story</em></p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>'A fine tale of romance and conflict' -- Nottinham Evening Post 20070127 'Scarrow plunges into the aftermath of the French Revolution for another rip-roaring adventure story' -- Yorkshire Evening Post 20070127 'The characters are real, so too the battles... brought vividly to life with the thriller writer's skill' -- Nottingham Evening Post 20070127 'One of the great duels in history, between two of its most fascinating characters. Simon Scarrow brings Wellington and Napoleon to life witha vengeance' -- Paul Strathern, author of Napoleon in Egypt 'This is a promising start to a series that shows great potential' -- Good Book Guide '[YOUNG BLOODS] is well written, researched and a pleasure to read. Recommended' -- Historical Novels Review </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Europe in the late eighteenth century was a tumultuous place, with war and rebellions breaking out on many fronts. Young Arthur Wesley (later Wellington) and Napoleon Bonaparte grow up worlds apart yet immersed from youth in a culture where a military career is a natural choice for men of ambition. While Wellington is blooded in Ireland and Flanders, Napoleon is caught up in the dramas of the French Revolution and war with Prussia, Britain and Holland. None of this is enough to distract Wellington from his pursuit of Kitty Pakenham or Napoleon from his future bride, Josephine, for these men throw themselves into all aspects of life as enthusiastically as they rush to battle. A wonderful, multi-layered introduction to an epic series. </p>


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Multiple Amber Alerts for missing girls bring Detective CeeCee Gallagher onto the case of a serial child abducter and murderer. Time is running out as Gallagher and her partner race to save the girls- lives and apprehend the killer before he can strike again.


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<p>In her tenth Jane Austen Mystery, Barron introduces her novelist heroine to the poet Lord Byron, who is famously regarded as being “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” Not surprisingly, then, when a beautiful young woman, who has rejected the poet’s unwanted advances, is murdered, the Romantic rakehell is the chief suspect. Ah, but could he have, in truth, perpetrated the foul deed? Fans of the series will not be a bit surprised to learn that Jane is determined to find out. As always, Barron does an excellent job of capturing Austen’s first-person voice, and she gives lavish attention, as well, to period detail. Perhaps too lavish in this case, since the book is slow paced, and there is often more attention to atmosphere than to mystery. Barron’s many fans will not be particularly bothered by this fact, however, and will be delighted to learn—in an appended Q &amp; A with the author—that an eleventh installment in the series is already underway. --Michael Cart 
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<h3>Product Description</h3>
<p>The restorative power of the ocean brings Jane Austen and her beloved brother Henry, to Brighton after Henry’s wife is lost to a long illness. But the crowded, glittering resort is far from peaceful, especially when the lifeless body of a beautiful young society miss is discovered in the bedchamber of none other than George Gordon—otherwise known as Lord Byron. As a poet and a seducer of women, Byron has carved out a shocking reputation for himself—but no one would ever accuse him of being capable of murder. Now it falls to Jane to pursue this puzzling investigation and discover just how “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” Byron truly is. And she must do so without falling victim to the charming versifier’s legendary charisma, lest she, too, become a cautionary example for the ages. 
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A devastating force of Al battleglobes is almost ready--ready to invade and conquer human-occupied space. In a desperate bid for survival, humanity must regroup, calling forth men and machines of the lost Empire, for nothing short of a miracle will save them from the Final Assault.


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The dreaded AI's have regrouped in an alternate universe and are preparing to launch their invincible fleet. But war weary humanity refuses to accept the threat as real. Commodore J'Quel D'Trelna has been secretly ordered to enter forbidden territory to find the only weapon that can stop the AI's from overwhelming his universe.


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John Harrison, a hero of the Biofab War, traces a few renegades to an alternate universe, where the Biofabs are rebuilding for another war


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John Harrison and Zahava, intelligence agents, and Greg Farnesworth, explore an ancient temple and discover a matter transmitter that transports them to an alien spacecraft


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In the small town of Opportunity, four mismatched people discover the unexpected power of kindness. Tender, funny and memorable, Book of Lost Threads is a story about love and loss, parents and children, hope, faith and the value of simple kindness. Moss has run away from Melbourne to Opportunity on the trail of a man she knows only by name. But her arrival sets in train events that disturb the long-held secrets of three of the town' s inhabitants: Finn, a brilliant mathematician, who has become a recluse; Lily Pargetter, eighty-three-year-old knitter of tea cosies; and Sandy, the town buffoon, who dreams of a Great Galah. It is only as Moss, Finn, Lily and Sandy develop unlikely friendships that they find a way to lay their sorrows to rest and knit together the threads that will restore them to life.


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Todd Strasser is the author of such popular and diverse titles as the middle-grade series, "Help, I'm Trapped...," "The Wave," and the contemporary YAs, "Give a Boy a Gun" and "Boot Camp." His books vary widely from one another, but they all share two things - humor and loyal fans.  Todd lives just outside New York City.


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>On September 15, 1946, a biological weapon created by an alien race was accidentally detonated above the streets of New York City, killing countless numbers of men, women, and children. But those who survived the initial explosion soon began to wish they had died also, once they discovered they had been forever mutated by the virus unleashed in the blast. . . . </strong></p><p>When the first volume in the Wild Cards series made its debut in 1986, it caused a sensation in the science fiction and fantasy communities. Here were stories of superpowered beings in a real world setting, detailing the lives of Â³AcesÂ²?those given superhuman powers by the Â³Wild CardsÂ² virus?and Â³JokersÂ²?those whom the virus transformed into freaks and monsters. Over the course of fifteen volumes, the world created by editor George R.R. Martin and some of SFÂ¹s most talented writers was explored through the eyes of both Aces and Jokers across the globe. </p><p>In this all-new collection of Wild Cards stories, the spotlight is on the most unusual Wild Cards of them all?the Deuces. As youÂ¹ll discover in this thrilling collection, their role in the Wild Cards Universe is just as important as that of the Aces and the Jokers. In fact, their actions have affected the course of Wild Cards history. </p><p>Set in an alternate, shared-world universe, Deuces Down is the one place youÂ¹ll find such never-before-told tales as John J. MillerÂ¹s exciting 1969 World Series between the Baltimore Orioles and the Brooklyn Dodgers; Michael CassuttÂ¹s first moon landing, when the whole world wasnÂ¹t watching; Walton SimonsÂ¹ Great New York City Blackout of 1977; Melinda M. SnodgrassÂ¹s account of Grace KellyÂ¹s mysterious disappearance during the filming of The French LieutenantÂ¹s Woman. ItÂ¹s a strange and terrifying world, where anything can happen. A world of Wild Cards. </p>


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After drinking an elixir that bestows immortality upon him, a young Indian named Flapping Eagle spends the next seven hundred years sailing the seas with the blessing, and ultimately the burden, of living forever. Eventually, he grows weary of the sameness of life and journeys to the mountainous Calf Island to regain his mortality. There he meets other immortals obsessed with their own stasis, and he sets out to scale the island's peak, from which the mysterious and corrosive Grimus Effect emits. Through a series of thrilling quests and encounters, Flapping Eagle comes face-to-face with the island's creator and unwinds the mysteries of his own humanity. 

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


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Danny Watts's grandfather, Fergus, was a traitor. One of the worst sort. An SAS explosives expert who betrayed his country and his regiment for money. Drug money. He was arrested and left to rot and die in a Columbian jail. At least, that's what seventeen year-old Danny is told when his hopes of becoming a soldier are destroyed for ever. But he knows something the army doesn't seem to know. Fergus Watts is alive and in the UK, living in secret under an assumed name - but where? Fergus is Danny's only living relative. Burning with fury and desire for revenge, Danny sets out to track down his grandfather and expose him. In doing so he sets in train an explosive sequence of events which throw Danny and Fergus together on the run from the people who want Fergus, and now Danny, dead. Packed with breathtaking action, SAS procedures, surveillance and survival techniques, this is a fast-moving, action-packed thriller for teenagers. There will be several books in the BOY SOLDIER sequence. TV rights have been sold to Zenith, makers of Inspector Morse, Hamish McBeth and Byker Grove. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>Andy McNab joined the infantry as a boy soldier. In 1984 he was 'badged' as a member of 22 SAS Regiment and was involved in both covert and overt special operations worldwide. During the Gulf War he commanded Bravo Two Zero, a patrol that, in the words of his commanding officer, 'will remain in regimental history for ever'. Awarded both the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and Military Medal (MM) during his military career, McNab was the British Army's most highly decorated serving soldier when he finally left the SAS in February 1993. He wrote about his experiences in two phenomenal bestsellers, Bravo Two Zero, which was filmed in 1998 starring Sean Bean, and Immediate Action. He is the author of the bestselling novels, Remote Control, Crisis Four, Firewall, Last Light, Liberation Day and Dark Winter. Besides his writing work, he lectures to security and intelligence agencies in both the USA and UK. Robert Rigby began his career as a journalist, then spent several years in the music business as a songwriter and session musician. He turned to writing for radio, television and the theatre and has also directed and performed in children's theatre throughout the country. He has become an established young people's playwright and his award-winning work with youth theatre companies has been seen in Britain, Europe, the USA and Africa. He now works mainly in television and his scripts include the long-running BBC children's drama series Byker Grove. </p>


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The breathtaking new thriller from the author ofBravo Two Zero. Body guarding a TV crew on the streets of war-torn Basra, ex-deniable operator Nick Stone's life is saved by a reporter's swift action as a roadside bomb explodes. When the man later vanishes, Stone is asked to find him. The trail leads from Iraq to Bermuda, London and Kabul, the dark and brutal city where governments, terrorism and big business inexorably collide. Caught in the crossfire, his nightmare is only just beginning, for the hunter has suddenly become the hunted. . .


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>A new Quick Read title from the author of<strong> Bravo Two Zero</strong>.  </p><p>Afghanistan, 2009. A Rifle section is halfway through their six-month tour of duty in Helmand Province. Sixteen men from their Battalion have already been killed. Forty-seven others have been wounded and flown back home.  </p><p>The last three months have been tough and it shows. Their kit is in a bad way. They are in a bad way. Young men with tans, scruffy beards, peeling noses and lips burnt raw by the Afghan sun. Despite the hardships they are enjoying their time out here learning how to fight the Taliban. The lads are on their way to becoming the best soldiers in the Army.  </p><p><strong>Last Night Another Soldier</strong>... is the story of four of the young men in this Rifle section, partly told from the point of view of eighteen-year-old squaddie, David 'Briggsy' Briggs. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>ANDY McNABB joined the infantry as a boy soldier. In 1984 he was 'badged' as a member of 22 SAS Regiment and was involved in both covert and overt special operations worldwide. Awarded both the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and Military Medal (MM) during his military career, McNab was the British Army's most highly decorated serving soldier when he finally left the SAS in February 1993. He wrote about his experiences in three books: the phenomenal bestseller <strong>Bravo Two Zero</strong>, <strong>Immediate Action</strong> and <strong>Seven Troop</strong>. He is also the author of the bestselling Nick Stone thrillers, several novels for children and a previous Quick Read novel, <strong>The Grey Man</strong>. Besides his writing work, he lectures to security and intelligence agencies in both the USA and UK. </p>


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A lethal new drug with devastating side effects, known as Meltdown, is threatening to destabilize society. Dudley knows that the security services have to act fast, and when his 4 x 4 arrives at their remote hideout in the Canadian lakes, eighteen-year-old Danny and his grandfather, ex-SAS hero Fergus Watts, are once again sucked into a deadly undercover operation and a race against time. Their search for the mastermind behind a pair of murderous gangland twins takes them from the clubs of Manchester to Spain and Germany, and Danny needs all his newly learned expertise when he comes up against an old adversary someone he hoped never to encounter again. And this time, when the battle is joined, it is a battle to the end.


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<h3>Review</h3><p>“A gripping account of special forces at work . . . a tremendous adventure story.”–_Daily Telegraph_  </p><p>“The best account yet of the SAS in action.”–_Sunday Times_  </p><p><em>From the Trade Paperback edition.</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>In 1983 Andy McNab was assigned to B Squadron, one of the four Sabre Squadrons of the SAS, and within it to Air Troop, otherwise known as SEVEN TROOP.  </p><p>This is Andy McNab’s gripping account of the time he served in the company of a remarkable group of men — from the day, freshly badged, he joined them in the Malayan jungle, to the day, ten years later, that he handed in his sand-coloured beret and started a new life. The links they forged then bound them inextricably together, but the things they saw and did during that time would take them all to breaking point — and some beyond — in the years that were to follow. He who dares doesn’t always win . . .  </p><p><em>From the Trade Paperback edition.</em></p>


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


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>"A STUNNING ACTION THRILLER FROM A REAL-LIFE HERO. Kevin Dodds leads a dull, uneventful life. He has a steady job at the bank, a nice house and car. His wife goes to Bingo on a Saturday night, but he usually stays in to save money. But Kevin has spent enough quiet nights in watching TV and decides he'd like a night out himself. And he's not talking about a pint and a packet of peanuts down at the local. He's going to attempt to pull off a daring bank robbery single handed. Kevin is about to take a heart-thumping step into the unknown. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>Andy McNab joined the infantry as a boy soldier. In 1984 he was 'badged' as a member of 22 SAS Regiment and was involved in both covert and overt special operations worldwide. During the Gulf War he commanded Bravo Two Zero, a patrol that, in the words of his commanding officer, 'will remain in regimental history for ever'. Awarded both the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and Military Medal (MM) during his military career, McNab was the British Army's most highly decorated serving soldier when he finally left the SAS in February 1993. He wrote about his experiences in two phenomenal bestsellers, Bravo Two Zero, which was filmed in 1998 starring Sean Bean, and Immediate Action. He is the author of the bestselling novels, Remote Control, Crisis Four, Firewall, Last Light, Liberation Day and Dark Winter. Besides his writing work, he lectures to security and intelligence agencies in both the USA and UK. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>The first in an exciting new series from the bestselling author of Bravo Two Zero.  </p><p>Set both in Afghanistan and the UK, <strong>War Torn</strong> revolves around a close knit group of soldiers and their friends, families, and loved ones. <strong>War Torn</strong> has been optioned by the BBC for an eight part television series. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>ANDY MCNAB joined the infantry as a boy soldier. In 1984 he was 'badged' as a member of 22 SAS Regiment and was involved in both covert and overt special operations worldwide. During the Gulf War he commanded Bravo Two Zero, a patrol that, in the words of his commanding officer, 'will remain in regimental history for ever'. Awarded both the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and Military Medal (MM) during his military career, McNab was the British Army's most highly decorated serving soldier when he finally left the SAS in February 1993. He wrote about his experiences in three books: the phenomenal bestseller <strong>Bravo Two Zero</strong>,<strong> Immediate Action</strong> and <strong>Seven Troop</strong>. He is the author of the bestselling Nick Stone thrillers. Besides his writing work, he lectures to security and intelligence agencies in both the USA and UK. He is a patron of the Help for Heroes campaign. </p>


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A code which will jam every item of military hardware from Kabul to WashingtonOn 5 September 2007, Israeli jets bombed a suspected nuclear installation in northeastern Syria. Syrian radar supposedly state-of-the-art had failed to warn the target of the incoming assault.A system on the verge of collapseUnknown to anyone but the Israelis and the radars manufacturers, the commercial, off-the-shelf microprocessors within it contained a remotely accessible kill switch. A terrorist group who nearly have it in their handsNow British Intelligence has discovered that the same switches are at the heart of every electronic device in the UK and US arsenal. It will take years to replace the components. So they must deactivate the man who controls them instead. And a soldier who wants to go down fightingEx-SAS deniable operator Nick Stone is tasked to find and kill him but this time hes not on receive. For once, his life is under threat for another reason from within. And now he really is a man with nothing to lose...


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Chris Stewart shot to fame with "Driving Over Lemons" in 1999.  Funny, insightful and real, the book told the story of how he bought a peasant farm on the wrong side of the river, with its previous owner still a resident.  It became an international bestseller, along with its sequels – "A Parrot in the Pepper Tree," and "The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society."In an earlier life, Chris was the original drummer in Genesis (he played on the first album), then joined a circus, learned how to shear sheep, went to China to write the Rough Guide, gained a pilot’s license in Los Angeles, and completed a course in French cooking.  "From the Trade Paperback edition."


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When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious Witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil? Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability, and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to become the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly, and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.


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In this captivating "New York Times" bestseller, beloved author Gregory Maguire returns to the land ofOz and introduces us to Liir, an adolescent boy last seen hiding in the shadows of the castle after Dorothy did in the Witch. Bruised, comatose, and left for dead in a gully, Liir is shattered in spirit as well as in form. At the Cloister of Saint Glinda the silent novice Candle tends to him, willing him back to life with her unusual musical gifts. What dark force left Liir in this condition? Is he really Elphaba's son? He has her broom and her cape--but what of her powers? Can he find his half-sister, Nor, last seen in the forbidding prison Southstairs? Can he fulfill the last wishes of a dying princess? In an Oz that, since the Wizard's departure, is under new and dangerous management, can Liir keep his head down long enough to grow up? For the countless fans who have been dazzled and entranced by Maguire's "Oz," "Son of a Witch" is the rich reward they have awaited so long.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Since the publication of *Wicked*, millions of readers have discovered Gregory Maguire's fantastically encyclopedic Oz, a world filled with characters both familiar and new, darkly conceived and daringly reimagined. In the third volume of the Wicked Years, we return to Oz, seen now through the eyes of the Cowardly Lion.  

 At once a portrait of a would-be survivor and a panoramic glimpse of a world gone shrill with war fever, Gregory Maguire's *A Lion Among Men* is written with the sympathy and power that have made his books contemporary classics.


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The all-time science fiction masterpiece...now in a special hardcover edition."Unique...I know nothing comparable to it except *Lord of the Rings*."--Arthur C. ClarkeHere is the novel that will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family--and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream.A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, *Dune* won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction. Frank Herbert's death in 1986 was a tragic loss, yet the astounding legacy of his visionary fiction will live forever.


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With millions of copies sold worldwide, Frank Herbert's magnificent Dune books stand among the major achievements of the human imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis -- a world as fully real and rich as our own -- Dune Messiah continues the story of the man Muad'Dib, heir to a power unimaginable, bringing to completion the centuries-old scheme to create a superbeing...


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><strong>About the Author</strong><br /><strong>Robert Jordan</strong> lives in Charleston, South Carolina. He is a graduate of the Citadel.</p><p><strong>Amazon.com Exclusive Content</strong></p><p><strong>Amazon.com's Significant Seven</strong><br /><em>Robert Jordan kindly agreed to take the life quiz we like to give to all our authors: the Amazon.com Significant Seven.</em>  </p><p><strong>Q:</strong> What book has had the most significant impact on your life?<br /><strong>A:</strong>   </p><p><strong>Q:</strong> You are stranded on a desert island with only one book, one CD, and one DVD--what are they?<br /><strong>A:</strong> The one book would be whatever book I was currently writing. I mean, I hate falling behind in the work. The one CD would contain the best   </p><p><strong>Q:</strong> What is the worst lie you've ever told?<br /><strong>A:</strong> It's hard to think of one since I am genetically incapable of lying to women and that takes out 52% of the population right there.   </p><p><strong>Q:</strong> Describe the perfect writing environment.<br /><strong>A:</strong> Any place that has my computer, a CD player for music, a comfortable chair that won't leave me with a backache at the end of a long day, and very little interruption.   </p><p><strong>Q:</strong> If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?<br /><strong>A:</strong> He kept trying to get better at it.   </p><p><strong>Q:</strong> Who is the one person living or dead that you would like to have dinner with?<br /><strong>A:</strong> My wife before anybody else on earth living or dead. That's a no-brainer.   </p><p><strong>Q:</strong> If you could have one superpower what would it be?<br /><strong>A:</strong> That depends. If I'm feeling altruistic, it would be the ability to heal anything with a touch, if that can be called a superpower. If I'm not feeling very altruistic, it would be the ability to read other people's minds, to <em>finally</em> be able to get to the bottom of what they really mean and what their motivations are.   </p><p><strong>See all books in the </strong></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p><em>Starred Review.</em> The previous book in Jordan's massive Wheel of Time, <em>Crossroads of Twilight</em>, may have come out in 2003, but don't let that fool you; the 11th tome in this epic fantasy is the one Jordan fans have been eagerly waiting for the better part of a decade. The breakneck pace, lyrical beauty and astonishing scope of the early Wheel of Time volumes established Jordan as one of the top writers in the Tolkien tradition. While more recent entries have maintained that beauty and scope, the pace has slowed to a crawl as the central characters dispersed in six directions. In contrast, the latest explodes with motion, as multiple plot lines either conclude or advance, and the march to Tarmon Gai'don—the climactic last battle between the Dragon Reborn and the Dark One—begins in earnest. Faile's captivity with the Shaido, Mat's pursuit of Tuon and Elayne's war for Caemlyn come to a close, while Egwene's capture brings the Aes Sedai war to the heart of the Tower. Jordan has said that readers will be sweating by the end of the book, and he's probably right. Sweating or not, they'll also be dreading the long year or two before the 12th installment. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Tarmon Gai’don, the Last Battle, looms. And mankind is not ready.



The final volume of the Wheel of Time, *A Memory of Light,* was partially written by Robert Jordan before his untimely passing in 2007. Brandon Sanderson, *New York Times* bestselling author of the Mistborn books, was chosen by Jordan’s editor---his wife, Harriet McDougal---to complete the final book. The scope and size of the volume was such that it could not be contained in a single book, and so Tor proudly presents *The Gathering Storm* as the first of three novels that will make up *A Memory of Light.* This short sequence will complete the struggle against the Shadow, bringing to a close a journey begun almost twenty years ago and marking the conclusion of the Wheel of Time, the preeminent fantasy epic of our era.



In this epic novel, Robert Jordan’s international bestselling series begins its dramatic conclusion. Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, struggles to unite a fractured network of kingdoms and alliances in preparation for the Last Battle. As he attempts to halt the Seanchan encroachment northward---wishing he could form at least a temporary truce with the invaders---his allies watch in terror the shadow that seems to be growing within the heart of the Dragon Reborn himself.



Egwene al’Vere, the Amyrlin Seat of the rebel Aes Sedai, is a captive of the White Tower and subject to the whims of their tyrannical leader. As days tick toward the Seanchan attack she knows is imminent, Egwene works to hold together the disparate factions of Aes Sedai while providing leadership in the face of increasing uncertainty and despair. Her fight will prove the mettle of the Aes Sedai, and her conflict will decide the future of the White Tower---and possibly the world itself.



The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. Daniel Okrent has proven to be one of our most interesting and eclectic writers of nonfiction over the past 25 years, producing books about the history of Rockefeller Center and New England, baseball, and his experience as the first public editor for the <em>New York Times</em>. Now he has taken on a more formidable subject: the origins, implementation, and failure of that great American delusion known as Prohibition. The result may not be as scintillating as the perfect gin gimlet, but it comes mighty close, an assiduously researched, well-written, and continually eye-opening work on what has actually been a neglected subject.There has been, of course, quite a lot of writing that has touched on the 14 years, 1919–1933, when the United States tried to legislate drinking out of existence, but the great bulk of it has been as background to one mobster tale or another. Okrent covers the gangland explosion that Prohibition triggered—and rightly deromanticizes it—but he has a wider agenda that addresses the entire effect enforced temperance had on our social, political, and legal conventions. Above all, Okrent explores the politics of Prohibition; how the 18th Amendment, banning the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating beverages, was pushed through after one of the most sustained and brilliant pressure-group campaigns in our history; how the fight over booze served as a surrogate for many of the deeper social and ethnic antagonisms dividing the country, and how it all collapsed, almost overnight, essentially nullified by the people.Okrent occasionally stumbles in this story, bogging down here and there in some of the backroom intricacies of the politics, and misconstruing an address by Warren Harding on race as one of the boldest speeches ever delivered by an American president (it was more nearly the opposite). But overall he provides a fascinating look at a fantastically complex battle that was fought out over decades—no easy feat. Among other delights, Okrent passes along any number of amusing tidbits about how Americans coped without alcohol, such as sending away for the Vino Sano Grape Brick, a block of dehydrated grape juice, complete with stems, skins, and pulp and instructions warning buyers not to add yeast or sugar, or leave it in a dark place, or let it sit too long, lest it become wine. He unearths many sadly forgotten characters from the war over drink—and readers will be surprised to learn how that fight cut across today's ideological lines. Progressives and suffragists made common cause with the Ku Klux Klan—which in turn supported a woman's right to vote—to pass Prohibition. Champions of the people, such as the liberal Democrat Al Smith, fought side-by-side with conservative plutocrats like Pierre du Pont for its repeal.In the end, as Okrent makes clear, Prohibition did make a dent in American drinking—at the cost of hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries from bad bootleg alcohol; the making of organized crime in this country; and a corrosive soaking in hypocrisy. A valuable lesson, for anyone willing to hear it._Kevin Baker is the coauthor, most recently, of_ Luna Park_, a graphic novel published last month by DC Comics._ <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Okrent, who has rescued an important, relevant, and colorful chapter of American history, explores Americans' relationship with the bottle dating back to the colonial era and analyzes the long-term effects of Prohibition on everything--from the rise of the Mafia and the Ku Klux Klan to language, art, and literature. Fast-paced and fascinating, his narrative assembles a wide collection of comical stories and outrageous personalities, such as the hatchet-wielding Carrie Nation. He explodes clichés and bypasses widely known tales of bootlegging and bathtub gin in favor of more unfamiliar accounts. Critics praised Okrent's elegant writing and careful research--even in all its details--and agreed with the <em>New York Times Book Review</em> that this remarkably fresh take on a forgotten era is "a narrative delight." </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Bestselling novelist Berg (Talk Before Sleep; Open House ) explores memory, love and forgiveness in her flawed but moving 12th novel. At her annual family reunion, Laura Bartone, a 50-something "quilt artist," is forced to confront the secrets that have long haunted her family. Her emotionally unstable sister, Caroline, tells Laura and their brother, Steve, that their mother abused her as a child. As Laura and Steve-whose own childhoods were reasonably happy-struggle to make sense of Caroline's accusations and wonder how they could've been oblivious to or complicit in what happened, their father dies. This could be the stuff of melodrama, but Berg generally manages to avoid it. Her prose is often luminous and buoyant, and her insights can be penetrating. Her big ideas, though, are too frequently interrupted by the sort of domestic-detail overdoses that belong in less ambitious novels ("I hung up, flipped the turkey burgers for the last time, dumped the oven-baked French fries into a basket and salted them, sliced tomatoes, drained the water off the ears of corn..."). Other shortcomings include a few gender stereotypes and a husband and children for Laura who seem too good to be true ("Sometimes it seemed like I was making it up," Laura thinks). But Laura's thornier relationships with her mother and siblings are carefully rendered and compelling. Berg has written a nuanced account of a family's implosion, with enough ambiguity and drama to give book clubs-the book's likely audience-"plenty to discuss and to keep any reader intrigued, right up to the fittingly redemptive ending.<br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>The prolific Berg (_Say When_ [BKL Ap 1 03]) is unafraid of tackling gritty domestic issues such as aging and illness; in her latest, she takes on the question of why a mother would be so caring with two of her children but treat the third with great cruelty. Although Berg never answers that question satisfactorily, she does offer a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a flawed family. Fifty-four-year-old Laura Bartone, the happily married mother of two, is looking forward to her annual family reunion in Minnesota. But her vacation plans are marred when her father is felled by a stroke, and her sister, Caroline, at the urging of a therapist, confronts Laura and her brother with disturbing information about her relationship with their mother. As she details the verbal and physical abuse she was subjected to, Laura and her brother are tempted to write Caroline's confidences off as just another example of her histrionics. Because if what she says is true, what would that mean about their complicity in the family dynamics? Although Berg proffers a number of reasons for the mother's singular treatment of Caroline, none of them is totally convincing. Berg is much better at detailing Laura's childhood impatience with her gloomy sister and her inability to fully comprehend the cause of her sister's moodiness. This is a skillful popular treatment of a troubling family issue. <em>Joanne Wilkinson</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>It is always night in the city of Ember. But there is no moon, no stars. The only light during the regular twelve hours of "day" comes from floodlamps that cast a yellowish glow over the streets of the city. Beyond are the pitch-black Unknown Regions, which no one has ever explored because an understanding of fire and electricity has been lost, and with it the idea of a Moveable Light. "Besides," they tell each other, "there is nowhere but here" Among the many other things the people of Ember have forgotten is their past and a direction for their future. For 250 years they have lived pleasantly, because there has been plenty of everything in the vast storerooms. But now there are more and more empty shelves--and more and more times when the lights flicker and go out, leaving them in terrifying blackness for long minutes. What will happen when the generator finally fails?</p><p>Twelve-year-old Doon Harrow and Lina Mayfleet seem to be the only people who are worried. They have just been assigned their life jobs--Lina as a messenger, which leads her to knowledge of some unsettling secrets, and Doon as a Pipeworker, repairing the plumbing in the tunnels under the city where a river roars through the darkness. But when Lina finds a very old paper with enigmatic "Instructions for Egress," they use the advantages of their jobs to begin to puzzle out the frightening and dangerous way to the city of light of which Lina has dreamed. As they set out on their mission, the haunting setting and breathless action of this stunning first novel will have teens clamoring for a sequel. (Ages 10 to 14) <em>--Patty Campbell</em></p><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Grade 4-7–This truly superb audio recording of the novel by Jeane DuPrau (Random, 2003) takes place in the dark city of Ember, a decaying place with no natural light surrounded by the vast Unknown. Although ancestors had arranged for information on leaving Ember to be made available after the inhabitants have spent 200 years there, a corrupt mayor lost the information many years before the novel begins. Two hundred and forty-one years later, Ember's electrical lighting frequently fails, supplies are dwindling, and the populace is growing increasingly frightened. Twelve-year-old Doon and his acquaintance Lina are intent on finding a way to save Ember. After Lina finds a mysterious and fragmented paper titled "Instructions for Egress," they think they have a way out. Can they escape from the villainous mayor and his soldiers? Can they figure out the missing letters and words in the message? Do they find their way out of Ember and up to a post-apocalyptic Earth? Wendy Dillon, one of the most talented readers of audiobooks, does an amazing job of creating different voices for each character, has absolutely perfect diction, and skillfully conveys the building suspense. Exceptional care has been taken to faithfully convey the author's excellent tale through a combination of a superior narrator and evocative sound effects. This engaging novel is an exceptional audiobook.–_B.Allison Gray, John Jermain Memorial Library, Sag Harbor, NY_ <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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 <b>Penzler Pick, </b> Those of us who have been waiting for Walter Mosley to return to mystery writing--and there are many of us--have cause to rejoice. Not only has Mosley written a mystery, he is introducing a new character who could turn out to be as popular as <p> Fearless Jones has a lot in common with Easy, but he also has some characteristics reminiscent of Socrates Fortlow, the "hero" of <i></i>. When the story begins, the reader is transported to the Los Angeles of the 1950s, a dangerous place and time for a black man. But Paris Minton seems to have beaten the odds. He owns a moderately successful and very satisfying business--a used book store. He spends the time he's not in the store scouring libraries for discarded books and selling them in just enough quantity to be independent and happy. Yes, he is visited on a regular basis by members of the LAPD who want him to prove to them that he did not steal the books, but that is a small price to pay for independence.</p><p> Minton's peaceful life is interrupted one day when a beautiful woman walks into his store and asks for the Reverend William Grove. In no time flat, Paris has been beaten into unconsciousness by a man following her and has been rewarded by the woman with sex. The lovely Elana Love is obviously trouble, but Paris jumps in feet first and, as a consequence, his store is burned to the ground. It is obviously time to call in Fearless Jones, a man well named. Jones is afraid of nothing, but there is a little matter to be taken care of before he can help. He's in jail and Paris must raise bail to get him out. Once he does that, the pair embark on a wild ride through Los Angeles on behalf of Elana Love. As always, Mosley depicts the hard-boiled L.A. in a powerful and distinctive way, and we can only hope that this is the first of a series. <i>--Otto Penzler</i>
 
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 HAbandoning the voice of his premier creation, Easy Rawlins, Mosley mines a new shaft of 1950s Los Angeles with a hero who combines the principles of Easy with the deadliness of Ray "Mouse" Alexander. The result is a violent, heroic and classic piece of noir fiction. Narrator Paris Minton is an appealing figure an easygoing black man for whom the written word is salvation and whose nameless used bookstore in Watts is paradise. Then the beautiful Elana Love enters his store and brings with her more trouble than Paris has ever seen enough trouble that Paris knows his only hope is his friend Fearless Jones. A former soldier, Jones is a riveting new creation. He's a man of both principle and action with an innate sense of justice and as his name makes clear, he's afraid of nothing. The novel rips along with a hunt for the girl and a race among competing factions to find a missing bond that's the key to a fortune. For the black characters it's a desperate struggle to stay alive in a white world where the deck is stacked. One sly reference tells the reader we're still in the same world and time inhabited by Easy Rawlins, and that Fearless and Mouse are equally "bad." But Fearless is also a knight-errant and hopefully destined for further adventures as fine as this one. (June 5)Forecast: With a 20-city author tour and major advertising, Mosley's first thriller since 1996's A Little Yellow Dog is sure to generate lots of interest and sales.<p>Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.</p>
 
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In a blockbuster new action thriller by master novelist Walter Mosley, "one of America's best mystery writers" (New York Times), bookstore owner Paris Minton and the deadliest man in L.A.-Fearless Jones-are back on the streets of 1950s Watts. FEAR ITSELF Mild-mannered Paris Minton is delivered a pile of trouble when Fearless Jones shows up with a simple request: help find a beautiful woman's husband. Lending a hand gets him hit upside the head, hogtied, kidnapped, and threatened with a gun the size of a cannon. Now he's wondering whom he should fear more: the people he's looking for or the people he's working for. Tangled up with cops, rival millionaires, several corpses, and one of L.A.'s wealthiest women, Paris Minton is in a corner-and not even his invincible friend Fearless can save him.


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A fierce, exquisitely dark novel that plunges us into post-World War II Occupied Japan in a "Rashomon"-like retelling of a mass poisoning (based on an actual event), its aftermath, and the hidden wartime atrocities that led to the crime. On January 26, 1948, a man identifying himself as a public health official arrives at a bank in Tokyo. There has been an outbreak of dysentery in the neighborhood, he explains, and he has been assigned by Occupation authorities to treat everyone who might have been exposed to the disease. Soon after drinking the medicine he administers, twelve employees are dead, four are unconscious, and the "official" has fled . . . Twelve voices tell the story of the murder from different perspectives. One of the victims speaks, for all the victims, from the grave. We read the increasingly mad notes of one of the case detectives, the desperate letters of an American occupier, the testimony of a traumatized survivor. We meet a journalist, a gangster-turned-businessman, an "occult detective," a Soviet soldier, a well-known painter. Each voice enlarges and deepens the portrait of a city and a people making their way out of a war-induced hell. "Occupied City" immerses us in an extreme time and place with a brilliantly idiosyncratic, expressionistic, mesmerizing narrative. It is a stunningly audacious work of fiction from a singular writer. "From the Hardcover edition."


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>If you imagine most writer's bathrooms (and this is probably a mistake) you'd picture damp towels in a clump on the floor, hair in the soap, a few mildewed paperbacks stacked on the counter. But it's impossible to picture Chris Bohjalian's bathroom as anything but an <em>Architectural Digest</em> centerfold: polished counters, not a stray thread on the plush towels, the modulated colors sparked to life by fresh flowers from a neighbor's garden.</p><p>Bohjalian's eighth novel, <em>Before You Know Kindness</em>, is a beautifully observed, delicately balanced portrait of a family that could only come from the hands of a tireless craftsman who keeps reaching into his story to straighten the tulips or tuck in a shirttail. It begins with two EMTs leaning over animal rights' activist Spencer McCullough's gushing shotgun wound and winds back through the ordinary days leading up to the extraordinary accident, and then forward again as Spencer and his family come to terms with what has happened. As ambitious as other Bohjalian novels, <em>Before You Know Kindness</em> spirals out to encompass the larger issues of Spencer's political loyalties and the heartless, passionate world of political spin. Some readers may find Bohjalian's style too smooth. Others will relish the completeness of his vision and his obvious tenderness for even the most difficult of his characters. <em>--Regina Marler</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Bohjalian's new novel begins with a literal bang: a bullet from a hunting rifle accidentally strikes Spencer McCullough, an extreme advocate for animal rights, leaving him seriously wounded. The weapon—owned by his brother-in-law, John, and shot by his 12-year-old daughter, Charlotte—becomes the center of a lawsuit and media circus led by Spencer's employer, FERAL (Federation for Animal Liberation), a dead ringer for PETA. The many-faceted satire Bohjalian (_Midwives_, etc.) crafts out of these events revolves around Spencer and Jon's families, but also involves a host of secondary figures. Bohjalian excels at getting inside each character's head with shifts of diction and perspective, though he makes it difficult for readers to connect with any one in particular. This is in part because his portraits are often unsympathetic; the characters are allowed to hoist themselves on their own petards. While some are credibly flawed—Spencer is both a loving father and an obnoxious activist—others are cartoonishly mocked with their own thoughts, like high-powered attorney Paige, who mourns the loss of her leather chairs and briefcases, hidden away for as long as FERAL is a lucrative client. If there is a grounded center to this work, it is 10-year-old Willow, Spencer's niece, who distinguishes herself from this baggy ensemble by always trying to do the right thing. She alone is spared the narrator's irony, and it is Willow, years after the accident, who has the last word. Bohjalian's skewering of the animal rights movement gets the better of his domestic drama, but his skillful storytelling will engage readers. <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>Starred Review. Annie Powers leads the perfect life in Florida with her husband, Gray, and their four-year-old daughter in this stellar character-driven stand-alone from bestseller Unger (_A Sliver of Truth_). Less than a decade earlier, however, Annie was Ophelia March, the teenage captive—or accomplice—of spree killer Marlowe Geary. Gray, a partner in his father's private security consultant firm, tracked Marlowe and rescued Ophelia after sending the killer's car over a cliff. Reinventing herself with Gray's help, Annie can't remember all that happened during her years with Marlowe, and she's prone to panic attacks and blackouts. When a strange man appears on her property, Annie's sure Marlowe is back. As a shady police detective digs into her past, Annie must try to recover the memories she buried if she's ever going to be free from Marlowe. Unger expertly turns what could have been a routine serial-killer story into a haunting odyssey for Annie, dropping red herrings and clues along the way until the reader feels as unsettled as Annie. <em>(June)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Annie Powers seems to lead an idyllic suburban life. She has a devoted husband, a cherubic young daughter, and a beautiful home with sweeping views of the Gulf of Florida. But not so many years ago, Annie was entangled in a scenario that was anything but serene. Her emotionally twisted relationship with serial killer Marlowe Geary had turned her from a moody teen into a criminal accomplice with a hardened heart. Only by faking her death and taking on a new identity was Annie able to jettison her past—or so she thought. Her husband, Gray, had long insisted that Marlowe was dead. But after an eerie encounter on the beach, Annie is not so sure. As the cracks in her carefully constructed facade deepen, she flees her family, determined to learn the truth. Annie’s mental state becomes more precarious with each passing day, until she can no longer distinguish what’s imaginary from what’s real. There’s a bit too much shifting between present and past in this stand-alone psychological thriller by Unger, author of the best-selling and critically acclaimed Ridley Jones series. But the author makes up for an occasionally awkward narrative with the compelling character of Annie: dark, troubled, and teetering on the brink. --Allison Block </p>


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 When a U.S. Marine is killed in Bangkok, the task of finding the murderer falls to Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, seemingly the only member of the Royal Thai Police Force whose idea of justice precludes his fellow officers' customary system of bribery. This assignment's especially important to the devout detective for during the investigation of the murder scene, the methamphetamine-stoked snakes that bit the marine also kill Sonchai's police partner, best friend, and Buddhist soul-mate Pichai. Sonchai's pursuit of revenge will team him with a sexually frustrated FBI agent and leave them at the mercy of <i>yaa-baa</i>-fueled motorcycle-taxi drivers as they hurtle through neon-lit Bangkok and into the labyrinthine and deadly machinations of the international jade and drug trades in search of the killer.<p> As Sonchai himself notes at one point, "This isn't a <i>whodunit</i>, is it?" And, no, it isn't, but author John Burdett (<i></i>, <i></i>) infuses the plot with enough suspense, detail, and dry Asian insight to keep readers rapt as the story careens about the bars and brothels of Thailand's flesh trade, through its cut-rate plastic surgery parlors, and ends in a climax with a fittingly Buddhist twist. <i>Bangkok 8</i> is highly recommended for readers in the mood for Thai. <i>--Benjamin Reese</i>
 
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 Part mystery, part thriller and part exploration of Thai attitudes toward sex, this accomplished first novel by Burdett (A Personal History of Thirst; The Last Six Million Seconds) delivers both entertainment and depth. The narrator, a Buddhist cop named Sonchai Jitplecheep, finds himself plunged into a dangerous investigation of the deaths by snakebite of his partner Pichai Apiradee and U.S. Embassy Sgt. William Bradley. Sonchai is an unusual character on several levels, from the mysteries of his violent past to his conversations with the ghost of Pichai. His ambiguous feelings toward Kimberley Jones, an American FBI agent brought in to work the case, reflect his upbringing as the child of a Thai mother and an unknown American father. Above all else, however, Sonchai's Buddhism permeates the text. An encounter with an embassy official, for example, leads to this unexpected reverie: "[She] is blithely unaware that she once accompanied me across a courtyard of startlingly similar dimensions, thousands of years ago." As Sonchai's investigation brings him closer to Bradley's companion, a woman known as Fatima, and the rich American jade dealer Sylvester Warren, his quest for revenge becomes muddied by the strangeness of his discoveries. The mix of detective work, Bangkok street life, the Thai sex trade and drug smuggling forms a powerful melange of images and insight. Despite an anti-climactic last chapter, the novel's structure is solid. Sonchai's fatalism, wry humor and dogged determination-his ability to be both vulnerable and strong-make him one of the more memorable characters in recent novel-length fiction. Readers expecting a traditional mystery structure would be advised to look elsewhere, but those who want something new will find Burdett's novel an intriguing, fresh take on noir.<br>Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
 
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<h3>Review</h3><p>?Bright and entertaining?. Fletch, as irreverent and smart as ever, is back.? --_The New York Times Book Review _  </p><p>?Good old-fashioned page-turning fun, a flair that has been absent from novels of this sort since the days of vintage James Bond.? _--Penthouse  </p><p>_ -- <em>Review</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Fletch’s Fortune  </p><p>He hadn’t been a practicing journalist for years, although people remembered him and he still has a few contacts. And he’s pretty sure he hasn’t paid his dues to the American Journalism Alliance anytime recently. But somebody has.  </p><p>Fletch’s Fortune  </p><p>Enjoying himself on the French Riviera, developing a killer tan, and sleeping with the neighbor’s wife, Fletch is feeling pretty flush. But when agents Eggers and Fabens show up with a little more information about Fletch than is comfortable and an invitation to the A.J.A. convention, how could he refuse?   </p><p>Fletch’s Fortune  </p><p>So he finds himself enlisted as a spy among his peers. But before he can even set up his surveillance, there’s a murder. And almost everybody’s a suspect. Because a lot of people were employed by Walter March, and most of them had a reason to hate him. </p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>?One of the few contemporary writers of whom we can speak in terms of greatness.??Mel Gussow, <em>Newsday</em>  </p><p>?For sheer abundance of talent, there can hardly be a writer alive who surpasses V. S. Naipaul.??_The New York Times Book Review  </p><p><em>?Naipaul?s writing is clean and beautiful, and he has a great eye for nuance.??</em>The Atlantic Monthly  </p><p><em>?No one else around today?seems able to employ prose fiction so deeply as the very voice of exile.??</em>The New York Review of Books  </p><p>_ -- <em>Review</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>In this slyly funny and lavishly inventive novel–his first–V. S. Naipaul traces the unlikely career of Ganesh Ramsumair, a failed schoolteacher and impecunious village masseur who in time becomes a revered mystic, a thriving entrepreneur, and the most beloved politician in Trinidad. To understand a little better, one has to realize that in the 1940s masseurs were the island’s medical practitioners of choice. As one character observes, “I know the sort of doctors they have in Trinidad. They think nothing of killing two, three people before breakfast.”  </p><p>Ganesh’s ascent is variously aided and impeded by a Dickensian cast of rogues and eccentrics. There’s his skeptical wife, Leela, whose schooling has made her excessively, fond. of; punctuation: marks!; and Leela’s father, Ramlogan, a man of startling mood changes and an ever-ready cutlass. There’s the aunt known as The Great Belcher. There are patients pursued by malign clouds or afflicted with an amorous fascination with bicycles. Witty, tender, filled with the sights, sounds, and smells of Trinidad’s dusty Indian villages, <strong>The Mystic Masseur</strong> is Naipaul at his most expansive and evocative. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>There's quite a bit of intelligent analysis and thought-provoking insight packed into the pages of Chuck Klosterman's <em>Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs</em>, which is a little surprising considering how darn stupid most of Klosterman's subject matter actually is. Klosterman, one of the few members of the so-called "Generation X" to proudly embrace that label and the stereotypical image of disaffected slackers that often accompanies it, takes the reader on a witty and highly entertaining tour through portions of pop culture not usually subjected to analysis and presents his thoughts on <em>Saved by the Bell</em>, Billy Joel, amateur porn, MTV's <em>The Real World</em>, and much more. It would be easy in dealing with such subject matter to simply pile on some undergraduate level deconstruction, make a few jokes, and have yourself a clever little book. But Klosterman goes deeper than that, often employing his own life spent as a member of the lowbrow target demographic to measure the cultural impact of his subjects. While the book never quite lives up to the use of the word "manifesto" in the title (it's really more of a survey mixed with elements of memoir), there is much here to entertain and illuminate, particularly passages on the psychoses and motivations of breakfast cereal mascots, the difference between Celtic fans and Laker fans, and <em>The Empire Strikes Back</em>. Sections on a Guns n' Roses tribute band, <em>The Sims</em>, and soccer feel more like magazine pieces included to fill space than part of a cohesive whole. But when you're talking about a book based on a section of cultural history so reliant on a lack of attention span, even the incongruities feel somehow appropriate. <em>--John Moe</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>There's a lot more cold cereal than sex or drugs in Klosterman's nostalgic, patchy collection of pop cultural essays, which, despite sparks of brilliance, fails to cohere. Having graduated from the University of North Dakota in 1994, Klosterman (Fargo Rock City) seems never to have left that time or place behind. He is an ironically self-aware, trivia-theorizing, unreconstructed slacker: "I'm a <code>Gen Xer,' okay? And I buy shit marketed to</code>Gen Xers.' And I use air quotes when I talk.... Get over it." The essay topics speak for themselves: the Sims, The Real World, Say Anything, Pamela Anderson, Billy Joel, the Lakers/Celtics rivalry, etc. The closest Klosterman gets to the 21st century is Internet porn and the Dixie Chicks. This is a shame, because he's is a skilled prose stylist with a witty, twisted brain, a photo-perfect memory for entertainment trivia and has real chops as a memoirist. The book's best moments arrive when he eschews argumentation for personal history. In "George Will vs. Nick Hornby," a tired screed against soccer suddenly comes to life when Klosterman tells the story of how he was fired from his high school summer job as a Little League baseball coach. The mothers wanted their sons to have equal playing time; Klosterman wanted "a run-manufacturing offensive philosophy modeled after Whitey Herzog's St. Louis Cardinals." In a chapter on relationships, Klosterman semi-jokes that he only has "three and a half dates worth of material." Remove all the dated pop culture analyses, and Klosterman's book has enough material for about half a really great memoir.<br />Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Casey, O magazine editor-in-chief, travels across the world and into the past to confront the largest waves the oceans have to offer. This dangerous water includes rogue waves south of Africa, storm-born giants near Hawaii, and the biggest wave ever recorded, a 1,740 foot-high wall of wave (taller than one and a third Empire State Buildings) that blasted the Alaska coastline in 1958. Casey follows big-wave surfers in their often suicidal attempts to tackle monsters made of H2O, and also interviews scientists exploring the danger that global warning will bring us more and larger waves. Casey writes compellingly of the threat and beauty of the ocean at its most dangerous. We get vivid historical reconstructions and her firsthand account of being on a jet-ski watching surfers risk their lives. Casey also smoothly translates the science of her subject into engaging prose. This book will fascinate anyone who has even the slightest interest in the oceans that surround us. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Part science lesson and part adrenaline rush, <em>The Wave</em> is an intense thrill ride that manages to take a broad look at oversized, potentially devastating waves. The critics praised Casey's eloquent writing and jaw-droppingly vivid descriptions of chasing--or trying desperately to steer clear of--these aquatic behemoths. Although the <em>Los Angeles Times</em> craved more technical information, and the <em>New York Times Book Review</em> considered the combination of science and surfing a bit odd, most critics brushed such concerns aside. Casey's entertaining and enlightening exploration of the world's giant waves will leave readers with "a healthy respect for the power of these waves" (_Los Angeles Times_) and a chilling sense of how little we truly know about the oceans that surround us. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Nine thoughtful, unfussy essays by the author of the collection <em>I Was Told There'd Be Cake</em> navigate around illusions of youth in the hope that by young adulthood they'll all add up to happiness. The account of Crosley's footloose adventure to Lisbon on the eve of her 30th birthday starts things off in rollicking fashion in Show Me on the Doll: without proficient language skills, getting hopelessly lost in the labyrinth of Bairro Alto, and panicking in front of the myriad QVC channels offered by her hotel, Crosley recognizes that Lisbon was a place with a painfully disproportionate self-reflection-to-experience ratio. There is the requisite essay about moving to New York and replacing her anorexic-kleptomaniac roommate with a more acceptable living arrangement: in Crosley's case, delineated in Take a Stab at It, she is interviewed by the creepily disembodied current occupier of a famous former brothel on the Bowery, McGurk's Suicide Hall. As well, Crosley delivers witty, syncopated takes on visiting Alaska and Paris, and finding much consolation from a two-timing heartbreak in New York by buying stolen items from her upholstery guy, Daryl, who found them fallen Off the Back of a Truck, as the delightful last selection is titled. These essays are fresh, funny, and eager to be loved. <em>(June)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>No doubt about it, Crosley is funny. A Thurber Award finalist, Crosley earned her stripes as a comic writer and a keen observer of the sometimes absurd in life in her debut collection, <em>I Was Told There'd Be Cake</em> (an HBO series based on the essays may be in the works). Despite a few overlong pieces and an occasional dud, Crosley avoids the sophomore slump in her new collection, offering wry--and often downright hilarious--takes on all kinds of experiences. What about Crosley's writing continues to appeal to a wide audience, despite the seemingly narrow scope of her adventures? "Crosley is a kind of anti-adult, refusing to buckle down," notes the <em>Boston Globe</em>, "refusing to accept the way of the world, refusing to stop her bold mockery, from which she herself is not exempt." </p>


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You're going to wish you never picked up this book. Some facts are too terrifying to teach in school. Unfortunately, Cracked.com is more than happy to fill you in: * A zombie apocalypse? It could happen. 50% of humans are infected with a parasite that can take over your brain. * The FDA wouldn't let you eat bugs, right? Actually, you might want to put down those jelly beans. And that apple. And that strawberry yogurt. * Think dolphins are our friends? Then these sex-crazed thrill killers of the sea have you right where they want you. * The most important discovery in the history of genetics? Francis Crick came up with it while on LSD. * Think you're going to choosewhether or not to buy this book? Scientists say your brain secretly makes all your decisions10 seconds before you even know what they are.


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Journalist Rivlin (_Fire on the Prairie_) offers a superb exposé of the poverty business—the flock of companies that cater to (and prey on) the working poor. For people living paycheck to paycheck and sometimes falling behind with rent, car payments, and grocery bills, fringe financing and the ubiquitous Rent-A-Centers, Jackson Hewitt, payday lenders, pawnshops, and check cashers—may seem like their only safety net. These businesses may tout themselves as a necessary service and force for economic development in low-income communities, but Rivlin reveals their dark underbelly: punishing rates of interest and customer service reps explicitly trained to mislead customers who appear gullible. He delves into the effect of financial deregulation on fringe financing, predatory subprime lending, and the major players in this unsavory world, including Allan Jones, a debt collector, worth $200 million, and the activists and advocates like Bill Brennan who've faced them down in the courts. A timely, important, and deeply disturbing look at the cycle of debt of the nation's most vulnerable. <em>(June) </em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p><em>Starred Review</em> Long before subprime lending and its role in the near-collapse of the U.S. financial system, a critical mass of businesses aimed at the working poor had been growing across the nation and exerting power in Washington. Award-winning reporter Rivlin chronicles the boom in the “fringe financial sector” as pawnshops, pay-day lenders, and rent-to-own stores have blossomed, gone public, and gained a measure of respectability, all by targeting their overpriced services to the working poor. Whether they have been exploiting their customers or merely providing them with desperately needed services is a matter of perspective to the gallery of characters Rivlin interviewed: borrowers who lost their homes, small-town debt collectors who moved into the cash-advance business, and consumer advocates fighting to curb the abuses of Poverty Inc., which has generated an economy of at least $100 billion a year compared to $60 billion for casinos. This is a powerful analysis, detailing how the financial sector has come to its current state of crisis and including personal stories of some among the millions of working Americans who have been exploited along the way. --Vanessa Bush </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Tough-as-nails Morn Hyland, pirate-turned-cyborg Angus Thermopyle, and the whole crew from the United Mining Company Police are back in the final book of the Gap series, <em>This Day All Gods Die</em>. The Gap plot has raced through the galaxy at breakneck speeds, and the conclusion is no exception. </p><p>Morn, her alien-grown son Davies, geneticist/engineer Vector Sheed, competent Mikka, and her cabin-boy brother Ciro wait aboard <em>Trumpet</em>. Angus lies unconscious, possibly in permanent stasis. Ciro plots to destroy the ship, driven insane by the knowledge that alien mutagens have been shot into him by Nick Succorso's sworn enemy, Sorus Chatelaine. Following nearby, Min Donner, faithful head of the UMCP Executive Division, watches the action and grits her teeth aboard Captain Dolph's battle-fatigued <em>Punisher</em>. Will Morn trust her? Will her voice commands over Angus's programming prevail? Who has survived the strange journey and battles since leaving the Lab? Back at United Mining headquarters, the Dragon and UMCP Chief Warden Dios's strange, twisted duel of manipulation, assassination, and corruption comes to a head when an Amnion warship sets course for Earth... and that's just the first few pages.</p><p>Get set for more of the action, betrayal, characterizataion, intrigue, corruption, and adventure you've enjoyed in the previous Gap books. If it has been a few years since you read the last installment, you may have trouble remembering some names and particularly insidious points of plot and government intrigue; you may even be tempted to reread the preceding books. Also troubling is Angus's continual rumination of a couple phrases, including "We've committed a crime against your soul" and "It's got to stop." However, you may be reading so fast you won't notice. </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Drawing on a rich vein of science fiction, Donaldson brings to a resounding, though not triumphant, conclusion his Gap series, begun with The Gap into Conflict (1992) and continued through The Gap into Madness (1994). The struggle between Warden Dios, director of the United Mining Companies Police, and Horst Fasner, CEO of United Mining Companies itself, reaches a climax here. So does the tension between the human race and the alien Amnion, exacerbated by human development of a drug that prevents people from being mutated into the aliens. Meanwhile, much-victimized Morn Hyland and her motley crew are heading for Earth and arrive at the same time as an Amnion warship. The first third of the novel wins no marks for pacing, but later portions pick up speed, with the final battles near Earth satisfying all requirements for logic, excitement and catharsis. Donaldson's usual weaknesses are in evidence: substitution of scenery-chewing and angst for characterization, and an abundance of prolix passages. Too, this volume may confound those new to the series. But it's a crowd-pleasing story told on a grand scale, SF adventure with a genuinely galactic feel. <br />Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>“Your only job is to help your players be better.” That single idea had a huge impact on Tony Dungy when he heard it from one of his earliest mentors, and it led him to develop the successful leadership style so admired by players and coaches throughout the NFL. Now, a storied career and a Super Bowl victory later, Tony Dungy is sharing his unique leadership philosophy with you. In <em>The Mentor Leader</em>, Tony reveals what propelled him to the top of his profession and shows how you can apply the same approach to virtually any area of your life. In the process, you’ll learn the seven keys of mentoring leadership—and why they’re so effective; why mentor leadership brings out the best in people; how a mentor leader recovers from mistakes and handles team discipline; and the secret to getting people to follow you and do their best for you without intimidation tactics. As a son, a football player, and a winning coach, Tony has always learned from others on his path to success. Now you can learn to succeed for your team, family, or organization while living out your values—by becoming a mentor leader. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Have you noticed that things aren't as civil as they once were? Or that rudeness is no longer an exception but a lifestyle? Sure you have. All you need to do is set foot outside your door to see that bad manners are taking over everywhere. People are yakking on cell phones in restaurants, even at church. Folks in carpools wear enough cologne to make our eyes bleed. Complete strangers think it's OK to rub a pregnant lady's belly. Passengers abuse flight attendants, family outings to the ball park are ruined by rowdy drunks . . . a congressman heckled the President of the United States.</p><p>Well, Whoopi Goldberg has noticed all this and more and asked herself, "Is it just me?" Unleashing her trademark irreverence and humor, her new book of observations takes a funny and excruciatingly honest look at how a loss of civility is messing with the quality of life for all of us.</p><p>So if your pet peeve is folks who talk in movie theaters like it was their living room, or if you get bugged by people clipping their nails and performing other personal hygiene next to you on the bus, or if you cringe when "please" and "thank you" get replaced by "gimme" and "huh?" . . . you have found a kindred spirit. Because Whoopi has witnessed the growing disrespect and rudeness in our lives and realized she is not alone. And, as you'll discover in these pages, neither are you.</p><h3>About the Author</h3><p><strong>Whoopi Goldberg</strong> is the premier comedic actress of our day. She has won a Tony, an Emmy, an Oscar, and a Grammy, as well as two Golden Globes. In 2001 she was awarded the prestigious Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Whoopi Goldberg has appeared in scores of films, and is a host on ABC's <em>The View</em>. </p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>"_Son of Hamas_, written by Mosab Hassan Yousef and journalist Ron Brackin, is . . .  a must-read book and one can only hope it becomes the basis of a major Hollywood motion picture. - <strong>Joel Rosenberg</strong></p><p><strong>__</strong></p><p>--Amazon  </p><p>" . . . a fascinating book. I couldn't put it down." - <strong>Sean Hannity</strong> --Fox News' Hannity  </p><p>". . . a book more incendiary than any roadside IED . . ." --GQ Magazine  </p><p>" . . . intriguingly detailed . . ." --Newsweek  </p><p>" . . . one of the most extraordinary spy stories in history . . ." <strong>David Asman</strong>, America's Nightly Scoreboard, Fox Business Network  </p><p>“. . . a Le Carréesque thriller wrapped in a spiritual coming-of-age story . . .” (Matthew Kaminski )  </p><p>“reads with the page-turning ease of a great thriller.” (Claudia Rosett ) </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Since he was a small boy, Mosab Hassan Yousef has had an inside view of the deadly terrorist group Hamas. The oldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding member of Hamas and its most popular leader, young Mosab assisted his father for years in his political activities while being groomed to assume his legacy, politics, status . . . and power. But everything changed when Mosab turned away from terror and violence, and embraced instead the teachings of another famous Middle East leader. In <em>Son of Hamas</em>, Mosab Yousef--now called "Joseph"--reveals new information about the world's most dangerous terrorist organization and unveils the truth about his own role, his agonizing separation from family and homeland, the dangerous decision to make his newfound faith public, and his belief that the Christian mandate to "love your enemies" is the only way to peace in the Middle East. </p>


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Ever the resourceful young criminal mastermind, Artemis has found a way to construct a supercomputer from stolen fairy technology. Called the "C Cube," it will render all existing human technology obsolete. Artemis then arranges a meeting with a Chicago businessman, Jon Spiro, to offer to suppress the Cube for one year in return for gold, his favorite substance. But the meeting is a trap, and Spiro steals the Cube and mortally injures Butler. Artemis knows his only hope to save Butler lies in fairy magic, so once again he is forced to contact his old rival, Captain Holly Short of the LEPrepcon fairy police. Miraculously, Butler is healed, but there is a catch: he has aged fifteen years. Thus, Butler's infamously ditzy sister, Juliet, is called in as Artemis's bodyguard. Together, they travel to Chicago to steal back the Cube and ensure that Jon Spiro is put out of business-permanently.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Ten thousand years ago, humans and fairies fought a great battle for the magical island of Ireland. When it became clear to the fairy families that they could never win, they decided to move their civilization underground and keep themselves hidden from the humans. All the fairy families agreed on this, except the 8th family, the demons.    

The demons planned to lift their small island out of time until they had regrouped and were ready to wage war on the humans once more. However the time spell went wrong, and the island of Hybras was catapulted into Limbo, where it has remained for ten thousand years.    

Now, the tainted time spell is deteriorating and demons are being sucked back into the present space and time. The fairy Council is naturally concerned about this and is monitoring any materializations. When the spell's deterioration accelerates, the materializations become unpredictable. Even the fairy scientists cannot figure out where the next demon will pop up.     

But someone can. Artemis Fowl, teenage criminal mastermind has solved temporal equations that no normal human should be intelligent enough to understand. So when a confused and frightened demon pops up in a Sicilian theatre, Artemis Fowl is there to meet him. Unfortunately, he is not the only one. A second, mysterious party has also solved the temporal equations, and has managed to abduct the demon before Artemis can secure him.    

This is a disaster for the fairy people, as this demon was no ordinary fairy. He was the last demon warlock, the one who held the key to the survival of the entire demon race.    

It is up to Artemis and his old comrade, Captain Holly Short, to track down the missing demon and rescue him, before the time spell dissolves completely and the lost demon colony returns violently to Earth.


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Artemis's mother has contracted a deadly disease--and the only cure lies in the brain fluid of  African lemurs. Unfortunately, Artemis himself was responsible for making the lemurs extinct five years ago. Now he must enlist the aid of his fairy friends to travel back in time and save the lemur. Not only that, but he must face his deadliest foe yet: his younger self.


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In the middle of the night, a controversial U.S. senator is found murdered in bed in his Georgetown pied-a-terre. The police turn up only one clue: a mysterious rhyme signed "Jack and Jill" promising that this is just the beginning. Jack and Jill are out to get the rich and famous, and they will stop at nothing until their fiendish plan is carried out. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., homicide detective Alex Cross is called to a murder scene only blocks from his house, far from the corridors of power where he spends his days. The victim: a beautiful little girl, savagely beaten - and deposited in front of the elementary school Cross's son, Damon, attends. Could there be a connection between the two murders? As Cross tries to put the pieces together, the killer - or killers - strike again. And again. No one in Washington is safe - not children, not politicians, not even the President of the United States. Only Alex Cross has the skills and the courage to crack the case - but will he discover the truth in time?


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Alex Cross is back-and so is a raging and suicidal Gary Soneji. Out of prison and dying from the AIDS virus he contracted there, he will get revenge on Cross before he dies. In addition, we are introduced to a new pair of rivals whose paths cross that of Alex and Soneji. Thomas Augustine Pierce has been chasing his demon, Mr. Smith, since the savage murder of his fiancee. Mr. Smith is a unique monster, with actions toward his victims so insane-so unimaginable-that he is thought of as "not of the earth." Pierce, known in the business as St. Augustine because of his track record for catching killers and his invaluable status to the FBI and Interpol, may even be better than Cross.When things heat up and Alex is in a near-death coma following an attack in his own home, Pierce goes to Washington to help with the investigation. But just as he begins to piece together the mystery of how Gary Soneji could have mortally wounded Cross after he was believed to be dead, he is summoned to Paris with a postcard from Mr. Smith inviting him to a very special killing.The body count is high, the tension the highest, and the two killers on the loose are watching every move their pursuers make. Who is the cat, and who is the mouse? What and where is the final trap? And who survives?


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<h3>Review</h3><p>'Together these ten volumes make an attractive and reasonably priced (the volumes vary between L3.99 and L4.99) working edition of Virginia Woolf's best-known writing. One can only hope that their success will prompt World's Classics to add her other essays to the series in due course.' Elisabeth Jay, Westminster College, Oxford, Review of English Studies, Vol. XLV, No. 178, May '94 </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Katharine Hilbery is beautiful and privileged but uncertain of her future. She must choose between becoming engaged to the oddly prosaic poet William, and her dangerous attraction to the lower-class Ralph. As she struggles to decide, the lives of two other women - women's rights activist Mary Datchet and Katharine's mother, struggling to weave together the documents, events and memories of her father's life into a biography - impinge on hers with unexpected and intriguing consequences. Virginia Woolf's light, delicate second novel is both a love story and a social comedy, yet it also subtly undermines these traditions, questioning a woman's role and the very nature of experience. </p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>"Textually, these editions of Mrs Dalloway and The Voyage Out are the most immaculate available." (_David Bradshaw, Worcester College_ )  </p><p>'Together these ten volumes make an attractive and reasonably priced (the volumes vary between L3.99 and L4.99) working edition of Virginia Woolf's best-known writing. One can only hope that their success will prompt World's Classics to add her other essays to the series in due course.' Elisabeth Jay, Westminster College, Oxford, (_Review of English Studies, Vol. XLV, No. 178, May '94_ ) </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"Textually, these editions of _ Mrs Dalloway_ and <em>The Voyage Out</em> are the most immaculate available." <em>David Bradshaw, Worcester College</em></p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3>
<p>For history buffs or gardeners who enjoy more than just digging in the dirt, <em>Tulipomania</em> presents a fascinating look at the tulip frenzy that took place in Holland in the mid-1600s. Beginning as gifts given among the wealthy and educated folk of Europe and Asia, the tulip rapidly became a source of incredible financial gain--similar to today's Internet start-up companies or Beanie Baby collections. Stories of craftsmen discontinuing their trade and focusing on raising tulips for public auction, where they sold for prices comparable to that of a manor house, are astonishing. Poets, moralists, businessmen--it seems everyone was involved at some level. 
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<p>Lack of regulation and poor quality control were just a couple of the details that led to the abrupt crash in February 1637. Tulipomania was the original market bust--people were ruined, debts went unpaid. It was a disaster similar to the stock-market crash of 1929. A brief resurrection of the mania occurred 65 years later in Istanbul, and while it was not the financial obsession Holland experienced, it led to the creation of standards in flower shape and increased the development of new types. You don't need to be obsessed to enjoy this book--an interest in tulips, history, and the futures market ensures that this will be a remarkable read. <em>--Jill Lightner</em>
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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3>
<p>The centerpiece of this story is a stunning two months, December 1636 and January 1637, when fortunes were made and lost in the Netherlands--in tulip bulb futures trading. Stripped to its basics, this would be a dry case study in an economics textbook. But Dash adds depth to the tale by including relevant bits of botany, sociology and history, as well as glimpses of the personalities involved in the creation of the tulip market, such as the orphans who made a fortune selling their late father's tulip bulbs and the man who owned a dozen extremely rare bulbs and wouldn't part with them at any price. Occasionally, he provides too much detail--his descriptions of how many guilders changed hands in particular transactions become repetitive, as do his physical descriptions of specific tulip varieties. Dash is fascinated by the contrast between the aesthetic sense of the Ottoman sultans (reflected in their love of tulip-laden gardens) and the ferocity of their rule (evidenced by fratricide, garroting and torture), but his musings on this interesting paradox are too unfocused to be enlightening. Overall, however, Dash (The Limit; Borderlands) effectively brings together a diverse mix of disciplines to illuminate the cultural, financial and psychological elements of an economic bubble--a subject that should be of great interest today. Readers interested in the technical aspects of economic speculation and those attuned to human folly will find this a worthwhile read. (Mar.) <br />
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. 
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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>The resort of Boleta Bay is not the carefree place it used to be. A series of unexplained disappearances, and holiday-makers threatened by an army of leering bums, casts a shadow over summer pleasures. But now Boleda Bay is fighting back and their campaign leads them to the abandoned Funhouse. </p>


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Written from Wilde's prison cell at Reading Gaol to his friend and lover Lord Alfred Douglas, "De Profundis" explodes the conventions of the traditional love letter and offers a scathing indictment of Douglas's behavior, a mournful elegy for Wilde's own lost greatness, and an impassioned plea for reconciliation. At once a bracingly honest account of ruinous attachment and a profound meditation on human suffering, "De Profundis" is a classic of gay literature. Richard Ellmann calls "De Profundis" "a love letter...One of the greatest, and the longest, ever written." This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition contains newly commissioned notes. "From the Trade Paperback edition."


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. A letter posted in 1941 finally reaches its destination in 1992 with powerful repercussions for Edie Burchill, a London book editor, in this enthralling romantic thriller from Australian author Morton (The Forgotten Garden). At crumbling Milderhurst Castle live elderly twins Persephone and Seraphina and their younger half-sister, Juniper, the three eccentric spinster daughters of the late Raymond Blythe, author of The True History of the Mud Man, a children's classic Edie adores. Juniper addressed the letter to Meredith, Edie's mother, then a young teen evacuated to Milderhurst during the Blitz. Edie, who's later invited to write an introduction to a reprint of Raymond's masterpiece, visits the seedily alluring castle in search of answers. Why was her mother so shattered by the contents of a letter sent 51 years earlier? And what happened to soldier Thomas Cavill, Juniper's long-missing fiancé and Meredith's former teacher? Despite the many competing narratives, the answers will stun readers. 5-city author tour. (Nov.) (c) <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"...the very process of studying this book led me to look carefully at myself with an awareness of how the challenges of my life can be the fuel that will enable me to swim against the stream, against cultural currents, against all forms of adversity inherent in my most important goals."</p><p>-- From the Foreword by Stephen R. Covey, Ph.D., author of <em>The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People</em></p>


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<h3>From</h3><p>Catherine II of Russia (1729–96) might have been forgotten as a German-born Romanov brood mare but for her unscrupulous seizure of the Russian throne in 1762 and subsequent lengthy reign as the quintessential Enlightenment monarch—achievements that have fascinated posterity ever since. For her remarkable story, British historian Dixon, steeped in Catherine’s setting, positions his work between the scholarly and the salacious and accents courtier politics and the autocrat’s sensibilities. After recounting the palace coup that brought Catherine to power, Dixon develops her approach to wielding it through her interactions with builders, diplomats, generals, lackeys, and pen pals, such as Voltaire, on the receiving end of her reforming zeal. With the building boom in St. Petersburg, constitutional changes, and territorial expansion that accompanied her reign as backdrops to his portrait, Dixon sympathetically educes Catherine’s personal life; that is, the train of swains caught up in her—as one chapter title puts it—“search for emotional stability.” An appreciation of the person Catherine the Great that is full of insightful perceptions. --Gilbert Taylor </p><h3>Review</h3><p>“There is lots new in this superb biography . . . [Dixon] manages to be scholarly, refreshing, commonsensical and compelling, vividly portraying the charismatic Empress and her times.” (Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Sashenka and Young Stalin )  </p><p>“Like Catherine herself, Simon Dixon’s new biography is attractive, engaging, and very intelligent. It wears its scholarship lightly, too, but established fans of the Russian empress will find plenty of new material and those who are meeting her for the first time will be dazzled.” (Catherine Merridale, author of Ivan's War and Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Russia ) </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In this clear-eyed and compassionate study, Robinson (Coal to Cream), Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist for the Washington Post, marshals persuasive evidence that the African-American population has splintered into four distinct and increasingly disconnected entities: a small elite with enormous influence, a mainstream middle-class majority, a newly emergent group of recent immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean, and an abandoned minority "with less hope of escaping poverty than at any time since Reconstruction's end." Drawing on census records, polling data, sociological studies, and his own experiences growing up in a segregated South Carolina college town during the 1950s, Robinson explores 140 years of black history in America, focusing on how the civil rights movement, desegregation, and affirmative action contributed to the fragmentation. Of particular interest is the discussion of how immigrants from Africa, the "best-educated group coming to live in the United States," are changing what being black means. Robinson notes that despite the enormous strides African-Americans have made in the past 40 years, the problems of poor blacks remain more intractable than ever, though his solution--"a domestic Marshall Plan aimed at black America"--seems implausible in this era of cash-strapped state and local governments. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Based on his years of reporting and observation of changes in black America, journalist Robinson finds that the black community has evolved to the point where it has disintegrated into distinct sectors: the mainstreamers, or black middle-class majority, who have made tremendous but often understated progress; the abandoned minority with little hope of escaping poverty; transcendental elites of such wealth and power that whites can’t deny; and an emergent group of biracial blacks and recent black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean who are challenging an essentially native black American experience. In the age of Obama, Robinson notes the advancement of the black elites, with wealth and power, into “full ownership stake” in the U.S., distancing them economically from the middle and lower classes. The emergent group identifies with a different notion of the black experience, making them ideologically and politically unreliable. All are in strong contrast to the abandoned, who are at the center of the black disintegration. Readers don’t have to agree with Robinson’s observations to appreciate the undeniable differences within black America and to maybe want further analysis. --Vernon Ford </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Prolific royal biographer Fraser (_Marie Antoinette_) has assiduously researched her measured yet engrossing study, shedding welcome light on the galaxy of influential women who orbited the dazzling Sun King. The most important woman in Louis XIV's life, in Fraser's telling, was probably the first—his mother, Anne of Austria. The voluptuous, pleasure-loving but pious and dignified queen regent inculcated Louis with the notion that he was a godlike miracle who was nevertheless accountable to the deity for his sins. As this narrowly focused history suggests, Louis was constantly trying to reconcile his gargantuan sexual appetite with his duty to his people and his God. Louis gave up his first love, the bold and amusing Marie Mancini, to marry his graceless first cousin, the Spanish princess Maria Teresa. A serious flirtation with his charming sister-in-law Henriette-Anne, sister of England's Charles II, ended when Louis fell for Charles and Henriette's decoy, the timid virgin Louise de La Vallière. In sexual thrall to the intelligent, magnetic Athénaïs, the Marquise de Montespan, the king intriguingly threw her over for Françoise Scarron, the puritanical governess to their bastards. Lastly, Louis gave his heart to his spirited granddaughter-in-law Adélaïde, who died of measles within days of her husband, the Dauphin. <em>(Oct. 17)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Adelaide of Savoy, a favorite companion of Louis XIV during his dotage, remarked, "Under a king, a country is really ruled by women." Fraser's history of the court of the Sun King, seen through the lens of the women closest to him, is a highly readable confection, and unfolds as a sequence of cameos. There is Queen Anne of Austria, Louis's steely moth"r and regent, who carefully molded the infant King into an Apollo adored by the court; and his wife, Marie-Therese of Spain, who gave him no trouble except by dying. Then comes a trio of mistresses: Louise de La Valliere, who became a nun as recompense for her sins; Athenais, voluptuous and fecund; and Madame de Maintenon, the discreet and redoubtable confidante of his later years. With vivid wit, Fraser demonstrates that within the edifice of the monarchy there were deep crannies of ordinary affection. <br />Copyright © 2006 </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>After graduating from college with a business administration degree—and very uncertain about his career path—Aiken embarked on a yearlong journey throughout Canada and the U.S., trying out new jobs for one week at a time and donating all his wages to a charity. It's a bit contrived and by now familiar (A.J. Jacobs has written a shelf of such books), but Aiken is an appealing guinea pig. Readers expecting a meditation on work (or working at all during a recession, let alone finding 52 jobs) should look elsewhere; this is a lark and Aiken tests a variety of unusual jobs (NHL mascot, snowshoe guide, tattooist/piercer, bungee jumping instructor, cattail picker) and more traditional career paths (research assistant, park ranger, and mayor). The takeaway isn't particularly profound (Traveling taught me a lot about myself. I experienced new cultures, met all sorts of people, and was forced outside my comfort zone on a daily basis), but it's a lighthearted read and a pleasant—if unmemorable—vicarious journey to take. <em>(May)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"It started as a simple idea: work a different job every week for a year.  But as Sean put his plan into action, it quickly became a life-changing, cross-continental, action-packed adventure.  After reading <strong>The One-Week Job Project</strong><em>,</em> you'll know how to bring the most extraordinary things out of life, and how to score some choice jobs along the way!"—Kyle MacDonald, author of <em>One Red Paperclip</em>   </p><p>"With 52 jobs, 52 experiences and 52 lessons learned, Sean Aiken has done all the dirty work for young individuals who are looking to embark on their own career journey.  <strong>The One-Week Job Project</strong> is eye-opening, entertaining and will help answer the question on any young individual’s mind: what do I do when I graduate?  Sean has done it all in less time than it takes to graduate from college and has pulled all of his knowledge into one book that can and will change your life for the better."—Dan Schawbel, author of <em>Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success</em>  </p><p>"<strong>The One-Week Job Project</strong>_ _is a terrific read for young people wondering what to do with their lives, and for anyone looking to change his or her life for the better. Sean Aiken’s audacious, inspiring book packs a good dose of humor and reminds us that the only thing standing between you and your dreams is yourself!" —Keith Ferrazzi, author of <em>Never Eat Alone </em>and <em>Who’s Got Your Back</em>   </p><p>"At a time when the traditional path to success is fading from view, Sean Aiken has emerged as a role model for making the best of the inherently unstable life of today's workforce. Most people will likely work a number of different jobs in a variety of different fields over the course of their lifetimes, and most people will feel uneasy during transition. Aiken’s book shows 52 transitions, and they add up to a vital message that job hopping is productive and can help you find a better career, and build a better life."—Penelope Trunk, nationally syndicated career columnist and author of _Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success<br />_<br />"Who says job hopping is a bad thing? Sean Aiken worked 52 jobs in one very busy year and documented the life-changing experience in his wonderful new book, <strong>The One-Week Job Project</strong>. Sean takes you on a rollicking journey across the U.S. and Canada to gigs as an astronomer, brewmaster, cowboy, and deejay (among many others).  He shares hilarious stories and valuable advice from mentors in pubs and tattoo parlors, on <strong>dairy farms and movie sets,</strong> and in kitchens and cubicles. I loved the opportunity to tag along on Sean's year of career enlightenment without having to sleep on 55 couches and trek more than 46,000 miles. I think you will too. <em>The One-Week Job Project</em> is a great read and a terrific resource for anyone looking for inspiration on the job."—Pamela Skillings, career coach and author of _Escape from Corporate America: A Practical Guide to Creating the Career of Your Dreams<br />_  </p><p>"<strong>The One-Week Job Project</strong> is a remarkably original idea that will inspire a new generation of young people to stay true to themselves, shed the noise around them, and set out to define their own roads in life. This book will help you to take a critical look at your own future, and all the possibilities that lie waiting."—Mike Marriner, co-founder, Roadtrip Nation and author of _Roadtrip Nation: A Guide to Discovering Your Path in Life  </p><p>_"The long-held idea of ‘trying on’ jobs before you ‘buy’ them now gets a fresh approach, as the author ‘tries on’ fifty-two jobs within the space of fifty-two weeks."—Richard N. Bolles, author of <em>What Color Is Your Parachute</em>   </p><p>"I can't say whether Sean Aiken was a good aquarium host or tattoo artist, but I do think he's very good at one job: Writing."—A. J. Jacobs, author of _The Year of Living Biblically  </p><p>_"What is it like to work 52 jobs in as many weeks?  Sean Aiken took it upon himself to find out, and he shares his discoveries with us in <strong>The One Week Job Project</strong>.  A fantastic concept, and a fascinating book!"—Marshall Goldsmith, <em>New York Times</em> bestselling author of <em>Mojo</em> and <em>What Got You Here Won’t Get You There</em></p>


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<h3>From</h3><p>They may look sweet and innocent, but anyone who has ever broken out in a rash after picking a hyacinth blossom or burst into violent sneezing after sniffing a chrysanthemum knows that often the most beautiful flowers can pack the nastiest punch. This comes as no secret to mystery writers, who have long taken advantage of the nefarious properties of common garden plants to create the devices by which a deadly dose of poison is administered to an unsuspecting victim. But, as Stewart so entertainingly points out, such fiction is based on pure fact. There are plants that can kill with a drop of nectar, paralyze with the brush of a petal. From bucolic woodland streams choked by invasive purple loosestrife to languid southern fields overrun by kudzu, some plants are just more trouble than they’re worth. Culling legend and citing science, Stewart’s fact-filled, A–Z compendium of nature’s worst offenders offers practical and tantalizing composite views of toxic, irritating, prickly, and all-around ill-mannered plants. --Carol Haggas </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>A tree that sheds poison daggers; a glistening red seed that stops the heart; a shrub that causes paralysis; a vine that strangles; and a leaf that triggered a war. In <em>Wicked Plants</em>, Stewart takes on over two hundred of Mother Nature’s most appalling creations. It’s an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend. You’ll learn which plants to avoid (like exploding shrubs), which plants make themselves exceedingly unwelcome (like the vine that ate the South), and which ones have been killing for centuries (like the weed that killed Abraham Lincoln's mother).   </p><p>Menacing botanical illustrations and splendidly ghastly drawings create a fascinating portrait of the evildoers that may be lurking in your own backyard. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, this compendium of bloodcurdling botany will entertain, alarm, and enlighten even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers.  </p>


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


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. VanderMeer's seventh collection (after Secret Lives) is a fine introduction to one of our very best contemporary practitioners of the fantastic. In the dark "The Third Bear," an isolated medieval town is beset by a monster that uses the bodies of its victims to create a grisly work of art. "Finding Sonoria" concerns a down-on-his-luck PI hired to find a country that issued a postage stamp but apparently does not exist. The intensely surreal "The Situation" takes place in a company torn by bizarre office politics and dedicated to body modification and the construction of beetles and flying manta rays. "The Goat Variations" is a sophisticated alternate history in which a newly elected U.S. president is briefed on a startling scientific breakthrough with origins not of this world. Fans of slipstream and the interstitial will relish VanderMeer's superb prose, overwhelmingly odd situations, and fascinating, eccentric characters. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"A fine introduction to one of our very best contemporary practitioners of the fantastic."  —_Publishers Weekly_</p><p>"These 15 elegantly crafted stories ably demonstrate VanderMeer's skill . . . calls to mind the works of Borges, Kafka, and Lem."  —_Library Journal_, Starred Review</p><p>"VanderMeer proves again why he is so essential and why everybody should be reading him."   —Junot Diaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, <em>The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao</em></p><p>“One of the things that sets VanderMeer apart is his embrace of technology and media. His online presence is considerable and includes a number of web sites, frequent blogging, a short film adaptation of his novel Shriek (including collaboration with pop rock band The Church), his Alien Baby photo project and even a project involving animation via Sony Playstation.” —Wired.com</p><p>"Jeff Vandermeer is not to be trusted. He hypnotizes with shiny objects, bizarrely beautiful shapes and phrases, then (more often than not) gently drifts you into very dark places. You won't know where you're going till you get there and then, of course, it's too late."  —Mike Mignola, creator, Hellboy</p><p>"In the hands of a brilliant writer like Jeff VanderMeer, writing fantasy can be a means of serious artistic expression. . . . It is also playful, poignant, and utterly, wildly imaginative."  —Peter Straub, author, <em>The Talisman</em></p><p>"Fascinating . . . the harmonics between the stories cross all sorts of boundaries."  <em>—Locus Magazine</em></p><p>"Jeff VanderMeer is an extraordinary writer . . . passionate, beautiful, complex, terrifying."  —Tamar Yellin, author,_ The Genizah at the House of Shepher_</p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>McCabe's jokey verbosity and energetic narrative voice are on full display in this messy but manically vibrant novel. Pat McNab's social position in the dully parochial Irish village of Gullytown ranks above village idiot but below town drunk. Few of his fellow citizens would suspect the wild tales he tells are true, much less entertain the idea that he could be a serial killer. Norman Bates, however, has nothing on the middle-aged, reclusive Pat, who enjoys a beyond-Oedipal relationship with his mother (she recurrently appears long after he has dispatched her with a frying pan) and tallies up a final body count estimated "around the fifty, fifty-five mark." Over the course of McCabe's fluctuating, episodic novel, Pat's victims number fewer than two dozen, but each is linked with the popular songs and traditional ballads that reflect Pat's pathetic dreams of becoming a pop singer. The teetotaling, intrusive Mrs. Tubridy is downed with alcohol to the tune of "Whiskey on a Sunday," and a land-swindling neighbor is burned in Pat's barn with "Old Flames" for background music. At other times, Pat's hallucinatory fantasies transform his mundane life into a spaghetti western, sci-fi epic or gangster movie. While Pat bears more than a casual resemblance to Francie Brady, the sympathetic, psychotic hero of The Butcher Boy, this novel's heavy irony, mock verbosity and genre-juggling are more reminiscent of McCabe's recent "serial novel," Mondo Desperado. Although the Grand Guignol humor wears thin after the first several deaths, McCabe gives occasional revealing glimpses into Pat's damaged psyche and the stifling mindset of village life. The mixed results are a thoroughly Irish stew of pathos and bathos, deep melancholy and wild humor, cutting observation and pure blarney. 8-city author tour. (Mar.) <br />Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Potential readers of the two-time Booker Prize finalist's latest novel are advised first to eat a big bowl of Lucky Charms laced with psychedelics; doing so may be the only way to swallow this jarring musical tragicomedy. In it, our hero/villain, aspiring actor/singer Pat McNab, 45, of Gullytown, Ireland, commits matricide and other heinous murders, each fitted with a theme song (e.g., in "The Turfman from Ardee," the turfman from Ardee bites it). However, the point of all the bloodshed is unclear. Violence for violence's sake doesn't make for great literature or gut-splitting comedy. Because Pat is such a surreal concoction, it is also difficult to gauge how much empathy and sympathy he deserves, if any. McCabe has a gift for creating bent-brained yet fiendishly human outcasts ? la Francie Brady in The Butcher Boy (LJ 5/1/93) and Patrick "Pussy" Brady in Breakfast on Pluto (LJ 12/15/98), but with this Pat he falls short. An optional purchase.<br /><em>-AHeather McCormack, "Library Journal" </em><br />Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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A BRILLIANT AND BEGUILING REIMAGINING OF ONE OF OUR GREATEST MYTHS BY A GIFTED YOUNG WRITERZachary Mason’s brilliant and beguiling debut novel, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, reimagines Homer’s classic story of the hero Odysseus and his long journey home after the fall of Troy. With brilliant prose, terrific imagination, and dazzling literary skill, Mason creates alternative episodes, fragments, and revisions of Homer’s original that taken together open up this classic Greek myth to endless reverberating interpretations. The Lost Books of the Odyssey is punctuated with great wit, beauty, and playfulness; it is a daring literary page-turner that marks the emergence of an extraordinary new talent.


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Hans Holzer is a world-renowned parapsychologist and author of several paranormal books including <em>Ghosts: True Encounters with the World Beyond</em> is a gigantic volume, documenting almost 200 cases of haunted houses, ships, castles, and just about any place imaginable! The cases are far more complex than just your average white-sheeted ghoul in the attic. Holzer examines the differences between "real ghosts," who reveal themselves to living people, and psychic impressions, which occur to many witnesses, always at the same time and place. There is also solid advice for interpreting paranormal signals--and even photographs of ghostly apparitions. This is an informative read, but one that is open to personal interpretation. <em>--Naomi Gesinger</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>In this definitive inquiry into ghostly manifestations and the nature of "the other side," the world's leading authority on the subject presents hundreds of case histories, tips on interpreting sounds and other signals from beyond and more. Photographs of haunted places and authenticated shots of actual ghosts and spirits are featured throughout the book. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Downum effectively combines action, magic, police procedure and political intrigue in this complex and striking debut. Isyllt Iskaldur, a Selafaïan forensic necromancer, travels to the monsoon-soaked canal city of Symir, capital of Sivahra. Her plot to undermine the occupying Assari Empire before it can invade Selafai is complicated by her attraction to handsome Imperial fire-mage Asheris. Isyllt's bodyguard Xinai, a Sivahran native, despises the empire for its brutal destruction of her clan; young apprentice mage Zhirin Laii struggles between love for a guerrilla leader and loyalty to her mother, a respected politician. Refreshingly, Downum treats necromancy as an unclean but necessary defense against evil and nicely handles the complex nuances of a quasi-Westerner fomenting revolution in a quasi-Asian country occupied by quasi-Arabs. A strong (if not happy) conclusion still leaves plenty of room for sequels. <em>(Sept.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Symir -- the Drowning City. home to exiles and expatriates, pirates and smugglers. And violent revolutionaries who will stop at nothing to overthrow the corrupt Imperial government.  </p><p>For Isyllt Iskaldur, necromancer and spy, the brewing revolution is a chance to prove herself to her crown. All she has to do is find and finance the revolutionaries, and help topple the palaces of Symir. But she is torn between her new friends and her duties, and the longer she stays in this monsoon-drenched city, the more intrigue she uncovers -- even the dead are plotting.   </p><p>As the waters rise and the dams crack, Isyllt must choose between her mission and the city she came to save. </p>


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


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>In the Bronx of the 1930s, 15-year-old Billy Bathgate hooks up with a legendary mobster, Dutch Schultz. Schultz becomes an unlikely surrogate parent to the boy, introducing him to the ways of the world and training Billy to follow in his footsteps. After Billy falls for Schulz's latest girlfriend, he begins to question the actions of the mob he was so eager to join. As he seeks to protect the young woman, he gains strength in following his own heart and makes a courageous passage from boyhood to adulthood. E.L Doctorow won the 1990 </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Doctorow's mesmerizing odyssey about a teenage, fatherless street kid adopted by mobsters makes its first appearance in trade paper. <br />Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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In the tradition of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, this brilliant first novel fuses history, fantasy, and romance. Prepare to be enchanted by M. K. Hobson's captivating take on the Wild, Wild West. The year is 1876. In the small Sierra Nevada settlement of Lost Pine, the town witch, Emily Edwards, is being run out of business by an influx of mail-order patent magics. Attempting to solve her problem with a love spell, Emily only makes things worse. But before she can undo the damage, an enchanted artifact falls into her possession--and suddenly Emily must flee for her life, pursued by evil warlocks who want the object for themselves. Dreadnought Stanton, a warlock from New York City whose personality is as pompous and abrasive as his name, has been exiled to Lost Pine for mysterious reasons. Now he finds himself involuntarily allied with Emily in a race against time--and across the United States by horse, train, and biomechanical flying machine--in quest of the great Professor Mirabilis, who alone can unlock the secret of the coveted artifact. But along the way, Emily and Stanton will be forced to contend with the most powerful and unpredictable magic of all--the magic of the human heart.


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The successful film adaptation of Schlink's <em>The Reader</em> should give a boost to his third mystery to feature aging German PI Gerhard Self (after 2007's <em>Self's Deception</em>). On his way home to Mannheim during a snow storm, Schlink helps a stranded driver, Bertram Welker, who on learning Self's profession offers him a job. A partner in the region's oldest private bank, Welker is writing its history and asks Self to identify a silent partner in the bank. What appears to be a straightforward assignment becomes a double murder inquiry once Self comes to doubt Welker's account of how his wife perished in a hiking accident the year before and the bank's unofficial archivist dies in a suspicious car crash after handing Self a briefcase full of money. Crisp prose and some well-handled plot complications, which include the emergence of a man claiming to be Self's son, will keep readers turning the pages. <em>(Aug.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p><em>Starred Review</em> This stellar series debut presents former Nazi prosecutor turned private investigator Gerhard Self in an unsettlingly matter-of-fact style. Instead of the brooding and tortured soul readers might expect--or even demand--Gerd (as his many friends call him) comes across as wry and likable as he hustles up cases, flirts with attractive women of all ages, and worries about slipping into old age with only his cat for company. It's the early 1980s, and Self has been hired by a boyhood friend to smoke out a hacker who's playing havoc with the computers at Rhineland Chemical Works. But after Self springs a trap that gets the troublemaker murdered, he gradually faces the guilt he still carries for his youthful embrace of National Socialism. His simple refusal to let himself off the hook and step back into his old public prosecutor's role after the war doesn't seem like penance enough anymore. "I had planned to live at peace with my past," he muses. "Guilt, atonement, enthusiasm and blindness, pride and anger, morality and resignation--I'd brought it all together in an elaborate balance. The past had achieved abstraction." But Self's unwitting participation in the new crime drives him to pursue the path of justice wherever it may lead. A fascinating exploration of how people often manage to carve out normal lives even after being complicit in terrible acts. <em>Frank Sennett</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Published in 1953, 1952, and 1979, respectively, this trio of novels follow Clarke's recurring theme of humans thrusting themselves into space and then not necessarily liking what they find. The religious images that run throughout Clarke's work also are present here. <br />Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>The City and the Stars: The 10-billion-year-old metropolis of Diaspar is humanity's last home. Alone among immortals, the only man born in 10 million years desperately wants to find what lies beyond the city. The Sands Of Mars: Science fiction writer Martin Gibson finally gets a chance to visit the research colony on the Red planet. Its a dream come true, until he discovers the perils of survival on another world. </p>


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<h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Published in English seven years after his death (LJ 11/15/68), this is considered one of Celine's darkest novels. It is also autobiographical. Like the author, the novel's central character is a Nazi collaborator who is nonetheless destroyed by them. This translation won a National Book Award.<br />Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"Castle to Castle [is] a literary event of the first order." -- <em>Newsweek</em>  </p><p>"Castle to Castle proves how appallingly up to date its dead appalling author is. . . . Cline's style consists of outcries and exclamations, groans and curses, all in white heat, separated by dots which like machine-gun bullets mow down even the mitigating orderliness of grammar." -- <em>Nation</em>  </p><p>"Celine's mastery in creating one of the truly cathartic experiences of contemporary literature is indisputable." -- <em>Saturday Review</em>  </p><p>"Cline walks into great literature as other men walk into their own homes." -- <em>Atlantic Monthly</em>  </p><p>"Cline's experiences have not mellowed him. Here, as in all his novels, . . . he hates everybody, regardless of race, creed or color. If anyone is singled out, it is his publishers, whose limousines, he says, grow even longer, while their authors, in rags, cling behind like pitiful hitchhikers. . . . the translation is a masterpiece." -- <em>New York Times Book Review</em></p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In German author Schlink's meandering second crime novel available in English to feature aging PI Gerhard Self (after <em>Self's</em><em>Punishment</em>), a man named Salger hires Self to locate his missing daughter, Leonore. With little help from the father, Self tracks the missing girl to an insane asylum outside Heidelberg, where he's informed by a doctor that Leo has recently died there in an accident. Self quickly learns, among other details, that the death report is untrue, Leo's father is not really her father and that the case is connected to a top-secret government investigation. Self can be completely off the wall one minute—he lies outrageously to anyone who might have information and breaks-and-enters without compunction—and the next he's as comfortable as an old shoe, having a glass of Riesling and hanging out with his cat, Turbo. The eccentric detective is the big draw, with the less than action-packed investigation coming in a distant second. <em>(June)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>“A sophisticated, chilling and superbly written thriller.” <br />—Michael Dibdin, author of <em>Back to Bologna</em>  </p><p>“A delightfully unique protagonist, a marvelous complex mystery.”<br />—Mike Lawson, bestselling author of <em>The Second Perimeter </em>   </p><p>“Immensely pleasurable and deeply intriguing. Schlink has crafted a novel rich with the comforts of insight and humanity.” <br />—Dan Fesperman, author of <em>The Prisoner of Guant</em>á_namo _  </p><p>“From this highly gifted writer another delightfully winding crime story, told with bleak and bitter irony.” <br />—Håkan Nesser, author of <em>The Return</em></p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Stealth, cunning and killer instinct have ensured the survival of the flock of this gonzo eco-thriller's title, a population of prehistoric, predatory, highly intelligent giant proto-birds who've roamed for thousands of years in the trackless savanna of what's now a government military reservation in central Florida. Smith's entertaining debut kicks into high gear when the birds get caught between conflicting environmental and business interests. Vance Holcomb, a billionaire rogue environmentalist, is trying to protect the lurking creatures, while the Berg Brothers, a Disney-style entertainment conglomerate, crave the land as residential real estate. When a right-wing militia is hired to destroy the flock, a naïve young Fish and Wildlife officer and his girlfriend find themselves caught in the resulting melee. Smith maps out a complex living environment that makes the flock's continued existence almost believable and depicts human characters who match the killer birds in adaptability. If the book's conclusion feels a bit cynically anticlimactic, it still shows that humans are the deadliest predators of all. <em>(Aug.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"Smith maps out a complex living environment that makes the flock's continued existence almost believable and depicts human characters who match the killer birds in adaptability." --_Publishers Weekly__  </p><p>_"This book has everything a crypto fan could want; prehistoric beasts with near human intelligence; a large corporate entity intent on turning the last wild areas of Florida into suburbia; a self made billionaire ecologist intent on preserving these same areas; and a retired Marine colonel with his own militia and a desire for mayhem. Smith does a wonderful job of brewing these disparate ingredients into a tasty story. And the fact that the hero is not much of a hero leaves a pleasant after taste on the palate."--Cryptozoology.com  </p><p>"I read a lot of fiction, little of it sticking to the mental ribs, but The Flock delivered and will be one of those I revisit down the road, for sure. Give it a read, you won't be sorry!"--Steve Bissette </p>


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Based on interviews with 91 internationally recognized creative people-among them Nobel physicist John Bardeen, arts administrator-performer Kitty Carlisle Hart, writer Denise Levertov, jazz musician Oscar Peterson, electronics executive Robert Galvin-this book offers a highly readable anatomy of creativity. As Csikzentmihalyi (Flow) argues, creativity requires not only unusual individuals, but a culture and field of experts that can foster and validate such work. Most creative people, the author suggests, have dialectic personalities: smart yet naive, both extroverted and introverted, etc. Expanding on his previous book, Csikszentmihalyi suggests that complex and challenging work exemplifies fully engaged "flow." Synthesizing study results, he reports that none of the interviewees was popular during adolescence; while they were not necessarily more brilliant than their college peers, they displayed more "concentrated attention." Later, they kept a consistent focus on future work. The author reminds us that while individuals can make their own opportunities, a supportive society offering resources and rewards can foster creativity. His advice may sound like homilies-"Try to be surprised by something every day"-but is often worthy. 
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.  --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 

      
  Bringing together 30 years of research, Csikszentmihalyi (psychology, Univ. of Chicago) describes this book as "an effort to make more understandable the mysterious process by which men and women come up with new ideas and new things." Utilizing the interviews garnered from 91 respondents (ranging from philosopher Mortimer Adler to biologist Edward O. Wilson to politician Eugene McCarthy), the author of the best-selling Flow (LJ 3/15/90) demonstrates the processes that these acknowledged creative thinkers and doers go through and the characteristics that make them stand out. He deals with what makes them and others like them "creative"?which he defines as "a process by which a symbolic domain in the culture is changed"?and how the conduct of their professional and personal lives illustrates these traits. Csikszentmihalyi also deals with creativity and aging and ways to enhance one's own personal creativity. Although the benefits of this study to scholars are obvious, this thought-provoking mixture of the scholarly and colloquial will enlighten inquisitive general readers, too. A welcome addition to both academic and public libraries.?David M. Turkalo, Suffolk Univ. Law Sch. Lib., Boston
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.  --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 

      
  A mostly fascinating look at what makes creative people who  they are, gleaned largely from interviews with 91 individuals  from a wide variety of fields.  Despite the subtitle, social psychologist Csikszentmihalyi,  who invented the idea of ``flow'' and authored a book with that  title, writes relatively little about the enjoyable, ego- and  time- transcending absorption in a task that is conducive to  creativity and high achievement. Rather, he focuses on the  interplay between culture, the creative person, and the  ``domain'' (sociologese for ``field''), including the receptivity  of experts to new ideas and inventions. He quotes  extensively--too much so--from the subjects he and his research  team interviewed, but there are some gems among these passages,  such as writer Madeleine L'Engle's observation that to produce  good literature, ``your intuition and your intellect should be  working together . . . making love.'' Csikszentmihalyi's weakest  section consists of detailing ten personality polarities that  supposedly distinguish creative individuals, but that are also  applicable to ``balanced'' or ``fulfilled'' individuals. His best  sections consist of longer profiles of individuals as varied as  poet Anthony Hecht, ecologist Barry Commoner, and astronomer Vera  Rubin. Also valuable is a concluding prescriptive section with  some helpful advice to the average person on how to make his or  her thinking and way of living more creative, particularly a  passage on how to rethink and use a disappointing experiences,  such as being passed over for a promotion. Unfortunately,  redundancies make the work too long by at least a third, and some  meaningless or fatuous generalizations also mar the presentation  (e.g., ``Recent studies suggest that the amount of dalliance,  marital infidelity and sexual experimentation [among creative  people studied] is much less than earlier estimates had  suggested'').  Still, the rich anecdotal material Csikszentmihalyi has  mined and analyzed make this an important study of a vital topic.  ($40,000 ad/promo) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.  --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 

      
  "Accessible and enjoyable reading." -- --Washington Times

"Accessible and enjoyable reading.""--Washington Times""Although the benefits of this study to scholars are obvious, this thought-provoking mixture of scholarly and colloquial will enlighten inquisitive general readers, too.""--Library Journal (starred review)"


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Kim Stanley Robinson has earned a reputation as the master of Mars fiction, writing books that are scientific, sociological and, best yet, fantastic. <strong>Green Mars</strong> continues the story of humans settling the planet in a process called "terraforming." In <strong>Green Mars</strong>, which won the 1994 </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The sequel to Red Mars details an early 22nd-century Mars controlled by Earth's metanationals, gigantic corporations intent on exploiting Mars. Debate among the settlers--some native-born, some the surviving members of the First Hundred--is divided between the minimalist areoformists, who have come to love Mars in all its harshness, and the terraformists, who want to replicate Earth. As the surface of Mars warms and is seeded with genetically altered plants, the settlers await Earth's self-destruction, which they hope will give them a chance to claim their independence. They travel endlessly over every inch of Mars--no mean feat, since most of the First Hundred are criminals wanted for their roles in the failed revolt of 2061--with each kilometer and each group of settlers they meet described in laborious detail. When they're not traveling, these colonists contemplate the history of which they have been a part and which they can only partially recall as a result of their longevity treatments. With the collapse of Earth society and internecine battles among the metanationals, the Martian settlers liberate their cities and declare their planet free. This wide-ranging novel is loaded with all manner of scientific and historical detail, but the story bogs down under its very breadth and seems almost like a Martian year--twice as long as it needs to be. The next and final volume in the trilogy will be Blue Mars . <br />Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><em>Red Mars</em> opens with a tragic murder, an event that becomes the focal point for the surviving characters and the turning point in a long intrigue that pits idealistic Mars colonists against a desperately overpopulated Earth, radical political groups of all stripes against each other, and the interests of transnational corporations against the dreams of the pioneers.</p><p>This is a vast book: a chronicle of the exploration of Mars with some of the most engaging, vivid, and <em>human</em> characters in recent science fiction. Robinson fantasizes brilliantly about the science of terraforming a hostile world, analyzes the socio-economic forces that propel and attempt to control real interplanetary colonization, and imagines the diverse reactions that humanity would have to the dead, red planet. </p><p><em>Red Mars</em> is so magnificent a story, you will want to move on to __ and <strong>, or 1998's </strong>. <em>--L. Blunt Jackson</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The first installment in Robinson's ( Blind Geometer ) new trilogy is an action-packed and thoughtful tale of the exploration and settlement of Mars--riven by both personal and ideological conflicts--in the early 21st century. The official leaders of the "first hundred" (initial party of settlers) are American Frank Chalmers and Russian Maya Katarina Toitova, but subgroups break out under the informal guidance of popular favorites like the ebullient Arkady Nikoleyevich Bogdanov, who sets up a base on one of Mars's moons, and the enigmatic Hiroko, who establishes the planet's farm. As the group struggles to secure a foothold on the frigid, barren landscape, friction develops both on Mars and on Earth between those who advocate terraforming, or immediately altering Mars's natural environment to make it more habitable, and those who favor more study of the planet before changes are introduced. The success of the pioneers' venture brings additional settlers to Mars. All too soon, the first hundred find themselves outnumbered by newcomers and caught up in political problems as complex as any found on Earth. <br />Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Red Mars, the kickoff to Robinson's epic Mars trilogy, won the Nebula for best SF novel of 1992; its follow-up, Green Mars, won the parallel Hugo for 1994. The conclusion to the saga is not unlike the terrain of Robinson's Red Planet: fertile and fully developed in some spots, vast and arid in others?but, ultimately, it's an impressive achievement. Using the last 200 years of American history as his template for Martian history, Robinson projects his tale of Mars's colonization from the 21st century, in which settlers successfully revolt against Earth, into the next century, when various interests on Mars work out their differences on issues ranging from government to the terraforming of the planet and immigration. Sax Russell, Maya Toitovna and others reprise their roles from the first two novels, but the dominant "personality" is the planet itself, which Robinson describes in exhaustive naturalistic detail. Characters look repeatedly for sermons in its stones and are nearly overwhelmed by textbook abstracts on the biological and geological minutiae of their environment. Not until the closing chapters, when they begin confronting their mortality, does the human dimension of the story balance out its awesome ecological extrapolations. Robinson's achievement here is on a par with Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and Herbert's Dune, even if his clinical detachment may leave some readers wondering whether there really is life on Mars. Author tour. <br />Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>This third book in Robinson's hard-science Mars trilogy follows 1992 Nebula winner Red Mars (LJ 11/15/92) and 1994 Hugo winner Green Mars (LJ 3/15/94). In the 21st century, colonists almost succeed in terraforming Mars. While they fight for independence from Earth and attempt to avert a civil war, they find their new civilization threatened by an ice age. A well-written, thoughtful conclusion to the trilogy. Highly recommended for sf collections.<br />Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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A scorching new novel from the national bestselling author of Release.   Dr. Sophie Gable didn't expect her peaceful getaway to be shattered by the arrival of the half-dazed, dead-sexy Thomas Nicasio, an ex-Navy explosives specialist. Even though he's traumatized, Thomas can't resist the urge to overtake Sophie-and her willing submission makes him want her all the more. But danger is lurking close by, and if he can't face the demons of his past, he and Sophie could be the next victims in a pattern of meaningless violence.


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>For years, Jack Ryan, Jr. and his colleagues at the Campus have waged an unofficial and highly effective campaign against the terrorists who threaten western civilization. The most dangerous of these is the Emir. This sadistic killer has masterminded the most vicious attacks on the west and has eluded capture by the world’s law enforcement agencies. Now the Campus is on his trail. Joined by their latest recruits, John Clark and Ding Chavez, Jack Ryan, Jr. and his cousins, Dominick and Brian Caruso, are determined to catch the Emir and they will bring him in . . . dead or alive. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>Tom Clancy is America’s, and the world’s, favorite international thriller author. Starting with <em>The Hunt for Red October</em>, all thirteen of his previous books have hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. His books, <em>The Hunt for Red October</em>, <em>Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger</em>, and <em>The Sum of All Fears</em> have been made into major motion pictures. He lives in Maryland where he is a co-owner of the Baltimore Orioles.   </p><p>Grant Blackwood is the author of the Briggs Tanner books and the co-author along with Clive Cussler of <em>Spartan Gold</em>. Blackwood is a U.S. Navy veteran who lives in Colorado. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Martin compresses the wild and crazy end of the millennium and finds in this piercing novel a sardonic morality tale. Lacey Yeager is an ambitious young art dealer who uses everything at her disposal to advance in the world of the high-end art trade in New York City. After cutting her teeth at Sotheby's, she manipulates her way up through Barton Talley's gallery of "Very Expensive Paintings," sleeping with patrons, and dodging and indulging in questionable deals, possible felonies, and general skeeviness until she opens her own gallery in Chelsea. Narrated by Lacey's journalist friend, Daniel Franks, whose droll voice is a remarkable stand-in for Martin's own, the world is ordered and knowable, blindly barreling onward until 9/11. And while Lacey and the art she peddles survive, the wealth and prestige garnered by greed do not. Martin (an art collector himself) is an astute miniaturist as he exposes the sound and fury of the rarified Manhattan art world. If Shopgirl was about the absence of purpose, this book is about the absence of a moral compass, not just in the life of an adventuress but for an entire era. (Nov.) (c) <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>This thoroughly engaging primer on the art world is unusual on a number of levels. Although the lead characters are unlikable, the novel is hard to put down, offers an enlightening explication of how the market for art is created, and includes photos and absorbing detail on many of the artworks under discussion. The narrator, Daniel Franks, is an arts journalist who relates the story of avaricious, amoral Lacey Yeager, who is willing to do almost anything to move ahead in the art world. After landing an entry-level job at Sotheby’s, where her stint cataloging dusty works in the basement helps develop her eye for good art, Lacey moves on to working in a gallery, where she makes many important connections among collectors and dealers before opening her own gallery in Chelsea. Along the way, she sleeps with artists, collectors, and, finally, an FBI agent who investigates malfeasance in the art world. This page-turner is likely to make readers feel like they have been given a backstage pass to an elite world few are privileged to observe. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The best-selling author draws on his experience as a renowned art collector for this clever, convincingly detailed depiction of NYC’s art scene. --Joanne Wilkinson </p>


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Zinzi has a talent for finding lost things. To save herself, she's got to find the hardest thing of all: The truth.


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THE CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL SCIENCE FICTION SERIES IN HISTORYWith more than ten million copies sold, Frank Herbert's magnificent DUNE books stand among the major achievements of the imagination. God Emperor of Dune is the astonishing fourth book in the series. Centuries have passed on Dune itself, and the planet is green with life. Leto, the son of Dune's savior, is still alive but far from human, and the fate of all humanity hangs on his awesome sacrifice...


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Leto Atreides, the God Emperor of Dune, is dead. In the fifteen hundred years since his passing, the Empire has fallen into ruin. The great Scattering saw millions abandon the crumbling civilization and spread out beyond the reaches of known space. The planet Arrakis-now called Rakis-has reverted to its desert climate, and its great sandworms are dying.



 Now, the Lost Ones are returning home in pursuit of power. And as factions vie for control over the remnants of the Empire, a girl named Sheeana rises to prominence in the wastelands of Rakis, sending religious fervor throughout the galaxy. For she possesses the abilities of the Fremen sandriders-fulfilling a prophecy foretold by the late God Emperor...


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Thinner, bigger, faster, stronger... which 150 pages will you read? Is it possible to: Reach your genetic potential in 6 months? Sleep 2 hours per day and perform better than on 8 hours? Lose more fat than a marathoner by bingeing?   Indeed, and much more. This is not just another diet and fitness book.  The 4-Hour Body is the result of an obsessive quest, spanning more than a decade, to hack the human body. It contains the collective wisdom of hundreds of elite athletes, dozens of MDs, and thousands of hours of jaw-dropping personal experimentation. From Olympic training centers to black-market laboratories, from Silicon Valley to South Africa, Tim Ferriss, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek, fixated on one life-changing question:   For all things physical, what are the tiniest changes that produce the biggest results?  Thousands of tests later, this book contains the answers for both men and women.  From the gym to the bedroom, it’s all here, and it all works.    YOU WILL LEARN (in less than 30 minutes each): How to lose those last 5-10 pounds (or 100+ pounds) with odd combinations of food and safe chemical cocktails. * How to prevent fat gain while bingeing (X-mas, holidays, weekends) * How to increase fat-loss 300% with a few bags of ice * How Tim gained 34 pounds of muscle in 28 days, without steroids, and in four hours of total gym time * How to sleep 2 hours per day and feel fully rested * How to produce 15-minute female orgasms * How to triple testosterone and double sperm count* How to go from running 5 kilometers to 50 kilometers in 12 weeks * How to reverse “permanent” injuries * How to add 150+ pounds to your lifts in 6 months * How to pay for a beach vacation with one hospital visit          And that's just the tip of the iceberg.  There are more than 50 topics covered, all with real-world experiments, many including more than 200 test subjects.  You don't need better genetics or more discipline. You need immediate results that compel you to continue.  That’s exactly what The 4-Hour Body delivers.From the Hardcover edition.


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The extraordinary new crime novel from the New York Timesbestselling author. Dru Rayne and her uncle fled to L.A. after Hurricane Katrina; but now, five years later, they face a different danger. When Joe Pike witnesses Dru's uncle beaten by a protection gang, he offers his help, but neither of them want it-and neither do the federal agents mysteriously watching them. As the level of violence escalates, and Pike himself becomes a target, he and Elvis Cole learn that Dru and her uncle are not who they seem- and that everything he thought he knew about them has been a lie. A vengeful and murderous force from their past is now catching up to them . . . and only Pike and Cole stand in the way.


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><em>Decoded </em>is many things at once. At its core, <em>Decoded </em>is an eloquent and candid memoir detailing the story of a man who was born in a Brooklyn housing project, spent his teen years dealing drugs on the streets of Trenton, New Jersey, and grew up to be one of his generation’s most successful artists and businessmen. But <em>Decoded </em>is much more than a memoir: it is an intensely personal homage to hip-hop, as written by a man who so clearly adores the art form; it is a rare glimpse of the unexpectedly deep meanings behind the most recognizable rap lyrics of the last decade; and it is a truly moving collection of essays on topics ranging from Hurricane Katrina to the decline of the music industry. Unconventional type design, line drawings, and photographs visually emphasize the author’s message that rap is a form that transcends and defies easy categorization. There’s not much in the way of celebrity gossip here, but what we get, instead, is a gritty and enormously compelling look inside the cultural phenomenon of rap, from one of the men who contributed so much to its shape. <em>--Juliet Disparte</em> <em></em>  </p><p>Jay-Z on <em>Decoded</em><em></em></p><p>When you're famous and say you're writing a book, people assume that it's an autobiography--I was born here, raised there, suffered this, loved that, lost it all, got it back, the end. But that's not what this is. I've never been a linear thinker, which is something you can see in my rhymes. They follow the jumpy logic of poetry and emotion, not the straight line of careful prose. My book is like that, too.</p><p><em>Decoded</em> is first and foremost, a book of rhymes, which is ironic because I don't actually write my rhymes--they come to me in my head and I record them. The book is packed with the stories from my life that are the foundation of my lyrics--stories about coming up in the streets of Brooklyn in the 80's and 90's, stories about becoming an artist and entrepreneur and discovering worlds that I never dreamed existed when I was a kid. But it always comes back to the rhymes. There's poetry in hip-hop lyrics--not just mine, but in the work of all the great hip-hop artists, from KRS-One and Rakim to Biggie and Pac to a hundred emcees on a hundred corners all over the world that you've never heard of. The magic of rap is in the way it can take the most specific experience, from individual lives in unlikely places, and turn them into art that can be embraced by the whole world. <em>Decoded</em> is a book about one of those specific lives--mine--and will show you how the things I've experienced and observed have made their way into the art I've created. It's also about how my work is sometimes not about my life at all, but about pushing the boundaries of what I can express through the poetry of rap--trying to use words to find fresh angles into emotions that we all share, which is the hidden mission in even the hardest hip-hop. <em>Decoded</em> is a book about some of my favorite songs--songs that I unpack and explain and surround with narratives about what inspired them--but behind the rhymes is the truest story of my life.</p><hr /><h3>Book Description</h3><p><em>Decoded</em> is a book like no other: a collection of lyrics and their meanings that together tell the story of a culture, an art form, a moment in history, and one of the most provocative and successful artists of our time. </p>


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When Whit & Wisty were imprisoned by the wicked forces of the totalitarian regime known as the New Order, they were barely able to escape with their lives. Now part of a hidden community of teens like themselves, Whit and Wisty have established themselves as leaders of the Resistance, willing to sacrifice anything to save kids kidnapped and brutally imprisoned by the New Order.But the One has other plans in store for them: He needs Wisty, for she is "The One Who Has the Gift." While trying to figure out what that means, Whit and Wisty's suspenseful adventures through Overworld and Shadowland lead to a jaw-dropping climax and conclusion: the highly-anticipated fulfillment of the heart-pounding opening prologue of book one... The Execution of the Allgoods.


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Drawing on a range of sources, in addition to The Odyssey, Atwood scripts the narrative of Penelope, the faithful and devoted wife of Odysseus and her 12 maids, who were killed upon the master's return. Atwood proposes striking interpretations of her characters that challenge the patriarchal nature of Greek mythology. The chapters transition between the firsthand account of Penelope and the chorus of maids as listeners are taken from Penelope's early life to her afterlife. Laural Merlington charmingly delivers the witty and perceptive Penelope with realistic inflection and emphasis. Some of her vocal caricatures seem over the top, but most voices maintain a resemblance to our perceptions of these mythic people. The maids are presented as a saddened chorus by a cloning of Merlington's voice. These dark figures speak straightforwardly in their accusations of Penelope and Odysseus, while, at other times, they make use of rhyming. This format works well, though sometimes the cadence and rhyming scheme are off beat. This benefits the production by creating an eerie resonance and haunting demeanor that enhances this engaging tale.<br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>National Bestseller  </p><p>“<strong>The Penelopiad</strong>_ _is a brilliant tour de force that takes an aspect of <strong>The Odyssey</strong>_ _and opens up new vistas. . . . Atwood takes Penelope’s braininess and puts her at the centre. . . . Odysseus’s 20-year absence leaves lots of room for development; this is just the kind of thing that a retelling of a myth should do. . . . [Atwood] turns a gruesome, barbaric episode into an ironic tragedy of double agents.” <br />–_National Post_  </p><p>“Two things are apparent when you begin reading <strong>The Penelopiad</strong>. First, this is a writer who is confidently at the height of her powers. And, second, she’s having fun.” <br />–_The Vancouver Sun<br />_<br />“Atwood’s putting Penelope in the starring role is a fine and fresh revisioning. . . . Somehow (it is a measure of her genius that one cannot quite say how), she makes us hear the voice of Penelope, reflecting in Hades on her life, as if it were the voice of the most interesting gossip you have ever had coffee with. . . . This is a wonderful book.” <br />–_The Globe and Mail _  </p><p>“Feels like a breath of fresh air blown in from the Mediterranean Sea. . . . <strong>The Penelopiad</strong>_ _is Atwood in top form. The woman who wrote <strong>The Handmaid’s Tale</strong>_ _hasn’t lost her acerbic touch.” <br />–_The Gazette _(Montreal)  </p><p>“What . . . emerge[s] is a startling commentary on the responsibility of power, and of how privilege can shade into complicity. <strong>The Penelopiad</strong>_ <em>is anything but a woe-is-woman discourse. . . . </em> _adds Atwood’s sly, compassionate voice to the myth of Odysseus and Penelope and, in doing so, increases its already great depth.”<br />–_Calgary Herald_  </p><p>“In this exquisitely poised book, Atwood blends intimate humour with a finely tempered outrage at the terrible injustice of the maids, phrasing both in language as potent as a curse.” <br />–_Sunday Times _(UK)  </p><p>“Penelope flies with the help of the sardonic, dead-pan voice Atwood lends her, a tone — half Dorothy Parker, half Desperate housewives.” <br />–_The Independent _(UK)  </p><p>“‘Spry’ is a word that could almost have been invented to describe Margaret Atwood, who beadily and wittily retells the events surrounding <strong>The Odyssey</strong>_ _through the voice of Penelope. Pragmatic, clever, domestic, mournful, Penelope is a perfect Atwood heroine.” <br />–_The Spectator _(UK)  </p><p>“Alter[s] one’s point of view toward [the story], imbuing it with a modern sensibility yet revealing some eternal truths about men, women, and the issue of power, including the power to shape a narrative. . . . Atwood shows with intelligence and wit just how complicated and unpretty love can be.” <br />–_O, The Oprah Magazine_  </p><p>“Along with her presentation of the hallucinatory maids and Penelope’s straight talk about her husband, her girly laments about the ferocious competition of Helen and her queenly worries about fending off the suitors, Atwood’s brilliance emerges in the skillful way she has woven her own research on the anthropological underpinnings of Homer’s epic into the patterns of her own stylized version of the poem. . . . A fascinating and rather attractive version of this old, old story, a creation tale about the founding of our civilization meant to be heard over and over and over.” <br />–_Chicago Tribune <br />_<br />“Atwood paints a shrewdly insightful picture of what life in those days might actually have been like. . . . By turns slyly funny and fiercely indignant, Ms. Atwood’s imaginative, ingeniously-constructed ‘deconstruction’ of the old tale reveals it in a new–and refreshingly different–light.” <br />–_The Washington Times  </p><p>_“Atwood’s 17th work of fiction is a gem…flaunts an acid wit and a generous dose of lyricism…In Atwood’s imagination, Penelope and her handmaids are remarkably complex: They are simultaneously ancient and modern, lighthearted and grief-stricken, disenfranchised and powerful.”<br />–_Baltimore Sun_</p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><strong>A Letter from Author Dean Koontz</strong>   </p><p><strong>Villains and Vegetables</strong><br />Readers ask certain questions over and over again. Such as, "How often have you been institutionalized?" and "How does your wife sleep at night, knowing what kind of stories spring from your mind?" and "If you could be any kind of vegetable, what vegetable would you be?" </p><p>Because I found most schoolwork tedious, I felt as if I had been institutionalized for fifteen years--throughout grade school, high school, and college. In the grim institution called high school, as a kid in a small town, my therapy consisted of reading novels and listening to rock-and-roll on tower-of-power radio stations in distant cities. In college, my therapy was all-night pinochle tournaments. I cut more classes than Sweeney Todd cut throats. </p><p>My wife sleeps peacefully, thank you. She knows I'm basically a pussycat. We have been together since high school, and in all those years, the only living thing she has seen me cut is myself; any time I pick up the simplest tool or kitchen implement to do some minor household task, my blood will inevitably flow. I've been known to cut myself accidentally with something as seemingly safe as a rolling pin. </p><p>Sugar snap peas. </p><p>Another frequently asked question is "How do you create such bizarre yet convincing and terrifying villains." The glib answer is to say I watch the evening news. In fact, however, the antagonists in my novels create themselves, just as do the protagonists. I conceive a character around a seed of truth, some essential fact that lies at the core of him, then I give him free will, and I discover more about him as the story unfolds. Sometimes, when characters surprise me with their revelations, it seems as if they are indeed real, that I am writing in a kind of dream state that allows me to bridge this world with some parallel reality and tap the consciousness of people living </p><p>Alton Turner Blackwood, the villain of <em>Darkness Under the Sun</em> and of the forthcoming novel <em>What the Night Knows</em>, literally appeared to me in one of those exceedingly vivid dreams that are peculiar to many of us who, suffering allergies, take two or three Benedryl every night for too many weeks. Benedryl dreams are, in my experience, never flat-out nightmares. They generally do not have much in the way of storylines, but the people in them are so dimensional and so exquisitely detailed that they seem as real as anyone you would meet in real life. They are sometimes strange, as well, and menacing, though these are for the most part dreams without action, so their menace is implied. </p><p>The morning after the Benedryl dream in which Alton Turner Blackwood appeared (though he had no name in the dream), I wrote down a physical description of him, which I used word for word in the finished novel: </p><p><em>He stood six feet five, scarecrow-thin but strong. His hands were immense, the spatulate fingers as suctorial as the toe discs of a web-foot toad, large bony wrists like robot joints, orangutan-long arms. His shoulder blades were thick and malformed, so that bat wings appeared to be furled under his shirt.</em></p><p>As for how his face looks and as for the explanation of how and why such a specimen might be born: I'll let you discover those things in the novella and the novel. </p><p>Of the scores of evil characters I have created, none has so affected me as Alton Turner Blackwood. In spite of all his physical and mental strangenesses, I would not be surprised to see him one evening, walking along a lonely highway or perhaps standing under a lamppost across the street, still and watchful. Of all the eerie characters met in Benedryl dreams--many of them like people you might expect to see in Tim Burton movies--he is the only one who has made a second appearance in my sleep. And he's appeared three times. I don't know what to make of that. If his repeated appearance means anything, I guess I'll find out eventually. </p><p>Baby carrots are also cool. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>In the late summer of a long ago year, a killer arrived in a small city. His name was Alton Turner Blackwood, and in the space of a few months he brutally murdered four families. His savage spree ended only when he himself was killed by the last survivor of the last family, a fourteen-year-old boy.  </p><p>Half a continent away and two decades later, someone is murdering families again, recreating <br />in detail Blackwood’s crimes. Homicide detective John Calvino is certain that his own family—his wife and three children—will be targets in the fourth crime, just as his parents and sisters were victims on that distant night when he was fourteen and killed their slayer.  </p><p>As a detective, John is a man of reason who deals in cold facts. But an extraordinary experience convinces him that sometimes death is not a one-way journey, that sometimes the dead return.  </p><p>Here is ghost story like no other you have read. In the Calvinos, Dean Koontz brings to life a family that might be your own, in a war for their survival against an adversary more malevolent than any he has yet created, with their own home the battleground. Of all his acclaimed novels, none exceeds <em>What the Night Knows</em> in power, in chilling suspense, and in sheer mesmerizing storytelling. </p>


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#1 New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag returns with her second thriller in the Deeper than the Dead microseries, exploring the early days of forensic investigation, the characteristics of innocence-and the nature of evil.   Marissa Fordham had a past full of secrets, a present full of lies. Everyone knew of her, but no one knew her.  When Marissa is found brutally murdered, with her young daughter, Haley, resting her head on her mother's bloody breast, she sends the idyllic California town of Oak Knoll into a tailspin. Already on edge with the upcoming trial of the See- No-Evil killer, residents are shocked by reports of the crime scene, which might not have been discovered for days had it not been for a chilling 911 call: a small child's voice saying, "My daddy hurt my mommy."  Sheriff's detective Tony Mendez faces a puzzle with nothing but pieces that won't fit. To assist with his witness, Haley, he calls teacher-turned-child advocate Anne Leone. Anne's life is hectic enough-she's a newlywed and a part- time student in child psychology, and she's the star witness in the See-No-Evil trial. But one look at Haley, alone and terrified, and Anne's heart is stolen.  As Tony and Anne begin to peel back the layers of Marissa Fordham's life, they find a clue fragment here, another there. And just when it seems Marissa has taken her secrets to the grave, they uncover a fact that puts Anne and Haley directly in the sights of a killer: Marissa Fordham never existed.


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A HANDY GUIDE FULL OF HOW-TO TIPS AND SAGE ADVICE FROM GRANDFATHERS   As members of the Greatest Generation, our grandfathers were not only defined by the Depression but also by their heroic service to the country in World War II. Courageous, responsible, and involved, they understand sacrifice, hard work, and how to do whatever is necessary to take care of their loved ones. They also know how to have a rollicking good time. Sensible, fun, and inspiring, How to Build a Fire offers a rare glimpse into the hearts and minds of grandfathers near and far by sharing their practical skills and sweet stories on how to be stronger, smarter, richer, and happier. Inside are more than one hundred essential step-by-step tips for fixing, leading, prospering, playing, and hosting, including how to   • buck up and be brave in the face of adversity • play hard and break in a baseball mitt • bait a hook and catch a big fish  • look dapper and tie a perfect tie  • get a raise and earn more • write a love letter and kindle romance • change a flat tire and save the day  • stand up and give a sparkling toast  • play the harmonica and make your own music   Loaded with charming illustrations, good humor, and warm nostalgia, How to Build a Fire is the perfect handbook for guys or gals of any age. The first of its kind, this collection of our grandfathers’ hard-earned wisdom will help you build confidence and get back to what’s really important in life.


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Scargill Cove is the perfect place for Fallon Jones, confirmed recluse and investigator of the paranormal. It's a hot spot, a convergence point for unusually strong currents of energy, which might explain why the town draws misfits and drifters like moths to a flame. Now someone else has been drawn to the cove - Isabella Valdez, on the run from some very dangerous men.When she starts work as Fallon's assistant, she impresses him by organising his pathologically chaotic office - and doesn't bat an eye at the psychic aspect of his job. She's a kindred spirit, sanctuary from a world that considers his talents a form of madness. But after a routine case unearths an antique clock infused with dark energy, Fallon and Isabella are dragged into the secret history of Scargill Cove and forced to fight for their lives as they unravel a cut-throat conspiracy with roots in the Jones family business . . . and Isabella's family tree.


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


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>After the spectacular debut of __ in 1976, Anne Rice put aside her vampires to explore other literary interests--Italian castrati in <strong> and the Free People of Color in </strong>. But Lestat, the mischievous creator of Louis in <em>Interview</em>, finally emerged to tell his own story in the 1985 sequel, <em>The Vampire Lestat</em>.</p><p>As with the first book in the series, the novel begins with a frame narrative. After over a half century underground, Lestat awakens in the 1980s to the cacophony of electronic sounds and images that characterizes the MTV generation. Particularly, he is captivated by a fledgling rock band named Satan's Night Out. Determined both to achieve international fame and end the centuries of self-imposed vampire silence, Lestat takes command of the band (now renamed "The Vampire Lestat") and pens his own autobiography. The remainder of the novel purports to be that autobiography: the vampire traces his mortal youth as the son of a marquis in pre-Revolutionary France, his initiation into vampirism at the hands of Magnus, and his quest for the ultimate origins of his undead species.</p><p>While very different from the first novel in the Vampire Chronicles, <em>The Vampire Lestat</em> has proved to be the foundation for a broader range of narratives than is possible from Louis's brooding, passive perspective. The character of Lestat is one of Rice's most complex and popular literary alter egos, and his Faustian strivings have a mythopoeic resonance that links the novel to a grand tradition of spiritual and supernatural fiction. <em>--Patrick O'Kelley</em></p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Rice continues what promises to be a series with this fascinating sequel to her Interview with the Vampire. One of its characters, Lestat, encouraged by the telling of that story, narrates his own history, focusing on his boyhood transformation, subsequent wanderings, and constant attempts to rationalize his newly acquired immortality. Don't expect the usual stake-in-the-heart story; Rice is creating a new vampire mythos, mixing ancient Egyptian legends into her narrative, and weaving a rich and unforgettable tale of dazzling scenes and vivid personalities. This extraordinary book outclasses most contemporary horror fiction and is a novel to be savored. Highly recommended. Literary Guild alternate. Eric W. Johnson, Univ. of New Haven Lib., West Haven<br />Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>In this engrossing and hypnotic tale of witchcraft and the occult spanning four centuries, we meet a great dynasty of witches--a family given to poetry and incest, to murder and philosophy, a family that over the ages is haunted by a powerful, dangerous and seductive being. </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>"We watch and we are always here" is the motto of the Talamasca, a saintly group with extrasensory powers which has for centuries chronicled the lives of the Mayfairs--a dynasty of witches that brought down a shower of flames in 17th-century Scotland, fled to the plantations of Haiti and on to the New World, where they settled in the haunted city of New Orleans. Rice ( The Queen of the Damned ) plumbs a rich vein of witchcraft lore, conjuring in her overheated, florid prose the decayed antebellum mansion where incest rules, dolls are made of human bone and hair, and violent storms sweep the skies each time a witch dies and the power passes on. Newly annointed is Rowan Mayfair, a brilliant California neurosurgeon kept in ignorance of her heritage by her adoptive parents. She returns to the fold after bringing back Michael Curry from the dead; he, too, has unwanted extrasensory gifts and, like Rowan and the 12 Mayfairs before her, has beheld Lasher: devil, seducer, spirit. Now Lasher wants to come through to this world forever and Rowan is the Mayfair who can open the door. This massive tome repeatedly slows, then speeds when Rice casts off the Talamasca's pretentious, scholarly tones and goes for the jugular with morbid delights, sexually charged passages and wicked, wild tragedy. 300,000 first printing; BOMC main selection. <br />Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>In a swirling universe filled with death and life, corruption and innocence, this mesmerizing novel takes us on a wondrous journey back through the centuries to a civilization half-human, of wholly mysterious origin, at odds with mortality and immortality, justice and guilt. It is an enchanted, hypnotic world that could only come from the imagination of Anne Rice... </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Cutting-edge gene mapping intertwines with ancient mysteries in this continuation of Rice's series of novels about witches and the supernatural. A "taltos" is the superhuman result of the crossbreeding of two human witches who possess an extra chromosome; almost a monster, the creature is capable of beastly behavior fuelled by an extraordinary sex drive. In Lasher , the eponymous offspring of Michael Curry and Rowan Mayfair of the New Orleans Mayfair witch clan proved to be just such a mutant; before he was slain, he repeatedly raped his own mother, siring a little "goblin" daughter, Emaleth. This new novel features a second taltos, also fathered by Curry, but mothered by a 13-year-old sexpot niece of Rowan's named Mona, who is herself the most powerful witch of the Mayfair clan. Other plot elements involve renegade members of the secret order of Talamasca, who want to kidnap and crossbreed two taltoses; a 200-year-old taltos from New York named Ashlar, who is posing as a toy-industry magnate specializing in dolls; and a dwarf called Samuel from the witches' holy glen in Donnelaith, Scotland. Pulsing with a persisent sense of foreboding, the novel is soggy with meandering, atmospheric prose that verges on softcore porn. And, as usual, what happens in the book is clearly less important to the author than the number of chills she can send down readers' spines. She has not lost her touch. 600,000 first printing; Literary Guild main selection. <br />Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Her first book since </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Neither a vampire nor a witch nor a mummy, but a genie provides the focus of Rice's latest (after Memnoch the Devil). The queen of high-decadent gothic deviates from her formula of interlacing spirituality and carnality here: only in the novel's latter pages do lusty sensuousness and brisk pacing leaven a series of cerebral metaphysical struggles. This unusual approach arises from the central dilemma of the story. "Servant of the Bones" Azriel is a "genii" who, until his emergence in 1995 New York, is only a shell filled with spirit, not a corporeal presence ripe for Rice's usual dark eroticism. In the novel's first half, Azriel tells his tale: born a Hebrew in Babylon at the time of Cyrus, he is sacrificed in order to free his people, his body boiled down to golden bones. He then is cursed by a necromancer to be bound to the bones. Over the millennia, he is a spirit at the beck and call of a series of "Masters" who possess his casket. When Azriel calls himself into human form in the present day, he encounters plastic, airplanes?and the Temple of the Mind, a cult of computer-created creed that threatens to kill two-thirds of the earth's population. Azriel's emergence as a sensual being and the suspense generated by the Temple's Last Days project will help readers to forget the book's initial 300 pages, in which they must track Azriel from swirling particles to thickening flesh. Yet Rice's impeccable research into science, history and Jewish scholarship will probably leave readers impressed and entertained. 1,000,000 first printing; BOMC and QPB main selections. <br />Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Anne Rice fans will greet <em>Pandora: New Tales of the Vampires</em>, the first of her new vampire chronicles, as hungrily as the Fang Gang facing a fresh new neck. Our heroine, Pandora, a senator's daughter in Augustus Caesar's day, flees to Antioch when her family gets killed and discovers the antidote to stern Roman rationalism in the occult wisdom of the East. "Something attacked my reason," Pandora writes. "The very thing the Roman Emperors had so feared in Egyptian cults and Oriental cults swept over me: mystery and emotion which claim a superiority to reason and law." </p><p>Pandora gets her sexy vampire initiation at the fangs of handsome Marius (who later inducted Rice's famed vampire Lestat). Pandora tells how a nice Roman girl became a vampire in modern Paris, but mostly the book celebrates the sights and sounds (and philosophical bloodlettings) of the classical world. <em>Pandora</em> is more like Robert Graves's sublime </p><p>Yet <em>Pandora</em> is a logical extension of Rice's work, and Pandora is a combination of her past vampire heroes and the nakedly, horrifyingly autobiographical heroine of Rice's 1997 novel <em>Violin</em> is remarkably messy, but it captures the volcanic passion that erupts in her best work--Rice calls it "a study in pain." <em>Pandora</em> is really a dramatized debate between passion and reason, which Pandora calls "male reason." She teases her vampire mentor: "Marius guarded his delicate rationality as a Vestal Virgin guards a sacred flame. If ever any ecstatic emotion took hold of me, he [would] tell me in no uncertain terms that it was irrational, irrational, irrational!" (To hear how close Pandora's voice is to her passionate creator, listen to the 1997 audiocassette </p><p>Rice's research gives fresh blood to her storytelling. Even her chronic third-act problem scarcely slows down this brisk romp of a novel. Pandora has intellectual thirst as well as blood lust, and she conveys the high old time Rice obviously had imbibing historical lore. "It is fun to read these mad Gnostics!" exults Pandora in the early Christian era. It is also fun to read this mad Pandora. Anne Rice hasn't been this fun to read in years. </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Although Rice bid goodbye to the vampire Lestat in Memnoch the Devil, her fifth novel in The Vampire Chronicles, she has not abandoned vampires altogether. Two installments are planned this year in her New Tales of the Vampires series, and in the first of these, the ancient vampire Pandora tells her story. Urged on by David Talbot?fledgling vampire, self-appointed chronicler and former psychic detective?Pandora documents in sophisticated detail her pre-vampire existence as the privileged daughter of a Roman senator. She's a curious character, first introduced in The Queen of the Damned, in which Marius described her as the Greek courtesan who seduced him into making her a vampire and helped him care for the vampire progenitors until strife forced them apart. Here, Pandora herself sets the record straight. Born early in Augustus's reign, the educated, spirited Pandora was no courtesan?though we do see her challenge the sexual mores of her moment. When Tiberius brings chaos to Rome, and dishonor and death to Pandora's family, she goes to Antioch and tries to solve the mystery of her compelling blood dreams about Egypt. There, she reunites with her childhood crush, Marius, and learns from him what it means to be a vampire. Along the way, we find little of Rice's trademark eroticism, but Pandora has long been one of her more elusive characters, so fans will relish this vivid rendering of her life and times. Random House audio.<br />Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Tired of the same old vampires? Check out Anne Rice's new race of undead bloodsuckers, independent of the Lestat series. Her alterna-vamp books began with __, but the second of her New Tales of the Vampires, <em>Vittorio</em>, is truly a new beginning--a more controlled story and probably the best of her last half-dozen books.</p><p>Rice has called <em>Vittorio</em> her vampire version of <em>Romeo and Juliet</em>. The hunky Vittorio is sweet 16 and "incalculably rich" in 15th-century Italy, the epoch of the Medicis and Vittorio's favorite painter, madly passionate Filippo Lippi. Florence is to <em>Vittorio</em> what New Orleans is to <em>Interview with the Vampire</em>.</p><p>One night, Vittorio's family is butchered by vampires. The gorgeous Ursula spares Vittorio to make him her reluctant undying sweetheart. Ursula's ravishings of Vittorio recall the erotica Rice wrote under her own name and the pen names Anne Rampling and A.N. Roquelaure. </p><p>Vittorio flees to the creepy town of Santa Maddalana, which has made a pact to sacrifice its young to Lord Florian's vampire horde. Vittorio is bent on revenge as he invades the eerie Court of the Ruby Grail (i.e. blood), as angry with the child-sacrificing humans as he is with Florian's fang gangsters. Torn between lust, murderous rage, and vampire thirst, Vittorio is one interestingly troubled soul.</p><p>Rice urges readers to enter Vittorio's world by reading the sources she embroiders, __ and <strong>, and to get a feel for the scary communion Vittorio sees in the Court of the Ruby Grail by listening to </strong>. <em>--Tim Appelo</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Blood and holy water both run thick through the streets of 15th-century Florence in Rice's 21st novel of the undead, the second in a series of New Tales that leave New Orleans's cemeteries behind. While there's not much plot to this lushly described story of how Vittorio di Riniari became a vampire, there's plenty of period detail about Italy's Golden Age. With the courtly arrogance of one who's to the manor born, Renaissance man Vittorio tells of his seduction into evil immortality. As the 16-year-old scion of a wealthy home, he rubs elbows with Cosimo de Medici and is attracted to the work of Fra Filippo Lippi, whose tormented paintings of angels mirror Vittorio's own heart. In the year 1450, he witnesses the massacre of his entire family by a band of demons. Fleeing from the primal scene, he follows the fiends in search of vengeance, and instead is overcome by the devastatingly beautiful "strega," the bare-shouldered Ursula. His desire for revenge?and his desire for Ursula?propel him in a dizzy descent to religion's darkest side, especially after Ursula's vampire attentions render him able to see and converse with angels. Though the narrative is presented as a tragic tale of doomed love, we know so little of the swooning, inarticulate Ursula that there's hardly any romance or suspense. And while Vittorio's particular road to hell is a new entry in Rice's repertoire of vampirification, much of the material is familiar: the rich, brash young man transformed against his will who agonizes over his new existence. Vittorio's painstaking narration of his biography takes so long to acquire momentum that when at one point he admits, "This chapter ought to be over," even diehard readers may be tempted to agree that it's time for a new vampire for a new age. Agent, Lynn Nesbit. (Mar.) FYI: Rice includes a bibliography of readings for greater appreciation of the time period.<br />Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>At the center of this dark and compelling tale is Rowan Mayfair, queen of the coven, who must flee from the darkly brutal, yet irresistable demon known as Lasher. With a dreamlike power, this wickedly seductive entity draws us through twilight paths, telling a chilling and hypnotic story of spiritual aspiration and passion. </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Returning to the Mayfair clan she introduced in The Witching Hour , Rice offers another vast, transcontinental saga of witchcraft and demonism in the tradition of Gothic melodrama. The eponymous Lasher is a demon spirit who preys on female Mayfairs in his attempt to procreate. Rowan Mayfair, queen of the coven who has borne Lasher's child, has now disappeared. At times this main narrative is lost as the story moves from the Louisiana Mayfairs to the Scottish Donnelaiths and the clandestine London Telamasca society, with copious personal histories and myriad characters. Long sections ramble without a compelling point of view, and are dampened by stock elements: cliched wind storms, sexy witches, the endless supply of money the Telemasca has at its disposal. At times, Lasher is too much in evidence (rattling the china, gnashing his teeth) to be frightening. But embedded in this antique demonism is a contemporary tale of incest and family abuse that achieves resonance. It is maintained through the character of Lasher, both child and man at the same time, who manipulates his victims with his own pain. At their best, Rice's characters rise above the more wooden plot machinations with an ironic and modern complexity: Mona, the young feminist witch with sharklike business instincts; Julien, the dead patriarch, who movingly recalls his male lovers; Yuri, the clever Serbian orphan. Despite lapses into uninspired language, ultimately the novel is compelling through its exhaustive monumentality. 700,000 first printing; Literary Guild main selection. <br />Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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


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In the final volume of Anne Rice's deliciously tantalizing erotic trilogy, Beauty's adventures on the dark side of sexuality make her the bound captive of an Eastern Sultan and a prisoner in the exotic confines of the harem. As this voluptuous adult fairy tale moves toward conclusion, all Beauty's encounters with the myriad variations of sexual fantasy are presented in a sensuous, rich prose that intensifies this exquisite rendition of Love's secret world, and makes the Beauty series and incomparable study of erotica. In it, Anne Rice makes the forbidden side of passion a doorway into the hidden regions of the psyche and the heart.


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. Fowler's unique blend of the comic and the grotesque is on full display in his excellent seventh Peculiar Crimes Unit mystery (after 2008's <em>The Victoria Vanishes</em>). With the special police unit shut down, Arthur Bryant is feeling withdrawn and depressed while his partner, John May, is considering PI work.Â WhenÂ a former team member stumbles on a beheaded corpse in the heart of London's King's Cross neighborhood,Â May artfully uses the discovery to gain the PCU another lease on life. He persuades the higherups that unsolved gang crimes in the area could threaten the economic benefit anticipated from the 2012 Olympics. Given one week to solve the case, without any official sanction or access to police resources, May pulls Bryant out of his doldrums and reassembles the unit. To May's dismay, his colleague is more interested in reports that a man wearing a stag's head has been seen in the area. The pacing, prose, planting of clues and characterizations are all top-notch. <em>(Dec.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>The efforts of various officials in the London police have finally succeeded in breaking up the Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU). While most of the team have started remaking their lives, brilliant, eccentric Arthur Bryant has become a morose recluse. His old friend John May is definitely concerned. Then along comes a case that May thinks might pique Arthur’s interest and put the unit back in business: a headless corpse is found stuffed in an old freezer. Strangely, it’s not the unfortunate dead guy that calls to the elderly Bryant. He’s more interested in the oddly dressed man causing havoc around a King’s Cross renovation project. With the group’s future at stake, which case will win out? With a liberal dose of regional history and some surprising humor, this ensemble crime story has lots to offer—not the least of which are a couple of great, unexpected twists that not only change the makeup of the PCU but also lead its members straight into adventures to come. --Stephanie Zvirin </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p><em>Starred Review.</em> Blending humor and brilliant detection, Fowler's excellent fifth novel to feature the engaging if bizarre exploits of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit (after 2006's <em>Ten Second Staircase</em>) offers two challenging mysteries for his pair of eccentric sleuths, Arthur Bryant and John May. While driving to an international spiritualists' convention, Bryant and May find themselves trapped on the road near Dartmoor in a blizzard. Lurking among the stalled vehicles is a man who may be a multiple murderer. At the same time, the two try to help via cellphone their colleagues back in London, who must solve the locked-room murder of a PCU member, retiring pathologist Oswald Finch, before the unit is finally shut down for good. The fair-play solution will particularly satisfy lovers of golden age mysteries. Once again, Fowler shows himself to be a master of the impossible crime tale. <em>(June)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p><em>Starred Review</em> Senior-citizen sleuths Arthur Bryant and John May have never been ones to play by the rules. As the most distinguished (read oldest) members of London's peculiar Peculiar Crimes Unit, the men pride themselves on cracking cases no right-minded detectives would attempt. This fifth offering (after <em>Ten Second Staircase,</em> 2006) finds the two stranded in a deadly blizzard en route to a spiritualists' convention. (Detective Bryant has long been both ridiculed and admired for his obsession with the occult.) In their absence, the unit's forensic pathologist, who had been having second thoughts about his imminent retirement, is found dead in the morgue. The room was locked from the inside, and only four members of the PCU had keys. Patchy cell-phone reception can't keep Bryant and May from participating in the investigation. Meanwhile, the snow (and plot) thickens when the duo encounters a young woman and her son seeking protection from a charming French drifter. Sherlock Holmes meets Inspector Clouseau in this mordant, award-winning series in which Fowler gleefully skewers religious zealots and government officials alike. Of one of the latter he writes: "It was . . . as if Countess Bathory and Vlad the Impaler had mated to create the perfect bureaucratic hatchet man." <em>Allison Block</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. Traditional mystery buffs with a taste for the offbeat will relish British author Fowler's wonderful second contemporary whodunit featuring the Peculiar Crimes Unit and its elderly odd couple, Arthur Bryant and John May (after 2004's <em>Full Dark House</em>). A former colleague asks the eccentric Bryant, whose lack of polish coupled with a razor-sharp mind will remind many of Carter Dickson's Sir Henry Merrivale, to investigate his sister's death. Incredibly, the victim was found dead in her basement, apparently drowned, despite the absence of any moisture on her body or her surroundings. Bryant rapidly loops in his more down-to-earth partner, May, who has also been looking into a mystery with a personal connection—the unusual nocturnal ramblings of a disgraced academic who has begun probing London's underground rivers. More strange deaths follow before the unmasking of the surprising murderer. The author's black humor evokes Peter Lovesey's Peter Diamond series, and his successful revival of the impossible crime genre is reminiscent of John Sladek's superb Thackeray Phin novels, <em>Invisible Green</em> and <em>Black Aura</em>. Best known for his horror fiction (_Rune_, etc.), Fowler should win a whole new set of readers with these fair-play puzzlers. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Britain's Fowler seems to be one of those multitalented types who can write anything and do it well. He has written edgy thrillers, wildly imaginative fantasies, and memorable short fiction; now, with the Bryant and May series (of which this is the second installment), he has come up with a clever twist on the traditional police procedural. Arthur Bryant and John May, "both far beyond the statutory retirement age," are members of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit; they've been partners for more than 50 years. You don't see many senior citizens in mystery fiction who aren't amateur sleuths, but these guys are pros, and they're about as far away from your typical kindly old meddler as you can imagine. This time they're trying to find out how an elderly woman managed to drown in her dry basement, and the plot itself proves perfectly satisfying. But the real thrill here is the delightful duo in the starring roles, two fresh and unusual characters who manage to breathe new life into an established genre in which it's getting harder and harder to find anything genuinely fresh. <em>David Pitt</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<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><h3>From the Inside Flap</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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This sequel to The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, the first of Anne Rice's elegantly written volumes of erotica, continues her explicit, teasing exploration of the psychology of human desire. Beauty, having indulged in a secret and forbidden infatuation with the rebellious slave Prince Tristan, is sent away from the Satyricon-like world of the castle. Once again Rice's fabulous tale of pleasure and pain dares to explore the most primal and well-hidden desires of the human heart.


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Past midnight, Chyna Shepherd, twenty- six, gazed out a moonlit window, unable to sleep on her first night in the Napa Valley home of her best friend's family.  Instinct proves reliable.  A murderous sociopath, Edgler Forman Vess, has entered the house, intent on killing everyone inside.  A self-proclaimed "homicidal adventure," Vess lives only to satisfy all appetites as they arise, to immense himself in sensation, to live without fear, remorse or limits, to live with intensity.  Chyna is trapped in his deadly orbit.

Chyna is a survivor, toughened by a lifelong struggle for safety and self-respect.  Now she will be tested as never before.  At first her sole aim is to get out alive-until, by chance, she learns the identity of Vess's next intended victim, a faraway innocent only she can save.  Driven by a newly discovered thirst for meaning beyond mere self-preservation, Chyna musters every inner resource she has to save an endangered girl—as moment by moment, the terrifying threat Edgler Foreman Vess intensifies.


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Moore's debut cleverly sets an accidental investigator on the track of an old document within the world of Sherlock Holmes buffs, though the results may please those with only a superficial knowledge of the great detective. In January 2010, Harold White, "a freelance literary researcher" who helps defend Hollywood studios against claims of copyright infringement, is inducted into the pre-eminent Sherlockian society, the Baker Street Irregulars, at their annual New York City dinner. During the festivities, scholar Alex Cale plans to present a long-lost diary penned by Arthur Conan Doyle that he's discovered, but someone strangles Cale before he can do so. Doyle's great-grandson hires White to solve the murder and trace the diary, which is missing from Cale's hotel room. Chapters alternate between White's amateur sleuthing in Europe and Doyle's own account of his search for a serial killer, aided by Dracula creator Bram Stoker. Admirers of similar efforts by Anthony Boucher, H. Paul Jeffers, and Arthur Lewis will find this falls short of their standard. (Dec.) (c) <br />(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p><em>Starred Review</em> The problem with Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories is that there aren’t enough of them. Fans try to fill the gap with spin-offs, some of which work better than others. This engaging riff on the familiar themes by first-novelist Moore is one of the best. His book alternates two stories and two centuries. The modern hero is twentysomething Harold White—mild, bookish, and smart. He’s just been initiated into the prestigious Baker Street Irregulars when a premier Holmes expert announces that he has found Conan Doyle’s long-lost 1900 diary. Then the expert is murdered. Maybe. The game is afoot, and so’s Harold. The hero of the alternate chapters is Conan Doyle himself, gleeful after sending that hawkshaw Holmes to his death at Reichenbach Falls and ready to write real literature. But murders intervene, and he and his friend Bram Stoker must investigate. All these gumshoes, past and present, use Holmes’ methods. Moore spins his tale in prose that shifts easily from exposition to pathos to sly comedy. It’s based on fact: in 2004, a premier Sherlockian was found dead after claiming he’d discovered Conan Doyle’s lost papers. Mystery fans should love the mix of historical fiction and contemporary puzzle-solving. And Sherlockians? Try keeping them away. --Don Crinklaw </p>


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Being a kid with wings--constantly on the run--has never been easy, and Max and her flock are getting tenser than ever. First, on a trip to Africa, they meet a mysterious billionaire whose intense scrutiny of the Flock makes her fear the worst. Then, a cryptic message from a young girl arrives, warning them "The sky will fall." And as if an impending apocalypse weren't bad enough, canny birdkid Angel makes a dire prophecy about Max's soul mate: Fang will be the first to die. Max's desperate desire to protect Fang brings the two closer than ever. But can the team weather the storm, or will the turmoil rip them apart for the last time?


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>At the start of this competent but unoriginal thriller from Mooney (_Deviant Ways_), it's 1984 and teenager Darby McCormick is hanging out in the woods with her friends Melanie Cruz and Stacey Stephens when they stumble across a man killing a woman. Darby calls the police, which sets in motion events that lead to Stacey being murdered and Melanie abducted. Fast forward to 2007: Darby, with a doctorate in criminal psychology, is working as a crime scene investigator for the Boston Crime Lab. When Darby finds herself investigating another missing girl, Carol Cranmore, she vows to find the perpetrator and save Carol. The fiendishly clever killer is always two steps ahead, while Darby and her handsome partner, Jackson "Coop" Cooper, must struggle with the usual bureaucratic snafus, disbelieving supervisors and obstructive FBI agents. There are twists and turns aplenty, but they're all based on familiar formulas, including the final, de rigueur chase through the killer's basement torture chamber. <em>(Mar.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"Scary story. Scary talent.I love this book." -- Lee Child </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>This thought-provoking near-future thriller from bestseller Bear (_Dead Lines_) focuses on two young FBI agents: William Griffin, the son of a legendary FBI lawman, struggles through training; Fouad Al-Husam, who expects suspicion for his heritage and Muslim faith, finds himself instead sent on super-secret missions to the Middle East. Playing a minor supporting role is their Quantico classmate, Jane Rowland. When a quiet man with mismatched eyes starts telling certain fanatics that he can make gene-keyed anthrax to destroy their hereditary enemies, Griffin and Al-Husam form an unlikely team, headed by veteran agent Rebecca Rose, to handle the threat. Bear's near-future science is, as always, eerily plausible, and while he doesn't stint on sharp criticism of political infighting and its potential to hinder antiterrorism efforts, his would-be terrorists become surprisingly sympathetic as the complex details of their true plan are slowly (sometimes too slowly) revealed. <em>(Mar.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Veteran science-fiction author Bear proves here that he is as comfortable in the near future as he is centuries or millennia down the road. Just a handful of years from today, global terrorism has escalated out of control. In Jerusalem, a sacred religious site is destroyed. Another attack on U.S. soil has taken the lives of thousands. New killing technologies are being developed in secret labs around the world. America is losing the war on terror. Enter three young FBI agents, raw recruits whose hunt for an American terrorist could either save the world or destroy it. This chillingly plausible story displays Bear's storytelling gifts to their fullest: his ability to extrapolate from current technologies and political trends; his knack for creating flesh-and-bone characters; his capacity for keeping us on the edges of our seats. His legion of fans will be lining up for this one, and the novel's cross-genre appeal should guarantee it an even wider readership than usual. <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>The presidential election of 2000 is coming down to the wire in this disappointing thriller, when Democratic candidate (and attorney general) Allison Leahy blows a solid lead by refusing to answer the question whether she's ever been unfaithful to her husband. Just as Republican candidate Lincoln Howe (read: Colin Powell) is about to pull ahead, his granddaughter is kidnapped. Leahy's own newly adopted baby daughter was the victim of a similar crime eight years earlier. Are the abductions linked? Is someone connected to either of the candidates responsible? Those are the questions that never quite propel Grippando's latest, after The Informant. While that novel had a strong narrative engine fueled by insider information on the FBI, this one never hits second gear. Neither Leahy nor Howe seems a particularly worthy candidate or likable person, and the possible villains?an ex-boyfriend, a pair of conniving campaign managers, Leahy's tough businessman husband?are equally flat and unconvincing. Author tour. <br />Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>A U.S. attorney general running for president must deal with the kidnapping of an opponent's granddaughter.<br />Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In Rice's slim second Songs of the Seraphim novel (after Angel Time), the angel Malchiah whisks ex-contract killer Toby O'Dare back to 16th-century Rome, where Toby must save Vitale de Leone, a young Jewish physician who's been implicated in the poisoning of his gentile master and accused of bringing a poltergeist-like dybbuk into the household. Toby resolves both problems efficiently, but tragedy ensues, shaking his faith and leaving him vulnerable to powers of evil lying in wait to exploit his weakness. Toby's life back in modern times also grows complicated with the sudden appearance of an ex-lover and the son he never knew, neither of whom he can share his angelic interventions with. Though the plot is surprisingly similar to that of its predecessor, Rice's fans will easily succumb to the charm of her lapidary prose and a cliffhanger ending that sets up the next book in the series. 200,000 first printing. (Dec.) (c) <br />(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Toby O’Dare, the assassin who started on the path to redemption in Angel Time (2009), continues his quest for salvation. He has just learned that he’s the father of a 10-year-old boy and is nervously awaiting the arrival of his former lover, Liona, and their son at the Mission Inn in California. He longs to be a part of the boy’s life and to rekindle his relationship with Liona, but he is summoned on another time-traveling errand of mercy by the angel Malchiah. This time Toby is transported to fifteenth-century Rome to respond to the prayer of a Jewish physician named Vitale, whose best friend and patient, Niccolò, has clearly been poisoned. Given the city’s virulent anti-Semitism, Vitale is at risk if the real culprit isn’t discovered. In addition to helping Vitale save Niccolò, Toby must discover the origins of an angry spirit that is haunting the house Vitale lives in. Toby is surprised by the dangers he faces in a story shaped by Catholic doctrine. Readers who enjoy Rice’s larger-than-life tales and elegant writing will find much to appreciate here, and the cliff-hanger ending will leave fans eager for the next installment. --Kristine Huntley </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Every meditation tradition explains that there are two aspects to any effective meditation practice: insight and concentration. In <em>Mindfulness in Plain English,</em> author Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, a monk from Sri Lanka and venerated teacher of Buddhism, offered basic instruction on the meaning of insight (or vipassana) meditation through concepts that could be applied to any tradition. In <em>Beyond Mindfulness in Plain English,</em> he presents the levels of concentration with the same simplicity and humor that made the previous book so successful. The focus here is on the Jhanas, those meditative states of profound stillness and concentration in which the mind becomes fully immersed and absorbed in the chosen object of attention. Using the Jhanas to guide readers along the path to joy, happiness, equanimity, and one-pointedness, the author provides all of the instruction necessary to utilize meditation as a tool for building a more fulfilling life.</p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Borrego looks like an ordinary New Mexico town: it borders an Indian reservation, its teenagers are bored and restless, and its only industry is the outdated oil refinery. But someone has a plan to shake up Borrego that involves controlling the minds of the local residents. When Judith Sheffield is asked to return to her sleepy hometown to teach high school math, she discovers that the students' mandatory flu shots don't really contain flu vaccine. The teacher joins forces with refinery worker Frank Arnold; his teenage son, Jed, whose mother belonged to the neighboring tribe; and Brown Eagle, the boy's grandfather, to find out what and who is behind the flu-shot edict and an equally mysterious takeover bid for the oil refinery. There are compelling scenes in which Brown Eagle introduces Jed to Native American mysticism, and the novel's climax involves a spectacular display of man restoring nature to its rightful place--after having almost destroyed everything in the process. Saul's ( Creature ) suspenseful tale leaves the reader with no doubt on the question of who wins and who loses in the struggle of good against evil. <br />Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>A peaceful desert town is taken over by a madman with terrifying powers. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>After a very slow first half, Saul ( Darkness , The God Project ) picks up the pace and delivers aword? tense, high-tech psychological suspense thriller. Ten-year-old genius Josh MacCallum is bored, lonely and almost always angry at his older, teasing classmates. After he attempts suicide, his frantic single mother jumps at the chance to enroll him in the Academy, a school for very gifted kids in Northern California. Run by aloof Dr. Engersol and matronly housemother HildieHildie not Hidie/eed , the school, which occupies an old mansion, offers Josh a friend in another 'fellow genius' awk when describing a woman genius, Amy Carlson. Trouble surfaces when a 12-year-old kills himself, but calm returns as Hildie dispenses hugs and common sense. Soon after Josh and Amy are picked for an advanced "seminar," Engersol and Hildie are revealed as nasty and the mad-scientist plot hurtles to a violent conclusion featuring dueling brains?? Josh and Amy's? unclear You're absolutely right but i'm afraid it will have to stand as is. I can't reach the reviewer, and altho I have the galley, connected to a mainframe computer. The novel's padded beginning and only serviceable prose are tolerable 'lesser' implies comparison w greater flaws, not w virtues flaws in light of Saul's chilling conceit, Hildie's jarring comeuppance and a delightful final twist. 150,000 first printing. <br />Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Kirkus Reviews</h3><p>Donovan's Brain meets The Lawnmower Man. Bestseller horror novelist Saul (Second Child, Darkness, Creature, etc.) lands on the money again with one of his best--or least offensive--tales of psychological suspense. What's more, he's tuned in with Stephen King's current smash movie The Lawnmower Man, with a plot that turns in part on the novelty of computerized Virtual Reality games. Even more, his ending is <code>virtually'' identical with the film's. Readers with long memories will recall Curt Siodmak's once vastly well-known, thrice-filmed story Donovan's Brain, about a scientist dominated by a dead industrialist's brain that he keeps alive in his lab. In Saul's story, a gothicky California genius academy for gifted kids is having trouble with suicide-prone students, and the deaths are piling up. Ten-year-old Josh MacCallum's best friend at the academy is Amy Carlson, though he's also buddies with the Aldritch twins, Jeff and Adam, who try to suck him into their Virtual Reality game. Then Adam kills himself, throwing himself in front of a train at night. But did he? Well, his body is crushed. But it seems that the suicides at the academy were also the smartest students, which includes the twins and suggests that IQ chartbusters Josh and Amy are marked for death. But...really? Well, no--because the academy's president, evil Dr. George Engersol, and his warm-smiling, ice- water housekeeper Hildie Kramer have been faking the suicides after removing the victim's...well, should we tell you?...and keeping it alive and blooming in a secret lab where the</code>dead'' are plugged into the world's greatest computer, a Croyden, and can operate it by tiny impulses and create...virtual...reality.... Small-scale but a grabber, despite bedrock banality. -- <em>Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.</em></p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>One hundred years ago, in the beautiful village of Secret Cove, Maine, on the night of the annual August Moon Ball, a shy and lovely servant girl committed an act so unspeakably violent that its legacy still lives. Now, the blood-drenched past of this small town is about to come to life once more--just in time for this year's August Moon Ball. HC: Bantam. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Italy 1252. Inquisition. Accusation. Fear.  Torture. The guilty and the innocent dying for sins real  and imagined in the flames of the burning stake.  Neilsville, 1978. Peter Blasam has come to this  sleepy desert town to teach its youth, and finds a  mystery of mounting horror. Something is happening  to the young girls of St. Francis Xavier High  School -- something evil. In bloodlet and terror a  suicide contagion has swept the two... while a dark  order of its holy men enacts a secret medieval  ritual. Is hysteria manipulating these innocent children  into violent self-destruction? Or has supernatural  force, a thirteenth-century madness, returned  to... <em>Punish The Sinners</em>. </p><h3>From the Publisher</h3><p>Italy 1252. Inquisition. Accusation. Fear. Torture. The guilty and the innocent dying for sins real and imagined in the flames of the burning stake. Neilsville, 1978. Peter Blasam has come to this sleepy desert town to teach its youth, and finds a mystery of mounting horror. Something is happening to the young girls of St. Francis Xavier High School -- something evil. In bloodlet and terror a suicide contagion has swept the two... while a dark order of its holy men enacts a secret medieval ritual. Is hysteria manipulating these innocent children into violent self-destruction? Or has supernatural force, a thirteenth-century madness, returned to... <em>Punish The Sinners</em>. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The prologue of veteran horror writer Saul's ( Second Child ) new novel is wonderfully scary: A pregnant teenage "swamp rat" of the Everglades, spying on a secret meeting of "the Dark Man" and "his children," sees a friend offer up her newborn baby, whereupon the masked Dark Man plunges a knife into the infant. Right after that, the teenager's husband promises to deliver his own child "the night he's born." The story proper begins when 16-year-old Kelly Anderson, all her life having suffered nightmares of a menacing old man and now sure she's pregnant by him, tries to kill herself. She recovers and moves from Atlanta with her adoptive parents to her grandfather's house just north of the Everglades. Kelly becomes friends with Michael, her age and also adopted, who admits to similar nightmares and a sense of dread. Michael's adoptive mother, meanwhile, feels a strange kinship to Kelly. The secrets of the Dark Man--his identity and his fountain-of-youth formula--are revealed halfway through the book, and thenceforth the story slides into descriptions of relatively tame to-and-fro-ing, mostly in the swamp, and the revolting revenge of "the children" on a group of nasty but well-preserved old men. Saul's ending is cozily sentimental. <br />Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Years after they left the town of Villejeune, Florida, the Anderson family returns, only to find that something unspeakably evil that feeds on the young and innocent is waiting for their teenaged daughter. Reprint. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Clark's Harbor was the perfect coastal haven,  jealously guarded against outsiders. But now  strangers have come to settle there. And a small boy is  suddenly free of a frenzy that had gripped him since  birth... His sister is haunted by fearful  visions... And one by one, in violent, mysterious ways the  strangers are dying. Never the townspeople. Only  the strangers. Has a dark bargain been struck  between the people of Clark's Harbor and some  supernatural force? Or is it the sea itself calling out for  a human sacrifice? A howling, deadly...  _Cry For The Strangers_. </p><h3>From the Publisher</h3><p>Clark's Harbor was the perfect coastal haven, jealously guarded against outsiders. But now strangers have come to settle there. And a small boy is suddenly free of a frenzy that had gripped him since birth... His sister is haunted by fearful visions... And one by one, in violent, mysterious ways the strangers are dying. Never the townspeople. Only the strangers. Has a dark bargain been struck between the people of Clark's Harbor and some supernatural force? Or is it the sea itself calling out for a human sacrifice? A howling, deadly... <em>Cry For The Strangers</em>. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The latest horror novel from consistently bestselling Saul ( Suffer the Children ; Hellfire ) is set in Silverdale, Colo., a company-town variation on Spielberg surburbia. There, conglomerate TarrenTech provides the high school teams with every advantage, including a high-tech sports clinic. Dr. Martin Ames beefs up the brawny, aggressive teenagers, and it's to him that newcomer Sharon Tanner goes for answers when her gentle son Mark turns into a belligerent jock overnight. This slick, high-concept thriller, which might have been titled Stepford High , won't surprise anyone, but it should please the author's fans as it continues Saul's focus on children as the vehicles and victims of unnatural forces. 100,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild selection. <br />Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>YA-- An excellent example of the horror genre, although not as extreme as Stephen King. When Craig Tanner is offered a promotion by TarrenTech and the family moves to Silverdale, Colorado, everything seems perfect. It is a company town with quaint houses, little commercialization, and a community that supports its sports teams. Mark Tanner develops dramatically as an athlete after several sessions at the Rocky Mountain High sports center where the football players are given workouts. This is only the beginning of a training program that has some terrifying results. Creature will be widely read by athletes and sports fans.<br /><em>- Anne Paget, Episcopal High School, Bellaire, Tex.</em><br />Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>A child cries out . . . in torment--in terror. From out of the past, from outof the mists, a terrible vengeance is born. </p><h3>From the Publisher</h3><p>A century ago, a gentle blind girl walked the cliffs of Paradise Point. Then the children came -- taunting, teasing -- until she lost her footing and fell, shrieking her rage to the drowning sea... Now Michelle has come from Boston to live in the big house on Paradise Point. She is excited about her new life, ready to make new friends... until a hand reaches out of the swirling mists -- the hand of blind child. She is asking for friendship... seeking revenge... whispering her name... </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Alex Lonsdale was one of the most popular kids in La Paloma, California.  Until the horrifying car accident.  Until a brilliant doctor's medical miracle brought him back from the brink of death.  Now, Alex seems the same.  but in his eyes there is a blankness.  In his hear there is coldness.  If his parents, his friends, his girlfriend could see inside his brain, inside his dreams, they would be terrified.  One hundred years ago in La Paloma, a terrible deed was done.  A cry for vengeance pierced the night.  That evil still lives.  That vengeance still waits.  Waits for Alex Lonsdale.  Waits for the..._Brainchild_. </p><h3>From the Publisher</h3><p>Alex Lonsdale was one of the most popular kids in La Paloma, California. Until the horrifying car accident. Until a brilliant doctor's medical miracle brought him back from the brink of death. Now, Alex seems the same. but in his eyes there is a blankness. In his hear there is coldness. If his parents, his friends, his girlfriend could see inside his brain, inside his dreams, they would be terrified. One hundred years ago in La Paloma, a terrible deed was done. A cry for vengeance pierced the night. That evil still lives. That vengeance still waits. Waits for Alex Lonsdale. Waits for the..._Brainchild_. </p>


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<h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>YA?Dr. Katharine Sundquist is hired to work on a short term archaeology project in beautiful Maui. It seems to be an ideal situation for her and her 16-year-old son, Michael, who suffers from asthma as well as the recent death of his father. She soon learns, however, that all is not well in paradise. There is a restricted wing in her high-tech laboratory where secret deliveries arrive at midnight and she discovers that deadly medical experiments are being performed. Then Michael and three friends sneak into a dive shop and help themselves to some equipment. During their night dive, they come upon a contaminated area in the ocean. Back on land, they find that their lungs cannot tolerate oxygen and they can survive only by breathing poisonous fumes. One by one, the boys are killed or simply vanish. When Michael is the only one left alive, Katharine must act quickly to save him. YAs will be engrossed in the computer search for DNA codes, the strange prehistoric or not so prehistoric bones that Katharine unearths, and a mysterious underwater geode from outer space. There is enough adventure and suspense in this thriller to capture the interest of even the most reluctant readers.?Katherine Fitch, Lake Braddock Middle School, Burke, VA<br />Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Saul, who recently took a cue from Stephen King with the release of a serialized novel, The Blackstone Chronicles, here tells of a young archaeologist's encounter with horror in Hawaii.<br />Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>"Saul has instincts of a natural storyteller."--_People_ -- <em>Review</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Something is happening to the children of Eastbury, Massachusetts. Something that causes healthy babies to turn cold in their cribs. Something that strikes at the heart of every parent's darkest fears. Something is taking the children one by one. Now, an entire town waits on the edge of panic for the next nightmare. there must be a reason for the terror. they all know it. But no one ever suspected... </p>


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<h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Oliver Metcalf is the editor of the Blackstone Chronicle in Blackstone, NH. His father had been the director of the Blackstone Asylum before his death. Oliver had grown up in a cottage on the asylum's grounds. A sense of evil and darkness pervades the now empty asylum. The Chronicle reports that the asylum is to be torn down and replaced with an upscale mall. About the time the wrecking ball makes its first swing, the funding for the project falls through. Residents of the town begin to receive mysterious gifts that seem to have the power to visit evil on the recipients. An accidental fall, a suicide, a kidnapping, and an explosion leave the town reeling. Metcalf knows he must remember something key to understanding the mystery and halting the terrible chain of accidents. This abridgment causes the "accidents" to appear with very little plot or character development. This, in turn, causes the terror to become somewhat tedious. The story is read with feeling and skill by Lee Meriwether. Recommended for large library collections.AJoanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Coll. of Continuing Education Lib., Providence<br />Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Now, for the first time, the New York Times bestselling serial thriller is complete in one terrifying volume. John Saul, the master of supernatural suspense, John Saul, brings to chilling life the small New England town of Blackstone--and the secrets and sins that lay buried there. . . .  </p><p>From atop Blackstone's highest hill, the old Asylum casts its shadow over the village. Built in the 1890s to house the insane, the Asylum has stood vacant for decades. But now, the wrecker's ball is about to strike--and unleash an ominous evil. Strange gifts begin to appear on the doorsteps of Blackstone's finest citizens.  </p><p>Each bears a mysterious history.  </p><p>Each brings a horrifying power to harm.  </p><p>Each reveals another thread in the suspensefully woven web of . . .  </p><p>THE BLACKSTONE CHRONICLES  </p><p>Part I--An Eye for an Eye: The Doll<br />Part II--Twist of Fate: The Locket<br />Part III--Ashes to Ashes: The Dragon's Flame<br />Part IV--In the Shadow of Evil: The Handkerchief<br />Part V--Day of Reckoning: The Stereoscope<br />Part VI--Asylum </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>One hundred years ago in Port Arbello a pretty little girl began to scream. And struggle. And die. No one heard. No one saw. Just one man whose guilty heart burst in pain as he dashed himself to death in the sea. Now something peculiar is happening in Port Arbello. The children are disappearing, one by one. An evil history is repeating itself. And one strange, terrified child has ended her silence with a scream that began a hundred years ago. </p><h3>From the Publisher</h3><p>One hundred years ago in Port Arbello a pretty little girl began to scream. And struggle. And die. No one heard. No one saw. Just one man whose guilty heart burst in pain as he dashed himself to death in the sea. Now something peculiar is happening in Port Arbello. The children are disappearing, one by one. An evil history is repeating itself. And one strange, terrified child has ended her silence with a scream that began a hundred years ago. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>When Pessoa died in 1935, a few years short of 50, he left behind a trunk of mostly unpublished writing in a variety of languages; his Lisbon publishers and variously translators are still sifting them. This perpetually unclassifiable and unfinished book of self-reflective fragments was first published in Portuguese in 1982, and it is arguably Pessoa's masterpiece. Four previous English translations, all published in 1991, were compromised either by abridgement, poor translation or error-laden source texts. While he's now a Pessoa veteran-having edited and translated Fernando Pessoa &amp; Co.: Selected Poems, the 1999 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation winner-Zenith's first pass at this book was one of the four misses. He bases this new translation on his own Portuguese edition of 1998, and has done an admirable job in bringing out the force and clarity in Pessoa's serpentine and sometimes opaque meditations. Pessoa often wrote as various personae (as Pessoa &amp; Co. carefully demonstrated); Disquiet is no exception, being putatively the work of "Bernardo Soares, assistant bookkeeper in the city of Lisbon." Thus it is impossible to ascribe the book's anti-humanist logophilia directly to the author: "I weep over nothing that life brings or takes away, but there are pages of prose that have made me cry." That is just one of many permutations of similar sentiments, but the genius of Pessoa and his personae is that readers are left weighing each and every such sentence for sincerity and truth value.<br />Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Fernando Pessoa was many writers in one. The Portuguese author attributed his work to literary alter egos that he called "heteronyms," each of which had a fully developed identity. When Pessoa died, he left behind a trunk filled with disorderly scraps of unpublished poems and unfinished works, among which was <em>The Book of Disquiet</em>. Published for the first time some fifty years after his death, this unique collection of short, aphoristic paragraphs comprises the "autobiography" of Bernardo Soares, one of Pessoa's alternate selves. Part intimate diary, part prose poetry, part descriptive narrative, captivatingly translated by Richard Zenith, <em>The Book of Disquiet</em> is one of the greatest works of the twentieth century.   </p><p>Edited and Translated with an Introduction by Richard Zenith </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>In the now-classic novel <em>Interview with the Vampire</em>, Anne Rice refreshed the archetypal vampire myth for a late-20th-century audience. The story is ostensibly a simple one: having suffered a tremendous personal loss, an 18th-century Louisiana plantation owner named Louis Pointe du Lac descends into an alcoholic stupor. At his emotional nadir, he is confronted by Lestat, a charismatic and powerful vampire who chooses Louis to be his fledgling. The two prey on innocents, give their "dark gift" to a young girl, and seek out others of their kind (notably the ancient vampire Armand) in Paris. But a summary of this story bypasses the central attractions of the novel. First and foremost, the method Rice chose to tell her tale--with Louis' first-person confession to a skeptical boy--transformed the vampire from a hideous predator into a highly sympathetic, seductive, and all-too-human figure. Second, by entering the experience of an immortal character, one raised with a deep Catholic faith, Rice was able to explore profound philosophical concerns--the nature of evil, the reality of death, and the limits of human perception--in ways not possible from the perspective of a more finite narrator.</p><p>While Rice has continued to investigate history, faith, and philosophy in subsequent Vampire novels (including <em>Interview</em> remains a treasured masterpiece. It is that rare work that blends a childlike fascination for the supernatural with a profound vision of the human condition. <em>--Patrick O'Kelley</em></p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Rice turned the vampire genre on its ear with this first novel (LJ 5/1/76), which evolved into one of the most popular series in recent history. Though the quality of the books has declined, this nonetheless is a marvelous, innovative, and literate tale of the longing for love and the search for redemption. This 20th-anniversary edition offers a trade-size paperback for a good price.<br />Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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


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SUMMARY:
"King is at the top of his game." (Entertainment Weekly)A notice to those who feel that Stephen King has lost his  magic touch: Desperation is the genuine goods. The ensemble  cast of ordinary Americans thrown together by chance, including a  disgruntled alcoholic writer and a child who is wise beyond his years,  may be a bit too familiar. But the nearly deserted Nevada mining town  with an enormous haunted mine pit and an abandoned movie theatre where  the survivors hang out makes for a striking battleground, and the  grisly action rarely flags. Best of all, though, are the characters of  Tak, the ancient body-hopping evil who emerges from the mine, and of  "God"--whom the New York Times describes as "the  edgiest creation in Desperation. Remote, isolated, ironic,  shrouded behind disguises, perhaps 'another legendary shadow,' this  deity forms a sly foil, and an icy mirror, to Tak."


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


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

When Rose Daniels sees the drop of blood on the bedsheet, she knows she must escape her marriage and her savage husband before it's too late.  But escape is not that easy.  Norman isn't willing to let her go without a fight.


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>At the start of the pseudonymous Andrews's intelligent page-turner, his third Justin Westwood thriller (after <em>Midas</em>), Westwood, the police chief of the quiet Long Island community of East End Harbor, has just begun a torrid affair with Abigail Harmon, the stunning wife of a wealthy investor, when a late-night phone call informs him that her husband has been found brutally murdered. Placed in the uncomfortable position of being the widow's alibi as well as the prime suspect in the eyes of an ambitious local prosecutor angling for an eventual gubernatorial race, Westwood has a personal stake in tracking down the killer. The twisty plot provides the appealing Westwood with plenty of challenges, though his heroics sometimes border on the implausible (especially when he's battling a lethal team of Asian assassins). Under his actual name, Peter Gethers, Andrews is the author of several bestselling nonfiction books, including <em>The Cat Who Went to Paris</em>. <em>(Mar.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>With its third installment, after <em>Aphrodite </em>(2003) and <em>Midas </em>(2005), the Justin Westwood series seems to be settling in for a long run. Westwood, the troubled small-town police chief, is faced with a case that is a touch too personal for his liking: a Wall Street bigwig has been murdered, and Westwood happens to have been between the sheets with the victim's wife at the time. Now he is looking at conspiracy charges, at the very least, and the only way to clear his name is to solve the murder, break up a multinational conspiracy, and face down memories of his own deeply disturbed past. Andrews explores a few more levels of the enigmatic Westwood, who ditched the big city--where he was a homicide detective--after a tragedy that the author hints at but never fully reveals. The author's plots may be a bit too conspiracy minded for some readers, but those who like their crime novels dark, mysterious, and labyrinthine will have a great time. <em>David Pitt</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>NEW CENTURY<br />NEW SUPERPOWERS<br />A NEW BREED OF HOMELAND SECURITY </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>Co-creator Tom Clancy is the author of The Hunt for Red October, The Bear and The Dragon and Red Rabbit. He lives in Maryland, USA. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Bestseller Griffin and his son, Butterworth, resuscitate Griffin's Men at War series, first published in paperback during the 1980s under the pseudonym Alex Baldwin and featuring the Office of Strategic Services; its fabled chief, Col. William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan; and OSS agent Maj. Richard M. Canidy. Two primary plot lines drive this new adventure: the U.S. preparation for the invasion of Sicily and mainland Italy in 1943, and the tale of four German saboteurs who have landed in America. The authors are heavily invested in their research, meticulously describing almost every element of life in the 1940s, to the detriment of the action. The German saboteurs are eventually dealt with, but the behind-the-lines Sicilian operation led by Canidy is only hastily outlined after a long buildup. One supposes that the Sicilian story that's promised but never delivered will appear in future installments. This is pretty much all show and no go, but readers who have a strong interest in WWII home-front history should be satisfied. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Griffin's fans will welcome his thirty-seventh novel, this one the fifth in the Men at War series, which is about the OSS during World War II. (His coauthor here is his son.) The rich plot deals with the Battle of the Atlantic, during which German U-Boats were sinking American supply ships. In this fictionalized account, ships are set on fire in American ports and explosions have sabotaged trains and train stations across the country. As Allied forces prepare to invade Sicily and Italy, enter "Wild Bill" Donovan and three of his agents, assigned to stop the mayhem and help win the war. As always, the locales range worldwide, including Florida, London, Sicily, New York City, Newark, Algiers, and Washington, D.C. Some characters drink a lot, some purportedly "for medicinal purposes." Indelicate language peppers the dialogue, and many close calls threaten lives. From the beginning, readers will surmise that the good guys win, but they will want to read all the way through--just to make sure. <em>George Cohen</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Actors David Niven and Peter Ustinov, along with James Bond creator Ian Fleming, all of whom actually served Britain in WWII, help the heroes of Griffin's Men at War series deceive the Germans in this solid sixth installment (after 2006's The Saboteurs) from the bestselling author and his son, Butterworth. In 1943, the OSS's William J. Wild Bill Donovan spearheads a disinformation effort to trick the Nazis into believing that the western Allies won't invade the European continent through Sicily. One of Donovan's most accomplished operatives, USAAF Maj. Richard Canidy, devises a clever scheme (albeit one familiar to readers of Ewen Montagu's The Man Who Never Was) to plant phony plans on a corpse, along with love letters drafted by the requisite attractive female spy. Some fans may find the prominent role of the real-life celebrities a distraction, but all will enjoy the suspenseful ride. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>The Men at War series continues with this typically exciting adventure. The plucky, resourceful agents of the Office of Strategic Services face what could be their toughest assignment: to convince Adolf Hitler that the Allied invasion of Europe will not take place at Normandy. This is the second novel Griffin has cowritten with his son, but it retains all of the veteran author's trademarks: well-researched plot; realistic characters, real and fictional; and snappy dialogue. How Griffin manages to turn out so many novels without resorting to by-the-numbers plotting and cutout characters is a mystery, but as long as he keeps delivering the goods, his legions of fans will be content. Pitt, David </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. This epic science fiction tale fills in the time gap between Frank Herberts <em>Dune</em> and <em>Dune Messiah</em>. Told by modern-day sci-fi legends Anderson and Brian Herbert (Franks son), this story packs all the punch that the originals did and then some. Relating the life of Paul MuadDib, leader of Dune at the climax of the original novel, this novel explores the events of the MuadDib jihad that subsequently led to Pauls conquering the galaxy. Scott Brick delivers a powerful and entertaining reading reminiscent of a theatrical performance in a brilliant one-man show. Bricks voice is ideally suited to this extraordinary tale; no doubt he studied the prose of each novel to capture the dialect perfectly. This is a superb, solid reading that will appeal to fans and newcomers alike. <em>A Tor Books hardcover. (Sept.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Starred Review. Paul Muad'Dib and his army of Fremen desert warriors have succeeded in their overthrow of the Emperor Shaddam IV, but holding onto a universe of fractious planets proves a challenge even for a man revered by his followers as a god. Set in the years following the late Frank Herbert's classic <em>Dune</em> and its sequel, <em>Dune Messiah</em>, the latest joint effort by Herbert's son Brian and noted sf author Anderson fills in the missing years of empire building and looks into the formative years of Paul's childhood as well as the histories of those closest to him. Drawing on Frank Herbert's massive body of notes, the coauthors of the new Dune series (_Dune: The Battle of Corrin_; <em>The Road to Dune; Hunters of Dune</em>) continue their expansion and illumination of the unexplored pieces of one of the genre's most significant and powerful stories. A priority purchase for libraries of all sizes. Highly recommended. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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<p>Thoroughly updated and expanded in its second edition to cover the latest operating systems, technologies, and Perl modules, <em>Automating System Administration with Perl</em> will help you perform your job with less effort. The second edition not only offers you the right tools for your job, but also suggests the best way to approach particular problems and securely automate pressing tasks.</p>


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<p>Packed with practical, freely available backup and recovery solutions for Unix, Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X systems -- as well as various databases -- this new guide is a complete overhaul of <i>Unix Backup &amp; Recovery</i> by the same author, now revised and expanded with over 75% new material.</p>


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<div><p/><p>Xen allows administrators to run many virtual operating systems on one physical server, including Linux, BSD, OpenSolaris, and Microsoft Windows. <i>The Book of Xen</i> explains everything a sysadmin needs to know to use this powerful technology, with coverage of installation, networking, virtualized storage, and managing guest and host operating systems.</p></div>


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<p>This practical introduction to Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) offers improved coverage of version 3 of the protocol, plus much more information on SNMP scripting and programming. Learn how to install, configure, and use SNMP, so you can more easily manage your network. Includes five new chapters and a host of real examples.</p>


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<p>Whether you use a standalone Unix system, routinely provide administrative support for a larger shared system, or just want an understanding of basic administrative functions, <i>Essential System Administration</i> is for you. This comprehensive and invaluable book combines the author's years of practical experience with technical expertise to help you manage Unix systems as productively and painlessly as possible. </p>


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<p>Performance is critical to the success of any web site. In this book, Steve Souders, web performance evangelist at Google and former Chief Performance Yahoo!, provides valuable techniques to help you optimize your site's performance. Souders and eight expert contributors provide best practices and pragmatic advice for improving your site's performance in three critical categories: JavaScript, in the network, and in the browser.<br/><br/>\nThis book contains six guest chapters contributed by Dion Almaer, Doug Crockford, Ben Galbraith, Tony Gentilcore, Dylan Schiemann, Stoyan Stefanov, Nicole Sullivan, and Nicholas C. Zakas.</p>


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<p>With the advent of rich Internet applications, the explosion of social media, and the increased use of powerful cloud computing infrastructures, a new generation of attackers has added cunning new techniques to its arsenal. For anyone involved in defending an application or a network of systems, <em>Hacking: The Next Generation</em> is one of the few books to identify a variety of emerging attack vectors.</p>


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<p><em>High Performance MySQL</em> is the definitive guide to building fast, reliable systems with MySQL. Written by noted experts with years of real-world experience building very large systems, this book covers every aspect of MySQL performance in detail, and focuses on robustness, security, and data integrity. Learn advanced techniques in depth so you can bring out MySQL's full power. The second edition is completely revised and greatly expanded, with deeper coverage in all areas.</p>


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<p>Want to speed up your web site? This book presents 14 specific rules that will cut 20% to 25% off response time when users request a page. Author Steve Souders, in his job as Chief Performance Yahoo!, collected these best practices while optimizing some of the most-visited pages on the Web. Even sites that had already been highly optimized were able to benefit from these surprisingly simple performance guidelines.</p>


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<p>This refreshed edition serves as the most valuable guide yet to the bash shell. It's full of practical examples of shell commands and programs guaranteed to make everyday use of Linux that much easier. Includes information on key bindings, command line editing and processing, integrated programming features, signal handling, and much more! </p>


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<p>If you've been lured to Mac OS X because of its Unix roots, this invaluable book serves as a bridge between Apple's Darwin OS and the more traditional Unix systems. The new edition offers a complete tour of Mac OS X's Unix shell for Leopard and Tiger, and helps you find the facilities that replace or correspond to standard Unix utilities. Learn how to compile code, link to libraries, and port Unix software to Mac OS X and much more with this concise guide.</p>


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<p><i>Managing Projects with GNU make</i>, 3rd Edition provides guidelines on meeting the needs of large, modern projects. This edition focuses on the GNU version of <i>make</i>, which has deservedly become the industry standard. GNU's powerful extensions are explored in this book, including a number of interesting advanced topics such as portability, parallelism, and use with Java. <i>make</i> is popular because it is free software and provides a version for almost every platform, including a version for Microsoft Windows as part of the free Cygwin project. </p>


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<p>Server bottlenecks and failures are a fact of life in any database deployment, but they don't have to bring everything to a halt. MySQL provides several features that can protect you from outages, whether you're running directly on the hardware, on virtual machines, or in the cloud. This book shows you how to use these features effectively, and helps you determine which combination of features will give you the most reliable system for a price you can afford.</p>


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<p><i>MySQL Stored Procedure Programming</i> covers a lot of ground. The book starts with a thorough introduction to stored procedures programming and functions, covering the fundamentals of data types, operators, and using SQL in stored procedures. You'll learn how to build and maintain stored programs -- covering transactions, stored functions, and triggers -- and how to call and use MySQL-based stored procedures in a variety of languages, including PHP, Perl, Python, .NET, and Java. This book, destined to be the bible of stored procedure development, is a resource that no real MySQL programmer can afford to do without.</p>


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<p>Nagios is a host and service monitoring tool designed to inform systems administrators of network problems before clients or managers notice. Nagios makes it possible to continuously monitor network services (like SMTP, POP3, HTTP, NNTP, PING), host resources (such as processor load, disk and memory usage, running processes, and log files), and environmental factors (like temperature). <i>Nagios: System and Network Monitoring, 2nd Edition</i> is completely revised and expanded with over 200 pages of new material.</p>


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<p>Python is an ideal language for solving problems, especially for Linux and Unix. With this pragmatic book, administrators can review various tasks that often occur in the management of these systems, and learn how Python can provide a more efficient way to handle them. Once you finish this book, you'll be able to develop your own set of command-line utilities with Python to tackle a wide range of problems.</p>


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<p><i>sed &amp; awk</i> describes two text manipulation programs that are mainstays of the UNIX programmer's toolbox. This edition covers the <i>sed</i> and <i>awk</i> programs as they are mandated by the POSIX standard and includes discussion of the GNU versions of these programs.</p>


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<p>This collection of time management tools addresses the very specific needs of embattled system administrators everywhere. Bestselling author Thomas Limoncelli shows you how to manage interruptions, eliminate timewasters, prioritize based on customer expectations, automate processes for faster execution, and much more. It's the first step to a more productive, happier you.</p>


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<p>The latest edition of this best-selling favorite is loaded with vital information on Linux, Darwin, and BSD. <i>Unix Power Tools</i> 3rd Edition now offers more coverage of bash, zsh, and other new shells, along with discussions about modern utilities and applications. Several sections focus on security and Internet access. There is a new chapter on access to Unix from Windows, and expanded coverage of software installation and packaging, as well as basic information on Perl and Python.</p>


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<p>Is your site easy to find, simple to navigate, and enticing enough to convert prospects into buyers? <em>Website Optimization</em> shows you how. It reveals a comprehensive set of techniques to improve your site's performance by boosting search engine visibility for more traffic, increasing conversion rates to maximize leads and profits, revving up site speed to retain users, and measuring your site's effectiveness (before and after these changes) with best-practice metrics and tools.</p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>At 26, Troost followed his wife to Kiribati, a tiny island nation in the South Pacific. Virtually ignored by the rest of humanity (its erstwhile colonial owners, the Brits, left in 1979), Kiribati is the kind of place where dolphins frolic in lagoons, days end with glorious sunsets and airplanes might have to circle overhead because pigs occupy the island's sole runway. Troost's wife was working for an international nonprofit; the author himself planned to hang out and maybe write a literary masterpiece. But Kiribati wasn't quite paradise. It was polluted, overpopulated and scorchingly sunny (Troost could almost feel his freckles mutating into something "interesting and tumorous"). The villages overflowed with scavengers and recently introduced, nonbiodegradable trash. And the Kiribati people seemed excessively hedonistic. Yet after two years, Troost and his wife felt so comfortable, they were reluctant to return home. Troost is a sharp, funny writer, richly evoking the strange, day-by-day wonder that became his life in the islands. One night, he's doing his best funky chicken with dancing Kiribati; the next morning, he's on the high seas contemplating a toilet extending off the boat's stern (when the ocean was rough, he learns, it was like using a bidet). Troost's chronicle of his sojourn in a forgotten world is a comic masterwork of travel writing and a revealing look at a culture clash. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Although accustomed to globe trotting, Troost and his wife, Sylvia, were truly innocents abroad when they moved to the island of Tarawa in the South Pacific, where Sylvia had accepted a government position. Tarawa is the capital of Kiribati--a republic of tiny atolls located just above the equator--and the place where Troost's dreams of paradise were shattered. Although Tarawa has much to offer, such as stultifying heat, dogged bureaucracy, toxic water, <em>La Macarena</em>, and the fantastic rituals of the I-Kiribati people, it lacks running water, television, restaurants, air-conditioning, and, the most crucial amenity, beer. Culture shock ensued for Maarten and Sylvia, and he chronicles their two years on Tarawa in a hilarious, sardonic travelogue. Among the more memorable episodes is the time a simple fishing trip turns into a hunt for a giant thresher shark and when Troost blasts a Miles Davis CD to combat the incessant repetition of <em>La Macarena</em>. Troost's mystified admiration for the I-Kiribati people shines through it all, and readers learn how humor itself can be a necessary tool for survival. <em>Jerry Eberle</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p><em>Forbes</em> lists Sirleaf, the 23rd president of Liberia and the first elected female president on the African continent, among the 100 Most Powerful Women in 2008. In and out of government, in and out of exile, but consistent in her commitment to Liberia, Sirleaf in her memoir reveals herself to be among the most resilient, determined and courageous as well. She writes with modesty in a calm and measured tone. While her account includes a happy childhood and an unhappy marriage, the book is politically, not personally, focused as she (and Liberia) go through the disastrous presidencies of Samuel Doe and Charles Taylor. Sirleaf's training as an economist and her employment (e.g., in banking, as minister of finance in Liberia, and in U.N. development programs) informs the perspective from which she views internal Liberian history (e.g., the tensions between the settler class and the indigenous people) and Liberia's international relations. Although her focus is thoroughly on Liberia, the content is more widely instructive, particularly her account of the role of the Economic Community of West African States. <em>(Apr.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Africa’s first elected female president, Sirleaf chronicles her rise from an abused young wife and mother to a woman with a career in government finance and international banking to the president of Liberia since 2006. Sirleaf confronted corruption and incompetence through several Liberian governments and suffered imprisonment and exile for her controversial positions before ultimately returning and challenging the long and troubled history of her nation. Liberia was created by the U.S. to repatriate former slaves, creating a tension between Americo-Liberians and indigenous peoples that continues. She recounts her struggles at home and abroad; she watched dictator Samuel Doe and later Charles Taylor destroy Liberia while she continued to criticize U.S. involvement with corrupt regimes. Having no colonial power to overcome, Sirleaf contends that Liberia has often struggled to develop and maintain a sense of true national integration, something she has sought to achieve as she has worked to bring economic and social stability to her civil-war-torn nation. An inspiring inside look at a nation struggling to rebuild itself and the woman now behind those efforts. --Vanessa Bush </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>With first-chapter allusions to martial arts, "flow," "mind like water," and other concepts borrowed from the East (and usually mangled), you'd almost think this self-helper from David Allen should have been called <em>Zen and the Art of Schedule Maintenance</em>.</p><p>Not quite. Yes, <em>Getting Things Done</em> offers a complete system for downloading all those free-floating gotta-do's clogging your brain into a sophisticated framework of files and action lists--all purportedly to free your mind to focus on whatever you're working on. However, it still operates from the decidedly Western notion that if we could just get really, really organized, we could turn ourselves into 24/7 productivity machines. (To wit, Allen, whom the New Economy bible <em>Fast Company</em> has dubbed "the personal productivity guru," suggests that instead of meditating on crouching tigers and hidden dragons while you wait for a plane, you should unsheathe that high-tech saber known as the cell phone and attack that list of calls you need to return.)</p><p>As whole-life-organizing systems go, Allen's is pretty good, even fun and therapeutic. It starts with the exhortation to take every unaccounted-for scrap of paper in your workstation that you can't junk, The next step is to write down every unaccounted-for gotta-do cramming your head onto its own scrap of paper. Finally, throw the whole stew into a giant "in-basket" </p><p>That's where the processing and prioritizing begin; in Allen's system, it get a little convoluted at times, rife as it is with fancy terms, subterms, and sub-subterms for even the simplest concepts. Thank goodness the spine of his system is captured on a straightforward, one-page flowchart that you can pin over your desk and repeatedly consult without having to refer back to the book. That alone is worth the purchase price. Also of value is Allen's ingenious Two-Minute Rule: if there's anything you absolutely must do that you can do right now in two minutes or less, then do it now, thus freeing up your time and mind tenfold over the long term. It's commonsense advice so obvious that most of us completely overlook it, much to our detriment; Allen excels at dispensing such wisdom in this useful, if somewhat belabored, self-improver aimed at everyone from CEOs to soccer moms (who we all know are more organized than most CEOs to start with). --_Timothy Murphy_</p><h3>From</h3><p>Allen, a management consultant and executive coach, provides insights into attaining maximum efficiency and at the same time relaxing whenever one needs or wants to. Readers learn that there is no single means for perfecting organizational efficiency or productivity; rather, the author offers tools to focus energies strategically and tactically without letting anything fall through the cracks. He provides tips, techniques, and tricks for implementation of his workflow management plan, which has two basic components: capture all the things that need to get done into a workable, dependable system; and discipline oneself to make front-end decisions with an action plan for all inputs into that system. In short, do it (quickly), delegate it (appropriately), or defer it. While an infomercial for the author's consulting practice, this road map for organizational efficiency may help many who have too much to do in too little time, both professionally and in their personal lives. <em>Mary Whaley</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>These are the ways the world ends. Thirty-four new and selected Doomsday scenarios: an enthralling collection of work by canonical literary figures, contemporary masters, and a few rising stars, all of whom have looked into the future and found it missing. Across boundaries of place and time, these writers celebrate the variety and vitality of the short story as a form by writing their own conclusions to the story of the world. Obliteration has never hurt so good. Contributors include Grace Aguilar, Steve Aylett, Robert Bradley, Dennis Cooper, Lucy Corin, Elliott David, Matthew Derby, Carol Emshwiller, Brian Evenson, Neil Gaiman, Jeff Goldberg, Theodora Goss, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Jared Hohl, Shelley Jackson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Stacey Levine, Tao Lin, Kelly Link, H.P. Lovecraft, Gary Lutz, Rick Moody, Michael Moorcock, Adam Nemett, Josip Novakovich, Joyce Carol Oates, Colette Phair, Edgar Allan Poe, Terese Svoboda, Justin Taylor, Lynne Tillman, Deb Olin, Unferth, H.G. Wells, Allison Whittenberg, and Diane Williams.</p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>_Stiltsville <em>is a story of a marriage that begins with serendipity--that holiest of relationship grails--one warm summer day in Miami. It's 1969 when girl (Frances, the novel's clear-eyed, guileless narrator) meets boy (Dennis, who in Frances's estimation is "careless but lucky") at one of a copse of houses built on stilts in Miami's Biscayne Bay. That such a place existed is incredible now, and in the scenes that reconstruct its peculiar beauty, Susanna Daniel ushers you into an exotic and unpredictable corner of the country. It's a perfect place to fall in love, and Frances and Dennis do, without fanfare or pretense. Theirs is a love that almost instantly becomes constant and real, full of simple happiness that makes it possible to weather the storms that come. --</em>Anne Bartholomew_  </p><p><strong>Curtis Sittenfeld Interviews Susanna Daniel</strong>   </p><p>__, <strong>, and </strong>, and <em>Stiltsville</em>, met at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Here they talk about friendship and its role in—and beyond—novels.   </p><p><strong>Curtis Sittenfeld</strong>: One of the many things I love about <em>Stiltsville </em>is that it starts with the main character, Frances, making a new friend, Marse, and then pretty much immediately falling for the guy Marse likes. Yet these two women become very close, even though only one of them can get the guy. Were you consciously defying stereotypes about female friendship, or did this just feel like the organic way to depict these characters?  </p><p><strong>Susanna Daniel</strong>: There's a lot of bad press out there regarding female friendships, which are so much more nuanced than stereotypes would have us believe. When Frances meets Dennis, her friendship with Marse is just beginning, but already they both know there's potential. Neither woman wants to throw that away. There's a moment when Frances tells Marse that it's not like her to flirt with -- not to mention steal -- another woman's guy, and their future pretty much hinges on Marse believing her. Which she does. To grant your friend permission to pursue what might turn out to be the love of her life -- that's a sign of trust and humility, which Marse is strong enough to give.  </p><p><strong>CS</strong>: So much of <em>Stiltsville</em> is about Frances' marriage to Dennis. I'm wondering how you think getting married and having children -- or not getting married and not having children when the people around you are -- changes the nature of women's friendships.  </p><p><strong>SD</strong>: I think there's a lot of truth to the idiom that it takes a village -- not only to raise a child, but to support a marriage. Because their lives take such different paths, Frances and Marse must make exceptions for each other that they might not make for other friends. Their differences might have divided them, but instead, Marse becomes a member of Frances' family in a way that a married friend could never be. Late in the book, Frances says that Marse had been almost like a second wife to Dennis in some ways, over the years. But she loves and trusts Marse like a sister, and when Marse's life changes unexpectedly, Frances must look outside her own troubles to support her friend the way she's been supported for so long.  </p><p><strong>CS</strong>: Two of Frances' best friends are her daughter, Margo, and her sister-in-law, Bette. What are the particular pleasures and complications of friendships with family members?  </p><p><strong>SD</strong>: Bette, Dennis's sister, is one of the most complicated characters of the book. In order to forge a friendship early on, Frances must become a confidante of Bette's, which isn't an easy thing to do. Unlike Marse, who remains in Frances' daily life until the end, Bette has to choose between family and love partway through the book -- and the choice she makes breaks Frances' heart. But later, Frances has to make a similar choice with regards to Margo. Moving away from family, in <em>Stiltsville</em>, is not a choice made lightly or without a lot of heartache, but sometimes it's the only way for a character to grow.  </p><p><strong>CS</strong>: You and I met in 1999, on our first day as graduate students at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, when we were the only two women in a class of eight. One of the most frequent questions I get about having attended the Workshop is whether it's competitive and back-stabbing. How do you answer this question?   </p><p><strong>SD</strong>: The program is definitely competitive in nature, though not back-stabbing. Writing isn't a team sport -- ultimately it's all about you and what you produce. No one can undermine you if you're focused and ambitious. That said, workshopping material is not for the faint of heart -- not because people are back-stabbing but because they are bright, experienced readers, and devastatingly honest. At the same time, I'm grateful for the Workshop for many reasons, not the least of which is that it's where I met the woman who continues to be my great reader, advocate, and friend: you.  </p><p><strong>CS</strong>: You're the friend I've learned the most from because you're so smart and opinionated, and you also see the world in a really different way than I do. But now that we're publicly exposing our friendship, do you think it will go the way of Gwyneth and Winona's? Also, in this scenario, which of us will end up shoplifting from Saks and which of us will dispense frittata recipes on a lifestyle website?  </p><p><strong>SD</strong>: I think I'm the boring domestic of the two of us, so it might be me with the web site (I think you probably disagree with this assessment). But then again, you're staunchly ethical, so I can't see you going the way of Winona. I think a better model for our friendship, which I'm proud to publish, is that of Ann Patchett and Elizabeth McCracken, two writers who for decades have read for each other and supported each other while living in different cities. What I hope is that we continue to enjoy the differences between us -- as writers, mothers, wives, friends -- and never let them distance us. When we met, we hadn't yet made the decisions that would root our lives, as we have now. I look forward to a future when maybe we don't live so far apart, and maybe our kids play independently together while we kick back and read magazines and talk about what Winona and Gwyneth are up to these days. Because who even remembers that they were friends once, except the two of us?  </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>With its lush flora and constant sun, South Florida is the true star of Daniel's exquisite debut, which follows a marriage over the course of 30 years. In 1969, having traveled from Atlanta to Miami for a college friend's wedding, 26-year-old Frances Ellerby meets glamorous Miami native Marse Heiger, who introduces her to Dennis DuVals and his house on stilts in Biscayne Bay. Though Marse has set her cap for Dennis, he and Frances fall in love and marry within a year. "I had no idea then," Frances says, "what would happen to my love, what nourishment it would receive, how mighty it would grow." Dennis and Frances have a daughter, Margo, buy a house in Coral Gables, and their life together proceeds as a series of ups and downs, beautifully told from Frances's pensive, sharp perspective. As the years pass and Miami changes, so do Frances, Dennis, and Margo, and the nuances of their relationships shift and realign, drawing inexorably toward a moving resolution. <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>At the start of Sokoloff's solid crime thriller, the discovery in a landfill of the mutilated corpse of Erin Carmody, the 18-year-old daughter of a prominent Boston businessman, presents homicide detective Adam Garrett with a particularly sensitive case. Marks on the body suggest the killer was conducting Satanic rituals. When Adam and his partner, Carl Landauer, question the prime suspect, Jason Moncrief, a college friend of Erin's, Jason chants the name of the demon Choronzon, then assaults Carl. Despite what appears to be an open-and-shut case, Adam can't discount the claim that Jason is innocent made by Tanith Cabarrus, an attractive witch who comes to police headquarters to report that she dreamed of other murders—and who believes that supernatural forces are behind the slaughter. As usual, Sokoloff (_The Unseen_) does a good job keeping the reader guessing whether a supernatural agency is really at work. <em>(June)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>“A wonderfully dark thriller with amazing is-it-isn't-it suspense all the way to the end. Highly recommended.”---Lee Child</p><p>Praise for <em>The Unseen</em></p><p>“Sokoloff keeps her story enticingly ambiguous, never clarifying until the climax whether the unfolding weirdness might be the result of the investigators’ psychic sensitivities or the mischievous handiwork of a human villain.”_---Publishers Weekly _</p><p>“The suspense starts on page one, tightening the noose on every page with increasing velocity to a stunning, fearsome climax. Ms. Sokoloff has created a chilling, fantastic supernatural thriller that will have you fearing what you can’t see.”---Allison Brennan, <em>New York</em>_ Times _bestselling author of <em>Sudden Death</em></p><p>“A spine-tingling story that has every indication of becoming a horror classic . . . this is a chillingly dark look into the unknown. 4 1/2 stars.”_---RT Book Reviews_</p><p>“A masterful blend of fascinating fact and chilling fiction . . . an unsettling and highly entertaining horror/thriller read.”---_BookBitch.com_ </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In Sokoloff's serviceable supernatural thriller, two Duke University psychology professors, Laurel MacDonald and Brendan Cody, stumble on suppressed findings of an inquiry into poltergeist activity conducted under the auspices of Duke's Rhine parapsychology lab nearly half a century earlier. All the participants appear to have died, disappeared or, in the case of Laurel's enfeebled uncle, gone mad. Determined to advance their academic careers, the pair corral two students with strong paranormal potential to camp out at the spooky Folger House, site of the original experiment. No sooner do they begin their study than they're confronted with uncanny phenomena that suggest they've awakened a malignant presence that pervades the house. Sokoloff (_The Price_) keep her story enticingly ambiguous, never clarifying until the climax whether the unfolding weirdness might be the result of the investigators' psychic sensitivities or the mischievous handiwork of a human villain. <em>(June)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"THE UNSEEN takes you on a breathless ride you'll never forget. Atmospheric, spooky, intense. The suspense starts on page one, tightening the noose on every page with increasing velocity to a stunning, fearsome climax. Ms. Sokoloff has created a chilling, fantastic supernatural thriller that will have you fearing what you can't see." --Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author of SUDDEN DEATH</p><p>Praise for <em>The Price:</em></p><p>“Some of the most original and freshly unnerving work in the genre.” <em>---The New York Times Book Review</em></p><p>“A stunning, riveting journey into terror and suspense.” ---Michael Palmer, <em>New York</em>_ Times_ bestselling author of <em>The Second Opinion</em></p><p>“It’s been a long, long time since a book scared, exhilarated, uplifted, frenzied, and made me green with jealousy. This is the book of 2008. It is beyond stunning. It is harrowing in the true sense of real art.” ---Ken Bruen, award-winning author of <em>Once Were Cops</em></p><p>“_The Harrowing _was immensely creepy and satisfying, a first novel and a wonderful book. Alex Sokoloff's <em>The Price</em> is another notch in this author's golden belt---a psychological roller coaster that keeps the reader on edge with bone-chilling thrills throughout. I couldn't put it down. Miss Sokoloff is an author not to be missed.” ---Heather Graham, bestselling author of <em>The Séance </em></p><p><em>“</em>Sokoloff is simply amazing.”_---Bookreporter.com_</p><p><em>“</em>A sublime second novel . . . Rest assured that Sokoloff will suffer none of the signs or symptoms of a sophomore slump with this confident follow-up to her Stoker-nominated debut. . . .  Her gooseflesh-inducing imagery jumps right off the pages, and her rich, graceful prose calls to mind names like King, Saul, and Levin.” <em>---Dark Scribe Magazine</em></p><p><em>“</em>Sokoloff’s straightforward writing style perfectly enhances her chilling and mysterious novel, in which she blurs the lines between what is real and what is merely a hallucination.” <em>---Romantic Times</em></p><p>__ </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>One could argue that the war novel is an essentially timeless genre. Weapons are subject to long and increasingly lethal refinement--but from <em>Gods Go Begging</em>, is a remarkable work. </p><p>Vea begins his story in present-day San Francisco. The protagonist, Jesse Pasadoble, is a former Army sergeant who's now made a name for himself as a criminal defense attorney. Haunted by wartime memories, Pasadoble has found a way to channel his anguish: his impoverished clients remind him of his suffering comrades, and he seeks a compensatory justice for what he and his platoon lost. </p><blockquote><p>Jesse hated death. He did not fear it, but he hated it with all of his heart and soul. A year and a half of incredible fear in the highlands of Vietnam had been transformed into an almost anguished love the living, intact moment, the moment that can never be possessed. Like many of the men who have witnessed the best and worst in themselves, who have been given a glimpse of the end of their lives at a very young age, he had lost the power to be lonely. The power had been replaced by something else: a soul sickness; a hunger for beauty, but only at a distance. Though he could not love his own life and the things within it, Jesse hated death. </p></blockquote><p>His newest client is a 12-year-old boy, a child of the projects who's been charged with the brutal murder of two women. As the case unfolds, the barriers between past and present, America and Vietnam, erode and finally disappear. Meanwhile, Vea expertly marries the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez to his visceral accounts of battle. Indeed, whether we measure by the breadth of his imagination, the strength of his characters, or the hallucinatory power of his prose, there seems to be no novelistic terrain that Vea can't conquer. A chronicle of defeat and suffering, <em>Gods Go Begging</em> represents a paradoxical victory for the author--and, of course, for the reader. <em>--Ted Leventhal</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Mexican-American author and Vietnam vet V?a's third novel (after La Maravilla) is a gritty, dark, and tightly wrapped tale of mystery, desire, hopelessness and death. A shocking double homicide; the nagging torment of Vietnam War flashbacks; a string of oddball, lowlife and scumbag clients; and his own tequila-clouded life make practicing law a daily ordeal for San Francisco defense attorney Jesse Pasadoble. And now dead soldier comrades and a crazy army chaplain from Jesse's Vietnam past have come back to both haunt and guide him as he struggles with his own demons and despair. Jesse is a cynical lawyer who believes "an honest victim is as rare as an honest defendant." When the two female owners of the Amazon Luncheonette are gunned down on the street, Jesse is tapped to defend the primary suspect, a scared and nearly illiterate local gangbanger called Bisquit Boy. The search leads him first to the culture of San Francisco's housing projects, then to the Vietnamese mob and, in an intensity of painful memories, through his own past. V?a's third-person narration alternates between the present-day plot and Jesse's war experience; chapters flash back to the Asian jungle and the men Jesse fought alongside, among them the mysterious chaplain who holds the key to current events. Jesse's anguish actually heightens his awareness and allows him to finally unravel a Gordian knot of bizarre relationships, which not only brings justice for the victims, but a measure of peace to his own soul as well. V?a composes his plot with great skill, leaving the reader strongly convinced of his story's credibility. (Aug.) <br />Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From</h3><p>There is a pod of good books on the SEALs, but this one is unique. Couch, a Vietnam-era SEAL and retired naval reserve captain, was given the most complete access possible to the demanding BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL) course and has recorded his observations, those of one who has been there and done a good deal of that. His account of Hell Week, the culmination of a formidable three-phase course intended to produce men who are physically, psychologically, and technically the best in the world at what they do, may leave the average reader short of breath. Few Hollywood stereotypes are on view; in their stead are a man who passed BUD/S at age 39, a superb swimmer who was disqualified for sinus problems, and a trainee at the low end of the fitness scale who subsequently won the Congressional Medal of Honor. Also on view is much serious thought by serious thinkers on the making of warriors at the dawn of the twenty-first century. <em>Roland Green</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p><h3>Review</h3><p>"<strong>The Warrior Elite is</strong> the first book that captures how the SEAL spirit is tempered. It reveals all the grit, sweat, mud, and blood of BUID/S training -- real-time, down and dirty. This is a must-read if you want to know what becoming a virtual warrior is all about." -- Governor Jesse Ventura, BUD/S Class 58  </p><p>"A wonderful, thought-provoking book by Dick Couch and a quick study of human personalities; his conclusions are optimistic and uplifting." -- Vice Admiral James Stockdale (USN. Ret.) Recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. <br /><em></em>  </p><p>"The Warrior Elite <em></em>offers superb insight into the making of a Navy SEAL. Dick Couch takes the reader through the incredible challenges of basic training and into the minds of these unique warriors who comprise our nation's highly selective fighting force. Having served extensively with Dick in combat as junior officers in Vietnam, I now understand the "how's and why's" of his profession and the SEALs' commitment to mission. <strong>The Warrior Elite </strong>captures the essence of a Navy SEAL -- the indomitable will to win and steadfast commitment to team." -- Robert J. Natter, Admiral, U.S. Navy, Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet   </p><p>"An authentic voice that spells out what it takes to become a SEAL--the sheer grit to overcome all obstacles. America is lucky that it continues to attract such men as these to serve." -- Theodore Roosevelt IV, Class 36  </p><p><em>From the Hardcover edition.</em> -- <em>Review</em></p>


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


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"A wonderfully mesmerizing adventure, delving into the convoluted mind of one of modern fiction's most famous anti-heroes, the vampire Lestat. Rice's writing is elegant and thought-provoking and her story is a gem."THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNEFor centuries Lestat has been a courted prince in the universe of the dead. Now he is alone and everything he once believed in seems false. So he embarks on a dangerous journey to destroy his doubts and loneliness forever....


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Bestselling author Danielle Steel paints a poignant portrait of Oliver Watson, a man who thinks his life is perfect--he has a great job, a beautiful home, a good relationship with his parents, three healthy children, and a loving wife. Things change the day Oliver Watson comes home from work to learn that his wife is going away to graduate school, leaving him to play full-time daddy, super-employee, and son-on-call; Oliver soon discovers that it is impossible to "have it all," all by himself. Through trial and error, and by watching the courageous examples set by his teenage son coping with his girlfriend's unplanned pregnancy and his father learning to love again after the death of his Alzheimer's stricken wife, Oliver discovers for himself that love can occur more than once and dreams can change for the better. One of Steel's best! <em>--Alison Trinkle</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Steel's captivating 25th novel will send her rocketing past the 125-million mark for books in print and satisfy avid fans with its splashy sentiment, loudly plucked heartstrings and boldly drawn, if superficially developed, cast. Oliver Watson is a successful, rather stolid, advertising executive with a beautiful wife, Sarah, three children, Ben, Melissa and Sam, and a house in suburban New York. But his paradise is teetering over an abyss: Sarah, who never wanted a conventional life, coldly abandons husband and kids to "find herself" by pursuing a master's degree at Harvard. Then Oliver's mother dies of Alzheimer's disease, leaving his 72-year-old father bereft, and 17-year-old Ben fathers a child and drops out of school. Oliver blames the unremittingly icy Sarah for every sorrow, yet initially refuses to get on with his life, even when his father points the way by finding a new love. Steel ( Star ; Zola ) is at the top of her bestselling form as she steers Oliver through a fearsome new world of single parenthood, modern women and radically changed sexual mores before winding up with a paean to family life and romance. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club dual main selection. <br />Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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In her 57th bestselling novel, Danielle Steel brilliantly chronicles the roller-coaster ride of dating the second time around—and tells a captivating story of the surprises one woman encounters when she’s thrust into the terrifying, exhilarating world of the Dating Game.Paris Armstrong never saw it coming. With two grown children and a lovely home in Connecticut, Paris was happy with her marriage, her family, her life. So when her husband of twenty-four years said they needed to talk, Paris couldn’t imagine what he was about to say.“I want a divorce,” Peter tells her. Just like that, the husband she adored had dumped her for a younger woman. And just like that, Peter and his thirty-one-year-old lover had made their plans for their future, leaving Paris to pick up the pieces of a shattered life. Within days, Peter was gone. And Paris was left to figure out how she intended to get through the next day, let alone the rest of her life.The task could not have been more painful. First came the tears. Then the excruciating attempts by well-meaning friends to “fix her up” with men who paled in comparison to Peter. Worse yet, she still loved him. Finally, Paris realized she was in a fight for her very survival. Drastic measures were called for. Even her shrink agreed. It was time to move—as far away as possible, just after Peter remarried. Paris had never felt, or been, more alone.Saying good-bye to the world she knew and loved, Paris heads west, to San Francisco, and discovers being single in a world full of men who were too young, too old, too married, or too good to be true. For Paris, the list seemed endless...the charming commitment-phobe...the drunken Neanderthal...the young Frenchman—so adorably sexy she almost forgot about his age, and did, for a while. With her dating track record veering between disappointing and disastrous, and her daughter now engaged to a man Paris’s age, Paris finally comes to the conclusion that romance is not in her future. That’s when her small circle of offbeat, loving friends becomes more important than ever before. And a decision Paris makes only for herself changes her life once more. The secret, she discovers finally, is in finding the gifts in life’s unexpected twists and turns, and turning despair into freedom and loss into joy.In a poignant, wickedly funny novel about getting dumped and getting over it, about tackling life with both courage and laughter, Danielle Steel explores what it means to start over, whether you wanted to or not, and finding something better than you had before.


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Europe in the throes of WWI and II serves as backdrop for this latest dose of melodrama from megabestseller Steel. Bookish, raven-haired beauty Beata Wittgenstein meets dashing French nobleman Antoine de Vallerand while on vacation in Switzerland and falls passionately in love. An affluent German Jew whose strict Orthodox parents forbid marriage outside the faith, Beata knows that a union with a Catholic from war-rival France is out of the question. But love trumps all, and shortly after returning to Germany, Beata defies her family, arranging to meet Antoine in Switzerland, where they marry. When WWI ends, the de Vallerands return to Germany and live happily with their young daughters, Amadea and Daphne. Antoine manages the stables at an old friend's castle, the perfect job for him, but just as all seems well, he's thrown from a headstrong horse. Meanwhile, Hitler's anti-Semitic sentiments spread across Europe, and Beata fears that even her half-Jewish daughters are no longer safe. Devout Catholic Amadea plans to become a Carmelite nun, but as the Third Reich's campaign of cruelty escalates, she finds a greater sense of purpose outside the convent walls. There's enough romance to keep readers going, but fans who prefer the glitz and glamour of Steel's contemporary settings may be nonplussed, and the abrupt disappearance of several major characters leaves giant holes in the narrative. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Steel presents a compelling tale of love and loss, set during World Wars I and II. At novel's beginning, it is 1915, and Beata Wittgenstein, daughter of a German banker, falls in love with Antoine de Vallerand, a French aristocrat. Because Antoine is Catholic, Beata's enraged father expels her from the family, proclaiming her dead. Beata moves to Switzerland, marries Antoine, converts to Catholicism, and has two daughters. The two live happily, despite missing their families (Antoine has been cast out of his family for marrying a Jew). When they move back to Germany, Beata establishes contact with her mother, who relates her fears for the increasing persecution of the Jews under the Nazi regime. Beata, who has lived as a Catholic for nearly 20 years, feels she is safe--in fact, her daughter, Amadea, has taken vows as a Carmelite nun-- but she watches in horror as her family members are shipped off to concentration camps. Readers will enjoy the multigenerational love stories and the historical plot. Librarians should stock up. <em>Kathleen Hughes</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In Shreve's smooth if unsurprising latest (after A Change in Altitude), EMT Peter Webster is drawn to a woman he rescues at the scene of a one-car drunk driving accident. Webster is well intentioned, but alcoholic Sheila, with her dangerous history, could prove beyond his efforts to save her, though the two embark on an affair that evolves into marriage and parenthood with the birth of their daughter, Rowan. Sheila's drinking, meanwhile, escalates until she causes another accident, this time with young Rowan in the car, causing Webster to send Sheila away to avoid jail time. Years later, with not a word from long-gone Sheila, Rowan is a typically turmoil-ridden high school senior--moody, her grades slipping, drinking--and her tribulations prompt Webster to reach out to Sheila to help his daughter. Webster and Sheila are more type than character--good-hearted man, damaged woman incapable of love--and the paramedic rescue scenes feel mostly like opportunities for Shreve to show off her research. Still, the story runs like a well-oiled machine and should sate the author's fans. (Nov.) (c) <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Paramedic Pete Webster is worried sick about his daughter, Rowan, a high-school senior whom he has raised single-handedly ever since she was two. Rowan has adopted very untypical behavior, ignoring her studies and drinking heavily. It brings back bad memories of his ex-wife, Sheila. He pulled her from a car wreck while on the job and soon fell madly in love with her both for her beauty and her irreverent sense of humor. When she became pregnant, he married her though he was only 21. They were very happy until Sheila began drinking all day, every day. Now Pete is worried that their daughter believes she is doomed to repeat her mother’s mistakes; he decides to contact Sheila, whom he has not seen or heard from for 16 years. The prolific Shreve brings her customary care to this thoroughly absorbing, perfectly paced domestic drama. Alternating between the life-and-death scenarios Pete encounters on the job and the fraught family tension between father and daughter, Shreve pulls readers right into her story. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Since 2001, Shreve’s books have spent more than 100 weeks on the New York Times best-seller lists; her sixteenth novel will no doubt follow suit. --Joanne Wilkinson </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>With <em>Bungalow 2</em> still on bestseller lists, Steel checks in with a Bay Area earthquake that shakes up the lives of three beautiful, talented yet somehow unfulfilled women. Sarah Sloane, 30-something wife of Seth, a wildly successful hedge fund entrepreneur, and mother of two, has planned to perfection a high-ticket charity auction. The only thing she hasn't counted on is the biggest seismic event to hit San Francisco since 1906 and the aftershocks it will cause in her marriage. Meanwhile, hot Grammy-winning 19-year-old singer Melanie Free, flown in to perform at the benefit, likewise finds her life overturned: following an on-stage triumph, Melanie throws away her platform shoes to assist disaster victims, admitting—much to the annoyance of her pushy stage mother and her TV actor boyfriend—that she always wanted to be a nurse. Sarah and Melanie face change with support from the 40-ish Sister Maggie Kent, a California nun whose good deeds draw the interest of recovering alcoholic and former AP photojournalist Everett Carson, who captures her in pictures. As marriage, faith and vows of chastity are tested, there's nothing complicated to spoil the romance. Steel delivers a sparkly story with an uplifting spiritual twist. <em>(Oct.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>“A sparkly story with an uplifting spiritual twist.”—_Publishers Weekly_  </p><p><em>From the Hardcover edition.</em></p>


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Danielle Steel’s 56th bestselling novel is about family and friendship, about one woman’s struggle to break free from the past—and the man who helps her triumph. And most of all, it is about daring to believe in...Answered Prayers.On the outside, Faith Madison is the very picture of a sophisticated New Yorker. Slim, blond, stylish, Faith has a life many would envy. Overcoming a childhood marked by tragedy, married to a successful investment banker and having raised two grown daughters, Faith has enjoyed her role as mother and wife, and the good life that emanates from their bustling Manhattan town house. But every step of the way, Faith has carried within her a secret she could divulge to no one. And with it, she has kept an even more painful secret from herself.For Faith, it is the sudden death of her stepfather—a man who, like her husband, Alex, always remained just beyond her reach—that will touch off a journey of change and revelation. At the funeral, painful memories flood back—and an old friend reenters Faith’s life. Faith is greeting mourners, when she hears a voice behind her and a single word that brings a quick smile to her face: “Fred.” Only one person aside from her older brother, Jack, called her that. Brad Patterson was Jack’s best friend, a long, lanky boy who teased, tormented, and protected Faith when they fancied themselves “The Three Musketeers” as kids. When Jack died years later, Faith and Brad came together again in their common, inconsolable grief, then lost touch once more amid the demands of families and busy lives a continent apart. Now a lawyer in California, Brad has reentered Faith’s life just as she is making a decision that plunges her marriage into crisis. Determined to fulfill a long-held desire for a career of her own, Faith applies to law school against her husband’s wishes, igniting a barrage of anger and recrimination. Faith’s only solace is the correspondence she has begun with Brad, a man trapped in an empty marriage of his own, a friend she once lost and has found again. Soon e-mails are flying between them, bridging three thousand miles, sharing much-needed friendship, support, laughter. And as these two childhood friends rediscover each other, something extraordinary is beginning to happen. In the safety of their friendship, Brad will find the courage to make a decision he should have made years before. And Faith, too, is changing, beginning to believe in herself—and in her right to grab hold of her dreams. Gathering a strength she never knew she had, Faith is finally ready to face the most painful step of all: of sharing the secret that has long been haunting her, and truly opening up her heart for the first time in her life. With unerring insight into the hearts of husbands and wives, lovers and families, Danielle Steel tells a wise and moving story of the secrets that wound and the choices that heal—and of the second chances that come only once in a lifetime.From the Hardcover edition.


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Packed with Steel's trademark dense plotting and incidents featuring everything from sexual abuse and infidelity to car crashes and impossible relatives, her 32nd novel (after Vanished ) is set in California's plush Marin County. Page Clarke, devoted wife of Brad and mother of Allyson and Andy, finds her golden life shattered when 15-year-old Allyson sneaks off with friend Chloe to meet two boys. In a subsequent head-on collision, one boy is killed, Chloe is seriously injured and Allyson lapses into a coma. Page can't reach Brad, who confesses when he comes home that he is having an affair. Stunned and hurt, Page keeps a vigil at Allyson's bedside while also coping with needy seven-year-old Andy and an ambivalent husband who can't decide whether to stay or leave. Her only support comes from Chloe's father, Trygve Thorensen, who has been the primary caretaker for his kids since their mother divorced him. Other plot twists include a visit from Page's self-indulgent, neurotic mother and her sister, and a secret concerning the driver of the other car in the accident. While not drawn in much depth, the characters are believable; Trygve in particular is likable and nurturing. The ending is predictable but pleasant, bound to delight Steel's fans. One million first printing; national ad/promo; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club dual main selection. <br />Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>In Steel's 32nd work, Page Clarke waits alone at a hospital to discover whether her daughter will survive a car crash involving several teenagers. As usual, her husband is out of town, but at least Page can lean on handsome Trygve, father of her daughter's best friend.<br />Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Top TV anchorwoman Melanie Adams had given up on love after a failed marriage and an unhappy affair. With her two teenage children and her television news career, she had no room in her life for a man. Then she met famous heart surgeon Peter Hallam, a widower with three children of his own. Suddenly Melanie was experiencing feelings she thought were gone forever. But two families (one in New York and one in Los Angeles), two exciting careers, and two strong-willed people were too much to handle. And Melanie faced a painful choice between her glamorous life in the public eye, her private life, the needs of her family, and the new family she took on. Changes lead each of them to new places, new problems, new people, and the new life they begin. </p><h3>From the Publisher</h3><p>Top TV anchorwoman Melanie Adams had given up on love after a failed marriage and an unhappy affair. With her two teenage children and her television news career, she had no room in her life for a man. Then she met famous heart surgeon Peter Hallam, a widower with three children of his own. Suddenly Melanie was experiencing feelings she thought were gone forever. But two families (one in New York and one in Los Angeles), two exciting careers, and two strong-willed people were too much to handle. And Melanie faced a painful choice between her glamorous life in the public eye, her private life, the needs of her family, and the new family she took on. Changes lead each of them to new places, new problems, new people, and the new life they begin. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Like the rest of her novels, Steel's 46th testifies to the insatiable appetite for unrequited love and the success of TV's <em>Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous</em>. Meet India Taylor, the coulda-woulda-shoulda been a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist if it wasn't for her meddling husband. Although they met in the Peace Corps 20 years prior, Doug insisted she put down the camera, pick up a broom, and raise four kids in the comfy Connecticut burbs. However, after 17 years of carpooling, Little League, and Doug's revelation that he's happy with a platonic marriage, India moves on to greener pastures. She finds her cash cow in the form of Paul Ward, a.k.a. "Lion of Wall Street," who has a yacht called the <em>Sea Star</em> and likes to coo such things as "I think I'm a little crazy, but I love you." Although he may be senile and she is still married, the duo seem destined for each other as Paul slowly helps India reclaim her past and follow her passion. What's not to love about Danielle Steel? She starts so many sentences with the word <em>and</em> that you start to do it yourself. And there's a run-on quality to the narrator's consciousness. But she drips glamour, drops famous names better than Robin Leach, and makes those pages fly so fast they cool your face on the hottest beach. </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Many a stay-at-home mom's worst nightmare is realized in Steel's latest novel when India Taylor's husband, Doug, threatens to end their 17-year marriage if she dares to pursue her long-abandoned photojournalism career. Doug repetitively intones that marriage is by necessity an unromantic contract in which the wife's sole purpose is to care for the home, kids and husband, and if she reneges on her end of the deal with a pipe dream of independence, that is the ultimate "deal breaker." But in tried-and-true Steel (Mirror Image, etc.) fashion, India has a handsome Wall Street billionaire, Paul Ward, in the wings. His glamorous wifeAan internationally bestselling authorAdies in a plane crash several months after he and India have struck up a close friendship. But then Paul turns guilty and skittish about the budding romance, leaving India alone to face the harsh realities of being a single mom of four. Predictably, India's desolation is brief, punctuated by travel, adventure, a thrilling new career and a near-tragedy to put everything into perspective. As usual, Steel takes a theme of interest or concern to manyAin this case, a woman striking out on her ownAand turns it into a compulsively readable tale. With its swiftly moving story line and tidy love-conquers-all ending, Steel's latest should gratify her millions of fans. Major ad/promo. <br />Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In Steel's latest, 42-year-old Tanya Harris loves her life as a mother of three, wife of a dashing San Francisco lawyer and moderately successful writer of short stories and soap opera scripts. She has long given up on her dream of writing a screenplay, but then her agent calls with a dream offer: a major director wants her and her alone to write the script for a new high-profile film. Tanya's first reaction is distress (her twin daughters are about to start their senior year, and her son is making the transition to his freshman year at UC Santa Barbara; how can she leave them?), but her detailed deliberations are cut short by her husband, who convinces her that this is her big opportunity. In Hollywood, Tanya's cosseted in every possible way, and she takes to the work immediately. But the weekend flights home aren't enough, and her worst fear is realized when her husband strays. Steel follows Tanya as she copes with domestic upheaval, all the time pushing ahead with her blossoming screenwriting career. Steel's characters spend a lot of time contemplating problems, and Tanya is especially adept at hand-wringing. Steel's many loyal readers will be entertained by this story of a dedicated mother and wife who embarks on a series of life-altering adventures in Hollywood._ (June)_ <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Steel's latest novel follows the travails of a demure Marin County housewife who finds herself caught up in the glamorous world of Hollywood. Tanya Harris is a contented wife and mother (beautiful for her age, of course) whose children will soon be heading off to college. With that hole in her life looming, she accepts an offer from her agent (she is also a free-lance writer) to work on a Hollywood script for a big-time producer and director. For Tanya, returning to the work world full time is a tough choice, but after a lot of hand-wringing and platitudes about leaving her family, she decides to do it. She plans to work in Hollywood during the week (residing at the swanky Beverly Hills Hotel, in Bungalow 2) and return home every weekend. Of course, she finds herself working on weekends, and before long, her husband begins an affair with their next-door neighbor, and Tanya herself has begun to take a romantic interest in the producer she is working for. Not surprisingly, their marriage unravels, and Tanya begins a series of fruitless Hollywood relationships, all while trying to maintain her bond with her children. But this is a Steel novel, after all, and eventually she finds her man, works things out with her kids, and wins an Academy Award, no less. <em>Kathleen Hughes</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


