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SUMMARY:
Different Seasons (1982) is a collection of four  novellas, markedly different in tone and subject, each on the theme of  a journey. The first is a rich, satisfying, nonhorrific tale about an  innocent man who carefully nurtures hope and devises a wily scheme to  escape from prison. The second concerns a boy who discards his  innocence by enticing an old man to travel with him into a reawakening  of long-buried evil. In the third story, a writer looks back on the  trek he took with three friends on the brink of adolescence to find  another boy's corpse. The trip becomes a character-rich rite of  passage from youth to maturity.

These first three novellas have been made into well-received movies:  "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" into Frank Darabont's 1994  The Shawshank Redemption (available as a screenplay, a DVD film, and an audiocassette), "Apt  Pupil" into Bryan Singer's 1998 film Apt Pupil (also released  in 1998 on audiocassette), and "The  Body" into Rob Reiner's Stand by Me  (1986).
    The final novella, "Breathing Lessons," is a horror yarn told by a  doctor, about a patient whose indomitable spirit keeps her baby alive  under extraordinary circumstances. It's the tightest, most polished  tale in the collection. --Fiona Webster


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


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

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


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There's something about a crippled, black, schizophrenic, civil rights activist-turned-gunslinger whose body has been hijacked by a white, pregnant demon from a parallel world that keeps a seven-volume story bracingly strong as it veers toward its Armageddon-like conclusion. When Susannah Dean is transported via a magic door on the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis (the scene of much of The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla) to New York City in the summer of 1999, the "demon-mother" who possesses her, Mia, has only one thing on her mind. She must give birth to her "chap" at a predetermined location in Manhattan's East 60s, as instructed by the henchmen-or "Low Men"-of the evil Crimson King. Pressed for time, Father Callahan, preteen Jake and talking pet "billy-bumbler" Oy follow Susannah and Mia's trail in an effort to prevent an act that would quicken the destruction of the Dark Tower and, in turn, of all worlds. Meanwhile, gunslingers Roland and Eddie travel to 1977 Maine in search of bookstore owner Calvin Tower, who is being hunted down by mobster Enrico Balazar and his gang, who first appeared in Eddie's version of New York in The Drawing of the Three Avid readers of the series will either be completely enthralled or extremely irritated when, in a gutsy move, the author weaves his own character into this unpredictable saga, but either way there's no denying the ingenuity with which King paints a candid picture of himself. The sixth installment of this magnum opus stops short with the biggest cliffhanger of King's career, but readers at the edge of their seats need only wait a few short months (Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower) to find out how-and if-King's fictional universe will come to an end. 10 full-color illus. not seen by PW.
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Stephen KingThe Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah with 10 full-color illustrations by Darrel AndersonThe next-to-last novel in Stephen King's seven-volume magnum opus, Song of Susannah is at once a book of revelation, a fascinating key to the unfolding mystery of the Dark Tower, and a fast-paced story of double-barreled suspense.To give birth to her "chap," demon-mother Mia has usurped the body of Susannah Dean and used the power of Black Thirteen to transport to New York City in the summer of 1999. The city is strange to Susannah...and terrifying to the "daughter of none," who shares her body and mind.Saving the Tower depends not only on rescuing Susannah but also on securing the vacant lot Calvin Tower owns before he loses it to the Sombra Corporation. Enlisting the aid of Manni senders, the remaining katet climbs to the Doorway Cave...and discovers that magic has its own mind. It falls to the boy, the billy-bumbler, and the fallen priest to find Susannah-Mia, who, in a struggle to cope -- with each other and with an alien environment -- "go todash" to Castle Discordia on the border of End-World. In that forsaken place, Mia reveals her origins, her purpose, and her fierce desire to mother whatever creature the two of them have carried to term.Eddie and Roland, meanwhile, tumble into western Maine in the summer of 1977, a world that should be idyllic but isn't. For one thing, it is real, and the bullets are flying. For another, it is inhabited by the author of a novel called 'Salem's Lot, a writer who turns out to be as shocked by them as they are by him.These are the simple vectors of a story rich in complexity and conflict. Its dual climaxes, one at the entrance to a deadly dining establishment and the other appended to the pages of a writer's journal, will leave readers gasping for the saga's final volume (which, Dear Reader, follows soon, say thank ya).


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

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


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


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

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


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


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


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


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


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


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**The Royal Brat is in Trouble** 

 Roger Ramius Sergei Chiang MacClintock didn't understand. 

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

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

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

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

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

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


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In the seemingly paradisal Wisconsin town of French Landing, small distortions disturb the beauty: a talking crow, an old man obeying strange internal marching orders, a house that is both there and not quite there. And roaming the town is a terrible fiend nicknamed the Fisherman, who is abducting and murdering small children and eating their flesh. The sheriff desperately wants the help of a retired Los Angeles cop, who once collared another serial killer in a neighboring town. Of course, this is no ordinary policeman, but Jack Sawyer, hero of Stephen King and Peter Straub's 1984 fantasy The Talisman. At the end of that book, the 13-year-old Jack had completed a grueling journey through an alternate realm called the Territories, found a mysterious talisman, killed a terrible enemy, and saved the life of his mother and her counterpart in the Territories. Now in his 30s, Jack remembers nothing of the Talisman, but he also hasn't entirely forgotten: When these faces rise or those voices mutter, he has until now told himself the old lie, that once there was a frightened boy who caught his mother's neurotic terror like a cold and made up a story, a grand fantasy with good old Mom-saving Jack Sawyer at its center. None of it was real, and it was forgotten by the time he was sixteen. By then he was calm. Just as he's calm now, running across his north field like a lunatic, leaving that dark track and those clouds of startled moths behind him, but doing it calmly. Jack is abruptly pulled into the case--and back into the Territories--by the Fisherman himself, who sends Jack a child's shoe, foot still attached. As Jack flips back and forth between French Landing and the Territories, aided by his 20-years-forgotten friend Speedy Parker and a host of other oddballs (including a blind disk jockey, the beautiful mother of one of the missing children, and a motorcycle gang calling itself the "Hegelian Scum"), he tracks both the Fisherman and a much bigger fish: the abbalah, the Crimson King who seeks to destroy the axle of worlds. While The Talisman was a straightforward myth in 1980s packaging, Black House is richer and more complex, a fantasy wrapped in a horror story inside a mystery, sporting a clever tangle of references to Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, jazz, baseball, and King's own Dark Tower saga. Talisman fans will find the sure-footed Jack has worn well--as has the King/Straub writing style, which is much improved with the passage of two decades. --Barrie Trinkle


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


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


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

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



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


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


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Set in Maine, this story concerns Bobbi who has developed telepathic powers. A spaceship landed at the bottom of her garden and when it is uncovered, the citizens of Haven metamorphose into increasingly bizarre and dangerous creatures.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Science and technology have made our lives easier, cured diseases, with achievements that an earlier age would have considered impossible. But once in a while, the law of unintended consequences breaks loose. Christopher Anvil considers the two faces of technological innovation: Sometimes the result is a literal life-saver; but at other times a breakthrough may not break quite the way it was supposed to. 

  

·         A new wonder drug has the unexpected side effect of making people happy. Not a problem—everybody should want to be happy, right? But should people be happy *all* of the time? Suppose being happy required you *never* to disappoint anyone, no matter what they’re requesting. . . . 

·         Then there was the energy source for every home that would free the country from its dependence on foreign oil—except that the prototype was rushed into production a bit too fast. 

·         Back on the bright side, another device not only couldn’t possibly work by every known law of science, but didn’t have any obvious uses. Then alien invaders landed and suddenly the crackpot device was the world’s only hope. 

  

     The upside and downside of marvelous new gadgets, as told by a master of science fiction adventure with a prescription for fun.


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Pity the poor private eye (or official investigator, for that matter), who has to solve a case which may involve death by black magic, evidence that may have been altered or planted by an itinerant sorcerer, and supernatural entities ranging from ghosts to vampires to dragons. Even when the detective is a master of sorcery himself, the dragon may have an unbreakable alibi. Best-selling authors Eric Flint and Mike Resnick present a generous selection of stories from the intersection of mystery and magic by popular writers Neil Gaiman, Gene Wolf, David Drake, Harry Turtledove, Esther M. Friesner, and more, including Flint and Resnick themselves. The Dragon Done It is an exciting cross-genre volume that both mystery fans and fantasy fans will enjoy. And so will dragons.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

In this enchanting debut novel, Maggie Pouncey brings to life the unforgettable Flora Dempsey, the headstrong and quick-witted only child of Lewis Dempsey, a beloved former college president and famous literary critic in the league of Harold Bloom. At the news of her father’s death, Flora quits her big-city magazine job and returns to Darwin, the quaint New England town where she grew up, to retreat into the house he has left her, filled as it is with reminders of him. Even weightier is her appointment as her father’s literary executor. It seems he was secretly writing poems at the end of his life—love poems to a girlfriend Flora didn’t know he had. Flora soon discovers that this woman has her own claims on Lewis’s poetry and his memory, and in the righteousness of her loss and bafflement at her father’s secrets—his life so richly separate from her own in ways she never guessed—Flora is highly suspicious of her. Meanwhile, Flora is besieged by well-wishers and literary bloggers alike as she tries to figure out how to navigate it all: the fate of the poems, the girlfriend who wants a place in her life, her memories of her parents’ divorce, and her own uncertain future. At once comic and profound, *Perfect Reader* is a heady, uplifting story of loneliness and of the spur to growth that grief can be. Brimming with energy and with the elbow-patchy wisdom of her still-vivid father, Flora’s story will set her free to be the “perfect reader” not just of her father’s life but of her own as well.


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King's third collection, after Night Shift (1978) and Skeleton Crew (1985), offers 23 formerly uncollected works, with King as bizarre as ever. A handful of the stories have been rewritten or dressed up for this occasion. King's introduction (a defense against the ivory tower opinions of his critics) and endnotes mentions several sources, including The New Yorker, which printed the lengthy ``Heads Down''--about Little League teams up in Maine--that King calls ``the best nonfiction writing of my life.'' Other oddities are a nostalgic baseball poem and a downbeat teleplay, ``Sorry, Right Number,'' which appeared on Tales from the Darkside. Some pieces display King's charging, looser, richly vulgar style (``Dolan's Cadillac,'' a revenge tale in which the narrator gets even with a Mafia chieftain who killed the hero's wife, and buries him alive in his Caddie), while others occasionally show an unusually neat style hardly different from any other journeyman writer's, aside from the magical King touches (``The Moving Finger''--perhaps the best in the collection, about a man haunted by a live finger that keeps climbing out of the drain of his bathroom sink and finally grows to seven feet). Still others strive for human feeling (``Dedication''--about a longtime black cleaning maid in a fancy hotel who gets whammied by a voodoo lady and made pregnant by sperm on the bedsheets of a white novelist whose writing style gets passed on to her son)--and then some are just the King ticket readers expect: ``The End of the Whole Mess''-- about a polymathic genius who discovers the way to end man's inhumanity to man by altering his drinking water. Addicts, fear not: the King lives.


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Stephen King cranks up the suspense in a different kind of bedtime story. A game of seduction between a husband and wife goes horribly awry when the husband suddenly dies. But the wife's nightmare has just begun.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

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


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Set in the 1930s at the Cold Mountain Penitentiary's death-row facility, *The Green Mile* is the riveting and tragic story of John Coffey, a giant, preternaturally gentle inmate condemned to death for the rape and murder of twin nine-year-old girls. It is a story narrated years later by Paul Edgecomb, the ward superintendent compelled to help every prisoner spend his last days peacefully and every man walk the green mile to execution with his humanity intact. 

 Edgecomb has sent seventy-eight inmates to their date with "old sparky," but he's never encountered one like Coffey -- a man who wants to die, yet has the power to heal. And in this place of ultimate retribution, Edgecomb discovers the terrible truth about Coffey's gift, a truth that challenges his most cherished beliefs -- and ours. 

 Originally published in 1996 in six self-contained monthly installments, *The Green Mile* is an astonishingly rich and complex novel that delivers over and over again. Each individual volume became a huge success when first published, and all six were on the *New York Times* bestseller list simultaneously. Three years later, when Frank Darabont made *The Green Mile* into an award-winning movie starring Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan, the book returned to the bestseller list -- and stayed there for months.  

 And now -- with a new introduction by King's foreign agent Ralph Vicinanza, as well as the author's own foreword -- we have the first hardcover edition of this magnificent novel in which "King surpasses our expectations, leaves us spellbound and hungry for the next twist of plot" *(The Boston Globe).* 

 With illustrations and a new frontispiece for this edition by Mark Geyer.


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There s a place in Wentworth， Ohio， where summer is in full swing. It s called Poplar Street. Up until now it s been a nice place to live.The idling red van around the corner is about to change all that. Let the battle against evil begin.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Stephen King's most gripping and unforgettable novel, *Bag of   Bones,* is a story of grief and a lost love's enduring bonds, of a new   love haunted by the secrets of the past, of an innocent child caught in a   terrible crossfire.  

  Set in the Maine territory King has made mythic, *Bag of Bones*   recounts the plight of forty-year-old bestselling novelist Mike Noonan,   who is unable to stop grieving even four years after the sudden death of   his wife, Jo, and who can no longer bear to face the blank screen of his   word processor.  

  Now his nights are plagued by vivid nightmares of the house by the lake.   Despite these dreams, or perhaps because of them, Mike finally returns to   Sara Laughs, the Noonans' isolated summer home.  

  He finds his beloved Yankee town familiar on its surface, but much   changed underneath -- held in the grip of a powerful millionaire, Max   Devore, who twists the very fabric of the community to his purpose: to   take his three-year-old granddaughter away from her widowed young mother.   As Mike is drawn into their struggle, as he falls in love with both of   them, he is also drawn into the mystery of Sara Laughs, now the site of   ghostly visitations, ever-escalating nightmares, and the sudden recovery   of his writing ability. What are the forces that have been unleashed here   -- and what do they want of Mike Noonan?  

  As vivid and enthralling as King's most enduring works, *Bag of   Bones* resonates with what Amy Tan calls "the witty and obsessive   voice of King's powerful imagination." It's no secret that King is our   most mesmerizing storyteller. In *Bag of Bones* -- described by   Gloria Naylor as "a love story about the dark places within us all" -- he   proves to be one of our most moving.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Once upon a time, in the haunted city of Derry, four boys stood together and did a brave thing. It was something that changed them in ways they could never begin to understand. 

 **Dreamcatcher** 

 Twenty-five years after saving a Down's-syndrome kid from bullies, Beav, Henry, Pete, and Jonesy -- now men with separate lives and separate problems -- reunite in the woods of Maine for their annual hunting trip. But when a stranger stumbles into their camp, disoriented and mumbling something about lights in the sky, chaos erupts. Soon, the four friends are plunged into a horrifying struggle with a creature from another world where their only chance of survival is locked in their shared past -- and in the Dreamcatcher. 

 Never before has Stephen King contended so frankly with the heart of darkness. *Dreamcatcher,* his first full-length novel since *Bag of Bones,* is a powerful story of astonishing range that will satisfy fans both new and old.


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Surely no stranger work exists in the annals of protest literature than The Master and Margarita. Written during the Soviet crackdown of the 1930s, when Mikhail Bulgakov's works were effectively banned, it wraps its anti-Stalinist message in a complex allegory of good and evil. Or would that be the other way around? The book's chief character is Satan, who appears in the guise of a foreigner and self-proclaimed black magician named Woland. Accompanied by a talking black tomcat and a "translator" wearing a jockey's cap and cracked pince-nez, Woland wreaks havoc throughout literary Moscow. First he predicts that the head of noted editor Berlioz will be cut off; when it is, he appropriates Berlioz's apartment. (A  puzzled  relative receives the following telegram: "Have just been run over by streetcar at Patriarch's Ponds funeral Friday three afternoon come Berlioz.") Woland and his minions transport one bureaucrat to Yalta, make another one disappear entirely except for his suit, and frighten several others so badly that they end up in a psychiatric hospital. In fact, it seems half of Moscow shows up in the bin, demanding to be placed in a locked cell for protection. 
  Meanwhile, a few doors down in the hospital lives the true object of Woland's visit: the author of an unpublished novel about Pontius Pilate. This Master--as he calls himself--has been driven mad by rejection, broken not only by editors' harsh criticism of his novel but, Bulgakov suggests, by political persecution as well. Yet Pilate's story becomes a kind of parallel narrative, appearing in different forms throughout Bulgakov's novel: as a manuscript read by the Master's indefatigable love, Margarita, as a scene dreamed by the poet--and fellow lunatic--Ivan Homeless, and even as a story told by Woland himself. Since we see this narrative from so many different points of view, who is truly its author? Given that the Master's novel and this one end the same way, are they in fact the same book? These are only a few of the many questions Bulgakov provokes, in a novel that reads like a set of infinitely nested Russian dolls: inside one narrative there is another, and then another, and yet another. His devil is not only entertaining, he is necessary: "What would your good be doing if there were no evil, and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it?"
  Unsurprisingly--in view of its frequent, scarcely disguised references to interrogation and terror--Bulgakov's masterwork was not published until 1967, almost three decades after his death. Yet one wonders if the world was really ready for this book in the late 1930s, if, indeed, we are ready for it now. Shocking, touching, and scathingly funny, it is a novel like no other. Woland may reattach heads or produce 10-ruble notes from the air, but Bulgakov proves the true magician here. The Master and Margarita is a different book each time it is opened. --Mary Park  --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


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In this final volume of the beloved American saga that began withAll Over but the Shoutin'and continued withAva's Man,Rick Bragg closes his circle of family stories with an unforgettable tale about fathers and sons inspired by his own relationship with his ten-year-old stepson. He learns, right from the start, that a man who chases a woman with a child is like a dog who chases a car and wins. He discovers that he is unsuited to fatherhood, unsuited to fathering this boy in particular, a boy who does not know how to throw a punch and doesn't need to; a boy accustomed to love and affection rather than violence and neglect; in short, a boy wholly unlike the child Rick once was, and who longs for a relationship with Rick that Rick hasn't the first inkling of how to embark on. With the weight of this new boy tugging at his clothes, Rick sets out to understand his father, his son, and himself. The Prince of Frogtowndocuments a mesmerizing journey back in time to the lush Alabama landscape of Rick's youth, to Jacksonville's one-hundred-year-old mill, the town's blight and salvation; and to a troubled, charismatic hustler coming of age in its shadow, Rick's father, a man bound to bring harm even to those he truly loves. And the book documents the unexpected corollary to it, the marvelous journey of Rick's later life: a journey into fatherhood, and toward a child for whom he comes to feel a devotion that staggers him. With candor, insight, tremendous humor, and the remarkable gift for descriptive storytelling on which he made his name, Rick Bragg delivers a brilliant and moving rumination on the lives of boys and men, a poignant reflection on what it means to be a father and a son.


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Deadeye Dick is Vonnegut's funny, chillingly satirical look at the death of innocence.  Amid a true Vonnegutian host of horrors&#8211;a double murder, a fatal dose of radioactivity, a decapitation, an annihilation of a city by a neutron bomb&#8211;Rudy Waltz, a.k.a. Deadeye Dick, takes us along on a zany search for absolution and happiness.  Here is a tale of crime and punishment that makes us rethink what we believe...and who we say we are.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

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


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International bestselling author Stephen King is in terrifying top form with his collection of short stories in almost a decade.In this spine-chilling compilation,King takes readers down a road less traveled(for good reason)in the blocbuster e-Book“Riding the Bullet,”bad table service turns bloody when you stop in for“Lunch at the Gotham Cafe,”and terror becomes deja vu all over again when you get“That Feeling,You Can Only Say What It Is in Frendh”——along with eleven more stories that will keep you awake until daybread.Enter a nightmarish mindscape of nurelenting horror and shocking revelations that could only come from the imagination of greatest storyteller of our time


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Trisha McFarland is a plucky 9-year-old hiking with her brother and mom, who is grimly determined to give the kids a good time on their weekends together. Trisha's mom is recently divorced, and her brother is feuding with her for moving from Boston to small-town Maine, where classmates razz him. Trisha steps off the trail for a pee and a respite from the bickering. And gets lost.
    Trisha's odyssey succeeds on several levels. King renders her consciousness of increasing peril beautifully, from the "first minnowy flutter of disquiet" in her guts to her into-the-wild tumbles to her descent into hallucinations, the nicest being her beloved Red Sox baseball pitcher Tom Gordon, whose exploits she listens to on her Walkman. The nature writing is accurate, tense, and sometimes lyrical, from the maddening whine of the no-see-um mosquito to the profound obbligato of the "Subaudible" (Trisha's dad's term for nature's intimations of God). Our identification with Trisha deepens as we learn about her loved ones: Dad, a dreamboat whose beer habit could sink him; loving but stubborn Mom; Trisha's best pal, Pepsi Robichaud, vividly evoked by her colorful sayings ("Don't go all GIRLY on me, McFarland!"). The personal associations triggered by a full moon, the running monologue with which she stays sane--we who have been lost in woods will recognize these things.


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On an island off the coast of Maine, a man is found dead. There's no identification on the body. Only the dogged work of a pair of local newspapermen and a graduate student in forensics turns up any clues. But that's just the beginning of the mystery. Because the more they learn about the man and the baffling circumstances of his death, the less they understand. Was it an impossible crime? Or something stranger still...? No one but Stephen King could tell this story about the darkness at the heart of the unknown and our compulsion to investigate the unexplained. With echoes of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and the work of Graham Greene, one of the world's great storytellers presents a surprising tale that explores the nature of mystery itself...


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Stephen King -- who has written more than fifty books, dozens of number one *New York Times* bestsellers, and many unforgettable movies -- delivers an astonishing collection of short stories, his first since *Everything's Eventual* six years ago. As guest editor of the bestselling *Best American Short Stories 2007*, King spent over a year reading hundreds of stories. His renewed passion for the form is evident on every page of *Just After Sunset*. The stories in this collection have appeared in *The New Yorker*, *Playboy*, *McSweeney's*, *The Paris Review*, *Esquire*, and other publications.  

 Who but Stephen King would turn a Port-O-San into a slimy birth canal, or a roadside honky-tonk into a place for endless love? A book salesman with a grievance might pick up a mute hitchhiker, not knowing the silent man in the passenger seat listens altogether too well. Or an exercise routine on a stationary bicycle, begun to reduce bad cholesterol, might take its rider on a captivating -- and then terrifying -- journey. Set on a remote key in Florida, "The Gingerbread Girl" is a riveting tale featuring a young woman as vulnerable -- and resourceful -- as Audrey Hepburn's character in *Wait Until Dark*. In "Ayana," a blind girl works a miracle with a kiss and the touch of her hand. For King, the line between the living and the dead is often blurry, and the seams that hold our reality intact might tear apart at any moment. In one of the longer stories here, "N.," which recently broke new ground when it was adapted as a graphic digital entertainment, a psychiatric patient's irrational thinking might create an apocalyptic threat in the Maine countryside...or keep the world from falling victim to it.  

 *Just After Sunset* -- call it dusk, call it twilight, it's a time when human intercourse takes on an unnatural cast, when nothing is quite as it appears, when the imagination begins to reach for shadows as they dissipate to darkness and living daylight can be scared right out of you. It's the perfect time for Stephen King.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**No more than a dark pencil line on a blank page. A horizon line, maybe. But also a slot for blackness to pour through...**

A terrible construction site accident takes Edgar Freemantle's right arm and scrambles his memory and his mind, leaving him with little but rage as he begins the ordeal of rehabilitation. A marriage that produced two lovely daughters suddenly ends, and Edgar begins to wish he hadn't survived the injuries that could have killed him. He wants out. His psychologist, Dr. Kamen, suggests a "geographic cure," a new life distant from the Twin Cities and the building business Edgar grew from scratch. And Kamen suggests something else. 

*"Edgar, does anything make you happy?" 

"I used to sketch."

"Take it up again. You need hedges...hedges against the night."*

Edgar leaves Minnesota for a rented house on Duma Key, a stunningly beautiful, eerily undeveloped splinter of the Florida coast. The sun setting into the Gulf of Mexico and the tidal rattling of shells on the beach call out to him, and Edgar draws. A visit from Ilse, the daughter he dotes on, starts his movement out of solitude. He meets a kindred spirit in Wireman, a man reluctant to reveal his own wounds, and then Elizabeth Eastlake, a sick old woman whose roots are tangled deep in Duma Key. Now Edgar paints, sometimes feverishly, his exploding talent both a wonder and a weapon. Many of his paintings have a power that cannot be controlled. When Elizabeth's past unfolds and the ghosts of her childhood begin to appear, the damage of which they are capable is truly devastating. The tenacity of love, the perils of creativity, the mysteries of memory and the nature of the supernatural -- Stephen King gives us a novel as fascinating as it is gripping and terrifying.


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Witness Stephen King's triumphant, blood-spattered return to the genre that made him famous. Cell, the king of horror's homage to zombie films (the book is dedicated in part to George A. Romero) is his goriest, most horrific novel in years, not to mention the most intensely paced. Casting aside his love of elaborate character and town histories and penchant for delayed gratification, King yanks readers off their feet within the first few pages; dragging them into the fray and offering no chance catch their breath until the very last page. 
 In Cell King taps into readers fears of technological warfare and terrorism. Mobile phones deliver the apocalypse to millions of unsuspecting humans by wiping their brains of any humanity, leaving only aggressive and destructive impulses behind. Those without cell phones, like illustrator Clayton Riddell and his small band of "normies," must fight for survival, and their journey to find Clayton's estranged wife and young son rockets the book toward resolution. 
 Fans that have followed King from the beginning will recognize and appreciate Cell as a departure--King's writing has not been so pure of heart and free of hang-ups in years (wrapping up his phenomenal Dark Tower series and receiving a medal from the National Book Foundation doesn't hurt either). "Retirement" clearly suits King, and lucky for us, having nothing left to prove frees him up to write frenzied, juiced-up horror-thrillers like Cell.  --Daphne Durham  --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. 

      
  Starred Review. It's probably a good idea not to use your cell phone while you listen to Scott's beautifully understated reading of terrormeister King's latest take on technology run amok: you might just toss it down the nearest storm drain. The excellent film actor (who catches the power of his late father George C. Scott's voice but smooths off the rough edges) adds an important element—quiet believability—to King's bloody, occasionally over-the-top story of a short but lethal electronic signal that seriously damages everyone in the world using a cell phone at that moment. The Pulse, as it comes to be known, turns idle chatterers into weirdly rewired killing machines. Scott makes the lead character—a comic book artist from Maine (where else?) named Clayton Riddell, who is in Boston with his phone off and in his pocket—a touching and surprisingly tough survivor, much like the nonpods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He also resists the temptation to make the "phoners" (those affected by the Pulse) sound unusually strange or dangerous—until their real motives become obvious. Simultaneous release with the Scribner hardcover (Reviews, Jan. 2). (Jan.) 
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.  --This text refers to the Audio CD edition. 

     
  Fans have offered their horror-fiction idol unfaltering loyalty since the publication of his first novel, Carrie, three decades ago. More than 50 books later, Stephen King's stock-in-trade remains stinging, darkly humorous social commentary. His latest effort, a nod to gore-meisters George Romero (Night of the Living Dead) and Richard Matheson (I Am Legend), among others, is no different. The result, though entertaining, is uneven. Some reviewers appreciate King for his prodigious imagination and his storytelling abilities, while others take issue with his two-dimensional characters, scattershot plotting, and the too-obvious echoes of past novels. For longtime fans of King's work, Cell may bring to mind a more compact (though ultimately less satisfying) version of the author's epic The Stand.
Copyright &#169; 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.  --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


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


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

WANT TO GO FOR A RIDE...? 

 In a secret shed behind the barracks of the Pennsylvania State Police, Troop D, there's a cherry Buick Roadmaster no one has touched in years -- because there's more power under the hood than anyone can handle....


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Lisey Debusher Landon lost her husband, Scott, two years ago, after a twenty-five-year marriage of the most profound and sometimes frightening intimacy. Scott was an award-winning, bestselling novelist and a very complicated man. Early in their relationship, before they married, Lisey had to learn from him about books and blood and bools. Later, she understood that there was a place Scott went -- a place that both terrified and healed him, that could eat him alive or give him the ideas he needed in order to live. Now it's Lisey's turn to face Scott's demons, Lisey's turn to go to Boo'ya Moon. What begins as a widow's effort to sort through the papers of her celebrated husband becomes a nearly fatal journey into the darkness he inhabited. Perhaps King's most personal and powerful novel, Lisey's Story is about the wellsprings of creativity, the temptations of madness, and the secret language of love.


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An unpopular teenage girl whose mother is a religious fanatic is tormented and teased to the breaking point by her more popular schoolmates and uses her hidden telekinetic powers to inflict a terrifying revenge


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

In Obama's Wars, Bob Woodward provides the most intimate and sweeping portrait yet of the young president as commander in chief. Drawing on internal memos, classified documents, meeting notes and hundreds of hours of interviews with most of the key players, including the president, Woodward tells the inside story of Obama making the critical decisions on the Afghanistan War, the secret campaign in Pakistan and the worldwide fight against terrorism.At the core of Obama's Wars is the unsettled division between the civilian leadership in the White House and the United States military as the president is thwarted in his efforts to craft an exit plan for the Afghanistan War."So what's my option?" the president asked his war cabinet, seeking alternatives to the Afghanistan commander's request for 40,000 more troops in late 2009. "You have essentially given me one option.... It's unacceptable.""Well," Secretary of Defense Robert Gates finally said, "Mr. President, I think we owe you that option."It never came. An untamed Vice President Joe Biden pushes relentlessly to limit the military mission and avoid another Vietnam. The vice president frantically sent half a dozen handwritten memos by secure fax to Obama on the eve of the final troop decision.President Obama's ordering a surge of 30,000 troops and pledging to start withdrawing U.S. forces by July 2011 did not end the skirmishing.General David Petraeus, the new Afghanistan commander, thinks time can be added to the clock if he shows progress. "I don't think you win this war," Petraeus said privately. "This is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids' lives."Hovering over this debate is the possibility of another terrorist attack in the United States. The White House led a secret exercise showing how unprepared the government is if terrorists set off a nuclear bomb in an American city--which Obama told Woodward is at the top of the list of what he worries about all the time.Verbatim quotes from secret debates and White House strategy sessions--and firsthand accounts of the thoughts and concerns of the president, his war council and his generals--reveal a government in conflict, often consumed with nasty infighting and fundamental disputes.Woodward has discovered how the Obama White House really works, showing that even more tough decisions lie ahead for the cerebral and engaged president.Obama's Wars offers the reader a stunning, you-are-there account of the president, his White House aides, military leaders, diplomats and intelligence chiefs in this time of turmoil and danger.From the Washington PostBy Steve Luxenberg, September 22, 2010:President Obama urgently looked for a way out of the war in Afghanistan last year, repeatedly pressing his top military advisers for an exit plan that they never gave him, according to secret meeting notes and documents cited in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward.Frustrated with his military commanders for consistently offering only options that required significantly more troops, Obama finally crafted his own strategy, dictating a classified six-page "terms sheet" that sought to limit U.S. involvement, Woodward reports in Obama's Wars.According to Woodward's meeting-by-meeting, memo-by-memo account of the 2009 Afghan strategy review, the president avoided talk of victory as he described his objectives."This needs to be a plan about how we're going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan," Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid out his reasons for adding 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation. "Everything we're doing has to be focused on how we're going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It's in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room."Read the full Post news report on Obama's Wars.


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Bonnie Pinkwater is a teacher, a good one. She cares about her students. So when Peyton Newlin, a thirteen-year-old math genius, disappears, Bonnie starts nosing around. One by one, students who were competing with the young genius start turning up dead and Bonnie suspects Peyton may be narrowing the field. Then Peyton himself turns up murdered. Bonnie's investigation ratchets up.What she discovers is a coven of witches, a teenage comic book magnate, a skinhead Neanderthal with violent propensities, an abusive father, an amorous science teacher, and a mistranslated medieval mathematics manuscript. Somehow, all the pieces have intersected at the tragically brief life of her math protégé. As the body count mounts, Bonnie realizes she may have bitten off more than she can chew. Because whoever is eliminating her beloved students, has now decided East Plains, Colorado would be better off without one aging math teacher.


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No secret will keep forever. A Vatican priest is found murdered on the shores of Denmark - nailed to a cross in the shadow of Hamlet's castle. He is the first victim in a vicious killing spree that spans the world. Each horrific murder mirrors the crucifixion of Christ. Meanwhile, deep in the Roman Catacombs of Orvieto, an archaeologist uncovers an ancient scroll dating back two thousand years. The scroll, he knows, holds the key to a dark and treacherous secret that will rock the very foundations of the Church. But only if he can decipher its lost meanings - and only if he can live long enough to reveal them. The enemies of the truth know no law of man.


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Retired soldiers Jonathon Payne and D.J. Jones return to action (after last year's Sign of the Cross), investigating a secret bunker off the coast of Korea where a gruesome scene and a missing squad from their former unit, an elite counterinsurgency team, indicate that secret interrogation proceedings have gone terribly wrong. Piecing together the facts of the case lead Payne and Jones to Mecca, where a plot to blow up the Grand Mosque suggests a global conspiracy to align forces against the United States. Soon Payne and Jones have to risk their lives to infiltrate Mecca (where non-Muslims can be summarily executed) to save the city and, ultimately, the world. Kuzneski's novel is taut and largely fast-paced; though occasionally bogged down in historical exposition, it's a fair trade that gives the book a rich sense of authenticity and plausibility. Though characters are short on depth, Kuzneski knows how to maintain a nuanced moral landscape while wresting maximum thrills from contemporary Western fear of terrorism. This globe-crossing action thriller, like its predecessor, evokes the spirit of Dan Brown, with welcome doses of Lee Child's ex-military tough-guy grit. (Oct.) 
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


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


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**The next exciting, action-packed thriller from the national bestselling author. ** 



 Michel de Nostredame, the French apothecary commonly known as Nostradamus, has gained a cult-like following, a loyal band of enthusiasts who credit him with predicting numerous world events-the Great Fire of London, the rise of Napoleon and Hitler, and the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima. However, his most important collection of prophetic verses has remained hidden...until now. 



 In the year 2009, a letter was mailed to a woman who does not understand why she has received the puzzling correspondence, written in a series of codes and ancient languages. She enlists the help of Jonathon Payne and David Jones. <BR

 Relentlessly hunted by those determined to protect the secret, the duo has no choice but to fight back. In an adventure that spans two continents and several centuries, Payne and Jones must locate the sacred text that may change everything we know about the future.


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Bavaria, 1886 King Ludwig II, infamous for his eccentric behavior, is declared insane by his government and removed from his throne. A day later, Ludwig's corpse washes up in the shallows of Lake Starnberg. Rumours about the cause of the tragedy abound, but few people know why Ludwig was really killed. Or what secret was silenced by his death. Germany, present day . . . Hidden among the crates in a newly discovered Nazi bunker are documents stamped with a black swan, the insignia of the murdered king. As a favour to a friend, Jonathon Payne and David Jones fly to Bavaria to protect the documents, but soon face a life-or-death battle against an unknown enemy. From the depths of the Black Forest to the water canals underneath Ludwig's castles, the duo must solve the mystery behind the king's death or share his tragic fate.


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The Lost Throne reigns supreme...  A reclusive monastery is the scene of a brutal slaughter that sends Richard Byrd on a worldwide race to find a magnificent treasure. But there are those who will stop at nothing to prevent its discovery.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**The science fiction masterpiece continues in the “major event,”(* Los Angeles Times*) *Children of Dune*.**



With millions of copies sold worldwide, Frank Herbert’s Dune novels stand among the major achievements of the human imagination and one of the most significant sagas in the history of literary science fiction.



 The Children of Dune are twin siblings Leto and Ghanima Atreides, whose father, the Emperor Paul Muad’Dib, disappeared in the deserts of Arrakis. Like their father, they possess supernormal abilities—making them valuable to their aunt Alia, who rules the Empire. If Alia can obtain the secrets of the twins’ prophetic visions, her rule will be absolute. But the twins have their own plans for their destiny.


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Lenk can barely keep control of his mismatched adventurer band at the best of times (Gariath the dragon man sees humans as little more than prey, Kataria the shict despises most humans and the humans in the band are little better). When they're not insulting each other's religions they're arguing about pay and conditions. So when the ship they are travelling on is attacked by pirates things don't go very well. They go a whole lot worse when an invincible demon joins the fray. The demon steals the Tome of the Undergates - a manuscript that contains all you need to open the undergates. And whichever god you believe in you don't want the undergates open. On the other side are countless more invincible demons, the manifestation of all the evil of the gods, and they want out. Full of razor-sharp wit, characters who leap off the page (and into trouble) and plunging the reader into a vivid world of adventure this is a fantasy that kicks of a series that could dominate the second decade of the century.


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Drizzt joins Bruenor on his quest for the fabled dwarven kingdom of Gauntlgrym: ruins said to be rich with ancient treasure and arcane lore. But before they even get close, another drow and dwarf pair stumbles across it first: Jarlaxle and Athrogate.  In their search for treasure and magic, Jarlaxle and Athrogate inadvertently set into motion a catastrophe that could spell disaster for the unsuspecting people of the city of Neverwinter—a catastrophe big enough to lure even the mercenary Jarlaxle into risking his own coin and skin to stop it. Unfortunately, the more they uncover about the secret of Gauntlgrym, the more it looks like they can’t stop it on their own. They’ll need help, and from the last people they ever thought to fight alongside again: Drizzt and Bruenor.


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In 1977, pregnant Genevieve Russell disappeared. Twenty years later, her remains are discovered and Timothy Gleason is charged with murder. But there is no sign of the unborn child.CeeCee Wilkes knows how Genevieve Russell died, because she was there. And she knows what happened to her missing infant, because two decades ago she made the devastating choice to raise the baby as her own. Now Timothy Gleason is facing the death penalty, and she has another choice to make. Tell the truth and destroy her family. Or let an innocent man die in order to protect a lifetime of lies.


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The City is beautiful at sunset, almost as beautiful as the Lake itself. The waters of the Lake run with crimson and flame-orange and deep lavender as the sun sinks beyond its farther shore, colors pouring across the water all the way to Tiger Bridge. At that moment the exotic lilies carved into the Bridge, crumbling with age, look whole and alive in the moving light and cerulean shadows. But after darkness falls, it will be the tigers of the Bridge that look real and alive. They shake themselves out of stone and come down from their pedestals, the lambent fires of sunset in their eyes, to stalk on great velvet paws through the night--so it is said. At the moment between sunset and dark, the wind off the Lake sometimes dies and the air becomes utterly still. If that pause lasts long enough, it is said, the water becomes a mirror in which a man may see his true face reflected, as well as the reflection of the eternal City. Few would linger at Tiger Bridge to look into the still Lake at that moment, both because truth can be a dangerous thing and because of the tigers that wake out of stone in the night. But that is the story that people in the City tell. That, at least, is a true story. The Bastard, who did not fear velvet-footed hunters, came to Tiger Bridge sometimes to watch the sun set and look into the glass-still Lake. The face he saw in the water was indeed not the face the simple mirror in his Palace apartments reflected. The Bastard could not have explained even to himself where, precisely, the difference lay. But it was to try to find out that he came to Tiger Bridge. The Bastard had a name: Neill. He had a place in the court as elder brother to Prince Cassiel and son of Drustan, who was King. But he was not the son of Ellis, the Queen. The Bastard's mother had been a woman who had wandered into the City and the King's bed from some far country beyond the shores of the Lake, beyond the farthest borders of the Kingdom. She had given her son her fine ivory skin, her ash-pale hair, and her dark secretive eyes. And she had given him a heritage that ran outside the bounds of the Kingdom, a mixed blessing at best. The woman had lived in the City for a season, for a year--long enough to carry and bear the King's son. Then she had walked out of the City. Though I go, this child will keep my presence always near you, she had said to the King, laying the baby in his hands--so the tale went. May he flourish in this Kingdom. Possibly the King did not appreciate reminders of his dalliance, especially once he married his Queen. It was well known he did not favor his illegitimate first-born son. Still, if he did not love Neill, he acknowledged him and kept him close to power. Kings have no need to be ashamed of the evidence of their indiscretions as other men may, and more than one royal bastard has grown up to rule when all the children born on the right side of the blanket have been sickly, or girls. From childhood, then, the court had called the boy Lord Neill to his face with careful deference, and, behind his back, sometimes with no less respect, Lord Bastard. When the Bastard was twelve years old, the true Prince was born, merry and bold even as a baby and beloved by all the City. By that time, folk in both the Palace and the City had learned well the habit of respect toward his elder half brother. The Bastard, even as a child, had a way of kee


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This wonderful detective novel is set in Peru in the 1950s. Near an Air Force base in the northern desert, a young airman is found murdered. Lieutenant Silva and Officer Lituma investigate. Lacking a squad car, they have to cajole a local cabbie into taking them to the scene of the crime. Their superiors are indifferent; the commanding officer of the air base stands in their way; but Silva and Lituma are determined to uncover the truth.Who Killed Palomino Molero, an entertaining and brilliantly plotted mystery, takes up one of Vargas Llosa’s characteristic themes: the despair at how hard it is to be an honest man in a corrupt society. This wonderful detective novel is set in Peru in the 1950s. Near an Air Force base in the northern desert, a young airman is found murdered. Lieutenant Silva and Officer Lituma investigate. Lacking a squad car, they have to cajole a local cabbie into taking them to the scene of the crime. Their superiors are indifferent; the commanding officer of the air base stands in their way; but Silva and Lituma are determined to uncover the truth.Who Killed Palomino Molero, an entertaining and brilliantly plotted mystery, takes up one of Vargas Llosa’s characteristic themes: the despair at how hard it is to be an honest man in a corrupt society.


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1945: a German bomber flies over Iceland in a blizzard; the crew have lost their way and eventually crash on the Vatnaj kull glacier, the largest in Europe. Puzzlingly, there are both German and American officers on board. One of the senior German officers claims that their best chance of survival is to try to walk to the nearest farm and sets off, a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. He soon disappears into the white vastness. 1999, mid-winter, and the US Army is secretively trying to remove an aeroplane from the Vatnaj kull glacier. By coincidence two young Icelanders become involved - but will pay with their lifes. Before they are captured, one of the two contacts his sister, Kristin, who will not rest until she discovers the truth of her brother's fate. Her pursuit puts her in great danger, leading her, finally, to a remote island off Argentina in search of the key to the riddle about Operation Napoleon.


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Now a major motion picture from Columbia Pictures starring Matt Damon, produced by Mike Nichols, and directed by Billy Bob Thornton.The national bestseller and the first volume in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, All the Pretty Horses is the tale of John Grady Cole, who at sixteen finds himself at the end of a long line of Texas ranchers, cut off from the only life he has ever imagined for himself.  With two companions, he sets off for Mexico on a sometimes idyllic, sometimes comic journey to a place where dreams are paid for in blood.  Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction.


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“It’s an old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that, too.” So begins this gorgeous memoir by Pulitzer Prize winner Gail Caldwell, a testament to the power of friendship, a story of how an extraordinary bond between two women can illuminate the loneliest, funniest, hardest moments in life, including the final and ultimate challenge.They met over their dogs. Both writers, Gail Caldwell and Caroline Knapp became best friends, talking about everything from their shared struggle with alcohol to their love of books. They walked the woods of New England and rowed on the Charles River, and the miles they logged on land and water became a measure of the interior ground they covered. From disparate backgrounds but with striking emotional similarities, these two private, fiercely self-reliant women created an attachment more profound than either of them could ever have foreseen.  Rich with the joys of raising dogs and the rivalries of competitive sports, their friendship helped them define the ordinary moments of life as the ones worth cherishing. Then, several years into this remarkable connection, Knapp was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. With her signature exquisite prose, Caldwell mines the deepest levels of devotion and grief in this  moving memoir about treasuring and losing a best friend, and about coming of age in midlife. Let’s Take the Long Way Home is a celebration of life and of the transformation that comes from intimate connection—and it affirms, once again, why Gail Caldwell is recognized as one of our bravest and most honest literary voices.


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In South of the Border, West of the Sun, the arc of an average  man's life from childhood to middle age, with its attendant rhythms of  success and disappointment, becomes the kind of exquisite literary  conundrum that is Haruki Murakami's trademark. The plot is simple:  Hajime meets and falls in love with a girl in elementary school, but he  loses touch with her when his family moves to another town. He drifts  through high school, college, and his 20s, before marrying and  settling into a career as a successful bar owner. Then his childhood  sweetheart returns, weighed down with secrets:     When I went back into the bar, a glass and ashtray remained where she  had been. A couple of lightly crushed cigarette butts were lined up in  the ashtray, a faint trace of lipstick on each. I sat down and closed my  eyes. Echoes of music faded away, leaving me alone. In that gentle  darkness, the rain continued to fall without a sound.    Murakami eschews the fantastic elements that appear in many of his other  novels and stories, and readers hoping for a glimpse of the Sheep Man  will be disappointed. Yet South of the Border, West of the Sun is  as rich and mysterious as anything he has written.  It is above all a  complex, moving, and honest meditation on the nature of love, distilled  into a work with the crystal clarity of a short story. A Nat "King" Cole  song, a figure on a crowded street, a face pressed against a car window,  a handful of ashes drifting down a river to the sea are woven together  into a story that refuses to arrive at a simple conclusion.  The  classic love triangle may seem like a hackneyed theme for a writer as  talented as Murakami, but in his quietly dazzling way, he bends us to  his own unique geometry. --Simon Leake  --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 

      
  Romance, accusingly bittersweet but still redemptive, is the theme of this novel written by award-winning novelist Murakami, one of Japan's most popular authors. Two only children who were schoolmates and best friends meet again after a 25-year separation. Hajime is now married, the father of two little girls and a successful owner of two jazz clubs. Shimamoto has also changed; she has become a very beautiful woman. She is always immaculately and expensively dressed, but she will not talk about her life or anything that has happened to her. Nevertheless, Hajime believes that he loves her more than life itself; he is convinced that he could leave his family and his business to be with her. After they spend a night together, a night filled with raw passion, she vanishes. Hajime is distraught. After much soul searching, he begins to put his life back together and discovers that he has become a stronger man, one who realizes that looking back is often necessary in order to move forward.?Janis Williams, Shaker Heights P.L., OH
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.  --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 

      
  Murakami never fails to surprise, whether he's mixing genres and creating ambitious alternate worlds, as he did in the magisterial Wind-Up Bird Chronicle , or putting his own spin on a tale of obsessional love, as he does here. Like many of Murakami's heroes, Hajime is, at least on the surface, a thoroughly conventional man: married with children, the owner of an upscale jazz bar in suburban Tokyo. And yet, there is another Hajime, disconnected from his outer self, drifting in its wake, waiting quietly to be summoned to action. The summons comes in the form of Shimamoto, Hajime's childhood sweetheart, whom he hasn't seen for 20 years but who has never been out of his thoughts. She returns one rainy night, walking into Hajime's bar, and the effect is a little like what happens when Ilse walks into Rick's in Casablanca ("Of all the gin joints in all the world . . ."). But it is something more, too. As always, Murakami drenches his story in American pop culture, but here he uses those illusions to set us up. What happens with Hajime and Shimamoto lacks the tragic tonic chord that melodramatic love stories give us at the end; instead, there is only mystery and confusion. In Murakami's world, secret selves and other realities are forever lurking beneath the shifting sands of the everyday. If this examination of one of those selves is less grand than we've come to expect from one of the masters of the contemporary novel, it is also more intimate and every bit as unsettling.  Bill Ott  --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 

      
  This latest from the internationally celebrated Japanese author of A Wild Sheep Chase and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle eschews Murakami's trademark comic extravagance, offering instead a muted portrayal of dream-driven midlife crisis. Narrator Hajim  e, an only child (a condition that obsesses him) whose very conventional upbringing includes a sexless (if emotionally intense) friendship with a crippled girl named Shimamoto, discovers in his mid-30s that his settled bourgeois existence masks an urgent   desire to resume and consummate the relationship that dominated his youth. Having endured a frustrating teenage romance (which was ended by his own unfaithfulness) and an unrewarding job as a textbook editor, Hajime later married happily, fathered childre  n, andthanks to his wealthy father-in-lawbecame the proprietor of two popular ``jazz bars.'' One night Shimamoto walks into Hajime's popular Robin's Nest, they talk for hours, and the fantasies of adventurous lives and exotic faraway places that had absor  bed their earlier years gradually resurface. Persuading himself that ``I was living someone else's life, not my own,'' Hajime surrenders to Shimamoto's spell, accompanying her on an enigmatic ``pilgrimage,'' then tumbling into an affair terminated only wh  en she inexplicably departs again, abandoning Hajime to the workaday world and domestic routine he had imagined escaping. In a slowly moving narrative made even more attenuated by shapeless lengthy conversations, Murakami presents Hajime as a hopeful drea  mer chastened, though not changed, by his realization that ``I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover.'' It seems scant material for a novel, though there are fine moments, including a hilarious anecdotal account of adolescent sexual panic a  nd an eerie climactic encounter with Izumi, the girl Hajime had wronged many years earlier. Brief Encounter meets Blue Velvet? Or a book written to exorcize personal demons? Whichever, it's only middling Murakamiwhat well have to make do with until the ne  xt wild sheep or wind-up bird comes along.  -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.  --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 

      
  "A wise and beautiful book." 
--The New York Times Book Review

"A probing meditation on human fragility, the grip of obsession, and the impenetrable, erotically charged enigma that is the other."&#160;&#160;--The New York Times

"Brilliant. . . . A mesmerizing new example of Murakami's deeply original fiction." --The Baltimore Sun

"Lovely, deceptively simple. . . . A novel of existential romance."&#160;&#160;--San Francisco Chronicle

"His most deeply moving novel." --The Boston Globe -- Review   

      
  &#8220;A wise and beautiful book.&#8221; &#8211;The New York Times Book Review

&#8220;A probing meditation on human fragility, the grip of obsession, and the impenetrable, erotically charged enigma that is the other.&#8221; &#8211;The New York Times

&#8220;Brilliant. . . . A mesmerizing new example of Murakami&#8217;s deeply original fiction.&#8221; &#8211;The Baltimore Sun

&#8220;Lovely, deceptively simple. . . . A novel of existential romance.&#8221; &#8211;San Francisco Chronicle

&#8220;His most deeply moving novel.&#8221; &#8211;The Boston Globe

&#8220;Mesmerizing. . . . This is a harrowing, a disturbing, a hauntingly brilliant tale.&#8221; &#8211;The Baltimore Sun

&#8220;A fine, almost delicate book about what is unfathomable about us.&#8221; &#8211;The Philadelphia Inquirer

&#8220;Portrayed in a fluid language that veers from the vernacular . . . to the surprisingly poetic.&#8221; &#8211;San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle

&#8220;Haunting and natural. . . .  so smoothly shifts the reader from mundane concerns into latent madness as to challenge one&#8217;s faith in the material world . . . contains passages that are among his finest.&#8221; &#8211;The New York Observer

&#8220;Haruki Murakami applies his patented Japanese magic realism&#8211;minimalist, smooth and transcendently odd&#8211;to a charming tale of childhood love lost.&#8221; &#8211;New York


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A spectacular modern-day adventure along the Nile River from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea
With news of tenuous peace in Sudan, foreign correspondent Dan Morrison bought a plank-board boat, summoned a childhood friend who'd never been off American soil and set out from Uganda, paddling the White Nile on a quest to reach Cairo-a trip that tyranny and war had made impossible for decades.
Morrison's chronicle is a mashup of travel narrative and reportage, packed with flights into the frightful and the absurd. Through river mud that engulfs him and burning marshlands that darken the sky, he tracks the snarl of commonalities and conflicts that bleed across the Nile valley, bringing to life the waters that connect the hardscrabble fishing villages of Lake Victoria to the floating Cairo nightclubs where headscarved mothers are entertained by gyrating male dancers. In between are places and lives invisible to cable news and opinion blogs: a hidden oil war that has erased entire towns, secret dams that will flood still more and contested borderlands where acts of compassion and ingenuity defy appalling hardship and waste of life. As Morrison dodges every imaginable hazard, from militia gunfire to squalls of sand, his mishaps unfold in strange harmony with the breathtaking range of individuals he meets along the way. Relaying the voices of Sudanese freedom fighters and escaped Ugandan sex slaves, desert tribesmen and Egyptian tomb raiders, The Black Nile culminates in a visceral understanding of one of the world's most elusive hotspots, where millions strive to claw their way from war and poverty to something better-if only they could agree what that something is, whom to share it with, and how to get there.
With the propulsive force of a thriller, The Black Nile is rife with humor, humanity and fervid insight-an unparalleled portrait of a complex territory in profound transition.
"Part travelogue, part crazy adventure tale, part political reportage . . . Morrison's African river journey is a paradoxical mixture of awe-inspiring discoveries, eye-opening human interactions and perilous escapes."
-Chuck Leddy, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"An unorthodox travelogue . . . packed with illuminating, gritty detail."
-Kirkus
"Dan Morrison takes the reader on an incredible journey in The Black Nile. Weaving together intense travel writing and history, he has produced a supremely entertaining work, and also an important one."
-David Grann, best-selling author of The Lost City of Z and The Devil and Sherlock Holmes
"Dan Morrison is too young to have been part of the Gonzo movement. But if Hunter Thompson decided to travel the Nile, from its Ugandan source to Alexandria, encountering gun-toting whackos, crazed religious zealots, scary profiteers and a rich cast of characters in one of the world's most contested regions-well, I think he would have loved to share his trek with Morrison. Fasten your seat belts, readers!"
-Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The Coming Plague
"Part On the Road, part Fear and Loathing in Africa, Dan Morrison takes us with him on his journey down the Nile-teaching us, by example, to be explorers of both the world and ourselves."
-Kevin Sites, author of In the Hot Zone
"The Black Nile reveals a traveler of dark humor and insight, equal parts Paul Theroux and Bill Buford."
-Robert Twigger, author of Dr. Ragab's Universal Language and Angry White Pyjamas
"The only thing more vivid would be traveling the river yourself. Then again, you may be a little more skittish about contested borders, rampaging militias and tiny plank-board boats than Dan Morrison is. The Black Nile is eye- opening, breath-taking, heart-pounding and, frankly, all the adventure I'm up for now."
-Ellis Henican, Fox News Channel


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

"*Breaking Night* reads more like an adventure story than an addiction-morality tale. It's a white-knuckle account of survival. . . . By age 6, Murray knew how to mainline drugs (though she never took them) and how to care for her strung-out parents. She showed uncanny maturity, even as a child, and later managed to avoid that malady of teenagers and memoir writers, self-pity. . . . Murray's stoicism has been hard-earned; it serves her well as a writer. *Breaking Night* itself is full of heart, without a sliver of ice, and deeply moving." (*The New York Times Book Review*)  

"Liz Murray shows us that the human spirit has infinite ability to grow and  can never be limited by circumstance. *Breaking Night* is a beautifully  written, heartfelt memoir that will change the way you look your community, the  obstacles in your own life and the American Dream. An inspiration, a must read."  (Robert Redford)  

"[Liz Murray] reminds us that the greatest acts of love and failure can  occur side by side; that isolation and loss can give way to accomplishment and  promise. She offers the awesome hope that, regardless of its past, a life can go  beyond endurance and reach for triumph. She leave us with the memory of a child who  clung to and refused to surrender the dignity of her soul." (Andrew Bridge, author  of the *New York Times* bestseller *Hope's Boy*)  

"As much as it is a memoir, *Breaking Night* is a primer on how poverty and drug abuse create a heartbreaking underclass of children, one that goes largely unnoticed. By the truly uplifting ending, Liz Murray has shown us the worst, and the very best, of America." (Haven Kimmel, author of *A Girl Named Zippy* and *She Got Up Off the Couch*)  

In the vein of *The Glass Castle, Breaking Night* is the stunning memoir of a young woman who at age fifteen was living on the streets, and who eventually made it into Harvard.   

Liz Murray was born to loving but drug-addicted parents in the Bronx. In school she was taunted for her dirty clothing and lice-infested hair, eventually skipping so many classes that she was put into a girls' home. At age fifteen, Liz found herself on the streets when her family finally unraveled. She learned to scrape by, foraging for food and riding subways all night to have a warm place to sleep.   

When Liz's mother died of AIDS, she decided to take control of her own destiny and go back to high school, often completing her assignments in the hallways and subway stations where she slept. Liz squeezed four years of high school into two, while homeless; won a *New York Times* scholarship; and made it into the Ivy League. *Breaking Night* is an unforgettable and beautifully written story of one young woman's indomitable spirit to survive and prevail, against all odds.


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In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: The Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War.Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but again the aliens  ways are strange and frightening...again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery...and the truth.


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#1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz brings his fertile imagination and unparalleled storytelling abilities to one of the most timeless—and terrifying—creations in all of fiction: the legend of Frankenstein. In Lost Souls, Koontz puts a singular twist on this classic tale of ambition and science gone wrong and forges a new legend uniquely suited to our times—a story of revenge, redemption, and the razor-thin line that separates humanity from inhumanity as we consider a new invitation to apocalypse.  The work of creation has begun again. Only now things will be different. Victor Leben, once Frankenstein, has not only seen the future—he’s ready to populate it. Using stem cells, “organic” silicon circuitry, and nanotechnology, he will engender a race of superhumans—the perfect melding of flesh and machine. With a powerful, enigmatic backer eager to see his dream come to fruition and a secret location where the enemies of progress can’t find him, Victor is certain that this time, nothing and no one can stop him.It is up to five people to prove him wrong. In their hands rests nothing less than the survival of humanity itself. They are drawn together in different ways, by omens sinister and wondrous, to the same shattering conclusion: Two years after they saw him die, the man they knew as Victor Helios lives on. Detectives Carson O’Connor and Michael Maddison; Victor’s engineered wife, Erika 5, and her companion Jocko; and the original Victor’s first creation, the tormented Deucalion, have all arrived at a small Montana town where their old alliance will be renewed—and tested—by forces from within and without, and where the dangers they face will eclipse any they have yet encountered. Yet in the midst of their peril, love will blossom, and joy, and they will discover sources of strength and perseverance they could not have imagined. They will need all these resources, and more. For a monumental battle is about to commence that will require all their ingenuity and courage, as it defines what we are to be . . . and if we are to be at all.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

*Loop me in, odd one. *The words, spoken in the deep of night by a sleeping child, chill the young man watching over her. For this was a favorite phrase of Stormy Llewellyn, his lost love, and Stormy is dead, gone forever from this world. In the haunted halls of the isolated monastery where he had sought peace, Odd Thomas is stalking spirits of an infinitely darker natureThrough two *New York Times* bestselling novels Odd Thomas has established himself as one of the most beloved and unique fictional heroes of our time. Now, wielding all the power and magic of a master storyteller at the pinnacle of his craft, Dean Koontz follows Odd into a singular new world where he hopes to make a fresh beginning—but where he will meet an adversary as old and inexorable as time itself. St. Bartholomew’s Abbey sits in majestic solitude amid the wild peaks of California’s high Sierra, a haven for children otherwise abandoned, and a sanctuary for those seeking insight. Odd Thomas has come here to learn to live fully again, and among the eccentric monks, their other guests, and the nuns and young students of the attached convent school, he has begun to find his way. The silent spirits of the dead who visited him in his earlier life are mercifully absent, save for the bell-ringing Brother Constantine and Odd’s steady companion, the King of Rock 'n' Roll.But trouble has a way of finding Odd Thomas, and it slinks back onto his path in the form of the sinister bodachs he has met previously, the black shades who herald death and disaster, and who come late one December night to hover above the abbey’s most precious charges. For Odd is about to face an enemy who eclipses any he has yet encountered, as he embarks on a journey of mystery, wonder, and sheer suspense that surpasses all that has come before.*******From the Hardcover edition.*


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Only a handful of fictional characters are recognized by first name alone. Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas is one of those rare literary heroes who have come alive in readers’ imaginations as he explores the greatest mysteries of this world and the next with his inimitable wit, heart, and quiet gallantry. Now Koontz follows Odd as he is irresistibly drawn onward to a destiny he cannot imagine and to undreamed of places where the perils he will face and the stakes for which he fights will eclipse all that he has known. The legend began in the obscure little town of Pico Mundo. A fry cook named Odd was rumored to have the extraordinary ability to communicate with the dead. Through tragedy and triumph, exhilaration and heartbreak, word of Odd Thomas’s gifts filtered far beyond Pico Mundo, attracting unforgettable new friends—and enemies of implacable evil. With great gifts comes the responsibility to meet great challenges. But no mere human being was ever meant to face the darkness that now stalks the world—not even one as oddly special as Odd Thomas. After grappling with the very essence of reality itself, after finding the veil that separates him from his soul mate, Stormy Llewellyn, tantalizingly thin yet impenetrable, Odd longed only to return to a life of quiet anonymity with his two otherworldly sidekicks—his dog Boo and a new companion, one of the few who might rival his old pal Elvis. But a true hero, however humble, must persevere. Haunted by dreams of an all-encompassing red tide, Odd is pulled inexorably to the sea, to a small California coastal town where nothing is as it seems. Now the forces arrayed against him have both official sanction and an infinitely more sinister authority…and in this dark night of the soul dawn will come only after the most shattering revelations of all.Burnishing Dean Koontz’s stature as a master of suspense and one of our most innovative and gifted storytellers, Odd Hours illuminates a legacy of mystery and hope that will shine on long after the final page.From the Hardcover edition.


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“The dead don't talk. I don't know why.” But they do try to communicate, with a short-order cook in a small desert town serving as their reluctant confidant. Odd Thomas thinks of himself as an ordinary guy, if possessed of a certain measure of talent at the Pico Mundo Grill and rapturously in love with the most beautiful girl in the world, Stormy Llewellyn. Maybe he has a gift, maybe it’s a curse, Odd has never been sure, but he tries to do his best by the silent souls who seek him out. Sometimes they want justice, and Odd’s otherworldly tips to Pico Mundo's sympathetic police chief, Wyatt Porter, can solve a crime. Occasionally they can prevent one. But this time it's different.A mysterious man comes to town with a voracious appetite, a filing cabinet stuffed with information on the world's worst killers, and a pack of hyena-like shades following him wherever he goes. Who the man is and what he wants, not even Odd’s deceased informants can tell him. His most ominous clue is a page ripped from a day-by-day calendar for August 15. Today is August 14.In less than twenty-four hours, Pico Mundo will awaken to a day of catastrophe. As evil coils under the searing desert sun, Odd travels through the shifting prisms of his world, struggling to avert a looming cataclysm with the aid of his soul mate and an unlikely community of allies that includes the King of Rock 'n' Roll. His account of two shattering days when past and present, fate and destiny converge is the stuff of our worst nightmares—and a testament by which to live: sanely if not safely, with courage, humor, and a full heart that even in the darkness must persevere.From the Hardcover edition.

SUMMARY:
“The dead don't talk. I don't know why.” But they do try to communicate, with a short-order cook in a small desert town serving as their reluctant confidant. Odd Thomas thinks of himself as an ordinary guy, if possessed of a certain measure of talent at the Pico Mundo Grill and rapturously in love with the most beautiful girl in the world, Stormy Llewellyn. Maybe he has a gift, maybe it’s a curse, Odd has never been sure, but he tries to do his best by the silent souls who seek him out. Sometimes they want justice, and Odd’s otherworldly tips to Pico Mundo's sympathetic police chief, Wyatt Porter, can solve a crime. Occasionally they can prevent one. But this time it's different.A mysterious man comes to town with a voracious appetite, a filing cabinet stuffed with information on the world's worst killers, and a pack of hyena-like shades following him wherever he goes. Who the man is and what he wants, not even Odd’s deceased informants can tell him. His most ominous clue is a page ripped from a day-by-day calendar for August 15. Today is August 14.In less than twenty-four hours, Pico Mundo will awaken to a day of catastrophe. As evil coils under the searing desert sun, Odd travels through the shifting prisms of his world, struggling to avert a looming cataclysm with the aid of his soul mate and an unlikely community of allies that includes the King of Rock 'n' Roll. His account of two shattering days when past and present, fate and destiny converge is the stuff of our worst nightmares—and a testament by which to live: sanely if not safely, with courage, humor, and a full heart that even in the darkness must persevere.


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Every so often a character so captures the hearts and imaginations of readers that he seems to take on a life of his own long after the final page is turned. For such a character, one book is not enough—readers must know what happens next. Now Dean Koontz returns with the novel his fans have been demanding. With the emotional power and sheer storytelling artistry that are his trademarks, Koontz takes up once more the story of a unique young hero and an eccentric little town in a tale that is equal parts suspense and terror, adventure and mystery—and altogether irresistibly odd.We’re all a little odd beneath the surface. He’s the most unlikely hero you’ll ever meet—an ordinary guy with a modest job you might never look at twice. But there’s so much more to any of us than meets the eye—and that goes triple for Odd Thomas. For Odd lives always between two worlds in the small desert town of Pico Mundo, where the heroic and the harrowing are everyday events. Odd never asked to communicate with the dead—it’s something that just happened. But as the unofficial goodwill ambassador between our world and theirs, he’s got a duty to do the right thing. That’s the way Odd sees it and that’s why he’s won hearts on both sides of the divide between life and death.A childhood friend of Odd’s has disappeared. The worst is feared. But as Odd applies his unique talents to the task of finding the missing person, he discovers something worse than a dead body, encounters an enemy of exceptional cunning, and spirals into a vortex of terror. Once again Odd will stand against our worst fears. Around him will gather new allies and old, some living and some not. For in the battle to come, there can be no innocent bystanders, and every sacrifice can tip the balance between despair and hope. Whether you’re meeting Odd Thomas for the first time or he’s already an old friend, you’ll be led on an unforgettable journey through a world of terror, wonder and delight—to a revelation that can change your life. And you can have no better guide than Odd Thomas.From the Hardcover edition.


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From the celebrated imagination of Dean Koontz comes a powerful reworking of one of the classic stories of all time. If you think you know the legend, you know only half the truth. The mystery, the myth, the terror, and the magic continue. . . . They are stronger, heal better, and think faster than any humans ever createdand they must be destroyed. Not even Victor Heliosonce Frankensteincan stop the engineered killers hers"s set loose on a reign of terror through modern-day New Orleans. Only the one-time "monster" Deucalion and his all-too-human partners, Detectives Carson Ors"Connor and Michael Maddison, stand in their way. But as the three race to uncover the true dimensions of an age-old conspiracy, they will discover that Victorrs"s new, improved models have infiltrated every level of the cityrs"s society . . . and far beyond.


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Dean Koontz's first ever nonfiction book, the deeply moving story of his life with his good dog TrixieDean Koontz is known for exploring the dark side of human nature in his fiction. But his softer, playful side comes out when he talks about his beloved dog, Trixie, a golden retriever.Trixie had a special place in Dean's heart. And now, in this, his first non-fiction book, Dean opens his heart to his readers to give us memories of Trixie, of the glorious dog who changed him and changed his life.There's everything in this memoir: adventure, mischief, emotion, and sadness too. Dean will talk with joy about the many gifts Trixie gave him ' and the lessons she taught ' and he'll talk with sadness at losing his beloved pet.The loss of a dog is a heartbreak that's been experienced by a great many people, and Dean's delving into that loss is a powerful part of this book, and a cathartic experience for those of us who have loved and lost an animal companion.Trixie had a big little life and lives for ever in Dean's heart 'Ś and in these pages.


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Timothy was not human - not if by human you mean a man with two arms, two legs, two eyes. Of the first criteria, he had none at all; of the last, only one. And even that one was misplaced. 

Timothy was born of human stock, of course - but not of woman. He was the product of the artificial wombs, a strictly military venture, and when he was born the technicians shrugged, and consigned him to custodial care. They expected him to die within five years, like most of the freaks. 

It was in his third year that they discovered Timothy to be something more than human. Cheated of a normal life through his physical deformities, nature developed his brain - and talents that were peculiarly his. Talents that would help him survive in a world made for the normal people - survive, and perhaps even more!


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From the celebrated imagination of Dean Koontz comes a powerful reworking of one of the classic stories of all time. If you think you know the legend, you know only half the truth. Here is the mystery, the myth, the terror, and the magic of . . . Every city has its secrets. But none as terrible as this. He is Deucalion, a tattooed man of mysterious origin, a sleight-of-reality artist who has traveled the centuries with a secret worse than death. He arrives in New Orleans as a serial killer stalks the streets, a killer who carefully selects his victims for the humanity that is missing in himself. Deucalion's path will lead him to cool, tough police detective Carson O'Connor and her devoted partner, Michael Maddison, who are tracking the slayer but will soon discover signs of something far more terrifying: an entire raceof killers who are much moreand lessthan human and, deadliest of all, their deranged, near-immortal maker: Victor Heliosonce known as Frankenstein.


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From the celebrated imagination of Dean Koontz comes a powerful reworking of one of the classic stories of all time. If you think you know the legend, you know only half the truth. Now the mesmerizing saga concludes. . . . As a devastating hurricane approaches, as the benighted creations of Victor Helios begin to spin out of control, as New Orleans descends into chaos and the future of humanity hangs in the balance, the only hope rests with Victor's first, failed attempt to build the perfect human. Deucalion's centuries-old history began as the original manifestation of a soulless visionand it is fated to end in the ultimate confrontation between a damned creature and his mad creator. But first they must face a monstrosity not even Victor's malignant mind could have conceivedan indestructible entity that steps out of humankind's collective nightmare with powers, and a purpose, beyond imagining. From the Paperback edition.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

With each of his #1 *New York Times* bestsellers, Dean Koontz has displayed an unparalleled ability to entertain and enlighten readers with novels that capture the essence of our times even as they bring us to the edge of our seats. Now he delivers a heart-gripping tour de force he’s been waiting years to write, at once a love story, a thrilling adventure, and a masterwork of suspense that redefines the boundaries of primal fear—and of enduring devotion.  Amy Redwing has dedicated her life to the southern California organization she founded to rescue abandoned and endangered golden retrievers. Among dog lovers, she’s a legend for the risks she’ll take to save an animal from abuse. Among her friends, Amy’s heedless devotion is often cause for concern. To widower Brian McCarthy, whose commitment she can’t allow herself to return, Amy’s behavior is far more puzzling and hides a shattering secret.No one is surprised when Amy risks her life to save Nickie, nor when she takes the female golden into her home. The bond between Amy and Nickie is immediate and uncanny. Even her two other goldens, Fred and Ethel, recognize Nickie as special, a natural alpha. But the instant joy Nickie brings is shadowed by a series of eerie incidents. An ominous stranger. A mysterious home invasion. And the unmistakable sense that someone is watching Amy’s every move and that, whoever it is, he’s not alone. Someone has come back to turn Amy into the desperate, hunted creature she’s always been there to save. But now there’s no one to save Amy and those she loves. From its breathtaking opening scene to its shocking climax, **The Darkest Evening of the Year** is Dean Koontz at his finest, a transcendent thriller certain to have readers turning pages until dawn.


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*For one man, they are the five most terrifying words of all . . .* One year after the heart transplant that saved his life, thirty-five-year-old Ryan Perry has never felt better. He’s getting back everything he nearly lost forever—his business, his his life, and, with luck, his beloved girlfriend. Miracles do happen. Then the unmarked gifts begin to arrive—a box of candy hearts, a heart pendant. Most disturbing of all is a graphic heart-surgery video and its chilling message: *Your heart belongs to me.* Ryan is being stalked by someone who feels entitled to everything he has. She’s the spitting image of the twenty-six-year-old donor of the heart beating steadily in Ryan’s own chest. And she’s come to take it back.


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Four men waited on the narrow mountain road for the Cadillac carrying 341,890, the biweekly taking of a Mafia cell. Four men who had never failed in a heist before, on their fourteenth operation in three years: Shirillo, watching in the long grass; Pete Harris with a submachine gun; Bachman in the getaway car; and Mike Tucker, art dealer and professional thief; the perfectionist. As the big Cadillac slewed round the bend, none of them realized that this time Tucker had made a fatal miscalcuation that would plunge them all into a blood war against the Mafia


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“An elegant page-turner of nineteenth-century detective fiction.”–The Washington Post Book WorldOne rainy morning in 1871 in lower Manhattan, Martin Pemberton a freelance writer, sees in a passing stagecoach several elderly men, one of whom he recognizes as his supposedly dead and buried father. While trying to unravel the mystery, Pemberton disappears, sending McIlvaine, his employer, the editor of an evening paper, in pursuit of the truth behind his freelancer’s fate. Layer by layer, McIlvaine reveals a modern metropolis surging with primordial urges and sins, where the Tweed Ring operates the city for its own profit and a conspicuously self-satisfied nouveau-riche ignores the poverty and squalor that surrounds them. In E. L. Doctorow’s skilled hands, The Waterworks becomes, in the words of *The New York Times*, “a dark moral tale . . . an eloquently troubling evocation of our past.”“Startling and spellbinding . . . The waters that lave the narrative all run to the great confluence, where the deepest issues of life and death are borne along on the swift, sure vessel of [Doctorow’s] poetic imagination.”–*The New York Times Book Review*“Hypnotic . . . a dazzling romp, an extraordinary read, given strength and grace by the telling, by the poetic voice and controlled cynical lyricism of its streetwise and world-weary narrator.”–*The Philadelphia Inquirer*“A gem of a novel, intimate as chamber music . . . a thriller guaranteed to leave readers with residual chills and shudders.”–*Boston Sunday Herald*“Enthralling . . . a story of debauchery and redemption that is spellbinding from first page to last.”–*Chicago Sun-Times*“An immense, extraordinary achievement.”*–San Francisco Chronicle*


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Held for a million dollars in ransom, Alice, a blonde, is disguised by her kidnappers as a young Black girl


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Ben Chase is a war hero with bitter memories. Vietnam left him with a hard drinking habit, a mental breakdown -- and massive guilt. So who will believe him when he swears a psychopath is out to get him? When society is sick, the mad are sane -- and persecution is a killer's game!


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**A delightful comedy of manners about two sisters who must set aside their differences when they inherit a house in the Hamptons ** 



 Half-sisters Cassie and Peck could not be more different. Cassie is a newly divorced journalist with her feet firmly planted on the ground; Peck is a vintage-obsessed actress with her head in the clouds. In fact, the only thing they seem to have in common is their inheritance of Fool's House, a rundown cottage left to them by their beloved Aunt Lydia. But Cassie and Peck can't afford the house, and they can't agree on anything, much less what to do with the place. Plus, along with the house, they've inherited an artist-inresidence and self-proclaimed genius named Biggsy who seems to bring suspiciously bad luck wherever he goes. As these two likable sisters try to understand their aunt's puzzling instructions to "seek a thing of utmost value" from within the house, they're both distracted by romantic entanglements with men from their pasts. *The Summer We Read Gatsby*, set in the end-of-an-era summer of 2008, is filled with fabulous parties, eccentric characters, and insider society details that showcase Ganek's pitch-perfect sense of style and wit.


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t was hard for Sonya Carter to believe that she was only half an hour from civilization, for the feeling of isolation from the world on this tiny island in the Caribbean was almost complete. The people in the two houses on the island could have been cast adrift from reality, inhabiting a universe of their own. Sonya had come to Distingue to escape the dark days of her recent past; the offer of a job as tutor to the Dougherty children seemed heaven- sent. And for a time Distingue seemed to live up to the promise of its name--a place of elegance. But there was a darker force on the island, an insane power that sought to bring terror to the most innocent victims of all, the children. Someone was determined to murder them--and only Sonya stood in his way!


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Summary of The fall of the dream machine: when all the world's a stage, director Cockley will run it.


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With each and every new novel, Dean Koontz raises the stakes—and the pulse rate—higher than any other author. Now, in what may be his most suspenseful and heartfelt novel ever, he brings us the story of an ordinary man whose extraordinary commitment to his wife will take him on a harrowing journey of adventure, sacrifice, and redemption to the mystery of love itself—and to a showdown with the darkness that would destroy it forever.

What would you do for love? Would you die? Would you kill?  

We have your wife. You can get her back for two million cash. Landscaper Mitchell Rafferty thinks it must be some kind of joke. He was in the middle of planting impatiens in the yard of one of his clients when his cell phone rang. Now he’s standing in a normal suburban neighborhood on a bright summer day, having a phone conversation out of his darkest nightmare.

Whoever is on the other end of the line is dead serious. He has Mitch’s wife and he’s named the price for her safe return. The caller doesn’t care that Mitch runs a small two-man landscaping operation and has no way of raising such a vast sum. He’s confident that Mitch will find a way. 

If he loves his wife enough. . .  Mitch does love her enough. He loves her more than life itself. He’s got  seventy-two hours to prove it. He has to find the two million by then. But he’ll pay a lot more. He’ll pay anything.

From its tense opening to its shattering climax, The Husband is a thriller that will hold you in its relentless grip for every twist, every shock, every revelation&#8230;until it lets you go, unmistakably changed. This is a Dean Koontz novel, after all.  And there’s no other experience quite like it.


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In TUNNELS, boy archaeologist Will Burrows went in search of his missing father--and discovered a sinister subterranean world. Now, wandering the dark, hot bowels beneath the Colony with his best friend, Chester, and his brother, Cal, Will stumbles across the Styx's dastardly plan to enslave all Topsoilers by poisoning them with a lethal toxin. Slowly he begins to piece together the plot. But how can Will save all those above from annihilation when his own life is at risk down below--and when his killer sister is still at large?


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FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. When his father goes missing and he begins to delve into an archaeological dig to uncover clues, Will Burrows discovers a strange subterranean society where enslaved citizens live under the control of a cruel sect and so now must convince some of them to begin a revolt in order to free themselves and his father in the process.


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A daughter of privilege in the most powerful empire the world has ever known, Claudia has a unique and disturbing "gift": her dreams have an uncanny way of coming true. As a rebellious child seated beside the tyrannical Roman Emperor Tiberius, she first spies the powerful gladiator who will ultimately be her one true passion. Yet it is the ambitious magistrate Pontius Pilate who intrigues the impressionable young woman she becomes, and Claudia finds her way into his arms by means of a mysterious ancient magic. Pilate is her grand destiny, leading her to Judaea and plunging her into a seething cauldron of open rebellion. But following her friend Miriam of Magdala's confession of her ecstatic love for a charismatic religious radical, Claudia begins to experience terrifying visions—horrific premonitions of war, injustice, untold devastation and damnation . . . and the crucifixion of a divine martyr whom she must do everything in her power to save.
EDITORIAL REVIEW:

A daughter of privilege in the most powerful empire the world has ever known, Claudia has a unique and disturbing "gift": her dreams have an uncanny way of coming true. As a rebellious child seated beside the tyrannical Roman Emperor Tiberius, she first spies the powerful gladiator who will ultimately be her one true passion. Yet it is the ambitious magistrate Pontius Pilate who intrigues the impressionable young woman she becomes, and Claudia finds her way into his arms by means of a mysterious ancient magic. Pilate is her grand destiny, leading her to Judaea and plunging her into a seething cauldron of open rebellion. But following her friend Miriam of Magdala's confession of her ecstatic love for a charismatic religious radical, Claudia begins to experience terrifying visions—horrific premonitions of war, injustice, untold devastation and damnation . . . and the crucifixion of a divine martyr whom she must do everything in her power to save.


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Dean Koontz’s unique talent for writing terrifying thrillers with a heart and soul is nowhere more evident than in this latest suspense masterpiece that pits one man against the ultimate deadline. If there were speed limits for the sheer pulse-racing excitement allowed in one novel, *Velocity* would break them all. Get ready for the ride of your life.**Velocity**Bill Wile is an easygoing, hardworking guy who leads a quiet, ordinary life. But that is about to change. One evening, after his usual eight-hour bartending shift, he finds a typewritten note under the windshield wiper of his car. *If you don’t take this note to the police and get them involved, I will kill a lovely blond schoolteacher. If you do take this note to the police, I will instead kill an elderly woman active in charity work. You have four hours to decide. The choice is yours.*It seems like a sick joke, and Bill’s friend on the police force, Lanny Olson, thinks so too. His advice to Bill is to go home and forget about it.  Besides, what could they do even if they took the note seriously? No crime has actually been committed. But less than twenty-four hours later, a young blond schoolteacher is found murdered, and it’s Bill’s fault: he didn’t convince the police to get involved.  Now he’s got another note, another deadline, another ultimatum…and two new lives hanging in the balance.Suddenly Bill’s average, seemingly innocuous life takes on the dimensions and speed of an accelerating nightmare. Because the notes are coming faster, the deadlines growing tighter, and the killer becoming bolder and crueler with every communication—until Bill is isolated with the terrifying knowledge that he alone has the power of life and death over a psychopath’s innocent victims. Until the struggle between good and evil is intensely personal.  Until the most chilling words of all are: *The choice is yours*.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

***Get your "A" in gear!***They're today's most popular study guides-with everything you need to succeed in school. Written by Harvard students for students, since its inception *SparkNotes*™ has developed a loyal community of dedicated users and become a major education brand. Consumer demand has been so strong that the guides have expanded to over 150 titles.  *SparkNotes*'™ motto is *Smarter, Better, Faster* because:·   They feature the most current ideas and themes, written by experts.·   They're easier to understand, because the same people who use them have also written them.·   The clear writing style and edited content enables students to read through the material quickly, saving valuable time.And with everything covered--context; plot overview; character lists; themes, motifs, and symbols; summary and analysis, key facts; study questions and essay topics; and reviews and resources--you don't have to go anywhere else!


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Young wizard Harry Potter finds himself back at the miserable Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He doesn't realize the difficulty of the task that awaits him. Harry must pull out all the stops in order to find his missing friend. No Canadian Rights for the Harry Potter Series HARRY POTTER and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and (c) Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Harry Potter publishing rights (c) J. K. Rowling. (s05)


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During his third year at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry Potter must confront the devious and dangerous wizard responsible for his parents' deaths.


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The summer holidays are dragging on and Harry Potter can't wait for the start of the school year. It is his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and there are spells to be learnt and (unluckily) Potions and Divination lessons to be attended. But Harry needs to be on his guard at all times - his worst enemy is preparing a terrible fate for him. With characteristic wit, fast-paced humour and marvellous emotional depth, J.K. Rowling has proved herself yet again to be a master storyteller.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

*I say to you all, once again--in the light of  

Lord Voldemort’s return, we are only as strong  

as we are united, as weak as we are divided.  

Lord Voldemort’s gift for spreading discord and  

enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing  

an equally strong bond of friendship and trust.*    

So spoke Albus Dumbledore at the end of Harry Potter’s fourth  year at Hogwarts. But as Harry enters his fifth year at wizard school,  it seems those bonds have never been more sorely tested. Lord  Voldemort’s rise has opened a rift in the wizarding world between  those who believe the truth about his return, and those who prefer to  believe it’s all madness and lies--just more trouble from  Harry Potter.    

Add to this a host of other worries for Harry…

   • A Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher with a personality like poisoned honey

   • A venomous, disgruntled house-elf

   • Ron as keeper of the Gryffindor Quidditch team

   • And of course, what every student dreads: end-of-term Ordinary Wizarding Level exams    

…and you’d know what Harry faces during the day. But at  night it’s even worse, because then he dreams of a single door in a  silent corridor. And this door is somehow more terrifying than every  other nightmare combined.    

In the richest installment yet of J. K. Rowling’s seven-part  story, Harry Potter confronts the unreliability of the very government  of the magical world, and the impotence of the authorities at  Hogwarts.    

Despite this (or perhaps because of it) Harry finds depth and strength  in his friends, beyond what even he knew; boundless loyalty and  unbearable sacrifice.    

Though thick runs the plot (as well as the spine), readers will  race through these pages, and leave Hogwarts, like Harry, wishing only  for the next train back.


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'In a brief statement on Friday night, Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge confirmed that He Who Must Not Be Named has returned to this country and is once more active."It is with great regret that I must confirm that the wizard styling himself Lord - well, you know who I mean - is alive and among us again," said Fudge.These dramatic words appeared in the final pages of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.In the midst of this battle of good and evil, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince takes up the story of Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, with Voldemort's power and followers increasing day by day . . .


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Harry Potter is preparing to leave the Dursleys and Privet Drive for the last time. But the future that awaits him is full of danger, not only for him, but for anyone close to him - and Harry has already lost so much. Only by destroying Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes can Harry free himself and overcome the Dark Lord's forces of evil. In this dramatic conclusion to the Harry Potter series, Harry must leave his most loyal friends behind, and in a final perilous journey find the strength and the will to face his terrifying destiny: a deadly confrontation that is his alone to fight. In this thrilling climax to the phenomenally bestselling series, J.K. Rowling reveals all to her eagerly waiting readers.


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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER On the morning that marks the end of the world they have known, Molly and Neil Sloan awaken to the drumbeat of rain on their roof. A luminous silvery downpour is drenching their small California mountain town. It has haunted their sleep, invaded their dreams, and now, in the moody purple dawn, the young couple cannot shake the sense of something terribly wrong. As the hours pass, Molly and Neil listen to disturbing news of extreme weather phenomena across the globe. By nightfall, their little town loses all contact with the outside world. A thick fog transforms the once-friendly village into a ghostly labyrinth. And soon the Sloans and their neighbors will be forced to draw on reserves of courage and humanity they never knew they had. For within the misty gloom they will encounter something that reveals in a shattering instant what is happening to their world-something that is hunting them with ruthless efficiency.


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Acknowledged as “America’s most popular suspense novelist”(Rolling Stone ) and as one of today’s most celebrated and successful writers, Dean Koontz has earned the devotion of millions of readers around the world and the praise of critics everywhere for tales of character, mystery, and adventure that strike to the core of what it means to be human. Now he delivers the page-turner of the season, an unforgettable journey to the heart of darkness and to the pinnacle of grace, at once chilling and wickedly funny, a brilliantly observed chronicle of good and evil in our time, of illusion and everlasting truth. He’s Hollywood’s most dazzling star, whose flawless countenance inspires the worship of millions and fires the hatred of one twisted soul. His perfectly ordered existence is under siege as a series of terrifying, enigmatic “messages” breaches the exquisitely calibrated security systems of his legendary Bel Air estate.The boxes arrive mysteriously, one by one, at Channing Manheim’s fortified compound. The threat implicit in their bizarre, disturbing contents seems to escalate with each new delivery. Manheim’s security chief, ex-cop Ethan Truman, is used to looking beneath the surface of things. But until he entered the orbit of a Hollywood icon, he had no idea just how slippery reality could be. Now this good man is all that stands in the way of an insidious killer—and forces that eclipse the most fevered fantasies of a city where dreams and nightmares are the stuff of daily life. As a seemingly endless and ominous rain falls over southern California, Ethan will test the limits of perception and endurance in a world where the truth is as thin as celluloid and answers can be found only in the illusory intersection of shadow and light.Enter a world of marvelous invention, enchantment, and implacable intent, populated by murderous actors and the walking dead, hit men and heroes, long-buried dreams and never-dying hope. Here a magnificent mansion is presided over by a Scottish force of nature known as Mrs. McBee, before whom all men tremble. A mad French chef concocts feasts for the mighty and the malicious. Ming du Lac, spiritual adviser to the stars, has a direct line to the dead. An aptly named cop called Hazard will become Ethan’s ally, an anarchist will sow discord and despair, and a young boy named Fric, imprisoned by celebrity and loneliness, will hear a voice telling him of the approach of something unimaginably evil. Traversing this extraordinary landscape, Ethan will face the secrets of his own tragic past and the unmistakable premonition of his impending violent death as he races against time to solve the macabre riddles of a modern-day beast.A riveting tour de force of suspense, mystery, and miraculous revelation, The Face is that rare novel that entertains, provokes, and uplifts at the same time. It will make you laugh. It will give you chills. It will fill you with hope.


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Dean Koontz has surpassed his longtime reputation as “America’s most popular suspense novelist”(*Rolling Stone*) to become one of the most celebrated and successful writers of our time. Reviewers hail his boundless originality, his art, his unparalleled ability to create highly textured, riveting drama, at once viscerally familiar and utterly unique. Author of one *#1 New York Times* bestseller after another, Koontz is at the pinnacle of his powers, spinning mysteries and miracles, enthralling tales that speak directly to today’s readers, balm for the heart and fire for the mind. In this stunning new novel, he delivers a tour de force of dark suspense and brilliant revelation that has all the Koontz trademarks: adventure, chills, riddles, humor, heartbreak, an unforgettable cast of characters, and a climax that will leave you clamoring for more.Dylan O’Connor is a gifted young artist just trying to do the right thing in life. He’s on his way to an arts festival in Santa Fe when he stops to get a room for himself and his twenty-year-old autistic brother, Shep. But in a nightmarish instant, Dylan is attacked by a mysterious “doctor,” injected with a strange substance, and told that he is now a carrier of something that will either kill him...or transform his life in the most remarkable way. Then he is told that he must flee--before the doctor’s enemies hunt him down for the secret circulating through his body. No one can help him, the doctor says, not even the police.Stunned, disbelieving, Dylan is turned loose to run for his life...and straight into an adventure that will turn the next twenty-four hours into an odyssey of terror, mystery--and wondrous discovery. It is a journey that begins when Dylan and Shep’s path intersects with that of Jillian Jackson. Before that evening Jilly was a beautiful comedian whose biggest worry was whether she would ever find a decent man. Now she too is a carrier. And even as Dylan tries to convince her that they’ll be safer sticking together, cold-eyed men in a threatening pack of black Suburbans approach, only seconds before Jilly’s classic Coupe DeVille explodes into thin air. Now the three are on the run together, but with no idea whom they’re running from--or why. Meanwhile Shep has begun exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior. And whatever it is that’s coursing through their bodies seems to have plunged them into one waking nightmare after another. Seized by sinister premonitions, they find themselves inexplicably drawn to crime scenes--just minutes before the crimes take place. What this unfathomable power is, how they can use it to stop the evil erupting all around them, and why they have been chosen are only parts of a puzzle that reaches back into the tragic past and the dark secrets they all share: secrets of madness, pain, and untimely death. Perhaps the answer lies in the eerie, enigmatic messages that Shep, with precious time running out, begins to repeat, about an entity who does his work “by the light of the moon.”**By the Light of the Moon** is a novel of heart-stopping suspense and transcendent beauty, of how evil can destroy us and love can redeem us--a masterwork of the imagination in which the surprises come page after page and the spell of sublime storytelling triumphs throughout.


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In his new novella, UR, King is at his unsettling best as he examines the future of the written word - for better or worse. Following a nasty break-up, lovelorn college English instructor Wesley Smith can't seem to get his ex-girlfriend's parting shot out of his head: "Why can't you just read off the computer like the rest of us?" Egged on by her question and piqued by a student's suggestion, Wesley places an order for Amazon.com's Kindle eReader. The [pink?] device that arrives in a box stamped with the smile logo -via one-day delivery that he hadn't requested - unlocks a literary world that even the most avid of book lovers could never imagine. But once the door is open, there are those things that one hopes we'll never read or live through. Firm, gripping, and deftly written by a craftsman at the top of his game, this is King at his crisp, clear, page-turning best.


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Hailed as “America’s most popular suspense novelist” (*Rolling Stone*) Dean Koontz has entered a rich new phase of his writing career that is yielding his most imaginative, meaningful, and popular work yet.At the height of his powers as a literary craftsman, he has won the acclaim of critics as well as the allegiance of millions of fans the world over, transforming the greatest fears and hopes of our time into masterworks of dazzling originality and emotional resonance.Now, with the stunning depth and virtuosity of his storytelling, he brings to readers one of his most gripping and richly imagined novels to date—an intoxicating story of adventure and suspense, mystery and revelation, told with humor, heart, and high art. **One Door Away From Heaven**In a dusty trailer park on the far edge of the California dream, Michelina Bellsong contemplates the choices she has made. At twenty-eight, she wants to change the direction of her troubled life but can’t find her way—until a new family settles into the rental trailer next door and she meets the young girl who will lead her on a remarkable quest that will change Micky herself and everything she knows—or thinks she knows—forever. Despite the brace she must wear on her deformed left leg, and her withered left hand, nine-year-old Leilani Klonk radiates a buoyant and indomitable spirit that inspires Micky. Beneath Leilani’s effervescence, however, Micky comes to sense a quiet desperation that the girl dares not express.Leilani’s mother is little more than a child herself. And the girl’s stepfather, Preston Maddoc, is educated but threatening. He has moved the family from place to place as he fanatically investigates UFO sightings, striving to make contact, claiming to have had a vision that by Leilani’s tenth birthday aliens will either heal her or take her away to a better life on their world.Slowly, ever more troubling details emerge in Leilani’s conversations with Micky. Most chilling is Micky’s discovery that Leilani had an older brother, also disabled, who vanished after Maddoc took him into the woods one night and is now “gone to the stars.”Leilani’s tenth birthday is approaching. Micky is convinced the girl will be dead by that day. While the child-protection bureaucracy gives Micky the runaround, the Maddoc family slips away into the night. Micky sets out across America to track and find them, alone and afraid but for the first time living for something bigger than herself.She finds herself pitted against an adversary, Preston Maddoc, as fearsome as he is cunning. The passion and disregard for danger with which Micky pursues her quest bring to her side a burned-out detective who joins her on a journey of incredible peril and startling discoveries, a journey through terrible darkness to unexpected light. **One Door Away From Heaven** is an incandescent mix of suspense and humor, fear and wonder, a story of redemption and timeless wisdom that will have readers cheering. Filled with tragedy and joy, with terror and hope, it solidifies Dean Koontz’s reputation as one of the foremost storytellers of our time. This is Dean Koontz at his very best—and it doesn’t get any better than that.*From the Hardcover edition.*


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**His birth was marked by wonder and tragedy.He sees beauty and terror beyond our deepest dreams.His story will change the way you see the world.**On the heels of his #1 bestseller **False Memory**, Dean Koontz brings together his most compelling themes and an unforgettable cast of characters to create what is perhaps the most thrilling and emotionally powerful work of his critically acclaimed career. Bartholomew Lampion is born on a day of tragedy and terror that will mark his family forever. All agree that his unusual eyes are the most beautiful they have ever seen. On this same day, a thousand miles away, a ruthless man learns that he has a mortal enemy named Bartholomew. He embarks on a relentless search to find this enemy, a search that will consume his life. And a girl is born from a brutal rape, her destiny mysteriously linked to Barty and the man who stalks him. At the age of three, Barty Lampion is blinded when surgeons remove his eyes to save him from a fast-spreading cancer. As he copes with his blindness and proves to be a prodigy, his mother counsels him that all things happen for a reason and that every person’s life has an effect on every other person’s, in often unknowable ways. At thirteen, Bartholomew regains his sight. How he regains it, why he regains it, and what happens as his amazing life unfolds and entwines with others results in a breathtaking journey of courage, heart-stopping suspense, and high adventure.


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The runaway bestseller about the ultimate reality show The year is 2025. The Running Man is America's favorite television game show. Ben Richards is the program's latest contestant-and the Hunters' latest target in a rigged game of death...


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Kristen Kroiter was sixteen, a high-school sophomore injured in a car accident. Dr. Ted Cogan saved her life when he treated her in the ER six months ago -- but now the police are questioning Cogan about her. What's going on; What has she told them; The problem is Kristen didn't tell the cops anything. She's dead -- an apparent suicide. But her diary suggests that she and the good doctor were intimate -- which puts the good doctor in a heap of trouble. Tense and twisting, Knife Music is the story of a doctor struggling to clear his name after being accused of raping and causing the suicide of a young girl. Pitted against Cogan is handicapped veteran detective Hank Madden, who tries to suppress his prejudices while investigating the case of a 43-year-old self-described womanizer.


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It's a fear more paralyzing than falling. More terrifying than absolute darkness. More horrifying than anything you can imagine. It's the one fear you cannot escape, no matter where you run...no matter where you hide.  It's the fear of yourself.  It's real.  It can happen to you.  And facing it can be deadly.False MemoryFear for your mind.


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Throughout history, thinkers from mathematicians to theologians have pondered the mysterious relationship between numbers and the nature of reality. In this fascinating book, Mario Livio tells the tale of a number at the heart of that mystery: *phi*, or 1.6180339887...This curious mathematical relationship, widely known as "The Golden Ratio," was discovered by Euclid more than two thousand years ago because of its crucial role in the construction of the pentagram, to which magical properties had been attributed. Since then it has shown a propensity to appear in the most astonishing variety of places, from mollusk shells, sunflower florets, and rose petals to the shape of the galaxy. Psychological studies have investigated whether the Golden Ratio is the most aesthetically pleasing proportion extant, and it has been asserted that the creators of the Pyramids and the Parthenon employed it. It is believed to feature in works of art from Leonardo da Vinci's *Mona Lisa *to Salvador Dali's *The Sacrament of the Last Supper*, and poets and composers have used it in their works. It has even been found to be connected to the behavior of the stock market!*The Golden Ratio* is a captivating journey through art and architecture, botany and biology, physics and mathematics. It tells the human story of numerous phi-fixated individuals, including the followers of Pythagoras who believed that this proportion revealed the hand of God; astronomer Johannes Kepler, who saw phi as the greatest treasure of geometry; such Renaissance thinkers as mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci of Pisa; and such masters of the modern world as Goethe, Cezanne, Bartok, and physicist Roger Penrose.  Wherever his quest for the meaning of phi takes him, Mario Livio reveals the world as a place where order, beauty, and eternal mystery will always coexist.*From the Hardcover edition.*


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**A rising star in theoretical physics offers his awesome vision of our universe and beyond, all beginning with a simple question: Why does time move forward?**



 Time moves forward, not backward-everyone knows you can't unscramble an egg. In the hands of one of today's hottest young physicists, that simple fact of breakfast becomes a doorway to understanding the Big Bang, the universe, and other universes, too. In *From Eternity to Here*, Sean Carroll argues that the arrow of time, pointing resolutely from the past to the future, owes its existence to conditions *before* the Big Bang itself-a period modern cosmology of which Einstein never dreamed. Increasingly, though, physicists are going out into realms that make the theory of relativity seem like child's play. Carroll's scenario is not only elegant, it's laid out in the same easy-to- understand language that has made his group blog, Cosmic Variance, the most popular physics blog on the Net.



 *From Eternity to Here* uses ideas at the cutting edge of theoretical physics to explore how properties of spacetime before the Big Bang can explain the flow of time we experience in our everyday lives. Carroll suggests that we live in a baby universe, part of a large family of universes in which many of our siblings experience an arrow of time running in the opposite direction. It's an ambitious, fascinating picture of the universe on an ultra-large scale, one that will captivate fans of popular physics blockbusters like *Elegant Universe* and *A Brief History of Time*.


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**Why evolution is more than just a theory: it is a fact**



In all the current highly publicized debates about creationism and its descendant "intelligent design," there is an element of the controversy that is rarely mentioned-the *evidence*, the empirical truth of evolution by natural selection. Even Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould, while extolling the beauty of evolution and examining case studies, have not focused on the evidence itself. Yet the proof is vast, varied, and magnificent, drawn from many different fields of science. Scientists are observing species splitting into two and are finding more and more fossils capturing change in the past-dinosaurs that have sprouted feathers, fish that have grown limbs.



 *Why Evolution Is True* weaves together the many threads of modern work in genetics, paleontology, geology, molecular biology, and anatomy that demonstrate the "indelible stamp" of the processes first proposed by Darwin. In crisp, lucid prose accessible to a wide audience, *Why Evolution Is True* dispels common misunderstandings and fears about evolution and clearly confirms that this amazing process of change has been firmly established as a scientific truth.


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**Bestselling author T. R. Reid guides a whirlwind tour of successful health care systems worldwide, revealing possible paths toward U.S. reform.**



 In *The Healing of America, New York Times* bestselling author T. R. Reid shows how all the other industrialized democracies have achieved something the United States can't seem to do: provide health care for everybody at a reasonable cost.



 In his global quest to find a possible prescription, Reid visits wealthy, free market, industrialized democracies like our own-including France, Germany, Japan, the U.K., and Canada-where he finds inspiration in example. Reid shares evidence from doctors, government officials, health care experts, and patients the world over, finding that foreign health care systems give everybody quality care at an affordable cost. And that dreaded monster "socialized medicine" turns out to be a myth. Many developed countries provide universal coverage with private doctors, private hospitals, and private insurance.



 In addition to long-established systems, Reid also studies countries that have carried out major health care reform. The first question facing these countries-and the United States, for that matter-is an ethical issue: Is health care a human right? Most countries have already answered with a resolute yes, leaving the United States in the murky moral backwater with nations we typically think of as far less just than our own.



 *The Healing of America* lays bare the moral question at the heart of our troubled system, dissecting the misleading rhetoric surrounding the health care debate. Reid sees problems elsewhere, too: He finds poorly paid doctors in Japan, endless lines in Canada, mistreated patients in Britain, spartan facilities in France. Still, all the other rich countries operate at a lower cost, produce better health statistics, and cover everybody. In the end, *The Healing of America* is a good news book: It finds models around the world that Americans can borrow to guarantee health care for everybody who needs it.


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**An accessible look at the hottest topic in physics and the experiments that will transform our understanding of the universe**    

    The biggest news in science today is the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest and most powerful particle-smasher, and the anticipation of finally discovering the Higgs boson particle. But what is the Higgs boson and why is it often referred to as the God Particle? Why are the Higgs and the LHC so important? Getting a handle on the science behind the LHC can be difficult for anyone without an advanced degree in particle physics, but you don't need to go back to school to learn about it. In *Collider*, award-winning physicist Paul Halpern provides you with the tools you need to understand what the LHC is and what it hopes to discover.            Comprehensive, accessible guide to the theory, history, and science behind experimental high-energy physics      Explains why particle physics could well be on the verge of some of its greatest breakthroughs, changing what we think we know about quarks, string theory, dark matter, dark energy, and the fundamentals of modern physics      Tells you why the theoretical Higgs boson is often referred to as the God particle and how its discovery could change our understanding of the universe      Clearly explains why fears that the LHC could create a miniature black hole that could swallow up the Earth amount to a tempest in a very tiny teapot      "Best of 2009 Sci-Tech Books (Physics)"*-Library Journal*      "Halpern makes the search for mysterious particles pertinent and exciting by explaining clearly what we don't know about the universe, and offering a hopeful outlook for future research."-*Publishers Weekly*      Includes a new author preface, "The Fate of the Large Hadron Collider and the Future of High-Energy Physics"          

    The world will not come to an end any time soon, but we may learn a lot more about it in the blink of an eye. Read *Collider* and find out what, when, and how.


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A catastrophic, unexplainable plane crash leaves three hundred and thirty dead -- no survivors. Among the victims are the wife and two daughters of Joe Carpenter, a Los Angeles Post crime reporter.A year after the crash, still gripped by an almost paralyzing grief, Joe encounters a woman named Rose, who claims to have survived the crash. She holds out the possibility of a secret that will bring Joe peace of mind. But before he can ask any questions, she slips away.Driven now by rage (have the authorities withheld information?) and a hope almost as unbearable as his grief (if there is one survivor, are there others?), Joe sets out to find the mysterious woman. His search immediately leads him into the path of a powerful and shadowy organization hell-bent on stopping Rose before she can reveal what she knows about the crash.Sole Survivor unfolds at a heart-stopping pace, as a desperate chase and a shattering emotional odyssey lead Joe to a truth that will force him to reassess everything he thought he knew about life and death -- a truth that, given the chance, will rock the world and redefine the destiny of humanity.From the Trade Paperback edition.


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**Now with a new afterword by the #1 *NEW YORK TIMES* BESTSELLING AUTHOR... And a brand-new package.**



 In the privacy of her own home, and against her will, Susan Harris will experience an inconceivable act of terror. She will become the object of the ultimate computer's consuming obsession: to learn everything there is to know about human flesh.


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Tommy Phan is a successful detective novelist, living the American Dream in southern California. One evening he comes home to find a small rag doll on his doorstep. It's a simple doll, covered entirely in white cloth, with crossed black stitches for the eyes and mouth, and another pair forming an X over the heart. Curious, he brings it inside.  That night, Tommy hears an odd popping sound and looks up to see the stitches breaking over the doll's heart. And in minutes the fabric of Tommy Phan's reality will be torn apart. Something terrifying emerges from the pristine white cloth, something that will follow Tommy wherever he goes. Something that he can't destroy. It wants Tommy's life and he doesn't know why. He has only one ally, a beautiful, strangely intuitive waitress he meets by chance--or by a design far beyond his comprehension. He has too many questions, no answers, and very little time. Because the vicious and demonically clever doll has left this warning on Tommy's computer screen: The deadline is dawn.**Ticktock**Time is running out.


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Garnering comparisons to Anne Rivers Siddons and Pat Conroy, Patti Callahan Henry has woven her lyrical Southern voice throughout the Lowcountry landscape. Now, as two women from opposite sides of the same sea meet, a tale unfolds that will draw readers into the heart's remembrances-and the tender awakenings of first love. 

 Though bogged down in the stress of planning her elaborate wedding to a professional golfer, twenty-seven-year-old Kara Larson still makes time to visit ninety-six-year-old Maeve Mahoney at her nursing home. And as Maeve recounts the rambling story of her first love back in Ireland, Kara is driven to remember her own first love: childhood neighbor Jack Sullivan.


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IN THE CHAOS-INFESTED Sabbat
Worlds, Imperial Commissar Gaunt
must lead his men through as mich
in-fighting amongst rival regiments as
against the heretical forces of Chaos.
First and Only is an epic saga of
planetary conquest, grand ambition,
treachery and honour.


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Tom Bissell is a prizewinning writer who published three widely acclaimed books before the age of thirty-four. He is also an obsessive gamer who has spent untold hours in front of his various video game consoles, playing titles such as *Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, BioShock, *and* Oblivion* for, literally, days. If you are reading this flap copy, the same thing can probably be said of you, or of someone you know. Until recently, Bissell was somewhat reluctant to admit to his passion for games. In this, he is not alone. Millions of adults spend hours every week playing video games, and the industry itself now reliably outearns Hollywood. But the wider culture seems to regard video games as, at best, well designed if mindless entertainment. *Extra Lives* is an impassioned defense of this assailed and misunderstood art form. Bissell argues that we are in a golden age of gaming—but he also believes games could be even better. He offers a fascinating and often hilarious critique of the ways video games dazzle and, just as often, frustrate. Along the way, we get firsthand portraits of some of the best minds (Jonathan Blow, Clint Hocking, Cliff Bleszinski, Peter Molyneux) at work in video game design today, as well as a shattering and deeply moving final chapter that describes, in searing detail, Bissell’s descent into the world of *Grand Theft Auto IV*, a game whose themes mirror his own increasingly self-destructive compulsions. Blending memoir, criticism, and first-rate reportage, *Extra Lives* is like no other book on the subject ever published. Whether you love video games, loathe video games, or are merely curious about why they are becoming the dominant popular art form of our time, *Extra Lives* is required reading.


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A riveting exploration of the most difficult and important part of what doctors do, by Yale School of Medicine physician Dr. Lisa Sanders, author of the monthly New York Times Magazine column "Diagnosis," the inspiration for the hit Fox TV series House, M.D. "The experience of being ill can be like waking up in a foreign country. Life, as you formerly knew it, is on hold while you travel through this other world as unknown as it is unexpected. When I see patients in the hospital or in my office who are suddenly, surprisingly ill, what they really want to know is, What is wrong with me? They want a road map that will help them manage their new surroundings. The ability to give this unnerving and unfamiliar place a name, to know it on some level, restores a measure of control, independent of whether or not that diagnosis comes attached to a cure. Because, even today, a diagnosis is frequently all a good doctor has to offer. A healthy young man suddenly loses his memory, making him unable to remember the events of each passing hour. Two patients diagnosed with Lyme disease improve after antibiotic treatment, only to have their symptoms mysteriously return. A young woman lies dying in the ICU, bleeding, jaundiced, incoherent, and none of her doctors know what is killing her. In Every Patient Tells a Story, Dr. Lisa Sanders takes us bedside to witness the process of solving these and other diagnostic dilemmas, providing a firsthand account of the expertise and intuition that lead a doctor to make the right diagnosis. Never in human history have doctors had the knowledge, the tools, and the skills that they have today to diagnose illness and disease. And yet mistakes are made, diagnoses missed, symptoms or tests misunderstood. In this high-tech world of modern medicine, Sanders shows us that knowledge, while essential, is not sufficient to unravel the complexities of illness. She presents an unflinching look inside the detective story that marks nearly every illness, the diagnosis, revealing the combination of uncertainty and intrigue that doctors face when confronting patients who are sick or dying. Through dramatic stories of patients with baffling symptoms, Sanders portrays the absolute necessity and surprising difficulties of getting the patient's story, the challenges of the physical exam, the pitfalls of doctor-to-doctor communication, the vagaries of tests, and the near calamity of diagnostic errors. In Every Patient Tells a Story, Dr. Sanders chronicles the real-life drama of doctors solving these difficult medical mysteries that not only illustrate the art and science of diagnosis, but often save the patients' lives.


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One of the most popular and prolific writers of our time, Dean Koontz has penned many classic New York Times bestsellers, but nothing quite like this. STRANGE HIGHWAYS is Koontz's  spellbinding  collection of tales interconnected by the strange highways of human experience-the adventures, terrors, failures, and  triumphs encountered on the roads that are chosen, and on those detoured by fate. As profound as it is mesmerizing, STRANGE HIGHWAYS is a remarkable achievement.


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This collection of (surprise!) six stories was a trade paperback published in a limited number (1000) by King's own Philtrum Press. The stories are:
"Lunch at the Gotham Cafe"
"L.T.'s Theory of Pets" 
"Luckey Quarter"
"Autopsy Room Four" 
"Blind Willie" 
"The Man in the Black Suit"


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More than 100 pages of new, cutting-edge content. Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan–there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, or just living more and working less, The 4-Hour Workweek is the blueprint. This step-by-step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches: •How Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week•How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want•How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs•How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist•How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent “mini-retirements”The new expanded edition of Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek includes:•More than 50 practical tips and case studies from readers (including families) who have doubled income, overcome common sticking points, and reinvented themselves using the original book as a starting point•Real-world templates you can copy for eliminating e-mail, negotiating with bosses and clients, or getting a private chef for less than $8 a meal•How Lifestyle Design principles can be suited to unpredictable economic times•The latest tools and tricks, as well as high-tech shortcuts, for living like a diplomat or millionaire without being either


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Pavek of Urik, templar of Hamanu and lower-level bureaucrat, has grown accustomed to the benefits of his station. Neither aggressive nor rebellious, he accepts his position, follows orders, and doesn't usually ask questions. Then one day he uncovers a far-reaching conspiracy that permeates all of Urik, even the ranks of his templar superiors, and now he is on the run. Forced to flee the comforts of his station, Pavek must take to the desert in search of a new way of life and a new system of beliefs, or meet death in the blood-soaked alleys of Urik at the hands of those he used to trust.


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ULLSAARD HAS CONQUERED THE KNOWN WORLD. 

All have fallen before his armies.

Now it's time to take the long journey home, back to the revered heart of the great Empire he had helped create for his distant masters. But when he returns to the capital, life there is so very different from what he had believed. Could it be that everything he has fought for, has conquered and killed for, has been a lie?


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A gripping new series combines Steampunk, spying, and a fantastic Victorian London.The mysterious Mr. Socrates rescues Modo, a child in a traveling freak show. Modo is a hunchback with an amazing ability to transform his appearance, and Mr. Socrates raises him in isolation as an agent for the Permanent Association, a spy agency behind Brittania’s efforts to rule the empire. At 14, Modo is left on the streets of London to fend for himself. When he encounters Octavia Milkweed, another Association agent, the two uncover a plot by the Clockword Guild behind the murders of important men. Furthermore, a mad scientist is turning orphan children into automatons to further the goals of the Guild. Modo and Octavia journey deep into the tunnels under London and discover a terrifying plot against the British government. It’s up to them to save their country.


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'You've never heard of The Tales of Beedle the Bard?' said Ron incredulously. 'You're kidding, right?' (From Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)  Published by the charity Lumos in association with Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, The Tales of Beedle the Bard is the first new book from J. K. Rowling since the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The Tales of Beedle the Bard played a crucial role in assisting Harry, with his friends Ron and Hermione, to finally defeat Lord Voldemort. Fans will be thrilled to have this opportunity to read the tales in full. An exciting addition to the canon of Harry Potter, the tales reveal the wonderful versatility of the author, as she tackles with relish the structure and varying tones of a classic fairy tale. There are five tales: 'The Tale of the Three Brothers', recounted in Deathly Hallows, plus 'The Fountain of Fair Fortune', 'The Warlock's Hairy Heart', 'The Wizard and the Hopping Pot', and 'Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump'. Each has its own magical character and will bring delight, laughter and the thrill of mortal peril.  Translated from the original runes by Hermione Granger, the tales are introduced and illustrated by J. K. Rowling. Also included are notes by Professor Albus Dumbledore, which appear by kind permission of the Hogwarts Headmasters' Archive.  Lumos is a charity founded by J. K. Rowling which aims to make life better for disadvantaged children.  Registered Charity Number: 1112575.


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Presents facsimile editions of two books from the world of Harry Potter--the text for Hogwarts' Care of Magical Creatures class and a book on the origins and development of the wizarding game of Quidditch.


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Bakha is a young man, proud and even attractive, yet none the less he is an outcast in India's caste system: an Untouchable. In deceptively simple prose this groundbreaking novel describes a day in the life of Bakha, sweeper and toilet-cleaner, as he searches for a meaning to the tragic existence he has been born into - and comes to an unexpected conclusion. Mulk Raj Anand poured a vitality, fire and richness of detail into his controversial work, which led him to be acclaimed as his country's Charles Dickens and one of the twentieth century's most important Indian writers.


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Percentile is destiny in America.”So says Walter Kirn, a peerless observer and interpreter of American life, in this whip-smart memoir of his own long strange trip through American education. Working his way up the ladder of standardized tests, extracurricular activities, and class rankings, Kirn launched himself eastward from his rural Minnesota hometown to the ivy-covered campus of Princeton University. There he found himself not in a temple of higher learning so much as an arena for gamesmanship, snobbery, social climbing, ass-kissing, and recreational drug use, where the point of literature classes was to mirror the instructor's critical theories and actual reading of the books under consideration was optional. Just on the other side of the “bell curve's leading edge” loomed a complete psychic collapse.LOST IN THE MERITOCRACY* *reckons up the costs of a system where the point is simply to keep accumulating points and never to look back—or within. It's a remarkable book that suggests the first step toward intellectual fulfillment is getting off the treadmill that is the American meritocracy. Every American who has spent years of his or her life there will experience many shocks of recognition while reading Walter Kirn’s sharp, rueful, and often funny book—and likely a sense of liberation at its end.


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**A remarkable portrait of American food before World War II, presented by the *New York Times*-bestselling author of *Cod* and *Salt*.**



 Award-winning *New York Times*-bestselling author Mark Kurlansky takes us back to the food and eating habits of a younger America: Before the national highway system brought the country closer together; before chain restaurants imposed uniformity and low quality; and before the Frigidaire meant frozen food in mass quantities, the nation's food was seasonal, regional, and traditional. It helped form the distinct character, attitudes, and customs of those who ate it.



 In the 1930s, with the country gripped by the Great Depression and millions of Americans struggling to get by, FDR created the Federal Writers' Project under the New Deal as a make-work program for artists and authors. A number of writers, including Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, and Nelson Algren, were dispatched all across America to chronicle the eating habits, traditions, and struggles of local people. The project, called "America Eats," was abandoned in the early 1940s because of the World War and never completed.



 *The Food of a Younger Land* unearths this forgotten literary and historical treasure and brings it to exuberant life. Mark Kurlansky's brilliant book captures these remarkable stories, and combined with authentic recipes, anecdotes, photos, and his own musings and analysis, evokes a bygone era when Americans had never heard of fast food and the grocery superstore was a thing of the future. Kurlansky serves as a guide to this hearty and poignant look at the country's roots.



 From New York automats to Georgia Coca-Cola parties, from Arkansas possum-eating clubs to Puget Sound salmon feasts, from Choctaw funerals to South Carolina barbecues, the WPA writers found Americans in their regional niches and eating an enormous diversity of meals. From Mississippi chittlins to Indiana persimmon puddings, Maine lobsters, and Montana beavertails, they recorded the curiosities, commonalities, and communities of American food.


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Recording the adventures of Sherlock Holmes as he travelled in Tibet with Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, this novel follows Holmes's brush with the Great Game, with Colonel Creighton, Lurgan Sahib and the world of Kim.


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Stephen King, whose first novel, Carrie, was published in 1974, the year before the last U.S. troops withdrew from Vietnam, is the first hugely popular writer of the TV generation. Images from that war -- and the protests against it -- had flooded America's living rooms for a decade. Hearts in Atlantis, King's newest fiction, is composed of five interconnected, sequential narratives, set in the years from 1960 to 1999. Each story is deeply rooted in the sixties, and each is haunted by the Vietnam War.

In Part One, "Low Men in Yellow Coats," eleven-year-old Bobby Garfield discovers a world of predatory malice in his own neighborhood. He also discovers that adults are sometimes not rescuers but at the heart of the terror.

In the title story, a bunch of college kids get hooked on a card game, discover the possibility of protest...and confront their own collective heart of darkness, where laughter may be no more than the thinly disguised cry of the beast.

In "Blind Willie" and "Why We're in Vietnam," two men who grew up with Bobby in suburban Connecticut try to fill the emptiness of the post-Vietnam era in an America which sometimes seems as hollow -- and as haunted -- as their own lives.

And in "Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling," this remarkable book's denouement, Bobby returns to his hometown where one final secret, the hope of redemption, and his heart's desire may await him.

Full of danger, full of suspense, most of all full of heart, Stephen King's new book will take some readers to a place they have never been...and others to a place they have never been able to completely leave.


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

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

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


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Acclaimed authors Holly Black (Ironside)and Cecil Castellucci (Boy Proof) have united in geekdom to edit short stories from some of the best selling and most promising geeks in young adult literature: M.T. Anderson, Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, John Green, Tracy Lynn, Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith, David Levithan, Kelly Link, Barry Lyga, Wendy Mass, Garth Nix, Scott Westerfield, Lisa Yee, and Sara Zarr.With illustrated interstitials from comic book artists Hope Larson and Bryan Lee O'Malley, Geektastic covers all things geeky, from Klingons and Jedi Knights to fan fiction, theater geeks, and cosplayers. Whether you're a former, current, or future geek, or if you just want to get in touch with your inner geek, Geektastic will help you get your geek on!


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James Herbert transcends the horror medium with '48, a blistering tale of post-World War II London overrun with fear and blood. Delivering not only terrifying imagery, but pulse-pounding action and historical adventure, it is destined to become a classic.It is a London Too Terrifying to Imagine. Already crippled by the relentless Nazi bombing, this once-beautiful city has been depopulated by a hideous blood plague unleashed in the final convulsive collapse of the German regime. Now, human vampires wander the rubble-strewn streets, desperately searching for the only thing that can cure them...But not all survivors have been afflicted, and Hoke -- a lone hero accompanied only by his trusty dog and bitter memories -- is relentlessly pursued for the clean blood that courses through his veins. Yet his flight soon takes on a different meaning as he saves two women and a former German soldier. Banding together, they flee into the city's underground tunnels where an unexpected betrayal that delivers them right into the hands of their deadly adversaries prompts Hoke to take a stand against these monsters once and for all."With '48, James Herbert delivers another triumphant thriller that blends two-fisted action with the supernatural". -- Douglas E. Winter


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**"A superbly creepy, twisty thriller about obsessive love, psychological torture, and the darkest chambers of the human heart." 

 -*The Times* (UK) ** 



 Naomi Jenkins knows all about secrets: three years ago something so terrible happened to her that she's never told anyone about it. Now, Naomi has another secret: her relationship with the unhappily married Robert Haworth. When Robert vanishes without explanation, Naomi knows he must have come to harm. But the police are less convinced, particularly when Robert's wife insists he is not missing. In desperation, Naomi decides that if she can't persuade the detectives that Robert is in danger, she'll convince them that he is a danger to others. Naomi knows how to describe the actions of a psychopath; all she needs to do is dig up her own traumatic past.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Sometimes it takes a leap of faith in order to soar . . .    

A gifted teacher, Lily Robinson adores her students, but fiercely guards her independent lifestyle. Deep inside, she is afraid of loving too deeply for fear of getting hurt. Only her best friend, Crystal, has ever been able to get close. Now an unthinkable tragedy has drawn Lily into the shattered lives of Crystal's family -- a family that suddenly needs her.    

Sean McGuire is a rolling stone used to living in the shadow of his famous brother, Derek. He's made his own way in life, playing by his own rules. Then one April night everything changes when a fatal car crash orphans Derek and Crystal's three children. In an instant, Sean finds himself in the role of guardian.    

Sean and Lily are brought together by tragedy, joined in their grief and their mutual love for these children. But raising three kids is a monumental job, and Sean realizes he's in over his head. And though Lily has been the unofficial aunt to these children since they were born, planting emotional roots means taking risks -- and Lily's not sure she can.    

The ups and downs of love and family life can be a roller-coaster ride -- thrilling, unpredictable and downright terrifying, yet filled with incredible delight. and Sean and Lily are about to discover the possibilities that make everything seem worthwhile -- a future filled with hope, happiness and the certainty that trusting love is the best choice of all.    

Susan Wiggs is the acclaimed, bestselling author of many poignant, unforgettable novels, including *Summer by the Sea*, *The Ocean Between Us* and *Home Before Dark*. she lives with her husband and daughter on an island in the Pacific Northwest, where she is currently at work on her next novel.


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In 1978, the first group of space shuttle astronauts was introduced to the world -- twenty-nine men and six women who would carry NASA through the most tumultuous years of the space shuttle program. Among them was USAF Colonel Mike Mullane, who, in his memoir Riding Rockets, strips the heroic veneer from the astronaut corps and paints them as they are -- human.Mullane's tales of arrested development among military flyboys working with feminist pioneers and post-doc scientists are sometimes bawdy, often comical, and always entertaining. He vividly portrays every aspect of the astronaut experience, from telling a female technician which urine-collection condom size is a fit to hearing "Taps" played over a friend's grave. He is also brutally honest in his criticism of a NASA leadership whose bungling would precipitate the Challenger disaster -- killing four members of his group. A hilarious, heartfelt story of life in all its fateful uncertainty, Riding Rockets will resonate long after the call of "Wheel stop."


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It begins in the realm of the Real, where matter still matters.It begins with a murder.And it will not end until the Culture has gone to war with death itself.Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit. Prepared to risk everything for her freedom, her release, when it comes, is at a price, and to put things right she will need the help of the Culture.Benevolent, enlightened and almost infinitely resourceful though it may be, the Culture can only do so much for any individual. With the assistance of one of its most powerful - and arguably deranged - warships, Lededje finds herself heading into a combat zone not even sure which side the Culture is really on. A war - brutal, far-reaching - is already raging within the digital realms that store the souls of the dead, and it's about to erupt into reality.It started in the realm of the Real and that is where it will end. It will touch countless lives and affect entire civilizations, but at the center of it all is a young woman whose need for revenge masks another motive altogether. SURFACE DETAIL is Iain M. Banks' new Culture novel, a breathtaking achievement from a writer whose body of work is without parallel in the modern history of science fiction.


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The prizewinning author of The Outcast delivers the emotionally searing story of a marriage in crisis, an unflinching look at lives irrevocably altered by one of history's ""small wars."" Hal Treherne is a major in the British Army, a young and dedicated soldier on the brink of a brilliant career. When he is transferred to the British colony of Cyprus in 1956, Hal is joined by Clara, his beautiful and supportive wife, and their baby daughters. The Trehernes quickly learn that the Mediterranean is no ""sunshine posting,"" however, and soon Hal is caught up in the battle to defend the island against Cypriots seeking enosis, union with Greece. Leading his men in difficult and bloody skirmishes, after years of peaceful service, Hal at last tastes triumph. But his confidence and pride quickly fade: traumatized by the brutality he witnesses-and thwarted again in his attempts to do the right thing-Hal finds himself well trained in duty but ill equipped for moral battle. A seasoned army wife, Clara shares her husband's sense of obligation. She knows to settle in quickly, make no fuss, smile. But as she struggles to trust her own maternal instincts and resist the anxiety that surges with Hal's frequent absences, Clara grows fearful of her increasingly distant husband. When she needs him most, Clara finds the once-tender Hal a changed man-a betrayal that is only part of the shocking personal crisis to come. What place is there for honor amid cruelty, and what becomes of intimacy in the grinding gears of empire? A passionate and brilliantly researched novel about the effects of war on the men who wage it and the families they leave behind, Small Wars raises important questions that resonate for our own time.


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“CARRION COMFORT is one of the three greatest horror novels of the 20th century. Simple as that.” --**Stephen King**



"Epic in scale and scope but intimately disturbing, CARRION COMFORT spans the ages to rewrite history and tug at the very fabric of reality. A nightmarish chronicle of predator and prey that will shatter your world view forever.  A true classic." --**Guillermo del Toro**

"CARRION COMFORT* *is one of the scariest books ever written.  Whenever I get the question asked *Who's your favorite author? *my answer is always Dan Simmons." --**James Rollins**

"One of the few major reinventions of the vampire concept, on a par with Jack Finney’s *Invasion of the Body Snatchers*, Richard Matheson’s *I Am Legend*, and Stephen King’s *Salem’s Lot*. --**David Morrell**

THE PAST...  Caught behind the lines of Hitler’s Final Solution, Saul Laski is one of the multitudes destined to die in the notorious Chelmno extermination camp.  Until he rises to meet his fate and finds himself face to face with an evil far older, and far greater, than the Nazi’s themselves…

THE PRESENT...  Compelled by the encounter to survive at all costs, so begins a journey that for Saul will span decades and cross continents, plunging into the darkest corners of 20th century history to reveal a secret society of beings who may often exist behind the world's most horrible and violent events.  Killing from a distance, and by darkly manipulative proxy, they are people with the psychic ability to 'use' humans: read their minds, subjugate them to their wills, experience through their senses, feed off their emotions, force them to acts of unspeakable aggression.  Each year, three of the most powerful of this hidden order meet to discuss their ongoing campaign of induced bloodshed and deliberate destruction.  But this reunion, something will go terribly wrong. Saul’s quest is about to reach its elusive object, drawing hunter and hunted alike into a struggle that will plumb the depths of mankind’s attraction to violence, and determine the future of the world itself…


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Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north.  But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky.  There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to the king.  But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle with cousins she never knew she had.  As she fights for her life, she draws ever closer to the secrets of her mother's death and her family's bloody history.With the fate of the world hanging in the balance, Yeine will learn how perilous it can be when love and hate - and gods and mortals - are bound inseparably together.


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When Laurel Estabrook is attacked while riding her bicycle through Vermont’s back roads, her life is forever changed. Formerly outgoing, Laurel withdraws into her photography, spending all her free time at a homeless shelter. There she meets Bobbie Crocker, a man with a history of mental illness and a box of photographs that he won’t let anyone see. When Bobbie dies, Laurel discovers a deeply hidden secret–a story that leads her far from her old life, and into a cat-and-mouse game with pursuers who claim they want to save her. 

In a tale that travels between the Roaring Twenties and the twenty-first century, between Jay Gatsby’s Long Island and rural New England, bestselling author Chris Bohjalian has written his most extraordinary novel yet.


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#1New York Timesbestselling author Vince Flynn returns with yet another explosive thriller, introducing the young Mitch Rapp, as he takes on his first assignment.Before he was considered a CIA superagent, before he was thought of as a terroristrs"s worst nightmare, and before he was both loathed and admired by the politicians on Capitol Hill, Mitch Rapp was a gifted college athlete without a care in the world . . . and then tragedy struck.Two decades of cutthroat, partisan politics has left the CIA and the country in an increasingly vulnerable position. Cold War veteran and CIA Operations Director Thomas Stansfield knows he must prepare his people for the next war. The rise of Islamic terrorism is coming, and it needs to be met abroad before it reaches America's shores. Stansfield directs his protEacute;Eacute;, Irene Kennedy, and his old Cold War colleague, Stan Hurley, to form a new group of clandestine operatives who will work outside the normal chain of command-men who do not exist. What type of man is willing to kill for his country without putting on a uniform? Kennedy finds him in the wake of the Pan Am Lockerbie terrorist attack. Two-hundred and seventy souls perished that cold December night, and thousands of family and friends were left searching for comfort. Mitch Rapp was one of them, but he was not interested in comfort. He wanted retribution.Six months of intense training has prepared him to bring the war to the enemy's doorstep, and he does so with brutal efficiency. Rapp starts in Istanbul, where he assassinates the Turkish arms dealer who sold the explosives used in the Pan Am attack. Rapp then moves onto Hamburg with his team and across Europe, leaving a trail of bodies. All roads lead to Beirut, though, and what Rapp doesnrs"t know is that the enemy is aware of his existence and has prepared a trap. The hunter is about to become the hunted, and Rapp will need every ounce of skill and cunning if he is to survive the war-ravaged city and its various terrorist factions.As action-packed, fast-paced, and brutally realistic as it gets, Flynn's latest page-turner shows readers how it all began. Behind then; steely gazen of the nation's ultimate hero is a young man primed to become an American Assassin.


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Sara Douglass has won leagues of fans worldwide for her epic tales of sorcery, forbidden love, and heart-pounding action. She revealed her biggest story yet with the DarkGlass Mountain saga, and now, at last, the dramatic finale to the epic trilogy!  Tencendor is no more. The land is gone. But a few SunSoars still remain, and a new foe walks the world.  Ishbel Brunelle, priestess of the Serpent Coil, and Maximilian, the Lord of Elcho Falling, have raised the magic of Elcho Falling, and found new allies against the darkness in the mysterious Lealfast. And more crucially still, Axis SunSoar, former god and current hero, has rediscovered the magical Star Dance and revived his legendary Strike Force to push back the evil hordes commanded by the DarkGlass Mountain.  But their enemy grows stronger through blood and betrayal, the Lealfast have their own agenda, and when unexpected treachery threatens, Axis SunSoar must face a darkness greater than any he has ever known.


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A fantastical reimagining of the American West which draws its influence from steampunk, the American western tradition, and magical realismThe world is only half made. What exists has been carved out amidst a war between two rival factions: the Line, paving the world with industry and claiming its residents as slaves; and the Gun, a cult of terror and violence that cripples the population with fear. The only hope at stopping them has seemingly disappeared—the Red Republic that once battled the Gun and the Line, and almost won. Now they’re just a myth, a bedtime story parents tell their children, of hope. To the west lies a vast, uncharted world, inhabited only by the legends of the immortal and powerful Hill People, who live at one with the earth and its elements. Liv Alverhyusen, a doctor of the new science of psychology, travels to the edge of themade world to a spiritually protected mental institution in order to study the minds of those broken by the Gun and the Line. In its rooms lies an old general of the Red Republic, a man whose shattered mind just may hold the secret to stopping the Gun and the Line. And either side will do anything to understand how.


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For centuries, emperors, historians, and even the Vatican have tried to locate Ivan the Terrible’s magnificent Library of Gold — a long-missing archive containing gold-covered, bejeweled books dating all the way back to the ancient Greeks.  Now one of the volumes, The Book of Spies, has surfaced, and along with it the highly secret book club that owns the Library of Gold.  They form a cabal of the globe’s most powerful men – men who will do anything to achieve their aims and protect their interests.  When the CIA discovers a connection between the legendary library and a bank account linked to terrorists, they turn to rare books curator Eva Blake for help.  Soon an attempt is made on Eva’s life. Determined not only to survive but to uncover the truth, Eva turns to the only person she can trust—Judd Ryder, a former intelligence agent with his own agenda and a troubled past.  Together, Judd and Eva embark on an international adventure from London to Rome, Istanbul, and Athens.  Somehow they must do what no one else has been able to do – find the library and stay alive.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**A car crashes in Wyoming:** A young mother is thrown clear of the devastating car crash. Dazed, she sees a figure pull her infant son from the flames. Or does she? The police believe it's a case of trauma playing cruel tricks on the mind, until the night the grief-stricken woman hears a voice through the phone: "Your baby is alive."

**A bomb explodes in a Rio de Janeiro café:** The heinous act kills ten people, including two journalists with the World Press Alliance news agency. Jack Gannon's first international assignment is to find out whether his colleagues were innocent victims or targets who got too close to a huge story.

**A Caribbean cruise ends in horror:** Doctors are desperate to identify the mysterious cause of a cruise ship passenger's agonizing death. They turn to the world's top scientists, who fear that someone has resurrected their long-buried secret research. Research that is now being used as a deadly weapon.

With millions of lives at stake, experts work frantically against time. And as an anguished mother searches for her child and Jack Gannon pursues the truth, an unstoppable force hurls them all into the panic zone.


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Tracy Waterhouse leads a quiet, ordered life as a retired police detective-a life that takes a surprising turn when she encounters Kelly Cross, a habitual offender, dragging a young child through town. Both appear miserable and better off without each other-or so decides Tracy, in a snap decision that surprises herself as much as Kelly. Suddenly burdened with a small child, Tracy soon learns her parental inexperience is actually the least of her problems, as much larger ones loom for her and her young charge. Meanwhile, Jackson Brodie, the beloved detective of novels such as Case Histories , is embarking on a different sort of rescue-that of an abused dog. Dog in tow, Jackson is about to learn, along with Tracy, that no good deed goes unpunished.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

***“Smart, scathing, and verbally inventive to an astonishing degree, David J. Schow is one of the most interesting writers of his generation.”—Peter Straub 



***“Inter-what?” When advertising executive Conrad Maddox returns from a redeye flight and finds a mysterious locker key waiting in his rental car, he discovers a briefcase loaded with guns and money. Several hours later, his entire life tumbles down a rabbit hole when he meets Dandine, owner of the case and former contract assassin for a shadowy organization called Norco, which is now out to nail both of them. 

“Internecine” means conflict, mutual destruction, and slaughter—or, as Dandine tells Conrad, they are now inadvertently at play in a field of “terrorism, counter-assassination, military coups, dirty tricks, Watergate, spy vs. spy, murky secret organizations, that sort of thing.” A world in which being innocent can’t save you, the police can’t help you, and your only hope of getting out alive is to risk unheard-of dangers against opponents with nearly unlimited power. To free themselves from the spider web of black ops, murder, madness and betrayal, Dandine and Conrad must delve ever-deeper into the spiraling, dangerous maze that is Norco, where everyone seems to be in on the most lethal of games…except you.


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You had better shove this in the stove," Mark Twain said at the top of an 1865 letter to his brother, "for I don't want any absurd 'literary remains' and 'unpublished letters of Mark Twain' published after I am planted." He was joking, of course. But when Mark Twain died in 1910, he left behind the largest collection of personal papers created by any nineteenth-century American author.   Here, for the first time in book form, are twenty-four remarkable pieces by the American master—pieces that have been handpicked by Robert Hirst, general editor of the Mark Twain Project at the University of California, Berkeley. In "Jane Austen," Twain wonders if Austen's goal is to "make the reader detest her people up to the middle of the book and like them in the rest of the chapters." "The Privilege of the Grave" offers a powerful statement about the freedom of speech while "Happy Memories of the Dental Chair" will make you appreciate modern dentistry. In "Frank Fuller and My First New York Lecture" Twain plasters the city with ads to promote his talk at the Cooper Union (he is terrified no one will attend). Later that day, Twain encounters two men gazing at one of his ads. One man says to the other: "Who is Mark Twain?" The other responds: "God knows—I don't."   Wickedly funny and disarmingly relevant, Who Is Mark Twain? shines a new light on one of America's most beloved literary icons—a man who was well ahead of his time.


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Before Kendi learned to use his talent of navigating the plane of mental existence known as the Dream, he had to escape his physical existence as a slave.


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The Dream......is a plateau of mental existence where people are able to communicate by the power of their thoughts alone.The Silent...These people -- known as the Silent -- find that the Dream is threatened by a powerful Silent capable of seizing control of other people's bodies against their will...and may be causing tremors within the Dream itself.The Risk...And if the "normals" learn of this, they will do anything to capture the Silent for use as a weapon -- and the Dream itself may be shattered forever...


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The third novel in Steven Harper's critically-acclaimed science fiction saga continues ... The telepathic communications net, known as "The Dream; ' has been shattered. And the majority of the Silent who used it are unable to reenter. But Kendi Weaver has more pressing concerns: finding the family that slavers tore from him more than a decade before...


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The Dream was a telepathic place of existence where a psychic race known as the Silent could twist the laws of reality. But a madman's lust for power has torn the Dream asunder. Now, only a handful of the Silent can enter it. Kendi Weaver is one of them. And it is up to him to protect it as political and personal enemies line up against him.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**The perfect title for the perfect beach read from the *New York Times* bestselling Author**



Jane Green is one of the preeminent authors of women’s fiction today, and with each new novel, her audience grows. Green’s avid and loyal fans follow her because she writes about the true-to-life dilemmas of women—and *The Beach House* will not disappoint.



 Known in Nantucket as the crazy woman who lives in the rambling house atop the bluff, Nan doesn’t care what people think. At sixty-five-years old, her husband died twenty years ago, her beauty has faded, and her family has flown. If her neighbors are away, why shouldn’t she skinny dip in their swimming pools and help herself to their flowers? But when she discovers the money she thought would last forever is dwindling and she could lose her beloved house, Nan knows she has to make drastic changes.



 So Nan takes out an ad: *Rooms to rent for the summer in a beautiful old Nantucket home with water views and direct access to the beach*. Slowly, people start moving into the house, filling it with noise, with laughter, and with tears. As the house comes alive again, Nan finds her family expanding. Her son comes home for the summer, and then an unexpected visitor turns all their lives upside-down.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Dear Readers,    

There are at   least five good reasons to Tip It! right now.          My daughter Kathy put out *   her*    memoir last year, which was real nice except for the controversial parts. And     it got to be a #1 *    New York     Times* bestseller. Congratulations,     Kathleen! But now it's my turn. I've written my own book. I have things to     say, too, without having to be all controversial like you were. Tip it!        People recognize me on the street a lot now     and come over, nicely, and say "Maggie, you remind me of my own mother." And     they say "Maggie, I love your show"--referring to *Kathy Griffin: My Life on     the D-List *as *    my     *show. Sometimes I correct them, I say,     "Oh, it's not     my     show." But sometimes . . . I don't correct     them. It's kind of fun being a star, isn't it? Tip it!        If you want to know a few things about my     daughter Kathleen that only a mother could know (How the heck did she get this     way? Did she always swear so much, for Chrissake?), you have come to the right     book. Tip it!         You know how a box of wine is never empty just     because the spigot seems to have run dry? (There's always a little more if you     just tip it!) This book is like that. There's so much in     it--never-before-published Griffin family photos!, a love story (me and my dear     departed husband Johnny), a whole guide to good living (including how to     survive on what's in your purse), and a lot of funny business in this book     from Kathleen (she made comments in this book; readers, I was not able to stop     her!). So take this book and Tip It!         And be sure to get the last drop out of     living. Isn't it nice that "Tip It" acts as a toast? I'm 90 years old, and I     think "Tip It!" even works pretty well as a motto for living to the fullest.     So, Tip It! today.      

Yours,    

Maggie Griffin    

A funny thing happened on the   way to Kathy Griffin's skyrocketing stardom. The more she told stories about her   mother, Maggie, in her stand-up act and on her Emmy-winning television show, *  Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List,* the more popular her mother became.   (At the mere mention of Maggie, a stadium full of fans will cheer, "Tip It! Tip   It!")    

Shocked by Kathy,   exasperated by Kathy, grudgingly amused by Kathy, and at the end of the day,   always a loving mother to Kathy, Maggie Griffin has become the darling Gracie to   Kathy's George Burns, the wry Cher to Kathy's Sonny Bono, the spry, sweet   Roadrunner to Kathy's Wile E. Coyote.     

Maggie Griffin   grew up in Chicago, the youngest of sixteen children born to Irish immigrant   parents. She met Johnny, the love of her life, in Chicago, started dating him   after high school (while working at the Form Fit Bra factory in the returns   department), and they fell in love and married during the War. Together they   raised five children, the youngest a cutie named Kathleen, who never gave them a   moment's trouble throughout her childhood--though it's been payback time ever   since.     

As Kathy's comedy   career took off, more and more stories of Maggie magically worked their way into   Kathy's routines. And as a regular on *Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List,*   Maggie takes more guff from her daughter than any other mom on national   television. Well, after having her life put on comic display by the loudmouthed   redhead she fed, clothed, and cared for well into the comedian's adulthood,   Maggie finally has the floor, and she has some business to share with you.    

So get out your Franzia, stir up some Hamburger Helper, and dive into the world according to   Maggie.


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"An extraordinary and compelling meditation about the enduring need for loyalty, love and responsibility."-- Time

"A brilliant fable." -- Maureen Howard, front page, The New York Times Book Review

"Doris Lessing again presents herself as one of the most intelligent of all modern novelists." -- Philadelphia Bulletin

"The most fluid and suggestive of all her books."

-- St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"A short, easily read novel...part science fiction and part 19th-century realism, its effect is profoundly affecting and mystical... especially moving for those who have responded to Lessing's previous work." -- Houston Chronicle

"A major work, one that well proves her vigor, originality and importance as a novelist." -- Cleveland Free Press -- Review   

      
  "One of her profoundest visionary excursions." --Gail Godwin, Chicago Tribune Book World

"An extraordinary and compelling meditation about the enduring need for loyalty, love and responsibility." --Time

"A brilliant fable." --Maureen Howard, front page, The New York Times Book Review

"Doris Lessing again presents herself as one of the most intelligent of all modern novelists." --Philadelphia Bulletin

"The most fluid and suggestive of all her books." --St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"A short, easily read novel...part science fiction and part 19th-century realism, its effect is profoundly affecting and mystical... especially moving for those who have responded to Lessing's previous work." --Houston Chronicle

"A major work, one that well proves her vigor, originality and importance as a novelist." --Cleveland Free Press


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'He should have seen it coming. His life had been one mishap after another. So he should have been prepared for this one...' Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC radio producer, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they've never quite lost touch with each other - or with their former teacher, Libor Sevick, a Czech always more concerned with the wider world than with exam results. >Now, both Libor and Finkler are recently widowed, and with Treslove, his chequered and unsuccessful record with women rendering him an honorary third widower, they dine at Libor's grand, central London apartment. It's a sweetly painful evening of reminiscence in which all three remove themselves to a time before they had loved and lost; a time before they had fathered children, before the devastation of separations, before they had prized anything greatly enough to fear the loss of it. Better, perhaps, to go through life without knowing happiness at all because that way you have less to mourn? Treslove finds he has tears enough for the unbearable sadness of both his friends' losses. And it's that very evening, at exactly 11:30 pm, as Treslove, walking home, hesitates a moment outside the window of the oldest violin dealer in the country, that he is attacked. And after this, his whole sense of who and what he is will slowly and ineluctably change. The Finkler Questionis a scorching story of friendship and loss, exclusion and belonging, and of the wisdom and humanity of maturity. Funny, furious, unflinching, this extraordinary novel shows one of our finest writers at his brilliant best.


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A covert airdrop lands Mack Bolan inside the brutal northern Pakistan border territory. From deep within a terrorist cell an informant has leaked crucial information to Stony Man Farm. He knows the location of two of the highest-ranking members of al Qaeda. They are the most wanted men in the world, and they've spent years dodging American troops and plotting further attacks worldwide.

Now Bolan is in hostile territory on a mission to eliminate men who will stop at nothing in pursuit of vengeance. And he faces government troops determined to protect the terrorists. With time running out and the enemy closing in, the Executioner must do what no one else has--settle the score.


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Federal authorities thought they were about to shut down the American activities of the lethal MS-13 gang for good. But when the star witness and the prosecuting attorney are murdered, the trial of the gang's leaders is in shambles. With legal avenues exhausted and an undercover agent missing deep within the deadly organization, the situation is critical.

Mack Bolan is called in to fight fire with fire. But MS-13's leaders have a plan to terrorize suburban America. In order to stop them, Bolan will have to follow their trail deep into the Salvadoran jungle, moving fast and striking hard. Using warrior skills honed in another distant land, the Executioner will show no mercy.


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Infiltrating a Dutch human trafficking organization turns deadly when two undercover agents are tortured and shot. Protected by a complex infrastructure and ruthless lawyers, the businessmen behind the crime are untouchable under international law. But Mack Bolan isn't about to play by their rules.

Entering Holland alone, Bolan heads to Rotterdam where he is prepared to seek out his target and destroy the corrupt organization piece by piece. The leaders of the group think they are invincible, but with the lives of women and children at stake, they are about to learn what it's like to be hunted by the Executioner.


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What do you do if you're a failed music fanzine writer in your early thirties with a dead-end job, and the best moment of your life occurred when you went to your first Thieving Magpies gig as a teenager and suddenly you "belonged" in a way you never had before, and the worst moment of your life occurred about six years later when Lance Webster, the Magpies' lead singer, self-destructed on stage before your eyes--basically taking you with him--and just today you've discovered that Lance lives down the street from you? If you're Clive Beresford--the haplessly obsessed guy at the center of Tim Thornton's wildly comic and energetic debut novel--you get remarkably drunk and write and deliver a note to your idol (the contents of which you can't remember the next morning), which causes two very large bouncer types to appear at your door warning you to back off, which, in turn, causes you to hide your true identity when you do finally meet Lance, totally by accident (he's come a long way since the Magpies, but he is still LANCE F**CKING WEBSTER!) . . . none of which deters you from believing--really believing--that he could still save your life if only you could get that "earth-shattering exclusive" interview with him. With the story shifting between Clive's life-changing Magpies past and his frantic present, we get a headlong, boisterous coming-of-age (if-not-quite-growing-up) romp and a warmhearted, hilarious view of friendship, hero worship, and the full-blast power of music to help us become, at the very least, who we would like to think we are.


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Newly divorced, Andrew Stratton lives in his head and not with his heart. He teaches architectural theory but has never built a building. He writes about “The Anatomy of Livable Places”– communities where form and material are in harmony–but has no sense of where he belongs. He is capable of deep, tender emotions but is unable to express them. When his wife leaves him for another man and excoriates his cautious nature in the process, Andrew is like a house shaken off a faulty foundation. Sifting through the rubble, he must figure out what should be salvaged and what should be scrapped. Escaping from the predictable routine of his university life in Philadelphia, Andrew travels to England and channels his pain into a weeklong course on building stone walls. In the village of Boscastle, he discovers a magical landscape of dizzying cliffs, jagged coastline, lush valleys, and hills lined with stone hedges that have stood the test of time. At the Stone Academy, Andrew immerses himself in the grueling task of piecing together rock into intricate walls. Under the tutelage of his weathered instructor, he learns there is more to laying stone than hard labor. And he soon falls under the spell of Boscastle’s rhythms and quirks, which include a weekly sing-along, a museum devoted to witchcraft, and a colorful group of residents ranging from a precocious nine-year-old girl who communes with nature to an offbeat reverend who has been known to give referrals to the town witch.Moved by the warmth and connectedness of the village, Andrew begins to shed his sheltered self. But his willingness to open his heart is tested when he falls for Nicola Rhys-Jones, an American expatriate seeking to escape a history of abuse. Thorny, sarcastic, and sexy, Nicola is an artist who paints tranquility panels for hospitals. But her life before Boscastle has been anything but peaceful. As their verbal sparring veers into darker territory, Andrew grapples with his status in Boscastle. Is he just a tourist on holiday or does he now have a stake in the village that has welcomed him? Readers new to Will North’s work as well as fans of The Long Walk Home will be swept away by this bittersweet novel about love, loss, and the power of nature to alter our lives.From the Hardcover edition.


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Elizabeth has a new job at an unusual libraryA- a lending library of objects, not books. In a secret room in the basement lies the Grimm Collection. ThatA's where the librarians lock away powerful items straight out of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales: seven-league boots, a table that produces a feast at the blink of an eye, Snow WhiteA's stepmotherA's sinister mirror that talks in riddles. When the magical objects start to disappear, Elizabeth embarks on a dangerous quest to catch the thief before she can be accused of the crimeA-or captured by the thief. Polly Shulman has created a contemporary fantasy with a fascinating setting and premise, starring an ordinary girl whose after-school job is far from ordinaryA- and leads to a world of excitement, romance and magical intrigue.


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Special Agent Kylie Donovan knows the evil that men do.  After her sister’s murder went unsolved, she decided to work undercover for the FBI. Now, posing as a college student, she hopes to track down an Internet predator who is murdering teenage girls.  Using herself as bait, Kylie is sure she can lure the killer out of the shadows…until her fascination with a drop-dead gorgeous cop threatens to blow her whole case.With a rock hard body and seductive smile, Lieutenant Perry Flynn is a hard man to ignore.  He makes it very clear that Kylie’s fierce attraction is mutual.  But Kylie can’t afford to let Perry cloud her judgment, especially when she begins to suspect that his dark obsession with the case runs deeper than it should.  Then, when disturbing new evidence points to a cop, Kylie wonders if her sinful thoughts about Perry have thrust her into the strong, sleek arms of a killer…


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Monique Vicknair has a secret-- she's a medium, dedicated to helping spirits cross to the other side. Unfortunately, she's been so busy, she hasn't taken care of her "own" earthly needs. And it's been a long, "long" time. So when she meets recently deceased-but oh-so-sexy-Ryan Chappelle, she's more than ready for a fling. Even if it is with a ghost! Ryan is no stranger to the pleasures of a woman's body, and his death hasn't changed that. But he's never wanted anyone the way he wants Monique. So he's refusing to leave this world until he makes love to her. And if he has to break all the laws of heaven and earth to do it, he will. "Again and again and again... ."


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Police officer Eden Rutherford has only one weakness-- bad boy Ben Wilder. With just one wicked glance, he could make her lose control, lose her heart... and lose her panties. Too bad he took all three with him when he hightailed it out of town three years ago. Now Ben's back, and Eden's bracing herself. First, for his assault on her libido. And second, for his reaction to BennettWildersucks.com, the Web site she and Ben's other ex-girlfriends put together to humiliate him. Only, one woman's going too far... . Now Eden has to deal with a stalker and her overwhelming lust. She needs to get Ben out of her system, for good this time! And offering Ben her protection might just be the way to do it... .


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


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**Wicked**

Audra Walker's old crowd thought she'd turned her back on them and what they liked best-namely hot sex and available men. But they were so wrong….

**Wanton**

And Audra was in the mood to prove it. How? By taking their dare. The challenge? To seduce the very next man through the club door—regardless of who he was…

**Wanted**

What the classy chick at the bar saw in his suspect was anybody's guess. But undercover cop Jesse Martinez would make it his business to find out. Because no guy—unless he was dead from the neck down—would miss the chance to investigate the curvy brunette, too….


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Working in Hollywood is always about getting to the top. Or "on" top, as feisty producer Claudia Dostis prefers. But when she contends with her outrageously sexy adversary, Leandro Mandalor, the stakes change. Her charming opponent is definitely up to Claudia's challenge. He convinces her they must come together-- in the office "and" in the bedroom. Suddenly getting on top has a whole new meaning... and leads to a new level of sensual satisfaction. But can Claudia let go of her need to succeed long enough to allow someone else to win?


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**Sex didn't scare her** 

Despite the success of her sultry Red Choo sex blog, it would take serious buzz to put Mercedes Brooks's first book of erotic fantasies on the bestseller list. And that meant agreeing to another showdown with her nemesis, the super-sexy TV pundit Sam Porter. 

**This thing beyond seduction did.** 

This time, though, the on-air innuendos were just a dress rehearsal. What happened later between the sheets was actually the main event. If the tabloids got wind of their night together, Sam's career would self-destruct. But the real shocker was that even with a prime-time scandal hanging over their heads, one night was not enough!


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Fern is glaring thirty in the face and can't ignore the love lies any longer. Life with Adam was amazing once - although these days swinging from the chandeliers means D.I.Y not S.E.X. She believes a romantic wedding should be the next step but Adam just won't go down on one knee.
Then a chance meeting with Scottie Taylor - the UK's sexiest pop star - lights fireworks in Fern that won't stop exploding. It's mind-expanding love at first sight for them both so when he proposes in front of a sell-out crowd at Wembley Stadium, there's only one answer. Yes, yes, yes!
Before you know it, Fern is living the celebrity dream in LA and a wedding planner is arranging designer shoe fittings. But isn't it all happening a little too fast? Why is this modern day Cinderella homesick for a rented two-bedroom flat in Clapham?
How do you know whether love is telling the truth? Fern must choose which version of this fairy tale is hers ?


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Babette Robinson changes careers and lovers as easily as she changes hairstyles. But after losing her last job, she's beginning to see that her feather-to-the-wind mentality can be unsatisfying in the long run. She's been helping a string of friends solve their relationship problems, and when one pal points out to Babette that she could make a career out of curing people's romantic ills, she decides to dub herself "The Love Doctor" -- a match-mender-for-hire. Living in Birmingham, Alabama, with its elite class of wealthy women, Babette has access to the ideal clientele, including the well-known Birmingham socialite Kitty Carelle. Having unceremoniously dumped her lover, Kitty now regrets her hasty decision and wants him back. Trouble is, the man Kitty seeks to recapture is none other than Jeff Eubanks -- Babette's ex! The carefree Babette of three years ago had written him off with a shrug, yet now she can't help remembering that he did give her the absolute best sex of her life...not to mention his charm, good looks, and brains. To save her newfound career and prove she can stick with something--if not someone--Babette is determined to mend Kitty and Jeff's broken relationship, but Jeff has other plans. He was crazy about Babette when she suddenly bailed on their relationship, and after Kitty did the same he became convinced that no woman can ever commit. To prove his point, Jeff issues Babette a challenge: no flirting for a week, and he'll talk to Kitty. That is, if, after seven tempting nights on the beach with Jeff, it's still with Kitty that she wants him to reconcile.


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When a spirit from beyond begs Gage Vicknair to rescue a stranger named Makayla, he never expects that stranger to be the same sensuous woman he's been enjoying so thoroughly in his nightly fantasies. But Makayla is very real and she's living a nightmare.  

A vengeful murderer is determined to get her. And Gage is equally determined to save her.  

Because the only way he and Makayla can have the love they've dreamed of is if they're still around to live it....


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Monique Vicknair has a secret -- she's a medium, dedicated to helping spirits cross  to the other side. Unfortunately, she's been so busy, she hasn't taken care of  her own earthly needs. And it's been a long, *long* time. So when she meets  recently deceased-but oh-so-sexy-Ryan Chappelle, she's more than ready for a  fling. Even if it is with a ghost!  

Ryan is no stranger to the pleasures of a woman's body, and his death hasn't  changed that. But he's never wanted anyone the way he wants Monique. So he's  refusing to leave this world until he makes love to her. And if he has to break  all the laws of heaven and earth to do it, he will. *Again and again and  again...*


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She's not alive. She's not dead. She's somewhere in between And medium Dax Vicknair wants her desperately! When Dax first met and fell madly in love with teacher Celeste Beauchamp, he knew the attraction was hopeless. But his connection with Celeste was so intense so sexually charged, he couldn't resist. Their relationship was short, sweet and temporary. Or so he thought...  

Now Celeste is suddenly back and she's doing everything she can to stay with Dax as long as possible. She's waited for him, for his touch, her whole life. And nothing, not even her supposed death, is going to stop her from having him. Repeatedly. 

But Celeste and Dax are living -- and loving -- on borrowed time.  

And it might cost them their future...


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Single thirty-something Marissa, though beautiful and talented, is becoming increasingly skeptical about romance because every man in her life has been a cheater. She creates a website dedicated to exposing serial cheaters, but instead her website ushers back into her life her first boyfriend from adolescence, and he is determined to show her that a man can be true.


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At OCD the losers are tormented.At Alpha Academy, they're sent home.Skye Hamilton has scored an invitation to the ultra-exclusive Alphas-only boarding school where beta is spelled LBR . What happens when the country's best, brightest, and hawtest begin clawing and scratching their way to the top?


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**The unforgettable story of the 1973 U.S. Open-and the unknown young golfer who astonished the world... ** 



 In 1973, a Who's Who of golf's greats gathered at the Oakmont Country Club for the U.S. Open. Among those favored to win were Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. Instead, Johnny Miller-a 26-year-old one­time phenom from San Francisco-astonished the golfing world by edging out the legends and crafting a record-setting 63 to win by a single stroke. 



 Featuring extensive archival and video research and candid interviews with leading golfers of the era, *Chasing Greatness* beautifully captures one of the unlikeliest victories and dramatic sports triumphs of the past half century. Authors Adam Lazarus and Steve Schlossman also chronicle the careers and the lives of six extraordinary figures during golf's modern-day golden era: Miller, Palmer, Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Tom Weiskopf, and John Schlee.


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In his first collection of short stories John Grisham takes us back to Ford County, Mississippi, the setting of his first novel, *A Time to Kill*.Wheelchair-bound Inez Graney and her two older sons, Leon and Butch, take a bizarre road trip through the Mississippi Delta to visit the youngest Graney brother, Raymond, who's been locked away on death row for eleven years. It could well be their last visit.Mack Stafford, a hard-drinking and low-grossing run-of-the-mill divorce lawyer gets a miracle phone call with a completely unexpected offer to settle some old, forgotten cases for more money than he has ever seen. Mack is suddenly bored with the law, fed up with his wife and his life, and makes drastic plans to finally escape.Quiet, dull Sidney, a data collector for an insurance company, perfects his blackjack skills in hopes of bringing down the casino empire of Clanton's most ambitious hustler, Bobby Carl Leach, who, among other crimes, has stolen Sidney's wife.Three good ol' boys from rural Ford County begin a journey to the big city of Memphis to give blood to a grievously injured friend. However, they are unable to drive past a beer store as the trip takes longer and longer. The journey comes to an abrupt end when they make a fateful stop at a Memphis strip club.The Quiet Haven Retirement Home is the final stop for the elderly of Clanton. It's a sad, languid place with little controversy, until Gilbert arrives. Posing as a lowly paid bedpan boy, he is in reality a brilliant stalker with an uncanny ability to sniff out the assets of those "seniors" he professes to love.One of the hazards of litigating against people in a small town is that one day, long after the trial, you will probably come face-to-face with someone you've beaten in a lawsuit. Lawyer Stanley Wade bumps into an old adversary, a man with a long memory, and the encounter becomes a violent ordeal.Clanton is rocked with the rumor that the gay son of a prominent family has finally come home, to die. Of AIDS. Fear permeates the town as gossip runs unabated. But in Lowtown, the colored section of Clanton, the young man finds a soul mate in his final days.Featuring a cast of characters you'll never forget, these stories bring Ford County to vivid and colorful life. Often hilarious, frequently moving, and always entertaining, this collection makes it abundantly clear why John Grisham is our most popular storyteller.


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Doug Lee is undead quite by accident—attacked by a desperate vampire, he finds himself cursed with being fat and fifteen forever. When he has no luck finding some goth chick with a vampire fetish, he resorts to sucking the blood of cows under cover of the night. But it's just not the same.  

 Then he meets the new Indian exchange student and falls for her—hard. Yeah, he wants to bite her, but he also wants to prove himself to her. But like the laws of life, love, and high school, the laws of vampire existence are complicated—it's not as easy as studying *Dracula*. Especially when the star of *Vampire Hunters* is hot on your trail in an attempt to boost ratings. . . .  

 Searing, hilarious, and always unexpected, *Fat Vampire* is a satirical tour de force from one of the most original writers of fiction today.


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After saving Olympus from the evil Titan lord, Kronos, Percy and friends have rebuilt their beloved Camp Half-Blood, where the next generation of demigods must now prepare for a chilling prophecy of their own: Seven half-bloods shall answer the call, To storm or fire the world must fall. An oath to keep with a final breath, And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death. Now, in a brand-new series from blockbuster best-selling author Rick Riordan, fans return to the world of Camp Half-Blood. Here, a new group of heroes will inherit a quest. But to survive the journey, they#x2019;ll need the help of some familiar demigods.


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From Lisi Harrison, the New York Times bestselling author of The Clique and Alphas, comes a new series with a fresh twist on high school, romance, and the horrors of trying to fit in. They prefer to call themselves RADs, but some call them monsters. So far, the "monster" community has kept a low profile in Salem, Oregon, but this year two new girls enroll at Merston High School, and the town will never be the same.Created just fifteen days ago, Frankie Stein is psyched to trade her father's lonely formaldehyde-smelling basement lab for parties and friends. But with a student body totally freaked out by rumors of monsters stalking the halls, Frankie finds that life in the "normi" world can be rough for a chic freak like her. She thinks she finds a friend in fellow new student Melody Carver--but can a normi be trusted with her big secret?


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When a young journalist named Bernardo Blanco is killed in the fictional Mexican port city of Paracuán, investigation into his murder reveals missing links in a disturbing multiple homicide case from twenty years earlier. As police officer Ramón “el Macetón” Cabrera discovers, Blanco had been writing a book about a 1970s case dealing with the murder of several young schoolgirls in Paracuán by a man known as el Chacal. Cabrera realizes that whoever killed Blanco wanted to keep the truth about el Chacal from being revealed, and he becomes determined to discover that truth. The Black Minutes chronicles both Cabrera’s investigation into Blanco’s murder and goes back in time to follow detective Vicente Rangel’s investigation of the original el Chacal case. Both narratives expose worlds of corruption, from cops who are content to close the door on a case without true justice to powerful politicians who can pay their way out of their families’ crimes. Full of dark twists and turns, and populated by a cast of captivating—and mostly corrupt—characters, The Black Minutes is an electrifying novel from a brilliant new voice.


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Murder in the twelfth century is no different from murder today. There is still a dead body, though this time with an arrow through the heart instead of a bullet. There is still a need to bury the dead, to comfort the living - and to catch the murderer. When Brother Cadfael comes to a village in the Welsh hills, he finds himself doing all three of those things. And there is nothing simple about this death. The murdered man's daughter needs Cadfael's help in more ways than one. There are questions about the arrow. And the burial is the strangest thing of all ...


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Sam was an android.

His flesh was the ultimate miracle of science, artificially created and completely self sustaining. And he had the unusual power to heal others. In fact, Sam was too good to live."


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Writer's Digest Hardcover, 1974 2nd printing with 232 pgs., size: 8 3/4" x 5 3/4 approx. - Fan of popular fiction, professional writer, new writer looking for markets-whoever you are, you'll enjoy this book. It takes you behind the publishing scene and shows you how popular novels-science fiction, mysteries, suspense thrillers, Gothic-romances, adult fantasy, Westerns, and erotica are created and how you can write them too. This book offers you, whatever you write, the chance to perfect your craft while earning income, building your reputation, and experiencing the encouragement of seeing your work in print. Dean Koontz has sold since 1967, over twenty-four (copyright of this book 1974) popular novels. Before becoming a full-time free-lance writer, he worked as a supermarket check out clerk, a drummer in a rock band, a foredt ranger, a tutor for underprivileged children with the Appalachian Poverty Program, and as a suburban school English teacher, among other things.


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On an impulse, schoolteacher Jim Ironheart flies to Portland, Oregon without understanding why. There he saves a boy from being killed by a drunk driver and is observed by Holly Thorne.  

She tracks Jim to California, and their lives intertwine on one of Jim's lifesaving missions. Surviving a plane crash, terrifying monsters that materialize from Holly's nightmares, and an uncannily powerful adversary, they search for the source of Jim's psychic power.


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He was clinically dead after the accident--but was miraculously revived. Now Hatch Harrison and his wife approach each day with a new appreciation for life.  But something has come back with Hatch from the other side. A terrible presence that links his mind to a psychotic s， so that a force of murderous rage courses through him.


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Dean Koontz is in league with the future.

Follow him as he leads you down the gnarled paths of night descending into the ever-present and terror-filled tomorrow. Come trod the byways to hell and to hope when you journey with:

Mutilated, mutant by-products of America's "Artificial Wombs" created by attempts at producing human weapons . . .

An American team of doctors sent to China to combat the runaway ultimate in biological warfare . . .

The genetically mutated daughter of LSD users, hiding her powers in order to survive society . . .

And Gabe, the vital, young man mistakenly locked in an antiseptic old-age ward . . .


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A frantic mother, who has been separated from her nine-year-old daughter, Melanie, for six years, strives to rescue her from the people who have been subjecting her to terrifying psychological experiments.


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A haunting nightmare is the key to one woman's mysterious past in the spine-tingling novel from #1 New York Timesbestselling author Dean Koontz.


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#1 New York Times bestselling authorÂ—now in trade paperback for the first time. On his thirty-sixth birthday, Travis Cornell hikes into the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains. But his path is soon blocked by a bedraggled Golden Retriever, who will let him go no further into the dark woods. That morning, Travis had been desperate to find some happiness in his lonely, seemingly cursed life. What he finds is a friendÂ—a dog of alarming intelligenceÂ—and a threat that could only have come from the darkest corners of manÂ's imaginationÂ…


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People - ordinary people - were afraid of Baker St. Cyr. Patiently the cyberdetective would explain that the computer half of his investigatory symbiosis did not "take over" when his human half joined with it. "A cyberdetective is part man and part computer, meshed as completely as the two can ever be. The highly microminiaturized components of the bio-computer remember and relate things in a perfectly mathematical manner that a human mind could never easily grasp, while the human half of the symbiote gives a perception of emotions and emotional motivations that the bio-computer could never comprehend. Together we make a precise and thorough detective unit."


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Blessed shalt though be in the city, and blessed shalt though be in the field.

Thou shalt be blessed above all . . . 

Our holy empire of the Alliance of mankind has fulfilled our destiny. Remember the many heroic humans who have died in conquering the stars for you. Therefore, do not let misguided sympathy toward inferior and conquered animals deter you from your inherent title of divine rulers of the universe. Do not lose this birthright by succumbing to the "attractions" of any alien creature. Remember the penalties imposed by the Supremacy of Man party for this transgression.

Our blessings be with you as you follow in the paths of your brothers and sisters. We have faith in mankind and we have faith in you. But, however, should you falter from the paths of righteousness, we have many willing hands eager to show you the error of your ways . . .


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From the New York Times bestselling author of The House of Thunder and Hideaway. She appeared out of nowhere. And Paul and Carol were drawn to her immediately--the child they had never had. It was a dream come true--until the young girl's mask fell away to reveal the face of terrifying evil.


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Mutants from the atomic bomb ridden Earth meet Mankind from the stars who escaped just before the destruction. The mutants won't give up and let space-man rule Earth once again.


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What exactly was the curse? asked Jenny. Her hands were so cold that they looked like white porcelain. '
    Her aunt spoke slowly. Sarah pledged that every generation of the Brucker family would contain a child haunted-a child possessed. This child would seek the wolfbane, would howl at the full moon, and find a craving for blood.
    A werewolf? That's silly. But she did not feel much like laughing.
    That night Sarah's father died strangely. He grabbed at his own neck, as if struggling against someone or something invisible. He drew his own blood but he died.
    Jenny's eyes strayed to the red volumes of demonic lore. Was this really the answer to Freya's strange spells? Impossible though it seemed could the child really be a werewolf?


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The citizens of Moonlight Cove, California, are changing. Some are losing touch with their deepest emotions. Others are surrendering to their wildest urges. And the few who remain unchanged are absolutely terrified--if not brutally murdered in the dead of night...


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Aided through many crises by the near miraculous intervention of   a stranger， Laura Shane finally learns the nature of her incredible   destiny when， on her thirtieth birthday， the stranger requests her   help. Reissue.


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Tina Evans dreams that her son Danny is still alive. And when she wakes, she finds a message scrawled on Danny's chalkboard: not dead. Tina searches for the truth and learns that there are some things worse than death. Includes a new Afterword by the author. Reissue.


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Deepest night, Montana. An eerie light proclaims the arrival of a mysterious watcher in the woods. And one solitary man begins a desperate battle against something unknown -- and unknowable.Broad daylight, Los Angeles. An ordinary morning erupts in cataclysmic violence. A young family is shattered in a heartbeat.Fate will lead this family to an isolated Montana ranch, but their sanctuary will become their worst nightmare. For there they will face a chillingly ruthless enemy, from which no one -- living or dead -- is safe.


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Mankind has forgotten their past glories and only legends remain. Some believed in the legends that men posses sed marvels that conquered the skies and space itself. This is their journey back.


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Telepath verses alien." Mr. Mullion," one of the triplets said, looming 20 feet away as Pete followed the smooth railing. He stopped, his heart racing, but he felt a break in the rail as he did so. He edged forward a foot or two and felt around with his boot until he discovered a step. In a moment, blood pounding in his temples, he was halfway down toward the lower level, taking 2 risers at a time, no matter what the danger of a fall. He heard the mechanical man start after him as he set foot on the cement floor. Putney=144 pages. A battleground for 2 empires." I opened the glove compartment and took out my papers. They identified me--with a discription, pictures, letters of reference. fingerprints, and voice-prints--as an Arcturian lady of means, a newcomber to Berbidron and something of a hermit back home on Arcturus Ceta lV. "Is this the identity I'd have if I went to live in the city?" "I think so. Don't worry about the authenticity. There really was a Lady Evors Dalant." "Was?" "Well, yes, we killed her as soon as she landed on Berbidron.."


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Years after leaving the carnival， her hated first husband， and   the child she could never love， Ellen has a new life， a new husband，   and two beautiful children， but now the carnival is coming back to   town， and Ellen is going to have to pay for her sins. Reprint.


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A Black Bat Mystery. A "caper book", the second in a suspense series featuring Mike Tucker, art dealer, heir to a large fortune and professional thief. An early Koontz mystery using one of his pseudonyms.


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With his bestselling blend of nail-biting intensity, daring artistry, and storytelling magic, Dean Koontz returns with an emotional roller coaster of a tale filled with enough twists, turns, shocks, and surprises for ten ordinary novels. Here is the story of five days in the life of an ordinary man born to an extraordinary legacy—a story that will challenge the way you look at good and evil, life and death, and everything in between.

Jimmy Tock comes into the world on the very night his grandfather leaves it. As a violent storm rages outside the hospital, Rudy Tock spends long hours walking the corridors between the expectant fathers' waiting room and his dying father's bedside. It's a strange vigil made all the stranger when, at the very height of the storm's fury, Josef Tock suddenly sits up in bed and speaks coherently for the frist and last time since his stroke.

What he says before he dies is that there will be five dark days in the life of his grandson—five dates whose terrible events Jimmy will have to prepare himself to face. The first is to occur in his twentieth year; the second in his twent-third year; the third in his twenty-eighth; the fourth in his twenty-ninth; the fifth in his thirtieth.

Rudy is all too ready to discount his father's last words as a dying man's delusional rambling. But then he discovers that Josef also predicted the time of his grandson's birth to the minute, as well as his exact height and weight, and the fact that Jimmy would be born with syndactyly—the unexplained anomal of fused digits—on his left foot. Suddenly the old man's predictions take on a chilling significance.

What terrifying events await Jimmy on these five dark days? What nightmares will he face? What challenges must he survive? As the novel unfolds, picking up Jimmy's story at each of these crisis points, the path he must follow will defy every expectation. And with each crisis he faces, he will move closer to a fate he could never have imagined. For who Jimmy Tock is and what he must accomplish on the five days when his world turns is a mystery as dangerous as it is wondrous—a struggle against an evil so dark and pervasive, only the most extraordinary of human spirits can shine through.


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Now repackaged with new cover art, this classic features a new Afterword by Koontz. Mystery writer Marty Stillwater's idyllic life is shattered when a stranger breaks into his house claiming to be the real Martin Stillwater and begins a terrifying campaign to eliminate Marty. Reissue.


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For the last sixty years, the CIA has managed to maintain a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record, burying its blunders in top-secret archives. Its mission was to know the world. When it did not succeed, it set out to change the world. Its failures have handed us, in the words of President Eisenhower, “a legacy of ashes.”

Now Pulitzer Prize&#8211;winning author Tim Weiner offers the first definitive history of the CIA—and everything is on the record. LEGACY OF ASHES is based on more than 50,000 documents, primarily from the archives of the CIA itself, and hundreds of interviews with CIA veterans, including ten Directors of Central Intelligence. It takes the CIA from its creation after World War II, through its battles in the cold war and the war on terror, to its near-collapse after 9/ll.

Tim Weiner’s past work on the CIA and American intelligence was hailed as “impressively reported” and “immensely entertaining” in The New York Times. 

The Wall Street Journal called it “truly extraordinary . . . the best book ever written on a case of espionage.” Here is the hidden history of the CIA: why eleven presidents and three generations of CIA officers have been unable to understand the world; why nearly every CIA director has left the agency in worse shape than he found it; and how these failures have profoundly jeopardized our national security.


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


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At first the police thought they were dealing with a psychopath or a vicious gangland war. Then, they heard the eerie sounds in the ventilation system and saw the silver eyes in the night. In a city paralyzed by a blizzard, something watches--something whose ultimate victims are young and innocent.


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Rachael Leben's request for a quick and clean divorce left her successful husband, Eric, enraged and humiliated. Seething with anger, he stormed off, straight into the path of an oncoming vehicle. 



 Eric is pronounced dead at the scene, but Rachael knows the secrets he's left behind. And when his body disappears from the morgue, she knows that her turbulent marriage is far from over...


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Welcome to your next chance.   Chaz Dominguez is a professional Babysitter in New Orleans, helping to integrate the recently deceased into their new and improved lives. Though Fresh Start has always been the only game in town, resurrection isn't all it's cracked up to be. Nine lives are all a person can get—and a powerful group of desperate, high-level Nine-Timers will stop at nothing to possess the keys to true immortality.   Now the only hope for Chaz and his family—and the human race—lies in the secrets locked away in the mind of Angelique, the beautiful, mysterious Newbie he must protect . . .


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"The perfect combination for a paranormal investigation."  David Wells, Most Haunted  A unique collection of episodes from the case files of the New England Ghost Project Journey into a world of the unexplained and the unknown, a world where what you can't see captivates all your attention. A trance medium and a paranormal scientist team up in this spellbinding collection of 17 supernatural mysteries, a mere sampling of the spooky episodes in their vast ghost hunting case files. Former skeptic Ron Kolek, with his infrared camera and EMF meter, and fifth-generation psychic Maureen Wood, with her sixth sense and pendulum, have become experts in investigating ghosts, whether they're helping the descendant of an accused witch, checking out the spirits of Lizzie Borden's slain parents, or assisting a monk with an exorcism. Their unique partnership adds a new dimension, and their adventures will test the senses and challenge everyday thinking...and just might make you believe in the paranormal.


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A village in Tuscany is the setting for this joyous debut--a novel that defies all our expectations as it puts a fresh, clever, captivating spin on the age-old tale of forbidden love. Rich in literary delights, filled with spectacular wordplay, and rife with the bawdy humor of Shakespeare's comedies, Tomato Rhapsody is the almost-true tale of how the tomato came to Italy--at once a brilliantly inventive fable of love, lust, and longing, and a dazzling feast for the imagination. This is a story born from love--a forbidden love--between Davido, an "Ebreo" tomato farmer, and Mari, a beautiful Catholic girl....But it's not only Davido and Mari who have secrets of the heart. Everyone around them yearns for something--from Davido's grandfather, who tenderly cultivates the tomato plant he stole on his voyages with Columbus, to Mari's villainous stepfather, whose eye is trained on his stepdaughter's virginity and his neighbor's land. Caught in the midst of these passions and machinations is a village full of eccentrics who speak in rhyme, celebrate the Feast of the Drunken Saint, and live a life untouched by the passage of time. The schemes and dreams of these men and women are about to change as what is forbidden becomes too delicious to resist. Tradition, religion, and good taste collide unforgettably in a story about the courage to pursue love and tomato sauce at all costs.


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The story of a woman’s search for her brother’s lost son, orphaned in the wake of his sudden death, drives Scott Lasser’s riveting new novel—a work of stunning economy and momentum about a woman’s quest and a family’s longing for wholeness and completion.Cat is a single mother living in Detroit when her brother is killed in New York, and she sets off in search of his child. Her search is still under way when she gets a call from her father. Sam is eighty and carrying the weight of a secret he has kept from her all her life. He asks Cat to visit him in California, intending to make his peace.Cat’s journey—toward her father, and her brother’s infant son—and Sam’s journey toward his daughter, his lost son, and a new relationship to both his future and his past are woven into this superbly realized novel about families and the mysteries and ambiguities that inhere in our most primal relations. The result is a deeply stirring work that explores the complexities of home and heritage, and the bonds that even death is powerless to diminish.


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M*A*S*H* meets CATCH-22 in the most riotous, ribald, WW II military madhouse ever!  It all began when Major Kelly's Army engineers were dropped into Nazi-occupied France and ordered to keep a bridge open until the Allies arrived.  Except the mission was a secret and nobody knew they were there--nobody except the Luftwaffe, which kept bombing the bridge ... which meant the GI's kept rebuilding it ... which meant the Luftwaffe kept bombing it... which meant the tension was doing funny things to Major Kelly's men's minds ... which mean anything could happen.


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Gothic-romance novel written to meet a publisher's guidelines and "stave off starvation and buy a little time to write what I really cared about."


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One hundred thousand years in the future, after man has been fatally humbled by his exploration of the stars and discovery of far more intelligent beings, civilization is struggling to return to the planet's surface.  After man fled the stars, he tried to explore his own genetic frontier, creating horrible races of deformed beings - some scaled, some furred, tiny, winged and huge. Now Jask, a Pure who retains the original human genetic code, and Tedesco, a great bear with a human brain, are thrown together by their one shared and fatal trait - telepath. Hunted like animals by the fearful populace, they go in search of The Black Presence - which may be the key to mankind's place in the cosmos.


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As Alex and Colin speed toward their new home in San Francisco where Courtney awaits them， they are pursued by a madman who is also eager to see Courtney.


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In Los Angeles, a hot Hollywood director, high on PCP, turns a city street into a fiery apocalypse. Five die. Heroic LAPD officer Jack McGarvey is badly wounded and lands in the hospital for months, uncertain he'll walk again. While he's out of commission, his wife and young son are left to defend themselves against both the criminals that control an increasingly violent city and the dead director's cult fanatic fans.

In a lonely corner of Montana, Eduardo Fernandez, the father of McGarvey's murdered partner, witnesses a strange nocturnal sight. The stand of pines outside his house suddenly glows with eerie amber light, and Fernandez senses a watcher in the winter woods. As the seasons change, the very creatures of the forest seem in league with a mysterious presence. Fernandez is caught up in a series of chilling incidents that escalate toward a confrontation that could rob him of his sanity or his life - or both.

As events careen out of control, the McGarvey family is drawn to Fernandez's Montana ranch. In that isolated place they discover their destiny in a terrifying and fiercely suspenseful encounter with a hostile, utterly ruthless, and enigmatic enemy, from which neither the living nor the dead are safe.


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Superman - or Supermonster? Although he was the first successful product of the Artificial Creation laboratory - the government workshop for the production of new talents by tampering with the genes of the unborn - Simeon Kelly would work for them only under compulsion. And the compulsion the generals applied to get him to probe the mind of the thing called Child had to be the greatest. Because Child was anything but that. In that incredibly monstrous infant appeared to be the potential for whole oceans of inventions and an entire cosmos of total creativity. But Child was vicious, insane, and short-lived.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

A handful of people from different backgrounds, living in  different towns and cities across America, they had nothing in  common--except fear.What dark secret bound them together?  Deep in the heart of a sprawling desert, a dark memory called  out to them, drawing them to the Tranquility Motel--where the  terrifying truth was waiting..."This is a book with a capital  B."--John D. MacDonald* A *New York Times* bestseller


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A tale of an abandoned town and the unimaginable truth behind its silence...  Now with a new afterword， Dean Koontz explains the impact Phantoms had on his career.


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From the managing editor of the *Washington Post*, a news-breaking account of the CIA's involvement in the covert wars in Afghanistan that fueled Islamic militancy and gave rise to bin Laden's al Qaeda.    For nearly the past quarter century, while most Americans were unaware, Afghanistan has been the playing field for intense covert operations by U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies-invisible wars which sowed the seeds of the September 11 attacks and which provide its context. From the Soviet invasion in 1979 through the summer of 2001, the CIA, KGB, Pakistan's ISI, and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Department all operated directly and secretly in Afghanistan. They primed Afghan factions with cash and weapons, secretly trained guerrilla forces, funded propaganda, and manipulated politics. In the midst of these struggles bin Laden conceived and then built his global organization.    Comprehensively and for the first time, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll tells the secret history of the CIA's role in Afghanistan, from its covert program against Soviet troops from 1979 to 1989, to the rise of the Taliban and the emergence of bin Laden, to the secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents to capture or kill bin Laden in Afghanistan after 1998. Based on extensive firsthand accounts, *Ghost Wars*ok  is the inside story that goes well beyond anything previously published on U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. It chronicles the roles of midlevel CIA officers, their Afghan allies, and top spy masters such as Bill Casey, Saudi Arabia's Prince Turki al Faisal, and George Tenet. And it describes heated debates within the American government and the often poisonous, mistrustful relations between the CIA and foreign intelligence agencies.    *Ghost Wars* answers the questions so many have asked since the horrors of September 11: To what extent did America's best intelligence analysts grasp the rising threat of Islamist radicalism? Who tried to stop bin Laden and why did they fail?


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Nina, Meredith and Annie have been friends for a long, long time. Like most old friends, they can't quite remember, any more, what initially drew them together. Elegant Meredith, motherly Nina and the determinedly single Annie are as unlikely companions as you could find. But like a matched set of 1950's kitchen canisters of Flour, Sugar and Tea, they always seem to end up together. Now each are facing the various trials of middle age: divorces, less than satisfactory marriages, teenage kids, careers going nowhere and unexpected bouts of tears. One night, over one too many Flaming Sambuccas during a reunion dinner, they somehow find themselves agreeing to take a road trip to Byron Bay in a RoadMaster Royale mobile home, to attend Meredith's daughter's wedding. Fights and friendship, tears and laughter - not to mention the possibility of finding Mr Right in a caravan park in Ulladulla - this trip might tear them apart or it might just save their lives.An effervescent, uproarious story of female friendship, Byron or Bustis the hugely appealing new novel from Australia's favourite comedienne, Wendy Harmer. as warm and light and as welcome as a doona.' The Agea racy read chick lit meets stand-up.' The Weekend Australian


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


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Life sucks, then you die. Period.  

 Unless you're James Stark, a hitman in Hell for eleven years before escaping back up to Hell-on-earth L.A.—looking for revenge, absolution . . . love, maybe.  

 But Hell's not through with Stark.Heaven's not either.


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Four years ago, assassin Court Gentry was betrayed by his handlers in the CIA. Now, an old comrade returns to haunt him-and to force him on a mission against his will. 



 With his ruthless employers on one side, his former friends on the other and a doomed mission ahead, Court Gentry would kill to get out of this one alive.


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It is November 25, 1960, and the bodies of three beautiful, convent-educated sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. El Caribe, the official newspaper, reports their deaths as an accident. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Raphael Leonidas Trujillo's dictatorship. It doesn't have to. Everyone knows of Las Mariposas - "The Butterflies." Now, three decades later, Julia Alvarez, also a daughter of the Dominican Republic and long haunted by these sisters, immerses us in a tangled and dangerous moment in Hispanic Caribbean history to tell their story in the only way it can truly be understood - through fiction. In this brilliantly characterized novel, the voices of all four sisters - Minerva, Patria, Maria Teresa, and Dede - speak across the decades, to tell their own stories - from hair ribbons to gunrunning to prison torture - and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Trujillo's rule. The Butterflies were extraordinary women. Minerva, once the object of the dictator's desire, had dared to publicly slap his face. Devout Patria found her calling to the uprising through the church. Alluring - and vain - Maria Teresa joined in pursuit of romance. Only Dede, the practical one, the most diligent in her duty to family and tradition, kept apart. And only she survived to see that their names were remembered. Now, through the art and magic of Julia Alvarez's imagination, the martyred Butterflies live again. And Dede joins them as a heroine of equal courage.


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What if Mary Shelley had not invented Frankenstein's monster but had met him when she was a girl of eight, sitting by her mother's grave, and he came to her unbidden? What if their secret bond left her forever changed, obsessed with the strange being whom she had discovered at a time of need? What if he were still alive in the twenty-first century? This bold, genre-defying book brings us the "monster" in his own words. He recalls how he was "made" and how Victor Frankenstein abandoned him. He ponders the tragic tale of the Shelleys and the intertwining of his life with that of Mary (whose fictionalized letters salt the narrative, along with those of her nineteenth-century intimates) in this riveting mix of fact and poetic license. He takes notes on all aspects of human striving--from the music of John Cage to robotics to the Northern explorers whose lonely quest mirrors his own--as he tries to understand the strange race that made yet shuns him, and to find his own freedom of mind. In the course of the monster's musings, we also see Mary Shelley's life from her childhood through her elopement with Percy Bysshe Shelley, her writing of "Frankenstein, " the births and deaths of her children, Shelley's famous drowning, her widowhood, her subsequent travels and life's work, and finally her death from a brain tumor at age fifty-four. The monster's fierce bond with Mary and the tale of how he ended up in her fiction is a haunted, intense love story, a story of two beings who can never forget each other. "A Monster's Notes" is Sheck's most thrilling work to date, a luminous meditation on creativity and technology, on alienation and otherness, on ugliness and beauty, and on our need to be understood.


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"I've struck it!" Mark Twain wrote in a 1904 letter to a friend. "And I will give it away--to you. You will never know how much enjoyment you have lost until you get to dictating your autobiography." Thus, after dozens of false starts and hundreds of pages, Twain embarked on his "Final (and Right) Plan" for telling the story of his life. His innovative notion--to "talk only about the thing which interests you for the moment"--meant that his thoughts could range freely. The strict instruction that many of these texts remain unpublished for 100 years meant that when they came out, he would be "dead, and unaware, and indifferent," and that he was therefore free to speak his "whole frank mind." The year 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of Twain's death. In celebration of this important milestone and in honor of the cherished tradition of publishing Mark Twain's works, UC Press is proud to offer for the first time Mark Twain's uncensored autobiography in its entirety and exactly as he left it. This major literary event brings to readers, admirers, and scholars the first of three volumes and presents Mark Twain's authentic and unsuppressed voice, brimming with humor, ideas, and opinions, and speaking clearly from the grave as he intended.


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This book recountsthe horror of World War II on the eastern front, as seen through the eyes of a teenaged German soldier. At first an exciting adventure, young Guy Sajer's war becomes, as the German invasion falters in the icy vastness of the Ukraine, a simple, desperate struggle for survival against cold, hunger, and above all the terrifying Soviet artillery. As a member of the elite Gross Deutschland Division, he fought in all the great battles from Kursk to Kharkov. His German footsoldier's perspective makes The Forgotten Soldiera unique war memoir, the book that the Christian Science Monitorsaid "may well be the book about World War II which has been so long awaited." Now it has been handsomely republished as a hardcover containing fifty rare German combat photos of life and death at the eastern front. The photos of troops battling through snow, mud, burned villages, and rubble-strewn cities depict the hardships and destructiveness of war. Many are originally from the private collections of German soldiers and have never been published before. This volume is a deluxe edition of a true classic.


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In a work that beautifully demonstrates the rewards of closely observing nature, Elisabeth Bailey shares an inspiring and intimate story of her uncommon encounter with a *Neohelix albolabris* —a common woodland snail. While an illness keeps her bedridden, Bailey watches a wild snail that has taken up residence on her nightstand. As a result, she discovers the solace and sense of wonder that this mysterious creature brings and comes to a greater under standing of her own confined place in the world. Intrigued by the snail’s molluscan anatomy, cryptic defenses, clear decision making, hydraulic locomotion, and mysterious courtship activities, Bailey becomes an astute and amused observer, providing a candid and engaging look into the curious life of this underappreciated small animal.  Told with wit and grace, *The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating* is a remarkable journey of survival and resilience, showing us how a small part of the natural world illuminates our own human existence and provides an appreciation of what it means to be fully alive.


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From the front lines of the battle against Islamic fundamentalism, a searing, unforgettable book that captures the human essence of the greatest conflict of our time. Through the eyes of Dexter Filkins, the prizewinningNew York Timescorrespondent whose work was hailed by David Halberstam as "reporting of the highest quality imaginable," we witness the remarkable chain of events that began with the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, continued with the attacks of 9/11, and moved on to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Filkins's narrative moves across a vast and various landscape of amazing characters and astonishing scenes: deserts, mountains, and streets of carnage; a public amputation performed by Taliban; children frolicking in minefields; skies streaked white by the contrails of B-52s; a night's sleep in the rubble of Ground Zero. We embark on a foot patrol through the shadowy streets of Ramadi, venture into a torture chamber run by Saddam Hussein. We go into the homes of suicide bombers and into street-to-street fighting with a battalion of marines. We meet Iraqi insurgents, an American captain who loses a quarter of his men in eight days, and a young soldier from Georgia on a rooftop at midnight reminiscing about his girlfriend back home. A car bomb explodes, bullets fly, and a mother cradles her blinded son. Like no other book,The Forever Warallows us a visceral understanding of today's battlefields and of the experiences of the people on the ground, warriors and innocents alike. It is a brilliant, fearless work, not just about America's wars after 9/11, but ultimately about the nature of war itself.


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A satirical joyride in the tradition of Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams, First Contact introduces us to the hyper-intelligent Rigelians, who admire Woody Allen movies and Bundt cake, and who urge the people of Earth to mend their ways to avoid destruction of their planet. But the president of the United States, a God-fearing, science-doubting fitness fanatic, is skeptical of the evidence presented to him and sets in motion a chain of events that will change the lives of his young attach, an alien scam artist, several raccoons, and a scientist who has predicted the end of the universe. Parrot sketch excluded.


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**FROM TRUE-CRIME LEGEND ANN RULE comes this riveting story of a young woman whose life ended too soon—and a determined mother’s eleven-year crusade to clear her daughter’s name. 

**It was nine days before Christmas 1998, and thirty-two-year-old Ronda Reynolds was getting ready to travel from Seattle to Spokane to visit her mother and brother and grandmother before the holidays. Ronda’s second marriage was dissolving after less than a year, her career as a pioneering female Washington State Trooper had ended, but she was optimistic about starting over again. "I’m actually looking forward to getting on with my life," she told her mother earlier the night before. "I just need a few days with you guys." Barb Thompson, Ronda’s mother, who had met her daughter’s second husband only once before, was just happy that Ronda was coming home. 

At 6:20 that morning, Ron Reynolds called 911 and told the dispatcher his wife was dead. She had committed suicide, he said, although he hadn’t heard the gunshot and he didn’t know if she had a pulse. EMTs arrived, detectives arrived, the coroner’s deputy arrived, and a postmortem was conducted. Lewis County Coroner Terry Wilson, who neither visited the death scene nor attended the autopsy, declared the manner of Ronda’s death as "undetermined." Over the next eleven years, Coroner Wilson would change that manner of death from "undetermined" to "suicide," back to "undetermined"—and then back to "suicide" again. 

But Barb Thompson never for one moment believed her daughter committed suicide. Neither did Detective Jerry Berry or ballistics expert Marty Hayes or attorney Royce Ferguson or dozens of Ronda’s friends. For eleven grueling years, through the ups and downs of the legal system and its endless delays, these people and others helped Barb Thompson fight to strike that painful word from her daughter’s death certificate. 

On November 9, 2009, a precedent-setting hearing was held to determine whether Coroner Wilson’s office had been derelict in its duty in investigating the death of Ronda Reynolds. Veteran true-crime writer Ann Rule was present at that hearing, hoping to unbraid the tangled strands of conflicting statements and mishandled evidence and present all sides of this haunting case and to determine, perhaps, what happened to Ronda Reynolds, in the chill still of that tragic December night.


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**In 2008, a Gallup poll showed that 44 percent of Americans believed God had created man in his present form within the last 10,000 years. In a Pew Forum poll in the same year, 42 percent believed that all life on earth has existed in its present form since the beginning of time.**  

 In 1859 Charles Darwin's masterpiece, *On the Origin of Species*, shook society to its core. Darwin was only too aware of the storm his theory of evolution would provoke. But he surely would have raised an incredulous eyebrow at the controversy still raging a century and a half later. Evolution is accepted as scientific fact by all reputable scientists and indeed theologians, yet millions of people continue to question its veracity. Now the author of the iconic work *The God Delusion* takes them to task.  

 *The Greatest Show on Earth* is a stunning counterattack on advocates of "Intelligent Design," explaining the evidence for evolution while exposing the absurdities of the creationist "argument." Dawkins sifts through rich layers of scientific evidence: from living examples of natural selection to clues in the fossil record; from natural clocks that mark the vast epochs wherein evolution ran its course to the intricacies of developing embryos; from plate tectonics to molecular genetics. Combining these elements and many more, he makes the airtight case that "we find ourselves perched on one tiny twig in the midst of a blossoming and flourishing tree of life and it is no accident, but the direct consequence of evolution by non-random selection."  

 *The Greatest Show on Earth* comes at a critical time: systematic opposition to the fact of evolution is menacing as never before. In American schools, and in schools around the world, insidious attempts are made to undermine the status of science in the classroom. Dawkins wields a devastating argument against this ignorance, but his unjaded passion for the natural world turns what might have been a negative argument into a positive offering to the reader: nothing less than a master's vision of life, in all its splendor.


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New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts deftly blends the perfect formula of romance and suspense in this addictively compelling novel of a woman whose career, marriage, and very life may depend on her never learning the truth about her past. . . . Emma McAvoy may have grown up in the limelight, but some secrets are hidden in a darkness no light can reach. Now on the verge of a successful career, and having fallen in love with the man of her dreams, Emma is looking to the future. Yet it's the past that is about to catch her from behind. For Emma, her childhood had been almost like a rags-to-riches fairy tale - until the tragic night that changed her family forever. But what Emma thinks she knows about that terrible night and the man she's about to marry is only half the truth. The other half is locked away in the last place she'd ever think to look: her own memories. It's a mystery a handsome and relentlessly driven homicide detective needs to solve in a case that's haunted him for years . . . and a secret someone will kill to keep.


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*About three things I was absolutely positive:First, Edward was a vampire.Second, there was a part of him–and I didn’t know how dominant that part might be–that thirsted for my blood.And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.*“I’D NEVER GIVEN MUCH THOUGHT TO HOW I WOULD DIE– I’d had reason enough in the last few months –but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this. . . . Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of something else, someone I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something.”When Isabella Swan moves to the gloomy town of Forks and meets the mysterious, alluring Edward Cullen, her life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. With his porcelain skin, golden eyes, mesmerizing voice, and supernatural gifts, Edward is both irresistible and impenetrable. Up until now, he has managed to keep his true identity hidden, but Bella is determined to uncover his dark secret. What Bella doesn’t realize is the closer she gets to him, the more she is putting herself and those around her at risk. And, it might be too late to turn back. . . .Deeply seductive and extraordinarily suspenseful, *Twilight* will have readers riveted right until the very last page is turned.


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The #1 New York Times bestseller is available for the first time in a mass market paperback edition, featuring a striking movie tie-in cover. In New Moon, Stephenie Meyer delivers another irresistible combination of romance and suspense with a supernatural twist. The "star-crossed" lovers theme continues as Bella and Edward find themselves facing new obstacles, including a devastating separation, the mysterious appearance of dangerous wolves roaming the forest in Forks, a terrifying threat of revenge from a female vampire and a deliciously sinister encounter with Italy's reigning royal family of vampires, the Volturi. Passionate, riveting, and full of surprising twists and turns, this vampire love saga captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite.


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Bella? Edward s soft voice came from behind me. I turned to see him spring lightly up the porch steps, his hair windblown from running. He pulled me into his arms at once, and kissed me again. His kiss frightened me. There was too much tension, too strong an edge to the way his lips crushed mine - like he was afraid we had only so much time left to us. As Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob - knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation approaching, Bella has one more decision to make: life or death. But which is which? Following the international bestsellers Twilight and New Moon, Eclipse is the much-anticipated third book in Stephenie Meyer s captivating saga of vampire romance.


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When you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your life was all you had to give, how could you not give it? If it was someone you truly loved?  To be irrevocably in love with a vampire is both fantasy and nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen, and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, a tumultuous year of temptation, loss, and strife have led her to the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or to pursue a fully human life has become the thread from which the fates of two tribes hangs. Now that Bella has made her decision, a startling chain of unprecedented events is about to unfold with potentially devastating, and unfathomable, consequences. Just when the frayed strands of Bella's life-first discovered in "Twilight," then scattered and torn in "New Moon" and "Eclipse"-seem ready to heal and knit together, could they be destroyed... forever? The astonishing, breathlessly anticipated conclusion to the Twilight Saga, "Breaking Dawn" illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions.


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On an autumn morning the body of a sixteen - year - old girl is found buried in the garden of a country house in Shropshire. She is Natalie Martello and she has been missing for a quarter of a century. The Memory Game is a highly sophisticated psychological thriller based around the controversial theme of recovered memory syndrome. It provides a deeply disturbing and original portrayal of how family secrets can tear the most successful lives apart. It is a thriller of rare power.


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The New World is a prequel to the award-winning Chaos Walking trilogy, setting the stage for the world we discover in The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, and Monsters of Men. The story was written while the author served as writer in residence for the Booktrust an independent UK-wide charity dedicated to encouraging people of all ages and cultures to enjoy books. The New World tells of Viola’s journey to the New World, brilliantly capturing the hope and fear of settlers in search of a new life. Patrick Ness told Amazon exclusively that he wrote it “as a huge and deeply-felt thank you to readers. I’ve had so many questions about Viola and what her life was like before that I couldn’t resist the opportunity to reveal just a little bit extra. I knew these things – they’re vitally important to her as a character, even if they’re not directly in the novels – so it felt like a secret trip I could take readers on. The challenge was to make it work on its own, too, so anyone could read it. That was really, really good fun, and I hope the final result is an exciting one.” The New World can be read before or after the trilogy – and some readers may choose to do both. The story works as a standalone piece, but readers already familiar with The Knife of Never Letting Go will learn more about Viola’s life and the events leading to her arrival and first encounter with Todd, while newcomers to the trilogy will discover a white-knuckle ride of an introduction to the series. Whether you’re a new or faithful reader, though, it’s a welcome chance to immerse yourself in the world of Chaos Walking.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

With the same dazzling imagination and love of language that have made Salman Rushdie one of the great storytellers of our time, *Luka and the Fire of Life* revisits the magic-infused, intricate world he first brought to life in the modern classic *Haroun and the Sea of Stories.* This breathtaking new novel centers on Luka, Haroun’s younger brother, who must save his father from certain doom.  For Rashid Khalifa, the legendary storyteller of Kahani, has fallen into deep sleep from which no one can wake him. To keep his father from slipping away entirely, Luka must travel to the Magic World and steal the ever-burning Fire of Life. Thus begins a quest replete with unlikely creatures, strange alliances, and seemingly insurmountable challenges as Luka and an assortment of enchanted companions race through peril after peril, pass through the land of the Badly Behaved Gods, and reach the Fire itself, where Luka’s fate, and that of his father, will be decided.  Filled with mischievous wordplay and delving into themes as universal as the power of filial love and the meaning of mortality,* Luka and the Fire of Life* is a book of wonders for all ages.


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SUMMARY: The Devil is known by many names: Serpent, Tempter, Beast, Adversary, Wanderer, Dragon, Rebel. His traps and machinations are the stuff of legends. His faces are legion. No matter what face the devil wears, Sympathy for the Devil has them all. Edited by Tim Pratt, Sympathy for the Devil collects the best Satanic short stories by Neil Gaiman, Holly Black, Stephen King, Kage Baker, Charles Stross, Elizabeth Bear, Jay Lake, Kelly Link, China Mieville, Michael Chabon, and many others, revealing His Grand Infernal Majesty, in all his forms. Thirty-five stories, from classics to the cutting edge, exploring the many sides of Satan, Lucifer, the Lord of the Flies, the Father of Lies, the Prince of the Powers of the Air and Darkness, the First of the Fallen... and a Man of Wealth and Taste. Sit down and spend a little time with the Devil.


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Britain's most respected sportswriter takes on the greatest football manager of all time. The true biography of Sir Alex Ferguson has yet to be written. Until now. Alex Ferguson is the most fascinating and controversial figure in football today. He is also the most successful. His twenty-five-year tenure of the Manchester United dugout has seen him win everything there is to be won in football, many times over. His reign as manager has led to the rise of Manchester United to become the biggest football club in the world. This book, written by the award-winning and critically acclaimed Patrick Barclay, will fill in the gaps left by Ferguson's own book,Managing My Life. Everyone who bought that book will want Barclay's comprehensive, objective analysis of Ferguson, the good and the bad, and the occasionally ugly and it will also appeal hugely to those outside the Manchester United extended family for whom Ferguson has often acted as a red rag. Having known Ferguson for a quarter of a century, Barclay believes him to be generous-spirited as well as ruthless and relentlessly competitive; in such an almost larger-than-life character, there is room for countless facets. And it is these facets that Barclay seeks to explore and explain. Leaving no stone unturned, Barclay has spoken with everyone who knows Ferguson best; former players, fellow managers, friends and foes. The result is'Football - Bloody Hell!', the definitive, objective account of this fascinating man.


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SUMMARY:

 A mysterious circus terrifies an audience for one extraordinary performance before disappearing into the night, taking one of the spectators along with it . . . 

 In a novella set two years after the events of American Gods, Shadow pays a visit to an ancient Scottish mansion, and finds himself trapped in a game of murder and monsters . . .

 In a Hugo Award-winning short story set in a strangely altered Victorian England, the great detective Sherlock Holmes must solve a most unsettling royal murder . . .

 Two teenage boys crash a party and meet the girls of their dreams-;and nightmares . . .

 In a Locus Award-winning tale, the members of an excusive epicurean club lament that they've eaten everything that can be eaten, with the exception of a legendary, rare, and exceedingly dangerous Egyptian bird . . . 

 Such marvelous creations and more-;including a short story set in the world of The Matrix, and others set in the worlds of gothic fiction and children's fiction-;can be found in this extraordinary collection, which showcases Gaiman's storytelling brilliance as well as his terrifyingly entertaining dark sense of humor. By turns delightful, disturbing, and diverting, Fragile Things is a gift of literary enchantment from one of the most unique writers of our time.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Stories to delight, enchant, and surprise you.  

 Bestselling author and master storyteller Neil Gaiman here presents a breathtaking collection of tales that may chill or amuse readers—but always embrace the unexpected:   A teenage boy who has trouble talking to girls finds himself at a rather unusual party. A sinister jack-in-the-box haunts the lives of the children who owned it. A boy raised in a graveyard makes a discovery and confronts the much more troubling world of the living. A stray cat fights a nightly battle to protect his adopted family from a terrible evil.  

 These eleven stories illuminate the real and the fantastic, and will be welcomed with great joy by Neil Gaiman's many fans as well as by readers coming to his work for the first time.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

The day after they moved in,  Coraline went exploring....  

In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close.

The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own.

Only it's different.

At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter their teeth. But there's another mother, and another father, and they want Coraline to stay with them and be their little girl. They want to *change* her and never let her go.

Other children are trapped there as well, lost souls behind the mirrors. Coraline is their only hope of rescue. She will have to fight with all her wits and all the tools she can find if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself.

Critically acclaimed and award-winning author Neil Gaiman will delight readers with his first novel for all ages.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy.  

 He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead.  

 There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy-an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to a desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer.  

 But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack—who has already killed Bod's family. . . .  

 Beloved master storyteller Neil Gaiman returns with a luminous new novel for the audience that embraced his *New York Times* bestselling modern classic *Coraline*. Magical, terrifying, and filled with breathtaking adventures, the graveyard book is sure to enthrall readers of all ages.


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Richard Mayhew is an unassuming young businessman living in London, with a dull job and a pretty but demanding fiancee. Then one night he stumbles across a girl bleeding on the sidewalk. He stops to help her--and the life he knows vanishes like smoke.
Several hours later, the girl is gone too. And by the following morning Richard Mayhew has been erased from his world. His bank cards no longer work, taxi drivers won't stop for him, his hundred rents his apartment out to strangers. He has become invisible, and inexplicably consigned to a London of shadows and darkness a city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, that exists entirely in a subterranean labyrinth of sewer canals andabandoned subway stations. He has fallen through the cracks of reality and has landed somewhere different, somewhere that is Neverwhere.
For this is the home of Door, the mysterious girl whom Richard rescued in the London Above. A personage of great power and nobility in this murky, candlelit realm, she is on a mission to discover the cause of her family's slaughter, and in doing so preserve this strange underworld kingdom from the malevolence that means to destroy it. And with nowhere else to turn, Richard Mayhew must now join the Lady Door's entourage in their determined--and possibly fatal--quest.
For the dread journey ever-downward--through bizarre anachronisms and dangerous incongruities, and into dusty corners of stalled time--is Richard's final hope, his last road back to a "real" world that is growing disturbingly less real by the minute.
If Tim Burton reimagined The Phantom of the Opera, if Jack Finney let his dark side take over, if you rolled the best work of Clive Barker, Peter Straub and Caleb Carr into one, you still would have something that fell far short of Neil Gaiman's NEVERWHERE. It is a masterful debut novel of darkly hypnotic power, and one of the most absorbing reads to come along in years.


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Catch a fallen star . . .  Tristran thorn promised to bring back a fallen star. So he sets out on a journey to fulfill the request of his beloved, the hauntingly beautiful Victoria Forester--and stumbles into the enchanted realm that lies beyond the wall of his English country town. Rich with adventure and magic, Stardust is one of master storyteller Neil Gaiman's most beloved tales, and the inspiration for the hit movie.


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Fat Charlie Nancy is not having a good week. It all hit the proverbial fan when his rotter of an estranged father dropped dead at a karaoke night and Charlie discovered that his dad was in fact Anansi the spider god. Then he found out that he has a brother (called Spider) who is also a god. And that said brother is hell bent on taking over his life, flat and fiance, and, just to add insult to injury, doing a much better job of being him. Desperate to reclaim his life, Charlie enlists the help of four loco old ladies and their unique brand of voodoo and unleashes a bitter and twisted force to get rid of Spider. But as darkness descends and badness begins is Fat Charlie Nancy going to get his life back in one piece or is he about to enter a whole netherworld of pain?


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Shadow is a man with a past. But now he wants nothing more than to live a quiet life with his wife and stay out of trouble. Until he learns that she's been killed in a terrible accident.Flying home for the funeral, as a violent storm rocks the plane, a strange man in the seat next to him introduces himself. The man calls himself Mr. Wednesday, and he knows more about Shadow than is possible.He warns Shadow that a far bigger storm is coming. And from that moment on, nothing will ever he the same...


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SUMMARY:
On the runway of life, Tim Gunn is the perfect life coach.  You’ve watched him mentor talented designers on the hit television show Project Runway. Now the inimitable Tim Gunn shares his personal secrets for “making it work”—in your career, relationships, and life. Filled with delightfully dishy stories of fashion’s greatest divas, behind-the-scenes glimpses of Runway’s biggest drama queens, and never-before-revealed insights into Tim’s private life, Gunn’s Golden Rules is like no other how-to book you’ve ever read. In the world according to Tim, there are no shortcuts to success. Hard work, creativity, and skill are just the beginning. By following eighteen tried-and-true principles, you can apply Tim’s rules to anything you set your mind to. You’ll learn why Tim frowns on displays of bad behavior, like the vitriolic outburst by Martha Stewart’s daughter about her mother’s name-brand merchandise. You’ll discover the downfalls of divadom as he describes Vogue’s André Leon Talley being hand-fed grapes and Anna Wintour being carried downstairs by her bodyguards. And you’ll get Tim’s view on the backstabbing by one designer on Project Runway and how it brilliantly backfired. Then there are his down-to-earth guidelines for making life better—for yourself and others—in small and large ways, especially in an age that favors comfort over politeness, ease over style. Texting at the dinner table? Wearing shorts to the theater? Not in Tim’s book. Living a well-mannered life of integrity and character is hard work, he admits, but the rewards are many: being a good friend, being glamorous and attractive, and being a success— much like Tim himself! He is never one to mince words. But Tim Gunn is always warm, witty, wise, and wonderfully supportive— just the mentor you need to design a happy, creative, and fulfilling life that will never go out of style.


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The new race-against-time bestseller from the British Harlan Coben. When ex-police officer John Cone is found lying wounded in a room full of dead bodies, he has a terrifying story to tell. Three days earlier he was hired by a mysterious client to snatch a suspected serial killer, Andrew Kent (aka the Penthouse Predator) from custody while he's being transferred between prisons. Kent is snatched, but then things immediately go wrong. People start dying, Kent goes missing, and Cone begins to realize that the case against him is not what he was led to believe. Sharing that suspicion is newly promoted DI Tina Boyd, one of the murder squad team who arrested Kent several months earlier. But now Kent's disappeared, and Tina has to find him. And find him fast, because it's clear some very high-powered people want to silence him. "From the Trade Paperback edition."


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'Some of our ideas are not of the most orthodox nature. They would be frowned upon in anbsp;more traditional scientific environment, perhaps even laughed at.' London, 1857 - the Lazarus Club. Some of the finest, most unconventional minds in Victorian Britain - including Charles Darwin, Joseph Bazalgette, Charles Babage and Isambard Kingdom Brunel - are members. Meetings take place behind closed doors: their discussions are revolutionary and their conclusions are sometimes forbidden... Knowing nothing of this secret society, Dr George Phillips, a young and ambitious surgeon, is intrigued to encounter Brunel over a well-used cadaver in the gory pit of his dissection theatre. It soon becomes apparent that the great engineer has mysterious plans for the good doctor. And so Phillips becomes emboiled in the enigmatic machinations of the Lazarus Club, and in its midst encounters a dark conspiracy. Not only is his own life in jeopardy, but as the first mutilated body is washed up on the banks of the Thames so the very foundations of Victorian society are set to be rocked to their core.


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April 2003: As his nation descends into chaos, an Iraqi boy loots an ancient clay tablet from a long-forgotten vault in the Baghdad Museum of Antiquities--unaware that his actions could ignite the war to end all wars.  Years later, on the eve of a historic Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, bodyguards for Israel's prime minister gun down a possible assassin--and discover a blood-stained note clutched in the dead man's hand.  With Middle Eastern tensions rapidly reaching the boiling point--in the wake of a frightening wave of seemingly random revenge killings--Maggie Costello is sent by Washington to try to keep the peace. A government negotiator with old sins to atone for, she immediately comes face-to-face with ancient secrets, extremist violence, and sudden, inexplicable death. For Maggie seems to hold the key to the last unsolved riddle of the Bible--a shocking revelation that could end the world's most bitter conflict . . . or leave the earth in ruins.


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A high concept conspiracy thriller that delivers every step of the way. It may be Christmas in New York, but for ex-soldier turned eacute;lite bodyguard Ryan Lock it's business as usual: his mission is to protect one of America's most ruthless businessmen. Suddenly gunshots ring out. People run for cover. Innocent people are mown down. Amid the chaos, Lock's hunt for the killers turns into an explosive game of cat and mouse. Lock's search for the truth takes him from the rooftops of a New York skyscraper to a heavily fortified warehouse on the Hudson where he confronts one of the world's most dangerous women. As the clock ticks towards midnight on New Year's Eve, all routes into and out of Manhattan are sealed, and Lock realises that not only is his own life in terrible danger but so are the lives of millions of others.


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The medicine man from The Manitou has returned for his ultimate revenge on the white race, who decimated his people: People across the country are suddenly struck blind, leaving them helpless against the spirit warriors who have risen to slaughter their oppressors.


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The acclaimed author of Vinegar Hill returns with a story of two unlikely romances—one historical, the other modern-day—separated by thousands of miles and well over a century.   Battling feelings of loss and apathy in the wake of a painful divorce, novelist Jeanette struggles to complete a book about the long-term relationship between Clara Schumann, a celebrated pianist and the wife of the composer Robert Schumann, and her husband's protÉgÉ, the handsome young composer Johannes Brahms. Although this legendary love triangle has been studied exhaustively, Jeanette—herself a gifted pianist—wonders about the enduring nature of Clara and Johannes's lifelong attachment. Were they just "best friends," as both steadfastly claimed? Or was the relationship complicated by desires that may or may not have been consummated?   Through a chance encounter, Jeanette meets Hart, a mysterious, worldly entrepreneur who is a native of Clara's birthplace, Leipzig, Germany. Hart's casual help with translations quickly blossoms into something more. There are things about men and women, he insists, that do not change. The two embark on a whirlwind emotional journey that leads Jeanette across Germany and Switzerland to a crossroads similar to that faced by Clara Schumann—also a mother, also an artist—more than a century earlier.   Accompanied by photographs, sketches, and notes from past and present, A. Manette Ansay's original blend of fiction and history captures the timeless nature of love and friendship between women and men.


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In his sensational international bestseller, the preeminent scientist and outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins delivers a hard-hitting, impassioned, but humorous rebuttal of religious belief. With rigor and wit, Dawkins eviscerates the arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of the existence of a supreme being. He makes a compelling case that faith is not just irrational, but potentially deadly. In a preface written for the paperback edition, Dawkins responds to some of the controversies the book has incited. This brilliantly argued, provocative book challenges all of us to test our beliefs, no matter what beliefs we hold.


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Compilation of stories:

Stories of Your Life and Others (2002) (short story collection):
-Tower of Babel
-Understand
-Division by Zero
-Story of Your Life
-Seventy-Two Letters
-The Evolution of Human Science
-Hell is the Absence of God
-Liking What You See: A Documentary
What's Expected of Us (2006) (short story)
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate (2007) (novelette)
Exhalation (2008) (short story)
The Lifecycle of Software Objects (2010) (novella)


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A narration of a summer motorcycle trip undertaken by a father and his son, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance becomes a personal and philosophical odyssey into fundamental questions on how to live. The narrator's relationship with his son leads to a powerful self-reckoning; the craft of motorcycle maintenance leads to an austerely beautiful process for reconciling science, religion, and humanism. Resonant with the confusions of existence, this classic is a touching and transcendent book of life. This new edition contains an interview with Pirsig and letters and documents detailing how this extraordinary book came to be.This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.


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An astounding tale of adventure, danger, magic, science, friendship, spaceships, and, oh yeah, the battle to save all the people in all the worlds in all possible dimensions.   Joey Harker isn't a hero.   In fact, he's the kind of guy who gets lost in his own house.   But one day, Joey gets really lost. He walks straight out of his world and into another dimension.   Joey's walk between worlds makes him prey to armies of magic and science, both determined to harness Joey's power to travel between the dimensions. The only thing standing in their way is Joey—or, more precisely, an army of Joeys, all from different dimensions and all determined to save the worlds.   Now Joey must make a choice: return to the life he knows or join the battle to the end.


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Cat's Cradle is Kurt Vonnegut's satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet's ultimate fate, it features a midget as the protagonist, a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer, and a vision of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny. A book that left an indelible mark on an entire generation of readers, Cat's Cradle is one of the twentieth century's most important works--and Vonnegut at his very best. "From the Trade Paperback edition."


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#1New York Timesbestselling master of suspense Dean Koontz delivers a mesmerizing new thriller that explores the razor-thin line between the best and worst of human natureand the anarchy simmering just beneath society's surfaceas a likeable, successful family man is drawn into a confrontation with a foe of unimaginable malice.... Bestselling novelist Cullen "Cubby" Greenwich is a lucky man and he knows it. He makes a handsome living doing what he enjoys. His wife, Penny, a children's book author and illustrator, is the love of his life. Together they have a brilliant six-year-old, Milo, affectionately dubbed "Spooky," and a non-collie named Lassie, who's all but part of the family. So Cubby knows he shouldn't let one bad review of his otherwise triumphant new book get to himeven if it does appear in the nation's premier newspaper and is penned by the much-feared, seldom-seen critic, Shearman Waxx. Cubby knows the best thing to do is ignore the gratuitously vicious, insulting, and inaccurate comments. Penny knows it, even little Milo knows it. If Lassie could talk, she'd tell Cubby to ignore them, too. Ignore Shearman Waxx and his poison pen is just what Cubby intends to do. Until he happens to learn where the great man is taking his lunch. Cubby just wants to get a look at the mysterious recluse whose mere opinion can make or break a careeror a life. But Shearman Waxx isn't what Cubby expects; and neither is the escalating terror that follows what seemed to be an innocent encounter. For Waxx gives criticism; he doesn't take it. He has ways of dealing with those who cross him that Cubby is only beginning to fathom. Soon Cubby finds himself in a desperate struggle with a relentless sociopath, facing an inexorable assault on far more than his life. Fearless, funny, utterly compelling,Relentlessis Dean Koontz at his riveting best, an unforgettable tale of the fragile bonds that hold together all that we most cherishand of those who would tear those bonds asunder. From the Hardcover edition.


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One of the world's leading neuroscientists explores how best to understand the human condition by examining the biological, psychological, and highly social nature of our species within the social context of our lives.  What happened along the evolutionary trail that made humans so unique? In his widely accessible style, Michael Gazzaniga looks to a broad range of studies to pinpoint the change that made us thinking, sentient humans, different from our predecessors.  Neuroscience has been fixated on the life of the psychological self for the past fifty years, focusing on the brain systems underlying language, memory, emotion, and perception. What it has not done is consider the stark reality that most of the time we humans are thinking about social processes, comparing ourselves to and estimating the intentions of others. In "Human," Gazzaniga explores a number of related issues, including what makes human brains unique, the importance of language and art in defining the human condition, the nature of human consciousness, and even artificial intelligence.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

In the small village of Hawkins Hollow, three best friends who share the same birthday sneak off into the woods for a sleepover the evening before turning 10. But a night of pre-pubescent celebration turns into a night of horror as their blood brother oath unleashes a three-hundred year curse.    

Twenty-one years later, Cal Hawkins and his friends have seen their town plagued by a week of unexplainable evil events two more times - every seven years. With the clock winding down on the third set of seven years, someone else has taken an interest in the town's folklore. Quinn is a well known scholar of local legends, and despite Cal's protests, insists on delving in the mystery. But when the first signs of evil appear months early, it's not only the town Cal tries to protect, but also his heart.


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From The #1 New York Times Bestselling Author Of Blood Brothers And The Hollow The Conclusion To The Electrifying Trilogy Of Three Men And Three Women Who Join Forces And Hearts To Battle The Ultimate Evil.


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A Mass Market Paperback OriginalThe New York Times bestselling author of Blood Brothers continues the thrilling trilogy of a town plagued by evil—and the three men and three women brought together by fate to fight it.


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Since their mother's death, Carter and Sadie have become near strangers. Sadie lived with her grandparents in London while her brother traveled the world with their father, Egyptologist Dr. Julius Kane. One night, Dr. Kane brings the siblings together for a "research experiment" at the British Museum, where he hopes to set things right with his family. Instead, he unleashes the Egyptian god Set, who banishes him to oblivion and forces the children to flee for their lives.


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Alternate history explores the many possible directions our world could follow if certain key events didn't occur at all or were changed in some crucial way. Is our Earth the only Earth, our reality the only one that exists? Or are there many parallel worlds and societies, some very similar to ours, some barely recognizable? What if Lincoln had never become president, and the Civil War had never taken place? What if Columbus never discovered America, and the Inca developed a massive, technologically advanced empire? What if magic was real and a half-faery queen ruled England? What if Hitler and Germany won the war because America never got involved? What if many of the world's religions were totally commercialized, their temples run like casinos, religions designed purely for profit? What if an author discovered a book written by an alternate version of himself? These are just some of the possible pathways the reader can take to explore the 'Other Earths' that may be waiting just one event away.


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In a garden surrounded by a tall fence, tucked away behind a small, quiet house in an even smaller town, is an apple tree that is rumored to bear a very special sort of fruit. In this luminous debut novel, Sarah Addison Allen tells the story of that enchanted tree, and the extraordinary people who tend it.…The Waverleys have always been a curious family, endowed with peculiar gifts that make them outsiders even in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation, famous for its feisty apple tree that bears prophetic fruit, and its edible flowers, imbued with special powers. Generations of Waverleys tended this garden. Their history was in the soil. But so were their futures.A successful caterer, Claire Waverley prepares dishes made with her mystical plants—from the nasturtiums that aid in keeping secrets and the pansies that make children thoughtful, to the snapdragons intended to discourage the attentions of her amorous neighbor. Meanwhile, her elderly cousin, Evanelle, is known for distributing unexpected gifts whose uses become uncannily clear. They are the last of the Waverleys—except for Claire’s rebellious sister, Sydney, who fled Bascom the moment she could, abandoning Claire, as their own mother had years before.When Sydney suddenly returns home with a young daughter of her own, Claire’s quiet life is turned upside down—along with the protective boundary she has so carefully constructed around her heart. Together again in the house they grew up in, Sydney takes stock of all she left behind, as Claire struggles to heal the wounds of the past. And soon the sisters realize they must deal with their common legacy—if they are ever to feel at home in Bascom—or with each other. Enchanting and heartfelt, this captivating novel is sure to cast a spell with a style all its own….From the Hardcover edition.


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In this irresistible novel, Sarah Addison Allen, author of the New York Times bestselling debut, Garden Spells, tells the tale of a young woman whose family secrets—and secret passions—are about to change her life forever.
Josey Cirrini is sure of three things: winter is her favorite season, she’s a sorry excuse for a Southern belle, and sweets are best eaten in the privacy of her closet. For while Josey has settled into an uneventful life in her mother’s house, her one consolation is the stockpile of sugary treats and paperback romances she escapes to each night…. Until she finds her closet harboring Della Lee Baker, a local waitress who is one part nemesis—and two parts fairy godmother. With Della Lee’s tough love, Josey’s narrow existence quickly expands. She even bonds with Chloe Finley, a young woman who is hounded by books that inexplicably appear when she needs them—and who has a close connection to Josey’s longtime crush. Soon Josey is living in a world where the color red has startling powers, and passion can make eggs fry in their cartons. And that’s just for starters.
Brimming with warmth, wit, and a sprinkling of magic, here is a spellbinding tale of friendship, love—and the enchanting possibilities of every new day.


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Hugo Award-winning editor Gardner Dozois_ annual anthology has long been considered the standard by which other best-of-the-year SF collections are judged. After two decades_ worth of superlative science fiction, Dozois now presents a retrospective compilation culling from the last 20 years.Here under one banner is some of the finest work by the genre's leading authors, with a star-studded list of contributors that features among others: Stephen Baxter, Greg Bear, William Gibson, Terry Bisson, Greg Egan, Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert Reed, Robert Silverberg, Bruce Sterling , Charles Stross, Michael Swanwick, Gene Wolfe.A number of the selections are now considered classics. Some notable stories include:_Blood Music_, Greg Bear's Hugo-winning exploration of nanotechnology._Bears Discover Fire_, Terry Bisson's tongue-in-cheek consideration of future ursine evolution._The Left Hand of Darkness_, Ursula K. Le Guin_s coming-of-age SF tale._The Winter Market_, in which William Gibson returns to the subject that made him a cultural icon, cyberpunk.With work spanning two decades, this is the most significant science fiction short story anthology published in years.


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As the apocalyptic leaders of Iran call for the annihilation of Israel and the U.S., CIA operative David Shirazi is sent into Tehran with one objective: use all means necessary to disrupt Iran's nuclear weapons program, without leaving American fingerprints, and without triggering a regional war. At extreme personal risk, Shirazi executes his plan. A native Farsi speaker whose family escaped from Iran in 1979, he couldn't be better prepared for the mission. But none of his training has prepared Shirazi for what will happen next. An obscure religious cleric is suddenly hailed throughout the region as the Islamic messiah known as the Mahdi or the Twelfth Imam. News of his miracles, healings, signs, and wonders spread like wildfire, as do rumors of a new and horrific war. With the prophecy of the Twelfth Imam seemingly fulfilled, Iran's military prepares to strike Israel and bring about the End of Days. Shirazi must take action to save his country and the world, but the clock is ticking. And then, a dark secret from his past comes to light and changes the course of his life forever.


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The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. Dashing young Edmond Dantès has everything. He is engaged to a beautiful woman, is about to become the captain of a ship, and is well liked by almost everyone. But his perfect life is shattered when he is framed by a jealous rival and thrown into a dark prison cell for 14 years.The greatest tale of betrayal, adventure, and revenge ever written, The Count of Monte Cristo continues to dazzle readers with its thrilling and memorable scenes, including Dantès’s miraculous escape from prison, his amazing discovery of a vast hidden treasure, and his transformation into the mysterious and wealthy Count of Monte Cristo—a man whose astonishing thirst for vengeance is as cruel as it is just.Luc Sante is the author of Low Life, Evidence, and The Factory of Facts. He teaches writing and the history of photography at Bard College.


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There was a time when admirers of Stephen King would seek out every scrap from the Master&#146;s work bench, and it was a cause for celebration when it was discovered that the writer Richard Bachman was, in fact, a pseudonym for King. There were more King novels available than we had all thought! And it was even more an occasion for celebration when it was discovered just how good these Bachman books were.
With Blaze (issued here with a new foreword by Stephen King), we have one of the most adroit entries in the series. King had written the book in 1973 and it had subsequently vanished from his personal radar as he busied himself writing Carrie and Salem's Lot, two of the books that were to both make his fortune and establish him as the greatest modern master of horror fiction. When Blaze turned up among his papers in the library of the University of Maine, he looked at it again, and (fortunately for King aficionados) sanctioned its publication.
Clay Blaisdell is a hulking 6' 7'' petty criminal who encounters another lowlife with large ambitions: George Rackley has a fund of criminal schemes, but his Big Idea is to kidnap the children of rich parents and hold them to ransom. What ensues is shot through with the masterly orchestration of tension that is Stephen King's m&#233;tier. If there are some undigested influences here (the two protagonists -- one massive and powerful, the other the brains of the duo -- owe more than a little to George and Lenny in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men), the personality that comes through (leaving aside the Richard Bachman nom-de-plume) is Stephen King, and followers of his work will need no persuasion to pick up this one. --Barry Forshaw   

      
  'BLAZE feels like an essential missing piece in King's oeuvre...compelling'  -- Independent on Sunday   'King's brilliance is in making his readers root for the kidnapper rather than the authorities'  -- Daily Telegraph   'Tightly written and compelling'  -- Daily Express  'Storytelling - the ability to make the listener or the reader need to know, demand to know, what happens next - is a gift. Stephen King, like Charles Dickens before him, has this gift in spades' -- The Times on CELL   'Thrilling, genuinely terrifying, beautifully textured and full of wonderful invention'  -- Daily Mail on LISEY'S STORY   'A consummate and compassionate novel -- one of King's very best'  -- Guardian on LISEY'S STORY   

      
  
'BLAZE feels like an essential missing piece in King's oeuvre...compelling'
 (Independent on Sunday )


'King's brilliance is in making his readers root for the kidnapper rather than the authorities'
 (Daily Telegraph )


'Tightly written and compelling'
 (Daily Express )

'Storytelling - the ability to make the listener or the reader need to know, demand to know, what happens next - is a gift. Stephen King, like Charles Dickens before him, has this gift in spades' (The Times on CELL )


&#x2018;Thrilling, genuinely terrifying, beautifully textured and full of wonderful invention&#x2019;
 (Daily Mail on LISEY'S STORY )


'A consummate and compassionate novel &#x2013; one of King&#x2019;s very best'
 (Guardian on LISEY'S STORY )


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On the surface, Lena Spencer appears to have it all. She and her wealthy husband Randall have two wonderful children, and they live a life of luxury. In reality, however, Lena finds that happiness is elusive. Randall is emotionally distant, her son has developed a drug habit, and her daughter is disgusted by her mother's "overbearing behavior." When Randall decides that he's had enough of marriage counseling, he offers his wife an ultimatum: "Be grateful for all I've done for you or leave." Lena, realizing that money can't solve her problems and that her husband is no longer the man she married, decides to choose the latter. Drawing strength from Tina Turner's life story, SEARCHING FOR TINA TURNER is Lena's struggle to find herself after 25 years of being a wife and mother.


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Iris is ready for another hot, routine summer in her small Louisiana town, hanging around the Red Stripe grocery with her best friend, Collette, and traipsing through the cemetery telling each other spooky stories and pretending to cast spells. Except this summer, Iris doesn’t have to make up a story. This summer, one falls right in her lap.Years ago, before Iris was born, a local boy named Elijah Landry disappeared. All that remained of him were whispers and hushed gossip in the church pews. Until this summer. A ghost begins to haunt Iris, and she’s certain it’s the ghost of Elijah. What really happened to him? And why, of all people, has he chosen Iris to come back to?


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SUMMARY: First published in Rolling Stone magazine in 1971, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is Hunter S. Thompson's savagely comic account of what happened to this country in the 1960s. It is told through the writer's account of an assignment he undertook with his attorney to visit Las Vegas and "check it out." The book stands as the final word on the highs and lows of that decade, one of the defining works of our time, and a stylistic and journalistic tour de force. As Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in The New York Times, it has "a kind of mad, corrosive prose poetry that picks up where Norman Mailer's An American Dream left off and explores what Tom Wolfe left out." This twenty-fifth-anniversary Modern Library edition features Ralph Steadman's original drawings and three companion pieces selected by Dr. Thompson: "Jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," and "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved." The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foun-dation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with affordable hard-bound editions of important works of liter-ature and thought. For the Modern Library's seventy-fifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring as its emblem the running torchbearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inau-gurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices.

SUMMARY:
First published in Rolling Stone magazine in 1971, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is Hunter S. Thompson's savagely comic account of what happened to this country in the 1960s. It is told through the writer's account of an assignment he undertook with his attorney to visit Las Vegas and "check it out." The book stands as the final word on the highs and lows of that decade, one of the defining works of our time, and a stylistic and journalistic tour de force. As Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in The New York Times, it has "a kind of mad, corrosive prose poetry that picks up where Norman Mailer's An American Dream left off and explores what Tom Wolfe left out."    This twenty-fifth-anniversary Modern Library edition features Ralph Steadman's original drawings and three companion pieces selected by Dr. Thompson: "Jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," and "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved." The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foun-dation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with affordable hard-bound editions of important works of liter-ature and thought. For the Modern Library's seventy-fifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring as its emblem the running torchbearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inau-gurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices.


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SUMMARY:
The story starts out simply enough: Jess Aarons wants to be the fastest boy in the fifth grade--he wants it so bad he can taste it. He's been practicing all summer, running in the fields around his farmhouse until he collapses in a sweat. Then a tomboy named Leslie Burke moves into the farmhouse next door and changes his life forever. Not only does Leslie not look or act like any girls Jess knows, but she also turns out to be the fastest runner in the fifth grade. After getting over the shock and humiliation of being beaten by a girl, Jess begins to think Leslie might be okay. Despite their superficial differences, it's clear that Jess and Leslie are soul mates. The two create a secret kingdom in the woods named Terabithia, where the only way to get into the castle is by swinging out over a gully on an enchanted rope. Here they reign as king and queen, fighting off imaginary giants and the walking dead, sharing stories and dreams, and plotting against the schoolmates who tease them. Jess and Leslie find solace in the sanctuary of Terabithia until a tragedy strikes and the two are separated forever. In a style that is both plain and powerful, Katherine Paterson's characters will stir your heart and put a lump in your throat.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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In a sprawling, wild, super-hyped magnum opus, David Foster  Wallace fulfills the promise of his precocious novel   The  Broom of the System.  Equal parts philosophical quest and  screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction,  features a huge cast and multilevel narrative, and questions essential  elements of American culture - our entertainments, our addictions, our  relationships, our pleasures, our abilities to define ourselves.  --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 

      
  With its baroque subplots, zany political satire, morbid, cerebral humor and astonishing range of cultural references, Wallace's brilliant but somewhat bloated dirigible of a second novel (after The Broom in the System) will appeal to steadfast readers of Pynchon and Gaddis. But few others will have the stamina for it. Set in an absurd yet uncanny near-future, with a cast of hundreds and close to 400 footnotes, Wallace's story weaves between two surprisingly similar locales: Ennet House, a halfway-house in the Boston Suburbs, and the adjacent Enfield Tennis Academy. It is the "Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment" (each calendar year is now subsidized by retail advertising); the U.S. and Canada have been subsumed by the Organization of North American Nations, unleashing a torrent of anti-O.N.A.N.ist terrorism by Quebecois separatists; drug problems are widespread; the Northeastern continent is a giant toxic waste dump; and CD-like "entertainment cartridges" are the prevalent leisure activity. The novel hinges on the dysfunctional family of E.T.A.'s founder, optical-scientist-turned-cult-filmmaker Dr. James Incandenza (aka Himself), who took his life shortly after producing a mysterious film called Infinite Jest, which is supposedly so addictively entertaining as to bring about a total neural meltdown in its viewer. As Himself's estranged sons?professional football punter Orin, introverted tennis star Hal and deformed naif Mario?come to terms with his suicide and legacy, they and the residents of Ennet House become enmeshed in the machinations of the wheelchair-bound leader of a Quebecois separatist faction, who hopes to disseminate cartridges of Infinite Jest and thus shred the social fabric of O.N.A.N. With its hilarious riffs on themes like addiction, 12-step programs, technology and waste management (in all its scatological implications), this tome is highly engrossing?in small doses. Yet the nebulous, resolutionless ending serves to underscore Wallace's underlying failure to find a suitable novelistic shape for his ingenious and often outrageously funny material. 
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.  --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 

      
  Wallace's second novel is not for the faint-hearted or the weak-wristed. Wallace (The Girl with Curious Hair, LJ 7/89) throws everything he knows-and he knows plenty-into this river of stories. If you can stand the extreme length, ignore the footnotes, and have a bed-desk to rest this tome on, this book can be fun. Wallace sandwiches more than you'd ever want to know about a private tennis boarding school, Quebec separatists, a drug-and-alcohol addict's halfway house, potheads, and other topics-both trendy and not-in between E-mail messages, admissions reports, headlines, and other real-life documents, or pseudo-documents. Too much happens here even to begin to summarize, but the author has a wicked sense of humor and a wonderful eye for capturing the odd juxtapositions of modern life. Besides his lack of conciseness, Wallace's other main weakness is dialog: nobody talks as cleverly as most of his characters do. Distinct, idiomatic, wild, and crazy, this book is destined to have a cult following. Recommended for most fiction collections.
Doris Lynch, Monroe Cty. P.L., Bloomington, Ind.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.  --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 

      
  Wallace offers huge entertainment...only Gaddis and Pynchon  have this range.  So brilliant you need sunglasses to read it, but it  has a heart as well as a brain.  Infinite Jest is both a vast,  comic epic and a profound study of the post-modern condition. -- Review of Contemporary Fiction  --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


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Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures. Whether covering the three-ring circus of a vicious presidential race, plunging into the wars between dictionary writers, or confronting the World's Largest Lobster Cooker at the annual Maine Lobster Festival, Wallace projects a quality of thought that is uniquely his and a voice as powerful and distinct as any in American letters.


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Leland Gaunt is a stranger in Castle Rock--and he calls his new shop Needful Things， where there is something for everyone. Mr. Gaunt takes pleasure in seeing how much people will pay for their most secret dreams and desires， and he knows that almost everything is for sale: love， hope， even the human soul.


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The Plant is a serial novel published in 2000 as an e-book by Stephen King.
The American author Stephen King wrote a few parts of a story by the same name and sent out as chapbooks to his friends instead of Christmas cards in 1982, 1983, and 1985. Only three installments were produced by Philtrum Press before the story was shelved, and the original editions are hotly sought-after collector's items today.
In 2000, King picked up The Plant again and started to publish it as an electronic serial. The first part (matching the 1982 story) was put on his own web site for anyone to download. He also said that he wanted everyone that downloaded the story to pay him $1 either before or after reading it.
The idea was that if enough people paid up, more parts would be published in the same way. The limit was set at 75% of payers versus downloaders. The rate of paying customers decreased over time, but at least the first parts were over the set limit. As of mid-2001, six parts have been published (making up the first somewhat self-contained part of the novel). King has said that there will be more, but that some other projects will be finished first. To date there has been no further mention of the story.
The story tells of a person working as editor on a paperback publishing house. One day he gets a manuscript from what seems like a crackpot. It's about magic, but it also contains photographs that seem very real. He writes a rejection slip about the book, but on grounds of the photographs, he also notifies the police where the author lives. This enrages the author who sends a mysterious plant to the editor's office.
The story is told in epistolary format, consisting entirely of letters, memos, and so on.


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In recent novels, which have been called “hypnotic,” “stunning,” and “exhilarating,” David Markson has created his own personal genre. In this new work, The Last Novel, an elderly author (referred to only as “Novelist”) announces that since this will be his final effort, he has “carte blanche to do anything he damned well pleases.” 

Pressed by solitude and age, Novelist's preoccupations inevitably turn to the stories of other artists — their genius, their lack of recognition, and their deaths. Keeping his personal history out of the story as much as possible, Novelist creates an incantatory stream of fascinating triumphs and failures from the lives of famous and not-so-famous painters, writers, musicians, sports figures, and scientists.

As Novelist moves through his last years, a minimalist self-portrait emerges, becoming an intricate masterpiece from David Markson's astonishing imagination. Through these startling, sometimes comic, but often tragic anecdotes we unexpectedly discern the entire shape of a man's life.


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From the internationally best-selling author Daniel Kehlmann, a provocative and wickedly funny novel about two unpredictable menone an artist and the other a journalist, who together embark on an unexpected adventure with uproarious results. Sebastian Zollner's failure as a journalist is matched only by his personal failures: his girlfriend is moving in a new lover before Sebastian even knows he's been dumped. Searching for the break that will redeem him in the eyes of his peers, he heads off on a wild goose chase into the mountains to interview the eccentric, legendary painter Manuel Kaminski, with the hope of writing his biography. Kaminski is going blind and is living in seclusion with his daughter. He could be working on his next masterpiece or easing into his final days, and his inconsistent career raises the question of whether he has been a fraud or a genius. His artistic reputation hinges on any number of factors but most prominently on a definitive biography. Enter Zollnerwho has no intention of writing a puff piece. He's out to dig dirt and to force Kaminski to confront the legacy of his work. But the secrets he uncovers will lead Kaminski, and Zollner himself, to places neither of them ever expected to go. With edgy wit and intelligence, Daniel Kehlmann dives into the problems of what is "truth" in our celebrity-crazed times and embraces the energy and humanity that lie beneath the pretensions of the art and journalistic worlds. A firecracker of a novel. From the Hardcover edition.


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Loosely based on the lives of 19th-century explorer Alexander von Humboldt and a contemporary, mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, Kehlmann's novel, a German bestseller widely heralded as an exemplar of "new" German fiction, injects musty history with shots of whimsy and irony. Humboldt voyages to South America to map the Orinoco River, climb the Chimborazo peak in Ecuador and measure "every river, every mountain and every lake in his path." Gauss is the hedgehog to Humboldt's fox, leaping out of bed on his wedding night to jot down a formula and rarely leaving his hometown of Göttingen. The two meet at a scientific congress in 1828, when Germany is in turmoil after the fall of Napoleon. Other luminaries appear throughout the novel, including a senile Immanuel Kant, Louis Daguerre and Thomas Jefferson. The narrative is notable for its brisk pacing, lively prose and wry humor (curmudgeonly Gauss laments, for instance, how "every idiot would be able to... invent the most complete nonsense" about him 200 years hence), which keenly complements Kehlmann's intelligent, if not especially deep, treatment of science, mathematics and reason at the end of the Enlightenment.


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Tom Franklin's extraordinary talent has been hailed by the leading lights of contemporary literature—Philip Roth, Richard Ford, Lee Smith, and Dennis Lehane. Reviewers have called his fiction "ingenious" (USA Today) and "compulsively readable" (Memphis Commercial Appeal). His narrative power and flair for character-ization have been compared to the likes of Harper Lee, Flannery O'Connor, Elmore Leonard, and Cormac McCarthy.   Now the Edgar Award-winning author returns with his most accomplished and resonant novel so far—an atmospheric drama set in rural Mississippi. In the late 1970s, Larry Ott and Silas "32" Jones were boyhood pals. Their worlds were as different as night and day: Larry, the child of lower-middle-class white parents, and Silas, the son of a poor, single black mother. Yet for a few months the boys stepped outside of their circumstances and shared a special bond. But then tragedy struck: Larry took a girl on a date to a drive-in movie, and she was never heard from again. She was never found and Larry never confessed, but all eyes rested on him as the culprit. The incident shook the county—and perhaps Silas most of all. His friendship with Larry was broken, and then Silas left town.   More than twenty years have passed. Larry, a mechanic, lives a solitary existence, never able to rise above the whispers of suspicion. Silas has returned as a constable. He and Larry have no reason to cross paths until another girl disappears and Larry is blamed again. And now the two men who once called each other friend are forced to confront the past they've buried and ignored for decades.


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Denny is a secretary who has just begun an affair with her boss, while also maintaining a friendship with his wife. Invited to the family's house for Thanksgiving dinner, she enters into a chain of events that will change everyone's lives in ways that none can imagine. Hilarious, scorching, and full of surprises, The Body of Jonah Boyd is a tribute to the power of home, the lure of success, and, above all, the sisterhood of secretaries.


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Questions for Charles Yu on How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe    
 
    
 You’re a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award-winner and this is your debut novel. When and why did you start writing, and what advice do you have for other young writers out there trying to get published?     I wrote poems and essays as a kid, and in college, I dreamed of becoming a professional writer, whatever I thought that meant, although, for a lot of reasons, I knew that wasn’t going to happen.  Mostly, my parents were going to murder me if I tried to apply to an MFA program.  First-degree murder.      So I didn’t actually start writing until 2002, shortly after I began my career as a lawyer.  Working in a high-pressure environment was squeezing me pretty hard, and all that pressure found its way out in the form of little things I was jotting down, in the margins of receipts, on the backs of business cards.  I wrote a series of physics problems about a married couple’s life together.  I wrote some instructions for how to play a metaphysical video game.  Stuff like that.      But I didn’t think I was actually writing, let alone writing what anyone would call fiction, until I read CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders.  That book blew the doors off the empty little space that had previously housed my puny imagination.      Up until that point, I’d had no clue as to what a story could be.  And it was because my ideas were assumptions.  Tacit, limiting, ultimately false assumptions, which added up to a severely impoverished conception of what was possible in fiction.  After reading CivilWarLand, I knew I wanted that feeling, wanted to be surprised like that, and flattened onto the floor, and embarrassed my by own narrowness.  I wanted to have my doors blown off again and again.  It was a short distance to go from wanting to have that feeling to also wanting to see if maybe I could ever give that feeling to someone else.    As for advice, it would be to transfer all the anxiety about publication into anxiety about whether the story works, whether a reader is going to care about the characters.  I break down the process into four components: writing, rewriting, submitting, and worrying.  My ideal, not at all realistic, scenario, would be to make the proportion of time spent on each of those activities something like: 19 percent, 80 percent, 1 percent, 0 percent.  This is very hypocritical of me to say, of course, as I’ve never done this myself, I’ve never even been close.  But I do know that the farther from zero the last two numbers get, the more I’m in trouble.  And that the second number should be much bigger than the first.
    
 How has your interest in and knowledge of science and science fiction contributed to and inspired your writing of this book?     I read and collected comics as a kid, read pretty much everything I could find of Asimov, including the whole Foundation series in one semester in eighth grade (to the detriment of my English grade), and so much else, too much to list or even remember.  Then, at some point in high school, I got the idea that there were serious books we read in school, and there was science fiction, and there was not a lot of overlap.  That lasted until my senior year in college, when I stumbled on Richard Powers’s Galatea 2.2, which wasn’t exactly science fiction, it was this amazing love story. It also handled actual science (cognitive science, artificial intelligence) without watering it down, and yet was still clearly Serious Fiction, whatever that meant to me back then, the kind that was in the Sunday book review sections.  After that, I began to search out more writing like that, more Powers, and Jonathan Lethem.    Currently, I read more science than I do anything else, including fiction.  I especially enjoy reading books written by scientists for lay folk, like me.  I was a biochem major in college, and so part of it is that I am interested in the science itself, but I’m just as interested in the process of explanation, how the author, an expert in a specialized field, tries to explain difficult concepts through simplification and creative analogy.  I am fascinated by that process of distilling something really complex into something most people can understand.  There are so many examples of great books that do this, but the one that still stands out for me is Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe.  After finishing that book, I was convinced I had a working knowledge of string theory.  I was like, I can do this stuff; I could hang with string theorists at a cocktail party.  Of course, when I tried to explain even the simplest concept from the book to someone else, I realized how much Greene had been holding my hand.  I was like a baby who thought he could walk, until I tried on my own.
    
 Your book deals with time travel in a more serious and even tragic way than most stories about the subject, though you mask the severity with humor to keep the dialogue light and amusing. What made you decide to write about this complicated topic, and how did you come to write about it in this unique manner?     I knew I wanted the novel to be a family story, mostly about a father and son, but also about a marriage, and a son-mother story, too.  But I could not find the right frame for the story.  At the same time, I kept coming back to this idea that had been floating around in my head and on my laptop for years, but one that I could never find a home for.  It was about of a man who keeps popping up in different hypothetical universes, trying to find the universe where he belongs.  I’d been messing around with that conceit, on and off, for close to five years.  Then I remembered a book I’d read years earlier, called The Fabric of Reality, by David Deutsch (which sets out, among other things, Deutsch’s multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanics), and in particular, one specific sentence from that book:  “Other times are just special cases of other universes.”  That sentence was a bridge for me.  I realized I didn’t want to write a story about hypothetical universes. I wanted to write a time travel story.      Once I decided that the novel would be about time travel, the book started to take shape.  Not quickly, more like, I had a frame, and now little pieces started sticking to the frame, just odd scraps here and there, but the frame was the right one, and I could hang things on it.  Most important, what happened was that the two vocabularies—the emotion of a father-mother-son story and the technical glossary of a time travel story--started to interact; like two dry wool blankets, they started to rub up against each other and crackle a bit. Things would pop out of that, phraselets and new words and little surprises of grammar and language and emotion, and science fiction would fall out from that interaction.      Whatever humor there is in there, if any, is probably also a product of that process, of smashing together two sub-languages, emotional and science fictional, and seeing what weird tonal particles are produced from the collision.  I knew that the story needed weight, because if it were just whimsical, a reader might wonder why any of it mattered, and of course, the most important thing that I am trying to do is create characters who matter to the reader.  I do hope that there are at least a few laughs in there. 
       
 Your protagonist, a time travel technician attempting to save people from trying to alter their pasts, is named Charles Yu. How did you come to name him after yourself?     It was originally a placeholder, to be honest.  So was the father’s name, which is my father’s name.  I tried different names for the son and the father, but none of them would take, so I just put in my real name (and my dad’s) so I could get going with the writing, but when I did that, a strange thing happened: the story started moving, fast, in a different direction.  Suddenly, it was about a self meeting his self, and the details of the character’s life started to come together, as did the relationship between the son and the father.  I think having my actual name in there gave me a straw man, a straw story, that I could write in reaction to.  For some reason, once the name of the character became Charles Yu, I stopped slipping in autobiographical or semi-autobiographical information, and actually started removing it.  I think I realized, wow, if this character is going to have my name, I’d better take some of this stuff out.  There is still a fair amount of it in there, semi- or pseudo-autobiographical, but much of it is more emotionally resonant than factually resonant. 
     
 Though there is a definite science fictional aspect to your novel, it is also heavily literary and much more about real life than it at first appears. How, then, would you characterize your novel? Fiction, science fiction, or something outside the realm of typical genre classifications?     I was hoping it would be characterized as a time machine, although I realize there is no section for time machines in most bookstores.  In terms of topology, I think of it as a stable, looped, four-dimensional object with chronodiegetic properties.  In terms of genre, I would be happy for it to be shelved in both fiction and in science fiction.  Or maybe under a new category, where they would put books that resist either classification.  A lot of my favorite books would be in that category.
     
 What’s next for you?   I’m working on a new novel that takes place in “America,” i.e., not America, but a dream-and-desire-fueled holographic projection of the collective mental environment of Americans, which exists as a geographical place that happens to overlap the physical America.  It’s also a story about a man looking for his ex-wife and daughter.  I hope I can figure out a way to make that make sense.
    (Photo &#169; Michael Zara)


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Lois McMaster Bujold’s best-selling Vorkosigan series is a publishing phenomenon, winning record-breaking sales, critical praise, four Hugo Awards and a Nebula award. And the thousands of devotees of the series now have a book that will be a goldmine of information, background details, and little-known facts about the Vorkosigan saga. Included are an all-new interview with Bujold as well as essays by her on crafting the Vorkosigan universe, articles on the biology, technology and sociology of the planet Barrayar, appreciations of the individual novels by experts, maps, a complete timeline of the series, and more. Readers can’t get enough of the Vorkosigan series and they’ll jump at the chance to read this story behind the stories. Baen has a new novel in the Vorkosigan series under contract.


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 This compelling, centuries-spanning novel brilliantly interweaves the lives of two women—a writer working in the heart of modern academia and a daring young Sioux Indian on an incredible journey in the eighteenth century. The result is an unforgettable story of courage in the face of the unknown.At the age of thirty-eight, Brigitte Nicholson has a job she likes, a man she loves, and a book on the women’s suffrage movement that she will finish—someday. Someday is Brigitte’s watchword. Someday she and Ted, a rising star in the field of archaeology, will clarify their relationship. Someday she will have children. Someday she will stop playing it so safe. Then, on a snowy day in Boston, Brigitte’s life is jolted. Suddenly everything she counted on has changed and she finds herself questioning every choice she has made along the way. As she struggles to regain her balance and plot a new course, Brigitte agrees to help her mother on a family genealogy project. In Salt Lake City at the Family History Library, she makes a stunning discovery—reaching back to the French aristocracy. How did Brigitte’s mysterious ancestor Wachiwi, a Dakota Sioux, travel from the Great Plains to the French court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette—and into the arms of a French marquis? How did she come to marry into Brigitte’s family? What is the truth behind the tantalizing clues in the fragmented, centuries-old records? Following the threads of Wachiwi’s life, Brigitte travels to South Dakota, then on to Paris, irresistibly drawn to this brave young woman who lived so long ago. And as she comes closer to solving the puzzle of Wachiwi’s journey, her previously safe, quiet life becomes an adventure of its own. A chance meeting with a writer of historical fiction, a new opportunity, and a difficult choice put Brigitte at last in the forefront of her own story. With a complex and powerful family legacy coming to life around her, someday is no longer in the future. Instead, in Danielle Steel’s mesmerizing new novel, someday is now. 


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Julie Powell thought cooking her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking was the craziest thing she'd ever do-- until she embarked on the voyage recounted in her new memoir, CLEAVING. Her marriage challenged by an insane, irresistible love affair, Julie decides to leave town and immerse herself in a new obsession: butchery. She finds her way to Fleischer's, a butcher shop where she buries herself in the details of food. She learns how to break down a side of beef and French a rack of ribs--tough, physical work that only sometimes distracts her from thoughts of afternoon trysts. The camaraderie at Fleischer's leads Julie to search out fellow butchers around the world-- from South America to Europe to Africa. At the end of her odyssey, she has learned a new art and perhaps even mastered her unruly heart.


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The world's two deadliest spies in the ultimate  showdown. At a small-town carnival two men, each  mysteriously summoned by telegram, witness a bizarre  killing. The telegrams are signed Jason Bourne.  Only they know Bourne's true identity and understand  the telegram is really a message from Bourne's  mortal enemy, Carlos, known also as the Jackal, the  world's deadliest and most elusive terrorist. And  furthermore, they know that the Jackal wants: a  final confrontation with Bourne. Now David Webb,  professor of Oriental studies, husband, and father,  must do what he hoped he would never have to do  again -- assume the terrible identity of Jason Bourne.  His plan is simple: to infiltrate the politically  and economically Medusan group and use himself as  bait to lure the cunning Jackal into a deadly trap  -- a trap from which only one of them will escape.


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The Soviets' new ballistic-missile submarine is attempting to defect to the United States, but the Soviet Atlantic fleet has been ordered to find and destroy her at all costs. Can Red October reach the U.S. safely? Gripping military thriller about the chase after a top-secret Russian missilesubmarine.


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Jack Ryan confronts terrorists in the Middle East in Tom Clancy's spectacular sixth novel -- another Sunday Times No 1 bestseller -- now reissued with a new cover.  As those in power around the globe face up to the challenges of a new world order, in Washington CIA Deputy Director Jack Ryan is putting everything into a plan that could finally bring peace to a Middle East still suffering from the ravages of war. But too many groups have invested too much blood to allow the plan to succeed -- the terrorists have one final desperate card to play. With one terrible act the world is plunged into nuclear crisis.  His dreams of peace shattered, Ryan is confronted with a situation he has never dared to imagine: with the world standing on the brink of war, what do you do if the US President is incompetent to deal with the greatest crisis of all?


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From England to Ireland to America, an explosive wave of violence sweeps CIA analyst Jack Ryan and his family into the deadliest game of our time: international terrorism. An ultra-left-wing faction of the IRA has targeted Ryan for his act of salvation in an assassination attempt. Now Ryan must pay--with his life. HC: G.P. Putnam.


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The controversial bestseller from Tom Clancy, the all-time master of the techno-thriller. CIA Deputy Director Jack Ryan joins the war on drugs. And when three American officials are assassinated in Colombia, the U.S. response is swift-and shocking.


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Two men possess vital data on Russia's Star Wars missile defense system. One isted by the KGB. The other is Jack Ryan, hero of The Hunt for Red October,ld to peace. A 4-month #1 New York Times bestseller, with 1.3 million hardcover copies in print. HC: Putnam.


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His work for the CIA is brilliant, cold-blooded and efficient, but who is he? In a harrowing tour de force, phenomenally bestselling author Tom Clancy shows how an ordinary man named John Kelly crossed the lines of justice and morality to become the CIA legend known as Mr. Clark. It is an unforgettable journey into the heart of darkness, without mercy--without remorse.


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Called out of retirement to serve as National Security Advisor to the president, Jack Ryan, with the help of CIA officers John Clark and Domingo Chavez, must prepare the untested president to meet the challenges of a new world order. Reissue.


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Jack Ryan becomes president by sheer accident when the former president, most of Congress, the Cabinet and the Supreme Court are bombed out of existence. Ryan must jump in to discover who did it, all the while contending with the threat of military takeover and covert biological warfare. Herrmann reads this spy-thriller with chilling precision, flawlessly switching from one scene to another in this choppy abridgment. As the plots rush to conclusion, Herrmann keeps track of the multitude of accents, representing both "good guys" and "bad guys" around the world.


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Early in his career, Jack Ryan accepts his first assignment as a freelance analyst under James Greer of the CIA and faces a mission involving a high-level Soviet defector who has reported a plot to assassinate Pope John Paul II. Reprint.


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Ex-Navy SEAL John Clark is the newly named head of Rainbow, an international task force dedicated to combating terrorism. In a trial by fire, he must stop a terrorist group of men and women so extreme that their success could literally mean the end of life on earth as we know it.


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When a terrorist leader and a drug warlord form a dangerous alliance, three new Hendley Associates agents--FBI agent Dominic Caruso, his Marine captain brother Brian, and their cousin, Jack Ryan, Jr.--encounter unexpected dangers. A man named Mohammed sits in a cafe in Vienna, about to propose a deal to a Colombian. Mohammed has a strong network of agents and sympathizers throughout Europe and the Middle East, and the Colombian has an equally strong drug network throughout America. What if they were to form an alliance, to combine all their assets and connections? The potential for profits would be enormous-and the potential for destruction unimaginable. In the Brave New World of terrorism-where anybody with a spare AK-47, a knowledge of kitchen chemistry, or simply the will to die can become a player-the old rules no longer apply. No matter what new governmental organizations come into being, the only truly effective ones are those that are quick and agile, free of oversight and restrictions...and outside the system. Way outside the system. In a nondescript office building in suburban Maryland, the firm Hendley Associates does a profitable business in stocks, bonds, and international currencies, but its true mission is quite different: to identify and locate terrorist threats, and then deal with them, in whatever manner necessary. Established with the knowledge of President John Patrick Ryan, "the Campus" is always on the lookout for promising new talent, its recruiters scattered throughout the armed forces and government agencies-and three men are about to cross its radar. The first is Dominic Caruso, a rookie FBI agent, barely a year out of Quantico, whose decisive actions resolve a particularly brutal kidnap/murder case. The second is Caruso's brother, Brian, a Marine captain just back from his first combat action in Afghanistan, and already a man to watch. And the third is their cousin...a young man named Jack Ryan, Jr. Jack was raised on intrigue. As his father moved through the ranks of the CIA and then into the White House, Jack received a life course in the world and the way it operates from agents, statesmen, analysts, Secret Service men, and black ops specialists such as John Clark and Ding Chavez. He wants to put it all to work now-but when he knocks on the front door of "the Campus," he finds that nothing has prepared him for what he is about to encounter. For it is indeed a different world out there, and in here...and it is about to become far more dangerous.


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Four Cassettes, 6 hoursTime and again, **Tom Clancy**'s novels have been praised not only for their big-scale drama and propulsive narrative drive, but for their cutting-edge prescience in predicting future events.  In *The Bear and The Dragon*, the future is very near at hand indeed.Newly elected in his own right, Jack Ryan has found that being President has gotten no easier.  Domestic pitfalls await him at every turn, there's a revolution in Liberia, the Asian economy is going down the tubes, and now, in Moscow, someone may have tried to take out the chairman of the SVR - the former KGB - with a rocket-propelled grenade.  Things are unstable enough in Russia without high-level assassination, but even more disturbing may be the identities of the assassins.  Were they political enemies, the Russian Mafia, disaffected former KGB?  Or, Ryan wonders, is something far more dangerous at work here.Ryan is right.   For even while he dispatches his most trusted eyes and ears, including black ops specialist John Clark, to find out the truth of the matter, forces in China are moving ahead with a plan of truly audacious proportions.  If they succeed, the world as we know it will never look the same.  If they fail--the consequences will be unspeakable.


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From the author of The Hunt For Red October, a New York Times bestseller for over 40 weeks, comes his greatest performance yet. Red Storm Rising is an alarmingly authentic portrait of escalating aggression between superpowers on all fronts--land, sea, air and space.


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2 cassettes / 3 hoursRead by Edward HerrmannThe first blockbuster novel in the thrilling Op Center series.Op-Center is a beating heart of defense, intelligence, and crisis management technology. It is run by a crack team of operatives both within its won walls and out in the field. And when a job is too dirty, or too dangerous, Op-Center is the only place out government can turn.Op-Center is the creation of Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik--inspiring this audio cassette, as well as the special NBC Television presentation.


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The second volume in the bestselling series of high-tech, high-action thrillers created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik -- repackaged in a stunning new-look cover. In Tom Clancy's Op-Centre, bestselling author Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik, novelist and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, have created an astonishingly popular thriller series, which has already sold over 1 million HarperCollins paperbacks. Now the first three volumes are being repackaged to coincide with the publication of the latest volume in the series, Acts of War. In this second volume, the new President of Russia is trying to create a new democratic regime. But there are strong elements within the country that are trying to stop him: the ruthless Russian Mafia, the right-wing nationalists and those nefarious forces that will do whatever it takes to return Russia to the days of the Czar. The Op-Centre team begins a race against the clock and against the hardliners. Their task is made even more difficult by the discovery of a Russian counterpart...but this one's controlled by those same repressive hardliners.


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Just in time for the ABC television event! Here comes a first: a new series of novels for young adults starring a team of troubleshooting teens--the Net Force Explorers--that knows more about cutting-edge technology than its teachers! The year is 2010, computers are superpowers. Those who control them, control the world. To enforce the Net Laws, Congress creates the ultimate computer security agency within the FBI: Net Force. When the director of Net Force is assassinated, Deputy Director Alex Michaels is thrust into one of the most powerful and dangerous positions in the world.


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Kurdish terrorists have attacked a dam inside the borders of Turkey, threatening the water supply of their homeland. It is not insanity, but the first step in a deceptively simple plan: force all-out war in the Middle East, drawing in the major players in the new world order. What the terrorists don't know is that a new Regional Op-Center is now on-line in Turkey and is a cutting edge surveillance and information mecca. Its team can see exactly what the Kurdish rebels are trying to do. But the terrorists are more resourceful than anyone thinks. They have ways of obtaining classified information, and the Regional Op-Center is a prize they can t possibly pass up . . .


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“Sometimes having company is not all it’s cracked up to be.” Fifteen-year-old Finn is a loner, living with his dad and his amazing dog, Dylan. This summer he’s hoping for a job where he doesn’t have to talk to anyone except his pal Matthew. Then Johanna moves in next door. She’s 10 years older, cool, funny, and she treats Finn as an equal. Dylan loves her, too. Johanna’s dealing with breast cancer, and Matthew and Finn learn to care for her, emotionally and physically. When she hires Finn to create a garden, his gardening ideas backfire comically. But Johanna and the garden help Finn discover his talents for connecting with people.


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An atmospheric new Fry and Cooper thriller for fans of Peter Robinson and Reginald Hill.A May Bank Holiday in the Peak District is ruined by the tragic drowning of an eight-year-old girl in picturesque Dovedale. For Detective Constable Ben Cooper, a helpless witness to the tragedy, the incident is not only traumatic, but leads him to become involved in the tangled lives of the Neilds, the dead girl's family.As he gets to know them, Cooper begins to suspect that one of them is harbouring a secret - a secret that the whole family might be willing to cover up.Meanwhile, Detective Sergeant Diane Fry has a journey of her own to make - a journey back to her roots. As she finds herself drawn into an investigation of her own among the inner-city streets of Birmingham, Fry realises there is only one person she can rely on to provide the help she needs.But that man is Ben Cooper, and he's back in Derbyshire, where his suspicions are leading him towards a shocking discovery on the banks of another Peak District river.


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As a good girl waiting for her chance to be bad, Grace McAllen felt lost and discontented. But all that changed one day when a gorgeous stranger with ocean blue eyes rode into tiny Edenville, Texas, on a Harley. Grace knew in her heart that the chance meeting was just the beginning of a grand new adventure....Don't miss this prequel story to bestselling author Susan Wiggs's novel, "The Ocean Between Us"!


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The stunning continuation of the timeless classic The Phantom of the Opera.In The Phantom of Manhattan, acclaimed, bestselling suspense novelist Frederick Forsyth pens a magnificent work of historical fiction, rife with the insights and sounds of turn-of-the-century New York City, while continuing the dramatic saga which began with Gaston Leroux's brilliant novel The Phantom of the Opera....More than two decades have passed since Antoinette Giry, the mistress of the corps de ballet at the Paris Opera, rescued a hideously disfigured boy named Erik from a carnival and brought him to live in the labyrinthine cellars of the opera house. Soon thereafter, his intense, unrequited love for a beautiful chorus girl set in motion a tragic string of events, forcing him to flee Paris forever. Now, as she lies dying in a convent, Madam Giry tells the untold story of the Phantom and his clandestine journey to New York City to start anew, where he would become a wealthy entrepreneur and build the glorious Manhattan Opera House....all so he could see his beloved, now a famous diva, once again. But the outcome of her visit would prove even more devastating than before-- and yet, would allow the Phantom to know, for the first time in his brutal life, the true meaning of love....


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In the newly unified Germany, old horrors are reborn. It is the beginning of Chaos Days, a time when neo-Nazi groups gather to spread violence and resurrect dead dreams. But this year Germany isn't the only target. Plans are afoot to destabilize Europe and cause turmoil throughout the United States. Paul Hood and his team, already in Germany to buy a technology for the new Regional Op-Center, become entangled in the crisis. They uncover a shocking force behind the chaos -- a group that uses cutting-edge technology to promote hate and to influence world events. A powerful profile of America's defense, intelligence, and crisis management technology, Tom Clancy's Op-Center is the creation of Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik -- inspiring this and other gripping novels.


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"Clancy knows how to build a thriller." - Boston GlobeSpain is a nation poised to suffer its worst internal strife in a thousand years. Certain well-placed Spanish diplomats sense it. Op-Center intelligence corroborates it. All the United States and Spain have to do is find a way to avert it.Before they can, an Op-Center representative is assassinated in Madrid on her way to a top secret diplomatic meeting. Now all fears are confirmed. Someone very powerful wants another Spanish civil war -- no matter what the cost.A powerful profile of America's defense, intelligence, and crisis management technology, Tom Clancy's Op-Center is the creation of Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik - inspiring this and other gripping novels.


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Ingrid Betancourt tells the story of her captivity in the Colombian jungle, sharing powerful teachings of resilience, resistance, and faith. Born in Bogotį, raised in France, Ingrid Betancourt at the age of thirty-two gave up a life of comfort and safety to return to Colombia to become a political leader in a country that was being slowly destroyed by terrorism, violence, fear, and a pervasive sense of hopelessness. In 2002, while campaigning as a candidate in the Colombian presidential elections, she was abducted by the FARC. Nothing could have prepared her for what came next. She would spend the next six and a half years in the depths of the jungle as a prisoner of the FARC. Even Silence Has an Endis her deeply personal and moving account of that time. Chained day and night for much of her captivity, she never stopped dreaming of escape and, in fact, succeeded in getting away several times, always to be recaptured. In her most successful effort she and a fellow captive survived a week away, but were caught when her companion became desperately ill; she learned later that they had been mere miles from freedom. The facts of her story are astounding, but it is Betancourt's indomitable spirit that drives this very special account, bringing life, nuance, and profundity to the narrative. Attending as intimately to the landscape of her mind as she does to the events of her capture and captivity, Even Silence Has an Endis a meditation on the very stuff of life-fear and freedom, hope and what inspires it. Betancourt tracks her metamorphosis, sharing how in the routines she established for herself-listening to her mother and two children broadcast to her over the radio, daily prayer-she was able to do the unthinkable: to move through the pain of the moment and find a place of serenity. Freed in 2008 by the Colombian army, today Betancourt is determined to draw attention to the plight of hostages and victims of terrorism throughout the world and it is that passion that motivates Even Silence Has an End. The lessons she offers here-in courage, resilience, and humanity-are gifts to treasure.


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Frank, no ordinary sixteen-year-old, lives with his father outsIde a remote Scottish village. Their life is, to say the least, unconventional. Frank's mother abandoned them years ago: his elder brother Eric is confined to a psychiatric hospital; and his father measures out his eccentricities on an imperial scale. Frank has turned to strange acts of violence to vent his frustrations. In the bizarre daily rituals there is some solace. But when news comes of Eric's escape from the hospital Frank has to prepare the ground for his brother's inevitable return - an event that explodes the mysteries of the past and changes Frank utterly. Iain Banks' celebrated first novel is a work of extraordinary originality, imagination and horrifying compulsion: horrifying, because it enters a mind whose realities are not our own, whose values of life and death are alien to our society; and compulsive, because the humour and compassion of that mind reach out to us all.


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"It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium, listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach’s Mass in B Minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Gallanach."So begins Iain Banks’ The Crow Road, the tale of Prentice McHoan and his complex but enduring Scottish family. Prentice, preoccupied with thoughts of sex, death, booze, drugs, and God, has returned to his home village of Gallanach full of questions about the McHoan past, present, and future.When his beloved Uncle Rory disappears, Prentice becomes obsessed with the papers Rory left behind — the notes and sketches for a book called The Crow Road. With the help of an old friend, Prentice sets out to solve the mystery of his uncle’s disappearance, inadvertently confronting the McHoans’ long association with tragedy — an association that includes his sister’s fatal car crash and his father’s dramatic death by lightning. The Crow Road is a coming-of-age story as only Iain Banks could write — an arresting combination of dark humor, menace, and thought-provoking meditations on the nature of love, mortality, and identity.


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In a world renowned even within a galaxy full of wonders, a crime within a war. For one brother it means a desperate flight, and a search for the one - maybe two - people who could clear his name.  For his brother it means a life lived under constant threat of treachery and murder.  And for their sister, even without knowing the full truth, it means returning to a place she'd thought abandoned forever.

Only the sister is not what she once was; Djan Seriy Anaplian has changed almost beyond recognition to become an agent of the Culture's Special Circumstances section, charged with high-level interference in civilisations throughout the greater galaxy.

Concealing her new identity - and her particular set of abilities - might be a dangerous strategy, however. In the world to which Anaplian returns, nothing is quite as it seems; and determining the appropriate level of interference in someone else's war is never a simple matter.

MATTER is a novel of dazzling wit and serious purpose. An extraordinary feat of storytelling and breathtaking invention on a grand scale, it is a tour de force from a writer who has turned science fiction on its head.


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


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In "The Quest for Meaning", Tariq Ramadan, philosopher and Islamic scholar, invites the reader to join him on a journey to the deep ocean of religious, secular, and indigenous spiritual traditions to explore the most pressing contemporary issues. Along the way, Ramadan interrogates the concepts that frame current debates including: faith and reason, emotions and spirituality, tradition and modernity, freedom, equality, universality, and civilization. He acknowledges the greatest flashpoints and attempts to bridge divergent paths to a common ground between these religious and intellectual traditions. He calls urgently for a deep and meaningful dialogue that leads us to go beyond tolerant co-existence to mutual respect and enrichment. Written in a both direct and meditative style this is an important, timely and intelligent book that aims to direct and shape debate around the most important questions of our time.


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Sent to unravel the mystery of an enigmatic monolith left on the moon by an unknown alien intelligence, two astronauts aboard the spacecraft Discovery find their journey into space and their very lives jeopardized by the jealousy of an extraordinary computer named Hal. Reissue.


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2010: Odyssey Two is a best-selling science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke, which was published in January 1982. It is the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1983.[1] The novel was adapted for the screen and released as a film in 1984.

The story is set nine years after the failure of the Discovery One mission to Jupiter.[4]

A joint Soviet-American crew,[5] including Heywood Floyd from 2001, on the Soviet spaceship Alexei Leonov (named after the famous cosmonaut) arrives to discover what went wrong with the earlier mission, to investigate the monolith in orbit around the planet, and to resolve the disappearance of David Bowman. They hypothesize that much of this information is locked away on the now-abandoned Discovery One. The Soviets have an advanced new "Sakharov" drive which will propel them to Jupiter ahead of the American Discovery Two, so Floyd is assigned to the Leonov crew.

However, a Chinese space station rockets out of Earth orbit, revealing itself to be the interplanetary spacecraft Tsien, also aimed at Jupiter. The Leonov crewmembers think the Chinese are on a one-way trip due to its speed, but Floyd surmises that due to the large water content of Europa they intend to land there and use the water content to refuel. The Tsien's daring mission ends in failure, when it is destroyed by an indigenous life-form on Europa. The only survivor radios the story to the Leonov; it is presumed that he dies when his spacesuit air supply runs out.


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One thousand years after the Jupiter mission to explore the mysterious Monolith had been destroyed, after Dave Bowman was transformed into the Star Child, Frank Poole drifted in space, frozen and forgotten, leaving the supercomputer HAL inoperable. But now Poole has returned to life, awakening in a world far different from the one he left behind--and just as the Monolith may be stirring once again. . . . A Main Selection of the Science Fiction Book Club®Selected by the Literary Guild® and Doubleday Book Club®


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Centenarian Heywood Floyd, survivor of two encounters with mysterious monoliths, once again confronts Dave Bowman, an independent HAL, and an unseen alien race


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Frostmourne.It was caught in a hovering, jagged chunk of ice, the runes that ran the length of its blade glowing a cool blue. Below it was a dais of some sort, standing on a large gently raised mound that was covered in a dusting of snow. A soft light, coming from somewhere high above where the cavern was open to daylight, shone down on the runeblade. The icy prison hid some details of the sword's shape and form, exaggerated others. It was revealed and concealed at the same time, and all the more tempting, like a new lover imperfectly glimpsed through a gauzy curtain. Arthas knew the blade -- it was the selfsame sword he had seen in his dream when he first arrived. The sword that had not killed Invincible, but that had brought him back healed and healthy. He'd thought it a good omen then, but now he knew it was a true sign. This was what he had come to find. This sword would change everything. Arthas stared raptly at it, his hands almost physically aching to grasp it, his fingers to wrap themselves around the hilt, his arms to feel the weapon swinging smoothly in the blow that would end Mal'Ganis, end the torment he had visited upon the people of Lordaeron, end this lust for revenge. Drawn, he stepped forward.The uncanny elemental spirit drew its icy sword. "Turn away, before it is too late," it intoned.* * *His evil is legend. Lord of the undead Scourge, wielder of the runeblade Frostmourne, and enemy of the free peoples of Azeroth. The Lich King is an entity of incalculable power and unparalleled malice -- his icy soul utterly consumed by his plans to destroy all life on the World of Warcraft.But it was not always so. Long before his soul was fused with that of the orc shaman Ner'zhul, the Lich King was Arthas Menethil, crown prince of Lordaeron and faithful paladin of the Silver Hand.When a plague of undeath threatened all that he loved, Arthas was driven to pursue an ill-fated quest for a runeblade powerful enough to save his homeland. Yet the object of his search would exact a heavy price from its new master, beginning a horrifying descent into damnation. Arthas's path would lead him through the arctic northern wastes toward the Frozen Throne, where he would face, at long last, the darkest of destinies.


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Thrall, wise shaman and the warchief of the Horde, has sensed a disturbing change . . . Long ago, Azeroth’s destructive native elementals raged across the world until the benevolent titans imprisoned them within the Elemental Plane. Despite the titans’ intervention, many elementals have ended up back on Azeroth. 

Over the ages, shaman like Thrall have communed with these spirits and, through patience and dedication, learned to soothe roaring infernos, bring rain to sun-scorched lands, and otherwise temper the elementals’ ruinous influence on the world of Azeroth. Now Thrall has discovered that the elementals no longer heed the shaman’s call. The link shared with these spirits has grown thin and frayed, as if Azeroth itself were under great duress. While Thrall seeks answers to what ails the confused elements, he also wrestles with the orcs’ precarious future as his people face dwindling supplies and growing hostility with their night elf neighbors. 

Meanwhile, King Varian Wrynn of Stormwind is considering violent action in response to mounting tensions between the Alliance and the Horde, a hard-line approach that threatens to alienate those closest to him, including his son, Anduin. The conflicted young prince has set out to find his own path, but in doing so, he risks becoming entangled in political instability that is setting the world on edge.The fate of Azeroth’s great races is shrouded in a fog of uncertainty, and the erratic behavior of the elemental spirits, troubling though it is, may only be the first ominous warning sign of the cataclysm to come. 
SUMMARY:
In this follow-up to her NY Times bestseller, ARTHAS, Christie Golden delivers a sensational tie-in to the newest World of Warcraft game expansion!


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In present-day Manhattan， four masked horsemen dressed as Templar  Knights stage a bloody raid on the Metropolitan Museum of Art during an exhibit of Vatican treasures. Emerging with a strange geared device， they disappear into the night. What follows is an investigation that will draw an archaeologist and FBI agent into the dark， hidden history of the crusading Knights-and into a deadly game of cat and mouse with ruthless killers-as they race across three continents to recover the lost secret of the Templars.


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When his parents are kidnapped, whats ten-year-old Charlie Ashanti to do? Rescue them, thats what! He doesnt know who has taken his parents, or why. But he does know that one special talent will aid him on his journeyhis amazing ability to speak Cat. Charlie calls on his clever feline friendsfrom stray city cats to magnificent caged lionsfor help. With them by his side, Charlie uses wit and courage to try to find his parents before its too late.  With its whirlwind action and suspense, Lionboy is a nonstop page-turner. Already being compared to J. K. Rowling, this mother-daughter writing team will fascinate readers of all ages with their Cat-speaking hero!


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在线阅读本书

  A beautiful, haunting evocation of the medieval Japan of Lian Hearn's imagination, this thrilling follow-up to Grass for His Pillow and Across the Nightingale Floor delves deeper into the complex loyalties that bind its characters from birth. Filled with adventure and surprising twists of plot and fortune, this final volume travels beyond the Three Countries, to the outside influences that threaten to intrude upon this isolated realm.


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The surprise fourth installment, the epic conclusion of Lian Hearn's beloved, bestselling Tales of the Otori. <br/><br/> The Harsh Cry of the Heron: The Last Tale of the Otori is a truly epic novel. It is the rich and satisfying conclusion to the Tales of the Otori series that both completes the characters' lives-prophesied and otherwise-and brilliantly illuminates unexpected aspects of the entire Otori saga. The Harsh Cry of the Heron is the only fitting end to such a stirring series: a book that takes the storytelling achievement of Lian Hearn's fantastic medieval Japanese world to startling new heights of drama and action. <br/><br/> Hearn's Otori series is the best (and only) literary expression of a cultural phenomenon that has swept through cinema (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), comics (manga), and popular culture at large. And, with this book, Hearn delivers in full ninja vs. samurai fashion the kinetic, simultaneously heartbreaking and uplifting resolution that the Otori's hundreds of thousands of fans richly deserve-whose epic satisfaction will surely draw even more readers into the fold.


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Lord Shigeru, heir to the Otori clan, faces hostility from the shrewdly ambitious Iida family in the East and base treachery at home from his uncles. His noble education and training as a warrior have prepared him for leadership and combat, but fate and Shigeru's youthful determination bring the Three Countries to war, and he must endure terrible and tragic defeat at thebattle of Yaegahara... and its brutal consequences.  Heaven's Net is Wide is the first and last Tale, which both closes the circle and introduces new readers to the strange and beautiful world of the Otori. It is an epic historical fantasy of revenge and betrayal, honour and loyalty, beauty and passion and the overwhelming power of love.


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在线阅读本书

  This is the first book in a new epic trilogy that has already become a bestselling sensation in England and Australia, earning comparisons to The Lord of the Rings. It begins with the legend of a nightingale floor in a black-walled fortress-a floor that sings in alarm at the step of an assassin. It will take true courage and all the skills of an ancient Tribe for one orphaned youth named Takeo to discover the magical destiny that awaits him...across the nightingale floor.


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Both Takeo and Kaede have visions of their future. Takeo works to escape the Tribe and fulfill the last wishes of his adoptive father, Lord Shigeru Otori. And Kaede, heir to two seats of power, moves forward step by step, aided by her own wits and a precarious alliance with Lord Fujiwara. In their separate worlds, the two long for each other, knowing that they are meant to be together, wondering if they will ever see each other again. . . .  'The beauty, savagery and strangeness of Hearn's gripping tale is heightened by her exquisite, crystalline prose. The second instalment in the "Tales of the Otori" is, astonishingly, even better than " Across the Nightingale Floor"' - Amanda Craig, " Independent on Sunday"


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In the year 2010, computers are the new superpower.  Those who control them control the world.  To enforce the New Laws, Congress creates the ultimate computer security agency with the FBI: the Net Force.

Instructions on how to make a bomb...a list of every U.S. spy in the Euro-Asian theater...Someone with access to classified information is posting it on the Internet-and it's costing lives.  Net Force Commander Alex Michaels is in the hot seat.  Now, before a hostile Senate committee, he must justify the very existence of the Net Force.

Meanwhile, a virus is unleashed that throws the federal financial systems into chaos.  And the Net Force operatives must hunt the wily hacker through the twists and turns of cyberspace-down a path that leads them dangerously close to home...


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Driven by greed, a group of U.N. peacekeeping soldiers called "Keepers" devises a shocking scheme to get the world's attention after their tour of duty ends. Op-Center head Paul Hood has to put retirement on hold because the Keepers have taken over the U.N., where his daughter is performing for ambassadors at a gala function. This time the Keepers have made it personal, and the Op-Center forces will strike with deadly vengeance.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

It's a mission that only Striker -- the military arm of Op-Center -- can handle: capture an Islamic cleric who is stirring up a rebellion against the Indian government. But when the border between India and Pakistan erupts, the Striker team gets caught in the crossfire. Now America's most proficient covert team is trapped in a full-fledged war. Their fate rests in the hands of a devious double agent whose own agenda is unknown -- a man who could just as easily sell them out as set them free.... 

 A powerful profile of America's defense, intelligence, and crisis management technology, *Tom Clancy's Op-Center* is the creation of Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik -- inspiring this and other gripping audiobooks.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Shadowy elements within the State Department secretly cause tensions to flare between Iran and the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. They hope to start a shooting war to increase their own power and profit. 

 At the same time, the conspirators decide to up the ante -- by deposing the President of the United States. In a treacherous scheme, they convince the President that he is mentally unstable, and a silent coup d'etat is within their reach. 

 Now, Paul Hood and the members of Op-Center are pitted against the clock to prevent the outbreak of war, save the honor of the President -- and expose the traitors within... 

 *A powerful profile of America's defense, intelligence, and crisis management technology,* Tom Clancy's Op-Center *is the creation of Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik -- inspiring this and other gripping audiobooks.*


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When Op-Center's budget is cut, General Mike Rodgers finds himself out of a job until he is propositioned by a Senator Donald Orr, who, making a run for president as the head of his own third party, needs a military advisor, but his new position comes with a high price - murder. Original.


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Updated with new material on Seawolf and Virginia    "Takes readers deeper than they ve ever gone inside a nuclear submarine." (Kirkus Reviews)    A rare glimpse inside a Los Angeles-class (SSN-688) nuclear submarine with Tom Clancy as your guide...    Only the author of The Hunt for Red October could capture the reality of life aboard a nuclear submarine. Only a writer of Mr. Clancy s magnitude could obtain security clearance for information， diagrams， and photographs never before available to the public. Now， every civilian can enter this top secret world and experience the drama and excitement of this stunning technological achievement...the weapons， the procedures， the people themselves.    Submarine includes:  * Exclusive photographs， illustrations， and diagrams  * Mock war scenarios and weapons launch procedures  * An inside look at life on board， from captain to crew， from training exercises to operations  * The fascinating history and evolution of submarines  * Tom Clancy s controversial views on submariner tactics and training methods.


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CIA operative Mitch Rapp follows a trail of contract killers leading directly to the heart of our nation's capital in "New York Times" bestselling author Vince Flynn's eighth explosive thriller. It's a gorgeous autumn day in Georgetown. The Democratic candidates for president and vice president of the United States are dutifully glad-handing voters and the media outside a grand estate where a national security conference has just been held, bringing together the world's greatest minds to discuss the issues that are threatening the country. It's American politicking at its best. That's when all hell breaks loose. When presidential candidate Josh Alexander's motorcade is ambushed by a group of terrorists, the nation is thrown into turmoil. Two weeks following the attack, Alexander is carried to victory by a sympathy vote, but his assailants have not been found. On the surface it appears to be the work of al-Qaeda, despite the tremendous job that the U.S. and her allies have done eliminating terrorist cells within the heart of America. While the FBI and the rest of the government begin scouring the world for jihadists, CIA director Irene Kennedy and Special Agent Skip McMahon are presented with classified information so toxic that they consider destroying it altogether, as it contains intelligence pointing to some of the most powerful players in Washington. Enter Mitch Rapp, the one man reckless enough to follow the evidence to its explosive conclusion. His journey takes him through the shadowy world of contract killers, into the darkest corners of the globe, and eventually back to Washington, where the fragile pillars of power are shaken to their core.


