. . lots of hair, when Disney Tangled comes to theaters Holiday 2010! With over 64 pages of gorgeous full-color illustrations, this hardcover Read-Aloud Storybook retells the complete story of the swashbuckling, computer-animated comedy.

    Near the turn of the 20th century, fiery Marta leaves Switzerland determined to find life on her own terms. Her journey takes her through Europe and finally lands her with children and husband in tow in the central valley of California. Marta's experiences convince her that only the strong survive. Hildie, Marta's oldest daughter, has a heart to serve others, and her calling as a nurse gives her independence, if not the respect of her mother. Amid the drama of WWII, Hildie marries and begins a family of her own. She wants her daughter never to doubt her love, but the challenges of life conspire against her vow. Each woman is forced to confront her faulty but well-meaning desire to help her daughter find her God-given place in the world.

    Meg, a widow and recent empty-nester who is haunted by her past. Mara, a woman who has experienced a lifetime of rejection and is now trying to navigate a difficult marriage. Charissa, a hard-working graduate student who wants to get things right. You?re invited to join these four women as they reluctantly arrive at a retreat center and find themselves drawn out of their separate stories of isolation and struggle and into a collective journey of spiritual practice, mutual support and personal revelation. Along the way, readers will be taken into a new understanding of key spiritual practices and find tangible support for the deeper life with God. If you want to travel this journey with others, you will find a group study guide and book club resources at www.sensibleshoesclub.com.

    The game is the second installment in The Adventure Company's Agatha Christie series. The setting is five years before the events in Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None, with a largely unrelated storyline. The plot follows an amateur sleuth, Antoinette Marceau, and her investigation of a murder with twelve possible suspects aboard the Orient Express, which has been blocked by an avalanche in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia during 1934. She is aided by famous detective Hercule Poirot.Murder on the Orient Express retains the main plot elements of Agatha Christie's novel of the same name. An additional ending is presented in the game which differs from the conclusion of Christie's novel. As with And Then There Were None, Christie's novel has been bundled with the game. Some reviewers of Murder on the Orient Express criticized the game because of the repetitive nature of tasks the player must complete, and also complained about the inefficient and cumbersome inventory system.

    Helena got away with murder and the money, while two backwoods lawmen failed to unravel the mystery of who killed Elmer Kane. The case went unsolved from 1958 until early in the cyberspace age, when Helena Hollister surfaced in Right Bank, Paris as Anna Ward.

    About a billion of them, in fact. You see, Joe's rich. Really, really rich. Joe's got his own bowling alley, his own cinema, even his own butler who is also an orangutan. He's the wealthiest twelve-year-old in the land.But Joe isn't happy. Why not? Because he's got a billion pounds… and not a single friend. But then someone comes along, someone who likes Joe for Joe, not for his money. The problem is, Joe's about to learn that when money is involved, nothing is what it seems.The best things in life are free, they say – and if Joe's not careful, he's going to lose them all…

    Journalist Daisy Harris is looking for a big scoop at her first Festival and is determined to embrace her new single status amongst all the glitz and glamour.Behind the champagne and parties, secrets from the past are bubbling to the surface and difficult decisions need to be taken.One thing's for certain - by the end of the Film Festival their lives will have changed forever…

    When two coarse, rough-speaking individuals come to claim her, she can remember nothing of the events that brought her to her present state, not even her name. According to the men, she is their young sister, Lucy. As her health improves and her memory gradually returns, she realises she's been kidnapped. But she has no means of escaping the hideous confines of the filthy basement room in which they have imprisoned her in.They are hoping to claim her fortune as a ransom - for she is really Lucetta Froy, the daughter of a prosperous importer. Tragically her parents were drowned on the return voyage from Bali when their ship went down, but Lucetta survived as did the two villains. She is unable to prove her identity, especially when her uncle refuses to recognise her and claims her father's business for himself. But despite being virtually destitute, and her spirit almost broken, Lucetta is determined to reclaim what is rightfully hers...

    Mia Wasikowska stars as 19-year-old Alice, who returns to the whimsical world she first encountered as a young girl, reuniting with her childhood friends: the White Rabbit, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Dormouse, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, and of course, the Mad Hatter. Alice embarks on a fantastical journey to find her true destiny and end the Red Queen's reign of terror.

    The collection was followed by her best-selling and critically acclaimed novel The Namesake—a finely wrought, deeply moving family drama. Presenting these works together here, this edition displays Lahiri’s enormous talent as a storyteller.

    In a small fictional town on the Oregon coast there are love affairs and almost-love-affairs, mystery and hilarity, bears and tears, brawls and boats, a garrulous logger and a silent doctor, rain and pain, Irish immigrants and Salish stories, mud and laughter. There's a Department of Public Works that gives haircuts and counts insects, a policeman addicted to Puccini, a philosophizing crow, beer and berries. An expedition is mounted, a crime committed, and there's an unbelievably huge picnic on the football field. Babies are born. A car is cut in half with a saw. A river confesses what it's thinking. . . It's the tale of a town, written in a distinct and lyrical voice, and readers will close the book more than a little sad to leave the village of Neawanaka, on the wet coast of Oregon, beneath the hills that used to boast the biggest trees in the history of the world.

    But Rashed Rum is near retirement. And when he goes, there will be a contest to determine his successor. It is a contest that thin, puny Jebel has no chance of winning. Humiliated and ashamed, Jebel sets out on a quest to the faraway home of a legendary fire god to beg for inhuman powers so that he can become the most lethal of men. He must take with him a slave, named Tel Hesani, to be sacrificed to the god. It will be a dark and brutal journey filled with lynch mobs, suicide cults, terrible monsters, and worse, monstrous men. But to Jebel, the risk is worth it. To retrieve his honor . . . To wield unimaginable power . . . To become . . . The thin executionerInspired by theAdventures of Huckleberry Finn, international bestselling master of horror Darren Shan takes readers on a thrilling, fast-paced journey into a nightmarish world where compassion and kindness are the greatest crimes of all.

    We follow her story from the perspective of five different characters, who also talk about themselves, as well as the troubled Slovenian times before and during World War II; times that swallowed, like a Moloch, not only the people of various beliefs involved in historical events, but also those who lived on the fringes of tumultuous events, which they did not even fully comprehend—they only wanted to live. But “only” to live was an illusion: it was a time when, even under the seemingly safe and idyllic shelter of a manor house in Slovenia, it was impossible to avoid the rushing train of violence.

    In what modern Indians mistakenly call the Indus Valley Civilisation. The inhabitants of that period called it the land of Meluha a near perfect empire created many centuries earlier by Lord Ram, one of the greatest monarchs that ever lived. This once proud empire and its Suryavanshi rulers face severe perils as its primary river, the revered Saraswati, is slowly drying to extinction. They also face devastating terrorist attacks from the east, the land of the Chandravanshis. To make matters worse, the Chandravanshis appear to have allied with the Nagas, an ostracised and sinister race of deformed humans with astonishing martial skills!The only hope for the Suryavanshis is an ancient legend: When evil reaches epic proportions, when all seems lost, when it appears that your enemies have triumphed, a hero will emerge.Is the rough-hewn Tibetan immigrant Shiva, really that hero? And does he want to be that hero at all? Drawn suddenly to his destiny, by duty as well as by love, will Shiva lead the Suryavanshi vengeance and destroy evil?

    Yet a routine delivery goes horribly wrong, crashing in central France, and the world calls in the best experts available to find out why. Jammer Davis has a reputation for getting things done, and letting no one stand in his way. His first finding is troublesome-he has been inserted into the investigation at the behest of the CIA. Soon suicide attackers launch a series of strikes against oil refineries around the world. As financial markets fall into a tailspin, a relentless Davis keeps digging. What he finds is a conspiracy of unthinkable proportions. One he might not be able to stop.

    When he is reported missing, believed killed in action, Belinda discovers that she is pregnant. Facing disgrace and ruin, she has no option other than to accept an arranged marriage with a middle-aged widower, knowing she must keep the secret of her child's birth for ever. Reluctantly she sends her beloved daughter to a foster mother in Cripplegate, little realising she has entrusted Cassy's care to Biddy Henchard, a woman who runs a notorious baby farm in an area full of poverty and disease. Despite her terrible upbringing, Cassy survives the old woman's cruel neglect. All the while she dreams of a mother she has never known, hoping she will come and save her from her dreadful fate. But when Biddy dies suddenly, ten-year-old Cassy finds herself destitute and with little hope of ever finding the mother she so longs for...

    M. Homes. “It is a place where things are not what they seem; even on a morning that is sunny and clear there is always the threat of darkness looming, of things taking a turn for the worse.” Jackson’s characters–mostly unloved daughters in search of a home, a career, a family of their own–chase what appears to be a harmless dream until, without warning, it turns on its heel to seize them by the throat. We are moved by these characters’ dreams, for they are the dreams of love and acceptance shared by us all. We are shocked when their dreams become nightmares, and terrified by Jackson’s suggestion that there are unseen powers–“demons” both subconscious and supernatural–malevolently conspiring against human happiness.In this volume Joyce Carol Oates, our leading practitioner of the contemporary Gothic, presents the essential works of Shirley Jackson, the novels and stories that, from the early 1940s through the mid-1960s, wittily remade the genre of psychological horror for an alienated, postwar America. She opens with The Lottery (1949), Jackson’s only collection of short fiction, whose disquieting title story–one of the most widely anthologized tales of the twentieth century–has entered American folklore. Also among these early works are “The Daemon Lover,” a story Oates praises as “deeper, more mysterious, and more disturbing than ‘The Lottery,’” and “Charles,” the hilarious sketch that launched Jackson’s secondary career as a domestic humorist.Here too are Jackson’s masterly short novels The Haunting of Hill House (1959), the tale of an achingly empathetic young woman chosen by a haunted house to be its new tenant, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962), the unrepentant confessions of Miss Merricat Blackwood, a cunning adolescent who has gone to quite unusual lengths to preserve her ideal of family happiness. Rounding out the volume are 21 other stories and sketches that showcase Jackson in all her many modes, and the essay “Biography of a Story,” Jackson’s acidly funny account of the public reception of “The Lottery,” which provoked more mail from readers of The New Yorker than any contribution before or since.

    Scott is a dejected 24 year old struggling to make ends meet working for his brother and supplementing his income with a small-scale drug dealing operation. Angela is an attractive 23 year old, raised by her father, a career criminal and small time drug dealer who supplies Scott with cannabis. This is a chilling tale spanning a few months in the lives of Scott and Angela, where realizations about the present combine with shocking revelations from the past leading to an apocalyptic climax where they no longer know whom they can trust.

    It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits. Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough ... not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work. Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

    While walking around his gated community, he becomes friendly with his next-door neighbor, Caroline Kelly, and her golden retriever, Rochester.When Caroline is shot and killed while walking Rochester, Steve becomes the dog’s temporary guardian. Together, these two unlikely sleuths work to uncover the mystery behind Caroline’s death. Neil S. Plakcy is the author of the award-winning Mahu mystery series, and coeditor of Paws and Reflect: A Special Bond Between Man and Dog.

    But this selection brings old favorites to those fans in a sparkling package and will introduce new readers to the funniest writer in the English language. Right Ho, Jeeves; Joy in the Morning; and Very Good, Jeeves follow the adventures of two magnificently improbable characters. Bertie Wooster is an amiable young gentleman of excellent and ancient family—so he says—with plenty of money and no professional ambitions. Jeeves is his gentleman's gentleman, the soul of discretion, and a deep thinker, at least compared to Wooster. Jeeves brings tea and hangover cures in the morning, tempers his master's dubious taste in clothes, and invariably manages to extricate Wooster from fantastic predicaments of his own devising. Without Jeeves, Wooster would either be in jail or married to one or another terrifying young woman of his Aunt Agatha's choosing. Unlike life, a Wodehouse story always works out well in the end.

    others recall his on-field arrogance. Some say he fixed matches . . . others say he was dropped for being Tamil! Who exactly was Pradeep Mathew? And what became of him?WG Karunasena, a man who spent 64 years drinking arrack and watching cricket decides to find out ...If you have never seen a cricket match; or if you have and it has made you snore ...If you can’t understand why anyone would watch, let alone obsess over this dull game ...... then this IS the book for you

    Morton's first two unforgettable novels in one volume: The House at Riverton plus The Forgotten Garden.

    His grand-nephew, Ptolemy's only connection to the outside world, was recently killed in a drive-by shooting, and Ptolemy is too suspicious of anyone else to allow them into his life. until he meets Robyn, his niece's seventeen-year-old lodger and the only one willing to take care of an old man at his grandnephew's funeral. But Robyn will not tolerate Ptolemy's hermitlike existence. She challenges him to interact more with the world around him, and he grasps more firmly onto his disappearing consciousness. However, this new activity pushes Ptolemy into the fold of a doctor touting an experimental drug that guarantees Ptolemy won't live to see age ninety- two but that he'll spend his last days in feverish vigor and clarity. With his mind clear, what Ptolemy finds-in his own past, in his own apartment, and in the circumstances surrounding his grand-nephew's death-is shocking enough to spur an old man to action, and to ensure a legacy that no one will forget. In The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, Mosley captures the compromised state of his protagonist's mind with profound sensitivity and insight, and creates an unforgettable pair of characters at the center of a novel that is sure to become a true contemporary classic.

    A land of mystery, strange beauty, high adventure and arcane magic. Kings are at war, opposing magicians devise ever more cunning stratagems. It is a land where princesses and changelings both can become embroiled in political rivalries and the quest for the grail. Jack Vance's Complete Lyonesse is a perfect addition to the series, contains Suldrun's Garden, The Green Pearl, and Madouc (the novel for which Vance won the World Fantasy Award). The Gollancz Black Books have proved to be an immensely successful formula for getting well loved stories into the hands of people who also love well made books.

    James Robertson's breathtaking novel is a portrait of modern Scotland as seen through the eyes of natives and immigrants, journalists and politicians, drop-outs and spooks, all trying to make their way through a country in the throes of great and rapid change. It is a moving, sweeping story of family, friendship, struggle and hope - epic in every sense.The winner of the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award 2010, And the Land Lay Still is a masterful insight into Scotland's history in the twentieth century and a moving, beautifully written novel of intertwined stories.

    She has more game in the streets than a basketball player does on the court, and her boyfriend, Fame, loves every single inch of her. But unlike her mother, who has been in one bad relationship after another, Desember is not going to wait on a knight in shining armor to save her, and even her love for Fame can’t stand in the way of Desember selling anything and everything—legal or illegal—that can turn a profit, so that she never has to depend on a man. The only thing Desember feels she’s lacking is a father to call her own. And her mother refuses to tell Desember who he is.When Fame finds himself at the wrong end of a gun, fighting for his life, Desember wants nothing more than to stand by her man, but Fame warns her from his hospital bed that she isn’t safe. Desember wonders if she was the real target. Her mother, concerned for Desember’s safety, arranges for her daughter to travel to Richmond, Virginia, to live with Desember’s father and his wife.And when her father’s identity is finally revealed, Desember learns that she is a Natural Born Hustler.But are her troubles really over? Or is the worst yet to come?

    Only after a firsthand lesson in Kristiano brutality does Black Shell fully comprehend the dangers these invaders pose to his people’s way of life. And while his first instinct is to run far from the Kristianos, Black Shell has been called to a greater destiny—by the Spirit Being known as Horned Serpent. With Pearl Hand by his side, Black Shell must find a way to unite the disparate tribes and settlements of his native land and overcome the merciless armies of de Soto. . . .

    Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: The Alchemist, the Devil and Miss Prym, Veronika Decides to Die, Eleven Minutes, the Witch of Portobello, the Zahir, by the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, the Pilgrimage, the Fifth Mountain, the Valkyries. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: The Alchemist (Portuguese: ) is an allegorical novel by Paulo Coelho first published in 1988. It has been hailed as a modern classic. The Alchemist was originally written in Portuguese and has since been translated into 56 languages, winning the Guinness World Record for most translated book by a living author. It has sold more than 65 million copies in more than 150 countries, becoming one of the best-selling books in history. The story follows Santiago, a young shepherd who lives in Spain, on a journey to fulfil his personal legend and find his treasure in the Pyramids of Egypt The Advertiser, an Australian newspaper, published one of the first reviews of The Alchemist in 1993 saying "of books that I can recommend with the unshakable confidence of having read them and been entranced, impressed, entertained or moved, the universal gift is perhaps a limpid little fable called The Alchemist... In hauntingly spare prose, translated from the Brazilian original in Portuguese, it follows a young Andalusian shepherd into the desert on his quest for a dream and the fulfilment of his destiny." Since then, the novel has received nearly universal praise, making it to the top spot on best seller lists in 74 countries and winning prestigious awards in Germany and Italy. It has been called a "charming story," "a brilliant, simple narrative," and "a wonderful tale, a metaphor of life," from people in places as diverse as South Africa, Finland, and Turkey. It has been praised by public figure...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=1433579

    But in a strange twist of fate, their town’s matriarch, an eccentric, wealthy old woman whose family once owned the county coal mines, hears the boys’ story. Candace Jack doesn’t have an ounce of maternal instinct, yet for reasons she does not even understand herself, she is compelled to offer them a home.Suddenly, the two boys go from living in a small, run-down house on a gravel road to a stately mansion filled with sumptuous furnishings and beautiful artwork—artwork that’s predominantly centered, oddly, on bullfighting. And then there’s Miss Jack’s real-life bull: Ventisco—a regal, hulking, jet-black beast who roams the land she owns with fiery impudence.Kyle adjusts more easily to the transition. A budding artist, he finds a kindred spirit in Miss Jack. But local baseball hero Klint refuses to warm up to his new benefactress and instead throws himself into his game with a fierceness that troubles his little brother. Klint is not just grieving his father’s death; he’s carrying a terrible secret that he has never revealed to anyone. Unbeknownst to the world, Candace Jack has a secret too—a tragic, passionate past in Spain that the boys’ presence threatens to reveal as she finds herself caring more for them than she ever believed possible.From the muted, bruised hills of Pennsylvania coal country to the colorful, flamboyant bull rings of southern Spain, Tawni O’Dell takes us on a riveting journey not only between two completely different lands, but also between seemingly incompatible souls, casting us under her narrative spell in which characters and places are rendered with fragile tenderness.

    45 pages of summaries and analysis on Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.br/br/This study guide, written by BookRags.com, includes the following sections: Plot Summary, Chapter Summaries Analysis, Characters, Objects/Places, Themes, Style, and Topics for Discussion.

    A tiny silver key hidden in her wrappings is the only clue to the child's identity and so begins a story as intriguing and beautiful as the city of Florence itself. Belinda Alexandra's new novel, TUSCAN ROSE, is set in Italy during the time of Mussolini. This richly woven tale of passion, love, longing, witchcraft and magic promises to be everything her readers love and more.

    The struggles, rivalries, intricate family politics, and the interplay of personalities and relationships within the complex private world of a polygamous union come to life in The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives—Big Love and The 19th Wife set against a contemporary African background.

    Expelled from three Jewish day-schools for acts of violence and messianic tendencies, Gurion ends up in the Cage, a special lockdown program for the most hopeless cases of Aptakisic Junior High. Separated from his scholarly followers, Gurion becomes a leader of a very different sort, with righteous aims building to a revolution of troubling intensity.The Instructions is an absolutely singular work of fiction by an important new talent. Combining the crackling voice of Philip Roth with the encyclopedic mind of David Foster Wallace, Adam Levin has shaped a world driven equally by moral fervor and slapstick comedy—a novel that is muscular and exuberant, troubling and empathetic, monumental, breakneck, romantic, and unforgettable.

    Exhumed from dust, Manto’s unpublished novel surfaces in Lucknow. Is it real or is it a fake? In this dastan, Manto and Ghalib converse, entwining their lives in shared dreams. The result is an intellectual journey that takes us into the people and events that shape us as a culture. As one writer describes it, ‘I discovered Rabisankar Bal like a torch in the darkness of the history of this subcontinent. This is the real story of two centuries of our own country.’ Rabisankar Bal’s audacious novel, told by reflections in a mirror and forged in the fires of hell, is both an oral tale and a shield against oblivion. An echo of distant screams. Inscribed by the devil’s quill, Dozakhnama is an outstanding performance of subterranean memory.

    Four mysterious powers. They seem like ordinary girls living in Los Angeles. But they each have a secret. Vanessa can become invisible. Catty can travel through time. Serena reads minds, and Jimena has premonitions. As they become friends, their incredible powers bind them together as The Daughters of the Moon. In Book One, Vanessa, who has always had the power to become invisible, discovers that she and her best friend Catty, a time-traveler, are goddesses of the moon who must fight together to overcome the evil Atrox. In Book Two, Serena, a moon goddess who has the gift of reading minds, is torn between joining the dark force of the evil Atrox and staying with her friends. In Book Three, ex-gang member Jimena is terrified by the reappearance of Veto, who was once the love of her life. Veto was killed a year ago by a rival gang. Or was he? Jimena discovers that he has made a devil's bargain, which could cost both of them their lives.

    After she is sexually and emotionally abused by her foster parents, she turns to the one person she knows she can trust--her boyfriend Chu, a mid-level drug dealer. But when life finally starts looking up for Camille, Chu is brutally murdered. Again feeling abandoned and helpless, and refusing to return to the system, Camille finds herself living with a stable of women in a tiny run-down apartment building in Washington, D.C., working for Nut, a deranged pimp. Fed up with her life, Camille is forced to right her wrongs, and slowly learns that her past does not necessarily determine her future.

    Then Charlie's business empire crashes and he vanishes. While their privileged beautiful daughters Olivia and Emma have to come to terms with being broke, eleven-year-old Mac refuses to talk about what happened. When Charlie's estranged mother, Vera opens her doors to the broken family, secrets emerge that reveal there was more to Charlie than meets the eye. But Charlie's shell shocked family aren't the only ones asking questions . . . The darkly enigmatic Russian billionaire Lukaz Mihailov arrives in Dublin with some unfinished business. What better way to track down Charlie than befriend his pretty and very vulnerable, abandoned wife Shelley . . . Is blood is always thicker than water? Maybe Charlie's family are simply better off without him ....

    The book originated as the novelette "Ender's Game," published in the August 1977 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Elaborating on characters and plot lines depicted in the novel, Card later wrote additional books to form the Ender's Game series. Card released an updated version of Ender's Game in 1991, changing some political facts to accurately reflect the times. Set in Earth's future, the novel presents an imperiled humankind who have barely survived two conflicts with the Formics (an insectoid alien race also known as the "Buggers"). In preparation for an anticipated third invasion, an international fleet maintains a school to find and train future fleet commanders. The world's most talented children, including the novel's protagonist Ender Wiggin, are taken at a very young age to a training center known as the Battle School. There, teachers train them in the arts of war through increasingly difficult games including ones undertaken in zero gravity in the Battle Room where Ender's tactical genius is revealed.

    To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, costly courtesans, earthquakes, and typhoons comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancée back in Holland.But Jacob’s original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and midwife to the city’s powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken. The consequences will extend beyond Jacob’s worst imaginings. As one cynical colleague asks, “Who ain’t a gambler in the glorious Orient, with his very life?”A magnificent mix of luminous writing, prodigious research, and heedless imagination, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is the most impressive achievement of its eminent author.

    Her bitchy new boss at the radio station humiliates her live on air about her figure, her glamour-puss mum keeps dropping not-so-subtle hints that Maddie should lose weight and her kids are embarrassed to be seen with her after the disastrous Mums' race at their school sports day. Something's got to change...

    But as the son of a single father working in warehouses across the Pacific Northwest, Charley's been pretty much on his own. When tragic events leave him homeless weeks after their move to Portland, Oregon, Charley seeks refuge in the tack room of a run-down horse track. Charley's only comforts are his friendship with a failing racehorse named Lean on Pete and a photograph of his only known relative. In an increasingly desperate circumstance, Charley will head east, hoping to find his aunt who had once lived a thousand miles away in Wyoming — but the journey to find her will be a perilous one. In Vlautin's third novel, Lean on Pete, he reveals the lives and choices of American youth like Charley Thompson who were failed by those meant to protect them and who were never allowed the chance to just be a kid.

    A violent, epic, action-packed urban quest full of very eccentric, often hilarious, extremely dangerous characters who also happen to be animals — the wildlife of New York City, to be exact.

    Will she get her man or destroy herself and everyone else in the process?

    Yet the full story of the conflict between the two most famous Transformers—everything that happened before Optimus and Megatron arrived on planet Earth—has always been a mystery . . . until now. Here, for the first time told in its entirety, is the thrilling saga of Optimus and Megatron before they were enemies, before they even knew each other. “Freedom is every Cybertronian’s right!” After Megatron utters these immortal words, the caste-bound planet of Cybertron is rocked to its foundations. Megatron, an undefeated gladiator thug, gives voice to the unspoken longings of the oppressed masses—and opens the mind of an insignificant data clerk to possibilities previously unthinkable.Long before becoming the honorable Optimus Prime, Orion Pax is a mere office underling, an unlikely candidate to answer an outlaw’s call to revolution. But Orion is determined to meet this defiant enemy of all that Cybertron stands for, no matter what he has to do, or how many laws he has to break.What happens between Orion Pax and Megatron forever changes the destiny of all Transformers. This gripping, action-packed novel reveals all the loyalties and treacheries, trust and betrayals, deadly violence and shining ideals, as well as the pivotal roles played by other characters, including Starscream, Sentinel Prime, Omega Supreme, and one of the thirteen original Primes, the last link to Cybertron’s glorious Golden Age.Discover how meek disciple Orion Pax becomes the fearless leader Optimus Prime; follow the tantalizing clues about the lost Matrix of Leadership and the lore surrounding it; find out why the two allies fighting a corrupt regime suddenly turn on each other, and what triggers their epic war. Transformers: Exodus provides everything fans ever wanted to know about one of the fiercest rivalries of all time.

    And his greatest creation was, of course, Flashman. The novels collected here find our hero in the midst of his usual swashbuckling adventures of derring-do: fleeing adversaries in the First Anglo-Afghan War; meeting and nearly deceiving a young Abraham Lincoln in America; alternately impersonating a native Indian cavalry recruit and wooing women in India; and managing, whatever the circumstances, to keep his hero’s reputation unsullied.A must-have treat for the legions of dedicated Flashman fans, and a delightful introduction for those lucky enough to be encountering him for the first time.

    Her father slowly slips into alcoholism and his business suffers during the Great Depression. As her mother tries to come to grips with their situation and her sisters seem to remain blissfully oblivious to it, it is Kate who must shoulder the emotional load. Who could imagine that a dirty, abandoned little girl named Lorena Birdsong would be just what the Merritts need? In this richly textured novel, award-winning author Ann H. Gabhart reveals the power of true love, the freedom of forgiveness, and the strength to persevere through troubled times. Multidimensional characters face real and trenchant problems while maintaining their family bonds, all against the backdrop of a sultry Kentucky summer. Readers will be drawn into the story and find themselves lingering there long after they've finished the book.

    Caught up in a game of fast money, faster women, and a hustler's dream, Rasheed's secrets and lies threaten to completely sever his alliance with his baby's mother Michelle. Trapped in an emotional whirlwind of sex, love, and mistrust, Michelle attempts to hold the threads of their lives together. With the passing of each day their bond unravels further forcing Michelle closer to confronting the reality which is her life or suffering in silence. A cautionary tale for all "Baby Mommas" filled with tragedy,irony,violence and betrayal.

    Faith has abandoned faith and tradition to earn her fortune and protect her sisters and herself from arranged marriages. Can a god-fearing captain in the Royal British Navy teach her about true love? Hope has chased what she thought was love all the way into the Caribbean, but will the sacrifices of a ship builder be enough to show her the truth about love? Grace has piously clung to her version of truth, but will a French mercenary have something to teach her about redemption and love?

    This acclaimed book delivers beautifully illustrated information for learning palpation and the musculoskeletal system. It makes mastering the essential manual therapy skills interesting, memorable and easy. With 440 pages and 1,400 illustrations covering more than 162 muscles, 206 bones, 33 ligaments and 110 bony landmarks, this text provides an invaluable map of the body. A complimentary DVD for practicing palpation is included with the textbook.

    Elder sister Gloria finds romance with the boy next door, until her wealthy, but snobbish and interfering Aunt Sybil steps in, offering her the opportunity of a lifetime. A trip to New York gives Gloria everything she desires - including a wealthy husband. Meanwhile, Betty chooses a career at sea, which offers challenges, personal danger and romance. But with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 tragedy strikes for one of the sisters and through these trials they come to value the bonds of family more than ever. Will they eventually achieve the happiness they desire?

    Nevertheless, his handling of psychological depth is unmatched in the field.This major collection features all of Poe's horror, detective, and science fiction, and includes the complete Poe illustrations of Harry Clarke, Fritz Eichenberg, Gahan Wilson, and Arthur Rackham, among others, including some new and fine color paintings by Swiss artist Gwabryel. Bound in three-piece cloth with ribbon marker, translucent overlays, and enclosed in a cloth slipcase. The introduction is by Poe scholar Mark Samuels.

    Fans of the cult hit TV series won't want to miss this pivotal 6-issue tale!

    It was the deadliest attack in Morocco’s history. The bombers came from the shantytowns of Sidi Moumen, a poor suburb on the edge of a dump whose impoverished residents rarely if ever set foot in the cosmopolitan city at their doorstep. Mahi Binebine’s novel Horses of God follows four childhood friends growing up in Sidi Moumen as they make the life-changing decisions that will lead them to become Islamist martyrs.The seeds of fundamentalist martyrdom are sown in the dirt-poor lives of Yachine, Nabil, Fuad, and Ali, all raised in Sidi Moumen. The boys’ soccer team, The Stars of Sidi Moumen, is their main escape from the poverty, violence, and absence of hope that pervade their lives. When Yachine’s older brother Hamid falls under the spell of fundamentalist leader Abu Zoubeir, the attraction of a religion that offers discipline, purpose, and guidance to young men who have none of these things becomes too seductive to ignore.Narrated by Yachine from the afterlife, Horses of God portrays the sweet innocence of childhood and friendship as well as the challenges facing those with few opportunities for a better life. Binebine navigates the controversial situation with compassion, creating empathy for the boys, who believe they have no choice but to follow the path offered them.Winner of the 2010 Prix du Roman Arabe and Prix Littéraire Mamounia"The novel provides context and perspective to often little-explored issues, offering incredible insight into the complex lives of poor boys who are groomed to kill themselves for a cause and commit violent acts in the name of religion. Binebine portrays these young men as supremely human, victims of powers much larger than themselves, and like any Kafkaesque anti-hero, cogs in an incomprehensible and monstrous machine."--Starred Publishers Weekly"Moroccan painter, novelist, and former math teacher Binebine (Welcome to Paradise) writes with humor and pathos amid the novel’s grinding tragedy but never allows the narrative to veer into self-pity or cheap sentimentality. The book is based on the 2004 suicide bombings in Casablanca, and Binebine’s unblinking eye for detail makes this a haunting tale." --Library Journal

    Born a Tutsi, he is thrust into a world where it's impossible to stay apolitical - where the man who used to sell you gifts for your family now spews hatred, where the girl who flirted with you in the lunchroom refuses to look at you, where your Hutu coach is secretly training the very soldiers who will hunt down your family. Yet in an environment increasingly restrictive for the Tutsi, he holds fast to his dream of becoming Rwanda's first Olympic medal contender in track, a feat he believes might deliver him and his people from this violence. When the killing begins, Jean Patrick is forced to flee, leaving behind the woman, the family, and the country he loves. Finding them again is the race of his life. This is the third Bellwether Prize winner published by Algonquin. The Bellwether Prize is awarded biennially by Barbara Kingsolver for an unpublished novel that addresses issues of social justice and was previously awarded to The Girl Who Fell from the Sky and Mudbound.

    Private PeacefulDear OllyCool!Toro! Toro!The Butterfly LionThe Amazing Story Of Adolphus TipsBorn To RunKaspar Prince Of CatsWhy The Whales CameKensuke's KingdomWar HorseThe Wreck Of The ZanzibarEscape From Shangri-LaMr Nobody's EyesKing Of The Cloud ForestsLong Way Home

    The conversation that cannot end unfolds in its unabashed original glory herein.Like KIZUMONOGATARI, which delved into our narrator’s disastrous spring break, Cat Tale (Black) is a prequel about another catastrophe, mentioned often yet never recounted even in a foregoing chapter dedicated to Miss H.: namely, the model student’s rampage over Golden Week, a string of holidays starting at the end of April.Closing out what has come to be known as the “First Season” of the series, this episode of ’GATARI, as rich as ever in silly banter and poignant profundities, richer than usual in snide meta comments about the anime, will make you laugh and cry, or just put a grownup smile on your face, maybe, but is guaranteed to stay with you forever.

    Strong faith and a decorated history of service have kept her one step ahead of on-the-job dangers, but there’s no precedent for what’s about to happen. After a blizzard takes down a small plane carrying U.S. Marshal Roark Holland (already haunted by a recent tragedy), Brannon must save him in more ways than one and safeguard the donor heart he’s transporting to a government witness on the edge of death. Otherwise the largest child trafficking ring in history—with shocking links from Thailand to Tennessee—will slip further away into darkness along the Appalachian Trail.* Award of Merit winner, Holt Medallion Contest, Virginia Romance Writer's Association

    You see him at the bus stop, trying to look at you without being seen. Who is he? He is a person. In this debut novel, a person walks around Chicago contemplating the possibility of starving to death on purpose. He has sex with his neighbor. He goes out to look for a job but just buys little plastic dogs from homeless people instead. Who is the person? The person is you. The person is me. The person is sitting in his room shooting an empty pellet gun at his face, feeling the slow exhaustion of a Co2 cartridge. The person sits in a bathtub reading his roommate's yearbook. He wants to create a contract mandating worldwide friendship. Person invents new and splendid ways of not getting along. You will read this book and remember why you mainly read books that have sex in them. You will become . . . a person.

    His life, his family, his nation and the world stand on the brink of the abyss.Join Bodie and Brock Thoene in the unfolding serialization of their new, contemporary political-thriller ICON, downloadable SOON to a computer near you!

     On a golden summer morning, fifteen-year-old Anthony Thorne is on a fishing boat with his father, rods cast into the lake, when the crack of a rifle shatters the silence. His father slumps forward, blood leaking from his chest. Horrified, Anthony spins in the direction of the gunfire, and sees a shadowy figure race away from the shore and vanish in the cover of the trees--a vision that will haunt him for years to come . . . Anthony pulls his dad into his arms, but he is beyond help. He dies in Anthony’s embrace, Anthony’s scream of anguish echoing across the still waters. Fifteen years later, a happily married Marine veteran and author of a bestselling series of crime novels, Anthony has achieved a measure of success. But the past still haunts him-—in spite of his eyewitness testimony, his father’s murder was declared a hunting accident, and no one was ever brought to justice. On the anniversary of his father’s death, a mysterious message arrives from an unknown sender that promises to lead Anthony to the truth. But is Anthony's helper the angel he'd been waiting for--or a devil in disguise? Determined to find answers, Anthony and his wife soon find themselves hunted by a team of assassins dispatched by a powerful organization with frightening technological resources. The killers pursuing them are as fanatical in their beliefs as they are well-equipped-—loyal followers of a charismatic leader who might be the most dangerous man in America . . . Lightning-paced and gripping from the first sentence to the explosive finale, Covenant marks Brandon Massey’s entry into the arena of high-stakes action thrillers--a story exploring today’s issues that will resonate with readers long after they've turned the last page. PRAISE FOR BRANDON MASSEY'S THRILLERS: "I've been waiting a long time for a writer like Brandon Massey." -- Tananarive Due, award-winning author of My Soul to Keep "An intense thriller . . . a wild ride!" -Kevin O'Brien, New York Times bestselling author “A razor-sharp thriller guaranteed to keep you turning pages well into the night. Start this one on your day off—-you won't be able to put it down.” —Douglas Clegg, bestselling author of The Queen of Wolves and The Hour Before Dark "The talented Mr. Massey has the rare knack of grabbing the reader early and not letting go. Massey knows how to ratchet up the suspense." —John Lutz, New York Times bestselling author “A taut, involving, and utterly convincing thrill ride.” —Gregg Olsen, New York Times bestselling author

    . . ." To create this work that strains against all constraints, László Krasznahorkai began from one of Max Neumann’s paintings; Neumann, spurred into action, created 14 more images, which unleashed an additional 13 texts from the author. Animalinside is the rare case of two matchless artists meeting across disciplines, and New Directions is very proud to publish a limited edition of this powerful novella, exquisitely produced by Sylph Editions and the Cahiers Series of the American University of Paris with a deluxe seven-stage printing process for the amazing Neumann images.

    Nixon is about to be impeached, his wife is leaving him, and his worldview is rapidly becoming outdated. His daughter, Daley, has spent the first eleven years of her life carefully negotiating her parents’ conflicting worlds: the liberal, socially committed realm of her mother, and the conservative, liquor-soaked life of her father. But when they divorce, and Gardiner’s basest impulses are unleashed, the chasm quickly widens and Daley feels herself stretched thinly across it.As she grows into adulthood, Daley rejects the narrow world that nourished her father’s fears and prejudices, and embarks on her own separate life—until he hits rock bottom. Lured back home by the dream of getting her father sober and rebuilding a trust that was broken years ago, Daley risks losing everything she has found beyond him, including her new love, Jonathan, who represents so much of what Daley’s father claims to hate, and who has given her so much of what he could never provide.Intimate in its detail yet epic in range, Father of the Rain is a raw, compelling journey into the emotional complexities, mercurial contours, and magnetic pull of family. It is also the stunning portrait of a deeply complex man and his daughter’s fierce, primal attachment to him.

    So crafty Tom hides from Aunt Polly--what youngster in his place wouldn't? And that's what makes this perfectly crafted excerpt from an acknowledged classic so enjoyable on its own.

    Her father is recovering from his heart attack, and her sisters, Valerie and Stephanie, are busy planning their weddings. But then a cantankerous Texan named Rowdy Cassidy crashes his small plane in Orchard Valley. The same Rowdy Cassidy who'd been Valerie's boss…and who'd demanded she marry him. Now he's Norah's patient, and in all her nursing experience she's never encountered a more difficult man. Or a more irresistible one! Except…is he still in love with her sister?When Norah's friend Sherry Waterman leaves Orchard Valley, Oregon, for Pepper, Texas, she's definitely not in the mood for Lone Star Lovin'. But if anyone can change her mind, it's Cody Bailman—a hardworking, good-looking rancher. Not only that, Cody has a twelve-year-old daughter who thinks Sherry's "just perfect for Dad"!

    Teaspoon fights, fibs, never stops singing, and is as unpredictable and fearless as a puppy off its leash. Still, Teddy Favors, a man who has taken his share of kicks, is determined to raise her right.     Teaspoon wants to be better for Teddy—even if that means agreeing to take part in a do-gooder mentorship program and being paired up with Brenda Bloom, the beautiful reigning Sweetheart of Mill Town. Against all odds, as the summer passes, this unlikely duo discover a special friendship as they face personal challenges, determined to follow their hearts instead of convention. It’s while Brenda and Teaspoon are putting together the grandest show the Starlight Theater has ever seen that Catty returns to Mill Town, shattering illusions and testing loyalties. But by the final curtain call, one determined little girl shows an entire town the healing that can happen when you let your heart take center stage.

    Directed by Sidney Lumet, the film tells the story of a jury made up of 12 men as they deliberate the guilt or innocence of a defendant on the basis of reasonable doubt. The film is notable for its almost exclusive use of one set: with the exception of two short scenes at the beginning and the end of the film set on the steps of the court building and two short scenes in an adjoining washroom, the entire movie takes place in the jury room. The total time spent outside of the jury room is eight minutes out of the full 96 minutes of the movie.

    As a feisty teenager in Kabul, she was outraged when the Russians invaded her country. After she made a public show of defiance, she had to flee the country for her life.A new life of freedom seemed within her grasp, but her father arrranged a traditional marriage to a fellow afghan, who turned out to be a brutal and violent man. Beaten, raped, and bused, Maryam found joy in the birth of a son. But then her cruel husband stole him away far beyond his mother's reach. For many long years she searched for her lost child, while civil war and Taliban oppression raged back home in Afghanistan. Set against a landscape littered with tragic tales of horrific suffering, Jean Sasson, author of PRINCESS, chronicles the story of one resolute but tormented woman determined to achieve freedom and equality with men.

    Soon. And that impending event brings his son Jimmy back to the Imperial Valley of southern California just north of the Calexico/Mexicali border. Jimmy hopes he can spend what time his father has left laughing and reminiscing. But Jack’s got one dying request. He needs Jimmy to find a Mexican prostitute named Yolanda.Enlisting the help of his boyhood friend Bobby Maves, the pair stumbles through the violent, the exploited, and the corrupted of Mexicali. It doesn’t take long before they’re in over their heads. And as Jimmy tries to survive the dangers of the Mexicali underworld, he unwittingly uncovers truths about his father he never imagined, forcing Jimmy to come to terms with the man he thought he knew, and to decide just what sort of man he wants to become.“[Johnny Shaw] is excellent at creating a sense of place with a few deft strokes... he moves effortlessly between dark comedy and moments that pack a real emotional punch, and he’s got a knack for off-kilter characters who are completely at home in their own personal corners of oddballdom.”– Tana French, author of In the Woods, Faithful Place

    Evoking nostalgia for a time gone by, these poignant chronicles of life in India's hills and small towns describe the hopes and passions that capture young minds and hearts, highlighting the uneasy reconciliation of dreams and destiny. The six novels included in the collection are: 'The Room on the Roof', 'Vagrants in the Valley', 'Delhi Is Not Far', 'A Flight of Pigeons', 'The Sensualist', and 'A Handful of Nuts'.

    In Chicago's Ukrainian Village, Nadya Lysenko has built her life on a foundation of secrets.When Nadya was sixteen, she snuck out of her house in Western Ukraine to meet a fortuneteller in the woods. Ignoring the threat of Nazis and Russians, Nadya was driven by love and a desire to learn the unknown. She never expected it to be the last time she would see her family.Years later, Nadya continues to be haunted by the death of her parents and sisters. She clings to her traditions and stories from Ukraine, the only parts of her past that she can share with her family. The myths and magic of Nadya's childhood are still a part of her reality: house spirits misplace keys and glasses, dreams unite friends across time and space, and a fortuneteller's cards predict the future.Her beloved dead also insist on being heard, through dreams and whispers in the night. They want the truth to come out. Nadya needs to face her past and confront the secrets she buried within-THE SILENCE OF TREES.

    SpaceshipPiper in the Woods

    Although her true identity remains a mystery, she is loved as one of their own. But when Halo is dragged away by fishermen, her wild adventure begins . . .Halo soon realizes that if she is to survive then she must live in disguise - as a boy. A violent war is threatening to erupt and Halo is at the mercy of the mighty Spartan warriors. And as she battles to hide her secret, Halo never forgets her quest to find out who she is - and where she really came from.

    Oh cabbage leaves, oh roses, oh orange-slice childhood grins: this book broke my heart. Its sad memory-tropes come from fairy tales and childhood books. With language, Gaudry is as loving and careful as one is with a matchbook . . . when wishing to set the whole world on fire.” —KATE BERNHEIMER“Molly Gaudry’s debut evokes the spirit of iconic fairy tales that have transported readers for centuries. Her variations on these themes delineate the psychological journey from girlhood to womanhood. But We Take Me Apart is more than a retelling. In it, Gaudry reconstitutes the essence of what makes fairy tales compelling, and she does so imaginatively and with great attention to language, the earmarks of poetry.” —CHRISTOPHER KENNEDY“If you consider her novella poetry, then it borrows much from prose. And if you see it as prose, it allows for a poetic flavor. Gaudry walks this line with great poise and in that poise we find her greatest strength as a writer.” —THE BROAD SET WRITING COLLECTIVE“A Molly Gaudry word is so precise, it feels like a sentence.” —GREAT TWIN CITIES POETRY READ & ROAD SHOW“An epic poem of epic mastery, We Take Me Apart centers on a girl who grows into a woman who grows into a heroine.” —PRICK OF THE SPINDLE“This incredible verse novel(la) is infused with fairy tales and Gertude Stein, not to mention Gaudry’s own dreamlike, luscious voice. An almost visceral delight.” —FLAVORWIRE“Gaudry’s mastery of language, [her] use of . . . silence, the wet white space around the burn of language, reads at times as if a character from Beckett had crawled or hobbled into a fairy tale—the kind of Beckett character that keeps his or her silence, only to suddenly wax eloquent in manic bursts.” —AMBER SPARKS“A cross between silence and fairy tale, Gaudry’s Beckettian narrative sews bright bits to near-faint whispers, slowly swaddling us in quiet and darkness.” —BRIAN EVENSON“Amid this stark environment, Gaudry’s gorgeous lyric voice guides us through.” —ASIAN AMERICAN LITERATURE FANS“Molly Gaudry must have revised this gem of a novella over and over and over to get the wording, the rhythms, the images, etc. just so. . . . Not a word is out of place, nothing is missing, no extra words are added. Molly Gaudry has worked this section, and every other section in the book, to the very essence of what is necessary to capture her readers and not let them go.” —EMERGING WRITERS NETWORK“[Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian] is famous for its poetic prose and unflinching violence, but there’s a void of femininity. . . . Enter Molly Gaudry. . . . [Her] prose, steeped in poetry as much as McCarthy’s, spirals upward, elevating and exploding. The creators and destroyers, the beautiful and the gory, and the mythical and contemporary all thrive in balance. To read Molly Gaudry is to read Angela Carter’s cutthroat narrative spoken through the hopelessly hopeful characters of Lydia Millet, all arranged in space with the care of an impressionist painter.” —HOBART“We Take Me Apart is a dazzleflage of a book. The stuttering disrupted language of this cubist concoction disappears before your ears, sinks into your eyes. This aggressive dress camouflage reweaves Gertrude Stein’s rewoven grammar of worsted silk-screened gabardine into a fully ripped patois-ed pattern of stunning wonder.” —MICHAEL MARTONE“Molly Gaudry’s We Take Me Apart works ‘thread into lace.’ . . . Especially vivid in this book-length work is the mother’s entrance and exit, where the ragged lines swell and turn sonnet-like with love.” —TERESE SVOBODA“In Molly Gaudry’s We Take Me Apart, the ordinary becomes mythical, what may be autobiographical becomes a fable, and simple lines or sentences ring with ominous music. Even the empty space between the lines seems to resonate with invisible narrative. A stunning debut.” —RICHARD GARCIA “White space, planes and planes of it. . . . We Take Me Apart is a novel’s answer to a room. . . . I read it three times . . . inhaling its perfume. . . . The scent is delicate and leaves a trace of itself. . . . The book details grace. . . it will haunt like a remembrance of fragrance or swoosh of hair or panoply of mother as tart then sweet and suddenly elusive as memories of one’s own.” —AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW“Gaudry’s work implies that life, at its most essential, is the memory of love, hope, and the rooms it has occupied. . . . We Take Me Apart is an exercise in empathy for the reader. It is pure song and story. This book is a gift.” —[PANK]

     While up in the mountains, he discovered a wilderness plagued by nature and haunted by superstition, but one that he thought he could tame with his experience and strong back. He didn't know he was going to have to kill to keep the home he planned for his family, but he didn't let that stop him. Sam had been looking for a home for his family for years. That search had been interrupted by the Civil War. Now Sam is putting down roots, and not even the Devil himself can stand in the way.

    Available for a limited only, this special Meg Cabot Bundle with Bonus Material features all three of the novels in her funny and heartwarming Queen of Babble series (iQueen of Babble, Queen of Babble in the Big City,/i and iQueen of Babble Gets Hitched/i) as well as an extended excerpt from thei New York Times/i bestselling iInsatiable/i, the first book in Meg's newest series.brpbr

     It’s been five years since novelist Samuel Mason and his family vacationed at the lakeside cottage in northeastern Vermont, close to where Sam grew up. Back then, he and his wife enjoyed noisy, chaotic, and pretty much perfect summer getaways with their twins, Franny and Finn. But this year at Lake Gormlaith, there are only three of them.  Ever since Franny’s death, the Masons have been flailing, one step away from falling apart. This trip is Sam’s last, best hope of rescuing his son from a destructive path and salvaging what’s left of his family. As he struggles with grief, writer’s block, and a looming deadline, his wife, Mena, tries to repair the marital bond she once thought was unbreakable. But even in this secluded place, the unexpected—in the form of an overzealous fan, a surprising friendship, and a second chance—can change everything.

    Scotland is in the grip of the worst winter in living memory. Some say the Day of Judgement has arrived. The King of Scotland rides out from Edinburgh into the stormy night. On the road he is murdered by one of his own men, leaving the succession to the throne wide open. Civil war threatens as the powerful Scottish families jostle for power, not knowing that King Edward I of England has set his own plans for conquest in motion. But all is not destined to go Edward's way. Through the ashes of war, through blood feuds and divided loyalties, a young squire will rise to defy England's greatest king. His name is Robert Bruce. Insurrection is the first in an addictive and action-packed trilogy in the tradition of Conn Iggulden, Bernard Cornwell and Manda Scott.

    With a star cast including Kenneth Cranham, Eleanor Bron, Brian Cox, Ian MacDiarmid, Anna Chancellor, Hugh Bonneville, and Lindsay Duncan, these enthralling dramatizations perfectly capture the atmosphere of le Carré's taut, thrilling spy novels. Call for the Dead is the first Smiley novel, which sees him looking into an apparent suicide only to uncover a murderous conspiracy; A Murder of Quality finds Smiley investigating a murder in a private school; The Spy Who Came in from the Cold introduces Alec Leamas, a British intelligence officer whose East Berlin network is in tatters; The Looking Glass War features former spy Fred Leiser, lured back from retirement to investigate a claim that Soviet missiles are being installed close to the West German border; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the first book in the Karla trilogy, and sees Smiley searching for a mole who has infiltrated the Circus; The Honourable Schoolboy sees Smiley determined to destroy his nemesis, Karla, and his spy networks; Smiley's People finds George Smiley called out of retirement to exorcize some Cold War ghosts from his clandestine past; The Secret Pilgrim sees Smiley invited to dine with the eager new recruits at the Circus. He offers them his thoughts on espionage and, in doing so, prompts a former colleague to re-examine his own eventful secret life. Duration: 20 hours approx

    Armed with a degree in Agribusiness, Amanda Greenfield dreams of employing all the skills she's learned in college to help her father turn the family farm from a debt-ridden, run-down basket case into a thriving enterprise. Then tragedy strikes with the death of Amanda's mother in a car accident. Wracked by grief and guilt, and wearied by the long struggle to keep Kyleena a going concern, Amanda's father argues that they should sell up and get on with their lives away from the vagaries of drought and fluctuating stock and crop yields. Having inherited half the farm from her beloved mother, whom she also grieves for, Amanda determines to summon all her strength, grit, and know how to save Kyleena. Along the way she faces mixed fortunes in both love and life.

    On the outskirts of Tokyo, near a station on a private train line, stands a modest European style house with a red, triangular shaped roof. There a woman named Taki has worked as a maidservant in the house and lived with its owners, the Hirai family. Now, near the end of her life, Taki is writing down in a notebook her nostalgic memories of the time spent living in the house. Her journal captures the refined middle-class life of the time from her gentle perspective. At the end of the novel, however, a startling final chapter is added. The chapter brings to light, after Taki’s death, a fact not described in her notebook. This suddenly transforms the world that had been viewed through the lens of a nostalgic memoir, so that a dramatic, flesh-and-blood story takes shape. Nakajima manages to combine skillful dialogue with a dazzling ending. The result is a polished, masterful work fully deserving of the Naoki Prize.

    His son Sam has walked away from everything - John, Dean, his own life as a soldier... Faced with the kind of trouble that always seems to find his family, can Sam handle a solo hunt?

    For the reader uninitiated in the deadly world of her canon, this collection offers the first serious introduction to her remarkable range and psychological insight.With an introduction provided by Joan Schenkar—author of the acclaimed biography The Talented Miss Highsmith—Patricia Highsmith: Selected Novels and Short Stories continues the remarkable renaissance of this literary master. Even with her first novels, Highsmith tore at the very fabric of 1950s middle-class society, revealing the stark emotional brutality that lurked beneath the sunny facade of Eisenhower suburbia.Chosen by Joan Schenkar, the selections in this book—two iconic American novels and a trove of her most representative short stories—char the virtuosic range of Highsmith's voice, as she deftly leaps from suspense to horror, from biting social satire to deeply moving psychological drama. In Strangers on a Train (1950)—Highsmith's debut novel about the inspiration for the classic Hitchcock film—a casual conversation between acquaintances devolves into a tangled web of murder, desperation, and manipulation. This thriller provides as thorough an examination of guilt and obsession as can be found in contemporary literature. Highsmith's second novel, The Price of Salt (1952), is a seductive tale of sexual obsession that demonstrates the astounding versatility of Highsmith's insight into human nature, and has only recently begun to receive commensurate literary recognition. Written during the intensely creative period of her late twenties, The Price of Salt blends Highsmith's richly figured language with the then scandalous subject of lesbian love. The accompanying thirteen short stories demonstrate Highsmith's mastery of the short story form and reveal her to be as fine a craftsman as any American twentieth-century novelist.This volume introduces a new generation to the haunting fiction of one of our most underappreciated literary geniuses.

    Each of the book's seven sections is devoted to a particular art form--film, photography, painting, the novel, architecture, music, and theory--and includes both text and found photographs as it explores the idea of what it means to be a book in an era when reading is disappearing into a diverse array of cultural products, media formats, and aesthetic practices. Seven Controlled Vocabularies will be available in a variety of print and electronic book delivery systems and formats.

    This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

    This memorable, heartbreaking story opens in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1974, on the eve of a revolution. Yonas kneels in his mother’s prayer room, pleading to his god for an end to the violence that has wracked his family and country. His father, Hailu, a prominent doctor, has been ordered to report to jail after helping a victim of state-sanctioned torture to die. And Dawit, Hailu’s youngest son, has joined an underground resistance movement—a choice that will lead to more upheaval and bloodshed across a ravaged Ethiopia. Beneath the Lion’s Gaze tells a gripping story of family, of the bonds of love and friendship set in a time and place that has rarely been explored in fiction. It is a story about the lengths human beings will go in pursuit of freedom and the human price of a national revolution. Emotionally gripping, poetic, and indelibly tragic, Beneath The Lion’s Gaze is a transcendent and powerful debut. .

    Then she found her limits tested by a crisis no one could prevent. Now, as her neighborhood descends into panic, she must make tough choices to protect everyone she loves from a threat she cannot even see. In this chillingly urgent novel, Carla Buckley confronts us with the terrifying decisions we are forced to make when ordinary life changes overnight.A year ago, Ann and Peter Brooks were just another unhappily married couple trying–and failing–to keep their relationship together while they raised two young daughters. Now the world around them is about to be shaken as Peter, a university researcher, comes to a startling realization: A virulent pandemic has made the terrible leap across the ocean to America’s heartland.And it is killing fifty out of every hundred people it touches.As their town goes into lockdown, Peter is forced to return home–with his beautiful graduate assistant. But the Brookses’ safe suburban world is no longer the refuge it once was. Food grows scarce, and neighbor turns against neighbor in grocery stores and at gas pumps. And then a winter storm strikes, and the community is left huddling in the dark.Trapped inside the house she once called home, Ann Brooks must make life-or-death decisions in an environment where opening a door to a neighbor could threaten all the things she holds dear.Carla Buckley’s poignant debut raises important questions to which there are no easy answers, in an emotionally riveting tale of one family facing unimaginable stress.

    A spontaneous mission trip to Africa brought great surprise--love--and a strong sense of purpose. But in loving others there, she encountered a severe tragedy that left her deeply wounded.She comes to heal at the farm of Claudius Borne--a sweet, kind old man who understands plants and animals far better than people. And his farm becomes May's home.There on the farm, May renews a friendship with an old college flame named Eli whose path has taken unexpected turns too. As May tries to convince Eli to grab hold of life once again, he begins to pull May from her sheltered existence. Like old Claudius's farm in Spring, May begins to blossom back into life. But no resurrection ever comes without sacrifice--and this sacrifice will forever transform May.

    His radically minimalist language, black humor, and surreal situations unleashed a brilliant vision uniquely Beckett’s own and in the process forever changed literature. Here in a four-volume paperback box set are Beckett’s major works in prose, drama, poetry, and criticism edited by Paul Auster. As Auster writes in his notes for the series, “Samuel Beckett created one of the most brilliant and enduring bodies of work in twentieth-century literature. . . . The four volumes bring together nearly every word Beckett published during his lifetime. . . . Open anywhere and begin reading. It is an experience unequaled anywhere in the universe of words.”

    He is chosen by a group of scientists to create a philosophy for a computer-generated world exactly like ours. Much to his frustration every model he introduces—from Darwinism, to Existentialism, to Relativism, to Buddhism—fails. The only way to preserve the computer world is to introduce laws from outside their system through a Law Giver. Of course this goes against everything he's ever believed, and he hates it. But even that doesn't completely work because the citizens of that world become legalists and completely miss the spirit behind the Law. The only way to save them is to create a computer character like himself to personally live and explain it. He does. So now there are two of him—the one in our world and the one in the computer world. Unfortunately a rival has introduced a virus into the computer world. Things grow worse until our computer-world professor sees the only way to save his world is to personally absorb the virus and the penalty for breaking the Law. Of course, it's clear to all, including our real-world professor, that this act of selfless love has become a reenactment of the Gospel. It is the only possible choice to save their computer world and, as he finally understands, our own.

    Lutheran pastor, saving lives and taking care of bad guys (who get saved)." WARRIOR MONK revolves around a former CIA assassin, Stephen Grant, who has lived a far different, relatively quiet life as a parish pastor in recent years. However, a shooting at his church, a historic papal proposal, and threats to the Pope's life mean that Grant's former and current lives collide. Grant must tap the varied skills learned as a government agent, a theologian and a pastor not only to protect the Pope, but also to feel his way through a minefield of personal challenges. Larry Kudlow, CNBC's "The Kudlow Report," said, "Ray Keating has created a fascinating and unique character in Pastor Grant. The way Keating intertwines politics, national security and faith into a compelling thriller is sheer delight." U.S. Congressman Pete King, the Ranking Member on the House Homeland Security Committee, declared, "CIA intrigue, the Vatican, international terrorism and brutal assassinations make Warrior Monk a fast-moving, riveting read right out of today's - and tomorrow's - headlines. Add challenging religious issues, which the author makes us confront, and you have a brilliant novel. Ray Keating knows what he is writing about and writes it extraordinarily well." And Paul L. Maier, best-selling author of A Skeleton in God's Closet, commented, "Holy Scripture and unholy gun play in the same novel? Exactly - and you'll love the combination! WARRIOR MONK offers a riveting mix of action, romance, and intrigue, served up by a master wordsmith. Keating's Pastor Stephen Grant manages to wield both Bible and bullets with equal expertise. Grant is clearly in control whether in or out of the pulpit."

    Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Woman in the Dunes, Kangaroo Notebook, the Ruined Map, the Face of Another, Inter Ice Age 4. Source: Wikipedia.

    Kenisha Smalls has lived in poverty all her life. She has three children by three different men and has just been diagnosed with inoperable cancer. While the meeting between these two women appears accidental, it becomes their catalyst of hope. Neither woman expects the blessing that God has in store for her. While Deidre guides Kenisha on the path to eternal life with Jesus Christ, Kenisha teaches Deidre how to stand strong against the storms of life.

    A homicidal barber. A hungry leopard and about a hundred frogs on the loose. Boys with a talent for pranks and jokes. Ruskin Bond???s fresh new school stories are a non-stop laugh riot. Mr Oliver, a history teacher, arrives in Simla with a train-load of hungry boys to start a new term at the Prep School. As he records the antics of the amazing characters there, and all that they get up to, we quickly realize that there is never a dull moment. A fire, a missing Headmaster, runaway students make sure not a day goes by when Mr Oliver has nothing to report in his diary. He writes about the eccentric teachers, the girls??? school next door and the lovely Anjali Ramola, whom he secretly admires. Laugh-out-loud funny, with a core of old-world charm that is trademark Bond, Mr Oliver???s Diary has stories and characters that have never appeared anywhere before. With his runaway wig, pet shrew and endearing dry wit, Mr Oliver is sure to become as well-loved as those other vintage Ruskin Bond characters, Uncle Ken and Rusty About The Author: Ruskin Bond???s first novel, The Room on the Roof, written when he was seventeen, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. Since then he has written several novellas (including Vagrants in the Valley, A Flight of Pigeons and Delhi Is Not Far), essays, poems and children???s books, many of which have been published by Penguin India. He has also written over 500 short stories and articles that have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993 and the Padma Shri in 1999

    It's overflowing with TG genius, geeky automotive facts, photographs of the slickest, fastest cars on the planet (and a few old bangers), plus plenty of Clarkson, Hammond and May as you've never seen them before, including Jeremy Clarkson as a Reliant-driving crime fighter.You'll also find Top Gear's innovative designs for a low-budget Presidential limo, Richard Hammond's guide to making nature better (or faster, anyway), the owner's manual for the TG electric car, the secret Top Gear things you've never seen, and a Foreword from the Stig himself. With all this, and much, much more, we can guarantee it's literally the loudest, most ambitious, most powerful and explosive book in the world.

    (This is NOT the paperback novel.)

    His mother has committed suicide, dredging up old resentments between Hiram and his father, Sloane. When a gruesome act of violence stuns the insular mountain community, father and son must journey together to see justice carried out while coming to terms with a deeply troubled family history.

    Photographer Autumn de Wilde traveled with the band into town and over tundra, capturing the beauty of the landscape, the exhilarating power of the live shows, the band's intense connection with their fans, and Jack and Meg White's on- and offstage lives, all with rare and candid access. In nearly 300 color and black-and-white images, this remarkable book documents an epic journey and an amazing band.

    On one hand, it's a tale of the crusades, as told from the Islamic side, where Shi'a and Sunni are as intent on killing Ismaili Muslims as they are crusaders. In self-defense, the Ismaili's develop an elite band of highly trained killers called Hashshashin (Assassins) whose missions are launched from their mountain fortress of Alamut. But, it's also the story of a French boy, who is captured and forced into the alien world of the assassins. Forbidden love for a princess is intertwined with sinister plots and self-sacrifice, as the hero, and his two companions discover treachery and then attempt to evade the ruthless assassins of Alamut who are sent to hunt them down. It's a sweeping saga that takes you across 12th century Persia and Palestine, over vast snow covered mountains, through the frozen wastes of the winter plateau, and into the fabulous cites of Hamadan, Isfahan, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. "A brilliant first novel, worthy of Bernard Cornwell at his best."

    It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Volume: 2; Original Published by: Johnson in 1801 in 318 pages; Subjects: English poetry