A small town librarian lives a quiet life without much excitement. One day, she mutters an idle wish and, while standing in her house, is struck by lightning. But instead of ending her life, this cataclysmic event sparks it into a new beginning.She goes in search of Lazarus Jones, a fellow survivor who was struck dead, then simply got up and walked away. Perhaps this stranger who has seen death face to face can teach her to live without fear. When she finds him, he is her opposite, a burning man whose breath can boil water and whose touch scorches. As an obsessive love affair begins between them, both are forced to hide their most dangerous secrets—what turned one to ice and the other to fire.A magical story of passion, loss, and renewal, The Ice Queen is Alice Hoffman at her electrifying best.

    I THINK.In Napalm & Silly Putty, George Carlin, the thinking person's comic, offers a hilarious new collection of razor-sharp observations on God, language, death, pets, driving, food, sports, airplanes, advertising, news, businessmen, and much, much more!* Just when I discovered the meaning of life, they changed it.* If people climb Mt. Everest because it's hard to do, why do they go up on the easy side?* With a little effort, oxen can be trained to genuflect and whistle softly in the moonlight.* How can it be a spy satellite if they announce on TV that its a spy satellite?* If people stand in a circle long enough, they will eventually begin to dance.* Guys don't seem to be called "Lefty" anymore.* No one quite knows what's next, but everybody does it.* I think it would be great if you could make a guy's head explode just by staring at him.* Am I the only one who's noticed that the Lone Ranger and Tonto never got their laundry done?You'll learn what Carlin thinks of saving the planet, his suggestion for revamping the prison system, and why he prays to Joe Pesci. Add to the mix "The Ten Most Embarrassing Songs of All Time," "The 20th Century Hostility Scoreboard," and "People I Can Do Without," and you have an irresistible assortment of quips, probes, thrusts, and verbal ordeals that are as smart as they are infectiously funny.

    A dazzling tour de force, Bright Shiny Morning illuminates the joys, horrors, and unexpected fortunes of life and death in Los Angeles.

    Meet all of Asimov’s most famous creations including: Robbie, the very first robot that his imagination brought to life; Susan Calvin, the original robot psychologist; Stephen Byerley, the humanoid robot; and the famous human/robot detective team of Lije Bailey and R. Daneel Olivaw, who have appeared in such bestselling novels as The Robots of Dawn and Robots and Empire.Let the master himself guide you through the key moments in the fictional history of robot-human relations—from the most primitive computers and mobile machines to the first robot to become a man.(back cover)Contents: Robot Visions • cover and interior artwork by Ralph McQuarrie Introduction: The Robot Chronicles • essay by Isaac Asimov Robot Visions / short story by Isaac Asimov Too Bad! (1989) / short story by Isaac Asimov Robbie (1940) / short story by Isaac Asimov (variant of Strange Playfellow) Reason [Mike Donovan] (1941) / short story by Isaac Asimov Liar! [Susan Calvin] (1941) / short story by Isaac Asimov Runaround [Mike Donovan] (1942) / novelette by Isaac Asimov Evidence [Susan Calvin] (1946) / novelette by Isaac Asimov Little Lost Robot [Susan Calvin] (1947) / novelette by Isaac Asimov The Evitable Conflict [Susan Calvin] (1950) / novelette by Isaac Asimov Feminine Intuition [Susan Calvin] (1969) / novelette by Isaac Asimov The Bicentennial Man (1976) / novelette by Isaac Asimov Someday (1956) / short story by Isaac Asimov Think! (1977) / short story by Isaac Asimov Segregationist (1967) / short story by Isaac Asimov Mirror Image [Elijah Bailey/R. Daneel Olivaw] (1972) / short story by Isaac Asimov Lenny [Susan Calvin] (1958) / short story by Isaac Asimov Galley Slave [Susan Calvin] (1957) / novelette by Isaac Asimov Christmas Without Rodney (1988) / short story by Isaac Asimov Essays by Isaac Asimov: Robots I Have Known (1954); The New Teachers (1976); Whatever You Wish (1977); The Friends We Make (1977); Our Intelligent Tools (1977); The Laws of Robotics (1979); Future Fantastic (1989); The Machine and the Robot (1978); The New Profession (1979); The Robot As Enemy? (1979); Intelligences Together (1979); My Robots (1987); The Laws of Humanics (1987); Cybernetic Organism (1987); The Sense of Humor (1988); Robots in Combination (1988).The volume features many black-and-white illustrations by Ralph McQuarrie.

    Beatrice Hempel, teacher of seventh grade, is new—new to teaching, new to the school, newly engaged, and newly bereft of her idiosyncratic father. Grappling awkwardly with her newness, she struggles to figure out what is expected of her in life and at work. Is it acceptable to introduce swear words into the English curriculum, enlist students to write their own report cards, or bring up personal experiences while teaching a sex-education class?Sarah Shun-lien Bynum finds characters at their most vulnerable, then explores those precarious moments in sharp, graceful prose. From this most innovative of young writers comes another journey down the rabbit hole to the wonderland of middle school, memory, daydreaming, and the extraordinary business of growing up.

    edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

    His self-seeking heroes tend to be forty; his heroines are asleep, seductive, longing, or reproachful. None of these characters is innocent, and all are looking vainly for the road back to an imagined Paradise. Pain and comedy closely coexist in this mainly domestic world of the 1970s, where life is indistinguishable from a television commercial (but what is it advertising?) and every morning’s paper brings news of lost Atlantises.

    How does one writer hurt another writer? This is the question novelist Richard Tull mills over, for his friend Gwyn Barry has become a darling of book buyers, award committees, and TV interviewers, even as Tull himself sinks deeper into the sub-basement of literary failure. The only way out of this predicament, Tull believes, is to plot the demise of Barry."With The Information, Amis delivers a portrait of middle-age realignment with more verbal felicity and unbridled reach than [anyone] since Tom Wolfe forged Bonfire of the Vanities."—Houston Chronicle

    Grace Strasser-Mendana controls much of the country's wealth and knows virtually all of its secrets; Charlotte Douglas knows far too little. "Immaculate of history, innocent of politics," she has come to Boca Grande vaguely and vainly hoping to be reunited with her fugitive daughter. As imagined by Didion, her fate is at once utterly particular and fearfully emblematic of an age of conscienceless authority and unfathomable violence.

    Stranded in an African hotel during a coup, an oafish Englishman impresses a young stewardess with stories of an enchanted life completely at odds with his sordid existence in "The Coup." In the title story, an arrogant, sadistic American pilot in Vietnam underestimaets the power of revenge when he relentlessly persecutes a member of his maintenance crew. With droll humor and rare compassion, Boyd's enthralling stories remind us of his stature as one of contemporary fiction's finest storytellers.

    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.

    Summering at her country home in Maine, Katherine Congreve is afraid John Shipley's son will blame her for his father's approaching divorce.

    He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster." Thus begins Vladimir Nabokov's Laughter in the Dark; this, the author tells us, is the whole story except that he starts from here, with his characteristic dazzling skill and irony, and brilliantly turns a fable into a chilling, original novel of folly and destruction. Amidst a Weimar-era milieu of silent film stars, artists, and aspirants, Nabokov creates a merciless masterwork as Albinus, an aging critic, falls prey to his own desires, to his teenage mistress, and to Axel Rex, the scheming rival for her affections who finds his greatest joy in the downfall of others. Published first in Russian as Kamera Obskura in 1932, this book appeared in Nabokov's own English translation six years later. This New Directions edition, based on the text as Nabokov revised it in 1960, features a new introduction by Booker Prize-winner John Banville.

    Maddy is an award-winning TV anchorwoman. Jack is the head of her network. To the world, theirs is a storybook marriage. But behind the doors of their lush Georgetown home a different story emerges.Maddy has always tried to deny Jack's subtle put-downs, control, and jealousy. She has no bruises, only the daggers of fear, humiliation, and isolation--as powerful as the gun or the fist, the wounds as deep. It seems impossible that a woman the nation idolizes lives in degradation and fear. Maddy's secrets are well kept, even from herself.Maddy's healing begins when she joins the First Lady's Commission on Violence Against Women. There, she hears eerily familiar stories from terrified wives and girlfriends. And there she comes to know Bill Alexander, a distinguished diplomat. Bill suspects that something is terribly wrong in Maddy's marriage and begs her to open her eyes.As she takes the first steps toward freedom, a remarkable series of events unfolds... a stranger from Maddy's past reappears... White House headlines bring the nation to a standstill... and a devastating tragedy forces Maddy to realize how much has been taken from her. Faced with the most difficult choice of her life, Maddy finds a strength she never knew she had and a gift that will change her life forever.With wisdom and compassion, bestselling novelist Danielle Steel reminds us that no one is exempt from the effects of abuse, in its subtlest forms. But at its core, Journey is a book about hope, about change, and about daring to be free.

    Newett and his wife Amanda Todd lived in the gated community of Heron Bay Estates until its destruction by a fluke tornado. This event, Newett notes, occurred on the 77th anniversary of the 1929 stock market crash, a detail that would appear insignificant if it were not for several subsequent events.The stress of the tornado's devastation prompts the Newett-Todds to depart on a European vacation, during which George suffers a fall on none other than his 77th birthday, the first day of autumn (or more cryptically, fall). Following this coincidence, George experiences the first of what is to become five serial visions, each appearing to him on the first day of the ensuing seasons, and each corresponding to a pivotal event in that season of his life.As the novel unfolds, so do these uncanny coincidences, and it is clear that, as ever, Barth possesses an unmatched talent in balancing his characteristic style and wit with vivid, page-turning storytelling.