Dick. The result is brilliantly original fiction as profund as it is playful. Now in his new novel, David Mitchell explores with daring artistry fundamental questions of reality and identity.Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. . . .Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter. . . . From there we jump to the West Coast in the 1970s and a troubled reporter named Luisa Rey, who stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder that threatens to claim her life. . . . And onward, with dazzling virtuosity, to an inglorious present-day England; to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok; and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history.But the story doesn’t end even there. The narrative then boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.As wild as a videogame, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon.

    He had more than his share of adventure when he went by the name Will Scarlet and fought corrupt authority alongside Robin Hood. Now widowed and alone, and estranged from his adult daughter, he has taken holy orders and sought refuge in a remote Benedictine abbey.But even there, trouble and violence follow him. The abbot, John de Wystow, is a good man but a weak leader, and easily undermined by a faction of dissident monks. When the rebels, led by Brother Robert de Flexburgh, run riot in the local community—stealing, drinking, fornicating—Scaflock’s old instincts return. Reluctantly taking charge of the abbey’s moral defence, he finds himself embroiled in a series of fierce clashes with de Flexburgh’s rowdy gang.As the abbey’s tranquillity is shattered, its cloisters stained with blood, Scaflock is forced to reconsider the direction of his life. Has he really left Will Scarlet behind him—or has he simply been running from reality?

    Alice is growing up, a little spitfire of a girl who adores her father and idolizes her mother. Johnny and Fran have mostly put their ghosts behind them, and are focusing on the future, which has never seemed brighter, or more guaranteed.Sadly, for some people, the future has already ended.Mary Dunlavy has been Alice's babysitter almost since the girl was born. When her father stops showing up for work, it falls to Fran to go and see what's going on. What she finds changes everything.There is no right and there is no wrong in some situations: there's only the way things should have been, and the way things are.Not everyone gets out alive.

    A woman reconsiders her decision to join a fundamentalist compound and enter a polygamous marriage; a Somali refugee takes a job at the local mill to support her family; a college student attempts to right her world through the lens of mathematics; an Iraq War vet struggles to regain his compromised relationships. In spare yet vivid prose, Anderson explores loss and desire, regret and hope. Everywhere we are reminded of all that a single life contains.

    Maddened by the discovery of his wife's orgies, King Shahrayar believes all women are unfaithful and vows to marry a virgin every night and kill her in the morning. To survive, his newest wife Shahrazad spins a web of tales night after night, leaving the King in suspense when morning comes, thus prolonging her life for another day.Written in Arabic from tales gathered in India, Persia and across the great Arab empire, these mesmerising stories tell of the real and the supernatural, love and marriage, power and punishment, wealth and poverty, and the endless trials and uncertainties of fate.Now adapted by Hanan al-Shaykh the One Thousand and One Nights are revealed in an intoxicating new voice.

    Barker uses unpredictable rhythms that draw less from theatrical convention and more from life itself, with apocalyptic spectacle and intimate reality sharing the stage as equal and sometimes indistinguishable partners.The three works that make up Incarnations - Colossus; Frankenstein in Love, or the Life of Death; and The History of the Devil, or Scenes from a Pretended Life -- combine the shock and magic and heartbreak that has made Barker's unique vision a compelling force in all the media he has touched.

    The work of an obscure German artist, the scene showed Christ leaving the palace of Pontius Pilate under a guard of Roman soldiers forcing their way through a stone-throwing mob. There was no doubt that it was a true masterpiece of Renaissance art. But for the four people who gathered to view it, the picture possessed a qualit that was absolutely unique: As each of them looked upon it he found himself clearly depicted as one of the howling mob.In this new novel by the author of The Lilies of the Field, a young man's search for the secret of the strange genius who created that seemingly magical painting leads him to a beautiful, and perfectly intact medieval town in Germany, and, finally, to the discovery of the most precious gift a person can receive.

    Young Vincent Malloy's vivid imagination takes him on a macabre journey into a fantastical and weird world in which his home is filled with spiders and bats, his aunt becomes an exhibit in his wax museum, and his beautiful wife is buried in his mother's flower bed.

    "You've got to get the girl to fall in love with you!"The Beast's only chance to break the spell is for him to fall in love with Belle and earn her love in return.

    ANNA -- In love with a woman he had only seen once and could not find, the Highlander, Kevin MacGreagor was growing older and needed a wife to give him sons. No other woman pleased him, not even the daughters of other lairds, so he finally settled for Anna sight unseen. But when his men went to meet her guard, she was all alone and badly beaten. Who could have done such a thing and why? RACHEL -- had a dark secret and even she didn't know what it was. She was seventeen, determined to become as good a warrior as any Highlander, and was firmly against taking a husband. Connor had other ideas. He loved Rachel and when a rival clan took her, he thought he would lose his mind. How would he ever get her back and if he did, would her dark secret separate them forever?CHARLET -- The King of England asked the Highlander, Kevin MacGreagor, to hide a baby girl and save her life. But sixteen years later, someone discovered where she was. To Blair Cameron fell the duty of hiding and protecting Charlet. It was not an easy task. She was furious, head-strong and determined to run from him. Could Blair keep her alive? And if he did, could he keep himself from falling in love with her?

    Mass starvation wipes out millions almost overnight. Society collapses, and those who survive must contend with renegade groups striving for naked power. A new currency comes into existence -- precious food, and the force of arms that helps get it at any cost.Returning from a deep space mission, the crew of the Aquila crash lands in the Nevada desert and finds that the world they knew no longer exists. Ten months ago they had friends, wives and children. Now they set out on an uncertain odyssey to find the survivors, an odyssey that uncovers a secret trail left by a man called General Zelig. But in this ravaged new world, no one knows who is friend or foe... and their quest will test the limits of endurance and the will to live.

    They were men like Linus Rawlings, a restless survivor of Indian country who’d headed east to see the ocean but left his heart—and his home—in the West. They were women like Lilith Prescott, a smart, spirited beauty who fled her family and fell for a gambling man in the midst of a frontier gold boom. These pioneering men and women sowed the seeds of a nation with their courage—and with their blood. Here is the story of how their paths would meet amid the epic struggle against fierce enemies and nature’s cruelty, to win for all time the rich and untamed West.

    EYES LIKE SKY AND COAL AND MOONLIGHT brings together twenty stories from the extraordinary talent of fantasy author Cat Rambo. Here are tales from seaport city of Tabat, both before and after the sorcerous wars that destroyed the Old Continent. Here are alchemical explanations for failed blind dates. Here you'll find a dryad, the last great elephant, and an uneasy blur of humanity. Cat Rambo doesn't simply amaze and delight, she restores wonder to her readers with every page. You won't simply believe that pigs can fly, you'll question why you ever doubted the premise at all.Contents:Eight Letters of Wonder • essay by Michael LivingstonHer Eyes Like Sky, and Coal, and MoonlightThe AccordionI'll Gnaw Your Bones, the Manticore SaidHeart in a BoxIn the Lesser Southern IslesUp the ChimneyThe Silent FamiliarEvents at Fort PlentitudeThe Dew Drop Coffee LoungeNarrative of a Beast's LifeEagle-Haunted Lake SammammishSugarA Key Decides Its DestinyThe Towering Monarch of His Mighty RaceIn Order to ConserveRare Pears and GreengagesA Twine of FlameThe Dead Girl's Wedding MarchWorm WithinMagnificent Pigs

    I had existed whole years without her, but that was all it had been. An existence. A book with no words."Tom Hazard has just moved back to London, his old home, to settle down and become a high school history teacher. And on his first day at school, he meets a captivating French teacher at his school who seems fascinated by him. But Tom has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. Tom has lived history--performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life.Unfortunately for Tom, the Albatross Society, the secretive group which protects people like Tom, has one rule: Never fall in love. As painful memories of his past and the erratic behavior of the Society's watchful leader threaten to derail his new life and romance, the one thing he can't have just happens to be the one thing that might save him. Tom will have to decide once and for all whether to remain stuck in the past, or finally begin living in the present.How to Stop Time tells a love story across the ages--and for the ages--about a man lost in time, the woman who could save him, and the lifetimes it can take to learn how to live. It is a bighearted, wildly original novel about losing and finding yourself, the inevitability of change, and how with enough time to learn, we just might find happiness.Soon to be a major motion picture starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

    They’ re coming. They’re hungry.Don’t wait for them to come to you! This is the graphic novel the fans demanded: major zombie attacks from the dawn of humanity. On the African savannas, against the legions of ancient Rome, on the high seas with Francis Drake . . . every civilization has faced them. Here are the grisly and heroic stories–complete with eye-popping artwork that pulsates with the hideous faces of the undead. Organize before they rise!Scripted by the world’s leading zombie authority, Max Brooks, Recorded Attacks reveals how other eras and cultures have dealt with–and survived– the ancient viral plague. By immersing ourselves in past horror we may yet prevail over the coming outbreak in our time.