Cooper Silwood, precise in attire, composed in appearance, and punctual as usual to the minute, walked into his room on the first floor of 176 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, where were the offices of Eversleigh, Silwood and Eversleigh, the well-known and long-established firm of solicitors of which he was a partner. He was met, as was customary, on his entrance by the head-clerk, John Williamson, who had already opened and sorted out methodically the letters received over-night. An admirable specimen of his class, Williamson generally wore an air of great imperturbability, but this morning his face had a troubled expression. "Anything special, Mr. Williamson?" asked Silwood quietly, putting away his hat and gloves.

    

    In one horrifying moment that replays itself over the years that follow, Stephen realizes his daughter is gone. With extraordinary tenderness and insight, Booker Prize–winning author Ian McEwan takes us into the dark territory of a marriage devastated by the loss of a child. Kate's absence sets Stephen and his wife, Julie, on diverging paths as they each struggle with a grief that only seems to intensify with the passage of time. Eloquent and passionate, the novel concludes in a triumphant scene of love and hope that gives full rein to the author's remarkable gifts. The winner of the Whitbread Prize, The Child in Time is an astonishing novel by one of the finest writers of his generation.

    She asks him to help her deliver a greyhound named Cromwell to an Italian who is dedicated to the racing business.

    

    Bones, the canine hero of Paul Auster's astonishing new book, is the sidekick and confidant of Willy G. Christmas, a brilliant and troubled homeless man from Brooklyn. As Willy's body slowly expires, he sets off with Mr. Bones for Baltimore in search of his high school English teacher and a new home for his companion. Mr. Bones is our witness during their journey, and out of his thoughts, Paul Auster has spun one of the richest, most compelling tales in American fiction.

    

    He is a virtual repository of the predominant ideas and historical disasters of the age. But now he has found a story he thinks may be-come his next novel: The large brass cross that hung behind the altar of St. Timothy's, a run-down Episcopal church in lower Manhattan, has disappeared...and even more mysteriously reappeared on the roof of the Synagogue for Evolutionary Judaism, on the Upper West Side. The church's maverick rector and the young woman rabbi who leads the synagogue are trying to learn who committed this strange double act of desecration and why. Befriending them, the novelist finds that their struggles with their respective traditions are relevant to the case. Into his workbook go his taped interviews, insights, preliminary drafts...and as he joins the clerics in pursuit of the mystery, it broadens to implicate a large cast of vividly drawn characters - including scientists, war veterans, prelates, Holocaust survivors, cabinet members, theologians, New York Times reporters, filmmakers, and crooners - in what proves to be a quest for an authentic spirituality at the end of this tortured century.Daringly poised at the junction of the sacred and the profane, and filled with the sights and sounds of New York, this dazzlingly inventive masterwork emerges as the American novel readers have been thirsting for a defining document of our times, a narrative of the twentieth century written for the twenty-first.

    It was a "big country needing big men and women to live in it." Here are three more of his fine short stories about the West. West of the Tularosa Ruth Kermitt, owner of the Tumbling K ranch, made a deal with old Tom McCracken, owner of the Firebox spread, to buy his ranch. That's why the Tumbling K's foreman, Ward McQueen, and some of the Tumbling K crew have come to take possession. But in a deserted bunkhouse on the Firebox, they find the body of Jimmy McCracken, son of the former owner, who was clearly killed in a gunfight. Then, Sheriff Bill Foster shows up with a posse. Riding with that posse is Neal Webb, who claims that he owns the Firebox and that he's got a transfer deed signed by Jimmy McCracken conveying that ownership. Webb seizes the opportunity to accuse Ward McQueen and his men of killing McCracken in order to claim possession of the Firebox. Despite his innocence, McQueen sees that he will have a tough time staying out of jail long enough to discover who the real killers are. Home in the Valley Steve Mehan had accomplished what many had believed to be impossible. He had taken cattle from the home range in Nevada to California in the dead of winter. Not only that, he had been successful in selling them. Now the money from the sale is on deposit with the Dake & Company bank in Sacramento. That $24,000 will save all five ranches in Paiute Valley that had supplied cattle for the drive. Mehan is feeling good about all of this when, to his shock, he reads in the newspaper that Dake & Company has failed. And there is one nasty hombre who is mighty happy to hear this. He sneeringly tells Mehan that those ranchers have lost out and since they can't pay their debt--and he will become the new owner. But Mehan isn't ready to give up. There is a bank branch in Portland, Oregon, and if Mehan can get to it and withdraw the money before the steamer boat heading for Portland arrives with the news of the bank failure, he wins. To do that, Mehan will have to start out immediately, hoping for stamina, luck, and a long relay of good horses to cover those hundreds of miles. West Is Where the Heart Is Jim London is on his way home. During the four years of the War between the States, he has not been home, seen his wife, Jane, or been able to send word of his whereabouts. For all she knew, he was dead. Fellows have told him she wouldn't have waited for him, but London believes differently. Then, just two hundred miles from home, London comes across a burned-out wagon train. Nine wagons had been hit by the Comanches, and they left only a ruin behind: overturned wagons, dead livestock, ransacked belongings, and dead bodies strewn on the ground. Yet Jim discovers that not everyone is dead. He finds little Betty Jane, a five-year-old who had been able to hide successfully during the attack. The only thing to be done is for him to take her along with him. But during their journey, he discovers that the child knows something that no one else does.

    The place is Alexandria, an Egyptian city that once housed the world's greatest library and whose inhabitants are dedicated to knowledge. But for the obsessed characters in this mesmerizing novel, their pursuits lead only to bedrooms in which each seeks to know--and possess--the other. Since its publication in 1957, Justine has inspired an almost religious devotion among readers and critics alike.

    Miner James Starr, after receiving a letter from an old friend, leaves for the Aberfoyle mine. Although believed to be mined out a decade earlier, James Starr finds a mine overman, Simon Ford, along with his family living deep inside the mine. Simon Ford has found a large vein of coal in the mine but the characters must deal with mysterious and unexplainable happenings in and around the mine.

    THE BOOK INCLUDES THE FINAL MANUSCRIPT AS WELL AS EARLY DRAFTS.

    Feist. This bundle includes the complete Chaoswar Saga.The bundle includes: A Kingdom Besieged, A Crown Imperilled, Magician’s End.A KINGDOM BESIEGED: The Darkness is coming…The Kingdom is plagued by rumour and instability. Kingdom spies in Kesh have been disappearing - either murdered, or turned to the enemy side. Information has become scant and unreliable; but one thing appears clear. Dark forces are on the move…A CROWN IMPERILLED: War rages in Midkemia but behind the chaos there is disquieting evidence of dark forces at work.Lord Hal of Crydee and his great friend Ty Hawkins, champion swordsman of the Masters’ Court, are entrusted with the task of smuggling Princess Stephané and her lady-in-waiting, the lovely but mysterious Lady Gabriella, out of Roldem to a place of greater safety. But is there any safe haven to be found?MAGICIAN’S END: The dragons are calling…Civil war is tearing apart the Kingdom of the Isles, for the throne lies empty and rivals are converging. Hal – now Duke of Crydee – must turn his attention to the defence of the ancient realm so that a king can be anointed by the Congress of Lords, rather than by right of might.

    Dunn, a literary artist of extraordinary vision and courage, comes a haunting exploration of life, death, responsibility, and the devastating power of choice--a gripping and provocative novel that shines a beacon of moral possibility into the darkest corners of the human soul.In the future--when the barriers of Time are barriers no longer--a woman of uncommon strength and character will be recruited to help preserve the integrity of past events; to keep the wheel of history turning so that what is to come remains uncompromised and uncorrupted. But Alma Levin will go renegade, vanishing somewhere into the most violent years of the mid-twentieth century. And it will be the responsibility of her mentor, Gasper James, to bring her back. For useless he can stop her, Alma Levin intends to change history--and the future--with a plan to prevent the slaughter of six million--a plan that is puling former teacher and protigi both into the most terrible place ever conceived by man: Auschwitz.

    From the early 1900s through the 1960s, we accompany Bess as she endures life's trials and triumphs with unfailing courage and indomitable spirit: the sacrifices love sometimes requires of the heart, the flaws and rewards of marriage, the often-tested bond between mother and child, and the will to defy a society that demands conformity. Now, with this beautiful trade paperback edition, Penguin will introduce a new generation of readers to this richly woven story. . .and to Bess Steed Garner, a woman for all ages.