A library with no books breaks Trudell's book-loving heart and she decides to rescue hundreds of beloved tomes slated for the recycle center. Under the cover of darkness, Trudell sets up a secret book room in the library's basement and opens it to her loyal patrons.When the town councilman, who was a vocal supporter of the library's transformation is crushed by an overturned shelf of DVDs, Trudell becomes the prime suspect. She was the only person in the library at the time of his murder, or so the police believe. But the visitors to Trudell's secret bookroom were actually all there too.If she tells the police about the backdoor patrons who were in the library at the time of the murder, she'd have to explain about the secret book room and risk losing the books. To keep herself out of jail, Trudell--with the help of a group of dedicated readers--decides to investigate. She quickly finds herself on the same page with a killer who would love to write her final chapter.

    Not only did she need summer break the way all teachers do, but she also needed to get away from life for a while—and leave the humiliation of her fiancé dumping her a month before the wedding behind. What better way to relax than a month-long stay in Hawaii? Things get off to a rough start when Megan makes a fool of herself at the baggage carousel, but lucky for her, handsome Drake Hanover is there to sweep her off her feet—or rather, get her back on them. And, as fate would have it, they are staying at the same resort, one which Drake intends to buy. While adventure was part of the plan, the two of them, and a few friends, find themselves caught up in the adventure of a lifetime—one that involves shadowy figures, plenty of deception, and a lot of hidden treasure. And what better way to fall in love than over a little bit of danger in paradise? Billionaire Vacation is a steamy alpha billionaire romance. No cliffhanger and has a HEA. Includes 3 free bonus full-length novels for a limited time.

    

    Civil War pits countrymen against one another and tears a nation asunder. Life and death are held in the balance where everyone is a slave to something. In a time when war brings the South to its knees, two women will forge a friendship in the fires of redemption and thrust Ironwood into a new future – where the battle for freedom has merely begun. Book Two: Heir of HopeA hidden diary. Dreams of the past. And a hope for a new future. Emily Burns grew up an orphan, so she never expected to inherit a southern plantation. When she discovers an old diary hidden in the attic, her life becomes strangely entwined with her Civil War ancestor and she soon begins to wonder how a woman long dead can keep showing up in her dreams.Book Three: Missing MercyThe venture ahead could leave their friendship behind.Made a safe-haven after the Civil War, Ironwood Plantation is a refuge of equality for former slaves. But twenty years and a new generation later, they have become an isolated community with little contact with the rest of the world.In a time where prejudices try to define them, Mercy Carpenter and Faith Harper must push the boundaries of their beliefs and trust in the God who holds the keys to freedom.

    

    This indifference has become a grievous loss to our standing as a great nation--and a personal loss, too, for millions of teenagers who may turn into adults with limited understanding of themselves and the world.Can teenagers be turned on to serious reading? What kind of teachers can do it, and what books? To find out, Denby sat in on a tenth-grade English class in a demanding New York public school for an entire academic year, and made frequent visits to a troubled inner-city public school in New Haven and to a respected public school in Westchester county. He read all the stories, poems, plays, and novels that the kids were reading, and creates an impassioned portrait of charismatic teachers at work, classroom dramas large and small, and fresh and inspiring encounters with the books themselves, including The Scarlet Letter, Brave New World, 1984, Slaughterhouse-Five, Notes From Underground, Long Way Gone and many more. Lit Up is a dramatic narrative that traces awkward and baffled beginnings but also exciting breakthroughs and the emergence of pleasure in reading. In a sea of bad news about education and the fate of the book, Denby reaffirms the power of great teachers and the importance and inspiration of great books.

    Today the knowledge they safeguard faces purposeful destruction and willful neglect; deprived of funding, libraries are fighting for their very existence. Burning the Books recounts the history that brought us to this point.Richard Ovenden describes the deliberate destruction of knowledge held in libraries and archives from ancient Alexandria to contemporary Sarajevo, from smashed Assyrian tablets in Iraq to the destroyed immigration documents of the United Kingdom’s Windrush generation. He examines both the motivations for these acts—political, religious, and cultural—and the broader themes that shape this history. He also looks at attempts to prevent and mitigate attacks on knowledge, exploring the efforts of librarians and archivists to preserve information, often risking their own lives in the process.More than simply repositories for knowledge, libraries and archives inspire and inform citizens. In preserving notions of statehood recorded in such historical documents as the Declaration of Independence, libraries support the state itself. By preserving records of citizenship and records of the rights of citizens as enshrined in legal documents such as the Magna Carta and the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, they support the rule of law. In Burning the Books, Ovenden takes a polemical stance on the social and political importance of the conservation and protection of knowledge, challenging governments in particular, but also society as a whole, to improve public policy and funding for these essential institutions.

    The Penguin Classics Book is a reader's companion to the largest library of classic literature in the world.Spanning 4,000 years from the legends of Ancient Mesopotamia to the poetry of the First World War, with Greek tragedies, Icelandic sagas, Japanese epics and much more in between, it encompasses 500 authors and 1,200 books, bringing these to life with lively descriptions, literary connections and beautiful cover designs.

    Andrew DeGraff's stunningly detailed artwork takes readers deep into the landscapes from The Odyssey, Hamlet, Pride and Prejudice, Invisible Man, A Wrinkle in Time, Watership Down,A Christmas Carol, and more. Sure to reignite a love for old favorites and spark fresh interest in more recent works as well, Plotted provides a unique new way of appreciating the lands of the human imagination.

    It is about learning to read (and asking her mother to buy her a copy of the Kama Sutra), about love and science (and her childhood ambition to be Marie Curie), about arctic exploration (and her ruminations on what part of a husky she would eat if she had to), about poetry and travel and falling in love.In our book-devouring nation, this is a book for every avid reader and every avid listener who has been spellbound by Ramona’s interviews over the years. By the Book is quintessentially Ramona: warm, bright, erudite—unmissable.

    But throughout history there have been moments of vital importance that have taken place not on the battlefield, or in the palaces of power, or even in the violence of nature, but between the pages of a book. In our digitised age of instant information it is easy to underestimate the power of the printed word. In his fascinating new book accompanying the ITV series, Melvyn Bragg presents a vivid reminder of the book as agent of social, political and personal revolution. Twelve Books that Changed the World presents a rich variety of human endeavour and a great diversity of characters. There are also surprises. Here are famous books by Darwin, Newton and Shakespeare -- but we also discover the stories behind some less well-known works, such as Marie Stopes' Married Love, the original radical feminist Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman -- and even the rules to an obscure ball game that became the most popular sport in the world ...

    Le Guin:"I read her nonstop growing up and read her still. What makes her so extraordinary for me is that her commitment to the consequences of our actions, of our all too human frailties, is unflinching and almost without precedent for a writer of such human optimism."—Junot Diaz"A lot of her work is about telling stories, and what it means to tell stories, and what stories look like. She's been extremely influential on me in that area of what I, as a beginning writer, thought a story must look like, and the much more expan-sive view I have now of what a story can be and can do."—Karen Joy Fowler"She was and remains a central figure for me."—Michael ChabonUrsula K. Le Guin is one of our foremost public literary intellectuals and this collection of her recent talks, essays, introductions, and book reviews is the best manual we have for traveling the worlds explored in recent fiction; the most useful guide to the country we're visiting, life.Ursula K. Le Guin was born in Berkeley, California, in 1929. Among her honors are the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, a National Book Award, the Hugo, Nebula, and Kafka awards, a Pushcart Prize, and the Harold D. Vursell Me-morial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Portland, Ore-gon.

    The author traces the evolution of the book from the rarefied world of the hand-copied and illuminated volume in ancient and medieval times, through the revolutionary impact of Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, to the rise of a publishing culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the subsequent impact of new technologies on this culture.  Many of the great individual titles of the past two millennia are discussed as well as the range of book types and formats that have emerged in the last few hundred years, from serial and dime novels to paperbacks, children’s books, and Japanese manga. The volume ends with a discussion of the digital revolution in book production and distribution and the ramifications for book lovers, who can’t help but wonder whether the book will thrive—or even survive—in a form they recognize.

    We learn to read at an early age, and as we grow older we shed our beloved books for new ones. But some of us surround ourselves with books. We collect them, decorate with them, are inspired by them, and treat our books as sacred objects. In this lighthearted collection of one- and two-page comics, writer-artist Grant Snider explores bookishness in all its forms, and the love of writing and reading, building on the beloved literary comics featured on his website, Incidental Comics. With a striking package including a die-cut cover, I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf is the perfect gift for bookworms of all ages.

    Marines landed on a small island in the Central Pacific called Peleliu, as a prelude to the liberation of the Philippines. Among the first wave of Marines that hit the beach that day was 22-year-old George Peto. Growing up in on a farm in Ohio, George had always preferred exploring to being indoors. This made school a challenge, but his hunting, fishing and trapping skills helped put food on the family’s table. As a teenager living in a rough area he got into regular brawls, and he found holding down a job hard because of his wanderlust. After a succession of jobs he decided that joining the Marines offered him the opportunity for adventure plus three square meals a day, so he and his brother joined the Corps in 1941, just a few months before Pearl Harbor.Following boot camp and training, he was initially assigned to a guard unit. Found not guilty of misconduct after falling asleep on duty while very sick, he was then shipped out to a combat unit. His first experience of combat was during the landings at Finschhaven and Cape Gloucester. He was a Forward Observer in one of the lead amtracs of the 1st Marines for the Peleliu landing, and saw fierce fighting for a week before the unit was relieved due to massive casualties. The unit was then the immediate reserve for the initial landing on Okinawa. They encountered no resistance on landing on D+1, but would then fight on Okinawa for over six months. This is the wild and remarkable story of an "Old Breed" Marine, from his youth in the Great Depression, his training and combat in the Pacific during WWII, to his life after the war, told in his own words.