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In the increasingly turbulent atmosphere of international politics, the once grassroots anti-globalisation movement has been slowly taken over by the underground radical anti-technology group fronted by a mysterious figure known only as Lazarus. All attempts to infiltrate the group have failed and the intelligence agents involved have all disappeared without a trace. Now Lazarus is preparing to make his boldest move yet. Lt. Col. Jon Smith is activated by Covert-One to bring his skills to bear in uncovering the truth behind the terrorists. For, unbeknownst to the world at large, the Lazarus Movement is on the brink of setting in motion a deadly scheme that will risk the lives of billions and forever change the nature of the world.


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Already devastated by loss, Bourne is shattered by a report that his last friend in the world, Martin Lindros, has gone missing. A CI deputy director, Lindros was in Ethiopia tracking suspicious shipments of yellowcake uranium and atomic bomb weaponry. His last lifeline to humanity, Bourne will not let Lindros go. Despite his hatred for CI, Bourne sets out to rescue his friend and finish the job: dismantling a terrorist network determined to build nuclear armaments by cutting off their source of money. But Bourne doesn't realize that these men, Islamic supremacists, are leaders of an incredibly dangerous, technologically savvy group with ties from Africa, across the Middle East, and into Eastern Europe and Russia. They have predicted Bourne's every move, and are counting on his unwitting help in their plans to destroy America.


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Jason Bourne's nemesis Arkadin is still hot on his trail and the two continue their struggle, reversing roles of hunter and hunted. When Bourne is ambushed and badly wounded, he fakes his death and goes into hiding. In safety, he takes on a new identity, and begins a mission to find out who tried to assassinate him. Jason begins to question who he really is, how much of him is tied up in the Bourne identity, and what he would become if that was suddenly taken away from him. Meanwhile, an American passenger airliner is shot down over Egypt by what seems to be an Iranian missile. A massive global investigative team is assembled to get at the truth of the situation before it can escalate into an international scandal. Jason Bourne's search for the man who shot him intersects with the search for the people that brought down the airliner, leading Bourne into one of the most deadly and challenging situations he has ever encountered. With the threat of a new world war brewing, Bourne finds himself in a race against time to uncover the truth and find the person behind his assault, all the while being stalked by his unknown nemesis.


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University professor David Webb - forever caught between two identities - is still haunted by the splintered nightmares his former life - as Jason Bourne.Soon he finds himself embroiled in a CIA operation to hunt down a terrorist organisation, and is plunged into the deadliest and most tangled assignment of his double life. With his own side trying to take him down, all the while an assassin as brilliant and damaged as himself is getting closer by the minute...


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On the dark waterside docks of Shanghai, a photographer records cargo being secretly loaded. He's brutally killed and his camera destroyed. Two weeks later on the dangerous high seas, the U.S. Navy covertly tracks a Chinese ship rumoured to carry tons of chemicals to create biological weapons of mass-destruction. The President cannot let the ship reach its destination - a rogue Middle East nation. But he doesn't want the navy to attack and board it either, because decades of negotiations with China have at long last yielded a landmark human rights agreement that China is willing to sign. Covert-One operative Jon Smith is brought in to find solid proof of what the Chinese ship is ferrying. Then an agent is murdered and vital evidence destroyed. Smith must find the truth about the ship, a truth that probes the deepest secrets of the Chinese ruling party...


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An unknown doomsday virus has claimed the lives of four people - including the fiancee of Covert One's Lt. Col. Jon Smith. Devastated and enraged, Smith uncovers evidence that this was no accident; someone out there has the virus and the pandemic that threatens millions of lives was planned...Not knowing who to trust or where to turn, Smith assembles a private team to fight against the deadly virus. As the death toll mounts, the quest leads them to the highest levels of power and the darkest corners of the earth. And Smith and his team must hunt down a genius determined to destroy them.


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Yuri Danko, an officer in the medical division of Russia's security service, is murdered by a spray of assassin's bullets. Now Covert-One's Jon Smith has Danko's classified papers, and he's unearthed a terrifying global conspiracy. A Serb terrorist has been despatched from Russia to smuggle hazardous vials of a deadly bacteria into the United States. His mission: to deliver them to an unknown US government agent. Then both men are murdered, and the deadly bacteria is stolen... It's up to Lt Col Smith to find the madman who possesses it, before he holds a defenceless world hostage with the power to render the human race extinct.


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When Machiavelli's brief treatise on Renaissance statecraft and princely power was posthumously published in 1532, it generated a debate that has raged unabated until the present day. Based upon Machiavelli's first-hand experience as an emissary of the Florentine Republic to the courts of Europe, The Prince analyses the usually violent means by which men seize, retain, and lose political power. Machiavelli added a dimension of incisive realism to one of the major philosophical and political issues of his time, especially the relationship between public deeds and private morality. His book provides a remarkably uncompromising picture of the true nature of power, no matter in what era or by whom it is exercised. This fluent new translation is accompanied by an introduction that considers the true purpose of The Prince and dispels some of the myths associated with it. It has the most comprehensive explanatory and critical notes found in any currently available English translation and the most comprehensive bibliography in any edition of the work. It also contains a helpful Glossary of Proper Names, an Index and a map.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Winifred Rudge, a bemused writer struggling to get beyond the runaway success of her mass-market astrology book, travels to London to jump-start her new novel about a woman who is being haunted by the ghost of Jack the Ripper. Upon her arrival, she finds that her stepcousin and old friend John Comestor has disappeared, and a ghostly presence seems to have taken over his home. Is the spirit Winnie's great-great-grandfather, who, family legend claims, was Charles Dickens's childhood inspiration for Ebenezer Scrooge? Could it be the ghostly remains of Jack the Ripper? Or a phantasm derived from a more arcane and insidious origin? Winnie begins to investigate and finds herself the unwilling audience for a drama of specters and shades -- some from her family's peculiar history and some from her own unvanquished past.

In the spirit of A. S. Byatt's *Possession,* with dark echoing overtones of *A Christmas Carol,* *Lost* presents a rich fictional world that will enrapture its readers.


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The year is 1502, and seven-year-old Bianca de Nevada lives perched high above the rolling hills and valleys of Tuscany and Umbria at Montefiore, the farm of her beloved father, Don Vicente. But one day a noble entourage makes its way up the winding slopes to the farm -- and the world comes to Montefiore. In the presence of Cesare Borgia and his sister, the lovely and vain Lucrezia -- decadent children of a wicked pope -- no one can claim innocence for very long. When Borgia sends Don Vicente on a years-long quest, he leaves Bianca under the care -- so to speak -- of Lucrezia. She plots a dire fate for the young girl in the woods below the farm, but in the dark forest salvation can be found as well ... A lyrical work of stunning creative vision, Mirror Mirror gives fresh life to the classic story of Snow White -- and has a truth and beauty all its own.


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Fate takes many forms. . . .  When Henry receives a letter from an elderly taxidermist, it poses a puzzle that he cannot resist. As he is pulled further into the world of this strange and calculating man, Henry becomes increasingly involved with the lives of a donkey and a howler monkey—named **Beatrice and Virgil**—and the epic journey they undertake together.With all the spirit and originality that made *Life of Pi* so beloved, this brilliant new novel takes the reader on a haunting odyssey. On the way Martel asks profound questions about life and art, truth and deception, responsibility and complicity.
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Fate takes many forms. . . . When Henry receives a letter from an elderly taxidermist, it poses a puzzle that he cannot resist. As he is pulled further into the world of this strange and calculating man, Henry becomes increasingly involved with the lives of a donkey and a howler monkey-named Beatrice and Virgil-and the epic journey they undertake together. With all the spirit and originality that made Life of Piso beloved, this brilliant new novel takes the reader on a haunting odyssey. On the way Martel asks profound questions about life and art, truth and deception, responsibility and complicity.


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The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true?


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At the end of the school year, Kendra and her brother, Seth, find themselves racing back to Fablehaven, a refuge for mythical and magical creatures. Grandpa Sorenson, the caretaker, invites three specialists--a potion master, a magical relics collector, and a mystical creature trapper--to help protect the property from the Society of the Evening Star, an ancient organization determined to infiltrate the preserve and steal a hidden artifact of great power. Time is running out. The Evening Star is storming the gates. If the artifact falls into the wrong hands, it could mean the downfall of other preserves and possibly the end of the world. Will Kendra learn to use her fairy gifts in time? Will Seth stay out of trouble? Can they overcome paralyzing fear? Find out in book 2 of this bestselling series.


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For centuries mystical creatures of all description were gathered into a hidden refuge called Fablehaven to prevent their extinction. The sanctuary survives today as one of the last strongholds of true magic. Enchanting? Absolutely. Exciting? You bet. Safe? Well, actually, quite the opposite. Kendra and her brother, Seth, have no idea that their grandfather is the current caretaker of Fablehaven. Inside the gated woods, ancient laws keep relative order among greedy trolls, mischievous satyrs, plotting witches, spiteful imps, and jealous fairies. However, when the rules get broken -- Seth is a bit too curious and reckless for his own good -- powerful forces of evil are unleashed, and Kendra and her brother face the greatest challenge of their lives. To save their family, Fablehaven, and perhaps even the world, Kendra and Seth must find the courage to do what they fear most.


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(Fablehaven Series, Book 5) 
EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Since ancient times, the great demon prison Zzyzx has  protected the world from the most dangerous servants of  darkness, including Gorgrog, the Demon King. After centuries  of plotting, the Sphinx is on the verge of recovering the five  artifacts necessary to open the legendary prison.  Facing the potential of a world-ending calamity, all friends of  light must unite in a final effort to thwart the Sphinx s designs  and find a safe home for the five artifacts. To this end, Kendra,  Seth, and the Knights of the Dawn will venture far beyond the  walls of Fablehaven to strange and exotic magical preserves  across the globe, where the end of every quest becomes the  beginning of another. In this explosive series finale, allegiances  will be confirmed and secrets revealed as the forces of light  and darkness collide in a desperate struggle to control the  keys to the demon prison.


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Very strange things are afoot at Fablehaven. Someone or something has released a plague that transforms beings of light into creatures of darkness. Seth discovers the problem early, but as the infectious disease spreads, it becomes clear that the preserve cannot hold out for long. In dire need of help, the Sorensons question where to turn. The Sphinx has always given sound advice -- but is he a traitor? Inside the Quiet Box, Vanessa might have information that could lead to a cure -- but can she be trusted?Meanwhile, Kendra and members of the Knights of the Dawn must journey to a distant preserve and retrieve another hidden artifact. Will the Society of the Evening Star recover it first? Will the plague eclipse all light at Fablehaven?


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Brace yourself for a shocking secret. Two hidden artifacts have been found. Three more remain unrecovered. More preserves face destruction as the Society of the Evening Star relentlessly pursues new talismans. Reading in Patton s Journal of Secrets, Kendra learns the location of the key to a vault housing one of the artifacts. In order to retrieve it, the Knights of the Dawn must enter a death trap a dragon sanctuary called Wyrmroost. The mission cannot proceed without stealing a sacred object zealously guarded by the centaurs. Anybody seen Seth? The race is on to acquire all five of the artifact keys to the great demon prison. Will the Knights of the Dawn conquer Wyrmroost? Who can stop the Sphinx? Can Vanessa be trusted to help? What artifact will be found next? Find out in Fablehaven: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary.


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Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is a dark and daring story of obsessive love and transgression. Humbert Humbert's lust for his pubescent step-daughter, Lolita, shocked readers when it was first published in the 1950s; yet the novel was also celebrated for its beautifully lyrical writing. Almost fifty years after its first publication, Lolita remains a powerful tale of perversion and love gone wrong.


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It's 1988 and Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have only just met. They both know that the next day, after college graduation, they must go their separate ways. But after only one day together, they cannot stop thinking about one another. As the years go by, Dex and Em begin to lead separate lives—lives very different from the people they once dreamed they'd become. And yet, unable to let go of that special something that grabbed onto them that first night, an extraordinary relationship develops between the two.             Over twenty years, snapshots of that relationship are revealed on the same day—July 15th—of each year. Dex and Em face squabbles and fights, hopes and missed opportunities, laughter and tears. And as the true meaning of this one crucial day is revealed, they must come to grips with the nature of love and life itself.


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Nietzsche's mature masterpiece, Beyond Good and Evil considers the origins and nature of Judeo-Christian morality; the end of philosophical dogmatism and beginning of perspectivism; the questionable virtues of science and scholarship; liberal democracy, nationalism, and women's emancipation. A superb new translation by Marion Faber, this highly annotated edition is complemented by a lucid introduction by one of the most eminent of Nietzsche scholars, Robert C. Holub.


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A dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap, and it is Audrey Niffenegger's cinematic storytelling that makes the novel's unconventional chronology so vibrantly triumphant. An enchanting debut and a spellbinding tale of fate and belief in the bonds of love, The Time Traveler's Wife is destined to captivate readers for years to come.


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The Audacity of Hope is Barack Obama's call for a new kind of politics—a politics that builds upon those shared understandings that pull us together as Americans. Lucid in his vision of America's place in the world, refreshingly candid about his family life and his time in the Senate, Obama here sets out his political convictions and inspires us to trust in the dogged optimism that has long defined us and that is our best hope going forward.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

"Reader's Guides" provide a comprehensive starting point for any advanced student, giving an overview of the context, criticism and influence of key works. Each guide also offers students fresh critical insights and provides a practical introduction to close reading and to analysing literary language and form. They provide up-to-date, authoritative but accessible guides to the most commonly studied classic texts. Chinua Achebe's remarkable novel "Things Fall Apart (1958)" is probably the best known African novel and has become one of the world's most influential literary masterpieces. Since publication, a total of nearly 12 million copies have been sold, with translations into more than 50 languages. Despite its undoubted success, its apparent simplicity has tended to blind readers to the dazzling storytelling resources and the inventive language, plot, setting, and characterization which first draw them to the novel and keep them reading.  This is the ideal guide to the text, setting "Things Fall Apart" in its historical, intellectual and cultural contexts, offering analyses of its themes, style and structure, providing exemplary close readings, presenting an up-to-date account of its critical reception and examining its afterlife in literature, film and popular culture. It includes points for discussion, suggestions for further study and an annotated guide to relevant reading.


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Thomas Paine's book "Common Sense" was the written word that inflamed and drove the people of the colonies to the cause of the American Revolution. It was a clear and passionate document for freedom from the English Crown. Over 500,000 ccopies were sold in just a few months from when it was written in January 1776. His book "The Rights of Man" is a clear document for democracy and egalitarianism. It supported all forms of a progressive society and was an inspiration for the patriots of America's early days. Also, "The Age of Reason" was his last book and almost entirely is centered on religion - Christianity. It puts to test many questions towards faith in order to make valid answers possible. Many essential beliefs are confronted with rational logic. A Cpollector's Edition.


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Diary
"CAN YOU FEEL THIS?"
Diary takes the form of a "coma diary" kept by one Misty Tracy Wilmot as her husband lies senseless in a hospital after a suicide attempt. Once she was an art student dreaming of creativity and freedom; now, after marrying Peter at school and being brought back to once quaint, now tourist-overrun Waytansea Island, she's been reduced to the condition of a resort hotel maid. Peter, it turns out, has been hiding rooms in houses he's remodeled and scrawling vile messages all over the walls-an old habit of builders but dramatically overdone in Peter's case. Angry homeowners are suing left and right, and Misty's dreams of artistic greatness are in ashes. But then, as if possessed by the spirit of Maura Kinkaid, a fabled Waytansea artist of the nineteenth century, Misty begins painting again, compulsively. But can her newly discovered talent be part of a larger, darker plan? Of course it can …
Praise
"Just for the record, Diary is as hypnotic as a poised cobra. Chuck Palahniuk demonstrates that the most chilling special effects come not from Industrial Light and Magic but from the words of a gifted writer." 
– Ira Levin, author of Rosemary's Baby


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With more than 300,000 copies sold, Chuck Palahniuk's brilliant first novel and cult classic is being reissued with a new Introduction by the author An underground classic since its first publication in 1996, "Fight Club" is widely recognized as one of the most original and provocative novels of the last decade. Now the author adds his own voice to the critical debate he generated. In a new Introduction, he discusses the various interpretations in the popular media of "Fight Club" and the movie it inspired, as well as his personal reactions to the work's reception and the influence that the "Fight Club "phenomenon has already had on our culture. Chuck Palahniuk's darkly funny first novel tells the story of a disenfranchised young man frustrated with his bureacratic job and superficial relationships and disillusioned with the consumer culture's prepackaged pleasures. Relief for him and his peers comes in the form of Tyler Durden, the intensely charismatic inventor of Fight Club. Waiters, clerks, and middlemen seek out the visceral satisfaction of secret after-hours boxing matches in the basements of bars, thinking they have found a way to live beyond their confining and stultifying lives. But in Tyler's world there are no rules, no limits, no brakes.Chuck Palahniuk is the bestselling author of "Diary," "Lullaby," and "Choke." He lives and works in Portland, Oregon. In this darkly funny first novel that made Chuck Palahniuk's reputation as his generation's most visionary satirist, an estranged young man seeks relief from the emptiness of his work and life in the enigmatic figure of Tyler Durden. Flaunting his disregard for the stultifying conventions of a hollow consumer culture, Tyler devises a series of secret after-hours boxing matches held in the basements of bars. Fight Club offers way for Tyler and his friends to overcome the frustrations of their professional and personal lives, and his idea catches on quickly. But in Tyler's world there are no rules, no limits, no brakes. An underground classic since its first publication in 1996, "Fight Club" is now recognized as one of the most original and provocative novels published in the last decade. In an insightful new introduction, the author discusses why the story will resonate with readers now more than ever.  ""Fight Club" offers diabolically sharp and funny writing."--"The Washington Post Book World" "An astonishing debut . . . "Fight Club" is a dark, unsettling and nerve-chafing satire."--"The Seattle Times " "A powerful, dark, original novel . . . a memorable debut by an important new writer."--Robert Stone


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The "New York Times" bestseller A LOVE THAT TRANSCENDS HEAVEN AND HELL What happens to us after we die? Chris Nielsen had no idea, until an unexpected accident cut his life short, separating him from his beloved wife, Annie. Now Chris must discover the true nature of life after death. But even Heaven is not complete without Annie, and when tragedy threatens to divide them forever, Chris risks his very soul to save Annie from an eternity of despair. Richard Matheson's powerful tale of life---and love---after death was the basis for the Oscar-winning film starring Robin Williams.


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An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, Blood Meridianbrilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the "wild west."  Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

This is Volume Two of the "Border Trilogy". '"The Crossing", together with its predecessor "All the Pretty Horses", towers over most contemporary fiction. An American epic infused with a grand solemnity' - "Sunday Times". Set on the south-western ranches in the years before the Second World War, "The Crossing" follows the fortunes of sixteen-year-old Billy and his younger brother Boyd. Fascinated by an elusive wolf that has been marauding his family's property, Billy captures the animal - but rather than kill it, sets out impulsively for the mountains of Mexico to return it to where it came from. When Billy comes back to his own home he finds himself and his world irrevocably changed. His loss of innocence has come at a price, and once again the border beckons with its desolate beauty and cruel promise. 'McCarthy writes prose as clean as a bullet cutting through the air and constructs tales as compelling as any you will read ...They are stories about people as real as the land they ride and as disturbing as the rituals they enact' - "Daily Telegraph".


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A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece.A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.


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In this masterful book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence -- when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper. Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King's men, the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known. At the center of the drama, with Washington, are two young American patriots, who, at first, knew no more of war than what they had read in books -- Nathanael Greene, a Quaker who was made a general at thirty-three, and Henry Knox, a twenty-five-year-old bookseller who had the preposterous idea of hauling the guns of Fort Ticonderoga overland to Boston in the dead of winter. But it is the American commander-in-chief who stands foremost -- Washington, who had never before led an army in battle. Written as a companion work to his celebrated biography of John Adams, David McCullough's 1776 is another landmark in the literature of American history.


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In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second president of the United States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary war; who was learned beyond all but a few and regarded by some as "out of his senses"; and whose marriage to the wise and valiant Abigail Adams is one of the most moving love stories in American history.  This is history on a grand scale -- a book about politics and war and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship, and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above all, John Adams is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.


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One of the biggest questions of the financial crisis has not been answered until now. What happened at Lehman Brothers and why was it allowed to fail, with aftershocks that rocked the global economy? In this news-making, often astonishing book, a former Lehman Brothers Vice President gives us the straight answers--right from the belly of the beast. In "A Colossal Failure of Common Sense," Larry McDonald, a Wall Street insider, reveals, the culture and unspoken rules of the game like no book has ever done. The book is couched in the very human story of Larry McDonald's Horatio Alger-like rise from a Massachusetts "gateway to nowhere" housing project to the New York headquarters of Lehman Brothers, home of one of the world's toughest trading floors. We get a close-up view of the participants in the Lehman collapse, especially those who saw it coming with a helpless, angry certainty. We meet the Brahmins at the top, whose reckless, pedal-to-the-floor addiction to growth finally demolished the nation's oldest investment bank. The Wall Street we encounter here is a ruthless place, where brilliance, arrogance, ambition, greed, capacity for relentless toil, and other human traits combine in a potent mix that sometimes fuels prosperity but occasionally destroys it. The full significance of the dissolution of Lehman Brothers remains to be measured. But this much is certain: it was a devastating blow to America's--and the world's--financial system. And it need not have happened. This is the story of why it did.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, *Born to Run *is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: *Why does my foot hurt? *In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world?s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong.Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico?s deadly Copper Canyons are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it. Their superhuman talent is matched by uncanny health and serenity, leaving the Tarahumara immune to the diseases and strife that plague modern existence. With the help of Caballo Blanco, a mysterious loner who lives among the tribe, the author was able not only to uncover the secrets of the Tarahumara but also to find his own inner ultra-athlete, as he trained for the challenge of a lifetime: a fifty-mile race through the heart of Tarahumara country pitting the tribe against an odd band of Americans, including a star ultramarathoner, a beautiful young surfer, and a barefoot wonder.With a sharp wit and wild exuberance, McDougall takes us from the high-tech science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America, where ever-growing numbers of ultrarunners are pushing their bodies to the limit, and, finally, to the climactic race in the Copper Canyons. *Born to Run* is that rare book that will not only engage your mind but inspire your body when you realize that the secret to happiness is right at your feet, and that you, indeed all of us, were born to run.*From the Hardcover edition.*


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In the closest thing he may ever write to an autobiography, Chuck Palahniuk provides answers to all these questions and more as he takes you through the streets, sewers and local haunts of Portland, Oregon. According to Katherine Dunn, author of the cult classic Geek Love, Portland is the home of America's 'fugitives and refugees.' Get to know these folks, the "most cracked of the crackpots,' as Palahniuk calls them, and come along with him on an adventure through the parts of Portland you might not otherwise actually believe actually exist. No other travel guide will give you this kind of access to "a little history, a little legend, and a lot of friendly sincere, fascinating people who maybe should've kept their mouths shut."Here are strange personal museums, wierd annual events and ghost stories. Tour the tunnels under downtown Portland. Visit swingers' sex clubs, gay and straight. See Frances Gabe's famous 1940's Self-cleaning house. Look into strange local customs like the I-Tit-a-Rod Race and the Santa rampage. Learn how to talk like a local in a quick vocabulary lesson. Get to know, I mean really get to know, the animals at the Portland Zoo.Oh, the list goes on and on.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Ever heard of a culling song?  It’s a lullaby sung in Africa to give a painless death to the old or infirm.  The lyrics of a culling song kill, whether spoken or even just thought.  You can find one on page 27 of **Poems and Rhymes from Around the World**, an anthology that is sitting on the shelves of libraries across the country, waiting to be picked up by unsuspecting readers.Reporter Carl Streator discovers the song’s lethal nature while researching Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and before he knows it, he’s reciting the poem to anyone who bothers him. As the body count rises, Streator glimpses the potential catastrophe if someone truly malicious finds out about the song. The only answer is to find and destroy every copy of the book in the country. Accompanied by a shady real-estate agent, her Wiccan assistant, and the assistant’s truly annoying ecoterrorist boyfriend, Streator begins a desperate cross-country quest to put the culling song to rest.Written with a style and imagination that could only come from Chuck Palahniuk, **Lullaby** is the latest outrage from one of our most exciting writers at work today.


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The *Rant Limited Edition*** **is specially packaged in a one-piece preprinted case, printed black, with the title created in spot gloss; a 4-color slipcase that matches the original jacket of the trade book; a 1/8" ribbon marker; a signed tip-in sheet, speckled edges; and an exclusive 1300-word "Automotive Afterword" entitled "Recipes for Disasters" which is not available in print anywhere but only in this limited edition. **“Like most people I didn’t meet Rant Casey until after he was dead. That’s how it works for most celebrities: After they croak, their circle of friends just explodes…”***Rant* is the mind-bending new novel from Chuck Palahniuk, the literary provocateur responsible for such books as the generation-defining classic Fight Club and the pedal-to-the-metal horrorfest Haunted. It takes the form of an oral history of one Buster “Rant” Casey, who may or may not be the most efficient serial killer of our time. **“What ‘Typhoid Mary’ Mallon was to typhoid, what Gaetan Dugas was to AIDS, and Liu Jian Lun was to SARS, Buster Casey would become for rabies.” **A high-school rebel who always wins (and a childhood murderer?), Rant Casey escapes from his small hometown of Middleton for the big city. He becomes the leader of an urban demolition derby called Party Crashing. On appointed nights participants recognize each other by such designated car markings as “Just Married” toothpaste graffiti and then stalk and crash into each other. Rant Casey will die a spectacular highway death after which his friends gather testimony needed to build an oral history of his short, violent life. Their collected anecdotes explore the possibility that his saliva caused a silent urban plague of rabies and that he found a way to escape the prison house of linear time…**“The future you have, tomorrow, won’t be the same future you had, yesterday.”–Rant Casey**Expect hilarity, horror, and blazing insight into the desperate and surreal contemporary human condition as only Chuck Palahniuk can deliver it. He's the postmillennial Jonathan Swift, the visionary to watch to learn what's–uh-oh–coming next.


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Freshly graduated from college with a promising future ahead, Christopher McCandless walked out of his privileged life and into the wild in search of adventure. What happened to him on the way transformed this young wanderer into an enduring symbol for countless people - a fearless risk-taker who wrestled with the precarious balance between man and nature. Based on a true story.


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Jon Krakauer’s literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. He now shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders, taking readers inside isolated American communities where some 40,000 Mormon Fundamentalists still practice polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God.At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.


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Explaining the intricacies of warp speed and showing the difference between a holodeck and a hologram, an easy-to-understand introduction to the arcane world of physics from a renowned physicist uses Star Trek to build and frame his discussion. 125,000 first printing. $75,000 ad/promo.


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When Charles Wallace Murry goes searching through a 'wrinkle in time' for his lost father, he finds himself on an evil planet where all life is enslaved by a huge pulsating brain known as 'It'. How Charles, his sister Meg and friend Calvin find and free his father makes this a very special and exciting mixture of fantasy and science fiction, which all the way through is dominated by the funny and mysterious trio of guardian angels known as Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which.


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**A new translation of one of the most notorious novels of all time** 



 Published just years before the French Revolution, Laclos's great novel of moral and emotional depravity is a disturbing and ultimately damning portrayal of a decadent society. Aristocrats and ex-lovers Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont embark on a sophisticated game of seduction and manipulation to bring amusement to their jaded lives. While Merteuil challenges Valmont to seduce an innocent convent girl, he is also occupied with the conquest of a virtuous married woman. Eventually their human pawns respond, and the consequences prove to be more serious-and deadly-than the players could have ever predicted.


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SUMMARY: Back from schlepping all over New York City, P.I. Gladdy Gold is happy to be on her Florida turf again. Especially now that she and boyfriend Jack Langford are officially an item. But no sooner have the yenta brigade gotten back to their routine—complete with poolside stretching and kvetching—than a notorious outlaw, a.k.a. the “Grandpa Bandit,” issues Gladdy’s detective agency a direct challenge: Catch me if you can.The dapper thief has already knocked over six Fort Lauderdale banks, with no end in sight. It’s up to Gladdy and the girls to stop him before he hits the next one. But when a killer hurricane leads to the discovery of a fifty-year-old skeleton, they have to put the bandit on the back burner. With the storm wreaking havoc and a dark mystery swirling around the Lanai Gardens retirement community, Gladdy and the girls are about to confront a ruthless killer determined to bury the past—and them along with it….


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She’s not Miss Marple. Her friends are no Charlie’s Angels. Nevertheless, 75-year-old Gladdy Gold and her gang of eccentric Fort Lauderdale retirees are out, about, and hunting down a killer–one who is silently stalking them.Selma Beller was the first to go–but Gladdy and her neighbors never suspected murder until another of their friends died in an eerily similar way. Now a handsome young detective won’t listen to them, Hy Binder won’t stop telling them dirty jokes, and crazy old Greta Kronk is doing everything humanly possible to make herself into a suspect. But amid the endless rounds of poolside kibitzing, early-bird specials, bittersweet memories, and interminable grocery-shopping trips, Gladdy and her gals are about to discover how the murders are being committed. And when it comes to catching this culprit–time really is running out….


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Gladdy Gold may have gone from dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker to South Florida retiree, but she's loving every minute of it. Between poolside gossip, a hot-to-trot boyfriend, and a booming detective business, life couldn't be sunnier--until a trip back north with her sister Evvie leads to murder and mayhem starring the usual suspects. Unbeknownst to Gladdy, her fellow detectives are hot on her trail. Sophie, Bella, and Ida no sooner land their tootsies in the Big Apple than trouble promptly finds them. But while the girls go deep undercover, posing as bag ladies to catch a criminal, there's another surprise awaiting Gladdy. Her boyfriend, Jack, is in town too--and he's reopening a forty-seven-year-old cold case: the murder of Gladdy's husband. Can Gladdy and Jack join forces to solve a decades-old crime--and maybe heal some wounded hearts in the process? "From the Paperback edition."


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In Fort Lauderdale, self-proclaimed private eye Gladdy Gold is less interested in her cases than in her whirlwind romance with silver-haired Jack Langford. But just as Jack is about to pop the question to Gladdy, a curvaceous redhead from France interrupts with a mysterious agenda. She and Jack, it turns out, will always have Paris. And to make matters worse, the seductress is being stalked by a killer.

Michelle DuBois is famous for her steamy bestselling exposés -- and now someone wants to silence her forever. While Jack is bodyguarding his former lover, Gladdy must save her busybody friends from the pricey seances of a phony-baloney New Age guru. That's when Gladdy comes face-to-face with a dear departed friend with a message. . . . Between a little jealousy and a geriatric assassin, Jack is in more danger than he knows. And Gladdy is the one woman with the je ne sais quoi that could just save his life.


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The year is 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new ­partner, Chuck Aule, have come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient. Multiple-murderess Rachel Solando is loose somewhere on this barren island, despite having been kept in a locked cell under constant surveillance. As a killer hurricane bears relentlessly down on them, a strange case takes on even darker, more sinister shades—with hints of radical experimentation, horrifying surgeries, and lethal countermoves made in the cause of a covert shadow war. No one is going to escape Shutter Island unscathed, because nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is remotely what it seems.


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As a religion concerned with universal liberation, Zen grew out of a Buddhist worldview very different from the currently prevalent scientific materialism. Indeed, says Taigen Dan Leighton, Zen cannot be fully understood outside of a worldview that sees reality itself as a vital, dynamic agent of awareness and healing. In this book, Leighton explicates that worldview through the writings of the Zen master Eihei D?gen (1200-1253), considered the founder of the Japanese S?t? Zen tradition, which currently enjoys increasing popularity in the West. The Lotus Sutra, arguably the most important Buddhist scripture in East Asia, contains a famous story about bodhisattvas (enlightening beings) who emerge from under the earth to preserve and expound the Lotus teaching in the distant future. The story reveals that the Buddha only appears to pass away, but actually has been practicing, and will continue to do so, over an inconceivably long life span. Leighton traces commentaries on the Lotus Sutra from a range of key East Asian Buddhist thinkers, including Daosheng, Zhiyi, Zhanran, Saigyo, My?e, Nichiren, Hakuin, and Ry?kan. But his main focus is Eihei D?gen, the 13th century Japanese S?t? Zen founder who imported Zen from China, and whose profuse, provocative, and poetic writings are important to the modern expansion of Buddhism to the West. D?gen's use of this sutra expresses the critical role of Mahayana vision and imagination as the context of Zen teaching, and his interpretations of this story furthermore reveal his dynamic worldview of the earth, space, and time themselves as vital agents of spiritual awakening. Leighton argues that D?gen uses the images and metaphors in this story to express his own religious worldview, in which earth, space, and time are lively agents in the bodhisattva project. Broader awareness of D?gen's worldview and its implications, says Leighton, can illuminate the possibilities for contemporary approaches to primary Mahayana concepts and practices.


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The Phantom of the Opera (in French, Le Fantome de l'Opera) is a French novel by Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serialization in Le Gaulois from September 23, 1909 to January 8, 1910. Some believe it to have been inspired by George du Maurier's Trilby. Trilby is based on real events related to the Paris Opera House which Leroux investigated, initiated by stories of an opera house ghost. Initially, the novel sold very poorly and was even out of print several times during the twentieth century. Today, it is considered to be a classic of French literature, though it is overshadowed by its many subsequent adaptations. The novel was translated into English in 1911. It has since been adapted many times into film and stage productions, the most notable of which were the 1925 film depiction and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical, starring Michael Crawford as the Phantom, Steve Barton as Raoul, and Sarah Brightman as Christine, which is now the longest running Broadway show in history and the most lucrative entertainment enterprise of all time, its worldwide box office over the past 20 years out-grossing even the highest grossing film in history, Titanic. *(Quote from wikipedia.org)*



**About the Author**



Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux (6 May 1868, Paris, France - 15 April 1927) was a French journalist, detective and novelist.



In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantome de l'Opera, 1910), which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, such as the 1925 film starring Lon Chaney; and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical. It was also the basis of the 1990 novel Phantom by Susan Kay.



Leroux went to school in Normandy and studied law in Paris, graduating in 1889. He inherited mil


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The *New York Times* bestselling *Freakonomics* was a worldwide sensation, selling more than four million copies in thirty-five languages and changing the way we look at the world.   

 Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with *Superfreakonomics*, and fans and newcomers alike will find that the *freak*quel is even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first.  

 *SuperFreakonomics* challenges the way we think all over again, exploring the hidden side of everything with such questions as:   How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa? What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common? Can eating kangaroo save the planet?  

 Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else. By examining how people respond to incentives, they show the world for what it really is—good, bad, ugly, and, in the final analysis, super freaky. *Freakonomics* has been imitated many times over—but only now, with *SuperFreakonomics*, has it met its match.


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The second book in C. S. Lewis's acclaimed Space Trilogy, which also includes Out of the Silent Planet and That Hideous Strength, Perelandra continues the adventures of the extraordinary Dr. Ransom. Pitted against the most destructive of human weaknesses, temptation, the great man must battle evil on a new planet -- Perelandra -- when it is invaded by a dark force. Will Perelandra succumb to this malevolent being, who strives to create a new world order and who must destroy an old and beautiful civilization to do so? Or will it throw off the yoke of corruption and achieve a spiritual perfection as yet unknown to man? The outcome of Dr. Ransom's mighty struggle alone will determine the fate of this peace-loving planet.


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In this humorous and perceptive exchange between two devils, C. S. Lewis delves into moral questions about good vs. evil, temptation, repentance, and grace. Through this wonderful tale, the reader emerges with a better understanding of what it means to live a faithful life.  "Excellent for Homeschool Use"


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The final book in C. S. Lewis's acclaimed Space Trilogy, which includes Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, That Hideous Strength concludes the adventures of the matchless Dr. Ransom. The dark forces that were repulsed in Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra are massed for an assault on the planet Earth itself. Word is on the wind that the mighty wizard Merlin has come back to the land of the living after many centuries, holding the key to ultimate power for that force which can find him and bend him to its will. A sinister technocratic organization is gaining power throughout Europe with a plan to "recondition" society, and it is up to Ransom and his friends to squelch this threat by applying age-old wisdom to a new universe dominated by science. The two groups struggle to a climactic resolution that brings the Space Trilogy to a magnificent, crashing close.


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Joyce's semi-autobiographical first novel follows Stephen Dedalus, a sensitive and creative youth who rebels against his family, his education, and his country by committing himself to the artist's life.


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James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (1882-1941) was an Irish expatriate writer, widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. He is best known for his landmark novel Ulysses (1922) and its highly controversial successor Finnegans Wake (1939), as well as the short story collection Dubliners (1914) and the semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). Although he spent most of his adult life outside Ireland, Joyce's fictional universe is firmly rooted in Dublin, providing the settings and much of the subject matter for all his fiction. In particular, his tempestuous early relationship with the Irish Roman Catholic Church is reflected through a similar inner conflict in his recurrent alter ego Stephen Dedalus. As the result of his minute attentiveness to a personal locale and his self-imposed exile and influence throughout Europe, Joyce became simultaneously one of the most cosmopolitan and one of the most local of all the great English language writers.


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If you are either learning Spanish, or learning English as a second language (ESL) as a Spanish speaker, this book is for you. There are many editions of Dubliners. This one is worth the price if you would like to enrich your Spanish-English vocabulary, whether for self-improvement or for preparation in advanced of college examinations. Each page is annotated with a mini-thesaurus of uncommon words highlighted in the text. Not only will you experience a great classic, but learn the richness of the English language with Spanish synonyms at the bottom of each page. You will not see a full translation of the English text, but rather a running bilingual thesaurus to maximize the reader's exposure to the subtleties of both languages.


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It is only James Joyce's towering genius as a novelist that has led to the comparative neglect of his poetry and sole surviving play. And yet, argues Mays in his stimulating and informative introduction, several of these works not only occupy a pivotal position in Joyce's career; they are also magnificently assured achievements in their own right. Chamber Music is 'an extraordinary début', fusing the styles of the nineties and the Irish Revival with irony and characteristic verbal exuberance. 'Pomes Penyeach and Exiles' (highly acclaimed in Harold Pinter's 1970 staging) were written when Joyce had published Dubliners and was completing A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Both confront painfully personal issues of adultery, jealousy and betrayal and so pave the way for the more detached and fully realized treatment in Ulysses. Joyce's occasional verse includes 'Ecce Puer' for his new-born grandson, juvenilia, satires, translations, limericks and a parody of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. All are brought together in this scholarly, fully annotated yet accessible new edition.


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October 1991. It was "the perfect storm"--a tempest that may happen only once in a century--a nor'easter created by so rare a combination of factors that it could not possibly have been worse. Creating waves ten stories high and winds of 120 miles an hour, the storm whipped the sea to inconceivable levels few people on Earth have ever witnessed. Few, except the six-man crew of the Andrea Gail, a commercial fishing boat tragically headed towards its hellish center.


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From the author of "On The Road" comes this story of two men enganged in a passionate search for Dharma or truth. Their major adventure is the pursuit of the Zen Way, which takes them climbing into the high sierras to seek the lesson of solitude.


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The book behind the Academy award-winning film starring Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw.  Opening in theaters November 20, 2009, The Blind Side is a feature movie based on Michael’s Lewis’s New York Times bestseller, produced by Alcon Entertainment and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. The Blind Side tells the inspirational story of Michael Oher, a homeless black teen taken under the wing of the Touhys, a wealthy white Memphis family. Oher’s size and speed on the football field bring him accolades. But learning the game’s strategy and making it as a student take the help of his new family, coaches, and tutor.    Sandra Bullock stars as Leigh Anne Touhy, the sharp-witted and compassionate matriarch. Tim McGraw stars as her sports-enthusiast husband. Oscar winner Kathy Bates plays Miss Sue, Oher’s indefatigable tutor. Quinton Aaron has his first major role as Oher. John Lee Hancock, who directed The Rookie and The Alamo, writes and directs the film.    Michael Oher was just drafted in the first round of the NFL Draft by the Baltimore Ravens. This edition includes a new afterword bringing Oher’s life up to date through college and the NFL.


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The Basis for a New Showtime® Original Series Starring Michael C. Hall(Sundays at 10pm ET/PT - starts Sunday, October 1, 2006 at 10pm ET/PT)Meet Dexter Morgan, a polite wolf in sheep’s clothing. He’s handsome and charming, but something in his past has made him abide by a different set of rules. He’s a serial killer whose one golden rule makes him immensely likeable: he only kills bad people. And his job as a blood splatter expert for the Miami police department puts him in the perfect position to identify his victims. But when a series of brutal murders bearing a striking similarity to his own style start turning up, Dexter is caught between being flattered and being frightened–of himself or some other fiend.


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In this acclaimed follow-up to the bestselling novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter, we pick up with Dexter Morgan when he’s under considerable pressure. It’s not easy being an ethical serial killer—but he’s doing his best to keep up the disguise, spending time with his girlfriend and her kids, slowly becoming the world’s first serial killer couch potato. Then a particularly nasty psychopath starts cutting a trail through Miami and killer whose twisted techniques leave even Dexter speechless. When his sister Deborah, a tough-as-nails cop, is drawn into the case, it becomes clear that Dexter will have to do something about it. Unless, of course, the killer finds him first . . .


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The macabre, witty "New York Times "bestselling series (and inspiration for the #1 Showtime series, "Dexter)" continues as our darkly lovable killer matches wits with a sadistic "artiste"--who is creating bizarre murder tableaux of his own all over Miami. After his surprisingly glorious honeymoon in Paris, life is almost normal for Dexter Morgan. Married life seems to agree with him: he's devoted to his bride, his stomach is full, and his homicidal hobbies are nicely under control. But old habits die hard--and Dexter's work as a blood spatter analyst never fails to offer new temptations that appeal to his offbeat sense of justice...and his Dark Passenger still waits to hunt with him in the moonlight. The discovery of a corpse (artfully displayed as a sunbather relaxing on a Miami beach chair) naturally piques Dexter's curiosity and Miami's finest realize they've got a terrifying new serial killer on the loose. And Dexter, of course, is back in business.


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In his work as a Miami crime scene investigator, Dexter Morgan is accustomed to seeing evil deeds. . . particularly because, on occasion, he commits them himself. But Dexter's happy existence is turned upside down when he is called to an unusually disturbing crime scene at the university campus. Dexter's Dark Passenger – mastermind of his homicidal prowess – immediately senses something chillingly recognizable and goes into hiding. Dexter is alone for the first time in his life, and he realizes he's being hunted by a truly sinister adversary. Meanwhile he's planning a wedding and trying to learn how to be a stepfather to his fiancé's two kids – who might just have dark tendencies themselves. Macabre, ironic, and wonderfully entertaining, Dexter in the Dark goes deeper into the psyche of one of the freshest protagonists in recent fiction.


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Art and text sum up the new thinking about Columbus in a graphically appealing format. Using this colorful 32" x 21" poster, students are introduced to artwork and writings from primary sources on the early history of the Americas. With this original material, teachers can help students understand the perspectives of people who were here first, analyze historical myths, and read their textbooks more critically. The booklet provides a full discussion of this period in history.


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This teaching guide includes focusing on the background of the novel, elements of the novel, vocabulary from the novel, plot synopsis and literary focus, reading guide questions, testing on the novel with answer key.


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The quintessential novel of the Lost Generation, The Sun Also Rises is one of Ernest Hemingway's masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style. A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, the novel introduces two of Hemingway's most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions. First published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises helped to establish Hemingway as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century


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Selected Stories of O. Henry, by O. Henry, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. O. Henry mastered the art of the humorous, energetic tale that ends with a sudden, ironic twist. In “After Twenty Years,” for example, two boys agree to meet at a particular spot exactly twenty years later. Both are faithful, but in the intervening years one boy has turned into a criminal, the other into a policeman. Behind the rendezvous lurks a powerful dramatic situation with a fascinating moral dilemma—all dealt with in a few brief pages. This is just one of the many literary gems in Selected Stories of O. Henry, a collection of 45 of O. Henry’s most renowned and entertaining short stories. Each one offers insights into human nature and the ways it is affected by love, hate, wealth, poverty, gentility, disguise, and crime—themes that ran through the author’s own life. Born William Sidney Porter, O. Henry started writing while in prison for embezzlement. Later he moved to New York, and his tales romanticizing the commonplace, particularly the life of ordinary New Yorkers, became highly popular. The most widely read author of his time, O. Henry died penniless but left behind a wealth of short stories that endure as classics of the genre. Victoria Blake is a freelance writer. She has worked at The Paris Review and contributed to the Boulder Daily Camera, small literary presses in the United States, and English-language publications in Bangkok, Thailand. She currently lives and works in San Diego, California.


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**A beautiful new hardcover package for the "exciting and gripping" (*Kirkus Reviews*) *New York Times* bestselling science fiction classic.**



 The desert planet Arrakis, called Dune, has been destroyed. The remnants of the Old Empire have been consumed by the violent matriarchal cult known as the Honored Matres. Only one faction remains a viable threat to their total conquest-the Bene Gesserit, heirs to Dune's power.



 Under the leadership of Mother Superior Darwi Odrade, the Bene Gesserit have colonized a green world on the planet Chapterhouse, and are turning it into a desert, mile by scorched mile. And once they've mastered breeding sandworms, the Sisterhood will control the production of the greatest commodity in the known galaxy-the spice Melange. But their true weapon remains a man who has lived countless lifetimes-a man who served under the God Emperor Paul Muad'Dib.


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Young Fitz is the bastard son of the noble Prince Chivalry, raised in the shadow of the royal court by his father's gruff stableman.  He is treated like an outcast by all the royalty except the devious King Shrewd, who has him sectetly tutored in the arts of the assassin.  For in Fitz's blood runs the magic Skill--and the darker knowledge of a child raised with the stable hounds and rejected by his family.  As barbarous raiders ravage the coasts, Fitz is growing to manhood.  Soon he will face his first dangerous, soul-shattering mission.  And though some regard him as a threat to the throne, he may just be the key to the survival of the kingdom.


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From an extraordinary new voice in fantasy comes the stunning conclusion to the Farseer trilogy, as FitzChivalry confronts his destiny as the catalyst who holds the fate of the kingdom of the Six Duchies...and the world itself.King Shrewd is dead at the hands of his son Regal. As is Fitz--or so his enemies and friends believe. But with the help of his allies and his beast magic, he emerges from the grave, deeply scarred in body and soul. The kingdom also teeters toward ruin: Regal has plundered and abandoned the capital, while the rightful heir, Prince Verity, is lost to his mad quest--perhaps to death. Only Verity's return--or the heir his princess carries--can save the Six Duchies.But Fitz will not wait. Driven by loss and bitter memories, he undertakes a quest: to kill Regal. The journey casts him into deep waters, as he discovers wild currents of magic within him--currents that will either drown him or make him something more than he was....


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The acclaimed *New York Times* bestselling author of *Dragon Keeper* returns with a second enthralling tale of dragons and humans, adventure and discovery, love and freedom   

 Centuries had passed since dragons last roamed the war-torn world of the Rain Wild River. But as peace once again settled upon the land, a lost generation of sea serpents—ancient, half-starved, and weary—returned to cocoon, certain that they would be reborn as the beautiful and powerful dragons of legend. But their arduous journey exacted a heavy toll, and the proud serpents emerged as sickly, half-formed beasts, unable to fly or hunt . . . or thrive. For years now they have been trapped on a swampy riverbank between forest and river, hungry and barely alive, reliant on humans to provide for them.  

 With their survival at stake, fifteen dragons—among them the wise golden Mercor, the haughty and dazzling silver-blue queen Sintara, and the delicate copper beauty Relpda—have set off on a dangerous trek into the unknown, up the Rain Wild River, in hopes of rediscovering the ancient Elderling city of Kelsingra, the lost haven for dragons and Elderlings alike. The dragons are accompanied by a disparate group of human keepers, rejects from Rain Wild society. They, too, yearn to find Kelsingra and create a home of their own, one in which they may make their own rules and decide their own fate. But is Kelsingra real or merely a fragment of a glorified past buried deep in the dragons' shared memories? No map exists to guide them, and the noble creatures find their ancient recollections of little use in a land changed by generations of flooding and seismic chaos.  

 As the dragons, the humans—including the strong and defiant Rain Wild girl Thymara; the wealthy dragon scholar and Trader's wife, Alise; and her companion, the urbane Sedric—and their magical supply barge, captained by the gruff Leftrin, forge their way ever deeper into uncharted wilderness, human and beast alike discover they are changing in mysterious and dangerous ways. While the bonds between them solidify, starvation, flashfloods, and predators will imperil them all. But dragons and humans soon learn that the most savage threats come from within their own company . . . and not all of them may survive.  

 Returning to the territory of her beloved Liveship Traders and Tawny Man trilogies, *New York Times* bestselling author Robin Hobb creates a lush and ultimately triumphant tale set in an imaginative world of magic and wonder as compelling and emotionally resonant as our own.


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The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.


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The #1 New York Times bestselling authors of the blockbuster Rich Dad Poor Dad series reveal their groundbreaking financial advice to teens. This special just-for-teens edition based on Rich Dad Poor Dad builds a foundation of self-confidence from which readers can realize their dreams of financial security in an increasingly challenging and unreliable job market. Teen-friendly advice, examples, sidebars, and straight talk will supplement all of Rich Dad's core advice: Work to learn, not to earn. Don't say 'I can't afford it'-instead, say 'How can I afford it?' And, don't work for money-make money work for you! No matter how confident or 'good in school' readers consider themselves to be, RICH DAD POOR DAD FOR TEENS makes financial intelligence available to all young people with its streamlined structure, clean design, and accessible voice. Here's a book that teaches teens what they don't learn in school-and what many of their parents have yet to learn.


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 As a lover of animals and nature, Beatrix Hathaway has always been more comfortable outdoors than in the ballroom. Even though she participated in the London season in the past, the classic beauty and free-spirited Beatrix has never been swept away or seriously courted…and she has resigned herself to the fate of never finding love. Has the time come for the most unconventional of the Hathaway sisters to settle for an ordinary man—just to avoid spinsterhood? Captain Christopher Phelan is a handsome, daring soldier who plans to marry Beatrix’s friend, the vivacious flirt Prudence Mercer, when he returns from fighting abroad. But, as he explains in his letters to Pru, life on the battlefield has darkened his soul—and it’s becoming clear that Christopher won’t come back as the same man. When Beatrix learns of Pru’s disappointment, she decides to help by concocting Pru’s letters to Christopher for her. Soon the correspondence between Beatrix and Christopher develops into something fulfilling and deep…and when Christopher comes home, he’s determined to claim the woman he loves. What began as Beatrix’s innocent deception has resulted in the agony of unfulfilled love—and a passion that can’t be denied…


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Enter the spellbinding world of dragons . . . and those who tend them  

 One of the most gifted fantasy authors writing today, *New York Times* bestselling author Robin Hobb has dazzled readers with brilliantly imaginative, emotionally resonant, and compulsively readable tales set in far-flung realms not unlike our own. In this enthralling new novel, she returns to the territory of her beloved Liveship Traders and Tawny Man trilogies with a story of dragons and humans, return and rebirth, and the search for meaning, belonging, and home.  

 For years, the Trader cities valiantly battled their enemies, the Chalcedeans. But they could not have staved off invasion without the powerful dragon Tintaglia. In return, the Traders promised to help her serpents migrate up the Rain Wild River after a long exile at sea—to find a safe haven and, Tintaglia hopes, to restore her species. But too much time has passed, and the newly hatched dragons are damaged and weak, and many die. The few who survive cannot use their wings; earthbound, they are powerless to hunt and vulnerable to human predators willing to kill them for the fabled healing powers of dragon flesh.  

 But Tintaglia has vanished and the Traders are weary of the labor and expense of tending useless dragons. The Trader leadership fears that if it stops providing for the young dragons, the hungry and neglected creatures will rampage—or die along the river's acidic muddy banks. To avert catastrophe, the dragons decree a move even farther up the treacherous river to Kelsingra, their ancient, mythical homeland whose mysterious location is locked deep within the dragons' uncertain ancestral memories.  

 To ensure their safe passage, the Traders recruit a disparate group of young people to care for the damaged creatures and escort them to their new home. Among them is Thymara, an unschooled forest girl of sixteen, and Alise, a wealthy Trader's wife trapped in a loveless marriage, who attaches herself to the expedition as a dragon expert. The two women share a deep kinship with the dragons: Thymara can instinctively communicate with them, and Alise, captivated by their beauty and majesty, has devoted her life to studying them.  

 Embarking on an arduous journey that holds no promise of return, the band of humans and dragons must make their way along the toxic and inhospitable Rain Wild River—an extraordinary odyssey that will teach them lessons about themselves and one another, as they experience hardships, betrayals, and joys beyond their wildest dreams.


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Robin Hobb has emerged as one of today’s foremost fantasy authors. Now she continues the adventures of one of her most popular heroes in the first book of what promises to be her most spectacular trilogy yet. **Fool’s Errand**For fifteen years FitzChivalry Farseer has lived in self-imposed exile, assumed to be dead by almost all who once cared about him. But that is about to change when destiny seeks him once again. Prince Dutiful, the young heir to the Farseer throne, has vanished and FitzChivalry, possessed of magical skills both royal and profane, is the only one who can retrieve him in time for his betrothal ceremony--thus sparing the Six Duchies profound political embarrassment...or worse. But even Fitz does not suspect the web of treachery that awaits him or how his loyalties to his Queen, his partner, and those who share his magic will be tested to the breaking point.


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A heralded writer of epic fantasy, Robin Hobb has given readers worlds within worlds in her heroic Farseer and Liveship Traders trilogies. Now she takes the final step in the breathtaking trilogy of the Tawny Man, as the tale of FitzChivalry Farseer comes to an epic end. Rife with boundless adventure and unforgettable characters, Fool’s Fate is destined to become a classic of the genre.Assassin, spy, and Skillmaster, FitzChivalry Farseer, now known only as man-at-arms Tom Badgerlock, has become firmly ensconced in the queen’s court at Buckkeep. Only a few are aware of his fabled, tangled past—and the sacrifices he made to survive it. And fewer know of his possession of the Skill magic. With Prince Dutiful, his assassin-mentor Chade, and the simpleminded yet strongly Skilled Thick, FitzChivalry strives to aid the prince on a quest that could ultimately secure peace between the Six Duchies and the Outislands—and win Dutiful the hand of the Narcheska Elliania. For the Narcheska has set the prince on an unfathomable task: to behead a dragon trapped in ice—the legendary Icefyre, on the island of Aslevjal. Yet not all the clans of the Outislands support the prince’s effort to behead their legendary defender. Are there darker forces at work behind the Narcheska’s imperious demand? As the prince and his coterie set sail, FitzChivalry works behind the scenes, playing nursemaid to the ailing Thick, while striving to strengthen their Skill—ultimately bringing his unacknowledged daughter into the web of the Skill magic, where the truth must finally unfold.The quest emerges amid riddles that must be unraveled, a clash of cultures, and the ultimate betrayal. For knowing that the Fool has foretold he will die on the island of ice, FitzChivalry has plotted with Chade to leave his dearest friend behind. But fate cannot so easily be defied.From the Hardcover edition.


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Plague has ravaged the prestigious King's Cavalla of Gernia, decimating the ranks of both cadets and instructors. Yet Nevare Burvelle has made an astonishingly robust recovery, defeating his sworn nemesis while in the throes of the disease and freeing himself—he believes—from the Speck magic that infected him. And now he is journeying home to Widevale, anticipating a tender reunion with his beautiful fiancée, Carsina, and a bright future as a commissioned officer.   But there is no haven in the bosom of his kinfolk, for his nights are haunted by grim visions of treachery—and his days are tormented by a strange side-effect of the plague that shames his family and repulses the lady of his heart. And as the still-potent magic in his blood roars to life, Nevare realizes a terrible truth: that the enemy who seeks to destroy everything he loves dwells perhaps not without but within him.


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The acclaimed *Farseer* and *Liveship Traders* trilogies established Robin Hobb as one of the most splendidly imaginative practitioners of world-class fantasy. Now, in Book 2 of her most stunning trilogy yet, Hobb continues the soul-shattering tale of FitzChivalry Farseer. With rich characters, breathtaking magic, and sweeping action, **Golden Fool** brings the reluctant adventurer further into the fray in an epic of sacrifice, salvation, and untold treachery.**Golden Fool**Prince Dutiful has been rescued from his Piebald kidnappers and the court has resumed its normal rhythms. But for FitzChivalry Farseer, a return to isolation is impossible. Though gutted by the loss of his wolf bondmate, Nighteyes, Fitz must take up residence at Buckkeep and resume his tasks as Chade’s apprentice assassin. Posing as Tom Badgerlock, bodyguard to Lord Golden, FitzChivalry becomes the eyes and ears behind the walls. And with his old mentor failing visibly, Fitz is forced to take on more burdens as he attempts to guide a kingdom straying closer to civil strife each day.The problems are legion.  Prince Dutiful’s betrothal to the Narcheska Elliania of the Out Islands is fraught with tension, and the Narcheska herself appears to be hiding an array of secrets. Then, amid Piebald threats and the increasing persecution of the Witted, FitzChivalry must ensure that no one betrays the Prince’s secret—a secret that could topple the Farseer throne: that he, like Fitz, possesses the dread “beast magic.”Meanwhile, FitzChivalry must impart to the Prince his limited knowledge of the Skill: the hereditary and addictive magic of the Farseers. In the process, they discover within Buckkeep one who has a wild and powerful talent for it, and whose enmity for Fitz may have disastrous consequences for all.Only Fitz’s enduring friendship with the Fool brings him any solace. But even that is shattered when unexpected visitors from Bingtown reveal devastating secrets from the Fool’s past. Now, bereft of support and adrift in intrigue, Fitz’s biggest challenge may be simply to survive the inescapable and violent path that fate has laid out for him.*From the Hardcover edition.*


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In the second breathtaking volume of Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders trilogy, a new tide of glory and terror sweeps forward the story of the Vestrit clan, their liveship Vivacia, and all who strive to possess her. As the ancient tradition of Bingtown's Old Traders slowly erodes under the cold new order of a corrupt ruler, the Vestrits anxiously await the return of their liveship--a rare magic ship carved from sentient wizardwood, which bonds the ships mystically with those who sail them. And Althea Vestrit waits even more avidly, living only to reclaim the ship as her lost inheritance and captain her on the high seas. But the Vivacia has been seized by the ruthless pirate captain Kennit, who holds Althea's nephew and his father hostage. Althea and her onetime sea mate Brashen resolve to liberate the liveship--but their plan may prove more dangerous than leaving the Vivacia in Kennit's ambitious grasp.... From the Paperback edition.


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Loyal, privileged, and brave--a soldier in the service of the King of Gernia--Nevare Burvelle survived a devastating plague of enemy sorcery, but at a terrible cost to his soul, body, and heart. Now he stands wrongly accused of unspeakable crimes, including murder, the most heinous of them all. Suddenly an outcast and a fugitive, he remains a hostage to the Speck magic that shackles him to a savage alter ego who would destroy everything Nevare holds dear. Perhaps, however, this curse that has long abused him can be used by him instead--a mighty weapon he can learn to wield for his own purposes. But down what perilous road will this desperate new quest lead him? And what will be the ultimate incarnation of Nevare Burvelle?


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Young Fitz, the illegitimate son of the noble Prince Chivalry, is ignored by all royalty except the devious King Shrewd, who has had him tutored him in the dark arts of the assassin. He has barely survived his first, soul-shattering mission, and returns to the court where he is thrown headfirst into the tumult of royal life. With the King near death, and Fitz's only ally off on a seemingly hopeless quest, the throne itself is threatened. Meanwhile, the treacherous Red Ship Raiders have renewed their attacks on the Six Duchies, slaughtering the inhabitants of entire seaside towns. In this time of great peril, it soon becomes clear that the fate of the kingdom may rest in Fitz's hands--and his role in its salvation may require the ultimate sacrifice.


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Nevare Burvelle was destined from birth to be a soldier. The second son of a newly anointed nobleman, he must endure the rigors of military training at the elite King's Cavella Academy&#8212and survive the hatred, cruelty, and derision of his aristocratic classmates&#8212before joining the King of Gernia's brutal campaign of territorial expansion. The life chosen for him will be fraught with hardship, for he must ultimately face a forest-dwelling folk who will not submit easily to a king's tyranny. And they possess an ancient magic their would-be conquerors have long discounted&#8212a powerful sorcery that threatens to claim Nevare Burvelle's soul and devastate his world once the Dark Evening brings the carnival to Old Thares.


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In the powerful conclusion to the Liveship Traders trilogy, Robin Hobb weaves the spellbinding story of a once-thriving city on the brink of ruin, a glorious and mythic species on the edge of extinction, and the Vestrit clan, whose destiny is intertwined with both....As Bingtown slides toward disaster, clan matriarch Ronica Vestrit, branded a traitor, searches for a way to bring the city’s inhabitants together against the Chalcedean threat. Meanwhile, Althea Vestrit, unaware of what has befallen Bingtown and her family, continues her perilous quest to track down and recover her liveship Vivacia from the ruthless pirate Kennit. Bold though it is, her scheme may be in vain. For her beloved Vivacia will face the most terrible confrontation of all as the secret of the liveships is revealed. It is a truth so shattering, it may destroy Vivacia and all who love her, including the boy-priest Wintrow Vestrit, whose life already hangs in the balance....


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Bingtown is a hub of exotic trade and home to a merchant nobility famed for its liveships--rare vessels carved from wizardwood, which ripens magically into sentient awareness. The fortunes of one of Bingtown's oldest families rest on the newly awakened liveship Vivacia.For Althea Vestrit, the ship is her rightful legacy unjustly denied her--a legacy she will risk anything to reclaim. For Althea's young nephew Wintrow, wrenched from his religious studies and forced to serve aboard ship, Vivacia is a life sentence.But the fate of the Vestrit family--and the ship--may ultimately lie in the hands of an outsider. The ruthless pirate Kennit seeks a way to seize power over all the denizens of the Pirate Isles...and the first step of his plan requires him to capture his own liveship and bend it to his will....


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After 103 weeks on the *New York Times* bestseller list and with four million copies of *The Kite Runner* shipped, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today.    

Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made *The Kite Runner* a beloved classic, *A Thousand Splendid Suns* is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love.    

Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.    

A stunning accomplishment, *A Thousand Splendid Suns* is a haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love.


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An epic tale of fathers and sons, of friendship and betrayal, that takes us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the atrocities of the present. The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption, and it is also about the power of fathers over sons-their love, their sacrifices, their lies.


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Robert Ervin Howard (1906-1936) was an American pulp writer of fantasy, horror, historical adventure, boxing, western, and detective fiction. He is well known for having created the character Conan the Cimmerian, a literary icon whose pop-culture imprint can be compared to such icons as Tarzan of the Apes, Sherlock Holmes, and James Bond. Voracious reading, along with a natural talent for prose writing and the encouragement of teachers, conspired to create in Howard an interest in becoming a professional writer. One by one he discovered the authors that would influence his later work: Jack London and Rudyard Kipling. It's clear from Howard's earliest writings and the recollections of his friends that he suffered from severe depression from an early age. Friends recall him defending the act of suicide as a valid alternative as early as eighteen years old, while many of his stories and poems have a suicidal gloom and intensity that seem prescient in hindsight, describing such an end not as a tragedy but as a release from hell on earth.


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The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. One of the first great novels of the Romantic era, Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame has thrilled generations of readers with its powerfully melodramatic story of Quasimodo, the deformed hunchback who lives in the bell tower of medieval Paris’s most famous cathedral.Feared and hated by all, Quasimodo is looked after by Dom Claude Frollo, a stern, cold priest who ignores the poor hunchback in the face of his frequent public torture. But someone steps forward to help—the beautiful gypsy Esmeralda, whose single act of kindness fills Quasimodo with love. Can the hunchback save the lovely gypsy from Frollo’s evil plan, or will they all perish in the shadows of Notre Dame?An epic tale of beauty and sadness, The Hunchback of Notre Dame portrays the sufferings of humanity with compassion and power.Isabel Roche teaches French language and literature at Bennington College. She specializes in the nineteenth-century French novel.


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Those stories you hear? The ones about things that only come out at night? Things that feed on blood, feed on us? Got news for you: they’re true. Only it’s not like the movies or old man Stoker’s storybook. It’s worse. Especially if you happen to be one of them. Just ask Joe Pitt.There’s a shambler on the loose. Some fool who got himself infected with a flesh-eating bacteria is lurching around, trying to munch on folks’ brains. Joe hates shamblers, but he’s still the one who has to deal with them. That’s just the kind of life he has. Except afterlife might be better word.From the Battery to the Bronx, and from river to river, Manhattan is crawling with Vampyres. Joe is one of them, and he’s not happy about it. Yeah, he gets to be stronger and faster than you, and he’s tough as nails and hard to kill. But spending his nights trying to score a pint of blood to feed the Vyrus that’s eating at him isn’t his idea of a good time. And Joe doesn’t make it any easier on himself. Going his own way, refusing to ally with the Clans that run the undead underside of Manhattan–it ain’t easy. It’s worse once he gets mixed up with the Coalition–the city’s most powerful Clan–and finds himself searching for a poor little rich girl who’s gone missing in Alphabet City.Now the Coalition and the girl’s high-society parents are breathing down his neck, anarchist Vampyres are pushing him around, and a crazy Vampyre cult is stalking him. No time to complain, though. Got to find that girl and kill that shambler before the whip comes down . . . and before the sun comes up.


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“[Charlie Huston’s] action scenes are unparalleled in crime fiction and his dialogue is so hip and dead-on that Elmore Leonard should be getting nervous.”–Publishers Weekly (starred review), on Half the Blood of BrooklynIt’s like this: a series of bullet-riddled bad breaks has seen rogue Vampyre and terminal tough guy Joe Pitt go from PI for hire to Clan-connected enforcer to dead man walking in a New York minute. And after burning all his bridges, the only one left to cross leads to the Bronx, where Joe’s brass knuckles and straight razor can’t keep him from running afoul of a sadistic old bloodsucker with a bad bark and a worse bite. Even if every Clan in Manhattan is hollering for Joe’s head on a stick, it’s got to be better than trying to survive in the outer-borough wilderness.So it’s a no-brainer when Clan boss Dexter Predo comes looking to make a deal. All Joe has to do to win back breathing privileges on his old turf is infiltrate an upstart Clan whose plan to cure the Vyrus could expose the secret Vampyre world to mortal eyes and set off a panic-driven massacre. Not cool. But Joe’s all over it. To save the Undead future, he just has to wade neck-deep through all the archenemies, former friends, and assorted heavy hitters he’s crossed in the past. No sweat? Maybe not, but definitely more blood than he’s ever seen or hungered for. And maybe even some tears–over the horror and heartbreaking truth about the evil men do no matter who or what they are.Praise for Charlie Huston and his Joe Pitt novels“In conceiving his world (a New York City divided by vampire clans, each with different reasons to hate Pitt), Huston gives a fading genre a fresh afterlife. [Grade:] A.”–Entertainment Weekly “[Huston] creates a world that is at once supernatural and totally familiar, imaginative, and utterly convincing.”–The Philadelphia Inquirer


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“One of the most remarkable prose stylists to emerge from the noir tradition in this century.”–Stephen King“Hard-boiled horror, pulp noir vampires, decaying urban souls– you’re gonna need a shower after this one. . . . [Huston] kicks down the door of horror.”–Fangoria, on Already DeadThere’s only so much room on the Island, only so much blood, and Manhattan’s Vampyre Clans aren’t interested in sharing. So when the Vyrus-infected dregs of New York’s outer boroughs start creeping across the bridges and through the tunnels, the Clans want to know why. Bad luck for PI and general hard case Joe Pitt. See, Joe used to be a Rogue, used to work off his own dime, picked his own gigs, but tight times and a terminally ill girlfriend pushed him into the arms of the renegade Society Clan. Now he has all the cash and blood he needs, but at a steep price. The price tonight is crossing the bridge, rolling to Coney Island, finding the Freak Clan, and figuring out what’s driving that bunch of savages to scratch at the Society’s door. No need to look far. The answer lies around the corner in Gravesend. Convenient, all those graves.From uptown to the boardwalk, war drums are beating. Murderous family feuds and personal grudges are being drawn and brandished, along with the long knives. Blood will spill and, big surprise, Joe’s in the middle. But hey, why should this night be different from any other?Sunset to sunrise: put off a war, keep your head attached to your neck, and save your girl. Check. Joe’s on the case. Praise for Charlie Huston and his Joe Pitt novels“In conceiving his world (a New York City divided by vampire clans, each with different reasons to hate Pitt), Huston gives a fading genre a fresh afterlife. [Grade:] A.”–Entertainment Weekly “[Huston] creates a world that is at once supernatural and totally familiar, imaginative, and utterly convincing.”–The Philadelphia Inquirer


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Nobody lives forever ... not even a Vampyre. Just ask Joe Pitt. After exposing the secret source of blood for half of Manhattan's Vampyres, he's definitely a dead man walking. He's been a punching bag and a bullet magnet for every Vampyre Clan in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, not to mention a private eye, an enforcer, an exile, and a vigilante, but now he's just a target with legs.For a year he's sloshed around the subway tunnels and sewers, tapping the veins of the lost, while above ground a Vampyre civil war threatens to drag the Clans into the sunlight once and for all. What's it gonna take to dig him up? Just the search for a missing girl who's carrying a baby that just might be the destiny of Vampyre-kind. Not that Joe cares all that much about destiny and such. What he cares about is that his ex-girl Evie wants him to take the gig. What's the risk? Another turn playing pigeon in a shooting gallery. What's the reward? Maybe one shot of his own. What's he aiming for? Nothing much. Just all the evil at the heart of his world.


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In the town of Ada, Oklahoma, Ron Williamson was going to be the next Mickey Mantle. But on his way to the Big Leagues, Ron stumbled, his dreams broken by drinking, drugs, and women. Then, on a winter night in 1982, not far from Ron’s home, a young cocktail waitress named Debra Sue Carter was savagely murdered. The investigation led nowhere. Until, on the flimsiest evidence, it led to Ron Williamson. The washed-up small-town hero was charged, tried, and sentenced to death—in a trial littered with lying witnesses and tainted evidence that would shatter a man’s already broken life…and let a true killer go free. Impeccably researched, grippingly told, filled with eleventh-hour drama, John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction reads like a page-turning legal thriller. It is a book that will terrify anyone who believes in the presumption of innocence—a book no American can afford to miss.


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The office of the public defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has been there too long and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit D.C. every week.As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles on a conspiracy too horrible to believe. He suddenly finds himself in the middle of a complex case against one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, looking at the kind of enormous settlement that would totally change his life—that would make him, almost overnight, the legal profession’s newest king of torts...From the Hardcover edition.


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They watched Danilo Silva for days before they finally grabbed him. He was living alone, a quiet life on a shady street in Brazil; a simple life in a modest home, certainly not one of luxury. Certainly no evidence of the fortune they thought he had stolen. He was much thinner and his face had been altered. He spoke a different language, and spoke it very well.But Danilo had a past with many chapters. Four years earlier he had been Patrick Lanigan, a young partner in a prominent Biloxi law firm. He had a pretty wife, a new daughter, and a bright future. Then one cold winter night Patrick was trapped in a burning car and died a horrible death. When he was buried his casket held nothing more than his ashes.From a short distance away, Patrick watched his own burial. Then he fled. Six weeks later, a fortune was stolen from his ex-law firm's offshore account. And Patrick fled some more.But they found him.From the Hardcover edition.


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In suburban Georgetown, a killer’s Reeboks whisper on the floor of a posh home. In a seedy D.C. porno house, a patron is swiftly garroted to death. The next day America learns that two of its Supreme Court justices have been assassinated. And in New Orleans, a young law student prepares a legal brief.To Darby Shaw it was no more than a legal shot in the dark, a brilliant guess. To the Washington establishment it’s political dynamite. Suddenly Darby is witness to a murder–a murder intended for her. Going underground, she finds that there is only one person–an ambitious reporter after a newsbreak hotter than Watergate–she can trust to help her piece together the deadly puzzle. Somewhere between the bayous of Louisiana and the White House’s inner sanctums, a violent cover-up is being engineered. For someone has read Darby’s brief–someone who will stop at nothing to destroy the evidence of an unthinkable crime.


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John Grisham's five novels -- *A Time To Kill, The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client*, and *The Chamber* -- have been number one best-sellers, and have a combined total of 47 million copies in print. Now, in*The Rainmaker*, Grisham returns to the courtroom for the first time since *A Time To Kill*, and weaves a riveting tale of legal intrigue and corporate greed. Combining suspense, narrative momentum, and humor as only John Grisham can, this is another spellbinding read from the most popular author of our time.Grisham's sixth spellbinding novel of legal intrigue and corporate greed displays all of the intricate plotting, fast-paced action, humor, and suspense that have made him the most popular author of our time. In his first courtroom thriller since A *Time To Kill*, John Grisham tells the story of a young man barely out of law school who finds himself taking on one of the most powerful, corrupt, and ruthless companies in America -- and exposing a complex, multibillion-dollar insurance scam. In hs final semester of law school Rudy Baylor is required to provide free legal advice to a group of senior citizens, and it is there that he meets his first "clients," Dot and Buddy Black. Their son, Donny Ray, is dying of leukemia, and their insurance company has flatly refused to pay for his medical treatments. While Rudy is at first skeptical, he soon realizes that the Blacks really have been shockingly mistreated by the huge company, and that he just may have stumbled upon one of the largest insurance frauds anyone's ever seen -- and one of the most lucrative and important cases in the history of civil litigation. The problem is, Rudy's flat broke, has no job, hasn't even passed the bar, and is about to go head-to-head with one of the best defense attorneys -- and powerful industries -- in America.*From the Hardcover edition.*


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This book comes with an introduction by Christine Baker. Focusing on two families, the Gibsons and the Hamleys, this novel describes the habits, loyalties, prejudices, petty snobberies, rumours and adjustments of a whole countryside hierarchy.


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As more and more westerners study and practice Buddhism, reliable modern translations of the Buddha's teachings are increasingly in demand. One of the main sources for knowledge of the Buddhadharma is the four Pali Nikayas or "collections" of his sayings. Written in Pali, an ancient Indian language closely related to Sanskrit, the Nikayas are among the oldest Buddhist texts and consist of more than one and a half million words. This new translation offers a selection of the Buddha's most important sayings, reflecting the full variety of material contained in the Nikayas: the central themes of the Buddha's teaching (his biography, philosophical discourse, instruction on morality, meditation, and the spiritual life) and the range of literary style (myth, dialogue, narrative, short sayings, verse). This edition is the most critically up-to-date and is the only anthology of material exclusively from the Pali Nikayas. For anyone seeking a more direct encounter with the Buddha's words and teaching, this new translation will prove to be essential reading, rewarding scholars and practitioners alike.


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At the end of her bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe, a Brazilian-born man of Australian citizenship who'd been living in Indonesia when they met. Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances get legally married. (Both were survivors of previous bad divorces. Enough said.) But providence intervened one day in the form of the United States government, which-after unexpectedly detaining Felipe at an American border crossing-gave the couple a choice: they could either get married, or Felipe would never be allowed to enter the country again. Having been effectively sentenced to wed, Gilbert tackled her fears of marriage by delving into this topic completely, trying with all her might to discover through historical research, interviews, and much personal reflection what this stubbornly enduring old institution actually is. Told with Gilbert's trademark wit, intelligence and compassion, Committedattempts to "turn on all the lights" when it comes to matrimony, frankly examining questions of compatibility, infatuation, fidelity, family tradition, social expectations, divorce risks and humbling responsibilities. Gilbert's memoir is ultimately a clear-eyed celebration of love with all the complexity and consequence that real love, in the real world, actually entails.


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**A celebrated writer’s irresistible, candid, and eloquent account of her pursuit of worldly   pleasure, spiritual devotion, and what she really wanted out of life**  



  Around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned thirty, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis.   She had everything an educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want—a   husband, a house, a successful career. But instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was   consumed with panic, grief, and confusion. She went through a divorce, a crushing depression,   another failed love, and the eradication of everything she ever thought she was supposed to be.  

  To recover from all this, Gilbert took a radical step. In order to give herself the time and space to   find out who she really was and what she really wanted, she got rid of her belongings, quit her   job, and undertook a yearlong journey around the world—all alone. *Eat, Pray, Love* is the   absorbing chronicle of that year. Her aim was to visit three places where she could examine one   aspect of her own nature set against the backdrop of a culture that has traditionally done that one   thing very well. In Rome, she studied the art of pleasure, learning to speak Italian and gaining the   twenty-three happiest pounds of her life. India was for the art of devotion, and with the help of a   native guru and a surprisingly wise cowboy from Texas, she embarked on four uninterrupted   months of spiritual exploration. In Bali, she studied the art of balance between worldly enjoyment   and divine transcendence. She became the pupil of an elderly medicine man and also fell in love   the best way—unexpectedly.  

  An intensely articulate and moving memoir of self-discovery, *Eat, Pray, Love* is about what   can happen when you claim responsibility for your own contentment and stop trying to live in   imitation of society’s ideals. It is certain to touch anyone who has ever woken up to the   unrelenting need for change.


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**The "wonderful first novel about life, love, and lobster fishing" (*USA Today*) from the #1 bestselling writer**



 In 2000, Elizabeth Gilbert's *Stern Men* debuted to phenomenal critical attention. Now, Penguin is publishing a new edition of Gilbert's wise and charming novel for the millions of readers who devoured *Eat, Pray, Love* and remain hungry for more. Off the coast of Maine, Ruth Thomas is born into a feud fought for generations by two groups of local lobstermen over fishing rights for the waters that lie between their respective islands. At eighteen, she has returned from boarding school-smart as a whip, feisty, and irredeemably unromantic-determined to throw over her education and join the "stern men"working the lobster boats. Gilbert utterly captures the American spirit through an unforgettable heroine who is destined for greatness-and love-despite herself.


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In his landmark bestseller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant-in the blink of an eye-that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our brains really work-in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others?In Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of "blink": the election of Warren Harding; "New Coke"; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police. Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing"-filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.


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In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band. Brilliant and entertaining, OUTLIERS is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.


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The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.


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What is the difference between choking and panicking? Why are there dozens of varieties of mustard-but only one variety of ketchup? What do football players teach us about how to hire teachers? What does hair dye tell us about the history of the 20th century?   In the past decade, Malcolm Gladwell has written three books that have radically changed how we understand our world and ourselves:* The Tipping Point*; *Blink*; and *Outliers.* Now, in *What the Dog Saw*, he brings together, for the first time, the best of his writing from *The**New Yorker* over the same period.  Here is the bittersweet tale of the inventor of the birth control pill, and the dazzling inventions of the pasta sauce pioneer Howard Moscowitz. Gladwell sits with Ron Popeil, the king of the American kitchen, as he sells rotisserie ovens, and divines the secrets of Cesar Millan, the "dog whisperer" who can calm savage animals with the touch of his hand. He explores intelligence tests and ethnic profiling and "hindsight bias" and why it was that everyone in Silicon Valley once tripped over themselves to hire the same college graduate.  "Good writing," Gladwell says in his preface, "does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head."*What the Dog Saw *is yet another example of the buoyant spirit and unflagging curiosity that have made Malcolm Gladwell our most brilliant investigator of the hidden extraordinary.


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A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel tells with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha.

Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha.  It begins  in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old  girl with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house.  We witness her  transformation as she learns the rigorous arts of the geisha: dance and music; wearing kimono, elaborate makeup, and hair; pouring sake to reveal just a touch of inner wrist; competing with a jealous rival for men's solicitude and the money that goes with it.  

In **Memoirs of a Geisha**, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion.  It is a  unique and triumphant work of fiction--at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful--and completely unforgettable.


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William Golding's classic tale about a group of English schoolboys who are plane-wrecked on a deserted island is just as chilling and relevant today as when it was first published in 1954. At first, the stranded boys cooperate, attempting to gather food, make shelters, and maintain signal fires. Overseeing their efforts are Ralph, "the boy with fair hair," and Piggy, Ralph's chubby, wisdom-dispensing sidekick whose thick spectacles come in handy for lighting fires. Although Ralph tries to impose order and delegate responsibility, there are many in their number who would rather swim, play, or hunt the island's wild pig population. Soon Ralph's rules are being ignored or challenged outright. His fiercest antagonist is Jack, the redheaded leader of the pig hunters, who manages to lure away many of the boys to join his band of painted savages. The situation deteriorates as the trappings of civilization continue to fall away, until Ralph discovers that instead of being hunters, he and Piggy have become the hunted: "He forgot his words, his hunger and thirst, and became fear; hopeless fear on flying feet." Golding's gripping novel explores the boundary between human reason and animal instinct, all on the brutal playing field of adolescent competition. --Jennifer Hubert


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On the day she awoke remembering nothing but her name, Kahlan Amnell became the most dangerous woman alive.  For everyone else, that was the day that the world began to end.As her husband, Richard, desperately searches for his beloved, whom only he remembers, he knows that if she doesn't soon discover who she really is, she will unwittingly become the instrument that will unleash annihilation.  But Kahlan learns that if she ever were to unlock the truth of her lost identity, then evil itself would finally possess her, body and soul.If she is to survive in a murky world of deception and betrayal, where life is not only cheap but fleeting, Kahlan must find out why she is such a central figure in the war-torn world swirling around her.  What she uncovers are secrets darker than she could ever have imagined.
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With Wizard's First Rule and seven subsequent masterpieces, Terry Goodkind has thrilled readers worldwide with the unique sweep of his storytelling. Now Goodkind returns with a new novel of Richard and Kahlan, the beginning of a sequence of three novels that will bring their epic story to its culmination.After being gravely injured in battle, Richard awakes to discover Kahlan missing. To his disbelief, no one remembers the woman he is frantically trying to find. Worse, no one believes that she really exists, or that he was ever married. Alone as never before, he must find the woman he loves more than life itself....if she is even still alive. If she was ever even real.


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Descending into darkness, about to be overwhelmed by evil, those people still free are powerless to stop the coming dawn of a savage new world, while Richard faces the guilt of knowing that he must let it happen. Alone, he must bear the weight of a sin he dare not confess to the one person he loves…and has lost.  Join Richard and Kahlan in the concluding novel of one of the most remarkable and memorable journeys ever written. It started with one rule, and will end with the rule of all rules, the rule unwritten, the rule unspoken since the dawn of history. When next the sun rises, the world will be forever changed.


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A milestone of storytelling set in the world of The Sword of Truth, Debt of Bones is the story of young Abby's struggle to win the aid of the wizard Zedd Zorander, the most important man alive.Abby is trapped, not only between both sides of the war, but in a mortal conflict between two powerful men. For Zedd, who commands power most men can only imagine, granting Abby's request would mean forsaking his sacred duty. With the storm of the final battle about to break, both Abby and Zedd are caught in a desperate fight to save the life of a child...but neither can escape the shadow of an ancient betrayal.With time running out, their only choice may be a debt of bones. The world-for Zedd, for Abby, for everyone-will never again be the same.Discover why millions of readers the world over have elevated Terry Goodkind to the ranks of legend.


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Terry Goodkind author of the enormously popular Sword of Truth novels, has forged perhaps his best novel yet, pitting Richard Rahl and Kahlan Amnell against threats to the freedom of the world that will take them to opposite ends of the world to defeat the forces of chaos and anarchy.Emperor Jagang is rising once again in the Old World and Richard must face him, on his own turf. Richard heads into the Old World with Cara, the Mord-Sith, while his beloved Kahlan remains behind. Unwilling to heed an ancient prophecy, Kahlan raises an army and goes into battle against forces threatening armed insurrection in the Midlands.Separated and fighting for their lives, Richard and Kahlan will be tested to the utmost.


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Beginning with Wizard's First Rule and continuing with six subsequent fantasy masterpieces, Terry Goodkind has thrilled and awed millions of readers worldwide. Now Goodkind returns with a broad-canvas adventure of epic intrigue, violent conflict, and terrifying peril for the beautiful Kahlan Amnell and her husband, the heroic Richard Rahl, the Sword of Truth.Richard Rahl has been poisoned. Saving an empire from annihilation is the price of the antidote. With the shadow of death looming near, the empire crumbling before the invading hordes, and time running out, Richard is offered not only his own life but the salvation of a people, in exchange for delivering his wife, Kahlan, into bondage to the enemy. Beginning with Wizard's First Rule and continuing with six subsequent fantasy masterpieces, Terry Goodkind has thrilled and awed millions of readers worldwide. Now Goodkind returns with a broad-canvas adventure of epic intrigue, violent conflict, and terrifying peril for the beautiful Kahlan Amnell and her husband, the heroic Richard Rahl, the Sword of Truth.Richard Rahl has been poisoned. Saving an empire from annihilation is the price of the antidote. With the shadow of death looming near, the empire crumbling before the invading hordes, and time running out, Richard is offered not only his own life but the salvation of a people, in exchange for delivering his wife, Kahlan, into bondage to the enemy.


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On the day she awoke remembering nothing but her name, Kahlan Amnell became the most dangerous woman alive.  For everyone else, that was the day that the world began to end.As her husband, Richard, desperately searches for his beloved, whom only he remembers, he knows that if she doesn't soon discover who she really is, she will unwittingly become the instrument that will unleash annihilation.  But Kahlan learns that if she ever were to unlock the truth of her lost identity, then evil itself would finally possess her, body and soul.If she is to survive in a murky world of deception and betrayal, where life is not only cheap but fleeting, Kahlan must find out why she is such a central figure in the war-torn world swirling around her.  What she uncovers are secrets darker than she could ever have imagined.


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Sequel to the New York Times bestselling Faith of the Fallen New York Times bestselling author Terry Goodkind has created his most lavish adventure yet. Tormented her entire life by inhuman voices, a young woman named Lauren seeks to end her intolerable agony. She at last discovers a way to silence the voices. For everyone else, the torment is about to begin. With winter descending and the paralyzing dread of an army of annihilation occupying their homeland, Richard Rahl and his wife Kahlan must venture deep into a strange and desolate land. Their quest turns to terror when they find themselves the helpless prey of a tireless hunter. Meanwhile, Lauren finds herself drawn into the center of a struggle for conquest and revenge. Worse yet, she finds her will seized by forces more abhorrent than anything she ever envisioned. Only then does she come to realize that the voices were real. Staggered by loss and increasingly isolated, Richard and Kahlan must stop the relentless, unearthly threat which has come out of the darkest night of the human soul. To do so, Richard will be called upon to face the demons stalking among the Pillars of Creation. Discover breathtaking adventure and true nobility of spirit. Find out why millions of readers the world over have elevated Terry Goodkind to the ranks of legend.


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**The masterpiece that started *The New York Times* bestselling epic Sword of Truth**In the aftermath of the brutal murder of his father, a mysterious woman, Kahlan Amnell, appears in Richard Cypher's forest sanctuary seeking help . . . and more. His world, his very beliefs, are shattered when ancient debts come due with thundering violence.In a dark age it takes courage to live, and more than mere courage to challenge those who hold dominion, Richard and Kahlan must take up that challenge or become the next victims.  Beyond awaits a bewitching land where even the best of their hearts could betray them.  Yet, Richard fears nothing so much as what secrets his sword might reveal about his own soul.  Falling in love would destroy them--for reasons Richard can't imagine and Kahlan dare not say.In their darkest hour, hunted relentlessly, tormented by treachery and loss, Kahlan calls upon Richard to reach beyond his sword--to invoke within himself something more noble.  Neither knows that the rules of battle have just changed . . . or that their time has run out.This is the beginning.  One book.  One Rule.  Witness the birth of a legend.


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Joe Pitt’s life sucks. He hasn’t had a case or a job in God knows how long and his stashes are running on empty. What stashes? The only ones that count to a guy like Joe: blood and money. The money he uses to buy blood; the blood he drinks. Hey, buddy, it’s that or your neck–you want to choose? The only way to lay his hands on both is to take a gig with the local Vampyre Clan. See, something new is on the streets, a new high, a high so strong it can send a Vampyre spazzing through Joe’s local watering hole. Till Joe sends him through a plate-glass window, that is. So it’s time for Joe to gut up and swallow that pride and follow the leads wherever they go. It won’t be long before he’s slapping stoolies, getting sapped, and being taken for a ride above 110th Street. Someone’s pulling Joe’s strings, and now he’s riding the A train, looking to find who it is. He’s gonna cut them when he finds them–the strings and the hands that hold them.


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In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys—best friends—are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy’s mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn’t believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God’s instrument. What happens to Owen, after that 1953 foul ball, is extraordinary and terrifying. A Prayer for Owen Meany was first published in 1989. This Modern Library edition includes a new Introduction by the author.


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The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Writings, by Washington Irving, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. The first great American man of letters, Washington Irving became an international celebrity almost overnight upon publication of The Sketch Book in 1820, which included the short stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.” These two tales remain his crowning achievement, but in addition to being a writer of short stories, Irving was also an acclaimed essayist, travel writer, biographer, and historian. This volume showcases Irving’s best work across a variety of genres, including whimsical newspaper articles about New York society, the theater, and contemporary fashions; charming travel pieces that evocatively weave together history and legend; humorous stories and satirical essays from The Sketch-Book and its sequel Bracebridge Hall, and excerpts from A History of New York, considered the first great American book of comic literature. The author’s success enabled him to earn a living by writing alone, unheard of for an American at that time. Irving’s energetic, often tongue-in-cheek prose style, together with his ability to blend roguish satire, pathos, and picturesque description, had a profound influence upon the popular culture of his day. His writings have become a cornerstone in the foundation of the American literary tradition. Peter Norberg received his Ph.D. from Rice University in 1998. Since 1997 he has been Assistant Professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. A specialist on the writers associated with the transcendentalist movement, he has written and lectured extensively on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and the critical reaction to transcendentalism in the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe.


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Told with P. D. James’s trademark suspense, insightful characterization, and riveting storytelling, The Children of Men is a story of a world with no children and no future. The human race has become infertile, and the last generation to be born is now adult. Civilization itself is crumbling as suicide and despair become commonplace. Oxford historian Theodore Faron, apathetic toward a future without a future, spends most of his time reminiscing. Then he is approached by Julian, a bright, attractive woman who wants him to help get her an audience with his cousin, the powerful Warden of England. She and her band of unlikely revolutionaries may just awaken his desire to live . . . and they may also hold the key to survival for the human race.


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Every jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs  to him. In Biloxi, Mississippi, a landmark tobacco  trial with hundreds of millions of dollars at  stake beginsroutinely, then swerves mysteriously off  course. The jury is behaving strangely, and at  least one juroris convinced he's being watched. Soon  they have to be sequestered. Then a tip from an  anonymousyoung woman suggests she is able to predict  the jurors' increasingly odd behavior. Is the jury  somehow being manipulated, or even controlled? If  so, by whom? And, more important,why?


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Michael was in a hurry. He was scrambling up the ladder at Drake & Sweeney, a giant D.C. law firm with eight hundred lawyers. The money was good and getting better; a partnership was three years away. He was a rising star with no time to waste, no time to stop, no time to toss a few coins into the cups of panhandlers. No time for a conscience.But a violent encounter with a homeless man stopped him cold. Michael survived; his assailant did not. Who was this man? Michael did some digging, and learned that he was a mentally ill veteran who'd been in and out of shelters for many years. Then Michael dug a little deeper, and found a dirty secret, and the secret involved Drake & Sweeney.The fast track derailed; the ladder collapsed. Michael bolted the firm and took a top-secret file with him. He landed in the streets, an advocate for the homeless, a street lawyer.And a thief.From the Hardcover edition.


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Ray Atlee is a professor of law at the University of Virginia. He's forty-three, newly single, and still enduring the aftershocks of a surprise divorce. He has a younger brother, Forrest, who redefines the notion of a family's black sheep.And he has a father, a very sick old man who lives alone in the ancestral home in Clanton, Mississippi. He is known to all as Judge Atlee, a beloved and powerful official who has towered over local law and politics for forty years. No longer on the bench, the Judge has withdrawn to the Atlee mansion and become a recluse.With the end in sight, Judge Atlee issues a summons for both sons to return home to Clanton, to discuss the details of his estate. It is typed by the Judge himself, on his handsome old stationery, and gives the date and time for Ray and Forrest to appear in his study.Ray reluctantly heads south, to his hometown, to the place where he grew up, which he prefers now to avoid. But the family meeting does not take place. The Judge dies too soon, and in doing so leaves behind a shocking secret known only to Ray.And perhaps someone else.


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Troy Phelan is a self-made billionaire, one of the richest men in the United States.  He is also eccentric, reclusive, confined to a wheelchair, and looking for a way to die.  His heirs, to no one's surprise--especially Troy's--are circling like vultures.Nate O'Riley is a high-octane Washington litigator who's lived too hard, too fast, for too long.  His second marriage in a shambles, and he is emerging from his fourth stay in rehab armed with little more than his fragile sobriety, good intentions, and resilient sense of humor.  Returning to the real world is always difficult, but this time it's going to be murder.Rachel Lane is a young woman who chose to give her life to God, who walked away from the modern world with all its strivings and trappings and encumbrances, and went to live and work with a primitive tribe of Indians in the deepest jungles of Brazil.In a story that mixes legal suspense with a remarkable adventure, their lives are forever altered by the startling secret of The Testament.From the Hardcover edition.


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After being dumped by his longtime girlfriend, twenty-eight-year-old Justin Halpern found himself living at home with his seventy-three-year-old dad. Sam Halpern, who is "like Socrates, but angrier, and with worse hair," has never minced words, and when Justin moved back home, he began to record all the ridiculous things his dad said to him:   

 "That woman was sexy. . . . Out of your league? Son, let women figure out why they won't screw you. Don't do it for them."  

 "Do people your age know how to comb their hair? It looks like two squirrels crawled on their heads and started fucking."  

 "The worst thing you can be is a liar. . . . Okay, fine, yes, the worst thing you can be is a Nazi, but then number two is liar. Nazi one, liar two."   

 More than a million people now follow Mr. Halpern's philosophical musings on Twitter, and in this book, his son weaves a brilliantly funny, touching coming-of-age memoir around the best of his quotes. An all-American story that unfolds on the Little League field, in Denny's, during excruciating family road trips, and, most frequently, in the Halperns' kitchen over bowls of Grape-Nuts, *Sh*t My Dad Says* is a chaotic, hilarious, true portrait of a father-son relationship from a major new comic voice.


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The Federalist Papers--85 essays published in the winter of 1787-8 in the New York press--are some of the most crucial and defining documents in American political history, laying out the principles that still guide our democracy today. The three authors--Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay--were respectively the first Secretary of the Treasury, the fourth President, and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in American history. Each had played a crucial role in the events of the American Revolution, and their essays make a compelling case for a new and united nation, governed under a written Constitution that endures to this day. The Federalist Papers are an indispensable guide to the intentions of the founding fathers and a canonical text in the development of western political thought. This is the first edition to explain the many classical, mythological, and historical references in the text, and to pay full attention to the erudition of the three authors, which enabled them to place the infant American republic in a long tradition of self-governing states.Lawrence Goldman is Fellow and Tutor in Modern History, St Peter's College, Oxford. He is the editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and has published widely on nineteenth- and twentieth-century British History, including Britain's social and political relations with the United States.


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THE EAGERLY AWAITED COLLECTION OF PERSONAL ESSAYS FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF MY HORIZONTAL LIFEWhen Chelsea Handler needs to get a few things off her chest, she appeals to a higher power -- vodka. You would too if you found out that your boyfriend was having an affair with a Peekapoo or if you had to pretend to be honeymooning with your father in order to upgrade to first class. Welcome to Chelsea's world -- a place where absurdity reigns supreme and a quick wit is the best line of defense. In this hilarious, deliciously skewed collection, Chelsea mines her past for stories about her family, relationships, and career that are at once singular and ridiculous. Whether she's convincing her third-grade class that she has been tapped to play Goldie Hawn's daughter in the sequel to Private Benjamin, deciding to be more egalitarian by dating a redhead, or looking out for a foulmouthed, rum-swilling little person who looks just like her...only smaller, Chelsea has a knack for getting herself into the most outrageous situations. Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea showcases the candor and irresistible turns of phrase that have made her one of the freshest voices in comedy today.


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Life doesn't get more hilarious than when Chelsea Handler takes aim with her irreverent wit. Who else would send all-staff emails to smoke out the dumbest people on her show? Now, in this new collection of original essays, the #1 bestselling author of *Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea* delivers one laugh-out-loud moment after another as she sets her sights on the ridiculous side of childhood, adulthood, and daughterhood. Family moments are fair game, whether it's writing a report on Reaganomics to earn a Cabbage Patch doll, or teaching her father social graces by ordering him to stay indoors. It's open season on her love life, from playing a prank on her boyfriend (using a ravioli, a fake autopsy, and the Santa Monica pier) to adopting a dog so she can snuggle with someone who doesn't talk. And everyone better duck for cover when her beach vacation turns into matchmaking gone wild. Outrageously funny and deliciously wicked, CHELSEA CHELSEA BANG BANG is good good good good! CHELSEA HANDLER ON...**Being unpopular**: "My parents couldn't have been more unreasonable when it came to fads or clothes that weren't purchased at a pharmacy."**Living with her boyfriend: **"He's similar to a large toddler, the only difference being he doesn't cry when he wakes up."**Appreciating her brother: **"He's a certified public accountant, and I have a real life."**Arm-wrestling a maid of honor:**"It wasn't her strength that intimidated me. It was the starry way her eyes focused on me, like Mike Tyson getting ready to feed."****

Life doesn't get more hilarious than when Chelsea Handler takes aim with her irreverent wit. Who else would send all-staff emails to smoke out the dumbest people on her show?  Now, in this new collection of original essays, the #1 bestselling author of *Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea* delivers one laugh-out-loud moment after another as she sets her sights on the ridiculous side of childhood, adulthood, and daughterhood.   Family moments are fair game, whether it's writing a report on Reaganomics to earn a Cabbage Patch doll, or teaching her father social graces by ordering him to stay indoors.   It's open season on her love life, from playing a prank on her boyfriend (using a ravioli, a fake autopsy, and the Santa Monica pier) to adopting a dog so she can snuggle with someone who doesn't talk.  And everyone better duck for cover when her beach vacation turns into matchmaking gone wild.  Outrageously funny and deliciously wicked, CHELSEA CHELSEA BANG BANG is good good good good!  CHELSEA HANDLER ON...**Being unpopular**:  "My parents couldn't have been more unreasonable when it came to fads or clothes that weren't purchased at a pharmacy."**Living with her boyfriend:  **"He's similar to a large toddler, the only difference being he doesn't cry when he wakes up."**Appreciating her brother:  **"He's a certified public accountant, and I have a real life."**Arm-wrestling a maid of honor:**"It wasn't her strength that intimidated me. It was the starry way her eyes focused on me, like Mike Tyson getting ready to feed."****

Life doesn't get more hilarious than when Chelsea Handler takes aim with her irreverent wit. Who else would send all-staff emails to smoke out the dumbest people on her show? Now, in this new collection of original essays, the #1 bestselling author of *Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea* delivers one laugh-out-loud moment after another as she sets her sights on the ridiculous side of childhood, adulthood, and daughterhood. Family moments are fair game, whether it's writing a report on Reaganomics to earn a Cabbage Patch doll, or teaching her father social graces by ordering him to stay indoors. It's open season on her love life, from playing a prank on her boyfriend (using a ravioli, a fake autopsy, and the Santa Monica pier) to adopting a dog so she can snuggle with someone who doesn't talk. And everyone better duck for cover when her beach vacation turns into matchmaking gone wild. Outrageously funny and deliciously wicked, CHELSEA CHELSEA BANG BANG is good good good good! CHELSEA HANDLER ON...**Being unpopular**: "My parents couldn't have been more unreasonable when it came to fads or clothes that weren't purchased at a pharmacy."**Living with her boyfriend: **"He's similar to a large toddler, the only difference being he doesn't cry when he wakes up."**Appreciating her brother: **"He's a certified public accountant, and I have a real life."**Arm-wrestling a maid of honor:**"It wasn't her strength that intimidated me. It was the starry way her eyes focused on me, like Mike Tyson getting ready to feed."****


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**In this raucous collection of true-life stories, actress and comedian Chelsea Handler recounts her time spent in the social trenches with that wild, strange, irresistible, and often gratifying beast: the one-night stand.** You've either done it or know someone who has: the one-night stand, the familiar outcome of a night spent at a bar, sometimes the sole payoff for your friend's irritating wedding, or the only relief from a disastrous vacation. Often embarrassing and uncomfortable, occasionally outlandish, but most times just a necessary and irresistible evil, the one-night stand is a social rite as old as sex itself and as common as a bar stool. Enter Chelsea Handler. Gorgeous, sharp, and anything but shy, Chelsea loves men and lots of them. My Horizontal Life chronicles her romp through the different bedrooms of a variety of suitors, a no-holds-barred account of what can happen between a man and a sometimes very intoxicated, outgoing woman during one night of passion. From her short fling with a Vegas stripper to her even shorter dalliance with a well-endowed little person, from her uncomfortable tryst with a cruise ship performer to her misguided rebound with a man who likes to play leather dress-up, Chelsea recalls the highs and lows of her one-night stands with hilarious honesty. Encouraged by her motley collection of friends (aka: her partners in crime) but challenged by her family members (who at times find themselves a surprise part of the encounter), Chelsea hits bottom and bounces back, unafraid to share the gritty details. My Horizontal Life is one guilty pleasure you won't be ashamed to talk about in the morning.

**In this raucous collection of true-life stories, actress and comedian Chelsea Handler recounts her time spent in the social trenches with that wild, strange, irresistible, and often gratifying beast: the one-night stand.**

You've either done it or know someone who has: the one-night stand, the familiar outcome of a night spent at a bar, sometimes the sole payoff for your friend's irritating wedding, or the only relief from a disastrous vacation. Often embarrassing and uncomfortable, occasionally outlandish, but most times just a necessary and irresistible evil, the one-night stand is a social rite as old as sex itself and as common as a bar stool.

Enter Chelsea Handler. Gorgeous, sharp, and anything but shy, Chelsea loves men and lots of them. My Horizontal Life chronicles her romp through the different bedrooms of a variety of suitors, a no-holds-barred account of what can happen between a man and a sometimes very intoxicated, outgoing woman during one night of passion. From her short fling with a Vegas stripper to her even shorter dalliance with a well-endowed little person, from her uncomfortable tryst with a cruise ship performer to her misguided rebound with a man who likes to play leather dress-up, Chelsea recalls the highs and lows of her one-night stands with hilarious honesty. Encouraged by her motley collection of friends (aka: her partners in crime) but challenged by her family members (who at times find themselves a surprise part of the encounter), Chelsea hits bottom and bounces back, unafraid to share the gritty details. My Horizontal Life is one guilty pleasure you won't be ashamed to talk about in the morning.

**In this raucous collection of true-life stories, actress and comedian Chelsea Handler recounts her time spent in the social trenches with that wild, strange, irresistible, and often gratifying beast: the one-night stand.** You've either done it or know someone who has: the one-night stand, the familiar outcome of a night spent at a bar, sometimes the sole payoff for your friend's irritating wedding, or the only relief from a disastrous vacation. Often embarrassing and uncomfortable, occasionally outlandish, but most times just a necessary and irresistible evil, the one-night stand is a social rite as old as sex itself and as common as a bar stool. Enter Chelsea Handler. Gorgeous, sharp, and anything but shy, Chelsea loves men and lots of them. My Horizontal Life chronicles her romp through the different bedrooms of a variety of suitors, a no-holds-barred account of what can happen between a man and a sometimes very intoxicated, outgoing woman during one night of passion. From her short fling with a Vegas stripper to her even shorter dalliance with a well-endowed little person, from her uncomfortable tryst with a cruise ship performer to her misguided rebound with a man who likes to play leather dress-up, Chelsea recalls the highs and lows of her one-night stands with hilarious honesty. Encouraged by her motley collection of friends (aka: her partners in crime) but challenged by her family members (who at times find themselves a surprise part of the encounter), Chelsea hits bottom and bounces back, unafraid to share the gritty details. My Horizontal Life is one guilty pleasure you won't be ashamed to talk about in the morning.


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Aurora Teagarden's life was pretty much in order, though she wouldn't have objected to a nice relationship. All things considered, however, there wasn't anything to complain about. Then Jane Engle died. Aurora and Jane had been friends - not particularly close friends, but they'd both been members of the Real Murder Society and on occasion had shared tea, as well as an interest in crime. So Aurora was surprised to discover that she was named in Jane's will as the heir to her home and some money . . . about a half million dollars, in fact. A nice house, a lot of money . . . things were looking up nicely. But the house held a secret - a fact that was frighteningly obvious the first time Aurora went there and realized that someone had broken in, had been searching for something. It didn't take long to discover the secret: Jane had hidden a skull, and Aurora had just found it. Aurora Teagarden was no stranger to a good mystery, but she wasn't quite certain what to do with this one. Before she has a chance to consider her next move, someone decides that she already knows too much. Now she has a few more questions to answer: Whodunit? Who was it done to? And who seemed to keep on wanting to do it?


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Charlaine Harris's beloved amateur sleuth, liberated Southern belle Aurora Teagarden, makes her long- anticipated return in this charming mystery about family secrets and small-town intrigue. Everything in Roe's life finally seems to be going her way. She's newly and quite happily married to Martin Bartell, happy to be back at her part-time job at the library, and settled into her dream home just outside Lawrenceton, Georgia--and there haven't been any dead bodies in Roe's life for quite a while. But when mild-mannered Darius Quattermain goes crazy in her backyard when he should be stacking firewood, it turns out to be just the first in a string of troublesome events. The next is the arrival of Martin's flighty niece Regina, who shows up unannounced with a baby no one knew she was expecting. Before anyone can figure out what's going on, Regina disappears, leaving behind her baby--and her husband, Craig, whose brutally murdered corpse is discovered on the outside steps of Roe and Martin's home. Now the existence of the baby is only the first question of many--such as, Where did Craig come from? Who went after him with the ax? And why? Roe and Martin abandon the sunny warmth of Georgia for snowy Corinth, Ohio, hoping that tracing Regina and Craig's steps will get them some answers. In this fifth book in Charlaine Harris's series blending mystery, humor, and a hearty helping of Southern charm, there's just no telling what they'll find.


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Sookie Stackhouse enjoys her job as a cocktail waitress in Merlotte's, a small-town bar in small-town Bon Temps, deep in Louisiana. She's funny and pretty and, thanks to her grandmother, she's very well-mannered - but since not many people truly appreciate her ability to read their minds, the guys haven't exactly been beating down her door . . . And then along came Bill, tall, dark and handsome - and Sookie couldn't 'hear' a word he was thinking. He was exactly the type of guy she'd been waiting all her life for. Of course, Bill had a disability of his own: fussy about his food, not into suntans, bit of a night person: yep, Bill was a vampire. But at least now Sookie nows there *are* guys she can date who won't worry about her catching them thinking about other women . . . And that's going to make Sookie's life really interesting!


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Louisiana cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse has her hands full dealing with every sort of undead and paranormal creature imaginable. And after being betrayed by her longtime vampire love, Sookie must not only deal with a new man in her life-the shapeshifter Quinn-but also contend with the long-planned vampire summit.    

The summit is a tense situation. The vampire queen of Louisiana is in a precarious position, her power base weakened by hurricane damage to New Orleans. And there are some vamps who would like to finish what nature started. Soon, Sookie must decide what side she'll stand with. And her choice may mean the difference between survival and all-out catastrophe.


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Sookie's boyfriend has been very distant-in another state, distant. Now she's off to Mississippi to mingle with the underworld at Club Dead-a little haunt where the vampire elite go to chill out. But when she finally finds Bill-caught in an act of betrayal-she's not sure whether to save him...or sharpen some stakes.


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**Now an HBO original series, *True Blood*-the *New York Times* bestselling Sookie Stackhouse series continues.**



 Except for Sookie Stackhouse, folks in Bon Temps, Louisiana, know little about vamps-and nothing about weres.



 Until now. The weres and shifters have finally decided to reveal their existence to the ordinary world. At first all goes well. Then the mutilated body of a were-panther is found near the bar where Sookie works-and she feels compelled to discover who, human or otherwise, did it.



 But there's a far greater danger threatening Bon Temps. A race of unhuman beings-older, more powerful, and more secretive than vampires or werewolves-is preparing for war. And Sookie finds herself an all-too human pawn in their battle.


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When Sookie's brother Jason's eyes start to change, she knows he's about to turn into a were-panther for the first time. But her concern becomes cold fear when a sniper sets his deadly sights on the local changeling population-and Jason's new panther brethren suspect he may be the shooter. Now, Sookie has until the next full moon to find out who's behind the attacks, unless the killer decides to find her first.


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If you think your family relationships are complicated, think again: you haven't seen anything like the ones in Bon Temps, Louisiana. Sookie Stackhouse is dealing with a whole host of family problems, ranging from her own kin (a non-human fairy and a telepathic second cousin) demanding a place in her life, to her lover Eric's vampire sire, an ancient being who arrives with Eric's 'brother' in tow at a most inopportune moment. And Sookie's tracking down a distant relation of her ailing neighbour (and ex), Vampire Bill Compton. In addition to the multitude of family issues complicating her life, the werewolf pack of Shreveport has asked Sookie for a special favour, and since Sookie is an obliging young woman, she agrees. But this favour for the wolves has dire results for Sookie, who is still recovering from the trauma of her abduction during the Fairy War.


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What's the world coming to - when you can't relax with an ice-cold beverage in your own backyard without a body falling from the sky and landing in your garden? Part-time librarian and frequent amateur investigator Roe Teagarden has good reason to ask herself this question when the remains of one of the Lawrenceton, Georgia police department's finest catapults into her flower bed one beautiful sunny morning. Roe's friend and bodyguard, the long-legged, bikini-clad Angel Youngblood, is mowing the grass and Roe is reclining on a lounger when a small red-and-white plane flies low overhead and drops its unlikely debris more or less at Roe's feet. Roe's husband of two years, wealthy businessman Martin Bartell, immediately wonders if the killer chose his dumping place to send some kind of message to Roe. And the mystery deepens when two federal agents arrive in town to investigate the murder. It's only when Madeleine the cat provides a clue that Roe and Martin realize Roe herself may be in danger and that using Roe's yard as a temporary landfill for dead bodies was no accident.


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Sookie Stackhouse, a small-town cocktail waitress with a talent for reading minds, comes to the aid of Eric, a sexy vampire with amnesia, and finds herself caught up in a deadly struggle among werewolves, vampires, and witches as she tries to save Eric from whoever took his memory and who now wants his life.


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The new Sookie Stackhouse novel from the New York Timesbestselling author of Dead as a Doornail. Spiked with a "frothy fusion of romance, mystery, and fantasy" (Publishers Weekly), this "deliciously fiendish...increasingly riotous series" (Dallas Morning News) sends the supernaturally gifted cocktail waitress to New Orleans, where she has to deal with the legacy of one of her own family and a host of potentially dangerous characters.


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In the first installment of the Aurora Teagarden series, Real Murders, the small town of Lawrenceton, Georgia, was beset by a series of horrific murders. Librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden teamed up with true crime writer Robin Crusoe to catch the killer, and the results of their investigation have gone down in Lawrenceton history. Now Robin is back in town, set to begin filming the movie version of the terrible events of so many years ago. Of course he's not alone-he brings with him a cast and crew the size of which nearly overwhelms the tiny excitement-starved town. Roe is disturbed to discover that the film's crew includes her stepson, who despises her, as well as an actress set to play her in the film. Everyone in Lawrenceton suddenly goes movie crazy, mentally composing awards-acceptance speeches while prancing around the fringes of the set awaiting discovery. Roe's not so crazy about the whole thing...and neither is a secret, vicious murderer. When bodies start dropping, it's up to Roe to reprise her role as amateur sleuth and stop the carnage before it gets out of hand. It's no problem for the beloved small-town librarian in this wonderfully cozy installment in the adored Aurora Teagarden mystery series.


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Living Dead in Dallas is the sequel to Dead Until Dark in the new Southern Vampire series from acclaimed mystery author Charlaine Harris. When a vampire asks Sookie Stackhouse to use her telepathic skills to find another missing vampire, she agrees under one condition: the bloodsuckers must promise to let the humans go unharmed. Easier said than done.


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On the way to a lunch meeting of her local book discussion group, the Uppity Women, small-town Southern librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden is shocked and dismayed to find her sister-in-law Poppy lying bloody and dead right outside her own back door. Poppy had her flaws, certainly-she and her husband were having trouble staying faithful to each other-but she didn't deserve to be so brutally murdered.Investigating a case like this is never easy, of course, given the gossipy atmosphere of any small town, what with Poppy and her husband's extramarital affairs, the local police detective (who also happens to be a former boyfriend of Roe's) and his seemingly unresolved feelings for Poppy, and the need to protect Poppy's family. But Roe is also coping with a burgeoning romantic relationship as well as the sudden appearance of her teenaged half brother. All in all, it's a lot for one woman to have on her plate, even one as together as Roe.Longtime readers and new fans alike will delight in Roe's exploits as she employs her impeccable knowledge of small town politics and enchanting Southern charm to solve the crime in this wonderful installment of Charlaine Harris' terrific cozy series.


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Though a small town at heart, Lawrenceton, Georgia, has its dark side-and crime buffs. One of whom is librarian Aurora "Roe" Teagarden, a member of the Real Murders Club, which meets once a month to analyze famous cases. It's a harmless pastime-until the night she finds a member killed in a manner that eerily resembles the crime the club was about to discuss. And as other brutal "copycat" killings follow, Roe will have to uncover the person behind the terrifying game, one that casts all the members of Real Murders, herself included, as prime suspects-or potential victims.


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When Lily stumbles upon the well-built corpse of a local body builder-his neck broken by a barbell-the town's underlying racial tension begins to boil over. The white victim was somehow connected to two unsolved murders of black residents of Shakespeare-and a dogged policeman is determined to stop the killing. But it is Lily herself who may have to decide whether to stay and fight for justice, or run away one more time.


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Determined to move beyonde her violent past, Lily heads to her hometown of Bartley for her estranged sister's Christmas Eve wedding. But there is something in the air besides holiday cheer - murder. The town's doctor and nurse have been bludgeoned to death - and Lily's detective boyfriend has followed an eight-year-old kidnapping case straight to Bartley. It just might have something to do with the murders. And her sister's widower fiancé. With only three days before the wedding, Lily must work fast to clean up the messy case before her sister promises to love, honor, and obey a killer.


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Cleaning woman and karate expert Lily Bard is a woman with a complicated past. Trying her best to cope with her terrifying memories and horrible nightmares, she decides to join a weekly group therapy session in her hometown of Shakespeare, Arkansas. At first, Lily can hardly believe the number of her fellow Shakespeareans that share her life experiences. As it turns out, the group members' feelings aren't the only things that need sorting out -- they assemble for a session and find a woman dead, killed in bone-chilling fashion and deliberately left on display to send a twisted message. Who would commit such horrendous crime, and who is the intended recipient of the message?Before long, Lily becomes embroiled in this disturbing murder and its aftermath, one in which the brutal killer's motives are entirely unclear. The truth is, the situation has dredged up more than a few of her own terrible secrets, and she may not be able to rest until she can untangle the who and why of this terrible crime. But can she accomplish this before the killer strikes again, and before her nightmares send her over the edge? Shakespeare's Counselor is the most complex and absorbing installment yet in Charlaine Harris's engaging, original, and more than slightly dark mystery series.


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When cleaning lady Lily Bard discovers the dead body of her nosy landlord, her plan of starting a quiet new life may end in her death.


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Shakespeare, Arkansas, is home to endless back roads, historic buildings, colorful residents--and the occasional murder. It is also home to Lily Bard, the local karate expert/cleaning woman with a particular knack for finding skeletons in closets.  But when the local woman of ill repute is found murdered, being familiar with her dirty laundry could make Lily the next Shakespearean to die.


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Love at first sight turns into newlywed bliss for former librarian Aurora Teagarden— until violence cuts the honeymoon short.Wealthy businessman Martin Bartell gives Roe exactly what she wants for their wedding: Julius House. But both the house and Martin come with murky pasts. And when Roe is attacked by an ax-wielding maniac, she realizes that the secrets inside her four walls—and her brand-new marriage—could destroy her.


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From the bestselling author ofBirdsongcomesCharlotte Gray, the remarkable story of a young Scottish woman who becomes caught up in the effort to liberate Occupied France from the Nazis while pursuing a perilous mission of her own. In blacked-out, wartime London, Charlotte Gray develops a dangerous passion for a battle-weary RAF pilot, and when he fails to return from a daring flight into France she is determined to find him. In the service of the Resistance, she travels to the village of Lavaurette, dyeing her hair and changing her name to conceal her identity. Here she will come face-to-face with the harrowing truth of what took place during Europe's darkest years, and will confront a terrifying secret that threatens to cast its shadow over the remainder of her days. Vividly rendered, tremendously moving, and with a narrative sweep and power reminiscent of his novelBirdsong,Charlotte Grayconfirms Sebastian Faulks as one of the finest novelists working today. From the Trade Paperback edition.


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SUMMARY: 'Vintage Bond. Thrilling' The Times'Everything a thriller should be' Front Row, Radio 4Bond is back. With a vengeance.M has summoned agent 007 to London. It's the swinging Sixties and a flood of narcotics is pouring into Britain. Sinister industrialist Dr Julius Gorner is identified as the source and James Bond is dispatched to investigate.The trail takes Bond to Paris and then Persia - where the beautiful and enigmatic twins Scarlett and Poppy lead him to Gorner's secret desert headquarters. Here, Bond uncovers Gorner's cold-blooded plans for world domination.Only by playing Gorner's twisted game can Bond stop him . . .'Warm-hearted, superbly crafted' Sunday Express'Bond aficionados will be thrilled' Metro'A page-turner' Daily Mail


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Sixteen-year-old Jacques Rebière is living a humble life in rural France, studying butterflies and frogs by candlelight in his bedroom. Across the Channel, in England, the playful Thomas Midwinter, also sixteen, is enjoying a life of ease-and is resigned to follow his father's wishes and pursue a career in medicine. A fateful seaside meeting four years later sets the two young men on a profound course of friendship and discovery; they will become pioneers in the burgeoning field of psychiatry. But when a female patient at the doctors' Austrian sanatorium becomes dangerously ill, the two men's conflicting diagnosis threatens to divide them--and to undermine all their professional achievements. From the bestselling author of Birdsong comes this masterful novel that ventures to answer challenging questions of consciousness and science, and what it means to be human.


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With an Introduction and Notes by Henry Claridge, Senior Lecturer, School of English, University of Kent at Canterbury    Tender is the Night is a story set in the hedonistic high society of Europe during the "Roaring Twenties". A wealthy schizophrenic, Nicole Warren, falls in love with Dick Diver - her psychiatrist. The resulting saga of the Diver's troubled marriage and their circle of friends, includes a cast of aristocratic and beautiful people, unhappy love affairs, a duel, incest, and the problems inherent in the possession of great wealth. Despite cataloguing a maelstrom of interpersonal conflict, Tender is the Night has a poignancy and warmth which springs from the quality of F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing and the tragic personal experiences on which the book is based.


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This volume contains DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? (filmed as BLADERUNNER), MARTIAN TIME SLIP, UBIK, THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH and A SCANNER DARKLY. Taken together they represent the best of Philip K. Dick's unique imagination. In Dick's writing nothing is what it seems, our sense of the world's order is fatally undermined and mass media tells us nothing but artful lies. Films such as THE MATRIX and THE TRUMAN SHOW would not have been made but for Philip K. Dick. His work has never been more timely.


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Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for "a reliable wife." But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she's not the "simple, honest woman" that Ralph is expecting. She is both complex and devious, haunted by a terrible past and motivated by greed. Her plan is simple: she will win this man's devotion, and then, ever so slowly, she will poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow. What she has not counted on, though, is that Truitt - a passionate man with his own dark secrets -has plans of his own for his new wife. Isolated on a remote estate and imprisoned by relentless snow, the story of Ralph and Catherine unfolds in unimaginable ways. With echoes of "Wuthering Heights" and "Rebecca," Robert Goolrick's intoxicating debut novel delivers a classic tale of suspenseful seduction, set in a world that seems to have gone temporarily off its axis.


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Written In The 1990S By American Author Steven Gould, Jumper Is The Inspiration For The Film Of The Same Name To Be Released In Feb 08 And Starring Samuel L Jackson. It Tells The Story Of Davy Rice, Played By Hayden Christensen, As He Escapes His Tortured Childhood To Explore The World Via Teleportation And Find His Long Lost Mother. At Seventeen The World Is At Your Feet& Especially If You Can Teleport. David Rice Barely Remembers His Mother. She Left His Alcoholic Father When Davy Was Very Young. She Left Davy Too, And Since Then All Of William Rice'S Abusive Anger Has Been Focused On His Young Teenage Son. One Evening, As He Is About To Receive Another Brutal Beating, Davy Shuts His Eyes And Wishes To Be Safe. When He Opens Them Again, He Finds Himself In His Small Town'S Library. Slowly, He Realises He Is Very Special, He Can Teleport. Armed With His New Power, Davy Sets Out With New Purpose: He Will Leave His Abusive Home And Find His Long Lost Mother. Davy'S Confidence Grows As His Skills Do, But They Also Draw Unwanted Attention And Soon Davy Finds That He Too Is Hunted.


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Griffin has a secret. It’s a secret that he’s sworn to his parents to keep, and never tell. Griffin is a Jumper: a person who can teleport to any place he has ever been.  The first time was when he was five, and his parents crossed an ocean to protect the secret. The most important time was when he was nine. That was the day that the men came to his house and murdered his parents. Griffin knows that the men were looking for him, and he must never let them find him.

 

Griffin grows up with only two goals: to survive, and to kill the people who want him dead. And a Jumper bent on revenge is not going to let anything stand in his way.

 



*Jumper*, based on Steven Gould's earlier novel of the same name, will be a  major motion picture scheduled for release by 20th Century Fox starring Hayden Christensen, Jamie Bell and Samuel L. Jackson, and directed by Doug Limon.  *Jumper: Griffin's Story* features the character played by Jamie Bell in the film.


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Davy thinks he's alone...what if he isn't?When Davy was a young teen, he discovered that he was capable of teleportation.  At first, it was only when he was terrified and in horrible danger.  Later, he learned to control his ability, and went to work for a secret government agency.Now, a mysterious group of people has taken Davy captive.  They don't want to hire him, and they don't have any hope of appealing to him to help them.   What they want is to own him.  They want to use his abilities for their own purposes, whether Davy agrees to it or not.   And so they set about brainwashing him and conditioning him, and they have found a way to keep a teleport captive.But there's one thing that they don't know.  No one knows it, not even Davy.  The secret is that  experiencing teleportation, over and over again, can teach a person how to do it.   Davy's wife Millie is the only person on Earth who has teleported nearly as often as he has.  She discovered her new talent the same way Davy did -- in mortal danger, facing imminent death, she suddenly found herself in her own apartment.Now, if she can learn to control this ability, and fast, she may be able to rescue Davy.


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Since 1903, the escapades of Mole, his friend Water Rat, shy Badger, and Toad of Toad Hall have delighted children, and adults, too. Follow the winning foursome through the seasons as they sail the river, get lost in the Wild Wood, take off on a merry adventure in Toad’s colorful carriage, and rescue Toad Hall from a band of nasty marauding weasels.


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Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness." "My baby boy..." she whispers before dying. Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire. When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, ""henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose.".." Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House. While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon "The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln," and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years. Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the "true" life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.


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As Sherlock Holmes once conceded to Dr. Watson, 'If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the planning, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chain of events, working through generations and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.' And with such a spirit for investigation and discovery does David Grann set out in The Devil and Sherlock Holmes to unravel the truth of twelve great, real-life mysteries. Although Holmes is the subject of just one of the mesmerizing stories in this collection, all twelve contain elements of intrigue. Many of the protagonists are sleuths: a Polish detective trying to determine whether an author planted clues to a real murder in his post-modern novel; an arson investigator racing to prove whether a man about to be executed is innocent; a legendary French con man questioning whether he is the one who is suddenly being conned; and scientists stalking a sea monster. Unlike the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, these tales are all true. The protagonists are mortal and pieces of the puzzle often elude them. Some of the characters are driven to deception and murder. Others go mad. But ultimately the stories contained in The Devil and Sherlock Holmes shed light on the human condition, and why some people on this earth devote themselves to good and others to evil. As Holmes put it, 'Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent'.


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**A *New York Times*, *USA Today*, *Wall Street Journal*, *Washington Post*, *Boston Globe*, *San Francisco Chronicle*, *Los Angeles Times*, and *Denver Post* Bestseller** In 1925, the legendary British explorer Percy Fawcett ventured into the Amazon jungle, in search of a fabled civilization. He never returned. Over the years countless perished trying to find evidence of his party and the place he called “The Lost City of Z.” In this masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, journalist David Grann interweaves the spellbinding stories of Fawcett’s quest for “Z” and his own journey into the deadly jungle, as he unravels the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century.


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THE BESTSELLING BOOK FOR THOSE WHO WANT POWER, WATCH POWER, OR WANT TO ARM THEMSELVES AGAINST POWER . . .A moral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this piercing work distills three thousand years of the history of power into forty-eight well-explicated laws. As attention-grabbing in its design as it is in its content, this bold volume outlines the laws of power in their unvarnished essence, synthesizing the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun-tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, and other great thinkers. Some laws require prudence ("Law 1: Never Outshine the Master"), some stealth ("Law 3: Conceal Your Intentions"), and some the total absence of mercy ("Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally") but like it or not, all have applications in real-life situations. Illustrated through the tactics of Queen Elizabeth I, Henry Kissinger, P. T. Barnum, and other famous figures who have wielded -- or been victimized by -- power, these laws will fascinate any reader interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control.


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Until that September of 1952, Luke Chandler had never kept a secret or told a single lie. But in the long, hot summer of his seventh year, two groups of migrant workers — and two very dangerous men — came through the Arkansas Delta to work the Chandler cotton farm. And suddenly mysteries are flooding Luke’s world.A brutal murder leaves the town seething in gossip and suspicion. A beautiful young woman ignites forbidden passions. A fatherless baby is born ... and someone has begun furtively painting the bare clapboards of the Chandler farmhouse, slowly, painstakingly, bathing the run-down structure in gleaming white. And as young Luke watches the world around him, he unravels secrets that could shatter lives — and change his family and his town forever....From the Paperback edition.


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Before The Firm and  The Pelican Brief made him a superstar,  John Grisham wrote this riveting story of  retribution and justice -- at last it's available in a  Doubleday hardcover edition. In this searing courtroom  drama, best-selling author John Grisham probes the  savage depths of racial violence...as he delivers  a compelling tale of uncertain justice in a small  southern town...Clanton, Mississippi.  The life of a ten-year-old girl is shattered by two  drunken and remorseless young man. The mostly  white town reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman  crime. Until her black father acquires an assault  rifle -- and takes justice into his own outraged  hands.For ten days, as burning crosses  and the crack of sniper fire spread through the  streets of Clanton, the nation sits spellbound as  young defense attorney Jake Brigance struggles to save  his client's life...and then his own...From the Hardcover edition.


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Rick Dockery was the third-string quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. In the AFC Championship game, to the surprise and dismay of virtually everyone, Rick actually got into the game. With a 17-point lead and just minutes to go, Rick provided what was arguably the worst single performance in the history of the NFL. Overnight, he became a national laughingstock—and was immediately cut by the Browns and shunned by all other teams. But all Rick knows is football, and he insists that his agent find a team that needs him. Against enormous odds, Rick finally gets a job—as the *starting *quarterback for the Mighty Panthers . . . of Parma, Italy. The Parma Panthers desperately want a former NFL player—any former NFL player—at their helm. And now they’ve got Rick, who knows nothing about Parma (not even where it is) and doesn’t speak a word of Italian. To say that Italy—the land of fine wines, extremely small cars, and *football americano*—holds a few surprises for Rick Dockery would be something of an understatement. . . .


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Luther and Nora Krank are fed up with the chaos of Christmas. The endless shopping lists, the frenzied dashes through the mall, the hassle of decorating the tree... where has all the joy gone? This year, celebrating seems like too much effort. With their only child off in Peru, they decide that just this once, they'll skip the holidays. They spend their Christmas budget on a Caribbean cruise set to sail on December 25, and happily settle in for a restful holiday season free of rooftop snowmen and festive parties. But the Kranks soon learn that their vacation from Christmas isn't much of a vacation at all, and that skipping the holidays has consequences they didn't bargain for...A modern Christmas classic, Skipping Christmas is a charming and hilarious look at the mayhem and madness that have become ingrained in our holiday tradition.


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If you thought Mitch McDeere was in trouble in "The Firm," waituntil you meet Kyle McAvoy, "The Associate" Kyle McAvoy grew up in his father's small-town law office in York, Pennsylvania. He excelled in college, was elected editor-in-chief of "The Yale Law Journal," and his future has limitless potential. But Kyle has a secret, a dark one, an episode from college that he has tried to forget. The secret, though, falls into the hands of the wrong people, and Kyle is forced to take a job he doesn't want--even though it's a job most law students can only dream about. Three months after leaving Yale, Kyle becomes an associate at the largest law firm in the world, where, in addition to practicing law, he is expected to lie, steal, and take part in a scheme that could send him to prison, if not get him killed. With an unforgettable cast of characters and villains--from Baxter Tate, a drug-addled trust fund kid and possible rapist, to Dale, a pretty but seemingly quiet former math teacher who shares Kyle's "cubicle" at the law firm, to two of the most powerful and fiercely competitive defense contractors in the country--and featuring all the twists and turns that have made John Grisham the most popular storyteller in the world, The Associate is vintage Grisham.


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They call themselves the Brethren: three disgraced former judges doing time in a Florida federal prison. One was sent up for tax evasion. Another, for skimming bingo profits. And the third, for a career-ending drunken joyride. Meeting daily in the prison law library, taking exercise walks in their boxer shorts, these judges-turned-felons can reminisce about old court cases, dispense a little jailhouse justice, and contemplate where their lives went wrong.Or they can use their time in prison to get very rich -- very fast. And so they sit, sprawled in the prison library, furiously writing letters, fine-tuning a wickedly brilliant extortion scam ... while events outside their prison walls begin to erupt. A bizarre presidential election is holding the nation in its grips -- and a powerful government figure is pulling some very hidden strings. For the Brethren, the timing couldn't be better. Because they've just found the perfect victim...From the Paperback edition.


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In his final hours in the Oval Office, the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world’s most sophisticated satellite surveillance system.Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Saudis. Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive—there is no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him?From the Hardcover edition.


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In the corridors of Chicago's top law firm:Twenty -six-year-old Adam Hall stands on the brink of a brilliant legal career. Now he is risking it all for a death-row killer and an impossible case.Maximum Security Unit, Mississippi State Prison:Sam Cayhall is a former Klansman and unrepentant racist now facing the death penalty for a fatal bombing in 1967. He has run out of chances -- except for one: the young, liberal Chicago lawyer who just happens to be his grandson.While the executioners prepare the gas chamber, while the protesters gather and the TV cameras wait, Adam has only days, hours, minutes to save his client. For between the two men is a chasm of shame, family lies, and secrets -- including the one secret that could save Sam Cayhall's life... or cost Adam his.From the Hardcover edition.


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In a weedy lot on the outskirts of Memphis, two  boys watch a shiny Lincoln pull up to the  curb...Eleven-year-old Mark Sway and his younger brother  were sharing a forbidden cigarette when a chance  encounter with a suicidal lawyer left Mark knowing  a bloody and explosive secret: the whereabouts of  the most sought-after dead body in America. Now Mark is caught  between a legal system gone mad and a mob killer  desperate to cover up his crime. And his only ally is  a woman named Reggie Love, who has been a lawyer  for all of four years. Prosecutors are  willing to break all the rules to make Mark talk. The  mob will stop at nothing to keep him quiet. And  Reggie will do anything to protect her client --  even take a last, desperate gamble that could win  Mark his freedom... or cost them both their  lives.From the Hardcover edition.


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It's a simple if shocking question, and former librarian Aurora Teagarden is just the person to find the answer. Basking in an inheritance that makes her financially independent, Roe's looking for a new occupation. Her days as a librarian are over. Real estate might be fun, she thinks. And who better to teach her the tricks of the trade than her Lauren Bacall look-alike mother, Aida Brattle Teagarden Queensland, who happens to own one of the major real estate firms in town? Signing on as an apprentice, Roe agrees to show an expensive house to some out-of-town clients. The house has its charms, but the clients are not too thrilled with what's been left behind in the master bedroom: the corpse of real estate woman Tonia Lee Greenhouse. And Tonia's only the first victim. It quickly becomes clear that the killer is someone familiar with the real estate community in Lawrenceton, someone who has access to the houses that are on the market. Roe's not too sure she likes real estate, after all. She hadn't counted on murder. But she definitely likes her well-to-do client, Martin Bartell. In fact, it may be love at first sight. With memorable characters and lots of small-town southern charm, this witty and wise mystery proves that author Charlaine Harris is among the best of the new generation of crime writers.


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You remember Hannibal Lecter: gentleman, genius, cannibal. Seven years have passed since Dr. Lecter escaped from custody. And for seven years he's been at large, free to savor the scents, the essences, of an unguarded world. But intruders have entered Dr. Lecter's world, piercing his new identity, sensing the evil that surrounds him. For the multimillionaire Hannibal left maimed, for a corrupt Italian policeman, and for FBI agent Clarice Starling, who once stood before Lecter and who has never been the same, the final hunt for Hannibal Lecter has begun. All of them, in their separate ways, want to find Dr. Lecter. And all three will get their wish. But only one will live long enough to savor the reward....From the Paperback edition.


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A second family has been massacred by the terrifying serial killer the press has christened The Tooth Fairy. Special Agent Jack Crawford turns to the one man who can help restart a failed investigationWill Graham. Graham is the greatest profiler the FBI ever had, but the physical and mental scars of capturing Hannibal Lecter have caused Graham to go into early retirement. Now, Graham must turn to Lecter for help.


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As part of the search for a serial murderer nicknames "Buffalo Bill," FBI trainee Clarice Starling is given an assignment. She must visit a man confined to a high-security facility for the criminally insane and interview him.That man, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, is a former psychiatrist with unusual tastes and an intense curiosity about the darker corners of the mind. His intimate understanding of the killer and of Clarice herself form the core of The Silence of the Lambs--an unforgettable classic of suspense fiction.


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Stephen Hawking is widely believed to be one of the world’s greatest minds, a brilliant theoretical physicist whose work helped reconfigure models of the universe and define what’s in it. Imagine sitting in a room listening to Hawking discuss these achievements and place them in historical context; it would be like hearing Christopher Columbus on the New World.

 

 Hawking presents a series of seven lectures—covering everything from big bang to black holes to string theory—that capture not only the brilliance of Hawking’s mind but his characteristic wit as well. Of his research on black holes, which absorbed him for more than a decade, he says, “It might seem a bit like looking for a black cat in a coal cellar.” 

 

 Hawking begins with a history of ideas about the universe, from Aristotle’s determination that the Earth is round to Hubble’s discovery, more than 2,000 years later, that the universe is expanding. Using that as a launching pad, he explores the reaches of modern physics, including theories on the origin of the universe (e.g., the Big Bang), the nature of black holes, and space-time. Finally, he poses the questions left unanswered by modern physics, especially how to combine all the partial theories into a “unified theory of everything.” “If we find the answer to that,” he claims, “it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason.”

 

 A great popularizer of science as well as a brilliant scientist, Hawking believes that advances in theoretical science should be “understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists.” In this book, he offers a fascinating voyage of discovery about the cosmos and our place in it. It is a book for anyone who has ever gazed at the night sky and wondered what was up there and how it came to be.


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From One of the Most Brilliant Minds of Our TimeComes a Book that Clarifies His Most Important Ideas****Stephen Hawking’s worldwide bestseller, **A Brief History of Time***,* remains one of the landmark volumes in scientific writing of our time. But for years readers have asked for a more accessible formulation of its key concepts—the nature of space and time, the role of God in creation, and the history and future of the universe. Professor Hawking’s response is this new work that will guide nonscientists everywhere in the ongoing search for the tantalizing secrets at the heart of time and space.… ****Although “briefer,” this book is much more than a mere explanation of Hawking’s earlier work. **A Briefer History of Time** both clarifies and expands on the great subjects of the original, and records the latest developments in the field—from string theory to the search for a unified theory of all the forces of physics. Thirty-seven full-color illustrations enhance the text and make** A Briefer History of Time** an exhilarating and must-have addition in its own right to the great literature of science and ideas.**


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A Brief History of Time, published in 1988, was a landmark volume in science writing and in world-wide acclaim and popularity, with more than 9 million copies in print globally. The original edition was on the cutting edge of what was then known about the origins and nature of the universe. But the ensuing years have seen extraordinary advances in the technology of observing both the micro—and the macrocosmic world—observations that have confirmed many of Hawking's theoretical predictions in the first edition of his book.Now a decade later, this edition updates the chapters throughout to document those advances, and also includes an entirely new chapter on Wormholes and Time Travel and a new introduction. It make vividly clear why A Brief History of Time has transformed our view of the universe.


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*The Scarlet Letter*, by **Nathaniel Hawthorne**, is part of the *Barnes & Noble Classics** *series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of *Barnes & Noble Classics*: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. *Barnes & Noble Classics *pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. America’s first psychological novel, **Nathaniel Hawthorne’s** *The Scarlet Letter* is a dark tale of love, crime, and revenge set in colonial New England. It revolves around a single, forbidden act of passion that forever alters the lives of three members of a small Puritan community: Hester Prynne, an ardent and fierce woman who bears the punishment of her sin in humble silence; the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, a respected public figure who is inwardly tormented by long-hidden guilt; and the malevolent Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s husband—a man who seethes with an Ahab-like lust for vengeance. The landscape of this classic novel is uniquely American, but the themes it explores are universal—the nature of sin, guilt, and penitence, the clash between our private and public selves, and the spiritual and psychological cost of living outside society. Constructed with the elegance of a Greek tragedy, *The Scarlet Letter* brilliantly illuminates the truth that lies deep within the human heart. **Nancy Stade** is trained as a lawyer and has worked in the federal government and the private sector. She currently lives in Mexico, where she is working on a novel.


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In the first of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, 007 declares war on Le Chiffre, French communist and paymaster of the Soviet murder organization SMERSH.  The battle begins with a fifty-million-franc game of baccarat, gains momentum during Bond's fiery love affair with a sensuous lady spy, and reaches a chilling climax with fiendish torture at the hands of a master sadist. For incredible suspense, unexpected thrills, and extraordinary danger, nothing can beat James Bond in his inaugural adventure.


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Tiffany Case, a cold, gorgeous, devil-may-care blonde, stands between James Bond and the leaders of a diamond-smuggling ring that stretches from Africa to London to the United States. Bond uses her to infiltrate this gang, but once in America the hunter becomes the hunted. Agent 007 is in real danger until help comes from an unlikely quarter, the ice maiden herself.


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James Bond travels to the Caribbean to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a secret service team. As he uncovers the astonishing truth about strange energy waves that are interfering with U.S. missile launches, he must battle deadly assassins, sexy femmes fatales, and even a poisonous tarantula. The search takes him to an exotic tropical island, where he meets a beautiful nature girl and discovers the hideout of Doctor No, a six-foot-six madman with a mania for torture, a lust to kill, and a fantastic secret to hide.


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The destruction of a Russian hideout at SHAPE headquarters near Paris; the planned assassination of a Cuban thug in America; the tracking of a heroin ring from Rome to Venice and beyond; for Bond it is just routine. For anyone else - certain death.


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Every major foreign government organization has a file on British secret agent James Bond. Now, Russia's lethal SMERSH organization has targeted him for elimination. SMERSH has the perfect bait in the irresistible Tatiana Romanova, who lures 007 to Istanbul promising the top-secret Spektor cipher machine. But when Bond walks willingly into the trap, a game of cross and double-cross ensues, with Bond both the stakes and the prize.


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Auric Goldfinger, the most phenomenal criminal Bond has ever faced, is an evil genius who likes his cash in gold bars and his women dressed only in gold paint. After smuggling tons of gold out of Britain into secret vaults in Switzerland, this powerful villain is planning the biggest and most daring heist in history-robbing all the gold in Fort Knox. That is, unless Secret Agent 007 can foil his plan. In one of Ian Fleming's most popular adventures, James Bond tracks this most dangerous foe across two continents and takes on two of the most memorable villains ever created-a human weapon named Oddjob and a luscious female crime boss named Pussy Galore. REVIEW; A superlative thriller from our foremost literary magician. (The New York Herald Tribune)


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Beautiful, fortune - telling Solitaire is the prisoner and tool of Mr Big: master of fear, artist in crime and Voodoo Baron of Death. But James Bond has no time for hocus pocus. He knows that this criminal heavy hitter is also a top SMERSH operative and a real threat. More than that, after tracking him through the jazz joints of Harlem, to the everglades and on to the Caribbean, 007 has realized that Big is one of the most dangerous men he has ever faced...


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Moonraker, Britain's new ICBM-based national defense system, is ready for testing, but something's not quite right. At M's request, Bond begins his investigation with Sir Hugo Drax, the leading card shark at M's club, who is also the head of the Moonraker project. But once Bond delves deeper into the goings-on at the Moonraker base, he discovers that both the project and its leader are something other than they appear to be.


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High in the Swiss Alps, a man hunts respectability with all the cunning that made him Europe's most ruthless criminal. Nothing is to stand in Ernst Stavro Blofeld's way, certainly not 007.


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A brainwashed James Bond has tried--and failed--to assassinate M, his boss. Now Bond has to prove he is back on form and can be trusted again. All 007 has to do is kill one of the most deadly freelance hit men in the world: Paco "Pistols" Scaramanga, the Man with the Golden Gun. But despite his license to kill, 007 is no assassin, and on finding Scaramanga in the sultry heat of Jamaica, he decides to infiltrate the killer's criminal cooperative--and realizes that he will have to take him out as swiftly as possible. Otherwise 007 might just be the next on a long list of British Secret Service numbers retired by the Man with the Golden Gun . . .


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A beautiful girl with a sensual past, Vivienne Michell is different from all the women Bond has known before. When she is confronted with two evil killers there is only one man who can save her - Bond himself.


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James Bond is in disgrace. His monthly medical report is critical of the high living that is ruining his health, and M packs him off for a fortnight to a nature-cure clinic to be tuned-up to his former pitch of exceptional fitness.


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Essays and Poems, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. As an adolescent America searched for its unique identity among the nations of the world, a number of thinkers and writers emerged eager to share their vision of what the American character could be. Among their leaders was Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose essays, lectures, and poems defined the American transcendentalist movement, though he himself disliked the term. Emerson advocates a rejection of fear-driven conformity, a total independence of thought and spirit, and a life lived in harmony with nature. He believes that Truth lies within each individual, for each is part of a greater whole, a universal “over-soul” through which we transcend the merely mortal. Emerson was extremely prolific throughout his life; his collected writings fill forty volumes. This edition contains his major works, including Nature, the essays “Self-Reliance,” “The American Scholar,” “The Over-Soul,” “Circles,” “The Poet,” and “Experience,”, and such important poems as “The Rhodora,” “Uriel,” “The Humble-Bee,” “Earth-Song,” “Give All to Love,” and the well-loved “Concord Hymn.” Includes a comprehensive glossary of names. Peter Norberg has been Assistant Professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia since 1997. A specialist in New England transcendentalism and the history of the antebellum period, he also has published on Herman Melville’s poetry. He currently is writing a history of Emerson’s career as a public lecturer.


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""I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver's license...records my first name simply as Cal."" So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, "Middlesex "is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic. Jeffrey Eugenides was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1960, graduated from Brown University, and received an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Stanford University in 1986. His first novel, "The Virgin Suicides," was published in 1993. Winner of the Pulitzer PrizeA "New York Times" Editors' ChoiceA "Los Angeles Times" Best BookNational Book Critics Circle Award NomineeLambda Literary Award Nominee In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry blond classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them--along with Callie's failure to develop physically--leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all. The explanation for this shocking state of affairs is a rare genetic mutation--and a guilty secret--that have followed Callie's grandparents from the crumbling Ottoman Empire to Prohibition-era Detroit and beyond, outlasting the glory days of the Motor City, the race riots of 1967, and the family's second migration, into the foreign country known as suburbia. Thanks to the gene, Callie is part girl, part boy. And even though the gene's epic travels have ended, her own odyssey has only begun. Spanning eight decades--and one unusually awkward adolescence--Jeffrey Eugenides' long-awaited second novel is a grand, original fable of crossed bloodlines, the intricacies of gender, and the deep, untidy promptings of desire. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize "A towering achievement . . . A story that manages to be both illuminating and transcendent . . . [Eugenides] has emerged as the great American writer many of us suspected him of being."--Jeff Turrentine, "Los Angeles Times Book Review" "Jeffrey Eugenides is a big and big-hearted talent, and "Middlesex" is a weird, wonderful novel that will sweep you off your feet."--Jonathan Franzen "Impressive [and] wonderfully engaging . . . A Buddenbrooks-like saga that traces three generations' efforts to grapple with America and with their own versions of the American Dream . . . [Eugenides] has not only followed up on a precocious debut with a broader and more ambitious book, but in doing so, he has also delivered a deeply affecting portrait of one family's tumultuous engagement with the American 20th century . . . It is a novel that employs all its author's rich storytelling talents to give us one Greek-American family's idiosyncratic journey from the not-so-pearly gates of Ellis Island to the suburban vistas of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, while at the same time tracing the rise and fall in fortunes of Detroit, from its apotheosis as the Motor City in the 40's and 50's through the race riots of 1967 and its subsequent decline. It is also a novel that invokes ancient myths and contemporary pop songs to show how family traits and inclinations are passed down generation to generation, a novel that uses musical leitmotifs to show the unexpected ways in which chance and fate weave their improvisations into the loom of family life."--Michiko Kakutani, "The New York Times" "One of the delights of "Middlesex" is how soundly it's constructed, with motifs and characters weaving through the novel's episodes, pulling it tight . . . His narrator is a soul who inhabits a liminal realm, a creature able to bridge the divisions that plague humanity, endowed with 'the ability to communicate between the genders, to see not with the monovision of one sex but in the stereoscope of both. That utopian reach makes "Middlesex" deliriously American; the novel's patron saint is Walt Whitman, and it has some of the shagginess of that poet's verse to go along with the exuberance. But mostly it is a colossal act of curiosity, of imagination and of love."--Laura Miller, "The New York Times Book Review" "At last Detroit has its great novel. What Dublin got from James Joyce--a sprawling, ambitious, loving exasperated, and playful chronicle of all its good and bad parts--Detroit has from native son Eugenides."--"Detroit Free Press" "A towering achievement . . . A story that manages to be both illuminating and transcendent . . . [Eugenides] has emerged as the great American writer many of us suspected him of being."--Jeff Turrentine, "Los Angeles Times Book Review" "Whatever you might be expecting, "Middlesex" will surprise you . . . a rolling epic . . . the kind of book that urges you to be read in one day, then reread."--Jonathan Safran Foer, "Bomb" "Rollicking, gleefully inventive . . . "Middlesex" serves as a tribute to Nabokovian themes . . . Eugenides recounts the revelation of Callie's genetic abnormality through a series of near-discoveries that are amazingly, comically missed."--"The Washington Post" "A big, cheeky, splendid novel, and its confidence is part of its success, because it goes places few narrators would dare to tread . . . Because Eugenides has imbued his second novel with transcontinental range and historical depth, he has thrown open the gates of Ithaca and sent his narrator on the road. And because he has remembered that the human experience of it is the sine qua non of any adventure, he has given us something lyrical and fine."--Gail Caldwell, "The Boston Globe" ""Middlesex" is a novel about discovery, one man's discovery of his place in the world and acceptance of his singularity, his uniqueness. In the process, it is a novel that challenges our preconceptions about gender and our understanding of the universal truths of growing up and growing old."--Michael Pearson, "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" ""Middlesex" sweeps the reader along with easy grace and charm, tactfully concealing intelligence, sophistication, and the ache of earned wisdom beneath bushels of inventive storytelling . . . the novel's carefully studied casual look . . . [is] a little like Callie's mismatched features-'taken all together, something captivating emerged. An inadvertent harmony.'"--"The New York Observer" "An Epic . . . This feast of a novel is thrilling in the scope of its imagination and surprising in its tenderness."--"People " "["Middlesex" is] one of the most impressive American novels . . . Eugenides has created a spirited, high-energy comic epic. At once remarkably readable, intelligent, and moving, Middlesex becomes that rare cultural hybrid, a page-turner that wows the critics."--"Newsday" "A big book so wildly imagined . . . and yet so warm-hearted that it's hard to resist . . . it is frequently hilarious and touching."--"USA Today " "An often affecting, funny, and deeply human book . . . a charming writer . . . "Middlesex" is enormously ambitious book, whose many stories do indeed gather to present a broad swath of Greek-American life."--"The New Republic " "The verbal energy and narrative range of Saul Bellow's early fiction (say, " The Adventures of Augie March") are born again in this dazzling novel . . . A virtuosic combination of elegy, sociohistorical study, and picaresque adventure: altogether irresistible."--"Kirkus Reviews" "In his second novel, the author once again proves himself to be a wildly imaginative writer . . . Likely to hold readers in thrall with its affecting characterizations of a brave and lonely soul and its vivid depiction of exactly what it means to be both male and female."--Joanne Wilkinson, "Booklist" "Eugenides proves that he is not only a unique voice in modern literature but also well versed in the nature of the human heart. Highly recommended."--"Library Journal" "From the opening paragraph, in which the narrator explains that he was 'born twice, ' first as a baby girl in 1960, then as a teenage boy in 1974, readers are aware that Calliope Stephanides is a hermaphrodite. To explain his situation, Cal starts in 1922, when his grandparents came to America. In his role as the 'prenatal narrator, ' he tells the love story of this couple, who are brother and sister; his parents are blood relatives as well. Then he tells his own story, which is that of a female child growing up in suburban Detroit with typical adolescent concerns. Callie, as he is know then, worries because she hasn't developed breasts or started menstruating; her facial hair is blamed on her ethnicity, and she and her mother go to get waxed together. She develops a passionate crush on her best girlfriend, 'the Object, ' and consummates it in a manner both detached and steamy. Then an accident causes Callie to find out what she's been suspecting--she's not actually a girl. The story questions what it is that makes us who we are and concludes that one's inner essence stays the same, even in light of drastic outer changes. Mostly, the novel remains a universal narrative of a girl who's happy to grow up but hates having to leave her old self behind. Readers will love watching the narrator go from Callie to Cal, and witnessing all of the life experiences that get her there."--"School Library Journal"


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Dear Reader:    

In a previous life, before the time of Plum, I wrote twelve short romance novels. Red-hot screwball comedies, each and every one of them. Nine of these stories were originally published by the Loveswept line between the years 1988 and 1992. All immediately went out of print and could be found only at used bookstores and yard sales.    

I'm excited to tell you that those nine stories are now being re-released by HarperCollins. Back to the Bedroom is presented here in almost original form. I've done only minor editing to correct some embarrassing bloopers missed the first time around.    

I lived in northern Virginia when I wrote Back to the Bedroom. My children were young, and we spent a lot of time visiting the Washington, D.C. museums and wandering through the historic neighborhoods. One day while strolling Capitol Hill I came upon two townhouses that captured my imagination. The houses were totally different -- a birthday cake of a house and a bran muffin of a house, and yet they shared a common wall. I wondered about the people who lived inside the houses. And eventually the houses inspired Back to the Bedroom.    

Back to the Bedroom is the story of a young woman with the soul of a birthday cake living in a bran muffin house -- and a nice-looking guy with the substance of a bran muffin living in a birthday cake. They share some misadventures, some romantic moments, some misunderstandings, and ultimately they turn into wedding cake.    

And for Plum fans, you'll be interested to find that this was the first of the four romances to feature Elsie Hawkins, the prototype for Grandma Mazur.    

Janet Evanovich


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SUMMARY:
Trouble seems to find Stephanie everywhere she goes, and once again she's struggling with her tangled love life, chaotic family, and her God-given gift for destroying every car she drives. This time, Plum has decided to quit her job as a bounty hunter. She's tired of creeps, weirdos and stalkers. But just when she thinks she's out, they pull her back in! So fasten you seatbelt and hang on ? Stephanie's back in town.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**The Crime: ****Armed robbery to the tune of nine million dollars**. Dom Rizzi robbed a bank, stashed the money, and did the time. His family couldn’t be more proud. He always was the smart one.

**The Cousin: ****Joe Morelli**. Morelli is Dom’s cousin. He’s also a cop. Less than a week after Dom’s release from prison, Morelli has shadowy figures breaking into his house and dying in his basement. Meanwhile, Dom has gone missing

**The Catastrophe: ****Moonman.** Morelli hires Walter Mooner” Dunphy, stoner and inventor” turned crime fighter, to protect his house. Morelli is low on cash. Mooner will work for potatoes.

**The Cupcake: ****Stephanie Plum**. Stephanie and Morelli have a long-standing relationship that involves sex, affection, and driving each other nuts. She’s a bond enforcement agent with more luck than talent, and she’s involved in this bank-robbery-gone-bad disaster from day one.

**The Crisis**: **Ranger.** Security expert Carlos Manoso, street name Ranger, has a job for Stephanie that will involve night work. Morelli has his own ideas regarding Stephanie’s evening activities.

**The Conclusion: Be fearless.  Read *FOURTEEN*!**


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New Jersey bail-bonds office worker Lula is a witness to celebrity chef, Stanley Chipotle, losing his head, literally. Now Lula and Stephanie Plum, a bond enforcement officer, are on the hunt to identify the killers before Lula is next on the chopping block. Meantime, security expert Carlos Manoso, aka Ranger, has recruited Stephanie for a top secret mission. Someone on the inside at Rangeman is leaking client information, determined to bring the company down. Can Stephanie hunt down a killer, a traitor, and keep her Grandma out of the sauce?


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When Amy Klasse loses her TV job to a dancing chicken, handsome veterinarian Jake Elliott rescues her with an offer to be his receptionist. Jake just can't resist a damsel in distress, and Amy certainly doesn't mind Jake's charming sincerity.   Then suddenly the job-stealing chicken disappears and Amy is suspected of foul play. Amy and Jake search for clues to prove her innocence. But will Jake be able to prove to Amy that love, too, is a mystery worth solving?


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

***Three to Get Deadly***

A "saintly" old candy-store owner is on the lam-and bounty hunter extraordinaire Stephanie Plum is on the case. As the body count rises, Stephanie finds herself dealing with dead drug dealers and slippery fugitives on the chase of her life. And with the help of eccentric friends and family, Steph must see to it that this case doesn't end up being her last...



***Four to Score***





Stephanie Plum, Trenton, New Jersey's favorite pistol-packing, condom-carrying bounty hunter, is back--and on the trail of a revenge-seeking waitress who's skipped bail. With then help of 73-year-old Grandma Mazur, ex-hooker Lula, a transvestite musician named Sally Sweet, and the all-too-hospitable, all-too-sexy Joe Morelli, Stephanie might just catch her woman. Then again, with more mishaps than there are exits on the Jersey Turnpike--including murders, firebombs, and Stephanie's arch-rival bounty hunter chasing after the same fugative--Stephanie better watch her back big-time if she wants to live to crack this case.


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SUMMARY:
Filled with Evanovich's trademark style and wit, Full House is romantic suspense with a twist...Her life was pleasant, proper, and predictable-- until he showed up and trouble moved in...Polo instructor Nicholas Kaharchek senses danger the minute he sees Billie Pearce. She represents everything he's so artfully avoided. Happy in her home life, a divorced mother of two, Billie is the epitome of stability. They have nothing in common.To his horror, Nick is fascinated-- and irresistibly attracted. When Billie generously offers to share her home with Nick's crazy cousin Deedee for a while, Nick finds himself visiting-- often. And while each is slowly seduced by the other's charms, and both are wildly encouraged by devious Deedee, Billie and Nick find out that what they have in common is most important of all. But neither one knows that danger is lurking where they least expect it and a killer is closing in on them.Sneak peek of Visions of Sugar Plums inside!


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SUMMARY:
Hard Up Fugitive Apprehension Agent Stephanie Plum has a big problem on her hands: Seven-year-old Annie Soder and her mother, Evelyn, have disappeared. Evelyn's estranged husband, Steven, a shady owner of a seedy bar, is not at all happy. Finding a kidnapped child is not an assignment for a bounty hunter. But Evelyn's grandmother lives next door to Stephanie's parents, so Stephanie follows the trail left by Annie and Evelyn-and finds a lot more than she bargained for. Hard Risk Steven Soder is somehow linked with a very scary Eddie Abruzzi. Trenton cop and on-again, off-again fianceacute; Joe Morelli and Stephanie's mentor and tormentor, Ranger, warn Stephanie about Abruzzi, but it's Abruzzi's eyes and mannerisms that frighten Stephanie most. Stephanie needs Ranger's savvy and expertise, and she's willing to accept his help to find Annie even though it might mean getting too involved with Ranger. Stephanie, Ranger, Lula (who's not going to miss riding with Ranger), and Evelyn's lawyer/Laundromat manager set out to find Annie. The search turns out to be a race among Stephanie's posse, the True Blue Bonds' agent-a Rangerette known as Jeanne Ellen Burrows-and the Abruzzi crew. Plus, there's a killer rabbit on the loose! Hard Eight Strap on your helmet and get ready for the ride of your life! Hard Eight. The world of Stephanie Plum has never been wilder.


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SUMMARY:
Ellis, the American. Jean-Pierre, the Frenchman. They were two men on opposite sides of the cold war, with a woman torn between them. Together, they formed a triangle of passion and deception, racing from terrorist bombs in Paris to the violence and intrigue of Afghanistan - to the moment of truth and deadly decision for all of them... "A deadly romantic triangle, a clandestine mission with global stakes, an exotic location, a plot as gripping and ingenious as Eye of the Needle ... engineered to perfection with breathless acceleration. I couldn't put it down!" - Los Angeles Times "Masterful... plot and counterplot, treachery, cunning and killing ... keep you on edge every moment" - Associated Press


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SUMMARY:
It would make a powerful government official risk his reputation -- and career -- in one unforgettable night....It would set the stock market spinning in a bold move to take over a giant corporation....And it was worth any gamble for a corporate raider who used illicit information as his tool -- and deadly violence as his weapon....An explosive novel of high finance and underworld villainy from Ken Follett, the grand master of international action and suspense.


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His name was Feliks. He came to London to commit a murder that would change history. A master manipulator, he had many weapons at his command, but against him were ranged the whole of the English police, a brilliant and powerful lord, and the young Winston Churchill himself. These odds would have stopped any man in the world-except the man from St. Petersburg...


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is faced with her most daunting  task yet: bring in the former Special Forces agent Carlos Manoso, the man  who taught her everything about fugitive apprehension.    

Description in Spanish:    

La cazarrecompensas Stephanie Plum vuelve a la carga. En esta nueva  aventura su talento, su humor y su ingenio continúan a la máxima altura.    

Ahora nos la encontramos tratando de evitar que su amiga Carol salte por  un puente. Después de ver cómo lo consigue --aunque, al fin y al cabo,  ¿quién se suicida con una chaqueta de 400 dólares puesta?-- nos daremos  cuenta de que la acción no ha hecho más que empezar. Su compañero de  trabajo, Ranger, ha desaparecido y Alexander Ramos, el traficante de  armas, tiene mucho que ver en el asunto. Y, por si fuera poco, su abuela y  Bob --un perro con trastornos alimenticios-- se han metido en su casa.  Pero Stephanie es capaz de todo, y ningún obstáculo podrá detenerla.


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SUMMARY:
The thirteenth in Janet Evanovich's bestselling series, featuring her lovable and hapless heroine, Stephanie Plum.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Dear Reader: 

In a previous life, before the time of Plum, I wrote twelve short romance novels. Red-hot screwball comedies, each and every one of them. Nine of these stories were originally published by the Loveswept line between the years 1988 and 1992. All went out-of-print immediately and then could be found only at used bookstores and yard sales. 

I'm excited to tell you that those nine stories are now being re-released by HarperCollins. *Love Overboard* is second in the lineup, and it's presented here in almost original form. I've done only minor editing to correct some embarrassing bloopers missed the first time around. And I changed the title because I thought the original title (Ivan Takes a Wife) was boring! *Love Overboard* is a romantic tale about a handsome ship's captain; a wary wench from Jersey City; a hundred-year-old, two-masted schooner; and an entire town of shoemakers. There's some getting naked, some blueberry pie, more getting naked, and at the end . . . Okay, I won't tell you about the end, but it's really good and it'll make you feel happy. 

I took my family on the road trip from heck to research this book. When we finally got to Maine it was all worthwhile because we fell in love with the boats and the people who sailed them. 

Enjoy!


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SUMMARY:
A woman with a talent for numbers, Alexandra Scott wanted to escape the rat race and go someplace where the men outnumber the women. Trading in her Wall Street job and fancy condo for a rundown cabin in the woods. She's now Alaskan Wilderness Woman. It isn't long before she finds exactly what she's looking for: one sexy pilot named Michael Casey. But this confirmed bachelor has no intentions of getting caught in any woman's crosshairs -- especially a hunter as appealing as Alex. It'll take skill, determination, and a little romantic persuasion for this big-game hunter to bag her prey.


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SUMMARY:
Alexandra (Barney) Barnaby roars onto the Miami Beach scene in hot pursuit of her missing baby brother, "Wild" Bill. Leave it to the maverick of the family to get Barney involved with high-speed car chases, a search for sunken treasure, and Sam Hooker, a NASCAR driver who’s good at revving a woman's engine.   Engaged in a deadly race, Bill has "borrowed" Hooker's sixty-five-foot Hatteras and sailed off into the sunset...just when Hooker has plans for the boat. Hooker figures he'll attach himself to Barney and maybe run into scumbag Bill. And better yet, maybe he'll get lucky in love with Bill's sweetie pie sister.   The pedal will have to go to metal if Barney and Hooker want to be the first to cross the finish line, save Bill, Hooker's boat...and maybe the world.


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SUMMARY:
Miami is still freakin' humid. The nights are even hotter. And there's a body on ice. And that's just the beginning of this adrenaline-rush of a hot-wired ride from phenomenal number one New York Times bestselling author Janet Evanovich.   A woman with a taste for speed and a talent for breaking the rules, Barney also knows a little too much about cheating. First there was Hooker and that salesclerk. Now she's convinced one of the competitors is up to no good on the track. Snooping to find evidence, Hooker and Barney "borrow" a NASCAR hauler. Turns out, the hauler is carrying two race cars and a dead guy. It looks like Barney and Hooker are facing multiple counts of grand theft auto and homicide.   So buckle up as Barney, Hooker, a 150-pound bundle of Saint Bernard love named Beans, and the Super Cigar Ladies Felicia and Rosa shift into gear on a wild race around South Florida and Concord, North Carolina.   Everything you always wanted to know about righteous indignation, stealing an eighteen-wheeler, and sex in the fast lane.


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SUMMARY:
Louisa Brannigan's neighbor is a handsome hell-raiser—and he's driving Louisa crazy. He makes terrible coffee, steals her newspaper, and listens through her walls. But when she's fired from her government job, Louisa is persuaded to join his undercover investigation. Sneaking around in the shadows is more fun than she ever imagined, especially when the getaway car is a Porsche.   Pete Streeter never figured on finding such an attractive partner in crime. Louisa is all he ever wanted in a woman, and more. But once he's taught her to enjoy living on the edge, will she finally feel safe in his love?


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SUMMARY:
Watch out, world. Here comes Stephanie Plum, a bounty hunter with attitude. In Stephanie's opinion, toxic waste, rabid drivers, armed schizophrenics, and August heat, humidity, and hydrocarbons are all part of the great adventure of living in Jersey.  She's a product of the "burg," a blue-collar pocket of Trenton where houses are attached and narrow, cars are American, windows are clean, and (God forbid you should be late) dinner is served at six.  Now Stephanie's all grown up and out on her own, living five miles from Mom and Dad's, doing her best to sever the world's longest umbilical cord. Her mother is a meddler, and her grandmother is a few cans short of a case.  Out of work and out of money, with her Miata repossessed and her refrigerator empty, Stephanie blackmails her bail bondsman cousin, Vinnie, into giving her a try as an apprehension agent. Stephanie knows zilch about the job requirements, but she figures her new pal, fearless bounty hunter Ranger, can teach her what it takes to catch a crook.  Her first assignment: nail Joe Morelli, a former vice cop on the run from a charge of murder one. Morelli is also the irresistible macho pig who took Stephanie's virginity at age sixteen and then wrote the details on the bathroom wall of Mario's Sub Shop. There's still powerful chemistry between these two, so the chase should be interesting.  It could also be extremely dangerous, especially when Stephanie encounters a heavyweight title contender who likes to play rough. Benito Ramirez is known for his brutality to women. At the very least, his obsession with Stephanie complicates her manhunt and brings terror and uncertainty into her life. At worst, it could lead to murder.  Witty, fresh, and full of surprises, "One for the Money" is among the most eagerly awaited crime novels of the season.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

From #1 blockbuster bestselling author Janet Evanovich comes a Stephanie Plum novel that takes adventure, action, suspense (and maybe even true love?) to new heights.

WATCH YOUR BACK . . .

LOOK BOTH WAYS . . .

BECAUSE LOVE IS IN THE AIR . . . 

AND THAT MEANS BIG TROUBLE!

Mysterious men have a way of showing up in Stephanie Plum s apartment. When the shadowy Diesel appears, he has a task for Stephanie--and he s not taking no for an answer. Annie Hart is a relationship expert who is wanted for armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. Stephanie needs to find her, fast. Diesel knows where she is. So they make a deal: He ll help her get Annie if Stephanie plays matchmaker to several of Annie s most difficult clients. But someone wants to find Annie even more than Diesel and Stephanie. Someone with a nasty temper. And someone with unmentionable skills. Does Diesel know more than he s saying about Annie Hart? Does Diesel have secrets he s keeping from Stephanie and the two men in her life--Ranger and Morelli? With Stephanie Plum in over her head, things are sure to get a little dicey and a little explosive, Jersey style!


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SUMMARY:
Stephanie has a way of attracting danger, lunatics, oddballs, bad luck…and mystery men. And no one is more mysterious than Diesel. He’s hot on the trail of a little man in green pants who’s lost a giant bag of money. Problem is, the money isn’t exactly lost. Stephanie’s Grandma Mazur has found it, and like any good Jersey senior citizen, she’s hightailed it in a Winnebago to Atlantic City and hit the slots. With Lula and Connie in tow, Stephanie attempts to bring Grandma home. But the luck of the Irish is rubbing off on everyone: Lula’s found a job modeling plus-size lingerie. Connie’s found a guy. Diesel’s found Stephanie. And Stephanie has found herself in over her head in this all-you-can-eat buffet of thrills, chills, shrimp cocktail, plus-size underwear, and scorching hot men.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

The First Full Length Stephanie Plum Between-the-Numbers Novel from #1 Bestselling Author Janet Evanovich.



Turn on all the lights and check under your bed. Things are about to get spooky in Trenton, New Jersey.

 

According to legend, the Jersey Devil prowls the Pine Barrens and soars above the treetops in the dark of night. As eerie as this might seem, there are things in the Barrens that are even more frightening and dangerous. And there are monkeys. Lots of monkeys.

 

Wulf Grimoire is a world wanderer and an opportunist who can kill without remorse and disappear like smoke. He’s chosen Martin Munch, boy genius, as his new business partner, and he’s chosen the Barrens as his new playground.

 

Munch received his doctorate degree in quantum physics when he was twenty-two. He’s now twenty-four, and while his brain is large, his body hasn’t made it out of the boys’ department at Macy’s. Anyone who says good things come in small packages hasn’t met Munch. Wulf Grimoire is looking for world domination. Martin Munch would be happy if he could just get a woman naked and tied to a tree.

 

Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum has Munch on her most-wanted list for failure to appear in court. Plum is the all-American girl stuck in an uncomfortable job, succeeding on luck and tenacity. Usually she gets her man. This time she gets a monkey. She also gets a big guy named Diesel. 

 

Diesel pops in and out of Plum’s life like birthday cake – delicious to look at and taste, not especially healthy as a steady diet, gone by the end of the week if not sooner. He’s an über bounty hunter with special skills when it comes to tracking men and pleasing women. He’s after Grimoire, and now he’s also after Munch. And if truth were told, he wouldn’t mind setting Stephanie Plum in his crosshairs.

 

Diesel and Plum hunt down Munch and Grimoire, following them into the Barrens, surviving cranberry bogs, the Jersey Devil, a hair-raising experience, sand in their underwear, and, of course . . . monkeys.


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SUMMARY:
The smash hit No. 1 bestselling author takes you on the ride of your life in the seventh Stephanie Plum adventure. Stephanie thinks she's going after an easy FTA: a senior citizen charged with smuggling contraband cigarettes. But when she and Lula show up at his house, they get more than they bargained for a corpse in the woodshed and an old man on the lam. Stephanie's mind is on other matters, however, because she has two proposals to consider: vice cop Joe Morelli is proposing marriage, and fellow bounty hunter Ranger is proposing a single perfect night...


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Trenton, New Jersey, bounty hunter Stephanie Plum has inherited a lucky” bottle from her Uncle Pip. Problem is, Uncle Pip didn’t specify if the bottle brought good luck or bad luck. . . . 

BAD LUCK:

Vinnie, of Vincent Plum Bail Bonds, has run up a gambling debt of $786,000 with mobster Bobby Sunflower and is being held until the cash can be produced. Nobody else will pay to get Vinnie back, leaving it up to Stephanie, office manager Connie, and file clerk Lula to raise the money if they want to save their jobs.

GOOD LUCK:

Being in the business of tracking down people, Stephanie, Lula, and Connie have an advantage in finding Vinnie. If they can rescue him, it will buy them some time to raise the cash.

BAD LUCK:

Finding a safe place to hide Vinnie turns out to be harder than raising $786,000. Vinnie’s messing up Mooner’s vibe, running up pay-per-view porn charges in Ranger’s apartment, and making Stephanie question genetics.

GOOD LUCK:

Between a bonds office yard sale that has the entire Burg turning out, Mooner’s Hobbit-Con charity event, and Uncle Pip’s lucky bottle, they just might raise enough money to save the business, and Vinnie, from ruin. 

BAD LUCK:

Saving Vincent Plum Bail Bonds means Stephanie can keep being a bounty hunter. In Trenton, this involves hunting down a man wanted for polygamy, a turnpike toilet paper bandit, and a drug dealer with a pet alligator named Mr. Jingles.

GOOD LUCK:

The job of bounty hunter comes with perks in the guise of Trenton’s hottest cop, Joe Morelli, and the dark and dangerous security expert, Ranger. With any luck at all, Uncle Pip’s lucky bottle will have Stephanie getting lucky---the only question is . . . with whom?*

*Sizzling Sixteen* . . . so hot, the pages might spontaneously combust!*


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SUMMARY:
She's accidentally destroyed a dozen cars. She's a target for every psycho and miscreant this side of the Jersey Turnpike. He mother's convinced she'll end up dead...or worse, without a man. She's Stephanie Plum and she kicks butt for a living (well, she thought it would sound good to put it that way...)It begins as an innocent trip to the deli-mart, on a quest for nachos. But Stephanie Plum and her partner, Lula, are clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time. A robbery leads to an explosion, which leads to the destruction of yet another car. It would be just another day in the life of Stephanie Plum...except that she becomes the target of a gang. And the target of an even scarier, more dangerous force that comes to Trenton. With super bounty hunter Ranger out of town (and Stephanie on the outs with vice cop Morelli), she finds herself alone, with a decision to make: how to protect herself and where to hide while on the hunt for a killer known as the Junkman. There's only one safe place, and it has Ranger's name all over it-if she can find it. And if the Junkman doesn't find her first. With Lula riding shotgun and Grandma Mazur on the loose, Stephanie Plum is racing against the clock in her most suspenseful novel yet. Ten Big Ones is page-turning entertainment and Janet Evanovich is the best there is.


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When Megan Murphy discovers a floppy-eared rabbit gnawing on the hem of her skirt, she means to give its careless owner a piece of her mind, but Dr. Patrick Hunter is too attractive to stay mad at for long.   As for Patrick, he wants nothing more than to play house with Maggie—and make Thanksgiving dinner for their families.   But Megan has wept over one failed love, and she's afraid to risk her heart again. Can the good doctor help heal her heart?


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SUMMARY:
From the #1 "New York Times" bestselling author comes a revised, repackaged novel sure to please her many fans. She writes "high speed comic mayhem" ("Detroit Free Press"); she's "a blast of fresh air" ("Washington Post"); "side-splitting funny" ("Publishers Weekly") and "a winner" ("Glamour"). In other words, she's Janet Evanovich.  Berry Knudson had a talent for disaster, but when she climbed a tree to rescue a kitten, she wasn't prepared for the scrumptious hunk undressing in a nearby window, or her dive downward that smashed Jake Sawyer's pizza and won his heart! But was there room in her chaotic schedule for a risk-taking inventor with dreams? She took classes, delivered pizzas, and cared for three eccentric old ladies she rescued from the train station. But Jake thrived on a challenge, and he could be very inventive. Could he teach her there was time to make butterscotch pudding and let herself be loved?


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**A New York Times Bestseller**

  When the delightful, daffy Dog Lady of station WZZZ offered to take on the temporary job of traffic reporter, handsome program director Steve Crow tried to think of reasons to turn Daisy Adams down. Perhaps he knew that, sharing close quarters with her for hours, he'd find her quirky charms hard to resist.


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As bungling bounty hunter Stephanie Plum deals with the usual bail jumpers and struggles with chaotic relationships, a new twist emerges in the form of a mysterious female stalker. The latest madcap adventure in Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, Twelve Sharp will delight both new readers and devoted fans.


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It's Stephanie Plum, New Jersey's "fugitive apprehension" agent (aka bounty hunter), introduced to the world by Janet Evanovich in the award-winning novel "One for the Money."  Now Stephanie's back, armed with attitude -- not to mention stun guns, defense sprays, killer flashlights, and her trusty .38, Stephanie is after a new bail jumper, Kenny Mancuso, a boy from Trenton's burg. He's fresh out of the army, suspiciously wealthy, and he's just shot his best friend.  With her bounty hunter pal Ranger stepping in occasionally to advise her, Stephanie staggers kneedeep in corpses and caskets as she traipses through back streets, dark alleys, and funeral parlors.  And nobody knows funeral parlors better than Stephanie's irrepressible Grandma Mazur, a lady whose favorite pastime is grabbing a front-row seat at a neighborhood wake. So Stephanie uses Grandma as a cover to follow leads, but loses control when Grandma warms to the action, packing a cool pistol. Much to the family's chagrin, Stephanie and Granny may soon have the elusive Kenny in their sights.  Fast-talking, slow-handed vice cop Joe Morelli joins in the case, since the prey happens to be his young cousin. And if the assignment calls for an automobile stakeout for two with the woman who puts his libido in overdrive, Morelli's not one to object.  Low on expertise but learning fast, high on resilience, and despite the help she gets from friends and relatives, Stephanie eventually must face the danger alone when embalmed body parts begin to arrive on her doorstep and she's targeted for a nasty death by the most loathsome adversary she's ever encountered. Another case like this and she'll be a real pro.  "Two for the Dough" is irresistible fun and powerful suspense entertainment from an acclaimed author who is already a national star.


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It's five days before Christmas and things are not looking merry for Fugitive Apprehension Agent Stephanie Plum. She hasn't got a tree. She hasn't bought any presents. The malls are jam-packed with staggering shoppers. There's not a twinkle light anywhere to be seen in her apartment. And there's a strange man in her kitchen.Sure, this has happened to Stephanie Plum before. Strangers, weirdos, felons, creeps, and lunatics are always finding their way to her front door. But this guy is different. This guy is mysterious, sexy-and he has his own agenda. His name is Diesel and he is a man on a mission. And Diesel is unlike anyone Stephanie has ever met before in her life. The question is, what does he want with her? Can he help her find a little old toy maker who has skipped out on his bail right before Christmas? Can he survive the Plum family holiday dinner? Can he get Stephanie a tree that doesn't look like it was grown next to a nuclear power plant? These questions and more are keeping Stephanie awake at night. Not to mention the fact that she needs to find a bunch of nasty elves, her sister Valerie has a Christmas "surprise" for the Plums, her niece Mary Alice doesn't believe in Santa anymore, and Grandma Mazur has a new stud muffin. So bring out the plastic reindeer, strap on your jingle bells, and get ready to celebrate the holidays-Jersey style. Visions of Sugar Plums-the world of Plum has never been merrier!


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Hank Mallone knows he's in trouble when Maggie Toone agrees to pretend to be his wife in order to improve his rogue's reputation. Will his harebrained scheme to get a bank loan for his business backfire once Maggie arrives in his small Vermont town and lets the gossips take a look?   Maggie never expected her employer to be drop-dead handsome, but she's too intrigued by his offer to say no . . . and too eager to escape a life that made her feel trapped. The deal is strictly business, both agree, until Hank turns out to be every fantasy she ever had.


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There's never a dull moment for the residents of Beaumont, South Carolina. Lately, a heat wave's spiked the mercury-and everyone's sex drive! These days, when Jamie runs into Max, it's all she can do not to tear his clothes off-and the feeling is mutual. But trouble seems to follow Max like moths to a flame, and Jamie suspects he's all wrong for her. Meanwhile, the lingerie shop is having a sale on edible underwear, while the bakery's selling aphrodisiac-laced brownies and x-rated birthday cakes. Even Jamie's dog, Fleas, is dodging passes from the amorous French poodle next door! But when someone starts bumping off some of the town's more annoying citizens, all clues lead straight to the new personals section in Jamie's newspaper. Pretty soon, things are getting hot and heavy, as Max and Jamie start uncovering secrets-and undressing each other...


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Dear Reader, The temperature's on "sizzle" again in Beaumont, South Carolina, where peach trees are in season and ripe for the picking. So is its newest entrepreneur, Annie Fortenberry, who has inherited her grandmother's B&B (and its eccentric handyman Erdle Thorney). According to a local psychic she also inherited a spirit from its glory days as a brothel-not the kind of publicity the Peach Tree Bed & Breakfast needs if it's hosting millionaire Max Holt's upcoming wedding! If rumors of a naughty, prank-playing ghost aren't stressful enough, a mysterious man has arrived with an eye on Annie and her master suite. Wes Bridges is all leather and denim, sporting a two-day beard, straddling a Harley, and sending the B&B's testosterone level through the roof. Annie's cool demeanor may be dropping as fast as Wes's jeans, but leave it to her missing ex-husband to dampen the passion! Turns out someone has done him in, and all evidence points to Annie! Wrapped up in a murder plot, Annie must find the killer, save her own neck, and get back to where she was-wrapped up in Wes's strong loving arms...We guarantee that you're going to have as much fun reading Full Bloom as we had writing it! (Even if we were surprised by the ending!) And you won't want to miss the hair-raising shenanigans when Fleas, the hound dog, meets the most cantankerous, snooty, bad-tempered, twenty-two pound orange cat....Janet and Charlotte


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Dear Reader: Mercury's in retrograde, and folks in Beaumont, South Carolina are dealing with gossip, scandal, misunderstandings, and more secrets than ever. ¬' Local pediatrician Maggie¬' Farnsworth has¬' even bigger worries. Her wild-girl past has caught up with her in the form of her ex-boyfriend, a jailbird who just flew the coop--and is bent on tracking down Maggie and her daughter. Fortunately, FBI agent Zack Madden is on hand for protection. Unfortunately, his presence is turning up the heat on an attraction Maggie simply has no time for...or does she? But Maggie and Zack aren't the only ones getting busy: Fleas, the hound dog, is up to his old tricks--this time with Butterbean, a very allluring...goat? Jamie Swift and millionaire Max Holt have babies on the brain. And resident psychic-slash-astrologer Destiny is fighting a crush of her own. Since the town's ice cream parlor is¬' a magnet for gossip, no one can keep a secret and the sticky situations are getting even stickier...¬' It's the wildest time yet in the town we love to write about, with the characters we can't get enough of. So sit back, relax, and enjoy a FULL SCOOP of fun, adventure, and romance. Janet and Charlotte


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Dear Reader,



Welcome to the world of Jamie Swift and Max Holt! My good friend Charlotte Hughes and I have teamed up to create a series of books featuring these two characters and they've taken on a life of their own! These books are not set in the same world as my Stephanie Plum novels, but what they have in common is lovable, dysfunctional characters, villains you love to hate, and a cross-eyed way of looking at life. Jamie and Max have intense chemistry-even though they drive each other crazy. Max thinks Jamie is a magnet for trouble and Jamie thinks Max is the most annoyingly sexy, mysterious man she's ever met. She knows she should stay away from him. But boy, oh boy, do the sparks fly when they get together. Jamie is a newspaper owner from a small southern town. And in *Full Speed*, she's after the story of a lifetime. Max Holt is right in the middle of that story, and so Jamie tracks down the millionaire playboy, forcing him to take her on as partner. What follows is a story of a corrupt minister, a gang of mobsters on the loose, a hound dog called Fleas, a wise-cracking computer genius, and lots of love in the fast lane. Not to mention plenty of steamy action between Jamie and Max. 



So have fun with *Full Speed*. We're going to sign off now and get back to creating more romantic adventures between Jamie Swift and Max Holt. Enjoy and happy reading! 



Janet and Charlotte


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

He lives life in the fast lane and she's along for the ride-with no brakes....



Jamie Swift has one priority in quiet Beaumont, South Carolina: running the local newspaper. Romance runs second. But with the arrival of her silent partner, the notoriously mysterious and sexy Maximillian Holt, Jamie's life gets shaken up. Max claims he's here to give his brother-in-law a vote of confidence. A former wrestler, Frankie Fontana's now taking his shots in the political ring. Beaumont could use a mayor with scruples, but what it gets is a crime-and what Jamie gets is a story that's taking her for a ride on the wild side, complete with two assassins, a washed-up stripper, and an insane poacher. Between a spray of bullets and a fast getaway could it get any more romantic-or dangerous? Max and Jamie are betting their lives on a long shot.


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Volume Two of The RunelordsRaj Ahtan, ruler of Indhopal, has used enough forcibles to transform himself into the ultimate warrior: The Sum of All Men. Ahtan seeks to bring all of humanity under his rule-destroying anything and anyone that stood in his path, including many friends and allies of young Prince Gaborn Val Orden. But Gaborn has fulfilled a two-thousand-year-old prophecy, becoming the Earth King-a mythic figure who can unleash the forces of the Earth itself. And now the struggle continues. Gaborn has managed to drive off Raj Ahtan, but Ahtan is far from defeated. Striking at far-flung cities and fortresses and killing dedicates, Ahtan seeks to draw out the Earth King from his seat of power, to crush him. But as they weaken each other's forces in battle, the armies of an ancient and implacable inhuman enemy issue forth from the very bowels of the Earth.


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The world of the Runelords has been combined by magic with another parallel world to form a new one, the beginning of a process that may unify all worlds into the one true world. 

This story picks up after the events of *The Wyrmling Horde* and follows two of Farland’s well-known heroes, Borenson and Myrrima, on a quest to save their devastated land and the people of the new world from certain destruction. But the land is not the only thing that has been altered forever: in the change, Borenson has merged with a mighty and monstrous creature from the other world, Aaath Ulber.

He begins to be a different person, a berserker warrior, as well as having a huge new body because of the transformation of worlds. Thousands have died, lands have sunk below the sea and, elsewhere, risen from it. The supernatural rulers of the world are part of a universal evil, yet play a Byzantine game of dark power politics among themselves. And Aaath Ulber is now the most significant pawn in that game.


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Certain works of fantasy are immediately recognizable as monuments, towering above the rest of the category. Authors of those works, such as Stephen R. Donaldson, Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind, come immediately to mind. Add to that list David Farland, whose epic Runelords series continues now in *Sons of the Oak*.



The story picks up eight years after the events of *Lair of Bones *and begins a new chapter in the Runelords saga focusing on Gaborn's son, Fallion. Gaborn, the Earth King, has been traveling far from his home, to strange and unknown places. While beyond the edge of the earth, he finally succumbs to the accelerated aging that comes from all of the endowments he has taken. His death is the signal for a revolution, an attack from the supernatural realms by immensely powerful immortal beings. 



These forces have discovered that Gaborn's son is the resurrection of an immortal, one whose potential power is so great that he might be able to reorder the entire universe. Fallion's enemies have decided that they must control him, and failing that, destroy him. He is only a child, but he is the heir to Gaborn's kingdom, and so must flee to the ends of the earth to avoid the destruction of all that Gaborn accomplished. 



One of the mightiest of contemporary fantasy epics continues.


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Certain works of fantasy are immediately recognizable as monuments, towering above the rest of the category. They have been written by the likes of Stephen R. Donaldson, Robert Jordan, and Terry Goodkind. Now add to that list David Farland, whose epic fantasy series began with The Runelords, continued in Brotherhood of the Wolf and the New York Times bestseller Wizardborn, and reaches its peak now in The Lair of Bones.Prince Gaborn, the Earth King, has defeated the forces arrayed against him each time before: the magical and human forces marshaled by Raj Ahten, who seeks immortality at any cost and has given up his humanity in trade; and the inhuman, innumerable, insectile hordes of the giant Reavers from under the Earth, whose motives are unknowable, but inimical to human life. Now there must be final confrontations, both on the field of battle, with the supernatural creature that Raj Ahten has become, and underground, in the cavernous homeland of the Reavers, where the sorcerous One True Master who rules them all lies in wait--in the Lair of Bones. The survival of the human race on Earth is at stake.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

*The Runelords* is that rare book that will remind you why you started  reading fantasy in the first place.  Much of the setting--and even some of  the story--is conventional fantasy fare, but David Farland, aside from  being a masterful storyteller, has built his world around a complex and  thought-provoking social system involving the exchange of "endowments."  Attributes such as stamina, grace, and wit are a currency: a vassal may  help his lord by endowing him with all of his strength, for instance, and  in turn the vassal comes under the lord's care as his "dedicate," too weak  to even walk.  A Runelord might have hundreds of such endowments, giving  him superhuman senses and abilities, but he then must care for the hundreds  that he has deprived of strength, or beauty, or sight.

    *Runelords* excels because this novel idea is not mere window  dressing--Farland uses it to explore fundamental questions of life and  morality.  The story's hero, the young Runelord Gaborn, struggles to define  his role in this "shameful economy" while keeping his commitments to  himself, to his people, to the woman he loves, and to the earth itself.  We  end up asking ourselves the same questions: Should you choose your friends  based on insight or virtue?  Is it better to be just or good?  Competent  fantasy lets you escape to adventure in faraway lands, but exceptional  fantasy makes sure you have something to think about when you get back.  *Runelords* accomplishes the latter. *--Paul Hughes*


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The Saga of the Runelords is written in the finest tradition of Tolkien and other works that rise above the fantasy genre to special and individual heights. Now the epic story continues: at the end of Worldbinder, Fallion Orden, son of Gaborn, was imprisoned on a strange and fantastic world that he created by combining two alternate realities. It's a world brimming with dark magic, ruled by a creature of unrelenting evil who is gathering monstrous armies from a dozen planets in a bid to conquer the universe. Only Fallion has the power to mend the worlds, but at the heart of a city that is a vast prison, he lies in shackles. The forces of evil are growing and will soon rage across the heavens. Now, Fallion's allies must risk everything in an attempt to free him from the wyrmling horde.


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Dr. Bloodmoney is a post-nuclear-holocaust masterpiece filled with a host of Dick’s most memorable characters: Hoppy Harrington, a deformed mutant with telekinetic powers; Walt Dangerfield, a selfless disc jockey stranded in a satellite circling the globe; Dr. Bluthgeld, the megalomaniac physicist largely responsible for the decimated state of the world; and Stuart McConchie and Bonnie Keller, two unremarkable people bent the survival of goodness in a world devastated by evil. Epic and alluring, this brilliant novel is a mesmerizing depiction of Dick’s undying hope in humanity.


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>On October 11 the television star Jason Taverner is so famous that 30 million viewers eagerly watch his prime-time show. On October 12 Jason Taverner is not a has-been but a never-was -- a man who has lost not only his audience but all proof of his existence. And in the claustrophobic betrayal state of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, loss of proof is synonyms with loss of life.Taverner races to solve the riddle of his disappearance", immerses us in a horribly plausible Philip K. Dick United States in which everyone -- from a waiflike forger of identity cards to a surgically altered pleasure -- informs on everyone else, a world in which omniscient police have something to hide. His bleakly beautiful novel bores into the deepest bedrock self and plants a stick of dynamite at its center.


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This volume brings together ten previously uncollected stories and a major unpublished essay, which span nearly thirty years of the career of the noted science fiction writer


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On the arid colony of Mars the only thing more precious than water may be a ten-year-old schizophrenic boy named Manfred Steiner. For although the UN has slated "anomalous" children for deportation and destruction, other people--especially Supreme Goodmember Arnie Kott of the Water Worker's union--suspect that Manfred's disorder  may be a window into the future. In Martian Time-Slip Philip K. Dick uses power politics and extraterrestrial real estate scams, adultery, and murder to penetrate the mysteries of being and time. From the Trade Paperback edition.


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Many thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's works has continued to mount and his reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of critical attention. The Philip K. Dick Award is now given annually to a distinguished work of science fiction, and the Philip K. Dick Society is devoted to the study and promulgation of his works.This collection includes all of the writer's earliest short and medium-length fiction (including some previously unpublished stories) covering the years 1952-1955. These fascinating stories include Second Variety, Foster, You're Dead and The Father-Thing, and many others."A useful acquisition for any serious SF library or collection." -- Kirkus"The collected stories of Philip K. Dick is awe inspiring." -- The Washington Post"More than anyone else in the field, Mr. Dick really puts you inside people's minds." -- Wall Street Journal


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Set in twelfth-century England, this epic of kings and peasants juxtaposes the building of a magnificent church with the violence and treachery that often characterized the Middle Ages. Reissue.


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Through her research on twins and the genetic components of aggression, scientist Jeannie Ferrami makes a startling discovery. Using a restricted FBI database, she finds two young men who appear to be identical twins: Steve, a law student, and Dennis: a convicted murderer. Yet they were born on different days, to different mothers, in hospitals hundreds of miles apart.As Ferrami delves into their backgrounds, she unwittingly locks horns with some of the most powerful forces in America, including the university where she works, The New York Times, even the Pentagon. What secret has Ferrami uncovered? Can she trust her boss and mentor, or must she put her life in the hands of Steve Logan, the twin she finds herself falling in love with--even though he's surrounded by intrigue and suspicion? But one thing is certain: There are those who will stop at nothing to keep their chilling conspiracy in the shadows. . . .


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Book Three of The RunelordsWizardborn continues the story of the struggle of Gaborn, now the Earth King, who has lost his powers but continues to lead his people. He must contend with the threat of the huge, inhuman Reavers, whose myriads Gaborn and his forces must now pursue across the nation. It has become Gaborn's fate to follow, even into the depths.Raj Ahten, the great warlord endowed with the strength and qualities of thousands of men, once the primary threat to Gaborn, now struggles to retain his own empire. His war of conquest thwarted, his very life is now threatened by the Reaver thousands. And a young girl, Averan, who has eaten a Reaver and absorbed some of its memories, becomes a keystone in the search for the dark Reaver lair.


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**The bestselling epic breaks new ground



**After the events of *Sons of the Oak*, Fallion and Jaz, the sons of the great Earth King Gaborn, are living as fugitives in their own kingdom, newly invaded and secretly controlled by supernatural being of ultimate evil. The sons are hiding until they can regain their rightful places in the land.



Fallion seems destined to heal the world, and feels the supernatural calling to act. When he calls on his powers to do so though, two entire worlds collapse into one, and every living thing on both worlds is transformed into an entirely new being—yet still somehow the same. Evil is certainly still the same, and may have influenced this for a terrible purpose.


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n The Divine Invasion, Philip K. Dick asks: What if God--or a being called Yah--were alive and in exile on a distant planet? How could a second coming succeed against the high technology and finely tuned rationalized evil of the modern police state? The Divine Invasion "blends Judaism, Kabalah, Zoroastrianism, and Christianity into a fascinating fable of human existence" (West Coast Revew of Books).


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As a Christmas Eve blizzard whips out of the north, several people converge on a remote family house. As the storm worsens, the emotional sparks-jealousies, distrust, sexual attraction, rivalries-crackle, desperate secrets are revealed, hidden traitors and unexpected heroes emerge.


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Ken Follett has 90 million readers worldwide. The Pillars of the Earthis his bestselling book of all time. Now, eighteen years after the publication of The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett has written the most-anticipated sequel of the yearWorld Without End. In 1989 Ken Follett astonished the literary world with The Pillars of the Earth, a sweeping epic novel set in twelfth-century England centered on the building of a cathedral and many of the hundreds of lives it affected. Critics were overwhelmedit will hold you, fascinate you, surround you (Chicago Tribune)and readers everywhere hoped for a sequel. World Without Endtakes place in the same town of Kingsbridge, two centuries after the townspeople finished building the exquisite Gothic cathedral that was at the heart of The Pillars of the Earth. The cathedral and the priory are again at the center of a web of love and hate, greed and pride, ambition and revenge, but this sequel stands on its own. This time the men and women of an extraordinary cast of characters find themselves at a crossroad of new ideas about medicine, commerce, architecture, and justice. In a world where proponents of the old ways fiercely battle those with progressive minds, the intrigue and tension quickly reach a boiling point against the devastating backdrop of the greatest natural disaster ever to strike the human racethe Black Death. Three years in the writing, and nearly eighteen years since its predecessor, World Without Endbreathes new life into the epic historical novel and once again shows that Ken Follett is a masterful author writing at the top of his craft.
SUMMARY:
Ken Follett has 90 million readers worldwide. The Pillars of the Earthis his bestselling book of all time. Now, eighteen years after the publication of The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett has written the most-anticipated sequel of the yearWorld Without End. In 1989 Ken Follett astonished the literary world with The Pillars of the Earth, a sweeping epic novel set in twelfth-century England centered on the building of a cathedral and many of the hundreds of lives it affected. Critics were overwhelmedit will hold you, fascinate you, surround you (Chicago Tribune)and readers everywhere hoped for a sequel. World Without Endtakes place in the same town of Kingsbridge, two centuries after the townspeople finished building the exquisite Gothic cathedral that was at the heart of The Pillars of the Earth. The cathedral and the priory are again at the center of a web of love and hate, greed and pride, ambition and revenge, but this sequel stands on its own. This time the men and women of an extraordinary cast of characters find themselves at a crossroad of new ideas about medicine, commerce, architecture, and justice. In a world where proponents of the old ways fiercely battle those with progressive minds, the intrigue and tension quickly reach a boiling point against the devastating backdrop of the greatest natural disaster ever to strike the human racethe Black Death. Three years in the writing, and nearly eighteen years since its predecessor, World Without Endbreathes new life into the epic historical novel and once again shows that Ken Follett is a masterful author writing at the top of his craft.


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The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: British/ Italy/ Fiction; Young women/ Fiction; Florence (Italy); England; British; Young women; Humorous stories; England - Fiction; British - Italy; Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / General; Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Humorous; Fiction / Literary; Foreign Language Study / English as a Second Language; Foreign Language Study / Japanese; History / Europe / Italy; Language Arts


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From the author of the bestselling "Birdsong" comes a powerful novel that melds the moral heft of Dickens and the scrupulous realism of Trollope with the satirical spirit of Tom Wolfe. London: the week before Christmas, 2007. Over seven days we follow the lives of seven major characters: a hedge fund manager trying to bring off the biggest trade of his career; a professional footballer recently arrived from Poland; a young lawyer with little work and too much time to speculate; a student who has been led astray by Islamist theory; a hack book reviewer; a schoolboy hooked on reality TV and genetically altered pot; and a Tube train driver whose Circle Line train joins these and countless other lives together in a daily loop. With daring skill and savage humor, "A Week in December" explores the complex patterns and crossings of modern urban life; as the novel moves to its gripping climax, its characters are forced, one by one, to confront the true nature of the world they--and we all--inhabit.


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An execution on the overlook above the Mulholland Dam entangles Bosch with F.B.I. Agent Rachel Walling and Homeland Security. In his first case since he left the LAPD's Open Unsolved Unit for the prestigious Homicide Special squad, Harry Bosch is called out to investigate a murder that may have chilling consequences for national security. A doctor with access to a dangerous radioactive substance is found murdered on the overlook above the Mulholland Dam. Retracing his steps, Harry learns that a large quantity of radioactive cesium was stolen shortly before the doctor's death. With the cesium in unknown hands, Harry fears the murder could be part of a terrorist plot to poison a major American city. Soon, Bosch is in a race against time, not only against the culprits, but also against the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI (in the form of Harry's one-time lover Rachel Walling), who are convinced that this case is too important for the likes of the LAPD. It is Bosch's job to prove them all wrong. The Overlook was originally serialized in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. This novel includes material that was not published in the magazine, including new characters and more obstacles in Harry Bosch's path.


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"A special promotional edition of The Poet including a first chapter of the new Michael Connelly thriller, The Narrows to be published in May 2004. With a new introduction by Stephen King."


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Jack McEvoy is at the end of the line as a crime reporter. Forced to take a buy-out from the LA Times, he's got 30 days left on the job. His last assignment? Training his replacement, a low-cost reporter just out of J-school. But Jack has other plans for his exit. He is going to go out with a bang - a final story that will win the newspaper journalism's highest honour - a Pulitzer prize. Jack focuses on Alonzo Winslow, a 16-year-old drug dealer from the projects who has confessed to police that he brutally raped and strangled one of his crack clients. But as Jack delves into the story he soon realises that Alonzo's so-called confession is bogus. The investigation leads him to a killer known as The Scarecrow who has worked completely below the police and FBI radar.Jack is soon off and running on the biggest story he's had since The Poet crossed his path twelve years before - but The Scarecrow knows he's coming...


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

*The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Short Fiction*, by **Stephen Crane**, is part of the *Barnes & Noble Classics** *series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of *Barnes & Noble Classics*: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. *Barnes & Noble Classics *pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. Young Henry Fleming dreams of finding glory and honor as a Union soldier in the American Civil War. Yet he also harbors a hidden fear about how he may react when the horror and bloodshed of battle begin. Fighting the enemy without and the terror within, Fleming must prove himself and find his own meaning of valor. Unbelievable as it may seem, **Stephen Crane** had never been a member of any army nor had taken part in any battle when he wrote *The Red Badge of Courage*. But upon its publication in 1895, when Crane was only twenty-four, Red Badge was heralded as a new kind of war novel, marked by astonishing insight into the true psychology of men under fire. Along with the seminal short stories included in this volume—“The Open Boat,” “The Veteran,” and “The Men in the Storm”—*The Red Badge of Courage* unleashed Crane’s deeply influential impressionistic style. **Richard Fusco** has been an Assistant Professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia since 1997. A specialist in nineteenth-century American literature and in short-story narrative theory, he has published on a variety of American, British, and Continental literary figures.


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Deep in the African rain forest, near the legendary ruins of the Lost City of Zinj, an expedition of eight American geologists is mysteriously and brutally killed in a matter of minutes.   Ten thousand miles away, Karen Ross, the Congo Project Supervisor, watches a gruesome video transmission of the aftermath: a camp destroyed, tents crushed and torn, equipment scattered in the mud alongside dead bodies -- all motionless except for one moving image -- a grainy, dark, man-shaped blur.   In San Francisco, primatologist Peter Elliot works with Amy, a gorilla with an extraordinary vocabulary of 620 "signs," the most ever learned by a primate, and she likes to fingerpaint. But recently, her behavior has been erratic and her drawings match, with stunning accuracy, the brittle pages of a Portuguese print dating back to 1642 . . . a drawing of an ancient lost city. A new expedition -- along with Amy -- is sent into the Congo where they enter a secret world, and the only way out may be through a horrifying death . . .


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The year is A.D. 922. A refined Arab courtier, representative of the powerful Caliph of Baghdad, encounters a party of Viking warriors who are journeying to the barbaric North. He is appalled by their Viking customs—the wanton sexuality of their pale, angular women, their disregard for cleanliness . . . their cold-blooded human sacrifices. But it is not until they reach the depths of the Northland that the courtier learns the horrifying and inescapable truth: He has been enlisted by these savage, inscrutable warriors to help combat a terror that plagues them—a monstrosity that emerges under cover of night to slaughter the Vikings and devour their flesh . . .


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An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Creatures once extinct now roam Jurassic Park, soon-to-be opened as a theme park. Until something goes wrong...and science proves a dangerous toy...."Wonderful...Powerful."THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Is a loved one missing some body parts? Are blondes becoming extinct? Is everyone at your dinner table of the same species? Humans and chimpanzees differ in only 400 genes; is that why a chimp fetus resembles a human being? And should that worry us? There's a new genetic cure for drug addiction—is it worse than the disease?  

 We live in a time of momentous scientific leaps, a time when it's possible to sell our eggs and sperm online for thousands of dollars and to test our spouses for genetic maladies.  

 We live in a time when one fifth of all our genes are owned by someone else, and an unsuspecting person and his family can be pursued cross-country because they happen to have certain valuable genes within their chromosomes . . .  

 Devilishly clever, *Next* blends fact and fiction into a breathless tale of a new world where nothing is what it seems and a set of new possibilities can open at every turn.  

 Next challenges our sense of reality and notions of morality. Balancing the comic and the bizarre with the genuinely frightening and disturbing, *Next* shatters our assumptions and reveals shocking new choices where we least expect.  

 The future is closer than you think.


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More than fifty years after its first publication, Doubleday's definitive edition of Anne Frank's famous diary generated an extraordinary amount of excitement when it was  published in early 1995. Enthusiastically  received by critics and readers alike, it reigned for  nine weeks on *The New York Times*  bestseller list and will remain for all time the  version that millions of readers will cherish.In a  handsome package with flaps, rough front, and  printed endpapers, this Anchor trade paperback will be  the perfect gift for anyone who seeks insight into  the indestructible nature of the human  spirit.


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A satiric masterpiece about the allure and peril of money, Our Mutual Friend revolves around the inheritance of a dust-heap where the rich throw their trash. When the body of John Harmon, the dust-heap’s expected heir, is found in the Thames, fortunes change hands surprisingly, raising to new heights “Noddy” Boffin, a low-born but kindly clerk who becomes “the Golden Dustman.” Charles Dickens’s last complete novel, Our Mutual Friend encompasses the great themes of his earlier works: the pretensions of the nouveaux riches, the ingenuousness of the aspiring poor, and the unfailing power of wealth to corrupt all who crave it. With its flavorful cast of characters and numerous subplots, Our Mutual Friend is one of Dickens’s most complex—and satisfying—novels.


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The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson, by Emily Dickinson, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1830, Dickinson began life as an energetic, outgoing young woman who excelled as a student. However, in her mid-twenties she began to grow reclusive, and eventually she rarely descended from her room in her father’s house. She spent most of her time working on her poetry, largely without encouragement or real interest from her family and peers, and died at age fifty-five. Only a handful of her 1,775 poems had been published during her lifetime. When her poems finally appeared after her death, readers immediately recognized an artist whose immense depth and stylistic complexities would one day make her the most widely recognized female poet to write in the English language. Dickinson’s poetry is remarkable for its tightly controlled emotional and intellectual energy. The longest poem covers less than two pages. Yet in theme and tone her writing reaches for the sublime as it charts the landscape of the human soul. A true innovator, Dickinson experimented freely with conventional rhythm and meter, and often used dashes, off rhymes, and unusual metaphors—techniques that strongly influenced modern poetry. Dickinson’s idiosyncratic style, along with her deep resonance of thought and her observations about life and death, love and nature, and solitude and society, have firmly established her as one of America’s true poetic geniuses.Includes an index of first lines.Rachel Wetzsteon is Assistant Professor of English at William Paterson University. She has published two books of poems, The Other Stars and Home and Away.


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The Idiot (1868), written under the appalling personal circumstances Dostoevsky endured while travelling in Europe, not only reveals the author's acute artistic sense and penetrating psychological insight, but also affords his most powerful indictment of a Russia struggling to emulate contemporary Europe while sinking under the weight of Western materialism. It is the portrait of nineteenth-century Russian society in which a "positively good man" clashes with the emptiness of a society that cannot accommodate his moral idealism. Meticulously faithful to the original, this new translation includes explanatory notes and a critical introduction by W.J. Leatherbarrow.


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Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel, The Karamazov Brothers (1880) is both a brilliantly told crime story and a passionate philosophical debate. The dissolute landowner Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is murdered; his sons--the atheist intellectual Ivan, the hot-blooded Dmitry, and the saintly novice Alyosha--are all involved at some level. Brilliantly bound up with this psychological drama is Dostoevsky's intense and disturbing exploration of many deeply felt ideas about the existence of God, freedom of will, the collective nature of guilt, and the disastrous consequences of rationalism. Filled with eloquent voices, this new translation fully realizes the power and dramatic virtuosity of Dostoevsky's most brilliant work.


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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a memoir and treatise on abolition written by famous orator and ex-slave, Frederick Douglass. It is generally held to be the most famous of a number of narratives written by former slaves during the same period. In factual detail, the text describes the events of his life and is considered to be one of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement of the early 19th Century in the United States.



Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass encompasses eleven chapters that recount Douglass' life as a slave and his ambition to become a free man. The following will give a brief summary of his text. *(Quote from wikipedia.org)*



**About the Author**



Frederick Douglass (1818 - 1895)

Frederick Douglass (February 1818 - February 20, 1895) was an American abolitionist, editor, orator, author, statesman and reformer. Called "The Sage of Anacostia" and "The Lion of Anacostia", Douglass is one of the most prominent figures in African American history and a formidable public presence. He was a firm believer in the equality of all people, whether black, female, Native American, or recent immigrant. He was fond of saying, "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong." *(Quote from wikipedia.org)*



**About the Publisher** 



Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.

http://www.forgottenbooks.org


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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free.  This is an OCR edition with typos.  Excerpt from book:  apartment of the captain of the musketeers, congratulating himself with all his heart at having so narrowly escaped the end of this strange quarrel.    CHAPTER III.    THE AUDIENCE.    M. De Treville was at the moment in rather an ill-humour ; nevertheless, he saluted the young man politely, who bowed to the very ground, and he smiled on receiving his compliment, the Be"arnese accent of which recalled to him at the same time his youth and his country, a double remembrance, which makes a man smile at all ages. But stepping towards the antechamber, and making a sign to d'Artagnan with his hand, as if to ask his permission to finish with others before he began with him, he called three times, with a louder voice at each time, so that he went through all the tones between the imperative accent and the angry accent.    " Athos ! Porthos ! Aramis !"    The two musketeers, with whom we have already made acquaintance, and who answered to the last two of these three names, immediately quitted the group of which they formed a part, and advanced towards the cabinet, the door of which closed after them as soon as they had entered. Their appearance, although it was not quite at ease, excited by its carelessness, at once full of dignity and submission, the admiration of D'Artagnan, who beheld in these two men demi-gods, and in their leader an Olympian Jupiter, armed with all his thunders.    When the two musketeers had entered, when the door was closed behind them, when the buzzing murmur of the antechamber, to which the summons which had been made had doubtless furnished fresh aliment, had recommenced ; when M. de TreVille had three or four times paced in silence, and with a frowning brow, the whole length of his cabinet, passing each time before Porthos and Aramis, who were as upright and sil...


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According to Eknath Easwaran, if all of the Buddhist sutras had been lost except the *Dhammapada*, it alone would be enough for readers to understand and appreciate the wisdom of the Buddha. Easwaran's version of the *Dhammapada* goes a long way toward proving this. In a lengthy introduction, Easwaran summarizes the life of the Buddha and the main tenets of his thought, including key concepts such as dharma, karma, and nirvana. The language of the Dhammapada is as lucid and flowing as the Psalms or the Sermon on the Mount, and this is why it is one of the most loved and remembered of all Buddhist sutras. Its subject matter, succinctly, is about training the mind, which leads to kind thoughts and deeds, which bring peace and freedom from suffering. If you are interested in reading one of the gems of Buddhist literature, this is a good place to start; and if you are looking for a great version of this beloved scripture, you can't do better. Like all great world scripture, the verses here reward rereading and reflection, prompting you to "strive for wisdom always." *--Brian Bruya*


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"As brilliant and quirky as THE NAME OF THE ROSE, as mischievous and wide-raning....A virtuoso performance."THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLEThree clever book editors, inspired by an extraordinary fable they heard years befoe, decide to have a little fun. Randomly feeding esoteric bits of knowledge into an incredible computer capable of inventing connections between all their entires, they think they are creating a long lazy game--until the game starts taking over....Here is an incredible journey of thought and history, memory and fantasy, a tour de force as enthralling as anything Umberto Eco--or indeed anyone--has ever devised.


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(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)A spectacular best seller and now a classic, The Name of the Rose catapulted Umberto Eco, an Italian professor of semiotics turned novelist, to international prominence. An erudite murder mystery set in a fourteenth-century monastery, it is not only a gripping story but also a brilliant exploration of medieval philosophy, history, theology, and logic.In 1327, Brother William of Baskerville is sent to investigate a wealthy Italian abbey whose monks are suspected of heresy. When his mission is overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths patterned on the book of Revelation, Brother William turns detective, following the trail of a conspiracy that brings him face-to-face with the abbey’s labyrinthine secrets, the subversive effects of laughter, and the medieval Inquisition. Caught in a power struggle between the emperor he serves and the pope who rules the Church, Brother William comes to see that what is at stake is larger than any mere political dispute–that his investigation is being blocked by those who fear imagination, curiosity, and the power of ideas. The Name of the Rose offers the reader not only an ingeniously constructed mystery—complete with secret symbols and coded manuscripts—but also an unparalleled portrait of the medieval world on the brink of profound transformation.


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END OF THE QUEST It had all begun with the theft of the Orb that had so long protected the West from the evil God Torak. Before that, Garion had been a simple farm boy. Afterward, he discovered that his aunt was really the Sorceress Polgara and his grandfather was Belgarath, the Eternal Man. Then, on the long quest to recover the Orb, Garion found to his dismay that he, too, was a sorcerer. Now, at last, the Orb was regained and the quest was nearing its end. Of course, the questors still had to escape from this crumbling enemy fortress and flee across a desert filled with Murgo soldiers searching for them, while Grolim Hierarchs strove to destroy them with dark magic. Then, somehow, they must manage to be in Riva with the Orb by Erastide. After that, however, Garion was sure that his part in these great events would be finished. But the Prophecy still held future surprises for Garion--and for the little princess Ce'Nedra. This continues the magnificent epic of The Belgariad,  begun in Pawn of Prophecy, Queen of Sorcery, and Magician's Gambit--a fantasy set against a background of the war of men, Kings, and Gods that had spanned seven thousand years--a novel of fate, strange lands, and a prophecy that must be fulfilled!


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"HARROWING THRILLS . . . FAST-PACED AND ENGAGING."--PeopleIt is now six years since the secret disaster at Jurassic Park, six years since the extraordinary dream of science and imagination came to a crashing end--the dinosaurs destroyed, the park dismantled, the island indefinitely closed to the public.There are rumors that something has survived. . . . "ACTION-PACKED."--New York Daily News"FAST AND GRIPPING."--The Washington Post Book World"A VERY SCARY READ."--Entertainment Weekly"AN EDGE-OF-THE-SEAT TALE."--St. Petersburg Times


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In an Arizona desert a man wanders in a daze, speaking words that make no sense. Within twenty-four hours he is dead, his body swiftly cremated by his only known associates. Halfway around the world archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site. Suddenly they are swept off to the headquarters of a secretive multinational corporation that has developed an astounding technology. Now this group is about to get a chance not to study the past but to enter it. And with history opened to the present, the dead awakened to the living, these men and women will soon find themselves fighting for their very survival–six hundred years ago. . . .


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Dirk Pitt discovers Atlantis, in a breathtaking novel from the grand master of adventure fiction. Clive Cussler has long since proven himself one of America's most popular authors--a master of intricate, audacious plotting and "vibrant, rollicking narrative" (*Chicago Tribune*). But Atlantis Found may be his most audacious novel of all.September l858: An Antarctic whaler stumbles upon an aged wreck, its grisly frozen crew guarding crates of odd antiquities--and a skull carved from black obsidian.March 200l: A team of anthropologists gazes in awe at a wall of strange inscriptions, moments before a blast seals them deep within the Colorado rock.April 200l: A research ship manned by Dirk Pitt and members of the U.S. National Underwater and Marine Agency is set upon and nearly sunk by an impossibility--a vessel that should have died fifty-six years before.Pitt knows that somehow all these incidents are connected, and his investigations soon land him deep into an ancient mystery with very modern consequences, up against a diabolical enemy unlike any he has ever known, and racing to save not only his own life but the future of the world itself.The trap is set. The clock is ticking. And only one man stands between earth and Armageddon. . . .Filled with dazzling suspense and astonishing set pieces, this is Clive Cussler's greatest adventure novel yet."I've always had tremendous fun with Dirk Pitt, but nothing has given me more pleasure than the opportunity to send him to that most fabled of lost lands, Atlantis, and to virtually reinvent aspects of its civilization. I hope you have as good a time reading Atlantis Found as I did writing it!"--Clive Cussler


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A wealthy American financier disappears on a treasure hunt in an antique blimp. From Cuban waters, the blimp drifts toward Florida with a crew of dead men -- Soviet cosmonauts. DIRK PITT discovers a shocking scheme: a covert group of U.S. industrialists has put a colony on the moon, a secret base they will defend at any cost. Threatened in space, the Russians are about to strike a savage blow in Cuba -- and only DIRK PITT can stop them. From a Cuban torture chamber to the cold ocean depths, Pitt is racing  to defuse an international conspiracy that threatens to shatter the earth!


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A ghost ship drifts across the northern Pacific....A Soviet luxury liner burns like a funeral pyre....And the U.S. President's yacht is heading for disaster....Somewhere off the coast of Alaska, a sunken cargo poses a threat of unthinkable proportions. Potentially, the lost shipment of chemicals could destroy all life in the ocean -- and perhaps the world -- unless DIRK PITT® can find it first. But time is running out for the NUMA agent and his team. Pitt's main target is just one deadly component of a vast international conspiracy fueled by hijacking, bribery, and murder. And at the center of it all is a powerful Korean shipping empire with a chilling political agenda -- to kidnap the President of the United States....


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Japan, 1945: Two U.S. bombers take off with atomic bombs.Only one gets through.The Pacific, 1993: A Japanese cargo ship bound for the UnitedStates is instantly, thunderously vaporized, taking with it aNorwegian vessel. Japanese fanatics have developed a chillingplan to devastate and destroy the Western powers. From theocean depths to the discovery of cache of lost Nazi loot,DIRK PITT is untangling a savage conspiracy and igniting adaring counterattack. While Washington bureaucrats scramble,a brutal industrialist commands his blackmail scheme from asecret island control center. And DIRK PITT, the dauntlesshero of Sahara and Inca Gold, is taking on death-dealing robotsand a human-hunting descendant of samurai warriors. Pittalone controls the West's secret ace in the hole: a tidal wave ofdestruction waiting to be triggered on the ocean floor!


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AN UNDERWATER GRAVEYARD IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST...A MYSTERIOUS SEAPORT IN THE LOUISIANA BAYOUS...A DIABOLICAL PLOT TO DESTROY AMERICA!When NUMA agent DIRK PITT® rescues a beautiful undercover agent in a daring underwater operation at Orion Lake, just north of Seattle, he confronts a sinister network run by Qin Shang, a ruthless smuggler who sells Chinese immigrants into slavery. Shang's campaign contributions have bought him a collection of powerful U.S. politicians, but Pitt is not a man to be subverted by politics. As he moves to probe Shang's mystifying seaport in the Louisiana bayous, his investigation involves him in an adrenaline-pumped race up the Mississippi River and a desperate dash to recover sunken Chinese treasures lost half a century before. And in Qin Shang, Pitt faces ones of his most formidable foes -- a madman bent on killing thousands of innocent civilians with a catastrophic surge of mass destruction.


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A mysterious ship sealed fast in a giant North Atlantic iceberg becomes the cause and focus of Air Force Major Dirk Pett's investigation into international conspiracy and terror.


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When a tsunami hit a Spanish treasure galleon, all trace of a golden hoard greater than that of any pharaoh's vanished into history. Until NUMA agent DIRK PITT® dives into an ancient sacrificial pool far into the Andean jungle in order to rescue two archaeologists, and plunges into a vortex of corruption, betrayal, and death. A sinister crime syndicate has traced the long-lost treasure -- worth almost a billion dollars -- from the Andes to the banks of a hidden underground river flowing beneath a Mexican desert. Nothing will stop their ruthless and murderous drive to recover the gold. Nothing, that is, until Pitt and his team place themselves square in the path of danger....


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Cussler's most dazzling bestseller.Dirk Pitt's most dangerous adventure.****Dirk Pitt proved invincible in *Raise the Titanic!* Now, with the future of virtually every person in the world at stake, he is enlisted to spearhead his most daring mission yet—the rescue of a vital document for the United States. To an energy-starved, economically devastated America, possession of this document is worth billions. But to Great Britain, it’s worth a war. Pitt’s quest plunges him into a head-to-head confrontation with Britian’s most cunning secret agent—and into the throes of a torrid love triangle. As time runs out for a desperate America, Dirk Pitt races toward an underwater clash more terrifying than anything Clive Cussler has ever created—the breathtaking climax of **Night Probe!****


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Dirk Pitt's first, most terrific adventure! Dirk Pitt, death-defying adventurer and deep-sea expert, is out to the ultimate test as he plunges into the perilous waters of the Pacific Vortex -- a fog-shrouded sea zone where dozens of ships have vanished without a trace. The latest victim is the awesome superb Starbuck, America's deep-diving nuclear arsenal. Its loss poses an unthinkable threat to national defense. Pitt's job is to find it, salvage it, before the sea explodes. In a furious race against time, Pitt's mission swirls him into a battle with underwater assassins-and traps him in the arms of Summer Moran, the most stunningly exotic and dangerous toward disaster, Clive Cussler plummets his hero onto an ancient sunken island-the astonishing setting for the explosive climax of Pacific Vortex!


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The President's secret task force has developed an unprecedented defensive weapon that relies on an extremely rare radioactive element--and Dirk Pitt has followed a twisted trail to a secret cache of the substance. Now, racing against brutal storms, Soviet spies, and a ticking clock, Pitt begins his most thrilling mission--to raise from its watery grave the shipwreck of the century...


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Clive Cussler's breathtaking thriller, SAHARA will now be published in our popular premium format with an exciting new cover.


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A Mysterious Plague in the Antarctic...A Diamond Empire Run by an Evil Genius...A Devastating New Technology...NUMA agent DIRK PITT® is investigating the baffling deaths of thousands of Antarctic marine animals when he stumbles on something even more chilling. The passengers and crew of a cruise ship all died simultaneously and instantly, leaving stranded on a remote island whaling station a small party of tourists led by the beautiful Maeve Fletcher. And the carnage is just beginning, as Pitt's investigation leads him to Maeve's estranged father and sisters, owners of the global diamond cartel Dorsett Consolidated Mining. From a chilling escape at a high-security Canadian mine to a tiny boat adrift on lonely, shark-infested seas, the ingenious Pitt is racing to thwart Dorsett's ruthless plans -- before an unthinkable disaster claims millions of innocent lives!


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Dirk Pitt rides a tidal wave of intrigue in this classic Cussler. On an isolated Greek island, a World War I fighter plane attacks a modern U.S. Air Force base--a mysterious saboteur preys on an American scientific expedition--and Dirk Pitt plays a deadly game of hunter and hunted with the elusive head of an international smuggling ring.


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Clive Cussler, the author of sixteen consecutive *New York Times *bestsellers, unleashes a hero for the next millennium in an electrifying new series of unrelenting action and edge-of-your-seat thrills. 

 When Kurt Austin, the leader of a courageous National Underwater & Marine Agency exploration team, rescues beautiful marine archaeologist Nina Kirov off the coast of Morocco, he becomes the next target of Texas industrialist Don Halcon. A madman bent on carving a new nation out of the southwestern United States and Mexico, Halcon's scheme hinges on Nina's recent discovery involving Christopher Columbus, and a priceless pre-Columbian antiquity buried in the battered remains of the sunken Italian luxury liner *Andrea Doria.* Only Kurt Austin and his crack NUMA team stand between Halcon and the *Andrea Doria's* silent steel hull -- and if their deadly mission fails, Halcon will ride to power on a wave of death and destruction.


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Charts of lost gold...breathtaking art and rare volumes...maps of hidden oil and mineral deposits that could change the world's balance of power. Now DIRK PITT discovers the secret trail of the treasures of Alexandria -- a trail that plunges him into a brutal conspiracy for total domination of the globe. Zealots threaten to unseat the governments of Egypt and Mexico, exposing America to invasion and economic collapse. Suddenly, from East to West, anarchists reach their deadly tentacles into the heart of the United States. And DIRK PITT, the hard-hitting hero of Clive Cussler's smash bestsellers Sahara and Inca Gold, is up against the most feared assassin known to man. An international band of terrorists is making its play for world power on the high seas -- and Pitt is the only man alive who can stop them!


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A daring rescue sends Dirk Pitt on an adventure that will determine the future of the planet ...When a hurricane unexpectedly blows up off the coast of Nicaragua, a giant floating hotel lies in its path. With no escape for the helpless passengers and crew, it's left to Dirk Pitt and NUMA to launch a rescue and save the day. But in the storm's wake, Pitt and his team discover clues that point to an ancient mystery with shocking implications for today. As Pitt investigates further, he uncovers a plot by a mysterious billionaire called Specter to dramatically alter the Earth's climate, leaving him in control of the only solution. With foes attempting to stop him on every side, Pitt is in a race against time to prevent global catastrophe...


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The past and the future collide in this "New York Times" bestseller. Confronting an extraordinary series of monsters, both human and mechanical, modern and ancient, NUMA special projects director Dirk Pitt treads upon territory previously known only to legend as he investigates the sinking of a luxury cruise ship, the "Emerald Dolphin." Valhalla Rising, the national bestseller by Clive Cussler, is the 16th entry in the Dirk Pitt series. "Clive Cussler has no equal," writes Publishers Weekly, and he proved it again with the intricate plotting and astonishing set pieces of his number-one bestselling Atlantis Found. Fans wanted to know how he could possibly top it-and the answer is Valhalla Rising. It is July 2003. In the middle of its maiden voyage, the luxury cruise ship Emerald Dolphin suddenly catches fire and sinks. What caused it? Why didn't the alarms go off? What was its connection to the revolutionary new engines powering the ship? NUMA special projects director Dirk Pitt races to rescue the passengers and investigate the disaster, but he has no idea of the bizarre events that are about to engulf him. Before the next few weeks are over, Pitt will find himself confronted by an extraordinary series of monsters, both human and mechanical, modern and ancient. He will tread upon territory previously known only to legend. And, at the end of it all, though many lives will be lost, and many saved, it is Pitt's own life that will be changed forever. . . . Filled with dazzling suspense and breathtaking action, Valhalla Rising is Cussler at the height of his storytelling powers.


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1954.Vixen 03is down. The plane, bound for the Pacific carrying thirty-six Doomsday bombs -- canisters armed with quick-death germs of unbelievable potency -- vanishes. Vixen has in fact crashed into an ice-covered lake in Colorado. 1988. Dirk Pitt, who heroically raised theTitanic, discovers the wreckage of Vixen 03. But two deadly canisters are missing. They're in the hands of a terrorist group. Their lethal mission: to sail a battleship seventy-five miles up the Potomac and blast Washington, D.C., to kingdom come. Only Dirk can stop them.


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Clive Cussler's dazzling new Dirk Pitt(r) adventure.    Clive the Mighty!" hailed Kirkus Reviews about Cussler's last Dirk Pitt(r) novel, *Trojan Odyssey*. "Hurricane Clive at his most tumultuous." Nobody has been able to match Cussler yet for the intricate plotting and sheer audacity of his work, and *Black Wind* sets the bar even higher.    In the waning days of World War II, the Japanese tried a last desperate measure-a different kind of kamikaze mission, this one carried out by two submarines bound for the West Coast of the United States, their cargo a revolutionary new strain of biological virus. Neither sub made it to the designated target.    But that does not mean they were lost.    Someone knows about the subs and what they bore, knows too where they might be, and has an extraordinary plan in store for the prize inside-a scheme that could reshape the world as we know it. All that stands in the way are three people: a marine biologist named Summer, a marine engineer named Dirk, and their father, Dirk Pitt, the new head of NUMA.  Pitt has faced devastating enemies before, and has even teamed up with his children to track them down. But never has he looked upon the face of pure evil . . . until now.    Filled with dazzling suspense and breathtaking action, *Black Wind* is Cussler at the height of his storytelling powers.


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**A Kurt Austin Adventure**  

  In *Serpent,* his *New York Times* bestseller, Clive Cussler introduced Kurt Austin, a hero for the new millennium, and "created a new bunch of NUMA supersleuths who infused his work with a...jolt of energy" *(The Denver Post).* Now Austin and his crew slake their thirst for action as they attempt to drown an eco-extortionist's plan to control the world's freshwater supply.  

  **BLUE GOLD**  

**A Novel from the NUMA Files**  

  From deep within the Venezuelan rain forest emanates the legend of a white goddess and a mysterious tribe with startling technical accomplishments. Few believe the tribe exists -- and even fewer suspect its deity may hold knowledge that can change the course of history.  

  For National Underwater & Marine Agency crew leader Kurt Austin, an investigation into the sudden deaths of rare whales leads him to the Mexican coast, where someone tries to put him and his mini-sub permanently out of commission. Meanwhile, in South America's lush hills, a specially assigned NUMA crew turns up the white-goddess legend -- and a murderous cadre of bio-pirates intent on stealing medicinal secrets worth millions. Soon Austin and his crew realize they're working the opposite ends of the same grand scheme. A billionaire California tycoon is poised to rise to power by monopolizing the earth's vastly depleted freshwater reserves and ultimately dominate the world.  

  Austin has a hunch Venezuela's mythical tribal goddess has some real roots in science, and may be the key to locating a secret formula that could turn vast amounts of seawater into fresh. But with each step into the bush, he and his NUMA team feel like fish out of water -- and must fight a deadly, twisting trail of enemies through a dense jungle of treachery, blackmail, and murder.


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The hero of "Serpent" and "Blue Gold" confronts a deadly global plot, in the breathtaking new Kurt Austin adventure. Austin, leader of NUMA's Special Assignment Team, faces a new menace, in the form of a mining tycoon who has proclaimed himself Czar of Russia. Claiming Romanov ancestry and backed by billions of dollars, he is determined to overthrow the already-shaky Russian government - and US opposition doesn't bother him one bit.


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The key to eternal life has been found beneath two thousand feet of icy water in an area known as the "Lost City." To a family of ruthless French arms dealers the Lost City is the key to world domination. To Kurt Austin, leader of NUMA's Special Assignments Team, and his colleague Joe Zavala, it may be their greatest-and deadliest-challenge of all.


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For seven books, Clive Cussler has dazzled readers with the "spine-tingling adventures" (*Chicago Tribune*) of Kurt Austin, Joe Zavala, and the rest of the NUMA(r) Special Assignments Team, but in *Medusa* the NUMA(r) team faces what may be its most perilous mission of all.



 In the Micronesian Islands, a top secret, U.S. government- sponsored undersea lab conducting vital biomedical research on a rare jellyfish known as the Blue Medusa suddenly . . . disappears. At the same time, off Bermuda, a bathysphere is attacked by an underwater vehicle and left helpless a half mile below the surface, its passengers-including Zavala-left to die. Only Kurt Austin's heroic measures save them from a watery grave, but, suspecting a connection, Austin puts the NUMA(r) team on the case. He has no idea what he's just gotten them all into. A hideous series of medical experiments . . . an extraordinarily ambitious Chinese criminal organization . . . a secret new virus that threatens to set off a worldwide pandemic. Austin and Zavala have been in tight spots before, but this time it's not just their own skins they're trying to save-it's the lives of millions.



 Filled with the high-stakes suspense and boundless invention unique to Cussler, *Medusa* is the most thrilling novel yet from the grand master of adventure.


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When the leader of an antiglobalization group plans to use the sixty-year-old findings of a Hungarian genius to create a polar shift and give the industrialized nations a jolt before reversing the effect, the NUMA Special Assignments Team must stop him. Reprint.


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Years ago, an ancient Phoenician statue known as the  *Navigator* was stolen from the Baghdad Museum, and there are men who would do anything to get their hands on it. Their first victim is a crooked antiquities dealer, murdered in cold blood. Their second very nearly is a UN investigator who, were it not for the timely assistance of Austin and Zavala, would now be at the bottom of a watery grave.    

What's so special about this statue? Austin wonders. The search for answers will take the NUMA team on an astonishing odyssey through time and space, one that encompasses no less than the lost treasures of King Solomon, a mysterious packet of documents personally encoded by Thomas Jefferson, and a top secret scientific project that could change the world forever.     

And that's before the surprises really begin . . .    

Rich with all the hair-raising action and endless invention that have become Cussler's hallmarks, *The Navigator* is Clive's best yet.


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A ruthless corporation is about to take command of the seas. This is a mission for Kurt Austin and the NUMA team.


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In an adventurous sequel to THE MALLOREAN, David Eddings tells the story of King Garion's abducted infant son and his efforts to save him. Unfortunately, he and his friends are detained by the friendly, but determined Zakath, who refuses to let them leave. As a horde of demons ravage the Cities and a plague lets loose its terrors, Garion has little time left to reach his destination, or the kidnapper wins by default.


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''洗Come, Belgarion, Child of Light. I await thee in the City of Night . . .' A confrontation that has been prophesied for thousands of years is racing towards a conclusion. For as Garion comes into his heritage as the Rivan King, Overlord of the West, and takes up the Orb of Aldur to protect the land, Torak awakes and his evil hordes of Murgo soldiers and Grolim priests march in his name. While the princess Ce'Nedra mobilises the forces of the free lands to repel the invaders, Garion heads for his duel with Torak - a duel upon which the fate of the whole world depends...


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Discover the magic of The Malloreon–David Eddings’s acclaimed series, the sequel to his bestselling The Belgariad. Now the first three Malloreon books appear in a single volume, taking us on an epic quest across strange lands among gods, kings, sorcerers, and ordinary men. It is a gripping tale of two ancient warring destinies fighting a battle of good against evil.Garion has slain the evil God Torak and is now the King of Riva. The prophecy has been fulfilled–or so it seems. For there is a dire warning, as a great evil brews in the East. Now Garion once again finds himself with the fate of the world resting on his shoulders. When Garion’s infant son is kidnapped by Zandramas, the Child of Dark, a great quest begins to rescue the child. Among those on the dangerous mission are Garion and his wife, Queen Ce’Nedra, and the immortal Belgarath the Sorcerer and his daughter, Polgara. They must make their way through the foul swamps of Nyissa, then into the lands of the Murgos. Along the way, they will face grave dangers–captivity, a horde of demons, a fatal plague–while Zandramas plots to use Garion’s son in a chilling ritual that will make the Dark Prophecy supreme. . .


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Book Two of the Malloreon. The infant son of Garion and Ce'nedra has been foully kidnapped. And thus, they begin the great quest to rescue the child, with the immortal Belgarath the Sorcerer, his daughter Polgara the Sorceress, and inevitably, the little Drasnina Silk.


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The Belgariad Book #3

Ce'Nedra, Imperial Princess of Tolnedra, was confused. Everyone knows the tales of the Orb protecting the West from the evil God Torak are just silly legends. But here she is, forced to join a dangerous quest to recover that stolen Orb. No one believes in sorcery, but Garion's aunt and grandfather seem to be the fabled sorcerers Polgara and Belgarath. Even young Garion is learning to do socerey. Garion, a farm boy is totally unsuitable for an Imperial Princess. Yet, for some reason she has the urge to brush back his hair, and comfort him. Now he is going to a strange evil tower to face some horrible, powerful magician, and she cannot be there to watch over him. He might be killed, and she may never see him again.


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Selected as a 2003 Popular Paperback for Young Adults by the Young Adult Library Services Association Long ago, so the storyteller claimed, the evil God Torak sought dominion over all and drove the world to war. Now the one talisman keeping this sinister force from seizing power has been disturbed—and no one will be safe. . . . Raised on a quiet farm by his Aunt Pol, Garion spends his days lounging in his aunt’s warm kitchen and playing in the surrounding fields with his friends. He has never believed in magic, despite the presence of a cloaked, shadowless stranger who has haunted him from a distance for years. But one afternoon, the wise storyteller Wolf appears and urges Garion and his aunt to leave the farm that very night. Without understanding why, Garion is whisked away from the only home he has ever known—and thrown into dark and unfamiliar lands. Thus begins an extraordinary quest to stop a reawakened evil from devouring all that is good. It is a journey that will lead Garion to discover his heritage and his future. For the magic that once seemed impossible to Garion is now his destiny. The first exciting adventure in David Eddings’s The Belgariad Pawn of Prophecyis the newest addition to the Del Rey Imagine program, which offers the best in fantasy and science fiction for readers twelve and up.


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"BELGARIAD is exactly the kind of fantasy I like. It has magic, adventure, humor, mystery, and a certain delightful human insight."PIERS ANTHONYThe master Sorcerer Belgarath and his daughter Polgara the arch-Sorceress were on the trail of the Orb, seeking to regain its saving power before the final disaster prophesized by the legends. And with them went Garion, a simple farm boy only months before, but now the focus of the struggle. He had never believed in sorcery and wanted no part of it. Yet with every league they traveled, the power grew in him, forcing him to acts of wizardry he could not accept.


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Troubles and delays continued to mount as Garion, Belgarath, Polgara, and the company pursued Zandramas across the known world.  Possessed by the Dark Destiny, she had stolen Garion's infant son to use in a ritual that would destroy all that was fair and good.

Always the quest led onward, across and beyond the continent of Mallorea, where the Evil God Torak had once been supreme until Garion slew him.  And always Zandramas was one step ahead of them.  The armies she had raised, led by a Demon Lord, threatened to cut them off on one side:  on the other, the forces of the Emperor Zakath were seeking to capture them.

Zandramas was taunting them and spying on them, flying over in the form of the great dragon, while the Dark Destiny changed her and etched away the last of her touches of humanity.

Somehow, as the Seeress of Kell had warned them, they had to be at the Place Which Is No More for the ritual at the same time as Zandramas, if they were to have a chance to defeat her evil schemes.

But where that might be they still had no clue.


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Here is the epic conclusion of David Eddings’s enthralling series The Malloreon–two magnificent novels in one volume. This monumental fantasy follows the story of two age-old opposing destinies locked in a seven-thousand-year war for control of the world, its gods, and its men. Indeed the victor will determine nothing less than the fate of all creation.Troubles mount as King Garion, Belgarath, and Polgara pursue Zandramas, the Child of Dark, across the known world. The wicked creature has abducted the King’s infant son for sinister purposes. If Garion and his companions cannot reach the Place Which Is No More, as the Seeress of Kell has warned, then Zandramas will use Garion’s son in a rite that will raise the Dark Prophecy to eternal dominion over the universe. Only the Seeress of Kell can reveal the mysterious locale, but first Garion and Polgara must fulfill an ancient prophecy in the mountain fastness of the Seers. Although Kell is closed to Zandramas, her dark magic can forcefully extract the intelligence she needs from one of Garion’s party. Setting traps and dispatching her foul minions, she is determined to claim the world for the Dark Prophecy. But Garion will let nothing stand between himself and his son. . . .


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Kim Edwards's stunning family drama evokes the spirit of Sue Miller and Alice Sebold, articulating every mother's silent fear: what would happen if you lost your child and she grew up without you? In 1964, when a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins, he immediately recognizes that one of them has Down Syndrome and makes a split-second decision that will haunt all their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and to keep her birth a secret. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child as her own. Compulsively readable and deeply moving, The Memory Keeper's Daughter is an astonishing tale of redemptive love. BACKCOVER: “Edwards is a born novelist. . . . Rich with psychological detail and the nuances of human connection.” —Chicago Tribune  “Unfolds from an absolutely gripping premise, drawing you deeply and irrevocably into the entangled lives of two families and the devastating secret that shaped them both. I loved this riveting story.” —Sue Monk Kidd  “Anyone would be struck by the extraordinary power and sympathy of The Memory Keeper's Daughter.” —The Washington Post  “Kim Edwards has written a novel so mesmerizing that I devoured it. . . . The Memory Keeper's Daughter has it all.” —Sena Jeter Naslund  “Kim Edwards has created a tale of regret and redemption, of honest emotion, of characters haunted by their past. This is simply a beautiful book.” —Jodi Picoult
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Kim Edwards's stunning family drama evokes the spirit of Sue Miller and Alice Sebold, articulating every mother's silent fear: what would happen if you lost your child and she grew up without you? In 1964, when a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins, he immediately recognizes that one of them has Down Syndrome and makes a split-second decision that will haunt all their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and to keep her birth a secret. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child as her own. Compulsively readable and deeply moving, The Memory Keeper's Daughter is an astonishing tale of redemptive love. BACKCOVER: “Edwards is a born novelist. . . . Rich with psychological detail and the nuances of human connection.” —Chicago Tribune  “Unfolds from an absolutely gripping premise, drawing you deeply and irrevocably into the entangled lives of two families and the devastating secret that shaped them both. I loved this riveting story.” —Sue Monk Kidd  “Anyone would be struck by the extraordinary power and sympathy of The Memory Keeper's Daughter.” —The Washington Post  “Kim Edwards has written a novel so mesmerizing that I devoured it. . . . The Memory Keeper's Daughter has it all.” —Sena Jeter Naslund  “Kim Edwards has created a tale of regret and redemption, of honest emotion, of characters haunted by their past. This is simply a beautiful book.” —Jodi Picoult


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"April is the cruelist month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain."  This is the first line of T. S. Eliot's most famous poem, "Wasteland".  His next offering, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" repeats, "In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo." The other poems are as haunting, if not as famous.


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Jeremy Clarkson finds the world a perplexing place. So much so, in fact, that he wrote a book about it. But despite the appearance of the bestselling The World According To Clarkson, things don t seem to have changed much. And so Jeremy s having another go. In And Another Thing, our exasperated hero discovers that: bull;He inadvertently dropped a bomb on North Carolina bull;We re all going to explode at the age of 62 bull;Russians look bad in Speedos. But not as bad as Brits bull;No one should have to worry about being Bill Oddie s long lost sister bull;Cooking a Sunday Roast is one thing. Gravy is quite another bull;He should probably be nicer about David BeckhamBut while these things play on his mind, the world remains Jeremy s favourite place to be. On the whole, it s brilliant. It s just the idiots, meddlers and do-gooders who spoil it for the rest of us. Laugh-out-loud funny and as straight-talking as ever, Clarkson bursts their pointless little bubble, while celebrating the special things that we should hold dear.


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Jeremy Clarkson, it has to be said, sometimes finds the world a maddening place. And nowhere more so than from behind the wheel of a car, where you can see any number of people acting like lunatics while in control (or not) of a ton of metal. In Born to be Riled, Clarkson takes a look at the world through his windscreeen, shakes his head at what he sees and then puts the boot in. Among other things, he explains: bull; why Surrey is worse than Wales bull; how crossing your legs in America can lead to arrest bull; the reason cable TV salesmen must be punched bull; that divorce can be blamed on the birth of Jesus Raving politicians, pointless celebrities, ridiculous ls"personalitiesrs" and the Germans all get it in the neck, together with the stupid, the daft and ludicrous in a tour de force of comic writing guaranteed to have Clarksonrs"s postman wheezing under sackfuls of letters from the easily offended.


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Jeremy Clarkson is the second-best motoring writer in Britain. For twenty years, he's been driving cars, writing about them and occasionally voicing his opinions about them on the BBC's Top Gear. No one in the business is taller. Here, he's collected his best car columns and stories in which he waxes lyrical on topics as useful and diverse as: bull; the perils of bicycle ownership bull; why Australians - not Brits - need bull bars bull; why soon only geriatrics will be driving BMW's bull; the difficulty of deciding on the best car for your wedding bull; why Jesus's dad would have owned a Nissan Bluebird bull; and why it is bus lanes that cause traffic jams Irreverent, damn funny and offensive to almost everyone, this is writing with its foot to the floor, the brake lines cut and the speed limit smashed to smithereens. Sit back and enjoy the ride.


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There's more to life than cars. Jeremy Clarkson knows this. There is, after all a whole world out there just waiting to be discovered. So, before, he gets on to torque steer and active suspension, he takes time to consider: the madness of Galapagos tortoises; the similarities between Jeremy Paxman and AC/DC's bass guitarist; the problems and perils of being English; God's dumbest creation. Then there are the the cars: whether it's the poxiest little runabout or an exotic, firebreathing supercar, no one does cars like Clarkson. Unmoved by mechanics' claims and unimpressed by press junkets, he approaches anything on four wheels without fear or favour. What emerges from the ashes is rarely pretty. But always very, very funny.


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A Ferrari F40 has it, a Lexus hasn't. Concorde's got it, but not an Airbus. And while Titanic had it in spades, the Queen Mary 2 must have been in the wrong queue. Soul. Some machines matter to us while others are, well, just machines. In his own inimitable way, Jeremy Clarkson tells the gripping stories of the planes, trains and automobiles that inspire us; and of the geniuses and visionaries that built them. Lavishly illustrated, I Know You Got Soul is the perfect Christmas present for boys of all ages.


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**The story of one of the most important and beloved shows on television-how it got started, nearly failed, and was saved by Elmo**



When the first episode aired on November 10, 1969, *Sesame Street* revolutionized the way education was presented to children on television. It has since become the longest-running children's show in history, and today reaches 8 million preschoolers on 350 PBS stations and airs in 120 countries.



 *Street Gang* is the compelling and often comical story of the creation and history of this media masterpiece and pop culture landmark, told with the cooperation of one of the show's cofounders, Joan Ganz Cooney. *Sesame Street* was born as the result of a discussion at a dinner party at Cooney's home about the poor quality of children's programming and hit the air as a big bang of creative fusion from Jim Henson and company, quickly rocketing to success.



 *Street Gang* traces the evolution of the show from its inspiration in the civil rights movement through its many ups and downs-from Nixon's trying to cut off its funding to the rise of Elmo-via the remarkable personalities who have contributed to it. Davis reveals how *Sesame Street* has taught millions of children not only their letters and numbers, but also cooperation and fair play, tolerance and self-respect, conflict resolution, and the importance of listening. This is the unforgettable story of five decades of social and cultural change and the miraculous creative efforts, passion, and commitment of the writers, producers, directors, animators, and puppeteers who created one of the most influential programs in the history of television.


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Richard Dawkins' brilliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection has the rare distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientific community as within it. His theories have helped change the whole nature of the study of social biology, and have forced thousands of readers to rethink their beliefs about life. In his internationally bestselling, now classic volume, The Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains how the selfish gene can also be a subtle gene. The world of the selfish gene revolves around savage competition, ruthless exploitation, and deceit, and yet, Dawkins argues, acts of apparent altruism do exist in nature. Bees, for example, will commit suicide when they sting to protect the hive, and birds will risk their lives to warn the flock of an approaching hawk. This 30th anniversary edition of Dawkins' fascinating book retains all original material, including the two enlightening chapters added in the second edition. In a new Introduction the author presents his thoughts thirty years after the publication of his first and most famous book, while the inclusion of the two-page original Foreword by brilliant American scientist Robert Trivers shows the enthusiastic reaction of the scientific community at that time. This edition is a celebration of a remarkable exposition of evolutionary thought, a work that has been widely hailed for its stylistic brilliance and deep scientific insights, and that continues to stimulate whole new areas of research today.


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With a new chapter. The phenomenal bestseller-over 1.5 million copies sold-is now a major PBS special. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs, and Steel is a brilliant work answering the question of why the peoples of certain continents succeeded in invading other continents and conquering or displacing their peoples. This edition includes a new chapter on Japan and all-new illustrations drawn from the television series. Until around 11,000 BC, all peoples were still Stone Age hunter/gatherers. At that point, a great divide occurred in the rates that human societies evolved. In Eurasia, parts of the Americas, and Africa, farming became the prevailing mode of existence when indigenous wild plants and animals were domesticated by prehistoric planters and herders. As Jared Diamond vividly reveals, the very people who gained a head start in producing food would collide with preliterate cultures, shaping the modern world through conquest, displacement, and genocide. The paths that lead from scattered centers of food to broad bands of settlement had a great deal to do with climate and geography. But how did differences in societies arise? Why weren't native Australians, Americans, or Africans the ones to colonize Europe? Diamond dismantles pernicious racial theories tracing societal differences to biological differences. He assembles convincing evidence linking germs to domestication of animals, germs that Eurasians then spread in epidemic proportions in their voyages of discovery. In its sweep, Guns, Germs and Steel encompasses the rise of agriculture, technology, writing, government, and religion, providing a unifying theory of human history as intriguing as the histories of dinosaurs and glaciers. 32 illustrations.


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Fourteen strangers came to Delmak-O. Thirteen of them were transferred by the usual authorities. One got there by praying. But once they arrived on that planet whose very atmosphere seemed to induce paranoia and psychosis, the newcomers found that even prayer was useless. For on Delmak-O, God is either absent or intent on destroying His creations.


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The Queen of Crime clocks in with a  classic of untimely demise.    At her new job, Sheila Webb finds a corpse surrounded by five clocks, each set to a different time.  Fortunately, Hercule Poirot has nothing but time to piece together one of his most puzzling cases.


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A priceless treasure for collectors and fans, "The Harlequin Tea Set" brings together nine brilliant Christie stories that have remained long out of print--until now. Featuring beloved Christie detectives such as Hercule Poirot and Mr. Harley Quin, as well as new characters, these stories will charm and fascinate the millions of Christie fans around the world.


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Agatha Christie's ingenious mystery thriller, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers. Lucy Angkatell invited Hercule Poirot to lunch. To tease the great detective, her guests stage a mock murder beside the swimming pool. Unfortunately, the victim plays the scene for real. As his blood drips into the water, John Christow gasps one final word: 'Henrietta'. In the confusion, a gun sinks to the bottom of the pool. Poirot's enquiries reveal a complex web of romantic attachments. It seems everyone in the drama is a suspect -- and each a victim of love.


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A dog-shaped gunpowder mark; an omen from "the other side"; a haunted house; a chilling seance; a case of split personalities; a recurring nightmare; an eerie wireless mesage; an elderly lady's hold over a young man; a mysterious SOS - unexplained phenomena with no apparent earthly explanation.


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On the verge of retirement, Hercule Poirot can't resist the lure of a seemingly unsolvable series of recent crimes--from a lost Pekinese to a man driven mad by love to a gentleman poisoned by gossip.


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AGATHA CHRISTIE is more than the most popular mystery writer of all time. In a career that spans over half a century, her name is synonymous with brilliant deception, ingenious puzzles, and the surprise denouement. By virtually inventing the modern mystery novel she has earned her title as the Queen of Crime. Curious? Then you're invited to read...How odd, Anne Beddingfeld thought, that the stranger caught her eye, recoiled in horror, and fell to his death on the rails of Hyde Park Underground Station. Odder still was a doctor in a brown suit who pronounced him dead and vanished into the crowd. But what really aroused Anne's suspicion was when she learned of the doctor's link to the murder of a famous ballerina, a fortune in hidden diamonds, and a crime-lord embroiled in blackmail. And most frightening of all was the attempt made on Anne's own life. But she is unable to resist the lure of an isolated mansion that could hold the solution to the bizarre mystery -- even if she becomes the next victim...


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Agatha Christie's audacious murder mystery, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers.  One minute, silly Heather Badcock had been gabbling on at her movie idol, the glamorous Marina Gregg. The next, Heather suffered a massive seizure. But for whom was the deadly poison really intended?  Marina's frozen expression suggested she had witnessed something horrific. But, while others searched for material evidence, Jane Marple conducted a very different investigation -- into human nature.


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Jeremy Clarkson gets under the skin of 12 countries by looking at the cars people drive and how they drive them. This book presents hilarious travel writing.


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On a desolate island deep within the Canadian Arctic, a scientific expedition photograph the wreckage of a bomber on a mountain glacier. To the world at large, the half-century old aeroplane is merely a relic of the early Cold War. Only a handful of insiders know that it still represents a major threat to civilization, as the aircraft is a Soviet Air Force biological warfare platform, still armed with two tons of active weaponized anthrax.Lieutenant Colonel Jon Smith of Covert-One - the personal action arm of the President of the United States - is assigned to lead CIA agent Randi Russell and the lovely, but lethal, weapons expert, Professor Valentina Metrace to secure the site.But on the island Smith and his team find themselves confronted with a traitor from within their ranks. Cut off from all outside aid, the operatives must struggle against both betrayal and the brutal polar environment. Gradually they become aware that something else exists within the hulk of the ancient bomber: a secret potentially more devastating than even the plane's warload, and one that could bring about both a cataclysmic revision of global history and serve as the trigger for a Third World War.


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From Paulo Coelho, author of the international bestseller The Alchemist, comes a poignant, richly poetic story that reflects the depth of love and life.   Rarely does adolescent love reach its full potential, but what happens when two young lovers reunite after eleven years? Time has transformed Pilar into a strong and independent woman, while her devoted childhood friend has grown into a handsome and charismatic spiritual leader. She has learned well how to bury her feelings . . . and he has turned to religion as a refuge from his raging inner conflicts.   Now they are together once again, embarking on a journey fraught with difficulties, as long-buried demons of blame and resentment resurface after more than a decade. But in a small village in the French Pyrenees, by the waters of the River Piedra, a most special relationship will be reexamined in the dazzling light of some of life's biggest questions.


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Eleven Minutes is the story of Maria, a young girl from a Brazilian village, whose first innocent brushes with love leave her heartbroken. At a tender age, she becomes convinced that she will never find true love, instead believing that "love is a terrible thing that will make you suffer. . . ." A chance meeting in Rio takes her to Geneva, where she dreams of finding fame and fortune. Maria's despairing view of love is put to the test when she meets a handsome young painter. In this odyssey of self-discovery, Maria has to choose between pursuing a path of darkness -- sexual pleasure for its own sake -- or risking everything to find her own "inner light" and the possibility of sacred sex, sex in the context of love.   This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.


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Non fiction collection of 110 observational columns written for several Brazillian newspapers on a wide range of topics.


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'The Manual of the Warrior of Light' is a handbook that shows human beings how to live as spiritual beings in the material world. This exciting new edition includes exclusive content, such as an interview with the author, in-depth background information on the book, recommended books if you liked this one, and much more.'The Manual of the Warrior of Light' is an invitation to each of us to live our dream, to embrace the uncertainty of life, and to rise to meet our own unique destiny. In his inimitable style, Paulo Coelho helps us to discover the warrior of light within each of us.With inspiring short passages, we are invited to embark upon the way of the warrior: the one who appreciates the miracle of being alive, the one who accepts failure and the one whose quest leads him to become the person he wants to be.


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A new novel of temptation by the author of the international bestsellers "The Alchemist" and "The Zahir," A community devoured by greed, cowardice, and fear. A man persecuted by his painful past. A woman searching for happiness. In one eventful week, each of them will face questions of life, death, and power, and each will choose their own path. Will they choose good or evil? In the remote village of Viscos, a stranger arrives, carrying with him a backpack containing a notebook and eleven gold bars. He comes searching for the answer to the question: Are human beings good or evil? In welcoming the mysterious foreigner, the whole village becomes an accomplice to his sophisticated plot, which will forever mark their lives. Paulo Coelho's stunning novel explores the timeless struggle between good and evil and brings to our everyday dilemmas fresh incentive: to master the fear that prevents us from following our dreams, from being different, and from truly living.


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**A Struggle of the Spirit and a Search for the Truth  **

 Written with the same masterful prose and clarity of vision that made *The Alchemist* an international phenomenon, *The Fifth Mountain* is Paulo Coelho's inspiring story of the Biblical prophet Elijah. In the ninth century B.C., the Phoenician princess Jezebel orders the execution of all the prophets who refuse to seek safety in the land of Zarephath, where the unexpectedly finds true love with a young widow. But this newfound rapture is to be cut short, and Elijah sees all of his hopes and dreams irrevocably erased as he is swept into a whirlwind of events that threatens his very existence. In what is truly a literary milestone, Coelho gives a quietly moving account of a man touched by the hand of God who must triumph over his frustrations in a soul-shattering trail of faith.


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The Pilgrimage paved the way to Paulo Coehlo's international bestselling novel The Alchemist. In many ways, these two volumes are companions—to truly comprehend one, you must read the other. Step inside this captivating account of Paulo Coehlo's pilgrimage along the road to Santiago. This fascinating parable explores the need to find one's own path. In the end, we discover that the extraordinary is always found in the ordinary and simple ways of everyday people. Part adventure story, part guide to self-discovery, this compelling tale delivers the perfect combination of enchantment and insight.


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A Magical Tale About Forgiving Our Past and Believing in Our Future  The enchanting, true story of The Valkyries begins in Rio de Janeiro when author Paulo Coelho gives his mysterious master J., the only manuscript for his book The Alchemist. Haunted by a devastating curse, Coelho confesses to J., "I've seen my dreams fall apart just when I seemed about to achieve them." In response, J. gives Coelho a daunting task: He must find and speak with his guardian angel. "The curse can be broken," he replies, "if you complete the task."  Rising to the challenge, Paulo and his wife, Cristina, drop everything, pack their bags, and take off on a forty day adventure into the starkly beautiful and sometimes dangerous Mojave Desert -- where they encounter more than they bargained for. A masterful blend of the exotic locales, dramatic adventure, and magical storytelling, for which Coelho's fictional works are renowned, this true-life account is at once a modern-day adventure and a metaphysical odyssey.


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The Winner Stands Alone is the enthralling new novel by the incomparable Paulo Coelho.The Winner Stands Alone is the enthralling new novel by the incomparable Paulo Coelho.


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The narrator of The Zahir is a bestselling novelist who lives in Paris and enjoys all the privileges money and celebrity bring. His wife of ten years, Esther, is a war correspondent who has disappeared along with a friend, Mikhail, who may or may not be her lover.   Was Esther kidnapped, murdered, or did she simply escape a marriage that left her unfulfilled? The narrator doesn't have any answers, but he has plenty of questions of his own. Then one day Mikhail finds the narrator and promises to reunite him with his wife. In his attempt to recapture a lost love, the narrator discovers something unexpected about himself.


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Veronika is young and pretty and has everything she could wish for - yet one morning she takes an overdose of sleeping pills, only to wake up in the local hospital. This exciting new edition includes exclusive content, such as an interview with the author, in-depth background information on the book, and much more.Veronika has plenty of boyfriends, a steady job, a loving family. Yet she is not happy; something is lacking in her life, and one morning she decides to die. The overdose of sleeping pills she takes does not work, and she wakes up in Villete, the local asylum. There she is told that her heart is damaged and she has only a few days to live.The story follows Veronika through these intense days as she starts to question all her ideas about life. Soon she comes to realize that every second of existence is a choice we all make between living and dying. Against all odds she finds herself falling in love and even wanting to live again...


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Coming in 2009, the major motion picture starring John Malkovich Written with austere clarity , Disgrace explores the downfall of one man and dramatizes with unforgettable, almost unbearable vividness the plight of South Africaa country caught in the chaotic aftermath of the overthrow of Apartheid.


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Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have just won for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge.


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Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games." The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. When Kat's sister is chosen by lottery, Kat steps up to go in her place.


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Terry McCaleb, one of the most effective serial-killer investigators in the history of the FBI, hunts down his heart donor's killer. In Blood Work, Connelly introduces a new character, Terry McCaleb, who was a top man at the FBI until a heart ailment forced his early retirement. Now he lives a quiet life, nursing his new heart and restoring the boat on which he lives in Los Angeles Harbor. Although he isn't looking for any excitement, when Graciela Rivers asks him to investigate her sister Gloria's death, her story hooks him immediately: the new heart beating in McCaleb's chest is Gloria's. As McCaleb investigates the evidence in the case, the suspected randomness of the crime gives way to an unsettling suspicion of a twisted intelligence behind the murder. Soon McCaleb finds himself on the trail of a killer more horrifying than anything he ever encountered before.


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The phone messages waiting for Henry Pierce clearly aren't for him: "Where is Lilly? This is her number. It's on the site." Pierce has just moved into a new apartment, and he's been "chasing the dime"--doing all it takes so his company comes out first with a scientific breakthrough worth millions. But he can't get the messages for Lilly out of his head. As Pierce tries to help a woman he has never met, he steps into a world of escorts, websites, sex, and secret passions. A world where his success and expertise mean nothing...and where he becomes the chief suspect in a murder case, trapped in the fight of his life.
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The phone messages waiting for Henry Pierce clearly aren't for him: "Where is Lilly? This is her number. It's on the site." Pierce has just moved into a new apartment, and he's been "chasing the dime"--doing all it takes so his company comes out first with a scientific breakthrough worth millions. But he can't get the messages for Lilly out of his head. As Pierce tries to help a woman he has never met, he steps into a world of escorts, websites, sex, and secret passions. A world where his success and expertise mean nothing...and where he becomes the chief suspect in a murder case, trapped in the fight of his life.


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When small-town gossip spreads as fast-and as deadly-as venom, someone's bound to end up dead. And of course, they do. Calling Miss Marple! This is one of Agatha Christie's personal favorites.


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Considered to be one of Agatha Christie’s most controversial mysteries, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd breaks all the rules of traditional mystery writing. A widow’s suicide has stirred rumors of blackmail, and of a secret lover named Roger Ackroyd, who was found stabbed to death in his study. The case is so unconventional that not even crack detective Hercule Poirot has a clue as to how to solve it.


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This first mystery by Dame Agatha Christie introduces dapper, brilliant Hercule Poirot. Retired as the Chief of Belgian police, he is summoned to a magnificent country estate to solve a murder. The victim: a wealthy heiress. The suspects: her fortune-hunting husband, her jealous relatives, her hired companion. The solution: a deadly scheme that is revealed by the master detective himself. Named a 1996 "Best Mystery Audio" by Publishers Weekly, this complete and unabridged edition is read by David Suchet, the distinguished British actor recognized as Poirot from the PBS-TV Mystery Theater. 5 cassettes.


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Agatha Christie is more than the most popular mystery writer of all time. In a career that spans over half a century, her name is synonymous with brilliant deception, ingenious puzzles, and the surprise denouement. By virtually inventing the modern mystery novel she has earned her title as the Queen of Crime. Curious? Then you're invited to read...THE MYSTERIOUS MR. QUINA conjurer of skill with an instinct for detection, Mr. Harley Quin has an almost magical flair for appearing at the scene of the most remarkable crimes. But is it just a trick of light that haunts his shadow with a ghostly apparition? Is it fate that invites him to a New Year's Eve murder? And what forces are at work when his car breaks down outside Royston Hall, an isolated estate with a deadly history? With fantastic intrigue, uncanny procedure, and Agatha Christie's most charismatic creation, these dazzling stories remain personal favorites for the queen of crime.AUTHORBIO: AGATHA CHRISTIE is the world's best known mystery writer. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in 44 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare.  Her writing career spanned more than half a century, during which she wrote 80 novels and short story collections, as well as 14 plays, one of which, The Mousetrap, is the longest-running play in history. Two of the characters she created, the brilliant little Belgian Hercule Poirot and the irrepressible and relentless Miss Marple, went on to become world-famous detectives. Both have been widely dramatized in feature films and made-for-TV movies.Agatha Christie also wrote under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. As well, she wrote four non-fiction books including an autobiography and an entertaining account of the many expeditions she shared with her archaeologist husband, Sir Max Mallowan.  Agatha Christie died in 1976.


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A BBC full-cast radio drama starring Maurice Denham as the great Belgian detective. A millionaire strikes a deal on the seedier side of Paris and gives to his heartsick daughter, Ruth Kettering, the "Heart of Fire," one of the world's legendary jewels. Legend has it that the possession of the jewel leads to death - but despite her father's protests, young Ruth decides to take it with her on the Blue Train to the French Riviera, where she has planned a reunion with her former lover. A few days into the journey, Ruth is found dead and her priceless rubies stolen. The suspects line up: could the murderer be Derek, her weak and greedy husband; Ruth's former lover, the Comte de la Roche; or the beautiful but tempestuous dancer Mirelle? Only master sleuth Hercule Poirot can unravel the mystery and find the truth.


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A priest's death leads to sinister goings-on in an old country pub...To understand the strange goings on at The Pale Horse Inn, Mark Easterbrook knew he had to begin at the beginning. But where exactly was the beginning?  Was it the savage blow to the back of Father Gorman's head? Or was it when the priest's assailant searched him so roughly he tore the clergyman's cassock? Or could it have been the priest's visit, just minutes before, to a woman on her death bed?  Or was there a deeper significance to the violent squabble which Mark Easterbrook had himself witnessed earlier?  Wherever the beginning lies, Mark and his sidekick, Ginger Corrigan, may soon have cause to wish they'd never found it!


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A collection of classic stories featuring multiple   victims, multiple mysteries, multiple suspects, and a multitude of talent to solve it all: Hercule Poirot, Miss Jane Marple, and Mr. Parker Pyne.


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Full of energy and short of funds, old chums Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley decide to form the "Young Adventurers," and advertise themselves as willing to "go anywhere and do anything." Asked by a British Intelligence official to find a woman named Jane Finn, who disappeared with sensitive government documents, they soon find that their whimsical idea has drawn them into a complicated web of intrigue, intelligence agents, dubious identities, missing government papers, false clues  and all-too-real danger.


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AGATHA CHRISTIE is more than the most popular mystery writer of all time. In a career that spans over half a century, her name is synonymous with brilliant deception, ingenious puzzles, and the surprise denouement. By virtually inventing the modern mystery novel she has earned her title as the Queen of Crime. Curious? Then you're invited to read...A bit of adventure and quick cash is all that good-natured drifter Anthony Cade is looking for when he accepts a messenger job from an old friend. It sounds so simple: deliver the provocative memoirs of a recently deceased European count to a London publisher. But the parcel holds more than scandalous royal secrets. It contains a stash of letters that suggest blackmail -- and lead to the murder of a stranger who's been shadowing Anthony's every move. Discovering the dead man's identity means retracing his steps -- to the rambling estate of Chimneys where darker secrets, and deadlier threats, await anyone who dares to enter.


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At the home of Lord Caterham and his daughter, Lady Eileen Brent (aka Bundle), Sir Oswald and Lady Maria Coote throw a party for some weekend guests. But the young guests play a practical joke on someone who turns up murdered the following morning. It's up to Bundle and her friends to solve the case, which only gets worse with the appearance of a second corpse. The trail of bodies leads to the mysterious Seven Dials Club. Actress Emilia Fox's exciting reading brings Christie's vivid mystery, first published in 1929, to scintillating life. Read by Emilia Fox.


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Agatha Christie is more than the most popular mystery writer of all time. In a career that spans over half a century, her name is synonymous with brilliant deception, ingenious puzzles, and the surprise denouement. By virtually inventing the modern mystery novel she has earned her title as the Queen of Crime. Curious? Then you're invited to read...THE SITTAFORD MYSTERYM-U-R-D-E-R. It began as an innocent parlor game intended to while away the hours on a bitter winter night.But the message that appeared before the amateur occultists at the snowbound Sittaford House was spelled out as loud and clear as a scream. Of course, the notion that they had foretold doom was pure bunk. Wasn't it? And the discovery of a corpse was pure coincidence. Wasn't it? If they're to discover the answer to this baffling murder, perhaps they should play again. But a journey into the spirit world could prove terribly dangerous-especially when the killer is lurking in this one.AUTHORBIO: AGATHA CHRISTIE is the world's best known mystery writer. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in 44 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her writing career spanned more than half a century, during which she wrote 80 novels and short story collections, as well as 14 plays, one of which, The Mousetrap, is the longest-running play in history. Agatha Christie also wrote under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. As well, she wrote four non-fiction books including an autobiography and an entertaining account of the many expeditions she shared with her archaeologist husband, Sir Max Mallowan. Agatha Christie died in 1976.


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Whats better than agatha christie? thirteen Agatha Christies. A bakers dozen of fiendishly told tales in which indomitable sleuth Miss Jane Marple plays host to some of the most clever crimes and criminals.


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Along a mist-shrouded country road in South Wales on a chilly November evening, engineer Michael Starkwedder's car stands hopelessly stuck in a muddy ditch.Ambling up to the nearest house for help, Starkwedder gets no reply when he knocks on the French doors of the elegant, darkened home.With a push, the doors open, and inside he is witness to a startling scene: a man, slumped over dead in a wheel-chair, and his lovely young wife standing nearby, with smoking-gun in hand.Laura Warwick immediately confesses to the crime.But Starkwedder, a man intrigued by what lay beneath the surface, begins to uncover family ties and chilling motives as twisted as the back roads of rural Wales-and soon discovers that in this seemingly open-and-shut case, nothing is what it appears to be...AUTHORBIO: AGATHA CHRISTIE is the author of eighty crime novels and collections of stories, nineteen plays, six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott, two volumes of poetry, a volume of Christmas verse and stories, an autobiography, and Come, Tell Me How You Live.She is the creator of two of the most enduring figures of crime literature-Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple-as well as the author of The Mousetrap, the longest running play in the history of modern theater.Christie was awarded the CBE in 1956 and made a Dame Commander, Order of the British Empire, in 1971.She was president of the Detection Club (1954) and was the first writer to be awarded the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award (1955). Agatha Christie died on January 12, 1976.CHARLES OSBORNE is a world authority on theatre and opera and has written a number of books on musical and literary subjects.He is the author of The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie as well as a novelization of Agatha Christie's play, the bestselling Black Coffee.Born in Australia in 1927, he has lived in London for many years.


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Flighty but good-hearted Victoria Jones craves love, intrigue, and adventure. She strikes gold in Edward, a handsome and mysterious traveler whom she's vowed to follow to the ends of the earth. Yet no whirlwind affair can prepare Victoria for what unfolds once she lands in Baghdad. Not a day in Edward's shadow, and she hears whispered warnings of danger and witnesses the murder of a secret agent in her hotel room. And when she discovers that a romantic rival for Edward's affection has arranged for her kidnapping, Victoria fears that her impetuous nature could be the death of her.


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When Jane goes to stay with her friend Carrie-Louise at her home she soon begins to realise that all is not well there. Not only is this the family home but it is also a rehabilitation centre for delinquent boys and there are definitely some odd characters living there. Then an attempt is made on the life of Carrie-Louise's husband, her step-son is murdered and someone tries to poison Carrie-Louise....


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A desperate woman seeks the aid of Hercule Poirot in a matter of life and death. A near-lethal dose of poison, a blood-stained knife, a revolver, and a family who aren't what they seem all figure in an extraordinary case that takes the celebrated Belgian detective from a village estate to the bohemian streets of London.


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A facsimile first edition hardback of one of the best 1930s Poirot books, published to mark the 80th anniversary of his first appearance.Thirteen guests arrived at dinner at the actor's house. It was to be a particularly unlucky evening for the mild-mannered Reverend Stephen Babbington, who choked on his cocktail, went into convulsions and died.But when his martini glass was sent for chemical analysis, there was no trace of poison - just as Poirot had predicted. Even more troubling for the great detective, there was absolutely no motive...To mark the 80th anniversary of Hercule Poirot's first appearance, and to celebrate his renewed fortunes as a primetime television star, this title in a collection of facsimile first editions is the perfect way to experience Agatha Christie. Reproducing the original typesetting and format of the first edition from the Christie family's own archive, this book sports the original cover which has been painstakingly restored to its original glory.


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AGATHA CHRISTIE is more than the most popular mystery writer of all time. In a career that spans over half a century, her name is synonymous with brilliant deception, ingenious puzzles, and the surprise denouement. By virtually inventing the modern mystery novel she has earned her title as the Queen of Crime. Curious? Then you're invited to read...A blinding snowstorm -- and a homicidal maniac -- traps a small party of friends in an isolated estate. Out of this deceptively simple set-up, Agatha Christie fashioned one of her most ingenious puzzlers, which, in turn, would provide the basis for The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in history. From this classic title novella to the deliciously clever gems on its tail (solved to perfection by Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple), this rare collection of murder most foul showcases the inimitable Christie at her inventive best, proving her reputation as "the champion deceiver of our time". (The New York Times)


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Mystery's #1 bestseller . . . second to none!A Christie classic, featuring Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard. . . . It's murder most foul when someone at the Gull's Point guesthouse kills Mr. Treves, leaving Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard with a number of suspects--and zero evidence...

"I like a good detective story, but they begin in the wrong place! They begin with the murder. But the murder is the end. The story begins long before that." So remarks esteemed criminologist Mr. Treves. Truer words have never been spoken, for a psychopathic killer has insinuated himself , with cunning manipulation, into a quiet village on the river Tern. But who is his intended victim? What are his unfathomable motives? And how and when will he reach the point of murder...the zero point? --from publisher description


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A Brand New Collection Of Nine Previously Unpublished Stories By The Queen Of Crime Now In Paperback, The Book Of Lost Agatha Christie Stories Written For 1920S Magazines Contains Seven New Stories Which Have Never Been Published Anywhere In The World Since Their Original Appearances, Plus Early Versions Of Two Poirot Stories Which She Later Reworked For Book Publication. The House Of Dreams Is The First Story Agatha Christie Ever Wrote (During The First World War) And Recounts The Effects Of A Macabre Recurring Dream On A Man S Life. The Actress Tells Of A Woman Who Turns The Tables On Her Blackmailer, The Edge Is A Gripping Tale Of Jealousy And Infidelity, The Lonely God Is An Unlikely Love Story About Two Lost Souls Who Meet In The British Museum, And Within A Wall Tells Of A Tragic Love Triangle Between A Portrait Painter, His Wife And His Daughter S Godmother. Christmas Adventure And The Mystery Of The Baghdad Chest See Hercule Poirot Caught Up In Some Unseasonal Mayhem, And In Manx Gold, Commissi Oned From Christie For A Real-Life Treasure Hunt On The Isle Of Man In 1930, Two Young Heroes Race Against Time To Discover Buried Treasure. The Book Concludes With While The Light Lasts, In Which A Rhodesian Tobacco Plantation Is The Setting For An Unexpected Visitor From Beyond The Grave& Also Available From Harpercollinsaudiobooks, Read By Isla Blair


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A bullet speaks louder than words . . . when Lincoln lawyer Mickey Haller and LAPD Detective Harry Bosch team up in the new novel by Michael Connelly. Lincoln lawyer Mickey Haller and LAPD Detective Harry Bosch team up in this new novel by Michael Connelly. Things are finally looking up for defence attorney Mickey Haller. After two years of wrong turns, Haller is back in the courtroom. When Hollywood lawyer Jerry Vincent is murdered, Haller inherits his biggest case yet: the defense of Walter Elliott, a prominent studio executive accused of murdering his wife and her lover. But as Haller prepares for the case that could launch him into the big time, he learns that Vincent's killer may be coming for him next. Enter Harry Bosch. Determined to find Vincent's killer, he is not opposed to using Haller as bait. But as danger mounts and the stakes rise, these two loners realise their only choice is to work together.


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In this riveting account, historian Stephen Ambrose continues where he left off in his #1 bestseller "D-Day". Ambrose again follows the individual characters of this noble, brutal, and tragic war, from the high command down to the ordinary soldier, drawing on hundreds of interviews to re-create the war experience with startling clarity and immediacy. From the hedgerows of Normandy to the overrunning of Germany, Ambrose tells the real story of World War II from the perspective of the men and women who fought it.


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Harry Bosch is back with a badge. Teaming with former partner Kizmin Rider, Harry is assigned to the Open-Unsolved team. After three years out of the LAPD, Harry Bosch returns, to find the department a different place from the one he left. A new Police Chief has been brought over from New York to give the place a thorough clean up from top to bottom. Working with his former partner, Kiz Rider, Harry is assigned to the department's Open-Unsolved Unit, working on the thousands of cold cases that haunt the LAPD's files. These detectives are the Closers - they put a shovel in the dirt and turn over the past. By applying new techniques to old evidence they aim to unearth some hidden killers and bring them to justice, for 'a city that forgets its murder victims is a city lost.' Harry and Kiz are given a politically sensitive case when a DNA match connects a white supremacist to the 1988 murder of Rebecca Verloren, a sixteen-year-old girl. Becky was of mixed race, and the case appears to have a racial angle. This was LA before the riots and Rodney King; the city was a powder keg waiting for a match. The detectives who worked the case all those years ago seem to have done a decent job, but something doesn't fit. Meanwhile Harry's nemesis, Deputy Chief Irving, is watching him. In the new 'clean' LAPD Irving has been sidelined to a meaningless job. Compelled by vengeance, he hopes that Harry will make a slip.


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The Blind Assassin opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as the reader expects to settle into Laura?s story, Atwood introduces a novel-within-a-novel. Entitled The Blind Assassin, it is a science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in dingy backstreet rooms. When we return to Iris, it is through a 1947 newspaper article announcing the discovery of a sailboat carrying the dead body of her husband, a distinguished industrialist. Brilliantly weaving together such seemingly disparate elements, Atwood creates a world of astonishing vision and unforgettable impact.


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Power-hungry Kalare has rebelled against Alera's aging First Lord, Gaius Sextus. Ill-equipped to face this attack, Gaius must seek support - even from the combative High Lord of Aquitaine. Kalare has also seized valuable hostages that could mean the difference between victory and failure. And Amara, the First Lord's Cursor, has been tasked with their rescue. She has earned this trust but are her allies as worthy - or does the Lady Aquitaine see the time as ripe for betrayal?Treachery is rife elsewhere, as young Tavi of Calderon will find. Posted away from the war, Tavi joins a legion anyway, under an assumed name. Then Kalare does the unthinkable - uniting with the brutish Canim. When treason wipes out the army's command structure, Tavi finds himself leading an inexperienced legion against the might of the Canim horde - the very last resort of a war-torn realm.


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Agatha Christie's genius for detective fiction is unparalleled. Her worldwide popularity is phenomenal, her characters engaging, her plots spellbinding. No one knows the human heart--or the dark passions that can stop it--better than Agatha Christie. She is truly the one and only Queen of Crime.The Body in the LibraryThe body of a beautiful blonde is found in the library of Gossington Hall. What the young woman was doing in the quiet village of St. Mary Mead is precisely what Jane Marple means to find out. Amid rumors of scandal, Miss Marple baits a clever trap to catch a ruthless killer.


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Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952.  A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century.  The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be.  The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.


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Published to international critical and popular acclaim, this intensely romantic yet stunningly realistic novel spans three generations and the unimaginable gulf between the First World War and the present. As the young Englishman Stephen Wraysford passes through a tempestuous love affair with Isabelle Azaire in France and enters the dark, surreal world beneath the trenches of No Man's Land, Sebastian Faulks creates a world of fiction that is as tragic as **A Farewell to Arms** and as sensuous as **The English Patient**. Crafted from the ruins of war and the indestructibility of love, **Birdsong** is a novel that will be read and marveled at for years to come.


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In this inventive, short, yet perfectly formed novel inspired by traditional Norse mythology, Neil Gaiman takes readers on a wild and magical trip to the land of giants and gods and back.  

 In a village in ancient Norway lives a boy named Odd, and he's had some very bad luck: His father perished in a Viking expedition; a tree fell on and shattered his leg; the endless freezing winter is making villagers dangerously grumpy.  

 Out in the forest Odd encounters a bear, a fox, and an eagle—three creatures with a strange story to tell.  

 Now Odd is forced on a stranger journey than he had imagined—a journey to save Asgard, city of the gods, from the Frost Giants who have invaded it.  

 It's going to take a very special kind of twelve-year-old boy to outwit the Frost Giants, restore peace to the city of gods, and end the long winter.  

 Someone cheerful and infuriating and clever . . .  

 Someone just like Odd .


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At the top of his class at Harvard Law, he had  his choice of the best in America. He made a deadly  mistake. When Mitch McDeere signed on with  Bendini, Lambert & Locke of Memphis, he thought he&#160; and his beautiful wife, Abby, were on their way.  The firm leased him a BMW, paid off his school  loans, arranged a mortgage and hired him a  decorator. Mitch McDeere should have remembered what his  brother Ray -- doing fifteen years in a Tennessee  jail -- already knew. You never get nothing for  nothing. Now the FBI has the lowdown on Mitch's  firm and needs his help. Mitch is caught between a  rock and a hard place, with no choice -- if he  wants to live.From the Hardcover edition.


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Book 5 in *The Calhoun Women* series

**A New York Times Bestseller**

  The four Calhoun sisters and a special sister-by-marriage are all united by a decades-old legend and the determination to save the Towers, their magnificent family mansion on the rocky coast of Maine. Calhoun sister-in-law Megan O'Riley had buried her passions and vowed never to let her heart control her life. But when boat captain Nate Fury set his course for her, the practical lady was swept away by his charm.


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From the master of literary mayhem and provocation, a full-frontal Triple X novel that goes where no American work of fiction has gone beforeCassie Wright, porn priestess, intends to cap her legendary career by breaking the world record for serial fornication. On camera. With six hundred men. Snuff unfolds from the perspectives of Mr. 72, Mr. 137, and Mr. 600, who await their turn on camera in a very crowded green room. This wild, lethally funny, and thoroughly researched novel brings the huge yet underacknowledged presence of pornography in contemporary life into the realm of literary fiction at last. Who else but Chuck Palahniuk would dare do such a thing? Who else could do it so well, so unflinchingly, and with such an incendiary (you might say) climax?

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“Six hundred dudes. One porn queen. A world record for the ages. A must-have movie for every discerning collector of things erotic.” Cassie Wright, porn priestess, intends to cap her legendary career by breaking the world record for serial fornication. On camera. With six hundred men. Snuff unfolds from the perspectives of Mr. 72, Mr. 137, and Mr. 600, who await their turn on camera in a very crowded green room. This wild, lethally funny, and thoroughly researched novel brings the huge yet underacknowledged presence of pornography in contemporary life into the realm of literary fiction at last. Who else but Chuck Palahniuk would dare do such a thing? Who else could do it so well, so unflinchingly, and with such an incendiary (you might say) climax? From the Hardcover edition.


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Prudence Barrymore, a talented nurse who had worked with Florence Nightingale in the Crimea, is found strangled to death in a London hospital.  Private inquiry agent William Monk is engaged to investigate this horrific crime.  Gradually, Monk assembles the portrait of a remarkable woman.  Yet he also discerns the shadow of a tragic evil and a frightening glimmer of his own eclipsed past . . .


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When Jack St. Bride arrives by chance in the sleepy New England town of Salem Falls, he decides to reinvent himself. Tall, blond, and handsome, Jack was once a beloved teacher and soccer coach at a girls' prep school -- until a student's crush sparked a powder keg of accusation and robbed him of his reputation. Now, working for minimum wage washing dishes for Addie Peabody at the Do-Or-Diner, Jack buries his past, content to become the mysterious stranger who has appeared out of the blue.  

  With ghosts of her own haunting her, Addie Peabody is as cautious around men as Jack St. Bride is around women. But as this unassuming stranger steps smoothly into the diner's daily routine, she finds him fitting just as comfortably inside her heart -- and slowly, a gentle, healing love takes hold between them.  

  Yet planting roots in Salem Falls may prove fateful for Jack. Amid the white-painted centuries-old churches, a quartet of bored, privileged teenage girls have formed a coven that is crossing the line between amusement and malicious intent. Quick to notice the attractive new employee at Addie's diner, the girls turn Jack's world upside down with a shattering allegation that causes history to repeat itself -- and forces Jack to proclaim his innocence once again. Suddenly nothing in Salem Falls is as it seems: a safe haven turns dangerous, an innocent girl meets evil face-to-face, a dishwasher with a Ph.D. is revealed to be an ex-con. As Jack's hidden past catches up with him, the seams of this tiny town begin to tear, and the emerging truth becomes a slippery concept written in shades of gray. Now Addie, desperate for answers, must look into her heart -- and into Jack's lies and shadowy secrets -- for evidence that will condemn or redeem the man she has come to love.


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Mia, the proprietor of the Island's small book store and the local witch, discovers the key to her own destiny, in the second volume of the Three Sisters Island trilogy, which captures the lives, loves, and fortunes of three young women enmeshed in the legends, romance, and magic of a mysterious island off the Massachusetts coast. Original.


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Danielle Steel's fifty-first bestselling novel tells the story of an extraordinary man, the woman who loved him, and a bond so powerful it could never be broken. It is about finding the courage to let someone you love fly free....The phone call came on a snowy December afternoon. Kate was certain it was Joe, the brilliant, visionary man who had been her soulmate, her driving force since the night they met, almost thirty-four years before. What she got was the one call she had never wanted, and didn't expect. As the snow continued to fall, Kate's mind drifted back, to the moment when she and Joe first met. She had been just seventeen and he was young, powerful, dazzling, and different from any man she'd ever known.It was just days before Christmas, 1940. The war is raging in Europe when Kate Jamison makes her debut in New York City. In a room filled with the scions of East Coast society and the leading political figures of the day, it is Joe Allbright who catches Kate's eye. At twenty-nine, Joe is the brilliant protege of Charles Lindbergh, and already a legend in flying circles for his record-breaking speed and state-of-the-art airplane designs. All Kate sees is a tall, strikingly handsome man who seems at once awkward and larger-than-life, like a shining star -- just out of reach. Joe, too, is caught off balance by his response to Kate, seeing in this beautiful young woman vitality and youth, the lifelong soulmate he never expected to find. As the months pass, they will meet again, forging a bond that will set the course of both their lives. Kate will go off to study at Radcliffe. Joe will skyrocket to fame in modern aviation. Joe's planes are his life, his passion. But irresistibly drawn to her, like moth to flame, he always comes back to Kate. Even after the long, dark years of World War II, when Kate was sure she had finally lost him completely, Joe returns. Never willing to stay, always needing to fly away. As planes are for him, Joe is the passion in her life.When the war is over, at twenty-four Kate wants marriage and a family. Joe wants the world, his limitless horizons, and the unique aviation empire he is building. Unwilling to wait any longer, Kate moves on with her life. But when a chance encounter brings them together again, the time has finally come to make a choice, one that will have profound consequences for them both for the rest of their lives.Against a vivid backdrop of war and thrilling innovation, Danielle Steel breathes life into history, weaving an intensely human story that spans three decades, of two intensely different people who, in spite of themselves, are irrevocably woven into the fabric of each other's lives. With rare insight and emotional power, she brings to life a tale of unconditional love, sacrifice, and compromise--the joining of two remarkable halves into a single, far more powerful whole. It is a novel of extraordinary grace and compassion from a master storyteller, perhaps the best story she has told.


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The subject of this biography- SOJOURNER TRUTH- as she now calls herself-but whose name originally was Isabella-was born- as near as she can now calculate between the years 1797 and 1800.' (Excerpt)


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It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.From the Hardcover edition.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) commonly referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer - novelist, essayist, dramatist and philosopher - as well as pacifist Christian anarchist and educational reformer. He was the most influential member of the aristocratic Tolstoy family. His first publications were three autobiographical novels, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth (1852-1856). They tell of a rich landowner's son and his slow realization of the differences between him and his peasants. As a fiction writer Tolstoy is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all novelists, particularly noted for his masterpieces War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). In their scope, breadth and realistic depiction of 19th-century Russian life, the two books stand at the peak of realist fiction. As a moral philosopher Tolstoy was notable for his ideas on nonviolent resistance through works such as The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894).


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Artemis Fowl, a charming but villainous twelve-year-old, takes on the dangerous world of the Fairy People in this unforgettable story, which became a national best-seller and instant cult classic with its hardcover publication in May 2000. The book received tremendous attention and created fans of all ages, around the world. In this extraordinary adventure, Artemis kidnaps a fairy, Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon unit, to help him decode the fairys magic book, which will lead him to a vast treasure of gold. But these are not the fairies of bedtime storiestheyre cunning and dangerous! Full of unexpected twists and turns, Artemis Fowl opens up a riveting world of fantasy and mystery where anything, literally, is possible.


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Artemis is at boarding school in Ireland when he suddenly receives an urgent video-email from Russia. In it is a plea from a man who has been kidnapped by the Russian Mafiya: his father. As Artemis rushes to the rescue, he is stopped by captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon fairy police. But this time, instead of battling the fairies, he is going to have to join forces with them if he wants to save one of the few people in the world he loves.


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Criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl has no memory of the fairy people and his dangerous enemy, Opal Koboi escapes from jail and is planning revenge. Criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl is back and so is his brilliant and dangerous enemy, Opal Koboi. At the start of the story, Artemis has no memory of the fairy people and has returned to his unlawful ways. In Berlin, he is preparing to steal a famous Impressionist painting from a German bank. He doesn't know that his old rival, Opal, has escaped from prison by cloning herself. She's left her double behind in jail and, now free, is exacting her revenge on all those who put here there, including Artemis. Meanwhile in the lower elements, Captain Holly Short of the fairy police is framed for a heinous crime, yet she manages to elude her captors and escape to the surface to rescue Artemis. But before Holly and Artemis can get away, Opal arrives and abducts them both, forcing Artemis to go head to head with an enemy who plans on destroying the fairy world forever.


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A Cavern of Black Ice opens J.V. Jones's Sword of Shadows trilogy. (Her first novel was The Baker's Boy.) The story is set in a land divided among small warring clans of hunters and more sophisticated southern cities whose lords covet the clan territories. Young clansman Raif has a touch of "old blood" magic that guides his arrows to the heart. Bad times come when a hunting party that includes his father and clan chief is wiped out by a supernaturally aided attack, and Raif's open suspicion of the brutal new leader eventually drives him into exile. Meanwhile, Iss, overlord of Spire Vanis city, keeps a chained-up sorcerer whose powers he channels by revolting means, and has unexplained but shuddersome plans for his "foster daughter" Ash--herself an unwilling focus of dread forces. Raif and Ash find themselves fleeing together through wintry, hostile clanlands, pursued by Iss's vilest henchmen, seeking the dubious goal of the Cavern of Black Ice. What lifts this tale far above routine quest fantasy is Jones's deft characterization, relentless intensity, and unsparing depiction of pain and slow-healing injury. She has a flair for memorably horrid images. Here a sorcerer gloats over one of his nastier tricks: "A man could not fight when his corneas were snapped from his eyes like badges from a chest." This hefty volume is over 800 pages long, but the narrative grips hard once it's gained momentum, and the pages turn increasingly fast. Strong meat. Next comes book two, A Fortress of Grey Ice. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk


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Horrified by the misuse of magic they had witnessed during the First War of the Races, the Druids at Paranor devoted themselves to the study of the old sciences, from the period before the collapse of civilization a thousand years before. Only the Bremen and a few trusted associates still studied the arcane arts. And for his persistence, Bremen found himself outcast, avoided by all but the few free-thinkers among the Druids.But his removal from Paranor was not altogether a terrible thing, for Bremen learned that dark forces were on the move from the Northlands. That seemingly invincible armies of trolls were fast conquering all that lay to their south. That the scouts for the army--and its principal assassins--were Skull Bearers, disfigured and transformed Druids who had fallen prey to the seductions of the magic arts. And that at the heart of the evil tide was an archmage and former Druid named Brona!Using the special skills he had acquired through his own study of Magic, Bremen was able to penetrate the huge camp of the Troll army and learn many of its secrets. And he immediately understood that if the peoples of the Four Lands were to escape eternal subjugation they would need to unite. But, even united, they would need a weapon, something so powerful that the evil magic of Brona, the Warlock Lord, would fail before its might...


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More than a quarter of a century afterThe Sword of Shannaracarved out its place in the pantheon of great epic fantasy, the magic of Terry Brooks’sNew York Timesbestselling saga burns as brightly as ever. Three complete series have chronicled the ever-unfolding history of Shannara. But more stories are still to be told—and new adventures have yet to be undertaken. Book One of High Druid of Shannara invites both the faithful longtime reader and the curious newcomer to take the first step on the next extraordinary quest. Twenty years have passed since Grianne Ohmsford denounced her former life as the dreaded Ilse Witch—saved by the love of her brother, the magic of the Sword of Shannara, and the destruction of her evil mentor, the Morgawr. Now, fulfilling the destiny predicted for her, she has established the Third Druid Council, and dedicated herself to its goals of peace, harmony among the races, and defense of the Four Lands. But the political intrigue, secret treachery, and sinister deeds that have haunted Druid history for generations continue to thrive. And despite her devotion to the greater good as Ard Rhys—the High Druid of Paranor, Grianne still has bitter enemies. Among the highest ranks of the Council she leads lurk those who cannot forget her reign of terror as the Ilse Witch, who covet her seat of power, and who will stop at nothing to see her deposed . . . or destroyed. Even Grianne’s few allies—chief among them her trusted servant Tagwen—know of the plots against her. But they could never anticipate the sudden, ominous disappearance of the Ard Rhys, in the dead of night and without a trace. Now, barely a step ahead of the dark forces bent on stopping him, Tagwen joins Grianne’s brave young nephew, Pen Ohmsford, and the wise, powerful elf Ahren Elessedil on a desperate and dangerous mission of search and rescue—to deliver the High Druid of Shannara from an unspeakable fate. Expect no end of wonders, no shortage of adventure, exhilaration, suspense, and enchantment, as Terry Brooks demonstrates, once again, that there is no end to his magic of invention and mastery of storytelling. From the Hardcover edition.


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Twenty years ago, Terry Brooks turned fantasy fiction on its head with The Sword of Shannara, the first fantasy novel to make the mainstream bestseller lists, and the first in an unbroken string of thirteen bestselling books. Now, in Running with the Demon, Brooks does nothing less than revitalize fantasy fiction again, inventing the complex and powerful new mythos of the Word and the Void, good versus evil still, but played out in the theater-in-the-round of the "real world" of our present. On the hottest Fourth of July weekend in decades, two men have come to Hopewell, Illinois, site of a lengthy, bitter steel strike. One is a demon, dark servant of the Void, who will use the anger and frustration of the community to attain a terrible secret goal. The other is John Ross, a Knight of the Word, a man who, while he sleeps, lives in the hell the world will become if he fails to change its course on waking. Ross has been given the ability to see the future. But does he have the power to change it?At stake is the soul of a fourteen-year-old girl mysteriously linked to both men. And the lives of the people of Hopewell. And the future of the country. This Fourth of July, while friends and families picnic in Sinnissippi Park and fireworks explode in celebration of freedom and independence, the fate of Humanity will be decided . . .A novel that weaves together family drama, fading innocence, cataclysm, and enlightenment, Running with the Demon will forever change the way you think about the fantasy novel. As believable as it is imaginative, as wondrous as it is frightening, it is a rich, exquisitely-written tale to be savored long after the last page is turned.


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Terry Brooks is one of a handful of writers whose work defines modern fantasy fiction. His twenty-three international bestsellers have ranged from the beloved Shannara series to stories that tread a much darker path. Armageddon’s Children is a new creation–the perfect opportunity for readers unfamiliar with Brooks’s previous work to experience an author at the height of his considerable storytelling powers. It is a gripping chronicle of a once-familiar world now spun shockingly out of control, in which an extraordinary few struggle to salvage hope in the face of terrifying chaos. Logan Tom is doomed to remember the past and determined to rescue the future. Far behind him lies a boyhood cut violently short by his family’s slaughter, when the forces of madness and hate swept our world after decadent excesses led to civilization’s downfall. Somewhere ahead of him rests the only chance to beat back the minions of evil that are systematically killing and enslaving the last remnants of humanity. Navigating the scarred and poisoned landscape that once was America and guided by a powerful talisman, Logan has sworn an oath to seek out a remarkable being born of magic, possessed of untold abilities, and destined to lead the final fight against darkness.Across the country, Angel Perez, herself a survivor of the malevolent, death-dealing forces combing the land, has also been chosen for an uncanny mission in the name of her ruined world’s salvation. From the devastated streets of Los Angeles, she will journey to find a place–and a people–shrouded in mystery, celebrated in legend, and vital to the cause of humankind . . . even as a relentless foe follows close behind, bent on her extermination. While in the nearly forsaken city of Seattle, a makeshift family of refugees has carved out a tenuous existence among the street gangs, mutants, and marauders fighting to stay alive against mounting odds–and something unspeakable that has come from the shadows in search of prey. In time, all their paths will cross. Their common purpose will draw them together. Their courage and convictions will be tested and their fates will be decided, as their singular crusade begins: to take back, or lose forever, the only world they have.In Armageddon’s Children, Brooks brings his gifts as a mythmaker to the timeless theme of the unending, essential conflict between darkness and light–and carries his unique imaginative vision to a stunning new level. Prepare for a breathtaking tour de force. To those who are new to Terry Brooks, welcome. And to those who have read him for many years: prepare for a dramatic surprise.From the Hardcover edition.


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A TRIP TO DIE FOR...  Accompanying her grandmother on a seniors tour of Switzerland, Emily Andrew had envisioned a vacation straight out of a travel brochure: spectacular scenery, great food, and a classy European hotel, all worlds away from her rural Iowa hometown. But her dream trip quickly snowballs into mayhem when smooth-talking tour escort Andy Simon is found dead. To be sure, Andy was as randy as a mountain goat on Viagra, hitting on every miss -- Swiss or otherwise -- within striking distance. His constant advances were driving Emily cuckoo -- but had someone orchestrated his untimely death?  For savvy, resourceful Emily, leading the tour in Andy's place is only natural. But she can't remain neutral when a fellow traveler takes a fatal plunge -- she's convinced a murderer lurks among them. With precision timing, sexy Etienne Miceli steps in to investigate, and Emily warms to the suave detective. Still, with the group roster suddenly sprouting more holes than the local cheese, Emily wonders: is there a safe haven anywhere in the shadow of the Alps?


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When Emily Andrew lands in the Land of Oz -- Australia, that is -- she and her hearty group of world-touring seniors know they're not in Iowa anymore. Winter is summer, drains drain counterclockwise, and all the comforts of home are, well, back home. Even Emily's love life is upside down: her darling detective Etienne Miceli has yet to propose, while gorgeous tour director Duncan Lazarus is vying to be more than just mates. Emily is preoccupied calming the group's jitters about the outback's killers, from sunstroke to snake bites. But when a fellow traveler turns up dead, Emily fears something far more toxic has struck: human greed. Someone has stumbled upon a natural wonder that could turn science on its head -- was this priceless discovery the catalyst for murder? Before the dust settles, a second untimely death occurs. If Emily can't stop a killer in their tracks, this Aussie adventure just may be her last.


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Dead in the WaterFor travel escort Emily Andrew and her fellow Iowans, aloha means "hello" to all the sun, surf, and scrumptious cuisine their Hawaiian cruise has to offer. But for Professor Dorian Smoker, a renowned expert on the legendary Captain Cook, aloha also means "good-bye" -- as in "man overboard."Sure, it could have been an accident. But Emily wonders if some guest with a grudge might have knocked off the opinionated professor. Or maybe it had something to do with that missing journal Nana's friend lent him -- the one with the mysterious treasure map. Emily figures the map is probably a fake. But when another copy turns up, she and her friends take off, rafting down rivers and plunging through jungles to find the treasure themselves. Unfortunately, Professor Smoker's killer just might have the same idea. And this tropical heat wave could quickly turn into a crime wave...


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Sure, Jackie Thum's newly published novel might not be Hemingway, but bad reviews from her fellow travelers have Emily Andrew's transgender ex-husband (Jackie was formerly Jack) steaming like a sauna. It's a dismal start to their Scandinavian tour, and group leader Emily is getting that sinking feeling in Helsinki: something fishy this way comes. When Jackie's most outspoken critic, a Floridian from a picture-perfect gated community called The Hamlets, is found dead, suspicion falls on Jackie -- who surprises everyone with an airtight alibi. But when another guest turns up dead, Emily realizes there is a killer hiding among them. Herrings, both red and pickled, abound on a Norwegian fjord cruise -- and Jackie is suddenly nowhere to be found. With her mother arranging a wedding disaster for Emily back home in Iowa, Emily must somehow salvage her nuptials from overseas while icing a killer -- before someone else meets a nasty Finnish.


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IT WAS AN OFFER SHE COULDN'T REFUSE....  The discount travel package to Italy seemed like a great deal: Emily Andrew could lead her globe-trotting Iowans on the trip of a lifetime and bring her family to boot. Maybe she should have read the fine print....Sharing their itinerary with a group of hyper-competitive aspiring romance writers is just a prelude to more Machiavellian drama than an Italian opera.  First, their hotel burns to the ground. Then, when Emily's lost luggage turns up found, the disgruntled literary ladies raid her clothing supply like she's a one-woman Gucci outlet. But the real killer is a contest sponsored by a publishing house -- and the depths to which the dime-novel divas will plunge to win a book contract. Amid backstabbing and catcalling, bodies start turning up -- in Emily's favorite outfits! Now, Emily will need more than a phrasebook to say ciao to someone with a hot and spicy passion for murder.


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For newly promoted Army lieutenant colonel Sean Drummond, his latest assignment starts off simply enough: find out if the death of one of D.C.'s most influential defense officials was murder or suicide. Most investigators would call it a cut-and-dried case, but nothing is ever that simple. Teamed with Bian Tran, the attractive Army Military Police officer investigating the case, Drummond is about to embark on a journey that takes him from the labyrinthine channels of American intelligence to the killing rooms of Iraq. None of it will be more difficult than navigating the shadowy minds and motivations of his enemies and so-called colleagues. What Drummond uncovers will make him question everything he believes in. Because the more he digs, the more he learns about the key players-American and Middle Eastern-in a war that rages bloodier every day. A war where betrayal is a daily occurrence and makes him ask: Are my loyalties to my superiors or to the American soldiers battling for their lives?


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JAG lawyer Sean Drummond has gotten himself in way over his head-with a case that challenges his deepest fears and a co-counselor who challenges just about everything else. Assigned to South Korea as an advocate for a gay officer accused of brutally killing the son of a South Korean war hero, Drummond is teamed up with an old law-school nemesis. Katherine Carson is a curvy, liberal, William Kunstler-like attorney with a reputation for manipulating the media on behalf of her mostly gay clients. Drummond is as distraught to be working with a woman who knows how to push all his buttons as he is to be defending this client. However, it's just this lack of political correctness that makes him the one man the CIA can trust with its disturbing secrets, and Drummond quickly learns that what appears to be an open-and-shut case is really just the top layer of a deep conspiracy.


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The bestselling author of Secret Sanction returns--and this time, Army lawyer Sean Drummond is loaned out to a law firm whose #1 client may have ties to a vicious serial killer and a massive international crime ring.Wherever Sean Drummond goes, it seems that the JAG officer leaves a trail of political fallout in his wake. So when his superiors get an opportunity to loan him to a prestigious law firm, they jump on it, hoping he'll soak up the nuances of civilian lawyering. But almost immediately, dark clouds appear when Sean's predecessor in the loan-out program is murdered. Then Sean begins to sense something amiss with the firm's biggest client, a telecom behemoth with large defense contracts. Now, he must survive in D.C.'s buttoned-down lawyer culture long enough to stop the killer, and long enough to discover why his firm and its top client are willing to kill anyone who gets in their way.


