In this Conradian masterpiece of American innocence and evil set in the fictional Central American country of Boca Grande, two American women face the harsh realities, political and personal, of living on the edge in a land with an uncertain future. Writing with her signature telegraphic swiftness, the author creates a terrifying commentary on an age of conscienceless authority.

The Classic Guide To Strategy

Nobel Laureate S.Y. Agnon is considered the towering figure of modern Hebrew literature. With this collection of stories, reissued in paperback and expanded to include additional Agnon classics, the English-speaking audience has, at long last, access to the rich and brilliantly multifaceted fictional world of one of the greatest writers of the last century. This broad selection of Agnon's fiction introduces the full sweep of the writer's panoramic vision as chonicler of the lost world of Eastern European Jewry and the emerging society of modern Israel. New Reader's Preface by Jonathan Rosen.

An excellent collection of tales with beautiful illustrations.

This is the abstract of Daniel Levitin's book

Taken from https://www.blinkist.com/en/reader/the-organized-mind-en/

Who should read it?

Anyone who wants to be more organized

Anyone who is interested in the way our brain processes data

Anyone struggling with the information overload of modern life

Who's the author?

Daniel Levitin is a cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist. He is particularly well known for his work in music theory. He has authored several best-selling books, including This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, and The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature.

New York Times bestselling author and neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin shifts his keen insights from your brain on music to your brain in a sea of details.

The information age is drowning us with an unprecedented deluge of data. At the same time, we’re expected to make more—and faster—decisions about our lives than ever before. No wonder, then, that the average American reports frequently losing car keys or reading glasses, missing appointments, and feeling worn out by the effort required just to keep up.

But somehow some people become quite accomplished at managing information flow. In The Organized Mind, Daniel J. Levitin, PhD, uses the latest brain science to demonstrate how those people excel—and how readers can use their methods to regain a sense of mastery over the way they organize their homes, workplaces, and time.

With lively, entertaining chapters on everything from the kitchen junk drawer to health care to executive office workflow, Levitin reveals how new research into the cognitive neuroscience of attention and memory can be applied to the challenges of our daily lives. This Is Your Brain on Music showed how to better play and appreciate music through an understanding of how the brain works. The Organized Mind shows how to navigate the churning flood of information in the twenty-first century with the same neuroscientific perspective.

The City of San Francisco is locked in a grip of fear. A series of occult murders has lead, Inspector Thomas James to a crime scene similar to a murder committed 90 years ago in the once grand Aleris Hotel. A place where power barons of the early 20th Century engaged in witchcraft. And silent film stars indulged in the most wicked of sins. A place where no one questions the black smoke that rises from the hotel's incinerators in the middle of the night.

You can't judge a book by its cover. To look at her, one would never think suburbanite homemaker Jane Jeffry would be interested in murder and mayhem. But after all the corpses she's come across — and killers she's unmasked — she's practically an expert on the subject. Which is why, with best buddy Shelley Nowack in tow, Jane's booking down to a nearby mystery writers' convention to mingle with the brightest lights of literary crime. . and maybe drum up some interest in her own recently completed manuscript. However, what would a mystery convention be without a mystery? It seems fairly certain that at least one real-life murderer is stalking the proceedings. But who is he/she/them? The dirt-dishing, pseudonymous Internet gossip monger "Ms. Mystery," who's lurking around there somewhere? The local bookseller who dearly loves "Modern Golden Age" women writers? The avid reader who seems to know a bit too much about the personal lives of the famous attendees? Jane and Shelley are on the case, ready to snoop, eavesdrop, and gossip their way to a solution. But the killer they seek is no open book. . and may turn out to be harder — and deadlier — to read than they initially imagined.

Как и с предыдущими книгами, Мартин периодически зачитывал отдельные главы из будущей книги на различных фестивалях. Некоторые главы имеются лишь в пересказах, другие — полностью отредактированы и даже опубликованы на сайте писателя или как дополнение к электронным изданиям книг. В марте 2014 года Мартин в своем блоге отметил, что, видимо, достиг разумного предела по числу спойлерных глав и больше их выпускать не будет. Для сравнения: до выхода «Танца с драконами» было опубликовано или зачитано 13 спойлерных глав (из 73 глав, вошедших в книгу).

В книге собраны тексты, связанные с малоизвестным в России эпизодом из истории контактов западной авангардной литературы с советским литературно-политическим процессом. Публикуются избранные главы из романа «Эйми, или Я Есмь» — экспериментального текста-травелога о Советской России, опубликованного в 1933 году крупнейшим поэтом американского авангарда Э. Э. Каммингсом (1894–1962).

Из поденных записей странствующего в советской преисподней поэта рождается эпического размаха одиссея о судьбе личности в тираническом обществе насилия и принуждения. На страницах книги появляются Л. Арагон и Э. Триоле, Вс. Мейерхольд и 3. Райх, Л. Брик и В. Маяковский, Н. Гончарова и М. Ларионов, И. Эренбург и Б. Пастернак, Дж. Джойс и Э. Паунд. Впервые русский читатель узнает о замалчиваемом долгие десятилетия образце испепеляющей сатиры на советское общество, автором которой был радикальный американский поэт-авангардист. Издание снабжено обстоятельной вступительной статьей и комментариями. Книгу сопровождают 100 иллюстраций, позволяющих точнее передать атмосферу увиденного Каммингсом в советской Марксландии.

Murder is committed for its own sake in the three fictional episodes of The Book of Destruction. In ‘The Gardener’, the narrator learns from the thug Seshadri that he has been selected for assassination for no reason but the pure purpose of killing. A discotheque is bombed out of existence in ‘The Hotelier and the Traveler’. In the third episode, leading the narrator to an elaborately staged orgy and sacrifice, stitched clothes escape from a tailor’s shop and soar down the streets to take over bodies.

The cruelty of killers and the wretchedness of victims are shifted to the margins as the novel focuses on the act of murder. In his inimitable style, Anand takes the mesmerized reader on a journey of three stages — the practice of killing, the sacrifice of the victim and the sacrifice of the sacrificer — before bringing the story of destruction to its finale.

Life is full of loose ends. Some are merely dusty cobwebs of regret that hang limp and forgotten in the shadowy corners of our past, others are the barbed rusty wires of unfinished business that bind and constrict even the most mundane aspects of our existence. In her debut novel Tess Evans delves into the tangled lives of her characters and explores the unresolved baggage that they must each unpack in order to move on with their lives.

The Book of Lost Threads opens on a wet winter’s night. Moss has just arrived at the doorstep of Finn Clancy, the man she believes to be her father and she is seeking answers. Finn, however, is not immediately inclined to provide them. Immersed in guilt and self pity he has forged a life for himself in the fictional Victorian town of Opportunity. Drawn to fellow lost souls Mrs Lily Pargetter and her nephew Sandy, he has eked out a life attempting to atone for his past sins, both real and imagined.

Moss’s appearance jars the fragile rhythm of his life and kick starts a series of events that affect not only the novel’s four main characters, but also the entire town. Moss, Finn, Mrs Pargetter and Sandy have all been touched by tragedy, and all have developed their own individual coping strategies. Moss denies her talents, Finn retreats into silence, Sandy makes plans for a town memorial, the ‘Great Galah’ and Mrs Pargetter knits – she has been steadily making tea cosies for the United Nations for thirty five years.

With a delicate but deft touch their individual and collective stories are carefully teased out and examined. Tess Evans recently wrote that the Book of Lost Threads begins with a question which, once answered, gives rise to a train of further questions and answers. Its strongest moments are in the stories of Finn, Mrs Pargetter and Sandy. Finn is crippled by the results of one drunken night’s thoughtless actions and Mrs Pargetter struggles with the consequences of horrendous personal loss. Sandy is weakened by a lifetime of failure to stand up to his bullying father. Even his voice is constricted, sounding ‘as though it were being forced out from somewhere high in the throat.’ He is initially a feeble, unattractive character who finally gains strength when he confronts his own demons, for it is only then that his innate kindness can shine through.

Moss’s struggle is perhaps the least convincing of the four, but this is largely because her loss and subsequent regret are only recent and have not warped her beyond recognition – I would have liked even more of her story. In contrast, Finn feels his tragedy is so all consuming that ‘the person he was… no longer existed’, Moss is the catalyst for the others to find resolution and for them to become whole and balanced individuals. It is through her that the lost threads of the title, all of the loose ends and unfinished tales, are woven into a rich tapestry of meaning – although all four characters contribute to each of the other’s healing and growth.

The Book of Lost Threads is Tess Evan’s first novel. She is a Melbourne author who has also written many short stories and poems. Her previous experience in the TAFE system, where she taught and counselled a wide range of people of all ages, professions and life experience, is clearly reflected in the depth of her work. The lyrical writing makes it deceptively accessible, but it is far more than a light easy read. The complexities of the themes and characters are attributes of a much deeper work, one that lingers in the imagination. I would recommend it to anyone seeking a thoughtful exploration of the gentle power of humanity.

"One of the most beautiful love stories ever written." — Paris Match

Shortly after Albert Cohen left France for London to escape the Nazis, he received news of his mother's death in Marseille. Unable to mourn her, he expressed his grief in a series of moving pieces for La France libre, which later grew into Book of My Mother. Achingly honest, intimate, moving, it is a tribute to all mothers.

Albert Cohen (1895–1981) is the author of Solal (1930); Mangeclous (1938); Belle du Seigneur (1968), which was awarded the French Academy's Grand Prix du Roman; and Les Valereux (1969).

The enigmatic billionaire founder of Tetration, the world’s most powerful tech company, hires a failed novelist, Josh Cohen, to ghostwrite his memoirs. This tech mogul, known as Principal, brings Josh behind the digital veil, tracing the rise of Tetration, which started in the earliest days of the Internet by revolutionizing the search engine before venturing into smartphones, computers, and the surveillance of American citizens. Principal takes Josh on a mind-bending world tour from Palo Alto to Dubai and beyond, initiating him into the secret pretext of the autobiography project and the life-or-death stakes that surround its publication.

Insider tech exposé, leaked memoir-in-progress, international thriller, family drama, sex comedy, and biblical allegory, Book of Numbers renders the full range of modern experience both online and off. Embodying the Internet in its language, it finds the humanity underlying the virtual.

Morgan and her best friend, Bree, are introduced to Wicca when a gorgeous senior named Cal invites them to join his new coven. Morgan falls for Cal immediately-and discovers that she has strong, inexplicable powers.

The Library: Only a handful know it exists… It holds the world's most astonishing – and terrifying – information… But the one book that is the key to the greatest secret of all time… is missing.

Former FBI Special Agent Will Piper solved – and survived – the "Doomsday Killer" case… and his reward was a forced early retirement. But the shattering truths he learned about the government's most covert operations won't let him rest – and now he's on the trail of a mysterious volume that's been lost for six centuries. This is the book that inspired Shakespeare and the prophecies of Nostradamus, and once Will gets his hands on it, his life will be worth nothing – his death sentence a top priority handed down from the very highest levels of power.

Because there are some truths too dangerous for anyone to know – those that concern the future, world domination… and the end of everything.

When a massive sinkhole opens up and swallows a retired couple from Iowa it seems like a freak occurrence. But it's not the only one. Similar sinkholes are opening all over the world, even on the sea floor. And they're getting bigger.

People living near the pits begin reporting strange phenomena — vibrations, sulfurous odors, and odd sounds in the stygian depths. Then the pets begin to go missing.

When people start disappearing as well, the government is forced to act. Professor Matt Kearns and a team of experts are sent in by the military to explore one of the sinkholes, and they discover far more than they bargained for.

From the war zones of the Syrian Desert to the fabled Library of Alexandria, and then to Hades itself, join Professor Matt Kearns as he attempts to unravel an age-old prophecy. The answers Matt seeks are hidden in the fabled Al Azif — known as the Book of the Dead — and he must find it, even if it kills him. Because time is running out, not just for Matt Kearns, but for all life on Earth.

The "book of the dead" is the morgue log, a ledger in which all cases are entered by hand. For Kay Scarpetta, however, it is about to take on a new meaning. Fresh from her bruising battle with a psychopath in Florida, Scarpetta decides it's time for a change of pace, not only personally and professionally but geographically. Moving to the historic city of Charleston, South Carolina, she opens a unique private forensic pathology practice, one in which she and her colleagues-including Pete Marino and her niece, Lucy-offer expert crime-scene investigation and autopsy services to communities lacking local access to modern, competent death investigation technology.

It seems like an ideal situation, until the new battles start-with local politicians, with entrenched interests, with someone whose covert attempts at sabotage are clearly meant to run Scarpetta out of town. And that's before the murders and other violent deaths even begin.

A young man from a well-known family jumps off a water tower. A woman is found ritualistically murdered in her multimillion-dollar beach home. The body of an abused young boy is discovered dumped in a desolate marsh. Meanwhile, in distant New England, problems with a prominent patient at a Harvard-affiliated psychiatric hospital begin to hint at interconnections that are as hard to imagine as they are horrible.

Kay Scarpetta has dealt with many brutal and unusual crimes before, but never a string of them as baffling, or as terrifying, as the ones confronting her now. Before she is through, that book of the dead will contain many names-and the pen may be poised to write in her own.

"A Classic of Japanese thought…Poetic, robust…a feast of aphorisms and martial anecdotes." – The New York Review of Books

"HAGAKURE became a kind of magical discovery for me, and 'hidden under its leaves' were some important gifts." – Jim Jarmusch

"A fascinating glimpse into another place and time." -Library Journal

"Yamamoto brought together three temperaments: loyalty to his master, a literary sensibility, and the enlightenment of Zen." – Choice

The process of writing this book was, for the three of us, an opportunity to change and grow and integrate parts of our experience of doing family therapy and individual therapy. We came to understand explicitly how the communications skills we use in those contexts applied to writing this book together. Taking three very different models of the world, three different types of background, we found a way to use those same communication skills to communicate with each other and then finally to translate the communication we found effective among the three of us onto paper. So, we wanted to tell those of you who are reading this book that this book contains some of the ways which we found delightful and useful to use to communicate not only with families in the context of therapy, but also with each other in the process of writing. The very same patterns that we identify in this book as patterns of effective communication with members of a family in the context of'a therapy session are precisely the patterns of communication that we used to write this book. And it gives us great pleasure, and is a continuing delight, to find ways of being effective in communicating with ourselves, and with our other colleagues in writing this book. Hopefully, we'll communicate to you some of the excitement and joy we have in the process of communication. For us, communication means experience—the ability to be in touch with what we are feeling—to be able to see clearly what is available at a point in time—to be able to hear with precision the sounds of life. These skills, which we are constantly developing in ourselves, were the essential ingredients in writing this book.

Bandler

Grinder

Satir

Is survival worth the loss of humanity?

Finding a friend in the apocalypse isn’t easy. And for Jake Martin, ever since the plague wiped out 99% of humanity, it’s been damn-near impossible. Life has become an endless trek for canned food, shelter, and avoiding those who’ve turned to killing for anything all while trying not to become a killer himself.

When Jake encounters an elderly wanderer named Billy on the highway to ruined Las Vegas, everything changes. Billy reminds him of life before the end of the world, of when being human meant acting like more than a mindless beast. Although their bond quickly grows, two men don’t make a commune.

Together, they stumble upon a gang of scavengers keeping Amanda Contreras and her daughter prisoner, and using the mother to fulfill their base needs. Jake and Billy decide it’s time to stop just looking out for themselves.

After risking everything to break the girls free, their commune grows to four. Now, they must all learn to cooperate if they’re to survive in a primitive, hostile world in search of a new home. Each of them will learn how far they’re willing to go to continue living… or if living is even worth it.

Введите сюда краткую аннотацию

Введите сюда краткую аннотацию

ведите сюда краткую аннотацию

The award-winning team of Jones and Sutton once again push the boundaries of fear in this new collection of horror and dark fantasy. Drawing from both sides of the Atlantic, Dark Terrors 3 features stories by some of the genres' biggest names as well as their rising stars, including Ray Bradbury, Poppy Z. Brite, Pat Cadigan, Ramsey Campbell, Christopher Fowler, Neil Gaiman, Julian Rathbone, Mark Timlin, and Michael Marshall Smith. An anthology that will take you to the furthest reaches of your imagination — and beyond.

British Fantasy Award winner 1998, World Fantasy Award nominee 1998.

Once again, multi-award-winning editors Stephen Jones and David Sutton take you on a terrifying journey into the dark heart of modern horror fiction.

Firmly established as the world's premier horror anthology series, this latest volume is twice the size, presenting almost a quarter of a million words of new fiction by some of the hottest names and most talented newcomers in the field. Contributors to Dark Terrors 5 include Peter Straub, Poppy Z. Brite, Ramsey Campbell, Mick Garris — Stephen King's director of choice — Gwyneth Jones, Michael Marshall Smith, Kim Newman, Gahan Wilson, Christopher Fowler and many, many more.

Bartulin’s debut is an old-fashioned mystery with lots of snappy dialogue and a noir atmosphere. A second-hand book dealer in Australia, Jack just wants a quiet life among his beloved books and far away from his former work as a Mob driver. Broke and with his store struggling, Jack accepts a commission from a local magnate to locate and buy all known copies of any books by a relatively unknown and out-of-print poet. But Jack isn’t the only one tracking down the books, and the businessman drives a tough bargain. The Australian setting doesn’t make a strong impression, but that is more than made up for by the well-rounded and believable characters. With a fast pace and a noir tone, this is bound to appeal to a wide audience of mystery readers but will be especially popular with book lovers and fans of John Dunning’s Cliff Janeway series. A strong debut and a promising series.

Nebula Best Novel winner (1993)

Hugo Best Novel winner (1993)

For Kivrin, preparing an on-site study of one of the deadliest eras in humanity’s history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received.

But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin—barely of age herself—finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history’s darkest hours.

Five years in the writing by one of science fiction’s most honored authors, “Doomsday Book” is a storytelling triumph. Connie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the ageless issues of evil, suffering and the indomitable will of the human spirit.

This new book by Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning author Connie Willis (Lincoln's Dreams) is an intelligent and satisfying blend of classic science fiction and historical reconstruction. Kivrin, a history student at Oxford in 2048, travels back in time to a 14th-century English village, despite a host of misgivings on the part of her unofficial tutor. When the technician responsible for the procedure falls prey to a 21st-century epidemic, he accidentally sends Kivrin back not to 1320 but to 1348 — right into the path of the Black Death. Unaware at first of the error, Kivrin becomes deeply involved in the life of the family that takes her in. But before long she learns the truth and comes face to face with the horrible, unending suffering of the plague that would wipe out half the population of Europe. Meanwhile, back in the future, modern science shows itself infinitely superior in its response to epidemics, but human nature evidences no similar evolution, and scapegoating is still alive and well in a campaign against "infected foreigners." This book finds villains and heroes in all ages, and love, too, which Kivrin hears in the revealing and quietly touching deathbed confession of a village priest. (Publishers Weekly)

Won Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1992

Won Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1993

For eons, conquering dungeons has been the most efficient way to become a strong adventurer. Although, not everything is as straightforward as it seems. Several questions have always plagued the mind of those that enter these mythical places of power: Why are there so many monsters? Where does the amazing weaponry and heavy gold coins come from? Why does the very air fill with life-giving energies?!

Cal has all of the answers to these age old questions, for a very simple reason. He is a Dungeon Heart, a soul forced against his will into a magical stone. After several lonely years, Cal was able to regain sentience, allowing him to form new memories while slowly growing a dungeon around himself. With help from a friend, Cal learned how to create monsters and traps, increasing his power and size quickly.

When a threat to his existence rears its head, Cal decides that he will do anything to stay alive and become stronger. Unfortunately for treasure-seekers, the fastest way for Cal to achieve his goal... is to eat anyone that enters his depths.

Kyle Vauss wanders alone across the ruins of England trying to block out his past. If he can't, he'll never be able to shut out the memory of his wife getting torn to shreds by the infected. Fifteen years ago the world fell apart. By day the zombie infected swarm the streets, and at night the stalkers come out of their nests to kill. Mankind is on the brink of extinction. When a teenager called Justin tricks Kyle into taking him along, Kyle has to learn to trust others, and himself, again. He doesn't want to face his past, but there are some things that you can't turn away from. A gripping story of survival that zombie apocalypse fans will love.

Руководство по созданию книг в формате Fb2. Новая дополненная версия 1.3.

You Can’t Keep A Good Ranger Down

Hunting for the source of the killer robots terrorizing the Arizona wastes, a team of Desert Rangers stumbles into the town of Darwin’s Village. The people there are weak and getting weaker, dying of a disease born inside the research facility that employs them all.

As the rangers search the facility for a cure, one of them, Ghost, is also looking for other answers. Only days before he awoke in a cloning chamber knowing nothing of his previous life except that he’d worn a ranger’s star and he’d died in Darwin’s Village.

But who killed him? And why? And more importantly, can he fill the boots of the man he used to be?

Even a Ghost Can Die

Deep within an ancient bunker, the Desert Rangers uncover the secret to defeating the Base Cochise AI, the crazed computer responsible for spawning the killer robots terrorizing the Arizona wastes. But the secret is hidden under a mountain, and protected by a cult known as the Guardians of the Old Order, who hate everything the rangers stand for.

As the Rangers fight the Guardians, Ghost, the clone of a clone of a ranger, fights a battle of his own. Should he continue to help the friends of the man he used to be? Should he sacrifice himself to save humanity? Why bother, when the only person who treats him with any humanity at all might not be entirely human herself?

NINE YEARS

It is almost a decade since Duluth said goodbye to its innocence. The city creeps ever closer to the tenth anniversary of the year in which it found itself both gripped by murder and united in terror; and during which the pillar of its community, DS Jonathan Stride, had his home and heart torn to ribbons by the claws of cancer.

NINE LIVES

Cat Mateo, an orphan with a knack of landing on her feet, has bid farewell to a life on the streets. This once-stray teenager owes her rescue to Detective Stride, the father figure she holds close to her heart. But Cat holds something else to her chest — a secret: the sheer power of which she could not possibly comprehend.

A secret that, once out of the bag, will not just viciously scratch at Duluth’s still-healing wounds, but will make DS Jonathan Stride wave goodbye to his convictions about the events nine years before, and say hello to his darkest fears.

From Publishers Weekly

In 1958, while directing the microfilming and organization of a trove of archives that the U.S. forces had taken from the Nazis at the end of WWII, historian Weinberg (A World at Arms) discovered the manuscript of a second book that Hitler had written but never published. The manuscript was published in German in 1961, accompanied by Weinberg’s annotations, but this is the first authoritative English version (a pirated and poor translation appeared in the 1960s). The text bears all of Hitler's hallmarks: rambling thoughts, half-baked ideas, pedantic writing-along with a terrifying, sustained belief in war and violence as the means to ensure that Germans would flourish. Compared to Mein Kampf, there are fewer pages devoted to Jews. Nonetheless, what comes across most strongly is Hitler’s abiding commitment to the principle of race and his identification of Jews as the enemy that threatened to undo all that Germans had created. Hitler dwells at length on foreign policy, and outlines a strategy of alliance with Fascist Italy and Great Britain. (He actually believed that Britain would accept a German-dominated European continent so long as Germany did not challenge the overseas British empire.) He also foresees an inevitable clash with the United States. This provides solid historical background on Hitler's thinking in the late 1920s, when his party was nothing more than a tiny, radical sect. Weinberg provides helpful notes and a very informative introduction.

Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

* * *

“Politics is history in the making.”

Such were the words of Adolf Hitler in his untitled, unpublished, and long suppressed second work written only a few years after the publication of Mein Kampf.

Only two copies of the 200 page manuscript were originally made, and only one of these has ever been made public. Kept strictly secret under Hitler’s orders, the document was placed in an air raid shelter in 1935 where it remained until it’s discovery by an American officer in 1945.

Written in 1928, the authenticity of the book has been verified by Josef Berg (former employee of the Nazi publishing house Eher Verlag), and Telford Taylor (former Brigadier General U.S.A.R., and Chief Counsel at the Nuremburg war-crimes trials) who, after an analysis made in 1961, comments:

“If Hitler’s book of 1928 is read against the background of the intervening years, it should interest not scholars only, but the general reader.”*

_{*as quoted by http://www.pharo.com/lost&found.htm}

The inventive, exuberant, and totally original literary fun that began with The Eyre Affair continues with Jasper Fforde’s magnificent second adventure starring the resourceful, fearless literary sleuth Thursday Next. When Landen, the love of her life, is eradicated by the corrupt multinational Goliath Corporation, Thursday must moonlight as a Prose Resource Operative of Jurisfiction—the police force inside books. She is apprenticed to the man-hating Miss Havisham from Dickens’s Great Expectations, who grudgingly shows Thursday the ropes. And she gains just enough skill to get herself in a real mess entering the pages of Poe’s "The Raven." What she really wants is to get Landen back. But this latest mission is not without further complications. Along with jumping into the works of Kafka and Austen, and even Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, Thursday finds herself the target of a series of potentially lethal coincidences, the authenticator of a newly discovered play by the Bard himself, and the only one who can prevent an unidentifiable pink sludge from engulfing all life on Earth.

The Eighteenth Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew

Close to the end of Easter Term 1358, the Colleges of the University of Cambridge are at war over the creation of a Common Library. Scholars from the poorer hostels are delighted by the scheme, but others see it as a dangerous precedent, and demand that the project be abandoned. At a meeting of all the masters to discuss the matter, a book flies through the air, striking one of their number and leaving him seriously wounded. Matthew Bartholomew is called upon for his skills as a physician, but his experience is even more in demand when a body is found floating in the pond of the library’s garden on the eve of its opening.

Meanwhile, there have been three murders in the town: these victims have all had their throats cut, and the culprits are rumoured to be a force of dangerous smugglers who lie low in the Fens.

Alongside Sheriff Tulyet and Brother Michael, Bartholomew knows he only has a week to disentangle the threads of violence that link town to gown, academic to tradesman. To fail might mean the destruction of the whole town.

My First Book: the experiences of Walter Besant, James Payn, W. Clark Russell, Grant Allen, Hall Caine, George R. Sims, Rudyard Kipling, A. Conan Doyle, M. E. Braddon, F. W. Robinson, H. Rider Haggard, R. M. Ballantyne, I. Zangwill, Morley Roberts, David Christie Murray, Marie Corelli, Jerome K. Jerome, John Strange Winter, Bret Harte, "Q.", Robert Buchanan, Robert Louis Stevenson, with an introduction by Jerome K. Jerome and 185 illustrations.

Bjørn Hansen, a respectable town treasurer, has just turned fifty and is horrified by the thought that chance has ruled his life. Eighteen years ago he left his wife and their two-year-old son for his mistress, who persuaded him to start afresh in a small, provincial town and to dabble in amateur dramatics. In time that relationship also faded, and after four years of living alone Bjørn contemplates an extraordinary course of action that will change his life for ever.

He finds a fellow conspirator in Dr Schiøtz, who has a secret of his own and offers to help Bjørn carry his preposterous and dangerous plan through to its logical conclusion. However, the sudden reappearance of his son both fills Bjørn with new hope and complicates matters. The desire to gamble with his comfortable existence proves irresistible, however, taking him to Vilnius in Lithuania, where very soon he cannot tell whether he's tangled up in a game or reality.

Novel 11, Book 18, for which Dag Solstad received the Norwegian Critics' Prize for Literature, is an uncompromising and concentrated existential novel that accommodates all of the author's fundamental themes.

Brooklyn's chance to restore a rare first edition of Beauty and the Beast seems a fairy tale come true-until she realizes the book last belonged to an old friend of hers. Ten years ago, Max Adams fell in love with a stunning beauty, Emily, and gave her the copy of Beauty and the Beast as a symbol of their love. Soon afterward, he died in a car crash, and Brooklyn has always suspected his possessive ex-girlfriend and her jealous beau.

Now she decided to find out who sold the book and return it to its rightful owner-Emily. With the help of her handsome boyfriend, Derek Stone, Brooklyn must unravel a murder plot-before she ends up in a plot herself…

Momotarō, Click-Clack Mountain, The Sparrow Who Lost Her Tongue, The Stolen Wen, Urashima-san… The father reads these old tales to the children. Though he's shabbily dressed and looks to be a complete fool, this father is a singular man in his own right. He has an unusual knack for making up stories.

Once upon a time, long, long ago…

Even as he reads the picture book aloud in a strangely imbecilic voice, another, somewhat more elaborate tale is brewing inside him.

Dazai Osamu wrote The Fairy Tale Book (Otogizoshi) in the last months of the Pacific War. The traditional tales upon which Dazai's retellings are based are well known to every Japanese schoolchild, but this is no children's book. In Dazai's hands such stock characters as the kindhearted Oji-san to Oba-san ("Grandmother and Grandfather"), the mischievous tanuki badger, the fearsome Oni ogres, the greedy old man, the "tongue-cut" sparrow, and of course Urashima Taro (the Japanese Rip van Winkle) become complex individuals facing difficult and nuanced moral dilemmas. The resulting stories are thought-provoking, slyly subversive, and often hilarious.

The Undead King is the 1st light novel volume in the Overlord series. It was released on July 30, 2012. It details about Satoru Suzuki, whose game avatar known as Momonga, a player of YGGDRASIL suddenly finds his consciousness trapped in his avatar and all of the NPCs around him begins to gain sentience. He must struggle to find a way to survive this new world.

По размерам PocketBook 360 не больше ладони. Привычный чехол отсутствует, а вместо обложки используется пластмассовая крышка. Эта крышка не крепится к устройству – ее можно убрать в карман, или лучше прищелкнуть с тыльной стороны корпуса – для чего есть небольшие защелки на корпусе и крышке. Кнопки сфокусированы на одной, более широкой стороне корпуса. Это позволило сузить корпус с других сторон.

Управление PocketBook 360 разработчики традиционно сконцентрировали на джойстике. Данная модель имеет внутреннюю и внешнюю память. В качестве внешней памяти используются карты MicroSD, слот для них находится рядом с кнопкой “включение”.

На нижнем торце устройства имеется небольшой разъем USB. Он используется не только для передачи данных, но и для зарядки PocketBook 360.

Устройство от подзарядки проработает не менее 2 недель. В нашем тесте в режиме чтения оно использовалось по 3 часа в день.

Программное обеспечение PocketBook 360 практически полностью совпадает с тем, что называется PocketBook OS. Точно такое программное обеспечение используется в PocketBook 301 и, по всей видимости, будет совершенствоваться одновременно на всех моделях от компании PocketBook. Электронная книга наиболее всеядна в части поддерживаемых форматов. Среди них – FB2, TXT, PDF, DJVU, RTF, HTML, PRC, CHM, EPUB, DOC и графические форматы файлов JPEG, BMP, GIF.. Чтение на PocketBook 360 доставляет истинное наслаждение, а компактность делает его незаменимым спутником в дороге.

Экран PocketBook 360 имеет то же разрешение, что и в шестидюймовом PocketBook 301 – 600х800px. Разработан специально для такого размера матрицы!

По белизне экран соответствует любым современным моделям на базе eInk.

Технические характеристики:

Встроенная память: 512 Мб

Экран: 5” 800x600 E-Ink Vizplex, 200 dpi, гиродатчик

Слоты расширения: microSD

Время работы от аккамуляторов: до 8 000 страниц без подзарядки

Тип аккумулятора: Li-Polymer (1000 mAh)

Блок питания: INPUT: 100-240V ~ 50/60Hz, 0,2A OUTPUT: 5V 0.5-1A

Интерфейс: mini USB (v 2.0)

Поддерживаемыеформаты: FB2, TXT, PDF, DJVU, RTF, HTML, PRC, CHM, EPUB, DOC, JPEG, BMP, GIF

Размеры без крышки: 124 х 145 х 10 мм

Размеры с крышкой: 124 х 145 х 12 мм

Гарантия: 1 год

Just as the first wave of flying saucer sightings ended in the summer of 1947, the military began a project to investigate those reports. For twenty-two years, the Air Force attempted to learn what it could about the phenomena they called UFOs. During those years, they investigated more than twelve-thousand sightings including landings, occupant reports, photographs, radar cases, and intercepts by military jet fighters. In many instances plausible explanations were advanced, but nearly one-thousand sightings were marked as unidentified. More importantly, some reports are tagged with labels that don't fit the facts. Too many witnesses were ignored, too much evidence was overlooked, too much misinformation was tacked on so that convenient labels could be attached. These are the cases investigated by Project Blue Book Exposed, and exhaustive study of previously classified files.

From the moment he rescues the beautiful, passionate Maud Fallon from the icy waters of the Hudson one wintry day in 1849, Daniel Quinn is thrust into a bewildering, adventure-filled journey through the tumult of nineteenth-century America. As he quests after the beguiling and elusive Maud, Daniel will witness the rise and fall of great dynasties in upstate New York, epochal prize fights, exotic life in the theatre, visitations from spirits beyond the grave, horrific battles between Irish immigrants and the "Know-Nothings," vicious New York draft riots, heroic passages through the Underground Railroad, and the bloody despair of the Civil War.

Filled with Dickensian characters, a vivid sense of history, and a marvellously inventive humor, Quinn's Book is an engaging delight by an acclaimed modern master.

Slovak writer Daniela Kapitáňová’s first novel is narrated by an intellectually and physically stunted creature and arch-conformist who enthusiastically embraces every kind of prejudice both under Communism and in the newly independent Slovakia. This book was a sensation when it appeared in Bratislava in 2000; still a best-seller in its fourth edition, it has been translated into Czech, Swedish, French, German, Arabic, Polish and Japanese and now appears in English. (Description taken from Garnett Press website.)

Outside Sacred Valley, ancient ruins rise from the earth, drawing sacred artists from miles around to fight for the treasures within.

Lindon has reached Copper, taking the first step on the road to power, but the warriors of the outside world are still far beyond him.

To advance, he turns to the arcane skills of the Soulsmiths, who craft weapons from the stuff of souls. With new powers come new enemies, and Lindon soon finds himself facing an entire sect of Golds.

'What makes me saddest, is the double silence of her being. Language has packed its bags and jumped over the railing of the capsizing ship, but there is also another silence in her or around her. I can no longer hear the music of her soul.' One day, the author's mother no longer remembers the word for 'book'. This seemingly innocuous moment of distraction is the first sign of the slow disintegration of her mind. As Alzheimer's disease sets in and language increasingly escapes her, her son attempts to gather the fragments of what she has become, writing a moving, loving chronicle of the gradual descent into dementia of someone who 'no longer knows who she is, where she is or what will happen'.

A driving force behind the social revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, Hoffman inspired a generation to challenge the status quo. Meant as a practical guide for the aspiring hippie, Steal This Book captures Hoffman’s puckish tone and became a cult classic with over 200,000 copies sold. Outrageously illustrated by R. Crumb, it nevertheless conveys a serious message to all would-be revolutionaries: You don’t have to take it anymore. “All Power to the Imagination was his credo. Abbie was the best.”

— Studs Terkel

Israel Armstrong – the hapless duffle coat wearing, navel-gazing librarian who solves crimes and domestic problems whilst driving a mobile library around the north coast of Ireland – finds himself on the brink of thirty. But any celebration, planned or otherwise, must be put on hold when a troubled teenager – the daughter of a local politician – mysteriously vanishes. Israel suspects the girl's disappearance has something to do with his lending her American Pastoral from the library's special "Unshelved" category. Now he has to find the lost teen before he's run out of town – while he attempts to recover from his recent breakup with his girlfriend, Gloria, and tries to figure out where in Tumdrum a Jewish vegetarian might celebrate his thirtieth birthday.

First published in 1937 by Kahane's Obelisk Press, Girodias added this famous title to Olympia's staple in the late '50s, shortly before censorship laws began to liberalize and The Black Book found could finally cross the channel legally. Though owing much to lifelong friend Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, The Black Book stands on its own with a portrait of the artist as an angry young man, chronicling numerous events among artists and others in a seedy London hotel.

Издания, представленные в серии «Простое чтение на английском языке», являются учебными пособиями по страноведению и истории, развивают познавательную активность и способствуют развитию у учащихся навыков аналитического мышления.

Предназначены для учащихся 7-8 классов школ с углубленными изучением английского языка или школьников старших классов обычной средней школы. Также могут быть полезны студентам начальных курсов языковых и неязыковых вузов и всем желающим приобщиться к интересному и полезному чтению на настоящем английском языке.

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It is almost impossible to envision what childhood would be like without the enchanting world of fairyland. Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, giants and dwarfs, monsters and magicians, fairies and ogres- these are the companions who thrill young boys and girls of all lands and all times, as Andrew Lang’s phenomenally successful collections of stories have proved. From the day that they were first printed, the Lang fairy tale books of many colors have entertained thousands of boys and girls, as they also brought pleasure to the many parents who have read these unforgettable classics to their children.

The Blue Fairy Book was the first volume in the series and so it contains some of the best known tales, taken from a variety of sources: not only from Grimm, but exciting adventures by Charles Perrault and Madame d’Aulnoy, The Arabian Nights, and other stories from popular traditions. Here in one attractive paperbound volume- with enlarged print- are Sleeping Beauty, Rumpelstiltzkin, Beauty and the Beast, Hansel and Gretel, Puss in Boots, Trusty John, Jack the Giantkiller, Goldilocks, and many other favorites that have become an indispensable part of our cultural heritage.

Many years ago Gerard Hernshaw and his friends 'commissioned' one of their number to write a political book. Time passes and opinions change. 'Why should we go on supporting a book which we detest?' Rose Curtland asks. 'The brotherhood of Western intellectuals versus the book of history,' Jenkin Riderhood suggests. The theft of a wife further embroils the situation. Moral indignation must be separated from political disagreement. Tamar Hernshaw has a different trouble and a terrible secret. Can one die of shame? In another quarter a suicide pact seems the solution. Duncan Cambus thinks that, since it is a tragedy, someone must die. Someone dies. Rose, who has gone on loving without hope, at least deserves a reward.

In the Book and Sword, Louis Cha revives the legend about the great eighteenth-century Manchu Emperor Qianlong which claims that he was in fact not a Manchu but a Han Chinese as a result of a "baby swap." The novel is panoramic in scope and includes the fantastical elements for which Cha is well-known: secret societies, kungfu masters, a lost desert city guarded by wolf packs, and the mysterious Fragrant Princess.

***

Like the martial art heroes that he writes about, Louis Cha is a legend in his own time. Better known to his Chinese fans by his pen name of Jin Yong, Cha is the unrivaled giant of the modern martial arts (wuxia) genre. His novels were initially written for serialization in his own Ming Pao newspaper, which was published in Hong Kong. However, they became so popular that they were reprinted in Chinese newspapers around the world. His novels, which total fourteen, were subsequently published in book form. His accomplishment was magnified by the fact that during this time Mainland China was a literary desert because Communist rigidity only allowed publication of titles that conformed to socialist realism, i.e, it had to help build socialist ideals. Definitely, no room for escapist kung fu adventures there.

Alas, in spite of his stature, his works were only accessible to Chinese readers. Although the novels were initially written between 1955 and 1972, it was not until 1997 that the English translation of "The Deer and the Cauldron" was published by Oxford University Press (and that was only the first volume of three!). Although that translation of Cha's last and, many argue, his best novel was excellent, it still left something to be desired because "The Deer and the Cauldron" was not representative of the genre. Therefore, it is with great excitement that we awaited the publication of the "The Book and the Sword", Cha's first novel earlier this year. The novel was initially translated and published on the web by Graham Earnshaw in 2001 but it was picked up by Oxford University Press in 2003 and edited by Rachel May and John Minford. Mindford was the translator for "The Deer and the Cauldron". The book finally became available earlier this year.

"The Book and the Sword" takes place during the reign of Emperor Qian Long (1735-1795) of the Qing dynasty. The Qing dynasty had been founded by the Manchus almost 100 years earlier. By this time the Manchu rulers, whose homeland was in the north east of present day China, had been thoroughly sinicised. Qian Long himself was a great patron and practitioner of Chinese culture. Nevertheless, there were still resistance groups formed by the Han majority. The story follows one of these secret societies, the Red Flower Society, whose members are determined to overthrow the Qing. The members of the society are a colorful bunch of characters, most of whom are men but they also include several women in their ranks (the woman are all beautiful and deadly, of course). The members come from a cross section of the society but have been brought together by their wilingness to risk life and limb to protect the weak and fight for justice. The newly elected leader of the society, Helmsman Chen, is an unlikely hero whose manners and knowledge reveal a priviledged upbringing as the son of a former prime minister. We join the group as they repeatedly fail to free one of their own, Rolling Thunder Wen, who is being escorted to the capital under heavy guard. Rolling Thunder, you see, happens to know about a deadly secret: that the emperor was actually born to a Han family but swapped with a Manchu baby girl. Helmsman Chen discovers this secret himself soon enough and hopes to convince the emperor himself to evict the Manchus. What Chen doesn't know, however, is that the origin of the emperor is related to his own selection as the leader of the Red Flower Society. Much of the action actually takes place in the western border of China in present day Xinjiang, home of the Uighurs, whom Helmsman Chen befriends and helps on various occasions. Since Qian Long was in the process of bringing the Uighur land under his empire, the Uighurs and Chen had a common enemy in the emperor. It is through these relationships with the Uighurs that Chen encounters the book and sword of the title. Although these two items are not directly related to his quest for the Manchu overthrow, they do lead him to two beautiful Uighur sisters and later painful choices between love for a woman and love for country.

Those who have never read a wuxia novel are in for a surprise. Although frequent fight scenes featuring incredible acrobatics, swordmanship, and good old kung fu skills are present as expected, they are really not the most important part of the story. In fact, the book is very much like a typical Hong Kong movie where the movie director has never bothered to decide whether the movie is a comedy or drama, a kung fu spectacular or a tender love story, an uplifting message-filled narrative or horror movie. It is simply all of that and it switches between them at great speed. In this case, "The Book and the Sword" features several romantic pairings between leading characters. A theme central to all wuxia novels, that of loyalty, is tightly woven into the novel. Not just loyalty to the cause but also to the group and to one's kung fu master. The plot moves a mile a minute across various locales throughout China and spends quite a bit of time in the desert of Xinjiang, a area featured quite prominently in the "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Hero" movies. Louis Cha clearly is a student of Chinese history and has interwoven several real life personalities of the time, including the legendary Fragrant Princess, an Uighur girl so enchantingly beautiful that she naturally smelled like flowers. The core of plot itself, that Qian Long was a Han Chinese, is a well-known but unsubstantiated rumor. I only wish that Cha had spent more time describing Qian Long's own struggle with his new found identity. At it is, he seems to be too eager to sweep it under the rug, which seems incongruous with the historical fact that he became a great emperor admired by all Chinese. In contrast, Cha presents Emperor Kang Xi (Qian Long's grandfather) in a more positive light in "The Deer and the Cauldron".

In summary, we strongly recommend "The Book and the Sword" to all readers. The book is about 500 pages long which is much more accessible than the three-volume "The Deer and the Cauldron". The long wait has not been in vain. Now if they would just hurry up and finish translating the other twelve novels. In my lifetime.

A distinguished Shakespearean scholar found tortured to death…

A lost manuscript and its secrets buried for centuries…

An encrypted map that leads to incalculable wealth…

The Washington Post called Michael Gruber's previous work "a miracle of intelligent fiction and among the essential novels of recent years." Now comes his most intellectually provocative and compulsively readable novel yet.

Tap-tapping the keys and out come the words on this little screen, and who will read them I hardly know. I could be dead by the time anyone actually gets to read them, as dead as, say, Tolstoy. Or Shakespeare. Does it matter, when you read, if the person who wrote still lives?

These are the words of Jake Mishkin, whose seemingly innocent job as an intellectual property lawyer has put him at the center of a deadly conspiracy and a chase to find a priceless treasure involving William Shakespeare. As he awaits a killer-or killers-unknown, Jake writes an account of the events that led to this deadly endgame, a frantic chase that began when a fire in an antiquarian bookstore revealed the hiding place of letters containing a shocking secret, concealed for four hundred years. In a frantic race from New York to England and Switzerland, Jake finds himself matching wits with a shadowy figure who seems to anticipate his every move. What at first seems like a thrilling puzzle waiting to be deciphered soon turns into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, where no one-not family, not friends, not lovers-is to be trusted.

Moving between twenty-first-century America and seventeenth-century England, The Book of Air and Shadows is a modern thriller that brilliantly re-creates William Shakespeare's life at the turn of the seventeenth century and combines an ingenious and intricately layered plot with a devastating portrait of a contemporary man on the brink of self-discovery… or self-destruction.

The acclaimed National Book Award finalist — "one of the United States' finest writers," according to Joshua Ferris, "full of wit, humanity, and fearless curiosity" — now gives us a novel that will join the short list of classics about children caught up in the Holocaust.

Aron, the narrator, is an engaging if peculiar and unhappy young boy whose family is driven by the German onslaught from the Polish countryside into Warsaw and slowly battered by deprivation, disease, and persecution. He and a handful of boys and girls risk their lives by scuttling around the ghetto to smuggle and trade contraband through the quarantine walls in hopes of keeping their fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters alive, hunted all the while by blackmailers and by Jewish, Polish, and German police, not to mention the Gestapo.

When his family is finally stripped away from him, Aron is rescued by Janusz Korczak, a doctor renowned throughout prewar Europe as an advocate of children’s rights who, once the Nazis swept in, was put in charge of the Warsaw orphanage. Treblinka awaits them all, but does Aron manage to escape — as his mentor suspected he could — to spread word about the atrocities?

Jim Shepard has masterfully made this child's-eye view of the darkest history mesmerizing, sometimes comic despite all odds, truly heartbreaking, and even inspiring. Anyone who hears Aron's voice will remember it forever.

The Book of Blam, Aleksandar Tišma’s “extended kaddish. . [his] masterpiece” (Kirkus Reviews), is a modern-day retelling of the book of Job. The war is over. Miroslav Blam walks along the former Jew Street, and he remembers. He remembers Aaron Grün, the hunchbacked watchmaker; and Eduard Fiker, a lamp merchant; and Jakob Mentele, a stove fitter; and Arthur Spitzer, a grocer, who played amateur soccer and had non-Jewish friends; and Sándor Vértes, a lawyer who was a Communist. All dead. As are his younger sister and his best friend, a Serb, both of whom joined the resistance movement; and his mother and father in the infamous Novi Sad raid in January 1942—when the Hungarian Arrow Cross executed 1,400 Jews and Serbs on the banks of the Danube and tossed them into the river.

Blam lives. The war he survived will never be over for him.

Are there aliens among us?

Legends tell of battles with strange beings living under the earth, beings whose origins lie beyond the stars.

When Bones Bonebrake is stranded in a small New Mexico town, he comes face-to-face with a local legend and dangerous enemies.

Joined by old friends and new, Bones finds himself caught up in an action-packed search for a lost Native American artifact that may hold the key to unlocking one of the world's most enduring mysteries. Hounded by conspiracy theorists and secret government agencies, he must stay alive long enough to find the Book of Bones!

The story presented here offers an episode dating back to a time before any of the Majipoor novels published so far — a period more than four thousand years before Valentine’s time, more than three thousand years before Prestimion. But its setting is ten thousand years after the time of the first human settlement, and the early history of Majipoor is already becoming legendary.

As Cold War hysteria inflames America, FBI agents knock on the Bronx apartment door of a Communist man and his wife. After a highly controversial trial, the couple go to the electric chair for treason despite worldwide protests. Decades later their son, Daniel, grown to young manhood, tries to make sense of their lives and deaths — and their legacy to him. Like millions of other Americans, he is attempting to reconcile an America based on the highest human ideals with the tragedy of his parents. This is the framework for E.L. Doctorow's dazzling masterpiece, as he fictionalizes an actual social and political drama to create an intensely moving, searching, and illuminating tale of two decades, two generations, and a troubled legacy of passion and purpose, martyrdom and meaning.

The days between Christmas and New Year's Eve are dead days, when spirits roam and magic shifts restlessly just beneath the surface of our lives. A lot can happen in the dead days.

There is a magician called Valerian who must save his own life, or pay the price for the pact he made with evil so many years ago. But alchemy and sorcery are no match against the demonic power pursuing him. Helping him is his servant Boy, a child with no name and no past, given to Valerian by Fate when he fell from his hiding place in an old church. And the quick-witted Willow is with them as they dig in death-fields at midnight, and are swept into the sprawling blackness of a subterranean city on a journey from which there is no escape. Unknown to any of them it is Boy who holds the key to all their destinies. His revelations will be shocking.

Set in dark, dangerous cities and in the frozen countryside of a distant time and place The Book of Dead Days, beautifully evoked and dramatic, conjures a spell-binding story of power, corruption and desperate magic.

The much-anticipated new work from the author of The Golden Compass is here at last!

Renowned storyteller Philip Pullman returns to the parallel world of Lyra Belacqua and His Dark Materials for a thrilling and epic adventure in which daemons, alethiometers, and the Magisterium all play a part.

The Book of Dust will be a work in three parts, like His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass). The book is set ten years before The Golden Compass and centers on the much-loved character Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon.

Philip Pullman offers these tantalizing details: “I’ve always wanted to tell the story of how Lyra came to be living at Jordan College, and in thinking about it, I discovered a long story that began when she was a baby and will end when she’s grown up. This volume and the next will cover two parts of Lyra’s life: starting at the beginning of her story and returning to her twenty years later. As for the third and final part, my lips are sealed.

“So, second: is it a prequel? Is it a sequel? It’s neither. In fact, The Book of Dust is… an ‘equel.' It doesn’t stand before or after His Dark Materials, but beside it. It’s a different story, but there are settings that readers of His Dark Materials will recognize, and characters they’ve met before. Also, of course, there are some characters who are new to us, including an ordinary boy (a boy we have glimpsed in an earlier part of Lyra’s story, if we were paying attention) who, with Lyra, is caught up in a terrifying adventure that takes him into a new world.

“Third: why return to Lyra’s world? Dust. Questions about that mysterious and troubling substance were already causing strife ten years before His Dark Materials, and at the center of The Book of Dust is the struggle between a despotic and totalitarian organization, which wants to stifle speculation and inquiry, and those who believe thought and speech should be free. The idea of Dust suffused His Dark Materials. Little by little through that story the idea of what Dust was became clearer and clearer, but I always wanted to return to it and discover more.”

The Book of Evidence is a 1989 novel by the Irish author John Banville. The book is narrated by Freddie Montgomery, a 38 year old scientist, who murders a servant girl during an attempt to steal a painting from a neighbor. Freddie is an aimless drifter, and though he is a perceptive observer of himself and his surroundings, he is largely amoral. The end of the novel makes it unclear whether anything Freddie has said is true. When asked by the inspector how much of it is true, Freddie responds, "True, Inspector? All of it. None of it. Only the shame." The Book of Evidence won Ireland 's Guinness Peat Aviation Award in 1989, and was short-listed for Britain 's Booker Prize. In reviewing the book, Publishers Weekly compared Banville's writing to that of Albert Camus and Fyodor Dostoevsky. The writing style continues Banville's attempt to give his prose "the kind of denseness and thickness that poetry has".

Twelve men – running in direct line line from father to eldest son, who in turn becomes a father – are the heroes of this wonderful family saga which runs over 300 years' panorama of Hungarian life and history. Each man also passes to his son certain unusual gifts: the ability to see the past, and in some cases to see the future too. The fathers also pass on a book in which they have left a personal record ('The Book of Fathers'). The reader is swept along by the narrative brilliance of Vamos' story. Some of his heroes are lucky, live long and are good at their trade; some are unlucky failures and their lives are cut short. Some are happily married, some have unhappy marriages – and the ability to see into the future is often a poisoned chalice. An extraordinary and brilliant generational saga, THE BOOK OF FATHERS is set to become a European classic.

Having become free, you will see fetters of others. Trying to remove these fetters, you will create hatred. Fetters can be broken only by those realized them.

Truly free is reasonable, yet not clever.

Truly free is innocent, yet not a child.

Truly free is capable to trust, but himself.

Truly free has no dreams.

Truly free is free to aid sleeping ones awake.

Such is the truly free one.

Having become free, you will see fetters of others. Trying to remove these fetters, you will create hatred. Fetters can be broken only by those realized them.

Truly free is reasonable, yet not clever.

Truly free is innocent, yet not a child.

Truly free is capable to trust, but himself.

Truly free has no dreams.

Truly free is free to aid sleeping ones awake.

Such is the truly free one.

The 25 Most Anticipated Books by Women for 2017, Elle Magazine

The 32 Most Exciting Books Coming Out in 2017, BuzzFeed

50 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2017, Nylon Magazine

33 New Books to Read in 2017, The Huffington Post

Most Anticipated, The Great 2017 Book Preview, The Millions

The bestselling author of The Small Backs of Children offers a vision of our near-extinction and a heroine—a reimagined Joan of Arc—poised to save a world ravaged by war, violence, and greed, and forever change history, in this provocative new novel.

In the near future, world wars have transformed the earth into a battleground. Fleeing the unending violence and the planet’s now-radioactive surface, humans have regrouped to a mysterious platform known as CIEL, hovering over their erstwhile home. The changed world has turned evolution on its head: the surviving humans have become sexless, hairless, pale-white creatures floating in isolation, inscribing stories upon their skin.

Out of the ranks of the endless wars rises Jean de Men, a charismatic and bloodthirsty cult leader who turns CIEL into a quasi-corporate police state. A group of rebels unite to dismantle his iron rule—galvanized by the heroic song of Joan, a child-warrior who possesses a mysterious force that lives within her and communes with the earth. When de Men and his armies turn Joan into a martyr, the consequences are astonishing. And no one—not the rebels, Jean de Men, or even Joan herself—can foresee the way her story and unique gift will forge the destiny of an entire world for generations.

A riveting tale of destruction and love found in the direst of places—even at the extreme end of post-human experience—Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Book of Joan raises questions about what it means to be human, the fluidity of sex and gender, and the role of art as a means for survival.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srhheY5ISJ4

An omnibus of novels: The Notebook – The Proof – The Third Lie

These three internationally acclaimed novels have confirmed Agota Kristof's reputation as one of the most provocative exponents of new-wave European fiction. With all the stark simplicity of a fractured fairy tale, the trilogy tells the story of twin brothers, Claus and Lucas, locked in an agonizing bond that becomes a gripping allegory of the forces that have divided "brothers" in much of Europe since World War II. Kristof's postmodern saga begins with The Notebook, in which the brothers are children, lost in a country torn apart by conflict, who must learn every trick of evil and cruelty merely to survive. In The Proof, Lucas is challenging to prove his own identity and the existence of his missing brother, a defector to the "other side." The Third Lie, which closes the trilogy, is a biting parable of Eastern and Western Europe today and a deep exploration into the nature of identity, storytelling, and the truths and untruths that lie at the heart of them all. "Stark and haunting." – The San Francisco Chronicle; "A vision of considerable depth and complexity, a powerful portrait of the nobility and perversity of the human heart." – The Christian Science Monitor.

A sweeping and suspenseful tale of secrets, intrigue, and lovers separated by time, all connected through the mystical qualities of a perfume created in the days of Cleopatra-and lost for 2,000 years.

Jac L'Etoile has always been haunted by the past, her memories infused with the exotic scents that she grew up surrounded by as the heir to a storied French perfume company. In order to flee the pain of those remembrances-and of her mother's suicide-she moved to America. Now, fourteen years later she and her brother have inherited the company along with it's financial problems. But when Robbie hints at an earth-shattering discovery in the family archives and then suddenly goes missing-leaving a dead body in his wake-Jac is plunged into a world she thought she'd left behind.

Back in Paris to investigate her brother's disappearance, Jac becomes haunted by the legend the House of L'Etoile has been espousing since 1799. Is there a scent that can unlock the mystery of reincarnation – or is it just another dream infused perfume?

The Book of Lost Fragrances fuses history, passion, and suspense, moving from Cleopatra's Egypt and the terrors of revolutionary France to Tibet's battle with China and the glamour of modern-day Paris. Jac's quest for the ancient perfume someone is willing to kill for becomes the key to understanding her own troubled past.

New York Times bestselling author John Connolly’s unique imagination takes readers through the end of innocence into adulthood and beyond in this dark and triumphantly creative novel of grief and loss, loyalty and love, and the redemptive power of stories.

High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the death of his mother. He is angry and alone, with only the books on his shelf for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness, and as he takes refuge in his imagination, he finds that reality and fantasy have begun to meld. While his family falls apart around him, David is violently propelled into a land that is a strange reflection of his own world, populated by heroes and monsters, and ruled over by a faded king who keeps his secrets in a mysterious book . . . The Book of Lost Things.

An imaginative tribute to the journey we must all make through the loss of innocence into adulthood, John Connolly’s latest novel is a book for every adult who can recall the moment when childhood began to fade, and for every adult about to face that moment. The Book of Lost Things is a story of hope for all who have lost, and for all who have yet to lose. It is an exhilarating tale that reminds us of the enduring power of stories in our lives.

The story you have asked me to tell begins not with the ignominious ugliness of Lloyd's death but on a long-ago day in April when the sun seared my blistered face and I was nine years old and my father and mother sold me to a strange man. I say my father and my mother, but really it was just my mother.

Memory, the narrator of The Book of Memory, is an albino woman languishing in Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison in Harare, Zimbabwe, where she has been convicted of murder. As part of her appeal her lawyer insists that she write down what happened as she remembers it. The death penalty is a mandatory sentence for murder, and Memory is, both literally and metaphorically, writing for her life. As her story unfolds, Memory reveals that she has been tried and convicted for the murder of Lloyd Hendricks, her adopted father.

But who was Lloyd Hendricks? Why does Memory feel no remorse for his death? And did everything happen exactly as she remembers? Moving between the townships of the poor and the suburbs of the rich, and between the past and the present, Memory weaves a compelling tale of love, obsession, the relentlessness of fate and the treachery of memory.

A gripping tale of revenge and rivalry from the author of The Oxford Murders

Argentinean author Guillermo Martínez's work appeals to fans of both literary fiction and mysteries. Now, with this new tale of psychological suspense, Martínez is poised to expand on the success of The Oxford Murders.

The narrator is an up-and-coming young writer who has little in common with Kloster – a literary giant whose disturbing crime novels dominate the bestseller lists. However, they have both, at one time, employed the secretarial services of the alluring Luciana B. Out of the past, Luciana makes a desperate plea to the young writer. She thinks that Kloster is slowly killing off everyone close to her – can he help before her grandmother and younger sister are murdered?

While the narrator suspects her misfortunes have driven her mad, Kloster has a powerful motive; and eerie parallels surface between the murders in Kloster's books and the real-life deaths surrounding Luciana. As the body count multiplies, the question arises: Can words really kill? Fans of both Alfred Hitchcock and Carlos Ruiz Zafón will be thrilled with Martínez's literary murder mystery.

Epic fantasy about a group of super-intelligent cats. Rhiow appears to be a pampered New York pet cat, but in reality she is a wizard, working alongside human beings and other animals to protect the world from the forces of darkness, which are attacking the city via the underground tunnels.

The Book of Night Women is a sweeping, startling novel, a true tour de force of both voice and storytelling. It is the story of Lilith, born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the eighteenth century. Even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that they and she will come to both revere and fear.

The Night Women, as they call themselves, have long been plotting a slave revolt, and as Lilith comes of age and reveals the extent of her power, they see her as the key to their plans. But when she begins to understand her own feelings and desires and identity, Lilith starts to push at the edges of what is imaginable for the life of a slave woman in Jamaica, and risks becoming the conspiracy's weak link.

Lilith's story overflows with high drama and heartbreak, and life on the plantation is rife with dangerous secrets, unspoken jealousies, inhuman violence, and very human emotion between slave and master, between slave and overseer, and among the slaves themselves. Lilith finds herself at the heart of it all. And all of it told in one of the boldest literary voices to grace the page recently-and the secret of that voice is one of the book's most intriguing mysteries.

An anthology of stories edited by Zadie Smith

A stellar host of writers explore the cornerstone of fiction writing: character

The Book of Other People is about character. Twenty-five or so outstanding writers have been asked by Zadie Smith to make up a fictional character. By any measure, creating character is at the heart of the fictional enterprise, and this book concentrates on writers who share a talent for making something recognizably human out of words (and, in the case of the graphic novelists, pictures). But the purpose of the book is variety: straight "realism"-if such a thing exists-is not the point. There are as many ways to create character as there are writers, and this anthology features a rich assortment of exceptional examples.

The writers featured in The Book of Other People include:

Aleksandar Hemon

Nick Hornby

Hari Kunzru

Toby Litt

David Mitchell

George Saunders

Colm Tóibín

Chris Ware, and more.

In a snowbound village in the German mountains, a young woman discovers an extraordinary secret. Before she can reveal it, she disappears. All that survives is a picture of a mysterious medieval playing card that has perplexed scholars for centuries. Nick Ash does research for the FBI in New York. Six months ago his girlfriend Gillian walked out and broke his heart. Now he's the only person who can save her – if it's not too late. Within hours of getting her message, Nick finds himself on the run, delving deep into the past before it catches up with him. Hunted across Europe, Nick follows Gillian's trail into the heart of a five-hundred-year-old mystery. But across the centuries, powerful forces are closing around him. There are men who have devoted their lives to keeping the secret, and they will stop at nothing to protect it.

The book's seven linked novellas offer readers a disturbingly brilliant take on topics like rape, incest, S&M, impotence, and voyeurism, and explore links between sexual and political deviance. In I Love My Mum, a disabled man who is in an incestuous relationship with his mother, at her demand and using a whip she provides, beats her to death. In Bin Laden's Kidney, a resident of an exclusive gated community indulges in voyeuristic fantasies about the sex life of his neighbours. In Going To Heaven, the young son of a village undertaker tries to convince his friend to enter a suicide pact. At the top of the banned list in China, The Book of Sins is an unforgettable journey to the dark side of the human psyche.

Four students discover a manuscript, The Book of Skulls, which reveals the existence of a sect, now living in the Arizona desert, whose members can offer immortality to those who can complete its initiation rite. To their surprise, they discover that the sect exists, and is willing to accept them as acolytes. But for each group of four who enter the rite, two must die in order for the others to succeed.

Ann Blake, a rare-book expert and conservator, was imprisoned for a drunk-driving accident that she doesn't remember, one that resulted in the death of her husband, a famous rare-book expert. But she is freed from prison by CIA undercover agent Tucker Anderson in exchange for her help and expertise on the Library of Gold, a legendary collection of books that have been lost to the world for over a century. Sent to an exhibit on the Library of Gold at the British Museum, Ann sees the one person she never expected to see again: her dead husband, Charles. After Charles first flees, then tries to kill her, Ann finds herself in the midst of several powerful, secret forces who either want her dead or want to use her to find the Library of Gold. The only person unequivocably on her side is Matt Kelly, who is seeking the people responsible for his father's death.

It begins with Peter, a devoted man of faith, as he is called to the mission of a lifetime, one that takes him galaxies away from his wife, Bea. Peter becomes immersed in the mysteries of an astonishing new environment, overseen by an enigmatic corporation known only as USIC. His work introduces him to a seemingly friendly native population struggling with a dangerous illness and hungry for Peter’s teachings — his Bible is their “book of strange new things.” But Peter is rattled when Bea’s letters from home become increasingly desperate: typhoons and earthquakes are devastating whole countries, and governments are crumbling. Bea’s faith, once the guiding light of their lives, begins to falter.

Suddenly, a separation measured by an otherworldly distance, and defined both by one newly discovered world and another in a state of collapse, is threatened by an ever-widening gulf that is much less quantifiable. While Peter is reconciling the needs of his congregation with the desires of his strange employer, Bea is struggling for survival. Their trials lay bare a profound meditation on faith, love tested beyond endurance, and our responsibility to those closest to us.

Marked by the same bravura storytelling and precise language that made The Crimson Petal and the White such an international success, The Book of Strange New Things is extraordinary, mesmerizing, and replete with emotional complexity and genuine pathos.

The New York Museum of Natural History receives their pilfered gem collection back…ground down to dust. Diogenes, the psychotic killer who stole them in Dance of Death, is throwing down the gauntlet to both the city and to his brother, FBI Agent Pendergast, who is currently incarcerated in a maximum security prison. To quell the PR nightmare of the gem fiasco, the museum decides to reopen the Tomb of Senef. An astounding Egyptian temple, it was a popular museum exhibit until the 1930s, when it was quietly closed. But when the tomb is unsealed in preparation for its gala reopening, the killings-and whispers of an ancient curse-begin again. And the catastrophic opening itself sets the stage for the final battle between the two brothers: an epic clash from which only one will emerge alive.

The team behind the New York Times bestseller The Book of General Ignorance turns conventional biography on its head—and shakes out the good stuff.

Following their Herculean—or is it Sisyphean?—efforts to save the living from ignorance, the two wittiest Johns in the English language turn their attention to the dead.

As the authors themselves say, “The first thing that strikes you about the Dead is just how many of them there are.” Helpfully, Lloyd and Mitchinson have employed a simple—but ruthless—criterion for inclusion: the dead person has to be interesting.

Here, then, is a dictionary of the dead, an encyclopedia of the embalmed. Ludicrous in scope, whimsical in its arrangement, this wildly entertaining tome presents pithy and provocative biographies of the no-longer-living from the famous to the undeservedly and—until now—permanently obscure. Spades in hand, Lloyd and Mitchinson have dug up everything embarrassing, fascinating, and downright weird about their subjects’ lives and added their own uniquely irreverent observations.

Organized by capricious categories—such as dead people who died virgins, who kept pet monkeys, who lost limbs, whose corpses refused to stay put—the dearly departed, from the inventor of the stove to a cross-dressing, bear-baiting female gangster finally receive the epitaphs they truly deserve.

Discover:

• Why Freud had a lifelong fear of trains

• The one thing that really made Isaac Newton laugh

• How Catherine the Great really died (no horse was involved)

Much like the country doctor who cured smallpox (he’s in here), Lloyd and Mitchinson have the perfect antidote for anyone out there dying of boredom. The Book of the Dead—like life itself—is hilarious, tragic, bizarre, and amazing. You may never pass a graveyard again without chuckling.

“The Book of the New Sun”, by Gene Wolfe.

Omnibus edition.

Being a dramatization (as he claimed) of certain parts of the lost Book of the New Sun

The apocalypse will be asymmetrical.

In the aftermath of a plague that has decimated the world population, the unnamed midwife confronts a new reality in which there may be no place for her. Indeed, there may be no place for any woman except at the end of a chain. A radical rearrangement is underway. With one woman left for every ten men, the landscape that the midwife travels is fraught with danger. She must reach safety— but is it safer to go it alone or take a chance on humanity? The friends she makes along the way will force her to choose what’s more important. Civilization stirs from the ruins, taking new and experimental forms. The midwife must help a new world come into being, but birth is always dangerous… and what comes of it is beyond anyone’s control.

Recounts valorous and humorous tales of Taran, the Assistant Pig-Keeper, who determines to save the kingdom of Prydain from evil.

Tamara Goodwin has always got everything she’s ever wanted. Born into a family of wealth, she grew up in a mansion with its own private beach, a wardrobe full of designer clothes, and a large four poster bed complete with a luxurious bathroom en suite. She’s always lived in the here and now, never giving a second thought to tomorrow.

But then suddenly her dad is gone and life for Tamara and her mother changes forever. Left with a mountain of debt, they have no choice but to sell everything they own and move to the country to live with Tamara’s Uncle and Aunt. Nestled next to Kilsaney Castle, their gate house is a world away from Tamara’s childhood. With her Mother shut away with grief, and her Aunt busy tending to her, Tamara is lonely and bored and longs to return to Dublin.

When a travelling library passes through Kilsaney Demesne, Tamara is intrigued. She needs a distraction. Her eyes rest on a mysterious large leather bound tome locked with a gold clasp and padlock. With some help, Tamara finally manages to open the book. What she discovers within the pages takes her breath away and shakes her world to its core…

It is 1939. Nazi Germany.

The country is holding its breath.

Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.

Liesel Meminger finds her life changed when she unearths a single object from the snow. It is The Grave Digger’s Handbook, left there by accident at her brother’s funeral, and it is her first act of book thievery.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel’s foster family hides a Jewish man in their basement, Liesel’s world is both opened up and closed down.

In superbly crafted prose that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

in which our narrator introduces:

himself—the colors—and the book thief

featuring:

himmel street—the art of saumensching—an ironfisted

woman—a kiss attempt—jesse owens—

sandpaper—the smell of friendship—a heavyweight

champion—and the mother of all watschens

featuring:

a girl made of darkness—the joy of cigarettes

—a town walker—some dead letters—hitler’s birthday—

100 percent pure german sweat—the gates of thievery—

and a book of fire

featuring:

the way home—a broken woman—a struggler—

a juggler—the attributes of summer—

an aryan shopkeeper—a snorer—two tricksters—

and revenge in the shape of mixed candy

featuring:

the accordionist—a promise keeper—a good girl—

a jewish fist fighter—the wrath of rosa—a lecture—

a sleeper—the swapping of nightmares—

and some pages from the basement

featuring:

a floating book—the gamblers—a small ghost—

two haircuts—rudy’s youth—losers and sketches—

a whistler and some shoes—three acts of stupidity—

and a frightened boy with frozen legs

featuring:

death’s diary—the snowman—thirteen

presents—the next book—the nightmare of

a jewish corpse—a newspaper sky—a visitor—

a schmunzeler—and a final kiss on poisoned cheeks

featuring:

champagne and accordions—

a trilogy—some sirens—a sky

stealer—an offer—the long

walk to dachau—peace—

an idiot and some coat men

featuring:

dominoes and darkness—the thought of

rudy naked—punishment—a promise keeper’s

wife—a collector—the bread eaters—

a candle in the trees—a hidden sketchbook—

and the anarchist’s suit collection

featuring:

the next temptation—a cardplayer—

the snows of stalingrad—an ageless

brother—an accident—the bitter taste

of questions—a toolbox, a bleeder,

a bear—a broken plane—

and a homecoming

featuring:

the end of a world—the ninety-eighth day—

a war maker—way of the words—a catatonic girl—

confessions—ilsa hermann’s little black book—

some rib-cage planes—and a mountain range of rubble

featuring:

death and liesel—some

wooden tears—max—

and the handover man

The stories in this Fairy Book come from all quarters of the world. For example, the adventures of 'Ball-Carrier and the Bad One' are told by Red Indian grandmothers to Red Indian children who never go to school, nor see pen and ink. 'The Bunyip' is known to even more uneducated little ones, running about with no clothes at all in the bush, in Australia. You may see photographs of these merry little black fellows before their troubles begin, in 'Northern Races of Central Australia,' by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. They have no lessons except in tracking and catching birds, beasts, fishes, lizards, and snakes, all of which they eat. But when they grow up to be big boys and girls, they are cruelly cut about with stone knives and frightened with sham bogies all for their good' their parents say and I think they would rather go to school, if they had their choice, and take their chance of being birched and bullied. However, many boys might think it better fun to begin to learn hunting as soon as they can walk. Other stories, like 'The Sacred Milk of Koumongoe,' come from the Kaffirs in Africa, whose dear papas are not so poor as those in Australia, but have plenty of cattle and milk, and good mealies to eat, and live in houses like very big bee-hives, and wear clothes of a sort, though not very like our own.

The Adventure of the Illustrious Client

The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier

The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone

The Adventure of the Three Gables

The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire

The Adventure of the Three Garridebs

The Problem of Thor Bridge

The Adventure of the Creeping Man

The Adventure of the Lion's Mane

The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger

The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place

The Adventure of the Retired Colorman

Each Fairy Book demands a preface from the Editor, and these introductions are inevitably both mono-tonous and unavailing. A sense of literary honesty compels the Editor to keep repeating that he is the Editor, and not the author of the Fairy Tales, just as a distinguished man of science is only the Editor, not the Author of Nature. Like nature, popular tales are too vast to be the creation of a single modern mind.

The Editor's business is to hunt for collections of these stories told by peasant or savage grandmothers in many climes, from New Caledonia to Zululand; from the frozen snows of the Polar regions to Greece, or Spain, or Italy, or far Lochaber. When the tales are found they are adapted to the needs of British children by various hands, the Editor doing little beyond guarding the interests of propriety, and toning down to mild reproofs the tortures inflicted on wicked step-mothers, and other naughty characters.

Disgruntled, disheveled, fish-out-of-water mobile librarian Israel Armstrong is finally going home to London, rattling along with his irascible companion Ted Carson in their rust bucket book van en route to the Mobile Meet. The annual library convention gives Israel the opportunity to catch up with his family, eat paprika chicken and baklava, and drink good coffee. But they've barely found parking when the unimaginable occurs: their library-on-wheels is stolen!

Who on earth would want to take a thirty-year-old traveling disaster with the words "The Book Stops Here" painted across the back? Israel and Ted are determined to find out. But their search is leading them on a very twisty trail through the countryside in pursuit of a suspicious convoy of New Age travelers. And the hunt is raising numerous troubling questions – such as where exactly is Israel's high-flying girlfriend, Gloria? And is Ted really making a move on Israel's widowed mother?

THE END IS JUST THE BEGINNING

It started like any other day…

Jackson Thorne just wants to get home. With a flu epidemic sweeping the nation, his ranch is the only place he wants to be. Jack is trying to do the right thing. One more day in Atlanta, and Jack is home free.

By the time it’s over, nothing will ever be the same…

But things never go according to plan.

Something is happening. People are changing, and what should have been a routine trip ends with Jack fighting for his life against the dead.

Now saddled with a civilian and with no way to get home, Jack has to find a way out of a city that has fallen into a world that might be next…

From the authors of the instant New York Times bestseller The Strain comes the next volume in one of the most imaginative and frightening thriller series in many, many years Last week they invaded Manhattan. This week they will destroy the world.

The vampiric virus unleashed in The Strain has taken over New York City. It is spreading and soon will envelop the globe. Amid the chaos, Eph Goodweather — head of the Centers for Disease Control's team — leads a band out to stop these bloodthirsty monsters. But it may be too late.

Ignited by the Master's horrific plan, a war erupts between Old and New World vampires, each vying for control. At the center of the conflict lies a book, an ancient text that contains the vampires' entire history. . and their darkest secrets. Whoever finds the book can control the outcome of the war and, ultimately, the fate of us all. And it is between these warring forces that humans — powerless and vulnerable — find themselves no longer the consumers but the consumed. Though Eph understands the vampiric plague better than anyone, even he cannot protect those he loves. His ex-wife, Kelly, has been transformed into a bloodcrazed creature of the night, and now she stalks the city looking for her chance to reclaim her Dear One: Zack, Eph's young son.

With the future of humankind in the balance, Eph and his team, guided by the brilliant former professor and Holocaust survivor Abraham Setrakian and exterminator Vasiliy Fet and joined by a crew of ragtag gangsters, must combat a terror whose ultimate plan is more terrible than anyone has imagined — a fate worse than annihilation.

Мечи эти были выкованы на безжизненной, исхлестанной ветрами горной вершине, в огне, добытом из чрева земли, из металла, упавшего с неба. Их закалила в человеческом поту и человеческой крови рука Вулкана, Бога-Кузнеца. Было Двенадцать Мечей, созданных, как орудия затеянной богами прихотливой игры. Каждый Меч был наделен удивительной силой — побеждать в битве, или умерщвлять еще более страшными средствами… отводить врагу глаза или убивать его душу… даровать неизменную удачу или исцелять…

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy.

He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead.

There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy-an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to a desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer.

But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack—who has already killed Bod's family. . . .

Beloved master storyteller Neil Gaiman returns with a luminous new novel for the audience that embraced his New York Times bestselling modern classic Coraline. Magical, terrifying, and filled with breathtaking adventures, the graveyard book is sure to enthrall readers of all ages.

The Complete Amber Chronicles, 1-10

A book written by the Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi, first published in 1975, outlining his views on democracy and his political philosophy.

British spelling.

The Green Fairy Book, the third in Andrew Lang's Coloured Fairy Book series, was originally published in 1892. The collections were specifically intended for children, and consequently edited for that end. When Andrew began publishing these books there were almost no English fairy tale books in circulation. The series proved of great influence in children's literature, and inspired a host of imitators.

The series also proved to be an inspiration to J.R. Tolken and his Middle-Earth collection of novels.

The stories, as usual, illustrate the method of popular fiction. A certain number of incidents are shaken into many varying combinations, like the fragments of coloured glass in the kaleidoscope. Probably the possible combinations, like possible musical combinations, are not unlimited in number, but children may be less sensitive in the matter of fairies than Mr. John Stuart Mill was as regards music.

The History of Rome by Theodor Mommsen, translated by William Purdie Dickson

The History of Rome by Theodor Mommsen, translated by William Purdie Dickson

The History of Rome by Theodor Mommsen, translated by William Purdie Dickson

The History of Rome by Theodor Mommsen, translated by William Purdie Dickson

The twelfth in Andrew Lang's Fairy Book series containing 33 tales from Portugal, Ireland, Wales and points East and West, among them "The Brown Bear of Norway," "The Enchanted Deer," "The Story of a Very Bad Boy," and "The Brownie of the Lake".

First published in 1910 and includes 51 illustrations.

Men commit 80 % of all violent crimes and are twice as likely to become the victims of aggressive behavior. The Little Black Book of Violence is written for men ages 15 to 35, and contains more than mere self-defense techniques. This book provides crucial information about street survival that most martial arts instructors don't even know about. Kane and Wilder explain how to use awareness, avoidance, and de-escalation to help stave off violence.

Review

“An exceptionally modest title for a volume so comprehensive. Kane and Wilder maintain an engaging, readable, and occasionally humorous style that makes the book not just incredibly useful, but hard to put down as well.”

—Barry Eisler, internationally bestselling author of the John Rain series, shodan in Kodokan judo.

Product Description

The Little Black Book of Violence will arm you with the knowledge and good sense to make informed choices in hazardous situations. While some yahoo spewing insults about your favorite sports team is worlds apart from a drug-crazed lunatic lunging at you with a sharp knife in his hands and bloodlust in his eyes, there is a large gray area in between these two extremes where hard and fast rules do not always apply. This is where wisdom, oftentimes hard-earned wisdom, makes the difference between good decisions and bad ones.

Every time you engage in violence, no matter how small or trivial it may appear to be at the time, it has the potential of escalating into something extraordinarily serious. What is really worth fighting for when you might find yourself spending the rest of your life behind bars, confined to a wheelchair, or trying to dig yourself out of bankruptcy from beneath the crushing weight of a civil lawsuit? It is important to ask yourself, “Is this really worth fighting over?” While in some instances the response could legitimately be “Yes,” more often than not it ought to be “No.”

More than mere techniques, this book fills in crucial information about street survival that most martial arts instructors don't teach or even know. You will learn how to use awareness, avoidance, and de-escalation to help stave off violence. Despite the best intentions, however, you may still find yourself in situations where you have no choice but to fight and others where it is prudent to do so. Consequently you will also learn smart things you might want to try and dumb things you should attempt to avoid during a physical confrontation.

In addition to learning strategies and techniques for defending yourself on the street you will also learn how to manage the aftermath of violence, including performing first aid, interacting with law enforcement, managing witnesses, finding a good attorney, navigating the legal system, dealing with the press, and overcoming psychological trauma.

Men, who commit about 80 percent of all violent crimes, are twice as likely to become victims of aggressive behavior as women. While written primarily for this at-risk demographic, this comprehensive tome is essential reading for anyone who regularly deals with violence, thinks they may encounter a hostile situation, or who simply wants to increase their ability to survive a dangerous encounter.

They say: This little book contains the core teachings on Buddhism by His Holiness The Dalai Lama, one of the greatest spiritual leaders of our time.

These thought-provoking quotations about the importance of love and compassion, and the need for individual responsibility, fuse ancient wisdom with the awareness of the problems of everyday life.

During China's Great Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, the famous "Little Red Book", officially known as Quotations of Chairman Mao Zedong, was a must-have item for the Chinese. It is estimated that during those years altogether 5 billion copies of the collected Mao sayings were printed, which came in 500 different editions and 50 languages. Back then, the total world population was about 3 billion. So there was more than one and half a copy of the little red book for every inhabitant on earth.

During China's Great Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, the famous "Little Red Book", officially known as Quotations of Chairman Mao Zedong, was a must-have item for the Chinese. It is estimated that during those years altogether 5 billion copies of the collected Mao sayings were printed, which came in 500 different editions and 50 languages. Back then, the total world population was about 3 billion. So there was more than one and half a copy of the little red book for every inhabitant on earth.

More than just a travel memoir, this book is a behind-the-scenes glimpse inside the antique book trade. Hurdling from one anecdote to the next, Bill Rees regales readers with his many adventures selling valuable books. From finding a first edition on a Parisian pub shelf to opening a store in Paris and trading rare titles with big names like Ian McEwan and Alan Sillitoe, this account is packed with amusing narrative. Driven by the joys and trials of the author’s literary pursuit, the landscape of this quirky journey ranges from a small bookshop in Montpelier to a private library in Morocco, while the life path and story presented are a one-of-a-kind find.

A superb collection of the year's most outstanding short crime fiction published in the UK. Jakubowski has succeeded, as ever, in showcasing the impressive breadth of crime writing, from cosy tales of detection to noir mayhem and psychological suspense and terror. There are puzzles to solve, nagging questions about the nature of the society in which we live, but, above all, there is an abundance of first-class entertainment. Last year saw a sixth Crime Writers Association Dagger award for the series – shared between Margaret Murphy and Cath Staincliffe – and an Edgar award for Peter Turnbull. All three award-winning stories are included in this volume. Lee Child makes his debut and there is a first story from Neil Gaiman, too, in Sherlockian rather than fantastical mode. Return offenders include Ann Cleeves, Phil Lovesey and Ruth Rendell, among many other familiar names. There are a number of newcomers to the series, too, including Nina Allan, Joel Lane and Lisa Tuttle.

An anthology of stories edited by Maxim Jakubowski

Leading crime critic Maxim Jakubowski presents this year's must-have collection of British crime fiction. This latest volume of the acclaimed annual collection presents over 20 short stories of murder mystery, selected from the very cream of new British crime fiction. Contributors include Lee Child, Colin Dexter, Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, Len Deighton, John Harvey, and many more. This is an ideal present for anyone who has ever enjoyed a good murder-mystery. A page-turning compendium of British talent to capture the imagination of readers around the world.

Thirty-five short stories from the top names in British crime fiction, by the likes of Lee Child, Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith, Jake Arnott, Val McDermid, and more.

This edition of Maxim Jakubowski’s Best New Erotica series auspiciously appears with a new collection of fiction from forty-eight artisans of the sensual. Selected from stories by more than 4,000 authors of erotica from around the world, these artful excursions into the libido represent the current states of desire in Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, and France. In this third new volume of voluptuary pursuits, tales by popular talents in the arts of titillation like Michel Faber, Michael Crawley, M. Christian, O’Neil De Noux, Alison Tyler, and Cara Bruce stand alongside stories from promising newcomers to the field of erotic fiction. All of them nonetheless share a standard of excellence and elegance that takes their often humorous, sometimes dark, and always original fictions far beyond tired conventions. So it is that John Grant presents “The Adventures of Thomas the Rock Star in the Court of the Queen of Faery,” while Cheyenne Blue depicts the misadventures of a city girl in “Cactus Ass.” Then, too, there’s Dawn O’Hara’s “London Derrière.” Claire Tristram serves up “Tomatoes: A Love Story in Three Parts” while Susannah Indigo offers the combination of “Bacon, Lola and Tomato,” as Mark Ramsden relishes what’s “Truly Scrumptious.”

Going ten years strong, the acclaimed collection of contemporary horror fiction again showcases the talents of the finest writers working the field of fear. Along with his annual review of the year in horror, award-winning editor Stephen Jones has chosen the year's best stories by the old masters and new voices alike. — The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 10 includes bloodcurdlers and flesh-crawlers from Ramsey Campbell, Neil Gaiman, Dennis Etchison, Thomas Ligotti, Michael Marshall Smith, Peter Straub, Kim Newman, Harlan Ellison, and many others.

Number 13 — lucky for horror fans! This award-winning anthology series has now reached its thirteenth spectacular volume and to mark the event, Steve Jones has chosen only the very best short stories and novellas by today's finest exponents of the horror genre. Contributors to this volume include: Gala Blau, Ramsey Campbell, Dennis Etchison, Charles Grant, Glen Hirshberg, Chico Kidd, Nancy Kilpatrick, Paul J. McAuley, Conrad Williams. Also featuring the most comprehensive overview of the year, a fascinating necrology and a list of useful contacts, this is the one book that all lovers of the supernatural and psychological terror will want on their shelves.

This new volume of the world's most acclaimed Year's Best Horror series includes a masterful selection of the finest supernatural short stories and terrifying novellas from many of the biggest names and most exciting newcomers currently working in the genre. This is the very best of new short stories and novellas by today's masters of the macabre. Contributors include such names as Neil Gaiman, Michael Marshall Smith, Ramsey Campbell, Kim Newman and Glen Hirshberg. This is required reading for any fan of ghoulish fiction.

Winner of the 2009 British Fantasy Award.

The Mammoth Book of Conspiracies uncovers 100 cover-ups “they” really don't want you to know about. This collection delves into some of the biggest lies in history.

Jon E. Lewis is a historian and writer, whose books on history and military history are sold worldwide. He is also the editor of many The Mammoth Book of anthologies, including the best-selling Cover-Ups.

The Assassination of JFK, 9/11, the Da Vinci Code, The Death of Diana, Men in Black, Pearl Harbor, The Illuminati, Protocols of Zion, Hess, The Bilderberg Group, New World Order, Elvis, Fluoridization, Martin Luther King s murder, Opus Dei, The Gemstone Files, John Paul I, Dead Sea Scrolls, Lockerbie bombing, Black helicopters. In other words everything they never wanted you to know and were afraid you might ask!

Jon E. Lewis explores the 100 most terrifying cover-ups of all time, from the invention of Jesus divinity (pace the Da Vinci Code) to Bush's and Blair's real agenda in invading Iraq. Entertainingly written and closely documented, the book provides each cover-up with a plausibility rating. Uncover why the Titanic sank, ponder the sinister Vatican/Mafia network that plotted the assassination of liberal John Paul, find out why NASA lost its files on Mars, read why no-one enters Area 51, and consider why medical supplies were already on site at Edgware Road before the 7/7 bombs detonated. Just because you are paranoid, it doesn't mean that they aren't out to conspire against you.

This outstanding anthology of original stories — from both established award-winning authors and exciting new voices — collects tales of cosmic horror inspired by Lovecraft from authors who do not merely imitate, but reimagine, re-energize, and renew the best of his concepts in ways relevant to today’s readers, to create fresh new fiction that explores our modern fears and nightmares. From the depths of R’lyeh to the heights of the Mountains of Madness, some of today’s best weird fiction writers traverse terrain created by Lovecraft and create new eldritch geographies to explore . . .

From Ancient Rome through thirteenth-century Venice to 1930s' New York, twelve compelling historical crime stories.

Here in one marvellous volume, is the cream of erotic writing from all the corners of the globe. Maxim Jakubowski has gathered together unexpurgated delights, new and unpublished gems, and classic masterpieces seldom seen before.

Come play in a garden of exotic and erotic writing, with origins ranging from France and Germany to Japan and New Zealand, from Russia to the United States and Canada.

Reason to be afraid—over 50 unsolved cases of serial murder. Fact: murderers and serial killers do not always get caught. Behind every headline of a newsworthy conviction lie other cases of vicious murderers who got away, and who remain somewhere among us. Here in one giant volume are more than 50 of the most serious serial killings and other murder cases that continue to remain unsolved.

The cases covered in this alarming book include: Argentina’s crazed highway killer, responsible for mutilating and killing at least five people since 1997 and dumping their bodies along remote highways The Green River Killer, who has claimed at least 49 lives in the Seattle-Tacoma area South Africa’s “Phoenix Strangler,” suspected of killing 20 women The Twin Cities Killer, responsible for more than 30 murders on the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul, where the victims were mostly prostitutes Costa Rica’s elusive “El Psicópata” (The Psychopath), thought to have murdered at least 19 people in this small, quiet Central American country “The Monster of Florence,” responsible for a series of 15 sexual slayings just outside Florence, where all the victims were courting couples.

NIGEL CAWTHORNE is the author of The World’s Greatest Serial Killers, and Killers: The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Times, as well as numerous other books. His writing has appeared in over a hundred and fifty newspapers, magazines and partworks—from the Sun to the Financial Times, and from Flatbush Life to The New York Trib. He lives in London.

An anthology of stories

A new anthology of twenty-nine short stories features an array of baffling locked-room mysteries by Michael Collins, Bill Pronzini, Susanna Gregory, H. R. F. Keating, Peter Lovesey, Kate Ellis, and Lawrence Block, among others.

An anthology of stories edited by Mike Ashley

Marianne is an important fictional formulation of Sand's thinking on the role of women and the nature of democracy. This edition includes a long biographical preface which quotes extensively from her correspondences.

Another fabulous collection of Paranormal Romance stories in the bestselling Mammoth series.

From the likes of Robert Randisi, Peter Crowther, and Max Rittenberg, these 30 stories of bizarre and impossible crimes will fascinate and intrigue the reader who grapples with their intricate puzzles. A man alone in an all-glass phone booth, visible on CCTV and with no one near him, is killed by an ice pick. A man sitting alone in a room is shot by a bullet fired only once – over 200 years ago. A man enters a cable-car alone, and is visible for the entire journey, only to be found dead when he reaches the bottom. A man receives mail in response to letters apparently written by him – after his death. The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries is a stunning collection of brand new and previously unpublished stories, as well as many stories from rare mystery journals appearing for the first time in book form.

Includes big name contributors such as Anna Campbell, Lorraine Heath, Barbara Metzger, Deborah Raleigh and Elizabeth Boyle.

An anthology of stories

In the words of those who trod the void and those at mission control, here are over 50 of the greatest true stories of suborbital, orbital and deep-space exploration. From Apollo 8’s first view of a fractured, tortured landscape of craters on the ‘dark side’ of the Moon to the series of cliff-hanger crises aboard space station Mir, they include moments of extraordinary heroic achievement as well as episodes of terrible human cost. Among the astronauts and cosmonauts featured are John Glenn, Pavel Beyayev, Jim Lovell, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Valery Korzun, Vasily Tsibliyev and Michael Foale.

Includes

• First walk in space by Sergei Leonov and his traumatic return to Earth

• Apollo 13’s problem — the classic, nail-biting account of abandoning ship on the way to the Moon

• Docking with the frozen, empty Salyut 7 space station that had drifted without power for eight months

• Progress crashes into Mir — the astronauts survive death by a hair’s breadth

• Jerry Linenger’s panic attack during a space walk, ‘just out there dangling’.

In the words of those who trod the void and those at mission control, here are over 50 of the greatest true stories of suborbital, orbital and deep-space exploration. From Apollo 8’s first view of a fractured, tortured landscape of craters on the ‘dark side’ of the Moon to the series of cliff-hanger crises aboard space station Mir, they include moments of extraordinary heroic achievement as well as episodes of terrible human cost. Among the astronauts and cosmonauts featured are John Glenn, Pavel Beyayev, Jim Lovell, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Valery Korzun, Vasily Tsibliyev and Michael Foale.

Includes

• First walk in space by Sergei Leonov and his traumatic return to Earth

• Apollo 13’s problem — the classic, nail-biting account of abandoning ship on the way to the Moon

• Docking with the frozen, empty Salyut 7 space station that had drifted without power for eight months

• Progress crashes into Mir — the astronauts survive death by a hair’s breadth

• Jerry Linenger’s panic attack during a space walk, ‘just out there dangling’.

The hidden life of Sherlock Holmes’s most famous adversary is reimagined and revealed by the finest crime writers today.

Some of literature’s greatest supervillains have also become its most intriguing antiheroes—Dracula, Hannibal Lecter, Lord Voldemort, and Norman Bates—figures that capture our imagination. Perhaps the greatest of these is Professor James Moriarty. Fiercely intelligent and a relentless schemer, Professor Moriarty is the perfect foil to the inimitable Sherlock Holmes, whose crime-solving acumen could only be as brilliant as Moriarty’s cunning.

While “the Napoleon of crime” appeared in only two of Conan Doyle’s original stories, Moriarty’s enigma is finally revealed in this diverse anthology of thirty-seven new Moriarty stories, reimagined and retold by leading crime writers such as Martin Edwards, Jürgen Ehlers, Barbara Nadel, L. C. Tyler, Michael Gregorio, Alison Joseph and Peter Guttridge. In these intelligent, compelling stories—some frightening and others humorous—Moriarty is brought back vividly to new life, not simply as an incarnation of pure evil but also as a fallible human being with personality, motivations, and subtle shades of humanity.

Filling the gaps of the Conan Doyle canon, The Mammoth Book of the Adventures of Professor Moriarty is a must-read for any fan of the Sherlock Holmes’s legacy.

“‘Is it really possible, do you suppose,’ said Sherlock Holmes to me one morning, as we took breakfast together, ‘that a healthy and robust man may be so stricken with terror that he drops down dead?’”

The much praised Denis O. Smith introduces twelve new Sherlockian stories in this collection, including “The Adventure of the XYZ Club,” “The Secret of Shoreswood Hall,” and “The Adventure of the Brown Box.” Set in the late nineteenth century before Holmes’s disappearance at the Reichenbach Falls, these stories, written in the vein of the originals, recreate Arthur Conan Doyle’s world with deft fidelity, from manner of speech and character traits to plot unfoldings and the historical period. Whether in fogbound London or deep in the countryside, the world’s most beloved detective is brought vividly back to life in all his enigmatic, compelling glory, embarking on seemingly impenetrable mysteries with Dr. Watson by his side.

For readers who can never get enough of Holmes, this satisfyingly hefty anthology builds on the old Conan Doyle to develop familiar characters in ways the originals could not. Both avid fans and a new generation of audiences are sure to be entertained with this continuation of the Sherlock Holmes legacy.

Twenty-five stories of timeless true love

The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance contains 25 stories of adventure and love; settings include medieval Scotland, sixteenth-century England, the nineteenth-century ‘Wild West’. Some stories are set in the present and a few in the future. Stories include an Elizabethan nobleman whisked into the present day, a troubled young woman who lands in the sixteenth century able to break a curse of lost love.

Includes stories from: Nina Bangs, Jude Deveraux, Sandra Hill, Linda Howard, Lynn Kurland, Karen Marie Moning, and many more.

This compelling volume presents thirty-five of the most intriguing crime cases that still defy solution, as reported by leading authors and journalists in the field of crime writing. Expanded and updated, this new edition of The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crime includes such recent cases as British backpacker Peter Falconio, lost in the Australian outback, and reporting as diverse as Colin Wilson's look at the Zodiac Killer of California and Russell Miller's examination of the ongoing obsession with LA's Black Dahlia Killer, to Sydney Horley on the woman who was cleared of murdering her husband and went on to become a Broadway star, and Philip Sugden on that most mythic criminal enigma of them all, Jack the Ripper. Nearly all the cases involve one or more acts of murder, and all are left with a question mark hanging over them-real-life whodunits that offer a continuing challenge to all who find fascination in the criminal mind.

Alex Delaware's relationship with his longterm partner is on the rocks. He is floored when Robin announces she's heading off on a three-month music tour. But he soon has other things to think about. He is sent an envelope with no return address. Inside, he finds an album with gold letters on it – THE MURDER BOOK. It's full of macabre pictures of murders, with brief descriptions of how, and why, the victims died. One picture is marked 'Not solved' – the horrifically mutilated body of a young woman. Unsettled, Alex calls his friend, LAPD detective Milo Sturgis, who seems strangely familiar with the case. What connects the photograph with Milo 's past? What's more, why has it been sent to Alex – and by whom? Ingenious, shocking, unpredictable, THE MURDER BOOK is a masterpiece of suspense fiction that is Jonathan Kellerman at his best.

The Olive Fairy Book contains eight Punjabi tales, five from Armenia, 16 other stories from Turkey, Denmark, the Sudan, and more.

An enchanting world of flying dragons, ogres, fairies, and princes transformed into white foxes with illustrations by H.J. Ford.

The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

by Gary Keller  Jay Papasan  

Since its April, 2013 publication The ONE Thing has made more than 125 appearances on national bestseller lists, including #1 Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Publisher’s Weekly, Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles Times, Reuters, BookScan, and 800CEOREAD.

The ONE Thing was chosen one of the Top 5 Business Books of 2013 by Hudson’s Booksellers and one of Top 30 Business Books of 2013 by Executive Book Summaries. 

People are using this simple, powerful concept to avoid overwhelming distractions in their personal and work lives so they can focus on what matters most. Companies are helping their employees be more productive with study groups, training, and coaching. Churches are conducting classes and recommending from the pulpit. 

YOU WANT LESS.

You want fewer distractions and less on your plate. The daily barrage of e-mails, texts, tweets, messages, and meetings distract you and stress you out. The simultaneous demands of work and family are taking a toll. And what’s the cost? Second-rate work, missed deadlines, smaller paychecks, fewer promotions—and lots of stress.

·       Failing to think big can limit your opportunities.

·       Prioritize your to-dos – they are not all equally important.

·       Asking the “focusing question” will help you to prioritize, create actionable tasks and achieve your goals.

·       The secret to a disciplined life is sequential habit forming.

·       Multitasking is horribly inefficient: pick one thing and give it your undivided attention.

·       Your willpower is like a fuel tank: choose carefully where you use it or you may run out when you really need it.

·       Saying “no” to unimportant tasks is vital if you are to focus your efforts on the most important ones.

·       Living with purpose and visualizing the steps to get to your goal will set you on the path to extraordinary results.

·       Never compromise your personal life for your professional goals – instead, prioritize your work time ruthlessly.

·       To focus on your ONE thing, you need effective time-management strategies, and to accept some chaos in other areas.

·       Final Summary & Actionable advice

In this volume there are stories from the natives of Rhodesia, collected by Mr. Fairbridge, who speaks the native language, and one is brought by Mr. Cripps from another part of Africa, Uganda. Three tales from the Punjaub were collected and translated by Major Campbell. Various savage tales, which needed a good deal of editing, are derived from the learned pages of the 'Journal of the Anthropological Institute.'

With these exceptions, and 'The Magic Book,' translated by Mrs. Pedersen, from 'Eventyr fra Jylland,' by Mr. Ewald Tang Kristensen (Stories from Jutland), all the tales have been done, from various sources, by Mrs. Lang, who has modified, where it seemed desirable, all the narratives.

Hillerman, author of the Joe Leaphorn mysteries, and Herbert, editor of The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing, trace this short-story genre from its beginnings in the hands of Edgar Allen Poe through its development by the likes of Erle Stanley Gardner, Mary Roberts Rinehart and Anthony Boucher to its current practice by such masters as Marcia Muller. Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," which established a great many of the whodunit conventions, is indispensable to such an overview. Raymond Chandler's "I'll be Waiting" emits a doom-laden atmosphere right from the first line; William Faulkner shows unexpected economy of language?and a transparent plot?in "An Error in Chemistry." Ed McBain scores high marks in "Small Homicide," in which the tiny details of a baby's untimely death resonate uncomfortably. As represented in this competent, unstartling collection, Linda Barnes ("Lucky Penny") easily outsasses Sue Grafton ("The Parker Shotgun"). Hillerman makes a solid appearance with "Chee's Witch," and in "Benny's Space" Muller captures the full subtle force of her novel-length vision.

Samurai Sano Ichiro and his wife Reiko, are hot on the heels of a mysterious courtesan in bestselling novelist Laura Joh Rowland's latest historical thriller. In the carefully ordered world of 17th century Japan, the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter is home to women who have been sold to brothels as punishment for their crimes. It is here that the shogun's dashing young cousin and heir apparent is found dead – stabbed through the eye with a long hairpin – in the bed of a beautiful courtesan named Lady Wisteria. When both Lady Wisteria and her private journal – or pillow book – turn up missing, Sano Ichiro, the shogun's Most Honourable Investigator of Events, Situations and People, is called upon to solve the crime and find the lady, a job that is complicated slightly by the fact that Sano had a brief affair with her some years ago. Against his better judgement Sano accepts the help of his fiery, young wife, Reiko, in exploring the surprisingly dangerous world of the pleasure quarter as he seeks to unmask a killer.

For this collection, Andrew Lang gathered Danish, Swedish, Sicilian, African, Catalan, Japanese, German, and French stories.

While the stories may not be familiar to you, they are an excellent insight into various cultures, to show that despite our skin color, we all share similar belief systems and family values.

A collection of contemporary and classic horror stories by authors such as Pete Johnson, Robert Westall, Roald Dahl and Stephen King.

In a second gleaning of the fields of Fairy Land we cannot expect to find a second Perrault.

But there are good stories enough left, and it is hoped that some in the Red Fairy Book may have the attraction of being less familiar than many of the old friends.

The Last Manuscript of a Master

It began with an accident, as if Fate had a plan for Vergil Magus…

After his trials in the Very Rich City of Averno but before his crowning achievement of a certain magic mirror, the great sorcerer and alchemist finds himself on a journey nothing short of epic. Sure he is slated for death in Rome, Vergil seeks safety in the far reaches of the Empire — and finds a world teeming with wonders and magical oddities.

The “unhistoric” sea adventure is a deft mix of fantastic fact and fable, showcasing the author’s keen attention to the often forgotten connections between them.

7th Edition of the famous horror series — The Pan Book of Horror Stories, an anthology edited by Herbert Van Thal.

In one week, Manhattan will be gone.

In one month, the country. In two months. . the world.

At New York's JFK Airport an arriving Boeing 777 taxiing along a runway suddenly stops dead. All the shades have been drawn, all communication channels have mysteriously gone quiet. Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of a CDC rapid-response team investigating biological threats, boards the darkened plane. . and what he finds makes his blood run cold.

A terrifying contagion has come to the unsuspecting city, an unstoppable plague that will spread like an all-consuming wildfire — lethal, merciless, hungry...“vampiric.”

And in a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem an aged Holocaust survivor knows that the war he has been dreading his entire life is finally here...

He found it in a box of junk in his uncle's attic.

Kenneth was a young man who earnestly wished that he wasn’t. One day, while staying with his aunt, he came across an item that his uncle had found just after the Second World War. In a box with an old bayonet, a soldier's helmet and some lead soldiers, he believed to be a part from a downed German aircraft from the Battle of Britain. This hoop of metal appeared nothing special. Idly, he played with it, and as it opened, he slipped it around his neck.

Inexplicably and rapidly, Kenneth transformed into the person he had always dreamed he could have been. This metal torc was obviously not a part from an old war plane; but he did not know the torc’s true origins. Had he done so, he might not have treated in such a casual manner.

Many millennia previously and desperately seeking somewhere to live after the death of their sun, a group of inter-stellar explorers discovered what everyone thought was a perfect planet. The atmosphere was as close to their home planet as they could want. The climate was ideal; neither too hot, nor too cold. The microbiology posed no apparent threats, and the soil chemistry PH was friendly and fertile; well capable of sustaining the crops they wanted to bring with them.

The only fly in the ointment, so to speak, was the most advanced of the indigenous life-forms. Nick-named ‘The Brutes’, these were the most aggressive and nasty life-form they had ever encountered. Wholly different and about as incompatible with the explorers as one could ever be, the Brutes displayed an innate ability to learn rapidly and develop new ways to channel their aggression. With limit resources the ship’s scientific officer developed an ingenious means by which they could camouflage themselves by posing as the Brutes themselves.

Micro-technology, crammed into what would appear to be a piece of plain decoration or jewellery, enabled the wearer to adjust their outward appearance to that of the Brutes. But matching the DNA of the wearer to the DNA of the target life-form, the wearer could take on the form of the Brute without them suspecting a thing. Including an enhanced translation program, an anti-gravity device and a force- field projector, the device was both camouflage and protection.

The Brutes are divided into two genders, so I have made one for each. They must never fall into the hands of the Brutes, for they would give them too much power,” instructed the Science Officer.

The best laid plans of mice, men and strange inter-galactic races often go awry.

It was many, many years later that Kenneth found the torc. Would he ever be able to discover the secrets held within it, and which one did he find?

Urban Book of the dead is my second book to be published, after 'The Unrequited Zombie'. It is a rather less experimental work, though still unusual, vivid, and descriptive. I would describe the book as both psychedelic and surreal, being rather pedantic about the use of those two words. That is, if it were surreal I would be dealing with a psychological work, something that looked towards expanding knowledge of the Id, that primitive part of our nature that is repressed by social conventions and the need to plan to get what we want. It is, in that it is self gratifying without recourse to opinion, it is every animalistic urge that can only be released through art, because to do it any other way would have terrible repercussions. Having said that, next to my early work, it is not particularly arty or deep. It is psychedelic because it looks to reaching a higher consciousness by through creativity, to reach a state beyond the normal level of seeing things, it is also psychedelic and surreal in the commonly understood sense, it is 'trippy' and sometimes deals with drugs. It starts like this… "I floated above my body, I was a bubble fit to burst, I squeezed and struggled with my form, my clothes gripping and distorting my figure with their relative solidity, were the same ghost like material as the rest of me. Down below my face stared back at me; distorted and grotesque as the spirit shapes on the bark of trees, I felt my ghost face and it was etched there too, deforming me, chiselled by a million molecules of heroin, I had my wings, hung as from a pin, spread and feathered, and spanning the whole nicotine ceiling. I stared at the blue marbled arm; growing out like the gnarled branch of a tree, the fingers gesturing me towards it, and hanging from it, the syringe full of bubbles, blood and a quicksand of powdered death whirling like a vortex. A spoon lay on the floor and a small bit of cigarette filter in it, all having served a purely symbolic process. It seemed years of injecting powders and stuff flicked down to a dirty lemonade had paid off, perhaps a bubble could kill you after all." The book is I think taking one thing at least to a new level in literature, egomania. That is because the concept of the book is I the authors fight with god who is defeated, whilst at the same time dealing with my real life struggles as I go back through things that really actually happened to me in my drug filled and violent life as a drug dealer and through prison etcetera, and, changing them. I say egomania but again I mean the Id, the ego compromises, the Id does not. It is a very angry book because I am taking back the control that was taken from me, in that, to a very large extent I did not choose my life but it was forced on me, as with all the mishaps of all my dead friends who did not survive, through suicide, alcoholism, heroin overdose and murder. Enter God. God then is a symbol for society, capitalism, and the state, and also, plain bad luck. So is God then not God, is the book not satanic? My interest in black magic personally does not extend to believing in it, or God in any accepted sense either. I believe in magic as will, that Hitler could gain power through will is magic, that people can realise the future not through clairvoyance but precognition, taking in the world around them and understanding consciously or unconsciously where it is all going to lead, that kind of magic I believe, the other sort I only have a fair knowledge of as an interest and I am not a Satanist, that would be a misplacement of effort. "The noise got louder, but lower, rather than higher, so it travelled further and vibrated the walls. Crack's appeared in the walls in the form of a hundred distorted faces of people I had known, adventured and suffered with. A fragment of glass from a picture of 'Judith with the head of Hollerfernes' hit me in my eye, almost bursting my substance, which it settled in like a bloody monocle, magnifying the African tribal Fang mask in the centre of the wall, with its pale long wooden nose and owl like brow, its jutting chin; appeared to grow eyes that searched with the deepest hideous depth around my room and the dead body of me whose 'nakedness' I wanted to cover from the gaze. The mask bowed and came out of the wall, after it a huge body wearing the blue pinstripes of my wall paper and looking every bit the business man, come to settle my accounts, I was not about to make it easy. The scrambled voices became one, the word "Jonathan!" boomed. This was God, this was the confrontation I had been waiting for my whole life." The meaning of that is obvious in the pinstriped suit I think, but also a little later the meaning and symbolism is made totally obvious. "God spoke "I am the unity, I am the morals and the law, think like me and my triumphs will be your triumphs because there will be no difference, surrender all self generated thought of conflict, all difference is imaginary, it is not held and is alien to mind." I replied simply, my head turned to him from my place on the ceiling, "I am my desire." -A little later it gets really obvious. "With haste I flew forward and stabbed God in the eyes with my fingers, which flattened against the harder substance of Gods eyes, I cried out "This is for poverty, this is for the atomisation of life, this is for your prisons and the police, for all my friends who are lost yet alive, and all those you sent to hell which is a place on Earth. This is for everything." Soon events from the past unfold, and people I knew come into the picture such as Jay. Jay was a traveller; that is he moved from town to town, lived rough and begged. He had the unnerving attribute of being both friendly, warm, and a complete psychopath, loyal and perverse, he was a real good character for a book. I meet Jay again fishing in Hell. "I dropped my line in the molten lead from my rod. Immediately the rod bent almost double, despite its thickness. It pulled so hard I estimated that what ever was on the end must have been over two hundred pounds. I reeled in my rod and a giant fish splashed on the end of it, it looked like some kind of gigantic roach, its tail splashing molten lead at me as its body curved in the waves trying to get away. I landed the fish in the boat and it suffocated there its mouth open and body heaving, I marvelled at the square scales on its silver body, bigger than my hands. As I stood fascinated, the body of the fish, distorted as if something inside was trying to push its way out, a fist punched its way through, then two hands, pulled the fish apart, then before me was the crouched naked body of Jay, covered in a stinky fish slime, he held his nose and spoke nasally. "Hello Monster!" he said smoothly. Jay stood up tall, rocking only slightly; and threw chunks of fish in the water, now without the protection of its tough outer layers, the bits of fish flamed up as they entered the sea, with puffs of flame and billows of smoke. He held the rest of the carcass above his head, his arms at full length, and chucked that in after it; there was a huge flaming that threatened to engulf the boat, but it went out fast. I was pleased to see Jay, I had him picked out as my right hand man, there was something about him that persuaded you to trust him at the same time as acknowledging he wasn't entirely trust worthy, a slightly sly warmth, a look in the eyes that said he was tough and dependable, but somehow self centred. But, however he was useful, very handy; a good person to know. I asked a searching question. "How are you here? As far as I know you're still alive." Jay looked at me long and hard "Doesn't bloody look like it does it Monster. In Hell as well. What did I do to deserve that? A few fights, drug dealing, a couple of rich burglaries, fucking a tree on LSD, underage sex and a sexual assault in McDonalds that was nothing but feeling some ones leg, and I'm in Hell." Yes, he was really like that and he did all those things. The character of Jay is a rich part of the book, to which I am indebted to knowing him, not that many people will ever read it, but I live to write, quite literally. Another theme of the book is the yearning for togetherness, community, against the very real need for individuality, adventure and subjectivity. The two themes run through every religion, philosophy and form of politics to a varying degree of scientific application. It is not as simple as one or the other and both sides in the book take both approaches. There is no answer in human nature between the two, it is irreconcilable and all we can do is draw attention theoretically to the issue between fascism and anarchism, individuality and togetherness, though we do find more honest and liveable conditions in libertarianism than dictatorial politics. The problem between wanting togetherness and a shared identity, but being repulsed at having to give up subjectivity so pervades the book that many characters rebel against the human form, whilst not giving up the need for community, and become many headed monsters. But, the book insists, the need for adventure is the unifying theory that makes sense of our misery and creates a symbiosis between the conflicting forces. "As the ship rowed closer I realised it was the rule of these creatures, my brave men which is what they were, to reject the human form given by God for those of their own imagination, and to conjoin like the ultimate pack of animals, or; what I had seen in human riots when a crowd does indeed become a single and very different animal than the sum of its parts. I saw men who had formed their joints together to form the bodies of double kneed, twelve-foot men with two heads. Two had done that. The dragon with seven necks and six heads was also there, waiting in futility for my strange communion, for I was still attached to the human form, it still represented for me a thing of beauty and free autonomy." The book is all about conflict, but as Buddhists say, all conflict is imaginary, so I think, we are all in a state of symbiosis in a world where assistance between organisms is the norm even when it appears in the form of its opposite. That's all I want to say about the book.

For this collection, Andrew Lang gathered African, Scandinavian, Egyptian and even Babylonian stoires.

While they may not be familiar to you, they are an excellent insight into various cultures, to show that despite our skin color, we all share similar belief systems and family values.

A collection of traditional fairy tales from the folklore of Russia, Germany, France, Iceland, and America. Includes original 138 black-and-white illustrations. Collected together by Andrew Land they are sourced from a number of different countries and were translated by Lang's wife and other translators who also retold many of the tales.

The collection has been incalculably important and, although he did not source the stories himself direct from the oral tradition he can make claim to the first English translation of many.

Short listed for the Richard & Judy Book Club 2007. An uplifting story set in Los Angeles about one man's effort to bring himself back to life. Richard is a modern day everyman; a middle-aged divorcee trading stocks out of his home. He has done such a good job getting his life under control that he needs no one. His life has slowed almost to a standstill, until two incidents conspire to hurl him back into the world. One day he wakes up with a knotty cramp in his back, which rapidly develops into an all-consuming pain. At the same time a wide sinkhole appears outside his living room window, threatening the foundations of his house. A vivid novel about compassion and transformation, "This Book Will Save Your Life" reveals what can happen if you are willing to open up to the world around you. Since her debut in 1989, A.M. Homes has been among the boldest and most original voices of her generation, acclaimed for the psychological accuracy and unnerving emotional intensity of her storytelling. Her keen ability to explore how extraordinary the ordinary can be is at the heart of her touching and funny new novel, her first in six years.

Avery Bartholomew Pendleton is back, and he’s just as crazy as ever. Avery is a paranoid loner obsessed with global conspiracy theories who spends most of his time crafting absurd and threatening letters to anyone who offends him. That means pretty much everyone.

Still convinced of the existence of the mythical Mexican chupacabra, Avery enlists the assistance of the Southwest Texas Revolutionary Armed Confederate Border Operations Militia (STRAC-BOM) and their manic leader, General X-Ray, to help him invade Mexico. Accompanied by Ziggy, a burned-out hippy, and an uncommonly large iguana named Nancy, the group follows the advice of a New Orleans voodoo priestess and heads straight into the Mexican desert.

Unfortunately for the motley gang of explorers, Mexico can be a dangerous place if you cross the wrong people - specifically, the Padre, a vicious drug cartel boss, and El Barquero, a murderous gunrunner who has crossed Avery’s path before.

What unfolds is a laugh-out-loud dark comedy of insane humor, unforgettable characters, and chilling thrills.

Geoff Dyer, described by the Daily Telegraph as 'possibly the best living writer in Britain', takes on his biggest challenge yet: unlocking the film that has obsessed him all his adult life. Magnificently unpredictable and hilarious (and surely one of the most unusual books ever written about cinema), Zona takes the reader on an enthralling, thought-provoking journey.

The ostensible subject of Zona is the film Stalker, by the great Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. As Dyer immerses us in the movie, it becomes apparent that Stalker is only the point of departure for a wonderfully digressive exploration of cinema, of how we understand our obsessions and of how we try to realise — and, discover — our deepest wishes.

'An impassioned, yet acerbic and witty appraisal of a screen classic is a work of art in its own rights.' Scotland on Sunday