‘With a healthy dose of scepticism and humour, Dan Harris skilfully demystifies meditation, reminding us all that a healthy and happy mind is not only essential for our own sanity, but also for those around us. More importantly, he provides a compelling invitation to move beyond words, from the idea to the experience. A wonderful book and excellent advice.’ Andy Puddicombe, founder of Headspace

‘With startling, provocative, and often very funny candour, Dan Harris tells the story of why he urgently needed to tame the strident voice in his head, and how he did it. His argument for the power of mindfulness–which he bases both on cutting-edge science and his own hard-won experience–will convince even the most sceptical reader of meditation’s potential.’ Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project

‘In 10% Happier, Dan Harris describes in fascinating detail the stresses of working as a news correspondent and the relief he has found through the practice of meditation. This is an extremely brave, funny, and insightful book. Every ambitious person should read it.’ Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith

‘A compellingly honest, delightfully interesting, and at times heartwarming story of one highly intelligent man’s life-changing journey toward a deeper understanding of what makes us our very best selves.’ Chade-Meng Tan, author of Search Inside Yourself

‘Too many mainstreamers write books about meditation and miss the point—productivity, efficiency, and getting an edge mean nothing without compassion. But this brilliant, humble, funny story shows how one man found a way to navigate the nonstop stresses and demands on modern life and back to humanity by finally learning to sit around and do nothing.’ Colin Beavan, author of No Impact Man

‘A spiritual adventure from a master storyteller. Mindfulness can make you happier. Read this to find out how.’ George Stephanopoulos

‘The science supporting the health benefits of meditation continues to grow as does the number of Americans who count themselves as practitioners but, it took reading 10% Happier to make me actually want to give it a try. Dan Harris takes the mystical mantle off meditation and shows how easy it can be to incorporate into your life. Painfully candid, outrageously funny, and definitely enlightening, Harris’s book left me feeling much more than 10% happier.‘ Richard E. Besser, M.D.—Chief Health and Medical Editor, ABC News

‘Part-science, part-memoir, and part self-help, Harris outlines specific ways he learned to, well, chill the f**k out.’ GQ

"My dad used to say to me, 'Try to keep a cool head and a warm heart'. At least I think it was my dad. I don't really remember him." Gravy worked in the graveyard – hence the name. He was having a normal day until his friend Benjy turned up in a car Gravy didn't recognise. Benjy had a bullet hole in his chest, but lived just long enough to ask Gravy to hide him and look after his gun. Gravy had looked after things for Benjy before, but never a gun. When Gravy looked in the car he found blood, a balaclava and a bag stuffed with money. Gravy's not too bright but he wants to help his friend. So Gravy finds himself caught up in the middle of a robbery gone wrong, a woman who witnessed a murder, and some very unpleasant men who will do anything to get back the money Benjy stole…

It’s a jacket; it’s a mattress; it’s a fortune!

Mullaney staked his life on it.

The way it all worked out was that Mullaney finally figured he had to take the big gamble; he’d never get rich selling encyclopedias. Consequently, he left his wife and went off to make a killing at cards, horses, dice — you name it. But here he is at the end of the year with a single subway token in his pocket and the hottest, sure-thing tip he’s ever heard on the second race at Aqueduct...

So he’s standing at Fourteenth Street and Fourth Avenue wondering where he can promote some coin, who he can put the bite on, when this long black limousine pulls up and out hops a big guy with a beard and a gun and says, “Get in!”

That’s how A Horse’s Head, Evan Hunter’s hugely funny new novel, starts.

It never lets up as it races back and forth across Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, diving into some very odd places indeed — such as the locked stacks of the Library’s Main Branch and an East Side cellar synagogue — and introducing some of the strangest gunsels, moon-struck kooks, and pliant lovelies in the entire metropolitan area. The laughs, the bodies, the girls come tumbling one on top of the other as Mullaney smooth-talks, wheedles and deals his way out of one dangerous situation into the next in his mad chase after the crummy, magical black jacket that doesn’t even fit him but which he’s sure is worth half a million dollars.

Wild, wonderful, zany — A Horse’s Head is another surprise from the versatile author of The Paper Dragon, The Blackboard Jungle, and the 87th Precinct mysteries.

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.

Fugitive Mom. That's the tabloid headline that rocks Springfield, Connecticut when one of the town's favorite ladies is discovered to be an escaped convict. With a little help from the always game Lucy Cavanaugh, Paula is hired to find out which of her neighbors is a fugitive from the law and why the long-kept secret has finally come out.

In 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight," For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his suberb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote to Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.

Breaking rules and breaking hearts

Free-spirited Chloe lives life on the edge. Unlike her soon-to-be married sisters, she isn't ready to settle into a quiet life running their family's newly renovated inn. But soon her love of trouble-and trouble with love-draws the attention of the very stern, very sexy sheriff who'd like nothing better than to tame her wild ways.

Suddenly Chloe can't take a misstep without the sheriff hot on her heels. His rugged swagger and his enigmatic smile are enough to make a girl beg to be handcuffed. For the first time, instead of avoiding the law, Chloe dreams of surrender. Can this rebel find a way to keep the peace with the straitlaced sheriff? Or will Chloe's colorful past keep her from a love that lasts… and the safe haven she truly wants in a town called Lucky Harbor?

When looking for a job, it’s a good idea to stay open to out-of-the-ordinary possibilities…

First published in 1978, this novel of international intrigue by Carlos Fuentes is set in Mexico, and features the Mexican secret service. It is the story of the attempt by the Mexican government to retain control of a recently discovered national oil field. Secret agents from Arab lands, Israel, and the United States attempt to wrest control of the source for their own purposes. In a plot thick with dirty tricks, violence, sex, amazing coincidences, and betrayals, the novel's movie-loving hero, Felix Maldonado, confronts the villains.

Romantic Times

Jacquie D'Alessandro's In Over His Head is a cut above the usual "I-need-a-fling" story, and cowboy hero fanciers will love this one.

Bruno Schulz has foreseen catastrophe and is almost paralysed by fear. His last chance of survival is to leave the home town to which, despite being in his late forties, he clings as if to a comforting blanket. So he retreats into his cellar (and sometimes hides under his desk) to write a letter to Thomas Mann: appealing to the literary giant to help him find a foreign publisher, in order that the reasons to leave Drohobych will finally outweigh the reasons to stay.

Evoking Bulgakov and Singer, Biller takes us on an astounding, burlesque journey into Schulz's world, which vacillates between shining dreams and unbearable nightmares — a world which, like Schulz's own stories, prophesies the apocalyptic events to come.

Includes two stories by Bruno Schulz: 'Birds' and 'The Cinnamon Shops', from The Street of Crocodiles.

Ex-army musketry trainer, Jay Benson and his wife Lucy’s dream of running a shooting school turns sour as the school heads towards certain closure. They need money — quickly, and a lot of it. At the eleventh hour Augusto Savanto, head of a vast corporation in Venezuela, walks into their lives with a proposition they can scarcely refuse — he will pay them $50,000 to turn his son into an expert marksman, in nine days. Desperate for money they accept the challenge but find themselves in a deadly game of ruthless vendettas and vengeful murder. 

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From the writer and director of Knocked Up and the producer of Freaks and Geeks comes a collection of intimate, hilarious conversations with the biggest names in comedy from the past thirty years—including Mel Brooks, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Roseanne Barr, Harold Ramis, Louis C.K., Chris Rock, and Lena Dunham.

Before becoming one of the most successful filmmakers in Hollywood, Judd Apatow was the original comedy nerd. At fifteen, he took a job washing dishes in a local comedy club—just so he could watch endless stand-up for free. At sixteen, he was hosting a show for his local high school radio station in Syosset, Long Island—a show that consisted of Q&As with his comedy heroes, from Garry Shandling to Jerry Seinfeld. They talked about their careers, the science of a good joke, and their dreams of future glory (turns out, Shandling was interested in having his own TV show one day and Steve Allen had already invented everything).

Thirty years later, Apatow is still that same comedy nerd—and he’s still interviewing funny people about why they do what they do.

Sick in the Head gathers Apatow’s most memorable and revealing conversations into one hilarious, wide-ranging, and incredibly candid collection that spans not only his career but his entire adult life. Here are the comedy legends who inspired and shaped him, from Mel Brooks to Steve Martin. Here are the contemporaries he grew up with in Hollywood, from Spike Jonze to Sarah Silverman. And here, finally, are the brightest stars in comedy today, many of whom Apatow has been fortunate to work with, from Seth Rogen to Amy Schumer. And along the way, something kind of magical happens: What started as a lifetime’s worth of conversations about comedy becomes something else entirely. It becomes an exploration of creativity, ambition, neediness, generosity, spirituality, and the joy that comes from making people laugh.

Loaded with the kind of back-of-the-club stories that comics tell one another when no one else is watching, this fascinating, personal (and borderline-obsessive) book is Judd Apatow’s gift to comedy nerds everywhere.

Praise for Sick in the Head

“Open this book anywhere, and you’re bound to find some interesting nugget from someone who has had you in stitches many, many times.”

—Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“Incandescent . . . an irresistible, ultimate-insider’s comedy-interview extravaganza . . . Apatow never loses his unabashed fan’s enthusiasm even as he asks canny questions that yield superbly illuminating conversations rich in shop talk and musings on the lure, demands, and resonance of comedy.”

—Booklist (starred review)

“If Apatow’s gift for comedy is a sickness, may he never be cured.”

—Playboy

“Sprawling and insightful . . . The candidness of the interviews also exposes the peculiar community of comedians with anecdotes and cameos unlikely to be heard elsewhere. A delightful and hilarious read.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“These are wonderful, expansive interviews—at times brutal, at times breathtaking—with artists whose wit, intelligence, gaze, and insights are all sharp enough to draw blood.”

—Michael Chabon

“Anyone even remotely interested in comedy or humanity should own this book. It is hilarious and informative and it contains insightful interviews with the greatest comics, comedians, and comediennes of our time. My representatives assure me I will appear in a future edition.”

—Will Ferrell

So having weighed the pros and cons you've decided to approach your boss to ask for that well-earned raise in salary but before you schedule the all-important meeting you decide to dip into this handy volume in the hope of finding some valuable tips but instead find a hilarious, mind-bending farcical account of all the many different things that may or may not happen on the journey to see your boss which uses no punctuation or capitalisation and certainly no full stops.

Georges Perec famously wrote a whole novel without using the letter 'e'. Now, in this playful short novel, brilliantly translated by David Bellos, Perec once again dispenses with the normal rules for literary compostion, with similarly pyrotechnic results.

"A distinguished novelist of a rare kind." – Kingsley Amis

A lay community of thoroughly mixed-up people is encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an order of sequestered nuns. A new bell is being installed when suddenly the old bell, a legendary symbol of religion and magic, is rediscovered. And then things begin to change. Meanwhile the wise old Abbess watches and prays and exercises discreet authority. And everyone, or almost everyone, hopes to be saved, whatever that may mean. Originally published in 1958, this funny, sad, and moving novel is about religion, sex, and the fight between good and evil.

Sealey Head is a small town on the edge of the ocean, a sleepy place where everyone hears the ringing of a bell no one can see. On the outskirts of town is an impressive estate, Aislinn House, where the aged Lady Eglantyne lies dying, and where the doors sometimes open not to its own dusty rooms, but to the wild majesty of a castle full of knights and princesses…

In this panoramic novel of Friar Roger Bacon, John Cowper Powys displays his genius at its most fecund. First published in 1956, this novel, set in thirteenth-century Wessex, is an amalgam of all the qualities that make John Cowper Powys unique.

The love-story of Lil-Umbra and Raymond de Laon, and the quest of the Mongolian giant, Peleg, for Ghosta, the girl seen, loved, and lost on the battlefield, are intermingled with the historical, theological and magical threads which form the brocade of this novel.

Dominating all is the mysterious creation of Roger Bacon one of the boldest as well as most intricate of Powys' world-changing inventions. Professor G. Wilson Knight called this 'A book of wisdom and wonders'.

It's never easy reviewing a classic; obviously it is good or it wouldn't be regarded as such, and if it has just been reprinted then its charm and relevance still exist for readers today. Since its publication in 1958, Robert Van Gulik's enchanting stories about the crime-solving exploits of historical character Judge Dee have delighted readers all over the world. If you haven't met Judge Dee yet, now is a good time to start! In this early novel he has just taken up a post as magistrate in the town of Poo-Yang and soon finds his work cut out for him. He has to solve a rape murder, root out what is going on in a remarkably wealthy Buddhist temple and sort out a complex family feud that dates back years.

Put like that, it sounds rather bald and Van Gulik is certainly not verbose; there isn't a spare word in here. This is the China of our dreams, a Willow Pattern plate come to life with paper lanterns, pagodas and the line between the mundane world and the supernatural agreeably blurred. The author's hand drawn plates add even more charm, but look closer and see that this is no cozy chopstick idyll. There is grit in here too, and the Judge is there to see that justice is done, complete with harsh penalties. This is a world of extremes, where torture is part of the judicial system, towns often need to be fortified and all are subject to the whims of the rulers. But, despite all this, the story never gets bogged down in these harsh details, and we are shown a world full of ordinary people going about their daily lives minus anachronisms. Modern political correctness has no place here. Add to all this a jolly good tale containing three cases entwined around each other, the likeable team of the Judge and his men plus some handy historical notes and you have the recipe for…a classic.

***

The great Chinese detective Judge Dee begins work on the most disquieting case of his career when he reviews the rape murder on Half Moon Street.

The deathmaker was a small device, no larger than a heart patient's pacemaker. But it had the power to kill millions.

Knox Warnow, ex-U.S. atomic scientist, knew this. He had the device implanted in his chest. He also knew that if his heart stopped beating, the bombs that he'd planted across America would automatically explode. New York, Chicago, Washington, San Francisco, and L.A. would be wiped off the face of this world.

Nick Carter didn't know, and his assignment was to assassinate Knox Warnow. By the time Nick discovered Warnow's deadly secret, it was going to be much too late.

In 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor-in-chief of French Elle, the father of two young children, a 44-year-old man known and loved for his wit, his style, and his impassioned approach to life. By the end of the year he was also the victim of a rare kind of stroke to the brainstem. After 20 days in a coma, Bauby awoke into a body which had all but stopped working: only his left eye functioned, allowing him to see and, by blinking it, to make clear that his mind was unimpaired. Almost miraculously, he was soon able to express himself in the richest detail: dictating a word at a time, blinking to select each letter as the alphabet was recited to him slowly, over and over again. In the same way, he was able eventually to compose this extraordinary book.

By turns wistful, mischievous, angry, and witty, Bauby bears witness to his determination to live as fully in his mind as he had been able to do in his body. He explains the joy, and deep sadness, of seeing his children and of hearing his aged father’s voice on the phone. In magical sequences, he imagines traveling to other places and times and of lying next to the woman he loves. Fed only intravenously, he imagines preparing and tasting the full flavor of delectable dishes. Again and again he returns to an “inexhaustible reservoir of sensations,” keeping in touch with himself and the life around him.

Jean-Dominique Bauby died two days after the French publication of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

This book is a lasting testament to his life.

Acclaim for Jean-Dominique Bauby’s “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”

“The sentences soar, unburdened by self-pity or despair, and the progression of short, lyrical chapters begin to resemble the beating of wings.”

— The New Yorker

“An admirable testament to the unkillable self, to the spirit that insists on itself so vehemently that it ultimately transcends and escapes the prison of the body.”

— Francine Prose, Newsday

“The most remarkable memoir of our time—perhaps of any time.”

— Cynthia Ozick

“Shattering eloquence…. The real glory here is Bauby himself, whose spirit asserts itself again and again in the words that survive him.”

— Miami Herald

“To read this most extraordinary of narratives is to discover the luminosity within a courageous man's mind…. Incomparable.”

— Sherwin B. Nuland, M.D.

“Mesmerizing.”

— Newsweek

“Read this book and fall back in love with life…. The prose…is as light as the sprightliest humor, as pungent as the scent of cooking apricots, as vigorous as the step of a young man setting out on a first date.”

— Edmund White

Far from Earth two sister planets, Sainte Anne and Sainte Croix, circle each other. It is said that a race of shapeshifting aliens once lived here, only to become extinct when human colonists arrived. But one man believes they still exist, somewhere out in the wilderness. In The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Gene Wolfe brilliantly interweaves three tales: a scientist’s son gradual discovery of the bizarre secret of his heritage; a young man’s mythic dreamquest for his darker half; the mystifying chronicle of an anthropologist’s seemingly-arbitrary imprisonment. Gradually, a mesmerising pattern emerges.

Antonio Tabucchi's new novel The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro continues the experiment so successfully begun with his Pereira Declares (New Directions, 1994) — a European best-seller and winner of the prestigious Aristeion European Literature Prize in 1997. Tabucchi has now written a thriller, but one with a subtle intellectual depth not usual in that genre. The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro intriguingly reflects on current social issues: crime, police corruption, yellow journalism, and the courts — both of the law and of public opinion. Tabucchi hooks the reader on page one of this book and the story advances with electric and unflagging suspense. A gypsy discovers a headless body; Firmino, a young journalist who writes for a scandal-sheet, takes up the case; the headless corpse turns out to be that of one Damasceno Monteiro, an employee at an import-export company who, having stumbled upon a heroin smuggling ring at his work, had stolen a drug shipment; and, the police are supressing evidence — all the stuff of familiar daily news, here made riveting in the hands of a rare and brilliant writer.

Originally published in 1975, and long out of print, this classic horror anthology sees a first reprint in over forty years. This anthology features ten macabre short stories by such horror masters as Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, Joseph Payne Brennan and David A. Riley.

«The Nightingale Floors» were part of a crumbling Chicago museum and only the brave or the foolish ventured there after dark. The building had a weird history — and no night watchman stayed there long…

Winnie was «The Prefect Lady» and Rupert loved every little bit of her. But when the neighbours saw her at close quarters, panic spread through Lavender Hill…

«Aunt Hester» had strange powers. Her ability to transfer herself into the body of her twin brother had a hideous ending — or was it a beginning?

Lamson was intrigued by «The Satyr’s Head». He bought the little relic from an old tramp. It brought him nightmares, disease and, worst of all, unnatural passion from a foul incubus…