In The Long Game, a disgraced soccer exec, Adalyn Reyes, faces the challenge of her career when a viral video disrupts her meticulously crafted routine. Sent to redeem herself by turning around a struggling local soccer team in North Carolina, Adalyn's plans are further complicated by the team's unconventional practices and their fear of her.

Enter Cameron Caldani, a retired soccer star with a mysterious presence and a rocky first encounter with Adalyn. Despite the odds, Adalyn is determined to help this ragtag children's team succeed, with or without Cam's assistance. Her journey is a testament to resilience and the power of second chances in this heartwarming small-town love story reminiscent of Ted Lasso and It Happened One Summer.

Secretly Yours is a steamy romantic comedy that brings together a starchy professor and his bubbly neighbor, creating sparks at every encounter. Hallie Welch has been infatuated with Julian Vos since she was fourteen, following an almost-kiss in the vineyards of his family's winery. Years later, Julian, now a handsome enigma, returns to their hometown, and Hallie is tasked with revamping the gardens on the Vos estate, reigniting her teenage crush and the hope for that long-awaited kiss.

However, Julian is not the teenager she once knew. His formal demeanor contrasts sharply with Hallie's free spirit, leading to fiery clashes. After a night of wine and whimsy, Hallie frets over a reckless act—a secret admirer letter penned in a drunken blur. Julian, on sabbatical to write a novel, finds himself distracted by Hallie's vibrant energy and presence, which disrupts his structured life. As he uncovers the anonymous letter, Julian is drawn irresistibly into Hallie's colorful world, challenging his orderly existence and making him question everything he thought he knew about love and life.

Acclaimed author Jessie Mihalik returns with an exciting new novel about a rainbow-haired female bounty hunter tasked with preventing an interstellar war. Kee Ildez has been many things: hacker, soldier, bounty hunter. She never expected to be a hero, but when a shadowy group of traitors starts trying to goad the galaxy's two superpowers into instigating an interstellar war, Kee throws herself into the search to find out who is responsible—and stop them.

Digging up hidden information is her job, so hunting traitors should be a piece of cake, but the primary suspect spent years in the military, and someone powerful is still covering his tracks. Disrupting their plans will require the help of her entire team, including Varro Runkow, a Valovian weapons expert who makes her pulse race. Quiet, grumpy, and incredibly handsome, Varro watches her with hot eyes but ignores all of her flirting, so Kee silently vows to keep her feelings strictly platonic.

But that vow will be put to the test when she and Varro are forced to leave the safety of their ship and venture into enemy territory alone. Cut off from the rest of their team, they must figure out how to work together—and fast—because a single misstep will cost thousands of lives.

Inspiration can come from the most unlikely—and inconvenient—sources.

Kara Sullivan's life is full of love—albeit fictional. As a bestselling romance novelist and influential Bookstagrammer, she's fine with getting her happily-ever-after fix between the covers of a book.

But right now? Not only is Kara's best friend getting married next week—which means big wedding stress—but the deadline for her next novel is looming, and she hasn't written a single word. The last thing she needs is for her infuriating first love, Ryan Thompson, to suddenly appear in the wedding party.

But Ryan's unexpected arrival sparks a creative awakening in Kara that inspires the steamy historical romance she desperately needs to deliver. With her wedding duties intensifying, her deadline getting closer by the second and her bills not paying themselves, Kara knows there's only one way for her to finish her book and to give her characters the ever-after they deserve.

But can she embrace the unlikely, ruggedly handsome muse—who pushes every one of her buttons—to save the wedding, her career and, just maybe, write her own happy ending?

The battle on Sharr is over. The dark forest has fallen. Altair may be captive, but Zafira, Nasir, and Kifah are bound for Sultan's Keep, determined to finish the plan he set in motion: restoring the hearts of the Sisters of Old to the minarets of each caliphate, and finally returning magic to all of Arawiya. But they are low on resources and allies alike, and the kingdom teems with fear of the Lion of the Night's return.

As the zumra plots to overthrow the kingdom's darkest threat, Nasir fights to command the magic in his blood. He must learn to hone his power into a weapon, to wield not only against the Lion but against his father, trapped under the Lion's control. Zafira battles a very different darkness festering in her through her bond with the Jawarat—a darkness that hums with voices, pushing her to the brink of her sanity and to the edge of a chaos she dare not unleash. In spite of the darkness enclosing ever faster, Nasir and Zafira find themselves falling into a love they can't stand to lose…but time is running out to achieve their ends, and if order is to be restored, drastic sacrifices will have to be made.

Lush and striking, hopeful and devastating, We Free the Stars is the masterful conclusion to the Sands of Arawiya duology by New York Times–bestselling author Hafsah Faizal.

Year 2522. Oh. My. Stars. Junior Officer Ara Lawrence here, reporting for duty. Again. It's situation critical for the security team and everyone in the base - including my parents - with a new attack from the looters imminent, a possible galaxy-wide crime conspiracy and an unstoppable alien threat.

But this all pales in the face of my mind-blowing discovery about the Q-net. Of course, no one believes me. I'm not sure I believe me. It could just be a stress-induced delusion. That's what my parents seem to believe... Their concern for me is hampering my ability to do my job.

I know they love me, but with the Q-net in my corner, I'm the only one who can help the security team beat the shadowy aliens from the pits we discovered. We're holding them at bay, for now, but the entire Milky Way Galaxy is in danger of being overrun.

With battles on too many fronts, it's looking dire. But one thing I've learned is when people I love are in jeopardy, I'll never give up trying to save them. Not until my dying breath. Which could very well be today...

An intimate, revelatory book exploring the ways we can care for and repair ourselves when life knocks us down.

Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.

A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas.

Ultimately, Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.

Year 2522: Lyra Daniels is dead. Okay, so I only died for sixty-six seconds. But when I came back to life, I got a brand new name and a snazzy new uniform. Go me! Seriously, though, it's very important that Lyra Daniels stays dead, at least as far as my ex-friend Jarren, the murdering looter, knows.

While dying is the scariest thing that's happened to me, it morphed my worming skills. I can manipulate the Q-net like never before. But Jarren has blocked us from communicating with the rest of the galaxy and now they believe we've gone silent, like Planet Xinji (where silent really means dead).

A Protector Class spaceship is coming to our rescue, but we still have to survive almost two years before they arrive - if they arrive at all. Until then, we have to figure out how to stop an unstoppable alien threat. And it's only a matter of time before Jarren learns I'm not dead and returns to finish what he started.

There's no way I'm going to let Jarren win. Instead, I'll do whatever it takes to save the people I love. But even I'm running out of ideas...

The Atlas of Happiness is a fun, illustrated guide that takes us on a journey around the world, uncovering the secrets to happiness. Helen Russell, the author of The Year of Living Danishly, explores the fascinating ways that different nations search for happiness in their lives and what they can teach us about our own quest for meaning.

This charming and diverse assortment of advice, history, and philosophies includes:

• Sobremesa from Spain
• Turangawaewae from New Zealand
• Azart from Russia
• Tarab from Syria
• Joie de vivre from Canada
• and many more.

From Australia to Wales, via Bhutan, Ireland, Finland, Turkey, Syria, Japan, and many more, The Atlas of Happiness uncovers the global secrets to happiness and how they can change our lives.

A trans artist explores how masculinity was imposed on her as a boy and continues to haunt her as a girl—and how we might reimagine gender for the twenty-first century.

Vivek Shraya has reason to be afraid. Throughout her life, she's endured acts of cruelty and aggression for being too feminine as a boy and not feminine enough as a girl. In order to survive childhood, she had to learn to convincingly perform masculinity. As an adult, she makes daily compromises to steel herself against everything from verbal attacks to heartbreak.

With raw honesty, Shraya delivers an important record of the cumulative damage caused by misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia, releasing trauma from a body that has always refused to assimilate. I'm Afraid of Men is a journey from camouflage to a riot of color and a blueprint for how we might cherish all that makes us different and conquer all that makes us afraid.

For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life–until the unthinkable happens.

Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Karen Russell, Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

Colleen Hoover delivers a tour de force novel about a troubled marriage and the one old forgotten promise that might be able to save it.

Quinn and Graham’s perfect love is threatened by their imperfect marriage. The memories, mistakes, and secrets that they have built up over the years are now tearing them apart. The one thing that could save them might also be the very thing that pushes their marriage beyond the point of repair.

All Your Perfects is a profound novel about a damaged couple whose potential future hinges on promises made in the past. This is a heartbreaking page-turner that asks: Can a resounding love with a perfect beginning survive a lifetime between two imperfect people?

Smoke in the Sun is the highly anticipated sequel to New York Times bestselling Flame in the Mist. This addictive and sumptuous finale will leave readers breathless, penned by the bestselling author of The Wrath and the Dawn, Renée Ahdieh.

After Okami is captured in the Jukai forest, Mariko has no choice but to rescue him. To do so, she must return to Inako and face the dangers that have been waiting for her in the Heian Castle. Mariko deceives her brother, Kenshin, and her betrothed, Raiden, into believing she was being held by the Black Clan against her will. She plays the part of the dutiful bride-to-be to infiltrate the emperor's ranks and uncover the truth behind the betrayal that almost left her dead.

As the wedding plans progress, Mariko pretends to be consumed with her upcoming nuptials, while using her royal standing to peel back the layers of lies and deception surrounding the imperial court. But with each secret she uncovers, a new one emerges, ensnaring Mariko and Okami in a political scheme that threatens their honor, their love, and the very safety of the empire.

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?

Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn's luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the '80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn's story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique's own in tragic and irreversible ways.

Written with Reid's signature talent for creating "complex, likable characters", this is a mesmerizing journey through the splendor of old Hollywood into the harsh realities of the present day as two women struggle with what it means—and what it costs—to face the truth.

Dark Matter is a mindbending, relentlessly surprising thriller from Blake Crouch, author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy. "Are you happy with your life?" Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Jason awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. A man he's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend."

In the world he's woken up to, Jason's life is not as he knows it. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. He's not an ordinary college physics professor but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable—something impossible. Is this world or the other the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves?

The journey that lies ahead of Jason is more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could have imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe. Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange, and profoundly human—a science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and the lengths we'll go to claim the lives we dream of.

Wedding planner Avery Crosslin may be a rising star in Houston society, but she doesn't believe in love—at least not for herself. When she meets wealthy bachelor Joe Travis and mistakes him for a wedding photographer, she has no intention of letting him sweep her off her feet. But Joe is a man who goes after what he wants, and Avery can't resist the temptation of a sexy southern charmer and a hot summer evening.

After a one night stand, however, Avery is determined to keep it from happening again. A man like Joe can only mean trouble for a woman like her, and she can't afford distractions. She's been hired to plan the wedding of the year—a make-or-break event. But complications start piling up fast, putting the wedding in jeopardy, especially when shocking secrets of the bride come to light. And as Joe makes it clear that he's not going to give up easily, Avery is forced to confront the insecurities and beliefs that stem from a past she would do anything to forget.

The situation reaches a breaking point, and Avery faces the toughest choice of her life. Only by putting her career on the line and risking everything—including her well-guarded heart—will she find out what matters most.

The day my mother was killed, she told my father I wouldn't speak again, and she told him if I died, he would die too. Then she predicted the king would trade his soul and lose his son to the sky.

My father has a claim to the throne, and he is waiting in the shadows for all of my mother's words to come to pass. He wants desperately to be king, and I just want to be free.

But freedom will require escape, and I'm a prisoner of my mother's curse and my father's greed. I can't speak or make a sound, and I can't wield a sword or beguile a king. In a land purged of enchantment, love might be the only magic left, and who could ever love ... a bird?"--Back cover.

Depression is not a disease. It is a symptom.

Recent years have seen a shocking increase in antidepressant use the world over, with 1 in 4 women starting their day with medication. These drugs have steadily become the panacea for everything from grief, irritability, panic attacks, to insomnia, PMS, and stress. But the truth is, what women really need can’t be found at a pharmacy.

According to Dr. Kelly Brogan, antidepressants not only overpromise and underdeliver, but their use may permanently disable the body’s self-healing potential. We need a new paradigm: The best way to heal the mind is to heal the whole body.

In this groundbreaking, science-based and holistic approach, Dr. Brogan shatters the mythology conventional medicine has built around the causes and treatment of depression. Based on her expert interpretation of published medical findings, combined with years of experience from her clinical practice, Dr. Brogan illuminates the true cause of depression: it is not simply a chemical imbalance, but a lifestyle crisis that demands a reset. It is a signal that the interconnected systems in the body are out of balance – from blood sugar, to gut health, to thyroid function – and inflammation is at the root.

A Mind of Your Own offers an achievable, step-by-step 30-day action plan—including powerful dietary interventions, targeted nutrient support, detoxification, sleep, and stress reframing techniques—women can use to heal their bodies, alleviate inflammation, and feel like themselves again without a single prescription.

Bold, brave, and revolutionary, A Mind of Your Own takes readers on a journey of self-empowerment for radical transformation that goes far beyond symptom relief.

Hillbilly Elegy recounts J.D. Vance’s powerful origin story.

From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate now serving as a U.S. Senator from Ohio, this is an incisive account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class.

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring for more than forty years, is reported with growing frequency and alarm but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J.D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J.D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually, one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history.

A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. It is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.

Sara Fielding is a prim and proper gentlewoman, a writer who creates dreams with her pen. Yet, her curiosity draws her away from the safety of her country cottage into the thrilling, dangerous world of Derek Craven—a man of substantial wealth and the proprietor of London's most exclusive gambling house.

Derek, a man who rose from the depths of poverty, is now faced with the necessity of allowing Sara into his world of fluctuating fortunes, with her impeccable manners and exasperating innocence. However, Sara possesses an unexpected strength and sensuality that captivates Derek beyond his control. In a place where shadows conceal imminent threats, a supposedly meek 'mouse' can evolve into a stunning enchantress, and a hardened gambler can be profoundly affected by the intensity of passion and the prospect of love.

Penny Drummond aspires to be a prize-winning journalist. In the meantime, she's honing her skills on the school paper. When she discovers a boy at her school is posting anonymous messages on a love-shy forum, Penny believes she has found just the story she needs.

Her mission: find him, fix him, feature-article him. Next stop: Pulitzer Prize. But what will become of Penny's journey-of-the-soul article if the love-shy boy is not who she expects? And what if her soul might be in need of a little attention as well?

Love-Shy is a lively, entertaining and warm-hearted romantic comedy filled with serious secrets, ambitious plans, awkward moments and unexpected friendships - funny and engaging to the very last page.

Xhea has no magic. Born without the power that everyone else takes for granted, Xhea is an outcast—no way to earn a living, buy food, or change the life that fate has dealt her. Yet she has a unique talent: the ability to see ghosts and the tethers that bind them to the living world, which she uses to scratch out a bare existence in the ruins beneath the City's floating Towers.

When a rich City man comes to her with a young woman's ghost tethered to his chest, Xhea has no idea that this ghost will change everything. The ghost, Shai, is a Radiant, a rare person who generates so much power that the Towers use it to fuel their magic, heedless of the pain such use causes. Shai's home Tower is desperate to get the ghost back and force her into a body—any body—so that it can regain its position, while the Tower's rivals seek the ghost to use her magic for their own ends.

Caught between a multitude of enemies and desperate to save Shai, Xhea thinks herself powerless—until a strange magic wakes within her. Magic dark and slow, like rising smoke, like seeping oil. A magic whose very touch brings death.

With two extremely strong female protagonists, Radiant is a story of fighting for what you believe in and finding strength that you never thought you had.

Lucy Beck-Moreau once had a promising future as a concert pianist. The right people knew her name, her performances were booked months in advance, and her future seemed certain. That was all before she turned fourteen.

Now, at sixteen, it's over. A death, and a betrayal, led her to walk away. That leaves her talented ten-year-old brother, Gus, to shoulder the full weight of the Beck-Moreau family expectations. Then Gus gets a new piano teacher who is young, kind, and interested in helping Lucy rekindle her love of piano -- on her own terms. But when you're used to performing for sold-out audiences and world-famous critics, can you ever learn to play just for yourself?

The Lucy Variations is a story of one girl's struggle to reclaim her love of music and herself. It's about finding joy again, even when things don't go according to plan. Because life isn't a performance, and everyone deserves the chance to make a few mistakes along the way.

Eat, Pray, Love is the captivating memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert that chronicles her journey of self-discovery following a devastating divorce. Feeling lost and uncertain about the future, Gilbert makes a bold decision to step away from her life in America and embark on a year-long trip around the world.

In Italy, she indulges in the art of pleasure, learning to speak Italian and delighting in the country's culinary offerings. Her experience is not just about savoring good food and wine, but also about embracing joy and giving herself permission to feel good again.

India offers a stark contrast, where Gilbert dives deep into the art of devotion. It is here, in an ashram, that she commits to exploring her spiritual side, seeking peace and a sense of connection that had long eluded her.

The final leg of her journey takes her to Bali, Indonesia, where she seeks balance between the material and the spiritual. Under the guidance of an elderly medicine man and through an unexpected romance, Gilbert finds a harmony she had been missing.

An honest and transformative narrative, Eat, Pray, Love is a testament to the healing power of travel and the courage it takes to confront one's own truths. It's a story of embracing change, pursuing happiness, and discovering a life worth living on one's own terms.

Fresh from his latest attempt to get Buffy to act on her feelings for him, Spike has fled to the dark side of the moon. His trip leads him to a group of dangerous demons and a rude awakening from his reverie, which in turn leads him on an unexpected adventure to . . . Sunnydale!

Collecting Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Spike—A Dark Place #1–#5.

Who is the real McLean? Since her parents' bitter divorce, McLean and her dad, a restaurant consultant, have been on the move—four towns in two years. Estranged from her mother and her mother's new family, McLean has followed her dad in leaving the unhappy past behind. And each new place gives her a chance to try out a new persona: from cheerleader to drama diva.

But now, for the first time, McLean discovers a desire to stay in one place and just be herself, whoever that is. Perhaps Dave, the guy next door, can help her find out. Combining Sarah Dessen's trademark graceful writing, great characters, and compelling storytelling, What Happened to Goodbye is irresistible reading.

"Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in." - Michael Corleone, The Godfather

Freed from jail, Anya hopes that things will get back to normal. But life on the outside is even more dangerous than life behind bars. Some of her gangland family want revenge for the crime for which she has done time: the shooting of her uncle. Forced to flee the country, Anya hides out in a cacao plantation in Mexico. There she learns the secrets of the chocolate trade, a trade that is illegal and deadly in her native New York.

There too she discovers that seemingly random acts of violence carried out across the world have a single target: her family. As innocent bystanders get caught in the crossfire, Anya must act fast and decisively to stop it, no matter what the danger to herself.

The Strain is the first installment in a thrilling trilogy that presents a horrifying battle between man and vampire, threatening all of humanity. A Boeing 777 lands at JFK Airport and comes to an inexplicable stop on the tarmac. With all shades pulled down, lights out, and communication channels silent, the ground crews are baffled. The CDC sends out an alert, and Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project which investigates biological threats, is summoned to investigate.

What Dr. Goodweather discovers on the plane sends chills down his spine. Meanwhile, in Spanish Harlem, Abraham Setrakian, a former professor and Holocaust survivor, senses that an ominous war is brewing. As a vampiric virus infects New York and begins to spread, Dr. Goodweather, Setrakian, and a diverse group of fighters unite to stop the contagion and save the city, including Dr. Goodweather's own family, before it's too late.

Authored by Guillermo del Toro, the visionary filmmaker behind the Academy Award-winning Pan's Labyrinth, and Chuck Hogan, a Hammett Award-winning author, The Strain offers a bold, epic, and extraordinary narrative that reinvents the vampire novel with a chilling and unputdownable tale of survival.

Annie and Duncan are a mid-thirties couple who have reached a fork in the road, realizing their shared interest in the reclusive musician Tucker Crowe (in Duncan's case, an obsession rather than an interest) is not enough to hold them together anymore. When Annie dislikes Tucker's 'new release', a terrible demo of his most famous album, it's the last straw - Duncan cheats on her, and she promptly throws him out.

Via an internet discussion forum, Annie's harsh opinion reaches Tucker himself, who couldn't agree more. He and Annie start an unlikely correspondence which teaches them both something about moving on from years of wasted time. Nick Hornby's compelling new novel, four years after A Long Way Down, is about the nature of creativity and obsession, and how two lonely people can gradually find each other.

In his hilarious yet disturbing (because it's so true) book Creepiosity: A Hilarious Guide to the Unintentionally Creepy, comedy writer David Bickel presents readers with 100 of the most unsettling everyday things, such as grown men in Boy Scout uniforms, old ladies with really long hair, fish with people faces, lifelike baby dolls, and much more.

Bickel infuses each subject with comedic insight into what exactly makes it creepy and provides an appropriately hilarious photo to help illustrate his point.

And since not all creepiness is created equal, Bickel has invented an unnecessarily complex mathematical formula (or Creepiosity Index, if you will) to quantify each unsettling item's relative creepiness. (Band-Aids that were once affixed to someone's body but now aren't: 7.454.)

However, Bickel also acknowledges that creepiness, universal as it may be, is far from absolute. To that end, he invites readers to assign their own Creepiosity number to these and other curiosities via a companion Web site.

(For example, what's more disturbing, hairless cats or Dick Cheney smiling? You decide!)

Es la hora. Ya no hay vuelta atrás. Los juegos van a comenzar. Los tributos deben salir a la Arena y luchar por sobrevivir. Ganar significa fama y riqueza, perder significa la muerte segura... ¡Que empiecen los Septuagésimo Cuartos Juegos del Hambre!

¿Podrías sobrevivir tú solo en la naturaleza salvaje rodeado de quienes quieren asegurarse de que no vives para ver el amanecer? Un pasado de guerras ha dejado los 12 distritos que dividen Panem bajo el poder tiránico del “Capitolio”. Sin libertad y en la pobreza, nadie puede salir de los límites de su distrito. Sólo una chica de 16 años, Katniss Everdeen, osa desafiar las normas para conseguir comida. Sus principios se pondrán a prueba con “Los juegos del hambre”, espectáculo televisado que el Capitolio organiza para humillar a la población. Cada año, 2 representantes de cada distrito serán obligados a subsistir en un medio hostil y luchar a muerte entre ellos hasta que quede un solo superviviente. Cuando su hermana pequeña es elegida para participar, Katniss no duda en ocupar su lugar, decidida a demostrar con su actitud firme y decidida, que aún en las situaciones más desesperadas hay lugar para el amor y el respeto.

Unexpected Desire... It's been ten years since clean-cut, sexy-as-hell police officer Todd Keenan had a white-hot fling with Erin Brown, the provocative, wild rocker chick next door. Their power exchange in the bedroom got under his skin. But love wasn't in the cards just yet...

Now, life has thrown the pair back together. But picking up where they left off is tough, in light of a painful event from Erin's past. As Todd struggles to earn her trust, their relationship takes an unexpected and exciting turn when Todd's best friend, Ben, ends up in their bed—and all three are quite satisfied in this relationship without a name. As the passion they share transforms Erin, will it be enough to help her face the evil she thought she had left behind?

Zoey's life at vampyre training school takes a turn for the worse as she loses most of her group of friends and all three of her potential boyfriends and the High Priestess Neferet plans a war on humans that Zoey knows is wrong.

Frank Herbert's Dune ended with Paul Muad'Dib in control of the planet Dune. Herbert's next Dune book, Dune Messiah, picked up the story several years later after Paul's armies had conquered the galaxy. But what happened between Dune and Dune Messiah? How did Paul create his empire and become the Messiah? Following in the footsteps of Frank Herbert, New York Times bestselling authors Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson are answering these questions in Paul of Dune.

The Muad'Dib's jihad is in full swing. His warrior legions march from victory to victory. But beneath the joy of victory there are dangerous undercurrents. Paul, like nearly every great conqueror, has enemies—those who would betray him to steal the awesome power he commands. And Paul himself begins to have doubts: Is the jihad getting out of his control? Has he created anarchy? Has he been betrayed by those he loves and trusts the most? And most of all, he wonders: Am I going mad?

Paul of Dune is a novel everyone will want to read and no one will be able to forget.

Twilight unfolds the story of Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, a pair of star-crossed lovers whose forbidden relationship ripens amidst the small-town suspicion and the enigmatic presence of a mysterious coven of vampires. Isabella Swan's move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, was expected to be the dullest chapter of her life. But when she meets the intriguing and seductive Edward Cullen, her life takes a thrilling and terrifying leap.

Edward has so far managed to conceal his true vampire nature in the quiet community he inhabits, but now, no one is safe, particularly Isabella, the one he cherishes above all. The lovers find themselves on the razor's edge, torn between the urge to resist their primal instincts and the temptation to fulfill their desires. Twilight is a tale that captures the essence of romance and the dilemma of the heart with a touch of the supernatural, making it a love story that bites deep.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Zookeeper's Wife, an ambitious and enlightening work that combines an artist's eye with a scientist's erudition to illuminate, as never before, the magic and mysteries of the human mind.

Long treasured by literary readers for her uncommon ability to bridge the gap between art and science, celebrated scholar-artist Diane Ackerman returns with the book she was born to write. Her dazzling new work, An Alchemy of Mind, offers an unprecedented exploration and celebration of the mental fantasia in which we spend our days—and does for the human mind what the bestselling A Natural History of the Senses did for the physical senses.

Bringing a valuable female perspective to the topic, Diane Ackerman discusses the science of the brain as only she can: with gorgeous, immediate language and imagery that paint an unusually lucid and vibrant picture for the reader. And in addition to explaining memory, thought, emotion, dreams, and language acquisition, she reports on the latest discoveries in neuroscience and addresses controversial subjects like the effects of trauma and male versus female brains.

In prose that is not simply accessible but also beautiful and electric, Ackerman distills the hard, objective truths of science in order to yield vivid, heavily anecdotal explanations about a range of existential questions regarding consciousness, human thought, memory, and the nature of identity.

World-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a cryptic symbol seared into the chest of a murdered physicist. What he discovers is unimaginable: a deadly vendetta against the Catholic Church by a centuries-old underground organization -- the Illuminati. In a desperate race to save the Vatican from a powerful time bomb, Langdon joins forces in Rome with the beautiful and mysterious scientist Vittoria Vetra. Together they embark on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, and deserted cathedrals, and into the depths of the most secretive vault on earth...the long-forgotten Illuminati lair.

'Tuesdays with Morrie' is a poignant memoir by Mitch Albom that recounts the time spent with his former sociology professor, Morrie Schwartz, during the final stages of Schwartz's battle with ALS. This book captures the essence of their weekly meetings, every Tuesday, where Morrie imparted wisdom on various aspects of life.

Albom presents Morrie's insights on the importance of love, the value of forgiveness, and the significance of forging one's own culture against the societal currents. These lessons are presented as a final 'class' from Morrie, offering guidance on how to live a meaningful life.

The author delves into the profound impact of these conversations on his life, as Morrie's teachings helped him understand the virtues of aging and the necessity to embrace vulnerability. Mitch Albom shares these invaluable lessons with readers, allowing them to benefit from Morrie's wisdom and the transformative power of their Tuesdays together.

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy.

So begins Robert Fagles' magnificent translation of the Odyssey, which Jasper Griffin in The New York Times Review of Books hails as "a distinguished achievement." If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, then the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey through life.

Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces, during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance. In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery.

Renowned classicist Bernard Knox's superb introduction and textual commentary provide new insights and background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Fagles' translation.

This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the public at large, and to captivate a new generation of Homer's students.

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister forces are massing beyond the kingdom's protective Wall. To the south, the king's powers are failing—his most trusted adviser dead under mysterious circumstances and his enemies emerging from the shadows of the throne.

At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the frozen land they were born to. Now Lord Eddard Stark is reluctantly summoned to serve as the king's new Hand, an appointment that threatens to sunder not only his family but the kingdom itself. Sweeping from a harsh land of cold to a summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, A Game of Thrones tells a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens.

Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; a child is lost in the twilight between life and death; and a determined woman undertakes a treacherous journey to protect all she holds dear. Amid plots and counter-plots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, allies and enemies, the fate of the Starks hangs perilously in the balance, as each side endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

Taken from the poverty of her parents' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole ally. During her uncle's absence in Antigua, the Crawford's arrive in the neighbourhood bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation.

Mansfield Park is considered Jane Austen's first mature work and, with its quiet heroine and subtle examination of social position and moral integrity, one of her most profound.

Love You Forever by Robert Munsch is a touching narrative that delves into the enduring love that a parent has for their child. The story is beautifully illustrated by Sheila McGraw with soft and colorful pastels that harmonize with the book's heartfelt sentiment.

This beloved book promises to be a staple that parents and children will read together repeatedly over the years, cherishing the message and the moments shared together.

Neuromancer is the seminal work in the cyberpunk genre, offering a vision of the future that has become a cornerstone of science fiction literature. It is the first novel in William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, and it stands as a classic that has influenced countless other works.

Henry Dorsett Case was once the sharpest data-thief in the business, until his employers crippled his nervous system as retribution for his thefts. Now, a mysterious new employer has offered him a chance at redemption and a return to the cyberspace he was banished from. The mission: to pull off a seemingly impossible heist against an artificial intelligence of staggering power. Joined by Molly, a street-samurai with mirror implants for eyes, Case is thrust into a world of danger and intrigue that will test his abilities to the fullest.

William Gibson's Neuromancer is not only a must-read for fans of the genre but also for anyone interested in the relationship between humanity and technology. The novel's impact on the language and landscape of our digital culture cannot be overstated, making it a true masterpiece of modern literature.

Humbert Humbert - scholar, aesthete and romantic - has fallen completely and utterly in love with Lolita Haze, his landlady's gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.

The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor is Gabriel García Márquez's remarkable account of a real-life event. In 1955, eight crew members of the destroyer Caldas were swept into the Caribbean Sea. The tale unfolds with Luis Alejandro Velasco, the sole survivor, who bravely endured ten days adrift on a life raft without food or water. His harrowing ordeal of survival is vividly captured in this narrative, which also explores the aftermath of his rescue, including the unexpected consequences of fame and the fickle nature of public adoration.

Originally published as a series of newspaper articles, this work caused a sensation and a scandal upon its release. Márquez's retelling of Velasco's extraordinary tale of endurance, from his intense loneliness and thirst to his unwavering determination to survive, reads like an epic, drawing readers into the depths of human resilience and the will to live. This story not only highlights the physical challenges of Velasco's journey but also delves into the psychological effects of isolation and the struggle to maintain hope in the face of overwhelming adversity.