Enter the world of Mitford, and you won't want to leave. It's easy to feel at home in Mitford. In these high, green hills, the air is pure, the village is charming, and the people are generally lovable.

Yet, Father Tim, the bachelor rector, wants something more. Enter a dog the size of a sofa who moves in and won't go away. Add an attractive neighbor who begins wearing a path through the hedge. Now, stir in a lovable but unloved boy, a mystifying jewel theft, and a secret that's sixty years old.

Suddenly, Father Tim gets more than he bargained for. And readers get a rich comedy about ordinary people and their ordinary lives.

After years of soul-searching, Jeanne Safer made the conscious decision not to have children. In this book, Safer and women across the country share insights that dispel the myth of childless women as emotionally barren or incomplete, and encourage all women to honestly confront their needs—whether they choose motherhood or not.

In Blue Belle, Montana, everyone knew better than to mess with the Claybornes. The brothers had once been a mismatched gang of street urchins—until they found an abandoned baby girl in a New York City alley, named her Mary Rose, and headed west to raise her to be a lady.

They became a family—held together by loyalty and love, if not by blood—when suddenly they faced a crisis that threatened to tear them apart. Trouble came to town with one Lord Harrison Stanford MacDonald. Armed with a swagger and six-shooter, he cut a striking figure—but it soon became apparent to Mary Rose that he was too much of a gentleman to make it in her rough-and-tumble town.

She asked her brothers to teach him the basics of frontier survival, which he acquired with ease. And soon he possessed a deep and desperate love for Mary Rose. She returned his affection wholeheartedly... until MacDonald revealed a secret that challenged everything she believed about herself, her life, and her newfound love.

Now her search for identity and meaning would begin, raising questions that could only be answered if she listened to the truth within her heart.

From the fall of Rome to the rise of Charlemagne—the "dark ages"—learning, scholarship, and culture disappeared from the European continent. The great heritage of western civilization—from the Greek and Roman classics to Jewish and Christian works—would have been utterly lost were it not for the holy men and women of unconquered Ireland.

In this delightful and illuminating look into a crucial but little-known "hinge" of history, Thomas Cahill takes us to the "island of saints and scholars," the Ireland of St. Patrick and the Book of Kells. Here, far from the barbarian despoliation of the continent, monks and scribes laboriously, lovingly, even playfully preserved the west's written treasures.

With the return of stability in Europe, these Irish scholars were instrumental in spreading learning. Thus, the Irish not only were conservators of civilization, but became shapers of the medieval mind, putting their unique stamp on western culture.

Enter a powerful realm of legend, dark sorcery, and conquest, where the mighty Drenai warrior Druss faces his most deadly opponent...

Druss the Legend, the dark axman known as the Deathwalker, must join the warrior Talisman on a mission of blood and glory. Only the stolen Eyes of Alchazzar—mystic jewels of power—will save Druss's dying friend, then unite the Nadir tribes against the evil of the Gothir.

Druss agrees to help look for the twin gems—hidden for centuries in the shrine of Oshikai, the Demon-bane, the Nadir's greatest hero.

It has been prophesied that with the recovery of the stones, there will come the Uniter, a magnificent fighter who will free the Nadir from brutal oppression. But Garen-Tsen, the sadistic power behind the Gothir throne, also seeks the gems. To control them, he will send five thousand men against a handful of savages, Talisman, and the one Drenai warrior.

Widely regarded as D. H. Lawrence's greatest novel, Women in Love is both a lucid account of English society before the First World War and a brilliant evocation of the inexorable power of human desire.

Women in Love continues where The Rainbow left off, with the third generation of Brangwens: Ursula Brangwen, now a teacher at Beldover, a mining town in the Midlands, and her sister Gudrun, who has returned from art school in London. The focus of the novel is primarily on their relationships: Ursula's with Rupert Birkin, a school inspector, and Gudrun's with industrialist Gerald Crich, and later with a sculptor, Loerke.

Quintessentially modernist, Women in Love is one of Lawrence's most extraordinary, innovative, and unsettling works.

In Our Time is a remarkable collection of short stories and vignettes by Ernest Hemingway, marking his American debut and earning him instant fame. First published in 1925, it was lauded by literary giants like Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The collection is celebrated for its simple and precise language, conveying a wide range of complex emotions.

Within its pages, readers will find several early Hemingway classics, including the famous Nick Adams stories "Indian Camp," "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife," "The Three Day Blow," and "The Battler." These stories introduce the hallmarks of Hemingway's style: a lean, tough prose enlivened by an ear for the colloquial and an eye for the realistic, suggesting, through the simplest of statements, a sense of moral value and clarity of heart.

Recognized as one of the most original short story collections in twentieth-century literature, In Our Time provides a key to understanding Hemingway's later works. Its themes of alienation, loss, and grief are conveyed through a style known as Hemingway's "theory of omission" or iceberg theory, making it an essential read for any literature enthusiast.

Nobel Prize recipient Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country is widely considered to be the writer's masterpiece, a powerful tale of wasted love set amid the desolate beauty of western Japan.

At an isolated mountain hot spring, with snow blanketing every surface, Shimamura, a wealthy dilettante meets Komako, a lowly geisha. She gives herself to him fully and without remorse, despite knowing that their passion cannot last and that the affair can have only one outcome. In chronicling the course of this doomed romance, Kawabata has created a story for the ages, a stunning novel dense in implication and exalting in its sadness.

When left to take care of himself, a young boy becomes involved with a community of intelligent lizards who tell him of a little-known invasion from outer space.

Things Victor loves: pizza with anchovies, grape soda, B movies aired at midnight, the evening news. With his parents off at a resort and his older sister shirking her babysitting duties, Victor has plenty of time to indulge himself and to try a few things he’s been curious about.

Exploring the nearby city of Hogboro, he runs into a curious character known as the Chicken Man (a reference to his companion, an intelligent hen named Claudia who lives under his hat). The Chicken Man speaks brilliant nonsense, but he seems to be hip to the lizard musicians (real lizards, not men in lizard suits) who’ve begun appearing on Victor’s television after the broadcast of the late-late movie.

Are the lizards from outer space? From “other space”? Together Victor and the Chicken Man, guided by the able Claudia, journey to the lizards’ floating island, a strange and fantastic place that operates with an inspired logic of its own.

In AD 2600, the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialization of entire star systems. And throughout inhabited space, the Confederation Navy keeps the peace. A true golden age is within our grasp.

But now something has gone catastrophically wrong. On a primitive colony planet, a renegade criminal's chance encounter with an utterly alien entity unleashes the most primal of all our fears. An extinct race which inhabited the galaxy aeons ago called it "The Reality Dysfunction." It is the nightmare which has prowled beside us since the beginning of history.

This book was first published in 1898 in a highly edited version and quickly became a modern spiritual classic, read by millions and translated into over fifty-five languages. John Clarke's acclaimed translation, first published in 1975, is now accepted as the standard throughout the English-speaking world.

Two and a half years before her death in 1897 at the age of 24, Thérèse Martin began writing down her childhood memories at the request of her blood sisters in the Lisieux Carmel. Few could have guessed the eventual outcome. Yet, this "story of my soul" became a beacon of confidence and love, the "little way," and abandonment to God's merciful love. Discover her "mission" in the church and world today.

Absolute Power plunges readers into a world of political intrigue and suspense. When professional burglar Luther Whitney breaks into a Virginia mansion, he becomes an unwitting witness to a crime of unimaginable proportions.

Trapped behind a two-way mirror, Luther witnesses a brutal crime involving the President of the United States — a man who believes he can get away with anything. The shocking events he observes shatter his faith in justice and everything he holds dear.

The story unfolds into an unthinkable abuse of power and a criminal conspiracy, as a breathtaking cover-up is set in motion by those appointed to protect the nation's highest office. As Luther Whitney becomes the target of a relentless manhunt, he must navigate a dangerous world of deceit and corruption to bring the truth to light.

This novel is a high-octane thriller that explores the dark side of power and the lengths to which some will go to protect it. With its intricate plot and compelling characters, Absolute Power is a gripping tale of suspense and moral dilemmas.

Past midnight, Chyna Shepard, twenty-six, gazes out a moonlit window, unable to sleep on her first night in the Napa Valley home of her best friend’s family. Instinct proves reliable. A murderous sociopath, Edgler Foreman Vess, has entered the house, intent on killing everyone inside. A self-proclaimed “homicidal adventurer,” Vess lives only to satisfy all appetites as they arise, to immerse himself in sensation, to live without fear, remorse, or limits, to live with intensity. Chyna is trapped in his deadly orbit.

Chyna is a survivor, toughened by a lifelong struggle for safety and self-respect. Now she will be tested as never before. At first her sole aim is to get out alive—until, by chance, she learns the identity of Vess’s next intended victim, a faraway innocent only she can save. Driven by a newly discovered thirst for meaning beyond mere self-preservation, Chyna musters every inner resource she has to save an endangered girl... as moment by moment, the terrifying threat of Edgler Foreman Vess intensifies.

Double the fun! Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is still learning the ropes at her cousin Vinnie's bail bond office. When she sets out on the trail of Kenny Mancuso—a suspiciously wealthy, working-class Trenton boy who has just shot his best friend—the stakes are higher than ever. That Mancuso is distantly related to vice cop Joe Morelli—who is trying to beat Stephanie to the punch—only makes the hunt more thrilling...

Taking pointers from her bounty hunter pal, Ranger, and using her pistol-packing Grandma Mazur as a decoy, Stephanie is soon closing in on her mark. But Morelli and his libido are worthy foes. And a more sinister kind of enemy has made his first move... and his next move might be Stephanie's last.

On an Illinois farm in the 1920s, a man is murdered, and in the same moment, the tenuous friendship between two lonely boys comes to an end. In telling their interconnected stories, American Book Award winner William Maxwell delivers a masterfully restrained and magically evocative meditation on the past.

The Rapture of Canaan takes you on a journey into the lives of the members of the Church of Fire and Brimstone and God's Almighty Baptizing Wind. Here, the community spends their days and nights in the service of the Lord, eagerly awaiting the Rapture—the moment before the Second Coming of Christ when the saved will ascend to heaven, leaving the damned to face a thousand years of tribulation on earth.

Grandpa Herman, the founder of Fire and Brimstone, paints a terrifying picture of the tribulation: "We'd run out of food. Big bugs would chase us, stinging us with their tails. We'd turn on the faucet to find blood instead of water. Evil multitudes would come, severing our limbs, and we wouldn't die." Yet, he offers hope: "You can go straight to Heaven with all of God's special children if you'll only open your hearts to Jesus."

Ninah Huff, a 15-year-old girl, bears the weight of this damnation on her mind. To distract herself from sinful thoughts about her prayer partner, James, Ninah places pecan shells in her shoes and nettles in her bed. Despite her efforts, Ninah and James are drawn to each other, leading to tragic and transformative consequences for their community.

The Rapture of Canaan is a tale of miracles and transformations, where even the most stringent beliefs are challenged by the complexities of human emotions and the mysterious ways of the divine.

Annie Trimble lives in a solitary world that no one enters or understands. As delicate and beautiful as the tender blossoms of the Oregon spring, she is shunned by a town that misinterprets her affliction. But cruelty cannot destroy the love Annie holds in her heart.

Alex Montgomery is horrified to learn his wild younger brother forced himself on a helpless girl. Tormented by guilt, Alex agrees to marry her and raise the baby she carries as his own. But he never dreams he will grow to cherish his lovely, mute, and misjudged Annie; her childlike innocence, her womanly charms, and the wondrous way she views her world.

He becomes determined to break through the wall of silence surrounding her; to heal... and to be healed by Annie's sweet song of love.

Madeline is one of the best-loved characters in children's literature. Set in picturesque Paris, this tale of a brave little girl's trip to the hospital captures the hearts of readers young and old. The story follows Madeline, the smallest and naughtiest of the twelve little charges of Miss Clavel, who wakes up one night with an attack of appendicitis.

The combination of a spirited heroine, timelessly appealing art, cheerful humor, and rhythmic text makes Madeline a perennial favorite with children of all ages.

Ten years ago, in a riveting story of courage and hope, Peg Kehret wrote of the months she spent in a hospital when she was 12. The book deeply touched readers of all ages.

This anniversary edition includes an updated and extended Epilogue, 12 pages of new photos, and a new section about polio.

Pongo and Missis had a lovely life. With their human owners, the Dearlys, to look after them, they lived in a comfortable home in London with their 15 adorable Dalmatian puppies, loved and admired by all.

Especially the Dearlys' neighbor, Cruella de Vil, a fur-fancying fashion plate with designs on the Dalmatians' spotted coats! So, when the puppies are stolen from the Dearly home, and even Scotland Yard is unable to find them, Pongo and Missis know they must take matters into their own paws!

This delightful children's classic has been adapted twice for popular Disney productions.

It is a Thursday evening. After work, Martin Blom drives to the supermarket to buy some groceries. As he walks back to his car, a shot rings out...

When he wakes up, he is blind. His neurosurgeon, Bruno Visser, tells him that his loss of sight is permanent and that he must expect to experience shock, depression, self-pity, even suicidal thoughts before his rehabilitation is complete.

But it doesn't work out quite like that. And one spring evening, while Martin is practicing in the clinic gardens with his new white cane, something miraculous happens.

Nine Parts of Desire is a compelling and insightful exploration into the hidden world of Islamic women. As a prizewinning foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Geraldine Brooks spent six years covering the Middle East through wars, insurrections, and the volcanic upheaval of resurgent fundamentalism. Yet for her, headline events were only the backdrop to a less obvious but more enduring drama: the daily life of Muslim women.

This book is the story of Brooks' intrepid journey toward an understanding of the women behind the veils, and of the often contradictory political, religious, and cultural forces that shape their lives. Defying our stereotypes about the Muslim world, Brooks' acute analysis of the world's fastest-growing religion deftly illustrates how Islam's holiest texts have been misused to justify repression of women, and how male pride and power have warped the original message of a once liberating faith.

The Golden Bough is a monumental study in comparative folklore, magic, and religion. It offers a detailed examination of the rites and beliefs, superstitions, and taboos of early cultures, drawing intriguing parallels to those of Christianity. Sir James George Frazer's work is a seminal piece in the fields of anthropology, comparative religion, and mythology.

This classic study explores our ancestors' primitive methods of worship, sex practices, and strange rituals and festivals. Frazer disproves the popular notion that primitive life was simple, revealing instead a complex web of magic, taboos, and superstitions. Witness the evolution of humanity from savagery to civilization, from the modification of bizarre and often bloodthirsty customs to the inception of lasting moral, ethical, and spiritual values.

Discover how this work has profoundly impacted psychology, literature, and modern anthropology, influencing many twentieth-century writers including D H Lawrence, T S Eliot, and Wyndham Lewis. The Golden Bough remains an early classic anthropological resource, offering fresh pertinence in its exploration of magical types, the sacrificial killing of kings, the dying god, and the scapegoat.

A doomed lord, an emergent hero, an array of bizarre creatures, and an ancient royal family plagued by madness and intrigue--these are the denizens of ancient, sprawling, tumbledown Gormenghast Castle. Within its vast halls and serpentine corridors, the members of the Groan dynasty and their master Lord Sepulchrave grow increasingly out of touch with a changing world as they pass their days in unending devotion to meaningless rituals and arcane traditions. Meanwhile, an ambitious kitchen boy named Steerpike rises by devious means to the post of Master of the Ritual while he maneuvers to bring down the Groans.

In these extraordinary novels, Peake has created a world where all is like a dream: lush, fantastical, vivid; a symbol of dark struggle. Accompanying the text are Peake's own drawings, illustrating the whole assembly of strange creatures that inhibit Gormenghast.

Breathtaking in its power and drenched in dark atmosphere, humor and intrigue, The Gormenghast Trilogy is a classic, one of the great works of 20th century British literature.

The Complete Stories brings together all of Kafka’s stories, from the classic tales such as “The Metamorphosis,” “In the Penal Colony,” and “A Hunger Artist” to shorter pieces and fragments that Max Brod, Kafka’s literary executor, released after Kafka’s death. With the exception of his three novels, the whole of Kafka’s narrative work is included in this volume.

“[Kafka] spoke for millions in their new unease; a century after his birth, he seems the last holy writer, and the supreme fabulist of modern man’s cosmic predicament.” —from the Foreword by John Updike

When the stock market crashes on the Thursday before Easter, you—an ambitious, although ineffectual and not entirely ethical young broker—are convinced that you’re facing the Weekend from Hell. Before the market reopens on Monday, you’re going to have to scramble and scheme to cover your butt, but there’s no way you can anticipate the baffling disappearance of a 300-pound psychic, the fall from grace of a born-again monkey, or the intrusion in your life of a tattooed stranger intent on blowing your mind and most of your fuses.

Over these fateful three days, you will be forced to confront everything from mysterious African rituals to legendary amphibians, from tarot-card bombshells to street violence, from your own sexuality to outer space. This is, after all, a Tom Robbins novel—and the author has never been in finer form.

Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life is a partial autobiography by C.S. Lewis that describes his conversion to Christianity. Unlike typical autobiographies, this book contains less detail about specific events because Lewis's primary aim was not historical documentation. Instead, he sought to identify and describe the events surrounding his accidental discovery of, and consequent search for, the phenomenon he labeled "Joy." This word was the best translation he could make of the German idea of Sehnsucht, or longing.

Although the book is not devoid of information about Lewis's life, the principal theme is Joy as he defined it. This Joy was a longing so intense for something so good and so high up that it couldn't be explained with words. Throughout his life, he was struck with "stabs of joy" and finally finds what it's for at the end.

Lewis recounts his early years with a mix of amusement and pain, including his experiences at Malvern College in 1913, aged 15. He described the school as "a very furnace of impure loves" but defended the practice as "the only chink left through which something spontaneous and uncalculating could creep in."

The book's last two chapters cover the end of his search as he moves from atheism to theism and then from theism to Christianity, ultimately discovering the true nature and purpose of Joy and its place in his life.

It is important to note that the book is not connected with his unexpected marriage later in life to Joy Gresham. The marriage occurred long after the period described, though not long after the book was published. His friends were quick to notice the coincidence, remarking that he'd really been "Surprised by Joy."

The title also alludes to Wordsworth's poem, "Surprised by Joy - Impatient As The Wind," which relates an incident when Wordsworth forgot the death of his beloved daughter.

Axel Heyst, a dreamer and a restless drifter, believes he can avoid suffering by cutting himself off from others. Then he becomes involved in the operation of a coal company on a remote island in the Malay Archipelago, and when it fails he turns his back on humanity once more. But his life alters when he rescues a young English girl, Lena, from Zangiacomo's Ladies' Orchestra and the evil innkeeper Schomberg, taking her to his island retreat. The affair between Heyst and Lena begins with her release, but the relationship shifts as Lena struggles to save Heyst from the detachment and isolation that have inhibited and influenced his life.

Marked by a violent and tragic conclusion, Victory is both a tale of rescue and adventure and a perceptive study of a complex relationship and of the power of love.

Praise to the Man follows the story of the restored Church and the fictional Steed family from the summer of 1841 to the summer of 1844. Several momentous events take place during this period in Church history: Nauvoo becomes a well-established city; the Relief Society is founded; the endowment is administered for the first time in this dispensation; Joseph Smith becomes a candidate for president of the United States; he delivers his monumental King Follett Discourse.

Meanwhile, however, dark forces outside as well as inside the Church are at work to destroy Joseph and the Restoration cause. Before the story ends, the powers of evil will have swept across the Church, taking out some in very high places, making numerous others waver, and taking Joseph and his brother Hyrum to their date with destiny in a town called Carthage.

Woven throughout these events are the lives of the Steeds. As Joshua sees the Mormons gaining more influence with his wife and children, his patience finally reaches the breaking point. Will must resolve his feelings for Jenny Pottsworth and his desire to know if the Church is true. New hope is born in Jessica's life when she is offered a new teaching position. Mary Ann and other Steed women participate in the beginnings of the Relief Society.

But before long, whisperings reach the ears of some of the Steeds about curious teachings and practices going on in Nauvoo—specifically it is rumored that God may have restored the ancient practice of plural marriage. How will they respond when they find out that at least some of the rumors are true? The issue becomes a trial of faith that shakes the Steed family to its very roots.

At the center of this volume are the final days of the life and mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Though heart-wrenching in its depiction of the Prophet's last hours on earth, this book inspires admiration and affection for "the man who communed with Jehovah" and will fill readers with anticipation for that glorious time when, in the words of the hymn, "millions shall know 'Brother Joseph' again."

Worry, doubt, confusion, depression, anger and feelings of condemnation: all these are attacks on the mind. If readers suffer from negative thoughts, they can take heart! Joyce Meyer has helped millions win these all-important battles. In her most popular bestseller ever, the beloved author and minister shows readers how to change their lives by changing their minds. She teaches how to deal with thousands of thoughts that people think every day and how to focus the mind the way God thinks. And she shares the trials, tragedies, and ultimate victories from her own marriage, family, and ministry that led her to wondrous, life-transforming truth--and reveals her thoughts and feelings every step of the way. This special updated edition includes an additional introduction and updated content throughout the book.

Dave Pelzer's remarkable journey from a child who lived in terror of his unstable, violently unpredictable mother's every move, to his emergence as an inspiration the world over is a remarkable tale of survival and the triumph of the human spirit over adversity.

Dave Pelzer's three volumes of memoirs - A Child Called 'It', The Lost Boy and A Man Named Dave - brought this story of courage and triumph against all odds to the world, becoming global bestsellers.

My Story brings these volumes together, following Dave from a childhood spent in fear, his tempestuous teenage years haunted by the spectre of his mother, through to his adulthood, and his great achievement of not only understanding and reconciling the story of his own life, but his dedication to helping others overcome similar adversity.

It is a remarkable story of courage and survival, already embraced by millions and destined to inspire millions more.

Red Earth and Pouring Rain combines Indian myths, epic history, and the story of three college kids in search of America. This captivating narrative includes the monkey's story of an Indian poet and warrior and an American road novel of college students driving cross-country.

An Indian student, home from college in the U.S., shoots a monkey who turns out to be the reincarnation of a poet. Subsequently, the two take turns telling their stories. The poet recalls epic deeds of glory in fighting the British Raj, while the student narrates tales of materialism and boredom in America.

In this astonishing tale, the gods Hanuman, Ganesha, and Yama descend on a house in an Indian city to vie for the soul of a wounded monkey. A bargain is struck: the monkey must tell a story, and if he can keep his audience entertained, he shall live. The result is a tale of nineteenth-century India: of Sanjay, a poet, and Sikander, a warrior; of hoofbeats thundering through the streets of Calcutta and the birth of a luminous child; of great wars and love affairs and a city gone 'mad with poetry'.

Woven into this tapestry of stories is a second, totally modern narrative, the adventures of a young Indian criss-crossing America in a car with his friends and his eventual return to his homeland.

يرى المؤلف أن الجماهير لا تعقل، فهي ترفض الأفكار أو تقبلها كلا واحداً، من دون أن تتحمل مناقشتها. وما يقوله لها الزعماء يغزو عقولها سريعاً فتتجه إلى أن تحوله حركة وعملاً. وما يوحي به إليها ترفعه إلى مصاف المثال ثم تندفع به، في صورة إرادية، إلى التضحية بالنفس.

إنها لا تعرف غير العنف الحادّ شعوراً، فتعاطفها لا يلبث أن يصير عبادة، ولا تكاد تنفر من أمر ما حتى تسارع إلى كرهه. وفي الحالة الجماهيرية تنخفض الطاقة على التفكير، ويذوب المغاير في المتجانس، بينما تطغى الخصائص التي تصدر عن اللاوعي.

وحتى لو كانت الجماهير علمانية، تبقى لديها ردود فعل دينية، تفضي بها إلى عبادة الزعيم، وإلى الخوف من بأسه، وإلى الإذعان الأعمى لمشيئته، فيصبح كلامه دوغما لا تناقش، وتنشأ الرغبة إلى تعميم هذه الدوغما.

أما الذين لا يشاطرون الجماهير إعجابها بكلام الزعيم فيصبحون هم الأعداء، لا جماهير من دون قائد كما لا قائد من دون جماهير.

The Hundred Secret Senses is an exultant novel about China and America, love and loyalty, the identities we invent and the true selves we discover along the way. Olivia Laguni is half-Chinese, but typically American in her uneasiness with her patchwork family. And no one in Olivia's family is more embarrassing to her than her half-sister, Kwan Li. For Kwan speaks mangled English, is cheerfully deaf to Olivia's sarcasm, and sees the dead with her "yin eyes."

Even as Olivia details the particulars of her decades-long grudge against her sister (who, among other things, is a source of infuriatingly good advice), Kwan Li is telling her own story, one that sweeps us into the splendor, squalor, and violence of Manchu China. And out of the friction between her narrators, Amy Tan creates a work that illuminates both the present and the past sweetly, sadly, hilariously, with searing and vivid prose.

Are there other dimensions beyond our own? Is time travel possible? Can we change the past? Are there gateways to parallel universes? All of us have pondered such questions, but there was a time when scientists dismissed these notions as outlandish speculations. Not any more. Today, they are the focus of the most intense scientific activity in recent memory.

In Hyperspace, Michio Kaku, author of the widely acclaimed Beyond Einstein and a leading theoretical physicist, offers the first book-length tour of the most exciting (and perhaps most bizarre) work in modern physics, work which includes research on the tenth dimension, time warps, black holes, and multiple universes.

The theory of hyperspace (or higher dimensional space)—and its newest wrinkle, superstring theory—stand at the center of this revolution, with adherents in every major research laboratory in the world, including several Nobel laureates. Beginning where Hawking's Brief History of Time left off, Kaku paints a vivid portrayal of the breakthroughs now rocking the physics establishment.

Why all the excitement? As the author points out, for over half a century, scientists have puzzled over why the basic forces of the cosmos—gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces—require markedly different mathematical descriptions. But if we see these forces as vibrations in a higher dimensional space, their field equations suddenly fit together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, perfectly snug, in an elegant, astonishingly simple form.

This may thus be our leading candidate for the Theory of Everything. If so, it would be the crowning achievement of 2,000 years of scientific investigation into matter and its forces. Already, the theory has inspired several thousand research papers, and has been the focus of over 200 international conferences.

Michio Kaku is one of the leading pioneers in superstring theory and has been at the forefront of this revolution in modern physics. With Hyperspace, he has produced a book for general readers which conveys the vitality of the field and the excitement as scientists grapple with the meaning of space and time. It is an exhilarating look at physics today and an eye-opening glimpse into the ultimate nature of the universe.

Gripping, tragic, and densely atmospheric—a masterpiece of suspense San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound, is a place so isolated that no one who lives there can afford to make enemies. But in 1954 a local fisherman is found suspiciously drowned, and a Japanese American named Kabuo Miyamoto is charged with his murder. In the course of the ensuing trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than a man's guilt. For on San Pedro, memories of a charmed love affair between a white boy and the Japanese girl who grew up to become Kabuo's wife; memories of land desired, paid for, and lost. Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese residents during World War II, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbors watched.

Amazing Grace is Jonathan Kozol’s classic book on life and death in the South Bronx—the poorest urban neighborhood of the United States. He brings us into overcrowded schools, dysfunctional hospitals, and rat-infested homes where families have been ravaged by depression and anxiety, drug-related violence, and the spread of AIDS.

But he also introduces us to devoted and unselfish teachers, dedicated ministers, and—at the heart and center of the book—courageous and delightful children. The children we come to meet through the friendships they have formed with Jonathan defy the stereotypes of urban youth too frequently presented by the media. Tender, generous, and often religiously devout, they speak with eloquence and honesty about the poverty and racial isolation that have wounded but not hardened them.

Amidst all of the despair, it is the very young whose luminous capacity for love and transcendent sense of faith in human decency give reason for hope.

In the three novels that make up the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy collected in this omnibus edition (The Summer Tree, The Wandering Fire, and The Darkest Road), five University of Toronto students find themselves transported to a magical land to do battle with the forces of evil. At a Celtic conference, Kimberley, Kevin, Jennifer, Dave, and Paul meet wizard Loren Silvercloak. Returning with him to the magical kingdom of Fionavar to attend a festival, they soon discover that they are being drawn into the conflict between the dark and the light as Unraveller Rakoth Maugrim breaks free of his mountain prison and threatens the continued existence of Fionavar. They join mages, elves, dwarves, and the forces of the High King of Brennin to do battle with Maugrim, where Kay's imaginative powers as a world-builder come to the fore. He stunningly weaves Arthurian legends into the fluid mix of Celtic, Nordic, and Teutonic, creating a grand fantasy that sweeps readers into a heroic struggle that the author makes all the more memorable because of the tributes he pays to past masters.

The trilogy is a grand homage to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, but while the echoes of Tolkien's masterwork are very real, the books offer the wonderful taste of a new fantasy writer cutting his teeth at the foot of a master. Kay has a very real connection to Tolkien--as Christopher Tolkien's assistant, Kay was invaluable in helping to wrestle Tolkien's posthumous The Silmarillion into shape for publication. Kay is undoubtedly one of the Canadian masters of high fantasy, and The Fionavar Tapestry is one of his most enduring works.

In a long-ago war, humankind set off a devastating ecological disaster. Thriving industrial societies disappeared. The earth is slowly submerging beneath the expanding Sea of Corruption, an enormous toxic forest that creates mutant insects and releases a miasma of poisonous spores into the air.

At the periphery of the sea, tiny kingdoms are scattered on tiny parcels of land. Here lies the Valley of the Wind, a kingdom of barely 500 citizens; a nation given fragile protection from the decaying sea's poisons by the ocean breezes; and home to Nausicaä.

Nausicaä, a young princess, has an emphatic bond with the giant Ohmu insects and animals of every creed. She fights to create tolerance, understanding, and patience among empires that are fighting over the world's remaining precious natural resources.

The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss unveils a collection of fabulous, whimsical paintings that were created for Dr. Seuss's own pleasure and never shown to the public. These works reveal Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) in a whole new light, depicting outlandish creatures in otherworldly settings.

The paintings use a dazzling rainbow of hues not seen in the primary-color palette of his books for children, and exhibit a sophisticated and often quite unrestrained side of the artist. The book includes 65 color illustrations that showcase Dr. Seuss's hidden masterpieces.

The ideal introduction to the genius of Ernest Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories contains ten of Hemingway's most acclaimed and popular works of short fiction.

Selected from Winner Take Nothing, Men Without Women, and The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories, this collection includes "The Killers," the first of Hemingway's mature stories to be accepted by an American periodical; the autobiographical "Fathers and Sons," which alludes, for the first time in Hemingway's career, to his father's suicide; and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," a brilliant fusion of personal observation, hearsay and invention.

Beautiful in their simplicity, startling in their originality, and unsurpassed in their craftsmanship, the stories in this volume highlight one of America's master storytellers at the top of his form.

Ryder, a renowned pianist, arrives in a Central European city he cannot identify for a concert he cannot remember agreeing to give. As he traverses a landscape by turns eerie and comical – and always strangely malleable, as a dream might be – he comes steadily to realize he is facing the most crucial performance of his life.

Ishiguro's extraordinary and original study of a man whose life has accelerated beyond his control explores themes of identity and self-discovery. This surrealistic journey is both a mesmerizing and a thought-provoking adventure.

Verne's classic novel of global voyaging One night in the reform club, Phileas Fogg bets his companions that he can travel across the globe in just eighty days. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, he immediately sets off for Dover with his astonished valet Passepartout. Passing through exotic lands and dangerous locations, they seize whatever transportation is at hand - whether train or elephant - overcoming set-backs and always racing against the clock.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

From the bestselling author Ann Rule comes the true story of Bradly Morris Cunningham, a handsome and successful entrepreneur who married five different women and destroyed each of them.

Ann Rule, renowned for her riveting true crime stories, brings us the horrific account of a charismatic man adored by beautiful and brilliant women who gave him everything he desired... sex, money, and their very lives.

When attorney Cheryl Keeton's brutally bludgeoned body was found in her van on an Oregon freeway, her husband, Brad Cunningham, was the likely suspect. However, there was no solid evidence linking him to the crime. He married again, for the fifth time, and his stunning new wife, a physician named Sara, adopted his three sons. They all settled into family life on a luxurious estate, but gradually, their marriage became a nightmare.

In this gripping account of Cheryl's murder, Ann Rule takes us from Brad's troubled boyhood to one of the most bizarre trials in legal history, uncovering multiple marriages, financial manipulations, infidelities, and monstrous acts of harassment and revenge along the way. Dead By Sunset is Ann Rule at her riveting best.

Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As president of the African National Congress and head of South Africa's anti-apartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality.

The foster son of a Thembu chief, Mandela was raised in the traditional, tribal culture of his ancestors, but at an early age learned the modern, inescapable reality of what came to be called apartheid, one of the most powerful and effective systems of oppression ever conceived. In classically elegant and engrossing prose, he tells of his early years as an impoverished student and law clerk in a Jewish firm in Johannesburg, of his slow political awakening, and of his pivotal role in the rebirth of a stagnant ANC and the formation of its Youth League in the 1950s. He describes the struggle to reconcile his political activity with his devotion to his family, the anguished breakup of his first marriage, and the painful separations from his children. He brings vividly to life the escalating political warfare in the fifties between the ANC and the government, culminating in his dramatic escapades as an underground leader and the notorious Rivonia Trial of 1964, at which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Herecounts the surprisingly eventful twenty-seven years in prison and the complex, delicate negotiations that led both to his freedom and to the beginning of the end of apartheid. Finally he provides the ultimate inside account.

No Ordinary Time is an extraordinary chronicle of one of the most vibrant and revolutionary periods in US history. With an astonishing collection of details, Doris Kearns Goodwin weaves together a number of storylines — the Roosevelts' marriage and partnership, Eleanor’s life as First Lady, and FDR’s White House and its impact on America as well as on a world at war.

Goodwin masterfully melds these into an intimate portrait of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt and of the time during which a new, modern America was born. This work provides a detailed and personal look at the lives of two pivotal figures in American history and how their relationship shaped the nation during the Great Depression and World War II.

In the Appalachian community of Dark Hollow, Tennessee, some believe that the ghost of Katie Wyler, kidnapped by the Shawnee two hundred years ago, is once again roaming the hills. Only an old woman gifted with "the Sight" and policewoman Martha Ayers can put the superstitions to rest—and stop a flesh-and-blood predator as elusive as the whistling wind...

The ghost of a murdered pioneer woman wanders the Appalachian hills, searching for a way home. But others, including a city-bred scholar and an escaped killer, also roam these hills, each undertaking a very personal journey. When their paths cross, a long-hidden mystery is revealed, and with it a secret that will rock the Appalachians to their very core.

Historian Jeremy Cobb is backpacking on the Appalachian Trail, attempting to retrace the tragic journey of 18-year-old Katie Wyler, who was captured by the Shawnee after the massacre of her pioneer family.

She thinks more highly of snow and ice than she does of love. She lives in a world of numbers, science and memories--a dark, exotic stranger in a strange land. And now Smilla Jaspersen is convinced she has uncovered a shattering crime...

It happened in the Copenhagen snow. A six-year-old boy, a Greenlander like Smilla, fell to his death from the top of his apartment building. While the boy's body is still warm, the police pronounce his death an accident. But Smilla knows her young neighbor didn't fall from the roof on his own. Soon she is following a path of clues as clear to her as footsteps in the snow. For her dead neighbor, and for herself, she must embark on a harrowing journey of lies, revelation and violence that will take her back to the world of ice and snow from which she comes, where an explosive secret waits beneath the ice....