Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut in the mountains of Nepal. Her family is desperately poor, but her life is full of simple pleasures, like raising her black-and-white speckled goat, and having her mother brush her hair by the light of an oil lamp. But when the harsh Himalayan monsoons wash away all that remains of the family’s crops, Lakshmi’s stepfather says she must leave home and take a job to support her family.

He introduces her to a glamorous stranger who tells her she will find her a job as a maid working for a wealthy woman in the city. Glad to be able to help, Lakshmi undertakes the long journey to India and arrives at “Happiness House” full of hope. But she soon learns the unthinkable truth: she has been sold into prostitution.

An old woman named Mumtaz rules the brothel with cruelty and cunning. She tells Lakshmi that she is trapped there until she can pay off her family’s debt – then cheats Lakshmi of her meager earnings so that she can never leave.

Lakshmi’s life becomes a nightmare from which she cannot escape. Still, she lives by her mother’s words – “Simply to endure is to triumph” – and gradually, she forms friendships with the other girls that enable her to survive in this terrifying new world. Then the day comes when she must make a decision – will she risk everything for a chance to reclaim her life?

Written in spare and evocative vignettes, this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives but triumphs.

A bitingly funny grand tour of our culture of excess from an award-winning humorist. Whether David Rakoff is contrasting the elegance of one of the last flights of the supersonic Concorde with the good-times-and-chicken-wings populism of Hooters Air; working as a cabana boy at a South Beach hotel; or traveling to a private island off the coast of Belize to watch a soft-core video shoot—where he is provided with his very own personal manservant—rarely have greed, vanity, selfishness, and vapidity been so mercilessly skewered.

Somewhere along the line, our healthy self-regard has exploded into obliterating narcissism; our manic getting and spending have now become celebrated as moral virtues. Simultaneously a Wildean satire and a plea for a little human decency, Don’t Get Too Comfortable shows that far from being bobos in paradise, we’re in a special circle of gilded-age hell.

Half of a Yellow Sun is a novel by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie that re-creates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria during the 1960s, and the chilling violence that followed. The novel tells the story of the Biafran War through the perspective of the characters Olanna, Ugwu, and Richard.

Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor's beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna's twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone.

As Nigerian troops advance and the three must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise and the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place, bringing us one of the most powerful, dramatic, and intensely emotional pictures of modern Africa that we have ever had.

All children mythologize their birth... So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's collection of stories, which are as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale as they are for the delight and enchantment of the twelve that do exist. The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself -- all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret.

Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter's story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission.

As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire. Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida's storytelling but remains suspicious of the author's sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves.

The Thirteenth Tale is a love letter to reading, a book for the feral reader in all of us, a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and that we loved as children. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter and, in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life.

An alternate cover for this edition can be found hereLast year as college freshman, narrator Cal was infected by exotic goth Morgan with a parasite that caused following girlfriends to become vampire-like ghouls he calls parasite-positives "Peeps". A carrier without symptoms, he hunts his progeny for the centuries old bureaucratic Night Watch. But victims are showing more sanity, pretty human Lacey is pushing his buttons, and her apartment building basement houses fierce hordes of ravening rats, red-eyed cats, and monstrous worms that threaten all. Morgan has the secret to a centuries-old conspiracy and upcoming battle to save the human race.

#1 New York Times bestselling author J.R. Ward’s ferociously inventive series continues as the most fearsome member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood discovers just how tempting the night can be…

A former blood slave, Zsadist still bears the scars from a past filled with suffering and humiliation. Renowned for his unquenchable fury and sinister deeds, he is a savage feared by humans and vampires alike. Anger is his only companion, and terror is his only passion—until he rescues a beautiful female from the evil Lessening Society. Bella is instantly entranced by the Brother’s seething power. Except even as their desire for each other begins to overtake them, Zsadist’s thirst for vengeance against her abductor drives him to the brink of madness. Now Bella must help her lover not only overcome the wounds of his tortured past, but find a future with her...

Razo has never considered himself anything but ordinary--and certainly not a great soldier. So he's sure it's out of pity that his captain asks him to join an elite mission escorting the ambassador into Tira, Bayern's greatest enemy. But when the Bayern arrive in the strange southern country, it's Razo who discovers the first dead body.

He is also the only Bayern able to befriend the right people--potential allies who can provide information about the ever-increasing murders--like the beautiful Lady Dasha. If Razo can embrace his talents, he might be the only one who can get the Bayern soldiers home alive.

This story of two men locked in a war of wills that threatens their very existence is vintage Irvine Welsh. Troubled restaurant inspector Danny Skinner is on a quest to find the mysterious father his mother will not identify. Unraveling this hidden information is the key to understanding the crippling compulsions that threaten to wreck his young life. His ensuing journey takes him from the festival city of Edinburgh to the foodie city of San Francisco.

But the hard-drinking, womanizing Skinner has a strange nemesis in the form of mild-mannered fellow inspector Brian Kibby. It is Skinner's unfathomable, obsessive hatred of Kibby that takes over everything, threatening to destroy not only Skinner and his mission but also those he loves most dearly. When Kibby contracts a horrific, undiagnosable illness, Skinner understands that his destiny is inextricably bound to that of his hated rival, and he is faced with a terrible dilemma.

Irvine Welsh's work is a transgressive parable about the great obsessions of our time: food, sex, and celebrity.

By meditating on personal examples from the author's life, as well as reflecting on the inspirational life and writings of Thomas Merton, stories from the Gospels, as well as the lives of other holy men and women (among them, Henri Nouwen, Therese of Lisieux, and Pope John XXIII), the reader will see how becoming who you are, and becoming the person that God created, is a simple path to happiness, peace of mind, and even sanctity.

This book offers a profound journey into the depths of spiritual self-discovery and encourages readers to embrace their true selves with faith and reflection.

When Colonel Protheroe is found dead from a single gun shot wound to the head, none of his neighbors in the village of St. Mary Mead is much surprised.

So many people wished this local official would say farewell, if not quite so permanently. With suspects abound and the local police stymied, it is up to Miss Jane Marple to root out the killer.

‘Anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe,’ declared the parson, brandishing a carving knife above a joint of roast beef, ‘would be doing the world at large a favour!’ It was a careless remark for a man of the cloth. And one which was to come back and haunt the clergyman just a few hours later – when the colonel was found shot dead in the clergyman’s study. But as Miss Marple soon discovers, the whole village seems to have had a motive to kill Colonel Protheroe.

When Alice Asher is murdered in Andover, Hercule Poirot is already on to the clues. Alphabetically speaking, it's one down, twenty-five to go. There's a serial killer on the loose. His macabre calling card is to leave the ABC Railway guide beside each victim's body. But if A is for Alice Asher, bludgeoned to death in Andover; and B is for Betty Bernard, strangled with her belt on the beach at Bexhill; then who will Victim C be?

The Elegance of the Hedgehog is a novel by the French professor of philosophy, Muriel Barbery. Set within an elegant hôtel particulier in Paris, the story revolves around two main characters: Renée, the concierge, who is typically short, plump, middle-aged, and inconspicuous, with an unexpected passion for art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture; and Paloma, a twelve-year-old resident of the building, who is talented, precocious, and has decided to end her own life on her thirteenth birthday unless she can find something worth living for.

The narrative follows Renée who, despite her position, conceals a world of intellectual wealth and refined tastes beneath a veneer of simplicity. Similarly, Paloma hides her exceptional intelligence behind the facade of a mediocre pre-teen. When a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives at the building, their lives begin to change as they discover kindred spirits in each other.

Humorous and full of biting wit, the story exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous and explores rich secret lives hidden beneath conventional exteriors, evoking a sense of kinship and understanding of human complexities.

Considered to be one of Agatha Christie's most controversial mysteries, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd breaks all the rules of traditional mystery writing. The peaceful English village of King’s Abbot is stunned. First, the attractive widow Ferrars dies from an overdose of veronal. Not twenty-four hours later, Roger Ackroyd—the man she had planned to marry—is murdered. It is a baffling, complex case involving blackmail, suicide, and violent death, a cast that taxes Hercule Poirot’s “little grey cells” before he reaches one of the most startling conclusions of his fabled career.

The Worst Hard Time is a captivating tour de force of historical reportage by Timothy Egan. It rescues an iconic chapter of American history from the shadows, focusing on the dust storms that terrorized the High Plains during the darkest years of the Depression. These storms were unprecedented and have not been seen since.

Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the loss of loved ones. He brilliantly captures the terrifying drama of catastrophe, while doing justice to the human characters who become the heroes of his story — the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives are opened up with urgency and respect.

In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, The Worst Hard Time serves as a powerful reminder about the dangers of trifling with nature.

Vikas Swarup's spectacular debut novel opens in a jail cell in Mumbai, India, where Ram Mohammad Thomas is being held after correctly answering all twelve questions on India's biggest quiz show, Who Will Win a Billion? It is hard to believe that a poor orphan who has never read a newspaper or gone to school could win such a contest. But through a series of exhilarating tales, Ram explains to his lawyer how episodes in his life gave him the answer to each question.

Ram takes us on an amazing review of his own history - from the day he was found as a baby in the clothes donation box of a Delhi church to his employment by a faded Bollywood star, to his adventure with a security-crazed Australian army colonel, to his career as an overly creative tour guide at the Taj Mahal.

Vikas Swarup's Q & A is a beguiling blend of high comedy, drama, and romance that reveals how we know what we know - not just about trivia, but about life itself. Cutting across humanity in all its squalor and glory, Vikas Swarup presents a kaleidoscopic vision of the struggle between good and evil - and what happens when one boy has no other choice in life but to survive.

A Breath of Snow and Ashes continues the extraordinary story of 18th-century Scotsman Jamie Fraser and his 20th-century wife, Claire. The year is 1772, and on the eve of the American Revolution, the long fuse of rebellion has already been lit. Men lie dead in the streets of Boston, and in the backwoods of North Carolina, isolated cabins burn in the forest.

With chaos brewing, the governor calls upon Jamie Fraser to unite the backcountry and safeguard the colony for King and Crown. But from his wife Jamie knows that three years hence the shot heard round the world will be fired, and the result will be independence — with those loyal to the King either dead or in exile. And there is also the matter of a tiny clipping from The Wilmington Gazette, dated 1776, which reports Jamie’s death, along with his kin. For once, he hopes, his time-traveling family may be wrong about the future.

The most excitement teacher Shannon Parker expected on her summer vacation was a little shopping. But then her latest purchase--a vase with the Celtic goddess Epona on it--somehow switches her into the world of Partholon, where she's treated like a goddess. A very temperamental goddess...

It seems that Shannon has stepped into another's role as the Goddess Incarnate of Epona. And while it has some very appealing moments--what woman doesn't like a little pampering now and then?--it also comes with a ritual marriage to a centaur and the threat of war against the evil Fomorians. Oh, and everyone disliking her because they think she's her double.

Somehow Shannon needs to figure out how to get back to Oklahoma without being killed, married to a horse or losing her mind...

Bret Ellis, the narrator of Lunar Park, is a writer whose first novel Less Than Zero catapulted him to international stardom while he was still in college. In the years that followed, he found himself adrift in a world of wealth, drugs, and fame, as well as dealing with the unexpected death of his abusive father. After a decade of decadence, a chance for salvation arrives; the chance to reconnect with an actress he was once involved with, and their son. But almost immediately his new life is threatened by a freak sequence of events and a bizarre series of murders that all seem to connect to Ellis’s past. Reality, memoir, and fantasy combine to create not only a fascinating version of this most controversial writer but also a deeply moving novel about love and loss, parents and children, and ultimately forgiveness.

Stardust narrates the story of young Tristran Thorn and his adventures in the pursuit of his heart's desire. Tristran promises the beautiful Victoria Forester that he will retrieve a fallen star for her from beyond the wall that encloses their village, not knowing that the star has transformed into a striking girl named Yvaine.

Tristran's quest takes him into a world that exceeds his wildest imaginations, a place where anything can happen and where magical beings and dangerous foes abound. This enchanting tale is about the wonders of the unknown and the pursuit of true love.

Captain Bluebear tells the story of his first 13-1/2 lives spent on the mysterious continent of Zamonia, where intelligence is an infectious disease, water flows uphill, and dangers lie in wait for him around every corner.

"A bluebear has twenty-seven lives. I shall recount thirteen and a half of them in this book but keep quiet about the rest," says the narrator of Walter Moers’s epic adventure. "What about the Minipirates? What about the Hobgoblins, the Spiderwitch, the Babbling Billows, the Troglotroll, the Mountain Maggot… Mine is a tale of mortal danger and eternal love, of hair’s breadth, last-minute escapes." Welcome to the fantastic world of Zamonia, populated by all manner of extraordinary characters. It’s a land of imaginative lunacy and supreme adventure, wicked satire and epic fantasy, all mixed together, turned on its head, and lavishly illustrated by the author.

The Known World is a daring and ambitious work by Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones. This novel tells the story of Henry Townsend, a black farmer and former slave who falls under the tutelage of William Robbins, the most powerful man in Manchester County, Virginia. Making certain he never circumvents the law, Townsend runs his affairs with unusual discipline. But when death takes him unexpectedly, his widow, Caldonia, can't uphold the estate's order, and chaos ensues.

Edward P. Jones has woven a footnote of history into an epic that takes an unflinching look at slavery in all its moral complexities. An ambitious, luminously written novel that ranges seamlessly between the past and future and back again to the present, The Known World weaves together the lives of freed and enslaved blacks, whites, and Indians -- and allows all of us a deeper understanding of the enduring multidimensional world created by the institution of slavery.

Until the phone calls came at three o'clock on a November morning, the Golds and their neighbors, the Hartes, had been inseparable. It was no surprise to anyone when their teenage children, Chris and Emily, began showing signs that their relationship was moving beyond that of lifelong friends. But now seventeen-year-old Emily is dead—shot with a gun her beloved and devoted Chris pilfered from his father's cabinet as part of an apparent suicide pact—leaving two devastated families stranded in the dark and dense predawn, desperate for answers about an unthinkable act and the children they never really knew. From New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult—one of the most powerful writers in contemporary fiction—comes a riveting, timely, heartbreaking, and terrifying novel of families in anguish and friendships ripped apart by inconceivable violence.

Messenger is the masterful third novel in the Giver Quartet, which began with the dystopian bestseller The Giver, now a major motion picture. Matty has lived in Village and flourished under the guidance of Seer, a blind man known for his special sight. Village once welcomed newcomers, but something sinister has seeped into Village and the people have voted to close it to outsiders. Matty has been invaluable as a messenger. Now he must risk everything to make one last journey through the treacherous forest with his only weapon, a power he unexpectedly discovers within himself.

New Moon is the dramatic sequel to Twilight, following the tale of Bella Swan, a teenage girl whose love for a vampire gets her into trouble.

I stuck my finger under the edge of the paper and jerked it under the tape. "Shoot," I muttered as the paper sliced my finger. A single drop of blood oozed from the tiny cut. It all happened very quickly then. "No!" Edward roared...

Dazed and disoriented, Bella looked up from the bright red blood pulsing out of her arm - and into the fevered eyes of the six suddenly ravenous vampires.

For Bella Swan, there is one thing more important than life itself: Edward Cullen. But being in love with a vampire is more dangerous than Bella ever could have imagined.

Edward has already rescued Bella from the clutches of an evil vampire. However, as their daring relationship threatens all that is near and dear to them, they realize their troubles may just be beginning.

Bella and Edward face a devastating separation, encounter a mysterious pack of wolves, and face a terrifying threat of revenge from a female vampire. Plus, a sinister encounter with Italy's reigning royal family of vampires, the Volturi.

Passionate, riveting, and full of surprising twists and turns, this vampire love saga is well on its way to literary immortality.

Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs (first published under the French title L'Homme qui Rit in April 1869) is a sad and sordid tale -- not the sort of tale of the moment Hugo was known for. It starts on the night of January 29, 1690, a ten-year-old boy abandoned -- the stern men who've kept him since infancy have wearied of him. The boy wanders, barefoot and starving, through a snowstorm to reach a gibbet bearing the corpse of a hanged criminal. Beneath the gibbet is a ragged woman, frozen to death. The boy is about to move onward when he hears a sound within the woman's garments: He discovers an infant girl, barely alive, clutching the woman's breast. A single drop of frozen milk, resembling a pearl, is on the woman's lifeless breast...

On January 15, 1947, the torture-ravished body of a beautiful young woman is found in a vacant lot. The victim makes headlines as the Black Dahlia—and so begins the greatest manhunt in California history. Caught up in the investigation are Bucky Bleichert and Lee Blanchard: Warrants Squad cops, friends, and rivals in love with the same woman. But both are obsessed with the Dahlia—driven by dark needs to know everything about her past, to capture her killer, to possess the woman even in death. Their quest will take them on a hellish journey through the underbelly of postwar Hollywood, to the core of the dead girl's twisted life, past the extremes of their own psyches—into a region of total madness.

In the city of Atlanta, women are dying—at the hands of a killer who signs his work with a single, chilling act of mutilation. Leaving behind enough evidence to fuel a frenzied police hunt, this cunning madman is bringing together dozens of lives, crossing the boundaries of wealth and race. And the people who are chasing him must cross those boundaries too. Among them is Michael Ormewood, a veteran detective whose marriage is hanging by a thread—and whose arrogance and explosive temper are threatening his career. And Angie Polaski, a beautiful vice cop who was once Michael's lover before she became his enemy.

But another player has entered the game: a loser ex-con who has stumbled upon the killer's trail in the most coincidental of ways—someone who may be the key to breaking the case wide open...

This is Goethe's first novel, published in 1774. Written in diary form, it tells the tale of an unhappy, passionate young man hopelessly in love with Charlotte, the wife of a friend - a man who he alternately admires and detests. The Sorrows of Young Werther became an important part of the Sturm und Drang movement, and greatly influenced later Romanticism. The work is semi-autobiographical - in 1772, two years before the novel was published, Goethe had passed through a similar tempestuous period, when he lost his heart to Charlotte Buff, who was at that time engaged to his friend Johann Christian Kestner.

"Another world is colliding with this one," said the toad. "All the monsters are coming back."

"Why?" said Tiffany.

"There's no one to stop them."

There was silence for a moment.

Then Tiffany said, "There's me."

Armed only with a frying pan and her common sense, Tiffany Aching, a young witch-to-be, is all that stands between the monsters of Fairyland and the warm, green Chalk country that is her home. Forced into Fairyland to seek her kidnapped brother, Tiffany allies herself with the Chalk's local Nac Mac Feegle - aka the Wee Free Men - a clan of sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men who are as fierce as they are funny. Together they battle through an eerie and ever-shifting landscape, fighting brutal flying fairies, dream-spinning dromes, and grimhounds - black dogs with eyes of fire and teeth of razors - before ultimately confronting the Queen of the Elves, absolute ruler of a world in which reality intertwines with nightmare. And in the final showdown, Tiffany must face her cruel power alone...

In a riveting narrative that is equal parts suspense and humor, Carnegie Medalist Terry Pratchett returns to his internationally popular Discworld with a breathtaking tale certain to leave fans, new and old, enthralled.

Gibt es in einer vom Alltag besetzten Wirklichkeit einen besser geschützten Raum für gelebte Sehnsüchte als den virtuellen? Bei Leo Leike landen irrtümlich E-Mails einer ihm unbekannten Emmi Rothner. Aus Höflichkeit antwortet er ihr. Und weil sich Emmi von ihm angezogen fühlt, schreibt sie zurück.

Bald gibt Leo zu: »Ich interessiere mich wahnsinnig für Sie, liebe Emmi! Ich weiß aber auch, wie absurd dieses Interesse ist.« Und wenig später gesteht Emmi: »Es sind Ihre Zeilen und meine Reime darauf: die ergeben so in etwa einen Mann, wie ich mir plötzlich vorstelle, dass es sein kann, dass es so jemanden wirklich gibt.«

Es scheint nur noch eine Frage der Zeit zu sein, wann es zum ersten persönlichen Treffen kommt, aber diese Frage wühlt beide so sehr auf, dass sie die Antwort lieber noch eine Weile hinauszögern. Außerdem ist Emmi glücklich verheiratet. Und Leo verdaut gerade eine gescheiterte Beziehung.

Und überhaupt: Werden die gesendeten, empfangenen und gespeicherten Liebesgefühle einer Begegnung standhalten? Und was, wenn ja?

The Death of Ivan Ilyich has been classified as the best example of a novella ever written. Leo Tolstoy remains one of the greatest writers to put pen to paper, revolutionizing the form of the novel, the short story, and with Ivan Ilyich, the novella.

The story revolves around the titular Ivan Ilyich Golovin, who has discovered that he will die. Ivan is a well-liked official, but he has spent his life pursuing his career, eschewing his domestic life. Forced to confront his mortality, Ivan has the time to consider his life and discovers he has fled from an authentic life. Ivan has turned away from his wife, his daughter, and his son, and the lack of any real connection with them only exacerbates the pain of his impending demise.

Only through conversation with the simple peasant boy Geresim does Ivan find some solace, and that realization allows him to find a new joy in his last moments. Tolstoy wrote Ivan Ilyich late in his career, well after his major novels Anna Karenina and War and Peace. His religious and philosophical convictions shine through in this work, showing how Tolstoy has developed a deep understanding of the meaning of life itself.

Although the subject of the novella may be macabre, the story gives hope for a better life for us all.

To his friends, to his coworkers, and even to his mistress Moira, Roy Dillon is an honest hardworking salesman. He lives in a cheap hotel just within his pay bracket. He goes to work every day. He has hundreds of friends and associates who could attest to his good character.

Yet, hidden behind three gaudy clown paintings in Roy's pallid hotel room, sits fifty-two thousand dollars--the money Roy makes from his short cons, his "grifting." For years, Roy has effortlessly maintained control over his house-of-cards life--until the simplest con goes wrong, and he finds himself critically injured and at the mercy of the most dangerous woman he ever met: his own mother.

The Grifters, one of the best novels ever written about the art of the con, is an ingeniously crafted story of deception and betrayal that was the basis for Stephen Frears' and Martin Scorsese's critically-acclaimed film of the same name.

Why do some changes fail while others succeed? This is the central question that Jeffrey M. Hiatt addresses in ADKAR: A Model for Change in Business, Government, and Our Community. Hiatt explains the origin of the ADKAR model and explores what drives each building block of ADKAR: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement.

Learn how to build awareness, create desire, develop knowledge, foster ability, and reinforce changes in your organization. The ADKAR Model is changing how we think about managing the people side of change and provides a powerful foundation to help you succeed at change.

The ADKAR perspective can help you develop a "new lens" through which to observe and influence change, whether you are working for change in your public school system, a small city council, your department at work, or leading an enterprise-wide change initiative. View change in a new way, see the barrier points, understand the levers that can move your changes forward, and use ADKAR to help ensure your changes are a success.

Based on research with more than 2600 companies from 59 countries, ADKAR is a simple and holistic way to manage change.

Grayson is the true story of a remarkable encounter between long-distance swimmer Lynne Cox and an 18-foot baby whale named Grayson. This miraculous ocean adventure unfolds when Lynne, in training for a big swim, finds herself swimming alongside a young gray whale.

In the darkness of early morning, Lynne was in 55-degree water, two hundred yards offshore. As she was swimming her last half-mile back to the pier, she realized something was swimming with her. The ocean was alive with energy, as thousands of baby anchovies darted through the water, evading a larger presence. It wasn't a shark, as Lynne feared, but a baby gray whale following her.

Lynne had been swimming for over an hour and needed to rest, but if she left the water, the baby whale would follow her to shore and risk dying from collapsed lungs. The young whale was on a three-month migration to the Bering Sea and needed its mother's care to survive. Lynne embarked on a quest to reunite Grayson with his mother in the vast Pacific Ocean.

This captivating tale blends mystery and magic, unveiling the bond between human and whale amidst the vastness of the ocean.

Marking the return of many characters from Gardens of the Moon and introducing a host of remarkable new players, Memories of Ice is both a momentous new chapter in Steven Erikson's magnificent epic fantasy and a triumph of storytelling. The ravaged continent of Genabackis has given birth to a terrifying new empire: the Pannion Domin. Like a tide of corrupted blood, it seethes across the land, devouring all. In its path stands an uneasy alliance: Onearm's army and Whiskeyjack's Bridgeburners alongside their enemies of old--the forces of the Warlord Caladan Brood, Anomander Rake and his Tiste Andii mages, and the Rhivi people of the plains. But ancient undead clans are also gathering; the T'lan Imass have risen. For it would seem something altogether darker and more malign threatens this world. Rumors abound that the Crippled God is now unchained and intent on a terrible revenge.

In the grand tradition of landmark memoirs, The Tender Bar is a classic American story of self-invention and escape. It's a narrative that weaves together the fierce love between a single mother and an only son, and presents an unforgettable depiction of how men remain, at heart, lost boys.

J.R. Moehringer grew up captivated by a voice. It was the voice of his father, a New York City disc jockey who vanished before J.R. spoke his first word. Longing for the secrets of masculinity and identity that seemed to be broadcast through that voice, J.R. turned to the bar on the corner in desperation when he could no longer find The Voice on the radio. There, he found a chorus of new voices: cops and poets, bookies and soldiers, movie stars and stumblebums. The alphas along the bar, including J.R.'s Uncle Charlie, a Humphrey Bogart look-alike; Colt, a Yogi Bear sound-alike; and Joey D, a softhearted brawler, took J.R. under their wing. They taught him, tended to him, and provided a kind of fatherhood-by-committee.

Torn between the stirring example of his mother and the lurid romance of the bar, J.R. tried to forge a self somewhere in the center. But as he grew older, the bar became an increasingly seductive sanctuary, a place to return and regroup during his picaresque journeys. From his grandfather's tumbledown house to the hallowed towers and spires of Yale; from his stint selling housewares at Lord & Taylor to his dream job at the New York Times, the bar offered shelter from failure, rejection, heartbreak--and eventually from reality.

The Tender Bar is suspenseful, wrenching, and achingly funny. An essential read for those who appreciate the complexities of growing up and the compelling tales of those who seek to navigate its many paths.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a dark comedy that portrays the bitter marriage of George and Martha as it unravels in a searing night of dangerous fun and games. Twelve times a week, actress Uta Hagen wished to play Martha, reflecting the audience and critics' inability to get enough of Edward Albee's masterful play.

By the evening’s end, a stunning, almost unbearable revelation provides a climax that has shocked audiences for years. With its razor-sharp dialogue and the stripping away of social pretense, the play is considered a brilliantly original work of art—an excoriating theatrical experience, surging with shocks of recognition and dramatic fire.

For years, Old Gregory has been the Spook for the county, ridding the local villages of evil. Now his time is coming to an end. But who will take over for him? Twenty-nine apprentices have tried—some floundered, some fled, some failed to stay alive.

Only Thomas Ward is left. He's the last hope; the last apprentice.

Can Thomas succeed? Will he learn the difference between a benign witch and a malevolent one? Does the Spook's warning against girls with pointy shoes include Alice? And what will happen if Thomas accidentally frees Mother Malkin, the most evil witch in the county ... ?

A catastrophic, unexplainable plane crash leaves three hundred and thirty dead--no survivors. Among the victims are the wife and two daughters of Joe Carpenter, a Los Angeles Post crime reporter. A year after the crash, still gripped by an almost paralyzing grief, Joe encounters a woman named Rose, who claims to have survived the crash. She holds out the possibility of a secret that will bring Joe peace of mind. But before he can ask any questions, she slips away.

Driven now by rage and a hope almost as unbearable as his grief, Joe sets out to find the mysterious woman. His search immediately leads him into the path of a powerful and shadowy organization hell-bent on stopping Rose before she can reveal what she knows about the crash. Sole Survivor unfolds at a heart-stopping pace, as a desperate chase and a shattering emotional odyssey lead Joe to a truth that will force him to reassess everything he thought he knew about life and death--a truth that, given the chance, will rock the world and redefine the destiny of humanity.

What if the whole world were a dead, blasted wasteland? For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the "Sliver of Infinity," reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible.

Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Ruler's most hellish prison. Kelsier "snapped" and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark.

Kelsier recruited the underworld's elite, the smartest and most trustworthy allomancers, each of whom shares one of his many powers, and all of whom relish a high-stakes challenge. Then Kelsier reveals his ultimate dream, not just the greatest heist in history, but the downfall of the divine despot.

But even with the best criminal crew ever assembled, Kel's plan looks more like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, she's a half-Skaa orphan, but she's lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets. She will have to learn trust if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed.

Brandon Sanderson, fantasy's newest master tale-spinner and author of the acclaimed debut Elantris, dares to turn a genre on its head by asking a simple question: What if the prophesied hero failed to defeat the Dark Lord? The answer will be found in the Mistborn Trilogy, a saga of surprises that begins with the book in your hands. Fantasy will never be the same again.

Leon Uris’s beloved Irish classic, Trinity, is a sweeping and powerful epic adventure that captures the "terrible beauty" of Ireland during its long and bloody struggle for freedom. It is the electrifying story of an idealistic young Catholic rebel and the valiant and beautiful Protestant girl who defied her heritage to join his cause. It is a tale of love and danger, of triumph at an unthinkable cost—a magnificent portrait of a people divided by class, faith, and prejudice—an unforgettable saga of the fires that devastated a majestic land... and the unquenchable flames that burn in the human heart.

After stumbling across a haunted go board, Hikaru Shindo discovers that the spirit of a master player named Fujiwara-no-Sai has taken up residence in his consciousness. Sai awakens in Hikaru an untapped genius for the game, and soon the schoolboy is chasing his own dream—defeating the famed go prodigy Akira Toya!

The Traveler explores a parallel world that exists alongside our own. A world that exists in the shadows of our own. A conflict we will never see. One woman stands between those determined to control history and those who will risk their lives for freedom.

Maya is hiding in plain sight in London. The twenty-six-year-old has abandoned the dangerous obligations pressed upon her by her father and chosen instead to live a normal life. But Maya comes from a long line of people who call themselves Harlequins—a fierce group of warriors willing to sacrifice their lives to protect a select few known as Travelers.

Gabriel and Michael Corrigan are brothers living in Los Angeles. Since childhood, the young men have been shaped by stories that their late father was a Traveler, one of a small band of prophets who have vastly influenced the course of history. Travelers are able to attain pure enlightenment and have for centuries ushered change into the world. Gabriel and Michael, who may have inherited their father's gifts, have always protected themselves by living “off the Grid”—that is, invisible to the real-life surveillance networks that monitor people in our modern society.

Summoned by her ailing father, Maya is told of the existence of the brothers. The Corrigans are in severe danger, stalked by powerful men known as the Tabula—ruthless mercenaries who have hunted Travelers for generations. This group is determined to inflict order on the world by controlling it, and they view Travelers as an intolerable threat. As Maya races to California to protect the brothers, she is reluctantly pulled back into the cold and solitary Harlequin existence. A colossal battle looms—one that will reveal not only the identities of Gabriel and Michael Corrigan but also a secret history of our time.

Moving from the back alleys of Prague to the heart of Los Angeles, from the high deserts of Arizona to a guarded research facility in New York, The Traveler explores a parallel world that exists alongside our own. John Twelve Hawks' stunningly suspenseful debut marks the arrival of a major new talent.

The Call of the Wild tells the story of Buck, a domestic dog who is kidnapped from his home in California and forced to pull sleds in the Arctic wasteland. White Fang, by contrast, is the tale of a crossbreed who is three-quarters wolf and a quarter dog, and who must endure considerable suffering in the wilderness before being tamed by an American and taken to live in California. Extraordinary both for the vividness of their descriptions and the success with which they imagine life from a non-human perspective, Jack London's classics of children’s literature are two of the greatest and most popular animal stories ever written.

This beautiful Macmillan Collector’s Library edition of The Call of the Wild & White Fang features an afterword by Sam Gilpin.

Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much-loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

In his blistering new novel, Cormac McCarthy returns to the Texas-Mexico border, the setting of his famed Border Trilogy. The time is our own, when rustlers have given way to drug-runners and small towns have become free-fire zones. One day, Llewellyn Moss finds a pickup truck surrounded by a bodyguard of dead men. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back. When Moss takes the money, he sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that not even the law–in the person of aging, disillusioned Sheriff Bell–can contain.

As Moss tries to evade his pursuers–in particular a mysterious mastermind who flips coins for human lives–McCarthy simultaneously strips down the American crime novel and broadens its concerns to encompass themes as ancient as the Bible and as bloodily contemporary as this morning’s headlines. No Country for Old Men is a triumph.

A community devoured by greed, cowardice, and fear. A man persecuted by the ghosts of his painful past. A young woman searching for happiness. In one eventful week, each will face questions of life, death, and power, and each will choose a path. Will they choose good or evil?

In the remote village of Viscos -- a village too small to be on any map, a place where time seems to stand still -- a stranger arrives, carrying with him a backpack containing a notebook and eleven gold bars. He comes searching for the answer to a question that torments him: Are human beings, in essence, good or evil? In welcoming the mysterious foreigner, the whole village becomes an accomplice to his sophisticated plot, which will forever mark their lives.

Paulo Coelho's stunning novel explores the timeless struggle between good and evil, and brings to our everyday dilemmas fresh perspective: incentive to master the fear that prevents us from following our dreams, from being different, from truly living. The Devil and Miss Prym is a story charged with emotion, in which the integrity of being human meets a terrifying test.

A worldwide phenomenon and the most important French novelist since Camus, Michel Houellebecq now delivers his magnum opus–a tale of our present circumstances told from the future, when humanity as we know it has vanished. Surprisingly poignant, philosophically compelling, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, The Possibility of an Island is at once an indictment, an elegy, and a celebration of everything we have and are at risk of losing. It is a masterpiece from one of the world’s most innovative writers.

We Need to Talk About Kevin explores the gripping theme of motherhood gone awry. Eva, the protagonist, never really aspired to be a mother—especially not the mother of Kevin, a boy who becomes the perpetrator of a school massacre, killing seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a teacher who had tried to befriend him, just two days shy of his sixteenth birthday. Now, two years after the tragedy, Eva must confront her feelings towards her marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin's horrific actions through a series of direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin.

From the start, Eva was uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion that motherhood entailed, fearing that her alarming dislike for her own son may have been a driving factor in his nihilistic actions. We Need to Talk About Kevin delves into the complex emotions surrounding family, responsibility, and the nature of evil, presenting a compelling and resonant story that stays with the reader long after the last page is turned.