Set in the dazzling underworld of Las Vegas, Last Call follows the fate of Scott Crane, a former professional gambler and recent widower. Blind in one eye, Crane is drawn back into the world of high-stakes gambling when he discovers he is the lost natural son of a man determined to kill him.

Haunted by troubling nightmares of a strange poker game on a houseboat at Lake Mead—a game he believed he left as a big winner—Crane realizes that the mythic game did not end that night in 1969. The stakes are higher than ever, and the price of his winnings may be his soul.

In a gripping narrative that blends magic realism with thrilling suspense, Crane must resume the game of a lifetime and wager it all. As he crosses the Mojave Desert to his father's Perilous Chapel in Las Vegas, the ultimate poker duel awaits, with his soul hanging in the balance.

In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future.

Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.

When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind.

The Stone Diaries is one ordinary woman's story of her journey through life. Born in 1905, Daisy Stone Goodwill drifts through the roles of child, wife, widow, and mother, and finally into her old age. Bewildered by her inability to understand her place in her own life, Daisy attempts to find a way to tell her story within a novel that is itself about the limitations of autobiography. Her life is vivid with incident, and yet she feels a sense of powerlessness. She listens, she observes, and through sheer force of imagination she becomes a witness of her own life: her birth, her death, and the troubling missed connections she discovers between.

Daisy's struggle to find a place for herself in her own life is a paradigm of the unsettled decades of our era. A witty and compassionate anatomist of the human heart, Carol Shields has made distinctively her own that place where the domestic collides with the elemental. With irony and humor she weaves the strands of The Stone Diaries together in this, her richest and most poignant novel to date.

Written on the Body is a secret code only visible in certain lights: the accumulation of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like braille. I like to keep my body rolled away from prying eyes, never unfold too much, tell the whole story. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book.

The most beguilingly seductive novel to date from the author of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry. Winterson chronicles the consuming affair between the narrator, who is given neither name nor gender, and the beloved, a complex and confused married woman. At once a love story and a philosophical meditation.

Caligula is a fascinating exploration of the complexities of human nature, penned by the illustrious Albert Camus. Originally conceived before the war, Caligula is portrayed as an angel in search of the absolute, as well as a bloodthirsty monster. This duality makes him one of the most intriguing figures in theater.

In 1945, the play was received as a fable reflecting the horrors of Nazism. Over time, different versions and stagings, along with the evolving sensibilities of audiences, have contributed to making Caligula a deeply unsettling character. His image is forever intertwined with the faces of Gérard Philipe, who originated the role, and Albert Camus himself, who combined a need for tenderness and purity with a peculiar obsession with murder and an "inner violence" that animates his Roman emperor.

At a club in Missing Mile, N.C., the children of the night gather, dressed in black, looking for acceptance. Among them are Ghost, who sees what others do not; Ann, longing for love; and Jason, whose real name is Nothing, newly awakened to an ancient, deathless truth about his father, and himself.

Others are coming to Missing Mile tonight. Three beautiful, hip vagabonds—Molochai, Twig, and the seductive Zillah, whose eyes are as green as limes—are on their own lost journey, slaking their ancient thirst for blood, looking for supple young flesh. They find it in Nothing and Ann, leading them on a mad, illicit road trip south to New Orleans. Over miles of dark highway, Ghost pursues, his powers guiding him on a journey to reach his destiny, to save Ann from her new companions, to save Nothing from himself.

Andersonville is a gripping tale of the notorious Georgia prison, where over 50,000 Union soldiers were held captive during the American Civil War. This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel captures the glory and shame of America's most tragic conflict.

Based on extensive research and nearly twenty-five years in the making, MacKinlay Kantor's masterwork delves into the lives of those inside and outside the prison's barricades. The novel tells the heartbreaking story of the infamous camp where the best and worst of the Civil War came together, portraying the savagery of the camp commandant, the compassion of a nearby planter and his gentle daughter, and the daily fight for survival among the prisoners.

A moving portrait of bravery, cowardice, and the human spirit, Andersonville is an inspiring American classic about an unforgettable period in history.

The Calculus Affair is a thrilling adventure featuring Tintin, the Captain, and Snowy as they embark on a daring mission to rescue Dr. Calculus.
He has been kidnapped by the Bordurians, and it's up to our heroes to save him.

Join them in this exciting journey full of mystery, humor, and classic comic thrills!

Zounds! Spaceman Spiff, Stupendous Man, the ferocious tiger Hobbes, and the rest of Calvin's riotous imagination are all included in The Days Are Just Packed.

Calvin, the self-proclaimed "Boy of Destiny," continues to save the universe with his alter egos, Spaceman Spiff and Stupendous Man, at least until Miss Wormwood or his mother bring him back to reality.

Susie, Calvin's nemesis and love interest, remains Calvin's favorite target. And when he's not recovering from a ferocious tiger attack, Calvin creates hideous snowmen, plays a moral cat-and-mouse game with Santa, conducts his infamous Dad polls, and combats the monsters under his bed.

With more than two million copies in print, Nick Bantock's trilogy of romantic intrigue is now available as a set, beautifully packaged in an illustrated slipcase created by the author.

A lovely gift for those new to the saga of the mysterious lovers, this distinctive collection also makes an enduring keepsake for devoted fans.

A Night in the Lonesome October is a delightful and dramatic period fantasy crafted by the bestselling author of the Amber series, Roger Zelazny. Set against the backdrop of 19th century London, this tale is narrated by Snuff, a super-intelligent guard dog belonging to none other than Jack the Ripper.

The story unfolds over the course of 31 mysterious nights in October, as Snuff and Jack collect the grisly ingredients for an ancient and unearthly rite. As Halloween approaches, the cosmic balance of power teeters between good and evil, with characters from popular legend—including a curious detective, a sanguine count, and a loyal werewolf—joining the fray.

This unique narrative combines magic, horror, and a generous dose of humor, challenging readers to reconsider who the true heroes and villains are. With Zelazny's glorious prose and brilliant characterization, A Night in the Lonesome October promises to enchant and entertain.

Cane is a literary masterpiece of the Harlem Renaissance, presenting a powerful work of innovative fiction that evokes black life in the South. The book is a collection of sketches, poems, and stories that depict both black rural and urban life.

The imagery is rich and vivid, with visions of smoke, sugarcane, dusk, and flame permeating the Southern landscape. In contrast, the Northern world is portrayed as a harsher reality filled with asphalt streets.

Impressionistic and sometimes surrealistic, the pieces in Cane are redolent of nature and Africa, offering sensuous appeals to the eye and ear.

Nobody knew where it had come from, or what it wanted. Not even Jaive, the sorceress, could fathom the mystery of the fabled beast. But Tanaquil, Jaive's completely unmagical daughter, understood it at once. She knew why the unicorn was there: It had come for her. It needed her.

Tanaquil was amazed because she was the girl with no talent for magic. She could only fiddle with broken bits of machinery and make them work again. What could she do for a unicorn?

With her talent for mending things, sixteen-year-old Tanaquil reconstructs a unicorn which, brought to life, lures her away from her desert fortress home and her sorceress mother to find a city by the sea and the way to a perfect world.

Crazy in Alabama is a comic and tragic tale, both unique and outlandish. It tells the story of two unforgettable journeys.

Lucille, a determined woman from Industry, Alabama, sets her sights on Los Angeles to become a star on 'The Beverly Hillbillies'. Meanwhile, her 12-year-old nephew, Peejoe, embarks on a journey of his own, discovering two kinds of Southern justice.

This novel explores what these journeys mean for the stories they've heard and the people they know, all wrapped in a tapestry of humor and insight.

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

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

Connie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the ageless issues of evil, suffering, and the indomitable will of the human spirit.

Maggie Cassidy is a touching novel of adolescent love set in a New England mill town. Written by Jack Kerouac, one of the prominent figures of the Beat Generation, this novel is a bittersweet evocation of the awkwardness and joy of growing up in America.

Kerouac's straightforward narrative structure captures the essence of young love, portraying the lives of Jean and Maggie, two girls in love with the idea of being in love. They look ahead to marriage with hope and trepidation while maturing in the 1950s.

This novel, part of the Duluoz Legend series, is a remarkable work that beautifully captures the essence of adolescence and first love, making it one of Kerouac's most accessible works.

Othello is a powerful drama created by William Shakespeare that delves into the complexities of a marriage that starts with fascination and intense mutual devotion but ends in jealous rage and tragic demises. The play transports the audience to the romantic Mediterranean, transitioning from Venice to the island of Cyprus, and adds an exotic touch with tales of Othello's African past.

The narrative weaves a tale of stark contrasts between the hero, Othello, a Moor, and Desdemona, a Venetian lady. Despite differences in race, age, and cultural background, their love is portrayed as strong enough to overcome these obstacles. However, the malevolent Iago, who harbors a deep-seated hatred for Othello, sets out to dismantle this love through deceit and manipulation.

As Othello falls prey to Iago's insinuations of Desdemona's infidelity, the early fascination morphs into horror, particularly for the audience. We witness the generous and trusting Othello caught in Iago's web, and the innocent Desdemona, completely devoted to her love, subjected to Othello's brutal accusations and assaults—a result of his erroneous beliefs about her loyalty.

The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin takes us to the heart of the mysterious mentor, Mulla Nasrudin. Through skillful retellings of hundreds of stories and sayings, Idries Shah brings the timeless wit and charm of this legendary figure to life.

From high-level physics reports to psychology textbooks, Nasrudin's tales illustrate phenomena and illuminate the workings of the mind in ways no straightforward explanation can. His stories have spanned cultures, appearing in literature and oral traditions from the Middle East to Greece, Russia, France, and even China.

According to legend, Nasrudin was chosen as a schoolboy to carry the message of how to escape the crude system of thought that ensnares man. His humor slips through the cracks of rigid thinking habits, offering both laughter and psychological insight.

Acclaimed as humorous masterpieces and collections of some of the world's finest jokes, Nasrudin's antics also serve as teaching exercises, helping to recognize states of mind. For centuries, these stories have been studied in Sufi circles for their hidden wisdom.

In this taut, chilling novel, Lester Ballard--a violent, dispossessed man falsely accused of rape--haunts the hill country of East Tennessee when he is released from jail.  While telling his story, Cormac McCarthy depicts the most sordid aspects of life with dignity, humor, and characteristic lyrical brilliance.

Dr. Eric Sweetscent has problems. His planet is enmeshed in an unwinnable war. His wife is lethally addicted to a drug that whips its users helplessly back and forth across time—and is hell-bent on making Eric suffer along with her.

Sweetscent's newest patient is not only the most important man on the embattled planet Earth but quite possibly the sickest. For Secretary Gino Molinari has turned his mortal illness into an instrument of political policy—and Eric cannot tell if his job is to make the man better or to keep him poised just this side of death.

Now Wait for Last Year bursts through the envelope between the impossible and the inevitable. Even as it ushers us into a future that looks uncannily like the present, it makes the normal seem terrifyingly provisional—and compels anyone who reads it to wonder if they really know what time it is.

Outer Dark is a stark and evocative novel set in an unspecified place in Appalachia, sometime around the turn of the century. This compelling story follows a woman who bears her brother's child, a boy. The brother, in a cruel act, leaves the baby in the woods and tells her he died of natural causes.

Discovering her brother's deceit, she embarks on a journey alone to find her son. Both brother and sister wander separately through a countryside scourged by three terrifying and elusive strangers. Their paths lead headlong toward an eerie, apocalyptic resolution.

Outer Dark is a profound parable that speaks to the human condition and society's darkest corners. McCarthy's masterful prose paints a vivid picture of a world both mythical and hauntingly real.

The Diviners is the culmination and completion of Margaret Laurence's Manawaka cycle. This is the powerful story of an independent woman who refuses to abandon her search for love.

For Morag Gunn, growing up in a small Canadian prairie town is a toughening process – putting distance between herself and a world that wanted no part of her. But in time, the aloneness that had once been forced upon her becomes a precious right – relinquished only in her overwhelming need for love.

Again and again, Morag is forced to test her strength against the world – and finally achieves the life she had determined would be hers.

The Diviners has been acclaimed by many critics as the outstanding achievement of Margaret Laurence’s writing career. In Morag Gunn, Laurence has created a figure whose experience emerges as that of all dispossessed people in search of their birthright, and one who survives as an inspirational symbol of courage and endurance.

With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal, and rescue illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning.

The world of Athera lives in eternal fog, its skies obscured by the malevolent Mistwraith. Only the combined powers of two half-brothers can challenge the Mistwraith’s stranglehold: Arithon, Master of Shadow and Lysaer, Lord of Light.

Arithon and Lysaer will find that they are inescapably bound inside a pattern of events dictated by their own deepest convictions. Yet there is more at stake than one battle with the Mistwraith – as the sorcerers of the Fellowship of Seven know well. For between them the half-brothers hold the balance of the world, its harmony and its future, in their hands.

Thirteenth-century Wales is a divided country, ever at the mercy of England's ruthless, power-hungry King John. Then Llewelyn, Prince of North Wales, secures an uneasy truce with England by marrying the English king's beloved, illegitimate daughter, Joanna. Reluctant to wed her father's bitter enemy, Joanna slowly grows to love her charismatic and courageous husband who dreams of uniting Wales. But as John's attentions turn again and again to subduing Wales--and Llewelyn--Joanna must decide to which of these powerful men she owes her loyalty and love.

A sweeping novel of power and passion, loyalty and lives, this is the book that began the trilogy that includes FALLS THE SHADOW and THE RECKONING.

This book contains the complete Andersen's fairy tales and stories in audiobook and hardcopy format. Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author and poet. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, Andersen is best remembered for his fairy tales, a literary genre he so mastered that he himself has become as mythical as the tales he wrote. Andersen's popularity is not limited to children; his stories - called eventyrs, or "fantastic tales" - express themes that transcend age and nationality.

During his lifetime he was acclaimed for having delighted children worldwide and was feted by royalty. Andersen's fairy tales, which have been translated into more than 125 languages, have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children, but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature listeners/readers as well. They have inspired motion pictures, plays, ballets, and animated films.

Angels in America is a powerful narrative told through two full-length plays: Millennium Approaches and Perestroika. In this poignant story, Tony Kushner explores the lives of a handful of people trying to make sense of the world amidst the AIDS crisis.

The central character, Prior, is a man living with AIDS. His lover, Louis, has left him and becomes involved with Joe, an ex-Mormon and political conservative. Joe's wife, Harper, is slowly having a nervous breakdown.

These personal stories are woven together with that of Roy Cohn, a fictional re-creation of the infamous American conservative ideologue. Cohn is depicted as struggling to remain in the closet while seeking personal salvation through his beliefs.

Set against the backdrop of America in the mid-1980s, the play addresses themes of life and death, love and sex, heaven and hell, offering a bold and emotional exploration of human experiences.

J R is the long-awaited novel from William Gaddis, author of The Recognitions, that tremendous book which, in the twenty years since its publication, has come to be acknowledged as an American masterpiece. And J R is a book of comparable magnitude, substance, and humor—a rushing, raucous look at money and its influence, at love and its absence, at success and its failures, in the magnificently orchestrated circus of all its larger- and smaller-than-life characters; a frantic, forlorn comedy about who uses—and misuses—whom.

At the center: J R, ambitious sixth-grader in torn sneakers, bred on the challenge of "free enterprise" and fired by heady mail-order promises of "success." His teachers would rather be elsewhere, his principal doubles as a bank president, his Long Island classroom mirrors the world he sees around him—a world of public relations and private betrayals where everything (and everyone) wears a price tag, a world of "deals" where honesty is no substitute for experience, and the letter of the law flouts its spirit at every turn.

Operating from the remote anonymity of phone booths and the local post office, with beachheads in a seedy New York cafeteria and a catastrophic, carton-crammed tenement on East 96th Street, J R parlays a deal for thousands of surplus Navy picnic forks through penny stock flyers and a distant textile-mill bankruptcy into a nationwide, hydra-headed "family of companies."

The J R Corp and its Boss engulf brokers, lawyers, Congressmen, disaffected school teachers and disenfranchised Indians, drunks, divorcées, second-hand generals, and a fledgling composer hopelessly entangled in a nightmare marriage of business and the arts. Their bullish ventures—shaky mineral claims and gas leases, cost-plus defense contracts, a string of nursing homes cum funeral parlors, a formula for frozen music—burgeon into a paper empire ranging from timber to textiles, from matchbooks to (legalized) marijuana, from prostheses to publishing, inadvertently crushing hopes, careers, an entire town, on a collision course with the bigger world... the pragmatic Real World where the business of America is business, where the stock market exists as a convenience, and the tax laws make some people more equal than others... the world that makes the rules because it plays to win, and plays for keeps.

Absurdly logical, mercilessly real, gathering its own tumultuous momentum for the ultimate brush with commodity trading when the drop in pork belly futures masks the crumbling of our own, J R captures the reader in the cacophony of voices that revolves around this young captive of his own myths—voices that dominate the book, talking to each other, at each other, into phones, on intercoms, from TV screens and radios—a vast mosaic of sound that sweeps the reader into the relentless "real time" of spoken words in a way unprecedented in modern fiction.

The disturbing clarity with which this finished writer captures the ways in which we deal, dissemble, stumble through our words—through our lives—while the real plans are being made elsewhere makes J R the extraordinary novel that it is.

King Lear by William Shakespeare is a profound theatrical exploration of familial conflict, honor, and madness. With its compelling narrative, the play delves into the heart of a kingdom divided by the whims of a flawed monarch and the machinations of his ambitious offspring.

The tragedy unfolds as Lear, the aging king, decides to divide his realm amongst his three daughters, leading to a treacherous power struggle that strips him of his authority and sanity. Through the tribulations of Lear and his court, Shakespeare examines themes of loyalty, betrayal, and the harsh consequences of vanity and pride.

At its core, King Lear is a poignant commentary on the human condition, the fragility of power, and the complex bonds that tie families together, often tightly interwoven with suffering and loss. It is a story that resonates as much today as it did when it was first performed, with timeless insights into the depths of human nature and the inevitable flow of fate.

Angels in America is a play in two parts by American playwright Tony Kushner. The play is a complex, often metaphorical, and at times symbolic examination of AIDS and homosexuality in America in the 1980s. Certain major and minor characters are supernatural beings (angels) or deceased persons (ghosts). The play contains multiple roles for several of the actors. Initially and primarily focusing on a gay couple in Manhattan, the play also has several other storylines, some of which occasionally intersect.

The Famished Road is a modern classic that reveals the tension between the land of the living, with its violence and political struggles, and the temptations of the carefree kingdom of the spirits. In the decade since it won the Booker Prize, Ben Okri's Famished Road has become a classic. Like Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children or Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, it combines brilliant narrative technique with a fresh vision to create an essential work of world literature.

The narrator, Azaro, is an abiku, a spirit child, who in the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria exists between life and death. The life he foresees for himself and the tale he tells is full of sadness and tragedy, but inexplicably he is born with a smile on his face. Nearly called back to the land of the dead, he is resurrected. But in their efforts to save their child, Azaro's loving parents are made destitute.

The tension between the land of the living and the temptations of the carefree kingdom of the spirits propels this latter-day Lazarus's story.

An epic tale of freedom and slavery, love and war, and the potential futures of humankind. It tells of a twenty-first century California clan caught between two clashing worlds, one based on tolerance, the other on repression.

The earth is a living, conscious being. In company with cultures of many different times and places, we name these things as sacred: air, fire, water, and earth. Whether we see them as the breath, energy, blood, and body of the Mother, or as the blessed gifts of a Creator, or as symbols of the interconnected systems that sustain life, we know that nothing can live without them.

To call these things sacred is to say that they have a value beyond their usefulness for human ends, that they themselves become the standards by which our acts, our economics, our laws, and our purposes must be judged. No one has the right to appropriate them or profit from them at the expense of others. Any government that fails to protect them forfeits its legitimacy.

All people, all living things, are part of the earth life, and so are sacred. No one of us stands higher or lower than any other. Only justice can assure balance: only ecological balance can sustain freedom. Only in freedom can that fifth sacred thing we call spirit flourish in its full diversity.

To honor the sacred is to create conditions in which nourishment, sustenance, habitat, knowledge, freedom, and beauty can thrive. To honor the sacred is to make love possible.

The Recognitions is a masterwork about art and forgery, exploring the increasingly thin line between the counterfeit and the fake. Gaddis anticipates by almost half a century the crisis of reality that we currently face, where the real and the virtual are combining in alarming ways, and the sources of legitimacy and power are often obscure to us.

The book delves into the obsession with seventeenth-century Flemish masterpieces, through the character Wyatt Gwyon, who forges original artwork that is amazingly faithful to the spirit and techniques of the time. This profound narrative is a bold critique of cultural and artistic authenticity.

Postcards is the mesmerizing tale of Loyal Blood, a man who spends a lifetime running from a terrible crime that forever incapacitates him from forming intimate connections. Blood's journey begins in 1944, taking him from his hardscrabble Vermont hill farm across the vast landscapes of America.

From New York to California, passing through Ohio, Minnesota, Montana, British Columbia, North Dakota, Wyoming, and New Mexico, Loyal must live a hundred lives to survive. He delves into mining gold, growing beans, hunting fossils, prospecting for uranium, and ranching. Meanwhile, his family suffers great losses, particularly the hard-won values of endurance and pride, legacies of generations rooted in intimacy with the land.

Postcards chronicles the lives of the rural and the dispossessed, mapping their world with the historical accuracy and narrative skill reminiscent of Cather, Dreiser, and Faulkner. It stands as a new American classic.

Two masters of epic fantasy have combined in this brilliant collaboration to create a rousing tale of the sort that becomes an instant favorite.

This is the story of Shana, a halfbreed born of the forbidden union of an Elvenlord father and a human mother. Her exiled mother dead, she was rescued and raised by dragons, a proud, ancient race who existed unbeknownst to elven or humankind.

From birth, Shana was the embodiment of the Prophecy that the all-powerful Elvenlords feared. Her destiny is the enthralling adventure of a lifetime.

The Books of Magic introduces readers to a mesmerizing tale of the dangers and opportunities of youth, and its endless possibilities. The story follows Timothy Hunter, a young boy who could become the most powerful magician in the world, but he must decide if he truly wants that destiny.

A quartet of fallen mystics, known as the TrenchCoat Brigade, including John Constantine, the Phantom Stranger, Dr. Occult, and Mister E, guide Timothy through the magical realms. Along the way, he meets Vertigo's greatest practitioners of magic and faces the ultimate choice of whether to join their ranks.

Illustrated by four of comics' most accomplished artists, including John Bolton, Scott Hampton, Charles Vess, and Paul Johnson, the book collects all four issues of the original miniseries that introduced Timothy Hunter and set the stage for his continuing adventures.

This tale is a dizzying, breathtaking tour through the beautiful and terrifying worlds of magic, as Timothy explores the magical realms from the beginning of time, guided by the DC Universe magicians. Will he embrace his gift, or will the choice be made for him?

Smoky knows only one way of life: freedom. Living on the open range, he is free to go where he wants and do what he wants. And being a smart colt, he learns what he must in order to survive. He can beat any enemy whether it be a rattlesnake or a hungry wolf. He is as much a part of the Wild West as it is of him, and Smokey can't imagine anything else.

But then he comes across a new enemy, one that walks on two legs and makes funny sounds. Smoky can't beat this enemy like he has all the others. But does he really want to beat it? Or could giving up some of his freedom mean getting something else in return that's even more valuable?

This novel by Will James details the life of a horse in the western United States from his birth to his eventual decline. Smoky is captured and trained by a cowboy named Clint, becoming known as the best cow horse around. However, Smoky's life takes a dramatic turn when he is stolen by a horse thief, leading to a journey filled with challenges and heartwarming reunions.

Smoky's tale is a captivating story of resilience, loyalty, and the enduring bond between a horse and his rider. A classic piece of literature that has been adapted to the screen multiple times, "Smoky the Cow Horse" remains a testament to the spirit of the West.

In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he's a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that's striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse.

Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous… you'll recognize it immediately.

Although some of the goals to keep Shannara safe had been met, the work of Walker Boh, Wren, and Par was not yet done. For The Shadowen still swarmed over the Four Lands, poisoning all with their dark magic. Each Shannaran had a special death waiting for him at the hands of The Shadowen unless Par could find a way to free them all with the Sword of Shannara.

Winter Prey is John Sandford's suspense masterpiece! Following the international success of Shadow Prey and Silent Prey, Winter Prey creates another heart-pounding chapter in the career of Lucas Davenport, the brilliant, hard-bitten detective from the Twin Cities.

The Iceman is Lucas Davenport's most determined foe - a serial killer driven to cover his brutal tracks with blood. Sandford again creates almost unbearable suspense as we wait for the Ice Man's razor-sharp corn knife to strike.

Winter Prey unfolds in the cold and driving snow of the north country, the perfect setting for the chilling terror caused by the Ice Man, a killer who knows Lucas' every move - a coldly brilliant madman who can't be stopped. Turn up the heat and listen as Lucas Davenport faces his most dangerous challenge.

In a gripping feat of storytelling, Anne Rice continues the extraordinary Vampire Chronicles that began with the now-classic Interview with the Vampire. For centuries, Lestat—vampire-hero, enchanter, seducer of mortals—has been a courted prince in the dark and flourishing universe of the living dead. Now he is alone. And in his overwhelming need to destroy his doubts and his loneliness, Lestat embarks on the most dangerous enterprise he has undertaken in all the years of his haunted existence.

Returning to Lestat as the main character, the fourth in the Vampire Chronicles series finds Lestat impulsive and careless in the pursuit of what he wants: a serial killer in Southern Florida. Lestat is surrounded by mortals in this tale, and a new worthy counterpoint character to Lestat is introduced, Raglan James. James is a vampire hunter, and a formidable adversary for Lestat. James offers Lestat the opportunity to switch bodies temporarily with a young mortal. Against Louis' advice, Lestat accepts and discovers he hates everything about being human. He also finds that James has disappeared with Lestat's powerful vampire body. Louis refuses to help Lestat become a vampire again, and he turns to another mortal to help him trick James into switching souls, and giving up Lestat's body.

Centering on the themes of body and soul and soul migration, The Tale of the Body Thief is a novel of action.

In a weedy lot on the outskirts of Memphis, two boys watch a shiny Lincoln pull up to the curb. Eleven-year-old Mark Sway and his younger brother were sharing a forbidden cigarette when a chance encounter with a suicidal lawyer left Mark knowing a bloody and explosive secret: the whereabouts of the most sought-after dead body in America. Now Mark is caught between a legal system gone mad and a mob killer desperate to cover up his crime. And his only ally is a woman named Reggie Love, who has been a lawyer for all of four years. Prosecutors are willing to break all the rules to make Mark talk. The mob will stop at nothing to keep him quiet. And Reggie will do anything to protect her client—even take a last, desperate gamble that could win Mark his freedom... or cost them both their lives.

Better than Life is a wild and wacky science fiction novel that continues the adventures of the beloved Red Dwarf crew. Inspired by the popular BBC-TV series, this book is reminiscent of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The story follows Lister, who finds himself in a peculiar predicament. After passing out drunk in London, he awakens in a locker on a moon of Saturn. Now, Lister is trapped in a computer game that transports players to the perfect world of their imaginations. However, this is no ordinary game; it’s a game people are literally dying to play.

Join Lister, Rimmer, Kryten, Holly, and the Cat as they navigate through this addictive virtual reality called Better Than Life. Each character experiences their own version of paradise: Lister lives in a replica of Bedford Falls from It's a Wonderful Life, Rimmer is married to a supermodel, and the Cat lives in Denmark in a palace surrounded by a moat of milk. Life's good on Earth. Or is it?

To escape this perilous paradise, the crew must face the ultimate challenge: they have to want to leave. This book promises a journey through frontal-lobe knotting realities where none dare venture but the bravest of the brave, the boldest of the bold, and the feeblest of the feeble-minded.

Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series spans the history of the United States from the Revolution to the post-World War II years. With their broad canvas and large cast of fictional and historical characters, the novels in this series present a panorama of the American political and imperial experience as interpreted by one of its most worldly, knowing, and ironic observers.

To most Americans, Abraham Lincoln is a monolithic figure, the Great Emancipator and Savior of the Union, beloved by all. In Gore Vidal's Lincoln we meet Lincoln the man and Lincoln the political animal, the president who entered a besieged capital where most of the population supported the South and where even those favoring the Union had serious doubts that the man from Illinois could save it. Far from steadfast in his abhorrence of slavery, Lincoln agonizes over the best course of action and comes to his great decision only when all else seems to fail. As the Civil War ravages his nation, Lincoln must face deep personal turmoil, the loss of his dearest son, and the harangues of a wife seen as a traitor for her Southern connections.

Brilliantly conceived, masterfully executed, Gore Vidal's Lincoln allows the man to breathe again.

The war for survival of the planet Lusitania will be fought in the heart of a child named Gloriously Bright. On Lusitania, Ender found a world where humans and pequininos and the Hive Queen could all live together; where three very different intelligent species could find common ground at last. Or so he thought.

Lusitania also harbors the descolada, a virus that kills all humans it infects, but which the pequininos require in order to become adults. The Starways Congress so fears the effects of the descolada, should it escape from Lusitania, that they have ordered the destruction of the entire planet, and all who live there. The Fleet is on its way, and a second xenocide seems inevitable.

When Laurie Kenyon, a twenty-one-year-old student, is accused of murdering her English professor, she has no memory of the crime. Her fingerprints, however, are everywhere.

Laurie reaches out to her sister, attorney Sarah, to mount her defense. Sarah, in turn, brings in psychiatrist Justin Donnelly to help unravel the mystery.

Kidnapped at the age of four and victimized for two years, Laurie has developed astounding coping skills. Only when the unbearable memories of those lost years are released can the truth of the crime come out—and only then can the final sadistic plan of her abductor, whose obsession is stronger than ever, be revealed.

He was one of the best Marine snipers in Vietnam. Today, twenty years later, the disgruntled hero of an unheroic war, all Bob Lee Swagger wants is to be left alone and to leave the killing behind.

But with consummate psychological skill, a shadowy military organization seduces Bob into leaving his beloved Arkansas hills for one last mission for his country, unaware until too late that the game is rigged.

The assassination plot is executed to perfection—until Bob Lee Swagger, alleged lone gunman, comes out of the operation alive, the target of a nationwide manhunt, his only allies a woman he just met and a discredited FBI agent.

Now Bob Lee Swagger is on the run, using his lethal skills once more—but this time to track down the men who set him up and to break a dark conspiracy aimed at the very heart of America.

Raised on a ranch in northern California, young Jody is well-schooled in the hard work and demands of a rancher's life. He is used to the way of horses, too; but nothing has prepared him for the special connection he will forge with Gabilan, a hot-tempered pony his father gives him.

With Billy Buck, the hired hand, Jody tends and trains his horse, restlessly anticipating the moment he will sit high upon Gabilan's saddle. But when Gabilan falls ill, Jody discovers there are still lessons he must learn about the ways of nature and, particularly, the ways of man.