Ryan Bingham's job as a Career Transition Counselor—he fires people—has kept him airborne for years. Although he has come to despise his line of work, he has come to love the culture of what he calls "Airworld," finding contentment within pressurized cabins, anonymous hotel rooms, and a wardrobe of wrinkle-free slacks.

With a letter of resignation sitting on his boss's desk, and the hope of a job with a mysterious consulting firm, Ryan Bingham is agonizingly close to his ultimate goal, his Holy Grail: one million frequent flier miles. But before he achieves this long-desired freedom, conditions begin to deteriorate.

With perception, wit, and wisdom, Up in the Air combines brilliant social observation with an acute sense of the psychic costs of our rootless existence, and confirms Walter Kirn as one of the most savvy chroniclers of American life.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit is the original classic by Beatrix Potter. First published by Frederick Warne in 1902, it endures as Beatrix Potter's most popular and well-loved tale. It tells the story of a very mischievous rabbit and the trouble he encounters in Mr McGregor's vegetable garden.

Re-originated in 2002 to mark the centenary of publication, bringing it closer to the original edition, six illustrations were restored, four that were removed in 1903 to make room for endpapers and two that have never been used before, Beatrix having initially prepared more illustrations than could be accommodated in the original format.

Beatrix Potter is regarded as one of the world's best-loved children's authors of all time. From her first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, she went on to create a series of stories based around animal characters including Mrs. Tiggy-winkle, Benjamin Bunny, Jemima Puddle-duck, Mr. Jeremy Fisher, and Tom Kitten. Her humorous, lively tales and beautiful illustrations have become a natural part of childhood.

With revenue from the sales of her books, Beatrix Potter bought a farm - Hill Top - in the English Lake District, where she later became a farmer and prize-winning sheep breeder. She launched the now vast merchandise programme by patenting the very first Peter Rabbit doll in 1903. The product range continues to grow today with licences around the world including baby clothing and bedding, nursery decor products, and collectables. Upon her death, Beatrix Potter left 14 farms and over 4000 acres of Lake District farmland to the National Trust so that the place that she loved would remain undeveloped and protected for future generations to enjoy.

Today Beatrix Potter's original 23 tales are still published by Frederick Warne, alongside a wide range of other formats including baby books, activity books, and gift and sound books. The Tale of Peter Rabbit is number one in Beatrix Potter's series of 23 little books.

Three Junes is a luminous first novel by Julia Glass, set across the picturesque landscapes of Greece, Scotland, Greenwich Village, and Long Island. The story intricately traces the lives of a Scottish family as they navigate through the complex tapestry of love, encompassing its joys, longings, fulfillments, and betrayals.

In June of 1989, Paul McLeod, a newspaper publisher and recent widower, embarks on a journey to Greece. Here, he falls for a young American artist, reflecting deeply on the complicated truths of his marriage. Fast forward six years, and Paul's demise brings his three grown sons and their families back to their ancestral home in Scotland. Fenno, the eldest son and a wry, introspective gay man, narrates the unexpected family reunion. Far removed from his structured life as a bookseller in Greenwich Village, Fenno faces a series of revelations that threaten his carefully built defenses.

Another four years pass, and in yet another June, a chance meeting on the Long Island shore reunites Fenno with Fern Olitsky, the artist who once captivated his father. Now pregnant, Fern grapples with her past guilt while contemplating her future, redefining what family means to her.

In prose rich with compassion and wit, Three Junes paints a haunting portrait of love’s redemptive powers, offering readers a profound look into the intricacies of family and the enduring bonds that tie us together.

All the King's Men is a 1946 novel by Robert Penn Warren. Its title is drawn from the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty". The novel tells the story of charismatic populist governor Willie Stark and his political machinations in the Depression-era Deep South. It is commonly thought to have been loosely inspired by the real-life story of U.S. Senator Huey P. Long, who was assassinated in 1935.

Warren won the Pulitzer Prize for All the King's Men in 1947. The novel has received critical acclaim and remained perennially popular since its first publication. It was rated the 36th greatest novel of the 20th century by Modern Library, and it was chosen as one of Time magazine's 100 best novels since 1923.

All the King's Men portrays the dramatic and theatrical political rise and governorship of Willie Stark, a cynical populist in the 1930s American South.

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling biography of America’s founding father and second president that was the basis for the acclaimed HBO series, brilliantly told by master historian David McCullough. In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second president of the United States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary war; who was learned beyond all but a few and regarded by some as “out of his senses”; and whose marriage to the wise and valiant Abigail Adams is one of the moving love stories in American history.

This is history on a grand scale—a book about politics and war and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship, and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above all, John Adams is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.

HARRY DRESDEN -- WIZARD

Lost items found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates.
No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or Other Entertainment

Ever since his girlfriend left town to deal with her newly acquired taste for blood, Harry Dresden has been down and out in Chicago. He can't pay his rent. He's alienating his friends. He can't even recall the last time he took a shower.

The only professional wizard in the phone book has become a desperate man.

And just when it seems things can't get any worse, in saunters the Winter Queen of Faerie. She has an offer Harry can't refuse if he wants to free himself of the supernatural hold his faerie godmother has over him--and hopefully end his run of bad luck. All he has to do is find out who murdered the Summer Queen's right-hand man, the Summer Knight, and clear the Winter Queen's name.

It seems simple enough, but Harry knows better than to get caught in the middle of faerie politics. Until he finds out that the fate of the entire world rests on his solving this case. No pressure or anything...

The modern struggle against fat cuts deeply and pervasively into American culture. Dieting, weight consciousness, and widespread hostility toward obesity form one of the fundamental themes of modern life.

Fat History explores the meaning of fat in contemporary Western society and illustrates how progressive changes, such as growth in consumer culture, increasing equality for women, and the refocusing of women's sexual and maternal roles have influenced today's obsession with fat.

Filled with narrative anecdotes, Fat History explores fat's transformation from a symbol of health and well-being to a sign of moral, psychological, and physical disorder.

Rose Feller is thirty; a successful lawyer with high hopes of a relationship with Jim, Mr Not-Quite-Right, a senior partner in her firm. The last thing she needs is her messed-up, only occasionally employed sister Maggie moving in: drinking, smoking, stealing her money - and her shoes - and spoiling her chance of romance. If only Maggie would grow up and settle down with a nice guy and a steady job.

Maggie is drop dead gorgeous and irresistible to men. She's going to make it big as a TV presenter, or a singer...or an actress. All she needs is a lucky break. What she doesn't need is her uptight sister Rose interfering in her life. If only Rose would lighten-up, have some fun - and learn how to use a pair of tweezers.

Rose and Maggie think they have nothing in common but a childhood tragedy, shared DNA and the same size feet, but they are about to find out that they're more alike than they'd ever believe.

Disguised as a boy, Alanna of Trebond becomes a squire, to none other than the prince of the realm. But Prince Jonathan is much more to Alanna; he is her ally, her best friend, and one of the few who knows that she's really a girl. Now it will take all of Alanna's awesome skill, strength, and growing magical powers to protect him from the mysterious evil sorcerer who is bent on his destruction, and hers!

Here continues the story of Alanna, a young woman bound for glory who is willing to fight against enormous odds for what she believes in.

John Vincent Dolan is a talented young forger with a proclivity for mathematics and drug addiction. In the face of his impending institutionalization, he continually reinvents himself to escape the legal and mental health authorities and to save himself from a life of incarceration. But running turns out to be costly.

Vincent's clients in the L.A. underworld lose patience, the hospital evaluator may not be fooled by his story, and the only person in as much danger as himself is the woman who knows his real name.

With undertones of vampires, Frankenstein, dragons' hoards, and killing fields, Matt's story turns out to be an inspiring tale of friendship, survival, hope, and transcendence. A must-read for teenage fantasy fans.

At his coming-of-age party, Matteo Alacrán asks El Patrón's bodyguard, "How old am I?...I know I don't have a birthday like humans, but I was born." "You were harvested," Tam Lin reminds him. "You were grown in that poor cow for nine months and then you were cut out of her." To most people around him, Matt is not a boy, but a beast. A room full of chicken litter with roaches for friends and old chicken bones for toys is considered good enough for him. But for El Patrón, lord of a country called Opium—a strip of poppy fields lying between the U.S. and what was once called Mexico—Matt is a guarantee of eternal life. El Patrón loves Matt as he loves himself for Matt is himself. They share identical DNA.

Bobby Pendragon is a seemingly normal fourteen-year-old boy. He has a family, a home, and even Marley, his beloved dog. But there is something very special about Bobby.

He is going to save the world. And not just Earth as we know it. Bobby is slowly starting to realize that life in the cosmos isn't quite what he thought it was. And before he can object, he is swept off to an alternate dimension known as Denduron, a territory inhabited by strange beings, ruled by a magical tyrant, and plagued by dangerous revolution.

If Bobby wants to see his family again, he's going to have to accept his role as savior, and accept it wholeheartedly. Because, as he is about to discover, Denduron is only the beginning....

A chilling, thrilling collection of Edgar Allan Poe's poetry, introduced by best-selling author Philip Pullman. The Raven... Annabel Lee... Ulalume... these are some of the spookiest, most macabre poems ever written, now collected in this chilling, affordable volume.

Dreams
The Lake
Sonnet — To Science
[Alone]
Introduction
To Helen
Israfel
The Valley of Unrest
The City in the Sea
To One in Paradise
The Coliseum
The Haunted Palace
The Conqueror Worm
Dream-Land
Eulalie
The Raven
["Deep in Earth"]
To M.L.S___
Ulalume — A Ballad
The Bells
To Helen [Whitman]
A Dream Within a Dream
For Annie
Eldorado
To My Mother
Annabel Lee

Band of Brothers, by Stephen E. Ambrose, is a gripping account of E Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division during World War II. From their rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to the dangerous parachute landings on D-Day and their triumphant capture of Hitler’s ‘Eagle’s Nest’ in Berchtesgaden, Ambrose tells the story of this remarkable company.

Repeatedly sent on the toughest missions, these brave men fought, went hungry, froze, and died in the service of their country. A tale of heroic adventures and soul-shattering confrontations, Band of Brothers brings back to life, as only Stephen E. Ambrose can, the profound ties of brotherhood forged in the barracks and on the battlefields. This narrative not only highlights the physical battles but also the emotional and psychological challenges faced by the soldiers.

Introducing James Bond: charming, sophisticated, handsome, chillingly ruthless and licensed to kill. This, the first of Ian Fleming's tales of secret agent 007, finds Bond on a mission to neutralize a lethal, high-rolling Russian operative called simply "le Chiffre" -- by ruining him at the Baccarat table and forcing his Soviet spymasters to "retire" him. It seems that lady luck is taken with 007 -- le Chiffre has hit a losing streak.

But some people just refuse to play by the rules, and Bond's attraction to a beautiful female agent leads him to disaster and an unexpected savior...

The Sword of Shannara: Long ago, the world of Shea Ohmsford was torn apart by war. But the half-human, half-elfin, Shea now lives in peace—until the forbidding figure of Allanon appears, revealing that the long-dead Warlock Lord lives again.

The Elfstones of Shannara: Ancient evil threatens the Elves and the Races of Man. The Ellcrys, the tree of long-lost Elven magic, is dying—loosening the spell of Forbidding that locks the hordes of Demons away from Earth. Only the Elfstones of Shannara have the power to stop it.

The Wishsong of Shannara: Evil stalks the Four Lands as the Ildatch, an immemorial book of evil spells, stirs to eldritch life. Once again, Allanon, the ancient Druid Protector of the Races, must seek the help of a descendant of Jerle Shannara.

Children of the Mind (1996) is the fourth novel of Orson Scott Card's popular Ender's Game series of science fiction novels that focus on the character Ender Wiggin. This book was originally the second half of Xenocide, before it was split into two novels.

At the start of Children of the Mind, Jane, the evolved computer intelligence, is using her newly discovered abilities to take the races of buggers, humans and pequeninos outside the universe and back instantaneously. She uses these powers to move them to distant habitable planets for colonization. She is losing her memory and concentration as the vast computer network connected to the ansible is being shut down. If she is to survive, she must find a way to transfer her aiúa (or soul) to a human body.

Cohen the Barbarian. He's been a legend in his own lifetime. He can remember the good old days of high adventure, when being a Hero meant one didn't have to worry about aching backs and lawyers and civilization. But these days, he can't always remember just where he put his teeth...

So now, with his ancient (yet still trusty) sword and new walking stick in hand, Cohen gathers a group of his old -- very old -- friends to embark on one final quest. He's going to climb the highest mountain of Discworld and meet the gods.

It's time the Last Hero in the world returns what the first hero stole. Trouble is, that'll mean the end of the world, if no one stops him in time.

Originally published in 1942 and now rediscovered to international acclaim, this taut and exquisitely structured novel by the Hungarian master Sándor Márai conjures the melancholy glamour of a decaying empire and the disillusioned wisdom of its last heirs.

In a secluded woodland castle, an old General prepares to receive a rare visitor, a man who was once his closest friend but whom he has not seen in forty-one years. Over the ensuing hours, host and guest will fight a duel of words and silences, accusations and evasions. They will exhume the memory of their friendship and that of the General’s beautiful, long-dead wife. And they will return to the time the three of them last sat together following a hunt in the nearby forest—a hunt in which no game was taken but during which something was lost forever.

Embers is a classic of modern European literature, a work whose poignant evocation of the past also seems like a prophetic glimpse into the moral abyss of the present.

A surreal coming-of-age tale that establishes Ryu Murakami as one of the most inventive young writers in the world today. Abandoned at birth in adjacent train station lockers, two troubled boys spend their youth in an orphanage and with foster parents on a semi-deserted island before finally setting off for the city to find and destroy the women who first rejected them. Both are drawn to an area of freaks and hustlers called Toxitown. One becomes a bisexual rock singer, star of this exotic demimonde, while the other, a pole vaulter, seeks his revenge in the company of his girlfriend, Anemone, a model who has converted her condominium into a tropical swamp for her pet crocodile.

Together and apart, their journey from a hot metal box to a stunning, savage climax is a brutal funhouse ride through the eerie landscape of late-twentieth-century Japan.

Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once an intellectual mystery and triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets. As they uncover their letters, journals, and poems, and track their movements from London to Yorkshire—from spiritualist séances to the fairy-haunted far west of Brittany—what emerges is an extraordinary counterpoint of passions and ideas.

Step aside from the main journey of Hikaru Shindo to explore intriguing side stories in Hikaru no Go, Vol. 18: Six Characters, Six Stories. This volume diverges from the central narrative to delve into the backgrounds and personal tales of six characters who have impacted Hikaru's journey in the world of Go. Readers will gain a deeper understanding of Akira Toya, Tetsuo Kaga, Asumi Nase, Yuki Mitani, Atsushi Kurata, and the enigmatic spirit Fujiwara-no-Sai.

In these stories, Hikaru Shindo might make an appearance, but the spotlight shines on the individual paths and challenges each character faces. The collection culminates with Hikaru taking a stand against a deceitful antique shop owner, engaging in a strategic battle of Go to reclaim a treasured heirloom vase for its rightful owner.

It's still true... That's the first thing James Tillerman says to his sister Dicey every morning. It's still true that their mother has abandoned the four Tillerman children somewhere in the middle of Connecticut. It's still true they have to find their way, somehow, to Great-aunt Cilla's house in Bridgeport, which may be their only hope of staying together as a family.

But when they get to Bridgeport, they learn that Great-aunt Cilla has died, and the home they find with her daughter, Eunice, isn't the permanent haven they've been searching for. So their journey continues to its unexpected conclusion -- and some surprising discoveries about their history, and their future.

Jack St. Bride arrives by chance in the sleepy New England town of Salem Falls, determined to reinvent himself. Once a beloved teacher and soccer coach, Jack's life was turned upside down by a student's crush, leading to accusations that shattered his reputation.

Now working at the Do-Or-Diner, Jack attempts to bury his past. He becomes the mysterious stranger, trying to fit into the town's routine. Addie Peabody, haunted by her own ghosts, finds herself drawn to Jack, and a gentle, healing love begins to blossom between them.

However, a group of bored, privileged teenage girls form a coven, crossing the line between amusement and malice. They notice Jack and make a shattering allegation, causing history to repeat itself. Jack must again proclaim his innocence, turning Salem Falls from a safe haven into a dangerous place.

As Jack's hidden past catches up with him, the town's seams begin to tear, and the truth becomes a slippery concept. Addie must look into her heart and Jack's secrets to find evidence that will either condemn or redeem the man she has come to love.

The Silence of the Lambs is an iconic work by Thomas Harris that delves into the chilling world of psychopaths and serial killers. The novel introduces us to Clarice Starling, a young FBI trainee, who is tasked with interviewing Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and notorious psychopath. Lecter's profound insight into the criminal mind becomes pivotal in the hunt for another serial killer, known as Buffalo Bill.

Lecter's eerie ability to dissect the human psyche with his words sets a compelling backdrop for this masterful blend of horror and psychological suspense. Starling finds herself drawn into a complex relationship with Lecter, whose cryptic guidance sends her on a tense and harrowing journey that will leave readers captivated.

The Silence of the Lambs is not just a story of crime and pursuit; it's an exploration of the darkest corners of the mind, the nature of evil, and the fragile thread of sanity that separates them.

In Island, his last novel, Aldous Huxley transports us to a Pacific island where, for 120 years, an ideal society has flourished. Inevitably, this island of bliss attracts the envy and enmity of the surrounding world. A conspiracy is underway to take over Pala, and events begin to move when an agent of the conspirators, a newspaperman named Faranby, is shipwrecked there. What Faranby doesn't expect is how his time with the people of Pala will revolutionize all his values and—to his amazement—give him hope.

Be careful what you wish for...Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother named Desiderata who had a good heart, a wise head, and poor planning skills—which unfortunately left the Princess Emberella in the care of her other (not quite so good and wise) godmother when DEATH came for Desiderata. So now it's up to Magrat Garlick, Granny Weatherwax, and Nanny Ogg to hop on broomsticks and make for far-distant Genua to ensure the servant girl doesn't marry the Prince.But the road to Genua is bumpy, and along the way the trio of witches encounters the occasional vampire, werewolf, and falling house (well this is a fairy tale, after all). The trouble really begins once these reluctant foster-godmothers arrive in Genua and must outwit their power-hungry counterpart who'll stop at nothing to achieve a proper "happy ending"—even if it means destroying a kingdom.

Carl Streator is a reporter investigating Sudden Infant Death Syndrome for a soft-news feature. After responding to several calls with paramedics, he notices that all the dead children were read the same poem from the same library book the night before they died. It's a 'culling song' - an ancient African spell for euthanising sick or old people. Researching it, he meets a woman who killed her own child with it accidentally. He himself accidentally killed his own wife and child with the same poem twenty years earlier. Together, the man and the woman must find and destroy all copies of this book, and try not to kill every rude sonofabitch that gets in their way. Lullaby is a comedy/drama/tragedy. In that order. It may also be Chuck Palahniuk's best book yet.

For Joanna, her husband, Walter, and their children, the move to beautiful Stepford seems almost too good to be true. It is. For behind the town's idyllic facade lies a terrible secret—a secret so shattering that no one who encounters it will ever be the same.

At once a masterpiece of psychological suspense and a savage commentary on a media-driven society that values the pursuit of youth and beauty at all costs, The Stepford Wives is a novel so frightening in its final implications that the title itself has earned a place in the American lexicon.

In Coraline's family's new flat there's a locked door. On the other side is a brick wall—until Coraline unlocks the door... and finds a passage to another flat in another house just like her own. Only different.

The food is better there. Books have pictures that writhe and crawl and shimmer. And there's another mother and father there who want Coraline to be their little girl. They want to change her and keep her with them... Forever.

Coraline is an extraordinary fairy tale/nightmare from the uniquely skewed imagination of #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman.

Everyone knows that Colin Bridgerton is the most charming man in London. Penelope Featherington has secretly adored her best friend's brother for...well, it feels like forever. After half a lifetime of watching Colin Bridgerton from afar, she thinks she knows everything about him, until she stumbles across his deepest secret...and fears she doesn't know him at all.

Colin Bridgerton is tired of being thought nothing but an empty-headed charmer, tired of everyone's preoccupation with the notorious gossip columnist Lady Whistledown, who can't seem to publish an edition without mentioning him in the first paragraph. But when Colin returns to London from a trip abroad he discovers nothing in his life is quite the same - especially Penelope Featherington! The girl haunting his dreams. But when he discovers that Penelope has secrets of her own, this elusive bachelor must decide...is she his biggest threat - or his promise of a happy ending?

As the boundaries between worlds begin to dissolve, Lyra and her daemon help Will Parry in his search for his father and for a powerful, magical knife.

Lyra finds herself in a shimmering, haunted otherworld yingbeats of distant angels sound against the sky.

But she is not without allies: twelve-year-old Will Parry, fleeing for his life after taking another's, has also stumbled into this strange new realm.

On a perilous journey from world to world, Lyra and Will uncover a deadly secret: an object of extraordinary and devastating power.

And with every step, they move closer to an even greater threat and the shattering truth of their own destiny.

George Eliot’s final novel and her most ambitious work, Daniel Deronda contrasts the moral laxity of the British aristocracy with the dedicated fervor of Jewish nationalists. Crushed by a loveless marriage to the cruel and arrogant Grandcourt, Gwendolen Harleth seeks salvation in the deeply spiritual and altruistic Daniel Deronda. But Deronda, profoundly affected by the discovery of his Jewish ancestry, is ultimately too committed to his own cultural awakening to save Gwendolen from despair.

This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the 1878 Cabinet Edition.

Once again Jean M. Auel opens the door of a time long past to reveal an age of wonder and danger at the dawn of the modern human race. With all the consummate storytelling artistry and vivid authenticity she brought to The Clan of the Cave Bear and its sequel, The Valley of Horses, Jean M. Auel continues the breathtaking epic journey of the woman called Ayla.

Riding Whinney with Jondalar, the man she loves, and followed by the mare’s colt, Ayla ventures into the land of the Mamutoi--the Mammoth Hunters. She has finally found the Others she has been seeking. Though Ayla must learn their different customs and language, she is adopted because of her remarkable hunting ability, singular healing skills, and uncanny fire-making technique. Bringing back the single pup of a lone wolf she has killed, Ayla shows the way she tames animals. She finds women friends and painful memories of the Clan she left behind, and meets Ranec, the dark-skinned, magnetic master carver of ivory, whom she cannot refuse--inciting Jondalar to a fierce jealousy that he tries to control by avoiding her. Unfamiliar with the ways of the Others, Ayla misunderstands, and thinking Jondalar no longer loves her, she turns more to Ranec. Throughout the icy winter the tension mounts, but warming weather will bring the great mammoth hunt and the mating rituals of the Summer Meeting, when Ayla must choose to remain with Ranec and the Mamutoi, or to follow Jondalar on a long journey into an unknown future.

Jean M. Auel’s enthralling Earth’s Children series has become a literary phenomenon, beloved by readers around the world. In a brilliant novel as vividly authentic and entertaining as those that came before, Jean M. Auel returns us to the earliest days of humankind and to the captivating adventures of the courageous woman called Ayla.

With her companion, Jondalar, Ayla sets out on her most dangerous and daring journey--away from the welcoming hearths of the Mammoth Hunters and into the unknown. Their odyssey spans a beautiful but sparsely populated and treacherous continent, the windswept grasslands of Ice Age Europe, casting the pair among strangers. Some will be intrigued by Ayla and Jondalar, with their many innovative skills, including the taming of wild horses and a wolf; others will avoid them, threatened by what they cannot understand; and some will threaten them. But Ayla, with no memory of her own people, and Jondalar, with a hunger to return to his, are impelled by their own deep drives to continue their trek across the spectacular heart of an unmapped world to find that place they can both call home.

This unforgettable odyssey into the distant past carries us back to the awesome mysteries of the exotic, primeval world of The Clan of the Cave Bear, and to Ayla, now grown into a beautiful and courageous young woman. Cruelly cast out by the new leader of the ancient Clan that adopted her as a child, Ayla leaves those she loves behind and travels alone through a stark, open land filled with dangerous animals but few people, searching for the Others, tall and fair like herself. The short summer gives her little time to look, and when she finds a sheltered valley with a herd of hardy steppe horses, she decides to stay and prepare for the long glacial winter ahead. Living with the Clan has taught Ayla many skills but not real hunting. She finally knows she can survive when she traps a horse, which gives her meat and a warm pelt for the winter, but fate has bestowed a greater gift, an orphaned foal with whom she develops a unique kinship.

One winter extends to more; she discovers a way to make fire more quickly and a wounded cave lion cub joins her unusual family, but her beloved animals don't fulfill her restless need for human companionship. Then she hears the sound of a man screaming in pain. She saves tall, handsome Jondalar, who brings her a language to speak and an awakening of love and desire, but Ayla is torn between her fear of leaving her valley and her hope of living with her own kind.

Blown Up
All New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum has to do is bring in semi-retired bail jumper Eddie DeChooch. For an old man, he's still got a knack for slipping out of sight—and raising hell. How else can Stephanie explain the bullet-riddled corpse in Eddie's garden? Who else would have a clue as to why two of Stephanie's friends suddenly vanished? For answers, Stephanie has the devil to pay: her mentor, Ranger. The deal? He'll give Stephanie all the help she needs—if she gives him everything he wants...

Messed Up
As if things weren't complicated enough, Stephanie's just discovered her Grandma Mazur's own unmentionable alliance with Eddie. Add a series of unnerving break-ins, not to mention the bombshell revelation leveled by Stephanie's estranged sister, and Stephanie's ready for some good news. Unfortunately, a marriage proposal from Joe Morelli, the love of her life, isn't quite cutting it. And now—murder, a randy paramour, a wily mobster, death threats, extortion, and a triple kidnapping aside—Stephanie's really got the urge to run for her life...

Beautiful Sorcha is the courageous young woman who risked all to save her family from a wicked curse and whose love shattered generations of hate and bridged two cultures. It is from her sacrifice that Sorcha's brothers were brought home to their ancestral fortress Sevenwaters, and her life has known much joy. But not all the brothers were able to fully escape the spell that transformed them into swans, and it is left to Sorcha's daughter Liadan to help fulfill the destiny of the Sevenwaters clan.

Beloved child and dutiful daughter, Liadan embarks on a journey that shows her just how hard-won was the peace that she has known all her life. Liadan will need all of her courage to help save her family, for there are dark forces and ancient powers conspiring to destroy this family's peace--and their world. And she will need all of her strength to stand up to those she loves best, for in the finding of her own true love, Liadan's course may doom them all... or be their salvation.

In the shadow of an abandoned castle, a wolf pack seeks shelter. The she-wolf's pups will not be able to survive the harsh Transylvanian winter. And they are being stalked by a lone wolf, Morgra, possessed of a mysterious and terrifying power known as the Sight. Morgra knows that one of the pups born beneath the castle holds a key to power even stronger than her own - power that could give her control of this world and the next. But the pack she hunts will do anything to protect their own, even if it means setting in motion a battle that will involve all of nature, including the creature the wolves fear the most: Man.

The Art of The Fellowship of the Ring provides an authoritative and insightful look into the creative development of the first film in Peter Jackson's acclaimed The Lord of the Rings trilogy. This official publication boasts 500 exclusive images, ranging from initial pencil sketches and conceptual drawings to full-color paintings that influenced the film's visual design.

The book covers all principal locations, costumes, armor, and creatures in stunning detail, including content that did not make it into the final film. Alongside sketches, paintings, and digital images, the book features photographs illustrating how the creative process materialized, as well as film stills.

Contributions from artists Alan Lee and John Howe, whose work inspired Peter Jackson's vision of Middle-earth, are highlighted. They, along with other designers, share insights into how they contributed to the film's development, offering a behind-the-scenes look at bringing Middle-earth to life.

With text compiled from exclusive interviews with director Peter Jackson, special effects supervisor Richard Taylor, and designers such as Grant Major and Ngila Dickson, The Art of The Fellowship of the Ring celebrates the collective efforts that transformed the first Lord of the Rings movie into an award-winning global phenomenon.

Jack Mullen is in law school in New York City when the shocking news comes that his brother Peter has drowned in the ocean off East Hampton. Jack knows his brother and knows this couldn't be an accident. Someone must have wanted his brother dead. But the powers that be say otherwise. As Jack tries to uncover details of his brother's last night, he confronts a barricade of lawyers, police, and paid protectors who separate the multibillionaire summer residents from local workers like Peter. And he learns that his brother wasn't just parking cars at the summer parties of the rich. He was making serious money satisfying the sexual needs of the richest women and men in town. The Beach House reveals the secret lives of celebrities in a breathtaking drama of revenge—with a finale so shocking it could only have come from the mind of James Patterson.

Hailed as a classic, Tim Winton's masterful family saga is both a paean to working-class Australians and an unflinching examination of the human heart's capacity for sorrow, joy, and endless gradations in between. Cloudstreet exemplifies the brilliant ability of fiction to captivate and inspire.

Struggling to rebuild their lives after being touched by disaster, the Pickle family, who've inherited a big house called Cloudstreet in a suburb of Perth, take in the God-fearing Lambs as tenants. The Lambs have suffered their own catastrophes, and determined to survive, they open up a grocery on the ground floor. From 1944 to 1964, the shared experiences of the two overpopulated clans -- running the gamut from drunkenness, adultery, and death to resurrection, marriage, and birth -- bond them to each other and to the bustling, haunted house in ways no one could have anticipated.

"It began as a mistake." By middle age, Henry Chinaski has lost more than twelve years of his life to the U.S. Postal Service. In a world where his three true, bitter pleasures are women, booze, and racetrack betting, he somehow drags his hangover out of bed every dawn to lug waterlogged mailbags up mud-soaked mountains, outsmart vicious guard dogs, and pray to survive the day-to-day trials of sadistic bosses and certifiable coworkers.

This classic 1971 novel--the one that catapulted its author to national fame--is the perfect introduction to the grimly hysterical world of legendary writer, poet, and Dirty Old Man Charles Bukowski and his fictional alter ego, Chinaski.

The novels of Joanne Harris are a literary feast for the senses. Five Quarters of the Orange represents Harris's most complex and sophisticated work yet - a novel in which darkness and fierce joy come together to create an unforgettable story.

When Framboise Simon returns to a small village on the banks of the Loire, the locals do not recognize her as the daughter of the infamous Mirabelle Dartigen - the woman they still hold responsible for a terrible tragedy that took place during the German occupation decades before. Although Framboise hopes for a new beginning, she quickly discovers that past and present are inextricably intertwined. Nowhere is this truth more apparent than in the scrapbook of recipes she has inherited from her dead mother.

With this book, Framboise re-creates her mother's dishes, which she serves in her small creperie. And yet, as she studies the scrapbook - searching for clues to unlock the contradiction between her mother's sensuous love of food and often cruel demeanor - she begins to recognize a deeper meaning behind Mirabelle's cryptic scribbles. Within the journal's tattered pages lies the key to what actually transpired the summer Framboise was nine years old.

Rich and dark, Five Quarters of the Orange is a novel of mothers and daughters, of the past and the present, of resisting, and succumbing, and an extraordinary work by a masterful writer.

Tricked by the uncle who has stolen his inheritance, young David Balfour is kidnapped and bound for America. Or at least that was the plan, until the ship runs into trouble and David is rescued by Alan Breck Stewart, fugitive Jacobite and, by his own admission, a ‘bonny fighter’. Balfour, a canny lowlander, finds an echo of some wilder and more romantic self in the wilful and courageous Highland spirit of Alan Breck. A strange and difficult friendship is born, as their adventures begin.

Kidnapped has become a classic of historical romance the world over and is justly famous as a novel of travel and adventure in the Scottish landscape. Stevenson’s vivid descriptive powers were never better than in his account of remote places and dangerous action in the Highlands in the years after Culloden.

In one of NPR's 100 Best Thrillers Ever, FBI agent Pendergast discovers thirty-six murdered bodies in a New York City charnel house... and now, more than a century later, a killer strikes again. In an ancient tunnel underneath New York City a charnel house is discovered. Inside are thirty-six bodies--all murdered and mutilated more than a century ago. While FBI agent Pendergast investigates the old crimes, identical killings start to terrorize the city. The nightmare has begun. Again.

A mythmaker of the highest order, China Mi\u00e9ville has emblazoned the fantasy novel with fresh language, startling images, and stunning originality. Set in the same sprawling world of Mi\u00e9ville's Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel, Perdido Street Station, this latest epic introduces a whole new cast of intriguing characters and dazzling creations.

Aboard a vast seafaring vessel, a band of prisoners and slaves, their bodies remade into grotesque biological oddities, is being transported to the fledgling colony of New Crobuzon. But the journey is not theirs alone. They are joined by a handful of travelers, each with a reason for fleeing the city. Among them is Bellis Coldwine, a renowned linguist whose services as an interpreter grant her passage\u2014and escape from horrific punishment. For she is linked to Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, the brilliant renegade scientist who has unwittingly unleashed a nightmare upon New Crobuzon.

For Bellis, the plan is clear: live among the new frontiersmen of the colony until it is safe to return home. But when the ship is besieged by pirates on the Swollen Ocean, the senior officers are summarily executed. The surviving passengers are brought to Armada, a city constructed from the hulls of pirated ships, a floating, landless mass ruled by the bizarre duality called the Lovers. On Armada, everyone is given work, and even Remades live as equals to humans, Cactae, and Cray. Yet no one may ever leave.

Lonely and embittered in her captivity, Bellis knows that to show dissent is a death sentence. Instead, she must furtively seek information about Armada's agenda. The answer lies in the dark, amorphous shapes that float undetected miles below the waters\u2014terrifying entities with a singular, chilling mission.

China Mi\u00e9ville is a writer for a new era\u2014and The Scar is a luminous, brilliantly imagined novel that is nothing short of spectacular.

Factotum, one of Charles Bukowski's best, follows the beer-soaked, deliciously degenerate wanderings of aspiring writer Henry Chinaski across World War II-era America. Deferred from military service, Chinaski travels from city to city, moving listlessly from one odd job to another, always needing money but never badly enough to keep a job. His day-to-day existence spirals into an endless litany of pathetic whores, sordid rooms, dreary embraces, and drunken brawls, as he makes his bitter, brilliant way from one drink to the next.

Charles Bukowski's posthumous legend continues to grow. Factotum is a masterfully vivid evocation of slow-paced, low-life urbanity and alcoholism, and an excellent introduction to the fictional world of Charles Bukowski.