The Knight in the Panther's Skin is the first English verse translation of the Georgian epic of adventure and romance, written in the 12th or 13th century. This epic, penned by the renowned poet Shota Rustaveli, is a masterpiece of Georgian literature that explores themes of chivalry, love, and heroism.

Translator Marjory Scott Wardrop has skillfully rendered the complex metrical structure of the original work, which often requires rhyming words to the fourth syllable. Her translation captures the essence of the original text while making it accessible to modern readers.

The book includes an introduction by David M Lang from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, which places Rustaveli and his poem in historical context, offering insights into the cultural and literary significance of the work.

This edition also provides a brief list of Georgian words retained in the translation, enriching the reader's experience and understanding of the cultural nuances embedded within the epic.

"Anything you do in the past changes the future. The tiniest little actions have huge consequences. You might tread on an ant now and it might entirely prevent someone from being born in the future."

There's nothing like the issue of evolution to get under the skin of academics. Especially when those same academics are by chance or bad judgement deposited at a critical evolutionary turning point when one wrong move could have catastrophic results for the future. Unfortunately, in the hands of such an inept and cussed group of individuals, the sensitive issue of causality is sadly only likely to receive the same scant respect that they show to one another...

Before his brain began to shrink, Barney Panofsky clung to two cherished beliefs: Life was absurd, and nobody truly understood anybody else. Even his friends tend to agree that Barney is a wife-abuser, an intellectual fraud, a purveyor of pap, a drunk with a penchant for violence and probably a murderer. But when his sworn enemy threatens to publish this calumny, Barney is driven to write his own memoirs, rewinding the spool of his life, editing, selecting, and plagiarising, as his memory plays tricks on him—and on the reader.

Ebullient and perverse, he has seen off three wives: the enigmatic Clara, whom he drove to suicide in Paris in 1952; the garrulous Second Mrs. Panofsky; and finally Miriam, who stayed married to him for decades before running off with a sober academic. Houdini-like, Barney slides from crisis to success, from lowlife to highlife in Montreal, Paris, and London, his outrageous exploits culminating in the scandal he carries around like a humpback—the murder charge that he goes on denying to the end.

Père Goriot is the tragic story of a father whose obsessive love for his two daughters leads to his financial and personal ruin. Interwoven with this theme is that of the impoverished young aristocrat, Rastignac, who came to Paris from the provinces to hopefully make his fortune. He befriends Goriot and becomes involved with the daughters. The story is set against the background of a whole society driven by social ambition and lust for wealth.

A mage's soul is forged in the crucible of magic.

Raistlin Majere is six years old when he is introduced to an archmage who enrolls him in a school for the study of magic. There, the gifted but tormented boy comes to secretly understand the shadows darkening over him and all of Ansalon.

As Raistlin draws near his goal of becoming a wizard, he must first take the Dread Test in the Tower of High Sorcery. It will change his life forever.

In Making History, Stephen Fry tackles a rather meaty chunk by exploring an at first deceptively simple premise: What if Hitler had never been born?

An unquestionable improvement, one would reason—and so an earnest history grad student and an aging German physicist idealistically undertake to bring this about by preventing Adolf's conception.

And with their success is launched a brave new world that is in some ways better than ours—but in most ways even worse. Fry's experiment in history makes for his most ambitious novel yet, and his most affecting.

Set mostly in America, it is a thriller with a funny streak, a futuristic fantasy based on one of mankind's darkest realities. It is, in every sense, a story of our times.

First published in 1970, nine years after Ernest Hemingway's death, Islands in the Stream is the story of an artist and adventurer—a man much like Hemingway himself. Rich with the uncanny sense of life and action characteristic of his writing—from his earliest stories (In Our Time) to his last novella (The Old Man and the Sea)—this compelling novel contains both the warmth of recollection that inspired A Moveable Feast and a rare glimpse of Hemingway's rich and relaxed sense of humor, which enlivens scene after scene.

Beginning in the 1930s, Islands in the Stream follows the fortunes of Thomas Hudson from his experiences as a painter on the Gulf Stream island of Bimini, where his loneliness is broken by the vacation visit of his three young sons, to his antisubmarine activities off the coast of Cuba during World War II. The greater part of the story takes place in a Havana bar, where a wildly diverse cast of characters—including an aging prostitute who stands out as one of Hemingway's most vivid creations—engages in incomparably rich dialogue.

A brilliant portrait of the inner life of a complex and endlessly intriguing man, Islands in the Stream is Hemingway at his mature best.

Fool on the Hill is a full-blown epic of life and death, good and evil, magic and love. Imagine the imaginative daring of Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale and the zany popism of Tom Robbins’s Another Roadside Attraction. Enter a world where dogs and cats can talk, and a subculture of sprites lives in the shadows. If you're the sensitive type, or perhaps drunk enough, you might see them cavorting across the lawn.

Meet Stephen Titus George, the novel’s youthful hero, a mild-mannered flier of kites, a sometimes writer of bestselling fiction, and a would-be knight looking for a maiden. His journey will reveal a century-old story and the proverbial dragon whose slaying will sanctify their love. But it will not be a sword that fells the foe but the transforming power of the imagination.

This is a tale where the Bohemians, a group of Harley- and horseback-riding students dedicated to all things unconventional, hold all-night revels for the glory of their cause. And then there's the unseen Mr. Sunshine, an eternal, semi-retired deity, orchestrating his own story with dragons, sprites, gnomes, and villains. Can Stephen decide his own fate if it’s already being plotted by a god?

Death Be Not Proud chronicles Johnny Gunther's gallant struggle against the malignant brain tumor that claimed his life at the age of seventeen. This poignant memoir opens with a vivid portrait of Johnny by his father, highlighting a young man of extraordinary intellectual promise. Johnny excelled in physics, math, and chess, yet remained an active, good-hearted, and fun-loving teenager.

The heart of this memoir is the description of the agonizing months during which Johnny's parents, Gunther and his former wife Frances, tried everything in their power to halt the spread of Johnny's cancer and to make him as happy and comfortable as possible. Despite the challenges, Johnny strove to complete his high school studies, and the scene of his graduation ceremony from Deerfield Academy is one of the most powerful and heartbreaking moments in the book.

Throughout his illness, Johnny maintained his courage, wit, and quiet friendliness, leaving a lasting impact on those around him. He passed away on June 30, 1947, less than a month after his graduation.

An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit

The narrator of this extraordinary tale is a man in search for truth. He answers an ad in a local newspaper from a teacher looking for serious pupils, only to find himself alone in an abandoned office with a full-grown gorilla who is nibbling delicately on a slender branch. "You are the teacher?" he asks incredulously. "I am the teacher," the gorilla replies. Ishmael is a creature of immense wisdom and he has a story to tell, one that no other human being has ever heard. It is a story that extends backward and forward over the lifespan of the earth from the birth of time to a future there is still time save. Like all great teachers, Ishmael refuses to make the lesson easy; he demands the final illumination to come from within ourselves. Is it man's destiny to rule the world? Or is it a higher destiny possible for him-- one more wonderful than he has ever imagined?

An extraordinary and startlingly original sequel to Ishmael.

When Ishmael places an advertisement for pupils with “an earnest desire to save the world,” he does not expect a child to answer him. But twelve-year-old Julie Gerchak is undaunted by Ishmael’s reluctance to teach someone so young, and convinces him to take her on as his next student.

Ishmael knows he can't apply the same strategies with Julie that he used with his first pupil, Alan Lomax—nor can he hope for the same outcome. But young Julie proves that she is ready to forge her own spiritual path and arrive at her own destination.

And when the time comes to choose a pupil to carry out his greatest mission yet, Ishmael makes a daring decision—a choice that just might change the world.

Connie Willis' Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Doomsday Book uses time travel for a serious look at how people connect with each other. In this Hugo-winning companion to that novel, she offers a completely different kind of time travel adventure: a delightful romantic comedy that pays hilarious homage to Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat.

When too many jumps back to 1940 leave 21st century Oxford history student Ned Henry exhausted, a relaxing trip to Victorian England seems the perfect solution. But complexities like recalcitrant rowboats, missing cats, and love at first sight make Ned's holiday anything but restful - to say nothing of the way hideous pieces of Victorian art can jeopardize the entire course of history.

The Sweet Hereafter is a compelling novel by Russell Banks that begins with a tragic school bus accident. The story unfolds through the perspectives of four different narrators, each shedding light on the small-town dynamics and the profound impact of the tragedy.

The novel explores a small town's response to the inexplicable loss of its children. When the worst happens, whom do you blame, and how do you cope? This large-hearted novel brings to life a cast of unforgettable small-town characters and illuminates the mysteries and realities of love as well as grief.

Rich in imagery and the details of small-town life, The Sweet Hereafter is haunting in its portrayal of ordinary men and women struggling to understand loss. Under Banks's restrained craftsmanship, what begins as a story of senseless tragedy is transformed into an aspiring testament to hope and human resilience.

Bob Slocum was living the American dream. He had a beautiful wife, three lovely children, a nice house... and all the mistresses he desired. He had it all — all, that is, but happiness. Slocum was discontent. Inevitably, inexorably, his discontent deteriorated into desolation until... something happened.

Something Happened is Joseph Heller's wonderfully inventive and controversial second novel satirizing business life and American culture. The story is told as if the reader was overhearing the patter of Bob Slocum's brain — recording what is going on at the office, as well as his fantasies and memories that complete the story of his life. The result is a novel as original and memorable as his Catch-22.

Set in Moscow during a three-day period in December 1949, The First Circle is the story of the prisoner Gleb Nerzhin, a brilliant mathematician. At the age of thirty-one, Nerzhin has survived the war years on the German front and the postwar years in a succession of Russian prisons and labor camps.

His story is interwoven with the stories of a dozen fellow prisoners - each an unforgettable human being - from the prison janitor to the tormented Marxist intellectual who designed the Dnieper dam; of the reigning elite and their conflicted subordinates; and of the women, wretched or privileged, bound to these men.

A landmark of Soviet literature, The First Circle is as powerful today as it was when it was first published.

In this breathtaking novel, rich in history and adventure, #1 New York Times bestselling author Diana Gabaldon continues the story of Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser that started with the now-classic novel Outlander and continued in Dragonfly in Amber and Voyager. Once again spanning continents and centuries, Gabaldon has created a work of sheer brilliance.

What if you knew someone you loved was going to die? What if you thought you could save them? How much would you risk to try? Claire Randall has gone to find Jamie Fraser, the man she loved more than life, and has left half her heart behind with their daughter, Brianna. Claire gave up Jamie to save Brianna, and now Bree has sent her mother back to the Scottish warrior who was willing to give his life to save them both. But a chilling discovery in the pages of history suggests that Jamie and Claire's story doesn't have a happy ending.

Brianna dares a terrifying leap into the unknown in search of her mother and the father she has never met, risking her own future to try to change history... and to save their lives. But as Brianna plunges into an uncharted wilderness, a heartbreaking encounter may strand her forever in the past... or root her in the place she should be, where her heart and soul belong.

"A land at the top of a tree!" said Connie. "I don't believe a word of it."

Jo, Bessie, and Fanny are fed up when Connie comes to stay - she's so stuck-up and bossy. But they don't let her stop them from having fun with their tree-friends, Silky, Moon-Face, and the Saucepan Man.

Together, they climb through the cloud at the top of the Faraway Tree and visit the wonderful places there, the Land of Secrets and the Land of Treats - and Connie learns to behave herself!

Since its original publication, Joy of Cooking has been the most authoritative cookbook in America, the one upon which millions of cooks have confidently relied for more than sixty-five years. It's the book your grandmother and mother probably learned to cook from, the book you gave your sister when she got married.

This, the first revision in more than twenty years, is better than ever. Here's why: Every chapter has been rethought with an emphasis on freshness, convenience, and health. All the recipes have been reconceived and tested with an eye to modern taste, and the cooking knowledge imparted with each subject enriched to the point where everyone from a beginning to an experienced cook will feel completely supported.

The new Joy continues the vision of American cooking that began with the first edition of Joy. It is still the book you can turn to for perfect Beef Wellington and Baked Macaroni and Cheese. It's also the book where you can now find Turkey on the Grill, Spicy Peanut Sesame Noodles, and vegetarian meals.

The new Joy provides more thorough descriptions of ingredients, from the familiar to the most exotic. For instance, almost all the varieties of apples grown domestically are described—the months they become available, how they taste, what they are best used for, and how long they keep. But for the first time Joy features a complete section on fresh and dried chili peppers: how to roast and grill them, how to store them, and how long they keep—with illustrations of each pepper.

An all-new "RULES" section in many chapters gives essential cooking basics at a glance: washing and storing salad greens, selecting a pasta and a matching sauce, determining when a piece of fish is cooked through, stuffing a chicken, and making a perfect souffle.

New chapters reflect changing American tastes and lifestyles: Separate new chapters on grains, beans, and pasta include recipes for grits, polenta, pilafs, risottos, vegetarian chills, bean casseroles, and make-ahead lasagnes.

New baking and dessert chapters promise to enhance Joy of Cooking's reputation as a bible for bakers. Quick and yeast bread recipes range from focaccia, pizza, and sourdoughs to muffins and coffee cakes. Separate chapters cover custards and puddings, pies and tarts, cookies, cakes, cobblers, and other American fruit desserts revived for this edition. Recipes include one-bowl cakes, gingerbread, angel and sponge cakes, meringues, pound cakes, fruitcakes, 6 different kinds of cheesecake—there's even an illustrated wedding cake recipe, which takes you through all the stages from building a stand, making and decorating the cake, to transporting it to the reception without a hitch.

Little Dishes showcases foods from around the world: hummus, baba ghanoush, bruschetta, tacos, empanadas, and fried wontons.

All new drawings of techniques, ingredients, and equipment, integrated throughout an elegant new design, and over 300 more pages round out the new Joy.

Among this book's other unique features: microwave instructions for preparing beans, grains, and vegetables; dozens of new recipes for people who are lactose intolerant and allergic to gluten; expanded ingredients chart now features calories, essential vitamins, and levels of fats and cholesterol. There are ideas for substitutions to lower fat in recipes and reduced-fat recipes in the baking sections.

From cover to cover, Joy's chapters have been imbued with the knowledge and passion of America's greatest cooks and cooking teachers. An invaluable combination of old and new, this edition of Joy of Cooking promises to keep you cooking for years to come.

Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and Jake’s pet bumbler survive Blaine the Mono’s final crash, only to find themselves stranded in an alternate version of Topeka, Kansas, one that has been ravaged by the superflu virus. While following the deserted I-70 toward a distant glass palace, they hear the atonal squalling of a thinny, a place where the fabric of existence has almost entirely worn away. While camping near the edge of the thinny, Roland tells his ka-tet a story about another thinny, one that he encountered when he was little more than a boy. Over the course of one long magical night, Roland transports us to the Mid-World of long-ago and a seaside town called Hambry, where Roland fell in love with a girl named Susan Delgado, and where he and his old tet-mates Alain and Cuthbert battled the forces of John Farson, the harrier who—with a little help from a seeing sphere called Maerlyn’s Grapefruit—ignited Mid-World’s final war.

Faith Devlin: A poor, outcast child in Prescott, Louisiana, she'd always adored the town's golden boy from afar. But he called her white trash that sultry Southern night when his rich, respected father disappeared, along with her pretty Mom. Now Faith wanted to hate Gray Rouillard...not to feel a powerful surge of desire. But she couldn't quench her passion, any more than she could hide the truth about the past she had waited so long to unravel.

Gray Rouillard: Even when he raised hell, he did it with style. Reckless, charming, and backed by Rouillard money, Gray controlled the town of Prescott—and Devlin was a name he never wanted to hear again. But when he gazed at Faith Devlin, all he saw was a swirl of tangled sheets and her silken flesh beneath him. To care for her was impossible, unthinkable...because Gray Rouillard planned to use all his power to ruin her.

Ordered to hold an abandoned army post, John Dunbar found himself alone, beyond the edge of civilization.

Thievery and survival soon forced him into the Indian camp, where he began a dangerous adventure that changed his life forever.

Relive the adventure and beauty of the incredible movie, Dances with Wolves.

Animorphs is an exciting series for young adult readers about five teens who are given the power to morph into any animal they touch and then to absorb its DNA. This power is granted to them by a dying Andalite alien named Elfangor, who also warns the teens that Earth is being threatened secretly by a group of aliens called Yeerks.

This high-interest series is currently a successful television show and will be sure to intrigue even the most reluctant readers.

In The Winter King and Enemy of God, Bernard Cornwell demonstrated his astonishing ability to make the oft-told legend of King Arthur fresh and new for our time. Now, in this riveting final volume of The Warlord Chronicles, Cornwell tells the unforgettable tale of Arthur's final struggles against the Saxons and his last attempts to triumph over a ruined marriage and ravaged dreams.

This is the tale not only of a broken love remade, but also of forces both earthly and unearthly that threaten everything Arthur stands for. Peopled by princesses and bards, by warriors and magicians, Excalibur is the story of love, war, loyalty, and betrayal—the work of a magnificent storyteller at the height of his powers.

Moab Is My Washpot is a number one bestseller in Britain, written by the astonishingly frank, funny, and wise Stephen Fry. This memoir is the book that fans everywhere have been eagerly waiting for.

Stephen Fry, known for his PBS television debut in the Blackadder series, has seen his American profile grow steadily, especially after his title role in the film Wilde, which earned him a Golden Globe nomination, and his supporting role in A Civil Action.

Fry has already given readers a taste of his tumultuous adolescence in his autobiographical first novel, The Liar. Now, he reveals the equally tumultuous life that inspired it. Sent to boarding school at the age of seven, Fry survived beatings, misery, love affairs, carnal violation, expulsion, attempted suicide, criminal conviction, and imprisonment.

By the age of eighteen, Fry was ready to start over in a world where he had always felt like a stranger. One of very few Cambridge University graduates to have been imprisoned prior to his freshman year, Fry emerges as a brilliantly idiosyncratic character who continues to attract controversy, empathy, and real devotion.

The House at Pooh Corner and Now We Are Six brings together two beloved classics from A.A. Milne about the adventures of Winnie the Pooh and his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood, along with the whimsical poetry of Now We Are Six. These stories and poems are filled with the simple joys and sorrows of childhood, capturing the essence of innocence and the value of friendship.

Throughout The House at Pooh Corner, readers are introduced to the endearing world of Pooh Bear, Tigger, Piglet, Eeyore, and the rest of the gang as they embark on various adventures, learn important life lessons, and discover the strength of their bonds. Now We Are Six complements these tales with a collection of poetry that explores themes of growing up, imagination, and the bittersweet nature of childhood nostalgia.

Together, these works form a heartwarming anthology that continues to enchant readers of all ages.

Sabine—twenty years a magician's assistant to her handsome, charming husband—is suddenly a widow. In the wake of his death, she finds he has left a final trick; a false identity and a family allegedly lost in a tragic accident but now revealed as very much alive and well. Named as heirs in his will, they enter Sabine's life and set her on an adventure of unraveling his secrets, from sunny Los Angeles to the windswept plains of Nebraska, that will work its own sort of magic on her.

From the bestselling author of The Dutch House, this enchanting book is something of a magic trick in itself. Sabine's extraordinary tale, with its big dreams, vast spaces, and disparate realities lying side by side, captures the hearts of its readers and proves to be the perfect place for miraculous transformations.

Ciri staje przed swoim przeznaczeniem. Drakkar wiozący Yennefer trafia w oko czarodziejskiego cyklonu. Czy wśród przyjaciół wiedźmina ukrywa się zdrajca?

Czwarta, przedostatnia odłona epopei o świecie wiedźmina i wojnach, jakie nim wstrząsają. W zagubionej wśród bagien chacie pustelnika ciężko ranna Ciri powraca do zdrowia. Jej tropem podążają bezlitośni zabójcy z Nilfgaardu.

Tymczasem drużyna Geralta, unikając coraz to nowych niebezpieczeństw, dociera wreszcie do ukrywjących się druidów. Czy wiedźminowi uda się odnaleźć Ciri? Jaką rolę odegra osnuta legendą Wieża Jaskółki?

بإحساس الأنثى تكتب أحلام عالماً يموج بأحداث تعلو وتيرتها لتهبط وتتسارع لتبطء، والحواس المنتظمة لسيرورتها تتناغم والأحداث وتغدو في فوضى...

فوضى يمتزج فيها الحب بالكراهية وتلتقي فيها الحياة بالموت... ويضحى الموت امتداد لحياة وبقاء لوطن.

From breathtaking stop-action animation to bittersweet modern fairy tales, filmmaker Tim Burton has become known for his unique visual brilliance – witty and macabre at once. Now he gives birth to a cast of gruesomely sympathetic children – misunderstood outcasts who struggle to find love and belonging in their cruel, cruel worlds.

His lovingly lurid illustrations evoke both the sweetness and the tragedy of these dark yet simple beings – hopeful, hapless heroes who appeal to the ugly outsider in all of us, and let us laugh at a world we have long left behind (mostly anyway).

At Sir Hubert Handesley's country house party, five guests have gathered for the uproarious parlor game of Murder. Yet no one is laughing when the lights come up on an actual corpse, the good-looking and mysterious Charles Rankin.

Scotland Yard's Inspector Roderick Alleyn arrives to find a complete collection of alibis, a missing butler, and an intricate puzzle of betrayal and sedition in the search for the key player in this deadly game.

It's 1843, and Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer and his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders.

An up-and-coming expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness is engaged by a group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace. He listens to her story while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot remember. What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories?

Captivating and disturbing, Alias Grace showcases best-selling, Booker Prize-winning author Margaret Atwood at the peak of her powers.

The time of reckoning has arrived. As a final genocidal Crusade threatens to enslave humanity forever, a new messiah has come of age. She is Aenea, and she has undergone a strange apprenticeship to those known as the Others. Now her protector, Raul Endymion, one-time shepherd and convicted murderer, must help her deliver her startling message to her growing army of disciples.

But first, they must embark on a final spectacular mission to discover the underlying meaning of the universe itself. They have been followed on their journey by the mysterious Shrike—monster, angel, killing machine—who is about to reveal the long-held secret of its origin and purpose. And on the planet of Hyperion, where the story first began, the final revelation will be delivered—an apocalyptic message that unlocks the secrets of existence and the fate of humankind in the galaxy.

Mr Palomar is a delightful eccentric whose chief activity is looking at things. He is simply seeking knowledge; it is only after you have come to know the surface of things that you can venture to seek what is underneath.

Whether contemplating a fine cheese, a hungry gecko, a woman sunbathing topless, or a flight of migrant starlings, Mr Palomar's observations render the world afresh.

An air of pleasant anticipation hung so thickly over the Halls, Holds, and Weyrs of Pern that it had affected even the businesslike ways of Moreta, the Weyrwoman of Fort Weyr. Her dragon, Queen Orlith, would soon clutch; spring had made a glorious debut; the Gather at Ruatha Hold was extremely merry; and Moreta was enjoying the attentions of Alessan, the new Lord Holder of Ruatha Hold.

With only eight Turns remaining before the deadly Thread would cease to Fall, all seemed well on Pern. Then, without warning, a runnerbeast fell ill. Soon myriads of holders, craftsmen, and dragonriders were dying; and the mysterious ailment had spread to all but the most inaccessible holds. Pern was in mortal danger.

For, if dragonriders did not rise to char Thread, the parasite would devour any and all organic life it encountered. The future of the planet rested in the hands of Moreta and the other dedicated, selfless Pern leaders. But of all their problems, the most difficult to overcome was time...

While Eisenstein documented the forces of totalitarianism and Stalinism upon the faces of the Russian peoples, DeLillo offers a stunning, at times overwhelming, document of the twin forces of the Cold War and American culture, compelling that "swerve from evenness" in which he finds events and people both wondrous and horrifying.

Underworld opens with a breathlessly graceful prologue set during the final game of the Giants-Dodgers pennant race in 1951. Written in what DeLillo calls "super-omniscience" the sentences sweep from young Cotter Martin as he jumps the gate to the press box, soars over the radio waves, runs out to the diamond, slides in on a fast ball, pops into the stands where J. Edgar Hoover is sitting with a drunken Jackie Gleason and a splenetic Frank Sinatra, and learns of the Soviet Union's second detonation of a nuclear bomb. It's an absolutely thrilling literary moment. When Bobby Thomson hits Branca's pitch into the outstretched hand of Cotter—the "shot heard around the world"—and Jackie Gleason pukes on Sinatra's shoes, the events of the next few decades are set in motion, all threaded together by the baseball as it passes from hand to hand.

"It's all falling indelibly into the past," writes DeLillo, a past that he carefully recalls and reconstructs with acute grace. Jump from Giants Stadium to the Nevada desert in 1992, where Nick Shay, who now owns the baseball, reunites with the artist Kara Sax. They had been brief and unlikely lovers 40 years before, and it is largely through the events, spinoffs, and coincidental encounters of their pasts that DeLillo filters the Cold War experience. He believes that "global events may alter how we live in the smallest ways," and as the book steps back in time to 1951, over the following 800-odd pages, we see just how those events alter lives. This reverse narrative allows the author to strip away the detritus of history and pop culture until we get to the story's pure elements: the bomb, the baseball, and the Bronx. In an epilogue as breathless and stunning as the prologue, DeLillo fast-forwards to a near future in which ruthless capitalism, the Internet, and a new, hushed faith have replaced the Cold War's blend of dread and euphoria.

Through fragments and interlaced stories—including those of highway killers, artists, celebrities, conspiracists, gangsters, nuns, and sundry others—DeLillo creates a fragile web of connected experience, a communal Zeitgeist that encompasses the messy whole of five decades of American life, wonderfully distilled.

At one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of a book—that string of confused, alien ciphers—shivered into meaning. Words spoke to you, gave up their secrets; at that moment, whole universes opened. You became, irrevocably, a reader.

Noted essayist Alberto Manguel moves from this essential moment to explore the 6000-year-old conversation between words and that magician without whom the book would be a lifeless object: the reader. Manguel lingers over reading as seduction, as rebellion, as obsession, and goes on to trace the never-before-told story of the reader's progress from clay tablet to scroll, codex to CD-ROM.

When cartoonist Bill Watterson announced that his phenomenally popular cartoon strip would be discontinued, Calvin and Hobbes fans throughout the world went into mourning. Fans have learned to survive — despite the absence of the boy and his tiger in the daily newspaper.

It's a Magical World delivers all the satisfaction of visiting its characters once more. Calvin fans will be able to see their favorite mischief maker stir it up with his furry friend, long-suffering parents, classmate Susie Derkins, school teacher Miss Wormwood, and Rosalyn the baby-sitter.

It's a Magical World includes full-color Sundays and has it all: Calvin-turned-firefly waking Hobbes with his flashlight glow; courageous Spaceman Spiff rocketing through alien galaxies as he battles Dad-turned-Bug-Being; and Calvin's always inspired snowman art.

There's no better way for Watterson fans to savor again the special qualities of their favorite strip.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down explores the clash between a small county hospital in California and a refugee family from Laos over the care of Lia Lee, a Hmong child diagnosed with severe epilepsy. Lia's parents and her doctors both wanted what was best for Lia, but the lack of understanding between them led to tragedy. Anne Fadiman's compassionate account of this cultural impasse is literary journalism at its finest.

Lia Lee was born in 1982 to a family of recent Hmong immigrants, and soon developed symptoms of epilepsy. By 1988 she was living at home but was brain dead after a tragic cycle of misunderstanding, over-medication, and culture clash: What the doctors viewed as clinical efficiency the Hmong viewed as frosty arrogance. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, written with the deepest of human feeling.

A Lesson Before Dying is set in a small Cajun community in the late 1940s. Jefferson, a young black man, is an unwitting party to a liquor store shoot out in which three men are killed; the only survivor, he is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, who left his hometown for the university, has returned to the plantation school to teach. As he struggles with his decision whether to stay or escape to another state, his aunt and Jefferson's godmother persuade him to visit Jefferson in his cell and impart his learning and his pride to Jefferson before his death. In the end, the two men forge a bond as they both come to understand the simple heroism of resisting and defying the expected.

Ernest J. Gaines brings to this novel the same rich sense of place, the same deep understanding of the human psyche, and the same compassion for a people and their struggle that have informed his previous, highly praised works of fiction.

Memoirs of a Geisha transports readers to a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. Through the eyes of one of Japan's most celebrated geishas, we experience the struggle for dignity and identity in a time of war and transformation. Arthur Golden crafts a tale that is at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful—and utterly unforgettable.

The first novel of Samuel Beckett's mordant and exhilarating midcentury trilogy introduces us to Molloy, who has been mysteriously incarcerated, and who subsequently escapes to discover the whereabouts of his mother.

In the latter part of this curious masterwork, a certain Jacques Moran is deputized by anonymous authorities to search for the aforementioned Molloy.

In the trilogy's second novel, Malone, who might or might not be Molloy himself, addresses us with his ruminations while in the act of dying.

The third novel consists of the fragmented monologue - delivered, like the monologues of the previous novels, in a mournful rhetoric that possesses the utmost splendor and beauty - of what might or might not be an armless and legless creature living in an urn outside an eating house.

Taken together, these three novels represent the high-water mark of the literary movement we call Modernism. Within their linguistic terrain, where stories are taken up, broken off, and taken up again, where voices rise and crumble and are resurrected, we can discern the essential lineaments of our modern condition, and encounter an awesome vision, tragic yet always compelling and always mysteriously invigorating, of consciousness trapped and struggling inside the boundaries of nature.

The Mulvaneys of High Point Farm in Mt. Ephraim, New York, are a large and fortunate clan, blessed with good looks, abundant charisma, and boundless promise. But over the twenty-five year span of this ambitious novel, the Mulvaneys will slide, almost imperceptibly at first, from the pinnacle of happiness, transformed by the vagaries of fate into a scattered collection of lost and lonely souls.

It is the youngest son, Judd, now an adult, who attempts to piece together the fragments of the Mulvaneys' former glory, seeking to uncover and understand the secret violation that occasioned the family's tragic downfall. Each of the Mulvaneys endures some form of exile- physical or spiritual - but in the end they find a way to bridge the chasms that have opened up among them, reuniting in the spirit of love and healing.

In 1878, two young stage magicians clash in the dark during the course of a fraudulent séance. From this moment on, their lives become webs of deceit and revelation as they vie to outwit and expose one another. Their rivalry will take them to the peaks of their careers, but with terrible consequences.

In the course of pursuing each other's ruin, they will deploy all the deception their magicians' craft can command—the highest misdirection and the darkest science. Blood will be spilled, but it will not be enough. In the end, their legacy will pass on for generations...to descendants who must, for their sanity's sake, untangle the puzzle left to them.

The Opera House in Ankh-Morpork is home to music, theatrics and a harmless masked Ghost who lurks behind the scenes. But now a set of mysterious backstage murders may just stop the show. Agnes Nitt has left her rural home of Lancre in the hopes of launching a successful singing career in the big city. The only problem is, she doesn't quite look the part. And there are two witches who would much rather she return home to join their coven.

Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg have travelled to Ankh-Morpork to convince Agnes that life as a witch is much better than one on the stage. Only now they're caught up in a murder mystery featuring masks and maniacal laughter. And the show must go on.

When the first humans came to settle the planet Pern, they did not come alone: intelligence-enhanced dolphins also crossed the stars to colonize the oceans of the new planet while their human partners settled the vast continents. But then disaster struck. The deadly silver spores called Thread fell like rain from the sky, and as the human colonists' dreams of a new, idyllic life shattered into a desperate struggle for survival, the dolphins were forgotten.

Now, centuries later, as the dragonriders of Pern were preparing to complete the momentous task of ridding their world of Thread forever, T'lion, a young bronze rider, and his friend Readis, son of the Lord Holder of Paradise River Hold, made contact with the legendary "shipfish." And as the dragonriders grappled with the ending of an era, T'lion, Readis, and the dolphins faced the start of a new one: reviving the bond between land and ocean dwellers and resurrecting the dreams of the first colonists of Pern!

In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet that will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question what it means to be "human".

Her life is devoted to justice; for those she never even knew. In the year since Temperance Brennan left behind a shaky marriage in North Carolina, work has often preempted her weekend plans to explore Quebec.

When a female corpse is discovered meticulously dismembered and stashed in trash bags, Temperance detects an alarming pattern and she plunges into a harrowing search for a killer. But her investigation is about to place those closest to her—her best friend and her own daughter—in mortal danger...

In this classic novel of two willful lovers caught in a breathless adventure of deception and betrayal, #1 New York Times bestselling author Judith McNaught has created a powerful and unforgettable masterpiece.

ELIZABETH CAMERON
The Countess of Havenhurst possessed a rare gentleness and fierce courage to match her exquisite beauty. But her reputation is shattered when she is discovered in the arms of Ian Thornton, a notorious gambler and social outcast.

IAN THORNTON
A dangerously handsome man of secret wealth and mysterious lineage, his voyage to Elizabeth's heart is fraught with intrigue, scandal, and a venomous revenge.

Destined for each other, yet wary of each other's motives, Elizabeth and Ian engage in a dance of suspicion and passion that tests the very soul of their star-crossed love. As a twisting path of secrets takes them from London's drawing rooms to the mysterious Scottish Highlands, Elizabeth must learn the truth: is Ian merely a ruthless fortune hunter at heart?