Voyager, the third book in Diana Gabaldon's acclaimed Outlander saga, continues the enthralling story of Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser that began with the now-classic novel Outlander and continued in Dragonfly in Amber. Sweeping us from the battlefields of eighteenth-century Scotland to the West Indies, Gabaldon weaves magic once again in an exhilarating and utterly unforgettable novel.
He was dead. However, his nose throbbed painfully, which he thought odd in the circumstances. Jamie Fraser is, alas, not dead—but he is in hell. Waking among the fallen on Culloden Field, he is concerned neither for his men nor his wounds but for his wife and their unborn child. "Lord, he prayed passionately, that she may be safe. She and the child." It's a prayer he'll utter many times over the next twenty years, never knowing but always hoping that Claire made it through the standing stones, back to the safety of her own time.
Safe she is, but believing Jamie gone forever, she's obliged to live without a heart, her only comfort their daughter, Brianna. But now, their daughter grown, she discovers that Jamie survived, and a fateful decision lies before her: Stay with her beloved daughter, or go back to search Scotland's dangerous past for the man who was her heart and soul, sustained only by the hope that they will still know each other if she finds him.
The small town of Paradise, Pennsylvania, is a jewel in Lancaster County - known for its picture-postcard landscapes and bucolic lifestyle. But that peace is shattered by the discovery of a dead infant in the barn of an Amish farmer. A police investigation quickly leads to two startling disclosures: the newborn's mother is an unmarried Amish woman, eighteen-year-old Katie Fisher. And the infant did not die of natural causes.
Although Katie denies the medical proof that she gave birth to the child, circumstantial evidence leads to her arrest for the murder of her baby. One hundred miles away, Philadelphia defense attorney Ellie Hathaway has achieved an enviable, high-profile career. But her latest court victory has set the sands shifting beneath her. Single at thirty-nine and unsatisfied with her relationship, Ellie doesn't look back when she turns down her chance to make partner and takes off for an open-ended stay at her great-aunt's home in Paradise.
Fate brings her to Katie Fisher. Suddenly, Ellie sees the chance to defend a client who truly needs her, not just one who can afford her. But taking on this case challenges Ellie in more ways than one. She finds herself not only in a clash of wills with a client who does not want to be defended but also in a clash of cultures with a people whose channels of justice are markedly different from her own. Immersing herself in Katie Fisher's life -- and in a world founded on faith, humility, duty, and honesty -- Ellie begins to understand the pressures and sacrifices of those who to live plain. As she peels away the layers of fact and fantasy, Ellie calls on an old friend for guidance. Now, just as this man from Ellie's past reenters her life, she must uncover the truth about a complex case, a tragic loss, the bonds of love -- and her own deepest fears and desires.
After stumbling across a haunted go board, Hikaru Shindo discovers that the spirit of a master player named Fujiwara-no-Sai has taken up residence in his consciousness. Sai awakens in Hikaru an untapped genius for the game, and soon the schoolboy is chasing his own dream--defeating the famed go prodigy Akira Toya!
Hikaru and Sai are both scheduled for matches with their greatest rivals--Akira Toya and his father, Toya Meijin. How will Sai play without revealing his secret identity? And will Akira's father stand in the way of Hikaru's long anticipated rematch with his son? The suspense is getting unbearable!
On October 3, 1993, about a hundred elite US soldiers were dropped by helicopter into the teeming market in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia. Their mission was to abduct two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord and return to base. It was supposed to take an hour. Instead, they found themselves pinned down through a long and terrible night fighting against thousands of heavily armed Somalis. The following morning, eighteen Americans were dead and more than seventy had been badly wounded.
Drawing on interviews from both sides, army records, audiotapes, and videos (some of the material is still classified), Mark Bowden’s minute-by-minute narrative is one of the most exciting accounts of modern combat ever written—a true story that captures the heroism, courage, and brutality of battle.
In the winter of 1919, a young mother named Mathilda Neumann drowns beneath the ice of a rural Wisconsin lake. The shock of her death dramatically changes the lives of her daughter, her troubled sister, and her husband.
Told in the voices of several of the main characters and skipping back and forth in time, the narrative gradually and tantalizingly reveals the dark family secrets and the unsettling discoveries that lead to the truth of what actually happened the night of the drowning.
It's bad enough being new on the job, but Teppic hasn't a clue as to what a pharaoh is supposed to do. After all, he's been trained at Ankh-Morpork's famed assassins' school, across the sea from the Kingdom of the Sun. First, there's the monumental task of building a suitable resting place for Dad -- a pyramid to end all pyramids. Then there are the myriad administrative duties, such as dealing with mad priests, sacred crocodiles, and marching mummies. And to top it all off, the adolescent pharaoh discovers deceit, betrayal -- not to mention a headstrong handmaiden -- at the heart of his realm.
A man broken in body and spirit, Cazaril, has returned to the noble household he once served as page, and is named, to his great surprise, as the secretary-tutor to the beautiful, strong-willed sister of the impetuous boy who is next in line to rule. It is an assignment Cazaril dreads, for it will ultimately lead him to the place he fears most, the royal court of Cardegoss, where the powerful enemies, who once placed him in chains, now occupy lofty positions.
In addition to the traitorous intrigues of villains, Cazaril and the Royesse Iselle, are faced with a sinister curse that hangs like a sword over the entire blighted House of Chalion and all who stand in their circle. Only by employing the darkest, most forbidden of magics, can Cazaril hope to protect his royal charge—an act that will mark the loyal, damaged servant as a tool of the miraculous, and trap him, flesh and soul, in a maze of demonic paradox, damnation, and death.
On a brisk autumn day, a twelve-year-old boy stands on the shores of the gray Atlantic, near a silent amusement park and a fading ocean resort called the Alhambra. The past has driven Jack Sawyer here: his father is gone, his mother is dying, and the world no longer makes sense. But for Jack everything is about to change. For he has been chosen to make a journey back across America--and into another realm.
One of the most influential and heralded works of fantasy ever written, The Talisman is an extraordinary novel of loyalty, awakening, terror, and mystery. Jack Sawyer, on a desperate quest to save his mother's life, must search for a prize across an epic landscape of innocents and monsters, of incredible dangers and even more incredible truths. The prize is essential, but the journey means even more. Let the quest begin...
Accidents happen. With ghostly consequences, if you're Susannah Simon. The RLS Angels are out for blood, and only Suze can stop them - since she's the only one who can see them. The four ghostly teenagers died in a terrible car accident, for which they blame Suze's classmate Michael... and they'll stop at nothing until he's joined them in the realm of the dead.
As Suze desperately fends off each attempt on Michael's life, she finds she can relate to the Angels' fury. Because their deaths turn out not to have been accidental at all. And their killer is only too willing to strike again.
Pat Conroy called Dorothea Benton Frank’s debut, Sullivan’s Island, “hilarious and wise,” while Anne Rivers Siddons declared that it “roars with life.”
Now, Frank evokes a lush plantation in the heart of modern-day South Carolina—where family ties and hidden truths run as deep and dark as the mighty Edisto River.
Caroline Wimbley Levine always swore she’d never go home again. But now, at her brother’s behest, she has returned to South Carolina to see about Mother—only to find that the years have not changed the Queen of Tall Pines Plantation. Miss Lavinia is as maddeningly eccentric as ever—and absolutely will not suffer the questionable advice of her children.
This does not surprise Caroline. Nor does the fact that Tall Pines is still brimming with scandals and secrets, betrayals and lies. But she soon discovers that something is different this time around. It lies somewhere in the distance between her and her mother—and in her understanding of what it means to come home.
Rimas y leyendas es una obra maestra que invita a los lectores a sumergirse en el mundo del Romanticismo español. Esta colección incluye poesía y narrativa que exploran temas de amor, misterio y lo sobrenatural.
En las Rimas, Bécquer nos lleva a través de un viaje emocional que va desde el deslumbramiento del amor hasta la desolación de la separación y el olvido, capturando la esencia de un amor no correspondido con una belleza conmovedora.
Las Leyendas son relatos que exploran la imposibilidad de la felicidad plena y la inasibilidad de la belleza, sumergiéndonos en un ambiente de fantasía y misterio.
Esta obra es fundamental para entender la evolución de la poesía contemporánea y su influencia perdura en la literatura moderna.
An orphan leaves Dark Ages London to study medicine in Persia in this “rich” and “vivid” historical novel from a New York Times–bestselling author. A child holds the hand of his dying mother and is terrified, aware something is taking her. Orphaned and given to an itinerant barber-surgeon, Rob Cole becomes a fast-talking swindler, peddling a worthless medicine. But as he matures, his strange gift—an acute sensitivity to impending death—never leaves him, and he yearns to become a healer.
Arab madrassas are the only authentic medical schools, and he makes his perilous way to Persia. Christians are barred from Muslim schools, but claiming he is a Jew, he studies under the world’s most renowned physician, Avicenna. How the woman who is his great love struggles against her only rival—medicine—makes a riveting modern classic. The Physician is the first book in New York Times–bestselling author Noah Gordon’s Dr. Robert Cole trilogy, which continues with Shaman and concludes with Matters of Choice.
Isserley picks up hitchhikers with big muscles. She, herself, is tiny—like a kid peering up over the steering wheel. She has a remarkable face and wears the thickest corrective lenses anyone has ever seen. Her posture suggests some spinal problem. Her breasts are perfect; perhaps implants. She is strangely erotic yet somehow grotesque, vulnerable yet threatening.
Her hitchhikers are a mixed bunch of men—trailer trash and traveling postgrads, thugs and philosophers. But Isserley is only interested in whether they have families and whether they have muscles. Then, it's only a question of how long she can endure her pain—physical and spiritual—and their conversation.
"Under the Skin" takes us on a heart-thumping ride through dangerous territory—our own moral instincts and the boundaries of compassion.
The Good Earth narrates the poignant tale of a Chinese farmer and his family in old agrarian China. The humble Wang Lung glories in the soil he works, nurturing the land as it nurtures him and his family. Nearby, the nobles of the House of Hwang consider themselves above the land and its workers; but they will soon meet their own downfall.
Hard times come upon Wang Lung and his family when flood and drought force them to seek work in the city. The working people riot, breaking into the homes of the rich and forcing them to flee. When Wang Lung shows mercy to one noble and is rewarded, he begins to rise in the world, even as the House of Hwang falls.
Mia Thermopolis is pretty sure there's nothing worse than being a five-foot-nine, flat-chested freshman, who also happens to be flunking Algebra. Is she ever in for a surprise.
First mom announces that she's dating Mia's Algebra teacher. Then Dad has to go and reveal that he is the crown prince of Genovia. And guess who still doesn't have a date for the Cultural Diversity Dance?
Set in Burma during the British invasion of 1885, this masterly novel by Amitav Ghosh tells the story of Rajkumar, a poor boy lifted on the tides of political and social chaos, who goes on to create an empire in the Burmese teak forest.
When soldiers force the royal family out of the Glass Palace and into exile, Rajkumar befriends Dolly, a young woman in the court of the Burmese Queen, whose love will shape his life. He cannot forget her, and years later, as a rich man, he goes in search of her.
The struggles that have made Burma, India, and Malaya the places they are today are illuminated in this wonderful novel.
A horrifically mutilated corpse is discovered wedged in an isolated crevice. The highly-regarded but unpredictable ex-commando Pierre Niémans is sent from Paris to the French Alps to investigate. Meanwhile, Karim Abdouf, a young Arab policeman, is trying to find out why the tomb of a young child has been desecrated.
When a second body is found, high up in a glacier, the paths of the two policemen are joined in their search for the killers, a trail that embroils them with the mysterious cult of the Crimson Rivers.
The Last of the Wine takes you on a captivating journey through ancient Greece. Follow the lives of two young Athenians, Alexias and Lysis, as they compete in the palaestra, embark on a quest to the Olympic games, and fight in the wars against Sparta. Their path also leads them to the teachings of the great philosopher, Socrates.
As their relationship deepens, Mary Renault masterfully conveys Greek culture and illustrates the profound impact of Socratic philosophy, whose influence has transcended epochs.
At the center of this invigorating novel are two unlikely friends, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. Hapless veterans of World War II, Archie and Samad and their families become agents of England’s irrevocable transformation. A second marriage to Clara Bowden, a beautiful, albeit tooth-challenged, Jamaican half his age, quite literally gives Archie a second lease on life, and produces Irie, a knowing child whose personality doesn’t quite match her name (Jamaican for “no problem”). Samad’s late-in-life arranged marriage (he had to wait for his bride to be born), produces twin sons whose separate paths confound Iqbal’s every effort to direct them, and a renewed, if selective, submission to his Islamic faith.
Set against London’s racial and cultural tapestry, venturing across the former empire and into the past as it barrels toward the future, White Teeth revels in the ecstatic hodgepodge of modern life, flirting with disaster, confounding expectations, and embracing the comedy of daily existence.
David Sedaris' move to Paris from New York inspired these hilarious pieces, including the title essay, about his attempts to learn French from a sadistic teacher who declares that every day spent with you is like having a caesarean section. His family is another inspiration. You Can't Kill the Rooster is a portrait of his brother, who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as restaurant meals presented in ludicrous towers of food and cashiers with six-inch fingernails.
Luke Garner is terrified. Out of hiding for the first time in his life, he knows that any minute one of his new classmates at Hendricks School for Boys could discover his secret: that he's a third child passing as the recently deceased Lee Grant. And in a society where it's illegal for families to have more than two children, being a third child means certain death at the hands of the dreaded Population Police.
His first experience outside the safety of his home is bewildering. There's not a single window anywhere in the school; Luke can't tell his classmates apart (even as they subject him to brutal hazing); and the teachers seem oblivious to it all.
Desperate to fit in, Luke endures the confusion and teasing until he discovers an unlocked door to the outside, and a chance to understand what is really going on. But to take this chance—to find out the secrets of Hendricks—Luke will need to put aside his fears and discover a courage that a lifetime in hiding couldn't thwart.
Once again, best-selling author Margaret Peterson Haddix delights her fans with this spine-tingling account of an all-too-possible future. Among the Impostors is a worthy companion to Among the Hidden and a heart-stopping thriller in its own right.
When Nell Channing arrives on the charming Three Sisters Island, she believes that she's finally found refuge from her abusive husband—and from the terrifying life she fled so desperately eight months ago.
But even in this quiet, peaceful place, Nell never feels entirely at ease. Careful to conceal her true identity, she takes a job as a cook at the local bookstore café—and begins to explore her feelings for the island sheriff, Zack Todd. But there is a part of herself she can never reveal to him, for she must continue to guard her secrets if she wants to keep the past at bay. One careless word, one misplaced confidence, and the new life she's created so carefully could shatter completely.
Just as Nell starts to wonder if she'll ever be able to break free of her fear, she realizes that the island suffers under a terrible curse—one that can only be broken by the descendants of the Three Sisters, the witches who settled the island back in 1692. And now, with the help of two other strong, gifted women—and with the nightmares of the past haunting her every step—she must find the power to save her home, her love, and herself.
In the Name of Salome by Julia Alvarez is a compelling exploration of the mother-daughter relationship, set against the backdrop of Caribbean history. This masterful novel alternates between the lives of Salomé Ureña, a revered Dominican poet, and her daughter Camila Henriquez Urena.
Salomé, known for her passionate poetry and political influence, becomes a national icon at a young age. Her life is marked by the tension between her public persona and her private desires, particularly her love for a man named Papancho.
Camila, in contrast, grows up in the shadow of her mother's legacy, dedicating her life to teaching rather than revolution. Yet, as she approaches retirement, she is drawn back to her roots, uncovering the truths of her mother's sacrifices and finding her own place in the world.
This beautifully written story spans over a century, highlighting the shifting political landscape of the Dominican Republic and the personal struggles of its characters. Alvarez's prose is rich with metaphor and emotion, capturing the essence of love, sacrifice, and the quest for identity.
Ultimately, In the Name of Salome is a tale of love and idealism, where the personal and political intertwine, leaving a lasting impact on both the characters and the readers.
Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now, one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself.
With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him. Because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason — and if that reason is uncovered, the universe—and reality itself — could be irrecoverably altered….
The beautiful practicality of her teaching has made Pema Chödrön one of the most beloved of contemporary American spiritual authors among Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike. This book is a treasury of wisdom for going on living when we are overcome by pain and difficulties.
Chödrön discusses:
I am confiding this manuscript to space, not with the intention of saving myself, but to help, perhaps, to avert the appalling scourge that is menacing the human race. Lord have pity on us!
With these words, Pierre Boulle hurtles the reader onto the Planet of the Apes. In this simian world, civilization is turned upside down: apes are men and men are apes; apes rule and men run wild; apes think, speak, produce, wear clothes, and men are speechless, naked, exhibited at fairs, used for biological research. On the planet of the apes, man, having reached to apotheosis of his genius, has become inert.
To this planet come a journalist and a scientist. The scientist is put into a zoo, the journalist into a laboratory. Only the journalist retains the spiritual strength and creative intelligence to try to save himself, to fight the appalling scourge, to remain a man.
Out of this situation, Pierre Boulle has woven a tale as harrowing, bizarre, and meaningful as any in the brilliant roster of this master storyteller. With his customary wit, irony, and disciplined intellect and style, the author of The Bridge Over the River Kwai tells a swiftly moving story dealing with man's conflicts, and takes the reader into a suspenseful and strangely fascinating orbit.
Victor Mancini, a medical-school dropout, is an antihero for our deranged times. Needing to pay elder care for his mother, Victor has devised an ingenious scam: he pretends to choke on pieces of food while dining in upscale restaurants. He then allows himself to be “saved” by fellow patrons who, feeling responsible for Victor’s life, go on to send checks to support him. When he’s not pulling this stunt, Victor cruises sexual addiction recovery workshops for action, visits his addled mom, and spends his days working at a colonial theme park. His creator, Chuck Palahniuk, is the visionary we need and the satirist we deserve.
Glue is the story of four boys growing up in the Edinburgh schemes, and about the loyalties, the experiences - and the secrets - that hold them together into their thirties. Four boys becoming men: Juice Terry, the work-shy fanny-merchant, with corkscrew curls and sticky fingers; Billy the boxer: driven, controlled, playing to his strengths; Carl, the Milky Bar Kid, drifting along to his own soundtrack; and the doomed Gally - who has one less skin than everyone else and seems to find catastrophe at every corner. As we follow their lives from the seventies into the new century - from punk to techno, from speed to Es - we can see each of them trying to struggle out from under the weight of the conditioning of class and culture, peer pressure and their parents' hopes that maybe their sons will do better than they did. What binds the four of them is the friendship formed by the scheme, their school, and their ambition to escape from both; their loyalty fused in street morality: back up your mates, don't hit women and, most importantly, never grass - on anyone.
Despite its scale and ambition, Glue has all Irvine Welsh's usual pace and vigour, crackling dialogue, scabrous set-pieces and black, black humour, but it is also a grown-up book about growing up - about the way we live our lives, and what happens to us when things become unstuck.
Dhalgren is set in the midwestern American city of Bellona, which has been struck by a mysterious disaster. The aftermath is deeply disturbing and surreal: a city block burns down only to be intact a week later; clouds shroud the sky for weeks, then part to reveal two moons; time flows differently, with a week passing for one person while only a day passes for another.
The catastrophe is confined to Bellona, leading most inhabitants to flee. However, the city draws in a unique mix of people, including the Kid, a white/American Indian man who cannot remember his own name. The Kid symbolizes the new Bellona residents: the young, the poor, the mad, the violent, the outcast—the marginalized.
Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door, memorable travel literature threatens to break out. This time in Australia. His previous excursion along the Appalachian Trail resulted in the sublime national bestseller A Walk in the Woods. In a Sunburned Country is his report on what he found in an entirely different place: Australia, the country that doubles as a continent, and a place with the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest, driest weather, and the most peculiar and lethal wildlife to be found on the planet. The result is a deliciously funny, fact-filled, and adventurous performance by a writer who combines humor, wonder, and unflagging curiousity.
Despite the fact that Australia harbors more things that can kill you in extremely nasty ways than anywhere else, including sharks, crocodiles, snakes, even riptides and deserts, Bill Bryson adores the place, and he takes his readers on a rollicking ride far beyond that beaten tourist path. Wherever he goes he finds Australians who are cheerful, extroverted, and unfailingly obliging, and these beaming products of land with clean, safe cities, cold beer, and constant sunshine fill the pages of this wonderful book. Australia is an immense and fortunate land, and it has found in Bill Bryson its perfect guide.
"I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to." And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England, he returned to the land of his youth and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of trim and sunny place where the films of his youth were set.
Instead, his search led him to Anywhere, USA; a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels, and hamburger outlets populated by lookalike people with a penchant for synthetic fibers. Traveling around thirty-eight of the lower states—united only in their mind-numbingly dreary uniformity—he discovered a continent that was doubly lost; lost to itself because blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes, and television; lost to him because he had become a stranger in his own land.
The Lost Continent is a classic of travel literature—hilariously, stomach-achingly funny, yet tinged with heartache—and the book that first staked Bill Bryson's claim as the most beloved writer of his generation.
In his latest international bestseller, the celebrated author of The Alchemist addresses the fundamental questions asked by millions: What am I doing here today? and Why do I go on living?
Twenty-four-year-old Veronika seems to have everything she could wish for: youth and beauty, plenty of attractive boyfriends, a fulfilling job, and a loving family. Yet something is lacking in her life. Inside her is a void so deep that nothing could possibly ever fill it. So, on the morning of November 11, 1997, Veronika decides to die. She takes a handful of sleeping pills expecting never to wake up.
Naturally Veronika is stunned when she does wake up at Villete, a local mental hospital, where the staff informs her that she has, in fact, partially succeeded in achieving her goal. While the overdose didn't kill Veronika immediately, the medication has damaged her heart so severely that she has only days to live.
The story follows Veronika through the intense week of self-discovery that ensues. To her surprise, Veronika finds herself drawn to the confinement of Villete and its patients, who, each in his or her individual way, reflect the heart of human experience. In the heightened state of life's final moments, Veronika discovers things she has never really allowed herself to feel before: hatred, fear, curiosity, love, and sexual awakening. She finds that every second of her existence is a choice between living and dying, and at the eleventh hour emerges more open to life than ever before.
In Veronika Decides to Die, Paulo Coelho takes the reader on a distinctly modern quest to find meaning in a culture overshadowed by angst, soulless routine, and pervasive conformity. Based on events in Coelho's own life, Veronika Decides to Die questions the meaning of madness and celebrates individuals who do not fit into patterns society considers to be normal. Poignant and illuminating, it is a dazzling portrait of a young woman at the crossroads of despair and liberation, and a poetic, exuberant appreciation of each day as a renewed opportunity.
After stumbling across a haunted go board, Hikaru Shindo discovers that the spirit of a master player named Fujiwara-no-Sai has taken up residence in his consciousness. Sai awakens in Hikaru an untapped genius for the game, and soon the schoolboy is chasing his own dream--defeating the famed go prodigy Akira Toya.
Great Plains is an expedition through the heart of the American West. With a unique blend of intrepidity, tongue-in-cheek humor, and wide-eyed wonder, Ian Frazier takes us on a journey of more than 25,000 miles across the vast and myth-inspiring Great Plains.
This travelogue, work of scholarship, and western adventure takes readers from the site of Sitting Bull's cabin, to an abandoned house once terrorized by Bonnie and Clyde, to the scene of the murders chronicled in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.
It is a hilarious and fascinating look at the great middle of our nation, revealing the spirit and landscapes of the American West.
Twelve-year-old Artemis Fowl is a millionaire, a genius, and above all, a criminal mastermind. But even Artemis doesn't know what he's taken on when he kidnaps a fairy, Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon Unit. These aren't the fairies of bedtime stories—they're dangerous!
Full of unexpected twists and turns, Artemis Fowl is a riveting, magical adventure.
Sookie Stackhouse is just a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. Until the vampire of her dreams walks into her life-and one of her coworkers checks out.
Maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend isn't such a bright idea. Dead Until Dark is the first novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling Sookie Stackhouse series—the books that inspired the HBO® original series True Blood. Sookie is quiet, doesn't get out much, and tends to mind her own business—except when it comes to her “disability.” Sookie can read minds. And that doesn’t make her too dateable. Then along comes Bill Compton. He’s tall, dark, handsome—and Sookie can’t hear a word he’s thinking. He’s exactly the type of guy she’s been waiting for all her life...
But Bill has a disability of his own: he’s a vampire with a bad reputation. And when a string of murders hits Bon Temps—along with a gang of truly nasty bloodsuckers looking for Bill—Sookie starts to wonder if having a vampire for a boyfriend is such a bright idea.
After stumbling across a haunted Go board, Hikaru Shindo discovers that the spirit of a master player named Fujiwara-no-Sai has taken up residence in his consciousness. Sai awakens in Hikaru an untapped genius for the game, and soon the schoolboy is chasing his own dream of defeating the famed Go prodigy Akira Toya!
In Hikaru no Go, Vol. 12: Sai's Day Out, Hikaru's career as a professional Go player begins. In his first game, he must face veteran player Toya Meijin, Akira's father. The match is not just a competition but also a personal challenge for Sai. As Sai attempts to teach a cheating Go player a lesson he'll never forget, the question arises: will Hikaru's ghostly master do him proud or make him look like an amateur?
With its huge, scarred head halfway out of the water and its tail beating the ocean into a white-water wake more than forty feet across, the whale approached the ship at twice its original speed - at least six knots. With a tremendous cracking and splintering of oak, it struck the ship just beneath the anchor secured at the cat-head on the port bow...
In the Heart of the Sea brings to new life the incredible story of the wreck of the whaleship Essex - an event as mythic in its own century as the Titanic disaster in ours, and the inspiration for the climax of Moby-Dick. In a harrowing page-turner, Nathaniel Philbrick restores this epic story to its rightful place in American history.
In 1820, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage for whales. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was repeatedly rammed and sunk by an eighty-ton bull sperm whale. Its twenty-man crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During ninety days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear.
Philbrick interweaves his account of this extraordinary ordeal of ordinary men with a wealth of whale lore and with a brilliantly detailed portrait of the lost, unique community of Nantucket whalers. Impeccably researched and beautifully told, the book delivers the ultimate portrait of man against nature, drawing on a remarkable range of archival and modern sources, including a long-lost account by the ship's cabin boy.
At once a literary companion and a page-turner that speaks to the same issues of class, race, and man's relationship to nature that permeate the works of Melville, In the Heart of the Sea will endure as a vital work of American history.
Un amanecer de 1945, un muchacho es conducido por su padre a un misterioso lugar oculto en el corazón de la ciudad vieja: el Cementerio de los Libros Olvidados. Allí encuentra La Sombra del Viento, un libro maldito que cambiará el rumbo de su vida y le arrastrará a un laberinto de intrigas y secretos enterrados en el alma oscura de la ciudad.
Ambientada en la enigmática Barcelona de principios del siglo XX, este misterio literario mezcla técnicas de relato de intriga, de novela histórica y de comedia de costumbres, pero es, sobre todo, una tragedia histórica de amor cuyo eco se proyecta a través del tiempo. Con gran fuerza narrativa, el autor entrelaza tramas y enigmas a modo de muñecas rusas en un inolvidable relato sobre los secretos del corazón y el embrujo de los libros, manteniendo la intriga hasta la última página.
Of Mice and Men is a poignant narrative that captures the journey of two outsiders, George and his intellectually disabled friend Lennie, as they cling to the hope of carving out a place for themselves in a world that often seems heartless. The duo, bound by their shared dream of one day owning their own piece of land, find themselves toiling on a ranch in California's Salinas Valley.
Their aspirations are threatened by the harsh realities they face, including cruelty, misunderstanding, and envy. Lennie, a man of immense physical strength yet gentle at heart, becomes entangled in a series of events that test the limits of their friendship and the fragility of their dreams. Steinbeck's narrative weaves themes of camaraderie, the pursuit of shared goals, and the plight of America's marginalized individuals into a story that continues to resonate with readers across generations.
We are behind, and below, the scenes of JFK's presidential election, the Bay of Pigs, the assassination—in the underworld that connects Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, D.C...
Where the CIA, the Mob, J. Edgar Hoover, Howard Hughes, Jimmy Hoffa, Cuban political exiles, and various loose cannons conspire in a covert anarchy...
Where the right drugs, the right amount of cash, the right murder, buys a moment of a man's loyalty...
Where three renegade law-enforcement officers—a former L.A. cop and two FBI agents—are shaping events with the virulence of their greed and hatred, riding full-blast shotgun into history...
James Ellroy's trademark nothing-spared rendering of reality, blistering language, and relentless narrative pace are here in electrifying abundance, put to work in a novel as shocking and daring as anything he's written: a secret history that zeroes in on a time still shrouded in secrets and blows it wide open.
Michael Ondaatje, Booker Prize-winning author of The English Patient, delivers a compelling narrative in Anil's Ghost, a novel set against the backdrop of Sri Lanka's civil war. We follow Anil Tissera, a young Sri Lankan woman raised and educated in the West, who returns to her homeland as a forensic anthropologist for an international human rights group. Her mission: to uncover the origins of the systematic murders that are ravaging the country.
As Anil delves into a mystery that leads her into the realms of love, family, and identity, she is ensnared by an unknown enemy's plot, driving her to unlock the concealed history of her nation. The narrative unfolds amidst the rich tapestry of Sri Lanka's culture, ancient civilization, and evocative landscapes. Anil's Ghost stands out as Ondaatje's most potent novel to date, weaving a tale that is as much about the human condition as it is about a country in turmoil.
As a boy, writer Jay Mackintosh spent three golden summers in the ramshackle home of "Jackapple Joe" Cox. A lonely child, he found solace in Old Joe's simple wisdom and folk charms. The magic was lost, however, when Joe disappeared without warning one fall.
Years later, Jay's life is stalled with regret and ennui. His bestselling novel, Jackapple Joe, was published ten years earlier and he has written nothing since. Impulsively, he decides to leave his urban life in London and, sight unseen, purchases a farmhouse in the remote French village of Lansquenet. There, in that strange and yet strangely familiar place, Jay hopes to re-create the magic of those golden childhood summers.
And while the spirit of Joe is calling to him, it is actually a similarly haunted, reclusive woman who will ultimately help Jay find himself again.
Sputnik Sweetheart is a novel that delves into the complexities of love and human longing. The story revolves around Sumire, an aspiring writer with a unique fashion sense reminiscent of a Kerouac character, who finds herself in love with a woman seventeen years her senior, named Miu. Sumire's best friend, K, a primary school teacher, grapples with his own feelings for Sumire, which remain unspoken.
As Sumire confides in K about her life's big questions, such as the nature of sexual desire and whether to confess her feelings to Miu, K contemplates revealing his unrequited love. The narrative takes an unexpected turn when Miu, in a state of desperation, calls from a Greek island to report that Sumire has mysteriously disappeared. This event thrusts K back into Sumire's enigmatic world, leading to a search that is fraught with ominous visions and a haunting sense of absence.
Sputnik Sweetheart is a subtle and evocative exploration of the yearning that drives us to seek connection and the profound impact of love and loss on the human psyche.
Cane River presents the deeply moving saga of four generations of African-American women whose journey from slavery to freedom begins on a Creole plantation in Louisiana. Beginning with her great-great-great-great grandmother, a slave owned by a Creole family, Lalita Tademy chronicles four generations of strong, determined black women as they battle injustice to unite their family and forge success on their own terms. They are women whose lives begin in slavery, who weather the Civil War, and who grapple with contradictions of emancipation, Jim Crow, and the pre-Civil Rights South.
As she peels back layers of racial and cultural attitudes, Tademy paints a remarkable picture of rural Louisiana and the resilient spirit of one unforgettable family. There is Elisabeth, who bears both a proud legacy and the yoke of bondage; her youngest daughter, Suzette, who is the first to discover the promise—and heartbreak—of freedom; Suzette's strong-willed daughter Philomene, who uses a determination born of tragedy to reunite her family and gain unheard-of economic independence; and Emily, Philomene's spirited daughter, who fights to secure her children's just due and preserve their dignity and future.
Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Cane River is a slice of American history never before seen in such piercing and personal detail.
When A Single Man was originally published, it shocked many by its frank, sympathetic, and moving portrayal of a gay man in midlife. George, the protagonist, is adjusting to life on his own after the sudden death of his partner, determined to persist in the routines of his daily life.
An Englishman and a professor living in suburban Southern California, he is an outsider in every way. His internal reflections and interactions with others reveal a man who loves being alive despite everyday injustices and loneliness.
Wry, suddenly manic, constantly funny, surprisingly sad, this novel catches the true textures of life itself.