Then We Came to the End is a wickedly funny, big-hearted novel about life in the office. It signals the arrival of a gloriously talented new writer. The characters in Then We Came to the End cope with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, secret romance, elaborate pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks.

By day, they compete for the best office furniture left behind and try to make sense of the mysterious pro-bono ad campaign that is their only remaining work. With a demon's eye for the details that make life worth noticing, Joshua Ferris tells a true and funny story about survival in life's strangest environment—the one we pretend is normal five days a week.

Since their home was invaded by enemy soldiers and transformed into a war zone, Ellie and her friends have been fighting for their lives. Now a resolution may finally be in sight. But as enemy forces close in on her hideout, Ellie discovers that the final conflict just may be the most dangerous yet. And not everyone will survive.

Nobody is safe in this exhilarating conclusion to Ellie's courageous struggle for freedom.

They promised Meredith nine years of safety, but only gave her three. Her father was supposed to be locked up until Meredith turned eighteen. She thought she had time to grow up, get out, and start a new life. But Meredith is only fifteen, and today her father is coming home from prison. Today her time has run out.

The penultimate installment of the internationally bestselling Tomorrow series brings Ellie and her friends face to face with the harsh realities of war.

Amidst a brutal conflict with no end in sight, Ellie and her four remaining friends find their hidden refuge becoming a crowded place.

They take on the responsibility of caring for an uncooperative crew of orphans, whose wild behavior reveals the true impact of war.

The situation intensifies when Ellie and Homer discover mysterious visitors may have found their sanctuary. Has the enemy discovered them?

Five ordinary teens must brave the worst in this electrifying continuation of their battle to stay safe and sane in a war zone that was once their home.

In this shocking novel of a young girl alone on the streets, Goines delves into yet another facet of the ghetto experience—the dark, despair-ridden world of a black girl's soul!

Sandra took to the streets when she was eight years old and tried to fight off the hunger pangs by shoplifting and moving into the profits of drug pushing. Then she met Chink and discovered love and affection...and rape and murder!

Toby Alone is a captivating tale of adventure, heroism, friendship, and survival, set in a miniature world with a powerful ecological message.

Toby is just one and a half millimeters tall and is the most wanted person in the great oak tree. His father has made a groundbreaking discovery that the Tree itself is alive, flowing with vital energy, and there may even be a world beyond it.

As greedy developers itch to exploit this forbidden knowledge, risking permanent damage to their natural world, Toby's father refuses to reveal his findings, leading to the family's exile to the lower branches. Only Toby manages to escape, but for how long? And how can he bear to leave his parents to their terrible fate?

Lullabies for Little Criminals is a gritty, heart-wrenching novel about bruised innocence on the city's feral streets. It marks the remarkable debut of a stunning literary talent, Heather O'Neill. This is a subtly understated yet searingly effective story of a young life on the streets—and the strength, wits, and luck necessary for survival.

At thirteen, Baby vacillates between childhood comforts and adult temptation: still young enough to drag her dolls around in a vinyl suitcase, yet old enough to know more than she should about urban cruelties. Motherless, she lives with her father, Jules, who takes better care of his heroin habit than he does of his daughter. Baby's gift is a genius for spinning stories and for cherishing the small crumbs of happiness that fall into her lap.

But her blossoming beauty has captured the attention of a charismatic and dangerous local pimp who runs an army of sad, slavishly devoted girls—a volatile situation even the normally oblivious Jules cannot ignore. And when an escape disguised as betrayal threatens to crush Baby's spirit, she will ultimately realize that the power of salvation rests in her hands alone.

The River of Doubt is an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth. This true story takes you through the treacherous journey along the black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon, known as the River of Doubt. It's a place where Indians armed with poison-tipped arrows haunt its shadows, piranhas glide through its waters, and boulder-strewn rapids turn the river into a roiling cauldron.

After his humiliating election defeat in 1912, Roosevelt sought the most punishing physical challenge he could find: the first descent of this unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Accompanied by his son Kermit and Brazil’s most famous explorer, Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Roosevelt achieved a feat so monumental that many at the time refused to believe it. In the process, he changed the map of the western hemisphere forever.

Roosevelt and his men faced an unbelievable series of hardships, including losing their canoes and supplies to punishing whitewater rapids, enduring starvation, Indian attacks, disease, drowning, and even a murder within their own ranks. Three men died, and Roosevelt was brought to the brink of suicide.

The River of Doubt brings these extraordinary events to life in a powerful nonfiction narrative thriller featuring one of America’s most famous figures. From the soaring beauty of the Amazon rainforest to the darkest nights of Roosevelt’s life, Candice Millard’s dazzling debut is a must-read.

A searing, post-apocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece.

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

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

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

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

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

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

Consent to Kill is a blistering thriller by New York Times bestselling author Vince Flynn. The story follows CIA operative Mitch Rapp, who has spent over a decade on the front lines of the war on terror. His bold actions have saved countless lives, but now, he finds himself the target of a bloodthirsty vendetta.

An influential father of a slain terrorist demands retribution for his son's death at Rapp's hands. In the tangled, duplicitous world of espionage, there are those, even among America's allies, who feel Rapp has become too effective. They have been waiting for an excuse to eliminate America's number one counterterrorism operative, and now, they have it.

Rapp must rely on his razor-sharp instincts for survival as he unleashes his fury on those who have betrayed him. It's a race against time to save one more life—his own—in this fast, fun read.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Walking Dead, Book One is a gripping collection that features the first 12 issues of the hit series, along with the stunning covers, all in one oversized hardcover volume. This is a must-have for long-time fans and new readers alike, as well as anyone in need of a slightly heavy object to fend off the walking dead!

Join police officer Rick Grimes and a handful of human survivors as they battle hordes of decomposing zombies in a thrilling and chilling post-apocalyptic world.

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

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

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

It is 1919, and Niska, the last Oji-Cree woman to live off the land, has received word that one of the two boys she saw off to the Great War has returned. Xavier Bird, her sole living relation, is gravely wounded and addicted to morphine. As Niska slowly paddles her canoe on the three-day journey to bring Xavier home, travelling through the stark but stunning landscape of Northern Ontario, their respective stories emerge—stories of Niska’s life among her kin and of Xavier’s horrifying experiences in the killing fields of Ypres and the Somme.

Voices from Chernobyl is not just a book about the Chernobyl disaster, but about the world it has left us. Svetlana Alexievich, spent three years interviewing dozens of survivors, victims, and witnesses. This book is their testimony, their voices, and they are unforgettable.

From a childhood survivor of the Cambodian genocide under the regime of Pol Pot, this is a riveting narrative of war crimes and desperate actions, the unnerving strength of a small girl and her family, and their triumph of spirit.

One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed.

Harrowing yet hopeful, Loung's powerful story is an unforgettable account of a family shaken and shattered, yet miraculously sustained by courage and love in the face of unspeakable brutality.

As the civil war rages in 1980s Mozambique, an old man and a young boy, refugees from the war, seek shelter in a burnt-out bus. Among the effects of a dead passenger, they come across a set of notebooks that tell of his life. As the boy reads the story to his elderly companion, this story and their own develop in tandem.

Written in 1992, Mia Couto’s first novel is a powerful indictment of the suffering war brings.

Me & Emma follows the poignant and heart-wrenching journey of eight-year-old Carrie Parker, a timid and introverted young girl, and her fearless little sister, Emma. These two sisters live in a challenging and abusive environment, relying on their unstable mother who has never recovered from her husband's murder. Their stepfather is a constant threat, subjecting them to regular beatings, while their mother remains oblivious to their suffering.

Despite the bleak circumstances, Carrie is determined to protect Emma from the harsh realities of their world. The sisters' plan to escape from their oppressive home takes a shocking turn, leading to a revelation that alters everything. The narrative is filled with unexpected twists and turns, culminating in a spectacular finish that challenges the reader's perceptions and invites them to revisit the story from the beginning.

This emotionally charged thriller masterfully explores themes of survival, resilience, and the enduring bond between sisters. Me & Emma is a story that will resonate deeply, leaving a lasting impression on its readers.

The Worst Journey in the World recounts Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the youngest member of Scott's team and one of three men to make and survive the notorious Winter Journey, draws on his firsthand experiences as well as the diaries of his compatriots to create a stirring and detailed account of Scott's legendary expedition.

Cherry himself would be among the search party that discovered the corpses of Scott and his men, who had long since perished from starvation and brutal cold. Through Cherry's insightful narrative and keen descriptions, Scott and the other members of the expedition are fully memorialized.

This book is highly recommended for those who cherish the spirit of adventure and appreciate the complexities of human ambition in the face of nature's vast indifference.

Le Concile de pierre tells the story of a child from the ends of the earth whose mysterious past gradually resurfaces. Ruthless killers are on his trail, and a woman is ready to do anything to save him, even at the highest price.

This is a hallucinatory journey to the heart of the Mongolian taiga, where the law of the Stone Council reigns: the original battle, when man, animal, and spirit become one. All are prepared for the apocalypse.

With his first two novels, Jean-Christophe Grangé had already stunned even the greatest American masters and stirred the enthusiasm of filmmakers. Le Concile de pierre breaks the boundaries of the traditional thriller.

The Burn Journals is a remarkable memoir that delves into the depths of teenage despair and the arduous journey of recovery. In 1991, fourteen-year-old Brent Runyon came home from school, doused his bathrobe in gasoline, put it on, and lit a match. He suffered third-degree burns over 85% of his body and spent the next year recovering in hospitals and rehab facilities.

During that year of physical recovery, Runyon began to question what he’d done, undertaking the complicated journey from near-death back to high school, and from suicide back to the emotional mainstream of life.

This book offers an insightful look into the mind of a young boy grappling with intense emotions and finding his way back to life. The Burn Journals is an inspiring story of resilience and hope, perfect for readers interested in understanding the complexities of mental health and the power of recovery.

A Reluctant Hero
Trey may have saved Luke's life, but he still thinks of himself as a coward who can barely stand to be outdoors. Now Trey finds out Luke has been taken prisoner at Population Police headquarters. Trey is terrified, but he knows that if he doesn't rescue his friend, no one will.

At police headquarters, Trey impersonates an officer to try getting to Luke. But just when it looks like he's close, Trey suddenly finds himself in danger of exposing not just himself but all shadow children.

In the aftermath of a crisis that threatens the safety of all shadow children — illegal third-borns in a society that allows only two children per family — Trey's friends expect him to take charge — a function he doesn't want or think he can do. Trey's new role leads him to travel with Luke Garner's brother, Mark, to Population Police headquarters. There he impersonates an officer to try to rescue Luke, who has been taken prisoner. The nonstop adventure puts all three boys in danger and risks exposing the underground movement to help all shadow children.

In this, the fifth book in the Shadow Children series, Margaret Peterson Haddix returns to the futuristic setting and compelling characters she created in Among the Hidden. With an adrenaline-fueled plot and surprising twists, Haddix has again crafted a story that is suspenseful until the last page.

About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. She'll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace—and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia.

And so Yelena chooses to become a food taster. But the chief of security, leaving nothing to chance, deliberately feeds her Butterfly's Dust—and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison.

As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can't control. Her life is threatened again and choices must be made. But this time the outcomes aren't so clear...

He's a boy called Jew. Gypsy. Stopthief. Runt. Happy. Fast. Filthy son of Abraham. He's a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He's a boy who steals food for himself and the other orphans. He's a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels.

He's a boy who wants to be a Nazi some day, with tall shiny jackboots and a gleaming Eagle hat of his own. Until the day that suddenly makes him change his mind. And when the trains come to empty the Jews from the ghetto of the damned, he's a boy who realizes it's safest of all to be nobody.

Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli takes us to one of the most devastating settings imaginable—Nazi-occupied Warsaw of World War II—and tells a tale of heartbreak, hope, and survival through the bright eyes of a young orphan.

One of the most extraordinary survival stories ever told — Aron Ralston's searing account of his six days trapped in one of the most remote spots in America, and how one inspired act of bravery brought him home.

It started out as a simple hike in the Utah canyonlands on a warm Saturday afternoon. For Aron Ralston, a twenty-seven-year-old mountaineer and outdoorsman, a walk into the remote Blue John Canyon was a chance to get a break from a winter of solo climbing Colorado's highest and toughest peaks. He'd earned this weekend vacation, and though he met two charming women along the way, by early afternoon he finally found himself in his element: alone, with just the beauty of the natural world all around him.

It was 2:41 P.M. Eight miles from his truck, in a deep and narrow slot canyon, Aron was climbing down off a wedged boulder when the rock suddenly, and terrifyingly, came loose. Before he could get out of the way, the falling stone pinned his right hand and wrist against the canyon wall. And so began six days of hell for Aron Ralston. With scant water and little food, no jacket for the painfully cold nights, and the terrible knowledge that he'd told no one where he was headed, he found himself facing a lingering death — trapped by an 800-pound boulder 100 feet down in the bottom of a canyon.

As he eliminated his escape options one by one through the days, Aron faced the full horror of his predicament: By the time any possible search and rescue effort would begin, he'd most probably have died of dehydration, if a flash flood didn't drown him before that.

What does one do in the face of almost certain death? Using the video camera from his pack, Aron began recording his grateful good-byes to his family and friends all over the country, thinking back over a life filled with adventure, and documenting a last will and testament with the hope that someone would find it. The knowledge of their love kept Aron Ralston alive, until a divine inspiration on Thursday morning solved the riddle of the boulder. Aron then committed the most extreme act imaginable to save himself.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place — a brilliantly written, funny, honest, inspiring, and downright astonishing report from the line where death meets life — will surely take its place in the annals of classic adventure stories.

Nine-year-old Trisha McFarland strays from the path while she and her recently divorced mother and brother take a hike along a branch of the Appalachian Trail. Lost for days, wandering farther and farther astray, Trisha has only her portable radio for comfort. A huge fan of Tom Gordon, a Boston Red Sox relief pitcher, she listens to baseball games and fantasizes that her hero will save her. Nature isn't her only adversary, though - something dangerous may be tracking Trisha through the dark woods.

Alas, Babylon. Those fateful words heralded the end. When the unthinkable nightmare of nuclear holocaust ravaged the United States, it was instant death for tens of millions of people; for survivors, it was a nightmare of hunger, sickness, and brutality. Overnight, a thousand years of civilization were stripped away. But for one small Florida town, miraculously spared against all the odds, the struggle was only just beginning, as the isolated survivors—men and women of all ages and races—found the courage to come together and confront the harrowing darkness.

This classic apocalyptic novel by Pat Frank, first published in 1959 at the height of the Cold War, includes an introduction by award-winning science fiction writer and scientist David Brin.

Under the Polar Ice-Cap... The atomic submarine 'Dolphin' has impossible orders: to sail beneath the ice-floes of the Arctic Ocean to locate and rescue the men of weather-station Zebra, gutted by fire and drifting with the ice-pack somewhere north of the Arctic Circle.

But the orders do not say what the 'Dolphin' will find if she succeeds – that the fire at Ice Station Zebra was sabotage, and that one of the survivors is a killer…

From the acclaimed master of action and suspense, comes a thrilling tale of survival and intrigue. Night Without End is an all-time classic that begins with a devastating crash of an airliner on the polar ice-cap. In temperatures plummeting to 40 degrees below zero, six men and four women survive, but face a formidable challenge ahead.

Rescued by members of a remote scientific research station, they soon discover that their ordeal is far from over. Sinister questions arise, the most pressing being: Who shot the pilot before the crash? As the arctic night stretches endlessly, the survivors must confront murder, betrayal, and their own fears.

Night Without End is a gripping story where darkness brings with it danger and the chilling realization that among them is a ruthless agent with a desperate mission.

When Billie Jo is just fourteen, she must endure heart-wrenching ordeals that no child should have to face. The quiet strength she displays while dealing with unspeakable loss is as surprising as it is inspiring.

Written in free verse, this story is set in the heart of the Great Depression. It chronicles Oklahoma's staggering dust storms, and the environmental--and emotional--turmoil they leave in their path. An unforgettable tribute to hope and inner strength.

Princess Lissla Lissar reaches womanhood, and it becomes evident to the entire kingdom that she mirrors the beauty of her late mother, the queen. This resemblance, however, forces her to flee from her father's lust and madness.

In the pain and horror of her flight, she forgets who she is and what she flees from, remembering only the love and loyalty of her dog, Ash, who accompanies her.

A chance encounter on the road leads to a job in another king's kennels, where the prince finds himself falling in love with the new kennel maid. One day, he tells her of a princess named Lissla Lissar, who had a dog named Ash.

Thus begins Lissar’s profound journey away from treachery and pain, towards trust, love, and healing.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union and confirms Solzhenitsyn's stature as a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy.

Tunnel in the Sky is a classic novel from the mind of the storyteller who captures the imagination of readers from around the world, and across two generations.

The final exam for Dr. Matson's Advanced Survival class was meant to be just that: only a test. But something has gone terribly wrong...and now Rod Walker and his fellow students are stranded somewhere unknown in the universe, beyond contact with Earth, at the other end of a tunnel in the sky.

Stripped of all comforts, hoping for a passage home that may never appear, the castaways must band together or perish. For Rod and his fellow survivors, this is one test where failure is not an option.

Empire of the Sun is a poignant exploration of a young boy's struggle to survive World War II in China. Separated from his parents in a world at war, Jim must find a strength greater than all the events that surround him to survive. The setting is Shanghai, 1941, a city aflame from the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. Amidst the chaos and corpses, Jim searches in vain for his parents. Eventually, he finds himself imprisoned in a Japanese concentration camp, witnessing the fierce white flash of Nagasaki as the bomb announces the end of the war...and the dawn of a blighted world.

J.G. Ballard's enduring novel not only captures the horrors of war and deprivation, internment camps and death marches, starvation and survival, but also serves as an honest coming-of-age tale set in a world thrown utterly out of joint.

A coup in Cambodia. Guns to Guatemala. For the men and women of Shorn Associates, opportunity is calling. In the superheated global village of the near future, big money is made by finding the right little war and supporting one side against the other—in exchange for a share of the spoils.

To succeed, Shorn uses a new kind of corporate gladiator: sharp-suited, hard-driving gunslingers who operate armored vehicles and follow a Samurai code. And Chris Faulkner is just the man for the job. He fought his way out of London’s zone of destitution. And his kills are making him famous.

But unlike his best friend and competitor at Shorn, Faulkner has a side that outsiders cannot see: the side his wife is trying to salvage, that another woman—a porn star turned TV news reporter—is trying to exploit. Steeped in blood, eyed by common criminals looking for a shot at fame, Faulkner is living on borrowed time. Until he’s given one last shot at getting out alive...

Bean's past was a battle just to survive. He first appeared on the streets of Rotterdam, a tiny child with a mind leagues beyond anyone else. He knew he could not survive through strength; he used his tactical genius to gain acceptance into a children's gang and then to help make that gang a template for success for all the others. He civilized them and lived to grow older. Then he was discovered by the recruiters for the Battle School.

Bean was the smallest student at the Battle School but he became Ender Wiggins' right hand. Since then, he has grown to be a power on Earth. He served the Hegemon as strategist and general in the terrible wars that followed Ender's defeat of the alien empire attacking Earth. Now he and his wife Petra yearn for a safe place to build a family—something he has never known—but there is nowhere on Earth that does not harbor his enemies—old enemies from the days in Ender's Jeesh, new enemies from the wars on Earth.

To find security, Bean and Petra must once again follow in Ender's footsteps. They must leave Earth behind, in the control of the Hegemon, and look to the stars.

At the age of 14, Georg Koves is plucked from his home in a Jewish section of Budapest and, without any particular malice, placed on a train to Auschwitz. He does not understand the reason for his fate. He doesn’t particularly think of himself as Jewish. And his fellow prisoners, who decry his lack of Yiddish, keep telling him, “You are no Jew.” In the lowest circle of the Holocaust, Georg remains an outsider.

The genius of Imre Kertesz’s unblinking novel lies in its refusal to mitigate the strangeness of its events, not least of which is Georg’s dogmatic insistence on making sense of what he witnesses—or pretending that what he witnesses makes sense. Haunting, evocative, and all the more horrifying for its rigorous avoidance of sentiment, Fatelessness is a masterpiece in the traditions of Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, and Tadeusz Borowski.

Mayada, Daughter of Iraq is a gripping tale of courage and resilience amidst the harrowing conditions of Saddam Hussein's regime. A member of one of the most distinguished and honored families in Iraq, Mayada grew up surrounded by wealth and royalty. However, her life took a drastic turn when she was unjustly thrown into cell 52 in the infamous Baladiyat prison.

Alongside seventeen other nameless, faceless women from all walks of life, Mayada endured unimaginable hardship. To ease their suffering, these "shadow women" shared their life stories, creating a tapestry of hope and solidarity amidst despair.

Through the powerful narrative of Jean Sasson, Mayada finally shares her story—and theirs—with the world. This book offers a poignant glimpse into the cruelty and hardship endured by generations of Iraqis, highlighting the strength of the human spirit in the face of adversity.

In one of the most dazzling books of his celebrated career, Dean Koontz delivers a masterwork of page-turning suspense that surpasses even his own inimitable reputation as a chronicler of our worst fears—and best dreams.

In The Taking, he tells the story of a community cut off from a world under siege, and the terrifying battle for survival waged by a young couple and their neighbors as familiar streets become fog-shrouded death traps.

Gripping, heartbreaking, and triumphant in the face of mankind’s darkest hour, here is a small-town slice-of-doomsday thriller that strikes to the core of each of us to ask: What would you do in the midst of The Taking?

On the morning that will mark the end of the world they have known, Molly and Neil Sloan awaken to the drumbeat of rain on their roof. It has haunted their sleep, invaded their dreams, and now they rise to find a luminous silvery downpour drenching their small California mountain town.

A strange scent hangs faintly in the air, and the young couple cannot shake the sense of something wrong. As hours pass and the rain continues to fall, Molly and Neil listen to disturbing news of extreme weather phenomena across the globe.

Before evening, their little town loses television and radio reception. Then telephone and the Internet are gone. With the ceaseless rain now comes an obscuring fog that transforms the once-friendly village into a ghostly labyrinth.

By nightfall, the Sloans have gathered with some of their neighbors to deal with community damage...but also because they feel the need to band together against some unknown threat, some enemy they cannot identify or even imagine.

In the night, strange noises arise, and at a distance, in the rain and the mist, mysterious lights are seen drifting among the trees. The rain diminishes with the dawn, but a moody gray-purple twilight prevails.

Soon Molly, Neil, and their small band of friends will be forced to draw on reserves of strength, courage, and humanity they never knew they had. For within the misty gloom they will encounter something that reveals in a terrifying instant what is happening to their world—something that is hunting them with ruthless efficiency.

Epic in scope, searingly intimate and immediate in perspective, The Taking is an adventure story like no other, a relentless roller-coaster read that brings apocalypse to Main Street and showcases the talents of one of our most original and mesmerizing novelists at the pinnacle of his powers.

How many hours are in a day when you don't spend half of them watching television? When is the last time any of us REALLY worked to get something we wanted? How long has it been since any of us really NEEDED something that we WANTED? The world we knew is gone. The world of commerce and frivolous necessity has been replaced by a world of survival and responsibility. An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months, society has crumbled: no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV. In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally start living.

Every kid thinks about running away at one point or another; few get farther than the end of the block. Young Sam Gribley gets to the end of the block and keeps going--all the way to the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. There he sets up house in a huge hollowed-out tree, with a falcon and a weasel for companions and his wits as his tool for survival. In a spellbinding, touching, funny account, Sam learns to live off the land, and grows up a little in the process.

Blizzards, hunters, loneliness, and fear all battle to drive Sam back to city life. But his desire for freedom, independence, and adventure is stronger. No reader will be immune to the compulsion to go right out and start whittling fishhooks and befriending raccoons.

Sixteen-year-old Margaret Rose Nolan, newly arrived from Ireland, finds work at New York City’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory shortly before the 1911 fire in which 146 employees died.

Sixteen-year-old Rose Nolan and her family are grateful to have finally reached America, the great land of opportunity. Their happiness is shattered when part of their family is forced to return to Ireland. Rose wants to succeed and stays in New York with her younger sister Maureen. The sisters struggle to survive and barely do so by working at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Then, just as Rose is forming friendships and settling in, a devastating fire forces her, Maureen, and their friends to fight for their lives.

Surrounded by pain, tragedy, and ashes, Rose wonders if there’s anything left for her in this great land of America.

Touching the Void is the heart-stopping account of Joe Simpson's terrifying adventure in the Peruvian Andes. He and his climbing partner, Simon, reached the summit of the remote Siula Grande in June 1985. A few days later, Simon staggered into Base Camp, exhausted and frost-bitten, with news that that Joe was dead.What happened to Joe, and how the pair dealt with the psychological traumas that resulted when Simon was forced into the appalling decision to cut the rope, makes not only an epic of survival but a compelling testament of friendship.

Drop City is set in 1970, where a down-at-the-heels California commune, devoted to peace, free love, and the simple life, decides to relocate to the last frontier—the unforgiving landscape of interior Alaska—as the ultimate expression of going back to the land.

Armed with the spirit of adventure and naïve optimism, the inhabitants of Drop City arrive in the wilderness of Alaska, only to discover their utopia already populated by other young homesteaders. When the two communities collide, unexpected friendships and dangerous enmities are born as everyone struggles with the bare essentials of life: love, nourishment, and a roof over one’s head.

This novel is a rich, allusive, and unsentimental exploration of human behavior at its rawest, most tender, and most compelling. It's infused with the lyricism and take-no-prisoners storytelling for which T.C. Boyle is justly famous.

102 Minutes tells the dramatic and moving account of the struggle for life inside the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, when every minute counted.

At 8:46 am, 14,000 people were inside the twin towers—reading e-mails, making trades, eating croissants at Windows on the World. Over the next 102 minutes, each would become part of a drama for the ages, one witnessed only by the people who lived it—until now.

New York Times reporters Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn have taken a revealing approach. Reported from the perspectives of those inside the towers, 102 Minutes captures the little-known stories of ordinary people who took extraordinary steps to save themselves and others.

Dwyer and Flynn rely on hundreds of interviews with rescuers, thousands of pages of oral histories, and countless phone, e-mail, and emergency radio transcripts. They cross a bridge of voices to go inside the infernos, seeing cataclysm and heroism, one person at a time, to tell the affecting, authoritative saga of the men and women—the nearly 12,000 who escaped and the 2,749 who perished—as they made 102 minutes count as never before.

David's entire twelve-year life has been spent in a grisly prison camp in Eastern Europe. He knows nothing of the outside world. But when he is given the chance to escape, he seizes it. With his vengeful enemies hot on his heels, David struggles to cope in this strange new world, where his only resources are a compass, a few crusts of bread, his two aching feet, and some vague advice to seek refuge in Denmark.

Is that enough to survive? David's extraordinary odyssey is dramatically chronicled in Anne Holm's classic about the meaning of freedom and the power of hope.