In the tradition of Word Freak and Confederates in the Attic, a charming, witty account of a season in mad pursuit of the world's largest pumpkin. Every year, the race to grow the biggest pumpkin in the world draws a rowdy crowd of obsessive gardeners to county fairs and weigh-offs across the...  more

In the tradition of Word Freak and Confederates in the Attic, a charming, witty account of a season in mad pursuit of the world's largest pumpkin. Every year, the race to grow the biggest pumpkin in the world draws a rowdy crowd of obsessive gardeners to county fairs and weigh-offs across the country. The competition is furious; there's sabotage and treachery and the heartbreak of root rot, and many a weigh-off ends in tears. This year more than just the grand prize is at stake. The Holy Grail is within reach: the world's first fifteen-hundred pound pumpkin. And Ron and Dick Wallace will stop at nothing to get it. Backyard Giants follows a tumultuous season in the life of a close-knit tribe of competitors as they chase down the ultimate pumpkin prize. In the grueling and gut-wrenching quest for truly colossal fruit, vacations are postponed, marriages are strained, and savings accounts are emptied. Backyards are converted into leafy laboratories of biogenetics and toxic chemicals - to say nothing of pumpkin sex. Riding shotgun with Ron and his father Dick, Wall Street Journal editor Susan Warren brings to life a winning and unforgettable crew of pumpkin lunatics: the newbie who shocked everyone by growing the big one last year; the pro-bono slime scientist; the groundhog assassin; and the safety trainer who risked electrocuting himself to save his patch. Funny, sharp, and engaging, Backyard Giants is a romp through a charming corner of American life, as quirky and enchanting as the big pumpkins themselves.

On a cool June morning, a woman is walking her dog in the idyllic coastal village of Salten along a tidal estuary known as the Reach. Before she can stop him, the dog charges into the water to retrieve what first appears to be a wayward stick, but to her horror, turns out to be something much...  more

On a cool June morning, a woman is walking her dog in the idyllic coastal village of Salten along a tidal estuary known as the Reach. Before she can stop him, the dog charges into the water to retrieve what first appears to be a wayward stick, but to her horror, turns out to be something much more sinister... The next morning, three women in and around London -- Fatima, Thea, and Isabel -- receive the text they had always hoped would NEVER come, from the fourth in their formerly inseparable clique, Kate, that says only, “I need you.” The four girls were best friends at Salten, a second rate boarding school set near the cliffs of the English Channel. Each different in their own way, the four became inseparable and were notorious for playing the Lying Game, telling lies at every turn to both fellow boarders and faculty, with varying states of serious and flippant nature that were disturbing enough to ensure that everyone steered clear of them. The myriad and complicated rules of the game are strict: no lying to each other -- ever. Bail on the lie when it becomes clear it is about to be found out. But their little game had consequences, and the girls were all expelled in their final year of school under mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of the school’s eccentric art teacher, Ambrose (who also happens to be Kate’s father). Atmospheric, twisty, and with just the right amount of chill that will keep you wrong-footed -- which has now become Ruth Ware’s signature style -- The Lying Game is sure to be her next big bestseller. Another unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.

From the former Communications Director for the White House and current political media strategist comes a suspenseful and smart commercial novel about the first female president and all dramas and deceptions she faces both in politics and in love. Eighteen Acres, a description used by...  more

From the former Communications Director for the White House and current political media strategist comes a suspenseful and smart commercial novel about the first female president and all dramas and deceptions she faces both in politics and in love. Eighteen Acres, a description used by political insiders when referring to the White House complex, follows the first female President of the United States, Charlotte Kramer, and her staff as they take on dangerous threats from abroad and within her very own cabinet.  Charlotte Kramer, the 45th US President, Melanie Kingston, the White House chief of staff, and Dale Smith, a White House correspondent for one of the networks are all working tirelessly on Charlotte’s campaign for re-election. At the very moment when they should have been securing success, though, Kramer’s White House implodes under rumors of her husband’s infidelity and grave errors of judgment on the part of her closest national security advisor.  In an upheaval that threatens not only the presidency, but the safety of the American people, Charlotte must fight to regain her footing and protect the the country she has given her life to serving.   Eighteen Acres combines political and family drama into one un-put-downable novel. It is a smart, juicy and fast-paced read that we’re sure fans of commercial women’s fiction will fall in total love with.

From the acclaimed author whose beloved books inspired the hit television show, The Deadliest Catch, comes a thrilling true adventure tale in the Alaskan seas  A Malaysian cargo ship on its way from Seattle, Washington to China ran aground off the coast of western Alaska's Aleutian...  more

From the acclaimed author whose beloved books inspired the hit television show, The Deadliest Catch, comes a thrilling true adventure tale in the Alaskan seas  A Malaysian cargo ship on its way from Seattle, Washington to China ran aground off the coast of western Alaska's Aleutian Islands on December 8, 2004 during a brutal storm, leading to one of the most incredible Coast Guard rescue missions of all time. Two Coast Guard Jayhawk helicopters lifted off immediately from Air Station Kodiak during the driving storm in an effort to rescue the ship?s eighteen crew members before it broke apart and sank in the freezing waters. Nine of the crew were lifted from the ship and dropped aboard a nearby Coast Guard cutter. But during attempts to save the last eight crew members, one of the Jayhawks was engulfed by a rogue wave that broke over the bow of the ship. When its engines flamed out from ingesting water, the Jayhawk crashed into the sea. The seven crew members from the ship who had been hoisted into the aircraft, along with the chopper's three-man crew, plunged into the bitterly cold ocean where hypothermia began to set in immediately. Interviewing all the surviving participants of the disaster and given access to documents and photos, acclaimed author Spike Walker has once again crafted a white-knuckle read of survival and death in the unforgiving Alaskan waters.

Twenty-five years ago, Hollywood released The China Syndrome, featuring Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas as a TVnews crew who witness what appears to be a serious accident at a nuclear power plant. In a spectacular coincidence, on March 28, 1979, less than two weeks after the movie came out, the...  more

Twenty-five years ago, Hollywood released The China Syndrome, featuring Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas as a TVnews crew who witness what appears to be a serious accident at a nuclear power plant. In a spectacular coincidence, on March 28, 1979, less than two weeks after the movie came out, the worst accident in the history of commercial nuclear power in the United States occurred at Three Mile Island. For five days, the citizens of central Pennsylvania and the entire world, amid growing alarm, followed the efforts of authorities to prevent the crippled plant from spewing dangerous quantities of radiation into the environment. This book is the first comprehensive account of the causes, context, and consequences of the Three Mile Island crisis. In gripping prose, J. Samuel Walker captures the high human drama surrounding the accident, sets it in the context of the heated debate over nuclear power in the seventies, and analyzes the social, technical, and political issues it raised. His superb account of those frightening and confusing days will clear up misconceptions held to this day about Three Mile Island. The heart of Walker's suspenseful narrative is a moment-by-moment account of the accident itself, in which he brings to life the players who dealt with the emergency: the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the state of Pennsylvania, the White House, and a cast of scientists and reporters. He also looks at the aftermath of the accident on the surrounding area, including studies of its long-term health effects on the population, providing a fascinating window onto the politics of nuclear power and an authoritative account of a critical event in recent American history.

A tale of obsession so fierce that a man kills the thing he loves most: the only giant golden spruce on earth. As vividly as Jon Krakauer put readers on Everest, John Vaillant takes us into the heart of North America's last great forest, where trees grow to eighteen feet in diameter, sunlight...  more

A tale of obsession so fierce that a man kills the thing he loves most: the only giant golden spruce on earth. As vividly as Jon Krakauer put readers on Everest, John Vaillant takes us into the heart of North America's last great forest, where trees grow to eighteen feet in diameter, sunlight never touches the ground, and the chainsaws are always at work. When a shattered kayak and camping gear are found on an uninhabited island, they reignite a mystery surrounding a shocking act of protest. Five months earlier, logger-turned-activist Grant Hadwin had plunged naked into a river in British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands, towing a chainsaw. When his night's work was done, a unique Sitka spruce, 165 feet tall and covered with luminous golden needles, teetered on its stump. Two days later it fell. The tree, a fascinating puzzle to scientists, was sacred to the Haida, a fierce seafaring tribe based in the Queen Charlottes. Vaillant recounts the bloody history of the Haida and the early fur trade, and provides harrowing details of the logging industry, whose omnivorous violence would claim both Hadwin and the golden spruce. 16 pages of illustrations.

“What the hell do you want?” snarled Frogman at Raff Cody, as the boy stepped innocently on the reputed murderer’s property. Fifteen years old, Raff had only wanted to catch a glimpse of Frogman’s 1,000-pound alligator. Thus begins the epic story of Anthill, part...  more

“What the hell do you want?” snarled Frogman at Raff Cody, as the boy stepped innocently on the reputed murderer’s property. Fifteen years old, Raff had only wanted to catch a glimpse of Frogman’s 1,000-pound alligator. Thus begins the epic story of Anthill, part thriller, part parable, which follows the adventures of Raff, a modern-day Huck Finn, whose improbable love of the “strange, beautiful, and elegant” world of ants ends up transforming his own life and the citizens of Nokobee County. Battling both snake bites and cynical relatives who just don’t understand his consuming fascination with the outdoors, Raff explores the pristine beauty of the Nokobee wildland. In doing so, he witnesses the remarkable creation and destruction of four separate ant colonies (“The Anthill Chronicles”) -- whose histories are epics that unfold on picnic grounds -- becoming a young naturalist in the process. An extraordinary undergraduate at Florida State University, Raff, despite his scientific promise, opts for Harvard Law School, believing that the environmental fight must be waged in the courtroom as well as the lab. Returning home a legal gladiator, Raff grows increasingly alarmed by the rapacious condo developers who are eager to pave and subdivide the wildlands surrounding the Chicobee River. But one last battle awaits him in his epic struggle. In a shattering ending that no reader will forget, Raff suddenly encounters the angry and corrupt ghosts of an old South he thought had all but disappeared, and he learns that “war is a genetic imperative,” not just for ants but for men as well.

From the creator and star of the one-woman off-Broadway show Mother Load, comes When Did I Get Like This?, a screamingly funny take on being a modern woman, wife, and mother told with “a level of hilarity that even non-moms can appreciate” (Time Out). Amy Wilson’s poignant...  more

From the creator and star of the one-woman off-Broadway show Mother Load, comes When Did I Get Like This?, a screamingly funny take on being a modern woman, wife, and mother told with “a level of hilarity that even non-moms can appreciate” (Time Out). Amy Wilson’s poignant and provocative, utterly outrageous look at “the Screamer, the Worrier, the Dinosaur-Chicken-Nugget-Buyer, and Other Mothers I Swore I’d Never Be” has already earned an appreciative response from Three-Martini Playdate author Christie Mellor, who calls it, “As entertaining as it is reassuring.”

When Rita Williams was four, her mother died in a Denver boarding house. This death delivered Rita into the care of her aunt Daisy, the last surviving African American widow of a Union soldier and a maverick who had spirited her sharecropping family out of the lynching South and reinvented them...  more

When Rita Williams was four, her mother died in a Denver boarding house. This death delivered Rita into the care of her aunt Daisy, the last surviving African American widow of a Union soldier and a maverick who had spirited her sharecropping family out of the lynching South and reinvented them as ranch hands and hunting guides out West. But one by one they slipped away, to death or to an easier existence elsewhere, leaving Rita as Daisy's last hope to right the racial wrongs of the past and to make good on a lifetime of thwarted ambition. If the Creek Don't Rise tells how Rita found her way out from under this crippling legacy and, instead of becoming "a perfect credit to her race," discovered how to become herself. Set amid the harsh splendor of the Colorado Rockies, this is a gorgeous, ruthless, and unique account of the lies families live-and the moments of truth and beauty that save us.

The Happiest Man in the World buoyantly describes seventy-four-year-old David Pearlman, a restless and migratory soul, a mariner, a musician, a member of the Explorers Club and a friend of the San Francisco Beats, a former preacher and sign painter, a polymath, a pauper, and a football...  more

The Happiest Man in the World buoyantly describes seventy-four-year-old David Pearlman, a restless and migratory soul, a mariner, a musician, a member of the Explorers Club and a friend of the San Francisco Beats, a former preacher and sign painter, a polymath, a pauper, and a football strategist for the Red Mesa Redskins of the Navajo Nation. When Pearlman was fifty, he was bitten on the hand by a dog in Mexico and for two years got so sick that he thought he would die. When he recovered, he felt so different that he decided he needed a new name. He began calling himself Poppa Neutrino, after the itinerant particle that is so small it can hardly be detected. To Neutrino, the particle represents the elements of the hidden life that assert themselves discreetly.Inspired by Thor Heyerdahl and Kon-Tiki, Neutrino is the only man ever to build a raft from garbage he found on the streets of New York and sail it across the North Atlantic. The New York Daily News described the accomplishment as “the sail of the century.” National Geographic broadcast an account of the trip as part of its series on extreme adventures. And now he is on a quest to cross the Pacific on a raft. If he makes it, he plans to continue around the world. No one has ever sailed around the world on a raft. Meanwhile, he has invented the Neutrino Clock Offense, an unstoppable football play, which a former coach of the New York Jets describes as being as innovative as the forward pass.The philosophical underpinnings of Neutrino’s existence are what he calls Triads, a concept worked out after years of reading and reflection. He believes that each person, to be truly happy, must define his or her three deepest desires and pursue them remorselessly. Freedom, Joy, and Art are Neutrino’s three.The Happiest Man in the World is a lavish, exotic, funny, and deeply serious book about a man who has led a life of profound engagement and ceaseless adventure.

From Blackbeard's den at Ocracoke, to the Hills of the Seven Sisters at Nag's Head, to the misty swamps of Shallotte, there is hardly an inch of territory along North Carolina's coast without a legend attached to it. Inlanders may be skeptical regarding the sometimes miraculous,...  more

From Blackbeard's den at Ocracoke, to the Hills of the Seven Sisters at Nag's Head, to the misty swamps of Shallotte, there is hardly an inch of territory along North Carolina's coast without a legend attached to it. Inlanders may be skeptical regarding the sometimes miraculous, often horror-filled tales that make up coastal folklore, but Outer Bankers accept the incredible as fact. The phenomena of the Outer Banks range from phosphorescent lights appearing and disappearing over Pamlico Sound to the strange fate of a crewless ship marooned on deadly Diamond Shoals. Legendary heroes such as Captain Jim Baum Gaskill are often truly heroic.. or they may be scurrilous, like Old Quork and Blackbeard. But they all loom larger than life, with deeds and personalities unique to coastal Carolina.  But this book is more than a collection of coastal legends. It is an affectionate portrait of the people who daily pull a living out of the treacherous waters of the Atlantic... and a tribute to the hardiness and courage that has made the Banker a rare breed... a breed whose true stories are, indeed, stranger than fiction.

Tommy Webber is nine years old when his father, a founding minister of the East Harlem Protestant Parish, moves the family of six from a spacious apartment in an ivy-covered Gothic-style seminary on New York City's Upper West Side to a small one in a massive public- housing project on East 102nd...  more

Tommy Webber is nine years old when his father, a founding minister of the East Harlem Protestant Parish, moves the family of six from a spacious apartment in an ivy-covered Gothic-style seminary on New York City's Upper West Side to a small one in a massive public- housing project on East 102nd Street. But it isn't the size of the apartment, the architecture of the building, or the unfamiliar streets that make the new surroundings feel so strange. While Tommy's old neighborhood was overwhelmingly middle class and white, El Barrio is poor and predominantly black and Puerto Rican. In Washington Houses, a complex of over 1,500 apartments, the Webbers are now one of only a small handful of white familes. Set during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Flying over 96th Street: Memoir of an East Harlem White Boy is the story of one boy's struggle with race, poverty, and identity in a city -- and a country -- grappling with the same issues. Tommy's classmates at the exclusive Collegiate School for Boys, which he attends on scholarship, dare not venture above the city's Mason-Dixon Line of 96th Street into the unknown territory of muggers, gangs, and junkies. Tommy, however, slowly makes new friends on the local basketball courts and at church, and discovers a different East Harlem, one where an exuberant human spirit hides within the oppressive projects and drab tenements, fighting to break through the cracked sidewalks. Webber interweaves the nation's growing Civil Rights movement -- from watching on television the forced integration of Little Rock's Central High School to participating in the famous 1963 March on Washington -- with the subtler, more immediate changes he observes in the lives of his friends and neighbors. In simple yet compelling prose, lit by the candor and innocence of childhood, Webber brings to life his East Harlem: children playing under gushing fire hydrants; the piraguas man and his pushcart of rainbow-colored icies; Fourth of July barbecues on rooftops; heated games of 5-2 on the public school courts; streets teeming with ugliness, anger, and despair, but also alive with color, community, and hope.

For years, best friends Sarah and Jennifer kept what they called the “Never List”: a list of actions to be avoided, for safety’s sake, at all costs. But one night, against their best instincts, they accept a cab ride with grave, everlasting consequences. For the next three...  more

For years, best friends Sarah and Jennifer kept what they called the “Never List”: a list of actions to be avoided, for safety’s sake, at all costs. But one night, against their best instincts, they accept a cab ride with grave, everlasting consequences. For the next three years, they are held captive with two other girls in a dungeon-like cellar by a connoisseur of sadism. Ten years later, at thirty-one, Sarah is still struggling to resume a normal life, living as a virtual recluse under a new name, unable to come to grips with the fact that Jennifer didn’t make it out of that cellar. Now, her abductor is up for parole and Sarah can no longer ignore the twisted letters he sends from jail. Finally, Sarah decides to confront her phobias and the other survivors -- who hold their own deep grudges against her. When she goes on a cross-country chase that takes her into the perverse world of BDSM, secret cults, and the arcane study of torture, she begins unraveling a mystery more horrifying than even she could have imagined.

The lives of two very different couples are irrevocably intertwined and forever changed in this stunning World War I epic of love and war. From the day in 1907 that eleven-year-old Riley Purefoy meets Nadine Waveney, daughter of a well-known orchestral conductor, he takes in the difference...  more

The lives of two very different couples are irrevocably intertwined and forever changed in this stunning World War I epic of love and war. From the day in 1907 that eleven-year-old Riley Purefoy meets Nadine Waveney, daughter of a well-known orchestral conductor, he takes in the difference between their two families: his, working-class; hers, "posh" and artistic. Just a few years later, romance and these differences erupt simultaneously with the war in Europe. In a fit of fury and boyish pride, Riley enlists in the army and finds himself involved in the transformative nightmare of the twentieth century. While Riley and his commanding officer, Peter Locke, fight for their country and their survival in the trenches of Flanders, Peter's lovely and naive wife, Julia, and his cousin Rose eagerly await his return. But the sullen, distant man who arrives home on leave is not the Peter they knew. Worried that her husband is slipping away, Julia is left alone with her fears when Rose joins the nursing corps to work with a pioneering plastic surgeon treating wounded and disfigured soldiers. Only eighteen at the outbreak of the war, Nadine and Riley want to make promises to each other—but how can they when their future is out of their hands? Youthful passion is on their side, but then their loyalty is tested by terrible injury, and even more so by the necessarily imperfect rehabilitation that follows. Moving among Ypres, London, and Paris, this emotionally rich and evocative novel is both a powerful exploration of the lasting effects of war on those who fight—and those who don't—and a poignant testament to the power of enduring love.

Mike Pressler walked into the bottomfloor meeting room of the Murray Building and, as he had done hundreds of times over a sixteen-year career at Duke University, prepared to address his men's lacrosse team. Forty-six players sat in theater-style chairs, all eyes riveted forward.It was 4:350...  more

Mike Pressler walked into the bottomfloor meeting room of the Murray Building and, as he had done hundreds of times over a sixteen-year career at Duke University, prepared to address his men's lacrosse team. Forty-six players sat in theater-style chairs, all eyes riveted forward.It was 4:350 P.M. on Wednesday, April 5, 2006. The program's darkest hour had arrived in an unexpected and explosive announcement.Pressler, a three-time ACC Coach of the Year, informed his team that its season was canceled and he had "resigned," effective immediately. While his words reverberated off the walls, hysteria erupted. Players cried, confused over a course of events that had spun wildly out of control. What began as an off-campus team party with two hired strippers had accelerated into a rape investigation -- one that exposed prosecutorial misconduct, shoddy police work, an administration's rush to judgment, and the media's disregard for the facts -- dividing both a prestigious university and the city of Durham.Wiping away tears, Pressler demonstrated the steely resolve that helped him win more than two hundred games. For the next thirty minutes, Pressler put his personal situation aside and encouraged his players to stick together. He also made a bold promise: "One day, we will get a chance to tell the world the truth. One day."This is that day.Pressler, who has not done an interview since the saga began, has handed his private diary from those three weeks to New York Times bestselling author Don Yaeger, exposing vivid details, including the day Pressler was fired, when the coach asked Athletic Director Joe Alleva why the school "wasn't willing to wait for the truth" to come out. "It's not about the truth anymore," Alleva said to the coach in a signature moment that said it all. In addition to Pressler, Yaeger interviewed more than seventyfive key figures intimately involved in the case. The result is a tale that defies logic."It is tough to be one of fifty people who believed a story when fifty million people believed something else," Pressler said. "This wasn't about the truth to many of the others involved. My story is all about the truth."

A distinguished former foreign correspondent embraces retirement by setting out alone on foot for nearly four hundred miles, and explores a side of America nearly as exotic as the locales from which he once filed.Traveling with an unwieldy pack and a keen curiosity, Christopher Wren bids...  more

A distinguished former foreign correspondent embraces retirement by setting out alone on foot for nearly four hundred miles, and explores a side of America nearly as exotic as the locales from which he once filed.Traveling with an unwieldy pack and a keen curiosity, Christopher Wren bids farewell to the New York Times newsroom in midtown Manhattan and saunters up Broadway, through Harlem, the Bronx, and the affluent New York suburbs of Westchester and Putnam Counties. As his trek takes him into the Housatonic River Valley of Connecticut, the Berkshires of Massachusetts, the Green Mountains of Vermont, and along a bucolic riverbank in New Hampshire, the strenuous challenges become as much emotional as physical.Wren loses his way in a suburban thicket of million-dollar mansions, dodges speeding motorists, seeks serenity at a convent, shivers through a rainy night among Shaker ruins, camps in a stranger's backyard, panhandles cookies and water from a good samaritan, absorbs the lore of the Appalachian and Long Trails, sweats up and down mountains, and lands in a hospital emergency room.Struggling under the weight of a fifty-pound pack, he gripes, "We might grow less addicted to stuff if everything we bought had to be carried on our backs." He hangs out with fellow wanderers named Old Rabbit, Flash, Gatorman, Stray Dog, and Buzzard, and learns gratitude from the anonymous charity of trail angels. His rite of passage into retirement, with its heat and dust and blisters galore, evokes vivid reminiscences of earlier risks taken, sometimes at gunpoint, during his years spent reporting from Russia, China, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa.He loses track of time, waking with the sun, stopping to eat when hunger gnaws, and camping under starry skies that transform the nights of solitude. For all the self-inflicted hardship, he reports, "In fact, I felt pretty good." Wren has woven an intensely personal story that is candid and often downright hilarious. As Vermont turns from a destination into a state of mind, he concludes, "I had stumbled upon the secret of how utterly irrelevant chronological age is."This book, from the author of the acclaimed bestseller The Cat Who Covered the World, will delight not just hikers, walkers, and other lovers of the outdoors, but also anyone who contemplates retirement, wonders about foreign correspondents, or relishes a lively, off-beat adventure, even when it unfolds close to home.

A young woman follows her fiancé to war-torn Congo to study extremely endangered bonobo apes-who teach her a new truth about love and belonging. In 2005, Vanessa Woods accepted a marriage proposal from a man she barely knew and agreed to join him on a research trip to the Democratic Republic...  more

A young woman follows her fiancé to war-torn Congo to study extremely endangered bonobo apes-who teach her a new truth about love and belonging. In 2005, Vanessa Woods accepted a marriage proposal from a man she barely knew and agreed to join him on a research trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country reeling from a brutal decade-long war that had claimed the lives of millions. Settling in at a bonobo sanctuary in Congo's capital, Vanessa and her fiancé entered the world of a rare ape with whom we share 98.7 percent of our DNA. She soon discovered that many of the inhabitants of the sanctuary-ape and human alike-are refugees from unspeakable violence, yet bonobos live in a peaceful society in which females are in charge, war is nonexistent, and sex is as common and friendly as a handshake. A fascinating memoir of hope and adventure, Bonobo Handshake traces Vanessa's self-discovery as she finds herself falling deeply in love with her husband, the apes, and her new surroundings while probing life's greatest question: What ultimately makes us human? Courageous and extraordinary, this true story of revelation and transformation in a fragile corner of Africa is about looking past the differences between animals and ourselves, and finding in them the same extraordinary courage and will to survive. For Vanessa, it is about finding her own path as a writer and scientist, falling in love, and finding a home.

John Wood discovered his passion, his greatest success, and his life's work--not at business school or leading Microsoft's charge into Asia in the 1990s--but on a soul-searching trip to the Himalayas. Wood felt trapped between an all-consuming career and a desire to do something lasting and...  more

John Wood discovered his passion, his greatest success, and his life's work--not at business school or leading Microsoft's charge into Asia in the 1990s--but on a soul-searching trip to the Himalayas. Wood felt trapped between an all-consuming career and a desire to do something lasting and significant. Stressed from the demands of his job, he took a vacation trekking in Nepal because a friend had told him, "If you get high enough in the mountains, you can't hear Steve Ballmer yelling at you anymore." See how John Wood came to start Room to Read and write Leaving Microsoft to Change the World in this video clip: high bandwidth or low bandwidth Instead of being the antidote to the rat race, that trip convinced John Wood to divert the boundless energy he was devoting to Microsoft into a cause that desperately needed to be addressed. While visiting a remote Nepalese school, Wood learned that the students had few books in their library. When he offered to run a book drive to provide the school with books, his idea was met with polite skepticism. After all, no matter how well-intentioned, why would a successful software executive take valuable time out of his life and gather books for an impoverished school? But John Wood did return to that school and with thousands of books bundled on the back of a yak. And at that moment, Wood made the decision to walk away from Microsoft and create Room to Read-an organization that has donated more than 1.2 million books, established more than 2,600 libraries and 200 schools, and sent 1,700 girls to school on scholarship-ultimately touching the lives of 875,000 children with the lifelong gift of education. Leaving Microsoft to Change the World chronicles John Wood's struggle to find a meaningful outlet for his managerial talents and entrepreneurial zeal. For every high-achiever who has ever wondered what life might be like giving back, Wood offers a vivid, emotional, and absorbing tale of how to take the lessons learned at a hard-charging company like Microsoft and apply them to one of the world's most pressing problems: the lack of basic literacy.

It begins in the small, affluent town of Fairview, Connecticut, where everything seems picture perfect. Until one night when young Jenny Kramer is attacked at a local party. In the hours immediately after, she is given a controversial drug to medically erase her memory of the violent assault....  more

It begins in the small, affluent town of Fairview, Connecticut, where everything seems picture perfect. Until one night when young Jenny Kramer is attacked at a local party. In the hours immediately after, she is given a controversial drug to medically erase her memory of the violent assault. But, in the weeks and months that follow, as she heals from her physical wounds, and with no factual recall of the attack, Jenny struggles with her raging emotional memory. Her father, Tom, becomes obsessed with his inability to find her attacker and seek justice while her mother, Charlotte, struggles to pretend this horrific event did not touch her carefully constructed world. As Tom and Charlotte seek help for their daughter, the fault lines within their marriage and their close-knit community emerge from the shadows where they have been hidden for years, and the relentless quest to find the monster who invaded their town - or perhaps lives among them - drive this psychological thriller to a shocking and unexpected conclusion.

What does it feel like to starve? To feel your body cry out for nourishment, to think only of food? How many fitful, hungry nights must pass before dreams of home-cooked meals metastasize into nightmares of cannibalism? Why would anyone volunteer to find out?In The Great Starvation Experiment,...  more

What does it feel like to starve? To feel your body cry out for nourishment, to think only of food? How many fitful, hungry nights must pass before dreams of home-cooked meals metastasize into nightmares of cannibalism? Why would anyone volunteer to find out?In The Great Starvation Experiment, historian Todd Tucker tells the harrowing story of thirty-six young men who willingly and bravely faced down profound, consuming hunger. As conscientious objectors during World War II, these men were eager to help in the war effort but restricted from combat by their pacifist beliefs. So, instead, they volunteered to become guinea pigs in one of the most unusual experiments in medical history -- one that required a year of systematic starvation.Dr. Ancel Keys was already famous for inventing the K ration when the War Department asked for his help with feeding the starving citizens of Europe and the Far East at the war's end. Fascists and Communists, it was feared, could gain a foothold in war-ravaged areas. "Starved people," Keys liked to say, "can't be taught Democracy." The government needed to know the best way to rehabilitate those people who had been severely underfed during the long war. To study rehabilitation, Keys first needed to create a pool of starving test subjects. Gathered in a cutting-edge lab underneath the football stadium at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Keys' test subjects forsook most food and were monitored constantly so that Dr. Keys and his scientists could study the effects of starvation on otherwise healthy people. While the weight loss of the men followed a neat mathematical curve, the psychological deterioration was less predictable. Some men drank quarts and quarts of water to fill their empty stomachs. One man chewed as many as forty packs of gum a day. One man mutilated himself to escape the experiment. Ultimately only four of the men were expelled from the experiment for cheating -- a testament to the volunteers' determination and toughness.To prevent atrocities of the kind committed by the Nazi doctors, international law now prevents this kind of experimentation on healthy people. But in this remarkable book, Todd Tucker captures a lost sliver of American history -- a time when cold scientific principles collided with living, breathing human beings. Tucker depicts the agony and endurance of a group of extraordinary men whose lives were altered not only for the year they participated in the experiment, but forever.

Outstanding Debut Novel from an Author to Watch Kaine Prescott is no stranger to death. When her husband died two years ago, her pleas for further investigation into his suspicious death fell on deaf ears. In desperate need of a fresh start, Kaine purchases an old house sight unseen in her...  more

Outstanding Debut Novel from an Author to Watch Kaine Prescott is no stranger to death. When her husband died two years ago, her pleas for further investigation into his suspicious death fell on deaf ears. In desperate need of a fresh start, Kaine purchases an old house sight unseen in her grandfather's Wisconsin hometown. But one look at the eerie, abandoned house immediately leaves her questioning her rash decision. And when the house's dark history comes back with a vengeance, Kaine is forced to face the terrifying realization she has nowhere left to hide. A century earlier, the house on Foster Hill holds nothing but painful memories for Ivy Thorpe. When an unidentified woman is found dead on the property, Ivy is compelled to discover her identity. Ivy's search leads her into dangerous waters and, even as she works together with a man from her past, can she unravel the mystery before any other lives-- including her own--are lost?

When writer and intrepid traveler Sarah Woods set about discovering the jungles of Central and South America, her quest took her into some of the most remote tangles of vine-knotted jungles on the planet. In Panama's rain-soaked Chiriquí highlands, she navigated seemingly impassable trails with...  more

When writer and intrepid traveler Sarah Woods set about discovering the jungles of Central and South America, her quest took her into some of the most remote tangles of vine-knotted jungles on the planet. In Panama's rain-soaked Chiriquí highlands, she navigated seemingly impassable trails with a machete to reach quetzals with resplendent jewel-tone plumage. Sarah sought the native wisdom of the indigenous Embera, deep in the Darien Jungle, in order to encounter the world's largest and most powerful birds of prey-the elusive harpy eagle. Using razor-sharp talons to hunt and kill sloths and monkeys with deadly precision, these mammoth, winged dinosaurs hide a lesser-known, softer side: devoting great care to raising their young for the first two years of their lives. Seldom seen in the wild, Sarah struggled to demystify the fear-riddled legends and superstitions that earned the harpy eagle its name from early explorers. Her voyage taught her much about the rich glories and mesmerizing spectacle of the natural world and also its challenges and dangers. She met the albino "moon children" of Kuna Yala, swam in the Panama Canal, encountered left-wing guerrillas at the heart of Colombia's five-decade conflict, and witnessed Amazonian beliefs and customs surrounding shape-shifting and the jungle afterlife. Sarah survived landslides, crash landings, mammoth floods, and culture clashes in mysterious untrodden lands, learning much about aspects of herself from the incredible wildlife and tribal peoples she encountered-arguably her biggest journey.

A taut psychological thriller in the vein of The Good Girl by Mary Kubica. Clare is on the run. From her past, from her husband, and from her own secrets. When she turns up alone in the remote mining town of Blackmore asking about Shayna Fowles, the local girl who disappeared, everyone wants...  more

A taut psychological thriller in the vein of The Good Girl by Mary Kubica. Clare is on the run. From her past, from her husband, and from her own secrets. When she turns up alone in the remote mining town of Blackmore asking about Shayna Fowles, the local girl who disappeared, everyone wants to know who Clare really is and what she?s hiding. As it turns out, she?s hiding a lot, including what ties her to Shayna in the first place. But everyone in this place is hiding something?from Jared, Shayna?s secretive ex-husband, to Charlie, the charming small-town drug pusher, to Derek, Shayna?s overly involved family doctor, to Louise and Wilfred, her distraught parents. Did Shayna flee? Was she killed? Is it possible she?s still alive? As Clare uncovers the mysteries around Shayna?s disappearance, she must confront her own demons, moving us deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of lies and making us question what it is she?s really running from. Twisting and electrifying, this is a get-under-your-skin thriller that will make you question what it means to lose yourself and find yourself in the most unlikely places.

A moray eel diagnosed with anorexia? A herd of bison whose only hope is a crusading female doctor from Paris? A vet desperately trying to save an orphaned whale by unraveling the mystery of her mother's death? This fascinating book offers a rare glimpse into the world of exotic animals and...  more

A moray eel diagnosed with anorexia? A herd of bison whose only hope is a crusading female doctor from Paris? A vet desperately trying to save an orphaned whale by unraveling the mystery of her mother's death? This fascinating book offers a rare glimpse into the world of exotic animals and the doctors who care for them. Here pioneering zoological veterinarians -- men and women on the cutting edge of a new medical frontier -- tell real-life tales of daring procedures for patients weighing tons or ounces, treating symptoms ranging from broken bones to a broken heart, and life-and-death dramas that will forever change the way you think about wild animals and the bonds we share with them. From a root canal on a three-thousand pound hippo to one doctor's heartbreaking effort to save a critically ill lemur, here are acts of rescue, kindness, and cross-disciplinary cooperation between zoo vets and other top scientists. We meet highly trained specialists racing against time and circumstance to save the lives of some of the most exotic animals in the world. Shoes designed for racehorses help a rhinoceros with a debilitating foot disease. A kangaroo survives spinal surgery performed by a leading human doctor. These unforgettable stories capture the bonds that develop between vets and their animal patients, the ingenious measures many vets have tried, and the remarkable new insights modern medical technology is giving us into the physiology and behaviors of wild animals. At once heart-quickening and clinically fascinating, the stories in this remarkable collection represent some of the most moving and unusual cases ever taken on by zoological vets. The Rhino with Glue-on Shoes is  a  chronicle of discovery, compassion, and cutting-edge medicine.

Greenland Township, Michigan: On the same acres where farmers once displaced Potawatomi Indians, suburban developers now supplant farmers and prefab homes spring up in last year's cornfields. All along Q Road -- or "Queer Road," as the locals call it -- the old, rural life collides...  more

Greenland Township, Michigan: On the same acres where farmers once displaced Potawatomi Indians, suburban developers now supplant farmers and prefab homes spring up in last year's cornfields. All along Q Road -- or "Queer Road," as the locals call it -- the old, rural life collides weirdly with the new. With a cast of lovingly rendered eccentrics and a powerful sense of place, Q Road is a lively tale of nature and human desire that alters the landscape of contemporary fiction.  

One of the most beloved novels of our time, Richard Adams's Watership Down takes us to a world we have never truly seen: to the remarkable life that teems in the fields, forests and riverbanks far beyond our cities and towns. It is a powerful saga of courage, leadership and survival; an epic...  more

One of the most beloved novels of our time, Richard Adams's Watership Down takes us to a world we have never truly seen: to the remarkable life that teems in the fields, forests and riverbanks far beyond our cities and towns. It is a powerful saga of courage, leadership and survival; an epic tale of a hardy band of adventurers forced to flee the destruction of their fragile community...and their trials and triumphs in the face of extraordinary adversity as they pursue a glorious dream called "home." Watership Down is a remarkable tale of exile and survival, of heroism and leadership...the epic novel of a group of adventurers who desert their doomed city, and venture forth against all odds on a quest for a new home, a sturdier future,

Return Again to the Warren for the All-New Adventures of Fiver, Hazel, BigWig, Dandelion, and The Legendary El-Ahrairah. In one of the most enduring classics of contemporary literature, author Richard Adams enthralled millions of readers by creating a glorious world of danger and discovery at...  more

Return Again to the Warren for the All-New Adventures of Fiver, Hazel, BigWig, Dandelion, and The Legendary El-Ahrairah. In one of the most enduring classics of contemporary literature, author Richard Adams enthralled millions of readers by creating a glorious world of danger and discovery at once uniquely strange and strikingly similar to our own. Come back now to this remarkable society hidden beneath the tall grasses and open fields; to old friends and new heroes whose courage and tenacity are tested at every turn by predatory nature and the short-sighted cruelties of man. Come back to the excitement and enchantment, to the heartsoaring wonder of a place called Watership Down.

1958 was the year life came into focus for Lisa Sharp. Her mother, newly divorced, began the move from California to the San Rafael Cattle Company, a 22,000-acre cattle ranch south of Patagonia, Arizona. Leaving the city life behind, Lisa and her family traded paved roads, dependable...  more

1958 was the year life came into focus for Lisa Sharp. Her mother, newly divorced, began the move from California to the San Rafael Cattle Company, a 22,000-acre cattle ranch south of Patagonia, Arizona. Leaving the city life behind, Lisa and her family traded paved roads, dependable electricity, and telephones for wide open spaces, prairie grass, horses, and cattle. Most eight-year-olds would have been homesick. When she first walked into the ranch corrals, "I became a part of that world as easily as that first shoot of spring grass. . . . I was home." A Slow Trot Home stitches together vignettes about the author's mother, ranching, cowboys, and a love of the land that is passed down through generations. With poignant reflections on ranch living along the US/Mexico border, Lisa resurrects an era that, for so many of us, endures only as a memory.

It's hardly a surprise to discover that twenty-two year old Sam Branson has a love of adventure and a real concern about our future in a world threatened by rapid climate change. Journeying into the heart of the Arctic wilderness with his father and a film crew, Sam explores the changing...  more

It's hardly a surprise to discover that twenty-two year old Sam Branson has a love of adventure and a real concern about our future in a world threatened by rapid climate change. Journeying into the heart of the Arctic wilderness with his father and a film crew, Sam explores the changing landscape and the lives of the native Inuit people who have survived in a relentlessly inhospitable environment for 5,000 years. Sleeping on frozen seas and encountering majestic polar bears, Sam and his father embark together on a winter expedition, which Sam must ultimately complete on his own, finding new depths of resilience and courage in a formidable and breathtaking landscape.

A lyrical, evocative and wonderfully original wartime memoir about life on a farm in the Cotswolds, seen through the eyes of a child. Bertie, May and Mrs Fish is Xandra Bingley's account of her childhood on a Cotswold farm, set against the backdrop of the Second World War and its aftermath....  more

A lyrical, evocative and wonderfully original wartime memoir about life on a farm in the Cotswolds, seen through the eyes of a child. Bertie, May and Mrs Fish is Xandra Bingley's account of her childhood on a Cotswold farm, set against the backdrop of the Second World War and its aftermath. Bingley's mother is left to farm the land whilst her husband is away at war, isolated in the landscape. With its eccentric cast of characters, this book captures both the essence of a country childhood and the remarkable courage and resilience displayed by ordinary people during the war. The beauty and sensitivity of Bingley's observation is artfully balanced by the harshness and grit of her reality. 'In the cowshed my mother ties her hair in a topknot scarf that lies on the feedbin lid. At five thirty each morning and four o'clock in the afternoons she chases rats off the mangers. She measures cowcake and rolled oats and opens the bottom cowshed door. Thirty-one brown and white Ayrshires and one brindle Jersey tramp into their stalls...Two thousand acres. A mile of valley. Horses cattle sheep pigs poultry. Snow above the lintels of the downstairs windows. Her fingers swelling. Chilblains. Her long white kid gloves wrapped around a leaky pipe in her bedroom. Knotted at the fingers. She has a lot to learn and no one to teach her. Accidents happen.' Bingley tells her tale in a startling voice which captures the universe of a child, the unforgiving landscape and the complicated adult world surrounding her: Her acute observation, and her emotional, sensual descriptive gift for place, people, sound, and touch make this a brilliantly authentic and evocative portrait.

Yukon Lady is the unforgettable story of one woman's courage and resourcefulness in the face of unexpected challenges. It is a story of both tears and laughter as a timid girl faces a harsh climate, a life of danger and a tragic sorrow. This is an entertaining as well as inspiring account of...  more

Yukon Lady is the unforgettable story of one woman's courage and resourcefulness in the face of unexpected challenges. It is a story of both tears and laughter as a timid girl faces a harsh climate, a life of danger and a tragic sorrow. This is an entertaining as well as inspiring account of a lone woman's adventures in the North.

With the quiet precision of Jane Smiley?s A Thousand Acres and the technical clarity of Mary Roach?s Stiff, this is a novel about a young woman who comes most alive while working in her father?s mortuary in a small, forgotten Western town."The dead come to me vulnerable, sharing their stories...  more

With the quiet precision of Jane Smiley?s A Thousand Acres and the technical clarity of Mary Roach?s Stiff, this is a novel about a young woman who comes most alive while working in her father?s mortuary in a small, forgotten Western town."The dead come to me vulnerable, sharing their stories and secrets . . . "Mary Crampton has spent all of her thirty years in Petroleum, a small Western town once supported by a powerful grain company. Living at home, she works as the embalmer in her father?s mortuary: an unlikely job that has long marked her as an outsider. Yet, to Mary there is a satisfying art to positioning and styling each body to capture the essence of a subject?s life.Though some townsfolk pretend that the community is thriving, the truth is that Petroleum is crumbling away?a process that began twenty years ago when an accident in the grain elevator killed a beloved high school athlete. The mill closed for good, the train no longer stopped in town, and Robert Golden, the victim?s younger brother, was widely blamed for the tragedy and shipped off to live elsewhere. Now, out of the blue, Robert has returned to care for his terminally ill mother. After Mary?reserved, introspective, and deeply lonely?strikes up an unlikely friendship with him, shocking the locals, she finally begins to consider what might happen if she dared to leave Petroleum.Set in America?s heartland, The Flicker of Old Dreams explores themes of resilience, redemption, and loyalty in prose as lyrical as it is powerful.   

Lucy Price is living the American dream. She has been married to her successful husband and businessman, Edward Price for a year and couldn?t be happier until she learns that Eddie is a dangerously ruthless man, heavily involved in illegal activities that threaten not only her marriage, but her...  more

Lucy Price is living the American dream. She has been married to her successful husband and businessman, Edward Price for a year and couldn?t be happier until she learns that Eddie is a dangerously ruthless man, heavily involved in illegal activities that threaten not only her marriage, but her life. Eddie abruptly disappears, but not before warning Lucy that if she wants to keep breathing she'd better keep her mouth shut. Six months later, word of her husband surfaces when she learns that he is presumed murdered in a small Texas town, apparently killed by his ?wife?, Marlowe Price.Marlowe is no stranger to trouble. An outcast in her own community for being one of those "hoodoo women," who can curse you or cast you under her beguiling spell, Marlowe is shunned at every turn. Six months ago, a whirlwind romance in Mexico led Marlowe to marry the man she thought she?d spend the rest of her life with. For Marlowe and Eddie, there is no such thing as trouble in paradise. But late one night, when Marlowe witnesses her husband putting the body of a dead man in the trunk of his car, the illusion comes crashing down around her and she knows she has to move fast before the devil comes calling once again.Now, Lucy and Marlowe must come together to find out where and who Eddie really is, and help each other through the threat he poses. There's nothing more dangerous than a woman scorned...except for two women scorned who are willing to put their pasts behind them and band together to take one bad man down...

A dark and unexpected novel about a Dublin undertaker who finds himself on the wrong side of the Irish mob. Paddy Buckley is a grieving widower who has worked for years for Gallagher?s, a long-established?some say the best?funeral home in Dublin. One night driving home after an unexpected...  more

A dark and unexpected novel about a Dublin undertaker who finds himself on the wrong side of the Irish mob. Paddy Buckley is a grieving widower who has worked for years for Gallagher?s, a long-established?some say the best?funeral home in Dublin. One night driving home after an unexpected encounter with a client, Paddy hits a pedestrian crossing the street. He pulls over and gets out of his car, intending to do the right thing. As he bends over to help the man, he recognizes him. It?s Donal Cullen, brother of one of the most notorious mobsters in Dublin. And he?s dead. Shocked and scared, Paddy jumps back in his car and drives away before anyone notices what?s happened. The next morning, the Cullen family calls Gallagher?s to oversee the funeral arrangements. Paddy, to his dismay, is given the task of meeting with the grieving Vincent Cullen, Dublin?s crime boss, and Cullen?s entourage. When events go awry, Paddy is plunged into an unexpected eddy of intrigue, deceit, and treachery. By turns a thriller, a love story, and a black comedy of ill manners, The Last Four Days of Paddy Buckley is a surprising, compulsively readable debut novel. From the Hardcover edition.

A riveting historical art mystery for fans of Chasing Vermeer and The Westing Game, set in the Roaring Twenties! It’s 1929, and twelve-year-old Martha has no choice but to work as a maid in the New York City mansion of the wealthy Sewell family. But, despite the...  more

A riveting historical art mystery for fans of Chasing Vermeer and The Westing Game, set in the Roaring Twenties! It’s 1929, and twelve-year-old Martha has no choice but to work as a maid in the New York City mansion of the wealthy Sewell family. But, despite the Gatsby-like parties and trimmings of success, she suspects something might be deeply wrong in the household -- specifically with Rose Sewell, the formerly vivacious lady of the house who now refuses to leave her room. The other servants say Rose is crazy, but scrappy, strong-willed Martha thinks there’s more to the story -- and that the paintings in the Sewell’s gallery contain a hidden message detailing the truth. But in a house filled with secrets, nothing is quite what it seems, and no one is who they say. Can Martha follow the clues, decipher the code, and solve the mystery of what’s really going on with Rose Sewell . . . ? Inspired by true events described in the author’s fascinating note, The Gallery is a 1920s caper told with humor and spunk that readers will love.  

Dane Kirby is a broken man and no stranger to tragedy. As a life-long resident and ex-arson investigator for McFalls County, Dane has lived his life in one of the most chaotic and crime-ridden regions of the south. When he gets called in to consult on a brutal murder in a Jacksonville, Florida,...  more

Dane Kirby is a broken man and no stranger to tragedy. As a life-long resident and ex-arson investigator for McFalls County, Dane has lived his life in one of the most chaotic and crime-ridden regions of the south. When he gets called in to consult on a brutal murder in a Jacksonville, Florida, motel room, he and his FBI counterpart, Special Agent Roselita Velasquez, begin an investigation that leads them back to the criminal circles of his own backyard. Arnie Blackwell's murder in Jacksonville is only the beginning - and Dane and Roselita seem to be one step behind. For someone is hacking a bloody trail throughout the Southeast looking for Arnie's younger brother, a boy with Asperger's Syndrome who possesses an unusual skill with numbers that could make a lot of money and that has already gotten a lot of people killed -- and has even more of the deadliest people alive willing to do anything it takes to exploit him. As Dane joins in the hunt to find the boy, it swiftly becomes a race against the clock that has Dane entangled in a web of secrets involving everyone from the Filipino Mafia to distrusting federal agents to some of hardest southern outlaws he's ever known.

THE ONLY WAY  A home provides more than comfort and shelter. It stores memories . . . and hides secrets. Divorcee Caitlin Stoller and her children recently moved into a charming old Tudor-style house in the coastal town of Echo, Washington. The place was a bargain, but as weeks pass,...  more

THE ONLY WAY  A home provides more than comfort and shelter. It stores memories . . . and hides secrets. Divorcee Caitlin Stoller and her children recently moved into a charming old Tudor-style house in the coastal town of Echo, Washington. The place was a bargain, but as weeks pass, Caitlin starts receiving messages first friendly, then unsettling, hinting at the property s dark past . . .  YOU'LL STAY ALIVE  Caitlin's teenage daughter, Lindsay, isn't fitting in at school. To make matters worse, there are stories about local high school students who've disappeared without a trace all star athletes, like Lindsay. Then there are the rumors that their new home is cursed. Caitlin doesn't want to believe the whispers, but something strange is going on. Personal items go missing, and there are too many accidents . . .  IS IF HE NEVER FINDS YOU  The Watcher knows how to get inside the Stollers' home and inside their heads. The rumors are true . . . but the full horror is even worse. There's no escaping the nightmare that started here long ago, and no place to hide from a killer who knows exactly how this story will end.

From an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, ?a wonderfully smooth, sinuous, enigmatic, and sexy tale of two love affairs? (Providence Journal) set in Amherst and illuminated by the presence of Emily Dickinson. Alice Dickinson, a young advertising executive in London, decides to take time off work to...  more

From an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, ?a wonderfully smooth, sinuous, enigmatic, and sexy tale of two love affairs? (Providence Journal) set in Amherst and illuminated by the presence of Emily Dickinson. Alice Dickinson, a young advertising executive in London, decides to take time off work to research her idea for a screenplay: the true story of the scandalous, adulterous love affair between Emily Dickinson?s married brother, Austin, and a young, Amherst College faculty wife named Mabel Loomis Todd. Austin, twenty-four years Mabel?s senior and the college treasurer, lived next door to his reclusive sister, who allowed her home to be used for Austin and Mabel?s trysts. Alice travels to Amherst, staying in the house of Nick Crocker, a married English academic in his fifties. As Alice researches Austin and Mabel?s story and Emily?s role in their affair, she embarks on her own affair with Nick, an affair that, of course, they both know echoes the one that she?s writing about. Using the poems of Emily Dickinson throughout, historically accurate and meticulously recreated from their voluminous letters and diaries, ?William Nicholson deftly weaves Mabel?s story with Alice?s, shedding light on the timeless longing, lust, and loneliness of love? (People). Amherst is a provocative and remarkable novel: ?The poetry and history go down easy, the lovers fall hard, and the tragic, treacherous terrain of romantic entanglement is well explored? (Elle).

The final book by one of America’s most treasured writers. Upon his passing in January 2017, Howard Frank Mosher was recognized as one of America’s most acclaimed writers. His fiction set in the world of Vermont’s fabled Northeast Kingdom chronicles the intertwining family...  more

The final book by one of America’s most treasured writers. Upon his passing in January 2017, Howard Frank Mosher was recognized as one of America’s most acclaimed writers. His fiction set in the world of Vermont’s fabled Northeast Kingdom chronicles the intertwining family histories of the natives, wanderers, outcasts, and others who settled in this ethereal place. In its obituary, The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Mosher’s fictional Kingdom County, Vt., became his New England version of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County.” In Points North, completed just weeks before his death, Mosher presents a brilliant, lovingly-evoked collection of stories that center around the Kinneson family, ranging over decades of their history in the Kingdom. From a loquacious itinerant preacher who beguiles the reticent farmers and shopkeepers of a small New England town, to a proposed dam that threatens the river that Kinneson men have fished for generations, the scandalous secret of a romance and its violent consequences, and a young man’s seemingly fruitless search for love—Points North is a full-hearted, gently-comic, and beautifully-written last gift to the readers who treasure Howard Frank Mosher. Points North -- Where is Don Quixote? -- Good Sam Merryton -- Sisters -- Friendship in Indiana -- Kingdom of heaven -- Lonely hearts -- Dispossessed -- What Pliny knew -- The songbirds of Vermont

A video call between friends captures a shocking incident no one was supposed to see. The secrets it exposes threaten to change their lives forever. Molly and Liza have always been enviably close. Even after Molly married Daniel, the couple considered Liza an honorary family member. But...  more

A video call between friends captures a shocking incident no one was supposed to see. The secrets it exposes threaten to change their lives forever. Molly and Liza have always been enviably close. Even after Molly married Daniel, the couple considered Liza an honorary family member. But after Liza moved away, things grew more strained than anyone wanted to admit -- in the friendship and the marriage. When Daniel goes away on business, Molly and Liza plan to reconnect with a nice long video chat after the kids are in bed. But then Molly leaves the room to check on a crying child. What Liza sees next will change everything. Only one thing is certain: Molly needs her. Liza drives all night to be at Molly’s side -- but when she arrives, the reception is icy, leaving Liza baffled and hurt. She knows there’s no denying what she saw. Or is there? In disbelief that their friendship could really be over, Liza is unaware she’s about to have a near miss of her own. And Molly, refusing to deal with what’s happened, won’t turn to Daniel, either. But none of them can go on pretending. Not after this.

Fifty years after Isaac's Storm, a riveting story of the first Hurricane Hunters, and the one crew who paid the ultimate price. "In a virtual age when tempests are monitored by global positioning and The Weather Channel, Stormchasers reminds us that our first understanding of hurricanes was...  more

Fifty years after Isaac's Storm, a riveting story of the first Hurricane Hunters, and the one crew who paid the ultimate price. "In a virtual age when tempests are monitored by global positioning and The Weather Channel, Stormchasers reminds us that our first understanding of hurricanes was directly built on the risks and sacrifices of living, breathing heroes," writes Hampton Sides (author of Ghost Soldiers). In September 1955, Navy Lieutenant Commander Grover B. Windham and a crew of eight flew out of Guantánamo Bay into the eye of Hurricane Janet swirling in the Caribbean: a routine weather reconnaissance mission from which they never returned. In the wake of World War II, the Air Force and the Navy had discovered a new civilian arena where daring pilots could test their courage and skill. These Hurricane Hunters flew into raging storms to gauge their strength and predict their paths. Without computer, global positioning, or satellite support, they relied on rudimentary radar systems to locate the hurricane's eye and estimated the drift of their aircraft by looking at windblown waves below. Drawing from Navy documents and interviews with members of the squadron and relatives of the crew, Stormchasers reconstructs the ill-fated mission of Windham's crew from preflight checks to the chilling moment of their final transmission. 8 b/w photographs.

While father and son fishing trips can be the stuff of American legend, they can also turn out to be the stuff of anger, love and self-discovery. In his memoir of a fishing trip through the Alaskan wilderness, Lou Ureneck brings to life the struggle to reclaim the trust of his teenage son,...  more

While father and son fishing trips can be the stuff of American legend, they can also turn out to be the stuff of anger, love and self-discovery. In his memoir of a fishing trip through the Alaskan wilderness, Lou Ureneck brings to life the struggle to reclaim the trust of his teenage son, Adam, following his divorce. Along the way, nature transforms from friend into foe, and their struggles are played out against the poignant emotional battle raging between the two as they descend the river headed toward confrontation. On their journey, the two encounter nature?s dangers ? bears, violent river currents and ruthless, punishing weather ? as well as the hurts that exist between them, the reasons for divorce, the absence of a father and the withheld love of a son. Dipping his hand into the river of his own life, Ureneck recounts his own fatherless childhood, the influence of his mother?s boyfriend who helped him learn to fish, and the realization that he himself had done the one thing he always promised himself he would not do: He ended his marriage in divorce. Part adventure story, part reconciliation with life?s unexpected turns, and part commentary on the healing power of nature, Backcast explores the world of a man confronted by the hard choices divorce can bring to create a moving meditation on fatherhood.

Mike Tidwell knew nothing of the disappearing bayou country when he first visited the Cajun coast of Louisiana, but the evidence was all around him: the skeletons of oak trees killed by the salinity of the groundwater, whole cemeteries sinking into swampland and out of sight, telephone poles in...  more

Mike Tidwell knew nothing of the disappearing bayou country when he first visited the Cajun coast of Louisiana, but the evidence was all around him: the skeletons of oak trees killed by the salinity of the groundwater, whole cemeteries sinking into swampland and out of sight, telephone poles in deep, standing water. Thanks to human hands, the storied Louisiana coast was eroding, subsiding, and joining the Gulf of Mexico—-making it the fastest disappearing landmass on Earth. Yet no one seemed to know how to talk about the problem. Tidwell, a celebrated travel and environmental writer, decided to begin the much-needed conversation, and this vivid, elegiac book is the result.Tidwell introduces us to the surprisingly varied population of the area: the Cajun men and women who work the seasonal shrimp harvest, the Vietnamese fishermen, the Houma Indians driven to the farthest ends of the bayou by the first European settlers. He describes the food, the music, the culture, and the life of all those who live along the bayous. And under his keenly observant eye, the bayou itself becomes a compelling character—-reminding us of how much we stand to lose if we fail to address the problems facing this most vibrant of places.Part travelogue, part environmental exposé, Bayou Farewell is the richly evocative chronicle of the author's travels through a place and a way of life that are vanishing virtually before our eyes.From the Hardcover edition.

Reed Timmer, a star of the top rated Storm Chasers on the Discovery Channel is one of the most successful and most extreme storm chasers in the world. His is a job that requires science and bravado, knowledge and instinct just to survive, never mind excel. Now, in Into the Storm, he takes...  more

Reed Timmer, a star of the top rated Storm Chasers on the Discovery Channel is one of the most successful and most extreme storm chasers in the world. His is a job that requires science and bravado, knowledge and instinct just to survive, never mind excel. Now, in Into the Storm, he takes readers inside the terrifying and awe-inspiring world of big weather. Published to coincide with the fourth season's premiere, Into the Storm is Timmer's dramatic account of his extraordinary profession. Featuring stories of the three-hundred-plus extreme tornados, hurricanes, or blizzards that Timmer has watched ring-side over the last decade-storms that include the killer F5 tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma, in May 1999; the unprecedented, devastating storm surge of Hurricane Katrina; and the little-studied but enormously powerful storm systems in places like Canada and Argentina. As a Ph.D. candidate in meteorology, Timmer is after more than just an adrenaline rush-his stories feature fascinating insights into the science of storms, and how the data he is collecting will could possibly save lives. With a firsthand perspective on the storm-chasing community, Timmer also takes readers inside this world, examining his controversial obsession and the ethical debates it sparks. Featuring the same you-are-there immediacy that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors to Timmer's web site tornadovideos.net, every month, Into the Storm is one wild-and informative-ride.

Richly textured and deeply moving, Farm chronicles a year in the life of Tom and Sally Bauer of Crevecoeur County, Missouri, who cultivate nearly two square miles of the surface of the earth. They struggle to build up their farm, harvesting corn, birthing calves, planting wheat, coping with the...  more

Richly textured and deeply moving, Farm chronicles a year in the life of Tom and Sally Bauer of Crevecoeur County, Missouri, who cultivate nearly two square miles of the surface of the earth. They struggle to build up their farm, harvesting corn, birthing calves, planting wheat, coping with the vagaries of nature and government regulations. Required of them are ancient skills (an attunement to the weather, animals, crops, and land) as well as a mastery of modern technology, from high-tech machinery to genetics and sophisticated chemicals.

Walking in the Sacred Manner is an exploration of the myths and culture of the Plains Indians, for whom the everyday and the spiritual are intertwined and women play a strong and important role in the spiritual and religious life of the community.Based on extensive first-person interviews by an...  more

Walking in the Sacred Manner is an exploration of the myths and culture of the Plains Indians, for whom the everyday and the spiritual are intertwined and women play a strong and important role in the spiritual and religious life of the community.Based on extensive first-person interviews by an established expert on Plains Indian women, Walking in the Sacred Manner is a singular and authentic record of the participation of women in the sacred traditions of Northern Plains tribes, including Lakota, Cheyenne, Crow, and Assiniboine.Through interviews with holy women and the families of women healers, Mark St. Pierre and Tilda Long Soldier paint a rich and varied portrait of a society and its traditions. Stereotypical images of the Native American drop away as the voices, dreams, and experiences of these women (both healers and healed) present insight into a culture about which little is known. It is a journey into the past, an exploration of the present, and a view full of hope for the future.

First in a spectacular new series about two brother lawyers who lease offices on London's Baker Street -- and begin receiving mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes. In Los Angeles, a geological surveyor maps out a proposed subway route -- and then goes missing. His eight-year-old daughter in...  more

First in a spectacular new series about two brother lawyers who lease offices on London's Baker Street -- and begin receiving mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes. In Los Angeles, a geological surveyor maps out a proposed subway route -- and then goes missing. His eight-year-old daughter in her desperation turns to the one person she thinks might help -- she writes a letter to Sherlock Holmes.That letter creates an uproar at 221b Baker Street, which now houses the law offices of attorney and man about town Reggie Heath and his hapless brother Nigel. Instead of filing the letter like he's supposed to, Nigel decides to investigate. Soon he's flying off to L.A., inconsiderately leaving a very dead body on the floor in his office. Big brother Reggie follows Nigel to California, as does Reggie's sometime lover, Laura -- a quick-witted stage actress who's captured the hearts of both brothers. When Nigel is arrested, Reggie must use all his wits to solve a case that Sherlock Holmes would have savored, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fans will adore.

Somewhere near the bottom edge of the earth, Margaret Winslow attempts to balance on a slippery rock ledge. With her back pressed against an overhanging cliff face, her arms too weak to climb, and the tide rising at an alarming rate, there is nowhere to go. So how did she come to be alone on a...  more

Somewhere near the bottom edge of the earth, Margaret Winslow attempts to balance on a slippery rock ledge. With her back pressed against an overhanging cliff face, her arms too weak to climb, and the tide rising at an alarming rate, there is nowhere to go. So how did she come to be alone on a sinking knife edge in Tierra del Fuego, halfway between the Beagle Channel and Cape Horn, seven thousand miles from New York? In her fascinating travel memoir, Winslow offers a compelling glimpse into her misadventures as an inexperienced geologist as she begins pioneering field research in southern South America. Beginning in the mid-1970s, Winslow details her unforgettable experiences that include clinging to a ledge alone as the tide rises over her boot tops, facing near-death experiences with killer whales, and encountering an antediluvian creature with a cavernous mouth and yellow teeth-all while tracing her evolution from an ill-prepared beginner to a competent leader. Over My Head captures one woman's historic journeys into uncharted fjords and trackless forests as she attempts to navigate through the almost exclusively male world of field geology and discovers she must learn to rely on her own inner compass in order to survive.

Pulitzer Prize finalist and former Wall Street Journal writer Ken Wells set out on America's mighty River of Beer (aka the Mississippi) in a quest for his own Oz: the mythical Perfect Beer Joint. Along the way he samples great beer with the Heartland's raconteurs, probes Elvis's beer-drinking...  more

Pulitzer Prize finalist and former Wall Street Journal writer Ken Wells set out on America's mighty River of Beer (aka the Mississippi) in a quest for his own Oz: the mythical Perfect Beer Joint. Along the way he samples great beer with the Heartland's raconteurs, probes Elvis's beer-drinking habits, drops in on brewers and hopheads, tours the World's Largest Six-Pack and a bar once owned by Al Capone, and visits an Extreme Beer Maker whose dream is 50-proof brew. This is a vision of America that readers have never seen before -- through the frosty prism of a beer glass.

The true story of ten tough and tattooed bikers who rescue animals in danger. Using their combined 1700 pounds of muscle, Joe, Johnny O, Batso, Big Ant, G, Angel, Eric, Des, Bruce and Robert stop at nothing within the bounds of the law to save animals, be they furred, feathered, or scaled,...  more

The true story of ten tough and tattooed bikers who rescue animals in danger. Using their combined 1700 pounds of muscle, Joe, Johnny O, Batso, Big Ant, G, Angel, Eric, Des, Bruce and Robert stop at nothing within the bounds of the law to save animals, be they furred, feathered, or scaled, from life-or-death situations throughout the New York City metropolitan area. Working from tips from concerned neighbors and anonymous sources, they have rescued countless animals, including a dognapped bulldog and 180 cats from the home of a hoarder. In between rescues, they've protested the barbaric practices of a horse slaughterhouse, visited schools to educate children about animal kindness and that abusers are losers, and participated in Puppy Mill Awareness Day in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Former Newsday writer Denise Flaim chronicles their adventurous tales, detailing just what these brawny bikers, who will stop at nothing within the bounds of the law, can teach us all about respecting the creatures in our midst.

A scientific detective story, grippingly told by an award-winning journalist: A mysterious, deadly infection is killing off one of the ocean's most beloved and ancient creatures. Why? And what does it mean about the fate of the oceans? Sea turtles have existed since the time of the dinosaurs....  more

A scientific detective story, grippingly told by an award-winning journalist: A mysterious, deadly infection is killing off one of the ocean's most beloved and ancient creatures. Why? And what does it mean about the fate of the oceans? Sea turtles have existed since the time of the dinosaurs. But now they are dying, ravaged by a gruesome plague that some biologists consider the most serious epidemic now raging in the natural world. What is happening to the sea turtle, and how can it be stopped? Osha Gray Davidson tracks the fervent efforts of extraordinary scientists, marine biologists, veterinarians, and others racing against the clock to unravel this complicated biological and environmental puzzle and keep the turtles from extinction. He dives with Ursula Keuper-Bennett, a schoolteacher whose relationship with a Hawaiian turtle changed her life and led to major discoveries about turtle social life and communication, and visits eminent sea turtle scientist George Balasz. He follows the fates of particular turtles, revealing their surprisingly distinct personalities and why they inspire an almost spiritual devotion in the humans who come to know them. He also explores through vivid historical examples the history of our relationship to the sea, opening a window onto the role humans play in marine die-offs and extinctions. Beautifully written, intellectually provocative, ultimately terrifying, Fire in the Turtle House reveals how emerging diseases wreaking havoc in the global ocean pose an enormous, direct threat to humanity. This is science journalism at its best.

One fall morning Jerry Ellis donned a backpack and began a long, lonely walk: retracing the Cherokee Trail of Tears, the nine hundred miles his ancestors had walked in 1838. The trail was the agonizing path of exile the Cherokees had been forced to take when they were torn from their...  more

One fall morning Jerry Ellis donned a backpack and began a long, lonely walk: retracing the Cherokee Trail of Tears, the nine hundred miles his ancestors had walked in 1838. The trail was the agonizing path of exile the Cherokees had been forced to take when they were torn from their southeastern homeland and relocated to Indian Territory. Following in their footsteps, Ellis traveled through small southern towns, along winding roads, and amid quiet forests, encountering a memorable array of people who live along the trail today. Along the way he also came to glimpse the pain his ancestors endured and to learn about the true beauty of modern rural life and the worth of a man's character.

From National Book Award finalist Jennifer Egan, author of Look at Me (“Brilliantly unnerving . . . A haunting, sharp, splendidly articulate novel” —The New York Times), a spellbinding work of literary suspense enacted in a chilling psychological landscape—a dazzling tour...  more

From National Book Award finalist Jennifer Egan, author of Look at Me (“Brilliantly unnerving . . . A haunting, sharp, splendidly articulate novel” —The New York Times), a spellbinding work of literary suspense enacted in a chilling psychological landscape—a dazzling tour de force.Two cousins, irreversibly damaged by a childhood prank whose devastating consequences changed both their lives, reunite twenty years later to renovate a medieval castle in Eastern Europe, a castle steeped in blood lore and family pride. Built over a secret system of caves and tunnels, the castle and its violent history invoke and subvert all the elements of a gothic past: twins, a pool, an old baroness, a fearsome tower. In an environment of extreme paranoia, cut off from the outside world, the men reenact the signal event of their youth, with even more catastrophic results. And as the full horror of their predicament unfolds, a prisoner, in jail for an unnamed crime, recounts an unforgettable story—a story about two cousins who unite to renovate a castle—that brings the crimes of the past and present into piercing relation.Egan’s relentlessly gripping page-turner plays with rich forms—ghost story, love story, gothic—and transfixing themes: the undertow of history, the fate of imagination in the cacophony of modern life, the uncanny likeness between communications technology and the supernatural. In a narrative that shifts seamlessly from an ancient European castle to a maximum security prison, Egan conjures a world from which escape is impossible and where the keep—the last stand, the final holdout, the place you run to when the walls are breached—is both everything worth protecting and the very thing that must be surrendered in order to survive.A novel of fierce intelligence and velocity; a bravura performance from a writer of consummate skill and style.

From the award-winning author of There Was an Old Woman comes a riveting tale of domestic noir, infused with old Hollywood folklore and glamour, set in a town rife with egotism and backstabbing and where fame and infamy are often interchangeable.Los Angeles 1986: When Deirdre Unger arrived in...  more

From the award-winning author of There Was an Old Woman comes a riveting tale of domestic noir, infused with old Hollywood folklore and glamour, set in a town rife with egotism and backstabbing and where fame and infamy are often interchangeable.Los Angeles 1986: When Deirdre Unger arrived in Beverly Hills to help her bitter, disappointed father sell his dilapidated house, she discovers his lifeless body floating face down in the swimming pool. At first, Deirdre assumes her father?s death was a tragic accident. But the longer she stays in town, the more she suspects that it is merely the third act in a story that has long been in the making.The sudden re-surfacing of Deirdre?s childhood best friend Joelen Nichol?daughter of the legendary star Elenor ?Bunny? Nichol?seems like more than a coincidence. Back in 1958, Joelen confessed to killing her movie star mother?s boyfriend. Deirdre happened to be at the Nichols house the night of the murder?which was also the night she suffered a personal tragedy of her own. Could all of these events be connected?Her search to find answers forces Deirdre to confront a truth she has long refused to believe: beneath the slick veneer of Beverly Hills lie secrets that someone will kill to keep buried.

As a young child in Naples, Italy, Sergio Esposito sat at his kitchen table observing the daily ritual of his large, loud family bonding over fresh local dishes and simple country wines. While devouring the rich bufala mozzarella, still sopping with milk and salt, and the platters of fresh...  more

As a young child in Naples, Italy, Sergio Esposito sat at his kitchen table observing the daily ritual of his large, loud family bonding over fresh local dishes and simple country wines. While devouring the rich bufala mozzarella, still sopping with milk and salt, and the platters of fresh prosciutto, sliced so thin he could see through it, he absorbed the profound relationship of food, wine, and family in Italian culture.Growing up in Albany, New York, after emigrating there with his family, he always sat next to his uncle Aldo and sipped from his wineglass during their customary hours-long extended family feasts. Thus, from a very early age, Esposito came to associate wine with the warmth of family, the tastes of his mother’s cooking—and, above all, memories of his former life in Italy. When he was in his twenties, he headed for New York and undertook a career in wine, beginning a journey that would culminate in his founding of Italian Wine Merchants, now the leading Italian wine source in America. His career offered him the opportunity to make frequent trips back to Italy to find wine for his clients, to learn the traditions of Italian winemaking, and, in so doing, to rediscover the Italian way of life he’d left behind.Passion on the Vine is Esposito’s intimate and evocative memoir of his colorful family life in Italy, his abrupt transition to life in America, and of his travels into the heart of Italy—its wine country—and the lives of those who inhabit it. The result is a remarkably engaging and entertaining wine/travel narrative replete with vivid portraits of seductive places—the world-famous cellars of Piedmont, the sweeping estates of Tuscany, the lush fields of Campania, the chilly hills of Friuli, the windy beaches of Le Marche; and of memorable people, diverse and vibrant wine artisans—from a disco-dancing vintner who bases his farming on the rhythm of the moon to an obsessive prince who destroys his vineyards before his death so that his grapes will never be used incorrectly.Esposito’s luscious accounts of the wonderful food and wine that are so much a part of Italian life, and his poignant and often hilarious stories of his relationships with his family and Italian friends, make Passion on the Vine an utterly unique and enchanting work about Italy and its eternally seductive lifestyle.

"Time Bandit" recounts the thrilling and amazing adventures of the Hillstrand brothers, maverick fishermen on the Bering Sea and stars of the Discovery Channel's top-rated series, "Deadliest Catch." 8-page color photo insert.

On March 2, 1998, while on her way to school, ten-year-old Natascha Kampusch was abducted. More than eight years later, on August 23, 2006, she escaped with a story that shocked and horrified the entire world. She spent the most delicate years of her life hidden in a cellar underneath an...  more

On March 2, 1998, while on her way to school, ten-year-old Natascha Kampusch was abducted. More than eight years later, on August 23, 2006, she escaped with a story that shocked and horrified the entire world. She spent the most delicate years of her life hidden in a cellar underneath an ordinary Austrian suburban home. How was she able to survive? What sort of woman had emerged? What kind of man was Wolfgang Priklopil, her abductor—and what demands had he made of her? As the days and weeks passed, and Natascha's only TV interview failed to quell the world's curiosity, the questions began to multiply: What exactly was the relationship between the abductor and the hostage? Why had Natascha waited so long to make her bid for freedom when it seemed she had earlier opportunities to do so? Did Natascha's parents know Priklopil before he kidnapped their daughter? Allan Hall and Michael Leidig have covered the story from the first days of the ten-year-old's disappearance, interviewing police investigators, lawyers, psychiatrists, Priklopil's coworkers and the family members closest to Natascha. A work of extraordinary investigative reporting, Girl in the Cellar gets to the heart of this very tragic case to reveal a truth no one would have imagined.

New York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf returns with a chilling page-turner about a woman chasing clues into a decades-old mystery that could have shattering repercussions  Sarah Quinlan's husband, Jack, has been haunted for decades by the untimely death of his mother when he was...  more

New York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf returns with a chilling page-turner about a woman chasing clues into a decades-old mystery that could have shattering repercussions  Sarah Quinlan's husband, Jack, has been haunted for decades by the untimely death of his mother when he was just a teenager, her body found in the cellar of their family farm, the circumstances a mystery. The case rocked the small farm town of Penny Gate, Iowa, where Jack was raised, and for years Jack avoided returning home. But when his beloved aunt Julia is in an accident, hospitalized in a coma, Jack and Sarah are forced to confront the past that they have long evaded.  Upon arriving in Penny Gate, Sarah and Jack are welcomed by the family Jack left behind all those years ago?barely a trace of the wounds that had once devastated them all. But as facts about Julia's accident begin to surface, Sarah realizes that nothing about the Quinlans is what it seems. Caught in a flurry of unanswered questions, Sarah dives deep into the puzzling rabbit hole of Jack's past. But the farther in she climbs, the harder it is for her to get out. And soon she is faced with a deadly truth she may not be prepared for.

Named one of Time Magazine International's 30 most important people of 2005, Maud Fontenoy presents us with a terrific, entertaining adventure story on the high seas as she challenges the Pacific Ocean-a feat no woman before her ever accomplished. Already the first woman to row alone across...  more

Named one of Time Magazine International's 30 most important people of 2005, Maud Fontenoy presents us with a terrific, entertaining adventure story on the high seas as she challenges the Pacific Ocean-a feat no woman before her ever accomplished. Already the first woman to row alone across the North Atlantic, Maud raised the bar to defy the elements, the daunting solitude, and the circling sharks of the South Pacific on her second solo voyage. She overcame all the odds as well as her personal doubts and fears, demonstrating not only her indomitable courage and strength but proving once again that women can conquer the most difficult and treacherous obstacles.

On August 12, 2000, during one of the most important military demonstrations in post-Soviet history, an enormous explosion sank Russia's most prized nuclear submarine, the Kursk. When Vladmir Putin's men failed to rescue the 118 young submariners trapped under the icy Barents Sea and refused...  more

On August 12, 2000, during one of the most important military demonstrations in post-Soviet history, an enormous explosion sank Russia's most prized nuclear submarine, the Kursk. When Vladmir Putin's men failed to rescue the 118 young submariners trapped under the icy Barents Sea and refused timely help from "foreigners" for four days, the Russian president assured his angry nation that all the men had died within minutes of the blasts. An earlier rescue would not have changed anything. Two months later, recovery divers brought up the dead submarine's first twelve bodies, one of which had a soggy note clinging to the burned remnants of his breast pocket. Addressed to his wife, it read: There are twenty-three of us here ... None of us can get to the surface. Let's hope someone will read this. Don't despair. -- Kolesnikov The "Kolesnikov Note" became the cry from the depths of Russia's tormented soul, as an anguished people confronted their government about what matters more -- guarding secrets and pride or protecting human life. What were Russian officials thinking when they waited forty-eight hours to acknowledge that their most treasured submarine was in trouble? Why did they track the desperate tapping noises that seemed to be coming from the sub without sending an international SOS? For a world community still mystified by deadly Russian deceits surrounding the Kursk submarine disaster, Cry from the Deep solves the riddles once and for all. What emerges from Flynn's exhaustive reporting is the definitive account of this pivotal moment in Russia's rocky emergence into the community of free nations. By turns thrilling, heart-wrenching, and absorbing, Cry from the Deep exposes the truths behind an event that riveted the world, devastated and enraged the Russian people, and ultimately defined a new era of Russian politics.

In his most personal book yet, Tim Flannery, the internationally acclaimed author of The Weather Makers, draws on three decades of travel, research, and field work to craft a love letter to his native land and one of its most unique and beloved inhabitants: the kangaroo. Crisscrossing the...  more

In his most personal book yet, Tim Flannery, the internationally acclaimed author of The Weather Makers, draws on three decades of travel, research, and field work to craft a love letter to his native land and one of its most unique and beloved inhabitants: the kangaroo. Crisscrossing the continent, Flannery shows us how the destiny of this extraordinary creature is inseparable from the environment that created it. Along the way he uses encounters with ancient aboriginal cultures and eccentric fossil hunters, farmers and scientists, kangaroo advocates and kangaroo hunters, to explore how Australia’s deserts and rainforests have shaped human responses to the continent -- and how kangaroos have evolved to handle the resulting challenges. Ultimately, Chasing Kangaroos is a smart yet utterly readable synthesis of memoir, travel, natural history, and evolutionary science -- and further proof of Flannery’s “offhand interdisciplinary brilliance” (Entertainment Weekly).

Joanna Greenfield dreamed of traveling to East Africa to study one of the last known populations of wild chimpanzees. When she was offered a once-in-a-lifetime chance, the young student set off from peaceful Kenya into politically hazardous Uganda. From there, a small team of guides led her into...  more

Joanna Greenfield dreamed of traveling to East Africa to study one of the last known populations of wild chimpanzees. When she was offered a once-in-a-lifetime chance, the young student set off from peaceful Kenya into politically hazardous Uganda. From there, a small team of guides led her into the mountains.In stunningly evocative language, Greenfield depicts the beauty of the rainforest and the determination required to wait for one transcendent encounter in the wild. But even one of the most remote places in the world is not immune to terrifying man-made conflict. Greenfield and her team are robbed by poachers and harassed by soldiers. Eventually, it becomes too dangerous to continue her research, though she knows she may never be allowed to return.THE LION'S EYE is the true story of one woman's burning mission to connect with animals--an adventure story and against-the-odds quest for a wilderness few of us have ever glimpsed.

What do you get when you put twelve lively kids together with a father -- a famous efficiency expert -- who believes families can run like factories, and a mother who is his partner in everything except discipline? You get a hilarious tale of growing up that has made generations of kids and...  more

What do you get when you put twelve lively kids together with a father -- a famous efficiency expert -- who believes families can run like factories, and a mother who is his partner in everything except discipline? You get a hilarious tale of growing up that has made generations of kids and adults alike laugh along with the Gilbreths in Cheaper by the Dozen. Translated into more than fifty-three languages and made into a classic film starring Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy, Cheaper by the Dozen is a delightfully enduring story of family life at the turn of the 20th century.

Bringing Jon Home: The Wilderness Search for Jon Francis is my first hand account of the long and complex wilderness search for our son Jon, and the story of Jon's remarkable life, sudden disappearance, and inspiring legacy. On Saturday morning, July 15, 2006, Jon Francis, climbed to the summit...  more

Bringing Jon Home: The Wilderness Search for Jon Francis is my first hand account of the long and complex wilderness search for our son Jon, and the story of Jon's remarkable life, sudden disappearance, and inspiring legacy. On Saturday morning, July 15, 2006, Jon Francis, climbed to the summit of the Grand Mogul, in the Sawtooth Mountain Range of Central Idaho. He never returned. Law enforcement searched for only 29 hours. After the evening search team briefing, on July 17, 2006, the Incident Commander approached me and said; 'David, you need to give your son up to the mountain.' Feeling helpless and abandoned the Francis family gathered that evening and committed to continue the search. We knew very little about mountain climbing or search and rescue, but we would learn and utilize the hundreds of volunteers who were streaming into Idaho to find Jon. While I relentlessly pursued the search for my son, I also made wonderful discoveries about him. Jon Francis was a remarkable young man. He touched and inspired others. He loved deeply and was deeply loved. I wrote Bringing Jon Home to help others, to expose the gap in public sector resources dedicated to finding missing adults, and finally to let people know that an uncommon young man named Jon Francis once lived and loved among us.

The thrilling true adventure of a deadly trek to the North Pole, a one-hundred-year-old mystery, and an inspiring tale of polar explorationTo the End of the Earth explores perhaps the greatest controversy in the history of exploration. Did U.S. Naval Commander Robert Peary and his team dogsled...  more

The thrilling true adventure of a deadly trek to the North Pole, a one-hundred-year-old mystery, and an inspiring tale of polar explorationTo the End of the Earth explores perhaps the greatest controversy in the history of exploration. Did U.S. Naval Commander Robert Peary and his team dogsled to the North Pole in thirty-seven days in 1909? Or, as has been challenged, was this speed impossible, and was he a cheat? In 2005, polar explorer Tom Avery and his team set out to re-create Peary?s one-hundred-year-old journey, using the same equipment, to show that Peary?s team could have done what they had always claimed and discovered the North Pole.            Navigating treacherous pressure ridges, deadly channels of open water, bitterly cold temperatures, and traveling in a similar style to Peary and Henson with dog teams and replica wooden sledges bound together with cord, Avery tells the story of how his team covered 413 nautical miles to the North Pole in thirty-six days and twenty-two hours—some four hours faster than the original pioneers. Weaving fascinating polar exploration history with thrilling extreme adventure, this is Avery?s story of how he and his team nearly gave their lives trying to determine if Peary and Henson were telling the truth.

All seems tranquil as newly qualified Health Visitor Sarah motors into a small Kentish hilltop village in her new green mini. She's barely out of the car when she's called to assist the midwife with a bride who's gone into labour in the middle of her own wedding reception. And so her adventures...  more

All seems tranquil as newly qualified Health Visitor Sarah motors into a small Kentish hilltop village in her new green mini. She's barely out of the car when she's called to assist the midwife with a bride who's gone into labour in the middle of her own wedding reception. And so her adventures begin...As a health visitor Nurse Sarah is as green as grass but she puts her best foot into wellies and braves the mad dogs, killer ganders and muddy tracks of the farming community. Despite set-backs young Sarah is determined to help the mums she meets, from struggling young mothers in unmodernised farmhouses, to doyennes of the county dinner party set who slave over stuffed olive hors-d'oeuvres. Village life in 1970s isn't always quite the Good Life Sarah's been expecting; her attempts at self-sufficiency and cider making lead to drunk badgers and spirited house parties - but will it be the clergyman, the vet or the young doctor that win Sarah's heart. During her first year in Kent, Nurse Sarah Hill get stuck in - reuniting families and helping mums in the midst of community full of ancient feuds, funny little ways and just a bit of magic.

Agnes Light trained as a nurse in the 1960s and went on to become a midwife -- helping to bring new lives into the world for over thirty years. After fainting from shock at the first birth she attended as a student, Agnes grew to adore her job and the lifelong friends that worked with her on...  more

Agnes Light trained as a nurse in the 1960s and went on to become a midwife -- helping to bring new lives into the world for over thirty years. After fainting from shock at the first birth she attended as a student, Agnes grew to adore her job and the lifelong friends that worked with her on the maternity ward. In her enchanting memoir, she recalls how she struggled at first with the strict rules of hospital etiquette, and the expectation that she would always know the right thing to do -- from dealing with hysterical fathers to miracle multiple births -- Agnes quickly learnt she had to keep a cool head whatever the circumstances. This is a heartwarming portrait of a thoughtful and compassionate midwife. Funny, poignant and rich with period detail, Midwife on Call traces Agnes's touching journey from squeamish pupil to assured professional.

At a lush villa on the sun-soaked island of Madeira, Martin Radford is given a second chance. His life ruined by scandal, Martin holds in his hands the leather-bound journal of another ruined man, former British cabinet minister Edwin Strafford. What?s more, Martin is being offered a job?to...  more

At a lush villa on the sun-soaked island of Madeira, Martin Radford is given a second chance. His life ruined by scandal, Martin holds in his hands the leather-bound journal of another ruined man, former British cabinet minister Edwin Strafford. What?s more, Martin is being offered a job?to return to England and investigate the rise and fall of Strafford, an ambitious young politician whose downfall, in 1910, is as mysterious as the strange deaths that still haunt his family.Martin is intrigued by Strafford?s story, by the man?s overwhelming love for a beautiful suffragette, by her inexplicable rejection of him and their love affair?s political repercussions. But as he retraces Strafford?s ruination, Martin realizes that Strafford did not fall by chance; he was pushed. Suddenly Martin, who has not cared for many people in his life, cares desperately?about a man?s mysterious death and a family?s terrible secret, about a love beyond reckoning and betrayal beyond imagining. Most of all Martin cares because the story he is uncovering is not yet over?and among the men and women still caught in its web, Martin himself may be the most vulnerable of all?.

IT'S FOURTH-OF-JULY WEEK 1979. America is a psychological mess! Prices are sky-high because of the energy crisis. There?s been a nuclear mishap at Three Mile Island. President Jimmy Carter had mysteriously ?vanished.? What a time for 19-year old Ted Granger to act out his dream of being a hobo!...  more

IT'S FOURTH-OF-JULY WEEK 1979. America is a psychological mess! Prices are sky-high because of the energy crisis. There?s been a nuclear mishap at Three Mile Island. President Jimmy Carter had mysteriously ?vanished.? What a time for 19-year old Ted Granger to act out his dream of being a hobo! Seeking thrills, adventure, and freedom, he set out to hitchhike across the U.S. The Last Hobo captures the fun, hilarity, and anxiety of a fantasy-fueled road trip colliding with reality. Based on a true story, the book is a colorful portrait of America and its people during a weird time: the tumultuous transition from the 70s to the 80s. An older-and-wiser Ted narrates the tale with a unique perspective: He?s from Detroit, the very icon of America?s highest dreams and its worst nightmares.

G. Bruce Knecht, former reporter for The Wall Street Journal and author of The Proving Ground and Hooked, describes the creation of an outsized yacht in a sweeping narrative centered on the men and women who made it happen. Doug Von Allmen, a self-made man who grew up in a landlocked state...  more

G. Bruce Knecht, former reporter for The Wall Street Journal and author of The Proving Ground and Hooked, describes the creation of an outsized yacht in a sweeping narrative centered on the men and women who made it happen. Doug Von Allmen, a self-made man who grew up in a landlocked state dreaming of the ocean, was poised to build his fifth yacht, his biggest yet?a 187-foot behemoth that would cost $40 million. Lady Linda?s interior walls were to be made from rare species of burl wood, her floors paved with onyx and exotic types of marble, her furniture custom-made, and her art specially commissioned. But the economic crisis changed everything. Like many others, Von Allmen suddenly realized that he could no longer afford his lifestyle. Then it got worse: desperate to reverse his losses, he fell for an audacious Ponzi scheme. Would Von Allmen be able to finish the yacht? And if he did, would he be able to keep it? In Southern Mississippi, blue collar laborers are artisans pressed on with their work. The divide between the very rich and everyone else had never been greater, but the livelihoods of the workers and yacht owners were inextricably intertwined. Even $10-an-hour employees knew that no one was ordering yachts like Lady Linda anymore. Knecht transports readers to a world of high seas luxury and ostentation that already seems like a bygone era. But like Tracy Kidder?s House, Grand Ambition takes us deep inside the building process in a narrative that is ultimately focused on the individuals who piece together the yacht.

A sharp and arresting people’s-eye view of real life in Afghanistan after the Taliban     Soon after the bombing of Kabul ceased, award-winning journalist and women’s rights activist Ann Jones set out for the shattered city, determined to bring help where her...  more

A sharp and arresting people’s-eye view of real life in Afghanistan after the Taliban     Soon after the bombing of Kabul ceased, award-winning journalist and women’s rights activist Ann Jones set out for the shattered city, determined to bring help where her country had brought destruction.     Here is her trenchant report from inside a city struggling to rise from the ruins. Working among the multitude of impoverished war widows, retraining Kabul’s long-silenced English teachers, and investigating the city’s prison for women, Jones enters a large community of female outcasts: runaway child brides, pariah prostitutes, cast-off wives, victims of rape. In the streets and markets, she hears the Afghan view of the supposed benefits brought by the fall of the Taliban, and learns that regarding women as less than human is the norm, not the aberration of one conspicuously repressive regime. Jones confronts the ways in which Afghan education, culture, and politics have repeatedly been hijacked—by Communists, Islamic fundamentalists, and the Western free marketeers—always with disastrous results. And she reveals, through small events, the big disjunctions: between U.S promises and performance, between the new “democracy” and the still-entrenched warlords, between what’s boasted of and what is.     At once angry, profound, and starkly beautiful, Kabul in Winter brings alive the people and day-to-day life of a place whose future depends so much upon our own.

Dotty, Lucy and Annabelle all turn up for work at Coventry's department store Owen Owen at the same time as war is declared. Dotty is an orphan, Lucy is the sole carer for her little sister, and although Annabelle has led a life of privilege until now, everyone's having to pinch the...  more

Dotty, Lucy and Annabelle all turn up for work at Coventry's department store Owen Owen at the same time as war is declared. Dotty is an orphan, Lucy is the sole carer for her little sister, and although Annabelle has led a life of privilege until now, everyone's having to pinch the pennies at the moment. The three form an unlikely bond, and with disaster at every turn, they're going to need each other...

Published to tie in with the forthcoming BBC series, Shopgirls is a nostalgic, sweeping history full of the life stories of the women behind the counters of Britain's most famous -- and not so famous -- stores.      Shopgirls should be heroines, as celebrated as steelworkers in the Industrial...  more

Published to tie in with the forthcoming BBC series, Shopgirls is a nostalgic, sweeping history full of the life stories of the women behind the counters of Britain's most famous -- and not so famous -- stores.      Shopgirls should be heroines, as celebrated as steelworkers in the Industrial Revolution. A million of us were shop assistants by the turn of the twentieth century and since then retail has grown exponentially to become Britain's largest area of economic activity. But the young women at the heart of this economic and cultural revolution, the shop assistants themselves, have largely been ignored.      Shopgirls will tell the story of the lives of the girls who have worked behind the counters of our nation's shops from the drapery stores of the 1860s when young women's employment outside the home was taking off, through the Edwardian era's tumultuous social upheavals, two world wars and all the way to the working class revolution of the 1960s and the shock of the Biba bombing. This lively and ambitious book sets out to uncover the shopgirls' life stories, work cultures and economic contributions in a way never done before.

From the bestselling author of Pay It Forward comes a flight of sheer imagination: the story of a love affair that spans two lives, two incarnations -- but for only one of its partners -- and the many repercussions of a young life cut short by war. Michael Steeb is an aimless...  more

From the bestselling author of Pay It Forward comes a flight of sheer imagination: the story of a love affair that spans two lives, two incarnations -- but for only one of its partners -- and the many repercussions of a young life cut short by war. Michael Steeb is an aimless twenty-one-year-old pot farmer living a day-to-day existence in an unfinished farmhouse in central California in the 1980s. He has no real plans or interests -- until the day he connects with the memories of a life that seems to belong to someone else, that of a young American soldier killed in World War II. Seeking answers on the Ouija board, he instead finds Walter, the spirit of the young soldier. Only much later does Michael come to understand that Walter is an earlier incarnation of himself. For while Michael is, of course, only one person, inside him are two dueling identities: an aimless, carefree pothead, and an angry young soldier who was unprepared for death and who won't let go. Only the resolution of deep grudges and grievances will enable Walter to move on, to merge into his new life, and only Michael can effect that transition. Michael sets out to find Andrew, Walter's best friend from the war days -- the one who talked Walter into enlisting in the first place -- and Mary Ann, the fiancée Walter left behind. He finds them married to each other and much the same as they were forty years before. Mary Ann is still open and knowing, and recognizes Walter in Michael immediately. Andrew remains guarded, closed-minded, and skeptical, and he sets out to prove that Michael is the worst sort of con man. Meanwhile the romance Walter began with Mary Ann forty years earlier reignites between Mary Ann and Michael, despite the harsh reality of the difference in their ages, despite the presence of a jealous and defensive Andrew. Michael's task is the near-impossible: to lead Walter's elderly mother and middle-aged brother to closure and peace, to make Andrew believe this new reality, to deliver the truth about Walter's Purple Heart, and somehow to achieve the forgiveness that has been absent for so many years. Woven throughout the story are the direct observations of Walter as a narrator from beyond the grave who slides through time correcting history, telling secrets, providing perspective on his life after death, and guiding the living on the path to his, and their own, release. Walter's Purple Heart is a tightly plotted, fast-paced war drama and a deeply felt romance, wrapped together in a unique twist on the prospect of multiple lives. In original and unexpected ways, Catherine Ryan Hyde paints an enduring portrait of a life prematurely lost, and the endless ripples of consequence that affect those who loved him, in a microcosm that sheds light on the true gravity of war.

The second in a highly original and absolutely marvelous series about two brother lawyers who lease offices on London's Baker Street -- and begin receiving mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes When brothers Reggie and Nigel Heath choose 221B Baker Street as the location for their law...  more

The second in a highly original and absolutely marvelous series about two brother lawyers who lease offices on London's Baker Street -- and begin receiving mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes When brothers Reggie and Nigel Heath choose 221B Baker Street as the location for their law office, they don’t expect that their new office space would come with one huge stipulation, answering the letters sent to Sherlock Holmes, the most famous resident of that address. Reggie is distressed because the love of his life, actress Laura Rankin (whom Nigel also adores), is gallivanting around with media mogul Lord Buxton. And while Reggie is working on a new case involving one of London’s Black Cab drivers who is accused of murdering two American tourists, the letters to Sherlock Holmes are piling up. There s even one from someone who claims to be the descendent of Professor James Moriarty. With a case that would have puzzled even Sherlock himself and a pair of brother sleuths more different than night and day, The Brothers of Baker Street is sure to please mystery fans whatever their address.

The secret life of the billionaire who is determined to give all his money away before he dies--it's harder than you think! In 1988 Forbes Magazine hailed Chuck Feeney as the twenty-third richest American alive. Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey to a blue-collar Irish-American family during the...  more

The secret life of the billionaire who is determined to give all his money away before he dies--it's harder than you think! In 1988 Forbes Magazine hailed Chuck Feeney as the twenty-third richest American alive. Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey to a blue-collar Irish-American family during the Depression, a veteran of the Korean War, he had made a fortune as founder of Duty Free Shoppers, the world's largest duty-free retail chain. But secretly, Feeney had already transferred all his wealth to his foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies. Only in 1997, when he sold his duty free interests, was he "outed" as one of the greatest and most mysterious American philanthropists in modern times. A frugal man who travels economy class and does not own a house or a car, Feeney then went "underground" again, until he decided in 2005 to cooperate in a biography to promote giving-while-living. Now in his mid-seventies, he is determined his foundation should spend the remaining $4 billion in his lifetime. The Billionaire Who Wasn't is a tale of one of the greatest untold retail triumphs of the twentieth century, and of what happens to a unique man and his family when confronted with wealth beyond imagining.

A compelling alternate history of the Romanov family in which a secret fifth daughter?smuggled out of Russia before the revolution?continues the royal lineage to dramatic consequences In her riveting debut novel, The Secret Daughter of the Tsar, Jennifer Laam seamlessly braids together the...  more

A compelling alternate history of the Romanov family in which a secret fifth daughter?smuggled out of Russia before the revolution?continues the royal lineage to dramatic consequences In her riveting debut novel, The Secret Daughter of the Tsar, Jennifer Laam seamlessly braids together the stories of three women: Veronica, Lena, and Charlotte. Veronica is an aspiring historian living in present-day Los Angeles when she meets a mysterious man who may be heir to the Russian throne. As she sets about investigating the legitimacy of his claim through a winding path of romance and deception, the ghosts of her own past begin to haunt her. Lena, a servant in the imperial Russian court of 1902, is approached by the desperate Empress Alexandra.  After conceiving four daughters, the Empress is determined to sire a son and believes Lena can help her. Once elevated to the Romanov?s treacherous inner circle, Lena finds herself under the watchful eye of the meddling Dowager Empress Marie. Charlotte, a former ballerina living in World War II occupied Paris, receives a surprise visit from a German officer. Determined to protect her son from the Nazis, Charlotte escapes the city, but not before learning that the officer?s interest in her stems from his longstanding obsession with the fate of the Russian monarchy. Then as Veronica's passion intensifies, and her search for the true heir to the throne takes a dangerous turn, the reader learns just how these three vastly different women are connected. The Secret Daughter of the Tsar is thrilling from its first intense moments until its final, unexpected conclusion.

Sullivan's Crossing is a rustic campground at the crossroads of the Colorado and Continental Divide trails that welcomes everyone -- whether you need a weekend getaway or a whole new lease on life. It's a wonderful place where good people face their challenges with humor, strength and...  more

Sullivan's Crossing is a rustic campground at the crossroads of the Colorado and Continental Divide trails that welcomes everyone -- whether you need a weekend getaway or a whole new lease on life. It's a wonderful place where good people face their challenges with humor, strength and love. For Sierra Jones, Sullivan's Crossing is meant to be a brief stopover. She's put her troubled past behind her but the path forward isn't yet clear. A visit with her big brother Cal and his new bride, Maggie, seems to be the best option to help her get back on her feet. Not wanting to burden or depend on anyone, Sierra is surprised to find the Crossing offers so much more than a place to rest her head. Cal and Maggie welcome her into their busy lives and she quickly finds herself bonding with Sully, the quirky campground owner who is the father figure she's always wanted. But when her past catches up with her, it's a special man and an adorable puppy who give her the strength to face the truth and fight for a brighter future. In Sullivan's Crossing Sierra learns to cherish the family you are given and the family you choose.

A riveting thriller about the search for two missing girls in a small Pennsylvania town. When two young sisters, Kylie and Bailey Brandt, disappear from a strip mall parking lot in a small Pennsylvania town, their devastated family hires an enigmatic bounty hunter from California, Alice Vega,...  more

A riveting thriller about the search for two missing girls in a small Pennsylvania town. When two young sisters, Kylie and Bailey Brandt, disappear from a strip mall parking lot in a small Pennsylvania town, their devastated family hires an enigmatic bounty hunter from California, Alice Vega, to do what the authorities cannot. Immediately shut out by a local police department already stretched thin by budget cuts and the growing OxyContin and meth epidemics, Vega enlists the help of a disgraced former cop, Max Caplan, to cut through the local politics. With little to go on, Vega and Cap will go to extraordinary lengths to untangle a complex web of lies, false leads, and dangerous relationships to locate both girls before time runs out and the girls are gone forever.

Persomi?s dreams are much bigger than the world of poverty and deprivation that surround her in the Bushveld of the 1940s and 1950s in South Africa. Persomi is young, white and poor, born the middle child of illiterate sharecroppers on the prosperous Fourie farm. Persomi?s world is...  more

Persomi?s dreams are much bigger than the world of poverty and deprivation that surround her in the Bushveld of the 1940s and 1950s in South Africa. Persomi is young, white and poor, born the middle child of illiterate sharecroppers on the prosperous Fourie farm. Persomi?s world is extraordinarily small. She has never been to the local village and spends her days absorbed in the rhythms of the natural world around her. Her older brother, Gerbrand, is her lifeline and her connection to the outside world. When he leaves the farm to seek work in Johannesburg, Persomi?s isolated world is blown wide open. But as her very small world falls apart, bigger dreams become open to her?dreams of an education, a profession, and of love. As Persomi navigates the changing world around her?the tragedies of WWII and the devastating racial strife of her homeland?she finally discovers who she truly is and where she belongs. A compelling coming of age story with an unlikely and utterly memorable heroine, Persomi?s English language publication solidifies Irma Joubert?s important place in the canon of inspirational historical fiction.

?A deeply moving, gripping novel about one man?s quest for redemption and his family?s determination to learn the truth . . .  Layered with meaning, this remarkable novel deserves to be read more than once. The High Divide proves Enger?s chops as a masterful storyteller.? ?Ann Weisgarber, author...  more

?A deeply moving, gripping novel about one man?s quest for redemption and his family?s determination to learn the truth . . .  Layered with meaning, this remarkable novel deserves to be read more than once. The High Divide proves Enger?s chops as a masterful storyteller.? ?Ann Weisgarber, author of The Promise  In 1886, Gretta Pope wakes one morning to discover that her husband is gone. Ulysses Pope has left his family behind on the far edge of Minnesota?s western prairie, with only the briefest of notes and no explanation for why he left or where he?s headed. It doesn?t take long for Gretta?s young sons, Eli and Danny, to set off after him, following the scant clues they can find, jumping trains to get where they need to go, and ending up in the rugged badlands of Montana. Short on money and beleaguered by a treacherous landlord, Gretta has no choice but to seek out her sons and her husband as well, leading her to the doorstep of a woman who seems intent on making Ulysses her own. While out in the wilderness, the boys find that the closer they come to Ulysses?s trail, the greater the perils that confront them. Enger?s breathtaking portrait of the vast Plains landscape is matched by the rich expanse of his characters? emotional terrain, as pivotal historical events?the turmoil of expansionism, the near total demise of the bison herds, and the subjugation of the Plains Indians?blend seamlessly with the story of a family?s sacrifice and devotion.  ?Lin Enger sets out from the conventions of the traditional Western and brings the reader into new emotional territory, that of the soul of an exquisitely drawn American family. Told with caring patience and precise language, The High Divide is a novel to get lost in.? ?James Scott, author of The Kept ?The High Divide, a novel about a family in peril, is haunting and tense but leavened by considerable warmth and humanity. Lin Enger writes with durable grace about a man?s quest for redemption and the human capacity for forgiveness.? ?Benjamin Percy, author of Red Moon

Evelyn Taylor-Clarke sits in her chair at Forest Lawns Care Home in the heart of the English countryside, surrounded by residents with minds not as sharp as hers. It would be easy to dismiss Evelyn as a muddled old woman, but her lipstick is applied perfectly and her buttons done up...  more

Evelyn Taylor-Clarke sits in her chair at Forest Lawns Care Home in the heart of the English countryside, surrounded by residents with minds not as sharp as hers. It would be easy to dismiss Evelyn as a muddled old woman, but her lipstick is applied perfectly and her buttons done up correctly. Because Evelyn is a woman with secrets, and Evelyn remembers everything. She can never forget the promise she made to the love of her life, to discover the truth about the mission that led to his death, no matter what it cost her . .  . When Evelyn's niece Pat opens an old biscuit tin to find a photo of a small girl titled Liese, 1951 and a passport in another name, she has some questions for her aunt. And Evelyn is transported back to a place in Germany known as the Forbidden Village, where a woman who called herself Eva went where no one else dared, among shivering prisoners, to find the man who gambled with her husband's life.

"There's a cancer, and it's killing our democracy. A poor man has to sell his soul to get elected. I cry for this country."On February 29, 2000, ninety-year-old Doris “Granny D” Haddock completed her 3,200-mile, fourteen-month walk from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. She walked...  more

"There's a cancer, and it's killing our democracy. A poor man has to sell his soul to get elected. I cry for this country."On February 29, 2000, ninety-year-old Doris “Granny D” Haddock completed her 3,200-mile, fourteen-month walk from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. She walked through 105-degree deserts and blinding blizzards, despite arthritis and emphysema. Along her way, her remarkable speeches — rich with wisdom, love, and political insight — transformed individuals and communities and jump-started a full-blown movement. She became a national heroine. On her journey, Haddock kept a diary — tracking the progress of her walk and recalling events in her life and the insights that have given her. Granny D celebrates an exuberant life of love, activism, and adventure — from writing one-woman feminist plays in the 1930s to stopping nuclear testing near an Eskimo fishing village in 1960 to Haddock’s current crusade. Threaded throughout is the spirit of her beloved hometown of Dublin/Peterborough, New Hampshire — Thornton Wilder’s inspirations for Grovers Croner in Out Town — a quintessentially American center of New England pluck, Yankee ingenuity and can-do attitude.Told in Doris Haddock’s distinct and unforgettable voice, Granny D will move, amuse, and inspire readers of all ages with its clarion message that one person can indeed make a difference.

Shortlisted for the 2018 Ondaatje Prize Shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the YearA masterful and entirely fresh portrait of great hopes and dashed dreams in a mythical city from a major new literary voice.Everything that could possibly be wrong with a city was wrong with...  more

Shortlisted for the 2018 Ondaatje Prize Shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the YearA masterful and entirely fresh portrait of great hopes and dashed dreams in a mythical city from a major new literary voice.Everything that could possibly be wrong with a city was wrong with Calcutta.When Kushanava Choudhury arrived in New Jersey at the age of twelve, he had already migrated halfway around the world four times. After graduating from Princeton, he moved back to the world which his immigrant parents had abandoned, to a city built between a river and a swamp, where the moisture-drenched air swarms with mosquitos after sundown. Once the capital of the British Raj, and then India's industrial and cultural hub, by 2001 Calcutta was clearly past its prime. Why, his relatives beseeched him, had he returned? Surely, he could have moved to Delhi, Bombay or Bangalore, where a new Golden Age of consumption was being born. Yet fifteen million people still lived in Calcutta. Working for the Statesman, its leading English newspaper, Kushanava Choudhury found the streets of his childhood unchanged by time. Shouting hawkers still overran the footpaths, fish-sellers squatted on bazaar floors; politics still meant barricades and bus burnings, while Communist ministers travelled in motorcades. Sifting through the chaos for the stories that never make the papers, Kushanava Choudhury paints a soulful, compelling portrait of the everyday lives that make Calcutta. Written with humanity, wit and insight, The Epic City is an unforgettable depiction of an era, and a city which is a world unto itself.

Present Day: With the grand opening of her new art gallery and a fairy tale wedding just around the corner, Sera James feels like she's stumbled into a charmed life until a brutal legal battle against fiance William Hanover threatens to destroy their future before it even begins. Now,...  more

Present Day: With the grand opening of her new art gallery and a fairy tale wedding just around the corner, Sera James feels like she's stumbled into a charmed life until a brutal legal battle against fiance William Hanover threatens to destroy their future before it even begins. Now, after an eleventh-hour wedding ceremony and a callous arrest, William faces a decade in prison for a crime he never committed, and Sera must battle the scathing accusations that threaten her family and any hope for a future with the man she loves. 1942: Kaja Makovsky narrowly escaped Nazi-occupied Prague in 1939 and was forced to leave behind her half-Jewish family. Now a reporter for The Daily Telegraph in England, Kaja discovers the terror has followed her across the Channel in the shadowy form of the London Blitz. When she learns Jews are being exterminated by the thousands on the continent, she has no choice but to return to her mother city, risking her life to smuggle her family to freedom and peace. Connecting across a century through one little girl, a Holocaust survivor with a foot in each world, these two women will discover a kinship that springs even in the darkest of times. In this tale of hope and survival, Sera and Kaja must cling to the faith that sustains them and fight to protect all they hold dear even if it means placing their own futures on the line.

In his latest tour of the earth's remote, exotic, and dismal places, the author of Road Fever and A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg sleeps with a grizzly bear, witnesses demonic possession in Bali, and survives a run-in with something called the Throne of Doom in Guatemala. Vivid and outrageously funny.

Cahill, the author of Buried Dreams, Road Fever, and Jaguars Ripped My Flesh takes readers on journeys to areas as remote as the rivers of Honduras and the immense grassland of Mongolia to the stunning geysers of Yellowstone and the deepest jungles of Peru. Here Cahill dares readers to follow...  more

Cahill, the author of Buried Dreams, Road Fever, and Jaguars Ripped My Flesh takes readers on journeys to areas as remote as the rivers of Honduras and the immense grassland of Mongolia to the stunning geysers of Yellowstone and the deepest jungles of Peru. Here Cahill dares readers to follow him into his world of danger and high-spirited zaniness.

Tim Cahill reports on the road trip to end all road trips: a journey that took him from Tierra del Fuego to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in a record-breaking twenty three and a half days.

While sailing alone one night in the shipping lanes across one of the busiest waterways in the world, John Burnett was attacked by pirates. Through sheer ingenuity and a little bit of luck, he survived, and his shocking firsthand experience became the inspiration for Dangerous...  more

While sailing alone one night in the shipping lanes across one of the busiest waterways in the world, John Burnett was attacked by pirates. Through sheer ingenuity and a little bit of luck, he survived, and his shocking firsthand experience became the inspiration for Dangerous Waters. Today's breed of pirates are not the colorful cutthroats painted by the history books. Unlike the romantic images from yesteryear of Captain Hook, Long John Silver, and Blackbeard, modern pirates can be local seamen looking for a quick score, highly trained guerrillas, rogue military units, or former seafarers recruited by sophisticated crime organizations. Including new, up-to-date information for the paperback edition, Dangerous Waters is both a dauntless investigation and an epic, breathtaking modern tale of the sea.

Peeling away the myth to bring David to life in Second Iron Age Israel, Brooks traces the arc of his journey from obscurity to fame, from shepherd to soldier, from hero to traitor, from beloved king to murderous despot and into his remorseful and diminished dotage. The Secret...  more

Peeling away the myth to bring David to life in Second Iron Age Israel, Brooks traces the arc of his journey from obscurity to fame, from shepherd to soldier, from hero to traitor, from beloved king to murderous despot and into his remorseful and diminished dotage. The Secret Chord provides new context for some of the best-known episodes of David’s life while also focusing on others, even more remarkable and emotionally intense, that have been neglected.  We see David through the eyes of those who love him or fear him—from the prophet Natan, voice of his conscience, to his wives Mikal, Avigail, and Batsheva, and finally to Solomon, the late-born son who redeems his Lear-like old age. 

No one knows where the Tufa came from, or how they ended up in the mountains of East Tennessee. When the first Europeans came to the Smoky Mountains, the Tufa were already there. Dark-haired and enigmatic, they live quietly in the hills and valleys of Cloud County, their origins lost to...  more

No one knows where the Tufa came from, or how they ended up in the mountains of East Tennessee. When the first Europeans came to the Smoky Mountains, the Tufa were already there. Dark-haired and enigmatic, they live quietly in the hills and valleys of Cloud County, their origins lost to history. But there are clues in their music, hidden in the songs they have passed down for generations. . . . Private Bronwyn Hyatt, a true daughter of the Tufa, has returned from Iraq, wounded in body and spirit, but her troubles are far from over. Cryptic omens warn of impending tragedy, while a restless haint has followed her home from the war. Worse yet, Bronwyn has lost touch with herself and with the music that was once a part of her. With death stalking her family, will she ever again join in the song of her people, and let it lift her onto the night winds?

1939. As war breaks out across Europe, nine-year-old Susie and her older sister Gyll are despatched to Africa by their mother. Alone on the dusty continent, the sisters find little sympathy in their new guardians, and little to like about their new way of life: patched-up clothes, a 6...  more

1939. As war breaks out across Europe, nine-year-old Susie and her older sister Gyll are despatched to Africa by their mother. Alone on the dusty continent, the sisters find little sympathy in their new guardians, and little to like about their new way of life: patched-up clothes, a 6 o'clock bedtime (a particular indignity) and regular obsessive cleanliness rituals. Their continued presence a nuisance, and overwhelmed by fear of doing the wrong thing, Susie and Gyll seek an ally in Mavis, the only other child of the house, but it's a relationship that becomes tinged with jealousy. Feeling increasingly abandoned as the years pass and letters from home become ever more infrequent, the sisters begin to dream desperately of escape; if only they could go home, everything would return back to the ways things used to be. But when they do finally arrive home and get off the boat, no-one is there to greet them off the boat. Gradually they learn that their mother has joined the Polish army and that their father has taken on a mistress, who has moved into the family home. Life only gets stranger when they are sent off to the baffling Cheltenham Ladies College, where English boarding school life only adds to their feelings of alienation. Recounting a youth filled with both hope and despair, Susan Kennaway writes with a charm and honesty of the challenges of growing up during evacuation. The Yellow Duster Sisters is a wonderfully evocative and moving exploration of the shifting nature of war-time family relationships.

The MacBrides lead a cozy life of upper class privilege: good looks (more or less), a beautiful home, tuition-free education at the prestigious private school where Rowan is headmaster, an altruistic righteousness inherited from magistrate Lydia. But when Rowan and his three grown children...  more

The MacBrides lead a cozy life of upper class privilege: good looks (more or less), a beautiful home, tuition-free education at the prestigious private school where Rowan is headmaster, an altruistic righteousness inherited from magistrate Lydia. But when Rowan and his three grown children gather for the first time since Lydia’s passing at the family’s weekend home -- a restored barn in the English countryside -- years of secrets surface, and they discover a stranger in their midst. A stranger who is convinced that Lydia was a murderer. A stranger who has been exacting vengeance upon the family for years without their ever knowing. And one who will threaten the youngest MacBride, baby Edie, and the clan’s memory of Lydia, shattering their world forever.

Rich in intrigue and scheming, love and lust, Sherry Jones’s vibrant historical novel follows four women destined to sway the fate of nations and the hearts of kings. . .  Amid the lush valleys and fragrant wildflowers of Provence, Marguerite, Eléonore, Sanchia, and...  more

Rich in intrigue and scheming, love and lust, Sherry Jones’s vibrant historical novel follows four women destined to sway the fate of nations and the hearts of kings. . .  Amid the lush valleys and fragrant wildflowers of Provence, Marguerite, Eléonore, Sanchia, and Beatrice have learned to charm, hunt, dance, and debate under the careful tutelage of their ambitious mother -- and to abide by the countess’s motto: “Family comes first.” With Provence under constant attack, their legacy and safety depend upon powerful alliances. Marguerite’s illustrious match with the young King Louis IX makes her Queen of France. Soon Eléonore -- independent and daring -- is betrothed to Henry III of England. In turn, shy, devout Sanchia and tempestuous Beatrice wed noblemen who will also make them queens. Yet a crown is no guarantee of protection. Enemies are everywhere, from Marguerite’s duplicitous mother-in-law to vengeful lovers and land-hungry barons. Then there are the dangers that come from within, as loyalty succumbs to bitter sibling rivalry, and sister is pitted against sister for the prize each believes is rightfully hers -- Provence itself. From the treacherous courts of France and England, to the bloody tumult of the Crusades, Sherry Jones traces the extraordinary true story of four fascinating sisters whose passions, conquests, and progeny shaped the course of history.

Jodi and Todd are at a bad place in their marriage. Much is at stake, including the affluent life they lead in their beautiful waterfront condo in Chicago, as she, the killer, and he, the victim, rush haplessly toward the main event. He is a committed cheater. She lives and breathes denial. He...  more

Jodi and Todd are at a bad place in their marriage. Much is at stake, including the affluent life they lead in their beautiful waterfront condo in Chicago, as she, the killer, and he, the victim, rush haplessly toward the main event. He is a committed cheater. She lives and breathes denial. He exists in dual worlds. She likes to settle scores. He decides to play for keeps. She has nothing left to lose. Told in alternating voices, The Silent Wife is about a marriage in the throes of dissolution, a couple headed for catastrophe, concessions that can't be made, and promises that won't be kept. Expertly plotted and reminiscent of Gone Girl and These Things Hidden, The Silent Wife ensnares the reader from page one and does not let go.

Never before collected in one volume, here are Pete Hamill's stories about Brooklyn, the borough in which he was born and grew up, and the one closest to his heart. A young boy with a mysterious past forever transforms the lives of the neighborhood toughs. A man returns to his old haunts...  more

Never before collected in one volume, here are Pete Hamill's stories about Brooklyn, the borough in which he was born and grew up, and the one closest to his heart. A young boy with a mysterious past forever transforms the lives of the neighborhood toughs. A man returns to his old haunts to avenge the death of his brother. A couple chooses to embrace their memories of a bygone era rather than live in a diminished future. These are stories of a New York almost lost but not forgotten. They read like messages from a vanished age, brimming over with nostalgia (which Hamill has called the most common New York emotion), for the world after the war, the city before heroin and crack, the days of the Dodgers and Giants, even, for some, the world of the Depression. Full of pieces that have been unavailable for years, this collection is classic Hamill -- a must-read for his fans, for those who love New York, and for anyone who seeks to understand the world today through the lens of the world that once was. The Christmas kid -- The price of love -- A death in the family -- Wishes -- The love of his life -- Good-bye -- Changing of the guard -- Footsteps -- A poet long ago -- The car -- Just the facts, ma'am -- 6-6-44 -- The trial of Red Dano -- Leaving paradise -- Lullaby of Birdland -- The boarder -- The men in black raincoats -- The radio doctor -- The challenge -- A hero of the war -- The final score -- Gone -- You say tomato, and ... -- 'S wonderful -- The warrior's son -- The second summer -- The sunset pool -- The lasting gift -- The man with the blue guitar -- The hitter bag -- Trouble -- The home country -- The waiting game -- The home run -- Up the roof -- The book signing

Irish at Heart is a highly entertaining account of her journey to Ireland. It includes her frequent hilarious exchanges with the natives, her love affair with the Irish countryside and her close call with the tragic Omagh bombing. Marie Gray writes with freshness and vitality, a witty and...  more

Irish at Heart is a highly entertaining account of her journey to Ireland. It includes her frequent hilarious exchanges with the natives, her love affair with the Irish countryside and her close call with the tragic Omagh bombing. Marie Gray writes with freshness and vitality, a witty and intelligent companion on a personal journey around the Emerald Isle that is both pleasurable and poignant. Born in Napier of Irish stock, Marie Gray has written three previous books.

Tim Flannery is one of the world?s most influential scientists, credited with discovering more species than Darwin. In Among the Islands Flannery recounts a series of expeditions he made at the dawn of his career to the strange tropical islands of the South Pacific, a great arc stretching nearly...  more

Tim Flannery is one of the world?s most influential scientists, credited with discovering more species than Darwin. In Among the Islands Flannery recounts a series of expeditions he made at the dawn of his career to the strange tropical islands of the South Pacific, a great arc stretching nearly 4,000 miles from the postcard perfection of Polynesia to some of the largest, highest, ancient, and most rugged islands on earth. Flannery was traveling in search of rare and undiscovered mammal species, but he found much more: wild, weird places where local taboos, foul weather, dense jungle, and sheer remoteness made for difficult and dramatic exploration. Among the Islands is full of fascinating creatures—monkey faced bats, giant fats, gazelle-faced black wallabies, and more—and the adventure of discovery. This is an idea read for anyone who has ever imagined voyaging to the ends of the earth to uncover and study the rare and the wonderful.

A fast-paced, dramatic exploration of one of the most powerful and destructive forces in naturePete Davies has flown into the eyes of hurricanes with daredevil aviators. He's met with wild-eyed meteorologists who are obsessed with finding out exactly why hurricanes occur and how to predict their...  more

A fast-paced, dramatic exploration of one of the most powerful and destructive forces in naturePete Davies has flown into the eyes of hurricanes with daredevil aviators. He's met with wild-eyed meteorologists who are obsessed with finding out exactly why hurricanes occur and how to predict their onslaughts more accurately. And he's joined heroic aid teams as they've coped with the physical and emotional devastation left in the wake of these awesome storms.In Inside the Hurricane, Davies sweeps readers from the Caribbean to the Bay of Bengal, describing both the horrifying violence and the eerie beauty of hurricanes. He explains the weather conditions that foster them; discusses in lucid detail how scientists predict, measure, and track them; and delves into mysteries scientists are still trying to solve. Gripping accounts of the greatest hurricanes in history climax with Davies's own firsthand experiences flying into the worst storms of 1999. A masterful combination of history, science, and adventure, Inside the Hurricane leaves readers with a chilling reminder of nature's enduring domination over man: scientists predict that the hurricanes of tomorrow will make today's Category 5 storms look small.

When escaped slave, Joe Bell, collapses in her father’s barn, Mary Willis must ward off Confederate guerillas and spies, Joe’s vengeful owner, and even her own brother to help the handsome fugitive cross to freedom. Mary has always been an outcast, an outspoken abolitionist woman...  more

When escaped slave, Joe Bell, collapses in her father’s barn, Mary Willis must ward off Confederate guerillas and spies, Joe’s vengeful owner, and even her own brother to help the handsome fugitive cross to freedom. Mary has always been an outcast, an outspoken abolitionist woman in a town of bounty hunters and anti-Union farmers. Helping runaways is the only thing that makes her life in Town Line bearable. As the countryside is riled by the drumbeat of civil war and the promise of an extravagant bounty for the wounded fugitive, Mary finds herself drawn to the stranger in forbidden ways. When rebels cross from nearby Canada intent on killing him, they bring the devastation of the brutal war to the town and the farm, and threaten to destroy all that Mary loves. 

In the tradition of Kitchen Confidential and Waiter Rant, a rollicking, eye-opening, fantastically indiscreet memoir of a life spent (and misspent) in the hotel industry. Jacob Tomsky never intended to go into the hotel business. As a new college graduate, armed only with a philosophy degree...  more

In the tradition of Kitchen Confidential and Waiter Rant, a rollicking, eye-opening, fantastically indiscreet memoir of a life spent (and misspent) in the hotel industry. Jacob Tomsky never intended to go into the hotel business. As a new college graduate, armed only with a philosophy degree and a singular lack of career direction, he became a valet parker for a large luxury hotel in New Orleans. Yet, rising fast through the ranks, he ended up working in ?hospitality? for more than a decade, doing everything from supervising the housekeeping department to manning the front desk at an upscale Manhattan hotel. He?s checked you in, checked you out, separated your white panties from the white bed sheets, parked your car, tasted your room-service meals, cleaned your toilet, denied you a late checkout, given you a wake-up call, eaten M&Ms out of your minibar, laughed at your jokes, and taken your money. In Heads in Beds he pulls back the curtain to expose the crazy and compelling reality of a multi-billion-dollar industry we think we know. Heads in Beds is a funny, authentic, and irreverent chronicle of the highs and lows of hotel life, told by a keenly observant insider who?s seen it all. Prepare to be amused, shocked, and amazed as he spills the unwritten code of the bellhops, the antics that go on in the valet parking garage, the housekeeping department?s dirty little secrets?not to mention the shameless activities of the guests, who are rarely on their best behavior. Prepare to be moved, too, by his candor about what it?s like to toil in a highly demanding service industry at the luxury level, where people expect to get what they pay for (and often a whole lot more). Employees are poorly paid and frequently abused by coworkers and guests alike, and maintaining a semblance of sanity is a daily challenge.Along his journey Tomsky also reveals the secrets of the industry, offering easy ways to get what you need from your hotel without any hassle. This book (and a timely proffered twenty-dollar bill) will help you score late checkouts and upgrades, get free stuff galore, and make that pay-per-view charge magically disappear. Thanks to him you?ll know how to get the very best service from any business that makes its money from putting heads in beds. Or, at the very least, you will keep the bellmen from taking your luggage into the camera-free back office and bashing it against the wall repeatedly.

If you can't trust yourself, who can you trust? Cass is having a hard time since the night she saw the car in the woods, on the winding rural road, in the middle of a downpour, with the woman sitting inside - the woman who was killed. She's been trying to put the crime out of her mind;...  more

If you can't trust yourself, who can you trust? Cass is having a hard time since the night she saw the car in the woods, on the winding rural road, in the middle of a downpour, with the woman sitting inside - the woman who was killed. She's been trying to put the crime out of her mind; what could she have done, really? It's a dangerous road to be on in the middle of a storm. Her husband would be furious if he knew she'd broken her promise not to take that shortcut home. And she probably would only have been hurt herself if she'd stopped. But since then, she's been forgetting every little thing: where she left the car, if she took her pills, the alarm code, why she ordered a pram when she doesn't have a baby.  The only thing she can't forget is that woman, the woman she might have saved, and the terrible nagging guilt. Or the silent calls she's receiving, or the feeling that someone's watching her....

Set in northern Vermont in 1930, On Kingdom Mountain recounts the life and times of Miss Jane Hubbell Kinneson. A renowned local bookwoman and bird carver, she is the sole proprietor and last resident of a remote and wild mountain situated on the U.S.–Canadian border, now threatened by the...  more

Set in northern Vermont in 1930, On Kingdom Mountain recounts the life and times of Miss Jane Hubbell Kinneson. A renowned local bookwoman and bird carver, she is the sole proprietor and last resident of a remote and wild mountain situated on the U.S.–Canadian border, now threatened by the “Connector,” a proposed new highway over her mountain. Abounding with Howard Frank Mosher’s trademark action scenes, from daring bank robberies to outrageous comedy to a passionate and surprising love affair, On Kingdom Mountain is rooted deeply in Mosher’s own family history, in one of America’s last frontiers, and in a way of life on the brink of extinction.

One late summer's day, the yacht Trashman set sail from Annapolis to Florida. On board were five young people: John, the captain; Meg, Mark, Brad, and Debbie Scaling. When the boat sailed into a gale, the eighty-knot winds shredded the sails. Forty-foot seas crashed through the cabin...  more

One late summer's day, the yacht Trashman set sail from Annapolis to Florida. On board were five young people: John, the captain; Meg, Mark, Brad, and Debbie Scaling. When the boat sailed into a gale, the eighty-knot winds shredded the sails. Forty-foot seas crashed through the cabin windows, and Trashman sank, leaving the crew adrift in a rubber dinghy. Albatross tells the story of how Debbie and Brad survived and how the tragedy changed Debbie Scaling's life forever.

Dublin, 1962. Within the gated grounds of the convent of The Sisters of the Holy Redemption lies one of the city’s Magdalen Laundries. Once places of refuge, the laundries have evolved into grim workhouses. Some inmates are “fallen” women—unwed mothers, prostitutes,...  more

Dublin, 1962. Within the gated grounds of the convent of The Sisters of the Holy Redemption lies one of the city’s Magdalen Laundries. Once places of refuge, the laundries have evolved into grim workhouses. Some inmates are “fallen” women—unwed mothers, prostitutes, or petty criminals. Most are ordinary girls whose only sin lies in being too pretty, too independent, or tempting the wrong man. Among them is sixteen-year-old Teagan Tiernan, sent by her family when her beauty provokes a lustful revelation from a young priest. Teagan soon befriends Nora Craven, a new arrival who thought nothing could be worse than living in a squalid tenement flat. Stripped of their freedom and dignity, the girls are given new names and denied contact with the outside world. The Mother Superior, Sister Anne, who has secrets of her own, inflicts cruel, dehumanizing punishments—but always in the name of love. Finally, Nora and Teagan find an ally in the reclusive Lea, who helps them endure—and plot an escape. But as they will discover, the outside world has dangers too, especially for young women with soiled reputations.

From the bestselling author of The Women comes an action- packed adventure about endangered animals and those who protect them. Principally set on the wild and sparsely inhabited Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara, T.C. Boyle's powerful new novel combines pulse-pounding adventure...  more

From the bestselling author of The Women comes an action- packed adventure about endangered animals and those who protect them. Principally set on the wild and sparsely inhabited Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara, T.C. Boyle's powerful new novel combines pulse-pounding adventure with a socially conscious, richly humane tale regarding the dominion we attempt to exert, for better or worse, over the natural world. Alma Boyd Takesue is a National Park Service biologist who is spearheading the efforts to save the island's endangered native creatures from invasive species like rats and feral pigs, which, in her view, must be eliminated. Her antagonist, Dave LaJoy, is a dreadlocked local businessman who, along with his lover, the folksinger Anise Reed, is fiercely opposed to the killing of any species whatsoever and will go to any lengths to subvert the plans of Alma and her colleagues. Their confrontation plays out in a series of escalating scenes in which these characters violently confront one another, and tempt the awesome destructive power of nature itself. Boyle deepens his story by going back in time to relate the harrowing tale of Alma's grandmother Beverly, who was the sole survivor of a 1946 shipwreck in the channel, as well as the tragic story of Anise's mother, Rita, who in the late 1970s lived and worked on a sheep ranch on Santa Cruz Island. In dramatizing this collision between protectors of the environment and animal rights' activists, Boyle is, in his characteristic fashion, examining one of the essential questions of our time: Who has the right of possession of the land, the waters, the very lives of all the creatures who share this planet with us? When the Killing's Done will offer no transparent answers, but like The Tortilla Curtain, Boyle's classic take on illegal immigration, it will touch you deeply and put you in a position to decide.

Set in Charleston during the years leading up to the War Between the States, The Belles of Charleston is a coming-of-age story about four cousins. Alexis Belle: Beautiful, spoiled, and petulant, she treats Charleston as her own private playground, along with the men who live there. Jennie...  more

Set in Charleston during the years leading up to the War Between the States, The Belles of Charleston is a coming-of-age story about four cousins. Alexis Belle: Beautiful, spoiled, and petulant, she treats Charleston as her own private playground, along with the men who live there. Jennie Belle: Alexis' identical twin, cursed to always do her sister's bidding. Rachel Belle: A strong-willed New Englander who marries into the Belle family and lives with a cloud over her marriage. Franklin Belle: Rachel's husband who, because of his family's secret past, goes north to find a bride and his future. Lewis Belle: The family rogue who attends the military college of South Carolina and uses his uniform to seduce every young woman in Charleston, including his brother's wife.

The true stories of the real nurses on the PBS show Mercy Street The nurses of the Civil War ushered in a new era for medicine in the midst of tremendous hardship. While the country was at war, these women not only learned to advocate and care for patients in hostile settings, saved countless...  more

The true stories of the real nurses on the PBS show Mercy Street The nurses of the Civil War ushered in a new era for medicine in the midst of tremendous hardship. While the country was at war, these women not only learned to advocate and care for patients in hostile settings, saved countless lives, and changed the profession forever, they regularly fell ill with no one to nurse them in return, seethed in anger at the indifference and inefficiency that left wounded men on the battlefield without care, and all too often mourned for those they could not rescue. Heroines of Mercy Street tells the true stories of the nurses at Mansion House, the Alexandria, Virginia, hotel turned wartime hospital and setting for the PBS show Mercy Street. Women like Dorothea Dix, Mary Phinney, Anne Reading, and more rushed to be of service to their country during the war, meeting challenges that would discourage less determined souls every step of the way. They saw casualties on a scale Americans had never seen before; diseases like typhoid and dysentery were rampant; and working conditions-both physically and emotionally--were abysmal. Drawing on the diaries, letters, and books written by these nursing pioneers, Pamela D. Toler, PhD, has written a fascinating portrait of true heroines, shining a light on their personal contributions during one of our country's most turbulent periods.

Mary Brave Bird grew up fatherless in a one-room cabin, without running water or electricity, on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Rebelling against the aimless drinking, punishing missionary school, narrow strictures for women, and violence and hopeless of reservation life, she...  more

Mary Brave Bird grew up fatherless in a one-room cabin, without running water or electricity, on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Rebelling against the aimless drinking, punishing missionary school, narrow strictures for women, and violence and hopeless of reservation life, she joined the new movement of tribal pride sweeping Native American communities in the sixties and seventies. Mary eventually married Leonard Crow Dog, the American Indian Movement's chief medicine man, who revived the sacred but outlawed Ghost Dance. Originally published in 1990, Lakota Woman was a national best seller and winner of the American Book Award. It is a unique document, unparalleled in American Indian literature, a story of death, of determination against all odds, of the cruelties perpetuated against American Indians, and of the Native American struggle for rights. Working with Richard Erdoes, one of the twentieth century's leading writers on Native American affairs, Brave Bird recounts her difficult upbringing and the path of her fascinating life.

An authentic autobiographical account of slave life in the South from the 1820s to the 1840s. To escape sexual exploitation by her master, Brent ran away and hid in an attic crawl space that became her home for seven years of unbelievable physical hardship. Edited by L. Maria Child; Introduction...  more

An authentic autobiographical account of slave life in the South from the 1820s to the 1840s. To escape sexual exploitation by her master, Brent ran away and hid in an attic crawl space that became her home for seven years of unbelievable physical hardship. Edited by L. Maria Child; Introduction by Walter Teller.

Women travel for myriad reasons: They venture out to escape the routine of daily existence; to encounter fascinating new people and places; to enrich their lives; to embrace new cultures; and to explore; but sometimes none of this works out. This expanded edition of The Unsavvy Traveler adds...  more

Women travel for myriad reasons: They venture out to escape the routine of daily existence; to encounter fascinating new people and places; to enrich their lives; to embrace new cultures; and to explore; but sometimes none of this works out. This expanded edition of The Unsavvy Traveler adds three new tales of tangled travel to the humorous collection that debuted in 2001. Braving injury and danger, conflict and discomfort, naïve faux pas and mistranslations, these women discover that an unexpected kink in plans can lead to wacky situations: being chased by an itinerant mob in Beijing; trying to outrun a rising river in Malaysia; eating unidentifiable delicacies; and sleeping on a fast-food restaurant booth, on hard jungle ground, or on a swaying fishing schooner. With wry humor and unabashed honesty, these stories convey the unbreakable spirit of the willing adventurer.

Having left the military, Dakota Jones is at a crossroads in his life. With his elder brother and youngest sister happily settled in Sullivan’s Crossing, he shows up hoping to clear his head before moving on to his next adventure. But, like every visitor to the Crossing, he’s...  more

Having left the military, Dakota Jones is at a crossroads in his life. With his elder brother and youngest sister happily settled in Sullivan’s Crossing, he shows up hoping to clear his head before moving on to his next adventure. But, like every visitor to the Crossing, he’s immediately drawn to the down-to-earth people and the seemingly simple way of life. Dakota is unprepared for how quickly things get complicated. As a newcomer, he is on everyone’s radar -- especially the single women in town. While he enjoys the attention at first, he’s really only attracted to the one woman who isn’t interested. And spending quality time with his siblings is eye-opening. As he gets to know them, he also gets to know himself and what he truly wants. When all the Jones siblings gather for a family wedding, the four adults are drawn together for the first time in a way they never were as children. As they struggle to accept each other, warts and all, the true nature and strength of their bond is tested. But all of them come to realize that your family are the people who see you for who you really are and love you anyway. And for Dakota, that truth allows him to find the home and family he’s always wanted.

A candid, unflinching memoir from a talented young lawyer who becomes romantically involved with a convicted drug felon?Cameron Douglas, son of Hollywood star Michael Douglas?and makes a life-changing mistake. Criminal That I Am is a young lawyer?s account of crime?s unexpected consequences and...  more

A candid, unflinching memoir from a talented young lawyer who becomes romantically involved with a convicted drug felon?Cameron Douglas, son of Hollywood star Michael Douglas?and makes a life-changing mistake. Criminal That I Am is a young lawyer?s account of crime?s unexpected consequences and the criminal justice system as seen through the prism of a particular case: her own. Jennifer Ridha was enlisted to defend Cameron Douglas, the son of film actor Michael Douglas, in a federal drug trafficking case. Beyond his celebrity, Cameron?s case was complicated by the fact that he suffered from anxiety. As media scrutiny and the pressures of his case mounted, Cameron?s anxiety worsened. When Jennifer?s efforts to alleviate his condition through the proper channels fell flat, she agreed to illicitly smuggle in the anti-anxiety medication that the prison refused to dispense. When her transgression was discovered, her criminal case began. A page-turning trip from professional self-destruction through tabloid scandal to redemption, Ridha describes her tumultuous journey, beginning with her decision to commit a crime on behalf of a man she loved to the ultimately transformative consequences that came after. Criminal That I Am is a compelling, twisted love story that contemplates what we make of crime and punishment?and what it makes of us.

Turtle Alveston is a survivor. At fourteen, she roams the woods along the northern California coast. The creeks, tide pools, and rocky islands are her haunts and her hiding grounds, and she is known to wander for miles. But while her physical world is expansive, her personal one is small and...  more

Turtle Alveston is a survivor. At fourteen, she roams the woods along the northern California coast. The creeks, tide pools, and rocky islands are her haunts and her hiding grounds, and she is known to wander for miles. But while her physical world is expansive, her personal one is small and treacherous: Turtle has grown up isolated since the death of her mother, in the thrall of her tortured and charismatic father, Martin. Her social existence is confined to the middle school (where she fends off the interest of anyone, student or teacher, who might penetrate her shell) and to her life with her father. Then Turtle meets Jacob, a high-school boy who tells jokes, lives in a big clean house, and looks at Turtle as if she is the sunrise. And for the first time, the larger world begins to come into focus: her life with Martin is neither safe nor sustainable. Motivated by her first experience with real friendship and a teenage crush, Turtle starts to imagine escape, using the very survival skills her father devoted himself to teaching her. What follows is a harrowing story of bravery and redemption. With Turtle's escalating acts of physical and emotional courage, the reader watches, heart in throat, as this teenage girl struggles to become her own hero -- and in the process, becomes ours as well.

1943: When seventeen-year-old Juliet Dufresne receives a cryptic letter from her enlisted brother and then discovers that he’s been reported missing in action, she lies about her age and travels to the front lines as an army nurse, determined to find him. Shy and awkward, Juliet is thrust...  more

1943: When seventeen-year-old Juliet Dufresne receives a cryptic letter from her enlisted brother and then discovers that he’s been reported missing in action, she lies about her age and travels to the front lines as an army nurse, determined to find him. Shy and awkward, Juliet is thrust into the bloody chaos of a field hospital, a sprawling encampment north of Rome where she forges new friendships and is increasingly consumed by the plight of her patients. One in particular, Christopher Barnaby, a deserter awaiting court-martial, may hold the answer to her brother’s whereabouts - but the trauma of war has left him catatonic. Racing against the clock, Juliet works with an enigmatic young psychiatrist, Dr. Henry Willard, to break Barnaby’s silence before the authorities take him away.  Plunged into the horrifying depths of one man’s memories of combat, Juliet and Willard are forced to plumb the moral nuances of a so-called just war and to face the dangers of their own deepening emotional connection.