Plagued by dreams of her dead father, Katrina Nielsen returns to her native Denmark to face the ghosts of her past. After seven years in New York, sidelined by a career-ending injury, Katrina is determined to reunite her shattered family. But when she and her American husband, Richard, purchase...  more

Plagued by dreams of her dead father, Katrina Nielsen returns to her native Denmark to face the ghosts of her past. After seven years in New York, sidelined by a career-ending injury, Katrina is determined to reunite her shattered family. But when she and her American husband, Richard, purchase Sound House, an ordinary-looking home overlooking the water, a series of weird events begins: inexplicable smoke and footsteps, a ghostly face at the window. After she is "pushed" down the cellar stairs by an unseen force, her charming (if slightly creepy) neighbor, Søren, convinces her that she is being haunted by the ghost of Karl Damsgaard, the original owner of Sound House. As the terrifying disturbances escalate, the desperate couple puts their faith in Rowena, a flamboyant psychic - which leads to the book's tragic conclusion. Inspired by actual events, Shadows in Summer is a deliciously scalp-prickling tale that will haunt readers long after the final page.

Once safely out of Nebraska, Seth McKenna does everything he can to erase his oppressive hometown and abusive childhood, leaving his sister Cassie behind to fend for herself. Seth is making a new life for himself as an artist in New York when he falls hard for an alluring older man who is...  more

Once safely out of Nebraska, Seth McKenna does everything he can to erase his oppressive hometown and abusive childhood, leaving his sister Cassie behind to fend for herself. Seth is making a new life for himself as an artist in New York when he falls hard for an alluring older man who is astonished to find in Seth the second love of his life. The couple+s relationship is complicated by Cassie+s unexpected arrival with significant secrets and plans of her own. Now Seth must confront his past and the consequences of the lies he+s told to move forward in his life.A gorgeous whirlwind of a family drama and an emotional, sexy love story, What Love Means to You People is rich with the atmosphere of New York and a cast of irresistible characters.

Sodom on the Thames looks closely at three episodes involving sex between men in late-nineteenth-century England. Morris Kaplan draws on extensive research into court records, contemporary newspaper accounts, personal correspondence and diaries, even a pornographic novel. He focuses on two...  more

Sodom on the Thames looks closely at three episodes involving sex between men in late-nineteenth-century England. Morris Kaplan draws on extensive research into court records, contemporary newspaper accounts, personal correspondence and diaries, even a pornographic novel. He focuses on two notorious scandals and one quieter incident. In 1871, transvestites "Stella" (Ernest Boulton) and "Fanny" (Frederick Park), who had paraded around London?s West End followed by enthusiastic admirers, were tried for conspiracy to commit sodomy. In 1889?1890, the "Cleveland Street affair" revealed that telegraph delivery boys had been moonlighting as prostitutes for prominent gentlemen, one of whom fled abroad. In 1871, Eton schoolmaster William Johnson resigned in disgrace, generating shockwaves among the young men in his circle whose romantic attachments lasted throughout their lives. Kaplan shows how profoundly these scandals influenced the trials of Oscar Wilde in 1895 and contributed to growing anxiety about male friendships. Sodom on the Thames reconstructs these incidents in rich detail and gives a voice to the diverse people involved. It deepens our understanding of late Victorian attitudes toward urban culture, masculinity, and male homoeroticism. Kaplan also explores the implications of such historical narratives for the contemporary politics of sexuality.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE BOSTON GLOBE, KIRKUS REVIEWS, BUSTLE, AND EMILY GOULD, THE MILLIONS For fans of J. Courtney Sullivan, Meg Wolitzer, Mona Simpson, and Jhumpa Lahiri comes a winning, irreverent debut novel about a family wrestling with its future and its past. ...  more

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE BOSTON GLOBE, KIRKUS REVIEWS, BUSTLE, AND EMILY GOULD, THE MILLIONS For fans of J. Courtney Sullivan, Meg Wolitzer, Mona Simpson, and Jhumpa Lahiri comes a winning, irreverent debut novel about a family wrestling with its future and its past.   With depth, heart, and agility, debut novelist Mira Jacob takes us on a deftly plotted journey that ranges from 1970s India to suburban 1980s New Mexico to Seattle during the dot.com boom. The Sleepwalker?s Guide to Dancing is an epic, irreverent testimony to the bonds of love, the pull of hope, and the power of making peace with life?s uncertainties.   Celebrated brain surgeon Thomas Eapen has been sitting on his porch, talking to dead relatives. At least that is the story his wife, Kamala, prone to exaggeration, tells their daughter, Amina, a photographer living in Seattle.   Reluctantly Amina returns home and finds a situation that is far more complicated than her mother let on, with roots in a trip the family, including Amina?s rebellious brother Akhil, took to India twenty years earlier. Confronted by Thomas?s unwillingness to explain himself, strange looks from the hospital staff, and a series of puzzling items buried in her mother?s garden, Amina soon realizes that the only way she can help her father is by coming to terms with her family?s painful past. In doing so, she must reckon with the ghosts that haunt all of the Eapens.   Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader?s Circle for author chats and more.   ?With wit and a rich understanding of human foibles, Jacob unspools a story that will touch your heart.??People   ?Optimistic, unpretentious and refreshingly witty.??Associated Press   ?By turns hilarious and tender and always attuned to shifts of emotion . . . [Jacob?s] characters shimmer with life.??Entertainment Weekly   ?A rich, engrossing debut told with lightness and care.??The Kansas City Star   ?[A] sprawling, poignant, often humorous novel . . . Told with humor and sympathy for its characters, the book serves as a bittersweet lesson in the binding power of family, even when we seek to break out from it.??O: The Oprah Magazine   ?Moving forward and back in time, Jacob balances comedy and romance with indelible sorrow. . . . When her plot springs surprises, she lets them happen just as they do in life: blindsidingly right in the middle of things.??The Boston Globe   ?This is an effortlessly gorgeous and rich book. Its prose is lovely and precise, alternately luminous and direct; its observations of people and families and the physical world are poignant and a delight. The dialogue is sharp, funny, and true. This is a triumphant debut!??Jonathan Ames, author of Wake Up, Sir!   ?Comparisons of Jacob to Jhumpa Lahiri are inevitable; . . . both write with naked honesty about the uneasy generational divide among Indians in America and about family in all its permutations.??Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

It?s 2098 and the last season of baseball?forever. After the ravages of WWIII, the once all-American sport is now synonymous with terrorism and treason. Holograms run the bases for out-of-shape players and attendance averages fifteen spectators per game. The only ballpark left is the former...  more

It?s 2098 and the last season of baseball?forever. After the ravages of WWIII, the once all-American sport is now synonymous with terrorism and treason. Holograms run the bases for out-of-shape players and attendance averages fifteen spectators per game. The only ballpark left is the former Yankee Stadium.America, nearly wiped out by radical Islam, has established a society based on love. Religion, social media, and the entertainment industry have been outlawed. All acts of patriotism are illegal, and the country is led by Grandma. Heading up the Family in her home base in the Bronx, she works tirelessly to build a lasting legacy for the future.As baseball historian Puppy Nedick prepares for opening day, a chance encounter lands him face-to-face with former baseball greats. Determined not to go down without a fight, the players band together to revitalize the game for one last hurrah.But not everyone wants peace. Will baseball become the catalyst for WWIV, or will it save America?

An industry insider explains why there is so much bad software?and why academia doesn't teach programmers what industry wants them to know.Why is software so prone to bugs? So vulnerable to viruses? Why are software products so often delayed, or even canceled? Is software development really...  more

An industry insider explains why there is so much bad software?and why academia doesn't teach programmers what industry wants them to know.Why is software so prone to bugs? So vulnerable to viruses? Why are software products so often delayed, or even canceled? Is software development really hard, or are software developers just not that good at it? In The Problem with Software, Adam Barr examines the proliferation of bad software, explains what causes it, and offers some suggestions on how to improve the situation.For one thing, Barr points out, academia doesn't teach programmers what they actually need to know to do their jobs: how to work in a team to create code that works reliably and can be maintained by somebody other than the original authors. As the size and complexity of commercial software have grown, the gap between academic computer science and industry has widened. It's an open secret that there is little engineering in software engineering, which continues to rely not on codified scientific knowledge but on intuition and experience. Barr, who worked as a programmer for more than twenty years, describes how the industry has evolved, from the era of mainframes and Fortran to today's embrace of the cloud. He explains bugs and why software has so many of them, and why today's interconnected computers offer fertile ground for viruses and worms. The difference between good and bad software can be a single line of code, and Barr includes code to illustrate the consequences of seemingly inconsequential choices by programmers. Looking to the future, Barr writes that the best prospect for improving software engineering is the move to the cloud. When software is a service and not a product, companies will have more incentive to make it good rather than ?good enough to ship."

A witty, heartfelt graphic memoir about what it truly means to be an American family--Aziz Ansari's Master of None meets Alison Bechdel's Fun Home Mira Jacob's touching, often humorous, and utterly unique graphic memoir takes readers on her journey as a first-generation American. At an...  more

A witty, heartfelt graphic memoir about what it truly means to be an American family--Aziz Ansari's Master of None meets Alison Bechdel's Fun Home Mira Jacob's touching, often humorous, and utterly unique graphic memoir takes readers on her journey as a first-generation American. At an increasingly fraught time for immigrants and their families, Good Talk delves into the difficult conversations about race, sex, love, and family that seem to be unavoidable these days. Inspired by her popular BuzzFeed piece "37 Difficult Questions from My Mixed-Raced Son," here are Jacob's responses to her six-year-old, Zakir, who asks if the new president hates brown boys like him; uncomfortable relationship advice from her parents, who came to the United States from India one month into their arranged marriage; and the imaginary therapy sessions she has with celebrities from Bill Murray to Madonna. Jacob also investigates her own past, from her memories of being the only non-white fifth grader to win a Daughters of the American Revolution essay contest to how it felt to be a brown-skinned New Yorker on 9/11. As earnest and moving as they are sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, these are the stories that have formed one American life.

 ?IF DIETS WORKED, WE?D ALL BE THIN BY NOW. INSTEAD, WE HAVE ENLISTED HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE INTO A WAR WE CAN?T WIN.?   What?s the secret to losing weight? If you?re like most of us, you?ve tried cutting calories, sipping weird smoothies, avoiding fats, and swapping out sugar for...  more

 ?IF DIETS WORKED, WE?D ALL BE THIN BY NOW. INSTEAD, WE HAVE ENLISTED HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE INTO A WAR WE CAN?T WIN.?   What?s the secret to losing weight? If you?re like most of us, you?ve tried cutting calories, sipping weird smoothies, avoiding fats, and swapping out sugar for Splenda. The real secret is that all of those things are likely to make you weigh more in a few years, not less.   In fact, a good predictor of who will gain weight is who says they plan to lose some. Last year, 108 million Americans went on diets, to the applause of doctors, family, and friends. But long-term studies of dieters consistently find that they?re more likely to end up gaining weight in the next two to fifteen years than people who don?t diet. Neuroscientist Sandra Aamodt spent three decades in her own punishing cycle of starving and regaining before turning her scientific eye to the research on weight and health. What she found defies the conventional wisdom about dieting:   ·Telling children that they?re overweight makes them more likely to gain weight over the next few years. Weight shaming has the same effect on adults. ·The calories you absorb from a slice of pizza depend on your genes and on your gut bac­teria. So does the number of calories you?re burning right now. ·Most people who lose a lot of weight suffer from obsessive thoughts, binge eating, depres­sion, and anxiety. They also burn less energy and find eating much more rewarding than it was before they lost weight. · Fighting against your body?s set point?a cen­tral tenet of most diet plans?is exhausting, psychologically damaging, and ultimately counterproductive.    If dieting makes us fat, what should we do instead to stay healthy and reduce the risks of diabetes, heart disease, and other obesity-related conditions? With clarity and candor, Aamodt makes a spirited case for abandoning diets in favor of behav­iors that will truly improve and extend our lives.

Comprehensive and thoroughly up-to-date, this volume offers a brand new analysis of the Vestal Virgins’ ritual function in Roman religion. Undertaking a detailed and careful analysis of ancient literary sources, Wildfang argues that the Vestals’ virginity must be understood on a variety of...  more

Comprehensive and thoroughly up-to-date, this volume offers a brand new analysis of the Vestal Virgins’ ritual function in Roman religion. Undertaking a detailed and careful analysis of ancient literary sources, Wildfang argues that the Vestals’ virginity must be understood on a variety of different levels and provides a solution to the problem of the Vestals’ peculiar legal status in ancient Rome. Addressing the one official state priesthood open to women at Rome, this volume explores and analyzes a range of topics including: the rituals enacted by priestesses (both the public rituals performed in connection with official state rites and festivals and the private rites associated only with the order itself) the division and interface between religion, state and family structure the Vestals’ participation in rights that were outside the sphere of traditional female activity. New and insightful, this investigation of one of the most important state cults in ancient Rome is an essential addition to the bookshelves of all those interested in Roman religion, history and culture.

One of the engineering wonders of the world, the Inca Road was built more than five hundred years ago to link the far-flung outposts of a fabled empire -- an empire that ruled in golden splendor until the conquistadors arrived to plunder El Dorado and put a swift, cruel end to its extraordinary...  more

One of the engineering wonders of the world, the Inca Road was built more than five hundred years ago to link the far-flung outposts of a fabled empire -- an empire that ruled in golden splendor until the conquistadors arrived to plunder El Dorado and put a swift, cruel end to its extraordinary culture. But its legend survives in the masterful masonry of its paving blocks and the ruined glory of ghost cities such as Cuzco. In this vivid, free-wheeling expedition, Karin Muller travels the ancient route to explore its dramatic history and discover new adventures along its length and breadth. Along the Inca Road shares the stillness of sunrise in the haunted aerie of Machu Picchu, clings to the roof of a rattletrap bus skirting the vertiginous precipices of the Andes, carouses through the streets of an Altiplano city on Carnival, and inches warily forward as Ecuadorian soldiers probe for land mines with bayonets. Muller's ready for just about anything, whether it's challenging the Pacific surf in a traditional Inca reed boat, locking horns with a bull in a cheering Peruvian arena, or joining a crack Bolivian anti-narcotics team on a hunt for clandestine cocaine labs deep in the jungle. She initiates us into the mysteries of the spirits at a shaman's rite involving hamsters, hallucinogens, and copious libations of moonshine, and high in a mountain meadow captures a struggling vicuna, whose prized silky fleece once was reserved for the Inca god-king alone. And these are only a few of the traveler's tales from a 3,125-mile odyssey encompassing four countries and every form of transportation under the sun, from footslogging, mule train, and motorbike to state-of-the-art military vehicles. As she spins the wool of her stories into a modern tapestry of faces and memories, Muller intertwines a chronicle of the ancient Inca from their race's mythical birth on an island in lofty Lake Titicaca to their sudden plunge from the height of imperial power at the hands of a ragtag band of Spanish soldiers of fortune. We learn how they lived, worshipped, and warred, and why such a magnificent culture proved so vulnerable to invaders. As spectacular as the mountainscapes that are its breathtaking backdrop, Along the Inca Road is a wonderful panorama of past and present -- the kind of sharply observed portrait of a unique part of the world and its colorful people that displays the art of travel literature at its best.