Early Reviewers: Free advance copies of books

Beskrivelse: "Gabrielle Burton brings us a moving story of human courage and frailty. Tamsen Donner's tale will stay with you long after you've read the last page."
-Nancy Horan, author of LOVING FRANK

The epic journey of the Donner Party, through the eyes of Tamsen Donner

In the summer of 1846, Tamsen Donner, her husband, George, their five daughters, and eighty other pioneers embarked on the California-Oregon Trail. During that ill-fated trip, early snows trapped them for over four months in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Almost half the group perished, and some resorted to unimaginable means to survive—making the Donner Party an enduringly fascinating episode in American history.

Set during those long, snowbound months and told through the hauntingly imagined journal entries and letters of Tamsen, IMPATIENT WITH DESIRE is psychologically penetrating, dramatic, provocative, romantic, and intimate. Remarkable passages and tenderly acute, heartbreaking scenes will leave readers breathless.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: “Divakaruni is a brilliant storyteller; she illuminates the world with her artistry; and shakes the reader with her love.”
—Junot Diaz

Late afternoon sun sneaks through the windows of a passport and visa office in an unnamed American city. Most customers and even most office workers have come and gone, but nine people remain. A punky teenager with an unexpected gift. An upper-class Caucasian couple whose relationship is disintegrating. A young Muslim-American man struggling with the fallout of 9/11. A graduate student haunted by a question about love. An African-American ex-soldier searching for redemption. A Chinese grandmother with a secret past. And two visa office workers on the verge of an adulterous affair.

When an earthquake rips through the afternoon lull, trapping these nine characters together, their focus first jolts to their collective struggle to survive. There’s little food. The office begins to flood. Then, at a moment when the psychological and emotional stress seems nearly too much for them to bear, the young graduate student suggests that each tell a personal tale, “one amazing thing” from their lives, which they have never told anyone before. And as their surprising stories of romance, marriage, family, political upheaval, and self-discovery unfold against the urgency of their life-or-death circumstances, the novel proves the transcendent power of stories and the meaningfulness of human expression itself. From Chitra Divakaruni, author of such finely wrought, bestselling novels as Sister of My Heart, The Palace of Illusions, and The Mistress of Spices, comes her most compelling and transporting story to date. One Amazing Thing is a passionate creation about survival—and about the reasons to survive.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Linwood Barclay is back with more unexpected twists and superb characters in a spine-tingling, mesmerizing thriller about a husband whose wife disappears, along with everything he thought he knew about their life together.

David Harwood, a reporter in Promise Falls, New York, is stressed out. His paper is outsourcing jobs to India, he can't get a solid lead on the corrupt for-profit prison moving to town, and his wife, Jan, is struggling with a bout of depression. As a much-needed break, David and Jan decide to take their four-year-old son, Ethan, to a local amusement park for a day of ice cream, roller coasters, and carefree fun. Within an hour of arriving at the park, Ethan goes missing and panic quickly replaces revelry. David thinks that his day can't get any worse, but when his child is found and his wife disappears, panic escalates into full-blown terror. Desperately searching for any clue that could lead him to Jan, David unravels a tangle of lies and deception that gets more complicated with every turn.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: An amphetamine-fueled thriller about a bombshell American widow on the run in Cape Town’s violent badlands—from a writer being compared to George Pelecanos and Richard Price

A split-second decision with no second chance: get it wrong and you wake up dead.

On a blowtorch-hot night in Cape Town, American ex-model Roxy Palmer and her gunrunner husband, Joe, are carjacked, leaving Joe lying in a pool of blood. As the carjackers make their getaway, Roxy makes a fateful choice that changes her life forever.

Disco and Godwynn, the ghetto gangbangers who sped away in Joe’s convertible, will stop at nothing to track her down. Billy Afrika, a mixed-race ex-cop turned mercenary, won’t let her out of his sight because Joe owed him a chunk of money. And remorselessly hunting them all is Piper, a love-crazed psychopath determined to renew his vows with his jailhouse “wife,” Disco.

As these desperate lives collide and old debts are settled in blood, Roxy is caught in a wave of escalating violence in the beautiful and brutal African seaport. With savage plotting and breakneck suspense that ends in a shattering cataclysm of violence, Wake Up Dead confirms Roger Smith as one of the world’s best new thriller writers.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Fear of being abandoned keeps nineteen-year-old Harmony Dust trapped in an abusive and cruel relationship. She thinks she has hit bottom—tens of thousands of dollars in debt, struggling to get by, and so controlled by her boyfriend that she doesn’t protest when he begins openly sleeping around. Things can’t get worse . . . until someone tells her how much money she can make as an exotic dancer. For the next three years, Harmony lives a double life as Monique, a dancer in a fully-nude strip club.

Scars and Stilettos is Harmony’s stark, honest, and ultimately hopeful story of how God found her in that dark, noisy place and led her out. She has since married, completed an MA in social welfare, and now leads Treasures, an organization helping women in the sex trade discover their true worth.

“Harmony wrote her story so that you and your friends may get help out of whatever dark tunnel you find yourself in. I know her heart, and it is to see all of us live our lives in the very purpose for which we were created. I do want to warn you . . . once you start this book, you will not be able to put it down. You will laugh, you will cry, you will be encouraged, you will fall in love with God all over again . . . and you will want to get a copy for every person you know.”—Holly Wagner, from the preface

“Harmony’s story is compelling evidence of how far the love of God reaches to heal broken lives and restore all that has been stolen.”—Nancy Alcorn, Mercy Ministries

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: A dazzling, searing, and inventive memoir about becoming a father in the age of terror.

In 2007, during the months before Nick Flynn’s daughter’s birth, his growing outrage and obsession with torture, exacerbated by the Abu Ghraib photographs, led him to Istanbul to meet some of the Iraqi men depicted in those photos. Haunted by a history of addiction, a relationship with his unsteady father, and a longing to connect with his mother who committed suicide, Flynn artfully interweaves in this memoir passages from his childhood, his relationships with women, and his growing obsession—a questioning of terror, torture, and the political crimes we can neither see nor understand in post-9/11 American life. The time bomb of the title becomes an unlikely metaphor and vehicle for exploring the fears and joys of becoming a father. Here is a memoir of profound self-discovery—of being lost and found, of painful family memories and losses, of the need to run from love, and of the ability to embrace it again.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: An epic tale of a father and two sons, of betrayals and loyalties, of a family unraveling in the wake of Ethiopia’s revolution.

This memorable, heartbreaking story opens in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1974, on the eve of a revolution. Yonas kneels in his mother’s prayer room, pleading to his god for an end to the violence that has wracked his family and country. His father, Hailu, a prominent doctor, has been ordered to report to jail after helping a victim of state-sanctioned torture to die. And Dawit, Hailu’s youngest son, has joined an underground resistance movement—a choice that will lead to more upheaval and bloodshed across a ravaged Ethiopia.

Beneath the Lion’s Gaze tells a gripping story of family, of the bonds of love and friendship set in a time and place that has rarely been explored in fiction. It is a story about the lengths human beings will go in pursuit of freedom and the human price of a national revolution. Emotionally gripping, poetic, and indelibly tragic, Beneath The Lion’s Gaze is a transcendent and powerful debut.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Denis Johnson meets David Mitchell in this darkly beautiful and daringly creative novel by two-time Booker Prize nominee Jon McGregor.

On a cold, quiet day between Christmas and the New Year, a man’s body is found in an abandoned apartment. His friends look on, but they’re dead, too, their bodies found in remote corners of the city. Victims of heroin overdose, they’re in the shadows, a chorus keeping vigil as the hours pass, paying homage as their friend’s body is taken away, examined, investigated, and cremated.

All of their stories are laid out piece by broken piece through a series of fractured narratives—of lives fallen through the cracks, hopes flaring and dying, love overwhelmed by a stronger need, and the havoc wrought by drugs, distress, and the disregard of the wider world. These invisible people live in a parallel reality, out of reach of basic creature comforts, like food and shelter. In their sudden deaths, it becomes clear, they are treated with more respect than they ever were in their short lives.

Intense, exhilarating, and shot through with hope and fury, Even the Dogs is an intimate exploration of life at the edges of society—littered with love, loss, despair, and a half-glimpse of redemption.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Set in the remote arctic region of Northern Canada, this book takes readers on a harrowing canoe voyage that results in tragedy, redemption, and, ultimately, transformation. George Grinnell was one of six young men who set off on the 1955 expedition led by experienced wilderness canoeist Art Moffatt. Poorly planned and executed, the journey seemed doomed from the start. Ignoring the approaching winter, the men became entranced with the peace and beauty of the arctic in autumn. As winter closed in, they suddenly faced numbing cold and dwindling food. When the crew is swept over a waterfall, Moffatt is killed and most of the gear and emergency food supplies destroyed. Confronting freezing conditions and near starvation, the remaining crew struggled to make it back to civilization. For Grinnell, the three-month expedition was both a rite of passage and a spiritual odyssey. In the Barrens, he lost his sense of identity and what he had been conditioned to think about society and himself. Forever changed by the experience, he unsparingly describes how the expedition influenced his adult life and what powerful insights he was able to glean from this life-altering experience.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Someone will kill and kill again if it means he can fool the FBI . . .

Ex-FBI agent Steve Vail is more than happy to leave the Bureau behind, but they aren’t through with him yet. A group called the Rubaco Pentad is killing human targets one by one unless the FBI can give them buckets of cash, with the amount and the body count escalating each time the agency doesn’t pay up. The Feds are stumped. Some signs point to a corrupt agent while others lead to completely dead ends. Vail has built a reputation for being able to find anybody anywhere. Now, with no official ties, he’s the perfect choice for the sort of under-the-radar investigation they need. But as Vail well knows, going after people who use killing as a bargaining chip is asking for the worst kind of trouble.

The Bricklayer is a gripping debut of an iconic new hero, and is brought to us with the startling authenticity only a real insider can provide. Noah Boyd has created a mind-twisting maze of clues inside a nonstop thrill ride that is guaranteed to keep readers on edge until the final page.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Young Elwood Pitch is only thirteen years old when he finds himself entrusted with a sacred mission to restore peace in the far-off world of Winnitok. The land's immortal protector, Granashon, has disappeared and her power that protects the land is fading fast. Elwood, his dog Slukee, and their newfound traveling companions, warrior Drallah Wehr and her talking raven Booj, set out on a dangerous quest to find the missing immortal. Elwood soon has a mysterious dream about the Eye of Ogin, an ancient turtle shell with the power to find Granashon. Elwood is determined to find the Eye, which was lost centuries before in the great swamp Migdowsh. The Great Swamp is riddled with quicksand, snakes, and monsters, but that does not deter the brave group. Along the way they must navigate an astonishing array of supernatural creatures–yugs, woogans, truans, graycloaks, and a terrible frog demon. Will they find the Eye and restore Granashon's divine power to the land? Will Elwood be able to handle the terrible truth the swamp reveals to him? Patrick Doud brings memorable characters, poetic language, and a driving narrative to this timeless tale that recalls classic epic adventure stories.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: This useful book gives sound, straightforward advice about prenatal care, analyzing and diagnosing high-risk factors, and describing the tests, medications, and procedures necessary for a healthy pregnancy. The authors offer specific ways to cope with the rollercoaster of emotions and medical issues that arise during this process. Beginning with a general guide to successful conception, the book explains the risks and addresses the most pressing concerns. Throughout the text, the authors check in with the men and women involved, showing them how to explore their feelings about the pregnancy, their emotions toward the baby, and how to build a solid support system. Each chapter contains journaling exercises, which are extremely important given the amount of bed-rest required in difficult pregnancies. Here too are informed discussions of natural birth versus C-section, the use of antibiotics and painkillers, and how to cope with miscarriages and premies. Your High-Risk Pregnancy is a complete, caring companion during pregnancy and beyond.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: The accolades keep pouring in for Charles Todd and his New York Times Notable, Edgar® Award-nominated series featuring British police inspector and shell-shocked World War I veteran Ian Rutledge. In The Red Door, a disturbing puzzle surrounding a lie, a disappearance, and a woman’s death ensnares the haunted investigator. Richly atmospheric and unputdownable, The Red Door proves once more that New York Times bestseller Charles Todd belongs in the august company of Ruth Rendell, Anne Perry, Martha Grimes, Ian Ransom, Peter Robinson, P.D. James, and the other contemporary masters of British mystery.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Heart-rending stories of life and death: a debut fiction collection by the award-winning author of The Undertaking.

A Methodist minister gone astray, a grieving trout bum gone fishing with his father’s remains, an artist overwhelmed by incarnate beauty—these are just a few of the iconic yet utterly unique characters in Thomas Lynch’s spirited collection. Set in Michigan’s north woods, in Ohio’s interior, on islands, in casinos, and in distant cities, these stories are linked by the gone and not forgotten: former spouses, dead parents, and missing children. In pursuit of love and its redemptions, these are pilgrims haunted by memory, dogged by desire, made radiant by romance and its denouements.

With the elegant prose of Frederick Busch and the Irish sensibility of William Trevor, Lynch masterfully creates a world where mirage and apparition are commonplace, where people searching for connection and old comforts find them both near at hand and oddly out of reach.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Det. Roland March is a homicide cop on his way out. But when he's the only one at a crime scene to find evidence of a missing female victim, he's given one last chance to prove himself. Before he can crack the case, he's transferred to a new one that has grabbed the spotlight—the disappearance of a famous Houston evangelist's teen daughter.With the help of a youth pastor with a guilty conscience who navigates the world of church and faith, March is determined to find the missing girls while proving he's still one of Houston's best detectives.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: It was only a matter of time until Serge and Coleman did the inevitable—spring break. Meanwhile, a Miami crime gang still bears a grudge against a former associate who entered the witness protection program. While they can’t get to the turncoat, they learn about his son, now college-age, which means — you guessed it — he heads to Florida for spring break. When the gang picks up the son’s trail, Serge picks up the gang’s, and the chase is on —back through “time” as Serge must take a growing cast to all the state’s historic landmarks of the famous annual rite of youth.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: This MASSIVE new novel marks Ronald Kelly's triumphant return to the top of the horror genre. At 500 pages in length, this is also a return to the good old fashioned days when storytellers of scary tales really knew how to captivate their audience.

About the Book:

From out of a shadowy backwoods hollow, echoes a dark threat from the past, nearly a century lost and forgotten.

The rural town of Harmony, Tennessee possessed a disturbing secret; a secret so ancient that most of its residents were completely unaware of it. Even the last survivors of a vigilante raid long ago have filed the tragic events of that autumn night away, totally unaware of the evil that remains, dormant, but forever patient, among the tall pines and thick-leaved kudzu of a place known only as Hell Hollow.

There it would have remained, unrevealed, if not for a handful of unknowing participants. Four kids, bored for excitement during one of the hottest summers on record. A killer on the run, dodging his latest atrocity. And a rape victim on a deadly mission – scarred in both body and mind. All have a hand in bringing forth an unspeakable evil from the dark woods of Hell Hollow.

About the Author:

Ronald Kelly was born and raised in the hills and hollows of Middle Tennessee. Specializing in Southern Horror, Kelly sets his dark rural tales in his home state and other southern locations. His novels include Hindsight, Pitfall, Something Out There, Moon of the Werewolf, Father’s Little Helper, The Possession, Fear, and Blood Kin. His audio-collection Dark Dixie: Tales of Southern Horror was nominated for a Grammy award in 1991 and he has had numerous short stories in major anthologies, such as Cold Blood, Shock Rock, Hot Blood, Borderlands, The Earth Strikes Back, and Dark At Heart.

Praise and Reviews:

"Braiding together three distinct story lines—a coming-of-age tale involving a quartet of adventurous kids, a woman’s quest for vengeance against a maniacal hitchhiker and the vigilante murder of a serial killer—Kelly ingeniously blends unapologetically graphic horror, supernatural suspense and poignant mystery... in this well-crafted and wildly entertaining bloodcurdler."

— Publishers Weekly

"Ronald Kelly makes his triumphant return with an absolutely stunning book. Hell Hollow is storytelling at its finest... If you like your horror atmospheric, suspenseful and character driven, this book is for you."

— Famous Monsters of Filmland

"Hell Hollow clocks in at nearly 500 pages, but it's no slog—Kelly's prose is lean and precise, the mark of an author steeped in the tradition of oral storytelling. He manages to paint vivid pictures with spare strokes, something any writer will tell you is no easy feat... If you're from the South, much of this book is going to ring absolutely true for you. If you’re not, then come along and see what you missed."

— Blu Gilliand, Dark Scribe Magazine

"Ron Kelly is an important talent in the horror field. His work is dark and swift with a Southern accent. Watch for him!"

— Joe R. Lansdale

"Kelly writes with a voice and style all his own, and is making a serious move into the top ranks of the genre."

— Mystery Scene

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Be one of the first to read S.J. Parris' new historical thriller HERESY—in stores in February.

Giordano Bruno was a monk, poet, scientist, and magician on the run from the Roman Inquisition on charges of heresy for his belief that the Earth orbits the sun and that the universe is infinite. This alone could have got him burned at the stake, but he was also a student of occult philosophies and magic.

In S. J. Parris's gripping novel, Bruno's pursuit of this rare knowledge brings him to London, where he is unexpectedly recruited by Queen Elizabeth I and is sent undercover to Oxford University on the pretext of a royal visitation. Officially Bruno is to take part in a debate on the Copernican theory of the universe; unofficially, he is to find out whatever he can about a Catholic plot to overthrow the queen.

His mission is dramatically thrown off course by a series of grisly murders and a spirited and beautiful young woman. As Bruno begins to discover a pattern in these killings, he realizes that no one at Oxford is who he seems to be. Bruno must attempt to outwit a killer who appears obsessed with the boundary between truth and heresy.

“HERESY is a must-read for every fan of historical thrillers. S. J. Parris transports the reader back to an extraordinary time in history by mobilizing fascinating details, suspense, and fully-drawn characters. Giordano Bruno turns out to be that rare hero, charismatic and nuanced enough to impel an encore, and to leave us asking for more from the gifted Parris.”
—Matthew Pearl, New York Times bestselling author of The Dante Club and The Poe Shadow

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Upon the death of her demonic husband, Hester Prynne is left a widow, and her daughter Pearl, a wealthy heiress. Hester takes her daughter to live a quiet life in England—only to find herself drawn into the circle of the most powerful Puritan of all time, Oliver Cromwell.

From the moment Hester donned the famous scarlet letter, it instilled in her the power to see the sins and hypocrisy of others, an ability not lost on the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. To Cromwell, Hester’s sight is either a sign of sorcery or a divine gift that Hester must use to assist the divinely chosen in his scheming to control England. Since sorcery carries a death sentence, Hester is compelled against her will to use her sight to assist Cromwell. She soon finds herself entangled in a web of political intrigue, espionage, and forbidden love.

Hester will carry readers away to seventeenth century England with a deeply human story of family, love, history, desire, weakness, and the human ideal.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Two hundred years after her death, Jane Austen is still surrounded by the literature she loves—but now it's because she's the owner of Flyleaf Books in a sleepy college town in Upstate New York. Every day she watches her novels fly off the shelves—along with dozens of unauthorized sequels, spin-offs, and adaptations. Jane may be undead, but her books have taken on a life of their own.

To make matters worse, the manuscript she finished just before being turned into a vampire has been rejected by publishers—116 times. Jane longs to let the world know who she is, but when a sudden twist of fate thrusts her back into the spotlight, she must hide her real identity—and fend off a dark man from her past while juggling two modern suitors. Will the inimitable Jane Austen be able to keep her cool in this comedy of manners, or will she show everyone what a woman with a sharp wit and an even sharper set of fangs can do?

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: A unique and sweeping debut novel of an American female combat photographer in the Vietnam War, as she captures the wrenching chaos and finds herself torn between the love of two men.

On a stifling day in 1975, the North Vietnamese army is poised to roll into Saigon. As the fall of the city begins, two lovers make their way through the streets to escape to a new life. Helen Adams, an American photojournalist, must take leave of a war she is addicted to and a devastated country she has come to love. Linh, the Vietnamese man who loves her, must grapple with his own conflicted loyalties of heart and homeland. As they race to leave, they play out a drama of devotion and betrayal that spins them back through twelve war-torn years, beginning in the splendor of Angkor Wat, with their mentor, larger-than-life war correspondent Sam Darrow, once Helen's infuriating love and fiercest competitor, and Linh's secret keeper, boss and truest friend.

Tatjana Soli paints a searing portrait of an American woman’s struggle and triumph in Vietnam, a stirring canvas contrasting the wrenching horror of war and the treacherous narcotic of obsession with the redemptive power of love. Readers will be transfixed by this stunning novel of passion, duty and ambition among the ruins of war.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: In her latest enchanting novel, New York Times bestelling author Sarah Addison Allen invites you to a quirky little Southern town with more magic than a full Carolina moon. Here two very different women discover how to find their place in the world…no matter how out of place they feel.

Emily Benedict came to Mullaby, North Carolina, hoping to solve at least some of the riddles surrounding her mother’s life. For instance, why did Dulcie Shelby leave her hometown so suddenly? Why did she vow never to return? But the moment Emily enters the house where her mother grew up and meets the grandfather she never knew—a reclusive, real-life gentle giant—she realizes that mysteries aren’t solved in Mullaby, they’re a way of life.

Here are rooms where the wallpaper changes to suit your mood. Unexplained lights skip across the yard at midnight. And a neighbor bakes hope in the form of cakes.

Everyone in Mullaby adores Julia Winterson’s cakes. She offers them to satisfy the town’s sweet tooth and in the hope of bringing back the love she fears she’s lost forever. In Julia, Emily may have found a link to her mother’s past. But why is everyone trying to discourage Emily’s growing relationship with the handsome and mysterious son of Mullaby’s most prominent family? Emily came to Mullaby to get answers, but all she’s found so far are more questions.

Is there really a ghost dancing in her backyard? Can a cake really bring back a lost love?
In this town of lovable misfits, maybe the right answer is the one that just feels…different.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: “THE POSTMISTRESS made me homesick for a time before I was even born. A beautifully written, thought provoking novel that I’m telling everyone I know to read.”
—Kathryn Stockett, author of THE HELP

Those who carry the truth sometimes bear a terrible burden...

Filled with stunning parallels to today's world, The Postmistress is a sweeping novel about the loss of innocence of two extraordinary women-and of two countries torn apart by war.

On the eve of the United States's entrance into World War II in 1940, Iris James, the postmistress of Franklin, a small town on Cape Cod, does the unthinkable: She doesn't deliver a letter.

In London, American radio gal Frankie Bard is working with Edward R. Murrow, reporting on the Blitz. One night in a bomb shelter, she meets a doctor from Cape Cod with a letter in his pocket, a letter Frankie vows to deliver when she returns from Germany and France, where she is to record the stories of war refugees desperately trying to escape.

The residents of Franklin think the war can't touch them- but as Frankie's radio broadcasts air, some know that the war is indeed coming. And when Frankie arrives at their doorstep, the two stories collide in a way no one could have foreseen.

The Postmistress is an unforgettable tale of the secrets we must bear, or bury. It is about what happens to love during war­time, when those we cherish leave. And how every story-of love or war-is about looking left when we should have been looking right.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: This haunting story explores themes of identity and belonging, love, war, and memory...

With his three critically acclaimed novels, Chang-rae Lee has established himself as one of the most talented writers of contemporary literary fiction. Now, with The Surrendered, Lee has created a book that amplifies everything we've seen in his previous works, and reads like nothing else. It is a brilliant, haunting, heartbreaking story about how love and war inalterably change the lives of those they touch.

June Han was only a girl when the Korean War left her orphaned; Hector Brennan was a young GI who fled the petty tragedies of his small town to serve his country. When the war ended, their lives collided at a Korean orphanage where they vied for the attentions of Sylvie Tanner, the beautiful yet deeply damaged missionary wife whose elusive love seemed to transform everything. Thirty years later and on the other side of the world, June and Hector are reunited in a plot that will force them to come to terms with the mysterious secrets of their past, and the shocking acts of love and violence that bind them together.

As Lee unfurls the stunning story of June, Hector, and Sylvie, he weaves a profound meditation on the nature of heroism and sacrifice, the power of love, and the possibilities for mercy, salvation, and surrendering oneself to another. Combining the complex themes of identity and belonging of Native Speaker and A Gesture Life with the broad range, energy, and pure storytelling gifts of Aloft, Chang-rae Lee has delivered his most ambitious, exciting, and unforgettable work yet. It is a mesmeriz­ing novel, elegantly suspenseful and deeply affecting.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: In Freud’s dangerous, dazzling Vienna of 1903, an ingenious doctor and an intrepid detective again challenge psychotic criminals across a landscape teetering between the sophisticated and the savage, the thrilling future and the primitive past.

On opposite sides of the city, two men are found beheaded on church grounds. Detective Inspector Oskar Reinhardt is baffled. Could the killer be mentally ill, someone the victims came into contact with? Some are even blaming the murders on the devil. But when psychoanalyst Dr. Max Liebermann learns that both victims were vocal members of a shadowy anti-Semitic group, he turns his gaze to the city’s close-knit Hasidic community. The doctor is drawn into an urban underworld that hosts and hides virulent racists on one side and followers of kabbalah on the other. And as the evidence—and bodies—pile up, Liebermann must reconsider his own path, the one that led him away from the miraculous and toward a life of the mind.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Based on Gabor Maté’s two decades of experience as a medical doctor and his groundbreaking work with the severely addicted on Vancouver’s skid row, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts radically reenvisions this much misunderstood field by taking a holistic approach. Dr. Maté presents addiction not as a discrete phenomenon confined to an unfortunate or weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs throughout (and perhaps underpins) our society; not a medical "condition" distinct from the lives it affects, rather the result of a complex interplay among personal history, emotional, and neurological development, brain chemistry, and the drugs (and behaviors) of addiction. Simplifying a wide array of brain and addiction research findings from around the globe, the book avoids glib self-help remedies, instead promoting a thorough and compassionate self-understanding as the first key to healing and wellness.

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts argues persuasively against contemporary health, social, and criminal justice policies toward addiction and those impacted by it. The mix of personal stories—including the author’s candid discussion of his own "high-status" addictive tendencies—and science with positive solutions makes the book equally useful for lay readers and professionals.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Weaving together reporting, travelogue, and personal narrative, author Adele Barker brings American readers with her to experience Sri Lanka, "the resplendent island" that seems to hang like a teardrop from the tip of India. Barker's account of the year and a half she spent living and teaching there moves deftly from the daily, personal details of Sri Lankan life and culture to reports on the war between the government and the Tamil Tigers, and the 2004 tsunami in which tens of thousands of Sri Lankans died in the space of twenty minutes.

Life on the island is complex for a Westerner, and Barker does not miss any of the nuances: the beauty and the bugs; the peaceful, Buddhist pace of life; and the explosive ravages of civil war. Barker acquaints us with the history of the place, the literature, and the traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism, missionary Christianity, and ancient myths. Not Quite Paradise offers a comprehensive, eye-opening account of the "pearl" of the Indian Ocean, a rare perspective on the massive devastation of the tsunami of December 26, 2004, and invaluable background for current events in the Tamil civil war.

"Adele Barker's writing is cordial and informed, and offers this memorable gift—the story of strangers from very different countries becoming cherished and enduring friends. Against the background of a most beautiful country and through the tragedies that have marred its recent history, her love of the land and for its people won a high place in this reader’s heart."
—Mary Oliver

"Anyone going to Sri Lanka should consider Adele Barker's Not Quite Paradise essential reading. Even travelers headed to other parts of the globe—or those going no farther than their own living room—will find this story of an American woman thoughtfully wending her way through the complexities of another country's culture and history fascinating."
—Kristin Ohlson, author of Stalking the Divine and co-author of Kabul Beauty School

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Tragedy tore the Bennett children apart when their mother walked out on them after the birth of her last child, followed by the suicide of a brother. Now, the five grown siblings, each brilliant, troubled and a little wacky, face personal crises that will bring them back together in a new way.

Mark, a student at Stanford University is brilliant at String Theory but a novice at relationships. Having made a fatal faux pas at a university function, he now must have sessions with the university's formidable psychologist, Dr. Himmel, and family issues as well as the hopeless love he carries for a co-worker emerge.

Mary, the eldest sister and surrogate mother, struggles with caring for their father Frank, a once famous furniture-maker, whose dementia is spiraling beyond Mary's control.

Luke, the fragile youngest brother has been latched onto by a tattooed nymph named Willow.

Ellie, artist and free spirit, whose much younger lover has left her pregnant and alone on a far-flung Greek island, asks Mary to come get her and bring her home to Santa Barbara to have her baby.

Sarah, Ellie s identical twin, and up and coming New York photographer, has a drama of her own. She has discovered a homeless woman who may or may not be her mother, Jean.

Told in e-mails, missed phone messages, and their unique and sometimes heartbreaking voices, A Theory of All Things weaves a lyrical, mesmerizing story of a family, who has loved and lost, who is broken, but is mending.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Beginning in 1986, this dark tale of sexual obsession centres on Australian schoolboy and wannabe comedian Johnny Goodwin. Twenty years later Johnny has become a minor movie star, unaware that his troubled school days are about to catch up with him...

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: "Dear Elizabeth,
It’s early morning and I’m sitting here wondering where you are, hoping you’re all right."

A fight, ended by a slap, sends Elizabeth out the door of her Baton Rouge home on the eve of her fifteenth birthday. Her mother, Laura, is left to fret and worry—and remember. Wracked with guilt as she awaits Liz’s return, Laura begins a letter to her daughter, hoping to convey “everything I’ve always meant to tell you but never have.”

In her painfully candid confession, Laura shares memories of her own troubled adolescence in rural Louisiana, growing up in an intensely conservative household. She recounts her relationship with a boy she loved despite her parents’ disapproval, the fateful events that led to her being sent away to a strict Catholic boarding school, the personal tragedy brought upon her by the Vietnam War, and, finally, the meaning of the enigmatic tattoo below her right hip.

Absorbing and affirming, George Bishop’s magnificent debut brilliantly captures a sense of time and place with a distinct and inviting voice. Letter to My Daughter is a heartwrenching novel of mothers, daughters, and the lessons we all learn when we come of age.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Johanna Ilg has lived her entire life in Main Amana, one of the seven villages inhabited by devout Christians who believe in cooperative living, a simple lifestyle, and faithful service to God. Although she's always longed to see the outside world, Johanna believes her future is rooted in the community. But when she learns a troubling secret, the world she thought she knew is shattered and she is forced to make difficult choices about a new life and the man she left behind.Berta Schumacher has lived a privileged life in Chicago, and when her parents decide they want a simpler life in Amana, Iowa, she resists. Under the strictures of the Amana villages, Berta's rebellion reaches new heights. Will her heart ever be content among the plain people of Amana?

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Late one night in August 1934, following a yearlong spree of bank robberies across the Midwest, the Firefly Brothers are forced into a police shootout and die . . . for the first time.

In award-winning author Thomas Mullen’s evocative new novel, the highly anticipated follow-up to his acclaimed debut, The Last Town on Earth, we follow the Depression-era adventures of Jason and Whit Fireson—bank robbers known as the Firefly Brothers by the press, the authorities, and an adoring public that worships their acts as heroic counterpunches thrown at a broken system.

Now it appears they have at last met their end in a hail of bullets. Jason and Whit’s lovers—Darcy, a wealthy socialite, and Veronica, a hardened survivor—struggle between grief and an unyielding belief that the Firesons have survived. While they and the Firesons’ stunned mother and straight-arrow third son wade through conflicting police reports and press accounts, wild rumors spread that the bandits are still at large. Through it all, the Firefly Brothers remain as charismatic, unflappable, and as mythical as the American Dream itself, racing to find the women they love and make sense of a world in which all has come unmoored.

Complete with kidnappings and gangsters, heiresses and speakeasies, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers is an imaginative and spirited saga about what happens when you are hopelessly outgunned—and a masterly tale of hardship, redemption, and love that transcends death.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: A gripping novel of love and obsession set in the 1860s, The Sea Captain's Wife masterfully combines truths of the heart with the sweep of adventure — and takes us on an unforgettable voyage amidst breathtaking beauty.

Azuba Galloway, daughter of a shipwright, sees ships leaving for foreign ports from her bustling town on the Bay of Fundy and dreams of seeing the world. When she marries Nathaniel Bradstock, a veteran sea captain, she believes she will sail at his side. But when she becomes pregnant she is forced to stay behind. Her father has built the couple a gabled house overlooking the bay, but the gift cannot shelter her from the loneliness of living without her husband. When Azuba becomes embroiled in scandal, Nathaniel is forced to take her and their daughter, Carrie, aboard his ship. They set sail for London with bitter hearts.

Their voyage is ill-fated, beset with ferocious storms and unforeseen obstacles that test Azuba's compassion, courage, and love. Alone in a male world, surrounded by the splendour and the terror of the open seas, she must face her fears and fight to keep her family together.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: In Citizens of London, Lynne Olson has written a work of World War II history even more relevant and revealing than her acclaimed Troublesome Young Men. Here is the behind-the-scenes story of how the United States forged its wartime alliance with Britain, told from the perspective of three key American players in London: Edward R. Murrow, Averell Harriman, and John Gilbert Winant. Drawing from a variety of primary sources, Olson skillfully depicts the dramatic personal journeys of these men who, determined to save Britain from Hitler, helped convince a cautious Franklin Roosevelt and a reluctant American public to support the British at a critical time.

The three—Murrow, the handsome, chain-smoking head of CBS News in Europe; Harriman, the hard-driving millionaire who ran FDR’s Lend-Lease program in London; and Winant, the shy, idealistic U.S. ambassador to Britain—formed close ties with Winston Churchill and were drawn into Churchill’s official and personal circles. So intense were their relationships with the Churchills that they all became romantically involved with members of the prime minister’s family: Harriman and Murrow with Churchill’s daughter-in-law, Pamela, and Winant with his favorite daughter, Sarah.

Others were honorary “citizens of London” as well, including the gregarious, fiercely ambitious Dwight D. Eisenhower, an obscure general who, as the first commander of American forces in Britain, was determined to do everything in his power to make the alliance a success, and Tommy Hitchcock, a world-famous polo player and World War I fighter pilot who helped save the Allies’ bombing campaign against Germany.

Citizens of London, however, is more than just the story of these Americans and the world leaders they aided and influenced. It’s an engrossing account of the transformative power of personal diplomacy and, above all, a rich, panoramic tale of two cities: Washington, D.C., a lazy Southern town slowly growing into a hub of international power, and London, a class-conscious capital transformed by the Blitz into a model of stoic grace under violent pressure and deprivation. Deeply human, brilliantly researched, and beautifully written, Citizens of London is a new triumph from an author swiftly becoming one of the finest in her field.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: The riveting story of the two crusading lawyers who led the legal battle to end segregation, one case and one courtroom at a time.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education is widely considered a seminal point in the battle to end segregation, but it was in fact the culmination of a decades-long legal campaign. Root and Branch is the epic story of the two fiercely dedicated lawyers who led the fight from county courthouses to the marble halls of the Supreme Court, and, in the process, laid the legal foundations of the civil rights movement.

Charles Hamilton Houston was the pioneer: After becoming the first African-American on the Harvard Law Review, he transformed the law school at all-black Howard University into a West Point for civil rights advocacy.

One of Houston’s students at Howard was a brash young man named Thurgood Marshall. Soon after Marshall’s graduation, Houston and Marshall opened the NAACP’s legal office. The abstemious, proper Houston and the folksy, easygoing Marshall made an unlikely duo, but together they faced down angry Southern mobs, negotiated with presidents and senators, and convinced even racist judges and juries that the Constitution demanded equal justice under law for all American citizens.

Houston, tragically, would die before his strategy came to fruition in the Brown suit, but Marshall would argue the case victoriously and go on to become the first African-American Supreme Court justice—always crediting his mentor for teaching him everything he knew. Together, the two advocates changed the course of American history.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: A gay man copes with the death of his partner in Isherwood’s classic novel, now a film written and directed by Tom Ford and starring Colin Firth and Julianne Moore. Read by AudioFile "Golden Voice" Simon Prebble. Movie tie-in art.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: As an acclaimed novelist, Miles Fanning has grown accustomed to the attentions of fawning admirers. Yet little prepares him for the determination of the gauche Pamela Tarn, who resolves to enter not only his world, but also his bed. Initially repelled by the enormity of the age gap between them, Fanning vows never to acquiesce, and resorts to his most boorish behaviour in an attempt to break his hold on her. Yet as they are drawn inexorably together, they embark upon a tempestuous – and ultimately destructive – love affair.

This satirical novella sees the author of Brave New World turning his characteristic humour and keen observation to the dual notions of obsession and control.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: A moving tale of the triumph of the human spirit amidst heartbreaking tragedy, told through the eyes of a charming, impish, and wickedly observant Afghan boy

The Taliban have withdrawn from Kabul’s streets, but the long shadows of their regime remain. In his short life, eleven-year-old Fawad has known more grief than most: his father and brother have been killed, his sister has been abducted, and Fawad and his mother, Mariya, must rely on the charity of parsimonious relatives to eke out a hand-to-mouth existence.

Ever the optimist, Fawad hopes for a better life, and his dream is realized when Mariya finds a position as a housekeeper for a charismatic Western woman, Georgie, and her two foreign friends. The world of aid workers and journalists is a new one for Fawad, and living with the trio offers endless curiosities—including Georgie’s destructive relationship with the powerful Afghan warlord Haji Khan, whose exploits are legendary. Fawad grows resentful and worried, until he comes to learn that love can move a man to act in surprisingly good ways. But life, especially in Kabul, is never without peril, and the next calamity Fawad must face is so devastating that it threatens to destroy the one thing he thought he could never lose: his love for his country.

A big-hearted novel infused with crackling wit, Andrea Busfield’s brilliant debut captures the hope and humanity of the Afghan people and the foreigners who live among them.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: An outstanding debut novel set in Dublin from a young Irish novelist that echoes the poignant, comical and gritty voices of Roddy Doyle, Patrick McCabe, and Irvine Welsh.

Set in contemporary Dublin and the surrounding countryside, Ghosts and Lightning is a picaresque account of Denny Cullen's life after he is called back home to attend his mother's funeral. Denny—a sweet-natured but disillusioned young man who feels powerless in the face of death, dope and the dole queue—is the steadiest in a cast of unstable characters. Denny and his lads fill their empty days with hooliganism, raucous parties, violence and even an exorcism, but their fearlessness and humor make them as irresistible as an expertly pulled pint of Guinness.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Sometimes the past becomes an unruly child that wants its own room. Goosetown, a place in Dyer’s psyche and in Akron, Ohio, is a story about the way we recover a time in our lives that has nearly vanished. Dyer lived her first five years, the most significant five, some would say, in Goosetown, and had dismissed them as irrelevant because she couldn’t recover the images. Dyer is accompanied by her uncle, the self-proclaimed “Mayor of Goosetown” as they travel to unearth the lost years. She searches for signs and symbols to jar her recollections. She weaves her story around the shadows that remain, an erratic and unpredictable process. Is the excursion a wildgoose chase or can she really find home?

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Reluctant bank robber Jack Burn is on the run after a heist in the United States that left three million dollars missing and one cop dead. Hiding out in Cape Town, South Africa, he is desperate to build a new life for his pregnant wife and young son. But on a tranquil evening in their new suburban neighborhood, they are the victims of a random gangland break-in. Benny Mongrel, an ex-con night watchman, knows who went into Burn's house, and what the American did to them. Burn’s actions soon trap them both in a cat-and-mouse game with Rudi "Gatsby" Barnard, a corrupt Afrikaner cop. Once Gatsby smells those missing American millions, the men are drawn into a web of murder and vengeance that builds to an unforgettable conclusion.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: A heart-wrenching, powerfully written novel that could do for Palestine what The Kite Runner did for Afghanistan.

Forcibly removed from the ancient village of Ein Hod by the newly formed state of Israel in 1948, the Abulhejas are moved into the Jenin refugee camp. There, exiled from his beloved olive groves, the family patriarch languishes of a broken heart, his eldest son fathers a family and falls victim to an Israeli bullet, and his grandchildren struggle against tragedy toward freedom, peace, and home. This is the Palestinian story, told as never before, through four generations of a single family.

The very precariousness of existence in the camps quickens life itself. Amal, the patriarch's bright granddaughter, feels this with certainty when she discovers the joys of young friendship and first love and especially when she loses her adored father, who read to her daily as a young girl in the quiet of the early dawn. Through Amal we get the stories of her twin brothers, one who is kidnapped by an Israeli soldier and raised Jewish; the other who sacrifices everything for the Palestinian cause. Amal’s own dramatic story threads between the major Palestinian-Israeli clashes of three decades; it is one of love and loss, of childhood, marriage, and parenthood, and finally of the need to share her history with her daughter, to preserve the greatest love she has.

Previously published in a hardcover edition with a limited run under the title The Scar of David, this powerful novel is now available in a fully revised, newly titled paperback edition. The deep and moving humanity of Mornings in Jenin forces us to take a fresh look at one of the defining political conflicts of our lifetimes.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: “Unforgettable…Nelson, witty yet sympathetic, articulates our pains and troubles better than we do. Could it be that she knows us better than we know ourselves?” —San Francisco Chronicle

In these eleven stories, Nelson renders all the complexity, ambiguity, and beauty of daily life: the comforting rituals and unexpected disruptions, the maintenance of family ties and the poignant struggles of romance. Nothing Right is honest, witty, and revelatory, showcasing a brilliant writer at the top of her form.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Headmaster and self-avowed intellectual Nicholas Herrick is ever anxious to keep up appearances. Firmly convicted that to involve himself in the running of his own school would be an abasement too far, he assembles around himself a cast of fittingly fawning friends and aides. As he prepares to unveil his final masterpiece, a novel he had thought himself incapable of writing, it is these very friends who threaten to be his undoing.

Described in contemporary reviews as ‘a work of genius’, Pastors and Masters was an early work of a gifted author, noted for her rare skill for dialogue and for her incredible adeptness in capturing domestic scenes.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Charlotte Heywood is privileged to accompany Mr and Mrs Parker to their home in Sanditon – not least because, they assure her, it is soon to become the fashionable epicentre of society summers. Finding the town all but deserted, she is party to the machinations of her socially mobile hosts in their attempts to gather a respectable crowd. As Sanditon fills with visitors, Austen assembles a classic cast of characters possessing varying degrees of absurdity and sense.

The last of Austen’s fictional works, written in the year before her death when she was gravely ill, Sanditon
affords a glimpse of the ultimate creative powers and preoccupations of one of the greatest figures in English literature.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: SET IN MIAMI AND CENTRAL AMERICA DURING THE 1970s SMOKE is the story of a journey that begins when Jim Smyth, a young Marine returning from combat in Viet Nam, is brilliantly manipulated by an anonymous adversary with ties to the highest levels of U.S. government. Chosen for his unique skills, Smyth is forced into kidnapping the president of a large, well connected security company.

Two intriguing women become tangled in the kidnapping plot. One, like Smyth, is in the Witness Protection Program. The other is the sworn enemy of the kidnap victim and a major shareholder of the company. Smyth, code named Smoke by the Department of Justice, must rely upon his training and survival instincts to ensure they live through the bizarre plot and bring down their enemy.

The lies and abuse of power by senior members of the U.S. government in Smoke parallel those we have recently seen. Jim Smyth must prove he is up to the challenge against an adversary of unsurpassed evil and intelligence; in this competition, losers die.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Israel Armstrong—the hapless duffle coat wearing, navel-gazing librarian who solves crimes and domestic problems whilst driving a mobile library around the north coast of Ireland—finds himself on the brink of thirty. But any celebration, planned or otherwise, must be put on hold when a troubled teenager—the daughter of a local politician—mysteriously vanishes. Israel suspects the girl's disappearance has something to do with his lending her American Pastoral from the library's special "Unshelved" category. Now he has to find the lost teen before he's run out of town—while he attempts to recover from his recent breakup with his girlfriend, Gloria, and tries to figure out where in Tumdrum a Jewish vegetarian might celebrate his thirtieth birthday. The fourth book in Sansom's popular Mobile Library series.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Alice is at work. Alice thinks I'm at work. I'm not at work. I'm trying to guess the password to her email account.

When Will meets Alice, he can’t believe his luck. She’s smart, sexy and, much to Will’s surprise, in love with him. Alice brings meaning to his urban existence. But true love never came easy and soon devotion leads Will to something darker. The Bird Room is a candid, funny and joyous portrait of love and desire in the modern age.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: The Creation of Eve is a novel based on the true but little-known story of Sofonisba Anguissola, the first renowned female artist of the Renaissance. After a scandal in Michelangelo's workshop, Sofi flees Italy and joins the Spanish court of King Felipe II to be a lady-in-waiting to his young bride. There she becomes embroiled in a love triangle involving the Queen, the King, and the King's illegitimate half brother, Don Joan. The Creation of Eve combines art, romance, and history from the Golden Age in Spain in a story that asks the question: Can you ever truly know another person's heart?

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Orphan Ellinor Arden is called from her secluded Paris home to London for the hearing of a will.To her surprise, she is named as the inheritor of her estranged uncle’s fortune, on condition that she marry his adopted son. Encouraged by her lawyer and guardian, the dashing Horace Margrave, she
enters into wedded life with this perfect stranger, but it soon becomes clear that her trust in a dead man’s wishes has been misplaced.

Suspense-ridden sensation fiction from a master of the art, The Lawyer’s Secret and the counterpart piece presented here, ‘The Mystery at Fernwood’, represent gripping Victorian literature at its best.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: M.E.Gardner's new page turner has it all: good and evil, hot sex and enduring love, violence and tragedy. You'll experience chills and excitement as you're taken on an unbelievable action-packed ride. Find out what makes the beautiful heroine, Lisa von Bidmont, defy her evil foster father and escape from a Pennsylvania farm to New York City. Bear witness as Lisa von Bidmont meets billionaire Bill Brenner and they instantly fall in love with each other. Their torrid affair pulls her into a jet-set frenzy of exotic destinations, nude beaches, and an extraordinarily rich lifestyle. Discover whether good fortune will befall this beauty - or will demonic forces and the Mafia spell the end of her magical love affair. Learn how catastrophic events bring the FBI and Witness Protection Program into play, suddenly changing Lisa's charmed life into one of solitude and eeriness in a secluded convent shrouded with bizarre mystery.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Lilly and Val are lifelong friends, united as much by their differences as by their similarities. Lilly, dramatic and confident, lives in the shadow of her beautiful, wayward mother and craves the attention of her distant, disapproving father. Val, shy and idealistic-and surprisingly ambitious-struggles with her desire to break free from her demanding housebound mother and a father whose dreams never seem to come true.

In childhood, “LillyPad” and “ValPal” form an exclusive two-person club, writing intimate letters in which they share hopes, fears, deepest secrets-and recipes, from Lilly’s “Lovelorn Lasagna” to Valerie’s “Forgiveness Tapenade.” Readers can cook along as the friends travel through time facing the challenges of independence, the joys and heartbreaks of first love, and the emotional complexities of family relationships, identity, mortality, and goals deferred.

The Recipe Club sustains Lilly and Val’s bond throughout the decades, regardless of what different paths they take or what misunderstandings threaten to break them apart . . . until the fateful day when an act of kindness becomes an unforgivable betrayal.

Now, years later, while trying to recapture the trust they’ve lost, Lilly and Val reunite once more-only to uncover a shocking secret. Will it destroy their friendship, or bring them ever closer?

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: The Tales of Belkin is the first work of prose fiction to be completed by Russia’s greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin.

Pushkin’s artfully conceived narrator, the inexperienced and soft-hearted Ivan Petrovich Belkin, draws on the
time-honoured themes of marriage, honour and betrayal. Truly a man of his time, Belkin relates stories of Byronic heroes, lovelorn heroines and supernatural events played out against Gothic backdrops. Pushkin’s genius is to breathe new life into each genre, producing sparkling vignettes as surprising as they are charming. These tales have suggested fruitful new avenues of exploration to generations of Russian authors.

The volume is completed by Pushkin’s other prose work of the same time, ‘The History of the Village of Goryukhino’, a wry parody of a contemporary history of Russia.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Charlie Wales left Edinburgh University with dreams of the high-life. Six months later he is marooned in London, unemployed and living a dreary existence in a house he shares with the girl he loves (but who no longer loves him). He finally secures a job at Silverbirch – a hedge-fund based in Mayfair, where he begins to work in the brutal and remorseless world of high finance. When the markets crash, Charlie sees the potential for an escape; but is he already too far immersed in the City to get out?
This debut novel, written by a 30-year-old bond trader, does not merely pick over the carcass of the financial markets in the wake of the recent crash. It is also a heartbreaking love story,a withering study of the years of excess, and a touching contemplation of how good people end up doing terrible things.
Inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story Return to Babylon and Oliver James’ Affluenza, This Bleeding City renders the turmoil of the credit crunch years in a clear, shatteringly personal way.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: One of Flaubert’s most highly esteemed works,Three Tales is a collection of stories in which the author meditates on the great themes of death, redemption and sanctity. Published as a single unit, ‘A Simple Heart’, ‘The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller’ and ‘Herodias’ see the author turning to these immortal topics in the final years of his life, using the techniques of both realism and exoticism that he had mastered in works such as Madame Bovary and Salammbô.

In each of the tales Flaubert studies the nature of humanity and spirituality, incorporating an extraordinary range of subjects. ‘A Simple Heart’ presents a loyal servant who dies alone, suffering in silence the tragic losses of her life; ‘The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller’ recounts the tale of a young man sanctified at birth and the effects of his terrifying bloodlust; and ‘Herodias’ presents the story of Saint John the Baptist in shockingly novel fashion.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Gustave Flaubert is one of the most famous French authors of modern times. During his lifetime he delighted and scandalised readers with his short stories and novels, in particular his masterpiece, Madame Bovary. Born and brought up in Normandy, Flaubert made provincial French life a major subject of his writing. He was also tantalised by the exotic allure of the East, travelling to Egypt on a tour of brothels and pyramids, and writing several extravagant but scrupulously researched historical fictions. Flaubert was already a literary celebrity by the time of his death, and his highly wrought, challenging and complex works continue to have a profound influence on modern literature.

Describing Flaubert's intense and often tormented relationship to writing, Andrew Brown's beguiling,
idiosyncratic biography distils the great writer¹s friendships, love affairs, travels and literary passions
into a rich and enticing compendium.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: We are told incessantly that we should exercise, but not accurately how we need to exercise to usefully improve our health. Many now are wasting time doing far more incorrect exercise than is useful. Author and scientific analyst Forrest Blanding first showed the importance of cardiofitness to health in his 1982 book, The Pulse Point Plan (Random House). His new book, cited as “Excellent” by top authority Dr. Kenneth Cooper who is known as the “Father of aerobic exercise,” provides new insights on how we need to exercise to achieve better health. He shows us how to measure our cardio progress with a new simple-to-use Cardiofitness Point method, and how a correct Cardio Fitness Ratio can be more important to our health and future life than are cholesterol, blood pressure, or even smoking! He shows how proper walking can be ten times more productive of health than is some ordinary walking. He also shows us how to formulate new and more efficient moderate exercise programs for cardio and overall health, and how to make our future years significantly more healthy and enjoyable ones!

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: From Denise Austin comes the perfect health book for anyone who wants to live better but just can't seem to find the time. Much more than just another excercise book, Denise's Daily Dozen covers a whole range of health and diet related concepts yet manages it all in a no-stress, time-conscious program of 12's. At it's core, this book contains the minimum daily requirements to keep the reader flexible, strong and trim. Organized simply into seven chapters, which equal the seven days of the week, it covers a full week in daily allotments. Each day will have it's own focus from Monday being "fat burning day" to Sunday's "recharge and rejuvenate."

Denise has created a total body program, including a 7-day balanced meal plan that includes healthy recipes, and a workout that encompasses 12 exercises done in 12 minutes each day. Everyone can take just 12 minutes, at whatever time of the day works for them, and turn it over to these simple and fun exercises. Cardio, toning, yoga and breathing exercises...they're all here but in a way the maximizes effect while minimizing time.

Beyond a dozen exercises for each day of the week this book will include many other of Denises dozens for each day.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Published under the pseudonym ‘Elia’, Charles Lamb’s series of essays on subjects ranging from the impressionability of schoolboys to the peculiarity of one’s relations, from the pitfalls of lending books to the delights of a roast meal, gained him a devoted following among nineteenth-century readers.

By turns witty, insightful, self-deprecating and philosophical, in these essays Lamb offers an unusually warm, human glimpse of life in a circle that included such luminaries as Coleridge, Wordsworth and William Hazlitt.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: El Llibre Verd de la Comissió Europea estableix que és estratègicament prioritari promoure i donar suport a l’esperit emprenedor entre les dones. En el marc d’aquesta àrea se situa la investigació que es recull en aquest llibre, portada a terme amb el propòsit d’abordar els efectes de la divisió sexual del treball sobre la creació d’ocupació per compte propi.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Textos en castellà (amb resums en anglès, francès o portuguès)
Aquesta obra recull les ponències de la III Reunión de Tudela sobre Historia Antigua, que va tenir lloc a Tudela (Navarra) els dies 18, 19 i 20 d’abril de 2007, organitzada pel Centro Asociado de la UNED de Tudela i amb el suport del Ministeri de Ciència i Innovació. Hi van col·laborar les entitats següents: el Departamento de Historia Antigua de la UNED, el Vicerrectorado de Extensión Universitaria de la UNED, la Sociedad Española de Estudios Clásicos, la Sociedad de Estudios Históricos de Navarra, la Institución Príncipe de Viana del Govern de Navarra i l’Institut Català d’Arqueologia Clàssica.

El manual està dividit en tres grans apartats: Pars I: Imago Hispaniarum. En torno a las fuentes sobre las Hispaniae; Pars II: Hispaniae ex Roma. La presencia de las Hispaniae en la historia de Roma, i Pars III: Roma ex Hispania. Las Hispaniae como provinciae del Imperio. Inclou articles dels especialistes següents: Javier Cabrero Piquero, Manuel Bendala Galán, Francisca Chaves Tristán, Juan Manuel Abascal Palazón, Ángel A. Jordán Lorenzo, Javier Andreu Pintado, Mirella Romero Recio, José Mª. Blázquez Martínez, Isabel Rodà de Llanza, Francisco Pina Polo, Antonio Alvar Ezquerra, Pilar Fernández Uriel, Antonio Caballos Rufino, Patrick Le Roux, Lázaro Lagóstena Barrios, Pedro Otiña Hermoso, Pablo Ozcáriz Gil, Carmen Castillo García, Francisco Javier Navarro, Juan Francisco Rodríguez Neila, Estela García Fernández, Enrique Melchor Gil, Trinidad Nogales Basarrate, Fernando Lozano y Jaime Alvar, Marta González Herrero, Carmen Santapau Pastor, José d’Encarnação i Christian Witschel.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: We came here to experience the joy of life and to be able to experience spirit in physical form. We came here to live in harmony with all that exists in nature. Life is precious. If we hold the vision of a world filled with harmony, love, light, peace, equality, and abundance for all, together we can dream this world into being. This is our birthright. And I will show you how.

Readers will be guided toward living a conscious life; they will learn how their thoughts and words impact the world they live in and how their core beliefs influence what they believe is possible. They will learn different ways to release and dissolve limiting beliefs and to utilize ancient principles of creation and manifestation to usher in healing the planet. Readers will be encouraged throughout to perceive themselves as members of a growing global community of conscious change agents, because that, Ingerman believes, is how we will survive changing times and how the earth will be healed.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: La monografia, fruit de tres anys de treball, és d’importància cabdal perquè presenta i posa al dia, des del punt de vista arqueològic, un dels conjunts episcopals antics més ben conservats a la península Ibèrica, el conjunt episcopal d’Ègara, format per tres esglésies: la catedral (actual església de Santa Maria), l’església funerària (actual església de Sant Miquel) i l’església amb funcions parroquials (actual església de Sant Pere). Al voltant de les esglésies hi ha una extensa necròpolis amb prop de 900 enterraments que van des del segle IV a l’època moderna.

Ègara és un dels conjunts episcopals més importants de la Catalunya paleocristiana i aquest llibre és la primera publicació arqueològica seriosa des de les publicacions dels anys 50 de Josep de C. Serra-Ràfols, i suposa una revolució en la informació es tenia fins ara del conjunt. Entre altres novetats, proporciona la cronologia precisa d’elements dels quals només es disposava d’una lectura artística. És el cas de les pintures de Sant Miquel i Santa Maria, que són del segle VI, fet extraordinari i quasi sense paral•lels tant al nostre territori com a fora. Un altre exemple de nova datació és la piscina del primer baptisteri, datada del 450 i que ara es demostra que és una piscina anterior, del segle IV. Efectivament hi ha una piscina baptismal del segle V, però és la que es va trobar en les excavacions del 2001.

La seu episcopal d’Ègara també destaca pel rigor en la periodització de les diferents fases episcopals (del segle IV al IX), gràcies a la llarga i dura feina d’estratigrafia duta a terme pels autors a partir de les últimes excavacions (anys 1995-1997 i 2001-2004).

Els treballs d’investigació arqueològica duts a terme a les esglésies de Sant Pere de Terrassa s’emmarquen dins les directrius del “Projecte de desenvolupament cultural i integració urbana del Conjunt Monumental de les Esglésies de Sant Pere de Terrassa” del Pla director de les Esglésies de Sant Pere, elaborat per l’Ajuntament de Terrassa amb la participació de la Generalitat de Catalunya, la Diputació de Barcelona, el Bisbat de Barcelona i la parròquia de Sant Pere, i amb el patrocini de Caixa Terrassa, el Ministeri de Foment i el Ministeri d’educació, política social i esports. L’any 2006 l’Ajuntament de Terrassa i l’ICAC firmen un conveni per l’elaboració i la publicació d’una monografia centrada en el moment episcopal, i aquest llibre n'és el resultat.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Text trilingüe (anglès, català i castellà)
Primera guia de materials lapidis hispànics explotats en època romana a la península Ibèrica. El treball recull 16 varietats, i té especial interès en la descripció de la geologia dels entorns de les explotacions. Entre els materials lapidis figuren, per exemple, marbres de la zona d’Estremoz (Portugal), broccatello (també anomanat jaspi de la Cinta, procedent de Tortosa), marbres de la zona de Macael (Andalusia) i la pedra de Buixcarró (València). També s'hi estudien amb detall els punts d’explotació (pedreres) i les diverses aplicacions donades a cada tipus de pedra. El llibre és trilingüe (anglès, català i castellà), està molt ben il·lustrat (en color) i s'ha publicat com a catàleg ampliat d'una exposició amb el mateix títol muntada en el marc de la IX Asmosia Internacional Conference (Tarragona, juny del 2009).

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Poet, philosopher and critic, Samuel Taylor Coleridge is now best remembered for his extraordinary ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ and ‘Kubla Khan’. With his friend William Wordsworth he founded the Romantic Movement in Britain: theirs was one of the most productive and creative partnerships in the history of English Literature; together with Robert Southey, they became known as the Lake Poets.

Daniel Hahn here traces the history of Coleridge’s life, his intense friendship with William and Mary Wordsworth, his travels through Europe, failed marriage and crippling addiction to opium. He reveals the inspiration for Coleridge’s greatest works, and proffers insightful extracts from the poet’s own works. The result is a succinct and rounded portrayal of this great writer.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: One of the finest poets of the English language, Percy Bysshe Shelley is known as much for his outstanding lyric poems as for his unconventional lifestyle. Works such as ‘Ozymandias’, ‘To a Skylark’ and ‘Ode to the West Wind’ have been read and loved by successive generations; and so too has remained a fascination with Shelley’s short life.

In this new biography, Daniel Hahn elucidates an extraordinary life using extracts from the poet’s work,
creating a brilliant portrait of the outlandish genius who published Gothic horror novelettes in his teens and eloped with the daughter of a coffee-shop owner, but who went on to create some of England’s finest poetry and to inspire countless future poets.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Over five million listeners tune in to hear Yolanda Adams's Points of Power, a segment in her daily radio show that inspires people by applying biblical truths to present-day realities. In her first book, Yolanda Adams transfers that winning segment into a reader's delight. In this highly accessible manual for daily living, she shares stories from her and others's personal experiences, showing readers how to access God's love and grace in their modern world and troubles. By revealing how Yolanda and other human beings have transcended the world's difficulties, POINTS OF POWER empowers readers to face trouble with confidence in the God who never fails

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Tonight, seventy million Americans will battle insomnia. They will plump pillows, rehash arguments, fold laundry, take sleeping pills, watch TV. They'll seek sleep but not find it. According to the National Sleep Foundation, up to a third of all Americans suffer from occasional or chronic wakefulness. Prescriptions for sleeping pills have increased 60% in six years, even though recent medical research (Journal of American Medicine, June 2006) shows that behavioral therapies such as Restful Insomnia are more effective for sleeplessness than pills.

The Restful Insomnia five-part program is easy to make a part of each night's rest by offering techniques that help the sleep-deprived to accept insomnia, befriend the night, and greet the morning refreshed.

Restful Insomnia shows readers how to end the war with sleeplessness by learning to use their waking night hours to quiet the mind, replenish their inner creativity, and relax deeply — deriving many benefits of sleep.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: Dr. Friedman believes that at the root of almost all emotional distress is unreleased anger and resentment — toward others, ourselves, our circumstances, God, anyone or everyone. The forgiveness solution is a seven step process whereby we are released from these feelings — and not just the thoughts that go with them — by giving up the beliefs that generate these emotions, shifting our perceptions, genuinely choosing and deciding to forgive. The next step is developing positive, compassionate feelings toward what we previously perceived as hurtful, then finding within us the capacity to feel an authentic sense of peace and contentment when thinking about the person or situation we previously perceived as hurting or harming us, giving up the desire for retribution, punishment, or harm, and, finally, interpreting — and then realizing — these experiences as opportunities for profound personal and spiritual growth.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: “Dolan has written a superb history of the Irish in this country…The book explains why so many Americans who have an option to choose their own ethnic identity decide that they want to be Irish.”—Andrew M. Greeley

Acclaimed scholar Jay Dolan’s panoramic account of the Irish experience in the United States follows immigrants from arrival to empowerment, from the dark days of the Great Famine to John F. Kennedy’s election to the presidency. Drawing on original research and recent scholarship, The Irish Americans is the first general history of Irish-Americans since the 1960s. Rich in detail, balanced in judgment, and the most comprehensive work of its kind yet published, this is a must-read for anyone with an interest in the Irish-American tradition.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: A profound, brave and moving piece of investigative journalism, Jack London’s study of the London underworld remains, a century after it was written, a classic and timely tale of poverty and injustice.

In 1902, Jack London purchased some second-hand clothes, rented a room in the East End, and set out to discover how the London poor lived. His research makes shocking reading. Moving through the slums as one of the poor; eating, drinking and socialising with the underclass; queuing to get into a doss-house, London was scandalised and brutalised by the experience of living rough in Britain’s capital. His clear-sighted reflections on the iniquities of class are a shaming testament to the persistence of social inequality in modern Britain.

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: You don't have to be a student of geography or cartography to have an interest in the world around you, especially with globalization making our planet seem smaller than ever. Now you can IM someone in Alaska, purchase coffee beans from Timor-Leste, and visit Dubai. But what do we really know about these lands?

WHO OWNS THE WORLD presents the results of the first-ever landownership survey of all 197 states and 66 territories of the world, and reveals facts both startling and eye-opening. You'll learn that:
—Only 15% of the world's population lays claim to landownership, and that landownership in too few hands is probably the single greatest cause of poverty.
—Queen Elizabeth II owns 1/6 of the entire land surface on earth (nearly 3 times the size of the U.S.).
—The Lichtenstein royal family is wealthier than the Grimaldis of Monaco.
—80% of the American population is crammed in urban areas.
—The least crowded state is Alaska, with 670 acres per person. The most crowded is New Jersey, with .7 acres per person. —60% of America's population are property owners. That's behind the UK (69% homeownership).
—And much, much more!

» Publisher information

Beskrivelse: In her groundbreaking new book, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows (Conari Press, January 2010), Melanie Joy explores the invisible system that shapes our perception of the meat we eat, so that we love some animals and eat others without knowing why. She calls this system carnism. Carnism is the belief system, or ideology, that allows us to selectively choose which animals become our meat, and it is sustained by complex psychological and social mechanisms.

Like other isms (racism, sexism, etc.), carnism is most harmful when it is unrecognized and unacknowledged. Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows names and explains this phenomenon and offers it up for examination. Unlike the many books that explain why we shouldn't eat meat, Joy's book explains why we do eat meat — and thus how we can make more informed choices as citizens and consumers.
If animals could draft a manifesto, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows would be it.
PRAISE
“A thoughtful book full of substance and style. It should be required reading.”
―Kathy Freston, author of The New York Times bestselling Quantum Wellness

» Publisher information