With the same incomparable style and warm, inviting voice that have made her beloved by millions of readers far and wide, New York Times bestselling author Fannie Flagg has written an enchanting Christmas story of faith and hope for all ages that is sure to become a classic. Deep in the...  more

With the same incomparable style and warm, inviting voice that have made her beloved by millions of readers far and wide, New York Times bestselling author Fannie Flagg has written an enchanting Christmas story of faith and hope for all ages that is sure to become a classic. Deep in the southernmost part of Alabama, along the banks of a lazy winding river, lies the sleepy little community known as Lost River, a place that time itself seems to have forgotten. After a startling diagnosis from his doctor, Oswald T. Campbell leaves behind the cold and damp of the oncoming Chicago winter to spend what he believes will be his last Christmas in the warm and welcoming town of Lost River. There he meets the postman who delivers mail by boat, the store owner who nurses a broken heart, the ladies of the Mystic Order of the Royal Polka Dots Secret Society, who do clandestine good works. And he meets a little redbird named Jack, who is at the center of this tale of a magical Christmas when something so amazing happened that those who witnessed it have never forgotten it. Once you experience the wonder, you too will never forget A Redbird Christmas.

Her name is Lisa St. Claire. Her husband's a cop. Here whereabouts are unknown. Spenser thought he could help a friend find his missing wife. Until he learned the nasty truth about Lisa S. Claire. For starters, it's not her real name.

Anita Dittman was just a little girl when the winds of Hitler and Nazism began to blow through Germany. By the time she was twelve, the war had begun. Abandoned by her father when he realized the price of being associated with a Jewish wife and family, Anita and her mother were ultimately left...  more

Anita Dittman was just a little girl when the winds of Hitler and Nazism began to blow through Germany. By the time she was twelve, the war had begun. Abandoned by her father when he realized the price of being associated with a Jewish wife and family, Anita and her mother were ultimately left to fend for themselves. Anita’s teenage years are spent desperately fighting for survival yet learning to trust in the One she discovered would not leave her …

Orphaned at birth, Eliza Sommers is raised in the British colony of Valparaiso, Chile, by the well-intentioned Victorian spinster Miss Rose and her more rigid brother Jeremy. Just as she meets and falls in love with the wildly inappropriate Joaquin Andieta, a lowly clerk who works for Jeremy,...  more

Orphaned at birth, Eliza Sommers is raised in the British colony of Valparaiso, Chile, by the well-intentioned Victorian spinster Miss Rose and her more rigid brother Jeremy. Just as she meets and falls in love with the wildly inappropriate Joaquin Andieta, a lowly clerk who works for Jeremy, gold is discovered in the hills of northern California. By 1849, Chileans of every stripe have fallen prey to feverish dreams of wealth. Joaquin takes off for San Francisco to seek his fortune, and Eliza, pregnant with his child, decides to follow him. So begins Isabel Allende's enchanting new novel, Daughter of Fortune, her most ambitious work of fiction yet. As we follow her spirited heroine on a perilous journey north in the hold of a ship to the rough-and-tumble world of San Francisco and northern California, we enter a world whose newly arrived inhabitants are driven mad by gold fever. A society of single men and prostitutes among whom Eliza moves--with the help of her good friend and savior, the Chinese doctor Tao Chien--California opens the door to a new life of freedom and independence for the young Chilean. Her search for the elusive Joaquin gradually turns into another kind of journey that transforms her over time, and what began as a search for love ends up as the conquest of personal freedom. By the time she finally hears news of him, Eliza must decide who her true love really is. Daughter of Fortune is a sweeping portrait of an era, a story rich in character, history, violence, and compassion. In Eliza, Allende has created one of her most appealing heroines, an adventurous, independent-minded, and highly unconventional young woman who has the courage to reinvent herself and to create her own destiny in a new country. A marvel of storytelling, Daughter of Fortune confirms once again Isabel Allende's extraordinary gift for fiction and her place as one of the world's leading writers.

"Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did." So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls’s no-nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At fifteen, she left home to teach in...  more

"Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did." So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls’s no-nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At fifteen, she left home to teach in a frontier town -- riding five hundred miles on her pony, alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car and fly a plane. And, with her husband, Jim, she ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one of whom is Jeannette’s memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in The Glass Castle. Lily survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy. She bristled at prejudice of all kinds -- against women, Native Americans, and anyone else who didn’t fit the mold. Rosemary Smith Walls always told Jeannette that she was like her grandmother, and in this true-life novel, Jeannette Walls channels that kindred spirit.

"An immediately gripping, expertly woven tale of pain and healing. Ledger is a brilliant writer." -Elin Hilderbrand Sinon and Emily Bear look like a couple who have it all. Simon is a respected doctor; Emily shines as a public relations expert who spins away her corporate clients' mistakes....  more

"An immediately gripping, expertly woven tale of pain and healing. Ledger is a brilliant writer." -Elin Hilderbrand Sinon and Emily Bear look like a couple who have it all. Simon is a respected doctor; Emily shines as a public relations expert who spins away her corporate clients' mistakes. Yet as their 13-year-old daughter's troubled summer reveals, all is not perfect inside this home. Simon has stumbled upon an obscure drug that may revolutionize the treatment of pain. In his excitement, he barely notices that Emily is seeking relief from the family's tragic past. And neither fully realizes how much danger their daughter is in. Soon, everything they have will be on the brink of collapse, and there will be no masking the symptoms or hiding the truth any more.

They were a notorious gypsy family that seeped into their victims' lives like a deadly cancer. And they couldn't be stopped-- until one courageous woman took on the cases no one else would touch. THE VICTIMS: Elderly, well-to-do men and women who, due to their failing health, strength, and...  more

They were a notorious gypsy family that seeped into their victims' lives like a deadly cancer. And they couldn't be stopped-- until one courageous woman took on the cases no one else would touch. THE VICTIMS: Elderly, well-to-do men and women who, due to their failing health, strength, and faculties, could be conned out of their fortunes by heinous neglect, abuse, and possibly even murder. THE ACCUSED: Several members of a ruthless family of Gypsies known for their cunning con-games and remarkable ability to extract large sums of money from their unwitting pawns. THE INVESTIGATOR: Fay Faron, a beautiful, never-say-die P.I., determined to bring these culprits to justice-- even when the authorities turned a blind eye to the Gypsies' crimes time and time again. In this shattering expose, bestselling author Jack Olsen follows Fay Faron as she retraces every step of the Gypsy family and the crimes they stand accused of: moving in on their helpless prey, extorting money, signing the fortunes of elderly millionaires into their own names-- and speeding up the death process with sadistic neglect, slow poison, and unspeakable cruelty. Not since Peter Maas' King of the Gypsies has the world of Gypsy crime been exposed in such shocking detail and with more fascinating insight.

From Jamaica to New York, the Midwest and the Middle East, dachshunds create nothing but trouble for their human companions. Through the eyes of the hapless Jack, these stories explain how the hounds, not the humans, are in charge.

An account of the unpunished crime of Cullen Davis describes how the multimillionaire killed a twelve-year-old girl and then, through the strategies of his defense attorneys, was set free. 

In the late nineteenth century, Newport, Rhode Island, was a cauldron of money, excess, and unapologetic greed, where reputations were made and lost in a whirlwind of parties and fancied slights. But amid the glamour of yacht races, tennis matches, and costume balls raged undeclared class...  more

In the late nineteenth century, Newport, Rhode Island, was a cauldron of money, excess, and unapologetic greed, where reputations were made and lost in a whirlwind of parties and fancied slights. But amid the glamour of yacht races, tennis matches, and costume balls raged undeclared class warfare, scandalous doings, even madness. In 1893, railroad mogul Sam Driver, one of the few surviving robber barons of the lawless years after the Civil War, knocks on the door of fabled Newport with his daughter, Jenny, determined not to be turned away. In the past, his "new money" was tainted by his rapacious reputation, and even now, an enemy with a pedigree of wealth and position vows to slam every door in Sam's face. But he is determined to win a place in the strange rarefied world of Newport's brief summer season, presided over by social gadflies Ward McAllister and the androgynous Harry Lehr, both of whom will assist the Drivers...for a price. The Gods of Newport brings this gilded age of excess to thrilling life. It was a time and place whose extremes of greed, conspicuous consumption, and social striving have an astonishing resonance and relevance for the America we see around us today. Read by Ed Herrmann.  5 sound discs (ca. 6 hr.)    

The eighty-one-year-old Doctor of English Letters William Blow quite unexpectedly discovers his housekeeper, Mrs. Solihull, lying on her bedroom rug with her mouth open. For propriety's sake Bow calls in his seventy-nine-year-old friend, Professor Gideon Manciple, who astutely observes that...  more

The eighty-one-year-old Doctor of English Letters William Blow quite unexpectedly discovers his housekeeper, Mrs. Solihull, lying on her bedroom rug with her mouth open. For propriety's sake Bow calls in his seventy-nine-year-old friend, Professor Gideon Manciple, who astutely observes that she has a knife in her back. This unlikely pair shuffle off into an investigation that leaves a sinister collection of rogues and a Scotland Yard detective thoroughly baffled.

When his daughter, Amy - a gifted doctor, mother, and wife - collapsed and died from an asymptomatic heart condition, Roger Rosenblatt and his wife, Ginny, left their home on the South Shore of Long Island to move in with their son-in-law, Harris, and their three young grandchildren,...  more

When his daughter, Amy - a gifted doctor, mother, and wife - collapsed and died from an asymptomatic heart condition, Roger Rosenblatt and his wife, Ginny, left their home on the South Shore of Long Island to move in with their son-in-law, Harris, and their three young grandchildren, six-year-old Jessica, four-year-old Sammy, and one year-old James, known as Bubbies. Long past the years of nappies, homework, and recitals, Roger and Ginny - Boppo and Mimi to the kids - quickly reaccustomed themselves to the world of small children: bedtime stories, talking toys, playdates, nonstop questions, and nonsequential thought. Though still reeling from Amy's death, they carried on, reconstructing a family, sustaining one another, and guiding three lively, alert, and tenderhearted children through the pains and confusions of grief. As he marvelled at the strength of his son-in-law, a surgeon, and the tenacity and skill of his wife, a former kindergarten teacher, Roger attended each day to 'the one household duty I have mastered'- preparing the morning toast perfectly to each child's liking. With the wit, heart, precision, and depth of understanding that has characterised his work, Roger Rosenblatt peels back the layers on this most personal of losses to create both a tribute to his late daughter and a testament to familial love. The day Amy died, Harris told Ginny and Roger, 'It's impossible'. Roger's story tells how a family makes the possible of the impossible.

For the past twenty-five years, no one has been better at revealing secrets than Oprah Winfrey. On what is arguably the most influ¬ential show in television history, she has gotten her guests?often the biggest celebrities in the world?to bare their love lives, explore their painful pasts,...  more

For the past twenty-five years, no one has been better at revealing secrets than Oprah Winfrey. On what is arguably the most influ¬ential show in television history, she has gotten her guests?often the biggest celebrities in the world?to bare their love lives, explore their painful pasts, admit their transgressions, reveal their pleasures, and explore their demons. In turn, Oprah has repeatedly allowed her audience to share in her own life story, opening up about the sexual abuse in her past and discussing her romantic relationships, her weight problems, her spiritual beliefs, her charitable donations, and her strongly held views on the state of the world. After a quarter of a century of the Oprah-ization of America, can there be any more secrets left to reveal? Yes. Because Oprah has met her match. Kitty Kelley has, over the same period of time, fear¬lessly and relentlessly investigated and written about the world’s most revered icons: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Reagan, England’s Royal Family, and the Bush dynasty. In her #1 bestselling biographies, she has exposed truths and exploded myths to uncover the real human beings that exist behind their manufac¬tured facades. Turning her reportorial sights on Oprah, Kelley has now given us an unvarnished look at the stories Oprah’s told and the life she’s led. Kelley has talked to Oprah’s closest family members and business associates. She has obtained court records, birth certificates, financial and tax records, and even copies of Oprah’s legendary (and punishing) confidentiality agreements. She has probed every aspect of Oprah Winfrey’s life, and it is as if she’s written the most extraordinary segment of The Oprah Winfrey Show ever filmed?one in which Oprah herself is finally and fully revealed. There is a case to be made, and it is certainly made in this book, that Oprah Winfrey is an important, and even great, figure of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. But there is also a case to be made that even greatness needs to be examined and put under a microscope. Fact must be separated from myth, truth from hype. Kitty Kelley has made that separation, showing both sides of Oprah as they have never been shown before. In doing so she has written a psychologically perceptive and meticulously researched book that will surprise and thrill everyone who reads it.

This is an intriguing work of non-fiction about Gypsies and the lives that they lead here in the United States. It focuses on one particular branch of Gypsies and the clan warfare that made their clan the ascendant one and its leader, Tene Bimbo, the self-proclaimed King of the Gypsies. The...  more

This is an intriguing work of non-fiction about Gypsies and the lives that they lead here in the United States. It focuses on one particular branch of Gypsies and the clan warfare that made their clan the ascendant one and its leader, Tene Bimbo, the self-proclaimed King of the Gypsies. The author presents an unvarnished look at Gypsies. He notes their insularity and clannishness, their lives lived on the fringes of mainstream society, and the classic cons by which they survive. Scorning education, nine-to-five jobs, and anyone outside of their cultural milieu, they are a fascinating group of people with their own complex rules and regulations by which they live.

Finalist 2007 Shamus Award for Best Novel. VANISHING POINT, McCone's 24th adventure, begins just after she and her longtime lover Hy Ripinsky have finally tied the knot. But there isn't much time for celebration. At a family reception she agrees to investigate the disappearance, 22 years...  more

Finalist 2007 Shamus Award for Best Novel. VANISHING POINT, McCone's 24th adventure, begins just after she and her longtime lover Hy Ripinsky have finally tied the knot. But there isn't much time for celebration. At a family reception she agrees to investigate the disappearance, 22 years before, of Laurel Greenwood, an artist and housewife who inexplicably vanished leaving behind two young daughters and a husband. New evidence suggests that the woman may have led a strange double life. But before McCone can penetrate that tangled web she must first solve a second disappearance that of her client-Laurel Greenwood's grown daughter. From the central California coast, to the gold-mining area, to the lush hills of south central Oregon, Sharon follows the chilling evidence. It is one of her most complex cases, bringing her up against two truly dysfunctional marriages-just as she embarks on her own.

Readers expecting something zany, something crudely humorous from Steve Martin's second novel, The Pleasure of My Company, will discover much greater riches. While the book has a sense of humor, Martin moves everywhere with a gentler, lighter touch in this elegant little fiction that verges...  more

Readers expecting something zany, something crudely humorous from Steve Martin's second novel, The Pleasure of My Company, will discover much greater riches. While the book has a sense of humor, Martin moves everywhere with a gentler, lighter touch in this elegant little fiction that verges on the profound and poetic. Daniel Pecan Cambridge is the narrator and central consciousness of the novel (actually a novella). Daniel, an ex-Hewlett-Packard communique encoder, is a savant whose closely proscribed world is bounded on every side by neuroses and obsessions. He cannot cross the street except at driveways symmetrically opposed to each, and he cannot sleep unless the wattage of the active light bulbs in his apartment sums to 1,125. Daniel's starved social life is punctuated by twice-weekly visits from a young therapist in training, Clarissa; by his prescription pick-ups from a Rite Aid pharmacist, Zandy; and by his "casual" meetings with the bleach-blond real estate agent, Elizabeth, who is struggling to sell apartments across the street. But Daniel's dysfunctional routines are shattered one day when he becomes entangled in the chaos of Clarissa's life as a single mother. Taking care of Clarissa's tiny son, Teddy, Daniel begins to emerge from the safety of logic, magic squares, and obsessive counting. Martin's craftsmanship is remarkable. The tightly packed novella paints rich portraits with restraint and balance, including nothing extraneous to Daniel's world. The book does not try for pyrotechnics but is contented with a Zen-like simplicity in both prose and plot. Avoiding the crushing bleakness of much contemporary fiction, Martin insists through Daniel--a man haunted by horrors of his own making--that there is possibility for compassion, that broken lives can actually be healed. Audio Review: Steve Martin--mature, established author Steve Martin--seems to revisit THE JERK in this work, running his early hit movie through a Kafkaesque filter. Martin's protagonist, Daniel Pecan Cambridge, redefines the pitiful antihero--and we're not sure if we shouldn't fear him a little. An obsessive-compulsive loner with an eye for multifarious detail and nuance, Daniel evolves through absurdist misadventure into a healthier species of neurotic. Martin's read is spot-on; he never pushes too hard or reveals too much, allowing his story to be the star. This is a wise choice, for we actually do enjoy Daniel's company eventually, after seeing him through a lot of strangeness and ugliness. -- AudioFile 4 sound discs (5 hours) Read by the author.

With the same wicked humor, buoyant charm, and optimism that have made her Shopaholic novels beloved international bestsellers, Sophie Kinsella delivers a hilarious new novel and an unforgettable new character. Meet Emma Corrigan, a young woman with a huge heart, an irrepressible spirit, and a...  more

With the same wicked humor, buoyant charm, and optimism that have made her Shopaholic novels beloved international bestsellers, Sophie Kinsella delivers a hilarious new novel and an unforgettable new character. Meet Emma Corrigan, a young woman with a huge heart, an irrepressible spirit, and a few little secrets: Secrets from her mother: I lost my virginity in the spare bedroom with Danny Nussbaum while Mum and Dad were downstairs watching Ben-Hur. Sammy the goldfish in my parents' kitchen is not the same goldfish that Mum gave me to look after when she and Dad were in Egypt. Secrets from her boyfriend: I weigh one hundred and twenty-eight pounds. Not one eighteen, like Connor thinks. I've always thought Connor looks a bit like Ken. As in Barbie and Ken. From her colleagues: When Artemis really annoys me, I feed her plant orange juice. (Which is pretty much every day.) It was me who jammed the copier that time. In fact, all the times. Secrets she wouldn't share with anyone in the world: My G-string is hurting me. I have no idea what NATO stands for. Or even what it is. Until she spills them all to a handsome stranger on a plane. At least, she thought he was a stranger. But come Monday morning, Emma's office is abuzz about the arrival of Jack Harper, the company's elusive CEO. Suddenly Emma is face-to-face with the stranger from the plane, a man who knows every single humiliating detail about her. Things couldn't possibly get worse-Until they do. Read by Emily Gray, Abridged, 5 CDs, 6 hours

Who was it that led the most slaves to freedom along the underground railroad? Who started the drive toward the passage of the 19th and 20th amendments to our constitution? Who was the first black self-made millionaire in America? Who identified the horrors of DDT and led the fight toward...  more

Who was it that led the most slaves to freedom along the underground railroad? Who started the drive toward the passage of the 19th and 20th amendments to our constitution? Who was the first black self-made millionaire in America? Who identified the horrors of DDT and led the fight toward banning its use? Readers of this collection might be surprised to find the answer to each of these questions is ... a woman! While men were making the headlines in American history, women were also doing good deeds, performing acts of valor, and achieving moments of greatness and inspiration. These are stories of some of the women who helped shape our nation. Each one struggled with a challenge that her male counterparts did not have to face-the deeply ingrained gender biases that worked to obstruct a woman's every step. Haven tells the stories of the first American woman doctor, the first social worker, the first American woman to fly a plane, the first U.S. congresswoman, and 36 other women of note. His concise,

Once it was a swamp. Now Foggy Bottom is swimming with real-estate sharks. When a man is found stabbed to death in this trendy D.C. neighborhood, it is major news. But within forty-eight hours the nation is gripped by a fear that leaves this comparatively small crime in the dark. Three...  more

Once it was a swamp. Now Foggy Bottom is swimming with real-estate sharks. When a man is found stabbed to death in this trendy D.C. neighborhood, it is major news. But within forty-eight hours the nation is gripped by a fear that leaves this comparatively small crime in the dark. Three passenger planes are shot out of the sky. Everywhere -- in law enforcement, in the media, and in the most secret realms of government -- men and women scramble to find out who shot hand-held missiles at the planes, and why. It is a search that reaches from Moscow to the Pacific Northwest, putting some people’s lives in jeopardy and turning others' lives inside out. But no one can guess the truth: that the epicenter of the terrorist outbreak is Washington D.C ... and a dead man behind a park bench in a place called Foggy Bottom. Abridged:  3 Compact Discs, Running Time: 3 hours, Narrator: Alan Sklar

Paradise, Massachusetts, police chief Jesse Stone confronts a town's darkest secrets in the shocking new novel from the New York Times-bestselling author and America's greatest mystery writer. (The New York Sun). Things are getting strange in Paradise, Massachusetts. Police Chief...  more

Paradise, Massachusetts, police chief Jesse Stone confronts a town's darkest secrets in the shocking new novel from the New York Times-bestselling author and America's greatest mystery writer. (The New York Sun). Things are getting strange in Paradise, Massachusetts. Police Chief Jesse Stone is called to the junior high school when reports of lewd conduct by the school's principal, Betsy Ingersoll, filter into the station. Ingersoll claims she was protecting the propriety of her students when she inspected each girl's undergarments in the locker room. Jesse would like nothing more than to see Ingersoll punished, but her high-powered attorney husband stands in the way. At the same time, the women of Paradise are faced with a threat to their sense of security with the emergence of a tormented voyeur, dubbed 'The Night Hawk'. Initially, he's content to peer through windows, but as times goes on, he becomes more reckless, forcing his victims to strip at gunpoint, then photographing them at their most vulnerable. And according to the notes he's sending to Jesse, he's not satisfied to stop there. It's up to Jesse to catch the Night Hawk, before it's too late. Read by James Naughton Unabridged  5 CDs, run time 6 hours

"Our women are serving actively in many ways in this war, and they are doing a grand job on both the fighting front and the home front." -- Eleanor Roosevelt, 1944 Our Mothers' War is a stunning and unprecedented portrait of women during World War II, a war that forever transformed the way...  more

"Our women are serving actively in many ways in this war, and they are doing a grand job on both the fighting front and the home front." -- Eleanor Roosevelt, 1944 Our Mothers' War is a stunning and unprecedented portrait of women during World War II, a war that forever transformed the way women participate in American society. Never before has the vast range of American women's experience during this pivotal era been brought together in one book. Now, Our Mothers' War re-creates what American women from all walks of life were doing and thinking, on the home front and abroad. Like all great histories, Our Mothers' War began with an illuminating discovery. After finding a journal and letters her mother had written while serving with the Red Cross in the Pacific, journalist Emily Yellin started unearthing what her mother and other women of her mother's generation went through during a time when their country asked them to step into roles they had never been invited, or allowed, to fill before. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including personal interviews and previously unpublished letters and diaries, Yellin shows what went on in the hearts and minds of the real women behind the female images of World War II -- women working in war plants; mothers and wives sending their husbands and sons off to war and sometimes death; women joining the military for the first time in American history; nurses operating in battle zones in Europe, Africa, and the Pacific; and housewives coping with rationing. Yellin also delves into lesser-known stories, including: tales of female spies, pilots, movie stars, baseball players, politicians, prostitutes, journalists, and even fictional characters; firsthand accounts from the wives of the scientists who created the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, African-American women who faced Jim Crow segregation laws at home even as their men were fighting enemy bigotry and injustice abroad, and Japanese-American women locked up as prisoners in their own country. Yellin explains how Wonder Woman was created in 1941 to fight the Nazi menace and became the first female comic book superhero, as well as how Marilyn Monroe was discovered in 1944 while working with her mother-in-law packing parachutes at a war plant in Burbank, California. Our Mothers' War gives center stage to those who might be called "the other American soldiers."

In The Goodbye Look, Lew Archer is hired to investigate a burglary at the mission-style mansion of Irene and Larry Chalmers. The prime suspect, their son Nick, has a talent for disappearing, and the Chalmerses are a family with money and memories to burn. As Archer zeros in on Nick, he discovers...  more

In The Goodbye Look, Lew Archer is hired to investigate a burglary at the mission-style mansion of Irene and Larry Chalmers. The prime suspect, their son Nick, has a talent for disappearing, and the Chalmerses are a family with money and memories to burn. As Archer zeros in on Nick, he discovers a troubled blonde, a stash of wartime letters, a mysterious hobo. Then a stiff turns up in a car on an empty beach. And Nick turns up with a Colt .45. In The Goodbye Look, Ross Macdonald delves into the world of the rich and the troubled and reveals that the past has a deadly way of catching up to the present.If any writer can be said to have inherited the mantle of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, it is Ross Macdonald. Between the late 1940s and his death in 1983, he gave the American crime novel a psychological depth and moral complexity that his pre-decessors had only hinted at. And in the character of Lew Archer, Macdonald redefined the private eye as a roving conscience who walks the treacherous frontier between criminal guilt and human sin.

The most eagerly awaited presidential biography in years, Theodore Rex is a sequel to Edmund Morris’s classic bestseller The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. It begins by following the new President (still the youngest in American history) as he comes down from Mount Marcy, New York, to take...  more

The most eagerly awaited presidential biography in years, Theodore Rex is a sequel to Edmund Morris’s classic bestseller The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. It begins by following the new President (still the youngest in American history) as he comes down from Mount Marcy, New York, to take his emergency oath of office in Buffalo, one hundred years ago. A detailed prologue describes TR’s assumption of power and journey to Washington, with the assassinated President McKinley riding behind him like a ghost of the nineteenth century. (Trains rumble throughout this irresistibly moving narrative, as TR crosses and recrosses the nation.) Traveling south through a succession of haunting landscapes, TR encounters harbingers of all the major issues of the new century-Imperialism, Industrialism, Conservation, Immigration, Labor, Race-plus the overall challenge that intimidated McKinley: how to harness America’s new power as the world’s richest nation. Theodore Rex (the title is taken from a quip by Henry James) tells the story of the following seven and a half years-years in which TR entertains, infuriates, amuses, strong-arms, and seduces the body politic into a state of almost total subservience to his will. It is not always a pretty story: one of the revelations here is that TR was hated and feared by a substantial minority of his fellow citizens. Wall Street, the white South, Western lumber barons, even his own Republican leadership in Congress strive to harness his steadily increasing power. Within weeks of arrival in Washington, TR causes a nationwide sensation by becoming the first President to invite a black man to dinner in the White House. Next, he launches his famous prosecution of the Northern Securities Company, and follows up with landmark antitrust legislation. He liberates Cuba, determines the route of the Panama Canal, mediates the great Anthracite Strike, and resolves the Venezuela Crisis of 1902-1903 with such masterful secrecy that the world at large is unaware how near the United States and Germany have come to war. During an epic national tour in the spring of 1903, TR’s conservation philosophy (his single greatest gift to posterity) comes into full flower. He also bestows on countless Americans the richness of a personality without parallel-evangelical and passionate, yet lusty and funny; adroitly political, winningly natural, intellectually overwhelming. The most famous father of his time, he is adored by his six children (although beautiful, willful “Princess” Alice rebelled against him) and accepted as an honorary member of the White House Gang of seditious small boys. Theodore Rex, full of cinematic detail, moves with the exhilarating pace of a novel, yet it rides on a granite base of scholarship. TR’s own voice is constantly heard, as the President was a gifted letter writer and raconteur. Also heard are the many witticisms, sometimes mocking, yet always affectionate, of such Roosevelt intimates as Henry Adams, John Hay, and Elihu Root. (“Theodore is never sober,” said Adams, “only he is drunk with himself and not with rum.”) TR’s speed of thought and action, and his total command of all aspects of presidential leadership, from bureaucratic subterfuge to manipulation of the press, make him all but invincible in 1904, when he wins a second term by a historic landslide. Surprisingly, this victory transforms him from a patrician conservative to a progressive, responsible between 1905 and 1908 for a raft of enlightened legislation, including the Pure Food and Employer Liability acts. Even more surprising, to critics who have caricatured TR as a swinger of the Big Stick, is his emergence as a diplomat. He wins the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing about an end to the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Interspersed with many stories of Rooseveltian triumphs are some bitter episodes-notably a devastating lynching-that remind us of America’s deep prejudices and fears. Theodore Rex does not attempt to justify TR’s notorious action following the Brownsville Incident of 1906-his worst mistake as President-but neither does this resolutely honest biography indulge in the easy wisdom of hindsight. It is written throughout in real time, reflecting the world as TR saw it. By the final chapter, as the great “Teddy” prepares to quit the White House in 1909, it will be a hard-hearted reader who does not share the sentiment of Henry Adams: “The old house will seem dull and sad when my Theodore has gone.” Read by Harry Chase.  8 sound discs (540 min.)

A YEAR IN THE MERDE is the almost-true account of the author’s adventures as an expat in Paris. Based loosely on his own experiences and with names changed to “avoid embarrassment, possible legal action and to prevent the author’s legs being broken by someone in a Yves Saint...  more

A YEAR IN THE MERDE is the almost-true account of the author’s adventures as an expat in Paris. Based loosely on his own experiences and with names changed to “avoid embarrassment, possible legal action and to prevent the author’s legs being broken by someone in a Yves Saint Laurent suit (or quite possibly, a Christian Dior skirt), ” A YEAR IN THE MERDE is the story of a Paul West, a 27-year-old Brit who is brought to Paris by a French company to open a chain of British “tea rooms.” He soon becomes immersed in the contradictions of French culture: the French are not all cheese-eating surrender monkeys, though they do eat a lot of smelly cheese; they are still in shock at being stupid enough to sell Louisiana, thus losing the chance to make French the global language, while going on strike is the second national participation sport after pétanque. He also illuminates how to get the best out of the grumpiest Parisian waiter, how to survive a French business meeting, and how not to buy a house in the French countryside.  The author originally wrote A YEAR IN THE MERDE just for fun and self-published it in France in an English language edition. Weeks later, it had become a word-of-mouth hit for expats and the French alike, even outselling Bill Clinton’s memoir at Paris’s fabled American bookstore Brentano’s. With translation rights now sold in eleven countries, Stephen Clarke is clearly a Bill Bryson (or a Peter Mayle...) for a whole new generation of readers who can never quite decide whether they love—or love to hate—the French. Read by Gerard Doyle.  Abridged: 4 sound discs (4 hr.) 

This audiobook includes the classics ?A Light on the Road to Woodstock,? ?The Price of Light,? and ?Eye Witness.? These stories chronicle the events that led Brother Cadfael into the monastic life and feature Peters?s complex plots, mastery of language, and deep understanding of human nature.

We all knew and loved Valerie Bertinelli years ago when she played the girl-next-door cutie, Barbara Cooper, in the hit TV show One Day at a Time. From wholesome primetime in America's living rooms, Valerie moved to late nights with the hardest partying band of the decadent 80s when she married...  more

We all knew and loved Valerie Bertinelli years ago when she played the girl-next-door cutie, Barbara Cooper, in the hit TV show One Day at a Time. From wholesome primetime in America's living rooms, Valerie moved to late nights with the hardest partying band of the decadent 80s when she married rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen at the age of 20. Here are the ups and downs of teen stardom, of her complicated marriage, and of her very public struggle with weight. Surprising, uplifting, and empowering, Losing It takes you behind the scenes in Valerie's acting career and marriage. Despite Valerie's celebrity, her voice is so down-to-earth, honest, and appealing that you'll feel as if you're talking with a girlfriend over coffee. Funny and candid, Valerie recounts her attempts to maintain a healthy self-image while dealing with social pressures to look and act a certain way, and to overcome career insecurities and relationship problems familiar to the millions of women who struggle every day with these same issues. From marital turmoil to the joys of a new career, from being named among Penthouse's ten sexiest women in the world to overhearing whispers about her weight gain in the grocery store, this is Valerie's inspiring journey as she finds new love, raises a terrific kid, and motivates other women as a spokesperson for Jenny Craig. Abridged: 5 Compact Discs, Running Time: 6 hours, Narrator: Valerie Bertinelli (read by the author)

Daddy is going to camp. That's what I told my children. A child psychologist suggested it. “Words like prison and jail conjure up dangerous images for children,” she explained. But it wasn't camp . . . Neil White, a journalist and magazine publisher, wanted the best for those he...  more

Daddy is going to camp. That's what I told my children. A child psychologist suggested it. “Words like prison and jail conjure up dangerous images for children,” she explained. But it wasn't camp . . . Neil White, a journalist and magazine publisher, wanted the best for those he loved—nice cars, beautiful homes, luxurious clothes. He loaned money to family and friends, gave generously to his church, and invested in his community—but his bank account couldn't keep up. Soon White began moving money from one account to another to avoid bouncing checks. His world fell apart when the FBI discovered his scheme and a judge sentenced him to serve eighteen months in a federal prison. But it was no ordinary prison. The beautiful, isolated colony in Carville, Louisiana, was also home to the last people in the continental United States disfigured by leprosy. Hidden away for decades, this small circle of outcasts had forged a tenacious, clandestine community, a fortress to repel the cruelty of the outside world. It is here, in a place rich with history, where the Mississippi River briefly runs north, amid an unlikely mix of leprosy patients, nuns, and criminals, that White's strange and compelling journey begins. He finds a new best friend in Ella Bounds, an eighty-year-old African American double amputee who had contracted leprosy as a child. She and the other secret people, along with a wacky troop of inmates, help White rediscover the value of simplicity, friendship, and gratitude. Funny and poignant, In the Sanctuary of Outcasts is an uplifting memoir that reminds us all what matters most.

A peculiar feature of our country today, says Michael Barone, is that we seem to produce incompetent eighteen-year-olds but remarkably competent thirty-year-olds. Indeed, American students lag behind their peers in other nations, but America remains on the leading edge economically,...  more

A peculiar feature of our country today, says Michael Barone, is that we seem to produce incompetent eighteen-year-olds but remarkably competent thirty-year-olds. Indeed, American students lag behind their peers in other nations, but America remains on the leading edge economically, scientifically, technologically, and militarily. The reason for this paradox, explains Barone in this brilliant essay, is that “from ages six to eighteen Americans live mostly in what I call Soft America—the parts of our country where there is little competition and accountability. But from ages eighteen to thirty Americans live mostly in Hard America—the parts of American life subject to competition and accountability.” While Soft America coddles, Hard America plays for keeps. Educators, for example, protect children from the rigors of testing, ban dodgeball, and promote just about any student who shows up. But most adults quickly figure out that how they do depends on what they produce. Barone sweeps readers along, showing how we came to the current divide—for things weren’t always this way. In fact, no part of our society is all Hard or all Soft, and the boundary between Hard America and Soft America often moves back and forth. Barone also shows where America is headed—or should be headed. We don’t want to subject kindergartners to the rigors of the Marine Corps or leave old people uncared for. But Soft America lives off the productivity, creativity, and competence of Hard America, and we have the luxury of keeping part of our society Soft only if we keep most of it Hard.Hard America, Soft America reveals: • How the American situation is unique: In Europe, schooling is competitive and demanding, but adult life is Soft, with generous welfare benefits, short work hours, long vacations, and state pensions• How the American military has reclaimed the Hard goals and programs it abandoned in the Vietnam era• How Hardness drives America’s economy—an economy that businesses and economists nearly destroyed in the 1970s by spurning competition • How America’s schools have failed because they are bastions of Softness—but how they are finally showing signs of Hardening• The benefits of Softness: How government programs like Social Security were necessary in what was a harsh and unforgiving America• Hard America, Soft America is a stunningly original and provocative work of social commentary from one of this country’s most respected political analysts.

The streets of San Francisco would be lined with hardcovers if rare book expert Brooklyn Wainwright had her way. And her mentor wouldn't be lying in a pool of his own blood on the eve of a celebration for his latest book restoration. With his final breath he leaves Brooklyn a cryptic message,...  more

The streets of San Francisco would be lined with hardcovers if rare book expert Brooklyn Wainwright had her way. And her mentor wouldn't be lying in a pool of his own blood on the eve of a celebration for his latest book restoration. With his final breath he leaves Brooklyn a cryptic message, and gives her a priceless -- and supposedly cursed -- copy of Goethe's Faust for safekeeping. Brooklyn suddenly finds herself accused of murder and theft, thanks to the humorless -- but attractive -- British security officer who finds her kneeling over the body. Now she has to read the clues left behind by her mentor if she is going to restore justice...

"A nineteenth-century version of THE STING...Crichton fascinates us."THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWIn teeming Victorian London, where lavish wealth and appalling poverty live side by side, Edward Pierce charms the most prominent of the well-to-do as he cunningly orchestrates the crime of the...  more

"A nineteenth-century version of THE STING...Crichton fascinates us."THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWIn teeming Victorian London, where lavish wealth and appalling poverty live side by side, Edward Pierce charms the most prominent of the well-to-do as he cunningly orchestrates the crime of the century. Who would suspect that a gentleman of breeding could mastermind the daring theft of a fortune in gold? Who could predict the consequences of making the extraordinary robbery aboard the pride of England's industrial era, the mighty steam locomotive? Based on fact, as lively as legend, and studded with all the suspense and style of a modern fiction master, here is a classic caper novel set a decade before the age of dynamite--yet nonetheless explosive....

A brilliant debut novel from a New York Times bestselling author about a transplanted wife from Boston who arrives in Florida in the 1960s, starts a literary salon, and shakes up the status quo.In 1962, Jackie Hart moved to Naples, Florida, from Boston with her husband and children. Wanting...  more

A brilliant debut novel from a New York Times bestselling author about a transplanted wife from Boston who arrives in Florida in the 1960s, starts a literary salon, and shakes up the status quo.In 1962, Jackie Hart moved to Naples, Florida, from Boston with her husband and children. Wanting something personally fulfilling to do with her time, she starts a reading club and anonymously hosts a radio show, calling herself Miss Dreamsville.     The racially segregated town falls in love with Miss Dreamsville, but doesn?t know what to make of Jackie, who welcomes everyone into her book club, including a woman who did prison time for allegedly killing her husband, a man of questionable sexual preference, a young divorcee, as well as a black woman.     By the end of this novel, you?ll be wiping away the tears of laugher and sadness, and you just may become a bit more hopeful that even the most hateful people can see the light of humanitarianism, if they just give themselves a chance.

Natalie Greco loves being a law professor, even though she secretly feels like Faculty Comic Relief. She loves her family, too, but as a bookworm, doesn't quite fit into the cult of Greco football, headed by her father, the team captain. The one person whom she feels most connected to is her...  more

Natalie Greco loves being a law professor, even though she secretly feels like Faculty Comic Relief. She loves her family, too, but as a bookworm, doesn't quite fit into the cult of Greco football, headed by her father, the team captain. The one person whom she feels most connected to is her colleague Angus Holt, a guy with a brilliant mind, gorgeous façade, and a penchant for helping those less fortunate. When he talks Nat into teaching a class at a local prison, her world turns upside down. A violent prison riot breaks out during the class, and in the chaos, Nat rushes to help a grievously injured guard. Before he dies, he asks her to deliver a cryptic message: "Tell my wife it's under the floor." Plunged into a nightmare, Nat suddenly finds herself suspected of a brutal murder and encounters threats to her life. Now, not only are the cops after her, but ruthless killers are desperate to keep her from exposing their secret. In the meantime, she gets dangerously close to Angus, shaking her dedication to her safe boyfriend. With her love life in jeopardy, her career in the balance, and her life on the line, Nat must rely on her resources, her intelligence, and her courage. Forced into hiding to stay alive, she sets out to save herself by deciphering the puzzle behind the dead guard's last words...and learns the secret behind the greatest puzzle of all—herself. Filled with the ingenious twists, pulse-pounding narrative drive, and dynamic, flesh-and-blood characters, Daddy's Girl is another wild, entertaining ride from the addictively readable Lisa Scottoline.

Malika Oufkir's profound and heartbreaking memoir, Stolen Lives, a New York Times best seller, told of her family's twenty-year imprisonment in a Moroccan desert jail and their eventual breath-taking escape. It became a huge national best seller and was only the second non-fiction title...  more

Malika Oufkir's profound and heartbreaking memoir, Stolen Lives, a New York Times best seller, told of her family's twenty-year imprisonment in a Moroccan desert jail and their eventual breath-taking escape. It became a huge national best seller and was only the second non-fiction title ever selected for Oprah's Book Club. In her new book, Freedom, Oufkir reveals what it is like to return to the world after twenty years of darkness. Living life for the first time as an adult woman, she writes candidly on her adjustment to the modern world from using an ATM and shopping in a supermarket, to understanding the concept of freedom itself in a world with so many strange restrictions; falling in love; and having an intimate relationship with a man for the first time. Moving, funny, and full of wisdom and insight, Freedom is a sequel every bit as masterful as the original and one that Oufkir's devoted fans will embrace. Read by Edita Brychta Abridged: 3 CDs, 3 hrs.  

From master crime writer Joseph Wambaugh, the acclaimed author of such classics as The Onion Field and The Choirboys, comes the extraordinary true story of a firefighter who may have been, according to U.S. government profilers, "the most prolific American arsonist of the twentieth...  more

From master crime writer Joseph Wambaugh, the acclaimed author of such classics as The Onion Field and The Choirboys, comes the extraordinary true story of a firefighter who may have been, according to U.S. government profilers, "the most prolific American arsonist of the twentieth century."Growing up in Los Angeles, John Orr would watch in awe as firefighters scrambled to put out blazes with seeming disregard for their own lives. One day he would become a fireman himself, and a good one. As a member of the Glendale Fire Department, he rose through the ranks, eventually becoming a fire captain and one of southern California's best-known and most-respected arson investigators, as well as a writer of firefighting articles and finally of a fact-based novel. But there was another, unseen life, one that included many women, a need for risk, and a hunger for recognition.While Orr busted a string of petty arsonists, there was one serial criminal he could not track down. The fire lover used the same simple yet devastating device and was unerring in his execution. His lethal handiwork led to the death of four innocent people and countless millions of dollars worth of property damage. Homes, retail stores during business hours, fields of dry brush in stifling summer heat -- little was safe from his obsession to see them burn.But after years of terror and destruction, he would make a mistake. He would leave behind a precious clue that investigators would use to lead them to the true identity of the fire lover, to the shock and disbelief of the firefighting community.Chilling, colorful, and vivid, Fire Lover is Joseph Wambaugh at his best. He explores the making of a deviant personality, the fascinating intricacies of fire science, the uneasy relationship between firefighting and law-enforcement communities, and a legal system gone haywire.Based on his trademark meticulous research, interviews, case records, and thousands of pages of court transcripts, Wambaugh fashions a powerful narrative. You will never look at fire the same way again.

Noted historian Martha A. Sandweiss tells the uniquely American story of Clarence King, a man who hid from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent family the fact that he lived a double life---as the celebrated white explorer, geologist, and writer King and as a black Pullman porter and steelworker...  more

Noted historian Martha A. Sandweiss tells the uniquely American story of Clarence King, a man who hid from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent family the fact that he lived a double life---as the celebrated white explorer, geologist, and writer King and as a black Pullman porter and steelworker named James Todd.

Forced from her downtown Manhattan apartment by the terrorist attack of September 11, journalist Wendy Bounds was delivered to Guinan's doorstep -- a legendary Irish drinking hole and country store nestled along the banks of the Hudson River in the small town of Garrison, New York -- by a...  more

Forced from her downtown Manhattan apartment by the terrorist attack of September 11, journalist Wendy Bounds was delivered to Guinan's doorstep -- a legendary Irish drinking hole and country store nestled along the banks of the Hudson River in the small town of Garrison, New York -- by a friend. Captivated by the bar's charismatic but ailing owner and his charming, motley clientele, Bounds uprooted herself permanently and moved to tiny Garrison, the picturesque river town they all call home. There she became one of the rare female regulars at the old pub and was quickly swept up into its rhythm, heartbeat, and grand history -- as related by Jim Guinan himself, the stubborn high priest of this little chapel. Surrounded by a crew of endearing, delightfully colorful characters who were now her neighbors and friends, she slowly finds her own way home. Beautifully written, deeply personal, and brilliantly insightful, Little Chapel on the River is a love story about a place -- and the people who bring it to life.

Following on the success of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, and already a worldwide sensation, Hector and the Search for Happiness finally comes to America, where readers will delight in its uplifting humor. Hector is a young psychiatrist in Paris who does not understand why his patients in...  more

Following on the success of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, and already a worldwide sensation, Hector and the Search for Happiness finally comes to America, where readers will delight in its uplifting humor. Hector is a young psychiatrist in Paris who does not understand why his patients in this most beautiful of cities are unhappy. So he decides to take a trip around the world -- from Paris to China to Africa to the United States -- and to keep a list of observations about the people he meets, hoping to find the secret to happiness. Combining the winsome appeal of The Little Prince with the inspiring philosophy of The Alchemist, Hector's journey around the world and into the human soul is entertaining, empowering, and smile inducing -- as winning in its optimism as it is wise in its simplicity.

A Story of Sisters in AuschwitzAs a young woman, Rena Kornreich endured the Nazi death camps for almost three and a half years. Rena's Promise, the remarkable story of her survival, shows how her relationship with her younger sister, Danka, gave her the will to persevere under unimaginable...  more

A Story of Sisters in AuschwitzAs a young woman, Rena Kornreich endured the Nazi death camps for almost three and a half years. Rena's Promise, the remarkable story of her survival, shows how her relationship with her younger sister, Danka, gave her the will to persevere under unimaginable circumstances. "Deeply moving."-Dena Taylor, San Francisco Chronicle

Psychologist Abigael Gallant fought her way back from her ex-husband?s brutal attack that killed their daughter and left her blind. Now she ?reads? audio books, runs with a guide at a local track, and has a thriving practice that specializes in treating the newly disabled. The last thing she...  more

Psychologist Abigael Gallant fought her way back from her ex-husband?s brutal attack that killed their daughter and left her blind. Now she ?reads? audio books, runs with a guide at a local track, and has a thriving practice that specializes in treating the newly disabled. The last thing she needs is another man in her life. Enter Detective Luke McCallister, a cop forced into counseling a year after a gun blast during a meth lab take-down robbed him of his hearing. Luke is fighting hard to stay on the force, but computer work and fingerprint analysis are not what he has in mind. Initially reluctant to Abby?s therapy, Luke?s barriers tumble because Abby sees deeper into him than anyone ever cared to. Though Luke?s lip reading is excellent, he refuses to ?listen? to Abby?s warning that his romantic overture jeopardizes her professional ethics. But when break-ins and threatening computer messages escalate into a physical attack on Abby and her guide dog, Luke walks a fine line between cop, protector, and lover. Unable to deny their physical attraction, Abby and Luke tiptoe around their personal baggage and enter into a delicate relationship. Then Abby is kidnapped. While Luke puts his life at risk to find her, Abby discovers the ghosts of her past are back to haunt her, and the man she once loved was as much of a victim as she.

The story of Berek Jakubowicz (now Benjamin Jacobs), a Jewish dental student, is a gripping account of the horrors of the Holocaust. Jacobs was deported in 1941 from his Polish village and taken to a Nazi labor camp where he remained a prisoner of the Reich until the ending days of war. He is...  more

The story of Berek Jakubowicz (now Benjamin Jacobs), a Jewish dental student, is a gripping account of the horrors of the Holocaust. Jacobs was deported in 1941 from his Polish village and taken to a Nazi labor camp where he remained a prisoner of the Reich until the ending days of war. He is convinced that he owes his survival to the possession of a few dental tools and rudimentary skills as he was moved from labor camp to labor camp. Jacobs writes about the loss of family, what life was like as a prisoner, and the horrible truths about the Holocaust that only a survivor can tell. “Goes far beyond most personal accounts of the Holocaust in reflecting the author’s raw courage, his will power, and his luck over a seemingly never-ending four-year period.”—Gerard E. Silberstein

Late in the summer of 1923, Mary Russell Holmes and her husband, the illustrious Sherlock Holmes, are ensconced in their home on the Sussex Downs, giving themselves over to their studies: Russell to her theology, and Holmes to his malodorous chemical experiments. Interrupting the idyllic...  more

Late in the summer of 1923, Mary Russell Holmes and her husband, the illustrious Sherlock Holmes, are ensconced in their home on the Sussex Downs, giving themselves over to their studies: Russell to her theology, and Holmes to his malodorous chemical experiments. Interrupting the idyllic scene, amateur archaeologist Miss Dorothy Ruskin visits with a startling puzzle. Working in the Holy Land, she has unearthed a tattered roll of papyrus with a message from Mary Magdalene. Miss Ruskin wants Russell to safeguard the letter. But when Miss Ruskin is killed in a traffic accident, Russell and Holmes find themselves on the trail of a fiendishly clever murderer. Clearly there was more to Miss Ruskin than met the eye. But why was she murdered? Was it her involvement in the volatile politics of the Holy Land? Was it her championing of women's rights? Or was it the scroll -- a deeply troubling letter that could prove to be a Biblical bombshell? In either case, Russell and Holmes soon find that solving her murder may be murder itself.

This is an inspiring story of survival and our powerful bond with man's best friend in the aftermath of the nation's most notorious case of animal cruelty. Animal lovers and sports fans were shocked when the story broke about NFL player Michael Vick's brutal dogfighting operation. But what...  more

This is an inspiring story of survival and our powerful bond with man's best friend in the aftermath of the nation's most notorious case of animal cruelty. Animal lovers and sports fans were shocked when the story broke about NFL player Michael Vick's brutal dogfighting operation. But what became of the dozens of dogs who survived? As acclaimed writer Jim Gorant discovered, their story is the truly newsworthy aspect of this case. Expanding on Gorant's Sports Illustrated cover story, The Lost Dogs traces the effort to bring Vick to justice and turns the spotlight on these infamous pit bulls, who were saved from euthanasia by an outpouring of public appeals coupled with a court order that Vick pay nearly one million dollars in ''restitution'' to the dogs. As an ASPCA-led team evaluated each one, they found a few hardened fighters, but many more lovable, friendly creatures desperate for compassion. In The Lost Dogs, we meet these amazing animals, a number of which are now living in loving homes, while some even work in therapy programs. Johnny Justice participates in Paws for Tales, which lets kids get comfortable with reading aloud by reading to dogs; Leo spends three hours a week with cancer patients and troubled teens. At the heart of the stories are the rescue workers who transformed the pups from victims of animal cruelty into healing caregivers themselves, unleashing priceless hope.

The bestselling author of Into the Wild, Into Thin Air, and Under the Banner of Heaven delivers a stunning, eloquent account of a remarkable young man?s haunting journey. Like the men whose epic stories Jon Krakauer has told in his previous bestsellers, Pat Tillman was an irrepressible...  more

The bestselling author of Into the Wild, Into Thin Air, and Under the Banner of Heaven delivers a stunning, eloquent account of a remarkable young man?s haunting journey. Like the men whose epic stories Jon Krakauer has told in his previous bestsellers, Pat Tillman was an irrepressible individualist and iconoclast. In May 2002, Tillman walked away from his $3.6 million NFL contract to enlist in the United States Army. He was deeply troubled by 9/11, and he felt a strong moral obligation to join the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Two years later, he died on a desolate hillside in southeastern Afghanistan. Though obvious to most of the two dozen soldiers on the scene that a ranger in Tillman?s own platoon had fired the fatal shots, the Army aggressively maneuvered to keep this information from Tillman?s wife, other family members, and the American public for five weeks following his death. During this time, President Bush repeatedly invoked Tillman?s name to promote his administration?s foreign policy. Long after Tillman?s nationally televised memorial service, the Army grudgingly notified his closest relatives that he had ?probably? been killed by friendly fire while it continued to dissemble about the details of his death and who was responsible. In Where Men Win Glory, Jon Krakauer draws on Tillman?s journals and letters, interviews with his wife and friends, conversations with the soldiers who served alongside him, and extensive research on the ground in Afghanistan to render an intricate mosaic of this driven, complex, and uncommonly compelling figure as well as the definitive account of the events and actions that led to his death. Before he enlisted in the army, Tillman was familiar to sports aficionados as an undersized, overachieving Arizona Cardinals safety whose virtuosity in the defensive backfield was spellbinding. With his shoulder-length hair, outspoken views, and boundless intellectual curiosity, Tillman was considered a maverick. America was fascinated when he traded the bright lights and riches of the NFL for boot camp and a buzz cut. Sent first to Iraq?a war he would openly declare was ?illegal as hell? ?and eventually to Afghanistan, Tillman was driven by complicated, emotionally charged, sometimes contradictory notions of duty, honor, justice, patriotism, and masculine pride, and he was determined to serve his entire three-year commitment. But on April 22, 2004, his life would end in a barrage of bullets fired by his fellow soldiers. Krakauer chronicles Tillman?s riveting, tragic odyssey in engrossing detail highlighting his remarkable character and personality while closely examining the murky, heartbreaking circumstances of his death. Infused with the power and authenticity readers have come to expect from Krakauer?s storytelling, Where Men Win Glory exposes shattering truths about men and war. From the Hardcover edition.

Lucy Armstrong is a director of television commercials who's just been recruited to finish a four-day action-movie shoot. But she arrives on the set to discover that the directing staff has quit, the makeup artist is suicidal, the stars are egomaniacs, the stunt director is her ex-husband,...  more

Lucy Armstrong is a director of television commercials who's just been recruited to finish a four-day action-movie shoot. But she arrives on the set to discover that the directing staff has quit, the makeup artist is suicidal, the stars are egomaniacs, the stunt director is her ex-husband, and the lead actor has just acquired as an adviser a Green Beret who has the aggravating habit of always being right. Green Beret captain J. T. Wilder had thought that hiring on as a military consultant for a movie star was a good deal: easy money and easier starlets. Instead, he has to babysit a bumbling comedian, dodge low-flying helicopters, and resist his attraction to a director who bears a distracting resemblance to Wonder Woman. Then the CIA calls, and he realizes that somebody is taking “shooting a movie” much too literally. A sizzling, high-octane romantic adventure about a straight-talking woman and a straight-shooting man. Full of suspense and humor, nonstop action and fast-paced dialogue, Don't Look Down is the perfect blend of male and female, adventure and romance, Mayer and Crusie. Abridged - 5 CDs - 6 hours - read by Patrick G. Lawlor & Renee Raudman

Ernest Hemingway stalks U-Boats. A Belgian woman halts the Panzers. Adolf Hitler plays Santa Claus. If you think these are tall tales, guess again. More than 140 of the most bizarre, curious, and downright strange incidents from World War II are documented here based on personal interviews,...  more

Ernest Hemingway stalks U-Boats. A Belgian woman halts the Panzers. Adolf Hitler plays Santa Claus. If you think these are tall tales, guess again. More than 140 of the most bizarre, curious, and downright strange incidents from World War II are documented here based on personal interviews, archives and declassified documents.

Inspector John Rebus has confronted Edinburgh?s most hardened criminals, its bloodiest crime scenes, and its most dangerous backstreets ? but nothing could have prepared him for what he finds on Fleshmarket Alley.In the city?s red-light district, men live out their sordid fantasies, and women...  more

Inspector John Rebus has confronted Edinburgh?s most hardened criminals, its bloodiest crime scenes, and its most dangerous backstreets ? but nothing could have prepared him for what he finds on Fleshmarket Alley.In the city?s red-light district, men live out their sordid fantasies, and women with no other choice sell their bodies to make a buck. It?s a neighborhood of lost inhibitions, forgotten scruples, and hopeless dreams. In its seediest clubs, refugees seeking asylum are subjected to the whims of the most ruthless characters in the crime world ? men Rebus knows all too well.

This omnibus edition contains the Silo series: Wool, books 1-5: Holston / Proper Gauge / Casting Off / The Unraveling / The Stranded. The story of mankind clawing for survival, of mankind on the edge. In a ruined and toxic landscape, a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of...  more

This omnibus edition contains the Silo series: Wool, books 1-5: Holston / Proper Gauge / Casting Off / The Unraveling / The Stranded. The story of mankind clawing for survival, of mankind on the edge. In a ruined and toxic landscape, a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of stories deep.  The world outside has grown unkind, the view of it limited, talk of it forbidden. But there are always those who hope, who dream. These are the dangerous people, the residents who infect others with their optimism. Their punishment is simple. They are given the very thing they profess to want: They are allowed outside.  In a society full of regulations meant to protect the community, Sheriff Holston, unexpectedly, breaks the greatest taboo of all: he asks to go outside. An unlikely candidate is appointed to replace him: Juliette, a mechanic with no training in law, whose special knack is fixing machines. Now Juliette is about to be entrusted with fixing her silo, and she will soon learn just how badly her world is broken ... Contents: 1. Holston (Silo: Wool, Bk 1): Thousands of them have lived underground. They've lived there so long, there are only legends about people living anywhere else. Such a life requires rules. Strict rules. There are things that must not be discussed. Like going outside. Never mention you might like going outside. Or you'll get what you wish for.   2. Proper Gauge (Silo: Wool, Bk 2): A good man lies dead. The silo is now in need of a sheriff. And there's only one woman for the job. But what if she refuses to take it? 3. Casting Off (Silo: Wool, Bk 3): There were numbers on each of the pockets. Juliette could look down at her chest and read them, and so it occurred to her that they must be printed upside down. They were there for her to read, and for no one else. She numbly stared at them through her helmet visor while the door behind her was sealed.  She wondered how she had gotten here, a girl from Mechanical who never cared one whit about the outside, who had only ever broken minor laws, and who would've been content for the rest of her life to live in the deepest bowels of the earth, covered in grease and fixing the broken things, little concern for the wider world of the dead that surrounded her. 4. The Unraveling (Silo: Wool, Bk 4): A long, long time ago, an uprising erupted in Silo 18. The descendants of that great clash have been raised in its shadow. Nobody knows what went wrong. Nobody talks about what happened. Like all wars, it went from being something one could learn from -- to a legend one merely learns about. Now, almost two hundred years later, the people of Silo 18 will get more than just a chance to learn about that uprising. They'll get to start one of their own ... 5. The Stranded (Silo: Wool, Bk 5): Two people find themselves stranded in worlds apart. One world is crumbling, the other already in ruin. Will their fight to be reunited spell doom for them both and all around them? Or will it bring salvation?

In bestseller Deaver's entertaining eighth Lincoln Rhyme novel (after The Cold Moon), Rhyme, a forensic consultant for the NYPD, and his detective partner, Amelia Sachs, take on a psychotic mastermind who uses data mining?the business of the twenty-first century?not only to select and hunt down...  more

In bestseller Deaver's entertaining eighth Lincoln Rhyme novel (after The Cold Moon), Rhyme, a forensic consultant for the NYPD, and his detective partner, Amelia Sachs, take on a psychotic mastermind who uses data mining?the business of the twenty-first century?not only to select and hunt down his victims but also to frame the crimes on complete innocents. Rhyme is reluctantly drawn into a case involving his estranged cousin, Arthur, who's been charged with first-degree murder. But when Rhyme and his crew look into the strange set of circumstances surrounding his cousin's alleged crime, they discover tangential connections to a company that specializes in collecting and analyzing consumer data. Further investigation leads them to some startlingly Orwellian revelations: Big Brother is watching your every move and could be a homicidal maniac. The topical subject matter makes the story line particularly compelling, while longtime fans will relish Deaver's intimate exploration of a tragedy from Rhyme's adolescence

A vibrant social history set against the backdrop of the Antebellum south and the Civil War that recreates the lives and friendship of two exceptional women: First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln and her mulatto dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckly. “I consider you my best living friend,” Mary...  more

A vibrant social history set against the backdrop of the Antebellum south and the Civil War that recreates the lives and friendship of two exceptional women: First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln and her mulatto dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckly. “I consider you my best living friend,” Mary Lincoln wrote to Elizabeth Keckly in 1867, and indeed theirs was a close, if tumultuous, relationship. Born into slavery, mulatto Elizabeth Keckly was Mary Lincoln’s dressmaker, confidante, and mainstay during the difficult years that the Lincolns occupied the White House and the early years of Mary’s widowhood. But she was a fascinating woman in her own right, independent and already well-established as the dressmaker to the Washington elite when she was first hired by Mary Lincoln upon her arrival in the nation’s capital. Lizzy had bought her freedom in 1855 and come to Washington determined to make a life for herself as a free black, and she soon had Washington correspondents reporting that “stately carriages stand before her door, whose haughty owners sit before Lizzy docile as lambs while she tells them what to wear.” Mary Lincoln had hired Lizzy in part because she was considered a “high society” seamstress and Mary, an outsider in Washington’s social circles, was desperate for social cachet. With her husband struggling to keep the nation together, Mary turned increasingly to her seamstress for companionship, support, and advice—and over the course of those trying years, Lizzy Keckly became her confidante and closest friend.With Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly, pioneering historian Jennifer Fleischner allows us to glimpse the intimate dynamics of this unusual friendship for the first time, and traces the pivotal events that enabled these two women—one born to be a mistress, the other to be a slave—to forge such an unlikely bond at a time when relations between blacks and whites were tearing the nation apart. Beginning with their respective childhoods in the slaveholding states of Virginia and Kentucky, their story takes us through the years of tragic Civil War, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the early Reconstruction period. An author in her own right, Keckly wrote one of the most detailed biographies of Mary Lincoln ever published, and though it led to a bitter feud between the friends, it is one of the many rich resources that have enhanced Fleischner’s trove of original findings.A remarkable, riveting work of scholarship that reveals the legacy of slavery and sheds new light on the Lincoln White House, Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly brings to life a mesmerizing, intimate aspect of Civil War history, and underscores the inseparability of black and white in our nation’s heritage.

A fascinating look at one family's journey from diamond dealing in Communist Siberia, to the historic diamond district on New York?s 47th street.

The New York Times bestselling oral history of Saturday Night Live that finally reveals what really went on backstage, on the set, in the writers' offices, and on the town, is now in paperback! In their own words, a galaxy of stars--including Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Bill Murray, Tom Hanks, Adam...  more

The New York Times bestselling oral history of Saturday Night Live that finally reveals what really went on backstage, on the set, in the writers' offices, and on the town, is now in paperback! In their own words, a galaxy of stars--including Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Bill Murray, Tom Hanks, Adam Sandler, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Martin, Dana Carvey, Tina Fey, Molly Shannon, Al Franken, and other members of Saturday Night Live's extended family--recall a quarter-century's worth of great backstage stories, behind-the-scenes gossip, feuds, foibles, drugs, sex, struggles, and calamities. The result: a page-turner that reveals how and why SNL has become the longest-running television comedy of all time.

At the age of twenty-two, Jennifer Worth leaves her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in post war London?s East End slums. The colorful characters she meets while delivering babies all over London?from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lives to the woman with...  more

At the age of twenty-two, Jennifer Worth leaves her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in post war London?s East End slums. The colorful characters she meets while delivering babies all over London?from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lives to the woman with twenty-four children who can?t speak English to the prostitutes and dockers of the city?s seedier side?illuminate a fascinating time in history. Beautifully written and utterly moving, Call the Midwife will touch the hearts of anyone who is, and everyone who has, a mother.

This is an engrossing and lively history of a fearsome and mythologized virus. In the tradition of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Great Influenza, journalist Bill Wasik and veterinarian Monica Murphy chart the history, science, and cultural mythology of rabies. In the absence of...  more

This is an engrossing and lively history of a fearsome and mythologized virus. In the tradition of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Great Influenza, journalist Bill Wasik and veterinarian Monica Murphy chart the history, science, and cultural mythology of rabies. In the absence of vaccination as was true up until the late nineteenth century the rabies virus caused brain infections with a nearly 100 percent fatality rate, both in animals and in humans, and the suffering it inflicted became the stuff of legend. The transmission of the virus often from dog to man reawakened a primal fear of wild animals, and the illness violent symptoms spoke directly to mankind's fear of the beast within. The cultural response was to create fictional embodiments of those anxieties ravenous wolfmen, bloodsucking vampires, and armies of mindless zombies. From the myth of Actaeon to Saint Hubert, from the laboratories of the heroic and pioneering Louis Pasteur to a journalistic investigation into the madness that has gripped modern-day Bali, Rabid is a fresh, fascinating, and often wildly entertaining look at one of the world's most misunderstood viruses.

Called the "Sex Slave" and "The Girl In The Box" case -- the seven-year-long imprisonment of pretty Colleen Stan would shock the world... In 1977 twenty-year-old Colleen Stan left home to hitchhike from Oregon to California. Seven years later she emerged from hell, the victim...  more

Called the "Sex Slave" and "The Girl In The Box" case -- the seven-year-long imprisonment of pretty Colleen Stan would shock the world... In 1977 twenty-year-old Colleen Stan left home to hitchhike from Oregon to California. Seven years later she emerged from hell, the victim of a bizarre and extraordinary crime. This is Colleen's incredible true story, told by the determined young district attorney who prosecuted the man who had forced her to endure years of sexual perversion ... and held her captive in a coffin-like box under his and his wife's bed. A story of riveting psychological intensity and gripping courtroom drama, Perfect Victim reveals the whole truth about Colleen Stan's real-life nightmare ... and the psychopath who enslaved her body and her mind.

In 1994, 16-year-old Eric Irivuzumugabe climbed a cypress tree and remained there for 15 days without food or water. He wasn't trying to win a bet with his friends--he was attempting to save his life. Eric is a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide that claimed the lives of 800,000 people in...  more

In 1994, 16-year-old Eric Irivuzumugabe climbed a cypress tree and remained there for 15 days without food or water. He wasn't trying to win a bet with his friends--he was attempting to save his life. Eric is a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide that claimed the lives of 800,000 people in just 100 days. In the midst of indescribable loss, and without a job, a home, or an education, Eric was determined to start a new life for himself and his two surviving brothers. My Father, Maker of the Trees is the story not only of his physical survival, it is the story of his spiritual rebirth and the role he is playing in the healing and redemption of his land and people. His incredible account will show readers the reality of evil in the world as well as the power of hope. Eric's message of God's relentless love through our darkest circumstances will encourage and inspire.

In their own words, a galaxy of stars?including Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Bill Murray, Tom Hanks, Adam Sandler, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Martin, Dana Carvey, Tina Fey, Molly Shannon, Al Franken, and other members of Saturday Night Live's extended family?recall a quarter-century's worth of great...  more

In their own words, a galaxy of stars?including Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Bill Murray, Tom Hanks, Adam Sandler, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Martin, Dana Carvey, Tina Fey, Molly Shannon, Al Franken, and other members of Saturday Night Live's extended family?recall a quarter-century's worth of great backstage stories, behind-the-scenes gossip, feuds, foibles, drugs, sex, struggles, and calamities. The result: a page-turner that reveals how and why SNL has become the longest-running television comedy of all time.

A haunting tale about the complications of love, identity, and sibling rivalry. The novel opens with the death of Elspeth Noblin, who bequeaths her London flat and its contents to the twin daughters of her estranged twin sister back in Chicago. These 20-year-old dilettantes, Julie and Valentina,...  more

A haunting tale about the complications of love, identity, and sibling rivalry. The novel opens with the death of Elspeth Noblin, who bequeaths her London flat and its contents to the twin daughters of her estranged twin sister back in Chicago. These 20-year-old dilettantes, Julie and Valentina, move to London, eager to try on a new experience like one of their obsessively matched outfits. Historic Highgate Cemetery, which borders Elspeth's home, serves as an inspired setting as the twins become entwined in the lives of their neighbors: Elspeth's former lover, Robert; Martin, an agoraphobic crossword-puzzle creator; and the ethereal Elspeth herself, struggling to adjust to the afterlife.

A candid look at the sins and secrets of anonymous residents of an unnamed small American town features the confession of an elderly woman who, years ago, witnessed her mother commit a heinous crime and other secrets concerning murder, incest, and more.

When New York theatre impresario Tommy Burke asks Molly to help him take care of some family business back in Ireland, Molly is happy to oblige. Tempted by the prospect of going home for the first time in years (and putting her fledgling detective agency on firm financial ground), Molly throws...  more

When New York theatre impresario Tommy Burke asks Molly to help him take care of some family business back in Ireland, Molly is happy to oblige. Tempted by the prospect of going home for the first time in years (and putting her fledgling detective agency on firm financial ground), Molly throws caution to the wind and climbs aboard the White Start Liner "Majestic" with hopes of sneaking on and off the isle without raising a peep. Until one passenger, who happens to be a famous Broadway actress goes missing--and another turns up dead. So much for smooth sailing....

A frontline correspondent's description of American soldiers fighting in North Africa in WWII.