A is a work of fiction in which Andre Alexis presents the compelling narrative of Alexander Baddeley, a Toronto book reviewer obsessed with the work of the elusive and mythical poet Avery Andrews. Baddeley is in awe with Andrews's ability as a poet — more than anything he wants to understand the inspiration behind his work — so much so that, following in the footsteps of countless pilgrims throughout literary history, Baddeley actually tracks Andrews down thinking that meeting his literary hero will provide some answers. Their meeting results in a meditation and a revelation about the creative act itself that generates more and more questions about what it means to be "inspired." Alexis further develops this narrative through a reflection in essay form presented as an annex that build layers of thought upon not only the original narrative, but provides Alexis's own motives (and perhaps, obsessions) behind writing A

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A highly charged fiction debut about a young woman in India, and the love that both shatters and transforms her. She is twenty, restless in New Delhi. Her mother has died; her father has left for Singapore. He is a few years older, just back to India from New York. When they meet in a café one afternoon, she — lonely, hungry for experience, yearning to break free of tradition — casts aside her fears and throws herself headlong into a love affair, one that takes her where she has never been before. Told in a voice at once gritty and lyrical, mournful and frank, A Bad Character marks the arrival of an astonishingly gifted new writer. It is an unforgettable hymn to a dangerous, exhilarating city, and a portrait of desire and its consequences as timeless as it is universal

Winner of the Anthony Award for Best First Novel! Stella Hardesty dispatched her abusive husband with a wrench shortly before her fiftieth birthday. A few years later, she’s so busy delivering home-style justice on her days off, helping other women deal with their own abusive husbands and boyfriends, that she barely has time to run her sewing shop in her rural Missouri hometown. Some men need more convincing than others, but it’s usually nothing a little light bondage or old-fashioned whuppin’ can’t fix. Since Stella works outside of the law, she’s free to do whatever it takes to get the job done—as long as she keeps her distance from the handsome devil of a local sheriff, Goat Jones. When young mother Chrissy Shaw asks Stella for help with her no-good husband, Roy Dean, it looks like an easy case. Until Roy Dean disappears with Chrissy’s two-year-old son, Tucker. Stella quickly learns that Roy Dean was involved with some very scary men, as she tries to sort out who’s hiding information and who’s merely trying to kill her. It’s going to take a hell of a fight to get the little boy back home to his mama, but if anyone can do it, it’s Stella Hardesty. A Bad Day for Sorry won an Anthony Award for Best First Novel and an RT Book Award for Best First Mystery. It was also shortlisted for Edgar, Barry, Crimespree, and Macavity Awards, and it was named to lists of the year’s best mystery debuts by the Chicago Sun-Times and South Florida Sun-Sentinel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWmH_CMZTzQ

When your best friend is just a tiny bit psychotic, you should never actually believe him when he says, "Trust me. This is gonna be awesome." Of course, you probably wouldn't believe a voodoo doll could work either. Or that it could cause someone's leg to blow clean off with one quick prick. But I've seen it. It can happen. And when there's suddenly a doll of YOU floating around out there—a doll that could be snatched by a Rottweiler and torn to shreds, or a gang of thugs ready to torch it, or any random family of cannibals (really, do you need the danger here spelled out for you?)—well, you know that's just gonna be a really bad day ... "Jeff Strand is hilariously funny and truly deranged." —Christopher Golden, author of When Rose Wakes

"The burlesque echoes the greatest Spanish classics, from Quevedo to Camilo José Cela." — M. García Posada, El País A Bad End is the story of Goyito, a dwarf at the end of his life, who tells us, in a bitter and sarcastic way, the miserable reality of his lonely childhood, his macabre experiences as a circus clown, and his liaisons dangereuses in Madrid's underworld. Mischief, desire, death, ambition, revenge — the life of a rascal told in exuberant, exhilarating language. Winner of the Premio Ojo Crítico. Fernando Royuela is a Spanish lawyer and fiction writer who lives in Madrid, Spain

Breaking the law in a foolhardy attempt to accommodate his customers, unscrupulous department store owner Leo Feldman finds himself in jail and at the mercy of the warden, who tries to break Leo of his determination to stay bad

Henri Michaux (1899–1984), the great French poet and painter, set out as a young man to see the Far East. Traveling from India to the Himalayas, and on to China and Japan, Michaux voices his vivid impressions, cutting opinions, and curious insights: he has no trouble speaking his mind. Part fanciful travelogue and part exploration of culture, A Barbarian in Asia is presented here in its original translation by Sylvia Beach, the famous American-born bookseller in Paris

Fue uno de los incidentes menos gloriosos de una antigua guerra. Provocó la destrucción de dos soles y de los miles de millones de vidas que sustentaban. Ahora, ochocientos años después, la luz del primero de estos antiguos errores ha llegado al orbital de la Cultura Masaq. La luz del segundo podría no llegar a hacerlo

Ashlynn Miller has always done the right thing. She's always known what to do when it comes to situations in life. That is, until she met Jason Williams their freshman year of college. Now it just seems like her life is one big mess after another. To everyone else Jason Williams is just another hot, single guy walking around on the University of Maryland's campus. However, deep down his life is a complete mess. Growing up wasn't as easy for Jason as it was for Ashlynn. He's had to deal with things he may not ever be able to share with anyone, especially not Ashlynn. Keeping secrets and harboring feelings doesn't sound like the best way to start off a relationship. Could it be too much of a mess for them to handle? Or are the best things in life worth fighting for and could they somehow make a horrible mess, beautiful?

Beautiful - 2.5 You know that Abby Abernathy unexpectedly became Mrs. Maddox. But what do you really know? Why did Abby pop the question? What secrets were shared before the ceremony? Where did they spend their wedding night? Who else knew about it . . . and didn’t tell? Everything about Abby and Travis’s elopement was top-secret . . . until now. Fans of Beautiful Disaster and Walking Disaster will get all of their questions answered in this whirlwind tale of the wedding day (and night!)—and as with all good stories, this one will definitely have been worth the wait

The hugely anticipated sequel to Hank Green's #1 New York Times bestselling debut novel, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing The Carls disappeared the same way they appeared, in an instant. While they were on Earth, they caused confusion and destruction without ever lifting a finger. Well, that’s not exactly true. Part of their maelstrom was the sudden viral fame and untimely death of April May: a young woman who stumbled into Carl’s path, giving them their name, becoming their advocate, and putting herself in the middle of an avalanche of conspiracy theories. Months later, the world is as confused as ever. Andy has picked up April’s mantle of fame, speaking at conferences and online about the world post-Carl; Maya, ravaged by grief, begins to follow a string of mysteries that she is convinced will lead her to April; and Miranda infiltrates a new scientific operation . . . one that might have repercussions beyond anyone’s comprehension. As they each get further down their own paths, a series of clues arrive—mysterious books that seem to predict the future and control the actions of their readers; unexplained internet outages; and more—which seem to suggest April may be very much alive. In the midst of the gang's possible reunion is a growing force, something that wants to capture our consciousness and even control our reality. *A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor*  is the bold and brilliant follow-up to  *An Absolutely Remarkable Thing*. It’s a fast-paced adventure that is also a biting social commentary, asking hard, urgent questions. How will we live online? What powers over our lives are we giving away for free? Who has the right to change the world forever? And how do we find comfort in an increasingly isolated world?

“For your vanity, your cruelty, and your cold unfeeling heart, a curse I leave upon you . . .” What happens if the beauty is also the beast? The stunning Beatrice Cavanaugh is considered American royalty. She has everything except the ability to love. Cursed on her eighteenth birthday, she becomes more beastly than ever, having a newfound craving for raw meat, and an undeniable yearning for the night. Bitterness is her only companion. After accusing a maid of stealing, a disgustingly kind and exquisitely handsome guy named Adam shows up asking Beatrice to drop the charges against his mother. Infuriated by his goodness, Beatrice vows to break him. Destroy him. Make him hurt the way she hurts. So she agrees. On one condition: Adam must take his mother’s place as a servant in the mansion. Because Beatrice won’t stop until he’s more beastly than she is

In the "brilliant novel" (The New York Times) V.S. Naipaul takes us deeply into the life of one man—an Indian who, uprooted by the bloody tides of Third World history, has come to live in an isolated town at the bend of a great river in a newly independent African nation. Naipaul gives us the most convincing and disturbing vision yet of what happens in a place caught between the dangerously alluring modern world and its own tenacious past and traditions

Miles Ryan's life seemed to end the day his wife was killed in a hit-and-run accident two years ago. Missy had been his first love, and Miles fervently believes she will be his last. As a deputy sheriff in the North Carolina town of New Bern, he not only grieves for Missy, but longs to bring the unknown driver to justice. Then Miles meets Sarah Andrew. The second-grade teacher of his son, Jonah, Sarah had left Baltimore after a difficult divorce to start over in the gentler surroundings of New Bern. Perhaps it is her own emotional wounds that make her sensitive to the hurt she sees first in Jonah's eyes, and then in his father's. Tentatively, Sarah and Miles reach out to each other. Soon they are both laughing for the first time in years.and falling in love. Neither will be able to guess how closely linked they are to a shocking secret – one that will force them to question everything they ever believed in. and make a heartbreaking choice that will change their lives for ever. In A Bend In The Road, Nicholas Sparks writes with a luminous intensity about life's bitter turns and incomparable sweetness. His affirming message carries a powerful lesson about the imperfections of being human, the mistakes we all make, and the joy that comes when we give ourselves to love

Daniel Abraham

The stories in A Better Angel describe the terrain of human suffering — illness, regret, mourning, sympathy — in the most unusual of ways. In “Stab,” a bereaved twin starts a friendship with a homicidal fifth grader in the hope that she can somehow lead him back to his dead brother. In “Why Antichrist?” a boy tries to contact the spirit of his dead father and finds himself talking to the Devil instead. In the remarkable title story, a ne’er do well pediatrician returns home to take care of his dying father, all the while under the scrutiny of an easily-disappointed heavenly agent. With Gob’s Grief and The Children’s Hospital, Chris Adrian announced himself as a writer of rare talent and originality. The stories in A Better Angel, some of which have appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, and McSweeney’s, demonstrate more of his endless inventiveness and wit, and they confirm his growing reputation as a most exciting and unusual literary voice — of heartbreaking, magical, and darkly comic tales

"In each little life we can see great truth and beauty, and in each little life we glimpse the way of all things in the universe." DEAN KOONTZ thought he had everything he needed. A successful novelist with more than twenty #1 New York Times bestsellers to his credit, Dean had forged a career out of industry and imagination. He had been married to his high school sweetheart, Gerda, since the age of twenty, and together they had made a happy life for themselves in their Southern California home. It was the picture of peace and contentment. Then along came Trixie. Dean had always wanted a dog-had even written several books in which dogs were featured. But not until Trixie was he truly open to the change that such a beautiful creature could bring about in him. Trixie had intelligence, a lack of vanity, and an uncanny knack for living in the present. And because she was joyful and direct as all dogs are, she put her heart into everything-from chasing tennis balls, to playing practical jokes, to protecting those she loved. A retired service dog with Canine Companions for Independence, Trixie became an assistance dog of another kind. She taught Dean to trust his instincts, persuaded him to cut down to a fifty-hour work week, and, perhaps most important, renewed in him a sense of wonder that will remain with him for the rest of his life. She mended him in many ways. Trixie weighed only sixty-something pounds, Dean occasionally called her Short Stuff, and she lived less than twelve years. In this big world, she was a little thing, but in all the ways that mattered, including the effect she had on those who loved her, she lived a big life

„A Bika órája – írja könyvének előszavában Jefremov – válaszként született…” A tudományos-fantasztikus irodalom nagyon sokszor fest koromfekete és nagyon sokszor rózsaszín képet a jövő világáról. Pedig – Jefremov szerint – az volna legfőbb feladata, hogy az embert felkészítse a várható fejlődésre, nagy feladatainak végrehajtására. A Sötét Láng nevű csillaghajó már-már tökéletes és magasrendűen emberi utasai a Tormansz bolygón ősi és szörnyű állapotokat találnak, zsarnokokat, kizsákmányolást, fejlődésben megrekedt társadalmat. Megkísérlik rendbe hozni a különös bolygó életét. Értetlenségbe, ellenséges indulatokba, tudatlanságba ütköznek. Jefremov új regénye ugyanúgy mérföldkő a szovjet tudományos fantasztikus irodalomban, mint előző művei, a magyarul is megjelent

"Highly recommended – well-rounded, believable characters, a multi-layered plot solidly based on human nature, all authentically set in the England of 1917 – an outstanding and riveting read." – Stephanie Laurens Already deservedly lauded for the superb historical crime novels featuring shell-shocked Scotland Yard inspector Ian Rutledge (A Lonely Death, A Pale Horse et al), acclaimed author Charles Todd upped the ante by introducing readers to a wonderful new series protagonist, World War One battlefield nurse Bess Crawford. Featured for a third time in A Bitter Truth, Bess reaches out to help an abused and frightened young woman, only to discover that no good deed ever goes unpunished when the good Samaritan nurse finds herself falsely accused of murder. A terrific follow up to Todd's A Duty to the Dead and An Impartial Witness, A Bitter Truth is another thrilling and evocative mystery from 'one of the most respected writers in the genre' (Denver Post) and a treat for fans of Elizabeth George, Anne Perry, Martha Grimes, and Jacqueline Winspear

Amy Bloom was nominated for a National Book Award for her first collection, Come to Me, and her fiction has appeared in "The New Yorker, Story, Antaeus, " and other magazines, and in The Best American Short Stories""and""Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards." "In her new collection, she enhances her reputation as a true artist of the form. Here are characters confronted with tragedy, perplexed by emotions, and challenged to endure whatever modern life may have in store. A loving mother accompanies her daughter in her journey to become a man, and discovers a new, hopeful love. A stepmother and stepson meet again after fifteen years and a devastating mistake, and rediscover their familial affection for each other. And in "The Story," a widow bent on seducing another woman's husband constructs and deconstructs her story until she has "made the best and happiest ending" possible "in this world."

When Ernest Fletcher is found bludgeoned to death in his study, everyone is shocked and mystified: Ernest was well liked and respected, so who would want to kill him? Enter Superintendent Hannasyde who, with consummate skill, begins to uncover the complexities of Fletcher’s life. It seems the real Fletcher was far from the gentleman he pretended to be

Andrew Vachss' pre-Flood novel A Bomb Built in Hell was written in 1973. It was rejected by every publisher, one of whom described it as a "political horror story," others of whom berated it for its "lack of realism," including such things as Chinese youth gangs and the fall of Haiti. And the very idea of someone entering a high school with the intent of destroying every living person inside was just too ... ludicrous.  Readers of Vachss' Burke series will immediately recognize Wesley, the main character of A Bomb Built in Hell. This is his story

In 1325, the terrible legacy of the Black Death still hangs over Cambridge. Fears of a future outbreak drive people to seek protection in the power of holy relics, while the University is once more the scene for violent clashes between students and townsfolk. Matthew Bartholomew, Michaelhouse teacher and public physician, has a professional interest in order returning to the streets – his enormous practice of paupers means he does not have time to deal with a lot of injuries resulting from riots and mayhem. With rumours spreading about the discovery of a skeleton reputed to belong to a local martyr, a skeleton that even the physician confirms as human, a young student’s brutal murder plunges the town into chaos, and Bartholomew must ask himself if the two corpses – and the rioting – are linked to something deeper than local enmities. When suspicion falls on a respected University Principal and his scholars, Bartholomew’s investigation becomes the source of conflict within the academic community. And there are personal rivalries and painful memories of his own to be exhumed before a chilling conspiracy can emerge, a nightmare of murder and revenge so terrifying that the whole town could be tainted with complicity

Aurora Teagarden's life was pretty much in order, though she wouldn't have objected to a nice relationship. All things considered, however, there wasn't anything to complain about. Then Jane Engle died. Aurora and Jane had been friends – not particularly close friends, but they'd both been members of the Real Murder Society and on occasion had shared tea, as well as an interest in crime. So Aurora was surprised to discover that she was named in Jane's will as the heir to her home and some money… about a half million dollars, in fact. A nice house, a lot of money… things were looking up nicely. But the house held a secret – a fact that was frighteningly obvious the first time Aurora went there and realized that someone had broken in, had been searching for something. It didn't take long to discover the secret: Jane had hidden a skull, and Aurora had just found it. Aurora Teagarden was no stranger to a good mystery, but she wasn't quite certain what to do with this one. Before she has a chance to consider her next move, someone decides that she already knows too much. Now she has a few more questions to answer: Whodunit? Who was it done to? And who seemed to keep on wanting to do it?

In this Conradian masterpiece of American innocence and evil set in the fictional Central American country of Boca Grande, two American women face the harsh realities, political and personal, of living on the edge in a land with an uncertain future. Writing with her signature telegraphic swiftness, the author creates a terrifying commentary on an age of conscienceless authority

The Classic Guide To Strategy

This extraordinary magnum opus seems at first to be a confessional autobiographical novel in the grand manner, claiming and extending the legacy of Proust and Mann. But it is more: Peter Nadas has given us a superb contemporary psychological novel that comes to terms with the ghosts, corpses, and repressed nightmares of Europe's recent past. "A Book of Memories" is made up of three first-person narratives: the first that of a young Hungarian writer and his fated love for a German poet; we also learn of the narrator's adolescence in Budapest, when he experiences the downfall of his once-upper-class but now pro-Communist family and of his beloved but repudiated father, a state prosecutor who commits suicide after the 1956 uprising. A second memoir, alternating with the first, is a novel the narrator is composing about a refined Belle Epoque aesthete, whose anti-bourgeois transgressions seem like emotionally overcharged versions of the narrator's own experiences. A third voice is that of a childhood friend who, after the narrator's return to his homeland, offers an apparently more objective account of their friendship. Together these brilliantly colored lives are integrated in a powerful work of tragic intensity

Nobel Laureate S.Y. Agnon is considered the towering figure of modern Hebrew literature. With this collection of stories, reissued in paperback and expanded to include additional Agnon classics, the English-speaking audience has, at long last, access to the rich and brilliantly multifaceted fictional world of one of the greatest writers of the last century. This broad selection of Agnon's fiction introduces the full sweep of the writer's panoramic vision as chonicler of the lost world of Eastern European Jewry and the emerging society of modern Israel. New Reader's Preface by Jonathan Rosen

A “borotva éle” — szimbólum: azt a szinte érzékelhetetlen határt jelenti, amely a tudat és a tudatalatti között húzódik, vagyis amely a teljesen egészséges én pszichikai tengelye. Így magyarázza meg regényének címét maga a szerző, a szovjet tudományos-fantasztikus irodalom klasszikusa, aki ezúttal a legújabb biológiai kutatások és felfedezések fényében boncolgatja az ember pszichofiziológiájának időszerű kérdéseit. Csodával határos, de megtörtént esetek, valóságos jelenségek hiteles leírásával igyekszik feltárni az emberi test és lélek rejtett tartalékait, energiaforrásait. A történések középpontjában egy titokzatos fekete korona, annak különös kisugárzása áll. Több csoport is meg akarja szerezni, hajszákat rendeznek érte. E kalandok leírásával válik a mű térben és időben több dimenziójúvá. Visszanyúl a régmúltba is, például Nagy Sándor korába, vagy az óindiai művészet kezdeteihez, hogy pontosabban megvilágítsa a tegnap, a ma, sót a holnap eseményeit. Oroszországból kiindulva, Itálián, Dél-Afrikán át a forró Indiáig és a jeges Tibetig húzódik a cselekmény fonala. A bőven áradó események egzotikus környezetben, titokzatos templomokban, lámakolostorokban, tengerfenéken stb. játszódnak le. Szemünk előtt zajlik le egy kalandos nőszöktetés; látjuk, hogyan verekszenek meg erőművészek túlerőben lévő fogdmegekkel; megismerjük a különleges, bénító folyadékot kilövő pisztolyt. A mű hősei sarkított jellemű, különleges képességű férfiak, hősnői egzotikus szépségű és rendkívüli sorsú nők. Tanúi vagyunk hipnózissal való csodálatos gyógyításnak, az önszuggesztió nem mindennapi eseteinek. Csak egy példa a sok közül: a tibeti önsanyargató reszpáknak melegük lesz, amikor a fagyos szélben meztelenül állva locsolgatják magukat — a vizes törülköző megszárad rajtuk! Jefremov a tudománynak és a valóságban gyökerező fantasztikumnak olyan tájaira vezet el bennünket, amelyeken szovjet írók még nemigen jártak

Emmett has a wife and two children, a cat, and a duck, and he wants to know what life is about. Every day he gets up before dawn, makes a cup of coffee in the dark, lights a fire with one wooden match, and thinks. What Emmett thinks about is the subject of this wise and closely observed novel, which covers vast distances while moving no farther than Emmett’s hearth and home. Nicholson Baker’s extraordinary ability to describe and celebrate life in all its rich ordinariness has never been so beautifully achieved. Baker won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper. He now returns to fiction with this lovely book, reminiscent of the early novels—Room Temperature and The Mezzanine—that established his reputation

In an alternate world in which John F. Kennedy survived and scientific breakthroughs in animal research and telepathy allow for advanced communication with animal companions, fifteen-year-old Vic and his telepathic dog, Blood, scavenge the wastelands of a war-torn United States, survivors of a nuclear World War III between the Americans and the Soviets. While Blood guides Vic toward women — to be used for sex — Vic ensures that Blood has food, but the symbiotic relationship is put at risk when the pair meets Quilla June Holmes, who lures the boy to an underground civilization. A piece of shocking, dystopic science fiction, A Boy and His Dog questions the boundaries and nature of love while crafting a vision of a dark future guaranteed to leave chills. Winner of the Nebula Award 1969