A new breed of entrepreneurial monster has set up shop in the big city. Ruthless, ingenious murderers, they prey on the loved ones of those who live outside the law, knowing that criminals will never run to the police, no matter how brutal the threat. So other avenues for justice must be explored, which is where ex-cop turned p.i. Matthew Scudder comes in. Scudder has no love for the drug dealers and poison peddlers who now need his help. Nevertheless, he is determined to do whatever it takes to put an elusive pair of thrill-kill extortionists out of business — for they are using the innocent to fuel their terrible enterprise

A laugh-out-loud account of an outrageously rugged hike-by the beloved comic author of Lost Continent and Notes from a Small Island. Published on the 75th anniversary year of the Appalachian Trail

With its depictions of the downtrodden prostitutes, bootleggers, and hustlers of Perdido Street in the old French Quarter of 1930s New Orleans, “A Walk in the Wild Side” has found a place in the imaginations of all generations since it first appeared. As Algren admitted, the book “wasn’t written until long after it had been walked… I found my way to the streets on the other side of the Southern Pacific station, where the big jukes were singing something called ‘Walking the Wild Side of Life.’ I’ve stayed pretty much on that side of the curb ever since.” Perhaps the author’s own words describe this classic work best: “The book asks why lost people sometimes develop into greater human beings than those who have never been lost in their whole lives. Why men who have suffered at the hands of other men are the natural believers in humanity, while those whose part has been simply to acquire, to take all and give nothing, are the most contemptuous of mankind.”

There was a time when the world was sweeter....when the women in Beaufort, North Carolina, wore dresses, and the men donned hats.... Every April, when the wind smells of both the sea and lilacs, Landon Carter remembers 1958, his last year at Beaufort High. Landon had dated a girl or two, and even once sworn that he'd been in love. Certainly the last person he thought he'd fall for was Jamie, the shy, almost ethereal daughter of the town's Baptist minister....Jamie, who was destined to show him the depths of the human heart—and the joy and pain of living. The inspiration for this novel came from Nicholas Sparks's sister: her life and her courage. From the internationally bestselling author Nicholas Sparks, comes his most moving story yet

There was a time when the world was sweeter....when the women in Beaufort, North Carolina, wore dresses, and the men donned hats.... Every April, when the wind smells of both the sea and lilacs, Landon Carter remembers 1958, his last year at Beaufort High. Landon had dated a girl or two, and even once sworn that he'd been in love. Certainly the last person he thought he'd fall for was Jamie, the shy, almost ethereal daughter of the town's Baptist minister....Jamie, who was destined to show him the depths of the human heart—and the joy and pain of living. The inspiration for this novel came from Nicholas Sparks's sister: her life and her courage. From the internationally bestselling author Nicholas Sparks, comes his most moving story yet

Czech soldier Filip Sedlák never wanted to fight for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. So at the first opportunity, he defected to the Russians. Now he and others like him have formed the Czechoslovak Legion. Their goal: leave the chaos of Russia, sail to France, and help the Allies defeat the Central Powers, thereby toppling a hated empire and winning an independent Czechoslovakia. With the fall of the tsar, Nadia Linskaya's life is in ruins. Her family is dead, her lands are confiscated, and her aristocratic world is gone forever. But Nadia is determined to elude the Bolshevik agent who destroyed her family and find a way to survive in this changed world. When Nadia takes refuge with the Czechoslovak Legion, the last thing she expects is an ally. But when Filip proposes a sham marriage to ensure her safe passage across Siberia, she takes it. Neither Filip nor Nadia expect real love, not when the legion has to take over the longest railroad in the world--and then hold it

Nebraska – and Jack Reacher, huge, hulking and with a freshly busted nose, is still trying to hitch a ride east to Virginia. He's picked up by three strangers – two men and a woman. Immediately he knows they're all lying about something – and then they run into a police roadblock on the highway. But they get through. Because the three are innocent? Or because the three are now four? Is Reacher a decoy?

In California, the victims are blind. In Maine, severely retarded. Small towns across America are being systematically “wiped out” by terrorists and their campaign of germ warfare waged against the U.S. The President’s only option seems to be an equally deadly counterattack

An unprecedented behind-the-scenes portrait of the Trump presidency from the anonymous senior official whose first words of warning about the president rocked the nation’s capital. On September 5, 2018, the New York Times published a bombshell essay and took the rare step of granting its writer anonymity. Described only as “a senior official in the Trump administration,” the author provided eyewitness insight into White House chaos, administration instability, and the people working to keep Donald Trump’s reckless impulses in check. With the 2020 election on the horizon, Anonymous is speaking out once again. In this book, the original author pulls back the curtain even further, offering a first-of-its-kind look at the president and his record—a must-read before Election Day. It will surprise and challenge both Democrats and Republicans, motivate them to consider how we judge our nation’s leaders, and illuminate the consequences of re-electing a commander in chief unfit for the role

John Faith is a stranger in the isolated town of Pomo in the wilds of Northern California. Who is he? Why show up now, during the off-season, when there is nothing to do but get into trouble? He is big, ugly, and “strange,” so it is no wonder that he arouses suspicions or inspires threats. His swift departure is fondly desired by almost all who cross his path. When a beautiful, lonely woman is brutally murdered after spending time with him, Faith is the prime and logical suspect. Discovering the identity of the killer becomes as important to Faith as it is to everyone else... except the murderer

In his long-awaited, vastly innovative new novel, Naipaul, "one of literature's great travelers" (Los Angles Times), spans continents and centuries to create what is at once an autobiography and a fictional archaeology of colonialism. "Dickensian. . a brilliant new prism through which to view (Naipaul's) life and work."-New York Times. “Intricate … poignant … fabulous … a potent blend of fact and fiction, autobiography, history, imagination.” — Washington Post Book World “Naipaul is an artful arranger. His technique is to layer memory and history so that the past is an iridescence that colors the present.” — Time “Whichever way the narrative takes us … characters, ideas, events [are] elegantly juggled, set down and picked up again with a technical brilliance that comes with a lifetime’s experience…. Brave … fascinating … A Way in the World is a beautiful lament.” — Caryl Phillips, New Republic “A Way in the World is full of Proustian moments, fragments of memory that, once recovered, open up past worlds that bear unexpectedly on the present…. There are many pleasures in this book: finely honed prose, wry humor, exact observation, rich anecdotes.” — Wall Street Journal “Naipaul, master of literature, is playing historical trickster for us.… His reasoning and presentation are flawless, styled in English at its purest.… One cannot help but be fascinated by this cast of the master’s dice.” — Philadelphia Inquirer

From the author of Pick Your Poison comes a crazy case of matrimonial murder and a broken-hearted bride-to-be when a family guest gets hit over the head with a gift. The bad reception only gets deadlier for Houston PI Abby Rose, enlisted to resolve the wedding fiasco

With her wedding ceremony an hour away, Andrea Kleinman excused herself from the preparations to make a long-distance call — to an old and very special friend in New York City... Can a “liberated” woman go home again?... Andrea Kleinman has frequently played her special brand of roulette... now she goes for a final lifetime gamble — to find out if home as in hometown is a real and possible place. After education at Bryn Mawr College, and living free and fairly easy in pursuit of the “best of everything” in the Big Apple, she goes “home” to Buffalo, to marry lawyer Mark Benstock — a steady man — to take comfort in known quantities and to find out whether a lifetime journey (a “week” of seven days out of twelve years) back through old places can bring a real fulfillment. Diary of A Man Housewife... Up the Sandbox... and A Week As Andrea Benstock — a novel about a girl who, after trying to shake her fear of flying, gives old-fashioned a new try and lives to tell about it

As a cocktail waitress at Fallsview Casino Resort, Jorja has been witness to some brow-raising moments. But she’s never been part of one until a hot-as hell patron in her section pulls her into his lap and kisses her senseless. Talk about a generous tipper. Lady luck has smiled on her indeed. What was supposed to be a weekend of harmless gambling takes a dramatic turn when Kian’s wolf scents his would-be mate. Consuming her lips as if his life depends on it in the middle of a crowded casino is bad enough—but giving in to his mating urge and claiming her before she knows his true nature is nothing short of a disaster. And when a fellow pack member shows up and lets the wolf out of the bag, Kian is forced to admit not only who and what he is, but what he did. He may need more than luck to pull this one off

Josh and Bella have been friends for years, but suddenly Bella is starting to see her Josh in a very different light – she's falling in love. Worse, she's just agreed to pretend to be Josh's fiancee and spend a week in the Seychelles with him

Discovering the 300-year-old skeleton of shipping tycoon Jedediah Biddeford in the ballroom wall is a big old hassle for Josie Waters, owner of the Oyster Cove Guesthouse. Especially when Biddeford’s descendants turn up, certain that a family legend about treasure buried nearby must be true. Josie is too busy dreaming up the perfect cake for the Oyster Cove’s 250th anniversary celebration to worry about the Biddeford family – plus half the town – digging up her yard... until one of her guests is murdered in the guesthouse garden. With worries that her guesthouse will get a reputation for being the kind of place you only leave in a body bag, Josie must put her detective skills to work to find the killer. Lucky for her, Nero and Marlowe and their gang of cat sleuths are also on the case. From the old wharf, to the town common, to the guesthouse itself with its many nooks and crannies, the cats are sure to sniff out the killer… but can they help Josie stop the person behind the mysterious murder before they strike again? A fantastic page-turner from a bestselling author, purrfeect for fans of Agatha Christie, Adele Abbott, cat lovers and everyone in between! Readers absolutely love the Oyster Cove Guesthouse series!

Spring has come to charming North Harbor, Maine, and with the new season comes a new haul for Second Chance, the shop where Sarah Grayson sells lovingly refurbished and repurposed items. Sarah is turning her keen eye to the estate of collector Edison Hall, hoping for fabulous finds for Second Chance—but when her rescue cat Elvis discovers a body in the kitchen, everything goes paws up. The body belongs to an appraiser who had been hired to check out Edison’s wine collection. When Edison’s sister shows up at Second Chance, she hires Sarah’s friends—the kooky and charismatic trio of ladies who call themselves Charlotte’s Angels and work out of the shop —to solve the murder, Sarah knows she and Elvis are only going to get deeper into the case. But as it becomes a cat and mouse game of lies, cons, cheats, and family squabbles, can Elvis and Sarah claw their way to the truth before the killer slinks away forever?

A novel of love and intrigue in the grandeur of Medieval England. Dirick of Derkland, man of the king, sets off on a mission of revenge after his father's brutal murder. His mind is bent solely on vengeance until he meets the beautiful, spirited Maris of Langumont. Maris of Langumont has vowed never to wed...but her father must do his duty to protect her, and he promises her to Victor d'Arcy - a man who makes her blood run cold. Bon de Savrille rests his eyes on Maris only once and decides she must be his. He whisks her away just before her betrothal, determined to force her into marriage. When Dirick appears at the castle where Maris is held captive, she believes he is part of the plot ... and it's nearly his death she causes during her plan to escape

Andreas Egger knows every path and peak of his mountain valley, the source of his sustenance, his livelihood — his home. Set in the mid-twentieth century and told with beauty and tenderness, his story is one of man's relationship with an ancient landscape, of the value of solitude, the arrival of the modern world, and above all, of the moments, great and small, that make us who we are

It is spring 1353, and Matthew Bartholomew is a reluctant member of a deputation of scholars, priests and students making its way to the village of Grundisburgh. As fine weather lures hordes of outlaws on to the hazardous roads, riding to Suffolk is a treacherous undertaking. But the lord of the manor has offered to give Grundisburgh’s parish church to the College of Michaelhouse, and the Master has decided that such a princely gift is well worth the danger. But when the benefactor begins to rush the deed that will legalise the transfer of ownership, Bartholomew senses that rural Suffolk is not the idyllic retreat he had been led to imagine. And when a young student-priest from Michaelhouse is found murdered in the church that was to become his living, Bartholomew realises that he and his party are threatened by dark forces abroad in the village. Compelled to investigate, he descends into a nightmarish world of superstition, conflict and heresy from which the tainted find no return…

Введите сюда краткую аннотацию

ACCLAIM FOR Haruki Murakami “[A Wild Sheep Chase is] a bold new advance in international fiction…. Youthful, slangy, political, and allegorical.” —The New York Times “Murakami’s writing injects the rock ‘n’ roll of everyday language into the exquisite silences of Japanese literary prose.” —Harper’s Bazaar “[Murakami belongs] in the topmost rank of writers of international stature.” —Newsday “Greatly entertaining…. Will remind readers of the first time they read Tom Robbins or … Thomas Pynchon.” —Chicago Tribune “Murakami captures a kind of isolation that is special in its beauty, and particular to our time…. His language speaks so directly to the mind that one remembers with gratitude what words are for.” —Elle “[A Wild Sheep Chase] begins as a detective novel, dips before long into screwball comedy, and at its close—when the dead speak—becomes a tale of possession. That such unruly, disjunctive elements mingle harmoniously within it is perhaps the signal feat in this highly accomplished piece of craftsmanship.” —Brad Leithauser, The New Yorker “A world-class writer who has both eyes open and takes big risks…. If Murakami is the voice of a generation, then it is the generation of Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo.” —The Washington Post Book World

Fairy tales for our times from the Pulitzer Prize — winning author of The Hours. A poisoned apple and a monkey's paw with the power to change fate; a girl whose extraordinarily long hair causes catastrophe; a man with one human arm and one swan's wing; and a house deep in the forest, constructed of gumdrops and gingerbread, vanilla frosting and boiled sugar. In A Wild Swan and Other Tales, the people and the talismans of lands far, far away — the mythic figures of our childhoods and the source of so much of our wonder — are transformed by Michael Cunningham into stories of sublime revelation. Here are the moments that our fairy tales forgot or deliberately concealed: the years after a spell is broken, the rapturous instant of a miracle unexpectedly realized, or the fate of a prince only half cured of a curse. The Beast stands ahead of you in line at the convenience store, buying smokes and a Slim Jim, his devouring smile aimed at the cashier. A malformed little man with a knack for minor acts of wizardry goes to disastrous lengths to procure a child. A loutish and lazy Jack prefers living in his mother's basement to getting a job, until the day he trades a cow for a handful of magic beans. Reimagined by one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation, and exquisitely illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, rarely have our bedtime stories been this dark, this perverse, or this true

In her quest to find the Orb of Spirit, Wynn Hygeorht is torn between two men who hate each other—her vampire protector, Chane Andraso, and the elf Osha, who has tender feelings for her. Now a strange series of clues leads them to a remote keep built on the dark cliffs of the coast of Witeny. The young duke there has been undergoing some disturbing changes—and so have the people and livestock in the outlying villages. Wynn has no idea what awaits her at this keep—an old enemy who wants nothing more than to see her dead. At the same time, Dhampir Magiere, Leesil, and Chap continue their desperate search for the Orb of Air, still burdened with the master assassin, Brot’an, and the elven outcast girl, Wayfarer. Still hunted by a team of assassins, they escape on the first available ship only to find themselves under the power of a sadistic captain. Even if they manage to survive this voyage, there is a trap waiting for them at the journey’s end that is beyond anything they can imagine

First appeared in Galaxy Magazine, 1957/7. A part of Notions: Unlimited collection of science fiction short stories by Robert Sheckley. It was first published in 1960 by Bantam Books

Dale Stewart's life has become a shadow of what it once was. A respected college professor and successful novelist, he sabotaged his career and his marriage with an obsessive love affair that ended badly.With darkness closing in on him, Dale decides to return to his boyhood home in Illinois. Drawn by a recurring nightmare that has plagued him since his youth -- and a troubling certainty that something is waiting for him there -- he hopes to exorcise his demons.In the last hours of Halloween, he reaches the outskirts of the dying town of Elm Haven. There, he moves into the abandoned farmhouse that was once the home of his closest boyhood friend, the strange and brilliant Duane McBride, who lost his young life in a grisly "accident" back in the terrible summer of 1960. Hoping to find peace in isolation, he settles in for the long, harsh winter.But Dale is not alone. Soon after he arrives, cryptic messages begin appearing mysteriously on his computer screen while he struggles to work on his novel. He sees black dogs roaming the grounds. And an old enemy has reemerged, a bully who seems as determined to persecute Dale as he was in childhood

A disgraced warrior must navigate a course between honour and shame, his people and the Roman Empire, in the first of a new trilogy set in the second century AD, from the author of Smile of the Wolf. AD173. The Danube has frozen. On its far banks gather the clans of Sarmatia. Winter-starved, life ebbing away on a barren plain of ice and snow, to survive they must cross the river’s frozen waters. There’s just one thing in their way. Petty feuds have been cast aside, six thousand heavy cavalry marshalled. Will it be enough? For across the ice lies the Roman Empire, and deployed in front of them, one of its legions. The Sarmatians are proud, cast as if from the ice itself. After decades of warfare they are the only tribe still fighting the Romans. They have broken legions in battle before. They will do so again. They charge. Sarmatian warrior Kai awakes on a bloodied battlefield, his only company the dead. The disgrace of his defeat compounded by his survival, Kai must now navigate a course between honour and shame, his people and the Empire, for Rome hasn’t finished with Kai or the Sarmatians yet

This book carries on the tradition of the solo village witch emphasizing white rather than black magic. It is a practical manual of instruction for those who choose the solo path of study and particularly stresses the importance of being in tune with nature. As there are approximately 13 moons each year – the book is divided into 13 parts. Each section is aimed at lasting from the new moon to the dark to make the student fully aware of the changing power in the tides of the sea and the tides of the self. The moon-long sections deal with a variety of taditional arts, skills and mental exercises which enables the aspiring witch to discover the inner world of magic inside him/herself

To give Nita a vacation from magic, her parents pack her off for a stay with her eccentric aunt in Ireland. But Nita soon finds herself with a host of Irish wizards battling creatures from a nightmare land

Введите сюда краткую аннотацию

Kit and Nita join forces once more against the terrible Lone Power on an unusual battleground, as they fight for the heart and mind of a young wizard with the power to save their world… Initially, Kit finds himself flying solo as Nita has sunk into a deep depression after the events of The Wizard's Dilemma. Luckily, Kit's telepathic pooch, Ponch, is happy to fill Nita's niche temporarily, as long as enough dog biscuits are involved. Kit's fighting to understand why autistic wizard-in-training Darryl McAllister has been stuck in his wizardly Ordeal for over three months. Is it merely the fault of his autism? Exploring inside Darryl's mind, Kit and Ponch discover complex landscapes of weird beauty that belie Darryl's rocking, vacant exterior. But they also find the Lone Power, attacking Darryl with a relentless brutality that seems to make little sense. What makes Darryl so important — and why can't he escape his Ordeal? Nita, meanwhile, is distracted from her sorrow by a series of strange dreams in which some mysterious being pleads desperately for her aid. What do the cryptic messages mean? She has to find out quickly — because now Kit, too, has vanished. Can she find him — and if she does, will the two of them be able to come together in time to deal with the Lone Power before It can destroy them?

For eight weeks in 1945, as Berlin fell to the Russian army, a young woman kept a daily record of life in her apartment building and among its residents. Spare, unpredictable, minutely observed, and utterly free of self-pity (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland), the anonymous author depicts her fellow Berliners in all their humanity as well as their cravenness. And with bald honesty and brutal lyricism (Elle), she tells of the shameful indignities to which women in a conquered city are always subject. A Woman in Berlin is, to quote A. S. Byatt, essential, and a classic of war literature

A suicide bomb explodes in a Jerusalem market. One of the victims is a migrant worker without any papers, only a salary slip from the bakery where she worked as a night cleaner. As her body lies unclaimed in the morgue, her employers are labelled unfeeling and inhuman by a local journalist

Hailed by Time as an "extravagantly comic" novel, A Woman Named Drown is a wild and strange journey through America's South that follows a young PhD dropout who falls in with an amateur actress-cum-pool shark On the brink of earning his doctorate in chemistry, the unnamed narrator decides to chuck it all away in favor of real life. So begins an odd pilgrimage through the American South. In Tennessee, our hero is bewitched by an older, gin-swilling, pool-playing sometimes-actress who claims to have recently starred in a theatrical production about a "woman named Drown." He moves in with her and just as quickly begins encountering her strange compatriots. Before he knows it, they're heading farther south together-to Florida-where the data that the dropout scientist is collecting from life's laboratory is about to get quite contradictory. Richly influenced by offbeat literary giant Donald Barthelme, Padgett Powell's A Woman Named Drown offers readers a smorgasbord of literary strangeness-a surreal series of adventures in which nothing much-and yet everything-happens at once. "We are on the border of Donald Barthelme's never-never land. . Powell is very funny. His characters are raffish clowns with foul mouths and a kind of crazy sweetness. This is special stuff. There's a lot of vivid life here." — People "Powell's ear for Southern speech is impeccable." — Publishers Weekly Padgett Powell is the author of six novels, including The Interrogative Mood and You & Me. His novel Edisto was a finalist for the National Book Award. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Little Star, and the Paris Review, and he is the recipient of the Rome Fellowship in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the Whiting Writers' Award. He lives in Gainesville, Florida, where he teaches writing at MFA@FLA, the writing program of the University of Florida

From New York Times bestselling author Barbara Taylor Bradford comes a triumphant novel of an unforgettable woman Determined to rise above all that she has ever known, a young and impoverished Emma Harte embarks on a journey first of survival, then of unimaginable achievement. Driven to succeed, the iron-willed Emma parlays a small shop into the world's greatest department store and an international business empire: Harte Enterprises. Unhappily married twice, loving only the one man she can never marry, personal happiness eludes her. Harte Enterprises, the realization of her grand dreams, is her all: her heart, her soul, her life. When those closest to her threaten to destroy her empire through their greed and envy, Emma brilliantly outwits her enemies. She wreaks her devastating revenge on those who would betray her in a way only she knows how. Drawing us into the mesmerizing life of a remarkable woman who dared to seize a dream and was willing to pay any price to make it come true, Barbara Taylor Bradford's deeply involving novel is a celebration of an indomitable spirit

Li Lixia is one of eight field anthropologists set down on Sigma Draconis II after the first starship from Earth detects pre-industrial intelligent life there. She experiences several of the cultures of the humanoid people of the planet as she travels with Nia, a female exile of the Iron People. Arnason introduces Nia and her way of life, then brings in Lixia and, gradually, includes others of the starship’s exploratory team. While removed from the starship, the anthropologists remain in contact with it as they all struggle with the question of whether their active intervention will help or harm those whom they encounter. As in life, no clear answers are offered. Nominated for John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1992

An artist in glass and light, Angel has loved with passion and fire – and learned the true depths of sadness when what she loved was taken from her. When she first meets Miles Hawkins – a solitary, distant man – their mutual mistrust seems insurmountable. Hawk has never known what Angel has freely enjoyed, having experienced only cruelty and betrayal from the women in his life. But Angel is willing to risk everything that proud, silent Hawk cannot, as she strives to bring truth and love to a tormented soul who believes in neither. Yet giving her heart again could be a gamble with stakes too high and too painful for her to endure – for she fears that, by loving Hawk, she will surely lose him

A collection of 21 crime stories by women writers, including Sara Paretsky, Amanda Cross, Liza Cody and Gillian Slovo. The stories include old favourites such as V.I. Warshawski, Jemima Shore and Kate Fansler

From America’s greatest chronicler of life lived at its extremes and the bestselling author of “The Perfect Storm,” “War,” and “A Death in Belmont” comes a rare work of fiction, an intimate, brutal account of a young American journalist trying to survive his latest assignment. Daniel wanted to escape the Midwest and its small-town newspapers, but he didn’t sign up for this: a war-torn West African city strung in barbed wire, its embassies abandoned, child soldiers brandishing guns in the streets. Andre, the veteran photographer Daniel is paired with, is conversant in all of it—the jungle, the locals, and especially the attendant risks of covering war—and pushes them to go deeper into the conflict, to get to the front lines. Yet in a battle like this, there are no reliable lines of safety. Western rules do not apply, and atrocity is color-blind. Just when Daniel thinks he’s convinced his fearless partner to retreat, they arrive at what could be the end of the road for both of them. This powerful short story, at once modern and timeless, combines the best elements of classic war literature and psychological horror. Junger’s unforgettable journey into the heart of darkness confronts man’s unrelenting savagery and his unpredictable capacity for cowardice—and courage. “Junger’s great eye and honesty about the gamut of emotions that come into play in combat leave one swerving between highs, lows and the surreal.” “Those seeking insight into war’s innards will appreciate the details Mr. Junger so sharply and respectfully delivers.”