A teen plunges into a downward spiral of addiction in this classic cautionary tale. January 24th After you’ve had it, there isn’t even life without drugs…. It started when she was served a soft drink laced with LSD in a dangerous party game. Within months, she was hooked, trapped in a downward spiral that took her from her comfortable home and loving family to the mean streets of an unforgiving city. It was a journey that would rob her of her innocence, her youth — and ultimately her life. Read her diary. Enter her world. You will never forget her. For thirty-five years, the acclaimed, bestselling first-person account of a teenage girl’s harrowing decent into the nightmarish world of drugs has left an indelible mark on generations of teen readers. As powerful — and as timely — today as ever, Go Ask Alice remains the definitive book on the horrors of addiction

How much trouble can one small female be to a modern-day shapeshifting Viking? Well, it really depends on local gun laws. Conall Vga-Feilan, direct descendent of Viking shifters, never thought he'd meet a female strong enough to be his mate. He especially didn't think a short, viper-tongued human would ever fit the bill. But Miki Kendrick isn't some average human. With an IQ off the charts and a special skill with weapons of all kinds, Miki brings the big blond pooch to his knees - and keeps him there

An engineer battles a small town to see his sister released from prison It takes Reno three days to get from Peru to the Gulf Coast, and when he gets to Waynesport he has only one stop to make: the city jail, where his sister is being held on a murder rap. The way Vickie tells it, she saw her husband having a drink with another woman, they quarreled, and she went to the bathroom. When she came out, he was shot through the back of the skull. The police believe every word of her story—except the part about who pulled the trigger. Her husband was in Waynesport looking for a crook named Rupert Conway, whom the local police do not seem to want found. To save his sister’s neck, Reno must wade through corruption as fetid as the swamps that surround this hellish southern town, where the alligators aren’t the only ones who are eager to kill

From the author of LOOKING FOR TROUBLE, a further crime novel featuring private investigator Sal Kilkenny. When a man is distraught at his wife's apparent infidelity, he enlists the help of Sal to confirm his suspicions, only to find himself a widower soon afterwards. From there Sal's other case also begins to take a disturbing and violent turn

1 New York Times bestselling author Diana Gabaldon returns with the newest novel in the epic Outlander series. The past may seem the safest place to be . . . but it is the most dangerous time to be alive. . . . Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rising in 1746, and it took them twenty years to find each other again. Now the American Revolution threatens to do the same. It is 1779 and Claire and Jamie are at last reunited with their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their children on Fraser’s Ridge. Having the family together is a dream the Frasers had thought impossible. Yet even in the North Carolina backcountry, the effects of war are being felt. Tensions in the Colonies are great and local feelings run hot enough to boil Hell’s teakettle. Jamie knows loyalties among his tenants are split and it won’t be long until the war is on his doorstep. Brianna and Roger have their own worry: that the dangers that provoked their escape from the twentieth century might catch up to them. Sometimes they question whether risking the perils of the 1700s—among them disease, starvation, and an impending war—was indeed the safer choice for their family. Not so far away, young William Ransom is still coming to terms with the discovery of his true father’s identity—and thus his own—and Lord John Grey has reconciliations to make, and dangers to meet . . . on his son’s behalf, and his own. Meanwhile, the Revolutionary War creeps ever closer to Fraser’s Ridge. And with the family finally together, Jamie and Claire have more at stake than ever before

Meet Mike. Mike wants to be a responsible human, but he's buried in student loans and job prospects are bleak in the down economy. What he needs is a well-paying job that provides health care. This is what leads Mike to accepting a job at NEOTAP, a government-run prison. But NEOTAP is unlike any other prison. NEOTAP is a place where the employees are treated no better than the prisoners. Where your personal conversations are monitored. Wait, do you feel that? That's not the ever-loving presence of God you feel. It's NEOTAP, watching you right now. Worst of all, employees and prisoners alike are disappearing from NEOTAP. People who show up for work one day might be gone the next, their existence erased from all NEOTAP records. After becoming aware of the string of disappearances, Mike and Monica Whitten, a fellow NEOTAP employee, team up to discover the truth behind NEOTAP. But before Mike and Monica discover the violent uprising on the horizon, they will drink pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks, they will watch movies on Netflix, they will form a meaningful relationship in hopes of one day achieving the five pillars of a happy life. Repeat after me: Go to work and do your job. Care for your children. Pay your bills. Obey the law. Buy products

Мир спасен, жизнь прекрасна, тебя все любят и ценят, пусть и спрятали в какой-то медвежий угол якобы в целях безопасности… Но какая же тут скука! Впрочем, только на первый взгляд – свои развлечения есть везде. А уличный этап мирового турниры Битвы чемпионов – это вполне неплохое времяпрепровождение. Особенно учитывая некоторые божественные подарки, которые даже с твоим уникальным стратегическим и тактическим талантом серьезно усложняют жизнь. Новый вызов для простого русского парня из 2010-х в мире будущего… Он же все еще чемпион?

Mortimer Tate was a recently divorced insurance salesman when he holed up in a cave on top of a mountain in Tennessee and rode out the end of the world. Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse begins nine years later, when he emerges into a bizarre landscape filled with hollow reminders of an America that no longer exists. The highways are lined with abandoned automobiles; electricity is generated by indentured servants pedaling stationary bicycles. What little civilization remains revolves around Joey Armageddon's Sassy A-Go-Go strip clubs, where the beer is cold, the lap dancers are hot, and the bouncers are armed with M16s. Accompanied by his cowboy sidekick Buffalo Bill, the gorgeous stripper Sheila, and the mountain man Ted, Mortimer journeys to the lost city of Atlanta – and a showdown that might determine the fate of humanity

Мортимер Тейт, в прошлом страховой агент, девять лет пережидает конец света в пещере на вершине горы в Теннесси. Так случается, что, защищая себя и свое убежище, он убивает трех человек, после чего решает спуститься в долину посмотреть, что осталось от не существующей более Америки. Его глазам предстает картина полного разорения. То малое, что осталось от цивилизации, сосредоточено вокруг стриптиз-клубов, где пиво холодное, танцоры горячие, а вышибалы вооружены до зубов. В сопровождении ковбоя Баффало Билла, великолепной стриптизерши Шейлы и горца Теда Мортимер отправляется в разрушенный город Атланту в надежде, что сумеет поспособствовать возрождению человечества…

In this lively and unique document 1970s-style hedonism, we follow the further adventures of Cleo Odzer, whose first book, Patpong Sisters, was a Quality Paperback Book Club best seller. Goa Freaks begins in the mid 1970s and tells of Cleo's love affair with Goa, a resort in India where the Freaks (hippies) of the world converge to partake in a heavy bohemian lifestyle. To finance their astounding appetites for cocaine, heroin, and hashish, the Freaks spend each monsoon season acting as drug couriers, and soon Cleo is running her own scams in Canada, Australia, and the United States. (She even gets her Aunt Sathe in on the action.) With her earnings she builds a veritable palace by the beach—the only Goa house with running water and a flushing toilet Cleo becomes the hostess of Anjuna Beach, holding days-long poker games and movie nights and, as her money begins to run out, transforming the house into a for profit drug den. Tracing Cleo's love affairs, her stint hiding out at the ashram of the infamous Bhagwan Rajneesh, and her sometimes-harrowing drug expert likes, Goa Freaks: My Hippie years in India is candid and compelling, bringing to life the Spirit of a now-lost era

Najeeb’s dearest wish is to work in the Gulf and earn enough money to send back home. He achieves his dream only to be propelled by a series of incidents, grim and absurd, into a slave-like existence herding goats in the middle of the Saudi desert. Memories of the lush, verdant landscape of his village and of his loving family haunt Najeeb whose only solace is the companionship of goats. In the end, the lonely young man contrives a hazardous scheme to escape his desert prison. Goat Days was published to acclaim in Malayalam and became a bestseller. One of the brilliant new talents of Malayalam literature, Benyamin’s wry and tender telling transforms this strange and bitter comedy of Najeeb’s life in the desert into a universal tale of loneliness and alienation

In the fall of 1978, on a 640-acre family ranch on Goat Mountain in Northern California, an eleven-year-old boy joins his grandfather, his father, and his father’s best friend on the family’s annual deer hunt. Every fall they return to this dry, yellowed landscape dotted with oak, buck brush, and the occasional stand of pine trees. Goat Mountain is what this family owns and where they belong. It is where their history is kept, memories and stories that will be shared again by these men. And for the first time, the boy’s story will be added if he can find a buck. Itching to shoot, he is ready. When the men arrive at the gate to their land, the father discovers a poacher and sights him through the scope of his gun. He offers his son a look-a simple act that will explode in tragedy, transforming these men and this family, forcing them to question themselves and everything they thought they knew. In prose devastating and beautiful in its precision, David Vann creates a haunting and provocative novel that explores our most primal urges and beliefs, the bonds of blood and religion that define and secure us, and the consequences of our actions-what we owe for what we’ve done

Won Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novelette in 1973

In the summer of 1863, Gob and Tomo Woodhull, eleven-year-old twin sons of Victoria Woodhull, agree to together forsake their home and family in Licking County, Ohio, for the glories of the Union Army. But on the night of their departure for the war, Gob suffers a change of heart, and Tomo is forced to leave his brother behind. Tomo falls in as a bugler with the Ninth Ohio Volunteers and briefly revels in camp life; but when he is shot clean through the eye in his very first battle, Gob is left to endure the guilt and grief that will later come to fuel his obsession with building a vast machine that will bring Tomo — indeed, all the Civil War dead — back to life. Epic in scope yet emotionally intimate, Gob’s Grief creates a world both fantastic and familiar and populates it with characters who breath on the page, capturing the spirit of a fevered nation populated with lost brothers and lost souls

Why was I ever born a witch's kitten? Why - oh, why? With his bright blue eyes and sparky magic whiskers, no one could mistake Gobbolino for a kitchen cat, but that's just what he longs to be. So, while his sister Sootica learns how to ride a broomstick and turn mice into toads, Gobbolino sets off to find a nice warm fire and a family to care for him. He has many adventures along the way and makes many friends, until he finally finds the home he dreams of. First published in 1942, Gobbolino the Witch's Cat continues to delight children - a true modern classic

Gobbolino - 1, 2

Why was I ever born a witch's kitten? Why - oh, why? With his bright blue eyes and sparky magic whiskers, no one could mistake Gobbolino for a kitchen cat, but that's just what he longs to be. So, while his sister Sootica learns how to ride a broomstick and turn mice into toads, Gobbolino sets off to find a nice warm fire and a family to care for him. He has many adventures along the way and makes many friends, until he finally finds the home he dreams of. First published in 1942, Gobbolino the Witch's Cat continues to delight children - a true modern classic

Powieść zyskała już w Polsce znakomite recenzje, w plebiscycie SFINKSa znalazła się na drugim miejscu w kategorii "najlepsza powieść zagraniczna 2004 roku". Świeża, oryginalna powieść science fiction, rozpoczynająca się w stylu mrocznej fantasy, a kończąca jak klasyczna space opera. W odległej galaktyce, na wszystkich zasiedlonych światach cała gospodarka podporządkowana jest tkaniu wielkich gobelinów z… włosów kobiet. Gobeliny są wywożone milionami przez statki kosmiczne cesarza. Tymczasem pewnego razu przybywa na planetę zwiadowca nowego rządu, z informacją, że imperator został obalony. Tymczasem gobeliny nadal są wysyłane w nieznanym kierunku. Co się kryje za tą tajemnicą?

Ian McEwan’s Atonement meets Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth in this extraordinary debut. A novel set between the past and present with magical realist elements. Goblin is an outcast girl growing up in London during World War 2. After witnessing a shocking event she increasingly takes refuge in a self-constructed but magical imaginary world. Having been rejected by her mother, she leads a feral life amidst the craters of London’s Blitz, and takes comfort in her family of animals, abandoned pets she’s rescued from London’s streets. In 2011, a chance meeting and an unwanted phone call compels an elderly Goblin to return to London amidst the riots and face the ghosts of her past. Will she discover the truth buried deep in her fractured memory or retreat to the safety of near madness? In Goblin, debut novelist Dundas has constructed an utterly beguiling historical tale with an unforgettable female protagonist at its centre

Rownie is the youngest in a hodgepodge household of stray children collected by Graba the witch. His older brother, Rowan, has vanished after performing in a secret play, and Rownie feels lost without him. Acting is illegal in the city of Zombay. No one may wear a mask and pretend to be someone else. Only goblins may legally perform, for they are the Changed—neither human nor other, belonging nowhere.  Rownie meets a traveling troupe of goblins who promise to teach him the secrets of mask-craft and entice him with the hope of finding Rowan. But Graba does not give up her own easily and hunts for them both. As Rownie searches for his brother, the true power of the masks--and those who wear them—is revealed. Are the goblins what they seem to be? What fateful magic lies hidden in the heart of Zombay? Mystery and adventure are woven through with charm and humor in this beguiling exploration of family, love, identity, and the power of words to shape what is real

Niūru ir gūdu Magijaros karalystėje. Siaubas lediniais nagais kausto žmonių sielas bei širdis. Nes piktieji goblinai pasklebė karą. Žmonės bejėgiai prieš goblinų kliautis ir burtus. Vienintelė viltis — nedidelė goblinų veidrodžio šukė, spinduliuose spinduliuojanti magišką galią…

Niūru ir gūdu Magijaros karalystėje. Siaubas lediniais nagais kausto žmonių sielas bei širdis. Nes piktieji goblinai pasklebė karą. Žmonės bejėgiai prieš goblinų kliautis ir burtus. Vienintelė viltis — nedidelė goblinų veidrodžio šukė, spinduliuose spinduliuojanti magišką galią…

1830. La Comédie humaine – Études de mœurs. Premier livre, Scènes de la vie privée – Tome II. Deuxième volume de l’édition Furne 1842 Lors d'une soirée, l'avoué Derville surprend une conversation entre la vicomtesse de Grandlieu et sa fille éprise d'un prétendant sans fortune. Afin de prévenir celle-ci d'une mauvaise aventure, l'avoué Derville raconte une histoire de jeunesse où, simple clerc, il fut témoin d'une transaction entre Gobseck, usurier hors du commun, et la comtesse de Restaud… Jean-Esther Gobseck est un virtuose dans son domaine, il pratique l'usure comme on pratique un art. Dans ce portrait d'un de ses plus puissants personnages, Balzac écrit, là, son premier chef d'oeuvre

The critically acclaimed show, Californication, is one of Showtime’s highest rated programs. Averaging about two million viewers an episode, it is the most successfully rated freshman series in Showtime history. A Golden Globe nominee for Best Television Series (Comedy or Musical), Californication features an electric, likeable cast, led by actor David Duchovny, who won a Golden Globe for his performance playing Hank Moody. God Hates Us All is the novel written by Duchovny’s character, Hank Moody, which in the show is turned into a Hollywood film entitled A Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Timed to coincide with the premiere of the Season 3 of the hit series, this will allow fans an extra, backstage look at the concept of the show not available through episodes

A wry literary masterpiece, God Hates Us All is a coming-of-age tale for the apathetic generation. Hank Moody's self-loathing yet darkly like able narrator is a college drop-out-turned-accidental-drug-dealer enveloped in a world of contradictions. His boss — a bong-hitting, dread locked Pontiff figure — runs a remarkably organized and ingenious illegal trade patronized by, among others, a sweater-set-wearing Upper East Sider, a Wall Street hotshot, and a wannabe rock star with a hard-to-resist model girlfriend. The lonely narrator yearns for more than the tenuous but intimate thread he shares with his clients. To escape his mother's desperate expectations, his father's endless disappointments, and his certifiably insane ex-girlfriend, he moves to the city's mecca of ambitious slackers — the Chelsea Hotel — where the pursuit of lust (and the rock star's girlfriend) sends him on a series of well-intentioned misadventures that lead him right back where he started. Told in a unique and subtle voice, God Hates Us All is ironic, optimistic, and unforgettable

The new novel from Nobel laureate Toni Morrison. Spare and unsparing, God Help the Child is a searing tale about the way childhood trauma shapes and misshapes the life of the adult. At the center: a woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life; but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love until she told a lie that ruined the life of an innocent woman, a lie whose reverberations refuse to diminish. . Booker, the man Bride loves and loses, whose core of anger was born in the wake of the childhood murder of his beloved brother. . Rain, the mysterious white child, who finds in Bride the only person she can talk to about the abuse she's suffered at the hands of her prostitute mother. . and Sweetness, Bride's mother, who takes a lifetime to understand that "what you do to children matters. And they might never forget."

In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix

A native of Haiti, Dimitry Elias Léger makes his remarkable debut with this story of romance, politics, and religion that traces the fates of three lovers in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and the challenges they face readjusting to life after an earthquake devastates their city. Reflecting the chaos of disaster and its aftermath, God Loves Haiti switches between time periods and locations, yet always moves closer to solving the driving mystery at its center: Will the artist Natasha Robert reunite with her one true love, the injured Alain Destiné, and live happily ever after? Warm and constantly surprising, told in the incandescent style of José Saramago and Roberto Bolaño, and reminiscent of Gabriel García Márquez’s hauntingly beautiful Love in The Time of Cholera, God Loves Haiti is an homage to a lost time and city, and the people who embody it

Tyrant magus Edrin Walker destroyed the monster sent by the Skallgrim, but not before it laid waste to Setharis, and infested their magical elite with mind-controlling parasites. Edrin’s own Gift to seize the minds of others was cracked by the strain of battle, and he barely survives the interrogation of a captured magus. There’s no time for recovery though: a Skallgrim army is marching on the mountain passes of the Clanhold. Edrin and a coterie of villains race to stop them, but the mountains are filled with gods, daemons, magic, and his hideous past. Walker must stop at nothing to win, even if that means losing his mind. Or worse…

Поход мести Кратоса против богов Олимпа давно позади; теперь он живет как человек в царстве скандинавских богов и монстров. Именно в этом суровом, неумолимом мире он должен сражаться, чтобы выжить… и научить своего сына поступать так же. Это поразительное переосмысление God of War разрушает основные элементы, которые определили серию – упоение боем, захватывающие дух масштабы и мощное повествование – и сливает их заново, да так, что голова кругом!

The story of how Alexander the Great conquered the world - first crushing Greek resistance to Macedonian rule, then destroying the Persian Empire in three monumental battles, before marching into the unknown and final victory in India - is a truly epic tale that has mesmerised countless generations of listeners. He crammed more adventure into his thirty-three years than any other human being before or since, and now for the first time a novelist will tell the tale in a single suitably epic volume. The combination of Alexander's life story and Christian Cameron's unrivalled skills as an historian and storyteller will ensure that this will not only be the definitive version for many years to come, but also one of the most exciting historical epics ever written

Spenser is back again — as tough and resilient as he was in pursuit of the Godwulf Manuscript. This time the stakes are higher; he is searching for more than a manuscript. Fifteen-year-old Kevin Bartlett has disappeared from his home in the pleasant, affluent Boston suburb of Smithfield. His parents are convinced that he has been kidnaped. Spenser is not so sure. Pressed between the frantic parents demanding action and the irate police chief warning him to keep off the grass, Spenser goes his independent way. The note demanding ransom and the telephone message that follows it confirm his conviction that all is not what it seems. By biding his time and tracking down some rather eerie clues, he solves the mystery, but not before there has been death and a fight with Goliath. Through all these complications, Spenser must battle the Smithfield police as well as the criminals and fend off the amorous advances of the alcoholic Mrs. Bartlett. But the case offers certain compensations — notably, Susan, beautiful, intelligent, and as discriminating a gourmet as Spenser himself

Andrews McMeel Publishing and Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strips and #1 best-selling author of Dilbert humor books, have agreed to publish Mr. Adams' new project called God's Debris: A Thought Experiment. God's Debris is Scott's first non-Dilbert, non-humor effort. The author describes the book as "a thought experiment wrapped in a story. It's designed to make your brain spin around inside your skull." Some content of the book is nonfiction because the opinions and philosophies of the characters might have lasting impact on the reader. Others believe it is fiction because the characters don't exist. Imagine that you meet a very old man who - you eventually realize - knows literally everything. Imagine that he explains for you the great mysteries of life: quantum physics, evolution, God, gravity, light, psychic phenomenon, and probability -- in a way so simple, so novel and so compelling that it all fits together and makes perfect sense. What does it feel like to suddenly understand everything? God's Debris isn't the final answer to the Big Questions. But it might be the most compelling vision of reality you will ever read. The thought experiment is this: Try to figure out what's wrong with the old man's explanation of reality. Share the book with your smart friends then discuss it later while enjoying a beverage. The book was initially offered to the public as an e-book, and the book has since become the #1 best-selling e-book on the planet. Because of the e-book offering, the Internet is buzzing with comments from the book's fans. -- Amazon.com

Lucifer’s War, which damned legions of angels to Hell, is an ancient and bitter memory shrouded in the smoke and ash of the Inferno. The Fallen, those banished demons who escaped the full wrath of Heaven, have established a limitless and oppressive kingdom within the fiery confines of Hell. Lucifer has not been seen since the Fall and the mantle of rulership has been passed to the horrific Prince Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies. The Demons Major, Heaven’s former warriors, have become the ruling class. They are the equivalent to landed lords, each owing allegiance to the de facto ruler of Hell. They reign over their fiefdoms, tormenting the damned souls and adding to their wealth. One Demon Major, however, who has not forgotten his former life in Heaven. The powerful Lord Sargatanas is restless. For millennia Sargatanas has ruled dutifully but unenthusiastically, building his city, Adamantinarx, into the model of an Infernal metropolis. But he has never forgotten what he lost in the Fall—proximity to God. He is sickened by what he has become. Now, with a small event—a confrontation with one of the damned souls—he makes a decision that will reverberate through every being in Hell. Sargatanas decides to attempt the impossible, to rebel, to endeavor to go Home and bring with him anyone who chooses to follow… be they demon or soul. He will stake everything on this chance for redemption

Set in a not-too-distant future, and moving between Rome and Amsterdam, God's Dog is a detective novel unlike any you have read before. It is the eve of Pope Benedict XVIII's canonisation and Domingo Salazar, a Haitian orphan and now a Vatican secret agent, is hellbent on defeating the Angels of Death, pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia dissidents who are undermining the Pope's authority. But as Salazar closes in on the cell he finds his life turned upside down. Suddenly it is Salazar and his closest friend Guntur who are under suspicion of sabotaging the administration. Their concept for a globalised religion called Bible-Koranism has upset the Church and they are in grave danger, as is Guntur's infamous Swahili-speaking chimpanzee Django. God's Dog is a spoof on the absurdities of institutionalised religion that will delight aficionados of thrillers and detective novels as well as fans of Diego Marani

This is a story told by a boy in his thirteenth year, recorded in his secret diary. His life is about to change; his world, about to open. He lives in Montedidio — God’s Mountain — a cluster of alleys in the heart of Naples. He brings a paycheck home every Saturday from Mast’Errico’s carpentry workshop where he sweeps the floor. He is on his way to becoming a man — his boy’s voice is abandoning him. His wooden boomerang is neither toy nor tool, but something in between. Then there is Maria, the thirteen-year-old girl who lives above him and, like so many girls, is wiser than he. She carries the burden of a secret life herself. She’ll speak to him for the first time this summer. There is also his friendship with a cobbler named Rafaniello, a Jewish refugee who has escaped the horrors of the Holocaust, who has no idea how long he’s been on this earth, and who is said to sprout wings for a blessed few. It is 1963, a young man’s summer of discovery. A time for a boy with innocent hands and a pure heart to look beyond the ordinary in everyday things to see the far-reaching landscape, and all of its possibilities, from a rooftop terrace on God’s Mountain

What are the roots of today’s militant fundamentalism in the Muslim world? In this insightful and wide-ranging history, Charles Allen finds an answer in an eighteenth-century reform movement of Muhammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab and his followers—the Wahhabi—who sought the restoration of Islamic purity and declared violent jihad on all who opposed them. The Wahhabi teaching spread rapidly—first throughout the Arabian Peninsula, then to the Indian subcontinent, where a more militant expression of Wahhabism flourished. The ranks of today’s Taliban and al-Qaeda are filled with young men trained in Wahhabi theology. God’s Terrorists sheds much-needed light on the origins of modern terrorism and shows how this dangerous ideology lives on today

Nyx had already been to hell. One prayer more or less wouldn't make any difference... On a ravaged, contaminated world, a centuries-old holy war rages, fought by a bloody mix of mercenaries, magicians, and conscripted soldiers. Though the origins of the war are shady and complex, there's one thing everybody agrees on-- There's not a chance in hell of ending it. Nyx is a former government assassin who makes a living cutting off heads for cash. But when a dubious deal between her government and an alien gene pirate goes bad, Nyx's ugly past makes her the top pick for a covert recovery. The head they want her to bring home could end the war--but at what price? The world is about to find out

God's War offers a sweeping new vision of one of history's most astounding events: the Crusades. From 1096 to 1500, European Christians fought to recreate the Middle East, Muslim Spain, and the pagan Baltic in the image of their God. The Crusades are perhaps both the most familiar and most misunderstood phenomena of the medieval world, and here Christopher Tyerman seeks to recreate, from the ground up, the centuries of violence committed as an act of religious devotion. The result is a stunning reinterpretation of the Crusades, revealed as both bloody political acts and a manifestation of a growing Christian communal identity. Tyerman uncovers a system of belief bound by aggression, paranoia, and wishful thinking, and a culture founded on war as an expression of worship, social discipline, and Christian charity. This astonishing historical narrative is imbued with figures that have become legends--Saladin, Richard the Lionheart, Philip Augustus. But Tyerman also delves beyond these leaders to examine the thousands and thousands of Christian men--from Knights Templars to mercenaries to peasants--who, in the name of their Savior, abandoned their homes to conquer distant and alien lands, as well as the countless people who defended their soil and eventually turned these invaders back. With bold analysis, Tyerman explicates the contradictory mix of genuine piety, military ferocity, and plain greed that motivated generations of Crusaders. He also offers unique insight into the maturation of a militant Christianity that defined Europe's identity and that has forever influenced the cyclical antagonisms between the Christian and Muslim worlds. Drawing on all of the most recent scholarship, and told with great verve and authority,God's War is the definitive account of a fascinating and horrifying story that continues to haunt our contemporary world. From Publishers Weekly This is likely to replace Steven Runciman's 50-year-old History of the Crusades as the standard work. Tyerman (England and the Crusades), lecturer in medieval history at Oxford University, demolishes our simplistic misconceptions about that series of ferocious campaigns in the Middle East, Muslim Spain and the pagan Baltic between 1096 and 1500. Abjuring sentimentality and avoiding clichés about a rapacious West and an innocent East, Tyerman focuses on the crusades' very human paradoxes: "the inspirational idealism; utopianism armed with myopia; the elaborate, sincere intolerance; the diversity and complexity of motive and performance." The reader marvels at the crusaders' inextinguishable devotion to Christ even while shuddering at their delight in massacring those who did not share that devotion. In the end, Tyerman says, what killed crusading was neither a lack of soldierly enthusiasm nor its failure to retain control of Jerusalem, but the loss of Church control over civil societies at home and secular authorities who felt that religion was not sufficient cause for war and that diplomacy was a more rational method of deciding international relations.God's War is that very rare thing: a readable and vivid history written with the support of a formidable scholarly background, and it deserves to reach a wide audience. 16 color illus. Review Christopher Tyerman has crafted a superb book whose majestic architecture compares with Runciman's classic study of the Crusades…He is an entertaining as well as reliable guide to the bizarre centuries-long episode in which Western Christianity willfully ignored its Master's principles of love and forgiveness. --Diarmaid MacCulloch, author of Thomas Cranmer: a Life This is a magisterial work. In God's War, the Crusades are not just emblematic episodes in a troubled history of Europe's encounter with Islam. Tyerman shows that they are, with all their contradictions—tragedy and tomfoolery, idealism and cynicism, piety and savagery—fundamentally and inescapably human. --Paul M. Cobb, Associate Professor of Islamic History, Fellow of the Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame Tyerman's wonderful book is contemporary medieval history-writing at the top of its game. It is also the finest history of the Crusades that anyone has ever written, fully informed by its predecessors and by the excellent scholarship of the past half century. Trenchantly written on the grand scale and full of vivid detail, clear argument, and sharp judgment,God's Warshows how the entire apparatus of crusade became tightly woven into European institutional and social life and consciousness, offering a highly original perspective on all of early European history and on European relations with non-Europeans. It shows no patience with ignorant mythologizing, modern condescension, or cultural instrumentalism.. In short, it constitutes a crusade history for the twenty-first century—and just in time. --Edward M. Peters, Henry Charles Lea Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania At a time when interest in the Middle East and the Crusades has reached a new height, Christopher Tyerman has made a significant contribution to the ever-growing shelves of books devoted to this subject. Tyerman's well-written book focuses heavily on the development of ideas about holy war from antiquity onward and on the crusade to the East from the eleventh to the sixteenth century. It is based on a careful reading of both primary and secondary sources and will prove an important resource for a broad audience of scholars, students, and general readers. The comparison with Runciman's history leaps out from the pages of this large volume and the temptation to address it will no doubt seduce others, but this volume is Tyerman through and through. --James M. Powell, Professor Emeritus of Medieval History, Syracuse University This is likely to replace Steven Runciman's 50-year-old History of the Crusades as the standard work. Tyerman, lecturer in medieval history at Oxford University, demolishes our simplistic misconceptions about that series of ferocious campaigns in the Middle East, Muslim Spain and the pagan Baltic between 1096 and 1500...God's War is that very rare thing: a readable and vivid history written with the support of a formidable scholarly background, and it deserves to reach a wide audience. Challenging traditional conceptions of the Crusades, e.g., the failure to retain Jerusalem, Tyerman believes that it was the weakening of papal power and the rise of secular governments in Europe that finally doomed the crusading impulse. This is a marvelously conceived, written, and supported book. --Robert J. Andrews

Phoebe, who recently discovered she's a descendant of Nike (the goddess, not the shoe), is finding that supernatural powers come with a crazy learning curve. Her stepfather, headmaster of the Academy for descendants of the Greek gods, has enrolled her at Dynamotheos Development Camp - aka Goddess Boot Camp - with a bunch of ten-year-olds for the summer. Embarrassing as that is, hopefully it'll help her gain control over her powers in time to pass the test of the gods, continue training hard enough to qualify for the Pythian Games, and enjoy her godly boyfriend, Griffin, all while avoiding the ultimate mistake of accidentally misusing powers. It's another fast-paced myth-inspired heroine's quest that's sure to bring out the goddess in anyone