A murder...A tragic accident...Or just parents behaving badly? What’s indisputable is that someone is dead.
Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny, biting, and passionate; she remembers everything and forgives no one. Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare but she is paying a price for the illusion of perfection. New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for a nanny. She comes with a mysterious past and a sadness beyond her years. These three women are at different crossroads, but they will all wind up in the same shocking place.
Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the little lies that can turn lethal.
A god will return When the earth and sky converge Under the black sun In the holy city of Tova the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world. Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man's mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as "harmless" the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.
An intimate, emotionally rich novel, in which two men - young and old - reckon with queer histories and their place within them, from the critically acclaimed author of We the Animals Juan Gay is on his deathbed. He has decided to spend his last days in The Palace: a monumental, fading institution in the desert, which was an asylum in another lifetime. There, a young man tends to this dying soul - someone who Juan met only once, but who has haunted the edges of his life ever since. As the end approaches, the two trade stories - resurrecting lost loves, lives, mothers and fathers - and their lives are woven, ineluctably, into a broader story of pathology and oppression. Charged with sifting through Juan's belongings, our narrator uncovers a copy of Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns, its pages blacked out, censored, reduced down to poetic dispatches. And, as he sifts through the manuscript, another story is told: that of Jan Gay - a radical, queer anthropologist - whose ground-breaking work was co-opted, and stifled, by the committee she served. Blackouts is a haunting, dreamlike rumination on memory and erasure, blending fact with fiction - drawing from historical records, screenplays, testimony and image - to force us to look again at the world we have inherited and the narratives we have received.
A family returns to their hometown - and to the dark past that haunts them still - in this masterpiece of literary horror by the New York Times bestselling author of Wanderers When Nate's father dies, he leaves behind a final gift for his son: his childhood home. Married now, Nate decides to move in with his wife, Maddie, and their son, Oliver, seeking peace from the chaos of the city. But it doesn't take long before things get strange in the night and even stranger by day. Because Nate was a child being abused by his father, and has never told his family. Because Maddie was a little girl who saw something she shouldn't have. Because something sinister, something hungry, walks in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of this town in rural Pennsylvania... And now, what happened all those years ago is happening again, and this time, it is happening to Oliver. When he meets a strange boy with secrets of his own and a taste for dark magic, he has no idea that what comes next will put his family at the heart of a battle of good versus evil.
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two ways of knowledge together. Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings - asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass - offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In a rich braid of reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.
A mesmerising story about a young Black girl growing up in America, finding a home and discovering her voice - a multi-award winning New York Times bestseller and President Obama's 'O' Book Club pick. Brown Girl Dreaming is the unforgettable story of Jacqueline Woodson's childhood, sharing what it was like to grow up as an African-American in the wake of the Civil Rights movement, and discovering the first sparks of an incredible, lifelong gift for writing. It's packed with wonderful reflections on family and on place, in a way that will appeal to listeners from 11 to adult. Emotionally charged and touching, each line tells the tale of one girl's search to find her voice, her identity and her place in the world.
A young Native American boy in a splintering family grasps for stability and love, making all the wrong choices until he finds a space of his own.
Charlotte's Web is the classic children's story by E B White. The tale of how a little girl named Fern, with the help of a friendly spider, saved her pig Wilbur from the usual fate of nice fat little pigs.
Try me...Test me...Taste me. When an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, arrives in the French village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church, Father Reynaud identifies her as a serious danger to his flock - especially as it is the beginning of Lent, the traditional season of self-denial. War is declared as the priest denounces the newcomer's wares as instruments of murder. Suddenly Vianne's shop-cum-cafe means that there is somewhere for secrets to be whispered, grievances to be aired, dreams to be tested. But Vianne's plans for an Easter Chocolate Festival divide the whole community in a conflict that escalates into a 'Church not Chocolate' battle. As mouths water in anticipation, can the solemnity of the Church compare with the pagan passion of a chocolate éclair? For the first time here is a novel in which chocolate enjoys its true importance, emerging as a moral issue, as an agent of transformation - as well as a pleasure bordering on obsession. Rich, clever and mischievous, this is a triumphant read.
Mark van Doren was an American poet, writer and critic. He was a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton, Robert Lax, John Berryman, Whittaker Chambers, and Beat Generation writers such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. He won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Collected Poems, 1922–1938 and he was literary editor of The Nation, in New York City (1924–1928), and its film critic, 1935 to 1938.
Set in the deep American South between the wars, THE COLOR PURPLE is the classic tale of Celie, a young black girl born into poverty and segregation. Raped repeatedly by the man she calls 'father', she has two children taken away from her, is separated from her beloved sister Nettie and is trapped into an ugly marriage. But then she meets the glamorous Shug Avery, singer and magic-maker - a woman who has taken charge of her own destiny. Gradually Celie discovers the power and joy of her own spirit, freeing her from her past and reuniting her with those she loves.
A compilation of six volumes of the author's poetry: Chicago poems (1916), Cornhuskers (1918), Smoke and steel (1920), Slabs of the sunburnt West (1922), Good morning, America (1925), and The people, yes (1936); and a new section of 74 poems not previously collected.
Cynthia Pelayo sings a song for the least of us, the victim we want to forget as soon as possible, the one who disappeared before ever really appearing. With a fairy tale gaze and a heart bigger than the world, her siren song insinuates itself past our defenses, past the hardened calluses and apathy we've erected to protect ourselves from the everyday horror of another missing girl.
Pelayo relates the familiar story, poem by poem; a body is found, a brutal crime investigated, clues take us in circles, and lead us nowhere. We are on an epic journey, the hero's journey, and it must play out to the end in all its painful, ticking moments. Pelayo imbues her hero, Agent K, with the entirety of our dedication and that crumb of hope we've been hiding, saving for later. We will need to save for years, for decades, if we want to come out the other side. The job takes its toll, the answers are never complete and whys fracture, crack and spread. Still there is no turning away. We must bear witness, though it changes and contorts us.
Christopher is 15 and lives in Swindon with his father. He has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism. He is obsessed with maths, science and Sherlock Holmes but finds it hard to understand other people. When he discovers a dead dog on a neighbour's lawn he decides to solve the mystery and write a detective thriller about it. As in all good detective stories, however, the more he unearths, the deeper the mystery gets - for both Christopher and the rest of his family.
Researcher and thought leader Dr. Brené Brown offers a powerful new vision in Daring Greatly that encourages us to embrace vulnerability and imperfection, to live wholeheartedly and courageously. 'It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly' -Theodore Roosevelt Every time we are introduced to someone new, try to be creative, or start a difficult conversation, we take a risk. We feel uncertain and exposed. We feel vulnerable. Most of us try to fight those feelings - we strive to appear perfect. Challenging everything we think we know about vulnerability, Dr. Brené Brown dispels the widely accepted myth that it's a weakness. She argues that vulnerability is in fact a strength, and when we shut ourselves off from revealing our true selves we grow distanced from the things that bring purpose and meaning to our lives. Daring Greatly is the culmination of 12 years of groundbreaking social research, across the home, relationships, work, and parenting. It is an invitation to be courageous; to show up and let ourselves be seen, even when there are no guarantees. This is vulnerability. This is daring greatly.
From an award-winning author comes a genre-defying thriller about a father desperate to salvage what's left of his family--even if it means a descent into violence. Buried in debt due to his young daughter's illness, his marriage at the brink, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a hitman, surprising himself with his proclivity for violence. After tragedy destroys the life he knew, Mario agrees to one final job: hijack a cartel's cash shipment before it reaches Mexico. Along with an old friend and a cartel-insider named Juanca, Mario sets off on the near-suicidal mission, which will leave him with either a cool $200,000 or a bullet in the skull. But the path to reward or ruin is never as straight as it seems. As the three complicated men travel through the endless landscape of Texas, across the border and back, their hidden motivations are laid bare alongside nightmarish encounters that defy explanation. One thing is certain: even if Mario makes it out alive, he won't return the same.
'ARE YOU...DEAD?' OH MY GOD. I THINK HE IS. When Meddy Chan accidentally kills her blind date, she turns to her aunties for help. Their meddling set her up on the date so they kind of owe her. WELL, THAT DIDN'T QUITE GO TO PLAN. Although hiding this goddamn dead body is going to be harder than they thought especially when her family's wedding business has THE biggest wedding of the year happening right now. IT'S PRETTY BAD TIMING REALLY. It turns out the wedding venue just happens to be managed by Meddy's ex, aka the one who got away. It's the worst time to see him again, or...is it? Can Meddy finally find love and make her overbearing family happy?
The gripping and shocking story of three generations of the Sackler family and their roles in the stories of Valium, Oxycontin and the opioid crisis. The Sackler family is one of the richest in the world, and their name adorns the walls of many famous institutions - Harvard; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Oxford; the Louvre. The source of the family fortune was vague, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing Oxycontin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis - an international epidemic of drug addiction which has killed nearly half a million people. In this masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, award-winning journalist and host of the Wind of Change podcast Patrick Radden Keefe exhaustively documents the jaw-dropping and ferociously compelling reality.
Free dog Johannes' job is to observe everything that happens in his urban park and report back to the park's three bison elders, but changes are afoot, including more humans, a new building, a boatload of goats, and a shocking revelation that changes his view of the world.
15-year-old Janie recognizes herself in a picture of a small girl on a milk carton - a child who'd been snatched from a shopping mall in New Jersey. She can't believe the couple she looked on as loving parents had kidnapped her, but then starts to piece together things that don't make sense.
Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which book paper spontaneously catches fire and burns. It is a futuristic novel describing a time when the government has ordered that all books be burned.
In a post-apocalyptic world plagued by natural diasters, Essun lives in a small comunity barricaded against the outside world. When her husband relizes that she and her children are orogenes with the ability to manipulate seismic energy, he kills their son and kidnaps their daughter. Against the backdrop of the end of the world, Essun follows, beginning an odyssey which will not end until her daughter is safe.
We all witness, in advertising and on supermarket shelves, the fierce competition for our food dollars. In this engrossing exposé, Marion Nestle goes behind the scenes to reveal how the competition really works and how it affects our health. The abundance of food in the United States--enough calories to meet the needs of every man, woman, and child twice over--has a downside. Our over-efficient food industry must do everything possible to persuade people to eat more --more food, more often, and in larger portions--no matter what it does to waistlines or well-being. Like manufacturing cigarettes or building weapons, making food is big business. Food companies in 2000 generated nearly $900 billion in sales. They have stakeholders to please, shareholders to satisfy, and government regulations to deal with. It is nevertheless shocking to learn precisely how food companies lobby officials, co-opt experts, and expand sales by marketing to children, members of minority groups, and people in developing countries. We learn that the food industry plays politics as well as or better than other industries, not least because so much of its activity takes place outside the public view. Editor of the 1988 Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health, Nestle is uniquely qualified to lead us through the maze of food industry interests and influences. She vividly illustrates food politics in action: watered-down government dietary advice, schools pushing soft drinks, diet supplements promoted as if they were First Amendment rights. When it comes to the mass production and consumption of food, strategic decisions are driven by economics--not science, not common sense, and certainly not health. No wonder most of us are thoroughly confused about what to eat to stay healthy. An accessible and balanced account, Food Politics will forever change the way we respond to food industry marketing practices. By explaining how much the food industry influences government nutrition policies and how cleverly it links its interests to those of nutrition experts, this path-breaking book helps us understand more clearly than ever before what we eat and why.
Welcome to the brutal and elite world of Basgiath War College . . . Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general - also known as her tough-as-talons mother - has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you're smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away . . . because dragons don't bond to 'fragile' humans. They incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother's daughter - like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant. She'll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise. Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret. Everyone at Basgiath has an agenda, and every night could be your last. So, sleep with one eye open because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.
Fantastic, fantastical and utterly incomparable, Kelly Link's new collection explores everything from the essence of ghosts to the nature of love. And hurricanes, astronauts, evil twins, bootleggers, Ouija boards, iguanas, The Wizard of Oz, superheroes, the pyramids . . . With each story she weaves, Link takes readers deep into an unforgettable, brilliantly constructed universe. Strange, dark and wry, Get in Trouble reveals Kelly Link at the height of her creative powers and stretches the boundaries of what fiction can do.
Young Lyra's uncle, Lord Asriel, returns from the far North with tales of terrible danger and of a child severed from its daemon familiar. Soon Lyra sets out to save kidnapped children and their familiars from hideous experiments. But an even greater mystery awaits.
In The Golem and the Jinni, a chance meeting between mythical beings takes readers on a dazzling journey through cultures in turn-of-the-century New York. Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life to by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic and dies at sea on the voyage from Poland. Chava is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York harbor in 1899. Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert, trapped in an old copper flask, and released in New York City, though still not entirely free Ahmad and Chava become unlikely friends and soul mates with a mystical connection.
Who are you? What have we done to each other? These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife?
How do you convince your friend to try your favourite dish when he just keeps telling you he does not like it? Dr Seuss's amusing story answers that question.
Some night-time prowler is turning the (mostly) honest citizens of Ankh-Morpork into something resembling small charcoal biscuits. And that's a real problem for Captain Vimes, who must tramp the mean streets of the naked city looking for a 70-foot-long fire-breathing dragon which, he believes, can help him with his enquiries.
Offred is a Handmaid in The Republic of Gilead, a religious totalitarian state in what was formerly known as the United States. She is placed in the household of The Commander, Fred Waterford - her assigned name, Offred, means 'of Fred'. She has only one function: to breed. If Offred refuses to enter into sexual servitude to repopulate a devastated world, she will be hanged. Yet even a repressive state cannot eradicate hope and desire. As she recalls her pre-revolution life in flashbacks, Offred must navigate through the terrifying landscape of torture and persecution in the present day, and between two men upon which her future hangs. Masterfully conceived and executed, this haunting vision of the future places Margaret Atwood at the forefront of dystopian fiction.
There was a wild crashing sound, a ripping of metal, and the plane blew through the trees, out over the water and down, down to slam into the lake . . . Brian is a city boy. Not used to living rough. Until his plane crash-lands in the Canadian wilderness. All he has is a hatchet - and a desperate will to survive. Now Brian must learn to live the hard way - or die.
On 12 October 1979 the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor (and Earth) was made available to humanity - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's an ordinary Thursday lunchtime for Arthur Dent until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly afterwards to make way for a new hyperspace bypass and his best friend has just announced that he's an alien. At this moment, they're hurtling through space with nothing but their towels and an innocuous-looking book inscribed with the big, friendly words: DON'T PANIC. The weekend has only just begun . . .
Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely travelling further than the pantry of his hobbit-hole in Bag End. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard, Gandalf, and a company of thirteen dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an unexpected journey 'there and back again'. They have a plot to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon...
Hot Comb offers a poignant glimpse into Black women's lives and coming of age stories as seen across a crowded, ammonia-scented hair salon while ladies gossip and bond over the burn. The titular story "Hot Comb" is about a young girl's first perm--a doomed ploy to look cool and to stop seeming "too white" in the all-black neighborhood her family has just moved to. In "Virgin Hair" taunts of "tender-headed" sting as much as the perm itself. It's a scenario that repeats fifteen years later as an adult when, tired of the maintenance, Flowers shaves her head only to be hurled new put-downs. Realizations about race, class, and the imperfections of identity swirl through Flowers' stories and ads, which are by turns sweet, insightful, and heartbreaking.
Newly orphaned children of immigrants, Lucy and Sam are suddenly alone in a land that refutes their existence. Fleeing the threats of their western mining town, they set off to bury their father in the only way that will set them free from their past. Along the way, they encounter giant buffalo bones, tiger paw prints, and the specters of a ravaged landscape as well as family secrets, sibling rivalry, and glimpses of a different kind of future.
When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.
Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.
But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…
Eldest of three sisters in a land where it is considered to be a misfortune, Sophie is resigned to her fate as a hat shop apprentice until a witch turns her into an old woman and she finds herself in the castle of the greatly feared wizard Howl.
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.
Tells the story of Barbara Thorson, an acerbic fifth-grader so consumed with fantasy that she doesn't just tell people that she kills giants with an ancient Norse warhammer -- she starts to believe it herself. This book reveals the reasons for Barbara's troubled behavior, as she learns to reconcile her fantasy life with the real world
There's plenty of it around, and we all love to eat it. So why should anyone need to defend it? Because in the so-called Western diet, food has been replaced by nutrients, and common sense by confusion-most of what we're consuming today is longer the product of nature but of food science. The result is what Michael Pollan calls the American Paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we see to become. With In Defense of Food , Pollan proposes a new (and very old) answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating.
Meggie loves books. So does her father, Mo, a bookbinder, although he's never read aloud to her since her mother mysteriously disappeared. They live quietly until the night a stranger arrives with a warning. The next day, Mo starts packing but won't tell Meggie why. They must go into hiding. But from what? From whom? Soon, Mo's secret is revealed. He has the amazing ability to breathe life into stories, to make characters come alive. Years ago, he accidentally released a merciless villain from a book called Inkheart. And now, this hateful criminal is after Mo and his extraordinary gift ... Meggie is hurled into the adventure of a lifetime, where the imaginary has become real. It's up to her to find a way to alter the course of the story that holds them all in its power.
On a remote jungle island, genetic engineers have created a dinosaur game park. An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now one of mankind's most thrilling fantasies has come true and the first dinosaurs that the Earth has seen in the time of man emerge. But, as always, there is a dark side to the fantasy and after a catastrophe destroys the park's defense systems, the scientists and tourists are left fighting for survival...
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. As the death toll climbed, the FBI took up the case. But the bureau badly bungled the investigation. In desperation, its young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to unravel the mystery. Together with the Osage he and his undercover team began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.
Adapted by celebrated academics and comics artists Damian Duffy and John Jennings, this graphic novel powerfully renders Butler's mysterious and moving story, which spans racial and gender divides in the antebellum South through the 20th century. Butler's most celebrated, critically acclaimed work tells the story of Dana, a young black woman who is suddenly and inexplicably transported from her home in 1970s California to the pre-Civil War South. As she time-travels between worlds, one in which she is a free woman and one where she is part of her own complicated familial history on a southern plantation, she becomes frighteningly entangled in the lives of Rufus, a conflicted white slaveholder and one of Dana's own ancestors, and the many people who are enslaved by him. Held up as an essential work in feminist, science-fiction, and fantasy genres, and a cornerstone of the Afrofuturism movement, there are over 500,000 copies of Kindred in print. The intersectionality of race, history, and the treatment of women addressed within the original work remain critical topics in contemporary dialogue, both in the classroom and in the public sphere. Frightening, compelling, and richly imagined, Kindred offers an unflinching look at our complicated social history, transformed by the graphic novel format into a visually stunning work for a new generation of readers.
Known for his looks and charm, a young man obsessed with wealth and status will stop at nothing to get what he wants. He sets his sights on a beautiful and innocent college student named Dorothy, intent on marrying her for her family’s money. But when Dorothy becomes pregnant, his careful plans start to unravel and he begins to take cold, calculating, and drastic measures.
Kitchen is an enchantingly original book that juxtaposes two tales about mothers, love, tragedy, and the power of the kitchen and home in the lives of a pair of free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan. Mikage, the heroine, is an orphan raised by her grandmother, who has passed away. Grieving, Mikage is taken in by her friend Yoichi and his mother (who is really his cross-dressing father) Eriko. As the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses, Yoshimoto spins a lovely, evocative tale with the kitchen and the comforts of home at its heart.
"When Lars Thorvald's wife, Cynthia, falls in love with wine and a dashing sommelier he's left to raise their baby, Eva, on his own. He's determined to pass on his love of food to his daughter starting with pureed pork shoulder. As Eva grows, she finds her solace and salvation in the flavors of her native Minnesota. From Scandinavian lutefisk to hydroponic chocolate habaneros, each ingredient represents one part of Eva's journey as she becomes the star chef behind a legendary and secretive pop-up supper club, culminating in an opulent and emotional feast that's a testament to her spirit and resilience."--Provided by publisher.
Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love? From the bestselling and Booker Prize winning author of Never Let me Go and The Remains of the Day, a stunning new novel -- his first since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature -- that asks, what does it mean to love?
You lie there kicking like a baby, waiting for God himself To lift you past the rungs of your crib. What Would your life say if it could talk? --from "No Fly Zone" With allusions to David Bowie and interplanetary travel, Life on Mars imagines a soundtrack for the universe to accompany the discoveries, failures, and oddities of human existence. In these brilliant new poems, Tracy K. Smith envisions a sci-fi future sucked clean of any real dangers, contemplates the dark matter that keeps people both close and distant, and revisits the kitschy concepts like "love" and "illness" now relegated to the Museum of Obsolescence. These poems reveal the realities of life lived here, on the ground, where a daughter is imprisoned in the basement by her own father, where celebrities and pop stars walk among us, and where the poet herself loses her father, one of the engineers who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. With this remarkable third collection, Smith establishes herself among the best poets of her generation.
There's a light on in the attic. I can see it from outside, And I know you're on the inside ... lookin' out. Step inside the mind of Shel Silverstein and you'll discover a magic homework machine, a Polar Bear in the fridge and a Meehoo With an Exactlywatt. But beware stolen knees, the babysitter who likes to squash children - and the nighttime peril of the Whatifs!
After learning that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea, Percy Jackson is transferred from boarding school to Camp Half-Blood, a summer camp for demigods, and becomes involved in a quest to prevent a catastrophic war between the gods.
On February 22, 1862, two days after his death, Willie Lincoln was laid to rest in a marble crypt in a Georgetown cemetery. That very night, shattered by grief, Abraham Lincoln arrives at the cemetery under cover of darkness and visits the crypt, alone, to spend time with his son's body. Set over the course of that one night and populated by ghosts of the recently passed and the long dead, Lincoln in the Bardo is a thrilling exploration of death, grief, the powers of good and evil, a novel--in its form and voice--completely unlike anything you have read before. It is also, in the end, an exploration of the deeper meaning and possibilities of life, written as only George Saunders can: with humor, pathos, and grace.
Graphic novel superstars Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham join forces in this heartwarming rom-com about fate, family, and falling in love.
John and Jenny were just beginning their life together. They were young and in love, with a perfect little house and not a care in the world. Then they bought home Marley, a wiggly yellow fur ball of a puppy. Life would never be the same. Marley quickly grew into a barrelling, ninety-seven pound steamroller of a Labrador retriever, a dog like no other. He crashed through screen doors, gouged through drywall, flung drool on guests, stole women's undergarments, and ate nearly everything he could get his mouth around, including couches and fine jewellery. Obedience school did no good -- Marley was expelled. Neither did the tranquilisers the veterinarian prescribed for him with the admonishment, 'Don't hesitate to use these.' And yet Marley's heart was pure. Just as he joyfully refused any limits on his behaviour, his love and loyalty were boundless, too. Marley shared the couple's joy at their first pregnancy, and their heartbreak over the miscarriage. He was there when babies finally arrived and when the screams of a seventeen-year-old stabbing victim pierced the night. Unconditional love, they would learn, comes in many forms. The heartwarming and unforgettable story of a family in the making and the wondrously neurotic dog who taught them what really matters in life. For lovers of Tuesdays with Morrie, The Year of Magical Thinking, and even, of course, dogs!
I'm stranded on Mars. I have no way to communicate with Earth. I'm in a Habitat designed to last 31 days. If the Oxygenator breaks down, I'll suffocate. If the Water Reclaimer breaks down, I'll die of thirst. If the Hab breaches, I'll just kind of explode. If none of those things happen, I'll eventually run out of food and starve to death. So yeah. I'm screwed.
"The acclaimed author of Gods of Jade and Shadow returns with a darkly enchanting reimagining of Gothic fantasy, in which a spirited young woman discovers the haunting secrets of a beautiful old mansion in 1950s Mexico"
From one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, comes this ravishing and generous-hearted novel about a friendship that lasts a lifetime. The story of Elena and Lila begins in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighbourhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else, as their friendship, beautifully and meticulously rendered, becomes a not always perfect shelter from hardship. Ferrante has created a memorable portrait of two women, but My Brilliant Friend is also the story of a nation. Through the lives of Elena and Lila, Ferrante gives her readers the story of a city and a country undergoing momentous change.
"You only think you know this story. In 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer, the most notorious serial killer since Jack the Ripper, seared himself into the American consciousness. To the public, Dahmer was a monster who committed unthinkable atrocities. To Derf Backderf, 'Jeff' was a much more complex figure: a high school friend with whom he had shared classrooms, hallways, and car rides. In [this story], a haunting and original graphic novel, writer-artist Backderf creates a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a disturbed young man struggling against the morbid urges emanating from the deep recesses of his psyche-- a shy kid, a teenage alcoholic, and a goofball who never quite fit in with his classmates. With profound insight, what emerges is a Jeffrey Dahmer that few ever really knew, and one readers will never forget."
The Jordan Peele of horror fiction turns his eye to classic slasher films: Jade is one class away from graduating high-school, but that's one class she keeps failing local history. Dragged down by her past, her father and being an outsider, she's composing her epic essay series to save her high-school diploma. Jade's topic? The unifying theory of slasher films. In her rapidly gentrifying rural lake town, Jade sees the pattern in recent events that only her encyclopedic knowledge of horror cinema could have prepared her for. And with the arrival of the Final Girl, Letha Mondragon, she's convinced an irreversible sequence of events has been set into motion. As tourists start to go missing, and the tension grows between her community and the celebrity newcomers building their mansions the other side of the Indian Lake, Jade prepares for the killer to rise. She dives deep into the town's history, the tragic deaths than occurred at camp years ago, the missing tourists no one is even sure exist, and the murders starting to happen, searching for the answer. As the small and peaceful town heads towards catastrophe, it all must come to a head on 4th July, when the town all gathers on the water, where luxury yachts compete with canoes and inflatables, and the final showdown between rich and poor, past and present, townsfolk and celebrities slasher and Final Girl.
'I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. My name is Kvothe. You may have heard of me' So begins the tale of Kvothe - now an unassuming innkeeper - from his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, through his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-riddled city, to his daringly brazen bid to enter a difficult and dangerous school of magic. With his reputation at the university and the Eolian growing by the day, Kvothe's story takes him to Trebon and his legendary encounter with a dragon.
Carlin waxes wickedly philosophical in this hilarious collection of razor-sharp observations. The bestselling author of "Brain Droppings" proves once again that he's one comic who can successfully make the transition from stage to page with his ironic take on life's annoying universal truths.
"Spells and stories, urban legends and immigrant tales: the magic in Isabel Yap's debut collection jumps right off the page, from the joy in her new novella, "A Spell for Foolish Hearts" to the terrifying tension of the urban legend "Have You Heard the One About Anamaria Marquez.""-- Provided by publisher.
"There's nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns," proclaimed Octavia E. Butler. New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color showcases emerging and seasoned writers of many races telling stories filled with shocking delights, powerful visions of the familiar made strange. Between this book's covers burn tales of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and their indefinable overlappings. These are authors aware of our many possible pasts and futures, authors freed of stereotypes and clich???s, ready to dazzle you with their daring genius. Unexpected brilliance shines forth from every page. Includes stories by Kathleen Alcala, Minsoo Kang, Anil Menon, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Alex Jennings, Alberto Yanez, Steven Barnes, Jaymee Goh, Karin Lowachee, E. Lily Yu, Andrea Hairston, Tobias Buckell, Hiromi Goto, Rebecca Roanhorse, Indrapramit Das, Chinelo Onwualu and Darcie Little Badger.
A gorgeously creepy classic haunted house story based on Japanese folklore, combining The Haunting of Hill House with The Ring. Cat joins her old friends, who are in search of the perfect wedding venue, to spend the night in a Heian-era manor in Japan. Trapped in webs of love, responsibility and yesterdays, they walk into a haunted house with their hearts full of ghosts. This mansion is long abandoned, but it is hungry for new guests, and welcomes them all - welcomes the demons inside them - because it is built on foundations of sacrifice and bone. Their night of food, drinks, and games quickly spirals into a nightmare as the house draws them into its embrace. For lurking in the shadows is the ghost bride with a black smile and a hungry heart. And she gets lonely down there in the dirt.
Set in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Havana, Hemingway's magnificent fable is the tale of an old man, a young boy and a giant fish. This story of heroic endeavour won Hemingway the Nobel Prize for Literature. It stands as a unique and timeless vision of the beauty and grief of man's challenge to the elements.
Stephanie Plum is down on her luck. She's lost her job at New Jersey's most down-market lingerie store, her car's on the brink of repossession, and her apartment is fast becoming furniture-free. Enter Cousin Vinnie, a low-life who runs a bail-bond company. If Stephanie can bring in vice cop turned outlaw Joe Morelli, she stands to pick up $10,000. But tracking down a cop wanted for murder isn't easy. And suddenly Stephanie has another problem on her hands. Benito Ramirez, a prize-fighter with more menace than mentality, wants her to be his friend - and he won't take no for an answer. Soon Stephanie begins to know exactly what it feels like to be pursued - and the best person to protect her just happens to be on the run...
Rolando's job was crushing his soul... and then it crushed his hand. Now he can barely get out of the house, marathoning TV and struggling to find meaning. Nera is a restless spirit who loves to taste everything life can offer, but sleeps in a broken-down food truck and can't see a way to make her dreams come true. When their paths cross at a raucous rock show, the magical night seems to last forever. Together they throw caution to the wind, fix up the truck, and hit the road for a wild adventure of biker gangs, secret herbs, mystical visions, and endless possibilities. But have they truly found the spice of life? Or has Rolando bitten off more than he can chew? Onion Skin became a sensation in its native land for its twisty narrative, captivating characters, thrilling action, and delicious artwork.
An Air Force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another. These four, and five other strangers-each summoned in different ways by trees-are brought together in a last and violent stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest. In his twelfth novel, National Book Award winner Richard Powers delivers a sweeping, impassioned novel of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of-and paean to-the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond, exploring the essential conflict on this planet: the one taking place between humans and nonhumans. There is a world alongside ours-vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe. The Overstory is a book for all readers who despair of humanity's self-imposed separation from the rest of creation and who hope for the transformative, regenerating possibility of a homecoming. If the trees of this earth could speak, what would they tell us? Listen. There's something you need to hear.
Presents the author's selection of his best short stories, as well as a new piece, in a collection that includes "The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary," "Mono No Aware" and "The Waves."
In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the coming-of-age story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran’s last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.
Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Marjane’s child’s-eye view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, with laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love.
The Princess Diarist is Carrie Fisher's intimate, hilarious and revealing recollection of what happened behind the scenes on one of the most famous film sets of all time, the first Star Wars movie. When Carrie Fisher recently discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved-plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naivet???, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Today, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon is indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a (sort-of) regular teenager. With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher's intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time-and what developed behind the scenes. And today, as she reprises her most iconic role for the latest Star Wars trilogy, Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candour and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into the type of stardom that few will ever experience.
"From Amanda Lovelace, a poetry collection in four parts: the princess, the damsel, the queen, and you. The first three sections piece together the life of the author while the final section serves as a note to the reader. This moving book explores love, loss, grief, healing, empowerment, and inspiration."--Publisher's website.
Presents a look at the science of alcohol production and consumption, from the principles behind the fermentation, distillation, and aging of alcoholic beverages, to the psychology and neurobiology of what happens after it is consumed.
Concerned that human lives and the natural world are too often defined by people who are separated from the land and its inhabitants, Indigenous writer and environmentalist Linda Hogan depicts her own intense relationships with animals as an example we all can follow to heal our souls and reconnect with the spirit of the world. From her modest forest home in Colorado, and venturing throughout the region, especially to her beloved Oklahoma, she introduces us to horses, packrats, snakes, mountain lions, elks, wolves, bees, and so many others whose presence has changed her life. In this illuminating collection of essays and poems, lightly sprinkled with elegant drawings, Hogan draws on many Native nations’ ancient stories and spiritual traditions to show us that the soul exists in those delicate places where the natural world extends into human consciousness—in the mist of morning, the grass that grew a little through the night, the first warmth of this morning’s sunlight. Altogether, this beautifully packaged gift is a reverential reminder for all of us to witness and appreciate the radiant lives of animals.
A sweeping and overdue retelling of U.S. history that recognizes that Native Americans are essential to understanding the evolution of modern America.
Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It's a prestige posting, and Andrew is even more delighted when he's assigned to the ship's Xenobiology laboratory. Life couldn't be better ...although there are a few strange things going on ...: (1) every Away Mission involves a lethal confrontation with alien forces (2) the ship's captain, the chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these encounters (3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed. Suddenly it's less surprising how much energy is expended below decks on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned an Away Mission. Andrew's fate may have been sealed ...until he stumbles on a piece of information that changes everything ...and offers him and his fellow redshirts a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.
Lucy Knisley loves food. The daughter of a chef and a gourmet, this talented young cartoonist comes by her obsession honestly. In her forthright, thoughtful, and funny memoir, Lucy traces key episodes in her life thus far, framed by what she was eating at the time and lessons learned about food, cooking, and life.
Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So Don designs the Wife Project, a sixteen-page scientifically valid survey to help himself find the perfect partner.
When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe. From New York Times bestselling writer Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina) and critically acclaimed artist Fiona Staples (Mystery Society, North 40), Saga is the sweeping tale of one young family fighting to find their place in the worlds. Fantasy and science fiction are wed like never before in this sexy, subversive drama for adults.
While cooking at Chez Panisse at the start of her career, Samin Nosrat noticed that amid the chaos of the kitchen there were four key principles that her fellow chefs would always fall back on to make their food better: Salt, Fat, Acid and Heat. By mastering these four variables, Samin found the confidence to trust her instincts in the kitchen and cook delicious meals with any ingredients. And with her simple but revolutionary method, she has taught masterclasses to give both professionals and amateurs the skills to cook instinctively. Whether you want to balance your vinaigrette, perfectly caramelise your roasted vegetables or braise meltingly tender stews, Samin's canon of 100 essential recipes and their dozens of variations will teach you how.
100,000 years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens. How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations and human rights; to trust money, books and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come? In Sapiens, Dr Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical - and sometimes devastating - breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, palaeontology and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come?
Everybody at Misselthwaite Manor agrees that Mary Lennox is the most disagreeable child they have ever met. Pale, selfish and spoilt, the ten-year-old orphan has been sent from India to her uncle's estate and she is determined to hate everything about it. But the isolated house on the Yorkshire moors holds secrets that Mary cannot resist exploring: pitiful crying that echoes down the corridors at night and a hidden walled garden. When a robin leads Mary to the buried key, not only is the garden unlocked, but also her heart. And as the garden blooms, for the first time in her life, Mary discovers friendship. This is where the magic begins . . .
The classic volume by the distinguished modern poet, winner of the 1950 Pulitzer Prize, and recipient of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, showcases an esteemed artist's technical mastery, her warm humanity, and her compassionate and illuminating response to a complex world.
Wonder Woman! Hunks! Great men and women of history! Step aside - Kate Beaton is coming for you. The author of the smash hit Hark! A Vagrant returns with all-new sidesplitting comics that showcase her irreverent love of history, pop culture and literature. Collected from her wildly popular website, readers will guffaw over 'Strong Female Characters', the wicked yet chivalrous Black Prince, 'Straw Feminists in the Closet' and a disgruntled Heathcliff. Delight in what the internet has long known - Beaton's humour is as sharp and dangerous as a velocipedestrienne, so watch out!
The discovery of a dead body in the woods on Thanksgiving Weekend brings Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his colleagues from the Surete du Quebec to a small village in the Eastern Townships. Gamache cannot understand why anyone would want to deliberately kill well-loved artist Jane Neal, especially any of the residents of Three Pines - a place so free from crime it doesn't even have its own police force. But Gamache knows that evil is lurking somewhere behind the white picket fences and that, if he watches closely enough, Three Pines will start to give up its dark secrets...
In 1971, while working the late-shift at a Seattle crisis clinic, true-crime writer Ann Rule struck up a friendship with a sensitive, charismatic young coworker: Ted Bundy. Three years later, eight young women disappeared in seven months, and Rule began tracking a brutal mass murderer. But she had no idea that the "Ted" the police were seeking was the same Ted who had become her close friend and confidant. As she put the evidence together, a terrifying picture emerged of the man she thought she knew--his magnetic power, his bleak compulsion, his double life, and, most of all, his string of helpless victims. Bundy eventually confessed to killing at least thirty-six women across the country.
A stunning graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist Takei's childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an icon in this gripping tale of courage, country, loyalty, and love.
Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future. Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war. That's how war works. Right?
1967: Ye Wenjie witnesses Red Guards beat her father to death during China's Cultural Revolution. This singular event will shape not only the rest of her life but also the future of mankind. Four decades later, Beijing police ask nanotech engineer Wang Miao to infiltrate a secretive cabal of scientists after a spate of inexplicable suicides. Wang's investigation will lead him to a mysterious online game and immerse him in a virtual world ruled by the intractable and unpredictable interaction of its three suns. This is the Three-Body Problem and it is the key to everything: the key to the scientists' deaths, the key to a conspiracy that spans light-years and the key to the extinction-level threat humanity now faces.
This extraordinary, magical first novel is the story of Clare, a beautiful art student, and Henry, a librarian, who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry thirty. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity in his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing."The Time Traveler's Wife" depicts the effects of time travel on Henry and Clare's marriage and their passionate love for each other as the story unfolds from both points of view. Clare and Henry attempt to live normal lives, pursuing familiar goals - steady jobs, good friends, children of their own. All of this is threatened by something they can neither prevent nor control, making their story intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.
The explosion of racial hate in an Alabama town is viewed by a little girl whose father defends a black man accused of rape.
Neil Gaiman pierces the veil of reality to reveal the enigmatic, shadowy world that lies beneath. Trigger Warning includes previously published pieces of short fiction-stories, verse, and a very special Doctor Who story that was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the beloved series in 2013-as well as BLACK DOG, a new tale that revisits the world of American Gods. Trigger Warning is a rich cornucopia of horror and ghosts stories, science fiction and fairy tales, fabulism and poetry that explores the realm of experience and emotion. In Adventure Story-a thematic companion to The Ocean at the End of the Lane-Gaiman ponders death and the way people take their stories with them when they die. His social media experience A Calendar of Tales are short takes inspired by replies to fan tweets about the months of the year-stories of pirates and the March winds, an igloo made of books, and a Mother's Day card that portends disturbances in the universe. Gaiman offers his own ingenious spin on Sherlock Holmes in his award-nominated mystery tale The Case of Death and Honey. And Click-Clack the Rattlebag explains the creaks and clatter we hear when we're all alone in the darkness. A writer whose creative genius is unparalleled, Gaiman entrances with his literary alchemy, transporting us deep into the realm of imagination, where the fantastical becomes real and the everyday incandescent. Trigger Warning engages the mind, stirs the heart, and shakes the soul. Neil Gaiman is one of the most original and popular literary artists of our day.
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect.
On 28th January 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon, the Wager was wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The crew, marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing 2,500 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes. Then, six months later, another, even more decrepit, craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways and they had a very different story to tell. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with counter-charges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous captain and his henchmen. While stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death-for whomever the court found guilty could hang.
This stirring tale of courage and survival against the odds has become one of the best-loved animal adventures of all time. 'We've got to go away before it's too late.' Fiver could sense danger. Something terrible was going to happen to the warren - he felt sure of it. So did his brother Hazel, for Fiver's sixth sense was never wrong. They had to leave immediately, and they had to persuade the other rabbits to join them. And so begins a long and perilous journey of a small band of rabbits in search of a safe home. Fiver's vision finally leads them to Watership Down, but here they face their most difficult challenge of all . . . Watership Down is an epic journey, a stirring tale of adventure, courage and survival against the odds.
In a post-apocalyptic Africa, the world has changed in many ways; yet in one region genocide between tribes still bloodies the land. A woman who has survived the annihilation of her village and a terrible rape by an enemy general wanders into the desert, hoping to die. Instead, she gives birth to an angry baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand. Gripped by the certainty that her daughter is different-special-she names her Onyesonwu, which means "Who fears death?" in an ancient language. It doesn't take long for Onye to understand that she is physically and socially marked by the circumstances of her conception. She is Ewu-a child of rape who is expected to live a life of violence, a half-breed rejected by her community. But Onye is not the average Ewu. Even as a child, she manifests the beginnings of a remarkable and unique magic. As she grows, so do her abilities, and during an inadvertent visit to the spirit realm, she learns something terrifying: someone powerful is trying to kill her. Desperate to elude her would-be murderer and to understand her own nature, she embarks on a journey in which she grapples with nature, tradition, history, true love, and the spiritual mysteries of her culture, and ultimately learns why she was given the name she bears: Who Fears Death.
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political power England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king's freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the classic story of fantasy that has delighted readers young and old for decades. Dorothy finds herself transplanted to the magical land of Oz when her house is sucked up by a tornado. To get back home she must follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City to ask the Wizard to help her get back to Kansas. Along the way she meets several interesting characters, including the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion, who join her on her travels to ask the Wizard for help of their own.
What the peacock can do is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life. The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. In her nonfiction debut, award-winning poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil explores the many places she has called home, from inhospitable plains to tall mountains in big sky country. No matter where she is transplanted, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship, even in the strange and the unlovely. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world's gifts. Featuring exquisite colour illustrations by Fumi Nakamura throughout, World of Wonders is a magnificent bestiary: an unforgettable book of sustenance, resilience and joy.
Award-Winning
Complete the Award-Winning square by reading any title that has won an award and recording the title on your BINGO card in the Award-Winning square.
You can use any book that you’d like, but here are some suggestions to complete the Award-Winning square.
1984 by George Orwell (I-Share Print or here) (I-Share Audio or here) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio) (EBSCO eBook) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
All Systems Red by Martha Wells (I-Share Print) (Libby Audio)
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders (I-Share Print)
American Sniper by Chris Kyle (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
Animals Strike Curious Poses: Essays by Elena Passarello (I-Share Print)
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume (I-Share Print)
Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
Bad Cree by Jessica Johns (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook)
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay (I-Share Print) (Libby Audio)
Beloved by Toni Morrison (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
Benjamin Franklin by Carl Van Doren (I-Share Print)
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney (I-Share Print or here) (I-Share Audio)
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters (I-Share Print)
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook)
Blackouts by Justin Torres (Libby eBook)
The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio)
Braiding Sweetgrass:Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (I-Share Print and here) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (I-Share Print and here) (I-Share Audio) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
Calling for a Blanket Dance by Oscar Hokea (I-Share Print)
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio) (Libby Audio)
Chocolat: A Novel by Joanne Harris (I-Share Print and here) (I-Share Audio)
Collected Poems, 1922-1938 by Mark Van Doren (I-Share Print)
The Color Purple by Alice Walker (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio) (Libby eBook)
The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg by Carl Sandburg (I-Share Print)
Crime Scene: Poetry by Cynthia Pelayo (I-Share Print)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon (I-Share Print and here) (I-Share Audio and here) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
Daring Greatly by Brené Brown (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio)
The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias (I-Share Print)
Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto (I-Share Print) (Libby Audio)
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe (I-Share Print)
The Eyes and the Impossible by Dave Eggars (I-Share Print)
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio) (Libby Audio)
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison (I-Share Print) (Libby Audio)
Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health by Marion Nestle (I-Share Print and here) (Libby eBook) (CARLI eBook)
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
Get in Trouble: Stories by Kelly Link (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (I-Share Print and here and here) (I-Share Audio) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker (I-Share Print) (Libby Audio)
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (I-Share Print and here and here) (I-Share Audio) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio)
Guards! Guards! By Terry Pratchett (I-Share Print)
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio) (Libby Audio)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (I-Share Print and here) (I-Share Audio) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
Hot Comb by Ebony Flowers (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook)
How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang (I-Share Print) (Libby Audio)
How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix (I-Share Print and here)
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook)
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (I-Share Print and here) (I-Share Audio) (Libby Audio)
I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly and J.M. Ken Niimura (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook)
In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (I-Share Print and here)
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio)
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio) (Libby Audio)
Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Octavia E. Butler, Damian Duffy, and John Jennings (I-Share Print and here and here) (Libby eBook)
A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin (I-Share Print)
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto (I-Share Print)
Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal (I-Share Print and here)
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith (I-Share Print)
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio)
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio) (Libby eBook)
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (I-Share Print and here) (I-Share Audio) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang (I-Share Print)
Marley and Me by John Grogan (I-Share Print and here) (I-Share Audio)
The Martian by Andy Wier (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio) (Libby eBook)
Mexican Gothic by Silivia Moreno-Garcia (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (I-Share Print) (Libby Audio)
My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf (I-Share Print)
My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook)
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (I-Share Print and here) (Libby eBook)
Napalm & Silly Putty by George Carlin (I-Share Print)
Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap (I-Share Print)
New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color edited by Nisi Shawl (I-Share Print)
Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw (I-Share Print) (Libby Audio)
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio) (Libby Audio)
One for the Money by Janet Evanovich (I-Share Print) (Libby Audio)
Onion Skin by Edgar Camacho (Libby eBook)
The Overstory by Richard Powers (I-Share Print and here) (Libby Audio)
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu (I-Share Print)
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (I-Share Print)
The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher (I-Share Print) (Libby Audio)
The Princess Saves Herself in This One by Amanda Lovelace (I-Share Print)
Proof: The Science of Booze by Adam Rogers (I-Share Print and here) (I-Share Audio)
The Radiant Lives of Animals by Linda Hogan (Libby eBook)
The Rediscovery of America by Ned Blackhawk (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook)
Redshirts by John Scalzi (I-Share Print)
Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley (I-Share Print)
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simison (I-Share Print and here) (I-Share Audio)
Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook)
Salt Fat Acid Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat (I-Share Print) (Libby Audio)
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio and here)
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio) (Libby eBook)
Selected Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks (I-Share Print)
Step Aside, Pops by Kate Beaton (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook)
Still Life by Louise Penny (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio) (Libby Audio)
The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule (I-Share Print)
They Called Us Enemy by George Takei (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook and here)
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (I-Share Print)
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffeneggar (I-Share Print and here) (I-Share Audio) (Libby Audio)
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Fred Fordham (Libby eBook)
Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett (I-Share Print and here) (I-Share Audio) (Libby eBook) (Libby Audio)
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann (I-Share Print) (Libby Audio)
Watership Down by Richard Adams (I-Share Print) (I-Share Audio)
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor (I-Share Print)
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (I-Share Print and here and here) (I-Share Audio) (Libby Audio)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (I-Share Print and here) (I-Share Audio) (Libby Audio) (EBSCO eBook)
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (I-Share Print) (Libby eBook)