Great books

Sophie Kinsella - The Undomestic Goddess

2011-11-02T12:42:00.000-07:00

The story of a girl who needs to slow down. To find herself. To fall in love. And to discover what an iron is for ...

Samantha is a high-powered lawyer in London. She works all hours, has no home life, and cares only about getting a partnership. She thrives on the pressure and adrenaline. Until one day ... she makes a mistake. A mistake so huge, it'll wreck her career.

She walks right out of the office, gets on the first train she sees, and finds herself in the middle of nowhere. Asking for directions at a big, beautiful house, she is mistaken for the interviewee housekeeper and finds herself being offered the job. They have no idea they've hired a Cambridge-educated lawyer with an IQ of 158 - Samantha has no idea how to work the oven.

Disaster ensues. It's chaos as Samantha battles with the washing machine ... the ironing board ... and attempts to cook a cordon bleu dinnner. But gradually, she falls in love with her new life in a wholly unexpected way.

Will her employers ever discover the truth? Will Samantha's old life ever catch up with her? And if it does ... will she want it back?

Susan Elizabeth Phillips - It had to be you

2011-11-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

The Windy City isn't quite ready for Phoebe Somerville -- the outrageous, curvaceous New York knockout who has just inherited the Chicago Stars football team. And Phoebe is definitely not prepared for the Stars' head coach Dan Celebow, a sexist jock taskmaster with a one-track mind. Celebow is everything Phoebe abhors. And the sexy new boss is everything Dan despises -- a meddling bimbo who doesn't know a pigskin from a pitcher's mound. So why is he drawn to the shameless sexpot like a heat-seeking missile? And why does the coach's good ol' boy charm leave cosmopolitan Phoebe feeling awkward, tongue-tied....and ready to fight? The sexy, heartwarming, and hilarious "prequel" to Susan Elizabeth Phillip's This Heart of Mine -- her sensational bestsellng blockbuster -- It Had To Be You is an enchanting story of two stubborn people who believe in playing for keeps.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips - This heart of mine

2011-11-02T12:34:00.000-07:00

Molly Somerville loves her career as the creator of the Daphne the Bunny children's book series, but the rest of her life could use some improvement. She has a reputation for trouble that started even before she gave away her fifteen-million-dollar inheritance. Then there's her long-term crush on the quarterback for the Chicago Stars football team her sister owns -- that awful, gorgeous Kevin Tucker, a man who can't even remember Molly's name! One night Kevin barges into Molly's not-quite-perfect life and turns it upside down. Unfortunately, the Ferrari-driving, poodle-hating jock isn't as shallow as she wishes he were, and she soon finds herself at a place called Wind Lake. Surrounded by paintbox cottages, including a charming old bed-and-breakfast, Molly and Kevin battle their attraction and each other as they face one of life's most important lessons. Sometimes love hurts, sometimes it makes you mad as hell, and sometimes -- if you're lucky -- it can heal in a most unexpected way.

Melissa Hill - Please forgive me

2011-11-02T12:32:00.000-07:00

Don’t you wish you could change your life? Leonie thinks she has. The day she leaves for San Francsico, not even her best friend knows where she is.

Now she’s living in a gorgeous apartment, working in a flower shop, beginning to make new friends. Things couldn’t be more different. Until she stumbles on a bundle of mysterious love letters, and begins to wonder if maybe, instead of running away, she needs to start remembering all she’s left behind . . .

Celia Rees - Pirates

2011-11-02T12:28:00.000-07:00

Nancy Kington, daughter of a rich merchant,  suddenly orphaned when her father dies, is sent to live on her family's  plantation in Jamaica. Disgusted by the treatment of the slaves and her  brother's willingness to marry her off, she and one of the slaves,  Minerva, run away and join a band of pirates. For both girls the pirate  life is their only chance for freedom in a society where both are  treated like property... rather than individuals! Together they go in  search of adventure, love, and a new life that breaks all restrictions  of gender, race, and position. 
Told through Nancy's writings, their adventures will appeal to readers across the spectrum and around the world.

Dalia Sofer - The Septembers of Shiraz

2011-11-02T12:24:00.000-07:00

In the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, rare-gem dealer Isaac Amin is arrested, wrongly accused of being a spy. Terrified by his disappearance, his family must reconcile a new world of cruelty and chaos with the collapse of everything they have known. As Isaac navigates the tedium and terrors of prison, forging tenuous trusts, his wife feverishly searches for him, suspecting, all the while, that their once-trusted housekeeper has turned on them and is now acting as an informer. And as his daughter, in a childlike attempt to stop the wave of baseless arrests, engages in illicit activities, his son, sent to New York before the rise of the Ayatollahs, struggles to find happiness even as he realizes that his family may soon be forced to embark on a journey of incalculable danger. A page-turning literary debut, The Septembers of Shiraz simmers with questions of identity, alienation, and love, not simply for a spouse or a child, but for all the intangible sights and smells of the place we call home.

Henry Miller - Tropic of cancer

2011-11-02T12:21:00.000-07:00

Now hailed as an American classic, Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller's masterpiece, was banned as obscene in the USA for 27 years after its publication in Paris in 1934. Only a historic court ruling that changed American censorship standards permitted the publication of this first volume of Miller's famed mixture of memoir and fiction, which chronicles with unapologetic gusto the bawdy adventures of a young expatriate writer, his friends, and the characters they meet in Paris in the 1930s.

Jules Verne - 20.000 leagues under the sea

2011-11-02T12:17:00.000-07:00

When a huge, and glowing sea monster attacks and wrecks several ships, French professor Professor Arronax joins an US mission to hunt for the mysterious beast. The professor soon finds himself aboard the submarine beast Nautilus and a "guest" of Captain Nemo who is intent on exploring the ocean depths.

The French title of this novel is Vingt mille lieues sous les mers. This is accurately translated as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the SEAS - rather than the SEA, as with many English editions. Verne's novel features a tour of the major oceans, and the term Leagues in its title is used as a measure not of depth but distance.

Dan Simmons - A winter haunting

2011-11-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

A once-respected college professor and novelist, Dale Stewart has sabotaged his career and his marriage -- and now darkness is closing in on him. In the last hours of Halloween he has returned to the dying town of Elm Haven, his boyhood home, where he hopes to find peace in isolation. But moving into a long-deserted farmhouse on the far outskirts of town -- the one-time residence of a strange and brilliant friend who lost his young life in a grisly "accident" back in the terrible summer of 1960 -- is only the latest in his long succession of recent mistakes. Because Dale is not alone here. He has been followed to this house of shadows by private demons who are now twisting his reality into horrifying new forms. And a thick, blanketing early snow is starting to fall ...

Colleen McCullough - The thorn birds

2011-11-02T12:10:00.000-07:00

Colleen McCullough's sweeping saga of dreams, struggles, dark passions, and forbidden love in the Australian Outback has enthralled readers the world over. This is the chronicle of three generations of Clearys, ranchers carving lives from a beautiful, hard land while contending with the bitterness, frailty, and secrets that penetrate their family. Most of all, it is the story of only daughter Meggie and her lifelong relationship with the haunted priest Father Ralph de Bricassart—an intense joining of two hearts and souls that dangerously oversteps sacred boundaries of ethics and dogma. A poignant love story, a powerful epic of struggle and sacrifice, a celebration of individuality and spirit, Colleen McCullough's acclaimed masterwork remains a monumental literary achievement—a landmark novel to be cherished and read again and again.

Carl Hiaasen - Skinny Dip

2011-11-02T12:08:00.000-07:00

Charles "Chaz" Perrone fancies himself a take-charge kind of guy. So when this "biologist by default" suspects that his curvaceous wife, Joey, has stumbled onto a profitable pollution scam he's running on behalf of Florida agribusiness mogul Red Hammernut, he sets out right away to solve the problem--by heaving Joey off the deck of a luxury cruise liner and into the Atlantic Ocean, far from Key West. But--whoops!--Joey, a former swimming champ, doesn't drown. Instead, as Carl Hiaasen tells in his 10th adult novel, Skinny Dip, she makes her way back to shore, thanks both to a wayward bale of Jamaican marijuana and lonerish ex-cop Mick Stranahan (Skin Tight, 1989), and then launches a bogus blackmail campaign that's guaranteed to drive her lazy, libidinous hubby into a self-protective frenzy.You've got to hand it to Hiaasen: He's perfected a formula for crisply written, satirical crime fiction that makes the best use of imaginatively repulsive villains, as well as less thoroughly venal scoundrels and victims who ultimately overcome their antagonists, all while stumping for the preservation of Florida's environment, particularly the Everglades. In Skinny Dip, we find Chaz (who'd rather be golfing than puttering around the "hot, buggy, funky-smelling and treacherous" reaches of nature) falsifying water samples to help Hammernut turn the 'Glades into "God's septic tank." That scheme, though, is endangered not just by Joey's sudden disappearance, but by the suspicions of a python-loving police detective and Chaz's own outstanding inability to tame his Viagra-enhanced tumescence. Even by assigning Chaz a baby-sitter--the hulking, hirsute, and painkiller-addicted Tool--Hammernut can't keep his pet biologist out of trouble. As Joey and Stranahan unfold their revenge plot, and Tool's conscience grows in competition with Chaz's ego, the reader can only marvel at the extent of the train wreck ahead.As much fun as Hiaasen has delivering Chaz his climactic comeuppance, what's missing from Skinny Dip is a more complex, more credible development of Stranahan's character and the relationship he builds with the much younger Joey Perrone. Like Erin Grant, from Strip Tease, Joey has far more going for her than her bra-cup size; but "hero" Stranahan is of far less interest here than any of his fellow players.

Anne Rice - Violin

2011-11-02T12:06:00.000-07:00

Triana's grief is deep and almost boundless. Death has marked her, and taken her husband. Now only the music in her dreams can carry her from night to night. And now, into those dreams, into those nights, comes Stefan, the restless, tormented ghost of a Russian aristocrat. Stefan's musical genius will first enchant Triana, then dominate her so that she will be drawn into the cruel past in which he lived his earthly life. Finally Triana will find herself in the realm of ghosts and spectres where an ally awaits her...

Anita Loos - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes -and- But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes

2011-11-02T12:03:00.000-07:00

The incomparable adventures of Lorelei Lee, a little girl from Little Rock who takes the world by storm. Anita Loos first published the diaries of the ultimate gold-digging blonde in the flapper days of 1925. Now GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES and its brunette sequel are together at last in a two-in-one volume, complete with the original hilarious Ralph Barton illustrations throughout.

Santa Montefiore - Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree

2011-11-02T11:59:00.000-07:00

Spoilt, wilful, resourceful and proud, Sofia Solanas grows up on a magnificent ranch in the middle of the Argentine pampas, loved by all around her. All, that is, except her Irish mother, Anna, who punishes her daughter for her own sense of alienation and inadequacy while doting on her sons. When a horrified Anna discovers that Sofia has embarked on a passionate love affair that can only bring shame upon the family, she sends Sofia away to Europe, inadvertently exiling her from her family and the man she loves for over twenty years. And then a family tragedy calls Sofia home. Following the story of the Solanas family in Argentina during the tumultous years of political upheaval, and Sofia's life in exile, MEET ME UNDER THE OMBU TREE is a moving, evocative and unforgettable story of love and forgiveness from a brilliant new voice.

Astrid Lindgren - Pippi Longstocking

2011-11-02T11:54:00.000-07:00

This is the story of Pippi Longstocking who lives in the Villa Villekula and her horse and monkey (Mr. NIilsson). Pippi is stronger than any policeman ever seen in all the world and is forever rushing from one adventure to the other with her red pigtails that stick straight out and her mistmatched stockings.

Felix Salten - Bambi

2011-11-02T11:52:00.000-07:00

The Prince of the Forest Bambi's life in the woods begins happily. There are forest animals to play with -- Friend Hare, the chattery squirrel, the noisy screech owl, and Bambi's twin cousins, frail Gobo and beautiful Faline. But winter comes, and Bambi learns that the woods hold danger -- and things he doesn't understand. The first snowfall makes food hard to find. Bambi's father, a handsome stag, roams the forest, but leaves Bambi and his mother alone. Then there is Man. He comes to the forest with weapons that can wound an animal. He does terrible things to Gobo, to Bambi's mother, and even to Bambi. But He can't keep Bambi from growing into a handsome stag himself, and becoming...the Prince of the Forest.

Frances Mayes - Under the Tuscan Sun

2011-11-02T11:49:00.000-07:00

Frances Mayes--widely published poet, gourmet cook, and travel writer--opens the door to a wondrous new world when she buys and restores an abandoned villa in the spectacular Tuscan countryside. In sensuous and evocative language, she brings the reader along as she discovers the beauty and simplicity of life in Italy. An accomplished cook and food writer, Mayes also creates dozens of delicious seasonal recipes from her traditional kitchen and simple garden, all of which are included in this audio. Doing for Tuscany what M.F.K. Fisher and Peter Mayle did for Provence, Mayes writes about the tastes and pleasures of a foreign country with gusto and passion. A celebration of the extraordinary quality of life in Tuscany, Under the Tuscan Sun is a feast for all senses.

Kenize Mourad - The garden of Badalpur

2011-11-02T11:46:00.000-07:00

A marvelous tale of filial love that examines the complex roots of East and West. Set in turn-of-the-20th century India, Zahr, a Sultan's daughter orphaned at birth and raised in Europe, returns to her homeland to begin the poignant search for her father and her rightful lineage, but encounters instead a country torn by religious strife, poverty and loss.

Kenize Mourad - Regards from the Dead Princess

2011-11-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

On January 13, 1941, the Rani Selma of Badalpur and Aysha Salimabad died in German-occupied France. She left behind grieving friends, an estranged husband (the Rajah Amir), and a fifteen-month-old daughter. Some four decades later, her orphaned daughter re-creates in novel form the life of the mother she never truly knew.

The story opens in the last months of World War I, with the introduction of Princess Selma--granddaughter of Sultan Murad V. Murad V ascended to the throne of the Ottoman Empire with the death of his uncle, Abdul Aziz, in 1876, only to be overthrown and replaced by his brother Abdul Hamid II. Despite such political developments, Princess Selma spent her childhood amidst the luxury and privilege of a member of a royal family which had ruled a vast empire for some six hundred years. Yet, before she came of age, the Empire suffered the indignity of defeat, invasion, and occupation by the victorious Allied powers. Then followed years of civil war as nationalist forces under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal battled the Greeks, British, and French in pursuit of independence from foreign rule. Ultimately, the victory of Kemal led to the overthrow of the Sultanate, the establishment of the Turkish Republic, and the exile of all members of the royal family.

In consequence, Selma and her mother took refuge in Lebanon with such funds as they were able to carry away on short notice. In Beirut, under conditions of genteel poverty, Selma became an attractive and important fixture in Lebanese society. With no fortune at her disposal, she was obliged to barter the family name for the security of marriage. Therefore, in 1936, she agreed to marry the Rajah of Badalpur and Aysha Salimabad. Ironically, Selma, who witnessed the decline and death of an empire as a child, now found herself a spectator as British colonial rule in India approached its end. Selma found it difficult, to say the least, to adjust to life as the Rani of Badalpur and Aysha Salimabad. In 1939, pregnant and estranged from her husband, Selma fled to Paris--ostensibly to take advantage of the medical facilities available in France. In fact, however, she had no intention of returning to her husband--informing him that the child was born dead. The strain of being an enemy alien in Occupied France proved too much for Selma, and she died tragically in 1941.

Elizabeth Kostova - The historian

2011-11-02T11:38:00.000-07:00

A college professor is given a book containing a picture leading him to look into Dracula. HIs fellow professor goes missing and starts us on a jpurney through history and personal lives.A girl discovers some letters in her father's library and embarks on a voyage, discovering about her absent mother and about her father's professor, a voyage which leads us to many European countries, starting in Amsterdam, crossing Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary, and many more, in an exciting and frightening journey, with the purpose of finding out the final resting place of Dracula.

Amin Maalouf - Samarkand

2011-11-02T11:33:00.000-07:00

Accused of mocking the inviolate codes of Islam, the Persian poet and sage Omar Khayyam fortuitously finds sympathy with the very man who is to judge his alleged crimes. Recognising genuis, the judge decides to spare him and gives him instead a small, blank book, encouraging him to confine his thoughts to it alone. Thus beginds the seamless blend of fact and fiction that is Samarkand. Vividly re-creating the history of the manuscript of the Rubaiyaat of Omar Khayyam, Amin Maalouf spans continents and centuries with breathtaking vision: the dusky exoticism of 11th-century Persia, with its poetesses and assassins; the same country's struggles nine hundred years later, seen through the eyes of an American academic obsessed with finding the original manuscript ; and the fated maiden voyage of the Titanic, whose tragedy led to the Rubaiyaat's final resting place - all are brought to life with keen assurance by this gifted and award-winning writer.

Johanna Spyri - Heidi

2011-11-02T11:27:00.000-07:00

Adelheid (third syllable is pronounced as "height"), alias Heidi, is a girl who has been raised by her aunt Dete in Maienfeld, Switzerland after the early deaths of her parents, Tobias and Adelheid. Dete brings 5-year-old Heidi to her grandfather, who has been at odds with the villagers for years and lives in seclusion on the alm. This has earned him the nickname Alp-Öhi . He at first resents Heidi's arrival, but the girl manages to penetrate his harsh exterior and subsequently has a delightful stay with him and her best friend, young Peter the goat - herd.

Dete returns three years later to bring Heidi to Frankfurt as a companion of a 12-year-old girl named Klara Sesemann, who is regarded as an invalid. Heidi spends a year with Klara, conflicting with the Sesemanns' strict housekeeper Fraulein Rottenmeier and becoming more and more homesick. Her one diversion is learning to read and write, motivated by her desire to go home and read to Peter's blind grandmother. Heidi's increasingly failing health and several instances of sleepwalking (her grandfather had earlier expressed concern that stress might cause Heidi to manifest epilepsy and sleepwalking traits from her mother) prompt Klara's doctor to send her home to her grandfather. Her return prompts the grandfather to descend to the village for the first time in years, marking an end to his seclusion.

Heidi and Klara continue to contact each other. A visit by the doctor to Heidi and her grandfather convinces him to recommend Klara to visit Heidi. Meanwhile, Heidi teaches Peter to read and write. Klara makes the journey the next season and spends a wonderful summer with Heidi. Klara becomes stronger on goat's milk and fresh mountain air, but Peter, feeling deprived of Heidi's attention, pushes Klara's wheelchair down the mountain to its destruction. Without her wheelchair, Klara attempts to walk and is gradually successful. Klara's grandmother and father are amazed and overcome with joy to see Klara walking. Klara's wealthy family promises to provide a shelter for Heidi, in case her grandfather will no longer be able to do so.

Alberto Moravia - The Woman of Rome

2011-11-02T11:25:00.000-07:00

The glitter and cynicism of Rome under Mussolini provide the background of what is probably Alberto Moravia's best and best-known novel - The Woman of Rome. It's the story of Adriana, a simple girl with no fortune but her beauty who models naked for a painter, accepts gifts from men, and could never quite identify the moment when she traded her private dream of home and children for the life of a prostitute. One of the very few novels of the twentieth century which can be ranked with the work of Dostoevsky, The Woman of Rome also tells the stories of the tortured university student Giacomo, a failed revolutionary who refuses to admit his love for Adriana; of the sinister figure of Astarita, the Secret Police officer obsessed with Adriana; and of the coarse and brutal criminal Sonzogno, who treats Adriana as his private property.

Sophie Kinsella - Mini Shopaholic

2011-11-02T11:22:00.000-07:00

Sophie Kinsella has dazzled readers with her irresistible Shopaholic novels which are also in a series—sensational international bestsellers that have garnered millions of devoted fans and catapulted her into the first rank of contemporary storytellers. Now her beloved heroine Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood) returns in a hilarious tale of married life, toddlerhood, and the perils of trying to give a fabulous surprise party—on a budget! Becky Brandon thought motherhood would be a breeze and that having a daughter was a dream come true: a shopping friend for life! But it’s trickier than she thought. Two-year-old Minnie has a quite different approach to shopping. Minnie creates havoc everywhere she goes, from Harrods to her own christening. Her favorite word is “Mine!” and she’s even trying to get into eBay! On top of everything else, Becky and Luke are still living with her parents (the deal on house #5 has fallen through), when suddenly there’s a huge financial crisis. With people having to “cut back,” Becky decides to throw a surprise party for Luke to cheer everyone up. But when costs start to spiral out of control, she must decide whether to accept help from an unexpected source—and therefore run the risk of hurting the person she loves. Will Becky be able to pull off the celebration of the year? Will she and Luke ever find a home of their own? Will Minnie ever learn to behave? And . . . most importantly . . . will Becky’s secret wishes ever come true?

Susan Elizabeth Phillips - Just imagine

2011-11-02T11:20:00.000-07:00

The War Between the States may be over for the rest of the country, but not for Kit Weston. Disguised as a boy, she's come to New York City to kill Baron Cain, the man who stands between her and Risen Glory, the South Carolina home she loves. But unknown to Kit, the Yankee war hero is more than her most bitter enemy -- he's also her guardian. And he'll be a lot harder to kill than she's figured on... Believing that Kit's a boy, Cain offers the grubby rapscallion a job in his stable. But he has no idea what he's in for, and it's not long before the hero of Missionary Ridge discovers the truth. His scamp of a stable boy is a strong-willed, violet-eyed beauty who's hell-bent on driving him crazy. Two hard-headed, passionate people....Two stubborn opponents with tender souls....Sometimes wars of the heart can only be won through the sweetest of surrenders.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón - The Shadow of the Wind

2011-11-02T11:17:00.001-07:00

Barcelona, 1945 -- just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his eleventh birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again. Daniel's father coaxes him to choose a volume from the spiraling labyrinth of shelves, one that, it is said, will have a special meaning for him. And Daniel so loves the novel he selects, The Shadow of the Wind by one Julian Carax, that he sets out to find the rest of Carax's work. To his shock, he discovers that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book this author has written. In fact, he may have the last one in existence. Before Daniel knows it his seemingly innocent quest has opened a door into one of Barcelona's darkest secrets, an epic story of murder, magic, madness and doomed love. And before long he realizes that if he doesn't find out the truth about Julian Carax, he and those closest to him will suffer horribly.

Ernest Hemingway - The sun also rises

2011-11-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

A group of American dilettantes living in post-World War I Europe travel from France to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls. The men in the group (as well as many of the locals they encounter) covet and vigorously pursue the beautiful and promiscuous Lady Brett Ashley, but the narrator, war veteran Jake Barnes, is unable to consummate his desire for her as a result of a war injury that spared him his life, but took his manhood.

Jennifer Crusie - Bet me

2011-11-02T11:05:00.000-07:00

Minerva Dobbs knows that happily-ever-after is a fairy tale, especially with a man who asked her to dinner to win a bet. Even if he is gorgeous and successful Calvin Morrisey. Cal knows commitment is impossible, especially with a woman as cranky as Min Dobbs. Even if she does wear great shoes, and keep him on his toes. When they say good-bye at the end of their evening, they cut their losses and agree never to see each other again. But Fate has other plans, and it's not long before Min and Cal meet again. Soon, they're dealing with a jealous ex-boyfriend, Krispy Kreme donuts, a determined psychologist, chaos theory, a freakishly intelligent cat, Chicken Marsala, and more risky propositions than either of them ever dreamed of. Including the biggest gamble of all-true love.

Ellen Wittlinger - Hard love

2011-10-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

Since his parents' divorce, John's mother hasn't touched him, her new fiancé wants them to move away, and his father would rather be anywhere than at Friday night dinner with his son. It's no wonder John writes articles like "Interview with the Stepfather" and "Memoirs from Hell." The only release he finds is in homemade zines like the amazing Escape Velocity by Marisol, a self-proclaimed "Puerto Rican Cuban Yankee Lesbian." Haning around the Boston Tower Records for the new issue of Escape Velocity, John meets Marisol and a hard love is born. While at first their friendship is based on zines, dysfuntional families, and dreams of escape, soon both John and Marisol begin to shed their protective shells. Unfortunately, John mistakes this growing intimacy for love, and a disastrous date to his junior prom leaves that friendship in ruins. Desperately hoping to fix things, John convinces Marisol to come with him to a zine conference on Cape Cod. On the sandy beaches by the Bluefish Wharf Inn, John realizes just how hard love can be. With keen insight into teenage life, Ellen Wittlinger delivers a story of adolescence that is fierce and funny -- and ultimately transforming -- even as it explores the pain of growing up.

Oscar Wilde - The happy prince and other stories

2011-10-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

Collection of children’s stories written in 1888, dealing primarily with love and selfishness. These stories are generally sad, with a moralistic message. The collection includes: The Happy Prince, The Nightingale and the Rose, The Selfish Giant, The Devoted Friend, and The Remarkable Rocket.

Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels

2011-10-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, better known simply as Gulliver's Travels (1726, amended 1735), is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers' tales" literary sub-genre. It is Swift's best known full-length work, and a classic of English literature. The voyages of an Englishman carry him to such strange places as Lilliput, where people are six inches tall; Brobdingnag, a land of giants; and a country ruled by horses.

Cecily Von Ziegesar - Gossip girl

2011-10-25T10:40:00.000-07:00

'Welcome to New York City's Upper East Side, where my friends and I live and go to school and play and sleep - sometimes with each other. We're smart, we've inherited classic good looks, and we know how to party. It's a luxe life, but someone's got to live it.' The Gossip Girl series is the ultimate in glamour and cool - set in New York's glamorous Upper East Side the narrative follows the thrills and spills (with Jimmy Choo shoes and shopping at Barneys mixed in along the way) of its richest and most beautiful teenage residents. 'Gossip Girl' is the ultimate in sophistication, scandal and luxury - in fact if Carrie Bradshaw of 'Sex and the City' had a younger sister, there is no doubt she would be 'Gossip Girl'! Publisher's Weekly is quoted: 'Gossip Girl has the effect of gossip itself - once you enter it's hard to extract yourself; teens will devour this whole'. We will be publishing the series at regular intervals throughout 2003 with a high profile, energetic and suitably cutting-edge marketing campaign. This deliciously catty and engrossing series will be the spicy vanguard for Bloomsbury pushing the bundaries into young adult fiction.

Ernest Hemingway - A farewell to arms

2011-10-25T10:36:00.000-07:00

The best American novel to emerge from World War I, A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Hemingway's frank portrayal of the love between Lieutenant Henry and Catherine Barkley, caught in the inexorable sweep of war, glows with an intensity unrivaled in modern literature, while his description of the German attack on Caporetto -- of lines of fired men marching in the rain, hungry, weary, and demoralized -- is one of the greatest moments in literary history. A story of love and pain, of loyalty and desertion, A Farewell to Arms, written when he was 30 years old, represents a new romanticism for Hemingway.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips - Fancy pants

2011-10-25T02:40:00.000-07:00

She was the most beautiful British bauble in Europe's jet-set playgrounds. Now she's broke, furious, and limping down a backwoods road in an ugly pink Southern Belle gown....

He was tall, lean, and all-American gorgeous. He liked his brews cold and women loved to keep him warm. Why in hell is he stopping his car for this woebegone, surly Scarlett?

Meet Francesca Day and Dallie Beaudine, two incredible characters whose tangled love affair is at the heart of this ravishing New York Times bestseller from award-winning author Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Come enjoy the adventure of a lifetime — an irresistible story that's touching, hilarious, and hellcat-passionate. You'll never forget Dallie and the sassy lady who needs a good swift kick in her...

Lauren Weisberger - Everyone Worth Knowing

2011-10-25T02:38:00.001-07:00

What happens when a girl on the fringe enters the realm of New York's chic, party-hopping elite? Soon after Bette Robinson quits her horrendous Manhattan banking job like the impulsive girl she's never been, the novelty of walking her four-pound dog around the unglamorous Murray Hill neighborhood wears as thin as the "What are you going to do with your life?" phone calls from her parents. Then Bette meets Kelly, head of Manhattan's hottest PR firm, and suddenly she has a brand-new job where the primary requirement is to see and be seen inside the VIP rooms of the city's most exclusive nightclubs. But when Bette begins appearing in a vicious new gossip column, she realizes that the line between her personal life and her professional life is...invisible.

Katherine Neville - The Eight

2011-10-25T02:34:00.000-07:00

Computer expert Cat Velis is heading for a job to Algeria. Before she goes, a mysterious fortune teller warns her of danger, and an antique dealer asks her to search for pieces to a valuable chess set that has been missing for years...In the South of France in 1790 two convent girls hide valuable pieces of a chess set all over the world, because the game that can be played with them is too powerful....

Jeanne Ray - Eat cake

2011-10-25T02:29:00.000-07:00

Ever since childhood, Ruth has found baking cakes to be a source of relief from the stresses of life. And now-as her husband loses his job, her life-of-the-party father arrives for an extended stay (much to the dismay of her mother, who also moved in recently), and her teenage daughter perfects the art of sulking-Ruth is going to need some serenity. But she also needs a plan. Because with funds running low and tempers running short, her family needs more than the perfect sweet. It's going to be up to Ruth to save the day, and let the crumbs fall where they may...

Pat Barker - Double vision

2011-10-25T02:25:00.000-07:00

In the aftermath of covering 9/11, English war reporter Stephen Sharkey and photographer Ben Frobisher leave New York and part company. Stephen returns to the devastating discovery of the end of his marriage; while on assignment in Afghanistan Ben is killed. Retreating to the English countryside to write a book questioning the role of the war reporter and photographer Stephen enters into complicated relationships with Ben’s widow Kate, a sculptor, her disturbing and sinister young studio assistant, and a young au-pair. Set far from the literal theatre of war, Double Vision is nonetheless a novel about its representation and effects as Pat Barker once more lays bare the complexities of desire and violence.

Lauren Weisberger - Chasing Harry Winston

2011-10-24T11:31:00.000-07:00

The bestselling author of The Devil Wears Prada and Everyone Worth Knowing returns with the story of three best friends who vow to change their entire lives...and change them fast. Emmy is newly single, and not by choice. She was this close to the ring and the baby she's wanted her whole life when her boyfriend left her for his twenty-three-year-old personal trainer -- whose fees are paid by Emmy. With her plans for the perfect white wedding in the trash, Emmy is now ordering takeout for one. Her friends insist an around-the-world sex-fueled adventure will solve all her problems -- could they be right? Leigh , a young star in the publishing business, is within striking distance of landing her dream job as senior editor and marrying her dream guy. And to top it all off, she has just purchased her dream apartment. Only when Leigh begins to edit the enfant terrible of the literary world, the brilliant and brooding Jesse Chapman, does she start to notice some cracks in her perfect life... Adriana is the drop-dead-gorgeous daughter of a famous supermodel. She possesses the kind of feminine wiles made only in Brazil, and she never hesitates to use them. But she's about to turn thirty and -- as her mother keeps reminding her -- she won't have her pick of the men forever. Everyone knows beauty is ephemeral and there's always someone younger and prettier right around the corner. Suddenly she's wondering...does Mother know best? These three very different girls have been best friends for a decade in the greatest city on earth. As they near thirty, they're looking toward their future...but despite all they've earned -- first-class travel, career promotions, invites to all the right parties, and luxuries small and large -- they're not quite sure they like what they see... One Saturday night at the Waverly Inn, Adriana and Emmy make a pact: within a single year, each will drastically change her life. Leigh watches from the sidelines, not making any promises, but she'll soon discover she has the most to lose. Their friendship is forever, but everything else is on the table. Three best friends. Two resolutions. One year to pull it off.

Peter Mayle - Chasing Cezanne

2011-10-24T09:41:00.000-07:00

Our hero, glamorous art photographer Andre Kelly, is on assignment for glamorous DQ Magazine--run by the glamorous Camilla Porter--in Cape Ferrat on the (you guessed it) glamorous Côte d'Azur. Snooping around an ancestral pile for some snaps, by chance he spies Old Claude, the ancient retainer of the immensely wealthy Denoyer family, packing the family Cezanne into a plumbing van. Puzzled, Andre investigates, and the game is afoot. Peter Mayle's latest effort, Chasing Cezanne, is a whodunit that shows good manners and impeccable taste. It takes its characters--graduates of all the best schools, of course--to some of the world's most posh locales. The plot device is high rent, too: a purloined painting worth a cool $30 million. To call this book lightweight seems unfair and boorish besides. There's lots of travel, lots of opulence, lots of opportunities for Mayle to describe Paris and Provence, and all the yummies you'll find in both places. Who can worry about a mystery when the food's so delectable?

Stephenie Meyer - The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella

2011-10-24T09:35:00.000-07:00

Bree Tanner, who first appeared briefly as a newborn vampire in Meyer’s Eclipse (2007), is the star of this slim partner to the megamillion-selling Twilight series. A self-described “vampire nerd,” Bree recounts her adventures as she roams Seattle fulfilling her thirst for blood (and Meyer fans’ thirst for more books). In a passionate introduction, Meyer reiterates what Eclipse readers already know: Bree has few nights left on Earth. As she joins her red-eyed coven in battle against yellow-eyed adversaries that, while foreign to Bree, will be instantly recognizable to millions of human readers, she finds her first (kissable) friend and discovers a truth about daylight. Formatted as one long, breathless chapter, this novella includes the same casual language and elements of suspense and romance found in the Twilight quartet, and interlocking characters and dialogue fit it easily into Bree and Bella’s scene in Eclipse. While Twilight fans will appreciate the story as an expansion of Bella’s world, this rapid read also stands satisfyingly alone.

Stephenie Meyer - Twilight

2011-10-24T09:28:00.000-07:00

Grade 9 Up–Headstrong, sun-loving, 17-year-old Bella declines her mom's invitation to move to Florida, and instead reluctantly opts to move to her dad's cabin in the dreary, rainy town of Forks, WA. She becomes intrigued with Edward Cullen, a distant, stylish, and disarmingly handsome senior, who is also a vampire. When he reveals that his specific clan hunts wildlife instead of humans, Bella deduces that she is safe from his blood-sucking instincts and therefore free to fall hopelessly in love with him. The feeling is mutual, and the resulting volatile romance smolders as they attempt to hide Edward's identity from her family and the rest of the school. Meyer adds an eerie new twist to the mismatched, star-crossed lovers theme: predator falls for prey, human falls for vampire. This tension strips away any pretense readers may have about the everyday teen romance novel, and kissing, touching, and talking take on an entirely new meaning when one small mistake could be life-threatening. Bella and Edward's struggle to make their relationship work becomes a struggle for survival, especially when vampires from an outside clan infiltrate the Cullen territory and head straight for her. As a result, the novel's danger-factor skyrockets as the excitement of secret love and hushed affection morphs into a terrifying race to stay alive. Realistic, subtle, succinct, and easy to follow, Twilight will have readers dying to sink their teeth into it.–Hillias J. Martin, New York Public Library

Stephenie Meyer - Eclipse

2011-10-24T09:25:00.000-07:00

"Edward’s soft voice came from behind me. I turned to see him spring lightly up the porch steps, his hair windblown from running. He pulled me into his arms at once, just like he had in the parking lot, and kissed me again. This kiss frightened me. There was too much tension, too strong an edge to the way his lips crushed mine-like he was afraid we had only so much time left to us."

As Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire, Victoria, continues her quest for revenge, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob-–knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella has one more decision to make: life or death. But which is which?
if you’ve enjoyed the first two installments in Stephenie Meyer’s addicting Twilight Saga, picking up Eclipse is a foregone conclusion. And while this book offers plenty of vampire action and teenage romantic drama to thrill fans of the series, it fails to soar quite as high as its predecessors.

Stephenie Meyer - New moon

2011-10-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

For Bella Swan, there is one thing more important than life itself: Edward Cullen. But being in love with a vampire is even more dangerous than Bella could ever have imagined. Edward has already rescued Bella from the clutches of one evil vampire, but now, as their daring relationship threatens all that is near and dear to them, they realize their troubles may be just beginning...

Legions of readers entranced by the New York Times bestseller Twilight are hungry for the continuing story of star-crossed lovers, Bella and Edward. In New Moon, Stephenie Meyer delivers another irresistible combination of romance and suspense with a supernatural twist. Passionate, riveting, and full of surprising twists and turns, this vampire love saga is well on its way to literary immortality.

Stephenie Meyer - Breaking Dawn

2011-10-24T09:19:00.000-07:00

When you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your life was all you had to give, how could you not give it? If it was someone you truly loved? It would cost you your life. How could you leave the person you love the most, when you know it'll hurt them the most as well?

To be irrevocably in love with a vampire is both fantasy and nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen, and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, a tumultuous year of temptation, loss, and strife have led her to the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or to pursue a fully human life has become the thread from which the fates of two tribes hangs. Now that Bella has made her decision, a startling chain of unprecedented events is about to unfold with potentially devastating, and unfathomable, consequences. Just when the frayed strands of Bella's life--first discovered in Twilight, then scattered and torn in New Moon and Eclipse-seem ready to heal and knit together, could they be destroyed...forever? The astonishing, breathlessly anticipated conclusion to the Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions.

Robert Ludlum - The Bourne identity

2011-10-24T09:15:00.000-07:00

Jason Bourne. He has no past. And he may have no future. His memory is blank. He only knows that he was flushed out of the Mediterranean Sea, his body riddled with bullets. There are a few clues. A frame of microfilm surgically implanted beneath the flesh of his hip. Evidence that plastic surgery has altered his face. Strange things that he says in his delirium--maybe code words. Initial: "J.B." And a number on the film negative that leads to a Swiss bank account, a fortune of four million dollars, and, at last, a name: Jason Bourne. But now he is marked for death, caught in a maddening puzzle, racing for survival through the deep layers of his buried past into a bizarre world of murderous conspirators--led by Carlos, the world's most dangerous assassin. And no one can help Jason Bourne but the woman who once wanted to escape him.

Ahmet M. Rahmanovic - Black soul

2011-10-24T09:11:00.000-07:00

"The greatest assets are its characters. Well rounded and written in depth, the relation-ships between them can be compared to some in the world's greatest literature. Namely, relationship between Hamza and his father, by type and value is reminiscent of Andrei Bolkonsky and his father, in Tolstoy's "War and Peace." It is a kind of love, between father and son, which on the surface reveals little, if anything. However, its depths contain everything one that human being is able to offer another. - Academic, Tvrtko Kulenovic , Literature Professor " Black Soul is the riveting tale of one man's journey from the battle-torn hills of Sarajevo to the bustling, windblown streets of Chicago. Hamza's story describes the amazing resilience of a human being who has visited the depths of hell and has lived to tell about it. - Susan Bertuglia "Black Soul is a novel that cannot be put down, and grabs the reader from page one. It is a story of love and war, of tenderness and brutality. The author depicts the raw, often brutal story and unorthodox aggression, the likes of which are unprecedented in the his-tory of war, madness, insanity, blood, and hypocrisy of world powers." - Mugdim Karabeg, Journalist

Ann Patchett - Bel Canto

2011-10-24T09:07:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening -- until a band of gunwielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers.

Elif Shafak - The bastard of Istanbul

2011-10-24T05:11:00.000-07:00

From one of Turkey’s most acclaimed and outspoken writers, a novel about the tangled histories of two families In her second novel written in English, Elif Shafak confronts her country’s violent past in a vivid and colorful tale set in both Turkey and the United States. At its center is the "bastard" of the title, Asya, a nineteen-year-old woman who loves Johnny Cash and the French Existentialists, and the four sisters of the Kazanci family who all live together in an extended household in Istanbul: Zehila, the zestful, headstrong youngest sister who runs a tattoo parlor and is Asya’s mother; Banu, who has newly discovered herself as a clairvoyant; Cevriye, a widowed high school teacher; and Feride, a hypochondriac obsessed with impending disaster. Their one estranged brother lives in Arizona with his wife and her Armenian daughter, Armanoush. When Armanoush secretly flies to Istanbul in search of her identity, she finds the Kazanci sisters and becomes fast friends with Asya. A secret is uncovered that links the two families and ties them to the 1915 Armenian deportations and massacres. Full of vigorous, unforgettable female characters, The Bastard of Istanbul is a bold, powerful tale that will confirm Shafak as a rising star of international fiction.

Ian McEwan - Atonement

2011-10-24T05:08:00.000-07:00

Ian McEwan's symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from this master of English prose. On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a moment's flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant and Cecilia's childhood friend. But Briony's incomplete grasp of adult motives together with her precocious literary gifts brings about a crime that will change all their lives. As it follows that crime s repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century, Atonement engages the reader on every conceivable level, with an ease and authority that mark it as a genuine masterpiece.

Sophocles - Antigone

2011-10-24T05:05:00.000-07:00

Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus, who died in the preceding story. Creon is her uncle/grandfather (the genetics are a bit muddy here) and he is leading the ruler of Thebes as the fight in a war. Creon declares Polyneices disgraces as he died fighting for the throne in Thebes during their civil war, while Eteocles will be given proper burial rights. Polyneices is the brother of Antigone and Ismene. They decide to procure his body and give him the proper burial rights, though Ismene's fear of the death penalty keeps her from going through with it. Creon discovers this and demands to speak with her, they argue and he decides she should be punished for her actions. He then calls Ismene to them as he suspects she had something to do with it. She falsely admits to helping her sister in order to die by her side but Antigone wouldn't have that so Ismene was spared. He decides to bury Antigone alive in a cave. Tiresias soon enters and demands Creon bury Polyneices for if he does not he will lose his own sons. Tiresias is always a blind prophet in the majority of these greek plays. Creon eventually goes to correct his mistakes and comes to learn that both Haemon (his son) and Antigone have taken their lives (they were engaged). When Eurydice (Haemon's mother) finds out she takes her life as well. Creon blames himself but remains king. He asserts the punishment by the gods will bring him wisdom.

Nick Hornby - 31 songs

2011-10-24T04:58:00.000-07:00

'I decided that I wanted to write a little book of essays about songs I loved ...Songs are what I listen to, almost to the exclusion of everything else.' In his first non-fiction work since "Fever Pitch", Nick Hornby writes about 31 songs that either have some great significance in his life - or are just songs that he loves. He discusses, among other things, guitar solos and losing your virginity to a Rod Stewart song and singers whose teeth whistle and the sort of music you hear in Body Shop. 'The soundtrack to his life ...a revealing insight into one of Britain's most popular writers' - "Evening Standard".

Ernest Hemingway - The short stories

2011-10-23T03:40:00.000-07:00

Before he gained wide fame as a novelist, Ernest Hemingway established his literary reputation with his short stories. This collection, The Short Stories, originally published in 1938, is definitive. Among these forty-nine short stories are Hemingway's earliest efforts, written when he was a young foreign correspondent in Paris, and such masterpieces as "Hills Like White Elephants," "The Killers," "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber," and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." Set in the varied landscapes of Spain, Africa, and the American Midwest, this collection traces the development and maturation of Hemingway's distinct and revolutionary storytelling style -- from the plain, bald language of his first story, "Up in Michigan," to the seamless prose and spare, eloquent pathos of "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" to the expansive solitude of the Big Two-Hearted River stories. These stories showcase the singular talent of a master, the most important American writer of the twentieth century.

Joanne Harris - Five Quarters of the Orange

2011-10-23T03:37:00.000-07:00

In her bestselling and critically acclaimed novel Chocolat, Joanne Harris told a lush story of the conflicts between pleasure and repression. Now she delivers her most complex and sophisticated work yet, an unforgettable tale of mothers and daughters, of the past and the present, of resisting and succumbing -- an extraordinary work of fiction lined with darkness and fierce joy. When Framboise Simon returns to a small village on the banks of the Loire, the locals do not recognize her as the daughter of the infamous woman they hold responsible for a tragedy during the German occupation years ago. But the past and present are inextricably entwined, particularly in a scrapbook of recipes and memories that Framboise has inherited from her mother. And soon Framboise will realize that the journal also contains the key to the tragedy that indelibly marked that summer of her ninth year....

Arthur Golden - Memoirs of a Geisha

2011-10-23T03:33:00.000-07:00

In this literary tour de force, novelist Arthur Golden enters a remote and shimmeringly exotic world.
For the protagonist of this peerlessly observant first novel is Sayuri, one of Japan's most celebrated geisha, a woman who is both performer and courtesan, slave and goddess.

We follow Sayuri from her childhood in an impoverished fishing village, where in 1929, she is sold to a representative of a geisha house, who is drawn by the child's unusual blue-grey eyes. From there she is taken to Gion, the pleasure district of Kyoto.
..She is nine years old.
In the years that follow, as she works to pay back the price of her purchase, Sayuri will be schooled in music and dance, learn to apply the geisha's elaborate makeup, wear elaborate kimono, and care for a coiffure so fragile that it requires a special pillow.
She will also acquire a magnanimous tutor and a venomous rival.
Surviving the intrigues of her trade and the upheavals of war, the resourceful Sayuri is a romantic heroine on the order of Jane Eyre and Scarlett O'Hara.

And "Memoirs of a Geisha" is a triumphant work - suspenseful, and utterly persuasive.

Nicci French - Killing me softly

2011-10-23T03:27:00.000-07:00

Alice Loudon has a devoted boyfriend and a challenging job as a research scientist. Then one morning, on her way to work, she exchanges a lingering look with a devastatingly attractive man. As a lover, Adam Tallis is more passionate than Alice's wildest imaginings. Soon, there isn't anything or anyone she wouldn't give up to stay by his side.

Karen Joy Fowler - The Jane Austen Book Club

2011-10-23T03:06:00.000-07:00

The Extraordinary New York Times Bestseller In California’s central valley, five women and one man join to discuss Jane Austen’s novels. Over the six months they get together, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens. With her eye for the frailties of human behavior and her ear for the absurdities of social intercourse, Karen Joy Fowler has never been wittier nor her characters more appealing. The result is a delicious dissection of modern relationships. Dedicated Austenites will delight in unearthing the echoes of Austen that run through the novel, but most readers will simply enjoy the vision and voice that, despite two centuries of separation, unite two great writers of brilliant social comedy.

Fadia Faqir - My Name is Salma

2011-10-20T03:54:00.000-07:00

In her village of Hima in the Levant, Salma, a young goat-herd, has violated the code of her Bedouin tribe by becoming pregnant before marriage. To restore their honour, the villagers set out to kill her. Now a runaway from the men of her tribe, Salma's days playing the pipe for her goats and swimming in the spring are over. She is placed in prison for her own protection, and to the sound of her deafening screams, her newborn baby is taken away. After several years, when it seems the men have given up on their chase, she moves to England to seek asylum. So begins her new life in the permissive West. In the middle of the most English of English towns, Exeter, she learns good manners from her ancient landlady, and strives to have a social life at the local pub. But it is with the help of Parvin, a feisty Pakistani girl on the run from an arranged marriage, that Salma is finally able to forge a new identity. But deep in her heart the cries of her baby daughter still echo. When she can no longer bear them, she decides to go back to her village to find her. It is a journey that will change everything - and nothing. Slipping seamlessly back and forth between the olive groves of the Levant and the rain-slicked streets of Exeter, "My Name is Salma" is a searing novel of forbidden love, violated honour and a woman's courage in the face of insurmountable odds. Fadia Faqir's portrait of the fractured lives of immigrants caught up in a painful yet exhilarating cross-cultural encounter is both heartbreaking and humorous. It is a story that will leave no-one unmoved.

India Edghill - Queenmaker: A Novel of King David's Queen

2011-10-20T03:51:00.000-07:00

For over forty years, Michal lived and reigned in David’s court. She was the beautiful and proud daughter of King Saul and the prize David would risk his kingdom to win. Behind the palace doors, beneath the burning sun of the desert, or fleeing from Absalom’s warriors, Michal was at the center of court intrigues. Queenmaker introduces in unforgettable detail the characters of one of the greatest periods in Biblical history—their public deeds and private thoughts—and gives us the court of the kings as only a woman could see it.

Louise Douglas - The love of my life

2011-10-20T03:48:00.000-07:00

'I miss him with every breath and heartbeat. He should have been my happy ending. Instead, he is the sad beginning to my story.' Olivia and Luca Felicone had known each other nearly all their lives, but when they fell in love as teenagers and eloped to London they broke the hearts of those closest to them. Luca's parents run Marinella's restaurant, the colourful hub of life in the otherwise bleak north-eastern seaside town of Watersford, and his mother, Angela, has never forgiven Olivia for causing such a rift in her beloved family.On a freezing January night Olivia's life is shattered when she learns that Luca has been killed in a car accident. She is left with nothing and, after suffering from weeks of overwhelming grief, she abandons her job and returns north to where Luca has been buried in Watersford. Olivia's chance meeting with Luca's married twin brother, Marc, leads to the realization that he is experiencing a loss almost as painful as her own. Their desolation draws them into an affair which both know has no future, but fills the space where Luca should be. It is a course of action that can only spiral out of control, and when it does the consequences are both explosive and cruel. "The Love of My Life" is a beautiful novel that portrays both the innocence of childhood, and the dynamics of love and loss with deftness and sensitivity. It is, above all, a stunning debut from an author with a unique and natural narrative voice.

Charles Dickens - Great Expectations

2011-10-20T03:42:00.000-07:00

The book focuses on a young boy, who becomes a young man, named Pip, raised by his over dominating sister, and a kind blacksmith, Joe Gargory. For awhile Pip has gratitude for living in the town, but, when he is spurned by the rich Estella and Miss Havisham, he wants to be something greater, someone richer. Being rich falls into his lap, but not without consequences. The book is about the follies of false vanities, of turning ones back on those who loved you, on trying to chase an uncatchable dream from those who don't reciprocate feelings, (in this case Pip's devotion to the haughty Estella) and for neglecting the good values of life for the ostentatious ones. Too often in todays society people forget about what's truly important, family and good friends, and associate with only the proud and the, what they deem to be, the important. In the process they get too wrapped up by material wealth rather than the simple beauties around them.

Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe

2011-10-20T01:22:00.000-07:00

The fictional Robinson Crusoe was born in York in the first half of the seventeenth century. He was a bit of a wastrel who longed for a seagoing career. He went on to own a plantation in Brazil becoming involved in the slave trade. Crusoe was shipwrecked on a desolate island in the Caribbean. All of his shipmates were drowned.
Crusoe was able to salvage tools, food and plants from the wrecked ship. He lived on the island for 28 years before he was rescued enabling him to return to England. During his long sojourn on the island Crusoe rescued his man Friday from cannibals. Friday was also a cannibal but was converted to Christianity by Crusoe. Crusoe also fought pirates who landed in his last year on the island . The bulk of the short novel deals with how Crusoe managed to survive. He did so by domesticating goats, training a pet parrot and planting various crops. He was very ingenious in his ability to survive.

Jill A. Davis - Girls' Poker Night

2011-10-20T01:19:00.000-07:00

Eat, Drink, Gossip...Who said Poker Night was just for the Guys? Dissatisfied both with writing a “Single Girl on the Edge/Ledge/Verge” column and with her boyfriend, Ruby Capote sends her best columns and a six-pack of beer to the editor of The New York News and lands herself a job in the big city. There, Ruby undertakes the venerable tradition of Poker Night—a way (as men have always known) to eat, drink, smoke, analyze, interrupt one another, share stories, and, most of all, raise the stakes. When Ruby falls for her boss, though, all bets are off. What happens when Mr. Right has his own unresolved past? As smart as it is laugh-out-loud funny, Girls’ Poker Night is a refreshingly upbeat look at friendship, work, and love.

Brian D'Amato - Beauty

2011-10-20T01:16:00.000-07:00

Obsessed with beauty, Jamie D'Angelo is an emerging New York artist whose true metier--reconstructing the human face--must be practiced secretly, since his advanced procedure has not been medically approved. With his expensive lifestyle supported by wealthy clients, Jamie longs to create a face of ultimate beauty. But when he finally fulfills his wish, the experiment backfires with hideous consequences. First novelist D'Amato, an artist himself, deftly captures society's preoccupation with youth and beauty. "Facial beauty is kind of a controlling metaphor for everything our society wants," declares Jamie, and in this deranged, arrogant character, the author stretches the compulsion to its darkest extreme. Trendiness aside, Beauty is a fascinating and memorable parable of artistic creation. Definitely recommended.

Robin Cook - Shock

2011-10-20T01:13:00.001-07:00

The novel is about two friends Deborah Cochrane and Joanna Meissner, both of whom are shown equally as protagonists. Joanna dumps her boyfriend Carlton Williams and finds herself in need of money to complete her studies. Her friend Deborah shows her a newspaper article about Wingate Clinic that is offering $45,000 for people willing to donate their eggs for infertile patients. The two friends decide to take the offer and donate the eggs. Everything goes on peacefully till they complete their doctorate studies and come back to USA. Here their curiosity gets the better of them and they decide to find out what happened to their eggs. With the Wingate Clinic maintaining a strict silence about their working, the two of them decide to use some unfair means to get this information.

Robin Cook - Invasion

2011-10-20T01:07:00.000-07:00

With his finger on the pulse of the latest medical technology, Robin Cook preys on our deepest fears with uncanny skill. Now, in his most provocative thriller to date, he explores a sudden outbreak of strange new symptoms that defy diagnosis. The cause is unknown --- and unknowable --- because it is unlike anything humankind has ever seen ...

Robin Cook - Contagion

2011-10-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

After he loses first his midwestern ophthalmology practice to a for-profit medical giant and then his family to a commuter airline tragedy, Dr. John Stapleton's life is transformed to ashes. Feeling less the golden boy than a jaded cynic, Stapleton retrains in forensic pathology and relocates to find an uneasy niche for himself in a city that suits his changed perspective: the cold, indifferent, concrete maze of New York.

Stapleton thinks he is past pain and past caring, but as a series of virulent and extremely lethal illnesses - capped by a particularly deadly outbreak of a rare strain of influenza - strikes the young, the old, and the innocent, his suspicions are aroused. When the apparent epicenters of these outbreaks are revealed to be hospitals and clinics controlled by the same for-profit giant that cannibalized his old ophthalmology practice, Stapleton fears he has stumbled upon a diabolic conspiracy of catastrophic proportions: Could the for-profit giant be engaged in the systematic elimination of its more costly subscribers?

Getting at the truth leads to Stapleton's unlikely pairing - both professionally and personally - with Terese Hagen, an art director at a hot Madison Avenue advertising firm. Together they discover that the real explanation behind the killer contagions is even more Machiavellian than could be imagined.

Carlo Collodi - The Adventures of Pinocchio

2011-10-19T11:01:00.000-07:00

In an Italian village, Geppetto, an old woodcarver, receives a piece of wood which looks perfect for his next project, a puppet. But when he sets to work something magical happens – the piece of wood begins to talk. When Geppetto is finished, the puppet turns out to be cheeky, naughty, and can walk, run and eat with as hearty an appetite as any young boy.

Geppetto calls him Pinocchio (which means ‘pine nut’) and brings him up as his son. But Pinocchio is disobedient – he tells lies, and every time he lies, his nose grows longer. Geppetto makes many sacrifices for his adopted son, but Pinocchio finds it hard to be good. He is easily led astray, tumbling from one disastrous adventure to another in which he is robbed, imprisoned, chased by bandits and only narrowly escapes death. His friends, the Cricket and the Blue Fairy, try to make see that his dream – to be a real boy – can never come true until Pinocchio finally changes his ways.

Jackie Collins - Hollywood Divorces

2011-10-19T10:58:00.000-07:00

In her most scandalously titillating novel since the #1 bestselling Hollywood Wives, internationally renowned author Jackie Collins once again takes her readers behind the scenes and into the bedrooms of Hollywood's glamorous world of superstardom, where narcissism is a virtue, and fidelity means not sleeping with anyone less attractive than your spouse. Leaving her readers to guess which real celebrities she has used as models for her fabulous characters, Collins uses her insider's knowledge of the Hollywood scene to bring life to their stories of lust, scandal, and sweet revenge. Principal among the characters that make Hollywood Divorces so compulsively readable are three strong, unforgettable women who find themselves walking the treacherous pathway that inevitably leads to divorce. These are classic Jackie Collins women -- beautiful, sexy, and determined to get things done their way -- succeeding in spite of the odds. Shelby Cheney, 32. The raven-haired beautiful Shelby -- a talented film actress -- is married to Linc Blackwood, a macho movie star with a yen for hard booze, nights out with the guys, and plenty of other women. Shelby continues to put up with his infidelities, because only she knows the tragic secrets of his past. Lola Sanchez, 24. A sexy Latina superstar, Lola climbed to the top the hard way. As an unknown, Lola encountered Linc Blackwood at a party and spent the night with him. Now that she is a superstar, he fails to remember their long and steamy night together, infuriating Lola, who has revenge on her mind. Currently she is married to Matt Seel, a tennis pro who she wed on the recommendation of her advisers in an effort to distance herself from the real love of her life, Tony Alvarez, a brilliant Latino movie director with a drug habit he can't seem to break. Cat Harrison, 19. Blond, independent, a hot writer/director with a wild-child past, she has a hit movie, a rock star husband, and an amorous and powerful studio mogul determined to make her do things his way or not at all. But Cat is not a girl to be pushed around, and Cat has big plans of her own -- plans that will surprise and shock everyone. Divorce -- Hollywood style -- has never been more fascinating, for no one has ever before offered so revealing a look. The result is delicious fun.

Jackie Collins - Dangerous Kiss

2011-10-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

The seductively beautiful, street-smart, and powerful Lucky Santangelo, star of four of Jackie Collins's previous international number-one bestsellers -- Chances, Lucky, Lady Boss, and Vendetta: Lucky's Revenge -- returns in Dangerous Kiss. In Chances, Lucky grew up in a top crime family; in Lucky, she was married three times; in Lady Boss, she took on Hollywood and bought Panther Studios; and in Vendetta, she fought off a lifelong enemy to keep the studio, and her husband. Now, in Dangerous Kiss, when a member of her family is brutally gunned down in a random holdup, her fury knows no bounds. While she is tracking the killer, her relationship with her husband, charismatic writer and director Lennie Golden, is put to the test. Then, suddenly, into her life comes a man from her past -- a man with a dangerous kiss. Dangerous Kiss is a story of raw anger, love, lust, murder, and revenge, and at its white-hot center is Lucky Santangelo, a strong, exciting woman who dares to take chances -- and always wins. In Dangerous Kiss, you will encounter many familiar faces, among them: Brigette Stanislopoulos, Lucky's twenty-five-year-old goddaughter -- an heiress due to become one of the richest women in the world. Now a top supermodel in New York, Brigette is put in desperate peril when she meets a man who is out to ruin her life. Alex Woods, a Hollywood producer with a lethal smile and a deadly obsession... Venus Maria, America's most controversial superstar...and... Charlie Dollar, the off-the-wall, fifty-something movie star with an eye for teenage girls. You will also meet an exciting cast of newcomers: Count Carlo Vittorio Vitti, a dangerously handsome playboy with his own twisted agenda... Lina, a devastatingly sexy black supermodel with an insatiable yen for men, money, and a big film career... Price Washington, a famous black comedian with a crack-addicted past... Teddy Washington, his sixteen-year-old son who unintentionally gets caught up in murder... Claudia, a simple Italian girl with a secret from Lennie's past that will rock Lucky's world... And the Kopistanis: Irena -- Price's Russian housekeeper who knows all his secrets; and Mila -- her eighteen-year-old daughter with a heart of steel and the cunning of a fox.

Jackie Collins - Vendetta, Lucky's Revenge

2011-10-19T10:53:00.000-07:00

Lucky Santangelo is back -- with a vengance! Dangerously sensual, breathtakingly beautiful, and utterly unforgettable, she is Lucky Santangelo, the sizzling star of Chances, Lucky, and Lady Boss. With Vendetta: Lucky's Revenge, Jackie Collins continues the saga of Lucky Santangelo in a nonstop, action-packed tale of sex, betrayal, drugs, intrigue, and murder. A scorching new installment of the wildly popular Lucky series, Vendetta finds Lucky in the most perilous situation of her life when her prized Panther Studios is taken from her by Donna Landsman, the unscrupulous widow of Lucky's arch-enemy, Santino Bonnatti. Donna intends to destroy Lucky in every way she can, but Lucky is street-smart, powerful, and just as ruthlessly dangerous. And so the battle for control begins. With Vendetta: Lucky's Revenge, Jackie Collins proves once again why she is an international powerhouse, a writer who digs deep into the glamorous, intoxicating -- yet ultimately treacherous -- world of Hollywood.

Jackie Collins - Lovers and players

2011-10-19T06:34:00.000-07:00

Dangerous sex, family secrets, irresistible power, mega money, and two murders equal one reckless week in New York … In Lovers & Players , the Diamond family rules. Red Diamond is an abusive and much-loathed billionaire. His three sons, Max, Chris , and Jett, are summoned to New York for a family meeting which rocks their world. Diahann , a beautiful black ex-singer, works as Red’s housekeeper—a job her daughter, Liberty , does not approve of. A waitress and would-be singer herself, Liberty has dreams of her own and while she pursues them, Damon P. Donnell , married hip-hop mogul supreme, pursues her . Young New York heiress Amy Scott-Simon is engaged to marry Max. At her bachelorette party she runs into Jett. Jett has no idea who Amy is. She also doesn’t realize who he is. A one-night fling leads to major complications. Now the lives of these characters will intertwine, forever changing their destinies, in this highly charged love story about family relationships and deadly choices. “A decadent concoction sure to appeal…a fast lane take on the lives of the rich and fabulous.”

Paulo Coelho - The winner stands alone

2011-10-19T06:27:00.001-07:00

The beloved, bestselling international author of The Alchemist returns with another haunting novel—a thrilling journey into our constant fascination with the worlds of fame, fortune, and celebrity. A profound meditation on personal power and innocent dreams that are manipulated or undone by success, The Winner Stands Alone is set in the exciting worlds of fashion and cinema. Taking place over the course of twenty-four hours during the Cannes Film Festival, it is the story of Igor, a successful, driven Russian entrepreneur who will go to the darkest lengths to reclaim a lost love—his ex-wife, Ewa. Believing that his life with Ewa was divinely ordained, Igor once told her that he would destroy whole worlds to get her back. The conflict between an individual evil force and society emerges, and as the novel unfolds, morality is derailed. Meet the players and poseurs behind the scenes at Cannes—the "Superclass" of producers, actors, designers, and supermodels, as well as the aspiring starlets, has-been stars, and jaded hangers-on. Adroitly interweaving the characters' stories, Paulo Coelho uses his twelfth novel to paint an engrossing picture of a world overrun by glamour and excess, and shows us the possibly dire consequences of our obsession with fame.

Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist

2011-10-19T06:24:00.001-07:00

The Alchemist details the journey of an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago. Santiago, believing a recurring dream to be prophetic, decides to travel to the pyramids of Egypt to find treasure. He then tells a lone gypsy about this treasure. As he leaves, the gypsy mentions one thing: If he does find the treasure, she wants 1/10 of it. On the way, he encounters love, danger, opportunity, disaster and learns a lot about himself and the ways of the world. One of the significant characters that he meets is an old king named Melchizedekwho tells him about discovering his personal legend: what he always wanted to accomplish in his life. And that "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." This is the core philosophy and motto of the book. During his travels, he meets a beautiful Arabian woman named Fatima who explains to him that if he follows his heart, he shall find what it is he seeks. Santiago then encounters a lone alchemist who tells about personal legends. He says that people only want to find the treasure of their personal legends but not the personal legend itself. He feels unsure about himself as he listens to the alchemist's teachings. The alchemist states "Those who don't understand their personal legends will fail to comprehend its teachings."

Paulo Coelho - The Zahir

2011-10-19T06:20:00.000-07:00

The Zahir means 'the obvious' or 'conspicuous' in Arabic. The story revolves around the life of the narrator, a bestselling novelist, and in particular his search for his missing wife, Esther. He enjoys all the privileges that money and celebrity bring. He is suspected of foul play by both the police and the press, who suspect that he may have had a role in the inexplicable disappearance of his wife from their Paris home.

As a result of this disappearance, the protagonist is forced to re-examine his own life as well as his marriage. The narrator is unable to figure out what led to Esther's disappearance. Was she abducted or had she abandoned the marriage? He encounters Mikhail, one of Esther's friends, during a book launch. He learns from Mikhail that Esther, who had been a war correspondent against the wishes of her husband (the protagonist), had left in a search for peace, as she had trouble living with her husband. The author eventually realizes that in order to find Esther he must first find his own self. Mikhail introduces him to his own beliefs and customs, his mission of spreading love by holding sessions in hotels and meeting homeless people living in the streets. He tells the narrator about the voices he hears, and his beliefs related to them. The narrator, who only too frequently falls in love with women, consults with his current lover, Marie, about his encounters with Mikhail. She warns him that Mikhail could be an epileptic. However, she also advises him to search for the Zahir as is his desire, even though she would prefer him to stay with her.

The narrator eventually decides to go in search of his Zahir. As it was Esther who had initially brought Mikhail from Kazakhstan to France, the protagonist suspects that she may in fact be in Kazakhstan. At first, he is curious about what made Esther leave, but later he realizes that troubles with her relationship with her husband may have been a major reason. As he discovers, she was interested in getting to know herself through the making of carpets. Eventually the narrator meets his Zahir and the outcome of this meeting constitutes the climax of the book. Through the narrator's journey from Paris to Kazakhstan, Coelho explores the various meanings of love and life.

In a recurring theme in the book, Coelhocompares marriage with a set of railway tracks which stay together forever but fail to come any closer. The novel is a journey from a stagnant marriage and love to the realization of unseen but ever increasing attraction between two souls.

Paulo Coelho - Eleven minutes

2011-10-19T06:18:00.000-07:00

Eleven Minutes is the story of Maria, a young girl from a Brazilian village, whose first innocent brushes with love leave her heartbroken. At a tender age, she becomes convinced that she will never find true love, instead believing that "love is a terrible thing that will make you suffer. . . ." A chance meeting in Rio takes her to Geneva, where she dreams of finding fame and fortune. Maria's despairing view of love is put to the test when she meets a handsome young painter. In this odyssey of self-discovery, Maria has to choose between pursuing a path of darkness -- sexual pleasure for its own sake -- or risking everything to find her own "inner light" and the possibility of sacred sex, sex in the context of love. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Harlan Coben - Hold tight

2011-10-18T23:55:00.001-07:00

#1 bestselling author Harlan Coben asks that provocative and terrifying question with his fifteenth thriller. How much do parents really want to know about their kids? #1 bestselling author Harlan Coben asks that provocative and terrifying question with his fifteenth thriller. #1 bestselling author Harlan Coben has become an unstoppable force in suspense fiction. His most recent novel, The Woods , spent more time on the New York Times bestseller list than his previous books and sales reached his highest levels to date. His latest page-turner, which is about just how far parents will go to protect their kids, is destined for the top of every bestseller list. Tia and Mike Baye never imagined they’d become the type of overprotective parents who spy on their kids. But their sixteen-year-old son Adam has been unusually distant lately, and after the suicide of his classmate Spencer Hill—the latest in a string of issues at school—they can’t help but worry. They install a sophisticated spy program on Adam’s computer, and within days are jolted by a message from an unknown correspondent addressed to their son: “Just stay quiet and all safe.” Meanwhile, browsing through an online memorial for Spencer put together by his classmates, Betsy Hill is struck by a photo that appears to have been taken on the night of her son’s death . . . and he wasn’t alone. She thinks it is Adam Baye standing just outside the camera’s range; but when Adam goes missing, it soon becomes clear that something deep and sinister has infected their community. For Tia and Mike Baye, the question they must answer is this: When it comes to your kids, is it possible to know too much?

James Clavell - Shogun

2011-10-18T23:51:00.000-07:00

An explorer in seventeenth-century Japan, ambitious Englishman John Blackthorne encounters the powerful and power-hungry Lord Toranaga and the Catholic convert Lady Mariko when his ship is wrecked off the coast, leaving only him and a small number of the crew alive. A Pilot for his ship Erasmus, he becomes invaluable to Lord Toranaga's cause with his knowledge of the outside world, but only after he begins to understand the people of Japan and starts to cast off his 'barbarian' ways.

Tracy Chevalier - Burning bright

2011-10-18T23:49:00.000-07:00

The wonderful new novel from the much loved author of 'Girl With a Pearl Earring' and 'Falling Angels'. Flames and funerals, circus feats and seduction, neighbours and nakedness: Tracy Chevalier's new novel 'Burning Bright' sparkles with drama. London 1792. The Kellaways move from familiar rural Dorset to the tumult of a cramped, unforgiving city. They are leaving behind a terrible loss, a blow that only a completely new life may soften. Against the backdrop of a city jittery over the increasingly bloody French Revolution, a surprising bond forms between Jem, the youngest Kellaway boy, and streetwise Londoner Maggie Butterfield. Their friendship takes a dramatic turn when they become entangled in the life of their neighbour, the printer, poet and radical, William Blake. He is a guiding spirit as Jem and Maggie navigate the unpredictable, exhilarating passage from innocence to experience. Their journey inspires one of Blake's most entrancing works. Georgian London is recreated as vividly in Burning Bright as 17th-century Delft was in Tracy Chevalier's bestselling masterpiece, Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Tracy Chevalier - The virgin blue

2011-10-18T23:47:00.000-07:00

Meet Ella Turner and Isabelle du Moulin - two women born centuries apart, yet bound by a fateful family legacy. When Ella and her husband move to a small town in France, Ella hopes to brush up on her French, qualify to practice as a midwife, and start a family of her own. Village life turns out to be less idyllic than she expected, however, and a peculiar dream of the color blue propels her on a quest to uncover her family's French ancestry. As the novel unfolds - alternating between Ella's story and that of Isabelle du Moulin four hundred years earlier - a common thread emerges that unexpectedly links the two women. Part detective story, part historical fiction, The Virgin Blue is a novel of passion and intrigue that compels readers to the very last page.

Tracy Chevalier - The lady and the unicorn

2011-10-18T23:45:00.000-07:00

A tour de force of history and imagination, The Lady and the Unicorn is Tracy Chevalier’s answer to the mystery behind one of the art world’s great masterpieces—a set of bewitching medieval tapestries that hangs today in the Cluny Museum in Paris. They appear to portray the seduction of a unicorn, but the story behind their making is unknown—until now. Paris, 1490. A shrewd French nobleman commissions six lavish tapestries celebrating his rising status at Court. He hires the charismatic, arrogant, sublimely talented Nicolas des Innocents to design them. Nicolas creates havoc among the women in the house—mother and daughter, servant, and lady-in-waiting—before taking his designs north to the Brussels workshop where the tapestries are to be woven. There, master weaver Georges de la Chapelle risks everything he has to finish the tapestries—his finest, most intricate work—on time for his exacting French client. The results change all their lives—lives that have been captured in the tapestries, for those who know where to look. In The Lady and the Unicorn , Tracy Chevalier weaves fact and fiction into a beautiful, timeless, and intriguing literary tapestry—an extraordinary story exquisitely told.

Lewis Carroll - Alice in Wonderland

2011-10-18T23:41:00.000-07:00

Alice follows a white rabbit down a rabbit hole and is transported into Wonderland. While there she meets many different characters that behave quite strangely, participates in a Caucus Race, befriends a smiling cat, is introduced to the Duchess and her shape changing child, plays croquet with the Queen, and takes part in a trial of the Knave of Hearts. All while navigating and learning the rules of the fanciful land.

Cally Taylor - Heaven can wait

2011-10-18T11:06:00.000-07:00

Lucy Brown is the happiest she's ever been. She's about to marry the man of her dreams - kind, handsome, witty Dan - and everything she's always wanted is finally within her reach. But the night before her wedding Lucy has a fatal accident. She is offered a choice: accept a lifetime's separation from her soul mate to go to heaven or stay with Dan forever - and become a ghost. For Lucy, there is only one option - she will not leave Dan. But it turns out things aren't quite as easy as that. If Lucy wants to become a ghost she has to find true love for a complete stranger. And when she discovers that her so-called best friend Anna is determined to make a move on the heartbroken, vulnerable Dan, the pressure really is on.

Meg Cabot, Kim Harrison, Michele Jaffe, Lauren Myracle, Stephenie Meyer - Prom Nights from Hell

2011-10-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

In this exciting collection, bestselling authors Meg Cabot (How to Be Popular), Kim Harrison (A Fistful of Charms), Michele Jaffe (Bad Kitty), Stephenie Meyer (Twilight), and Lauren Myracle (ttyl ) take bad prom nights to a whole new level—a paranormally bad level. Wardrobe malfunctions and two left feet are nothing compared to discovering you're dancing with the Grim Reaper-and he isn't here to tell you how hot you look.
From vampire exterminations to angels fighting demons, these five stories with entertainment better than a DJ in a bad tux. No corsage or limo rental necessary. Just good, scary fun. An amazing book.

Meg Cabot - Ready or not

2011-10-18T10:59:00.000-07:00

Top ten things Samantha Madison isn't ready for:

10. Spending Thanksgiving at Camp David
9. With her boyfriend, the president's son
8. Who appears to want to take their relationship to the Next Level
7. Which Sam inadvertently and shockingly announces live on MTV
6. While appearing to support the president's dubious policies on families, morals, and yes, sex
5. Juggling her new after-school job at Potomac Video
4. Even though she already has a job as teen ambassador to the UN (that she doesn't get paid for)
3. Riding the Metro and getting accosted because she's "the redheaded girl who saved the president's life," in spite of her new, semipermanent Midnight Ebony tresses
2. Experiencing total role reversal with her popular sister Lucy, who for once can't get the guy she wants

And the number-one thing Sam isn't ready for?

1. Finding out the hard way that in art class, "life drawing" means "naked people."

Sandra Brown - Sweet anger

2011-10-18T10:55:00.000-07:00

Television newscaster Kari Wynne blamed her shattered life on one man--D.A. Hunter McKee. He hadn't directly caused her husband's death, but he had destroyed his reputation. Still, the desire that exploded every time they met was almost overwhelming. Now, Kari will begin a desperate search for the truth about her husband's mysterious death, and about the man she wants to hate who somehow awakens within her the kind of passion she has never known before.

Sandra Brown - Mirror image

2011-10-18T05:20:00.000-07:00

A jet crash handed Avery Daniels a golden opportunity. Mistaken for Carole Rutledge, the badly injured Avery has found that plastic surgery has given her Carole's face, the famous senatorial candidate for a husband, and a powerful Texas dynasty for in-laws. She makes the shattering discovery that someone close to the senator plans to assassinate him. Now to save the life of the man she loves, Avery must live another woman's life-and risk her own.

Dan Brown - The lost symbol

2011-10-18T05:18:00.001-07:00

As the story opens, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned unexpectedly to deliver an evening lecture in the U.S. Capitol Building.
Within minutes of his arrival, however, the night takes a bizarre turn. A disturbing object,his best friends hand, artfully encoded with five symbols--is discovered in the Capitol Building.
Langdon recognizes the object as an ancient invitation... one meant to usher its recipient into a long-lost world of esoteric wisdom.

When Langdon's beloved mentor, Peter Solomon--a prominent Mason and philanthropist--is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realizes his only hope of saving Peter is to accept this mystical invitation and follow wherever it leads him.
Langdon is instantly plunged into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, and never-before-seen locations--all of which seem to be dragging him toward a single, inconceivable truth.

As the world discovered in The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, Dan Brown's novels are brilliant tapestries of veiled histories, arcane symbols, and enigmatic codes. In this new novel, he again challenges readers with an intelligent, lightning-paced story that offers surprises at every turn.
The Lost Symbol is exactly what Brown's fans have been waiting for... his most thrilling novel yet.

Dan Brown - The Da Vinci code

2011-10-18T05:14:00.000-07:00

Brown's latest thriller (after Angels and Demons) is an exhaustively researched page-turner about secret religious societies, ancient coverups and savage vengeance.The action kicks off in modern-day Paris with the murder of the Louvre's chief curator,whose body is found laid out in symbolic repose at the foot of the Mona Lisa. Seizing control of the case are Sophie Neveu, a lovely French police cryptologist, and Harvard symbol expert Robert Langdon, reprising his role from Brown's last book. The two find several puzzling codes at the murder scene, all of which form a treasure map to the fabled Holy Grail. As their search moves from France to England, Neveu and Langdon are confounded by two mysterious groups-the legendary Priory of Sion, a nearly 1,000-year-old secret society whose members have included Botticelli and Isaac Newton, and the conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei. Both have their own reasons for wanting to ensure that the Grail isn't found. Brown sometimes ladles out too much religious history at the expense of pacing, and Langdon is a hero in desperate need of more chutzpah. Still, Brown has assembled a whopper of a plot that will please both conspiracy buffs and thriller addicts.

Dan Brown - Deception point

2011-10-18T05:12:00.000-07:00

A shocking scientific discovery. A conspiracy of staggering brilliance. A thriller unlike any you've ever read.... When a NASA satellite discovers an astonishingly rare unearthly object buried deep in the Arctic ice, the floundering space agency proclaims a much-needed victory -- a victory with profound implications for NASA policy and the impending presidential election. To verify the authenticity of the find, the White House calls upon the skills of intelligence analyst, Rachel Sexton. Accompanied by a team of experts, including the charismatic scholar Michael Tolland, Rachel travels to the Arctic and uncovers the unthinkable: evidence of scientific trickery -- a bold deception that threatens to plunge the world into controversy. But before she can warn the president, Rachel and Michael are ambushed by a team of assassins. Fleeing for their lives across a desolate and lethal landscape, their only hope for survival is to discover who is behind this masterful plot. The truth, they will learn, is the most shocking deception of all.

Steven Bochco - Death by Hollywood

2011-10-18T05:08:00.000-07:00

From the acclaimed co-creator of Hill Street Blues , L.A. Law , and NYPD Blue , Death by Hollywood is a suspenseful, shocking, and darkly comic crime novel about a screenwriter, a billionaire's wife, a murder, and, of course, a cop. "There used to be a writer by the name of Merle Miller, who wrote that people in Hollywood are always touching you--not because they like you, but because they want to see how soft you are before they eat you alive." So begins this seductive and surprising novel by two-time Edgar Award–winning writer Steven Bochco, in which a down-on-his-luck screenwriter named Bobby Newman tries to turn a brutal murder into his next movie payday. One day, while spying on his Hollywood Hills neighbors through his $4,000 Bushnell XR90 electronic telescope, Bobby sees a beautiful socialite making love to a handsome Latin actor named Ramon. When their pillow talk takes a turn for the ugly, Bobby watches in horror as the woman bludgeons her lover to death with his own acting trophy. Deciding to write about it instead of reporting it to the cops, Bobby insinuates himself into Detective Dennis Farentino’s murder investigation, forging an unusual friendship with the cop that turns out to be more complex than either of them had bargained for. Before long, Bobby has dragged the detective, his estranged wife, his lover, and his agent into a Hollywood fun-house hall of mirrors, where only the most manipulative player will survive. Savvy, funny, sexy, and streetwise, Death by Hollywood is the tale Steven Bochco couldn't tell on television. It is the work of an ingenious storyteller, certain to enthrall readers from beginning to end.

Judy Blume - Summer Sisters

2011-10-18T01:28:00.000-07:00

No writer captures the seasons of our lives better than Judy Blume. Now, from the New York Times bestselling author of Wifey and Smart Women, comes an extraordinary novel of reminiscence and awakening--an unforgettable story of two women, two families, and the friendships that shape a lifetime. When Victoria Leonard answers the phone in her Manhattan office, Caitlin's voice catches her by surprise. Vix hasn't talked to her oldest friend in months. Caitlin's news takes her breath away--and Vix is transported back in time, back to the moment she and Caitlin Somers first met, back to the casual betrayals and whispered confessions of their long, complicated friendship, back to the magical island where two friends became summer sisters. Caitlin dazzled Vix from the start, sweeping her into the heart of the unruly Somers family, into a world of privilege, adventure, and sexual daring. Vix's bond with her summer family forever reshapes her ties to her own, opening doors to opportunities she had never imagined--until the summer she falls passionately in love. Then, in one shattering moment on a moonswept Vineyard beach, everything changes, exposing a dark undercurrent in her extraordinary friendship with Caitlin that will haunt them through the years. As their story carries us from Santa Fe to Martha's Vineyard, from New York to Venice, we come to know the men and women who shape their lives. And as we follow the two women on the paths they each choose, we wait for the inevitable reckoning to be made in the fine spaces between friendship and betrayal, between love and freedom. Summer Sisters is a riveting exploration of the choices that define our lives, of friendship and love, of the families we are born into and those we struggle to create. For every woman who has ever had a friend too dangerous to forgive and too essential to forget, Summer Sisters will glue you to every page, reading and remembering. Judy Blume's twenty-one books have sold over sixty-five million copies worldwide and have been translated into twenty languages. She spends summers on Martha's Vineyard with her family.

Maeve Binchy - Scarlet Feather

2011-10-18T01:26:00.000-07:00

Set in contemporary Ireland, filled with warmth, wit, and drama, Scarlet Feather is "classic Binchy" ( Boston Globe )-the story of Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather, their spouses, families, and friends, and the struggling new catering business that transforms their lives in ways big and small.

David Benioff - City of thieves

2011-10-18T01:23:00.000-07:00

As wise and funny as it is thrilling and original — the story of two young men on an impossible adventure.

A writer visits his retired grandparents in Florida to document their experience during the infamous siege of Leningrad. His grandmother won’t talk about it, but his grandfather reluctantly consents. The result is the captivating odyssey of two young men trying to survive against desperate odds.

Lev Beniov considers himself “built for deprivation.” He’s small, smart, and insecure, a Jewish virgin too young for the army, who spends his nights working as a volunteer firefighter with friends from his building. When a dead German paratrooper lands in his street, Lev is caught looting the body and dragged to jail, fearing for his life. He shares his cell with the charismatic and grandiose Kolya, a handsome young soldier arrested on desertion charges.

Instead of the standard bullet in the back of the head, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving their own lives by complying with an outrageous directive: secure a dozen eggs for a powerful colonel to use in his daughter’s wedding cake. In a city cut off from all supplies and suffering unbelievable deprivation, Lev and Kolya embark on a hunt to find the impossible.

A search that takes them through the dire lawlessness of Leningrad and the devastated surrounding countryside creates an unlikely bond between this earnest, lust-filled teenager and an endearing lothario with the gifts of a conman. Set within the monumental events of history, City of Thieves is an intimate coming-of-age tale with an utterly contemporary feel for how boys become men.

Zoe Barnes - Just married

2011-10-18T01:21:00.000-07:00

Emma and Joe Sheridan have just got married. Emma has been in love with Joe since school - marrying him was the happiest day of her life. But now the honeymoon is over and Emma's having to cope with the reality of married life. She's living in a new town, has a new job and a new husband who hasn't quite left his bachelor days behind him. Then there's Emma's interfering mother-in-law who's expecting the patter of tiny feet before Joe's even carried her over the threshold! Still, at least she and Joe are together at last. But Joe and Emma have never lived with each other before - and apart from the odd holiday - have never spent more than two weeks in each other's company. Setting up home together for the first time might be romantic, but nobody told them that living happily ever after takes a lot of hard work...

Pat Barker - Double vision

2011-10-18T01:18:00.000-07:00

Nicola Barker - Wide open

2011-10-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

As winner of the highly prestigious IMPAC International Dublin Literary Award, Wide Open beat out books by such masters as Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, and Michael Cunningham. It is truly extraordinary work of fiction, taking readers into a small English seaside town, and into the minds and hearts of its remarkable inhabitants -- a man named Ronny, weed killer by trade, who has some strange things in common with a man he finds dangling from a bridge; Nathan, the son of a pedophile, who toils in the Underground's Lost Property department, endlessly logging missing items; Sara, purveyor of her family boar farm, and Lily, her teenage daughter, tragically born with unformed organs and blood that refuses to clot. Starkly original and at turns hilarious, sad, and hopeful, Wide Open brilliantly displays Nicola Barker's delightfully singular literary talent.

Tilly Bagshawe - Scandalous

2011-10-17T12:06:00.000-07:00

Sasha Miller comes to Cambridge with a dream and leaves on a mission. After falling for the lies and charms of her Director of Studies 'Theo Dexter' she finds herself betrayed, humiliated and nursing a bundle of broken dreams. Heading to the US she is determined to rebuild her life. Years later, Sasha emerges from Harvard Business School with one thing on her mind, the downfall of the now famous Professor Theo Dexter. Meanwhile Theo's long suffering wife Theresa also finds herself betrayed and cast aside for a younger and prettier model. Unable to cope she returns to Cambridge a broken woman and tries to rebuild her life away from the scheming Theo Dexter. One night Sasha turns up at Theresa's door, she wants revenge at any cost, will Theresa help her? From the deepest betrayal comes a shocking alliance. Two vengeful women, one very unlucky man.

Richard Bach - Out of my mind

2011-10-17T12:03:00.000-07:00

The author of eleven books, including such classic bestsellers as Jonathan Livingston Seagull , Illusions , and One , Richard Bach has earned a permanent place in the hearts of readers around the world. His visionary works have shown millions of readers the amazing possibilities of imagination, mind and spirit. An enthralling flight into the realm of possibility, Out of My Mind shows what happens when Richard Bach sets out to solve the design problems troubling his Piper Cub. He is taken on an unforgettable journey back to 1923 and the creative heyday of a British airplane manufacturer, Saunders-Vixen Aircraft Company, where problems are solved for confused aviators. There, Bach meets Derek Hawthorne, his guide through Saunders-Vixen, and a mysterious young aircraft designer named Laura Bristol who will provide the astonishing answers to his unspoken questions. This profoundly resonant tale reminds us of a powerful truth: although our dreams may lie beyond the limits of time, space, and belief, they are never beyond reach.

Susan Andersen - Be my baby

2011-10-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

Juliet and Her Romeo Beau Prim and proper Juliet Rose Astor Lowell doesn't want her body guarded by anyone while she's in New Orleans for the grand opening of Daddy's new hotel--especially not by consummate macho cop Beau Dupree. He's just too big, too pushy, too virile, too... everything! His shameless, hungry-eyed gaze shakes her carefully cultivated decorum like no one ever has, but Juliet is a Lowell--and there's no way she's going to lose control! The lady is downright delectable, but Beau has more important things to do than babysit a beautiful Yankee rich girl. So he decides to get himself pulled off of the assignment by driving the oh-so-proper socialite beyond the bounds of her good-girl restraints. But who would have thought that real passion sizzled beneath Juliet's polish? When she lets her hair down, she just might prove to be more than enough woman to handle Beau--but will he be able to handle her?