Dr. Alfred Jones is a henpecked, slightly pompous middle-agedscientist at the National Centre for Fisheries Excellence in Londonwhen he is approached by a mysterious sheikh about an outlandishplan to introduce the sport of salmon fishing into the Yemen. Dr.Jones refuses, but the project, however scientifically absurd,catches the eye of British politicians, who pressure him to work onit. His diaries of the Yemen Salmon Project, from beginning toglorious, tragic end, form the narrative backbone of this novel;interspersed throughout are government memos, e-mails, letters, andinterview tran*s that deftly capture the absurdity ofbureaucratic dysfunction.With a wickedly wonderful cast ofcharacters--including a weasel-like spin doctor, a missing soldierand his intrepid fiancee, and Dr. Jones's own devilish wife--SalmonFishing in the Yemen is the whimsical story of an unlikely hero whodiscovers true love, finds himself first a pawn and then a victimof political spin, and learns to believe in the impossible.
The President's son and daughter are abducted, and DetectiveAlex Cross is one of the first on the scene. But someone veryhigh-up is using the FBI, Secret Service, and CIA to keep him offthe case and in the dark. A deadly contagion in the water supply cripples half of thecapital, and Alex discovers that someone may be about to unleashthe most devastating attack the United States has everexperienced. As his window for solving both crimes narrows, Alex makes adesperate decision that goes against everything he believes--onethat may alter the fate of the entire country. KILL ALEX CROSS isfaster, more exciting, and more tightly wound than any Alex Crossthriller James Patterson has ever written!
Humphrey Clark and Ailsa Kelman spent a summer together aschildren in Ornemouth, a town by the gray North Sea. Now, as theyjourney back to receive honorary degrees from a new universitythere--Humphrey on the train, Ailsa flying--they take stock oftheir lives, their careers, and their shared personalentanglements, romantic and otherwise. Humphrey is a successfulmarine biologist, happiest under water, but now retired; Ailsa,scholar and feminist, is celebrated for her pioneering studies ofgender. Their mutual pasts unfold in an exquisite portrait ofEnglish social life in the latter half of the twentiethcentury.
Tadeusz Borowski's concentration camp stories were based onhis own experiences surviving Auschwitz and Dachau. In spare,brutal prose he describes a world where the will to surviveoverrides compassion and prisoners eat, work and sleep a few yardsfrom where others are murdered; where the difference between humanbeings is reduced to a second bowl of soup, an extra blanket or theluxury of a pair of shoes with thick soles; and where the linebetween normality and abnormality vanishes. Published in Polandafter the Second World War, these stories constitute a masterworkof world literature.
William J. Mann, author of the bestselling Kate: The WomanWho Was Hepburn, has now turned his attention to ElizabethTaylor, the quintessential movie star, and uses her biography toreveal the machinations of stardom and fame, from the studio era ofHollywood through the 1970s. How to Be a Movie Star isa totally fresh, brilliantly researched, and reported portrait ofElizabeth Taylor, as she became our first superstar. It isalso a fascinating revelation of cadre that got her there, from hermother to her managers, publicists, gossip columnists, and earlypaparazzi--and, not least of all, herself. Swathed in mink, sailing aboard her yachts, discarding husbandsnearly as frequently as she changed diamond earrings, Taylordominated the headlines for three glittering decades, rewritingrules, defying conventions, laying down the yardstick by whichcelebrity has been measured ever since. Focusing on the mostglamorous period in Taylor's career, Mann takes us inside herprivileged childhood in England to her schooling
