Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life--having nothing but his own wits to help him along. And with a charisma as undeniable as it is unexpected, Balram teaches us that religion doesn't create virtue, and money doesn't solve every problem--but decency can still be found in a corrupt world, and you can get what you want out of life if you eavesdrop on the right conversations. Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing, and utterly contemporary, this novel is an international sensation--and a startling, provocative debut.

Sookie Stackhouse is a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She's quiet, keeps to herself, and doesn't get out much - not because she's not pretty - she's a very cute bubbly blonde - or not interested in a social life. She really is ...but Sookie's got a bit of a disability. She can read minds. And that doesn't make her too dateable. And then along comes Bill: he's tall, he's dark and he's handsome - and Sookie can't 'hear' a word he's thinking. He's exactly the type of guy she's been waiting all her life for. But Bill has a disability of his own: he's fussy about his food, he doesn't like suntans and he's never around during the day ...Yep, Bill's a vampire. Worse than that, he hangs with a seriously creepy crowd, with a reputation for trouble - of the murderous kind. And then one of Sookie's colleagues at the bar is killed, and it's beginning to look like Sookie might be the next victim ...

After 103 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and with four million copies of The Kite Runner shipped, Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today. Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love. Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrench

A rich, authoritative look at a material that plays anessential role in human culture Wood has been a central part of human life throughout the world forthousands of years. In an intoxicating mix of science, history, andpractical information, historian and woodworker Harvey Greenconsiders this vital material's place on the planet. What makes onewood hard and one soft? How did we find it, tame it? Where does itfit into the histories of technology, architecture, andindustrialization, of empire, exploration, and settlement? Spanningthe surprising histories of the log cabin and Windsor chair, thedeep truth about veneer, the role of wood in the AmericanRevolution, the disappearance of the rain forests, the botanybehind the baseball bat, and much more, Wood is a deep andsatisfying look at one of our most treasured resources.

In commemoration of the one-hundredth anniversary of hisbirth, Ansel Adams at 100 presents an intriguing new look at thisdistinguished photographer's work. The legendary curator JohnSzarkowski, director emeritus of the Department of Photography atNew York's Museum of Modern Art, has painstakingly selected what heconsiders Adams' finest work and has attempted to find the singlebest photographic print of each. Szarkowski writes that "AnselAdams at 100 is the product of a thorough review of work thatAdams, at various times in his career, considered important. Itincludes many photographs that will be unfamiliar to lovers ofAdams' work, and a substantial number that will be new to Adamsscholars. The book is an attempt to identify that work on whichAdams' claim as an important modern artist must rest." Ansel Adamsat 100-the highly acclaimed international exhibition and the book,with Szarkowski's incisive critical essay-is the first seriouseffort since Adams' death in 1984 to reevaluate his achievement asan a

For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about herlife in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was onlythree when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldierand went to live with him in Minnesota. Trudy's sole evidence ofthe past is an old photograph: a family portrait showing Anna,Trudy, and a Nazi officer, the Obersturmfuhrer of Buchenwald. Driven by the guilt of her heritage, Trudy, now a professor ofGerman history, begins investigating the past and finally unearthsthe dramatic and heartbreaking truth of her mother's life. Combining a passionate, doomed love story, a vivid evocation oflife during the war, and a poignant mother/daughter drama, ThoseWho Save Us is a profound exploration of what we endure tosurvive and the legacy of shame.

Jude the Obscure created storms of scandal and protest for the author upon its publication. Hardy, disgusted and disappointed, devoted the remainder of his life to poetry and never wrote another novel. Today, the material is far less shocking. Jude Fawley, a poor stone carver with aspirations toward an academic career, is thwarted at every turn and is finally forced to give up his dreams of a university education. He is tricked into an unwise marriage, and when his wife deserts him, he begins a relationship with a free-spirited cousin. With this begins the descent into bleak tragedy as the couple alternately defy and succumb to the pressures of a deeply disapproving society. Hardy's characters have a fascinating ambiguity: they are victimized by a stern moral code, but they are also selfish and weak-willed creatures who bring on much of their own difficulties through their own vacillations and submissions to impulse. The abridgment speeds Jude's fall to considerable dramatic effect, but it also deletes th

Theodore Boone is back in a new adventure, and the stakes arehigher than ever. When his best friend, April, disappears from herbedroom in the middle of the night, no one, not even Theo Boone -who knows April better than anyone - has answers. As fear ripplesthrough his small hometown and the police hit dead ends, it's up toTheo to use his legal knowledge and investigative skills to chasedown the truth and save April. Filled with the page-turningsuspense that made John Grisham a number one internationalbestseller and the undisputed master of the legal thriller,Theodore Boone's trials and triumphs will keep readers guessinguntil the very end.

The Fortress of Solitude is the story of Dylan Ebdus growingup white and motherless in downtown Brooklyn in the 1970s. It's aneighborhood where the entertainments include muggings along withgames of stoopball. In that world, Dylan has one friend, a blackteenager, also motherless, named Mingus Rude. As Lethem follows theknitting and unraveling of their friendship, he creates anoverwhelmingly rich and emotionally gripping canvas of race andclass, superheros, gentrification, funk, hip-hop, graffiti tagging,loyalty, and memory. The Fortress of Solitude" "is the first greaturban coming of age novel to appear in years.

Deux jumeaux, Jean et Paul, forment un couple fraternel si uniqu'on l'appelle Jean-Paul. Mais Jean veut briser cette cha?ne etessaie de se marier. Paul fait échouer ce projet. Désespéré, Jeanpart seul en voyage de noces à Venise. Paul se lance à sa poursuiteet accomplit un long voyage initiatique autour du monde. A traversdes aventures multiples et de nombreux personnages, comme lescandaleux oncle Alexandre, surnommé le dandy des gadoues, ce romanillustre le grand thème du couple humain.

Hard to believe, but there was a time when the word "lawyer" wasn't synonymous with "criminal," and the idea of a law firm controlled by the Mafia was an outlandish proposition. This intelligent, ensnaring story came out of nowhere--Oxford, Mississippi, where Grisham was a small-town lawyer--and quickly catapulted to the top of the bestseller list, with good reason. Mitch McDeere, the appealing hero, is a poor kid whose only assets are a first-class mind, a Harvard law degree, and a beautiful, loving wife. When a Memphis law firm makes him an offer he really can't refuse, he trades his old Nissan for a new BMW, his cramped apartment for a house in the best part of town, and puts in long hours finding tax shelters for Texans who'd rather pay a lawyer than the IRS. Nothing criminal about that. He'd be set for life, if only associates at the firm didn't have a funny habit of dying, and the FBI wasn't trying to get Mitch to turn his colleagues in. The tempo and pacing are brilliant, the thrills keep coming, and t

Incisive and original, John Kenneth Galbraith wrote with aneloquence that burst the conventions of his discipline and won areadership none of his fellow economists could match. This Libraryof America volume, the first devoted to economics, gathers four ofhis key early works, the books that established him as one of theleading public intellectuals of the last century. In AmericanCapitalism, Galbraith exposes with great panache the myth ofAmerican free-market competition. The idea that an impersonalmarket sets prices and wages, and maintains balance between supplyand demand, remained so vital in American economic thought,Galbraith argued, because oligopolistic American businessmen neveracknowledged their collective power. Also over- looked was the waythat groups such as unions and regulatory agencies react to largeoligopolies by exerting countervailing power--a concept that wasthe book's lasting contribution. The Great Crash, 1929 offers a gripping account of the mostlegendary (and thus misundersto

"Nevada Rose" Demille was one of the most beautiful and desired sports groupies in Las Vegas, a fixture at the trendiest casinos and clubs on the Strip. But the endless party came to a tragic end the morning her nude body was found bound and gagged in her home. As crime scene investigators Catherine Willows and Warrick Brown dig deeper, all roads (and a growing media circus) lead to Mark Baker -- a.k.a. "The Fireball" -- a hard-throwing, Cooperstown-bound major-league pitcher and fancier of gorgeous women who recently conducted a very public affair with one "Nevada Rose" Demille.... Meanwhile, miles away on the grounds of a world-class championship golf course, Gil Grissom is probing the macabre discovery of a John Doe -- an intense investigation that will unearth a bitter sibling rivalry twisted by jealousy and distrust over a "Nevada Rose" of a very different nature.... 作者简介： Jerome Preisler is the author of more than twenty books, including the bestselling Tom Clanc

DIV Onitsha tells the story of Fintan, a youth whotravels to Africa in 1948 with his Italian mother to join theEnglish father he has never met. Fintan is initially enchanted bythe exotic world he discovers in Onitsha, a bustling cityprominently situated on the eastern bank of the Niger River. Butgradually he comes to recognize the intolerance and brutality ofthe colonial system. His youthful point of view provides the novelwith a notably direct, horrified perspective on racism andcolonialism. /DIV DIV /DIV DIV Inthe words of translator Alison Anderson, Onitsha isremarkable for its almost mythological evocation of local historyand beliefs. It is full of atmosphere sights, sounds, smells and attimes the author s sentences seem to flow with the dreamy languorof the river itself. But J. M. G. Le Cl??zio never lets us forgetthe harsh realities of life nor the subsequent tragedy of war. Astartling account and indictment of colonialism, Onitsha isalso a work of clear, forthright prose that ably portrays

This sequel concerns Bridget Jones, a single, girl-about-town onan optimistic but doomed quest for self-improvement. If she couldjust get down to 8st 7lb, stop smoking and develop inner poise, allwould be resolved.

Cet avertissement s'adresse à toutes les mères habitant lesrégions de Gehlenburg, Sensburg, L?tzen et Lyck ! Prenez garde àl'ogre de Kaltenborn ! Il convoite vos enfants. Il parcourt nosrégions et vole les enfants. Si vous avez des enfants, penseztoujours à l'Ogre, car lui pense toujours à eux ! Ne les laissezpas s'éloigner seuls. Apprenez-leur à fuir et à se cacher s'ilsvoient un géant monté sur un cheval bleu, accompagné d'une meutenoire. S'il vient à vous, résistez à ses menaces, soyez sourdes àses promesses. Une seule certitude doit guider votre conduite demères : si l'Ogre emporte votre enfant, vous ne le reverrez Jamais!

This book could not possibly have been researched without the help of many people. I am first of all deeply obliged to the directors and staff in numerous archives: Colonel Shuvashin and the staff of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence (TsAMO) at Podolsk; Dr Natalya Borisovna Volkova and her staff at the Russian State Archive for Litera-ture and the Arts (RGALI); Dr Vladimir Kuzelenkov and Dr Vladimir Korotaev of the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA); Professor Kyrill Mikhailovich Andersen and Dr Oleg Vladimirovich Naumov at the Russian State Archive for Social-Political History (RGASPI); Dr Manfred Kehrig, Director of the Bundesarchiv-Militiirarchiv, Freiburg,and Frau Weibl; Dr Rolf-Dieter Mtiller and Hauptmann Luckszat at the MGFA in Potsdam; Professor Dr Eckhart Henning of the Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft; Dr Wulf-Ekkehard Lucke at the Landesarchiv-Berlin; Frau Irina Renz of the Bibliothek fur Zeit-geschichte in Stuttgart; Dr Lars Ericson and Per Clason at the Krigsarki-

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 his