Thick Face, Black Heart is a profound distillation of ancientChinese wisdom and experience filtered through a modern Asianbusiness perspective. Blending stories and principles drawn fromChinese military history and modern entrepreneurship, author Chushows that success is achievable by anyone who follows the lessonsin this invaluable guide and learns how to: develop and employintuition as a business tool, master defeat, acquire a killerinstinct, solve the mystery of money, thrive among the cunning andruthless, and much more.

In "The Persian Expedition", Xenophon, a young Athenian noblewho sought his destiny abroad, provides an enthralling eyewitnessaccount of the attempt by a Greek mercenary army - the Ten Thousand- to help Prince Cyrus overthrow his brother and take the Persianthrone. When the Greeks were then betrayed by their Persianemployers, they were forced to march home through hundreds of milesof difficult terrain n adrift in a hostile country and underconstant attack from the unforgiving Persians and warlike tribes.In this outstanding de*ion of endurance and individualbravery, Xenophon, one of those chosen to lead the retreating army,provides a vivid narrative of the campaign and its aftermath, andhis account remains one of the best pictures we have of Greeksconfronting a 'barbarian' world.

When the Good Friday peace accords are shattered by threesavage acts of terrorism, Northern Ireland is blown back into thedepths of conflict. And after his father-in-law is nominated tobecome the new American ambassador to London, retired CIA agentMichael Osbourne is drawn back into the game. He soon discoversthat his father-in-law is marked for execution. And that he himselfis once again in the crosshairs of a killer known as October, oneof the most merciless assassins the world has ever known...

#1 "New York Times" bestselling author Nora Roberts invitesreaders to the wedding event of the year #1 "New York Times"bestselling author Nora Roberts presents her first trade original-anovel of love, friendship, and family-Book One in the BrideQuartet. Wedding photographer Mackensie "Mac" Elliot is most athome behind the camera, but her focus is shattered moments beforean important wedding rehearsal when she bumps into thebride-to-be's brother...an encounter that has them both seeingstars. A stable, safe English teacher, Carter Maguire is definitelynot Mac's type. But a casual fling might be just what she needs totake her mind off bridezillas. Of course, casual flings can turninto something more when you least expect it. And Mac will have toturn to her three best friends-and business partners-to see her wayto her own happy ending.

The ultimate battle between good and evil

Alienated from society, Harry Hailer is the Steppenwolf:wild,strange and shy. His despair and desire for death draw himintoan enchanted Faustian underworld. Through a series ofshadowyencounters - romantic, freakish and savage by turn -Hailer beginsto rediscover the lost dreams of his youth. Adopted by the sixties' counterculture,Steppenwolf captured the mood of a disaffected generation that wasbeginning to question everything.

When Atlantic Monthly Press relaunched her Commissario GuidoBrunetti series. Donna Leon was hailed as "the best mystery writeryou've never heard of...She uses the relatively small andcrime-free canvas of Venice for riffs about Italian life, sexualstyles and--best of all--the kind of ingrown business and politicalcorruption that seems to lurk just below the surface" ("ChicagoTribune). Now "Blood from a Stone brings her celebrated characterCommissario Guido Brunetti back on the scene: On a cold Venetiannight shortly before Christmas, a street vendor is killed in ascuffle in Campo San Stefano. The closest witnesses to the eventare the tourists who had been browsing the man's wares before hisdeath--fake handbags of every designer label. The dead man had beenworking as a "vu cumpra, one of the many African immigrantspurveying goods outside normal shop hours, trading without workpermits. Commissario Brunetti's response is that of everybodyinvolved: Why would anyone kill an illegal immigrant? With fewsocial c

On election day in the capital, it is raining so hard that noone has bothered to come out to vote. The politicians are growingjittery. Should they reschedule the elections for another day?Around three o'clock, the rain finally stops. Promptly at four,voters rush to the polling stations, as if they had been ordered toappear. But when the ballots are counted, more than 70 percent areblank. The citizens are rebellious. A state of emergency isdeclared. But are the authorities acting too precipitously? Or evenblindly? The word evokes terrible memories of the plague ofblindness that hit the city four years before, and of the one womanwho kept her sight. Could she be behind the blank ballots? A policesuperintendent is put on the case. What begins as a satire ongovernments and the sometimes dubious efficacy of the democraticsystem turns into something far more sinister. A singular novelfrom the author of Blindness.

Set during the Napoleonic wars at a time of national economicstruggles, Shirley is an unsentimental yet passionatedepiction of conflict among classes, sexes, and generations.Struggling manufacturer Robert Moore considers marriage to thewealthy and independent Shirley Keeldar, yet his heart lies withhis cousin Caroline. Shirley, meanwhile, is in love with Robert’sbrother, an impoverished tutor. As industrial unrest builds to apotentially fatal pitch, can the four be reconciled?

Late one night, exploring her father's library, a young womanfinds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters addressedominously to 'My dear and unfortunate successor'. Her discoveryplunges her into a world she never dreamed of - a labyrinth wherethe secrets of her father's past and her mother's mysterious fateconnect to an evil hidden in the depths of history. In those fewquiet moments, she unwittingly assumes a quest she will discover isher birthright - a hunt for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, themedieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of theDracula myth. Deciphering obscure signs and hidden texts, readingcodes worked into the fabric of medieval monastic traditions, andevading terrifying adversaries, one woman comes ever closer to thesecret of her own past and a confrontation with the very definitionof evil. Elizabeth Kostova's debut novel is an adventure of monumentalproportions - a captivating tale that blends fact and fantasy,history and the present with an assurance

In a perfect pairing of talent, this volume blends twentyillustrations by Peter SA-s with Jorge Luis Borgesas 1957compilation of 116 astrange creatures conceived through time andspace by the human imagination, a from dragons and centaurs toLewis Carrollas Cheshire Cat and the Morlocks of H. G. Wellsas "TheTime Machine." A lavish feast of exotica brought vividly to lifewith art commissioned specifically for this volume, "The Book ofImaginary Beings" will delight readers of classic fantasy as wellas Borgesas many admirers.

A proud family's deadly secrets are exposed in this passionatetale of two rivals who, while toiling in the Napa Valley vineyards,discover they have much to learn-from each other, and aboutthemselves.

After a nine-year absence, the fiercely resourceful NativeAmerican guide Jane Whitefield is back, in the latest superbthriller by award-winning author Thomas Perry. For more than adecade, Jane pursued her unusual profession: "I'm a guide . . . Ishow people how to go from places where somebody is trying to killthem to other places where nobody is." Then she promised herhusband she would never work again, and settled in to live a happy,quiet life as Jane McKinnon, the wife of a surgeon in Amherst, NewYork. But when a bomb goes off in the middle of a hospitalfundraiser, Jane finds herself face to face with the cause of theexplosion: a young pregnant girl who has been tracked across thecountry by a team of hired hunters. That night, regardless of whatshe wants or the vow she's made to her husband, Jane must come backto transform one more victim into a runner. And her quest forsafety sets in motion a mission that will be a rescue operation--ora chance for revenge.

Lily has grown up believing she accidentally killed her mother when she was four. She not only has her own memory of holding the gun, but her father's account of the event. Now fourteen, she yearns for her mother, and for forgiveness. Living on a peach farm in South Carolina with her father, she has only one friend: Rosaleen, a black servant whose sharp exterior hides a tender heart. South Carolina in the sixties is a place where segregation is still considered a cause worth fighting for. When racial tension explodes one summer afternoon, and Rosaleen is arrested and beaten, Lily is compelled to act. Fugitives from justice and from Lily's harsh and unyielding father, they follow a trail left by the woman who died ten years before. Finding sanctuary in the home of three beekeeping sisters, Lily starts a journey as much about her understanding of the world, as about the mystery surrounding her mother. --This text refers to the Paperback edition

Former Israeli intelligence operative Gabriel Allon is drawnback into the game to take on a cunning terrorist on one lastkilling spree, a Palestinian zealot who played a dark part inGabriel's past. And what begins as a manhunt turns into aglobe-spanning duel fueled by both political intrigue and deeppersonal passions...

Kyle McAvoy possesses an outstanding legal mind. Good-lookingand affable, he has a glittering future. He also has a dark secretthat could destroy his dreams, his career, even his life. One nightthat secret catches up with him. The men who accost Kyle have acompromising video they'll use to ruin him-unless he does exactlywhat they say. What they offer Kyle is something any ambitiousyoung lawyer would kill for: a job in Manhattan as an associate atthe world's largest law firm. If Kyle accepts, he'll be on the fasttrack to partnership and a fortune. But there's a catch. Kyle won'tbe working for the firm but against it in a dispute between twopowerful defense contractors worth billions. Now Kyle is caughtbetween the criminal forces manipulating him, the FBI, and his ownlaw firm-in a malignant conspiracy not even Kyle with all hisintellect, cunning, and bravery may be able to escape alive.

From award-winning author Tami Hoag comes a warm, movingstory of two cultures in conflict and two hearts in love. Matt Thorne had come to his sister's rural inn to recover from aninjury far from the city and his fast-paced life as an emergencyroom physician. Drifting between sleep and waking, Matt didn'ttrust his eyes when he saw the young woman who sat at his bedsidein her plain cotton dress and apron, her chestnut hair tuckeddemurely beneath a white bonnet, like a beautiful vision from thepast century. Sarah Troyer had been warned about the womanizing Dr. Throne, butnothing prepared her for the shiver of desire that shook her to hercore when she gazed at him. Though her life was bound by the simpleAmish way, Sarah had always longed for the world outside. Her jobat the inn already branded her as a rebel in her community, andfalling in love with a stranger would mean the loss of her familyand the only life she knew. Yet something sparked within her withevery touch of his hand, each glance fr

From America’s #1 bestselling crime writers comes the extraordinary new Kay Scarpetta novel. Leaving behind her private forensic pathology practice in Charleston, South Carolina, Kay Scarpetta accepts an assignment in New York City, where the NYPD has asked her to examine an injured man on Bellevue Hospital’s psychiatric prison ward. The handcuffed and chained patient, Oscar Bane, has specifically asked for her, and when she literally has her gloved hands on him, he begins to talk—and the story he has to tell turns out to be one of the most bizarre she has ever heard. The injuries, he says, were sustained in the course of a murder . . . that he did not commit. Is Bane a criminally insane stalker who has fixed on Scarpetta? Or is his paranoid tale true, and it is he who is being spied on, followed and stalked by the actual killer? The one thing Scarpetta knows for certain is that a woman has been tortured and murdered—and more violent deaths will follow. Gradually, an inexplicable and horrifying truth