On the success of his two bestselling books about World WarII, James Bradley began to wonder what the real catalyst was forthe Pacific War. What he discovered shocked him. In 1905 President Teddy Roosevelt dispatched Secretary of WarWilliam Taft, his daughter Alice, and a gaggle of congressmen on amission to Japan, the Philippines, China, and Korea with the intentof forging an agreement to divide up Asia. This clandestine pactlit the fuse that would-decades later-result in a number ofdevastating wars: WWII, the Korean War, and the communistrevolution in China. In 2005, James Bradley retraced that epic voyage and discoveredthe remarkable truth about America's vast imperial past. Full offascinating characters brought brilliantly to life, The ImperialCruise will powerfully revise the way we understand U.S.history.

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 these eight tales, Munro evokes the devastating power of old love suddenly recollected. She tells of vanished schoolgirls and indentured frontier brides and an eccentric recluse who, in the course of one surpassingly odd dinner party, inadvertently lands herself a wealthy suitor from exotic Australia. And Munro shows us how one woman's romantic tale of capture and escape in the high Balkans may end up inspiring another woman who is fleeing a husband and lover in present-day Canada. "Open Secrets is a book that dazzles with its faith in language and in life."--New York Times Book Review

From the author of the award-winning "GraceLand" comes asearing, dazzlingly written novel of a tarnished City of AngelsPraised as asingulara ("The Philadelphia Inquirer") andaextraordinarya ("The New York Times Book Review"), "GraceLand"stunned critics and instantly established Chris Abani as anexciting new voice in fiction. In his second novel, set against theuncompromising landscape of East L.A., Abani follows a strugglingartist named Black, whose life and friendships reveal a world farremoved from the mainstream. Through Blackas journey of self-discovery, Abani raises essential questions about poverty,religion, and ethnicity in America today. "The Virgin of Flames," amarvelous and gritty novel filled with indelible images andunforgettable characters, confirms Chris Abani as an immenselytalented writer.

When two teenagers steal a purse from a stroller, it results inan infant's death. Unaware of the enormity of their crime, Zipp andAndreas are intent on committing another. They follow an elderlywoman home, and Andreas enters her house with his switchblade. Inthe dark, Zipp waits for his friend to come out. Inspector KonradSejer and his colleague Jacob Skarre see no connection between theinfant's death and the reported disappearance of a localdelinquent. And so while the confusion outside mounts, theheart-stopping truth unfolds inside the old woman's home.Unflappable as ever, Sejer digs below the surface of small- towntranquility in an effort to understand how and why violencedestroys everyday lives.

As a First Lieutenant and Infantry Platoon Leader for the U.S.Army National Guard, Paul Rieckhoff was charged with leadingthirty-eight men in Iraq. He spent almost a year in one of thebloodiest and most volatile areas of Baghdad. And when he finallycame home, he vowed to tell Americans the harrowing truth. He doesjust that, uncensored and unrehearsed, "and with wit and passion"(Arianna Huffington), in Chasing Ghosts -the first criticismof the Iraq war written by a soldier who fought in it.

In 1931 Hawai‘i, Thalia Massie, the aristocratic wife of anaval officer, accused five nonwhite men of gang rape. When thetrial ended in a hung jury, Thalia’s mother arranged for one of thesuspects to be murdered—an act sanctioned by sympathetic whites asan "honor killing." The ensuing murder trial, Clarence Darrow’slast, enthralled the nation and exposed the shocking realities of aHawaiian "paradise." This is the riveting story behind one of thepivotal scandals of American history.

Desperate to save his clan from deadly biological warfare,Dragonstar sentry Logan Kelly infiltrates the dangerous Wyvermoonclan- by posing as a rogue dragon. But his plan is compromised whenhe falls for Cecily, the Wyvermoon queen...

The New York Times bestseller and Booker Prize contender that"delivers...a ghost story that creeps up your spine" (SeattleTimes). One post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, Dr. Faraday is calledto a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family forover two centuries, the Georgian house, once impressive andhandsome, is now in decline. Its owners-mother, son, anddaughter-are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, aswell as with conflicts of their own. But are the Ayreses haunted bysomething more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr.Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story isabout to become intimately entwined with his.

"An uproarious, sprawling masterpiece by a grand Yiddishstoryteller." -O, The Oprah Magazine Translated in full for the first time, one hundred years afterits original publication, the acclaimed epic love story set in thecolorful world of the Yiddish theater. Wandering Stars spans tenyears and two continents, relating the adventures of Reizel andLeibel, young shtetl dwellers in late nineteenth-century Russia whofall under the spell of a traveling acting company. Together theyrun away from home to become entertainers themselves, and then tourseparately around Europe, ultimately reuniting in New York.Wandering Stars is an engrossing romance, a great New York story,and an anthem for the magic of the theater.

By the early 1960s, Ford Motor Company, built to bringautomobile transportation to the masses, was falling behind. Babyboomers were taking to the roads in droves, looking for speed notsafety, style not comfort, and Ford didn't offer what these youngdrivers wanted. Meanwhile, Enzo Ferrari lorded over the Europeanracing scene, crafting beautiful, fast sports cars that epitomizedstyle."Go Like Hell" tells the remarkable story of how Henry FordII, with the help of a young visionary named Lee Iacocca and aformer racing champion turned engineer named Carroll Shelby,concocted a scheme to reinvent the Ford company. They would enterthe high-stakes world of European car racing, where an adventurousfew threw safety and sanity to the wind. They would design, build,and race a car that could beat Ferrari at his own game, at the mostprestigious and brutal race in the world, the 24 Hours ofLeMans."Go Like Hell" transports readers to a risk-filled, glorioustime through this brilliant portrait of a rivalry between twoin

After 13 years in America, Abu Saheeh has returned to hisnative Iraq, a nation transformed by the American militarypresence. Alone in a new city, he has exactly what he wants:freedom from his past. Then he meets Layla, a whimsicalfourteen-year-old girl who enchants him with her love of Americanpop culture. Enchanted by Layla's stories and her company, AbuSaheeh settles into the city's rhythm and begins rebuilding hislife. But two sudden developments--his alliance with a powerfulmerchant and his employment of a hot-headed youngassistant--reawaken painful memories, and not even Layla may beable to save Abu Saheeh from careening out of control andendangering all around them. A breathtaking tale of friendship, love, and betrayal, OneHundred and One Nights is an unforgettable novel about thestruggle for salvation and the power of family.

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.

What would it take? That was the question that Geoffrey Canada foundhimself asking. What would it take to change the lives of poorchildren , not one by one, through heroic interventions andoccasional miracles, but in big numbers, and in a way that could bereplicated nationwide? The question led him to create the HarlemChildrens Zone, a ninety-seven-block laboratory in central Harlemwhere he is testing new and sometimes controversial ideas aboutpoverty in America. His conclusion: if you want poor kids to beable to compete with their middle-class peers, you need to changeeverything in their lives, their schools, their neighborhoods, eventhe child-rearing practices of their parents. Whatever It Takes isa tour de force of reporting, an inspired portrait not only ofGeoffrey Canada but also of the parents and children in Harlem whoare struggling to better their lives, often against great odds.Carefully researched and deeply affecting, this is a dispatch frominside the most daring and potentially transforma

Written around AD 1200 by an unnamed Icelandic author, theOrkneyinga Saga is an intriguing fusion of myth, legend andhistory. The only medieval chronicle to have Orkney as the centralplace of action, it tells of an era when the islands were stillpart of the Viking world, beginning with their conquest by thekings of Norway in the ninth century. The saga describes thesubsequent history of the Earldom of Orkney and the adventures ofgreat Norsemen such as Sigurd the Powerful, St Magnus the Martyrand Hrolf, the conqueror of Normandy. Savagely powerful and poetic,this is a fascinating depiction of an age of brutal battles,murder, sorcery and bitter family feuds.

In Anne Bartlett's engaging novel, a chance meeting sparks afriendship between two very different women who share a fascinationwith knitting. Sandra, a rigid academic, struggles to navigate theworld without her husband, whom she has recently lost to cancer.Martha--a self-taught textile artist with her own secret store ofgrief--spends her days knitting elaborate projects charged withpersonal meaning. As the two women collaborate on a new project,surprising events will help heal them both.

Many years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien composed his own version of thegreat legend of Northern antiquity, recounted here in The Legend ofSigurd and Gudrún. In the Lay of the V?lsungs is told the ancestry of the great heroSigurd, the slayer of Fáfnir, most celebrated of dragons; of hisawakening of the Valkyrie Brynhild, who slept surrounded by a wallof fire, and of their betrothal; and of his coming to the court ofthe great princes who were named the Niflungs (or Nibelungs), withwhom he entered into blood-brotherhood. In scenes of dramatic intensity, of confusion of identity,thwarted passion, jealousy, and bitter strife, the tragedy ofSigurd and Brynhild, of Gunnar the Niflung and Gudrún his sister,mounts to its end in the murder of Sigurd, the suicide of Brynhild,and the despair of Gudrún. The Lay of Gudrún recounts her fate after the death of Sigurd,her marriage against her will to the mighty Atli, ruler of the Huns(the Attila of history), his murder of her brothers, and herhideous reve

The only novel from Alice Munro-award-winning author of The Love of a Good Woman--is an insightful, honest book, "autobiographical in form but not in fact," that chronicles a young girl's growing up in rural Ontario in the 1940's. Del Jordan lives out at the end of the Flats Road on her father's fox farm, where her most frequent companions are an eccentric bachelor family friend and her rough younger brother. When she begins spending more time in town, she is surrounded by women-her mother, an agnostic, opinionted woman who sells encyclopedias to local farmers; her mother's boarder, the lusty Fern Dogherty; and her best friend, Naomi, with whom she shares the frustrations and unbridled glee of adolescence. Through these unwitting mentors and in her own encounters with sex, birth, and death, Del explores the dark and bright sides of womanhood. All along she remains a wise, witty observer and recorder of truths in small-town life. The result is a powerful, moving, and humorous demo

The untold true story of the murders that inspired theiconic musical Chicago . With a thrilling, fast-paced narrative,award-winning journalist Douglas Perry vividly captures thesensationalized circus atmosphere that gave rise to the concept ofthe celebrity criminal- and gave Chicago its most famous story. The Girls of Murder City recounts two scandalous, sex-fueledmurder cases and how an intrepid "girl reporter" named MaurineWatkins turned the beautiful, media-savvy suspects-"Stylish Belva"and "Beautiful Beulah"-into the talk of the town. Fueled by richperiod detail and a cast of characters who seemed destined for thestage, The Girls of Murder City is a crackling tale thatsimultaneously presents the freewheeling spirit of the Jazz Age andits sober repercussions.

The perfect life A successful lawyer and loving mother, Nina Bloom would doanything to protect the life she's built in New York--includinglying to everyone, even her daughter, about her past. But when aninnocent man is framed for murder, she knows that she can't let himpay for the real killer's crimes. The perfect lie Nina's secret life began 18 years ago. She had looks to die for,a handsome police-officer husband, and a carefree life in Key West.When she learned she was pregnant with their first child, herhappiness was almost overwhelming. But Nina's world is shatteredwhen she unearths a terrible secret that causes her to run for herlife and change her identity. The perfect way to die Now, years later, Nina risks everything she's earned to return toFlorida and confront the murderous evil she fled. In a story ofwrenching suspense, James Patterson gives us his mosthead-spinning, action-filled story yet--a Hitchcock-like blend ofunquenchable drama and pleasure.

Anecdotal, funny, frank, POPism is Warhols personal view of thePop phenomenon in New York in the 1960s and a look back at therelationships that made up the scene at the Factory, including hisrelationship with Edie Sedgewick, focus of the upcoming filmFactory Girl. In the detached, back-fence gossip style he wasfamous for, Warhol tells allthe ultimate inside story of a decadeof cultural revolution.