David Baldacci lives with his family in Virginia. He and hiswife have founded the Wish You Well Foundation, a nonprofitorganization dedicated to supporting literacy efforts acrossAmerica. He invites you to visit him at www.david-baldacci.com andhis foundation at www.wishyouwellfoundation.org, and to look intoits program to spread books across America atwww.FeedingBodyandMind.com.

Recent Yale graduate Megan Smith comes to Manhattan with bigplans for a career in journalism and even bigger student loan debt:$75,000. When she flails at her trashy tabloid job, she's given anescape hatch: tutor seventeen-year-old identical twins Rose andSage Baker--yes, the infamous Baker heiresses of Palm Beach,Florida, best known for their massive fortunes and their penchantfor drunkenly flashing the paparazzi -- and get their SAT scores upenough to get into Duke. Impossible job -- yes. But if shesucceeds, her student debts are history. Unfortunately for Megan,the Baker twins aren't about to curtail their busy social schedulesfor basic algebra. And they certainly aren't thrilled to have tosit down for a study session with dowdy Megan. Megan quicklydiscovers that if she's going to get her money, she'll have tolearn her Pucci from her Prada. And if she can look the part,maybe, just maybe, she can teach the girls something along theway.

The Door, Margaret Atwood's first book of poetry since Morningin the Burned House, is a magnificent achievement. Here inpaperback for the first time, these fifty lucid, urgent poems rangein tone from lyric to ironic to mediative to prophetic, and insubject from the personal to the political, viewed in its broadestsense. They investigate the mysterious writing of poetry itself, aswell as the passage of time and our shared sense of mortality.Brave and compassionate, The Door interrogates the certainties thatwe build our lives on, and reminds us once again of MargaretAtwood's unique accomplishments as one of the finest and mostcelebrated writers of our time.

A rapturous, witty, and passionate memoir ... Violin Dreams isnot only the story of a man becoming an artist, its a history oftwentieth-century music. John Guare, Tony Awardwinning playwrightArnold Steinhardt, for more than forty years an internationalsoloist and the first violinist of the Guarneri String Quartet,brings warmth, wit, and fascinating insider details to the story ofhis lifelong obsession with the violin, that most seductive andstunningly beautiful instrument. His story is rich with vividscenes: the terror inflicted by his early violin teachers, thesensual pleasure involved in the pursuit of the perfect violin, thecharged atmosphere of high-level competitions. Steinhardt describesBachs Chaconne as the holy grail for the solo violin, and heilluminates, from the perspective of an ardent owner of a greatStorioni violin, the history and mysteries of the renowned Italianviolinmakers. Violin Dreams includes a remarkable CD recording ofSteinhardt performing Bachs Partita in D Minor as a young vio

Karen Wynn Fonstad's THE ATLAS OF MIDDLE-EARTH is an essentialvolume that will enchant all Tolkien fans. Here is the definitiveguide to the geography of Middle-earth, from its founding in theElder Days through the Third Age, including the journeys of Bilbo,Frodo, and the Fellowship of the Ring. Authentic and updated --nearly one third of the maps are new, and the text is fully revised-- the atlas illuminates the enchanted world created in THESILMARILLION, THE HOBBIT, and THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Hundreds oftwo-color maps and diagrams survey the journeys of the principalcharacters day by day -- including all the battles and keylocations of the First, Second, and Third Ages. Plans andde*ions of castles, buildings, and distinctive landforms aregiven, along with thematic maps describing the climate, vegetation,languages, and population distribution of Middle-earth throughoutits history. An extensive appendix and an index help readerscorrelate the maps with Tolkien's novels.

It is the most famous military installation in the world. Andit doesn't exist. Located a mere seventy-five miles outside of LasVegas in Nevada's desert, the base has never been acknowledged bythe U.S. government-but Area 51 has captivated imaginations fordecades. Myths and hypotheses about Area 51 have long abounded, thanks tothe intense secrecy enveloping it. Some claim it is home to aliens,underground tunnel systems, and nuclear facilities. Others believethat the lunar landing itself was filmed there. The prevalence ofthese rumors stems from the fact that no credible insider has everdivulged the truth about his time inside the base. Until now. Annie Jacobsen had exclusive access to nineteen men who servedthe base proudly and secretly for decades and are now aged 75-92,and unprecedented access to fifty-five additional military andintelligence personnel, scientists, pilots, and engineers linked tothe secret base, thirty-two of whom lived and worked there forextended periods. In Area 51, Jac

In eight new stories, a master of the form extends and magnifies her great themes--the vagaries of love, the passion that leads down unexpected paths, the chaos hovering just under the surface of things, and the strange, often comical desires of the human heart. Time stretches out in some of the stories: a man and a woman look back forty years to the summer they met--the summer, as it turns out, that the true nature of their lives was revealed. In others time is telescoped: a young girl finds in the course of an evening that the mother she adores, and whose fluttery sexuality she hopes to emulate, will not sustain her--she must count on herself. Some choices are made--in a will, in a decision to leave home--with irrevocable and surprising consequences. At other times disaster is courted or barely skirted: when a mother has a startling dream about her baby; when a woman, driving her grandchildren to visit the lakeside haunts of her youth, starts a game that could have dangerous consequences.

Book De*ion Remember when flying was glamorous and sexy, even fun? Whenairline food was gourmet, everyone dressed up for a flight, andstewardesses catered to our every need-at least in ourimaginations? This classic memoir by two audaciously outspokenyoung ladies, who lived and loved the free-spirited stewardesslife, jets you back to those golden days of air travel-from thecaptain who's as subtle as a 747 when he's on the make to thepassenger who mistakes the overhead luggage rack for an upperberth; from the names of celebrities who were a pleasure to serve(and some surprising notables on the "bad guy" list) to the originsof some naughty stereotypes-Spaniards "are" the best lovers, actorsthe most foul-mouthed. This huge bestseller, a First Class jet-agejournal, offers a hilarious gold mine of outrageous anecdotes fromthe high-flying and amorous lives of those busty, lusty,adventuresome young women of the swinging '60s known as"stews." About Author Trudy Baker and Rachel Jones were name

Stephen W. Sears has delivered a masterwork in Gettysburg, hissingle-volume history of the Civil War's greatest campaign. Drawingon original source material, from soldiers' letters to the OfficialRecords of the war, Sears offers dramatic and informed accounts ofevery aspect of the campaign, from well-hewn portraits of thebattle's leaders to detailed analyses of their strategies andtactics. Sears depicts General Meade's remarkable performance inhis first week of army command and pinpoints General Lee'sresponsibility in the agonizing failure of the Confederate army.With characteristic style and insight, Sears brings the epic taleof the battle in Pennsylvania vividly to life.

Michael Adams is a composer of advertising jingles whoshares a bachelor pad with three other guys. He spends his dayslying in bed (a minifridge positioned perfectly within reach) andplaying trivia games with his underachieving roommates. And when hefeels like it, Michael crosses the city and returns home to hisunsuspecting wife and two small children. Michael is living adouble life, stretching out his "wilting salad days" with imaginarybusiness trips and fake deadlines while his wife enjoys theexhausting misery of the little ones. It's the best thing for hismarriage, Michael figures. She can care for the new loves of herlife as it seems only she knows how, and he can sleep until theafternoon. Can this double life continue indefinitely? In The Besta Man Can Get, best-selling comic novelist John O'Farrell takesreaders on a dark romp through the soul of the contemporary male,torn between eternal adolescence and the very real demands offatherhood. It's wry, witty, and surprisingly charming.

From the moment these two legendary players took the court onopposing sides, they engaged in a fierce physical and psychologicalbattle. In Celtic green was Larry Bird, the hick from French Lick,with laser-beam focus, relentless determination, and a deadly jumpshot, a player who demanded excellence from everyone around him andwhose caustic wit left opponents quaking in their high-tops. MagicJohnson was Mr. Showtime, a magnetic personality with all the rightmoves. Young, indomitable, he was a pied piper in purple and gold.And he burned with an inextinguishable desire to win. Their uncommonly competitive relationship came to symbolize themost thrilling rivalry in the NBA—East vs. West, physical vs.finesse, old school vs. Showtime, even white vs. black. Each pushedthe other to greatness, and together Bird and Johnson collectedeight NBA Championships and six MVP awards, helping to save afloundering NBA. At the start they were bitter rivals, but alongthe way they became lifelong friends.

Ruth Anne "Bone" Boatwright, an illegitimate young girl,dreams of escaping her Greenville County, South Carolina, home, hernotorious, hard-living family, and the unwanted attentions of herabusive stepfather, Daddy Glen. A first novel. Reprint. NationalBook Award finalist. NYT.

When Jane Alison was a child, her family met another thatseemed like its mirror: a father in the Foreign Service, abeautiful mother, and two little girls. The youngest girls fromeach family—one of them Jane—even shared a birthday. With so much in common, the two families became almost instantlyinseparable. Within months, affairs had ignited between the adults,and before long the pairs had exchanged partners—divorced,remarried, and moved on. As if in a cataclysm of nature, twofamilies were ripped asunder, and two new ones were formed. Twopairs of girls were left in shock, a “silent, numb shock, like acrack inside stone, not enough to split it but inside, silentlyfissuring.” And Jane and her stepsister were thrown into a state ofsilent combat for the affections of their absent fathers—a contestthat, for one of them at least, would prove tragic. Readers drawn to The Glass Castle will be moved by Alison’sstunning emotional insight as she recounts the intimatedevastations of family

Winner of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize, "All the King's Men" is oneof the most famous and widely read works in American fiction. Ittraces the rise and fall of demagogue Willie Talos, a fictionalSouthern politician who resembles the real-life Huey "Kingfish"Long of Louisiana. Talos begins his career as an idealistic man ofthe people, but he soon becomes corrupted by success and caught ina lust for power. "All the King's Men" is as relevant today as itwas fifty years ago. Robert Penn Warren's masterpiece has been restored by literaryscholar Noel Polk, whose work on the texts of William Faulkner hasproved so important to American literature. Polk presents the novelas it was originally written, revealing even greater complexity andsubtlety of character. "All the King's Men" is a landmark inletters.

Everybody who is anybody is seen at the glittering partiesheldin millionaire Jay Gatsby's mansion in West Egg, east ofNew York. The riotous throng congregates in his sumptuous garden,coollydebating Gatsby's origins and mysterious past. None of thefrivoloussocialites understands him, and among various rumours is theconviction that 'he killed a man'. A detached onlooker,Gatsby isoblivious to the speculation he creates, though always seems to bewatching and waiting, but what for no one knows.As the tragic storyunfolds, Gatsby's destructive dreams andpassions are revealed,leading to disturbing consequences. Abrilliant evocation of 1920shigh society, The Great Gatsby peels away the layers of thisglamorous world to display the coldness and cruelty at itsheart.

The autobiographical novel of a journey from the Britishcolony of Trinidad to the ancient countryside of England.

Vicki Forman gave birth to Evan and Ellie, weighing just a poundat birth, at twenty-three weeks gestation. During the delivery shebegged the doctors to "let her babies go" she knew all too wellthat at twenty-three weeks they could very well die and, if theysurvived, they would face a high risk of permanent disabilities.However, California law demanded resuscitation. Her daughter diedjust four days later; her son survived and was indeed multiplydisabled: blind, nonverbal, and dependent on a feeding tube. ThisLovely Life tells, with brilliant intensity, of what became of theForman family after the birth of the twins the harrowing medicalinterventions and ethical considerations involving the sanctity oflife and death. In the end, the longdelayed first steps of afive-year-old child will seem like the fist-pumping stuff of atriumph narrative. Formans intelligent voice gives a sensitive,nuanced rendering of her guilt, her anger, and her eventualacceptance in this portrait of a mothers fierce love for herchildren.

Of Galbraith's classic examination of the 1929 financialcollapse, the Atlantic Monthly said: "Economic writings are seldomnotable for their entertainment value, but this book is.Galbraith's prose has grace and wit, and he distills a good deal ofsardonic fun from the whopping errors of the nation's oracles andthe wondrous antics of the financial community." Originallypublished in 1955, Galbraith's book has risen once again asAmericans look for perspective on the current global financialcrisis. This new edition will be published on the 80th anniversaryof the Great Crash with a new introduction by the author's son,economist, James K. Galbraith. He is the author of "The PredatorState: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why LiberalsShould Too."

From the early Soviet period, the impassioned short fictionof the great Russian-Jewish writer One of the most powerful short-story writers of the twentiethcentury, Isaac Babel expressed his sense of inner conflict throughdisturbing tales that explored the contradictions of Russiansociety. Whether reflecting on anti-Semitism in stories such as“Story of My Dovecote” and “First Love,” or depicting Jewishgangsters in his native Odessa, Babel’s eye for the comical laidbare the ironies of history. His masterpiece, “Red Cavalry,” set inthe Soviet-Polish war, is one of the classics of modern fiction. Byturns flamboyant and restrained, this collection of Babel’sbest-known stories vividly expresses the horrors of his age. “Amazing not only as literature but as biography.” —RichardBernstein, The New York Times “Marvelously subtle, tragic, and often comic.” —James Wood, The New Republic

Together in one extraordinary boxed set- "Naked in Death,""Glory in Death," and "Immortal in Death"-the first three In Deathnovels featuring New York Police Lieutenant Eve Dallas. Naked inDeath Eve Dallas is a New York police lieutenant using herinstincts to hunt for a ruthless killer. Breaking every rule, Evegets involved with Roarke, an Irish billionaire-and a suspect inEve's murder investigation. But passion and seduction have rulesall their own. Glory in Death Police Lieutenant Eve Dallas has noproblem finding connections between two violent crimes. Bothvictims were beautiful and highly successful women whose intimaterelations with men of great power and wealth provide Eve with along list of suspects-including her own lover, Roarke. Immortal inDeath A top model is dead, the victim of a brutal murder. PoliceLieutenant Eve Dallas puts her professional life on the line totake the case when suspicion falls on her best friend, the otherwoman in a fatal love triangle. And beneath the facade of glamour,Ev