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Dolores Claiborne: A Novel (Bride Series)
by Stephen KingMaster storyteller Stephen King presents the &“powerful&” (Time) #1 New York Times bestselling classic thriller about a housekeeper with a long-hidden secret from her past—one that tests her own will to survive.When Vera Donovan, one of the wealthiest and most ill-natured residents of Maine&’s Little Tall Island, dies suddenly in her home, suspicion is immediately cast on her housekeeper and caretaker, Dolores Claiborne. Dolores herself is no stranger to such mistrust, thanks to the local chatter and mysterious circumstances surrounding her abusive husband&’s death twenty-nine years earlier. But if this is truly to be the day of Dolores Claiborne&’s reckoning, she has a few things of her own that she&’d like to get off her chest...and begins to confess a spirited, intimate, and harrowing tale of the darkest secrets hidden within her hardscrabble existence, revealing above all one woman&’s unwavering determination to weather the storm of her life with grace and protect the one she loves, no matter what the cost...
Biotechnological Tools in Fisheries and Aquatic Health Management
by Bijay Kumar BeheraThis edited book is focused on SDG 14: life below water. This book covers all aspects of fish biotechnology and health management. A detailed description is provided of CRISPR Cas9 technology application in the development of superior variety of fish with better growth, disease resistance, etc., accompanied by numerous helpful photographs and schematic diagrams. In addition, recent developments in nanotechnology and its application in fisheries production enhancement have been discussed. Further, topics includes, probiotics, immunostimulants, fish genetic markers, bioremediation, metagenomics, transgenerational immune priming, application of cell culture in fisheries and nano-biosensor application on fish disease diagnosis, pollution monitoring, etc. are provided in details. . The book is helpful for researchers, teachers, students, farmers, and entrepreneurs in utilizing the knowledge on recent advancements in different aspects of fish genetics and biotechnology for future research and aquaculture production enhancement.
Crooked River Burning
by Mark WinegardnerIn 1948 Cleveland was America's sixth largest city; by 1969 it was the twelfth. For Easterners, Cleveland is where the Midwest begins; for Westerners, it is where the East begins. In the summer of 1948, fourteen-year-old David Zielinsky can look forward to a job at the docks. Anne O'Connor, at twelve, is the apple of her political boss father's eye. David and Anne will meet-and fall in love-four years later, and for the next twenty years this pair will be reluctant star-crossed lovers in a troubled and turbulent country. A natural-born storyteller, Mark Winegardner spins an epic tale of those twenty years, artfully weaving such real-life Clevelanders as Eliot Ness, Alan Freed, and Carl Stokes into the tapestry. His narrative gifts may bring the fiction of E. L. Doctorow to some readers' minds, but Winegardner is very much his own man, and his observations of Cleveland are laced with a loving skepticism. His masterful saga of this conflicted city is a novel that speaks a memorable truth.
The Asylum: A Novel
by John HarwoodIn this &“deliciously spooky&” Victorian Gothic, a woman&’s past could be the death of her—if she can remember it (The New York Times Book Review). Confused and disoriented, Georgina Ferrars awakens in a small room in Tregannon House, a remote asylum in England, with no memory of the past few weeks. The doctor, Maynard Straker, tells her that she admitted herself under the name Lucy Ashton, then suffered a seizure. When she insists he has mistaken her for someone else, Dr. Straker sends a telegram to her uncle. The reply is chilling: Georgina Ferrars is safe at home with him in London. Suddenly her voluntary confinement becomes involuntary. Who is the woman in her uncle&’s house? Which woman is the imposter? From a cliffside cottage on the Isle of Wight to the secret passages of the asylum, the perilous quest for answers draws Georgina only deeper into a web of hidden family ties on which her survival, and her sanity, depend. &“Redolent with a sense of foreboding . . . A splendid read!&” —Historical Novel Society, Editors&’ Choice &“Readers are guaranteed a thoroughly diverting time in Harwood&’s not-to-be-trusted hands.&” —The Independent &“Harwood, master of creeping Victorian horror, does it again. . . . Twisted in every sense of the word.&” —Booklist
The Lost Diary of M: A Novel
by Paul WolfeAn engrossing debut novel that cannily reimagines the extraordinary life and mysterious death of bohemian Georgetown socialite Mary Pinchot Meyer— secret lover of JFK, ex-wife of a CIA chief, sexual adventurer, LSD explorer and early feminist living by her own rules.She was a longtime lover of JFK.She was the ex-wife of a CIA chief. She was the sister-in-law of the Washington Post’s Ben Bradlee.She believed in mind expansion and took LSD with Timothy Leary. She was a painter, a socialite and a Bohemian in Georgetown during the Cold War.And she ended up dead in an unsolved murder a year after JFK’s assassination.The diary she kept was never found.Until now. . . .
The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams
by Darcy FreyDarcy Frey chronicles the aspirations of four young men as they navigate the NCAA recruitment process, their only hope of escape from a life of crime, poverty, and despair. It ought to be just a game, but basketball on the playgrounds of Coney Island is much more than that. In The Last Shot, the aspirations of a few of the neighborhood's most promising players reveal that what they have going for them (athletic talent, grace, and years of dedication) may not be enough to defeat what's working against them: woefully inadequate schooling, family circumstances that are often desperate, and the slick, brutal world of college athletic recruitment. Incisively and compassionately written, The Last Shot introduces us to unforgettable characters and takes us into their world with an intimacy seldom seen in contemporary journalism. The result is a startling and poignant exposé of inner-city life and the big business of college basketball.
Hue and Cry: Stories (Art Of The Story Ser.)
by James Alan McPhersonThe classic debut collection from Pulitzer Prize winner James Alan McPhersonHue and Cry is the remarkably mature and agile debut story collection from James Alan McPherson, one of America’s most venerated and most original writers. McPherson’s characters -- gritty, authentic, and pristinely rendered -- give voice to unheard struggles along the dividing lines of race and poverty in subtle, fluid prose that bears no trace of sentimentality, agenda, or apology.First published in 1968, this collection includes the Atlantic Prize-winning story “Gold Coast” (selected by John Updike for the collection Best American Short Stories of the Century). Now with a new preface by Edward P. Jones, Hue and Cry introduced America to McPherson’s unforgettable, enduring vision, and distinctive artistry.
Putney: A Novel
by Sofka ZinovieffIn the spirit of Zoë Heller’s Notes on a Scandal and Tom Perrotta’s Mrs. Fletcher, an explosive and thought-provoking novel about the far-reaching repercussions of an illicit relationship between a young girl and a man twenty years her senior.A rising star in the London arts scene of the early 1970s, gifted composer Ralph Boyd is approached by renowned novelist Edmund Greenslay to score a stage adaptation of his most famous work. Welcomed into Greenslay’s sprawling bohemian house in Putney, an artistic and prosperous district in southwest London, the musical wunderkind is introduced to Edmund’s activist wife Ellie, his aloof son Theo, and his nine-year old daughter Daphne, who quickly becomes Ralph’s muse.Ralph showers Daphne with tokens of his affection—clandestine gifts and secret notes. In a home that is exciting but often lonely, Daphne finds Ralph to be a dazzling companion, and while he worships her, he doesn't touch her. Their bond remains strong even after Ralph becomes a husband and father. But in the summer of 1976, when Ralph accompanies thirteen-year-old Daphne alone to meet her parents in Greece, their relationship intensifies irrevocably. One person knows of their passionate trysts: Daphne’s best friend Jane, whose awe of the intoxicating Greenslay family ensures her silence.Forty years later Daphne is back in London. After years lost to decadence and drug abuse, she is struggling to create a normal, stable life for herself and her adolescent daughter. When circumstances bring her back in touch with her long-lost friend, Jane, their reunion inevitably turns to Ralph, now a world-famous musician also living in the city. Daphne’s recollections of her childhood and her growing anxiety over her own daughter eventually lead to an explosive realization that propels her to confront Ralph and their years together.Told from three diverse viewpoints—victim, perpetrator, and witness—Putney is a subtle and powerful novel about consent, agency, and what we tell ourselves to justify what we do, and what others do to us.
Language Arts: A Novel
by Stephanie KallosA novel that is &“utterly absorbing, and full of wit [with] a doozy of a twist . . . An all-around delight&” (Maria Semple, author of Where&’d You Go, Bernadette?). Charles Marlow teaches his high school English students that language will expand their worlds. But linguistic precision cannot help him connect with his autistic son, his ex-wife, or his college-bound daughter, who has just flown the nest. He&’s at the end of a road he&’s traveled on autopilot for years when a series of events forces him to think back on the lifetime of decisions and indecisions that have brought him to this point. With the help of an ambitious art student, an Italian-speaking nun, and the memory of a boy in a white suit who inscribed his childhood with both solace and sorrow, Charles may finally be able to rewrite the script of his life. From the national-bestselling author of Broken for You, Language Arts is an affecting tale of love, loss, and language—its powers and its perils.
Kissinger the Negotiator: Lessons from Dealmaking at the Highest Level
by James K. Sebenius R. Nicholas Burns Robert H. MnookinForeword by Henry KissingerIn this groundbreaking, definitive guide to the art of negotiation, three Harvard professors—all experienced negotiators—offer a comprehensive examination of one of the most successful dealmakers of all time.Politicians, world leaders, and business executives around the world—including every President from John F. Kennedy to Donald J. Trump—have sought the counsel of Henry Kissinger, a brilliant diplomat and historian whose unprecedented achievements as a negotiator have been universally acknowledged. Now, for the first time, Kissinger the Negotiator provides a clear analysis of Kissinger’s overall approach to making deals and resolving conflicts—expertise that holds powerful and enduring lessons.James K. Sebenius (Harvard Business School), R. Nicholas Burns (Harvard Kennedy School of Government), and Robert H. Mnookin (Harvard Law School) crystallize the key elements of Kissinger’s approach, based on in-depth interviews with the former secretary of state himself about some of his most difficult negotiations, an extensive study of his record, and many independent sources. Taut and instructive, Kissinger the Negotiator mines the long and fruitful career of this elder statesman and shows how his strategies apply not only to contemporary diplomatic challenges but also to other realms of negotiation, including business, public policy, and law. Essential reading for current and future leaders, Kissinger the Negotiator is an invaluable guide to reaching agreements in challenging situations.
All of This Is True: A Novel
by Lygia Day Penaflor“Devious, delicious, and gasp-worthy.” (Kathleen Glasgow, New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Pieces)In this genre-defying page-turner from Lygia Day Peñaflor, four teens befriend their favorite novelist, only to find their deepest, darkest secrets in the pages of her next book—with devastating consequences. Miri Tan loved the book Undertow like it was a living being. So when she and her friends went to a book signing to hear the author, Fatima Ro, they concocted a plan to get close to her.Soleil Johnston wanted to be a writer herself one day. When she and her friends started hanging out with her favorite author, Fatima Ro, she couldn’t believe their luck—especially when Jonah Nicholls started hanging out with them, too. Penny Panzarella was more than the materialist party girl everyone at the Graham School thought she was—and she was willing to share all her secrets with Fatima Ro to prove it.Jonah Nicholls had more to hide than any of them. And now that Fatima’s next book is out in the world, he’s the one who is paying the price...Perfect for fans of One of Us Is Lying—and told as a series of interviews, journal entries, and even pages from the book within the book—this gripping story of a fictional scandal will keep you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end.
Sea Salt and Honey: Celebrating the Food of Kardamili in 100 Sun-Drenched Recipes: A New Greek Cookbook
by Nicholas Tsakiris Chloe Tsakiris Olivia TsakirisAn enchanting celebration of Greek provincial life—its charming culture and sublime food—captured in 100 delectable recipes and captivating stories from the Greek-American Tsakiris family, accompanied by more than 100 visually stunning full-color photographs by James Beard award-winning photographer Romas Foord.Sea Salt and Honey is a delightful ode to the rustic lifestyle of Nicholas Tsakiris’ birthplace. Though America has been his adopted country for the last thirty years, he felt himself irresistibly drawn back to his homeland after his two daughters, Olivia and Chloe, were grown. Over the years, Olivia and Chloe too felt the desire to reconnect to their roots. The family now live almost full time on the Mani coast, in a little house nestled in the Taygetos foothills close to Kardamili—a charming village of roughly 450 residents, where a walk across town takes five minutes. With the abundance of nature and boundless possibilities of ingredients around them, Nicholas, Olivia, and Chloe indulge in their favorite pastime—cooking delicious meals together while sharing family stories. They eventually began to grow their own food, working together to plant and harvest each season’s bounty in their garden. Like many Greeks, they eat seasonally, and most of the recipes they prepare are inspired by the food grown in their own backyard.In an age when retaining your roots, mindful eating, and work-life balance are becoming increasingly rare, Sea Salt and Honey is a reminder of the importance of tradition and a celebration of personal history that combines delicious, healthy recipes with a call to a simpler way of life. Nicholas, Olivia, and Chloe invite you to take a seat at their table, to enjoy the scenic vista of the Taygetos mountain range and the Messinian gulf, as you indulge in hearty, wholesome, and easy-to-make dishes such as: Smoked Trout and Wilted Lettuce Garden SaladSavory Greek Yogurt BowlsWinter Garden Pasta with Purple Cabbage, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Sage, and Dried ChilesGrilled Octopus Marinated in Red Wine Vinegar, Honey, and OreganoLamb Slow-Cooked in the Gastra (Clay Pot)Sea Salt and Honey Chocolate Chunk CookiesJames Beard award-winning photographer Romas Ford’s incredible images capture the sense of community and Greek culture that infuse and inspire these dishes. Filled with stories, adventures, memories, and beautiful photographs, Sea Salt and Honey pays tribute to authentic and Greek-inspired cuisine, and is a culinary celebration of a place where the love of the land, of nature, and of a simple but rich life makes you feel at home.
For the Good of the Game: The Inside Story of the Surprising and Dramatic Transformation of Major League Baseball
by Bud Selig Phil RogersA New York Times bestsellerForeword by Doris Kearns GoodwinThe longtime Commissioner of Major League Baseball provides an unprecedented look inside professional baseball today, focusing on how he helped bring the game into the modern age and revealing his interactions with players, managers, fellow owners, and fans nationwide.More than a century old, the game of baseball is resistant to change—owners, managers, players, and fans all hate it. Yet, now more than ever, baseball needs to evolve—to compete with other professional sports, stay relevant, and remain America’s Pastime it must adapt. Perhaps no one knows this better than Bud Selig who, as the head of MLB for more than twenty years, ushered in some of the most important, and controversial, changes in the game’s history—modernizing a sport that had remained unchanged since the 1960s. In this enlightening and surprising book, Selig goes inside the most difficult decisions and moments of his career, looking at how he worked to balance baseball’s storied history with the pressures of the twenty-first century to ensure its future. Part baseball story, part business saga, and part memoir, For the Good of the Game chronicles Selig’s career, takes fans inside locker rooms and board rooms, and offers an intimate, fascinating account of the frequently messy process involved in transforming an American institution. Featuring an all-star lineup of the biggest names from the last forty years of baseball, Selig recalls the vital games, private moments, and tense conversations he’s shared with Hall of Fame players and managers and the contentious calls he’s made. He also speaks candidly about hot-button issues the steroid scandal that threatened to destroy the game, telling his side of the story in full and for the first time.As he looks back and forward, Selig outlines the stakes for baseball’s continued transformation—and why the changes he helped usher in must only be the beginning. Illustrated with sixteen pages of photographs.
Trinity: A Novel
by Louisa HallFrom the acclaimed author of Speak comes a kaleidoscopic novel about Robert Oppenheimer—father of the atomic bomb—as told by seven fictional charactersJ. Robert Oppenheimer was a brilliant scientist, a champion of liberal causes, and a complex and often contradictory character. He loyally protected his Communist friends, only to later betray them under questioning. He repeatedly lied about love affairs. And he defended the use of the atomic bomb he helped create, before ultimately lobbying against nuclear proliferation.Through narratives that cross time and space, a set of characters bears witness to the life of Oppenheimer, from a secret service agent who tailed him in San Francisco, to the young lover of a colleague in Los Alamos, to a woman fleeing McCarthyism who knew him on St. John. As these men and women fall into the orbit of a brilliant but mercurial mind at work, all consider his complicated legacy while also uncovering deep and often unsettling truths about their own lives.In this stunning, elliptical novel, Louisa Hall has crafted a breathtaking and explosive story about the ability of the human mind to believe what it wants, about public and private tragedy, and about power and guilt. Blending science with literature and fiction with biography, Trinity asks searing questions about what it means to truly know someone, and about the secrets we keep from the world and from ourselves.
Eyes In The Sky: The Secret Rise of Gorgon Stare and How It Will Watch Us All
by Arthur Holland MichelThe fascinating history and unnerving future of high-tech aerial surveillance, from its secret military origins to its growing use on American citizensEyes in the Sky is the authoritative account of how the Pentagon secretly developed a godlike surveillance system for monitoring America's enemies overseas, and how it is now being used to watch us in our own backyards. Whereas a regular aerial camera can only capture a small patch of ground at any given time, this system—and its most powerful iteration, Gorgon Stare—allow operators to track thousands of moving targets at once, both forwards and backwards in time, across whole city-sized areas. When fused with big-data analysis techniques, this network can be used to watch everything simultaneously, and perhaps even predict attacks before they happen. In battle, Gorgon Stare and other systems like it have saved countless lives, but when this technology is deployed over American cities—as it already has been, extensively and largely in secret—it has the potential to become the most nightmarishly powerful visual surveillance system ever built. While it may well solve serious crimes and even help ease the traffic along your morning commute, it could also enable far more sinister and dangerous intrusions into our lives. This is closed-circuit television on steroids. Facebook in the heavens. Drawing on extensive access within the Pentagon and in the companies and government labs that developed these devices, Eyes in the Sky reveals how a top-secret team of mad scientists brought Gorgon Stare into existence, how it has come to pose an unprecedented threat to our privacy and freedom, and how we might still capitalize on its great promise while avoiding its many perils.
Let There Be Laughter: A Treasury of Great Jewish Humor and What It All Means
by Michael KrasnyFrom the host of NPR affiliate’s Forum with Michael Krasny, a compendium of Jewish jokes that packs the punches with hilarious riff after riff and also offers a window into Jewish culture.Michael Krasny has been telling Jewish jokes since his bar mitzvah, and it’s been said that he knows more of them than anyone on the planet. He certainly states his case in this wise, enlightening, and hilarious book that not only collects the best of Jewish humor passed down from generation to generation, but explains the cultural expressions and anxieties behind the laughs."What’s Jewish Alzheimer’s?""You forget everything but the grudges.""You must be so proud. Your daughter is the President of the United States!""Yes. But her brother is a doctor!""Isn’t Jewish humor masochistic?""No. And if I hear that one more time I am going to kill myself."With his background as a scholar and public-radio host, Krasny delves deeply into the themes, topics, and form of Jewish humor: chauvinism undercut by irony and self-mockery, the fear of losing cultural identity through assimilation, the importance of vocal inflection in joke-telling, and calls to communal memory, including the use of Yiddish.Borrowing from traditional humor and such Jewish comedy legends as Jackie Mason, Mel Brooks, and Joan Rivers, Larry David, Sarah Silverman, Jerry Seinfeld and Amy Schumer, Let There Be Laughter is an absolute pleasure for the chosen and goyim alike.
Being a Dad Is Weird: Lessons in Fatherhood from My Family to Yours
by Ben FalconeA funny and intimate look at fatherhood from the actor and writer/director of The Boss and Tammy that combines stories about his own larger-than-life dad and how his experiences raising two daughters with his wife, Melissa McCarthy, who also penned the Foreword, are shaped by his own childhood.Though he’s best known for his appearances in the movie Enough Said, as well as his hilarious role as Air Marshall Jon in Bridesmaids, Ben Falcone isn’t a big shot movie star director at home. There, he’s just dad. In this winning collection of stories, Ben shares his funny and poignant adventures as the husband of Melissa McCarthy, and the father of their two young daughters. He also shares tales from his own childhood in Southern Illinois, and life with his father—an outspoken, brilliant, but unconventional man with a big heart and a somewhat casual approach to employment named Steve Falcone.Ben is just an ordinary dad who has his share of fights with other parents blocking his view with their expensive electronic devices at school performances. Navigating the complicated role of being the only male in a house full of women, he finds himself growing more and more concerned as he sounds more and more like his dad. While Steve Falcone may not have been the briefcase and gray flannel suit type, he taught Ben priceless lessons about what matters most in life. A supportive, creative, and downright funny dad, Steve made sure his sons’ lives were never dull—a sense of adventure that carries through this warm, sometimes hilarious, and poignant memoir.
Spells for the Modern Mystic: A Ritual Guidebook and Spell-Casting Kit
by Kelley Knight Brandon KnightLooking to boost your self-empowerment and personal protection? Would you like to enhance your personal transformation and optimize the energy of the spaces in which you live and work? From one of the fastest growing spiritual brands comes guidance: a beautiful spell-casting book for modern mystics of all levels. With more than 25 rituals and spells, Spells for the Modern Mystic holds the key to tapping into the universe to improve your life. Spells for the Modern Mystic shows you step-by-step how to set up and perform rituals and cast spells in six life areas. self-protection; ancestral power; love; transformation; wealth; and personal spaces. It also includes an introductory section that explains the five essential elements of rituals—symbols, terms, and methodology, including how to set up altars—and answers frequently asked questions. With gorgeous specially commissioned black and gold patterns throughout and line drawings of essential symbols used in the spellwork, this indispensable guide written by experienced practitioners Kelley Knight and Brandon Knight will help empower you in every life area. Discover:Protection and Clearing Rituals: Solar Shielding Ritual; Ritual Protection Bath; The Watcher’s Call; Get the F*ck Out; Oops! Reversal RitualAncestral Rituals: Setting Up an Ancestral Altar; Opening the Gates Ritual; Healing the Lineage Ritual; Inner Child Ritual; Family Healing RitualTransformation Rituals: Road Opener Ritual; Kali Transformation Ritual; Empowerment of the Chakras; Ritual of Command; Ritual of PowerLove Rituals: Self-Love Ritual; Removing Blocks to Love Ritual; Relationship Support Ritual; Passion Ritual; Attracting a Committed Relationship RitualWealth Rituals: Setting Up a Wealth Altar; Job Obtainment or Promotion Ritual; Quick Cash Ritual Space Rituals: Clearing a Space; Protecting a Space; Obtaining a Space; Space Blessing
Tough Mothers: Amazing Stories of History's Mightiest Matriarchs
by Jason PorathThe author of Rejected Princesses returns with an inspiring, fully illustrated guide that brings together the fiercest mothers in history—real life matriarchs who gave everything to protect all they loved.Mothers possess the "maternal instinct"—an innate fierceness that drives them to nurture, safeguard, fight, and sacrifice for the most important things that matter to them. For some mothers, it’s their children. For others, it’s artistic expression, invention, social cause, or even a nation that they helped to birth. In Tough Mothers, Jason Porath brings his wisdom and wit to bear on fifty fascinating matriarchs.In concise, deeply researched vignettes, accompanied by charming illustrations, Porath illuminates these fearsome women, explores their lives, and pays tribute to their accomplishments. Here are famous women as well as lesser known figures from around the globe who have left their indelible mark as they changed the course of history, including:The Mother Who Sued to Save Her Children from Slavery—Sojourner TruthThe Mother of Rock n’ Roll—Sister Rosetta TharpeThe Mother of Holocaust Children—Irena SendlerThe Mothers of The Dominican Republic—The Mirabal SistersThe Mother of Yemen’s Golden Age—Arwa al-SulayhiA celebration of motherhood and female achievement, Tough Mothers reminds us of the power of women to transform our lives and our world.
The Nice and Accurate Good Omens TV Companion: Your Guide To Armageddon And The Series Based On The Bestselling Novel By Terry Pratchett And Neil Gaiman
by Matt WhymanA stunning full-color, illustrated, behind-the-scenes guide to the Good Omens television series, adapted for the screen by Neil Gaiman himself and starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant.Following the original novel’s chronological structure—from “the Beginning” to “End Times”—this official companion to the Good Omens television series, compiled by Matt Whyman, is a cornucopia of information about the show, its conception, and its creation. Offering deep and nuanced insight into Gaiman’s brilliantly reimagining of the Good Omens universe, The Nice and Accurate Good Omens TV Companion includes:A foreword from Neil GaimanA profile of the director, Douglas McKinnonNeil’s take on the adaptation process, in which he explains his goals, approach, and diversions from the original textInterviews with the cast, including Michael Sheen, David Tennant, Nina Sosanya, Jon Hamm, Ned Dennehy, Josie Lawrence, Derek Jacobi, Nick Offerman, Frances McDormand, Miranda Richardson, Adria Arjona, and many othersMore than 200 color photographsAnd much more!The must-have official companion guide to the Good Omens television series, Nice and Accurate TV Companion is a treasure trove of delights for fans of Good Omens, Neil Gaiman, and Terry Pratchett.
Murder In Matera: A True Story of Passion, Family, and Forgiveness in Southern Italy
by Helene Stapinski“A murder mystery, a model of investigative reporting, a celebration of the fierce bonds that hold families together through tragedies…Murder in Matera is a gem.”— San Francisco Chronicle"Tantalizing" — NPR“A thrilling detective story… Stapinski pursues the study of her family’s criminal genealogy with unexpected emotional results.” — Library JournalA writer goes deep into the heart of Italy to unravel a century-old family mystery in this spellbinding memoir that blends the suspenseful twists of Making a Murderer and the emotional insight of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels.Since childhood, Helene Stapinski heard lurid tales about her great-great-grandmother, Vita. In Southern Italy, she was a loose woman who had murdered someone. Immigrating to America with three children, she lost one along the way. Helene’s youthful obsession with Vita deepened as she grew up, eventually propelling the journalist to Italy, where, with her own children in tow, she pursued the story, determined to set the record straight.Finding answers would take Helene ten years and numerous trips to Basilicata, the rural "instep" of Italy’s boot—a mountainous land rife with criminals, superstitions, old-world customs, and desperate poverty. Though false leads sent her down blind alleys, Helene’s dogged search, aided by a few lucky—even miraculous—breaks and a group of colorful local characters, led her to the truth. Yes, the family tales she’d heard were true: There had been a murder in Helene’s family, a killing that roiled 1870s Italy. But the identities of the killer and victim weren’t who she thought they were. In revisiting events that happened more than a century before, Helene came to another stunning realization—she wasn’t who she thought she was, either.Weaving Helene’s own story of discovery with the tragic tale of Vita’s life, Murder in Matera is a literary whodunit and a moving tale of self-discovery that brings into focus a long ago tragedy in a little-known region remarkable for its stunning sunny beauty and dark buried secrets.
Stalin's Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of Word War II on the Eastern Front
by Constantine PleshakovOn June 22, 1941, radios all over the Soviet Union crackled with the announcement that the country had been attacked by Nazi Germany. But the voice on the airwaves was not the familiar one of Joseph Stalin; it was the voice of his deputy, Molotov. Paralyzed by Hitler's unexpected move, Stalin disappeared completely from public view for the crucial ten days of war on the Eastern Front. In this taut, hour-by-hour account, Constantine Pleshakov draws on a wealth of information from newly opened archives to elucidate the complex causes of the Soviet leader's reaction, revealing the feared despot's unrealized military stratagems as well as his personal vulnerabilities, while also offering a new and deeper understanding of Russian history.
Henry Adams and the Making of America
by Garry WillsOne of our greatest historians offers a surprising new view of the greatest historian of the nineteenth century, Henry Adams.Wills showcases Henry Adams's little-known but seminal study of the early United States and elicits from it fresh insights on the paradoxes that roil America to this day. Adams drew on his own southern fixation, his extensive foreign travel, his political service in Lincoln's White House, and much more to invent the study of history as we know it. His nine-volume chronicle of America from 1800 to 1816 established new standards for employing archival sources, firsthand reportage, eyewitness accounts, and other techniques that have become the essence of modern history.Adams's innovations went beyond the technical; he posited an essentially ironic view of the legacy of Jefferson and Madison. As is well known, they strove to shield the young country from "foreign entanglements," a standing army, a central bank, and a federal bureaucracy, among other hallmarks of "big government." Yet by the end of their tenures they had permanently entrenched all of these things in American society. This is the "American paradox" that defines us today: the idealized desire for isolation and political simplicity battling against the inexorable growth and intermingling of political, economic, and military forces. As Wills compellingly shows, the ironies spawned two centuries ago still inhabit our foreign policy and the widening schisms over economic and social policy.Ambitious in scope, nuanced in detail and argument, Henry Adams and the Making of America throws brilliant light on how history is made -- in both senses of the term.
Nine Innings: The Anatomy of a Baseball Game
by Daniel OkrentYou'll never watch baseball the same way again. A timeless baseball classic and a must read for any fan worthy of the name, Nine Innings dissects a single baseball game played in June 1982 -- inning by inning, play by play. Daniel Okrent, a seasoned writer and lifelong fan, chose as his subject a Milwaukee BrewersBaltimore Orioles matchup, though it could have been any game, because, as Okrent reveals, the essence of baseball, no matter where or when it's played, has been and will always be the same. In this particular moment of baseball history you will discover myriad aspects of the sport that are crucial to its nature but so often invisible to the fans -- the hidden language of catchers' signals, the physiology of pitching, the balance sheet of a club owner, the gait of a player stepping up to the plate. With the purity of heart and unwavering attention to detail that characterize our national pastime, Okrent goes straight to the core of the world's greatest game. You'll never watch baseball the same way again.
Because We Are Bad: OCD and a Girl Lost in Thought
by Lily BaileyA Washington Post Best Book of the Year“One of the best [books] I have read on the phenomenology of OCD.” —Scott Stossel, the Washington Post Written with the indelible power of Girl, Interrupted, Brain on Fire, and Reasons to Stay Alive, a lyrical, poignant memoir by a young woman about her childhood battle with debilitating obsessive compulsive disorder, and her hard-won journey to recovery.By the age of thirteen, Lily Bailey was convinced she was bad. She had killed someone with a thought, spread untold disease, and ogled the bodies of other children. Only by performing an exhausting series of secret routines could she make up for what she’d done. But no matter how intricate or repetitive, no act of penance was ever enough.Beautifully written and astonishingly intimate, Because We Are Bad recounts a childhood consumed by obsessive compulsive disorder. As a child, Bailey created a second personality inside herself—"I" became "we"—to help manifest compulsions that drove every minute of every day of her young life. Now she writes about the forces beneath her skin, and how they ordered, organized, and urged her forward. Lily charts her journey, from checking on her younger sister dozens of times a night, to "normalizing" herself at school among new friends as she grew older, and finally to her young adult years, learning—indeed, breaking through—to make a way for herself in a big, wide world that refuses to stay in check.Charming and raw, harrowing and redemptive, Because We Are Bad is an illuminating and uplifting look into the mind and soul of an extraordinary young woman, and a startling portrait of OCD that allows us to see and understand this condition as never before.