Adrienne Speck is the biggest loser in her high school, so she can hardly believe it when a magical boy falls from the heavens to grant her three wishes. He is cool, confident, and definitely popular crowd material—everything Adrienne's not. With his help, she has a chance to get everything she's ever wanted: get kissed, get popular, and get a date for the upcoming dance. But Adrienne discovers magic isn't all it's cracked up to be, and the road to popularity is paved with humiliation. To make her dreams come true, not only will she have to get the lead in the school play, ask out the most popular guy in school, and stand up to the current queen of popularity, but also keep her personal genie from trashing her room, dressing like a nerd, and revealing to her mom that he's living in their attic. For someone who's supposed to be helping her, he couldn't be making her life any worse. That is, until she starts to fall for him. Views: 11
In one corner, a godless young warrior, Voltaire's heralded 'philosopher-king', the It Boy of the Enlightenment. In the other, a devout if bad-tempered old composer of 'outdated' music, a scorned genius in his last years. The sparks from their brief conflict illuminate a turbulent age. Behind the pomp and flash, Prussia's Frederick the Great was a tormented man, son of an abusive king who forced him to watch as his best friend (probably his lover) was beheaded. In what may have been one of history's crueler practical jokes, Frederick challenged 'old Bach' to a musical duel, asking him to improvise a six-part fugue based on an impossibly intricate theme (possibly devised for him by Bach's own son). Bach left the court fuming, but in a fever of composition, he used the coded, alchemical language of counterpoint to write 'A Musical Offering' in response. A stirring declaration of faith, it represented 'as stark a rebuke of his beliefs and world view as an absolute monarch has ever... Views: 11
The wind and snow blow so hard, you can't see your hand in front of your face. Your heating fuel is nearly gone, and so is your food. How do you survive?Five fourteen-year-olds face this desperate situation on a deadly journey in Antarctica. It is 2083. They are contestants on a reality TV show, Antarctic Survivor, which is set up to re-create Robert F. Scott's 1912 doomed attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole.But in 2083 reality TV is not just an act. Contestants literally relive–or die during–the simulations of events. Robert Scott and his team were experienced explorers and scientists, but their attempt to reach the Pole proved fatal. What chance does the Antarctic Survivor team have?This action-packed, riveting adventure–full of fascinating direct quotes from Scott's journals and other accounts of the expedition–is both a heart-wrenching drama from the past and a disquieting glimpse into the future.Ages 12+ Views: 11
Newbery Medal 2006 She wished something would happen.
Something good. To her. Checking her wish for loopholes, she found one. Hoping it wasn't too late, she thought the word *soon*.
Meanwhile, in another part of town, he felt as if the world was opening. Life was rearranging itself; bulging in places, fraying in spots. He felt himself changing, too, but into what?
So much can happen in a summer. Views: 11
Paige Blackwell needs a vacation. She's been working hard as a partner in Shelby Parker's PI agency. When she's offered a chance to be on a survival type reality television show that takes place on a tropical island, she jumps at the opportunity. It looks like the week is going to be even more enjoyable than she had thought. And then the first shots are fired. At them. There's no reality TV show. Just reality. They're being hunted. Survival takes on a whole new meaning. Back home, Shelby and new associate Zoe are racing against the clock to stop a plot by the shadowy and sinister Dominion Order to control the U.S. guided missile system. Who wants the carefully selected contestants on the island dead? What do they all have in common? And why are Shelby and Zoe now targets, too? Clearly, only the fittest will survive. Views: 11
It is the richest, most influential, most powerful university in the world, but at the beginning of 2001, Harvard was in crisis. Students complained that a Harvard education had grown mediocre. Professors charged that the university cared more about money than about learning. Harvard may have possessed a $19 billion endowment, but had it lost its soul?The members of Harvard's governing board knew that they had to act. And so they made a bold pick for Harvard's twenty-seventh president: former Treasury Secretary and intellectual prodigy economist Lawrence Summers.Although famously brilliant, Summers was a high-stakes gamble. In the 1990s he had crafted American policies to stabilize the global economy, quietly becoming one of the world's most powerful men. But while many admired Summers, his critics called him elitist, imperialist, and arrogant beyond measure.Today Larry Summers sits atop a university in a state of upheaval, unsure of what it stands... Views: 11
In the second novel in the Macroglint Trilogy set in the near future, Jip Spotswood, our intrepid pop culture reporter, is covering the biggest story of his life. The world has become riveted by a $100 Million Tournament of the game STANDOFF! which is to be held in Las Vegas, at the same time as the greatest Battle of the Bands in "the biggest rock concert in the history of the Universe." And Spotswood has a stake in the outcome of both events that could not only change his own life, but the future of America. Views: 11
Should they have mixed business with pleasure?
Almost broke...
No. Make that completely broke, humiliated and ready to jump at any job that will pay. So when smart-as-a-whip blond bombshell and model Bridget Cole finds out Dr. Matthew Fox needs a CEO for his new textile company, Almost Naked, Inc., she practically jumps at the chance to teach him he can't live without her...well...services.
Altogether sizzling...
Superserious -- and seriously sexy -- Matt is harboring very unscientific fantasies about Bridget and her luminous, touchable skin. It doesn't help that it looks so hot in the lingerie she whips up with his Almostnaked wonder fabric. But now her media campaign is destroying his reputation as a serious scientist and he's got to find a way to keep her mouth closed... maybe with his own. Views: 11
In Tanya Huff's delightful new follow-up to her acclaimed bestsellers, Summon the Keeper The Second Summoning a force from the Otherside threatens to break through to our world and destroy the balance between Light and Darkness. Unless, of course, the Keepers Claire and Diana-two sisters who are able to reweave the possibilities of time and space-can prevent a permanent rift between worlds...at the local shopping mall. Views: 11
Heart-warming tales of nursing and midwifery from the Sisters who worked with Jennifer Worth. 'A second's silence and then an almighty scream. It was the most moving thing I had ever seen ... A baby, a real live baby, another human life had entered the world. It didn't seem possible and yet I had witnessed it with my very own eyes.' Born into a happy working-class North London family in the mid-twentieth century, Katie is determined to 'do something' with her life. Working in the impoverished East End in the 1950s, she meets the Sisters of St John the Divine – a community of nuns dedicated to nursing and midwifery. The Sisters have been present at births, cared for the sick and laid out the dead of the East Enders for a hundred years, and Katie soon joins them to start her journey to becoming Sister Catherine Mary. As a nurse and midwife,... Views: 11
The sea is the birthplace of legends.Nia, a young mermyd of the Bluefin clan, has had one wish all her life -- to be an Avatar in her beloved home of Atlantis. The ten Avatars rule the beautiful and peaceful undersea city alongside the ancient Farworlders, whose magic keeps their world alive. To be an Avatar is an honor and a great responsibility, and Nia dreams of taking her place among the noble ten.Now, at sixteen, Nia has a chance to see her dream come true. Atlantis is choosing its next Avatar, and Nia knows she is supremely qualified.But there is something Nia doesn't know -- if she gets her heart's desire, it could mean the end of her treasured world of Atlantis forever. Views: 11
ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Award WinnerFinalist for Foreword's 2011 Book of the Year Award in Literary Fiction"[Nahoonkara]...incorporates elements of historical fiction with experimental fiction, but nothing that pulls the reader out of the fictional dream."—Robin Martin,Gently Read Literature"Departing from traditional narrative form, Grandbois moves masterfully between first, second, and third persons to invite readers into a textual visualization of how individual choices affect the well-being of the community." —Review of Contemporary Fiction"Peter Grandbois is a splendid writer I intend to follow very closely."—Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize Winning author of A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain"Vividly drawn, exquisitely crafted, Nahoonkara bespeaks not just the promise of its author, but also his undeniable power."—Laird Hunt, author of... Views: 11
Love is in the air...and the hair -- or so wacky hairstylist Lacy Brown believes when she swoops into Mule Hollow. The town placed an ad for wives, and Lacy's salon is going to guarantee pretty ones!The moment cattleman Clint Matlock meets the spitfire stylist, he can tell she won't last. Attractive women just don't stick around dusty cow towns; his mom certainly hadn't. But Clint never expects Tornado Lacy to set his emotions spinning. Perhaps the trouble with Lacy Brown is that her last name should be Matlock. Views: 11
