Evil never dies… The stunning new thriller from the bestselling author of Velocity and Breathless. Billy Lucas confesses to a shocking crime. He's only fourteen years old but he's a sadistic killer and proud of it. He's in the secure wing of the state hospital but … he seems too wise for his age, not crazy, too knowing. About the nature of evil, and whether it lives on beyond death. Too knowing about other crimes that took place before he was born … Other murders from twenty years ago surface in the mind of Detective John Calvino as he interviews young Billy Lucas. Calvino carries away a signed confession … and a sense of great danger. That night he feels that somehow Billy has come home with him, to his family. Over the next weeks, this haunted feeling does not go away. It only gets worse. Then another killing spree happens, just as and when John Calvino dreaded it would. Billy is safely locked away, but not the ghost, if the ghost exists, that links these murders with past crimes, and with John Calvino. Anything could happen, and surely will … again. Views: 68
The #1 New York Times bestselling author who "just keeps getting better and better" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) presents five novels in her sensational supernatural series featuring Anita Blake, federal marshal and vampire hunter. Views: 68
'I can never understand how the scribbles of such an ordinary person ... can possibly have value.' So wrote Nella Last in her diary on 2 September 1949. Sixty years on, tens of thousands of people have read and enjoyed the first two volumes of her uniquely detailed and moving diaries, written during World War II and its aftermath as part of the Mass Observation project, and the basis for BAFTA-winning drama Housewife 49 starring Victoria Wood (with a follow-up under discussion). This third compelling volume sees Nella, now in her sixties, writing of what ordinary people felt during those years of growing prosperity in a modernising Britain. Her diary offers a detailed, moving and humorous narrative of daily life at a time that shaped the society we live in today. It is an account that's full of surprises as we learn more about her relationship with 'my husband' (never 'Will') and her fears of nuclear war. Outwardly Nella's life was commonplace; but behind this mask were... Views: 68
Alona Dare — Senior in high school, co-captain of the cheerleading squad, Homecoming Queen three years in a row, voted most likely to marry a movie star… and newly dead. Will Killian — Senior in high school, outcast, dubbed “Will Kill” by the popular crowd for the unearthly aura around him, voted most likely to rob a bank…and a ghost-talker. Views: 68
ReviewLike geological fault lines, the fissures in the world economic system are more hidden and widespread than many realize, he says. And they are potentially more destructive than other, more obvious culprits, like greedy bankers, sleepy regulators and irresponsible borrowers. Mr. Rajan . . . argues that the actions of these players (and others) unfolded on a larger world stage, that was (and is) subject to the imperatives of political economies. . . . [A] serious and thoughtful book. -- New York Times In a new book . . . entitled Fault Lines, Rajan argues that the initial causes of the breakdown were stagnant wages and rising inequality. With the purchasing power of many middle-class households lagging behind the cost of living, there was an urgent demand for credit. The financial industry, with encouragement from the government, responded by supplying home-equity loans, subprime mortgages, and auto loans. . . . The side effects of unrestrained credit growth turned out to be devastating--a possibility most economists had failed to consider. -- John Cassidy, New Yorker The book, published by Princeton University Press, saw off stiff competition from five others on the shortlist, to be chosen as 'the most compelling and enjoyable' business title of 2010. The final intense debate among the seven judges came down to a choice between Fault Lines and Too Big to Fail, Andrew Ross Sorkin's acclaimed minute-by-minute analysis of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The book identifies the flaws that helped cripple the world financial system, prescribes potential remedies, but also warns that unless policymakers push through painful reforms, the world could be plunged into renewed turmoil. -- Financial Times The left has figured out who to blame for the financial crisis: Greedy Wall Street bankers, especially at Goldman Sachs. The right has figured it out, too: It was government's fault, especially Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business says it's more complicated: Fault lines along the tectonic plates of the global economy pushed big government and big finance to a financial earthquake. To him, this was a Greek tragedy in which traders and bankers, congressmen and subprime borrowers all played their parts until the drama reached the inevitably painful end. (Mr. Rajan plays Cassandra, of course.) But just when you're about to cast him as a University of Chicago free-market stereotype, he surprises by identifying the widening gap between rich and poor as a big cause of the calamity. -- David Wessel, Wall Street Journal [E]xcellent. . . . [Fault Lines] deserve[s] to be widely read in a time when the tendency to blame everything on catch-all terms like 'globalisation' is gaining ground. -- Economist [C]onvincing. -- Christopher Caldwell, New York Times Magazine Fault Lines is a must-read. -- Nouriel Roubini, Forbes.com What if the financial crash of 2008 was really caused by income inequality? Not greedy bankers, not reckless homeowners, but the ever widening-gulf between the rich and the poor? And what if the lack of social services--like health care--made things much, much worse? This is the startling new theory from Raghuram Rajan. . . . [Fault Lines is] especially fascinating because it mixes free-market Chicago School economics with good-government ideas straight out of Obamaland. -- John Richardson, Esquire.com A high-powered yet accessible analysis of the financial crisis and its aftermath, Fault Lines was awarded the FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year. Rajan . . . was one of the few who warned that the crisis was coming and his book fizzes with striking and thought-provoking ideas. -- Financial Times What caused the crisis? . . . There is an embarrassment of causes--especially embarrassing when you recall how few people saw where they might lead. Raghuram Rajan . . . was one of the few to sound an alarm before 2007. That gives his novel and sometimes surprising thesis added authority. He argues in his excellent new book that the roots of the calamity go wider and deeper still. -- Clive Crook, Financial Times A thought-provoking new book. . . . [Rajan's] voice is worth listening to. -- Martin Wolf, Financial Times Few people were able to foresee the recent economic downturn. Raghuram Rajan . . . was one of them. This makes his new book, Fault Lines, worthy of consideration amidst the rampant speculation about the causes of the financial crisis. . . . Fault Lines is valuable primarily for its clear explanation of unintended economic consequences from well-meaning government intervention. -- Washington Times Rajan's writing is clear and direct. -- James Pressley, Bloomberg News Former IMF chief economist Raghuram G. Rajan . . . in his new book, Fault Lines, brings together and explains the diverse failings that contributed to the crisis--the fault lines, as he puts it, that were exposed by the events of the past several years. Rajan then puts forward broad policy recommendations to ward off a future problem. . . . Rajan's book takes a comprehensive look at what got us into the crisis and offers an intriguing approach to avoiding another one. -- Phillip Swagel, Finance & Development I devoured Raghuram Rajan's Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy in a very short span of time last night. It's brief, well-written, and extremely interesting. I would definitely recommend adding it to your financial crisis reading list. -- Matthew Yglesias, Yglesias blog Rajan is worth reading not just because he was correct when few were but also because his writing is clear as a bell, even to nonspecialists. -- Christopher Caldwell, Weekly Standard The proposed global reforms that [Rajan] lists in Fault Lines run the gamut from the prosaic to grandiose. Along with revamping Wall Street's pay system, he offers innovative ideas on building capital buffers into the global credit system, obviating much of the need for bailouts of companies deemed too big or too enmeshed in the financial system to fail. -- Barron's Economists who can challenge their peers while remaining accessible to the general reader are rare, but Rajan belongs to this elite group. No short summary can do justice to this well-written, insightful, and nuanced study. -- Choice In 2007, then-chief IMF economist Raghuram G. Rajan delivered a stark warning to the world's top bankers: financial markets were headed for doom. They laughed it off. In the wake of the collapse that followed, Rajan has written a new book, Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy, that warns the system is doomed to repeat its mistakes. Like many defenders of the market, Rajan urges us not to demonize the bankers. But it's this fiscal conservative's focus on inequality that makes him stand out from the pack. The growing wage gap, he argues, is a hidden driver of financial instability, putting constant pressure on politicians to enact short-term fixes. -- Toronto Star The critics are wrong: Raghuram Rajan's analysis of the global financial crisis remains highly relevant and deserves to be widely read. . . . The breadth of Rajan's explanatory framework--which is presented cogently and concisely within 230 pages of text--marks this book apart from many others that tackle the same themes. -- Mark Hannam, Prospect Dozens of experts have explored the reasons behind the ongoing global economic turmoil, and Raghuram Rajan provides his own elegant and thoughtful analysis in Fault Lines. -- BizEd With Fault Lines, Rajan has made an original diagnosis of the credit crisis, one that goes much further than those of greedy bankers or wasteful mortgage giants such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. -- Christophe De Rijcke, De Tijd A book that should be the default choice of discerning finance professionals when they enter the store the next time. -- D. Murali, Business Line Rajan's Fault Lines is . . . expansive and policy-focused and clearly destined to become a must-read on any list of books on the recent global crisis. -- Jahangir Aziz, Business Standard Insightful, educative and incredibly gripping, if you want just one book to understand the ongoing global financial crisis and the way forward, Fault Lines it is. -- Gautam Chikermane, Hindustan Times Best Crisis Book by an Economist (2010). -- James Pressley, Bloomberg News Fault Lines has a strong claim to be the economics book that best caught the spirit of 2010. Raghuram Rajan's receipt of the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs annual business book award only confirmed his book's widespread popularity. It is not hard to see why so many people liked it. Fault Lines eschews hyperbole for a lucid and balanced account of the crisis. -- Fund Strategy Product DescriptionRaghuram Rajan was one of the few economists who warned of the global financial crisis before it hit. Now, as the world struggles to recover, it's tempting to blame what happened on just a few greedy bankers who took irrational risks and left the rest of us to foot the bill. In Fault Lines, Rajan argues that serious flaws in the economy are also to blame, and warns that a potentially more devastating crisis awaits us if they aren't fixed.Rajan shows how the individual choices that collectively brought about the economic meltdown--made by bankers, government officials, and ordinary homeowners--were rational responses to a flawed global financial order in which the incentives to take on risk are incredibly out of step with the dangers those risks pose. He traces the deepening fault lines in a world overly dependent on the indebted American consumer to power global economic growth and stave off global downturns. He exposes a system where America's growing inequality and thin social safety net create tremendous political pressure to encourage easy credit and keep job creation robust, no matter what the consequences to the economy's long-term health; and where the U.S. financial sector, with its skewed incentives, is the critical but unstable link between an overstimulated America and an underconsuming world.In Fault Lines, Rajan demonstrates how unequal access to education and health care in the United States puts us all in deeper financial peril, even as the economic choices of countries like Germany, Japan, and China place an undue burden on America to get its policies right. He outlines the hard choices we need to make to ensure a more stable world economy and restore lasting prosperity.
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From the author of DEADBEAT.Summer Unplugged is a novella.Bayleigh is addicted to her cell phone and her mom has had enough. After catching her sending a less than lady-like photo to a boy who barely knows her, Bayleigh's mom sends her away to her grandparent's house for the summer--sans cell phone, laptop and Ipod. Bayleigh thinks the summer will be torture without social media...that is until she meets the boy next door. Views: 68
Lu Zimmer's best friend moved away last summer. Salman Page is the new kid in school. Blos Pease takes everything literally. Three kids who are on the fringe of the middle school social order find each other and warily begin to bond, but suddenly things start going wrong. Salman becomes the object of the school bully's torment, and Lu's pregnant mother has some unexpected complications. Is something conspiring against them?In fact, through no fault of their own, Salman and Lu have become pawns in a game of jealous one-upmanship between Oberon and Titania, the king and queen of Faery, with the mischievous Puck trying to keep the peace.Taken from Titania's mention of a foundling in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, A. C. E. Bauer spins an original tale about magical intervention in the least magical of settings: a public middle school.From the Hardcover edition. Views: 68
Cross-pollinating famous 19th-century fictional characters and historical figures from disparate sources, this wild, steampunk fantasy presents two consecutive tales of madcap adventure. Hilarious and unpredictable, the first section follows Wild Bill Hickock, Annie Oakley, George Custer, Sitting Bull, and Buffalo Bill Cody’s head—which is affixed to the top of a mechanical body—as they take the Wild West Show to Japan by zeppelin. Further exploits involve Frankenstein as an aphrodisiac for a local shogun, encounters with Captain “Bemo” and his submersible, and a trip to the “island of Dr. Momo.” The second phase of this nonstop romp—partly inscribed by a courageous young seal on his trusty notepad—accompanies Mark Twain and Jules Verne against the backdrop of a Martian invasion. Escaping the carnage on a speedboat converted into a touring balloon, the boisterous group encounters more perilous experiences in the form of an island of pirates, a steam-powered robot, a Kong-sized ape, and multiple tears in the space-time continuum. Raucous and inventive, this dime-store pulp parody is rife with absurdist comedy while maintaining a literary scope.Review"Only one of the wildest alternate-worlds, rip-in-space-time, sf-pastiche romps this side of 50s B movies." —Booklist"Irrepressible, irreverent, and unpredictable, this hilarious fantasy with nostalgic touches of yesterday's SF shows off the narrative skills of an inventive author altogether comfortable in his metier." —Publishers Weekly"A folklorist’s eye for telling detail and a front-porch raconteur's sense of pace." —New York Times Book Review"One of the more versatile writers in America." —Los Angeles Times"Like 10-alarm chili, Lansdale is pretty strong stuff . . . He has become a cult figure." —People Magazine"Lansdale is a storyteller in the Texas tradition of outrageousness . . . but amped up to about 100,000 watts." —Houston Chronicle"A terrifically gifted storyteller,” —Washington Post Book Review"He may be violent, gruesome and shocking, but Lansdale is also one of the greatest yarn spinners of his generation: fearless, earthy, original, manic and dreadfully funny.laugh-out-loud funny, acquainted with the night and often acutely profound." —Dallas NewsAbout the AuthorJoe R. Lansdale is the author of 30 novels, including Bad Chili, The Bottoms, Lost Echoes, and Mucho Mojo, and more than 200 short stories, nonfiction articles, and comic books. His novel, Bubba Hotep, was made into a major motion picture, and he is the winner of seven Bram Stoker Awards, the British Fantasy Award, and the International Horror Award. He is a writer in residence and teacher at Stephen F. Austin University. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas. Views: 68
Addie Caine was a team of one. until she became an instant mom to her young niece and nephew. Caring for the kids is rewarding -- but exhausting! So when a gorgeous man named Giff Baker starts a short-term assignment at her office, Addie knows there's no time for romance. Yet Giff seems to be in hot pursuit. Is this part of his job, or can he really be falling for her? Giff's supposed to be looking for a corporate spy, not a girlfriend - and certainly not a ready-made family! Dating a woman he's investigating is an obvious no-no. Yet he finds himself willingly recruited for everything from changing diapers to fishing lessons. Something about Addie makes Giff want to be on her team. For keeps! Views: 68
