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How to Sell: A Novel

From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. A Canadian in 1987 goes to Texas and gets crushingly corrupted in Martin's sexy, funny and devastating debut. Bobby Clark is 16 when he leaves a dead-end setup with his single mother and grass-is-greener girlfriend, Wendy, and heads to Fort Worth to get into the fine jewelry business under the stewardship of his salesman brother, Jim. In no time, Bobby and Jim are snorting lines, Bobby's moving in on (and smoking crank with) Jim's mistress, Lisa, and getting a crash course in amazingly crooked business. Scams, bait-and-switch deals, bogus jewelry and startling treachery are day-to-day at the jewelry store, until the store's gregarious owner gets into trouble at the same time Bobby tries to save Lisa from a massive flame-out. Years later, Bobby's back in Fort Worth, married to Wendy (and with a child) and still in the jewelry business with Jim when Lisa reappears, engaged in an equally questionable if older profession. Bobby's helplessly honest narration is a sublime counterpoint to the crooked doings he's complicit in. Reading this is like watching one man's American dream turn into a soul-sucking nightmare. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. FromHow to Sell, a teardown of the jewelry industry and a reflection on deception, is "a lesson in double dealing -- in business and in romance," said O. Certainly, the novel contains amoral -- though surprisingly insightful -- characters on uncertain paths to a vaguely defined "success." The New York Times Book Review asked whether, for all its hype, the novel would become "an inevitable classic." The writing, the philosophical inquiries, and the compelling coming-of-age tale, whose scams resonate in this day, are top-notch. "All in all, it's a winning combination," concluded the reviewer -- if not, perhaps, the Great American Novel. But just as The Great Gatsby reflected the corrupted ideals of the Jazz Age, How to Sell may come to represent the early 21st-century American dream -- and how we continue to sell each other and our souls for a tiny, unsatisfying glimpse of it.
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Crave fa-2

The battle between good and evil has left the future of humanity in the hands of a reluctant savior and his band of fallen angels. Seven deadly sins that must be righted. Seven souls that must be saved. While his first task was success, Jim Heron is battling a demon that can take any form for the soul of someone he must identify on his own. If that weren't enough, his old boss Matthias wants Jim to assassinate an AWOL member of The Firm — Isaac, the man Jim is pretty sure he is supposed to save. Jim knows first hand that once you're in The Firm, there's no getting out. But when Jim finds Isaac to warn him, he has been picked up by the police for illegal street fighting, and it is clear that Isaac is falling for his gorgeous public defender. Is their love the redemption that will save Isaac's soul? Or has the demon Devina set an elaborate trap?
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First Thrills: Volume 2

New York Times bestselling author Lee Child and the International Thriller Writers, Inc. present a collection of remarkable stories in First Thrills. Showcasing many of the organization's bestselling authors as well as rising stars in the genre, here are twenty-five brand-new, never-before published, stories packed with murder, mystery, and mayhem.From Publishers WeeklyChild, the creator of the Jack Reacher series (Gone Tomorrow, etc.), offers a mixed bag in this anthology of 25 original stories by members of ITW (International Thriller Writers), divided between fledgling authors and established names such as Gregg Hurwitz, Stephen Coonts, and Heather Graham. Daniel James Palmer and Michael Palmer's The Dead Club, in which a greedy doctor joins a betting club that gambles on when unidentified patients will expire, does the best job at making the genre work in short form. Child, by contrast, misses the mark with the less than gripping The Bodyguard, an account of how the narrator became an ex-bodyguard. Of the newcomers, Rip Gerber's Last Supper, about a grieving widower's plot for revenge, is well-paced and compelling, while Ryan Brown's supernaturally tinged Suspended isn't. Other contributors include Ken Bruen, John Lescroart, and Karin Slaughter. Steve Berry, ITW's current president, provides an afterword. (June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistStarred Review This is hands down one of the best short story collections you're ever likely to read. The brainchild of the (relatively new) International Thrillers Writers organization, the book features never-before-published stories by such notables as Jeffery Deaver, Michael Palmer, Gregg Hurwitz, Stephen Coonts, John Lescroart, Karin Slaughter, and Lee Child (who also serves as the book's editor). Alongside them, you'll find top-notch short fiction from names that might be less familiar—J. T. Ellison, CJ Lyons, Sean Michael Bailey—but they are writers who certainly won't remain unfamiliar for long. The stories fit under the most inclusive of thriller umbrellas, but many contain elements of mysteries, science fiction, and horror as well. They feature an equally diverse cast of characters, too, ranging from con men and killers to aliens, ghosts, and zombies. In many short story collections, there are a few standouts. Here, nearly the entire lineup stands out. Lescroart's “The Gato Conundrum,” for example, is a fine spy thriller that moves through Italy, England, Russia, France, and the U.S., all in 20 pages. Heather Graham's “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” combines grisly horror with a historical setting. Theo Gangi's “Eddy May” is a seemingly straightforward story about a pair of con artists that turns out to be not straightforward at all; in an anthology full of plot twists, Gangi's definitely out twists them all. A masterful collection.
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Death of the Liberal Class

The liberal class plays a vital role in a democracy. It gives moral legitimacy to the state. It makes limited forms of dissent and incremental change possible. The liberal class posits itself as the conscience of the nation. It permits us, through its appeal to public virtues and the public good, to define ourselves as a good and noble people. Most importantly, on behalf of the power elite the liberal class serves as bulwarks against radical movements by offering a safety valve for popular frustrations and discontentment by discrediting those who talk of profound structural change. Once this class loses its social and political role then the delicate fabric of a democracy breaks down and the liberal class, along with the values it espouses, becomes an object of ridicule and hatred. The door that has been opened to proto-fascists has been opened by a bankrupt liberalismThe Death of the Liberal Class examines the failure of the liberal class to confront the rise of the corporate state and the consequences of a liberalism that has become profoundly bankrupted. Hedges argues there are five pillars of the liberal establishment – the press, liberal religious institutions, labor unions, universities and the Democratic Party— and that each of these institutions, more concerned with status and privilege than justice and progress, sold out the constituents they represented. In doing so, the liberal class has become irrelevant to society at large and ultimately the corporate power elite they once served.From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. In this tsunami of terrifying revelations, juxtaposed truths, and demonstrated facts, Hedges (War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning) argues that the traditional beacons of the liberal class—the universities, media, church, labor unions, and arts–have sacrificed themselves completely to the dominance of corporate greed and unbounded capitalism. We are all to blame and everything moral about our democracy stands to be lost—is indeed already vanishing, in Hedges's view—and those who draw attention to it are banished and booed. While every page erupts with calamities of the human spirit worthy of their own irate broadcasts and bull-horned fury, Hedges is at his best when he unpacks the density of his polemic and embraces the power of his narrative. Regardless of form, however, his most interesting theses include the parallel between the current domestic climate and the fall of Weimar Germany and the conclusion that "Everything formed by violence is senseless and useless. It exists without a future. It leaves behind nothing but death, grief, and destruction." These insights come not just as warning, but as witness. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. From BooklistThe real danger to progressive social ideals is not President Obama’s failure to push through a more liberal agenda or the threat presented by the Tea Party and others pushing the Republicans more to the Right. Hedges argues that the true threat to liberalism is the long and gradual weakening of its ideals. Drawing on analysis and interviews from his long career as a journalist, including 15 years with the New York Times, Hedges chronicles the corruption of such bastions of liberalism as the Democratic Party, academia, and labor unions. He cites the NAFTA agreement and welfare reform during the Clinton administration and union coziness with corporations as recent examples of the merging of government and corporate interests to the detriment of the interests of the poor or even the middle class. He also reviews the long history of assassination and co-optation of radical voices in the U.S. and the singular career of Ralph Nader as a consistent voice against capitalist excess. This is a thoughtful analysis of why and how liberals have compromised principles due to the allure of power and wealth. --Vanessa Bush
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Green

SUMMARY: Turning thirteen starts off with a bang for Lily. Literally. A birthday present explodes on her porch . . . and soon after a trio of leprechauns (yes, leprechauns) appears in her bedroom. They whisk her away to a land of clover, piskies, a new friend, a cute boy, and lots of glimmering, glittering gold. A world of Green.It turns out that Lily, like her grandmother before her, is next in line to be keeper for the Clan of Green, and in charge of all their gold. That is, if she passes three tests. And she has to pass them. Because if she doesn’t she may never get to go home again. She’ll be stuck with the Greens.Forever.
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Missing Susan

Elizabeth MacPherson must solve a mystery that links the present to the past when she takes a tour of the famous crime scenes of the British Isles, and the tour itself becomes the scene of the crime.
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