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Chelsea Cain’s novels featuring Portland detective Archie Sheridan and serial killer Gretchen Lowell have captivated fans through two nail-biting entries, Heartsick and Sweetheart, both of them multiweek bestsellers in The New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly. Gretchen Lowell is still on the loose. These days, she’s more of a cause célèbre than a feared killer, thanks to sensationalist news coverage that has made her a star. Her face graces magazine covers weekly and there have been sightings of her around the world. Most shocking of all, Portland Herald reporter Susan Ward has uncovered a bizarre kind of fan club, which celebrates the number of days she’s been free. Archie Sheridan hunted her for a decade, and after his last ploy to catch her went spectacularly wrong, remains hospitalized months later. When they last spoke, they entered a détente of sorts---Archie agreed not to kill himself if she agreed not to kill anyone else. But when a new body is found accompanied by Gretchen’s trademark heart, all bets are off and Archie is forced back into action. Has the Beauty Killer returned to her gruesome ways, or has the cult surrounding her created a whole new evil? Chelsea Cain continues to deliver heart-stopping thrills and chills in the latest entry in this dynamic bestselling series. Views: 41
Here are the thrills, grandeur, and unabashed fun of the Greek myths, stylishly retold by Stephen Fry. The legendary writer, actor, and comedian breathes life into ancient tales, from Pandora's box to Prometheus's fire, and transforms the adventures of Zeus and the Olympians into emotionally resonant and deeply funny stories, without losing any of their original wonder. Classical artwork inspired by the myths and learned notes from the author offer rich cultural context. Views: 40
'Ken Loach might have turned all this into a powerful social film, but the avuncular Davies sprinkles in so many cheery anecdotes that the book bounces along enjoyably' (Sunday Times) - Praise for VOLUME 1: THE CO-OP'S GOT BANANAS! Hunter Davies' childhood lived amongst the post-war dirt and grime of Carlisle was immediately hailed as a classic memoir from one of Britain's foremost columnists of the past half century. The Co-op's Got Bananas! left our protagonist at the cusp of working for one of the world's greatest newspapers – The Sunday Times. In this much-anticipated sequel, Hunter now looks back across five decades of successful writing to reflect on his colourful memories of the living in London during the height of the Swinging Sixties, becoming editor of Britain's first colour weekend supplement The Sunday Times magazine; where he befriended the Beatles; and reporting on (and... Views: 40
Introduced by Christopher Harvie.Sir Edward Leithen, lawyer, politician, sportsman and occasional philosopher, was probably the most autobiographical of John Buchan's heroes. This collection of four novels, written over a span of thirty years, shows Leithen/Buchan in all his moods – from the urban menace of The Power House in which 'the thin line between civilisation and barbarism' runs through London's West End; to the Highland exhilaration of John Macnab; the twists and turns of The Dancing Floor; and Sick Heart River, where Leithen meets death and redemption in the wastes of Canada.Buchan's learning and practical experience took him far beyond the range of the 'clubland hero' and these tales lead us to the heart of one of Scotland's most fascinating and enigmatic writers.'John Buchan was the first to realise the enormous dramatic value of adventure in familiar surroundings happening to unadventurous men.' Graham Greene Views: 40
A stunning new book about the role of animals in our lives, by a popular and acclaimed writerFrom the time she is nine years old, biking to the farmland outside her suburban home, where she discovers a disquieting world of sleeping cows and a “Private Way” full of the wondrous and creepy creatures of the wild—spiders, deer, moles, chipmunks, and foxes—Lauren Slater finds in animals a refuge from her troubled life. As she matures, her attraction to animals strengthens and grows more complex and compelling even as her family is falling to pieces around her. Slater spends a summer at horse camp, where she witnesses the alternating horrific and loving behavior of her instructor toward the animals in her charge and comes to question the bond that so often develops between females and their equines. Slater’s questions follow her to a foster family, her own parents no longer able to care for her. A pet raccoon, rescued from a hole in the wall, teaches her how to feel at home away from home. The two Shiba Inu puppies Slater adopts years later, against her husband’s will, grow increasingly important to her as she ages and her family begins to grow. Slater’s husband is a born skeptic and possesses a sternly scientific view of animals as unconscious, primitive creatures, one who insists “that an animal’s worth is roughly equivalent to its edibility.” As one of her dogs, Lila, goes blind and the medical bills and monthly expenses begin to pour in, he calculates the financial burden of their canine family member and finds that Lila has cost them about $60,000, not to mention the approximately 400 pounds of feces she has deposited in their yard. But when Benjamin begins to suffer from chronic pain, Lauren is convinced it is Lila’s resilience and the dog’s quick adaptation to her blindness that draws her husband out of his own misery and motivates him to try to adjust to his situation. Ben never becomes a true believer or a die-hard animal lover, but his story and the stories Lauren tells of her own bond with animals convince her that our connections with the furry, the four-legged, the exoskeleton-ed, or the winged may be just as priceless as our human relationships. The $60,000 Dog is Lauren Slater’s intimate manifesto on the unique, invaluable, and often essential contributions animals make to our lives. As a psychologist, a reporter, an amateur naturalist, and above all an enormously gifted writer, she draws us into the stories of her passion for animals that are so much more than pets. She describes her intense love for the animals in her life without apology and argues, finally, that the works of Darwin and other evolutionary biologists prove that, when it comes to worth, animals are equal, and in some senses even superior, to human beings.From the Hardcover edition.Review"Slater continually surprises wtih connections she makes. Beautifully written, and not just for animal lovers." —Kirkus Reviews"A thoughtful examination of a sometimes difficult life, ameliorated and often alleviated by connections with nature and animals. . . .Dogs, wasps, and bats also figure in a poetic narrative that gives the reader a melodic look into a deeply considered life."—BooklistAbout the AuthorLauren Slater is the author of six books, including Welcome to My Country, Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir, Opening Skinner’s Box, the short-story collection Blue Beyond Blue, and Love Works Like This, which chronicled the agonizing decisions she made relating to her psychiatric illness and her pregnancy. Slater has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a 2004 National Endowments for the Arts Award, multiple inclusions in Best American volumes, and a Knight Science Journalism fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Slater was a practicing psychologist for eleven years before embarking on a full-time writing career. She served as the clinical and later executive director of AfterCare Services. Slater lives and writes in Harvard, Massachusetts. Views: 40
Amazon.com ReviewFOR RENT: Top two floors of beautifully renovated brownstone, 1300 sq. ft., 2BR 2BA, eat-in kitchen, one block to parks and playgrounds. No broker’s fee.Susan and Alex Wendt have found their dream apartment.Sure, the landlady is a little eccentric. And the elderly handyman drops some cryptic remarks about the basement. But the rent is so low, it’s too good to pass up.Big mistake. Susan soon discovers that her new home is crawling with bedbugs . . . or is it? She awakens every morning with fresh bites, but neither Alex nor their daughter Emma has a single welt. An exterminator searches the property and turns up nothing. The landlady insists her building is clean. Susan fears she’s going mad—until a more sinister explanation presents itself: she may literally be confronting the bedbug problem from Hell. Amazon Exclusive: Q&A with Ben H. Winters Q: You tackled sea monsters in the New York Times best seller Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters. What made you turn to bedbugs? Ben H. Winters: The monsters in Sea Monsters are very big and very over-the top: giant super-intelligent lobsters, an island that comes to life, that sort of thing. Silly, campy, fun. In BEDBUGS I challenged myself to create a different kind of monster: serious, dark and deadly, and drawn from reality. Q: BEDBUGS is told from the perspective of Susan Wendt--a former lawyer turned artist and stay-at-home mom. As a man, was it difficult to write in a woman's voice? BHW: It was hard, although I would argue that gender is a very small part of what makes us who we are. In other words, it was challenging to get inside Susan's head mainly because I'm not a lawyer, a painter, or a stay-at-home parent, not necessarily because I'm not a woman. The hardest thing was writing in the voice of any kind of person, man or woman, being driven slowly insane by malevolent supernatural bugs. Q: It is obvious that you have done your homework on bedbugs. What was one of the most surprising facts that you learned about these nasty pests? BHW: It's pretty horrifying once you start to grasp how long they can stay alive without a host, and also how rapidly and exponentially they reproduce. But the nastiest fact is something called traumatic insemination. Seriously. Just look it up. Q: In BEDBUGS, you make many references to Rosemary's Baby. What is it about Rosemary's Baby that inspired you?BHW: Ira Levin was a master of turning the screw: he slowly, slowly ratchets up poor Rosemary's sense that something is not right about her home, her marriage, her baby. It's so effective because Levin keeps us in her point of view the entire time, so first of all we come to love her, but also we live with her suspicion and her fear and her terror. That seemed like exactly the right way to frame a novel about a peril as creepy and paranoia-inducing as bedbugs. Q: Lou the handyman and Andrea the landlord are an odd pair of keepers of this idyllic brownstone--how do their characters drive the story forward? BHW: Well, I'm just honoring my genre, you know. Slightly off-kilter, slightly menacing older people are a staple of slow-burn horror novels: when you've got weird old people in a weird old house, you just know there's something going on. Q: BEDBUGS is both a mystery and psychological thriller--how do you get inside the head of readers to scare them? BHW: My goal was to firmly ground the story in the realistic, day-to-day lives of the characters, stuff like grocery shopping at Trader Joe's, taking the kid to the playground, marital squabbles and make-up sex. With just occasional notes of what's to come: a smear of blood here, an unexpected noise there, an unnamed sense of melancholy and dread. Again, it's something you find in books like Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, even The Amityville Horror. There's this careful creation of a realistic, familiar world before the darkness begins to seep in. Q: BEDBUGS is both a mystery and psychological thriller--how do you get inside the head of readers to scare them? BHW: My goal was to firmly ground the story in the realistic, day-to-day lives of the characters, stuff like grocery shopping at Trader Joe's, taking the kid to the playground, marital squabbles and make-up sex. With just occasional notes of what's to come: a smear of blood here, an unexpected noise there, an unnamed sense of melancholy and dread. Again, it's something you find in books like Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, even The Amityville Horror. There's this careful creation of a realistic, familiar world before the darkness begins to seep in. Q: In BEDBUGS, Brooklyn is a character in itself--why did you choose Brooklyn Heights as your setting? BHW: I lived in that area for many years, around the corner from Brooklyn Heights in the neighborhood called Downtown Brooklyn. I find that whole section of the city to be so physically beautiful, and the energy to be so interesting. It's full of weirdos, hipsters, old people, young professionals, city workers, and people of literally every race and religion. And it's definitely a landing pad for couples like the Wendts: smart, ambitious young couples, balancing creative energy, ambition, and little kids. Q: You're the author of an Edgar-nominated children's novel and a New York Times best-selling adult novel. Is there a difference in how you approach writing each genre? BHW: Obviously, the differences are legion in terms of tone, vocabulary, and content. But there are nuts-and-bolts things you want to do right, no matter who the audience is: you want a solid structure, a careful building of tension, and interesting characters that a reader will care about. Q: Bedbugs seem to be everywhere! Do you have any personal experiences with bedbugs that informed the novel? BHW: No, thank God. I know nobody wants them, but after doing all the reading and video-clip watching I did for this book, I really don't want them. Once, when I was seven, I had lice. Here's hoping that's as close as I'll ever get. Q: When Susan went to set up a play date for her daughter, a neighbor commented that she saw an exterminator at her brownstone and could not risk exposing her family to bedbugs. How have bedbugs made dwellers pariah amongst their neighbors? BHW: There are all sorts of household pests--rats, roaches, termites, etc.--but there seems to be something about bedbugs that deeply disturbs people in a particularly unsettling way. As a society, we are just extra freaked out by these pernicious little bloodsuckers. So nobody wants to be the person who gave someone else bedbugs, and that leads to a lot of fear, secret shame, and paranoia. All of which, I felt, were rich themes for a novel of supernatural terror. Q: What are you working on now? Can you share a little about that with us? BHW: Oh, dear. Good question. I am currently hard at work on a mystery novel, and outlining a new and extremely silly novel for young readers. Also, my daughter is pressuring me pretty hard to write something about princesses, so we'll see where that goes. Review“By turns gruesome and compelling, fueled by a slow-burn tension, and full of in-jokes about contemporary Brooklyn culture, Winters's breezy summer read will leave readers compulsively scratching.”—Publishers Weekly“The author of the monster mash-up hit Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (2009) offers up a chilling tale of life in the perfect New York abode gone horribly wrong...Winters expertly builds suspense in this chilling thriller.”—Booklist"Bedbugs infest the life of a young couple who move into a peculiar brownstone in Brooklyn in Ben H. Winter's diabolical tale of paranoia and domestic unrest.”—Vanity Fair Hot Type“I would not recommend reading Bedbugs in bed; it’s that gripping—and grotesque. . . This creepy story is expertly told, and will having you scratching imaginary itches long after you finish reading.”—Penthouse“After reading Bedbugs you might want to fumigate any apartment you rent. You also might want to call in an exorcist.”—*McClatchy Newspapers“The book is a lot of fun and a great fall read for when you’re bundled under a pile of blankets that may or may not be full of creepy-crawlies.”—DenofGeek.com“All in all, Bedbugs *is a solid read, a good thriller, and I guarantee you will have the creepy ‘I need to bleach my pillowcases in hot water’ crawlies for days after.”—DaemonBooks.com“A rich blend of classic psychological suspense and horror. If Alfred Hitchcock were still with us, this is a book he would adapt to film.”—MonsterLibrarian.com“Bedbugs is one disgusting, fascinating novel. Be warned, and put the exterminator’s number on speed-dial.”—Sacramento News & Review Views: 40
Book DescriptionWhen an 80-ton fin whale became trapped in a lagoon near his Newfoundland home, Farley Mowat rejoiced at the unique chance to observe one of the world's most magnificent creatures up close. But some of his neighbors saw a different opportunity altogether: in a prolonged fit of violence, they blasted the whale with rifle fire, and scarred its back with motorboat propellers. Mowat appealed desperately to the police, to marine biologists, finally to the press. But it was too late. Mowat's poignant and compelling story is an eloquent argument for the end of the whale hunt, and the rediscovery of the empathy that makes us human.About The AuthorFarley Mowat was born in Belleville, Ontario, in 1921. He began writing upon his return from serving in World War II, and has since written 44 books. He spent much of his youth in Saskatoon, and has lived in Ontario, Cape Breton and Newfoundland, while travelling frequently to Canada's far north. Throughout, Mowat has remained a determined environmentalist, despairing at the ceaseless work of human cruelty. Yet his ability to capture the tragic comedy of human life on earth has made him a national treasure in Canada, and a beloved storyteller to readers around the world. His internationally celebrated books include People of the Deer, The Dog Who Wouldn't Be, Sea of Slaughter, and The Boat Who Wouldn't Float. Views: 40
First published in 1964, this book tells how what Columbus started in 1492 was finished in 1898, when the red and gold flag was lowered at Havana to mark the end of four centuries of Spanish dominance in the Caribbean.For two and a half centuries after the Pope divided the world between Spain and Portugal, the navies of Britain, France, Spain and occasionally the Netherlands fought in the Caribbean. Most of the islands changed hands at least once. Europe discovered the delights of coffee, tea and cocoa; sugar boomed; fortunes were made and lost; the slave trade flourished. But after the Napoleonic Wars prosperity receded, the conscience of the world awoke and slavery was abolished, ending the halcyon days of European colonialism in the Indies. Views: 40
The Guns of Navarone and its three sequels, in which the same characters are sent on other wartime missions, together in one volume for the first time to mark the 50th anniversary of the original book . THE GUNS OF NAVARONEMallory, Miller and Andrea are united into a lethally effective team. Their mission: to silence the impregnable guns set in the tall cliffs of Navarone. On their success or failure rests one of the most critical offensives of the Second World War. FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONEAlmost before the last echoes of the famous guns have died away, the three Navarone heroes are parachuted into war-torn Yugoslavia to rescue a division of partisans and fulfil a secret mission, so deadly that it must be hidden even from their own allies. STORM FORCE FROM NAVARONEThe surviving commandos are sent on a perilous journey through the Pyrenees to disable the greatest threat to the impending D-Day landings: the 'Werwolf' U-boats. But their Basque guides declare it mission impossible -... Views: 40
