The Dive From Clausen's Pier
By Ann Packer Carrie Bell and Mike Mayer have been a couple forever; dating at fourteen and engaged after graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, they have settled into a comfortable relationship. However, Carrie is beginning to struggle with feelings of doubt about their future.... In the midst of her doubts, tragedy befalls Memorial Day picnic with friends, Mike dives from Clausen's Pierinto water that is too low, breaking his neck and falling into a coma. An anxious Carrie diligently visits Mike in the hospital, praying with their friends and families that he will wake up, knowing that he will be a quadriplegic if he does survive.
But when Mike does awaken, Carrie's initial relief is quickly replaced by nagging doubts. She avoids the attempts of her mother and of Jamie, her lifelong best friend, to reach out to her. She dreads her inevitable contact with the Mayers, and she resents the accusing looks of Rooster, Mike's best friend, who senses her wavering commitment to Mike. Weary of her confused, hidden feelings, Carrie finally breaks up with Mike and runs off to New York in an attempt at self-discovery.
Carrie's taste of new life in New York City leads her to places in her heart and mind that stimulate and thrill her in ways she never knew were possible. But Carrie finds she cannot easily leave behind her old life in Madison, nor can she escape from herself.
A first-rate work of military history and an essential contribution to our understanding of the Civil War..
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
By Naomi Klein
Journalist Klein introduced the term "disaster capitalism." Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka after the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed remarkably similar events: people still reeling were hit again, this time with economic ..."shock treatment," losing their land and homes to corporate makeovers. This book retells the story of Milton Friedman's free-market economic revolution. In contrast to the myth of this movement's peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies. At its the core is the use of cataclysmic events to advance radical privatization combined with the privatization of the disaster response itself.
Klein argues that by capitalizing on crises, created by nature or war, the disaster capitalism complex now exists as a booming new economy, the violent culmination of a radical economic project that has been incubating for fifty years
The Heretic's Daughter
By Kathleen Kent Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. Like her mother, young Sarah Carrier is bright and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal world in which they live. Often at odds with one another, mother and ...daughter are forced to stand together against the escalating hysteria of the trials and the superstitious tyranny that led to the torture and imprisonment of more than 200 people accused of witchcraft. This is the story of Martha's courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by the daughter who survived
The Book of the Dead
By Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child A brilliant FBI agent, rotting away in a high security prison for a murder he did not commit. His brilliant, psychotic brother, about to perpetrate a horrific crime. A young woman with an extraordinary past, on the edge ...of a violent breakdown. An ancient Egyptian tomb about to be unveiled at a celebrity-studded New York gala, an enigmatic curse released
Paris to the Moon
By Adam Gopnik Paris. The name alone conjures images of chestnut-lined boulevards, sidewalk cafes, breathtaking facades around every corner--in short, an exquisite romanticism that has captured the American imagination for as long as there have been Americans.
In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife, and their... infant son left the familiar comforts and hassles of New York City for the urbane glamour of the City of Light. Gopnik is a longtime New Yorker writer, and the magazine has sent its writers to Paris for decades--but his was above all a personal pilgrimage to the place that had for so long been the undisputed capital of everything cultural and beautiful. It was also the opportunity to raise a child who would know what it was to romp in the Luxembourg Gardens, to enjoy a croque monsieur in a Left Bank cafe--a child (and perhaps a father, too) who would have a grasp of that Parisian sense of style we Americans find so elusive.
So, in the grand tradition of the American abroad, Gopnik walked the paths of the Tuileries, enjoyed philosophical discussions at his local bistro, wrote as violet twilight fell on the arrondissements. Of course, as readers of Gopnik's beloved and award-winning "Paris Journals" in The New Yorker know, there was also the matter of raising a child and carrying on with day-to-day, not-so-fabled life. Evenings with French intellectuals preceded middle-of-the-night baby feedings; afternoons were filled with trips to the Musee d'Orsay and pinball games; weekday leftovers were eaten while three-star chefs debated a "culinary crisis."
As Gopnik describes in this funny and tender book, the dual processes of navigating a foreign city and becoming a parent are not completely dissimilar journeys--both hold new routines, new languages, a new set of rules by which everyday life is lived. With singular wit and insight, Gopnik weaves the magical with the mundane in a wholly delightful, often hilarious look at what it was to be an American family man in Paris at the end of the twentieth century. "We went to Paris for a sentimental reeducation-I did anyway-even though the sentiments we were instructed in were not the ones we were expecting to learn, which I believe is why they call it an education."
Vicksburg, 1863
By Winston Groom A riveting history of the battle that permanently turned the tide of the Civil War.
While Gettysburg is better known, Winston Groom makes clear in this engrossing narrative that Vicksburg was the more important battle from a strategic point of view. Re-creating the epic campaign that culminated at Vicksburg, Groom details the arduous struggle by the Union to gain control of the Mississippi River ...valley and to divide the Confederacy in two. He takes us back to 1861, when Lincoln chooses Ulysses S. Grant-seen at the time as a mediocre general with a drinking problem-to lead the Union army south from Illinois.
We follow Grant and his troops as they fight one campaign after another, including the famous engagements at Forts Henry and Donelson and the bloodbath at Shiloh, until, after almost a year, they close in on Vicksburg. We witness Grant's seven long months of battle against the determined Confederate army, and the many failed Union attempts to take Vicksburg, during which thousands of soldiers on both sides would be buried and, ultimately, the fate of the Confederacy would be sealed. As Groom recounts this landmark confrontation, he brings the participants to life. We see Grant in all his grim determination, the feistiness of William Tecumseh Sherman, and the pride and intransigence of Confederate leaders from Jefferson Davis and General Joseph E. Johnston to General John C. Pemberton, the Philadelphia-born Rebel who commanded at Vicksburg and took the blame for losing.
A first-rate work of military history and an essential contribution to our understanding of the Civil War.
American Wife By Curtis Sittenfeld On what might become one of the most significant days in her husband's presidency, Alice Blackwell considers the strange and unlikely path that has led her to the White House--and the repercussions of a life lived, as she puts it, "almost in opposition to itself."... How can she both love and fundamentally disagree with her husband? How complicit has she been in the trajectory of her own life? What should she do when her private beliefs run against her public persona?--From publisher description.
Six Seconds
By Rick Mofing A vengeful woman who aches for her place in paradise. In Iraq, an aid worker whose husband and child were killed in a brutal attack, saves the life of an American -believing he can help her avenge her family's death. An anguished mother desperate to find her child. ...In California, a mother arrives to pick up her son from school, only to discover that her husband has taken their child and vanished without a trace. A detective in need of redemption. Haunted by the past, an offduty cop launches his own investigation into the death of a little girl, leading him to a school where time is ticking down to an event that will rewrite history
Eleventh Hour
By Catherine Coulter When FBI agent Dane Carver's twin brother, Father Michael Joseph, is brutally murdered in his San Francisco church, husband-and-wife agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich take a personal interest in the investigation. Then Nicola "Nick" Jones, a homeless woman and... the only witness to the shooting, is scared out of her mind because she's trying to hide from her own monsters-who are drawing closer and closer.
The chase goes from San Francisco to the Premiere Studios in Los Angeles and its new television hit, a show all about murder.
What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?
By Antonio Lobo Antunes A soaring, symphonic epic by the Portuguese master novelist, considered to be the "heir to Conrad and Faulkner" (George Steiner). The razor-thin line between reality and madness is transgressed in this Faulknerian masterpiece, Antonio Lobo Antunes's first novel... to appear in English in five years. What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?, set in the steamy world of Lisbon's demimonde-a nightclub milieu of scorching intensity and kaleidoscopic beauty, a baleful planet populated by drag queens, clowns, and drug addicts-is narrated by Paolo, the son of Lisbon's most legendary transvestite, who searches for his own identity as he recalls the harrowing death of his father, Carlos; the life of Carlos's lover, Rui, a heroin addict and suicide; as well as the other denizens of this hallucinatory world.
Psychologically penetrating, pregnant with literary symbolism, and deeply sympathetic in its depiction of society's dregs, Lobo Antunes's novel ventriloquizes the voices of the damned in a poetic masterwork that recalls Joyce's Ulysses with a dizzying farrago of urban images few readers will forget.
An Irish Country Doctor
By Patrick Taylor Barry Laverty, M.D., can barely find the village of Ballybucklebo on a map when he first sets out to seek gainful employment there, but already he knows that there is nowhere he would rather live than in the emerald hills and dales of Northern Ireland.... The proud owner of a spanking-new medical degree and little else in the way of worldly possessions, Barry jumps at the chance to secure a position as an assistant in a small rural practice.
At least until he meets Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly.
The older physician, whose motto is to never let the patients get the upper hand, has his own way of doing things. At first, Barry can't decide if the pugnacious O'Reilly is the biggest charlatan he has ever met, or the best teacher he could ever hope for. Through O'Reilly Barry soon gets to know all of the village's colorful and endearing residents, including:
A malingering Major and his equally hypochondriacal wife;
An unwed servant girl, who refuses to divulge the father of her upcoming baby;
A slightly daft old couple unable to marry for lack of a roof;
And a host of other eccentric characters who make every day an education for the inexperienced young doctor.
Ballybucklebo is long way from Belfast, and Barry is quick to discover that he still has a lot to learn about the quirks and traditions of country life. But with pluck and compassion and only the slightest touch of blarney, he will find out more about life-and love-than he ever imagined back in medical school.
The God of Animals
By Aryn Kyle From an award-winning and talented young novelist comes one of the most exciting fiction debuts in years: a breathtaking and beautiful novel set on a horse ranch in small-town Colorado.
When her older sister runs away to marry... a rodeo cowboy, Alice Winston is left to bear the brunt of her family's troubles -- a depressed, bedridden mother; a reticent, overworked father; and a run-down horse ranch. As the hottest summer in fifteen years unfolds and bills pile up, Alice is torn between dreams of escaping the loneliness of her duty-filled life and a longing to help her father mend their family and the ranch.
To make ends meet, the Winstons board the pampered horses of rich neighbors, and for the first time Alice confronts the power and security that class and wealth provide. As her family and their well-being become intertwined with the lives of their clients, Alice is drawn into an adult world of secrets and hard truths, and soon discovers that people -- including herself -- can be cruel, can lie and cheat, and every once in a while, can do something heartbreaking and selfless. Ultimately, Alice and her family must weather a devastating betrayal and a shocking, violent series of events that will test their love and prove the power of forgiveness.
A wise and astonishing novel about the different guises of love and the often steep tolls on the road to adulthood, The God of Animals is a haunting, unforgettable debut.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
By Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers." London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject.... Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she's never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb. As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society born as a spur of the moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all. Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society's members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.inny, and Skeeter start a movement of their own, forever changing a town and the way womenablack and white, mothers and daughtersaview one another.
Piercing
By Ryu Murakamia Kawashima Masayuki is a successful graphic designer living in Tokyo with his loving wife, Yoko, and their healthy baby girl. Outwardly, their lives are a picture of happiness and contentment. Every night, however, unable to sleep, Kawashima creeps from his bed and watches ...over the baby's crib while his wife sleeps. But this is no ordinary domestic scene, for on each of those nights, as he stands gazing at his newborn child, Kawashima has an ice-pick in his hand, and an almost visceral desire to use it. One particular night, as this drama unfolds once more, Kawashima makes a decision to confront his demons, and sets into motion an uncontrollable chain of events seeming to lead inexorably to murder.
The Sorcerer's Key
By Clayton Bye The Garden of Eden isn't what it used be... Fallen gods have risen. Evil witches prowl the streets at high sun. Satan's acolyte has opened a door to Earth. Behind it all is tycoon and magicker Morgan Heist. He doesn't care about the repercussions. The time has come to... risk everything for: THE SORCERER'S KEY
Jack Lightfoot has spent most of his life in hiding on Earth, so it's not surprising that his response to being confronted by a bounty hunter from Eden is anger and resentment. But no one could have predicted his decision to intervene in the twenty year fight between his father and Morgan Heist.
So begins a voyage of self-discovery destined to uncover a secret originating with Adam & Eve, one that jeopardizes Jack's freedom, risks the life of the girl he loves and may forever alter the existence of people on two worlds.
Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson
By Ian Halperin In late December 2008, Ian Halperin told the world that Michael Jackson had only six months to live. His investigations into Jackson's failing health made headlines around the globe. Six months later, the King of Pop was dead.
Whatever the final autopsy results... reveal, it was greed that killed Michael Jackson. Friends and associates paint a tragic picture of the last years and days of his life as Jackson made desperate attempts to prepare for the planned concert series at London's 02 Arena in July 2009. These shows would have earned millions for the singer and his entourage, but he could never have completed them, not mentally, and not physically. Michael knew it and his advisors knew it.
Anyone who caught even a fleeting glimpse of the frail old man hiding beneath the costumes and cosmetics would have understood that the London tour was madness. Why did it happen this way? After an intense five year investigation, New York Times bestselling author Ian Halperin uncovers the real story of Michael Jackson's final years, a suspenseful and surprising thriller.
<Book Thief
By Markus Zusak It's just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .
Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak's groundbreaking... new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can't resist books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.
This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.
The Help
By Katheryn Stockett The book everyone is falling in love with . . .
In Jackson, Mississippi, in 1962, there are lines that are not crossed. Black maids raise the white children, but no one trusts them not to steal the silver. Black maids clean the toilets, but they have their own out back.... Everyone stays within the lines. But, suddenly, three womenaAibileen, Minny, and Skeeterafind themselves tired of the lines.
Aibileen is a black maid, raising her seventeenth white child. She is a smart, regal woman, but a bitter seed has been planted in Aibileenas chest after the death of her son. Aibileenas best friend, Minny, is the sassiest woman in Mississippi, and goes through jobs like water. And Skeeter is just back from college, a white woman with a degree but, to her motheras chagrin, no ring on her finger. Too tall and too smart for her own good, she now discovers her beloved maid Constantine has disappeared without a trace.
Seemingly as different as can be, these women will come together for a clandestine project that will put all of them at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines. With the civil rights movement exploding all around them, Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter start a movement of their own, forever changing a town and the way womenablack and white, mothers and daughtersaview one another.
Rinnavation
By Lisa Rinna Whether she's interviewing celebrities on the red carpet, or "movin' what she's got" on Dancing with the Stars, Lisa Rinna always looks absolutely sensational. Now for the first time, the award-winning actress who captured our hearts in Days of Our Lives and Melrose Place... reveals her best-kept secrets for staying fit, managing weight, looking beautiful, feeling sexy, and living the best life possible.
In Rinnavation, her guide to looking and feeling your best, you'll discover: How Lisa got that Dancing with the Stars body
How to lose weight fast -- without counting calories
How to be "camera-ready" in just minutes
Advice for balancing work and family while also finding time to take care of yourself
Plus: Lisa's instant "lip plumper," quick-fix tanner, everyday makeup advice, hairstyling secrets, and even super-hot sex tips!
As a Hollywood star, Lisa has worked with the very best stylists, trainers, and professionals in the industry. Now she shares all her insider secrets, with surprising candor, down-to-earth humor, and irresistible charm. She talks frankly about her self-esteem lows, her struggle losing baby weight, her Hollywood marriage with actor Harry Hamlin, and her never-before-told experiences with cosmetic surgery. She reveals her emotional and spiritual journey from feeling unattractive and uninspired to finding a new sense of purpose and enthusiasm. And she shows you how to dramatically improve the quality of your life -- inside and out -- by approaching it one day at a time.
"I firmly believe that anyone can change their life for the better," Lisa says. "You just have to make up your mind to make it happen."
Spellman FIles
By Lisa Lutz Meet Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, private investigator. This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than... doors -- but the upshot is she's good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family's firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading people's privacy comes naturally to Izzy. In fact, it comes naturally to all the Spellmans. If only they could leave their work at the office. To be a Spellman is to snoop on a Spellman; tail a Spellman; dig up dirt on, blackmail, and wiretap a Spellman.
Part Nancy Drew, part Dirty Harry, Izzy walks an indistinguishable line between Spellman family member and Spellman employee. Duties include: completing assignments from the bosses, aka Mom and Dad (preferably without scrutiny); appeasing her chronically perfect lawyer brother (often under duress); setting an example for her fourteen-year-old sister, Rae (who's become addicted to "recreational surveillance"); and tracking down her uncle (who randomly disappears on benders dubbed "Lost Weekends"). But when Izzy's parents hire Rae to follow her (for the purpose of ascertaining the identity of Izzy's new boyfriend), Izzy snaps and decides that the only way she will ever be normal is if she gets out of the family business. But there's a hitch: she must take one last job before they'll let her go -- a fifteen-year-old, ice-cold missing person case. She accepts, only to experience a disappearance far closer to home, which becomes the most important case of her life.
The Spellman Files is the first novel in a winning and hilarious new series featuring the Spellman family in all its lovable chaos.
Be The Pack Leader
By Cesar MIllan Bestselling author Cesar Millan takes his principles of dog psychology a step further, showing you how to develop the calm-assertive energy of a successful pack leader and use it to improve your dog's life-and your own. Filled with practical tips and techniques as well as real-life success stories from his clients (including the Grogan family, owners of... Marley fromMarley & Me) and his popular television showDog Whisperer with Cesar Millan,Cesar helps you understand and read your dog's energy as well as your own so that you can move beyond just correcting behavioral issues and take your connection with your dog to the next level.
The principles of calm-assertive energy will help you become a better pack leader in every area of your life, improving your relationships with friends, family, and coworkers. In addition, Cesar addresses several important issues for the first time, including what you need to know about the major dog behavior tools available and the difference between "personality" and "instability." Ultimately, what emerges fromBe the Pack Leaderare both happier dogsandhappier, more centered owners.
Protect and Defend
By James North Patterson New York Times bestselling author Vince Flynn returns with his most explosive political thriller yet. A tour de force of action-packed suspense, Protect and Defend delivers an all too realistic and utterly compelling vision of nations navigating the minefield of ...international intrigue. A true "heavyweight in the political thriller arena" (Minneapolis Star Tribune), Vince Flynn has created a flesh and blood hero that readers can cheer for and a "finger blistering page-turner" they won't dare put down.
In Protect and Defend, the action begins in the heart of Iran, where billions of dollars are being spent on the development of a nuclear program. No longer willing to wait for the international community to stop its neighboring enemy, Israel launches one of the most creative and daring espionage operations ever conceived. The attack leaves a radioactive tomb and environmental disaster in the middle of Iran's second largest city. An outraged Iranian government publicly blames both Israel and the United States for the attack and demands retribution. Privately, Iran's bombastic president wants much more. He wants America and Israel to pay for their aggression with blood.
Enter Mitch Rapp, America's top counterterrorism operative. Used to employing deception, Rapp sees an opportunity where others see only Iranian reprisals that could leave thousands of Americans dead. Rapp convinces President Josh Alexander to sign off on a risky operation that will further embarrass the Iranian government and push their country to the brink of revolution. As part of the plan, CIA director Irene Kennedy is dispatched to the region for a clandestine meeting with Azad Ashani, her Iranian counterpart.
But Rapp isn't the only one hatching plans. Iran's President Amatullah has recruited Hezbollah master terrorist Imad Mukhtar to do his dirty work. For decades Mukhtar has acted as a surrogate for Iran, blazing a trail of death and destruction across the Middle East and beyond. When Kennedy's meeting with Ashani goes disastrously wrong, Rapp and Mukhtar are set on a collision course that threatens to engulf the entire region in war. With the clock ticking, Rapp is given twenty-four hours, no questions asked, to do whatever it takes to stop Mukhtar, and avert an unthinkable catastrophe.
Kiss the Girls
By James Patterson "We begin with Alex Cross, the detective introduced in ALONG CAME A SPIDER. He's back, and this time it's personal. Alex's favorite niece, Naomi, a beautiful young woman, disappears from school at Duke University. The trail of evidence points to Wylie, a serial killer who... takes sexual perversion to new heights. Wylie works in the Chapel Hill and Durham area of the South; his partner in depravity, Rudolph, finds his women in and around southern California. They are both serial freaks who have learned that there's strength in numbers.
KISS THE GIRLS is about a secret sexual obsession of many men, and the nightmare of every woman in America. It is about a killer who takes women off the streets, who possesses them, subjugates them, keeps them captive, and murders many of them for disobedience Alex Cross encounters in the new South the most horrifying serial criminal in history. Eventually, it is believed that hundreds of women disappeared over a ten-year period. KISS THE GIRLS it's a roller coaster, so hang on!"
The Curse of the Holy Pail
By Sue Ann Jaffarian Is the Holy Pail cursed? Every owner of the vintage Chappy Wheeler lunchbox,a prototype based on the 1940s TV western has died. And now Sterling Price, a client of Odelia Greys law firm, has been fatally poisoned. Is it a coincidence that Prices one of a kind lunch pail... has disappeared at the same time? Treading cautiously since a recent run in with a bullet, Odelia takes small bites of this juicy mystery.
Undiscovered Gyrl
By Allison Burnett Beautiful, wild, funny, and lost, Katie Kampenfelt is taking a year off before college to find her passion. Ambitious in her own way, Katie intends to do more than just smoke with her boyfriend, Rory, and work at the bookstore. She plans to seduce Dan, a thirty two year old film professor. ...
Katie chronicles her adventures in an anonymous blog, telling strangers her innermost desires, shames, and thrills. But when Dan stops taking her calls, when her alcoholic father lands in the hospital, and when she finds herself drawn into a dangerous new relationship, Katie's fearless narrative begins to crack, and dark pieces of her past emerge.
Sexually frank, often heartbreaking, and bursting with devilish humor, Undiscovered Gyrl is an extraordinarily accomplished novel of identity, voyeurism, and deceit.
The Curious Incident Of The Dog IN The Night
By Mark Haddon After stumbling upon his neighbor's dog, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork and being blamed for the killing, fifteen year old Christopher John Francis Boone, an autistic savant obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, decides to track down the real killer and turns to his detective... hero to help him with the investigation, which brings him face to face with a family crisis.
The Girls From Ames
By Jeffrey Zaslow Meet the Ames Girls, eleven childhood friends who formed a special bond growing up in Ames Iowa. As young women they moved to eight different states, yet managed to maintain an enduring friendship that would carry them through college and careers marriage and ...motherhood dating and divorce a child's illness and the mysterious death of one member of their group. Capturing their remarkable story, The Girls from Ames is a testament to the deep bonds of women as they experience life's joys and challenges and the power of friendship to triumph over heartbreak and unexpected tragedy. The girls now in their forties have a lifetime of memories in common some evocative of their generation and some that will resonate with any woman who has ever had a friend.
Photograph by photograph, recollection by recollection, occasionally with tears and often with great laughter their sweeping and moving story is shared by Jeffrey Zaslow, Wall Street Journal columnist as he attempts to define the matchless bonds of female friendship. It demonstrates how close female relationships can shape every aspect of womens lives their sense of themselves their choice of men their need for validation their relationships with their mothers their dreams for their daughters and reveals how such friendships thrive rewarding those who have committed to them.
The Girls from Ames is the story of a group of ordinary women who built an extraordinary friendship. With both universal insights and deeply personal moments it is a book that every woman will relate to and be inspired by.
The Devlin Diaries
By Christi Phillips London, The past twelve years have brought momentous changes the restoration Phillips of the monarchy, a devastating plague and fire. Yet the city remains a teeming, thriving metropolis, energized by the lusty decadence of Charles II's court and burgeoning scientific inquiry.... Although women enjoy greater freedom, they are not allowed to practice medicine, a restriction that physician Hannah Devlin evades by treating patients that most other doctors shun the city's poor. But Hannah has a special knowledge that Secretary of State Lord Arlington desperately needs. At the king's Machiavellian court, Hannah attracts the attention of two men, charming courtier Ralph Montagu and anatomist Dr. Edward Strathern, as well as the attention of the powerful College of Physicians, which views her work as criminal. When two influential courtiers are found brutally murdered, their bodies inscribed with arcane symbols, Hannah is drawn into a dangerous investigation by Dr. Strathern, who believes the murders conceal a farr eaching conspiracy that may include Hannah's late father and the king himself.
Angels & Demons
By Dan Brown From the #1 "New York Times" bestselling author of "The Da Vinci Code" comes the explosive thriller that started it all.
An ancient secret brotherhood. A devastating new weapon of destruction. An unthinkable target. When world-renowned Harvard ...symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to his first assignment to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol -- seared into the chest of a murdered physicist -- he discovers evidence of the unimaginable: the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati...the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth. The Illuminati has now surfaced to carry out the final phase of its legendary vendetta against its most hated enemy -- the Catholic Church.
Langdon's worst fears are confirmed on the eve of the Vatican's holy conclave, when a messenger of the Illuminati announces they have hidden an unstoppable time bomb at the very heart of Vatican City. With the countdown under way, Langdon jets to Rome to join forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to assist the Vatican in a desperate bid for survival.
Embarking on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome toward the long-forgotten Illuminati lair...a clandestine location that contains the only hope for Vatican salvation.
Critics have praised the exhilarating blend of relentless adventure, scholarly intrigue, and cutting wit found in Brown's remarkable thrillers featuring Robert Langdon. An explosive international suspense, "Angels & Demons" marks thishero's first adventure as it careens from enlightening epiphanies to dark truths as the battle between science and religion turns to war.
Brooklyn
By Colm Toibin Hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking, Colm Toibin's sixth novel, Brooklyn, is set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s, when one young woman crosses the ocean to make a new life for herself.
Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the years following World War Two. Though skilled ...at bookkeeping, she cannot find a job in the miserable Irish economy. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn to sponsor Eilis in America -- to live and work in a Brooklyn neighborhood "just like Ireland" -- she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind.
Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, a blond Italian from a big family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. He takes Eilis to Coney Island and Ebbets Field, and home to dinner in the two-room apartment he shares with his brothers and parents. He talks of having children who are Dodgers fans. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love with Tony, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future.
By far Toibin's most instantly engaging and emotionally resonant novel, Brooklyn will make readers fall in love with his gorgeous writing and spellbinding characters.
The Scarecrow
By Michael Connelly Jack McEvoy is at the end of the line as a crime reporter. Forced to take a buy-out from the LA Times as the newspaper grapples with dwindling revenues, he's got 30 days left on the job. His last assignment? Training his replacement, a low-cost reporter just... out of J-school. But Jack has other plans for his exit. He is going to go out with a bang - a final story that will win the newspaper journalism's highest honor - a Pulitzer prize. Jack focuses on Alonzo Winslow, a 16-year-old drug dealer from the projects who has confessed to police that he brutally raped and strangled one of his crack clients. Jack convinces Alonzo's mother to co-operate with his investigation into the possibility of her son's innocence. But she has fallen for the oldest reporter's trick in the book. Jack's real intention is to use his access to report and write a story that explains how societal dysfunction and neglect created a 16-year-old killer.But as Jack delves into the story he soon realises that Alonzo's so-called confession is bogus, and Jack is soon off and running on the biggest story he's had since The Poet crossed his path twelve years before. This time Jack is onto a killer who has worked completely below police and FBI radar. His investigation leads him into the digital world of data collocation services where server farms are watched over by techs who liken themselves to scarecrows - keeping the birds of prey off their clients' data. But Jack inadvertently set off a digital tripwire and the killer - the Scarecrow - now knows he's coming...
My Sister's Keeper
By Jodi Picoult New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her keen insights into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she tells the emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a passionate love that triumphs over... human weakness. Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate a life and a role that she has never challenged until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable,a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves. My Sister's Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person.Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life, even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart, or let others lead you? Once again, in My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult tackles a controversial real life subject with grace, wisdom, and sensitivity.
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