A classic in its field. Why Nations Go to War engages readers in a dialogue about the human truth behind the mechanistic forces of war. Stoessinger examines the characters and personalities of leaders who have taken their countries into battle, showing how misjudgments and misperceptions affected the course of history. The seven case studies provide a solid historical background on twentieth-century warfare, while the compelling narrative keeps the readers involved. The seventh edition has been thoroughly updated and includes a new case study on Bosnia and the war over the remains of Yugoslavia.

About the Author

Dr. John G. Stoessinger is an internationally recognized political analyst and a prize-winning author of ten leading books on world politics. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard and has taught at Harvard, M.I.T., Columbia and Princeton. From 1967-1974, he served as acting director of the political affairs division at the United Nations. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and lectures extensively throughout the world. On the eve of World War II, Dr. Stoessinger fled from Nazi-occupied Austria to Czechoslovakia. Three years later, he fled again via Siberia to China, where he lived for seven years in Shanghai. He has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Bancroft Prize. He presently serves as Distinguished Professor of Global Diplomacy at the University of San Diego, and has been listed in WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA and WHO'S WHO IN THE WORLD since 2002 to the present.

The unforgettable His Dark Materials trilogy that began with The Golden Compass—the modern fantasy classic that Entertainment Weekly named an "All-Time Greatest Novel" and Newsweekhailed as a "Top 100 Book of All Time"—and continued with The Subtle Knife, reaches its astonishing conclusion in The Amber Spyglass.

Throughout the worlds, the forces of both heaven and hell are mustering to take part in Lord Asriel's audacious rebellion. Each player in this epic drama has a role to play—and a sacrifice to make. Witches, angels, spies, assassins, tempters, and pretenders, no one will remain unscathed.

Lyra and Will have the most dangerous task of all. They must journey to a gray-lit world where no living soul has ever gone and from which there is no escape.

As war rages and Dust drains from the sky, the fate of the living—and the dead—comes to depend on Lyra and Will. On the choices they make in love, and for love, forevermore.

A #1 New York Times Bestseller

Winner of the Whitbread Award

Winner of the British Book Award (Children's)

Published in 40 Countries

 "Masterful.... This title confirms Pullman's inclusion in the company of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien." —Smithsonian Magazine

"Pullman has created the last great fantasy masterpiece of the twentieth century. An astounding achievement." —The Cincinnati Enquirer

"War, politics, magic, science, individual lives and cosmic destinies are all here . . . shaped and assembled into a narrative of tremendous pace by a man with a generous, precise intelligence. I am completely enchanted." —The New York Times Book Review

"Breathtaking adventure . . . a terrific story, eloquently told." —The Boston Globe

The triumphant conclusion to the blockbuster trilogy that made science fiction history!

In Dune: House Corrino Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson bring us the magnificent final chapter in the unforgettable saga begun in Dune: House Atreides and continued in Dune: House Harkonnen. 

Here nobles and commoners, soldiers and slaves, wives and courtesans shape the amazing destiny of a tumultuous universe. An epic saga of love and war, crime and politics, religion and revolution, this magnificent novel is a fitting conclusion to a great science fiction trilogy ... and an invaluable addition to the thrilling world of Frank Herbert’s immortal Dune.

Dune: House Corrino

Fearful of losing his precarious hold on the Golden Lion Throne, Shaddam IV, Emperor of a Million Worlds, has devised a radical scheme to develop an alternative to melange, the addictive spice that binds the Imperium together and that can be found only on the desert world of Dune. 

In subterranean labs on the machine planet Ix, cruel Tleilaxu overlords use slaves and prisoners as part of a horrific plan to manufacture a synthetic form of melange known as amal. If amal can supplant the spice from Dune, it will give Shaddam what he seeks: absolute power.

But Duke Leto Atreides, grief-stricken yet unbowed by the tragic death of his son Victor, determined to restore the honor and prestige of his House, has his own plans for Ix. 

He will free the Ixians from their oppressive conquerors and restore his friend Prince Rhombur, injured scion of the disgraced House Vernius, to his rightful place as Ixian ruler. It is a bold and risky venture, for House Atreides has limited military resources and many ruthless enemies, including the sadistic Baron Harkonnen, despotic master of Dune. 

Meanwhile, Duke Leto’s consort, the beautiful Lady Jessica, obeying the orders of her superiors in the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, has conceived a child that the Sisterhood intends to be the penultimate step in the creation of an all-powerful being. Yet what the Sisterhood doesn’t know is that the child Jessica is carrying is not the girl they are expecting, but a boy. 

Jessica’s act of disobedience is an act of love — her attempt to provide her Duke with a male heir to House Atreides — but an act that, when discovered, could kill both mother and baby. 

Like the Bene Gesserit, Shaddam Corrino is also concerned with making a plan for the future — securing his legacy. Blinded by his need for power, the Emperor will launch a plot against Dune, the only natural source of true spice. If he succeeds, his madness will result in a cataclysmic tragedy not even he foresees: the end of space travel, the Imperium, and civilization itself.

With Duke Leto and other renegades and revolutionaries fighting to stem the tide of darkness that threatens to engulf their universe, the stage is set for a showdown unlike any seen before.

Hollywood homicide detective Petra Connor has helped psychologist Alex Delaware crack tough cases in the past. And in Jonathan Kellerman’s New York Times bestseller Billy Straight she took the lead in the desperate hunt for a teenage runaway stalked by a vengeful murderer. Now the complex and wryly compassionate Petra is once again at the center of the action, in a novel of cunning twists and page-turning suspense.

Lifeless bodies sprawl in a dance-club parking lot after a brutal L.A. drive-by. Of the four seemingly random victims, one stands out: a girl with pink shoes who cannot be identified–and who, days later, remains a Jane Doe. With zero leads and no apparent motive, it’s another case destined for the cold file–until Petra decides to follow her instincts and descends into a world of traveling grifters and bloodthirsty killers, pursuing a possible eyewitness whose life is in mortal danger.

Finding her elusive quarry–alive–isn’t all Petra has on her plate: departmental politics threatens to sabotage her case, and her personal life isn’t doing much better. If all that wasn’t enough, Isaac Gomez, a whiz-kid grad student researching homicide statistics at the station house, is convinced he’s stumbled upon a bizarre connection between several unsolved murders. The victims had nothing in common, yet each died by the same method, on the same date–a date that’s rapidly approaching again. And that leaves Petra with little time to unravel the twisted logic of a cunning predator who’s evaded detection for years–and whose terrible hour is once more at hand.

“Why is it so hard to put down a Kellerman thriller?” asks Publishers Weekly. “It’s simple: the nonstop action leaves you breathless; the plot twists keep you guessing; the themes . . . are provocative.” Those in need of still further proof that “Kellerman has shaped the psychological mystery novel into an art form” (Los Angeles Times Book Review) need look no further than Twisted.

The author of Sisters of the Sari presents a richly emotional journey of two women drawn together by an unexpected and unwanted bond…

Lesley McCoy works in a day-care center, and she is planning to start a family of her own. Her husband, David, is a homebody whose job as a wilderness guide takes him away for long periods—but when he’s home, he’s the best partner Lesley could imagine.

Kendra McCoy is a successful businesswoman whose husband, Eric, is an analyst who specializes in Middle Eastern politics. He supports her enthusiasm and drive to succeed, and is the perfect partner—when he’s home between assignments.

While trying to identify a man who collapses in a Portland, Oregon, coffee shop, two wallets are found: one belonging to David McCoy, the other to Eric McCoy.

Devastated by their comatose husband’s betrayal, Kendra and Lesley reluctantly join forces in an attempt to piece together a true picture of the man they both fell in love with. Instead, they uncover a vast web of deceit as they learn their husband lived a third life neither of them suspected.

A riveting tale of our time: an inside-Washington drama driven by powerful personalities and the toxic mix of money and power

An absorbing expose of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a one time B-movie producer who worked alongside public relations whiz Michael Scanlon, an ex-aide to then House Republican whip Tom DeLay, to corrupt public officials and defraud four casino rich Indian tribes of almost $25 million. A five-year federal investigation into Abramoff’s misdeeds has turned into the largest influence peddling probe of the last decade and so far led to the convictions of twenty lobbyists, Hill staffers, Bush administration officials (including Steve Griles, the former number two at Interior) and former Representative Bob Ney (R-Ohio). 

Boasting a cast of characters and close Abramoff allies like anti-tax activist Grover Norquist and former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, Casino Jack is a cautionary tale about the seemingly endless ways that lobbyists and campaign cash can buy powerful friends and influence Washington policymaking.

Can we predict prison riots?  Earthquakes?  Stock Market Crashes?

Hailed by scientists as the most important intellectual development since calculus, catastrophe theory boldly suggests a controversial new way of predicting sudden, "unpredictable" change.  Imagine being able to forecast the raising of oil prices by Arab nations, the outbreak of a revolution, or the erratic behavior of a schizophrenic.  The brainchild of French mathematician Rene Thom, catastrophe theory uses seven basic geometric shapes to transform abstract concepts--fear, anger, love, hate--into concrete visual diagrams, or catastrophes, that represent patterns of behavior.

This vanguard book illustrated with thirty line drawing, explains the catastrophe theory to laymen, explores the controversy surrounding ti, and gives fascinating examples of how it can be used to understand problems in psychology, biology, politics, economics, and history that affect everyone.

The Middle East is suddenly a world transformed. In just one year since the Arab Spring was sparked, millions of citizens from Tunisia to Yemen have taken to the streets in revolution against the old regimes. Tyrants have been overthrown, repression is faltering, and a new generation has asserted itself in the Islamic world. From the editors of TIME comes The New Middle East, a fascinating book chronicling revolution and its impact on the world with eyewitness reporting, exclusive pictures and insightful analysis. In the midst of this upheaval, so much is new and changing: the rights of women, social media, national identity, the role of Islam in politics. Will the people get the economic and social opportunity they yearn for? What new benefits-and dangers-present themselves for the United States? TIME Middle East experts Bobby Ghosh, Aryn Baker, Karl Vick and other contributors paint a vivid portrait of a society in the throes of historic change.

What's Next : The Experts' Guide : Predictions from 50 of America’s Most Compelling People by Jane Buckingham

What will the next ten years look like?

In her role as founder and president of The Intelligence Group, a consulting and trend-spotting company at the forefront of predictions about the ever-elusive youth and consumer market, Jane Buckingham spends her days looking for the telling details in today's culture that give clues about what our future holds. What's Next: The Experts' Guide is the result of her conversations with dozens of fascinating people in a wide range of industries, all giving their highly individual perspectives on the world as they know it.

From education to the environment, from robotics to drug policy, with an emphasis on up-and-coming industries and news-making topics, some of the most compelling and timely matters of our era are addressed by dozens of contributors, including:

• Renowned computer scientist Steve Ward, PhD, on the biggest issues regarding emerging technologies, intellectual property, and alternate economic models.
• Actors Felicity Huffman and Bill Macy, on the need for new creativity in storytelling.
• Campaign adviser Joe Trippi, on how politics will be turned upside down in the next five to ten years.
• Latina magazine founder Christy Haubegger, on the optimism and growing prospects of the young Latino population.
• Architect Greg Lynn, on how technology is uniting the world of design, from automobiles to art to movies.

Filled with surprising insights and details, What's Next: The Experts' Guide also shows how these leaders work, what they believe will be important, and what they think is not worth our time. In a world that seems to be changing faster than ever, What's Next offers intriguing insights into how we can keep up—and stay ahead.

Self Exposure : Human-Interest Journalism and the Emergence of Celebrity in America, 1890-1940 by Charles L. Ponce de Leon

Few features of contemporary American culture are as widely lamented as the public's obsession with celebrity-and the trivializing effect this obsession has on what appears as news. Nevertheless, America's "culture of celebrity" remains misunderstood, particularly when critics discuss its historical roots. In this pathbreaking book, Charles Ponce de Leon provides a new interpretation of the emergence of celebrity. Focusing on the development of human-interest journalism about prominent public figures, he illuminates the ways in which new forms of press coverage gradually undermined the belief that famous people were "great" instead encouraging the public to regard them as complex, interesting, even flawed individuals and offering readers seemingly intimate glimpses of the "real" selves that were presumed to lie behind the calculated, self-promotional fronts that celebrities displayed in public. But human-interest journalism about celebrities did more than simply offer celebrities a new means of gaining publicity or provide readers with the "inside dope" says Ponce de Leon. In chapters devoted to celebrities from the realms of business, politics, entertainment, and sports, he shows how authors of celebrity journalism used their writings to weigh in on subjects as wide-ranging as social class, race relations, gender roles, democracy, political reform, self-expression, material success, competition, and the work ethic, offering the public a new lens through which to view these issues.

A fascinating contribution to one of the most important developments of modern America. One has only to think for a moment about contemporary culture to wish to know where our obsessions with celebrity come from and, more profoundly, what impact celebrating celebrity has had on our civilization.--James B. Gilbert, University of Maryland at College Park

Blogs are everywhere. They have exposed truths and spread rumors. Made and lost fortunes. Brought couples together and torn them apart. Toppled cabinet members and sparked grassroots movements. Immediate, intimate, and influential, they have put the power of personal publishing into everyone’s hands. Regularly dismissed as trivial and ephemeral, they have proved that they are here to stay.

In Say Everything, Scott Rosenberg chronicles blogging’s unplanned rise and improbable triumph, tracing its impact on politics, business, the media, and our personal lives. He offers close-ups of innovators such as Blogger founder Evan Williams, investigative journalist Josh Marshall, exhibitionist diarist Justin Hall, software visionary Dave Winer, "mommyblogger" Heather Armstrong, and many others. 

These blogging pioneers were the first to face new dilemmas that have become common in the era of Google and Facebook, and their stories offer vital insights and warnings as we navigate the future. How much of our lives should we reveal on the Web? Is anonymity a boon or a curse? Which voices can we trust? What does authenticity look like on a stage where millions are fighting for attention, yet most only write for a handful? And what happens to our culture now that everyone can say everything?

Before blogs, it was easy to believe that the Web would grow up to be a clickable TV–slick, passive, mass-market. Instead, blogging brought the Web’s native character into focus–convivial, expressive, democratic. Far from being pajama-clad loners, bloggers have become the curators of our collective experience, testing out their ideas in front of a crowd and linking people in ways that broadcasts can’t match. Blogs have created a new kind of public sphere–one in which we can think out loud together. And now that we have begun, Rosenberg writes, it is impossible to imagine us stopping.

In his first book, Dreaming in Code, Scott Rosenberg brilliantly explored the art of creating software ("the first true successor to The Soul of a New Machine," wrote James Fallows in The Atlantic). In Say Everything, Rosenberg brings the same perceptive eye to the blogosphere, capturing as no one else has the birth of a new medium.

The Middle East has long been a region of rival religions, ideologies, nationalisms, and ambitions. All of these conflicts―including the hostilities between Arabs and Israelis, and the violent challenges posed by Iraq's competing sects―are rooted in the region's political inheritance: the arrangements, unities, and divisions imposed by the Allies after the First World War.

In A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin reveals how and why the Allies drew lines on an empty map that remade the geography and politics of the Middle East. Focusing on the formative years of 1914 to 1922, when all seemed possible, he delivers in this sweeping and magisterial book the definitive account of this defining time, showing how the choices narrowed and the Middle East began along a road that led to the conflicts and confusion that continue to this day.

Granta Volume 93: God's Own Countries

The politics of religion around the world, featuring John McGahern, A. L. Kennedy, Richard Mabey, Simon Gray, Geoff Dyer, Jackie Kay, Pankaj Mishra, Nell Freudenberger, and more on their personal experiences—close, baffling, acrimonious, or nonexistent— of the divine.

Whirlwind is the story of three weeks in Tehran in February 1979: three weeks of fanaticism, passion, self-sacrifice and heartbreak. Caught between the revolutionaries and the forces of international intrigue is a team of professional pilots. They are ordered to flee to safety with their helicopters. Two of them, both Europeans, have Iranian wives whom they love beyond safety and politics.

Based on an 1839 boat trip Thoreau took with his brother from Concord, Massachusetts, to Concord, New Hampshire, and back, this classic of American literature is not only a vivid narrative of that journey, it is also a collection of thought-provoking observations on such diverse topics as poetry, literature, and philosophy, Native American and Puritan histories of New England, friendship, sacred Eastern writings, traditional Christianity, and much more.

Written, like Walden, while Thoreau lived at Walden Pond, and published in 1849, A Week (his first book) shares many themes with Walden, published in 1854. Both dramatize the process of self-renewal in nature and resolutely rail against the official culture and politics of the "trivial Nineteenth Century." Blending keen observation with a wealth of perceptive and informed reflections, Thoreau develops a continuous and lyrical dialogue between the past and present, as particular scenes on shore trigger reflections on the region's history and legends.　

Originally conceived as a travel book, A Week eventually became much more — one of the most intellectually ambitious works of 19th-century America, and a requiem for Thoreau's brother John, who died from a sudden illness in 1842.

Of Thoreau and this work, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "H. D. Thoreau is a great man in Concord, a man of original genius and character. I think it is a book of wonderful merit, which is to go far and last long."

American politics has been hijacked. Over the past three decades, a fringe group of economic hucksters has corrupted and perverted our nation’s policies. With dark, engaging wit, Jonathan Chait reveals how these canny zealots first took over the Republican Party and then gamed the political system and the media so that once unthinkable policies -- without a shred of academic, expert, or even popular support -- now drive the political agenda, regardless of which party is in power.

Why have these ideas succeeded in Washington? How did a clique of extremists gain control of American economic policy and sell short the country’s future? And why do their outlandish ideas still determine policy despite repeated electoral setbacks? Chait tells the outrageous and eye-opening story, expertly explaining just how politics and economics work in Washington. Through vivid portraits of venal politicians and pseudo-economists, with wry analyses of their bogus theories, Chait gives us the tools to understand what’s really behind economic policy debates in Washington: a riveting drama of greed and deceit.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Entertaining . . . a riotous, readable novel . . . A worthy successor to Graham Greene’s most wicked entertainments.”—The New York Times

He is Harry Pendel: Exclusive tailor to Panama’s most powerful men. Informant to British Intelligence. The perfect spy in a country rife with corruption and revolution. What his “handlers” don’t realize is that Harry has a hidden agenda of his own. Deceiving his friends, his wife, and practically himself, he’ll weave a plot so fabulous it exceeds his own vivid imagination. But when events start to spin out of control, Harry is suddenly in over his head—thrown into a lethal maze of politics and espionage, with unthinkable consequences. . . . 

Praise for The Tailor of Panama

“Riveting . . . Le Carré has cut another masterpiece.”—Los Angeles Times

“What makes le Carré the reigning grand master of espionage fiction? . . . Craft, certainly; he maintains an almost magnificent control of material, pace, dialogue, characterization.”—The Baltimore Sun

“Brilliant . . . Le Carré remains fair in front of his field, a startlingly up-to-date storyteller who writes as well about the shadows around the power elite as anyone alive.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The long and storied career of Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. one of the nation's finest speakers, has carried him from work on the civil rights front lines in the South to the National Urban League to positions of influence at the highest level of business and politics. A friend and confidant to presidents, Vernon Jordan has never forgotten the men and women, from Wiley Branton to Martin Luther King, from Fannie Lou Hamer to Whitney Young to Primus King, whose oratorical skill in service to social justice deeply influenced him. Their examples, and voices, mixed with Vernon's own make this book both a history and an embodiment of black speech at its finest, full of emotion, controlled force, righteous indignation, love of country, and awe in front of the challenges ahead.

Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. is a senior managing director of Lazard Frères & Co. LLC in New York. He was previously president and chief executive officer of the National Urban League, executive director of the United Negro College Fund, Inc., and director of the Voter Education Project of the Southern Regional Council. He served as chairman of the Clinton Presidential Transition Team in 1992 and is senior counsel at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP.

Originally edited by Thomas H. Greer, this series emanates from the Humanities Department at Michigan State University. Today, these books remain outstanding sources for the comprehensive study of most subject areas included under the umbrella of humanities. Most major literary forms are represented: essay, poem, short story, play, novel, memoir, epigram, scientific discourse, philosophical treatise, political manifesto, and religious proclamation. Major subject areas include art, music, education, mathematics, biology, psychiatry, religion, philosophy, politics, economics, and physics.Originally published under the General Editorship of Thomas H. Greer, the series emanated from the Humanities Department of Michigan State University. The books remain today perhaps the best sources available for the comprehensive study in one volume of every subject area which might be included in the umbrella of humanities. Most major literary forms are represented: essay, poem, short story, play, novel, memoir, epigram, scientific discourse, philosophical treatise, political manifesto, and religious proclamation. All major subject areas are explored: art, music, education, mathematics, biology, psychiatry, religion, philosophy, politics, economics, and physics. The informative apparatus, headnotes, and footnotes are all aimed at enhancing the student-reader's comprehension.

Harry Bosch has been given three years before he must retire from the LAPD, and he wants cases more fiercely than ever. In one morning, he gets two.

DNA from a 1989 rape and murder matches a 29-year-old convicted rapist. Was he an eight-year-old killer or has something gone terribly wrong in the new Regional Crime Lab? The latter possibility could compromise all of the lab's DNA cases currently in court.

Then Bosch and his partner are called to a death scene fraught with internal politics. Councilman Irvin Irving's son jumped or was pushed from a window at the Chateau Marmont. Irving, Bosch's longtime nemesis, has demanded that Harry handle the investigation.

Relentlessly pursuing both cases, Bosch makes two chilling discoveries: a killer operating unknown in the city for as many as three decades, and a political conspiracy that goes back into the dark history of the police department.

In her beloved New York Times bestsellers Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, and, most recently, Shanghai Girls, Lisa See has brilliantly illuminated the potent bonds of mother love, romantic love, and love of country. Now, in her most powerful novel yet, she returns to these timeless themes, continuing the story of sisters Pearl and May from Shanghai Girls, and Pearl’s strong-willed nineteen-year-old daughter, Joy.

Reeling from newly uncovered family secrets, and anger at her mother and aunt for keeping them from her, Joy runs away to Shanghai in early 1957 to find her birth father—the artist Z.G. Li, with whom both May and Pearl were once in love. Dazzled by him, and blinded by idealism and defiance, Joy throws herself into the New Society of Red China, heedless of the dangers in the communist regime. 

Devastated by Joy’s flight and terrified for her safety, Pearl is determined to save her daughter, no matter the personal cost. From the crowded city to remote villages, Pearl confronts old demons and almost insurmountable challenges as she follows Joy, hoping for reconciliation. Yet even as Joy’s and Pearl’s separate journeys converge, one of the most tragic episodes in China’s history threatens their very lives.

Acclaimed for her richly drawn characters and vivid storytelling, Lisa See once again renders a family challenged by tragedy and time, yet ultimately united by the resilience of love.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. See revisits Shanghai Girls sisters Pearl and May in this surefire story of life in Communist China. Joy, the daughter Pearl has raised as her own in L.A., learns the truth about her parentage and flees to China to seek out her father and throw herself into the Communist cause, giving See ample opportunity to explore the People's Republic from an unlikely perspective as Joy reconnects with her artist father, Z.G. Li, and the two leave sophisticated Shanghai to go to the countryside, where Z.G., whose ironic view of politics is lost on naïve Joy, has been sent to teach art to the peasants. Joy, full of political vigor, is slow to pick up on the harsh realities of communal life in late 1950s China, but the truth sinks in as Mao's drive to turn China into a major agriculture and manufacturing power backfires. Pearl, meanwhile, leaves L.A. on a perhaps perilous quest to find Joy. As always, See creates an immersive atmosphere—her rural China is far from postcard pretty—but Joy's education is a stellar example of finding new life in a familiar setup, and See's many readers will be pleased to see the continued development of Pearl and May's relationship. Looks like another hit.

Retired from his fighting days, John Perry is now village ombudsman for a human colony on distant Huckleberry. With his wife, former Special Forces warrior Jane Sagan, he farms several acres, adjudicates local disputes, and enjoys watching his adopted daughter grow up.

That is, until his and Jane's past reaches out to bring them back into the game ― as leaders of a new human colony, to be peopled by settlers from all the major human worlds, for a deep political purpose that will put Perry and Sagan back in the thick of interstellar politics, betrayal, and war.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A pillar of the community who towered over local law and politics for forty years, Judge Atlee is now a shadow of his former self—a sick, lonely old man who has withdrawn to his sprawling ancestral home in Clanton, Mississippi. Knowing that the end is near, Judge Atlee has issued a summons for his two sons to return to Clanton to discuss his estate. Ray Atlee is the elder, a Virginia law professor, newly single, still enduring the aftershocks of a surprise divorce. Forrest is Ray’s younger brother, the family’s black sheep.

The summons is typed by the Judge himself, on his handsome old stationery, and gives the date and time for Ray and Forrest to appear in his study. Ray reluctantly heads south to his hometown, to the place he now prefers to avoid. But the family meeting does not take place. The Judge dies too soon, and in doing so leaves behind a shocking secret known only to Ray . . . and perhaps to someone else.

A disgraced outcast samurai living in early seventeenth-century Manila, Kitazume is contemplating ritual suicide when a divine force (of a sort) intervenes: Luis, a rogue Jesuit priest and Kitazume’s longtime friend. At Luis’s insistence, the samurai agrees to help smuggle a Manchu princess to Mexico. But little does he know that he’s really been dragged into an epic struggle for power.

As they become embroiled in the deadly politics of New Spain, Kitazume uses his lethal skills to save his friends—and to find redemption. Meanwhile, Luis secretly works as a member of the legendary Shield-Brethren, whose mission is to see that neither China nor Spain controls the silver mines owned by Luis’s very father.

As politics and greed collide, Kitazume must call upon his deadly skills once more. But he’s not just fighting to save his friends—he’s fighting for the redemption he so desperately craves.

Packed with adventure, twists, and gorgeous visuals, Cimarronin: The Complete Graphic Novel collects Cimarronin: A Samurai in New Spain #1-3 and Cimarronin: Fall of the Cross #1-3.

For the acclaimed author and activist Jennifer Baumgardner, bisexuality has always been more than the “sexual non-preference of the ’90s.” In Look Both Ways, Baumgardner takes a close look at the growing visibility of gay and bisexual characters, performers, and issues on the national cultural stage. Despite the prevalence of bisexuality among Generation X and Y women, she finds that it continues to be marginalized by both gay and straight cultures, and dismissed either as a phase or a cop-out. With intimacy and humor, Baumgardner discusses her own experience as a bisexual, and the struggle she’s undergone to reconcile the privilege she’s garnered as a woman who is perceived as straight and the empowerment and satisfaction she’s derived from her relationships with women.

Part memoir, part pop-culture study, Look Both Ways connects the prominent dots of a bisexual community (Alix Kates Shulman, Ani DiFranco, Rebecca Walker, and, of course, Anne Heche) that Baumgardner argues have bridged feminist aims with those of the gay rights movement. Look Both Ways is a compelling and current study in bisexual lives lived secretly and openly, and an exploration of the lessons learned by writers, artists, and activists who have refused the either/or paradigm defended by both gay and straight communities.

From Booklist

"Images of bisexuality in ads, on TV, and in erotica reflect the lives of real women and girls--including me," Baumgardner says, noting that during the last decade she has encountered "hundreds of girls who have had significant experiences with other women and not simply in order to turn on their boyfriends." She theorizes that female bisexuality represents an evolution in women's feminist consciousness and sexual freedom. Today's high-school and college students, straight-identified and in favor of gay-straight alliances and clubs, will be the next generation of parents, and they will view these struggles over sexuality "as bigoted as segregation." Employing telling details from her own and others' experiences, Baumgardner consistently emphasizes the need for listening to women's stories rather than focusing on the gender of their sex partners. Part memoir, part pop-culture study, part analysis of a bisexual community (including Anne Heche, even), this significant contribution to sociosexual and gender studies helps build bridges from feminism to the gay rights movement. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

In this long season of searing political attacks and angry partisan passions, Peggy Noonan's Wall Street Journal column has been must reading for thoughtful liberals and conservatives alike.

Now she issues an urgent, heartfelt call for all Americans to see each other anew, realize what time it is, and come together to support the next President—whoever he is. Because it is not the threats and challenges we face, but how we face them that defines us as a nation.

The terrible events of 9/11 brought us together in a way not seen since World War II. But the stresses and divisions of the Bush years have driven us apart to a point that is unhealthy and destructive.

Today, Noonan argues, the national mood is for a change in our politics and it is well past time for politicians to catch up. Americans are tired of the old partisan divisions and the campaign tricks that seek to widen and exploit them. We long for leaders who can summon us to greatness and unity, as they did in the long struggles against fascism and communism.

In this timely little book, written in the pamphleteering tradition of Tom Paine's Common Sense, Noonan reminds us that we must face our common challenges together—not by rising above partisanship, but by reaffirming what it means to be American.

The Rainbow Bridge: Bridge to Inner Peace and to World Peace, recipient of 21 literary awards (see below), has been endorsed by H.H. the Dalai Lama, New York Times Bestselling Authors, Doctors, Lawyers, Ambassadors, Astronauts, Olympians, an Academy Award-Winning Actor and a growing chorus of prestigious global luminaries. The book illuminates the common ground in the world's major wisdom traditions, also known as universal principles. The sixty easy-to-use universal principles can be used to help guide us to experiencing deep inner peace. They can also be used in concrete ways to help create a bridge to a peaceful harmonious world that works for all via a comprehensive Road Map to World Peace.

This book also reveals how the mainstream Rainbow Bridge is spontaneously appearing around the world in the form of physical bridges, stores, hotels, music festivals, Hollywood films and more.

The Rainbow Bridge is a vision of peace and unity that comes from deep inside the heart of humanity. Learn how it can be a positive contribution to your life and to the lives of billions of people worldwide.

WINNER: 2015 Pinnacle Book Achievement Award (Inspirational)

WINNER: 2015 Beverly Hills Book Award (Inspiration)

WINNER: 2015 Beverly Hills Book Award (Spirituality)

WINNER: 2014 USA Best Book Award (Spirituality: Inspirational)

WINNER: 2014 National Indie Excellence Award (Body/Mind/Spirit)

WINNER: 2014 Los Angeles Book Festival (Spirituality)

WINNER: 2014 B.R.A.G. Medallion

WINNER: Gold Medal, 2014 Global Ebook Awards (Gift/Specialty)

WINNER: Silver Medal, 2014 Global Ebook Awards (Current Events/Politics/Foreign Affairs)

WINNER: Bronze Medal, 2014 Global Ebook Awards (Inspirational/Visionary)

WINNER: Notable Indie Book, 2014 Shelf Unbound Writing Competition

WINNER: 2013 Bronze Medal for World Peace

HONORABLE MENTION: 2015 Paris Book Festival (Spiritual)

HONORABLE MENTION: 2014 London Book Festival (Spiritual)

HONORABLE MENTION: 2014 New York Book Festival (Spirituality)

RUNNER-UP: 2014 San Francisco Book Festival (Spirituality)

FINALIST: 2014 Wishing Shelf Book Awards

FINALIST: 2014 International Book Award (Spirituality: Inspirational)

FINALIST: 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Award (Spirituality)

FINALIST: 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Award (Social Change)

FINALIST: 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Award (New Age)

The Mark of the Golden Dragon : Being an Account of the Further Adventures of Jacky Faber, Jewel of the East, Vexation of the West (Bloody Jack Adventures Book 9) by L. A. Meyer

Jacky Faber embarks on another rousing adventure to delight her ever-growing legion of fans.The irrepressible Jacky Faber, condemned for life to the English penal colony in Australia for crimes against the Crown, has once again wriggled out of the grasp of British authorities. Back on her flagship, the Lorelei Lee, she eagerly heads back to England in the company of friends and her beloved Jaimy Fletcher. But when the voyage is waylaid by pirates, storms, and her own impetuous nature, Jacky is cast into a world of danger that extends from the South China Sea to the equally treacherous waters of London politics. With the help of her loyal friends, Jacky meets her enemies head-on in this tale of love, courage, and redemption.

"Act of Deceit is great, one of those stay-up-all-night-reading stories that will keep you on the edge of your seat . . . Gore gets where he is going with a series of twists, turns and revelations that keep the reader on board and frequently guessing . . . Act of Deceit is one that shines brightly" -- Bookreporter

From the author of Final Target and Absolute Risk, here comes the first book in a thrilling series featuring a compelling new hero, former San Francisco homicide detective Harlan Donnally.

With Act of Deceit, Gore enters the crime fiction domain of Harlan Coben, Robert B. Parker, Stuart Woods, and Robert Crais, and immediately proves he can stand tall with the best of them. A heart-racing masterwork of mystery, thrills, and suspense, Act of Deceit plunges Donnally into a deadly morass of murder, sex trafficking, and church corruption as he seeks the dark truth about the death of a sister of a dying friend.

Praise for Gore's previous novels:

Absolute Risk:
 
"Masterful.... Sharp, smart writing and convincing economic detail put this in the front rank of genre fiction"--Publishers Weekly.
 
"VERDICT: Vast knowledge of international affairs, economics, politics, and psychology . . . Brad Meltzer and Vince Flynn fans will love this"--Library Journal.

Final Target:
 
"A truly thrilling thriller" --San Jose Mercury News. 

"With his command of storytelling and insider's knowledge, Gore can go up against Nelson DeMille and Daniel Silva and come out a contender"--Library Journal

Mt. Shasta is far from the San Franciscosidewalk on which Harlan Donnally’s lifenearly ended in a crossfire—

But all too close to a decades-old secretthat will force him into another.

The former detective swore he’d never play anyone’s postman. But a dying friend’s plea takes Donnally bearing a letter alive with tragedy toward a sister long dead—the victim of the bizarre criminality of a counterculture that had lost its way.

Stunned to learn that her killer was never prosecuted, Donnally soon finds himself in battle against a broken justice system and on a trail of evil into a dangerous borderland in which the falsely pious and the wealthy abuse the young and the poor. And though each step takes him farther down a perilous path that wrenches him between his inner demons and his mission to redeem a brother’s love, he won’t stop until he knows the truth.

For Donnally made a promise to a dead man, and he’ll keep it—or die trying.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steven Gore is a renowned private investigator turned "masterful" writer (Publishers Weekly) who combines "a command of storytelling" with "insider knowledge." (Library Journal). With a unique voice honed both on the street and in the Harlan Donnally and Graham Gage novels, Gore's stories are grounded in his decades spent investigating murder, fraud, organized crime, corruption, and drug, sex, and arms trafficking throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit his website at stevengore.com

A Pittsburgh Family’s Battle with Evil in Their Home

October 1988: Bob Cranmer buys a house in the Pittsburgh suburb he grew up in. He has no idea that his dream home is about to become his worst nightmare…

The Cranmers seemed fated to own the house at 3406 Brownsville Road. As a young boy, Bob had been drawn to the property, and, just when the family decided to move back to Brentwood, it went up for sale. Without a second thought, they purchased the house that Bob had always dreamed of owning.

But soon, the family began experiencing strange phenomena—objects moving on their own, ghostly footsteps, unsettling moaning sounds—that gradually increased in violence, escalating to physical assaults and, most disturbingly, bleeding walls. Bob, Lesa, and their four children were under attack from a malicious demon that was conjuring up terrifying manifestations to destroy their tight-knit household. They had two choices: leave or draw on their unwavering faith to exorcise the malicious fiend who haunted their home.

Now, Bob Cranmer recounts the harrowing true story of the evil presence that tormented his family and the epic spiritual war he fought to save everything he held dear…

INCLUDES PHOTOS

"I would say it's one of the scariest places on Earth!" ---People Magazine

About the Author

Bob Cranmer was born in Pittsburgh, graduating from Brentwood High School in 1974 and Duquesne University in 1978. He then entered the US Army as a second lieutenant and served with the 101st Airborne Division and in Washington, D.C. In 1986, Bob went to work for AT&T and returned to Pittsburgh. Entering politics, he was elected Allegheny County Commissioner in 1995, serving as chairman. He was instrumental in a major development plan for Pittsburgh involving the construction of two sports stadiums and a new convention center. Bob currently runs a firm providing government relations.

Erica Manfred is a journalist and essayist. Her reported pieces have appeared in New Age Journal, SELF, Consumer’s Digest, Ladies’ Home Journal, Woman’s Day, Bottom Line/Personal, and a host of other publications. Known for her stylish writing, her personal essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine “Lives” page, New Age Journal, and the Village Voice, in addition to being anthologized in a number of college textbooks. Erica is also the author of two books, the humorous novel Interview with a Jewish Vampire, and He’s History, You’re Not: Surviving Divorce After Forty. 

Brainwashed is the explosive exposé of the leftist agenda at work in today's colleges, revealed by firebrand Ben Shapiro, a recent UCLA gratudate, syndicated columnist, and one of today's most exciting new conservative voices, who's been on the front lines of the battle for America's young minds. This book proves once and for all that so-called higher education continues to sink lower and lower into the depths of liberal madness as close-minded professors turn their students into socialists, atheists, race-baiters, and sex-crazed narcissists.

"Ben Shapiro's writing is smart, informative, and incisive.  He is wise byond his years without losing the refreshing fearlessness of youth." --Ann Coulter, best-selling author of High Crimes and Misdeameanors, Slander, and Treason

"In Brainwashed, Shapiro tells the truth?that universities are forums of left-liberal indoctrination, where dissent is discouraged and penalized, with more restrictions on free speech rather any other part of American society. Parents who are paying for tutition might want to take note, and see what their hard-earned money is paying for." --Michael Barone, U.S. News & World Report and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics

"Welcome to P.C. 101. In ths trenchant insider's expose, Ben Shapiro bears witness to the modern American campus freak show. You'll get up close and personal with the Marxist loons, moral relativists, multicultural zealots, and American-haters who are corrupting young minds. Brainwahed reveals the ignominious lows to which higher education has sunk. Get deprogrammed.   Buy this book!" --Michelle Malkin, nationally syndiated columnist and author of Invasion

"Sharp thinking, tight writing, crazy-but-true stories:  Ben Shapiro sees campus brainwashing and raises a national protest. This is a good book to give both freshmen who need warning and voters/alumni who need to take action." --Dr. Marvin Olasky, University of Texas professor and editor-in-chief of World magazine

"A worthy successor to God and Man at Yale and Harvard Hates America in exploring the bely of the academic beast." --David Horowitz, founder of Students for Academic Freedom and author of Radical Son and Left Illusions

"What Animal House did for the toga party, Brainwashed should do for American resistance to campus radicalism." --Rusty Humphries, nationally syndicated radio talk show host

In this cogent volume, renowned Christian historian Martin Marty delivers a brief yet sweeping account of Christianity and how it spread from a few believers two thousand years ago to become the world’s largest religion.

Comprising nearly one third of the world’s population–more than two billion followers–Christianity is distinctive among major faiths in that it derives both its character and its authority from the divinity of its central figure, Jesus Christ. Examining this facet of Christianity from historical and sociological viewpoints, Marty lays bare the roots of this faith, in turn chronicling its success throughout the world.

Writing with great style, and providing impeccable interpretations of historical, canonical, and liturgical documents, Marty gives readers of all faiths and levels of familiarity with Christian practices and history a highly useful and supremely accessible primer. He depicts the life of Christ and his teachings and explains how the apostles set out to spread the Gospel. With a special emphasis on global Christianity, he shows how the religion emerged from its ancestral homelands in Africa, the Levant, and Asia Minor, was imported to Europe, and then spread from there to the rest of the world, most often via trade and conquest. While giving a broad overview, Marty also focuses on specific issues, such as how Christianity struggles with the polar tensions inherent to many of the faith’s denominations, and how it attempts to reconcile some of its stances on armed conflict, justice, and dominion with the teachings of Christ.

The Christian World is a chronicle of one of the great belief systems and its many followers. It’s a magnificent story of emperors and kings, war and geography, theology and politics, saints and sinners, and the earthly battle to save souls. Above all, it’s a remarkable testament to the teachings of Christ and how his message spreads around the globe to touch human experience everywhere.