How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior Hardcover by Laura Kipnis

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

We all relish a good scandal. Why do people feel compelled to act out their tangled psychodramas on the national stage, and why do we so enjoy watching them? The motifs are classic—revenge, betrayal, ambition, madness—though the pitfalls are ones we all negotiate daily. After all, every one of us is a potential scandal in the making: failed self-knowledge and colossal self-deception—the necessary ingredients—are our collective plight. How to Become a Scandal is “an extremely smart, funny, acid, and beautifully written meditation on a scary truth that we all try desperately to ignore” (David Shields, author of Reality Hunger: A Manifesto).

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Two very public downfalls and two very public uproars guide us through the contemporary infernal regions of scandal: the downfall of the lovelorn astronaut, Lisa Nowak, and an unreasonable judge, Sol Wachter, and the uproar set off by Linda Tripp and James Frey. Familiar as they may be, Kipnis (Against Love) freshly illuminates her subjects' plights, while scrutinizing the public delight in their misfortune, wearing her learning so lightly that the reader is easily seduced by her quick wit and her camouflaged erudition. Kipnis ties psychoanalysis and reality TV, detectives and literary critics, talk show hosts and sociologists, along with the scandalizers and the scandalized into a persuasive bundle: Scandals aren't just fiascoes other people get themselves embroiled in while the rest of us go innocently about our business, she argues. e all have crucial roles to play. A deliciously flippant tone serves the reader the juicy details we savor so about scandal, while tossing in some timeless questions and speculations about the deeper meaning of it all ( free will, moral luck, the stranglehold of desire, the difference between right and wrong ) as though they were mere garniture. This is a dead serious book that's an utter lark to read.
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The Bible, as we hold it today, is esteemed by many religious institutions and especially Conservative Christians to be the inspired, inerrant Word of God. This doctrinal position affirms that the Bible is unlike all other books or collections of works in that it is free of error due to having been given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works (2 Tim. 3:16, 17). While no other text can claim this same unique authority, the Book of Enoch is an ancient Jewish religious work, ascribed by tradition to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah, which played a crucial role in forming the worldview of the authors of the New Testament, who were not only familiar with it but quoted it in the New Testament, Epistle of Jude, Jude 1:14 15, and is attributed there to "Enoch the Seventh from Adam" (1 En 60:8)

The text was also utilized by the community that originally collected and studied the Dead Sea Scrolls. While some churches today include Enoch as part of the biblical canon (for example the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church), other Christian denominations and scholars accept it only as having historical or theological non-canonical interest and frequently use or assigned it as supplemental materials within academic settings to help students and scholars discover or better understand cultural and historical context of the early Christian Church.

The Book of Enoch provides commentators valuable insight into what many ancient Jews and early Christians believed when, God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets (Heb. 1:1). As Dr. Michael S. Heiser in the Introduction to his important book Reversing Hermon so powerfully notes: For those to whom 1 Enoch sounds unfamiliar, this is the ancient apocalyptic literary work known popularly (but imprecisely) as the Book of Enoch.

Most scholars believe that 1 Enoch was originally written in Aramaic perhaps as early as the 3rd century B.C. The oldest fragments of the book were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls and dated to roughly the second century B.C. This places the book squarely in the middle of what scholars call the Second Temple Period (ca. 500 B.C. 70 A.D.), an era more commonly referred to as the Intertestamental Period. This book will use the more academic designation ( Second Temple Period ) [...] The Watcher story of 1 Enoch, as many readers will recall, is an expansion of the episode described in Genesis 6:1-4, where the sons of God (Hebrew: beney ha- elohim) came in to the daughters of man (Gen 6:4; ESV). Consequently, Watchers is the Enochian term of choice (among others) for the divine sons of God. While the story of this supernatural rebellion occupies scant space in Genesis, it received considerable attention during the Second Temple Period [...] The Enochian version of the events of Gen 6:1-4 preserves and transmits the original Mesopotamian context for the first four verses of the flood account. Every element of Gen 6:1-4 has a Mesopotamian counterpoint a theological target that provides the rationale for why these four verses wound up in the inspired text in the first place. Connections to that backstory can be found in the Old Testament, but they are scattered and unsystematically presented. This is not the case with Second Temple Jewish literature like 1 Enoch. Books like 1 Enoch preserve all of the Mesopotamian touchpoints with Gen 6:1-4 when presenting their expanded retelling of the events of that biblical passage. The Book of Enoch is therefore intended to be an important supplemental resource for assisting serious researchers and students in the study of the Bible.

"If you are interested in growing your peace and harmony, buy this book, read it, practice everyday and share the path to unconditional love, the bare bones of all religions." - Fred Tomasello Jr., Walking Wounded: Memoir of a Combat Veteran                 

#1 Bestseller in several Kindle Store spirituality/self help categories, this deeply personal memoir and guide tells the true story of a young boy's mystical vision and his subsequent search for enlightenment.

     "I can't remember a more transformative book."

Now a meditation, healing and martial arts teacher, Richard L. Haight is that young boy grown up. In The Unbound Soul, he reveals a unique meditation method and a set of powerful awareness tools designed to help you on your own path to personal transformation. Learn how to integrate spirituality in your everyday life - and Feel Free!

     "It is powerful, full of extraordinary wisdom and insight"

Through this work, amongst other things, you will:

• Learn the frequencies of mind and consciousness, a great clarification of ancient and contemporary teachings. - "eminently mind-blowing".
• Receive an "unconditioned" meditation that blends seamlessly into your daily life. - "This book is worth getting just for this, but it's a whole lot more".
• Discover an extraordinarily powerful method for releasing and resolving inner disharmony, giving you access to inner spaciousness. - "IT WORKS!"
• Learn of the role that emotions, thoughts, memories and the senses play in both binding and unbinding the soul.
• Learn how to make bold, decisive changes in your life with authority and integrity.- "This book would have made my life path a lot easier to understand had I read it years ago."
• Learn how to simplify your life in a powerful and totally functional way. - "I felt very peaceful with myself and with what I had learned."
• Learn the cosmology of the self, how it relates to the "pain body", the mind, consciousness, the wheel of life, the universe, and your daily experience. - "Before we can prosper our soul must prosper. This book is all about that process."
• Learn the true transformative power of unconditioned love, its power to undo a sense of separation and reveal the Truth within You. - "...one of the most profound books I've read in the search for answers to Love, Life, and Living!"

"No gimmicks. No special pictures or runes. JUST YOU. You will look at the world a little bit differently after reading it."

"This book, in my humble opinion, is the best literary tool for all human souls seeking their inner path to "Spiritual Unfoldment".

"If you feel any drawing to read this book, know that it has the potential to transform your life."

A Vindication of Love by Cristina Nehring
Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-First Century

"A fierce and lively book. . . .This is one of those rare books that could make people think about their intimate lives in a new way." — New York Times Book Review

“A rousing defense of imprudent ardor and romantic excess. . . . It’s difficult to deny that [Nehring] is on to something.” — Wall Street Journal

A thinking person’s “guide” that makes the case for love in an age both cynical about and fearful of strong passion. Bold and challenging, A Vindication of Love has inspired praise and controversy, and brilliantly reinvigorated the romance debate. A perfect choice for readers of Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life and Pierre Bayard’s How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read.

From Publishers Weekly

Nehring's opening assertion that she argues by provocation and aims to anger reveals the rhetorical nature of her argument that our tepid age needs a return to true Eros. Just what she advocates is unclear, since her examples range from the chaste passion of Emily Dickinson through the frenzied sexuality of Edna St. Vincent Millay to the open relationship of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Nehring does regret the collateral damage of this last pairing (a couple of cases of insanity and one suicide among their other lovers) and acknowledges that most of her case studies demonstrate excesses not to be emulated. That reduces her call for boldness in love to familiar clichés: absence makes the heart grow fonder; play hard to get; and defy social conventions in love (what is more of a postmodern cliché than advocating transgression?). Nehring, who has written for Harper's and the Atlantic among others, is a keen, empathic reader of literary texts, drawing attention to undervalued love writings like the letters of Horace Walpole and Madame du Deffand, and offering an astute reading of Dickinson's much-debated Master letters.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

An award-winning literary author enters the world of magical realism with her World Fantasy Award-winning novel of a remarkable woman in post-apocalyptic Africa.

In a post-apocalyptic Africa, the world has changed in many ways; yet in one region genocide between tribes still bloodies the land. A woman who has survived the annihilation of her village and a terrible rape by an enemy general wanders into the desert, hoping to die. Instead, she gives birth to an angry baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand. Gripped by the certainty that her daughter is different—special—she names her Onyesonwu, which means "Who fears death?" in an ancient language.

It doesn't take long for Onye to understand that she is physically and socially marked by the circumstances of her conception. She is Ewu—a child of rape who is expected to live a life of violence, a half-breed rejected by her community. But Onye is not the average Ewu. Even as a child, she manifests the beginnings of a remarkable and unique magic. As she grows, so do her abilities, and during an inadvertent visit to the spirit realm, she learns something terrifying: someone powerful is trying to kill her.

Desperate to elude her would-be murderer and to understand her own nature, she embarks on a journey in which she grapples with nature, tradition, history, true love, and the spiritual mysteries of her culture, and ultimately learns why she was given the name she bears: Who Fears Death.

Runaway children who meet up with monsters. A giant talking bug. A secret world of mouse-people. The stories of Franz Kafka are wondrous and nightmarish, miraculous and scary. In My First Kafka, storyteller Matthue Roth and artist Rohan Daniel Eason adapt three Kafka stories into startling, creepy, fun stories for all ages. With My First Kafka, the master storyteller takes his rightful place alongside Maurice Sendak, Edward Gorey, and Lemony Snicket as a literary giant for all ages.

"Hilarious, heartfelt and brimming with humanity.” —Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest

Teddy Telemachus is a charming con man with a gift for sleight of hand and some shady underground associates. In need of cash, he tricks his way into a classified government study about telekinesis and its possible role in intelligence gathering. There he meets Maureen McKinnon, and it’s not just her piercing blue eyes that leave Teddy forever charmed, but her mind—Maureen is a genuine psychic of immense and mysterious power. After a whirlwind courtship, they marry, have three gifted children, and become the Amazing Telemachus Family, performing astounding feats across the country. Irene is a human lie detector. Frankie can move objects with his mind. And Buddy, the youngest, can see the future. Then one night tragedy leaves the family shattered.

Decades later, the Telemachuses are not so amazing. Irene is a single mom whose ear for truth makes it hard to hold down a job, much less hold together a relationship. Frankie’s in serious debt to his dad’s old mob associates. Buddy has completely withdrawn into himself and inexplicably begun digging a hole in the backyard. To make matters worse, the CIA has come knocking, looking to see if there’s any magic left in the Telemachus clan. And there is: Irene’s son Matty has just had his first out-of-body experience. But he hasn’t told anyone, even though his newfound talent might just be what his family needs to save themselves—if it doesn’t tear them apart in the process.

Harnessing the imaginative powers that have made him a master storyteller, Daryl Gregory delivers a stunning, laugh-out-loud new novel about a family of gifted dreamers and the invisible forces that bind us all.

“Masterful. . . . gracefully balances the outrageous melodrama of Chicago mobsters and shadowy government agencies with the ordinary mysteries of family dynamics. . . . Readers will emerge from the fray sure they know each Telemachus down to the smudges on their hearts. A skillfully written family drama that employs quirk and magic with grace.” —Kirkus Reviews (Starred)

“This gloriously imaginative novel featuring a family of somewhat reluctant psychics has a nifty trick up its sleeve—as whimsical and eccentric as the Telemachus family is, their hopes and desires perfectly mirror our own. Spoonbenders is hilarious, heartfelt and brimming with humanity.” —Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, New York Times bestselling author of The Nest
 
“Imagine amazing powers—but do so with uncommon creativity, rigor, and humor. You might, if you're lucky, arrive at the delicious drama of the girl who can smell lies; the all-at-once-ness of the boy who can’t not see the future; the great dilemma of the psychic pressed into service as a spy. Daryl Gregory's novel traces the line where gift balances against curse and by the end, we realize he isn’t only talking about amazing powers after all. Spoonbenders is X-Files meets The Sopranos with a real, roaring heart.” —Robin Sloan, New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

“Did you spend a childhood convinced that you were *this close* to developing telekinetic powers? Me too! The supernatural may elude us still, but there is real magic in Daryl Gregory’s gleeful story of the Amazing Telemachus Family. Spoonbenders is also about the power of belief and whether we can ever escape our tangled family legacies—and why we might not want to.” —Jade Chang, author of The Wangs vs. the World

About the Author

Daryl Gregory is an award-winning writer of genre-mixing novels, stories, and comics. His latest novel, SPOONBENDERS, about a down-on-their-luck family with psychic powers, was published by Knopf in June, 2017, and is being developed for television by Paramount and Anonymous Content.

His recent work includes the young adult novel HARRISON SQUARED (Tor, March 2015), a Locus Award finalist which will be reissued by Tor Teen in 2018, along with two sequels. The novella WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE won the World Fantasy award and the Shirley Jackson award, was a finalist for the Nebula, Sturgeon, and Locus awards, and is in development for television by Universal Cable Productions.

His SF novel AFTERPARTY was an NPR and Kirkus Best Fiction book of 2014, and a finalist for the Campbell and the Lambda Literary awards. His first novel, PANDEMONIUM, won the Crawford award and was a finalist for the World Fantasy award. His other novels are THE DEVIL'S ALPHABET (a Philip K. Dick award finalist) and RAISING STONY MAYHALL (a Library Journal best SF book of the year).

Many of his short stories are collected in UNPOSSIBLE AND OTHER STORIES, which was named one of the best books of 2011 by Publishers Weekly. He wrote the choose-you-own-adventure -style video game, "Flatline", for 3 Minute Games. His comics work includes the sereies "Legenderry: Green Hornet," "Planet of the Apes," "Dracula: The Company of Monsters" (co-written with Kurt Busiek), and the graphic novel "The Secret Battles of Genghis Khan."

He lives and writes full-time in Oakland, California.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed comes a brave, frank, and exquisitely written memoir that will change the way you see the world.

Barbara Ehrenreich is one of the most important thinkers of our time. Educated as a scientist, she is an author, journalist, activist, and advocate for social justice. In LIVING WITH A WILD GOD, she recounts her quest-beginning in childhood-to find "the Truth" about the universe and everything else: What's really going on? Why are we here? In middle age, she rediscovered the journal she had kept during her tumultuous adolescence, which records an event so strange, so cataclysmic, that she had never, in all the intervening years, written or spoken about it to anyone. It was the kind of event that people call a "mystical experience"-and, to a steadfast atheist and rationalist, nothing less than shattering.

In LIVING WITH A WILD GOD, Ehrenreich reconstructs her childhood mission, bringing an older woman's wry and erudite perspective to a young girl's impassioned obsession with the questions that, at one point or another, torment us all. The result is both deeply personal and cosmically sweeping-a searing memoir and a profound reflection on science, religion, and the human condition. With her signature combination of intellectual rigor and uninhibited imagination, Ehrenreich offers a true literary achievement-a work that has the power not only to entertain but amaze.

Review

"[Ehrenreich] resolutely avoids rhetoric in that 'blubbery vein'--which is why her book is such a rare feat...She struggles to make sense of the epiphany without recourse to the 'verbal hand-wavings about mystery and transcendence' that go with the territory... Ehrenreich has no interest in conversion...She wants, and inspires, open minds."

―The Atlantic

"The questions in the world may be infinite, but perhaps the answers are few. And however we define that mystery, there's no escaping our essential obligation to it, for it may, as Ehrenreich writes, 'be seeking us out.'"―New York Times Book Review

"Ehrenreich has always been an intellectual and a journalistic badass... [She] ultimately arrives at a truce with the idea of God. You'll admire her journey."

―Entertainment Weekly

"The factor that takes each of [Barbara's] books so completely unique in American intellectual life is her persistent sensitivity to matters of social class. She can always see through the smokescreen, the cloud of fibs we generate to make ourselves feel better about a world where the work of the many subsidizes the opulent lifestyles of the few. That, plus the fact that she writes damned well. Better than almost anyone out there, in fact."―Salon

"As personal a piece of writing as she has ever done... A surprising turn for Ehrenreich, who for more than 40 years has been one of our most accomplished and outspoken advocacy journalists and activists."―The Los Angeles Times

"Until reading LIVING WITH A WILD GOD I counted the Mary Karr memoir trilogy as my favorite from a contemporary literary figure. Now, Ehrenreich's memoir is tied for first place with Karr's books... Thank goodness [this book] exists. It is quite likely to rock the minds of readers who dare open to the first page."―Houston Chronicle

"A smart and enjoyable read... Ehrenreich maintains a grip on a sensible skepticism about religious matters - and a positive hostility toward the idea of unthinking faith - while avoiding the narrow-minded excesses that more zealous atheists sometimes fall victim to."―The Chicago Tribune

About the Author

BARBARA EHRENREICH is the author of fourteen books, including the bestselling Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch. She lives in Virginia.

The Booker Prize-winning author of The Handmaid’s Tale writes her first graphic novel, a cat-centric all-ages New York Times bestselling adventure.

On a dark night, young genetic engineer Strig Feleedus is accidentally mutated by his own experiment and merges with the DNA of a cat and an owl. What follows is a humorous, action-driven, pulp-inspired superhero adventure-- with a lot of cat puns.

Lauded novelist Margaret Atwood and acclaimed artist Johnnie Christmas collaborate on one of the most highly anticipated comic book and literary events of the year!

Published in over thirty-five countries, Margaret Atwood is one of the most important living writers of our day and is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. Her work has won the Man Booker Prize, the Giller Prize, Premio Mondello, and more. Angel Catbird is her first graphic novel series.

Atwood's The Blind Assassin was named one of Time magazine's 100 best English-language novels published since 1923 and her recent MaddAddam Trilogy is currently being adapted into an HBO television show by Darren Aronofsky

Lynn Shepherd’s first acclaimed novel of historical suspense, Murder at Mansfield Park, brilliantly reimagined the time of Jane Austen. Now, in this spellbinding new triumph, she introduces an unforgettable duo of detectives into the gaslit world of Dickens.

 London, 1850. Charles Maddox had been an up-and-coming officer for the Metropolitan police until a charge of insubordination abruptly ended his career. Now he works alone, struggling to eke out a living by tracking down criminals. Whenever he needs it, he has the help of his great-uncle Maddox, a legendary “thief taker,” a detective as brilliant and intuitive as they come.

On Charles’s latest case, he’ll need all the assistance he can get.

To his shock, Charles has been approached by Edward Tulkinghorn, the shadowy and feared attorney, who offers him a handsome price to do some sleuthing for a client. Powerful financier Sir Julius Cremorne has been receiving threatening letters, and Tulkinghorn wants Charles to—discreetly—find and stop whoever is responsible.

But what starts as a simple, open-and-shut case swiftly escalates into something bigger and much darker. As he cascades toward a collision with an unspeakable truth, Charles can only be aided so far by Maddox. The old man shows signs of forgetfulness and anger, symptoms of an age-related ailment that has yet to be named.

Intricately plotted and intellectually ambitious, The Solitary House is an ingenious novel that does more than spin an enthralling tale: it plumbs the mysteries of the human mind.

Praise for The Solitary House

“A Victorian tour de force . . . a must-read.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) 

“Dickens fans will rejoice. . . . [Lynn] Shepherd leaves the reader spellbound.”—Booklist (starred review)

“The star of Lynn Shepherd’s intriguing mystery novel is mid-century Victorian London. . . . Her suspenseful story and winning prose ably serve her literary conceit.”—Associated Press

“Intellectually enthralling, with dark twists at every turn . . . a haunting novel that will have you guessing until the last pages.”—Historical Novels Review

“Lynn Shepherd has a knack for setting literary murder puzzles. . . . This literary magpie-ism is a treat for book lovers, a little nudge-and-a-wink here and there which delights fans of these other works without alienating those who haven’t read them yet. . . . An intelligent, gripping and beautifully written novel.”—The Scotsman

“The reader is plunged into a complex but comprehensible labyrinth of deception.”—Publishers Weekly(starred review)

An international literary phenomenon, The Elementary Particles is a frighteningly original novel–part Marguerite Duras and part Bret Easton Ellis-that leaps headlong into the malaise of contemporary existence.

Bruno and Michel are half-brothers abandoned by their mother, an unabashed devotee of the drugged-out free-love world of the sixties. Bruno, the older, has become a raucously promiscuous hedonist himself, while Michel is an emotionally dead molecular biologist wholly immersed in the solitude of his work. Each is ultimately offered a final chance at genuine love, and what unfolds is a brilliantly caustic and unpredictable tale.

Translated from the French by Frank Wynne.

Now a Major Motion Picture from Director Luca Guadagnino, Starring Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet, and Written by Three Time Academy Award Nominee James Ivory

A USA Today Bestseller 
A Los Angeles Times Bestseller
A Vulture Book Club Pick 

An Instant Classic and One of the Great Love Stories of Our Time

Andre Aciman's Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents’ cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. Each is unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, when, during the restless summer weeks, unrelenting currents of obsession, fascination, and desire intensify their passion and test the charged ground between them. Recklessly, the two verge toward the one thing both fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy. It is an instant classic and one of the great love stories of our time.

Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Ficition

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year • A Publishers Weekly and The Washington Post Best Book of the Year • A New York Magazine "Future Canon" Selection • A Chicago Tribune and Seattle Times(Michael Upchurch's) Favorite Favorite Book of the Year

“Brontez is a raw tongue of flame blazing through all the blatant fakery and insincere bullshit of today’s gay/music/human scene. This audacious non-memoir burnt the hair off the back of my neck and had me rolling with glee.” —S.F. Bay Guardian

"By asking, “Would you love me if….?” Purnell is not inquiring about the limits of love, he announcing his awareness that limits exist and snubbing his nose accordingly. He refuses to go straight, adjust his expectations, or refrain from being too much. Along the way, he has carved out a creative and hopefully satisfying life full of dance, writing, friendship, sex, adventure, and as it seems, love." ―Lambda Literary Review

A dirty cult-classic put out in a small batch by an underground publisher (Rudos and Rubes) in 2015, Johnny Would You Love Me If My Dick Were Bigger recounts the life of an artist and “old school homosexual” who bears a big resemblance to author Brontez Purnell. Our hero doesn’t trust the new breed of fags taking over San Francisco, though. They wear bicycle helmets, seat belts, and condoms. Meanwhile, he sabotages his relationships, hallucinating affection while cruising in late night parks, bath-houses, and other nooks and crannies of a newly-conservative, ruined city.

Furiously original, vital, and messy, this funny “non-memoir” uncovers a revelatory truth for the age: there are things far scarier than HIV.

About the Author

Brontez Purnell has been publishing, performing, and curating in the Bay Area for over ten years. He is author of the cult zine Fag School, frontman for his band The Younger Lovers, and founder and choreographer of the Brontez Purnell Dance Company. Formerly a dancer with Gravy Train!!!, a queer electro indie band that gained national prominence in the mid-2000s, Purnell's other prominent artistic collaborations include his supporting role in the queer independent feature film, "I Want Your Love" (Dir. Travis Mathews, 2012).

He was a guest curator for the Berkeley Art Museum's L@TE program in 2012, awarded an invitation to the 2012 Radar Lab queer arts summer residency, honored by Out Magazine's 2012 Hot 100 List and 2013 Most Eligible Bachelors List, and most recently won the 2014 SF Bay Guardian's Goldie for Performance/Music.

A war is coming, a battle that will stretch from the prehistoric forests of the ancient past to the cutting-edge research labs of today, all to reveal a true mystery buried deep within our DNA, a mystery that will leave readers changed forever . . .

"James Rollins's best thriller ever! ...Packed with action, intrigue, and spine-chilling suspense. The Bone Labyrinth will remind you why you fell in love with reading. This book is that good!" -- Brad Thor

"Rollins's thrilling 11th Sigma Force novel [Bone Labyrinth]...knows just how to balance the science and history with the ongoing action." -- Publishers Weekly

"By the end of the novel, readers will be too busy buzzing with excitement about all they have digested to realize what a literary feat Rollins has accomplished by keeping all these balls in the air without dropping a single one." --Bookreporter

In this groundbreaking masterpiece of ingenuity and intrigue that spans 50,000 years in human history, New York Times bestselling author James Rollins takes us to mankind's next great leap.

But will it mark a new chapter in our development . . . or our extinction?

In the remote mountains of Croatia, an archaeologist makes a strange discovery:  a subterranean Catholic chapel, hidden for centuries, holds the bones of a Neanderthal woman. In the same cavern system, elaborate primitive paintings tell the story of an immense battle between tribes of Neanderthals and monstrous shadowy figures. Who is this mysterious enemy depicted in these ancient drawings and what do the paintings mean?

Before any answers could be made, the investigative team is attacked, while at the same time, a bloody assault is made upon a primate research center outside of Atlanta. How are these events connected? Who is behind these attacks?  The search for the truth will take Commander Gray Pierce of Sigma Force 50,000 years into the past. As he and Sigma trace the evolution of human intelligence to its true source, they will be plunged into a cataclysmic battle for the future of humanity that stretches across the globe . . . and beyond.

With the fate of our future at stake, Sigma embarks on its most harrowing odyssey ever--a breathtaking quest that will take them from ancient tunnels in Ecuador that span the breadth of South America to a millennia-old necropolis holding the bones of our ancestors. Along the way, revelations involving the lost continent of Atlantis will reveal true mysteries tied to mankind's first steps on the moon. In the end, Gray Pierce and his team will face to their greatest threat: an ancient evil, resurrected by modern genetic science, strong enough to bring about the end of man's dominance on this planet.

Only this time, Sigma will falter--and the world we know will change forever.

An exceptional debut novel about a young Muslim war orphan whose family is killed in a military operation gone wrong, and the American soldier to whom his fate, and survival, is bound.

Jonas is fifteen when his family is killed during an errant U.S. military operation in an unnamed Muslim country. With the help of an international relief organization, he is sent to America, where he struggles to assimilate-foster family, school, a first love. Eventually, he tells a court-mandated counselor and therapist about a U.S. soldier, Christopher Henderson, responsible for saving his life on the tragic night in question. Christopher's mother, Rose, has dedicated her life to finding out what really happened to her son, who disappeared after the raid in which Jonas' village was destroyed. When Jonas meets Rose, a shocking and painful secret gradually surfaces from the past, and builds to a shattering conclusion that haunts long after the final page. Told in spare, evocative prose, The Book of Jonas is about memory, about the terrible choices made during war, and about what happens when foreign disaster appears at our own doorstep. It is a rare and virtuosic novel from an exciting new writer to watch.

"Rich with symbolism, marvelously descriptive in language...Dau's novel offers deeply resonating truths about war and culture, about family and loss that only art can reveal. A literary tour de force." -- Kirkus (starred review)

"The toll that war exacts has seldom been demonstrated more vividly in fiction than in this tale... An essential addition to the literature of war." -- Booklist  (starred review)

For over sixty-five years Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince has captured the hearts and minds of its readers. The whimsical story with a fairy tale touch has sold over 80 million copies in 230 languages. This exciting graphic adaptation features beautiful, new artwork by Joann Sfar. Hand-chosen by Saint-Exupéry's French publishers for his literary style and sensitivity to the original, Sfar has endeavored to recreate this beloved story, both honoring the original and stretching it to new heights. A vibrant, visual gift for longtime fans and those experiencing the story for the first time.

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by Herman Melville, in which Ishmael narrates the monomaniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler Pequod, for revenge on the albino sperm whale Moby Dick, which on a previous voyage destroyed Ahab's ship and severed his leg at the knee. 

Although the novel was a commercial failure and out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891, its reputation grew immensely during the twentieth century. D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world," and "the greatest book of the sea ever written." 

Moby-Dick is considered a Great American Novel and an outstanding work of the Romantic period in America and the American Renaissance. "Call me Ishmael" is one of world literature's most famous opening sentences. The product of a year and a half of writing, the book is dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne, "in token of my admiration for his genius," and draws on Melville's experience at sea, on his reading in whaling literature, and on literary inspirations such as Shakespeare and the Bible.

Cry, the Beloved Country, the most famous and important novel in South Africa’s history, was an immediate worldwide bestseller in 1948. Alan Paton’s impassioned novel about a black man’s country under white man’s law is a work of searing beauty.

Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.

The eminent literary critic Lewis Gannett wrote, “We have had many novels from statesmen and reformers, almost all bad; many novels from poets, almost all thin. In Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country the statesman, the poet and the novelist meet in a unique harmony.”

Cry, the Beloved Country is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son, Absalom, set against the background of a land and a people riven by racial injustice. Remarkable for its lyricism, unforgettable for character and incident, Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic work of love and hope, courage and endurance, born of the dignity of man.

"Khong is a magician, and we are lucky to fall under her spell at the very beginning of her brilliant writing life." ―Lauren Groff

“This novel sneaks up on you ― just like life . . . and heartbreak. And love.”―Miranda July

Her life at a crossroads, a young woman goes home again in this funny and inescapably moving debut from a wonderfully original new literary voice.

Freshly disengaged from her fiancé and feeling that life has not turned out quite the way she planned, thirty-year-old Ruth quits her job, leaves town and arrives at her parents’ home to find that situation more complicated than she'd realized. Her father, a prominent history professor, is losing his memory and is only erratically lucid. Ruth’s mother, meanwhile, is lucidly erratic. But as Ruth's father’s condition intensifies, the comedy in her situation takes hold, gently transforming her all her grief.
Told in captivating glimpses and drawn from a deep well of insight, humor, and unexpected tenderness, Goodbye, Vitamin pilots through the loss, love, and absurdity of finding one’s footing in this life.

No care for the caregivers, no luck for the narcos. Should artists get paid? Check your privilege! David Samuels goes to the Grammys. Frank Guan reviews Tao Lin. New fiction from Akhtiorskaya and Zink. 

Published August 2014.
179 pages.  
Perfect bound, 10 x 7"

The arrival of two newcomers in the quiet village of Mellstock arouses a bitter feud and leaves a convoluted love affair in its wake. While the Reverend Maybold creates a furore among the village's musicians with his decision to abolish the church's traditional "string choir" and replace it with a modern mechanical organ, the new schoolteacher, Fancy Day, causes an upheaval of a more romantic nature, winning the hearts of three very different men—a local farmer, a church musician and Maybold himself. Under the Greenwood Tree follows the ensuing maze of intrigue and passion with gentle humour and sympathy, deftly evoking the richness of village life, yet tinged with melancholy for a rural world that Hardy saw fast disappearing.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About the Author

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) immortalized the site of his birth—Egdon Heath, in Dorset, near Dorchester—in his writing. Delicate as a child, he was taught at home by his mother before he attended grammar school. At sixteen, Hardy was apprenticed to an architect, and for many years, architecture was his profession; in his spare time, he pursued his first and last literary love, poetry. Finally convinced that he could earn his living as an author, he retired from architecture, married, and devoted himself to writing. An extremely productive novelist, Hardy published an important book every year or two. In 1896, disturbed by the public outcry over the unconventional subjects of his two greatest novels—Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure—he announced that he was giving up fiction and afterward produced only poetry. In later years, he received many honors. He was buried in Poet’s Corner, in Westminster Abbey. It was as a poet that he wished to be remembered, but today critics regard his novels as his most memorable contribution to English literature for their psychological insight, decisive delineation of character, and profound presentation of tragedy.

Patricia Ingham is a Senior Research Fellow and Reader at St Anne's College, Oxford. She has written on the Victorian novel and on Hardy in particular. she is the General Editor of all of Hardy's fiction in the Penguin Classics and has edited Gaskell's North and South for the series.

A haunting study of guilt and lost love

“Hardy’s world is a world that can never disappear.” —Margaret Drabble

In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled "A Story of a Man of Character," Hardy's powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard is also an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town. 

This edition includes an introduction, chronology of Hardy's life and works, the illustrations for the original serial issue, place names, maps, glossary, full explanatory notes as well as Hardy's prefaces to the 1895 and 1912 editions.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About the Author

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) immortalized the site of his birth—Egdon Heath, in Dorset, near Dorchester—in his writing. Delicate as a child, he was taught at home by his mother before he attended grammar school. At sixteen, Hardy was apprenticed to an architect, and for many years, architecture was his profession; in his spare time, he pursued his first and last literary love, poetry. Finally convinced that he could earn his living as an author, he retired from architecture, married, and devoted himself to writing. An extremely productive novelist, Hardy published an important book every year or two. In 1896, disturbed by the public outcry over the unconventional subjects of his two greatest novels—Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure—he announced that he was giving up fiction and afterward produced only poetry. In later years, he received many honors. He was buried in Poet’s Corner, in Westminster Abbey. It was as a poet that he wished to be remembered, but today critics regard his novels as his most memorable contribution to English literature for their psychological insight, decisive delineation of character, and profound presentation of tragedy.

Keith Wilson is a Professor of English at the University of Ottawa and has edited Hardy's Fiddler of the Reels and Other Stories for Penguin Classics.

“The finest English novel.”—Arnold Bennett

When country-girl Grace Melbury returns home from her middle-class school she feels she has risen above her suitor, the simple woodsman Giles Winterborne. Though marriage had been discussed between her and Giles, Grace finds herself captivated by Dr Edred Fitzpiers, a sophisticated newcomer to the area—a relationship that is encouraged by her socially ambitious father. Hardy's novel of betrayal, disillusionment and moral compromise depicts a secluded community coming to terms with the disastrous impact of outside influences. And in his portrayal of Giles Winterborne, Hardy shows a man who responds deeply to the forces of the natural world, thought they ultimately betray him.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About the Author

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) immortalized the site of his birth—Egdon Heath, in Dorset, near Dorchester—in his writing. Delicate as a child, he was taught at home by his mother before he attended grammar school. At sixteen, Hardy was apprenticed to an architect, and for many years, architecture was his profession; in his spare time, he pursued his first and last literary love, poetry. Finally convinced that he could earn his living as an author, he retired from architecture, married, and devoted himself to writing. An extremely productive novelist, Hardy published an important book every year or two. In 1896, disturbed by the public outcry over the unconventional subjects of his two greatest novels—Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure—he announced that he was giving up fiction and afterward produced only poetry. In later years, he received many honors. He was buried in Poet’s Corner, in Westminster Abbey. It was as a poet that he wished to be remembered, but today critics regard his novels as his most memorable contribution to English literature for their psychological insight, decisive delineation of character, and profound presentation of tragedy.

Patricia Ingham is a Senior Research Fellow and Reader at St Anne's College, Oxford. She has written on the Victorian novel and on Hardy in particular. she is the General Editor of all of Hardy's fiction in the Penguin Classics and has edited Gaskell's North and South for the series.

A heartbreaking portrayal of a woman faced by an impossible choice in the pursuit of happiness 

“[Tess of the D’Urbervilles is] Hardy’s finest, most complex and most notorious novel . . . The novel is not a mere plea for compassion for the eternal victim, though that is the banner it flies. It also involves a profound questioning of contemporary morality.” –from the Introduction by Patricia Ingham

When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future. With its sensitive depiction of the wronged Tess and powerful criticism of social convention, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, subtitled "A Pure Woman," is one of the most moving and poetic of Hardy's novels.

Based on the three-volume first edition that shocked readers when first published in 1891, this edition includes as appendices: Hardy's Prefaces, the Landscapes of Tess, episodes originally censored from the Graphic periodical version, and a selection of the Graphic illustrations.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About the Author

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) immortalized the site of his birth—Egdon Heath, in Dorset, near Dorchester—in his writing. Delicate as a child, he was taught at home by his mother before he attended grammar school. At sixteen, Hardy was apprenticed to an architect, and for many years, architecture was his profession; in his spare time, he pursued his first and last literary love, poetry. Finally convinced that he could earn his living as an author, he retired from architecture, married, and devoted himself to writing. An extremely productive novelist, Hardy published an important book every year or two. In 1896, disturbed by the public outcry over the unconventional subjects of his two greatest novels—Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure—he announced that he was giving up fiction and afterward produced only poetry. In later years, he received many honors. He was buried in Poet’s Corner, in Westminster Abbey. It was as a poet that he wished to be remembered, but today critics regard his novels as his most memorable contribution to English literature for their psychological insight, decisive delineation of character, and profound presentation of tragedy.

Tim Dolin teaches English at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales.

Margaret R. Higonnet teaches English and Comparative Literature at the University of Connecticut.

Thomas Hardy’s impassioned novel of courtship in rural life

“Far from the Madding Crowd is the first of Thomas Hardy’s great novels, and the first to sound the tragic note
for which his fiction is best remembered.”--Margaret Drabble

In Thomas Hardy’s first major literary success, independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, the soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy, and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. One of his first works set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex, Hardy’s novel of swift passion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships. 

This edition, based on Hardy’s original 1874 manuscript, is the complete novel he never saw published, and restores its full candor and innovation. Rosemarie Morgan’s introduction discusses the history of its publication, as well as the biblical and classical allusions that permeate the novel.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About the Author

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928), whose writing immortalized the semi-fictional Wessex countryside and dramatized his sense of the inevitable tragedy of life, wrote fifteen novels, including The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). He is also renowned as one of the greatest poets of his era.

Rosemarie Morgan is a professor of English at Yale. Her many works on Thomas Hardy include Women and Sexuality in the Novels of Thomas Hardy and Cancelled Words: Rediscovering Thomas Hardy.

Shannon Russell is an assistant professor of English at John Cabot University in Rome.

Anyone can write a book. . . At least that's what literary critic and talk show host Jared Stone thinks. After all, how hard can it be to pen a romance novel? The women who churn those books are a bunch of empty headed, bored women, and the women that read that trash are even worse. It takes no skill to either write or read the dribble. To prove his point, he's willing to walk the walk by joining a local romance writer's chapter and cranking out a silly little novel. It should be easy once he penetrates the group and uncovers the formula for writing. He's sure he can finish in a single week, no more than two. But that's only the beginning. . .

Toreas Rose has spent years crafting her novel, sweating through revisions and weathering rejections with the best of them. When Jared challenges her by promising he can finish a novel in a couple of weeks, she graciously steps aside, ready to watch the fun as he flounders through his personal learning curve at breakneck speed. And everything has a twist. . . When Jared and Toreas match wits in a contest of the literary critic vs. the romance writer, no holds are barred. As challenges, insults, and sparks fly between them things start to heat up. And quicker than you can crack the cover on a new book, the confrontation gets personal- so personal that they're creating a steamy subplot all their own. But will their ending be a literary tale of woe or a classic happily-ever-after?

Michel Foucault’s work has profoundly affected the teaching of such diverse disciplines as literary criticism, criminology, and gender studies. Arguing that definitions of abnormal behavior are culturally constructed, Foucault explored the unfair division between those who meet and those who deviate from social norms. Foucault’s deeply visual sense of scenes such as ritual public executions, lends itself well to Moshe Süsser’s dramatic illustrations.

In this tale of star-crossed love, Hardy sets the emotional lives of his two lovers against the background of the stellar universe. The unhappily married Lady Constantine breaks all the rules of social decorum when she falls in love with Swithin St. Cleeve, an astronomer who is ten years her junior. Her husband's death leaves the lovers free to marry, but the discovery of a legacy forces them apart. This is Hardy's most complete treatment of the theme of love across the class and age divide and the fullest expression of his fascination with science and astronomy.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About the Author

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) immortalized the site of his birth—Egdon Heath, in Dorset, near Dorchester—in his writing. Delicate as a child, he was taught at home by his mother before he attended grammar school. At sixteen, Hardy was apprenticed to an architect, and for many years, architecture was his profession; in his spare time, he pursued his first and last literary love, poetry. Finally convinced that he could earn his living as an author, he retired from architecture, married, and devoted himself to writing. An extremely productive novelist, Hardy published an important book every year or two. In 1896, disturbed by the public outcry over the unconventional subjects of his two greatest novels—Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure—he announced that he was giving up fiction and afterward produced only poetry. In later years, he received many honors. He was buried in Poet’s Corner, in Westminster Abbey. It was as a poet that he wished to be remembered, but today critics regard his novels as his most memorable contribution to English literature for their psychological insight, decisive delineation of character, and profound presentation of tragedy.

Patricia Ingham is a Senior Research Fellow and Reader at St Anne's College, Oxford. She has written on the Victorian novel and on Hardy in particular. she is the General Editor of all of Hardy's fiction in the Penguin Classics and has edited Gaskell's North and South for the series.

"The Hand of Ethelberta is … a portrait of two artists – Ethelberta Petherwin and Thomas Hardy …"—Tim Dolin

Adventuress and opportunist, Ethelberta reinvents herself to disguise her humble origins, launching a brilliant career as a society poet in London with her family acting incognito as her servants. Turning the male-dominated literary world to her advantage, she happily exploits the attentions of four very different suitors. Will she bestow her hand upon the richest of them, or on the man she loves? Ethelberta Petherwin, alias Berta Chickerel, moves with easy grace between her multiple identities, cleverly managing a tissue of lies to aid her meteoric rise. In The Hand of Ethelberta, Hardy drew on conventions of popular romances, illustrated weeklies, plays, fashion plates and even his wife's diary in this comic story of a woman in control of her destiny.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About the Author

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) wrote novels and poetry, much of which is set in the semi-imaginary county of Wessex. His novels include Far From the Madding Crowd (1874), The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge(1886), Tess of the D'Urbervilles(1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895). He published his first volume of poetry, Wessex Poems, in 1898 and continued to publish collections of poems until his death.

Patricia Ingham is Senior Research Fellow and Reader at St Anne's College, Oxford. She has written on the Victorian novel and on Hardy in particular. She is the General Editor of all of Hardy's fiction in the Penguin Classics and has edited Gaskell's North and South for the series.

Cytherea has taken a position as lady's maid to the eccentric arch-intriguer Miss Aldclyffe. On discovering that the man she loves, Edward Springrove, is already engaged to his cousin, Cytherea comes under the influence of Miss Aldclyffe's fascinating, manipulative steward Manston.

Blackmail, murder and romance are among the ingredients of Hardy's first published novel, and in it he draws blithely on the 'sensation novel' perfected by Wilkie Collins. Several perceptive critics praised the author as a novelist with a future when Desperate Remedies appeared anonymously in 1871. In its depiction of country life and insight into psychology and sexuality it already bears the unmistakable imprint of Hardy's genius.

From Library Journal

Hardy launched his writing career with this 1871 novel, which actually was published anonymously. Its sexuality, including lesbianism, was apparently too much of a Victorian eyebrow-raiser for him to attach his name. This edition includes a map, a glossary, and scholarly notes.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About the Author

THOMAS HARDY (1840-1928) was recognized, and even revered, as the major literary figure of his time by his contemporaries. Most of his major novels are available in Penguin Classics.

MARY RIMMER is Associate Professor of English at the University of New Brunswick in Canada. She has written extensively on Hardy, and is currently writing a book on narrative voice in Hardy.

From the best-selling author of The Name of the Rose and The Prague Cemetery, a novel about the murky world of media politics, conspiracy, and murder

A newspaper committed to blackmail and mud slinging, rather than reporting the news.

A paranoid editor, walking through the streets of Milan, reconstructing fifty years of history against the backdrop of a plot involving the cadaver of Mussolini's double.

The murder of Pope John Paul I, the CIA, red terrorists handled by secret services, twenty years of bloodshed, and events that seem outlandish until the BBC proves them true.

A fragile love story between two born losers, a failed ghost writer, and a vulnerable girl, who specializes in celebrity gossip yet cries over the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh. And then a dead body that suddenly appears in a back alley in Milan. 

Set in 1992 and foreshadowing the mysteries and follies of the following twenty years, Numero Zero is a scintillating take on our times from the best-selling author of The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum.

New York Times Paperback Row
One of Vulture's "7 Books You Need to Read this November"
Included on the Los Angeles Times's "Holiday Books Roundup"
One of Bloomberg Business's "Eight Books for Your Holiday Reading"
One of The Millions "Most Anticipated" from the Second Half of 2015
One of the Sun Herald's "Ten noteworthy fiction and nonfiction titles on the way"
December 2015 Indie Next Pick

“Witty and wry...slim in pages but plump in satire about modern Italy...it’s hard not to be charmed by the zest of the author.”—Tom Rachman, New York Times Book Review

"Frequently imitated for his amalgamation of intellect, conspiracism, and historical suspense, the author of In the Name of the Rose takes a more contemporary and satirical turn. In 1992, as Italy works to cleanse itself of corruption, a hack journalist is hired to ghostwrite a memoir about a never-to-be-published gossip rag in order to cover up the real rationale for its fakery. Eco’s warped parable is rooted in a very specific time and place, but readers of Elena Ferrante or Rachel Kushner will likely catch the barbs in his clever absurdities."—Vulture (New York), "7 Books You Need to Read this November"

"Colonna, the struggling ghostwriter at the heart of this story, is transfixed by a juicy scoop: that Mussolini was not killed by partisans in 1945, as most believe, but instead survived in hiding. This sly satire, borrowing from outrageous real-life Italian politics, features a larger-than-life leader, conspiracy theories and an almost-corrupt press."—New York Times, Paperback Row

"Numero Zero [is]...a smart puzzle and a delight."—Kirkus Reviews, starred

"Eco combines his delight in suspense with astute political satire in this brainy, funny, neatly lacerating thriller…. Eco’s caustically clever, darkly hilarious, dagger-quick tale of lies, crimes, and collusions condemns the shameless corruption and greed undermining journalism and governments everywhere. A satisfyingly scathing indictment brightened by resolute love." --Booklist

Tom Taylor's life was screwed from go. His father created the Tommy Taylor fantasy series, boy-wizard novels with popularity on par with Harry Potter. The problem is Dad modeled the fictional epic so closely to Tom's real life that fans are constantly comparing him to his counterpart, turning him into the lamest variety of Z-level celebrity. In the final novel, it's even implied that the fictional Tommy will crossover into the real world, giving delusional fans more excuses to harass Tom. 

When an enormous scandal reveals that Tom might really be a boy-wizard made flesh, Tom comes into contact with a very mysterious, very deadly group that's secretly kept tabs on him all his life. Now, to protect his own life and discover the truth behind his origins, Tom will travel the world, eventually finding himself at locations all featured on a very special map -- one kept by the deadly group that charts places throughout world history where fictions have impacted and tangibly shaped reality, those stories ranging from famous literary works to folktales to pop culture. And in the process of figuring out what it all means, Tom will find himself having to figure out a huge conspiracy mystery that spans the entirety of the history of fiction.