A secret chamber.
A mysterious shipwreck.
A murder in the desolate salt marshes.

A seemingly straightforward private case turns out to be much more complicated-and sinister-than Special Agent A.X.L. Pendergast ever could have anticipated.

Pendergast, together with his ward Constance Greene, travels to the quaint seaside village of Exmouth, Massachusetts, to investigate the theft of a priceless wine collection. But inside the wine cellar, they find something considerably more disturbing: a bricked-up niche that once held a crumbling skeleton. 

Pendergast and Constance soon learn that Exmouth is a town with a very dark and troubled history, and this skeleton may be only the first hint of an ancient transgression, kept secret all these years. But they will discover that the sins of the past are still very much alive. Local legend holds that during the 1692 witch trials in Salem, the real witches escaped, fleeing north to Exmouth and settling deep in the surrounding salt marshes, where they continued to practice their wicked arts. Then, a murdered corpse turns up in the marshes. The only clue is a series of mysterious carvings. Could these demonic symbols bear some relation to the ancient witches' colony, long believed to be abandoned?

A terrible evil lurks beneath the surface of this sleepy seaside town-one with deep roots in Exmouth's grim history. And it may be that Constance, with her own troubled past, is the only one who truly comprehends the awful danger that she, Pendergast, and the residents of Exmouth must face . . . 

The largest known meteorite has been discovered, entombed in the earth for millions of years on a frigid, desolate island off the southern tip of Chile. At four thousand tons, this treasure seems impossible to move. New York billionaire Palmer Lloyd is determined to have this incredible find for his new museum. Stocking a cargo ship with the finest scientists and engineers, he builds a flawless expedition. But from the first approach to the meteorite, people begin to die. A frightening truth is about to unfold: The men and women of the Rolvaag are not taking this ancient, enigmatic object anywhere. It is taking them.

From Publishers Weekly

The summer-beach reader has few better friends than Preston and Child, who, beginning with Relic (1995), have produced one (generally) smart and suspenseful thriller after another, most recently Thunderhead. Their new novel, which, like its predecessors, skirts the edge of science fiction, is their most expertly executed (though not most imaginative) entertainment yet. Its concept is high and simple: a scientific expedition plans to dig out and transport to New York harbor the mother of all meteorites from its resting spot on an icy island offshore Chile. The mission is nearly impossible: not only will the meteorite be the heaviest object ever moved by humanity, but the Chileans, if they learn of the mission, may decimate it in order to keep the meteorite. Six strong if broadly drawn characters propel the premise into action. There's bullheaded billionaire Palmer Lloyd, who funds the expedition, and three (of the many) people he hires to get the rock: world-class meteorite-hunter Sam McFarlane, disgraced for his obsession about possible interstellar meteorites; Captain Britton, disgraced alcoholic skipper hired to ferry the meteorite to the U.S.; and Eli Glinn, cold-blooded mastermind of an engineering firm dedicated to getting incredible jobs done, this one at the price of $300 million. There's Commandante Vallenar, a Chilean naval officer exiled to his nation's southern wastes, who will stop at nothing to defend Chile's honor and property. Finally, there's the meteorite, blood red, impossibly dense, possessed of strange and dangerous properties. Like the premise, the plot is simple, traversing a near-linear narrative that sustains serious tension as the expedition travels to Chile, digs out the meteorite and heads homeward, only to face both Vallenar and a ferocious storm. What the novel lacks in sophistication, it makes up for in athleticism: this is a big-boned thriller, one that will make a terrific summer movie as well as a memorable hot-day read.  
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In 1992 Doug Preston and his family rode horseback across 400 miles of desert in Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. They were retracing the route of the Navajo deity Naayee' neizghani, the Slayer of Alien Gods, on his quest to restore beauty and balance to the Earth. More than a travelogue, Preston's account of the journey is a tale of two cultures meeting in a sacred land.

This #1 bestselling legal thriller from Michael Connelly is a stunning display of novelistic mastery - as human, as gripping, and as whiplash-surprising as any novel yet from the writer Publishers Weekly has called "today's Dostoevsky of crime literature."

Mickey Haller is a Lincoln Lawyer, a criminal defense attorney who operates out of the backseat of his Lincoln Town Car, traveling between the far-flung courthouses of Los Angeles to defend clients of every kind. Bikers, con artists, drunk drivers, drug dealers - they're all on Mickey Haller's client list. For him, the law is rarely about guilt or innocence, it's about negotiation and manipulation. Sometimes it's even about justice.

A Beverly Hills playboy arrested for attacking a woman he picked up in a bar chooses Haller to defend him, and Mickey has his first high-paying client in years. It is a defense attorney's dream, what they call a franchise case. And as the evidence stacks up, Haller comes to believe this may be the easiest case of his career. Then someone close to him is murdered and Haller discovers that his search for innocence has brought him face-to-face with evil as pure as a flame. To escape without being burned, he must deploy every tactic, feint, and instinct in his arsenal - this time to save his own life.

Shamanic journeying is the inner art of traveling to the invisible worlds beyond ordinary reality to retrieve information for change in every area of our lives from spirituality and health to work and relationships.

With Shamanic Journeying, readers join world-renowned teacher Sandra Ingerman to learn the core teachings of this ancient practice and apply these skills in their own journey. Includes drumming for three shamanic journeys.

Living under Reese Madaris's roof makes LaKenna James the envy of every woman in town. But Reese's offer of a place to stay is strictly platonic—just until Kenna's new condo is completed. He has no idea that his best friend has been attracted to him since college, and Kenna plans to keep it that way.

Ever since his cousin Blade got married, Reese has become Houston's most eligible bachelor—and a magnet for gold diggers. Reese turns to his temporary roommate for dating advice, and suddenly sees Kenna for the beautiful, voluptuous woman she is. Though Kenna's afraid to give her heart to the man who could so easily break it, when her life is in jeopardy, she'll discover just how far a Madaris man will go when love is at stake…

About the Author

Brenda Jackson is a New York Times bestselling author of more than one hundred romance titles. Brenda lives in Jacksonville, Florida, and divides her time between family, writing and traveling. Email Brenda at authorbrendajackson@gmail.com or visit her on her website at brendajackson.net.

Everything you need to know about prana. Alternate Energy for the New Millennium, including a Program for eliminating hunger in Third World countries. Can we eliminate all health & hunger challenges on our planet? Is there a way of satiating everyone's physical, emotional, mental and spiritual hungers and do it in a way that creates peace and harmony in our world? After over a decade of experiential research in the field of alternate nourishment utilizing chi or prana - also known as cosmic particles - Jasmuheen as leading researcher in this field, now puts forth a program to do just that. Specializing in Third World countries, THE PRANA PROGRAM is an encyclopedia of 'everything you always wanted to know about prana and more'. In Question & Answer format this book covers methods of nourishing and hydrating the body using an inner energy source produced in the body to free us from our dependence on world's food resources and changing the economic status of our world.

About the Author

Jasmuheen was born in Australia in 1957 to Norwegian immigrants. After a successful career in computer programming and finance she began researching then writing empowering metaphysical literature that was based on her own experiences of decades of deep meditation which she began in the early 1970's.

In 2000 she was awarded the IgNobel Prize for literature for her controversial book Pranic Nourishment which is available - like many of her 37 books - in 18 languages.

A controversial figure Jasmuheen's main focus is on world health and world hunger issues and the projects of The Embassy of Peace for which she is an Ambassador, spending 5-6 months traveling each year for the last few decades. Her tour schedule can be found on her website under her Event-Tour calendar.

Jasmuheen is also a film-maker with nearly 500 videos on her YouTube channel, an artist, musician and President of the Global Congress of Spiritual Scientists in Pyramid Valley Bangalore India.

She writes:- True Magic … “When we open ourselves to experience the true magic and the pure heart, that lies behind so many cultures, we can go beyond prejudice, limitation and fear, for deep within the human heart is a natural rhythm of harmony that is longing to be released. I have found that when we celebrate our differences we unify with each other in a field of appreciation that is unparalleled to the alternative we have known – the field of gossip and judgment which can perpetuate loneliness and separation. When we seek to understand what another appreciates about their own way of life, and when we take the chance to see their life and the beauty of their culture though their eyes, this action and choice can eliminate feelings of both fear and separation and bond us deeply.” Jasmuheen

“John Scalzi is the most entertaining, accessible writer working in SF today.” ―Joe Hill, author of The Fireman

The first novel of a new space-opera sequence set in an all-new universe by the Hugo Award-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Redshirts and Old Man's War

Our universe is ruled by physics. Faster than light travel is impossible―until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field available at certain points in space-time, which can take us to other planets around other stars.

Riding The Flow, humanity spreads to innumerable other worlds. Earth is forgotten. A new empire arises, the Interdependency, based on the doctrine that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It’s a hedge against interstellar war―and, for the empire’s rulers, a system of control.

The Flow is eternal―but it’s not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well. In rare cases, entire worlds have been cut off from the rest of humanity. When it’s discovered that the entireFlow is moving, possibly separating all human worlds from one another forever, three individuals―a scientist, a starship captain, and the emperox of the Interdependency―must race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.

"Fans of Game of Thrones and Dune will enjoy this bawdy, brutal, and brilliant political adventure" ―Booklist on The Collapsing Empire

"Political plotting, plenty of snark, puzzle-solving, and a healthy dose of action...Scalzi continues to be almost insufferably good at his brand of fun but think-y sci-fi adventure." ―Kirkus Reviews on The Collapsing Empire

“Scalzi is one of the slickest writers that SF has ever produced.” ―The Wall Street Journal on The Human Division

Ender's Shadow explores the stars in this all-new novel...

At the end of Shadow of the Giant, Bean flees to the stars with three of his children--the three who share the engineered genes that gave him both hyper-intelligence and a short, cruel physical life. The time dilation granted by the speed of their travel gives Earth's scientists generations to seek a cure, to no avail. In time, they are forgotten--a fading ansible signal speaking of events lost to Earth's history. But the Delphikis are about to make a discovery that will let them save themselves, and perhaps all of humanity in days to come.

For there in space before them lies a derelict Formic colony ship. Aboard it, they will find both death and wonders--the life support that is failing on their own ship, room to grow, and labs in which to explore their own genetic anomaly and the mysterious disease that killed the ship's colony.
Shadows in Flight is the fifth novel in Orson Scott Card's Shadow Series.

From the author of Ender’s Game, the soon-to-be major motion picture!

A complex fate. A deadly path. Book two in the New York Times bestselling series Publishers Weekly calls “an epic in the best sense.”

When Rigg and his friends crossed the Wall between the only world they knew and a world they could not imagine, he hoped he was leading them to safety. But the dangers in this new wallfold are more difficult to see. Rigg, Umbo, and Param know that they cannot trust the expendable, Vadesh—a machine shaped like a human, created to deceive—but they are no longer certain that they can even trust one another. But they will have little choice. Because although Rigg can decipher the paths of the past, he can’t yet see the horror that lies ahead: A destructive force with deadly intentions is hurtling toward Garden. If Rigg, Umbo, and Param can’t work together to alter the past, there will be no future.

The adventure, suspense, and time travel continue in this second installment in the critically acclaimed New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestselling Pathfinder series.

"A man of knowledge is free...he has no honor, no dignity, no family, no home, no country, but only life to be lived." --don Juan

In 1961 a young anthropologist subjected himself to an extraordinary apprenticeship to bring back a fascinating glimpse of a Yaqui Indian's world of "non-ordinary reality" and the difficult and dangerous road a man must travel to become "a man of knowledge." Yet on the bring of that world, challenging to all that we believe, he drew back.
Then in 1968, Carlos Castaneda returned to Mexico, to don Juan and his hallucinogenic drugs, and to a world of experience no man from our Western civilization had ever entered before.

For us to perceive any of the worlds that exist beside our own, not only do we have to covet them but we need to have sufficient energy to seize them. In this revolutionary book, Carlos Castaneda offers readers the key to this energetic conditioning for the first time, revealing a series of body positions and physical movements that enabled various sorcerers, and their apprentices, to navigate their own sorceric journeys. By sharing this centuries-old wisdom, Carlos Castaneda makes it possible for readers to travel to some of these other realms, which are as real, unique, absolute, and engulfing as our own world. Castaneda offers both a philosophical history of magical passes and an innovative, easy-to-understand instructional format, complete with more than 450 computer-generated illustrations. Written with humor, clarity, and authority, Magical Passes further illuminates the true meaning of sorcery and magic.

India expert Margot Bigg has made the move to India herself, and in Moon Living Abroad in India, she uses her know-how to provide insight and firsthand advice on navigating the language and culture of this complex country. Bigg outlines all the information you need in a smart, organized, and straightforward manner, making planning the move abroad manageable.

Moon Living Abroad in India is packed with essential information and must-have details on setting up daily life, including obtaining visas, arranging finances, gaining employment, choosing schools, and finding health care. With color and black and white photos, illustrations, and maps to help you find your bearings, Moon Living Abroad in India makes the transition process easy for tourists, business people, adventurers, students, teachers, professionals, families, couples, and retirees looking to relocate.

About the Author

During a three-month trip across India in 2005, Margot Bigg became mesmerized by the sheer diversity of the world's largest democracy, and decided to make it her home. A year later, she was living in Gurgaon, near Delhi, where she worked for a consultancy before joining the staff of Time Out Delhi and turning to journalism full time. She has since written for publications in India and abroad, including Rolling Stone, Outlook Traveller, The Caravan, Courrier International, and The Oregonian.

Margot's interest in other cultures started from an early age: Her best friends as a toddler were from Japan, Iran, and Jordan, and her baby talk was mixed with Japanese, Farsi, and Arabic (all of which she has since forgotten). She's a dual national of the US and the UK, and spent her formative years living in Portland, Oregon, and Farnham, Surrey, in England. She also lived in Paris for three years before moving to India. Margot holds a master's degree in contemporary European studies from the University of Bath and Sciences Po Paris.

When not busy writing, Margot spends her time traveling, practicing yoga, exploring new music, and trying to improve her Hindi language skills.

A new edition of the popular guide to using and applying the famous spiritual study program A Course in Miracles--from the foremost lecturer and teacher of the course.

Tara Singh was known as a teacher, author, poet and humanitarian. Born in 1919, he spent the early years of his life in a small village in Punjab, India. From this sheltered environment his family then traveled and lived in Europe and Central America. At 22, his search for the truth led him to the Himalayas where he lived for four years as an ascetic. He described this time as his outgrowing of conventional religion, where he discovered “that a mind conditioned by religious or secular beliefs is always limited.”

He subsequently responded to the poverty of India through participation in that country's postwar industrialization and international affairs. He became a close friend of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and other great leaders who helped to frame India’s constitution.

After the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, he came to America to observe the impact of science on society and to learn how technology could benefit a free India. Even though he had less than three years of formal education, he met and associated with key thinkers, leaders and educators in America. Eleanor Roosevelt, Pearl Buck and Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas among others, helped introduce Mr. Singh to the West. Living in New York, he served as an executive of C.A.R.E., refusing to accept a salary although he himself was often without funds.

It was during the 1950’s, as he outgrew his involvement with political and economic systems, that he became inspired by his associations with Mr. J. Krishnamurti and the teacher of the Dalai Lama. He discovered that “humanity’s problems cannot be solved externally.”

He became more and more removed from worldly affairs and devoted several years of his life to the study and practice of yoga. The discipline imparted through yoga helped make possible a three-year period of silent retreat in Carmel, California in the early 1970s.

As he emerged from the years of silence in 1976, he came into contact with the contemporary scripture A Course in Miracles. Its impact on him was profound. He recognized it “as an answer to man's urgent need for direct contact with Truth.” There followed a close relationship with its scribe, Dr. Helen Schucman. From then on, the Course was the focal point of his life.

His love of the Course inspired him to share it with thousands of people in workshops and retreats throughout the United States. He recognized and presented the Course as “thoughts of God” and correlated it with the great spiritual teachings and religions of the world.

From Easter 1983 to Easter 1984, he conducted the One Year Non-Commercialized Retreat: A Serious Study of A Course of Miracles. It was an unprecedented, in-depth exploration of the Course. No tuition was charged.

For over 30 years, Tara Singh worked with students on the issues of inner transformation. His work was described as “a call to wisdom” and encompassed the ancient knowledge of the East as well as the ethics of America’s forefathers. In his teaching, he shared his inspiration for the truth he found in all religions and for many great beings who brought light into the world.

He was the author of numerous books, including A Gift For All Mankind, "Love Holds No Grievances," Awakening A Child From Within, The Voice That Precedes Thought, How to Learn from A Course In Miracles, and Moments Outside of Time. He has been featured on many audio and video recordings in which he discusses the action of bringing order into one's life, freeing oneself from past conditioning, and living the principles of A Course In Miracles.

In 1993, Mr. Singh founded the Joseph Plan Foundation, a non-profit educational and charitable foundation dedicated to inspiring individuals and the general public to achieve fulfillment through service.

Known for the wisdom he freely imparted, he is remembered for the virtue of a noble life and the lasting friendship he openly extended to all he met.

What is the unique and most important feature that distinguishes man from all other living beings?

Why is it that, contrary to the instinct of self-preservation, a parent will throw themselves headlong into fire or water to save their child?

Why do people get married and why do they get divorced? Why do people have extra-marital affairs and why do two people in a couple become jealous of one another? What is Love?

When and why did the type of sex emerge among human beings that is free of any reproductive function?

Why are the social and behavioural distinctions between men and women being rapidly erased?

Why, despite everything, is the world becoming more tolerant than it was in previous centuries?

People are born with different intellectual, spiritual and physical capabilities. So why do we assert that all people are equal?

Can the world without violence exist? If not, under what circumstances and to what kind of violence does man have a right? Wherein lies the origin of this right?

Where is the root of our morality? Why do our moral values change over time? Do absolute moral values exist?

Why has Man, on the whole, never observed (or perhaps is incapable of observing) a set of various religious commandments? Should we observe them? Are they the decree of God?

By which “commandments” do we really live our lives and is it possible to formulate them in such a way that we could realistically observe them?

What is Good? And what is Evil? Is there a simple criterion by which one may distinguish Good from Evil?

In which direction is humanity evolving and is it governed by some universal law?

Is there any meaning to life?

Is it possible to give a clear and straightforward answer to all these questions?

It is, in fact, possible!

“The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer” provides a clear and scientifically elegant answer to all the questions listed above. The answer which will cause the reader to reconsider many established moral principles and notions about the world around us. The answer which will help the reader to understand the nature of human actions, dilemmas, dramas and passions, in their true light. The answer which will elucidate the current stage in the development of human civilisation and offer unexpected predictions for its future.

“The Last Faith: a book by an atheist believer” is aimed at a wide audience and does not require any specialised knowledge. The author’s thoughts and reflections are presented here in the form of a fictional conversation with God which unfolds over the course of just two hundred pages. The author (PhD in Physics and Mathematics) gives concise and clearly expressed explanations and evidence for his ideas. He cites abundant examples from the world around us which are drawn from his extensive travels through Russia, America, Europe, Africa and Central Asia.

All this makes for an accessible and enjoyable read.

A Stoner McTavish Mystery

There were dark forces afoot in the sleepy little New Age town of Shelburne Falls, hungry ghosts who had chosen Aunt Hermione as their prey. Stoner McTavish, lesbian travel agent and reluctant detective, her lover Gwen, and her best friend and business partner Marylou, must stop them before it's too late. But who are they? What do they want, and why? And how do you stop an enemy you can't even find? Stoner embarks on a journey that forces her to face her worst fears. And they just might come true.

Sarah Dreher is the author of the well-loved Stoner McTavish Mystery Series as well as many award winning plays. She attended Wellesley College and went on to earn a PH.D. in clinical psychology from Purdue University.
At the age of 17, she was threatened with expulsion from Wellesley College for “being too fond of other girls.” In an interview, Sarah reveals,

“I was accused of being a lesbian, though I wasn’t ‘out’ at the time,” she recalls. “I felt like killing myself. One of the rules of being gay in the 1950’s was that you should hate yourself. It took me 15 years to get over it; it took the women’s movement really, to get me past it.”

Sarah’s play “Alumnae News” parallels this experience in her life. As in all of her work, the poignancy and bristling energy are leavened by humor, and by the author’s empathy with her characters.
Sarah passed away to writer’s heaven at her home on April 2nd, 2012, just one week after celebrating her 75th birthday.

National Book Critics Circle Award-winner Bharati Mukherjee has long been known not only for her elegant, evocative prose but also for her characters--influenced by ancient customs and traditions but also very much rooted in modern times. In The Tree Bride, the narrator, Tara Chatterjee (whom readers will remember from Desirable Daughters), picks up the story of an East Bengali ancestor. According to legend, at the age of five Tara Lata married a tree and eventually emerged as a nationalist freedom fighter. In piecing together her ancestor's transformation from a docile Bengali Brahmin girl-child into an impassioned organizer of resistance against the British Raj, the contemporary narrator discovers and lays claim to unacknowledged elements in her 'American' identity. Although the story of the Tree Bride is central, the drama surrounding the narrator, a divorced woman trying to get back with her husband, moves the novel back and forth through time and across continents.

Award-winning Indian-born American author Bharati Mukherjee was born in Calcutta (now called Kolkata) in 1940, the second of three daughters born to Bengali-speaking, Hindu Brahmin parents. She lived in a house crowded with 40 or 50 relatives until she was eight, when her father's career brought the family to live in London for several years.

She returned to Calcutta in the early 1950s where she attended the Loreto School. She received her B.A. from the University of Calcutta in 1959 as a student of Loreto College, and earned her M.A. from the University of Baroda in 1961. She next travelled to the United States to study at the University of Iowa, where she received her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1963 and her Ph.D. in 1969 from the department of Comparative Literature.

After more than a decade living in Montreal and Toronto in Canada, Mukherjee and her husband, internationally acclaimed author Clark Blaise, returned to the United States. She wrote of the decision in "An Invisible Woman," published in a 1981 issue of "Saturday Night." Mukherjee and Blaise co-authored "Days and Nights in Calcutta (1977) and "The Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy (Air India Flight 182)" (1987).
Mukherjee taught at McGill University, Skidmore College, Queens College, and City University of New York. She is currently a professor in the English department at the University of California, Berkeley.

Mukherjee is best known for her novels "The Tiger's Daughter" (1971); "Wife" (1975); "Jasmine" (1989); "The Holder of the World" (1993); "Leave It to Me" (1997); "Desirable Daughters" (2002); "The Tree Bride" (2004); and "Miss New India" (2011). Her short story collections and memoirs include "Darkness" (1985); "The Middleman and Other Stories" (1988); and "A Father". Non Fiction works include: "Days and Nights in Calcutta"; and "The Sorrow and the Terror."

She was the winner of the 1988 National Book Critics Circle Award for "The Middleman and Other Stories."

In Candice Dow's witty, romantic new novel, a woman whose young husband dies unexpectedly comes up with the perfect plan to find a new man, and learns that writing her own happy ending comes with a few surprises . . . Fatima Mayo had it all-a gorgeous, loving husband; a creative job as a romance editor; and a fabulous home in New York City. But when her husband died suddenly of a heart attack, her life lost its luster. Now after three years of widowhood, she's decided to plunge back into the dating pool. But dating services are enough to put any woman off men forever. Her friend Mya jokingly suggests that Fatima will only find the perfect guy if she writes a script and hires an actor to play the role, and suddenly Fatima has the perfect idea. She will write a script-and Mya, a casting director, will find the ideal leading man. Good-looking, intelligent, and talented, Rashad Watkins's acting career is going nowhere. The money Fatima offers is good-but he realizes immediately that the companionship the sexy young widow offers is even better. What he feels for Fatima is the real thing. But now he has to prove he's not just acting . . .

Candice Dow is a native of Baltimore, MD and graduate of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and Johns Hopkins University. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked as a Software Engineer. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Rho Xi Omega Chapter in Baltimore. Candice is a frequent traveler and loves to analyze love, life, and relationships, and seeks to expose the answers in works of fiction. 

In A Modern Utopia, two travelers fall into a space-warp and suddenly find themselves upon a Utopian Earth controlled by a single World Government.

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.

Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.

Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006) was the author of many novels, including Dawn, Wild Seed, and Parable of the Sower. She was the recipient of a MacArthur Award and a Nebula Award, and she twice won the Hugo Award.

"Prepare to fall in love with Binti." ―Neil Gaiman

Winner of the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novella!

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.

Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti's stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.

If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself ― but first she has to make it there, alive.

PRAISE FOR BINTI

"Binti is a supreme read about a sexy, edgy Afropolitan in space! It's a wondrous combination of extra-terrestrial adventure and age-old African diplomacy. Unforgettable!" ― Wanuri Kahiu, award-winning Kenyan film director of Punzi and From a Whisper

The first book-length exploration of the most exciting development in modern physics, the theory of 10-dimensional space. The theory of hyperspace, which Michio Kaku pioneered, may be the leading candidate for the Theory of Everything that Einstein spent the remaining years of his life searching for.

Since ingesting Einstein's relativity theory 50 years ago, physics fell down a quantum rabbit hole and, ever since, physicists' reports to the world of popular science have been curiouser and curiouser. This version, from the author of the graduate text Quantum Field Theory , is very curious as he delineates the "delicious contradictions" of the quantum revolution: that the new paradigms of subatomic matter require the existence of "hyperspace," an ultimate universe of many dimensions, to accomodate their mostly mathematical behaviors. Unified field theory as it is currently understood does not preclude any of the hypotheses that Kaku invites to this Mad Hatter's Theory Party: superstrings, parallel universes and, his centerpiece, time travel. Although occasionally facile, Kaku remains on solid theoretical ground up to the point of his untestable hypotheses, which lead to his more abstract arguments. In the past decade particle physics has lurched to astonishing contradictions and Kaku's adventurous, tantalizing book should not be penalized for promising more than present technology can test. His intellectual perceptions will thrill lay readers, SF fans and the physics-literate. Illustrations. 
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Michio Kaku is the co-founder of String Field Theory and is the author of international best-selling books such as Hyperspace, Visions, and Beyond Einstein. Michio Kaku is the Henry Semat Professor in Theoretical Physics at the City University of New York.

New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Brenda Jackson brings you the story of Jason Westmoreland. With one convenient proposal, he could have a Southern beauty in his bed and her birthright in his hands. If only the lovely lady would say yes….

Plus a Brenda Jackson classic—the first in the Steele family series, Solid Soul.

Brenda Jackson is a New York Times bestselling author of more than one hundred romance titles. Brenda lives in Jacksonville, Florida, and divides her time between family, writing and traveling.

When a health scare puts him in the hospital, Eric Weiner-an agnostic by default-finds himself tangling with an unexpected question, posed to him by a well-meaning nurse. "Have you found your God yet?"The thought of it nags him, and prods him-and ultimately launches him on a far-flung journey to do just that. 

Weiner, a longtime "spiritual voyeur" and inveterate traveler, realizes that while he has been privy to a wide range of religious practices, he's never seriously considered these concepts in his own life. Face to face with his own mortality, and spurred on by the question of what spiritual principles to impart to his young daughter, he decides to correct this omission, undertaking a worldwide exploration of religions and hoping to come, if he can, to a personal understanding of the divine. 

The journey that results is rich in insight, humor, and heart. Willing to do anything to better understand faith, and to find the god or gods that speak to him, he travels to Nepal, where he meditates with Tibetan lamas and a guy named Wayne. He sojourns to Turkey, where he whirls (not so well, as it turns out) with Sufi dervishes. He heads to China, where he attempts to unblock his chi; to Israel, where he studies Kabbalah, sans Madonna; and to Las Vegas, where he has a close encounter with Raelians (followers of the world's largest UFO-based religion).

At each stop along the way, Weiner tackles our most pressing spiritual questions: Where do we come from? What happens when we die? How should we live our lives? Where do all the missing socks go? With his trademark wit and warmth, he leaves no stone unturned. At a time when more Americans than ever are choosing a new faith, and when spiritual questions loom large in the modern age, MAN SEEKS GOD presents a perspective on religion that is sure to delight, inspire, and entertain.

From rugged Lake Superior to panoramic Prairieland, Minnesota offers travelers a breadth of attractions, including Viking artifacts, canoe races, drumlins and kames, powwows, and Scandinavian festivals.

The ultimate manual for wilderness travelers and campers, Walking Softly in the Wilderness is the groundbreaking guide that first taught backpackers how to enjoy a genuine wilderness experience that leaves nature undisturbed. 

In recent years backpacking gear and practices have undergone many changes, and all are noted and expertly evaluated by author John Hart in this new edition. Covering the latest in "ultralight" gear choices, as well as downloadable maps, portable GPS devices, and the world of online information, Hart is a sure-footed guide to this changing scene.

The qualities that established this guide as the bible of camp and trail have also been polished and honed: its level-headed advice on trip planning and packing; insights for getting the most from a wilderness trip, whether a challenging mountain scramble or a leisurely family outing; and wisdom about dealing with the unexpected, from bears to flash floods to injuries. Seventy line drawings illustrate topics ranging from bear-bagging to rigging a tarp shelter. Extensive resource listings include wilderness agencies, gear suppliers, and online information sources.

A fourth-generation insomniac, Patricia Morrisroe decided that the only way she’d ever conquer her lifelong sleep disorder was by becoming an expert on the subject. So, armed with half a century of personal experience and a journalist’s curiosity, she set off to explore one of life’s greatest mysteries: sleep. Wide Awake is the eye-opening account of Morrisroe’s quest—a compelling memoir that blends science, culture, and business to tell the story of why she—and forty million other Americans—can’t sleep at night.             

Over the course of three years of research and reporting, Morrisroe talks to sleep doctors, drug makers, psychiatrists, anthropologists, hypnotherapists, “wake experts,” mattress salesmen, a magician, an astronaut, and even a reindeer herder. She spends an uncomfortable night wired up in a sleep lab. She tries “sleep restriction” and “brain music therapy.” She buys a high-end sound machine, custom-made ear plugs, and a “quiet” house in the country to escape her noisy neighbors in the city. She attends a continuing medical education course in Las Vegas, where she discovers that doctors are among the most sleep-deprived people in the country. She travels to Sonoma, California, where she attends a Dream Ball costumed as her “dream self.” To fulfill a childhood fantasy, she celebrates Christmas Eve two hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, in the famed Icehotel tossing and turning on an ice bed. Finally, after traveling the globe, she finds the answer to her insomnia right around the corner from her apartment in New York City. 

A mesmerizing mix of personal insight, science and social observation, Wide Awake examines the role of sleep in our increasingly hyperactive culture. For the millions who suffer from sleepless nights and hazy caffeine-filled days, this humorous, thought-provoking and ultimately hopeful book is an essential bedtime companion. It does, however, come with a warning: Reading it will promote wakefulness.

A wild and bittersweet memoir of a classic '70s childhood

It's a story of the 1970s. Of a road trip in a wood-paneled station wagon, with the kids in the way-back, singing along to the Steve Miller Band. Brothers waking up early on Saturday mornings for five consecutive hours of cartoons and advertising jingles that they'll be humming all day. A father-one of 3M's greatest and last eight-track-salesman fathers-traveling across the country on the brand-new Boeing 747, providing for his family but wanting nothing more than to get home.

It's Steve Rushin's story: of growing up within a '70s landscape populated with Bic pens, Mr. Clean and Scrubbing Bubbles, lightsabers and those oh-so-coveted Schwinn Sting-Ray bikes. Sting-Ray Afternoons paints an utterly fond, psychedelically vibrant, laugh-out-loud-funny portrait of an exuberant decade. With sidesplitting commentary, Rushin creates a vivid picture of a decade of wild youth, cultural rebirth, and the meaning of parental, brotherly, sisterly, whole lotta love.

Praise for Sting-Ray Afternoons

"If you existed in the 1970s and had any awareness of the world around you, Steve Rushin's Sting-Ray Afternoons is going to hit you like the smell of Clairol Herbal Essence Shampoo. Smart as heck, laugh out loud funny and warm, Steve Rushin does for 1970s childhoods what Jean Shepherd did for 1940s Christmas. This book is nothing short of a Nadia Comenici Perfect 10."―Julie Klam, author of The Stars in Our Eyes and the New York Times bestseller You Had Me at Woof

"Steve Rushin's Sting Ray Afternoons is a fun and often hilarious account of growing up in the midwest in the 1970s. Throughout the book I was pleasantly reminded of things from my own past-Rushin revisits the TV shows, the toys, the games of the era while telling his family's own story. Sting Ray Afternoon captures both the freedom of youth and the universal longing for experience in a bigger, more adult world. If you grew up in the 1970s, prepare to have your memory triggered."―Craig Finn, songwriter and guitarist, The Hold Steady

"Charming and heartfelt, hilarious and touching, Rushin's Sting-Ray Afternoons is a pitch-perfect portrait of growing up in middle America during the Brady Bunch era. A gem of a memoir, a tribute to family, and a delectable slice of American history."―Nina Sankovitch, author of Tolstoy and the Purple Chair and The Lowells of Massachusetts 

"[Rushin's] childhood, from the ages of 3 to 13, was perfectly encapsulated in the 1970s, and he celebrates the excesses and excitement of the decade with ardor.... Rushin's everykid upbringing and the touchstones of childhood he recounts make Sting-Ray Afternoon a fun-filled and charming trip."―Booklist

"Rushin may not have been able to compete with his athletic older brothers for glory on the playing field, but he pleased his parents with a talent for puns and other wordplay... The nostalgic sweetness of his memories...provides convincing evidence that life in the '70s wasn't as chaotic as it's often made out to be."―Kirkus

"Rushin uses his family as the book's focal point, capturing the nonstop zaniness of growing up with four siblings.... But it's Rushin's dad, a child of the Depression, who steals the show. Whether quoting his father as he describes his five kids...or retelling stories about him being drunk on what was the then new Boeing 747, it's through his father that Rushin captures the mystery and magic of childhood."―Publishers Weekly

"A wild ride through [Rushin's] '70s boyhood in fast-growing Bloomington, Minnesota.... Fiercely funny memoir about family, sports, music, food and fads."―Priscilla Kipp, BookPage

"In his funny, elegiac memoir Sting-Ray Afternoons, Rushin mines...ineffably familiar terrain with a sense of irony and deep affection, working hard to capture the look and feel of the 1970s...Much of what Rushin writes about - the Sears Christmas Wish Book, leaded gasoline, Johnny Carson's many vacations - will strike a chord with anyone who, like me, grew up in that era. What makes the book more than just late-baby-boomer nostalgia is the writing, which is knowing and funny."―Jim Zarroli, NPR

A "touching nostalgic memoir.... A vivid and comedic approach to [Rushin's] personal touchstones for the era."―CBC Radio's "Day Six"

"Magnificent... You will not read a better book this summer - and maybe well into the fall and winter, too."― New York Post

"Sting-Ray Afternoons is [Rushin's] story of growing up in Bloomington in the 1970s. It's a lighthearted, sentimental look back at a Minnesota childhood with a twist of wryness... Rushin's told-with-a-smile stories of childhood are worth the trip: bundling into a snowmobile suit in winter, piling into the Ford LTD Country Squire for a cross-country summer vacation, making mild mischief with neighborhood friends, and one memorable disaster when nature called and wouldn't be kept waiting. All seen through that gauzy, yellowish filter that blurs memory with Dad's Super 8 movies."―Casey Common, Star Tribune

Steve Rushin has been called “the ultimate tinkerer with language” by the New York Times. As a writer for Sports Illustrated, he has filed stories for the magazine from all seven continents, including Antarctica. He is a four-time finalist for the National Magazine Award and his work has been anthologized in The Best American Sports Writing, The Best American Travel Writing and The Best American Magazine Writing collections. In 2006 he was named the National Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association.

Rushin’s first book, Road Swing, was named one of the “Best Books of the Year” by Publishers Weekly and one of the “Top 100 Sports Books of All Time” by Sports Illustrated. A collection of his sports and travel writing, The Caddie Was a Reindeer, was a semifinalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. His first novel, The Pint Man, was published in 2010 and was called “wipe-your-eyes funny” by the Los Angeles Times. His 2013 baseball book, The 34-Ton Bat, “will give even the most knowledgeable fan a new understanding of the game,” said the Wall Street Journal. His latest book, Sting-Ray Afternoons, is a memoir of his 1970s childhood.

A native of Bloomington, Minnesota, Rushin lives with his family in Connecticut.

The World Is Flat is Thomas L. Friedman's account of the great changes taking place in our time, as lightning-swift advances in technology and communications put people all over the globe in touch as never before--creating an explosion of wealth in India and China, and challenging the rest of us to run even faster just to stay in place. This updated and expanded edition features more than a hundred pages of fresh reporting and commentary, drawn from Friedman's travels around the world and across the American heartland--from anyplace where the flattening of the world is being felt.

In The World Is Flat, Friedman at once shows "how and why globalization has now shifted into warp drive" (Robert Wright, Slate) and brilliantly demystifies the new flat world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, he explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; how governments and societies can, and must, adapt; and why terrorists want to stand in the way. More than ever, The World Is Flat is an essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists.

THE STORY THEY COULDN'T HACK: In this rare insider’s view into contemporary North Korea, a high-ranking counterintelligence agent describes his life as a former poet laureate to Kim Jong-il and his breathtaking escape to freedom.

“The General will now enter the room.”

Everyone turns to stone. Not moving my head, I direct my eyes to a point halfway up the archway where Kim Jong-il’s face will soon appear…

As North Korea’s State Poet Laureate, Jang Jin-sung led a charmed life. With food provisions (even as the country suffered through its great famine), a travel pass, access to strictly censored information, and audiences with Kim Jong-il himself, his life in Pyongyang seemed safe and secure. But this privileged existence was about to be shattered. When a strictly forbidden magazine he lent to a friend goes missing, Jang Jin-sung must flee for his life.

Never before has a member of the elite described the inner workings of this totalitarian state and its propaganda machine. An astonishing exposé told through the heart-stopping story of Jang Jin-sung’s escape to South Korea, Dear Leader is a rare and unprecedented insight into the world’s most secretive and repressive regime.

The best heaven and the worst hell are the same place. Travel with author John F. Williams into the jungles of Laos and into a new understanding of existence. 

In lively short stories, Hating Perfection shows the everyday world as uncanny, equally strange as the imaginary worlds of Borges or Kafka. This engrossing, strikingly original book invites you to experience your life in a new way.

Hating Perfection weaves its stories together with an elegant logic. Our hateful world—painful, unjust, ruthless, fatal—stands revealed as the best of all possible worlds, flooded everywhere by a perfection both alien and addicting. What we want is different from what we get. But the reason why has a divine splendor. 

In this revised edition, Mr. Williams has added a postscript that addresses the well-known philosopher’s paradox of the Chinese room. The author explains for the first time how we know that such a room as usually described would not have consciousness.    

Stand beside Mr. Williams for a time, and look in the direction he is looking. Your troubles may still be your troubles, but the world will be more than it was.

In America is a kaleidoscopic portrait of America on the cusp of modernity. As she did in her enormously popular novel The Volcano Lover, Susan Sontag casts a story located in the past in a fresh, provocative light to create a fictional world full of contemporary resonance.

In 1876 a group of Poles led by Maryna Zalezowska, Poland's greatest actress, emigrate to the United States and travel to California to found a "utopian commune." When the commune fails, Maryna stays, learns English, and―as Marina Zalenska―forges a new, even more triumphant career on the American stage, becoming a diva on par with Sara Bernhardt.

In America is about many things: a woman's search for self-transformation; the fate of idealism; a life in the theater; the many varieties of love; and, not least of all, stories and storytelling itself. Operatic in the scope and intensity of the emotions it depicts, richly detailed and visionary in its account of America, and peopled with unforgettable characters.

In America is the winner of the 2000 National Book Award for Fiction.