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ISBN: 0786881852

ListPrice: $11.50

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5.50 by 6.50 in.

Summary: Got a stress case in your life? Of course you do: "Without question, many of us have mastered the neurotic art of spending much of our lives worrying about a variety of things all at once." Carlson's cheerful book aims to make us stop and smell--if not roses--whatever is sitting in front of our noses. Don't Sweat the Small Stuff... offers 100 meditations designed to make you appreciate being alive, keep your emotions (especially anger and dissatisfaction) in proper perspective, and cherish other people as the unique miracles they are. It's an owner's manual of the heart, and if you follow the directions, you will be a happier, more harmonious person. Like Stairmasters, oat bran, and other things that are good for you, the meditations take discipline. Even so, some of the strategies are kind of fun: "Imagine the people in your life as tiny infants and as 100-year-old adults." The trouble is, once you start, it's hard to stop.

ISBN: 0899332137

ListPrice: $16.95

Edition: 1st ed.

Dimensions: 40 cm

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ISBN: 1571458271

ListPrice: $29.98

Dimensions: 29 cm

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ISBN: 0899332366

ListPrice: $55.00

Edition: 3rd ed.

Dimensions: 40 cm

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ISBN: 0198691793

ListPrice: $22.00

Edition: 01

Dimensions: 25 cm

Summary:

ISBN: 0449911497

ListPrice: $13.95

Edition: 1st Ballantine Books trade ed.

Dimensions: 21 cm

Summary: The testament of Paul Baumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army of World War I, illuminates the savagery and futility of war.

ISBN: 0679744398

ListPrice: $14.00

Edition: 1st Vintage International ed.

Dimensions: 21 cm

Summary: Part bildungsroman, part horse opera, part meditation on courage and loyalty, this beautifully crafted novel won the National Book Award in 1992. The plot is simple enough. John Grady Cole, a 16-year-old dispossessed Texan, crosses the Rio Grande into Mexico in 1949, accompanied by his pal Lacey Rawlins. The two precocious horsemen pick up a sidekick--a laughable but deadly marksman named Jimmy Blevins--encounter various adventures on their way south and finally arrive at a paradisiacal hacienda where Cole falls into an ill-fated romance. Readers familiar with McCarthy's Faulknerian prose will find the writing more restrained than in Suttree and Blood Meridian. Newcomers will be mesmerized by the tragic tale of John Grady Cole's coming of age.

ISBN: 80312890278

ListPrice: $13.95

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ISBN: 0393091635

ListPrice: $14.95

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5 by 8 in.

Summary: Critical discussions on Chekhov's dramatic purpose and structure as well as biographical material accompany a new translation of the plays

ISBN: 0156079003

ListPrice: $14.00

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5.50 by 7.25 in.

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ISBN: 0679722335

ListPrice: $7.95

Edition: reprint

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5.50 by 8 in.

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ISBN: 0393091724

ListPrice: $5.00

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ISBN: 0679725350

ListPrice: $8.50

Edition: reprint, 04

Dimensions: 0.25 by 5.25 by 8 in.

Summary: A young dog, abused by men and his hungry rivals on a Klondike dog team, escapes to the wilderness and joins a wolfpack

ISBN: 155874262X

ListPrice: $12.95

Edition: revised, 01

Dimensions: 1 by 5.50 by 8.50 in.

Summary: It's like homemade chicken soup that warms the chill and heals the ill. This collection of 101 stories is based on the belief that true testimonies of goodness and loving transformations can nourish us to the bone and heal the cynicism in our hearts. Indeed, most every story seeps in deeply. It's hard not to shed a tear of gratitude, feeling thrilled to have been touched and soothed so easily. Some of the authors are famous, such as Dan Millman, who writes an exquisite vignette on "Courage," and Gloria Steinem, who writes of "The Royal Knights of Harlem." Many, however, have a short, simple story to tell about an event, a person, an everyday miracle that exemplifies the best of the human spirit. --Gail Hudson

ISBN: 0822002183

ListPrice: $4.95

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.25 by 5.25 by 8.25 in.

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ISBN: 0689704208

ListPrice: $3.95

Summary: "When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back, Three from the circle, three from the track; Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone; Five will return, and one go alone." </blockquote> With these mysterious words, Will Stanton discovers on his 11th birthday that he is no mere boy. He is the Sign-Seeker, last of the immortal Old Ones, destined to battle the powers of evil that trouble the land. His task is monumental: he must find and guard the six great Signs of the Light, which, when joined, will create a force strong enough to match and perhaps overcome that of the Dark. Embarking on this endeavor is dangerous as well as deeply rewarding; Will must work within a continuum of time and space much broader than he ever imagined. Susan Cooper, in her five-title Dark Is Rising sequence, creates a world where the conflict between good and evil reaches epic proportions. She ranks with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien in her ability to deliver a moral vision in the context of breathtaking adventure. No one can stop at just one of her thrilling fantasy novels. Among many other prestigious awards, The Dark Is Rising is a Newbery Honor Book and a Carnegie Medal Honor Book. (Ages 8 and older) --Emilie Coulter

ISBN: 0375725504

ListPrice: $14.00

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5.25 by 8 in.

Summary: In the bravura opening chapter of Alan Lightman's novel The Diagnosis, a nameless horror befalls Boston businessman Bill Chalmers in the hubbub of his morning commute. As he jostles his way aboard the train and makes cell-phone calls to check last-minute details on his morning meeting (for Bill is punctilious), a realization surfaces in his brain, "like a trapped bubble of air rising from the bottom of a deep pond." He has forgotten where he's going. All he can remember is his anxious urgency and his company's creed, "The maximum information in the minimum time." Acutely aware that he's got a 9:15 appointment, but recalling only the first six digits of his phone number, Bill helplessly gazes out the window. "Trees flew by like flailing arms.... Railroad tracks fluttered by like matchsticks. Trees, white and gray clapboard houses with paint peeling off, junkyards with stacks of flaccid tires." Lightman's Kafka pastiche is as pitch perfect as his verbal music: note the rhyming x sounds in stacks and flaccid (which is not pronounced "flassid"). Terrifyingly soon, Bill is mad, homeless, beaten, and experimented on by comically evil doctors. He recovers and reunites with his family, but inexorably, mysterious paralysis ensues. Doctors try to diagnose him. Coworkers offer empty condolences and plot to steal his fast-track job. His wife seeks consolation with a passionate virtual lover on the Internet, a professor she's never met in the flesh. His teenage son triumphantly hacks into AOL's Plato Online, and Bill's last days are counterpointed with the trial of Socrates and his troubled, rich inquisitor Anytus. Instead of the real story, we get a second shimmering Lightman fable. Anytus's strife with his rebel son, a Socrates supporter, parallels Bill's grief as his son is distanced from him by illness. Though I felt glimmerings of understanding from time to time, I never did fully figure out exactly what the Socrates story and Bill's decline have to say about each other, nor what Bill's paralysis says about modern times. I implore a smarter reader to explain it to me in the customer comments below. But I can tell you that every character is resonant, and every sensory particular is exquisitely precise, as in Lightman's biggest hit, the Italo Calvino pastiche Einstein's Dreams. --Tim Appelo

ISBN: 0679731237

ListPrice: $15.00

Edition: Pantheon pbk. ed.

Dimensions: 20 cm

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ISBN: 0822004291

ListPrice: $4.95

Dimensions: 21 cm

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ISBN: 0140085688

ListPrice: $14.00

Edition: reprint

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5 by 8 in.

Summary: Don DeLillo's second novel, a sort of Dr. Strangelove meets North Dallas Forty, solidified his place in the American literary landscape in the early 1970s. The story of an angst-ridden, war-obsessed running back for Logos College in West Texas, End Zone is a heady and hilarious conflation of Cold War existentialism and the parodied parallelism of battlefield/sports rhetoric. When not arguing nuclear endgame strategy with his professor, Major Staley, narrator Gary Harkness joins a brilliant and unlikely bunch of overmuscled gladiators on the field and in the dormitory. In characteristic fashion, DeLillo deliberately undermines the football-is-combat cliché by having one of his characters explain: "I reject the notion of football as warfare. Warfare is warfare. We don't need substitutes because we've got the real thing." What remains is an insightful examination of language in an alien, postmodern world, where a football player's ultimate triumph is his need to play the game.

ISBN: 0226307808

ListPrice: $10.00

Dimensions: 0.25 by 5.25 by 8 in.

Summary: Each of the sixteen tragedies is preceded by notes on plot, theme, and characters

ISBN: 0822004240

ListPrice: $4.95

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.25 by 5.25 by 8.25 in.

Summary:

ISBN: 0345410017

ListPrice: $13.95

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5.50 by 8 in.

Summary: A totalitarian regime has ordered all books to be destroyed, but one of the book burners suddenly realizes their merit.

ISBN: 0679720227

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.50 by 5.25 by 8 in.

Summary: A man's confessions reveal his perception of justice and his own downfall

ISBN: 0684801469

ListPrice: $13.00

Edition: reprint, 04

Dimensions: 1 by 5.25 by 8 in.

Summary: As a youth of 18, Ernest Hemingway was eager to fight in the Great War. Poor vision kept him out of the army, so he joined the ambulance corps instead and was sent to France. Then he transferred to Italy where he became the first American wounded in that country during World War I. Hemingway came out of the European battlefields with a medal for valor and a wealth of experience that he would, 10 years later, spin into literary gold with A Farewell to Arms. This is the story of Lieutenant Henry, an American, and Catherine Barkley, a British nurse. The two meet in Italy, and almost immediately Hemingway sets up the central tension of the novel: the tenuous nature of love in a time of war. During their first encounter, Catherine tells Henry about her fiancé of eight years who had been killed the year before in the Somme. Explaining why she hadn't married him, she says she was afraid marriage would be bad for him, then admits: I wanted to do something for him. You see, I didn't care about the other thing and he could have had it all. He could have had anything he wanted if I would have known. I would have married him or anything. I know all about it now. But then he wanted to go to war and I didn't know. </blockquote> The two begin an affair, with Henry quite convinced that he "did not love Catherine Barkley nor had any idea of loving her. This was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards." Soon enough, however, the game turns serious for both of them and ultimately Henry ends up deserting to be with Catherine. Hemingway was not known for either unbridled optimism or happy endings, and A Farewell to Arms, like his other novels (For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises, and To Have and Have Not), offers neither. What it does provide is an unblinking portrayal of men and women behaving with grace under pressure, both physical and psychological, and somehow finding the courage to go on in the face of certain loss. --Alix Wilber

ISBN: 0679721827

ListPrice: $10.95

Edition: 1st Vintage international ed.

Dimensions: 21 cm

Summary: The married couple in this novel pull off a remarkable achievement: They purchase a three-story house with oodles of bedrooms, and, on a middle-class income, in the '70s, fill it to the brim with happy children and visiting relatives. Their holiday gatherings are sumptuous celebrations of life and togetherness. And then the fifth child arrives. He's just a child--he's not supernatural. But is he really human? This is an elegantly written tale that the New York Times called "a horror story of maternity and the nightmare of social collapse . . . a moral fable of the genre that includes Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and George Orwell's 1984."

ISBN: 0671612972

ListPrice: $12.00

Edition: reprint, 04

Dimensions: 0.50 by 5.25 by 8 in.

Summary: Ben Hogan's premise in this 1957 classic is driven home in bold letters: "THE AVERAGE GOLFER IS ENTIRELY CAPABLE OF BUILDING A REPEATING SWING AND BREAKING 80." Religions are founded on less, and Hogan's detailed analyses and illustrated demonstrations of grip, stance, posture, and the two basic components of the swing make up a sacred book. Though its very simplicity seems dated, this is the tome of technique that should serve as the foundation of every golf library.

ISBN: 0312868308

ListPrice: $13.95

Edition: 1st trade

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5.50 by 8.25 in.

Summary: Don't blink or you'll miss something in Canadian writer Phyllis Gotlieb's richly detailed mystery set on alien worlds seething with seedy life. Travelling judge Skerow, of a race of moral haiku-writing telepathic sauropods, stumbles upon two mysteries while on duty on grimy mining planet Fthel V. The same day she discovers her senior judge and colleague of 25 years was under investigation for accepting bribes, said colleague is murdered in his bedroom; and Skerow espies a genetically-altered, almost-human mermaid held captive in the display tank of a brothel window. Gotlieb's handling of a wide cast of alien, human, and post-human characters will appeal to fans of James Tiptree, Jr. Most intriguing are the Lyhhrt, who've left their home planet for an indentured servitude of 125 standard years, to act as physicians and metalworkers for the Zamos corporation of casinos and entertainment-plexes. Lyhhrt actually resemble brains, but look like robots since they encase themselves in beautifully-welded metal bodies. In Gotlieb's future, flesh is bought, sold, molded and used with the ease of gold. But some things are still worth fighting for, and the scales of justice pass sentence on greed, malice, and the breeding of slaves.

ISBN: 0140185526

ListPrice: $15.00

Dimensions: 0.50 by 5.25 by 7.75 in.

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ISBN: 074341005X

ListPrice: $13.95

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5 by 8 in.

Summary: At last returning to print, Give Me My Father's Body is the thought-provoking tale of Minik, a young Inuit boy brought to New York by Robert Peary around the turn of the 20th century. Told simply and interspersed with personal letters and newspaper clippings, the book examines Minik's life both as a cross-cultural meeting place and a deeply personal search for a place to call "home." Photographs throughout of Minik give a glimpse into the incredible differences between the multiple worlds he inhabited, and how impossible it must have been to live in these worlds successfully. The title derives from one of Minik's more harrowing experiences--finding his father's bones displayed in a natural-history museum as a "curiosity"--and his attempts to retrieve the bones for a more respectful burial. Author Kenn Harper, while including many facts and articles about Arctic exploration, refrains from sharing opinions about the various explorers or their methods, choosing to share this story--and his years of research--plainly. From the death of Minik's birth father to the financial ruin of his American foster family, the events of Minik's childhood seem like one disaster after another, and his adulthood--the successful return to Greenland, followed by disappointment and a subsequent return to New York--is an unhappy struggle to find some kind of personal fulfillment. Questions of racial and cultural differences make an inescapable larger framework for Minik's life, and the emotions brought forward in answering those questions make reading this book a powerful experience. --Jill Lightner

ISBN: 0060977493

ListPrice: $14.00

Edition: 1st ed.

Dimensions: p. cm

Summary: In 1969 in Kerala, India, Rahel and her twin brother, Estha, struggle to forge a childhood for themselves amid the destruction of their family life, as they discover that the entire world can be transformed in a single moment

ISBN: 0684717603

ListPrice: $8.95

Edition: 1st Scribner classic/Collier ed.

Dimensions: 18 cm

Summary: In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream. It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem.

ISBN: 0802150594

ListPrice: $12.00

Edition: 1st ed.

Dimensions: 21 cm

Summary: This early novella from Mikhail Bulgakov, published in 1925, already shows the surreal comic genius that later produced The Master and Margarita, the writer's masterpiece. A kind of Frankenstein parable, Heart of a Dog is the story of a stray dog that gains a human intelligence after a prominent Moscow professor transplants human glands into the unfortunate canine's body.

ISBN: 0679731377

ListPrice: $13.00

Edition: reprint

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5.50 by 8 in.

Summary: Offers an idiosyncratic, revisionist history of life on planet Earth, from a playful account of Noah by a stowaway on the Ark, to the spiritual odyssey of a American astronaut

ISBN: 0452010624

ListPrice: $13.95

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ISBN: 0312243022

ListPrice: $13.00

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5.50 by 8.25 in.

Summary: The Hours is both an homage to Virginia Woolf and very much its own creature. Even as Michael Cunningham brings his literary idol back to life, he intertwines her story with those of two more contemporary women. One gray suburban London morning in 1923, Woolf awakens from a dream that will soon lead to Mrs. Dalloway. In the present, on a beautiful June day in Greenwich Village, 52-year-old Clarissa Vaughan is planning a party for her oldest love, a poet dying of AIDS. And in Los Angeles in 1949, Laura Brown, pregnant and unsettled, does her best to prepare for her husband's birthday, but can't seem to stop reading Woolf. These women's lives are linked both by the 1925 novel and by the few precious moments of possibility each keeps returning to. Clarissa is to eventually realize: There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined.... Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more. </blockquote> As Cunningham moves between the three women, his transitions are seamless. One early chapter ends with Woolf picking up her pen and composing her first sentence, "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." The next begins with Laura rejoicing over that line and the fictional universe she is about to enter. Clarissa's day, on the other hand, is a mirror of Mrs. Dalloway's--with, however, an appropriate degree of modern beveling as Cunningham updates and elaborates his source of inspiration. Clarissa knows that her desire to give her friend the perfect party may seem trivial to many. Yet it seems better to her than shutting down in the face of disaster and despair. Like its literary inspiration, The Hours is a hymn to consciousness and the beauties and losses it perceives. It is also a reminder that, as Cunningham again and again makes us realize, art belongs to far more than just "the world of objects." --Kerry Fried

ISBN: 0440437954

ListPrice: $3.50

Edition: reissue

Summary: Recounts the antics and adventures of Christopher Robin and his forest animal friends.

ISBN: 0375753753

ListPrice: $8.95

Edition: 04

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5.50 by 8.25 in.

Summary: "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth," warns Ecclesiastes 7:4, and so does the novel by Edith Wharton that takes its title from this call to heed. New York at the turn of the century was a time of opulence and frivolity for those who could afford it. But for those who couldn't and yet wanted desperately to keep up with the whirlwind, like Wharton's charming Lily Bart, it was something else altogether: a gilded cage rather than the Gilded Age. One of Wharton's earliest descriptions of her heroine, in the library of her bachelor friend and sometime suitor Lawrence Selden, indicates that she appears "as though she were a captured dryad subdued to the conventions of the drawing room." Indeed, herein lies Lily's problem. She has, we're told, "been brought up to be ornamental," and yet her spirit is larger than what this ancillary role requires. By today's standards she would be nothing more than a mild rebel, but in the era into which Wharton drops her unmercifully, this tiny spark of character, combined with numerous assaults by vicious society women and bad luck, ultimately renders Lily persona non grata. Her own ambivalence about her position serves to open the door to disaster: several times she is on the verge of "good" marriage and squanders it at the last moment, unwilling to play by the rules of a society that produces, as she calls them, "poor, miserable, marriageable girls. Lily's rather violent tumble down the social ladder provides a thumbnail sketch of the general injustices of the upper classes (which, incidentally, Wharton never quite manages to condemn entirely, clearly believing that such life is cruel but without alternative). From her start as a beautiful woman at the height of her powers to her sad finale as a recently fired milliner's assistant addicted to sleeping drugs, Lily Bart is heroic, not least for her final admission of her own role in her downfall. "Once--twice--you gave me the chance to escape from my life and I refused it: refused it because I was a coward," she tells Selden as the book draws to a close. All manner of hideous socialite beasts--some of whose treatment by Wharton, such as the token social-climbing Jew, Simon Rosedale, date the book unfortunately--wander through the novel while Lily plummets. As her tale winds down to nothing more than the remnants of social grace and cold hard cash, it's hard not to agree with Lily's own assessment of herself: "I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else." Nevertheless, it's even harder not to believe that she deserved better, which is why The House of Mirth remains so timely and so vital in spite of its crushing end and its unflattering portrait of what life offers up. --Melanie Rehak

ISBN: 087052092X

ListPrice: $16.95

Dimensions: 1.25 by 5 by 8.50 in.

Summary:

ISBN: 0451450523

ListPrice: $14.95

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.75 by 6 by 9 in.

Summary: The Last Unicorn is one of the true classics of fantasy, ranking with Tolkien's The Hobbit, Le Guin's Earthsea Trilogy, and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Beagle writes a shimmering prose-poetry, the voice of fairy tales and childhood: <blockquote>The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea.</blockquote> The unicorn discovers that she is the last unicorn in the world, and sets off to find the others. She meets Schmendrick the Magician--whose magic seldom works, and never as he intended--when he rescues her from Mommy Fortuna's Midnight Carnival, where only some of the mythical beasts displayed are illusions. They are joined by Molly Grue, who believes in legends despite her experiences with a Robin Hood wannabe and his unmerry men. Ahead wait King Haggard and his Red Bull, who banished unicorns from the land. This is a book no fantasy reader should miss; Beagle argues brilliantly the need for magic in our lives and the folly of forgetting to dream. --Nona Vero

ISBN: 0375753222

ListPrice: $14.96

Edition: 04

Summary: Tells the stories of King Arthur, Merlin, Lancelot, Queen Guenevere, and Tristram and Isolde

ISBN: 0441007317

ListPrice: $13.95

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 1 by 5.50 by 8.50 in.

Summary: Genly Ai is an emissary from the human galaxy to Winter, a lost, stray world. His mission is to bring the planet back into the fold of an evolving galactic civilization, but to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own culture and prejudices and those that he encounters. On a planet where people are of no gender--or both--this is a broad gulf indeed. The inventiveness and delicacy with which Le Guin portrays her alien world are not only unusual and inspiring, they are fundamental to almost all decent science fiction that has been written since. In fact, reading Le Guin again may cause the eye to narrow somewhat disapprovingly at the younger generation: what new ground are they breaking that is not already explored here with greater skill and acumen? It cannot be said, however, that this is a rollicking good story. Le Guin takes a lot of time to explore her characters, the world of her creation, and the philosophical themes that arise. If there were a canon of classic science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness would be included without debate. Certainly, no science fiction bookshelf may be said to be complete without it. But the real question: is it fun to read? It is science fiction of an earlier time, a time that has not worn particularly well in the genre. The Left Hand of Darkness was a groundbreaking book in 1969, a time when, like the rest of the arts, science fiction was awakening to new dimensions in both society and literature. But the first excursions out of the pulp tradition are sometimes difficult to reread with much enjoyment. Rereading The Left Hand of Darkness, decades after its publication, one feels that those who chose it for the Hugo and Nebula awards were right to do so, for it truly does stand out as one of the great books of that era. It is immensely rich in timeless wisdom and insight. The Left Hand of Darkness is science fiction for the thinking reader, and should be read attentively in order to properly savor the depth of insight and the subtleties of plot and character. It is one of those pleasures that requires a little investment at the beginning, but pays back tenfold with the joy of raw imagination that resonates through the subsequent 30 years of science fiction storytelling. Not only is the bookshelf incomplete without owning it, so is the reader without having read it. --L. Blunt Jackson

ISBN: 0374516812

ListPrice: $14.00

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 1 by 5.50 by 8 in.

Summary: A collection of twenty-five tales exploring a world of horror and the macabre features the author's haunting story of a small town's yearly ritual of evil

ISBN: 0822010933

ListPrice: $4.95

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.25 by 5.25 by 8.25 in.

Summary:

ISBN: 0679781587

ListPrice: $14.95

Edition: Vintage contemporaries ed.

Dimensions: 21 cm

Summary: According to Arthur Golden's absorbing first novel, the word "geisha" does not mean "prostitute," as Westerners ignorantly assume--it means "artisan" or "artist." To capture the geisha experience in the art of fiction, Golden trained as long and hard as any geisha who must master the arts of music, dance, clever conversation, crafty battle with rival beauties, and cunning seduction of wealthy patrons. After earning degrees in Japanese art and history from Harvard and Columbia--and an M.A. in English--he met a man in Tokyo who was the illegitimate offspring of a renowned businessman and a geisha. This meeting inspired Golden to spend 10 years researching every detail of geisha culture, chiefly relying on the geisha Mineko Iwasaki, who spent years charming the very rich and famous. The result is a novel with the broad social canvas (and love of coincidence) of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen's intense attention to the nuances of erotic maneuvering. Readers experience the entire life of a geisha, from her origins as an orphaned fishing-village girl in 1929 to her triumphant auction of her mizuage (virginity) for a record price as a teenager to her reminiscent old age as the distinguished mistress of the powerful patron of her dreams. We discover that a geisha is more analogous to a Western "trophy wife" than to a prostitute--and, as in Austen, flat-out prostitution and early death is a woman's alternative to the repressive, arcane system of courtship. In simple, elegant prose, Golden puts us right in the tearoom with the geisha; we are there as she gracefully fights for her life in a social situation where careers are made or destroyed by a witticism, a too-revealing (or not revealing enough) glimpse of flesh under the kimono, or a vicious rumor spread by a rival "as cruel as a spider." Golden's web is finely woven, but his book has a serious flaw: the geisha's true romance rings hollow--the love of her life is a symbol, not a character. Her villainous geisha nemesis is sharply drawn, but she would be more so if we got a deeper peek into the cause of her motiveless malignity--the plight all geisha share. Still, Golden has won the triple crown of fiction: he has created a plausible female protagonist in a vivid, now-vanished world, and he gloriously captures Japanese culture by expressing his thoughts in authentic Eastern metaphors.

ISBN: 0374528497

ListPrice: $15.00

Edition: 1st pbk

Dimensions: 1.50 by 5.25 by 8.50 in.

Summary: If past is prologue, then The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand may suggest an intellectual course for the United States in the 21st century. At least Menand, a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, thinks so. This enthralling study of Oliver Wendell Holmes, William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, and John Dewey shows how these four men developed a philosophy of pragmatism following the Civil War, a period Menand likens to post-cold-war times. Together, "they were more responsible than any other group for moving American thought into the modern world." Despite this potentially forbidding theme, The Metaphysical Club is not a dry tome for academics. Instead, it is a quadruple biography, a wonderfully told story of ideas that advances by turning these thinkers into characters and bringing them to life. Menand links them through the Metaphysical Club, a conversational club formed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1872. It lasted but a few months, and references to it appear only in Peirce's writings (its real significance seems rather limited), though Holmes and James were both members. (Dewey was much younger than these three, and more an heir than a contemporary.) It is difficult to describe in a sentence or two what they accomplished, though Menand takes a stab at it: "They helped put an end to the idea that the universe is an idea, that beyond the mundane business of making our way as best we can in a world shot through with contingency, there exists some order, invisible to us, whose logic we transgress at our peril." Academic freedom and cultural pluralism are just two of their legacies, and they are linchpins of democracy in a nonideological age, says Menand. A book like this is necessarily idiosyncratic, yet at the same time this one is sweeping. It presents an accessible survey of intellectual life from roughly the end of the Civil War to the start of the cold war. Dozens of figures receive fascinating thumbnail sketches, from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charles Darwin to Jane Addams and Eugene Debs. The result is a grand portrait of an age that will appeal to anyone with even a modest interest in the history of philosophy and ideas. --John Miller

ISBN: 9780156628709

ListPrice: $12.00

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5.50 by 8.25 in.

Summary: As Clarissa Dalloway walks through London on a fine June morning, a sky-writing plane captures her attention. Crowds stare upwards to decipher the message while the plane turns and loops, leaving off one letter, picking up another. Like the airplane's swooping path, Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway follows Clarissa and those whose lives brush hers--from Peter Walsh, whom she spurned years ago, to her daughter Elizabeth, the girl's angry teacher, Doris Kilman, and war-shocked Septimus Warren Smith, who is sinking into madness. As Mrs. Dalloway prepares for the party she is giving that evening, a series of events intrudes on her composure. Her husband is invited, without her, to lunch with Lady Bruton (who, Clarissa notes anxiously, gives the most amusing luncheons). Meanwhile, Peter Walsh appears, recently from India, to criticize and confide in her. His sudden arrival evokes memories of a distant past, the choices she made then, and her wistful friendship with Sally Seton. Woolf then explores the relationships between women and men, and between women, as Clarissa muses, "It was something central which permeated; something warm which broke up surfaces and rippled the cold contact of man and woman, or of women together.... Her relation in the old days with Sally Seton. Had not that, after all, been love?" While Clarissa is transported to past afternoons with Sally, and as she sits mending her green dress, Warren Smith catapults desperately into his delusions. Although his troubles form a tangent to Clarissa's web, they undeniably touch it, and the strands connecting all these characters draw tighter as evening deepens. As she immerses us in each inner life, Virginia Woolf offers exquisite, painful images of the past bleeding into the present, of desire overwhelmed by society's demands. --Joannie Kervran Stangeland

ISBN: 0679731792

ListPrice: $9.95

Edition: Vintage classics ed.

Dimensions: 21 cm

Summary:

ISBN: 0679735666

ListPrice: $14.00

Edition: reprint

Dimensions: 1 by 5.25 by 8.25 in.

Summary: "One of the real tests of writers," notes Ackerman in this liveliest of nature books, "is how well they write about smells. If they can't describe the scent of sanctity in a church, can you trust them to describe the suburbs of the heart?" Ackerman passes the test, writing with ease and fluency about the five senses. Did you know that bat guano smells like stale Wheat Thins? That Bach's music can quell anger around the world? That the leaves that shimmer so beautifully in fall have "no adaptive purpose"? Ackerman does, and she guides us through questions of sensation with an eye for the amusingly arcane reference and just the right phrase.

ISBN: 0872201368

ListPrice: $7.95

Edition: 2nd

Dimensions: 22 cm

Summary:

ISBN: 0822011298

ListPrice: $4.95

Summary:

ISBN: 0140151079

ListPrice: $17.00

Edition: rev&updtd, 01

Dimensions: 1 by 5 by 7.75 in.

Summary: Gathers writings by Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky, Pasternak, Babel, Nabokov, Solzhenitsyn, and Sokolov

ISBN: 0940450151

ListPrice: $35.00

Edition: 01

Dimensions: 1.50 by 5.25 by 8 in.

Summary: Gathers Emerson's writings about nature, beauty, language, idealism, history, love, friendship, art, and men

ISBN: 0679741925

ListPrice: $12.95

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5.25 by 8 in.

Summary: Relates the comic adventures of eleven-year-old Lucius Priest on the day he stole his grandfather's car to drive to Memphis

ISBN: 0679724761

ListPrice: $9.95

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5.25 by 8 in.

Summary: The love of a young British woman named Lucy Honeychurch for a British expatriate living in Italy is condemned by her stuffy, middle-class guardians, who prefer an eligible man of their own choosing

ISBN: 0679725261

ListPrice: $7.50

Edition: 1st Vintage Books/the Library of America ed.

Dimensions: 21 cm

Summary: The classic nineteenth-century work focuses on the consequences of adultery and unacknowledged guilt in Puritan New England

ISBN: 0822011654

ListPrice: $4.95

Summary:

ISBN: 0679729798

ListPrice: $13.00

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5.25 by 8 in.

Summary: American novelist and short-story writer, poet, translator, classical music composer, and filmscorer Paul Bowles has lived as an expatriate for more than 40 years in the North African nation of Morocco, a country that reaches into the vast and inhospitable Sahara Desert. The desert is itself a character in The Sheltering Sky, the most famous of Bowles' books, which is about three young Americans of the postwar generation who go on a walkabout into Northern Africa's own arid heart of darkness. In the process, the veneer of their lives is peeled back under the author's psychological inquiry.

ISBN: 0689704674

ListPrice: $4.95

Summary:

ISBN: 067976402X

ListPrice: $14.00

Dimensions: 1.25 by 5.25 by 7.75 in.

Summary: This is the kind of book where you can smell and hear and see the fictional world the writer has created, so palpably does the atmosphere come through. Set on an island in the straits north of Puget Sound, in Washington, where everyone is either a fisherman or a berry farmer, the story is nominally about a murder trial. But since it's set in the 1950s, lingering memories of World War II, internment camps and racism helps fuel suspicion of a Japanese-American fisherman, a lifelong resident of the islands. It's a great story, but the primary pleasure of the book is Guterson's renderings of the people and the place.

ISBN: 0679720200

ListPrice: $9.95

Edition: reissue

Summary: The Stranger is not merely one of the most widely read novels of the 20th century, but one of the books likely to outlive it. Written in 1946, Camus's compelling and troubling tale of a disaffected, apparently amoral young man has earned a durable popularity (and remains a staple of U.S. high school literature courses) in part because it reveals so vividly the anxieties of its time. Alienation, the fear of anonymity, spiritual doubt--all could have been given a purely modern inflection in the hands of a lesser talent than Camus, who won the Nobel Prize in 1957 and was noted for his existentialist aesthetic. The remarkable trick of The Stranger, however, is that it's not mired in period philosophy. The plot is simple. A young Algerian, Meursault, afflicted with a sort of aimless inertia, becomes embroiled in the petty intrigues of a local pimp and, somewhat inexplicably, ends up killing a man. Once he's imprisoned and eventually brought to trial, his crime, it becomes apparent, is not so much the arguably defensible murder he has committed as it is his deficient character. The trial's proceedings are absurd, a parsing of incidental trivialities--that Meursault, for instance, seemed unmoved by his own mother's death and then attended a comic movie the evening after her funeral are two ostensibly damning facts--so that the eventual sentence the jury issues is both ridiculous and inevitable. Meursault remains a cipher nearly to the story's end--dispassionate, clinical, disengaged from his own emotions. "She wanted to know if I loved her," he says of his girlfriend. "I answered the same way I had the last time, that it didn't mean anything but that I probably didn't." There's a latent ominousness in such observations, a sense that devotion is nothing more than self-delusion. It's undoubtedly true that Meursault exhibits an extreme of resignation; however, his confrontation with "the gentle indifference of the world" remains as compelling as it was when Camus first recounted it. --Ben Guterson

ISBN: 0822012294

ListPrice: $5.99

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.25 by 5.25 by 8.25 in.

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ISBN: 0226458083

ListPrice: $13.00

Edition: 3rd ed.

Dimensions: 22 cm

Summary: There's a "Frank & Ernest" comic strip showing a chick breaking out of its shell, looking around, and saying, "Oh, wow! Paradigm shift!" Blame the late Thomas Kuhn. Few indeed are the philosophers or historians influential enough to make it into the funny papers, but Kuhn is one. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is indeed a paradigmatic work in the history of science. Kuhn's use of terms such as "paradigm shift" and "normal science," his ideas of how scientists move from disdain through doubt to acceptance of a new theory, his stress on social and psychological factors in science--all have had profound effects on historians, scientists, philosophers, critics, writers, business gurus, and even the cartoonist in the street. Some scientists (such as Steven Weinberg and Ernst Mayr) are profoundly irritated by Kuhn, especially by the doubts he casts--or the way his work has been used to cast doubt--on the idea of scientific progress. Yet it has been said that the acceptance of plate tectonics in the 1960s, for instance, was sped by geologists' reluctance to be on the downside of a paradigm shift. Even Weinberg has said that "Structure has had a wider influence than any other book on the history of science." As one of Kuhn's obituaries noted, "We all live in a post-Kuhnian age." --Mary Ellen Curtin

ISBN: 0679729658

ListPrice: $10.00

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 1 by 5.25 by 8 in.

Summary: The grim tale of the people who were caught up in the wave of violence and murder which marked the French Revolution

ISBN: 0395903459

ListPrice: $34.75

Edition: 10th

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5.50 by 8.25 in.

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ISBN: 0822013150

ListPrice: $4.95

Summary:

ISBN: 0679722769

ListPrice: $17.00

Edition: 1st Vintage International ed.

Dimensions: 21 cm

Summary: Ulysses has been labeled dirty, blasphemous, and unreadable. In a famous 1933 court decision, Judge John M. Woolsey declared it an emetic book--although he found it sufficiently unobscene to allow its importation into the United States--and Virginia Woolf was moved to decry James Joyce's "cloacal obsession." None of these adjectives, however, do the slightest justice to the novel. To this day it remains the modernist masterpiece, in which the author takes both Celtic lyricism and vulgarity to splendid extremes. It is funny, sorrowful, and even (in a close-focus sort of way) suspenseful. And despite the exegetical industry that has sprung up in the last 75 years, Ulysses is also a compulsively readable book. Even the verbal vaudeville of the final chapters can be navigated with relative ease, as long as you're willing to be buffeted, tickled, challenged, and (occasionally) vexed by Joyce's sheer command of the English language. Among other things, a novel is simply a long story, and the first question about any story is: What happens?. In the case of Ulysses, the answer might be Everything. William Blake, one of literature's sublime myopics, saw the universe in a grain of sand. Joyce saw it in Dublin, Ireland, on June 16, 1904, a day distinguished by its utter normality. Two characters, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, go about their separate business, crossing paths with a gallery of indelible Dubliners. We watch them teach, eat, stroll the streets, argue, and (in Bloom's case) masturbate. And thanks to the book's stream-of-consciousness technique--which suggests no mere stream but an impossibly deep, swift-running river--we're privy to their thoughts, emotions, and memories. The result? Almost every variety of human experience is crammed into the accordian folds of a single day, which makes Ulysses not just an experimental work but the very last word in realism. Both characters add their glorious intonations to the music of Joyce's prose. Dedalus's accent--that of a freelance aesthetician, who dabbles here and there in what we might call Early Yeats Lite--will be familiar to readers of Portrait of an Artist As a Young Man. But Bloom's wistful sensualism (and naive curiosity) is something else entirely. Seen through his eyes, a rundown corner of a Dublin graveyard is a figure for hope and hopelessness, mortality and dogged survival: "Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really?" --James Marcus

ISBN: 0689717849

ListPrice: $4.99

Summary:

ISBN: 044040116X

ListPrice: $4.99

Edition: reissue

Summary: When Edward Bear joins Christopher Robin in many forest adventures, he earns the name Winnie-the-Pooh

ISBN: 0486216748

ListPrice: $10.95

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ISBN: 0330027964

Summary:

ISBN: 055314734X

ListPrice: $3.50

Summary: I found this book to be a very easy read, and would recommend it to anybody that reads at the fourth grade level or higher. The Scottish author, James Herriot, describes his life as a newly hired veterinarian, in pre-WWII England. He shares with readers his experiences in handling distressed animals, their owners and caretakers, the business of being a veterinarian, and the successes and failures of love and life.His descriptions of the situations he was in, were right on. Being British, and the grandson of a blacksmith, I could easily picture in my mind what kind of weather he was experiencing, or how dark a barn, byer, or piggery might be. His characterizations of the local farmers and townspeople were great, and he met some really interesting people!The book left me with a new respect for what life was like for people in the days when life seemed so much simpler than what it is today. I have just started "All Things Bright and Beautiful", and look forward to completing it, and the rest of Herriot's books in the future.

ISBN: 0553204564

ListPrice: $3.95

Summary: As not only an animal lover, but (hopefully) an up and coming veterinarian, James Herriots books seemed like a great thing to look into. Herriot's books bring the Yorkshire countryside directly into your home. He brings the world of hard work, late nights, confusing symptoms, and the unknown of a vets life into the readers heart, but at the same time he also shows the thrill of pulling an animal back from the brink of death or bringing another life into the world.This wonderful combination starts off when Herriot leaves for the RAF to fight in World War II, but as he goes through basic training his mind (and the book) wanders back to his days in Darrowby doing what he loves best.

ISBN: 0553204572

ListPrice: $3.95

Summary: If you want a book that will take you back to the country life and its people with all their foibles and admirable qualities and love animals then his books will be pure enjoyment! I love the way he tells his stories. In his stories, he doesn't ever claim to be the best veterinarian around (I think he underrated himself), but you know he is a wonderful, kind, animal and people loving person. The way he speaks about the people and animals he comes in contact with, come to life and you feel you are right there with him. You will laugh, maybe cry, and cheer him on as you read. If you have animals, or raise them, you will love his books, although you don't have to own any to appreciate them.

ISBN: 1565927060

ListPrice: $9.95

Edition: 1st, 01

Dimensions: 0.50 by 4.50 by 7.25 in.

Summary: I, incredulously, bought this book not expecting to refer to it because I know everything ( ;-P ). I have found that it a most invaluable resource. If you know (and love) Apache, this is the synopsis you need sitting on the left hand side of your keyboard.

ISBN: 0385722206

ListPrice: $11.00

Dimensions: 0.50 by 5 by 8.25 in.

Summary: During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, two boys are sent to the country for reeducation, where their lives take an unexpected turn when they meet the beautiful daughter of a local tailor and stumble upon a forbidden stash of Western literature.

ISBN: 0140441212

ListPrice: $10.00

Edition: reprint

Dimensions: 0.50 by 5.25 by 8 in.

Summary: When reading this translation, I had a vision in my mind of works by El Greco, the painter who (from a Christian tradition) joined the author or authors of this poem in seeing through the surfaces of things to the reality within. The reader will find this to be an accessible translation of the Bhagavad Gita to readers who, like myself, grew up inside American culture. People who feel that they have reached a new stage of acceptance of what is happening to them as they move thorugh life's journey will find this book, or any other reasonably accurate translation of the underlying poem, to be a tremendous resource.

ISBN: 0440906490

ListPrice: $5.50

Summary: A little darker than "The Book of Three", this amazing sequel deals with far more mature themes, including the death of a character and events that affect all of Prydain rather than just the immediate characters. Most second books are weak; this one, if anything, is far more multilayered and mature in its content. There is character death, and there is more political conflict.Princes and war leaders show up at Caer Dallben with a mission: find the Cauldron that supplies the dark lord Arawn with his deathless, lifeless soldiers. Taran, the Assistant Pig-Keeper, is elated that he will be able to participate in his first real adventure (since the last one was because of a series of accidents) with a sword and the respect of his peers. This becomes something of a problem with the arrival of Ellidyr, Son of Pen-Llarcau - an obnoxious and arrogant prince who looks down on Taran, Eilonwy, and Gurgi. Taran, Ellidyr, Prince Gwydion, the dwarf Doli, the kindly warrior Adaon, bard-king Fflewddur Fflam and others ride off to infiltrate Annuvin, Arawn's lands. (They inadvertantly have to bring Eilonwy and Gurgi) But they soon find that the situation has become much more complex, as there are forces other than Arawn and Gwydion who want the Cauldron...The story becomes more Tolkienesque in this volume. The language becomes a little more formal, especially for Taran. And Alexander doesn't shrink away from battle and character death - none of it is graphic, but it is deeply saddening. His writing reflects this, as it is far stronger and more beautiful than in "Book of Three."The tempering of Taran, which comes to full in the last two books of the series, really begins here. At the beginning, Taran is an eager boy who wants to go out, fight, be a hero. Though he is called on to act heroically, he is a wiser and sadder young man; he's seen battle and death, and they aren't the glorious foe-slaying parade that he imagined. Gurgi's growing loyalty to Taran is demonstrated, as is Eilonwy and Gwydion's growing respect for him. Eilonwy, Gurgi and Fflewddur are all their irrepressible selves, no matter what.The supporting characters are also strong: we have the goodhearted bearlike king Smoit; the sinister Morgant; the arrogant, obnoxious Ellidyr who seems to secretly envy Taran; Gwystyl, the most depressed of the Hidden Folk; and, of course, the three weird witches living in the Marshes of Morva.Ignore the hideous animated movie, and read this delightful book. For adults and kids alike, those who have read Tolkien and want more...

ISBN: 0445040475

ListPrice: $3.50

Summary: Although a slight improvement overpart two the entire series still suffers from sluggish pacing.

ISBN: 0345289374

ListPrice: $6.99

Summary: The main character of this book is Dor, Bink's son. He is very similar to his father, in that he has good moral sense and humility. His talent of communicating with inanimate objects is good but subtle like his father's immunity to magic, rather than blatantly awesome like King Trent's power of transformation. So, like his father, Dor has trouble with his identity. He goes back in time on a quest to un-zombie a zombie, and this action-packed adventure relates his learning process. He has to make some tough decisions for a twelve-year-old boy. This book is also humorous, thanks to Anthony's interesting personification of the inanimate objects that talk to Dor. He doesn't just talk to them; they can talk to others in his presence, and he can tell them what to do. This book is significant in the series; it makes the character transition without sacrificing the quality, and opens the floodgates for the rest of the series. You also learn a lot about how present Xanth was similar and different from Fourth Wave Xanth. This is one I was able to put myself in, and such an adventure would work wonders on my drear Mundane life. Never gets boring; this is one of the best Xanths.

ISBN: 0671416162

ListPrice: $2.75

Summary: The young torturer Severian continues his journey in this, the second volume of Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun" series. Skipping the first volume (The Shadow of the Torturer) is not recommended - this series is difficult enough to follow even for those who read every page. References to events that took place earlier are explained only in the briefest detail.In this volume, Severian's uneasy allegiance to both the Autarch and the mysterious revolutionary named Vodalus is severely tested. While journeying to Thrax where his guild has a position awaiting him, he takes part in the brutal execution of an innocent woman, has a mysterious assignation with his late beloved Thecla, battles a horde of man-apes, is captured by Volalus, participates in the bizarre sharing ceremony of the alzabo, and suffers a lengthy imprisonment before a portentous encounter in the picture room at the House Absolute, among other adventures.Once again, Wolfe uses language to create the other-worldly locale, employing archaic words to describe objects that are common enough on "Urth", but are unfamiliar to us. And even though the practical-minded Severian frequently doesn't seem to react to the astounding things he sees and experiences, most readers will find themselves intrigued, even though the question "What does it all mean?" remains unresolved.Like the first volume, this book is pretty light stuff - pure escapism, with no real point or depth of human insight apparent, but it is still a quick, enjoyable read. The fictional narrator foreshadows great things in Severian's future, and presumably the succeeding books will show an overall plan and sense of purpose that this novel lacks in and of itself. The violence and sexual content of these books makes this series unsuitable for young teens, but fans of this kind of pseudo-medieval fantasy should be very pleased indeed.

ISBN: 0553226932

ListPrice: $2.50

Summary: a good book, the greatest by howard's "successors". great opening. good battle descriptions. but there were also moments where nothimg much happened, and some things didn't feel so natural. but a good book, mind you.

ISBN: 0060809736

ListPrice: $7.00

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.75 by 4.50 by 7.25 in.

Summary: John Gunther's Death Be Not Proud tells about a boy who is diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of sixteen. From his fathers point of view, it tells about his will to live and to learn. Johnny Gunther was a very intellgent person. He had always dreamed of going to Harvard some day. During his fifteen months of cancer, Johnny was always enthusiastic about living. If you saw him on the street you would never have guessed that this boy has brain cancer and is going to die. Johnny had a very strong look on life. At one point in the book Johnny said, " I have so much to do, and so little time to do it!" During his illness Johnny would always keep up with schoolwork. He rarely complaned about pain. All he really cared about was making thelast few months of his life worth living. When Johnny died it simply said on his tombstone, Death, thou shalt DIE! This was one of the best books I have ever read. I found myself reading for hours not even realising that I had turned the page. I really respect the Gunther family for being so strong during very hard times.

ISBN: 0671430297

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ISBN: 0553562738

ListPrice: $7.99

Edition: reprint

Summary: Connie Willis labored five years on this story of a history student in 2048 who is transported to an English village in the 14th century. The student arrives mistakenly on the eve of the onset of the Black Plague. Her dealings with a family of "contemps" in 1348 and with her historian cohorts lead to complications as the book unfolds into a surprisingly dark, deep conclusion. The book, which won Hugo and Nebula Awards, draws upon Willis' understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the ageless issues of evil, suffering and the indomitable will of the human spirit.

ISBN:

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ISBN: 0345311078

ListPrice: $6.99

Summary: I have enjoyed several books in the Xanth series, but this book surpasses them all. The innocence and pure love and trust of princess Ivy rise above the trials of her magical world, including malevolent creatures and frightening punnish circumstances. I repeatedly found myself agonizing over Ivy's fate, only to cheer when she, Stanley, and Hugo, by their friendship and bravery, surmounted the obstacles set before them. No other book I have read has had the power to bring me to tears with its emotional beauty one moment, and make me roll on the floor in laughter the next. The magical and punishingly hilarious characters and plants fit together in a satisfactory mesh that delights and astoninishes. _Dragon on a Pedestal_ is a lovely book that can be enjoyed by any Mundane adult or child who has a fine appreciation for true character and the intricacies of the English language. Anthony has created a very special adventure, for which I thank him.

ISBN:

ListPrice: $13.00

Summary: "Human beings need flattery; otherwise they do not fulfill their purpose, not even in their own eyes." These are the words of the bold and heartless protagonist of Par Lagerkvist's novel, Dwarf. At only twenty-six inches tall, the dwarf, whose keen insights are described throughout the book, is both a shocking and thought-provoking character, one of the most original in literature. Told from the viewpoint of the dwarf, the book is a study in hatred, for the dwarf is filled with both hatred and rage toward humans and towards his own "detestable" race. A truer nihilist there never was; not even Celine, himself, could have conjured up this much rancour and despair.The dwarf lives as a servant and confidante to a Prince during the time when the Black Death was effectively wiping out the population of Europe. There occur many instances in this book when the dwarf must commit the most vile and heinous crimes at the behest of the Prince, and the dwarf does so with a relish that is unconscionable. Ultimately, his crimes force him into eternal imprisonment in a fortress dungeon where he spends his days writing daily recordings of the wickedness of his life and hopes to be called again to duty by the Prince.From the very beginning, the dwarf condemns human beings as "a pack of ingratiating cows" who value such useless things as nobility and beauty and who babble about virtue, honor and chivalry. Believing human beings to be "shrouded in mystery," the dwarf exclaims, "...nothing ever comes up from my inner depths." Nothing but hate, that is.Despite his vile and repulsive nature, the dwarf is loyal to and respectful of the Prince. His most prevalent views of disgust are engendered by those of his own race and by himself. "It is my fate that I hate my own people," he declares. Thinking of himself as an inferior being, less than human, the dwarf revels in the fact that humans hate him. "It fills me with satisfaction that I am hated...But I hate myself, too. I eat my own splenetic flesh. I drink my own poisoned blood. Every day I perform my solitary communion as the grim high priest of my people."It does not help matters that people fail to see this miserable dwarf as a separate being, with thoughts and feelings of his own, but instead see him as only an extension of the Prince. "If you kick him," they cry out, "you kick his master." Hating himself as he does, the dwarf relishes this treatment; at times he even comes to believe that he represents the nobility of the Prince, for it is common knowledge that "A dwarf always knows more about everything than his master."The dwarf goes on to depict several experiences with the Prince and with the unsightly, lascivious Princess, whom he also loathes. When the Princess's lover dies, the dwarf, unable to comprehend love of any kind, himself, becomes involved in an intrigue that finally sends him to the dungeon. There he records his own vile remembrances and reflects "on the day when they will come and loosen my chains, because he has sent for me again."While the purity of the hatred in Dwarf can be unnerving at times, the book is an extremely well-written and fascinating psychological portrait that has been somewhat sadly overlooked.

ISBN: 0812550706

ListPrice: $6.99

Edition: reprint

Dimensions: 1 by 4.25 by 6.75 in.

Summary: Intense is the word for Ender's Game. Aliens have attacked Earth twice and almost destroyed the human species. To make sure humans win the next encounter, the world government has taken to breeding military geniuses -- and then training them in the arts of war... The early training, not surprisingly, takes the form of 'games'... Ender Wiggin is a genius among geniuses; he wins all the games... He is smart enough to know that time is running out. But is he smart enough to save the planet?

ISBN: 0671600362

ListPrice: $4.95

Edition: reprint

Summary: This book really covers the history of computer engineering from 1945-1965, between the first practical computer, and IBM's dominance.It does give a good insight into the extensive history and heritage of the first real computers, the UNIVACs. It's easy these days to be fooled into feeling that history begins around 1969 with UNIX, and this book is helpful in illuminating the "Dark Ages".The preamble sections about Babbage, and about computing prehistory, are interesting too, but a little disconnected from the later stuff (as indeed they were, historically).However, I have a couple of complaints. Firstly, the book is in desperate need of a thorough proof-reading: the technical details have mostly been relegated to footnotes, but are frequently wrong in obvious ways, or consist of unhelpful analogies, and give the impression that the author has little scientific knowledge. The final chapter repeats, verbatim, sections of earlier ones, and is clearly tacked on (for a better coverage of the 70s-80s, read Steven Levy's "Hackers").Secondly, there is very little computer science history in the book: no reference to Post, Turing (except as an engineer) or Church, or to their work of the 30s. (Read Andrew Hodges' "Turing..." for this); nor serious technical discussions of the subject matter covered. There is also no mention anywhere of FORTRAN or Lisp which were critical innovations occuring in the late 50s, the same timeframe as this book.I guess "the History of UNIVAC" wouldn't have been such a catchy title.

ISBN: 0425057208

ListPrice: $2.25

Summary: I'm half way threw the second one. This is a good series for learning about religions. It really gets down to the point of meaning. Why we're here without any religious garbage.

ISBN: 044690922X

ListPrice: $2.95

Edition: Warner Books ed.

Dimensions: 18 cm

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ISBN: 0553236903

ListPrice: $2.50

Summary: I'm not a big fan of science fiction. Although this is classified as science fiction, it isn't the type of book that could easily fit into one specific genre. It raises philosophical questions about the nature of knowledge,genetic engineering, and the human spirit.The plot is fairly straightforward. Charlie is a mentally challenged man who works in a bakery and remembers little about his real family. He attends classes at a special education center for adults. Through this center he meets Professor Nemur and Dr. Strauss. They preform an operation that alters his cpacity to abosrb and understand information, giving him a "super genius" I.Q.The book is written from Charlie's perspective and follows his mental state from an eager, well-meaning, mentally challenged man, to a cynical, super-intelligent observer of human folly. The transformation in Charlie's emotinal state as well as his overall capacity to understand the world is what makes Flowers for Algernon so fascinating. I also found Charlie's recollections about his family very revealing. Through his memories, the reader is able to witness how a strugging family deals with having a mentally challenged child. His mother was an especially interesting character. I thought one of the best scenes in the book is when he goes back to confront her after "becoming smart". I had one image in my mind of what his mother would be like, but then when he met her in person I was amazed at just how frail and utterly human she actually was. The role reversal between Charlie and his mother and sister after his transformation is astounding. The ending of the book brought me to tears. I was really moved by the author's ability to capture the delicacy of the human mind as well as the stregnth of the spirit.

ISBN: 0425058603

ListPrice: $3.50

Summary: Another disappointing James Bond novel by John Gardner. Unfulfilling from beginning to end. About the only Bond book of his worth checking out is Icebreaker.

ISBN: 0380708213

ListPrice: $6.99

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.75 by 4.25 by 6.75 in.

Summary: In the 1970s Joe Haldeman approached more than a dozen different publishers before he finally found one interested in The Forever War. The book went on to win both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, although a large chunk of the story had been cut out before it saw publication. Now Haldeman and Avon Books have released the definitive version of The Forever War, published for the first time as Haldeman originally intended. The book tells the timeless story of war, in this case a conflict between humanity and the alien Taurans. Humans first bumped heads with the Taurans when we began using collapsars to travel the stars. Although the collapsars provide nearly instantaneous travel across vast distances, the relativistic speeds associated with the process means that time passes slower for those aboard ship. For William Mandella, a physics student drafted as a soldier, that means more than 27 years will have passed between his first encounter with the Taurans and his homecoming, though he himself will have aged only a year. When Mandella finds that he can't adjust to Earth after being gone so long from home, he reenlists, only to find himself shuttled endlessly from battle to battle as the centuries pass. --Craig E. Engler

ISBN: 0078820936

Edition: 2nd

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ISBN: 0553246496

ListPrice: $4.95

Summary: If you are old enough, think back to the year 1970. There were no pocket calculators, home VCRs, personal computers or electronic digital watches. Households in which both parents --particularly mothers-- worked were uncommon. Home satellite television systems did not exist.This was the environment in which Alvin Toffler wrote "Future Shock".The book is an excellent study in how humans deal with rapid technological and social change in the late twentieth century. Many of the devices and conditions we deal with on a daily basis in the 1990's were foretold by Toffler in this brilliant work. Toffler concluded that millions of people will find it increasingly difficult to cope with the rate of change in the future. Well, the future which Toffler described is now. "Future Shock" is well worth another look for those of us who wish to see how far we have progressed. And how far we need to go

ISBN: 0451627180

ListPrice: $7.95

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.50 by 4.25 by 7 in.

Summary: I read this book in my western civ class during college. I was not sure what to expect from it, but found that I was pulled in and the book and meaning of the book would not let go. This is the meaning of life at its best. Athough not much history is involved with this epic tale, the writing is. This well done verse translation gives a glossary at the end of the book to help with hard to pronouce words and makes the read a bit easier. I do suggest reading this great book. It is very well done.

ISBN: 0425057194

ListPrice: $2.50

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ISBN: 0445085959295

ListPrice: $5.99

Summary: I, too, read this book shortly after reading Tolkien's LORD OF THE RINGS. And I found there to be many similarities, as well. CIRCLE OF LIGHT is a traditional tale of Light versus Darkness, and its Atlanton Earth has elves, dwarves, dragons, and so forth. Also, many of the names are evocative of Tolkien's: Greyfax, Faragon, Broco, the Archenchest, etc. But as I got into the book, I found most of the similarities to be at best superficial, because there are many differences as well. For example, there are rifles, gunpowder, talking animals, and multiple spheres or worlds that the action takes place on. There is no doubt that Hancock owes a tip of the hat to such previous fantasists as Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. But this is not just a knock-off of Middle Earth or Narnia. Hancock has fashioned his own distinct setting and characters, and his own poetic brand of storytelling. For people looking for a traditional atmospheric fantasy to read, I recommend this series.

ISBN: 0140430229

ListPrice: $6.95

Edition: reprint

Dimensions: 0.75 by 4.50 by 7.25 in.

Summary: As a result of an astounding run of bad luck, Lemuel Gulliver, first a ship's surgeon and later a ship's captain, is washed ashore in one strange place after another. First he meets the Lilliputians, tiny people about six inches tall. Next he visits the Brobdingnaggians, giants as large compared to Gulliver as he was to the Lilliputians. His third voyage takes him to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan. His last voyage is to the country of the Houyhnhnms. On his first three voyages, he sees the foibles and pettiness of humanity by observing the strange humans he meets. But he observes them from his own human perspective. In the country of the Houyhnhnms, he meets the degenerate and repulsive human-like Yahoos and the almost perfect horse-like Houyhnhnms. Viewing humanity (as represented by the Yahoos) from the Houyhnhnm perspective so sickens Gulliver that upon his return to England, he is loathe to associate himself with his fellow humans and requires a lenghty period of adjustment before he can look at himself in the mirror or even eat with his wife and children.Gulliver's Travels is satire. Almost nothing in 18th century England is safe from attack by Swift's pen. Although much of the book is dated, the same sort of humans that Swift wrote about are still around today.

ISBN: 0440935741

ListPrice: $3.99

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.50 by 4.25 by 6.75 in.

Summary: I've loved Lloyd Alexander's classic series ever since I read "The Book of Three" in elemantary school. A well-chosen Christmas gift from my parents ensured that I got my hands on the next four books, concluding with "The High King".One of the strengths of this series is that the characters learn and grow from one book to the next; it's great to see Taran from "The Book of Three", who reminds me rather of myself at that age (*grin*) grow up to take the responsibilities he has earned by the end of "The High King".Alexander's use of Welsh mythology is excellent and for the most part right on target, though Arawn isn't quite as malevolent a figure in myth as he is in the Chronicles of Prydain, and the Gwydion of the Mabinogion is as much a trickster as he is a hero. (This isn't really a criticism; these are books for children, and I know that making Arawn and Gwydion more ambiguous characters would have confused me when I was younger.) The Triple Goddess, the people of Twylyth Teg, the people of Llyr--they're all here, forming a seamless and very real-feeling backdrop to the main characters' adventures.Older readers may be interested in checking out the Mabinogion, the main body of Welsh myth that has survived the ages, after finishing this series. Gwyn Thomas and Kevin Crossley-Holland's "Tales from the Mabinogion" is an excellent edition to try, with beautiful illustrations.Overall, the Chronicles of Prydain remain among my favorite stories, with "The High King" the best of the lot. I highly recommend them.

ISBN: 0451116526

ListPrice: $2.50

Summary: The Horseclans novels are like olives -- you either acquire a taste for them or you don't. They're not great literature, which is why I gave this book a score of only 3, but if you get caught up in the saga, it won't matter. You'll want more, and there are a lot of them! The Coming of the Horseclans is a good place to start.The story is set in precataclysmic North America, approximately 600 years after nuclear war, man-induced plagues, and worldwide seismic disturbances have thrown humanity into a brutal pre-industrial age. Much of California and the East Coast have sunk into the sea. What remains of the eastern states, from Canada to Georgia, has been settled by waves of dark-skinned and dark-haired adventurers from Europe (Spaniards, Greeks, Armenians, etc.) called the Ehleenee. While the early settlers were rugged fighters in the mold of Athenians and Spartans, the current crop are little more than decadent dictators ruling over downtrodden peasant farmers.This first book in the series details the odyssey of the War Chief of the horseclans, Milo of Morai, a mutant immortal from the 20th century, as he leads the nomadic people of the horseclans from the high plains of North America to the East Coast. After 200 years of searching for other immortals, Milo has returned to the clans to fulfill an ancient prophecy and lead them to their destined homeland by the sea. Since, unbeknownst to them, earthquakes have long since sent their original home, Ehlai (Los Angeles), to the bottom of the ocean, he has convinced them to travel east. In their way stands the armed might of the Ehleenee and the treacherous Witchmen -- pre-Holocaust scientists who have survived the centuries by repeatedly stealing new bodies to house their minds and who have their own designs for ruling existing civilization.These books are primarily military science fiction and not for the faint of heart. There are lots of vivid descriptions of battles, torture and ghastly wounds. The prose is spare and very action-oriented. While not a fan of military fiction in general, I was sucked in by the animal component of the series. The clanspeople have the ability to communicate telepathically with their specially bred war horses and with a mutant wild cat, the "prairie cat," which sounds like a blend of puma, sabertooth, and cheetah. I'm also obssessed with translating the terminology of the time -- it becomes a kind of game -- figuring out what words like Ehlai (LA), Pitzburk (Pittsburg), Karaleenos (Carolinas), Neekohl (Nicole), Kuk (Cook), Hwallis (Wallace) all mean. If you like Larry Niven's Man-Kzinn Wars series, you might enjoy the horseclans saga.

ISBN: 0451136268

ListPrice: $3.50

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ISBN: 0449300110

ListPrice: $4.50

Summary: I entered the seminary after seven years at work, and I felt it wise to prepare for the daunting task of embarking on six years of full time study. The advice in Maddox's excellent book was exactly what I needed. Did it work? Judge for yourself. I was one of five students chosen as guinea pigs for a new STB/MA course overseen by Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, doing the degree work on top of the regular seminary coursework. I passed cum laude.It seems to me that academic success is made up of three factors: intelligence, application, and skill. I don't see how you can make yourself more intelligent. How hard you work is up to you. Working hard unskillfully might make you feel virtuous, but it's mostly a waste. Harry Maddox can help you acquire the study skills which turn effort into effect.

ISBN: 0553573918

ListPrice: $7.50

Edition: reissue

Summary: I had not read a novel in over 10 years and never was into sci-fi books, but this book was given to me and I had time to read it, and was very entertained! This book is very exciting and I kept on reading it, wanting to know what's going to happen. The book is not perfect, but it's still worth five stars. I guessed who the killer was from the begining, but that's ok; it was only one of the subplots of the novel. The trip Zahn took me(the reader) was exciting, adventureful, etc. In addition to, I enjoyed the suspense mystery feel, and the ending was great; I did not expect it. Even though it's a sci-fi novel, it had a realistic feel to it and related to the characters in the novel. This is the first time I read a Zahn book and now I'm very interested in checking out his other books. More writers should read his books to know how to write an entertaining novel.

ISBN: 0385492081

ListPrice: $7.99

Edition: 1st Anchor Books ed.

Dimensions: 18 cm

Summary: From Base Camp to the Summit, I was enthralled. Into Thin Air, John Krakauer's adventure tale of the Everest climbing disaster in 1996, was wonderful. The events of this climb were a haunting memory for Krakauer and this book was his way of getting them off his chest. In 1996 John Krakauer was asked by Outside magazine to accompany Rob Hall, an accomplished Everest guide, on a mission to the highest peak in the world in order to write an article about the growing commercialization of Everest. Climbing Everest was an ambition since boyhood for Krakauer. So in the spring of 1996 he went to Nepal, where he met his nine climbing companions, and three guides. John Krakauer did not easily bond with any climbers except for one forty six year old postal worker from Seattle named Doug Hansen. Most of his companions were wealthy people with little actual climbing experience. Even so, the group climbed successfully until the last stretch to the summit. On the final summit climb many mistakes were made and the blame cannot be pinned on one person, but the lack of oxygen caused a lack of good judgement. Only six of Krakauer's companions returned to base camp. The agreed upon turn back time of 2 o'clock was not abided by and there were people reaching the summit after 5 p.m. It was impossible to reach the camp in the dark during a blizzard. Thus, the lives of two of the group's guides, including head guide Rob Hall, were lost. Doug Hansen and three other climbers were also killed in the storm. When one approaches this book, it cannot only be thought of as a book about climbing. Into Thin Air is about people and how important it is to have a mental and physical balance. Once the group was in the "death Zone" above 24,000 feet, brain cells were lost and the physical element of Everest became just as dangerous as the mental element. True to Krakauer's original assignment, this book is about the commercialization of Everest and the people like Krakauer's companions who try to buy the accomplishment of climbing Everest instead of earning it. John Krakauer has an excellent writing style, both informative and thrilling at the same time. Into Thin Air is Krakauer at his best. This book is great for outdoorsmen and city boys alike. It shows how critical every decision is on the top of the world.

ISBN:

Translator: Carolyn Gaiser

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ISBN: 0140301119

ListPrice: $2.25

Illustrator: Paul Hogarth

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ISBN: 0553207067

ListPrice: $3.95

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ISBN: 080410753X

ListPrice: $7.99

Edition: reprint

Dimensions: 1 by 4.75 by 7.25 in.

Summary: This book follows the story of a young woman living in China in the middle of the twentieth century. Amy Tan portrays the situation of many women during this time throught Winnie, the main charcacter. The reality of what a Chinese wife might go through really comes through in the story. This story explores Chinese culture and how a once innocent woman can find the strength to fight the unjust and cruel unwritten laws of society. For someone who has never had to experience this, Winnie's perseverance is very admirable. The story touches on some pretty tough issues, but Tan keeps it light hearted. She brings in characters for Winnie to bond with and that help motivate her to find a way out of China and out of her marriage. The other characters also bring out qualities in Winnie that Tan writes very descriptively about. This book teaches about the damage of sexism in society and all people who read it will definitly get a sense of what it's like. I really enjoyed reading this book because Tan makes it interesting by having two narrators. I recommend this book to fun loving readers and serious readers alike.

ISBN:

ListPrice: $.75

Edition: 66th printing

Summary: The Larousse Pocket Dictionary manages to walk the line between too much and too little. Many compact translation dictionarys have too few words. They are so compact that they become impractical. While on the other hand, this little book is complete while not exhausting. You will be able to find the words for: ---"Excuse me, I am a member of the Tunis Police Force and you seem to be parked illigally"you will not however find the words for:---"Confound it, Stop snorkeling your hot-n-tots at that Yak"Happy Translating...

ISBN: 0441478085

ListPrice: $7.99

Summary: Genly Ai is an emissary from the human galaxy to Winter, a lost, stray world. His mission is to bring the planet back into the fold of an evolving galactic civilization, but to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own culture and prejudices and those that he encounters. On a planet where people are of no gender--or both--this is a broad gulf indeed. The inventiveness and delicacy with which Le Guin portrays her alien world are not only unusual and inspiring, they are fundamental to almost all decent science fiction that has been written since. In fact, reading Le Guin again may cause the eye to narrow somewhat disapprovingly at the younger generation: what new ground are they breaking that is not already explored here with greater skill and acumen? It cannot be said, however, that this is a rollicking good story. Le Guin takes a lot of time to explore her characters, the world of her creation, and the philosophical themes that arise. If there were a canon of classic science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness would be included without debate. Certainly, no science fiction bookshelf may be said to be complete without it. But the real question: is it fun to read? It is science fiction of an earlier time, a time that has not worn particularly well in the genre. The Left Hand of Darkness was a groundbreaking book in 1969, a time when, like the rest of the arts, science fiction was awakening to new dimensions in both society and literature. But the first excursions out of the pulp tradition are sometimes difficult to reread with much enjoyment. Rereading The Left Hand of Darkness, decades after its publication, one feels that those who chose it for the Hugo and Nebula awards were right to do so, for it truly does stand out as one of the great books of that era. It is immensely rich in timeless wisdom and insight. The Left Hand of Darkness is science fiction for the thinking reader, and should be read attentively in order to properly savor the depth of insight and the subtleties of plot and character. It is one of those pleasures that requires a little investment at the beginning, but pays back tenfold with the joy of raw imagination that resonates through the subsequent 30 years of science fiction storytelling. Not only is the bookshelf incomplete without owning it, so is the reader without having read it. --L. Blunt Jackson

ISBN: 0425058883

ListPrice: $2.95

Summary: When this book was first published there was considerable hoopla to the effect that Le Guin had ceased to be "just" a "genre" writer of science fiction and fantasy but was now a "mainstream" writer appealing to a broader audience. I don't get it! Where is the line drawn between a so-called "historical novel" about an imaginary country (Malafrena)and a "fantasy" novel (like "The Dispossessed") about imaginary planets? Is the distinction so significant that solely on this basis it creates an appeal to a broader, mainstream audience? As a previous reviewer here pointed out, those two novels are very similar in their plotting and echo Le Guin's themes and story lines: the nature and meanings of freedom or other idealistic obsessions; depth of anthropological detail; cultural shock or clashes; coming of age; the changes, understandings and growth that come through noble efforts, love or loss; and the compromises the characters make as a result of their various vicissitudes. Her conclusions are always bittersweet: the characters make peace with their lot and find strength to continue and an indication of some kind of future. LeGuin's prose is beautifully crafted, evocative, fraught with meanings, dense, wide-angled, many sided. Her works need to be read and reread to grasp some of what they hold. Le Guin is our George Eliot, and Malafrena is another Middlemarch. It would be more meaningful, however, if it were based on the actual history of an actual country. Her fascinating details, plotting and descriptions would gain significance as interpretations of, and insights on, real events. Since the work was imaginary, I wish her female characters had been made stronger; that they had prevailed more. I understand she intended for them to echo in some part the feminist spirit of the sixties, but nevetheless they were trapped by their society, helpless and subordinate to the men who controlled them. Luisa was neurotic, hateful and unhappy; Laura lived an empty, dominated life, and Piera had to choose between marrying the widower she loved or the "freedom" of taking charge of the management of her family estate. At the conclusion Itale thought her plain; past her prime, a dried up sterile stick, and she told him they could be friends only if they understood they would never marry. Perhaps the reader is meant to read a good deal into the ending, about their unstated future happiness and Itale's return to pursue his old dream, but for me it had to be more clearly spelled out.

ISBN: 0446909912

ListPrice: $3.95

Dimensions: 17 cm

Summary: Naisbitt looks a long term futuristic trends. He helps one to see the big picture both chronologically and globally. Take for example his opening observation that "While America's new information economy is our most important megatrend, it is only part of the puzzle." He logically argues that "collectively what is going on locally is what is going on in America." The five bellwether states, which set the trends for the rest of the couutry are idenified as; California, Florida, Washington, Colorado, and Connecticut.A strong case is made in the second chapter for "high touch" (i.e., human involvement) to remain a vital component of the high tech age.In the third chapter, the global economy is described. The airplane and satellite communication are identified as the technologies that caused the transition from a national to a global economy.Although an international, global economy exists, surprisingly at the same time decentralization is occurring. He explains in chapter 5 why.In the following chapter he similarly explains how people are becoming increasinly proactive in their individual futures, and not rely on institutional help.The proactive theme is carried a step further in chapter seven.Chapter 8 discusses the phenomenon of networking. Right up to the end of his book, he makes a solid case for the trends he describes. This is a well-written book, researched so that its essential theme remains accurate although a lot has changed since it originally was published.

ISBN: 0425095711

ListPrice: $3.95

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ISBN: B0006AYMHQ

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ISBN: 034530456X

ListPrice: $7.50

Summary: Piers Anthony(also Pier Xanthony) writes a tale of a Night Mare, horses that deliver nightmares, that has a half a soul. She was supposed to bring it to her boss the Dark Horse but she didn't so he fired her. So Mare Imbrium, the sea of rains on the moon, starts an adventure to stop the evil Horseman from taking over Xanth. I thought this book was great and I couldn't put it down.

ISBN: 042517400X

ListPrice: $7.99

Dimensions: 1 by 4.75 by 7 in.

Summary: Tom Clancy's latest Net Force offering falls short of the high standard he has maintained for his novels. Those accustomed to his technical detail, his political manuevering, his non-stop action will find that this novel focuses much more on personal relationships than previous books. For instance, VR expert Jay faces the greatest challenge as he must track down the computer responsible for creating situations resulting in mass deaths. For the first time, Jay experiences physical dangers in VR and his experiences are tense and shocking. From VR, however, the book switches to Tyrone and his high school romance, something that has no place in this book. The teenage jargon, the infatuation with the school beauty queen and the boomerang trials are hardly subjects relevant to the book but rather interrupt the flow of the story. A good deal of the action takes place in England, which provides the opportunity for interaction with MI-6 and British intelligence. Again, however, there is more focus on romance with a British counterpart and the resulting problems than action. The plot is thin and the exciting finish we have grown accustomed to in Clancy works is missing. In other books Clancy has co-written, Op Center, Net Force, etc., it has always been possible to see Clancy's style and direction. Night Moves has much less of the Clancy style - and it shows.

ISBN: 1400034779

ListPrice: $11.95

Edition: 1st Anchor Books ed.

Dimensions: 21 cm

Summary: Penzler Pick, July 2001: Working in a mystery tradition that will cause genre aficionados to think of such classic sleuths as Melville Davisson Post's Uncle Abner or Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee, Alexander McCall Smith creates an African detective, Precious Ramotswe, who's their full-fledged heir. It's the detective as folk hero, solving crimes through an innate, self-possessed wisdom that, combined with an understanding of human nature, invariably penetrates into the heart of a puzzle. If Miss Marple were fat and jolly and lived in Botswana--and decided to go against any conventional notion of what an unmarried woman should do, spending the money she got from selling her late father's cattle to set up a Ladies' Detective Agency--then you have an idea of how Precious sets herself up as her country's first female detective. Once the clients start showing up on her doorstep, Precious enjoys a pleasingly successful series of cases. But the edge of the Kalahari is not St. Mary Mead, and the sign Precious orders, painted in brilliant colors, is anything but discreet. Pointing in the direction of the small building she had purchased to house her new business, it reads "THE NO. 1 LADIES DETECTIVE AGENCY. FOR ALL CONFIDENTIAL MATTERS AND ENQUIRIES. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED FOR ALL PARTIES. UNDER PERSONAL MANAGEMENT." The solutions she comes up with, whether in the case of the clinic doctor with two quite different personalities (depending on the day of the week), or the man who had joined a Christian sect and seemingly vanished, or the kidnapped boy whose bones may or may not be those in a witch doctor's magic kit, are all sensible, logical, and satisfying. Smith's gently ironic tone is full of good humor towards his lively, intelligent heroine and towards her fellow Africans, who live their lives with dignity and with cautious acceptance of the confusions to which the world submits them. Precious Ramotswe is a remarkable creation, and The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency well deserves the praise it received from London's Times Literary Supplement. I look forward with great eagerness to the upcoming books featuring the memorable Miss Ramotswe, Tears of the Giraffe and Morality for Beautiful Girls, soon to be available in the U.S. --Otto Penzler

ISBN: 0345301870

ListPrice: $2.95

Edition: 1st Ballantine Books ed.

Dimensions: 18 cm

Summary: I had a strange experience with this book. One of the other reviewers stopped reading Xanth after this book, and I almost did too. Yet it was my dad's favorite. I asked him why, and he rattled off about ten reasons, none of which I remembered reading. That was really weird; normally I have good memory and reading comprehension. I quit reading Xanth for a while, getting more interested in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker stuff, and after I got through with that I decided to re-read the first four Xanths because they were so much fun. I got to this one, read it again, and loved it. I concluded that this was because it is hard to see an ogre as a human being, and therefore I, as a human being, had a hard time putting myself into it. I was a bit nettled at the concept of blanket trees too. So what's so great about this book? Well, you realize that the Good Magician Humfrey's answers ALWAYS make sense, but you don't realize that they do until they do, giving the querent greater satisfaction. This book is hilarious. It has some great fights, like Smash Ogre vs. the Gap Dragon, and Smash vs. another ogre, and Smash vs. demon. Smash runs into an Eye Queue (IQ) vine and becomes smart. He regards it as a curse, as ogres are proud of their stupidity. Ogres are also soulless, emotionless creatures, and Smash is not; over the course of the adventure he becomes more and more humanlike until he falls in love at the end. I don't know if this is realistic, but all through the story he thinks of himself as an ogre; no identity crisis in contrast to Bink in Xanth 1 or Dor in Xanth 3. His adventure triggers new feelings, which at first he doesn't understand, and eventually becomes comfortable with the idea of being a soulful human being while maintaining the ability to bash someone's brain in at need. My original dislike for this story was due to the fact that it was too dark and serious although humorous, but the second time through I came to appreciate that quality.

ISBN: 0440167248

ListPrice: $4.95

Summary: One of the enduring ironies of military history--and the history of military thought--is that the most profound analysis, clearest insights, and most enduring illumination of the principles and practice of warfare has been accomplished by military professionals of relatively modest rank.To the distinguished list of Colonel Clausewitz, Captain Mahan, and Captain Hart, add Colonel Harry Summers.ON STRATEGY is certainly the most important book on military theory to appear since WWII and is perhaps the most important work of this century. Potential purchasers need have no fear that this book will be out-of-print for the foreseeable future; the presses will keep running because ON STRATEGY will be required reading in every military academy in the world for many decades.ON STRATEGY is "about" the Vietnam War in much the same way that Clausewitz is "about" the Napoloenic Wars or that Mahan is "about" 18th-century naval struggles between France and England. That is, Summers uses the Vietnam War as a vehicle for analysis and illustration of principles of war that apply universally.Aside from the clarity of his thought, Summers' most remarkable achievement is his writing style: For all of its subtlety, this book is accessible and valuable for readers who may have little background in military affairs.At the end of WW II, the United States created special five-star ranks to honor it most senior commanders for their contributions to victory.A book review is a poor substitute for a richly-deserved star to reward extraordinary service to the nation. But for his brilliant analysis and articulate writing, pin Five Stars on Harry Summars' collar.- - - - - - - - - The reviewer is a former military intelligence analyst.

ISBN: 0425048292

Edition: Berkeye

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ISBN: 0020869002

ListPrice: $3.95

Summary: When I say 'all,' I am merely referring to the antecedent and latter of the three books that compose Lewis' famed 'Space Trilogy.' I had never considered myself to be a fan of science fiction; however, as I am a fan of Lewis, it was nearly obligatory that I read his famous 'Space Trilogy.' I found myself approaching the first book, 'Out of the Silent Planet,' with a marginal amount of reluctance. But, as I ventured further and further into the core of the book, my heart instantly grew fond of the ever-mesmerising style which has made Lewis a master of the pen. Although very impressed and delighted with 'Planet,' what awaited me within the pages of 'Perelandra' was nothing short of literary bliss. Writing himself into the story as a friend of Dr. Elwin Ransom, Lewis captivates his audience after mere pages as he travels to Ransom's own home. What commences after he arrives is perhaps Lewis' most beautiful work in print. As Dr. Ransom travels to a second distant planet, Perelandra, we (the audience) are assaulted with pellucid imagary and chilling realities that are not easily shaken after the last page is turned. 'Perelandra' is a world of fantasy; a world of fantasy which personafies the struggle of good and evil and offers a lucid and tangible potrayal of the Fall of Man. A MUST read for any science-fiction or Lewis connoisseur. A thrilling book and a truly delightful read!

ISBN: 1565927699

ListPrice: $9.95

Edition: 01

Dimensions: 18 cm

Summary: PHP pocket reference is just that, a language reference. It lists all the functions with a short reminder of its purpose. It is an indispensable tool for any serious PHP coder, and an inexpensive one at that. It must not be mistaken for a comprehensive index of all commands and objects as that is not its intended purpose. For details, check php.net for the full annotated manual. When you just need to look up command syntax or port that antique DBase code to SQL Server 7, you'll save loads of time with this handy accessory.

ISBN: 0375705856

ListPrice: $13.95

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5.25 by 8 in.

Summary: Plainsong, according to Kent Haruf's epigraph, is "any simple and unadorned melody or air." It's a perfect description of this lovely, rough-edged book, set on the very edge of the Colorado plains. Tom Guthrie is a high school teacher whose wife can't--or won't--get out of bed; the McPherons are two bachelor brothers who know little about the world beyond their farm gate; Victoria Roubideaux is a pregnant 17-year-old with no place to turn. Their lives parallel each other in much the same way any small-town lives would--until Maggie Jones, another teacher, makes them intersect. Even as she tries to draw Guthrie out of his black cloud, she sends Victoria to live with the two elderly McPheron brothers, who know far more about cattle than about teenage girls. Trying to console her when she think she's hurt her baby, the best lie they can come up with is this: "I knew of a heifer we had one time that was carrying a calf, and she got a length of fencewire down her some way and it never hurt her or the calf." Holt, Colorado, is the kind of small town where everyone knows everyone's business before that business even happens. In a way, that's true of the book, too. There's not a lot of suspense here, plotwise; you can see each narrative twist and turn coming several miles down the pike. What Plainsong has instead is note-perfect dialogue, surrounded by prose that's straightforward yet rich in particulars: "a woman walking a white lapdog on a piece of ribbon," glimpsed from a car window; the boys' mother, her face "as pale as schoolhouse chalk"; the smells of hay and manure, the variations of prairie light. Even the novel's larger questions are sized to a domestic scale. Will Guthrie find love? Will Victoria run away with the father of her baby? Will the McPherons learn to hold a conversation? But in this case, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and Plainsong manages to capture nothing less than an entire world--fencing pliers, calf-pullers, and all. Kent Haruf has a gorgeous ear, and a knack for rendering the simple complex. --Mary Park

ISBN: 0060806982

ListPrice: $7.00

Summary: JFK's writings on the courageous actions and integrity of selected Politicians (mainly State Senate) throughout our nations history (up until the early 1900's anyway) was interesting and enlightening. It is disappointing though, to think that these leaders would often have such a hard time doing what is morally correct within themselves, just to have their lives almost totally ruined by the greed of their fellow constituents within their selected regions, and their own political colleagues. Senator Kennedy talks also of the flaws within our Democratic Society and the greed within us all. The book is actually quite simple to read, just as long as the political moves and thoughts here in are of slight interest to the reader. JFK does try to display his thoughts and ideas on political courage through political decision making based on integrity and moral correctness; although, some of his ideas are expressed as a matter of personal and professional opinion. Political stubborness sometimes is expressed as integrity over political correctness, which can be a debatable issue in itself. I do believe that JFK's heart and mind were in the right place when writing this book; although he does give the opinion that he is trying desperately to convince us that certain political actions are of sound judgement. He does let the reader realize his love for political correctness and politics in general. But since 1956, it is too bad that our Nation's Politicians themselves, did not take Kennedy's writings of Courage and Integrity a little more serious.

ISBN: 0140430407

ListPrice: $10.00

Edition: reprint

Dimensions: ], 320 p. facsims., ports. 18 cm

Summary: I read Puddnhead Wilson in an English Class in college. It was the first book that I had the chance to read by Mark Twain and thought the characters in the story as humorous. I would highly recommend to anyone who hasn't had the chance to read this book to give it a try and enjoy reading about the lives of Twain's characters.

ISBN: 014048003X

Summary: Even if all of George Bernard Shaw's other works are some day forgotten, this play will live on down the ages as an imperishable classic of drama. This is the story of a man who takes a poor simple flower-girl and turns her into a sophisticated darling of high society. I think this story has been so popular with theatre audiences because of how its sharp wit cuts right through the artificiality of class distinctions. Shaw compels us to see beyond surfaces to recognize the human potential and worth that lies underneath.David Rehakauthor of "A Young Girl's Crimes"

ISBN: 0425076717

ListPrice: $3.50

Summary:

ISBN: 0671003143

ListPrice: $16.00

Dimensions: 23 cm

Summary: If you have wanted to learn the rules of golf, this is a great book. Tom Watson goes over every rule and then gives specific examples of what it all means. He even gives real life PGA tournament scenarios. I highly recommend it.

ISBN: 0425061582

ListPrice: $2.50

Summary:

ISBN: 0671450700

ListPrice: $11.95

Summary: The tetrology "The Book of the New Sun" ("The Shadow of the Torture","The Claw of the Conciliator","The Sword of the Lictor", and "The Citadel of the Autarch") is my favorite series of all time. It has a fantastic, original storyline, and is beautifully and intelligently written. I've read through the series three times, and each time I notice new facets that I missed the previous time through. I can't recommend the books in this series strongly enough. In my opinion, "The Book of the New Sun" deserves to be known and revered as much as, if not more than, "The Lord of the Rings".

ISBN: 0345287657

ListPrice: $6.99

Summary: Having completed the quest for his magic talent (told in "A Spell for Chameleon"), Bink embarks on another adventure. His mission: to find the source of all magic in the land of Xanth. Accompanied by his friend Chester Centaur, Grundy the universal translator and the wise Good Magician Humfrey, he sets off on this ambitious quest. But what he discovers in the course of his travels could extinguish magic and change the land of Xanth forever..."The Source of Magic" is only the second volume in the Xanth series, and many of the more extensive magical ideas in the later books are still non-existent or undeveloped. Even so, Piers Anthony succeeds in creating a convincing story. The characters are amusing, if lacking somewhat in depth- this is most definitely light fantasy- and still face some halfway serious moral dilemmas as the story proceeds.If you have read later Xanth novels, this book is a must-read: take a look at the origins of Xanth, and marvel at its evolution since then. For new readers, this is a good place to start: the world of Xanth is a more rounded and interesting place than it was in "A Spell for Chameleon", and it continues to develop over the course of the next several books.

ISBN: 03453287665

ListPrice: $7.50

Summary: I am not a fantasy reader. I never have been, until I read this book. It seems to me that all of the other fantasy novels include such ridiculus names that you can't seem to remember who is who which really frustrated me, so I never took a liking to them. Well, at least that was how it was with me! But with this book, the characters that Piers Anthony portrays is a whole different story. You come to form a bond between them. You learn about their families, their lives and follow them throughout their adventures and trials of love and challenges. They aren't much different from us except that they harvest pies from trees in their backyard and everybody has a magical talent! I was very skeptical at first when my friend gave it to me to read. I opened it up and read the first 10 pages and I was like Noooo way! This is crazy! What are all these puns doing in here and WHY? But, my friend just told me to keep reading. That was 2 1/2 years ago! I am STILL reading the Xanth novels today. So far I am on book 21. But, I have to say the original characters, Bink, Chameleon, Trent, Iris, and their children Dor and Irene, Old Magician Humphrey, and the centaurs Chet and Chem are still my favorite today. I miss those old characters! And what is really wonderful is that they age right along with you! Every book is (in Xanth) about 3 years apart to keep things moving. But old Binker is still my favorite! So...if your not a Fantasy lover currently, just pick up this book and give it a good read. I think you will change your mind. I can't tell you how many times I laughed out loud or (Shhhh) sniffled, or was on the edge of my seat! This whole series is very light-hearted, easy to read and just a lot of fun to ecsape from reality with. But, I must say if you do start reading this series I strongly recommend not skipping any books (unless you absolutely must). Just have fun with it and don't take it too seriously.

ISBN: 0553207806

ListPrice: $14.50

Summary: In this final book of the 'To The Stars' trillogy Jan joins up in the revoloution which is sweeping across the stars to free the world of the tyrrany which is in power. It went out with more of a fizzle than a bang though. Events happen too easily, and there is little in the way of charachter development. The protoganist, Jan, while someone who can take what is given to him and do something with it, spends most of this book riding the waves of what is set in front of him rather than forging his own path. In the end, I felt anyone could have had the parts he had and things turn out the same. The entire trillogy was too short, and relied more in events out of the charachters controll to move the storyline along. I think it could have been a lot better with more charachter development.Dispite these criticisms, it was a good story. And, most trillogies tend to fizzle in the second and last books anyway.

ISBN: 0451099885

ListPrice: $2.50

Summary: Taking place after a nuclear apocalypse, the swords of the horseclans is a continuation of the story of the High Lord Milo and his horseclans. He and his allies have to face an army comming from the south and face the evil Witchmen (20th century scienctists) once again. The story is a little bloodthirty and is not for the timid. If you get a hold of these books I highly recommend that you read them. Be warned there are a lot more books in this series.

ISBN: 055326379X

ListPrice: $4.95

Edition: reissue

Summary: Fritjof Capra eloquently displays the striking similarities between the ancient arts of enlightenment and the modern discoveries in Physics. If you read this book you're eyes will open wide, whether you're beginning to explore Physics or you're 30 years deep in Physics.

ISBN: 0440984831

ListPrice: $1.75

Summary: Taran Wanderer, the fourth book of the Prydain chronicles, is, in my opinion, the best book in a wonderful series. All four books focus on the character of Taran of Caer Dallben, an orphan who is raised by a wizard (Dallben). The plot of Taran Wanderer focuses on Taran's quest to find out who his parents were. Taran hopes that he will find that he has the "noble" blood that he believes would give him the right to ask the Princess Eilonwy to wed him. Needless to say, he does not have an easy time, wandering the length and breadth of Prydain searching for parents he does not know, who can barely remember him. The book's joy, however, does not lie only in its plot, but also in the development that Taran undergoes through the course of the book. In Taran Wanderer, more than any other book, Taran grows into manhood. The trials he passes through temper and shape him, as he journeys through both familiar and strange lands. His experiences teach him lessons, but he learns even more from the people he meets. Make no mistake. This is not a pure novel of character. Taran travels from one end of Prydain to the other, meeting kings and wizards, and also farmers and tradesmen. Along the way, he has many adventures and faces many hardships. As said earlier though, the solid plot is not the highlight of this book. The characters are. The myriad of people Taran meets in his travels provides a welcome break from the pattern of the other Prydain chronicles, where almost everyone seems to be either a king, a bard, or a magician (or some combination of the three). After so many books walking the heights, Taran finally returns to earth. For those who have read the earlier books, you will see many familiar faces, including faithful Gurgi, the (not quite) bard Fflewddur Fflam, King Smoit, and even three old friends from the Marshes of Morva. You'll also be intrigued by new characters, some of whom have had hidden influences on characters you already know. And through it all, the beautiful tapestry of plot that Lloyd Alexander has woven will captivate you. Taran Wanderer is a great book. I recommend it to readers of all ages.

ISBN: 0020869207

ListPrice: $3.95

Summary: A truly stunning book! Interesting how this book seems to be getting either 5 stars or 1 star. Like the story itself, there is polarization, no middle ground. This satirical comedy blends brilliant characters with an accelerating plot. The BEST thing is the true-life charecterization of the "bad guys" and the "good guys". Modern 2-D writers paint the bad guys as blatent, psycopathic killers from the get-go. Lewis' bad guys are killers in disguise: socially acceptable, educated sophisticates who have literally duped themselves and they all distrust and despise each other. The good guys (i.e., "fat Mrs. Dimble saying her prayers") are human, but trying really hard to do right. The second-best thing is all the spiritual/biblical parallels and symbols. It makes a powerful backdrop for Christians and a nagging echo, with a ring of truth, for atheists (or what Lewis called, "materialists").The third-best thing was comedy. This was the funniest book I've ever read, but it's really not a comedy, no matter how you slice it. I can't remember the last time a mere book brought laughter to the point of tears and loss of bodily function (real-Merlin-fake Merlin and the banquet speeches at Belbury). Read 'em and weep.

ISBN: 0425056015

ListPrice: $2.50

Summary: This book is a page turner, but sometimes you have to put it down and think about what you just read, Taking religious struggle into the realm of futuristic technology, this book definantly has a twist, espicially at the end.

ISBN: 0452008263

Summary:

ISBN: 1565927095

ListPrice: $9.95

Edition: 1st ed.

Dimensions: 18 cm

Summary: Even hot dog Web coders proficient in XML need a little refresher once and a while. Although some portions of XML are still very fluid, the handy XML Pocket Reference offers quick access to the syntax and usage rules of this next-generation language. At the front of the book, a crash course in XML quickly spells out the important terminology, along with extremely short examples of XML, Document Type Definition (DTD), and Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) documents. The book also includes a nice bulleted list of cautions and rules to follow if you want to create valid XML documents. A tip section entitled, "Unlearning Bad Habits" offers handy warnings that are especially useful for those of us who occasionally slip into sloppy HTML coding behaviors that XML won't tolerate. The remainder of the title comprises reference sections devoted to XML, DTDs, XSL, XLink, and XPointer. These sections offer a balanced mix of both straight syntax references and brief general explanations of key topics. Short examples are in abundance to illustrate usage with accompanying explanatory text. The authors are very up-front about the changing nature of the XSL, XLink, and XPointer and point out that even their freshly published material on these subjects may soon be out of date. You won't find any big-picture look at the importance or implementation of XML in the real world. However, if you're already sold on the technology and working with it, this little guide will be a handy companion. --Stephen W Plain Topics covered: XML overview, well-formed XML rules, using elements and attributes, syntax and usage reference to XML, DTD, XSL, XLink, XPointer.

ISBN: 0451134613

ListPrice: $2.95

Summary:

ISBN: 0140094385

ListPrice: $14.00

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5.25 by 7.75 in.

Summary: Examines the ways in which television has transformed public discourse--in politics, education, religion, science, and elsewhere--into a form of entertainment that undermines exposition, explanation and knowledge

ISBN: 0440101999

ListPrice: $1.25

Summary: Some biologists speculate that if we ever make contact with extraterrestrials, those life forms are likely to be--like most life on earth--one-celled or smaller creatures, more comparable to bacteria than little green men. And even though such organisms would not likely be able to harm humans, the possibility exists that first contact might be our last. That's the scientific supposition that Michael Crichton formulates and follows out to its conclusion in his excellent debut novel, The Andromeda Strain. A Nobel-Prize-winning bacteriologist, Jeremy Stone, urges the president to approve an extraterrestrial decontamination facility to sterilize returning astronauts, satellites, and spacecraft that might carry an "unknown biologic agent." The government agrees, almost too quickly, to build the top-secret Wildfire Lab in the desert of Nevada. Shortly thereafter, unbeknownst to Stone, the U.S. Army initiates the "Scoop" satellite program, an attempt to actively collect space pathogens for use in biological warfare. When Scoop VII crashes a couple years later in the isolated Arizona town of Piedmont, the Army ends up getting more than it asked for. The Andromeda Strain follows Stone and rest of the scientific team mobilized to react to the Scoop crash as they scramble to understand and contain a strange and deadly outbreak. Crichton's first book may well be his best; it has an earnestness that is missing from his later, more calculated thrillers. --Paul Hughes

ISBN: 0451526341

ListPrice: $7.95

Edition: 50th anniv

Dimensions: 0.25 by 4.25 by 6.75 in.

Summary: Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as the Shortest Serious Novel It's OK to Write a Book Report About. (The latter is three pages longer and less fun to read.) Fueled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us.Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. --Joyce Thompson

ISBN: 0553273221

ListPrice: $6.99

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.50 by 4.25 by 7 in.

Summary: The Battle of Lexington becomes fifteen-year-old Adam Cooper's initiation into manhood

ISBN: 0440902851

ListPrice: $2.95

Edition: reissue

Summary: Recounts the adventures of Phileas Fogg and Passepartout who set out to prove that they can traverse the entire earth in eighty days

ISBN: 0553573012

ListPrice: $5.99

Edition: revised

Dimensions: 1.25 by 4.50 by 7 in.

Summary: A new edition features a comprehensive format, more than seventy thousand words and phrases, a classical and ecclesiastical pronunciation guide, and more. Original.

ISBN: 0451527402

ListPrice: $4.95

Dimensions: 0.50 by 4.50 by 7 in.

Summary: The oldest extant poem in a modern European language chronicles a feudal newly Christianized world still populated by the monsters and demons of the ancient world. Reprint.

ISBN: 0451192036

ListPrice: $6.99

Edition: 35th anniversary ed. / with an epilogue by the author and a new afterword by Robert Bonazzi.

Dimensions: 18 cm

Summary: A white writer recounts his experiences in the American South following treatments that darkened his skin and shares his thoughts on the problems of prejudice and racial injustice.

ISBN: 0449206513

ListPrice: $6.99

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.50 by 4.25 by 7 in.

Summary: A considerable formation of American warships plows through turbulent seas near Korea on a mission to destroy the Communist-held bridges at Toko-ri

ISBN: 0140440224

ListPrice: $4.95

Dimensions: 0.75 by 5.25 by 8 in.

Summary: On a spring day in April--sometime in the waning years of the 14th century--29 travelers set out for Canterbury on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas Beckett. Among them is a knight, a monk, a prioress, a plowman, a miller, a merchant, a clerk, and an oft-widowed wife from Bath. Travel is arduous and wearing; to maintain their spirits, this band of pilgrims entertains each other with a series of tall tales that span the spectrum of literary genres. Five hundred years later, people are still reading Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. If you haven't yet made the acquaintance of the Franklin, the Pardoner, or the Squire because you never learned Middle English, take heart: this edition of the Tales has been translated into modern idiom. From the heroic romance of "The Knight's Tale" to the low farce embodied in the stories of the Miller, the Reeve, and the Merchant, Chaucer treated such universal subjects as love, sex, and death in poetry that is simultaneously witty, insightful, and poignant. The Canterbury Tales is a grand tour of 14th-century English mores and morals--one that modern-day readers will enjoy.

ISBN: 0553149660

ListPrice: $2.50

Summary: Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins, "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them." His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.

ISBN: 0380010038

ListPrice: $4.95

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.50 by 4.25 by 7 in.

Summary: This award-winning novel remains a powerful classic of prejudice, love, and survival. In 1942, 11-year-old Phillip Enright lives with his parents on the Dutch island of Curaçao, but when the war moves too close for comfort, his mother decides to travel with him back to the safety of Virginia. When their boat is torpedoed, however, Phillip is blinded and finds himself adrift on a life raft with an old black man and a cat. They eventually land on a deserted island. Phillip is suspicious of "the large Negro," but soon grows to trust--and ultimately love--the patient and generous Timothy. Dedicated to "Dr. King's Dream," The Cay has a clear message that friendship is colorblind; it is also a terrific adventure story of a young, newly blinded man learning to survive on an uninhabited island. (Ages 12 and older) --Richard Farr

ISBN: 0553205900

ListPrice: $10.01

Summary: A time-and-motion expert and an industrial engineer attempt to raise twelve high-spirited children

ISBN: 034529730X

Summary:

ISBN: 0020264747

ListPrice: $9.00

Edition: 1st Collier Books ed.

Dimensions: 21 cm

Summary: An adaptation of Welsh mythology recounts the deeds of Bran the Blessed, the greatest of the children of Llyr

ISBN: 0449203344

ListPrice: $2.95

Summary: Few stories offer more warmth, wisdom, or generosity than this tale of two boys, their fathers, their friendship, and the chaotic times in which they live. Though on the surface it explores religious faith--the intellectually committed as well as the passionately observant--the struggles addressed in The Chosen are familiar to families of all faiths and in all nations. In 1940s Brooklyn, New York, an accident throws Reuven Malther and Danny Saunders together. Despite their differences (Reuven is a Modern Orthodox Jew with an intellectual, Zionist father; Danny is the brilliant son and rightful heir to a Hasidic rebbe), the young men form a deep, if unlikely, friendship. Together they negotiate adolescence, family conflicts, the crisis of faith engendered when Holocaust stories begin to emerge in the U.S., loss, love, and the journey to adulthood. The intellectual and spiritual clashes between fathers, between each son and his own father, and between the two young men, provide a unique backdrop for this exploration of fathers, sons, faith, loyalty, and, ultimately, the power of love. (This is not a conventional children's book, although it will move any wise child age 12 or older, and often appears on summer reading lists for high school students.)

ISBN: 0345354435

ListPrice: $5.95

Edition: revised

Summary:

ISBN: 0449241114

ListPrice: $3.50

Summary: Initially published nearly thirty years ago, Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave has been spellbinding readers and converting them into serious Arthurian buffs ever since. The first in a series of four books, this novel focuses on the early life of Merlin the magician, and the political developments of fifth-century Britain. Not for the fainthearted, this verbose text pays careful attention to historical details and methodical plot development. Merlin's childhood is formed by the absence of his reticent, convent-bound mother and his unnamed and unknown father. As the bastard grandson of a local king, Merlin is the object of both envy and ridicule. His strange powers and predictions earn him greater status as a pariah, and he leaves home as a preadolescent. Returning years later as a young man--empowered by self-knowledge and magic--Merlin finds himself caught in the currents of the shifting kingdoms. As an established classic in this genre, and the first in a popular series, The Crystal Cave introduces this familiar character with fresh sensitivity. While readers looking for the romance of First Knight will be disappointed, those happy with tight writing and a complex story line will be satisfied. --Nancy R.E. O'Brien

ISBN: 0553244590

ListPrice: $3.95

Summary:

ISBN: 0679853065

ListPrice: $5.50

Dimensions: 0.50 by 4.25 by 7 in.

Summary: To a thirteen-year-old Vermont farm boy whose father slaughters pigs for a living, maturity comes early as he learns 'doing what's got to be done,' especially regarding his pet pig who cannot produce a litter.

ISBN: 0553212710

ListPrice: $4.95

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.75 by 4.25 by 7 in.

Summary: The quintessential horror tale of the powerful, centuries-old vampire follows his bloodthirsty trail from the mountains of Central Europe to England, until the savvy Dr. Van Helsing comes up with a way to end his reign of terror. Reissue.

ISBN: 0812575717

ListPrice: $7.99

Dimensions: 1.25 by 4.25 by 7 in.

Summary: Ender's Shadow is being dubbed as a parallel novel to Orson Scott Card's Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Ender's Game. By "parallel," Card means that Shadow begins and ends at roughly the same time as Game, and it chronicles many of the same events. In fact, the two books tell an almost identical story of brilliant children being trained in the orbiting Battle School to lead humanity's fleets in the final war against alien invaders known as the Buggers. The most brilliant of these young recruits is Ender Wiggin, an unparalleled commander and tactician who can surely defeat the Buggers if only he can overcome his own inner turmoil. Second among the children is Bean, who becomes Ender's lieutenant despite the fact that he is the smallest and youngest of the Battle School students. Bean is the central character of Shadow, and we pick up his story when he is just a 2-year-old starving on the streets of a future Rotterdam that has become a hell on earth. Bean is unnaturally intelligent for his age, which is the only thing that allows him to escape--though not unscathed--the streets and eventually end up in Battle School. Despite his brilliance, however, Bean is doomed to live his life as an also-ran to the more famous and in many ways more brilliant Ender. Nonetheless, Bean learns things that Ender cannot or will not understand, and it falls to this once pathetic street urchin to carry the weight of a terrible burden that Ender must not be allowed to know. Although it may seem like Shadow is merely an attempt by Card to cash in on the success of his justly famous Ender's Game, that suspicion will dissipate once you turn the first few pages of this engrossing novel. It's clear that Bean has a story worth telling, and that Card (who started the project with a cowriter but later decided he wanted it all to himself) is driven to tell it. And though much of Ender's Game hinges on a surprise ending that Card fans are likely well acquainted with, Shadow manages to capitalize on that same surprise and even turn the table on readers. In the end, it seems a shame that Shadow, like Bean himself, will forever be eclipsed by the myth of Ender, because this is a novel that can easily stand on its own. Luckily for readers, Card has left plenty of room for a sequel, so we may well be seeing more of Bean in the near future. --Craig E. Engler

ISBN: 0590437151

ListPrice: $5.99

Edition: reprint

Dimensions: 0.75 by 4.25 by 6.75 in.

Summary: During the Nazi occupation of Poland, three children who have been separated from their family flee Warsaw

ISBN: 0553256793

ListPrice: $4.95

Dimensions: 18 cm

Summary:

ISBN: 0385495404

ListPrice: $17.00

Edition: 1 anchor

Dimensions: 1.50 by 5.10 by 8 in.

Summary: Drawing on previously unpublished letters, this meticulously researched biography captures the life and times of America's first Renaissance man, discussing his diverse roles as a scientist, businessman, philosopher, writer, inventor, diplomat, politician, wit, and Founding Father. Reprint. 60,000 first printing.

ISBN: 0964479699

ListPrice: $12.95

Summary:

ISBN: 0440327709

ListPrice: $7.50

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 1.50 by 4.25 by 7 in.

Summary: This is a long, satisfying, commanding novel of the soldiers who were poised on the brink of real manhood when World War II flung them unceremoniously into that abyss. Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt is the nonconformist hero who refuses to box at Schofield Barracks and is slowly destroyed by his own rebelliousness. Around him, others are fighing their own small battles--and losing. It's worth noting that Jones' 1951 audience was shocked by his frank language and the sexual preoccupations of his characters.

ISBN: 0440931800

ListPrice: $5.50

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.50 by 4.25 by 6.75 in.

Summary: After reading this book, I guarantee that you will never visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art (or any wonderful, old cavern of a museum) without sneaking into the bathrooms to look for Claudia and her brother Jamie. They're standing on the toilets, still, hiding until the museum closes and their adventure begins. Such is the impact of timeless novels . . . they never leave us. E. L. Konigsburg won the 1967 Newbery Medal for this tale of how Claudia and her brother run away to the museum in order to teach their parents a lesson. Little do they know that mystery awaits!

ISBN: 0451621220

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ISBN: 0060830743

ListPrice: $7.50

Dimensions: 1 by 4.25 by 7.25 in.

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ISBN: 0671496093

ListPrice: $3.95

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ISBN: 0394740564

ListPrice: $4.95

Summary: Grendel is a beautiful and heartbreaking modern retelling of the Beowulf epic from the point of view of the monster, Grendel, the villain of the 8th-century Anglo-Saxon epic. This book benefits from both of Gardner's careers: in addition to his work as a novelist, Gardner was a noted professor of medieval literature and a scholar of ancient languages.

ISBN: 034530103X

ListPrice: $2.25

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ISBN: 0553239112

ListPrice: $2.95

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ISBN: 0553212141

ListPrice: $4.95

Edition: reissue

Dimensions: 0.75 by 4.25 by 7 in.

Summary: Two short novels--Heart of Darkness a story of human savagery and corruption set in Africa, and The Secret Sharer, about the conflicting loyalties of a ship's officer forced to confront a profound moral dilemma - depict humankind's potential for good and evil. Reissue.

ISBN: 0679721037

ListPrice: $6.50

Edition: 1st Vintage Books ed.

Dimensions: 18 cm

Summary: When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, few could have anticipated its potential for devastation. Pulitzer prize-winning author John Hersey recorded the stories of Hiroshima residents shortly after the explosion and, in 1946, Hiroshima was published, giving the world first-hand accounts from people who had survived it. The words of Miss Sasaki, Dr. Fujii, Mrs. Nakamara, Father Kleinsorg, Dr. Sasaki, and the Reverend Tanimoto gave a face to the statistics that saturated the media and solicited an overwhelming public response. Whether you believe the bomb made the difference in the war or that it should never have been dropped, "Hiroshima" is a must read for all of us who live in the shadow of armed conflict.