What was life in the Red Army like for the ordinary soldier during the Great Patriotic War, the fight between the Soviet Union and Germany on the Eastern Front? How far is the common perception of Red Army heroism and sacrifice borne out by historical reality? And what was the daily experience of the individual soldier caught up in this immense and ruthless conflict? The 160 contemporary photographs from the Russian archives that have been selected for this book give a striking insight into all sides of wartime service for the Soviet soldier. The whole range of military experience is portrayed here, from recruitment and the rigors of training to transport, marching and the ordeal of combat.

A leading historian re-creates the final hours of peace in Europe. On August 24, 1939, the world held its collective breath as Hitler and Stalin signed the now infamous nonaggression pact, signaling an imminent invasion of Poland and daring Western Europe to respond. In this dramatic account of the final days before the outbreak of World War II, award-winning historian Richard Overy vividly chronicles the unraveling of peace, hour by grim hour, as politicians and ordinary citizens brace themselves for a war that could spell the end of European civilization. Nothing was entirely predictable or inevitable. The West hoped that Hitler would see sense if they stood firm. Hitler was convinced the West would back down. Moments of uncertainty alternated with those of confrontation; secret intelligence was used by both sides to support their hopes. The one constant feature was the determination of Poland, a country created only in 1919, to protect its newfound independence against a vastly superior enemy. 1939 documents a defining moment in the violent history of the twentieth century.

After the extraordinary success of Water for Elephants, with 3 million copies shipped, Sara Gruen returns with another immensely charming, endlessly surprising, and engaging novel in which a family of apes teaches us what it means to be human. Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants has become one of the most beloved and bestselling novels of our time. Now Gruen has moved from a circus elephant to family of bonobo apes. When the apes are kidnapped from a language laboratory, their mysterious appearance on a reality TV show calls into question our assumptions about these animals who share 99.4% of our DNA. A devoted animal lover, Gruen has had a life-long fascination with human-ape discourse, and a particular interest in Bonobo apes, who share 99.4% of our DNA. She has studied linguistics and a system of lexigrams in order to communicate with apes, and is one of the few visitors who has been allowed access to the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, where the apes have come to love her. In bringing her experience and research to bear on this novel, she opens the animal world to us as few novelists have done. Ape House is a riveting, funny, compassionate, and, finally, deeply moving new novel that secures Sara Gruen's place as a master storyteller who allows us to see ourselves as we never have before.

In this latest, felicitous addition to the Isabel Dalhousie series, our inquisitive heroine comes to see that there are very few of us who are not flawed... herself included. A couple who are old friends of Isabel's ask for her help in a rather tricky situation: A successor is being sought for the headmaster position at their alma mater. The board has four final candidates but has received an anonymous letter alleging that one of them has a very serious skeleton in the closet. Could Isabel discreetly look into it? And so she does. What she discovers about all the candidates is surprising, but what she discovers in herself turns out to be equally revealing — and she finds that she has also unwittingly upset Jamie, the father of her young son. Isabel's investigation will have her exploring issues of charity, forgiveness, and humility as she moves nearer and nearer to some of the most hidden precincts of the heart.

From the author of the adult bestsellers Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game comes an atmospheric, adventurous YA ghost story about a mysterious house that harbors an unimaginable secret.

The remarkable renaissance of Patricia Highsmith continues with the publication of The Highsmith Reader, featuring two groundbreaking novels as well as a trove of penetrating short stories. With a critical introduction by Joan Schenkar, situating Highsmith's classic works within her own tumultuous life, this book provides a useful guide to some of her most dazzlingly seductive writing. Strangers on a Train (1950), transformed into a legendary film by Alfred Hitchcock, displays Highsmith's genius for psychological characterization and tortuous suspense, while The Price of Salt (1952), with its lesbian lovers and a creepy PI, provides a thrilling and highly controversial depiction of the love that dare not speak its name. The Highsmith Reader firmly establishes Highsmith's centrality to American culture by presenting key works that went on to influence a half-century of literature and film. Abandoned by the wider reading public in her lifetime, Highsmith finally gets the canonical recognition that is her due.

A major new history of the eight days in February 1945 when FDR, Churchill, and Stalin decided the fate of the world Imagine you could eavesdrop on a dinner party with three of the most fascinating historical figures of all time. In this landmark book, a gifted Harvard historian puts you in the room with Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt as they meet at a climactic turning point in the war to hash out the terms of the peace. The ink wasn't dry when the recriminations began. The conservatives who hated Roosevelt's New Deal accused him of selling out. Was he too sick? Did he give too much in exchange for Stalin's promise to join the war against Japan? Could he have done better in Eastern Europe? Both Left and Right would blame Yalta for beginning the Cold War. Plokhy's conclusions, based on unprecedented archival research, are surprising. He goes against conventional wisdom-cemented during the Cold War — and argues that an ailing Roosevelt did better than we think. Much has been made of FDR's handling of the Depression; here we see him as wartime chief. Yalta is authoritative, original, vividly — written narrative history, and is sure to appeal to fans of Margaret MacMillan's bestseller Paris 1919.

This fantastic new collection picks up where Dorothy L. Sayers' landmark 1929 anthology The Omnibus of Crime left off, bringing together monumental, important, and entertaining works of short crime fiction published over eight decades from the era of the Great Depression to the first years of the twenty-first century. In lively introductory essays, celebrated crime writer Tony Hillerman and critic Rosemary Herbert place each story in the context of the author's work and the genre's literary history. Their extraordinary collection is international in scope and emphasizes the most exciting styles and voices, rather than taking a typical decade-by-decade approach. As a result A New Omnibus of Crime is packed with page-turning, engaging, and spine-tingling selections. Stories in this collection include Patricia Highsmith's Woodrow Wilson's Necktie, Sue Grafton's A Poison That Leaves No Trace, and many more, including never-before-published works from Jefferey Deaver, Catherine Aird, and Alexander McCall Smith. A New Omnibus of Crime is a marvelous achievement that brings together some of the greatest crime and mystery short fiction ever collected. Showcasing the work of such revered authors as Dashiell Hammett, P.D James, Ross Macdonald, Sara Paretsky, Ruth Rendell, and Elmore Leonard, it is a definitive volume that will be treasured by all fans of the genre. Essential for anyone with more than a passing interest in detective fiction. Brilliantly assembled, and beautifully edited by people who know what they're doing. Robert B. Parker, author of Cold Service and Resolution. This recent anthology boldly evokes the title of Dorothy Sayers's classic anthology of 1920. The editors aim to showcase the work of the four-score-and-seven years since. Here you'll find the whole gamut, from the tough-guy patter of hard-boiled Raymond Chandler to the more decorous detection practiced by Miss Sayers. David Lehman, Wall Street Journal. The best and most satisfying mystery bargain to come along in years. It will give readers countless hours of pleasure and surprise in one volume. Cleveland Plain Dealer Not a clunker in the bunch... There have been numerous collections since Dorothy L. Sayers', but until now, none has had the depth, intelligence and chutzpah to call itself A New Omnibus of Crime.

By overwhelming popular demand, Stoo Hample's 1961 classic now features a reissue of the recording that inspired a generation of gigglers. I am silly, You are silly, All of us are silly, Willy. And everything in THE SILLY BOOK and THE SILLY RECORD is the silly-willynilliest! There are songy sills (oops!) — silly songs, silly stories, silly poems, silly secrets, silly things to do, a silly good-night, and even silly nothings. Anyone who reads this book — and hears this CD — will laugh like anything, or else turn into a bathtub. First published almost fifty years ago, when it became an uproariously silly success, THE SILLY BOOK and its companion, THE SILLY RECORD, are guaranteed to cause children (and nostalgic adults) to giggle like gigglecopters, roll on the floor, and cheer Boodleheimer, Boodleheimer (CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!).

As a young boy he re-enacted historic battles with toy soldiers, as a soldier he saw action on three continents and as the Prime Minister only a direct edict from King George VI could keep him from joining the troops on D-Day. CHURCHILL'S WAR LAB will reveal how Churchill's passion for military history, his unique leadership style and his patronization of radical new ideas would lead to new technology and new tactics that would save lives and enable an Allied victory. No war generated more incredible theories, more technical advances, more scientific leaps or more pioneering work that lay the foundation for the post-war computer revolution. And it was Churchill's dogged determination and enthusiasm for revolutionary ideas that fuelled this extraordinary outpouring of British genius. From the co-author of COLD WAR comes an exciting new take on Churchill's war leadership and the story of a complex, powerful and inventive war leader.

He should have seen it coming. His life had been one mishap after another. So he should have been prepared for this one. Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular and disappointed BBC worker, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they've never quite lost touch with each other — or with their former teacher, Libor Sevick, a Czechoslovakian always more concerned with the wider world than with exam results. Now, both Libor and Finkler are recently widowed, and with Treslove, his chequered and unsuccessful record with women rendering him an honorary third widower, they dine at Libor's grand, central London apartment. It's a sweetly painful evening of reminiscence in which all three remove themselves to a time before they had loved and lost; a time before they had fathered children, before the devastation of separations, before they had prized anything greatly enough to fear the loss of it. Better, perhaps, to go through life without knowing happiness at all because that way you had less to mourn? Treslove finds he has tears enough for the unbearable sadness of both his friends' losses. And it's that very evening, at exactly 11:30pm, as Treslove hesitates a moment outside the window of the oldest violin dealer in the country as he walks home, that he is attacked. After this, his whole sense of who and what he is will slowly and ineluctably change. The Finkler Question is a scorching story of exclusion and belonging, justice and love, aging, wisdom and humanity. Funny, furious, unflinching, this extraordinary novel shows one of our finest writers at his brilliant best.

In the shadow of King Vaslav's Palace was a marvelous garden, and in the middle of that garden stood a tree that grew apples of solid gold, each one as dazzling as the sun. Someone is stealing the king's famous golden apples, and the culprit must be found. The palace gardener spots the luminous Firebird snatching the apples in the night. The king's two oldest sons are sent to capture it but fail. So Ivan, the youngest son, must go on the dangerous quest, befriending a gray wolf, winning both the Firebird and the heart of the beautiful Princess Helen. Saviour Pirotta's powerful retelling of this classic folktale plumbs the heart of human fears, courage, and love.

The Little Princess wants to have two birthdays, just like the Queen, which means twice as many presents every year! When she realizes how much fun two birthdays are, she decides she wants three, then four. But the more birthdays she has, the less special they are. Perhaps having one birthday a year isn't so boring after all.

Every kid knows that pirates talk funny, swing a big sword, and seek buried treasure — don’t they? What do we really know about Blackbeard, Madame Cheng, Sir Francis Drake, and other men and women of pirate history? What drove them to sail the high seas? What were their bad habits, favorite foods, and silly quirks? And did they actually talk like that? A lively style, lots of surprises, and solid research have made the Lives of... series of collective biographies popular with both kids and adults. Now the series returns, spanning the globe with profiles of the nineteen most notorious pirates in history.

Guy Browning's Christmas bestseller is finally available in paperback. Just imagine how much easier life would be if you knew what you were doing. Wouldn't it be great to have clear, precise instructions for all those things you normally mess up? Here, for the first time in a perfectly portable paperback, are the essential rules for handling life's unavoidable little problems — handy, practical tips such as: what to do with your arm when you've failed to hail a taxi; how to share a romantic bath while avoiding the taps; how to give clear directions to a place you've never heard of; and the politest place to look in a full-length mirror. Never Push When It Says Pull will help eliminate minor social embarrassment, ease social intercourse, and prevent night sweats.

The literary event of the summer: a new novel from Ian McEwan, as surprising as it is masterful. Michael Beard is a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him. Trading on his reputation, he speaks for enormous fees, lends his name to the letterheads of renowned scientific institutions, and half-heartedly heads a government-backed initiative tackling global warming. While he coasts along in his professional life, Michael's personal life is another matter entirely. His fifth marriage is crumbling under the weight of his infidelities. But this time the tables are turned: His wife is having an affair, and Michael realizes he is still in love with her. When Michael's personal and professional lives begin to intersect in unexpected ways, an opportunity presents itself in the guise of an invitation to travel to New Mexico. Here is a chance for him to extricate himself from his marital problems, reinvigorate his career, and very possibly save the world from environmental disaster. Can a man who has made a mess of his life clean up the messes of humanity? A complex novel that brilliantly traces the arc of one man's ambitions and self-deceptions, Solar is a startling, witty, and stylish new work from one of the world's great writers.

When Alton is asked by his ageing, blind uncle to attend bridge games with him, he does as he's told. After all, it's better than a crappy summer job in the local shopping mall, and Alton's mother thinks it might secure their way to a good inheritance sometime in the future. But, like all apparently casual choices in any of Louis Sachar's wonderful books, this choice soon turns out to be a lot more complex than Alton could ever have imagined. As his relationship with his uncle develops, and he meets the very attractive Toni, deeply buried secrets are uncovered and a romance that spans decades is finally brought to a conclusion. Alton's mother is in for a surprise!

All offers of surrender from Leningrad must be rejected, wrote Adolph Hitler on September 29, 1941. In this struggle for survival, we have no interest in keeping even a proportion of the city's population alive. During the 900-day siege that followed, the German High Command deliberately planned to eradicate the city's population through starvation. By the time the siege ended in January 1944, almost a million people had died. In Leningrad, military historian Michael Jones chronicles the horrors of this epic siege, while at the same time portraying the astonishing power of the human will in the face of even the direst catastrophe. Drawing on newly available sources, Leningrad is a riveting account of one of the most harrowing sieges of world history.

You've reached the age at which people in this family cross the border into the magical world. It's your turn for an adventure — yes, it's finally here! So says Haroun to his younger brother, twelve-year-old Luka, in Salman Rushdie's thrilling, delightful, lyrically crafted fable for the young and young at heart. The adventure begins one beautiful starry night in the land of Alifbay, where a terrible thing happens: Luka's father, Rashid, the legendary storyteller of Kahani, falls suddenly and inexplicably into a sleep so deep that nothing and no one can rouse him. To save him from slipping away entirely, Luka must embark on a journey through the world of magic with his loyal companions, Bear the dog and Dog the bear, as they encounter a slew of fantastical creatures, strange allies, and challenging obstacles along the way — all in the hopes of stealing the Fire of Life, a seemingly impossible and exceedingly treacherous task. Filled with frolicking wordplay and unexpected twists, and fueled by the power of words and the imagination, this is Salman Rushdie at his best.

The newly updated American Heritage High School Dictionary, Fourth Edition, offers the distinctive qualities that characterize the American Heritage line without including obscene words or offensive slurs. The dictionary features a modern, readable defining style, helpful guidance on English usage, and more than 2,500 photographs and drawings that enhance definitions and invite browsing. New to this updated release are recently prominent terms such as edamame, ringtone, sandboard, spyware, and Texas hold’em, and biographical entries for figures such as newly appointed Supreme Court justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. Additionally, the Periodic Table of the Elements now includes the newest element, roentgenium, and the geographical entries reflect up-to-date geopolitical changes, such as the recent dissolution of Serbia and Montenegro. Usage notes based on the opinions of the renowned American Heritage Usage Panel help the reader discern the difference between the conventional and the quirky in language use. Special features on synonyms, regionalisms, and word histories enrich vocabulary and show how language changes over time. The American Heritage High School Dictionary, Fourth Edition, is the most comprehensive high school dictionary available today.