Back in print after a decade, expanded with new original material, this is the first volume of George R. R. Martin's Wild cards shared-world series. There is a secret history of the world — a history in which an alien virus struck the Earth in the aftermath of World War II, endowing a handful of survivors with extraordinary powers. Some were called Aces — those with superhuman mental and physical abilities. Others were termed Jokers — cursed with bizarre mental or physical disabilities. Some turned their talents to the service of humanity. Others used their powers for evil. Wild Cards is their story. Originally published in 1987, Wild Cards I includes powerful tales by Roger Zelazny, Walter Jon Williams, Howard Waldrop, Lewis Shiner, and George R. R. Martin himself. And this new, expanded edition contains further original tales set at the beginning of the Wild Cards universe, by eminent new writers like Hugo-winner David Levine, noted screenwriter and novelist Michael Cassutt, and New York Times bestseller Carrie Vaughn.

The Macmillan Children's Readers bring together a variety of enjoyable fiction and non-fiction titles. Six colour coded levels, designed for children aged 6-12, stimulate the pupils' interest in reading and learning English. The Readers include activity pages and a picture dictionary or wordlist. The upper levels also have fact-files and non-fiction tales to grab the interest of both boys and girls.

First you take a drink, F. Scott Fitzgerald once noted, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you. Fitzgerald wrote alcohol into almost every one of his stories. On Booze gathers debutantes and dandies, rowdy jazz musicians, lost children and ragtime riff-raff into a newly compiled collection taken from The Crack-Up, and other works. On Booze portrays The Jazz Age as Fitzgerald experienced it: roaring, rambunctious, and lush with quite a hangover.

In 1998 Peter F. Hamilton, the master of space opera and top ten bestselling author, published his first collection of short stories in A Second Chance at Eden. Thirteen years later he returns to short fiction with a new collection. This includes 'Manhattan in Reverse, ' an original story featuring Hamilton's popular detective Paula Myo, from his bestselling Commonwealth series. From 'Watching Trees Grow' and a murder mystery set in an alternative Oxford in the 1800s, to 'The Forever Kitten' and the questions of eternal youth and the sacrifice required to pursue this, these stories deal with intricate themes and sociological issues. They take an intriguing look at what it is it that makes us enduringly human. With all his usual wonderfully imagined futuristic technology, complex characters and brilliantly conceived storytelling, Peter F. Hamilton shows yet again what makes him Britain's number one science fiction writer.

Over the last decade, through digital media, we have crossed a number of significant thresholds: the interconnection of over half of the world's adult population through mobile telephony and the internet and the devotion of more than half the waking hours of a western generation to mediated experience. Yet little mainstream thought has been given to what these transitions signify for the business of daily living; and what thought there has been too often focuses on grand claims of loss or gain. This book asks what it means not simply to live within a digital century, but to live well with it and within it. Unlike most other contemporary accounts, it is neither a tale of technology doom nor glory, but a pragmatic guide to what questions we need to ask of the world around us; what it might mean to answer these; and what practical steps might allow us all both to choose and to use the tools at our disposal, and to live within a digital century in as fully human a sense as possible.

Our relationship with money is one that lasts a lifetime. It can be as important as family life, as competitive as work, and as exciting and secretive as love. Yet books about money tend to take one of two routes: a) how to get more, or b) how to deal with less. This book turns these questions upside down, and looks not at money itself, but at the way we view it. How does money drive us? How does it frighten us? And how can it help us make sense of who we are? Money is too important a part of life for us not to worry about, but by approaching it differently, we can change the way we perceive its worth. With surprising and enlightening new insights, How to Worry Less About Money will help you realise what material wealth really means.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Sarah's Key and A Secret Kept comes an absorbing new novel about one woman's resistance during an epoque that shook Paris to its very core. Paris, France: 1860's. Hundreds of houses are being razed, whole neighborhoods reduced to ashes. By order of Emperor Napoleon III, Baron Haussman has set into motion a series of large-scale renovations that will permanently alter the face of old Paris, moulding it into a modern city. The reforms will erase generations of history — but in the midst of the tumult, one woman will take a stand. Rose Bazelet is determined to fight against the destruction of her family home until the very end; as others flee, she stakes her claim in the basement of the old house on rue Childebert, ignoring the sounds of change that come closer and closer each day. Attempting to overcome the loneliness of her daily life, she begins to write letters to Armand, her beloved late husband. And as she delves into the ritual of remembering, Rose is forced to come to terms with a secret that has been buried deep in her heart for thirty years. The House I Loved is both a poignant story of one woman's indelible strength, and an ode to Paris, where houses harbor the joys and sorrows of their inhabitants, and secrets endure in the very walls...

A wry exchange between an IT-savvy donkey, a book-loving ape and a mouse forms this playful and light-hearted look at the role of books in our digital age. With a subversive and signature Lane Smith twist, this satisfying and perfectly executed picture book has something to say to children and adults alike about the importance and joy of reading.

'Compulsive enough to read in a single sitting, brilliantly intelligent, elegantly constructed and ultimately intriguing' The Times First published in 2002, The Lovely Bones became an instant worldwide bestseller. There are now over ten million copies in print. A film adaptation of the novel, directed by Peter Jackson, was released in 2010. Susie Salmon was fourteen years old when she was murdered by a man from her neighbourhood. Now in heaven, she can have whatever she wishes for except the one thing she wants most: to be back with the people she loved on earth. Susie watches from above as her suburban family is torn apart by grief; as her friends grow up, fall in love, and do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. In time, Susie will realise that even in death, life is not quite out of reach... In 2012 Picador celebrate our 40th anniversary. During that time we have published many prize-winning and bestselling authors including Bret Easton Ellis and Cormac McCarthy, Alice Sebold and Helen Fielding, Graham Swift and Alan Hollinghurst. Years later, Picador continue to bring readers the very best contemporary fiction, non-fiction and poetry from across the globe.

The real events behind the highly-anticipated film starring Sean Penn and Ryan Gosling — A secret police force wages an all-out street war to drive gangs from Los Angeles after WWII Award-winning journalist Paul Lieberman's 7-part 2008 Los Angeles Times newspaper series on the Squad was optioned by Warner Bros. for feature film. The $60 million production is scheduled for US release on Oct. 19, 2012, backed by $50 Million in marketing, and it has already been scheduled for release in 7 foreign countries. An Executive Producer of the film, Lieberman worked for 24 years as an editor and writer for the L.A. Times and before that with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. For the L.A. Times series, he spent more than a decade tracking down surviving members of the secretive LAPD squad that battled Mickey Cohen and other hoodlums in 1950s L.A. He interviewed 150 people in all, including Cohen's associates, and assembled thousands of pages of documents, including grand jury transcripts, voluminous crime reports, old family letters and photos, and an LAPD study of every mob killing in the city from 1900 to 1951. Lieberman's book tells the story of two cops, O'Mara and Wooters, both of whom became obsessed with the Squad's priority target, the showboating Mickey Cohen. One set a trap for Mickey using his own guns, while the other formed an alliance with Mickey's fearless rival, Jack The Enforcer Whalen. Both of their crusades then came to a head on the same night in the last days of the 1950s. The film is already generating buzz, but more importantly, there is a huge audience of true crime as well as noir-era L.A. fans who are already excited to read the true, in-depth story of the Squad--after the newspaper series ran, Lieberman heard from thousands of readers asking When can I get the book? With the Warner Brothers PR machine generating tremendous anticipation for the movie, this audience will create tremendous demand for this harrowing, edge-of-your-seat narrative of murder and secrets, revenge and heroism in the City of Angels.

Millions of people around the world communicate better thanks to Mignon Fogarty, aka Grammar Girl, whose top-rated weekly grammar podcast has been downloaded more than 40 million times. Now she's turning her attention to improving our vocabulary — one troublesome word at a time. Do you run a gauntlet or gantlet? Do you choose between or among more than two things? How many way are there to spell Chanukah, and which is correct? Grammar Girl to the rescue! This handy reference guide contains 101 troublesome words defined and decoded so they'll never trouble you again. Full of clear, straightforward definitions and fun quotations from historic luminaries such as Benjamin Franklin and Louisa May Alcott, as well as contemporary notables such as David Sedaris and JK Rowling, this highly-useable guidebook gives you the tools to speak and write correctly at any occasion, setting you up for a lifetime of success.

When an eager and curious Jane Eyre arrives at Thornfield Hall her sexual desires are instantly awakened. Who is the enigmatic Rochester whom she instantly feels attracted to, what are the strange and yet captivating noises coming from the attic, and why does the very air she breathes feel heavy with passion? Only one thing Is certain. Jane Eyre may have arrived at Thornfield an unfulfilled and tentative woman, but she will leave a very different person...

The shadowy Gangster Squad was formed in 1946 with eight men operating out of two rusted old Fords. They had no office and made no arrests — the idea was to remain invisible. By the time I met Sgt. Jack O'Mara, most of the early members were dead, so I set out to find the survivors. Based on the hugely popular Los Angeles Times column LA Noir: Tales from the Gangster Squad, this is the dark-hearted true story of a group of men cleaning up the mean streets of post-War America. From hundreds of interviews with the original members of the team, Paul Lieberman stitches together the story of Jack O'Mara, his dangerous colleague Jerry Wooters (the killer cop, that's what they called me) and their anything-goes war with arch-criminal Mickey Cohen and his budding rival Jack The Enforcer Whalen. A tale of stake-outs, shoot-outs and even the famous Black Dahlia murder case, this is ice-cool narrative non-fiction at its best — and the basis for a huge Warner Brothers film of the same name, starring Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Josh Brolin and Emma Stone.

In 1941, mixed race Ruby Darke is born into a family that seem to hate her, but why? While her two brothers dive into a life of gangland violence, Ruby has to work in their family store. As she blossoms into a beautiful young woman she crosses paths with aristocrat Cornelius Bray, a chance meeting that will change her life forever. When she finds herself pregnant, and then has twins, she is forced to give her children away. At that point she vows never to trust another man again. As the years pass, Ruby never forgets her babies, and as the family store turns into a retail empire, Ruby wants her children back. But secrets were whispered and bargains made, and if Ruby wants to stay alive she needs to forget the past, or the past will come back and kill her.

Hazel Bannock is the owner of the Bannock Oil Corp, one of the major global oil producers. While cruising in the Indian Ocean, her yacht is hijacked by Somalian pirates and her nineteen year old daughter Cayla kidnapped. Major Hector Cross is an ex-SAS operative and the man behind Cross Bow Security, the company contracted to Bannock Oil to provide all their security. His loyalty to the Bannock family goes beyond the call of duty. The pirates demand a crippling ransom for Cayla's release, and complicated political and diplomatic sensitivities render the major powers incapable of intervening. With growing evidence of the horrific torture to which Cayla is being subjected, Hazel calls on Hector to help her rescue her daughter. Between them, Hazel and Hector are determined to take the law into their own hands.

Imagine that your life is a film directed by God. A romcom, obviously, complete with happy-ever-after ending. There will be tears, tantrums and misunderstandings, but you know you'll get there — and get your girl — in the end. Welcome to Pat's world. It's a world of silver linings and true love, but also a world where God makes movies and Kenny G lurks in your attic — and when Pat befriends the tragic Tiffany, he begins to question whether or not he might have got the genre wrong. The Silver Linings Playbook is a novel about love, life and American football... and what happens when the woman you love isn't the woman of your dreams. 'A captivating, life-affirming read, guaranteed to be the feelgood book of the year' Liz Jensen 'Delightful... a smart, touching, quirky read' Scotland on Sunday

Babe, Grace and Millie have been best friends since their first day at kindergarten. Now they are newly married, and the men have gone to war. They thrive on letters from their absent sweethearts, and on the closeness they've always shared. And then, on a single morning in 1944, no fewer than sixteen telegrams arrive, bringing news of the worst kind from the War Department. For Babe, Grace and Millie, life will never be the same again. Each must face the challenges of the years ahead, the changes taking place in America and far closer to home, which are enough to test even the deepest of friendships and most hopeful of hearts... 'Haunting and profoundly moving... Feldman's characters live and love with breathtaking intensity' Booklist 'Intelligent, elegant and moving' Guardian 'A celebration of friendship, full of tragedy and hope' ASOS magazine.

English World is a 10-level course created by the best-selling authors of titles such as Way Ahead and Macmillan English. It offers a unique blend of first-language learning and teaching methodology combined with the needs of the non-native student. The Workbook offers extended practice with additional student support on the Workbook CD-ROM, including student audio material, the pronunciation chart with activities, and interactive games.

English World is a 10-level course created by the best-selling authors of titles such as Way Ahead and Macmillan English. It offers a unique blend of first-language learning and teaching methodology combined with the needs of the non-native student. Exam preparation and testing is included in the Exam Practice Book (which replaces the Grammar Practice Book used in the primary levels 1-6).

English World is a 10-level course created by the best-selling authors of titles such as Way Ahead and Macmillan English. It offers a unique blend of first-language learning and teaching methodology combined with the needs of the non-native student. A wealth of reading material is presented as the vehicle for teaching grammar accuracy, along with fluency in writing, speaking and listening, and strategies for vocabulary building.