From the author of The Satanic Verses and Midnight's Children, which was awarded the Best of the Booker Prize in 1993, comes an unflinchingly honest and fiercely funny account of a life turned upside-down. On Valentine's Day, 1989, Salman Rushdie received a telephone call from a BBC journalist that would change his life forever: Ayatollah Khomeini, a leading Muslim scholar, had issued him with a death sentence. This is his own account of how he was forced to live in hiding for over a decade; at once intimate and explosive, this is the personal tale behind the international story. How does a man live with the constant threat of murder? How does he continue to work when deprived of his freedom? How does he sustain friendships, or fall in and out of love? How does he fight back? For over a decade, Salman Rushdie dwelt in a world of secrecy and disguise, a world of security guards and armoured cars, of aliases and code names. In Joseph Anton, Rushdie tells the remarkable story of one of the crucial battles, in our time, for freedom of speech. It is shortlisted for the James Tait Black Biography Prize.

Struck by a bolt of lightning and doused in chemicals, Central City Police scientist Barry Allen was transformed into the fastest man alive. Tapping into the energy field called The Speed Force, he applies a tenacious sense of justice to protect an serve the world as The Flash! The Fastest Man Alive returns to his own monthly series as part of the DC Comics — The New 52 event with the writer/artist team of Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato. The Flash knows he can't be everywhere at once, but he has seemingly met his match when he faces DC Comic' hottest new Super Villain, Mob Rule, who really can be everywhere at once! As Mob Rule wages a campaign of crime across Central City, including an electromagnetic blast that plunges the city into darkness, The Flash learns the the only way he can capture Mob Rule and save Central City is to learn how to make his brain function even faster than before — but as much as it helps him, it also comes with a steep price. This volume collects issues 1-8 of the monthly series.

This National Book Award Finalist is soon to be a major motion picture — one of the most buzzed-about films at Sundance 2013, starring Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller. SUTTER KEELY. HE'S the guy you want at your party. He'll get everyone dancing. He' ll get everyone in your parents' pool. Okay, so he's not exactly a shining academic star. He has no plans for college and will probably end up folding men's shirts for a living. But there are plenty of ladies in town, and with the help of Dean Martin and Seagram's V.O., life's pretty fabuloso, actually. Until the morning he wakes up on a random front lawn, and he meets Aimee. Aimee's clueless. Aimee is a social disaster. Aimee needs help, and it's up to the Sutterman to show Aimee a splendiferous time and then let her go forth and prosper. But Aimee's not like other girls, and before long he's in way over his head. For the first time in his life, he has the power to make a difference in someone else's life — or ruin it forever.

Who can afford not to understand the USA? Many facets of American life have been embraced around the world, yet the sense of just like in the movies familiarity that first-time visitors often feel can be misleading. Underneath the gleaming smile of American popular culture lies a rich and complex society that brims with contrasts and contradictions. It is a culture of rugged individualism, of go-getters, of high-tech high achievers. At the same time it is a deeply religious country with a quiet devotion to church and charitable works. This updated new edition of Culture Smart! USA also reveals a society in transition. The USA responded to the 9/11 attacks by embarking on two overseas wars, while at home the subprime mortgage crisis rippled through the economy, bringing the first African-American president to power during the biggest recession since the 1920s. In an increasingly polarized political and cultural climate, and with an ever widening gap between the haves and the have-nots, the rise of the social media has given more Americans a voice, from the Tea Party on the right to the Occupy Wall Street movement on the left. As Americans wake up to a changing world where their global economic dominance is no longer assured, attitudes and behavior are being challenged and reassessed across the land. Culture Smart! USA takes you on a tour of the core influences and ideals that have shaped this great country and have driven the behavior and attitudes found on Main Street and in the workplace. It looks at Americans at work, at home, and at play, and provides the visitor with an up-to-date cultural road map of this dynamic, multifaceted society.

In a half-built mansion in Los Angeles, a watchman stumbles onto the bodies of a young couple—murdered and left in a gruesome postmortem embrace. Veteran homicide cop Milo Sturgis is shocked at the sight: a twisted crime that only Milo and psychologist Alex Delaware can hope to solve. While the female victim’s identity remains in question, her companion is ID’d as eco-friendly architect Desmond Backer, notorious for his power to seduce women. The deeper Milo and Alex dig for clues, the longer the list of suspects grows. But when the investigation veers suddenly in a startling direction, it’s the investigators who may wind up on the wrong end of a cornered predator’s final fury.

When Helen Fielding first wrote Bridget Jones' Diary, charting the life of a 30-something singleton in London in the 1990s, she introduced readers to one of the most beloved characters in modern literature. The book was published in 40 countries, sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, and spawned a best-selling sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. The two books were turned into major blockbuster films starring Renee Zellweger, Hugh Grant and Colin Firth. With her hotly anticipated third instalment, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, Fielding introduces us to a whole new enticing phase of Bridget's life set in contemporary London, including the challenges of maintaining sex appeal as the years roll by and the nightmare of drunken texting, the skinny jean, the disastrous email cc, total lack of twitter followers, and TVs that need 90 buttons and three remotes to simply turn on. An uproariously funny novel of modern life, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is a triumphant return of our favourite Everywoman.

Meet Raymond Gunt. A decent chap who does the right thing. Or, to put it another way, the worst person ever: a foul-mouthed, misanthropic cameraman, trailing creditors, ex-wives and homeless people in his wake. Men dislike him, women flee from him. Worst. Person. Ever. is a deeply unworthy book about a dreadful human being with absolutely no redeeming social value. Gunt, in the words of the author, is a living, walking, talking, hot steaming pile of pure id. He's a B-unit cameraman who enters an amusing downward failure spiral that takes him from London to Los Angeles and then on to an obscure island in the Pacific where a major American TV network is shooting a Survivor-style reality show. Along the way, Gunt suffers multiple comas and unjust imprisonment, is forced to re-enact the 'Angry Dance' from the movie Billy Elliot and finds himself at the centre of a nuclear war. We also meet Raymond's upwardly failing sidekick, Neal, as well as Raymond's ex-wife, Fiona, herself 'an atomic bomb of pain'. Even though he really puts the 'anti' in anti-hero, you may find Raymond Gunt an oddly likeable character.

'I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. And I'm the man who's going to save your life.' He's made a mark on almost every era of history, and he's touched millions of lives across space and time. In these pages you'll find just some of the stories behind those brief encounters, each of them addressing the question that must never, ever be answered: 'Doctor Who?' This is the story of an impossible life — of a man who borrowed a spaceship, travelled through time and continually saved the universe — as told by the Doctor's friends, by his enemies, and by the man himself. Letters, journals, trial records, secret government files and the occasional bit of tabloid journalism reveal the never-before-told story of Gallifrey's last Time Lord.

1500BC — King Actaeus and his subjects live in mortal fear of the awesome gods who have come to visit their kingdom in ancient Greece. Except the Doctor, visiting with university student June, knows they're not gods at all. They're aliens. For the aliens, it's the perfect holiday — they get to tour the sights of a primitive planet and even take part in local customs. Like gladiatorial games, or hunting down and killing humans who won't be missed. With June's enthusiastic help, the Doctor soon meets the travel agents behind this deadly package holiday company — his old enemies the Slitheen. But can he bring the Slitheen excursion to an end without endangering more lives? And how are events in ancient Greece linked to a modern-day alien plot to destroy what's left of the Parthenon? Featuring the Tenth Doctor as played by David Tennant in the hit Doctor Who BBC Television series.

The Castor, a vast starship, seemingly deserted and spinning slowly in the void of deep space. Martha and the Doctor explore the drifting tomb, and discover that they may not be alone after all... Who survived the disaster that overcame the rest of the crew? What continues to power the vessel? And why has a stretch of wooded countryside suddenly appeared in the middle of the craft? As the Doctor and Martha journey through the forest, they find a mysterious, fogbound village — a village traumatised by missing children and tales of its own destruction... Featuring the Tenth Doctor and Martha as played by David Tennant and Freema Agyeman in the hit sci-fi series from BBC Television.

Dodger is a tosher — a sewer scavenger living in the squalor of Dickensian London. Everyone who is nobody knows Dodger. Anyone who is anybody doesn't. But when he rescues a young girl from a beating, suddenly everybody wants to know him. And Dodger's tale of skulduggery, dark plans and even darker deeds begins...

With the festive season almost upon him, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson is winding down at work and gearing up socially — kicking off Christmas with a week of sex and drugs in Amsterdam. There are irritating flies in the ointment, though, including a missing wife, a nagging cocaine habit, a dramatic deterioration in his genital health, a string of increasingly demanding extra-marital affairs. The last thing he needs is a messy murder to solve. Still it will mean plenty of overtime, a chance to stitch up some colleagues and finally clinch the promotion he craves. But as Bruce spirals through the lower reaches of degradation and evil, he encounters opposition — in the form of truth and ethical conscience — from the most unexpected quarter of all: his anus. In Bruce Robertson, Welsh has created one of the most corrupt, misanthropic characters in contemporary fiction and has written a dark, disturbing and very funny novel about sleaze, power, and the abuse of everything. At last, a novel that lives up to its name.

It's Christmas Eve in Washington DC, Detective Alex Cross is at home with his family decorating the tree and enjoying a Cross family tradition, a big bowl of egg nog, when he receives a phone call that causes the festivities to be put on hold. Across town in a mansion house, Henry Fowler, a hard-nosed corporate lawyer turned small-time drug hustler, is holding his children, his ex-wife, her new husband and a neighbour at gun point. High on crystal meth and heavily armed, Fowler is refusing to speak with the negotiator. As an expert in hostage situations, Alex has been called in to try and save a potential massacre. But with Fowler crazed and irrational, will Alex be able to save the lives of these hostages, as well as coming out alive himself? At the same time, international terrorist Hala al Dossari has been planning a devastating attack to strike at the heart of the Western world on the most important day of the year — Christmas Day.

In the long-awaited follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag, acclaimed journalist Anne Applebaum delivers a groundbreaking history of how Communism took over Eastern Europe after World War II and transformed in frightening fashion the individuals who came under its sway. At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In Iron Curtain, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum describes how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created and what daily life was like once they were complete. She draws on newly opened East European archives, interviews, and personal accounts translated for the first time to portray in devastating detail the dilemmas faced by millions of individuals trying to adjust to a way of life that challenged their every belief and took away everything they had accumulated. Today the Soviet Bloc is a lost civilization, one whose cruelty, paranoia, bizarre morality, and strange aesthetics Applebaum captures in the electrifying pages of Iron Curtain.

«Inspired by the master of literature, this is a humorous retelling of George Lucas' epic «Star Wars». The text is accompanied by fantastic Elizabethan woodcut illustrations of Chewbacca, C-3PO and other classic characters. Students, scholars and general readers will appreciate the humour and impressive attention to detail. Who knew iambic pentameter could be so funny?»

The Wheel. A ring of ice and steel turning around a moon of Saturn, and home to a mining colony supplying a resource-hungry Earth. It's a bad place to grow up. The colony has been plagued by problems. Maybe it's just gremlins, just bad luck. But the equipment failures and thefts of resources have been increasing, and there have been stories among the children of mysterious creatures glimpsed aboard the Wheel. Many of the younger workers refuse to go down the warren-like mines anymore. And then sixteen-year-old Phee Laws, surfing Saturn's rings, saves an enigmatic blue box from destruction. Aboard the Wheel, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe find a critical situation — and they are suspected by some as the source of the sabotage. They soon find themselves caught in a mystery that goes right back to the creation of the solar system. A mystery that could kill them all.

Roll up! Roll up! Read all about it! Ladies and Gents, Sir Jack Dodger brings you a most excellent Guide to London! Did you know? If a Victorian couldn't afford a sweep, they might drop a goose down their chimney to clean it! A posh lady's unmentionables could weigh up to 40lbs! Parliament had to be suspended during the Great Stink of 1858! From the wretches of the rookeries to the posh nobs at Buckingham Palace, Dodger will show you every dirty inch of London. Warning: Includes horrible murders, naughty ladies and plenty of geezers!

On the night Malcolm and Maud Angel are murdered, their daughter, Tandy, knows just three things: she was one of the last people to see her parents alive; she and her brothers are the only suspects; she can't trust anyone — maybe not even herself. Having grown up under their parents' intense perfectionist demands, none of the Angel children have come away undamaged. Tandy decides that she will have to solve the crime on her own, but digging deeper into her powerful parents' affairs is a dangerous game. As she uncovers haunting secrets and slowly begins to remember flashes of disturbing past events buried in her memory, Tandy is forced to ask: What is the Angel family truly capable of? Returning to the genre that made him the world's bestselling author, James Patterson introduces a teen detective on a mission to bring her parents' killer to justice, even if it means uncovering her family's darkest secrets — and confessing some of her own.

The Novrosk Peninsula: the Soviet naval base has been abandoned, the nuclear submarines are rusting and rotting. Cold, isolated, forgotten. Until the Russian Special Forces arrive and discover that the Doctor and his companions are here too. But there is something else in Novrosk. Something that predates even the stone circle on the cliff top. Something that is at last waking, hunting, killing. Can the Doctor and his friends stay alive long enough to learn the truth? With time running out, they must discover who is really responsible for the Deviant Strain... Featuring the Ninth Doctor as played by Christopher Eccleston, together with Rose and Captain Jack as played by Billie Piper and John Barrowman in the hit Doctor Who series from BBC Television.

When the Tardis makes a disastrous landing in the swamps of the planet Sunday, the Doctor has no choice but to abandon Martha and try to find help. But the tranquility of Sunday's swamps is deceptive, and even the Tardis can't protect Martha forever. The human pioneers of Sunday have their own dangers to face: homeless and alone, they're only just starting to realise that Sunday's wildlife isn't as harmless as it first seems. Why are the native otters behaving so strangely, and what is the creature in the swamps that is so interested in the humans, and the new arrivals? The Doctor and Martha must fight to ensure that human intelligence doesn't become the greatest danger of all.