«Marriage can be a real killer. One of the most critically acclaimed suspense writers of our time, New York Times bestseller Gillian Flynn takes that statement to its darkest place in this unputdownable masterpiece about a marriage gone terribly, terribly wrong. The Chicago Tribune proclaimed that her work «draws you in and keeps you reading with the force of a pure but nasty addiction.» Gone Girl's toxic mix of sharp-edged wit and deliciously chilling prose creates a nerve-fraying thriller that confounds you at every turn. On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne's fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick's clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn't doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife's head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media-as well as Amy's fiercely doting parents-the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he's definitely bitter-but is he really a killer? As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn't do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet? With her razor-sharp writing and trademark psychological insight, Gillian Flynn delivers a fast-paced, devilishly dark, and ingeniously plotted thriller that confirms her status as one of the hottest writers around.»

Jack and Annie are ready for their next fantasy adventure in the bestselling middle-grade series — the Magic Tree House! Jack and Annie's mission from Merlin the Magician? To help the famous writer Charles Dickens! In a magical whirl, the brother and sister are whisked back in time to Victorian England and the foggy streets of London. There, Jack and Annie discover that Charles Dickens has everything he could possibly want. How can they help him? It is not until Mr. Dickens rescues them from being thrown in jail that they discover his secret past and the sad memories that haunt him. They will need all their magic — and help from three ghosts — to keep the great writer from ruining his life! Mary Pope Osborne mixes magic, humor, history, a little spookiness, and a lot of heart to create this tale, which celebrates the joys of writing — something she knows a lot about, thanks to millions of readers all over the world! This is the perfect book for boys and girls about to see the classic play A Christmas Carol.

Attempts to shine a light on the work of the best and wisest the author have ever known. In this title, Sherlock Holmes has, he think it is safe to say, elevated the science of detection into an art form.

When unworldly student Anastasia Steele first encountered the driven and dazzling young entrepreneur Christian Grey it sparked a sensual affair that changed both of their lives irrevocably. Shocked, intrigued, and, ultimately, repelled by Christian’s singular erotic tastes, Ana demands a deeper commitment. Determined to keep her, Christian agrees. Now, Ana and Christian have it all—love, passion, intimacy, wealth, and a world of possibilities for their future. But Ana knows that loving her Fifty Shades will not be easy, and that being together will pose challenges that neither of them would anticipate. Ana must somehow learn to share Christian’s opulent lifestyle without sacrificing her own identity. And Christian must overcome his compulsion to control as he wrestles with the demons of a tormented past. Just when it seems that their strength together will eclipse any obstacle, misfortune, malice, and fate conspire to make Ana’s deepest fears turn to reality. This book is intended for mature audiences.

When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating. The unworldly, innocent Ana is startled to realize she wants this man and, despite his enigmatic reserve, finds she is desperate to get close to him. Unable to resist Ana’s quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants her, too—but on his own terms. Shocked yet thrilled by Grey’s singular erotic tastes, Ana hesitates. For all the trappings of success—his multinational businesses, his vast wealth, his loving family—Grey is a man tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control. When the couple embarks on a daring, passionately physical affair, Ana discovers Christian Grey’s secrets and explores her own dark desires. Erotic, amusing, and deeply moving, the Fifty Shades Trilogy is a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever. This book is intended for mature audiences.

Squish crunch gollop — a very hungry, very enormous crocodile can't wait to fill his empty tummy with a fat juicy child. He thinks he's clever, but the other jungle animals might just be able to outwit him...

This title deals with a new introduction by Geoff Dyer. The world and his mistress are at Jay Gatsby's party. But Gatsby stands apart from the crowd, isolated by a secret longing. In between sips of champagne his guests speculate about their mysterious host. Some say he's a bootlegger. Others swear he was a German spy during the war. They lean in and whisper he killed a man once. Just where is Gatsby from and what is the obsession that drives him? This edition of The Great Gatsby is the result of a unique collaboration between Tiffany & Co. and Vintage Classics. It is based on designs in the Tiffany &Co. archives from the twenties when F. Scott Fitzgerald's talent, beauty and notorious lifestyle made him one of best known writers of the Jazz Age.

Un pasado persiguiendola. Un futuro aun por construir. Y un cuaderno para escribir toda una vida. Soy Maya Vidal, diecinueve anos, sexo femenino, soltera, sin un enamorado, por falta de oportunidades y no por quisquillosa, nacida en Berkeley, California, pasaporte estadounidense, temporalmente refugiada en una isla al sur del mundo. Me pusieron Maya porque a mi Nini le atrae la India y a mis padres no se les ocurrio otro nombre, aunque tuvieron nueve meses para pensarlo. En hindi, maya significa 'hechizo, ilusion, sueno'. Nada que ver con mi caracter. Atila me calzaria mejor, porque donde pongo el pie no sale mas pasto. Esta Maya me ha hecho sufrir mas que ningun otro de mis personajes. En algunas escenas le habria dado unas cachetadas para hacerla entrar en razon, y en otras la habria envuelto en un apretado abrazo para protegerla del mundo y de su propio corazon atolondrado.

A new translation of the hilarious picaresque about a man with an indomitable spirit The Enchanted Wanderer is a Russian Candide with a revolutionary edge, a picaresque that features a fast-talking monk named Ivan who is at war, it seems, with every level of society. Working as a carriage man for a Count, Ivan accidentally causes the death of a monk, which leads to his being ostracized by the local peasantry... until the dead monk returns as a ghost to guide him through trouble upon trouble.

Colonel de Luce, in desperate need of funds, rents his beloved estate of Buckshaw to a film company. They will be shooting a movie over the Christmas holidays, filming scenes in the decaying manse with a reclusive star. She is widely despised, so it is to no one's surprise when she turns up murdered, strangled by a length of film from her own movies! With a blizzard raging outside and Buckshaw locked in, the house is full of suspects. But Flavia de Luce is more than ready to put aside her investigations into the true identity of Father Christmas to solve this yuletide country-house murder.

Searing. Explosive. Lyrical. Compassionate. Here is the astonishing new novel by the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The White Tiger, a book that took rage and anger at injustice and turned it into a thrilling murder story. Now, with the same fearlessness and insight, Aravind Adiga broadens his canvas to give us a riveting story of money and power, luxury and deprivation, set in the booming city of Mumbai. At the heart of this novel are two equally compelling men, poised for a showdown. Real estate developer Dharmen Shah rose from nothing to create an empire and hopes to seal his legacy with a building named the Shanghai, which promises to be one of the city’s most elite addresses. Larger-than-life Shah is a dangerous man to refuse. But he meets his match in a retired schoolteacher called Masterji. Shah offers Masterji and his neighbors — the residents of Vishram Society’s Tower A, a once respectable, now crumbling apartment building on whose site Shah’s luxury high-rise would be built — a generous buyout. They can’t believe their good fortune. Except, that is, for Masterji, who refuses to abandon the building he has long called home. As the demolition deadline looms, desires mount; neighbors become enemies, and acquaintances turn into conspirators who risk losing their humanity to score their payday. Here is a richly told, suspense-fueled story of ordinary people pushed to their limits in a place that knows none: the new India as only Aravind Adiga could explore — and expose — it. Vivid, visceral, told with both humor and poignancy, Last Man in Tower is his most stunning work yet.

«WHAT IS JESUS WORTH TO YOU? It's easy for Christians to forget how Jesus said his followers would actually live, what their new lifestyle would actually look like. They would, he said, leave behind security, money, convenience, even family for him. They would abandon everything for the gospel. They would take up their crosses daily... BUT WHO DO YOU KNOW WHO LIVES LIKE THAT? DO YOU? In «Radical,» David Platt challenges you to consider with an open heart how we have manipulated the gospel to fit our cultural preferences. He shows what Jesus actually said about being his disciple — then invites you to believe and obey what you have heard. And he tells the dramatic story of what is happening as a «successful» suburban church decides to get serious about the gospel according to Jesus. Finally, he urges you to join in The Radical Experiment — a one-year journey in authentic discipleship that will transform how you live in a world that desperately needs the Good News Jesus came to bring.»

From the pages of Newbery Medal winner Neil Gaiman's THE SANDMAN comes fan-favorite character Death in a new deluxe hardcover edition collecting her solo adventures! The first story introduces the young, pale, perky, and genuinely likable Death. One day in every century, Death walks the Earth to better understand those to whom she will be the final visitor. Today is that day. As a young mortal girl named Didi, Death befriends a teenager and helps a 250-year old homeless woman find her missing heart. What follows is a sincere musing on love, life and (of course) death. In the second story, a rising star of the music world wrestles with revealing her true sexual orientation just as her lover is lured into the realm of Death that Death herself should make an appearance. A practical, honest, and intelligent story that illuminates the miracle of death. This new hardcover collects the DEATH: THE HIGH COST OF LIVING and DEATH: THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE miniseries, a must have for any fan.

In Newgate Street, in the city of London, stand the meagre ruins of Christ Church. On the same site once stood a royal mausoleum set to rival Westminster Abbey in the fourteenth century. Among the many crowned heads buried there was Isabella of France, Edward II's queen — one of the most notorious femme fatales in history. Today, popular legends speak of how her angry ghost can be glimpsed among the ruins, clutching the heart of her murdered husband, and even the reputable publications of English Heritage maintain that the Queen's maniacal laughter can be heard on stormy nights at Castle Rising in Norfolk. Such stories paint a picture of a tragic, tormented, cruel and evil woman. In literature and poetry, she has fared no better with Christopher Marlowe calling her 'that unnatural Queen, false Isabel'; Thomas Gray appropriating Shakespeare's epithet 'She-Wolf of France' in The Bard (1757); and Kenneth Fowler describing her as 'a woman of evil character, a notorious schemer'. How, then, did Isabella acquire such a reputation? Isabella is known to have lived adulterously with Roger Mortimer for at least four years. But the evidence surrounding accusations of murder and regicide is unsubstantiated. Thus, what has condemned Isabella, in ways which no other queen has had to endure, is her sexual transgression. Had it not been for her unfaithfulness, history may have immortalised her as a liberator — the saviour who unshackled England from a weak and vicious monarch and helped put a strong king — her Lover Mortimer — on the throne. In the first, full-length biography of Isabella, Alison Weir revisits the facts of Isabella's life in a scholarly context in which women's personal lives do not dictate wholly the way we interpret their roles in the public world. This is a dramatic and startling biography which will change the way we think of Isabella and her world for ever.

No artist offered a more incisive and accurate portrait of the troubled landscape of the 1970s than David Bowie. Through his multi-faceted and inventive work, he encapsulated many of the social, political and cultural themes that ran through this most fascinating of decades, from the elusive promise of scientific progress to the persistent fear of apocalypse that stalked the globe. In The Man Who Sold The World: David Bowie And the 1970s , cultural historian Peter Doggett explores the rich heritage of the artist's most productive and inspired decade, and traces the way in which his music reflected and influenced the world around him. The book follows his career from 'Space Oddity', his dark vision of mankind's voyage into the unknown terrain of space, to the Scary Monsters album. It examines in detail his audacious creation of an 'alien' rock star, Ziggy Stardust, and his own increasingly perilous explorations of the nature of identity and the meaning of fame, against the backdrop of his family heritage of mental instability. Among the book's wider themes are the West's growing sense of insecurity in the age of oil shortages and terrorism; the changing nature of sexual roles, as represented by Bowie's pioneering adoption of a bisexual persona; the emergence of a new experimental form of rock music that would leave an indelible mark on the decades to come; and the changing nature of many of the world's great cities, including London, New York, Los Angeles and Berlin, each of which played host to Bowie during particularly creative periods of his career. Mixing brilliant musical critique with biographical insight and acute cultural analysis, The Man Who Sold The World is a unique study of a major artist and his times.

There's nothing unusual about the Brockets. Normal, respectable, and proud of it, they turn up their noses at anyone strange or different. But from the moment Barnaby Brocket comes into the world, it's clear he's anything but ordinary. To his parents' horror, Barnaby defies the laws of gravity — and floats.

As a part of DC Comics — The New 52 event of September 2011, welcome to a world waging a new kind of war that's faster and more brutal than ever before. It's fought by those who would make the innocent their targets, using computers, smart weapons and laser-guided missiles. The new enemy is hard to find — and closer to home than we think. Between us and them stand the Blackhawks, an elite force of military specialists equipped with the latest in cutting-edge hardware and vehicles. Their mission: Kill the bad guys before they kill us. But when the half the team ends up prisoners in the enemy's hands and the other half are incapacitated with injury, will DC's newest team of high-tech, black-ops military operatives be able to complete their mission?

It is now six years since the secret disaster at Jurassic Park, six years since the extraordinary dream of science and imagination came to a crashing end — the dinosaurs destroyed, the park dismantled, the island indefinitely closed to the public. There are rumors that something has survived.

In the beginning, there was nothing but endless flatness. Then came the Carpet ...That's the old story everyone knows and loves. But now the Carpet is home to many different tribes and peoples and there's a new story in the making. The story of Fray, sweeping a trail of destruction across the Carpet. The story of power-hungry mouls — and of two Munrung brothers, who set out on an amazing adventure. It's a story that will come to a terrible end — if someone doesn't do something about it. If everyone doesn't do something about it... Co-written by Terry Pratchett, aged seventeen, and master storyteller, Terry Pratchett, aged forty-three.

Here's the concept: two matching puzzle cards will each show, say, one object to make a match. For the next two matching puzzle cards, one will show one object and the corresponding card will show two objects (similar backgrounds and such will also help the child connect these cards). The next two matching puzzle cards will each have two objects. The pattern continues up to ten. This way the child not only grasps how many the number is, but also what numbers come before and after that number.