«A provocative history of violence from the «New York Times» bestselling author of «The Stuff of Thought» and «The Blank Slate» Believe it or not, today we may be living in the most peaceful moment in our species' existence. In his gripping and controversial new work, «New York Times» bestselling author Steven Pinker shows that despite the ceaseless news about war, crime, and terrorism, violence has actually been in decline over long stretches of history. Exploding myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious book continues Pinker's exploration of the essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly enlightened world.»

«Llama Llama ZIP! Llama Llama ZOOM! Llama Llama Red Pajama VROOM, VROOM, VROOM!» On the playground, Llama goes fast! Llama zips by on his scooter and swishes down the slide — whoosh! Younger audiences will love doing as Llama does in this supremely adorable fourth board book.»

This whimsical collection of poems and stories by Margaret Wise Brown is back in print in its original format the Little Golden Book. Garth Williams' artwork shines here, with the friendliest bunnies, dogs, and people ever!

If you were a snowman, what job would you choose? Ten years ago, on the publication of Snowmen at Night, we discovered the secret lives of snowmen. While we humans sleep, the snowmen go sledding, play baseball, and drink cocoa. But now it's revealed that snowmen don't just play all night — they have jobs to do, just like the parents of human kids. Dentists replace missing coal from snowman smiles while pet store owners help pair snowkids with their very own snowpuppy or snowfish to love. The pizza man delivers frozen pizza, and factory workers make the coolest toys in town. This fourth book in the New York Times bestselling Snowmen series is a gleeful, goofy delight. Kids will love spotting the silly details in each illustration, and the hidden pictures too.

Writings by and about Kafka and textual notes accompany this translation of his early-twentieth-century work.

Blends elements of psychoanalysis and Asian religions to probe an Indian aristocrat's efforts to renounce sensual and material pleasures and discover ultimate spiritual truths.

Everything is over for Simon Axler. One of the leading American stage actors of his generation, now in his sixties, he has lost his magic, his talent and his assurance. When he goes on stage he feels like a lunatic and looks like an idiot. His wife has gone, his audience has left him, his agent can't persuade him to make a comeback. In this long days journey into night, told with Roths inimitable urgency, bravura and gravity, all our lifes performances talent, love, sex, hope, energy, reputation are stripped bare. Following the dark meditations on mortality and endings in Everyman and Exit Ghost, and the bitterly ironic retrospect on youth and chance in Indignation, Roth has written another in his haunting group of late novels.

PREMIUM MASS MARKET EDITION #1 Worldwide Bestseller — More Than 80 Million Copies Sold. As millions of readers around the globe have already discovered, The Da Vinci Code is a reading experience unlike any other. Simultaneously lightning-paced, intelligent, and intricately layered with remarkable research and detail, Dan Brown's novel is a thrilling masterpiece — from its opening pages to its stunning conclusion.

This important book picks up where Dr Deepak Chopra left off in his pioneering work Ageless Body, Timeless Mind. Having revealed the connection between our health and our thoughts, Dr Chopra shows us how to create a whole new self — the self we want to be — in this revolutionary sequel. Dr Chopra explains how the body is a reflection of the mind, 'a symbol in flesh and blood of everything you think and feel'. From early childhood each one of us has invented our bodies and our personalities through our beliefs, conditioning and responses to everyday stress. But we have mostly done this unconsciously, which is why we may now feel unfulfilled. Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul will help us to reconnect with our ideal sense of self, guiding us one step at a time through a remarkable process of renewal and discovery. Chopra invites us all to live from the soul, to satisfy our deepest desires in a life rich with joy and meaning. 'You are inventing your body in every moment of life', he reasons. 'Why not take control and reinvent it from the highest level?'

Fang will be the first to die. For years, Max has been on the run from evil forces threatening her and the Flock — but nothing could have prepared her for this horrifying prophesy delivered to her by Angel. Fang is Max's best friend, her soulmate, her partner in leadership of her flock of winged children. A life without Fang is a life unimaginable. Max's desperate desire to protect Fang brings the two closer than ever. But their world is turned upside down yet again when the Flock meet a wealthy scientist who has a great interest in the birdkids. He introduces them to another winged boy, the beautiful Dylan. Raised in a lab like the Flock, he exists for only one reason: he was created to be Max's perfect other half. Now, a battle of science against soul, perfection versus passion unfolds, twists, and turns... and meanwhile, the apocalypse is coming.

Until her murder in October 2006, Anna Politkovskaya wrote for the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta. She won international fame for her reporting on the Chechen wars and, more generally, on Russian state corruption. Nothing but the Truth is a defining collection of Anna Politkovskaya's best writing for Novaya Gazeta, published between 1999 and 2006. Beginning with a brief introduction by the author about her pariah status, Nothing but the Truth demonstrates the great breadth of her reportage, from the Chechen wars to domestic Russian affairs, the Moscow theatre hostage-taking in which she became involved, the Beslan school siege, and pieces about politicians, oligarchs and ordinary citizens. Elsewhere are illuminating accounts of interviews and encounters with western leaders including Lionel Jospin, Tony Blair, George W. Bush, and exiled figures including Boris Berezovsky, Akhmed Zakaev, and Vladimir Bukovsky. Her non-political writing is also represented here, revealing her delightful personality, as are international reactions to her murder. Nothing but the Truth will also stand as a tribute to Anna Politkovskaya's matter-of-fact personal courage, disclosing information glossed over or omitted completely about the dangers she faced and the threats she received in the course of her work. It is a lasting and inspiring book from one of the great reporters of our age.

First in the Kurt Wallander series. It was a senselessly violent crime: on a cold night in a remote Swedish farmhouse an elderly farmer is bludgeoned to death, and his wife is left to die with a noose around her neck. And as if this didn't present enough problems for the Ystad police Inspector Kurt Wallander, the dying woman's last word is foreign, leaving the police the one tangible clue they have-and in the process, the match that could inflame Sweden's already smoldering anti-immigrant sentiments. Unlike the situation with his ex-wife, his estranged daughter, or the beautiful but married young prosecuter who has peaked his interest, in this case, Wallander finds a problem he can handle. He quickly becomes obsessed with solving the crime before the already tense situation explodes, but soon comes to realize that it will require all his reserves of energy and dedication to solve.

Karin Slaughter's internationally bestselling novels are as notable for their vivid portraits of lives shadowed by loss and heartbreak as they are for their dramatic criminal investigations. Her latest offering features the return of her most compelling characters and introduces memorable new ones in a tale of corruption, murder, and confrontation that will leave more than one life... When Special Agent Will Trent arrives in Grant County, he finds a police department determined to protect its own and far too many unanswered questions about a prisoner's death. He doesn't understand why Officer Lena Adams is hiding secrets from him. He doesn't understand her role in the death of Grant County's popular police chief. He doesn't understand why that man's widow, Dr. Sara Linton, needs him now more than ever to help her crack this case. While the police force investigates the murder of a young woman pulled from a frigid lake, Trent investigates the police force, putting pressure on Adams just when she's already about to crack. Caught between two complicated and determined women, trying to understand Linton's passionate distrust of Adams, the facts surrounding Chief Tolliver's death, and the complexities of this insular town, Trent will unleash a case filled with explosive secrets-and encounter a thin blue line that could be murderous if crossed. Spellbinding and keenly paced, Broken is Karin Slaughter at her best. Here is an unforgettable story of raw emotions, dangerous assumptions, the deadly and layered game of betrayal, and a man's determination to expose the most painful of human truths-no matter how deeply they're hidden... Or how devastating.

Amy Harper Bellafonte is six years old and her mother thinks she's the most important person in the whole world. She is. Anthony Carter doesn't think he could ever be in a worse place than Death Row. He's wrong. FBI agent Brad Wolgast thinks something beyond imagination is coming. It is. THE PASSAGE. Deep in the jungles of eastern Colombia, Professor Jonas Lear has finally found what he's been searching for — and wishes to God he hadn't. In Memphis, Tennessee, a six-year-old girl called Amy is left at the convent of the Sisters of Mercy and wonders why her mother has abandoned her. In a maximum security jail in Nevada, a convicted murderer called Giles Babcock has the same strange nightmare, over and over again, while he waits for a lethal injection. In a remote community in the California mountains, a young man called Peter waits for his beloved brother to return home, so he can kill him. Bound together in ways they cannot comprehend, for each of them a door is about to open into a future they could not have imagined. And a journey is about to begin. An epic journey that will take them through a world transformed by man's darkest dreams, to the very heart of what it means to be human.

Generalisations about language and culture are at best amusing and meaningless, but is there anything sensible left to be said about the relation between language, culture and thought? Does language reflect the culture of a society? Is our mother-tongue a lens through which we perceive the world? Can different languages lead their speakers to different thoughts? In Through the Language Glass, acclaimed author Guy Deutscher will convince you that, contrary to the fashionable academic consensus of today, the answer to all these questions is — yes. On an odyssey that takes us from Homer to Darwin, from scientists to savages, from the corridors of Yale to the rivers of the Amazon, from how to name the rainbow to why Russian water — a 'she' — become a 'he' once you have dipped a tea bag into her, this book explores some of the most fascinating and controversial questions about language, culture and the human mind.

If you were a Londoner visiting Cornwall would you know how to recognise a grammersow? If you were from the West Country and took a trip up to Scotland, would you be bewildered if someone described you as crabbit? And what if you left your native Belfast for Liverpool, would you understand if someone called you a woollyback? How to Talk Like a Local is an entertaining guide that gathers together and explains hundreds of words that you would never find in an ordinary dictionary. From dardledumdue, which means day-dreamer in East Anglia, through forkin robbins, the Yorkshire term for earwigs, to clemt, a Lancashire word that means hungry, it covers the enormously rich variety of regional words that pepper the English language. Not only does it pick out unique and unusal local words, it also draws together the dozens of terms from all over the country that mean the same thing, such as knee-knabbed, crab-ankled and hurked-up for knock-kneed, and obzocky, butters and maftin for ugly. In addition, it digs down to uncover the origins of these words, tracing their routes in to the language. Many terms meaning left-handed, for example, are related to the Kerr family of Ferniehirst Castle in Scotland, who preferred left-handed warriors. And many seemingly new coinages have been around for centuries, such as chav, which derives from a Romany word meaning child, or scouse, which probably comes from lapskaus, a Norwegian word for a sailors' stew. If you're intrigued by these colourful words and phrases, if you're interested in how English is really spoken, or if you want to discover how our language has evolved over the years, How to Talk Like a Local will prove irresistible — and enlightening — reading.

An international bestseller and French publishing sensation Consolation is a dazzling, heartbreaking tale of one man, two remarkable women and an unforgettable transvestite. Charles Balanda is forty-seven; a successful architect, he is constantly on the move. But from the moment he hears about the death of the woman he once loved — Anouk, the tragically big-hearted mother of a childhood friend — his life begins to unravel until, one day, he finds himself on a Paris pavement covered in blood. But fate brings him one final chance to be happy in Kate, an enchanting young woman, herself damaged but fearless and in love with life. The resulting story is a triumphant, spellbinding and ultimately consoling novel about the power of a second chance.

Ever since Whit and Wisty Allgood were cruelly torn from their home and family in the middle of the night, the soldiers of a brutal totalitarian government have relentlessly tried to capture and execute them for 'collusion, conspiracy, and experimentation with the dark and foul arts'. But this supremely skilled witch and wizard have instead boldly spearheaded the fight against the wicked regime of the New Order and its systematic destruction of music, art, books, and imagination. The villainous leader of the New Order is just a breath away from the ability to control the forces of nature and to manipulate his citizens on the most profound level imaginable — through their minds. There is only one more thing he needs to triumph in his evil quest: the Gifts of Whit and Wisty Allgood. And he will stop at nothing to seize them.

When Travis Boyette, a convicted felon, walks into a church in small-town Missouri, he carries with him a terrible secret. Nearly a decade earlier Nicole Yarber, a high school senior with her whole life ahead of her, vanished. For two weeks, her home town stood still as thousands of volunteers combed the alleys and fields and ditches and abandoned buildings. But the search was futile. Nicole's body was never found. Now Donte Drumm, the young black athlete arrested for Nicole's murder, sits on death row. His execution date is set for less than a week's time — and Robbie Flak, the lawyer who's been fighting to prove Donte's innocence for nine years, has spent every penny he ever had trying to get justice for his client. But now he's out of options — unless Travis Boyette's confession can put things right in time. The clock is ticking...