Charles Frieth, pre-eminent composer, conductor and prodigious womaniser, is preparing for a performance of one of his early works, and the world premiere of Demonic Aubade. Obstinate and myopic, he is oblivious to the growing turmoil around him; his wife's poor health and dissatisfaction; the exhausted efforts of his secretary; and, the disquieting diligence of his housekeeper, Maria. As the first performance draws near, the maestro is suddenly awoken to the chaos, and as Charles struggles to regain control of his life, a terrible tragedy begins to unfold. For You is a beautifully wrought and compelling libretto — It is Ian McEwan at his very best.

What is that makes urban myths so persistent but many everyday truths so eminently forgettable? How do newspapers set about ensuring that their headlines make you want to read on? And why do we remember complicated stories but not complicated facts? In the course of over ten years of study, Chip and Dan Heath have established what it is that determines whether particular ideas or stories stick in our minds or not, and Made to Stick is the fascinating outcome of their painstaking research.Packed full of case histories and thought-provoking anecdotes, it shows, among other things, how one Australian scientist convinced the world he'd discovered the cause of stomach ulcers by drinking a glass filled with bacteria, how a gifted sports reporter got people to watch a football match by showing them the outside of the stadium, and how high-concept pitches such as 'Jaws on a spaceship' (Alien) and 'Die Hard on a bus' (Speed) convince movie executives to invest vast sums of money in a project on the basis of almost no information. Entertaining and informative by turns, this is a fascinating and multi-faceted account of a key area of human behaviour. At the same time, by showing how we can all use such cleverly devised strategies as the 'Velcro Theory of Memory' and 'curiosity gaps', it offers superbly practical insights, setting out principles we all can adopt to make sure that we get our ideas across effectively.

NOW A MAJOR motion picture starring Bill Murray, Tim Robbins, Martin Landau, Saoirse Ronan, and Harry Treadaway This tie-in edition of The City of Ember features a movie-art cover and an 8-page photo insert. Jeanne DuPrau's instant classic tells the story of the great, underground city of Ember, designed as a last refuge for the human race. But when the storerooms run out of food and the lights begin to fail, it's up to two teens, Lina and Doon, to decipher the fragments of an ancient parchment and find a way out of Ember.

Beyond his perfect expression of Russian mood, Pushkin's universality of vision has made him a permanent place in the history of world literature. Gillon Aitken's distinguished translation is the only volume that contains all his prose fiction, including some tales which remained unfinished when Pushkin was tragically killed in a duel at the age of thirty-seven.

«Welcome To The Monkey House» is a collection of Kurt Vonnueguts shorter works. Originally printed in publications as diverse as «The Magazine of Fantasy and Science fiction» and «The Atlantic Monthly» what these superb stories share is Vonnegut's audacious sense of humor and extraordinary range of creative vision.»

«There is a great disturbance in the Force... «From the sleek ships of the glimmering Coruscant skyscape to the lush gardens of pastoral Naboo, dissent is roiling. The Republic is failing, even under the leadership of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, elected ten years earlier to save the crumbling government. Separatists threaten war, and the Senate is hopelessly divided, unable to determine whether to raise an army for battle or keep the fragile peace. It is a stalemate that once broken, could lead to galactic chaos. Mischievous and resolved, courageous to the point of recklessness, Anakin Skywalker has come of age in a time of great upheaval. The nineteen-year-old apprentice to Obi-Wan Kenobi is an enigma to the Jedi Council, and a challenge to his Jedi Master. Time has not dulled Anakin's ambition, nor has his Jedi training tamed his independent streak. When an attempt on Senator Padme Amidala's life brings them together for the first time in ten years, it is clear that time also has not dulled Anakin's intense feelings for the beautiful diplomat. The attack on Senator Amidala just before a crucial vote thrusts the Republic even closer to the edge of disaster. Masters Yoda and Mace Windu sense enormous unease. The dark side is growing, clouding the Jedi's perception of the events. Unbeknownst to the Jedi, a slow rumble is building into the roar of thousands of soldiers readying for battle. But even as the Republic falters around them, Anakin and Padme find a connection so intense that all else begins to fall away. Anakin will lose himself — and his way — in emotions a Jedi, sworn to hold allegiance only to the Order, is forbidden to have. Based on the story by George Lucas and the screenplay by George Lucas and Jonathan Hales, this intense and revealing novel by bestselling author R. A. Salvatore sheds new light on the legend of Star Wars — and skillfully illuminates one of our most beloved sagas.»

In Bittersweet, Danielle Steel has written a novel for our times, a story of choices and new beginnings. India Taylor lived in a world of manicured lawns and neatly maintained calendars: a merry-go-round of Little League, piano lessons, and Cape Cod summer vacations. With four wonderful children, India believed in commitment and sacrifice, just as she believed in Doug, the man she married 17 years before. For India, this was the promise she made, the life she had chosen-not the award-winning career as a photojournalist she once had. It was a choice she had never truly regretted. Until she begins to regret it with all her heart. India couldn't pinpoint the exact moment. Perhaps it was the last time her agent called, begging her to take an assignment Doug insisted she turn down. Or perhaps it was when Doug told her he thought of her as a companion and someone to take care of their kids, and not much more. At that moment, the price of the sacrifices she'd made began to seem high. And then, she met Paul Ward. A Wall Street tycoon married to a bestselling author, Paul lived life on his own terms, traveling the world on his own yacht. India hadn't planned to become Paul's friend. Anything more was unthinkable. Yet talking to Paul was so easy. India could share her dreams with him, and offer comfort when Paul suffers a heartbreak of his own. And while Paul urges India to reclaim her career, Doug is adamantly against it, determined to keep her tied to the home. But with Paul's encouragement, India slowly, painfully, begins to break free, and find herself again. Rediscovering her creativity and her courage, India uses Paul like a beacon on the horizon, sharing intimate phone conversations with a man half a world away, a man who never stops reminding her of all that is possible for her. India is changing, and nothing in her life will ever be the same again. Not her marriage. Not her friendship with Paul. And when India is presented with an irresistible opportunity, she makes a heart-wrenching decision, leaving a safe, familiar place-and the people she loves there-to move into the terror of the unknown. Bittersweet is her story, a story of freedom, of having dreams and making choices to find them. With unerring insight, Danielle Steel has created a moving portrait of a woman who dares to embark on a new adventure and the man who helps her get there. Her painful, exhilarating journey inspires us all.

Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when her father drops her off in front of her dorm at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. She leaves her animated, affectionate family in South Bend, Indiana, at least in part because of the boarding school’s glossy brochure, in which boys in sweaters chat in front of old brick buildings, girls in kilts hold lacrosse sticks on pristinely mown athletic fields, and everyone sings hymns in chapel. As Lee soon learns, Ault is a cloistered world of jaded, attractive teenagers who spend summers on Nantucket and speak in their own clever shorthand. Both intimidated and fascinated by her classmates, Lee becomes a shrewd observer of-and, ultimately, a participant in-their rituals and mores. As a scholarship student, she constantly feels like an outsider and is both drawn to and repelled by other loners. By the time she’s a senior, Lee has created a hard-won place for herself at Ault. But when her behavior takes a self-destructive and highly public turn, her carefully crafted identity within the community is shattered. Ultimately, Lee’s experiences-complicated relationships with teachers; intense friendships with other girls; an all-consuming preoccupation with a classmate who is less than a boyfriend and more than a crush; conflicts with her parents, from whom Lee feels increasingly distant, coalesce into a singular portrait of the painful and thrilling adolescence universal to us all.

A gruesome secret is about to be unearthed...When a human skull is dug up in a garden near Boston, Dr Maura Isles is called in to investigate. She quickly discovers that the skeleton — that of a young woman — has been buried for over a hundred years. But who was the woman? And how did she die? It is the 1930's, and an impoverished medical student, Norris Marshall, is forced to procure corpses in order to further his studies in human anatomy. It's a gruesome livelihood that will bring him into contact with a terrifying serial killer who slips from ballrooms to graveyards and into autopsy suites. And who is far, far closer than Norris could ever imagine...

Learn Russian in 4 Simple Steps. With Living Language Complete Russian: The Basics, you’ll start by learning words, and then you’ll progress to phrases, sentences, and conversations. This simple four-step building block approach will have you speaking with confidence right from the beginning, and you’ll be able to learn gradually and effectively. If you’re confident in your pronunciation, then this coursebook includes everything you need — vocabulary, grammar, culture, and practice. This comprehensive coursebook includes: — 40 step-by-step lessons. — Practical vocabulary and authentic everyday usage. — Simple explanations and plenty of examples. — Supplemental sections, including e-mail and internet resources. — A comprehensive grammar reference section.

It is Midsummer's Eve. Three young friends meet in a wood to act out an elaborate masque. But, unkown to them, they are being watched. Each is killed by a single bullet. Soon afterwards, one of Inspector Wallander's colleagues is found murdered. Is this the same killer, and what could the connection be? In this investigation, Wallander is always, tantalisingly, one step behind.

When a new highway threatens to bypass the town of Rossmore and cut through Whitethorn Woods, it will also destroy St. Ann's well, where people have been coming for generations to share their dreams and speak their prayers. Some believe the well to be a place of true spiritual power, demanding protection; others think it's a mere magnet for superstitions, easily sacrificed. Maeve Binchy creates a rich spectrum of men and women, all with passionate opinions, who are drawn into this timely conflict between the traditions of the past and the promises of the future.

«An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion — his sense of smell — leads to murder. In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift-an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and frest-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the «ultimate perfume» — the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brillance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity. Translated from the German by John E. Woods.»

Alfred Day wanted his war. In its turmoil he found his proper purpose as the tail-gunner in a Lancaster bomber; he found the wild, dark fellowship of his crew, and — most extraordinary of all — he found Joyce, a woman to love. But that's all gone now — the war took it away. Maybe it took him, too. Now in 1949, employed as an extra in a war film that echoes his real experience, Day begins to recall what he would rather forget...

It started as a joke. From the moment she first meets him Alice is aware that David is impotent. 'I'm impotent', he says, 'in so many ways.' He's separated from his wife and daughter, an HR executive worried for his job at a Glaswegian TV company. She's American, wants to be an artist. They move in together. To start with she tells him stories, bedtime stories about couples having sex, them watching. Then Alice finds that David has gone further, and is logging on to swinging sites — horny housewives, couples willing to try anything... Just as a joke, he says. Alice is intrigued.These people seem so honest, so open about needing to reach out and touch. And maybe this is the answer to David's problem. Maybe they need people like this to give them a love life. And so David and Alice plunge head first into the hidden world of Glasgow swinging, where no one is ugly and nothing is forbidden. Their journey ends at an orgy with nine other couples in the Black Room, where you can see nothing but feel everything. And there, finally, each of them finds what they have been searching for. Like Ewan Morrison's first book, the highly-praised The Last Book You Read and Other Stories, Swung is frank, funny, disturbing and compassionate. It confirms Morrison as a writer of great daring and huge gifts.

A model of efficiency and order, the aerodrome stands on the hill looking down on the village below. Roy, coming of age in the messy, violent and adulterous world of the villagers, is simultaneously attracted and repelled by this strange place and by the powerful figure of the Air Vice-Marshal. Soon he is led to leave his family, his friends and his love in order to join the aerodrome and confront the secrets of this mysterious and sinister place...

'Nobody fights forever, so I prepared myself for two battles. The first was fighting alongside her. We've done that. As well as two can. But, as the years have ticked by, I've seen a second front coming — and it's the tougher of the two. Abbie might still be swinging but she was beat. To be honest, I think she was still in the ring fighting, simply for me. Lately, the thing that had been keeping me up nights was wondering what would happen if I told her that she could let her guard down — that she could stop fighting. What if she was just waiting on me?' Doss Michaels and Abbie Colman should never have met let alone fallen in love. As the only child of South Carolina's most senior senator, Abbie's father had wanted better for her than Doss, who grew up in a trailer park next to the St Mary's river. Abbie and Doss had married quickly and secretly, returning to face her parents' objections that haven't faded even after over fourteen years of marriage. But now Abbie and Doss are coming to the end of the road. Diagnosed with breast cancer four years before, Abbie's case is now terminal and they've run out of options. Rather than letting Abbie spend her final days in a cold, sterile hospital room, Doss packs their bags and steals away with her in the middle of the night. They carry with them Abbie's 'wish list' — ten things she wants to do before she dies. The wishes are simple, normal; because after four years of non-stop invasive medical treatments, 'normal' is a fleeting memory. Along with taking a final trip with Doss on the river that holds so many memories for them both, Abbie wants to dance with her husband, drink wine on a beach, laugh until it hurts. But as they head for river's end, racing against weather and time, Abbie's father, the press and the police are determined to find them and bring Abbie home...

Two helicopters disrupt the peace of Dr Gabe Singleton's remote Wyoming ranch. From one of them strides the President of the United States with startling news — and a stunning request which will turn Gabe's quiet life upside down. President Stoddard's personal physician has suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, and he needs Gabe to take the man's place. Reluctantly, Gabe agrees — but soon he discovers that critical details concerning the President's health have been kept from him. Suspecting that the President's worsening condition may not be due to natural causes, Gabe sets out to uncover who is behind his mysterious illness. But the more questions he asks, the more Gabe seems to be putting himself in danger.

In 1903, Leon M — a devout terrorist — is given the responsibility of 'liquidating' Valerian Alexandrovitch Courilof, the notoriously brutal and cold-blooded Russian Minister of Education, by the Revolutionary Committee. The assassination, he is told, must take place in public and be in most grandiose manner possible in order to strike the imagination of the people. Posing as his newly appointed personal physician, Leon M takes up residence with Courliof in his summer house in the Iles and awaits instructions.But over the course of his stay he is made privy to the inner world of Courliof — his failing health, his troubled domestic situation and, most importantly, the tyrannical grip that the Czar himself holds over all his Ministers, forcing them to obey him or suffer the most deadly punishments.Set during a period of radical upheaval in European history, The Courliof Affair is an unsparing observation of human motives and the abuses of power, an elegy to lost world and an unflinchingly topical cautionary tale.

It is the summer of 1975. Marco Timoleon, an Onassis-like tycoon, is nearing the end of his life. When he finds out his troubled daughter is pregnant by a man he doesn't approve of, he throws a birthday party for her on his private island, secretly intending to persuade her to terminate the pregnancy. A doctor stands by to perform the operation on the spot. The story of this fateful party and the lives it affects is a brilliant modern fable, a rags-to-riches tale with no certainty of a happily-ever-after ending.