Laugh aloud even as you look at life anew with these stories from the bestselling author of Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?In 108 brief stories with titles like "The Bad Elephant," "Girlfriend Power," and "The Happiness License," Ajahn Brahm offers up more timeless wisdom that will speak to people from all walks of life. Drawing from his own experiences, stories shared by his students, and old chestnuts that he delivers with a fresh twist, Ajahn Brahm shows he knows his way around the humorous parable, delighting even as he surprises us with unexpected depth and inspiration.

The Speckled Monster tells the dramatic story of two parents who dared to fight back against smallpox. After barely surviving the agony of smallpox themselves, they flouted eighteenth-century medicine by borrowing folk knowledge from African slaves and Eastern women in frantic bids to protect their children. From their heroic struggles stems the modern science of immunology as well as the vaccinations that remain our only hope should the disease ever be unleashed again. Jennifer Lee Carrell transports readers back to the early eighteenth century to tell the tales of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, two iconoclastic figures who helped save London and Boston from the deadliest disease mankind has known.

French Girl with Mother is a provocative, propulsive thriller that marries the spirit of James Salter with a hint of Patricia Highsmith and the velocity of The Art Forger.Nathan is a young artist traveling across Europe in search of the emotional fire that has been missing from his work. He's been deemed by his mentors and critics as technically skillful but uninspired —criticisms he fears to be true. On a Paris street, he witnesses the volatile breakup of a young French woman and her beau. Nathan pursues a meeting with the woman and it very quickly becomes evident that her provocative charisma and scathing beauty just may conjure the electricity he has been seeking for his work. So when the woman invites him to her parents' crumbling, centuries-old chateau in the country to allow him to sketch her, he accepts, knowing that this proposition is both ill advised and thrilling.Once enveloped by this isolated estate, a door opens to a world Nathan is not...

She's the only one who knows what it's like to be the only one. When Claire's best friend, Bess, moves away, she becomes the only girl left in her entire school. At first, she thinks she'll be able to deal with this — after all, the girls' bathroom is now completely hers, so she can turn it into her own private headquarters and draw on the walls. When it comes to soccer games or sailing races, she can face off against any boy. The problem is that her other best friend, Henry, has begun to ignore her. And Webby, a super-annoying bully, won't leave her alone. And Yucky Gilbert, the boy who has a crush on her, also won't leave her alone. It's never easy being the only one — and over the course of a wacky school year, Claire is going to have to make it through challenges big and small. The boys may think they rule the school, but when it comes to thinking on your feet, Claire's got them outnumbered.

Bernard Samson returns to Berlin in the final novel in the classic spy trilogy, FAITH, HOPE and CHARITY Bernard continues to chip away at the mystery of his sister-in-law Tessa Kosinski?s death in Berlin on the crucial night when his wife Fiona was brought out of the East. Fighting to uncover the truth, he must also confront the key relationships in his own life: Fiona is still far from stable now that she has returned to work, and their children remain in the clutches of his wealthy and manipulative father-in-law. Meanwhile, Werner Volkmann, Bernard?s friend since childhood, is reluctant to get involved in Bernard?s crusade. A wonderful depiction both of covert operations and office politics, Charity is packed with action, incident and intrigue, bringing to a triumphant conclusion a series of ten novels that represents one of the great acheivements of modern English fiction.

A recovered friendship, a dark secret, and a love triangle with a deadly angle...Callie is shocked when her friend Ivy reappears after an unexplained three-year absence, but the girls pick up where they left off, and suddenly Callie's summer is full of parties, boys and fun. Beneath the surface, things aren't what they seem, however, and when a handsome boy with a dark past gets tangled up with Ivy, the girls' history threatens to destroy their future.

A group of tough young Brits make their way to the west of North America, where there are numerous hazards, in the form of grizzly bears,wolves, and a few tribes of Indians who definitely did not want them there. For much of the book they are with a tribe that is very friendly, and thus we are able to learn much of the ways of thesepeople. But towards the end of the book our heroes take part inrescuing a wagon-train of emigrants that had been attacked by a hostiletribe, and a beautiful young lady seized and ridden away with. Show Excerpt o, no; go on; don't wait for me," he answered. But neither Charley nor I was inclined to do that. Dick was soon on his feet again, while we assisted him, in spite of what he had said, to get up his horse. The animal's leg did not appear to be strained, and Dick quickly again climbed into the saddle. "Thank you, my dear boys," he exclaimed, "it must not happen again; I am a heavy weight for my brute, and, if he comes down, you must go on and let me shift for myself." We made no reply, for neither Charley nor I was inclined to desert our brave friend. The rest of the party had dashed by, scarcely observing what had taken place, the Indians taking the lead. It was impossible to calculate how many miles we had gone. Night was coming on, making the glare to the eastward appear brighter and more terrific. The mules were still instinctively following us, but we were distancing them fast, though we could distinguish their shrieks of terror amid the general uproar. The hill for which we wer --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Frank V. Webster was one of the early 20th century's most prolific authors of kids adventure books and Westerns, but that was due in large part to the fact that Frank V. Webster was actually many authors. Using Webster's name as a pseudonym, the Stratemeyer Syndicate published a number of books tailor made for boys, and they are still popular today.

Joe R. Lansdale’s stories about Nat Love are based loosely on the real Nat Love, who may have told a few windies about his time in the West, but at the same time revealed that African-Americans of that era were not all cooks and custodians.

When Ned is sent to stay with his aunt and uncle in Thunder's Pocket, he's not very pleased. But from the moment a bird flies into the train carriage on his journey there, Ned realises this isn't going to be an ordinary seaside holiday. Has the eccentric sculptor, Marlot Corby, really put a curse on Ned's aunt? What secrets will he find in Marlot's house and gardens? Life in Thunder's Pocket is going to be anything but dull.