A childhood story, from a long time ago, when I lived in Sunbury on Thames. It was as a hot summer’s day, so hot the tar on the road had begun to melt. Seated in a hot, steamy classroom, while our teacher went on and one about why we should understand and get our young heads around algebra, I listened to the sound of thunder rumbling in the distance...As I waited impatiently for the bell to ring, to signal the end of the school day, the thunderous rumblings in the distance grew steadily louder. With each passing minute, the sky became darker and darker, until it was so dark day had almost turned into night. Undaunted by the prospect of having to endure a full-blown thunderstorm on my way home, I listened for the bell to ring. It was late, the school bell was late, I was sure of it. Then it rang, it rang so loud I almost jumped off my chair, in fright.

When life gives you Lemons, DON'T make Lemonade! That's what Gina thinks. Why? When everything went wrong, she made lemonade to try to fix things. But guess what? That just made everything worse!A man of the written word, he has made himself a name in the literary community in the year 2035. But someone has dared to plagiarize his work. When he confronts the culprit, he learns that it was not a person but a computer programmed to replicate his identity. Trapped on all sides by an encroaching world of technology, he tires to escape in any way he can. When he can't do it, he acts out violently against the machines. They become the focus of his rage, and he tries to rally the world to his mission: to save humanity from itself.

From Snuff: 'Vimes' prompt arrival got a nod of approval from Sybil, who gingerly handed him a new book to read to Young Sam. Vimes looked at the cover. The title was The World of Poo. When his wife was out of eyeshot he carefully leafed through it. Well, okay, you had to accept that the world had moved on and these days fairy stories were probably not going to be about twinkly little things with wings. As he turned page after page, it dawned on him that whoever had written this book, they certainly knew what would make kids like Young Sam laugh until they were nearly sick. The bit about sailing down the river almost made him smile. But interspersed with the scatology was actually quite interesting stuff about septic tanks and dunnakin divers and gongfermors and how dog muck helped make the very best leather, and other things that you never thought you would need to know, but once heard somehow lodged in your mind.'

Ray Bradbury, the undisputed Dean of American storytelling, dips his accomplished pen into the cryptic inkwell of noir and creates a stylish and slightly fantastical tale of mayhem and murder set among the shadows and the murky canals of Venice, California, in the early 1950s. Toiling away amid the looming palm trees and decaying bungalows, a struggling young writer (who bears a resemblance to the author) spins fantastic stories from his fertile imagination upon his clacking typewriter. Trying not to miss his girlfriend (away studying in Mexico), the nameless writer steadily crafts his literary effort--until strange things begin happening around him. Starting with a series of peculiar phone calls, the writer then finds clumps of seaweed on his doorstep. But as the incidents escalate, his friends fall victim to a series of mysterious "accidents"--some of them fatal. Aided by Elmo Crumley, a savvy, street-smart detective, and a reclusive actress of yesteryear with an intense hunger for life, the wordsmith sets out to find the connection between the bizarre events, and in doing so, uncovers the truth about his own creative abilities.

A superb new translation by Michael Hofmann of some of Kafka's most frightening and visionary short fiction Strange beasts, night terrors, absurd bureaucrats and sinister places abound in this collection of stories by Franz Kafka. Some are less than a page long, others more substantial; all were unpublished in his lifetime. These matchless short works range from the gleeful miniature horror 'Little Fable' to the off-kilter humour of 'Investigations of a Dog', and from the elaborate waking nightmare of 'Building the Great Wall of China' to the creeping unease of 'The Burrow', where a nameless creature's labyrinthine hiding place turns into a trap of fear and paranoia.

Due to his history of expensive romantic entanglements, Alistair Carsington now has six months to find either a useful occupation or a wealthy heiress to wed. To prove he is not an idle fop only concerned with sartorial pleasures, Alistair agrees to help his old friend, Lord Gordmor, by traveling to the wilds of Derbyshire to convince Gordmor's neighbors to support the nobleman's proposal to build a canal. Upon arriving, Alistair, a famous war hero and eligible bachelor, finds everyone couldn't be nicer, everyone except for respectable, practical, spinsterish Mirabel Oldridge. The last thing Mirabel wants is for her tranquil little corner of England to be destroyed by a noisy, nasty canal, and she is prepared to use every weapon at her disposal--including her disheveled coiffure and unstylish wardrobe--to stop Alistair.

From New York Times Bestselling author Tracy Wolff and International Bestselling author Katie Graykowski comes a sexy tale of love, laughter and lingerie … Lyric Wright is an off-beat astrophysicist whose life is falling apart around her. After losing her fiancé to a hula dancing astrologer and losing her dress to an ill-fated leap of faith, she’s sure there’s nowhere for her life to go but up. At least until she sits down on a trans-Pacific flight next to the one man she never wanted to see again—the boy she’d lost her heart and her virginity too back before she’d learned that friendship and football don’t equal true love. Broken down quarterback Heath Montgomery is on a plane ride to nowhere. Dodging the phone call he’s certain will end his professional football career for good, he might be Texas bound, but he knows there’s nowhere for him to go but down. But that’s before his childhood best friend and confidante plops back into his life wearing nothing but duct tape and a bad attitude. Determined not to lose her again (especially since he isn’t sure why he lost her the first time) and desperate to outrun his own shadowy future, Heath sets out to take Lyric on the ride of her life. Too bad she only dates men who actually know what her butterfly nebula is … and can find it without the help of a star chart. Add in one passive-aggressive flight attendant with delusions of couture, a cherry red car with a crush on Neil Diamond, an over-protective sister with a black belt in Krav Maga, two parents determined to marry their spinster daughter off to the hometown hero no matter the cost, and a whole lot of lingerie popping up in all the right places at all the wrong times and you’ve got an unforgettable love story that fans of Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Rachel Gibson won’t want to miss!

The Blood Destiny series has sold over 100,000 copies. Now read the events of the first book, Bloodfire, from the point of view of the predatory Lord Alpha. Corrigan may have only just started in his role as Head of the Brethren, the de-facto rulers of the country's shifters, but it's already clear he's not going to be in for an easy ride. Between brutal deaths in both Cornwall and London to deal with, alongside a certain curious were-hamster who has far more strength, power and mouth than should be possible, he's got his hands full. He thought his greatest desire was to modernise the shapeshifter world - but he may have been very mistaken...

A remarkable portrait of one of American labor's most enduring legends: Blending fact with fiction, Wallace Stegner retells the story of Joe Hill, the Wobbly bard who became the stuff of legend when, in 1915, he was executed for the alleged murder of a Salt Lake City businessman. Organizer, agitator, "Labor's Songster"--a rebel from the skin inwards, with an absolute faith in the One Big Union--Joe Hill fought tirelessly in the frequently violent battles between organized labor & industry. But tho songs & stories still vaunt him & his legend continues to inspire those who feel the injustices he fought against, Joe Hill may not have been a saintly crusader, & may have been motivated by impulses darker than the search for justice. Joe Hill is full-bodied portrait of both the man & the myth: from his entrance into the short-lived Industrial Workers of the World union, the most militant organization in the history of American labor, to his trial, imprisonment & final martyrdom-- his last words to the I.W.W., "Don't waste time mourning. Organize."

Bored and aloof, tired of St Petersburg high society, Yevgeny Onegin goes to live on the country estate he has just inherited from his uncle. There he encounters Tatyana, who becomes hopelessly infatuated with him. From this story Pushkin creates his sublime masterpiece of love, death, duelling, rivalry, identity and the search for happiness; the lodestar for all of Russian literature. By turns playful, philosophical, sardonic and mournful, brimming with rich descriptions of Russian life, from drinking and dancing to crisp wintry landscapes, Yevgeny Onegin is a work of thrilling energy. Anthony Briggs’s deft and vibrant new translation brilliantly conveys this vitality, capturing all the supple lightness and humour, as well as the depth, of Pushkin’s luminous verse novel.

Don't be fooled. Don't make excuses for me. I am not a good man. I've seen things no one should, done things no one should talk about. Honor and conscience have no place in my life. But I've fought and I've survived. I've had to. The first time I saw her dancing on that seedy stage in that second rate club, I felt my heart pulse for the first time. Keelyn Foster was too young, too vibrant for this place, and I knew in an instant that I would make her mine. But first I had to climb my way to the top. I had to have something more to offer her. I'm here now, money is no object and I have no equal. Except for her. She's disappeared. But don't worry, I will find her and claim her. She will be mine. Like I said, don't be fooled. I am not the devil in disguise… I'm the one front and center.

Douglas Ashton is the cold and unfeeling owner of the gothic Victorian Mansion, Sommersgate House. Julia Fairfax is his stubborn American sister-in-law. After tragedy strikes, Douglas and Julia are forced to live together at Sommersgate and raise their newly orphaned nieces and nephew. Douglas has no desire to raise his dead sister’s children nor does he want the distraction of the tempting Julia living under his roof. Julia is struggling with grief and trying to make a go in a new country without much help from impossibly handsome but even more impossibly remote Douglas. Not to mention, she has to deal with the active hostility of Douglas’s frosty, Attila-the-Hun-in-a-skirt mother, Monique. Douglas decides the best way to give the children what they need, get his mother to behave and give himself what he wants is to marry Julia. When he tells her (yes, tells her) she will be his wife, Julia thinks Douglas is (probably) insane. And anyway, she’s decided if she ever has another husband (since the last one wasn’t so great), he was going to be short, balding, have a paunch and worship the ground she walks on (none of these characteristics define Douglas in the slightest). One more thing, Sommersgate House is haunted by the ghosts of the man who built the house and the woman who was the love of his life. They both died mysteriously at Sommersgate months after it was finished. When they did, a curse settled on the house making it seem strangely alive. And the only way for the beautiful but frightening house to rid itself of this curse is for its owner to find true love.

“Now you young twerps want a new name for your generation? Probably not, you just want jobs, right? Well, the media do us all such tremendous favors when they call you Generation X, right? Two clicks from the very end of the alphabet. I hereby declare you Generation A, as much at the beginning of a series of astonishing triumphs and failures as Adam and Eve were so long ago.†— Kurt Vonnegut, Syracuse University commencement address May 8, 1994 A brilliant, timely and very Couplandesque novel about honey bees and the world we may soon live in. Once again, Douglas Coupland captures the spirit of a generation…. In the near future bees are extinct — until one autumn when five people are stung in different places around the world. This shared experience unites them in a way they never could have imagined. Generation A mirrors 1991’s Generation X. It explores new ways of looking at the act of reading and storytelling in a digital world.

Once the Sith Order teemed with followers. But their rivalries divided them in endless battles for supremacy. Until one dark lord at last united the Sith in the quest to enslave the galaxy—and exterminate the Jedi. Yet it would fall to another, far more powerful than the entire Brotherhood of Darkness, to ultimately realize the full potential of the Sith, and wield the awesome power of the dark side as never before.

Freighter Ben Porter is one of only two men allowed inside the women's colony of Harper's Station, Texas. Over the course of his business dealings, he's fallen hard for shopkeeper Tori Adams. Too bad she won't even give him a chance. Can he convince her to partner with him in a new business venture--and possibly more?

My cock has an appetite. A * huge * and * very particular * appetite: Blonde, curvy, and preferably not a fucking liar... (Although, that's a story for another day.) As a high profile lawyer, I don't have time to waste on relationships, so I fulfill my needs by anonymously chatting and sleeping with women I meet online. My rules are simple: One dinner. One night. No repeats. This is only casual sex. Nothing more. Nothing less. At least it * was *, until "Alyssa"... She was supposed to be a 27 year old lawyer, a book hoarder, and completely unattractive. She was supposed to be someone I shared law advice with late at night, someone I could trust with details of my weekly escapades. But then she came into my firm for an interview—a * college-intern * interview, and everything fucking changed...

In this final book of Novik's series, Captain Will Laurence and his extraordinary dragon, Temeraire, are ordered to escort and protect a precious cargo of valuable dragon eggs from Istanbul to England. Original. “A splendid series.”–Anne McCaffrey“Naomi Novik has done for the Napoleonic Wars what Anne McCaffrey did for science fiction: constructed an alternate reality in which dragons are real in a saga that is impressively original, fully developed, and peopled with characters you care about.”–David Weber, author of the Honor Harrington seriesAfter their fateful adventure in China, Capt. Will Laurence of His Majesty’s Aerial Corps and his extraordinary dragon, Temeraire, are waylaid by a mysterious envoy bearing urgent new orders from Britain. Three valuable dragon eggs have been purchased from the Ottoman Empire, and Laurence and Temeraire must detour to Istanbul to escort the precious cargo back to England. Time is of the essence if the eggs are to be borne home before hatching.Yet disaster threatens the mission at every turn–thanks to the diabolical machinations of the Chinese dragon Lien, who blames Temeraire for her master’s death and vows to ally herself with Napoleon and take vengeance. Then, faced with shattering betrayal in an unexpected place, Laurence, Temeraire, and their squad must launch a daring offensive. But what chance do they have against the massed forces of Bonaparte’s implacable army?

Captain Sophia Coloma of the Clarke has a simple task: Ferry around representatives from Earth in an aging spaceship that the Colonial Union hopes to sell to them. But nothing is as simple as it seems, and Coloma discovers the ship she's showing off holds suprises of its own...and it's not the only one with secrets.

It's Canada's 150th anniversary and a great time for these 101 stories about everything Canadian. These true personal stories are like love letters to this vast and beautuful country. You'll read about winter snow and summer cottages, hockey and national spirit, wilderness and wildlife, the cultural mosiac, that famous Canadian hospitality, and everything else that makes Canada unique.

In Girl Meets Boy, Ali Smith reinterprets the Myth of Iphis, the girl who became a boy, as a brilliant hybrid of satire and romantic comedy. This is a warm, funny, subversive romp through the murky hinterland of corporate perfidy, by an author the Scotsman has described as 'one of our greatest imaginative writers'.