"Talk to the hand, 'cause the face ain't listening," the saying goes. When did the world stop wanting to hear? When did society become so thoughtless? It's a topic that has been simmering for years, and Lynne Truss says it's now reached the boiling point. Taking on the boorish behavior that for some has become a point of pride, Talk to the Hand is a rallying cry for courtesy. Like Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Talk to the Hand is not a stuffy guidebook, and is sure to inspire spirited conversation. Why hasn't your nephew ever thanked you for your carefully selected gift? What makes your contractor think it's fine to snub you in the midst of a major renovation? Why do crowds spawn selfishness? What accounts for the appalling treatment you receive in stores (if you're lucky enough to get a clerk's attention at all)? Most important, what will it take to roll back a culture that applauds those who are disrespectful? In a recent U.S. survey, 79 percent of...

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Frank Delaney's The Matchmaker of Kenmare. January 1932: Ben MacCarthy and his father watch a vagabond variety revue making a stop in the Irish countryside. After a two-hour kaleidoscope of low comedy, juggling, tumbling, and other entertainments, Ben’s father, mesmerized by Venetia Kelly, the troupe’s magnetic headliner, makes a fateful decision: to abandon his family and set off on the road with Miss Kelly and her caravan. Ben’s mother, shattered by the desertion, exhorts, “Find him and bring him back,” thereby sending the boy on a Homeric voyage into manhood. Interweaving a host of unforgettable creations—“King” Kelly, Venetia’s violent, Mephistophelean grandfather; Sarah Kelly, Venetia’s mysterious, amoral mother; and even a truth-telling ventriloquist’s dummy named Blarney—Frank Delaney unfurls a splendid narrative that spans half the world and a tumultuous decade.

I thought I could handle this business arrangement. It was what I'd wanted, after all. Someone to teach me how to be the kind of woman every man desired. Every man, that was, but one. When Bree Gamble agrees to let escort Cade Shepard mold her into a beautiful, confident woman, she tells herself that it's business, nothing more. A transaction between consenting adults. Sex with no emotional strings attached. Exactly what she needs after the disastrous end to her previous relationship. As things with Cade progress, however, she is forced to admit that she's starting to fall for the handsome gigolo. Will Bree be able to keep her feelings hidden or is her relationship with Cade doomed? Find out what happens next in the third Casual Encounter installment by best-selling author M.S. Parker.

Koba the Dread is the successor to Amis's celebrated memoir, Experience. It addresses itself to the central lacuna of twentieth-century thought: the indulgence of communism by Western intellectuals. In between the personal beginning and the personal ending, Amis gives us perhaps the best one hundred pages ever written about Stalin: Koba the Dread, Iosif the Terrible. The author's father, Kingsley Amis, was 'a Comintern dogsbody' (as he would come to put it) from 1941 to 1956. His second-closest, and later in life his closest friend, was Robert Conquest, whose book The Great Terror was second only to Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago in undermining the USSR. Amis's remarkable memoir explores these connections. Stalin said that the death of one person was tragic, the death of a million a mere 'statistic'. Koba the Dread, during whose course the author absorbs a particular, a familial death, is a rebuttal of Stalin's aphorism.

Deputy sheriff Tom Lord knows by now that far-west Texas is the place he'll always call home. He's spent too much time in the region's small towns to adapt to another place. And that's all right with him. What's not all right is being a deputy sheriff, where if it weren't for family misfortune, he might have been a doctor instead. Lord's got one ace-in-the-hole--the land deed that makes him the biggest landowner in the county, just as the oil companies have started to move in. When Tom's approached by Aaron McBride of Highlands Oil and Gas with a contract to set up pipelines on his property, he's more than happy to sign on the dotted line with barely more than a cursory glance at the paperwork--it just might be Lord's way out of a life he never wanted in the first place. But when Lord finds out just what that contract entailed, things start to go sour for Aaron McBride--and fast. Because in this Texas town, Lord's the law--and there's nothing more dangerous than a cop with nothing left to lose.

Bound by blood, addicted to danger, they'll enter the darkest—and most erotic—place of all. A warrior trained in bullets and blades, Renata cannot be bested by any man—vampire or mortal. But her most powerful weapon is her extraordinary psychic ability—a gift both rare and deadly. Now a stranger threatens her hard-won independence—a golden-haired vampire who lures her into a realm of darkness…and pleasure beyond imagining. A combat-loving adrenaline junkie, Nikolai dispenses his own justice to enemies of the Breed—and his latest quarry is a ruthless assassin. One woman stands in his way: the seductive, cool-as-ice bodyguard, Renata. But Renata’s powers are put to the test when a loved one, a child, is threatened and she’s forced to turn to Niko for help. As the two join forces, as desire fans the flames of a deeper hunger, Renata’s life is under siege by a man who offers the exquisite pleasure of a blood bond—and a passion that could save or doom them both forever. …

They are the Sentinels. Three races descended from ancient guardians of mankind, each possessing unique abilities in their battle to protect humanity against their eternal foes: the Synestryn. Now one Sentinel's survival determines the fate of them all. Lexi Johns has one purpose: to free her best friend from the hands of the Sentinels. And Zach, the Sentinel she has been running from for months, has one goal: to convince her that their destinies are entwined. For the magic that Zach has absorbed could destroy him if he doesn't find the woman who can channel it for him. And he knows Lexi is the one. From an early age, Lexi has been taught to fear the Sentinels. And now she is an agent of a group out to destroy them. So when Zach finds her, it is Lexi's chance to strike at the heart of the Sentinels. But, as Lexi sees Zach's courage, selflessness, and honor, she begins to doubt her beliefs — and is faced with an unbearable choice.

Alan is a middle-aged entrepeneur in contemporary Toronto, who has devoted himself to fixing up a house in a bohemian neighborhood. This naturally brings him in contact with the house full of students and layabouts next door, including a young woman who, in a moment of stress, reveals to him that she has wings--wings, moreover, which grow back after each attempt to cut them off. Alan understands. He himself has a secret or two. His father is a mountain; his mother is a washing machine; and among his brothers are a set of Russian nesting dolls. Now two of the three nesting dolls, Edward and Frederick, are on his doorstep--well on their way to starvation, because their innermost member, George, has vanished. It appears that yet another brother, Davey, who Alan and his other siblings killed years ago, may have returned...bent on revenge.Under such circumstances it seems only reasonable for Alan to involve himself with a visionary scheme to blanket Toronto with free wireless Internet connectivity, a conspiracy spearheaded by a brilliant technopunk who builds miracles of hardware from parts scavenged from the city's dumpsters. But Alan's past won't leave him alone--and Davey is only one of the powers gunning for him and all his friends.

When Richard Viner discovers a body on an evening stroll he quickly finds himself "In the Middle of Things." Called upon to prove the innocence of a school chum and protect the interests of the young ward of the murdered man he must not only find the real murderer, but who the victim was and why he was murdered. The trail of clues and deceptions leads him ever farther into The Middle of Things. This classic book was handcrafted by Resurrected Press. Resurrected Press is dedicated to bringing high quality classic books back to the readers who enjoy them. These are not scanned versions of the originals, but, rather, quality checked and edited books meant to be enjoyed!

Living in the present days of peace and tranquillity it is difficult to picture the life of our ancestors in the days of King Alfred, when the whole country was for years overrun by hordes of pagan barbarians, who slaughtered, plundered, and destroyed at will. You may gain, perhaps, a fair conception of the state of things if you imagine that at the time of the great mutiny the English population of India approached that of the natives, and that the mutiny was everywhere triumphant. The wholesale massacres and outrages which would in such a case have been inflicted upon the conquered whites could be no worse than those suffered by the Saxons at the hands of the Danes. From this terrible state of subjection and suffering the Saxons were rescued by the prudence, the patience, the valour and wisdom of King Alfred. In all subsequent ages England has produced no single man who united in himself so many great qualities as did this first of great Englishmen. He was learned, wise, brave, prudent, and pious; devoted to his people, clement to his conquered enemies. He was as great in peace as in war; and yet few English boys know more than a faint outline of the events of Alfred’s reign—events which have exercised an influence upon the whole future of the English people. School histories pass briefly over them; and the incident of the burned cake is that which is, of all the actions of a great and glorious reign, the most prominent in boys’ minds. In this story I have tried to supply the deficiency. Fortunately in the Saxon Chronicles and in the life of King Alfred written by his friend and counsellor Asser, we have a trustworthy account of the events and battles which first laid Wessex prostrate beneath the foot of the Danes, and finally freed England for many years from the invaders. These histories I have faithfully followed. The account of the siege of Paris is taken from a very full and detailed history of that event by the Abbe D’Abbon, who was a witness of the scenes he described...

One of Henry James’ main themes was the interaction between the Old World and the New. Restless Baroness Eugenia Munster and her charming bohemian brother Felix are visiting their American cousins in Boston, New England. The effect these two extravagant characters have on their austere Puritan relations forms the substance of the book and is told in a series of scenes or‘sketches’. The author writes with subtly observed good humour which accelerates and escalates into higher comedy as Felix, the main protagonist, manipulates his cousin’s emotional affiliations.

“I have never believed in going strictly by the book. It’s the main reason I’ve never been offered a higher position on a big-draft. But, when things really go to hell, I’m always the first one to get the call. They trust me with their lives, but not their jobs.”--Adrian Tarn, Chief Security Officer, Starship Electra“I have never believed in going strictly by the book. My six-foot-two frame has an assortment of scars and marks that readily attest to that. It’s the main reason I’ve never been offered a higher position on a big-draft. But, when things really go to hell, I’m always the first one to get the call. They trust me with their lives, but not their jobs.”--Adrian Tarn, Chief Security Officer, Starship Electra

Hijackers, representing a Palestinian faction, take over an airliner flying between New York and Frankfurt. But nothing is straightforward. The author also wrote Schindler's Ark, The Playmaker and Towards Asmara. This book was shortlisted for the Sunday Express Book of the Year Award.

James Patterson’s BookShots. Short, fast-paced, high-impact entertainment. Caleb Rooney knows how to do two things: run a food truck and solve a murder. When people suddenly start dying of foodborne illnesses, the stakes are higher than ever...

James often finds himself gazing out the window at night, wondering about other worlds, and what it might be like to live somewhere else. But it is all just a dream--until the memorable night he slips into the laboratory of his friend, Mr. Woodforde. Brilliant but eccentric, the elderly physicist lets James in on a secret. For years, he has been working on a secret project: a time machine. Welcome aboard, James. Next stop: the Past. Or…the Future….

Mr. Destructo-Feet Roscoe's friend Gus wants a pair of cool new shoes. But Gus's parents won't buy them until his old, boring ones are worn out—and that could take forever. Luckily, if there's one thing Roscoe is good at, it's destroying things. . . .

Nadine, a sixteen-year-old runaway new to London, is set up in a decaying Georgian house by her Finnish lover, Kai. Slowly, she begins to suspect that Kai's plans for her have little to do with love. 'Be careful,' warns Enid, the elderly sitting tenant in the house, who knows all about survival and secrets. And when Nadine discovers Kai's true intentions, Enid's warning takes on a terrible and prophetic quality.

The world as Hadge knows it seems to unravel around him, as the mystery of a strange book is thrust upon him along with what it really means to him, and the survival of Elysium.HADAGERY!The book of Elysium has been opened, and darkness will unfold, bleeding upon the land like a plague.WORLD CAST IN DARKNESS. Elysium is the remnants of a dying world, dimmed by evil, and the ignorance of mankind.SURVIVORS ARE BEING ISOLATED AND DEVOURED.Those that have survived the turmoil have devolved into scavengers, even as their bodies have adjusted to the cold dark climate, and dangers around every corner.WHERE HOPE FALLS.Is in the hands of an ordinary hairy little man named the Hadge. He is the only one who can seal the evil book of Elysium, and save the world. Throughout his journey he learns that he is a divine being, born upon every world with life, as a safeguard to guide each world from evil. He is the only hope.HADGE’S DARK JOURNEY.Startling events are set into motion during a trip to Ennead Mountains, as his friend Uwee quickly vanishes, and giant glowing spiders appear. Hadge and Uwee barely escape the mountain alive, however he comes to the conclusion that a book had beset Elysium into this age of darkness. A mysterious whispering book he discovers he cannot read, and is determined to find someone to reveal its secrets. Hadge journeys through the mountain where the deadly scyphus live, beyond the giant mountain troll that saves his life, and into the lost woods where his life is turned upside down. He at last identifies the voices from the book, as they read from the pages, telling Hadge he's a divine being, and that sealing the book would be Elysium's only hope for a future. Disturbingly to seal the book he has to journey straight into hordes of demons, and into the bowels of Hell, where he will be related a terrible fact, "Oh shit kid. You're not even real."

Dirk Pitt rides a tidal wave of intrigue in this classic Cussler.  On an isolated Greek island, a World War I fighter plane attacks a modern U.S. Air Force base--a mysterious saboteur preys on an American scientific expedition--and Dirk Pitt plays a deadly game of hunter and hunted with the elusive head of an international smuggling ring.

Legendary New York Times bestselling author Elmore Leonard returns with three of his favorite characters: Jack Foley from Out of Sight, Cundo Rey from LaBrava, and Dawn Navarro from Riding the Rap. Fresh out of prison, Foley hooks up with Dawn Navarro, the common-law wife of Foley's extremely wealthy friend, Cundo Rey, in a plan to relieve Cundo of his fortune. What's "trust" among friends when money is involved?