The eleven–year–old son of newly–separated parents spends the day with his folks. First published in Many Mountains Moving.Brad doesn't believe in Father Christmas, and he doesn't want anyone else to believe that nonsense either. In fact, he's happiest when he's making everyone else miserable. His parents aren't bothered about Christmas, so on Christmas Eve Brad is in bed like any other night. There's no decorations in the house, no tree downstairs, no stocking hung up. But, whether Brad believes it or not, a noise on the roof has woken him up. He doesn't know it, but soon he'll have to decide whether to stay being Bad Brad, or whether he'll get on his bike and save Christmas.This wonderful short story is perfect for children and families who are longing for Christmas to be here. Deck the halls, turn on the fairy lights, warm the mince pies and read this heartwarming tale of true magic.

On an open-ended assignment for one of Hollywood’s mainline studios Raymond James, private investigator, and his partner Miss Suzuki develop an understanding of the communist conspiracy plaguing America. Her experiences lead Miss Suzuki to predict the future capture of our country through promotion of a cult-of-personality figurehead fronting for a shadowy cabal of entrenched domestic enemies.It’s 1947 in America. Enemies foreign and domestic working under explicit orders in service to the Soviet Union have infiltrated virtually every institution. In these times free Americans have not yet succumbed to the doctrines and deceits of political correctness. Engrained with common sense and rational thought, they could never foresee that so many would someday yield to such blatant manipulation after only a few decades of indoctrination and conditioning.Yet one among them does.Newly returned from the Pacific War and Japanese occupation, private detective Raymond James hangs out his shingle in Hollywood, hires on Miss Yuki Suzuki, ex-internee of Manzanar, and works his way onto the studio lots. Neither expects that an unusual assignment will plunge them deep into the heart of darkness of the American communist conspiracy. What starts as a simple case of mistaken identity grows into a cross-country odyssey of treason, murder, duty, honor, and courage before just one communist plot is discovered and run to ground.Join Ray as his adventures take him from the docks of Los Angeles Harbor through the studios of Hollywood and the defense industries of New Mexico to a nest of vipers hidden deep in the high society of Tampa-St. Petersburg. Obtain glimpses of the moral dangers inherent in an alien, inhuman system that brooks no dissent and relentlessly enforces its tenets by any means necessary. Share the vision of Ray’s partner Yuki who understands better than any what the future holds.

Do you want to see how things got so corrupt, so fast? Would you understand the ethics your kids are taught in school? Want to look behind the curtain at the workings of our cultural confusion? This quick, 14 page essay is a summary of an over 250 page research project. I tried to make complex, philosophical movements as easy-to-understand as possible.Do you want to see how things got so corrupt, so fast? Would you understand the ethics your kids are taught in school? Want to look behind the curtain at the workings of our cultural confusion? This quick, 14 page essay is a summary of an over 250 page research project. I tried to make complex, philosophical movements as easy-to-understand as possible. Yes, we live in a world flooded with information and very little (overview interpretation) wisdom. Without an occasional step back/overview we are in danger of getting cynical and jaded. Enjoy this wider look at the way our world is operating. I hope you find truth delightful and get a sense of peace from this perspective.

Hercules is in a race against time to save the world. Twelve challenges must be completed, and the clock is ticking. Monsters must be fought, puzzles solved and gods confronted, but this time strength will not be enough, it will take honour, wisdom, perseverance and, above all, friendship to win the day. A book where the adventure never stops, it will enthral children of all ages.With triumph after triumph in his past, Hercules has become proud and boastful, believing himself to be almost a god. Unless he can rediscover what it means to be a man, the king of the giants will break free and destroy the world. Twelve challenges must be completed, and the clock is ticking. Monsters must be fought, puzzles solved and gods confronted, but this time strength will not be enough, it will take honour, wisdom, perseverance and, above all, friendship to win the day.A book where the adventure never stops, set in the time when heroes and gods still walked the earth, it will enthral children of all ages.

After getting held up on his way to work, Ed Fletcher worries about the repercussions he will face when he reaches his office. Little does he know that his late arrival will give him a glimpse behind the very fabric of human existence and put him at odds with powers he cannot comprehend. Philip K. Dick was an American science-fiction novelist, short-story writer and essayist. His first short story, “Beyond Lies the Wub,” was published shortly after his high school graduation. “Adjustment Team” was adapted into the 2011 film The Adjustment Bureau, starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. Many of Philip K. Dick’s other stories have been similarly adapted, including “The Minority Report,” “Paycheck,” “Second Variety” (adapted into the film Screamers) and “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” (adapted into the film Total Recall). HarperCollins brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperCollins short-stories collection to build your digital library.

In 2001, #1 New York Times bestselling crime novelist Patricia Cornwell was pulled into a real-life investigation of her own—the long-unsolved and deeply unsettling “Jack the Ripper” murders that mesmerized London in the late 1800s. Applying modern science and forensic techniques to a century-old crime, Cornwell’s research led to the publication of Portrait of a Killer, in which she identified the renowned British painter Walter Sickert as the Ripper. The book became a #1 bestseller but also embroiled Cornwell in controversy as Ripperologists dismissed her claims and her credibility. But for Cornwell, the book was only the beginning. For more than a decade, Cornwell has devoted countless hours and invested millions in her pursuit of new evidence against Sickert. Now, twelve years later, Cornwell revisits the most notorious unsolved crime in history—determined to solve the mystery once and for all. In this exclusive Kindle Single, Cornwell restates her case against Sickert, unveils new evidence, clarifies his motivations, and makes him human—and, along the way, explains how such a prominent cultural figure could be a notorious killer. She also directly faces down her critics with withering skill and, in doing so, is likely to re-ignite the debate over history’s most heinous unsolved crime. Chasing the Ripper offers a surprisingly personal and revealing look into what it has been like for Cornwell to pursue the most sensational murder case in criminal history—even as she continues to thrill her fans with a steady diet of new Scarpetta novels, including Flesh and Blood, her latest New York Times bestseller.

Introspective and poignant, The Wine of Solitude is the most autobiographical of all of the novels from the celebrated author of Suite Française. Beginning in a fictionalized Kiev, The Wine of Solitude follows the Karol family through the Great War and the Russian Revolution, as the young Hélène grows from a dreamy, unhappy child into a strongwilled young woman. From the hot Kiev summers to the cruel winters of St Petersburg and eventually to springtime in Paris, the would-be writer Hélène blossoms, despite her mother’s neglect, into a clear-eyed observer of the life around her. Here is a powerful tale of disillusionment — the story of an upbringing that produces a young woman as hard as a diamond, prepared to wreak a shattering revenge on her mother. A Vintage Paperback Original

Most of the big money belongs to Torquil Paterson Frisby, the dyspeptic American millionaire - but that doesn't stop him wanting more out of it. His niece, the beautiful Ann Moon, is engaged to 'Biscuit', Lord Biskerton, who doesn't have very much of the stuff and so he has to escape to Valley Fields to hide from his creditors. Meanwhile, his old schoolfriend Berry Conway, who is working for Frisby, himself falls for Ann - just as Biscuit falls for her friend Kitchie Valentine. In this typically hilarious novel by the master of light comedy, life can sometimes become a little complicated. Oh, and Berry has been left a lot of shares in the Dream Come True copper mine. Of course they're worthless... aren't they?

In Message in the Bottle, Walker Percy offers insights on such varied yet interconnected subjects as symbolic reasoning, the origins of mankind, Helen Keller, Semioticism, and the incredible Delta Factor. Confronting difficult philosophical questions with a novelist's eye, Percy rewards us again and again with his keen insights into the way that language possesses all of us.

From Joyce Carol Oates, an exquisite, psychologically complex thriller about opposing forces within the mind of one ambitious writer and the delicate line between genius and madness. Andrew J. Rush has achieved the kind of critical and commercial success most authors only dream about: He has a top agent and publisher in New York, and his twenty-eight mystery novels have sold millions of copies. Only Stephen King, one of the few mystery writers whose fame exceeds his own, is capable of inspiring a twinge of envy in Rush. But Rush is hiding a dark secret. Under the pseudonym "Jack of Spades," he pens another string of novels—noir thrillers that are violent, lurid, masochistic. These are novels that the upstanding Rush wouldn't be caught reading, let alone writing. When his daughter comes across a Jack of Spades novel he has carelessly left out, she picks it up and begins to ask questions. Meanwhile, Rush receives a court summons in the mail explaining that a local woman has accused him of plagiarizing her own self-published fiction. Before long, Rush's reputation, career, and family life all come under threat—and in his mind he begins to hear the taunting voice of the Jack of Spades.

A number one bestseller in Britain, Stephen Fry's astonishingly frank, funny, wise memoir is the book that his fans everywhere have been waiting for. Since his PBS television debut in the Blackadder series, the American profile of this multitalented writer, actor and comedian has grown steadily, especially in the wake of his title role in the film Wilde, which earned him a Golden Globe nomination, and his supporting role in A Civil Action. Fry has already given readers a taste of his tumultuous adolescence in his autobiographical first novel, The Liar, and now he reveals the equally tumultuous life that inspired it. Sent to boarding school at the age of seven, he survived beatings, misery, love affairs, carnal violation, expulsion, attempted suicide, criminal conviction and imprisonment to emerge, at the age of eighteen, ready to start over in a world in which he had always felt a stranger. One of very few Cambridge University graduates to have been imprisoned prior to his freshman year, Fry is a brilliantly idiosyncratic character who continues to attract controversy, empathy and real devotion. From the Trade Paperback edition.