The Hippopotamus

      Stephen Fry
     The Hippopotamus

Ted Wallace is an old, sour, womanising, cantankerous, whisky-sodden beast of a failed poet and drama critic, but he has his faults too. Fired from his newspaper, months behind on his alimony payments and disgusted with a world that undervalues him, Ted seeks a few months repose and free drink at Swafford Hall, the country mansion of his old friend Lord Logan. But strange things have been going on at Swafford.  Miracles, Healings, Phenomena beyond the comprehension of a mud-caked hippopotamus like Ted...

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    Chicken Soup for the Dieter's Soul

      Jack Canfield
     Chicken Soup for the Dieter's Soul

The Perfect Pick-Me-Up for the Dieting Blues Ah, the "joys" of dieting: Looking the other way while your friend enjoys a decadent dessert; cursing your gene pool for your sluggish metabolism; preferring a root canal over your weekly weigh-in. While winning the war over our waistlines is no laughing matter, it can nevertheless be a rewarding, enjoyable journey when tackled with the right mindset and motivation. Chicken Soup for the Dieter's Soul is the perfect pick-me-up for the dieting blues, filled with humorous, uplifting, and inspiring stories about how real people discovered the lighter, brighter side of dieting and got healthier along the way. Whether you're yo-yo dieting, so-so-dieting, or just trying to lose a few pounds, Chicken Soup for the Dieter's Soul will get you over the hump.

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    That Baby

      Jillian Dodd
     That Baby

**First comes love, then comes marriage . . . and then comes *That Baby*, the third book in the *That Boy* series by *USA Today* bestselling author, Jillian Dodd.** It’s amazing how a few little words can change your life. It starts with a simple I love you. It’s made official with I do. And becomes incredible with I’m pregnant. Jadyn is the girl I love. The girl I’ve always loved. Our lives are like single threads meticulously woven together—the result an exquisite tapestry of past, present, and future. Then there are the words that will unravel me. A few little words that will change my life.

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    They Do It With Mirrors

      Agatha Christie
     They Do It With Mirrors

E-book exclusive extras:1) Christie biographer Charles Osborne's essay on They Do It with Mirrors;2) "The Marples": the complete guide to all the cases of crime literature's foremost female detective.A sense of danger pervades the rambling Victorian mansion in which Jane Marple’s friend Carrie Louise lives—and not only because the building doubles as a rehabilitation centre for criminal youths. One inmate attempts, and fails, to shoot dead the administrator. But simultaneously, in another part of the building, a mysterious visitor is less lucky. Miss Marple must employ all her cunning to solve the riddle of the stranger’s visit, and his murder—while protecting her friend from a similarly dreadful fate.The New York Times: ‘No one on either side of the Atlantic does it better.’

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    Of All That Ends

      Günter Grass
     Of All That Ends

Allen Zumutungen des Alterns und der 'Endlichkait' zum Trotz, plötzlich erscheint erneut fast alles möglich: Liebesbriefe, Selbstgespräche, Eifersuchtsdramen, Schwanengesänge, Gesellschaftssatiren und Augenblicke des Glücks drängen aufs Papier. Plötzlich findet rhythmisierte Kurzprosa ein vielstimmiges Echo in episch wuchernden oder pointiert zugespitzten Gedichten. Plötzlich entstehen sinnenfrohe Doppelstücke, die vom Zeichner ins Bild gesetzt, weitererzählt oder auf den Doppelpunkt gebracht werden. So traurig und gewitzt, so lebensklug und doch kämpferisch kann nur ein in die Jahre gekommener Künstler ans Werk gehen, der dem Tod wiederholt von der Schippe gesprungen ist. Zahlreiche berührende Geschichten bringt er hervor, verdichtet sie zu kunstvollen Miniaturen, die hier und jetzt spielen. In 'Vonne Endlichkait' schafft der Literaturnobelpreisträger in einem beeindruckenden Wechselspiel aus Lyrik, Prosa und Illustration sein letztes Gesamtkunstwerk.

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    The Passion

      Jeanette Winterson
     The Passion

Jeanette Winterson’s novels have established her as one of the most important young writers in world literature. The Passion is perhaps her most highly acclaimed work, a modern classic that confirms her special claim on the novel. Set during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars, The Passion intertwines the destinies of two remarkable people: Henri, a simple French soldier, who follows Napoleon from glory to Russian ruin; and Villanelle, the red-haired, web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, whose husband has gambled away her heart. In Venice’s compound of carnival, chance, and darkness, the pair meet their singular destiny. In her unique and mesmerizing voice, Winterson blends reality with fantasy, dream, and imagination to weave a hypnotic tale with stunning effects.

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    Ordinary People

      Judith Guest
     Ordinary People

The Novel that Inspired Robert Redford's Oscar Winning Film starring Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore In Ordinary People, Judith Guest's remarkable first novel, the Jarrets are a typical American family. Calvin is a determined, successful provider and Beth an organized, efficient wife. They had two sons, Conrad and Buck, but now they have one. In this memorable, moving novel, Judith Guest takes the reader into their lives to share their misunderstandings, pain...and ultimate healing. Judith Guest is the author of six novels, including Ordinary People, Errands, and the Tarnished Eye.

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    Diary of a Combatant

      Ernesto Che Guevara
     Diary of a Combatant

The publication of this title by Ocean Sur in Spanish in July 2011 provoked considerable international attention (including CNN). This never-before-published diary (comprising a dozen small notebooks) Ernesto Che Guevara kept during the guerrilla war in Cuba when he joined the struggle to overthrow the Batista dictatorship that led to the 1959 revolution has now been meticulously transcribed by his widow, Aleida March. Why did it take over fifty years for this diary to be published? Maybe because of some caustic comments Che makes in his usual brutally frank style. Maybe it was felt appropriate to wait until Fidel Castro had produced his own memoirs (now published by Ocean Press as "The Strategic Victory"). In launching the book in Havana in July 2011, editor Maria del Carmen Ariet marked that it was "never clear whether or not Che wanted these diaries published" as he had reworked several pieces into his famous "Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War," on which Steven Soderbergh based part one of his epic movie "Che," starring Benicio Del Toro. Nevertheless, all Che's diaries--from his early "Motorcycle Diaries" and its sequel, "Latin America Diaries," through to his last diary from Bolivia--are extraordinary examples of his literary gift and his political incisiveness, in terms of his personal reflections, his criticisms and self-criticism, and his observations about others and events. Other features of this new book are fifty-eight unpublished photos from Che's personal archive and unpublished letters (including correspondence between Che and Fidel), an index, and extensive glossary.

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    Baby, It's Cold Outside

      Jennifer Probst
     Baby, It's Cold Outside

***New York Times* and *USA TODAY* bestselling indie authors Jennifer Probst, Emma Chase, Kristen Proby, Melody Anne, and debut author Kate Meader come together to write a sizzling romance anthology. ** *Outside it may be frosty, so turn the heat way up with these stories of desire!* ** *Searching for You* ** Can a determined woman executive and a playboy billionaire survive being stranded together in a snowstorm? **Jennifer Probst** depicts an encounter almost too hot to handle... ** *It's a Wonderful Tangled Christmas Carol* ** Drew and Kate play an encore to *Tangled* in this sexy take on a "Christmas Carol" by **Emma Chase**. When a Christmas Eve argument condemns Drew to a troubled night, three dream women teach him that no gift could be more tantalizing than Kate... ** *Saving Grace* ** With **Kristen Proby**, ski slopes are quite delightful. Grace Douglas is sure she'll never learn to ski, but instructor Jacob Baxter could teach her lessons of a different kind... ** *Safe in His Arms* ** Can a southern California transplant survive Montana's deep snows? **Melody Anne**, author of the bestselling Andersons series, melts the icy drifts completely away with the heat between sexy Hawk Winchester and brand-new teacher Natalie Duncan... ** *Rekindle the Flame* ** What could be hotter than a firefighter? **Kate Meader** shows how, as Beck Rivera and heiress-turned-tattoo-artist Lucy Cochrane discover, nothing ignites holiday flames like rekindling a lost love...

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    Australians: Flappers to Vietnam

      Thomas Keneally
     Australians: Flappers to Vietnam

The outstanding final volume of acclaimed author Thomas Keneally's major new three-volume history takes up the story of Australia at the end of the Great War and explores its development as a nation during the tumultuous 20th century Australia emerged from World War I into a decade of profound change, characterized by a revolution in behavior among the young; by the first great age of consumerism; by the new and increasingly sophisticated impact of the movies; by secret right wing armies and the emergence of the Communist Party; and by two less remembered and very interesting PMs, the handsome, somber Stanley Melbourne Bruce of the Melbourne Establishment, and Jim Scullin, unpretentious Labor man of humbler Irish parentage. As in the two previous volumes, Keneally brings history to vivid and pulsating life as he traces the lives and the deeds of Australians known and unknown. As another war grew closer he follows the famous and the infamous through the Great Crash and the rise of Fascism, and explains how Australia was inexorably drawn into a war which led her forces into combat throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Pacific. At home an atmosphere of fear grew with the fall of Singapore and the bombing of Darwin, the Japanese advance and then the American Alliance and the arrival of General MacArthur. Peace brought its own problems with the Depression that left one third of Australians unemployed. Keneally believes too that the 1950s are misunderstood—depicted by some as an age of full employment, by others as the age of suburban spread and boredom under the serene prime ministership of Robert Menzies. But Menzies was complicated and so were the 1950s. The result of masterly writing and exhaustive research is a volume which brings Australia's more recent history to vibrant life.

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    Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner

      William Faulkner
     Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner

This invaluable volume, which has been republished to commemorate the one-hundredth anniversary of Faulkner's birth, contains some of the greatest short fiction by a writer who defined the course of American literature. Its forty-five stories fall into three categories: those not included in Faulkner's earlier collections; previously unpublished short fiction; and stories that were later expanded into such novels as The Unvanquished, The Hamlet, and Go Down, Moses. With its Introduction and extensive notes by the biographer Joseph Blotner, Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner is an essential addition to its author's canon--as well as a book of some of the most haunting, harrowing, and atmospheric short fiction written in the twentieth century.

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    How to Be Good

      Nick Hornby
     How to Be Good

In Nick Hornby's How to Be Good, Katie Carr is certainly trying to be. That's why she became a GP. That's why she cares about Third World debt and homelessness, and struggles to raise her children with a conscience. It's also why she puts up with her husband David, the self-styled Angriest Man in Holloway. But one fateful day, she finds herself in a Leeds parking lot, having just slept with another man. What Katie doesn't yet realize is that her fall from grace is just the first step on a spiritual journey more torturous than the interstate at rush hour. Because, prompted by his wife's actions, David is about to stop being angry. He's about to become good--not politically correct, organic-food-eating good, but good in the fashion of the Gospels. And that's no easier in modern-day Holloway than it was in ancient Israel. Hornby means us to take his title literally: How can we be good, and what does that mean? However, quite apart from demanding that his readers scrub their souls with the nearest available Brillo pad, he also mesmerizes us with that cocktail of wit and compassion that has become his trademark. The result is a multifaceted jewel of a book: a hilarious romp, a painstaking dissection of middle-class mores, and a powerfully sympathetic portrait of a marriage in its death throes. It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry as we watch David forcing his kids to give away their computers, drawing up schemes for the mass redistribution of wealth, and inviting his wife's most desolate patients round for a Sunday roast. But that's because How to Be Good manages to be both brutally truthful and full of hope. It won't outsell the Bible, but it's a lot funnier. --Matthew Baylis From Publishers Weekly Kate, a doctor, wife and mother, is in the midst of a difficult decision: whether to leave or stay with her bitter, sarcastic husband David (who proudly writes a local newspaper column called "The Angriest Man in Holloway"). The long-term marriage has gone stale, but is it worth uprooting the children and the comfortable lifestyle? Then David meets a faith healer called Dr. Goodnews, and suddenly converts to an idealistic do-gooder: donating the children's computer to an orphanage, giving away the family's Sunday dinner to homeless people and inviting runaways to stay in the guest room (and convincing the neighbors to do likewise). Barber gives an outstanding performance as Kate, humorously conveying her mounting irritation at having her money and belongings donated to strangers, her guilt at not feeling more generous and her hilarious desire for revenge. Barber brilliantly portrays each eccentric character: hippie-ish Goodnews, crusading David, petulant children and, poignantly, the hesitant, halting Barmy Brian, a mentally deficient patient of Kate's who needs looking after. Barber's stellar performance turns a worthy novel into a must-listen event. Simultaneous release with Riverhead hardcover (Forecasts, June 25).

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    Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter

      Mario Vargas Llosa
     Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter

Mario Vargas Llosa's brilliant, multilayered novel is set in the Lima, Peru, of the author's youth, where a young student named Marito is toiling away in the news department of a local radio station. His young life is disrupted by two arrivals.** The first is his aunt Julia, recently divorced and thirteen years older, with whom he begins a secret affair. The second is a manic radio scriptwriter named Pedro Camacho, whose racy, vituperative soap operas are holding the city's listeners in thrall. Pedro chooses young Marito to be his confidant as he slowly goes insane. Interweaving the story of Marito's life with the ever-more-fevered tales of Pedro Camacho, Vargas Llosa's novel is hilarious, mischievous, and masterful, a classic named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times Book Review.

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