In a comic masterpiece following the misadventures of a simple but hugely ambitious waiter in pre-World War II Prague, who rises to wealth only to lose everything with the onset of Communism, Bohumil Hrabal takes us on a tremendously funny and satirical trip through 20th-century Czechoslovakia. First published in 1971 in a typewritten edition, then finally printed in book form in 1989, I Served the King of England is "an extraordinary and subtly tragicomic novel" (The New York Times), telling the tale of Ditie, a hugely ambitious but simple waiter in a deluxe Prague hotel in the years before World War II. Ditie is called upon to serve not the King of England, but Haile Selassie. It is one of the great moments in his life. Eventually, he falls in love with a Nazi woman athlete as the Germans are invading Czechoslovakia. After the war, through the sale of valuable stamps confiscated from the Jews, he reaches the heights of his ambition, building a hotel. He becomes a millionaire, but with the institution of communism, he loses everything and is sent to inspect mountain roads. Living in dreary circumstances, Ditie comes to terms with the inevitability of his death, and with his place in history.

Widely considered one of the great dramatic creations of the modern stage, "Mother Courage and Her Children" is Bertolt Brecht's most passionate and profound statement against war. Set in the seventeenth century, the play follows Anna Fierling -- "Mother Courage" -- an itinerant trader, as she pulls her wagon of wares and her children through the blood and carnage of Europe's religious wars. Battered by hardships, brutality, and the degradation and death of her children, she ultimately finds herself alone with the one thing in which she truly believes -- her ramshackle wagon with its tattered flag and freight of boots and brandy. Fitting herself in its harness, the old woman manages, with the last of her strength, to drag it onward to the next battle. In the enduring figure of Mother Courage, Bertolt Brecht has created one of the most extraordinary characters in the literature of drama.

Beyond Reckless (Lost Kings MC #8)

Daniel's story iBooks preorder date is March 7th 2018 Daniel Spencer is proud of the billion-dollar business he’s built, but there are few things he enjoys more than creating something with his bare hands. Lake Tahoe has everything he’s looking for—the lakefront cabin he’s building for family and friends to enjoy, crystal clear water and lush green mountains. Everything except the perfect woman to share it with. Until Tasha Summerfield literally falls into his arms. After learning that her family has lied to her for pretty much her entire life, Tasha flees San Francisco for the mountains. As she tries to bury her heartache by hammering her dilapidated cabin back together, the last thing she expects is to fall for a sexy billionaire. But when a storm blows in and she desperately needs help, there is Daniel, waiting with open arms. Tasha believes Daniel deserves a woman from a perfect, loving, tight-knit family like his. Yet how can she possibly resist a man this sweet and generous…who looks positively sinful in his tool belt? With every delicious taste of him, Tasha finds it harder to quell the hopes and dreams she thought were crushed forever. But when it turns out that Daniel’s family isn’t picture perfect after all, will the truth set them both free? Or will it destroy any chance they ever had?

**From #1 *New York Times* bestselling author Jamie McGuire comes a riveting tale of first love that starts young but runs deep.** The first time Elliott Youngblood spots Catherine Calhoun, he’s just a boy with a camera, and he’s never seen a sadder and more beautiful sight. Both Elliott and Catherine feel like outcasts, yet they find an easy friendship with each other. But when Catherine needs him most, Elliott is forced to leave town. Elliott finally returns, but he and Catherine are now different people. He’s a star high school athlete, and she spends all her free time working at her mother’s mysterious bed-and-breakfast. Catherine hasn’t forgiven Elliott for abandoning her, but he’s determined to win back her friendship…and her heart. Just when Catherine is ready to fully trust Elliott, he becomes the prime suspect in a local tragedy. Despite the town’s growing suspicions, Catherine clings to her love for Elliott. But a devastating secret that Catherine has buried could destroy whatever chance of happiness they have left.

Graham Greene's 'long journey through time' began in 1904, when he was born into a tribe of Greenes based in Berkhamstead at the public school where his father was headmaster. In A Sort of Life Greene recalls schooldays and Oxford, adolescent encounters with psychoanalysis and Russian roulette, his marriage and conversion to Catholicism, and how he rashly resigned from The Times when his first novel, The Man Within was published in 1929. A Sort of Life reveals, brilliantly and compellingly, a life lived and an art obsessed by 'the dangerous edge of things'.

In this second novel in Sharon M. Draper’s Jericho Trilogy and Coretta Scott King Honor Book, Jericho and November are locked together in pain from the past and fear for the future, and it feels as though there’s no way to escape either. When November Nelson loses her boyfriend, Josh, to a pledge stunt gone horribly wrong, she thinks her life can’t possibly get any worse. But Josh left something behind that will change November’s life forever. She’s pregnant and now she’s faced with the biggest decision of her life. How in the world will she tell her mom? And how will Josh’s parents take the news? She’s never needed a friend more. Jericho Prescott lost his best friend when he lost his cousin, Josh, and the pain is almost more than he can bear. His world becomes divided into “before” and “after” Josh’s death. He finds the only way he can escape the emptiness he feels is to quit doing the things that made him happy when his cousin was alive, such as playing his beloved trumpet. At the same time, he begins playing football, where he hopes the physical pain will suppress the emotional agony. But will hiding behind shoulder pads really help? And will his gridiron obsession prevent him from being there for his cousin’s girlfriend when she needs him most?

Empire, the fourth novel in Gore Vidal's monumental six-volume chronicle of the American past, is his prodigiously detailed portrait of the United States at the dawn of the twentieth century as it begins to emerge as a world power. ------While America struggles to define its destiny, beautiful and ambitious Caroline Sanford fights to control her own fate. One of Vidal's most in-spired creations, she is an embodiment of the complex, vigorous young nation. From the back offices of her Washington newspaper, Caroline confronts the two men who threaten to thwart her ambition: William Randolph Hearst and his protégé, Blaise Sanford, Caroline's half brother. In their struggles for power the lives of brother and sister become intertwined with those of Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, as well as Astors, Vanderbilts, and Whitneys--all incarnations of America's Gilded Age. ------"Mr. Vidal demonstrates a political imagination and insider's sagacity equaled by no other practicing fiction writer," said The New York Times Book Review. "Like the earlier novels in his historical cycle, Empire is a wonderfully vivid documentary drama." ------With a new Introduction by the author. From the Hardcover edition.

Missing: Hot Italian Bodyguard Last Seen Wearing Tux...  Dakota Dane's bodyguard is the sort of guy every man fears and every woman dreams of: chiseled abs, face of a male model, and tougher than nails. Except with her, of course. And those glimpses of Paolo's soft side are just as sinfully addictive as the rest of him. So when he proposes to take their relationship to the next level--marriage--Dakota can't deny the thought of becoming his makes her pulse race and her knees go all wobbly. Unfortunately, when the big moment finally arrives, Paolo is nowhere to be found. Was it something she said? Dakota's heart won't move on until she finds out, but is she ready to face her dangerous world alone? Or will Dakota have to let go of everything she loves simply to survive? NOTE: While reading book #1 (Fate Book) enhances the story, FATE BOOK TWO is a stand-alone story.

Detective John Corey, last seen in Plum Island, now faces his toughest assignment yet: the pursuit and capture of the world's most dangerous terrorist -- a young Arab known as "The Lion" who has baffled a federal task force and shows no sign of stopping in his quest for revenge against the American pilots who bombed Libya and killed his family. Filled with unrelenting suspense and surprising plot twists at every terrifying turn, THE LION'S GAME is a heartstopping race against time and one of Nelson DeMille's most riveting thrillers.

Driven by deep frustration, anger, and sorrow in the wake of yet another violent assault upon a First Nations woman in November 2014, dozens of acclaimed writers and artists have come together to add their voices to a call for action addressing the deep-rooted and horrific crimes that continue to fester in our country. Kwe means woman in Ojibwe. More specifically, kwe means life-giver or life-carrier in Anishinaabemowin, the Ojibwe language. It is a pure word, one that speaks powerfully of women’s place at the heart of all our First Nations. These women who bring light and life to our world are in peril. Aboriginal women in our country are three times more likely to face violent attack and murder than any other of their gender. We must take concrete steps to stop this and we must do it now. A nation is only as good, is only as strong, as how it treats its most vulnerable and those of us in danger. This book is a call to action. It’s sometimes a whisper, sometimes a scream, but we speak our words as one when we demand justice for our more than 1200 murdered and missing Indigenous women. After all, they are our mothers, our daughters, our nieces, our aunties, our sisters, our friends.

New York Times bestselling author Faith Hunter presents a comprehensive collection of stories starring everyone’s favorite “smart, sexy, and ruthless”* shapeshifting skinwalker...   In this must-have collection of stories, experience nineteen thrilling adventures from the world of vampire-hunter Jane Yellowrock, including many fan favorites and two all-new novellas. Read about the first time Jane put the pedal to the metal in “The Early Years,” and the last thing a werewolf will ever see as Jane delivers justice in “Beneath a Bloody Moon.” Get a searing look into the pasts of some of the series’ best-loved characters: Beast in “WeSa and the Lumber King,” Rick LaFleur in “Cat Tats,” and Molly Everhart Trueblood in “Haints.” In the brand-new “Cat Fight,” the witches and vampires of Bayou, Oiseau, are at war over a magical talisman—and Jane must figure out how to keep the mysterious artifact out of the covetous hands of the Master of New Orleans. And in the never-before-published “Bound No More,” Jane welcomes a visit from Molly and her daughter, Angie, who is about to prove she’s the most powerful witch in Everhart history.... From the Big Easy to the bad bayou, from the open road to a vampire’s lair—with Jane Yellowrock, it’s always a given: have stakes, will travel. *New York Times Bestselling Author Kim Harrison

A USA TODAY BESTSELLING NOVEL My name is Jack Sutton, CEO of Sutton Fashion Magazine and I have the world at my fingertips. A successful career, loads of money and beautiful women who were always at my beckoning call. My problem? I lived under the shadow of my mother who started the company over thirty years ago. Not to mention her being married and divorced six times, left a bad taste in my mouth as far as relationships were concerned. “Women to me were nothing but mere toys. They were meant to be played with for my own personal pleasure and when I was done playing, they’d get tossed to the side.” Then walked in Lorelei Flynn. She was beautiful, and so wrong for me. The problem? She was my personal assistant and she was closed off to say the least. Despite being the beautiful woman she was, I had an overwhelming need to find out what was underneath all that beauty. It was something I couldn’t explain. It was just something about Lorelei. My name is Lorelei Flynn and I was Jack Sutton’s fifteenth personal assistant in a little over a year. My boyfriend was killed seven years ago in a car accident. Before he died, he gave me a gift: my daughter Hope. My life did nothing but revolve around her. I didn’t date and I hadn’t had sex in seven years. Then Jack Sutton came into my life and he was as sexy as sin but he was nothing but a womanizer and my boss. The line was there the day I took the job and it was one that couldn’t be crossed. Or shouldn’t be crossed. But it was crossed and now the only world I’d known was suddenly changing and it scared the hell out of me. For readers 18+

To the delight of Mowat fans, the literary lion returns with an unexpected triumph. Eastern Passage marks a return to the feisty Mowat of old. In it, he throws down the gauntlet and answers the doubters and naysayers who have dogged his writing life, breaking the stubborn silence he has kept since the notorious "Saturday Night" article that appeared over a decade ago. Here, too, he relates the story of a sail down the St. Lawrence that brought him face to face with one of Canada's more shocking secrets, one most of us still don't know today. Eastern Passage is the last piece of the Mowat puzzle: the years from his return from the north in the late 1940s to his discovery of Newfoundland and his love affair with the sea in the 1950s. In this time, he writes his first books and weathers his first storm of controversy as the northern establishment tries to deny the plight of the Barrenground Inuit by discrediting Farley and his first book, People of the Deer. This sets a trail that leads straight to the character assassination he suffers 40 years later in "Saturday Night." By the 1950s, Farley's career is taking off but his first marriage is crumbling. He jumps at the chance to sail with his father down the St. Lawrence. As they approach the Saguenay River, they notice the paucity of sea life and alarming signs of disease in a beluga who swims beside their boat. From the locals, Farley hears the shocking story of the American B-50 bomber forced to ditch its Fat Boy bomb in the river a few years before. The resulting megaton explosion killed almost all riparian life in the area. It took 30 years for the area to recover. This horror forges the final tempering of Mowat the activist. By the end of the book, Farley Mowat, the writer and outraged activist we know so well, has emerged complete. As Farley ages, his courage continues to grow. This is an amazing book, funny, astute, and moving. "From the Hardcover edition."

I am telling the story of Sylvia Castleman. I should prefer to tell it without mention of myself; but it was written in the book of fate that I should be a decisive factor in her life and so her story pre-supposes mine.