We traveled with the Woodsmall Sisters as they each came to age. Now for the first time, they are brought together in a heart-warming Christmas novella. Will changing traditions bring more grief then joy this Christmas season? Or will the Woodsmall sisters be able to embrace compromise?We traveled with the Woodsmall Sisters as they each came to age. Now for the first time, they are brought together in a heart-warming Christmas novella. Will changing traditions bring more grief then joy this Christmas season? Or will the Woodsmall sisters be able to embrace compromise? "Changing Traditions" is a stand-alone novella that follows the series "The Diaries of the Woodsmall Sisters" by Rachel E Rittenhouse.

In each of these tales Margaret Atwood deftly illuminates the single instant that shapes a whole life: in a few brief pages we watch as characters progress from the vulnerabilities of adolescence through the passions of youth into the precarious complexities of middle age.  By superimposing the past on the present, Atwood paints interior landscapes shaped by time, regret, and life's lost chances, endowing even the banal with a sense of mystery.  Richly layered and disturbing, poignant at times and scathingly witty at others, the stories in *Wilderness Tips* take us into the strange and secret places of the heart and inform the familiar world in which we live with truths that cut to the bone. Contents: True trash -- Hairball -- Isis in darkness -- The bog man -- Death by landscape -- Uncles -- The age of lead -- Weight -- Wilderness tips -- Hack Wednesday.

Epic in its canvas and intimate in its portrayal of lives undone and forged anew, The Lowland is a deeply felt novel of family ties that entangle and fray in ways unforeseen and unrevealed, of ties that ineluctably define who we are From Subhash's earliest memories, at every point, his brother was there. In the suburban streets of Calcutta where they wandered before dusk and in the hyacinth-strewn ponds where they played for hours on end, Udayan was always in his older brother's sight. So close in age, they were inseparable in childhood and yet, as the years pass - as U.S tanks roll into Vietnam and riots sweep across India - their brotherly bond can do nothing to forestall the tragedy that will upend their lives. Udayan - charismatic and impulsive - finds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement, a rebellion waged to eradicate inequity and poverty. He will give everything, risk all, for what he believes, and in doing so will transform the futures of those dearest to him: his newly married, pregnant wife, his brother and their parents. For all of them, the repercussions of his actions will reverberate across continents and seep through the generations that follow. Epic in its canvas and intimate in its portrayal of lives undone and forged anew, The Lowland is a deeply felt novel of family ties that entangle and fray in ways unforeseen and unrevealed, of ties that ineluctably define who we are. With all the hallmarks of Jhumpa Lahiri's achingly poignant, exquisitely empathetic story-telling, this is her most devastating work of fiction to date.

Home parallels the story told in Robinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead. It is a moving and healing book about families, family secrets, and the passing of the generations, about love and death and faith. Hundreds of thousands were enthralled by the luminous voice of John Ames in Gilead Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel. Home is an entirely independent, deeply affecting novel that takes place concurrently in the same locale, this time in the household of Reverend Robert Boughton, Ames’s closest friend. Glory Boughton, aged thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother, Jack—the prodigal son of the family, gone for twenty years—comes home too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with tormenting trouble and pain. Jack is one of the great characters in recent literature. A bad boy from childhood, an alcoholic who cannot hold a job, he is perpetually at odds with his surroundings and with his traditionalist father, though he remains Boughton’s most beloved child. Brilliant, lovable, and wayward, Jack forges an intense bond with Glory and engages painfully with Ames, his godfather and namesake. Home is a moving and healing book about families, family secrets, and the passing of the generations, about love and death and faith. It is Robinson’s greatest work, an unforgettable embodiment of the deepest and most universal emotions.

From the bestselling author of The Women comes an action- packed adventure about endangered animals and those who protect them. Principally set on the wild and sparsely inhabited Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara, T.C. Boyle's powerful new novel combines pulse-pounding adventure with a socially conscious, richly humane tale regarding the dominion we attempt to exert, for better or worse, over the natural world. Alma Boyd Takesue is a National Park Service biologist who is spearheading the efforts to save the island's endangered native creatures from invasive species like rats and feral pigs, which, in her view, must be eliminated. Her antagonist, Dave LaJoy, is a dreadlocked local businessman who, along with his lover, the folksinger Anise Reed, is fiercely opposed to the killing of any species whatsoever and will go to any lengths to subvert the plans of Alma and her colleagues. Their confrontation plays out in a series of escalating scenes in which these characters violently confront one another, and tempt the awesome destructive power of nature itself. Boyle deepens his story by going back in time to relate the harrowing tale of Alma's grandmother Beverly, who was the sole survivor of a 1946 shipwreck in the channel, as well as the tragic story of Anise's mother, Rita, who in the late 1970s lived and worked on a sheep ranch on Santa Cruz Island. In dramatizing this collision between protectors of the environment and animal rights' activists, Boyle is, in his characteristic fashion, examining one of the essential questions of our time: Who has the right of possession of the land, the waters, the very lives of all the creatures who share this planet with us? When the Killing's Done will offer no transparent answers, but like The Tortilla Curtain, Boyle's classic take on illegal immigration, it will touch you deeply and put you in a position to decide.

Tusker and Lily Smalley stayed on in India. Given the chance to return 'home' when Tusker, once a Colonel in the British Army, retired, they chose instead to remain in the small hill town of Pangkot, with its eccentric inhabitants and archaic rituals left over from the days of the Empire. Only the tyranny of their landlady, the imposing Mrs Bhoolabhoy, threatens to upset the quiet rhythm of their days. Both funny and deeply moving, Staying On is a unique, engrossing portrait of the end of an empire and of a forty-year love affair.

At the height of his powers, Pablo Picasso was the artist as revolutionary, breaking through the niceties of form in order to mount a direct challenge to the values of his time. At the height of his fame, he was the artist as royalty: incalculably wealthy, universally idolized−and wholly isolated.    In this stunning critical assessment, John Berger−one of this century's most insightful cultural historians−trains his penetrating gaze upon this most prodigious and enigmatic painter and on the Spanish landscape and very particular culture that shpaed his life and work. Writing with a novelist's sensuous evocation of character and detail, and drawing on an erudition that embraces history, politics, and art, Berger follows Picasso from his childhood in Malaga to the Blue Period and Cubism, from the creation of Guernica to the pained etchings of his final years. He gives us the full measure of Picasso's triumphs and an unsparing reckoning of their cost−in exile, in loneliness, and in a desolation that drove him, in his last works, into an old man's furious and desperate frenzy at the beauty of what he could no longer create.

Twelve-year-old Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt Fitzroy believes that Henry, the hippopotamus at the brand-new FunJungle, has been murdered. The zoo’s top brass claim the hippo went belly up the natural way, but Teddy and his feisty friend Summer McCraken have other ideas. Could the culprit be FunJungle’s animal-hating head of operations? Or is it FunJungle’s owner—Summer’s dad—a man who is much more concerned about money than animal welfare? The deeper Teddy and Summer dig, the more danger they’re in—because when it comes to hippo homicide, the truth can’t be caged!

Opal Plumstead might be plain, but she has always been fiercely intelligent. Yet her scholarship and dreams of university are snatched away when her father is sent to prison, and fourteen-year-old Opal must start work at the Fairy Glen sweet factory to support her family.Opal struggles to get along with the other workers, who think her snobby and stuck-up. But Opal idolises Mrs Roberts, the factory's beautiful, dignified owner, who introduces Opal to the legendary Mrs Pankhurst and her fellow Suffragettes. And when Opal meets Morgan - Mrs Roberts' handsome son, and the heir to Fairy Glen - she believes she has found her soulmate. But the First World War is about to begin, and will change Opal's life for ever.The brilliantly gripping new story from the bestselling, award-winning Jacqueline Wilson.

When Sir Thomas, a hero of Crusade, obtained the Holy Grail in hot Saracen sands, that was just a beginning of it. He feels bound to take the relic to his home Britain, yet he has no idea of what monstrous powers are waking to hamper his way… and what great help may be lent by a contemptible Pagan, an apparently-peaceful pilgrim from the far northern land of Rus’.When Sir Thomas, a hero of Crusade, obtained the Holy Grail in hot Saracen sands, that was just a beginning of his dangerous and unpredictable quest. The way back to Britain, his homeland, lies across scorching deserts and the treacherous city of Constantinople. Assassins, villains, hirelings and blood-thirsty savages seem to be leaping onto his way from everywhere. Thomas is proficient with his long sword, he has a brave heart and valiant soul… and also a mysterious companion, a pilgrim from the far northern land of Kievan Rus’ who came to the knight’s aid for some own reasons. But is that enough to overcome the most powerful enemy he’s ever clashed and deliver the priceless relic to where it belongs?

It’s Valentines Party Fever at school, but Harley doesn’t quite “get” it. Sulking over an absent chocolate fountain has never been a priority in the Hartley household – at least not for anyone out of Infants.Relations between her friends are fractious at best, with things at home not much of an improvement. In Harley’s constantly turning world, is there even time for a happy middling?Bully Asta has gone out of her way to identify the poor unfortunates who have missed out on her Valentines party, but no fear – Rachel is here to provide more than enough sulking and snarking to make up for it.Shelley’s birthday was never going to be a good time for left-behind Harley, and it’s a fortnight of high emotion for the whole family. Zak’s got a brand new console and Kitty’s got a hidden talent, while Aimee has turned bitchier than anyone ever thought possible.In Harley’s constantly turning world, is there even time for a happy middling?

After being in a prison cell for two years, Hector hopes to get home and breathe easy. But he can't. His dead father's things wait for his attention, and his sister can't help with much of anything. Getting back to civilian life is always tough for ex-cons, and it's no different for Hector. Seems that he's boxed in. Again.Fans are calling this book the perfect blend of "The Lord of the Rings" and "Star Wars".Terrynmen was a once magnificent realm that was sadly devastated by a terrible war between the armies of the living and the forces of the undead. Their final battle ended in a heinous catastrophe, which stopped the world from rotating, cursing half the planet in endless darkness and the other in scorching daylight. The defeated blood demons and other creatures of the night, found refuge on the cold, sunless side of the planet, while the victorious, mortal beings were forced to rebuild their once great cities in the sweltering, sunlit lands.A millennium later, the forces of darkness have united under a mysterious leader and are preparing for the final annihilation of the mortal races. The only hope for the sunlit side of the planet is a young slave named Maxtix, who has been forced fight as a gladiator since childhood. Fortunately, Maxtix has a secret that has kept him alive through countless battles… but will it be enough to save the world?

Contains the stories in Dago Red, first published in 1940, together with seven new stories, including "A Nun No More" and "My Father’s God."

The noted critic and a Palestinian now teaching at Columbia University,examines the way in which the West observes the Arabs.