Sylvia's Lovers Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

      Elizabeth Gaskell
     Sylvia's Lovers Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

The novel begins in the 1790s in the coastal town of Monkshaven (modeled on Whitby, England) against the background of the practice of impressment during the early phases of the Napoleonic Wars. Sylvia Robson lives happily with her parents on a farm, and is passionately loved by her rather dull Quaker cousin Philip. She, however, meets and falls in love with Charlie Kinraid, a dashing sailor on a whaling vessel, and they become secretly engaged. When Kinraid goes back to his ship, he is forcibly enlisted in the Royal Navy by a press gang, a scene witnessed by Philip. Philip does not tell Sylvia of the incident nor relay to her Charlie's parting message and, believing her lover is dead, Sylvia eventually marries her cousin. This act is primarily prompted out of gratefulness for Philip's assistance during a difficult time following her father's imprisonment and subsequent execution for leading a revengeful raid on press-gang collaborators. They have a daughter. Inevitably, Kinraid returns to claim Sylvia and she discovers that Philip knew all the time that he was still alive. Philip leaves her in despair at her subsequent rage and rejection, but she refuses to live with Kinraid because of her child.

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    A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

      Joseph Campbell
     A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are—Joseph Campbell One of Joseph Campbell's most popular, most quoted works, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living is a treasure trove of insight and inspiration, thought-provoking in its depth, poetic in its scope. Drawn from a month-long workshop at the world-famous Esalen Institute held in celebration of the scholar's eightieth birthday, the Companion captures Campbell at his best: wise, funny, intelligent and inspiring.

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    Every You, Every Me

      David Levithan
     Every You, Every Me

In this high school-set psychological tale, a tormented teen named Evan starts to discover a series of unnerving photographs—some of which feature him. Someone is stalking him . . . messing with him . . . threatening him. Worse, ever since his best friend Ariel has been gone, he's been unable to sleep, spending night after night torturing himself for his role in her absence. And as crazy as it sounds, Evan's starting to believe it's Ariel that's behind all of this, punishing him. But the more Evan starts to unravel the mystery, the more his paranoia and insomnia amplify, and the more he starts to unravel himself. Creatively told with black-and-white photos interspersed between the text so the reader can see the photos that are so unnerving to Evan, Every You, Every Me is a one-of-a-kind departure from a one-of-a-kind author. From the Hardcover edition.

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    White Horses

      Alice Hoffman
     White Horses

A powerful and haunting story about the seductive allure of fairy tales and the freedom that comes with waking up to reality When Teresa sleeps—sometimes for days at a time, the scent of roses surrounding her—she dreams of the Arias, outlaw riders on white steeds, who roam the desert at night. She was told about the dark-eyed horsemen by her mother, Dina, who left her own bedroom window open at night in the hopes that one would take her away from her parents’ house in Santa Fe. Teresa, who cannot find a cure for her mysterious sleeping sickness, has one true ally: her brother, Silver. Wild and handsome, Silver exerts an irresistible force over everyone he meets—women especially. He pursues a life of crime and danger, and the older he grows, the more reckless he becomes. Teresa wants to break free but is drawn back to her brother again and again, pulled by the belief that he is the night rider of her dreams. Only when she realizes that she has the strength to save herself will she finally be able to open her eyes and walk away. A lyrical blend of the mythical and the real, White Horses has been hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as a book that “will reverberate in readers’ imaginations for a long time.”

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    Host

      Robin Cook
     Host

The explosive new thriller from New York Times–bestselling author and master of the medical thriller, Robin Cook. Lynn Peirce, a fourth-year medical student at South Carolina’s Mason-Dixon University, thinks she has her life figured out. But when her otherwise healthy boyfriend, Carl, enters the hospital for routine surgery, her neatly ordered life is thrown into total chaos. Carl fails to return to consciousness after the procedure, and an MRI confirms brain death. Devastated by Carl’s condition, Lynn searches for answers. Convinced there’s more to the story than what the authorities are willing to reveal, Lynn uses all her resources at Mason-Dixon—including her initially reluctant lab partner, Michael Pender—to hunt down evidence of medical error or malpractice. What she uncovers, however, is far more disturbing. Hospitals associated with Middleton Healthcare, including the Mason-Dixon Medical Center, have unnervingly high rates of unexplained anesthetic complications and patients contracting serious and terminal illness in the wake of routine hospital admissions. When Lynn and Michael begin to receive death threats, they know they’re into something bigger than either of them anticipated. They soon enter a desperate race against time for answers before shadowy forces behind Middleton Healthcare and their partner, Sidereal Pharmaceuticals, can put a stop to their efforts once and for all.

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    Sliver

      Ira Levin
     Sliver

A chilling psychological thriller that explores the menacing evil behind the glittering facades of Manhattan’s skyscrapers Kay Norris, a successful and lovely book editor, moves into the posh Carnegie Hall district of Manhattan, into an apartment in a slender high-rise. A man watches her. He watches her unpack, watches her make her bed. He owns the building: a shocking secret is concealed within its brick and concrete.  Sliver is a sinuous erotic thriller, a hypnotic story of obsession, suspense, and stunning surprises. It is a novel about the ultimate power, and the temptations the use of that power brings.

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    The True Story of Atticus and Hazel

      Fisher Amelie
     The True Story of Atticus and Hazel

It only took a second. Overwhelming chemistry isn't something anyone ever prepares you for. It's not like your mama sits you down and warns you one day you might stumble upon someone impossible to resist, someone who sets your soul on fire. Combustible, explosive attraction is just the tip of the iceberg for Atticus Kelly and Hazel Stone. One touch between them can set them on fire, one word from their lips can send them careening, one look can cripple them to their knees. They are an inferno and they're approaching the end of their wick. Burning too fast, way too fast. Except there's nothing to temper the fever. And the ramifications may be more than they can afford. Everyone knows when it goes up in flames, there's no saving the kindling. The decision only took a second. Just a second. "Hazel, what happened?"

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    Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth

      Naguib Mahfouz
     Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth

From the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of the Cairo trilogy, comes Akhenaten, a fascinating work of fiction about the most infamous pharaoh of ancient Egypt. In this beguiling new novel, originally published in 1985 and now appearing for the first time in the United States, Mahfouz tells with extraordinary insight the story of the "heretic pharaoh," or "sun king,"--and the first known monotheistic ruler--whose iconoclastic and controversial reign during the 18th Dynasty (1540-1307 B.C.) has uncanny resonance with modern sensibilities.   Narrating the novel is a young man with a passion for the truth, who questions the pharaoh's contemporaries after his horrible death--including Akhenaten's closest friends, his most bitter enemies, and finally his enigmatic wife, Nefertiti--in an effort to discover what really happened in those strange, dark days at Akhenaten's court.  As our narrator and each of the subjects he interviews contribute their version of Akhenaten, "the truth" becomes increasingly evanescent.  Akhenaten encompasses all of the contradictions his subjects see in him: at once cruel and empathic, feminine and barbaric, mad and divinely inspired, his character, as Mahfouz imagines him, is eerily modern, and fascinatingly ethereal.  An ambitious and exceptionally lucid and accessible book, Akhenaten is a work only Mahfouz could render so elegantly, so irresistibly. From the Trade Paperback edition.

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    Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

      Anne Fadiman
     Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

Anne Fadiman is—by her own admission—the sort of person who learned about sex from her father's copy of Fanny Hill, whose husband buys her 19 pounds of dusty books for her birthday, and who once found herself poring over her roommate's 1974 Toyota Corolla manual because it was the only written material in the apartment that she had not read at least twice. This witty collection of essays recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. For Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story. Writing with remarkable grace, she revives the tradition of the well-crafted personal essay, moving easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. As someone who played at blocks with her father's 22-volume set of Trollope ("My Ancestral Castles") and who only really considered herself married when she and her husband had merged collections ("Marrying Libraries"), she is exquisitely well equipped to expand upon the art of inscriptions, the perverse pleasures of compulsive proof-reading, the allure of long words, and the satisfactions of reading out loud. There is even a foray into pure literary gluttony—Charles Lamb liked buttered muffin crumbs between the leaves, and Fadiman knows of more than one reader who literally consumes page corners. Perfectly balanced between humor and erudition, Ex Libris establishes Fadiman as one of our finest contemporary essayists.

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    The Gift of Story: A Wise Tale About What Is Enough

      Clarissa Pinkola Estés
     The Gift of Story: A Wise Tale About What Is Enough

In this enchanting book, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES shares several small stories that, like Matriochka dolls, fit inside one another. Taken together, they are a moving testament to the enduring legacy of stories and to the triumph of love over loss. Dr. Estes masterfully blends the bitter and the sweet, the dark and the light, despair and hope, into a wonderful gift that illuminates and strengthens, a gift that will be cherished by all who receive it.

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    Consolation Prize

      Linda Kage
     Consolation Prize

Don't you just hate it when someone destroys all your carefully made plans? I mean, I had goals: college to graduate in one semester, a future I was working hard to reach, and an image of myself I wanted the world to see. My life was stacked into these precisely placed blocks. But then Colton Gamble came along and knocked them all askew. I hated how he messed everything up, how he could hog all my attention whenever he was around, how he made my pulse quicken—but only because he ticked me off... not because I was attracted to him. Oh! And I hated how he knew how attractive he was too, the shallow, full of himself, doesn't take no for an answer, too-flirty, too cocky, extremely irritating jerk. The boy had all the qualities that turned me off. Or so I thought. One night he wasn't quite the brainless, over-confident jerk I usually took him for. One night, he took care of me when I was at my lowest. He opened up to me and made me open up to him. Now I'm learning maybe he's not what I first thought he was. And maybe I'M not what I first thought I was. Maybe it’s okay to rearrange a couple of my perfectly set blocks. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll stop worrying about what I’m afraid everyone else will think and finally reach for something I really want. It’s possible some of my plans need to be destroyed, and Colton Gamble is exactly the kind of mess I need in my life. What do you think? Should I give him a try? Desperately seeking your advice, Julianna Radcliffe

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    His Obsession

      M. S. Parker
     His Obsession

Get ready for the Hunter Brothers, an exciting spin-off series of the bestselling Club Privé series. Now Complete! JAX: I've always done what's expected of me, run Hunter Enterprises the way Grandfather wanted, but when I stepped into Club Privé, I saw something I wanted for myself. I wouldn't let anything keep me from bringing that world of decadence and sex to my home city, Boston. SYLL: For the last two years, I've fought to keep my dad's bar open, and things haven't gotten any easier. So when several people suddenly expressed interest in buying my business, I was tempted. However, this is my father's legacy and I'm never selling. Not even to the hottest guy I've ever met. Don't miss the return to Club Privé in His Obsession, the first book about the sexy Hunter brothers.

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    York, the Renegade: A Loveswept Classic Romance

      Iris Johansen
     York, the Renegade: A Loveswept Classic Romance

Tombstone and Dodge City have nothing on Hell’s Bluff. In #1 New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen’s scorching tale set in a rough-and-tumble mining town, passion takes a man and woman on one wild ride. Knocking on a stranger’s door in the middle of the night—and in the middle of a storm—isn’t Sierra Smith’s idea of a good time. But she doesn’t need a warm welcome in York Delaney’s town, just the chance for her traveling troupe to perform . . . then they’ll move on. So where does the seriously gorgeous alpha rancher get the idea that Sierra needs protection? All her life, Sierra’s craved a place to belong. No matter what feelings York reawakens in her, that place couldn’t be Hell’s Bluff, could it? After roaming the world for seven years, York has come home to the land he’s bound to by ties deeper than blood. He’s supposed to be soothing his restless spirit, not chasing after a big-eyed waif. But Sierra ignites a hunger he left behind long ago. Somehow, he must find a way to keep her in his life. Because if she leaves—taking his zealously guarded heart with her—there’ll be hell to pay. Includes a special message from the editor, as well as excerpts from these Loveswept titles: Tempting a Devil, Crossing the Line, and Slow Summer Burn.

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    The African Queen

      C. S. Forester
     The African Queen

A classic story of adventure and romance—the novel that inspired the legendary movie starring Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart As World War I reaches the heart of the African jungle, Charlie Allnutt and Rose Sayer, a disheveled trader and an English spinster missionary, find themselves thrown together by circumstance. Fighting time, heat, malaria, and bullets, they make their escape on the rickety steamboat The African Queen . . . and hatch their own outrageous military plan. Originally published in 1935, The African Queen is a tale replete with vintage Forester drama—unrelenting suspense, reckless heroism, impromptu military maneuvers, near-death experiences—and a good old-fashioned love story to boot.

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    Taming the Rake

      Monica McCarty
     Taming the Rake

They are known as the Rake Slayers… Tired of the different standards applied to the men who flout society’s rules, three young ladies seek a little primitive justice and hatch a plan to bring a few of London’s most notorious rakes up to snuff before refusing them. But they soon learn exactly what it is that makes rakes so dangerous.Tasked with bringing down the most notorious rake of all, the always capable and efficient Lady Georgina “Gina” Beauclerk is determined to show the wicked Earl of Coventry just what she has to offer… by promptly turning his dissolute world on its ear. Instead she finds her own world spinning out of control. Because even after she has organized his household, rid his home of alcohol, and paid off his mistress, she can’t help but see that there is more to the handsome earl than first she realized.Forced into respectable society to escort his debuting sister, Coventry intends to find her a husband post-haste so he can return to the freedom and debauchery of his clubs. After the death of his unfaithful wife, the disillusioned Coventry has no intention of ever marrying again—especially not to an interfering busybody who won’t take “no” for an answer. No matter how much she tempts him.

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