From Paul Camp/Amazon:
"...Crashing Suns (1965) is a collection of five _Weird Tales_ space operas published between 1928 and 1930. The title story was a two-part serial, but the stories are really all novelette length pieces. The last four stories are all Interstellar Patrol stories. The first is not, but the plot formula is still much the same. The science is either dated or preposterous. Some stories were written before the discovery of Pluto and refer to only eight planets in the solar system (though since the 'demotion' of Pluto, this might not be that dated after all!) and outer space is filled with ether. There are 'holes' in the ether where no light can exist. Space craft make impossible turns to the right or left and make sudden stops at the drop of a space helmet..."

Begun: 1/29/2012
Finished: 2/8/2012

B&N Overview:
"It started small, with an unprepared band of Marine reservists encountering deadly extraterrestrial visitors in the backwoods of Missouri. But this fatal First Contact rapidly escalates into a global crisis as mankind discovers that two warring species of aliens have invaded our world through a network of hidden interdimensional portals. The apocalyptic conflict between the hastily labeled 'Blues' and 'Grays' has already devastated their home planet. Now Earth has become the final battleground in a cataclysmic war whose origins are barely understood..."

Begun: 12/28/2011
Finished: 1/29/2012

Barnes & Noble Synopsis:

"When sixteen kids are shot on high school grounds, everyone looks for someone to blame. Meet Vernon Little, under arrest at the sheriff's office, a teenager wearing nothing but yesterday's underwear and his prized logo sneakers. Moments after the shooter, his best buddy, turns the gun on himself, Vernon is pinned as an accomplice. Out for revenge are the townspeople, the cable news networks, and Deputy Vaine Gurie, a woman whose zeal for the Pritikin diet is eclipsed only by her appetite for barbecued ribs from the Bar-B-Chew Barn. So Vernon does what any red-blooded American teenager would do; he takes off for Mexico."

Begun: 11/11/2011
Finished: 11/20/2011

B&N Overview:
"'If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.' ~ Rumsfeld's Rules. Few Americans have spent more time near the center of power than Donald Rumsfeld. Now he has written an unflinching memoir of his half-century career, sharing previously undisclosed details that will fascinate readers and force historians to rethink many controversies. Starting from a middle-class childhood in Illinois, Rumsfeld had a rapid rise that won him early acclaim. He shows us what it was like growing up during the Great Depression and World War II, going to Princeton on scholarships, serving as a naval aviator, then getting his first political job on Capitol Hill during the Eisenhower administration. He recalls how he won a seat in the House of Representatives at age thirty and what he experienced as a Republican in Congress during the Kennedy and Johnson years. We also follow him back to the executive branch as he took on key cabinet positions in the Nixon and Ford administrations, including his service as the youngest-ever secretary of defense, just after the trauma of Vietnam..."

Begun: 10/24/2011
Finished: __________

B&N Synopsis:
"Thirty years ago two sisters disappeared from a shopping mall. Their bodies were never found and those familiar with the case have always been tortured by these questions: How do you kidnap two girls? Who-or what-could have lured the two sisters away from a busy mall on a Saturday afternoon without leaving behind a single clue or witness?

Now a clearly disoriented woman involved in a rush-hour hit-and-run claims to be the younger of the long-gone Bethany sisters. But her involuntary admission and subsequent attempt to stonewall investigators only deepens the mystery. Where has she been? Why has she waited so long to come forward? Could her abductor truly be a beloved..."

Begun: 09/27/2011
Finished: 11/11/2011

B&N Overview:
"In this saga of brilliant triumphs and magnificent failures, David E. Hoffman, the former Moscow bureau chief for the Washington Post, sheds light on the hidden lives of Russia's most feared power brokers: the oligarchs. Focusing on six of these ruthless men— Alexander Smolensky, Yuri Luzhkov, Anatoly Chubais, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Boris Berezovsky, and Vladimir Gusinsky—Hoffman shows how a rapacious, unruly capitalism was born out of the ashes of Soviet communism."

Begun: 09/13/2011
Finished: 10/23/2011

B&N Overview:
"In a revolutionary America at the edge of our imagination, two men face off in a struggle for the future. On one side is Lando, a twenty-something urban guerilla whose obsession with saving the country drives his Army of the Republic deeper into a violent campaign of bombing and assassination. On the other side is James Sands, a billionaire entrepreneur so determined to preserve his privileges that he unwittingly hires death squads to hunt down and murder his own family. Against the backdrop of..."

Begun: 09/01/2011
Finished: 09/26/2011

James B. Johnson:

"In this book Liebling talks about the newspaper industry, publishers, and the shenanigans publishers-newspapers pull to further their ends. Most of the stories were written in the 40s-50s and compiled in the 60s, but are as true today as they were then. Newspapers ignore the obvious and important, make-up much of what they do report, and lines of advertising sold & circulation is always the bottom-line. News is the last thing any publisher wants to pay for, so they economize by making it up or hire experts to make it up (that is, the expert is here NOT where the news is happening, and provides an opinion of events they know nothing about). Experts dont require expense accounts and costly travel. Liebling cites several events where the press was totally in the fog but had plenty to say; Stalin's death and his replacement are the best example of this phenomenon. And you get a sense of what sort of bums our government leaders are, or were. Liebling spills the beans on some of these people. "

Begun: 08/19/2011
Finished: 09/13/2011

B&N Overview:
"One night in October when he was ten years old, Tyler Dupree stood in his back yard and watched the stars go out. They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives. The effect is worldwide. The sun is now a featureless disk—a heat source, rather than an astronomical object. The moon is gone, but tides remain. Not only have the world's artificial satellites fallen out of orbit, their recovered remains are pitted and aged, as though they'd been in space far longer than their known lifespans."

Begun: 07/18/2011
Finished: 08/28/2011

From the Publisher:

"The First Book from n+1—an Essential Chronicle of Our Financial Crisis

HFM: Where are you going to buy protection on the U.S. government's credit? I mean, if the U.S. defaults, what bank is going to be able to make good on that contract? Who are you going to buy that contract from, the Martians?

n+1: When does this begin to feel like less of a cyclical thing, like the weather, and more of a permanent, end-of-the-world kind of thing?

HFM: When you see me selling apples out on the street, that's when you should go stock up on guns and ammunition."

Begun: 07/02/2011
Finished: 07/22/2011

From the Barnes & Noble Review:

"Mystery novelist Brendan DuBois makes a foray into the alternate timeline realm and gives us a gripping and chilling dark tale featuring Boston Globe reporter Carl Landry, who is on the trail of a government conspiracy. Somewhere between the gritty work of Andrew Vachss, the hard-boiled detective novels of Dennis Lehane, and the alternate history arena usually ruled by the likes of Harry Turtledove, Brendan DuBois has wedged himself firmly into the highest ranks of fine suspense writers and mined a fantasy noir niche all his own."

Begun: 06/12/2011
Finished: 07/17/2011

From the Publisher:
"With The Bookseller of Kabul, award-winning journalist Asne Seierstad has given readers a first-hand look at Afghani life as few outsiders have seen it. Invited to live with Sultan Khan, a bookseller in Kabul, and his family for months, this account of her experience allows the Khans to speak for themselves, giving us a genuinely gripping and moving portrait of a family, and of a country of great cultural riches and extreme contradictions.

For more than 20 years, Sultan Khan has defied the authorities—whether Communist or Taliban—to supply books to the people of Kabul. He has been arrested, interrogated, and imprisoned, and has watched illiterate Taliban soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. Yet he had persisted in his passion for books, shedding light in one of the world's darkest places."

Begun: 5/22/2011
Finished: 7/1/2011

From the Publisher:

"A dazzlingly dark novel by the Nobel Laureate.

At the height of the London blitz, a naked child steps out of an all-consuming fire. Miraculously saved yet hideously scarred, tormented at school and at work, Matty becomes a wanderer, a seeker after some unknown redemption. Two more lost children await him: twins as exquisite as they are loveless. Toni dabbles in political violence, Sophy in sexual tyranny. As Golding weaves their destinies together, as he draws them toward a final conflagration, his book lights up both the inner and outer darknesses of our time."

Begun: 05/20/2011
Finished: 06/11/2011

From the Publisher:
"In 1876, a man named Henry Wickham smuggled seventy thousand rubber tree seeds out of the rainforests of Brazil and delivered them to Victorian England's most prestigious scientists at Kew Gardens. Those seeds, planted around the world in England's colonial outposts, gave rise to the great rubber boom of the early twentieth century—an explosion of entrepreneurial and scientific industry that would change the world. The story of how Wickham got his hands on those seeds—a sought-after prize for which many suffered and died—is the stuff of legend."

Begun: 5/06/2011
Finished: 5/22/2011

From the Publisher:
"When a designer of computer games dies, he leaves behind a program that unravels the Internet's interconnected world. It corrupts, kills, and runs independent of human control. It's up to Detective Peter Sebeck to wrest the world from the malevolent virtual enemy before its ultimate purpose is realized: to destroy civilization..."

Begun: 5/05/2011
Finished: 5/19/2011

From the Publisher:

"Of course the Internet is not one thing or another; if anything, its boosters claim, the Web is everything at once. It's become not only our primary medium for communication and information but also the place we go to shop, to play, to debate, to find love. Lee Siegel argues that our ever-deepening immersion in life online doesn't just reshape the ordinary rhythms of our days; it also reshapes our minds and culture, in ways with which we haven't yet reckoned. The web and its cultural correlatives and by-products—such as the dominance of reality television and the rise of the 'bourgeois Bohemian'—have turned privacy into performance, play into commerce, and confused “self-expression” with art. And even as technology gurus ply their trade using the language..."

Begun: 04/28/2011
Finish: 05/05/2011

B&N Review:

"Leigh Montville writes nonfiction, but many of the men who pop up in The Mysterious Montague: A True Tale of Hollywood, Golf, and Armed Robbery have names that sound as if they were tapped out on the typewriter of a 1930s screenwriter: Scorpy Doyle, Side Hill Henry, Bozo Corbett, Mush Mulane, and Bushel Gooley, to name a few.

This is fitting, as the book itself, in plot, pacing, and setting, unspools like an old movie. Montville, who has written bestselling biographies of such sports legends as Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Dale Earnhardt, here tells the story of John Montague, an enigmatic man who arrived in Hollywood in the early 30s and quickly achieved his own curious celebrity..."

Begun: 04/04/2011
Finish: 04/24/2011

From the Publisher:

"The Fixer (1966) is Bernard Malamud's best-known and most acclaimed novel — one that makes manifest his roots in Russian fiction, especially that of Isaac Babel.

Set in Kiev in 1911 during a period of heightened anti-Semitism, the novel tells the story of Yakov Bok, a Jewish handyman blamed for the brutal murder of a young Russian boy. Bok leaves his village to try his luck in Kiev, and after denying his Jewish identity, finds himself working for a member of the anti-Semitic Black Hundreds Society. When the boy is found nearly drained of blood in a cave, the Black Hundreds accuse the Jews of ritual murder. Arrested and imprisoned, Bok refuses to confess to a crime that he did not commit."

Begun: 03/24/2011
Finish: 05/04/2011

B&N Synopsis:

"The Exodus Universe.

Your odds of surviving quantum teleportation are, more or less, fifty/fifty. The only ones crazy enough to try it are the desperate, the insane, and those sentenced to exile for their crimes.

Belladonna is home to the survivors of the fifty/fifty— and is therefore a planet run by criminals and thieves. But when a horrific and improbable murder catches the attention of the Galactic Police force, one cyborg cop — Version 43 — is sent to investigate.

Version 43 has been here before and has old friends and older enemies lying in wait. The cop was human once, but now, he is more program than man and will find a way to clean up this planet once and for all."

Begun: 02/19/2011
Finish: 03/23/2011

B&N Synopsis:

"In this provocative and timely book, Middle East expert Lee Smith overturns long-held Western myths and assumptions about the Arab world, offering advice for America’s future success in the region.

Seeking the motivation behind the September 11 attacks, Smith moved to Cairo, where he discovered that the standard explanation—a clash of East and West—was simply not the case. Middle East conflicts have little to do with Israel, the United States, or the West in general, but are endemic to the region."

Begun: 02/16/2011
Finish: 03/03/2011

Begun: 08/23/2010
Finished: 09/24/2010

Begun: 07/11/2010
Finished: 08/02/2010

Begun: 07/03/2010
Finished: 07/11/2010

Begun: 06/23/2010
Finished: 07/03/2010

While some readers may find such comments to be contentious or inflammatory, the book submits these subjects to a meticulous scrutiny with a view to presenting an appropriate context to these assertions. Throughout it is clear that the writer strives to provide an objective analysis wherever possible without attacking the fundamental aspects of the Islamic religion - instead attempting to concentrate on the context of it's implications & relationship to the furtherance of Jihad itself..."

Begun: 05/24/2010
Finished: 06/30/2010

Into this idyllic scene comes Denis Barlow, aspiring poet and funerary colleague. But Denis is downscale, his employer the Happier Hunting Ground, a pet cemetery ..."

Begun: 06/21/2010
Finished: 06/23/2010

"In 2008, the presidential election became blockbuster entertainment. Everyone was watching as the race for the White House unfolded like something from the realm of fiction. The meteoric rise and historic triumph of Barack Obama. The shocking fall of the House of Clinton-and the improbable resurrection of Hillary as Obama's partner and America's face to the world. The mercurial performance of John McCain and the mesmerizing emergence of Sarah Palin. But despite the wall-to-wall media coverage of this spellbinding drama, remarkably little of the real story behind the headlines has yet been told."

Begun: 05/14/2010
Finished: 05/24/2010

Holy relics are disappearing from sacred spots around the world—and the Vatican will do whatever it takes to stop the thieves from stealing what is left of the scattered splinters of the True Cross.

Brilliant paleographer Dr. Ottavia Salina is called upon by the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church to decipher the scars found on an Ethiopian man's corpse: seven crosses and seven Greek letters. "

Begun: 05/05/2010
Finished: 06/20/2010

Begun: 2/02/2010
Finished: 5/12/2010

Begun: 01/03/2010
Finished: 05/05/2010

Begun: 10/03/2009
Finished: 11/30/2009

Earnest, optimistic, and fired by reformist zeal, Kip eventually comes to realize that the welcome of his supporters is superficial and that their charity is driven by self-interest.

Begun: 10/03/2009
Finished: 11/27/2009

Begun: 08/27/2009
Finished: 10/03/2009

Begun: 06/23/2009
Finished: 08/27/2009

Begun: 05/31/2009
Finished: 06/12/2009

Unknown to the public and cloaked in the utmost secrecy, the United States flew missions against the Communist bloc almost continuously during the Cold War in a desperate effort to collect intelligence and find targets for all-out nuclear war. The only hint of the relentless, clandestine operations came when one of the planes was shot down . . . "

Begun: 05/20/2009
Finished: 05/31/2009

Begun: 05/13/2009
Finished: 05/20/2009

Begun: 05/08/2009
Finished: 05/13/2009

The deeper he digs, the more enemies he seems to make. And if Dar wants to save himself, and untold others, he'll have to rely on some deadly resources of his own that date back to a dark, forgotten period in his past..."

Begun: 02/06/2009
Finished: 03/26/2009

B&N Overview:
"James Reston, Jr., the author of Galileo and the critically lauded The Last Apocalypse, a stuningly original portrait of the Christian world at the turn of the first millennium, now recreates the collision of the Christian holy wars and the Muslim jihad at the end of the twelfth century. A dual biography of the legendary Richard the Lionheart and the Sultan Saladin, iconic hero of the Islamic world, Warriors of God recounts the life of each man and reveals the passions of the times that brought them face-to-face in the final battle of the Third Crusade. Richard the Lionheart, commonly depicted as the romantic personification of chivalry, here emerges in his full complexity and contradictions as Reston examines the dark side of Richard's role as the leader of the blood-soaked Crusades, and breaks new ground by openly discussing Richard's homosexuality. Reston's compelling portrait of Saladin brings to life the wise, highly cultured leader who realized an enduring Arab dream by united Egypt and Syria and whose conquest of Jerusalem not only sparked the Third Crusade but..."

B&N Overview:
"Packed with startling revelations, this inside look at the secret side of the Cold War exposes just how close America came to total annihilation

During the Cold War, a flight crew had 15 minutes to get their nuke-laden plane in the air from the moment Soviet bombers were detected—15 minutes between the earliest warning of an incoming nuclear strike and the first flash of an enemy warhead. This is the chilling true story of the incredibly risky steps our military took to protect us from that scenario, including:

• Over two thousand loaded bombers that crossed American skies. They sometimes crashed and at least nine times resulted in nuclear weapons being accidentally dropped

• A system that would use timers and rockets to launch missiles even after everyone was dead..."

B&N Overview:
"From "Britain's finest military historian" (The Economist) comes a magisterial new history of World War II and the flawed axis strategy that led to their defeat. The Second World War lasted for 2,174 days, cost $1.5 trillion, and claimed the lives of more than 50 million people. What were the factors that affected the war's outcome? Why did the Axis lose? And could they, with a different strategy, have won? Andrew Roberts's acclaimed new history has been hailed as the finest single-volume account of this epic conflict..."

From Publishers Weekly:
"In this engaging, cautionary look at the impact of modern technology on literary tradition, critic Birkerts warns that the information superhighway poses dire challenges to the vitality of literary criticism. In 15 original essays on the art of reading and the rise of electronic communication, he contends that emerging information technologies, such as the Internet and interactive TV, will result in the erosion of language, a diminishing interest in sustained critical thought and a negligence of the traditional humanities. He explores the pleasures offered by the traditional printed page and debunks the hype surrounding new products like multimedia, audio books and hypertext..."

From the Publisher:
"One evening in 1588, just weeks after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, two young men landed in secret on a beach in Norfolk, England. They were Jesuit priests, Englishmen, and their aim was to achieve by force of argument what the Armada had failed to do by the force of arms: return England to the Catholic Church.

Eighteen years later their mission would be shattered by the actions of the Gunpowder Plotters—a small group of terrorists who famously tried to destroy the Houses of Parliament—for the Jesuits were accused of having designed 'that most horrid and hellish conspiracy.'

Alice Hogge follows 'God's secret agents' from their schooling on the Continent, through their perilous return journeys and lonely lives in hiding, to, ultimately, the gallows. She offers a remarkable true account of faith, duty, intolerance, and martyrdom—the unforgettable story of men who die for a cause undone by men who would kill for it."

From the Publisher:

"Harvey Mackay, Fortune magazine's 'Mr. Make- Things-Happen,' has written five New York Times bestsellers, including one of the most popular business books of all time-Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive. Now he returns with the ultimate book on how to get, and keep, a job you truly love whether you're twenty-one, fifty-one, or seventy-one.

The average person will have at least three career changes and ten different jobs by age thirty-eight. In this era of down-sizing and outsourcing, you can never be sure your job will still exist in five years- or five weeks. So you'd better think of your career as a perpetual job search. That demands a passion for lifetime learning and the skills for relentless and effective networking."

From the Publisher:

"The novel is set against the background of the Reform Bill of 1867, and focuses on an Irish Member of the British House of Commons; in it Trollope explores the relations between the distinct elements of 'the United Kingdom'. Phineas has a personal chronicle which largely dominates the political calendar and it is noteworthy that Trollope wrote Phineas Finn at the same time as Gladstone's accession to power and the momentous consequences for Ireland that followed."

From the Publisher:

"During his long reign (1953–1999), King Hussein of Jordan was one of the most dominant figures in Middle Eastern politics and a consistent proponent of peace with Israel. This is the first major account of his life, written with access to his official documents and with the cooperation (but not approval) of his family and staff, and also extensive interviews with international policy makers.

For more than forty years, Hussein walked a tightrope between the Palestinians and Arab radicals on the one hand and Israel on the other. Avi Shlaim reveals that, for the sake of dynastic and national survival, Hussein initiated a secret dialogue with Israel in 1963 that encompassed more than one thousand hours with Golda Meir, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Shamir, Yitzhak Rabin, and countless others."

From the Publisher:

"After being dumped by his longtime girlfriend, twenty-eight-year-old Justin Halpern found himself living at home with his seventy-three-year-old dad. Sam Halpern, who is "like Socrates, but angrier, and with worse hair," has never minced words, and when Justin moved back home, he began to record all the ridiculous things his dad said to him:

'That woman was sexy. . . . Out of your league? Son, let women figure out why they won't screw you. Don't do it for them.'

'Do people your age know how to comb their hair? It looks like two squirrels crawled on their heads and started fucking.'

'The worst thing you can be is a liar. . . . Okay, fine, yes, the worst thing you can be is a Nazi, but then number two is liar. Nazi one, liar two.'"

From the Publisher:
"All who lived in the early 1950s remember the fear of polio and the elation felt when a successful vaccine was found. Now David Oshinsky tells the gripping story of the polio terror and of the intense effort to find a cure, from the March of Dimes to the discovery of the Salk and Sabin vaccines--and beyond.

Here is a remarkable portrait of America in the early 1950s, using the widespread panic over polio to shed light on our national obsessions and fears. Drawing on newly available papers of Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin and other key players, Oshinsky paints a suspenseful portrait of the race for the cure, weaving a dramatic tale centered on the furious rivalry between Salk and Sabin."

From the Publisher:

"Prisons, the first volume of The Beulah Quintet - Mary Lee Settle's unforgettable generational saga about the roots of American culture, class, and identity and the meaning of freedom - follows the coming-of-age of Johnny Church from English youngster to dashing Oxford adolescent to idealistic Puritan in the service of Cromwell's Parliamentary Army. Throughout his evolution, Johnny seeks emancipation from a multitude of emotional, political, and religious prisons, not realizing that with each successive grasp at freedom, he escapes one form of captivity only to be confined by another. When Cromwell, the leader Johnny has supported so staunchly, limits the freedoms for which Johnny has taken up arms, he bravely questions the commander. Shortly thereafter he finds himself held in a prison of stone and mortar where, as an example to other soldiers tempted to champion their rights, he is executed. Based on a true incident of the English Civil War, Prisons captures the promise and tragedy of the conflict that led to one of the first substantial migrations to North America..."

Barnes & Noble Synopsis:

"What makes someone want to buy a car that costs a small fortune? Or a very large one for that matter? What drives us to demand the best? What makes us want to experience the thrill and sensation of cars designed for pure driver indulgence and to appreciate the creativity and engineering that has made the supercar what it is today? It is our constant striving for excellence that does it and the modern supercars offer the answers."

Barnes & Noble Synopsis:

"If laughter is the best medicine, then You're Only Old Once! is a delightful new defense against aging. Anyone who has ever submitted to a battery of medical tests will empathize with Dr. Seuss's Everyman as we follow him through his checkup with the experts at the Golden Years Clinic. From the initial Eyesight and Solvency Test through all the stops along Stethoscope Row to finally being 'properly pilled' and 'properly billed,' Dr. Seuss lightens the aches and pains of growing old with his inimitable wit and wisdom. A perfect gift for anyone over 50!"

From the Publisher:

"An instant blockbuster in Italy where it has sold over 700,000 copies, and now an international literary phenomenon, 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed is the fictionalized memoir of Melissa P., a Sicilian teenager whose quest for love rapidly devolves into a shocking journey of sexual discovery. Melissa begins her diary a virgin, but a stormy affair at the age of fourteen leads her to regard sex as a means of self-discovery, and for the next two years she plunges into a succession of encounters with various partners, male and female, her age and much older, some met through schoolmates, others through newspaper ads and Internet chat rooms."

From the Publisher:

"In the wake of a demoralizing infiltration by a Soviet double agent, Smiley has been made ringmaster of the Circus (aka the British Secret Service). Determined to restore the organization's health and reputation, and bent on revenge, Smiley thrusts his own handpicked operative into action. Jerry Westerby, The Honourable Schoolboy, is dispatched to the Far East. A burial ground of French, British, and American colonial cultures, the region is a fabled testing ground of patriotic allegiances and a new showdown is about to begin."

From the Publisher:

"The Good War for which Terkel won the Pulitzer Prize, is a testament not only to the experience of war but to the extraordinary skill of Terkel as interviewer. As always, Terkel's subjects are open and unrelenting in their analyses of themselves and their experiences, producing what People magazine has called 'a splendid epic history of World War II.' With this volume Terkel expanded his scope to the global and the historical and the result is a masterpiece of oral history."

From the Publisher:

"They claim that The Secret  was discovered by such historical luminaries as Plato, da Vinci, Galileo, Napoleon, Hugo, Beethoven, Newton, Edison, and Einstein; that The Secret  has existed in fragments in religions, philosophies, and oral traditions for centuries . . . but only now has it all been put together. The Secret  'is everything you have dreamed of . . . and is beyond your wildest dreams,' trumpet the marketing materials. Could it really be true, or is it just a new spin on the very old (and decidedly not secret) 'the power of positive thinking' wedded to 'ask and you shall receive'?"

From the Publisher:

"A complete and compelling account of the fall of Constantinople, the siege that gave rise to today's jihad.

When Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, a remarkable era in world history ended. Constantinople, the "city of the world's desire," was a wealthy, imperial, intimidating, and Christian city, influencing world opinion for a thousand years. The fall of Constantinople marked the end of the Byzantium Empire and the end of the medieval era. Thereafter, two worlds would rise -- that of the West and that of the Middle East.

1453 is brought to life by the stories of its two ambitious battling leaders-Mehmed II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and Constantine XI, the 57th emperor of Byzantium. It is a vivid, intense tale of courage and cruelty, of technological ingenuity, of endurance and luck. Impeccably researched and told as a real-life adventure, the book explores the issues that led up to and resulted from the fall of Constantinople in a way that is easily grasped and jumps from the pages into the headlines of world news. 1453 is the story of a moment of change that has new relevance today -- a crucial link in the chain of events that besets the modern world."

From the Publisher:

"This book is a remarkable discovery, as fresh today as when it was first translated in 1893. It is a novel of life under socialism by Eugene Richter, a German liberal of the 19th century.

Prophetic is not quite the word for this book. Richter saw with chilling clarity what would happen under socialistic control. The economy would be smashed. Families would be destroyed. The population would grow poorer by the day. The state would be unleashed to crush political dissent and lock everyone into a national prison. None of the ideals would be achieved.

The novel's narrative voice, however, is blinded by ideological loyalty to the cause. As he describes the calamity, he justifies it all in the name of progress, equality, and fairness to all. The reader, then, experiences the horrors of the events and then also the horrors of the intellectual twists and turns that some people will undertake to keep the disaster happening as long as possible."

From the Publisher:

"Imagine a world, if you will, where crime does not exist. A startling proposition that seems outlandish, but our imaginations, of course, need not be bounded by the rules and restrictions imposed by realism. It would be a world, one might suppose, where equality reigned, where the thought of violence was so alien that it need not be practiced. People would smile more. They would cooperate more. And they would create a microcosm of peace that, town by town, country by country, could grow exponentially into worldwide tranquility.

Or maybe not. After all, Stalinist Russia operated under a policy, strictly enforced, that "there is no crime." This was a Communist society, where social excesses were supposed to . . ."

"The Buckley name is synonymous with a unique brand of conservatism -- marked by merciless reasoning, wit, good humor, and strong will. Self-made oil tycoon William F. Buckley, Sr., of Texas, and his Southern belle wife, Aloise Steiner Buckley, of New Orleans, raised a family of ten whose ideals would go on to shape the traditionalist revival in American culture.

But their family history is anything but conventional. Begun in Mexico (until their father was expelled) and set against a diverse inter-national background (the children's first languages were Spanish and French) with colorful guest stars (such as Pancho Villa, and Norman Mailer), theirs was a life built on . . ."

"Between these covers reside a twenty pound duck that won't fly, thirty miles of barbed-wire fencing, and several batches of illicit whiskey. Fup is a classic tale that celebrates all the amazing connections and pitfalls of rustic living. The story is set in the coastal hills of northern California between 1880 and the present. The plot revolves around Grandaddy Jake Santee who believes he is immortal, his grandson Tiny whose passion is building masterfully crafted fences even though they don't have any stock, and Fup, a hen mallard with a prodigious appetite. These three come together in a transcendent tale that has won international acclaim and the affection of thousands of readers."

"In Bambi vs. Godzilla, David Mamet, the award-winning playwright and screenwriter, gives us an exhilaratingly subversive inside look at Hollywood from the perspective of a filmmaker who has always played the game his own way.

Who really reads the scripts at the film studios? How is a screenplay like a personals ad? Whose opinion matters when revising a screenplay? Why are there so many producers listed in movie credits? And what the hell do those producers do, anyway? Refreshingly unafraid to offend, Mamet provides hilarious, surprising, and bracingly forthright answers to these and other questions about virtually every aspect of filmmaking, from concept to script to screen."

"When the Internet-and the collective memory of the twenty-first century-crashes, the past is reassembled from the downloaded memories of Ginger, wife of ex-President Wilson. The transcripts take the reader on an intellectually breathtaking tour through David Mamet's baroque, fragmented world, where nothing is certain except the certainty bestowed by the academy.

After the Cola riots, the fire at the Stop 'n' Shop, and the death of my kitten, what remains? Does the Joke Code still operate? Has anyone seen my copy of Bongazine? Can Jane of Trent unlock this paranoia? What were Chet and Donna doing in the boathouse? And just who does Ginger think she is? In playing with the ideas of perception, accuracy, and truth, Wilson dares to doubt them all. "

Each week Inside the Actors Studio takes the unique insights and intimate revelations of its celebrated guests into 84 million homes on the Bravo network and 125 countries. Now, with Inside Inside, James Lipton, the 2007 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Emmy, is handing every one of us a backstage pass.

You will witness in unprecedented close-up the wit, wisdom and candor of a galaxy of stars, from Paul Newman to Barbra Streisand, Al Pacino, Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Sean Penn, Clint Eastwood, Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, Ellen Burstyn, Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Martin Scorsese, Sharon Stone and. . ."

One day as Gill sat in a Manhattan Starbucks with his last affordable luxury—a latté—brooding about his misfortune and quickly dwindling list of options, a 28-year-old Starbucks manager named Crystal Thompson approached him, half joking, to offer him a job. With nothing to lose, he took it, and went from drinking coffee in a Brooks Brothers suit to serving it in a green uniform..."

*Shares comprehensive definitions for more than 3,600 words, more than twice the words found in competing titles
*Provides examples of how each word is used by classic and contemporary authors
*Is uniquely organized by theme, giving it a fun, browsable feel, and includes an alphabetical index for those looking up words traditionally"

"More than 50 studies support the low-carb science behind Atkins.

But Atkins is more than just a diet. This healthy lifestyle focuses on maintenance from Day 1, ensuring that you'll not only take the weight off — you'll keep it off for good. Featuring inspiring success stories, all-new recipes, and 24 weeks' worth of meal plans, The New Atkins for a New You offers the proven low-carb plan that has worked for millions, now totally updated and even easier than ever. "