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Creepers
by Joanne DahmeFrom moving to a new house to making new friends and preparing for high school, life for the new girl in town can be unsettling. But thirteen year-old Courtney is unprepared for how creepy life in Murmur, Massachusetts turns out to be. Her ivy-covered house overlooking the antiquated cemetery next door is one thing, but Courtney finds herself thrust into a full-fledged haunted adventure after meeting Christian and Margaret Geyer, a strange father and daughter with unfinished family business. The body of their ancestor, Prudence, has gone missing from beneath her ivy-carved tombstone and must be returned to its final resting place in order to break the spell that looms over Courtney's house. To add to the suspense and help solve the mystery, authentic documents and photographs are set at the beginning of each chapter pertaining to Murmur, Courtney's house, and the infamous cemetery. Will Courtney uncover the secret lurking within the dark, dank underbelly of her ivy-covered basement?
The Crime of Reason: And the Closing of the Scientific Mind
by Robert B. LaughlinWe all agree that the free flow of ideas is essential to creativity. And we like to believe that in our modern, technological world, information is more freely available and flows faster than ever before. But according to Nobel Laureate Robert Laughlin, acquiring information is becoming a danger or even a crime. Increasingly, the really valuable information is private property or a state secret, with the result that it is now easy for a flash of insight, entirely innocently, to infringe a patent or threaten national security. The public pays little attention because this vital information is "technical”-but, Laughlin argues, information is often labeled technical so it can be sequestered, not sequestered because it's technical. The increasing restrictions on information in such fields as cryptography, biotechnology, and computer software design are creating a new Dark Age: a time characterized not by light and truth but by disinformation and ignorance. Thus we find ourselves dealing more and more with the Crime of Reason, the antisocial and sometimes outright illegal nature of certain intellectual activities.The Crime of Reason is a reader-friendly jeremiad, On Bullshit for the Slashdot and Creative Commons crowd: a short, fiercely argued essay on a problem of increasing concern to people at the frontiers of new ideas.
The Dead of the Night: Book 2 (The Tomorrow Series #2)
by John Marsden'Compulsively readable' New York TimesSomewhere out there Ellie and her friends are hiding.Their country has been invaded. Everyone they know has been captured. Their world has changed overnight.And now their band is divided. Kevin and Corrie are captured. Meanwhile, Ellie discovers that there are other rebels out there, fighting the invaders - but who are they and can they be trusted? The Dead of Night continues this gripping story about teenagers facing warfare amid the intensity of first love. Would you sacrifice everything to save your country and your family?Fans of Veronica Roth, Suzanne Collins and Michael Grant - prepare to be hooked by the Tomorrow series.
Far from the Madding Crowd: Revised Edition Of Original Version (Classics To Go)
by Thomas HardyGabriel Oak is a young shepherd. With the savings of a frugal life, and a loan, he has leased and stocked a sheep-farm. He falls in love with a newcomer eight years his junior, Bathsheba Everdene, a proud beauty who arrives to live with her aunt, Mrs. Hurst. She comes to like him well enough, and even saves his life once, but when he makes her an unadorned offer of marriage, she refuses; she values her independence too much and him too little. Gabriel's blunt protestations only serve to drive her to haughtiness. After a few days, she moves to Weatherbury, a village some miles off. When next they meet, their circumstances have changed drastically. An inexperienced new sheep dog drives Gabriel's flock over a cliff, ruining him. After selling off everything of value, he manages to settle all his debts, but emerges penniless. He seeks employment at a work fair in the town of Casterbridge, (a fictionalised version of Dochester). When he finds none, he heads to another fair in Shottsford, a town about ten miles from Weatherbury. On the way, he happens upon a dangerous fire on a farm and leads the bystanders in putting it out. When the veiled owner comes to thank him, he asks if she needs a shepherd. She uncovers her face and reveals herself to be none other than Bathsheba. She has recently inherited the estate of her uncle and is now a wealthy woman. Though somewhat uncomfortable, she hires him. Meanwhile, Bathsheba has a new admirer: the lonely and repressed William Boldwood. Boldwood is a prosperous farmer of about forty whose ardour Bathsheba unwittingly awakens when – her curiosity piqued because he has never bestowed on her the customary admiring glance – she playfully sends him a valentine sealed with red wax on which she has embossed the words "Marry me". Boldwood, not realising the valentine was a jest, becomes obsessed with Bathsheba, and soon proposes marriage. Although she does not love him, she toys with the idea of accepting his offer; he is, after all, the most eligible bachelor in the district. However, she postpones giving him a definite answer. When Gabriel rebukes her for her thoughtlessness, she fires him. When her sheep begin dying from bloat, she discovers to her chagrin that Gabriel is the only man who knows how to cure them. Her pride delays the inevitable, but finally she is forced to beg him for help. Afterwards, she offers him back his job and their friendship is restored... (Excerpt from Wikipedia)
Five Children and It: Large Print (The Psammead Series)
by E. Nesbit'I love her books - particularly the Five Children and It sequence' - Neil GaimanDigging in the gravel pit on a hot summer's day, five children discover 'it': a grumpy creature with eyes like a snail's, ears like a bat's, and a tubby body all covered in fur. 'It' is a Psammead, an ancient sand-fairy who has the power to grant the children one wish a day.That, you might think, would be a dream come true! But you need to be very careful what you wish for: whether it's for wings, treasure or beauty, things can - and often will - go wrong.With all the illustrations by H. R. Millar, newly scanned from the original edition.Five Children and It is the first book in the Psammead trilogy: next, discover The Phoenix and the Carpet and The Story of the Amulet.'The cheerful, child-centred anarchy of Five Children and It is still my inspiration and delight' Kate Saunders, Guardian'My all-time favourite classic children's author' Jacqueline Wilson'If Britain is to children's fantasy as Brazil is to football, then Edith Nesbit is our Pele - endlessly surprising and inventive. But she is more than that. There were fantasy writers before Edith Nesbit but she is the one that brought the magical and the mundane together in a moment of nuclear fusion. She opened the door in the magic wardrobe, pointed the way to platform nine and three quarters. She even had a hand in building the Tardis. And these are among her minor achievements. She is also simply the funniest writer we have ever had, while being the one who could most easily and sweetly break your heart with a phrase. Just try saying "Daddy oh my Daddy" without catching your breath. She made the magic worlds feel as near as the Lewisham Road and she bathed the Lewisham Road in magic' Frank Cottrell-Boyce This collection of the best in children's literature, curated by Virago, will be coveted by children and adults alike. These are timeless tales with beautiful covers, that will be treasured and shared across the generations. Some titles you will already know; some will be new to you, but there are stories for everyone to love, whatever your age. Our list includes Nina Bawden (Carrie's War, The Peppermint Pig), Rumer Godden (The Dark Horse, An Episode of Sparrows), Joan Aiken (The Serial Garden, The Gift Giving) E. Nesbit (The Psammead Trilogy, The Bastable Trilogy, The Railway Children), Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Little Princess,The Secret Garden) and Susan Coolidge (The What Katy Did Trilogy). Discover Virago Children's Classics.
Flying High: Remembering Barry Goldwater
by William F. Buckley Jr.In Flying High, William F. Buckley Jr. offers his lyrical remembrance of a singular era in American politics, and a tribute to the modern Conservative movement's first presidential standard-bearer, Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was in many ways the perfect candidate: self-reliant, unpretentious, unshakably honest, and dashingly handsome. And although he lost the election, he electrified millions of voters with his integrity and a sense of decency-qualities that made him a natural spokesman for Conservative ideals and an inspiration for decades to come.In an era when Republicans are looking for a leader, Flying High is a reminder of how real political visionaries inspire devotion.
Flying High: Remembering Barry Goldwater
by William F. Buckley Jr.If any two people can be called indispensable in launching the conservative movement in American politics, they are William F. Buckley Jr. and Barry Goldwater. Buckley's National Review was at the center of conservative political analysis from the mid-fifties onward. But the policy intellectuals knew that to actually change the way the country was run, they needed a presidential candidate, and the man they turned to was Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was in many ways the perfect choice: self-reliant, unpretentious, unshakably honest and dashingly handsome, with a devoted following that grew throughout the fifties and early sixties. He possessed deep integrity and a sense of decency that made him a natural spokesman for conservative ideals. But his flaws were a product of his virtues. He wouldn't't bend his opinions to make himself more popular, he insisted on using his own inexperienced advisors to run his presidential campaign, and in the end he electrified a large portion of the electorate but lost the great majority. Flying High is Buckley's partly fictional tribute to the man who was in many ways his alter ego in the conservative movement. It is the story of two men who looked as if they were on the losing side of political events, but were kept aloft by the conviction that in fact they were making history.
Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War (Playaway Adult Nonfiction Ser.)
by Edwin G. BurrowsBetween 1775 and 1783, some 200,000 Americans took up arms against the British Crown. Just over 6,800 of those men died in battle. About 25,000 became prisoners of war, most of them confined in New York City under conditions so atrocious that they perished by the thousands. Evidence suggests that at least 17,500 Americans may have died in these prisons-more than twice the number to die on the battlefield. It was in New York, not Boston or Philadelphia, where most Americans gave their lives for the cause of independence.New York City became the jailhouse of the American Revolution because it was the principal base of the Crown's military operations. Beginning with the bumper crop of American captives taken during the 1776 invasion of New York, captured Americans were stuffed into a hastily assembled collection of public buildings, sugar houses, and prison ships. The prisoners were shockingly overcrowded and chronically underfed-those who escaped alive told of comrades so hungry they ate their own clothes and shoes.Despite the extraordinary number of lives lost, Forgotten Patriots is the first-ever account of what took place in these hell-holes. The result is a unique perspective on the Revolutionary War as well as a sobering commentary on how Americans have remembered our struggle for independence-and how much we have forgotten.
The General: Book 10 (CHERUB #10)
by Robert MuchamoreThe world's largest urban warfare training compound stands in the desert near Las Vegas. Forty British commandos are being hunted by an entire American battalion. But their commander has an ace up his sleeve: he plans to smuggle in ten CHERUB agents, and fight the best war game ever. CHERUB agents have one crucial advantage: adults never suspect that kids are spying on them. For official purposes, these children do not exist.
The Gods that Failed: How Blind Faith in Markets Has Cost Us Our Future
by Larry Eliott Dan AtkinsonOver the past three decades, governments have ceded economic control to a new elite of free-market operatives and their colleagues in national and international institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. They promised economic stability but have delivered chaos. Their speculation has left the global economy more vulnerable to a financial collapse than any time since 1929.Two leading financial journalists dissect this financial elite, tracing their origins to a secretive gathering of free-market economists in 1947, and propose a series of far-reaching reforms that can save us from a new depression.
Going Nowhere Faster
by Sean BeaudoinEveryone in town thought Stan was going to be something and go somewhere, but they're starting to realize that when this boy genius can't even get out of Happy Video, he's going nowhere, faster. But when things look like they're only getting worse, Stan is forced to decide what he wants to do with his life. Suddenly, he may be getting somewhere afterall. With sarcastic, dry wit reminiscent of David Sedaris and Tom Perrotta, this debut YA novel delivers with laugh-out-loud hilarity and a lot of heart.
The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives
by Michael HellerTwenty-five new runways would eliminate most air travel delays in America; fifty patent owners are blocking a major drug company from creating a cancer cure; 90 percent of our broadcast spectrum sits idle while American cell phone service suffers. These problems have solutions that can jump-start innovation and help save our troubled economy. So, what's holding us back?Michael Heller, a leading authority on property, reveals that while private ownership creates wealth, too much ownership means that everyone loses. Startling and accessible, The Gridlock Economy offers insights on how we can overcome this preventable paradox.
The Hero of Ages: Mistborn Book Three (Mistborn #3)
by Brandon SandersonTricked into releasing the evil spirit Ruin while attempting to close the Well of Ascension, new emperor Elend Venture and his wife, the assassin Vin, are now hard-pressed to save the world.This adventure brings the Mistborn epic fantasy trilogy to a dramatic and surprising climax as Sanderson's saga offers complex characters and a compelling plot, asking hard questions about loyalty, faith and responsibility.
House of Many Ways
by Diana Wynne JonesA chaotically magical sequel to Howl’s Moving Castle, from the bestselling children’s author and ‘godmother of fantasy’, Diana Wynne Jones.
How to Ditch Your Fairy
by Justine LarbalestierIf you lived in a world where everyone had a personal fairy, what kind would you want? A clothes-shopping fairy (The perfect outfit will always be on sale!)A loose-change fairy (Pretty self-explanatory.)A never-getting-caught fairy (You can get away with anything. . . .)Unfortunately for Charlie, she's stuck with a parking fairy-if she's in the car, the driver will find the perfect parking spot. Tired of being treated like a personal parking pass, Charlie devises a plan to ditch her fairy for a more useful model. At first, teaming up with her archenemy (who has an all-the-boys-like-you fairy) seems like a good idea. But Charlie soon learns there are consequences for messing with fairies-and she will have to resort to extraordinary measures to set things right again.
If By Sea: The Forging of the American Navy--from the Revolution to the War of 1812
by George C. DaughanThe American Revolution-and thus the history of the United States-began not on land but on the sea. Paul Revere began his famous midnight ride not by jumping on a horse, but by scrambling into a skiff with two other brave patriots to cross Boston Harbor to Charlestown. Revere and his companions rowed with muffled oars to avoid capture by the British warships closely guarding the harbor. As they paddled silently, Revere's neighbor was flashing two lanterns from the belfry of Old North Church, signaling patriots in Charlestown that the redcoats were crossing the Charles River in longboats. In every major Revolutionary battle thereafter the sea would play a vital, if historically neglected, role. When the American colonies took up arms against Great Britain, they were confronting the greatest sea-power of the age. And it was during the War of Independence that the American Navy was born. But following the British naval model proved crushingly expensive, and the Founding Fathers fought viciously for decades over whether or not the fledgling republic truly needed a deep-water fleet. The debate ended only when the Federal Navy proved indispensable during the War of 1812. Drawing on decades of prodigious research, historian George C. Daughan chronicles the embattled origins of the U.S. Navy. From the bloody and gunpowder-drenched battles fought by American sailors on lakes and high seas to the fierce rhetorical combat waged by the Founders in Congress, If By Sea charts the course by which the Navy became a vital and celebrated American institution.
In Odd We Trust (Odd Thomas Ser. #1)
by Dean KoontzThe first graphic novel from Dean Koontz, featuring the famously well-loved character of Odd Thomas.
Inchworm (Gussie #3)
by Ann KelleyGussie is a twelve year old girl from St. Ives in Cornwall. She is passionate about learning, wildlife, poetry, literature, and she wants to be a photographer when she grows up. But her dreams were put on hold as she struggled with a serious heart condition. Now she has got what she needed: a heart and lung transplant. But it isn't working out quite the way she thought. Firstly she has to leave her beloved Cornwall to live in London and in the months following her operation she is unable to do very much except read and adopt a stray kitten, but she could do that when she was sick. She craves adventure and experience beyond her four walls, until, that is, she hits upon a plan - she is going to get her divorced parents to fall in love again. It's not going to be easy, her mum is still dating her doctor boyfriend and despises Gussie's father, who happens to be living with his new girlfriend - the Snow Queen. But Gussie is a determined girl and there is only one thing that could stop her now. REVIEWS 'Not many books around that you can give to anyone of any age and be sure of an appreciative audience, but Kelley does it beautifully in this, the third in the Gussie series, following the well-deserved Costa Category award for The Bower Bird.' SUE BAKER's Personal Choice, PUBLISHING NEWS' A great book.' THE INDEPENDENT 'You have to read it, and it will stay with you forever!' TEEN TITLES BACK COVER I ask for a mirror. My chest is covered in wide tape, so I can't see the clips or incision but I want to see my face, to see if I've changed. Gussie wants to go to school like every other teenage girl and find out what it's like to kiss a boy. But she's just had a heart and lung transplant and she's staying in London to recover from the operation. Between managing her parents' love lives, waiting for her breasts to finally start growing, and trying to hide a destructive kitten in her dad's expensive bachelor pad, Gussie makes friends with another cardio pation int the hospital, and finds out that she can't have everything her heart desires...
Introducing Bert Williams: Burnt Cork, Broadway, and the Story of America's First Black Star
by Camille F. ForbesAccording to critics of his time, Bert Williams was "the Greatest Comedian on the American Stage.” A black Bahamian immigrant, Williams made his start as a barker advertising the rough-and-tumble "medicine shows” that dotted the Wild West at the end of the nineteenth century. Not long after joining a minstrel troupe and donning the burnt- cork makeup of blackface, he teamed up with African American George Walker in a sixteen-year partnership that would take them from rural western mining towns to the bright lights of Broadway.In Introducing Bert Williams, historian Camille Forbes reveals a fascinating figure, initiating the reader into the vivid world of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century popular entertainment. Williams's long and varied career is a whirlwind of drama, glamour, and ambition-nothing less than the birth of American show business.
Kiss
by Jacqueline Wilson Nick SharrattSylvie and Carl have been friends since they were tiny children. They've always played together, called each other boyfriend and girlfriend and, deep down, Sylvie has always believed that they'd end up married to each other. They even have a a magical fantasy world that belongs to them alone.But as they become older, things are starting to change. Sylvie would still rather spend all her time with Carl - but Carl has a new friend, Paul, who is taking all his attention. Now, Carl seems much less happy to be called Sylvie's boyfriend - and in a game of spin the bottle, he avoids having to kiss her. Sylvie can tell his feelings have changed and that their future together might not be so clear-cut after all. But can she guess at the true reasons behind it all? Touching and compelling, Kiss is a delicately handled treatment of love and sexuality from award-winning Jacqueline Wilson.
The Knife That Killed Me
by Anthony McGowanHe is coming to kill me.Now would be a good time to run.I cannot run. I am too afraid to run.Paul Varderman could be at any normal school - bullies, girls and annoying teachers are just a part of life. Unfortunately 'normal' doesn't apply when it comes to the school's most evil bully, Roth, a twisted and threatening thug with an agenda quite unlike anyone else. When Paul ends up delivering a message from Roth to the leader of a gang at a nearby school, it fuels a rivalry with immediate consequences. Paul attempts to distance himself from the feud, but when Roth hands him a knife it both empowers him and scares him at the same time . . . This thought-provoking and original novel highlights the terrible consequences of peer pressure and violence, and casts a spotlight on the worrying rise in knife crime among teenagers.
Lavinia
by Ursula K. Le GuinAn exceptional combination of history and mythology - 'an intriguing, luxuriously realised novel' FINANCIAL TIMES'Like Spartan Helen, I caused a war. She caused hers by letting men who wanted her take her. I caused mine because I wouldn't be given, wouldn't be taken, but chose my man and my fate. The man was famous, the fate obscure; not a bad balance.'Lavinia is the daughter of the King of Latium, a victorious warrior who loves peace; she is her father's closest companion. Now of an age to wed, Lavinia's mother favours her own kinsman, King Turnus of Rutulia, handsome, heroic, everything a young girl should want. Instead, Lavinia dreams of mighty Aeneas, a man she has heard of only from a ghost of a poet, who comes to her in the gods' holy place and tells her of her future, and Aeneas' past...If she refuses to wed Turnus, Lavinia knows she will start a war - but her fate was set the moment the poet appeared to her in a dream and told her of the adventurer who fled fallen Troy, holding his son's hand and carrying his father on his back...
Leningrad: State of Siege
by Michael Jones"All offers of surrender from Leningrad must be rejected,” wrote Adolph Hitler on September 29, 1941, at the outset of Operation Barbarossa. "In this struggle for survival, we have no interest in keeping even a proportion of the city's population alive.”During the famed 900-day siege of Leningrad, the German High Command deliberately planned to eradicate the city's population through starvation. Viewing the Slavs as sub-human, Hitler embarked on a vicious program of ethnic cleansing. By the time the siege ended in January 1944, almost a million people had died. Those who survived would be marked permanently by what they endured as the city descended into chaos.In Leningrad, military historian Michael Jones chronicles the human story of this epic siege. Drawing on newly available eyewitness accounts and diaries, he reveals the true horrors of the ordeal-including stories long-suppressed by the Soviets of looting, criminal gangs, and cannibalism. But he also shows the immense psychological resources on which the citizens of Leningrad drew to survive against desperate odds. At the height of the siege, for instance, an extraordinary live performance of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony profoundly strengthened the city's will to resist.A riveting account of one of the most harrowing sieges of world history, Leningrad also portrays the astonishing power of the human will in the face of even the direst catastrophe.
Lord of the Flies: New Educational Edition (Novel-ties Ser.novel-ties Study Guides #Levels 9-12)
by William GoldingWilliam Golding's Lord of the Flies is a dystopian classic: 'exciting, relevant and thought-provoking' (Stephen King). When a group of schoolboys are stranded on a desert island, what could go wrong?'One of my favorite books - I read it every couple of years.' (Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games)A plane crashes on a desert island. The only survivors are a group of schoolboys. By day, they discover fantastic wildlife and dazzling beaches, learning to survive; at night, they are haunted by nightmares of a primitive beast. Orphaned by society, it isn't long before their innocent childhood games devolve into a savage, murderous hunt ... 'Stands out mightily in my memory ... Such a strong statement about the human heart.' (Patricia Cornwell)'Terrifying and haunting.' (Kingsley Amis)'Beautifully written, tragic and provocative.' (E. M. Forster)ONE OF THE BBC'S ICONIC 'NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD'What readers are saying:'Every real human being should read this ... This is what we are.''It's brilliant, it's captivating, it's thought provoking and brutal and for some, its truly terrifying.''It can be read and re-read many times, and every time something new will appear.''There is a reason why this is studied at school ... Excellent read.''This is one of the few books I've read that I keep on my Kindle to read again.''I revisit this every few years and it's always fresh and impressive ... One of the best books I've ever read.'
The Lost Boy: A Foster Child's Search For The Love Of A Family (Windsor Selection Ser.)
by Dave PelzerDave Pelzer's sequel to million-copy bestseller A CHILD CALLED 'IT'As a child, Dave Pelzer was brutally beaten and starved by his mother. The world knew nothing of his living nightmare and he had nothing and no one to turn to. But his dreams kept him alive - dreams of someone taking care of him, loving him and calling him their son. Finally, his horrific plight could no longer be hidden from the outside world and Dave's life radically changed.THE LOST BOY is the harrowing, but ultimately uplifting true story of a boy's journey through the foster-care system in search of a family to love. The continuation of Dave Pelzer's story is a moving sequel and inspirational read for all.