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› Find signed collectible books: 'The 9/11 Report'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'All Fun and Games until Somebody Loses an Eye'
As a teenager Jane Bell had dreamt of playing in the casinos of Monte Carlo in the company of James Bond, but in her punk phase she'd got herself pregnant and by the time she reaches forty-six she's a grandmother, her dreams as dry as the dust her Dyson sucks up from her hall carpet every day. Then her son Ross, a researcher working for an arms manufacturer in Switzerland, is forced to disappear before some characters cut from the same cloth as Blofeld persuade him to part with the secrets of his research. But they are not the only ones desperate to locate him. A team of security experts is hired by Ross's firm: headed by the enigmatic Bett, his staff have little in common apart from total professionalism and a thorough disregard for the law. Bett believes the key to Ross's whereabouts is his mother, and in one respect he is right, but even he is taken aback by the verve underlying her determination to secure her son's safety as she learns the black arts of quiet subterfuge and violent attack. The teenage dreams of fast cars, high-tech firepower and extreme action had always promised to be fun and games, but in real life it's likely someone is going to lose an eye... [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'And Then There Were None'
First there were ten--a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unkonwn to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they're unwilling to reveal--and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. One by one they fall prey. Before the weekend is out, there will be none. And only the dead are above suspicion.
[via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Armless Maiden'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Big Boy Did It and Ran Away'
His books are surrealistic, deeply irreverent and bitingly satirical. His characters may be larger than life, but are always rendered with total plausibility, however outrageous their actions. And the body count of his books is high--the world of Christopher Brookmyre's fiction is as dangerous as it is blackly comic. But is he a crime writer? A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away is another massive phantasmagoria, written with the author's customary caustic wit--and there's a character in it (a fast-living, highly successful assassin) who could have strayed in from a thriller. But such impressions never last for long--Brookmyre belongs to no genre, and this book is as uncategorisable as such previous epics as Boiling a Frog and the splendidly biting Quite Ugly One Morning.
In A Big Boy Did It... , his beleaguered hero Raymond Ash is struggling with the banal reality of his life as an English teacher and lamenting the evaporation of his student dreams. Responsibility isn't pleasant, Raymond has found. He takes refuge in a sad virtual existence, his online doodling substituting for real life. And then he encounters an old friend, whom he thought dead. Simon has achieved success in rock star-like terms: massive financial rewards, global travel, even notoriety. But his route has been that of the professional killer, and at that trade he's top of the tree. Raymond is seduced by the excitement of time spent with his old pal, even though he's reluctant to get involved with him again. But get involved he does, and soon every aspect of his life is under threat, with Ray yearning for the pretend violence of a computer game over the messy reality he's catapulted himself into.
Brookmyre sees terrorists and killers such as Simon as being self-deluded; whatever reasons they think they're performing their ruthless activities for (religion, a cause, money), they're really on a sad power trip, sublimating their craving for mass acclaim into violence. But he's never solemn--no diatribes here, unlike the organised religion he has so much distaste for. Brookmyre is adept at pulling the rug from beneath the reader's feet (Simon is attractive, until we get to know him better). The writing is always sharp, always funny, always innovative.--Barry Forshaw [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Blood and Guts in High School, plus Two'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Blood Brothers'
When vampires venture out into the world, wreaking havoc on innocent citizens, it is up to Harry Keogh's twin sons, both possessing their father's powers, to stop them. By the author of Necroscope. 35,000 first printing. $35,000 ad/promo. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bloodwars'
In the conclusion of the Vampire World Trilogy, which began with Blood Brothers and The Last Aerie, Nathan must summon the living and the dead to end his rivalry with his twin brother, vampire Lord Nestor, and change the earth forever. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Boats against the Current: A Novel'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bodies Electric'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Brideshead Revisited'
A departure from Evelyn Waugh's normally comic theater, Brideshead Revisited concerns the tale of Charles Ryder, a captain in the British Army in post-World War I England. Unlike Waugh's previous narrators, Ryder is an intelligent man, looking back on much of his life from his current post in Oxford. He strikes a special friendship with Lord Sebastian Flyte as the setting moves to the Brideshead estate and a baroque castle that recalls England's prior standing in the world. Ryder falls for Flyte's sister while families, politics and religions collide. What makes the book extraordinary is Waugh's sharp, vivid style and his use of dialect and minor characters. This is one of Waugh's finest accomplishments and a superb book. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men'
Amid the screams of adulation for bandanna-clad wunderkind David Foster Wallace, you might hear a small peep. It is the cry for some restraint. On occasion the reader is left in the dust wondering where the story went, as the author, literary turbochargers on full-blast, suddenly accelerates into the wild-blue-footnoted yonder in pursuit of some obscure metafictional fancy. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Wallace's latest collection, is at least in part a response to the distress signal put out by the many readers who want to ride along with him, if he'd only slow down for a second.
The intellectual gymnastics and ceaseless rumination endure (if you don't have a tolerance for that kind of thing, your nose doesn't belong in this book), but they are for the most part couched in simpler, less frenzied narratives. The book's four-piece namesake takes the form of interview transcripts, in which the conniving horror that is the male gender is revealed in all of its licentious glory. In the short, two-part "The Devil Is a Busy Man," Wallace strolls through the Hall of Mirrors that is human motivation. (Is it possible to completely rid an act of generosity of any self-serving benefits? And why is it easier to sell a couch for five dollars than it is to give it away for free?) The even shorter glimpse into modern-day social ritual, "A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life," stretches the seams of its total of seven lines with scathing economy: "She laughed extremely hard, hoping to be liked. Then each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist to their faces." Wallace also imbues his extreme observational skills with a haunting poetic sensibility. Witness what he does to a diving board and the two darkened patches at the end of it in "Forever Overhead":
It's going to send you someplace which its own length keeps you from seeing, which seems wrong to submit to without even thinking.... They are skin abraded from feet by the violence of the disappearance of people with real weight.Of course, not every piece is an absolute winner. "The Depressed Person" slips from purposefully clinical to unintentionally boring. "Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko" reimagines an Arthurian tale in MTV terms and holds your attention for about as long as you'd imagine from such a description. Ultimately, however, even these failed experiments are a testament to Mr. Wallace's endless if unbridled talent. Once he gets the reins completely around that sucker, it's going to be quite a ride. --Bob Michaels [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bunny Modern'

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cassini Division'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Catch Trap'
Tommy was born into a circus family, but he didn't want to join his father's act - he hated lions. His dreams were higher, up in the rigging with the flying trapeze. When Mario Santelli offered to teach him to fly, it was the start of not only a terrific circus act but also a lifelong partnership. A tremendously moving tale, a rich family saga, a wise and compassionate portrait of a special love in a special world. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Cause Celeb: Library Edition'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Chronicle of a Death Foretold'
"EXQUISITELY HARROWING . . . . Very strange and brilliantly conceived. . . . A sort of metaphysical murder mystery. . . . The murder will stand among the innumerable murders of modern literature as one of the best and most powerfully rendered."
A mysterious and haunting tale of romance and murder, that begins with the marriage of a man and a woman in love. But when he inexplicably mistreats his beloved on the night of the wedding, he is in turn murdered by her brothers, and we are left with a strange sense of inevitability and passions gone terribly awry. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Complete Star Wars Trilogy: The Original Radio Dramas'
This is the book that begot the movie. Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker holds the key to several questions the movie (which came out after this book's penning in 1976) didn't answer for you. What DID happen in those missing moments with Biggs? Read this book and find out! [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Coven of Vampires'
A collection of 13 classic vampire tales. It encompasses erotic vampires, bestial vampires, teenage vampires, tentacled vampires, vampiric gods, ghouls, lamias, witch's familiars and blood-suckers. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Distant Echo'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Eleven On Top'
Stephanie Plum, Trenton's favorite bondswoman, is having a career crisis, which gives Janet Evanovich plenty of opportunities to showcase her series heroine in a variety of alternative vocations, from dry cleaner to factory worker. Most of them don't last a full working day, which is good for the reader, since it plunges Stephanie back into the always seedy, often dangerous, and always colorful world of fugitives who'd rather flee than face their day in court. She may be tired of having her life threatened, her cars torched or blown up, and her apartment broken into, but one thing she can say about her job is that it's never boring... and neither is she. Despite her intentions of going straight at a job with a little more security and a bit less excitement, an old client won't let her--he keeps leaving her threatening notes, stalking and scaring her, and making sure she needs the protection of the two men in her life--Joe Morelli, the sexy cop who's been bedding her since high school, and Ranger, the even sexier tough guy who can take down the meanest fugitive around but has a tender spot in his heart for the plucky Ms. Plum. All Evanovich fans' favorite characters people this sprightly caper novel, including Lula, the fast-food-chomping former hooker who's hot to take over Stephanie's job but really belongs in a WWE Takedown; Grandma Mazur, who'd rather go to a wake than a fancy-dress ball; Grandma Bella, the matriarch of the Corelli family whose evil eye frightens even the indomitable Stephanie; and Valerie, Stephanie's sister, who's about to embark on another trip to the altar. A great beach read, Eleven on Top is a guilty pleasure that will delight readers of the author's 10 earlier novels and should win her even more fans. --Jane Adams
Amazon Exclusive Content

Amazon's Significant Seven
Janet Evanovich kindly agreed to take the life quiz we like to give to all our authors: the Amazon Significant Seven.
Q: What book has had the most significant impact on your life?
A: Uncle Scrooge adventures by Carl Barks. They gave me a lifelong love of the adventure story both in film and literature. And I wouldn't mind pushing my quarters around with a bulldozer in real life, either.
Q: You are stranded on a desert island with only one book, one CD, and one DVD--what are they?
A: Book: The Neiman Marcus holiday catalog (I can pretend I'm shopping.)
CD: MTVs Grind, Volume 1 (Happy music and I love the samba.)
DVD: Shrek 2 (Happy movie.)
Q: What is the worst lie you've ever told?
A: "No. Your butt doesn't look big in those pants." Said to myself.
Q: Describe the perfect writing environment.
A: No phone. Locked door. Room service. Silence. My cat (Gus) on my lap.
Q: If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?
A: "Later, Dudes!"
Q: Who is the one person living or dead that you would like to have dinner with?
A: Jim Henson (creator of the Muppets)
Q: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
A: The ability to eat Cheez Doodles and Krispy Kremes and never get fat.
The Stephanie Plum Series
!-- begin6pak -->
One for the Money | Two for the Dough | Three to Get Deadly |
Four to Score | High Five | Hot Six |
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ender's Game'
Ender Wiggin is a very bright young boy with a powerful skill. One of a group of children bred to be military geniuses and save Earth from an inevitable attack by aliens, known here as "buggers," Ender becomes unbeatable in war games and seems poised to lead Earth to triumph over the buggers. Meanwhile, his brother and sister plot to wrest power from Ender. Twists, surprises and interesting characters elevate this novel into status as a bona fide page turner. It captured the Nebula and Hugo Awards. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Ender's Shadow'
Ender's Shadow is being dubbed as a parallel novel to Orson Scott Card's Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Ender's Game. By "parallel," Card means that Shadow begins and ends at roughly the same time as Game, and it chronicles many of the same events. In fact, the two books tell an almost identical story of brilliant children being trained in the orbiting Battle School to lead humanity's fleets in the final war against alien invaders known as the Buggers. The most brilliant of these young recruits is Ender Wiggin, an unparalleled commander and tactician who can surely defeat the Buggers if only he can overcome his own inner turmoil.
Second among the children is Bean, who becomes Ender's lieutenant despite the fact that he is the smallest and youngest of the Battle School students. Bean is the central character of Shadow, and we pick up his story when he is just a 2-year-old starving on the streets of a future Rotterdam that has become a hell on earth. Bean is unnaturally intelligent for his age, which is the only thing that allows him to escape--though not unscathed--the streets and eventually end up in Battle School. Despite his brilliance, however, Bean is doomed to live his life as an also-ran to the more famous and in many ways more brilliant Ender. Nonetheless, Bean learns things that Ender cannot or will not understand, and it falls to this once pathetic street urchin to carry the weight of a terrible burden that Ender must not be allowed to know.
Although it may seem like Shadow is merely an attempt by Card to cash in on the success of his justly famous Ender's Game, that suspicion will dissipate once you turn the first few pages of this engrossing novel. It's clear that Bean has a story worth telling, and that Card (who started the project with a cowriter but later decided he wanted it all to himself) is driven to tell it. And though much of Ender's Game hinges on a surprise ending that Card fans are likely well acquainted with, Shadow manages to capitalize on that same surprise and even turn the table on readers. In the end, it seems a shame that Shadow, like Bean himself, will forever be eclipsed by the myth of Ender, because this is a novel that can easily stand on its own. Luckily for readers, Card has left plenty of room for a sequel, so we may well be seeing more of Bean in the near future. --Craig E. Engler [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Feast of the Goat: International Edition'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Grendel'
Grendel is a beautiful and heartbreaking modern retelling of the Beowulf epic from the point of view of the monster, Grendel, the villain of the 8th-century Anglo-Saxon epic. This book benefits from both of Gardner's careers: in addition to his work as a novelist, Gardner was a noted professor of medieval literature and a scholar of ancient languages. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Gun, with Occasional Music: Library Edition'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Harry Potter Et La Coupe De Feu / Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'
Dans ce quatrième tome, Harry et la Coupe de feu, le plus populaire des apprentis sorciers fait sa rentrée pour une quatrième année trépidante au collège de sorcellerie. Une fois de plus, J. K. Rowling nous effraye autant qu'elle nous ravit avec sa pléiade de dragons, d'elfes et de combats contre la mort.
Il ne reste à son héros orphelin âgé aujourd'hui de 14 ans que deux semaines à passer dans sa famille de moldus avant de retourner au collège de sorcellerie Poudlard. Mais une nuit, une vision suffisamment obsédante pour réveiller sa cicatrice en forme d'éclair met les nerfs de Harry à vif et le pousse à contacter son parrain en sorcellerie, Sirius Black. Heureusement, la perspective d'assister au grand événement sportif de la saison, la Coupe du monde de Quidditch, suffit à faire oublier pour quelque temps à Harry que Lord Voldemort et ses sinistres comparses, les mangeurs de Mort, sont en route pour tuer.
Lecteurs, nous allons maintenant recouvrir le reste de l'intrigue d'une immense cape d'invisibilité et nous nous bornerons à vous révéler que Qui-Vous-Savez est à la poursuite de Harry, et que cette année, il n'y aura pas de matchs de Quidditch entre Gryffondor, Serdaigle, Poufsouffle et Serpentard. Cette fois c'est Poudlard qui disputera un tournoi de sorcellerie contre deux autres écoles de magiciens, les Élégants de Beauxbaton et les Glaçons de Durmstrang. Les candidats sélectionnés devront passer trois ultimes épreuves. Harry fera-t-il partie des heureux élus ?
Quant à vous, fans de Quidditch, ne soyez-pas déçus : nous retrouvons ce grand jeu au moment de la Coupe du monde. 100 000 sorcières et magiciens soucieux d'incognito et tentant de se faire passer pour des moldus se rassemblent sur une "charmante lande déserte". Rowling nous enchante comme toujours avec ce souci des détails qui rend son univers si vivant et si drôle. Les tentes où s'abritent des spectateurs, par exemple, sortent vraiment de l'ordinaire. L'une d'elles est un palais miniature rempli de vrais paons ; une autre est composée de trois étages surplombés de nombreuses tourelles. Sans parler de tous les accessoires et gadgets proposés au public : des badges qui couinent le nom des joueurs, des modèles réduits de balais Éclairs de feu qui volent vraiment, ainsi que des figurines de joueurs célèbres à collectionner, qui déambulent dans la paume de la main en se pavanant... Il va sans dire que les deux équipes ne se ressemblent pas du tout, et leurs mascottes non plus. La Bulgarie est soutenue par les magnifiques Veela qui enchantent en un instant tous les spectateurs - y compris les supporters d'Irlande - jusqu'à ce que des milliers de petits lutins se lancent dans un spectacle explosif de leur cru en formant une main géante pour adresser un signe vraiment très mal élevé aux Veela, à l'autre bout du terrain...
Bien avant la parution du quatrième volume de la série, Rowling avait prévenu qu'il serait plus sombre que le précédent et il est vrai qu'à chaque moment d'hilarité correspond un moment de frayeur où nous craignons pour la vie de Harry, les émotions soulevées par la lecture du livre étant à la mesure des dangers encourus par le héros. Au cours de l'histoire sont évoqués de nouveaux personnages tel Alastor "Oeil fou", Moody, un chasseur de sorciers qui pourrait bien sombrer avec l'âge dans une totale paranoïa, ou encore Rita Skeeter qui tourne autour de Poudlard à la recherche d'un article sensationnel. (Cette as du scoop du Daily Prophet possède une plume féroce qui a l'art de transformer le moindre propos innocent en rumeur de tabloïd.)
En prévision du cinquième livre, Rowling ne dénoue pas tous les fils de l'intrigue jusque dans sa conclusion, éblouissante. Ce fan qui vous parle est prêt à parier que l'auteur elle-même est à moitié Veela - son stylo est sa baguette magique, elle habite vraiment cet univers qu'elle a créé. À partir de 9 ans. --Kerry Fried [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'High Five'
"Uncle Fred was someone I saw at weddings and funerals and once in a while at Giovichinni's Meat Market, ordering a quarter pound of olive loaf. Eddie Such, the butcher, would have the olive loaf on the scale and Uncle Fred would say, 'You've got the olive loaf on a piece of waxed paper. How much does that piece of waxed paper weigh? You're not gonna charge me for that waxed paper, are you? I want some money off for the waxed paper.'"
The speaker is Stephanie Plum, the glamorous if slightly ditzy bounty hunter from Trenton, New Jersey, and one of the most original creations in recent mystery fiction.
In this fifth entry in Janet Evanovich's increasingly popular series, Stephanie's problems are many and varied. She's not making enough money picking up FTAs (Failures to Appear) for her cousin Vinnie, of Vincent Plum Bail Bonds; her red-hot love affair with Detective Joe Morelli has cooled off; and her giant extended family is no help at all. For instance, Uncle Fred the cheapskate has disappeared, leaving behind some suspicious photographs of body parts in garbage bags and links to some really dangerous people.
When Stephanie turns to her friend and mentor, Ranger, for financial advice, he gets her involved in a gang of toughs doing instant evictions for landlords. (She complains to Ranger about the job and its dangers, prompting one of the hired thug to say, "Man, you don't like to get shot. You don't like to get arrested. You don't know how to have fun at all.")
Most of Stephanie's charm, of course, comes from her attitude--a combination of the brazen bravado that turns a failed lingerie model into a bounty hunter in the first place and the normal fears of a person in over her head.
Other Plums in paperback, by the numbers: One for the Money, Two for the Dough, Three to Get Deadly, and Four to Score. --Dick Adler [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hominids'
Robert J. Sawyer's Hominids introduces a new world, a parallel historical universe in which Neanderthals, not Homo sapiens, survived to explore the world and build a civilization. It also tells the story of a man from his own world and the people who try to understand and help him. Ponter Boddit is a Neanderthal physicist working on quantum computing. While running an experiment, he suddenly disappears from his own universe, leaving a puddle of heavy water behind him. Just as suddenly, he appears in our universe, in a container of heavy water at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. Trying to understand how a Neanderthal arrived in the laboratory, and how to introduce him to human culture, poses a major problem for Louise Benoit, a physics student, and Mary Vaughan, a geneticist with expertise on Neanderthal DNA.
A parallel story of the Neanderthal world follows Adikor Huld and his attempt to explain why he should not be charged with murder in the disappearance of his partner Ponter. The book nicely contrasts Neanderthal society with our own: Ponter's descriptions of a society where violence is almost unknown and pollution non-existent paint an idyllic picture of his home universe. But Adikor's experiences show a more balanced view: Neanderthals sin, too. The first volume in Sawyer's new Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, Hominids is a self-contained story that combines fully drawn characters in both worlds with provocative ideas about physics, history, and evolution. --Greg L. Johnson [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hot Six'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'I Know What You Did Last Summer'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Iliad of Homer, Books I-XII'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'King Richard III: The Tragedy of'
"Now is the winter of our discontent," intones Richard, Duke of Gloucester at the beginning of Shakespeare's Richard III, one of his most abidingly popular plays, and one of the most chilling portrayals of political tyranny ever seen on stage. Richard emerges from the chaos which surrounds the reign of Henry VI, already dramatised by Shakespeare earlier in his career, determined to become king by removing his elder brother Edward IV by convincing him that their brother Clarence is plotting against the crown. The deaths of both Clarence and Edward take Richard inexorably towards the crown, and the series of murders and conspiracies that Richard masterminds confirms his claim that "I am determined to prove a villain". Richard's political and sexual charisma are truly chilling, and his seduction of Lady Anne, over her husband's corpse is one of the most disturbing scenes in Shakespeare. At another level, the play is also a strongly anti-Yorkist play, which has a vested interest in portraying Richard as such as vicious tyrant before seeing him toppled, ushering in a period of rule which prefigured the Tudor dynasty of which Elizabeth I was herself a part. The play has had a deep and lasting influence on audiences and writers; Brecht rewrote the play as The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, while both Laurance Olivier and Ian Mckellen have produced memorable film versions of Richard III, the latter updating the play into a 1930s fascist state ruled over by a Richard akin to Oswald Mosley. --Jerry Brotton [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Last Aerie'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Letters from the Inside'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lovely Bones'
On her way home from school on a snowy December day, 14-year-old Susie Salmon is lured into a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and where Susie narrates and keeps watch over her grieving family and friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detective working on her case.
As Sebold fashions it, everyone has his or her own version of heaven. Susie's resembles the athletic fields and landscape of a suburban high school: a heaven of her "simplest dreams", where "there were no teachers... We never had to go inside except for art class... The boys did not pinch our backsides or tell us we smelled; our textbooks were Seventeen and Glamour and Vogue".
The Lovely Bones works as an odd yet affecting coming-of-age story. Susie struggles to accept her death while still clinging to the lost world of the living, following her family's dramas over the years. Her family disintegrates in their grief: her father becomes determined to find her killer, her mother withdraws, her little brother Buckley attempts to make sense of the new hole in his family and her younger sister Lindsey moves through the milestone events of her teenage and young adult years with Susie riding spiritual shotgun. Random acts and missed opportunities run throughout the book--Susie recalls her sole kiss with a boy on earth as "like an accident--a beautiful gasoline rainbow".
Though sentimental at times, The Lovely Bones is a moving exploration of loss and mourning that ultimately puts its faith in the living and that is made even more powerful by a cast of convincing characters. Sebold orchestrates a big finish and though things tend to wrap up a little too well for everyone in the end, one can only imagine (or hope) that heaven is indeed a place filled with such happy endings. --Brad Thomas Parsons, Amazon.com [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lucky: A Memoir'
In a memoir hailed for its searing candor and wit, Alice Sebold reveals how her life was utterly transformed when, as an eighteen-year-old college freshman, she was brutally raped and beaten in a park near campus. What propels this chronicle of her recovery is Sebold's indomitable spirit-as she struggles for understanding "After telling the hard facts to anyone, from lover to friend, I have changed in their eyes" ; as her dazed family and friends sometimes bungle their efforts to provide comfort and support; and as, ultimately, she triumphs, managing through grit and coincidence to help secure her attacker's arrest and conviction. In a narrative by turns disturbing, thrilling, and inspiring, Alice Sebold illuminates the experience of trauma victims even as she imparts wisdom profoundly hard-won: "You save yourself or you remain unsaved." [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Martian Way and Other Stories'
"It was junk they hunted, but enormously valuable and urgently needed junk that cost only bravery and the cheapest fuel ... yet they were kept from collecting it by an even cheaper lie!" [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Memory and Dream'
From her mentor, Rushkin, Isabell Copley had learned to paint creatures that come to life--literally--and years after these creatures have ruined her life, Isabelle returns to painting, haunted by memories, dreams, and the threat of her mentor's return. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Middlesex'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Monkey Handlers'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Monument Builders'
Christopher Brookmyre's One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night is a lethal farce in which nothing goes quite according to plan. The mercenaries and terrorists who seize an oil rig converted into an international resort are almost too busy wanting to kill each other to get on with the job, for one thing, and, for another, the group they take hostage are a high-school reunion rather than the conference of the internationally famous they are expecting. One of the high-school year went on to be a famous gangland hardman before reforming, and another is a darkly brilliant comic whose career is on the skids--and a couple more have spent far too much time in the cinema not to know what Bruce Willis would do... This is a splendidly constructed darkly funny novel in which the oddest things prove suddenly lethal and in which the imagined geography of a closed environment is at once a trap, and a playground for heroism, double cross and the sudden discovery of true love. The running gags and knowingness about movies ought to be less amusing than they are, but Brookmyre's underlying affection for ordinary people and contempt for bullies stops them being self-indulgent. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Moon Is a Harsh Mistress'
Tom Clancy has said of Robert A. Heinlein, "We proceed down the path marked by his ideas. He shows us where the future is." Nowhere is this more true than in Heinlein's gripping tale of revolution on the moon in 2076, where "Loonies" are kept poor and oppressed by an Earth-based Authority that turns huge profits at their expense. A small band of dissidents, including a one-armed computer jock, a radical young woman, a past-his-prime academic and a nearly omnipotent computer named Mike, ignite the fires of revolution despite the near certainty of failure and death. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism on Campus'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Nineteen Eighty-Five'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Not the End of the World'
The crew of an oceanic research vessel goes missing in the Pacific along with their mini-submarine. An evangelical media star holds a rally next door to a convention in LA devoted to "nubile" cinematic entertainment. The cops have been expecting this, but not the Glaswegian photographer. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Oblivion: Stories'
In the stories that make up Oblivion, David Foster Wallace joins the rawest, most naked humanity with the infinite involutions of self-consciousness--a combination that is dazzlingly, uniquely his. These are worlds undreamt-of by any other mind. Only David Foster Wallace could convey a father's desperate loneliness by way of his son's daydreaming through a teacher's homicidal breakdown ("The Soul Is Not a Smithy"). Or could explore the deepest and most hilarious aspects of creativity by delineating the office politics surrounding a magazine profile of an artist who produces miniature sculptures in an anatomically inconceivable way ("The Suffering Channel"). Or capture the ache of love's breakdown in the painfully polite apologies of a man who believes his wife is hallucinating the sound of his snoring ("Oblivion"). Each of these stories is a complete world, as fully imagined as most entire novels, at once preposterously surreal and painfully immediate. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination'
From the white heat of Miami to the implants of LA, the glittering waters of the Caribbean to the deserts of Arabia, Olivia Joules pits herself against the forces of terror armed only with a hatpin, razor sharp wits and a very special underwired bra. Is it possible that the alluring and powerful Pierre Ferramo, with his impeccable taste and unimaginable wealth, is actually a major terrorist, bent on the western world's destruction? Or is it all just a product of Olivia Joules' overactive imagination? Join Olivia in her heart-stopping and hilarious quest to save the world in this witty, contemporary and utterly unputdownable thriller. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On the Beach'
"The most shocking fiction I have read in years. What is shocking about it is both the idea and the sheer imaginative brilliance with which Mr. Shute brings it off."
THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
They are the last generation, the innocent victims of an accidental war, living out their last days, making do with what they have, hoping for a miracle. As the deadly rain moves ever closer, the world as we know it winds toward an inevitable end.... [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'One for the Money'
Stephanie Plum is so smart, so honest, and so funny that her narrative charm could drive a documentary on termites. But this tough gal from New Jersey, an unemployed discount lingerie buyer, has a much more interesting story to tell: She has to say that her Miata has been repossessed and that she's so poor at the moment that she just drank her last bottle of beer for breakfast. She has to say that her only chance out of her present rut is her repugnant cousin Vinnie and his bail-bond business. She has to say that she blackmailed Vinnie into giving her a bail-bond recovery job worth $10,000 (for a murder suspect), even though she doesn't own a gun and has never apprehended a person in her life. And she has to say that the guy she has to get, Joe Morelli, is the same creep who charmed away her teenage virginity behind the pastry case in the Trenton bakery where she worked after school.
If that hard-luck story doesn't sound compelling enough, Stephanie's several unsuccessful attempts at pulling in Joe make a downright hilarious and suspenseful tale of murder and deceit. Along the way, several more outlandish (but unrelentingly real) characters join the story, including Benito Ramirez, a champion boxer who seems to be following Stephanie Plum wherever she goes.
Janet Evanovich shares an authentic feel for the streets of Trenton in her debut mystery (she developed her talents in a string of romance novels before creating Ms. Plum), and her tough, frank, and funny first-person narrator offers a winning mix of vulgarity and sensitivity. Evanovich is certainly among the best of the new voices to emerge in the mystery field of the 1990s. --Patrick O'Kelley [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'One-Armed Queen'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Quite Ugly One Morning'
Jack Parlabane is a journalist who finds himself involved with a number of characters including a hitman from Essex, a gambling medic, now dead, his ex-wife, and a female detective constable with attitude. His job is to expose the dealings of a crooked hospital trust administrator, Stephen Lime. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Relic'
A series of bizarre and brutal murders is taking place in the halls of the New York Museum of Natural History, only days before a massive exhibition is set to open. Margo Green knows that the killer is something not human, something that's not even supposed to exist. Where did it come from, how did it get into the museum, and how can it be stopped? [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Robots of Dawn'
A puzzling case of roboticide sends New York Detective Elijah Baley on an intense search for a murderer. Armed with his own instincts, his quirky logic, and the immutable Three Laws of Robotics, Baley is determined to solve the case. But can anything prepare a simple Earthman for the psychological complexities of a world where a beautiful woman can easily have fallen in love with an all-too-human robot...?
A LITERARY GUILD DUAL SELECTION [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Romeo and Juliet'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Scaredy Cat'
Mark Billingham's Scaredy Cat is as inventive his previous serial killer novel a Sleepyhead. Detective Inspector Tom Thorne has the job of watching out for patterns and thinks he spots one--two similar killings on the same day; women followed from a mainline station and then strangled. Rapidly, though, it becomes clear that the methods differed in all sorts of ways--one killing was controlled, the other frenzied--and the timings do not work out. On a hunch, Thorne checks for other such pairings and finds them--this time two killers are working as a team, one setting the other challenges.
We know what Thorne does not, that all of this has to do with things that happened at school years ago; we also know a lot more than Thorne about the demons that drive some of his own investigating team. Billingham sets himself some complicated technical challenges here--flashes back and forwards, and closeups of killers' minds that keep crucial information from us--and some of the complications don't quite work. Overall, though, this is a terrifying exploration of brutal madness, made all the more so by touches of compassion for the killer's victims--the killer may think this a game, but we and Thorne know it is not.--Roz Kaveney [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Seven Tales of Sex and Death'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Shadow Of The Giant'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Shout at the Devil'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sister Light, Sister Dark'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Songmaster'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Souls in the Great Machine'
In 40th-century Australia, Zarvora Cybeline discovers the world is threatened by destruction from the sky--yet the planet doesn't have enough technology even to build a steam engine. To save civilization, Zarvora must recover lost 21st-century technology. But technology is proscribed, and the dangers from the sky are joined by enemies in the sea, and even among her own ranks. Zarvora embarks on a bold and ruthless plan to save a world no one else believes is in danger.
Souls in the Great Machine is a big book at 450 pages. Stuffed fuller than a Thanksgiving turkey with great storylines, characters, and concepts, it's got thrilling action, hair's-breadth escapes, tyranny, treachery, villainy, heroism, duels, riots, war, love, hate, obsession, powerful women, mad monks, a returning ice age, a lost race, rediscovered civilizations, invasions, executions, high-tech, steampunk tech, a computer with human components, and numerous subplots. In short, Souls in the Great Machine is huge; it is epic--but it is not sprawling. In the hands of most authors, this complex and ambitious SF novel would be a trilogy. And while Souls may occasionally move a little too fast, the plot never drags and the reader's interest never flags. If you're looking for a sense of wonder, for adventure that respects your intelligence, for an enormously fun read--look no further than Souls in the Great Machine. --Cynthia Ward [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Splinter of the Mind's Eye'
The further adventures of Luke Skywalker as he fights for right and justice against the evil Imperial forces on the planet Mimbran. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tarzan of the Apes'
First published in 1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs's romance has lost little of its force over the years--as film revivals and TV series well attest. Tarzan of the Apes is very much a product of its age: replete with bloodthirsty natives and a bulky, swooning American Negress, and haunted by what zoo specialists now call charismatic megafauna (great beasts snarling, roaring, and stalking, most of whom would be out of place in a real African jungle). Burroughs countervails such incorrectness, however, with some rather unattractive representations of white civilization--mutinous, murderous sailors, effete aristos, self-involved academics, and hard-hearted cowards. At Tarzan's heart rightly lies the resourceful and hunky title character, a man increasingly torn between the civil and the savage, for whom cutlery will never be less than a nightmare.
The passages in which the nut-brown boy teaches himself to read and write are masterly and among the book's improbable, imaginative best. How tempting it is to adopt the ten-year-old's term for letters--"little bugs"! And the older Tarzan's realization that civilized "men were indeed more foolish and more cruel than the beasts of the jungle," while not exactly a new notion, is nonetheless potent. The first in Burroughs's serial is most enjoyable in its resounding oddities of word and thought, including the unforgettable "When Tarzan killed he more often smiled than scowled; and smiles are the foundation of beauty." [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ten Big Ones'
She's accidentally destroyed a dozen cars. She's a target for every psycho and miscreant this side of the Jersey Turnpike. He mother's convinced she'll end up dead...or worse, without a man. She's Stephanie Plum and she kicks butt for a living [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles'
Tess is a young country girl from a decayed aristocratic family who suffers ravishment at the hands of a nouveau riche cad. The confession of her misfortune to her husband, a sanctimonious Anglican, blights her marriage and leads to her downfall. A critical introduction accompanies the text. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'They Fly at Ciron'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Three Musketeers: Being the First of the D'artagnan Romances; and Twenty Years After, a Sequel'
The Three Musketeers (French: Les Trois Mousquetaires) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, père, first serialized in MarchJuly 1844. Set in the 17th century, it recounts the adventures of a young man named d'Artagnan after he leaves home to become a guard of the musketeers. D'Artagnan is not one of the musketeers of the title; those are his friends Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, inseparable friends who live by the motto "all for one, one for all" ("tous pour un, un pour tous"). [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'To the Nines'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Two for the Dough'
Two for the Dough (Stephanie Plum, No. 2) [Paperback] Janet Evanovich Janet Evanovich (Author) ? Visit Amazon's Janet Evanovich Page Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author Are you an author? Learn about Author Central (Author) [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'What Happened to Cass McBride?'
"The setting is claustrophobic, the characters are complex and the story will keep readers on the edge of their seats," KLIATT raved of this vivid, fast-paced psychological thriller in a starred review. Kyle Kirby has planned a cruel and unusual revenge on Cass McBride, the most popular girl in school, for the death of his brother David. He digs a hole. Kidnaps Cass. Puts her in a box--underground. He buries her alive. But lying in the deepest dark, Cass finds a weapon: she uses the power of words to keep her nemesis talking--and herself breathing--during the most harrowing 48 hours of her life. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'White Jenna'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A World of Difference'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Harry Potter Et L'ordre De Phenix / Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Harry Potter Et LA Coupe De Feu / Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'
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