'Ware the Dark-Haired Man

'Ware the Dark-Haired Man
Author: Robert Reginald
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2013-03-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1434446980

In the alternate Earth called Nova Europa, two countries have fought a great battle over the future of that world. But now the King of Kórynthia seems to be going mad: some evil mage is eating away at the very fabric of the the state. The King's heir, Prince Arkády, must rally the forces of good to push back the darkness--and if he fails, then Nova Europa will experience only chaos, calamity, and death! Dr. Michael R. Collings says: "Within the course of a single year, Kings and Kingdoms rise and fall, hopes and ambitions are fulfilled and destroyed. Robert Reginald's The Hieromonk's Tale trilogy is a magnificent medieval triptych featuring exquisitely drawn scenes of heroism and treachery, of domesticity and warfare, of greatness and madness." The Hieromonk's Tale, Book Three.

The Lying Game

The Lying Game
Author: Ruth Ware
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2020-08-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 198214341X

From the New York Times bestselling author of the “twisty-mystery” (Vulture) novel In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10, and The Turn of the Key comes Ruth Ware’s The Lying Game. Isa Wilde knows something terrible has happened when she receives a text from an old friend. Why would Kate summon her and their two friends to the seaside town where they briefly attended the Salten House boarding school together seventeen years ago? The four friends had quickly bonded over the Lying Game—a risky contest that involved tricking fellow boarders and faculty with their lies. Now reunited, Isa, Kate, Thea, and Fatima discover that their past lies had far-reaching effects and criminal implications that threaten them all. In order to protect their reputations, and their friendship, they must uncover the truth about what really happened all those years ago. Atmospheric and twisty, with just the right amount of chill, The Lying Game will have readers at the edge of their seats, not knowing who can be trusted in this tangled web of lies.

Man in the Dark

Man in the Dark
Author: Paul Auster
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2008
Genre: Historical fiction
ISBN: 0312356587

"I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head as I struggle through another bout of insomnia, another white night in the great American wilderness." So begins Paul Auster's brilliant, devastating tale about the many realities we inhabit as wars flame all around us. Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is recovering from a car accident in his daughter's house in Vermont. When sleep refuses to come, he lies in bed and tells himself stories, struggling to push back thoughts about things he would prefer to forget ? his wife's recent death and the horrific murder of his granddaughter's boyfriend, Titus. The retired book critic imagines a parallel world in which America is not at war with Iraq but with itself. In this other America the twin towers did not fall, and the 2000 election results led to secession, as state after state pulled away from the union, and a bloody civil war ensued. As the night progresses, Brill's story grows increasingly intense, and what he is so desperately trying to avoid insists on being told. Joined in the early hours by his granddaughter, he gradually opens up to her and recounts the story of his marriage. After she falls asleep, he at last finds the courage to revisit the trauma of Titus's death. Passionate and shocking, Man in the Dark is a story of our moment, an audiobook that forces us to confront the blackness of night even as it celebrates the existence of ordinary joys in a world capable of the most grotesque violence.

Reflections on Hanging

Reflections on Hanging
Author: Arthur Koestler
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2019-03-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0820355348

Reflections on Hanging is a searing indictment of capital punishment, inspired by its author’s own time in the shadow of a firing squad. During the Spanish Civil War, Arthur Koestler was held by the Franco regime as a political prisoner, and condemned to death. He was freed, but only after months of witnessing the fates of less-fortunate inmates. That experience informs every page of the book, which was first published in England in 1956, and followed in 1957 by this American edition. As Koestler ranges across the history of capital punishment in Britain (with a focus on hanging), he looks at notable cases and rulings, and portrays politicians, judges, lawyers, scholars, clergymen, doctors, police, jailers, prisoners, and others involved in the long debate over the justness and effectiveness of the death penalty. In Britain, Reflections on Hanging was part of a concerted, ultimately successful effort to abolish the death penalty. At that time, in the forty-eight United States, capital punishment was sanctioned in forty-two of them, with hanging still practiced in five. This edition includes a preface and afterword written especially for the 1957 American edition. The preface makes the book relevant to readers in the U.S.; the afterword overviews the modern-day history of abolitionist legislation in the British Parliament. Reflections on Hanging is relentless, biting, and unsparing in its details of botched and unjust executions. It is a classic work of advocacy for some of society’s most defenseless members, a critique of capital punishment that is still widely cited, and an enduring work that presaged such contemporary problems as the sensationalism of crime, the wrongful condemnation of the innocent and mentally ill, the callousness of penal systems, and the use of fear to control a citizenry.

The Sword of Shannara Trilogy

The Sword of Shannara Trilogy
Author: Terry Brooks
Publisher: Del Rey
Total Pages: 1202
Release: 2002-10-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 034546205X

For the first time in one elegant collector’s edition hardcover, and featuring an introduction by New York Times bestselling author Terry Brooks, here are the first three novels of that classic series: The Sword of Shannara, The Elfstones of Shannara, and The Wishsong of Shannara—the beginning of a phenomenal epic of good and evil. The Sword of Shannara Long ago, the wars of the ancient Evil ruined the world. In peaceful Shady Vale, half-elfin Shea Ohmsford knows little of such troubles. But the supposedly dead Warlock Lord is plotting to destroy everything in his wake. The sole weapon against this Power of Darkness is the Sword of Shannara, which can be used only by a true heir of Shannara. On Shea, last of the bloodline, rests the hope of all the races. The Elfstones of Shannara The magical Ellcrys tree is dying, loosening the spell that bars the Demons from enacting vengeance upon the land. Now Wil Ohmsford must guard the Elven girl Amberle on a perilous quest as she carries one of the Ellcrys’ seeds to a mysterious place where it can be quickened into a powerful new force. But dark on their trail comes the Reaper, most fearsome of all Demons, aiming to crush their mission at any cost. The Wishsong of Shannara An ancient Evil is stirring to new life, sending its ghastly Mord Wraiths to destroy Mankind. To win through the vile growth that protects this dark force, the Druid Allanon needs Brin Ohmsford—for she alone holds the magic power of the wishsong. Reluctantly Brin joins the Druid on his dangerous journey. But a prophecy foretells doom, as Evil nurses its plans to trap the unsuspecting Brin into a fate far more horrible than death. Thus begins Terry Brooks’s thrilling Shannara epic, an unforgettable tale of adventure, magic, and myth. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Terry Brooks's The Measure of the Magic.

The Peanuts Papers: Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Gang, and the Meaning of Life

The Peanuts Papers: Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Gang, and the Meaning of Life
Author: Andrew Blauner
Publisher: Library of America
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2019-10-22
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1598536176

A one-of-a-kind celebration of America's greatest comic strip--and the life lessons it can teach us--from a stellar array of writers and artists Over the span of fifty years, Charles M. Schulz created a comic strip that is one of the indisputable glories of American popular culture—hilarious, poignant, inimitable. Some twenty years after the last strip appeared, the characters Schulz brought to life in Peanuts continue to resonate with millions of fans, their beguiling four-panel adventures and television escapades offering lessons about happiness, friendship, disappointment, childhood, and life itself. In The Peanuts Papers, thirty-three writers and artists reflect on the deeper truths of Schulz’s deceptively simple comic, its impact on their lives and art and on the broader culture. These enchanting, affecting, and often quite personal essays show just how much Peanuts means to its many admirers—and the ways it invites us to ponder, in the words of Sarah Boxer, “how to survive and still be a decent human being” in an often bewildering world. Featuring essays, memoirs, poems, and two original comic strips, here is the ultimate reader’s companion for every Peanuts fan. Featuring: Jill Bialosky Lisa Birnbach Sarah Boxer Jennifer Finney Boylan Ivan Brunetti Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell Rich Cohen Gerald Early Umberto Eco Jonathan Franzen Ira Glass Adam Gopnik David Hajdu Bruce Handy David Kamp Maxine Hong Kingston Chuck Klosterman Peter D. Kramer Jonathan Lethem Rick Moody Ann Patchett Kevin Powell Joe Queenan Nicole Rudick George Saunders Elissa Schappell Seth Janice Shapiro Mona Simpson Leslie Stein Clifford Thompson David L. Ulin Chris Ware

Innocence Lost

Innocence Lost
Author: Brenda Bacon
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2005-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0595354270

When Jasmine Grant makes a serious enemy of ruthless New York mob boss Ken Parks, she has no choice but to run. But how do you escape someone whose underground connections have no limits? With his gorgeous blue eyes, perfect white teeth, and full, sensuous lips, Parks grabs Jasmine's attention the first moment she lays eyes on him. However, when Parks tries to muscle his way into her father's business--a corrupt business that Antonio Grant has kept hidden from his daughter--Jasmine's world begins to crumble. She is framed for drug use, fired from her job, and her apartment building is burned to the ground. When she witnesses the brutal murder of her father for information Parks wants, Jasmine flees to Maine. Once there, she makes yet another shocking discovery about her father's business--all while Parks attempts to locate Jasmine and exact his revenge. Along the way, Las Vegas boss Billy Gorman comes to Jasmine's aid, bringing his own set of unsavory rules, and a U.S. Marshal with an uncanny habit of showing up at critical moments turns the tide against both sides. Jasmine's world of naiveté is forever stolen as battle lines are drawn in a deadly game of corruption, with humans as the grand prize.

Following Fake Man

Following Fake Man
Author: Barbara Ware Holmes
Publisher: Yearling
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2009-02-25
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 030748498X

Homer Aldrich Winthrop was a neurologist who died of a neurological illness. That’s all Homer Jr.’s mother will say about his father, who died when he was 2, and any prodding for details results in silence, evasion, or sudden migraine headaches. So by age 12, Homer’s given up asking. But on an unexpected trip to Maine, Homer finds himself in a place where his father had lived. In this one coastal village there must be millions of facts about his father. Now Homer must face his biggest fear–maybe there’s a reason his father is such a secret. Maybe there are things he really doesn’t want to know. Still, Maine gives him courage. There’s something about the people he meets and the breadth of the sky that convince Homer to search for the truth–to solve the mystery of his own life.

In a Dark, Dark Wood

In a Dark, Dark Wood
Author: Ruth Ware
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2016-07-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1501151754

A weekend away deep in the English countryside takes a sinister turn in this suspenseful and compulsive debut psychological thriller. Sometimes the only thing to fear...is yourself. Leonora (Lee to some, Nora to others) is a reclusive writer, but when an old friend unexpectedly invites her to a weekend away in an eerie glass house, she reluctantly agrees to make the trip. But a haunting realization creeps in to the party: they are not alone in the woods. Forty-eight hours later, Nora wakes up in a hospital bed with the knowledge that someone is dead. Wondering not “what happened?” but “what have I done?” she tries to piece together the events of the past weekend. In order to uncover secrets and reveal motives, Nora must revisit parts of herself that she’d rather leave buried where they belong: in the past. In the vein of The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl, this gripping thriller will have readers on the edge of their seats until the very last page.