featured titles for November/December, 2005
to see September, click HERE - to see October, click HERE

A celebration of the endless variety of passive aggressive behavior, this book will provide comfort and inspiration to everyone who has ever gritted his teeth and dreamed of sweet retribution against the stubborn irritants of modern life.

Fox describes her movements across Europe's scrambled borders as a journalist in 1946: unplanned trips to empty castles and ruined cathedrals, a stint in bombed-out Warsaw in the midst of the Communist election takeovers, and each place echoing with the horrors of the war.

You'll never again confuse affect and effect!

Have you ever been fazed by the spelling of phased, or fretted over the difference between anxiety and angst, stationery and stationary? If so, you are not alone: the English language is a minefield, full of words that look and sound alike but mean different things in different places.

Who's Whose? is an entertaining and essential A to Z guide to the most commonly confused words in English today, with real examples of good and bad usage to make differences crystal clear. In addition to documenting these verbal confusions, it offers a sympathetic guide to the seriousness of each gaffe (the Embarassment rating), an explanation of why it happens, and some handy hints on how to avoid it in future. With Who's Whose in your corner, you'll never again mistake a principle for a principal.

An exhilarating new book from the author of the worldwide bestseller The Tulip.

The Naming of Names traces the search for order in the natural world, a search that for hundreds of years occupied some of the most brilliant minds in Europe.
Redefining man's relationship with nature was a major pursuit during the Renaissance. But in a world full of poisons, there was also an urgent practical need to name and recognize different plants, because most medicines were made from plant extracts.

Anna Pavord takes us on a thrilling adventure into botanical history, traveling from Athens in the third century BC, through Constantinople, Venice, the medical school at Salerno to the universities of Pisa and Padua. The journey, traced here for the first time, involves the culture of Islam, the first expeditions to the Indies and the first settlers in the New World.

In Athens, Aristotle's pupil Theophrastus was the first man ever to write a book about plants. How can we name, sort, and order them? He asked. The debate continues still, two thousand years later. Sumptuously illustrated in full colour, The Naming of Names gives a compelling insight into a world full of intrigue and intensely competitive egos.

With gangsters on his tail and his meager savings in hand, crime reporter Jeremy Mercer fled Canada in 1999 and ended up in Paris. Broke and almost homeless, he found himself invited to a tea party amongst the riffraff of the timeless Left Bank fantasy known as Shakespeare & Co. In its present incarnation, Shakespeare & Co. has become a destination for writers and readers the world over, trying to reclaim the lost world of literary Paris in the 1920s. Having been inspired by Sylvia Beach's original store, the present owner, George Whitman, invites writers who are down and out in Paris to live and dream amid the bookshelves in return for work. Jeremy Mercer tumbled into this literary rabbit hole and found a life of camaraderie with the other eccentric residents, and became, for a time, George Whitman's confidante and right-hand man.

Time Was Soft There is one of the great stories of bohemian Paris and recalls the work of many writers who were bewitched by the City of Light in their youth. Jeremy's comrades include Simon, the eccentric British poet who refuses to give up his bed in the antiquarian book room, beautiful blonde Pia, who contributes the elegant spirit of Parisian couture to the store, the handsome American Kurt, who flirts with beautiful women looking for copies of Tropic of Cancer, and George himself, the man who holds the key to it all. As Time Was Soft There winds in and around the streets of Paris, the staff fall in and out of love, straighten bookshelves, host tea parties, drink in the more down-at-the-heels cafes, sell a few books, and help George find a way to keep his endangered bookstore open. Spend a few days with Jeremy Mercer at 37 Rue de la Bucherie, and discover the bohemian world of Paris that still bustles in the shadow of Notre Dame. "Jeremy Mercer has captured Shakespeare & Co. and its complicated owner, George Whitman, with remarkable insight. "Time Was Soft There is a charming memoir about living in Whitman's Shakespeare & Co. and the strange, broken, lost, and occasionally talented, eccentrics and residents of this Tumblewood Hotel."
---Noel Riley Fitch, author of "Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties & Thirties

When Alice was four, her mother Olivia left her at a daycare center and didn't return until Alice was an adult. When Olivia suddenly dies, Alice is left to sift through her belongings and piece together her mother's life.

From the author of "Whispering to Witches" comes the story of Dawn Buckle, a forgettable girl who transforms herself into a world-class spy and tracks down a surprising secret agent.

"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured."
So begins this epic, mesmerizing first novel set in the underworld of contemporary Bombay. "Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear.
Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter Bombay's hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.
As a hunted man without a home, family, or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city's poorest slums, and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. The search leads him to war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayals. The keys to unlock the mysteries and intrigues that bind Lin are held by two people. The first is Khader Khan: mafia godfather, criminal-philosopher-saint, and mentor to Lin in the underworld of the Golden City. The second is Karla: elusive, dangerous, and beautiful, whose passions are driven by secrets that torment her and yet give her a terrible power.
Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujaheddin guerrillas---this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach, and a passionate love for India at its heart. Based onthe life of the author, it is by any measure the debut of an extraordinary voice in literature.

A novel in two volumes, "The Wizard Knight is in the rare company of those works which move past the surface of fantasy and drink from the wellspring of myth. Magic swords, dragons, giants, quests, love, honor, nobility-all the familiar features of fantasy come to fresh life in this masterful work.

The first half of the journey, "The Knight -- which you are advised to read first, to let the whole story engulf you from the beginning -- took a teenage boy from America into Mythgarthr, the middle realm of seven fantastic worlds. Above are the gods of Skai; below are the capricious Aelf, and more dangerous things still. Journeying throughout Mythgarthr, Able gains a new brother, an Aelf queen lover, a supernatural hound, and the desire to prove his honor and become the noble knight he always knew he would be.

Coming into Jotunland, home of the Frost Giants, Able -- now Sir Able of the High Heart --claims the great sword Eterne from the dragon who has it. In reward, he is ushered into the castle of the Valfather, king of all the Gods of Skai.

Thus begins the second part of his quest. "The Wizard begins with Able's return to Mythgathr on his steed Cloud, a great mare the color of her name. Able is filled with new knowledge of the ways of the seven-fold world and possessed of great magical secrets. His knighthood now beyond question, Able works to fulfill his vows to his king, his lover, his friends, his gods, and even his enemies. Able must set his world right, restoring the proper order among the denizens of all the seven worlds.

"The Wizard is a charming, riveting, emotionally charged tale of wonders, written with all the beauty one would expect from a writer whom DamonKnight called "a national treasure." If you've never sampled the works of the man Michael Swanwick described as "the greatest writer in the English language alive today," the two volumes of "The Wizard Knight are the perfect place to start.

Marking the return of many characters from "Gardens of the Moon" and introducing a host of remarkable new players, this novel is both a momentous new chapter in Erikson's magnificent epic fantasy and a triumph of storytelling.

The movie business celebrates its creators: Spielberg, DeMille, Scorsese, Hitchcock. But what about the “ names” behind Doom, The Sims, Donkey Kong, Grand Theft Auto— the games that spawned a ten-billion-dollar industry whose revenues surpassed the domestic movie box office take five years ago? Videogames are no longer a quirky, boom-or-bust subculture, but a bona fide mainstream industry revolutionizing the way we teach, the way we learn, the way we communicate.

Smartbomb goes into the epicenter of the videogame explosion, where computer technology is fused with artistic creativity. From the hackers at MIT in the 1960s to the Ferrari-driving developers of the modern-day industry to professional “ cyberathletes, ” we meet the celebrities of the gaming world. It’ s a dizzying trip through the trade conventions, gaming competitions, and design labs of the men who are the Spielbergs of their field. Startling and revelatory, this is an up-close and personal look at the egos, the battles, the one-upmanship, and the love of the chase fueling these innovators who are creating the worlds in which we’ re going to live and play for the next century.

"A perfectly balanced novel of love and tragedy."
---"Waterstone's Books Quarterly (UK)
Into his life come two women: one will open up the heart Alexander has protected for so long; the other is determined to uncover the truth about what really happened to Katya all those years ago.
"Despite the Falling Snow journeys back to the snowbound streets of 1950s Moscow, revealing a city of secrets and treachery, a world of true love lost and friendships betrayed. For only by confronting the past can Alexander move on to his future.
"At its core an unforgettable love story. Yet it is also a political novel of the highest order. Sarif understands, as Arthur Koestler did, the human cost exacted by totalitarian systems. And like Graham Greene, she knows that the worst betrayals are those committed by the ones we love. Her novel is immensely powerful---and deeply moving.
---Steve Yarbrough, author of "Prisoners of War and "Visible Spirits
"Explores love and tragic loss with the pace of a thriller and a style that is gentle and flowing, a hypnotic combination that eases between the United States and 1950s Moscow. . . . A pure delight, highly recommended."
---"The Bookseller (UK)
"An intriguing story of love, betrayal, anguish, and despair. . . . An enthralling read."
---"Daily Dispatch (UK)
: An engrossing story that moves effortlessly between present-day Boston and Soviet Russia, dealingwith terrible emotional violence and passionate love."
---"Writing Magazine (UK)