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A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Constitutionally: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Constitution's Original Meaning

A.J. Jacobs tries to get inside the minds of the Founding Fathers by living as closely as possible to the original meaning of the Constitution. He asserts his right to free speech by writing his opinions on parchment with a quill and handing them out to strangers in Times Square. He consents to quartering a soldier, as is his Third Amendment right. He turns his home into a traditional 1790s household by lighting candles instead of using electricity, boiling mutton, and --- because women were not allowed to sign contracts --- feebly attempting to take over his wife’s day job, which involves a lot of contract negotiations. The book blends unforgettable adventures --- delivering a handwritten petition to Congress, battling redcoats as part of a Revolutionary War reenactment group --- with dozens of interviews from constitutional experts from both sides.

Kaliane Bradley, author of The Ministry of Time

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and shortly afterward is told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to determine if time travel is feasible --- for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time. She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as “1847,” or Commander Graham Gore. Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined.

Linwood Barclay, author of I Will Ruin You

English teacher Richard Boyle certainly never thought he would find himself talking down a former student intent on harming others. But when Mark LeDrew shows up at Richard’s school with a bomb strapped to his chest, Richard immediately jumps into action. Thanks to some quick thinking, he averts a major tragedy and is hailed as a hero. However, Richard’s brief moment in the spotlight puts him in the sights of a deranged blackmailer with a score to settle. The situation rapidly spirals out of control, drawing Richard into a fraught web of salacious accusations and deadly secrets. As he tries to uncover the truth, he discovers that there’s something deeply wrong in the town --- something that ties together Mark, the blackmailer and a gang of ruthless drug dealers, and Richard has landed smack in the middle of it. What price will he pay for one good deed?

Mary Kay Andrews, author of Summers at the Saint

Traci Eddings was one of those outsiders whose family wasn’t rich enough or connected enough to vacation at St. Cecelia. But she could work there. One fateful summer she did, and she married the boss’s son. Now, she’s the widowed owner of the hotel, determined to see it return to its glory days, even as staff shortages and financial troubles threaten to ruin it. Plus, her greedy and unscrupulous brother-in-law wants to make sure she fails. Enlisting a motley crew of recently hired summer help --- including the daughter of her estranged best friend --- Traci has one summer season to turn it around. But new information about a long-ago drowning at the hotel threatens to come to light, and the tragic death of one of their own brings Traci to the brink of despair.

Editorial Content for A Short Walk Through a Wide World

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Jana Siciliano

“The pain advances; her entire head is an exposed nerve, a jagged blade scraping the inside of her skull. A terrible pressure builds up against her eyeballs and the ice pick that skewers down the small of her back drives straight into her left leg. She stifles a scream. When she walks, her leg drags behind her like a dead animal.” Read More

Teaser

Paris, 1885: Aubry Tourvel, a spoiled and stubborn nine-year-old girl, comes across a wooden puzzle ball on her walk home from school. She tosses it over the fence, only to find it in her backpack that evening. Days later, at the family dinner table, she starts to bleed to death. When medical treatment only makes her worse, she flees to the outskirts of the city, where she realizes that it is this very act of movement that keeps her alive. So begins her lifelong journey on the run from her condition, which won’t allow her to stay anywhere for longer than a few days or return to a place where she’s already been. But the longer Aubry wanders and the more desperate she is to share her life with others, the clearer it becomes that the world she travels through may not be quite the same as everyone else’s.

Promo

Paris, 1885: Aubry Tourvel, a spoiled and stubborn nine-year-old girl, comes across a wooden puzzle ball on her walk home from school. She tosses it over the fence, only to find it in her backpack that evening. Days later, at the family dinner table, she starts to bleed to death. When medical treatment only makes her worse, she flees to the outskirts of the city, where she realizes that it is this very act of movement that keeps her alive. So begins her lifelong journey on the run from her condition, which won’t allow her to stay anywhere for longer than a few days or return to a place where she’s already been. But the longer Aubry wanders and the more desperate she is to share her life with others, the clearer it becomes that the world she travels through may not be quite the same as everyone else’s.

About the Book

THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LaRUE meets LIFE OF PI in this dazzlingly epic debut that charts the incredible, adventurous life of one woman as she journeys the globe trying to outrun a mysterious curse that will destroy her if she stops moving.

Paris, 1885: Aubry Tourvel, a spoiled and stubborn nine-year-old girl, comes across a wooden puzzle ball on her walk home from school. She tosses it over the fence, only to find it in her backpack that evening. Days later, at the family dinner table, she starts to bleed to death.

When medical treatment only makes her worse, she flees to the outskirts of the city, where she realizes that it is this very act of movement that keeps her alive. So begins her lifelong journey on the run from her condition, which won’t allow her to stay anywhere for longer than a few days nor return to a place where she’s already been.

From the scorched dunes of the Calashino Sand Sea to the snow-packed peaks of the Himalayas; from a bottomless well in a Parisian courtyard, to the shelves of an infinite underground library, we follow Aubry as she learns what it takes to survive and, ultimately, to truly live. But the longer Aubry wanders and the more desperate she is to share her life with others, the clearer it becomes that the world she travels through may not be quite the same as everyone else’s.

Fiercely independent and hopeful, yet full of longing, Aubry Tourvel is an unforgettable character fighting her way through a world of wonders to find a place she can call home. A spellbinding and inspiring story about discovering meaning in a life that seems otherwise impossible, A SHORT WALK THOUGH A WIDE WORLD reminds us that it’s not the destination, but rather the journey --- no matter how long it lasts --- that makes us who we are.

Audiobook available, read by Saskia Maarleveld

Editorial Content for The Instruments of Darkness

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

“And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths…”
    — William Shakespeare, MACBETH

As a Shakespearean actor and teacher, when any story opens with a quote from the Bard, my antennas are raised. When that novel is John Connolly’s latest supernatural thriller featuring PI Charlie Parker, I am more than a little interested. Read More

Teaser

In Maine, Colleen Clark stands accused of the worst crime a mother can commit: the abduction and possible murder of her child. Everyone --- ambitious politicians in an election season, hardened police, ordinary folk --- has an opinion on the case, and most believe she is guilty. But most is not all. Defending Colleen is the lawyer Moxie Castin, and working alongside him is the private investigator Charlie Parker, who senses the tale has another twist --- one involving a husband too eager to accept his wife’s guilt, a group of fascists arming for war, a disgraced psychic seeking redemption, and an old, twisted house deep in the Maine woods, a house that never should have been built. A house, and what dwells beneath.

Promo

In Maine, Colleen Clark stands accused of the worst crime a mother can commit: the abduction and possible murder of her child. Everyone --- ambitious politicians in an election season, hardened police, ordinary folk --- has an opinion on the case, and most believe she is guilty. But most is not all. Defending Colleen is the lawyer Moxie Castin, and working alongside him is the private investigator Charlie Parker, who senses the tale has another twist --- one involving a husband too eager to accept his wife’s guilt, a group of fascists arming for war, a disgraced psychic seeking redemption, and an old, twisted house deep in the Maine woods, a house that never should have been built. A house, and what dwells beneath.

About the Book

From the international and instant New York Times bestselling author John Connolly, the beloved and brilliant Charlie Parker series returns with a heart-wrenching crime only one man can solve.

In Maine, Colleen Clark stands accused of the worst crime a mother can commit: the abduction and possible murder of her child. Everyone --- ambitious politicians in an election season, hardened police, ordinary folk --- has an opinion on the case, and most believe she is guilty.

But most is not all. Defending Colleen is the lawyer Moxie Castin, and working alongside him is the private investigator Charlie Parker, who senses the tale has another twist --- one involving a husband too eager to accept his wife’s guilt, a group of fascists arming for war, a disgraced psychic seeking redemption, and an old, twisted house deep in the Maine woods, a house that never should have been built.

A house, and what dwells beneath.

Audiobook available, read by Jeff Harding

Editorial Content for Disturbing the Dead: A Rip Through Time Novel

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Pamela Kramer

The time travel series A Rip Through Time is clever, with a fascinating premise and much informative detail about life in Victorian Edinburgh through Kelley Armstrong's deft melding of fact and fiction. Those are just a few of the many reasons to read these books. Read More

Teaser

Victorian Scotland is becoming less strange to modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson. But inhabiting someone else’s body will always be unsettling, even if her employers know that she’s not actually housemaid Catriona Mitchell, ever since the night both of them were attacked in the same dark alley 150 years apart. Mallory likes her job as assistant to undertaker/medical examiner Dr. Duncan Gray and is developing true friends --- and feelings --- in this century. So, understanding the Victorian fascination with death, Mallory isn't that surprised when she and her friends are invited to a mummy unwrapping at the home of Sir Alastair Christie. When their host is missing when it comes time to unwrap the mummy, Gray and Mallory are asked to step in. And upon closer inspection, it’s not a mummy they’ve unwrapped, but a much more modern body.

Promo

Victorian Scotland is becoming less strange to modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson. But inhabiting someone else’s body will always be unsettling, even if her employers know that she’s not actually housemaid Catriona Mitchell, ever since the night both of them were attacked in the same dark alley 150 years apart. Mallory likes her job as assistant to undertaker/medical examiner Dr. Duncan Gray and is developing true friends --- and feelings --- in this century. So, understanding the Victorian fascination with death, Mallory isn't that surprised when she and her friends are invited to a mummy unwrapping at the home of Sir Alastair Christie. When their host is missing when it comes time to unwrap the mummy, Gray and Mallory are asked to step in. And upon closer inspection, it’s not a mummy they’ve unwrapped, but a much more modern body.

About the Book

DISTURBING THE DEAD is the latest in a unique series with one foot in the 1860s and the other in the present day. The Rip Through Time crime novels are a genre-blending, atmospheric romp from New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong.

Victorian Scotland is becoming less strange to modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson. Though inhabiting someone else’s body will always be unsettling, even if her employers know that she’s not actually housemaid Catriona Mitchell, ever since the night both of them were attacked in the same dark alley 150 years apart. Mallory likes her job as assistant to undertaker/medical examiner Dr. Duncan Gray, and is developing true friends --- and feelings --- in this century.

So, understanding the Victorian fascination with death, Mallory isn't that surprised when she and her friends are invited to a mummy unwrapping at the home of Sir Alastair Christie. When their host is missing when it comes time to unwrap the mummy, Gray and Mallory are asked to step in. And upon closer inspection, it’s not a mummy they’ve unwrapped, but a much more modern body.

Audiobook available, read by Kate Handford

Editorial Content for Ian Fleming: The Complete Man

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

When reviewing a book like IAN FLEMING: THE COMPLETE MAN, it is difficult to approach it in the same manner one might a standard work of fiction. First of all, it’s about three times larger than most novels, clocking in at just under 900 pages. Then there’s the subject matter to consider. Ian Fleming created one of the most legendary characters of all time: Bond. James Bond. Read More

Teaser

Ian Fleming's greatest creation, James Bond, has had an enormous and ongoing impact on our culture. What Bond represents about ideas of masculinity, the British national psyche and global politics has shifted over time, as has the interpretation of the life of his author. But Fleming himself was more mysterious and subtle than anything he wrote. Ian's childhood with his gifted brother, Peter, and his extraordinary mother set the pattern for his ambition to be “the complete man,” and he would strive for the means to achieve this “completeness” all his life. Nicholas Shakespeare’s talent for uncovering material that casts new light on his subjects is fully evident here. His unprecedented access to the Fleming archive and his nose for a story make this a fresh and eye-opening picture of the man and his famous creation.

Promo

Ian Fleming's greatest creation, James Bond, has had an enormous and ongoing impact on our culture. What Bond represents about ideas of masculinity, the British national psyche and global politics has shifted over time, as has the interpretation of the life of his author. But Fleming himself was more mysterious and subtle than anything he wrote. Ian's childhood with his gifted brother, Peter, and his extraordinary mother set the pattern for his ambition to be “the complete man,” and he would strive for the means to achieve this “completeness” all his life. Nicholas Shakespeare’s talent for uncovering material that casts new light on his subjects is fully evident here. His unprecedented access to the Fleming archive and his nose for a story make this a fresh and eye-opening picture of the man and his famous creation.

About the Book

A fresh portrait of the man behind James Bond, and his enduring impact, by an award-winning biographer with unprecedented access to the Fleming family papers.

Ian Fleming's greatest creation, James Bond, has had an enormous and ongoing impact on our culture. What Bond represents about ideas of masculinity, the British national psyche and global politics has shifted over time, as has the interpretation of the life of his author. But Fleming himself was more mysterious and subtle than anything he wrote.

Ian's childhood with his gifted brother, Peter, and his extraordinary mother set the pattern for his ambition to be “the complete man,” and he would strive for the means to achieve this “completeness'”all his life. Only a thriller writer for his last 12 years, his dramatic personal life and impressive career in Naval Intelligence put him at the heart of critical moments in world history, while also providing rich inspiration for his fiction. Exceptionally well connected and widely traveled, from the United States and Soviet Russia to his beloved Jamaica, Ian had access to the most powerful political figures at a time of profound change.

Nicholas Shakespeare is one of the most gifted biographers working today. His talent for uncovering material that casts new light on his subjects is fully evident in this masterful, definitive biography. His unprecedented access to the Fleming archive and his nose for a story make this a fresh and eye-opening picture of the man and his famous creation.

Audiobook available, read by Jonathan Keeble

Editorial Content for Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ron Kaplan (www.RonKaplansBaseballBookshelf.com)

The nickname “Charlie Hustle” was originally meant as an insult offered by none other than Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, both Hall of Famers for the New York Yankees, when they saw Pete Rose sprinting down to first base after a walk in a 1963 spring training game. But it was nevertheless appropriate: no one hustled more than Pete Rose.

On and off the field it seems, as reported in Keith O’Brien’s expansive new biography on the disgraced ballplayer. Read More

Teaser

Pete Rose is a legend. A baseball god. He compiled more hits than anyone in the history of baseball, a record he set decades ago that still stands today. He was a working-class white guy from Cincinnati who made it. He was everything that America wanted and needed him to be, the American dream personified --- until he wasn’t. In the 1980s, Pete Rose came to be at the center of one of the biggest scandals in baseball history. He kept secrets, ran with bookies, took on massive gambling debts, and was magnificently, publicly cast out for betting on baseball and lying about it. The revelations that followed ruined him, changed life in Cincinnati and forever altered the game. CHARLIE HUSTLE tells the full story of one of America’s most epic tragedies --- the rise and fall of Pete Rose.

Promo

Pete Rose is a legend. A baseball god. He compiled more hits than anyone in the history of baseball, a record he set decades ago that still stands today. He was a working-class white guy from Cincinnati who made it. He was everything that America wanted and needed him to be, the American dream personified --- until he wasn’t. In the 1980s, Pete Rose came to be at the center of one of the biggest scandals in baseball history. He kept secrets, ran with bookies, took on massive gambling debts, and was magnificently, publicly cast out for betting on baseball and lying about it. The revelations that followed ruined him, changed life in Cincinnati and forever altered the game. CHARLIE HUSTLE tells the full story of one of America’s most epic tragedies --- the rise and fall of Pete Rose.

About the Book

From New York Times bestselling author Keith O'Brien, a captivating chronicle of the incredible story of one of America’s most iconic, charismatic and still polarizing figures --- baseball immortal Pete Rose --- and an exquisite cultural history of baseball and America in the second half of the 20th century.

Pete Rose is a legend. A baseball god. He compiled more hits than anyone in the history of baseball, a record he set decades ago that still stands today. He was a working-class white guy from Cincinnati who made it; less talented than tough, and rough around the edges. He was everything that America wanted and needed him to be, the American dream personified, until he wasn’t.

In the 1980s, Pete Rose came to be at the center of one of the biggest scandals in baseball history. He kept secrets, ran with bookies, took on massive gambling debts, and was magnificently, publicly cast out for betting on baseball and lying about it. The revelations that followed ruined him, changed life in Cincinnati and forever altered the game.

CHARLIE HUSTLE tells the full story of one of America’s most epic tragedies --- the rise and fall of Pete Rose. Drawing on firsthand interviews with Rose himself and with his associates, as well as on investigators' reports, FBI and court records, archives and a mountain of press coverage, Keith O’Brien chronicles how Rose fell so far from being America’s “great white hope.” It is Pete Rose as we've never seen him before.

This is no ordinary sport biography, but cultural history at its finest. What O’Brien shows is that while Pete Rose didn’t change, America and baseball did. This is the story of that change.

Audiobook available, read by Ellen Adair

Editorial Content for Granite Harbor

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Sarah Rachel Egelman

The fictional Granite Harbor in Maine is the type of small, quaint town where thrillers and mysteries take place, as it is full of colorful characters, wild spaces, traditional values and a false sense of security. This is the setting for Peter Nichols’ latest novel, GRANITE HARBOR, where a killer with a penchant for ritual tableaus is hunting local teens. Readers know they most likely have been introduced to the murderer, but Nichols will keep them guessing as his characters race to find the perpetrator before he or she strikes again. Read More

Teaser

A local teenager is found brutally murdered in the Settlement, Granite Harbor’s historic archaeological site. Alex Brangwen is the town’s sole detective, and this is his first murder case. Isabel, a single mother attempting to support her family while healing from her own demons, finds herself in the middle of the case when she begins working at the Settlement. Her son, Ethan, and Alex’s daughter, Sophie, were best friends with the victim. When a second teenager is found murdered, the body left in the same manner as the first victim, both parents are terrified that their child may be next. As Alex and Isabel race to find the killer in their midst, the town’s secrets --- past and present --- begin bubbling to the surface, threatening to unravel the tight-knit community.

Promo

A local teenager is found brutally murdered in the Settlement, Granite Harbor’s historic archaeological site. Alex Brangwen is the town’s sole detective, and this is his first murder case. Isabel, a single mother attempting to support her family while healing from her own demons, finds herself in the middle of the case when she begins working at the Settlement. Her son, Ethan, and Alex’s daughter, Sophie, were best friends with the victim. When a second teenager is found murdered, the body left in the same manner as the first victim, both parents are terrified that their child may be next. As Alex and Isabel race to find the killer in their midst, the town’s secrets --- past and present --- begin bubbling to the surface, threatening to unravel the tight-knit community.

About the Book

A small town in coastal Maine is shaken to its core by a serial killer in this crime novel from Peter Nichols, bestselling author of THE ROCKS.

In scenic Granite Harbor, life has continued on --- quiet and serene --- for decades. That is, until a local teenager is found brutally murdered in the Settlement, the town’s historic archaeological site. Alex Brangwen, adjusting to life as a single father with a failed career as a novelist, is the town’s sole detective. This is his first murder case, and as both a parent and detective, Alex knows the people of Granite Harbor are looking to him to catch the killer and temper the fear that has descended over the town.

Isabel, a single mother attempting to support her family while healing from her own demons, finds herself in the middle of the case when she begins working at the Settlement. Her son, Ethan, and Alex’s daughter, Sophie, were best friends with the victim. When a second teenager is found murdered, the body left in the same manner as the first victim, both parents are terrified that their child may be next. As Alex and Isabel race to find the killer in their midst, the town’s secrets --- past and present --- begin bubbling to the surface, threatening to unravel the tight-knit community.

At once a page-turning thriller and a captivating portrait of the social fabric of a small town, GRANITE HARBOR evokes the atmosphere of HBO’s "Mare of Easttown" with a villain reminiscent of Thomas Harris’ SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.

Audiobook available, read by Peter Ganim