Vastralaya

Evan Shively (Perseus271)

Edgar Colt

Vitor Miguel

Prisma Soulstorm

Serena

Jordan

Bruna Guedes

Husain Kothari

FRNK

Uendi Prifti

Abdul Hasib

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her "our little genius." Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh. Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad. The Girl With All the Gifts is a sensational thriller, perfect for fans of Stephen King, Justin Cronin and Neil Gaiman.

Set in the far future amidst a sprawling feudal interstellar empire where planetary dynasties are controlled by noble houses that owe an allegiance to the imperial House Corrino, Dune tells the story of young Paul Atreides (the heir apparent to Duke Leto Atreides and heir of House Atreides) as he and his family accept control of the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the 'spice' melange, the most important and valuable substance in the cosmos. The story explores the complex, multi-layered interactions of politics, religion, ecology, technology, and human emotion as the forces of the empire confront each other for control of Arrakis.Published in 1965, it won the Hugo Award in 1966 and the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel. Dune is frequently cited as the world's best-selling sf novel.

On a brisk autumn day, a twelve-year-old boy stands on the shores of the gray Atlantic, near a silent amusement park and a fading ocean resort called the Alhambra. The past has driven Jack Sawyer here: his father is gone, his mother is dying, and the world no longer makes sense. But for Jack everything is about to change. For he has been chosen to make a journey back across America--and into another realm.One of the most influential and heralded works of fantasy ever written, The Talisman is an extraordinary novel of loyalty, awakening, terror, and mystery. Jack Sawyer, on a desperate quest to save his mother's life, must search for a prize across an epic landscape of innocents and monsters, of incredible dangers and even more incredible truths. The prize is essential, but the journey means even more. Let the quest begin. . . .

The novel is set during World War II, from 1942 to 1944. It mainly follows the life of Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier. Most of the events in the book occur while the fictional 256th Squadron is based on the island of Pianosa, in the Mediterranean Sea, west of Italy. The novel looks into the experiences of Yossarian and the other airmen in the camp, who attempt to maintain their sanity while fulfilling their service requirements so that they may return home.

Welcome to the hilarious, strange, elegiac, outrageous world of David Sedaris. In Naked, Sedaris turns the mania for memoir on its proverbial ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview—a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable. A tart-tongued mother does dead-on imitations of her young son's nervous tics, to the great amusement of his teachers; a stint of Kerouackian wandering is undertaken (of course!) with a quadriplegic companion; a family gathers for a wedding in the face of imminent death. Through it all is Sedaris's unmistakable voice, without doubt one of the freshest in American writing.

Middlesex tells the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City and the race riots of 1967 before moving out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.

Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy with a normal life, married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. They're even about to have their first child. Yes, Charlie's doing okay—until people start dropping dead around him, and everywhere he goes a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Charlie Asher, it seems, has been recruited for a new position: as Death.It's a dirty job, but hey! Somebody's got to do it.

Journeys to the end of the world, fantastic creatures, and epic battles between good and evil—what more could any reader ask for in one book? The book that has it all is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, written in 1949 by Clive Staples Lewis. But Lewis did not stop there. Six more books followed, and together they became known as The Chronicles of Narnia.For the past fifty years, The Chronicles of Narnia have transcended the fantasy genre to become part of the canon of classic literature. Each of the seven books is a masterpiece, drawing the reader into a land where magic meets reality, and the result is a fictional world whose scope has fascinated generations.This edition presents all seven books—unabridged—in one impressive volume. The books are presented here in chronlogical order, each chapter graced with an illustration by the original artist, Pauline Baynes. Deceptively simple and direct, The Chronicles of Narnia continue to captivate fans with adventures, characters, and truths that speak to readers of all ages, even fifty years after they were first published.

Winner of the 2007 BookBrowse Award for Most Popular Book.An atmospheric, gritty, and compelling novel of star-crossed lovers, set in the circus world circa 1932, by the bestselling author of Riding Lessons. When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, drifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town. A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It is there that he meets Marlena, the beautiful young star of the equestrian act, who is married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. He also meets Rosie, an elephant who seems untrainable until he discovers a way to reach her. Beautifully written, Water for Elephants is illuminated by a wonderful sense of time and place. It tells a story of a love between two people that overcomes incredible odds in a world in which even love is a luxury that few can afford.

David Sedaris plays in the snow with his sisters. He goes on vacation with his family. He gets a job selling drinks. He attends his brother’s wedding. He mops his sister’s floor. He gives directions to a lost traveler. He eats a hamburger. He has his blood sugar tested. It all sounds so normal, doesn’t it? In his newest collection of essays, David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives — a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today.--davidsedarisbooks.com

It's early autumn 1964. Two straight-A students head off to school, and when only one of them returns home Chesney Yelverton is coaxed from retirement and assigned to what proves to be the most difficult and deadly - case of his career. From the shining notorious East Side, When You Are Engulfed in Flames confirms once again that David Sedaris is a master of mystery and suspense.Or how about...when set on fire, most of us either fumble for our wallets or waste valuable time feeling sorry for ourselves. David Sedaris has studied this phenomenon, and his resulting insights may very well save your life. Author of the national bestsellers Should You Be Attacked By Snakes and If You Are Surrounded by Mean Ghosts, David Sedaris, with When You Are Engulfed in Flames, is clearly at the top of his game.Oh, all right...David Sedaris has written yet another book of essays (his sixth). Subjects include a parasitic worm that once lived in his mother-in-law's leg, an encounter with a dingo, and the recreational use of an external catheter. Also recounted is the buying of a human skeleton and the author's attempt to quit smoking In Tokyo.Master of nothing, at the dead center of his game, Sedaris proves that when you play with matches, you sometimes light the whole pack on fire.(front flap)

From the author of the best-selling WICKED, a transporting tale-within-a-tale about the strange world of skibbereen — aka tooth fairies — and the universal need to believe.A terrible storm is raging, and ten-year-old Dinah is huddled by candlelight with her brother, sister, and cousin Gage, who is telling a very unusual tale. It’s the story of What-the-Dickens, a newly hatched orphan creature who finds he has an attraction to teeth, a crush on a cat named McCavity, and a penchant for getting into trouble. One day he happens upon a feisty girl skibberee who is working as an Agent of Change — trading coins for teeth — and learns that there is a dutiful tribe of skibbereen (call them tooth fairies) to which he hopes to belong. As his tale of discovery unfolds, however, both What-the- Dickens and Dinah come to see that the world is both richer and less sure than they ever imagined.

This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780743227445Two sisters competing for the greatest prize: The love of a kingWhen Mary Boleyn comes to court as an innocent girl of fourteen, she catches the eye of Henry VIII. Dazzled, Mary falls in love with both her golden prince and her growing role as unofficial queen. However, she soon realises just how much she is a pawn in her family's ambitious plots as the king's interest begins to wane and she is forced to step aside for her best friend and rival: her sister, Anne. Then Mary knows that she must defy her family and her king and take fate into her own hands.A rich and compelling novel of love, sex, ambition, and intrigue, The Other Boleyn Girl introduces a woman of extraordinary determination and desire who lived at the heart of the most exciting and glamourous court in Europe and survived by following her heart.

The Hunger Games Trilogy: these are my issues, let me show you them.Most of the good fiction/fantasy/scifi literature these days is coming out of the Young Adult and Juvenile areas, so every six months or so I round up the new stuff and go on a reading spree. Around two years ago that included the Hunger Games trilogy (thanks to an ARC copy of Mockingjay). I did a review on that for my work newsletter which made me think about it for a good long while. (It wasn’t my best review because we’re encouraged not to say anything bad about the books, the object being to get people to read, not to drive them away.)The first book, Hunger Games, is awesome. Beyond awesome. I loved it and I greatly encourage anyone who hasn’t read it to pick it up now and get to reading! Engaging characters, tight (in both senses of the word) narrative, a plot that, while being far from original, seems shiny and new for all the different spins Suzanne Collins puts on it. It draws out your emotions and engages them, keeps you on the edge of your seat. Highly, highly recommended.The problem is, it’s best if you stop there. I sure wish the story had. At least Hunger Games stands on its own, and after reading the other two in the trilogy, I know that I can go back and just reread the first one and never have to touch the other two to have a complete fulfilling story.That’s not to say that the second book is terrible. Catching Fire is actually pretty good. Not up to the same standards as the first book - it does feel like exactly what it is, the middle book in a trilogy - but not a bad read at all. Basically it both asks and answers the age-old question, “If you could go back and do it all over, knowing everything you do now, would you do anything differently?” Which is intriguing, definitely. But at the same time, it is kind of a rehash of the first book, which is what makes it less engaging. The characters, the politics and the good narrative stop it from feeling tired and dull, and again, it’s a good read, but it’s lost its originality and some of the excitement that made the first book so entertaining.And then there’s the real problem; Catching Fire isn’t a complete narrative on its own. To know the whole story you have to read the third book, Mockingjay.Oh man, Mockingjay. The book that had all the potential to be a wonderful, heart-racing, utterly amazing finale to the trilogy. So much potential; so much fail. The ideas were there, but the execution was...just that. An execution. It’s like everything that would’ve made it a phenomenal book was taken out back and double-tapped.Even a couple years later I’m still somewhat angry when I think about it. Still so disappointed. I keep asking myself, did the author have a word limit she had to adhere to? Was she over her deadline by too much and had to rush? Was she simply bored/tired of this world? What on earth could’ve made her do this?Going against one of the major rules of good writing, Mockingjay is an exercise in telling instead of showing. Nothing big happens in the book that the author isn’t telling us about it instead of giving us the wonderful descriptions of the previous two books. With very few exceptions, events happen off screen and we get an info dump explaining them. That alone was just terrible to read. But then there’s poor Katniss.Remember the spitfire, kick-ass woman of the previous two books, the one who was determined to do whatever she could to survive and thus ensure her family’s survival? Yeah, well, say goodbye to her before reading this last book because you won’t be seeing much of her again.It’s like she just floats through events, letting things happen to her and barely reacting. She just lets herself be used, over and over, turns into something akin to a leaf in the wind. The few decisions she does make often don’t make any sort of good sense and we’re left wondering if this is really Katniss or a robot in a Katniss skin.The introduction of new characters should help things, but the narrative fails there too. The characters (heck, even the old ones we’re familiar with!) aren’t given nearly enough fleshing out; they’re just there. They don’t feel as real, as three dimensional as characters did in the last two books.The combination of all that leaves us with a flat, lifeless book and what amounts to a boring read. You want to get excited, I mean, there are serious, emotional things going on! Or at least they’re supposed to be. Hard to say when you don’t feel it and it’s just words on a page. The originality, excitement and all the drive behind the first two books is just gone. Vanished. And it’s painful to see.Yeah, two years gone and I’m still not over that. Such a let-down.I still encourage people to pick up The Hunger Games, but I barely give the next two in the trilogy more than a cursory mention. I reserve all my glowing praise for the first book and try to pretend the third never happened.

The world was called Montefiore, as far as she knew, and from her aerie on every side all the world descended.The year is 1502, and seven-year-old Bianca de Nevada lives perched high above the rolling hills and valleys of Tuscany and Umbria at Montefiore, the farm of her beloved father, Don Vicente. There she spends her days cosseted by Primavera Vecchia, the earthy cook, and Fra Ludovico, a priest who tends to their souls between bites of ham and sips of wine.But one day a noble entourage makes its way up the winding slopes to the farm - and the world comes to Montefiore. In the presence of Cesare Borgia and his sister, the lovely and vain Lucrezia - decadent children of a wicked pope - no one can claim innocence for very long. When Borgia sends Don Vicente on a years-long quest to reclaim a relic of the original Tree of Knowledge, he leaves Bianca under the care - so to speak - of Lucrezia. She plots a dire fate for the young girl in the woods below the farm, but in the dark forest there can be found salvation as well ...The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say.

The birth of Jesus has been well chronicled, as have his glorious teachings, acts, and divine sacrifice after his thirtieth birthday. But no one knows about the early life of the Son of God, the missing years—except Biff, the Messiah's best bud, who has been resurrected to tell the story in the divinely hilarious yet heartfelt work "reminiscent of Vonnegut and Douglas Adams" (Philadelphia Inquirer).Verily, the story Biff has to tell is a miraculous one, filled with remarkable journeys, magic, healings, kung fu, corpse reanimations, demons, and hot babes. Even the considerable wiles and devotion of the Savior's pal may not be enough to divert Joshua from his tragic destiny. But there's no one who loves Josh more—except maybe "Maggie," Mary of Magdala—and Biff isn't about to let his extraordinary pal suffer and ascend without a fight.

Liir hid in the shadows of the castle after Dorothy did in the Witch. Left for dead in a gully, the teen is shattered in spirit and body. But silent novice Candle tends him at the Cloister of Saint Glinda, and wills him back to life with her music. What dark force left Liir in this condition? Is he really Elphaba's son? He has her broom and her cape - but what of her powers? Can he find his supposed half-sister, Nor, last seen in the forbidding prison Southstairs? Can he fulfill the last wishes of a dying princess? In an Oz under new and dangerous management, can Liir keep his head down long enough to grow up?

The body of a young girl (Laura Palmer) is washed up on a beach near the small Washington state town of Twin Peaks. FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper is called in to investigate her strange demise only to uncover a web of mystery that ultimately leads him deep into the heart of the surrounding woodland and his very own soul.

American drama television series from 1990–1991

The offbeat adventures of Courage, a cowardly dog who must overcome his own fears to heroically defend his unknowing farmer owners from all kinds of dangers, paranormal events and menaces that appear around their land.

American horror animated television series

A former lawyer attends a community college when it is discovered he faked his Bachelor's degree. In an attempt to get with a student in his Spanish class, he forms a Spanish study group. To his surprise, more people attend the study group and the group of misfits form an unlikely community.

American comedy television series created by Dan Harmon

Lord Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) sees his family heritage, especially the grand country home Downton Abbey, as his mission in life. The death of his heir aboard R.M.S. Titanic means distant cousin Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), a Manchester lawyer, suddenly is next in line and accepts moving onto the vast estate with his even more modernist, socially engaged mother, who clashes with his Lordship's domineering, conservative mother, the dowager countess. Marrying off the daughters is another concern. Meanwhile, the butler presides over a staff which serves the family, but also lead most of their entire lives in the servants' quarters, intriguing amongst themselves.

British historical drama television series

An innovative look at the life of fictional Mafia Capo Tony Soprano, this serial is presented largely first person, but additional perspective is conveyed by the intimate conversations Tony has with his psychotherapist. We see Tony at work, at home, and in therapy. Moments of black comedy intersperse this aggressive, adult drama, with adult language, and extreme violence.

Naota is a normal student living with his abnormal father and grandfather. One day, a seemingly insane girl named Haruko blazes in from out of nowhere on her Vespa, wielding an electric guitar with a buzzsaw! Haruko moves in with Naota under the pretense of being a housekeeper, but Naota knows there's something obviously strange about her. To make matters worse, large shapes are growing out of his head, hatching into large monsters that Haruko makes her mission to kill. Who is Haruko really, and what is she after? You won't find out until the end of this bizarre story.

In a strange world of swords, guns and kimonos, cell phones and cybernetic body parts - a black samurai, Afro Samurai, seeks revenge from a man named Justice who killed his father and also happens to be the #1 fighter in the world. After Afro earns the rank of #2 fighter needed to challenge the #1, he starts his lonely walk to revenge. He faces bounty hunters, bar thugs and fanatical monks - all of whom seem to have clues to the whereabouts of Justice and all of whom covet the position of #2 for themselves. Also along the way we are introduced to Afro's chatty companion - the light hearted Ninja Ninja.

Japanese seinen dōjinshi manga series written and illustrated by manga artist Takashi Okazaki

Christmas 1954. Wealthy philanthropist Rachel Argyll is murdered at her family estate Sunny Point. Her adopted son Jack Argyll is arrested for her murder. He vehemently protests his innocence.

A psychological-horror series set in the Stephen King multiverse, Castle Rock combines the mythological scale and intimate character storytelling of King's best-loved works, weaving an epic saga of darkness and light, played out on a few square miles of Maine woodland. The fictional Maine town of Castle Rock has figured prominently in King's literary career: Cujo, The Dark Half and Needful Things, as well as novella The Body and numerous short stories such as Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption are either set there or contain references to Castle Rock. Castle Rock is an original suspense/thriller - a first-of-its-kind reimagining that explores the themes and worlds uniting the entire King canon, while brushing up against some of his most iconic and beloved stories.

Creator/showrunner Jenji Kohan's hit Showtime satirical drama series told of Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker), a widowed mother of two boys - Silas and Shane (Hunter Parish and Alexander Gould) - who begins selling marijuana to support her family. Other main characters include Nancy's lax brother-in-law Andy (Justin Kirk) moving in to help raise her children; foolish acquaintance Doug Wilson (Kevin Nealon); narcissistic neighbor Celia Hodes (Elizabeth Perkins), who lives with her husband Dean (Andy Milder) and their daughter Isabelle (Allie Grant); as well as Nancy's wholesalers Heylia James and her son Conrad (Tonye Patano and Romany Malco). Over the course of the show, the Botwin family become increasingly entangled in illegal activity.

2005-2012 American dark comedy-drama television series

Ted Mosby sits down with his kids, to tell them the story of how he met their mother. The story is told through memories of his friends Marshall, Lily, Robin, and Barney Stinson. All legendary 9 seasons lead up to the moment of Ted's final encounter with "the one."

When chemistry teacher Walter White is diagnosed with Stage III cancer and given only two years to live, he decides he has nothing to lose. He lives with his teenage son, who has cerebral palsy, and his wife, in New Mexico. Determined to ensure that his family will have a secure future, Walt embarks on a career of drugs and crime. He proves to be remarkably proficient in this new world as he begins manufacturing and selling methamphetamine with one of his former students. The series tracks the impacts of a fatal diagnosis on a regular, hard working man, and explores how a fatal diagnosis affects his morality and transforms him into a major player of the drug trade.

Fortitude is a place like nowhere else on Earth. Surrounded by the savage beauty of the polar landscape, its future sparkling with the promise of Arctic opportunity, wealth and discovery, Fortitude is one of the safest towns on earth. There has never been a violent crime here. Until now.

British horror psychological thriller television series

Set in the 1930s, a time when Britain is dangerously divided and suspicion and hatred are on the rise, the story sees Poirot face a serial killer known only as A.B.C. As the body count rises, the only clue is a copy of The ABC Railway Guide at each crime scene. Poirot's investigations are continuously thwarted by an enemy determined to outsmart him. If Poirot is to match his nemesis, then everything about him will be called into question: his authority, his integrity, his past and his identity.

Leonard Hofstadter and Sheldon Cooper are both brilliant physicists working at Cal Tech in Pasadena, California. They are colleagues, best friends, and roommates, although in all capacities their relationship is always tested primarily by Sheldon's regimented, deeply eccentric, and non-conventional ways. They are also friends with their Cal Tech colleagues mechanical engineer Howard Wolowitz and astrophysicist Rajesh Koothrappali. The foursome spend their time working on their individual work projects, playing video games, watching science-fiction movies, or reading comic books. As they are self-professed nerds, all have little or no luck with women. When Penny, a pretty woman and an aspiring actress from Omaha, moves into the apartment across the hall from Leonard and Sheldon's, Leonard has another aspiration in life, namely to get Penny to be his girlfriend.

Meet Georgia Lass (who prefers to be called George). She is a young Seattle college dropout who is unhappy with life. She is always at odds with her mom, Joy. One day coming back from her temp job as a filing clerk, she is hit by the toilet seat of the re-entering Space Station Mir. Finding out she is now dead, she is recruited to become a grim reaper. As in life, she is a pain in the butt in death. She does not like the details of her job, and is always at loggerheads with her boss Rube. Her fellow grim reapers don't really take much of a liking to her either. She also learns grim reapers don't even get a free ride in death, as they must hold down regular jobs along with their death duties.

Dr. Joel Fleischman (Rob Morrow) is fresh out of medical college, and fresh out of luck. Failing to read the fine print in his scholarship conditions, he finds he has no choice but to move to the remote and somewhat eccentric town of Cicely, Alaska. Once there, he is welcomed by the peculiar locals who are not keen to see him go, most especially Maurice J. Minnifield (Barry Corbin), the ex-N.A.S.A. astronaut. Despite Joel's adamant denials, one gets the impression that he enjoys life in Cicely more than he admits.

Presidential advisers get their personal lives hopelessly tangled up with professional duties as they try to conduct the business of running a country. Fictional Democratic President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet suffers no fools, and that policy alienates many. He and his dedicated staffers struggle to balance the needs of the country with the political realities of Washington, D.C., working through two presidential terms that include countless scandals, threats and political scuffles, as well as the race to succeed Bartlet as the leader of the free world.

American political drama series created by Aaron Sorkin for NBC (1999-2006)

The stable wormhole discovered by the Deep Space Nine crew is known to the Bajoran people as the Celestial Temple of their Prophets. Sisko, as discoverer of the wormhole and its inhabitants, is therefore the Emissary of Bajoran prophesy. The wormhole's other end is in the Gamma Quadrant, halfway around the galaxy from Bajor. That section of space is dominated by the malevolent Dominion. The Dominion is led by the Changelings, the race of shapeshifters to which Odo belongs. As of the beginning of the sixth season, Cardassia has joined the Dominion, and together they are waging war on the Federation and their Klingon allies. The war is quickly becoming the most costly war ever for the Federation, and the Deep Space Nine crew must fight to protect their way of life.

American science fiction television series from 1993-1999

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