Meticulously researched and imaginatively wrought, Warrior Queen is the sweeping epic of the infamous Boudica who challenged the vicious might of the Roman Empire. In 43 AD Boudica became the queen of a Celtic tribe and a Roman sympathiser. But after years of loyal service she finds herself brutally betrayed. The fury of her unleashed vengeance threw the Roman Empire's forces into chaos and made her a goddess to her own people. Here, Alan Gold retells the story of Boudica in a novel that embraces all the fiery passion and intrigue of this remarkable woman.

"In these spare, haunting novellas, Natalia Ginzburg displays again the narrative skill, resonantly understated style, themes, and wisdom that have mad her "Italy's foremost woman writer and...one of Italy's finest writers of any kind" (Newsday) Both stories recount the breakup of families and the souring of the dreams that gave them coherence. Each is told in the quiet voice of a young woman, the daughter and sister whom family life has somehow left wounded and unchosen. Each is also the story of that voice's perseverance"--

"Richard Hell may best be known as a punk icon, a founding member of seminal bands Television, the Heartbreakers, and The Voidoids, but for decades he's been a prominent voice in American letters. Through his novels Go Now and Godlike, and his critically acclaimed autobiography, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, Hell has proven himself as a talented and insightful writer across many genres, in many forms. But one might argue that Richard's true genius lies in shorter form as a writer on culture. "Love comes in spurts," Hell once sang, and that could well describe the intensity of his penetrating and wickedly droll criticism. Massive Pissed Love is a collection of Hell's ruminations on art, literature, and music, among other things, that's like a candy box of reading treats, a bag of shiny marbles, a cabinet of mementos and uncanny fetishes. However one thinks of it, it's a joy to read from start to finish and a deeply necessary addition to the oeuvre of one of the sharpest minds and sensibilities at work today"--

Beagle's novella, set in the world of 1991's The Innkeeper's Song, is an intimate take on the relatively common fantasy conceit of a powerful band of recluses. Following an encounter with three assassins, the wanderer Soukyan decides it is time to return to the monastery from which he had long ago escaped and take revenge on those who sent the killers. Beagle hints that Soukyan's world stretches far and wide but mostly focuses on a small area where various organizations have institutionalized murder and torture. Thoughtful, well-rounded characters make an intriguing contrast to scenes of bloody brutality. Readers familiar with The Innkeeper's Song will love this tie-in, while newcomers will both enjoy the tight focus and find plenty of incentive to seek out related works that further explore this complex, fully realized setting. --Publisher's Weekly.

Hailed as "the most provocative and disturbing analytical indictment . . . of America's role in Vietnam" by the "New York Times," this is Mary McCarthy's riveting account of her journeys to Saigon and Hanoi In 1967, the editor of the" New York Review of Books "sent Mary McCarthy to Vietnam. In this daring and incisive account," "McCarthy brings her critical thinking and novelist's eye to one of the most unpopular wars in our nation's history.Outraged over America's role in the Vietnam War, McCarthy arrived in Saigon with her own preconceived notions. Her time there did little to alter those beliefs. Focusing on the moral consequences--"the worst thing that could happen to our country would be to win this war"--McCarthy provides firsthand reports from the front line. She describes visits to villages built for Vietnamese refugees torn between the terror that Americans would stay and the fear that they would go.From its coverage of the daily horrors of war to notes on the logistical challenge of bringing 494,000 soldiers home, this is a timely and timeless work from one of America's most outspoken and respected critics.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

"The Amazing Mr. Morality features tenacious men and women whose determination to buck middle-class social convention draws them toward unforeseen challenges. A failed television producer insists upon having a woodchuck relocated from his lawn, only to receive desperate letters in which the woodchuck begs to return. An overconfident ne'er-do-well obtains a lucrative lecture invitation intended for a renowned ornithologist and decides to deliver the speech himself. An innocuous dispute over whether to rename a local street opens up racial fault lines that prove deadly. The collection concludes with the title novella in which two unscrupulous ethicists, writing rival newspaper columns, seek to unseat each other by addressing questions such as: If you're going to commit a murder, is it worse to kill when the victim is sleeping or awake?"--

Benny Cooperman's favourite lunch counter and diner have closed down and the fittings have been sold to Americans. The nation mourns the accidental death of its greatest artist, cellist Dermot Keogh. It's April and there's already a heat wave. Things are just not the way they used to be. Alas, not just the plots and settings have changed in Howard Engel's 10th Benny Cooperman mystery. While Canada's favourite fictional detective is still his smart-alecky but unsophisticated self ("Dim Sum may be unknown in Grantham, Mr. Cooperman, but we in Toronto have had it for nearly forty years"), his talents seem washed out, if not washed up, in this nasty little mystery set in the high-tech, high-pressure world of a Toronto TV station far up the road from his native Grantham. All the stock figures are the former high school love goddess who calls at the detective's office wondering if she's in the path of a killer, the small-town lawyer, the slobbish cops, the heavies in dark glasses. What's missing are the gritty small-town ambience and naked class antagonisms that drive best hard-boiled detective fiction, including Engel's early novels. Burdened with the bland homogeneity of the contemporary city and with convoluted literary references, the tale becomes progressively less gripping. In fact Cooperman hasn't been himself since 1990's Dead and Buried , when his creator first fell for the suits and the happy ending. The warning of his first sentence--"I should have seen the writing on the wall"--should have been a message to readers as well. --Robyn Gillam

In 1941, a treaty between England and Germany unravels--and so does a different World War II. In Harry Turtledove's mesmerizing alternate history of World War II, the choices of men and fate have changed history. Now it is the winter of 1941. As the Germans, with England and France on their side, slam deep into Russia, Stalin's terrible machine fights for its life. But the agreements of world leaders do not touch the hearts of soldiers. The war between Germany and Russia is rocked by men with the courage to aim their guns in a new direction. England is the first to be shaken. Following the suspicious death of Winston Churchill, with his staunch anti-Nazi views, a small cabal begins to imagine the unthinkable in a nation long famous for respecting the rule of law. With civil liberties hanging by a thread, a conspiracy forms against the powers that be. What will this daring plan mean for the European war as a whole? Meanwhile, in America, a woman who has met Hitler face-to-face urges her countrymen to wake up to his evil. For the time being, the United States is fighting only Japan--and the war is not going as well as Washington would like. Can Roosevelt keep his grip on the country's imagination? "Coup d'Etat" captures how war makes for the strangest of bedfellows. A freethinking Frenchman fights side by side with racist Nazis. A Czech finds himself on the dusty front lines of the Spanish Civil War, gunning for Germany's Nationalist allies. A German bomber pilot courts a half-Polish, half-Jewish beauty in Bialystock. And the Jews in Germany, though trapped under Hitler's fist, are as yet protected by his fear of looking bad before the world--and by an outspoken Catholic bishop. With his spectacular command of character, coincidence, and military and political strategies, Harry Turtledove continues a passionate, unmatched saga of a World War II composed of different enemies, different allies--and hurtling toward a horrific moment. For a diabolical new weapon is about to be unleashed, not by the United States, but by Japan, in a tactic that will shock the world. Praise for "Coup d'Etat" "Turtledove's masterful presentation of an alternate WWII reaches its fourth volume with its quality undiminished. . . . A tribute to [his] commanding skills."--"Booklist "(starred review) "For lovers of alternative history, and particularly the very popular Turtledove with his appealing weaponry, battle tactics, and setting details, this story will satisfy. It sets out to entertain . . . and that it does."--Historical Novels Review "The book's grand scope and Turtledove's impressive historical knowledge are admirable."--"Kirkus Reviews"

An epic novel of Christians and Jews in the plague years -- the Black Death of 1349. The story takes place in the monastery of Bodmin, in the misty moors of Cornwall and on the continent where Will's wife, Miriam, goes in search of her Jewish ancestors. She is a female picaresque heroine through whose eyes the devastation of the Black Death on the continent is witnessed.

A tight, captivating story of a naive child's encounters with a Soviet dictator, the 20th novel by Robert Littell After the sudden death of his nuclear physicist father and the arrest of his mother during the Stalinist purge of Jewish doctors, young Leon Rozental--intellectually precocious and possessing a disarming candor--is hiding from the NKVD in the secret rooms of the House on the Embankment, a large building in Moscow where many Soviet officials and apparatchiks live and work. One day after following a passageway, Leon meets Koba, an old man whose apartment is protected by several guards. Koba is a high-ranking Soviet officer with troubling insight into the thoughts and machinations of Comrade Stalin. Through encounters between a naive boy and a paranoid tyrant, Robert Littell creates in Comrade Koba a nuanced portrayal of the Soviet dictator, showing his human side and his simultaneous total disregard for and ignorance of the suffering he inflicted on the Russian people. The charm and spontaneity of young Leon make him an irresistible character--and not unlike Holden Caulfield, whom he admits to identifying with--caught in the spider's web of the story woven by this enigmatic old man.

Historical novel about the struggles of the German Communist anti-Hitlerian networks from 1937 to the end of World War II.

is the definitive novel of Hollywood in its most glamorous era, a work that examines the very roots of film itself, and their hold upon the dark, underground forces of instinct and imagination. Narrated by the ever-wise, yet sexually tormented Peter Lorre, this book assembles a huge cast of Hollywood types - moguls, agents, directors, stars and starlets, writers, gossip columnists and mere hangers-on - who converge on Pandaemonium, a Nevada ghost town, on the eve of World War II. There, they all fall under the spell of a great European film director named Rudolph Von Beckmann, whose secret plan is to turn a routine B western into an extraordinary film of, and so warn the world of the dictator who would destroy it. But in the heat of the desert and his own fevered imaginings, it is Von Beckmann who becomes the tyrant and - in an atmosphere that is part Armageddon, part Gotterdammerung - it is his world that is destroyed.

"The film Casablanca opens with the words, "With the coming of the Second World War, many eyes in imprisoned Europe turned hopefully, or desperately, toward the freedom of the Americas." Leslie Epstein's Hill of Beans is the story of how one nation, one industry, and in particular one man responded to that desperate hope. That man is Jack Warner. His impossible goal is to make world events--most importantly, the invasion of North Africa by British and American forces in 1942--coincide with the release of his new film about a group of refugees marooned in Morocco. Arrayed against him are Stalin and Hitler, as well as Josef Goebbels, Franklin Roosevelt, a powerful gossip columnist, and above all a beautiful young woman with a terrible secret. His only weapons are his hutzpah and his heroism as he struggles to bring cinema and city, conflict and conference together in an epic command performance. Hill of Beans is the novel that Leslie Epstein--the son and nephew of Philip and Julius Epstein, the screenwriters of Casablanca--was born to write"--

"As intriguing and impressive a novelist as she is a musician, Hval is a master of quiet horror and wonder.” —Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick A lyrical debut novel from a musician and artist renowned for her sharp sexual and political imagery Jo is in a strange new country for university and having a more peculiar time than most. In a house with no walls, shared with a woman who has no boundaries, she finds her strange home coming to life in unimaginable ways. Jo’s sensitivity and all her senses become increasingly heightened and fraught, as the lines between bodies and plants, dreaming and wakefulness, blur and mesh. This debut novel from critically acclaimed artist and musician Jenny Hval presents a heady and hyper-sensual portrayal of sexual awakening and queer desire.

Taut, stylish, and psychologically acute, Afternoon of a Faun dramatizes the search for truth as an accusation of sexual assault plunges a journalist into a series of deepening crises. "The truth might be hard to bring to light, but that didn’t mean it didn’t exist, because it did exist: fixed in its moment, unalterable, and certainly not a matter of ‘belief.’ " When an old flame accuses him of sexual assault in her memoir, expat English journalist Marco Rosedale is brought rapidly and inexorably to the brink of ruin. His reputation and livelihood at stake, Marco confides in a close friend, who finds himself caught between the obligations of friendship and an increasingly urgent desire to uncover the truth. This unnamed friend is drawn, magnetized, into the orbit of the woman at the center of the accusation—and finds his position as the safely detached narrator turning into something more dangerous. Soon, the question of his own complicity becomes impossible to avoid. Set during the months leading up to Donald Trump’s election, with detours into the 1970s, this propulsive novel investigates the very meaning of truth at a time when it feels increasingly malleable. An atmospheric and unsettling drama from a novelist acclaimed as “the literary descendent of Dostoevsky and Patricia Highsmith” ( Boston Globe ), Afternoon of a Faun combines a sharply observed study of our shifting social mores with a meditation on what makes us believe, or disbelieve, the stories people tell about themselves.

Published for the first time in English, Panorama is a superb rediscovered novel of the Holocaust by a neglected modern master. One of a handful of death camp survivors to fictionalize his experiences in German, H. G. Adler is an essential author--referenced by W. G. Sebald in his classic novel Austerlitz , and a direct literary descendant of Kafka. When The Journey was discovered in a Harvard bookshop and translated by Peter Filkins, it began a major reassessment of the Prague-born H. G. Adler by literary critics and historians alike. Known for his monumental Theresienstadt 1941-1945 , a day-by-day account of his experiences in the Nazi slave-labor community before he was sent to Auschwitz, Adler also wrote six novels. The very depiction of the Holocaust in fiction caused furious debate and delays in their publication. Now Panorama , his first novel, written in 1948, is finally available to convey the kinds of truths that only fiction can. A brilliant epic, Panorama is a portrait of a place and people soon to be destroyed, as seen through the eyes of young Josef Kramer. Told in ten distinct scenes, it begins in pastoral Word War I-era Bohemia, where the boy passively witnesses the "wonders of the world" in a thrilling panorama display; follows him to a German boarding school full of creeping xenophobia and prejudice; and finds him in young adulthood sent to a labor camp and then to one of the infamous extermination camps, before he chooses exile abroad after the war. Josef's philosophical journey mirrors the author's own: from a stoic acceptance of events to a realization that "the viewer is also the participant" and that action must be taken in life, if only to make sure the dead are not forgotten. Achieving a stream-of-consciousness power reminiscent of James Joyce and Gertrude Stein, H. G. Adler is a modern artist with unique historical importance. Panorama is lasting evidence of both the torment of his life and the triumph of his gifts.

This deluxe novel dives into the history and ancient conspiracy behind the world of Tomorrowland with an action-packed original story. It includes a 20-page full color comic insert, bringing to life a comic that plays an integral role in the plot. Written by the film's writers, Brad Bird (The Incredibles), Damon Lindelof (Lost), and Jeff Jensen (Entertainment Weekly), this book is perfect for fans of Tomorrowland and fans of science fiction and alternative history in general.

Steps Under Water is a novel drawn from Alicia Kozameh’s experiences as a political prisoner in Argentina during the “Dirty War” of the 1970s.

"Until someone tells you, you never know in whose dreams you appear..." - From the prologue of To Catch the Lightning What is the price of our dreams? Beginning in the late 1890s, Edward Sheriff Curtis undertook the seemingly overwhelming odyssey of capturing the past, of documenting and photographing the fading way of life of the American Indian. In To Catch the Lightning , Alan Cheuse has created a remarkable portrait of the man who would become a legend. Drawn on his epic journey by a series of female muses, Curtis turns his lens on a landscape of unparalleled beauty and tradition. Curtis@ desire to complete his destiny as foretold by Chief Joseph, to photograph all of the hundreds of western American Indian tribes, is a haunting tale of the struggle between ambition and duty. The architect of the finest lasting visual record of a culture close to extinction, Curtis stands as a testament to the power of the sacrifices we make for the dreams that compel us. With the ear of a poet and the eye of a historian, Cheuse has crafted a masterwork of American historical fiction. Lyrical, beautifully written, and impressively researched, To Catch the Lightning is a novel of the American spirit. PRAISE FOR TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING: "To Catch the Lightning is a story of loss - of choices made and prices paid, of the future coming fast and the past disappearing faster. Cheuse@s narrative is refracted through multiple voices, each distinct, but each containing its own poetic precision. A wonderful, wonderful book of quiet power and great beauty." - Karen Joy Fowler, author of Wit@s End and The Jane Austen Book Club "To Catch the Lightning tells Curtis@ story vividly and eloquently. It is a great American story, about a life spent preserving and honoring those elements of life which are most respected and beloved. Alan Cheuse is to be congratulated for this vivid novel." - William Kittredge, author of The Willow Field and The Next Rodeo "Bravo to Cheuse for this incarnation of a major and unfairly forgotten American artist, capturing an era so crucial in native American, and therefore American history. I found it immediate and innovative." - Diane Johnson, author of Le Divorce and Lulu in Marrakech "The photography and cinema of Edward Curtis exist at the intersection of art, history, anthropology, and technology. He was an essentially American kind of genius, and Alan Cheuse has transformed his life into compelling fiction that digs deep into the mystery and sacrifice and selfishness of creative vision." - Charles Frazier, author of Cold Mountain and Thirteen Moons "... the narrative brims with keen insight." - Publishers Weekly "Curtis devoted his life to creating the most significant and comprehensive retrospective of American Indian culture, which he viewed as @one of the great races of mankind.@ Curtis correctly predicted that the culture was near extinction ... and much of his work remains the only recorded history of a civilization even then becoming the stuff of legend." - ForeWord Magazine Catch Alan Cheuse in your town: Key West, FL: January - Key West Lit

Delilah, an aspiring artist and nude model, starts to question her life and father, who has begun to show signs of Alzheimer's disease, after her mother suddenly returns with a young daughter and reveals a shocking family secret.