For Jon and Erin Bennett, the world seems to be spinning dangerously out of control. A new dictator is rising in Iraq. China is making threatening new moves toward Taiwan. North Korean forces appear ready to strike south. Israel is feverishly trying to complete the Third Temple. Oil prices are surging. And in the wake of an horrific war in the Middle East, President James MacPherson's second term is coming to an end. Now the battle to succeed him is heating up into one of the most fiercely contested presidential elections in American history, and the Bennetts realize the stakes could not be higher. Who will lead a bitterly divided country over the next four years? What can the U.S. do to shape the new world order? And just what role--if any--does the U.S. play in the last days? As the presidential campaign narrows into a dead heat, the Secret Service learns of a catastrophic plot to assassinate one of the candidates--but which one, and can the terrorists be stopped in time?

This book presents profiles of the Radicals, the Reformers, and the Revivalists of the Middle East, explaining the implications of each movement and the importance of each leader of the movements.

In 1956, it was announced that another Dead Sea Scroll had been found, unlike any before it, describing unimaginable treasures buried in the hills east of Jerusalem, and under the Holy City itself. Some scholars came to believe the Copper Scroll could be history's greatest treasure map, one that could lead to the discovery of the Second Temple treasures and the building of the Third Jewish Temple. But the scroll's code has never been broken, and experts from all sides warn that any effort to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem would unleash a war of biblical proportions. Now, fifty years later, Saddam Hussein is gone, Yasser Arafat is dead, a new Iraq is rising. But so, too, is a new evil, and now White House advisors Jon Bennett and Erin McCoy find themselves facing a terrifying new threat triggered by an ancient mystery.--From publisher description.

With the stakes high and few viable options left, the president of the United States orders CIA operative David Shirazi and his team to track down and sabotage Iran's nuclear warheads before Iran or Israel can launch a devastating first strike.

Hail, Caesar! is the story of Eddie Mannix, tireless pursuer of the interests of fictional Capitol Pictures, circa 1951. He is the ultimate studio fixer and - since the studio is his world - the ultimate earthly one. There is no star scandal he cannot cover up, no studio misstep he cannot repair, no sin he cannot make right. His powers are tested, though, when production on the studio's most expensive picture ever - biblical epic Hail, Caesar! is halted by the kidnapping of its star. The kidnappers are a mysterious gaggle seeking not just ransom but the destruction of everything Eddie Mannix lives for, and everything he lives by ...

As a novelist, art critic, and cultural historian, John Berger is a writer of dazzling eloquence and arresting insight whose work amounts to a subtle, powerful critique of the canons of our civilization. In About Looking he explores our role as observers to reveal new layers of meaning in what we see. How do the animals we look at in zoos remind us of a relationship between man and beast all but lost in the twentieth century? What is it about looking at war photographs that doubles their already potent violence? How do the nudes of Rodin betray the threats to his authority and potency posed by clay and flesh? And how does solitude inform the art of Giacometti? In asking these and other questions, Berger quietly -- but fundamentally -- alters the vision of anyone who reads his work.

Feinstein takes readers inside the locker rooms, the grueling practices, the late-night strategy sessions. They get a close-up look at recruiting, referees, injuries, winning, losing, and the private lives of the game's biggest stars.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed bestselling author comes a riveting journey through the world of minor-league baseball “Terrific…Reading this book will make you fall in love with baseball all over again.”— The Denver Post Minor league baseball is quintessentially American: small towns, small stadiums, $5 tickets, $2 hot dogs, the never-ending possibility of making it big. But looming above it all is always the real deal: Major League Baseball. John Feinstein takes the reader behind the curtain into the guarded world of the minor leagues, like no other writer can. Where Nobody Knows Your Name explores the trials and travails of the inhabitants of Triple-A, focusing on nine men, including players, managers and umpires, among many colorful characters, living on the cusp of the dream. The book tells the stories of former World Series hero Scott Podsednik, giving it one more shot; Durham Bulls manager Charlie Montoya, shepherding generations across the line; and designated hitter Jon Lindsey, a lifelong minor leaguer, waiting for his day to come. From Raleigh to Pawtucket, from Lehigh Valley to Indianapolis and beyond, this is an intimate and exciting look at life in the minor leagues, where you’re either waiting for the call or just passing through.

Parodies come in all shapes and sizes. There are broad parodies and subtle parodies, ingenious imitations and knockabout spoofs, scornful lampoons and affectionate pastiches. All these varieties, and many others, are represented in this stunning new anthology, which provides an unparalleled introduction to the parodist's art. The classics of the genre are all here, from Lewis Carroll to Max Beerbohm; but so are scores of lesser known but scarcely less gifted figures, and brilliant contemporaries such as Craig Brown and Wendy Cope. At every stage there are surprises. Chaucer celebrates Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Proust visits Chelsea, Yeats re-writes 'Old King Cole', Harry Potter encounters Mick Jagger, a modernized Sermon on the Mount rubs shoulders with an obituary of Sherlock Holmes. The collection provides a hilarious running commentary on literary history, but it also looks beyond literature in the narrow sense to take in such things as advertisements, legal rituals, political warfare, and a scientific hoax.

BRAND NEW

Now available in paperback, the “fresh and fascinating” ( The Plain Dealer , Cleveland), “splendid and brilliant” ( Philadelphia Daily News ) history of the early game by the Official Historian of Major League Baseball. Who really invented baseball? Forget Abner Doubleday at Cooperstown and Alexander Cartwright. Meet Daniel Lucius Adams, William Rufus Wheaton, and other fascinating figures buried beneath the falsehoods that have accrued around baseball’s origins. This is the true story of how organized baseball started, how gambling shaped the game from its earliest days, and how it became our national pastime and our national mirror. Baseball in the Garden of Eden draws on original research to tell how the game evolved from other bat-and-ball games and gradually supplanted them, how the New York game came to dominate other variants, and how gambling and secret professionalism promoted and plagued the game. From a religious society’s plot to anoint Abner Doubleday as baseball’s progenitor to a set of scoundrels and scandals far more pervasive than the Black Sox Fix of 1919, this entertaining book is full of surprises. Even the most expert baseball fan will learn something new with almost every page.

Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics was a revolutionary book that caused a sea change in theoretical physics. Here, John von Neumann, one of the leading mathematicians of the twentieth century, shows that great insights in quantum physics can be obtained by exploring the mathematical structure of quantum mechanics. He begins by presenting the theory of Hermitean operators and Hilbert spaces. These provide the framework for transformation theory, which von Neumann regards as the definitive form of quantum mechanics. Using this theory, he attacks with mathematical rigor some of the general problems of quantum theory, such as quantum statistical mechanics as well as measurement processes. Regarded as a tour de force at the time of publication, this book is still indispensable for those interested in the fundamental issues of quantum mechanics.

'You see, if only they didn't speak English in America, then we'd treat it as a foreign country - and probably understand it a lot better' 'the sanest man in America' - Bill Bryson 'Jon Sopel nails it' - Emily Maitlis **With a brand new chapter, charting Trump's first year in power** As the BBC's North America Editor, Jon Sopel has had a pretty busy time of it lately. In the time it's taken for a reality star to go from laughing stock to leader of the free world, Jon has travelled the length and breadth of the United States, experiencing it from a perspective that most of us could only dream of- he has flown aboard Air Force One, interviewed President Obama and has even been described as 'a beauty' by none other than Donald Trump. Through music, film, literature, TV and even through the food we eat and the clothes that we wear we all have a highly developed sense of what America is and through our shared, tangled history we claim a special relationship. But America today feels about as alien a country as you could imagine. It is fearful, angry and impatient for change. In this fascinating, insightful portrait of American life and politics, Jon Sopel sets out to answer our questions about a country that once stood for the grandest of dreams, but which is now mired in a storm of political extremism, racial division and increasingly perverse beliefs.

On a switchback ride through the USA, riding pillion with America's founding fathers, Jonathan Freedland searches out the qualities that made America the land at the end of his childhood rainbow, the place his grandfather and he conspired to run off to because of its open promise and unbounded potential. Noisy, crass, greedy, riddled with crime, riven by race, obsessed by money: America, exporter of junk to the UK. Or is it? From Lesbianville in New Hampshire to Tent City in Arizona, from the high kitsch celebration of Liberace to the Bible Belt austerity of Iowa, from the paranoid militia of rural Montana to Florida's Condo Canyon, this is a journey to the heart of modern America - to Normal, Illinois. On his travels Freedland reveals how Americans control of their own lives, shape their own communities and vibrantly assert their rights. And there's even a twist: the spirit that inspires the American secret is actually our own - a British revolutionary fervour mislaid across the Atlantic. This what has made America the diverse, freedom-loving, self-sufficient, independent icon to the world: the place where socialism never took hold because it is inherent in the founding vision, where capitalism at the same time has reached its apogee; where many cultures contribute to the national fabric and yet the sense of belonging to the nation and reverence for its symbols is unmatched across the globe. It's time Britain shared the vitality: time to reclaim the revolution and bring it home.

"The boldest and most unsettling of the major early modern philosophers, Spinoza, had a much greater, if often concealed, impact on the international intellectual scene and on the early Enlightenment than philosophers, historians, and political theorists have conventionally tended to recognize. Europe-wide efforts to prevent the reading public and university students learning about Spinoza, the man and his work, in the years immediately after his death in 1677, dominated much of his early reception owing to the revolutionary implications of his thought for philosophy, religion, practical ethics and lifestyle, Bible criticism, and political theory. Nevertheless, contrary to what has sometimes been maintained, his general impact was immediate, very widespread, and profound. One of the main objectives of the book is to show how early and how deeply Leibniz, Bayle, Arnauld, Henry More, Anne Conway, Richard Baxter, Robert Boyle, Henry Oldenburg, Pierre-Daniel Huet, Richard Simon, and Nicholas Steno, among many others, were affected by and led to wrestle with his principal ideas"--

Offers a multigenerational series of portraits that follows individuals in their struggle to salvage a heritage devastated by Communism

The best-selling author of Compulsion shares his love for vintage guitars in a lavishly illustrated volume showcasing his own outstanding collection of instruments, accompanied by essays on the history, structure, and unique features of these musical treasures. 30,000 first printing.