#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this inspiring novel from bestselling author Danielle Steel, the life of a Parisian woman changes in a heartbeat when she’s trapped by wildfires in Napa Valley. Born to a French mother and American father, graceful Dahlia de Beaumont has been sole owner and CEO of the venerable family perfume business based in Paris since her early twenties, following the death of her parents. For twenty-five years, after losing her young skier husband in an avalanche, her life has centered on running Lambert Perfumes and being a devoted single mother to her four now-adult children: indecisive Charles, volatile Alexa, kind-hearted business visionary Delphine, and dreamy artist Emma. Now fifty-six, she has an “arrangement” with a married French man but has been questioning that relationship. Dahlia comes to San Francisco on a routine business trip to check on her stores in the States. But shortly after her arrival, brush fires ignite in Napa Valley. Watching the sweeping devastation on the news, Dahlia is moved to help. But doing so will bring unforeseen consequences that endanger not only her life, but her entire future. Forced to remain in San Francisco in the aftermath, she will make unexpected connections while also fighting to protect all she has worked for. What Dahlia learns will provide a new perspective of her life, forever changing what really matters to her and what comes next for her journey. With this uplifting novel, Danielle Steel beautifully dramatizes how life’s unforeseen challenges can sow the seeds for growth and a fresh chance at love—if one is willing to take the risk.

"In 1983, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway in the nicest part of Long Island, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse for wear, and the family begins the hard work of trying to move on with their lives and resume their prized places in the saga of the American dream, coming to understand that though their money may have been what put them in danger, it is also what guaranteed them their safety in the end. But forty years later, when Carl's mother dies and the family comes home to mourn her, it becomes clear that nobody ever really got over anything. Carl's wife, Ruth, has spent her potential protecting her husband's emotional health. Their three grown children are each a mess: Nathan cannot seem to advance at his law firm and may have made a terrible investment with his trust fund; Beamer, a Hollywood screenwriter, will consume anything-substance, foodstuff, women-in order to numb his own perpetual terror; and Jenny has spent her life so bent on proving that she is not a product of the family's pathology that she comes to define it. Then there's Carl himself, the prickly, still-terrified father, who has been secretly seeking closure to the matter of his kidnapping for years, and the unthinkable act he commits that will alter the family's path forever"--

"Thanks to Connor, Lev, and Risa, and their high-profile revolt at Happy Jack Harvest Camp, people can no longer turn a blind eye to unwinding. Ridding society of troublesome teens and, in the same stroke, providing much-needed tissues for transplant might be convenient, but its morality has finally been brought into question. However, unwinding has become big business, and there are powerful political and corporate interests that want to see it not only continue, but expand, allowing the unwinding of prisoners and the impoverished. Cam is a teen who does not exist. He is made entirely out of the parts of other unwinds. Cam, a 21st century Frankenstein, struggles with a search for identity and meaning, as well as the concept of his own soul, if indeed a rewound being can have one. When a sadistic bounty hunter who takes "trophies" from the unwinds he captures starts to pursue Connor, Risa and Lev, Cam finds his fate inextricably bound with theirs"--

A beautiful American widow finds new life in France in this tender portrait from #1 New York Times bestselling author Danielle Steel. Following the unexpected death of her beloved husband, art gallery owner Samantha Thompson finds herself adrift in their Malibu beach house. Her three adult children—scattered from New York to London to Milan—are concerned for her well-being and encourage her to take a trip to Paris. Once abroad, an impulsive day trip from Paris to Biarritz leads Samantha to discover the charming medieval village of Arcangues in the Basque countryside, with its unique and iconic blue shutters and historic château. The château is the ancestral home of Xavier de Bonport, who is trapped in a loveless marriage and trying to dig himself out financially after a business failed due to the pandemic. He needs rental income as urgently as Samantha needs a refuge. With Xavier living in a smaller house on the property, Samantha begins to transform the château into a temporary home. As they each sense compassion and resilience in the other, as well as kindness, a friendship blossoms. Inspired by the stories of Xavier’s grandmother, who saved hundreds of Jewish children during World War II, Samantha considers fostering some children at the request of the local Dominican nuns, whose orphanage is filled to capacity. As a newfound family begins to fill the château, Samantha and Xavier wonder if their friendship is becoming something more. A poignant story of healing and new beginnings, The Color of Hope is an uplifting and unforgettable novel from the master, Danielle Steel.

Jason Steadman is a thirty-year-old sales executive living in Boston and working for a electronics giant, a competitor to Sony and Panasonic. He's a witty, charismatic guy who's well liked at the office, but he lacks the "killer instinct" necessary to move up the corporate ladder. To the chagrin of his ambitious wife, it looks as if his career has hit a ceiling. Jason's been sidelined. But all that will change one evening when Jason meets Kurt Semko, a former Special Forces officer just back from Iraq. Looking for a decent pitcher for the company softball team, Jason gets Kurt, who was once drafted by the majors, a job in Corporate Security. Soon, good things start to happen for Jason - and bad things start to happen to Jason's rivals. His career suddenly takes off. He's an overnight success Only too late does Jason discover that his friend Kurt has been secretly paving his path to the top by the most "efficient" - and ruthless - means available. After all, Kurt says, "Business is war, right?" But when Jason tries to put a stop to it, he finds that his new best friend has become the most dangerous enemy imaginable. And now it's far more than just his career that lies in the balance. A riveting tale of ambition, intrigue, and the price of success, Killer Instinct is Joseph Finder at his best.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A loving mother and successful fashion designer struggles to keep her family together and her business afloat in this gripping novel by #1 New York Times bestselling author Danielle Steel. After working as head designer for Oscar de la Renta, Eugenia Ward started her own company when she turned forty, fourteen years ago. She is now a major name in evening gowns and wedding gowns, ready-to-wear and haute couture. But with the fashion business in major downturn, she has recently suffered heavy losses, and Eugenia desperately needs new investors—and new ideas. At the same time, she is the matriarch and guiding light for her five adult children, a single mother for more than a decade, since her divorce from the spendthrift Italian prince she’d married young. As the family gathers for a summer vacation at a beach house, wedding plans for her daughter Gloria are ballooning in expense even as the loutish behavior of Gloria’s fiancé causes Eugenia to question her daughter’s judgment. Meanwhile, Gloria’s sister Daphne is due to deliver twins right around the wedding date . . . which is also very close make or break New York Fashion Week. The silver lining in it all may be meeting Patrick Hughes, a successful real estate developer who’s also going through a rough patch. A brilliant and creative businessman, Patrick gives her valuable advice about her business challenges. Eugenia finds friendship with Patrick sailing on his yacht and starts to imagine a new beginning, independent of her roles as mother and entrepreneur. But as the family gathers for the big wedding, tensions are running high, money may be running out, and a hurricane is looming on the horizon. Danielle Steel’s glamorous and gripping novel offers an inspiring portrait of a strong and determined woman who rises to meet life’s challenges with fortitude, creativity, and love.

Miss Lonelyhearts is Nathanael West's second novel. He began writing it early in 1930 and completed the manuscript in November of 1932. Published in 1933, it is an Expressionist black comedy set in New York City during the Great Depression. In the story, Miss Lonelyhearts is an unnamed male newspaper columnist writing an advice column for the lovelorn and lonesome, a duty that the other newspaper staff considers a joke. As Miss Lonelyhearts reads letters from desperate New Yorkers, he feels terribly burdened and falls into a cycle of deep depression, accompanied by heavy drinking and occasional bar fights. He is also the victim of the pranks and cynical advice of Shrike, his feature editor at the newspaper. Miss Lonelyhearts tries several approaches to escape the terribly painful letters he has to read: religion, trips to the countryside with his fiancée Betty, and affairs with Shrike's wife and Mrs. Doyle, a reader of his column. However, Miss Lonelyheart's efforts do not seem to ameliorate his situation. After his sexual encounter with Mrs. Doyle, he meets her husband, a poor crippled man. The Doyles invite Miss Lonelyhearts to have dinner with them. When he arrives, Mrs. Doyle tries to seduce him again, but he responds by beating her. Mrs. Doyle tells her husband that Miss Lonelyhearts tried to rape her. In the last scene, Mr. Doyle hides a gun inside a rolled newspaper and decides to take revenge on Miss Lonelyhearts. Lonelyhearts, who has just experienced a religious enlightenment after three days of sickness, runs toward Mr. Doyle to embrace him. The gun "explodes", and the two men roll down a flight of stairs together. The general tone of the novel is one of extreme disillusionment with Depression-era American society, a consistent theme throughout West's novels. However, the novel is a black comedy, characterized by a dark sense of humor and irony. Justus Neiland, among others, has pointed out the use of Bergsonian laughter, in which "the attitudes, gestures, and movements of the human body are laughable in exact proportion as that body reminds us of a machine." The novel can be read through a Marxist lens as a condemnation of alienation and the colonization of social life by commodification, foreshadowing the stance of the Situationists and Guy Debord in particular. Miss Lonelyhearts is unable to fulfill his role as advice giver in a world in which both people and advice (in the form of newspaper ads, for example) are mass-produced. People are machines for the sole purpose of laboring as far as the rest of society is concerned (thus Miss Lonelyhearts' name), and any advice for them is as mass-produced as a manual for a machine. Lonelyhearts is unable to find a personal solution to his problems because they have systemic causes. West, who worked in the newspaper business before writing Miss Lonelyhearts, is also an advice giver of a sort as a novelist. Miss Lonelyhearts is similar to a détournement because it uses a form to critique the same form. The novel also condemns itself by condemning art, which is repeatedly derided by Shrike and compared to religion as an opiate of the masses. Many of the problems described in Miss Lonelyhearts describe actual economic conditions in New York City during the Great Depression, although the novel carefully avoids questions of national politics. Moreover, the novel is particularly important due to its existential import. The characters seem to be living in an amoral world. Hence, they resort to heavy drinking, sex, and parties. Miss Lonelyhearts has a "Christ complex", which stands for his belief in religion as a solution to a world devoid of values. (wikipedia.org)

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n a novel as darkly comic and audaciously ambitious as was Catch-22, Joseph Heller has dared to write the sequel to his American classic, using many of Catch-22's characters, now older if not wiser, to deftly satirize the realities and the myths of America in the half century since they fought World War II. In 1961, Joseph Heller's remarkable first novel made its way immediately into the American psyche and came to symbolize the absurdity of war and of life. Catch-22 was recognized overnight as a classic and has sold nearly ten million copies in the United States alone. It remains perhaps the funniest - and the most serious - novel ever written about war, "an apocalyptic masterpiece, " in the words of one reviewer. Now, thirty-three years later, Joseph Heller has written the sequel. You don't have to have read Catch-22 (But then, who on earth hasn't?) to enjoy Closing Time, which is a fully independent companion work, a comic masterpiece in its own right, in which Heller spears the inflated balloons of our national consciousness - the absurdity of our politics, the decline of society and our great cities, the greed and hypocrisy of our business and culture - with the same ferocious humor that he used against the conventional view of warfare. His characters are those of Catch-22, coming to the end of their lives and the century, as is the entire generation that fought in World War II: Yossarian, and Milo Minderbinder, the chaplain, and such newcomers as little Sammy Singer and giant Lew, all linked, this time in uneasy peace and old age, fighting, not the Germans this time, but The End. Closing Time is outrageously funny and totally serious, and as brilliant and successful as Catch-22itself, a fun-house mirror that captures, at once grotesquely and accurately, the truth about ourselves.

Ingredients: It is the early Sixties. Down the side of a dilapidated synagogue in North-west London, a great partnership is born. Apart, Mal Jones and Solly Princeton are two teenage no-hopers scrabbling about in the dirt. Together they are dynamite: a world-beating team who turn a company selling chicken-soup machines to the Jewish mothers of Edgware into an international hotel and leisure empire. But success is never simple. Before long pressures draw them away from the comforts of their roots. They find themselves cutting corners, taking risks and breaking the law. Finally Mal has to confront his life, his friendship with Solly and where their very different ambitions have led them. Thirty-five years later as sunset ushers in the beginning of Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, Mal, his fortune gone, picks over the ruins of his past with his niece, Natasha. He tells her the story of the Sinai Corporation, of his best friend and business partner, Solly, and at last begins to ask himself: how far must you go before you lose faith in yourself?

A timely exploration of intellectual dogmatism in politics, economics, religion, and literature—and what can be done to fight it Polarization may be pushing democracy to the breaking point. But few have explored the larger, interconnected forces that have set the stage for this crisis: namely, a rise in styles of thought, across a range of fields, that literary scholar Gary Saul Morson and economist Morton Schapiro call “fundamentalist.” In Minds Wide Shut , Morson and Schapiro examine how rigid adherence to ideological thinking has altered politics, economics, religion, and literature in ways that are mutually reinforcing and antithetical to the open-mindedness and readiness to compromise that animate democracy. In response, they propose alternatives that would again make serious dialogue possible. Fundamentalist thinking, Morson and Schapiro argue, is not limited to any one camp. It flourishes across the political spectrum, giving rise to dueling monologues of shouting and abuse between those who are certain that they can’t be wrong, that truth and justice are all on their side, and that there is nothing to learn from their opponents, who must be evil or deluded. But things don’t have to be this way. Drawing on thinkers and writers from across the humanities and social sciences, Morson and Schapiro show how we might begin to return to meaningful dialogue through case-based reasoning, objective analyses, lessons drawn from literature, and more. The result is a powerful invitation to leave behind simplification, rigidity, and extremism—and to move toward a future of greater open-mindedness, moderation, and, perhaps, even wisdom.

Michael Wolff knows Rupert Murdoch, Barry Diller, Jean-Marie Messier, Steve Ross and Ted Turner. He knows what they want, what fuels their appetites and what they can and can't see when they look in the mirror (or the financial pages). And he tells us all he knows in this report.

The updated and revised edition of this business guide provides formulas for every conceivable type of written communication. It gives information on business letters, new technology and communication, and business law, which takes into account recent legislative changes.

Susan and John Carter are crazy about each other. Life is perfect but for one thing - they are on the brink of financial disaster. Surely being a surrogate mother to another man's child won't harm such a strong relationship? Especially when the mysterious Mr Sarotzini is offering to save their home and business - everything they've worked for. What seems to be a perfect solution begins to feel like an impossible situation. Susan's pregnancy is disturbingly painful but no one will tell her why. It becomes apparent that Sarotzini wields immense power and Susan begins to doubt everything she knows. As she realises the terrifying origin of the dark forces Saratzini controls she is in fear for herself and John but most of all for her unborn baby ...

Paul Foster and Niki Greenwood, business barons, bitter rivals, each with an obscure past in central Europe, battle over the acquisition of a small publishing house to prevent publication of a potentially devastating book

Life is hard in post-Civil War New York, but change is in the air. Women are agitating for the vote and other rights. Immigrants are pouring into the city, bringing a new spirit in their wake. Among them is Freydeh, who lives in a tiny tenement flat with eight others and works at as many jobs as she can handle in hopes of raising enough money to bring her beloved family over to America from Russia. And she has a dream: someday, she will own a place and a business of her own. Then she receives a letter - many months after it was first posted - containing devastating news: her parents have died in a cholera epidemic. After their death, Freydeh's sister set off to America without them, all by herself, and according to the letter would have arrived in the port of New York many months earlier. Freydeh is horrified and terrified for her little sister, who appears to be adrift somewhere in the city. Freydeh puts everything else aside and launches a search to find her, which turns into something of a hunt for a needle in a haystack. Interweaved with Freydeh's story is a vividly wrought account of the suffragette movement and the fight to secure women’s rights. SEX WARS is a fascinating novel that only recreates a turbulent period in history but also illustrates the plight and ultimately the triumph of one woman on a quest.

Includes 20 distinguished contemporary writers who have connected with nature & learned why we are inextricably attached to it. In "Against Nature," Joyce Carol Oates explains why writers generally resist nature as a topic. Diane Ackerman swims with a right whale & her calf. John McPhee explores the mystery of the Loch Ness monster & the people who obsess over it. Sherry Simpson looks at the conflict-riddled business of trapping & killing Alaskan wolves. Also, essays by: Mark Doty, Barry Lopez, Vaclav Havel, Bill Bryson, Deborah Archer, Sue Ellen Campbell, Leslie Leyland Fields, John Hales, Hal Herring, Edward Hoagland, Kurt Hoelting, Paul Lindholdt, Leslie Roberts, Lucy Wilson Sherman, & Sandi Wisenberg.

A Gripping Classic That Will Enthrall Old and New Fans of Film Noir Film noir is a genre that reached its peak in the 1940s and 1950s. Characterized by dark lighting and inspired by crime fiction, it often features characters such as a tough-guy hero, mysterious beauties who may or may not be on the level, and prominent people with crimes to hide. The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) is a beloved film in this exciting genre, and in this audio adaptation you will experience the same thrill, as the characters come alive in your mind as you hear their voices from the original motion picture. Itinerant gambler and war hero Sam Masterson (played by Van Heflin) returns to his hometown after 17 years, restarting a drama that left off when he ran away to the circus as a boy. Sam encounters old acquaintances: Martha Ivers (played by Barbara Stanwyck), a former rebellious girl, now a beautiful and formidable businesswoman, and her husband, Walter O'Neil (played by Kirk Douglas), a hard-drinking district attorney tormented by shadows from his past. Sam also meets Toni Marachek, a deep-voiced beauty just paroled from prison, whom he rescues and befriends. Sam's encounters with Martha, Toni, and Walter start a game in which characters vie to assess and manipulate one another's motives. The audio unravels a series of events that dredge up unwholesome secrets from the past and plunge the characters into a passionate melodrama with a bloody ending. With a tight, well-constructed plot that hinges on its characters' strengths and weaknesses, threats of blackmail, and a tension between cynicism and decency, this gripping story will delight and captivate longtime fans of film noir as well as newcomers to the genre.

Explores the structural and political relations of the Atlantic trade in the 18th century

E. Phillips Oppenheim (1866 1946) was one of the most popular and successful writers of spy fiction in the early twentieth century, and was known in his time as the Prince of Storytellers. He was the author of more than 100 novels. Edward Phillips Oppenheim (22 October 1866 - 3 February 1946) was an English novelist, in his lifetime a major and successful writer of genre fiction including thrillers.Edward Phillips Oppenheim was born 22 October 1866 in Leicester, the son of Henrietta Susannah Temperley Budd and Edward John Oppenheim, a leather merchant. He worked in his father's business for almost twenty years. He went to Wyggeston Grammar School.Oppenheim's literary success enabled him to buy a villa in France and a yacht, then a house in Guernsey, though he lost access to this during the Second World War. Afterwards he regained the house, le Vanquiédor in St. Peter Port, and he died there on 3 February 1946