The fast-paced and “engrossing account” ( The New York Times Book Review ) of “one of the greatest breakthroughs in archaeological history” ( The Christian Science Monitor ): two rival geniuses in a race to decode the writing on one of the world’s most famous documents—the Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone is one of the most famous objects in the world, attracting millions of visitors to the British museum every year, and yet most people don’t really know what it is. Discovered in a pile of rubble in 1799, this slab of stone proved to be the key to unlocking a lost language that baffled scholars for centuries. Carved in ancient Egypt, the Rosetta Stone carried the same message in different languages—in Greek using Greek letters, and in Egyptian using picture-writing called hieroglyphs. Until its discovery, no one in the world knew how to read the hieroglyphs that covered every temple and text and statue in Egypt. Dominating the world for thirty centuries, ancient Egypt was the mightiest empire the world had ever known, yet everything about it—the pyramids, mummies, the Sphinx—was shrouded in mystery. Whoever was able to decipher the Rosetta Stone would solve that mystery and fling open a door that had been locked for two thousand years. Two brilliant rivals set out to win that prize. One was English, the other French, at a time when England and France were enemies and the world’s two great superpowers. Written “like a thriller” ( Star Tribune , Minneapolis), The Writing of the Gods chronicles this high-stakes intellectual race in which the winner would win glory for both himself and his nation. A riveting portrait of empires both ancient and modern, this is an unparalleled look at the culture and history of ancient Egypt, “and also a lesson…in what the human mind does when faced with a puzzle” ( The New Yorker ).

“Together, Rockliff and Bruno make the scientific method seem exciting, and kids interested in science and history will likely be, well, mesmerized.” — Booklist (starred review) When American inventor Benjamin Franklin arrives in Paris, he is upstaged by a compelling and enigmatic figure: Dr. Mesmer. In elaborately staged shows, Mesmer has Parisians believing he can control a magic force that changes the taste of water, cures illness, and controls thoughts! Can Ben Franklin’s approach of observing, hypothesizing, and testing get to the bottom of Mesmer’s tricks? A rip-roaring, lavishly illustrated peek into a fascinating moment in history shows the development of the scientific method — and reveals the amazing power of the human mind.

Sometimes you can't escape your past...Secrets and glamour from the bestselling author of A PRIVATE AFFAIR and SOUL SISTERS 'A glam-packed, thrilling read' GRAZIA 'An epic, handbag-stretching tome packed with love, secrets, lies and glamour' HEAT Known as 'The Ice Queen', Anneliese Zander de St Phalle is one of the world's most celebrated fashion designers. With an empire that stretches across continents, she's a truly global brand, in every sense. Yet despite her success, she's a mystery; a reclusive disciplined perfectionist who rarely grants interviews. She's successful and she's talented, and that's all anyone needs to know. Anneliese never talks about her past - not even to her only daughter, Callan. She's worked hard to leave it all behind her and it's a time and place to which Anneliese will never return. Or so she thinks. At an exclusive New Year's Eve party at her glamorous island hideaway, a woman appears whom Anneliese has done her best to forget. On the cusp of her retirement, at the height of Anneliese' fame, the stranger brings a story that demands to be told. To Anneliese's horror, the past cannot be left behind; it is here, part and parcel of the present, despite everything she's done to forget it...

Howard Engel, an internationally published and award-winning mystery writer, takes dead aim, so to speak, at this fascination we all share, and produces a wonderfully wise and witty social history of the men and women who represent our agents of death, and have done our dirty work over the centuries. 60 photos and line drawings.

Peter S. Beagle is the author of the beloved fantasy classic The Last Unicorn. Now, with Janet Berliner, he has gathered fantastic tales of unicorns combined with the theme of immortality by of the finest writers in the genre, including Karen Joy Fowler, Charles de Lint, Ellen Kushner, Tad Williams, Robert Sheckley, Dave Wolverton, and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. New in this edition is Julie's Unicorn, a story written especially for the anthology Beagle himself. Each tale celebrates the myth and mystery of one of fantasy's most enduring, and bestselling, subjects: unicorns!

Deep in debt to Tough City's biggest boss, DeCameron Wichita takes a missing persons job that he oughtn't've and makes the biggest rookie mistake a guy like him could make: he falls in love. With a stone-cold killer. But because he never does anything half-way, he also interferes with a blood feud, challenges Da Cherch, butts heads with pornographers, goes on the lam from the FTCP, saves a damsel in distress, jumps out of a flying machine, puts on a dress, goes to the movies, and visits his mom. Oh yeah, and punches a whole lotta people. Just like any other day in Tough City. Only it wasn't any other day. It was Tuesday.

"Nearly every family has a skeleton in its closet, an ancestor who "sins" against custom and tradition and pays a double price. Karen Tintori refused to allow the truth to remain forgotten. This is a book for anyone who shares the conviction that all history, in the end, is family history."--Frank Viviano, author of Blood Washes Blood and Dispatches from the Pacific Century "Many books are called ‘page-turners' by reviewers, but this one will truly have you glued to the turning pages for hours."-- Comunes of Italy Magazine " Unto the Daughters reads like a nonfiction version of the film Godfather II--if it had been told from the point of view of a female Corleone."--Eleni N. Gage, author of North of Ithaka Karen Tintori thought she knew her family tree. Her grandmother Josie had immigrated from Sicily with her parents at the turn of the century. They settled in Detroit, and with Josie's eight siblings, worked to create a home for themselves away from the poverty and servitude of the old country. Their descendants were proud Italian-Americans. But Josie had a sister that nobody spoke of. Her name was Frances, and at age sixteen, she fell in love with a young barber. Her father wanted her to marry an older don in the neighborhood mafia--a marriage that would give his sons a leg up in the mob. But Frances eloped with her barber. And when she returned a married woman, her father and brothers killed her for it. Her family then erased her from its collective memory. Even 80 years and two generations later, Frances and her death were not spoken of, her name was erased from the family genealogy, her pictures burned, and her memory suppressed. Unto the Daughters is a historical mystery and family story that unwraps the many layers of family, honor, memory, and fear to find an honor killing in turn of the century Detroit. "Many books are called ‘page-turners' by reviewers, but this one will truly have you glued to the turning pages for hours. It's a must read for anyone researching their Italian ancestry."-- Comunes of Italy Magazine KAREN TINTORI is a writer and journalist who lives in Michigan with her family. Karen's books include Trapped, a 2002 Chicago Tribune favorite book, and The Book of Names (co-author), among others. Visit her website at: www. karentintori .com

Five years in the making, the Edgeworks Abbey Archive represents Harlan Ellison's last word on his written legacy. Researched and edited by Ellison's long-time associate, Jason Davis, under the supervision of Harlan and Susan Ellison, this collection assembles the preferred texts of each story and essay along with previously uncollected and unpublished material to create the definitive edition.HONORABLE WHOREDOM AT A PENNY A WORD collects the hard-boiled fiction Ellison wrote for the mystery/suspense digests of the 1950s, along with a few later contributions to the genre from the men's magazines of the 1960s. In these pages, you will find Ellison's only recurring character, insurance investigator-turned-fixer Jerry Killian, as well as the diminutive private dick Big John Novak, a character intended to continue, but only appearing in one suspenseful outing. His aborted second appearance, "In Small Packages," makes its debut herein, alongside a pair of first drafts that showcase the rapid development of Ellison's craft across his first years as a professional writer-a time when pros were paid a penny a word.

" The human race is the only one that knows it must die, and it knows this only through its experience. " - Voltaire A timeless study of the 'Experience of Death' by a thinker who was to die early in a German concentration camp. He writes with a freshness and vitality rarely met with in works of philosophy. Also includes "The Moral Problem of Suicide". One of the great masterpieces of 20th Century philosophy, its investigation and analysis of the "Experience of Death" is as searching and significant as that of Martin Heidegger in 'Being and Time'. For many years unavailable and therefore underestimated, this publication includes the two works by Landsberg that accompany each other the best: 'The Experience of Death' and 'The Moral Problem of Suicide'. Editor Edouard d'Araille here presents a revised version of Margaret Kerr's accurate translation. Paul-Louis Landsberg was a philosopher who was closely associated with the group of Parisian thinkers embracing Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Emmanuel Mounier and others. He has been classified as an Existentialist thinker, due both to the subject matter of his work and realistic, humanistic approach he takes. However, it should be borne in mind that Landsberg is Christian in faith, and he approaches the topics of death and suicide both from a Christian and a secular point-of-view. It is especially interesting to see how he tackles the controversial issue of suicide from the standpoint of Christianity - an act seen by some branches of that religion as a mortal sin, making its agent unworthy of Christian burial. FEATURES - This Living Time(TM) Press edition of Paul-Louis Landsberg's masterpiece includes: The Complete Texts of these key works - ' The Experience of Death ' and ' On the Moral Problem of Suicide ' A Biographical Sketch of Paul-Louis Landsberg Textual Annotations to both works, included at the end of the volume A Select Bibliography of his philosophical works B&W illustration as a frontispiece to the work (relating to the ' Intermezzo in the Bull Ring ') The core contents of the two philosophical essays are as follows: The Experience of Death I. The State of the Question II. The Limitations of Scheler's Answer III. Individualism and the Experience of Death IV. The Death of a Friend, and the Experience of "Repetition" V. The Ontological Basis VI. The Death of a Friend, according to the Fourth Book of the Confessions of St. Augustine VII. The Forms of Experience of Death VIII. Intermezzo in the Bull Ring IX. The Christian Experience of Death The Moral Problem of Suicide 1. Traditional Arguments 2. A Personal View Though both of these works are deeply personal and it is true that Landsberg is a Christian by denomination, in no way does he implore the reader to take up his own faith and he presents ideas and perspectives that are of equal interest to the atheist. The reader will find it valuable to read Heidegger's analysis of death in 'Being and Time' alongside this book, as it presents a wholly atheistic existential analysis that contrasts interestingly with this one. " What is the meaning of death to the human being as a person? The question admits of no conclusion, for we are dealing with the very mystery of man, taken from a certain aspect. Every real problem in philosophy contains all the others in the unity of mystery. It is necessary, therefore, to set a limit and seek a basis in experience for any possible answer: there are always problems of the utmost importance left on one side. Our enquiry would seem inevitable in the present state of philosophy, for we are far from having a metaphysics of death, as we have of life. " - Paul-

Search-Cover"I was four years old when my father came back to kidnap me," begins this gripping memoir about Matousek's search for James Matousek, the drifter father he never knew. Described by the New York Times as " part reminiscence, part detective story, part spiritual musing," this memoir is more than the story of one man's search for his father; it is also a look at the meaning of life and how fathers contribute to that meaning. Growing up in a family of troubled women (Matousek's sister committed suicide when the author was 29), he describes the turmoil of growing up "fatherless in America" - an experience shared by millions of children in what sociologists have called the Age of the Absent Father - and the difficult, ultimately successful, struggle to figure out what being a man really means in an age of shifting definitions, evolving sexuality, and "breaking out the man box" of stereotyping and patriarchy. With the tension of a mystery story, the climax occurs when Matousek meets a man he believes to be his father. But is he? And does Matousek, who has reconciled with his mother as she lay dying, really care? These are just two questions leading to this memoir's surprising conclusion. Praise for The Boy He Left Behind "Mark Matousek's memoir The Boy He Left Behind begins with the gripping sentence, 'I was four years old when my father came back to kidnap.' Part reminiscence, part detective story, part spiritual musing, the book is more than the story of one man's search for his father, it is also a look at the meaning of life and how fathers contribute to that meaning." -The New York Times Book Review "This thoughtful and lovingly rendered portrait of an American childhood is a refreshing addition to the genre. Matousek not only tells his own story but brilliantly evokes the troubled lives of his mother and sisters with humor, honesty, and above all, compassion." -Kathleen Norris, author of The Cloister Walk and Amazing Grace "A riveting story in the hands of a master storyteller. Mark Matousek has written a family memoir that is tight and revealing. This is one fine book." -James McBride, author of The Color of Water "[A] searing memoir....The writing is exhilarating...deeply soulful, compassionate, and self-scrutinizing. It is an explosive memoir filled with prose that sings, one that provokes readers to question where we come from and what our places are in this world. Matousek...writes from the heart. Read this book" -Los Angeles Magazine "Matousek's account of his search for the father he hadn't seen since he was four [is] sharp and funny, thanks to the punchy dialogue and dead-on character sketches." -Elle "Interweaving the frustrating suspenseful search for his long-lost father with unsparing recollections of a fatherless boyhood and his confrontation with a life-threatening disease, Mark Matousek expertly guides you through the particulars of his life into a harrowing meditation on the difficulties of becoming a man in a country without fathers. The Boy He Left Behind is beautifully crafted, artful and inspiring. It merits a place alongside the late Paul Monette's masterwork, Becoming a Man; Half a Life Story. Like Monette, Matousek's triumph is twofold - In the book he has written, and in the man he has become. Matousek's probing memoir of lost childhood and found history celebrates the power of manhood." -The Utne Reader "Mark Matousek has produced [a] riveting account of his search-at age 38, with the help of a private detective-for the father who abandoned him at age four. A searing meditation on the psychic harm suffered by men and women without fathers, this wise odyssey wrestles with questions of life and death and the search for the meaning of one's existence." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

This new and attractively printed and illustrated edition of "The Other Side of the Jordan" serves to portray one of the greatest single-handed archaeological achievements of the century. The desert and the sown land – what special fascination this gives to the study of the Near East! In between them to this day are a floating population. Sometimes they settled and built towns. More often they roamed with their flocks, home-base being where they grew one crop a year on marginal land. Many are the theories to explain them, who they are and what they have accomplished. Yet what are the facts? What actually can one find out by travel on foot, horseback, or camel, living among present Bedouin to search the hills and valleys for evidence of a past they have long forgotten? Here is the story of what one man found out about this mystery in a search of many years, between 1932 and 1947. Its main conclusions are today still true – an important new chapter in the ancient story of man.