List

Responding to advertisements in local newspapers, Iowans shared their favourite ghost stories with the authors of this volume. This collection of bone-chilling tales, some handed down for generations, evokes the ghostly Iowa of the past.

Ghostly apparitions, both friendly and hostile, have been a part of human folklore and literature since ancient times. Haunted Houses examines countless homes throughout the world which have had or continue to experience hauntings. The reader is provided with abundant evidence of hauntings including quotations from ghost hunters, frightened residents, and ghostly communications.

Combining fact, fiction, and hands-on activities, Frightlopedia is an illustrated A-Z collection of some of the world’s most frightening places, scariest stories, and gruesomest creatures, both real and imagined.

Discover Borneo’s Gomantong Cave, where literally millions of bats, cockroaches, spiders, and rats coexist—in pitch darkness. Learn about mythical creatures like the Mongolian Death Worm—and scarily real ones like killer bees, which were accidentally created by scientists in the 1950s. Visit New Orleans’s Beauregard-Keyes house, where Civil War soldiers are said to still clash in the front hall. Plus ghost stories from around the world, a cross-cultural study of vampires, and how to transform into a zombie with makeup. Each entry includes a “Fright Meter” measurement from 1 to 3, because while being scared is fun, everyone has their limit.


 

Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. 

Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.

The Devil in the White City draws the reader into the enchantment of the Guilded Age, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. Erik Larson’s gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.

Sorrowful widows, vengeful jezebels, innocent maidens, wronged lovers, former slaves, even the occasional axe-murderess—America’s female ghosts differ widely in background, class, and circumstance. Yet one thing unites them: their ability to instill fascination and fear, long after their deaths. Here are the full stories behind some of the best-known among them, as well as the lesser-known—though no less powerful.

Tales whispered in darkness often divulge more about the teller than the subject. America’s most famous female ghosts, from from ‘Mrs. Spencer’ who haunted Joan Rivers’ New York apartment to Bridget Bishop, the first person executed during the Salem witchcraft trials, mirror each era’s fears and prejudices. Yet through urban legends and campfire stories, even ghosts like the nameless hard-working women lost in the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire —achieve a measure of power and agency in death, in ways unavailable to them as living women.

Riveting for skeptics and believers alike, with humor, curiosity, and expertise, A Haunted History of Invisible Women offers a unique lens on the significant role these ghostly legends play both within the spook-seeking corners of our minds and in the consciousness of a nation.

"A Haunted History of Invisible Women looks beyond the legends of maligned female ghosts and gives us their real histories. It is both a meditation on the misogyny of a ghost-hunting culture that capitalizes on false narratives of sex and death, and a fascinating look at the flesh-and-blood women behind the ghost stories. This book is a long-overdue search for historic truth, yet it recognizes that “When it comes to ghosts, truth is as elusive as the spirits themselves.” —Chris Woodyard, Author of The Victorian Book of the Dead.

From haunted mansions, airplanes, and lighthouses, to the "sightings" of relatives who died long ago, many people are convinced that ghosts are real and walk among us. Using real-life stories, this book examines some of the most interesting ghosts and hauntings, how ghost hunters go about their work, and scientific theories that attempt to explain paranormal phenomena.

Perfect for fans of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark! A shiver-inducing collection of short stories to read under the covers, from a breadth of American Indian nations.

Some of the creatures in these pages might only have a message for you, but some are the stuff of nightmares. These thirty-two short stories -- from tales passed down for generations to accounts that could have happened yesterday -- are collected from the thriving tradition of ghost stories from American Indian cultures across North America. Prepare for stories of witches and walking dolls, hungry skeletons, La Llorona and Deer Woman, and other supernatural beings ready to chill you to the bone

If you believe that all you need to fight an evil bloodthirsty fiend is garlic or holy water, think again. What you need is to keep a cool head and reach for your copy of Atlas of Monsters and Ghosts

Have you heard of the headless man roaming Edinburgh Castle? Or the mysterious girl who asks for a ride to the cemetery and then disappears into the night? What about orcs, trolls, gremlins, krakens, bunyips and the Yara-Ma-Yha-Who?

Join famous monster hunter Van Helsing on a trip around the globe to find haunted castles, restless spirits, terrifying dragons, wicked witches, and more. Learn the defining characteristics of each beast, where it can be found and--most importantly--how to defeat it.

"Is there anybody out there?" No matter how rationally we order our lives, few of us are completely immune to the suggestion of the uncanny and the fear of the dark. What explains sightings of ghosts? Why do they fascinate us? What exactly do those who have been haunted see? What did they believe? And what proof is there?

Taking us through the key hauntings that have obsessed the world, from the true events that inspired Henry James's classic The Turn of the Screw right up to the present day, Roger Clarke unfolds a story of class conflict, charlatans, and true believers. The cast list includes royalty and prime ministers, Samuel Johnson, John Wesley, Harry Houdini, and Adolf Hitler. The chapters cover everything from religious beliefs to modern developments in neuroscience, the medicine of ghosts, and the technology of ghosthunting. There are haunted WWI submarines, houses so blighted by phantoms they are demolished, a seventeenth-century Ghost Hunter General, and the emergence of the Victorian flash mob, where hundreds would stand outside rumored sites all night waiting to catch sight of a dead face at a window.

Written as grippingly as the best ghost fiction, A Natural History of Ghosts takes us on an unforgettable hunt through the most haunted places of the last five hundred years and our longing to believe.

As a former private investigator and forensic writer, Joe Nickell has spent much of his career identifying forged documents, working undercover to infiltrate theft rings, and investigating questioned deaths. Now he turns his considerable investigative skill toward the paranormal, researching the most well-known and mysterious phenomena all over the world—spontaneous human combustion, UFO visitations, auras, electronic poltergeists, and many, many more—with an eye toward solving these mysteries rather than promoting or dismissing them. Real-Life X-Files: Investigating the Paranormal examines the cases of over forty paranormal mysteries. Using a hands-on approach, Nickell visits the scene of the so-called unexplainable activity whenever possible and attempts to physically duplicate the miraculous. Whether he’s inflicting stigmata on himself or recreating the liquefying blood of Saint Januarius, Nickell does whatever necessary to eliminate the probable before considering the supernatural. What is left is that much more fascinating. Nickell reports on familiar legends from American history such as the supernatural events surrounding Abraham Lincoln’s death and the supposed crash landing of an alien spacecraft near Roswell, New Mexico. He closely examines claims of the miraculous, from rose petals bearing the likeness of Jesus to photographs of a “golden door” to heaven. Controversial mysteries such as clairvoyance and “spirit painting,” haunted places, and freaks of nature are just a few of the many topics covered. Suspenseful, engrossing, funny, and grounded in scientific methodology, Real-Life X-Files provides real explanations for the “paranormal” activities that have intrigued human beings for centuries.

The real-life adventures of the paranormal investigators-slash-plumbers who star in the #1 hit Sci Fi Channel television show Ghost Hunters.

The Atlantic Paranormal Society, also known as T.A.P.S., is the brainchild of two plumbers by day, paranormal investigators by night: Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson. Their hair-raising investigations, fueled by their unique abilities and a healthy dose of scientific method, have made them the subject of a hit TV show: the SCI FI Channel's Ghost Hunters.

Jason and Grant recount for us, with the help of veteran author Michael Jan Friedman, the stories of some of their most memorable investigations. The men and women of T.A.P.S. pursue ghosts and other supernatural phenomena with the most sophisticated scientific equipment available -- from thermal-imaging cameras to electromagnetic-field recorders to digital thermometers -- and the results may surprise you. Featuring both cases depicted on Ghost Hunters and earlier T.A.P.S. adventures never told before now, this funny, fascinating, frightening collection will challenge everything you thought you knew about the spirit world.

Thirty classic creepy tales of ghostly hauntings, eerie happenings, and other strange occurrences.

This amazing collection contains entries on everything from the bizarre to the horrific, and from the spooky to the just plain confounding. The book gives essential background information on the events and the people involved, discusses the impact of particular myths and beliefs, and provides updates on the latest investigations being undertaken in an attempt to find answers to these baffling phenomena. From Loch Ness to Bigfoot, spontaneous combustion to Roswell, each entry is supported with sidebars related to pop culture, and comes with a wealth of photographs.

A mysterious collection of photographs depicting ghosts and other phenomena from around the world.|"The Paranormal Caught on Film" is a mysterious and mesmerizing collection of photographs depicting ghosts and other extraordinary phenomena from around the world.Believers will marvel at the range of unexplained activity captured on camera and sceptics will not be able to resist debating the provenance of these enigmatic images.Five chapters cover everything from the unfathomable to the downright spooky: mediums and spiritualists producing bizarre phenomena, eery lights, fogs and auras, astonishing appearances, levitating children and flying objects.Each compelling picture is accompanied by illuminating commentary from ghost expert and psychical investigator, Dr Melvyn Willin.

Ghosts are the single most common paranormal experience, fascinating and frightening to people of all ages. What makes some people linger on beyond the grave? Are ghosts real, are they imagined, or are they some weird aberration of time and space? ""Ghosts and Haunted Places"" will examine the history, folklore, science, technology, and personal experience of ghosts and hauntings, as well as the major themes in ghostlore. Featuring accounts of true cases and scenarios, this fascinating book explores the different types of ghosts and hauntings and their possible explanations, as well as the major figures and groups involved in ghost research throughout history. Special information is provided for readers who wish to conduct their own ghost hunts or haunting investigations.

Do ghosts exist? Groups of ghost hunters are bringing modern technology to bear in seeking answers to this age-old question. This book tells how ghost hunters go about their investigations--using devices such as those that monitor or measure changes in light, sound, and temperature--and to what extent they have succeeded. It also examines the divide between those who see ghost hunting as science and those who see it as something less.

From werewolves and vampires to ghosts and witches, prepare to unearth the legends and mysteries surrounding some of the most feared monsters in the world. This stunning bindup is packed with amazing artwork and legendary stories.

Zonia's home is the Amazon rain forest, where it is always green and full of life. Every morning, the rain forest calls to Zonia, and every morning, she answers. She visits the sloth family, greets the giant anteater, and runs with the speedy jaguar. But one morning, the rain forest calls to her in a troubled voice. How will Zonia answer?
 

Macaws squawk, snakes coil, and monkeys swing. Follow true-to-size rain forest animals as they journey through a noisy, colorful ecosystem like no other on Earth.

Bright, realistic illustrations of a busy Amazon rain forest depict a plethora of creatures-- all drawn at life size!-- going about their daily lives, from a family of three-toed sloths to a four-page, forty inch wide, foldout of an anteater. Budding conservationists will love this immersive introduction to one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. Over half the world's plant and animal species live in tropical rain forests such as the Amazon. Protecting rain forests from the devastating effects of logging, mining, and climate change is essential to ensure the survival of so many fascinating creatures.

A glossary, description of the four layers of the rainforest, an index, a map of rainforests worldwide, and a section on protecting rain forests are included in the backmatter of this well-researched, beautiful picture book.

 

A colorful rainforest adventure awaits! You’ll meet the many wild and even endangered animals that call the rainforest their home.
Did you know that jaguars can live 12-15 years in the wild, and that a toucan's beak looks heavy but is actually hollow and light? Discover many more fascinating facts about rainforest animals in this children’s nature book!
 

Rainforests cover only a small amount of the planet, but they have more unique plants and animals than anywhere else on Earth.

Packed with beautiful and engaging photos, this new Level 2 reader reveals the layers of rainforests, the difference between temperate and tropical rainforests, and some of the amazing animals that live in these ecosystems.

A fundamental look at a common food chain in the rainforest, starting with the cacao tree, ending with the powerful jaguar, and introducing various animals in between.

Children will love the photos of the exotic baby animals that live in rain forests around the world, such as tigers, monkeys, lemurs, elephants, and sloths. Young readers will also learn about the different kinds of rain forests and discover what life is like for baby animals in both wet and dry seasons.

Tropical rainforests are home to brilliantly colored birds and spider monkeys that swing like acrobats. Here, tiny tadpoles, lizards, and crabs live in sky-high penthouse mini-ponds formed in the leaves of rootless plants. The understory and forest floor swarm with insects, worms, frogs, toads, and millions of marching army ants. But beware! There are poisonous butterflies, frogs, and insects; venomous snakes; and plants that can paralyze.

Rainforests are a fascinating nonfiction topic for children, and this book is an engaging introduction to all aspects of this amazing environment. Starting with the essential question, "What is a rainforest?" Rainforests by James Harrison covers the geography, climate, the diverse and colorful animal life, and the people and resources we find there. 

Meg Lowman was always fascinated by the natural world above her head — the colors, the branches, and, most of all, the leaves and mysterious organisms living there. Meg set out to climb up and investigate the rain forest tree canopies — and to be the first scientist to do so. But she encountered challenge after challenge. Male teachers would not let her into their classrooms, the high canopy was difficult to get to, and worst of all, people were logging and clearing the forests. Meg never gave up or gave in. She studied, invented, and persevered, not only creating a future for herself as a scientist, but making sure that the rainforests had a future as well. Working closely with Meg Lowman, author Heather Lang and artist Jana Christy beautifully capture Meg's world in the treetops.

Step inside the fascinating world of tropical rainforests where you’ll encounter an enormous variety of flora and fauna! This gorgeously illustrated picture book is a wonderful way to introduce kids to the world of nature and conservation.

The rainforests are bursting with life! Sweep aside the liana vines, hop over the giant roots of the kapok tree, and discover magnificent tigers roaming the jungle. In this enchanting children’s book, you’ll discover amazing rainforest animals, learn about the diverse range of life-giving plants, and find out why the Amazon rainforest is known as the “lungs” of our Earth. 
 

Under the canopy of the rainforest hundreds of animals make their homes, but up in the leaves hides another world. Discover the wonder that lies hidden among the roots, above the winding rivers, and under the emerald leaves of the rainforest.

Into the Rainforest is a beautifully designed reader that will take you into this extraordinary habitat to discover what calls it home.

Explains what tropical rain forests are like, looks at the plants and animals that live in rain forests, and includes information on why tropical rain forests are important and what is being done to save them.

Kids to the rescue!

In this fact-stuffed children’s science book, we follow rainforest expert Ollie on an exciting mission to rescue a lost baby orangutan in the steamy rainforest of Borneo. Accompanied by engineering expert Kiki, they set out in a glider to search for the friendly ape.

Along the way, they encounter greedy plantation owners who are plotting to destroy the forest to expand a palm oil plantation! They also learn about the threat that endangered animals and plants face due to deforestation. Kids will love turning the pages to find out if the Secret Explorers manage to succeed in their mission!
 

Readers will learn how scientists use camera-trap technology to study woolly monkeys in the Manu Biosphere Reserve. These camera traps helped scientists discover information about the woolly monkeys' diet, behavior, and habitat. Known as the rainforest's gardeners, their activities and behaviors are essential to the survival of the trees and animals in the rainforest. Scientists must learn more to save this keystone species and protect the rainforests.

Lynne Cherry journeyed deep into the rain forests of Brazil to write and illustrate this gorgeous picture book about a man who exhausts himself trying to chop down a giant kapok tree. While he sleeps, the forest's residents, including a child from the Yanomamo tribe, whisper in his ear about the importance of trees and how "all living things depend on one another" . . . and it works.

Cherry's lovingly rendered colored pencil and watercolor drawings of all the "wondrous and rare animals" evoke the lush rain forests. Features stunning world maps bordered by detailed illustrations of fascinating rainforest creatures.

This book includes an overview of rain forests as well as a map showing where they are located. Beautiful, rich, oversized photos enhance the pages along with basic information and an additional factoid about the specific animals living in rain forests.

Come along on an adventure through the rain forest. Along the way, you'll meet new friends big and small, see amazing sights, and learn all about the creatures that make their home in the rain forest.

How would you handle being rained on every day? Monkeys swing, birds sing, and insects scurry. Learn how animals of the rain forest thrive in wet weather.

Rain Forest takes an in-depth look at the sprawling trees and dense undergrowth of the ecosystem of the rain forest and welcomes young readers into the world of tigers, snakes, and chimpanzees, as well as marmosets, katydids, and sloths.

In every person's story, there is something to hide...

The tranquility is shattered by a woman's terrified scream. Security guards take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers, who'd happened to sit at the same table, pass the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning--it just happens that one is a murderer.

Alex has all but given up on her dreams of becoming a published author when she receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: attend an exclusive, month-long writing retreat at the estate of feminist horror writer Roza Vallo. Even the knowledge that Wren, her former best friend and current rival, is attending doesn’t dampen her excitement.

But when the attendees arrive, Roza drops a bombshell—they must all complete an entire novel from scratch during the next month, and the author of the best one will receive a life-changing seven-figure publishing deal. Determined to win this seemingly impossible contest, Alex buckles down and tries to ignore the strange happenings at the estate, including Roza’s erratic behavior, Wren’s cruel mind games, and the alleged haunting of the mansion itself. But when one of the writers vanishes during a snowstorm, Alex realizes that something very sinister is afoot. With the clock running out, she must discover the truth—or suffer the same fate.

Olivia Limoges and the Bayside Book Writers are excited about Oyster Bay's newest resident: bestselling novelist Nick Plumley, who's come to work on his next book. But when Olivia stops by Plumley's rental she finds that he's been strangled to death. Her instincts tell her that something from the past came back to haunt him, but she never expects that the investigation could spell doom for one of her dearest friends...

What is the role of literature in an era when one political party wages continual war on writers and the press? What is the connection between political strife in our daily lives, and the way we meet our enemies on the page in fiction? How can literature, through its free exchange, affect politics?

In this galvanizing guide to literature as resistance, Nafisi seeks to answer these questions. Drawing on her experiences as a woman and voracious reader living in the Islamic Republic of Iran, her life as an immigrant in the United States, and her role as literature professor in both countries, she crafts an argument for why, in a genuine democracy, we must engage with the enemy, and how literature can be a vehicle for doing so.

In the introduction to her new collection of essays, Ex Libris: 100+ Books to Read and Reread, Michiko Kakutani writes: “In a world riven by political and social divisions, literature can connect people across time zones and zip codes, across cultures and religions, national boundaries and historical eras. It can give us an understanding of lives very different from our own, and a sense of the shared joys and losses of human experience.”
 
Readers will discover novels and memoirs by some of the most gifted writers working today; favorite classics worth reading or rereading; and nonfiction works, both old and new, that illuminate our social and political landscape and some of today’s most pressing issues, from climate change to medicine to the consequences of digital innovation. There are essential works in American history (The Federalist Papers, The Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.); books that address timely cultural dynamics (Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction, Daniel J. Boorstin’s The Image, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale); classics of children’s literature (the Harry Potter novels, Where the Wild Things Are); and novels by acclaimed contemporary writers like Don DeLillo, William Gibson, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Ian McEwan.

The Diary of a Bookseller is Shaun Bythell's funny and fascinating memoir of a year in the life at the helm of The Bookshop, in the small village of Wigtown, Scotland—and of the delightfully odd locals, unusual staff, eccentric customers, and surreal buying trips that make up his life there as he struggles to build his business . . . and be polite . . .

When Bythell first thought of taking over the store, it seemed like a great idea: The Bookshop is Scotland's largest second-hand store, with over one hundred thousand books in a glorious old house with twisting corridors and roaring fireplaces, set in a tiny, beautiful town by the sea. It seemed like a book-lover's paradise . . .
 
Until Bythell did indeed buy the store.
 
In this wry and hilarious diary, he tells us what happened next—the trials and tribulations of being a small businessman; of learning that customers can be, um, eccentric; and of wrangling with his own staff of oddballs (such as ski-suit-wearing, dumpster-diving Nicky). And perhaps none are quirkier than the charmingly cantankerous bookseller Bythell himself turns out to be.

But then too there are the buying trips to old estates and auctions, with the thrill of discovery, as well as the satisfaction of pressing upon people the books that you love . . .

On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who?

Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.

Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories.

But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds.

Bookish high school student Rintaro Natsuki is about to close the secondhand bookstore he inherited from his beloved bookworm grandfather. Then, a talking cat appears with an unusual request. The feline asks for—or rather, demands—the teenager’s help in saving books with him. The world is full of lonely books left unread and unloved, and the cat and Rintaro must liberate them from their neglectful owners. 

Their mission sends this odd couple on an amazing journey, where they enter different mazes to set books free. Through their travels, the cat and Rintaro meet a man who leaves his books to perish on a bookshelf, an unwitting book torturer who cuts the pages of books into snippets to help people speed read, and a publishing drone who only wants to create bestsellers. Their adventures culminate in one final, unforgettable challenge—the last maze that awaits leads Rintaro down a realm only the bravest dare enter . . .

A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading with murderous attention, must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.

When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the bestselling crime writer for years, she’s intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. An homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Alan’s traditional formula has proved hugely successful. So successful that Susan must continue to put up with his troubling behavior if she wants to keep her job.

Conway’s latest tale has Atticus Pünd investigating a murder at Pye Hall, a local manor house. Yes, there are dead bodies and a host of intriguing suspects, but the more Susan reads, the more she’s convinced that there is another story hidden in the pages of the manuscript: one of real-life jealousy, greed, ruthless ambition, and murder

Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals from its war wounds, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer's son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julian Carax. But when he sets out to find the author's other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax's books in existence. Soon Daniel's seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona's darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.

Shy, bookish, and admittedly awkward, Lily Greene has always felt inadequate compared to the rest of her accomplished family, who strive for Black excellence. She dreams of becoming a children’s books editor, but she’s been frustratingly stuck in the nonfiction division for years without a promotion in sight. Lily finds escapism in her correspondences with her favorite fantasy author, and what begins as two lonely people connecting over email turns into a tentative friendship and possibly something else Lily won’t let herself entertain—until he ghosts her without a word.
 
Months later, Lily is still crushed, but she’s determined to get a hold of her life, starting with finding a date to her sister’s wedding. And the perfect person to help her is Nick Brown, her charming, attractive new neighbor, who she feels drawn to for reasons she can’t explain. But little does she know, Nick is an author—her favorite fantasy author.
 
Nick, who has his reasons for using a pen name and pushing people away, soon realizes that the beautiful, quiet girl from down the hall is the same Lily he fell in love with over email months ago. Unwilling to complicate things even more between them, he agrees to set her up with someone else, though this simple favor between two neighbors is anything but—not when he can't get her off his mind...

Sometimes to truly know a person, you have to read between the lines.

Isabelle is completely lost. When she first began her career in publishing after college, she did not expect to be twenty-five, still living at home, and one of the few Black employees at her publishing house. Overworked and underpaid, constantly torn between speaking up or stifling herself, Izzy thinks there must be more to this publishing life. So when she overhears her boss complaining about a beastly high-profile author who has failed to deliver his long-awaited manuscript, Isabelle sees an opportunity to finally get the promotion she deserves.

All she has to do is go to the author's Santa Barbara mansion and give him a pep talk or three. How hard could it be?

But Izzy quickly finds out she is in over her head. Beau Towers is not some celebrity lightweight writing a tell-all memoir. He is jaded and withdrawn and--it turns out--just as lost as Izzy. But despite his standoffishness, Izzy needs Beau to deliver, and with her encouragement, his story begins to spill onto the page. They soon discover they have more in common than either of them expected, and as their deadline nears, Izzy and Beau begin to realize there may be something there that wasn't there before.

In this spellbinding debut novel, two estranged half-sisters tasked with guarding their family’s library of magical books must work together to unravel a deadly secret at the heart of their collection—a tale of familial loyalty and betrayal, and the pursuit of magic and power.

For generations, the Kalotay family has guarded a collection of ancient and rare books. Books that let a person walk through walls or manipulate the elements—books of magic that half-sisters Joanna and Esther have been raised to revere and protect.

All magic comes with a price, though, and for years the sisters have been separated. Esther has fled to a remote base in Antarctica to escape the fate that killed her own mother, and Joanna’s isolated herself in their family home in Vermont, devoting her life to the study of these cherished volumes. But after their father dies suddenly while reading a book Joanna has never seen before, the sisters must reunite to preserve their family legacy. In the process, they’ll uncover a world of magic far bigger and more dangerous than they ever imagined, and all the secrets their parents kept hidden; secrets that span centuries, continents, and even other libraries . . .

The only child of a single mother, Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book.
 
When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! They're all—or mostly all—excited to meet her! She'll have to Speak. To. Strangers. It's a disaster! And as if that wasn't enough, Tom, her trivia nemesis, has turned out to be cute, funny, and deeply interested in getting to know her. Doesn't he realize what a terrible idea that is?
 
Nina considers her options.
1. Completely change her name and appearance. (Too drastic, plus she likes her hair.)
2. Flee to a deserted island. (Hard pass, see: coffee).
3. Hide in a corner of her apartment and rock back and forth. (Already doing it.)
 
It's time for Nina to come out of her comfortable shell, but she isn't convinced real life could ever live up to fiction. It's going to take a brand-new family, a persistent suitor, and the combined effects of ice cream and trivia to make her turn her own fresh page.

An unforgettable and heartwarming debut about how a chance encounter with a list of library books helps forge an unlikely friendship between two very different people in a London suburb.

Widower Mukesh lives a quiet life in Wembley, in West London after losing his beloved wife. He shops every Wednesday, goes to Temple, and worries about his granddaughter, Priya, who hides in her room reading while he spends his evenings watching nature documentaries.

Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library for the summer when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a list of novels that she’s never heard of before. Intrigued, and a little bored with her slow job at the checkout desk, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list, one after the other. As each story gives up its magic, the books transport Aleisha from the painful realities she’s facing at home.

When Mukesh arrives at the library, desperate to forge a connection with his bookworm granddaughter, Aleisha passes along the reading list…hoping that it will be a lifeline for him too. Slowly, the shared books create a connection between two lonely souls, as fiction helps them escape their grief and everyday troubles and find joy again. 

Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara: Sara traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her book-loving pen pal Amy, but when she arrives she finds Amy's funeral guests just leaving. The residents of Broken Wheel are happy to look after their bewildered visitor—there's not much else to do in a dying small town that's almost beyond repair. You certainly wouldn't open a bookstore. And definitely not with Sara the tourist in charge.

You'd need a vacant storefront (Main Street is full of them), books (Amy's house is full of them), and...customers. The bookstore might be a little quirky. Then again, so is Sara. But Broken Wheel's own story might be funnier, more eccentric and surprising than she thought.

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last—inexorably—into evil.

I, Maggie Banks, solemnly swear to uphold the rules of Cobblestone Books. If only, I, Maggie Banks, believed in following the rules.

When Maggie Banks arrives in Bell River to run her best friend's struggling bookstore, she expects to sell bestsellers to her small-town clientele. But running a bookstore in a town with a famously bookish history isn't easy. Bell River's literary society insists on keeping the bookstore stuck in the past, and Maggie is banned from selling anything written this century. So, when a series of mishaps suddenly tip the bookstore toward ruin, Maggie will have to get creative to keep the shop afloat.

And in Maggie's world, book rules are made to be broken.

To help save the store, Maggie starts an underground book club, running a series of events celebrating the books readers actually love. But keeping the club quiet, selling forbidden books, and dodging the literary society is nearly impossible. Especially when Maggie unearths a town secret that could upend everything.

Maggie will have to decide what's more important: the books that formed a small town's history, or the stories poised to change it all.

When bookshop owner Sarah Smith is offered the opportunity for a job exchange with her Parisian friend, Sophie, saying yes is a no-brainer—after all, what kind of romantic would turn down six months in Paris? Sarah is sure she’s in for the experience of a lifetime—days spent surrounded by literature in a gorgeous bookshop, and the chance to watch the snow fall on the Eiffel Tower. Plus, now she can meet up with her journalist boyfriend, Ridge, when his job takes him around the globe.

But her expectations cool faster than her café au lait soon after she lands in the City of Light—she’s a fish out of water in Paris. The customers are rude, her new coworkers suspicious, and her relationship with Ridge has been reduced to a long-distance game of phone tag, leaving Sarah to wonder if he’ll ever put her first over his busy career. As Christmas approaches, Sarah is determined to get the shop—and her life—back in order . . . and make her dreams of a Parisian happily ever after come true.

Nina is a literary matchmaker. Pairing a reader with that perfect book is her passion… and also her job. Or at least it was. Until yesterday, she was a librarian in the hectic city. But now the job she loved is no more.

Determined to make a new life for herself, Nina moves to a sleepy village many miles away. There she buys a van and transforms it into a bookmobile — a mobile bookshop that she drives from neighborhood to neighborhood, changing one life after another with the power of storytelling. 

From helping her grumpy landlord deliver a lamb, to sharing picnics with a charming train conductor who serenades her with poetry, Nina discovers there’s plenty of adventure, magic, and soul in a place that’s beginning to feel like home… a place where she just might be able to write her own happy ending.

Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.

Through her father’s prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses everything and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling.

She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life is shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women’s rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and ultimately not one, but two pandemics.

Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.

"Three days prior to [a living] wake, [this novel] traces the lives of each of the Marte women, weaving together past and present, the Dominican Republic and New York City. Told with Elizabeth Acevedo's inimitable voice, this is an indelible portrait of sisters and cousins, aunts and nieces--one family's journey through their history helping them better navigate all that is to come"--

Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, though she’s been in love with him since childhood.

Then Tristán discovers his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives—even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed.

Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and Tristán begins seeing the ghost of his ex-girlfriend.

As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Tristán may find that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies.

Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies. And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep. Antonia has always sought direction in the literature she loves—lines from her favorite authors play in her head like a soundtrack—but now she finds that the world demands more of her than words.

Afterlife is a compact, nimble, and sharply droll novel. Set in this political moment of tribalism and distrust, it asks: What do we owe those in crisis in our families, including—maybe especially—members of our human family? How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves? And how do we stay true to those glorious souls we have lost?

The year is 1846. After the controversial annexation of Texas, the US Army marches south to provoke war with México over the disputed Río Grande boundary.​

Ximena Salomé is a gifted Mexican healer who dreams of building a family with the man she loves on the coveted land she calls home. But when Texas Rangers storm her ranch and shoot her husband dead, her dreams are burned to ashes. Vowing to honor her husband’s memory and defend her country, Ximena uses her healing skills as an army nurse on the frontlines of the ravaging war.

Meanwhile, John Riley, an Irish immigrant in the Yankee army desperate to help his family escape the famine devastating his homeland, is sickened by the unjust war and the unspeakable atrocities against his countrymen by nativist officers. In a bold act of defiance, he swims across the Río Grande and joins the Mexican Army—a desertion punishable by execution. He forms the St. Patrick’s Battalion, a band of Irish soldiers willing to fight to the death for México’s freedom.

When Ximena and John meet, a dangerous attraction blooms between them. As the war intensifies, so does their passion. Swept up by forces with the power to change history, they fight not only for the fate of a nation but for their future together.

Heartbreaking and lyrical, Reyna Grande’s spellbinding saga, inspired by true events and historical figures, brings these two unforgettable characters to life and illuminates a largely forgotten moment in history that impacts the US-México border to this day.

Will Ximena and John survive the chaos of this bitter war, or will their love be devoured along with the land they strive to defend?

Seven-year-old Chula and her older sister Cassandra enjoy carefree lives thanks to their gated community in Bogotá, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside the neighborhood walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo Escobar continues to elude authorities and capture the attention of the nation.
When their mother hires Petrona, a live-in-maid from the city's guerrilla-occupied slum, Chula makes it her mission to understand Petrona's mysterious ways. But Petrona's unusual behavior belies more than shyness. She is a young woman crumbling under the burden of providing for her family as the rip tide of first love pulls her in the opposite direction. As both girls' families scramble to maintain stability amidst the rapidly escalating conflict, Petrona and Chula find themselves entangled in a web of secrecy that will force them both to choose between sacrifice and betrayal.
Inspired by the author's own life, and told through the alternating perspectives of the willful Chula and the achingly hopeful Petrona, Fruit of the Drunken Tree contrasts two very different, but inextricably linked coming-of-age stories. In lush prose, Rojas Contreras has written a powerful testament to the impossible choices women are often forced to make in the face of violence and the unexpected connections that can blossom out of desperation.

The celebrated bestselling author of The House on Mango Street “is back with her first work of fiction in almost a decade, a story of memory and friendship [and] the experiences young women endure as immigrants worldwide” (AP). In this masterfully written dual-language edition, a long-forgotten letter sets off a charged encounter with the past.
 
As a young woman, Corina leaves her Mexican family in Chicago to pursue her dream of becoming a writer in the cafés of Paris. Instead, she spends her brief time in the City of Light running out of money and lining up with other immigrants to call home from a broken pay phone. But the months of befriending panhandling artists in the métro, sleeping on crowded floors, and dancing the tango at underground parties are given a lasting glow by her intense friendships with Martita and Paola. Over the years the three women disperse to three continents, falling out of touch and out of mind—until a rediscovered letter brings Corina’s days in Paris back with breathtaking immediacy.
 
 

In 2008, In the Heights, a new musical from up-and-coming young artists, electrified Broadway. The show’s vibrant mix of Latin music and hip-hop captured life in Washington Heights, the Latino neighborhood in upper Manhattan. It won four Tony Awards and became an international hit, delighting audiences around the world. For the film version, director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) brought the story home, filming its spectacular dance numbers on location in Washington Heights. That’s where Usnavi, Nina, and their neighbors chase their dreams and ask a universal question: Where do I belong?
 
In the Heights: Finding Home reunites Miranda with Jeremy McCarter, co-author of Hamilton: The Revolution, and Quiara Alegría Hudes, the Pulitzer Prize–winning librettist of the Broadway musical and screenwriter of the film. They do more than trace the making of an unlikely Broadway smash and a major motion picture: They give readers an intimate look at the decades-long creative life of In the Heights.
 
Like Hamilton: The Revolution, the book offers untold stories, perceptive essays, and the lyrics to Miranda’s songs—complete with his funny, heartfelt annotations. It also features newly commissioned portraits and never-before-seen photos from backstage, the movie set, and productions around the world.
 
This is the story of characters who search for a home—and the artists who created one.

In Jennifer Lopez s first ever book, True Love, she explores one of her life s most defining periods the transformative two-year journey of how, as an artist and a mother, she confronted her greatest challenges, identified her biggest fears, and ultimately emerged a stronger person than she s ever been. Guided by both intimate and electrifying photographs, True Love an honest and revealing personal diary with hard-won lessons and heartfelt recollections and an empowering story of self-reflection, rediscovery, and resilience.
Completely full-color, with photos throughout and lavishly designed, True Love is a stunning and timeless book that features more than 200 never-before-seen images from Lopez s personal archives, showing candid moments with her family and friends and providing a rare behind-the-scenes look at the life of a pop music icon travelling, rehearsing, and performing around the world."

She's the great Cuban beauty who stole musician Nestor Castillo's heart and broke it, inspiring him to write the Mambo Kings' biggest hit, ''Beautiful Maria of My Soul.'' Now in her sixties and living in Miami with her pediatrician daughter, Teresa, Maria remains a beauty, still capable of turning heads. But she has never forgotten Nestor, and as she thinks back to her days--and nights--in Havana, an entirely new perspective on the Mambo Kings story unfolds.

Set on the Caribbean coast of South America, this love story brings together Fermina Daza, her distinguished husband, and a man who has secretly loved her for more than fifty years

This text is a magical fable about learning to listen to your heart, read the omens strewn along life's path and, above all, following your dreams. The book tells the story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who dreams of travelling the world in search of a worldly treasure as fabulous as any ever found. From his home in Spain he journeys to the markets of Tangiers, and from there into the Egyptian desert, where a fateful encounter with the alchemist awaits him. With a visionary blend of spirituality, magical realism and folklore, the author hopes that The Alchemist has the power to inspire nations and change people's lives.

It's 1949 and two young Cuban musicians make their way up from Havana to the big arena of New York, where they are workers by day, stars of dance halls by night. Hijuelos's marvelous portrait of the Castillo brothers, their families, their fellow musicians and lovers, their triumphs and tragedies, re-creates the sights and sounds of an era in music and an unsung moment in American life.

It's time for the Elephant Games! Every young elephant parades their talent in front of the king to earn their special elephant name. But Num-Num doesn't have a special skill to display. With a little help from some familiar friends, will this little elephant learn that being yourself is the most important talent of them all?

Little Tembo, a baby elephant, is thirsty and her herd cannot find any water. But Bibi, the matriarch, "remembers the way to wet." As Bibi leads them across the parched savannah, Tembo happily follows, every now and then getting distracted by her own memories of games she loves to play. With touching family moments interspersed between Tembo's playful actions, this tribute to grandmothers will make a perfect read-aloud.
Praise for Stay Close to Mama
 

Eddie Elephant loves telling stories. So when he egg-sits for his neighbors, the Emus, he entertains the egg with his tales...and gets an enormous surprise!

Elephant wants to play hide and seek. You can play too. But you'll need to try your best--he's VERY good! He can even hide behind a lamp, or a small tree.

A small boy and his elephant play an absurd game of hide and seek in this beautifully illustrated picture book that will have young readers shouting out loud in delight, and adults laughing too, as Elephant hides, in full view. Perhaps the little dog sees him, perhaps not.

This game-inside-a-book celebrates imaginative play and is perfect for sharing with children who will love being better at finding the elephant than the boy. Watch out for the tortoise, too . . .

 

This latest title in the Strange and Wonderful series allows young readers to journey into the lives of elephants in various habitats throughout the world. Kids will learn how elephants use their trunk, how they communicate, what they eat, and about their family groupings. The book also shows how we can ensure that elephants continue to live and thrive. Combining careful research and beautiful illustrations, this book is perfect for those who have an interest in animals and conservation.

One day, as Elmer is strolling through the jungle, he hears a cry for help. A butterfly has been trapped in a hole by a fallen branch. Elmer rushes to the rescue and frees her with ease. In return, she promises to help Elmer should he ever need it. But just how can a butterfly ever help an elephant?

In this bestselling and internationally beloved picture book, the local Pet Club won’t admit a boy’s tiny pet elephant, so he finds a solution—one that involves all kinds of unusual animals.

Today is Pet Club day. There will be cats and dogs and fish, but strictly no elephants are allowed. The Pet Club doesn’t understand that pets come in all shapes and sizes, just like friends. Now it is time for a boy and his tiny pet elephant to show them what it means to be a true friend.

Strictly No Elephants has been sold around the world and is heralded as a pitch-perfect book about inclusion. Imaginative and lyrical, this sweet story captures the magic of friendship and the joy of having a pet.

“At the Little Bitty Bakery, the pastry chef was beat—from her powdered sugar nose, to her flour dusted feet." When a pastry chef works straight through her birthday with no time to celebrate, some industrious mice decide to cook her up a scrumptious birthday surprise. It's a happy day, indeed, for the baker when she discovers their delicious secret!
This perfect read aloud is enhanced by a glittered jacket, delicious recipes, and Caldecott Honoree Betsy Lewin's timeless illustrations that bring a lovable cast of characters to life.

 

Few animals are more impressive than elephants. They are by far the biggest of all land animals. And yet, elephants are more than mighty. They are sensitive and intelligent creatures who live in large, caring family societies run by females. They have extraordinary senses and communicate in complex ways that scientists are only now starting to understand. Elephants play an essential role in the delicate African and Asian ecosystems. Today, elephant populations in both Africa and Asia are being threatened.

What elephant-sized fun, what a big and bright fantasy: come along with a dreaming little boy as he’s whisked away to Elephant Land, where the elephants wear pants and the entertainment never ends. The charming rhyming text conveys a sense of pure delight and play, as the child and the animal go from skipping in the sun to visiting the circus to dancing with fireworks over their heads. And in every engaging picture, the elephant dons a different pair of pants, suitable to the occasion, in a variety of colors and brilliant patterns. Just imagine this huge beast adorned in fluffy pink, juggling in a rainbow-hued pair, and dressed in trousers all covered with stars. A funny, sweet, and fantastic tale.

Babar and his family are enjoying a relaxing ocean cruise when a sudden, violent storm whisks them far away from Celesteville. Shipwrecked on a desert island, they meet fabulous creatures as they explore their temporary home. Readers will appreciate the tropical locale--rendered in de Brunhoff's trademark lush watercolors--as much as Babar and his family do while they await their eventual rescue. Fans both old and new will love spending time with Babar, Celeste, their kids, and the Old Lady in this charming tale on the high seas.

 

A person's a person, no matter how small.

Everyone's favorite elephant stars in this heartwarming and timeless story for readers of all ages. In the colorful Jungle of Nool, Horton discovers something that at first seems impossible: a tiny speck of dust contains an entire miniature world--Who-ville--complete with houses and grocery stores and even a mayor! But when no one will stand up for the Whos of Who-ville, Horton uses his elephant-sized heart to save the day. This tale of compassion and determination proves that any person, big or small, can choose to speak out for what is right.

Poor Little Elephant--he simply wants a friend. But when he tries to play with Turtle, Heron, and two friendly frogs, their size differences bring disaster. What's a big little elephant to do? Well, with a little imagination, a little determination, and a lot of creativity, this elephant discovers that friends come in all sizes . . . as long as everybody steers clear of the seesaw.

What would happen if elephants disappeared? Trace the repercussions of a world without elephants in writer and illustrator Lily Williams' third picture book about loss and conservation.

The Congolese forest is home to many types of animals.
Some are strong.
Some are slippery.
Some are loud.
And some, like the elephant, are BIG.

The elephant has become synonymous with the image of African wildlife. They can grow over 10 feet tall and eat up to 300 pounds a day. While these giants are beloved figures in movies and zoos, they also play a large role in keeping the forest ecosystem healthy.

Unfortunately, poachers are hunting elephants rapidly to extinction for their ivory tusks, and that could be catastrophic to the world as we know it.

After losing her mother, shy Natumi is rescued by a team from the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, an orphanage for baby elephants. At the shelter, Natumi hides behind keepers' legs to watch the other elephants at the shelter. But soon, she meets several other orphans, and the eight of them play together in the surrounding bush.

As the babies become closer and more like a real family, they need a leader, someone they can trust. Can Natumi grow into this role?

Join the herd to find out what happens when they travel back into the wild. This sweet story, with its heartwarming photographs, explores the challenges and joys of family, love, and growing up, and is a perfect bedtime tale.

Little Elephant and Mama Elephant are going for a walk. "Hold on to my tail," says Mama. "If you want to ask me a question, tweak twice." Tweak, tweak! "Mama, what is that?" Little Elephant is curious about the frog, the monkey, the songbird, the butterfly, and the crocodile--and especially about what a little elephant can do. Mama knows just how to answer, to help her cherished Little Elephant grow.
 

Ollie is a purple elephant who is lost and has no place to call home.  Until Shelby and Peter find him in the park—and invite him to live with them.  Soon Ollie is a regular part of the family.  He doesn't have a room to call his own, but he doesn't mind. He is happy.  He loves hopscotch and kickball—but most of all he loves the dance parties the McLaughlins have after dinner.

But Mr. Puddlebottom, the downstairs neighbor, most certainly does not love Ollie.  And neither does the McLaughlins' cat, Ginger.  Ollie has taken her spot on the couch at night.  When the conspirators hatch a plan to get rid of Ollie, the purple elephant walks right into their trap—and onto a circus cart.  Will he ever be reunited with his family?

When Nelly reads a description of mice in a book, she is convinced that she is a mouse. After all, she is gray, has big ears, and a thin tail. But then she meets some other mice, and her confusion only grows. Why are they smaller than she is? And why can't she do the same things the other mice do? Only a trip to the zoo will set this mixed up animal tale straight ... or will it? This delightfully funny story about mistaken identities is sure to get giggles from young listeners.

Poor Cinderelephant! The Warty Sisters never say please or thank you (how rude!), and when she asks to go to the grand ball, they just laugh. "Whoever would want to dance with YOU?"

Little do they know, Cinderelephant has a Furry Godmouse on her side! And with a little help... and the right pair of shoes... anything is possible.
 

Oliver, Charlie, and Lulu love to play outside together. Their favorite game is hide-and-seek, but it’s not fun for Oliver when his friends hide in the trees—he can’t reach them! So the friends set off to find a tree that Oliver can play in.

But there’s a reason we don’t see elephants in trees, and just when Oliver is ready to give up the search, Charlie and Lulu surprise him with the perfect tree for them all to play in together!

In the small village of Kilbane, County Cork, Ireland, Naomi’s Bistro has always been a warm and welcoming spot to visit with neighbors, enjoy some brown bread and tea, and get the local gossip. Nowadays twenty-two-year-old Siobhán O’Sullivan runs the family bistro named for her mother, along with her five siblings, after the death of their parents in a car crash almost a year ago.

It’s been a rough year for the O’Sullivans, but it’s about to get rougher. One morning, as they’re opening the bistro, they discover a man seated at a table, dressed in a suit as if for his own funeral, a pair of hot pink barber scissors protruding from his chest.

With the local garda suspecting the O’Sullivans and their business in danger of being shunned—murder tends to spoil the appetite—it’s up to feisty redheaded Siobhán to solve the crime and save her beloved brood.

In a riveting debut novel that reads like Prep meets Gone Girl, a young woman is determined to create the perfect life--husband, home, and career--until a violent incident from her past threatens to unravel everything and expose her most shocking secret of all. Twenty-eight-year-old New Yorker Ani FaNelli seems to have it all: she's a rising star at The Women's Magazine, impossibly fit, perfectly groomed, and about to marry Luke Harrison, a handsome blueblood. But behind that veneer of perfection lies a vulnerability that Ani holds close and buries deep--a very violent and public trauma from her past that has left her constantly trying to reinvent herself. And only she knows how far she would go to keep her secrets safe.

When a documentary producer invites Ani to tell her side of the chilling incident that took place when she was a teenager at the prestigious Bradley School, she hopes it will be an opportunity for public vindication. Armed with the trappings of success--expensive clothes, high-powered byline, a massive engagement ring--she is determined to silence the whispers of suspicion and blame from her past, and prove once and for all how far she's come since Bradley. She'll even let them film her lavish wedding on Nantucket, the final step in her transformation. But perfection doesn't come without cost. As the wedding and filming converge, Ani's meticulously crafted facade begins to buckle and crack--until an explosive revelation offers her a final chance at redemption, even as it rocks her picture-perfect world.

Equal parts glitz and darkness, and with a singular voice and twisting plot, Luckiest Girl Alive reads like Sex & the City--if Carrie Bradshaw had a closet full of skeletons instead of shoes. In Ani FaNelli, Jessica Knoll has created a complex and vulnerable heroine who you'll be rooting for to the very last page.

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results. 

But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.  

Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.

When Kade Logan said goodbye to his estranged wife eight years ago, he never thought it would be the last time he saw her alive. Now her car has been hauled out of a nearby lake and Kade is determined to track down the man who murdered her. Enter Eleanor Bowman, a talented private investigator who’s about to stir up a hornet’s nest on his Colorado ranch.

With old scandals still buzzing about his late wife’s many affairs and new violence erupting, Kade is faced with the discovery of another beautiful woman’s body. Are the two killings linked? Who is the man who seduced, then murdered both victims? Ellie believes they are dangerously close to the truth.

From corporate Denver high-rises to posh Vail mansions, Kade and Ellie sense the killer is closing in again, and this time Ellie is the target. Kade must risk everything to save the woman he’s coming to love—before she becomes the next one to die . . .

Lily and her ex-husband, Ryle, have just settled into a civil coparenting rhythm when she suddenly bumps into her first love, Atlas, again. After nearly two years separated, she is elated that for once, time is on their side, and she immediately says yes when Atlas asks her on a date.

But her excitement is quickly hampered by the knowledge that, though they are no longer married, Ryle is still very much a part of her life—and Atlas Corrigan is the one man he will hate being in his ex-wife and daughter’s life.

Switching between the perspectives of Lily and Atlas, It Starts with Us picks up right where the epilogue for the “gripping, pulse-pounding” (Sarah Pekkanen, author of Perfect Neighbors) bestselling phenomenon It Ends with Us left off. Revealing more about Atlas’s past and following Lily as she embraces a second chance at true love while navigating a jealous ex-husband, it proves that “no one delivers an emotional read like Colleen Hoover” (Anna Todd, New York Times bestselling author).

 In The Whistler, Lacy Stoltz investigated a corrupt judge who was taking millions in bribes from a crime syndicate. She put the criminals away, but only after being attacked and nearly killed. Three years later, and approaching forty, she is tired of her work for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct and ready for a change.

Then she meets a mysterious woman who is so frightened she uses a number of aliases. Jeri Crosby’s father was murdered twenty years earlier in a case that remains unsolved and that has grown stone cold. But Jeri has a suspect whom she has become obsessed with and has stalked for two decades. Along the way, she has discovered other victims.

Suspicions are easy enough, but proof seems impossible. The man is brilliant, patient, and always one step ahead of law enforcement. He is the most cunning of all serial killers. He knows forensics, police procedure, and most important: he knows the law.

He is a judge, in Florida—under Lacy’s jurisdiction.

He has a list, with the names of his victims and targets, all unsuspecting people unlucky enough to have crossed his path and wronged him in some way. How can Lacy pursue him, without becoming the next name on his list?

The Judge’s List is by any measure John Grisham’s most surprising, chilling novel yet.

After five years as a stay-at-home mom, Gabby Schaefer can't wait to return to work. No demanding toddlers, no stepdaughter throwing a tantrum. But when her plans are derailed by some shocking news and her husband's crushing expectations, Gabby must fight for the right to have a life of her own. 

Getting pregnant is easy for Hayley Batchelor. Staying pregnant is the hard part. Her husband is frantic about the threat to her health, but to Hayley, a woman who was born to be a mom should risk everything to fulfill her destiny—no matter how high the cost. 

Nicole Lord is still shell-shocked by a divorce that wasn't as painful as it should've been. Other than the son they share, her ex-husband left barely a ripple in her life. A great new guy tempts her to believe maybe the second time's the charm…but how can she trust herself to recognize true love?

.'Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.'So begins the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, taking us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to addiction and recovery in the aftermath of a life-threatening health scare. Before the frequent hospital visits and stints in rehab, there was five-year-old Matthew, who travelled from Montreal to Los Angeles, shuffling between his separated parents; fourteen-year-old Matthew, who was a nationally ranked tennis star in Canada; twenty-four-year-old Matthew, who nabbed a coveted role as a lead cast member on the talked-about pilot then called Friends Like Us. . . and so much more.

In an extraordinary story that only he could tell - and in the heartfelt, hilarious, and warmly familiar way only he could tell it - Matthew Perry lays bare the fractured family that raised him (and also left him to his own devices), the desire for recognition that drove him to fame, and the void inside him that could not be filled even by his greatest dreams coming true. But he also details the peace he's found in sobriety and how he feels about the ubiquity of Friends, sharing stories about his castmates and other stars he met along the way. Frank, self-aware, and with his trademark humour, Perry vividly depicts his lifelong battle with addiction and what fuelled it despite seemingly having it all.Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an unforgettable memoir that is both intimate and eye-opening - as well as a hand extended to anyone struggling with sobriety. Unflinchingly honest, moving, and uproariously funny, this is the book fans have been waiting for.