The first book in the classic Martin Beck detective series from the 1960s - the novels that shaped the future of Scandinavian crime writing. Hugely acclaimed, the Martin Beck series were the original Scandinavian crime novels and have inspired the writings of Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo. Written in the 1960s, 10 books completed in 10 years, they are the work of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo - a husband and wife team from Sweden. They follow the fortunes of the detective Martin Beck, whose enigmatic, taciturn character has inspired countless other policemen in crime fiction; without his creation Ian Rankin's John Rebus or Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander may never have been conceived. The novels can be read separately, but are best read in chronological order, so the reader can follow the characters' development and get drawn into the series as a whole. 'Roseanna' begins on a July afternoon, the body of a young woman is dredged from Sweden's beautiful Lake Vattern. Three months later, all that Police Inspector Martin Beck knows is that her name is Roseanna, that she came from Lincoln, Nebraska, and that she could have been strangled by any one of eighty-five people. With its authentically rendered settings and vividly realized characters, and its command over the intricately woven details of police detection, 'Roseanna' is a masterpiece of suspense and sadness.

Transform Your Workplace!Imagine a company where people are excited about coming to work and giving their best efforts every day. In this innovative and engrossing business parable, Harry Paul and Ross Reck show managers at all levels how they can immediately and easily increase productivity by tapping into the discretionary effort of the people who work for them. Starting from the most basic aspect of business reality that people intentionally regulate the amount of effort they put into their jobs based upon how they feel they're being treated the authors point out that the most important part of the job of every manager, team leader, supervisor, and executive is to treat people in such a way that they become excited about applying all their discretionary effort toward performing their jobs.At the book's center is the story of Nancy Kim, a human resources director at a magazine that is struggling with all the problems associated with unhappy employees low productivity and morale along with high absenteeism and turnover. After she openly challenges the CEO's new management-by-the-numbers system, she's charged with turning the situation around immediately. Filled with real-world studies, Instant Turnaround! shows anyone how to turn the workplace into a destination a place where working hard feels like hardly working because it's engaging, enjoyable, and fulfilling.

When Lora Brody, cookbook author, chocolate maven, and mother, sent her sons off into the world, she (and they) realized that they didn't have a clue as to how to feed themselves or their guests, if, heaven forbid, they should have any. The Kitchen Survival Guide is for anyone -- newly graduated, newly married, newly single -- who is venturing into the kitchen for the first time. With her on-target brand of humor, Lora Brody builds kitchen confidence with more than 130 basic recipes necessary to get through life, as well as hundreds of helpful hints Mom forgot to share:On cleaning an oven -- "Manual cleaning oven, unfortunately, does not mean that a guy named Manuel will come and clean your oven."What's the difference between dicing and chopping, zest and pith, or au gratin and au lait?Survival recipes include tuna fish salad, homemade chicken soup, brownies, and many more.Setting up a kitchen and keeping it clean and safe, how to buy and store food, a glossary of basic cooking terms, and what to do in the event of a culinary disaster are all covered in this handy, easy-to-use cookbook and kitchen compendium.

In this fiercely candid and moving book, novelist Joyce Thompson recounts a difficult yet transforming period in her life. In words that will ring true to anyone in the "sandwich" generation, Thompson tells the story of her troubled marriage ending, her adjustment to single motherhood, finding new love, turning fifty, dealing with sick and dying parents, and somehow discovering a spiritual home in an ancient, earth-centered tradition.Along the way, she comes to terms with the blessings and specters of her own dysfunctional family. This includes her father, a distinguished judge and chronic alcoholic, and her tough, smart mother, a pioneering woman lawyer, who is slowly succumbing to Alzheimer's and whom Thompson helps to die gracefully, despite many traumatic and even ridiculous moments. But with Thompson's lyrical, personal, and evocative writing, she transforms what could have been a soap opera into a rich, moving, and funny story, full of hope.Thompson's novels are about understanding the human condition, and it's no surprise she focuses that gift on her own life and the lives of her family. Elegant, wise, and witty, Sailing My Shoe to Timbuktu, pulls no punches and is delightfully and compulsively readable.

"Truly a great and life changing read!" This is an important first collection of essays, reflections and poems by Nora Bateson, the noted research designer, film-maker, writer and lecturer. She is the daughter of Gregory Bateson, president of the International Bateson Institute (IBI) and an adviser to numerous bodies at international and governmental level.? Building on Gregory Bateson’s famous book Towards an Ecology of Mind and her own film on the subject, Nora Bateson here updates our thinking on systems and ecosystems, applying her own insights and those of her team at IBI to education, organisations, complexity, academia, and the way that society organizes itself.? She also introduces two terms: ?‘ symmathesy ’ to describe the contextual mutual learning through interaction that takes place in living entities at larger or smaller scales ?‘ transcontextuality ’ to describe the multiple, interlayered spatial, social, temporal, cultural, ecological, economic contexts in which symmathesy takes place. While she retains her father’s rigorous attention to definition, observation and academic precision, she also moves well beyond that frame of reference to incorporate more embodied ways of knowing and understanding. These are reflected in her essays and poems on food, Christmas, love, honesty, environmentalism and leadership. The book offers important advice and new thinking on issues like immigration, systems thinking, new economic and financial models, future thinking and strategic planning, sustainability and governmental ethics, agency in organizational leadership, the education system and organizational governance. Readers' reviews "You will be nourished in your reading, aesthetically and ethically. It is yet another Bateson work of art." -?Imelda McCarthy, PhD Systemic Therapist, Dublin, Ireland. "Nora Bateson’s Small Arcs of Larger Circles is perhaps the most important and vital book I have ever read." - Peter Le Breton, PhD "This book offered me the texture, depth and breath of trans-contextual context for one to meander and develop multiple description. Thank you Nora for producing this masterpiece. Everyone should read it especially those who have concern with looking at the complexities our world is facing." -?Maimunah Mosli, Principal Family Therapist, Singapore "This is a book not to be read but experienced" - 5 star Amazon review

Ruby are doar nou? ani c?nd un virus misterios ?ncepe s? decimeze adolescen?ii din Statele Unite. Ea va fi unul dintre pu?inii supravie?uitori care descoper? c? sunt ?nzestra?i cu capacit??i paranormale misterioase, ?ndeajuns de primedjdioase ?nc?t s? le asigure trimiterea la Thurmond, un lag?r guvernamental represiv. Acum ?n v?rst? de 16 ani, Ruby se teme deopotriv? de puterile pe care ?nc? n-a ?nv??at s? le controleze ?i de perspectiva de a fi descoperit?. C?nd o grupare de rezisten?? ?i ofer? ?ansa de a evada din lag?r, acesta se va dovedi primul pas ?ntr-o c?l?torie ?n decursul c?reia va descoperi prietenia ?i dragostea, dar care o poart? implacabil spre o alegere imposibil?. “C?nd decesele au ie?it ?ntr-un sf?r?it la lumin?, conducerea ?colii a interzis cu stricte?e profesorilor ?i personalului s? discute cu noi despre ceea ce se numea pe atunci Sindromul lui Everhart, dup? Michael Everhart, primul copil care se ?tia c? murise din aceast? cauz?. Cu?r?nd, cineva din alte cercuri a decis s?-i dea un nume ca la carte: Neurodegenerare idiopatic? adolescentin? acut? — NIAA, pe scurt. ?i atunci n-a mai fost doar boala lui Michael. A fost a noastr?, a tuturor.“ “Bracken a creat o Americ? distopic?, plasat? ?ntr-o viitor nu prea ?ndep?rtat, ?n care copiii sunt v?na?i ?i temu?i, iar pericolele ?i p?ndesc chiar ?i pe culoarele unui magazin Wal-Mart abandonat. Ruby este o eroin? puternic?, ce treze?te instinctiv empatia cititorilor, f?c?ndu-i s? a?tepte cu ner?bdare urm?torul roman din trilogie.“ - Publishers Weekly

The story of Egypt is the story of history itself-the endless rise and fall, the life and death and life again of the eternal human effort to endure, enjoy, and understand the mystery of our universe. Emerging from the ancient mists of time, Egypt met the challenge of the mystery in a glorious evolution of religious, intellectual, and political institutions and for two millenniums flourished with all the vigor that the human heart can invest in a social and cultural order. Then Egypt began to crumble into the desert sands and the waters of the Nile, and her remarkable achievements in civilization became her lingering epitaph. John A. Wilson has written a rich and interpretive biography of one of the greatest cultural periods in human experience. He answers-as best the modern Egyptologist can-the questions inevitably asked concerning the dissolution of Egypt's glory. Here is scholarship in its finest form, concerned with the humanity that has preceded us, and finding in man's past grandeur and failure much meaning for men of today.

When Jessa Crispin was thirty, she burned her settled Chicago life to the ground and took off for Berlin with a pair of suitcases and no plan beyond leaving. Half a decade later, she's still on the road, in search not so much of a home as of understanding, a way of being in the world that demands neither constant struggle nor complete surrender.The Dead Ladies Project is an account of that journey-but it's also much, much more. Fascinated by exile, Crispin travels an itinerary of key locations in its literary map, of places that have drawn writers who needed to break free from their origins and start afresh. As she reflects on William James struggling through despair in Berlin, Nora Barnacle dependant on and dependable for James Joyce in Trieste, Maud Gonne fomenting revolution and fostering myth in Dublin, or Igor Stravinsky starting over from nothing in Switzerland, Crispin interweaves biography, incisive literary analysis, and personal experience into a rich meditation on the complicated interactions of place, personality, and society that can make escape and reinvention such an attractive, even intoxicating proposition.?Personal and profane, funny and fervent, The Dead Ladies Project ranges from the nineteenth century to the present, from historical figures to brand-new hangovers, in search, ultimately, of an answer to a bedrock question: How does a person decide how to live their life?

Steve Tomasula is a novelist like no other; his experiments in narrative and design have won him a loyal following. Exemplifying Tomasula's style, IN & OZ is a heady, avant-garde book, rooted in convincing characters even as it simultaneously subverts the genre of novel and moves it forward.IN & OZ is a novel of art, love, and auto mechanics. The story follows five different characters-an auto designer, photographer, musical composer, poet/sculptor, and mechanic-who live in two very different places: IN, a back-alley here and now; and OZ, which reflects the desire for somewhere better. The men and women who populate Tomasula's landscape desperately hope to fill a void in their lives through a variety of media: music, language, dirt, light, and automobiles. As the plot moves forward, the story of the residents of INand that of their counterparts in OZconverge. A fanciful allegory that tackles class relations, art, commerce, and language, IN & OZ is a tale of the human condition that is as visually compelling as it is moving.A novel not only for fiction lovers, but also for artists of all stripes, IN & OZ creates a fantasy that illumines our own world as it lucidly builds its own.

Written from a vantage point both high and deliberately narrow, the early novels of the late British master Anthony Powell nevertheless deal in the universal themes that would become a substantial part of his oeuvre: pride, greed, and the strange drivers of human behavior. More explorations of relationships and vanity than plot-driven narratives, Powell's early works reveal the stirrings of the unequaled style, ear for dialogue, and eye for irony that would reach their caustic peak in his epic, A Dance to the Music of Time.Powell's sophomore novel, Venusberg, follows journalist Lushington as he leaves behind his unrequited love in England and travels by boat to an unnamed Baltic state. Awash in a marvelously odd assortment of counts and ladies navigating a multicultural, elegant, and politically precarious social scene, Lushington becomes infatuated with his very own, very foreign Venus. An action-packed literary precursor to Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel, Venusberg is replete with assassins and Nazis, loose countesses and misunderstandings, fatal accidents and social comedy. But beyond its humor, this early installment in Powell's literary canon will offer readers a welcome window onto the mind of a great artist learning his craft.

Sir Frank Kermode, the British scholar, instructor, and author, was an inspired critic.?Forms of Attention is based on a series of three lectures he gave on canon formation, or how we choose what art to value. The essay on Botticelli traces the artist's sudden popularity in the nineteenth century for reasons that have more to do with poetry than painting. In the second essay, Kermode reads Hamlet from a very modern angle, offering a useful (and playful) perspective for a contemporary audience. The final essay is a defense of literary criticism as a process and conversation that, while often conflating knowledge with opinion, keeps us reading great art and working with-and for-literature.?"e;Kermode's volume has the virtue of a lecturer's accessible style designed for a listening audience. It is also self-consciously spare of 'naked criticism.' There is, nonetheless, an abundance of learned commentary, steady substance, and unveiled critical excellence. Which is to say the volume is a useful and engaging reflection of its learned author."e;-London Review of Books

Nearly every job application asks it: have you ever been convicted of a crimeFor the hundreds of thousands of young men leaving American prisons each year, their answer to that question may determine whether they can find work and begin rebuilding their lives.The product of an innovative field experiment, Marked gives us our first real glimpse into the tremendous difficulties facing ex-offenders in the job market. Devah Pager matched up pairs of young men, randomly assigned them criminal records, then sent them on hundreds of real job searches throughout the city of Milwaukee. Her applicants were attractive, articulate, and capable-yet ex-offenders received less than half the callbacks of the equally qualified applicants without criminal backgrounds. Young black men, meanwhile, paid a particularly high price: those with clean records fared no better in their job searches than white men just out of prison. Such shocking barriers to legitimate work, Pager contends, are an important reason that many ex-prisoners soon find themselves back in the realm of poverty, underground employment, and crime that led them to prison in the first place."e;Using scholarly research, field research in Milwaukee, and graphics, [Pager] shows that ex-offenders, white or black, stand a very poor chance of getting a legitimate job. . . . Both informative and convincing."e;-Library Journal?"e;Marked is that rare book: a penetrating text that rings with moral concern couched in vivid prose-and one of the most useful sociological studies in years."e;-Michael Eric Dyson

Toby Temple is a superstar, the world's funniest man. He gets any woman that he wants, but under the superstar image is a lonely man. Jill Castle is a sensuous starlet. She has a dark and mysterious past and has an ambition even greater than Toby's. Together they rule Hollywood.

Judd Stevens is a psychoanalyst faced with the most critical case of his life.If he does not penetrate the mind of a murderer he will find himself arrested for murder or murdered himself...Two people closely involved with Dr. Stevens have already been killed. Is one of the doctor's patients responsibleSomeone overwhelmed by his problemsA neurotic driven by compulsionA madmanBefore the murderer strikes again, Judd must strip away the mask of innocence the criminal wears, uncover the inner emotions, fears, and desires, to expose . . .

The Other Side of Midnight is Sidney Sheldon at his best. This page-turner is full of tortured romantic entanglements, reverses of fortune, thrilling suspense, and ultimate justice. In Paris, Washington, and a fabulous villa in Greece, an innocent American becomes a bewildered, horror-stricken pawn in a game of vengeance and betrayal. She is Catherine Douglas, a woman caught in a web of four lives intertwined by passion as her handsome husband pursues an incredibly beautiful film star . . . and as Constantin Demeris, a legendary Greek tycoon, tightens the strands that control them all.

Bloodline is one of the best of Sheldon's blockbuster thrillers. Roffe and Sons is a family firm, an international empire filled with desperate, cash-hungry family members. At its head was one of the wealthiest men in the world—a man who has just died in a mysterious accident and left his daughter, Elizabeth, in control of the company. Now as this intelligent, tough, and gorgeous woman dares to save—not sell—Roffe and Sons, she will have to outwit those who secretly want her power . . . and the unknown assassin who wants her life. Bloodline is a sweeping novel of high financial intrigue on three continents, love, murder, danger, and suspense.

Bravo's The Real Housewives franchise has taken the country by storm with over 13 million fans and record-breaking new seasons. The Real Housewives Tell It Like It Is captures the best, most outlandish quotes from the ladies of the O.C., New York, Atlanta, New Jersey, D.C., Beverly Hills, and Miami in one deluxe volume so fans can refer to their unique brand of wisdom again and again. Organized by topic and brimming with color photographs, The Real Housewives Tell It Like It Is is a must-have for fans everywhere!

From the icons of the game to the players who got their big break but never quite broke through, The Baseball Talmud provides a wonderful historical narration of Major League Jewish Baseball in America. All the stats, the facts, the stories, and the (often unheralded) glory.The Baseball Talmud reveals that there is far more to Jewish baseball than Hank Greenberg's powerful slugging and Sandy Koufax's masterful control. From Ausmus to Zinn, Berg to Kinsler, Holtzman to Yeager, and many others, Megdal draws upon the lore and the little-known details that increase our enjoyment of the game, including: Which Jewish player spent a portion of his retirement as a spy Who received $50,000 and a car to quit school and join the Major Leagues How many players sat out of games scheduled on Yom Kippur Which famous player chose baseball over becoming a rabbi But this is more than just stories. Megdal, a stat geek himself, uses the wealth of modern sabermetrics to determine the greatest Jewish players at each position, the all-time Jewish All-Star Team, and how they would rate against the greatest teams in baseball history, from the 1906 Chicago Cubs to the 1998 New York Yankees.The Baseball Talmud rewrites the history of Jewish baseball and is a book that every baseball fan should own.

Focusing on the author's own marriage and on a group of case studies, this book vividly illustrates the obstacles married couples face today and offers help in overcoming them.

Annabelle Donohoe, the CEO of World Tech, is mad as hell. Her dreams of world domination died the day Zac Robillard discovered her evil plans and fled World Tech, taking his greatest creation, his beloved I-Bots, and all his research, with him. (Read about their origins in Isaac Asimov's History of I-Bots!) More than super-machines, more than robots, the I-Bots are eerilyhuman in appearance, but not in abilities. Their genetic components--based on human DNA--and mechanical infrastructures give them pshyical strength and powers humans can only imagine, and a measure of free will impossible in robots. Annabelle wants them back and will stop at nothing to get her way, including hiring the world's deadliest assassin to find Zac, and his I-Bots--the beautiful Radiant and Killaine, clever Itazura, Psy-4, and Stonewall--and bring them in...or kill them. For if Annabelle cannot have the I-Bots she vows that no one else can either. But Janus, the ruthless killer, is not the only hunter they must elude...Surrounded by enemies, Zac and the I-Bots can find no safe place, not even the streets. In the year 2013, the Silver Metal Stompers, a neo-Nazi gang, roam the nation's cities wreaking havoc on robots, especially Scrappers, outmoded homeless robots who huddle in hobo camps, rusting away unless they are repaired by a mysterious humanitarian and robotarian called DocScrap. In an unlucky twist of fate, the Stompers discover DocScrap is none other than Zac Robillard and that the I-Bots aren't exactly human...and vow to crush Zac and the I-Bots into wreckage. Based on an original concept by Isaac Asimov, Time Was is a nonstop action adventure combining all the excitement of Golden Age SF with the technological wonders of modern cybernetics and quantum science. This remarkable collaboration between the greatest science fiction genius of all time and a team of brilliant young writers is a major publishing event. Only the Grand Master himself could have foreseen the awesome wonders depicted in Isaac Asimov's I-Bots. And only today's finest storytellers could have brought them so vividly to life.

Evangelina Cisneros is a very beautiful nineteen-year-old girl who, along with her father, is active in the struggle to oust the Spanish from Cuba in the late 1890s. When her father is arrested, she pleads his case to a Spanish general, who falls in love with her. She spurns his advances and is herself thrown in jail for her revolutionary activities.When reports of her imprisonment reach the New York papers, Evangelina becomes a cause cilhbre among the city's many society women. William Randolph Hearst, recognizing an opportunity, sends one of his star journalists, Karl Decker, to Havana on the pretense of interviewing her when in fact he is on a mission to effect her escape. As she tells him her story, the two find themselves falling in love. Back in America, Decker's wife is becoming increasingly suspicious of her husband's absences. After a frightening escape, Evangelina and Karl arrive in New York, where they are heralded as heroes. But then they must inevitably face Decker's wife and a decision that will affect all their lives.Based on a true story, White Rose is part romance and love story and part spy thriller. Set in both the exotic, primitive world of Cuba and the high-society milieu of Manhattan in 1897, here is a story that will inspire the imagination and capture the heart.Evangelina Cisneros is a very beautiful nineteen-year-old girl who, along with her father, is active in the struggle to oust the Spanish from Cuba in the late 1890s. When her father is arrested, she pleads his case to a Spanish general, who falls in love with her. She spurns his advances and is herself thrown in jail for her revolutionary activities.When reports of her imprisonment reach the New York papers, Evangelina becomes a cause cilhbre among the city's many society women. William Randolph Hearst, recognizing an opportunity, sends one of his star journalists, Karl Decker, to Havana on the pretense of interviewing her when in fact he is on a mission to effect her escape. As she tells him her story, the two find themselves falling in love. Back in America, Decker's wife is becoming increasingly suspicious of her husband's absences. After a frightening escape, Evangelina and Karl arrive in New York, where they are heralded as heroes. But then they must inevitably face Decker's wife and a decision that will affect all their lives.Based on a true story, White Rose is part romance and love story and part spy thriller. Set in both the exotic, primitive world of Cuba and the high-society milieu of Manhattan in 1897, here is a story that will inspire the imagination and capture the heart.