The well-intentioned protagonists of Brief Encounters with Che Guevara are caught -- to both disastrous and hilarious effect -- in the maelstrom of political and social upheaval surrounding them. In "Near-Extinct Birds of the Central Cordillera," an ornithologist being held hostage in the Colombian rain forest finds that he respects his captors for their commitment to a cause, until he realizes that the Revolution looks a lot like big business. In "The Good Ones Are Already Taken," the wife of a Special Forces officer battles a Haitian voodoo goddess with whom her husband is carrying on a not-entirely-spiritual relationship. And in "The Lion's Mouth," a disillusioned aid worker makes a Faustian bargain to become a diamond smuggler for the greater good. With masterful pacing and a robust sense of the absurd, each story in Brief Encounters with Che Guevara is a self-contained adventure, steeped in the heady mix of tragedy and danger, excitement and hope, that characterizes countries in transition.Through Fountain's rounded and novelistic prose, these intelligent and keenly observed stories are painted in provocative and vibrant detail across a global canvas. Brief Encounters with Che Guevara marks the arrival of a striking and resonant new voice that speaks adeptly to the intimate connection between the foreign, the familiar, and the inescapably human.

The marvelous creations found in Fragile Things showcase the unparalleled invention and storytelling brilliance—as well as the terrifyingly dark and entertaining sense of humor—of the incomparable Neil Gaiman. By turns delightful, disturbing, and diverting, Fragile Things is a gift of literary enchantment from one of the most original writers of our time.In Selections from Fragile Things, Volume 5 you will find the following stories and poems sure to thrill and amaze.In the End“In the end,” starts the ultimate imagined biblical scene, a strange reversal of Genesis.GoliathDerived from the * of The Matrix, a giant man attempts to navigate a simple life on an Earth where even the most basic rules of time and travel are routinely broken.Pages from a Journal Found in a Shoebox Left in a Greyhound Bus Somewhere Between Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Louisville, KentuckyA rambling American journey in search of the evasive Scarlett, recorded in a journal and left in a shoebox of treasures for us to decipher.How To Talk To Girls At PartiesFifteen-year-old Enn has trouble talking to girls. His best friend Vic’s solutionWith practice comes comfort. But, this party, with its otherworldly guests, may produce just the opposite effect.The Day the Saucers CameYou would think the mass-landing of flying saucers would be hard to miss, unless of course you were distracted by the zombies or something equally consuming, as in Gaiman’s apocalyptic love poem. SunbirdWhat’s an Epicurean Club to do when it’s exhausted all the world’s finest delicacies, from flash-frozen mammoth, to unicorn flank tartare, to dung-beetle ballsHunt down a Sunbird and push the limits of gastronomic indulgence a bit further, of course. Inventing AladdinGaiman’s poem examines storytellers’ motivation through the most dire case, that of Scheherazade.

Though unalike as snowflakes, sisters Patricia Anne and Mary Alice share a sympathetic heart for their distraught cousin Luke -- known affectionately in his boyhood as "Pukey Lukey," because of his penchant for getting sick in moving vehicles. Luke is desperate to hunt down Virginia, his wife of forty years, who has run off with a housepainter/snake-handling preacher named "Monk." And the sisters have graciously agreed to accompany their stricken kinsman on his search...in Luke's car, of course.But, while practical "Mouse" and flamboyant "Sister" are unable to find their runaway cousin-in-law among the asp-loving faithful on Chandler Mountain, they do manage to stumble upon the corpse of a pretty young redhead who was prematurely sent to her eternal reward. And before you can say "anaconda," they are hot on the serpentine trail of a killer who'd like nothing better than to sink a pair of poisonous fangs into two meddling Southern sisters!

Patricia Anne can't imagine why Mary Alice is in such an uproar over her son Ray's new bride. Sunshine Dabbs is Ucute as can be," even if she is a bit unconventional, which should hardly come as a shock to Mary Alicc given that she's the one who raised her boy. But with all her motherly instincts, Mary Alice is sure that this sweet little blonde Barbie doll--who met her son in Bora Bora after she won the trip on Wheel of Fortune--thinks she's found herself a fortune in Ray's hefty wallet. The sisters can't wait to get a look at Sunshine's family, and quite a look it turns out to be. As soon as Meemaw Turkett invites Mary Alice and Patricia Anne into her cozy trailer on the family compound they stumble over a corpse, and Meemaw's best hog butchering knife is stuck in its chest. Meemaw, a Cabbage Patch look-alike and Sunshine's grandmother, guardian, and the family matriarch is shocked to pieces and immediately summons the family to her trailer. Pawpaw, a lovable bearded grump has his own trailer, and their grown kids each enjoy a private home-away-from-home on the five-trailer compound. The discovery of the mysterious body brings in Mary Alice's nemesis, good ol' boy Sheriff Reuse, who, she knows from her experience at the Skoot 'n' Boot, is nothing but trouble. Within minutes, the compound is strewn with a weird collection of friends, neighbors and relatives. There's Meemaw's spooky channeler, ready to give guidance as needed; Sunshine's jilted boyfriend skulking around; a bunch of dogs ready to attack...and Kerrigan, Sunshine's mostly absentee mama, who stars in the kind of video flicks that might even shock Mary Alice. Patricia Anne can't imagine why Mary Alice is in such an uproar over her son Ray's new bride. Sunshine Dabbs is Ucute as can be," even if she is a bit unconventional, which should hardly come as a shock to Mary Alicc given that she's the one who raised her boy. But with all her motherly instincts, Mary Alice is sure that this sweet little blonde Barbie doll--who met her son in Bora Bora after she won the trip on Wheel of Fortune--thinks she's found herself a fortune in Ray's hefty wallet. The sisters can't wait to get a look at Sunshine's family, and quite a look it turns out to be. As soon as Meemaw Turkett invites Mary Alice and Patricia Anne into her cozy trailer on the family compound they stumble over a corpse, and Meemaw's best hog butchering knife is stuck in its chest. Meemaw, a Cabbage Patch look-alike and Sunshine's grandmother, guardian, and the family matriarch is shocked to pieces and immediately summons the family to her trailer. Pawpaw, a lovable bearded grump has his own trailer, and their grown kids each enjoy a private home-away-from-home on the five-trailer compound. The discovery of the mysterious body brings in Mary Alice's nemesis, good ol' boy Sheriff Reuse, who, she knows from her experience at the Skoot 'n' Boot, is nothing but trouble. Within minutes, the compound is strewn with a weird collection of friends, neighbors and relatives. There's Meemaw's spooky channeler, ready to give guidance as needed; Sunshine's jilted boyfriend skulking around; a bunch of dogs ready to attack...and Kerrigan, Sunshine's mostly absentee mama, who stars in the kind of video flicks that might even shock Mary Alice.

Those hilarious southern sisters, who prove that sibling rivalry never ends, are heading for a vacation at the beach. Mary Alice's flamboyant behavior aside, serious, sensible Patricia Anne looks forward to relaxing at her sister's beachfront condo in Destin, Florida, so she kisses her ever-loving spouse Fred god-bye, reminds him to water the plants and feed the dog, and the girls head south for some fin in the sun. Mary Alice loses no time in making the acquaintance of just about everyone in sight, so watching the sun go down on the beautiful shores of the Gulf of Mexico is a welcome respite as far as Patricia Anne is concerned. . .until a dead body washes up in the waves and the victim turns out to be one of Mary Alice's newfound friends. With no witnesses t the crime except a few great blue herons, the sisters have no choice but to bypass the clueless police and follow their own instinct to find the killer. Before long they_re on a murky trail of dirty real-estate deals, giant turtle habitats, and a sea of evidence pointing to a mammoth motive for murderer.

Murder on a Bad Hair DayIt's hard to believe practical, petite ex-schoolteacher Patricia Anne and amiable, ample-bodied, and outrageous Mary Alice are sisters, yet sibling rivalry has survived decades of good-natured disagreement about everything from husbands to hair color. No sooner do the Southern sisters discover a common interest in some local art, when they're arguing the artistic merits of some well-coiffured heads at a gallery opening. A few hours later, one of those pretty ladies ends up dead -- with not a hair out of place. The other shows up on Patricia Anne's doorstep dazed, disheveled, and telling a wild tale of a narrow escape from some deadly cuts. Now the sisters are once again combing for clues to catch a killer with a bizarre style in art -- and murder.

A Different Kind of Sister ActPatricia Anne -- "Mouse" -- is respectful, respectable, and demure, a perfect example of genteel Southern womanhood. Mary Alice -- "Sister" -- is big, brassy, flamboyant, and bold. Together they have a knack for finding themselves in the center of some of Birmingham's most unfortunate unpleasantness.Country Western is red hot these days, so overimpulsive Mary Alice thinks it makes perfect sense to buy the Skoot 'n' Boot bar -- since that's where the many-times-divorced "Sister" and her boyfriend du jour like to hang out anyway. Sensible retired schoolteacher Patricia Anne is inclined to disagree -- especially when they find a strangled and stabbed dead body dangling in the pub's wishing well. The sheriff has some questions for Mouse and her sister Sister, who were the last people, besides the murderer, of course, to see the ill-fated victim alive. And they had better come up with some answers soon -- because a killer with unfinished business has begun sending them some mighty threatening messages...

Mary Alice has spared nothing for her only daughter's wedding -- from seventy-five yards of bridal train to gourmet food for over three hundred guests and enough glittering elegance to make Mary Alice think about finding herself a fourth rich husband to pay for it all. Practical Patricia Anne has put away her aunt-of-the-bride blue chiffon and settled back into domesticity when fun-loving Mary Alice calls to say they have a post-wedding date with a genealogist from the groom's side of the family. Lunch is a fascinating lesson on the hazards of finding dirty linens in ancestral boudoirs that ends abruptly when their guest scurries off with the local judge, leaving the sisters with their mouths open -- and finishing their luncheon companion's cheesecake -- when the police arrive. Their mysterious guest has taken a plunge from the ninth floor of the courthouse building -- an apparent suicide. But given the scandals a nosy genealogist might have uncovered, the sisters are betting that some proud Southern family is making sure their shameful secrets stay buried. . .along with anyone who tries to dig them up.

Patricia Anne would swear that either she or her sister Mary Alice were switched at birth, except they were both born at home.Flashy, flirtatious Mary Alice is one foot taller, twice the body weight of Patricia Anne, and three times as likely to do something completely off the wall. But now Mary Alice's impulsive behavior has land them both in the Birmingham jail!It all begins with a call from their good friend Mitzi Phizer, who's starting an investment club -- kind of a Beardstown Ladies group. Patricia Anne is willing to make a small, conservative investment in a thriving chain of HMOs; Mary Alice is hot to trot to put her money on Viagra. But before the club idea gets off the ground, the sisters spot Mitzi's supposedly faithful husband in a chummy little huddle with a redhead -- and the next thing they know, Arthur is accused of murdering the mystery woman. Nothing about the whole sordid story fits the kind, gently Arthur, and Patricia Anne is doing her best to console her good friends. But when their house catches on fire, and Arthur is shot in a place that won't allow him to even sit down at his own murder trial, the sisters know they have to stand up for the poor fellow. And that means checking out everyone -- from low-down cads to highbrow bank presidents -- to find a no good gun-toting arsonist who believes big money is to kill for.

Throughout history, waves of invaders have coveted the northeast corner of France: Attila the Hun in the fifth century, the English in the Hundred Years War, the Prussians in the nineteenth century. Yet this region – which historians say has suffered more battles and wars than any other place on earth – is also the birthplace of one thing the entire world equates with good times, friendship and celebration: champagne. Champagne is the story of the world's favourite wine. It tells how a sparkling beverage that became the toast of society during the Belle Epoque emerged after World War I as a global icon of fine taste and good living. The book celebrates the gutsy, larger–than–life characters whose proud determination nurtured and preserved the land and its grapes throughout centuries of conflict.

Fante's captivating letters trace his emergence from poverty to life as a Hollywood screenwriter. Complemented by many photos and interesting appendices, the book is most distinguished by Fante's letters to his mother-letters in which he is just as apt to lie about church attendance as he is to describe, with peculiar candor, skinny-dipping with a girl friend.

A novel based on the Emmy Award-winning television series created by Chris Carter.When a disease-ravaged body is found in the smoldering ruins of the federally funded DyMar genetic research lab, Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully fear that a deadly, man-made plague is on the loose. As the FBI agents investigating the "X-Files" -- cases the bureau has deemed unsolvable -- Mulder and Scully pursue the truth wherever it leads, even into the labyrinthine corridors of the FBI... and beyond.Racing to contain the lethal virus before it can spread, Mulder and Scully make a chilling discovery. Before his death, Dr. David Kennessy, a hotshot cancer researcher at DyMar, had been experimenting with a promising but highly dangerous technology: microscopic bio-machines that can cure any disease, heal any wound. In theory, this research could be a miracle cure, perhaps even a doorway to immortality. It was also the only way Dr. Kennessy could save his leukemia-stricken son.But when a second corpse turns up, savagely mutilated from within, it's anything but theoretical. Could machines created to cure have learned to killScrambling for answers, Mulder and Scully are opposed at every step by faceless enemies with all the resources of the government -- even perhaps of their own agency -- at their command. Enemies who will stop at nothing to ensure that the secret of immortality falls in the right hands -- their hands.As sinister forces close in, Scully fights to save the life of an innocent boy while Mulder comes face to face with a crazed and desperate man. A man whose slightest touch brings agonizing death -- and perhaps a resurrection more horrible still.

Serial killers come in all shapes and sizes, but this one is particularly puzzling.There's no pattern to the mutilated bodies that have been showing up in Albuquerque: both sexes, all races, ages, ethnic groups. There is no evidence of rape or ritual. Only one thing connects the victims. They were the victims of a natural disaster. One of the most unnatural natural disasters imaginable, leading to a most painful, most certain and most hideous death.... Mulder and Scully, FBI: the agency maverick and the female agent assigned to keep him in line. Their job: investigate the eerie unsolved mysteries the Bureau wants handled quietly, but quickly, before the public finds out what's really out there. And panics. The cases filed under "X."

While taking an evening stroll through one of London's most impoverished districts, author Bram Stoker spies a maddeningly familiar figure hurrying through the shadows. Little does he know that, only a few steps away, a vicious killer has claimed his first victim, a local prostitute. The crime spree of the century has begun—and the hapless writer is the prime suspect. Now, to clear his name, Stoker must enlist the aid of illustrious friends—including Walt Whitman, the wildly popular novelist Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine, and Lady Jane Wilde, mother of the most notorious literary notable of the day—to hunt down the fiend who is taunting and terrorizing London and calling himself Jack the Ripper.

The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton travel from Boston to the North Carolina mountains where they plan to create a timber empire. Although George has already lived in the camp long enough to father an illegitimate child, Serena is new to the mountains—but she soon shows herself to be the equal of any man, overseeing crews, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving her husband's life in the wilderness. Together this lord and lady of the woodlands ruthlessly kill or vanquish all who fall out of favor. Yet when Serena learns that she will never bear a child, she sets out to murder the son George fathered without her. Mother and child begin a struggle for their lives, and when Serena suspects George is protecting his illegitimate family, the Pembertons' intense, passionate marriage starts to unravel as the story moves toward its shocking reckoning.Rash's masterful balance of violence and beauty yields a riveting novel that, at its core, tells of love both honored and betrayed.

Armed with trust funds and pedigrees but bent on rebellion, twenty-somethings Alice, Harry, Rose, and Hugo are teetering on the brink of self-destruction. With Manhattan and London as their playgrounds, they chase oblivion—and their next high—through a glittering blur of nightclubs, decadent parties, high fashion, and underground music scenes, hard-partying on the razor's edge with a never-ending cocktail of drugs and booze. Insomniacs and unstoppable, these four lost souls ride the extreme highs and devastating lows of a summer that quickly reaches a crescendo of music, heat, and hedonism. Wavering between moments of revelation and ruin, they illuminate a generation given everything—except an answer to the timeless question: Who am IFrom a remarkable new literary voice comes a startling, fresh, strikingly candid novel of addiction and excess.

A Deadly CrashA rainy night in south London. A gun is fired into a car, which swerves onto the pavement and plows into a bus stop. It seems that a chilling gang initiation has cost the life of an innocent victim. But the reality is far more sinister. . . .A Dangerous QuestOne life is wiped out and three more are changed forever: the young man whose finger was on the trigger, the ageing gangster planning a deadly revenge, and the pregnant woman who struggles desperately to uncover the truth. How will she, two weeks away from giving birth, now cope in a world where death is an occupational hazard?A Shocking TwistIn a city where violence can be random or meticulously planned, where teenage gangs clash with career criminals and where loyalty is paid for in blood, nything is possible. Secrets are uncovered as fast as bodies, and the story's final twist is as breathtakingly surprising as they come.Mark Billingham's first stand-alone thriller, In the Dark is his most powerful novel yet. Gritty, fierce, and moving, here is a must-read for anyone who likes their crime fiction unflinching—and unforgettable.

Lindsay took to marriage like a starlet to stilettos, but her husband had a deeper love for his business. Left alone after his death, Lindsay must find out who she is when there isn't a party to plan or another person's life to be organized. Can she find her way Back to Life?Lindsay realized when she married Ron, a man seventeen years her senior, that the odds were he'd see heaven before her, but she never expected to be a widow at thirty-five. She knows there's too much of life remaining for her to just sit around in mourning, but she can't seem to kick-start the rest of her life. Then unexpected help arrives...when Ron's first wife, Jane, shows up at Lindsay's front door.The executor of their late husband's estate, Jane is everything Lindsay's not: strong, stubborn, independent...and a lot older. There are other surprises as well, including Ron Jr. (whom Jane insists is not "really" Ron's son). But against all odds, a most unlikely friendship begins to develop—as each woman discovers how to own up to her past mistakes and to reevaluate what is really important. Told in the alternating voices of Jane and Lindsay, and featuring the return of many of the unforgettable characters introduced in The Trophy Wives Club, Back to Life is a lighthearted, relatable read about where to turn when life goes in a direction you never planned.

A high school jock and nerd fall in love senior year, only to part after an amazing summer of discovery to attend their respective colleges. They keep in touch at first, but then slowly drift apart.Flash forward twenty years.Travis and Craig both have great lives, careers, and loves. But something is missing .... Travis is the first to figure it out. He's still in love with Craig, and come what may, he's going after the boy who captured his heart, even if it means forsaking his job, making a fool of himself, and entering the great unknown. Told in narrative, letters, checklists, and more, this is the must-read novel for anyone who's wondered what ever happened to that first great love.

For centuries Mira has been a nightwalker—an unstoppable enforcer for a mysterious organization that manipulates earth-shaking events from the darkest shadows. But elemental mastery over fire sets her apart from others of her night-prowling breed . . . and may be all that prevents her doom.The foe she now faces is human: the vampire hunter called Danaus, who has already destroyed so many undead. For Mira, the time has come to hunt . . . or be hunted.

Innkeeper and amateur sleuth Judith McMonigle Flynn's worst nightmare comes true when Vivian Flynn—husband Joe's first wife—moves back into the neighborhood. Vivian, who has become mysteriously wealthy, plans to build a big, bad condoon their idyllic cul-de-sac. Outraged, Judith and her neighbors vow to fight the project to the death.Vivian isn't the only newcomer to the area. Frankie Buss, son of another of Vivian's ex-husbands, has arrived at Hillside Manor with his wife. Vivian was married to his father for what seemed like minutes before she inherited his vast wealth—and ran off with his other son. Now Frankie's dying for his share of the pot of gold.Vivian's got more than one mortal enemy—but which one ended up dead in her back yardIf she wants her home sweet home to stay happy, Judith will have to find out.