A leprechaun is sighted in small–town New Hampshire. A city boy becomes a hero in prehistoric Sweden. An elf prince tries to reward a girl who wishes he'd just leave her alone. In these and other delightful stories, magical adventure appears in the most unexpected places! Instead of Three Wishes is a captivating collection of witty and sparkling fantasy stories from the Newbery Honor author of The Thief. Ages 10+

Bo Brewster has been at war with his father for as long as he can remember. Following angry outbursts at his football coach and English teacher that have cost him his spot on the football team and moved him dangerously close to expulsion from school, he turns to the only adult he believes will listen: Larry King.In his letters to Larry, Bo describes his quest for excellence on his own terms. No more coaches for me, he tells the talk show icon, no more dads. I'm going to be a triathlete, an Ironman.Relegated to Mr. Nak's before-school Anger Management group (which he initially believes to be populated with future serial killers and freeway snipers), Bo meets a hard-edged, down-on-their-luck pack of survivors with stainless steel shields against the world that Bo comes to see are not so different from his own. It is here he meets and falls in love with Shelly, a future American Gladiator, whose passion for physical challenge more than matches his.Ironman is a funny, sometimes heartbreaking story about growing up in the heart of struggle. It is about standing up, getting knocked down, and standing up again. It is about being heard--and learning to listen.

Do You Know: A good reason to be phobic about oysters and olivesThat you can step inside a roaring coal furnace and feet coolThat Jesus had an older brotherHow shutting your mouth can help you avoid brain surgeryHow to avoid cow-pies during your baptismHow to survive in the winter wilderness with only a fishing pole and a sausage?Chris Crutcherknows the answers to these things and more.And once you have read about Chris Crutcher's life as a dateless, broken-toothed, scabbed-over, God-fearing dweeb, and once you have contemplated his ascension to the buckskin-upholstered throne of the King of the Mild Frontier, you will close this book, close your eyes and hold it to your chest, and say, "I, too, can be an author."Hell, anyone can.

National Book Award Longlist2014 Bank Street Children's Book Committee Best Book of the Year"Beautifully written and elegantly structured, this fantasy is as real as it gets."—Franny Billingsley, author of ChimeThe Real Boy, Anne Ursu's follow-up to her widely acclaimed and beloved middle grade fantasy Breadcrumbs, is a spellbinding tale of the power we all wield, great and small.On an island on the edge of an immense sea there is a city, a forest, and a boy named Oscar. Oscar is a shop boy for the most powerful magician in the village, and spends his days in a small room in the dark cellar of his master's shop grinding herbs and dreaming of the wizards who once lived on the island generations ago. Oscar's world is small, but he likes it that way. The real world is vast, strange, and unpredictable. And Oscar does not quite fit in it.But now that world is changing. Children in the city are falling ill, and something sinister lurks in the forest. Oscar has long been content to stay in his small room in the cellar, comforted in the knowledge that the magic that flows from the forest will keep his island safe. Now, even magic may not be enough to save it.

Fast-paced, funny, and full of surprises, The Grimjinx Rebellion brings Brian Farrey's epic and critically acclaimed Vengekeep Prophecies trilogy to an unforgettable close.Jaxter Grimjinx and his family haven't had much time for thieving. Through no fault of their own, they've been too busy saving the day. But the danger in the Five Provinces is only just beginning. The Palatinate Mages are almost ready to unveil their master plan, and legendary monsters will soon roam the land once more. Then Jaxter's sister, Aubrin, is kidnapped by the Mages. It seems she has a power greater than her family ever realized, and she may be the key to the impending battle for the Five Provinces. Jaxter will do anything to get his little sister back—even if it means pulling off the greatest heist of his life and starting a full-scale rebellion.A "rich fantasy" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) with a family of thieves who "couldn't be more likable" (Kirkus Reviews), the Vengekeep Prophecies trilogy takes everything you thought you knew about prophecies and spins it into pure magic.

Joe Hill has been hailed as "a major player in 21st-century fantastic fiction" (Washington Post); "a new master in the field of suspense" (James Rollins); "one of the most confident and assured new voices in horror and dark fantasy to emerge in recent years (Publishers Weekly); a writer who "builds character invitingly and plants an otherworldly surprise around every corner" (New York Times).This gifted and brilliantly imaginative author catapulted to bestsellerdom with the chilling Heart-Shaped Box and cemented his reputation with the prizewinning volume of short fiction 20th Century Ghosts. At last, the New York Times bestselling author returns with a relentless supernatural thriller that runs like Hell on wheels. . . .Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache . . . and a pair of horns growing from his temples. At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural thing in the world. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real.Once the righteous Ig had enjoyed the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned musician and younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, he had security, wealth, and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more—he had Merrin and a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic.But Merrin's death damned all that. The only suspect in the crime, Ig was never charged or tried. And he was never cleared. In the court of public opinion in Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig is and always will be guilty because his rich and connected parents pulled strings to make the investigation go away. Nothing Ig can do, nothing he can say, matters. Everyone, it seems, including God, has abandoned him. Everyone, that is, but the devil inside. . . .Now Ig is possessed of a terrible new power to go with his terrible new look—a macabre talent he intends to use to find the monster who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. It's time for a little revenge. . . . It's time the devil had his due. . . .

From Nadine Haobsh, aka Jolie in NYC ("The poster child for the blogger generation...you can't help but love her."—New York Post), comes a delectable novel that only a true beauty industry insider could have written!Bella Hunter may be down but she's not out yet—and she's ready to take on the world of beauty...one bad makeover at a time.Pity the poor twenty-eight-year-old beauty expert and columnist for ultra-chic Enchanté magazine, knocked right out of her Jimmy Choos—and out of a job—when her off-the-cuff comment to a reporter is blown way out of proportion. Once the authority on style, Bella's reduced to taking a position at Womanly World, a publishing dinosaur of no interest whatsoever to any woman under fifty. Suddenly she's got to take orders from a dreary and dowdy beauty director—and is soon at war with her male publisher, who might actually be appealing if he wasn't so totally frosty.Bella's supermodel boyfriend, a hometown wedding, and a Paris junket are fine distractions, to be sure. But how can she face her friends and ex-coworkers now that she's stuck in an office where khaki—not Cavalli—is the way of lifeAnd if beauty's not what it's all about...then what is?

In this suspenseful fifth book in our wonderful series created by veteran dog trainer Lee Charles Kelley, a clever kennel owner, his lady love, and his loyal canines must solve their most disturbing mystery yet! It's October in Maine and ex–cop/criminologist turned dog trainer Jack Field and his fiancée, Chief State Medical Examiner Dr. Jamie Cutter, are getting married in a few weeks. But fate puts a wrench in their plans when the police find a young woman's body in a secluded lake. Jamie asks Jack, who's been appointed her civilian advisor, to come to the scene. Seeing the body sparks a memory of a case Jack studied while taking a seminar at the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit. He suspects the death is the work of a serial killer and as the mystery unfolds, it becomes clear that suspects abound, including a sleazy private detective, a well–respected botanist, recruits in the upper echelons of the FBI, and even the wealthy husband of Jack's ex–girlfriend. Add an adorable Dalmatian named Daisy and a wedding ceremony like no other you've ever seen, and you've got Kelley's most touching, heartbreaking, suspenseful, and downright hilarious book yet!

Italy, 1456. The Renaissance is in glorious bloom. A Carmelite monk, the great artist Fra Filippo Lippi acts as chaplain to the nuns of the Convent Santa Margherita. It is here that he encounters the greatest temptation of his life, beautiful Lucrezia Buti, who has been driven to holy orders more by poverty than piety. In Lucrezia's flawless face Lippi sees the inspiration for countless Madonnas and he brings the young woman to his studio to serve as his model. But as painter and muse are united in an exhilarating whirl of artistic discovery, a passionate love develops, one that threatens to destroy them both even as it fuels some of Lippi's greatest work.

For more than twenty-five years, the antimelodic “noise” of Sonic Youth has assaulted us, exhilarated us, inspired us. Why?Katherine Dunn says it's because they operate in the foggy world between the real and the surreal. Mary Gaitskill says that Sonic Youth caught her, years ago, when she was falling. J. Robert Lennon says it's because Sonic Youth rip it apart. Emily Maguire was hooked because once she was in love with chaos. Their sound is caustic, elemental, nihilistic—and quite unlike any other cult band ever to achieve rock godhood. In Noise, twenty-one great literary voices offer short fiction based on or inspired by songs from Sonic Youth—a raucous coupling of music and literature featuring marrow-colored goo, severed hands and abandoned babies, Patty Hearst watching the apocalypse on TV, and other unruly images of the Zeitgeist.Contributors Hiag Akmakjian Christopher Coake Katherine Dunn Mary Gaitskill Rebecca Godfrey Laird Hunt Shelley Jackson J. Robert Lennon Samuel Ligon Emily Maguire Tom McCarthy Scott Mebus Eileen Myles Catherine O'Flynn Emily Carter Roiphe Kevin Sampsell Steven Sherrill Matt Thorne Rachel Trezise Jess Walter Peter Wild

With The Pleasure is All Mine, anyone can enjoy a Steak au Poivre with Frites, Three-Cheese Ravioli, Coconut Fish Curry with Homemade Naan Bread, or a Wild Blueberry Free-Form Tart without the expense and hassle of restaurants or fussy dinner guests. The 100 uncomplicated, exquisite recipes in this collection are simple to prepare and require no fancy equipment. With just a skillet, bowl, knife, and a few perfect ingredients, Pirret makes great solo dining effortless-and she offers inspired wine and cocktail pairings, too, to make dinner complete. Edgy and bursting with personality, The Pleasure is All Mine is also filled with a wealth of devilishly entertaining stories based on her experiences living in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, and London.

The Girls' Almanac chronicles the lives of Jenna and Lucy—two thirty-something women who desperately long for a true friend—as well as the lives of the women and men who have touched them: friends, lovers, parents, and neighbors. Set across the Northeast—through suburban neighborhoods, preppy camps, island resorts, and Ivy League colleges—as well as far flung locales like Ecuador and Iceland, The Girls' Almanac traces the friendships of women willing to risk both self-consciousness and intimacy, loss and betrayal, in pursuit of a proper best friend. Exploring the fascinating closeness and distance that female friendships encompass, The Girls' Almanac reveals the map of Jenna and Lucy's interconnected lives, and ultimately their pathways to each other.

All over Hollywood, men are dialing O—for orgasms. Her steamy naughty talk fills them with lust and longing, and helps them perform like the studs they claim to be.In truth, the industry's favorite "erotic phone operatrix" is Nina Harte, a struggling actress who has put her career on hold so that her husband, Nathan, can pursue his own dreams of stardom. When Nathan's career takes off, so does he, leaving Nina and their four-year-old son, Jake, for his diva costar, Katerina McPherson. Then "Kat 'n' Nat" are crowned the media's newest celebrity sweethearts, and Kat labels Nina an unfit mother in order to win custody of Jake, just so that she can have that highly-coveted celebrity accessory—an adorable child—sans any unsightly stretch marks. The one person who does care about Nina is Nathan's agent, Sam Godwin. In fact, he's in love with her. And because he has both a heart and a conscience, Sam feels guilty for having put Nat in Kat's path in the first place . . . Then again, how will he feel when he learns that Nina and O are one and the same?

At age 30, Iley Gilbert is thoroughly sick of trying to make it in the photo biz, and disenchanted after putting in stints at a Boston-area newspaper, a photography gallery, and even a pathetic frame shop. When she abruptly quits the frame shop, she's ready to give up for good, until she spots a compelling ad in the paper. A photographer who shoots high school prom photos is looking for an assistant. Not only that, He's willing to pay top dollar to someone who would give up Friday and Saturday nights to help take pre-prom pictures of high-school kids dressed in their finery and candid shots during the dance. William Jasper, Prom Photographer, is not the brand of aging, greasy wedding photographer she was expecting. Rather, He's 35, strikingly handsome, and sharp-witted. Iley is instantly attracted to him and gets the sense the feeling is mutual. But William isn't everything He's made himself out to be that is, he's not single. He's got a permanently out-of town wife-he doesn't need a girlfriend. But Iley has lost her way, and she-ll need her friends and her photos and a lot of bad proms before she can find her way back on track, away from the sleezeball, and into a life that-s a little more picture-perfect.

Shortlisted for the Booker PrizeHermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn't share his brother's appetite for whiskey and killing, he's never known anything else. But their prey isn't an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm's gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living–and whom he does it for.With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable comic tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters–losers, cheaters, and ne'er-do-wells from all stripes of life–and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love.

Serge Storms, that loveable thermonuclear vigilante and one-stop-Florida-trivia-shop, has been leaving corpses strewn across the Sunshine State for more than a decade. The authorities—especially one tenacious state agent—have begun to notice the exponential body count, and send a police task force to track down Serge. Could his luck finally have run out?Meanwhile, armed with his perpetually baked sidekick, Coleman, Serge decides to blitz the state and resurrect his Internet travel-advice website—which, of course, must be the finest and the final word on trekking the Sunshine State. To up the ante, Serge concocts a theme vacation for his cyberspace audience. And that themeYou, too, can experience Florida through the eyes of a fugitive.Off they go blogging along a getaway route through the state's most remote bayous, back roads, and bars, where the number of cadavers begin stacking up like Serge's website hits. And in the middle of all his make-believe close brushes, Serge finally wises up to his pursuers and realizes that the manic gumball rally is genuinely on "in the tradition of the great American chase movie."Clues and questions mount:Who are all the women being photographed naked in the swamp?What made Coleman draw on his face with magic markers?Where is the cruise-to-nowhere taking its drunk prisoners?When was the last time a Civil War reenactment involved a sports car?But Serge also has some personal business to tidy up. His grandfather's old Miami Beach gang suddenly had their life savings wiped out, and there's a good bet it was no accident. Too much action for Serge to juggleNot when it all dovetails nicely into his Secret Master Plan. And especially if it involves Serge's favorite new obsession: tracking Al Capone's little-known escapades in the Everglades.So gas up the car, say good-bye to the relatives, and join Serge on the lam as he drives straight for the deepest bowels of Florida to unravel the final mysteries of Electric Barracuda.

From Valerie Laken, the Pushcart Prize–winning author of Dream House, comes a powerful collection of short stories charting the divisions and collisions between cultures and nations, families and outsiders, and partners and misfits searching for love. Set in Russia and the United States, these are boldly innovative stories—tales of fractured, misplaced characters moving beyond the borders of their isolation and reaching for the connections that will make them whole.A family, shaken by an industrial accident, is divided, its members isolated in their home and only able to understand one another from their separate rooms. A young gay couple travels to Russia to meet the child they're desperately trying to adopt, but the experience reveals an emotional divide between the parents-to-be. A recent amputee removes herself from her body to keep her husband at bay. And the idyllic village life of a blind Russian boy is disrupted by an American dentist and the wonders of racy Western magazines. Separate Kingdoms is a rich and satisfying collection that traverses the distances between people and places in each marvelously rendered story.

From Tamar Myers, author of The Witch Doctor's Wife, comes a spellbinding tale of equatorial Africa and a child torn dangerously between two worlds.In 1945, an infant left inadvertently to die in the jungles of the Belgian Congo is discovered by a young Bashilele tribesman on a mission to claim the head of an enemy. Recognized as human—despite her pale white skin and strange blue eyes—the baby is brought into the tribe and raised as its own. Thirteen years later, the girl—now called "Ugly Eyes"—will find herself at the center of a controversy that will rock two separate societies.Young missionary Amanda Brown hears the incredible stories of a white girl living among the Bashilele headhunters. In the company of the local police chief, Captain Pierre Jardin, and with the witch doctor's wife, the quick-witted Cripple, along as translator, Amanda heads into the wild hoping to bring the lost girl back to "civilization." But Ugly Eyes no longer belongs in their world—and the secrets surrounding her birth and disappearance are placing them all in far graver peril than anyone ever imagined.

You don't have to be French to not get fat, and you sure don't have to be a bitch to be skinny . . . Screw diets, forget about fasting, and start putting your monthly gym dues toward next month's dinner party. Just eat! Entrepreneur and fashionista Divya Gugnani is living proof that you can work fourteen-hour days, stay fit, and satisfy your everyday food cravings. In Sexy Women Eat, Divya shows you how to make small changes in your daily routine that add up to big savings on the scale and higher energy levels to help power you through your busy life. Divya dispels dieting myths, gives you the 411 on energy bars, green tea, and protein shakes, and offers unconventional tips that only the busiest women will understand (yes, you can actually break a sweat at the office without anyone noticing!). Sexy Women Eat will empower you to stop the yo-yo dieting and start eating well, because sexy women always have an appetite for life.

Between your full-length mirror and high-school biology class, you probably think you know a lot about the human body. While it's true that we live in an age when we're as obsessed with our bodies as we are with celebrity hairstyles, the reality is that most of us know very little about what chugs, churns, and thumps throughout this miraculous, scientific, and artistic system of anatomy. Yes, you've owned your skin-covered shell for decades, but you probably know more about your cell-phone plan than you do about your own body. When it comes to your longevity and quality of life, understanding your internal systems gives you the power, authority, and ability to live a healthier, younger, and better life.The flagship book of the YOU series, which spawned three subsequent New York Times bestsellers, has now been expanded and updated to make you understand your body even better—perhaps too well.YOU: The Owner's Manual, Updated and Expanded Edition challenges your preconceived notions about how the human body works and ages, then takes you on a tour through all of the highways, back roads, and landmarks inside of you. In this update, the doctors have included a new chapter on the liver and pancreas, which will finally demystify the most exotic parts of our bodies; a new workout chapter that will finally get you moving; and nearly one hundred Q&As asked by you, the reader. It has also been updated throughout to give you up-to-the-minute know-how to not just understand what to do to keep fit, but also why and how. The book opens with a quiz, "How Well Do You Know Your Body?," which sets the stage for the following chapters. After taking the quiz, you'll learn about all of your blood-pumping, food-digesting, and keys-remembering systems and organs, including the heart, brain, lungs, immune system, bones, and sensory organs. Each chapter also contains common myths of the particular body part that the authors will debunk.Just as important, you'll get the facts and advice you need to keep your body running long and strong. You'll find out how diseases start and how they affect your body—as well as advice on how to prevent and beat conditions that threaten your quality of life. Complete with exercise tips, nutritional guidelines, simple lifestyle changes, and alternative approaches, YOU: The Owner's Manual, Updated and Expanded Edition gives you an easy, comprehensive, and life-changing how-to plan for fending off the gremlins of aging. To top it off, this new edition includes even more great-tasting and calorie-saving recipes as part of the Owner's Manual Diet—an eating plan that is designed with only one goal in mind: to help you live a younger life.Welcome to your body. Why don't you come on in and take a look around?

Between your full-length mirror and high-school biology class, you probably think you know a lot about the human body. While it's true that we live in an age when we're as obsessed with our bodies as we are with celebrity hairstyles, the reality is that most of us know very little about what chugs, churns, and thumps throughout this miraculous, scientific, and artistic system of anatomy. Yes, you've owned your skin-covered shell for decades, but you probably know more about your cell-phone plan than you do about your own body. When it comes to your longevity and quality of life, understanding your internal systems gives you the power, authority, and ability to live a healthier, younger, and better life.The flagship book of the YOU series, which spawned three subsequent New York Times bestsellers, has now been expanded and updated to make you understand your body even better—perhaps too well.YOU: The Owner's Manual, Updated and Expanded Edition challenges your preconceived notions about how the human body works and ages, then takes you on a tour through all of the highways, back roads, and landmarks inside of you. In this update, the doctors have included a new chapter on the liver and pancreas, which will finally demystify the most exotic parts of our bodies; a new workout chapter that will finally get you moving; and nearly one hundred Q&As asked by you, the reader. It has also been updated throughout to give you up-to-the-minute know-how to not just understand what to do to keep fit, but also why and how. The book opens with a quiz, "How Well Do You Know Your Body?," which sets the stage for the following chapters. After taking the quiz, you'll learn about all of your blood-pumping, food-digesting, and keys-remembering systems and organs, including the heart, brain, lungs, immune system, bones, and sensory organs. Each chapter also contains common myths of the particular body part that the authors will debunk.Just as important, you'll get the facts and advice you need to keep your body running long and strong. You'll find out how diseases start and how they affect your body—as well as advice on how to prevent and beat conditions that threaten your quality of life. Complete with exercise tips, nutritional guidelines, simple lifestyle changes, and alternative approaches, YOU: The Owner's Manual, Updated and Expanded Edition gives you an easy, comprehensive, and life-changing how-to plan for fending off the gremlins of aging. To top it off, this new edition includes even more great-tasting and calorie-saving recipes as part of the Owner's Manual Diet—an eating plan that is designed with only one goal in mind: to help you live a younger life.Welcome to your body. Why don't you come on in and take a look around?