Through a largely hidden ceremony . . . four friends discover the true meaning of lifeIt's 2006 in a seaside village in Israel, where a war is brewing. Lauren, Emily, Aviva and Rachel, four memorable women from different backgrounds, are drawn to the village. Lauren, a maternity nurse, loves her Israeli doctor husband but struggles to make a home for herself in a foreign land thousands of miles away from her beloved Boston. Seeking a fresh start after a divorce, her vivacious friend Emily follows. Strong, sensuous Aviva, brought to Israel years earlier by intelligence work, has raised a family and now lost a son. And Rachel, a beautiful, idealistic college graduate from Wyoming, arrives with her hopeful dreams.The women forge a friendship that sustains them as they come to terms with love and loss, and the outbreak of war. Their intimate bond is strengthened by their participation in a traditional ritual that closes the circle of life. As their lives are slowly transformed, each finds unexpected strength and resilience.Brimming with wisdom, rich in meaningful insights, A Remarkable Kindness is a moving testament to women's friendship, illuminating a mostly unknown ritual that underscores what it means to truly be alive.

The Sparrow Sisters are as tightly woven into the New England seaside town of Granite Point as the wild sweet peas that climb the stone walls along the harbor. Sorrel, Nettie, and Patience are as colorful as the beach plums on the dunes and as mysterious as the fog that rolls into town at dusk.When a new doctor settles into Granite Point, he brings with him a mystery so compelling that town healer Patience is drawn to love him even as she struggles to mend him. But when Patience Sparrow's herbs and tinctures are believed to be implicated in a local tragedy, Granite Point is consumed by a long-buried fear—and its three-hundred-year-old history resurfaces as a modern-day witch hunt threatens. The plants and flowers, fruit trees, and high hedges begin to wither and die, and the entire town begins to fail; fishermen return to the harbor empty-handed, and blight descends on the old elms that line the lanes.It seems as if Patience and her town are lost until the women of Granite Point band together to save the Sparrows. As they gather, drawing strength from each other, will they be able to turn the tide and return life to Granite Point?

The White Witch, Aslan, fauns and talking beasts, centaurs and epic battles between good and evil -- all these have become a part of our collective imagination through the classic volumes of The Chronicles of Narnia. Over the past half century, children everywhere have escaped into this world and delighted in its wonders and enchantments. Yet what we do know of the man who created NarniaThis biography sheds new light on the making of the original Narnian, C. S. Lewis himself.Lewis was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably the most influential religious writer of his day. An Oxford don and scholar of medieval literature, he loved to debate philosophy at his local pub, and his wartime broadcasts on the basics of Christian belief made him a celebrity in his native Britain. Yet one of the most intriguing aspects of Clive Staples Lewis remains a mystery. How did this middle-aged Irish bachelor turn to the writing of stories for children -- stories that would become among the most popular and beloved ever written?Alan Jacobs masterfully tells the story of the original Narnian. From Lewis's childhood days in Ireland playing with his brother, Warnie, to his horrific experiences in the trenches during World War I, to his friendship with J. R. R. Tolkien (and other members of the "Inklings"), and his remarkable late-life marriage to Joy Davidman, Jacobs traces the events and people that shaped Lewis's philosophy, theology, and fiction. The result is much more than a conventional biography of Lewis: Jacobs tells the story of a profound and extraordinary imagination. For those who grew up with Narnia, or for those just discovering it, The Narnian tells a remarkable tale of a man who knew great loss and great delight, but who knew above all that the world holds far more richness and meaning than the average eye can see.

Many writers have explored Lincoln's leadership; others have debated Lincoln's ambiguous religious identity. But in this classic work, Christian philosopher and statesman Elton Trueblood reveals how Lincoln's leadership skills flowed directly from his religious convictions which explains how the president was able to combine what few leaders can hold together: moral resoluteness with a shrewd ability to compromise; confidence in his cause while refusing to succumb to the traps of self-righteousness or triumphalism; and a commitment to victory while never losing sight of his responsibility for or the humanity of his enemy. These rich meditations offer deep wisdom and insight on one of the most effective leaders of all time.

At the age of eighteen, Aaron Cohen left Beverly Hills to prove himself in the crucible of the armed forces. He was determined to be a part of Israel's most elite security cadre, akin to the American Green Berets and Navy SEALs. After fifteen months of grueling training designed to break down each individual man and to rebuild him as a warrior, Cohen was offered the only post a non-Israeli can hold in the special forces. In 1996 he joined a top-secret, highly controversial unit that dispatches operatives disguised as Arabs into the Palestinian-controlled West Bank to abduct terrorist leaders and bring them to Israel for interrogation and trial.Between 1996 and 1998, Aaron Cohen would learn Hebrew and Arabic; become an expert in urban counterterror warfare, the martial art of Krav Maga, and undercover operations; and participate in dozens of life-or-death missions. He would infiltrate a Hamas wedding to seize a wanted terrorist and pose as an American journalist to set a trap for one of the financiers behind the Dizengoff Massacre, taking him down in a brutal, hand-to-hand struggle. A propulsive, gripping read, Cohen's story is a rare, fly-on-the-wall view into the shadowy world of "black ops" that redefines invincible strength, true danger, and inviolable security.

Freemason ... Shaman ... Prophet ... Seducer ... Swindler ... Thief ... HereticWho was the mysterious Count CagliostroDepending on whom you ask, he was either a great healer or a dangerous charlatan. Internationally acclaimed historian Iain McCalman documents how Cagliostro crossed paths -- and often swords -- with the likes of Catherine the Great, Marie Antoinette, and Pope Pius VI. He was a muse to William Blake and the inspiration for both Mozart's Magic Flute and Goethe's Faust. Louis XVI had him thrown into the Bastille for his alleged involvement in what would come to be known as "the affair of the necklace." Yet in London, Warsaw, and St. Petersburg, he established "healing clinics" for the poorest of the poor, and his dexterity in the worlds of alchemy and spiritualism won him acclaim among the nobility across Europe.Also the leader of an exotic brand of Freemasonry, Count Cagliostro was indisputably one of the most influential and notorious figures of the latter eighteenth century, overcoming poverty and an ignoble birth to become the darling -- and bane -- of upper-crust Europe.

Giordano Bruno challenged everything in his pursuit of an all-embracing system of thought. This not only brought him patronage from powerful figures of the day but also put him in direct conflict with the Catholic Church. Arrested by the Inquisition and tried as a heretic, Bruno was imprisoned, tortured, and, after eight years, burned at the stake in 1600. The Vatican "regrets" the burning yet refuses to clear him of heresy.But Bruno's philosophy spread: Galileo, Isaac Newton, Christiaan Huygens, and Gottfried Leibniz all built upon his ideas; his thought experiments predate the work of such twentieth-century luminaries as Karl Popper; his religious thinking inspired such radicals as Baruch Spinoza; and his work on the art of memory had a profound effect on William Shakespeare.Chronicling a genius whose musings helped bring about the modern world, Michael White pieces together the final years -- the capture, trial, and the threat the Catholic Church felt -- that made Bruno a martyr of free thought.

How do you let go of the past when your dreams of the future are shattered?When Grey and Ben fell in love at thirteen, they believed they'd be together forever. They never dreamed that three days before their wedding, twenty-year-old Ben would suddenly die from an unknown heart condition, destroying his would-be-bride's world. Grey would have spent the next two years simply going through the motions if it hadn't been for their best friend, Jagger. He's the only one who understands her pain . . . the only one who knows what it's like to force yourself to keep moving when your dreams are shattered. While everyone else worries over Grey's fragility, Jagger is the only one who sees her strength, and vows to always be there for her even if it's only as her best friend. As much as he wants Grey, he knows her heart will always be with Ben. But when Grey finds out that Jagger has loved her since before he even knew what love was, it might prove to be too much for her to handle.Grey soon realizes that their chemistry is undeniable and that admitting their feelings for each other means they've got to face the past. Is being together what Ben would have wanted . . . or a betrayal of his memory that will eventually destroy them both?

The acclaimed Asylum Tales continueWizard and tattoo artist Gage escaped the dread Ivory Towers, but no one can outrun his past forever. The wizards know Gage is using forbidden magic, and they will stop at nothing—even destroying cities—to stop him?.?.?.?and the nascent human uprising.

The prizewinning author of Dirt, Caribou Island, and Legend of a Suicide returns with a searing, morally complex novel about families, violence, regret, and shattered faith.In the fall of 1978, on a 640-acre family ranch on Goat Mountain in Northern California, an eleven-year-old boy joins his grandfather, his father, and his father’s best friend on the family’s annual deer hunt.Every fall they return to this dry, yellowed landscape dotted with oak, buckbrush, and the occasional stand of pine trees. Goat Mountain is what this family owns and where they belong. It is where their history is kept, where their memories and stories are shared. And for the first time, the boy’s story will become part of their narrative, if he can find a buck. Itching to shoot, he is ready. When the men arrive at the gate to their land, the father discovers a poacher and sights him through the scope of his gun. He offers his son a look—a simple act that will explode in tragedy, transforming these men and this family, forcing them to question themselves and everything they thought they knew.David Vann creates a haunting and provocative novel, in prose devastating and beautiful in its precision, that explores our most primal urges and beliefs, the bonds of blood and religion that define and secure us, and the consequences of our actions—what we owe for what we’ve done.

What goes unsaid can sometimes speak the loudest . . .What makes up a familyFor Casey it's sharing a house with her fiancé, Michael, and his three children, whom she intends to nurture more than she ever took care of herself. But Casey's plans have come undone. Michael's silences have grown unfathomable and deep. His daughter Angel seethes as only a teenage girl can, while the wide-eyed youngest, Jewel, quietly takes it all in.Then Michael's son, Dylan, runs off, and the kids' mother, a woman never afraid to say what she thinks, noisily barges into the home. That's when Casey decides that the silences can no longer continue. She must begin speaking the words no one else can say. She'll have to dig up secrets—including her own—uncovering the hurts, and begin the healing that is long overdue. And it all starts with just a few tentative words. . . .

Eleven-year-olds Nora and Charlotte were best friends. When their teenage babysitter, Rose, disappeared under mysterious circumstances, the girls decided to “investigate.” But their search—aided by paranormal theories and techniques gleaned from old Time-Life books—went nowhere.Years later, Nora, now in her late twenties, is drawn back to her old neighborhood—and to her estranged friend—when Rose’s remains are finally discovered. Upset over their earlier failure to solve the possible murder, Charlotte is adamant that they join forces and try again. But Nora was the last known person to see Rose alive, and she’s not ready to revisit her troubled adolescence and the events surrounding the disappearance—or face the disturbing secrets that are already beginning to reemerge.

When a home health attendant, Paulette Williamson, appears at Homicide South in Manhattan, she's introduced to the NYPD's Detective Darlene O'Hara and skeptically reports the confession of a senior citizen struggling with Alzheimer's. Gus Henderson, a former junkie and petty criminal, claims he murdered and buried his former partner-in-crime in a park off Avenue B more than a decade ago, a lowlife who fell off the grid and hasn't been seen since. The city agrees to excavate the alleged scene of the crime, and the police find a body—just not the one they were looking for. The cops unearth the skeleton of a ten-year-old boy, neatly dressed and buried ceremoniously with a comic book, a CD, some pot, and booze. Instead of an easy open-and-shut case, O'Hara is faced with finding the murderer of a child, and the pressure is on the newly promoted detective to prove herself. The trail takes O'Hara from the seediest corners of the city and its cast of misguided players—a coven of preteen potheads in Tompkins Square Park, a sleazy art house photographer in Chelsea—to a retirement community in South Florida. Driving headlong into the dark urban underbelly to find a killer, O'Hara uncovers a tribe of criminals who brazenly prey on the weakest members of the population, and she must stop the cycle before yet another child is lost to the depths of the city.

The passing of the Hungarian prime minister before he could realize his dream of a fascist state has little effect on crime reporter Zsigmond Gordon. Life—and death—go on in the bustling old city, and a late-night tip soon leads him to a crime scene where a young woman lies dead, a Jewish prayer book in her purse. Disturbed by the bizarre circumstances—the corpse of a beautiful, well-groomed, religious victim abandoned in one of Budapest's seedier neighborhoods—Gordon is determined to unravel the mystery of her demise, especially after her shocking identity is revealed. The investigation will lead him deep into the city's dark underbelly—a shadow world of pornographers, crime syndicates, and Communist cells—and to the highest echelons of power, where one of Hungary's most influential executives plans to make an economic killing through his strong political ties to Germany's leaders...if he can somehow keep secret the fact that he was, at one time, Jewish.A gripping and evocative thriller, brimming with suspense and breathtaking political intrigue, Vilmos Kondor's Budapest Noir is a richly atmospheric tale of murder and betrayal from a remarkable new voice in noir detective fiction.

Orphaned as a child, Octavia Leander was doomed to grow up on the streets until Miss Percival saved her. Gifted with incredible powers, the young healer is about to embark on her first mission, visiting suffering cities in the far reaches of the war-scarred realm. But the airship on which she is traveling is plagued by a series of strange and disturbing occurrences, including murder, and Octavia herself is threatened. Suddenly, she is caught up in a flurry of intrigue: the dashingly attractive steward may be one of the infamous Clockwork Daggers the Queen's spies and assassins and her cabinmate harbors disturbing secrets. But the danger is only beginning, for Octavia discovers that the deadly conspiracy may reach the crown itself.

How far would you go to control your own destiny?Mia Morrissey has escaped: from America, from the Registry, from the role she was raised to play—a perfect bride auctioned to the highest bidder. She's enemy number one to the world's largest power, and there's no turning back now.From the moment she and her friends Andrew and Carter cross the border into Mexico, it's clear their troubles are only beginning. Mexico may have laws to protect runaway brides, but as U.S. Army deserters, Andrew and Carter face deportation or worse. The young men are immediately picked up by a violent and omnipotent militia—the Collection—and it's Mia's turn to rescue them.With time running out, her ex-fiancé's henchman on her trail, and a dangerous tide shifting back in America, Mia will do whatever she has to. Even if that means risking everything and putting herself back on an auction block. The price of freedom is never too high . . . but what if the cost is her life?

As a writer for Chick Habit, an increasingly popular women's website, Alex Lyons gets paid to be a bitch. She's churning out several posts a day, and she saves her juiciest ones for blog prime time, when working women eat their sad desk salads in their offices. Alex tells herself she's fulfilling her dream of being a professional writer; so what if it means being glued to her couch and her laptop from six a.m. to six p.m., scouring the web in search of the next big celebrity scandalSince Chick Habit's parent company keeps close tabs on page views, Alex knows her job is always at risk.So when an anonymous tipster sends her the year's most salacious story—a politico's squeaky-clean Ivy League daughter caught in a very R-rated activity—it's a no-brainer. But is Alex really willing to ruin the girl's life by igniting the next Internet feeding frenzyAnd what she doesn't yet realize is how this big scoop is about to send her own life spiraling out of control.

Molly Hagan is overwhelmed.Her husband left her for a younger, blonder woman; her six-year-old son is questioning her authority, and now so is she. In order to pay her Brooklyn rent and keep her son supplied with Pokémon and Legos, not to mention food and clothing, she has to get a job—fast.So when an old friend offers Molly a freelance position copywriting for a new bakery, finding romance is just about the last thing on her mind. But the sexy British pastry chef who's heading up the bakery has other thoughts. And then so does Molly, when she meets the chef's intimidating business partner—who also happens to have a secret that might prevent Molly from getting her own happily ever after.

A brilliantly crafted modern tale from acclaimed film critic and screenwriter C. Robert Cargill—part Neil Gaiman, part Guillermo Del Toro, part William S. Burroughs—that charts the lives of two boys from their star-crossed childhood in the realm of magic and mystery to their anguished adulthoodsThere is another world than our own—one no closer than a kiss and one no further than our nightmares—where all the stuff of which dreams are made is real and magic is just a step away. But once you see that world, you will never be the same.Dreams and Shadows takes us beyond this veil. Once bold explorers and youthful denizens of this magical realm, Ewan is now an Austin musician who just met his dream girl, and Colby, meanwhile, cannot escape the consequences of an innocent wish. But while Ewan and Colby left the Limestone Kingdom as children, it has never forgotten them. And in a world where angels relax on rooftops, whiskey-swilling genies argue metaphysics with foul-mouthed wizards, and monsters in the shadows feed on fear, you can never outrun your fate.Dreams and Shadows is a stunning and evocative debut about the magic and monsters in our world and in our self.

For more than two decades, Terry Pratchett has been regaling readers with tales of Discworld—a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants, which are standing on the back of a giant turtle, flying through space. It is a world populated by ineffectual wizards and sharp-as-tacks witches, by tired policemen and devious dictators, by reformed thieves and vampires who have sworn to drink no blood. It is a world that is vastly different from our own . . . except when it isn't.Now, in The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld, various nuggets of Pratchett's witty commentary and sagacious observations have been compiled by Pratchett expert Stephen Briggs, a man who, they say, knows even more about Discworld than Terry Pratchett.Within these pages, you'll find musings on:Interior decorating: "It's a fact known throughout the universes that no matter how carefully the colors are chosen, institutional decor ends up as either vomit green, unmentionable brown, nicotine yellow, or surgical appliance pink. By some little-understood process of sympathetic resonance, corridors painted in those colors always smell slightly of boiled cabbage—even if no cabbage is ever cooked in the vicinity." (Equal Rites)Travel: "Any seasoned traveler soon learns to avoid anything wished on them as a 'regional speciality,' because all the term means is that the dish is so unpleasant the people living everywhere else will bite off their own legs rather than eat it. But hosts still press it upon distant guests anyway: 'Go on, have the dog's head stuffed with macerated cabbage and pork noses—it's a regional speciality.'" (The Last Continent)Young men: "And then there was the young male walk. At least women swung only their hips. Young men swung everything, from the shoulders down. You have to try to occupy a lot of space. It makes you look bigger, like a tomcat fluffing his tail. The boys tried to walk big in self-defense against all those other big boys out there. I'm bad, I'm fierce, I'm cool, I'd like a pint of shandy and me mam wants me home by nine." (Monstrous Regiment)Class: "'Old money' meant that it had been made so long ago that the black deeds that had originally filled the coffers were now historically irrelevant. Funny, that; a brigand for a father was something you kept quiet about, but a slave-taking pirate for a great-great-great-grandfather was something to boast of over the port. Time turned the evil bastards into rogues, and rogue was a word with a twinkle in its eye and nothing to be ashamed of." (Making Money) . . . and more! Culled from all the Discworld novels, The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld confirms Pratchett's place in the pantheon of great satirists and proves why the Chicago Tribune has praised his Discworld as "entertaining and gloriously funny . . . an accomplishment nothing short of magical."

At just twenty-three years old, Shauna Reid weighed 351 pounds. Spurred into action by the sight of her enormous white knickers billowing on the clothesline, she created the hugely successful blog "The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl." Hiding behind her Lycra-clad, roly-poly alter-ego, her transformation from couch potato to svelte goddess began.Today, eight thousand miles, seven years, and 175 pounds later, the gloriously gorgeous Shauna is literally half the woman she used to be. Hysterically funny and heart-wrenchingly honest, The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl includes travel tales from Australia to Paris to Red Square, plus romance when she meets the man of her dreams in a Scottish pub. This is the uplifting true story of a young woman who defeated her demons and conquered her cravings to become a real-life superhero to inspire us all.