万本电子书0元读

万本电子书0元读

Bellagrand
Bellagrand
Simons, Paullina
¥90.51
From internationally bestselling author Paullina Simons comes another compelling saga of heartbreak and redemption, and the devastating love story that led to The Bronze HorsemanLove was just the beginning of their journeyGina and Harry gave up everything to be together. But they both want different things—from their marriage, from life, from each other . . . and from the shifting world around them.Gina, independent, compassionate, and strong, desperately wants a family. Harry, idealistic and fiercely political, wants to create a better world, a better country. At a crossroads and at cross-purposes, they pursue their opposing dreams at great cost to themselves and those near to them. Through years of passion and turmoil they rail, rage, and break each other's hearts, only to come face-to-face with a stark final choice that will forever determine their destiny.Their journey takes them through four decades and two continents, from extreme poverty to great wealth, from the wooden planks of the troubled immigrant town of Lawrence, Massachusetts, to the marble halls and secret doors of a mystical place called . . . Bellagrand.
The Debutante
The Debutante
Tessaro, Kathleen
¥90.51
Can the secrets of one woman's past change another woman's future?A gifted artist, Cate has come to London from New York to escape her recent past. Working for her aunt's auction house, she is sent down to Devon to value the contents of Endsleigh House, the once gracious but now crumbling estate of a former socialite. There, hidden in the back of a dusty bookshelf, Cate discovers an old shoebox. Inside is a strange assortment of objects: an exquisite pair of dancing shoes circa 1930; a diamond brooch; a photograph of a young sailor; a dance card; and a pearl and emerald Tiffanys bracelet.Intrigued by her find, Cate sets out to solve the mystery of the box, becoming immersed in the story of its owner, Baby Blythe. Bright, beautiful, and reckless, Baby was the most famous debutante of her generation . . . and the most dangerous. As the clues begin to reveal a shocking tale of destructive, addictive love, Cate finds herself being drawn deeper into Baby's tragic life story—a story that will force Cate to face some dark truths about her own.Includes an excerpt from The Perfume Collector.
Pieces of Light
Pieces of Light
Fernyhough, Charles
¥90.51
How is it possible to have vivid memories of something that never happenedHow can siblings remember the same event from their childhoods so differently?Do the selections and distortions of memory reveal a truth about the self?Why are certain memories tied to specific places?Does your memory really get worse as you get older?A new consensus is emerging among cognitive scientists: rather than possessing fixed, unchanging memories, we create recollections anew each time we are called upon to remember. As the psychologist Charles Fernyhough explains, remembering is an act of narrative imagination as much as it is the product of a neurological process. In Pieces of Light, he eloquently illuminates this compelling scientific breakthrough via a series of personal stories a visit to his college campus to see if his memories hold up, an interview with his ninety-three-year-old grandmother, conversations with those whose memories are affected by brain damage and trauma each illustrating memory's complex synergy of cognitive and neurological functions.Fernyhough guides readers through the fascinating new science of autobiographical memory, covering topics including imagination and the power of sense associations to cue remembering. Exquisitely written and meticulously researched, Pieces of Light brings together science and literature, the ordinary and the extraordinary, to help us better understand the ways we remember and the ways we forget.
The Oracle of Stamboul
The Oracle of Stamboul
Lukas, Michael David
¥90.51
An elegantly crafted, utterly enchanting debut novel set in a mystical, exotic world, in which a gifted young girl charms a sultan and changes the course of an empire's historyLate in the summer of 1877, a flock of purple-and-white hoopoes suddenly appears over the town of Constanta on the Black Sea, and Eleonora Cohen is ushered into the world by a mysterious pair of Tartar midwives who arrive just minutes before her birth. "They had read the signs, they said: a sea of horses, a conference of birds, the North Star in alignment with the moon. It was a prophecy that their last king had given on his deathwatch." But joy is mixed with tragedy, for Eleonora's mother dies soon after the birth. Raised by her doting father, Yakob, a carpet merchant, and her stern, resentful stepmother, Ruxandra, Eleonora spends her early years daydreaming and doing housework—until the moment she teaches herself to read, and her father recognizes that she is an extraordinarily gifted child, a prodigy.When Yakob sets off by boat for Stamboul on business, eight-year-old Eleonora, unable to bear the separation, stows away in one of his trunks. On the shores of the Bosporus, in the house of her father's business partner, Moncef Bey, a new life awaits. Books, backgammon, beautiful dresses and shoes, markets swarming with color and life—the imperial capital overflows with elegance, and mystery. For in the narrow streets of Stamboul—a city at the crossroads of the world—intrigue and gossip are currency, and people are not always what they seem. Eleonora's tutor, an American minister and educator, may be a spy. The kindly though elusive Moncef Bey has a past history of secret societies and political maneuvering. And what is to be made of the eccentric, charming Sultan Abdulhamid II himself, beleaguered by friend and foe alike as his unwieldy, multiethnic empire crumbles?The Oracle of Stamboul is a marvelously evocative, magical historical novel that will transport readers to another time and place—romantic, exotic, yet remarkably similar to our own.
Married Love
Married Love
Hadley, Tessa
¥90.51
Married Love is a masterful collection of short fiction from one of today’s most accomplished storytellers. These tales showcase the qualities for which Tessa Hadley has long been praised: her humor, warmth, and psychological acuity; her powerful, precise, and emotionally dense prose; her unflinching examinations of family relationships. Here are stories that range widely across generations and classes, exploring the private and public lives of unforgettable characters: a young girl who haunts the edges of her parents’ party; a wife released by the sudden death of her film-director husband; an eighteen-year-old who insists on marrying her music professor, only to find herself shut out from his secrets. In this stunning collection, Hadley evokes worlds that expand in the imagination far beyond the pages, capturing domestic dramas, generational sagas, wrenching love affairs and epiphanies, and distilling them to remarkable effect.
Love Is Red
Love Is Red
Jaff, Sophie
¥90.51
Redefining the thriller's tale of the hunter and the hunted, This electrifying, hypnotically beautiful debut spins dark suspense and literary fantasy into a mesmerizing story of survival.Katherine Emerson was born to fulfill a dark prophecy centuries in the making, but she doesn't know it yet. However, one man does: a killer stalking the women of New York City, a monster the media dubs the "Sickle Man" because of the weapon he uses to turn his victims' bodies into canvases for his twisted art. People think he's the next Son of Sam, but we know how he thinks and how he feels . . . and discover that he is driven by darker, much more dangerous desires than we can bear to imagine. He takes more than just his victims' lives, and each death brings him closer to the one woman he must possess at any cost.Amid the city's escalating hysteria, Katherine is trying to unknot her tangled heart. Two very different men have entered her previously uneventful world—handsome and personable David, alluring yet aloof Sael—and turned it upside down. She finds herself involved in a complicated triangle . . . but how well does she really know either of them?Told from the alternating viewpoints of Katherine and the Sickle Man, Sophie Jaff's intoxicating narrative will pull you in and hold you close. As the body count rises, Katherine is haunted by harrowing visions that force her to question her sanity. All she wants is to find love. He just wants to find her.Ablaze with fear, mystery, and possibility, Love Is Red is the first book in the Night Song trilogy. With this unforgettable novel—one that combines the literary and the supernatural, fantasy and horror, the past and the present—Katherine's moment of awakening is here. And her story is only just beginning.
How to Fight FATflammation!
How to Fight FATflammation!
Shemek, Lori, PhD
¥90.51
From a leading voice in health, nutrition, and fat-cell research comes a radical and revolutionary approach to losing weight, looking great, and achieving optimum health—simply by restoring your body's fat cells to their natural state.Are you consistently overweight, no matter what you doHave you tried everythingAre you plagued by stubborn fat hanging around your hips, thighs, and bellyWell, there's a reason for that. All those frustratingly pointless diets and exercise regimes have failed to address the root cause of weight gain.According to Dr. Lori Shemek, a successful diet isn't centered on calories or cardio. She says, "Cutting calories doesn't cut it." Our problems with fat are created because we eat foods that cause the body's natural fat cells to become inflamed. Sadly, the staples of the Standard American Diet—from pasta and bread to factory-farmed chicken and cattle, from sugar and artificial sweeteners to salad dressing and soft drinks—irritate our fat cells, causing chronic inflammation and chronically oversized fat cells. This irritation causes the body to store fat permanently, no matter how hard you exercise or how diligently you cut back on calories.Dr. Shemek calls this serious condition FATflammation, and only when you decrease the inflammation of the fat cells can you achieve the weight loss and optimum health you've been chasing. We need to forget about counting calories, counting points, fad diets, no-fat diets, and spending countless hours at the gym. There is a better and more satisfying way to lose the fat and maintain your desired weight. "If we want to fix our problems with fat," Shemek writes, "we need to reduce the inflammation in our fat cells." In How to Fight FATflammation Shemek reveals her revolutionary three-week program that helps reboot your body chemistry by returning your body's fat cells back to their natural, healthy state. In the process, she explains the critical importance of maintaining balance between good fats (omega-3) and bad fats (omega-6) and how a proper ratio of both will help boost your metabolism; in short, your body will burn fat simply by your eating the right kinds of fat. She also helps you eliminate from your diet the dreaded FATflammation Four—sugar, refined grains, high-fructose corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners. Here's your chance to shrink your fat cells and get the body you always wanted.
Whisper Beach
Whisper Beach
Noble, Shelley
¥90.51
When a group of friends reunite in the idyllic beach town where they grew up, they must reevaluate their loyalty to one another or lose their friendship foreverTwelve years ago, Vanessa "Van" Moran fell in love and lost her virginity—but not to the same boy. She fled Whisper Beach desperate and pregnant, never telling a soul about her secret. Now a professional Manhattan organizer, she must return home for the first time to attend the funeral of her best friend's husband. Van intends to only stay for a weekend, but her plans fall by the wayside as the troubles of this coastal town draw her in.Dorie, the owner of the pier's infamous Blue Crab Restaurant where Van and her friends worked as teenagers, enlists Van's help to save the nearly bankrupt eatery. While Van throws herself into this new task, the man she once loved reenters her life, willing to pick up where they left off.As the restaurant begins to thrive and Van reconnects with old friends, trouble comes from an unexpected source and she realizes she must face the decisions of her past or sacrifice this new life she has so carefully built.For Van, this summer will test the meaning of friendship and trust—and how far love can bend before it breaks.
Burning Chrome
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
¥90.51
Best-known for his seminal sf novel Neuromancer, William Gibson is actually best when writing short fiction. Tautly-written and suspenseful, Burning Chrome collects 10 of his best short stories with a preface from Bruce Sterling, now available for the first time in trade paperback. These brilliant, high-resolution stories show Gibson's characters and intensely-realized worlds at his absolute best, from the chip-enhanced couriers of "Johnny Mnemonic" to the street-tech melancholy of "Burning Chrome."
Pleasantville
Pleasantville
Locke, Attica
¥90.51
Jay Porter, the hero of the critically acclaimed bestseller Black Water Rising, becomes embroiled in a toxic case involving politics, corruption, and murder in this electrifying and atmospheric tale from Attica Locke, a writer "akin to George Pelecanos or Dennis Lehane" (New York Times).Fifteen years after his career-defining case against Cole Oil, Jay Porter is broke and tired. That victory might have won the environmental lawyer fame, but thanks to a string of appeals, he hasn't seen a dime. His latest case—representing Pleasantville in the wake of a chemical fire—is dragging on, shaking his confidence and raising doubts about him within this upwardly mobile black community on Houston's north side. Though Jay still believes in doing what's right, he is done fighting other people's battles. Once he has his piece of the settlement, the single father is going to devote himself to what matters most—his children.His plans are abruptly derailed when a female campaign volunteer vanishes on the night of Houston's mayoral election, throwing an already contentious campaign into chaos. The accused is none other than the nephew and campaign manager of one of the leading candidates—a scion of a prominent Houston family headed by the formidable Sam Hathorne. Despite all the signs suggesting that his client is guilty—and his own misgivings—Jay can't refuse when a man as wealthy and connected as Sam asks him to head up the defense. Not if he wants that new life with his kids. But he has to win.Plunging into a shadowy world of ambitious enemies and treacherous allies armed with money, lies, and secrets, Jay reluctantly takes on his first murder trial—a case that will put him and his client, and an entire political process, on trial.
Love May Fail
Love May Fail
Quick, Matthew
¥90.51
"It doesn't matter how I got here. What I do with the puzzle pieces that are now in front of me—that's what matters.Save Mr. Vernon.My three-word quest.Why I'm here in this time and space."Portia Kane is having a meltdown. After escaping her ritzy Florida life and her cheating pornographer husband, she finds herself back in South Jersey, a place that remains largely unchanged from the years of her unhappy youth. Lost and alone, looking for the goodness she believes still exists in the world, Portia sets off on a quest to save the one man who always believed in her—and in all of his students: her beloved high school English teacher, Mr. Vernon, who has retired broken and alone after a traumatic classroom incident.Will a sassy nun, an ex–heroin addict, a metalhead little boy, and her hoarder mother help or hurt Portia's chances on this quest to resurrect a good man and find renewed hope in the human raceLove May Fail is a story of the great highs and lows of existence: the heartache and daring choices it takes to become the person you know (deep down) you are meant to be.
Foodist
Foodist
Rose, Darya Pino
¥90.51
Foodist is a manifesto about real food and real science that proves once and for all that sustainable weight loss is possible by incorporating fresh, seasonal—and delicious—ingredients into every meal. If you picked up this book, there's a good chance this is not the first time you hoped a new eating plan would help you lose weight. Dieting is a popular hobby in the twenty-first century, and the result is typically a slow but steady weight gain over the years. Oops. Diets fail because they rely on willpower and restriction for achieving health goals, and ignore the reasons these tactics always backfire. Becoming a foodist helps you give up dieting forever and get on the real path to healthy, lasting weight control. Foodist is an approach that actually celebrates food while taking you through the nutrition and psychology involved in eating well to help you move beyond the daily obstacles and bad habits that keep the tasteless, empty, and unsatisfying food-like products on your plate. Losing weight no longer has to be about sacrifice, deprivation, and willpower, and food will turn from something you fight into something you can actually love again. As Darya writes, "You don't need a diet. You need an upgrade." Smart, accessible, and engaging, Foodist will help you tailor your eating habits to match your lifestyle and your food preferences, making sure the path you choose works for you in the short- and long-term. Not only will you permanently build healthier habits into your daily life, you'll lose weight and enjoy food like never before.
The Small Backs of Children
The Small Backs of Children
Yuknavitch, Lidia
¥90.51
In a war-torn village in Eastern Europe, an American photographer captures a heart-stopping image: a young girl flying toward the lens, fleeing a fiery explosion that has engulfed her home and family. The image, instantly iconic, garners acclaim and prizes—and, in the United States, becomes a subject of obsession for one writer, the photographer's best friend, who has suffered a devastating tragedy of her own.In a bid to save the writer from a spiraling depression, her filmmaker husband enlists a group of friends—including a fearless bisexual poet, an ingenuous performance artist, and the writer's playwright brother and painter ex-husband—to rescue the unknown girl and bring her to the United States. And yet, as their plot unfolds, everything we know comes into question: What does the writer really wantWho is controlling the actionAnd what will happen when these two worlds—East and West, real and virtual—collide?A fierce, provocative, and deeply affecting novel exploring the often violent borders between war and sex, love and art, The Small Backs of Children is a major step forward from one of our most avidly watched writers.
Mendocino Fire
Mendocino Fire
Tallent, Elizabeth
¥90.51
The long-awaited return of a writer of rare emotional wisdomThe son of an aging fisherman becomes ensnared in a violent incident that forces him to confront his broken relationship with his father. A woman travels halfway across the country to look for her ex-husband, only to find her attention drawn in a surprising direction. A millworker gives safe harbor to his son's pregnant girlfriend, until an ambiguous gesture upsets their uneasy equilibrium. These and other stories—of yearning, loss, and tentative new connections—come together in Mendocino Fire, the first new collection in two decades from the widely admired Elizabeth Tallent. Diverse in character and setting, rendered in an exhilarating, exacting prose, these stories confirm Tallent's enduring gift for capturing relationships in moments of transformation: marriages breaking apart, people haunted by memories of old love and reaching haltingly toward new futures. The result is a book that reminds us how our lives are shaped by moments of fracture and fragmentation, by expectations met and thwarted, and by our never-ending quest to be genuinely seen. Profound yet elemental, Mendocino Fire marks the welcome return of a sage and surprising voice in American fiction.
A Fold in the Tent of the Sky
A Fold in the Tent of the Sky
Hale, Michael
¥90.51
Struggling actor Peter Abbott is about to land the biggest role of his life. His audition for Calliope Associates—a clandestine private investigation firm made up of men and women with highly developed psychic abilities—requires only proof of Peter's psychic skills, no dramatic monologue. Business is booming until members of the group begin disappearing at the hands of fellow psychic Simon Haywood. His genius is matched only by Peter's, but Simon alone discovers a unique way to use his extrasensory skills to travel back in time, committing crimes without any trace. Simon's mind grows warped and paranoid as the universe strains against his tinkering. Terrified that his extracurricular voyages will be curtailed, he plans to "erase" his colleagues. But Simon's methods are not exactly cold-blooded; instead he goes back to the moment of his victims' conception and prevents them from being created. Because no one in the present day recalls he or she ever existed, he's not caught . . . until Peter realizes what's happening. Now time is running out as Simon's sociopathic travels are disrupting the universe, folding and twisting the constraints of matter to a near-breaking point and threatening to spin the entire cosmos out of control. A Fold in the Tent of the Sky takes murder into a new dimension as it races toward its electrifying, time-twisting climax.
The Wind Is Not a River
The Wind Is Not a River
Payton, Brian
¥90.51
A gripping tale of survival and an epic love story in which a husband and wife–separated by the only battle of World War II to take place on American soil–fight to reunite in Alaska's starkly beautiful Aleutian IslandsFollowing the death of his younger brother in Europe, journalist John Easley is determined to find meaning in his loss, to document some part of the growing war that claimed his own flesh and blood. Leaving behind his beloved wife, Helen, after an argument they both regret, he heads north from Seattle to investigate the Japanese invasion of Alaska's Aleutian Islands, a story censored by the U.S. government.While John is accompanying a crew on a bombing run, his plane is shot down over the island of Attu. He survives only to find himself exposed to a harsh and unforgiving wilderness, known as "the Birthplace of Winds." There, John must battle the elements, starvation, and his own remorse while evading discovery by the Japanese.Alone in their home three thousand miles to the south, Helen struggles with the burden of her husband's disappearance. Caught in extraordinary circumstances, in this new world of the missing, she is forced to reimagine who she is–and what she is capable of doing. Somehow, she must find John and bring him home, a quest that takes her into the farthest reaches of the war, beyond the safety of everything she knows.A powerful, richly atmospheric story of life and death, commitment and sacrifice, The Wind Is Not a River illuminates the fragility of life and the fierce power of love.
Proof of Guilt
Proof of Guilt
Todd, Charles
¥90.51
Scotland Yard's Ian Rutledge must contend with two dangerous enemies in this latest complex mystery in the New York Times bestselling seriesLondon, summer 1920. An unidentified body appears to have been run down by a motorcar and Ian Rutledge is leading the investigation to uncover what happened. While the signs point to murder, vital questions remain: Who is the victimAnd where, exactly, was he killed?One small clue leads Rutledge to a firm built by two families, famous for producing and selling the world's best Madeira wine. Lewis French, the current head of the English enterprise, is missing. But is he the dead manAnd does either his fiancée or his jilted former lover have anything to do with his disappearance—or possible deathWhat about his sisterOr the London office clerkIs Matthew Traynor, French's cousin and partner who heads the Madeira office, somehow involved?The experienced Rutledge knows that suspicion and circumstantial evidence are not proof of guilt, and he's going to keep digging for answers. But that perseverance will pit him against his supervisor, the new acting chief superintendent. When Rutledge discovers a link to an incident in the French family's past, the superintendent dismisses it, claiming the information isn't vital. He's determined to place the blame on one of French's women despite Rutledge's objections. Alone in a no-man's-land rife with mystery and danger, Rutledge must tread very carefully, for someone has decided that he, too, must die so that cruel justice can take its course.
Netherwood
Netherwood
Sanderson, Jane
¥90.51
Two remarkably different worlds—one of wealth and privilege, the other of poverty and desperation—are about to collide in one shattering moment in this mesmerizing tale of high drama, forbidden love, and families fighting to hold on to what they haveUpstairs: Lord Netherwood, a coal baron, earns his considerable wealth from the three mines he owns. Supplying a bustling industrial empire with the highest-quality coal keeps his coffers filled—money he needs to run his splendid estate, Netherwood Hall, and to dress his wife and daughters in the latest fashions. And keeping his heir, the charming but feckless Tobias, out of trouble, doesn't come cheap.Downstairs: Eve Williams, the wife of one of Lord Netherwood's most stalwart employees, cleverly manages her family's well-being on the low wages her hardworking husband earns in the mines. But when her ordered life amid the terraced rows of miners' houses is brought crashing down by the twin arrivals of tragedy and charity, Eve must look to her own self-sufficiency and talent to provide for her three young children. And soon the divide between "upstairs" and "downstairs" is about to close . . .and neither world will ever be the same.
Their Finest
Their Finest
Lissa Evans,Evans, Lissa
¥90.51
From the author of the acclaimed Crooked Heart comes another smart, funny, ingenious, revealing tale of London life during the Second World War The Independent longlisted for the Orange Prize upon its original publication in England.It is 1940. France has fallen, and only a narrow strip of sea lies between Great Britain and invasion. The war could go either way and everyone must do their bit. Young copy writer Catrin Cole is drafted into the Ministry of Information to help write women into propaganda films something that the men aren't very good at.She is quickly seconded to the Ministry's latest endeavor: a heart-warming tale of bravery and rescue at Dunkirk. It's all completely fabricated, of course, but what does that matter when the nation's morale is at stake? Since call-up has stripped the industry of its brightest and best, it is the callow, the jaded and the utterly unsuitable who must make up the numbers: Ambrose Hilliard, third most popular British film-star of 1924; Edith Beadmore, Madame Tussauds wardrobe assistant turned costumier; and Arthur Frith, whose peacetime job as a catering manager has not really prepared him for his sudden, unexpected elevation to Special Military Advisor.Now in a serious world, in a nation under siege, they must all swallow their mutual distaste, ill-will, and mistrust to unite for the common good, for King and Country, and in one case for better or worse....Evans displays a fine eye for detail and for the absurdities involved in filming. She also brilliantly evokes the disruption and dangers of wartime London. This funny, heart-warming and beautifully crafted novel is a must-read.
Don't Know Much About the Universe
Don't Know Much About the Universe
Davis, Kenneth C.
¥90.51
Who dug those canals on MarsWhat was the biblical Star of BethlehemWere the pyramids built by extraterrestrials?From the ancients who charted the heavens to Star Trek, The X-Files, and Apollo 13, outer space has intrigued people through the ages. Yet most of us look up at the night sky and feel totally in the dark when it comes to the basic facts about the universe.Kenneth C. Davis steps into that void with a lively and readable guide to the discoveries, theories, and real people who have shed light on the mysteries and wonders of the cosmos. Discover why Einstein was such a genius, the truth behind a blue moon or two, the amazing secrets of Stonehenge, and even how one great astronomer lost his nose.With the fun question-and-answer format that has appealed to the millions of readers of his bestselling Don't Much About? series, you'll be taking off on an exciting armchair exploration of the solar system, the Milky Way, and beyond.
1492
1492
Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe
¥90.51
The world would end in 1492 so the prophets, soothsayers, and stargazers said. They were right. Their world did end. Ours began. In this extraordinary, sweeping history, Felipe Fernendez-Armesto traces key elements of the modern world back to that single, fateful year. Everything changed in 1492: the way power and wealth were distributed around the globe, the way major religions and civilizations divided the world, and the increasing interconnectedness of separate economies that we now call globalization. Events that began in 1492 transformed the whole ecological system of the planet. Our individualism and the very sense we share of inhabiting one world, as partakers in a common humanity, took shape and became visible in 1492.In search of the origins of modernity, 1492 takes readers on a journey around the globe of the time, in the company of real-life travelers, drawing together the threads that came to bind the planet. The tour starts in Granada, where the last Islamic kingdom in Europe collapsed, then moves to Timbuktu, where a new Muslim empire triumphed. With Portuguese explorers, we visit the court of the first Christian king in the southern hemisphere. We join Jews expelled from Spain as they cross the Mediterranean to North Africa, Italy, and Istanbul. We see the flowering of the Renaissance in the Florence of Lorenzo the Magnificent and go to the corrupt Rome of Alexander Borgia. We see the frozen frontiers of the dynamic, bloody Russia of Ivan the Great and hear mystical poets sing on the shores of the Indian Ocean. We sail the Atlantic with Columbus. In the depths of an old volcanic crater in the Canary Islands, we witness the start of the first European overseas empire. We observe the Aztecs and Incas laying the foundations of a New World in the Americas. Wars and witchcraft, plagues and persecutions, poetry and prophecy, science and magic, art and faith all the glories and follies of the time are in this book. Everywhere, new departures marked the start of a new configuration for humankind, revealing how and why the modern world is different from the worlds of antiquity and the Middle Ages.History seems a patternless labyrinth but a good guide can trace our paths through it back to the moment when some of the most striking features of today's world began.