"Kate was what you wanted, somehow, in this infinitely ironic age. She was the kind of girl about whom other girls used to say, 'All right, so she's thin but,' trying vainly to suss out the appeal. And even now, when her name comes up, and with it the sulky protest it invariably evokes--'She's not that great'--I do not feel compelled to argue in her defense."Some fiction debuts have remarkably strong stories, some have refreshing new voices, some have perfect cultural timing. The Fundamentals of Play is that literary rarity which has all three.George Lenhart is, chronically, in love with Kate Goodenow. So is Nick Beale, the working-class son of a Maine lobsterman from the town where Kate spent her childhood summers. So is Chat Wethers, an old-money friend of George's from Dartmouth. And so is Harry Lombardi, a brilliant, startlingly successful, but socially awkward Dartmouth upstart who has been trying to enter this circle for years.It is George who tells the interwoven stories of these five young people, some of whom, in their lineage or finances, represent the last gasp of the old Northeastern Upper Class. Starting with the year after college, when they all land in Manhattan, George describes the good times and disappointments, ambition and manners, sexual secrets and money-cursed friendships, that have tied these people to one another for a lifetime. He tells of Nick's charismatic past and drug-ridden present, and he shows the snobbery and avarice that lurk in Kate's background--in stark contrast to her ineffable allure. And as George tells these stories (and observes Harry's spectacular rise in the new, as-yet-unnamed phenomenon of the Internet), he implicitly chronicles the end of an era and the emergence of a new definition of class--just as The Fundamentals of Play represents the emergence of a distinctive new talent in American fiction.

Winner of the Whitbread Novel AwardIn the year 1629, a young English lutenist named Peter Claire arrives at the Danish Court to join King Christian IV's Royal Orchestra. From the moment when he realises that the musicians perform in a freezing cellar underneath the royal apartments, Peter Claire understands that he's come to a place where the opposing states of light and dark, good and evil, are waging war to the death.Designated the King's 'Angel' because of his good looks, he finds himself falling in love with the young woman who is the companion of the King's adulterous and estranged wife, Kirsten. With his loyalties fatally divided between duty and passion, how can Peter Claire find the path that will realise his hopes and save his soul?Rose Tremain lives in North London and Norwich, with the biographer Richard Holmes. Her books have won many prizes including the Whitbread Novel of the Year, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Prix Femina Etranger, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Angel Literary Award and the Sunday Express Book of the Year. Restoration was shortlisted for the Booker and made into a film; The Colour was shortlisted for the Orange and selected by the Daily Mail Reading Club. Her most recent collection, The Darkness of Wallis Simpson, was shortlisted for both the First National Short story Award and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Two of her books (The Colour and The Way I Found Her) are in development as films, and she is currently working on a TV screenplay to star Sir Ian McKellen.**

Foreshadowing an impending war of independence with England, two young men from either ends of the political and financial spectrum are abducted by a pressgang and forced into service of King George's Royal Navy. Fate deals them another blow when a pirate ship captures and destroys the British vessel. The captain offers them a choice choose to be a pirate or die. They choose to live.

During the dark days of 1940, when Britain faced the might of Hitler's armed forces alone, the RAF played an integral role in winning the Battle of Britain against the Luftwaffe, thus ensuring the country's safety from invasion. The men and women of Fighter Command worked tirelessly in air bases scattered throughout the length and breadth of Britain to thwart the Nazi attacks; The Secret Life of Fighter Command tells their story.

'To peer deeply into this ghost city, the one lying beneath the surface, is to understand that Sydney has a soul and that it is a very dark place indeed.' Beneath the shining harbour, amid the towers of global greed and deep inside the bad-drugs madness of the suburban wastelands, lies Sydney's shadow history. Terrifying tsunamis, corpse-robbing morgue staff, killer cops, neo-Nazis, power junkies and bumbling SWOS teams electrify this epic tale of a city with a cold vacuum for a moral core. Birmingham drills beneath the cover story of a successful multicultural metropolis and melts the boundaries between past and present to reveal a ghost city beneath the surface of concrete and glass. In Birmingham's alternative history of Sydney, the yawning chasm between the megarich and the lumpen masses is as evident in the insane wealth of the new elites as it was in the head-spinning rapacity of the NSW Rum Corps. This is a city shattered by the nexus between government, big money and...

FROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE MEMORY PAINTER COMES A SWEEPING AND SUSPENSEFUL TALE OF ROMANCE, FATE, AND FORTUNESemele Cavnow appraises antiquities for an exclusive manhattan auction house, deciphering ancient texts—and when she discovers a manuscript written in the time of Cleopatra, she knows it will be the find of her career. Its author tells the story of a priceless tarot deck, now lost to history, but as Semele delves further, she realizes the manuscript is more than it seems. Both a memoir and a prophecy, it appears to be the work of a powerful seer, describing devastating wars and natural disasters in detail thousands of years before they occurred.The more she reads, the more the manuscript begins to affect Semele's life. But what happened to the tarot deck? As the mystery of her connection to its story deepens, Semele can't shake the feeling that she's being followed. Only one person can help her make sense of it all: her...

non-fiction; prose

Flip and Brian have been best friends since grade school. But everything changes during the spring of seventh grade. That's when they find a man lying dead in the leaves near Dreamland Lake. What happens in the summer that follows will change the course of their friendship—and their lives—forever."A finely tuned shocker."—Kirkus Reviews

Devonie Lace gets more than she bargained for when she buys an old equipment trunk from a crafty seaman who salvaged an abandoned dive boat found off the coast of Catalina. Her simple life as a treasure hunter turns into a quagmire of complications that nearly get her killed as she tries to uncover the mystery behind the items she discovers in the chest.Her investigation leads her back to the Pacific, where it all began, and the discovery of two deaths ignites a feeding frenzy of police and media speculation. When people around Devonie start to disappear, she must rely on her own cunning to keep one step ahead of the ruthless men who are determined to stop her. Can she solve the mystery before they kill her?

An accident, amnesia, loss of contact, but memories of the soul draw their twin flames toward one another.

A Mafia hit team is trying to gain control of St. Louis. The Executioner is only too aware that if the attack succeeds, it would be a major setback in his everlasting war. Mack Bolan returns to the Missouri killground to settle an ancient blood debt. And the leader of the hit crew and his Black Ace — one of the brotherhoods assassination elite — are marked for death.

2 birds in a pet shop plot there escape by plotting with other pets, who turn the shop into a stock market-like atmosphere every night.