Number One
Tyler Spotswood, an alcoholic campaign manager, helps elect a corrupt Southern politician to the U.S. Senate. When his boss, Chuck Crawford aka "Number One," pins a scandal on Spotswood, Tyler is too drunk to blow the whistle. Number One draws many comparisons to Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men. Crawford reminds many of Louisiana politician Huey Long, a figure studied in person by Dos Passos.
Call Forth the Better Angels
Senator Herb Benjamin, a tireless leader of his Republican Party and the people of Pennsylvania, seems destined for greatness when death comes calling sooner than expected. As Republican leaders vie for the late senator's coveted seat, his son, Clark, is appointed by the governor to fill the remaining two years of his father's term. But there is only one problem: Clark is a moderate Republican who is stubbornly focused on staking out his own course, much to the displeasure of his party's leaders. The current Democratic president's legacy is being tarnished by his refusal to commit to a military response to the presumed assassination of the Israeli prime minister. Vice President Carolyn Meadows is front runner for the next presidential election until her candidacy is jeopardized by her support of the president's unpopular foreign policy stance. As politicians pay the price for not following the orthodoxies of their respective parties, the presidential campaign becomes overrun by blackmail tactics as Clark Benjamin quietly begins to plant the seeds of an innovative idea. In this gripping political tale, partisan gridlock spells trouble for both Republicans and Democrats as politicians from both parties rebel against their leaders and leave the door open for radical change.
To Play the King
The #1 International Bestseller from the Executive Producer of the hit Netflix series House of Cards.Francis Urquhart is back and the newly elected Prime Minister continues his climb to power. This time he will take on the King himself, threatening to expose Royal secrets. This game is winner-takes-all, but who will walk away the victor? The role of the monarchy in modern Britain comes under scrutiny as Prime Minister Francis Urquhart threatens to expose Royal secrets when his plans are blocked by the idealistic new King. Their differences of opinion quickly degenerate into open hostility. The battlefield ranges from architecture to the underprivileged; the battle is fought with rigged opinion polls, manipulated newspaper headlines, sexual scandal and economic brinkmanship as Urquhart sets out to destroy not only the King's family and friends but even the King himself.Continuing the dark tale of greed, corruption, and unquenchable ambition, To Play the King reveals that no matter the country, politics, intrigue and passion reign in the corridors of power. An explosive political thriller, fans of Vince Flynn, David Baldacci and Robert Ludlum will enjoy this second tale of Urquhart's intrigues and schemes. As a former advisor to Margaret Thatcher, Conservative Party Chief of Staff, and now peer of the realm and Conservative member of the House of Lords, Baron Dobbs provides an insider look at the twists and turns of British politics.Other books in the House of Cards series: House of Cards, Book 1 - The dark, twisting schemes of a politician determined to succeed To Play The King, Book 2 - Newly elected Prime Minister plots to take on the Monarchy to grab even more powerThe Final Cut, Book 3 - The perfect finale to this twisted trilogy, Urquhart refuses to close his career quietlyWhat readers are saying about House of Cards: Engrossing, brilliantly written, fast moving political drama.Superb trilogy of political ruthlessnessgreat read and an uncanny look at British politics from an ex politician. Buy it and get hooked.Engaging and fun to read with all the drama expected from Dobbs.Full of intrigue and manipulation. The Machiavellian Prime Minister pitted against the Monarchy in a bitter fight to the death.an explosive end and full of intrigue, both political and personal.a masterful performanceIf you are a fan of the modern TV series than you should definitely pick up these books. What reviewers are saying about House of Cards: 'Michael Dobbs has an uncanny knack of forecasting the future. A fascinating read and a conclusion that would send a chill through Buckingham Palace.' - Sunday Express 'With a friend like Michael Dobbs, who needs enemies? A good romp, and gloriously cheeky. Dobbs' books grab because of their authenticity - the man knows his stuff.' - The Times 'Rattles along from scandal to scandal...excellent entertainment.' - Mail on Sunday What everyone is saying about the House of Cards books: This blood and thunder tale, lifelike and thoroughly cynical, certainly carries the ring of authenticity....a great triumph. --The Independent...a political thriller writer with a marvellous inside track knowledge of government. - Daily ExpressIf you are a fan of the modern TV series than you should definitely pick up these books. Michael Dobbs has an uncanny knack of forecasting the future. A fascinating read and a conclusion that would send a chill through Buckingham Palace. - Sunday Express
Revolution Street
An uncensored and unflinching tale of power, corruption and love, set against the roiling aftermath of Iran's Islamic Revolution Fattah is middle-aged and unmarried. A former hospital janitor who became rich working as a torturer in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison, he now moonlights as an uncertified backstreet doctor specializing in 'honour surgery' for unmarried young women. Fattah has nothing but contempt for these women; that is until the beautiful Shahrzad lands on his operating table, and soon he is dangerously infatuated. Undeterred that she is promised to - and in love with - another man, the younger and less affluent Mostafa, Fattah sets out to win Shahrzad by any means. Robbed of his bride, the jilted and furious Mostafa launches a desperate plan to move her beyond his rival's reach by falsely reporting her as an opponent of the regime, a mission that takes him deep into Tehran's underworld of criminals and provocateurs.
Soil
A major, never before translated novel by the author of "Muj?ng / The Heartless"--often called the first modern Korean novel--"The Soil" tells the story of an idealist dedicating his life to helping the inhabitants of the rural community in which he was raised. Striving to influence the poor farmers of the time to improve their lots, become self-reliant, and thus indirectly change the reality of colonial life on the Korean peninsula, "The Soil" was vitally important to the social movements of the time, echoing the effects and reception of such English-language novels as Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle."
Special Interest
""Deliciously rife with power, sleaze, and treachery.""-""Chicago"" magazine""First-time novelist Benson concocts a well thought-out story composed of equal parts political thriller, . . . romance, and upscale urban mystery taken right out of today's headlines. . . . The denouement is shocking.""""-Black Issues Book Review""""[A] FAST-PACED POLITICAL THRILLER . . . The hallmark of any good suspense novel is that it keeps you guessing. And Benson doesn't disappoint. When readers reach the surprise ending . . . they'll be eager for the next installment in this series.""""-Jet ""magazine""""""HIS TIMELY PLOT AND WELL-DRAWN CHARACTERS BODE WELL FOR FUTURE ENDEAVORS.""-""ForeWord"" magazine
The Hit
Master assassin Will Robie must track down a deadly rogue agent, but the attacks conceal a larger threat that could send shockwaves through the U. S. government and around the world in this #1 New York Times bestselling thriller. Will Robie is a master of killing. A highly skilled assassin, Robie is the man the U.S. government calls on to eliminate the worst of the worst--enemies of the state, monsters committed to harming untold numbers of innocent victims. No one else can match Robie's talents as a hitman...no one, except Jessica Reel. A fellow assassin, equally professional and dangerous, Reel is every bit as lethal as Robie. And now, she's gone rogue, turning her gun sights on other members of their agency. To stop one of their own, the government looks again to Will Robie. His mission: bring in Reel, dead or alive. Only a killer can catch another killer, they tell him. But as Robie pursues Reel, he quickly finds that there is more to her betrayal than meets the eye. Her attacks on the agency conceal a larger threat, a threat that could send shockwaves through the U.S. government and around the world.
Noble's Quest
Fresh on the heels of her acclaimed first novel Brotherhood Beyond the Yard, Sally Fernandez has penned the sequel Noble's Quest, adding more sparkling thrills to "The Simon Tetralogy" she is authoring.Major earth shaking events in Europe and the USA converge to fuel Interpol and the States Intelligence Agency to join forces. Although seemingly detached, the threats prompt Noble Bishop, Director for the SIA and Enzo Borgini, Executive Director of Police Services from Interpol, to conduct joint investigations. Leading edge technology is used to unravel the labyrinth of connections. The events are not coincidental. The enormous risks facing the USA and the world eventually draw the newly-elected president into the picture. Land grabs, political manipulation, and a terrorist camp, along with sea changes in the American psyche are skillfully woven to form a tapestry of intrigue. The widely sought mastermind of the global terrorist threat adds a breathtaking twist that lends even more intrigue to the narrative.Written in the author's patent style, readers will be beguiled by the artistic marriage of established facts with a storyline that lifts creativity to new heights. Readers will be challenged to separate fact from fiction, in the true Fernandez style.
If Men Were Angels
The tumultuous presidential bandwagon of Thomas Crane, a charismatic but elusive senator from the midwest, presents reporter Cliff O'Connell with a career-making opportunity that dissolves into a nightmare. In combing the past for the real Thomas Crane, O'Connell becomes the keeper of a chilling secret that he knows should remain buried forever. O'Connell's former lover, Robin Winters, now works for the Crane campaign, and that relationship reignites at the same time the campaign, against all odds, takes off. O'Connell also discovers an unexpected rapport with Crane himself, who shares his love of history and a humble, small-town background. Digging into the part of Thomas Crane's past that refuses to make sense, uncovering layers of truth with a growing sense of unease, O'Connell is caught in a brutal triangle, torn between personal and political passions and his commitment to the truth. His discovery and what he does about it have cataclysmic and unexpected results for himself, Robin, Crane, and a nation. If Men Were Angels is an urgent, resonant novel about love, hope, and loss. Rooted in the realities of a brawling campaign, but proceeding along the lines of an elegant and remorseless legal thriller, it is the novel about politics that Scott Turow might have written.
Time on My Hands
When does a game stop being a game? And what would cause a young boy to commit an act of savage violence? In Time on My Hands by Giorgio Vasta, the year is 1978, and a chilling drama is unfolding in Rome. Members of a leftist terrorist group known as the Red Brigades have kidnapped the former Italian prime minister, Aldo Moro, and are holding him in a secret prison, while broadcasting their demands to the public. Far from Rome, in Palermo, Sicily, a trio of eleven-year-old schoolboys are following Moro's abduction with intense interest. To their minds, the terrorists are warriors, striking a blow at the stifling conformity and propriety of everyday Italian life. Just like the Red Brigades, the boys give themselves code names: Nimbus, Radius, and Flight. They shave their heads, develop a secret language, and begin a life of escalating crime in worshipful imitation of their heroes. But when Moro's body is discovered in the trunk of a car, riddled with bullets, and as the stakes of the friends' games grow higher, Nimbus, the most innocent of the three, must decide just how far he is willing to go.
Brotherhood Beyond the Yard
A parable for the times in which we live. Fernandez has written a classic fable for our Age of Doubt, just as Kerouac defined the Age of Hippies. Worth reading no matter what side of the political spectrum you inhabit. Aladar Gabriel.In 1990, an extraordinarily talented young man was discovered on the streets of Florence, Italy. His gifts are readily apparent, his ability to lead unmatched, and the possibilities for his future endless. Several years later, a group of scholars at Harvard known as La Fratellanza devise a brilliant thesis in the form of an intellectual game. When the game morphs into a real-life experience with the election of President Abner Baari, no one could have foreseen the consequencesor ramifications. Director Hamilton Scott of the States Intelligence Agency is dispatched to Florence to coordinate a sting operation with Interpol to trap a terrorist, but as he digs deeper, he finds himself in a complicated mystery that has the fate of the United States, even that of the president himself, on his shoulders. As Hamilton drives the investigation forward with clear-headed integrity, Brotherhood Beyond the Yard provides an array of disturbing possibilities while delivering a rush of thrills. Sally Fernandez crackerjack international thriller expertly weaves seemingly disparate events into a cohesive whole leading to a shocking, shattering climax; a classic blend of character study and well-plotted action sequences keeps the pages turning faster and faster. There are no sacred cows here as Fernandez drives straight to the highest seats of Washington and questions anyoneand everything. A hair-raising page-turner from start to finish, Brotherhood Beyond the Yard examines political ideology, the international banking crisis, the role of Internet technology, and international terrorism with ferocious insight.
In Partial Disgrace
The long-awaited final work and magnum opus of one of the United States's greatest authors, critics, and tastemakers, In Partial Disgrace is a sprawling self-contained trilogy chronicling the troubled history of a small Central European nation bearing certain similarities to Hungary--and whose rise and fall might be said to parallel the strange contortions taken by Western political and literary thought over the course of the twentieth century. More than twenty years in the making, and containing a cast of characters, breadth of insight, and degree of stylistic legerdemain to rival such staggering achievements as William H. Gass's The Tunnel, Carlos Fuentes's Terra Nostra, Robert Coover's The Public Burning, or P矇ter N獺das's Parallel Lives, In Partial Disgrace may be the last great work to issue from the generation that changed American letters in the '60s and '70s.
First Family
In this #1 New York Times bestseller, a child is kidnapped at a presidential retreat and two former Secret Service agents must become private investigators in a desperate search that might destroy them both. A daring kidnapping turns a children's birthday party at Camp David, the presidential retreat, into a national security nightmare. Former Secret Service agents turned private investigators Sean King and Michelle Maxwell don't want to get involved. But years ago Sean saved the First Lady's husband, then a senator, from political disaster. Now the president's wife presses Sean and Michelle into a desperate search to rescue a kidnapped child. With Michelle still battling her own demons, the two are pushed to the limit, with forces aligned on all sides against them-and the line between friend and foe impossible to define...or defend.
The Leading Indicators
Tom Perrotta meets David Brooks in The Leading Indicators--a powerful modern parable about one American family's fall from grace during the recession Margo and Tom Helot have the perfect life. He works in finance; she's an enterprising stay-at-home mom. They inhabit a fully redecorated home complete with expensive his-and-hers cars in the drive and situated in the peaceful, leafy suburb of a major American city. Day after day delivery trucks arrive bearing packages from the kinds of places all Americans wish they received packages: Williams-Sonoma, Bergdorf Goodman, Villeroy & Boch. The family is rounded out by two delightful children with good grades, well on their way to top colleges. Then it all comes crashing down around them: Tom's boss reveals that due to "regrettable oversights," their high-flying company actually was a fraud. Forced into the job market just as the Dow plummets and unemployment starts to spike, Tom is buffeted from one failing company to the next. The Helots lose their house, then their apartment. As the powerful at the very top roll in government subsidized bonuses, while everyone else falters, Tom and Margo find themselves adrift in "an American economy that now produces shattered lives with the same fervor it once produced Oldsmobiles." Ultimately, they must face a terrible choice to save their family's future. This compelling and insightful novel from seasoned social commentator Gregg Easterbrook strikes at the heart of the American moment.
Back To Blood
A big, panoramic story of the new America, as told by our master chronicler of the way we live now. As a police launch speeds across Miami's Biscayne Bay -- with officer Nestor Camacho on board -- Tom Wolfe is off and running. Into the feverous landscape of the city, he introduces the Cuban mayor, the black police chief, a wanna-go-muckraking young journalist and his Yale-marinated editor; an Anglo sex-addiction psychiatrist and his Latina nurse by day, loin lock by night-until lately, the love of Nestor's life; a refined, and oh-so-light-skinned young woman from Haiti and her Creole-spouting, black-gang-banger-stylin' little brother; a billionaire porn addict, crack dealers in the 'hoods, "de-skilled" conceptual artists at the Miami Art Basel Fair, "spectators" at the annual Biscayne Bay regatta looking only for that night's orgy, yenta-heavy ex-New Yorkers at an "Active Adult" condo, and a nest of shady Russians. Based on the same sort of detailed, on-scene, high-energy reporting that powered Tom Wolfe's previous bestselling novels, Back to Blood is another brilliant, spot-on, scrupulous, and often hilarious reckoning with our times.
The Accomplice
In this stellar debut by journalist turned Washington insider and political writer Charles Robbins, an eager politico finds himself on the rise only to discover the perilous costs of success. When Henry Hatten wangles a job as communications director for Nebraska SenatorTom Peele's presidential campaign, he breathes a huge sigh of relief. Smarting over a recent gubernatorial campaign in which his pulling a political punch may have cost his boss the race, he's thrilled to be back in action. This time around, Henry is determined to shuck his ethical qualms. But he soon finds he's facing more than he imagined. The new gig turns out to be rife with scandal and corruption-- just the kind of politics Henry so fervently sought to banish. Events go from bad to worse as the depths of greed emerge, tracking the acceleration and excitement in the campaign itself. Led by a ruthless chairman and filled with warring aides, hired thugs, fractious union bosses, and snooping reporters, the Peele campaign is shaping up to be quite the circus. And that's before Henry's ex arrives on the scene . . . But when someone close to the campaign is murdered, Henry can no longer turn a blind eye. As he conducts his own covert investigation, still more secrets emerge. So deeply entrenched in the politics and manipulation, Henry must face a staggering reality in which his values are no longer his own. But can he extricate himself and salvage the career he loves? And can he do so with his soul intact? A brilliantly plotted and characterized political novel, The Accomplice takes readers into the guts of a brutal presidential campaign.
Kill Shot
#1 New York Times bestselling author of American Assassin--now a major motion picture Vince Flynn's intensely suspenseful #1 New York Times bestseller puts the young, hungry, and lethal superagent of American Assassin in the crosshairs even as he kills with impunity. In the year since the CIA trained and then unleashed him, Mitch Rapp has dismantled, kill by untraceable kill, the network of monsters behind the Pan Am Lockerbie terrorist attack. The hunt leads to Paris, where a deadly trap is sprung as the bullet leaves Rapp's silenced pistol--followed by the discovery of nine bodies, including Libya's oil minister, in one of the city's finest hotels. Washington wants no part of the international crisis, and Rapp is deemed a liability by Stan Hurley, one of his handlers. But as he slips outside their control to operate on his own, it will soon become clear that nothing is more dangerous than a wounded and cornered Mitch Rapp.
The Inner Circle
Medical clinic CEO Edmund Summerfield was once held in high regard throughout his wealthy community. Unfortunately, his ranking has recently fallen due to the difference in political views between Edmund and the group of ultra-conservative group of men who belong to the same country club. Despite the seemingly insurmountable challenges that loom in the near future, the Summerfield family is not about to give up their dedication to maintaining freedom and democracy in the face of the increasingly alarming positions of the far right. But little do they know just how difficult their fight will be. Concerned about the undeniable signs of authoritarianism and the ongoing assault upon democratic principles, Edmund and his two children, Nancy and Lionel, band together with like-minded friends and begin their commitment to work against political extremism. With no time to lose and the country on the brink of economic calamity, the Summerfields immerse themselves in meetings with other compassionate intellectuals concerned with the future of their country. Unfortunately, their well-intended journey has now led them into the midst of an adversarial relationship with elitist conservatives who seek limitless wealth and political power. In this dramatic tale, a political saga slowly unfolds as the Summerfields act on their unselfish intentions to serve the common good, never giving up hope that their beloved nation will, as always, rise up to meet its challenges and threats.
The Inner Circle
Medical clinic CEO Edmund Summerfield was once held in high regard throughout his wealthy community. Unfortunately, his ranking has recently fallen due to the difference in political views between Edmund and the group of ultra-conservative group of men who belong to the same country club. Despite the seemingly insurmountable challenges that loom in the near future, the Summerfield family is not about to give up their dedication to maintaining freedom and democracy in the face of the increasingly alarming positions of the far right. But little do they know just how difficult their fight will be. Concerned about the undeniable signs of authoritarianism and the ongoing assault upon democratic principles, Edmund and his two children, Nancy and Lionel, band together with like-minded friends and begin their commitment to work against political extremism. With no time to lose and the country on the brink of economic calamity, the Summerfields immerse themselves in meetings with other compassionate intellectuals concerned with the future of their country. Unfortunately, their well-intended journey has now led them into the midst of an adversarial relationship with elitist conservatives who seek limitless wealth and political power. In this dramatic tale, a political saga slowly unfolds as the Summerfields act on their unselfish intentions to serve the common good, never giving up hope that their beloved nation will, as always, rise up to meet its challenges and threats.
The Unseen
For a brief explosive period in the mid-1970s, the young and the unemployed of Italy's cities joined the workers in an unexpectedly militant movement known simply as Autonomy (Autonomia). Its "politics of refusal" united its opponents behind draconian measures more severe than any seen since the war. Nanni Balestrini, the poet of youth rebellion, himself a victim of that repression, has invented a remarkable fictional form to express the hopes and conflicts of the movement. In spare but vivid prose, The Unseen follows Autonomy's trajectory through the eyes of a single working-class protagonist--from high-school rebellion, squatting and attempts to set up a free radio station to arrest and the brutalities of imprisonment. This is a powerful and gripping novel: a rare evocation of the intensity of commitment, the passion of politics.
Phineas Redux
The fourth of Trollope's Palliser novels, Phineas Redux is one of his most spellbinding achievements. Trollope shows a remarkably prescient sense of the importance of intrigue, bribery, and sexual scandal, and the power of the press to make or break a political career. He is equally skilled in portraying the complex nature of Phineas's romantic entanglements with three powerful women: the mysterious Madame Max, the devoted Laura Kennedy, and the irrepressible Lady Glencora (now Duchess of Omnium). In his introduction, John Bowen highlights the weaving of public events and private passions in the book, the strength of the female characters, and the analogies, both subtle and comic, between the different kinds of action (politics, hunting, romance) that the book contains. An appendix outlines the internal chronology of the series, providing a unique understanding of the six novels as a linked narrative. In addition, the book features a compact biography of Trollope and a chronology charts his life against the major historical events of the period. Numerous notes explain political, cultural, and social allusions.
The Hunt for the President Wife
In The Hunt for the President織s Wife, a dazzling young nun takes on an urgent and daring political mission for the CIA. In the midst of its human trafficking operations, an American crime family unknowingly seizes at the international border the incognito wife of the Presidente of the Republic of Mexico, creating a catastrophic political crisis. Sister Maria Camarillo--a beautiful young nun with unique and highly developed investigative skills--is swiftly appointed a CIA Special Agent charged with finding and rescuing the missing Senora Ruiz. The Hunt for the President織s Wife takes you where you織ve never been in electrifying scenes of Sister Maria facing off with the lecherous whoremaster of the Maids Club prostitution network and boldly confronting the scheming Presidente Felipe de Ruiz as she fights to preserve her sexual innocence, rescue Senora Ruiz and save America from a tidal wave of panic-stricken border-crashing refugees fleeing a bloody Mexican Civil War.A SIZZLING POLITICAL THRILLER! ARE YOU GAME?A provocative read for you and your friends.Visit the author at www.Authorsden.com/richardleeorey
The Hunt for the President Wife
In The Hunt for the President織s Wife, a dazzling young nun takes on an urgent and daring political mission for the CIA. In the midst of its human trafficking operations, an American crime family unknowingly seizes at the international border the incognito wife of the Presidente of the Republic of Mexico, creating a catastrophic political crisis. Sister Maria Camarillo--a beautiful young nun with unique and highly developed investigative skills--is swiftly appointed a CIA Special Agent charged with finding and rescuing the missing Senora Ruiz. The Hunt for the President織s Wife takes you where you織ve never been in electrifying scenes of Sister Maria facing off with the lecherous whoremaster of the Maids Club prostitution network and boldly confronting the scheming Presidente Felipe de Ruiz as she fights to preserve her sexual innocence, rescue Senora Ruiz and save America from a tidal wave of panic-stricken border-crashing refugees fleeing a bloody Mexican Civil War.A SIZZLING POLITICAL THRILLER! ARE YOU GAME?A provocative read for you and your friends.Visit the author at www.Authorsden.com/richardleeorey
Freedom
Bestselling authors bring together a thought-provoking collection of short stories, each inspired by one of thirty human rights adopted by the United Nations and promoted by Amnesty International. Freedom is a mix of thoughtful, serious, funny, and thrilling stories that harness the power of literature to celebrate--and affirm--our shared humanity. Published in association with Amnesty International, an array of internationally acclaimed & award-winning writers remind us these fundamental freedoms - ratified in 1948 - are just as crucial to protect and uphold today as ever. The United Nations took a moral stand against human rights crimes and adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a proclamation of thirty rights that belong to us all, starting memorably with Article 1: "All human beings are born free and equal." Amnesty International is one of several international organizations promoting UDHR. It is a world-leading grassroots human rights organization & a global movement of millions of people demanding human rights for all people - no matter who they are or where they are. Authors include: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Kate Atkinson, Ishmael Beah, Paulo Coelho, Nadine Gordimer, Marina Lewycka, Henning Mankell, Yann Martel, Rohinton Minstry, David Mitchell, Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates.
The Reform Plan
A devoted high school history teacher, Mr. Besserian enjoys motivating his students at the highly diverse Fillmore High School and tries hard to make his subject matter interesting. His efforts have earned him the Teacher of the Year Award and the respect of the faculty, not to mention the students themselves. But at a staff meeting, Besserian learns of the proposed academic improvement plan for Fillmore High that may fundamentally alter the school-and not for the best. Simply named the Reform Plan, it calls for community involvement on such a large scale that it will virtually turn the school into its own independent city, as well as impose corporate values on the students themselves. Besserian isn't at all sure this is such a wise idea and decides to unearth the truth behind the project by assigning his history class to research it. Besserian and his students start digging into the plan and uncover disturbing and dangerous information that underscores the precarious level of academic instruction in the school. The more they uncover, the more Besserian realizes that greed and corruption are the backbone of the supposed "Reform Plan." But can a lone teacher and a group of students possibly stop the juggernaut of Fillmore High's reform before it destroys the school's very foundation?
The Reform Plan
A devoted high school history teacher, Mr. Besserian enjoys motivating his students at the highly diverse Fillmore High School and tries hard to make his subject matter interesting. His efforts have earned him the Teacher of the Year Award and the respect of the faculty, not to mention the students themselves. But at a staff meeting, Besserian learns of the proposed academic improvement plan for Fillmore High that may fundamentally alter the school-and not for the best. Simply named the Reform Plan, it calls for community involvement on such a large scale that it will virtually turn the school into its own independent city, as well as impose corporate values on the students themselves. Besserian isn't at all sure this is such a wise idea and decides to unearth the truth behind the project by assigning his history class to research it. Besserian and his students start digging into the plan and uncover disturbing and dangerous information that underscores the precarious level of academic instruction in the school. The more they uncover, the more Besserian realizes that greed and corruption are the backbone of the supposed "Reform Plan." But can a lone teacher and a group of students possibly stop the juggernaut of Fillmore High's reform before it destroys the school's very foundation?
Waterloo
Nick Lasseter is in a slump--as a reporter for the Waterloo Weekly, and in every other part of his life as well. When he grudgingly agrees to write a piece about a rising female Republican legislator, he stumbles onto a political fight in which the good guys and bad guys start to seem interchangeable. And not even the deceased can be relied upon to stick to their stories when Nick gets involved with a political insider. As they search the dim depths of a civic past that's anything but dead and buried, they find that some things never change--things like the moral ambiguity of practical politics and the sad, hilarious cluelessness of young men in love. Bittersweet and biting, elegiac and sharply observed, Waterloo is a portrait of a generation in search of itself--and a love letter to the slackers, rockers, hustlers, hacks, and hangers-on who populate Austin, Texas--from a formidable new intelligence in American fiction.
Exiles in the Garden
"A master American novelist." --Vanity Fair "One of the most astute writers of American fiction" (New York Times Book Review) delivers the resonant story of Alec Malone, a senator's son who rejects the family business of politics for a career as a newspaper photographer. Alec and his Swiss wife, Lucia, settle in Georgetown next door to a couple whose 矇migr矇 gatherings in their garden remind Lucia of all the things Americans are not. She leaves Alec as his career founders on his refusal of an assignment to cover the Vietnam War -- a slyly subversive fictional choice from Ward Just, who was himself a renowned war correspondent. At the center of the novel is Alec's unforeseen reckoning with Lucia's long-absent father, Andre Duran, a Czech living out the end of his life in a hostel called Goya House. Duran's career as an adventurer and antifascist commando is everything Alec's is not. The encounter forces Alec to confront just how different a life where things -- "terrible things, terrible things" -- happen is from a life where nothing much happens at all. Once again, "Ward Just writes the kind of books they say no one writes anymore: smart, well-crafted narratives -- wise to the ways of the world -- that use fiction to show us how we live" (Joseph Kanon, Los Angeles Times).
Estrella distante/ Distant Star
El delirante y perturbador misterio de un impostor El narrador vio por primera vez a aquel hombre en 1971 o 1972, cuando Allende era a繳n Presidente de Chile. Escrib穩a poemas distantes y cautelosos, seduc穩a a las mujeres y despertaba en los hombres una indefinible desconfianza. Volvi籀 a verlo despu矇s del golpe, pero en ese momento ignoraba que aquel aviador, que escrib穩a vers穩culos de la Biblia con el humo de un avi籀n de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y el poeta, eran uno, y el mismo. Y as穩 nos es contada la historia de un impostor, de un hombre de muchos nombres, sin otra moral que la est矇tica, dandy del horror, asesino y fot籀grafo del miedo, artista b獺rbaro que llevaba sus creaciones hasta sus 繳ltimas y letales consecuencias. Novela clave en la obra de Roberto Bola簽o, Estrella Distante es, adem獺s de un apasionante thriller intelectual, una escalofriante investigaci籀n sobre la mentalidad fascista y sus efectos en la sensibilidad literaria. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION A chilling novel about the nightmare of a corrupt and brutal dictatorship.The star of Roberto Bolano's hair-raising novel Distant Star is Alberto Ruiz-Tagle, an air force pilot who exploits the 1973 coup to launch his own version of the New Chilean Poetry, a multimedia enterprise involving sky-writing, poetry, torture, and photo exhibitions. For our unnamed narrator, who first encounters this "star" in a college poetry workshop, Ruiz-Tagle becomes the silent hand behind every evil act in the darkness of Pinochet's regime. The narrator, unable to stop himself, tries to track Ruiz-Tagle down, and sees signs of his activity over and over again. A corrosive, mocking humor sparkles within Bolano's darkest visions of Chile under Pinochet. In Bolano's world there's a big graveyard and there's a big graveyard laugh. (He once described his novel By Night in Chile as "a tale of terror, a situation comedy, and a combination pastoral-gothic novel.") Many Chilean authors have written about the "bloody events of the early Pinochet years, the abductions and murders," Richard Eder commented in the The New York Times: "None has done it in so dark and glittering a fashion as Roberto Bolano."
The Unpossessed City
A gripping novel about the dangers and draws of contemporary Russia--from the author of The Geographer's Library With The Geographer's Library, Jon Fasman made an "inventive and spirited" debut (The New Yorker) that landed him on The New York Times bestseller list. Every bit as dazzling, The Unpossessed City takes readers into the Wild East that is Russia today. There we meet Jim Vilatzer--an American expat whose Russian language skills land him a job interviewing former inmates of the Gulag and ensnare him in a web of deceit involving the CIA, Russia's Interior Ministry, and Central Asian arms dealers selling the most dangerous technologies to the highest bidder. From its brooding portrayal of Moscow to its riveting pace, The Unpossessed City is an atmospheric triumph in the tradition of Donna Leon's novels of Venice.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
The first published novel from the controversial Nobel Prize winning Russian author of The Gulag Archipelago. In the madness of World War II, a dutiful Russian soldier is wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to ten years in a Siberian labor camp. So begins this masterpiece of modern Russian fiction, a harrowing account of a man who has conceded to all things evil with dignity and strength. First published in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is considered one of the most significant works ever to emerge from Soviet Russia. Illuminating a dark chapter in Russian history, it is at once a graphic picture of work camp life and a moving tribute to man's will to prevail over relentless dehumanization. Includes an Introduction by Yevgeny Yevtushenkoand an Afterword by Eric Bogosian
Beijing Coma
Dai Wei, a PhD student and protestor in Tiananmen Square in June 1989, was caught by a soldier's bullet and fell into a deep coma. But as the millennium draws near, he begins to emerge from unconsciousness, and to sense the massive changes in his country. At once a powerful allegory of a rising China, and a seminal story of the Tiananmen Square protests, Beijing Coma is Ma Jian's masterpiece.
In the City of Fear
In this novel of political intrigue, Pulitzer Prize finalist Ward Just captures the best and brightest of Washington amid turmoil of the sixties and its repercussions twenty years later. In the City of Fear follows the intersecting lives of a good congressman, his good wife, and the good wife's lover, an infantry colonel whose memories of the war, and a secret plot concocted by the Washington power brokers to win it, are more than he can bear.
The Race
Can an honest man become president? In The Race, this timely and provocative novel from bestselling author Richard North Patterson, a maverick candidate takes on his political enemies and the ruthless machinery of American politics. Corey Grace--a handsome and charismatic Republican senator from Ohio--is plunged by an act of terrorism into a fierce presidential primary battle with the favorite of the party establishment and a magnetic leader of the Christian right. A decorated Gulf War Air Force pilot known for speaking his mind, Grace's reputation for voting his own conscience rather than the party line--together with his growing romance with Lexie Hart, an African-American movie star--has earned him a reputation as a maverick and an iconoclast. But Grace is still haunted by a tragic mistake buried deep in his past, and now his integrity will be put to the test in this most brutal of political contests, in which nothing in his past or present life is off-limits. Depicting contemporary power politics at its most ruthless, The Race takes on the most incendiary issues in American culture: racism, terrorism, religious fundamentalism, gay rights, and the rise of media monopolies with their own agenda and lust for power. As the pressure of the campaign intensifies, Grace encounters betrayal, excruciating moral choices, and secrets that can destroy lives. Ultimately, the race leads to a deadlocked party convention where Grace must resolve the conflict between his romance with Lexie and his presidential ambitions--and decide just who and what he is willing to sacrifice.
Cry Wolf
Cry Wolf is an Animal Farm for the 21st century: a brilliant allegory of the political challenges we face in post-9/11 America. The farm animals' struggle to maintain their way of life against an influx of change is a powerful commentary on the importance of balancing freedom with justice, and on how easily even the best of intentions can destroy a community too caught up with what is "fair" to do what is right. Lake's novel raises questions of in the heart of every devoted citizen: Does political correctness ever trump law? Should safety ever be compromised for the sake of inclusion? Are big government and judicial systems tools to create order, or do they provide chaos?
My Holocaust
Successful father-and-son business partners Maurice and Norman Messer know a good product when they see it. That product is the Holocaust--and they market it enthusiastically. Maurice is a survivor with a self-inflated personal history. Norman enjoys vicarious victimhood via the second-generation movement. And nothing will prevent them from pushing their agenda and reaping the rewards. Not guilt, pride, or ethics. Not the disappearance of Norman's daughter, Nechama, into the Carmelite convent at Auschwitz or her reemergence as Sister Consolatia of the Cross. Not even the violent takeover of America's most powerful Holocaust memorialization institution by an angry coalition of self-styled "victims" eagerly seeking Holocaust status.
Lost City Radio
"Daniel Alarcon writesabout subterfuge, lies, and the arbitrary recreation of history with amasterful clarity. By accepting the premise that war is senseless, he goes onto make sense of the lives that are destroyed in its wake. Lost CityRadio is both ambitious and resonant." -- Ann Patchett, bestselling author of BelCanto and The Dutch HouseIn his criticallyacclaimed debut novel, award winning author Daniel Alarc籀nvividly portrays an anonymous nation searching for its identity at the end of awar with no clear right or wrong. For ten years, Norma hasbeen the on-air voice of consolation and hope for the Indians in the mountainsand the poor from the barrios--a people broken by war's violence. As the host of LostCity Radio, she reads thenames of those who have disappeared--those whom the furiously expanding city hasswallowed. Through her efforts lovers are reunited and the lost are found. Butin the aftermath of the decade long bloody civil conflict, her own life is aboutto forever change--thanks to the arrival of a young boy from the jungle whoprovides a cryptic clue to the fate of Norma's vanished husband. Stunning, timely, and absolutely mesmerizing, Lost City Radio probes the deepest questions of war and its meaning: from its devastating impact on society to the emotional scarring each survivor carries for years after.
Measuring the World
Measuring the World marks the debut of a glorious new talent on the international scene. Young Austrian writer Daniel Kehlmann's brilliant comic novel revolves around the meeting of two colossal geniuses of the Enlightenment. Late in the eighteenth century, two young Germans set out to measure the world. One of them, the aristocratic naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, negotiates jungles, voyages down the Orinoco River, tastes poisons, climbs the highest mountain known to man, counts head lice, and explores and measures every cave and hill he comes across. The other, the reclusive and barely socialized mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, can prove that space is curved without leaving his home. Terrifyingly famous and wildly eccentric, these two polar opposites finally meet in Berlin in 1828, and are immediately embroiled in the turmoil of the post-Napolean world.
The Zero
National Book Award Finalist "Political satire at its best: scathing, funny, dark. Grade: A." --Entertainment WeeklyThe breakout novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins, Jess Walter: In the wake of a devastating terrorist attack, one man struggles to make sense of his world, even as the world tries to make use of himBrian Remy has no idea how he got here. It's been only five days since terrorists attacked his city, and Remy is experiencing gaps in his life--as if he were a stone being skipped across water. He has a self-inflicted gunshot wound that he doesn't remember inflicting. His son wears a black armband and refuses to acknowledge that Remy is still alive. He seems to be going blind. He has a beautiful new girlfriend whose name he doesn't know. And his old partner in the police department, who may well be the only person crazier than Remy, has just gotten his picture on a box of First Responder cereal.And these are the good things in Brian Remy's life. While smoke still hangs over the city, Remy is recruited by a mysterious government agency that is assigned to gather all of the paper that was scattered in the attacks. As he slowly begins to realize that he's working for a shadowy intelligence operation, Remy stumbles across a dangerous plot, and with the world threatening to boil over in violence and betrayal, he realizes that he's got to track down the most elusive target of them all--himself. And the only way to do that is to return to that place where everything started falling apart.In the tradition of Catch-22, The Manchurian Candidate, and the novels of Ian McEwan, comes this extraordinary story of searing humor and sublime horror, of blindness, bewilderment, and that achingly familiar feeling that the world has suddenly stopped making sense.
Bartleby & Co.
In Bartleby & Co., an enormously enjoyable novel, Enrique Vila-Matas tackles the theme of silence in literature: the writers and non-writers who, like the scrivener Bartleby of the Herman Melville story, in answer to any question or demand, replies: "I would prefer not to." Addressing such "artists of refusal" as Robert Walser, Robert Musil, Arthur Rimbaud, Marcel Duchamp, Herman Melville, and J. D. Salinger, Bartleby & Co. could be described as a meditation: a walking tour through the annals of literature. Written as a series of footnotes (a non-work itself), Bartleby embarks on such questions as why do we write, why do we exist? The answer lies in the novel itself: told from the point of view of a hermetic hunchback who has no luck with women, and is himself unable to write, Bartleby is utterly engaging, a work of profound and philosophical beauty.
Whiteman
In an Ivory Coast village where Christians and Muslims are squaring off for war, against a backdrop of bloody conflict and vibrant African life, Jack Diaz--an American relief worker--and Mamadou, his village guardian, learn that hate knows no color and that true heroism waits where we least expect it. During lulls in the violence, Jack learns the cycles of Africa--of hunting in the rain forest, cultivating the yam, and navigating the nuances of the language; of witchcraft, storytelling, and chivalry. Despite the omnipresence of AIDS, he courts a stunning Peul girl, meets his neighbor's wife in the darkened forest, and desperately pursues the village flirt. Still, Jack spends many nights alone in his hut, longing for love in a place where his skin color excludes him. Brimming with dangerous passions and the pressures of life in a time of war, Whiteman is a stunning debut and a tale of desire, isolation, humor, action, and fear.
The Ministry of Pain
Having fled the violent breakup of Yugoslavia, Tanja Lucic is now a professor of literature at the University of Amsterdam, where she teaches a class filled with other young Yugoslav exiles, most of whom earn meager wages assembling leather and rubber S&M clothing at a sweatshop they call the "Ministry." Abandoning literature, Tanja encourages her students to indulge their "Yugonostalgia" in essays about their personal experiences during their homeland's cultural and physical disintegration. But Tanja's act of academic rebellion incites the rage of one renegade member of her class--and pulls her dangerously close to another--which, in turn, exacerbates the tensions of a life in exile that has now begun to spiral seriously out of control.
The Dream Life of Sukhanov
Olga Grushin's astonishing literary debut has won her comparisons with everyone from Gogol to Nabokov. A virtuoso study in betrayal and its consequences, it explores--really, colonizes--the consciousness of Anatoly Sukhanov, who many years before abandoned the precarious existence of an underground artist for the perks of a Soviet apparatchik. But, at the age of 56, his perfect life is suddenly disintegrating. Buried dreams return to haunt him. New political alignments threaten to undo him. Vaulting effortlessly from the real to the surreal and from privilege to paranoia, The Dream Life of Sukhanov is a darkly funny, demonically entertaining novel.
