The Fall of the House of Usher is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1839. The story begins with the unnamed narrator arriving at the house of his friend, Roderick Usher, having received a letter from him in a distant part of the country complaining of an illness and asking for his help. As he arrives, the narrator notes a thin crack extending from the roof, down the front of the building and into the adjacent lake. Although Poe wrote this short story before the invention of modern psychological science, Roderick\'s condition can be described according to its terminology. It includes a form of sensory overload known as hyperesthesia (hypersensitivity to textures, light, sounds, smells and tastes), hypochondria (an excessive preoccupation or worry about having a serious illness) and acute anxiety. It is revealed that Roderick\'s twin sister, Madeline, is also ill and falls into cataleptic, deathlike trances. The narrator is impressed with Roderick\'s paintings, and attempts to cheer him by reading with him and listening to his improvised musical compositions on the guitar. Roderick sings "The Haunted Palace", then tells the narrator that he believes the house he lives in to be alive, and that this sentience arises from the arrangement of the masonry and vegetation surrounding it. Roderick later informs the narrator that his sister has died and insists that she be entombed for two weeks in the family tomb located in the house before being permanently buried. The narrator helps Roderick put the body in the tomb, and he notes that Madeline has rosy cheeks, as some do after death. They inter her, but over the next week both Roderick and the narrator find themselves becoming increasingly agitated for no apparent reason. A storm begins. Roderick comes to the narrator\'s bedroom, which is situated directly above the vault, and throws open his window to the storm.

As a young girl in a working-class neighborhood of Sydney, Australia, Geraldine Brooks longed to discover the places where history happens and culture comes from, so she enlisted pen pals who offered her a window on adolescence in the Middle East, Europe, and America. Twenty years later Brooks, an award-winning foreign correspondent, embarked on a human treasure hunt to find her pen friends. She found men and women whose lives had been shaped by war and hatred, by fame and notoriety, and by the ravages of mental illness. Intimate, moving, and often humorous, Foreign Correspondence speaks to the unquiet heart of every girl who has ever yearned to become a woman of the world. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Dennis Lehane won a Shamus Award for A Drink Before the War, his first book about working-class Boston detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. His second in the series, Darkness, Take My Hand, got the kind of high octane reviews that careers are made of. Now Lehane not only survives the dreaded third-book curse, he beats it to death with a stick. Sacred is a dark and dangerous updating of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, as dying billionaire Trevor Stone hires Kenzie and Gennaro to find his daughter, Desiree. Patrick's mentor, a wonderfully devious detective named Jay Becker, has already disappeared in St. Petersburg, Florida, while working the case, so the two head there to pick up a trail. Desiree, of course, is nothing like the sweet and simple beauty described by her father, and even Chandler would have been amazed by the plot twists that Lehane manages to keep coming.

An 18th Century English surgeon is born immune to pain, making him oblivious to the suffering of others. This accounts for his professional success which attracts the attention of the Empress of Russia. On the way to treat her, he runs into a witch who gives him the sensation of pain. That sends him mad but he recovers, emerging from the asylum with the knowledge that without pain one is not really human

Eddie Cayce has come home to New Orleans. Good or bad, she's made her bed and now she has to sleep in it, like her mama always said. Even though she loves the town where she grew up, the gift she'd been given from her late grandmother was causing problems. Major problems.Her aunt isn't talking to her. Eddie's talent is turned up to the equivalent of a million-watt light bulb. Walking down the street from her newly purchased antique store, she has to dodge questions and demands from the newly and not so dearly departed.When her marketing associate, Tessa Hunt, dies unexpectedly, her ghost demands that Eddie find her killer, Eddie agrees to make some calls. Now if she could just keep Tessa from pushing her bad marketing tactics from beyond the grave.All Eddie wants is a little peace and quiet so she can run her new business and find the perfect house. Is that too much to ask? Apparently, the answer is yes, at least in New Orleans.

*The holidays are a special time, when shining eyes melt the chill of a winter's night, when hearts overflow with love.... Now, embrace the passion and romance of the season with this dazzling, all-new treasury of stories. New York Times bestselling authors Jude Deveraux and Linda Howard are joined by Margaret Allison, Stef Ann Holm and Mariah Stewart in a delightful celebration of the heart's greatest gifts.... * Jude Deveraux - The Teacher (Legend, Colorado #2) A spirited Irishwoman, Kathryn de Longe, comes to a rugged Colorado town to govern a young ruffian and her worst student, Zachary Jordan, son of the arrogant Cole, who decides that he wants to be the teacher's pet. However, she and her son are in hiding and a relationship is not what she needs, even if love is the prize and learns a love lesson from the boy's father: there is more to the man than meets the eye.... Mariah Stewart - If Only In My Dreams Quinn Hollister and Cale McKenzie were once sweethearts. Now a blizzard forces the lonely pair to share a close proximity to each other. Margaret Allison - Christmas Magic Artist Kim Risson and her father have barely talked to each other over the years. However, when he becomes ill, she runs home to see him. Soon, Kim finds herself being pulled between a father she never had and his handsome doctor. Stef Ann Holm - Jolly Holly John Wolcott and Isabel Burche are two lonely people, who are down on their luck. Both enter a holly berry collecting contest, in the California hills, in dire need of winning the first prize of cash, which brings two determined hearts together for the greatest prize of all: a true and lasting love.... Linda Howard - White Out Hope Bradshaw saves the life of Price Tanner when he is caught in a blizzard near her isolated cabin. Price insists that he is a law enforcement official even if it appears that he is not. Still, love grows during their "White Out". Now, if trust could only quickly follow, a relationship could bloom... These unforgettable tales capture the heart's timeless holiday spirit - and love's blissful joys that can last the whole year through.

"It's way harder being a guy than a girl." "Is not." "Is too." "Is not!" "Is too!"So begins another madcap McDoogle mishap as Wally agrees to switch places with Wall Street (his best friend even if she is a girl). Teachers, parents, friends, everyone is in on the act as the two try to survive 72 hours in each other's shoes. It's a custom–made Wally catastrophe that includes: exploding Home Ec cookies (apparently Wally used gun powder instead of baking powder), baby–sitting a mob of out–of–control monster babies, and imprisoned 2.2 hours in the bathroom every morning to fix his hair. Last, and by no means least, Wally must replace Wall Street as a star in The Nutcracker ballet!All in all it becomes one of Wally's greatest misadventures as he finally learns the important lesson of honoring and respecting others.

An essential introduction to the fascinating but largely unexplored theatre of Latin America, featuring new translations of five contemporary plays written by some of the region's most exciting writers.Each play is accompanied by an illuminating interview with its author conducted by the theatre director, Sebastian Doggart, who has also selected and translated the plays and provided an introductory history of Latin American drama.Rappaccini's Daughter by Octavio PazA play by the Mexican Nobel laureate.Night of the Assassins by José TrianaA controversial Cuban play in which three siblings plot the murder of their parents.Saying Yes by Griselda GambaroA grotesque comedy from Argentina about man's inhumanity to man.Orchids in the Moonlight by Carlos FuentesA dream play about two Mexican women exiled in Hollywood's maze of mirrors.Mistress of Desires by Mario Vargas LlosaPeru's most acclaimed writer interweaves...

Haunting dreams. The power of the resistance. A battle for freedom. Betrayal magic from the past is still hindering Isika's powers, and the rains haven't come to the lands of the Maweel, causing drought. Growing desperate, the elders decide to crown Isika queen, and at the same time, Ben begins to dream of Aria and the Desert King at sea. He senses that these dreams have been sent by their sister to warn them. Fearing an attack on the Hadem, Isika gathers a group of travelers to aid Maween's allies, journeying great distances to confront the king and put an end to the poison of betrayal magic for once and for all. Will they succeed this time? Or will the power of the Great Waste be too much for the resistance?

The police suspect some of the junior high kids in Nancy Drew's after-school program of breaking into houses. But when Nancy sets out to find the truth, she finds herself in danger. The real crooks are determined to shut her down—before she shuts the door on the River Heights burglary ring!

Remember these names: Boomer. Dead-Eye. Pins. Geronimo. Reverend Jim. Mrs. Columbo. They were great cops. The best cops. But they are cops no more.             Now they are apaches--a renegade unit working on their own.                     With this novel, the author of the stunning #1 bestseller Sleepers returns to the mean streets he knows so well. And in doing so, he has written his most explosive, electrifying, and startling book yet.                      It is the early 1980s. Crack cocaine has made its devastating appearance. Violence is escalating and so is an unnerving lack of morality. Things are happening that have never happened before. One of those things is the brutal kidnapping of an innocent 12-year-old girl. But the kidnapper has made a deadly mistake. He has brought Boomer Frontierie back to life, back to the streets. And back into action. A New York City detective forced to retire after being wounded in a drug bust, Boomer thirsts to return to the life he loved--the life of a cop. When an old friend turns to him for help, Boomer has the excuse he needs. And when the simple kidnapping turns into something more, something much more evil, even more horrifying, Boomer realizes that he can once again find a way to serve justice. There are others like Boomer. Cops who can no longer be cops. He brings them together, bringing them back to life as well. Even as they face almost certain death. Apaches is the story of an extraordinary band of cops. Some might call them criminals. Some might call them heroes. But theirs is a world where good is always shadowed by bad, where right is almost indecipherable from wrong, and where the living can, within mere moments, cross over to the world of the dead.         Lorenzo Carcaterra has written the most exciting novel of the year. Like Sleepers, it is a book that will never be forgotten. From the Hardcover edition.

More than thirty years ago, Michael Peisel's classic, Mustang: A Lost Tibetan Kingdom, introduced the world to a region more isolated than the deepest Amazon. Against the odds—and in the tradition of the nineteenth-century explorers of whom he is a direct descendant—Peissel has combed Tibet for forty years and has come to know one of the last nomadic peoples on earth to live with what he calls a "Stone Age memory."In 1994, seizing the rarest of opportunities to journey deep into occupied Tibet, he accomplished what scores of Western explorers had tried and failed to do for more than a hundred years: He found the source of the Mekong River in the ice-strewn fields on the "roof of the world."This immensely readable account tells how a small group of modern adventurers made history not once, but twice, in the course of a single year: by accurately charting the origins of one of Asia's most majestic and storied waterways and by finding a...

No Matter How Much a Woman Has, There's Always too Much to Lose Stephanie Jardine is at the apex of her career and life running the American branch of Jardine's, the prestigious Crown Jewellers of London. A young widow, she has three grown sons and one very precious teenage daughter, Chloe. Then one day, an unexpected act of violence committed by a stranger on the other side of the world plunges Stevie into turmoil and despair. To save her injured daughter's life and ensure her future, Stevie must go back to her own past and confront a relationship that has only brought her heartbreak. As she battles for her daughter, Stevie comes to understand how fragile life is and how it can be forever changed by others when least expected. A moving novel about family secrets, betrayal, and redemption, Power of a Woman is the story of an innocent victim of a stranger's vengeance, who manages to triumph through her own inner power as a woman.

They must all remember that they were in the public eye all the time, and that each member of the family had a part to play which might never be relaxed even at home. Arabella and James are the Merry children: their parents make their living on television, telling other parents how to bring up their children, with their own beautifully behaved offspring as an example. Everything they do is a photo opportunity. But Arabella and James long to be normal; for people who like them for themselves. Most of all, they want animals of their own. When their father gets an unexpected legacy, it seems as if there might be a way out. Written in the 1960s, The Merrythoughts have their decendants now in all those families on YouTube and Instagram whose lives are laid bare to their fans.