Antonia Fraser’s Perilous Question is a dazzling re-creation of the tempestuous two-year period in Britain’s history leading up to the passing of the Great Reform Bill in 1832, a narrative which at times reads like a political thriller. The era, beginning with the accession of William IV, is evoked in the novels of Trollope and Thackeray, and described by the young Charles Dickens as a cub reporter. It is lit with notable characters. The reforming heroes are the Whig aristocrats led by Lord Grey, members of the richest and most landed cabinet in history yet determined to bring liberty, which would whittle away their own power, to the country. The all-too-conservative opposition was headed by the Duke of Wellington, supported by the intransigent Queen Adelaide, with hereditary memories of the French Revolution. Finally, there were revolutionaries, like William Cobbett, the author of Rural Rides, the radical tailor Francis Place, and Thomas Attwood of Birmingham, the charismatic orator. The contest often grew violent. There were urban riots put down by soldiers and agricultural riots led by the mythical Captain Swing. The underlying grievance was the fate of the many disfranchised people. They were ignored by a medieval system of electoral representation that gave, for example, no votes to those who lived in the new industrial cities of Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, and Birmingham, while allocating two parliamentary representatives to a village long since fallen into the sea and, most notoriously, Old Sarum, a green mound in a field. Lord John Russell, a Whig minister, said long afterwards that it was the only period when he genuinely felt popular revolution threatened the country. The Duke of Wellington declared intractably in November 1830 that “The beginning of reform is the beginning of revolution.” So it seemed that disaster must fall on the British Parliament, or the monarchy, or both. The question was: Could a rotten system reform itself in time? On June 7, 1832, the date of the extremely reluctant royal assent by William IV to the Great Reform Bill, it did. These events led to a total change in the way Britain was governed, and set the stage for its growth as the world’s most successful industrial power; admired, among other things, for its traditions of good governance—a two-year revolution that Antonia Fraser brings to vivid dramatic life.

Benjamin Franklin's classic book is full of timeless, thought-provoking insights that are as valuable today as they were over two centuries ago. With more than 700 pithy proverbs, Franklin lays out the rules everyone should live by and offers advice on such subjects as money, friendship, marriage, ethics, and human nature. They range from the famous "A penny saved is a penny earned" to the lesser-known but equally practical "When the wine enters, out goes the truth." Other truisms like "Fish and visitors stink after three days" combine sharp wit with wisdom. Paul Volcker's new introduction offers a fascinating perspective on Franklin's beloved work.

The city of San Antonio, it's the second most populated metropolis in Texas, ranked as the seventh in the whole United States. With its outstanding record in criminal law, fire fighting, and search and rescue, you'd think the city was ready for everything. However one stormy night the unpreparedness of an entire city, as the majority of it sleeps unsuspecting, may send hundreds to their graves.The city of San Antonio, it's the second most populated metropolis in Texas, ranked as the seventh in the whole United States. With its outstanding record in criminal law, fire fighting, and search and rescue, you'd think the city was ready for everything. However one stormy night the unpreparedness of an entire city, as the majority of it sleeps unsuspecting, may send hundreds to their graves, as eleven characters fight to survive, and save others. Will an arcade addict with no future, a group of L.G.B.T. youths, two parents out on the town, a young adult home alone with his dog, an elderly Alzheimer sufferer, an overnight dog hotel employee, and a bar manager throwing a party for all his close friends be able to survive one of the worse disaster to strike Texas in its history? Will there be anything left of the Alamo City when dawn rises to greet the survivors?

When he won a trip to the moon, Benny Love never thought that his vacation would involve battling aliens determined to destroy Earth. He and his friends in the Moon Platoon are able to fight off the first wave of attacks, but their genius leader Elijah West has now gone missing. And Earth is still in very real danger. As Benny and the gang gear up for the aliens’ next attacks, they discover that Elijah’s research partner, who’s long been presumed dead, is actually alive and living on the dark side of the moon. He knows things about the aliens that can help the Moon Platoon defeat them—but can he be trusted? They don’t have long to decide, because the aliens are on their way—and they’re coming for Benny and his friends first.

A semi-autobiographical, satirical novel that throws into perspective all of Gombrowicz's major literary, philosophical, psychological and social concerns. Throughout the book Gombrowicz ridicules the self-centred pomposity of the Polish community in Argentina.

Sisters Three, Five and Six don't have much education, but they know two things for certain: their mother is a failure because she hasn't produced a son, and they only merit a number as a name. Women, their father tells them, are like chopsticks: utilitarian and easily broken. But when they leave their home in the countryside to seek their fortune in the big city, their eyes are suddenly and shockingly opened. Together they find jobs, make new friends, and learn more than a few lessons about life...

Whether he is evoking the blind carnage of the Tet offensive, the theatrics of his fellow Americans, or the unraveling of his own illusions, Wolff brings to this work the same uncanny eye for detail, pitiless candor and mordant wit that made This Boy's Life a modern classic. From the Trade Paperback edition.

"* Difficult to find original content? Want to enjoy all the classics? Here you will find the book you need! Original content. Full. Clearly presented. We are honored to bring you classics that are familiar to the public all over the world. Difficult to find original content? Want to enjoy all the classics? Here you will find the book you need! Original content. Full. Clearly presented. We are honored to bring you classics that are familiar to the public all over the world. Difficult to find original content? Want to enjoy all the classics? Here you will find the book you need! Original content. Full. Clearly presented. We are honored to bring you classics that are familiar to the public all over the world.* "

His grandmother, the only person who could seal his psychic doorway closed has died. Now Connor's only hope of preventing a terrifying future is to consciously peer into the afterlife to find his grandmother.Still numb from the sudden death of his grandmother the night before Connor drags himself out of bed. Work may help take his mind off things and on the way he planned to call into the police station to make a complaint against Dale Tanner. Unfortunately Connor didn't make it to either destination and his bad day gets far worse.

In her powerful new memoir, the #1 bestselling author of Infidel tells the stirring story of her search for a new life as she tries to reconcile her Islamic past with her passionate adherence to democracy and Western values. A unique blend of personal narrative and reportage, moving, engaging, wryly funny at times, Nomad gives us an inside view of her battle for equality in the face of considerable odds. Ayaan captured the world's attention with Infidel, the eye-opening memoir of her childhood in Africa and Saudi Arabia, and her escape to Holland en route to a forced marriage in Canada. Nomad is the story of what happened after the Dutch director with whom she made a documentary about the domestic abuse of Muslim women was murdered by a radical Islamist and death threats forced her into hiding; of her bid to start a new life in America; of her renewed contact with her family on her father's death; and of her attempts to live by her adopted principles. With deep understanding, and through vivid anecdotes, and observations of people, cultures, and the political debacles that are engulfing the world, she takes us with her on an illuminating, unforgettable journey. From the Hardcover edition.

In 1994, Anchee Min made her literary debut with a memoir of growing up in China during the violent trauma of the Cultural Revolution. Red Azalea became an international bestseller and propelled her career as a successful, critically acclaimed author. Twenty years later, Min returns to the story of her own life to give us the next chapter, an immigrant story that takes her from the shocking deprivations of her homeland to the sudden bounty of the promised land of America, without language, money, or a clear path. It is a hard and lonely road. She teaches herself English by watching Sesame Street, keeps herself afloat working five jobs at once, lives in unheated rooms, suffers rape, collapses from exhaustion, marries poorly and divorces.But she also gives birth to her daughter, Lauryann, who will inspire her and finally root her in her new country. Min's eventual successes-her writing career, a daughter at Stanford, a second husband she loves-are remarkable, but it is her struggle throughout toward genuine selfhood that elevates this dramatic, classic immigrant story to something powerfully universal.

This novel, described by the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review as "nothing short of miraculous," is the story of Zebra Wong, a Chinese girl whose pragmatic mind conflicts with her passionate heart; Lion Head, her classmate, whose penchant for romantic intrigue belies his political ambitions, and Katherine, the seductive American with the red lipstick and the wild laugh who teaches them English and other foreign concepts: individualism, sensuality, the Beatles. In Katherine's classroom, repression and rebellion meet head-on-and the consequences are both tragic and liberating.

William Styron traces the betrayals and infidelities—the heritage of spite and endlessly disappointed love—that afflict the members of a Southern family and that culminate in the suicide of the beautiful Peyton Loftis.

Rosie Ferguson is seventeen and ready to enjoy the summer before her senior year of high school. She's intelligent-she aced AP physics; athletic-a former state-ranked tennis doubles champion; and beautiful. She is, in short, everything her mother, Elizabeth, hoped she could be. The family's move to Landsdale, with stepfather James in tow, hadn't been as bumpy as Elizabeth feared. But as the school year draws to a close, there are disturbing signs that the life Rosie claims to be leading is a sham, and that Elizabeth's hopes for her daughter to remain immune from the pull of the darker impulses of drugs and alcohol are dashed. Slowly and against their will, Elizabeth and James are forced to confront the fact that Rosie has been lying to them-and that her deceptions will have profound consequences.