Daedalus Books

Based on hundreds of hours of interviews with the man who authored In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's, as well as with nearly everyone who knew him, this absorbing, definitive biography follows Truman Capote from his eccentric childhood in Alabama to the heights of New York society. Featuring many photographs, this book also candidly recounts a gifted and celebrated writer's descent into the life of alcohol and drugs that would ultimately consume his bulldog spirit and staggering talent — but not before he'd hobnob with the likes of Grace Paley and Lee Radziwill, feud outrageously with Gore Vidal and Jacqueline Susann, and stage at New York's Plaza Hotel the sensational Black and White Ball.

The latest release from the best-selling Simpsons Library of Wisdom series. Resident of Springfield and owner of the Android's Dungeon & Baseball Card Shop, the infamous Comic Book Guy spends his days at the comfort of his stool, patiently awaiting his next paying customer. The Comic Book guy embodies all the traits of your typical comic book shop owner, being tubby, and wearing his brown hair in a pony tail. He is also known for being extremely sarcastic. Being a sci-fi, comic and movie buff, the Comic Book Guy holds several prized collectibles: a rare copy of Mary Worth, in which Mary advises a friend to commit suicide, as well as his rare photo of Sean Connery, signed by Roger Moore. In some scenarios, the Comic Book Guy can be found sporting his alter-ego, The Collector, a menacing superhero with the intention of finding the most sought-after collectible! (The Collector makes his first appearance in the Treehouse of Horror X Halloween special).

The first crusade was set in motion by Pope Urban II in 1095 and culminated in the capture of Jerusalem from the Muslims four years later. In 1291 the fall of Acre marked the loss of the last Christian enclave in the Holy Land. This Pocket Essential traces the chronology of the Crusades between these two dates and highlights the most important figures on all sides of the conflict. It covers the creation of the kingdom of Jerusalem and the other crusader states and their struggle to survive. It looks at the successes and failures of the Third Crusade and at the legendary figures of Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, explores the truth and the myths behind the orders of military monks like the Hospitallers and examines such strange historical events as the Children's Crusade and the crusader sacking of Byzantium in 1204. It also looks at the struggles of the Teutonic Knights against paganism in the Baltic. The book provides the essential information about one of the great unifying, and disunifying, forces of medieval Christendom.

It was a chance encounter with Armistead Maupin (of Tales of the City fame) in San Francisco which inspired Alexander McCall Smith to write his daily novel about the residents of 44 Scotland Street, a fictitious building in a real street in the author's home town of Edinburgh. With its multiple-occupancy flats, Scotland Street is an interesting corner of the city, verging on the Bohemian, where haute bourgeoisie rub shoulders with students and the more colourful members of the intelligentsia. The comings and goings at 44 Scotland Street first made their way into print in The Scotsman newspaper in the first half of 2004. Espresso Tales features further escapades from the fringes of the New Town which appeared in The Scotsman during 2005. This new novel gives Scotland Street aficionados a chance to catch up with the occupants of what must surely be Edinburgh's most well-known literary address, and to meet more of the inhabitants of this unique corner of the city. Espresso Tales is vintage McCall Smith, tackling issues of trust and honesty, snobbery and hypocrisy, love and loss, but all with great lightness of touch. Clever, elegant and funny, this is a novel that provides huge entertainment but which is underpinned by the moral dilemmas of everyday life and the characters' struggles to resolve them.

The excitement and wonder of a mid-winter sled ride — seen through the vivid imagination of a young child — allows readers to follow along as the child transforms into a queen, observes colorful soldiers in formation, visits a gypsy camp, and goes wherever her lucid imagination takes her.

This brilliant work by one of Russia's foremost novelists teems with greed, passion, depravity, and complex moral issues. Three brothers, involved in the brutal murder of their despicable father, find their lives irrevocably altered as they are driven by intense, uncontrollable emotions of rage and revenge.

A wondrously enthralling (The Times [London]) history of the bloody battle that halted the French attempt to dominate Europe and changed the course of history In 1704, the armies of French King Louis XIV were poised to extend the French frontiers to the Rhine and install a French prince on the Spanish throne. But as French forces marched toward Vienna, allied armies commanded by John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and Prince Eugene of Savoy set out to oppose them. The two forces clashed at Blenheim, in Bavaria, and the previously undefeated French were routed, ending France's dream of European domination. Based on original sources, this page-turning narrative brings the battle to life, capturing the deliberations of kings as well as the experiences of ordinary soldiers.

Throughout the centuries, royal mistresses have been worshiped, feared, envied, and reviled. They set the fashions, encouraged the arts, and, in some cases, ruled nations. As she did with Sex with the Queen, Eleanor Herman takes readers into the throne rooms and bedrooms of Europe's most powerful monarchs to relate history from the women's point of view. She finds that in most cases, the main function of a royal mistress was not providing the king with sex as much as with companionship. «Open Sex With Kings at almost any page and you'll find yourself immersed in a bawdy, deliciously appealing illicit scene occurring in the highest places.... Herman has written an enlightening social history that is great fun to read.»

On 22 June 1941 The Germans launched their long-expected invasion of the Soviet Union. Codenamed Operation Barbarossa, after the famous 12th century crusading emperor, what followed was perhaps the greatest clash of arms the world has ever witnessed. With the aid of specially commissioned maps, Barbarossa: The First 7 Days describes the dramatic history of the first week of the invasion of the Soviet Union. The book begins with an extensive overview of the Wehrmacht's success up until 1941, followed by chapters outlining the German High Command's plan of attack and the defensive dispositions of the Soviet forces. The author goes on to describe the opening bombardment, followed by detailed accounts of the three Army Groups' fortunes in the first week of the campaign. The book finishes with an analysis of the remainder of the campaign and the ultimate failure of the Germans to destroy the Red Army and capture Moscow. With first hand accounts from both sides, vivid photographs, detailed fact boxes, and specially commissioned maps of the German advance and the Soviet defensive actions, Barbarossa: The First 7 Days is a comprehensive examination of the first week of the four-year war on the Eastern Front.

Here are eight decades of holiday cheer — plus the occasional comical coal in the stocking — in this collection of The New Yorker's best seasonal stories, poems, commentary, and memoirs, illuminated with color reproductions of Christmas-themed covers and, of course, a healthy smattering of cartoons from all eras. Here are such classics as John Cheever's 1949 story «Christmas Is a Sad Season for the Poor», about an elevator operator in a Park Avenue apartment building who experiences the fickle power of charity; John Updike's «The Carol Sing», in which a group of small-town carolers remember an exceptionally enthusiastic fellow singer («How he would jubilate, how he would God-rest those merry gentlemen, how he would boom out when the male voices became King Wenceslas»); and Richard Ford's acerbic and elegiac 1998 story «Crèche», in which an unmarried Hollywood lawyer spends an unsettling holiday with her sister's estranged husband and kids. Here too are S.J. Perelman's 1936 «Waiting for Santy», a playlet in the style of a Cliff Odets labor drama (the setting: «The sweatshop of Santa Claus, North Pole»), and Vladimir Nabokov's heartbreaking 1975 story «Christmas», in which a father grieving for his lost son in a world «ghastly with sadness» sees a tiny miracle on Christmas Eve.

Paul Kemp has moved from New York to the steamy heat of Puerto Rico to work at the Daily News. He starts hanging out at Al's Backyard, a local den selling booze and hamburgers to vagrant journalists who are mostly crazy drunks on the verge of quitting. Then he meets Yeamon, whose delectable girlfriend has Kemp stewing in his own lust. But the idle tension that builds up in places where men sweat twenty-four hours a day is reaching a violent breaking point.

This book reprints a four-hour conversation between Mr. Schickel and Mr. Allen and includes a long essay of introduction by Mr. Schickel, which places Woody Allen's entire career in critical perspective, as well as a complete filmography. Readers will find Mr. Allen's reflections on his major preoccupations — the battle of the sexes; the conflict between reality and fantasy in his major films; mortality, religion, and the role that chance plays in the unfolding of our lives. The book also offers insights into Mr. Allen's working methods as a writer and the growth of his skills as a director.

Twain's two most famous creations, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, are reunited for a high-spirited and engaging tale of mystery and murder in deepest Arkansas. When Tom and Huck are invited to stay on Tom's uncle's farm in Arkansas, they jump at the opportunity to escape the tedium of a long winter at home. A chance encounter on a steamboat downriver, though, leads to a complex plot of diamond heists, mistaken identity and murder, involving the two boys in a bigger adventure than even they had in mind. Huck's typical bemused and timid observation provides a poignant contrast to Tom's frenetic ingenuity, as the mystery begins tortuously to unravel, and it is in these two wryly affectionate portrayals that Twain breathes life and warmth into his charming and unjustly neglected story.

WILHELM HAUFF was a story-teller in the great European mythic tradition. His short stories, peopled with a vivid assortment of dwarves, evil witches, enchanted swans, and devious princes, owe a clear debt to the Brothers Grimm. But rather than rehashing old tales, Hauff created a realm far more exotic than the Grimm's Black Forest, a place where the morals are less than clear-cut and where characters must rely on wits as much as magic spells to solve their predicaments. One collection (probably his best known volume), Little Mook, provides the two tales for our new Pocket Paragon: «The History of Little Mook» and «Longnose the Dwarf.» «Little Mook» features a gnomish, innocent orphan whose parents never thought he would amount to much and refused him even the most basic education. Friendless and alone, the naive Little Mook is stripped of his inheritance, cast out into a hostile world. Blessed with an enterprising nature and outfitted with a pair of magic slippers, he still manages to outwit a cabal of treacherous courtiers and make his fortune. «Longnose the Dwarf» stars a clever little boy enslaved by a cruel witch's curse. Freed from servitude but transformed into a hideous dwarf with a huge proboscis, he returns to parents who no longer recognize him. Luckily his culinary skills put him in good standing with the local Duke, and his good nature and generous heart restore him (with a little help from some magic herbs and an enchanted goose) to his family. Both stories are decorated with the glowing, gemlike tempera paintings of Boris Pak, a Russian artist whose ornate, whimsical style perfectly captures the romance and humor of these two extraordinary fables. His paintings, smuggledout of Communist Russia, are the first of his works to be published in the U.S. and they're reproduced here in glorious color.

A dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap, and it is Audrey Nif...

This assortment offers 30 more captionless cartoons by B. Kliban, starring his delightful tabby cats as they visit art museums, take off their fur to go skinny dipping, scare themselves on the piano, lurk in gardens, and bat at airplanes from atop the Empire State Building. This postcard book is one of a series that collects beautifully reproduced images with cultural or historical significance, introduced with a short essay. Tear out the oversized cards and mail them (with first class postage), or put them up on the wall, or keep them intact as miniature art books.

This illustrated guidebook for students and theater fans alike explores and explains the plot, characters, setting, action, and most significant moments in Hamlet. It provides a two-CD audio reading of the play; bold black and white illustrations to help you visualize the action; modular chapters providing structured, easy-to-grasp information; scene-by-scene summaries to explain the dialogue; and maps and diagrams of actions, plot points, and motivations. «The characters are introduced, first the major and then the minor: 'This is Hamlet's girlfriend. Her name is Ophelia. She is both a loving girlfriend and an obedient daughter. Unfortunately for her, these roles will clash.' The power bases are introduced, and then the main plot and subplots. The allegiances among the people are represented by diagrams showing the connections. The graphic representation of the plot and characters could be very useful for students who are experiencing Shakespeare's works for the first time. A concluding time line outlines the main action scene by scene, and an appendix explains historical sources of the play and offers some background about Shakespeare».

Organized in an A-to-Z format, this thesaurus provides a wide range of synonyms from mainstream vocabulary to colorful alternatives. The book includes thousands of slang, informal, and regional words, clearly labeled for proper context. Each synonym list springs from a concise definition, while words with related meanings show cross-references to one another. As additional support, hundreds of Core Synonym Paragraphs explain the different nuances in meaning of some of the most basic and important synonyms in English.

The paper engineer behind such artistic pop-up books as The Night Before Christmas and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz offers this book of 26 alphabetical Christmas pop-ups, each presented behind a simple colored flap with an initial letter. «N» reveals a nutcracker opening his eyes and working his mouth, «S» is a 3-D snowflake, and two snowmen wave hello under «F», for friends. Each flap (which looks much like a Christmas card) has a multicolored interior with a white pop-up figure. Though ideal for beginning readers, this delightful book can be shared with the family and kept with the Christmas decorations.

»The Constant Gardener» is a magnificent exploration of the new world order by one of the most compelling and elegant storytellers of our time. The novel opens in northern Kenya with the gruesome murder of Tessa Quayle — young, beautiful, and dearly beloved to husband Justin. When Justin sets out on a personal odyssey to uncover the mystery of her death, what he finds could make him not only a suspect among his own colleagues, but a target for Tessa's killers as well. A master chronicler of the betrayals of ordinary people caught in political conflict, John le Carre portrays the dark side of unbridled capitalism as only he can. In «The Constant Gardener» he tells a compelling, complex story of a man elevated through tragedy, as Justin Quayle — amateur gardener, aging widower, and ineffectual bureaucrat — discovers his own natural resources and the extraordinary courage of the woman he barely had time to love.

Narnia: A magical land full of wonder and excitement. A place where you will meet Aslan, the bravest of lions, and a beautiful but wicked Witch. There are lots of other fabulous creatures too: giants and dwarfs and animals that talk. It all begins when four children — Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy — discover a strange old wardrobe. Stepping inside, they find that it's stranger still, because behind all the fur coats there is a wondrous land of trees and mountains, all glistening with snow. The White Witch has spread an icy winter everywhere. Only Aslan can defeat her and reverse her wicked spell. The children must find the lion before it is too late. If they fail, the Witch will make them her prisoners forever. In the fifty years since it was written, The Lion, the Witch And the Wardrobe has become one of the great classics of children's literature. Now younger children can share the magical experience, stepping into a world of enchantment that will forever lure them back.

A young woman caught in the rivalry between Queen Mary and her half sister, Elizabeth, must find her true destiny amid treason, poisonous rivalries, loss of faith, and unrequited love. It is winter, 1553. Pursued by the Inquisition, Hannah Green, a fourteen-year-old Jewish girl, is forced to flee Spain with her father. But Hannah is no ordinary refugee. Her gift of «Sight», the ability to foresee the future, is priceless in the troubled times of the Tudor court. Hannah is adopted by the glamorous Robert Dudley, the charismatic son of King Edward's protector, who brings her to court as a «holy fool» for Queen Mary and, ultimately, Queen Elizabeth. Hired as a fool but working as a spy; promised in wedlock but in love with her master; endangered by the laws against heresy, treason, and witchcraft, Hannah must choose between the safe life of a commoner and the dangerous intrigues of the royal family that are inextricably bound up in her own yearnings and desires. Teeming with vibrant period detail and peopled by characters seamlessly woven into the sweeping tapestry of history, The Queen's Fool is another rich and emotionally resonant gem from this wonderful storyteller.

When Theodore Gumbril hits upon the notion of designing a type of pneumatic trouser (a comfort to all travellers, indispensable to first-nighters, the concert-goers' friends) to ease the discomfort of the sedentary life, he decides the time has come leave his position as a housemaster in a boys' public school and seek his fortune in the metropolis. But post-First-World-War London seems to be gripped by a fever of hedonism. Gumbril is soon caught up in the delirious world of aesthetes extraordinaire Mercaptan, Casimir Lypiatt and the thoroughly civilised Myra Viveash, and finds his burning ambitions are beginning to lose their urgency... A contemporary commentator coined the word 'futilitarian' to describe the type of desultory, pleasure-seeking intellectual Huxley pinned so mercilessly to the literary map in Antic Hay. Wickedly funny and deliciously barbed, the novel epitomises the glittering neuroticism of its decade.

It has been said of Ernest Hemingway that half the writers of the twentieth century have tried to imitate him and the other half have tried not to. A towering figure in the pantheon of American letters, the leading voice of the 'lost generation', winner of the Nobel Prize for literature and a Pulitzer Prize, Hemingway is known around the world for the brilliance of his writing. The Essential Hemmingway is the perfect introduction to his astonishing, wide-ranging body of work. This impressive collection includes the full text of Fiesta, Hemingway's first major novel; long extracts from his three greatest works of fiction, A Farewell to Arms, To Have and Have Not and For Whom the Bell Tolls; twenty-five complete stories; and the breathtaking epilogue to Death in the Afternoon.