Random House Inc.

»Essential English» is a brisk and pungent guide to the use of words as tools of communication. It is written primarily for journalists, yet its lessons are of immense value to all who face the problem of giving information, whether to the general public or within business, professional or social organizations. What makes a good English sentence? How should you rewrite a bad one? What cliches and other word-traps are to be avoided? How do you shorten unnecessarily verbose source-material? How is the essence of what you have to say be conveyed, and placed in proper relation to any background information? These are questions for all. Using a wealth of examples, all drawn from newspapers in Britain and the United States, «Essential English» is an indispensable guide for all who have to convey information by the written or printed word.

The book opens on the day Hemingway's close friend Pop, a legendary hunter, leaves him in charge of the camp. Tensions have heightened among the various tribes and news arrives of a potential attack on the hunters, forcing Hemingway not only to take on his new role of leader but, equally important, to assist his wife Mary in pursuing the great lion she is determined to kill before Christmas. Passionately detailing the African landscape, the excitement of the chase, and the heartfelt relationships with his African neighbours, Hemingway, a master of dramatic fiction, weaves a tale that is rich in laughter, beauty and insight.

With her bestselling mystery series featuring Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell, Laurie R. King has created «lively adventure in the very best of intellectual company», according to The New York Times Book Review. Now the author of «The Beekeeper's Apprentice» and «The Moor» — the first writer since Patricia Cornwell to win both the American Edgar and British Creasey Awards for a debut novel (A Grave Talent) — unfolds a hitherto unknown chapter in the history of Russell's apprenticeship to the great detective. At the close of the year 1918, forced to flee England's green and pleasant land, Russell and Holmes enter British-occupied Palestine under the auspices of Holmes' enigmatic brother, Mycroft. «Gentlemen, we are at your service». Thus Holmes greets the two travel-grimed Arab figures who receive them in the orange groves fringing the Holy Land. Whatever role could the volatile Ali and the taciturn Mahmoud play in Mycroft's design for this land the British so recently wrested from the Turks? After passing a series of tests, Holmes and Russell learn their guides are engaged in a mission for His Majesty's Government, and disguise themselves as Bedouins — Russell as the beardless youth «Amir» — to join them in a stealthy reconnaissance through the dusty countryside. A recent rash of murders seems unrelated to the growing tensions between Jew, Moslem, and Christian, yet Holmes is adamant that he must reconstruct the most recent one in the desert gully where it occurred. His singular findings will lead him and Russell through labyrinthine bazaars, verminous inns, cliff-hung monasteries — and into mortal danger. When her mentor's inquiries jeopardize his life, Russell fearlessly wields a pistol and even assays the arts of seduction to save him. Bruised and bloodied, the pair ascend to the jewellike city of Jerusalem, where they will at last meet their adversary, whose lust for savagery and power could reduce the city's most ancient and sacred place to rubble and ignite this tinderbox of a land.... Classically Holmesian yet enchantingly fresh, sinuously plotted, with colorful characters and a dazzling historic ambience, «O Jerusalem» sweeps readers ever onward in the thrill of the chase.

Tommy Phan is a successful detective novelist living the American Dream in southern California. One evening he comes home to find a small rag doll on his doorstep. It’s a simple doll, covered entirely in white cloth, with crossed black stitches for the eyes and mouth, and another pair forming an X over the heart. Curious, he brings it inside. That night Tommy hears an odd popping sound and looks up to see the stitches breaking over the doll’s heart. And in minutes the fabric of Tommy Phan’s reality will be torn apart. Something terrifying emerges from the pristine white cloth, something that will follow Tommy wherever he goes. Something that he can’t destroy. It wants Tommy’s life, and he doesn’t know why. He has only one ally, a beautiful, strangely intuitive waitress he meets by chance—or by a design far beyond his comprehension. He has too many questions, no answers, and very little time. Because the vicious and demonically clever doll has left this warning on Tommy’s computer screen: «The deadline is dawn».

The story of Max's adventures when he sails away to the land where the wild things are has become an acknowledged classic of children's books. This book is the winner of the Caldecott Medal for the Most Distinguished Picture Book of the Year, 1964.

Twenty years after the Allied and Axis forces had united to repell marauding extraterrestrial invaders, the social unrest of the 1960s threatens to ignite global war, a situation that is further complicated by the arrival of an alien colization fleet.

World War II has evolved into decades of epic struggles and rebellions targeting the aliens known as the Race. As the 1960s begin, one of Earth's great powers launches a nuclear strike against the Race's colonization fleet-and the merciless invaders find themselves confronting a far more complex and challenging species than any they have encountered before. Ultimately, only superior firepower may keep Earth under the Empire's control-or it may destroy the world. While uprisings and aftershocks of war shake the planet, one nation plots a stunning counterattack... Hugo winner Turtledove lives up to his billing as the grand master of alternative history...This novel is altogether excellent.

The fifth hilarious novel in the classic Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series follows the exploits of Arthur Dent, who has to adjust to a new life when his spaceship crashes on a remote planet. If you were hoping for more of the zany, nonsensical, mayhem produced in the earlier books, you're in luck.

In this sixth installment of «The Vampire Chronicles», Rice brings readers the story of the eternally young Armand. Introduced as a minor player in the classic «Interview With the Vampire», Armand now takes his place center stage as he relates his 500-year history. Features an exclusive interview with Rice.

It's a fear more paralyzing than falling. More terrifying than darkness. More horrifying than anything you can imagine. It's the one fear you cannot escape, no matter where you run... no matter where you hide. It's the fear of yourself. It's real. It can happen to you. And facing it can be deadly. «Fear for your mind».

This collection of Somerset Maugham's short stories includes stories based in England, France and Spain, as well as the South Pacific. It includes Rain, the tradgedy of a missionary and a prostitute and The Three Fat Women of Antibes, a sardonic tale of abstention and greed.

A historical tale marking a new turn in Doyle's writing. Born in the slums of Dublin in 1902, his father a one-legged whorehouse bouncer, Henry Smart has to grow up fast. He eventually becomes a Fenian, a rebel, a republican legend — one of Michael Collins's boys, an assassin on a stolen bike.

Written in 1944 but first published in 1985, The Tenth Man is set in a prison in occupied France during World War II and concerns Lewis Chavel, a captured rich lawyer who is probably going to be shot in a German act of reprisal. In a prison in Occupied France one in every ten men is to be shot. The prisoners draw lots among themselves — and for lawyer Louis Chavel it seems that his whole life has been leading up to an agonizing failure of nerve. Hysterical with panic, fear, and a sense of injustice, he offers to barter everything he owns for someone to take his place.

A celebrated writer by the time the war broke out in 1914, Somerset Maugham was dispatched by the Secret Service to Lucerne — under the guise of completing a play. An assignment whose danger and drama appealed both to his sense of romance and of the ridiculous. The stories collected in ASHENDEN are rooted in Maugham's own experiences as an agent, reflecting the ruthlessness and brutality of espionage, its intrigue and treachery, as well as absurdity.

Far Eastern Tales is a collection of short stories born of Maugham's experiences in Malaya, Singapore and other outposts of the former British Empire. Whether portraying a ship-borne flight from a lover's curse, murder in the jungle, or a marriage shattered by a past indiscretion, they all reveal Maugham at his best — sometimes caustic, sometimes gently comic, but always the shrewd and human judge of character and soul.

Set in the bohemian cafe society of Paris at the turn of the nineteenth century, Maugham's exploration of hypnotism and the occult was inspired by the sinister black magician Aleister Crowley. At the start of this compulsive gothic horror story, Arthur and his beautiful, innocent fiancee Margaret look forward to an idyllic life together, until they encounter the mesmerising and repulsive Oliver Haddo...

From the love affair between a missionary and a drunkard to the mystery surrounding a death at sea, this collection gives a warm and humourous insight into life and history of life in the colonies and stands as a superbly entertaining and compelling testament to Maugham's skill and power as a short story writer.

Called the greatest of short story writer, Anton Chekhov changed the genre itself with his spare, impressionistic depictions of Russian life and the human condition. Now, thirty of his best tales from the major periods of his creative life are available in this outstanding one volume edition. Included are Chekhov's characteristically brief, evocative early pieces such as «The Huntsman» from 1885, which brilliantly conveys the complex texture of two lives during a meeting on a summer's day. Four years later, Chekhov produced the tour de force «A Boring Story» (1889), the penetrating and caustic self-analysis of a dying professor of medicine. Dark irony, social commentary, and symbolism mark the stories that follow, particularly «Ward No. 6» (1892), where the tables turn on the director of a mental hospital and make him an inmate. Here, too, is one of Chekhov's best-known stories. «The Lady with the Little Dog» (1899), a look at illicit love, as well as his own favorite among his stories, «The Student» a moving piece about the importance of religious tradition. Atmospheric, compassionate, and uncannily wise, Chekhov's short fiction possesses the transcendent power of art to awe and change the reader. This monumental edition, expertly translated, is especially faithful to the meaning of Chekhov's prose and the unique rhythms of his writing, giving readers an authentic sense of his style-and, in doing so, a true understanding of his greatness.

A guide to returning depth, meaning and spirituality to personal relationships, showing how a rich, meaningful love can be rediscovered by restoring the missing element of spirituality. Chopra presents the timeless laws of love, together with suggestions for bringing them into daily use.

One of Time magazine's 100 all-time best English-language novels. Only once in a great while does a writer come along who defies comparison-a writer so original he redefines the way we look at the world. Neal Stephenson is such a writer and Snow Crash is such a novel, weaving virtual reality, Sumerian myth, and just about everything in between with a cool, hip cybersensibility to bring us the gigathriller of the information age. In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he's a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that's striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous... you'll recognize it immediately.

In Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson took science fiction to dazzling new levels. Now, in The Diamond Age, he delivers another stunning tale. Set in twenty-first century Shanghai, it is the story of what happens when a state-of-the-art interactive device falls in the hands of a street urchin named Nell. Her life — and the entire future of humanity — is about to be decoded and reprogrammed...

Every year on his birthday, Ned Dunstan is cursed with visions of horror committed by a savage figure he calls Mr. X. This year, Ned's visions will become flesh and blood — as a journey into his family's past brings him face-to-face with his darkest nightmares.

A catastrophic, unexplainable plane crash leaves three hundred and thirty dead — no survivors. Among the victims are the wife and two daughters of Joe Carpenter, a Los Angeles Post crime reporter. A year after the crash, still gripped by an almost paralyzing grief, Joe encounters a woman named Rose, who claims to have survived the crash. She holds out the possibility of a secret that will bring Joe peace of mind. But before he can ask any questions, she slips away. Driven now by rage (have the authorities withheld information?) and a hope almost as unbearable as his grief (if there is one survivor, are there others?), Joe sets out to find the mysterious woman. His search immediately leads him into the path of a powerful and shadowy organization hell-bent on stopping Rose before she can reveal what she knows about the crash. Sole Survivor unfolds at a heart-stopping pace, as a desperate chase and a shattering emotional odyssey lead Joe to a truth that will force him to reassess everything he thought he knew about life and death — a truth that, given the chance, will rock the world and redefine the destiny of humanity. From the Trade Paperback edition.

The photographs by Annie Leibovitz in Women, taken especially for the book, encompass a broad spectrum of subjects: a rap artist, an astronaut, two Supreme Court justices, farmers, coal miners, movie stars, showgirls, rodeo riders, socialites, reporters, dancers, a maid, a general, a surgeon, the First Lady of the United States, the secretary of state, a senator, rock stars, prostitutes, teachers, singers, athletes, poets, writers, painters, musicians, theater directors, political activists, performance artists, and business women. Each of these pictures must stand on its own, Susan Sontag writes in the essay that accompanies the portraits. But the ensemble says, So this is what women are now — as different, as varied, as heroic, as forlorn, as conventional, as unconventional as this.