Random House Inc.

This race-against-time political thriller follows an ex Special Forces commando who goes undercover with a militia group that's plotting to assassinate the second African-American President of the U.S. In the week leading up to a major campaign speech, the Secret Service discovers that an extremist militia group is plotting to assassinate America's second African American President. The best chance to advert this crisis is to infiltrate the group using an ex-Special Forces war hero turned conservative media pundit named Ted Akers. While Aker's politics make him a hero to the right-wing fringe and no friend to the current Administration, he takes the assignment and what follows is an adrenaline fueled race against time to stop a President from dying and a country from being ripped apart. An original graphic novel by Mat Johnson (Incognegro, Dark Rain) and Andrea Mutti (Girl With The Dragon Tattoo).

Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. Years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. Mikael hits a dead end in the case, so to help, he brings in Lisbeth Salander, a fearless pierced and tattooed punk prodigy. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption. Written by Denise Mina (John Constantine, Hellblazer) with art by Leonardo Manco and Andrea Mutti, Book 2 of Stieg Larsson's international publishing phenomenon The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo picks up the story following Lisbeth's final confrontation with her guardian, Nils Bjurman.

A New York Times Best Seller! As a part of the acclaimed DC Comics — The New 52 event of September 2011, comics legend George Perez and artist Jesus Merino present the new adventures of the Man of Steel! Metropolis fears him. The Daily Planet agrees. This new volume of Superman finds our hero with a startling new status quo. As Superman finds ways to dodge the scrutiny placed upon him by the public and media, he must stop a monstrous threat to Metropolis — one that he somehow is the cause of! The next chapter in the legendary history of the Man of Steel is built here.

In the 2014 edition of the calendar that has become an annual tradition for Game of Thrones fans, legendary comic artist Gary Gianni delivers twelve stunning, hand-painted interpretations of scenes from A Song of Ice and Fire, capturing both its epic scope and most intimate moments. Revered by many for his work on Prince Valiant, Gianni's classically composed, richly detailed art harkens back to the golden age of illustration — a fascinating new vision of the dark, complex world of George R. R. Martin's magnum opus. 12 MONTHS OF ALL-ORIGINAL PAINTINGS!

This National Book Award Finalist is soon to be a major motion picture — one of the most buzzed-about films at Sundance 2013, starring Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller. SUTTER KEELY. HE'S the guy you want at your party. He'll get everyone dancing. He' ll get everyone in your parents' pool. Okay, so he's not exactly a shining academic star. He has no plans for college and will probably end up folding men's shirts for a living. But there are plenty of ladies in town, and with the help of Dean Martin and Seagram's V.O., life's pretty fabuloso, actually. Until the morning he wakes up on a random front lawn, and he meets Aimee. Aimee's clueless. Aimee is a social disaster. Aimee needs help, and it's up to the Sutterman to show Aimee a splendiferous time and then let her go forth and prosper. But Aimee's not like other girls, and before long he's in way over his head. For the first time in his life, he has the power to make a difference in someone else's life — or ruin it forever.

Who can afford not to understand the USA? Many facets of American life have been embraced around the world, yet the sense of just like in the movies familiarity that first-time visitors often feel can be misleading. Underneath the gleaming smile of American popular culture lies a rich and complex society that brims with contrasts and contradictions. It is a culture of rugged individualism, of go-getters, of high-tech high achievers. At the same time it is a deeply religious country with a quiet devotion to church and charitable works. This updated new edition of Culture Smart! USA also reveals a society in transition. The USA responded to the 9/11 attacks by embarking on two overseas wars, while at home the subprime mortgage crisis rippled through the economy, bringing the first African-American president to power during the biggest recession since the 1920s. In an increasingly polarized political and cultural climate, and with an ever widening gap between the haves and the have-nots, the rise of the social media has given more Americans a voice, from the Tea Party on the right to the Occupy Wall Street movement on the left. As Americans wake up to a changing world where their global economic dominance is no longer assured, attitudes and behavior are being challenged and reassessed across the land. Culture Smart! USA takes you on a tour of the core influences and ideals that have shaped this great country and have driven the behavior and attitudes found on Main Street and in the workplace. It looks at Americans at work, at home, and at play, and provides the visitor with an up-to-date cultural road map of this dynamic, multifaceted society.

In a half-built mansion in Los Angeles, a watchman stumbles onto the bodies of a young couple—murdered and left in a gruesome postmortem embrace. Veteran homicide cop Milo Sturgis is shocked at the sight: a twisted crime that only Milo and psychologist Alex Delaware can hope to solve. While the female victim’s identity remains in question, her companion is ID’d as eco-friendly architect Desmond Backer, notorious for his power to seduce women. The deeper Milo and Alex dig for clues, the longer the list of suspects grows. But when the investigation veers suddenly in a startling direction, it’s the investigators who may wind up on the wrong end of a cornered predator’s final fury.

Berenice Abbott Fascination with the scientific advances that were rapidly changing the world motivated Berenice Abbott to use photography as «the friendly interpreter of science.» Documenting Science explores this work, beginning in 1939 with Abbott's early experiments with scientific imagery, continuing with science-based commercial assignments, and culminating in 1958 with the Physical Science Study Project at... Full description

When Helen Fielding first wrote Bridget Jones' Diary, charting the life of a 30-something singleton in London in the 1990s, she introduced readers to one of the most beloved characters in modern literature. The book was published in 40 countries, sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, and spawned a best-selling sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. The two books were turned into major blockbuster films starring Renee Zellweger, Hugh Grant and Colin Firth. With her hotly anticipated third instalment, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, Fielding introduces us to a whole new enticing phase of Bridget's life set in contemporary London, including the challenges of maintaining sex appeal as the years roll by and the nightmare of drunken texting, the skinny jean, the disastrous email cc, total lack of twitter followers, and TVs that need 90 buttons and three remotes to simply turn on. An uproariously funny novel of modern life, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is a triumphant return of our favourite Everywoman.

Meet Raymond Gunt. A decent chap who does the right thing. Or, to put it another way, the worst person ever: a foul-mouthed, misanthropic cameraman, trailing creditors, ex-wives and homeless people in his wake. Men dislike him, women flee from him. Worst. Person. Ever. is a deeply unworthy book about a dreadful human being with absolutely no redeeming social value. Gunt, in the words of the author, is a living, walking, talking, hot steaming pile of pure id. He's a B-unit cameraman who enters an amusing downward failure spiral that takes him from London to Los Angeles and then on to an obscure island in the Pacific where a major American TV network is shooting a Survivor-style reality show. Along the way, Gunt suffers multiple comas and unjust imprisonment, is forced to re-enact the 'Angry Dance' from the movie Billy Elliot and finds himself at the centre of a nuclear war. We also meet Raymond's upwardly failing sidekick, Neal, as well as Raymond's ex-wife, Fiona, herself 'an atomic bomb of pain'. Even though he really puts the 'anti' in anti-hero, you may find Raymond Gunt an oddly likeable character.

'I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. And I'm the man who's going to save your life.' He's made a mark on almost every era of history, and he's touched millions of lives across space and time. In these pages you'll find just some of the stories behind those brief encounters, each of them addressing the question that must never, ever be answered: 'Doctor Who?' This is the story of an impossible life — of a man who borrowed a spaceship, travelled through time and continually saved the universe — as told by the Doctor's friends, by his enemies, and by the man himself. Letters, journals, trial records, secret government files and the occasional bit of tabloid journalism reveal the never-before-told story of Gallifrey's last Time Lord.

1500BC — King Actaeus and his subjects live in mortal fear of the awesome gods who have come to visit their kingdom in ancient Greece. Except the Doctor, visiting with university student June, knows they're not gods at all. They're aliens. For the aliens, it's the perfect holiday — they get to tour the sights of a primitive planet and even take part in local customs. Like gladiatorial games, or hunting down and killing humans who won't be missed. With June's enthusiastic help, the Doctor soon meets the travel agents behind this deadly package holiday company — his old enemies the Slitheen. But can he bring the Slitheen excursion to an end without endangering more lives? And how are events in ancient Greece linked to a modern-day alien plot to destroy what's left of the Parthenon? Featuring the Tenth Doctor as played by David Tennant in the hit Doctor Who BBC Television series.

The Castor, a vast starship, seemingly deserted and spinning slowly in the void of deep space. Martha and the Doctor explore the drifting tomb, and discover that they may not be alone after all... Who survived the disaster that overcame the rest of the crew? What continues to power the vessel? And why has a stretch of wooded countryside suddenly appeared in the middle of the craft? As the Doctor and Martha journey through the forest, they find a mysterious, fogbound village — a village traumatised by missing children and tales of its own destruction... Featuring the Tenth Doctor and Martha as played by David Tennant and Freema Agyeman in the hit sci-fi series from BBC Television.

Dodger is a tosher — a sewer scavenger living in the squalor of Dickensian London. Everyone who is nobody knows Dodger. Anyone who is anybody doesn't. But when he rescues a young girl from a beating, suddenly everybody wants to know him. And Dodger's tale of skulduggery, dark plans and even darker deeds begins...

With the festive season almost upon him, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson is winding down at work and gearing up socially — kicking off Christmas with a week of sex and drugs in Amsterdam. There are irritating flies in the ointment, though, including a missing wife, a nagging cocaine habit, a dramatic deterioration in his genital health, a string of increasingly demanding extra-marital affairs. The last thing he needs is a messy murder to solve. Still it will mean plenty of overtime, a chance to stitch up some colleagues and finally clinch the promotion he craves. But as Bruce spirals through the lower reaches of degradation and evil, he encounters opposition — in the form of truth and ethical conscience — from the most unexpected quarter of all: his anus. In Bruce Robertson, Welsh has created one of the most corrupt, misanthropic characters in contemporary fiction and has written a dark, disturbing and very funny novel about sleaze, power, and the abuse of everything. At last, a novel that lives up to its name.

It's Christmas Eve in Washington DC, Detective Alex Cross is at home with his family decorating the tree and enjoying a Cross family tradition, a big bowl of egg nog, when he receives a phone call that causes the festivities to be put on hold. Across town in a mansion house, Henry Fowler, a hard-nosed corporate lawyer turned small-time drug hustler, is holding his children, his ex-wife, her new husband and a neighbour at gun point. High on crystal meth and heavily armed, Fowler is refusing to speak with the negotiator. As an expert in hostage situations, Alex has been called in to try and save a potential massacre. But with Fowler crazed and irrational, will Alex be able to save the lives of these hostages, as well as coming out alive himself? At the same time, international terrorist Hala al Dossari has been planning a devastating attack to strike at the heart of the Western world on the most important day of the year — Christmas Day.

Roundworld is in trouble again, and this time it looks fatal. Having created it in the first place, the wizards of Unseen University feel vaguely responsible for its safety. They know the creatures who lived there escaped the impending Big Freeze by inventing the space elevator — they even intervened to rid the planet of a plague of elves, who attempted to divert humanity onto a different time track. But now it's all gone wrong — Victorian England has stagnated and the pace of progress would embarrass a limping snail. Unless something drastic is done, there won't be time for anyone to invent spaceflight and the human race will be turned into ice-pops. Why, though, did history come adrift? Was it Sir Arthur Nightingale's dismal book about natural selection? Or was it the devastating response by an obscure country vicar called Charles Darwin, whose bestselling Theology of Species made it impossible to refute the divine design of living creatures? Either way, it's no easy task to change history, as the wizards discover to their cost. Can the God of Evolution come to humanity's aid and ensure Darwin writes a very different book? And who stopped him writing it in the first place?

In the long-awaited follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag, acclaimed journalist Anne Applebaum delivers a groundbreaking history of how Communism took over Eastern Europe after World War II and transformed in frightening fashion the individuals who came under its sway. At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In Iron Curtain, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum describes how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created and what daily life was like once they were complete. She draws on newly opened East European archives, interviews, and personal accounts translated for the first time to portray in devastating detail the dilemmas faced by millions of individuals trying to adjust to a way of life that challenged their every belief and took away everything they had accumulated. Today the Soviet Bloc is a lost civilization, one whose cruelty, paranoia, bizarre morality, and strange aesthetics Applebaum captures in the electrifying pages of Iron Curtain.

This oral autobiography of Jimmy Page, the intensely private mastermind behind Led Zeppelin — one of the most enduring bands in rock history — is the most complete and revelatory portrait of the legendary guitarist ever published. More than 30 years after disbanding in 1980, Led Zeppelin continues to be celebrated for its artistic achievements, broad musical influence, and commercial success. The band's notorious exploits have been chronicled in bestselling books; yet none of the individual members of the band has penned a memoir nor cooperated to any degree with the press or a biographer. In Light & Shade, Jimmy Page, the band's most reticent and inscrutable member, opens up to journalist Brad Tolinski, for the first time exploring his remarkable life and musical journey in great depth and intimate detail. Based on extensive interviews conducted with the guitarist/producer over the past 20 years, Light & Shade encompasses Page's entire career, beginning with his early years as England's top session guitarist when he worked with artists ranging from Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, and Burt Bacharach to the Kinks, The Who, and Eric Clapton. Page speaks frankly about his decadent yet immensely creative years in Led Zeppelin, his synergistic relationships with band members Robert Plant, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones, and his notable post-Zeppelin pursuits. While examining every major track recorded by Zeppelin, including Stairway to Heaven, Whole Lotta Love, and Kashmir, Page reflects on the band's sensational tours, the filming of the concert movie The Song Remains the Same, his fascination with the occult, meeting Elvis Presley, and the making of the rock masterpiece Led Zeppelin IV, about which he offers a complete behind-the-scenes account. Additionally, the book is peppered with sidebar chapters that include conversations between Page and other guitar greats, including his childhood friend Jeff Beck and hipster icon Jack White. Through Page's own words, Light and Shade presents an unprecedented first-person view of one of the most important musicians of our era.

Inspired by the master of literature, this is a humorous retelling of George Lucas' epic «Star Wars». The text is accompanied by fantastic Elizabethan woodcut illustrations of Chewbacca, C-3PO and other classic characters. Students, scholars and general readers will appreciate the humour and impressive attention to detail. Who knew iambic pentameter could be so funny?

The Wheel. A ring of ice and steel turning around a moon of Saturn, and home to a mining colony supplying a resource-hungry Earth. It's a bad place to grow up. The colony has been plagued by problems. Maybe it's just gremlins, just bad luck. But the equipment failures and thefts of resources have been increasing, and there have been stories among the children of mysterious creatures glimpsed aboard the Wheel. Many of the younger workers refuse to go down the warren-like mines anymore. And then sixteen-year-old Phee Laws, surfing Saturn's rings, saves an enigmatic blue box from destruction. Aboard the Wheel, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe find a critical situation — and they are suspected by some as the source of the sabotage. They soon find themselves caught in a mystery that goes right back to the creation of the solar system. A mystery that could kill them all.

Roll up! Roll up! Read all about it! Ladies and Gents, Sir Jack Dodger brings you a most excellent Guide to London! Did you know? If a Victorian couldn't afford a sweep, they might drop a goose down their chimney to clean it! A posh lady's unmentionables could weigh up to 40lbs! Parliament had to be suspended during the Great Stink of 1858! From the wretches of the rookeries to the posh nobs at Buckingham Palace, Dodger will show you every dirty inch of London. Warning: Includes horrible murders, naughty ladies and plenty of geezers!

From the bestselling author of One Minute to Midnight, this is the riveting story of the last six months of World War II, when the hopeful Allied situation inspired by the Yalta Conference descended into the open conflict that would lead to the Cold War. When FDR, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin gathered outside the Crimean city of Yalta in February 1945, they had Hitler's armies on the run, and victory was just a matter of time. Their mission was to forge the decisions that would shape the postwar world, and above all to divide up Europe between Soviet and Western influence. These men had been fighting side by side for nearly four years but the cracks in their alliance were emerging; even before the Second World War ended, another conflict was beginning. Six Months captures this turning point of the twentieth century, re-creating the steady breakdown in relations between powers. While the Berlin airlift and the Iron Curtain would not arrive for three years, by August 1945 the West and the Soviet Union were firmly on the path to a Cold War. Michael Dobbs brilliantly renders the personalities and geopolitics that drove this descent, illuminating the aims and frustrations of the key leaders. This is a vivid story of power, personalities, and national interests competing at a crucial moment in history.

On the night Malcolm and Maud Angel are murdered, their daughter, Tandy, knows just three things: she was one of the last people to see her parents alive; she and her brothers are the only suspects; she can't trust anyone — maybe not even herself. Having grown up under their parents' intense perfectionist demands, none of the Angel children have come away undamaged. Tandy decides that she will have to solve the crime on her own, but digging deeper into her powerful parents' affairs is a dangerous game. As she uncovers haunting secrets and slowly begins to remember flashes of disturbing past events buried in her memory, Tandy is forced to ask: What is the Angel family truly capable of? Returning to the genre that made him the world's bestselling author, James Patterson introduces a teen detective on a mission to bring her parents' killer to justice, even if it means uncovering her family's darkest secrets — and confessing some of her own.