Random House Inc.

The day of the dragon dawns... Christopher Paolini returns with the eagerly anticipated fourth and final book in the phenomenally successful INHERITANCE Cycle. Not so very long ago, Eragon — Shadeslayer, Dragon Rider — was nothing more than a poor farm boy, and his dragon, Saphira, only a blue stone in the forest. Now, the fate of an entire civilization rests on their shoulders. The Rider and his...

»I Am a Chechen!» offers a lyrical fusion of exotic legends, stories and memories of Chechnya: a land of wondrous beauty, site of genocides past and present, and the author's ancestral home. Haunted by memories of the land he deserted, Sadulaev tells the stories of those who stayed behind. He brings dead friends back to life again, revisiting their first loves, their passion for rock music, and their quests for martyrdom. And he immerses us in the intoxicating beauty of his homeland's mountains, blossoms and the flocks of migratory swallows that fill its skies. This is an intensely personal journey through the carnage of the war, exploring the pain, the challenge, and above all the meaning of being a Chechen.

When members of a secret American interrogation squad that was running a black site in Poland in 2007 and 2008 and had since been disbanded are murdered, John Wells is asked to investigate. But his enquiries lead him to discover that while the squad came up with some very valuable intel, its tactics were questionable at best...

From the award-winning and bestselling author Jennifer Egan, a dazzling, shape-shifting new work of fiction that spans fifty years and stars an aging record executive and the passionate, troubled young woman he employs.

Over the last twenty years, a species of math whizzes known as quants has usurped the testosterone-fueled, kill-or-be-killed risk-takers whove long been the alpha males of the worlds largest casino. The quants believe that a dizzying, indecipherable-to-mere-mortals cocktail of differential calculus, quantum physics, and advanced geometry holds the key to reaping riches from the financial markets. They took over Wall Street with their formulas... and helped create a digitized money-trading machine that could shift billions around the globe with the click of a mouse. Yet, in creating it, had they sowed the seeds for financial historys greatest disaster? Drawing on unique access to four of the best and brightest among these number-crunching titans, The Quants tells the inside story of what these men thought and felt in the days and weeks when they helplessly watched much of their net worth vaporize — and wondered just how their mind-bending formulas and genius-level IQs had led them so wrong so fast. With the immediacy of todays NASDAQ close and the timeless power of a Greek tragedy, The Quants is at once a masterpiece of explanatory journalism, a gripping tale of ambition and hubris...and an ominous warning about Wall Streets future.

First American Publication This stunning and elegiac novel by the author of the internationally acclaimed Wind-Up Bird Chronicle has sold over 4 million copies in Japan and is now available to American audiences for the first time. It is sure to be a literary event. Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman. A poignant story of one college student's romantic coming-of-age, Norwegian Wood takes us to that distant place of a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love. «From the Trade Paperback edition.»

Fodor's Choice ratings you can trust. Exceptional restaurants, hotels, and sights selected to help you make the best choices. Simple pleasures. Embrace the local culture as you sample «blini» with caviar, stroll along the Neva River during the White Nights festival, or relax in the steam room at a Russian «banya.» Boundless activities. Find choices for every traveler, from exploring the world-class State Hermitage museum and browsing in trendy boutiques to watching classical ballet at the Bolshoi Theatre. Fodor's For choice travel experiences Local Experts Fodor's worldwide team of 700 writers reveal their favorite haunts to enrich your travel experience. Freshest Facts You won't find a more up-to-date guide to the region. Our writers seek out hot spots while verifying that current listings still meet our high standards. Travelers like you Get candid advice from fellow travelers at Fodors.com, and read their «Word of Mouth» tips throughout this book.

Updated for paperback publication, «Aftershock» is a brilliant reading of the causes of our current economic crisis, with a plan for dealing with its challenging aftermath. When the nation's economy foundered in 2008, blame was directed almost universally at Wall Street bankers. But Robert B. Reich, one of our most experienced and trusted voices on public policy, suggests another reason for the meltdown. Our real problem, he argues, lies in the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of the richest Americans, while stagnant wages and rising costs have forced the middle class to go deep into debt. Reich's thoughtful and detailed account of where we are headed over the next decades — and how we can fix our economic system — is a practical, humane, and much-needed blueprint for restoring America's economy and rebuilding our society.

Imagine an empire that has shut out the world for a century and a half. No one can leave, foreigners are excluded, their religions banned and their ideas deeply mistrusted. Yet a narrow window onto this nation-fortress still exists: an artificial walled island connected to a mainland port, and manned by a handful of European traders. And locked as the land-gate may be, it cannot prevent the meeting of minds — or hearts. The nation was Japan, the port was Nagasaki and the island was Dejima, to where David Mitchell's panoramic novel transports us in the year 1799. For one Dutch clerk, Jacob de Zoet, a dark adventure of duplicity, love, guilt, faith and murder is about to begin — and all the while, unbeknownst to him and his feuding compatriots, the axis of global power is turning...

Ben Mears has returned to Jerusalem's Lot in the hopes that living in an old mansion, long the subject of town lore, will help him cast out his own devils and provide inspiration for his new book. But when two young boys venture into the woods and only one comes out alive, Mears begins to realize that there may be something sinister at work and that his hometown is under siege by forces of darkness far beyond his control.

The highly anticipated sixth book of Jean Auel's Earth's Children(R) series, The Land of Painted Caves, is the culmination fans have been waiting for. Continuing the story of Ayla and Jondalar, Auel combines her brilliant narrative skills and appealing characters with a remarkable re-creation of the way life was lived more than 25,000 years ago. The Land of Painted Caves is an exquisite achievement by one of the world's most beloved authors.

»Pilgrimage» took Annie Leibovitz to places that she could explore with no agenda. She wasn't on assignment. She chose the subjects simply because they meant something to her. The first place was Emily Dickinson's house in Amherst, Massachusetts, which Leibovitz visited with a small digital camera. A few months later, she went with her three young children to Niagara Falls. «That's when I started making lists», she says. She added the houses of Virginia Woolf and Charles Darwin in the English countryside and Sigmund Freud's final home, in London, but most of the places on the lists were American. The work became more ambitious as Leibovitz discovered that she wanted to photograph objects as well as rooms and landscapes. She began to use more sophisticated cameras and a tripod and to travel with an assistant, but the project remained personal. Leibovitz went to Concord to photograph the site of Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond. Once she got there, she was drawn into the wider world of the Concord writers. Ralph Waldo Emerson's home and Orchard House, where Louisa May Alcott and her family lived and worked, became subjects. The Massachusetts studio of the Beaux Arts sculptor Daniel Chester French, who made the seated statue in the Lincoln Memorial, became the touchstone for trips to Gettysburg and to the archives where the glass negatives of Lincoln's portraits have been saved. Lincoln's portraitists — principally Alexander Gardner and the photographers in Mathew Brady's studio — were also the men whose work at the Gettysburg battlefield established the foundation for war photography. At almost exactly the same time, in a remote, primitive studio on the Isle of Wight, Julia Margaret Cameron was developing her own ultimately influential style of portraiture. Leibovitz made two trips to the Isle of Wight and, in an homage to the other photographer on her list, Ansel Adams, she explored the trails above the Yosemite Valley, where Adams worked for fifty years. The final list of subjects is perhaps a bit eccentric. Georgia O'Keeffe and Eleanor Roosevelt but also Elvis Presley and Annie Oakley, among others. Figurative imagery gives way to the abstractions of Old Faithful and Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty. «Pilgrimage» was a restorative project for Leibovitz, and the arc of the narrative is her own. «From the beginning, when I was watching my children stand mesmerized over Niagara Falls, it was an exercise in renewal», she says. «It taught me to see again».

Despite their initial hesitation, living with Anne has softened the flock, so Max is keenly aware that it's time to leave. With Thanksgiving so near, though, all of them want to stay, at least until they've had their first ever Thanksgiving turkey! But danger is on the horizon as Jeb's plan advances, and while the flock's new school seems normal and safe, secrets are hidden beneath its prestigious facade...

We last saw Henry Smart, his leg severed in an accident with a railway boxcar, crawl into the Utah desert to die — only to be discovered by John Ford, who's there shooting his latest Western. «The Dead Republic» opens in 1951. Henry is returning to Ireland for the first time since his escape in 1922. With him are the stars of Ford's latest film, John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, and the famous director himself, who has tried to suck the soul out of Henry and turn it into Hollywood gold-dust. Ten years later Henry is in Dublin, working in Ratheen as a school caretaker. When he is caught in a bomb blast, he loses his leg for the second time. He is claimed as a hero, and before long Henry will discover he has other uses too, when the peace process begins in deadly secrecy...

Anne Rice's extraordinary new novel summons up for us the world of fifteenth-century Rome: of Michelangelo and Raphael, of the Holy Inquisition and of Leo X, second son of a Medici, holding forth on the papal throne... a city of domes and rooftop gardens and rising towers. And into this time, into this century, Toby O'Dare, former government assassin is summoned, by the angel Malchiah, to solve a terrible crime of poisoning and to search out the truth about a haunting by an earthbound restless spirit — a diabolical dybbuk. In the fullness of the high Italian Renaissance, Toby is plunged into this rich age as a lutenist sent to charm and calm this troublesome spiri... He soon discovers himself in the midst of dark plots and counter-plots surrounded by a darker and more dangerous threat as the veil of ecclesiastical terror closes in around him. As Toby once again embarks on a powerful journey of atonement, he is reconnected with his own past, with matters light and dark, fierce and tender, with the promise of salvation and with a deeper and richer vision of love.

Through most of the twentieth century, Atlantic City was controlled by a powerful partnership of local politicians and racketeers. Funded by payoffs from gambling rooms, bars and brothels, this corrupt alliance reached full bloom during the reign of Enoch 'Nucky' Johnson — the second of the three bosses to head the Republican machine that dominated city politics and society. In «Boardwalk Empire», Nucky Johnson, Louis 'the Commodore' Kuehnle, Frank 'Hap' Farley, and Atlantic City itself spring to life in all their garish splendour. Author Nelson Johnson traces 'AC' from its birth as a quiet seaside health resort, through the notorious backroom politics and power struggles, to the city's rebirth as an international entertainment and gambling mecca where anything goes. «Boardwalk Empire» is the true story that inspired the epic HBO series starring Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt and Kelly Macdonald. «As good, if not better, than the television series». («Independent»).

Between these pages you will find things that lurk, things that scurry in the walls, things that move unseen, things that have learnt to walk that ought to crawl, unfathomable blackness, unconquerable evil, inhuman impulses, abnormal bodies, ancient rites, nameless lands best left undiscovered, thoughts best left unspoken, doors best left closed, names best forgotten. You have been warned.

Violence is escalating, and spilling on to the streets of Montreal. A nine-year-old girl is killed in crossfire on her way to ballet class. The body of a teenager killed in North Carolina is found hundreds of miles away. Forensic anthropologist Dr Temperance Brennan has to pick up the pieces: she knows she shouldn't let emotion get in the way, but when nine-year-old Emily's body is wheeled into the morgue she cannot help but react. An exhumation uncovers the bones of another innocent in a clandestine grave close to a biker gang headquarters. With her boss in hospital and sparring partner Detective Andrew Ryan mysteriously unavailable, Tempe alone begins a perilous investigation into the lawless underworld of organised crime...

Another day. Another death. Death du Jour. My God, how many such days would there be?' On a bitterly cold March night in Montreal, forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan is exhuming the remains of a nun proposed for sainthood in the grounds of an old church. Just hours later, Tempe is called to the scene of a horrific arson. A young family has perished, and there seems to be no witness, no motive, no explanation. From the charred remains of the inferno, to a trail of sinister cult activity and a terrifying showdown during an ice storm, Tempe faces a nerve-shattering test of both her forensic expertise and her instinct for survival.

The meticulously dismembered body of a woman is discovered in the grounds of an abandoned monastery. 'Too decomposed for standard autopsy. Request anthropologic expertise.' Enter Dr Temperance Brennan, Director of Forensic Anthropology for the province of Quebec, who has been researching recent disappearances in the city. Despite the deep cynicism of Detective Claudel who heads the investigation, Brennan is convinced that a serial killer is at work. Her forensic expertise finally convinces Claudel, but only after the body count has risen... Tempe takes matters into her own hands, but her determined probing places those closest to her in mortal danger. Can Tempe make her crucial breakthrough before the killer strikes again?

The Terraphiles are a group obsessed with Earth's past and dedicated to re-enacting ancient sporting events. The Doctor and Amy join them on a trip to Miggea, a star on the very edge of reality, and venue for a competition to win the fabled Arrow of Law. But the Terraphiles' grasp of Earth history and customs is dubious to say the least, and just getting to Miggea is going to prove tricky. For reality is falling apart, ships are disappearing, and Captain Cornelius and his pirates are looking for easy pickings. And the Doctor and Amy have to find out who is so desperate to get the Arrow of Law that they will kill for it.

A plane crashes high in the mountains of North Carolina. But a severed foot is discovered a good distance from the crash site... Forensic anthropologist Dr Temperence Brennan is first on the scene. The task that confronts her is a sad and sickening one, and her investigation seems to be throwing up more questions than answers. But when Tempe makes a discovery that raises dangerous questions, her professional standing is threatened. Convinced that another corpse lies in the woods, Tempe pits herself against a conspiracy of silence, and uncovers a shocking tale of deceit and depravity...

In the searing heat of Guatemala, Dr. Temperance Brennan excavates the remains of a two-year-old child from a site that is said to contain the bodies of twenty-three women and children. Shaken by the discovery, Tempe tries to harden herself against the horrors that she finds. And then four young girls go missing from Guatemala City... When a skeleton is found in a septic tank at the back of a rundown hotel, only someone with Tempe's expertise can deduce who the victim was and how they died. But her path is blocked at every turn. It would seem that some people would prefer that Guatemala's 'disappeared' stay buried. And others want the missing girls kept the same way...

Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011. From the hairdessing salon where an old man measures out his life in haircuts, to the concert hall where a music lover carries out an obsessive campaign against those who cough in concerts; from the woman reads elaborate recipes to her sick husband as a substitute for sex, to the woman 'incarcerated' in an old people's home beginning a correspondence with an author that enriches both their lives — all Barnes' characters, in their different ways, square up to death and rage against the dying light.