Random House Inc.

With a new introduction by J.M. Coetzee A gang war is raging through the dark underworld of Brighton. Pinkie, malign and ruthless, has killed a man. Believing he can escape retribution, he is unprepared for the courageous Ida Arnold, who is determined to avenge a death.

Forget everything you think you know about strength, strategy and success. This brilliant adaptation of the ancient masterpiece The Art of War shows women how to use Sun Tzu's philosophy to win in every aspect of life.

From the author of the acclaimed book Fierce Conversations comes the antidote to some of the most wrongheaded practices of business today. — Provide anonymous feedback. — Hire smart people. — Hold people accountable. These are all sound, business practices, right? Not so fast, says leadership visionary and bestselling author Susan Scott. In fact, these mantras — despite being long-accepted and adopted by business leaders everywhere — are completely wrongheaded. Worse, they are costing companies billions of dollars, driving away valuable employees and profitable customers, limiting performance, and stalling careers. Yet they are so deeply ingrained in organizational cultures that no one has questioned them. Until now. In Fierce Leadership, Scott teaches us how to spot the worst best practices in our organizations using a technique she calls squid eye — the ability to see the tells or signs that we have fallen prey to disastrous behaviors by knowing what to look for. Only then, she says, can we apply the antidote... Informed by over a decade of conversations with Fortune 500 executives, this book is that antidote. With fierce new approaches to everything from employee feedback to corporate diversity to customer relations, Scott offers fresh and surprising alternatives to six of the so-called best practices permeating today's businesses. This refreshingly candid book is a must-read for any manager or leader at any level who is ready to take a long hard look at what trouble might be lurking in their organization — and do something about it.

A dazzling blend of military history, high-flying fantasy, and edge-of-your-seat adventure, Naomi Novik's Temeraire novels, set in an alternate Napoleonic era in which intelligent dragons have been harnessed as weapons of war, are more than just perennial bestsellers — they are a worldwide phenomenon. Now, in Tongues of Serpents, Naomi Novik is back, along with the dragon Temeraire and his rider and friend, Capt. Will Laurence.

In this follow-up to Love Me to Death, New York Times — bestselling author Brennan brings readers another thrilling Lucy Kincaid FBI blockbuster.

In her first paperback original in more than six years, New York Times — bestselling author Brockmann delivers an unforgettable novel of contemporary romance and thrilling suspense.

Sixteen-year-old Mason Rice is having the night of his life. He's just delivered an incredible performance in the school play, basked in celebratory afterglow vibes at the party of the year, and lost his virginity to one of his best friends — the gorgeous but previously unobtainable Kat Medina. His dreams are coming true and the future looks golden. Unfortunately, Kat sees things very differently. Crossing the friendship line was a big mistake and all she wants is to forget it and move on, even if means forgetting Mason altogether. What's a guy to do? Well, if you're Mason, you hang your hopes on the first attractive 23-year-old you cross paths with. At first Mason wonders if he's imagining the chemistry... until Colette invites him over to her apartment. Suddenly Mason's living in a whole new world. Fans of John Green and Sarah Dessen will savor C. K. Kelly Martin's sexy, smart, soulful story of one confused boy, two girls, and all the complications that ensue in this feel good celebration of friendship, first love, first lust, and second chances.

Step into a world of scandal, intrigue, and enthralling passion as New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh sweeps us into the lives of an extraordinary family: the Huxtables. Margaret, the eldest, embarks on the most risque adventure of her life and agrees to marry the most notorious man in London... Only desperation could bring Duncan Pennethorne, the infamous Earl of Sheringford, back home after the spectacular scandal that had shocked even the jaded ton, Forced to wed in fifteen days or be cut off without a penny, Duncan chooses the one woman in London in frantic need of a husband. A lie to an old flame forces Margaret Huxtable to accept the irresistible stranger's offer. But once she discovers who he really is, it's too late — she's already betrothed to the wickedly sensual rakehell. Quickly she issues an ultimatum: If Duncan wants her, he must woo her. And as passion slowly ignites, two people marrying for all the wrong reasons are discovering the joys of seduction — and awaiting the exquisite pleasure of what comes after...

Bound by blood, addicted to danger, they'll enter the darkest--and most erotic--place of all. A warrior trained in bullets and blades, Renata cannot be bested by any man--vampire or mortal. But her most powerful weapon is her extraordinary psychic ability — a gift both rare and deadly. Now a stranger threatens her hard-won independence — a golden-haired vampire who lures her into a realm of darkness... and pleasure beyond imagining. A combat-loving adrenaline junkie, Nikolai dispenses his own justice to enemies of the Breed — and his latest quarry is a ruthless assassin. One woman stands in his way: the seductive, cool-as-ice bodyguard, Renata. But Renata's powers are put to the test when a loved one, a child, is threatened and she's forced to turn to Niko for help. As the two join forces, as desire fans the flames of a deeper hunger, Renata's life is under siege by a man who offers the exquisite pleasure of a blood bond — and a passion that could save or doom them both forever...

A woman driven by blood. A man thirsting for vengeance. A place where darkness and desire meet... As night falls, Claire Roth flees, driven from her home by a fiery threat that seems to come from hell itself. Then, from out of the flames and ash, a vampire warrior emerges. He is Andreas Reichen, her onetime lover, now a stranger consumed by vengeance. Caught in the cross fire, Claire cannot escape his savage fury — or the hunger that plunges her into his world of eternal darkness and unending pleasure. Nothing will stop Andreas from destroying the vampire responsible for slaughtering his Breed brethren... even if he must use his former lover as a pawn in his deadly mission. Blood-bonded to his treacherous adversary, Claire can lead Andreas to the enemy he seeks, but it is a journey fraught with danger — and deep, unbidden desires. For Claire is the one woman Andreas should not crave, and the only one he's ever loved. A dangerous seduction begins — one that blurs the lines between predator and prey, and stokes the flames of a white-hot passion that may consume all in its path...

Noted contrarian and Progress Paradox author Gregg Easterbrook predicts that in spite of the recent economic crisis, globalization will continue to increase at a rapid clip in the years to come, producing tremendous economic growth — but also increased anxiety for people attempting to adjust to its effects. Though the growth we are about to experience will surely bring anxiety, it will also bring more prosperity, increased tolerance and understanding, and greater freedom and democracy to the world.

El rostro enigmatico de Mexico presenta hoy hondas cicatrices y un gesto que va del escepticismo a la ironia, del resentimiento al desprecio: Como pueden descifrarse las inquietudes de ese rostro? Que estigmas conservan los mexicanos, a que mitos se aferran? Que fracturas hay tras la guerra contra el narcotrafico, la voragine migratoria y el descredito de sus gobiernos, de sus aparatos de justicia y sus instituciones? Jorge Castaneda nos ofrece aqui el analisis mas profundo que se ha hecho en los ultimos anos sobre el caracter de su pais. Sustentado por un estudio riguroso de filosofos, historiadores, economistas y demas intelectuales que han expresado su fervor o contrariedad por Mexico, asi como por las reflexiones de extranjeros que han visto en ese pais a una nacion marcada por la hospitalidad o la barbarie, Castaneda nos advierte sobre las idiosincrasias de los mexicanos: la indiferencia a la competencia; la desgana a defender sus convicciones; el por que se resisten a las acciones colectivas y a la participacion comprometida en luchas politicas; de que manera el descuido de la industria turistica afecta su economia; y como el crecimiento de la clase media no es necesariamente una senal contundente de bienestar y confianza en los gobiernos. Por las deducciones implacables sobre la realidad moderna mexicana, afiladas por la ironia en la critica y el reconocimiento de sus zonas mas oscuras y dolorosas, Manana o pasado es, sin duda, la obra imprescindible para entender el Mexico contemporaneo.

Troubled Environmental Health Officer Danny Skinner is engaged on a quest to uncover what he refers to as 'the bedroom secrets of the master chefs'. He regards the unravelling of this classified information as the key to learning genetic facts about himself and the crippling compulsions that threaten to wreck his young life. The ensuing journey takes him from Europe's festival city of Edinburgh to the foodie capital of America, San Francisco. But the hard-drinking, womanising Skinner has a strange nemesis in the form of model-railway enthusiast Brian Kibby. It is his unfathomable, obsessive hatred of Kibby that takes over everything, threatening to destroy not only Skinner and his mission but also those he loves most dearly. When Kibby contracts a horrific and debilitating mystery virus, Skinner understands that his destiny is inextricably bound to that of his hated rival, and he is faced with a terrible dilemma. The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs is a gothic parable about the great obsessions of our time: food, sex and minor celebrity, and is a brilliant examination of identity, male rivalry and the need to belong in the world.

A stunning work of art, the New York Observer wrote of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, that bears no comparisons, and this is also true of this magnificent new novel, which is every bit as ambitious, expansive and bewitching. A tour-de-force of metaphysical reality, Kafka on the Shore is powered by two remarkable characters. At fifteen, Kafka Tamura runs away from home, either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister. And the aging Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction, finds his highly simplified life suddenly upset.Their odyssey, as mysterious to us as it is to them, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle. Yet this, like everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own.

Cats slink across the pages; the seasons are marked by cherry blossom and Japanese maple; spaghetti strands or telephone cords separate the days; and a generous selection of quotations and extracts from Murakami's novels and stories appear on almost every page to inspire, amuse or entertain. This is a diary like no other, faithful to all that is witty, surreal, sexy and beautiful in Murakami's work. A must-have for fans of Murakami, fans of Vintage fiction and fans of unique design, this diary will appeal to everyone as a quirky companion for 2009.

Tell-All is many things: a Sunset Boulevard-inflected homage to Old Hollywood when grand dames like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford ruled the roost. A Douglas Sirk-inspired melodrama full of big gestures and muted psychic torment. A veritable Tourette's Syndrome of rat-tat-tat name-dropping, from the A-list to the Z-list. A merciless send-up of Lillian Hellman's habit of butchering the truth that will have Mary McCarthy cheering from the beyond. Our narrator is Hazie Coogan, who for decades has tended to the outsized needs of Katherine 'Miss Kathie' Kenton, a star of the wattage of Elizabeth Taylor and the emotional torments of Judy Garland. The survivor of multiple marriages, career comebacks and cosmetic surgeries, Miss Kathie lives the way legends should. But danger lurks when gentleman caller Webster Carlton Westward III arrives and worms his way into Miss Kathie's heart and boudoir. Hazie discovers that this bounder has already written his celebrity tell-all memoir and that it foretells her death in a forthcoming Lillian Hellman-penned World War II musical extravaganza Unconditional Surrender, in which Miss Kathie portrays Lily defeating Japanese forces from Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki. As the body count mounts, Hazie must execute a plan to save Katherine Kenton for her fans — and for posterity. A dark reimagining of All About Eve and an hilarious assault on celebrity, Tell-All is vintage Palahniuk.

Hannibal Lecter emerges from the nightmare of the Eastern Front, a boy in the snow, mute, with a chain around his neck. He seems utterly alone, but he has brought his demons with him. Hannibal's uncle, a noted painter, finds him in a Soviet orphanage and brings him to France, where Hannibal will live with his uncle and his uncle's beautiful and exotic wife, Lady Murasaki. Lady Murasaki helps Hannibal to heal. With her help he flourishes, becoming the youngest person ever admitted to medical school in France. But Hannibal's demons visit him and torment him. When he is old enough, he visits them in turn. He discovers he has gifts beyond the academic, and in that epiphany, Hannibal Lecter becomes death's prodigy.

The Gulag, the Stalinist labour camps to which millions of Russians were condemned for political deviation, has become a household word in the West. This is due to the accounts of many witnesses, but most of all to the publication, in 1962, of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the novel that first brought Aleksandr Sozhenitsyn to public attention. His story of one typical day in a labour camp as experienced by prisoner Ivan Denisovich Shukhov is sufficient to describe the entire world of the Soviet camps. The original text was first published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir, during the Khrushchev 'thaw'. However, in the rush to bring out the first translation, the novel was significantly diminished. The idiosyncratic language of the protagonist — a man of peasant origins and no formal education — the colloquialisms and prison-camp slang were inadequately rendered; dense, elliptical syntax was smoothed over; earthy dialogue vanished into euphemism. Moreover, the novel, published in the Soviet Union for avowedly political reasons, was received abroad almost exclusively as a political sensation. With this new translation, however, the full measure of the work's artistic achievement can finally be gauged.

Capture the story of your baby's first year! The first twelve months of your child's life are full of precious, fleeting moments, from sleepy newborn yawns to first smiles and wobbly first steps. Why entrust your memories to hastily taken snapshots — or worse yet, none at all? Let professional photographer (and mom) Me Ra Koh help you capture the moments with 40 beautiful photo recipes anyone can do, with any camera. Telling your baby's story in pictures has never been easier!

In 1882, after six years of foreign travel and adventure, renowned diplomat and detective Erast Fandorin returns to Moscow in the heart of Mother Russia. His Moscow homecoming is anything but peaceful. In the hotel where he and his loyal if impertinent manservant Masa are staying, Fandorin's old war-hero friend General Michel Sobolev (Achilles to the crowd) has been found dead, felled in his armchair by an apparent heart attack. But Fandorin suspects an unnatural cause. His suspicions lead him to the boudoir of the beautiful singer not exactly a courtesan — known as Wanda. Apparently, in Wanda's bed, the general secretly breathed his last...

It's 1988 and Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have only just met. But after only one day together, they cannot stop thinking about one another. Over twenty years, snapshots of that relationship are revealed on the same day — July 15th — of each year. Dex and Em face squabbles and fights, hopes and missed opportunities, laughter and tears. And as the true meaning of this one crucial day is revealed, they must come to grips with the nature of love and life itself.

It is the story of Zhivago, poet and physician, and his struggle to keep his family alive in the midst of the overwhelming chaos of the Russian Revolution. And, it is about Zhivago's love for the beautiful Lara, the woman he pursues beyond all reason, the human symbol of life's sweetness and joy...

Set in a Newark neighborhood during a terrifying polio outbreak, Nemesis is a wrenching examination of the forces of circumstance on our lives. Bucky Cantor is a vigorous, dutiful twenty-three-year-old playground director during the summer of 1944. A javelin thrower and weightlifter, he is disappointed with himself because his weak eyes have excluded him from serving in the war alongside his contemporaries. As the devastating disease begins to ravage Bucky's playground, Roth leads us through every inch of emotion such a pestilence can breed: fear, panic, anger, bewilderment, suffering, and pain. Moving between the streets of Newark and a pristine summer camp high in the Poconos, Nemesis tenderly and startlingly depicts Cantor's passage into personal disaster, the condition of childhood, and the painful effect that the wartime polio epidemic has on a closely-knit, family-oriented Newark community and its children.

In this delightful second installment in Alexander McCall Smith's bestselling detective series, the irrepressibly curious Isabel Dalhousie gets caught up in a highly unusual affair of the heart. When Isabel is asked to cover for vacationing Cat at her delicatessen, Isabel meets a man with a most interesting problem. He recently had a heart transplant and is suddenly haunted by memories of events that never happened to him.The situation piques her insatiable curiosity: Could the memories be connected with the donor's demise? Naturally, Isabel's friend Jamie thinks it is none of Isabel's business. Meanwhile, Grace, Isabel's housekeeper, has become infatuated with a man at her spiritualist meeting, and Cat brings home an Italian lothario. That makes for some particularly tricky problems-both practical and philosophical-for Isabel to unravel in this enormously engaging and highly unusual mystery.