Random House Inc.

Three terrified little bears explore the inside of a mysterious old tree and go into, up, through, over, down, and out.

A boxed set of four board books featuring P.D. Eastman's famous dogs! Tucked inside this little red box topped with a sturdy handle are board book adaptations of the classic Beginner Books by P.D. Eastman: Go, Dog. Go!; Big Dog . . . Little Dog; The Alphabet Book; and Michael Frith's I'll Teach My Dog a Lot of Words. Perfect for the holidays, baby showers, and happy occasions of all kinds, this is a literacy-nurturing gift that babies can literally sink their teeth into!

Since his first adventure in 1963, the Doctor has enjoyed many encounters with William Shakespeare. Now, BBC Books has rediscovered notebooks, long thought lost, compiled by the Bard in which he divulges the influential role the Doctor played in his creative life. Here are the original notes for Hamlet, including a very different appearance by the ghost; early versions of great lines (To reverse or not to reverse the polarity of the neutron flowo); the true story of how the faeries of A Midsummer Night's Dream were first imagined; stage directions for plays adjusted to remove references to a mysterious blue box; and much, much more.

Twelve-year-old Callum Hunt has grown up knowing three rules by heart. Never trust a magician. Never pass a test a magician gives you. And never let a magician take you to the Magisterium. Call is about to break all the rules. And when he does, his life will change in ways he can't possibly imagine. The Magisterium series is a five-book series of fantasy novels, one book for each year of Call's life between twelve and seventeen.

Just listen, Adam says with a voice that sounds like shrapnel. I open my eyes wide now. I sit up as much as I can. And I listen. Stay, he says. Everybody has to make choices. Some might break you. For seventeen-year-old Mia, surrounded by a wonderful family, friends and a gorgeous boyfriend decisions might seem tough, but they're all about a future full of music and love, a future that's brimming with hope. But life can change in an instant. A cold February morning... a snowy road... and suddenly all of Mia's choices are gone. Except one. As alone as she'll ever be, Mia must make the most difficult choice of all. Gripping, heartrending and ultimately life-affirming, If I Stay will make you appreciate all that you have, all that you've lost — and all that might be.

The Jacqueline Wilson Christmas Cracker is packed with brilliant Christmas stories, including a brand-new tale from Jacqueline, and classic favourite Starring Tracy Beaker, in which Jacqueline's most famous heroine gets the lead part in her Christmas play! There are festive puzzles, tasty Christmas recipes, perfect present tips, and fun facts all about Christmas. Plus, there's a special letter from Jacqueline herself, so you can find out all about her own Christmas memories and traditions! Merry Christmas from Jacqueline Wilson!

Igor is confident his old Soviet policeman's uniform will be the best costume at the party. But he hasn't gone far before he realises something is wrong. The streets are unusually dark and empty, and the only person to emerge from the shadows runs away from him in terror. After a perplexing conversation with the terrified man, who turns out to be a wine smuggler, and on recovering from the resulting hangover, Igor comes to an unbelievable conclusion: he has found his way back to 1957 Kiev. And it isn't the innocent era his mother and her friends have so sentimentally described. As he travels between centuries, his life becomes more and more complicated. The unusual gardener who lives in his mother's shed keeps disappearing, his best friend has blackmailed the wrong people, and Igor has fallen in love with a married woman in a time before he was born. With his mother's disapproval at his absences growing, and his adventures in each time frame starting to catch up with him, Igor has to survive the past if he wants any kind of future.

Leskov's stories of Russian life are explosions of imagination. Peopled by outsized characters including serfs, princes, Gypsy girls, horse dealers, nomadic Tartars and garrulous storytellers, Leskov's writing exuberantly fables the national character of his age. For the first time, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky's translation brings Leskov's original storytelling and irresistible voice to life.

The elephants decide to play a trick on Elmer. Snake suggests pretending to Elmer that he looks pale and ill, to see if they can make him believe that he really is unwell. However at the same time, Snake also plots with Elmer to trick the other elephants into thinking he is sick by covering Elmer in pale mud. It works, and the other elephants get rather worried about him. They ask Snake to give his advice — and he suggests tickling Elmer! Of course the dried mud cracks open, and the elephants realise that Snake has tricked them all. But they can't tickle Snake because he's very sensibly gone on holiday.

For over fifty years, Doctor Who has been one of the nation's favourite programmes. Now you can discover just how much you know about it. Straightforward or fiendish, easy or horrendously difficult, all 3500 questions in this book have one thing in common u a certain traveller through time and space. From Ace to Zoe and Axons to Zygons, it covers every single one of the almost 250 Doctor Who stories that have been broadcast since 1963. So put on your brainy specs, pour yourself a nice glass of carrot juice and prepare to discover if you have the knowledge to graduate from Time Lord Academy...

Middle schooler Jamie Grimm has big dreams of being the best stand-up comic in the world — and he won't let the fact that he's wheelchair-bound get in his way. After winning the New York state finals in the Planet's Funniest Kid Comic Contest, Jamie's off to Boston to compete in the national semi-finals. But when one of his best buddies runs into trouble at school and a sudden family health scare rears its head, Jamie has to put his comedic ambitions on hold and stand by the people he cares about. Can Jamie pass up the big competition for the sake of his friends and family?

gloriously witty novel from Sebastian Faulks using P.G. Wodehouse's much-loved characters, Jeeves and Wooster, fully authorised by the Wodehouse estate. Due to a series of extenuating circumstances, Bertie Wooster, recently returned from a very pleasurable sojourn in Cannes, finds himself at the home of Sir Henry Hackwood. Bertie is, of course, familiar with the set-up at a country house. He can always rely on Jeeves, his loyal butler to have packed the correct number of trousers and is a natural at cocktail hour. But this time, it is Jeeves who can be found in the drawing room, while Bertie finds himself below stairs. As is so often the case, love is the cause of the confusion. You see, Bertie met Georgiana, Georgiana liked Bertie, the feeling was mutual. Though he could be said to suffer from a reputation for flirtations, it looks as though this is the real deal. However, Georgiana is a ward of Sir Henry Hackwood and, in order to maintain his beloved Melbury Hall, Hackwood has already struck a deal would see Georgiana becoming Mrs Rupert Venables. Meanwhile, Peregrine 'Woody' Beeching is trying to regain the trust of his fiancee Amelia. But why would this necessitate Bertie having to pass himself off as a valet when he has never so much as made a cup of tea? Could it be that every loyal, self-effacing, Kant loving, Jeeves has an ulterior motive? But future happiness is not the only thing at stake: there is a frightfully important cricket match and the loaded question of who one fancies for Ascot. Evoking the sunlit days of a time gone-by, Jeeves and the Wedding Bells is a delightfully witty story of love, reputation and mistaken intentions.

A thrilling, all-new adventure featuring the Doctor as played by Matt Smithin the spectacular hit series from BBC Television. «'They like the Shadows. You know them as Plague Warriors...'»When the Doctor arrives in the 19th-century village of Klimtenburg, he discovers the residents suffering from some kind of plague — a 'wasting disease'. The victims face a horrible death — but what's worse, the dead seem to be leaving their graves. The Plague Warriors have returned... The Doctor is confident he knows what's really happening; he understands where the dead go, and he's sure the Plague Warriors are just a myth. But as some of the Doctor's oldest and most terrible enemies start to awaken he realises that maybe — just maybe — he's misjudged the situation.

Dragons have invaded Crumbling Castle, and all of King Arthur's knights are either on holiday or visiting their grannies. It's a disaster! Luckily, there's a spare suit of armour and a very small boy called Ralph who's willing to fill it. Together with Fortnight the Friday knight and Fossfiddle the wizard, Ralph sets out to defeat the fearsome fire-breathers. But there's a teeny weeny surprise in store... Fourteen fantastically funny stories from master storyteller Sir Terry Pratchett, full of time travel and tortoises, monsters and mayhem!

A razor-sharp portrait of a morally bankrupt and gleefully wicked modern man, Worst. Person. Ever. is Douglas Coupland's gloriously filthy, side-splittingly funny and unforgettable novel. Meet Raymond Gunt. A decent chap who tries to do the right thing. Or, to put it another way, the worst person ever: a foul-mouthed, misanthropic cameraman, trailing creditors, ex-wives and unhappy 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,...

Spanning the millennia and the continents — from India to Andalusia and from the bazaars of Cairo to the streets of Oxford, this is a story of a Jewish world immersed in and imprinted by the peoples among whom they have dwelled, from the Egyptians to the Greeks, from the Arabs to the Christians.

A young woman walks into the frozen fjords of Iceland, never to be seen again. But Matthildur leaves in her wake rumours of lies, betrayal and revenge. Decades later, somewhere in the same wilderness, Detective Erlendur is on the hunt. He is looking for Matthildur but also for a long-lost brother, whose disappearance in a snow-storm when they were children has coloured his entire life. He is looking for answers. Slowly, the past begins to surrender its secrets. But as Erlendur uncovers a story about the limits of human endurance, he realises that many people would prefer their crimes to stay buried.

Tsukuru Tazaki had four best friends at school. By chance all of their names contained a colour. The two boys were called Akamatsu, meaning red pine, and Oumi, blue sea, while the girls names were Shirane, white root, and Kurono, black field. Tazaki was the only last name with no colour in it. One day Tsukuru Tazakis friends announced that they didnt want to see him, or talk to him, ever again. Since that day Tsukuru has been floating through life, unable to form intimate connections with anyone. But then he meets Sara, who tells him that the time has come to find out what happened all those years ago.

Naomi Novik's beloved Temeraire series, a brilliant combination of fantasy and history that reimagines the Napoleonic wars as fought with the aid of intelligent dragons, is a twenty-first-century classic. From the first volume, His Majesty's Dragon, readers have been entranced by the globe-spanning adventures of the resolute Capt. William Laurence and his brave but impulsive dragon, Temeraire. Now, in Blood of Tyrants, the penultimate volume of the series, Novik is at the very height of her powers as she brings her story to its widest, most colorful canvas yet. Shipwrecked and cast ashore in Japan with no memory of Temeraire or his own experiences as an English aviator, Laurence finds himself tangled in deadly political intrigues that threaten not only his own life but England's already precarious position in the Far East. Age-old enmities and suspicions have turned the entire region into a powder keg ready to erupt at the slightest spark-a spark that Laurence and Temeraire may unwittingly provide, leaving Britain faced with new enemies just when they most desperately need allies instead. For to the west, another, wider conflagration looms. Napoleon has turned on his former ally, the emperor Alexander of Russia, and is even now leading the largest army the world has ever seen to add that country to his list of conquests. It is there, outside the gates of Moscow, that a reunited Laurence and Temeraire — along with some unexpected allies and old friends — will face their ultimate challenge... and learn whether or not there are stronger ties than memory. Praise for Blood of Tyrants A first-class entry in a remarkable and appealing series. Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Novik's plots and characterizations get more intricate and plausible with each novel... Novik's re-creation of much of world history based on the existence of intelligent dragons has been so well crafted that all eight books in the series are highly recommended. Booklist (starred review) Novik combines dragons... with period history to achieve a brilliantly realized re-creation of military history laced with the fantastic... Well-crafted. Library Journal If you've never read these novels, now is the time to start.

Early in life, Catmull found inspiration in Disney movies such as Peter Pan and Pinocchio and dreamed of becoming a feature film animator. He even made primitive animation using so-called flip-books. However, he assessed his chances realistically and decided that his talents lay elsewhere. Instead of pursuing a career in the movie industry, he used his talent in maths and studied physics and computer science at the University of Utah. After graduating, he worked as a computer programmer at The Boeing Company in Seattle before returning to Utah to go to university to study computer graphics. His pioneering work there and afterwards caught the eye of George Lucas at Lucasfilm who recruited him to move forwards the company's CGI capacity. In1986 Steve Jobs bought Lucasfilm's digital division and with Ed Catmull founded Pixar. This book tells you how the team they created became one of the most dynamic, innovative and worldwide respected companies over the past three decades.

The Devil Delivered: In the breakaway Lakota Nation, in the heart of a land blistered beneath an ozone hole the size of the Great Plains of North America, a lone anthropologist wanders the deadlands, recording observations that threaten to bring the world's powers to their knees. Revolvo: In the fictitious country of Canada, the arts scene is ruled by technocrats who thrive in a secret, nepotistic society of granting agencies, bursaries, and peer review boards, all designed to permit self-proclaimed artists to survive without an audience. Fishing with Grandma Matchie: A children's story of a boy tasked with a writing assignment becomes a stunning fantastical journey with his tale-spinning grandmother.

Gina and Sally Makepiece have inherited a stall in the French House — an antiques centre nestled in the heart of the English countryside. Gina is determined to drag the French House and its grumpy owner into the twenty-first century. Bearing all the attributes of a modern-day Mr Rochester, Matthew Ballinger is less than happy with the whirlwind that has arrived on his doorstep. The last thing either of them want is to fall in love. But will a trip to France change their minds?

The Maude is outside. It wants to come in. It wants to sit on your chest. The mentally ill patients in Beechway High Secure Unit are highly suggestible. A hallucination can spread like a virus. When unexplained power cuts lead to a series of horrifying incidents, fear spreads from the inmates to the staff. Amidst the growing hysteria, AJ, a senior psychiatric nurse, is desperate to protect his charges. Detective Inspector Jack Caffery is looking for the corpse of a missing woman. He knows all too well how it feels to fail to find a loved one's body. When AJ seeks Caffery's help in investigating the trouble at Beechway, each man must face a bitter truth in his own life. Before staring pure evil in the eye.

This is the gripping new race-against-time thriller by the best-selling author of Relentless, The Last 10 Seconds, Siege and Ultimatum. Tonight it's just you, and the darkness. It's a sunny afternoon, and you're deep in the country on a river trip with your family. You're nearing journey's end when a shot rings out — and your whole life changes in an instant. A woman is coming towards you, chased by three gunmen. It's clear she's in terrible danger. And now you are too. Because although you don't know it, she harbours a deadly secret. Night falls. You're running, terrified, desperate to find safety. All you know is that the men hunting you have killed before. And if they catch you, you'll be next...