Simon & Schuster

An accessible introduction to philosophy, this book narrows the gap between the general reader and intellectual inquiry. Its points are illustrated with concrete examples which should call the reader to a higher level of critical thinking and self-perception.

Dying is easy. Coming back to life is hard. At least that's what Miles Vorkosigan thinks and he should know, having done both once already. Thanks to his quick thinking staff and the specialist who revived him, his first death won't be his last. But his next one might be, a realization he finds profoundly unsettling. Even after he returns to military duty, his late death seems to be having a greater effect than he's willing to admit. Unfortunately, his weakness reveals itself to the world at large at just the wrong time and in just the wrong way, and Miles is summoned home to face Barrayaran security chief Simon Illyan. But when things begin to go subtly wrong in Imperial Security itself, «Who shall guard the guardians?» becomes a more-than-rhetorical question, with a potentially lethal answer. Things look bad, but Miles' worst nightmares about Simon Illyan don't compare to Illyan's worst nightmares — or are they memories?

Bruce Gold, a middle-aged, Jewish professor of English literature, finds himself on the brink of a golden career in politics — and not a moment too soon, as Gold yearns for an opportunity to transform a less-than-picture-perfect life: His children think little of him, his intimidating father endlessly bullies him, and his wife is so oblivious that she doesn't even notice he's left her. As funny as it is sad, “Good as Gold” is a story of children grown up, parents grown old, and friends and lovers grown apart — a story that is inimitably Heller.

When medical resident Dr. Abby Matteo discovers an organ-selling ring operating out of the very prestigious Boston hospital where she is a resident, she defies the hospitals demands for silence and begins her own investigation which reveals a murderous, unthinkable conspiracy.

With a few easy-to-read words and brilliantly colored collages, Eric Carle leads young readers on an around-the-world tour with a little boy who is looking for his cat. Through Africa, the Middle East, and into Asia, the boy searches — until he happily discovers what his cat has been doing with herself.

During his twenty-five year career with the Investigative Support Unit, Special Agent John Douglas became a legendary figure in law enforcement, pursuing some of the most notorious and sadistic serial killers of our time: the man who hunted prostitutes for sport in the woods of Alaska, the Atlanta child murderer, and Seattle's Green River killer, the case that nearly cost Douglas his life. As the model for Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs, Douglas has confronted, interviewed, and studied scores of serial killers and assassins, including Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and Ed Gein, who dressed himself in his victims' peeled skin. Using his uncanny ability to become both predator and prey, Douglas examines each crime scene, reliving both the killer's and the victim's actions in his mind, creating their profiles, describing their habits, and predicting their next moves. Now, in chilling detail, the legendary Mind hunter takes us behind the scenes of some of his most gruesome, fascinating, and challenging cases — and into the darkest recesses of our worst nightmares.

A sensational bestseller when it appeared in 1986, The Garden of Eden is the last uncompleted novel of Ernest Hemingway, which he worked on intermittently from 1946 until his death in 1961. Set on the Cote d'Azur in the 1920s, it is the story of a young American writer, David Bourne, his glamorous wife, Catherine, and the dangerous, erotic game they play when they fall in love with the same woman. A lean, sensuous narrative... taut, chic, and strangely contemporary, The Garden of Eden represents vintage Hemingway, the master doing what nobody did better (R. Z. Sheppard, Time).

In Closing Time, Joseph Heller returns to the characters of Catch-22, now coming to the end of their lives and the century, as is the entire generation that fought in World War II: Yossarian and Milo Minderbinder, the chaplain, and such newcomers as little Sammy Singer and giant Lew, all linked, in an uneasy peace and old age, fighting not the Germans this time, but The End. Closing Time deftly satirizes the realities and the myths of America in the half century since WWII: the absurdity of our politics, the decline of our society and our great cities, the greed and hypocrisy of our business and culture — with the same ferocious humor as Catch-22. Closing Time is outrageously funny and totally serious, and as brilliant and successful as Catch-22 itself, a fun-house mirror that captures, at once grotesquely and accurately, the truth about ourselves.

Kon-Tiki is the record of an astonishing adventure — a journey of 4,300 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean by raft. Intrigued by Polynesian folklore, biologist Thor Heyerdahl suspected that the South Sea Islands had been settled by an ancient race from thousands of miles to the east, led by a mythical hero, Kon-Tiki. He decided to prove his theory by duplicating the legendary voyage. On April 28, 1947, Heyerdahl and five other adventurers sailed from Peru on a balsa log raft. After three months on the open sea, encountering raging storms, whales, and sharks, they sighted land — the Polynesian island of Puka Puka. Translated into sixty-five languages, Kon-Tiki is a classic, inspiring tale of daring and courage — a magnificent saga of men against the sea. Washington Square Press' Enriched Classics present the great works of world literature enhanced for the contemporary reader. This edition of Kon-Tiki has been prepared by an editorial committee headed by Harry Shefter, professor of English at New York University. It includes a foreword by the author, a selection of critical excerpts, notes, an index, and a unique visual essay of the voyage.

A nuclear blast hurls an American family into a future «utopia» based on ancient evil. Hugh Farnham and his family would be slaves unless he could find a way to escape beyond the reach of the Master Race.

Make the 7 habits a part of your life — every day.... Stephen R. Covey has helped millions of readers attain professional success and personal fulfillment. With penetrating insight Dr. Covey reveals a pathway for living with fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity — principles that give us the security to adapt to change and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates. Now, as a succinct introduction to Dr. Covey's revolutionary thinking or as a reminder of key principles, «Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People» provides an inspirational recharge that will bring you closer to a holistic sense of personal effectiveness and purpose.

The author whose phenomenal blockbusters have sold more than 25 million copies in the U.S. writes a relentlessly terrifying novel about a reporter dragged into her family's hidden past — a chilling web of secrets and betrayals where nothing is as it seems, and the truth may be too devastating to pursue.

A killer turns a young family's dream holiday into an unfathomable nightmare... Menley Nichols and her husband, Adam, a criminal attorney, rent a house on Cape Cod, in the hope of restoring their faltering marriage. The birth of their daughter, Hannah, has revitalized their relationship, but Menley has never stopped blaming herself for the accidental death of her two-year-old son. The serenity of the Cape promises a new start.In Remember House, an eighteenth-century landmark with a sinister past, strange incidents force Menley to relive the accident that killed her son, and she begins to fear for Hannah's safety. Then Adam takes on a client suspected of murder when his wealthy young bride of only three months drowns in a storm — and the family is drawn into a rising tide of terror. A confrontation on a dark, rain-swept beach leads to a harrowing climax that only Mary Higgins Clark could have created.

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Employing a terrifying twist at the climax, the author of «Loves Music, Loves to Dance» takes readers on an emotionally riveting journey into the mind of a tortured women — accused of murder — who is at the mercy of a psychopathic personality.

The New York Times bestselling author of Boy's Life reaches the peak of his storytelling powers with this visionary masterpiece of violence and redemption. Flooded by memories, poisoned by the deadly fallout of Agent Orange, and desperate for work, Dan Lambert kills a man in a moment of blind fear and fury. Now he is on the run, fleeing to the Louisiana bayous.

New York's trendy magazines are a source of peril when a killer enacts a bizarre dance of death, using the personal ads to lure his victims... After college, best friends Erin Kelley and Darcy Scott move to the city to pursue exciting careers; Erin is a promising jewelry designer, Darcy finds success as a decorator. On a lark, Darcy persuades Erin to help their TV producer friend research the kinds of people who place personal ads. It seems like innocent fun...until Erin disappears. Erin's body is found on an abandoned Manhattan pier — on one foot is her own shoe, on the other, a high-heeled dancing slipper. Soon after, startling communiques from the killer reveal that Erin is not the first victim of this «dancing shoe murderer». And, if the killer has his way, she won't be his last. Next on his death list is Darcy.

This tale of an 11-year-old's struggle between innocence and evil begins with the discovery of a gruesome murder and ends with the revelation that, even in Zephyr, Alabama, life is not safe and simple — and most things and people are not what they seem to be. «Recaptures the magic of being a child in a world of possibilities and promise...»

When a passenger check-in desk at London's Heathrow Airport disappears in a ball of orange flame, the explosion is deemed an act of God. But which god, wonders holistic detective Dirk Gently? What god would be hanging around Heathrow trying to catch the 3:37 to Oslo? And what has this to do with Dirk's latest — and late — client, found only this morning with his head revolving atop the hit record Hot Potato? Amid the hostile attentions of a stray eagle and the trauma of a very dirty refrigerator, super-sleuth Dirk Gently will once again solve the mysteries of the universe...

A hermit crab who has outgrown his old shell moves into a new one, which he decorates and enhances with the various sea creatures he meets in his travels.

The dazzling, fantastic work that concludes the teachings of the Yaqui sorcerer, Don Juan. Castaneda is an anthropologist, a mystic, a poet and a marvelously gifted author whose books have sold phenomenally well. «One can't exaggerate the significance of what Carlos Castaneda has done».

Detective Gently whizzes about the world, the universe, and time itself as a group of eccentric characters help him find an eccentric cat, solve a murder, and save the human race.

From the author of The Teachings of don Juan. The legendary Yaqui Indian sorcerer don Juan returns, and through his mesmerizing stories readers learn the vital secrets of belief and self-realization that are transcendental and valid for us all — that wisdom, strength and power lie within ourselves.

A man of knowledge is free...he has no honor, no dignity, no family, no home, no country, but only life to be lived. Don Juan In 1961 a young anthropologist subjected himself to an extraordinary apprenticeship to bring back a fascinating glimpse of a Yaqui Indian's world of non-ordinary reality and the difficult and dangerous road a man must travel to become a man of knowledge. Yet on the bring of that world, challenging to all that we believe, he drew back. Then in 1968, Carlos Castaneda returned to Mexico, to don Juan and his hallucinogenic drugs, and to a world of experience no man from our Western civilization had ever entered before.