"Few novelists captured the contradictions of his country so simply or so honestly in the metaphor of the pure, fatalistic, and merciless community of bruising."—from the ForewordWhen The Bruiser was first published in 1936, almost every reviewer praised Jim Tully's gritty boxing novel for its authenticity—a hard-earned attribute. Twenty-eight years before the appearance of The Bruiser, Tully began a career in the ring, fighting regularly on the Ohio circuit. He knew what it felt like to step inside the ropes, hoping to beat another man senseless for the amusement of the crowd. Having won acclaim in the 1920s for such hard-boiled autobiographical novels as Beggars of Life and Circus Parade, Tully thus became both fighter and writer. "It's a pip of a story because it is written by a man who knows what he is writing about," said sportswriter and Guys and Dolls author Damon Runyon. "He has some descriptions of ring fighting in it that literally smell of whizzing...

For fans of Gillian Flynn, Caroline Cooney, and R.L. Stine comes Secret, Silent Screams from four-time Edgar Allen Poe Young Adult Mystery Award winner Joan Lowery Nixon. Is Barry's death the latest tragedy in a string of suicides at Farrington Park High School? Or is it murder? Marti is sure her friend Barry didn't take his own life, but no one will believe her except Police Officer Prescott. But opening an investigation takes time, and Marti is determined to find her friend's killer soon. Because even now he could be planning his next crime... "Enthralling suspense...satisfying[,]...[and an] intricate plot." --Publishers WeeklyFrom the Paperback edition.

The remarkable story of a couple who risked everything to open their home--and their hearts--to answer an abandoned child's wish.It was a small note buried in the file of a deeply troubled eleven-year-old boy--a plea for a normal life Rich and Sue Miniter couldn't ignore:The Things I Want MOST:A familyA fishing poleA familyThe Miniters heard in that simple note the voice of a frightened child who wanted what all children want and need: someone to love who would love them in return.So they brought Mike home to the cozy country inn they'd restored and managed in rural upstate New York. There, over the next year, they would try to make Mike's dream come true. But first they would have to work through the fear, anger, and distrust that accompanied this boy who had lived his whole life with the label "severely emotionally disturbed." For the biggest obstacle to Mike's happiness was Mike himself, who gave the Miniters every reason to give up but...

A dominatrix punishes a young man who has some serious mommy issues. The story contains explicit sexual content.

One of the most dazzling and adventurous writers now working in English takes on the enigma of the Cambridge spies in a novel of exquisite menace, biting social comedy, and vertiginous moral complexity. The narrator is the elderly Victor Maskell, formerly of British intelligence, for many years art expert to the Queen. Now he has been unmasked as a Russian agent and subjected to a disgrace that is almost a kind of death. But at whose instigation? As Maskell retraces his tortuous path from his recruitment at Cambridge to the airless upper regions of the establishment, we discover a figure of manifold doubleness: Irishman and Englishman; husband, father, and lover of men; betrayer and dupe. Beautifully written, filled with convincing fictional portraits of Maskell’s co-conspirators, and vibrant with the mysteries of loyalty and identity, The Untouchable places John Banville in the select company of both Conrad and le Carre. Winner of the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction.

The magnificent and long-awaited biography of the beloved writer who gave us the Manawaka novels, including The Diviners and The Stone Angel.From the Trade Paperback edition.

The affluent seaside resort of Smalting is unaccustomed to crime. So when human remains are found beneath the floorboards of one of its beach huts, the community is awash with suspicion and fear. Amateur sleuths Carole Seddon and best friend Jude are drawn into the mystery, and their suspicion quickly falls on attractive Philly Rose, a young Londoner newly arrived in the area, whose boyfriend has recently vanished in mysterious circumstances. Meanwhile, Kelvin Southwest, self-appointed ‘ladies’ man’ and caretaker of Smalting’s beach huts, seems to be hiding a dark secret beneath his smooth exterior, while Reginald Flowers, pompous President of the Smalting Beach Hut Association, becomes increasingly defensive about his own history. When the bones under the beach hut are identified, the ghosts of the past are painfully reawakened, and long-hidden secrets begin to surface. Bones Under the Beach Hut is an ingenious mystery from one of England’s favourite crime writers, exquisitely plotted, teeming with wonderful characters and packed with unexpected twists.

Resident diva Devane will stop at nothing to get the star treatment she feels she deserves. Especially when she's overlooked for a solo in the group's first show and Emerson, her nemesis, isn't. During the performance, Devane does the unthinkable—she steals the scene from Emerson— and is thrown out of the group. But in the end, it's the group who could end up suffering. Devane may be an egomaniac, but she's also an unbelievable dancer. The Hip Hop Kidz need her, and Emerson might be the only one who can convince her to come back.

Taken from home and family, all they have is each other.Isla is kidnapped from a train platform in broad daylight, and thrust into a nightmare when she is sold to a sadistic aristocrat. Locked in a dungeon with a dozen other girls, Isla's only comfort is a locket and the memory of the boy she loves. But as days pass and more girls disappear, she realizes that help is not coming... If they're going to survive, they'll have to escape on their own. Swoon Reads is proud to present Lydia Albano's debut novel, a powerful story of a teen girl finding strength and hope in even the worst circumstances. Praise for FINDING YOU:"This is a story that will give you chills and keep you turning pages until the very end. I know it did that for me. The world needs more books like this one." —Samantha Chaffin, Swoon Reader"Through this experience, these girls—especially Isla—grow and become stronger...despite...

Trisha Hanover has run away from home before. But this time, she hasn't come back. To make matters worse, Robyn blew up at Trisha the same morning she disappeared. Now Robyn feels responsible, and she sets out to track Trisha down. As Robyn follows Trisha's path, she learns some harsh truths about the runaway's life. And when she finally locates Trisha, Robyn also finds herself in danger.

Drawing on imaginary outtakes from Riefenstahl's infamous film of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, Dennis Bock weaves together the lives of a family living in the shadow of history.Olympia is the story of post-war German immigrants, as told by their son Peter, born in the New World and raised in the sixties and seventies.Though great figures and events of mid-century touch the lives of this remarkable family, it is the private histories, the grand failings and small triumphs of Peter's family that remain etched in the reader's imagination. From Ruby's struggle to rise above her leukemia and her father's love of severe weather and killing tornadoes, to the saint who witnesses a miracle at the bottom of a drowned Spanish village.Set against the backdrop of some of the most significant Olympic moments of our times--the Nazis' stylish and sinister glorification of the Berlin Olympics and the 1972 Munich hostage-taking in which 11 Israelis were murdered--Olympia offers a bold and refreshing perspective on the tragic relationship between Germans and Jews in this century.Bock writes with insight and clarity in a breath-taking, beautiful prose that signals the debut of a brilliant new talent.Amazon.com ReviewOlympia tells the story of three generations quietly grappling with the emotional fallout of war. There are the grandparents, Lottie and Rudolph, who met while competing in the 1936 Berlin Olympics; their son and his wife, who emigrated from Germany after World War II; and the grandchildren--Peter, who narrates, and his sister Ruby, both Canadian-born children of the '70s. Into this portrait Bock skillfully splices imaginary outtakes from Leni Riefenstahl's film of the 1936 Olympics, The Olympiad. The result is a layered album of family stories and a moving meditation on the intersection of memory, identity, and the past. Early on we discover that this family is Lutheran, not Jewish--and that Bock is tackling the uneasy question of what it means to be German in this century. He avoids generalizations about guilt or complicity in the war, aiming for something more delicate, more murky. "It seemed that everyone my parents knew back then had escaped to this country from that dark place ... after the war had ended," Peter explains. "But it took me until that summer to find out that there were things I hadn't been told, that there were secrets in my house." Bock focuses with understated precision on the private moments of victory and defeat that make up the subjective history of a family: Ruby's fight against leukemia and her dream to succeed as an Olympic gymnast; a failed reunion between Peter's mother and the brother she hasn't seen since the end of the war; the deaths of the grandparents; a father and son's shared obsession with storms. Elliptical, nuanced, affirming, and sad, Olympia is a masterful examination of how a family embodies and survives its legacy. --Svenja SoldovieriFrom Kirkus ReviewsThe allure of the past and its power to deform one's life are at the heart of this lyrical and often surprising first novel. We believed we were a gifted family,'' narrator Peter explains.We were Olympians.'' His grandparents had both been members of Germany's 1936 Olympic team. Their glory, though, cant be recaptured. Peter's father has failed, having made it to the Olympics for Canada, where the family has resettled after the war, but being unable to bring home a medal. And Ruby, Peter's younger sister, a promising gymnast who seems a likely candidate for the Olympic team, dies of leukemia. In a series of interrelated stories, Bock traces the ways in which one family's efforts to regain the glory and the hazy romanticism of the past repeatedly disrupt the present. His grandparents decide to renew their marriage vows on a boat in the middle of a Canadian lake, but the romantic gesture turns to tragedy when his grandmother drowns. In another episode, Peter, who has set out to break the record for continuous hours spent floating in water, is himself almost drowned when heavy rains set in motion a flood that sweeps him out of the small municipal pool in which hes been determinedly floating. Bock brings his various themes together in a climactic episode in which a now grown Peter, living in a small Spanish town, is visited by his parents, who have decided that they too want to renew their marriage vows on water. The event goes wonderfully awry when the boat on which the ceremony is being held goes aground: the lake its been launched on is being drained by the authorities, and as the water recedes, it reveals a ruined town hidden for decades under the lake. The inescapable presence of the past is thus caught in a lovely metaphor, and Peter's liberation from his own obsession with the past, when it comes, is believable and moving. An impressive, energetic, and original debut. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

An illuminating, entertaining tour of the physical imperfections that make us human We humans like to think of ourselves as highly evolved creatures. But if we are supposedly evolution's greatest creation, why do we have such bad knees? Why do we catch head colds so often—two hundred times more often than a dog does? How come our wrists have so many useless bones? Why is the vast majority of our genetic code pointless? And are we really supposed to swallow and breathe through the same narrow tube? Surely there's been some kind of mistake. As professor of biology Nathan H. Lents explains in Human Errors, our evolutionary history is nothing if not a litany of mistakes, each more entertaining and enlightening than the last. The human body is one big pile of compromises. But that is also a testament to our greatness: as Lents shows, humans have so many design flaws precisely because we are very, very good at getting around them. A...