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The Breath of the Gods
Between these two poles--wind as a malevolent force, and wind as savior of our planet--lies a world of fascination, history, literature, science, poetry, and engineering which Simon Winchester explores with the curiosity and vigor that are the hallmarks of his bestselling works. In The Breath of the Gods, he explains how wind plays a part in our everyday lives, from airplane or car travel to the "natural disasters" that are becoming more frequent and regular.
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Family of Spies
It began with a letter from a screenwriter, asking about a story. Your family. World War II. Nazi spies. Christine Kuehn was shocked and confused. When she asked her seventy-year-old father, Eberhard, what this could possibly be about, he stalled, deflected, demurred, and then wept. He knew this day would come.
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The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)
In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and "the neighborhood homosexual," Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son's desire for privacy as a personal affront. When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn't be better. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to forget.
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Wreck
Rocky, still anxious, nostalgic, and funny, is living in Western Massachusetts with her husband Nick and their daughter Willa, who's back home after college. Their son, Jamie, has taken a new job in New York, and Mort, Rocky's widowed father, has moved in.
It all couldn't be more ridiculously normal . . . until Rocky finds herself obsessed with a local accident that only tangentially affects them--and with a medical condition that, she hopes, won't affect them at all.
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The Marriage Method
The Benevolent Academy for the Betterment of Young Ladies strives to distract, disrupt, and discredit men in power who would seek to harm the advancement of women. When intrepid newspaper editor Miles Quincey starts to question the school’s intentions, the Academy appoints Penelope “Nell” Trewlove, one of their brightest graduates, to put this nuisance to rest. It would be an easy mission if Miles wasn’t too fascinating to resist -- and if Nell’s visit to London didn’t perfectly coincide with the murder of one of Miles’s reporters.
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Not Quite Dead Yet
On Halloween night, Jet Mason is violently attacked by an unseen intruder, suffering a catastrophic head injury. Doctors are certain that within a week, the injury will trigger a fatal aneurysm. But now, in the one week she has left, she looks at everyone in a new light: her family, her former best friend turned sister-in-law, her ex-boyfriend. As her condition deteriorates, she reconnects with her childhood friend Billy, the only one willing to help her solve her own murder.
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Healthy To 100
In Healthy to 100, longevity expert Ken Stern takes us on a journey to some of the longest-lived countries in the world--Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Italy, and Spain--places that have achieved great advances in longevity by intentionally strengthening social connections. Science shows that physical and mental health outcomes are all improved by the intergenerational connectedness, sense of purpose, and respect enjoyed by older people in these countries.
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The Fight of His Life
In The Fight of His Life, award-winning sports historians Johnny Smith and Randy Roberts tell the story of heavyweight champion Joe Louis's battles both in and out of the ring. Already world-famous at the outset of World War II, Louis enlisted in the army, serving as a goodwill ambassador and promoting unity across military bases that crackled with racial tension. Yet Louis's experience with segregation in the army sparked his political awakening. As the war dragged on, he advocated for Black soldiers facing discrimination. Once the war ended, he joined veterans and civil rights activists to fight for voting rights and racial equality.
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The Graceview Patient
Margaret’s rare autoimmune condition destroys her life until she’s offered a fully paid-for spot in an experimental medical trial at Graceview Memorial, providing that she will live at the hospital as a full-time patient, subjecting herself to the near-total destruction of her immune system and its subsequent regeneration. Then she stumbles upon something sinister living and spreading within the hospital. Unsure of what's real and what is just medication-induced delusion, Margaret struggles to find a way out as her body and mind succumb further to the darkness lurking throughout Graceview's halls.
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Happy People Don't Live Here
Just past the edge of summer, Alice and her daughter, Fern, arrive at the Pine Lake Apartments--a former sanatorium occupied by an ensemble of peculiar neighbors and a smattering of ghosts. Fern alone is acquainted with the undead, and one day, Fern finds a dead body in the dumpster. Intent on solving the mystery of this discarded corpse, Fern eagerly puts her encyclopedic knowledge of detective novels to good use while dodging warnings from her increasingly paranoid mother.
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The Predicament
1963, Guatemala. The country is in turmoil, with a presidential election looming and a charismatic, left-wing ex-priest and trade union leader predicted to win. United Fruits, a giant American corporation responsible for a large percentage of the country's GNP, meanwhile, is not pleased by this prospect. Neither is the CIA. Amid the uncertainty, Gabriel Dax arrives on orders from his MI6 handler Faith Green, who has tasked him with assessing the fallout from the election.
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Cursed Daughters
When Ebun gives birth to her daughter, Eniiyi, on the day they bury her cousin Monife, there is no denying the startling resemblance between the child and the dead woman. So begins the belief, fostered and fanned by the entire family, that Eniiyi is the actual reincarnation of Monife, fated to follow in her footsteps in all ways, including that tragic end. There is also the matter of the family curse: "No man will call your house his home. And if they try, they will not have peace..." which has been handed down from generation to generation, breaking hearts and causing three generations of abandoned Falodun women to live under the same roof.
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Tigers Between Empires
Within these pages, characters—both feline and human—come fully alive as we travel with them through the quiet and changing forests of Amur. The Siberian Tiger Project became the longest-running tiger research initiative; its work continues to guide conservationists today. Jonathan C. Slaght’s Tigers Between Empires is the thrilling saga of the great Amur tiger and the scientists who came together, across the world, to save it.
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Startlement
Drawing from six previously published books--including widely acclaimed collections The Hurting Kind, The Carrying, and Bright Dead Things--as well as vibrant new work, Startlement exalts the mysterious. With a tender curiosity, Ada Limón wades into potent unknowns--the strangeness of our brief human lives, the ever-changing nature of the universe--and emerges each time with new revelations about our place in the world.
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Date Night in December
Laney Reynolds knows there's only one place that can help her heal a broken heart: The small town where she grew up, Cherrywood Creek. It feels good to leave the bustling city, where her husband was too busy climbing the corporate ladder to notice the growing distance between them. Connor received his wake-up call loud and clear when Laney left, and there's no way he's giving up on his marriage. If that means dropping everything and trading high-rises for gingerbread houses to sweep his wife off her feet in her hometown, then so be it.