Twins soul merged as one, with only a thin line between them. They are as difference as light and dark, with only a thin line between them. Balanced perfectly, one fueled by hate, greed, and lust. The other fueled by peace, hope, and love. The mother of Earth saw this and reaches down to touch the twin souls, causing this line distorted, casting the man to pushed into eternal darkness.
A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.
The entire #1 New York Times bestselling Magicians trilogy, including The Magicians, The Magician King, and The Magician's Land, now available in one ebook bundle The Magicians Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A high school math genius, he’s secretly fascinated with a series of children’s fantasy novels set in a magical land called Fillory, and real life is disappointing by comparison. When Quentin is unexpectedly admitted to an elite, secret college of magic, it looks like his wildest dreams may have come true. But his newfound powers lead him down a rabbit hole of hedonism and disillusionment, and ultimately to the dark secret behind the story of Fillory. The land of his childhood fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he ever could have imagined . . . The Magicians is one of the most daring and inventive works of literary fantasy in years. No one who has escaped into the worlds of Narnia and Harry Potter should miss this breathtaking return to the landscape of the imagination. The Magician King Quentin Coldwater should be happy. He escaped a miserable Brooklyn childhood, matriculated at a secret college for magic, and graduated to discover that Fillory—a fictional utopia—was actually real. But even as a Fillorian king, Quentin finds little peace. His old restlessness returns, and he longs for the thrills a heroic quest can bring. Accompanied by his oldest friend, Julia, Quentin sets off—only to somehow wind up back in the real-world and not in Fillory, as they’d hoped. As the pair struggle to find their way back to their lost kingdom, Quentin is forced to rely on Julia’s illicitly learned sorcery as they face a sinister threat in a world very far from the beloved fantasy novels of their youth. The Magician's Land Quentin Coldwater has lost everything. He has been cast out of Fillory, the secret magical world of his childhood dreams that he once ruled. With nothing left to lose he returns to where his story began, the Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic. But he can’t hide from his past, and it’s not long before it comes looking for him. Meanwhile, the magical barriers that keep Fillory safe are failing, and barbarians from the north have invaded. Eliot and Janet, the rulers of Fillory, embark on a final quest to save their beloved world, only to discover a situation far more complex—and far more dire—than anyone had envisioned. Along with Plum, a brilliant young magician with a dark secret of her own, Quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demimonde of gray magic and desperate characters. His new life takes him back to old haunts, like Antarctica and the Neitherlands, and old friends he thought were lost forever. The Magician’s Land is an intricate and fantastical thriller, and an epic of love and redemption that brings the Magicians trilogy to a magnificent conclusion, confirming it as one of the great achievements in modern fantasy.
The Swan Throne is the first part of the Under the Eagle trilogy, the epic saga of the nine hunters of the Angel of Death and their quest to shape or break the world of Tarmaan. The Swan Throne tells of a love that lent its light to a world darkened by violence and hate. It is the story of a young boy who grew into a man and a man who bravely accepted the fate lying before him. It is for those of us who have walked the paths of darkness and have found the light along the way. This story lives inside us all, because as we know, the night is darkest just before the dawn.
The first book in the classic vigilante action series from a “writer who spawned a genre” (The New York Times). Overseas, Mack Bolan was dubbed “Sgt. Mercy” for the compassion he showed the innocent. On the home front, they’re calling him the Executioner for what he’s doing to the guilty. In the jungles of Southeast Asia, American sniper Mack Bolan honed his skills. After twelve years, with ninety-five confirmed hits, he returns home to Massachusetts. But it’s not to reunite with his family, it’s to bury them—victims in a mass murder/suicide. Even though Bolan’s own father pulled the trigger, he knows the old man was no killer. He was driven to madness by Mafia thugs who have turned his idyllic hometown into a new kind of war zone. Duty calls . . . Introducing an action hero “who would make Jack Reacher think twice,” this is the first book in the iconic series of vigilante justice that has become a publishing phenomenon (Empireonline.com). With more than two hundred million Executioner books sold since its debut, the series continues to stimulate. Gerry Conway, cocreator of Marvel Comics’ The Punisher, credits the Executioner as “my inspiration . . . that’s what gave me the idea for the lone, slightly psychotic avenger.” The series is also now in development as a major motion picture. War Against the Mafia is the 1st book in the Executioner series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
A day in the life for anyone else would be ordinary, but not for Superman! There are robbers to catch, children to save, and the hordes of Apokolips to stop. And Darkseid and his minions provide only a hint of the threats on the way to challenge the Man of Steel.
Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is a tree belonging to the palm family (Arecaceae) and is cultivated for its sweet edible fruits. Over the past century, it has become a major commercial fruit crop and a key component of agricultural production in the world's subtropical arid and semiarid regions. A crop suited both to the low-input small-farmer and the modern high-input commercial plantation, the date palm provides a livelihood for millions of people living in marginal land areas where farming options are restricted. Date palm is mainly grown for its fruits, but the whole tree is utilized. Research into date palm improvement for fruit production in recent decades has brought about improved elite cultivars, stress and pathogen resistance, and enhanced postharvest technologies. These developments have led to revised recommendations for date palm producers, and increased opportunity to promote novel fruit products. With contributions from leading international experts, this is a valuable resource for researchers and students in horticulture, as well as date palm growers and processors.
In Killing Hope, William Blum, author of the bestselling Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, provides a devastating and comprehensive account of America's covert and overt military actions in the world, all the way from China in the 1940s to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and - in this updated edition - beyond. Is the United States, as it likes to claim, a global force for democracy? Killing Hope shows the answer to this question to be a resounding 'no'.
Declared “a writer to watch” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), New York Times bestselling author María Dueñas pours heart and soul into this story of a woman who discovers the power of second chances. A talented college professor in Madrid, Blanca Perea seems to have it all. But her world is suddenly shattered when her husband of twenty years leaves her for another woman. Questioning the life she once had and whether she truly knows herself, Blanca resolves to change her surroundings. She accepts what looks like a boring research grant in California involving an exiled Spanish writer who died decades ago. Anxious to leave her own troubled life behind, she is gradually drawn into his haunted world, with its poignant loves and unfulfilled ambitions. But in delving into the past, Blanca finds herself simultaneously awakened to the present by Daniel Carter, a charismatic professor with crucial knowledge about the dead writer that he has never before revealed. Amid this web of passion, conflict, and hidden feelings, including her own, Blanca advances like an avid detective, refusing to quit, and ultimately discovers startling answers that resonate deeply in her own life. Evocative, lyrical, and humorous, The Heart Has Its Reasons is a journey of the soul from the pangs of the past to the vibrant present. It is a story about the thrill of creating one’s life anew.
