Like David McCullough's "The Great Bridge, City in the Sky" is a riveting story of New York City itself, of architectural daring, human frailty, and a lost American icon.

When Seckry Sevenstars is forced out of his village by the greedy Endrin Corporation and relocated to the daunting metropolis of Skyfall City, he harbours resentment for the company and vows to get them back one day for taking away his home, his school and his friends. Fortunately, the marvels of the city do a good job in distracting Seckry from his anger and homesickness, and it isn't long before he's competing at Friction (the city's most popular multiplayer video game), slurping awe-inspiring multicoloured milkshakes, and getting butterflies on his first date. Then, when a mysterious email asks Seckry to break into the headquarters of the Endrin Corporation and steal a container full of worms for a hefty sum of money, his anger resurfaces, and he can't resist the revenge he promised himself. Alone at night, Seckry creeps through the sewers whilst wondering what experiments Endrin might be doing on the worms, and emerges into the silent complex. But the worms aren't the only thing that he finds. Staring at him through the darkness, with wide, innocent eyes, is something that makes Seckry's heart almost stop. A girl. She's shaking, petrified, and has no recollection of who she is or what she's doing there. Floodlights bleach the area and Seckry has no choice but to grab a hold of the girl and escape with her. Suddenly the question of what Endrin were doing with a few worms becomes the last thing on Seckry's mind. What were Endrin doing with a human?

Trapped between two peoples Erik Tarverro is a half-breed raised as a smith in the human city of Vidran. Hounded for his mixed blood and denied mastery in his craft, he leaps at the chance to join his father’s people in the Sky City of Newport. There, he learns he is the only heir of an ancient and noble line. His father’s name opens doors and gathers allies, but Erik must still struggle to understand both this strange new culture and his place within it. Fate will deny him a peaceful understanding, though, as the clouds of war gather – and his father’s enemies have laid their eyes upon his City in the Sky.

The New Yorker recently referred to Pat Metheny as “possibly the most influential jazz guitarist of the past five decades.” A native of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, just southeast of Kansas City, Metheny started playing in pizza parlors at age fourteen. By the time he graduated from high school he was the first-call guitarist for Kansas City jazz clubs, private clubs, and jazz festivals. Now 66, he attributes his early success to the local musical environment he was brought up in and the players and teachers who nurtured his talent and welcomed him into the jazz community. Metheny's twenty Grammys in ten categories speak to his versatility and popularity. Despite five decades of interviews, none have conveyed in detail his stories about his teenage years. Beneath Missouri Skies also reveals important details about jazz in Kansas City during the sixties and early seventies, often overlooked in histories of Kansas City jazz. Yet this time of cultural change was characterized by an outstanding level of musicianship. Author Carolyn Glenn Brewer shows how his keen sense of ensemble had its genesis in his school band under the guidance of a beloved band director. Drawn from news accounts, archival material, interviews, and remembrances, to which the author had unique access, Beneath Missouri Skies portrays a place and time from which Metheny still draws inspiration and strength.

Everything is a game of survival in the city of criminals ... even love. The world has become a harsh place and in the floating sky city of Tartarus, friendship is a rare commodity. When the only friend she has disappears, Cassandra will stop at nothing to find her. Even if it means risking her life. Five dangerous men each with their own personal scars track her down, mistaking Cassandra for her missing friend. Together, they discover that Tartarus might be harboring a secret so foul that it could destroy the broken sky scrapers that house the remainder of humankind. In the end, Cassandra will have to make a choice. Life or Death. Love or Loss. There's always a price to pay.

Navigating their burned-out, futuristic city home under constant threat from a pair of dragons circling the skies, three young people are forced to flee and confront challenges ranging from fire and conspiracies to taboo drugs and dragon-worshippers.

ONE GIRL. A DEADLY QUEST. AN EPIC JOURNEY. Nora Hunt has just joined the deadly quest to discover an ancient legend: the nine worlds of the Vikings. Her post-apocalyptic dystopian world, Triangle of Peace, is the only home she's ever known. But at sixteen years old, the skilled young warrior joins an elite band of raiders called Jarls. Her mission? Merely to win the perilous battle for the artifacts that awaken the Viking realms and avoid falling in love with the charming boy who just happens to be her worst enemy-and she's not quite sure which task is more difficult. But when Nora learns the Norse gods bestowed upon her a mystical secret in the form of the tattoo on her back, the stakes are higher than ever to claim the great Viking Empires.

It's Seckry Sevenstars' second year at Estergate Institute, and things are already shaping up to be just as eventful as the first; a revolting looking Nasty has appeared in the Food Grabber machine, a new lesson called fringe science has been added to his timetable, Mrs Cutson is acting more sadistic than ever, and two exchange students from Norsegate have arrived, causing trouble and provoking Seckry and his friends. On top of this, the twenty eighth Friction Mega Meltdown is fast approaching, and Seckry can't wait to transform into Anikam so he can revenge on Norsegate in the best way possible - by winning the trophy for the second year in a row! But with a major update having just been implemented, can Seckry and his teammates adapt quickly enough to outwit their opponents and capture the win? With homework mounting and Friction training at its most intense, Seckry has very little time for distractions, but Kevan Kayne, thought to be dead, has appeared in the city, and suddenly, Seckry is forced to rethink everything he knew about Eiya's existence. Also, after realising that the blank birthday card last year was actually from his father, he cannot help but try to uncover the truth behind his mysterious disappearance, and in his quest for answers, Seckry unearths long forgotten secrets buried within the school grounds. Secrets that will change his life forever. Get ready to join Seckry and friends for another epic adventure in this thrilling sequel to the bestselling City of the Falling Sky.

The fascinating history and unnerving future of high-tech aerial surveillance, from its secret military origins to its growing use on American citizens Eyes in the Sky is the authoritative account of how the Pentagon secretly developed a godlike surveillance system for monitoring America's enemies overseas, and how it is now being used to watch us in our own backyards. Whereas a regular aerial camera can only capture a small patch of ground at any given time, this system—and its most powerful iteration, Gorgon Stare—allow operators to track thousands of moving targets at once, both forwards and backwards in time, across whole city-sized areas. When fused with big-data analysis techniques, this network can be used to watch everything simultaneously, and perhaps even predict attacks before they happen. In battle, Gorgon Stare and other systems like it have saved countless lives, but when this technology is deployed over American cities—as it already has been, extensively and largely in secret—it has the potential to become the most nightmarishly powerful visual surveillance system ever built. While it may well solve serious crimes and even help ease the traffic along your morning commute, it could also enable far more sinister and dangerous intrusions into our lives. This is closed-circuit television on steroids. Facebook in the heavens. Drawing on extensive access within the Pentagon and in the companies and government labs that developed these devices, Eyes in the Sky reveals how a top-secret team of mad scientists brought Gorgon Stare into existence, how it has come to pose an unprecedented threat to our privacy and freedom, and how we might still capitalize on its great promise while avoiding its many perils.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “This is history at its most immediate and moving…A marvelous and memorable book.” —Jon Meacham ​“Remarkable…A priceless civic gift…On page after page, a reader will encounter words that startle, or make him angry, or heartbroken.” —The Wall Street Journal “Had me turning each page with my heart in my throat…There’s been a lot written about 9/11, but nothing like this. I urge you to read it.” —Katie Couric The first comprehensive oral history of September 11, 2001—a panoramic narrative woven from voices on the front lines of an unprecedented national trauma. Over the past eighteen years, monumental literature has been published about 9/11, from Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower to The 9/11 Commission Report. But one perspective has been missing up to this point—a 360-degree account of the day told through firsthand. Now, in The Only Plane in the Sky, Garrett Graff tells the story of the day as it was lived—in the words of those who lived it. Drawing on never-before-published transcripts, declassified documents, original interviews, and oral histories from nearly five hundred government officials, first responders, witnesses, survivors, friends, and family members, he paints the most vivid and human portrait of the September 11 attacks yet. Beginning in the predawn hours of airports in the Northeast, we meet the ticket agents who unknowingly usher terrorists onto their flights, and the flight attendants inside the hijacked planes. In New York, first responders confront a scene of unimaginable horror at the Twin Towers. From a secret bunker under the White House, officials watch for incoming planes on radar. Aboard unarmed fighter jets in the air, pilots make a pact to fly into a hijacked airliner if necessary to bring it down. In the skies above Pennsylvania, civilians aboard United 93 make the ultimate sacrifice in their place. Then, as the day moves forward and flights are grounded nationwide, Air Force One circles the country alone, its passengers isolated and afraid. More than simply a collection of eyewitness testimonies, The Only Plane in the Sky is the historic narrative of how ordinary people grappled with extraordinary events in real time: the father and son caught on different ends of the impact zone; the firefighter searching for his wife who works at the World Trade Center; the operator of in-flight telephone calls who promises to share a passenger’s last words with his family; the beloved FDNY chaplain who bravely performs last rites for the dying, losing his own life when the Towers collapse; and the generals at the Pentagon who break down and weep when they are barred from trying to rescue their colleagues. At once a powerful tribute to the courage of everyday Americans and an essential addition to the literature of 9/11, The Only Plane in the Sky weaves together the unforgettable personal experiences of the men and women who found themselves caught at the center of an unprecedented human drama. The result is a unique, profound, and searing exploration of humanity on a day that changed the course of history, and all of our lives.