A collection of short humorous pieces including "Women Without Bones," "The Day the Dopes Came Over," "How to Fold Soup," Dogs in My Nose," "Cruel Shoes," and "What to Say When the Ducks Show up."

Three orphan girls. A pair of pink slippers. A lifetime in the spotlight. Read the classic that has captivated generations! Pauline, Petrova, and Posy love their quiet life together. They are orphans who have been raised as sisters, and when their new family needs money, the girls want to help. They decide to join the Children's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training to earn their keep. Each girl works hard following her dream. Pauline is destined for the movies. Posy is a born dancer. And Petrova? She finds she'd rather be a pilot than perform a pirouette. This beautiful children's classic is perfect for girls who love to dream about ballet, friendship, and finding their own special talents. Adult readers may remember them as the "Shoes" books from You've Got Mail!

Steve Martin has been an international star for over thirty years. Here, for the first time, he looks back to the beginning of his career and charmingly evokes the young man he once was. Born in Texas but raised in California, Steve was seduced early by the comedy shows that played on the radio when the family travelled back and forth to visit relatives. When Disneyland opened just a couple of miles away from home, an enchanted Steve was given his first chance to learn magic and entertain an audience. He describes how he noted the reaction to each joke in a ledger - 'big laugh' or 'quiet' - and assiduously studied the acts of colleagues, stealing jokes when needed. With superb detail, Steve recreates the world of small, dark clubs and the fear and exhilaration of standing in the spotlight. While a philosophy student at UCLA, he worked hard at local clubs honing his comedy and slowly attracting a following until he was picked up to write for TV. From here on, Steve Martin became an acclaimed comedian, packing out venues nationwide. One night, however, he noticed empty seats and realised he had 'reached the top of the rollercoaster'. BORN STANDING UP is a funny and riveting chronicle of how Steve Martin became the comedy genius we now know and is also a fascinating portrait of an era.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the pages of Vogue to the runways of Paris, this “captivating” (Time) memoir by a legendary style icon captures the fashion world from the inside out, in its most glamorous and most cutthroat moments. “The Chiffon Trenches honestly and candidly captures fifty sublime years of fashion.”—Manolo Blahnik NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • Fortune • Garden & Gun • New York Post During André Leon Talley’s first magazine job, alongside Andy Warhol at Interview, a fateful meeting with Karl Lagerfeld began a decades-long friendship with the enigmatic, often caustic designer. Propelled into the upper echelons by his knowledge and adoration of fashion, André moved to Paris as bureau chief of John Fairchild’s Women’s Wear Daily, befriending fashion's most important designers (Halston, Yves Saint Laurent, Oscar de la Renta). But as André made friends, he also made enemies. A racially tinged encounter with a member of the house of Yves Saint Laurent sent him back to New York and into the offices of Vogue under Grace Mirabella. There, he eventually became creative director, developing an unlikely but intimate friendship with Anna Wintour. As she rose to the top of Vogue’s masthead, André also ascended, and soon became the most influential man in fashion. The Chiffon Trenches offers a candid look at the who’s who of the last fifty years of fashion. At once ruthless and empathetic, this engaging memoir tells with raw honesty the story of how André not only survived the brutal style landscape but thrived—despite racism, illicit rumors, and all the other challenges of this notoriously cutthroat industry—to become one of the most renowned voices and faces in fashion. Woven throughout the book are also André’s own personal struggles that impacted him over the decades, along with intimate stories of those he turned to for inspiration (Diana Vreeland, Diane von Fürstenberg, Lee Radziwill, to name a few), and of course his Southern roots and faith, which guided him since childhood. The result is a highly compelling read that captures the essence of a world few of us will ever have real access to, but one that we all want to know oh so much more about.

“A knockout” (People) of a thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell featuring medical examiner Kay Scarpetta. “Killing me won’t kill the beast” are the last words of rapist-murderer Ronnie Joe Waddell, written four days before his execution. But they can’t explain how medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta finds Waddell’s fingerprints on another crime scene—after she’d performed his autopsy. If this is some sort of game, Scarpetta seems to be the target. And if the next victim is someone she knows, the punishment will be cruel and unusual...

The statistics are startling. Since 1973, America’s imprisonment rate has multiplied over five times to become the highest in the world. More than two million inmates reside in state and federal prisons. What does this say about our attitudes toward criminals and punishment? What does it say about us? This book explores the cultural evolution of punishment practices in the United States. Anne-Marie Cusac first looks at punishment in the nation’s early days, when Americans repudiated Old World cruelty toward criminals and emphasized rehabilitation over retribution. This attitude persisted for some 200 years, but in recent decades we have abandoned it, Cusac shows. She discusses the dramatic rise in the use of torture and restraint, corporal and capital punishment, and punitive physical pain. And she links this new climate of punishment to shifts in other aspects of American culture, including changes in dominant religious beliefs, child-rearing practices, politics, television shows, movies, and more. America now punishes harder and longer and with methods we would have rejected as cruel and unusual not long ago. These changes are profound, their impact affects all our lives, and we have yet to understand the full consequences.

'A mix of urbane wit and surreal extrapolations - Douglas Adams meets Flann O'Brien' Independent Who else but Steve Martin could combine irrefutable evidence that Mars is populated by kittens with a treatise on sledgehammers? In this brilliantly witty collection of pieces Steve Martin takes a subversive glimpse at the world and a sideways swipe at the conventional. From memory tips for the over-fifties to his insightful exposition of 'Wittgenstein's Banana', never has 'pure drivel' been so entertaining.

Cat thought the Hydra epidemic was over, but when new cases pop up, she must team up with an enemy to fix the vaccine before the virus spirals out of control in this thrilling sequel to This Mortal Coil, which New York Times bestselling author Amie Kaufman says “redefines ‘unputdownable.’” The nightmare of the outbreak is finally over, but Cat’s fight has only just begun. Exhausted, wounded, and reeling from revelations that have shaken her to her core, Cat is at a breaking point. Camped in the woods with Cole and Leoben, she’s working day and night, desperate to find a way to stop Lachlan’s plan to reprogram humanity. But she’s failing—Cat can’t even control her newly regrown panel, and try as she might to ignore them, she keeps seeing glitching visions from her past everywhere she turns. When news arrives that the Hydra virus might not be as dead as they’d thought, the group is pushed into an uneasy alliance with Cartaxus to hunt down Lachlan and fix the vaccine. Their search takes them to Entropia, a city of gene-hackers hidden deep in the desert that could also hold the answers about Cat’s past that she’s been searching for. But when confronted with lies and betrayals, Cat is forced to question everything she knows and everyone she trusts. And while Lachlan is always two steps ahead, the biggest threat to Cat may be the secrets buried in her own mind.

On a snowy winter day in 1945 at age 12, Marika Roth barely escaped her own death only to witness the execution of hundreds of Jews by the side of the Danube. Running, starved and shoeless, through the streets of Budapest, ALL THE PRETTY SHOES is the story she survived to write. "Marika Roth's narrative holds us captive throughout one hell of a ride: betrayal, sexual predators, love affairs, modeling career, kidnapping of her children... Not to be missed!" -Tova Laiter, Producer, The Scarlett Letter and Varsity Blues "A story about the indomitable spirit of a woman faced with unimaginable horrors and impossible odds. Roth tells her extraordinary tale with clarity and a remarkable lack of self-pity." -Jillian Lauren, Author, SOME GIRLS: MY LIFE IN A HAREM "I remember Marika calling to say she'd discovered a memorial to the atrocity she'd witnessed ... I googled it and suddenly the draft of her memoir in my hands felt very, very heavy. This is a powerful book about overcoming the ongoing, chronic victimization that is all too often the prolonged second act of the refugee ordeal." -Robert Morgan Fisher, Award-Winning Writer ..."plucks at an emotional inner chord and serves as a portrayal of hope for the human condition." -Stefan Pollack, The Pollack PR Marketing Group "I have read books about how people suffered during WWII, like Imre Kertesz who won the Nobel Prize, but none moved me as much as ALL THE PRETTY SHOES. Roth's style, the way she narrated how cruel life can be, without judging others, truly brought tears to my eyes." -Vivian Nagy, Hungary "A story of self-discovery, wonderfully told, full of such drama that one can hardly believe that an innocent little girl could endure so much. I couldn't put it down!" -Mary Stokes-Rees, China "The story of Anne Frank cannot even compare to what Marika went through. A book all teenagers and young adults should read." -Shelia Durfey, Independent

Welcome to their kingdom...I never thought I'd step foot in Royal Manor again. But four years later, here I am...back to finish my senior year at Royal Hearts Academy.And forced to face Jace Covington. My first friend. First crush. First kiss. The one I left behind.Only-he isn't the same boy I gave my heart to.This new Jace is as cruel as he is gorgeous.And he's determined to make my life a living hell. Along with the rest of his glorified family and crew of tyrants.They expect me to worship the ground they walk on like everyone else, but I'd rather eat dirt.If Jace Covington wants me gone...he'll have to try harder. Because I've never been the kind of girl to play by the rules.WARNING: Royal Hearts Academy is a New Adult/High School series of standalones filled with drama, a touch of angst, and boys who are bad to the bone.This series is recommended for mature readers due to graphic language and sexual content.