World-famous authors are being killed using the methods in their stories. A world-renowned novelist and his wife are found dead in their East Florida beach home -- with no apparent cause. Something outrageous has been done to the bodies. Another best-selling author is killed on the other side of Florida. This time the cause of death is obvious. Are the two murders related? Connected? The MO's are completely different. The killers appear to be unstoppable, and to have some mad, crazy plan. Meanwhile, terrorists are burning libraries coast-to-coast. What are they trying to do? What is their goal? Are they trying to destroy the publishing industry? Fortunately former Olympic athlete FBI Special Agent Naomi Soul and her best friend Special Agent Xue Sang are on the case. They're the pop literary world's best chance to survive!

'Extraordinary. It is about death, but I can think of few books which have such life. It shows us what love is.' Max Porter, author of Grief is the Thing With Feathers and Lanny 'There is no one quite like Naja Marie Aidt' Valeria Luiselli 'Devastating, angry, challenging, fragmented and filled with the beautiful hope that the love we have for people continues into the world even after they're gone.' Culturefly 'Fragmented, poetic, informative and truthful, Aidt faces the greatest loss we can ever know with all the force of great elegy writers like Anne Carson and Denise Riley. Essential.' Polly Clark, author of Larchfield and Tiger _______ "I raise my glass to my eldest son. His pregnant wife and daughter are sleeping above us. Outside, the March evening is cold and clear. 'To life!' I say as the glasses clink with a delicate and pleasing sound. My mother says something to the dog. Then the phone rings. We don't answer it. Who could be calling so late on a Saturday evening?" In March 2015, Naja Marie Aidt's 25-year-old son, Carl, died in a tragic accident. When Death Takes Something From You Give It Back is about losing a child. It is about formulating a vocabulary to express the deepest kind of pain. And it's about finding a way to write about a reality invaded by grief, lessened by loss. Faced with the sudden emptiness of language, Naja finds solace in the anguish of Joan Didion, Nick Cave, C.S. Lewis, Mallarmé, Plato and other writers who have suffered the deadening impact of loss. Their torment suffuses with her own as Naja wrestles with words and contests their capacity to speak for the depths of her sorrow. This palimpsest of mourning enables Naja to turn over the pathetic, precious transience of existence and articulates her greatest fear: to forget. The insistent compulsion to reconstruct the harrowing aftermath of Carl's death keeps him painfully present, while fragmented memories, journal entries and poetry inch her closer to piecing Carl's life together. Intensely moving and quietly devastating, this is what is it to be a family, what it is to love and lose, and what it is to treasure life in spite of death's indomitable resolve.

To the four great calligraphic traditions - ancient Egyptian, East Asian, Islamic, and western European - is now added a fifth: that of the ancient Maya. Long known but little understood, Maya writing has now largely been deciphered, leading to a new understanding of the Maya scribes and the society in which they lived. This volume is the first to make full use of the latest research and the first to consider Maya writing both aesthetically and in terms of its meaning. Michael D. Coe begins by examining the origins and character of the script. He then explores the world of the scribes and "keepers of the holy books, " decoding their depiction in Maya art and describing the mediums in which they worked, their tools, and techniques.

Featuring more than 25 pen projects and using the latest hardware kits on the market, this helpful how-to book journeys from turning basic ballpoint pens to creating complex fountain pens. Beginning with a simple yet very elegant ballpoint, the steps in its creation are explained in detail while subsequent chapters and projects add additional complexity and techniques. The author's original designs for many unique tools are also included, discussing spiraling jigs in both the past and present and demonstrating their ability to produce the popular rope design as well as straight fluted or faceted pens. With tutorials on both wood and metal lathes, this guide goes beyond step-by-step processes, encouraging wood turners to use their imaginations and adopt this classic art as their own.