Jed is a regular kid with a normal, loving family . . . that is, if it's normal for a loving family to drop their child off in the middle of nowhere and expect him home in time for Sunday dinner. Luckily, Jed excels at being a regular kid who-armed with wit and determination-can make his way out of any situation. At least until the morning of his twelfth birthday, when Jed wakes to discover his parents missing. Something is wrong. Really wrong. Jed just doesn't realize it's floating-city, violent-junk-storm, battling-metals, Frankensteined-scavengers kind of wrong. Yet. A cryptic list of instructions leads Jed into a mysterious world at war over . . . junk. Here, batteries and bottled water are currency, tremendously large things fall from the sky, and nothing is exactly what it seems. Resilient Jed, ready to escape this upside-down place, bargains his way onto a flying tugboat with a crew of misfit junkers. They set course to find Jed's family, but a soul-crushing revelation sends Jed spiraling out of control . . . perhaps for good.

In the kingdom of Kaloon, nothing is quite as it seems.... "Y-y-y-you," he stammered, and Flissa turned to see he'd gone ashen. "T-t-t-two of you!" Uh-oh. Flissa reached up and checked. Sure enough, her hood had fallen off. Their secret was out. Princesses Flissa and Sara are even closer than most twins. In fact, most of the kingdom thinks they're the same person. When magic was outlawed in Kaloon generations ago, twins, black cats, and other potentially -magical beings were outlawed, too. Since they were born, Flissa and Sara have pretended to be one princess, Flissara, trading off royal duties like attending glamorous balls, participating in fencing exhibitions, and making friends with other young nobles, all while hiding in plain sight. But when the first magical attack in years puts their mother's life in danger, the girls must break the rules that have protected them to save her. With a brave servant boy and his plucky black kitten as their guides, they set off on an epic quest to the Twists—a forbidden place full of dark magic—to find the evil mage who cursed the queen. With a case of mistaken identity, a wickedly powerful exile out for vengeance, and time running out for their mother, the twins might just need to make their own magic to save the day. In the first book of this new series, author Elise Allen brings to life a fantastical world filled with high-stakes adventure, incredible twists, and all the spark and humor of sisterhood.

What Hurricane Katrina reveals about the fault lines of race and poverty in America-and what lessons we must take from the flood-from best-selling ''hip-hop intellectual'' Michael Eric Dyson Does George W. Bush care about black people? Does the rest of America? When Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, hundreds of thousands were left behind to suffer the ravages of destruction, disease, and even death. The majority of these people were black; nearly all were poor. The federal government's slow response to local appeals for help is by now notorious. Yet despite the cries of outrage that have mounted since the levees broke, we have failed to confront the disaster's true lesson; to be poor, or black, in today's ownership society, is to be left behind. Displaying the intellectual rigor, political passion, and personal empathy that have won him fans across the color line, Michael Eric Dyson offers a searing assessment of the meaning of Hurricane Katrina. Combining interviews with survivors of the disaster with his deep knowledge of black migrations and government policy over decades, Dyson provides the historical context that has been sorely missing from public conversation. He explores the legacy of black suffering in America since slavery, including the shocking ways that black people are framed in the national consciousness even today. With this call-to-action, Dyson warns us that we can only find redemption as a society if we acknowledge that Katrina was more than an engineering or emergency response failure. From the TV newsroom to the Capitol Building to the backyard, we must change the ways we relate to the black and the poor among us. What's at stake is no less than the future of democracy.

The New York Times Bestseller! The story of an outcast boy, his eccentric dad, and the scary underground world they discover through secret TUNNELS.14-year-old Will Burrows has little in common with his strange, dysfunctional family. In fact, the only bond he shares with his eccentric father is a passion for archaeological excavation. So when Dad mysteriously vanishes, Will is compelled to dig up the truth behind his disappearance. He unearths the unbelievable: a secret subterranean society. "The Colony" has existed unchanged for a century, but it's no benign time capsule of a bygone era--because the Colony is ruled by a cultlike overclass, the Styx. Before long--before he can find his father--Will is their prisoner....

Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book of the Year Time magazine Top Ten Nonfiction Book of 2007 Newsweek Favorite Books of 2007 A Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2007 In this sweeping and dramatic narrative, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, weaves together the histories of the twentieth century and its music, from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties; from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies up to the present. Taking readers into the labyrinth of modern style, Ross draws revelatory connections between the century's most influential composers and the wider culture. The Rest Is Noise is an astonishing history of the twentieth century as told through its music.

The #1 New York Times bestseller and sequel to Steelheart from Brandon Sanderson, the author of Oathbringer, coauthor of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series, and creator of the internationally bestselling Mistborn trilogy, presents the second book in the Reckoners series: Firefight. And don’t miss Calamity, the exciting conclusion to the Reckoners series! Newcago is free. They told David it was impossible, that even the Reckoners had never killed a High Epic. Yet Steelheart--invincible, immortal, unconquerable--is dead. And he died by David's hand. Eliminating Steelheart was supposed to make life simpler. Instead, it only made David realize he has questions. Big ones. And no one in Newcago can give him answers. Babylon Restored, the city formerly known as the borough of Manhattan, has possibilities, though. Ruled by the mysterious High Epic Regalia, Babylon Restored is flooded and miserable, but David is sure it's the path that will lead him to what he needs to find. Entering a city oppressed by a High Epic despot is risky, but David's willing to take the gamble. Because killing Steelheart left a hole in David's heart. A hole where his thirst for vengeance once lived. Somehow, he filled that hole with another Epic--Firefight. And now he will go on a quest darker and even more dangerous than the fight against Steelheart to find her, and to get his answers. Praise for the Reckoners Series: #1 New York Times Bestselling Series “Another win for Sanderson . . . he’s simply a brilliant writer. Period.” —Patrick Rothfuss, author of the New York Times and USA Today bestseller The Name of the Wind “Action-packed.” —EW.com “Compelling. . . . Sanderson uses plot twists that he teases enough for readers to pick up on to distract from the more dramatic reveals he has in store.” —The A.V. Club

'Can you smell gas?'Something's brewing in Mullet Head. . .Everyone feels better now that Gary Sleep and his dreadlocks have left school and scored a job. Everyone except Gary. Plumber's assistant is a long way from movie stuntman.And Kevin Daly the plumber is not a movie star. A grumpy man-mountain of muscle and hair, Kevin needs an assistant like a gas leak needs a spark. Together, Gary and Kevin could go up in a big way.A tragic-comedy about finding heart in yourself in the face of adversity; finding heart in the work you do and the people you meet, and fixing broken hearts. . . with silicone.

"'No one talks about what happens when you fall in love with the boy next door -- not when you're the boy living beside the boy next door.' Jared didn't want to do it, but it had to be done. Someone had to sit before the government hearing to explain why a gay man was nothing to be vilified, nothing to be hated or feared... that he was just a man. That is what Jared Montgomery is determined to do. He does so by sharing his story -- his and Luke's story -- in the hopes that perhaps even just one more person could understand. Luke and Jared were battling the odds from the beginning. Growing up beside each other, being best friends, they soon learned that if they wanted to share each other's company, it had to be done in secret, in the confines of the old train car behind the junkyard. There, they were free of the taunts and jibes, the ridicule and hatred... or were they? Unable to embrace who he is, unable to deal with the tactics used by his family to 'cure' him, Luke forces himself into a traditional marriage that is doomed from the start. His true, self-denied love for Jared, and the hatred surrounding it, is killing him. The question is, can Jared get to him before it is too late?" --From publisher description.

An exiled goddess goes on a quest to clear her name and save Mount Olympus in Talia Rothschild & A C Harvey's action-packed young adult debut, The Immortal Game! Galene, daughter of Poseidon, desperately wants to earn her place among the gods. But when a violent attack leaves Mount Olympus in chaos and ruins, she is accused of the crime. Banished from Olympus, Galene sets out to prove her innocence and discovers a more deadly plot—one that threatens even the oldest of Immortals. Fortunately, she has allies who willingly join her in exile: A lifelong friend who commands the wind. A defiant warrior with deadly skill. A fire-wielder with a hero’s heart. A mastermind who plays life like a game. All-out war is knocking at the gates. Galene and her friends are the only ones who can tip the scales toward justice, but their choices could save Olympus from total annihilation, or be the doom of them all.

When author Virginia M. Bolen found a watch in the parking lot of the shelter in which she volunteered in August of 1997, she had no idea the trouble that would follow. In Finders Keepers, she shares her story of being arrested and charged with felony theft in a small town in Montana. This accounts narrates Bolens encounter with a justice system run amuck. She describes what happened to her and how she fought back over a period of years to gain vindication. She was harassed, intimidated, jailed, and pilloried in the press for a crime that law enforcement knew she didnt commit. Through her own words, public records, correspondence, and newspaper articles, she portrays the personalities involved, including jail inmates (even the girlfriend of a serial killer), sheriffs deputies, county attorneys, bridge players, the mother of a world champion poker player, and a Montana State Senator. Finders Keepers gives insight into the personalities and mindset of authorities, who ignoring facts and common sense, persist in yielding their power. Its a case thats been followed by the legal community, even outside of Montana, because of its challenge to prosecutorial immunity.