Susan is on an idyllic holiday in Australia, The Barrier Reef is beautiful, Sydney and Melbourne wonderful. She wants to see the Outback. An Australian man offers to take her. She likes him. Yet now she is a captive. Her hands and feet are tied and her mouth is gagged. She is being taken to a river full of crocodiles and she is terrified. How could it have come to this?

DIVDIVMaddie has the red, white, and blues this Fourth of July!/divDIV The Fourth of July is super special in Far Hills. Everyone goes to the carnival, parade, and fireworks display—including all of Madison’s BFFs. Even her crush, Hart, is going. But Maddie’s excitement deflates when she learns she will have to spend the holiday week at Gramma Helen’s house on Lake Michigan. Maddie adores her gramma, but missing out on all the fun back home has her feeling the blues. When she meets a new boy at the lake, she feels fireworks—even though it’s not yet the Fourth of July! Maybe this summer won’t be so bad after all./div/div

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry comes a follow-up guide to more of the most popular questions about the universe. In this companion volume to Merlin's Tour of the Universe, Neil de Grasse Tyson presents a completely new collection of questions and answers about the cosmos for stargazers of all ages. Whether waxing about Earth and its environs, the Sun and its stellar siblings, the world of light, physical laws, or galaxies near and far, Merlin--a fictional visitor from Planet Omniscia and our guide to the universe--is easy to understand, often humorous, and always entertaining. Merlin fields a wide range of questions from many curious mortals, and in so doing draws on his own vast knowledge as well as the expertise of many close friends, including Archimedes, Galileo, Einstein, and Santa. Merlin hasn't been stumped yet, responding to questions including: If aliens exploded our moon, what effect would it have on us? What are your thoughts on the theory that a star named Nemesis is circling our solar system and was responsible for killing off the dinosaurs? Is it true that if I leave a container on my roof for a period of time, I can actually collect space particles from outer space? Delightfully illustrated throughout, Just Visiting This Planet is a timeless book for lovers of the universe by one of its brightest lights.

Reagan and Victoria are sure about two things in their future: they're going to be college roommates, and they're going to get out of Charytan, Kansas, together. But as they go on a series of college visits, the two begin to realize their visions of the future may not align, and as the secrets they've been keeping from the other slowly come to light, they learn they're not exactly the yin and yang they thought they were. Suddenly, neither one is sure what the next four years hold, or whether they'll be spending them together at all. Combining the unique settings of college visits with a cast that's diverse in race, ability, and socioeconomic class, Just Visiting touches upon the kinds of conversations we fear having with those closest to us, and why the strongest relationships can be the scariest. It also contains scenes that are rare but important in YA, about sexual agency, contraception/plan B, and relationships that neither last forever nor destroy the characters when they crumble

Madison is disappointed that she has to go to Gramma's lake house and miss all the summer fun in Far Hills until a mysterious boy visits the house next door and her summer starts to sizzle.

It is said that there are peaceful, other-dimensional beings called Arcturians and dark ones called Reptilians. Arvad is an alien from Arcturus. He embodies the idea of an angel and is interested in learning more about what it is like to be human. Coming from a higher dimension, he helps people understand life in hard times. This includes a European construction worker named Ted. Ted came to America for the American dream, but his life has become a nightmare. Arvad also follows a Buddhist who has temper tantrums when no one is around, as well as a rich film producer. One who was bullied when he was young and now loves having the power. Also touring with Arvad is a Reptilian, the demon-like alien with a demonic influence.

“An elegant and deeply moving meditation on friendship, family, and life on earth. Rules for Visiting is a wonderful novel.” —Emily St. John Mandel, author of Sea of Tranquility, The Glass Hotel, and Station Eleven The national bestseller and an Indie Next List pick Name a Best Book of the Year by O Magazine • Good Housekeeping • Real Simple • Vulture • Chicago Tribune Named a Best Book of the Summer by The Today Show • Good Morning America • Wall Street Journal • San Francisco Chronicle • Southern Living Shortlisted for the 2020 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize Long-listed for the 2020 Tournament of Books Dry, witty, and unapologetic, May Attaway loves literature and her work as a botanist for the university in her hometown. More at home with plants than people, May begins to suspect she isn’t very good at friendship and wonders if it’s possible to improve with practice. Granted some leave from her job, she sets out on a journey to spend time with four long-neglected friends. Smart, funny, and full of compassion, Rules for Visiting is the story of a search for friendship in the digital age, a singular look at the way we stay in touch. While May travels, she studies her friends’ lives and begins to confront the pain of her own. With simplicity and honesty, Jessica Francis Kane has crafted an exquisite story about a woman trying to find a new way to be in the world. This nourishing book, with its beautiful contemplation of travel, trees, family, and friendship, is the perfect antidote to our chaotic times.

Shannon’s one and only dream was to live in Chicago. Now she finally has her chance, tutoring the young brother of the wealthy and striking Nathanial Collins. But a terrible fate will intercede in a burgeoning romance with her new employer. For it would be a hot time in the old town tonight. It is 1871, and the Great Chicago Fire will burn, the winds will blow, and only the Firebrands survive.

Hogs Are Up: Stories of the Land, with Digressions reveals what makes Wes Jackson tick. What kind of lessons does he draw from his unique life experiences, and how do they shape his profoundly revolutionary worldview? Sometimes funny, sometimes wistful, always insightful, this volume demonstrates that when telling a good story, digressions can be the main point. Born during the Great Depression, Jackson tells stories of his youth on a diversified farm in the Kansas River Valley near Topeka, Kansas, culminating in more than forty years of leadership to radically transform agriculture, literally at its very roots. Wes Jackson draws deeply from the lessons learned from his experience dating from World War II to his work at The Land Institute to establish a new Natural Systems Agriculture. But this book is more than that. It includes an eclectic mix of thinkers and doers he’s met along the way. Wes Jackson is heavily influenced by the cultural legacy of grandparents, all four of whom were born before the Civil War began, and from his parents, who were born before 1900. He was born into a culture of crop diversity where animals and people were out in the fields and around. He saw the tractor arrive and the horses leave. After you read Hogs Are Up: Stories of the Land, with Digressions you may share his misgivings about what conventional thinkers see as “progress.” Jackson is constantly exploring the world around him and will engage anyone who can help him think about a discovery, an experiment, or recent insight. Jackson believes that our insights must go beyond the latest scholarly study and government report if we are to get the necessary interest for people to change. The stories and digressions he shares in Hogs Are Up are the fruit of a longtime effort to lay the agricultural and cultural foundation for a new worldview grounded in nature’s principles and located in rural communities able to survive through a new relationship of humanity to the ecosphere.