#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A STARZ ORIGINAL SERIES Unrivaled storytelling. Unforgettable characters. Rich historical detail. These are the hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon’s work. Her New York Times bestselling Outlander novels have earned the praise of critics and captured the hearts of millions of fans. Here is the story that started it all, introducing two remarkable characters, Claire Beauchamp Randall and Jamie Fraser, in a spellbinding novel of passion and history that combines exhilarating adventure with a love story for the ages. One of the top ten best-loved novels in America, as seen on PBS’s The Great American Read! Scottish Highlands, 1945. Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding clans in the year of Our Lord . . . 1743. Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of a world that threatens her life, and may shatter her heart. Marooned amid danger, passion, and violence, Claire learns her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives. This eBook includes the full text of the novel plus the following additional content: • An excerpt from Diana Gabaldon’s Dragonfly in Amber, the second novel in the Outlander series • An interview with Diana Gabaldon • An Outlander reader’s guide Praise for Outlander “Marvelous and fantastic adventures, romance, sex . . . perfect escape reading.”—San Francisco Chronicle “History comes deliciously alive on the page.”—New York Daily News

The second edition of this book updates and expands upon a historically important collection of mathematical problems first published in the United States by Birkhäuser in 1981. These problems serve as a record of the informal discussions held by a group of mathematicians at the Scottish Café in Lwów, Poland, between the two world wars. Many of them were leaders in the development of such areas as functional and real analysis, group theory, measure and set theory, probability, and topology. Finding solutions to the problems they proposed has been ongoing since World War II, with prizes offered in many cases to those who are successful. In the 35 years since the first edition published, several more problems have been fully or partially solved, but even today many still remain unsolved and several prizes remain unclaimed. In view of this, the editor has gathered new and updated commentaries on the original 193 problems. Some problems are solved for the first time in this edition. Included again in full are transcripts of lectures given by Stanislaw Ulam, Mark Kac, Antoni Zygmund, Paul Erdös, and Andrzej Granas that provide amazing insights into the mathematical environment of Lwów before World War II and the development of The Scottish Book. Also new in this edition are a brief history of the University of Wrocław’s New Scottish Book, created to revive the tradition of the original, and some selected problems from it. The Scottish Book offers a unique opportunity to communicate with the people and ideas of a time and place that had an enormous influence on the development of mathematics and try their hand on the unsolved problems. Anyone in the general mathematical community with an interest in the history of modern mathematics will find this to be an insightful and fascinating read.

From Treasure Island to Trainspotting, Scotland's rich literary tradition has influenced writing across centuries and cultures far beyond its borders. Here, for the first time, is a single volume presenting the glories of fifteen centuries of Scottish literature. In Scotland's Books the much loved poet Robert Crawford tells the story of Scottish imaginative writing and its relationship to the country's history. Stretching from the medieval masterpieces of St. Columba's Iona - the earliest surviving Scottish work - to the energetic world of twenty-first-century writing by authors such as Ali Smith and James Kelman, this outstanding account traces the development of literature in Scotland and explores the cultural, linguistic and literary heritage of the nation. It includes extracts from the writing discussed to give a flavor of the original work, and its new research ranges from specially made translations of ancient poems to previously unpublished material from the Scottish Enlightenment and interviews with living writers. Informative and readable, this is the definitive single-volume guide to the marvelous legacy of Scottish literature.

'Unputdownable' Sunday Times 'I was hooked from page one' Guardian When Rilke, a dissolute auctioneer, comes upon a hidden collection of violent and highly disturbing photographs, he feels compelled to discover more about the deceased owner who coveted them. Soon he finds himself sucked into an underworld of crime, depravity and secret desire, fighting for his life.

"The best book ever written by man or woman...deserves to sell more copies than the Bible."--Rebel, Inc.

Sunset Song is widely regarded as one of the most important Scottish novels of the 20th century. Chris Guthrie, the female protagonist, is a strong character who grows up in a dysfunctional farming family. Life is hard after her dad's death and she must take some tough decisions to save her farms under the inevitable threat of World War I . . . Lewis Grassic Gibbon was the pseudonym of James Leslie Mitchell (1901-1935), a Scottish writer famous for his contribution to the Scottish Renaissance and portrayal of strong female characters.

Introduced by Jenni Calder and Roderick Watson. Kidnapped – Catriona – The Master of Ballantrae – Weir of Hermiston These four great novels take us deep into Robert Louis Stevenson’s imaginative and bitter-sweet relationship with his native country. Kidnapped, and its sequel Catriona, are renowned the world over as supreme stories of adventure and romance. On another level they also explore the subtle divisions of Scottish history and character in the eighteenth century, and (some would say) the present day. The Master of Ballantrae takes a darker and more disturbing turn, with its tale of rival brothers caught in a web of hatred, obsession, love and betrayal which draws them to their end in the frozen wastes of North America. Stevenson’s fascination with the divided nature of the human self (most obviously demonstrated in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) appears again in the Weir of Hermiston with its terrible confrontation between a father and his son. With an unsurpassed combination of physical adventure and psychological insight, The Scottish Novels have moved and thrilled readers and writers from Stevenson’s contemporaries to the present day.

The late eighteenth century witnessed an explosion of intellectual activity in Scotland by such luminaries as David Hume, Adam Smith, Hugh Blair, William Robertson, Adam Ferguson, James Boswell, and Robert Burns. And the books written by these seminal thinkers made a significant mark during their time in almost every field of polite literature and higher learning throughout Britain, Europe, and the Americas. In this magisterial history, Richard B. Sher breaks new ground for our understanding of the Enlightenment and the forgotten role of publishing during that period. The Enlightenment and the Book seeks to remedy the common misperception that such classics as The Wealth of Nations and The Life of Samuel Johnson were written by authors who eyed their publishers as minor functionaries in their profession. To the contrary, Sher shows how the process of bookmaking during the late eighteenth-century involved a deeply complex partnership between authors and their publishers, one in which writers saw the book industry not only as pivotal in the dissemination of their ideas, but also as crucial to their dreams of fame and monetary gain. Similarly, Sher demonstrates that publishers were involved in the project of bookmaking in order to advance human knowledge as well as to accumulate profits. The Enlightenment and the Book explores this tension between creativity and commerce that still exists in scholarly publishing today. Lavishly illustrated and elegantly conceived, it will be must reading for anyone interested in the history of the book or the production and diffusion of Enlightenment thought.

The first in a scintillating series by the New York Times bestselling author Karen Hawkins follows a desperate beauty on an urgent quest, a dark earl scarred by his beastly past—and the ancient treasure that binds their fates. Someone is holding her brother prisoner in exchange for a gold-and-onyx box covered in mysterious runes, so Mary Hurst boldly sets out from the family vicarage to find the priceless artifact. But the man who possesses it, Angus Hay, the Earl of Erroll, is less than sympathetic to her plight. Himself a prisoner of his dark past, Angus refuses to yield the box—or allow Mary to leave. Suspicious of the alluring lass’s mission, he vows to wrest a confession from her, but unearths a fiery temper and a will as strong as his own. Passion flares between them, but now there is more at stake: an unknown enemy is hunting down the precious box and will stop at nothing. Risking all for love, Angus must solve the mystery behind the runes…and trust the only woman who can awaken his forgotten heart.

“This could be the worthy Lord John Grey’s breakout novel, as readers are treated to large dollops of Outlander hero Jamie Fraser.”—Booklist A captivating return to the world Diana Gabaldon created in her Outlander and Lord John series, The Scottish Prisoner is a masterpiece of epic history, wicked deceit, and scores that can only be settled in blood. London, 1760. For Jamie Fraser, paroled prisoner-of-war, life is coming apart at the seams. In the remote Lake District, where he’s close enough to the son he cannot claim as his own, Jamie’s quiet existence is interrupted first by dreams of his lost wife, then by the appearance of an erstwhile comrade still fighting to rally the Irish. But Jamie has sworn off politics, fighting, and war. Until Lord John Grey shows up with a summons that will take him away from everything he loves—again. Lord John is in possession of explosive documents that expose a damning case of corruption against a British officer. But they also hint at a more insidious danger. Soon Lord John and Jamie are unwilling companions on the road to Ireland, a country whose dark castles hold dreadful secrets, and whose bogs hide the bones of the dead. Praise for The Scottish Prisoner “Call it what you will—historical adventure, conspiracy thriller—it’s an engrossing story, masterfully paced, with exciting plot twists, swift reversals, and robust characterizations.”—The Globe and Mail “As always, Gabaldon goes above and beyond. . . . If you love historical fiction, this book could be a good entrance point into the Outlander world.”—Bookreporter