Meg and her siblings have been sent to the English countryside for the summer to stay with elderly relatives. The children are looking forward to exploring the ancient mansion and perhaps discovering a musty old attic or two filled with treasure, but never in their wildest dreams did they expect to find themselves in the middle of a fairy war. When Rowan pledges to fight for the beautiful fairy queen, Meg is desperate to save her brother. But the Midsummer War is far more than a battle between mythic creatures: Everything that lives depends on it. How can Meg choose between family and the fate of the very land itself?

There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things, and because it takes a man's life to know them the little new that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave. In the winter of 1933, Ernest Hemingway and his wife Pauline set out on a two-month safari in the big-game country of East Africa, camping out on the great Serengeti Plain at the foot of magnificent Mount Kilimanjaro. “I had quite a trip,” the author told his friend Philip Percival, with characteristic understatement. Green Hills of Africa is Hemingway's account of that expedition, of what it taught him about Africa and himself. Richly evocative of the region's natural beauty, tremendously alive to its character, culture, and customs, and pregnant with a hard-won wisdom gained from the extraordinary situations it describes, it is widely held to be one of the twentieth century's classic travelogues.

Only a few weeks ago, Meg Morgan and her siblings went to England for the holidays—and found themselves in the middle of a fairy war. Now the war is over, but the battle for control of the fairies has just begun. A mysterious painter named Gwidion appears at the Rookery, ready to give the children art lessons. But his real plans are far more sinister: He means to destroy the Guardian of the Green Hill, the woman who keeps the peace between fairies and humans. Meg knows nothing of the evil artist's plans, but she is beginning to understand that she might be the only one who can become Guardian when her great-great aunt's time is over. Yet Meg is just a girl—surely she has plenty of time before she must decide whether she wants to take on such an enormous role. Then someone she loves is stolen by fairies, and no one but Meg can get him back. . . .

In ''Stars Shall Bend Their Voices,'' some of the most respected living poets meditate on the role of hymns and spiritual songs in their lives and writing. Representing many spiritual traditions and many approaches to personal spiritual practice, Stars Shall Bend Their Voices is a testament to the lasting impact of spiritual music on many of today's best poets.

Whose skeleton is lying on the hilltop on Dooringrand? In the nineteenth century, a series of events took place in Port Natal and Zululand, which culminated in the downfall of the powerful Zulu nation. This is the story of three different cultures set against the turbulent backdrop of the Anglo-Zulu wars. Many questions are asked: Why were more Victoria Crosses awarded in a single encounter than ever before or since for bravery during the defense of Rorke's Drift? Why were the English so totally defeated the day before at Isandlwana? Why did the Zulus attack so unexpectedly? What caused the Boer farmers to align with the British, the very people whose oppressive rule they had escaped to Port Natal to get away from? And who is really the enemy? Journey with the little cattle boy who befriends a queen as he grows and becomes a warrior. Experience the ritual of the cleansing ceremonies and others that used to take place before battle. Witness his struggle in understanding the morality of warfare and killing. Experience the brutality and hardships that the Boer pioneers endured that sowed the seeds of the bitterness that gave birth to the hatred and cruel apartheid system of the future. Colonialism was at its height, and with it came an arrogance that ignored the needs and cultures of the inhabitants of any new acquisition. Learn how this attitude gave Britain one of its biggest and unnecessary defeats. It was also, by contrast, the stage for the most Victoria Crosses awarded for bravery for any single action in Britain's military history. All of this went into the melting pot of the rich tapestry that is the South Africa of today.

One of the earliest great stories of English literature after ?Beowulf?, ?Sir Gawain? is the strange tale of a green knight on a green horse, who rudely interrupts King Arthur's Round Table festivities one Yuletide, challenging the knights to a wager. Simon Armitrage, one of Britain's leading poets, has produced an inventive and groundbreaking translation that " helps] liberate ?Gawain ?from academia" (?Sunday Telegraph?).