Considering the global implications of the disaster, Salisbury describes the devastation and ecological and environmental consequences of the 1987 fire in Manchuria that destroyed an area the size of England

A charming story about kindness, friendship, and magic from a rising star picture book creator. How did dragons get their fire? It all began once upon a magical kingdom, where a fearsome dragon stalked the land. The dragon was mean and scary and evil, or so the stories said. One day, two brave children set out to stop him for good. But when they finally met the monster, he wasn't quite what they expected . . . Find out how two kids' determination to save their village led to a friendship that will warm the hearts of dragon lovers everywhere in this gorgeously illustrated celebration of the magic of kindness.

“As the book’s subtitle indicates, Mr. Ziegler uses one of the world’s great rivers as a vehicle to pursue this story—and what a vehicle it is. . . . [He] writes beautifully, and with the fervor of a naturalist.” —The Wall Street Journal “The writing is superb . . . a true labour of love, Black Dragon River is a triumph.” —The Spectator Black Dragon River is a personal journey down one of Asia’s great rivers that reveals the region’s essential history and culture. The world’s ninth largest river, the Amur serves as a large part of the border between Russia and China. As a crossroads for the great empires of Asia, this area offers journalist Dominic Ziegler a lens with which to examine the societies at Europe's only borderland with east Asia. He follows a journey from the river's top to bottom, and weaves the history, ecology and peoples to show a region obsessed with the past—and to show how this region holds a key to the complex and critical relationship between Russia and China today. One of Asia’s mightiest rivers, the Amur is also the most elusive. The terrain it crosses is legendarily difficult to traverse. Near the river’s source, Ziegler travels on horseback from the Mongolian steppe into the taiga, and later he is forced by the river’s impassability to take the Trans-Siberian Railway through the four-hundred-mile valley of water meadows inland. As he voyages deeper into the Amur wilderness, Ziegler also journeys into the history of the peoples and cultures the river’s path has transformed. The known history of the river begins with Genghis Khan and the rise of the Mongolian empire a millennium ago, and the story of the region has been one of aggression and conquest ever since. The modern history of the river is the story of Russia's push across the Eurasian landmass to China. For China, the Amur is a symbol of national humiliation and Western imperial land seizure; to Russia it is a symbol of national regeneration, its New World dreams and eastern prospects. The quest to take the Amur was to be Russia’s route to greatness, replacing an oppressive European identity with a vibrant one that faced the Pacific. Russia launched a grab in 1854 and took from China a chunk of territory equal in size nearly to France and Germany combined. Later, the region was the site for atrocities meted out on the Russian far east in the twentieth century during the Russian civil war and under Stalin. The long shared history on the Amur has conditioned the way China and Russia behave toward each other—and toward the outside world. To understand Putin’s imperial dreams, we must comprehend Russia’s relationship to its far east and how it still shapes the Russian mind. Not only is the Amur a key to Putinism, its history is also embedded in an ongoing clash of empires with the West.

Alone. Caged. Her only freedom will be in death... Captured as a chick, Sula can barely remember life outside her cage. Her tears, feathers and blood have been stolen until she's a pale shadow of the Phoenix she's meant to be. She prays for the sweet release of death, expecting it when her owner's warehouse is attacked. What she doesn't expect is the big male with the midnight eyes who rescues her, taking her home thinking she's a pet bird, or her reaction to his gentle touch and the scent of his dragon. After so many years, can she trust another... and reveal the truth about herself in the process? A dragon on a mission, he'll stop at nothing to destroy the slavers plaguing shifter society... And they don't come more in need than the little bird Damian discovers huddled in a box on his latest mission. A black dragon, he's responsible for the protection of dragonkind and by extension, all shifters, and he hates those who trade in paranormal artefacts with a passion. He's never taken any of them home, but the wide, golden eyes of the little bird hit him on a soul-deep level. The need to care for her and nurse her back to health overwhelm both him and his dragon, a need he doesn't understand until he finds a naked woman in his kitchen. A naked woman with very familiar golden eyes... But Sula's masters haven't given up on the profit she'll bring them and they track her down to Damian's apartment. When they take her, can he get to her in time, or will he lose his fated mate before they have a chance at their happily ever after? Keywords: pheonix, Dragon shifter paranormal romance, pheonix shifter, shifter romance, shifter romance , were dragon.

When Saba Watanabe, a once-powerful witch, is attacked by white dragons in human form, she is forced to turn to Malcolm, a black dragon who once made her his love slave, and together they must search for a mysterious book, filled with profound secrets, that is the key to their survival. Original

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A richly detailed story on a par with the rest of the Pern canon . . . another successful McCaffrey mother-and-son collaboration.”—Booklist At Natalon’s mining camp, Pellar embarks on a secret mission to discover whether the condemned criminals known as the Shunned are stealing coal. But the gifted tracker discovers that a far more treacherous plot is unfolding. A heartless thief named Tenim has realized there is profit to be made from firestone, the volatile mineral that enables the dragons of Pern to burn the lethal Thread out of the sky. When the last remaining firestone mine explodes, a desperate race begins to find a new deposit of the deadly but essential mineral. Sure enough, Tenim has a murderous plan to turn tragedy to his own advantage. Now Pellar and his new friends—the kind and gentle Halla, a child of the Shunned, and Cristov, the son of a corrupt miner—must stop Tenim. If they fail, it will mean the end for Pern and its dragonriders. “Grittier than the early parts of the series; Todd’s apparently brought a wider, more current worldview to Pern.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune “These fabled dragons still cast a spell.”—Publishers Weekly

Black Dragon recounts the experience of a single Marine rifle company—2-F-23, or “Fox” Company—and its drive through the central Pacific in World War II. Author Steven D. McCloud, through painstaking research of battlefield reports and extensive interviews with surviving members of Fox Company, has reanimated the grueling, day-by-day slog through the Pacific theater through the eyes of the US Marines who endured it. This is the story of American teenagers who left home, many for the first time, trained together, and formed a team that held strong until, at last, those who survived tried to leave it all behind as they dispersed, returned home, and sought to build their lives. Decades later, Fox Company re-formed through correspondence and reunions and also welcomed McCloud into their midst by telling him their stories. McCloud took notes, chased down company reports and other documents to fill in the gaps, and carefully reconstructed their journey. As one member of Fox Company recalled after returning to Iwo Jima half a century later, “I think the pilgrimage to Iwo has helped me conquer my black dragons—those bloody and stinking nightmares that made nightly uninvited visits for fifty-six years. My dreams were in color, predominantly bloody red. Those remaining are in black and white and shades of gray, not so violent and stinking. These I can live with.” Readers who reveled in Stephen Ambrose’s masterful oral history of E Company in the European theater will find similar heroism and heartbreak in the pages of Black Dragon.

Twelve-year-old Danny Woo had an unusual childhood. His parents were the star performers in the Mysterium circus—and they taught Danny plenty of tricks. But his parents' skills couldn't save them from dying in a suspicious fire. Now Danny and his aunt Laura, a journalist, are heading to Hong Kong so Laura can research the dangerous gang called the Black Dragon. Almost immediately, she's kidnapped and Danny realizes that the gang may be connected to his family's past. With the help of an old friend, Danny tries to free his aunt, and he uses every trick he knows to face off against the international criminal network that might be responsible for his parents' deaths.

On the wild ocean coast of Washington State you'll find enormous sea stacks at Point of Arches, Shi Shi Beach. The rocks loom high and dark over the water, like the backs of ancient mythical creatures. When Jaxon and Allie encounter the Shi Shi dragon, they are quickly befriended by the whole dragon family. But no one is safe from the thieving, temperamental dragon Zorg and his strange brood. Allie and Jaxon will need all the ingenuity they can muster--as well as the help of Niji, the dragon foundling--to defeat the dark-winged Zorg and restore peace to Shi Shi Beach.

Alex Hawke, British lord and gentleman spy, is looking for the Queen's missing grandson, whose disappearance may be the culmination of a century-old plot in this breathtaking new adventure from New York Times bestselling novelist Ted Bell. December 8, 1941, Washington, D.C. The new Chinese ambassador to the United States, Tiger Tang, meets with President Roosevelt one day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. For the next four years, China and the U.S. will be wartime allies, but the charming, sophisticated ambassador may be playing his own treacherous game. Today, the Bahamas Alex Hawke is recovering from serious injuries incurred during a battle with a malevolent enemy. His recuperation is interrupted by a desperate call from the Queen. Her favorite grandson has disappeared in the Bahamas. Lord Hawke is the only man she trusts with a mission this sensitive. All she knows is that the young prince was last seen at the exclusive resort the Dragonfire Club, owned by the nefarious Tang brothers, grandsons of Ambassador Tiger Tang.