From the author of Caesar and The Sins of the Father, a fictional memoir of the celebrated Scottish Romantic writer and historical novelist. Allan Massie recreates the life and times of Sir Walter Scott, one of Scotland’s greatest writers, convincingly capturing Scott’s humor, stoicism and eccentricity. Combining imaginative plausibility with his own deep knowledge of and love for Scott’s work, Massie reveals the intimate thoughts of a man at odds with his popular image: good and courageous, but also an enigma to those around him. By turns a ghost story and an examination of the Scottish character, The Ragged Lion is utterly enthralling. Praise for The Ragged Lion “Massie captures Scott’s humor, and his tragic qualities and stoicism.” —The Evening Standard (UK) “Profoundly human . . . Massie is a novelist for grown-ups.” —The Spectator (UK)

In this critically-acclaimed fictional memoir of Sir Walter Scott, Allan Massie recreates the life and times of one of Scotland's greatest writers, convincingly capturing Scott's humour, stoicism and eccentricity. Combining imaginative plausibility with his own deep knowledge of and love for Scott's work, Massie reveals the intimate thoughts of a man at odds with his popular image: good and courageous, but also an enigma to those around him. By turns a ghost story and an examination of the Scottish character, The Ragged Lion is utterly enthralling.

Young CIA officer Talia Inger has reconciled with the man who assassinated her father, but that doesn't mean she wants him hovering over her every move and unearthing the painful past she's trying to put behind her. Still, she'll need him--and the help of his star grifter, Valkyrie--if she hopes to infiltrate the Jungle, the first ever crowdsourced crime syndicate, to rescue a group of kidnapped refugee children. But as Talia and her elite team of thieves con their way into the heart of the Jungle, inching ever closer to syndicate boss the White Lion, she'll run right up against the ragged edge of her family's dark past. In this game of cat and mouse, it's win . . . or die. And in times like that, it's always good to have someone watching your back. Former tactical deception officer and stealth pilot James Hannibal takes you deep undercover into the criminal underworld where everyone has an angle and no one escapes unscathed.

Deployed to Iraq in March 2004 after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, US Marine Michael Zacchea thought he had landed a plum assignment. His team's mission was to build, train, and lead in combat the first Iraqi Army battalion trained by the US military. Quickly, he realized he was faced with a nearly impossible task. With just two weeks' training based on outdated and irrelevant materials, no language instruction, and few cultural tips for interacting with his battalion of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Yazidis, and others, Zacchea arrived at his base in Kirkush to learn his recruits would need beds, boots, uniforms, and equipment. His Iraqi officer counterparts spoke little English. He had little time to transform his troops—mostly poor, uneducated farmers—into a cohesive rifle battalion that would fight a new insurgency erupting across Iraq. In order to stand up a fighting battalion, Zacchea knew, he would have to understand his men. Unlike other combat Marines in Iraq at the time, he immersed himself in Iraq's culture: learning its languages, eating its foods, observing its traditions—even being inducted into one of its Sunni tribes. A constant source of both pride and frustration, the Iraqi Army Fifth Battalion went on to fight bravely at the Battle of Fallujah against the forces that would eventually form ISIS. The Ragged Edge is Zacchea's deeply personal and powerful account of hopeful determination, of brotherhood and betrayal, and of cultural ignorance and misunderstanding. It sheds light on the dangerous pitfalls of training foreign troops to fight murderous insurgents and terrorists, precisely when such wartime collaboration is happening more than at any other time in US history.

Chronicles the social, economic, and political history of Scotland, starting with its earliest peoples in 7000 B.C. and wrapping up with a discussion of eighteenth-century author Sir Walter Scott.

Discover the first romance in New York Times bestselling author Julie Garwood’s beloved Crown’s Spies series! Christina Bennett has taken London society by storm but the ravishing beauty has kept her mysterious past shrouded in secrecy. When the arrogant nobleman, Lyon, Marquis of Lyonwood, steals a sensuous kiss, however, he believes he tastes the wild fire smoldering beneath Christina’s cool charm and swears to possess her. But the feisty and defiant Christina cannot be so easily conquered. Mistress of her own heart and fortune, she resists Lyon’s passionate caresses and refuses to surrender to his desire for if she does, she must also forsake her precious secret and her promised destiny. With her “straightforward style and brisk pacing” (Kirkus Reviews), Julie Garwood’s classic romantic series is perfect for fans of Jude Deveraux and Julia Quinn.

If any thing connected with the hardness of the human heart could surprise us, it surely would be the indifference with which men live on, engrossed by their worldly objects, amid the sublime natural phenomena that so eloquently and unceasingly speak to their imaginations, affections, and judgments. So completely is the existence of the individual concentrated in self, and so regardless does he get to be of all without that contracted circle, that it does not probably happen to one man in ten, that his thoughts are drawn aside from this intense study of his own immediate wants, wishes, and plans, even once in the twenty-four hours, to contemplate the majesty, mercy, truth, and justice, of the Divine Being that has set him, as an atom, amid the myriads of the hosts of heaven and earth.

This book contains70 short storiesfrom 10 classic, prize-winning and noteworthy authors. The stories were carefully selected by the criticAugust Nemo, in a collection that will please theliterature lovers. For more exciting titles, be sure to check out our 7 Best Short Stories and Essential Novelists collections. This book contains: - Robert Louis Stevenson:The Waif Woman The Bottle Imp Thrawn Janet Markheim The Body Snatcher Olalla Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Robert E. Howard:Worms of the Earth The Queen of Black Coast Pigeons from Hell The Children of the Night Red Nails The Twilight of the Grey Gods The Shadow of the Vulture - G. K. Chesterton:The Blue Cross The Invisible Man The Man Who Was Thursday A Nightmare The Strange Crime of John Boulnois The Three Tools of Death The Wrong Shape The Mistake of the Machine - Edgar Wallace:The Cat Burglar Circumstantial Evidence The Ghost of Downhill The Poetical Policeman Red Aces The Four Just Men The Shadow Man - Arthur Machen:The Great God Pan The White People The Black Seal The Novel of the White Powder The Red Hand The Inmost Light The Bowmen - Ambrose Bierce:An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge One Summer Night The Death Of Halpin Frayser The Moonlit Road A Psychological Shipwreck The Stranger The Middle Toe of the Right Foot - Talbot Mundy:The Soul Of A Regiment The Pillar Of Light The Lady and the Lord Kitty Bruns Her Fingers The Mystic India Speaks The Real Red Root The Hermit and the Tiger - Abraham Merritt:The Pool Of The Stone God The Last Poet And The Robots The Fox Woman The People Of The Pit The Drone Through The Dragon Glass Three Lines Of Old French - Zane Grey:Amber's Mirage The Ranger Don: The Story Of A Lion Dog The Wolf Tracker Lure of the River A Missouri Schoolmarm Monty Price's Nightingale - Edgar Rice Burroughs:Tarzan's First Love A Jungle Joke Tarzan Rescues the Moon John Carter and the Giant Of Mars The Ancient Dead Beyond Thirty Skeleton Men of Jupiter