Four Stars

Big Little Lies

Amazon.com Review An Amazon Best Book of the Month, July 2014: What is it about Liane Moriarty’s books that makes them so irresistible? They’re just classic “domestic” novels about marriage, motherhood, and modern upper-middle-class family life, after all. And despite the fact that Big Little Lies is Moriarty’s sixth adult novel (and it comes decades after the grandmother of this kind of thing, Bridget Jones’ Diary ), it is remarkably new and fresh and winning Set in an Australian suburb, Big Little Lies focuses on three women, all of whom have children at the same preschool. One is a great beauty married to a fabulously rich businessman; they have a “perfect” set of twins. One is the can-do mom who can put together a mean pre-school art project but can’t prevent her teenage daughter from preferring her divorced dad. The third is a withdrawn, single mother who doesn’t quite fit in. Right from the start--thanks to a modern “Greek chorus” that narrates the action--we know that someone is going to end up dead. The questions are who and how. Miraculously, Moriarty keeps this high concept plot aloft, largely because she infuses it with such wit and heart. She also knows not to overplay the message she’s sending: that we all tell lies--to each other and, more importantly, to ourselves. --Sara Nelson Review Praise for Big Little Lies “Ms. Moriarty’s long-parched fans have something new to dig into… Big Little Lies [may have] even more staying power than The Husband’s Secret. ”— The New York Times “Funny and thrilling, page-turning but with emotional depth, Big Little Lies is a terrific follow-up to The Husband’s Secret .”— Booklist (starred review)“ Big Little Lies tolls a warning bell about the big little lies we tell in order to survive. It takes a powerful stand against domestic violence even as it makes us laugh at the adults whose silly costume party seems more reminiscent of a middle-school dance.”— The Washington Post “Moriarty demonstrates an excellent talent for exposing the dark, seedy side of the otherwise “perfect” family unit…Highly recommended.”— Library Journal (starred review)“Irresistible…Exposing the fault lines in what looks like perfection is a specialty of Liane Moriarty… Moriarty’s sly humor and razor-sharp insights will keep you turning the pages to find out.”— People Magazine "The secrets burrowed in this seemingly placid small town...are so suburban noir they would make David Lynch clap with glee...[Moriarty] is a fantastically nimble writer, so sure-footed that the book leaps between dark and light seamlessly; even the big reveal in the final pages feels earned and genuinely shocking.”— Entertainment Weekly “If you're looking for a novel that will turn you into a compulsive book-finisher look no further. Moriarty has produced another gripping, satirical hit...It’s can’t-put-downability comes from its darker subplots...A book that will make you appreciate the long days of summer.”— Oprah.com "Reading one [of Liane Moriarty's novels] is a bit like drinking a pink cosmo laced with arsenic...a fun, engaging and sometimes disturbing read…Moriarty is back in fine form."— USA Today “A juicy drama.”— People Stylewatch “Not your average mommy novel. It’s a juicy, twisted murder mystery replete with themes of marital abuse and self-denial…The perfect mindless beach read.”— Purewow.com “Suburbia is about to get a lot more scandalous.”— Closer Weekly "The Aussie author of last year’s runaway hit The Husband’s Secret comes back with another winning and wise novel that intertwines the lives of three women."— EW.com "It’s no mystery why Liane Moriarty is a summer staple: with wit and compassion...[she] keeps it real."— Family Circle “Riveting and insightful…Moriarty has crafted a great summer read full of perceptive glimpses into the many guises of human relationships: mother-child, husband-wife (and ex-wife) and above all, the strong bond of female friendships.”— Bookpage "Deservedly popular Moriarty invigorates … women’s fiction through wit, good humor, sharp insight into human nature and addictive storytelling."— Kirkus Reviews (starred review) About the Author Liane Moriarty is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Truly Madly Guilty , Big Little Lies , The Husband’s Secret , The Hypnotist’s Love Story , and What Alice Forgot . She lives in Sydney, Australia, with her husband and two children. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. ***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected proof***  Copyright © 2014 by Liane Moriarty Chapter 1 “That doesn’t sound like a school trivia night,” said Mrs. Patty Ponder to Marie Antoinette. “That sounds like a riot.” The cat didn’t respond. She was dozing on the couch and found school trivia nights to be trivial. “Not interested, eh? Let them eat cake! Is that what you’re thinking? They do eat a lot of cake, don’t they? All those cake stalls. Goodness me. Although I don’t think any of the mothers ever actually eat them. They’re all so sleek and skinny, aren’t they? Like you.” Marie Antoinette sneered at the compliment. The “let them eat cake” thing had grown old a long time ago, and she’d recently heard one of Mrs. Ponder’s grandchildren say it was meant to be “let them eat brioche” and also that Marie Antoinette never said it in the first place. Mrs. Ponder picked up her television remote and turned down the volume onDancing with the Stars. She’d turned it up loud earlier because of the sound of the heavy rain, but the rain had eased now. She could hear people shouting. Angry hollers crashed through the quiet, cold night air. It was somehow hurtful for Mrs. Ponder to hear, as if all that rage were directed at her. (Mrs. Ponder had grown up with an angry mother.) “Goodness me. Do you think they’re arguing over the capital of Guatemala? Do you know the capital of Guatemala? No? I don’t either. We should Google it. Don’t sneer at me.” Marie Antoinette sniffed. “Let’s go see what’s going on,” said Mrs. Ponder briskly. She was feeling nervous and therefore behaving briskly in front of the cat, the same way she’d once done with her children when her husband was away and there were strange noises in the night. Mrs. Ponder heaved herself up with the help of her walker. Marie Antoinette slid her slippery body comfortingly in between Mrs. Ponder’s legs (she wasn’t falling for the brisk act) as she pushed the walker down the hallway to the back of the house. Her sewing room looked straight out onto the school yard of Pirriwee Public. “Mum, are you mad? You can’t live this close to a primary school,” her daughter had said when she was first looking at buying the house. But Mrs. Ponder loved to hear the crazy babble of children’s voices at intervals throughout the day, and she no longer drove, so she couldn’t care less that the street was jammed with those giant, truck-like cars they all drove these days, with women in big sunglasses leaning across their steering wheels to call out terribly urgent information about Harriett’s ballet and Charlie’s speech therapy. Mothers took their mothering so seriously now. Their frantic little faces. Their busy little bottoms strutting into the school in their tight gym gear. Ponytails swinging. Eyes fixed on the mobile phones held in the palms of their hands like compasses. It made Mrs. Ponder laugh. Fondly, though. Her three daughters were exactly the same. And they were all so pretty. “How are you this morning?” she always called out if she was on the front porch with a cup of tea or watering the front garden as they went by. “Busy, Mrs. Ponder! Frantic!” they always called back, trotting along, yanking their children’s arms. They were pleasant and friendly and just a touch condescending because they couldn’t help it. She was so old! They were so busy! The fathers, and there were more and more of them doing the school run these days, were different. They rarely hurried, strolling past with a measured casualness. No big deal. All under control. That was the message. Mrs. Ponder chuckled fondly at them too. But now it seemed the Pirriwee Public parents were misbehaving. She got to the window and pushed aside the lace curtain. The school had recently paid for a window guard after a Year 3 boy’s cricket ball had smashed the glass and nearly knocked out Marie Antoinette. (A group of them had given her a hand-painted apology card, which she kept on her fridge.) There was a two-story sandstone building on the other side of the playground with an event room on the second level and a big balcony with ocean views. Mrs. Ponder had been there for a few functions: a talk by a local historian, a lunch hosted by the Friends of the Library. It was quite a beautiful room. Sometimes ex-students had their wedding receptions there. That’s where they’d be having the school trivia night. They were raising funds for SMART Boards, whatever they were. Mrs. Ponder had been invited as a matter of course. Her proximity to the school gave her a funny sort of honorary status, even though she’d never had a child or grandchild attend. She’d said no thank you to the school trivia night invitation. She thought school events without the children in attendance were pointless. The children had their weekly school assembly in the same room. Each Friday morning, Mrs. Ponder set herself up in the sewing room with a cup of English Breakfast and a ginger-nut biscuit. The sound of the children singing floating down from the second floor of the building always made her weep. She’d never believed in God, except when she heard children singing. There was no childish singing now. Mrs. Ponder could hear a lot of bad language. She wasn’t a prude about bad language—her eldest daughter swore like a trooper—but it was upsetting and disconcerting to hear someone maniacally screaming that particular four-letter word in a place that was normally filled with childish laughter and shouts. “Are you all drunk?” she said. Her rain-splattered window was at eye level with the entrance doors to the building, and suddenly people began to spill out. Security lights illuminated the paved area around the entrance like a stage set for a play. Clouds of mist added to the effect. It was a strange sight. The parents at Pirriwee Public had a baffling fondness for costume parties. It wasn’t enough that they should have an ordinary trivia night; she knew from the invitation that some bright spark had decided to make it an “Audrey and Elvis” trivia night, which meant that the women all had to dress up as Audrey Hepburn and the men had to dress up as Elvis Presley. (That was another reason Mrs. Ponder had turned down the invitation. She’d always abhorred costume parties.) It seemed that the most popular rendition of Audrey Hepburn was the Breakfast at Tiffany’s look. All the women were wearing long black dresses, white gloves and pearl chokers. Meanwhile, the men had mostly chosen to pay tribute to the Elvis of the latter years. They were all wearing shiny white jumpsuits, glittery gemstones and plunging necklines. The women looked lovely. The poor men looked perfectly ridiculous. As Mrs. Ponder watched, one Elvis punched another across the jaw. He staggered back into an Audrey. Two Elvises grabbed him from behind and pulled him away. An Audrey buried her face in her hands and turned away, as though she couldn’t bear to watch. Someone shouted, “STOP THIS!” Indeed. What would your beautiful children think? “Should I call the police?” wondered Mrs. Ponder out loud, but then she heard the wail of a siren in the distance, at the same time as a woman on the balcony began to scream and scream. Gabrielle: It wasn’t like it was just the mothers, you know. It wouldn’t have happened without the dads. I guess it started with the mothers. We were the main players, so to speak. The mums. I can’t stand the word “mum.” It’s a frumpy word, don’t you think? “Mom” is better. With an o. It sounds skinnier. We should change to the American spelling. I have body image issues, by the way. Who doesn’t, right? Bonnie: It was all just a terrible misunderstanding. People’s feelings got hurt, and then everything just spiraled out of control. The way it does. All conflict can be traced back to someone’s feelings getting hurt, don’t you think? Divorce. World wars. Legal action. Well, maybe not every legal action. Can I offer you an herbal tea? Stu: I’ll tell you exactly why it happened: Women don’t let things go. Not saying the blokes don’t share part of the blame. But if the girls hadn’t gotten their knickers in a knot . . . And that might sound sexist, but it’s not, it’s just a fact of life. Ask any man—not some new-age, artsy- fartsy, I-wear-moisturizer type, I mean a real man—ask a real man, then he’ll tell you that women are like the Olympic athletes of grudges. You should see my wife in action. And she’s not even the worst of them. Miss Barnes: Helicopter parents. Before I started at Pirriwee Public, I thought it was an exaggeration, this thing about parents being overly involved with their kids. I mean, my mum and dad loved me, they were, like, interested in me when I was growing up in the nineties, but they weren’t, like, obsessed with me. Mrs. Lipmann: It’s a tragedy, and deeply regrettable, and we’re all trying to move forward. I have no further comment. Carol: I blame the Erotic Book Club. But that’s just me. Jonathan: There was nothing erotic about the Erotic Book Club, I’ll tell you that for free. Jackie: You know what? I see this as a feminist issue. Harper: Who said it was a feminist issue? What the heck? I tell you what started it: the incident at the kindergarten orientation day. Graeme: My understanding was that it all goes back to the stay-at-home mums battling it out with the career mums. What do they call it? The Mummy Wars. My wife wasn’t involved. She doesn’t have time for that sort of thing. Thea: You journalists are just loving the French nanny angle. I heard someone on the radio today talking about the “French maid,” which Juliette was certainly not. Renata had a housekeeper as well. Lucky for some. I have four children, and no staff to help out! Of course, I don’t have a problem per se with working mothers, I just wonder why they bothered having children in the first place. Melissa: You know what I think got everyone all hot and bothered? The head lice. Oh my gosh, don’t let me get started on the head lice. Samantha: The head lice? What did that have to do with anything? Who told you that? I bet it was Melissa, right? That poor girl suffered post-traumatic stress disorder after her kids kept getting reinfected. Sorry. It’s not funny. It’s not funny at all. Detective-Sergeant Adrian Quinlan: Let me be clear: This is not a circus. This is a murder investigation. Chapter 2 SIX MONTHS BEFORE THE TRIVIA NIGHT Forty. Madeline Martha Mackenzie was forty years old today. “I am forty,” she said out loud as she drove. She drew the word out in slow motion, like a sound effect. “Fooorty.” She caught the eye of her daughter in the rearview mirror. Chloe grinned and imitated her mother. “I am five. Fiiiive.” “Forty!” trilled Madeline like an opera singer. “Tra la la la!” “Five!” trilled Chloe. Madeline tried a rap version, beating out the rhythm on the steering wheel. “I’m forty, yeah, forty—” “That’s enough now, Mummy,” said Chloe firmly. “Sorry,” said Madeline. She was taking Chloe to her “Kindergarten—Let’s Get Kindy Ready!—Orientation.” Not that Chloe required any orientation before starting school next January. She was already very firmly oriented at Pirriwee Public. At this morning’s drop- off Chloe had been busy taking charge of her brother, Fred, who was two years older but often seemed younger. “Fred, you forgot to put your book bag in the basket! That’s it. In there. Good boy.” Fred had obediently dropped his book bag in the appropriate basket before running off to put Jackson in a headlock. Madeline had pretended not to see the headlock. Jackson probably deserved it. Jackson’s mother, Renata, hadn’t seen it either, because she was deep in conversation with Harper, both of them frowning earnestly over the stress of educating their gifted children. Renata and Harper attended the same weekly support group for parents of gifted children. Madeline imagined them all sitting in a circle, wringing their hands while their eyes shone with secret pride. While Chloe was busy bossing the other children around at orientation (her gift was bossiness, she was going to run a corporation one day), Madeline was going to have coffee and cake with her friend Celeste. Celeste’s twin boys were starting school next year too, so they’d be running amuck at orientation. (Their gift was shouting. Madeline had a headache after five minutes in their company.) Celeste always bought exquisite and very expensive birthday presents, so that would be nice. After that, Madeline was going to drop Chloe off with her mother-in- law, and then have lunch with some friends before they all rushed off for school pickup. The sun was shining. She was wearing her gorgeous new Dolce and Gabbana stilettos (bought online, thirty percent off). It was going to be a lovely, lovely day. “Let the Festival of Madeline begin!” her husband, Ed, had said this morning when he brought her coffee in bed. Madeline was famous for her fondness of birthdays and celebrations of all kinds. Any excuse for champagne. Still. Forty. As she drove the familiar route to the school, she considered her magnificent new age. Forty. She could still feel “forty” the way it felt when she was fifteen. Such a colorless age. Marooned in the middle of your life. Nothing would matter all that much when you were forty. You wouldn’t have real feelings when you were forty, because you’d be safely cushioned by your frumpy forty-ness. Forty-year-old woman found dead. Oh dear. Twenty-year-old woman found dead. Tragedy! Sadness! Find that murderer! Madeline always had to do a minor shift in her head when she heard something on the news about a woman dying in her forties. But, wait, that could be me! That would be sad! People would be sad if I was dead! Devastated, even. So there, age- obsessed world. I might be forty, but I am cherished. On the other hand, it was probably perfectly natural to feel sadder over the death of a twenty-year-old than a forty-year-old. The forty-year-old had enjoyed twenty years more of life. That’s why, if there were a gunman on the loose, Madeline would feel obligated to throw her middle-aged self in front of the twenty- year-old. Take a bullet for youth. It was only fair. Well, she would if she could be sure it was a nice young person. Not one of those insufferable ones, like the child driving the little blue Mitsubishi in front of Madeline. She wasn’t even bothering to hide the fact that she was using her mobile phone while she drove, probably texting or updating her Facebook status. See! This kid wouldn’t have even noticed the loose gunman! She would have been staring vacantly at her phone, while Madeline sacrificed her life for her! It was infuriating. The little car appeared to be jammed with young people. At least three in the back, their heads bobbing about, hands gesticulating. Was that somebody’s foot waving about? It was a tragedy waiting to happen. They all needed to concentrate. Just last week, Madeline had been having a quick coffee after her ShockWave class and reading a story in the paper about how all the young people were killing themselves sending texts while they drove. On my way. Nearly there!These were their last foolish (and often misspelled) words. Madeline had cried over the picture of one teenager’s grief-stricken mother, absurdly holding up her daughter’s mobile phone to the camera as a warning to readers. “Silly little idiots,” she said out loud as the car weaved dangerously into the next lane. “Who is an idiot?” said her daughter from the backseat. “The girl driving the car in front of me is an idiot because she’s driving her car and using her phone at the same time,” said Madeline. “Like when you need to call Daddy when we’re running late?” said Chloe. “I only did that one time!” protested Madeline. “And I was very careful and very quick! And I’m forty years old!” “Today,” said Chloe knowledgeably. “You’re forty years old today.” “Yes! Also, I made a quick call, I didn’t send a text! You have to take your eyes off the road to text. Texting while driving is illegal and naughty, and you must promise to never ever do it when you’re a teenager.” Her voice quivered at the thought of Chloe being a teenager and driving a car. “But you’re allowed to make a quick phone call?” checked Chloe. “No! That’s illegal too,” said Madeline. “So that means you broke the law,” said Chloe with satisfaction. “Like a robber.” Chloe was currently in love with the idea of robbers. She was definitely going to date bad boys one day. Bad boys on motorcycles. “Stick with the nice boys, Chloe!” said Madeline after a moment. “Like Daddy. Bad boys don’t bring you coffee in bed, I’ll tell you that for free.” “What are you babbling on about, woman?” sighed Chloe. She’d picked this phrase up from her father and imitated his weary tone perfectly. They’d made the mistake of laughing the first time she did it, so she’d kept it up, and said it just often enough, and with perfect timing, so that they couldn’t help but keep laughing. This time Madeline managed not to laugh. Chloe currently trod a very fine line between adorable and obnoxious. Madeline probably trod the same line herself. Madeline pulled up behind the little blue Mitsubishi at a red light. The young driver was still looking at her mobile phone. Madeline banged on her car horn. She saw the driver look in her rearview mirror, while all her passengers craned around to look. “Put down your phone!” she yelled. She mimicked texting by jabbing her finger in her palm. “It’s illegal! It’s dangerous!” The girl stuck her finger up in the classic up-yours gesture. “Right!” Madeline pulled on her emergency brake and put on her hazard lights. “What are you doing?” said Chloe. Madeline undid her seat belt and threw open the car door. “But we’ve got to go to orientation!” said Chloe in a panic. “We’ll be late! Oh, calamity!” “Oh, calamity” was a line from a children’s book that they used to read to Fred when he was little. The whole family said it now. Even Madeline’s parents had picked it up, and some of Madeline’s friends. It was a very contagious phrase. “It’s all right,” said Madeline. “This will only take a second. I’m saving young lives.” She stalked up to the girl’s car on her new stilettos and banged on the window. The window slid down, and the driver metamorphosed from a shadowy silhouette into a real young girl with white skin, sparkly nose ring and badly applied, clumpy mascara. She looked up at Madeline with a mixture of aggression and fear. “What is your problem?” Her mobile phone was still held casually in her left hand. “Put down that phone! You could kill yourself and your friends!” Madeline used the exact same tone she used on Chloe when she was being extremely naughty. She reached in the car, grabbed the phone and tossed it to the openmouthed girl in the passenger seat. “OK? Just stop it!” She could hear their gales of laughter as she walked back to the car. She didn’t care. She felt pleasantly stimulated. A car pulled up behind hers. Madeline smiled, lifted her hand apologetically and hurried back to be in her car before the lights changed. Her ankle turned. One second it was doing what an ankle was meant to do, and the next it was flipping out at a sickeningly wrong angle. She fell heavily on one side. Oh, calamity. That was almost certainly the moment the story began. With the ungainly flip of an ankle. Read more

The Children Act

Review "Absorbing." — The New Yorker "McEwan presents a ferociously intelligent and competent woman struggling to rule on a complex legal matter while feeling humiliated and betrayed by her husband ... a notable volume from one of the finest writers alive." —Ron Charles, The Washington Post "A short, concise, strong novel in which a judge's ruling decides the fate of a teenage boy in ways she never intended or imagined ... it's a book that begins with the briskness of a legal brief written by a brilliant mind, and concludes with a gracefulness found in the work of few other writers."— Meg Wolitzer, NPR "A quietly exhilarating book ... The Children Act chronicles the recalibration of a 30-year marriage after it has fallen out of balance." —Mona Simpson, Los Angeles Times "Haunting ... a brief but substantial addition to the author’s oeuvre." — Entertainment Weekly , A- "[ The Children Act ’s] sense of life-and-death urgency never wavers ... you would have to go back to Saturday or Atonement to find scenes of equivalent intensity and emotional investment." — Wall Street Journal "Smart and elegant ... a grown-up novel that reminds us just how messy life can be and how the justice system ... doesn't always deliver justice." —Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today " The Children Act manages to be highly subtle and page-turningly dramatic at once ... Only a master could manage, in barely over 200 pages, to engage so many ideas, leaving nothing neatly answered." —Boston Globe "Heartbreaking and profound, it skillfully juxtaposes the dilemmas of ordinary life and tabloid-ready controversy." — People "McEwan crafts a taut morality tale in crystalline sentences." — O Magazine "As in Atonement , what doesn’t happen has the power to destroy; as in Amsterdam , McEwan probes the dread beneath civilized society. In spare prose, he examines cases, people, and situations, to reveal anger, sorrow, shame, impulse, and yearning. He rejects religious dogma that lacks compassion, but scrutinizes secular morality as well ... Few will deny McEwan his place among the best of Britain’s living novelists." — Publishers Weekly , starred review "McEwan, always a smart, engaging writer, here takes more than one familiar situation and creates at every turn something new and emotionally rewarding in a way he hasn’t done so well since On Chesil Beach." —Kirkus Reviews , starred review "Irrefutably creative ... With his trademark style, which is a tranquil mix of exacting word choice and easily flowing sentences, McEwan once again observes with depth and wisdom the universal truth in the uncommon situation." — Booklist , starred review About the Author IAN McEWAN is the bestselling author of fifteen books, including the novels Sweet Tooth ; Solar , winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize; On Chesil Beach ; Saturday ; Atonement , winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the W. H. Smith Literary Award; The Comfort of Strangers and Black Dogs , both short-listed for the Booker Prize; Amsterdam , winner of the Booker Prize; and The Child in Time , winner of the Whitbread Award; as well as the story collections First Love, Last Rites , winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and In Between the Sheets . Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. ONELondon. Trinity term one week old. Implacable June weather. Fiona Maye, a High Court judge, at home on Sunday evening, supine on a chaise longue, staring past her stockinged feet toward the end of the room, toward a partial view of recessed bookshelves by the fireplace and, to one side, by a tall window, a tiny Renoir lithograph of a bather, bought by her thirty years ago for fifty pounds. Probably a fake. Below it, centered on a round walnut table, a blue vase. No memory of how she came by it. Nor when she last put flowers in it. The fireplace not lit in a year. Blackened raindrops falling irregularly into the grate with a ticking sound against balled-up yellowing newsprint. A Bokhara rug spread on wide polished floorboards. Looming at the edge of vision, a baby grand piano bearing silver-framed family photos on its deep black shine. On the floor by the chaise longue, within her reach, the draft of a judgment. And Fiona was on her back, wishing all this stuff at the bottom of the sea.In her hand was her second Scotch and water. She was feeling shaky, still recovering from a bad moment with her husband. She rarely drank, but the Talisker and tap water was a balm, and she thought she might cross the room to the sideboard for a third. Less Scotch, more water, for she was in court tomorrow and she was duty judge now, available for any sudden demand, even as she lay recuperating. He had made a shocking declaration and placed an impossible burden on her. For the first time in years, she had actually shouted, and some faint echo still resounded in her ears. "You idiot! You fucking idiot!" She had not sworn out loud since her carefree teenage visits to Newcastle, though a potent word sometimes intruded on her thoughts when she heard self-serving evidence or an irrelevant point of law.And then, not long after that, wheezy with outrage, she had said loudly, at least twice, "How dare you!"It was hardly a question, but he answered it calmly. "I need it. I'm fifty-nine. This is my last shot. I've yet to hear evidence for an afterlife."A pretentious remark, and she had been lost for a reply. She simply stared at him, and perhaps her mouth was open. In the spirit of the staircase, she had a response now, on the chaise longue. "Fifty-nine? Jack, you're sixty! It's pathetic, it's banal."What she had actually said, lamely, was, "This is too ridiculous.""Fiona, when did we last make love?"When did they? He had asked this before, in moods plaintive to querulous. But the crowded recent past can be difficult to recall. The Family Division teemed with strange differences, special pleading, intimate half-truths, exotic accusation. And as in all branches of law, fine-grained particularities of circumstance needed to be assimilated at speed. Last week, she heard final submissions from divorcing Jewish parents, unequally Orthodox, disputing their daughters' education. The draft of her completed judgment was on the floor beside her. Tomorrow, coming before her again would be a despairing Englishwoman, gaunt, pale, highly educated, mother of a five-year-old girl, convinced, despite assurances to the court to the contrary, that her daughter was about to be removed from the jurisdiction by the father, a Moroccan businessman and strict Muslim, to a new life in Rabat, where he intended to settle. Otherwise, routine wrangles over residence of children, over houses, pensions, earnings, inheritance. It was the larger estates that came to the High Court. Wealth mostly failed to bring extended happiness. Parents soon learned the new vocabulary and patient procedures of the law, and were dazed to find themselves in vicious combat with the one they once loved. And waiting offstage, boys and girls first-named in the court documents, troubled little Bens and Sarahs, huddling together while the gods above them fought to the last, from the Family Proceedings Court, to the High Court, to the Court of Appeal.All this sorrow had common themes, there was a human sameness to it, but it continued to fascinate her. She believed she brought reasonableness to hopeless situations. On the whole, she believed in the provisions of family law. In her optimistic moments she took it as a significant marker in civilization's progress to fix in the statutes the child's needs above its parents'. Her days were full, and in the evenings recently, various dinners, something at Middle Temple for a retiring colleague, a concert at Kings Place (Schubert, Scriabin), and taxis, Tube trains, dry-cleaning to collect, a letter to draft about a special school for the cleaning lady's autistic son, and finally sleep. Where was the sex? At that moment, she couldn't recall."I don't keep a record."He spread his hands, resting his case.She had watched as he crossed the room and poured himself a measure of Scotch, the Talisker she was drinking now. Lately, he was looking taller, easier in his movements. While his back was turned to her she had a cold premonition of rejection, of the humiliation of being left for a young woman, of being left behind, useless and alone. She wondered if she should simply go along with anything he wanted, then rejected the thought.He had come back toward her with his glass. He wasn't offering her a Sancerre the way he usually did around this time."What do you want, Jack?""I'm going to have this affair.""You want a divorce.""No. I want everything the same. No deception.""I don't understand.""Yes you do. Didn't you once tell me that couples in long marriages aspire to the condition of siblings? We've arrived, Fiona. I've become your brother. It's cozy and sweet and I love you, but before I drop dead, I want one big passionate affair."Mistaking her amazed gasp for laughter, for mockery perhaps, he said roughly, "Ecstasy, almost blacking out with the thrill of it. Remember that? I want one last go, even if you don't. Or perhaps you do."She stared at him in disbelief."There it is, then."This was when she had found her voice and told him what kind of idiot he was. She had a powerful grip on what was conventionally correct. That he had, as far as she knew, always been faithful made his proposition all the more outrageous. Or if he'd deceived her in the past he'd done it brilliantly. She already knew the name of the woman. Melanie. Not so remote from the name of a fatal form of skin cancer. She knew she could be obliterated by his affair with this twenty-eight-year-old statistician."If you do this it'll be the end for us. It's as simple as that.""Is this a threat?""My solemn promise."By then she had regained her temper. And it did seem simple. The moment to propose an open marriage was before the wedding, not thirty-five years later. To risk all they had so that he might relive a passing sensual thrill! When she tried to imagine wanting something like it for herself—her "last fling" would be her first—she could think only of disruption, assignations, disappointment, ill-timed phone calls. The sticky business of learning to be with someone new in bed, newly devised endearments, all the fakery. Finally, the necessary disentangling, the effort required to be open and sincere. And nothing quite the same when she came away. No, she preferred an imperfect existence, the one she had now.But on the chaise longue it rose before her, the true extent of the insult, how he was prepared to pay for his pleasures with her misery. Ruthless. She had seen him single-minded at the expense of others, most often in a good cause. This was new. What had changed? He had stood erect, feet well apart as he poured his single malt, the fingers of his free hand moving to a tune in his head, some shared song perhaps, not shared with her. Hurting her and not caring—that was new. He had always been kind, loyal and kind, and kindness, the Family Division daily proved, was the essential human ingredient. She had the power to remove a child from an unkind parent and she sometimes did. But remove herself from an unkind husband? When she was weak and desolate? Where was her protective judge?Self-pity in others embarrassed her, and she wouldn't have it now. She was having a third drink instead. But she poured only a token measure, added much water and returned to her couch. Yes, it had been the kind of conversation of which she should have taken notes. Important to remember, to measure the insult carefully. When she threatened to end the marriage if he went ahead, he had simply repeated himself, told her again how he loved her, always would, that there was no other life but this, that his unmet sexual needs caused him great unhappiness, that there was this one chance and he wanted to take it with her knowledge and, so he hoped, her assent. He was speaking to her in the spirit of openness. He could have done it "behind her back." Her thin, unforgiving back."Oh," she murmured. "That's decent of you, Jack.""Well, actually..." he said, and didn't finish.She guessed he was about to tell her the affair had already begun and she couldn't bear to hear it. Didn't need to. She saw it. A pretty statistician working on the diminishing probability of a man returning to an embittered wife. She saw a sunlit morning, an unfamiliar bathroom, and Jack, still decently muscled, pulling a half-unbuttoned clean white linen shirt over his head in that impatient way he had, a discarded shirt tossed toward the laundry basket hanging by one arm before sliding to the floor. Perdition. It would happen, with or without her consent."The answer's no." She had used a rising tone, like a flinty schoolmarm. She added, "What else would you expect me to say?"She felt helpless and wanted the conversation to end. There was a judgment to approve before tomorrow for publication in the Family Law Reports. The fates of two Jewish schoolgirls had already been settled in the ruling she had delivered in court, but the prose needed to be smoothed, as did the respect owed to piety in order to be proof against an appeal. Outside, summer rain beat against the windows; distantly, from beyond Gray's Inn Square, tires hissed on drenched asphalt. He would leave her and the world would go on.His face had been tight as he shrugged and turned to leave the room. At the sight of his retreating back, she felt the same cold fear. She would have called after him but for the dread of being ignored. And what could she say? Hold me, kiss me, have the girl. She had listened to his footsteps down the hall, their bedroom door closing firmly, then silence settling over their flat, silence and the rain that hadn't stopped in a month.First the facts. Both parties were from the tight folds of the strictly observant Haredi community in north London. The Bernsteins' marriage was arranged by their parents, with no expectation of dissent. Arranged, not forced, both parties, in rare accord, insisted. Thirteen years on, all agreed, mediator, social worker and judge included, that here was a marriage beyond repair. The couple were now separated. Between them they managed with difficulty the care of the two children, Rachel and Nora, who lived with the mother and had extensive contact with the father. Marriage breakdown had started in the early years. After the difficult birth of the second girl, the mother was unable to conceive again, due to radical surgery. The father had set his heart on a large family and thus began the painful unraveling. After a period of depression (prolonged, said the father; brief, said the mother), she studied at the Open University, gained a good qualification and entered on a career in teaching at primary level once the younger had started school. This arrangement did not suit the father or the many relatives. Within the Haredim, whose traditions were unbroken for centuries, women were expected to raise children, the more the better, and look after the home. A university degree and a job were highly unusual. A senior figure of good standing in the community was called as a witness by the father and said as much.Men did not receive much education either. From their mid-teens, they were expected to give most of their time to studying the Torah. Generally, they did not go to university. Partly for this reason, many Haredim were of modest means. But not the Bernsteins, though they would be when their lawyers' bills were settled. A grandparent with a share in a patent for an olive-pitting machine had settled money on the couple jointly. They expected to spend everything they had on their respective silks, both women well known to the judge. On the surface, the dispute concerned Rachel and Nora's schooling. However, at stake was the entire context of the girls' growing up. It was a fight for their souls.Haredi boys and girls were educated separately to preserve their purity. Modish clothes, television and the Internet were forbidden, and so was mixing with children who were allowed such distractions. Homes that did not observe strict kosher rules were out of bounds. Every aspect of daily existence was well covered by established customs. The problem had started with the mother, who was breaking with the community, though not with Judaism. Against the father's objections, she was already sending the girls to a coeducational Jewish secondary school where television, pop music, the Internet and mixing with non-Jewish children were permitted. She wanted her girls to stay on at school past the age of sixteen and to go to university if they wished. In her written evidence she said she wanted her daughters to know more about how others lived, to be socially tolerant, to have the career opportunities she never had, and as adults to be economically self-sufficient, with the chance of meeting the sort of husband with professional skills who could help to support a family. Unlike her husband, who gave all his time to studying, and teaching the Torah eight hours a week without pay.For all the reasonableness of her case, Judith Bernstein—angular pale face, uncovered frizzy ginger hair fastened with a huge blue clasp—was not an easy presence in court. A constant passing forward with freckly agitated fingers of notes to her counsel, much muted sighing, eye-rolling and lip-pursing whenever her husband's counsel spoke, inappropriate rummaging and jiggling in an outsized camel leather handbag, removing from it at one low point in a long afternoon a pack of cigarettes and a lighter—provocative items in her husband's scheme, surely—and lining them up side by side, on hand for when the court rose. Fiona saw all this from her advantage of height but pretended not to.Mr. Bernstein’s written evidence was intended to persuade the judge that his wife was a selfish woman with “anger- management  problems” (in the Family Division, a common, often mutual charge) who had turned her back on her marriage vows, argued with his parents and her community, cutting the girls off from both. On the contrary, Judith said from the stand, it was her parents-in-law who would not see her or the children until they had returned to the proper way of life, disowned the modern world, including social media, and until she kept a home that was kosher by their terms.Mr. Julian Bernstein, reedily tall, like one of the rushes that hid the infant Moses, apologetically stooped over court papers, sidelocks stirring  moodily as his barrister accused his wife of being unable to separate her own needs from the children’s. What she said they needed was whatever she wanted for herself. She was wrenching the girls away from a warmly secure and familiar environment, disciplined but loving, whose rules and observances provided for every contingency, whose identity was clear, its methods proven through the generations, and whose members were generally happier and more fulfilled than those of the secular consumerist world outside—a world that mocked the spiritual life and whose mass culture denigrated girls and women. Her ambitions were frivolous, her methods disrespectful, even destructive. She loved her children far less than she loved herself.To which Judith responded huskily that nothing denigrated a person, boy or girl, more than the denial of a decent education and the dignity of proper work; that all through her childhood and teenage years she had been told that her only purpose in life was to run a nice home for her husband and care for his children—and that too was a denigration of her right to choose a purpose for herself. When she pursued, with great difficulty, her studies at the Open University, she faced ridicule, contempt and anathemas. She had promised herself that the girls would not suffer the same limitations.The opposing barristers were in tactical agreement (because it was plainly the judge’s view) that the issue was not merely a matter of education. The court must choose, on behalf of the children, between total religion and something a little less. Between cultures, identities, states of mind, aspirations, sets of family relations, fundamental definitions, basic loyalties, unknowable futures.In such matters there lurked an innate predisposition in favor of the status quo, as long as it appeared benign. The draft of Fiona’s judgment was twenty-one pages long, spread in a wide fan facedown on the floor, waiting for her to take it up, a sheet at a time, to mark with soft pencil.No sound from the bedroom, nothing but the susurrus of traffic gliding through the rain. She resented the way she waslistening out for him, her attention poised, holding its breath, for the creak of the door or a floorboard. Wanting it,  dreading it.Among fellow judges, Fiona Maye was praised, even in her absence, for crisp prose, almost ironic, almost warm, and for the compact terms in which she laid out a dispute. The Lord Chief Justice himself was heard to observe of her in a murmured aside at lunch, “Godly distance, devilish understanding, and still beautiful.” Her own view was that with each passing year she inclined a little more to an exactitude some might have called pedantry, to the unassailable  definition that might pass one day into frequent citation, like Hoffmann in Piglowska v. Piglowski , or Bingham or Ward or the indispensable Scarman, all of whom she had made use of here. Here being the limp, unperused first page hanging from her fingers. Was her life about to change? Were learned friends soon to be murmuring in awe over lunch here, or in Lincoln’s or Inner or Middle Temple, And then she threw him out ? Out of the delightful Gray’s Inn flat, where she would sit alone until at last the rent, or the years, mounting like the sullen tidal Thames, swept her out too?Back to her business. Section one: “Background.” After routine observations about the family’s living arrangements, about residence of the children and contact with the father, she described in a separate paragraph the Haredi community, and how within it religious practice was a total way of life. The distinction between what was rendered to Caesar and what to God was meaningless, much as it was for observant Muslims. Her pencil hovered. To cast Muslim and Jew as one, might that seem unnecessary or provocative, at least to the father? Only if he was unreasonable, and she thought he was not. Stet.Her second section was entitled “Moral differences.” The court was being asked to choose an education for two young girls, to choose between values. And in cases like this one, an appeal to what was generally acceptable in society at large was of little help. It was here she invoked Lord Hoffmann. “These are value judgments on which reasonable people may differ. Since judges are also people, this means that some degree of diversity in their application of values is inevitable...”Over the page, in her lately developing taste for the patient, exacting digression, Fiona devoted several hundred words to a definition of welfare, and then a consideration of the standards to which such welfare might be held. She followed Lord Hailsham in allowing the term to be inseparable from well-being and to include all that was relevant to a child’s development as a person. She acknowledged Tom Bingham in accepting that she was obliged to take a medium- and long-term view, noting that a child today might well live into the twenty-second century. She quoted from an 1893 judgment by Lord Justice Lindley to the effect that welfare was not to be gauged in purely financial terms, or merely by reference to physical comfort. She would take the widest possible view. Welfare, happiness, well-being must embrace the philosophical concept of the good life. She listed some relevant ingredients, goals toward which a child might grow. Economic and moral freedom, virtue, compassion and altruism, satisfying work through engagement with demanding tasks, a flourishing network of personal relationships, earning the esteem of others, pursuing larger meanings to one’s existence, and having at the center of one’s life one or a small number of significant relations defined above all by love.Yes, by this last essential she herself was failing. The Scotch and water in a tumbler at her side was untouched; the sight of its urinous yellow, its intrusive  corky smell, now repelled her. She should be angrier, she should be talking to an old friend—she had several—she should be striding into the bedroom, demanding to know more. But she felt shrunken to a geometrical point of anxious purpose. Her judgment must be ready for printing by tomorrow’s deadline, she must work. Her personal life was nothing. Or should have been. Her attention remained divided between the page in her hand and, fifty feet away, the closed bedroom door. She made herself read a long paragraph, one she had been dubious about the moment she had spoken it aloud in court. But no harm in a robust statement of the obvious. Well-being was social . The intricate web of a child’s relationships with family and friends was the crucial ingredient. No child an island. Man a social animal, in Aristotle’s famous construction. With four hundred words on this theme, she put to sea, with learned references (Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill) filling her sails. The kind of civilized reach every good judgment needs.And next, well-being was a mutable concept, to be evaluated by the standards of the reasonable man or woman of today. What sufficed a generation ago might now fall short. And again, it was no business of the secular court to decide between religious beliefs or theological differences. All religions were deserving of respect provided they were, in Lord Justice Purchas’s phrase, “legally and socially acceptable” and not, in Lord Justice Scarman’s darker formulation, “immoral or socially obnoxious.”Courts should be slow to intervene in the interests of the child against the religious principles of the parents. Sometimes they must. But when? In reply, she invoked one of her favorites, wise Lord Justice  Munby in the Court of Appeal. “The infinite variety of the human condition precludes arbitrary definition.” The admirable Shakespearean touch. Nor custom stale her infinite variety. The words derailed her. She knew the speech of Enobarbus by heart, having played him once as a law student, an all-female affair on a lawn in Lincoln’s Inn Fields one sunny midsummer’s afternoon. When the burden of bar exams had recently been lifted from her aching back. Around that time, Jack fell in love with her, and not long after, she with him. Their first lovemaking was in a borrowed attic room that roasted under its roof in the afternoon sun. An unopenable porthole window gave a view east of a slice of Thames toward the Pool of London.She thought of his proposed or actual lover, his statistician, Melanie—she had met her once—a silent young woman with heavy amber beads and a taste for the kind of stilettos that could wreck an old oak floor. Other women cloy / The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry / Where most she satisfies. It could be just like that, a poisonous obsession, an addiction drawing him away from home, bending him out of shape, consuming all they had of past and future, as well as present. Or Melanie belonged, as Fiona herself clearly did, with “other women,” the ones who cloy, and he would be back within the fortnight, appetite sated, making plans for the family holiday.Either way, unbearable. Unbearable and fascinating. And irrelevant. She forced herself back to her pages, to her summary of the evidence from both parties—efficient and drily sympathetic  enough. Next, her account of the court-appointed social worker’s report. A plump, well-intentioned young woman often out of breath, uncombed hair, untucked unbuttoned blouse. Chaotic, twice late for the proceedings, due to some complicated trouble with car keys and documents locked in her car and a child to collect from school. But in place of the usual please-both-parties dither, the Cafcass woman’s account was sensible, even incisive, and Fiona quoted her with approval. Next?She looked up and saw her husband on the other side of the room, pouring another drink, a big one, three fingers, perhaps four. And barefoot now, as he, the bohemian academic, often was indoors in summer. Hence the quiet entrance. Likely he had been lying on the bed, regarding for half an hour the lacy ceiling moldings, reflecting on her unreasonableness. The hunched tension of the shoulders, the way he returned the stopper—a smack with the heel of his thumb—suggested that he had padded in for an argument. She knew the signs. Read more

Santa!: A Scanimation Picture Book

About the Author Rufus Butler Seder is an optical genius whose first significant invention was Lifetiles, glass-walled murals that appear to come to life when the viewer walks by. He’s installed them at the Smithsonian, SeaWorld, Union Station, and other museums, aquariums, train stations, and ocean liners around the world. Next came Scanimation, and his company EyeThink, Inc., a business that produces a line of toys and gifts using technologies he’s invented. Mr. Seder lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

The Light Between Oceans

Review "Irresistible...seductive...a high concept plot that keeps you riveted from the first page." —Sara Nelson, O , the Oprah magazine “An extraordinary and heart-rending book about good people, tragic decisions and the beauty found in each of them.” —Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief “M.L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans is a beautiful novel about isolation and courage in the face of enormous loss. It gets into your heart stealthily, until you stop hoping the characters will make different choices and find you can only watch, transfixed, as every conceivable choice becomes an impossible one. I couldn’t look away from the page and then I couldn’t see it, through tears. It’s a stunning debut.” —Maile Meloy, author of Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It “M.L. Stedman, a spectacularly sure storyteller, swept me to a remote island nearly a century ago, where a lighthouse keeper and his wife make a choice that shatters many lives, including their own. This is a novel in which justice for one character means another’s tragic loss, and we care desperately for both. Reading The Light Between Oceans is a total-immersion experience, extraordinarily moving.” —Monica Ali, author of Brick Lane and Untold Story “Haunting...Stedman draws the reader into her emotionally complex story right from the beginning, with lush descriptions of this savage and beautiful landscape, and vivid characters with whom we can readily empathize. Hers is a stunning and memorable debut.” — Booklist , starred review “[Stedman sets] the stage beautifully to allow for a heart-wrenching moral dilemma to play out... Most impressive is the subtle yet profound maturation of Isabel and Tom as characters.” — Publishers Weekly , starred review “The miraculous arrival of a child in the life of a barren couple delivers profound love but also the seeds of destruction. Moral dilemmas don’t come more exquisite than the one around which Australian novelist Stedman constructs her debut.” — Kirkus Reviews , starred review “This heartbreaking debut from M L Stedman is a gem of a book that you'll have trouble putting down” — Good Housekeeping “This fine, suspenseful debut explores desperation, morality, and loss, and considers the damaging ways in which we store our private sorrows, and the consequences of such terrible secrets.” — Martha Stewart Whole Living “As time passes the harder the decision becomes to undo and the more towering is its impact. This is the story of its terrible consequences. But it is also a description of the extraordinary, sustaining power of a marriage to bind two people together in love, through the most emotionally harrowing circumstances.” —Victoria Moore, The Daily Mail “A love story that is both persuasive and tender…” —Elizabeth Buchan, The Sunday Times (UK) “What an extraordinary book this is. Tom, traumatised on the western front, takes a job as lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, 100 miles off the Australian coast between the Indian and Southern oceans, where he hopes that the vast surrounding emptiness will bring him peace. When after three years and as many miscarriages his wife hears a baby's cry and discovers a dead man and a baby in a washed up dinghy, she feels her prayers have been answered. The ensuing tragedy is as inevitable as Hardy at his most doom-laden. And as unforgettable.” —Sue Arnold, Guardian “Lyrical…Stedman’s debut signals a career certain to deliver future treasures.” ― People “A beautifully delineated tale of love and loss, right and wrong, and what we will do for the happiness of those most dear.” -- Tova Beiser ― The Boston Globe “Elegantly rendered…heart-wrenching…the relationship between Tom and Isabel, in particular, is beautifully drawn.” -- Elysa Gardner ― USA Today Told with the authoritative simplicity of a fable…Stedman’s intricate descriptions of the craggy Australian coastline and her easy mastery of an old-time provincial vernacular are engrossing. As the couple at the lighthouse are drawn into and increasingly tragic set of consequences, these remote, strange lives are rendered immediate and familiar.” ― The New Yorker “Sublimely written, poetic in its intensity and frailty…This is a simply beautiful story that deserves the praise and wide audience it’s receiving. A stunning debut from a new voice that I can’t wait to hear again.” -- Karen Brooks, author of Illumination About the Author M.L. Stedman was born and raised in Western Australia and now lives in London. The Light Between Oceans is her first novel. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Light Between Oceans Read more

The Girl in the Spider's Web: A Lisbeth Salander novel, continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series

Review “Salander and Blomkvist have survived the authorship transition intact and are just as compelling as ever . . . Fans of Stieg Larsson’s captivating odd couple of modern detective fiction will not be disappointed.” —Michiko Kakutani, New York Times “Rest easy, Lisbeth Salander fans—our punk hacker heroine is in good hands . . . A twisty, bloody thrill ride . . . seamlessly woven together by Lagercrantz—in fact, if you hadn’t seen his name on the book jacket, you’d likely assume it was Larsson’s own handiwork . . . An instant page-turner.” — USA Today (4 out of 4 stars) “Without ever becoming pastiche, the book is a respectful and affectionate homage to the originals . . . Lagercrantz’s continuation, while never formulaic, is a cleaner and tighter read than the originals.” — Guardian “Lagercrantz has more than met the challenge. Larsson’s brainchildren are in good hands and may have even come up a bit in the world.” — Wall Street Journal “What of Lisbeth Salander? Given that Lagercrantz knows she’s what readers want, her long and suspenseful introduction is masterful.” —Lee Child, New York Times Book Review (cover) “A worthy, crowd-pleasing fourth installment . . . Lagercrantz, his prose more assured than Larsson’s, keeps Salander’s fiery rage at the white-hot level her fans will want.” — Publishers Weekly (starred) “Lagercrantz does an excellent job . . . Anyone craving more Salander bad-assery should get their hands on a copy of Spider’s Web faster than Lisbeth can hack into the NSA.” — People “Lagercrantz’s real achievement here is the subtle development of Lisbeth’s character; he allows us access to her complex, alienated world but is careful not to remove her mystery and unknowability. Lisbeth Salander remains, in Lagercrantz’s hands, the most enigmatic and fascinating anti-heroine in fiction.” — Financial Times “Lagercrantz deftly blends the spirit of Larsson’s work and characters with his own literary skills and bright imagination. Spider’s Web is an intelligent novel that has Salander entangled in one of the most contentious issues of our times . . . Riveting . . . Pyrotechnic.” — Chicago Tribune “A thrilling next installment . . . In spinning a complex and intriguing new chapter in the adventures of Blomkvist and Salander, Lagercrantz has written a worthy successor to one of the more uniquely compelling thriller sagas of his generation . . . An engrossing novel.” — Paste “Action-packed and thoroughly enjoyable . . . [A] finely-wrought thriller . . . I will eagerly devour the next adventure for Salander and Blomkvist, especially now that we know their fate lies in the hands of a writer worthy of their story.” —The Daily Beast “Lagercrantz stays true to Larsson’s vision . . . No doubt about it, Lagercrantz has done a skillful job.” — Sydney Morning Herald “[A] smart, action-packed thriller that is true to the spirit of the characters Larsson created while adding interesting new ones and updating the political backdrop that made the Millennium series so compelling.” — Buffalo News “Fans of the original trilogy will be pleased with Lagercrantz’s new installment. The novel is a smart, propulsive thriller and espionage tale with a timely digital age plot (think Snowden and Wikileaks).” — Hollywood Reporter “Passion and fire, check: there are plenty of both here . . . Fast-moving, credible, and intelligently told. Larsson fans won’t be disappointed.” — Kirkus Reviews “Lagercrantz pulls it off . . . One devours Larsson’s books for the plots, the action, the anger, and most of all for Lisbeth Salander, a character who resembles Sherlock Holmes or James Bond . . . Lagercrantz has caught her superbly.” — Daily Telegraph (UK) “David Lagercrantz was set an almost impossible task by Stieg Larsson’s estate when they asked him to write a ‘continuation’ novel featuring Lisbeth Salander. He has carried it out with intelligence and vigour. The Girl in the Spider’s Web conveys the essence and atmosphere of Larsson’s Millennium novels. He has captured the spirit of their characters and devised inventive plots.” — The Times (UK) “Fans of the original trilogy need not fear . . . The novel is well-researched and more intelligent than the average thriller.” — The Independent (UK) “Lagercrantz makes sensible decisions in this fourth volume . . . . Blomkvist is given a cleverly and very contemporary storyline . . . A worthwhile read for anyone who’s zipped through the trilogy and finished wanting more.” — Daily Express (UK) “Sometimes you almost forget that the spine of the book says David Lagercrantz and not Stieg Larsson . . . There is definitely the same narrative zest and love of intrigue, and also the impressive research . . . Lagercrantz has written a thriller that is captivating in its own right.” — Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden) “A real page turner.” —Borås Tidning (Sweden) “Lagercrantz has studied the first three parts of the series well, and the reader will recognize not only their Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander and the social criticism, but also other essential parts of the story’s DNA . . . David Lagercrantz has proven that he deserves both attention and respect. ” — Dagens Nyheter (Sweden) “An excellent thriller . . . elegantly constructed.” — Stern (Germany) About the Author DAVID LAGERCRANTZ is an acclaimed Swedish journalist and author. He has worked as a crime reporter for Expressen, and has written several novels, including the forthcoming Fall of Man in Wilmslow . He worked with international soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimović on his memoir, I Am Zlatan Ibrahimović, which was short-listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award and was nominated for the August Prize in Sweden.www.stieglarsson.net Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Wrange tried to concentrate on the game, but he was not managing too well. Fortunately this punk girl was going to be easy pickings. She wasn’t bad, as it turned out—she probably spent a lot of time playing—but what good was that? He toyed with her a little, and she was bound to be impressed. Who knows, maybe he could even get her to come home with him after- wards. True, she looked stroppy, and Wrange did not go in for stroppy girls, but she had nice tits and he might be able to take out his frustrations on her. It had been a disaster of a morning.    It wasn’t grief that he felt: it was fear. Wrange really did try hard to convince himself that he had done the right thing. What did the goddamn professor expect when he treated him as if he didn’t exist? But of course it wouldn’t look good that Wrange had sold him down the river. He consoled himself with the thought that an idiot like Balder must have made thou- sands of enemies, but deep down he knew: the one event was linked to the other, and that scared him to death.   Ever since Balder had started working at Solifon, Wrange had been afraid that the drama would take a frightening new turn, and here he was now, wishing that it would all go away. That must have been why he went into town this morning on a compulsive spree to buy a load of designer clothes, and had ended up here at the chess club. Chess still managed to distract him, and the fact was that he was feeling better already. He felt like he was in control and smart enough to keep on fooling them all. Look at how he was playing.   This girl was not half bad. In fact there was something unorthodox and creative in her play, and she would probably be able to teach most people in here a thing or two. It was just that he, Arvid Wrange, was crushing her. His play was so brilliant and sophisticated that she had not even noticed he was on the brink of trapping her queen. Stealthily he moved his positions forward and  snapped it up  without sacrificing more than a knight. In a flirty, casual tone bound to impress her he said, “Sorry, baby. Your queen is down.”   But he got nothing in return, no smile, not a word, nothing. The girl upped the tempo, as if she wanted to put a quick end to her humiliation, and why not? He’d be happy to keep the process short and take her out for two or three drinks before he pulled her. Maybe he would not be very nice to her in bed. The chances were that she would still thank him afterwards. A miserable cunt like her would be unlikely to have had a fuck for a long time and would be totally unused to guys like him, cool guys who played at this level. He decided to show off a bit and explain some higher chess theory. But he never got the chance. Something on the board did not feel quite right. His game began to run into some sort of resistance he could not understand. For a while he persuaded himself that it was only his imagination, perhaps the result of a few careless moves. If only he concentrated he would be able to put things right, and so he mobilized his killer instinct.   But the situation just got worse.   He felt trapped—however hard he tried to regain the initiative she hit back—and in the end he had no choice but to acknowledge that the balance of power had shifted, and shifted irreversibly. How crazy was that? He had taken her queen, but instead of building on that advantage he had landed in a fatally weak position. Surely she had not deliberately sacrificed her queen so early in the game? That would be impossible—the sort of thing you read about in books, it doesn’t happen in your local chess club in Vasastan, and it’s definitely not something that pierced punk chicks with attitude problems do, especially not to great players like him. Yet there was no escape.   In four or five moves he would be beaten and so he saw no alternative but to knock over his king with his index finger and mumble congratulations. Even though he would have liked to serve up some excuses, some- thing told him that that would make matters worse. He had a sneaking feeling that his defeat was not just down to bad luck, and almost against his will he began to feel frightened again. Who the hell was she? Cautiously he looked her in the eye and now she no longer looked like a stroppy, insecure nobody. Now she seemed cold—like a predator eyeing its prey. He felt deeply ill at ease, as if the defeat on the chessboard were but a prelude to something much, much worse. He glanced towards the door.   “You’re not going anywhere,” she said.  “Who are you?” he said. “Nobody special.” “So we haven’t met before?”  “Not exactly.” “But nearly, is that it?” “We’ve met in your nightmares, Arvid.”  “Is this some kind of joke?” “Not really.” “What do you mean?” “What do you think I mean? “How should I know?”   He could not understand why he was so scared. Read more

101 Kids Activities That Are the Bestest, Funnest Ever!: The Entertainment Solution for Parents, Relatives & Babysitters!

Review “You don't have to spend a fortune at 'Toys R Them' just because your kids say they're bored. In 101 Kids Activities, Holly and Rachel give you a ton of great, free or cheap ideas to keep your children entertained year-round.” ― Dave Ramsey, New York Times bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio show host “ 101 Kids Activities is a must-have for moms and dads everywhere!” ― Melissa Bourbon Ramirez, bestselling author of A Magical Dressmaking mystery series “I've come to rely on Holly and Rachel to continually produce simple and creative activities that really engage kids of all ages. Their blog has long been bookmarked as a go-to resource for me, and I can't wait to add their new book to our shelves!” ― Stephanie Morgan, founder of Modern Parents Messy Kids “From fun math to learning to use scissors to making crazy sticky crafts to engaging in detective games, this book has it all. I can read it and know that my kids will have a zillion ways to keep busy while still learning!” ― Kimberly Clayton Blaine, MA, MFT, licensed family therapist, executive producer of TheGoToMom.TV “ 101 Kids Activities is a wonderful resource that will make you the coolest parent on the block.” ― Cindy Hopper, founder of the blog Skip to My Lou From the Back Cover Never again will you hear the all-too-common call of, I'm bored! with this kid-pleaser for many ages. Whether your kid is 3, 5 or 12-years old it's hard to keep them entertained all day, or even for a few hours. But now, when they ask to watch television because they're bored, you'll have the perfect solution with this book. 101 Kids Activities That Are the Bestest, Funnest Ever! has time-tested, exciting activities to keep your children laughing and learning for hours. Holly Homer and Rachel Miller are the women behind the wildly popular site KidsActivitiesBlog.com, which has over 12,000 subscribers, 102,000 Pinterest followers, 49,000 Facebook likes and 20,000 Twitter followers. Activities range from catapult competitions and spray bottle freeze tag to how to make tissue box monster shoes and melted crayon fabric art. And with outdoor and indoor activities and tips for adjusting according to your child's age, you'll have hours and hours of never-ending fun with your family. This parenting life raft is the perfect way to spend enjoyable quality-time with your kids, no matter their age. About the Author Holly Homer and Rachel Miller are the women behind KidsActivitiesBlog.com, which gets more than 2 million hits a month. They are on the "20 Must-Follow Moms" list on Pinterest. They live in Fort Worth, Texas. Read more

Redback (A John Marquez Mystery, 4)

Claire (Ghosts in the Burbs Book 1)

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave: Written by Himself

About the Author Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) was an African American abolitionist and social reformer, author, orator, and statesman. John R. McKivigan is Mary O’Brien Gibson Professor of History at Indiana University–Purdue University, Indianapolis. Peter P. Hinks is a well-published author of scholarly monographs and documentary volumes. Heather L. Kaufman is a research associate of the Douglass Papers.


Favorite Hymns for Easy Guitar

About the Author Founded in 1947, Hal Leonard LLC has become the worlds largest source of music performance and instructional materials, with a catalog of over a million products in both physical and digital form. They represent many of the greatest songwriters and artists of all time and publish and distribute works from all genres of music for all styles of musicians and ensembles.

Discovering God's Will

About the Author Dr. Sinclair B. Ferguson is a Ligonier teaching fellow, a trustee with the Banner of Truth Trust and distinguished visiting professor of systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. He previously served as the senior minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, S.C., and he has written more than two dozen books, including Some Pastors and Teachers, Devoted to God's Church, and Maturity.

ABC Keyboard Stickers

Is Jesus in the Old Testament? (Basics of the Faith)

Review If reading the first two-thirds of your Bible feels like wandering through a foreign country, Iain Duguid's "Is Jesus in the Old Testament?" offers hope. Not only does he demonstrate that the Old Testament is all about Jesus. He shows how the ancient scriptures' promises and longings find fulfillment in your Savior as the new Adam, new Israel, and new David. This booklet will enrich your appreciation of the events and words by which God forecasted Christ's redemptive mission before his arrival, and will deepen your faith and wonder. -- Dennis E. Johnson, Ph.D., Professor of Practical Theology, Westminster Seminary California About the Author Iain M. Duguid (PhD, University of Cambridge) is professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He has written numerous works of biblical exposition, including Esther & Ruth in the Reformed Expository Commentary series, Ezekiel in the NIV Application Commentary series, and Numbers in the Preaching the Word series.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition [6 volume - Set]

About the Author Matthew Henry (1662-1714) has been known and loved for three centuries for his devotional commentary on the Bible. It has not been generally known that he was also a distinguished preacher. He began preaching at twenty-four years old and held pastorates until his death. The greatness of his sermons consists in their scriptural content, lucid presentation, practical application, and Christ-centeredness.

Roam (Coming of Age stand-alone Thrillers)

From the Author IF SHE LIVES: Harlow #3 IF SHE LIVES: Harlow #3 IF SHE WAKES: Harlow #2 IF SHE WAKES: Harlow #2 IF SHE DIES: Harlow #1 IF SHE DIES: Harlow #1 I KNOW YOU: Psychological Thriller I KNOW YOU: Psychological Thriller KEEP HER CLOSE: Crime Thriller KEEP HER CLOSE: Crime Thriller ROAM: Suspense ROAM: Suspense RESTHAVEN: YA Suspense RESTHAVEN: YA Suspense MORTOM: Mystery MORTOM: Mystery About the Author Erik Therme has thrashed in garage bands, inadvertently harbored runaways, and met Darth Vader. When he's not at his computer, he can be found cheering on his youngest daughter's volleyball team, or watching horror movies with his oldest. He currently resides in Iowa City, Iowa--one of only twenty-eight places in the world that UNESCO has certified as a City of Literature. Join Erik's mailing list to be notified of new releases and author giveaways: eepurl.com/cD1F8L

Head Covering: A Forgotten Christian Practice for Modern Times

Review Jeremy Gardiner has written a thoughtful and helpful argument from Scripture and church history for women to cover their heads in worship. This book deserves a fair hearing from all who desire to obey God's Word in whatever it teaches.- Dr. Joel Beeke , president of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary Jeremy Gardiner's book gently, respectfully, and accurately addresses all of the questions I had as I grappled with the passage in 1 Corinthians 11 on head covering. I appreciate his careful and thorough exegesis of the passage and his willingness to tackle all of the current objections and alternate views on the subject. I wish I had this resource decades ago.- April Cassidy , author of The Peaceful Wife: Living in Submission to Christ as Lord If you are interested in studying what the Bible teaches on the head covering issue, this excellent book will serve as a helpful resource for you.  In this book, Jeremy provides extensive interactions with the text of Scripture, coupled with relevant considerations from church history and recent cultural developments in the West; and these interactions are presented in a way that is earnest and humble and largely accessible to the average reader. I encourage you to approach this book with a humble pre-commitment to follow whatever you learn that the Bible actually teaches on the subjects addressed. If you approach this book with such a posture, I know that you will find much help from God on these pages.- Milton Vincent , author of A Gospel Primer for Christians and pastor of Cornerstone Fellowship Bible Church Jeremy Gardiner has done the church good service in calling us back to the obedience of God's Word our parents and grandparents rejected a century ago. Gardiner gives a clear explanation of the Scriptural command, going on to treat with accuracy and kindness the many objections moderns have raised.- Tim Bayly , former executive director of The Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood and author of Daddy Tried I started wearing a head covering (in a church that does not wear head coverings) a few years ago. I felt challenged to put the word of God above the word of man at every turn, and to resist relativizing its teachings according to my own culture -- even my Christian culture. I commend the courage of Jeremy Gardiner in standing for the whole counsel of God.- Andrée Seu Peterson , senior writer at WORLD Magazine This book is more important than you might think. I've come to understand that this "small" issue of Christian head covering is nothing of the sort. Not only is the Church's ability to faithfully exegete the Sacred Text at stake, but as we look at culture, we also see the systematic loss of what the symbol represents. Jeremy has done a great service for the Body of Christ by helping to resurrect the LORD's commands for His own worship. May the LORD forgive us for thinking we know better. - Dr. Carlton C. McLeod , senior pastor of Calvary Revival Church Chesapeake and founder of D6 Reformation About the Author Jeremy Gardiner is the founder of the Head Covering Movement , a ministry focused on restoring the symbol of head covering during church gatherings. He is also the founder and operator of Gospel e-Books , a popular website that provides alerts for free and discounted Christian e-books. Jeremy lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada with his wife and four children. They are active members at Fellowship Baptist Church .

Wish List: a Donovan Creed Novel

About the Author John Locke is the international best-selling author of seven Donovan Creed novels, all of which have made the Amazon/Kindle Top 20 Best Seller's List! Saving Rachel held the #1 spot for more than three weeks and remains one of the all-time best selling ebooks in history! Locke has had four books in the Top 10 at the same time, and six in the Top 20! His Emmett Love western, Follow the Stone, has been ranked #1 Western since the first week after release. John lives in Kentucky, where he is working on his second Emmett Love Western, Don't Poke the Bear! Every 7 seconds, 24 hours a day, a John Locke novel is downloaded somewhere in the world!