Wednesday Night Witches

From Publishers Weekly Nichols (True Lies of a Drama Queen) takes a Charmed-inspired ride on a broomstick, smartly mixing magic with chick lit cheer. Manhattan teacher Eve Crenshaw escapes to Broome Isle, Maine, after a nasty break-up to visit her former NYU classmate, Natasha Kent. Natasha, a starving artist, introduces Eve to her childhood pal Kim Gray, an "Earth Mama" type and direct descendant of a Salem-era witch. They tag themselves "Wednesday Night Witches" after participating in a local bar's trivia contest, but the witchery truly begins when they share a potent wine that grants each woman a wish, transforming their lives but endangering the island when they unwittingly release an ancient demon. The arrival of yummy Jack, Garrison and Johnny distracts them while the demon's power grows, leading to a major showdown. These accidental witches lack the depth of Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic spellcasters, but they're still appealing. Nichols fills her cauldron with a very Maine stew and injects the proceedings with a breezy style well suited to escapist summer romances. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist New York City teacher Eve Crenshaw has had it with both her pompous boyfriend and her critical boss, so she leaves New York for Broome Island, where her college roommate Natasha lives. Natasha, a reclusive artist, introduces Eve to her former sister-in-law, Kim, who also happens to be her closest friend on the island. Eve quickly finds a job and, through Kim, a place to live, and finds herself taking to the island, despite its stark contrast to busy, bustling New York. She also finds herself curious about the mythology of the island and Kim's ancestors, who were labeled witches. The three women get together one evening and makes wishes, and they're surprised to find those wishes suddenly coming true. But there's a sinister force afoot, and the women start to worry that Eve's and Kim's new relationships and Natasha's shot at artistic success may prove too good to be true. Readers who enjoy a bit of magic in their chick lit will enjoy Nichols' clever and fun fourth novel. Huntley, Kristine About the Author Lee Nichols was born in Salem, Massachusetts. Her ancestor, Susanna Martens, was condemned and executed for witchcraft at the court of Salem in 1692. Read more

JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation

Review "From my investigation of the Ramsey murder, Steve Thomas was the lead detective on the case from the beginning and may know what happened better than anyone." -- Lawrence Schiller, New York Times bestselling author of Perfect Murder, Perfect Town About the Author Steve Thomas received more than a hundred commendations and awards during his thirteen-year police career, including the Award of Excellence and the Medal for Lifesaving, for assignments ranging from recruit training and SWAT to special investigations and undercover narcotics. Prior to the JonBenet case, Thomas worked on a multi-state task force investigating racketeering and organized crime that resulted in numerous grand-jury indictments. Thomas has been a guest lecturer on criminal justice topics and instructed extensively on law-enforcement issues.Don Davis, an award-winning news correspondent for thirty years, with assignments from Vietnam to the White House, has written a dozen books. His most recent is Last Man on the Moon, published by St. Martin's Press. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. JonBenetPART ONELITTLE MISS CHRISTMASPROLOGUEThere was not another little girl in America with her name. JonBenét--a combination of her father's first and middle names, John and Bennett--was more of a title created just for her, similar to those of the four daughters of her mother's best friend who also bore classy Francophile names. At home she was called Johnni-B.JonBenét Ramsey entered the world on August 6, 1990, in Atlanta's Northside Hospital, weighing six pounds, nine ounces. She was able to fall asleep easily with a bottle and the background noise of a television set, but she also had a grumpy side, and her grandmother would recall that after her second birthday, JonBenét could indeed be a Terrible Two. At three and a half, she still regularly drank her milk from the bottle.The family moved from Georgia to Colorado, into a huge house at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, after her first birthday. Her lavishly decorated bedroom was originally built for her two much older stepsisters, Beth and Melinda, but a double tragedy made it hers. Beth was killed in an automobile accident, and JonBenét's mother was diagnosed with cancer.The little girl was moved into the bigger bedroom to be closer to her mother, who, ravaged by chemical treatments, temporarily gave up sleeping in the master bedroom in favor of one more convenient to a bathroom. Mother and daughter were right next door. Her room was so warm that even on the coldest winter night, when the outside temperature would dip below zero, JonBenét would kick off her covers and sleep with only a sheet and blanket.Her education began with early home schooling and then a church preschool program but did not stop at the classroomdoor. The little girl traveled widely, to New York several times and as far away as Italy. She was a member of Daisy Troop 2349 of the Girl Scouts in Boulder.Summers were spent at a sprawling white house that had been expensively remodeled in Charlevoix, Michigan, where JonBenét loved to swim on the tire at the bottom of the hill, swim in the lake, go rollerblading and biking, and be a tomboy who didn't care about getting dirt under her fingernails.Her hair, which would go dishwater dirty during the Colorado winter, would blaze back blond in the Michigan sunshine, with some help from a bottle, and she wore it in a ponytail or a braid. Her favorite foods were macaroni and cheese and fresh fruit, and she loved pineapple.The entrance of JonBenét into the peculiar and competitive world of children's beauty pageants was destined from the very start. Her mom, Patsy Ramsey, and her aunt, Pam Paugh, had both won the Miss West Virginia crown and competed for Miss America. JonBenét seemed to have what it took to carry on that family tradition. Patsy and her mother, Nedra, were inspired to put JonBenét into pageants during a visit to a Little Miss America contest in 1994, and a career was set.JonBenét was only four years old, not yet in kindergarten, when she hit the circuit, and the judges immediately knew that the sparkling beginner in the white dress still needed a lot of work, but they said she was a natural. In the summer of 1994 JonBenét was accidentally hit on the left cheek by a golf club swung by her brother, Burke, and her mother rushed the child to see a plastic surgeon, who thought Patsy was overreacting. The doctor apparently didn't understand the importance of an imperfection on a budding beauty queen.Her first major win came in Michigan. After a thorough "pageant scrub" to clean up dirty knees and elbows, a good hair wash, and a French manicure for those dirty nails, JonBenét performed a patriotic song and tap routine and was crowned Little Miss Charlevoix.The child radiated star power, but there was a brain inside that pretty head. She listened attentively to adults talk in the evening, nestled on someone's lap in a big chair, and her vocabulary and sense of logic were remarkable. When her auntfound her running barefoot on the Charlevoix dock and asked, "Why don't you put your shoes on?" JonBenét answered, "Aunt Pam, I want to feel the rhythm of the earth under my feet." She was a free spirit.In October 1995, she became Little Miss Colorado Sunburst and qualified for a national pageant the next year. In the 1995 Boulder Christmas parade, she sang and waved from a float called the Good Ship Lollipop , which was built by her grandfather. "Quite a performer," the judges said, the payoff for the hundred-dollar-per-hour lessons.She blossomed as a beauty, loving everything about the pageants and making sure to tell her mother, who was leaving for London, to bring her back some hats. The natural prissiness of a little girl came forth as she expressed her strong will, not hesitating to tell an adult doing her hair, "I don't like that, I want it this way."On many nights, JonBenét would fall asleep watching videotapes of Patsy and Pam in the Miss America pageant. She wanted to stroll that Atlantic City Boardwalk someday, and it was drummed into her that the coveted sash, trophy, and tiara would come only through total dedication. Once, when she balked, her grandmother groused, "JonBenét, you will do it. This is your job. There are no excuses." A family friend recalled JonBenét being chilly in a restaurant after a pageant and her mother not allowing the child to put on a sweater because "You're still on show."JonBenét did not need a professional trainer with a couple of former Miss West Virginias in the family. They would be her mentors instead of some professional who might turn her into a rigid automaton, with nothing but boring ten- and two o' clock stances, flashing the collar and cuffs, never touching the dress, and perhaps, her grandmother warned, even using the sleazy shoulder shake that homosexuals taught. The strategy was for Johnni-B to go beyond the ordinary and bring her natural friendliness and a touch of class to the shows. In pageants from Rome, Georgia, to Elk Rapids, Michigan, the plan worked.Daddy had money, a great advantage because the pageant world is not for the miserly. Talent lessons were expensive,and her spectacular handmade costumes cost even more. JonBenét would not go out there in Kmart dresses, and she regularly brought home "Best Wardrobe" titles.But there were some dark secrets. She had a continuing problem with wetting her bed, regressing in her toilet training in the months before her death. Occasionally she would even defecate in the bed and at one point was wetting or soiling her underpants during the day. She would not wipe adequately after a bowel movement. This would never do for a beauty queen.Her intelligence kept pace with her almost flawless beauty, and she kept a list on her night table of books that had been read to her. Her father insisted that knowledge and talent were much more important than looking good. She was truly beautiful but still was only a child beginning to read and write, even though her mother created a more impressive résumé on pageant entry forms by claiming that JonBenét played the violin, spoke French, and wanted to be an Olympic ice-skating champion.Confidence came with experience, and when the family returned from a trip to Mexico, JonBenét made them all do the sinuous macareña dance. "That's not the way you do it," she scolded, then led it herself. "There. That's the way it's done."Like lots of kids, although she suffered from colds and coughs, her sinus infections were eventually diagnosed as allergic rhinitis, not unlike a problem that had once plagued her father. In 1995 she tripped in a grocery store, landed on her nose, and the doctor treated her with ice and Popsicles. Six months later she fell again, bonking herself over the left eye. In the twenty-four months before her death, she visited the doctor eighteen times.Her last year was a rainbow ride. In July she won the title of America's Royale Tiny Miss, and the five-year-old took home $500 in prize money. The next month, the Sunburst National Pageant at the Airport Marriott Hotel in Atlanta was a disappointment because she was only second runner-up in the beauty competition, and by now people expected JonBenét to win everything, all the time. They were usually right. Titles were bagged with frequency, and the professional touches ofmakeup, perfect hair, and a portfolio of glamour photographs gave the child a sultry look that was part angel, part Lolita. Best-in-show trophies were just over the horizon.In two trips to New York, she saw five Broadway shows and ate a $125 lobster dinner in a fancy restaurant. People waiting in line to see the Statue of Liberty asked permission to take her picture. After turning six that August, JonBenét entered private school, and her stage training made oral reports a snap, although her writing skills were minimal. She went to see the school nurse twice in December, both times on a Monday after a weekend.Before the Christmas break, her mother arranged to have JonBenét perform as a holiday treat for her classmates, and in pageant finery she sang and danced all day while class after class came through to watch. She went home exhausted. Her lesson in school that day was that perfection and celebrity carried a price. On December 17 she picked up still another crown, Colorado's Little Miss Christmas.Six days later, during a party at her parents' home, a family friend came across a JonBenét who was seldom seen. The child was immaculate in a holiday frock, and her platinum blond hair was done perfectly, but she sat alone on a staircase in the butler's kitchen, crying softly. The friend sat beside her."What's wrong, honey?"Little Miss Christmas sobbed, "I don't feel pretty."Copyright © 2000 by Steve Thomas and Don Davis. Read more

True Lies of a Drama Queen (Red Dress Ink)

From Booklist Nichols' charming sequel to Tales of a Drama Queen (2004) finds Elle Medina in a healthy relationship with her boyfriend, Merrick, while earning a dubious living as a fake phone psychic and writing a New Age column for a Santa Barbara paper. Elle is thrown when Maya, her best friend, announces that she is marrying her boyfriend, Brad, in just three short months. Elle insists on coordinating the wedding, despite Maya's reluctance. Maya's concerns prove founded when Elle inadvertently ruins Brad's Jewish conversion dinner. But Elle soon has even bigger problems on her hands when video footage of her dancing scantily clad in a store dressing room turns up on the Santa Barbara Grrrrls Web page. Vowing to find out who's responsible for the hidden camera, Elle now has a mission--and a convenient way to avoid Merrick's suggestion that she look into graduate school and consider moving in with him. Fans of the first book will be thrilled to see zany Elle back in action. Kristine Huntley Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Review "Nichols is one of chick lit's brightest lights." -- Publishers Weekly About the Author Lee Nichols grew up in Santa Barbara. She lives in Maine with her writer husband, Joel N. Ross, and their son, Ben. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The groom is perfect this time. His white Hugo Boss suit is crisp, his gray eyes are solemn and joyful and all mine. The palm trees sway in the Santa Barbara ocean breeze like a heavenly chorus of tall skinny angels with green hair. The nomadic tents match the linen napkins, the silver is antique and the orchids are pale green. Everything is discreet. Tasteful. Flawless. Oh, and I got a big honking diamond. The thing's like a glass doorknob, I can barely lift my hand. Though somehow, I think I'll manage. I also got the Luna flatware from Pottery Barn, the lead-crystal Bordeaux glasses,and a year-long subscription to flowering plants from Smith & Hawken. I even got a KitchenAid Mixer in Majestic Yellow — I never mix,but Maya wants one, and I knew she'd be jealous. (As a married and established matron, I will be less petty...but I remain single for another seventeen seconds.) The justice of the peace murmurs something about loving and cherishing, and when he comes to the "I do" part, Merrick politely agrees. But I...well, I'm too busy worrying that Maya — best friend and maid of honor — is so poisoned by envy she can't enjoy the ceremony. Okay, actually I'm worried that's she's not envious enough. I won't be happy until she matches the pale green of the orchids. Maya is the sweetest, kindest best friend anyone could want, but if she has a single fault it's that she's so much better than I am. She doesn't get petty, she doesn't get jealous, not even now, on my perfect wedding day. Doesn't she know this means I've won? In fact,not only does she lack all human (I mean negative) emotions, but she's chatting away in the middle of my vows. "So we're settled on April." "What?" I say."What?" "We decided April." "April?" "What do you think of the song?" Maya asks. A cruel jolt and my daydream vanishes. There are swaying palm trees and Maya is clearly present, but there is no wedding — not mine, at least. We've met for lunch at Lead-better Beach on a pristine sunny January day in Santa Barbara, and we sit at one of the tables out back, our bare feet drawing patterns in the sand. Makes me feel like I'm vacationing in Mexico. Maybe after lunch I'll have another margarita and a siesta. No, after lunch I'll have another client and a headache. Because my perfect best friend has told me she and her perfect boyfriend, Brad, are getting married. And they'll have the perfect wedding and the perfect marriage. And I'll be happy for her. Really. Because I love her. And it's not like this means she won or anything...it's not really a competition. Is it? "Right," I say."The song." "It's Sting," Maya says."Everyone loves Sting." "Is it off his first album?" "No." "The second?" "No." "Then I don't know it." Maya grimaces."You could at least be a little more excited. Aren't you happy for us?" "Of course I'm happy! You know I'm happy. I'm thrilled and happy and...happy! So an April wedding. Where?" "In Santa Barbara.Brad's parents want us to have it in Vegas." Perfect Brad's parents had retired to Las Vegas last year and hadn't stopped extolling the virtues of low-cost housing,the senior discount at Caesars and the wonders of the Hoover Dam. They were convinced they could persuade Maya and Brad to move there, if only they explained how really affordable the buffets were. "Vegas," I say. "Some of those chapels are really nice — they're not all cupid-themed, you know." Plus, I wouldn't be so jealous if she got married in Las Vegas. "I'd get married there in a second." "Elle, you would never. " "Well, no. What about San Ysidro Ranch?" Because I shouldn't be such a bad friend. "Gwyneth Paltrow got married there." "Gwyneth Paltrow makes fifteen million a movie." "I know it's expensive, but you're only going to do this once. You and Brad —" I roll my eyes."You'll never divorce." " Elle ..." "Who's going to cater?" Maya shrugs."There are listings in the Yellow Pages." "The Yellow Pages," I say faintly. Does she have any idea how long it took me to settle on a caterer when I arranged my almost wedding to Louis? "Well, at least you've got over a year to plan." "No," she says."April." "Yeah," I say."April." " This year." A sudden chill rises from the sun-drenched beach."Maya, that's three months away." "That's why I'm starting now," she says, clearly pleased with herself. "You can't plan a wedding in three months." "Why not?" "Because it's never been done,not in all of human history. Because it takes a minimum of four months to select, buy, write and mail invitations.Because all the caterers and venues have been booked since April of last year." She appears unconcerned."We'll find someplace." "Like the Tiki-Tiki lounge at a motel in Goleta. " "Elle, you've gotta get over your Goleta-phobia. That's so early nineties.Goleta's 'The Good Land'now.Brad and I want to buy a house there...if we can afford one." "If you do, I'll never visit." "And there are other reasons Goleta is wonderful, too." I make a face, but bow to the inevitable."Okay, I'll do it." "Visit?" "Visit, we'll see. I mean plan the wedding." I detect a flicker of concern."Great. That'd be...great." "Three months!" I say, staying chipper. "This is gonna be fun." "I mean, if you want to, you could help with the, um..." "More than help! I'll be your wedding coordinator. Leave everything to me." I beam, thrilled to finally be giving something back to Maya. She's better than I am at virtually everything, but now I can finally help her. "What are best friends for?" "Well,I wouldn't want to...I know you're busy with your, um, career?" Because I am a good friend, I pretend not to hear the question mark after "career" and simply say,"I will organize an elegant, classical, understated affair..." She looks so unconvinced I can't help adding, "I was thinking a Western theme, "Jackie O meets rodeo." Or have you considered a Hawaiian luau?" I'm still in a wedding planning daze — the flowers, the band, the maid of honor dress — so when my client phones, exactly on schedule,I chat on autopilot until the woman tells me she thinks her boyfriend poisoned her. "And for a free copy of my newsletter,"I say,"all you need is — what? " "I, like, think my boyfriend poisoned me." I dart into the kitchen and throw open drawers, rummaging for my phone book. I need the number for Poison Control. Is there a national number? Why is she calling a psychic when she's been poisoned — she wants to know if she'll live? I have a list of Important Numbers — domestic violence chief among them — but who knew I'd get a poison question? "How exactly did you ingest the poison?" I ask calmly, hurling open a cabinet. "Are you sure you're poisoned? Did he cook something for you?" "He doesn't cook." "Make you a drink?" Staying calm, staying steady...but where the hell is that phone book? "Bring you a glass of water?" "Not that I recall. Should he bring me glasses of water? Do they do that?" "Well, relationships are all different, you have to — but you don't sound worried, how are you feeling?" "I feel fine. Never better." "So —" "Except for the puking." "Eww." "Yeah, like every morning for the last three weeks. And my boyfriend's acting all suspicious, asking how I feel, if I'm okay, do I want anything. I'm gonna start asking for glasses of water." "Sick every morning? Like...morning sickness?" "Exactly! Omigod! There's a name for this?" "Well, it's not so uncommon, many women —" "Is it girlfriend poisoning? Is he like Scott Peterson?" "Let's back up a second. How are you fixed for birth control?" "You mean like rubbers?" "Exactly like rubbers." "Oh, yeah, we use them every time, unless we get all, y'know.Caught up in things.You think he poisoned me with a rubber?" "I think he poisoned you without a rubber. Did you have sex prior to feeling sick?" "Omigod!" she says, seeing the light. "Exactly." "He did poison me with a rubber." "Um, no. Let me put it this way — you're pregnant." A slight pause."You're good, " she says in a low voice. "Thank you," I say."But the question is, how are you? " "So he poisoned his pregnant girlfriend? Wow, that's low. That's daytime TV low." I'm sure my mother would have an appropriate anecdote, as she watches a lot of Oprah, but I explain from the beginning. The sex without protection. The sperm and egg. The fertilization. The hormones. When realization finally dawns, she's thrilled, "So that's why he keeps bringing home stuffed animals." We spend the rest of the session discussing midwives and pain medication and Desperate Housewives. She's amazed when I tell her the child will definitely be the same sex as one of the grandparents' children. Before the phone hits the cradle,I shoot into the bathroom to check that my birth control pill prescription is current. This surge of activity rouses my dog Miu — though she slept through all the banging around in the kitchen. She's a boxer I adopted from the local shelter as a bald and sickly skeleton (her, not me — I have good hair, and can never lose those last ten pounds) and is now my official babygirl.She lifts her head and yawns at me and I discover the phone book is half-eaten under her ectoplasmic jowls. She still has separation anxiety sometimes, but I know how that feels, so I don't get mad. Not even when she ate the Marc Jacobs handbag I accidentally bought with my credit card, which led to an uncomfortable conversation with Carlos,my credit counselor.Well, he says he's just my creditor, but I need the therapy. * * * My boyfriend, Merrick, lives perched on a cliff overlooking the ocean, in a little gem of a house he designed himself. He's an architect, which is one of the better jobs for a boyfriend, and has some issues with perfectionism, for which he claims his treatment is me. At six o' clock, I pull my car — a BMW, 1974, pumpkin-orange, which Maya says looks like a Halloween float — next to Merrick's Volvo station wagon and walk down the lavender-lined stone path to the front door. I'm a little surprised, when he opens the door, that he's not wearing Hugo Boss, but kiss his sloppy jeans-and-T-shirt self anyway. He steps back when Miu scampers inside, and eyes me. "You look extra-delicious." This is a loving lie, I look like I always look: a strong seven out of ten, with a bit too much chub and a large head, but good hair and nice eyebrows. If I made enough money to afford Kiehl's for everyday use, maybe I'd be an eight. If Visa and Mastercard weren't so shortsighted, and let me buy Theory,I'd be a strong eight."On a scale of one to ten?"I ask. "Ten." "You're not supposed to say ten," I tell him. "Ten means you're just making me happy. Nine makes me think maybe you're telling the truth." "Then nine. How was your day?" "A strong seven." "That's pretty good," he says. "That's the 'sweet spot," a strong seven. Anything better, you get spoiled, anything worse, you've missed out." Read more

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

Review "An extraordinarily vibrant book that's fueled by adrenaline-powered prose. . . A book that decisively establishes [Díaz] as one of contemporary fiction's most distinctive and irresistible new voices." — Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "Díaz finds a miraculous balance. He cuts his barn-burning comic-book plots (escape, ruin, redemption) with honest, messy realism, and his narrator speaks in a dazzling hash of Spanish, English, slang, literary flourishes, and pure virginal dorkiness." — New York Magazine "Genius. . . a story of the American experience that is giddily glorious and hauntingly horrific. And what a voice Yunior has. His narration is a triumph of style and wit, moving along Oscar de Leon's story with cracking, down-low humor, and at times expertly stunning us with heart-stabbing sentences. That Díaz's novel is also full of ideas, that [the narrator's] brilliant talking rivals the monologues of Roth's Zuckerman — in short, that what he has produced is a kick-ass (and truly, that is just the word for it) work of modern fiction — all make The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao something exceedingly rare: a book in which a new America can recognize itself, but so can everyone else." — San Francisco Chronicle "Astoundingly great. . . Díaz has written. . . a mixture of straight-up English, Dominican Spanish, and hieratic nerdspeak crowded with references to Tolkien, DC Comics, role-playing games, and classic science fiction. . . In lesser hands Oscar Wao would merely have been the saddest book of the year. With Díaz on the mike, it's also the funniest." — Time "Superb, deliciously casual and vibrant, shot through with wit and insight. The great achievement of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is Díaz's ability to balance an intimate multigenerational story of familial tragedy. . . The past and present remain equally in focus, equally immediate, and Díaz's acrobatic prose toggles artfully between realities, keeping us enthralled with all." — The Boston Globe "Panoramic and yet achingly personal. It's impossible to categorize, which is a good thing. There's the epic novel, the domestic novel, the social novel, the historical novel, and the 'language' novel. People talk about the Great American Novel and the immigrant novel. Pretty reductive. Díaz's novel is a hell of a book. It doesn't care about categories. It's densely populated; it's obsessed with language. It's Dominican and American, not about immigration but diaspora, in which one family's dramas are entwined with a nation's, not about history as information but as dark-force destroyer. Really, it's a love novel. . . His dazzling wordplay is impressive. But by the end, it is his tenderness and loyalty and melancholy that breaks the heart. That is wondrous in itself." — Los Angeles Times "Díaz's writing is unruly, manic, seductive. . . In Díaz's landscape we are all the same, victims of a history and a present that doesn't just bleed together but stew. Often in hilarity. Mostly in heartbreak." — Esquire" The Dominican Republic [Díaz] portrays in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a wild, beautiful, dangerous, and contradictory place, both hopelessly impoverished and impossibly rich. Not so different, perhaps, from anyone else's ancestral homeland, but Díaz's weirdly wonderful novel illustrates the island's uniquely powerful hold on Dominicans wherever they may wander. Díaz made us wait eleven years for this first novel and boom!— it's over just like that. It's not a bad gambit, to always leave your audience wanting more. So brief and wondrous, this life of Oscar. Wow." — The Washington Post Book World "Terrific. . . High-energy. . . It is a joy to read, and every bit as exhilarating to reread." — Entertainment Weekly "Now that Díaz's second book, a novel called The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao , has finally arrived, younger writers will find that the bar. And some older writers—we know who we are—might want to think about stepping up their game. Oscar Wao shows a novelist engaged with the culture, high and low, and its polyglot language. If Donald Barthelme had lived to read Díaz, he surely would have been delighted to discover an intellectual and linguistic omnivore who could have taught even him a move or two." — Newsweek "Few books require a 'highly flammable' warning, but The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz's long-awaited first novel, will burn its way into your heart and sizzle your senses. Díaz's novel is drenched in the heated rhythms of the real world as much as it is laced with magical realism and classic fantasy stories." — USA Today "Dark and exuberant. . . this fierce, funny, tragic book is just what a reader would have hoped for in a novel by Junot Díaz." — Publishers Weekly About the Author Junot Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Drown ; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao , which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; This Is How You Lose Her , a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist; and a debut picture book, Islandborn. He is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, PEN/Malamud Award, Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, and PEN/O. Henry Award. A graduate of Rutgers College, Díaz is currently the fiction editor at Boston Review and the Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Death of a Dream (48 Hours Mystery)

From Publishers Weekly The real-life brutal murder of Catherine Woods, a beautiful exotic dancer, in November of 2005, fed tabloid headlines. 48 Hours correspondents La Rosa and Moriarty serve up a true crime account of her story and that of Paul Cortez, who was convicted of the crime the following year. Dubbed the Stripper Beauty, Catherine was 18 when she moved to Manhattan from Columbus, Ohio (where her father directs the Ohio State University's marching band). Her dreams of Broadway were tested by a rape. On returning to New York, she soon had an Ohio pal, David Haughn, living with her on the Upper East Side, but began dating others, including Cortez, then 24, an educated band musician and yoga enthusiast who disapproved of Catherine's dancing topless for hefty take-home cash. La Rosa and Moriarty deliver a compelling account of her horrifying murder and the subsequent investigation and trial. Their version of events allows readers to draw their own conclusions as to whether justice was served. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. About the Author Paul Larosa is an Emmy Award-winning producer for the CBS newsmagazine 48 Hours . He won a Primetime Emmy for the acclaimed CBS documentary 9/11 , and has also won a Peabody Award, a Christopher Award, and an Edward R. Murrow Award. For sixteen years he was reporter for the New York Daily News , where he was the co-winner with Anna Quindlen of the Meyer Berger Award given by Columbia University's School of Journalism. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and their two children.

ABC and 1,2,3: A Sesame Street Treasury of Words and Numbers (Sesame Street)

Amazon.com Review Learning words and numbers is fun with Big Bird, Elmo, Grover, and the other Sesame Street friends along to help. In the first half of this sturdy oversized book, every page features a letter, A to Z , accompanied by a scene featuring objects starting with that letter. The M spread, for example, shows a moonlit mountain landscape, with Sesame Street detectives Ernie and Bert investigating (with a magnifying glass, of course) the mystery of the missing mitten. Young readers will take pleasure in pointing out the mitten under a tree with a mouse curled up inside and a moose lurking nearby. In the second half of the book, illustrations depict one broom sweeping, swooshing; two hammers pounding, pounding; three big bales of hay; four round rubber tires, and so on up to 20, then continuing with 30, 40, 50, etc., to 100. By then, it takes an entire Sesame Street Fair to show all the items so far enumerated. Two educational books in one terrific treasury! (Ages 4 to 8) --Emilie Coulter From the Inside Flap Children can learn their ABC's and 1, 2, 3's with their favorite Sesame Street characters in this colorful, fun, and educational hardcover. What better way to acquire these important early concepts than with their Muppet friends? The ABC Book of Words allows children to learn the alphabet and new vocabulary on every beautiful spread. The Counting Book has number examples on Sesame Street from "one broom swooshing" to "100 Twiddlebugs at the Twiddlebug Fair!" Together, these books make for a terrific over-size hardcover packed with value! From the Back Cover Children can learn their ABC's and 1, 2, 3's with their favorite Sesame Street characters in this colorful, fun, and educational hardcover. What better way to acquire these important early concepts than with their Muppet friends? The ABC Book of Words allows children to learn the alphabet and new vocabulary on every beautiful spread. The Counting Book has number examples on Sesame Street from "one broom swooshing" to "100 Twiddlebugs at the Twiddlebug Fair!" Together, these books make for a terrific over-size hardcover packed with value! Read more

Spectrum 23: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art

About the Author John Fleskes is the president and publisher of Flesk Publications. He has published over eighty books to date. Fleskes has contributed to numerous books as writer, editor and designer and serves as the director of the annual showcase "Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art."

Tawny Scrawny Lion (Little Golden Book)

About the Author In 1942, the launch of Little Golden Books revolutionized children’s book publishing by making high-quality picture books available at affordable prices. More than 60 years later, many of the original Golden Book titles are still wildly popular, with The Poky Little Puppy topping the list of ten bestselling children’s books of all time. Golden Books’ backlist is teeming with classics such as Dorothy Kunhardt’s Pat the Bunny , and features the stories and artwork of children’s book legends Mary Blair, Margaret Wise Brown, Richard Scarry, Eloise Wilkins, Garth Williams, and many more. Today, the Golden Books imprint includes an array of storybooks, novelty books, and coloring and activity books featuring all of the most popular licenses, including Disney, Nickelodeon, Barbie, Thomas & Friends, The Cat in the Hat, Sesame Street, Marvel Super Heroes, and DC Super Friends. Golden Books continues to reissue the best of its backlist in a variety of formats, including ebooks and apps, as well as bringing out brand-new books in these evolving new formats. Gustaf Tenggren (1896–1970) was a well-known illustrator in his native Sweden before immigrating to the United States in 1920. He illustrated many Golden Books, beginning with The Poky Little Puppy. One of the original twelve Little Golden Books published in 1942, The Poky Little Puppy went on to become the bestselling picture book of all time. Other iconic Little Golden Books illustrated by Tenggren include The Saggy Baggy Elephant and Tawny Scrawny Lion. In the late 1930s, Tenggren worked for the Disney Studio, providing concept artwork (created to inspire and guide animators) for various characters and scenes in Bambi, The Old Mill, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and Fantasia.