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Pilot, navigator, engineer, doctor, scientistship's cat? All are essential to the well-staffed space vessel. Since the early days of interstellar travel, when Tuxedo Thomas, a Maine coon cat, showed what a cat could do for a ship and its crew, the so-called Barque Cats have become highly prized crew members. Thomas's carefully bred progeny, ably assisted by humansCat Personswith whom they share a deep and loving bond, now travel the galaxy, responsible for keeping spacecraft free of vermin, for alerting human crews to potential environmental hazards, and for acting as morale officers.Even among Barque Cats, Chessie is something special. Her pedigree, skills, and intelligence, as well as the close rapport she has with her human, Janina, make her the most valuable crew member aboard the Molly Daise. And the litter of kittens in her belly only adds to her value.Then the unthinkable happens. Chessie is kidnappeder, catnappedfrom Dr. Jared Vlast's vet clinic at Hood Station by a grizzled spacer named Carl Poindexter. But Chessie's newborn kittens turn out to be even more extraordinary than their mother. For while Chessie's connection to Janina is close and intuitive, the bond that the kitten Chester forms with Carl's son, Jubal, is downright telepathic. And when Chester is sent into space to learn his trade, neither he nor Jubal will rest until they're reunited. But the announcement of a widespread epidemic affecting livestock on numerous planets throws their future into doubt. Suddenly the galactic government announces a plan to impound and possibly destroy all exposed animals. Not even the Barque Cats will be spared. With the clock racing against them, Janina, Jubal, Dr. Vlast, and a handful of very special kittens will join forces with the mysterious Pshaw-Raan alien-looking cat with a hidden agendato save the Barque Cats, other animals, and quite possibly the universe as they know it from total destruction.BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough'sCatacombs.

An extraordinary memoir about the cutting-edge brain therapy that dramatically changed the life and mind of John Elder Robison, the New York Times bestselling author of Look Me in the EyeNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYTHE WASHINGTON POST Imagine spending the first forty years of your life in darkness, blind to the emotions and social signals of other people. Then imagine that someone suddenly switches the lights on.It has long been assumed that people living with autism are born with the diminished ability to read the emotions of others, even as they feel emotion deeply. But what if we've been wrong all this time? What if that ';missing' emotional insight was there all along, locked away and inaccessible in the mind? In 2007 John Elder Robison wrote the international bestseller Look Me in the Eye, a memoir about growing up with Asperger's syndrome. Amid the blaze of publicity that followed, he received a unique invitation: Would John like to take part in a study led by one of the world's foremost neuroscientists, who would use an experimental new brain therapy known as TMS, or transcranial magnetic stimulation, in an effort to understand and then address the issues at the heart of autism? Switched On is the extraordinary story of what happened next. Having spent forty years as a social outcast, misreading others' emotions or missing them completely, John is suddenly able to sense a powerful range of feelings in other people. However, this newfound insight brings unforeseen problems and serious questions. As the emotional ground shifts beneath his feet, John struggles with the very real possibility that choosing to diminish his disability might also mean sacrificing his unique gifts and even some of his closest relationships. Switched On is a real-life Flowers for Algernon, a fascinating and intimate window into what it means to be neurologically different, and what happens when the world as you know it is upended overnight. Praise for Switched On';An eye-opening book with a radical message . . . The transformations [Robison] undergoes throughout the book are astonishingas foreign and overwhelming as if he woke up one morning with the visual range of a bee or the auditory prowess of a bat.'The New York Times ';Astonishing, brave . . .reads like a medical thriller and keeps you wondering what will happen next . . . [Robison] takes readers for a ride through the thorny thickets of neuroscience and leaves us wanting more.'The Washington Post ';Fascinating for its insights into Asperger's and research, this engrossing record will make readers reexamine their preconceptions about this syndrome and the future of brain manipulation.'Booklist';Like books by Andrew Solomon and Oliver Sacks, Switched On offers an opportunity to consider mental processes through a combination of powerful narrative and informative medical context.'BookPage ';A mind-blowing book that will force you to ask deep questions about what is important in life. Would normalizing the brains of those who think differently reduce their motivation for great achievement?'Temple Grandin, author of The Autistic Brain ';At the heart of Switched On are fundamental questions of who we are, of where our identity resides, of difference and disability and free will, which are brought into sharp focus by Robison's lived experience.'Graeme Simsion, author of The Rosie Effect

WINNER OF THE STORY PRIZE *; LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD *; NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NEWSDAYNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYThe Washington Post *; San Francisco Chronicle *; O: The Oprah Magazine *; The Miami Herald *; Publishers Weekly *; Kirkus ReviewsLook for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader's Circle for author chats and more.From the author of the beloved novel The Giant's House—finalist for the National Book Award—comes a beautiful new story collection, her first in twenty years. Laced through with the humor, the empathy, and the rare and magical descriptive powers that have led Elizabeth McCracken's fiction to be hailed as ';exquisite' (The New York Times Book Review), ';funny and heartbreaking' (The Boston Globe), and ';a true marvel' (San Francisco Chronicle), these nine vibrant stories navigate the fragile space between love and loneliness. In ';Property,' selected by Geraldine Brooks for The Best American Short Stories, a young scholar, grieving the sudden death of his wife, decides to refurbish the Maine rental house they were to share together by removing his landlord's possessions. In ';Peter Elroy: A Documentary by Ian Casey,' the household of a successful filmmaker is visited years later by his famous first subject, whose trust he betrayed. In ';The Lost & Found Department of Greater Boston,' the manager of a grocery store becomes fixated on the famous case of a missing local woman, and on the fate of the teenage son she left behind. And in the unforgettable title story, a family makes a quixotic decision to flee to Paris for a summer, only to find their lives altered in an unimaginable way by their teenage daughter's risky behavior.   In Elizabeth McCracken's universe, heartache is always interwoven with strange, charmed moments of joy—an unexpected conversation with small children, the gift of a parrot with a bad French accent—that remind us of the wonder and mystery of being alive. Thunderstruck & Other Stories shows this inimitable writer working at the full height of her powers.   Praise for Thunderstruck & Other Stories  ';Restorative, unforgettable . . . a powerful testament to the scratchy humor and warm intelligence of McCracken's writing.'—Sylvia Brownrigg, The New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice)';[A] bewitching and wise collection . . . playful, even joyful.'—O: The Oprah Magazine  ';Stunningly beautiful . . . brilliantly moving . . . Moments of joy and pure magic flicker and pitch-perfect humor acts as a furtive SOS signal through the fog of loss.'—Los Angeles Times';Each of Thunderstruck's nine stories is a storm: delightful and destructive, packed with electricity, fascinating to watch unfold.'—Salon   ';The stories here are brilliant, funny and heartbreaking. . . . Elizabeth McCracken is a national treasure.'—Paul Harding, The Wall Street Journal   ';Pure delight: one lyrical, impeccably constructed sentence after another.'—Chicago Tribune   ';Beautifully wrought . . . As painstaking as a watchmaker, McCracken disassembles life down to its smallest parts.'—The Boston Globe

Highly personal and original . . . McKibben goes beyond Marshall McLuhans theory that the medium is the message.The New York Times Imagine watching an entire days worth of television on every single channel. Acclaimed environmental writer and culture critic Bill McKibben subjected himself to this sensory overload in an experiment to verify whether we are truly better informed than previous generations. Bombarded with newscasts and fluff pieces, game shows and talk shows, ads and infomercials, televangelist pleas and Brady Bunch episodes, McKibben processed twenty-four hours of programming on all ninety-three Fairfax, Virginia, cable stations. Then, as a counterpoint, he spent a day atop a quiet and remote mountain in the Adirondacks, exploring the unmediated man and making small yet vital discoveries about himself and the world around him. As relevant now as it was when originally written in 1992and with new material from the author on the impact of the Internet agethis witty and astute book is certain to change the way you look at television and perceive media as a whole.By turns humorous, wise, and troubling . . . a penetrating critique of technological society.Cleveland Plain DealerMasterful . . . a unique, bizarre portrait of our life and times.Los Angeles TimesDo yourself a favor: Put down the remote and pick up this book.Houston Chronicle

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*;With new information on crunching your own numbers to get the edge the experts haveAn international sensationand still the talk of the relevant blogospherethis Wall Street Journal and New York Times business bestseller examines the ';power' in numbers. Today more than ever, number crunching affects your life in ways you might not even imagine. Intuition and experience are no longer enough to make the grade. In order to succeedeven survivein our data-based world, you need to become statistically literate. Cutting-edge organizations are already crunching increasingly larger databases to find the unseen connections among seemingly unconnected things to predict human behavior with staggeringly accurate results. From Internet sites like Google and Amazon that use filters to keep track of your tastes and your purchasing history, to insurance companies and government agencies that every day make decisions affecting your life, the brave new world of the super crunchers is happening right now. No one who wants to stay ahead of the curve should make another keystroke without reading Ian Ayres's engrossing and enlightening book.

The hill people and the Mexicans arrived on the same day. It was a Wednesday, early in September 1952. The Cardinals were five games behind the Dodgers with three weeks to go, and the season looked hopeless. The cotton, however, was waist-high to my father, over my head, and he and my grandfather could be heard before supper whispering words that were seldom heard. It could be a "e;good crop."e;Thus begins the new novel from John Grisham, a story inspired by his own childhood in rural Arkansas. The narrator is a farm boy named Luke Chandler, age seven, who lives in the cotton fields with his parents and grandparents in a little house that's never been painted. The Chandlers farm eighty acres that they rent, not own, and when the cotton is ready they hire a truckload of Mexicans and a family from the Ozarks to help harvest it.For six weeks they pick cotton, battling the heat, the rain, the fatigue, and, sometimes, each other. As the weeks pass Luke sees and hears things no seven-year-old could possibly be prepared for, and finds himself keeping secrets that not only threaten the crop but will change the lives of the Chandlers forever.A Painted House is a moving story of one boy's journey from innocence to experience.BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from John Grisham's The Litigators.

Now celebrating the 42nd anniversary ofThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,soon to be a Hulu original series! ';Wild satire . . . The feckless protagonist, Arthur Dent, is reminiscent of Vonnegut heroes.'Chicago TribuneThe unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky above their headsso they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals stand between the killer robots of Krikkit and their goal of total annihilation.They are Arthur Dent, a mild-mannered space and time traveler who tries to learn how to fly by throwing himself at the ground and missing; Ford Prefect, his best friend, who decides to go insane to see if he likes it; Slartibartfast, the indomitable vice president of the Campaign for Real Time, who travels in a ship powered by irrational behavior; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-president of the galaxy; and Trillian, the sexy space cadet who is torn between a persistent Thunder God and a very depressed Beeblebrox.How will it all end? Will it end? Only this stalwart crew knows as they try to avert ';universal' Armageddon and save life as we know itand don't know it!';Adams is one of those rare treasures: an author who, one senses, has as much fun writing as one has reading.'Arizona Daily Star

From New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh come two classic tales of love turned dangerous, set amid the splendor of Regency Englanda time rife with passion, betrayal, and intrigue. DARK ANGELJennifer Winwood has been engaged for five years to a man she hardly knows but believes to be honorable and good: Lord Lionel Kersey. Suddenly, she becomes the quarry of London's most notorious womanizer, Gabriel Fisher, the Earl of Thornhill. Jennifer has no idea that she is just a pawn in the long-simmering feud between these two headstrong, irresistible menor that she will become a prize more valuable than revenge. LORD CAREW'S BRIDEJennifer's cousin Samantha Newman is smarting after she too is toyed with by Lord Kersey. In the midst of her heartbreak, she seeks solace from her new friend, the disabled gardener Hartley Wade. If only she knew that Hartley is secretly Lord Carew, and that he hides more than extraordinary wealth: a passionate secret held deep in his heart that only her love can reveal.

After Mario Puzo wrote his internationally acclaimed The Godfather, he has often been imitated but never equaled. Puzo's classic novel, The Sicilian, stands as a cornerstone of his worka lushly romantic, unforgettable tale of bloodshed, justice, and treachery. . . .The year is 1950. Michael Corleone is nearing the end of his exile in Sicily. The Godfather has commanded Michael to bring a young Sicilian bandit named Salvatore Guiliano back with him to America. But Guiliano is a man entwined in a bloody web of violence and vendettas. In Sicily, Guiliano is a modern day Robin Hood who has defied corruptionand defied the Cosa Nostra. Now, in the land of mist-shrouded mountains and ancient ruins, Michael Corleone's fate is entwined with the dangerous legend of Salvatore Guiliano: warrior, lover, and the ultimate Siciliano.Praise for The Sicilian';Puzo is a master storyteller.'USA Today';The Balzac of the mafia.'Time';An accomplished and imaginative writer.'LosAngelesTimes

Inspired by the wartime experiences of her father-in-law, Bobbie Ann Mason has crafted the haunting and profoundly moving story of an American World War II pilot shot down in Occupied Europe, and his wrenching odyssey of discovery, decades later, as he uncovers the truth about those who helped him escape in 1944. At twenty-three, Marshall Stone was a confident, cocksure U.S. flyboy stationed in England, with several bombing raids in a B-17 under his belt. But when enemy fighters forced his plane to crash-land in a Belgian field during a mission to Germany, Marshall had to rely solely on the kindness of ordinary Belgian and French citizens to help him hide from and evade the Nazis. Decades later, restless and at the end of his career as an airline pilot, Marshall returns to the crash site and finds himself drawn back in time, unable to stop thinking about the people who risked their lives to save Allied pilots like him. Most of all, he is obsessed by the girl in the blue beret, a courageous young woman who protected and guided him in occupied Paris. Framed in spellbinding, luminous prose, Marshall's search for her gradually unfolds, becoming a voyage of discovery that reveals truths about himself and the people he knew during the war. Deeply beautiful and impossible to put down, The Girl in the Blue Beret is an unforgettable storyintimate, affecting, exquisiteof memories, second chances, and one intrepid girl who risked it all for a stranger.

Greece, 1940. In the port city of Salonika, with its wharves and brothels, dark alleys and Turkish mansions, a tense political drama is being played out. As Adolf Hitler plans to invade the Balkans, spies begin to circleand Costa Zannis, a senior police official, must deal with them all. He is soon in the game, working to secure an escape route for fugitives from Nazi Berlin that is protected by German lawyers, Balkan detectives, and Hungarian gangstersand hunted by the Gestapo. Meanwhile, as war threatens, the erotic life of the city grows passionate. For Zannis, that means a British expatriate who owns the local ballet academy, a woman from the dark side of Salonika society, and the wife of a shipping magnate. With extraordinary historical detail and a superb cast of characters,Spies of the Balkansis a stunning novel about a man who risks everything to fight back against the world's evil.

The Nightrunners are back in this gripping novel full of Lynn Flewelling's trademark action, intrigue, and richly imagined characters.More than the dissolute noblemen they appear to be, Alec and Seregil are skillful spies, dedicated to serving queen and country. But when they stumble across evidence of a plot pitting Queen Phoria against Princess Klia, the two Nightrunners will find their loyalties torn as never before. Even at the best of times, the royal court at Rhminee is a serpents' nest of intrigue, but with the war against Plenimar going badly, treason simmers just below the surface.And that's not all that poses a threat: A mysterious plague is spreading through the crowded streets of the city, striking young and old alike. Now, as panic mounts and the body count rises, hidden secrets emerge. And as Seregil and Alec are about to learn, conspiracies and plagues have one thing in common: The cure can be as deadly as the disease.

Naomi Novik's triumphant debut, His Majesty's Dragon, introduced a dynamic pair of heroes to the annals of fantasy fiction: the noble fighting dragon Temeraire and his master and commander, Capt. Will Laurence, who serves Britain's peerless Aerial Corps in the thick of the raging Napoleonic Wars. Now they soar to new heights of breathtaking action and brilliant imagination. It is a grim time for the dragon Temeraire. On the heels of his mission to Africa, seeking the cure for a deadly contagion, he has been removed from military serviceand his captain, Will Laurence, has been condemned to death for treason. For Britain, conditions are grimmer still: Napoleon's resurgent forces have breached the Channel and successfully invaded English soil. Napoleon's prime objective: the occupation of London. Separated by their own government and threatened at every turn by Napoleon' s forces, Laurence and Temeraire must struggle to find each other amid the turmoil of war and to aid the resistance against the invasion before Napoleon's foothold on England's shores can become a stranglehold. If only they can be reunited, master and dragon might rally Britain's scattered forces and take the fight to the enemy as never beforefor king and country, and for their own liberty. But can the French aggressors be well and truly routed, or will a treacherous alliance deliver Britain into the hands of her would-be conquerors? BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Naomi Novik's Tongues of Serpents.

Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American ReadThe worldwide bestsellernow a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg.In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as theOASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confinespuzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to winand confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *; From one of Barack Obama's most trusted aides comes a revelatory behind-the-scenes account of his presidency—and how idealism can confront harsh reality and still survive.';The closest view of Obama we're likely to get until he publishes his own memoir.'—George Packer, The New Yorker  NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIANFor nearly ten years, Ben Rhodes saw almost everything that happened at the center of the Obama administration—first as a speechwriter, then as deputy national security advisor, and finally as a multipurpose aide and close collaborator. He started every morning in the Oval Office with the President's Daily Briefing, traveled the world with Obama, and was at the center of some of the most consequential and controversial moments of the presidency. Now he tells the full story of his partnership—and, ultimately, friendship—with a man who also happened to be a historic president of the United States.   Rhodes was not your typical presidential confidant, and this is not your typical White House memoir. Rendered in vivid, novelistic detail by someone who was a writer before he was a staffer, this is a rare look inside the most poignant, tense, and consequential moments of the Obama presidency—waiting out the bin Laden raid in the Situation Room, responding to the Arab Spring, reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran, leading secret negotiations with the Cuban government to normalize relations, and confronting the resurgence of nationalism and nativism that culminated in the election of Donald Trump. In The World as It Is, Rhodes shows what it was like to be there—from the early days of the Obama campaign to the final hours of the presidency. It is a story populated by such characters as Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Hillary Clinton, Bob Gates, and—above all—Barack Obama, who comes to life on the page in moments of great urgency and disarming intimacy. This is the most vivid portrayal yet of Obama's worldview and presidency, a chronicle of a political education by a writer of enormous talent, and an essential record of the forces that shaped the last decade.Praise for The World as It Is';A book that reflects the president [Rhodes] served—intelligent, amiable, compelling and principled . . . a classic coming-of-age story, about the journey from idealism to realism, told with candor and immediacy . . . His achievement is rare for a political memoir: He has written a humane and honorable book.'—Joe Klein, The New York Times Book Review