Enter the isle of Cadence in this novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Divine Rivals—a Scottish-inspired romantic fantasy brimming with enemies-to-lovers romance, magic and spirits, and a captivating mystery It starts with a letter and an ominous journey across dark waters. Ten years after being sent away to the mainland to become a bard, Jack Tamerlaine is summoned home to the enchanted isle of Cadence. Girls are going missing from the island, and Adaira, his childhood nemesis and the future leader of the clan, believes Jack is the only one who can find them. The elemental spirits that dwell in every breath of air, splash of water, blade of grass, and flicker of fire find mirth in the lives of the humans, and a bard’s music—a unique form of summoning magic—is the only way to summon them and ask that the girls be returned. Yet as Jack and Adaira get closer to solving the mystery, it becomes apparent that an older, darker secret about Cadence lurks beneath the surface, and no harp song may be strong enough to stop it. With unforgettable characters, a thrilling plot, and a lush folklore-infused world, A River Enchanted is a stirring story of duty, love, and creating harmony between opposing forces. This first book in the Elements of Cadence duology marks Rebecca Ross’s brilliant entry on the adult fantasy stage.

A newly revised and updated edition of the internationally bestselling spiritual classic, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, written by Sogyal Rinpoche, is the ultimate introduction to Tibetan Buddhist wisdom. An enlightening, inspiring, and comforting manual for life and death that the New York Times calls, “The Tibetan equivalent of [Dante’s] The Divine Comedy,” this is the essential work that moved Huston Smith, author of The World’s Religions, to proclaim, “I have encountered no book on the interplay of life and death that is more comprehensive, practical, and wise.”

Enter the isle of Cadence in this novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Divine Rivals—a Scottish-inspired romantic fantasy brimming with enemies-to-lovers romance, magic and spirits, and a captivating mystery It starts with a letter and an ominous journey across dark waters. Ten years after being sent away to the mainland to become a bard, Jack Tamerlaine is summoned home to the enchanted isle of Cadence. Girls are going missing from the island, and Adaira, his childhood nemesis and the future leader of the clan, believes Jack is the only one who can find them. The elemental spirits that dwell in every breath of air, splash of water, blade of grass, and flicker of fire find mirth in the lives of the humans, and a bard’s music—a unique form of summoning magic—is the only way to summon them and ask that the girls be returned. Yet as Jack and Adaira get closer to solving the mystery, it becomes apparent that an older, darker secret about Cadence lurks beneath the surface, and no harp song may be strong enough to stop it. With unforgettable characters, a thrilling plot, and a lush folklore-infused world, A River Enchanted is a stirring story of duty, love, and creating harmony between opposing forces. This first book in the Elements of Cadence duology marks Rebecca Ross’s brilliant entry on the adult fantasy stage.

In an isolated desert town, a young woman seeking a fresh start is confronted by ancient gods, malevolent supernatural forces, and eccentric neighbours. A witty horror-tinged fantasy, perfect for fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Chuck Tingle, and Rachel Harrison. When Selena travels to the remote desert town of Quartz Creek in search of her estranged Aunt Amelia, she is desperate and short of options. Fleeing an unhappy marriage, she has exactly twenty-seven dollars to her name, and her only friend in the world is her dog, Copper. On arrival, Selena learns Amelia is dead. But the inhabitants of Quartz Creek are only too happy to have a new resident. Out of money and ideas, Selena sees no harm staying in her aunt's lovely house for a few weeks, tending to her garden and enjoying the strange, desolate beauty of the desert. The people are odd, but friendly, and eager to help Selena settle into her new home. But Quartz Creek's inhabitants share their town with others, old gods and spirits whose claim to the land long predates their human neighbours. Selena finds herself pursued by disturbing apparitions, visitations that come in the night and seem to want something from her. Aunt Amelia owed a debt. Now her god has come to collect.

Welcome to Guards! Guards!, the eighth book in Terry Pratchett’s legendary Discworld series. Long believed extinct, a superb specimen of draco nobilis ("noble dragon" for those who don't understand italics) has appeared in Discworld's greatest city. Not only does this unwelcome visitor have a nasty habit of charbroiling everything in its path, in rather short order it is crowned King (it is a noble dragon, after all...). How did it get there? How is the Unique and Supreme Lodge of the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night involved? Can the Ankh-Morpork City Watch restore order – and the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork to power? Magic, mayhem, and a marauding dragon...who could ask for anything more?

50th Anniversary Edition, with a new introduction by David Mitchell and a new afterword by Charlie Jane Anders Ursula K. Le Guin’s groundbreaking work of science fiction—winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. A lone human ambassador is sent to the icebound planet of Winter, a world without sexual prejudice, where the inhabitants’ gender is fluid. His goal is to facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the strange, intriguing culture he encounters... Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.

A riveting, intimate, and revelatory account of the most radical and consequential presidency of our time.From the two reporters who have covered him more closely than perhaps anyone else over the past decade comes this definitive portrait of Donald Trump in the White House. Regime Change covers the first year of Trump’s second presidency—a term liberated from every constraint that defined his first. The generals who once told him no are gone, and the lawyers who remain have learned to pick their battles. He has ignored court orders and claimed powers that Congress once checked. What remains is a President willing to take enormous risks that have toppled heads of state and taken the country to war again in the Middle East; an imperial President operating almost entirely on instinct alone.Based on hundreds of interviews and unprecedented reporting from deep within the administration’s most closely guarded rooms, Regime Change takes the reader inside the Situation Room and into the secret Oval Office deliberations that have remade the global trading system and launched military operations that have shocked the world, and behind the scenes of a presidency that has transformed the culture, turned the Justice Department into an agent of retribution against the President’s enemies and the office itself into a brazen vehicle for profit. Haberman and Swan reveal a second term propelled by a historical irony that Trump himself has come to understand: that the indictments, the convictions, the assassination attempts, and four years of exile made him not weaker but far more powerful, more vengeful, and more willing to gamble than any President in modern history.This is the story of how Trump has used that power, who has tried to stop him, and why nearly all of them have failed. It is also the story of something American journalists are more accustomed to chronicling in distant capitals than in their own: a President who has fundamentally altered the nature of the office he holds—and, with it, how the rest of the world understands American power. It is an account of Regime Change right here in America—a landmark real-time history of a modern presidency like no other.

Bring proven teaching methods from the national parks into your classroom to address common instructional challenges and improve student outcomes. The U.S. National Park Service describes its parks as “America’s largest classrooms,” and for years, its rangers have been developing educational approaches that invite visitors to engage with their surroundings in active, participatory ways. This book shows classroom teachers how they can use these same methods, as well as a vast array of national park resources, to address common instructional challenges and boost student engagement and retention, integrate equity, improve college and career readiness, and more.This book introduces the National Park Classroom (NPC) Framework, which enables teachers of all subject areas and grade levels to take advantage of national park resources and educational practices. Park rangers draw on pedagogies such as project-based learning, inquiry-based learning and culturally responsive teaching in their lessons, and the book shows how the NPC Framework can help classroom educators use those same approaches to design engaging units and projects for subjects like math, science and language arts. These lessons are anchored in the ISTE Standards and incorporate content standards such as the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The resources available to teachers and their students through the U.S. National Park System and other public land agencies across the globe.Provides insights and tools for leading high-quality project-based learning.Offers guidance for transitioning from a teacher-centered classroom to a learner-centered classroom.Shows how to apply successful equity and inclusion practices from the national parks in classrooms and schools.Provides examples of “place-conscious learning,” with strategies for connecting students to distant parks and other places.With strategies backed by research and reflecting best practices from proven learning models, this book shows educators how to integrate the great outdoors and park-inspired learning into their classrooms to drive student engagement and agency, and better prepare students for college and beyond. Elementary and secondary teachers and administrators

From the renowned paleontologist and bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, a sweeping evolutionary history of birds, from their dinosaur origins to the 14,000 extraordinary species alive today. Tens of billions of birds share the planet with us, an astonishingly diverse array of species that are present nearly everywhere humans call home—and many places we do not. With their flamboyant plumage, joyous dawn serenades, extraordinary aerial feats, they have captivated human imagination for millennia. Undeniably delicate creatures with hollow bones and thin skin protected by downy feathers, how did such a seemingly fragile species break the bounds of Earth and begin to fly, how have they survived millennia, and how does their legacy shape our world? Hailed as “one of the stars of modern paleontology” (National Geographic), Brusatte begins his quest to the tell the story of birds by exploring how dinosaurs gradually developed the trademark features of birds one-by-one—feathers, wings, beaks, big brains, keen senses, and warm-blooded metabolisms. He investigates why birds were the only dinosaurs to survive the cataclysmic asteroid impact 66 million years ago and chronicles how these survivors rapidly proliferated in a barren landscape to produce the huge diversity of avian species we know today. Along the way, we meet a variety of remarkable – now extinct – species: • 10-foot-tall terror birds with beaks that sliced flesh • 1.5-ton elephant birds that lived on Madagascar and laid eggs the size of footballs • Pelagornithid seabirds with 20-foot wingspans • A ferocious Jamaican ibis that used its wings as clubs to attack rivals Yet, Brusatte also urges us to appreciate the extraordinariness of birds alive today – penguins that literally fly underwater, parrots that can mimic human speech and hummingbirds that hover mid-air and dive at 50 miles per hour. A fascinating scientific history that unearths the origins of birds, The Story of Birds establishes the living legacy of this remarkable species.

From the creators of the internationally bestselling, award-winning, multi-adapted phenomenon The Lost Words: a dazzling celebration of birdlife in Britain, re-imagining the classic field guide for a new generation of nature loversA great thinning of the skies is underway. Around 50% of bird species are in decline worldwide. Our dawns and springs are quieter each year than the last. An almost unimaginable abundance has been lost. It does not have to be this way –– but we will not save what we do not love. The Book of Birds is a compendium of forty-nine bird species, from Avocet to Yellowhammer, all of which are presently declining or endangered in Britain. Inspired by the classic bird-books with which the authors grew up, this is a field guide with a difference. It asks not ‘What is that bird?’, but ‘Who is that bird?’ It shows its readers how to identify birds, but also how to identify with them. With lyrical precision and playfulness, Robert Macfarlane evokes each bird’s habits and habitats –– their patterns of flight and of song, how they hunt and gather, how they nest and raise their young, the stories and myths which attend them, the threats which shadow them, and how their wild lives intersect with our own. And on every page we encounter Jackie Morris’s exhilarating artwork, painted in watercolour and gold and animated by an extraordinary attention to detail and sense of life. Set among this dazzling flock of species are seven sections celebrating the 'Seven Wonders' that together make up the everyday miracle of 'Bird': Nest, Egg, Beak, Song, Feather, Flight and Migration. Seven years in the making, The Book of Birds is a love letter to the splendours and mysteries of birdlife, and a clarion call to halt the loss of birds from land, sea and sky. From Dipper to Dunnock and Kestrel to Kingfisher, from mountain to ocean and city to river, Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane conjure the unique spirit and lifeway of each species. This is a book to be treasured by bird-lovers of all ages, and a future classic work of reference.

From Michael CrichtonCreator of Jurassic Park, ER, Twister, Rising Sun, and Disclosure Writing as John Lange Comes a new Hollywood mystery thriller, originally written in 1973 by Crichton but never before published, that will keep you guessing until the very end. In the glitz and decadence of 1970s Hollywood, an era when sex and drugs are readily available on any movie set, the writer of the next Western blockbuster, Bloodrock, has just been found dead in his motel bathtub. Now publicist Harvey Jason is desperately trying to keep the project on track while the famed Harlow Perkins, a brilliant and ruthless investigator, begins to unravel the mystery and hunt the killer down. From scorching-hot desert locations to sleazy motel bars, the members of the cast and crew—each one with a very dark secret of their own—will send this case deeper and deeper into a maze of confusion and shadows until the shocking truth is revealed. Will the murderer be found? Or will the true identity of the killer turn out to be just another Hollywood illusion?