Syyrian sisällissodan alkuvuosina Syyrian sotilaspoliisin valokuvaaja »Caesar» vaaransi henkensä ja paljasti maailmalle 45 000 valokuvaa ja asiakirjaa vangeista, jotka oli kidutettu tai näännytetty kuoliaaksi presidentti Bašar al-Assadin hallituksen vankiloissa. Kahden vuoden ajan, vuosina 2011–2013, Caesar otti käskystä kuvia sotilaiden silmittömästi kiduttamista vangeista, jotta näiden kuolemat voitiin dokumentoida hallituksen ja tuomioistuimien käyttöä varten. Vangit olivat poliittisia vankeja, mielenosoittajia ja muita hallituksen vastustajia. Caesar kopioi kuvat toimistossaan salaa muistitikuille, jotka hän kuljetti ulos vaatteisiinsa piilotettuina, ja antoi ne ystävälleen, joka kopioi ne edelleen ja latasi ne verkkoon. Kirja kertoo, kuinka tuhansia ihmisiä on kidutettu kuoliaaksi nykypäivän Syyriassa. Se sisältää myös raskauttavia asiakirjoja, jotka kertovat Syyrian johdon vakavista rikoksista ihmisyyttä vastaan. Kuvat ovat nähtävissä internetissä. Presidentti al-Assad on tammikuussa 2015 kiistänyt, että kuvien kauhut olisivat hallituksen aiheuttamia tai että kuvat ylipäätään olisivat Syyriasta. YK on järjestänyt kuvista näyttelyn New Yorkissa. Garance Le Caisne on ranskalainen toimittaja, joka on kirjoittanut lukuisiin lehtiin muun muassa arabikevään ja Syyrian tapahtumista. Hän on ainoa toimittaja, joka on päässyt haastattelemaan Caesaria. Caesarin löytäminen oli äärimmäisen vaikeaa, ja sen jälkeenkin Le Caisnen piti käydä kuukausien neuvotteluja Caesarin suojelijoiden kanssa, ennen kuin haastattelut onnistuivat. Kirja perustuu yhteensä 40 tuntiin haastattelumateriaalia.

First published in 1844, The Three Musketeers is the most famous of Alexandre Dumas' historical novels and one of the most popular adventure novels ever written. Dumas' swashbuckling epic chronicles the adventures of d'Artagnan, a brash young man from the countryside who journeys to Paris in 1625 hoping to become a musketeer and guard to King Louis XIII. Before long, he finds treachery and court intrigue,and also three boon companions, the daring swordsmen Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. Together, the four strive heroically to defend the honor of their queen against the powerful Cardinal Richelieu and the seductive spy Milady.

Some devised methods of torture cruel beyond belief, some killed members of their own families, others ordered the murders of millions of innocents; some were admired statesmen, some were maniacs - others simply butchers. Vlad Dracul, prince of Wallachia, impaled his enemies on a forest of bloody stakes; the Byzantine empress Irene had her son's eyes gouged out; the Crusaders massacred 70,000 innocent Muslims and Jews when they took Jerusalem; and, the Mongol warlord Tamerlane built pyramids of human skulls. In the 20th century, Adolf Hitler slaughtered 6 million Jews, Josef Stalin liquidated 25 million Russians, while Mao Zedong was responsible for the deaths of 70 million Chinese. In "101 World Heroes" Simon Sebag Montefiore selected his ultimate heroes and heroines; here he reveals history's dark side."Monsters" presents, in chronological order, compellingly readable portraits of 101 sinister individuals who shared a relish for the brutal exercise of pitiless, unbounded power, a delight in imposing pain and suffering, and a contempt for human life. Many of them - Nero and Al Capone, Genghis Khan and Henry VIII, Lucrezia Borgia and Jack the Ripper, Lenin and Himmler, Charles Manson and Pablo Escobar - are notorious. Others - Byzantine emperor Justinian the Slit-Nose, Pope John XII (who turned the Vatican into a brothel), the 16th century Scots cannibal Sawney Beane, Baron Ungern-Sternberg (who conquered Mongolia in 1920 believing he was Genghis Khan reborn), vampiric Hungarian countess Elizabeth Bathory, Barbarossa the Ottoman pirate-king - are less familiar. Each biography is accompanied by an article revealing fascinating aspects of those monsters: Sultan Selim the Grim divulges the secret Ottoman methods of royal murder; 'Bloody' Mary evokes the heretic's death at the stake; we travel with Leopold II of Belgium into the 'Heart of Darkness' that was the Belgian Congo; Malawian dictator Dr Banda unveils the strange phenomenon of medical doctors who became murderous tyrants; and, Papa Doc of Haiti reveals the nature of Voodoo. Lavishly illustrated, interspersed with illuminating quotations, both accessible and informative, "Monsters" is a Who's Who of the cruel and murderous, the rapacious and depraved, and a gripping compendium of stories, characters and indispensable lessons from history that no one should forget - and everyone should know.

First published in 1844, The Three Musketeers is the most famous of Alexandre Dumas' historical novels and one of the most popular adventure novels ever written. Dumas' swashbuckling epic chronicles the adventures of d'Artagnan, a brash young man from the countryside who journeys to Paris in 1625 hoping to become a musketeer and guard to King Louis XIII. Before long, he finds treachery and court intrigue,and also three boon companions, the daring swordsmen Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. Together, the four strive heroically to defend the honor of their queen against the powerful Cardinal Richelieu and the seductive spy Milady.

Could you survive on your own in the wild, with every one out to make sure you don't live to see the morning? In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weight survival against humanity and life against love.

TBD

Une femme voyage à travers le désordre des souvenirs : l'enfance dans sa cage d'or à Saigon, l'arrivée du communisme dans le Sud-Vietnam apeuré, la fuite dans le ventre d'un bateau au large du golfe de Siam, l'internement dans un camp de réfugiés en Malaisie, les premiers frissons dans le froid du Québec. Récit entre la guerre et la paix, ru dit le vide et le trop-plein, l'égarement et la beauté. De ce tumulte, des incidents tragi-comiques, des objets ordinaires émergent comme autant de repères d'un parcours. En évoquant un bracelet en acrylique rempli de diamants, des bols bleus cerclés d'argent ou la puissance d'une odeur d'assouplissant, Kim Thúy restitue le Vietnam d'hier et d'aujourd'hui avec la maîtrise d'un grand écrivain. A runaway bestseller in Quebec, with foreign rights sold to 15 countries around the world, Kim Thúy's Governor General's Literary Award-winning Ru is a lullaby for Vietnam and a love letter to a new homeland.Ru. In Vietnamese it means lullaby; in French it is a small stream, but also signifies a flow - of tears, blood, money. Kim Thúy's Ru is literature at its most crystalline: the flow of a life on the tides of unrest and on to more peaceful waters. In vignettes of exquisite clarity, sharp observation and sly wit, we are carried along on an unforgettable journey from a palatial residence in Saigon to a crowded and muddy Malaysian refugee camp, and onward to a new life in Quebec. There, the young girl feels the embrace of a new community, and revels in the chance to be part of the American Dream. As an adult, the waters become rough again: now a mother of two sons, she must learn to shape her love around the younger boy's autism. Moving seamlessly from past to present, from history to memory and back again, Ru is a book that celebrates life in all its wonder: its moments of beauty and sensuality, brutality and sorrow, comfort and comedy.