Classic Science

My name is Nate Temple, and I’m secretly a wizard. I ride a foul-mouthed unicorn, I drink with Achilles, and I’m pals with the Four Horsemen. I’ve even cow-tipped the Minotaur. I understand the theory of following the rules...I’m just not very good at the application. Because rules were meant to be broken, and St. Louis has a bit of a supernatural infestation these days. Someone should probably be keeping an eye on these things -and probably an eye on me, too. Before I blow up another building...or three.

In The Crowd - A Study of the Popular Mind, social theorist Gustave Le Bon gives historical insight into the political thinking of his era while offering timeless social commentary. Le Bon challenges the listener to contemplate how individual ideas change - often to a destructive end - when employed in a setting of groupthink. As technology and communications innovations make group formation easy and accessible for better or for worse, this book's message is certainly one that will not be lost in the crowd.

Based on events that took place between 960 and 1020 AD, Njál 's Saga is a mesmerizing drama about a multigenerational cycle of violence and retribution, and the feuds and passions that perpetuate it. The eponymous sage Njál, known for his keen legal mind, is one of Iceland's pre-eminent men, along with Gunnar of Hlidarendi, a fierce and formidable warrior married to the diabolical Hallgerd, whose conniving instigates the interminable pattern of romance, action and brutality - until one unforgivable act ends it all.

Imriel de la Courcel's blood parents are history's most reviled traitors, while his adoptive parents, Phedre and Joscelin, are Terre d'Ange's greatest champions. Stolen, tortured, and enslaved as a young boy, Imriel is now a Prince of the Blood, third in line for the throne in a land that revels in beauty, art, and desire.

Naomi Novik’s beloved series returns, with Capt. Will Laurence and his fighting dragon Temeraire once again taking to the air against the broadsides of Napoleon’s forces and the friendly—and sometimes not-so-friendly—fire of British soldiers and politicians who continue to suspect them of divided loyalties, if not outright treason.

Colin Laney is here looking for work. He is an intuitive fisher for patterns of information. But Laney knows how to sift for the dangerous bits. Which makes him useful - to certain people. Chia McKenzie is here on a rescue mission. Her idol is the singer Rez, of the band Lo,Rez. When the Seattle chapter of the Lo,Rez fan club decided that he might be in trouble in Tokyo, they sent Chia to check it out. Rei Toei is the idoru - the beautiful, entirely virtual media star adored by all Japan. Rez has declared that he will marry her. This is the rumor that has brought Chia to Tokyo.

One of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer's Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode in the Trojan War. At its center is Achilles, the greatest warrior-champion of the Greeks, and his refusal to fight after being humiliated by his leader, Agamemnon.

As a guild bartender, I can handle pretty much anything - mages, sorcerers, witches, the occasional demon. But show me anything family-related and I'd rather run for the hills. It doesn't even have to be my family. So I have no idea why I thought spending the holidays with Aaron's mom and pop was a good idea. Meeting his famous parents is already terrifying enough, but I've got a bigger problem. Students of his family's renowned mage academy are being attacked on the grounds - and somehow no one has seen a single assailant?

Un grupo de niños encuentra un cadáver flotando en las aguas turbias de un canal de riego cercano a la ranchería de La Matosa. El cuerpo resulta ser de la Bruja, una mujer que heredó dicho oficio de su madre fallecida, y a quienes los pobladores de esa zona rural respetaban y temían.

Morgan used to be a pretty normal guy. He went to college by day and played online games by night, leading his guild into new conquests - until he got hit by a car and a dude wearing a wet suit appeared in front of him. The man offered him a new chance at life in a world he had created, a world with similar rules to the games Morgan loved to play. There is the promise of great rewards and power, he says, if Morgan manages to complete the Tower of Power.

Dr. Victor Frankenstein, an ambitious young scientist, is consumed by a fanatic desire to create a living being. He fashions an eight-foot-tall creature and succeeds in animating him, but, horrified by his visage, perceives his creation to be a monster and frightens him away. The monster, wandering in search of human companionship, is spurned and repulsed by all he approaches and learns to hate and to kill.

It was a world of airships and alchemy; clockwork carnivals; pirates; lost cities; a rigid Watchmaker who controlled every aspect of life; and his nemesis, the ruthless and violent Anarchist, who wanted to destroy it all. Anderson and Peart have returned to their colourful creation to explore the places and the characters that still have a hold on their imaginations.

The Aeneid represents one of the greatest cultural and artistic achievements of Western Civilization. Within the brooding and melancholy atmosphere of Virgil's pious masterpiece lies the mythic story of Aeneas and his flight from burning Troy, taking with him across the Mediterranean the survivors of the Greek onslaught. Aeneas, after many travails and adventures, including a love affair with Dido Queen of Carthage and a visit to the underworld to see his father, ends up in Italy.

A month has passed since Martin helped to defeat the evil programmer Jimmy, and things couldn't be going better. Except for his love life, that is. Feeling distant and lost, Gwen has journeyed to Atlantis, a tolerant and benevolent kingdom governed by the Sorceresses, and a place known to be a safe haven to all female time-travelers.

Shadows of the Empire illuminates the shadowy outlines of a criminal conspiracy that exists in the background of the events in the movies, ruled by a character new to us. Prince Xizor is a mastermind of evil who dares to oppose one of the best-known fictional villains of all time: Darth Vader...

The first book written by C.S. Lewis after his conversion, The Pilgrim's Regress is, in a sense, a record of Lewis's own search for meaning and spiritual satisfaction that eventually led him to Christianity.

Jessi St. James has got to get a life. Too many hours studying ancient artifacts has given the hardworking archaeology student a bad case of sex on the brain. So she figures she must be dreaming when she spies a gorgeous half-naked man staring out at her from inside the glass of an ancient mirror. But when a split-second decision saves her from a terrifying attempt on her life, Jessi suddenly finds herself confronting six-and-a-half feet of smoldering, insatiable alpha male.

With his talent for divining the future, Alex Verus should have foreseen his friends' reactions to the revelations about his previous life. Anne Walker no longer trusts him-and has also cut all ties with the mage community after getting kicked out of the apprentice program. As a favor to Luna, Alex's own apprentice and Anne's best friend, he checks in on her only to be told to leave her alone. Then Anne gets kidnapped.

If Max Brod had obeyed Franz Kafka's dying request, Kafka's unpublished manuscripts would have been burned, unread. Fortunately, Brod ignored his friend's wishes and published The Trial, which became the author's most famous work. Now Kafka's enigmatic novel regains its humor and stylistic elegance in a new translation based on the restored original manuscript.

Call it "Zen and the Art of Farming" or a "Little Green Book", Masanobu Fukuoka's manifesto about farming, eating, and the limits of human knowledge presents a radical challenge to the global systems we rely on for our food. At the same time, it is a spiritual memoir of a man whose innovative system of cultivating the earth reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world. As Wendell Berry writes in his preface, the book "is valuable to us because it is at once practical and philosophical."