Natasha Pulley

Cover has some corner creases and dents but interior is clean and pages are bright white. 

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

New York

The Times Historical Fiction Book of the Month

The Times Historical Fiction Book of the MonthThe truth must come out.In 1963, in a Siberian gulag, former nuclear specialist Valery Kolkhanov has mastered what it takes to survive: the right connections to the guards for access to food and cigarettes, the right pair of warm boots to avoid frostbite, and the right attitude toward the small pleasures of life. But on one ordinary day, all that changes: Valery's university mentor steps in and sweeps Valery from the frozen prison camp to a mysterious unnamed town hidden within a forest so damaged it looks like the trees have rusted from within. Here, Valery is Dr. Kolkhanov once more, and he's expected to serve out his prison term studying the effect of radiation on local animals. But as Valery begins his work, he is struck by the questions his research raises: what, exactly, is being hidden from the thousands who live in the town? And if he keeps looking for answers, will he live to serve out his sentence?Based on real events in a surreal Soviet city, and told with bestselling author Natasha Pulley's inimitable style, The Half Life of Valery K is a sweeping historical adventure.

The Half Life of Valery K

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Alyssa Ages

Clean inside and out. No marks, stains or creases. 

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

A Journey to Uncover the True Meaning of Strength

A deep dive into the science and psychology of why pushing our physical limits is so impactful—and how we can achieve so much more than we know. Everyone wants to know if they could do the impossible. Few of us will ever try. Alyssa Ages was the strongest she’d ever been, able to flip monster truck tires and walk with 300 pounds on her back. She felt invincible, until the day her body betrayed her, leaving her vulnerable and grasping for control. Rebuilding her strength slowly brought her back to life. She began to wonder: What if strength isn't about how much we can lift? What if it's about how we manage life’s struggles? In Secrets of Giants, Ages, now a mom of two, embarks on an immersive journey to the fringe of the weight-lifting world, the sport of strongman. She hoists kegs and lifts boulders in suburban parking lots, attempts to pull a 50-ton truck using only a rope, and occasionally frightens her neighbors by dragging a sled full of weights down her quiet tree-lined street. She meets a powerlifter-turned-boxer who shares how lifting taught her to become a master of the mundane. A ten-time World’s Strongest Man competitor is brought to tears illustrating how the gym helped him survive an abusive childhood. A pro strongwoman muses on managing setbacks before stepping on stage to deadlift the weight of a baby grand piano. Psychologists, researchers, and coaches offer insights into the fascinating ways that the pursuit of strength can permeate every aspect of our lives, from building resilience and confidence, to finding joy in discomfort, to teaching us to handle adversity. Part personal narrative, part research mission, part reckless midlife crisis odyssey, Secrets of Giants uncovers why physical strength matters, and how it teaches us that we’re capable of so much more than we know.

Secrets of Giants

53de54b7-e896-4091-abba-761d7ac15284-0

Samantha Irby

Cover and interior clean with bright white pages. No marks, stains or creases. One red mark on the bottom (see pic). 

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Essays

"A Vintage Books original"--Copyright page.

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life

3674780b-b31c-42d6-9a95-777ca4943ac5

Katie Williams

Pristine inside and out. In read once condition. 

A Novel

What if the murder you had to solve was your own? Lou is a happily married mother of an adorable toddler. She’s also the victim of a local serial killer. Recently brought back to life and returned to her grieving family by a government project, she is grateful for this second chance. But as the new Lou re-adapts to her old routines, and as she bonds with other female victims, she realizes that disturbing questions remain about what exactly preceded her death and how much she can really trust those around her. Now it’s not enough to care for her child, love her husband, and work the job she’s always enjoyed—she must also figure out the circumstances of her death. Darkly comic, tautly paced, and full of surprises, My Murder is a devour-in-one-sitting, clever twist on the classic thriller.

My Murder

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Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Light wear of dust jacket with clean interior. 

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST • “A masterpiece” (NPR) about marriage, divorce, and the bewildering dynamics of ambition In development as an FX limited series on Hulu, to be written by Taffy Brodesser-Akner ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—Entertainment Weekly, The New York Public Library ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—The New York Times Book Review, Time, The Washington Post, USA Today Vanity Fair, Vogue, NPR, Chicago Tribune, GQ, Vox, Refinery29, Elle, The Guardian, Real Simple, Financial Times, Parade, Good Housekeeping, New Statesman, Marie Claire, Town & Country, Evening Standard, Thrillist, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, BookPage, BookRiot, Shelf Awareness Toby Fleishman thought he knew what to expect when he and his wife of almost fifteen years separated: weekends and every other holiday with the kids, some residual bitterness, the occasional moment of tension in their co-parenting negotiations. He could not have predicted that one day, in the middle of his summer of sexual emancipation, Rachel would just drop their two children off at his place and simply not return. He had been working so hard to find equilibrium in his single life. The winds of his optimism, long dormant, had finally begun to pick up. Now this. As Toby tries to figure out where Rachel went, all while juggling his patients at the hospital, his never-ending parental duties, and his new app-assisted sexual popularity, his tidy narrative of the spurned husband with the too-ambitious wife is his sole consolation. But if Toby ever wants to truly understand what happened to Rachel and what happened to his marriage, he is going to have to consider that he might not have seen things all that clearly in the first place. A searing, utterly unvarnished debut, Fleishman Is in Trouble is an insightful, unsettling, often hilarious exploration of a culture trying to navigate the fault lines of an institution that has proven to be worthy of our great wariness and our great hope. Alma’s Best Jewish Novel of the Year • Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize for Best First Book

Fleishman Is in Trouble

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Gabrielle Zevin

Pristine interior and very light creasing of dust jacket at top and bottom of spine consistent with one reading. 

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

In this exhilarating novel by the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry two friends--often in love, but never lovers--come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

"Utterly brilliant. In this sweeping, gorgeously written novel, Gabrielle Zevin charts the beauty, tenacity, and fragility of human love and creativity. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is one of the best books I've ever read."
--John Green
 
On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.
 
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

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Beth Kempton

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Japanese Wisdom for a Life Well Lived

Kokoro is an invitation to cultivate stillness and contentment in an ever-changing, uncertain world, inspired by ancient and contemporary Japanese wisdom. Drawing on a thousand years of Japanese literature, culture, and philosophical ideas to explore the true nature of time and what it means to be human, Kokoro--which mysteriously translates as "heart-mind"--is a meditation on living well. Join Japanologist Beth Kempton on this life-changing pilgrimage far beyond the tourist trail, to uncover the soul of the country, its people, and its deeply buried wisdom. Along the way you'll discover a revolutionary way of looking at life and the world that will transform your approach to living. You will learn how to cultivate presence, awareness, calm, and joy so that you can move beyond regret and fear to make the most of every day. Distilling insight from a rich variety of sources, from centuries-old poetry and ancient Zen texts to martial arts teaching and contemporary philosophy, alongside the real-life stories of modern day pioneers, Kokoro offers a gentle and inspiring take on what it truly means to be happy and leads you to the heart of what really matters, so you can live each day with wonder and ease. And then, when the time comes to look back on it all, you will know that yours was a life well-lived.

Kokoro

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Mary Liza Hartong

Uncorrected Proof with light creases at cover corners. Interior clean, no marks, stains or dogears. 

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

A Delicious Southern Novel

The debut of a dynamite new voice from the South, Love and Hot Chicken is a spicy and hilarious Tennessee story about family, friendship, fried chicken, and two girls in love. The Chickie Shak is something of a historical landmark. Red clapboard walls, thriving wasp population, yard-toilets resplendent with sunflowers. My best friend Lee Ray and I used to come after our softball games and snag a picnic table while our mammas ordered the home team special. Truth is, most people around here order the same thing until the day somebody throws their ashes off a roller coaster at Dollywood. The line snakes around the building as far as you can see, the grimiest bunch of Jessies, Pearls, and Scooters you ever did behold, hobnobbing in the parking lot from noon until night. When PJ Spoon returns home for her beloved daddy's funeral, she doesn't expect to stick around. Why abandon her PhD program at Vanderbilt for the humble charms of her hometown, Pennywhistle, Tennessee? Mamma's broken heart, that's why. But truth be told, PJ's own heart ain't doing too good either. She impulsively takes a job as a fry cook at Pennywhistle's beloved Chickie Shak, where locals gather for Nashville-style hot chicken. It may not be glamorous, but it's something to do. Fate shakes up PJ's life again when the town rallies around the terribly retro and terribly fun Hot Chicken Pageant. PJ finally notices her cute redheaded coworker Boof, a singer-songwriter with a talent as striking as her curly hair, and learns to fear her smack-talking manager, Linda. As PJ and Boof fall for each other, Boof's search for her birth mother--a Pennywhistle native--catapults the budding couple into a mystery that might be better left unsolved. The Chickie Shak pageant takes off, spurring old rivalries and new friendships in this tale of unexpected connections and new beginnings.

Love and Hot Chicken

c357b765-09ec-4562-9181-22ce32ec5d52-1

Jamie Marina Lau

Clean inside and out. No cover wear and no marks, stains or creases. 

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

"[Lau's] gift for writing accumulative insanities creates the same dizzying effect as a good cleaning." --Alexandra Tanner, The New York Times Book Review

"A dissociative meditation on a world that has come to feel increasingly meaningless . . . [Lau's] prose combines the languid torpor of Michael Bible with the unease of Yoko Ogawa's more macabre work." ―Declan Fry, The Guardian

A black comedy workplace thriller set in a sprawling indoor shopping mall about a cabal of low-wage workers who plot violent acts of "resistance" against their managers.

In the suburb of Par Mars stand a pair of identical shopping centers, each with the same harsh, fluorescent lights, climate-controlled environment, and monotonous encounters between employees and shoppers.
 
Reviving an ancient Chinese ritual passed down by her mother, twenty-four-year-old Leen has opened an ear-cleaning and massage studio in the Topic Heights Shopping Center. But the social fabric of Par Mars is coming loose, and a quiet unrest is growing among the mall's low-wage workers as store managers begin to fall victim to increasingly brutal and spontaneous attacks. When Leen befriends Jean Paul, a pharmacist enmeshed in a cryptic online community, she finds herself embroiled in a troubling plot to disrupt the routines of the town's banal consumer culture.
 
With fierce intellect, sharp wit, and original prose, Jamie Marina Lau interprets and vividly portrays the everyday violence and toil of contemporary working life. Encapsulating millennial ennui and middle-class boredom, Gunk Baby is an inventive and deliberate novel from a fresh, new, exciting voice.

Gunk Baby

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Jean Chen Ho

“A knockout of a book.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer and The Committed “Fiona and Jane is the book I did not know I was waiting to be written. . . . Read this remarkable work of fiction and feel the world open up around you.” —Angela Flournoy, author of National Book Award finalist The Turner House “Unsentimental, subtly subversive, and always surprising. . . . I love this book.” —Cathy Park Hong, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Minor Feelings A witty, warm, and irreverent book that traces the lives of two young Taiwanese American women as they navigate friendship, sexuality, identity, and heartbreak over two decades. Best friends since second grade, Fiona Lin and Jane Shen explore the lonely freeways and seedy bars of Los Angeles together through their teenage years, surviving unfulfilling romantic encounters, and carrying with them the scars of their families' tumultuous pasts. Fiona was always destined to leave, her effortless beauty burnished by fierce ambition—qualities that Jane admired and feared in equal measure. When Fiona moves to New York and cares for a sick friend through a breakup with an opportunistic boyfriend, Jane remains in California and grieves her estranged father's sudden death, in the process alienating an overzealous girlfriend. Strained by distance and unintended betrayals, the women float in and out of each other's lives, their friendship both a beacon of home and a reminder of all they've lost. In stories told in alternating voices, Jean Chen Ho's debut collection peels back the layers of female friendship—the intensity, resentment, and boundless love—to probe the beating hearts of young women coming to terms with themselves, and each other, in light of the insecurities and shame that holds them back. Spanning countries and selves, Fiona and Jane is an intimate portrait of a friendship, a deep dive into the universal perplexities of being young and alive, and a bracingly honest account of two Asian women who dare to stake a claim on joy in a changing, contemporary America.

Fiona and Jane

ae5a5ef1-2b9a-4181-85a9-8f73fec85781-1

Scott L. Malcomson

Dust jacket and interior clean and pristine. Smudges on top near spine as shown in pic. 

The American Misadventure of Race

A study of a great dichotomy in American history explores why a country dedicated to freedom and universal ideals has created a people divided along ethnic lines. 25,000 first printing.

One Drop of Blood

b1855b2d-d68a-4c13-97c6-e2b29d014d2e-0

Clare Mackintosh

In read once condition. No interior stains, marks or creases. 

From New York Times bestselling author Clare Mackintosh They say the camera never lies. But on this show, you can't trust anything you see. Stranded in the Welsh mountains, seven reality show contestants have no idea what they've signed up for. Each of these strangers has a secret. If another player can guess the truth, they won't just be eliminated - they'll be exposed live on air. The stakes are higher than they'd ever imagined, and they're trapped. The disappearance of a contestant wasn't supposed to be part of the drama. Detective Ffion Morgan has to put aside what she's watched on screen, and find out who these people really are - knowing she can't trust any of them. And when a murderer strikes, Ffion knows every one of her suspects has an alibi . . . and a secret worth killing for.

A Game of Lies

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Pat Barker

From the Booker Prize-winning Pat Barker, author of The Silence of the Girls ("An important, powerful, memorable book" --Emily Wilson, translator of The Odyssey), a retelling of the Trojan War from the perspective of the women who endured it Troy has fallen and the victorious Greeks are eager to return home with the spoils of an endless war--including the women of Troy themselves. They await a fair wind for the Aegean. It does not come, because the gods are offended. The body of King Priam lies unburied and desecrated, and so the victors remain in suspension, camped in the shadows of the city they destroyed as the coalition that held them together begins to unravel. Old feuds resurface and new suspicions and rivalries begin to fester. Largely unnoticed by her captors, the one-time Trojan queen Briseis, formerly Achilles' mistress, now belonging to his companion Alcimus, quietly takes in these developments. She forges alliances when she can, with Priam's aged wife the defiant Hecuba and with the disgraced soothsayer Calchas, all the while shrewdly seeking her path to revenge.

The Women of Troy

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Stewart Gordon

Spine creased but minimal wear otherwise. No marks, tears or stains. 

Traveling Merchants, Scholars, Warriors, and Monks Who Created the &quot;&quot;Riches of The &quot;&quot;East&quot;&quot;

While European civilization stagnated in the “Dark Ages,” Asia flourished as the wellspring of science, philosophy, and religion. Linked together by a web of spiritual, commercial, and intellectual connections, the distant regions of Asia's vast civilization, from Arabia to China, hummed with trade, international diplomacy, and the exchange of ideas. Stewart Gordon has fashioned a compelling and unique look at Asia from AD 700 to 1500—a time when Asia was the world—by relating the personal journeys of Asia's many travelers.

When Asia Was the World

41c68f8a-dfa0-4abb-9295-1a81282ccd2d-1

Julie Clark

Clean copy, dust jacket intact. No tears, creases or marks. 

"Fans of Lisa Jewell and Liv Constantine will love The Last Flight, a novel focusing on two women who meet in an airport, both alone, both scared, and both urgently needing an escape from their lives. Claire Cook has a husband whose temper burns as bright as his promising political career, and she has worked for months on a plan to get out. A chance meeting in an airport bar brings her together with a stranger equally as desperate. Together they hatch a plan to switch tickets - Claire taking Eva's flight to Oakland, and Eva traveling to Puerto Rico as Claire. But then one plane crashes, and it's clear that one of them wasn't telling the truth"--

The Last Flight

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Tania Kindersley

Sarah Vine

Clean copy, mild cover wear. No marks, tears or dog ears. 

The Impossible Art of Being Female

This smart and frank collection distills the trials and triumphs of being a woman, all in a gifty volume filled with whimsical fullcolor illustrations. In 15 subject-driven chapters relevant to women of all ages, authors Tania Kindersley and Sarah Vine's essays cover topics ranging from feminism to face cream, motherhood to money, and politics to perfection. Titles like “The Danger of Romantic Love,” “Why There is No Such Thing as a Guilt-Free Working Mother,” “How Not to Go Mad,” parts 1 and 2, and “Why There is No Excuse for Bad Sex” develop into a tuned and sophisticated voice that is at once a mother, best friend, and shrink, revising expectations, bashing stereotypes, and illuminating the experience of life. This is the ultimate sophisticated gift for any woman of any age. Both young and old will find familiarity in the admonitions, recollections, and powerful advice of two writers who have done it all. This “brilliant feat of realism,” so called by the Sunday Times Magazine, gently guides the way without claiming to have all the answers.

Backwards in High Heels

7cd54d76-d0b4-4c7f-a15e-3204ba1a9f92-1

Jenny Jackson

Birthday inscription on first page- see pic. Otherwise clean inside and out. 

A deliciously funny, sharply observed debut of family, love, and class, this zeitgeisty novel follows three women in one wealthy Brooklyn clan

"A vibrant and hilarious debut...Pineapple Street is riveting, timely, hugely entertaining and brimming with truth." --Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, New York Times bestselling author of The Nest

Darley, the eldest daughter in the well-connected old money Stockton family, followed her heart, trading her job and her inheritance for motherhood but giving up far too much in the process; Sasha, a middle-class New England girl, has married into the Brooklyn Heights family, and finds herself cast as the arriviste outsider; and Georgiana, the baby of the family, has fallen in love with someone she can't have, and must decide what kind of person she wants to be. 

Rife with the indulgent pleasures of life among New York's one-percenters, Pineapple Street is a smart, escapist novel that sparkles with wit. Full of recognizable, loveable--if fallible--characters, it's about the peculiar unknowability of someone else's family, the miles between the haves and have-nots, and the insanity of first love--all wrapped in a story that is a sheer delight.

Pineapple Street

84fe521f-2856-4324-ae5d-5ded2502a674-1

Ronald Jager

No signs of wear, spine uncreased, pages white. No tears, marks, stains. 
 

Excursions into a Rural Past

The author describes his experiences living in rural New Hampshire and restoring an old farmhouse, whose builder was a Revolutionary War soldier

Last House on the Road

7b4dd6a4-67cb-4315-ad4e-9a2e743cb47f-0

Eugen Ruge

Anthea Bell

Pristine condition. No marks, tears, stains.

An enthrallingly expansive family saga set against the backdrop of the collapse of East German communism, from a major new international voice

* Over 450,000 copies sold in Germany alone * Rights sold in 20 countries * Winner of the German Book Prize * APW "First Fiction" pick *

In Times of Fading Light begins in September 2001 as Alexander Umnitzer, who has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer, leaves behind his ailing father to fly to Mexico, where his grandparents lived as exiles in the 1940s.
The novel then takes us both forward and back in time, creating a panoramic view of the family's history: from Alexander's grandparents' return to the GDR to build the socialist state, to his father's decade spent in a gulag for criticizing the Soviet regime, to his son's desire to leave the political struggles of the twentieth century in the past.
With wisdom, humor, and great empathy, Eugen Ruge draws on his own family history as he masterfully brings to life the tragic intertwining of politics, love, and family under the East German regime.

In Times of Fading Light

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Ray Nayler

Front and back cover wear as shown in the pics but interior is clean. No dogeared pages, stains or writing. 

Humankind discovers intelligent life in an octopus species with its own language and culture, and sets off a high-stakes global competition to dominate the future. Rumors begin to spread of a dangerous species of hyperintelligent octopus that may have developed its own language and culture. The marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen, who has spent her life researching cephalopod intelligence, will do anything for the chance to study them. The transnational tech corporation DIANIMA has sealed off the remote Con Dao Archipelago, where the octopuses were discovered, from the rest of world. Dr. Nguyen travels to the islands to join DIANIMA's team: a battle-scarred security agent and the world's first android. The octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence. The stakes are high: there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of the octopuses' advancements, and as Dr. Nguyen struggles to communicate with the newly discovered species, forces larger than DIANIMA close in to seize the octopuses for themselves. But no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. Or what they might do about it. A near-future thriller about the nature of consciousness, Ray Nayler's The Mountain in the Sea is a dazzling literary debut and a mind-blowing dive into the treasure and wreckage of humankind's legacy.

The Mountain in the Sea

fc71a58a-5944-4eb2-b3fe-4aa1658cf016-1

Rosie Schaap

Pristine condition. Dust jacket intact. No marks, dogears or stains, inside or out. In "read once or twice" condition. 

How I Found Peace in an Improbable Country

From the acclaimed author of the "funny, smart-as-hell, and moving"* Drinking with Men comes a poignant, wrenching, and ultimately hopeful book--equal parts memoir and social history--that follows the author, after a series of tragic losses, to Northern Ireland, where she finds a path toward healing. * Salon

The Slow Road North

48358e0c-6e4b-48b9-ad3a-a51037558810-0

Ansel Adams

Front dustjacket creased but intact. No tears. Dedication inside front cover but no other marks/creases inside. Sat on a shelf since 1982. A classic for any photographer. 

The Negative

df7a8fb4-6b2d-4cdd-ba41-32a322de375a-1

Hannah Arendt

Amos Elon

Mild yellowing inside but no interior marks, stains or creases. Spine intact and uncreased. A slight tear at top of front cover as shown in pic. 

A Report on the Banality of Evil

The controversial journalistic analysis of the mentality that fostered the Holocaust, from the author of The Origins of Totalitarianism Sparking a flurry of heated debate, Hannah Arendt’s authoritative and stunning report on the trial of German Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann first appeared as a series of articles in The New Yorker in 1963. This revised edition includes material that came to light after the trial, as well as Arendt’s postscript directly addressing the controversy that arose over her account. A major journalistic triumph by an intellectual of singular influence, Eichmann in Jerusalem is as shocking as it is informative—an unflinching look at one of the most unsettling (and unsettled) issues of the twentieth century.

Eichmann in Jerusalem

95a37541-8892-4431-8ee4-e25172af8532-1

Cassandra Clare

Two outcasts find themselves caught in a web of forbidden love, dangerous magic, and dark secrets that could change the world forever in the start of a riveting epic fantasy series from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Shadowhunter Chronicles. “Everything I look for in fantasy.”—George R. R. Martin In the vibrant city-state of Castellane, the richest of nobles and the most debauched of criminals have one thing in common: the constant search for wealth, power, and the next hedonistic thrill. Kel is an orphan, stolen from the life he knew to become the Sword Catcher—the body double of a royal heir, Prince Conor Aurelian. He has been raised alongside the prince, trained in every aspect of combat and statecraft. He and Conor are as close as brothers, but Kel knows that his destiny is to die for Conor. No other future is possible. Lin Caster is one of the Ashkar, a small community whose members still possess magical abilities. By law, they must live behind walls within the city, but Lin, a physician, ventures out to tend to the sick and dying of Castellane. Despite her skills, she cannot heal her best friend without access to forbidden knowledge. After a failed assassination attempt brings Lin and Kel together, they are drawn into the web of the mysterious Ragpicker King, the criminal ruler of Castellane’s underworld. He offers them each what they want most; but as they descend into his world of intrigue and shadow, they discover a conspiracy of corruption that reaches from the darkest gutters of Castellane to the highest tower of its palaces. As long-kept secrets begin to unravel, they must ask themselves: Is knowledge worth the price of betrayal? Can forbidden love bring down a kingdom? And will their discoveries plunge their nation into war—and the world into chaos?

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