Frances Cairncross is the media editor for The Economist magazine. With this book she offers an analysis of the changes taking place in the telecommunications industry and the effects these will have on business and society.

Holidays on Ice is a collection of three previously published stories matched with three newer ones, all, of course, on a Christmas theme. David Sedaris's darkly playful humor is another common thread through the book, worming its way through "Seasons Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!!" a chipper suburban Christmas letter that spirals dizzily out of control, and "Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol," a vicious theatrical review of children's Christmas pageants. As always, Sedaris's best work is his sharply observed nonfiction, notably in "Dinah, the Christmas Whore," the tale of a memorable Christmas during which the young Sedaris learns to see his family in a new light. Worth the price of the book alone is the hilarious "SantaLand Diaries," Sedaris's chronicle of his time working as an elf at Macy's, covering everything from the preliminary group lectures ("You are not a dancer. If you were a real dancer you wouldn't be here. You're an elf and you're going to wear panties like an elf.") to the perils of inter-elf flirtation. Along the way, he paints a funny and sad portrait of the way the countless parents who pass through SantaLand are too busy creating an Experience to really pay attention to their children. In a sly way, it carries a holiday message all its own. Read it aloud to the adults after the kids have gone to bed. --Ali Davis

Journalist Michael Joseph Gross takes us deep into the world of celebrities and the people who love them.

Why are we so obsessed with fame? Even if we don't read People, we all crane our necks to see the stars. As a teenager, Michael Joseph Gross amassed a collection of about four thousand autographs by writing letters to celebrities and world leaders. The collecting fever broke when he grew up, but his fascination with fandom remained.

In Starstruck, Gross travels from Hollywood to Dollywood, from Neverland to Middle Earth. He crashes a Kid Rock concert with a sixty-six-year-old fan, sprints after Mick Jagger with a professional autograph collector, gets the inside scoop from Mary Hart on covering Hollywood for Entertainment Tonight, visits the world's largest comic book convention with the hobbits from The Lord of the Rings, and discovers what fans look like from the perspective of celebrities-who, paradoxically, often seem to be among the most starstruck of us all. Sympathetic, funny, and endlessly curious about stars and fans alike, Gross gives us a winning portrait of how our dreams of fame shape our everyday lives.

This is Siegfried Sassoon's fictionalized autobiography of the period between the early spring of 1916 and the summer of 1917. The narrative moves from the trenches to the Fourth Army School, to Morlancourt and a raid, then to and through the Somme.

One of the most terrible ideas of the 20th Century was that of total war - war by the obliteration of whole civilian populations.

Set in New York City in the late forties, Shadows on the Hudson presents the inter-twined lives of a group of prosperous Jewish refugees. Boris Makaver is the center of the circle, a pious and wealthy businessman. His greatest trial is his daughter, Anna, unlucky in her choice of husbands. Married first to Yasha Kotik, a lunatic actor, and then to a hapless, unemployed attorney, she plans to escape with Hertz Grein, a man torn between ascetic yearnings and romantic entanglements. Amid family quarrels and religious debates, marriages of love and convenience are attempted and abandoned, lovers separate, and spouses die or even manage to return from the dead.

This stunning and elegiac novel by the author of the internationally acclaimed Wind-Up Bird Chronicle has sold over 4 million copies in Japan and is now available to American audiences for the first time. It is sure to be a literary event. Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman. A poignant story of one college student's romantic coming-of-age, Norwegian Wood takes us to that distant place of a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love.

This is a 1989 best-selling memoir by Peter Mayle about his first year in Provence, and the local events and customs. It was adapted into a television mini-series starring John Thaw and Lindsay Duncan. Reviewers praised the book by its honest style and its refreshing humour.

Portrays a police lieutenant's struggle with his conscience when he violates strict South African law concerning relationships between Blacks and whites.

A man with a tree growing out of his head? A woman with children made of wax? A bird that can be milked? Let Alexander McCall Smith once again take you to a land where the bizarre is everyday and magic is real, with more illustrated stories from his celebration of African folktales.

All proceeds from the book will go to the One City charity, which fights social exclusion in the city. Edinburgh's Lord Provost Lesley Hinds said: 'This book project is exactly what One City is all about. The idea of three successful Edinburgh authors, with very different perspectives, getting together to raise awareness and money by using their talent and creativity, is really exciting.'

J. D. Salinger wrote one of the most famous books ever written, The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger wrote many stories and, in 1941, after several rejections, Salinger finally cracked The New Yorker, with a story, "Slight Rebellion Off Madison," that was an early sketch of what became a scene in "The Catcher in the Rye." The magazine then had second thoughts in part because of World War II in which Salinger was in combat, and held the story for five years before finally publishing it in 1946, buried in the back of an issue. Everyone was surprised when the story and the book that followed it became a bit hit. Even today nobody can really explain why Catcher in the Rye is so famous and so popular. Yet, millions have been sold and are still being sold even though only available as used books nowadays. When The Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951, it was registered for copyright as "additional material." This obviously referred to the earlier work "Slight Rebellion Off Madison." The copyright page on "The Catcher in the Rye" states "Copyright 1945, 1946, 1951 by J. D Salinger." The date of 1945 obviously refers to the publication of "I'm Crazy," a short story written by Salinger and published in the December 22, 1945 issue of Collier's magazine that first introduced the character Holden Caulfield to the reading public. Salinger later reworked this short story to incorporate it into The Catcher in the Rye. The two earlier stories are "I'm Crazy," an early version of Holden's departure from prep school that later shows up in The Catcher in the Rye. With minor alteration, much of this story is familiar to readers as the chapter where Holden visits Mr. Spencer. What sets this story apart is the presence of an additional Caulfield sister and the clarity of Holden's resignation and compromise at the end. "Slight Rebellion off Madison" is an early version of another scene in The Catcher in the Rye. The story follows Holden when he is home from Pency and goes to the movies, then skating with Sally Hayes, followed by his drunken calls to her apartment late at night. An early story, it is the first of Salinger's Caulfied works to be accepted for publication.

Verscheen voor het eerst in 1953. Bevat onderandere: A Perfect Day for Bananafish, For Esme with Love and Squalor, Down at the Dinghy, Teddy e.a.

Editedand with an Introduction and Notes by Dr Keith Carabine. University of Kent at Canterbury.

Uncle Tom's Cabin is the most popular, influential and controversial book written by an American. Stowe's rich, panoramic novel passionately dramatises why the whole of America is implicated in and responsible for the sin of slavery, and resoundingly concludes that only 'repentance, justice and mercy' will prevent the onset of 'the wrath of Almighty God!'.

The novel gave such a terrific impetus to the crusade for the abolition of slavery that President Lincoln half-jokingly greeted Stowe as'the little lady' who started the great Civil War. As Keith Carabine argues in his lively and provocative Introduction, the novel immediately provoked a storm of competing and contradictory responses among Northern and Southern readers, moderate and radical abolitionist groups, blacks and women, with regard to issues of form, genre, politics, religion, race and gender, that are still of great interest because they anticipate the concerns that vex and divide modern readers and critical constituencies.

Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high quality paper, and featuring ribbon markers and gilt edges, Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

This companion volume to the Tales of Mystery and Imagination contains Edgar Allan Poe’s best-known poetry, and a selection of his very best stories (many of which originate in his 1840s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque), along with his finest tales from the last decade of his tragically short life.

Many of these stories and poems tell of the familiar Poe themes of murder, obsession and love, but this volume also contains many overlooked tales of the fantastic, black comedies, parodies and hoaxes, such as ‘The Unparalleled Adventure of Hans Pfall’, ‘Mesmeric Revolution’, ‘Hop-Frog’, and ‘The Imp of the Perverse’.

Sarah, nosy-but-nice English teaching fellow, and her husband, Alex, are at it again. Due to an unfortunate accident that incapacitates a friend, Sarah's abrasive aunt Julia is offered two free tickets with Whirlaway Tours. After much arguing and little listening, Sarah finds herself serving as Julia's companion for the trip. Eyebrows are raised, however, when the group meets in Boston's Logan Airport and Ellen Trevino, the tour's garden expert, doesn't show. Sarah begins to worry that Ellen's problem may be worse than a delayed connecting flight. As strange clues begin to pile up, Sarah calls home to ask Alex to follow up on Ellen's disappearance. Sarah and Alex manage to scrutinize facts and motives from two separate coasts, but Sarah's penchant for snooping may finally have gotten her in too deep....

This edition (1932) is including an introduction by the author. The book was first published in 1921.

One of the finest novels written and among the most influential books of the 20th century. 

Autobiografische verhalen over de verschrikkingen van de Duitse concentratiekampen tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. ENGELSTALIG

In David Vann's searing novel Goat Mountain an eleven-year-old boy is eager to make his first kill at his family's annual deer hunt. But all is not as it should be. His father discovers a poacher on the land a 640-acre ranch in Northern California and shows him to the boy through the scope of his rifle. With this simple gesture tragedy erupts shattering lives irrevocably.

Set over the course of one hot and hellish weekend Goat Mountain is the story of a family struggling to contend with a terrible crime and its repercussions. David Vann creates a haunting and provocative novel that explores our most primal urges and beliefs the bonds of blood and religion that define and secure us and the consequences of our actions - what we owe for what we've done.

An Arab-American novel as delicious as Like Water for Chocolate. Praised by Critics from The New Yorker to USA Today for the first novel, Arabian Jazz ("an oracular tale that unfurls like gossamer"), Diana Abu-Jaber weaves with spellbinding magic a multidimensional love story set in the Arab-American community of Los Angeles. Thirty-nine-year-old Sitine, never married, lives with a devoted Iraqi-immigrnt uncle and an adoring dog named King Babar. She works as a chef in a Lebanese restaurant, her passions aroused only by the preparation of food--until an unbearably handsome Arabic literature professor starts dropping by for a little home cooking. Falling in love brings Sirene's whole heart to a boil--stirring up memories of her parents and questions about her identity as an Arab American. Written in a lush, lyrical style teminiscent of The God of Small Things, infused with the flavors and scents of Middle Eastern food, and spiced with history and fable, Creseent is a sensuous love story and a gripping tale of risk and commitment.

Three skeletons are found in a Montreal basement.

The building is old, and the homicide detective in charge dismisses the remains as historic. Not his case. Not his concern.

Forensic anthropologist Dr Temperance Brennan is not so sure. Something about the bones of these three young women suggests a different message: murder.

Soon she finds herself drawn ever deeper into a web of evil from which there may be no escape. Three women have disappeared, never to return. Will Tempe be next?

All is quiet in Moscow. The squeak of wheels is seldom heard in the snow-covered street. There are no lights left in the windows and the street lamps have been extinguished. Only the sound of bells, borne over the city from the church towers, suggests the approach of morning. The streets are deserted. At rare intervals a night-cabman's sledge kneads up the snow and sand in the street as the driver makes his way to another corner where he falls asleep while waiting for a fare. An old woman passes by on her way to church, where a few wax candles burn with a red light reflected on the gilt mountings of the icons. Workmen are already getting up after the long winter night and going to their work-but for the gentlefolk it is still evening. From a window in Chevalier's Restaurant a light-illegal at that hour-is still to be seen through a chink in the shutter. At the entrance a carriage, a sledge, and a cabman's sledge, stand close together with their backs to the curbstone. A three-horse sledge from the post-station is there also. A yard-porter muffled up and pinched with cold is sheltering behind the corner of the house. 'And what's the good of all this jawing?' thinks the footman who sits in the hall weary and haggard. 'This always happens when I'm on duty.' From the adjoining room are heard the voices of three young men, sitting there at a table on which are wine and the remains of supper. One, a rather plain, thin, neat little man, sits looking with tired kindly eyes at his friend, who is about to start on a journey. Another, a tall man, lies on a sofa beside a table on which are empty bottles, and plays with his watch-key. A third, wearing a short, fur-lined coat, is pacing up and down the room stopping now and then to crack an almond between his strong, rather thick, but well-tended fingers. He keeps smiling at something and his face and eyes are all aglow. He speaks warmly and gesticulates, but evidently does not find the words he wants and those that occur to him seem to him inadequate to express what has risen to his heart.

A contemporary Englishman's attempt to see himself in the mirrors of his past and his present.