Charlotte Napier has much to learn about herself, her faith, and her marriage. She flees to Portugal, desperately looking for comfort after the death of her son and, she thinks, her marriage. There she finds solace in the letters of a 17th century nun who struggled with temptation and sin. As Charlotte achieves a clearer focus on her own pain, she gains a powerful sense of the rigorous and demanding nature of real love.

Madeleine L'Engle's classic young adult books include A Wrinkle in Time, A Swiftly Planet, and Certain Women. The Small Rain, an adult novel, focuses on Katherine Forrester, the daughter of distinguished musical artists, whose career as a concert pianist evolves through loves and losses. Katherine is a child growing up in a refined, yet bohemian, artistic ambience--theatrical as well as musical . . . . [Her] adolescence is lonely and difficult, but as Katherine advances to young womanhood, her heart as well as her talent is promisingly engaged (Publishers Weekly).

Katherine Forrester Vigneras, in a continuation of her story from The Small Rain, returns to New York City from Europe to retire. Now in her seventies, she encounters an old friend from her Greenwich Village days who, it turns out, is the former Bishop of New York. He asks Katherine to give a benefit concert at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. This leads to new demands on her resources--human, artistic, psychological, and spiritual--that are entirely unexpected.

L'Engle at her best, this novel features Stella, who marries into the aristocratic Renier family and discovers a frightening world of intrigue, greed, prejudice, and superstition. Soon drawn into a raging battle between good and evil, Stella must fight her way through to find the other side of the sun.

Madeleine L'Engle's first adult novel in four years -- now in paperback! With 23,000 copies sold since May 1996, this "haunting domestic drama" (Publishers Weekly) examines the powers of faith and mercy in one family's confrontation with a legacy of evil.Best known for A Wrinkle in Time -- the children's classic that has sold more than 2 million copies since 1962 -- Madeleine L'Engle is as adept at exploring faith and human experience as she is at spinning fascinating, fantastic tales. Now this masterful storyteller blends her two passions and offers an engrossing new story to delight her devoted audience. When Dr. Camilla Dickinson's teenage granddaughter confronts her with the disquieting question of whether Camilla is, in fact, her grandmother, long-kept secrets rise to the surface to test the faith, love and loyalty of the Xanthakos family. This skillful, gripping tale shuttles between past and troubled present, providing clues to a multigenerational mystery -- clues that begin to focus on Camilla's son, the deeply troubled TV idol Artaxias, and on Camilla's mother, the irresistibly beautiful and adulterous Rose. Though riveting and psychologically complex, A Live Coal in the Sea is "infused with the warmth of love and mercy" (Booklist), showcasing the keen eye and deep compassion that have made L'Engle one of this century's premier writers on faith and its place in human experience.

Crossing the Water and Winter Trees contain the poems written during the exceptionally creative period of the last years of Sylvia Plath’s life. Published posthumously in 1971, they add a startling counterpoint to Ariel, the volume that made her reputation. Readers will recognise some of her most celebrated poems – ‘Childless Woman’, ‘Mirror’, ‘Insomniac’ – while discovering those still overlooked, including her radio play Three Women. These two extraordinary volumes find their place alongside The Colossus and Ariel in the oeuvre of a singular talent.

From her mid-teens Sylvia Plath wrote stories, at first easily and successfully, but then with increasing difficulty as the demands of her real vision complicated her growing ambition to make a career as a conventional storywriter. When the first edition of Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams appeared, Margaret Walters said of it in the Guardian, 'the book does offer . . . new insight into her development as a writer, suggesting how even her mistakes and dead ends contributed to the formation of an original and pathfinding talent'. This second edition contains the thirteen stories included in the first edition together with five pieces of her journalism, as well as a few fragments from her journal; and a further nine stories selected from the Indiana archive.

Letters Home represents Sylvia Plath's correspondence from her time at Smith College in the early fifties, through her meeting with, and subsequent marriage to, the poet Ted Hughes, up to her death in February 1963. The letters are addressed mainly to her mother, with whom she had an extremely close and confiding relationship, but there are also some to her brother Warren and her benefactress Mrs Prouty. Plath's energy, enthusiasm and her passionate tackling of life burst onto these pages, providing us with a vivid and intimate portrait of a woman who has come to be regarded as one of the greatest of twentieth-century poets. In addition to her capacity for domestic and writerly happiness, however, these letters also hint at Plath's potential for deep despair, which reached its crisis when she holed up in a London flat for the terrible winter of 1963.

With this startling, exhilarating book of poems, which was first published in 1960, Sylvia Plath burst into literature with spectacular force. In such classics as "The Beekeeper's Daughter," "The Disquieting Muses," "I Want, I Want," and "Full Fathom Five," she writes about sows and skeletons, fathers and suicides, about the noisy imperatives of life and the chilly hunger for death. Graceful in their craftsmanship, wonderfully original in their imagery, and presenting layer after layer of meaning, the forty poems in The Colossus are early artifacts of genius that still possess the power to move, delight, and shock. From the Trade Paperback edition.

John Irving's memoir begins with his account of the distinguished career and medical writings of the novelist's grandfather Dr. Frederick C. Irving, a renowned obstetrician and gynecologist, and includes Mr. Irving's incisive history of abortion politics in the United States. But My Movie Business focuses primarily on the thirteen years John Irving spent adapting his novel The Cider House Rules for the screen--for four different directors. Mr. Irving also writes about the failed effort to make his first novel, Setting Free the Bears, into a movie; about two of the films that were made from his novels (but not from his screenplays), The World According to Garp and The Hotel New Hampshire; about his slow progress at shepherding his screenplay of A Son of the Circus into production. Not least, and in addition to its qualities as a memoir--anecdotal, comic, affectionate, and candid--My Movie Business is an insightful essay on the essential differences between writing a novel and writing a screenplay. The photographs in My Movie Business were taken by Stephen Vaughan, the still photographer on the set of The Cider House Rules--a Miramax production directed by Lasse Hallström, with Michael Caine in the role of Dr. Larch. Concurrently with the November 1999 release of the film, Talk Miramax Books will publish John Irving's screenplay.

This is the story of Charley, a child of divorce who is always forced to choose between his mother and his father. He grows into a man and starts a family of his own. But one fateful weekend, he leaves his mother to secretly be with his father--and she dies while he is gone. This haunts him for years. It unravels his own young family. It leads him to depression and drunkenness. One night, he decides to take his life. But somewhere between this world and the next, he encounters his mother again, in their hometown, and gets to spend one last day with her--the day he missed and always wished he'd had. He asks the questions many of us yearn to ask, the questions we never ask while our parents are alive. By the end of this magical day, Charley discovers how little he really knew about his mother, the secret of how her love saved their family, and how deeply he wants the second chance to save his own.

In this fable, the first man on earth to count the hours becomes Father Time. The inventor of the world's first clock is punished for trying to measure God's greatest gift. He is banished to a cave for centuries and forced to listen to the voices of all who come after him seeking more days, more years. Eventually, with his soul nearly broken, Father Time is granted his freedom, along with a magical hourglass and a mission: a chance to redeem himself by teaching two earthly people the true meaning of time. He returns to our world - now dominated by the hour-counting he so innocently began - and commences a journey with two unlikely partners: one a teenage girl who is about to give up on life, the other a wealthy old businessman who wants to live forever. To save himself, he must save them both. And stop the world to do so.

Mitch Albom creates a magical world through his love of music in this remarkable new novel about the power of talent to change our lives This is the epic story of Frankie Presto—the greatest guitar player who ever lived—and the six lives he changed with his six magical blue strings Frankie, born in a burning church, abandoned as an infant, and raised by a music teacher in a small Spanish town, until war rips his life apart. At nine years old, he is sent to America in the bottom of a boat. His only possession is an old guitar and six precious strings. His amazing journey weaves him through the musical landscape of the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, with his stunning playing and singing talent affecting numerous stars (Duke Ellington, Hank Williams, Elvis Presley) until, as if predestined, he becomes a pop star himself. He makes records. He is adored. But Frankie Presto’s gift is also his burden, as he realizes the power of the strings his teacher gave him, and how, through his music, he can actually affect people’s lives. At the height of his popularity, tortured by his biggest mistake, he vanishes. His legend grows. Only decades later, having finally healed his heart, does Frankie reappearjust before his spectacular death—to change one last life. With the Spirit of Music as our guide, we glimpse into the lives that were changed by one man whose strings could touch the music—and the magic—in each of us.

In Have a Little Faith, Mitch Albom offers a beautifully written story of a remarkable eight-year journey between two worlds--two men, two faiths, two communities--that will inspire readers everywhere. Albom's first nonfiction book since Tuesdays with Morrie, Have a Little Faith begins with an unusual request: an eighty-two-year-old rabbi from Albom's old hometown asks him to deliver his eulogy. Feeling unworthy, Albom insists on understanding the man better, which throws him back into a world of faith he'd left years ago. Meanwhile, closer to his current home, Albom becomes involved with a Detroit pastor--a reformed drug dealer and convict--who preaches to the poor and homeless in a decaying church with a hole in its roof. Moving between their worlds, Christian and Jewish, African-American and white, impoverished and well-to-do, Albom observes how these very different men employ faith similarly in fighting for survival: the older, suburban rabbi embracing it as death approaches; the younger, inner-city pastor relying on it to keep himself and his church afloat. As America struggles with hard times and people turn more to their beliefs, Albom and the two men of God explore issues that perplex modern man: how to endure when difficult things happen; what heaven is; intermarriage; forgiveness; doubting God; and the importance of faith in trying times. Although the texts, prayers, and histories are different, Albom begins to recognize a striking unity between the two worlds--and indeed, between beliefs everywhere. In the end, as the rabbi nears death and a harsh winter threatens the pastor's wobbly church, Albom sadly fulfills the rabbi's last request and writes the eulogy. And he finally understands what both men had been teaching all along: the profound comfort of believing in something bigger than yourself. Have a Little Faith is a book about a life's purpose; about losing belief and finding it again; about the divine spark inside us all. It is one man's journey, but it is everyone's story. Ten percent of the profits from this book will go to charity, including The Hole In The Roof Foundation, which helps refurbish places of worship that aid the homeless.

Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, and gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it. For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago. Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded. Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you? Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life. Knowing he was dying of ALS - or motor neurone disease - Mitch visited Morrie in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final 'class': lessons in how to live.

From the author of the phenomenal #1 New York Times bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie, a novel that explores the unexpected connections of our lives, and the idea that heaven is more than a place; it's an answer. Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here?"

For the past twenty years Corrie ten Boom has crisscrossed the globe, slept in more than a thousand different beds, and lived out of suitcases...all to fulfill her God-given mission to tell people everywhere that Jesus Christ is reality, that He Lives, that He is Victor. This remarkable woman of eighty-one years served time in a German concentration camp during World War II for the "crime" of hiding persecuted Jews and survived to tell the story in her best selling book, The Hiding Place. Her brush with death lent a new meaning to her life. In her own words: "My life had been given back as a gift...for a purpose." After her release from the concentration camp, Corrie ten Boom set out to become what she calls a "tramp for the Lord," traveling around the world at the direction of God, proclaiming His message everywhere. And through her lifelong experiences, she has learned a few lessons in God's great classroom which she shares with the readers of Tramp For the Lord. So deeply has she touched the hearts of men and women during her years of ministry that she is known as the venerable "Double-old Grandmother" and "Tante" Corrie to them. And she , in turn, has been touched and taught by them. Let her introduce you to... -her former prison guard who asks her for forgiveness...a forgiveness that come hard and with much pain... -the war-crippled lawyer with a soul that was as twisted and deformed as his limbs... -an African who truly followed Christ's exhortation to forgive your neighbor seventy times seven (Matt. 18:22)... -the travel agent who learned that her ultimate destination could not be found on any map... -a missionary mother whose unwanted babe ended up saving her life... All these touchingly human vignettes from her life and travels are intertwined with the unique teaching trouch that has sustained Corrie throughout her days.

This 35th anniversary edition of a bestselling book recounts Corrie tenBoom's horrific experiences in Hitler's concentration camps, explains how she survived, and offers hope through her timeless message of courage and faith.

Meet the Grogans Before there was Marley, there was a gleefully mischievous boy navigating his way through the seismic social upheaval of the 1960s. On the one side were his loving but comically traditional parents, whose expectations were clear. On the other were his neighborhood pals and all the misdeeds that followed. The more young John tried to straddle these two worlds, the more spectacularly, and hilariously, he failed. Told with Grogan's trademark humor and affection, The Longest Trip Home is the story of one son's journey into adulthood to claim his place in the world. It is a story of faith and reconciliation, breaking away and finding the way home again, and learning in the end that a family's love will triumph over its differences.

John and Jenny were just beginning their life together. They were young and in love, with a perfect little house and not a care in the world. Then they brought home Marley, a wiggly yellow furball of a puppy. Life would never be the same. Marley quickly grew into a barreling, ninety-seven-pound streamroller of a Labrador retriever, a dog like no other. He crashed through screen doors, gouged through drywall, flung drool on guests, stole women's undergarments, and ate nearly everything he could get his mouth around, including couches and fine jewelry. Obedience school did no good—Marley was expelled. Neither did the tranquilizers the veterinarian prescribed for him with the admonishment, "Don't hesitate to use these." And yet Marley's heart was pure. Just as he joyfully refused any limits on his behavior, his love and loyalty were boundless, too. Marley shared the couple's joy at their first pregnancy, and their heartbreak over the miscarriage. He was there when babies finally arrived and when the screams of a seventeen-year-old stabbing victim pierced the night. Marley shut down a public beach and managed to land a role in a feature-length movie, always winning hearts as he made a mess of things. Through it all, he remained steadfast, a model of devotion, even when his family was at its wit's end. Unconditional love, they would learn, comes in many forms.

Bad Dogs Have More Fun is an unforgettable collection of more than seventy-five newspaper articles from The Philadelphia Inquirer written by former columnist John Grogan. Combining humor, wit, poignancy, and affection, these columns provide insight into the intriguing and wonderful world we live in. Whether it be writing about animals (from dogs to elephants to geese!), powerful and moving comments about his own and other families, trenchant comments on life s foibles and farces, or his interviews and interactions with people who are memorable and unusual in their own right, John Grogan makes us laugh-he makes us cry-he makes us think.Visit www.thegooddogfoundation.org"

Malcolm X's searing memoir belongs on the small shelf of great autobiographies. The reasons are many: the blistering honesty with which he recounts his transformation from a bitter, self-destructive petty criminal into an articulate political activist, the continued relevance of his militant analysis of white racism, and his emphasis on self-respect and self-help for African Americans. And there's the vividness with which he depicts black popular culture--try as he might to criticize those lindy hops at Boston's Roseland dance hall from the perspective of his Muslim faith, he can't help but make them sound pretty wonderful. These are but a few examples. The Autobiography of Malcolm X limns an archetypal journey from ignorance and despair to knowledge and spiritual awakening. When Malcolm tells coauthor Alex Haley, "People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book," he voices the central belief underpinning every attempt to set down a personal story as an example for others. Although many believe his ethic was directly opposed to Martin Luther King Jr.'s during the civil rights struggle of the '60s, the two were not so different. Malcolm may have displayed a most un-Christian distaste for loving his enemies, but he understood with King that love of God and love of self are the necessary first steps on the road to freedom. --Wendy Smith

Multigenerational saga of Alex Haley's father's family through his grandmother, Queen, the proud daughter born of a slave and a white slave owner.

When he was a boy in Henning, Tennessee, Alex Haley's grandmother used to tell him stories about their family—stories that went back to her grandparents, and their grandparents, down through the generations all the way to a man she called "the African." She said he had lived across the ocean near what he called the "Kamby Bolongo" and had been out in the forest one day chopping wood to make a drum when he was set upon by four men, beaten, chained and dragged aboard a slave ship bound for Colonial America.Still vividly remembering the stories after he grew up and became a writer, Haley began to search for documentation that might authenticate the narrative. It took ten years and a half a million miles of travel across three continents to find it, but finally, in an astonishing feat of genealogical detective work, he discovered not only the name of "the African"--Kunta Kinte—but the precise location of Juffure, the very village in The Gambia, West Africa, from which he was abducted in 1767 at the age of sixteen and taken on the Lord Ligonier to Maryland and sold to a Virginia planter.Haley has talked in Juffure with his own African sixth cousins. On September 29, 1967, he stood on the dock in Annapolis where his great-great-great-great-grandfather was taken ashore on September 29, 1767. Now he has written the monumental two-century drama of Kunta Kinte and the six generations who came after him—slaves and freedmen, farmers and blacksmiths, lumber mill workers and Pullman porters, lawyers and architects—and one author.But Haley has done more than recapture the history of his own family. As the first black American writer to trace his origins back to their roots, he has told the story of 25,000,000 Americans of African descent. He has rediscovered for an entire people a rich cultural heritage that slavery took away from them, along with their names and their identities. But Rootsspeaks, finally, not just to blacks, or to whites, but to all people and all races everywhere, for the story it tells is one of the most eloquent testimonials ever written to the indomitability of the human spirit.

Alexander Cold and Nadia Santos reunite for their final adventure in Isabel Allende's celebrated trilogy. This time they are heading to the blazing plains of Kenya, where Alex's grandmother Kate is writing an article about the first elephant-led safaris in Africa. Days into the tour, a Catholic missionary approaches the camp in search of companions who have mysteriously disappeared. As the group investigates, they discover a clan of Pygmies and a harsh world of corruption, slavery, and poaching. Alexander and Nadia must trust in the strength of their totemic animal spirits as they launch a spectacular struggle to restore freedom to the Pygmies and return leadership to its rightful hands.

New York Times and worldwide bestselling "dazzling storyteller" (Associated Press) Isabel Allende returns with a sweeping novel about three very different people who are brought together in a mesmerizing story that journeys from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil.In the Midst of Winter begins with a minor traffic accident—which becomes the catalyst for an unexpected and moving love story between two people who thought they were deep into the winter of their lives. Richard Bowmaster—a 60-year-old human rights scholar—hits the car of Evelyn Ortega—a young, undocumented immigrant from Guatemala—in the middle of a snowstorm in Brooklyn. What at first seems just a small inconvenience takes an unforeseen and far more serious turn when Evelyn turns up at the professor's house seeking help. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant Lucia Maraz—a 62-year-old lecturer from Chile—for her...

Isabel Allende is one of the world's most beloved authors. In 1988, she introduced the world to Eva Luna in a novel of the same name that recounted the adventurous life of a young Latin American woman whose powers as a storyteller bring her friendship and love. Returning to this tale, Allende presents The Stories of Eva Luna, a treasure trove of brilliantly crafted stories. Lying in bed with her European lover, refugee and journalist Rolf Carle, Eva answers hes request for a story "you have never told anyone before" with these twenty-three samples of her vibrant artistry. Interweaving the real and the magical, she explores love, vengeance, compassion, and the strenghts of women, creating a world that is at once poingnantly familiar and intriguingly new. Rendered in the sumptuously imagined, uniquely magical style of one of the world's most stunning writers, The Stories of Eva Luna is the conerstone of Allende's work. It is not to be missed by anyone -- whether a devotee of Ms. Allende's oeuvre or a new acquaintance to her work.

From New York Times and internationally bestselling author Isabel Allende, an exquisitely crafted love story and multigenerational epic that sweeps from San Francisco in the present-day to Poland and the United States during the Second World War.In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis, young Alma Belasco’s parents send her away to live in safety with an aunt and uncle in their opulent mansion in San Francisco. There, as the rest of the world goes to war, she encounters Ichimei Fukuda, the quiet and gentle son of the family’s Japanese gardener. Unnoticed by those around them, a tender love affair begins to blossom. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the two are cruelly pulled apart as Ichimei and his family—like thousands of other Japanese Americans—are declared enemies and forcibly relocated to internment camps run by the United States government. Throughout their lifetimes, Alma and Ichimei reunite again and again, but...

Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue, Zarité -- known as Tété -- is the daughter of an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. Though her childhood is one of brutality and fear, Tété finds solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums and in the voodoo loas she discovers through her fellow slaves. When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, it’s with powdered wigs in his baggage and dreams of financial success in his mind. But running his father’s plantation, Saint-Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. It will be eight years before he brings home a bride -- but marriage, too, proves more difficult than he imagined. And Valmorain remains dependent on the services of his teenaged slave. Spanning four decades, Island Beneath the Sea is the moving story of the intertwined lives of Tété and Valmorain, and of one woman’s determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been battered, and to forge her own identity in the cruellest of circumstances. Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden.

Alexander Cold and his best friend, Nadia, the heroes of Allende's City Of the Beasts, are reunited in a new adventure. This time, Alexander's fearless grandmother and International Geographic are taking them to another remote niche of the world -- a forbidden kingdom tucked into the frosty peaks of the Himalayas. Their task: to locate its fabled Golden Dragon, a sacred statue and priceless oracle, before it is destroyed by the greed of an outsider. With the aid of a sage Buddhist monk, his young royal disciple, and a fierce tribe of Yeti warriors, and armed with the power of their totemic animal spirits, Alexander and Nadia fight to protect the holy rule of the Golden Dragon.

Meet New York Times bestselling author Isabel Allende's most enchanting creation, Eva Luna: a lover, a writer, a revolutionary, and above all a storyteller—available for the first time in ebook.Eva Luna is the daughter of a professor's assistant and a snake-bitten gardener—born poor, orphaned at an early age, and working as a servant. Eva is a naturally gifted and imaginative storyteller who meets people from all stations and walks of life. Though she has no wealth, she trades her stories like currency with people who are kind to her. In this novel, she shares the story of her own life and introduces readers to a diverse and eccentric cast of characters including the Lebanese émigré who befriends her and takes her in; her unfortunate godmother, whose brain is addled by rum and who believes in all the Catholic saints and a few of her own invention; a street urchin who grows into a petty criminal and, later, a leader in the guerrilla struggle; a...

Isabel Allende-the New York Times bestselling author whose books, including Maya's Notebook, Island Beneath the Sea, and Zorro, have sold more than 57 million copies around the world-demonstrates her remarkable literary versatility with this atmospheric, fast-paced mystery involving a brilliant teenage sleuth who must unmask a serial killer in San Francisco The Jackson women, Indiana and Amanda, have always had each other. Yet, while their bond is strong, mother and daughter are as different as night and day. Indiana, a beautiful holistic healer, is a free-spirited bohemian. Long divorced from Amanda's father, she's reluctant to settle down with either of the men who want her-Alan, the wealthy scion of one of San Francisco's elite families, and Ryan, an enigmatic, scarred former Navy SEAL. While her mom looks for the good in people, Amanda is fascinated by the dark side of human nature, like her father, the SFPD's Deputy Chief of Homicide. Brilliant and introverted, the MIT-bound high school senior is a natural-born sleuth addicted to crime novels and Ripper, the online mystery game she plays with her beloved grandfather and friends around the world. When a string of strange murders occurs across the city, Amanda plunges into her own investigation, discovering, before the police do, that the deaths may be connected. But the case becomes all too personal when Indiana suddenly vanishes. Could her mother's disappearance be linked to the serial killer? Now, with her mother's life on the line, the young detective must solve the most complex mystery she's ever faced before it's too late.

In one of the most important and beloved Latin American works of the twentieth century, Isabel Allende weaves a luminous tapestry of three generations of the Trueba family, revealing both triumphs and tragedies. Here is patriarch Esteban, whose wild desires and political machinations are tempered only by his love for his ethereal wife, Clara, a woman touched by an otherworldly hand. Their daughter, Blanca, whose forbidden love for a man Esteban has deemed unworthy infuriates her father, yet will produce his greatest joy: his granddaughter Alba, a beautiful, ambitious girl who will lead the family and their country into a revolutionary future. The House of the Spirits is an enthralling saga that spans decades and lives, twining the personal and the political into an epic novel of love, magic, and fate.

An orphan raised in Valparaiso, Chile, by a Victorian spinster and her rigid brother, vivacious young Eliza Sommers follows her lover to California during the Gold Rush of 1849. Entering a rough-and-tumble world of new arrivals driven mad by gold fever, Eliza moves in a society of single men and prostitutes with the help of her good friend and savior, the Chinese doctor Tao Chi'en. California opens the door to a new life of freedom and independence to the young Chilean, and her search for her elusive lover gradually turns into another kind of journey. By the time she finally hears news of him, Eliza must decide who her true love really is.

A swashbuckling adventure story that reveals for the first time how Diego de la Vega became the masked man we all know so well Born in southern California late in the eighteenth century, Diego de la Vega is a child of two worlds. His father is an aristocratic Spanish military man turned landowner; his mother, a Shoshone warrior. At the age of sixteen, Diego is sent to Spain, a country chafing under the corruption of Napoleonic rule. He soon joins La Justicia, a secret underground resistance movement devoted to helping the powerless and the poor. Between the New World and the Old, the persona of Zorro is formed, a great hero is born, and the legend begins. After many adventures -- duels at dawn, fierce battles with pirates at sea, and impossible rescues -- Diego de la Vega, a.k.a. Zorro, returns to America to reclaim the hacienda on which he was raised and to seek justice for all who cannot fight for it themselves.

Fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold is about to join his fearless grandmother on the trip of a lifetime. An International Geographic expedition is headed to the dangerous, remote wilds of South America, on a mission to document the legendary Yeti of the Amazon known as the Beast. But there are many secrets hidden in the unexplored wilderness, as Alex and his new friend Nadia soon discover. Drawing on the strength of their spirit guides, both young people are led on a thrilling and unforgettable journey to the ultimate discovery. . . .

"Portrait in Sepia is the best book Allende has published in the United States since her first novel of nearly two decades ago, The House of the Spirits.” —Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World “Portrait in Sepia tightens the weave of a multigenerational fantasy as complete and inspiring as the real world it parallels … Allende’s enchanting historical universe keeps expanding and Portrait in Sepia is a new galactic jewel.” —Chicago Tribune A richly imagined historical novel about memory and family secrets from the New York Times bestselling author of Island Beneath the Sea, Inés of My Soul, Daughter of Fortune, Zorro, and House of the Spirits.

Isabel Allende’s latest novel, set in the present day (a new departure for the author), tells the story of a 19-year-old American girl who finds refuge on a remote island off the coast of Chile after falling into a life of drugs, crime, and prostitution. There, in the company of a torture survivor, a lame dog, and other unforgettable characters, Maya Vidal writes her story, which includes pursuit by a gang of assassins, the police, the FBI, and Interpol. In the process, she unveils a terrible family secret, comes to understand the meaning of love and loyalty, and initiates the greatest adventure of her life: the journey into her own soul.

Selling more than 65,000 copies and topping bestseller lists around the world--including Spain, Germany, Italy, and Latin America--this novel tells the engrossing story of one man's quest for love and for his soul."Allende is one of the most important novelists to emerge from Latin America in the past decade." "--Boston Globe"

Paula es el libro más conmovedor, más personal y más íntimo de Isabel Allende. Junto al lecho en que agonizaba su hija Paula, la gran narradora chilena escribió la historia de su familia y de sí misma con el propósito de regalársela a Paula cuando ésta superara el dramático trance. El resultado se convirtió en un autorretrato de insólita emotividad y en una exquisita recreación de la sensibilidad de las mujeres de nuestra época.

Isabel Allende's first memory of Chile is of a house she never knew. The "large old house" on the Calle Cueto, where her mother was born and which her grandfather evoked so frequently that Isabel felt as if she had lived there, became the protagonist of her first novel, The House of the Spirits. It appears again at the beginning of Allende's playful, seductively compelling memoir My Invented Country, and leads us into this gifted writer's world. Here are the almost mythic figures of a Chilean family -- grandparents and great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends -- with whom readers of Allende's fiction will feel immediately at home. And here, too, is an unforgettable portrait of a charming, idiosyncratic Chilean people with a violent history and an indomitable spirit. Although she claims to have been an outsider in her native land -- "I never fit in anywhere, not into my family, my social class, or the religion fate bestowed on me" -- Isabel Allende carries with her even today the mark of the politics, myth, and magic of her homeland. In My Invented County, she explores the role of memory and nostalgia in shaping her life, her books, and that most intimate connection to her place of origin. Two life-altering events inflect the peripatetic narration of this book: The military coup and violent death of her uncle, Salvador Allende Gossens, on September 11, 1973, sent her into exile and transformed her into a writer. The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, on her newly adopted homeland, the United States, brought forth from Allende an overdue acknowledgment that she had indeed left home. My Invented Country, whose structure mimics the workings of memory itself, ranges back and forth across that distance accrued between the author's past and present lives. It speaks compellingly to immigrants, and to all of us, who try to retain a coherent inner life in a world full of contradictions.

Beautiful and headstrong, Irene Beltrán works as a magazine journalist—a profession that belies her privileged upbringing and her engagement to an army captain. Her investigative partner is photographer Francisco Leal, the son of impoverished Spanish Marxist émigrés. Together, they form an unlikely but inseparable team—and Francisco quickly falls in love with the fierce and loyal Irene. When an assignment leads them to a young girl whom locals believe to possess miraculous powers, they uncover an unspeakable crime perpetrated by an oppressive regime. Determined to reveal the truth in a nation overrun by terror and violence, each will risk everything to find justice—and, ultimately, to embrace the passion and fervor that binds them. Profoundly moving and ultimately uplifting, Of Love and Shadows is a tale of romance, bravery, and tragedy, set against the indelible backdrop of a country ruled with an iron fist—and peopled with those who dare to challenge it.

In the early years of the conquest of the Americas, Inés Suárez, a seamstress condemned to a life of toil, flees Spain to seek adventure in the New World. As Inés makes her way to Chile, she begins a fiery romance with Pedro de Valdivia, war hero and field marshal to the famed Francisco Pizarro. Together the lovers will build the new city of Santiago, and they will wage war against the indigenous Chileans—a bloody struggle that will change Inés and Valdivia forever, inexorably pulling each of them toward separate destinies. Inés of My Soul is a work of breathtaking scope that masterfully dramatizes the known events of Inés Suárez's life, crafting them into a novel rich with the narrative brilliance and passion readers have come to expect from Isabel Allende.

Between these covers, teller and tales finally meet in a warm and joyful new collection that will bring delight to the hearts of readers the world over: James Herriot's Cat Stories. Here are Buster, the kitten who arrived on Christmas; Alfred, the cat at the sweet shop; little Emily, who lived with the gentleman tramp; and Olly and Ginny, the kittens who charmed readers when they first appeared at the Herriots' house in the worldwide bestseller Every Living Thing. And along with these come others, each story as memorable and heartwarming as the last, each told with that magical blend of gentle wit and human compassion that marks every word from James Herriot's pen.

The stories of a young veterinarian making his way in the rugged English countryside—and of the people and animals he met along the way   In the rolling dales of Yorkshire, a simple, rural region of northern England, a young veterinarian from Sunderland joins a new practice. A stranger in a strange land, he must quickly learn the odd dialect and humorous ways of the locals, master outdated equipment, and do his best to mend, treat, and heal pets and livestock alike. This witty and heartwarming collection, based on the author’s own experiences, became an international success, spawning sequels and winning over animal lovers everywhere. Perhaps better than any other writer, James Herriot reveals the ties that bind us to the creatures in our lives.

Adventures in the English countryside and beyond with the Yorkshire veterinarian and #1 New York Times–bestselling author of All Creatures Great and Small. When World War II ends and James Herriot returns to his wife and new family in the English countryside, he dreams mostly of Sunday roasts and Yorkshire puddings, but new adventure has a way of tracking him down. Soon Herriot finds himself escorting a large number of sheep on a steamer to Russia, puzzling through the trials of fatherhood, and finding creative ways to earn the trust of suspicious neighbors who rely on him for the wellbeing of their beloved animals.  Herriot’s winning humor and self-deprecating humanity shine through every page, and his remarkable storytelling has captivated readers for generations. “This is Herriot at his best,” said the Washington Post of this New York Times bestseller by the author of All Things Bright and Beautiful and Every Living Thing. The Lord God Made Them All is a true story of postwar England that, according to the Columbus Dispatch, “just explodes with the joy of living and loving and caring.”

The #1 New York Times–bestselling author of All Creatures Great and Small reflects on the rewards of training the next generation of veterinarians. As an aging James Herriot begins to see more house pets than livestock, the challenge of treating animals—and reassuring their owners—provides plenty of excitement, mystery, and moments of sheer delight. After building up his own practice, the renowned country vet begins to teach a new generation about a business both old-fashioned and very modern. He watches with pride as his own children show a knack for medicine, and remarks on the talents and quirks of a string of assistants. There is no perfecting the craft, since people and their animals are all remarkably different, but Herriot proves that the best healers are also the most compassionate.

The sequel to All Creatures Great and Small continues the adventures of veterinarian James Herriot in a small town in Yorkshire, England  After his first day on the job, James Herriot’s mentor warns him that the life of a country veterinarian is full of small triumphs and big disasters, but that he’d never be bored. From night visits to drafty barns during freezing northern England winters, to the beautiful vitality of rural life in the summertime, to the colorful menagerie of animals—and their owners—that pass through his office, Herriot experiences new challenges and joys every day. In these pages, Herriot trains under his eccentric boss Siegfried Farnon in a rustic English village, courts the woman that becomes his wife, and meets the people he would come to write about for a lifetime.

James Herriot is one of the most beloved storytellers of our time. The warm and joyful memoirs of his life as a country vet in Yorkshire have endeared him to countless readers around the world, and many of his most memorable tales featured man's best friend. Here are the complete dog stories from his much-beloved memoirs: a handsome collection of tales, available for the first time in trade paperback, that will warm the hearts of dog lovers around the world. Featuring a special introduction by the author and his own accompanying notes to each specially illustrated story, this tribute from man to dog is a volume no Herriot fan will want to be without.