Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation (Hardcover)

By Stuart Gibbs

$16.19

With The Last Equation Gibbs, author of the popular Spy School books, launches a new espionage series built around tough egg and thirteen year old girl genius Charlie Thorne.  This is a terrific story which incorporates a fascinating plot device, an equation, Pandora, developed by Einstein butwhich he considered too dangerous for humanity. Pandora's whereabouts are being chased by the CIA, Mossad, and an evil minded group known as the Furies. Einstein hid the equation where he hoped  only someone safe to find it will be able to discover, and Charlie is brought in by her CIA half brother to see if she can find it before the Furies do. Charlie is a very appealing character and the story has just the right blend of action, adventure, and puzzle solving.

Dasher: How a Brave Little Doe Changed Christmas Forever (Hardcover)

By Matt Tavares, Matt Tavares (Illustrator)

$16.19

Renowned Maine author and illustrator mat Tavares has outdone himself with this exquisitely illustrated tale of one of Santa's reindeer. Young Dasher lives in a traveling circus performing under a hot sun. His mother regales him with magical tales of the distant north and Dasher, being brave, escapes during a storm which has blown the pen door open. He follows the north star to find his destiny. Dasher is sure to be a beloved holiday classic.

Fox and the Box (Hardcover)

By Yvonne Ivinson, Yvonne Ivinson (Illustrator)

$16.19

Toddlers and their parents will love sharing this wonderfully engaging book with its simple word play, gentle adventure, charming illustrations,  and sly humor. A revelation on every page awaits its readers. Children will want to return here many times and parents will not tire of joining them. Delightful!

 

A Hero Born: The Definitive Edition (Legends of the Condor Heroes #1) (Hardcover)

By Jin Yong, Anna Holmwood (Translated by)

$25.19

Setting the table for a sumptuous many course feast is no easy task, it must intimate what is to come and hint at looming surprises, it must establish attachment and suspense and deliver both the familiar and the exotic.  A Hero Born, the first book in an historical epic of China, The Legends of the Condor Heroes, carries off its table setting function with the panache one would expect from a beloved national saga.  Set in the 13th century during the wars between the Jin and Song dynasties, and during the rise of Genghis Khan and the Mongol invasion, it introduces us to varied sages and villains, heroes and heroines, exotic martial valor, mysteries and secrets all of which comprise the central pillars of the Legends of the Condor Heroes. These books, long celebrated in China, are a tale of patriotism set against the backdrop of foreign invasion and domestic corruption, much as is Henryk Sienkiewicz's classic Polish Trilogy. And as with other national epics such as Eiji Yoshikawa's Mushashi and Taiko and Alexander Dumas' Musketeer Cycle, Jin Yong's A Hero Born immerses its new Western audience in a whole new world of martial traditions and history supported with the familiar, universal pleasures of epic literature at its best. 

The Starless Sea: A Novel (Hardcover)

By Erin Morgenstern

$26.06

Night Circus author Erin Morgenstern's long awaited second novel is simply sublime. The Starless Sea's exploration and immersion in a world of other books, their making, care, and reading, results in  a magnificently layered world built of stories, world building, secrets and secret societies, wayfaring, the machinations of love and time, the adventures of fighting and yielding to change.  All of the  alluring elements of which it is made find a singularly powerful voice in the rich, honeyed pages of the Starless Sea. This is an ambitious book, fully realized, that any lover of words will savor.

Ye Olde Cat Memes: The Original Book of Cat Humor (Hardcover)

By Eulalie Osgood Grover

$14.39

Harkening back to Holiday Book Picks of Yore this book is actually a reprint of a book of humorous cat photos originally published in 1911. Charming and still very funny, cat lovers will rejoice to receive this collection of vintage cat humor.

The Last True Poets of the Sea (Hardcover)

By Julia Drake

$16.19

It is much easier to find books set in Maine than it is to find books which feel like they really took place here. Julia Drake's outstanding young adult debut novel, The Last True Poets of the Sea, has, apart from all its other virtues, one of the most authentic Maine settings you'll find in a novel.  The book follows Violet, a New Yorker  whose great, great grandmother Fidelia was the sole survivor of a shipwreck off the northern Maine Coast. Fidelia swam to shore, and remained there, founding the town of Lyric Maine. Violet, in the wake of a family emergency in which she has played a critical, and disappointing role, is sent to Lyric for the Summer, staying with her Uncle.  The search for the sunken vessel her grandmother arrived on, along with surviving the personal wreckage which brought her to Lyric, is the foundation of a book teeming with depth, romance, intrigue, and self exploration. Resting on nuance rather than easy answers The Last True Poets of the Sea delivers a truly exceptional reading experience.

This Book Is Literally Just Pictures of Cute Animals That Will Make You Feel Better (Hardcover)

By Smith Street Books (Editor)

$13.46

Truth in advertising has never been used to better effect than in this infectious book which literally is nothing but a series of picture of cute animals that will make you feel better. What home or office doesn't need some of those!

Hollow Kingdom (Hardcover)

By Kira Jane Buxton

$24.30

Buxton's account of humanity's demise, narrated through the eyes of S.T., a domesticated crow fond of all things human,especially cheetos, is absurdly entertaining. Shifting between humor and pathos to great effect, we see the nature of our world graphically revealed in its contamination, and subsequent cleansing. The story is enriched by a cast of other animal narrators and characters, the heroic bloodhound Dennis, Winnie the Poodle, the ferocious Ghengis Cat, and a contemplative humpback whale. The Hollow Kingdom lingers in one's thought well beyond its last pages.