Tout commence comme le plus excitant des jeux de piste : jeune et brillante recrue d'une grande banque bordelaise, Valérie Lataste va de surprises en surprises en épluchant les comptes extravagants d'un artisan local. De toute évidence, ce Dubreuil s'est embourbé dans des combines qui le dépassent mais Valérie ne veut pas croire à son entière culpabilité. Obstinée, elle découvre qu'il n'est que le comparse floué d'un diabolique système de corruption qui dépasse la région et conduit aux plus hautes sphères de l'Etat. En affrontant seule cette mafia immobilière, ces notables et policiers véreux, Valérie sait qu'elle met des vies en danger et qu'elle risque même d'y laisser la peau : derrière les Façades de l'élégante cité girondine, un combat mortel se prépare...

Depuis qu'elle a découvert par inadvertance un vaste système de corruption dans le BTP en région bordelaise, la jeune et intrépide banquière Valérie Lataste connaît un enfer. Le "beau Moran", promoteur véreux et cynique au centre du système, a des protecteurs dans les plus hautes sphères de la police, et jusque dans les allées du pouvoir à Paris. Ce ne sont bien sûr pas ces gens-là qui traquent Valérie pour essayer de lui soutirer le CD compromettant qu'elle a réalisé avec des données bancaires accablantes. Des sous-traitants s'en chargent: hommes de main, policiers corrompus, et même magistrats à la solde de leurs maîtres chanteurs ! Détective amateur devenue suspecte, Valérie est interpellée, mise en examen et écrouée à la suite d'une machination, alors que les sous-traitants, redoutablement efficaces, se chargent des témoins gênants. Valérie échappera-t-elle à leurs griffes ? Bensoussan, le flic réglo qui découvre l'ampleur du complot et la duplicité de certains de ses hommes, aura-t-il le courage d'intervenir, au risque d'y laisser des plumes ? Et Hugo soutiendra-t-il jusqu'au bout sa belle Valérie, lui qui est si attaché à sa réputation de magistrat au-dessus de tout soupçon ?

Longwor : un minuscule archipel au nord-est de la Guyane, que les courants marins et les anomalies magnétiques ont caché aux yeux du monde. Augustin Coriac, disparu dans ces paradies voici un siècle, y aurait-il surpris des secrets encore plus étranges que ceux qui l’ont guidé jusque-là ? Sur La Majeure, la plus grande île de l’archipel, Augustin rencontre un noble aventurier, Phial d’Atoy de Parinofle, et découvre à ses côtés chemins forestiers, passages souterrains, marais pestilentiels et vertigineux à pics. Mais Augustin est vite confronté à la violence des jeux de pouvoir qui agitent ce micromonde. Dans ce paradis sauvage, il se heurtera à ceux qui souhaitent abattre la jeune et ravissante Nadja Benjou, affrontera le cupide gouverneur Mungabor, chevauchera dans les airs et échappera à mille dangers tout en découvrant le pouvoir secret du “Grand Dragon”, qui régit la destinée de l’archipel. Le premier épisode d’une saga insulaire mémorable, peinture pleine de malice d’un univers de richesses et de surprises. La découverte d’un conteur au talent frais et indéniable qui égale les maîtres anglo-saxons du genre.

An inspirational true story of a 4 year old girl who fell into the power of a man whose evil knew no bounds. She encountered terrifying mental and physical torture from her psychopathic stepfather for a period of 17 years until she managed to break free, her spirit still unbroken

Jane Elliott fell into the hands of her sadistic and brutal stepfather when she was 4 years old. Her story is both inspiring and horrifying. Kept a virtual prisoner in a fortress-like house and treated to daily and ritual abuse, Jane nonetheless managed to lose herself in a fantasy world which would keep her spirit alive.

Equally as horrifying as the physical abuse Jane suffered, were the mental games her tormentor played—getting his kicks from seeing Jane humiliated, confused, crushed and defeated at every turn.

Her family and neighbourhood were all terrified of Jane’s stepfather so no-one held out a rescuing hand. So Jane had to help herself. When she was 21 she ran away with her baby daughter and boyfriend to start a new life in hiding. Several years on she found the courage to go to the police. A court case followed where Jane bravely stood up against the unrepentant aggressor she so feared. He was jailed for 17 years. Jane’s family took his side.

Mark Easton’s looks at the UK through its relationship to 26 subjects — one for each letter of the alphabet. From Alcohol, Beat Bobbies, Cheese and Dogs through Immigration, Justice, Knives and Murder to the Queen, Umbrellas, Vegetables and the Zzzz of a well-deserved rest, the book's meticulously researched but accessible essays map the back-story of contemporary Britain. With each lettered chapter, the reader is invited to look at the United Kingdom in a new way: standing back to see our small islands in a global or historical context, and then diving down to scrutinise vital details that may be overlooked. Taken together, the essays reveal a Britain that cannot be seen through the prism of daily news or current affairs. A park, a wedding, a beggar and a carrot all take on new significance once you have read . As the UK welcomes millions of visitors to its shores for the Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, this is a book that offers insight into the psyche of Britain; a nation's obsessions, prejudices, values and idiosyncrasies. What sort of place is it, what are the natives like, and how did we get to where we are?

VASILE ERNU este născut în URSS în 1971. Este absolvent al Facultăţii de Filozofie (Universitatea „A.I. Cuza”, Iaşi, 1996) şi al unui master de filozofie (Universitatea „Babeş-Bolyai”, Cluj-Napoca, 1997). A fost redactor fondator al revistei „Pbilosophy & Stuff” şi redactor asociat al revistei „Idea artă + societate”. A activat în cadrul fundaţiilor Idea şi Tranzit si al editurilor Idea si Polirom. În ultimii ani a avut rubrici de opinie în „România liberă, HotNews, Timpul” şi „Adevărul”, precum şi rubrici permanente în revistele „Noua literatură, Suplimentul de cultură” şi „Observator cultural”. A debutat cu volumul „Născut în URSS” (Polirom, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2013), tradus în rusă, bulgară, spaniolă, italiană, maghiară şi poloneză. Cartea a fost nominalizată la Premiul de debut al revistei „Cuvîntul”, Premiul pentru roman şi memorialistică al revistei „Observator cultural” şi Premiul Opera Prima al Fundaţiei Anonimul şi a fost distinsă cu Premiul pentru debut al „României literare” şi cu Premiul pentru debut al Uniunii Scriitorilor din România. A mai publicat: „Ultimii eretici ai Imperiului” (2009, Polirom; nominalizată la Premiul pentru eseu al revistei „Observator cultural” şi distinsă cu Premiul „Tiuk!;” tradusă în Italia şi în curs de publicare în Rusia); „Ceea ce ne desparte. Epistolarul de la Hanul lui Manuc” (împreună cu Bogdan-Alexandru Stănescu, 2010, Polirom); „Intelighenţia rusă azi” (2012, Cartier); „Sînt un om de stînga” (2013, Cartier). A coordonat: „Iluzia anticomunismului. Lecturi critice ale Raportului Tismăneanu” (împreună cu Costi Rogozanu, Ciprian Şiulea şi Ovidiu Ţichindeleanu, 2008, Cartier); „Ucraina live. Criza din Ucraina: de la Maidan la război civil” (împreună cu Florin Poenaru, 2014, Tact). Este unul dintre fondatorii şi coordonatorii proiectului www.criticatac.ro. Mai multe detalii pe www.ernu.ro şi www.nascutinurss.ro.

Je le savais, j'étais rentré à Cimmura avec le sentiment du devoir accompli, heureux d'avoir sauvé la vie d'Ehlana et tout remis en place : le Bhelliom au fond de la plus profonde fosse de l'Océan, Dolmant à la tête de l'Eglise d'Elénie. Azash, Annais et même Otha, le roi-limace, étaient morts. Mes pires craintes se confirment : dans tous les Etats du continent, des héros de l'Antiquité soulèvent le peuple. De prétendus justiciers incitent les nobles à se révolter contre l'Empire de Tamoulie. Et il y a pire : les trolls ont quitté leur foyer natal et envahi le nord de la Dalésie. Des guerriers reviennent d'entre les morts. Un nécromancien - homme ou Dieu - ramène des armées du plus lointain passé, fouille dans le folklore et donne vie à des monstres redoutables : des vampires, des goules, des hommes de l'aube et même ceux-qui-brillent.

La main de Xanetia l'effleura ; il poussa un cri d'horreur, un hurlement atroce qui mourut dans un râle. Il regarda bouche bée, les yeux exorbités, la forme aveuglante qui venait de le toucher, mais ce fut bref.
Après cela, son expression fut impossible à distinguer. Sa chair se liquéfia, coula comme une bougie. Ses joues et ses lèvres dégoulinèrent sur son menton, sa mâchoire tomba. Il voulut crier encore, mais la putréfaction avait atteint sa gorge, et sa bouche dépourvue de lèvres n'émit qu'un gargouillis. La chair glissa le long de son bras, dénudant les os, et sa main de squelette laissa échapper sa dague.
Ses jambes le lâchèrent ; le résidu visqueux de ce qui avait été sa peau, ses nerfs et ses tendons ruissela sur ses vêtements.
Le cadavre pourrissant s'affaissa sur le sol tapissé de feuilles mortes où il continua de se désagréger. Inexorablement, la malédiction de Xanetia poursuivait son œuvre.

Forster's renowned guide to writing sparkles with wit and insight for contemporary writers and readers. With lively language and excerpts from well-known classics, Forster takes on the seven elements vital to a novel: story, people, plot, fantasy, prophecy, pattern, and rhythm. He not only defines and explains such terms as "round" characters versus "flat" characters (and why both are needed for an effective novel), but also provides examples of writing from such literary greats as Dickens and Austen. Forster's original commentary illuminates and entertains without lapsing into complicated, scholarly rhetoric, coming together in a key volume on writing by a novelist Graham Greene called a "gentle genius". 

EDWARD MORGAN FORSTER was born in 1879 in London and attended King's College, Cambridge, where he later became an honorary Fellow. After leaving Cambridge, Forster lived in Greece and Italy as well as Egypt and India. He is the author of six novels, , , , , , and , as well as numerous essays and short-story collections. He died in 1970 in Coventry, England.

E. M. Forster, one of England's most distinguished writers, was born in 1879 and attended King's College, Cambridge, of which he was an honorary Fellow. He was named to membership in the Order of Companions of Honor by the Queen in 1953. He wrote his first novel, , at twenty-six, followed by A in 1908, in 191 0, and other novels and critical essays. These in-elude (1924), (1927), (1936), (1951), (1953), and , the biography of his great-aunt (1956). Two books have been published since his death in 1970: (1972) and (1973)

The next ten years will be a time of massive transition. The wars in the Islamic world will be subsiding, and terrorism will become something we learn to live with. China will be encountering its crisis. We will be moving from a time when financial crises dominate the world to a time when labor shortages will begin to dominate. The new century will be taking shape in the next decade.

In , George Friedman offers readers a pro­vocative and endlessly fascinating prognosis for the immedi­ate future. Using Machiavelli’s as a model, Friedman focuses on the world’s leaders—particularly the American president—and with his trusted geopolitical insight analyzes the complex chess game they will all have to play. The book also asks how to be a good president in a decade of extraordinary challenge, and puts the world’s leaders under a microscope to explain how they will arrive at the decisions they will make—and the consequences these actions will have for us all.

The myth that the Nazi-era German armed forces, the Wehrmacht, was not involved in war crimes persisted for decades after the war. Now two German researchers have destroyed it once and for all. Newly published conversations between German prisoners of war, secretly recorded by the Allies, reveal horrifying details of violence against civilians, rape and genocide.

In their latest adventure, precocious 14-year-old reporters Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson get a chance to help major Washington newspapers cover the Army-Navy football game and stumble across an illegal gambling racket, perpetrated by the game’s officiating squad. Along the way, the cub reporters meet a number of actual famous people (Bob Woodward and Barack Obama, among others). Some of the dropped names of retired players and other old guys will have little resonance with young readers, and fans of the series will recognize that the mystery here isn’t as compelling as those in previous installments. Still, sports fans, especially college football followers, will enjoy the behind-the-scenes look at the famous game.

A former captain in the Marines’ First Recon Battalion, who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, reveals how the Corps trains its elite and offers a point-blank account of twenty-first-century battle.

If the Marines are “the few, the proud,” Recon Marines are the fewest and the proudest. Only one Marine in a hundred qualifies for Recon, charged with working clandestinely, often behind enemy lines. Fick’s training begins with a hellish summer at Quantico, after his junior year at Dartmouth, and advances to the pinnacle—Recon—four years later, on the eve of war with Iraq. Along the way, he learns to shoot a man a mile away, stays awake for seventy-two hours straight, endures interrogation and torture at the secretive SERE course, learns to swim with Navy SEALs, masters the Eleven Principles of Leadership, and much more.

His vast skill set puts him in front of the front lines, leading twenty-two Marines into the deadliest conflict since Vietnam. He vows he will bring all his men home safely, and to do so he’ll need more than his top-flight education. He’ll need luck and an increasingly clear vision of the limitations of his superiors and the missions they assign him. Fick unveils the process that makes Marine officers such legendary leaders and shares his hard-won insights into the differences between the military ideals he learned and military practice, which can mock those ideals. never shrinks from blunt truths, but it is an ultimately inspiring account of mastering the art of war.

Thomas L. Friedman is not so much a futurist, which he is sometimes called, as a presentist. His aim in , as in his earlier, influential , is not to give you a speculative preview of the wonders that are sure to come in your lifetime, but rather to get you caught up on the wonders that are already here. The world isn't going to be flat, it flat, which gives Friedman's breathless narrative much of its urgency, and which also saves it from the Epcot-style polyester sheen that futurists—the optimistic ones at least—are inevitably prey to.

What Friedman means by "flat" is "connected": the lowering of trade and political barriers and the exponential technical advances of the digital revolution that have made it possible to do business, or almost anything else, instantaneously with billions of other people across the planet. This in itself should not be news to anyone. But the news that Friedman has to deliver is that just when we stopped paying attention to these developments—when the dot-com bust turned interest away from the business and technology pages and when 9/11 and the Iraq War turned all eyes toward the Middle East—is when they actually began to accelerate. Globalization 3.0, as he calls it, is driven not by major corporations or giant trade organizations like the World Bank, but by individuals: desktop freelancers and innovative startups all over the world (but especially in India and China) who can compete—and win—not just for low-wage manufacturing and information labor but, increasingly, for the highest-end research and design work as well. (He doesn't forget the "mutant supply chains" like Al-Qaeda that let the small act big in more destructive ways.)

Friedman has embraced this flat world in his own work, continuing to report on his story after his book's release and releasing an unprecedented hardcover update of the book a year later with 100 pages of revised and expanded material. What's changed in a year? Some of the sections that opened eyes in the first edition—on China and India, for example, and the global supply chain—are largely unaltered. Instead, Friedman has more to say about what he now calls "uploading," the direct-from-the-bottom creation of culture, knowledge, and innovation through blogging, podcasts, and open-source software. And in response to the pleas of many of his readers about how to survive the new flat world, he makes specific recommendations about the technical and creative training he thinks will be required to compete in the "New Middle" class. As before, Friedman tells his story with the catchy slogans and globe-hopping anecdotes that readers of his earlier books and his columns know well, and he holds to a stern sort of optimism. He wants to tell you how exciting this new world is, but he also wants you to know you're going to be trampled if you don't keep up with it. A year later, one can sense his rising impatience that our popular culture, and our political leaders, are not helping us keep pace.

William Gibson is known primarily as a novelist, with his work ranging from his groundbreaking first novel, Neuromancer, to his more recent contemporary bestsellers Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, and Zero History. During those nearly thirty years, though, Gibson has been sought out by widely varying publications for his insights into contemporary culture. Wired magazine sent him to Singapore to report on one of the world's most buttoned-up states. The New York Times Magazine asked him to describe what was wrong with the Internet. Rolling Stone published his essay on the ways our lives are all "soundtracked" by the music and the culture around us. And in a speech at the 2010 Book Expo, he memorably described the interactive relationship between writer and reader. These essays and articles have never been collected-until now. Some have never appeared in print at all. In addition, Distrust That Particular Flavor includes journalism from small publishers, online sources, and magazines no longer in existence. This volume will be essential reading for any lover of William Gibson's novels. Distrust That Particular Flavor offers readers a privileged view into the mind of a writer whose thinking has shaped not only a generation of writers but our entire culture.

At the end of her bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe, a Brazilian-born man of Australian citizenship who'd been living in Indonesia when they met. Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances get legally married. (Both were survivors of previous horrific divorces. Enough said.) But providence intervened one day in the form of the United States government, which – after unexpectedly detaining Felipe at an American border crossing – gave the couple a choice: they could either get married, or Felipe would never be allowed to enter the country again. Having been effectively sentenced to wed, Gilbert tackled her fears of marriage by delving into this topic completely, trying with all her might to discover through historical research, interviews, and much personal reflection what this stubbornly enduring old institution actually is. Told with Gilbert's trademark wit, intelligence and compassion, Committed attempts to 'turn on all the lights' when it comes to matrimony, frankly examining questions of compatibility, infatuation, fidelity, family tradition, social expectations, divorce risks and humbling responsibilities. Gilbert's memoir is ultimately a clear-eyed celebration of love with all the complexity and consequence that real love, in the real world, actually entails.

This beautifully written, heartfelt memoir touched a nerve among both readers and reviewers. Elizabeth Gilbert tells how she made the difficult choice to leave behind all the trappings of modern American success (marriage, house in the country, career) and find, instead, what she truly wanted from life. Setting out for a year to study three different aspects of her nature amid three different cultures, Gilbert explored the art of pleasure in Italy and the art of devotion in India, and then a balance between the two on the Indonesian island of Bali. By turns rapturous and rueful, this wise and funny author (whom Booklist calls "Anne Lamott's hip, yoga- practicing, footloose younger sister") is poised to garner yet more adoring fans.

In this book, George Gilder asserts that widespread antagonism toward the current state of Israel springs from, like anti-Semitism everywhere, envy of superior accomplishment. Israel’s sudden rise as a world capitalist and technological power, he argues, stems in part from the Jewish “culture of mind” and in part from Judaism itself, which, “perhaps more than any other religion, favors capitalist activity and provides a rigorous moral framework for it.” Critics of Israel—in the U.S., in the surrounding countries of the Middle East and in Western European nations that are facing socialist decline—have failed the “Israel Test” because they seek to tear down this country’s success rather than emulate it. America’s ability and desire to defend Israel will define our future survival as a nation: “If Israel is destroyed,” he says, “capitalist Europe will likely die as well, and America, as the epitome of productive and creative capitalism spurred by Jews, will be in jeopardy.”

In this groundbreaking biography of Eva Braun, German historian Heike B. Görtemaker delves into the startlingly neglected historical truth about Adolf Hitler’s mistress. More than just the vapid blonde of popular cliché, Eva Braun was a capricious but uncompromising, fiercely loyal companion to Hitler; theirs was a relationship that flew in the face of the Führer’s proclamations that Germany was his only bride. Görtemaker paints a portrait of Hitler and Braun’s life together with unnerving quotidian detail—Braun chose the movies screened at their mountaintop retreat (propaganda, of course); he dreamed of retiring with her to Linz one day after relinquishing his leadership to a younger man—while weaving their personal relationship throughout the fabric of one of history’s most devastating regimes. Though Braun gradually gained an unrivaled power within Hitler’s inner circle, her identity was kept a secret during the Third Reich, until the final days of the war. Faithful to the end, Braun committed suicide with Hitler in 1945, two days after their marriage.

Through exhaustive research, newly discovered documentation, and anecdotal accounts, Görtemaker has meticulously built a surprising portrait of Hitler’s bourgeois existence outside of the public eye. Though Eva Braun had no role in Hitler’s policies, she was never as banal as she was previously painted; she was privy to his thoughts, ruled life within his entourage, and held his trust. As horrifying as it is astonishing, will undoubtedly be referenced in all future accounts of this period.