Everyone Celaena Sardothien loves has been taken from her. But she's at last returned to the empire -- for vengeance, to rescue her once-glorious kingdom, and to confront the shadows of her past. She has embraced her identity as Aelin Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen. But before she can reclaim her throne, she must fight. She will fight for her cousin, a warrior prepared to die just to see her again. She will fight for her friend, a young man trapped...

Drawing on the intersection of philosophy, politics, and memoir, an existential meditation on personal loss and the role of digital tech in how we find meaning in today's world illuminates the transition into self-defined but vulnerable intangible realities. --Publisher "In Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, Humbert Humbert offers a memorably brief account of his parents' death: 'picnic, lightning.' Picnic Comma Lightning, too, opens with death--that of...

Alex Quick investigates the murder of a close family friend in this intriguing, intricately-plotted mystery In her former career as a police detective, Alex Quick was exposed to some brutally violent crimes--but none as horrific as this. A badly mutilated corpse is discovered in a field, the victim castrated, the word 'cheat' carved across his chest. The dead man was a close family friend of Alex, and his sister has asked her to find out who killed...

"Akira Kido is a divorce attorney whose own marriage is in danger of being destroyed by emotional disconnect. With a midlife crisis looming, Kido's life is upended by the reemergence of a former client, Rié Takemoto. She wants Kido to investigate a dead man -- her recently deceased husband, Daisuké. Upon his death she discovered that he'd been living a lie. His name, his past, his entire identity belonged to someone else, a total stranger. The investigation...

"Who do you think you are? That's a question bound up in another: What do you think you are? Gender. Religion. Race. Nationality. Class. Culture. Such affiliations give contours to our sense of self, and shape our polarized world. Yet the collective identities they spawn are riddled with contradictions, and cratered with falsehoods. Kwame Anthony Appiah's The Lies That Bind is an incandescent exploration of the nature and history of the identities...

"30-year-old Bronwyn Artair, feeling out of place in her doctoral program in Atmospheric Sciences at MIT, drops out and takes a job as a TV meteorologist, much to the dismay of her mentor, Diane Fenwick. After a year of living alone in Southern New Hampshire, enduring the indignities of her job, dumped by her boyfriend, she discovers her deep connection to the natural world has given her an ability to affect natural forces. When she finally accepts...

Sapien is a relic of a bygone age, searching for meaning in a world where his outdated allegiances to a time long past have left him isolated and hopeless. Seeking peace and quiet, he retires to a beach house at Barren Cove, a stately Victorian manor even more antiquated than he. He becomes increasingly fascinated with the family whose lives are entwined with the home --angry and rebellious Clark: flamboyant Kent: fragile, beautiful Mary; and most...

What if you're not who you think you are? What if you don't really know the people closest to you? And what if your most deeply-held beliefs turn out to be. wrong? In Stop Being Reasonable, philosopher Eleanor Gordon-Smith tells gripping true stories that show the limits of human reason. Susie realises her husband harbours a terrible secret, Dylan leaves the cult he's been raised in since birth, Alex discovers he can no longer return to his former...

Jessica the frog befriends the animal that hatches from an egg she brought home, thinking it is a chicken.

Teenagers in a small town in the 1960s experience new thoughts and feelings, question their identities, connect, and disconnect as they search for the meaning of life and love.