A literary sensation and bestseller both in England and America, The Swimming-Pool Library is an enthralling, darkly erotic novel of homosexuality before the scourge of AIDS; an elegy, possessed of chilling clarity, for ways of life that can no longer be lived with impunity. "Impeccably composed and meticulously particular in its observation of everything" (Harpers & Queen), it focuses on the friendship of two men: William Beckwith, a young gay aristocrat who leads a life of privilege and promiscuity, and the elderly Lord Nantwich, an old Africa hand, searching for someone to write his biography and inherit his traditions. From the Trade Paperback edition.

From Library JournalAndrew Reznor's Galactic Enterprises coveted the idyllic planet Beauty as a refuge for Earth's endangered animal species, while the Bureau of Colonization saw Beauty as a haven for millions of starving humans. The planet, however, had its own ideas and would kill to protect them. A strong pedantic streak may limit the appeal of this otherwise well-written and intriguing sf tale of alien contact. For large sf collections. JCCopyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Remaining faithful to a literary source while expressing personal concerns is a talent Silverberg mastered in his 1984 novel Gilgamesh the King. His new novella does the same for Conrad's famous tale of a young ship's captain harboring a fugitive. As his first challenge on the starship Sword of Orion, Adam must deal with the escape of a matrixa disembodied electronic pattern of a mindand the death of a passenger in suspension. When that matrix of a young girl asks for help, Adam gives her refuge in his own mind. Such a processtesting and defining identity through intimate communion with anotheris a favorite Silverberg motif. If it is less memorably worked out here than it has been before, Silverberg's accomplished pen still makes this voyage a pleasure.

The sheltered son of a Jewish mobster, Art Bechstein leaps into his first summer as a college graduate as cluelessly as he capered through his school years. But new friends and lovers are eager to guide him through these sultry days of last-ditch youthful alienation and sexual confusion—in a blue-collar city where the mundane can sometimes appear almost magical. From Publishers WeeklyFirst-novelist Chabon, with "distinctive vision" and "an elegiac, graceful style," spins a story about alienated youth that, while serving up some familiar details of sex, alcohol and drugs, "fully engages the reader in the lives of an appealing cast of characters," said PW . Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review'A strikingly accomplished debut' -- Sunday Times 'His style has an enviable suppleness and fluency which offers the perfect vehicle for the moral feints and shifts of the cool crowd he portrays' -- TLS 'Hard as it is to write about youth when you're young, Chabon has done it brilliantly' -- Cosmopolitan 'Mingles wit, sex and fine writing' -- Sunday Telegraph 'His control over his story, the wonderful use he makes of each description, of Pittsburgh itself, are often astonishing...a young writer with a tremendous skill' -- New York Times Book Review

Antonia Fraser's Warrior Queens are those women who have both ruled and led in war. They include Catherine the Great, Elizabeth I, Isabella of Spain, the Rani of Jhansi, and the formidable Queen Jinga of Angola. With Boadicea as the definitive example, her female champions from other ages and civilisations make a fascinating and awesome assembly. Yet if Boadicea's apocryphal chariot has ensured her place in history, what are the myths that surround the others? And how different are the democratically elected if less regal warrior queens of recent times: Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir? This remarkable book is much more than a biographical selection. It examines how Antonia Fraser's heroines have held and wrested the reins of power from their (consistently male) adversaries.

From the author of The Face on the Milk Carton comes a novel about romance and love. Sometimes there is heartbreak, but there can also be happily ever after. Teen girls will follow the complexities of dating, and the difference between falling in love, being in love, and really loving someone, portrayed in this inventive novel. When 16-year-old Kelly Williams’s best friend, Faith, declares that she will stop playing games and find a real romance, Kelly watches from the sidelines and takes note. She sees Faith, as well as other friends, her brother, and even her parents attempt to play the game of love in their own unique ways. Kelly decides to create an actual game—one that captures the way people behave—and in the process it teaches them a thing or two about what can be considered winning when it comes to matters of the heart.

Todd Anderson and his friends at Welton Academy can hardly believe how different life is since their new English professor, the flamboyant John Keating, has challenged them to "make your lives extraordinary! " Inspired by Keating, the boys resurrect the Dead Poets Society--a secret club where, free from the constraints and expectations of school and parents, they let their passions run wild. As Keating turns the boys on to the great words of Byron, Shelley, and Keats, they discover not only the beauty of language, but the importance of making each moment count.But the Dead Poets pledges soon realize that their newfound freedom can have tragic consequences. Can the club and the individuality it inspires survive the pressure from authorities determined to destroy their dreams?

Things in the ground, thinking their thoughts . . .. . . Thoughts they can express only through Harry Keogh, NECROSCOPE. For that\'s Harry\'s talent, and his burden: he reads the thoughts of the dead in their graves - and the thoughts of the UNdead! Except . . . the undead are thinking thoughts that are totally-unthinkable!Yulian Bodescue\'s mother fainted at the tomb of Thibor Ferenczy, vampire. Corrupt from birth, now Yulian feels a strange compulsion: to discover his real father and spread his works abroad. Only Harry Keogh, prisoner of the metaphysical Mobius Continuum, can stop him. Harry\'s other big problem is this:HE DOESN\'T HAVE A BODY!

The Guild of Thieves, warriors with psi powers, investigate rumors of drug-running in the Castor/Pollux region and the decline of a civilization.

Translated into English at last, Fiasco joins its companion volumes Fatelessness and Kaddish for an Unborn Child in telling an epic story of the author's return from the Nazi death camps, only to find his country taken over by another totalitarian government. * * Fiasco as Imre Kertesz himself has said, "is fiction founded on reality"—a Kafka-like account that is surprisingly funny in its unrelentingly pessimistic clarity, of the Communist takeover of his homeland. Forced into the army and assigned to escort military prisoners, the protagonist decides to feign insanity to be released from duty. But meanwhile, life under the new regime is portrayed almost as an uninterrupted continuation of life in the Nazi concentration camps-which, in turn, is depicted as a continuation of the patriarchal dictatorship of joyless childhood. It is, in short, a searing extension of Kertesz' fundamental theme: the totalitarian experience seen as trauma not only for an individual but for the whole civilization—ours—that made Auschwitz possible. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Kristy, Mary Anne, Stacey, Claudia and Dawn are the luckiest baby-sitters in the world. This summer they're going on the greatest trip ever: a plane ride to Florida, a boat trip around the Bahamas, and then three days of fun - in Disney World! Of course they have a million adventures. Claudia gets notes from a mysterious "Secret Admirer." Kristy, Mary Anne, and Stacey make some unusual new friends. Dawn has her first real romance. And they still have time for what they like best of all - baby-sitting.

he traditional Regency classic from New York Times bestseller Loretta Chase is back... A Comedy of Manners... Her father's prodigal ways have forced the extremely lovely Alexandra Ashmore into an engagement with a strange man in a strange land: a man blind to the effect her unearthly beauty has on other men, and which has earned her the title "the English Witch"! So when she's kidnapped by another love-struck suitor, Alexandra assumes she's truly doomed to a loveless marriage with her captor. A Villain Redeemed... But her troubles have only begun—for although she's quickly rescued, her brave 'hero' is the notoriously irresistible, unrepentant scoundrel, Basil Trevelyan, who finds himself quite taken with the tart, spirited Alexandra. So taken, in fact, that he's determined to make her his own. Now, if he can only charm her into agreeing with his plan!

Karen White can open "doors" between universes. This power, which she shares with her brother and sister, has been suppressed since childhood. But now it appears in her teenage son, Michael, who is approached by a mysterious figure known only as the Grey Man, a figure who has haunted Karen's dreams for decades. Fleeing to her sister Laura's reality, Karen and Michael have to undertake a terrifying and painful journey into the past - to discover the secret of their power and the truth about the Grey Man and his masters.

Doris Lessing's contemporary gothic horror story—centered on the birth of a baby who seems less than human—probes society's unwillingness to recognize its own brutality. Harriet and David Lovatt, parents of four children, have created an idyll of domestic bliss in defiance of the social trends of late 1960s England. While around them crime and unrest surge, the Lovatts are certain that their old-fashioned contentment can protect them from the world outside—until the birth of their fifth baby. Gruesomely goblin-like in appearance, insatiably hungry, abnormally strong and violent, Ben has nothing innocent or infant-like about him. As he grows older and more terrifying, Harriet finds she cannot love him, David cannot bring himself to touch him, and their four older children are afraid of him. Understanding that he will never be accepted anywhere, Harriet and David are torn between their instincts as parents and their shocked reaction to this fierce and unlovable child whose existence shatters their belief in a benign world.