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Book: Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games)

Praise for the Hunger Games series: “Whereas Katniss kills with finesse, Collins writes with raw power.” -Time Magazine “Collins has joined J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer as a writer of children’s books that adults are eager to read.” -Bloomberg.com “Perfect pacing and electrifying world building.” -Booklist, starred review “A humdinger of a cliffhanger will leave readers clamoring for volume three.” -Kirkus reviews, starred review “Forget Edward or Jacob… readers will be picking sides- Peeta or Gale?” -Publishers Weekly, starred review “Leaves enough questions tantalizingly unanswered for readers to be desperate for the next installment.” -School Library Journal, starred review

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Tree Of Life Refillable Leather Journal

This writing Journal was made by hand with skills learned from centuries of experience. The Writing paper is acid free heavy stock ivory paper. An amazing, top quality product for writers.

The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

Pulitzer Prize–winning science journalist Blum (Ghost Hunters) makes chemistry come alive in her enthralling account of two forensic pioneers in early 20th-century New York. Blum follows the often unglamorous but monumentally important careers of Dr. Charles Norris, Manhattan’s first trained chief medical examiner, and Alexander Gettler, its first toxicologist. Moving chronologically from Norris’s appointment in 1918 through his death in 1936, Blum cleverly divides her narrative by poison, providing not only a puzzling case for each noxious substance but the ingenious methods devised by the medical examiner’s office to detect them.

Before the advent of forensic toxicology, which made it possible for the first time to identify poisons in corpses, Gettler learned the telltale signs of everything from cyanide (it leaves a corrosive trail in the digestive system) to the bright pink flush that signals carbon monoxide poisoning. In a particularly illuminating section, Blum examines the dangers of bootleg liquor (commonly known as wood, or methyl, alcohol) produced during Prohibition. With the pacing and rich characterization of a first-rate suspense novelist, Blum makes science accessible and fascinating.

Book: The Ball is Round – A Global History of Soccer

There may be no cultural practice more global than soccer. Rites of birth and marriage are infinitely diverse, but the rules of soccer are universal. No world religion can match its geographical scope. The single greatest simultaneous human collective experience is the World Cup final.

In this extraordinary tour de force, David Goldblatt tells the full story of soccer’s rise from chaotic folk ritual to the world’s most popular sport-now poised to fully establish itself in the USA. Already celebrated internationally, The Ball Is Round illuminates soccer’s role in the political and social histories of modern societies, but never loses sight of the beauty, joy, and excitement of the game itself.

Book: Nine Dragons

An investigation into a cold-blooded murder introduces Detective Harry Bosch to a Chinese underworld lurking in the dark recesses of the City of Angels. Its tentacles are far reaching, yet it remains shrouded in secrecy due to time-honored cultural traditions that keep the exploited from speaking out.

To the victim’s family, Bosch promises revenge, but when his own daughter suddenly becomes a target, he promises blood. However, working a case with leads on both sides of the Pacific provides little room (or time) for error. 9 Dragons is a gritty, coffee-and-cigarettes crime thriller full of smart twists and generous helpings of suspense. Fans of Michael Connelly can expect another exceptional thrill ride, while newcomers will be immediately engaged by the tortured and unrelenting Bosch.

“He knew one day it would come to this, that the darkness would find [his daughter] and that she would be used to get him,” writes Connelly. “That day was now.”

Book: Every Man Dies Alone

This disturbing novel, written in 24 days by a German writer who died in 1947, is inspired by the true story of Otto and Elise Hampel, who scattered postcards advocating civil disobedience throughout war-time Nazi-controlled Berlin.

Their fictional counterparts, Otto and Anna Quangel, distribute cards during the war bearing antifascist exhortations and daydream that their work is being passed from person to person, stirring rebellion, but, in fact, almost every card is immediately turned over to authorities. Fallada aptly depicts the paralyzing fear that dominated Hitler’s Germany, when decisions that previously would have seemed insignificant—whether to utter a complaint or mourn one’s deceased child publicly—can lead to torture and death at the hands of the Gestapo.

From the Quangels to a postal worker who quits the Nazi party when she learns that her son committed atrocities and a prison chaplain who smuggles messages to inmates, resistance is measured in subtle but dangerous individual stands. This isn’t a novel about bold cells of defiant guerrillas but about a world in which heroism is defined as personal refusal to be corrupted.

The Origin Of Species – 150th Anniversary Edition

This is the book that revolutionized the natural sciences and every literary, philosophical and religious thinker who followed. Darwin’s theory of evolution and the descent of man remains as controversial and influential today as when it was published over a century ago.

Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival

In a spare, brisk prose, Ollestad tells the tragic story of the pivotal event of his life, an airplane crash into the side of a mountain that cost three lives, including his father’s, in 1979.

Only 11 years old at the time, he alone survived, using the athletic skills he learned in competitive downhill skiing, amid the twisted wreckage, the bodies and the bone-chilling cold of the blizzard atop the 8,600-foot mountain. Although the narrative core of the memoir remains the horrifying plane crackup into the San Gabriel Mountains, its warm, complex soul is conveyed by the loving relationship between the former FBI agent father and his son, affectionately called the Boy Wonder, during the golden childhood years spent in wild, freewheeling Malibu and Mexico in the late 1970s.

Ollestad’s unyielding concentration on the themes of courage, love and endurance seep into every character portrait, every scene, making this book an inspiring, fascinating read.