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A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World

The bestselling author of Blue Latitudes takes us on a thrilling and eye-opening voyage to pre-Mayflower America

On a chance visit to Plymouth Rock, Tony Horwitz realizes he’s mislaid more than a century of American history, from Columbus’s sail in 1492 to Jamestown’s founding in 16-oh-something. Did nothing happen in between? Determined to find out, he embarks on a journey of rediscovery, following in the footsteps of the many Europeans who preceded the Pilgrims to America.

An irresistible blend of history, myth, and misadventure, A Voyage Long and Strange captures the wonder and drama of first contact. Vikings, conquistadors, French voyageurs—these and many others roamed an unknown continent in quest of grapes, gold, converts, even a cure for syphilis. Though most failed, their remarkable exploits left an enduring mark on the land and people encountered by late-arriving English settlers.

Tracing this legacy with his own epic trek—from Florida’s Fountain of Youth to Plymouth’s sacred Rock, from desert pueblos to subarctic sweat lodges—Tony Horwitz explores the revealing gap between what we enshrine and what we forget. Displaying his trademark talent for humor, narrative, and historical insight, A Voyage Long and Strange allows us to rediscover the New World for ourselves.

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Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
This book features 366 essays penned from a woman's perspective Sample topics include gratitude, harmony, self-nurturing, positive body image, the importance of scented linen closets, and many others. Each essay sports a pithy quote from (surprise!) the likes of Kahlil Gibran. Viewed uncritically, it's hard to argue with Simple Abundance's earnest admonitions to appreciate life, in all its messy imperfect excellence. And the fact that serenity and happiness are each in dreadfully short supply can excuse some of the treacly writing. But Breathnach sometimes lapses into what can only be described as her "Martha Stewart on Prozac" voice, and the results are aggravating to the extreme: "If you've been hesitant to strike up a reciprocal relationship with your guardian angel, don't be." Fans of guardian angels will greet these feel-good essays every morning with the rising sun, a cup of mint tea, and a bluebird chirping on the windowsill, and be happy. Skeptics will prefer their coffee very black..
Price: $2.37 [Notify me when price goes down.]


Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days (Left Behind No. 1)
Piloting his 747, Rayford Steele is musing about his wife Irene's irritating religiosity and contemplating the charms of his "drop-dead gorgeous" flight attendant, Hattie. First Irene was into Amway, then Tupperware, and now it's the Rapture of the Saints--the scary last story in the Bible in which Christians are swept to heaven and unbelievers are left behind to endure the Antichrist's Tribulation. Steele believes he'll put the plane on autopilot and go visit Hattie. But Hattie's in a panic: some of the passengers have disappeared! The Rapture has happened, abruptly driverless cars are crashing all over, and the slick, sinister Romanian Nicolae Carpathia plans to use the UN to establish one world government and religion. Resembling "a young Robert Redford" and silver-tongued in nine languages, Carpathia is named People's "Sexiest Man Alive." (This reviewer, a former People writer, finds this plot twist plausible.) Meanwhile, Steele teams up with Buck Williams, a buck-the-system newshound, to form the Tribulation Force, an underground of left-behind penitents battling the Antichrist.

Ex-presidential candidate Pat Robertson briefly outsold Michael Crichton with his apocalypse novel The End of the Age (now available on audiocassette), and the similar The Third Millennium sells well, but the Left Behind series is the absolute champion in the race to make the Book of Revelation into racy thriller reading. --Tim Appelo.
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Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Betrayal
Already devastated by loss, Bourne is shattered by a report that his last friend in the world, Martin Lindros has gone missing A CI deputy director, Lindros was in Ethiopia tracking suspicious shipments of yellowcake uranium and atomic bomb weaponry. His last lifeline to humanity, Bourne will not let Lindros go. Despite his hatred for CI, Bourne sets out to rescue his friend and finish the job: dismantling a terrorist network determined to build nuclear armaments by cutting off their source of money. But Bourne doesn't realize that these men, Islamic supremacists, are leaders of an incredibly dangerous, technologically savvy group with ties from Africa, across the Middle East, and into Eastern Europe and Russia. They have predicted Bourne's every move, and are counting on his unwitting help in their plans to destroy America..
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By the Rivers of Babylon
Lod Airport, Israel: Two Concorde jets take off for a U.N. conference that will finally bring peace to the Middle East. Covered by F-14 fighters, accompanied by security men, the planes carry warriors, pacifists, lovers, enemies, dignitaries and a bomb planted by a terrorist mastermind. Suddenly they're forced to crash-land at an ancient desert site. Here, with only a handful of weapons, the men and women of the peace mission must make a desperate stand against an army of crack Palestinian commandos while the Israeli authorities desperately attempt a rescue mission. In a land of blood and tears, in a windswept place called Babylon, it will be a battle of bullets and courage, and a war to the last death..
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Red Lily (In the Garden, Book 3)
Three women learn that the heart of their historic home holds a mystery of years gone by, as number-one bestselling author Nora Roberts brings her In the Garden trilogy to a captivating conclusion, following Blue Dahlia and Black Rose.

A Harper has always lived at Harper House, the centuries-old mansion just outside of Memphis. And for as long as anyone alive remembers, the ghostly Harper Bride has walked the halls, singing lullabies at night...

Hayley Phillips came to Memphis hoping for a new start, for herself and her unborn child. She wasn't looking for a handout from her distant cousin Roz, just a job at her thriving In the Garden nursery. What she found was a home surrounded by beauty and the best friends she's ever had-including Roz's son Harper. To Hayley's delight, her new daughter Lily has really taken to him. To Hayley's chagrin, she has begun to dream about Harper-as much more than a friend...

If Hayley gives in to her desire, she's afraid the foundation she's built with Harper will come tumbling down. Especially since she's begun to suspect that her feelings are no longer completely her own. Flashes of the past and erratic behavior make Hayley believe that the Harper Bride has found a way inside of her mind and body. It's time to put the Bride to rest once and for all, so Hayley can know her own heart again-and whether she's willing to risk it....
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Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire: Bankers, Zionists and Militants
This book provides a comprehensive guide to the systemic dimensions of the US empire. Petras elaborates the changes within the US ruling class, as its manufacturing sector declines and gives way to the ascendancy of finance capital, illustrated by its dominance of both the US economy, and the parameters for political debate on the US role in the world economy (globalization, trade liberalization). Petras addresses the fallacy of discussions on the imminent collapse of capitalism when what is occurring in reality is the collapse of workers' rights. He elaborates the contradictions in current immigration/trade liberalization policies, and how these work toward forcing the displacement of peoples, and furthering the underdevelopment of third world countries. He reveals the dark heart of modern empire, in the emergence and proliferation of holocaust-scale carnage.and further outlines how the world capitalist system is laced together in an intricate hierarchy where the US pulls most of the strings, even outside its ostensible area of dominance. The role of corruption in securing world markets is addressed, as are the reasons for the spectacular global growth in new billionaires.

The role of the Zionist Lobby in America is examined as it relates to the catastrophic wars in Iraq and Lebanon, and the threat of a further attack on Iran. A mounting schism within the US ruling elite between its pro-Zionist sector concerned with advancing the interests of Israel, and the traditional ruling elite concerned with protecting US imperial interests worldwide is addressed in relation to the Iraq Study Group's failed effort to introduce changes in current US Middle East policy.

Finance capital and its political representatives in the US government depend on the support of client regimes in other countries, which include those considered relatively `center left', to sustain the US empire. However, in pursuit of freedom, justice, national independence and peace, powerful social movements and in some circumstances armed national resistance forces have emerged to challenge American dominance.

Petras sheds light on the actual status of contemporary resistance to US hegemony within China, Latin America, and the Middle East..
Price: $10.45 [Notify me when price goes down.]



Something More: Excavating Your Authentic Self
From the author of Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy comes a guided excavation for women who suspect that there's something more to life than the top layer pursuits of money, sex, and love. In service to these restless souls who want to scratch beneath the surface, Ban Breathnach offers tidbit-sized essays that help women unearth pay dirt--their reason for being. Using archaeology as her frame of reference, Ban Breathnach suggests imaginative exercises at the end of each chapter, which she refers to as "Field Work." Although it occasionally feels overdone, the archaeology metaphor works well--helping readers unearth their past choices and circumstances to better understand the soul's current mission. Early in the book, Ban Breathnach offers this enticing invitation to go on a spiritual dig: "Besides the fact that your soul is one of the last unlooted sources of the miraculous, with discoveries as spectacular as any found in the Delta of Venus or Egypt's Valley of the Kings, you can embark on a soul trip and be back before anyone even notices you're missing. They might be curious about that gleam in your eye and that flush on your cheek, but I'll never tell if you won't. Are you game? We're heading to the sacred site of your soul." --Gail Hudson.
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A More Perfect Constitution: 23 Proposals to Revitalize Our Constitution and Make America a Fairer Country
“No society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs to the living generation ”—Thomas Jefferson

“A constitution intended to endure for years to come [is] consequently to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs.”—John Marshall
“This book will ask readers to set aside their own political loyalties, to look past the current ‘values’ debates and hot-button issues, to consider this very real possibility: that the failure of the nation to update the Constitution and the structure of government it originally bequeathed to us is at the root of our current political dysfunction.”—Larry Sabato
The political book of the year, from the acclaimed founder and director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
Larry Sabato has one of the most visionary and fertile political minds in America. Like so many, he is increasingly alarmed at the growing dysfunction and unfairness of our political system. To solve this, to restore the equity for ordinary citizens that is at the core of our democratic society, we must take a radical step—to revise the Constitution, the document that guides our political process, for until some of its outmoded provisions are reformed, we will only have more of the same.
The original framers fully expected the Constitution to be regularly revised by succeeding generations to reflect the country’s changing needs; yet, apart from the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights, it has only been amended 17 times in 220 years, and most of those amendments had minor ramifications. Today, partisan gridlock dominates Washington; 17 percent of voters elect a majority of senators; the presidency has assumed unprecedented and unintended powers; while politicians spend as much time campaigning for office as they do governing; and average Americans feel more and more disconnected from the political process so that half or more don’t vote in many elections—all of which would have horrified Jefferson and Madison.
A More Perfect Constitution presents twenty three creative and dynamic proposals to reinvigorate American governance at a time when such change is urgently needed. Combining idealism and pragmatism, and with full respect for the original document, Sabato's thought-provoking ideas range from the length of the president’s term in office and the number and terms of Supreme Court justices to the structure of Congress, the vagaries of the antiquated Electoral College, and a compelling call for universal national service—all laced through with the history behind each issue and their potential impact on the lives of ordinary people.
Aware that such changes won’t happen easily, Sabato urges us nonetheless to engage in the debate and discussion they will surely engender. As we head towards a presidential election year, no book is more relevant or significant than his.
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Price: $9.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]


Promisegivers
Available for the first time in over a decade, two classic Dorothy Garlock romances - AMBER-
EYED MAN and THE PLANTING SEASON - are coming back into print in an irresistible two-in-one volume.
AMBER-EYED MAN:
When chance forces Meredith Moore to seek refuge at Ward Sanderson's Mexican estate, she thinks the worst is behind her. But her host, magnetic and mysterious, is alternately cold, then kind.
Winning the trust of Ward's small daughter and invalid bother, Meredith discovers the warmth that she, a foster child, never knew. Yet is it Ward's love she craves, and the passion smoldering in the depths of his amber eyes...
THE PLANTING SEASON:
Iris Ouverson had poured her energies into the family farm she cultivated with her sister, and the appearance of John Lang was unexpected-and infuriating. Suddenly the land was theirs to share, an idea she couldn't accept. But John was was determined to prove his dedication to the farm and his feelings for Iris. But when disaster struck the farm, it destroyed their fragile trust, forcing a confrontation that risked everything---and taught Iris that only learning to grow together would bring them a harvest of love...
Price: $1.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]


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