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A Certain “Je Ne Sais Quoi”
"English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar." James D. Nicoll
Organized alphabetically for easy reference, A Certain "Je Ne Sais Quoi" is an accessible lexicon of foreign words and phrases used in English, containing everything from aficionado (Spanish) to zeitgeist (German).
Inside you'll find translations, definitions, origins, and a descriptive timeline of each item's evolution.
Entries include:
À la carte: from the card or of the menu (French)
Fiasco: complete failure (Italian)
Dungarees: thick cotton cloth/overalls (Hindi)
Diaspora: dispersion (Greek)
Smorgasbord: bread and butter (Swedish)
Cognoscenti: those who know (Italian)
Compos mentis: having mastery of one's mind; with it (Latin)
Attractively packaged with black and white illustrations, this whimsical yet authoritative book is a great gift for any etymologically fascinated individual.
Use this book to reacquaint yourself with the English language, and you'll be compos mentis in no time.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:Chloe Rhodes
The American Journey of Obama
For decades Americans have turned to LIFE to see, understand, and remember the most important events and people of our time. Just as LIFE once opened up the glittering Kennedy White House, LIFE now focuses its lens on Barack Obama.
The American Journey of Barack Obama covers the candidate from his childhood and adolescence to his time as editor of The Harvard Law Review and his Chicago activist years, culminating with the excitement and fervor of the historic 2008 Democratic National Convention.
The unfolding drama of Obama's life and political career is cinematic in scope, and never has it been presented so compellingly. In addition to a powerful array of photographs that were taken by many of the country's greatest photographers (and some that were snapped, in the quiet moments, by Obama family members themselves)
This book also includes a Foreword by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, an incisive narrative biography and original essays by some of our finest writers, including Gay Talese, Charles Johnson, Melissa Fay Greene, Andrei Codrescu, Fay Weldon, Richard Norton Smith, Bob Greene and several others. Many readers will find a new understanding of Obama. All readers will feel that they are bearing witness to a singular, undeniably American story.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:The Editors of Life Magazine
Purity
A magnum opus for our morally complex times, from The New York Times Bestselling author of Freedom
Young Pip Tyler doesn t know who she is. She knows that her real name is Purity, that she s saddled with $130,000 in student debt, that she's squatting with anarchists in Oakland, and that her relationship with her mother her only family is hazardous.
But she doesn't have a clue who her father is, why her mother chose to live as a recluse with an invented name, or how she ll ever have a normal life. It takes a seemingly chance encounter with two visitors from Germany to send Pip and the reader on a journey of discovery that ranges from Stasi-era East Berlin to a rainforest in Bolivia;
And from the ancient war between the sexes to the present-day bewilderments of the Internet. Purity is a grand story of youthful idealism, extreme fidelity, and murder the most daring and penetrating book yet by one of the major writers of our time.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:Jonathan Franzen
Scorched Earth
In this gripping thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Out of the Ashes, an Islamic extremist is on a quest for vengeance after his only son is killed and it’s up to Op-Center to stophis lethal plot.
General Bob Underwood?a special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL?is en route to the Syrian city of al-Bukamal when a rocket-propelled grenade strikes the side of his Humvee and the heavily armored convoy comes under attack.
The general’s bodyguard is brutally murdered, and Underwood himself is kidnapped. Hours later, the President and top officials watch in horror from the Oval Office, as the general is viciously beheaded by an ISIL leader?broadcast on live television through a direct feed from Al Jazeera.
The world is stunned by the bloody scene, but even more so that this supposedly loose-knit terrorist organization was able to orchestrate a lethal attack on the world’s most powerful military.
American forces goes into high gear on land and sea to retaliate, but when the ISIS leader's son is killed in an American bombing raid, his rage knows no bounds and he determines to wreak vengeance on the American homeland itself.
With everything in the balance, Op-Center must assemble both its domestic strike force, as well as its international intervention force?built around a seasoned squad operating out of the secretive unit that captured Osama bin Laden?to stay one step ahead of a ruthless enemy.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:George Galdorisi
The Killing Lessons
When the two strangers turn up at Rowena Cooper's isolated Colorado farmhouse, she knows instantly that it's the end of everything. For the two haunted and driven men, on the other hand, it's just another stop on a long and bloody journey.
And they still have many miles to go, and victims to sacrifice, before their work is done.
For San Francisco homicide detective Valerie Hart, their trail of victims--women abducted, tortured and left with a seemingly random series of objects inside them--has brought her from obsession to the edge of physical and psychological destruction. And she's losing hope of making a breakthrough before that happens.
But the murders at the Cooper farmhouse didn't quite go according to plan. There was a survivor, Rowena's ten-year-old daughter Nell, who now holds the key to the killings. Injured, half-frozen, terrified, Nell has only one place to go. And that place could be even more dangerous than what she's running from.
In this extraordinary, pulse-pounding debut, Saul Black takes us deep into the mind of a psychopath, and into the troubled heart of the woman determined to stop him.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:Saul Black
Fear of Dying
Four decades ago, Erica Jong revolutionized the way we look at love, marriage and sex. Her world-wide bestseller, FEAR OF FLYING opened the doors for writers from Jennifer Weiner to Lena Dunham.
Now she does it again by giving us powerful, new perspective on the next phase of women's lives. Full of the sly humor, deep wisdom and poignancy we know from her poetry, fiction and essays, she delivers the novel women everywhere have been waiting for...
FEAR OF DYING
As the afternoon of life looms over Vanessa Wonderman, she watches her parents age, attends doctor appointments with her pregnant daughter, and sits by the hospital bed of her husband, Asher, fifteen years her senior. With her best years as an actress behind her, she's discovering that beginnings are easy, but endings can be hard.
Could her fountain of youth fantasies be fulfilled on zipless.com? A site inspired by the writings of her best friend, Isadora Wing, it promises "no strings attached" encounters-and Vanessa is so restless that she's willing to try anything.
Fear of Dying is a daring and delightful look at what it really takes to be human and female in the 21st century. Wildly funny and searingly honest, it is a story for everyone who has ever been shaken and changed by love.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:Erica Jong
Will Grayson,Will Grayson
Will Grayson meets Will Grayson. One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two strangers are about to cross paths. From that moment on, their world will collide and lives intertwine.
It's not that far from Evanston to Naperville, but Chicago suburbanites Will Grayson and Will Grayson might as well live on different planets. When fate delivers them both to the same surprising crossroads, the Will Graysons find their lives overlapping and hurtling in new and unexpected directions.
With a push from friends new and old - including the massive, and massively fabulous, Tiny Cooper, offensive lineman and musical theater auteur extraordinaire - Will and Will begin building toward respective romantic turns-of-heart and the epic production of history's most awesome high school musical.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:John Green
Why We Can’t Wait
Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963
"Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, ‘Wait.’ But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim…
When you see the vast majority of twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society;
When you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children,
And see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky…when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you…
When…your wife and mother are never given the respected title ‘Mrs.’…when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness’—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.”
Why We Can’t Wait
ISBN:2147483647
Author:Martin Luther King Jr.,
Looking for Alaska
Before. Miles "Pudge” Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave "the Great Perhaps” even more (Francois Rabelais, poet).
He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young.
The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Then. . . .
After. Nothing is ever the same.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:John Green
Let it Snow
Sparkling white snowdrifts, beautiful presents wrapped in ribbons, and multicolored lights glittering in the night through the falling snow.
A Christmas Eve snowstorm transforms one small town into a romantic haven, the kind you see only in movies. Well, kinda. After all, a cold and wet hike from a stranded train through the middle of nowhere would not normally end with a delicious kiss from a charming stranger.
And no one would think that a trip to the Waffle House through four feet of snow would lead to love with an old friend. Or that the way back to true love begins with a painfully early morning shift at Starbucks.
Thanks to three of today’s bestselling teen authors—John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle—the magic of the holidays shines on these hilarious and charming interconnected tales of love, romance, and breathtaking kisses.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:John Green
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton’s type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped.
Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy–loving best friend riding shotgun—but no Katherines.
Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl.
Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself.
The Testament
In a plush Virginia office, a rich, angry old man is furiously rewriting his will. With his death just hours away, Troy Phelan wants to send a message to his children, his ex-wives, and his minions, a message that will touch off a vicious legal battle and transform dozens of lives.
Because Troy Phelan's new will names a sole surprise heir to his eleven-billion-dollar fortune: a mysterious woman named Rachel Lane, a missionary living deep in the jungles of Brazil.
Enter the lawyers. Nate O'Riley is fresh out of rehab, a disgraced corporate attorney handpicked for his last job: to find Rachel Lane at any cost. As Phelan's family circles like vultures in D.C., Nate is crashing through the Brazilian jungle, entering a world where money means nothing, where death is just one misstep away, and where a woman - pursued by enemies and friends alike - holds a stunning surprise of her own.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:John Grisham
The Runaway Jury
Every jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs to him. In Biloxi, Mississippi, a landmark tobacco trial with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake begins routinely, then swerves mysteriously off course.
The jury is behaving strangely, and at least one juror is convinced he's being watched. Soon they have to be sequestered. Then a tip from an anonymous young woman suggests she is able to predict the jurors' increasingly odd behavior.
Is the jury somehow being manipulated, or even controlled? If so, by whom? And, more importantly, why?
ISBN:2147483647
Author:John Grisham
The Racketeer
Given the importance of what they do, and the controversies that often surround them, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of this country only four active federal judges have been murdered.
Judge Raymond Fawcett has just become number five.
Who is the Racketeer? And what does he have to do with the judge’s untimely demise? His name, for the moment, is Malcolm Bannister. Job status? Former attorney. Current residence? The Federal Prison Camp near Frostburg, Maryland.
On paper, Malcolm’s situation isn’t looking too good these days, but he’s got an ace up his sleeve. He knows who killed Judge Fawcett, and he knows why. The judge’s body was found in his remote lakeside cabin.
There was no forced entry, no struggle, just two dead bodies: Judge Fawcett and his young secretary. And one large, state-of-the-art, extremely secure safe, opened and emptied.
What was in the safe? The FBI would love to know. And Malcolm Bannister would love to tell them. But everything has a price—especially information as explosive as the sequence of events that led to Judge Fawcett’s death. And the Racketeer wasn’t born yesterday . . .
Nothing is as it seems and everything’s fair game in this wickedly clever new novel from John Grisham, the undisputed master of the legal thriller.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:John Grisham
A Painted House
Until that September of 1952, Luke Chandler had never kept a secret or told a single lie. But in the long, hot summer of his seventh year, two groups of migrant workers — and two very dangerous men — came through the Arkansas Delta to work the Chandler cotton farm. And suddenly mysteries are flooding Luke’s world.
A brutal murder leaves the town seething in gossip and suspicion. A beautiful young woman ignites forbidden passions.
A fatherless baby is born ... and someone has begun furtively painting the bare clapboards of the Chandler farmhouse, slowly, painstakingly, bathing the run-down structure in gleaming white. And as young Luke watches the world around him, he unravels secrets that could shatter lives — and change his family and his town forever....
ISBN:2147483647
Author:John Grisham
No Hero
The second book by former Navy SEAL Mark Owen, following his multimillion-copy classic about the bin Laden mission No Easy Day, in which he tells the stories from his career that were most personal to him and that made him the operator and the person he is today
While Mark Owen’s instant New York Times bestseller No Easy Day focused on the high-profile targets and headline-grabbing chapters of the author’s career, No Hero will be an account of the most personally meaningful missions from Owen’s thirteen years as a SEAL, including the moments in which he learned the most about himself and his teammates, in both success and failure.
Mark Owen describes his intentions for his second book best: I want No Hero to offer something most books on war don’t: the intimate side of it, the personal struggles and hardships and what I learned from them.
The stories in No Hero will be a testament to my teammates and to all the other active and former SEALs who have dedicated their lives to freedom. In our community, we are constantly taught to mentor the younger generation and to pass the lessons and values we’ve learned on to others so that they can do the same to the guys coming up after them. This is what I plan to do for the reader of No Hero.”
Every bit as action-packed as No Easy Day, and featuring stories from the training ground to the battlefield, No Hero offers readers an unparalleled close-up view of the experiences and values that make Mark Owen and the men he served with capable of executing the missions we read about in the headlines.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:Mark Owen & Kevin Maurer
The Last Juror
In 1970, one of Mississippi s more colorful weekly newspapers, The Ford County Times, went bankrupt. To the surprise and dismay of many, ownership was assumed by a 23-year-old college dropout, named Willie Traynor.
The future of the paper looked grim until a young mother was brutally raped and murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family. Willie Traynor reported all the gruesome details, and his newspaper began to prosper.
The murderer, Danny Padgitt, was tried before a packed courthouse in Clanton, Mississippi. The trial came to a startling and dramatic end when the defendant threatened revenge against the jurors if they convicted him. Nevertheless, they found him guilty, and he was sentenced to life in prison.
But in Mississippi in 1970, life didn't necessarily mean life, and nine years later Danny Padgitt managed to get himself paroled. He returned to Ford County, and the retribution began.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:John Grisham
The Innocent Man by John Grisham
Brief Summary
In the town of Ada, Oklahoma, Ron Williamson was going to be the next Mickey Mantle. But on his way to the big leagues, Ron stumbled, his dream broken by drinking, drugs, and women.
Then on a winter night in 1982, not far from Ron's home, a young cocktail waitress named Debra Sue Carter was savagely murdered. The investigation led nowhere. Until, on the flimsiest evidence, it led to Ron Williamson.
The washed-up small-town hero was charged, tried, and sentenced to death--in a trial littered with lying witnesses and tainted evidence that would shatter a man's already broken life...and let a true killer go free.
Impeccably researched, grippingly told, filled with eleventh-hour drama, John Grisham's first work of non-fiction reads like a page-turning legal thriller. It is a book that will terrify anyone who believes in the presumption of innocence--a book that no American can afford to miss.
The Chamber
In the corridors of Chicago's top law firm:
Twenty -six-year-old Adam Hall stands on the brink of a brilliant legal career. Now he is risking it all for a death-row killer and an impossible case.
Maximum Security Unit, Mississippi State Prison:
Sam Cayhall is a former Klansman and unrepentant racist now facing the death penalty for a fatal bombing in 1967. He has run out of chances -- except for one: the young, liberal Chicago lawyer who just happens to be his grandson.
While the executioners prepare the gas chamber, while the protesters gather and the TV cameras wait, Adam has only days, hours, minutes to save his client. For between the two men is a chasm of shame, family lies, and secrets -- including the one secret that could save Sam Cayhall's life... or cost Adam his.
ISBN:2147483647
Author:John Grisham
The Broker
In his final hours in the Oval Office, the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison.
What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world's most sophisticated satellite surveillance system.
Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Saudis.
Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive, there is no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him?
ISBN:2147483647
Author:John Grisham
