The death-stars had come, and they had kept on coming for hundreds of thousands of years, falling upon the Earth, swept upon it by a vagrant star that had passed through the outer reaches of the solar system. They brought with them a time of unending darkness and cold. It was a thing that happened every twenty-six million years, and there was no turning it aside. But all that was done with now. At last the death-stars had ceased to fall, the sky had cleared of dust and cinders, the sun’s warmth again was able to break through the clouds. The glaciers relinquished their hold on the land; the Long Winter ended; the New Springtime began. The world was born anew.

Now each year was warmer than the last. The fair seasons of spring and summer, long lost from the world, came again with increasing power. And the People, having survived the dark time in their sealed cocoons, were spreading rapidly across the fertile land.

But others were already there. The hjjks, the somber cold-eyed insect-folk, had never retreated, even at the time of greatest chill. The world had fallen to them by default, and they had been its sole masters for seven hundred thousand years. They were not likely to share it gladly now.

<

Hannibal Lecter è una psichiatra geniale, un uomo colto e raffinato, un perfetto gentiluomo dotato di un sottile senso dell'umorismo. Ha un unico difetto: è un pericoloso psicopatico e un feroce assassino. Quando Clarice Starling, brillante allieva della Sezione Scienza del Comportamento dell'Fbi, si reca a visitarlo nel manicomio criminale dove è rinchiuso, il dottor Lecter, attratto dalla ragazza e spinto dal desiderio di entrare nella sua personalita, decide di aiutarla. Clarice vuole da lui elementi utili alla cattura di Buffalo Bill, il "mostro" che terrorizza l'America. Ma il prezzo della collaborazione di Lecter è uno scambio perverso: le consegnerà Buffalo Bill solo se Clarice accetteràa di svelargli i suoi ricordi più tormentati.<

It's hard to defeat evil on a budget. Just ask Simon Canderous.

It's been 737 days since the Department of Extraordinary Affairs' last vampire incursion, but that streak appears to have ended when a boat full of dead lawyers is found in the Hudson River. Using the power of psychometry—the ability to divine the history of an object by touching it—agent Simon Canderous discovers that the booze cruise was crashed by something that sucked all the blood out of the litigators. Now, his workday may never end—until his life does.

<

Hobit patří k těm vzácným knížkám, v nichž hluboká erudice a životní moudrost zralého věku žijí v šťastné symbióze s hravou fantazií básníka. Na první pohled je to prostě pohádka s klasickým motivem zápasu dobra a zla. Vstupuje v ní zlý drak a dobrotivý čaroděj, skřeti, elfové a lesní zvířata, trpaslíci i lidé, a především malý hobit Bilbo Pytlík, který se v průběhu dobrodružné výpravy za znovuzískáním ukradeného pokladu mění z šosáckého domácího pána v odvážného lupiče. Zdá se však, že autor, povoláním univerzitní profesor lingvistiky a literární historie, dokázal velmi sugestivně promítnout do své bájné říše a do svých hrdinů životní pocity a problémy dnešního světa, a zvláště jeho mladé generace. To je patrně příčinou neobyčejné popularity, které Hobit a jeho volné pokračování, obsáhlá trilogie Pán prstenů, dosáhly nejen v Anglii, ale i v řadě dalších zemí: západní mládež která se v šedesátých letech tak radikálně bouřila proti uznávaným společenským hodnotám, v nich našla svou bibli a knihy získaly již řadu příznivců i u nás.<

From one of P. D. James's favorite mystery authors comes the third Shardlake novel

Autumn 1541. A plot against the throne has been uncovered, and Henry VIII has set off on a spectacular progress from London to York, along with a thousand soldiers, the cream of the nobility, and his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, to quell his rebellious northern subjects. Awaiting his arrival are lawyer Matthew Shardlake and his loyal assistant, Jack Barak. In addition to processing petitions to the king, Shardlake's task is to protect a dangerous conspirator until he is transported back to London for interrogation.

But when a local glazier is murdered, things get a little more complicated as the murder seems to be not only connected to Shardlake's prisoner but also to the royal family itself. Then Shardlake stumbles upon a cache of secret papers that throws into doubt the legitimacy of the entire royal line, and a chain of events unfolds that threatens Shardlake with the most terrifying fate of the age: imprisonment in the Tower of London.

<

Raiders, nomads, and villagers. Ogres and elves. Dragons of good and evil. These are the forces that have joined battle to decide the fate of the first primitive civilization of Krynn.

At the center of this whirlwind, the long-separated siblings Amero and Nianki are reunited. But foes long gone and presumed dead also join together, seeking vengeance and destruction once and for all.

Best-selling writing team Thompson and Cook return again to the world of DRAGONLANCE® in this sweeping conclusion to the epic Barbarians trilogy.

<

On April 1, 1930, Jonathan Ketchem's wife Jane walked from her house to the police department to ask for help in finding her husband. The men, worn out from a night of chasing bootleggers, did what they could. But no one ever saw Jonathan Ketchem again…

Now decades later, someone else is missing in Miller's Kill, NY. This time it's the physician of the clinic that bears the Ketchem name. Suspicion falls on a volatile single mother with a grudge against the doctor, but Reverend Clare Fergusson isn't convinced. As Clare and Russ investigate, they discover that the doctor's disappearance is linked to a bloody trail going all the way back to the hardscrabble Prohibition era. As they draw ever closer to the truth, their attraction for each other grows increasingly more difficult to resist. And their search threatens to uncover secrets that snake from one generation to the next-and to someone who's ready to kill.

<

Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson and Miller's Kill, NY police chief Russ van Alstyne hunt for a missing heiress-as someone tries to foil the search and destroy key evidence. Treat yourself to her latest gem-a tricky whodunit that takes place during 24 taut, pulse-pounding hours…<

During the Vietnam War, hundreds of American prisoners-of-war faced years of brutal conditions and horrific torture at the hands of North Vietnamese guards and interrogators who ruthlessly plied them for military intelligence and propaganda. Determined to maintain their Code of Conduct, the POWs developed a powerful underground resistance. To quash it, their captors singled out its eleven leaders, Vietnam’s own “dirty dozen,” and banished them to an isolated jail that would become known as Alcatraz. None would leave its solitary cells and interrogation rooms unscathed; one would never return.

As these eleven men suffered in Hanoi, their wives at home launched an extraordinary campaign that would ultimately spark the nationwide POW/MIA movement. The members of these military families banded together and showed the courage not only to endure years of doubt about the fate of their husbands and fathers, but to bravely fight for their safe return. When the survivors of Alcatraz finally came home, one veteran would go on to receive the Medal of Honor, another would become a U.S. Senator, and a third still serves in the U.S. Congress.

A powerful story of survival and triumph, Alvin Townley’s will inspire anyone wondering how courage, faith, and brotherhood can endure even in the darkest of situations.

<

One week ago I thought I knew exactly how I was going to spend the rest of my life: looking at the gray walls of a prison cell. Figuring out how to survive the apocalypse wasn’t something I’d planned for.

Yet here I was, getting a second chance at the end of the world.

<

Un veterano della guerra civile americana che non invecchia mai, una casa con finestre indistruttibili, una tomba che porta inciso sulla pietra il segno dell’infinito: ce n’è abbastanza perché la CIA cominci ad avere dei sospetti e perché Clifford Simak cominci a tessere una delle sue trame più belle e suggestive. Dai boschi del Wisconsin alle frontiere della galassia, dai più umili e quotidiani personaggi ai più stupefacenti visitatori spaziali, tutto si carica di quel «senso del meraviglioso» di cui l’autorè di Mondi senza fine è uno dei pochi a conoscere il segreto.<

Cities have become the most dangerous places on Earth, infested with thousands of Bane, and people must now survive in the mountains and wilderness. But ammunition and medicine are essential to survival and they don’t grow on trees. Eve, as an elite defender of Eden, must go on a raid with a small team into the city for supplies that will keep their people alive. But this dangerous world is evolving and the rules that once kept them safe are changing.

<

Fun books

Choose a genre