"He was history's most creative genius. What secrets can he teach us? The author of the acclaimed bestsellers Steve Jobs, Einstein, and Benjamin Franklin brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography. Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo's astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo's genius was based on skills...

Larry McMurtry's Sin Killer is a wildly entertaining ride through the untamed Great Plains. The first installment of a proposed tetralogy, The Berrybender Narratives, Sin Killer follows the adventures of the Berrybenders, a large, noble English family traveling the Missouri River in 1832. This deeply self-absorbed and spoiled family leaves England for the unknown of the American West, based solely on a "whim" and Lord Berrybender's desire to "shoot...

Herve Joncour is a married silkworm smuggler in 19th century France. He travels to Japan to collect his clandestine cargo after his original shipment was destroyed. While in Japan, he spots a beautiful Japanese woman who is the concubine of a local baron. He immediately becomes obsessed. Without speaking the same language, they communicate through letters until war intervenes. Their unrequited love persists however, and Herve's wife Helene begins...

When respected American religious symbology expert Dr. Robert Langdon is summoned to the Louvre by French Captain Bezu Fache, he soon discovered that he is the number 1 suspect for the murder of a historian Langdon had been scheduled to meet with. Assisted by a French cryptographer and government agent named Sophie, Langdon is challenged to decipher a chain of cryptic codes and puzzles, all the while trying to stay ahead of Fache's lawmen in a chase...

Peter Parker, a.k.a. Spider-Man, is desperately trying to balance his dual identities. He can't keep up at college, pay his rent or seem to make amends with his estranged best friend Harry. Mary Jane is more skeptical than ever of Peter. One day Peter's idol, the renowned scientist Otto Octavius, resurfaces after a failed science experiment. Peter begins to notice he's losing some of his powers and wonders at the stress in his personal life. He realizes...

Readings of excerpts from and critical analysis of Wharton's The age of innocence, a novel about the upper classes of New York and the story of Newland Archer's love for Countess Olenska.

Readings of excerpts from and critical analysis of Leo Tolstoy's The death of Ivan Ilyich, a novel about Christian faith and the nature of life and death.

The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes...

When legendary treasures from around the world are stolen, including the priceless Pink Panther diamond, Clouseau is assigned to a dream team of international detectives who are under pressure to bring the master thief to justice before he strikes again.

Based on journalist Kim Barker's memoir "The Taliban shuffle: strange days in Afghanistan and Pakistan", which details her years as a reporter in Pakistan and Afghanistan beginning in 2002.