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The Anglo-Russian author William Gerhardie was hailed by writers including Graham Greene, Edith Wharton, Evelyn Waugh and others as a “genius,” and this, his long-out-of-print second novel, is generally acclaimed as his comic masterpiece—not to mention “the most influential English novel of the twentieth century,” according to William Boyd.It tells the unforgettable tale of an eccentric Belgian family living in the Far East during the turbulent years just after the First World War, which displaced them, and the Russian Revolution, which impoverished them.Recounted by a conceited young English cousin who visits during a military mission, the story is filled with a host of fascinatingly idiosyncratic characters—depressives, obsessives, sex maniacs, and hypochondriacs—often forced to choose between absurdity and tragedy. Yet Gerhardie depicts them as both charming and poignant, as they each struggle for love and safety in tumultuous times . . . and the protagonist finds his conceit shredded as he falls head over heels in love with one of them.Gerhardie’s portraits of Europeans in exile, attempting to escape from the era’s upheavals, draws on his own experiences as an officer in the British Mission. He has summoned up a world adrift, where war and revolution have broken up the old order, but nothing has come to replace it. And he does it with unforgettable humor and a sharp eye for the absurd.Hilarious, poignant, panoramic in scope, The Polyglots redeems, from the Babel of the interwar period, a stirring vision of love and human sympathy.

The film follows the lively exploits of activists for (and against) the movement for the legalization of the hemp plant in America. It features Woody Harrelson, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, and a whole host of farmers, politicians, businessmen, and laypeople as they search for the truth about this mysterious and demonized plant.

Set amidst the turbulence of 1950s Cairo, Beer in the Snooker Club is the story of Ram Bey, an over-educated, under-ambitious young Egyptian struggling to find out where he fits in. Ram’s favorite haunt is the fashionable Cairo Snooker Club, whose members strive to emulate English gentility; but his best friends are young intellectuals who devour the works of Sartre and engage in dangerous revolutionary activities to support Egyptian independence. By turns biting and comic, Beer in the Snooker Club — the first and only book by Waguih Ghali — became a cult classic when it was first published and remains a timeless portrait of a loveable rogue coming of age in turbulent times.

Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Vonda N. McIntyre continues the bestselling Star Wars saga as the ultimate space adventure unfolds in The Crystal Star.Princess Leia's children have been kidnapped. Along with Chewbacca and Artoo-Detoo, she follows the kidnappers' trail to a disabled refugee ship, from which children are also missing. Here she learns of a powerful Imperial officer with a twisted plan to restore the Empire. Meanwhile, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker are cut off from Leia by the death of a nearby star, which has caused a disruption in the Force. They have gone to the planet Crseih to investigate a report of a lost group of Jedi. Instead they find a charismatic alien named Waru whose miraculous healing powers have attracted a fanatic following. As Leia follows the path of her children across space, Luke and Han draw closer to the truth behind Waru's sinister cult. Together they will face an explosive showdown that will decide the survival of the New Republic . . . and the universe itself!

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Ernest P. Worrell grows a hand out of the top of his head and tries to destroy the world.

The third installment in Tanya Huff's exciting military sci-fi adventure Confederation seriesGunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr was a Confederation Marine’s marine. She’d survived more deadly encounters—and kept more of her officers and enlisteds alive—than anyone in the Corps, and she was determined to keep the record intact. But since her last mission, she’d been sidelined into endless briefings and debriefings with no end in sight. So, of course, she’d jumped at the chance to go to the Crucible—the Marine Corps training planet—as temporary aide to Major Svensson. The major had been reduced to little more than a brain and spinal cord in his last combat, and he and his doctor were anxious to field test his newly re-grown body. It should have been an easy twenty-day run. After all, Crucible was only set up to simulate battle situations so recruits could be trained safely. But they were barely on-planet when someone started blasting the training scenarios to smithereens. And suddenly Kerr found herself not only responsible for the major and his doctor, but caught in a desperate fight to keep a platoon of Marine recruits alive until someone discovered what was happening on Crucible....

"Susanna Moore's novel astonished me--one of those brilliant objects that come along only rarely, all light on clear water, and then one realizes the faster currents underneath, the terrible swiftness of sex and time. " --Joan DidionIn this mesmerizing novel, Susanna Moore displays a naturalist's eye for the landscape of her native Hawaii and an uncanny sensitivity to the despairing love between mothers and daughters. Lily Shields grows up amid the fragrance of night-jasmine and burning sugar cane, and the heady atmosphere of her mother's madness. For if Anna Shields is an island unto herself--fragile, glamorous, and fearfully needy--Lily is the bridge that connects her to reality. But now Lily is a young woman and a mother herself, self-exiled from Hawaii but still attached to Anna's tragedy. And as she tries to untangle those threads of love and loyalty, Moore gives us a novel of shimmering beauty and sadness. My Old Sweetheart is a small classic, perfectly formed and mysteriously wise."Susanna Moore is a gifted and compelling novelist . . .  in possession of her own unique voice." --The New York Times Book Review"I can't recall another novel like this about mothers and daughters. . . . Lily's mysterious, half-told tale delighted and touched me."--Susan Lydon, Village Voice

Two hoodlums terrorize the passengers of a late-night New York City subway train.

It's 1960 in the Panhandle town of Charnelle, Texas—a year and a half since sixteen-year-old Laura Tate's mother boarded a bus and mysteriously disappeared. Assuming responsibility for the Tate household, Laura cares for her father and three brothers and outwardly maintains a sense of calm. But her balance is upset and the repercussions of her family's struggles are revealed when a chance encounter with a married man leads Laura into a complicated relationship for which she is unprepared. As Kennedy battles Nixon for the White House, Laura must navigate complex emotional terrain and choose whether she, too, will flee Charnelle.A heartfelt portrait of a young woman's reckoning with the paradoxes of love—eloquent, tender, and heart-wrenching—K. L. Cook's unforgettable debut novel marks the arrival of a significant new voice in American fiction.