The Art Thief
by Noah Charney
ISBN: 9781416550303
Atria Books
$25.00 Hardcover
September 2007
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What's It About? |
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Three seemingly unrelated, priceless art treasures have been snatched from the cities of Rome, Paris, and London. International police are hot on the trail of the thieves, but with forgeries, bizarre clues, and false leads that baffle even the most brilliant of all inspectors, The Art Thief is an intelligent jigsaw puzzle of a mystery.
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Why Did He Write It? |
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Read the interview.
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Who's Talking About It? |
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"Sleek, sharp, and sophisticated, The Art Thief will steal your spare time--and you'll be happy you were robbed.”--Don Winslow, author of The Winter of Frankie Machine
"A thrilling, literary page-turner, The Art Thief paints portraits of lovers, frauds, innocents, and scholars, all presented in Charney's sharp, fresh voice. This exciting debut establishes young Noah Charney as the curator of crime."--Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of She's Not There
"Noah Charney offers us a masterful thriller filled with revelations."--Javier Sierra, New York Times bestselling author of The Lady in Blue
"A vivid, marvelously readable look at the world of stolen art. The fascinating tale keeps you constantly wondering--does this really happen? Noah Charney knows his stuff."--Steve Berry, New York Times-bestselling author of The Alexandria Link and The Third Secret
"Charney constructs an intricate web of crime, bolstering a sensational plot with well-crafted characters and extensive research. Eventful and exciting, The Art Thief is an enthralling novel."--Vernon Rapley, head of the Art & Antiques Unit, New Scotland Yard
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Where Will I See It? |
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National print advertising; major advertising campaign; author lecture tour; national television, radio, and print publicity; national radio interview campaign; online publicity; Book Sense outreach; and 10-city author reading tour: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. |
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What's It About? |
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Like the title states, The Year of Living Biblically is A.J. Jacobs' journey in obeying the Bible as literally as possible for one full year.
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Who's Talking About It? |
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"Readers will cheer for this oddball who grows a beard, avoids wearing mixed-fiber clothes, and carries his own three-legged miniature seat onto the subway."--Library Journal
"A. J. Jacobs has written about the Bible in a manner that is brilliantly funny but unerringly respectful, learned but goofy, deeply personal yet highly relevant. I am covetous and wish him smited."--Mary Roach, bestselling author of Spook and Stiff
"Seeing that most people violate at least three of the Ten Commandments on their way to work--even people who work from home--says a lot about the scale of A. J.'s feat. The fact that you need to buy six copies of this book to unlock the code to save all humanity… well, that's just pure genius."--Ben Karlin, co-creator of The Colbert Report and coauthor of America: The Book
"A.J. Jacobs is so funny he can make watching his beard grow hilarious. The Year of Living Biblically is the most unexpectedly delightful--and consistently charming--book I've read in a long time. It will have you laughing out loud, nodding in disbelief, and rethinking what you believe about the Bible. It will also have you tallying your sins: I coveted his humor and envied his facial hair. And that's no lie."--Bruce Feiler, author of Walking the Bible and Where God Was Born
"In the twenty-first century few, if any, Christians truly attempt to follow the Bible in its literal entirety, even us evangelicals. In this yearlong experiment, A.J. Jacobs attempts just that, with disarming sincere, refreshingly humorous, and unexpectedly insightful results. I commend this inspired narrative to anyone actively exploring the continued relevance of biblical living, religion's need for critical self-reflection, and the timelessness of authentic faith."--Reverend Jim Wallis, author of God's Politics
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Who's Going to Read It? |
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Lots of people. The Year of Living Biblically continues to be discussed on television--including the Today show--as well as online, on the radio, and in print. Readers know about this book and will come looking for it out of curiosity and for the humor, but they will end up learning a great deal about the Bible and what it means to have faith.
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From The Year of Living Biblically:
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Ecclesiastes 12:13
It's the first day, and I already feel like the water is three feet over my head.
I have chosen September 1 to start my project, and from the moment I wake up, the Bible consumes my life. I can't do anything without fearing I'm breaking a biblical law. Before I so much as inhale or exhale, I have to run through a long mental checklist of the rules.
It begins when I open my closet to get dressed. The Bible forbids men to wear women's clothing (Deuteronomy 22:5), so that comfortable Dickinson College sweatshirt is off-limits. It was originally my wife's.
The Bible says to avoid wearing clothes made of mixed fibers (Leviticus 19:19), so I have to mothball my poly-cotton Esquire magazine T-shirt.
And loafers? Am I allowed to wear leather? I go to the living room, click on my PowerBook and open my Biblical Rules file. I scroll down to the ones about animals. Pigskin and snakeskin are questionable, but it looks like regular old cow leather is permissible.
But wait -- am I even allowed to use the computer? The Bible, as you might have guessed, doesn'taddress the issue specifically, so I give it a tentative yes. Maybe sometime down the road, I could try stone tablets.
And then I stumble. Within a half hour of waking, I check the Amazon.com sales ranking of my last book. How many sins does that comprise? Pride? Envy? Greed? I can't even count.
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Undoing I Do
by Anastasia Royal
ISBN: 9780312369651
Thomas Dunne Books
$24.95 Hardcover
November 2007
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What's It About? |
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When her fairytale romance begins to unravel, Claire must face her future alone as a single mother. Her struggle to survive the divorce while protecting her children from the fallout is a tale full of insight, honesty, and humor.
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Who's Talking About It? |
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"Few have picked up the pieces of broken love with more elan than Claire McCloud, divorce-casualty, struggling mom, and a let-it-all-hang-out iconoclast who will shock and delight you. Shaping so iridescent a tale from divorce's dark matter takes a special writing gene, and evidently, Anastasia Royal has whole strands of it."--Arthur Plotnik, author of Spunk & Bite: A Writer's Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style
"Calling Anastasia Royal's stunning and supple roman à clef a "first novel" is like calling the Hope diamond a shiny little rock. As savage and sharp as it is lovely, with as many facets as life itself, Undoing I Do is a perfect gem of a book. Told with a surgeon's eye for detail, the narrative employs all manner of prose and poetry to slice through the telling episodes of a marriage coming undone. It tackles big themes, and at times put me in mind of Nabokov's Pale Fire, but the things that linger most are the tiny sensual details. A new, important voice in literature is born."--Jay Bonansinga, national bestselling author of Twisted, Frozen and The Sinking of Eastland
"As with every unhappy family, every unhappy marriage is unhappy in its own way, and Anastasia Royal has given us splendidly unhappy marriage. By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, Undoing I Do is ultimately an uplifting tale of the determination and strength of an indomitable woman's spirit."--Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of An Almost Perfect Moment
"A rollicking ride through love, marriage, and unhappily ever after...alternately poetic, ribald, tragic and comic. Mostly comic, thank heaven."--Tim Kazurinsky, actor and former Saturday Night Live cast member
"Undoing I Do is an astounding, brilliant and unforgettable story that introduced me to characters I will never forget. No short blurb can do justice to the poetry, the passion, the rage and the humor of this novel that had me laughing out loud one moment and weeping the next. Welcome first-time novelist Anastasia Royal to the front ranks of American story tellers."--John D. Callaway, Host and Senior Editor of WTTW's Chicago Stories program and winner of the Peabody Award and 12 Emmys®
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Who's Going To Read It? |
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Fans of Ann Packer and Anita Shreve will feel at home with Anastasia Royal's Undoing I Do.
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I remember the story my children's German au pair Petra told me.... Her grandmother lived for thirty years in bed. She was the best friend Petra ever had. She could listen. That's all we need. Almost. But who wants to listen to someone whose marriage is disintegrating? Listen to them moan about their already precarious financial situation becoming disastrous during a divorce?
I need to see the humor.
I have no money, no car, no toilet paper.
I slog through snow like Julie Christie in Doctor Zhivago, but instead of getting to Omar, I reach a nearby restaurant and steal the extra roll of toilet paper.
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A Pigeon and a Boy
by Meir Shalev
ISBN: 9780805242515
Schocken Books
$25.00 Hardcover
October 2007
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What's It About? |
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Tour guide Yair Mendelson unravels a wondrous story of love that evolves between two handlers of homing pigeons that blossoms in the early 40's and lasts until Israel's War of Independence.
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Who's Talking About It? |
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"[A] stunning tale... This gem of a story about the power of love, which won Israel's Brenner Prize, brims with luminous originality."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Magical realism works beautifully in this powerfully suffused novel of love, loss, and the need for home."--Library Journal
"Meir Shalev, the Woody Allen of the desert, is an Israeli author one absolutely has to read!"--Elle magazine
"Shalev creates a world that has the richness of invention and obsessiveness of dreams. He delivers both startling imagery and passionate, original characters whose destinies we follow through love, loss, laughter, and death."--The New York Times Book Review
"It is as though the Song of Solomon had been rewritten by Gabriel Garcia Marquez... You get a master class in the storyteller's art."--The Daily Telegraph
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Why Should I Read It? |
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“I have read Israeli novelist Meir Shalev's work before, and I was captivated by his playful, rich style. But it wasn't until now that I felt we had just the right book to introduce him again in the U.S. market. This gorgeous double love story is piercing and romantic, an intertwining of the past and present that explores how a single act of passion can shape multiple lives. No description can do justice to the magnificent writing, the many layers and explosions of color and feeling and nuances of character all on display in Shalev's work.”--Deb Garrison, Senior Editor, Schocken Books
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From A Pigeon and a Boy: |
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This Hebrew he had unleashed, without prior warning, was good--in spite of his accent--but his use of the term homing pigeon in English sounded more pleasant and proper than its Hebrew equivalent, even if the bird in question did belong to the Palmach.
"How could you be sure?"
"A pigeon handler was assigned to us, a pigeon expert with a little dovecote--that's what it was called--on his back. Maybe he managed to dispatch the bird before he was killed, or maybe the dovecote busted and the bird flew away."
"He was killed? How?"
"How? There was no lack of how to get killed here--all you had to do was choose: by a bullet or shrapnel, in the head or the stomach or that major artery in your thigh. Sometimes it was right away and sometimes it was real slow, a few hours after you got hit."
His yellow eyes pierced me. "Amazing, isn't it?" he said, chuckling. "We went to battle with homing pigeons, like in ancient Greece."
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