New York, 1937: When estranged sisters Clara and Madeleine Sommers learn their grandmother is dying, they agree to fulfill her last wish: to travel across Europe--together. They are to deliver three letters, in which Violet will say goodbye to those she hasn't seen since traveling to Europe forty years earlier; a journey inspired by famed reporter, Nellie Bly. Clara, ever-dutiful, sees the trip as an inconvenient detour before her wedding to millionaire...

"David Kipen scoured the archives of libraries, historical societies, and private estates to assemble a kaleidoscopic view of Los Angeles from the Spanish missionary expeditions in the 1500s to the present day. These entries are arranged by date--January 1 through December 31--but are selected from more than three centuries of writing by those living in, or visiting, Los Angeles. Thus the entry for January 21, for example, will have an excerpt from...

"All for the Union is the eloquent and moving diary of Elisha Hunt Rhodes, featured throughout Ken Burns' PBS documentary The Civil War. Rhodes enlisted into the Union Army as a private in 1861 and left it four years later as a twenty-three-year-old colonel after fighting hard and honorably in battles from Bull Run to Appomattox. Anyone who heard these diaries excerpted in The Civil War will recognize his accounts of those campaigns, which remain...

"Toby and Luke are best friends, bound by a goal of leaving their hometown for Luke's wrestling scholarship, but a series of events during their senior year will test their resolve"--

"Till now there's been no magic for Harry Potter. He lives with the miserable Dursleys at number four, Privet Drive. His room is the cupboard under the stairs, and he hasn't had a birthday party in eleven years. But then a mysterious letter arrives by owl messenger: a letter with an invitiation to an incredible place called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And there he finds not only friends, flying sports on broomsticks, and magic in everything...

This is the classic, hypnotic story of the undead creatures of the night--and the human lives they touch--as they relentlessly seek to satiate an accursed craving for their only sustenance: human blood. A Gothic novel of immense proportions, "Dracula" has only strengthened its grip on the public over the course of the last century.

In a time when adultery is punishable by death, Hester Prynne becomes involved in a risky and scandalous affair with her town's handsome minister.

Twelve stories about animals, insects, and other subjects include "How the Whale Got His Throat, " "The Elephant's Child, " "How the Alphabet Was Made, " and "The Butterfly that Stamped."

Kim is the son of an Irish soldier born under British Imperial rule in 19th century India. Left in the care of a half-caste woman, Kim is free to explore the back allies and bazaars of Lahore . But when he meets with his father's old regiment he trades his native clothes for European suits and abandons his free wheeling life for the trappings of a secret agent.