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Novelist John Gardner's thesis in On Moral Fiction is simple: "True art is by its nature moral." It is also an audacious statement, as Gardner asserts an inherent value in life and in art. Since the book's first publication, the passion behind Gardner's assertion has both provoked and inspired fans. In examining the work of his peers, Gardner analyzes what has gone wrong, in his view, in modern art and literature, and how shortcomings in artistic criticism have contributed to the problem.

On holiday in Victoria, British Columbia, Bond becomes by intrigued Lee Fu-Chu, a half-Blackfoot, half-Chinese philanthropist who is known as "Brokenclaw" because of a deformed hand. On his return to the UK Bond is tasked to investigate the kidnapping of several scientists who have been working on a new submarine detection system. It becomes clear that Brokenclaw is behind the kidnapping.

When M receives word that a known terrorist organization is planning to infiltrate and destroy a top-secret British Royal Navy aircraft carrier-based summit of world leaders, James Bond is returned to active duty in the Royal Navy. Promoted from Commander to Captain, Bond is expected to infiltrate the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible and identify potential sleeper agents.

James Bond has been partnered with an Israeli Mossad agent, Pete Natkowitz, and assigned to work with the KGB to infiltrate a terrorist group. The group, The Scales of Justice, are demanding the trial of a suspected Nazi war criminal and each day of delay brings another death. Posing as a TV crew, Bond and the other agents attempt to discover the group's real motive.

Bond reluctantly finds himself recruited into a dangerous mission involving an equally dangerous and treacherous alliance of agents from the CIA, the KGB, and Israel's Mossad. The team dubbed "Icebreaker" waste no time double crossing each other, as they try to root out the leader of the murderous National Socialist Action Army, Count Konrad von Gloda, a one time SS officer, who now perceives himself as the New Adolf Hitler.

This classic and much lauded retelling of Beowulf follows the monster Grendel as he learns about humans and fights the war at the center of the Anglo Saxon classic epic.

Bond was supposed to be on leave. But SPECTRE leader Tamil Rahani, dying from injuries suffered at Bond's hand, is determined to make it the holiday to die for. With a price on his head, Bond must evade the world's greatest assassins in a ruthless game of cat-and-mouse across Europe, while trying to save the lives of the two women who matter to him most, his housekeeper May and Miss Moneypenny. But Bond has been a target before. And when it comes to staying alive, nobody does it better than 007.

Two female agents of Operation Cream Cake - double agents and honey traps against the KGB - are murdered. Bond must find the others and conduct them to safety before they meet a similar fate. In a race against time, Bond travels to Ireland and the KGB is soon on the scene. But all is not as it seems and soon Bond finds he needs all his wits to negotiate a labyrinth of double-crossing that is to lead him to a bewildering showdown in a remote corner of the Kowloon province of Hong Kong.

The Cold War is over. After two British agents die under mysterious and strangely old-fashioned circumstances in Germany, Bond is paired up with beautiful CIA agent "Easy" St. John. He's been assigned to track down the surviving members of "Cabal," a Cold War-era intelligence network that received a mysterious and unauthorized signal to disband.

Following scandal and his shock resignation from Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, James Bond becomes a gun for hire; able, and willing, to sell his lethal skills to the highest bidder. And SPECTRE, it seems, are eager to have the disgraced British super spy on their payroll.

On Becoming a Novelist contains the wisdom accumulated during John Gardner's distinguished twenty-year career as a fiction writer and creative writing teacher. With elegance, humor, and sophistication, Gardner describes the life of a working novelist; warns what needs to be guarded against, both from within the writer and from without; and predicts what the writer can reasonably expect and what, in general, he or she cannot.

No one could ask for a better present than a collection of Connie Willis Christmas tales. These are amazing stories, representing all the best of the Connie Willis experience: true Christmas gifts to her many fans. They are full of humor, absurdity, human foibles, tragedy, joy, and hope. They both send up and embrace many of the best Christmas traditions, such as the Christmas newsletter, Secret Santas, office parties, holiday pageants, and Christmas dinners (both elaborate and spare).

James Bond is back in action, with the stunning Flicka von Grusse at his side and his license to kill renewed once more. His target is Sir Maxwell Tarn: a businessman whose legitimate empire spans the globe, whose wealth is uncountable, who also deals in illegal weapons on a breathtaking scale. But even Bond is unprepared for the speed of events, as a sting operation in a Cambridge hotel leads rapidly to an assassination in Spain, a fugitive in Israel, and neo-Nazi plotters in Germany.

Duc de Louis de Rouvroy Saint-Simon (1675-1755) was a French soldier, diplomat, and noted diarist. A French courtier during the 18th century, today he's best known for his comprehensive multi-volume memoirs, which depict life in France at the time. He was an indefatigable writer, and he began very early to record all the gossip he collected, all his interminable legal disputes over precedence, and a vast mass of unclassified material. He is petty, unjust to private enemies and to those who espoused public views contrary to his, as well as being an incessant gossip.

When the body of a mysterious woman is found to be carrying the phone number of James Bond, Bond is called in by M to help the investigation. But before he can even reach headquarters he is nearly run off the road in a high-speed motorway chase. Someone wants Bond dead.

Whole Foods Market cofounder John Mackey and professor and Conscious Capitalism, Inc. cofounder Raj Sisodia argue for the inherent good of both business and capitalism. Featuring some of today's best-known and most-successful companies, they illustrate how these two forces can - and do - work most powerfully to create value for all stakeholders, including customers, employees, suppliers, investors, society, and the environment.

Reflecting on 40 years of matrimony, John Piper exalts the biblical meaning of marriage over its emotion, exhorting couples to keep their covenant for all the best reasons. Even in the days when people commonly stayed married "'til death do us part," there has never been a generation whose view of marriage was high enough, says Pastor John Piper. That is all the more true in our casual times.

Two strangers, young men from Pennsylvania and South Carolina, meet on the way to West Point.... Thus begins this brilliant novel of antebellum America, spanning three generations and chronicling the lives and loves of two great family dynasties. The Hazards and the Mains are brought together in bonds of friendship and affection that neither jealousy nor violence can shatter - until a storm of events sunders the nation and brings the cataclysm of war!

Titan is the first full-length biography based on unrestricted access to Rockefeller’s exceptionally rich trove of papers. A landmark publication full of startling revelations, the book indelibly alters our image of this most enigmatic capitalist. Born the son of a flamboyant, bigamous snake-oil salesman and a pious, straitlaced mother, Rockefeller rose from rustic origins to become the world’s richest man by creating America’s most powerful and feared monopoly, Standard Oil. Branded "the Octopus" by legions of muckrakers, the trust refined and marketed nearly 90 percent of the oil produced in America.

In different corners of the world four high-profile figures are assassinated in less than a week. Nobody links the deaths but one thing is certain: each of them has been stalked, sought out, and killed with care and preparation. Then a sinister connection is established: a single, blood-tipped rose is sent to each funeral and an unremarkable female agent is murdered in Switzerland.