Culture Adventure

Fourteen-year old Sophronia is the bane of her mother's existence. More interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper etiquette at tea - and god forbid anyone see her atrocious curtsy - Mrs. Temminnick is desperate her daughter become a proper lady. She enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But little do Sophronia or her mother know that this is a school where ingenious young girls learn to finish all right - but it's a different kind of finishing.

Generations of young readers continue to fall in love with Marguerite Henry’s “horse stories.” In one of her most famous, King of the Wind, the author traces the ancestry of the great Kentucky Derby winner, Man o’ War, whose mysterious pedigree is linked to the noble line leading from the Godolphin Arabian.

All her life, Zephyr has tried to rise above her humble origins as a no-name orphan. Now, she is a god in a warrior's body, and never has she felt more powerless. The warlordess Xin Ren holds the Westlands, but her position is tenuous. In the north, the empress remains a puppet under Miasma's thumb. In the south, the alliance with Cicada is in pieces.

This breathtaking, full-color illustrated fantasy is inspired by Chinese folklore, and is a companion to the Newbery Honor winner Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. Pinmei's gentle, loving grandmother always has the most thrilling tales for her granddaughter and the other villagers. However, the peace is shattered one night when soldiers of the Emperor arrive and kidnap the storyteller. Everyone knows that the Emperor wants something called the Luminous Stone That Lights the Night.

As assistant to Mangkon’s most celebrated mapmaker, twelve-year-old Sai plays the part of a well-bred young lady with a glittering future. In reality, her father is a conman—and in a kingdom where the status of one’s ancestors dictates their social position, the truth could ruin her. Sai seizes the chance to join an expedition to chart the southern seas, but she isn’t the only one aboard with secrets. When Sai learns that the ship might be heading for the fabled Sunderlands—a land of dragons, dangers, and riches beyond imagining—she must weigh the cost of her dreams.

Most readers are familiar with Jack London's stories of the frozen northland, such as White Fang and To Light a Fire, but many critics feel he should be equally acknowledged for his fascinating stories of the South Pacific. Here is another remote corner of the world, a background for his magnificently colorful and entertaining Tales of the South Pacific.

If you're brave enough to take an honest look at the issues facing the culture-controlled church - and the issues in your own life - read on.

Do you ever look at how the Christian faith is being lived out in the new millennium and wonder if we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing? That we still haven't quite 'gotten it'? That we've missed the point regarding many important issues? It's understandable if we've relied on what we've been told to believe or what's widely accepted by the Christian community. But if we truly turned a constructive, critical eye toward our beliefs and vigorously questioned them....

It's the end of August 2005, and a big hurricane is blowing in to New Orleans, Louisiana. Barry's family plans to evacuate the Ninth Ward with everyone else, but when Barry's little sister gets violently ill, they must return to their home and stick out the storm. At first, everything seems fine. But then the levees break, the water rises, Barry is swept out of his home, and everything changes. Stranded in the floodwaters with no idea where he is and only a stranded dog by his side, Barry must find the courage to survive the storm of the century.

A journey into the glittering, surreal heart of 21st century Russia: into the lives of Hells Angels convinced they are messiahs, professional killers with the souls of artists, bohemian theatre directors turned Kremlin puppet-masters, supermodel sects, post-modern dictators and oligarch revolutionaries.

It is 1910 and Maia, tragically orphaned at 13, has been sent from England to start a new life with distant relatives in Manaus, hundreds of miles up the Amazon. She is accompanied by an eccentric and mysterious governess who has secret reasons of her own for making the journey. Both soon discover an exotic world bursting with new experiences in this highly colourful, joyous, and award-winning adventure.

From the author of Newbery Medal winner Moon Over Manifest comes the odyssey-like adventure of two boys’ incredible quest on the Appalachian Trail. When Jack Baker’s father sends him from his home in Kansas to attend a boys’ boarding school in Maine, Jack doesn’t know what to expect. Certainly not Early Auden, the strangest of boys. Early keeps to himself, reads the number pi as a story, and refuses to accept truths others take for granted. Jack, feeling lonely and out of place, connects with Early, and the two become friends.

After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother. But nothing is easy when you’re a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodemus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880s America.

This new, updated edition of Culture Smart! Turkey reveals a nation in transition. Over the last two decades, living conditions have improved greatly and Turkey is now classified as a developed country with an emerging market economy. Viewed by many as a model for outward-looking Islam, it is a country with laws to protect against religious paternalism, where restaurants are open during the fast of Ramadan, and where headscarves or no scarves can be worn in universities, schools, and public offices.

After young Carlo Chuchio is dismissed from the service of his merchant uncle for daydreaming too much, he finds a treasure map and plunges headlong into an unimaginable adventure across Asia.

The Castaways finds Tom Tin and four other convicts drifting on the ocean when they come upon an empty ship. Shortly after, they also encounter two men who appear to be refugees from the abandoned vessel. But these two are not what they seem, and they become an obstacle for Tom as he travels home.

Things have quieted down for lovable troublemaker Rafe Khatchadorian, and after all the mishaps and adventures he's been through, he's feeling a little restless. So when he's invited to attend an all-expenses-paid art field trip in California, Rafe jumps at the opportunity. But things go sideways, as they always do for Rafe, when he arrives and realizes his trip isn't the Hollywood vacation he thought it would be. Instead, he'll be participating in a "Cultural Campout" in the desert.

In The Winter Pony, Iain Lawrence pens the mesmerizing tale of a young white Siberian pony who escapes a group of cruel masters only to enter the company of Englishman Robert Falcon Scott. Joining Scott’s men and their race to the South Pole, the pony is soon given a name, James Pigg, as he and the rest embark on a thrilling race to reach the bottom of the world - a race in which not everyone will survive.

Once relegated to the fringes of society, transhumanism (the use of technology to enhance human intellectual and physical capability) is now poised to enter our cultural mainstream. It has found adherents in Silicon Valley billionaires Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis. Google has entered the picture, establishing a bio-tech subsidiary aimed at solving the problem of aging. In To Be a Machine, journalist Mark O'Connell takes a headlong dive into this burgeoning movement.

Adrift in the Mediterranean Sea, Ben falls captive to a band of slave traders and their leader, Al Misurata. With his faithful dog, Ned, at his side, Ben must plot escape as the ship of scoundrels sails up the Libyan coastline toward Italy, where a trap awaits. Ruthless enemies and hard times appear around every bend, but Ben and Ned have quick wits to rely on and, just as important, one another.

Disaster has struck, and the Titanic is going down. What started as a thrilling voyage has turned into a fight for survival. For Paddy, Sophie, Juliana, and Alfie, every second counts in the race against death. All of their hiding and all of their seeking has come down to this: Can they save the people they love? Can they even save themselves? One cold, horrifying night will decide all of their fates.