Middle Game

Today, most Westerners still see the war in Afghanistan as a contest between democracy and Islamist fanaticism. That war is real, but it sits atop an older struggle between Kabul and the countryside, between order and chaos, between a modernist impulse to join the world and the pull of an older Afghanistan - a tribal universe of village republics permeated by Islam. Now, Tamim Ansary draws on his Afghan background, Muslim roots, and Western and Afghan sources to explain history from the inside out and to illuminate the long, internal struggle that the outside world has never fully understood.

The Iran Wars is an absorbing account of a battle waged on many levels - military, financial, and covert. Jay Solomon’s book is the product of extensive in-depth reporting and interviews with all the key players in the conflict - from high-ranking Iranian officials to Secretary of State John Kerry and his negotiating team. With a reporter’s masterly investigative eye and the narrative dexterity of a great historian, Solomon shows how Iran’s nuclear development went unnoticed for years by the international community only to become its top security concern.

The Great Game between Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia was fought across desolate terrain from the Caucasus to China, over the lonely passes of the Parmirs and Karakorams, in the blazing Kerman and Helmund deserts, and through the caravan towns of the old Silk Road - both powers scrambling to control access to the riches of India and the East. When play first began, the frontiers of Russia and British India lay 2000 miles apart; by the end, this distance had shrunk to 20 miles at some points.

An astonishing retelling of 20th-century history from the Ottoman perspective, delivering profound new insights into World War I and the contemporary Middle East. Between 1911 and 1922, a series of wars would engulf the Ottoman Empire and its successor states, in which the central conflict, of course, was World War I - a story we think we know well. As Sean McMeekin shows us in this revelatory new history of what he calls the "wars of the Ottoman succession", we know far less than we think.

Whisked from his comfortable hobbit-hole by Gandalf the wizard and a band of dwarves, Bilbo Baggins finds himself caught up in a plot to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon.

FBI agent Nicholas Drummond and his partner, Mike Caine, are deep into an investigation of COE - Celebrants of the Earth - a violent group known for widespread bombings of power grids and oil refineries across the country. While investigating a tip from a civilian who's overheard about a possible bombing plot, the Bayway Refinery in New Jersey explodes. Nicholas and Mike race to the scene and barely escape being killed by a secondary device.

More than 20 years have elapsed since the United States last brokered a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. In that time, three presidents have tried and failed. Martin Indyk - a former United States ambassador to Israel and special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in 2013 - has experienced these political frustrations and disappointments firsthand.

Raam Patel is eager to prove himself ever since he didn't make the middle school's basketball team. So, when Hoop Con comes to town he is determined to be there and take his shot. His big moment proves to be unforgettable . . . but not in the way he'd hoped. Raam gets schooled by the camp's golden boy right in front of his NBA idol. To make matters even worse, this fail goes viral.

Her name is Omakayas, or Little Frog, because her first step was a hop, and she lives on an island in Lake Superior. It is 1850 and the lives of the Ojibwe have returned to a familiar rhythm: they build their birchbark houses in the summer, go to the ricing camps in the fall to harvest and feast, and move to their cozy cedar log cabins near the town of LaPointe before the first snows.

From a new coach's flagrant racism to a teammate's endless sabotage, best friends Andi Carillo and Jeff Michaels start basketball season mired in controversy. To make matters worse, the local media smells more than one juicy story. Will Andi and Jeff be able to help each other power through and find a way to put both their teams back on track?

Since the end of World War II, the United States has set out to oust governments in the Middle East on an average of once per decade - in places as diverse as Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan (twice), Egypt, Libya, and Syria. The reasons for these interventions have also been extremely diverse, and the methods by which the United States pursued regime change have also been highly varied, ranging from diplomatic pressure alone to outright military invasion and occupation

The Endgame is Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor's most ambitious and news-breaking book to date. A peerless work of investigative journalism and historical recreation ranging from 2003 to 2012, it gives us the first comprehensive, inside account of arguably the most widely reported yet least understood war in American history - from the occupation of Iraq to the withdrawal of American troops.

In the mystical realm of Bríandalör, every day the brave and the bold delve into hidden temples or forgotten dungeons, battling vile monsters and evil wizards to loot their treasure hoards for sweet, sweet magic items. But in their free time, our heroes - Thromdurr the mighty barbarian, Devis the shifty thief, Vela the noble paladin, Sorrowshade the Gloom Elf assassin, and Albiorix the (good!) wizard - need to relax and unwind. That’s why they meet up once a week to play a role-playing game where they assume the characters of average American eighth graders.

In The Crash of Flight 3804, Investigative Journalist Charlotte Dennett digs into her father’s counterintelligence work, which pitted him against America’s wartime allies - the British, the French, and the Russians - in a covert battle for geopolitical and economic influence in the Middle East. Through vivid storytelling, extensive research, and deep analysis of region-defining maps, she reveals how feverish competition among intelligence networks, military, and Big Oil interests have fueled indiscriminate attacks and targeted killings that continue to this day.

Toby is a beagle who doesn't seem to have a purpose. While all of his littermates are adopted right away, Toby is left behind because he's not as energetic as they are. But because he is so quiet, he is adopted by a girl named Mona and her mother, who works at a nursing home. As Toby comforts the residents of the home, he discovers that his purpose may be the most important of all!

It's 1948, and World War II has just ended. Berlin is in pieces, torn apart by bullets, bombs, and bloodshed. But a particular scientist has survived - one with vital knowledge of an ancient weapon. When Endgame spies learn of the news, Boone, a Cahokian, and Ariadne, a Minoan, are each sent undercover to find the scientist amid the snowy rubble. But when their paths intertwine, the last thing they expect is to let their guards down and work together.

The resignation of Scott Ritter as chief weapons inspector for UNSCOM in August 1998 made front-page news around the world. Now Scott Ritter draws on his seven years' experience hunting Saddam's weapons of mass destruction to take readers inside Iraq and show that country as it has never been seen by outsiders before. In Endgame, he dissects the failure of U.S. policy in Iraq and reveals a bold new approach to ending the ongoing Iraq crisis.

FBI agent Nicholas Drummond and his partner, Mike Caine, are deep into an investigation of COE - Celebrants of the Earth - a violent group known for widespread bombings of power grids and oil refineries. While investigating a tip from a civilian who's overheard about a possible bombing plot, the Bayway Refinery in New Jersey explodes. Nicholas and Mike race to the scene and barely escape being killed by a secondary device.

Nine-year-old Mya Tibbs is in a triple heap of trouble. As the Tibbs household prepares for the new baby, Mya is extra excited to spend time with her mom watching their favorite Annie Oakley marathon before her new sister arrives. Until she’s cornered into a bet with her number-one enemy, Naomi Jackson, that she can beat her in the famous fourth-grade Wall of Fame Game - which means Mya is stuck studying every night instead of hanging out with Mom. As if that wasn’t enough, Mya just entered Bluebonnet’s annual chili cook-off, even though she doesn’t know how to cook! Holy moly!

In this Halloway Hills Middle School Mysteries series premiere, Avery is the first person to borrow the Super Ultimate Minecraft Hacks book from the school library, much to the dismay of the school bully Becky. When Avery accidentally splashes Becky with an invisibility potion he learned from the book, she not only disappears from Minecraft, but from the real world too. Trying to ease his guilt about Becky’s disappearance, with the help of his friend Jordan and a black cat who appears to be stalking him, Avery sets out to find Becky.