Modern Fiction

The next step in Ellie Baker’s marriage: divorce. She and her husband, Jonah, are heading to Florida to break it to the family. No great drama to share. After twenty years of marriage, they’ve just fallen out of love. Simple. Not to their college-age daughter, Maggie, who is devastated. Or to Ellie’s father, Frank, who grows as cold as a retiree can get in Orlando. As for Ellie’s mother, Bunny: no, no, no. She doesn’t want to hear it. After a dreadful weekend, Ellie and Jonah return home to New Jersey with hearts and minds still set on a split.

Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking by William James is a unique work in American philosophy. This collection of lectures James himself delivered at the dawn of the twentieth century has been a landmark in the development of the philosophical movement of pragmatism.

The Will to Power is an audiobook of notes compiled from the literary remains of Friedrich Nietzsche. The title derives from a work that Nietzsche himself had intended to write. The "will to power", a prominent concept in his philosophy, describes what Nietzsche believed to be the main driving force in humans.

The English philosopher and physician John Locke (1632 - 1704) is widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. His work had a significant effect on the development of epistemology and political philosophy. The Second Treatise on Civil Government places sovereignty in the hands of the people, as Locke's fundamental argument is that people are equal and invested with natural rights in a state of nature in which they live free from outside rule.

Elsie Bovary is a cow, and a pretty happy one at that—her long, lazy days are spent eating, napping, and chatting with her best friend, Mallory. One night, Elsie and Mallory sneak out of their pasture; but while Mallory is interested in flirting with the neighboring bulls, Elsie finds herself drawn to the farmhouse. Through the window, she sees the farmer's family gathered around a bright Box God—and what the Box God reveals about something called an "industrial meat farm" shakes Elsie's understanding of her world to its core.

If you’ve ever been a room parent or school volunteer, Jen Dixon is your hero. She says what every class mom is really thinking, whether in her notoriously frank emails or standup-worthy interactions with the micromanaging PTA President and the gamut of difficult parents. Luckily, she has the charm and wit to get away with it - most of the time. Jen is sassier than ever but dealing with a whole new set of challenges in the world of parental politics and at home.

Rome, 1955. The artists gather for a picture at a party in an ancient villa. Bear Bavinsky, creator of vast canvases, larger than life, is at the center of the picture. His wife, Natalie, edges out of the shot. From the side of the room watches little Pinch - their son. At five years old he loves Bear almost as much as he fears him. After Bear abandons their family, Pinch will still worship him, striving to live up to the Bavinsky name.

Best-selling author and renowned religious scholar Karen Armstrong presents a concise and articulate history of Islam, the world's fastest-growing faith. Beginning with the Prophet Muhammad's flight from Medina and concluding with an examination of modern Islamic practices and concerns, Armstrong delivers an unbiased overview. She contends that no religion is more feared and misunderstood by the Western world as Islam, and firmly challenges the notion that these two civilizations are on a collision course.

When things go bump in the night, there's only one federal agency that stands between the supernatural and humankind...CERBERUS. C.E.R.B.E.R.U.S. stands for “Clandestine Enforcement and Reconnaissance Bureau, Extranormal Rampart Division of the United States”—the American law enforcement unit that was created to deal with all things magical and unexplained. Follow along as Deputy Marshal Tony Mendoza is inducted into the supernatural underworld by the shadowy agency and its enigmatic leader, Director Strickland.

In the final installment of Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles, Nick and Laurie had thought they solved their giant problems when they drove all the giants into the sea. But now, the Grace kids have come back to tell them they may have more trouble coming their way!

Acclaimed author M.A.C. Farrant has been hailed as “a brave iconoclast” by Publishers Weekly and is well known for her pithy wit and maverick sensibilities. Broken into three sections, The Strange Truth About Us is a fusion of fragmented prose, probing questions and caustic satire. The result is both a meditation on absence and a commentary on the human penchant for complacency.

Colin McCool here, everyone’s favorite smart-aleck druid and all-around trouble magnet. Something supernaturally weird is going on in my town. I leave for six months to another timeline, and the place is on fire when I get back. As in, literally…on…fire. Now my girlfriend is missing, the vampire and werewolf factions are at war, the local fae queen has become a lock-in, and a strange cult has popped up that’s somehow connected to this whole mess.

The Reveries of the Solitary Walker was one of the last works written by the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and was, in fact, not quite complete. It was published four years after his death and came quickly to be regarded as one of his most poetic works. It consists of 10 Walks (only the final ‘Walk’ was unfinished) during which he muses on a variety of topics including thoughts on issues which featured strongly in his notable life as a philosopher and commentator, including education and political philosophy.

Jane falls in love with Duncan easily. He is charming, good-natured, and handsome, but unfortunately, he has also slept with nearly every woman in Boyne City, Michigan. Jane sees Duncan's old girlfriends everywhere—at restaurants, at the grocery store, even three towns away. While Jane may be able to come to terms with dating the world's most prolific seducer of women, she wishes she did not have to share him quite so widely.

Jane Day is racing to stay ahead of the paid assassin who had been her fiance. On the run in Wichita Falls, Texas, she meets Nellie Luckadeau, a spitfire of an elderly lady, who desperately needs someone to drive her home and work on her ranch. But Nellie's drop-dead gorgeous cocky cowboy grandson "Lucky Slade" is sure he can spot a con artist a mile away and no way in hell is he going to let some upstart fleece his granny.

Following the framework of a tale within a tale, Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, which features the subtitle The Modern Prometheus follows the scientific - and at times horrific - exploits of Victor Frankenstein. Victor studied alchemy in college, and after a mere two years he figures out that he can put human body pieces back together and restore the entire corpse to life.

For listeners eager to experience Gibbon’s brilliant primary historicism, to understand the long decline of Rome—and the reasons for the Empire’s demise—there exists no better or more accessible condensation of Decline and Fall.

After the devastating battle at the East Homestead, Sean’s family regroups and makes some new alliances; however, with those growing bonds, new risks arise. Colonel Harris struggles to feed the 31st Regiment while attempting to offer assistance to the locals and contemplates risking his own life for the future of his country. A stranger arrives in Tionesta with unknown aspirations, and an ominous looting force the size of a small army entrenches nearby. Despite the emerging prospects for a new beginning, a shadow looms over the fresh buds of optimism.

In the very near future, an inconceivable attack against the United States will unleash a nightmare across the country - with a vast appetite for chaos and violence. Alex Fletcher, former Marine, will wake to this brutally hostile landscape, thrown headfirst into an epic, near-impossible journey to protect and save his family and friends.

Sensitive, aspiring photographer Nick Fairfax wants nothing to do with his family's corporate business, or their vicious, cold-blooded lifestyle. Intending to give up his inheritance and pursue his art, he arrives at his father's office, only to find that Fairfax Industries has fallen to a scarred man in a hooded cloak. The man is the reclusive billionaire Lord Bane Dunsaney, and he is bent on destroying the Fairfaxes. But when he sees Nick, *everything* changes.