• ALA 2009--Come visit us at Booth #2438 for demonstrations and giveaways!
• Fall titles from Books on Tape and Listening Library have arrived! Don't miss out on these hot new titles for the upcoming season.
• Expand your collection with new indie titles that are on their way to becoming bestsellers.
• Check out a selection of new eBooks from Random House, Penguin, Hachette Book Group, and Kensington Publishing Corp.
• Complete your classical music collection with boxed sets from Naxos.

The novel opens in the present. At its center: Toby O’Dare—a contract killer of underground fame on assignment to kill once again. A soulless soul, a dead man walking, he lives under a series of aliases—just now: Lucky the Fox—and takes his orders from “The Right Man.”

Into O’Dare’s nightmarish world of lone and lethal missions comes a mysterious stranger, a seraph, who offers him a chance to save rather than destroy lives. O’Dare, who long ago dreamt of being a priest but instead came to embody danger and violence, seizes his chance. Now he is carried back through the ages to thirteenth-century England, to dark realms where accusations of ritual murder have been made against Jews, where children suddenly die or disappear . . . In this primitive setting, O’Dare begins his perilous quest for salvation, a journey of danger and flight, loyalty and betrayal, selflessness and love.

When Olive Wellwood’s oldest son discovers a runaway named Philip sketching in the basement of the Victoria and Albert Museum—a boy who could be a character out of one of Olive’s magical tales—she takes him into the storybook world of her family and friends.

But the midsummer bacchanals the Wellwoods host at their rambling country house—and the private books that Olive writes for each of her seven children—conceal more treachery and darkness than Philip has ever imagined. As these lives—of adults and children alike—unfold, lies are revealed, hearts are broken, and the damaging truth about the Wellwoods is slowly uncovered. Yet a far larger danger awaits: the Great War lies ahead, and it will leave no one unscathed.

How does a kid go from a remote Canadian town at the tip of Lake Superior to the bright lights of Broadway and a gig leading the band on Letterman? This book is Paul Shaffer's answer to that question. From playing seedy strip joints in Toronto, to his first legitimate job out of college-which found him working with future stars (and friends) Gilda Radner, Martin Short, and Eugene Levy-to being first musical director of the nascent Saturday Night Live and helping to form the Blues Brothers, to being onstage every night with Dave and playing with the greatest musicians of our time, Shaffer has lived the ultimate showbiz life.

Now, in this hilarious, entertaining, and candid memoir-in which he dishes on everyone from John Belushi and Jerry Lewis to Mel Gibson and Britney Spears-Paul gives us the full behind-the-scenes story of his life, from banging out pop tunes on the piano at the age of twelve to leading the band every night at the Sullivan Theater.

A mix-up with their reservations forces Harvey from New York, Mistral from Paris, and Sheng from Shanghai to share a room with the hotel owner’s daughter, Elettra. The four kids discover an amazing coincidence—they all have birthdays on February 29, Leap Day. That night, a strange man gives them a briefcase and asks them to take care of it until he returns. Soon afterward, the man is murdered.

The kids open the briefcase. In it they find a series of clues that take them all over Rome, through dusty libraries and dark catacombs, in search of the elusive Ring of Fire, an ancient object so powerful that legend says even a Roman emperor couldn’t control it.

In the first book of the Century quartet, Italian author P. D. Baccalario begins a mystery that will take four cities and four extraordinary kids to solve.

You alone know that the world will end thirty-six years after your birth. Do you succumb to nihilistic apathy? Use your singular knowledge to save mankind? To what end do you live your life?

While still in his mother’s womb, Junior Thibodeau is encoded with a prophecy: in thirty-six years a comet will obliterate life on Earth. Born to a working-class family in rural Maine, he comes of age in the shabby-decadent eighties, a time of Atari, baseball cards, pop Catholicism, and cocaine, all the while grappling with one question: Does anything I do matter? While Junior searches for meaning in a world only he knows is doomed, the voice that has accompanied him since conception appraises his choices–from sibling rivalry over the cable box to first love in grade school; from crazed misadventures in Chicago to an all-out attempt to cheat death itself.

Horse Soldiers is the dramatic account of a small band of Special Forces soldiers who secretly entered Afghanistan following 9/11 and rode to war on horses against the Taliban. The bone-weary American soldiers were welcomed as liberators, and overjoyed Afghans thronged the streets. Then the action took a wholly unexpected turn. During a surrender of six hundred Taliban troops, the Horse Soldiers were ambushed. Dangerously outnumbered, they fought for their lives. At risk were the military gains of the entire campaign: if the soldiers perished or were captured, the effort to defeat the Taliban might be doomed.

Until now the full story of the Horse Soldiers has never been told. Doug Stanton received unprecedented cooperation from the U.S. Army's Special Forces soldiers and Special Operations helicopter pilots, as well as access to voluminous after-battle reports. In addition, he interviewed more than one hundred participants and walked every inch of the climactic battleground.

A unique family occasion is looming for the O'Hagans. Desmond and Deirdre will have been married for twenty-five years in October. Naturally there must be a celebration. But who is going to arrange it, and will the right people come? It is unthinkable not to have a party, but do Desmond and Deirdre O'Hagan really want one? The past secrets and present fears of the family and their close friends are gradually unveiled in this collection of stories which culminate in the last revealing drama – the Silver Wedding party itself.

Hidden somewhere, in nearly every major city in the world, is an underground seduction lair. And in these lairs, men trade the most devastatingly effective techniques ever invented to charm women. This is not fiction. These men really exist. They live together in houses known as Projects. And Neil Strauss, the bestselling author, spent two years living among them, using the pseudonym Style to protect his real-life identity. The result is one of the most explosive and controversial books of the year -- guaranteed to change the lives of men and transform the way women understand the opposite sex forever.

On his journey from AFC (average frustrated chump) to PUA (pick-up artist) to PUG (pick-up guru), Strauss not only shares scores of original seduction techniques but also has unforgettable encounters with the likes of Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Heidi Fleiss, and Courtney Love. And then things really start to get strange -- and passions lead to betrayals lead to violence. The Game is the story of one man's transformation from frog to prince -- to prisoner in the most unforgettable book of the year.

Life hasn't been easy for Eugene "Huge" Smalls.

Sure, his IQ is off the charts, but that doesn't help much when you're growing up in the 1980s in a dreary New Jersey town where your bad reputation precedes you, the public school system's written you off as a lost cause, and even your own family seems out to get you.

But it's not all bad. Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett have taught Huge everything he needs to know about being a hard-boiled detective . . . and he's just been hired to solve his first case.

What he doesn't realize is that his search for the truth will change everything for him.

Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.

He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.

In this sweeping narrative that takes us from the Stone Age to the Information Age, Robert Wright unveils an astonishing discovery: there is a hidden pattern that the great monotheistic faiths have followed as they have evolved. Through the prisms of archaeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright's findings overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and are sure to cause controversy. He explains why spirituality has a role today, and why science, contrary to conventional wisdom, affirms the validity of the religious quest. And this previously unrecognized evolutionary logic points not toward continued religious extremism, but future harmony.

Nearly a decade in the making, The Evolution of God is a breathtaking re-examination of the past, and a visionary look forward.

Deep inside the dangerous world of rescue operations, one anonymous hero pays no ransom, takes no prisoners, and breaks every rule. Meet Jonathan Grave…

No names. No feds. No trace evidence. That’s how Jonathan Grave operates. As a freelance specialist in covert rescues, he has to work outside the law to get things done—especially in highly sensitive hostage situations. But when an Indiana college student is abducted, and Jonathan’s meticulous plan explodes into a deadly shooting spree, the local authorities are out for blood—and they’re not alone. Someone wants to control a devastating secret . . . someone rich and powerful . . . someone willing to capture, torture, and kill anyone to get it. Even the people Jonathan loves most…

Highlights Include:

• The Four Seasons: Allegro non molto Swan Lake: Scene: Scene
• Piano Sonata, "Tempest": Allegretto
• Guitar Concerto: Fast Movement
• Tales from the Vienna Woods
• A Midsummer Night's Dream: Overture: Overture
• Symphony No. 3, 'Organ': Presto
• Sylvia Ballet Suite: Prelude
• Piano Quintet: Third Movement
• Viola Concerto: First Movement
• Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini - excerpt
• German Dance No. 9
• Swan Lake: Act I - Peasant Dance: Swan

Meet Pocoyo, the unforgettable little boy with a very big personality! Your child will learn through laughter as 3-year old Pocoyo and his adorable friends - Elly, Pato, Louella and Sleepy Bird - explore the world around them. In these charming episodes, Pocoyo enjoys making music, blowing bubbles, solving puzzles, and even watching an egg hatch. Filled with sights and sounds perfectly tailored to encourage child development, Meet Pocoyo is preschool entertainment especially designed to delight your child!

BBC Audiobooks America 50% Off Sale is here! Choose from 152 high circulating BBC Audiobooks America titles, all marked 50% off! These titles are on sale until July 15th - don't miss out on this great deal. To take advantage of these great savings, orders must be placed no later than 5PM EST on July 15th. The sale includes best-selling authors such as: Michael Chabon, Neil Gaiman, Greg Bear, Joyce Carol Oates, J.A. Jance, Phillip Margolin, and much more!

In addition to their 50% Off Sale, BBC Audiobooks America also offers a Download Standing Order Plan (DSOP) to automatically add bestsellers every month.

**Please note: Content featured in ContentWire may vary by geographical location.