City Of Lost Dreams

A New York Times bestseller. Once a city of enormous wealth and culture, in its day Prague was home to emperors, alchemists, astronomers. When music student Sarah Weston finds herself with a summer job at Prague Castle cataloging Beethoven's manuscripts, she has no idea how dangerous her life is about to become. Prague is a threshold, Sarah is warned, and it is steeped in blood. It's not long after Sarah arrives that things start to go wrong. Her mentor, who was working at the castle, is thought to have committed suicide. Then Sarah begins to discover cryptic notes from him; could they be warnings? Following the clues about Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved", Sarah gets into more trouble than she could have reasonably expected. Arrests, sex and a touch of alchemy take Sarah on an exciting and occasionally dangerous trip. Along the way she catches the attention of a four-hundred-year-old dwarf, the handsome Prince Max, and a powerful U.S. senator with secrets she will do anything to hide. City of Dark Magic could be called a rom-com paranormal suspense novel, or it could simply be called one of the most entertaining novels of the year. Magnus Flyte is a pseudonym for the writing duo of Meg Howrey and Christina Lynch. Meg Howrey is the author of the novels The Cranes Dance and Blind Sight and her non-fiction has been published in Vogue. She lives in Los Angeles. Christina Lynch is a television writer and former Milan correspondent for W Magazine. She lives near Sequoia National Park in California. textpublishing.com.au 'This deliciously madcap novel has it all: murder in Prague, time travel, a misanthropic Beethoven, tantric sex, and a dwarf with attitude. I salute you, Magnus Flyte!' Conan O'Brien 'A comical, rollicking and sexy thriller.' Huffington Post 'The most wickedly enchanting novel I've ever read and also the funniest. A Champagne magnum of intrigue and wit, this book sparkles from beginning to end.' Anne Fortier, bestselling author of Juliet

After ten years in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Los Angeles Field Office, Inspector Richard Thatcher reluctantly reports to Washington D.C. He arrives the day after a mysterious assailant murders the Chief of Staff to the President. To Thatcher's dismay, he is assigned to command the investigation. An attack on the Mayor of the District of Columbia initially seems unrelated, but eventually it complicates matters. The media sensationally alleges that a high ranking conspiracy is underway, but Thatcher can find no evidence to substantiate this allegation. The immediate trail takes him to the White House where his aggressive approach antagonizes the suspicious President. An investigative reporter intrudes. Against his best judgment, Thatcher becomes entangled in a personal relationship with the younger woman. The leads take him across the country to the victim's widow, where a suspect divorce leads Thatcher to the possibility of a crime of passion. This effort directs him to the charming Mimi Wilson, the White House Spokesperson who had an affair with the murdered chief of staff, among others. Thatcher finds the mature Mimi more compatible than the aggressive nineties generation reporter. Things get worse when he pursues leads suggested by Mimi. A conniving Senator entraps Thatcher in a provocation that threatens to involve the Bureau in a highly critical congressional investigation. This brings Thatcher into direct conflict with the new White House Chief of Staff. As Thatcher threads his way through his convoluted investigation, he consults with the detectives from the Metropolitan Police who have no leads to the mayor's assailant. Neither Thatcher nor the city detectives can isolate a motive for either the White House murder or the attack on the Mayor. Gradually the evidence accumulates and enables Thatcher to identify the killer, the one person Thatcher least suspected.

A sweeping epic of two families—one Dutch, one English—from the time when New Amsterdam was a raw and rowdy settlement, to the triumph of the Revolution, when New York became a new nation’s city of dreams. In 1661, Lucas Turner, a barber surgeon, and his sister, Sally, an apothecary, stagger off a small wooden ship after eleven weeks at sea. Bound to each other by blood and necessity, they aim to make a fresh start in the rough and rowdy Dutch settlement of Nieuw Amsterdam; but soon lust, betrayal, and murder will make them mortal enemies. In their struggle to survive in the New World, Lucas and Sally make choices that will burden their descendants with a legacy of secrets and retribution, and create a heritage that sets cousin against cousin, physician against surgeon, and, ultimately, patriot against Tory. In what will be the greatest city in the New World, the fortunes of these two families are inextricably entwined by blood and fire in an unforgettable American saga of pride and ambition, love and hate, and the becoming of the dream that is New York City.

In this carefully researched and hauntingly written memoir, Lisa Gruenberg not only records her own life, but also that of relatives long lost to darkness, terror, and murder. In dreamlike sequences she weaves known facts of the lives of those lost into tableaus of imagined family dinners, conversations and leisure activities set in the Vienna landscape. She especially brings back to life some of the girls and women whose fates remain largely unknown. Indeed, she embodies her aunt Mia as she walks in her shoes, sees with her eyes, and speaks with her voice. These flights into the past are presented within the framework of Gruenberg's own family, her husband and daughters, and her father. He escaped from Vienna in 1939 and shared few of his memories with her, and that only late in life when disease had beaten down his defenses against remembering. The trauma and feeling of guilt often described in Holocaust survivors is reflected in this memoir, also the burden shared by so many of their children and grandchildren. At the same time, this tale is one of lightness and finding balance in all these difficulties and trials. There is an endless network of cousins and friends of cousins, one more colorful than the next. They are spread all over the world and Gruenberg seeks many of them out in her search for the past. At the center stands author's ability to look at the truth unflinchingly, including truths apparent in herself. She shares her insights in all their nakedness, starkness and, yes, hilarity. This, together with the author's luminous prose, make My City of Dreams an important landmark in 21st century testimony of the Holocaust.

The exhilarating, genre-bending sequel to the sensational New York Times bestseller City of Dark Magic “If you’re looking for a time-travel mystery with laughs, danger, and a romantic interest clad in lederhosen (and who isn’t?), look no further.” —People (4 Stars) In this action-packed sequel to City of Dark Magic, we find musicologist Sarah Weston in Vienna in search of a cure for her friend Pollina, who is now gravely ill and who may not have much time left. Meanwhile, Nicolas Pertusato, in London in search of an ancient alchemical cure for the girl, discovers an old enemy is one step ahead of him. In Prague, Prince Max tries to unravel the strange reappearance of a long dead saint while being pursued by a seductive red-headed historian with dark motives of her own. In the city of Beethoven, Mozart, and Freud, Sarah becomes the target in a deadly web of intrigue that involves a scientist on the run, stolen art, seductive pastries, a few surprises from long-dead alchemists, a distractingly attractive horseman who’s more than a little bloodthirsty, and a trail of secrets and lies. But nothing will be more dangerous than the brilliant and vindictive villain who seeks to bend time itself. Sarah must travel deep into an ancient mystery to save the people she loves.

Invited by a Wall Street bigwig to participate in a financial treasure hunt that promises to rescue America's economy, Peter Fallon begins a race against time to find a box of valuable eighteenth-century bonds, a search that pits him against renegade treasury agents and the Russian mob.

An exhilarating, wondrous middle grade debut about a brother and sister on a quest that “swoops from thrilling to terrifying to heartwarming and back again” (BookPage) to defeat a tyrannical ruler and protect a magical book. “[W]ill appeal to readers of Kelly Barnhill and Lemony Snicket” (Publishers Weekly). Rachel and Robert live a gray, dreary life under the rule of cruel and calculating Charles Malstain. That is, until one night, when their librarian father enlists their help to steal a forbidden book. Before their father is captured, Rachel and Robert are given one mission: find the missing final page. But to uncover the secrets of The Book of Stolen Dreams, the siblings must face darkness and combat many evils to be rewarded with the astonishing, magical truth about the book. Nevertheless, they resolve to do everything in their power to stop it from falling into Charles Malstain’s hands. For if it does, he could rule their world forever.

"Armchair historians in particular will appreciate McAuliffe’s readable yet detailed history supplemented with illustrations and bibliography." Booklist, Starred Review Acclaimed historian Mary McAuliffe vividly recaptures the Paris of Napoleon III, Claude Monet, and Victor Hugo as Georges Haussmann tore down and rebuilt Paris into the beautiful City of Light we know today. Paris, City of Dreams traces the transformation of the City of Light during Napoleon III’s Second Empire into the beloved city of today. Together, Napoleon III and his right-hand man, Georges Haussmann, completely rebuilt Paris in less than two decades—a breathtaking achievement made possible not only by the emperor’s vision and Haussmann’s determination but by the regime’s unrelenting authoritarianism, augmented by the booming economy that Napoleon fostered. Yet a number of Parisians refused to comply with the restrictions that censorship and entrenched institutional taste imposed. Mary McAuliffe follows the lives of artists such as Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, and Claude Monet, as well as writers such as Emile Zola, Gustave Flaubert, and the poet Charles Baudelaire, while from exile, Victor Hugo continued to fire literary broadsides at the emperor he detested. McAuliffe brings to life a pivotal era encompassing not only the physical restructuring of Paris but also the innovative forms of banking and money-lending that financed industrialization as well as the city’s transformation. This in turn created new wealth and lavish excess, even while producing extreme poverty. More deeply, change was occurring in the way people looked at and understood the world around them, given the new ease of transportation and communication, the popularization of photography, and the emergence of what would soon be known as Impressionism in art and Naturalism and Realism in literature—artistic yearnings that would flower in the Belle Epoque. Napoleon III, whose reign abruptly ended after he led France into a devastating war against Germany, has been forgotten. But the Paris that he created has endured, brought to vivid life through McAuliffe’s rich illustrations and evocative narrative.

In this whimsical fantasy adventure, a novelist’s search for an author takes him to a magical city, a villainous literary scholar, and perilous catacombs. Optimus Yarnspinner’s search for an author’s identity takes him to Bookholm―the so-called City of Dreaming Books. On entering its streets, our hero feels as if he has opened the door of a gigantic second-hand bookshop. His nostrils are assailed by clouds of book dust, the stimulating scent of ancient leather, and the tang of printer’s ink. Soon, though, Yarnspinner falls into the clutches of the city’s evil genius, Pfistomel Smyke, who treacherously maroons him in the labyrinthine catacombs underneath the city, where reading books can be genuinely dangerous . . . In The City of Dreaming Books, Walter Moers transports us to a magical world where reading is a remarkable adventure. Only those intrepid souls who are prepared to join Yarnspinner on his perilous journey should read this book. We wish the rest of you a long, safe, unutterably dull, and boring life! Praise for The City of Dreaming Books “German author and cartoonist Moers returns to the mythical lost continent of Zamonia in his uproarious third fantasy adventure to be translated into English, a delightfully imaginative mélange of Shel Silverstein zaniness and oddball anthropomorphism à la Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. . . . A wonderfully whimsical story that will appeal to readers of all ages.” —Publishers Weekly “A salmagundi of whimsy, imagination and book lore—remarkable fun.” —Cleveland Plain Dealer “Moers puts Tolkien through some sort of Willy Wonka sweetening process and comes up with characters such as Optimus Yarnspinner, who, names being fate and all, just has to be a storyteller.” —Kirkus Reviews

In 2015, the beautiful jazz funeral in New Orleans for composer Allen Toussaint coincided with a debate over removing four Confederate monuments. Mayor Mitch Landrieu led the ceremony, attended by living legends of jazz, music aficionados, politicians, and everyday people. The scene captured the history and culture of the city in microcosm--a city legendary for its noisy, complicated, tradition-rich splendor. In City of a Million Dreams, Jason Berry delivers a character-driven history of New Orleans at its tricentennial. Chronicling cycles of invention, struggle, death, and rebirth, Berry reveals the city's survival as a triumph of diversity, its map-of-the-world neighborhoods marked by resilience despite hurricanes, epidemics, fires, and floods. Berry orchestrates a parade of vibrant personalities, from the founder Bienville, a warrior emblazoned with snake tattoos; to Governor William C. C. Claiborne, General Andrew Jackson, and Pere Antoine, an influential priest and secret agent of the Inquisition; Sister Gertrude Morgan, a street evangelist and visionary artist of the 1960s; and Michael White, the famous clarinetist who remade his life after losing everything in Hurricane Katrina. The textured profiles of this extraordinary cast furnish a dramatic narrative of the beloved city, famous the world over for mysterious rituals as people dance when they bury their dead.