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With a Little Help from My Friends

John Lennon

Celebrate friendship with this lyrical picture book that beautifully illustrates John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s world-renowned words from “With a Little Help from My Friends.”

I get by with a little help from my friends…

In this gorgeously illustrated picture book, the universally loved words to “With a Little Help from My Friends” come vividly to life, showing that sometimes, all you need is a little help from your friends!

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Peanut Butter & Cupcake

Terry Border

What’s a little piece of bread to do when he’s feeling lonely? Find a friend, of course!

And that’s exactly what Peanut Butter tries to do. But sometimes friends are hard to come by, especially when Hamburger has to walk his (hot) dogs, Cupcake is too busy building castles in her sprinkle box, and Egg laughs so hard he starts to crack up! Does Peanut Butter have a soulmate? Young readers will know the answer long before Peanut Butter does and laugh along with each mismatched pairing.

In a story that pairs silliness with poignancy, and friendship with anthropomorphic food, Terry Border, the photography mastermind behind the Bent Objects project, makes a triumphant entrance into the children's book world. Complete with a rhyming refrain, this is sure to be a favorite family read-aloud--and laugh-aloud.
 

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Good Rosie!

Kate DiCamillo

Rosie is a good dog and a faithful companion to her owner, George. She likes taking walks with George and looking at the clouds together, but the closest she comes to another dog is when she encounters her reflection in her empty dog bowl, and sometimes that makes Rosie feel lonely. One day George takes Rosie to the dog park, but the park is full of dogs that Rosie doesn’t know, which makes her feel lonelier than ever. When big, loud Maurice and small, yippy Fifi bound over and want to play, Rosie’s not sure how to respond. Is there a trick to making friends? And if so, can they all figure it out together?

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I'm Sticking with You

Smriti Prasadam-Halls

Bear and Squirrel are best friends. Wherever Squirrel goes, Bear follows. Bear vows to stick with Squirrel whether he’s grumpy, or silly, or mad—which is put to the test when Bear sinks Squirrel’s canoe. And catapults him from the seesaw. And breaks his favorite mug.

Finally, Squirrel has had enough. He tells Bear he needs his space—only to realize he has much more fun with his best friend around. Funny and poignant in equal measure, I'm Sticking with You shows that friendship always finds a way.

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Walter Had a Best Friend

Deborah Underwood

Walter and Xavier are best friends. They do everything together! But then…quietly…slowly…Xavier becomes best friends with someone else. Walter goes from feeling hurt and left out to feeling confused and angry to feeling just plain lonely. Until one morning he wakes up feeling a tiny bit hopeful. That day, while out for a hike by himself, he meets Ollie. Could this be the beginning of a new friendship?

Sometimes best friends aren’t forever, and that’s okay. Because there might be a new pal waiting just around the corner.

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A Warm Friendship

Ellen DeLange

With lovely illustrations and sweet forest animals, A WARM FRIENDSHIP celebrates love and giving with a seasonal friendship of Squirrel and Snowman.

Squirrel and Snowman are the best of friends. Will their friendship last forever?

 

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Finding François

Gus Gordon

Alice, a little piglet, loves life with her grandmother, making lists and crème brûlée, organizing buttons, and taking walks. Still, Alice wishes she had a sister—or even a brother. So, she does the sensible thing: She writes a note ("Hello! I am Alice"), tucks it into a bottle, and tosses it into the river, where it drifts out to sea, is captured by an octopus, picked up by a seagull, and arrives at a faraway lighthouse. There, François, a little dog, lives with his dad. François is everything Alice could wish for in a friend, and soon the seas are busy with their bottled correspondence. But when a big change comes, and Alice can't bring herself to write François more letters, will the simple comforts of time, love, and friendship restore the light to Alice's life?

In this marvelous, gently funny and reassuring tale, the lucky and lovely friendship between Alice and François spans the length of the River Seine and the loss of a loved one. Award-winning author and artist Gus Gordon captures the highs and lows of being little, and tenderly shepherds kids on a journey full of fantastic possibilities, friendship, and healing.
 

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The Friendship Book

Mary Lyn Ray

With charming art and poetry, this honest primer on friendship, captures the many ways friendships are formed and what it means to be a friend. 

Sometimes being friends begins all at once
And sometimes it takes a while to get acquainted
But then, as some small knowing grows,
You start feeling that feeling
That comes with having a friend--

Exploring the many shapes friendships take and how being a friend can be a gift in itself, this thoughtful and authentic primer on friendship invites readers to celebrate the wonders of companionship.

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The Black Period

Hafizah Augustus Geter

“I say, ‘the Black Period,’ and mean ‘home’ in all its shapeshifting ways.” A book of great hope, Hafizah Augustus Geter’s The Black Period creates a map for how to survive: a country, a closet, a mother’s death, and the terror of becoming who we are in a world not built to accommodate diverse identities.

At nineteen, she suddenly lost her mother to a stroke. Weeks later, her father became so heartsick that he needed a triple bypass. Amid the crumbling of her world, Hafizah struggled to know how to mourn a Muslim woman in a freshly post-9/11 America. Weaving through a childhood populated with southern and Nigerian relatives, her days in a small Catholic school, and learning to accept her own sexuality, and in the face of a chronic pain disability that sends her pinballing through the grind that is the American Dream, Hafizah discovers that grief is a political condition. In confronting the many layers of existence that the world tries to deny, it becomes clear that in order to emerge from erasure, she must map out her own narrative.

Through a unique combination of gripping memoir, history, political analysis, cultural criticism, and Afrofuturist thought—alongside stunning original artwork created by her father, renowned artist Tyrone Geter—Hafizah leans into her parents’ lessons on the art of Black revision to create a space for the beauty of Blackness, Islam, disability, and queerness to flourish.

As exquisitely told as it is innovative, and with a lyricism that dazzles, The Black Period is a reminder that joy and tenderness require courage, too.

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When Crack Was King

Donovan X. Ramsey

The crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s is arguably the least examined crisis in American history. Beginning with the myths inspired by Reagan’s war on drugs, journalist Donovan X. Ramsey’s exacting analysis traces the path from the last triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement to the devastating realities we live with today: a racist criminal justice system, continued mass incarceration and gentrification, and increased police brutality.
 
When Crack Was King follows four individuals to give us a startling portrait of crack’s destruction and devastating legacy: Elgin Swift, an archetype of American industry and ambition and the son of a crack-addicted father who turned their home into a “crack house”; Lennie Woodley, a former crack addict and sex worker; Kurt Schmoke, the longtime mayor of Baltimore and an early advocate of decriminalization; and Shawn McCray, community activist, basketball prodigy, and a founding member of the Zoo Crew, Newark’s most legendary group of drug traffickers.
 
Weaving together riveting research with the voices of survivors, When Crack Was King is a crucial reevaluation of the era and a powerful argument for providing historically violated communities with the resources they deserve.

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Twice as Hard

Jasmine Brown

Black women physicians’ stories have gone untold for far too long, leaving gaping holes in American medical history, in women’s history, and in black history. It’s time to set the record straight

No real account of black women physicians in the US exists, and what little mention is made of these women in existing histories is often insubstantial or altogether incorrect. In this work of extensive research, Jasmine Brown offers a rich new perspective, penning the long-erased stories of nine pioneering black women physicians beginning in 1860, when a black woman first entered medical school. Brown champions these black women physicians, including the stories of:

· Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, who graduated from medical school only fourteen months after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed and provided medical care for the newly freed slaves who had been neglected and exploited by the medical system.

· Dr. Edith Irby Jones, the first African American to attend a previously white-only medical school in the Jim Crow South, where she was not allowed to eat lunch with her classmates or use the women’s bathroom. Still, Dr. Irby Jones persisted and graduated from medical school, going on to directly inspire other black women to pursue medicine such as . . .

· Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who, after meeting Dr. Irby Jones, changed her career ambitions from becoming a Dillard’s salesclerk to becoming a doctor. In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed Dr. Elders as the US surgeon general, making her the first African American and second woman to hold this position.

Brown tells the stories of these doctors from the perspective of a black woman in medicine. Her journey as a medical student already has parallels to those of black women who entered medicine generations before her. What she uncovers about these women’s struggles, their need to work twice as hard and be twice as good, and their ultimate success serves as instruction and inspiration for new generations considering a career in medicine or science.

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Built from the Fire

Victor Luckerson

When Ed Goodwin moved with his parents to the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, his family joined a community soon to become the center of black life in the West. But just a few years later, on May 31, 1921, the teenaged Ed hid in a bathtub as a white mob descended on his neighborhood, laying waste to thirty-five blocks and murdering as many as three hundred people in one of the worst acts of racist violence in U.S. history.

The Goodwins and their neighbors soon rebuilt the district into “a Mecca,” in Ed’s words, where nightlife thrived and small businesses flourished. Ed bought a newspaper to chronicle Greenwood’s resurgence and battles against white bigotry, and his son Jim, an attorney, embodied the family’s hopes for the civil rights movement. But by the 1970s urban renewal policies had nearly emptied the neighborhood. Today the newspaper remains, and Ed’s granddaughter Regina represents the neighborhood in the Oklahoma state legislature, working alongside a new generation of local activists to revive it once again. 

In Built from the Fire, journalist Victor Luckerson tells the true story behind a potent national symbol of success and solidarity and weaves an epic tale about a neighborhood that refused, more than once, to be erased.

 

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We Refuse to Forget

Caleb Gayle

A landmark work of untold American history that reshapes our understanding of identity, race, and belonging

In We Refuse to Forget, award-winning journalist Caleb Gayle tells the extraordinary story of the Creek Nation, a Native tribe that two centuries ago both owned slaves and accepted Black people as full citizens. Thanks to the efforts of Creek leaders like Cow Tom, a Black Creek citizen who rose to become chief, the U.S. government recognized Creek citizenship in 1866 for its Black members. Yet this equality was shredded in the 1970s when tribal leaders revoked the citizenship of Black Creeks, even those who could trace their history back generations—even to Cow Tom himself.

Why did this happen? How was the U.S. government involved? And what are Cow Tom’s descendants and other Black Creeks doing to regain their citizenship? These are some of the questions that Gayle explores in this provocative examination of racial and ethnic identity. By delving into the history and interviewing Black Creeks who are fighting to have their citizenship reinstated, he lays bare the racism and greed at the heart of this story. We Refuse to Forget is an eye-opening account that challenges our preconceptions of identity as it shines new light on the long shadows of white supremacy and marginalization that continue to hamper progress for Black Americans.

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Black Women Taught Us

Jenn M. Jackson

This is my offering. My love letter to them, and to us.

Jenn M. Jackson, PhD, has been known to bring historical acuity to some of the most controversial topics in America today. Now, in their first book, Jackson applies their critical analysis to the questions that have long energized their work: Why has Black women’s freedom fighting been so overlooked throughout history, and what has our society lost because of our refusal to engage with our forestrugglers’ lessons?

A love letter to those who have been minimized and forgotten, this collection repositions Black women’s intellectual and political work at the center of today’s liberation movements.

Across eleven original essays that explore the legacy of Black women writers and leaders—from Harriet Jacobs and Ida B. Wells to the Combahee River Collective and Audre Lorde—Jackson sets the record straight about Black women’s longtime movement organizing, theorizing, and coalition building in the name of racial, gender, and sexual justice in the United States and abroad. These essays show, in both critical and deeply personal terms, how Black women have been at the center of modern liberation movements despite the erasure and misrecognition of their efforts. Jackson illustrates how Black women have frequently done the work of liberation at great risk to their lives and livelihoods.

For a new generation of movement organizers and co-strugglers, Black Women Taught Us serves as a reminder that Black women were the first ones to teach us how to fight racism, how to name that fight, and how to imagine a more just world for everyone.

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His Name Is George Floyd (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

Robert Samuels

The events of that day are now tragically familiar: on May 25, 2020, George Floyd became the latest Black person to die at the hands of the police, murdered outside of a Minneapolis convenience store by white officer Derek Chauvin. The video recording of his death set off the largest protest movement in the history of the United States, awakening millions to the pervasiveness of racial injustice. But long before his face was painted onto countless murals and his name became synonymous with civil rights, Floyd was a father, partner, athlete, and friend who constantly strove for a better life.
 
His Name Is George Floyd tells the story of a beloved figure from Houston's housing projects as he faced the stifling systemic pressures that come with being a Black man in America. Placing his narrative within the context of the country's enduring legacy of institutional racism, this deeply reported account examines Floyd's family roots in slavery and sharecropping, the segregation of his schools, the overpolicing of his community amid a wave of mass incarceration, and the callous disregard toward his struggle with addiction—putting today's inequality into uniquely human terms. Drawing upon hundreds of interviews with Floyd's closest friends and family, his elementary school teachers and varsity coaches, civil rights icons, and those in the highest seats of political power, Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa offer a poignant and moving exploration of George Floyd’s America, revealing how a man who simply wanted to breathe ended up touching the world.

 

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Civil Rights Queen

Tomiko Brown-Nagin

With the US Supreme Court confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson, “it makes sense to revisit the life and work of another Black woman who profoundly shaped the law: Constance Baker Motley” (CNN). Born to an aspirational blue-collar family during the Great Depression, Constance Baker Motley was expected to find herself a good career as a hair dresser. Instead, she became the first black woman to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court, the first of ten she would eventually argue. The only black woman member in the legal team at the NAACP's Inc. Fund at the time, she defended Martin Luther King in Birmingham, helped to argue in Brown vs. The Board of Education, and played a critical role in vanquishing Jim Crow laws throughout the South. She was the first black woman elected to the state Senate in New York, the first woman elected Manhattan Borough President, and the first black woman appointed to the federal judiciary.
    
Civil Rights Queen captures the story of a remarkable American life, a figure who remade law and inspired the imaginations of African Americans across the country. Burnished with an extraordinary wealth of research, award-winning, esteemed Civil Rights and legal historian and dean of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Tomiko Brown-Nagin brings Motley to life in these pages. Brown-Nagin compels us to ponder some of our most timeless and urgent questions--how do the historically marginalized access the corridors of power? What is the price of the ticket? How does access to power shape individuals committed to social justice? In Civil Rights Queen, she dramatically fills out the picture of some of the most profound judicial and societal change made in twentieth-century America.

 

 

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Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Isabel Wilkerson

“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.”
 
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched, and beautifully written narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.
 
Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcasting of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.

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Half American

Matthew F. Delmont

The definitive history of World War II from the African American perspective, by award-winning historian and civil rights expert

More than one million Black soldiers served in World War II. Black troops were at Normandy, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge, serving in segregated units while waging a dual battle against inequality in the very country for which they were laying down their lives. The stories of these Black veterans have long been ignored, cast aside in favor of the myth of the “Good War” fought by the “Greatest Generation.” And yet without their sacrifices, the United States could not have won the war.

Half American is World War II history as you’ve likely never read it before. In these pages are stories of Black military heroes and civil rights icons such as Benjamin O. Davis Jr., the leader of the legendary Tuskegee Airmen, who fought to open the Air Force to Black pilots; Thurgood Marshall, the chief lawyer for the NAACP, who investigated and publicized violence against Black troops and veterans; poet Langston Hughes, who worked as a war correspondent for the Black press; Ella Baker, the civil rights leader who advocated on the home front for Black soldiers, veterans, and their families; and James G. Thompson, the twenty-six-year-old whose letter to a newspaper laying bare the hypocrisy of fighting against fascism abroad when racism still reigned at home set in motion the Double Victory campaign. Their bravery and patriotism in the face of unfathomable racism is both inspiring and galvanizing. An essential and meticulously researched retelling of the war, Half American honors the men and women who dared to fight not just for democracy abroad but for their dreams of a freer and more equal America.

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A Black Women's History of the United States

Daina Ramey Berry

The award-winning Revisioning American History series continues with this “groundbreaking new history of Black women in the United States” (Ibram X. Kendi)—the perfect companion to An Indigenous People’s History of the United States and An African American and Latinx History of the United States.

An empowering and intersectional history that centers the stories of African American women across 400+ years, showing how they are—and have always been—instrumental in shaping our country.

In centering Black women’s stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women’s unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross offer an examination and celebration of Black womanhood, beginning with the first African women who arrived in what became the United States to African American women of today.

A Black Women’s History of the United States reaches far beyond a single narrative to showcase Black women’s lives in all their fraught complexities. Berry and Gross prioritize many voices: enslaved women, freedwomen, religious leaders, artists, queer women, activists, and women who lived outside the law. The result is a starting point for exploring Black women’s history and a testament to the beauty, richness, rhythm, tragedy, heartbreak, rage, and enduring love that abounds in the spirit of Black women in communities throughout the nation.

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Vigilance: The Life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad

Andrew K. Diemer

Born free in 1821 to two parents who had been enslaved, William Still was drawn to antislavery work from a young age. Hired as a clerk at the Anti-Slavery office in Philadelphia after teaching himself to read and write, he began directly assisting enslaved people who were crossing over from the South into freedom. Andrew Diemer captures the full range and accomplishments of Still's life, from his resistance to Fugitive Slave Laws and his relationship with John Brown before the war, to his long career fighting for citizenship rights and desegregation until the early twentieth century.

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LEGO Harry Potter Ideas Book

Julia March

Conjure the magic of Harry Potter using your LEGO bricks

Delve into the world of LEGO Harry Potter and be inspired to build your own magical creations with LEGO Harry Potter Ideas Book, packed full of model ideas and expert tips. Inspirational images, model breakdowns, and descriptive text make it easy for fans of all ages to jump in and begin building.

Recreate a magical object or a minifigure-sized scene from Harry's adventures and be a part of the Wizarding World. Build Harry Potter-inspired items to display in your bedroom or try out one of the fun building challenges--with more than 200 model ideas, there's something for every LEGO Harry Potter fan!
 

 

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Cool Robots

Sean Kenney

Master LEGO brick designer Kenney is back with original creations of Robotopolis--robots, transformers, and spaceships. Includes select model instructions, insider tips, and landscape designs for LEGO fans.

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LEGO® Awesome Ideas

Daniel Lipkowitz

Unlock the secrets of LEGO® building and create new worlds with your imagination.

Your guide to becoming a LEGO master builder. Become inspired with detailed master building techniques and tips to create amazing modules with your collection. Test and challenge your building skills, with hundreds of awesome ideas to choose from, ranging from beginner LEGO builds to more advanced creative modules.


A fun activity that stimulates creativity and tactical skills. LEGO blocks are to be played without limitations and this building guide is here to inspire you. This LEGO instructions book explores the endless possibilities you can create with your own LEGO brick collection. It’s up to you, show off your building skills or add amazing creative modules to your own LEGO world.

Are You Ready For The Most Awesome LEGO Building Adventures Yet?

Learn through visual tips, step-by-step guides, creative model ideas and pro building techniques shown throughout the book.

The LEGO® Awesome Ideas book includes detailed illustrations on how to build amazing real-world modules like fleets of mini robots, magical castles, a LEGO® birthday cake, space vehicle constructions and even a realistic-looking LEGO mobile phone.

Journey through six incredible worlds bursting with hundreds of approved fans LEGO ideas and building tips. This book helps you create your own amazing models with step-by-step guides that unlock the secrets of great LEGO building.

This LEGO book is based on 5 different LEGO themes:

- Outer Space
- The Wild West
- Fantasy Land The Real World
- The Modern Metropolis

With creative model ideas and visual tips and techniques, LEGO® Awesome Ideas will inspire everyone from beginners to accomplished builders.
 

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LEGO Play Book

Daniel Lipkowitz

A New York Times and USA Today bestseller, this LEGO® ideas book features all-new ways to encourage kids to think, build, and play creatively.

Building on the success of wildly popular The LEGO Ideas Book, LEGO Play Book features more than 200 different builds that inspire readers to bring their bricks to life while encouraging them to use their imagination and play in new ways, creating amazing LEGO models of their very own. New models along with fresh photography spark new play ideas and LEGO creations.

Featuring a mixture of simple, medium, and complex models, Wired says, "It'll be a long time before you scratch your head, wondering what to build next, with the LEGO Play Book."

There are "ten-minute builds" for quick play sessions, a "cool brick" feature with ideas for using key LEGO bricks, and a "handful of bricks" section exploring what can be done with a limited collection of LEGO bricks.

A Family Choice Award Winner and National Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA) Winner, LEGO Play Book is fantastic for any LEGO builder looking to be inspired to build and create.

LEGO, the LEGO logo, the Brick and Knob configurations and the Minifigure are trademarks of the LEGO Group. ©2016 The LEGO Group. All rights reserved.
Produced by DK Publishing under license from the LEGO Group.

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The LEGO Power Functions Idea Book, Volume 1

Yoshihito Isogawa

This first volume of The LEGO Power Functions Idea Book, Machines and Mechanisms, showcases small projects to build with LEGO Technic gears, motors, gadgets, and other moving elements. You’ll find hundreds of clever, buildable mechanisms, each one demonstrating a key building technique or mechanical principle.

You’ll learn to build sliding doors, grasping claws, rack-and-pinion mechanisms, and ball-shooting devices of every sort!

Each model includes a list of required parts and colorful photographs that guide you through the build without the need for step-by-step instructions. As you build, you’ll explore the principles of simple machines, gear systems, power translation, and more.

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LEGO Ideas on the Go

Hannah Dolan

A fun collection of more than 50 vacation-themed ideas for LEGO models to inspire young builders on the go—with all the bricks to build an exclusive LEGO campervan mini scene.

Grab your LEGO collection and go on a great adventure!

Explore the world with your LEGO bricks—whether it is a trip to the park, an epic camping weekend, or your dream family vacation. Bring your LEGO bricks along for the ride or use them to imagine a LEGO vacation.

Play games around the campfire, build Rocky Mountains to climb, or imagine dense jungles to trek through. Be inspired by nature and build animals and ecosystems. Take your minifigures on an exploration to discover more about the world around you. Plus there are plenty of fun ideas and games for a stay-cation, too—no adventure is too small for a minifigure!

With more than 50 new LEGO ideas, plus an exclusive LEGO campsite mini model, you’ll have everything you need for a LEGO adventure on the go!

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Cool Cars and Trucks

Sean Kenney

Attention young LEGO brick builders: Whether you'd like to build an SUV, an excavator, a tanker truck, or a race car, this hands-on book will show you how. You can create street scenes such as a construction site, a fire rescue, or even a family on moving day.

Children of all ages will let their imaginations run wild as they learn that there are no limits to what can be created with LEGO. And easy-to-follow instructions are included for several of the models!

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The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide

Allan Bedford

What exactly is a slope? What's the difference between a tile and a plate? Why is it bad to simply stack bricks in columns to make a wall? The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide is here to answer your questions.

Focusing on building actual models with real bricks, The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide comes with complete instructions to build several cool models but also encourages you to use your imagination to create your own fantastic creations.

Inside, you'll learn:

* The best ways to connect bricks and creative uses for those patterns
* Tricks for calculating and using scale (it's not as hard as you think)
* The step-by-step plans to create a train station on the scale of LEGO people (a.k.a. "minifigs")
* How to build spheres, jumbo-sized LEGO bricks, micro-scaled models, and a mini space shuttle
* Tips for sorting and storing all of your LEGO pieces

The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide also includes the Brickopedia, a visual guide to nearly 300 of the most useful and reusable elements of the LEGO system, with historical notes, common uses, part numbers, and the year each piece first appeared in a LEGO set.

The firm foundation for your LEGO hobby starts here!

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The Homebrewer's Garden: How to Grow, Prepare & Use Your Own Hops, Malts & Brewing Herbs

Joe Fisher

If you have a backyard, or even a sunny porch or balcony, you can grow your own hops, brewing herbs, and malt grains to enhance the flavor, aroma, and uniqueness of your home-brewed beer — and ensure that you have the freshest, purest, best ingredients possible.

Simple instructions from experts Joe and Dennis Fisher guide you through every step of the process, from setting up your first hop trellis to planting and caring for your herbs, harvesting and drying them, malting grain, and brewing more than 25 recipes specifically designed for homegrown ingredients. This fully updated second edition includes a new section featuring color photography of the plants, expanded information on growing hops in small spaces, innovative trellising ideas, an expanded section on malting, new profiles of prominent grower/brewers, and up-to-date information on grain-growing best practices.

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The Backyard Beekeeper: An Absolute Beginner's Guide to Keeping Bees in Your Yard and Garden

Kim Flottum

The Backyard Beekeeper, now in its revised and expanded third edition, makes the time-honored and complex tradition of beekeeping an enjoyable and accessible backyard pastime that will appeal to gardeners, crafters, and cooks everywhere. This expanded edition gives you even more information on "greening" your beekeeping with sustainable practices, pesticide-resistant bees, and urban and suburban beekeeping.

More than a guide to beekeeping, it is a handbook for harvesting the products of a beehive and a honey cookbook--all in one lively, beautifully illustrated reference. This complete honey bee resource contains general information on bees; a how-to guide to the art of bee keeping and how to set up, care for, and harvest honey from your own colonies; as well as tons of bee-related facts and projects.

You'll learn the best place to locate your new bee colonies for their safety and yours, and you'll study the best organic and nontoxic ways to care for your bees, from providing fresh water and protection from the elements to keeping them healthy, happy, and productive. Recipes of delicious treats, and instructions on how to use honey and beeswax to make candles and beauty treatments are also included.

 

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Miniature Terrariums

Fourwords,

Add a whimsical touch of green to any space: your desk or bookshelf, home or office.

These miniature indoor gardens are customizable, stylish and easy to care for! This book is full of ideas for creating the perfect little Japanese-inspired terrarium garden using repurposed glass containers-- including a wine glass, mason jar and lightbulb.

In this mini terrarium gardening book you'll learn how to create:

  • Fern and moss terrariums
  • Air plant (Tillandsia) terrariums
  • Cacti and succulent terrariums
  • Captivating combinations of flowering plants, dry zone plants, mosses, epiphytes and other mixes

Included are tips for selecting your containers and arranging your soils, stones and plants so that your unique house plants stay healthy and beautiful in their perfectly petite glass home.

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Kitchen Garden

Lucy Peel

The bulk of this practical guide comprises an exhaustive directory of plants, divided into broad sections covering fruit and vegetables, then subdivided into distinctive groups, such as bulb vegetables. It includes special sections that deal with herbs and edible flowers.

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The Big Book of Kombucha

Hannah Crum

Brew your own kombucha at home! With more than 400 recipes, including 268 unique flavor combinations, you can get exactly the taste you want — for a fraction of the store-bought price. This complete guide, from the proprietors of Kombucha Kamp, shows you how to do it from start to finish, with illustrated step-by-step instructions and troubleshooting tips.

The book also includes information on the many health benefits of kombucha, fascinating details of the drink’s history, and recipes for delicious foods and drinks you can make with kombucha (including some irresistible cocktails!).
 

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Bookcraft: Techniques for Binding, Folding, and Decorating to Create Books and More

Heather Weston

Binding, folding, and decorating techniques to create beautiful artists’ books and more

From heirloom memories to unique journals, albums, and altered books—or simple tag books for your kids—Bookcraft contains all the skills you will ever need.

Books are a central part of life, and have been with us for around 2,000 years. Although most books we use are produced commercially, many of us are drawn to the book form in its various guises, and are interested in exploring how to make books of our own, whether as a vehicle for telling stories, as scrapbooks, or as notebooks and journals.

This guide provides the essential ingredients for designing and making your own books, from simple binding and finishing techniques to complex complete products. Projects are designed to suit a variety of skill levels from beginner to advanced, and use a step-by-step approach to learning the necessary skills.

Each project begins with basic techniques and progresses through to thought-provoking applications of those techniques. Each technique includes an example of a finished book that fully and beautifully utilizes the methods described by the techniques.

This book explores more experimental binding and page treatment techniques, and has a comprehensive gallery of ideas outlining the skills and materials needed to apply techniques often reserved for professionals.

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Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set

Dungeons & Dragons

Everything you need to start playing the world’s greatest roleplaying game: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition!

The Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set is your gateway to action-packed stories of the imagination. This box contains the essential rules of the game plus everything you need to play heroic characters on perilous adventures in worlds of fantasy. Explore subterranean labyrinths! Plunder hoards of treasure! Battle legendary monsters!

• FIVE READY-TO-PLAY CHARACTERS
• SIX DICE
• ONE ADVENTURE BOOK: LOST MINE OF PHANDELVER
• ONE RULEBOOK
• ONE CHARACTER SHEET

Created in 1974, D&D transformed gaming culture by blending traditional fantasy with miniatures and wargaming. The main Dungeons & Dragons books are the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide.

 

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Head First Learn to Code

Eric Freeman

What will you learn from this book?

It's no secret the world around you is becoming more connected, more configurable, more programmable, more computational. You can remain a passive participant, or you can learn to code. With Head First Learn to Code you'll learn how to think computationally and how to write code to make your computer, mobile device, or anything with a CPU do things for you. Using the Python programming language, you'll learn step by step the core concepts of programming as well as many fundamental topics from computer science, such as data structures, storage, abstraction, recursion, and modularity.

Why does this book look so different?

Based on the latest research in cognitive science and learning theory, Head First Learn to Code uses a visually rich format to engage your mind, rather than a text-heavy approach that puts you to sleep. Why waste your time struggling with new concepts? This multi-sensory learning experience is designed for the way your brain really works.

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Archery from A to Z

Christian Berg

A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO THE FUNDAMENTALS FOR NEW ARCHERS OF ALL AGES!

Archery from A to Z covers all the basics, from purchasing the first bow to shooting techniques, plus an introduction to competitive archery and numerous resources to help new shooters further their archery journeys. This comprehensive volume is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in getting involved in this exciting sport, including parents whose children have expressed a desire to shoot a bow.

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The Art of Tapestry Weaving

Rebecca Mezoff

Put aside those preconceptions of dusty, medieval tapestries hanging on castle walls!

Tapestry weaving has a whole new look, and fiber enthusiasts of all levels are eager to try their hand at creating images with yarn. Rebecca Mezoff, a renowned teacher of contemporary tapestry weaving, shares her techniques in this in-depth guide to every aspect of the process, from developing a color palette to selecting yarn, warping the loom, and weaving the image. Crafters can choose from inexpensive tabletop and hand-held looms to larger floor looms.

Detailed step-by-step photos and inspiring examples from a range of weaver-artists make this a one-stop resource for tapestry weaving how-to.

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Carpentry

Larry Haun

Homebuilding Basics: Carpentry is the essential manual for anyone who isn't fortunate enough to have a carpentry teacher as wise and knowledgeable as Larry Haun. With close to 50 years of production framing experience, Haun offers newcomers to the trade smart ways to build efficiently, accurately, and safely. It's the only current book with complete coverage of basic carpentry techniques. Beginning carpenters, vocational teachers, and homeowners will find step-by-step instructions, clear illustrations, color photographs, and drawings on every aspect of building.

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Get Cooking

Sam Stern

Favorite ingredients from cheese to chocolate provide the theme as teen chef Sam Stern returns with a third cookbook full of fun, healthy recipes.

With two cookbooks under his belt, Sam Stern was up for a new challenge. So when seven of his friends asked him to conjure up great-tasting recipes based on their one favorite food, he went for it. The result? Get Cooking — one fabulous cookbook with eight sections (including one for Sam), focusing on tomatoes, cheese, pasta, vegetables, meat, potatoes, sweets, and chocolate. Feeling healthy? Try out the Leek and Onion Soup. Eating on the run? Boil up Spaghetti with Oil, Garlic, and Chili. Augmented by helpful tips from Sam as well as nutritional advice, these slightly more advanced recipes, from tasty appetizers to delectable deserts, are sure to offer something for everyone.
Back matter includes an index.

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Watercolor Life

Emma Block

Discover the joy and versatility of watercolors with forty gorgeously illustrated lessons for any skill level. 

Watercolors are beautiful in their simplicity: a basic palette of paints, a few brushes, and nice thick paper will do the job. The medium is also beautiful, though, in its depths and complexities. Here, watercolor artist and instructor Emma Block focuses on techniques, materials, and lessons to help you explore new watercolor techniques, build creative confidence, and discover your unique style of painting. She'll show you—with clear, step-by-step instructions—how to paint everything from people, plants, and animals perfect for framing to patterns and washes perfect for stationery and housewares.  The forty lessons cover useful topics like:

  • Quality materials and how they can elevate your craft
  • Color theory 101 to help you confidently create artwork all your own
  • A techniques glossary full of exciting new skills to learn
  • Tips for finding creative inspiration in your everyday life

 

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Painting Heads and Faces

Pat Clarke

Readers will learn how to create great portraits of friends and family of all ages and appearances. Ten paint-along portraits teach the basics using beginner-friendly acrylic gouache.

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Paper to Petal

Rebecca Thuss

Paper Flowers are Always in Season!
 
        Make playful party decorations, luscious bouquets, and sophisticated floral centerpieces with inexpensive tissue and crepe paper. Paper to Petal walks you through the easy basics of transforming simple materials into a vibrant display of fanciful handmade blooms suitable for every occasion.  


        Design experts Rebecca Thuss and Patrick Farrell inspire you to get creative with their time-tested techniques. Customize every petal, leaf or stem to go dramatic or delicate; mimic nature or fashion your blossoms in any color you can imagine to make something uniquely personal. You’ll be amazed how easy it is to produce these gorgeous flower projects. These exquisite blooms never wilt, are always in style, and are endlessly fun to create, share, and give to everyone you love.

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The Big Book of Weekend Woodworking

John A. Nelson

150 easy woodworking projects!
Every woodworker will want to own this colorful, information-packed, mammoth resource for weekend crafting. Its filled with 150 classic projects, and features an introductory section that walks readers through the various planning stages.

Its all covered:
- selecting the right wood
- working with patterns
- gluing
- finishing

Novices can effortlessly make simple mirrors, shelves, clocks, and jewelry boxes, while those with slightly more advanced skills can try the small cupboard, blanket chest, or side table. For outdoors, there are whimsical weathervanes, whirligigs, plants stands, and trellises. Some of the sweetest items are just for kids, such as animal pull toys, wheeled cars, puzzles, a winged rocking chair, and vintage-style doll accessories.

Every project include finishes or surface decoration options, plus drawings and patterns.

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Get a Hobby!

Tina Barseghian

Is your daily grind taking the joy out of life? Don't get glum—get a hobby!

In this entertaining, information-packed guide, journalist and ReadyMade contributing editor Tina Barseghian invites you to explore 101 thoroughly absorbing diversions, from conventional to downright wacky, that'll satisfy every taste, talent, and timetable. The bonus: Practicing a hobby boosts your all-around mental and physical health, as longtime family practitioner Dr. Miguel Figueroa reveals in the Foreword.

Are you an independent, nature-loving, outdoorsy type? Consider beachcombing, caving, or mushroom hunting. Crafty, meticulous, and patient? You might enjoy needlework, knotting, or growing bonsai. Just take the personality quiz to identify those hobbies that best match your aptitude, interests, and even your mood, then it's on to the hobbies. Each hobby entry provides a playful mix of information: overviews, histories, and sample projects to help you get your hobby on, plus profiles of dedicated hobbyists and resources that'll help take you to the next level. Get a Hobby! might just be the inspiration you've been looking for.

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Rules of Prey

John Sandford

John Sandford's “haunting, unforgettable, ice-blooded thriller”* that introduced Lucas Davenport...
 
The killer was mad but brilliant.
 
He left notes with every woman he killed. Rules of murder: Never have a motive. Never follow a discernible pattern. Never carry a weapon after it has been used...So many rules to his sick, violent games of death.
 
But Lucas Davenport, the cop who’s out to get him, isn’t playing by the rules.
 

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The Fellowship of the Ring

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien's three-volume epic, is set in the imaginary world of Middle-earth - home to many strange beings, and most notably hobbits, a peace-loving "little people," cheerful and shy. Since its original British publication in 1954-55, the saga has entranced readers of all ages. It is at once a classic myth and a modern fairy tale. Critic Michael Straight has hailed it as one of the "very few works of genius in recent literature." Middle-earth is a world receptive to poets, scholars, children, and all other people of good will. Donald Barr has described it as "a scrubbed morning world, and a ringing nightmare world...especially sunlit, and shadowed by perils very fundamental, of a peculiarly uncompounded darkness." The story of ths world is one of high and heroic adventure. Barr compared it to Beowulf, C.S. Lewis to Orlando Furioso, W.H. Auden to The Thirty-nine Steps. In fact the saga is sui generis - a triumph of imagination which springs to life within its own framework and on its own terms.

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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter thinks he is an ordinary boy until he is rescued by an owl, taken to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, learns to play Quidditch and does battle in a deadly duel. The reason: Harry Potter is a wizard.

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Year One

Nora Roberts

It began on New Year’s Eve.

The sickness came on suddenly, and spread quickly. The fear spread even faster. Within weeks, everything people counted on began to fail them. The electrical grid sputtered; law and government collapsed—and more than half of the world’s population was decimated.

Where there had been order, there was now chaos. And as the power of science and technology receded, magick rose up in its place. Some of it is good, like the witchcraft worked by Lana Bingham, practicing in the loft apartment she shares with her lover, Max. Some of it is unimaginably evil, and it can lurk anywhere, around a corner, in fetid tunnels beneath the river—or in the ones you know and love the most.

As word spreads that neither the immune nor the gifted are safe from the authorities who patrol the ravaged streets, and with nothing left to count on but each other, Lana and Max make their way out of a wrecked New York City. At the same time, other travelers are heading west too, into a new frontier. Chuck, a tech genius trying to hack his way through a world gone offline. Arlys, a journalist who has lost her audience but uses pen and paper to record the truth. Fred, her young colleague, possessed of burgeoning abilities and an optimism that seems out of place in this bleak landscape. And Rachel and Jonah, a resourceful doctor and a paramedic who fend off despair with their determination to keep a young mother and three infants in their care alive.

In a world of survivors where every stranger encountered could be either a savage or a savior, none of them knows exactly where they are heading, or why. But a purpose awaits them that will shape their lives and the lives of all those who remain.

The end has come. The beginning comes next.

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Devil in a Blue Dress

Walter Mosley

"Set in the late 1940s, in the African-American community of Watts, Los Angeles, Devil in a Blue Dress follows Easy Rawlins, a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend's bar, wondering how he'll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Monet, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs."--Online description.

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16 Lighthouse Road

Debbie Macomber

Olivia Lockhart

16 Lighthouse Road

Cedar Cove, Washington

Dear Reader,

You don't know me yet, but in a few hours that's going to change. You see, I'm inviting you to my home and my town of Cedar Cove because I want you to meet my family, friends and neighbors. Come and hear their stories—maybe even their secrets!

I have to admit that my own secrets are pretty open. My marriage failed some years ago, and I have a rather…difficult relationship with my daughter, Justine. Then there's my mother, Charlotte, who has plenty of opinions and is always willing to share them.

Here's an example: I'm a family court judge and she likes to drop in on my courtroom. Recently I was hearing a divorce petition.

In Charlotte's view, young Cecilia and Ian Randall hadn't tried hard enough to make their marriage work—and I agreed. So I rendered my judgment: Divorce Denied.

Well, you wouldn't believe the reaction! Thanks to an article by Jack Griffin, the editor of our local paper (and a man I wouldn't mind seeing more of!), everyone's talking.

Cedar Cove—people love it and sometimes they leave it, but they never forget it!

See you soon…

Olivia

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Naked in Death

J. D. Robb

THE 25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF THE FIRST NOVEL IN J. D. ROBB’S #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING IN DEATH SERIES.

In the year 2058, technology completely rules the world. But for New York City Detective Eve Dallas, one irresistible impulse still rules the heart: passion…

Eve Dallas is a New York police lieutenant hunting for a ruthless killer. In over ten years on the force, she's seen it all—and knows her survival depends on her instincts. And she's going against every warning telling her not to get involved with Roarke, an Irish billionaire—and a suspect in Eve's murder investigation. But passion and seduction have rules of their own, and it's up to Eve to take a chance in the arms of a man she knows nothing about—except the addictive hunger of needing his touch.

 

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When the Bough Breaks

Jonathan Kellerman

In the first Alex Delaware novel, Dr.  Morton Handler practiced a strange brand of psychiatry.  Among his specialties were fraud, extortion, and  sexual manipulation. Handler paid for his sins when  he was brutally murdered in his luxurious Pacific  Palisades apartment. The police have no leads, but  they do have one possible witness: seven-year-old  Melody Quinn.

It's psychologist Dr. Alex  Delaware's job to try to unlock the terrible secret  buried in Melody's memory. But as the sinister  shadows in the girl's mind begin to take shape, Alex  discovers that the mystery touches a shocking  incident in his own past.

This connection is  only the beginning, a single link in a  forty-year-old conspiracy. And behind it lies an unspeakable  evil that Alex Delaware must expose before it  claims another innocent victim: Melody Quinn.

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The Face of Deception

Iris Johansen

Forensic sculptor Eve Duncan has a rare - and bittersweet - gift. Her unique ability to reconstruct the identity of the long dead from their skulls has helped bring closure to parents of missing children. For Eve, whose own daughter was murdered and her body never found, the job is a way of coming to terms with her personal nightmare. When she is approached by billionaire magnate John Logan to reconstruct the face of an adult murder victim, only his promise of a sizable charitable contribution persuades her to accept. The warning signs are clear. There is the specially equipped lab Eve is taken to, in a country inn turned high-tech security fortress in rural Virginia. Surveillance cameras monitor her every move. The telephones are tapped. And then there is Logan himself - by turns ruthless, charming, and desperate. But it's too late for Eve to walk out. The skull has begun to reveal its shocking identity, trapping her in a frightening web of murder and deceit. To free herself, she has no choice but to expose that identity and to trust Logan, the man who put her life in danger, a man who may see her as an expendable pawn.

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Desert Heat

J. A. Jance

A cop lies dying beneath the blistering Arizona sun—a local lawman who may well have become the next sheriff of Cochise County.?The police brass claim that Andy Brady was dirty, and that his shooting was a suicide attempt. Joanna Brady, his devoted wife and mother of their nine-year-old daughter, knows a cover-up when she hears one . . . and murder when she sees it. But her determined efforts to hunt down an assassin and clear her husband's name are placing Joanna and her surviving family in harm's way—because in the desert, the one thing more lethal than a rattler's bite . . . is the truth.

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Dead Until Dark

Charlaine Harris

Sink your teeth into the first novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling Sookie Stackhouse series—the books that gave life to the Dead and inspired the HBO® original series True Blood.

Sookie Stackhouse is just a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Bon Temps, Louisiana. She's quiet, doesn't get out much, and tends to mind her own business—except when it comes to her “disability.” Sookie can read minds. And that doesn’t make her too dateable. Then along comes Bill Compton. He’s tall, dark, handsome—and Sookie can’t hear a word he’s thinking. He’s exactly the type of guy she’s been waiting for all her life...

But Bill has a disability of his own: he’s a vampire with a bad reputation. And when a string of murders hits Bon Temps—along with a gang of truly nasty bloodsuckers looking for Bill—Sookie starts to wonder if having a vampire for a boyfriend is such a bright idea.

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Hope Harbor

Irene Hannon

Tracy Campbell never wanted to leave Hope Harbor, Oregon, or the idyllic three-generation cranberry farm where she grew up. But life--and love--altered her plans. When tragedy strikes and changes her plans yet again, she finds herself back in her hometown with a floundering farm to run and a heartbreaking secret. Romance is not on her agenda. Nor is it on Michael Hunter's. The visitor from Chicago has daunting secrets of his own. But when Tracy recruits him to help save a struggling charitable organization, the winds of change begin to sweep through Hope Harbor, bringing healing, hope, and love to countless lives--including their own.

Fan favorite Irene Hannon brings a whole new cast of characters to life in a charming Oregon seaside village. Emotional and heartwarming, this story invites readers to come home to Hope Harbor, where love and hope bloom--and hearts heal.

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Phantom Evil

Heather Graham

A secret government unit, a group of renegade paranormal investigators…and a murder no one else can crack

Though haunted by the recent deaths of two teammates, Jackson Crow knows that the living commit the most heinous crimes.

A police officer utilizing her paranormal intuition, Angela Hawkins already has her hands full of mystery and bloodshed.

But one assignment calls to them too strongly to resist. In a historic mansion in New Orleans's French Quarter, a senator's wife falls to her death. Most think she jumped; some say she was pushed. And yet others believe she was beckoned by the ghostly spirits inhabiting the house—once the site of a serial killer's grisly work.

In this seemingly unsolvable case, only one thing is certain: whether supernatural or all too human, crimes of passion will cast Jackson and Angela into danger of losing their lives…and their immortal souls.

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"A" is for Alibi

Sue Grafton

Kinsey Milhone begins the series of murder mysteries with A is for Alibi. Kinsey is a tough talking former cop who has set up a private detective agency in California. She has a soft spot for underdogs and lost causes.

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The Surgeon

Tess Gerritsen

In her most masterful novel of medical suspense, "New York Times" bestselling author Tess Gerritsen creates a villain of unforgettable evil--and the one woman who can catch him before he kills again.
He slips into their homes at night and walks silently into bedrooms where women lie sleeping, unaware of the horrors they soon will endure. The precision of the killer's methods suggests he is a deranged man of medicine, propelling the Boston newspapers and the frightened public to name him "The Surgeon."
The cops' only clue rests with another surgeon, the victim of a nearly identical crime. Two years ago, Dr. Catherine Cordell fought back and killed her attacker before he could complete his assault. Now she hides her fears of intimacy behind a cool and elegant exterior and a well-earned reputation as a top trauma surgeon.
Cordell's careful facade is about to crack as this new killer recreates, with chilling accuracy, the details of Cordell's own ordeal. With every new murder he seems to be taunting her, cutting ever closer, from her hospital to her home. Her only comfort comes from Thomas Moore, the detective assigned to the case. But even Moore cannot protect Cordell from a brilliant hunter who somehow understands--and savors--the secret fears of every woman he kills.
Filled with the authentic detail that is the trademark of this doctor turned author . . . and peopled with rich and complex characters--from the ER to the squad room to the city morgue--here is a thriller of unprecedented depth and suspense. Exposing the shocking link between those who kill and cure, punish and protect, "The Surgeon" is Tess Gerritsen's most exciting accomplishment yet.

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Outlander

Diana Gabaldon

The first book in Diana Gabaldon’s acclaimed Outlander saga, the basis for the Starz original series.


Here is the story that started it all, introducing two remarkable characters, Claire Beauchamp Randall and Jamie Fraser, in a spellbinding novel of passion and history that combines exhilarating adventure with a love story for the ages.

Scottish Highlands, 1945. Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding clans in the year of Our Lord . . . 1743.
 
Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of a world that threatens her life, and may shatter her heart. Marooned amid danger, passion, and violence, Claire learns her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives. between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

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Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder

Joanne Fluke

Discover The Delicious Mystery That Started It All!

No one cooks up a delectable, suspense-filled mystery quite like Hannah Swensen, Joanne Fluke's dessert-baking, red-haired heroine whose gingersnaps are as tart as her comebacks, and whose penchant for solving crimes--one delicious clue at a time--has made her a bestselling favorite. And it all began on these pages, with a bakery, a murder, and some suddenly scandalous chocolate-chip crunchies. Featuring a bonus short story and brand new, mouthwatering recipes, this new edition of the very first Hannah Swensen mystery is sure to have readers coming back for seconds. . .

Hannah already has her hands full trying to dodge her mother's attempts to marry her off while running The Cookie Jar, Lake Eden's most popular bakery. But once Ron LaSalle, the beloved delivery man from the Cozy Cow Dairy, is found murdered behind her bakery with Hannah's famous Chocolate Chip Crunchies scattered around him, her life just can't get any worse. Determined not to let her cookies get a bad reputation, she sets out to track down a killer. But if she doesn't watch her back, Hannah's sweet life may get burned to a crisp.

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One for the Money

Janet Evanovich

The dynamite blockbuster from Janet Evanovich that started it all.

ONE FINE MESS
Welcome to Trenton, New Jersey, home to wiseguys, average Joes, and Stephanie Plum, who sports a big attitude and even bigger money problems (since losing her job as a lingerie buyer for a department store). Stephanie needs cash—fast—but times are tough, and soon she's forced to turn to the last resort of the truly desperate: family...

ONE FALSE MOVE
Stephanie lands a gig at her sleazy cousin Vinnie's bail bonding company. She's got no experience. But that doesn't matter. Neither does the fact that the bail jumper in question is local vice cop Joe Morelli. From the time he first looked up her dress to the time he first got into her pants, to the time Steph hit him with her father's Buick, M-o-r-e-l-l-i has spelled t-r-o-u-b-l-e. And now the hot guy is in hot water—wanted for murder...

ONE FOR THE MONEY
Abject poverty is a great motivator for learning new skills, but being trained in the school of hard knocks by people like psycho prizefighter Benito Ramirez isn't. Still, if Stephanie can nab Morelli in a week, she'll make a cool ten grand. All she has to do is become an expert bounty hunter overnight—and keep herself from getting killed before she gets her man...

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The Cove

Catherine Coulter

A picturesque town. A woman on the run. An undercover agent. The first riveting novel in Catherine Coulter's #1 New York Times bestselling FBI Thriller series.

Sally Brainerd can't remember what happened the night her father was murdered. Maybe she did it. Or maybe it was her poor, traumatized mother. Either way, the safest place for her is far away from Washington, D.C.. But while her aunt's home in The Cove should be a quiet refuge, Sally can't shake the feeling that there's something not quite right about the postcard perfect little town.

Despite his target's checkered past and convenient memory loss, FBI Special Agent James Quinlan isn't convinced she's the killer—but maybe she knows who is. As he uses his cover to get close to Sally and unearth the memories her mind has hidden away, James can't deny his connection to the troubled woman. But as their lies and passions intertwine, Sally and James soon learn they aren't the only ones keeping deadly secrets in The Cove...

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Postmortem

Patricia Cornwell

Discover the “dazzling…fascinating” (Los Angeles Times) novel that launched the New York Times bestselling Kay Scarpetta series from #1 bestselling crime writer Patricia Cornwell.

Under cover of night in Richmond, Virginia, a monster strikes, leaving a gruesome trail of stranglings that has paralyzed the city. Medical examiner Kay Scarpetta suspects the worst: a deliberate campaign by a brilliant serial killer whose signature offers precious few clues. With an unerring eye, she calls on the latest advances in forensic research to unmask the madman. But this investigation will test Kay like no other, because it’s being sabotaged from within—and someone wants her dead.

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Virgin River

Robyn Carr

Wanted: Midwife/nurse practitioner in Virgin River, population six hundred. Make a difference against a backdrop of towering California redwoods and crystal clear rivers. Rent-free cabin included.

When the recently widowed Melinda Monroe sees this ad, she quickly decides that the remote mountain town of Virgin River might be the perfect place to escape her heartache and to reenergize the nursing career she loves. But her high hopes are dashed within an hour of arriving--the cabin is a dump, the roads are treacherous and the local doctor wants nothing to do with her. Realizing she's made a huge mistake, Mel decides to leave town the following morning.

But a tiny baby abandoned on a front porch changes her plans...and former marine Jack Sheridan cements them into place.
 

 

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Open Season

C. J. Box

The first novel in the thrilling series featuring Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett from #1 New York Times bestselling author C. J. Box.

Joe Pickett is the new game warden in Twelve Sleep, Wyoming, a town where nearly everyone hunts and the game warden—especially one like Joe who won't take bribes or look the other way—is far from popular. When he finds a local hunting outfitter dead, splayed out on the woodpile behind his state-owned home, he takes it personally. Even after the discovery of two more bodies, and the resolution of the case by local police, Joe continues to investigate.

As Joe digs deeper into the murders, he soon discovers that the outfitter brought more than death to his backdoor: he brought Joe an endangered species, thought to be extinct, which is now living in his woodpile. But if word of this rare species gets out, it will destroy any chance of InterWest, a multi-national natural gas company, building an oil pipeline through the mountains and forests of Twelve Sleep. The closer Joe comes to the truth behind the outfitter murders, the endangered species, and InterWest, the closer he comes to losing everything he holds dear.

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Memory Man

David Baldacci

This "impossible to put down" #1 New York Times bestseller introduces Amos Decker, a gifted police detective with a perfect memory who must solve a mystery he wishes he could forget: his family's murder (Washington Post).

Amos Decker's life changed forever--twice.

The first time was on the gridiron. A big, towering athlete, he was the only person from his hometown of Burlington ever to play in the NFL. But his career ended before it had a chance to begin. On his very first play, a violent helmet-to-helmet collision knocked him off the field forever, and left him with an improbable side effect--he can forget nothing.

The second time was at home nearly two decades later. Now a police detective, Decker returned from a stakeout one evening and entered a nightmare--his wife, young daughter, and brother-in-law had been murdered.

His family destroyed, their killer's identity as mysterious as the motive behind the crime, and unable to forget a single detail from that horrible night, Decker finds his world collapsing around him. He leaves the police force, loses his home, and winds up on the street, taking piecemeal jobs as a private investigator when he can.

But over a year later, a man turns himself in to the police and confesses to the murders. At the same time a horrific event nearly brings Burlington to its knees, and Decker is called back in to help with this investigation. Decker also seizes his chance to learn what really happened to his family that night. To uncover the stunning truth, he must use his remarkable gifts and confront the burdens that go along with them. He must endure the memories he would much rather forget. And he may have to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Memory Man will stay with you long after the turn of the final page.

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Thyme of Death

Susan Wittig Albert

China Bayles has it all - a prestigious Houston law practice, money, power - but it's not enough. She's smart, she's tough, she's confident, and she knows she wants something more out of life than the fast track offers. Something like the Thyme and Seasons herb shop in Pecan Springs, Texas. Realizing that her career is turning her into somebody she doesn't like, China does what many people only dream of doing: She relocates to a small town to begin a new and, she hopes, a gentler, more fulfilling life. But even in Pecan Springs, evil can occur among ordinary people living everyday lives. China soon learns that while she can move from the city, she can't escape the world of moral choice. When China's good friend, Jo Gilbert, apparently commits suicide, China is more than puzzled. Jo had been suffering from a terminal disease, but wasn't the type to take her own life. And, to a lawyer like China, some revealing letters that Jo leaves behind shout blackmail and murder, not suicide. But why would anybody want to kill a woman who will die soon anyway? And what about the scent of perfume in Jo's house? When another mysterious death occurs, China is sure she's dealing with homicide. Helped by her best friend, New-Ager Ruby Wilcox, and with support from lover Mike McQuaid, a former-cop-turned-professor, China follows a trail of greed and fear to discover some unsettling answers. Thyme of Death marks the memorable debut of one of the most original and appealing new female sleuths to come along in years. Readers will identify with China Bayles as she makes the kind of tough decisions that confront us all.

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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams

Seconds before Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.

Together, this dynamic pair began a journey through space aided by a galaxyful of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox—the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian (formerly Tricia McMillan), Zaphod’s girlfriend, whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; and Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he’s bought over the years.

Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? For all the answers, stick your thumb to the stars!

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The Big Book of LEGO Facts

Simon Hugo

An updated edition of the must-have guide to trivia about the LEGOⓇ world, featuring the latest facts and images.

Find out everything you ever wanted to know about bricks and minifigures with stacks of LEGOⓇ facts!

Did you know that 68,000 LEGOⓇ pieces are created every minute? Or that The LEGO Group is one of the biggest manufacturers of tires in the world? This must-have guide for LEGO fans of every age is crammed full of fascinating LEGO trivia. From the first brick to the latest record-breaking build, discover everything there is to know about the LEGO world.

©2022 The LEGO Group.

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LEGO Harry Potter Ideas Book

Julia March

Conjure the magic of Harry Potter using your LEGO bricks

Delve into the world of LEGO Harry Potter and be inspired to build your own magical creations with LEGO Harry Potter Ideas Book, packed full of model ideas and expert tips. Inspirational images, model breakdowns, and descriptive text make it easy for fans of all ages to jump in and begin building.

Recreate a magical object or a minifigure-sized scene from Harry's adventures and be a part of the Wizarding World. Build Harry Potter-inspired items to display in your bedroom or try out one of the fun building challenges--with more than 200 model ideas, there's something for every LEGO Harry Potter fan!

© & (tm) Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Publishing Rights © JKR. (s23). ©2023 The LEGO Group.

 

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Build Your Own LEGO Escape Room

Simon Hugo

Plan and build thrilling LEGO® escape rooms!

Follow one of three themed escape rooms: Egyptian Quest, Space Mission, and Safari Adventure. Or pick and choose from more than 30 LEGO puzzles to create your own escape rooms from scratch.

  • Build tips
  • Step-by-step guides to running the rooms
  • Theme inspiration
  • Puzzle ideas
  • And much more!

  • ©2022 The LEGO Group.


     

 

 

 

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How to Build Lego® Animals

Hannah Dolan

"A guide to building 30 LEGO animals, with tips and techniques from expert LEGO builders. Discover how to build your own awesome LEGO Animals! Be inspired by 30 incredible LEGO animals, from a roaring lion to a multi-coloured turtle. Embark on an imaginative building journey as the models get more challenging through the book. Each animal idea is broken down into three, four, or five important building steps. Learn essential building techniques to create claws and teeth, legs and tails, textures and colours and much more, for your own wonderful creations. You can build anything!"--Publisher's description.

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The LEGO Ideas Book New Edition

Simon Hugo

Unlock your imagination with this colorful treasury of more than 200 new building ideas created by LEGO® fan builders. Learn tips and tricks to become a better builder. Find out how professional LEGO designers get their ideas and meet the fan builders. Get inspired to make your own LEGO creations with ideas to build your dream home, create an alien sports center, design a time machine, grow your own brick-built rooftop garden, and much more. There is no limit when it comes to LEGO ideas. What will you build?

©2022 The LEGO Group.

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How to Build LEGO Dinosaurs

Jessica Farrell

Discover how to build your awesome LEGO® dinosaurs!

Be inspired by 30 incredible LEGO dinosaurs, from a fierce T-rex to a giant Brachiosaurus and a winged Pteranodon.

Embark on an imaginative building journey as the models get more challenging through the book.

Each dinosaur idea is broken down into three, four, or five important building steps.

Learn essential building techniques to create claws and teeth, legs and tails, textures and colors and much more, for your own wonderful creations.

You can build anything!

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The Secrets of LEGO House

Jesus Diaz

This guide takes you on a tour of the "home of the brick," the official LEGO® House, so you can experience it for yourself at home!

With photos, interviews, essays, and art from the LEGO archives, The Secrets of LEGO House explores the visual wonders and the themed "zones"--yellow for emotions, blue for problem solving, green for social interaction, and red for creativity--within the iconic LEGO House in Billund, Denmark.

The Secrets of LEGO House offers an insider's look at the creative philosophy behind the iconic brand. On each page, discover the true "secret" hidden among the 25 million LEGO bricks--that everything in the house is purposefully designed around nine core principles of learning through play.

A joy for those who aren't able to visit in person, and just as exciting for those who have, The Secrets of LEGO House is a bright, colorful celebration of the endless experiences possible with LEGO bricks.
 

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Incredible LEGO® Creations from Space with Bricks You Already Have

Sarah Dees

3, 2, 1 . . . Blastoff To Your Next LEGO® Space Adventure!

Turn your bucket of LEGO® bricks into fun new space expeditions—complete with epic spaceships, kooky aliens and cool vehicles! Bestselling author and unmatched LEGO® mastermind Sarah Dees is back with 25 new, out-of-this-world projects to launch playtime to a whole new level.

Every amazing LEGO® creation in this book is assembled from bricks you already own, and comes with step-by-step instructions, detailed picture guides and helpful parts lists. While building your epic LEGO® landscapes, get to know the fun adventure stories that go along with them. Each chapter has a lovable, rag-tag team of fearless space explorers, daring astronauts, smart scientists and dangerous aliens to explore and travel with. Fly the Galaxy 10 Space Shuttle and help Captain Cal Galvian get safely to Planet Plexar. Man the Police Cruiser Space Jail with officers Carlos and Astrid. Build a whole Space Station, complete with a Flight Simulator, a Weightlessness Trainer and a Rocket Launch Pad to prepare future astronauts Garrett and Levi for liftoff.

Don’t just build endless, incredible galaxies—customize them! Upgrade your speedy Sky Hawk Cruiser with a fresh green coat. Give your Cragulon Aliens a makeover with crazy purple heads. These unique projects will guide you through the magic and wonder of the universe, so you can discover a whole new world of fun at your fingertips.
 

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LEGO® Minifigure : A Visual History

Gregory Farshtey

Celebrate the epic journey of the LEGO® minifigure. 
Enter the world of minifigures with this fully updated edition. The first minifigure was created in 1978, and today the entire minifigure population could circle the globe more than five times!

Starring more than 2,000 of the most popular and rarest minifigures from the LEGO® Minifigure Series and themes including LEGO® NINJAGO®, THE LEGO® MOVIE™, LEGO® Star Wars™, LEGO® City, LEGO® Harry Potter™, and many more.

From astronauts and vampires to Super Heroes and movie characters, feast your eyes on the most awesome minifigures of every decade!

©2020 The LEGO Group.

 

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LEGO Absolutely Everything You Need to Know

Simon Hugo

The ultimate collection of LEGO(R) facts and Minifigures in brick-sized bites of trivia.

Can you believe that a wooden duck was one of the LEGO Group's first toys? Or that 68,000 LEGO pieces are created every minute? Did you know that the evil Overlord is the only NINJAGO(R) Minifigure to wear a skirt? Or that you'll find a LEGO croissant piece inside 44 LEGO sets? This book is crammed full of fun and fascinating trivia for LEGO fans of every age. From minuscule Minifigure mugs to the largest LEGOLAND(R) model, it covers all the places, populations, pieces, and themes that make up the LEGO world.

 

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Brick Pets

Kevin Hall

LEGO builders, rejoice! The popular series that includes Brick Animals and Brick Cars and Trucks is back with Brick Pets!

Discover 30 original, ingenious, and unique buildable projects. Free your inner creative genius with these fantastic brick builds that includes a wide range of cute, life-like designs such as a tabby cat, Dachshund, tortoise, frog, goldfish, hamster, and more. Anyone with a drawer full of LEGO bricks will be able to build and customize amazing models with help from this inspiring guide. Based on the brick selection found in some of LEGO's Classic series, each project is a great way to test out unusual building techniques or to mix up pieces from existing kits that have already been broken up. Follow the instructions or go off in your own direction--it's your choice! Many of the designs in these books use fewer than 100 bricks, so you don't need a lot of bricks to get started. With even more descriptions, pictures, and step-by-step instructions than ever before, LEGO fans will find new ways to hit the bricks!

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Lego Chain Reactions

Klutz

LEGO Chain Reactions is packed full of ideas, instructions, and inspiration for 10 LEGO machines that spin, swing, pivot, roll, lift, and drop. Each machine alone is awesome, but put them together and you get incredible chain reactions. Then, combine the machines in any order you like to create your own chain reactions. Our team of experts worked with educators and 11-year-olds to invent the machines, then wrote a book that teaches the skills (and some of the physics behind the fun) kids need to create their own amazing chain reaction machines.

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The Christmas Wager

Holly Cassidy

One rivalry. Eight days until Christmas. Let the holiday games begin.

When LA-based real estate developer Bella Ross arrives in the sleepy, mountain town of Maple Falls, she has one mission: to acquire the local failing Christmas shop, Always Noelle, securing the promotion of her dreams. Nothing can get in her way. Except the shop owner’s stubborn grandson, Jesse Harrison.

Both refuse to budge, until an unlikely wager is struck: Bella and Jesse will compete in the Maple Falls Holiday Games, an annual tradition of eccentric feats of strength and skills. Winner decides the selling price. They’ll give each other a run for their money, but as the competition heats up, Bella and Jesse’s icy feelings toward each other begin to thaw. It’ll take a Christmas miracle for them to admit there’s a spark, but what if it’s just another game?

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The Christmas Fix

Lucy Score

She'll save Christmas just to spite him...

There's only one thing standing in the way of Cat King saving Merry, Connecticut's Christmas festival: Grumpy town manager Noah Yates.

Single dad Noah takes his responsibilities seriously. When a late season hurricane turns his town into a disaster, he's left scrambling to pick up the pieces of the town he loves.

At least, until home renovation expert and smoking hot reality TV star Catalina King arrives with a camera crew and a budget big enough to put the town back together again. But Noah doesn't want a celebrity diva capitalizing on their tragedy or filling his young daughter's head with visions of glitz and glam.

Blonde bombshell Cat is used to being underestimated, but Noah has an uncanny knack for getting under her skin. They can't be in a room together without rubbing each other the wrong way...except that time in the dark alley where the rubbing was just right. Can these enemies work together to pull off a Christmas miracle or will their fighting leave them both on the naughty list?

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Kissing Kosher

Jean Meltzer

Step 1: Get the secret recipe. Step 2: Don’t fall in love…

Avital Cohen isn’t wearing underpants—woefully, for unsexy reasons. Chronic pelvic pain has forced her to sideline her photography dreams and her love life. It’s all she can do to manage her family’s kosher bakery, Best Babka in Brooklyn, without collapsing.

She needs hired help.

And distractingly handsome Ethan Lippmann seems the perfect fit.

Except Ethan isn’t there to work—he’s undercover, at the behest of his ironfisted grandfather. Though Lippmann’s is a household name when it comes to mass-produced kosher baked goods, they don’t have the charm of Avital’s bakery. Or her grandfather’s world-famous pumpkin spice babka recipe.

As they bake side by side, Ethan soon finds himself more interested in Avital than in stealing family secrets, especially as he helps her find the chronic pain relief—and pleasure—she’s been missing.

But perfecting the recipe for romance calls for leaving out the lies…even if coming clean means risking everything.

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A Holly Jolly Ever After

Julie Murphy

Kallum Lieberman is the funny one™. As the arguably lesser of the three former members of the boy band INK, he enjoyed his fifteen minutes of fame and then moved home where he opened a regional pizza chain called Slice, Slice, Baby! He’s living his best dad bod life, hooking up with bridesmaids at all his friends’ weddings. But after an old one-off sex tape is leaked and quickly goes viral, Kallum decides he’s ready to step into the spotlight again, starring in a sexy Santa biopic for the Hope Channel. 

Winnie Baker did everything right. She married her childhood sweetheart, avoided the downfalls of adolescent stardom, and transitioned into a stable adult acting career. Hell, she even waited until marriage to have sex. But after her perfect life falls apart, Winnie is ready to redefine herself—and what better way than a steamier-than-a-steaming-hot-mug-of-cider Christmas movie?

With decade old Hollywood history between them, Winnie and Kallum are both feeling hesitant about their new situation as costars…especially Winnie who can’t seem to fake on screen pleasure she’s never experienced in real life. She’s willing to do the pleasure research—for science and artistic authenticity, of course. And there’s no better research partner than her bridesmaid sex tape hall of fame costar, Kallum. But suddenly, Kallum’s teenage crush on Winnie is bubbling to the surface and Winnie might be catching feelings herself. 

They say opposites attract, but is this holly jolly ever after really ready for its close-up?

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Wreck the Halls

Tessa Bailey

Melody Gallard may be the daughter of music royalty, but her world is far from glamorous. She spends her days restoring old books and avoiding the limelight (one awkward tabloid photo was enough, thanks). But when a producer offers her a lot of money to reunite her mother’s band on live tv, Mel begins to wonder if it’s time to rattle the cage, shake up her quiet life… and see him again. The only other person who could wrangle the rock and roll divas.

Beat Dawkins, the lead singer’s son, is Melody’s opposite—the camera loves him, he could charm the pants off anyone, and his mom is not a potential cult leader. Still, they might have been best friends if not for the legendary feud that broke up the band. When they met as teenagers, Mel felt an instant spark, but it’s nothing compared to the wild, intense attraction that builds as they embark on a madcap mission to convince their mothers to perform one last show. 

While dealing with rock star shenanigans, a 24-hour film crew, brawling Santas, and mobs of adoring fans, Mel starts to step out of her comfort zone. With Beat by her side, cheering her on, she’s never felt so understood. But Christmas Eve is fast approaching, and a decades-old scandal is poised to wreck everything—the Steel Birds reunion, their relationships with their mothers, and their newfound love.  

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Three Holidays and a Wedding

Uzma Jalaluddin

Three times the holiday magic. Three times the chaos.

As strangers and seatmates Maryam Aziz and Anna Gibson fly to Toronto over the holidays—Maryam to her sister’s impromptu wedding, and Anna to meet her boyfriend’s wealthy family for the first time—neither expect that severe turbulence will scare them into confessing their deepest hopes and fears to one another. At least they’ll never see each other again. And the love of Maryam’s life, Saif, wasn’t sitting two rows behind them hearing it all. Oops.

An emergency landing finds Anna, Saif, Maryam, and her sister’s entire bridal party snowbound at the quirky Snow Falls Inn in a picture-perfect town, where fate has Anna’s actor-crush filming a holiday romance. As Maryam finds the courage to open her heart to Saif, and Anna feels the magic of being snowbound with an unexpected new love—both women soon realize there’s no place they’d rather be for the holidays.

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One Day in December

Josie Silver

Two people. Ten chances. One unforgettable love story.

Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn’t exist anywhere but the movies. But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man who she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there’s a moment of pure magic . . . and then her bus drives away.

Certain they’re fated to find each other again, Laurie spends a year scanning every bus stop and cafe in London for him. But she doesn’t find him, not when it matters anyway. Instead they “reunite” at a Christmas party, when her best friend, Sarah, giddily introduces her new boyfriend to Laurie. It’s Jack, the man from the bus. It would be.

What follows for Laurie, Sarah, and Jack is ten years of friendship, heartbreak, missed opportunities, roads not taken, and destinies reconsidered. One Day in December is a joyous, heartwarming, and immensely moving love story to escape into and a reminder that fate takes inexplicable turns along the route to happiness.

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A Very Merry Bromance

Lyssa Kay Adams

Country music’s golden boy Colton Wheeler felt the most perfect harmony when he was with Gretchen Winthrop. But for her, it was a love him and leave him situation. A year later, Colton is struggling to push his music forward in a new direction. If it weren’t about to be the most magical time of year and the support of the Bromance Book Club, he’d be wallowing in self-pity. 
 
It’s hard for immigration attorney Gretchen not to feel a little Scrooge-ish about the excess of Christmas when her clients are scrambling to afford their rent. So when her estranged, wealthy family reaches out with an offer that will allow her to better serve the community, she’s unable to say no. She just needs to convince Colton to be the new face of her family’s whiskey brand. No big deal…
 
Colton agrees to consider Gretchen’s offer in exchange for three dates before Christmas. With the help of the Bromance Book Club, Colton throws himself into the task of proving to her there’s a spark between them. But Gretchen and Colton will both need to overcome the ghosts of Christmas past to build a future together.

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You're a Mean One, Matthew Prince

Timothy Janovsky

BRING A LITTLE JOY TO THE WORLD? NOT TODAY, SANTA.

Matthew Prince is young, rich, and thoroughly spoiled. So what if his parents barely remember he exists and the press is totally obsessed with him? He's on top of the world. But one major PR misstep later, and Matthew is cut off and shipped away to spend the holidays in his grandparents' charming small town hellscape. Population: who cares?

It's bad enough he's stuck in some festive winter wonderland—it's even worse that he has to share space with Hector Martinez, an obnoxiously attractive local who's unimpressed with anything and everything Matthew does.

Just when it looks like the holiday season is bringing nothing but heated squabbles, the charity gala loses its coordinator and Matthew steps in as a saintly act to get home early on good behavior...with Hector as his maddening plus-one. But even a Grinch can't resist the unexpected joy of found family, and in the end, the forced proximity and infectious holiday cheer might be enough to make a lonely Prince's heart grow three sizes this year.

While part of a series, this book stands alone.

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A Merry Little Meet Cute

Julie Murphy

Bee Hobbes (aka Bianca Von Honey) has a successful career as a plus-size adult film star. With a huge following and two supportive moms, Bee couldn’t ask for more. But when Bee’s favorite producer casts her to star in a Christmas movie he’s making for the squeaky-clean Hope Channel, Bee’s career is about to take a more family-friendly direction.

Forced to keep her work as Bianca under wraps, Bee quickly learns this is a task a lot easier said than done. Though it all becomes worthwhile when she discovers her co-star is none other than childhood crush Nolan Shaw, an ex-boy band member in desperate need of career rehab. Nolan’s promised his bulldog manager to keep it zipped up on set, and he will if it means he’ll be able to provide a more stable living situation for his sister and mom.

But things heat up quickly in Christmas Notch, Vermont, when Nolan recognizes his new co-star from her ClosedDoors account (oh yeah, he’s a member). Now Bee and Nolan are sneaking off for quickies on set, keeping their new relationship a secret from the Hope Channel’s execs. Things only get trickier when the reporter who torpedoed Nolan’s singing career comes snooping around—and takes an instant interest in mysterious newcomer Bee.

And if Bee and Nolan can’t keep their off-camera romance behind the scenes, then this merry little meet cute might end up on the cutting room floor.

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The Holiday Trap

Roan Parrish

Greta Russakoff loves her tight-knit family and tiny Maine hometown, but they can't seem to understand what it's like to be a lesbian living in such a small world. When an act of familial meddling goes way too far, she realizes just how desperately she needs space to figure out who she is.

Truman Belvedere's heart is crushed when he learns that his boyfriend has a secret life including a husband and daughter. Reeling, all he wants is a place to lick his wounds far, far away from Louisiana.

Enter a mutual friend with a life-altering idea: swap homes for the holidays. For one perfect month, Greta and Truman will have a chance to experience a whole new world...and maybe fall in love with the partner of their dreams. But all holidays must come to an end, and eventually these two transplants will have to decide whether the love (and found family) they each discovered so far from home is worth fighting for.

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When You Least Expect It

Haley Cass

Caroline Parker knows three things to be true. First, she is going to be Boston's most sought after divorce attorney by thirty-five. Second, given how terrible her romantic track record is, falling in love isn't in the cards for her. And third, Christmas only brings her bad luck - being broken up with not once, not twice, but three times during the holidays is proof enough of that. When she runs into Hannah Dalton on Christmas Eve, she has no reason to believe her luck will change.

After all, though Hannah is probably the most gorgeous woman she's ever seen, she's also straight. And married to Caroline's work rival. While being hired by Hannah throws her for a loop, winning a divorce case and sticking it to her ex-colleague should be enough of a thrill.

But as the months slip by, bringing her closer to both Hannah and her adorable daughter Abbie, the lines between attorney and client begin to blur. And she could have never predicted just how much she wants them to.

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Written in the Stars

Alexandria Bellefleur

With nods to Bridget Jones and Pride & Prejudice, this debut is a delightful queer rom-com about a free-spirited social media astrologer who agrees to fake a relationship with a grumpy actuary until New Year’s Eve—with results not even the stars could predict!

After a disastrous blind date, Darcy Lowell is desperate to stop her well-meaning brother from playing matchmaker ever again. Love—and the inevitable heartbreak—is the last thing she wants. So she fibs and says her latest set up was a success. Darcy doesn’t expect her lie to bite her in the ass.

Elle Jones, one of the astrologers behind the popular Twitter account Oh My Stars, dreams of finding her soul mate. But she knows it is most assuredly not Darcy... a no-nonsense stick-in-the-mud, who is way too analytical, punctual, and skeptical for someone as free-spirited as Elle. When Darcy’s brother—and Elle's new business partner—expresses how happy he is that they hit it off, Elle is baffled. Was Darcy on the same date? Because... awkward.

Darcy begs Elle to play along and she agrees to pretend they’re dating. But with a few conditions: Darcy must help Elle navigate her own overbearing family during the holidays and their arrangement expires on New Year’s Eve. The last thing they expect is to develop real feelings during a faux relationship. But maybe opposites can attract when true love is written in the stars!

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A Holly Jolly Diwali

Sonya Lalli

Twenty-nine-year-old Niki Randhawa has always made practical decisions. Despite her love for music and art, she became an analyst for the stability. She's always stuck close to home, in case her family needed her. And she's always dated guys that seem good on paper, rather than the ones who give her butterflies. When she's laid off, Niki realizes that practical hasn't exactly paid off for her. So for the first time ever, she throws caution to the wind and books a last-minute flight for her friend Diya’s wedding.

Niki arrives in India just in time to celebrate Diwali, the festival of lights, where she meets London musician Sameer Mukherji. Maybe it's the splendor of Mumbai or the magic of the holiday season, but Niki is immediately drawn to Sam. At the wedding, the champagne flows and their flirtatious banter makes it clear that the attraction is mutual.

When Niki and Sam join Diya, her husband and their friends on a group honeymoon, their connection grows deeper. Free-spirited Sam helps Niki get in touch with her passionate and creative side, and with her Indian roots. When she gets a new job offer back home, Niki must decide what she wants out of the next chapter of her life—to cling to the straight and narrow like always, or to take a leap of faith and live the kind of bold life the old Niki never would have dreamed of.

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The Geek Who Saved Christmas

Annabeth Albert

His grumpy neighbor needs some holiday sunshine...Gideon Holiday is the perfect neighbor. Need a cup of sugar? Spare folding chair? Extra batteries? He's always ready to help. And he's waited years for his hot, grumpy, silver fox neighbor, Paul, to need him. For anything. But this December, Gideon would be happy if he could just get the Scrooge-like Paul on board with the neighborhood holiday lights fundraiser.

Paul Frost has no intention of decking his halls or blazing any Yule logs. Even if his spunky bowtie-clad neighbor does look perfect for unwrapping, Paul would prefer to hide away until December is done. But when his beloved younger brother announces an unexpected visit, Paul needs all the trimmings for a festive homecoming-and fast.

Luckily, Gideon is there with a color-coded plan to save Christmas. Soon Paul's hanging lights, trimming trees, and rolling out cookies. And steaming up his new flannel sheets with Gideon. How did that happen?

It'll take some winter magic to preserve their happiness and keep these rival neighbors together longer than one holiday season.

The Geek Who Saved Christmas is a low-angst m/m holiday romance with a guaranteed happy ending. This grumpy/sunshine, neighbors-to-lovers, found family tale features two heroes in their forties figuring out that maybe their sexily-ever-after was right next door the whole time. It stands alone and is not connected to any of the author's other universes. However, it does contain a heaping helping of the same emotions and steamy moments readers have come to expect!

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Kiss Her Once for Me

Alison Cochrun

One year ago, recent Portland transplant Ellie Oliver had her dream job in animation and a Christmas Eve meet-cute with a woman at a bookstore that led her to fall in love over the course of a single night. But after a betrayal the next morning and the loss of her job soon after, she finds herself adrift, alone, and desperate for money.

Finding work at a local coffee shop, she’s just getting through the days—until Andrew, the shop’s landlord, proposes a shocking, drunken plan: a marriage of convenience that will give him his recent inheritance and alleviate Ellie’s financial woes and isolation. They make a plan to spend the holidays together at his family cabin to keep up the ruse. But when Andrew introduces his new fiancée to his sister, Ellie is shocked to discover it’s Jack—the mysterious woman she fell for over the course of one magical Christmas Eve the year before. Now, Ellie must choose between the safety of a fake relationship and the risk of something real.

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