La città di Pechino è sconvolta da una serie di atroci omicidi. Ogni vittima porta al collo un cartello numerato in ordine decrescente. Le vittime hanno in comune solo l'età, cinquant'anni, e la frequentazione, in gioventù, della stessa scuola superiore. L'ultima vittima è stato Yuan Tao, un diplomatico con passaporto americano. Il detective Li Yan con la patologa Margaret Campbell indagano su questi omicidi, e pezzo dopo pezzo i due riescono a svelare i contorni di un atroce mosaico, un dramma sbocciato nel clima di follia e barbarie della Rivoluzione Culturale.

"Quando mi alzai e uscii nel cortile il cielo delle sette del mattino era di un blu senza fine, il colore di un pacchetto di Gauloises. Le pietre del lastricato erano tiepide sotto i miei piedi nudi e le nostre lucertole residenti avevano già assunto la posizione del bagno di sole, appiattite e immobili contro il muro di casa. Soltanto svegliarsi con un mattino così era un regalo di compleanno sufficiente. Godersi le prime ore di una calda giornata d'estate nel Luberon, seduto in terrazza con una tazza di café crème, le api che frugano nella lavanda e la luce che tinge il bosco di un verde scurissimo, è meglio che svegliarsi improvvisamente ricchi..."

A thoughtful and provocative collection of sermons by a group of preachers from across the international church spectrum who have been moved to theological reflection on the art and work of U2.

Dopo "L'abbazia degli innocenti", "L'astuzia del serpente", "I crimini del ragno", ecco l'atteso ritorno di sorella Fidelma, la monaca-investigatrice dell'alto Medioevo scaturita dalla fantasia (e dal rigore storico) di Peter Tremayne. Siamo in una calda estate romana del 664 dopo Cristo. Fidelma si trova nella capitale della Cristianità per far approvare la 'regola' del suo monastero irlandese, ma proprio in quei momenti nella Santa Sede si consuma un efferato delitto: Whigard, l'arcivescovo di Canterbury, viene trovato morto da una guardia del Palazzo Laterano e il tesoro che avrebbe dovuto consegnare al Papa è svanito. Il vescovo di Roma, Gelasio, chiede a Fidelma e ad Eadulf - monaco sassone e segretario della vittima - di aiutarlo a svolgere le indagini per incriminare ufficialmente un colpevole che sembra tale agli occhi di tutti: un'inchiesta facile per Fidelma, a prima vista, ma il presunto assassino viene a sua volta ucciso, e non sarà il solo... Forte di un intreccio giallo rigoroso, complesso e imprevedibile, e ulteriormente impreziosito da uno scenario tanto inconsueto quanto perfettamente evocato in tutta la sua barbarica suggestione, "Un sudario per il vescovo" rappresenta una delle indagini più avvincenti e trascinanti della fortunatissima carriera investigativa di sorella Fidelma.

Having learned to appreciate Muslim life while living in Pakistan, Peter Mayne settled down to live in the back streets of Marrakesh in the 1950s. Rather than watch from the shelter of a hotel terrace, he rented rooms, learned the language, made friends, and became embroiled in conspiratorial picnics, hashish-laced dinners and in the enchantments and misunderstandings of the streets, with its festivals, love affairs, potions and gossip.
By turns used, abused and cherished by his neighbors, Mayne wrote their letters for them and captured the essence of their lives in this affectionate and hilarious account.

Peter Mayle, francophile phenomenon and author of A Year in Provence, brings another delightful (and delicious) account of the good life, this time exploring the gustatory pleasures to be found throughout France.

The French celebrate food and drink more than any other people, and Mayle shows us just how contagious their enthusiasm can be. We visit the Foire aux Escargots. We attend a truly French marathon, where the beverage of choice is Chteau Lafite-Rothschild rather than Gatorade. We search out the most pungent cheese in France, and eavesdrop on a heated debate on the perfect way to prepare an omelet. We even attend a Catholic mass in the village of Richerenches, a sacred event at which thanks are given for the aromatic, mysterious, and breathtakingly expensive black truffle. With Mayle as our inimitably charming guide, we come away with a satisfied smile (if a little hungry) and the compelling desire to book a flight to France at once.

New Penguin edition of the Hamish Hamilton bestseller and follow up to }A Year In Provence{. "Splendidly amusing" Dirk Bogarde.

Griffins, Centaurs, Cyclopes, and Giants--these fabulous creatures of classical mythology continue to live in the modern imagination through the vivid accounts that have come down to us from the ancient Greeks and Romans. But what if these beings were more than merely fictions? What if monstrous creatures once roamed the earth in the very places where their legends first arose? This is the arresting and original thesis that Adrienne Mayor explores in The First Fossil Hunters. Through careful research and meticulous documentation, she convincingly shows that many of the giants and monsters of myth did have a basis in fact--in the enormous bones of long-extinct species that were once abundant in the lands of the Greeks and Romans.

As Mayor shows, the Greeks and Romans were well aware that a different breed of creatures once inhabited their lands. They frequently encountered the fossilized bones of these primeval beings, and they developed sophisticated concepts to explain the fossil evidence, concepts that were expressed in mythological stories. The legend of the gold-guarding griffin, for example, sprang from tales first told by Scythian gold-miners, who, passing through the Gobi Desert at the foot of the Altai Mountains, encountered the skeletons of Protoceratops and other dinosaurs that littered the ground.

Like their modern counterparts, the ancient fossil hunters collected and measured impressive petrified remains and displayed them in temples and museums; they attempted to reconstruct the appearance of these prehistoric creatures and to explain their extinction. Long thought to be fantasy, the remarkably detailed and perceptive Greek and Roman accounts of giant bone finds were actually based on solid paleontological facts. By reading these neglected narratives for the first time in the light of modern scientific discoveries, Adrienne Mayor illuminates a lost world of ancient paleontology. As Peter Dodson writes in his Foreword, "Paleontologists, classicists, and historians as well as natural history buffs will read this book with the greatest of delight--surprises abound."

Specially adapted for black American readers, this frank, humorous illustrated guide to human sexuality for children features African-American faces and the same measure of honesty that made the book a classic.

An honest, gently humorous, illustrated guide for children and their parents provides basic information about sex

A third helping of French country life from the writer of the }A Year In Provence{ and }Toujours Provence{, who goes in search of the finest bouillabaisse, investigates the mysterious death of an oversexed butcher and goes to a school for noses

In his most delightful foray into the wonders of Provençal life, Peter Mayle returns to France and puts behind him cholesterol worries, shopping by phone, California wines, and other concerns that plagued him after too much time away.

In Encore Provence, Mayle gives us a glimpse into the secrets of the truffle trade, a parfumerie lesson on the delicacies of scent, an exploration of the genetic effects of 2,000 years of foie gras, and a small-town murder mystery that reads like the best fiction. Here, too, are Mayle's latest tips on where to find the best honey, cheese, or chambre d'hìte the region has to offer. Lyric, insightful, sparkling with detail, Encore Provence brings us a land where the smell of thyme in the fields or the glory of a leisurely lunch is no less than inspiring.

A beautiful new album of paintings by the exceptionally talented Amazon artist, published to accompany an exhibition touring the U.S.

Introductory biographical and critical notes by Dr Simon Mayo of Kew, Dr Burbridge of the St. Croix Botanical Garden, and Dr Shirley Sherwood, renowned for the fine collection of modern botanical art, are accompanied by 26 exquisite full-page repoductions of Mee's paintings.

Hanky-panky on the international art scene is the source of the hilarity and fizz in Peter Mayle's new novel. He flies us back to the south of France (a region some readers of his irresistible best-sellers believe him to have invented), on a wild chase through galleries, homes of prominent collectors, and wickedly delectable restaurants. There are stopovers in the Bahamas and England, and in New York, where that glossiest of magazines, Decorating Quarterly, reflects the cutting-edge trendiness of its editor, Camilla Jameson Porter. (Camilla has recently broken new ground in the world of power lunches by booking two tables on the same day, and shuttling between them, at the city's trendiest restaurant.)

It is Camilla who has sent our hero, Andre Kelly, to Cap Ferrat to take glamorous photo-graphs of the houses and treasures of the rich, famous, and fatuous. He happens to have his camera at the ready when he spots a Cézanne being loaded onto a plumber's truck near the home of an absent collector. Odd, thinks Andre. And in no time he's on the trail of a state-of-the-art art scam, chasing Cézanne.

It's a joy to follow him and the crowds intent on speeding or foiling his quest--including a beautiful agent; a super-savvy art dealer attracted to the finer things in life, especially if they promise the payoff of a lifetime; an awesome Dutch forger; some outstandingly greedy New York sophisticates; and, invisible in the background, the parade of remarkable chefs whose mouthwatering culinary masterpieces periodically soothe the hero and tantalize the reader of Chasing Cézanne.

André Kelly è un fotografo ancora giovane ma molto apprezzato. Lavora per una nota rivista di architettura. Su incarico dell'affascinante e spregiudicata direttrice, Camilla Porter, André fotografa sontuose dimore situate nei luoghi più suggestivi del pianeta. Mentre è in Costa Azzurra, curiosando tra le ville di Cap Ferrat assiste a una scena che lo sconcerta: il vecchio Claude, uomo di fiducia della ricchissima famiglia Denoyer, sta caricando un quadro sul modesto furgone di una ditta di idraulici. Non è un dipinto qualsiasi: è uno stupendo Cézanne,valutato almeno trenta milioni di dollari... Insomma c'è qualcosa che non va. André inizia a indagare...

Peter Mayle sets his latest irresistible tale in the thyme- and lavender-scented south of France. Bennett, a suave if slightly threadbare English ex-patriot who is fast approaching the end of his credit, advertises his "services" in The International Herald Tribune. In no time, he is being paid handsomely to impersonate the mysterious and very wealthy Julian Poe.

"A lark that's perfect for summer reading."  --Baltimore Sun.

The fourth Sister Fidelma mystery. A headless female corpse is found in the well of a remote abbey, and Fidelma is left to find the killer.

Introduces equivariant homotopy, homology, and cohomology theory, along with related issues in modern algebraic topology. The work begins with a development of the equivariant algebraic topology of spaces culminating in a discussion of the Sullivan conjecture that emphasizes its relationship with classical Smith theory. It then introduces equivariant stable homotopy theory, the equivariant stable homotopy category, and the most important examples of equivariant cohomology theories. Finally, it gives an introduction to "brave new algebra." Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.