The Spider S Web

For ten years, the White House, assisted by allies in London and Rome, brushed aside the law in a relentless quest to support Saddam Hussein. What were the forces that shaped this persisting embrace of a dictator whom George Bush would eventually compare to Adolf Hitler? How did Washington and its NATO allies nurture a frequently illicit rapport with Saddam, and what was the real story of why it became necessary to mount Operation Desert Storm? How did the governments led by George Bush and Margaret Thatcher seek to cover up their past dealings with the Iraqi leader after Desert Storm finally drove him from Kuwait in 1991?

Two novellas of rare energy, "The Spider's Web" and "Zipper and His Father" are filled with Joseph Roth's surprising political foresight and compassionate sensitivity to the tremors of a world on the brink of collapse. "The Spider's Web" paints a chillingly realistic picture of the conspiracies that paved the way for the rise of Hitler. "Zipper and His Father" chronicles the progress of a father and son through the febrile world of German cinema in the 1920s.

A classic from the original queen of mystery: Agatha Christie.

Skinhead. Neo-Nazi. Lexi Jordan knows the names her friends use to talk about themselves, but she isn't quite sure what they mean. She knows her swastika tattoo and heavy boots are part of belonging. And Lexi wants to belong. When she sneaks out to meet her friends and make plans, she feels more at home than she does in her own house. And so far nothing they've done has been that bad. But Lexi begins to wonder just how safe she is when the group begins to do things that make her increasingly uneasy. After accidentally meeting Ursula Zeidler, an old woman with a terrifying secret, she sets off a chain of events that places everyone she cares about in danger and leads her to the biggest decisions of her life.

In this lavishly illustrated, first-ever book on how spider webs are built, function, and evolved, William Eberhard provides a comprehensive overview of spider functional morphology and behavior related to web building, and of the surprising physical agility and mental abilities of orb weavers. For instance, one spider spins more than three precisely spaced, morphologically complex spiral attachments per second for up to fifteen minutes at a time. Spiders even adjust the mechanical properties of their famously strong silken lines to different parts of their webs and different environments, and make dramatic modifications in orb designs to adapt to available spaces. This extensive adaptive flexibility, involving decisions influenced by up to sixteen different cues, is unexpected in such small, supposedly simple animals. As Eberhard reveals, the extraordinary diversity of webs includes ingenious solutions to gain access to prey in esoteric habitats, from blazing hot and shifting sand dunes (to capture ants) to the surfaces of tropical lakes (to capture water striders). Some webs are nets that are cast onto prey, while others form baskets into which the spider flicks prey. Some aerial webs are tramways used by spiders searching for chemical cues from their prey below, while others feature landing sites for flying insects and spiders where the spider then stalks its prey. In some webs, long trip lines are delicately sustained just above the ground by tiny rigid silk poles. Stemming from the author’s more than five decades observing spider webs, this book will be the definitive reference for years to come.

An international best-seller by Chaim Eliav. It's a riveting, can't-put-it-down novel that takes place on two continents, in two generations, and has more gyrations than a roller coaster! It starts when Jairo Silverman answers the phone in his plush Sao Paulo law office and hears that his friend Alberto is dead . . . or murdered. Then he learns that but let us not spoil the fun. Don't miss this book!

Sherlock Holmes meets Oscar Wilde in this brand-new mystery inspired by The Importance of Being Earnest. It is 1897, and Sherlock Holmes is called in to investigate a mysterious death at a society ball, hosted by a family with a remarkable past. After an unidentified man pitches to his death from a balcony during a party hosted by the famed Ernest Moncrieff, Viscount Goring asks Holmes and Watson to prove the innocence of his wife, who is suspected of the crime. But members of this elite circle, including the indomitable Lady Bracknell, are just as concerned with their interference as they are the identity of the murderer. For though the history of Ernest Moncrieff, alias Jack Worthing, is well known, there may be more to the story of his discovery as a baby in a handbag at Victoria Station. And why did the dead man give his name as 'Mr Bunbury'? Soon Holmes and Watson are on the trail of a mysterious blackmailer who trades in the shameful secrets of an elite circle.