“Harry Potter has a new challenger…if you haven’t heard of him yet, you will.” — The New York Post

Nathaniel is a magician’s apprentice, taking his first lessons in the arts of magic. But when a devious hot-shot wizard named Simon Lovelace ruthlessly humiliates Nathaniel in front of his elders, Nathaniel decides to kick up his education a few notches and show Lovelace who’s boss. With revenge on his mind, he summons the powerful djinni, Bartimaeus. But summoning Bartimaeus and controlling him are two different things entirely, and when Nathaniel sends the djinni out to steal Lovelace’s greatest treasure, the Amulet of Samarkand, he finds himself caught up in a whirlwind of magical espionage, murder, and rebellion.

The first audiobook in a thrilling new trilogy about an apprentice magician and the powerful djinni he summons.

Nathaniel is a young magician with only one thing on his mind: revenge.

As an apprentice to the great magician Underwood, Nathaniel is gradually being schooled in the traditional art of magic. All is well until he has a life-changing encounter with Simon Lovelace, a rising, star magician. When Simon brutally humiliates Nathaniel in front of everyone he knows, Nathaniel decides to speed up his magical education, teaching himself spells way beyond his years. Eventually, he masters one of the most difficult spells of all: summoning the all-powerful djinni, Bartimeus.

But summoning Bartimeus and controlling him are two very different things–and Nathaniel may be in way over his head.

Jonathan Stroud is a former publishing executive who has published several children’s books in England. He lives in London.

What makes a happy person, a happy life? In this remarkable book, George Dawson, a 101-year-old man who learned to read when he was 98, reflects on the philosophy he learned from his father—a belief that “life is so good”—as he offers valuable lessons in living and a fresh, firsthand view of America during the twentieth century.

Born in 1898 in Marshall, Texas, the grandson of slaves, George Dawson tells how his father, despite hardships, always believed in seeing the richness in life and trained his children to do the same. As a boy, George had to go to work to help support the family, and so he did not attend school or learn to read; yet he describes how he learned to read the world and survive in it. “We make our own way,” he says. “Trouble is out there, but a person can leave it alone and just do the right thing. Then, if trouble still finds you, you’ve done the best you can.”

At ninety-eight, George decided to learn to read and enrolled in a literacy program, becoming a celebrated student. “Every morning I get up and I wonder what I might learn that day. You just never know.”

In Life Is So Good, he shares wisdom on everything from parenting (“With children, you got to raise them. Some parents these days are growing children, not raising them”) to attitude (“People worry too much. Life is good, just the way it is”).

Richard Glaubman captures George Dawson’s irresistible voice and view of the world, offering insights into humanity, history, and America—eyewitness impressions of segregation, changes in human relations, the wars and the presidents, inventions such as the car and the airplane, and much, much more. And throughout his story, George Dawson inspires the reader with the message that sustained him happily for more than a century: “Life is so good. I do believe it’s getting better.”

What makes a happy person, a happy life? In this remarkable book, George Dawson, a 101-year-old man who learned to read when he was 98, reflects on the philosophy he learned from his father?a belief that “life is so good”?as he offers valuable lessons in living and a fresh, firsthand view of America during the twentieth century.

Born in 1898 in Marshall, Texas, the grandson of slaves, George Dawson tells how his father, despite hardships, always believed in seeing the richness in life and trained his children to do the same. As a boy, George had to go to work to help support the family, and so he did not attend school or learn to read; yet he describes how he learned to read the world and survive in it. “We make our own way,” he says. “Trouble is out there, but a person can leave it alone and just do the right thing. Then, if trouble still finds you, you’ve done the best you can.”

At ninety-eight, George decided to learn to read and enrolled in a literacy program, becoming a celebrated student. “Every morning I get up and I wonder what I might learn that day. You just never know.”

In Life Is So Good, he shares wisdom on everything from parenting (“With children, you got to raise them. Some parents these days are growing children, not raising them”) to attitude (“People worry too much. Life is good, just the way it is”).

Richard Glaubman captures George Dawson’s irresistible voice and view of the world, offering insights into humanity, history, and America?eyewitness impressions of segregation, changes in human relations, the wars and the presidents, inventions such as the car and the airplane, and much, much more. And throughout his story, George Dawson inspires the reader with the message that sustained him happily for more than a century: “Life is so good. I do believe it’s getting better.”

“        I tell people not to worry about things, not to worry about their lives. Things will be all right. People need to hear that. Life is good, just as it is. There isn’t anything I would change about my life.”

“        For almost four years, I had gotten used to being alone. It didn’t bother me none. Back at our farm I was most often the first one up. There was lots of chores to do, but sometimes, shutting the door quietly, I would lean against the logs and look at the sky and take a few moments for myself. Inside, the cabin had the comfortable feel of people. Outside, it was empty and lonely and I had grown to like that too. I liked to look at the stars on the still and quiet mornings and listen for the howl of the coyotes.”

“        I had never seen a car before and that model T was beautiful. It was polished black with a shiny brass radiator cap. The top could come down, of course, and it was something to see. It worked in town, but wasn’t too practical. We didn’t get a lot of rain, but when the rain came down it was often a downpour. Our roads turned to mud, and the autos just couldn’t make it. After a good rain, I saw cars being towed by a mule or a team of horses. Most people agreed as to how those cars were close to useless, but I still liked them anyway.”

George Dawson lives in Dallas, Texas.

Richard Glaubman is an elementary school teacher. He lives outside Seattle, Washington.

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Norwegian

Jostein Gaarder, born in 1952 in Norway, taught philosophy for many years before becoming a novelist. He lives with his family in Oslo.

To read Diane Ackerman’s A Natural History of the Senses is to dive headlong into a sensuous feast. These delightful, inspired essays on the five senses – smell, touch, vision, hearing, taste – mix biology, psychology, history, anthropology, and poetry into voluptuous prose. Who could fail to pause over Diane Ackerman’s description of Cleopatra welcoming Mark Antony to her bed in a room awash in a foot and a half of rose petals? Learn why orange juice tastes bitter when you drink it after brushing your teeth. Crawl in total darkness, feeling your way through the blaring confusion of textures in the San Francisco Touch Dome. Visit a laboratory in suburban Chicago where they levitate objects with ultra sound, or meet a “professional nose” who has “composed” scents for everything from perfume to laundry detergent. A rich book, where even the rhythm and movement of the sentences can be awe-inspiring, A Natural History of the Senses is not meant to be gobbled in huge helpings, but to be savored and browsed through like a box of exquisite chocolates. You’ll come away from each reading with keener senses – seeing colors more deeply, hearing your favorite music anew, savoring complex flavors on your tongue. – For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let’s Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. — From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Margaret Liddiard

Diane Ackerman’s lusciously written grand tour of the realm of the senses includes conversations with an iceberg in Antarctica and a professional nose in New York, along with dissertations on kisses and tattoos, sadistic cuisine and the music played by the planet Earth. “Delightful . . . gives the reader the richest possible feeling of the worlds the senses take in.”–The New York Times. (Literature–Classics & Contemporary)

Diane Ackerman’s lusciously written grand tour of the realm of the senses includes conversations with an iceberg in Antarctica and a professional nose in New York, along with dissertations on kisses and tattoos, sadistic cuisine and the music played by the planet Earth. “Delightful . . . gives the reader the richest possible feeling of the worlds the senses take in.”–The New York Times. (Literature–Classics & Contemporary)

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Truman, here is the national bestselling epic chronicle of the creation of the Panama Canal. In The Path Between the Seas, acclaimed historian David McCullough delivers a first-rate drama of the sweeping human undertaking that led to the creation of this grand enterprise.The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. Applying his remarkable gift for writing lucid, lively exposition, McCullough weaves the many strands of the momentous event into a comprehensive and captivating tale.

David McCullough was born in 1933 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, educated there and at Yale. Author of John Adams, Truman, Brave Companions, Mornings on Horseback, The Great Bridge, and The Johnstown Flood, he has twice received the Pulitzer Prize (in 1993, for Truman and in 2001 for John Adams), the Francis Parkman Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and has received two National Book Awards — for history and for biography.

“Genuinely beautiful and disturbing.” –The Village Voice

“This decidedly quirky yet absorbing first novel–that brings to mind the diabolical Evelyn Waugh.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review

Nicholas Garrigan has fled his native Scotland, and his parents’ expectations, to take a position as a doctor in a remote rural outpost of Central Africa. Shortly after his arrival in Uganda, he is called to the scene of a bizarre car accident: Idi Amin, manically driving his red Maserati down the dirt tracks of Garrigan’s small village, has run over a cow. Garrigan binds Amin’s sprained wrist and puts the incident behind him, until a letter arrives from the Minister of Health informing him that Amin–in his obsession with all things Scottish–has ap-pointed Garrigan his personal physician. Garrigan is instructed to settle into State House, on the grounds of Amin’s residence, immediately.  

Later, Garrigan will reflect that had he known what awaited him, had he foreseen the terrifying concatenation of events this decision would set in motion, he would have boarded the first plane back to Scotland. He will wonder why it never occurred to him to simply say no. But–flattered, disarmed, and intrigued, if uneasily, by the pros-pect of entering Amin’s inner circle–he steps into the role of caring for the man who will turn out to be one of the most brutal dictators of all time.  

So begins Nick Garrigan’s journey into a Con-radian heart of darkness, as his own moral center
battles weakly against, and then succumbs to, the dark and irresistible seductions of Idi Amin Dada, whose cruelty and cunning are masked by brilliant rhetoric, hilarious wit, and electrifying personal magnetism. When at last Nick awakens to the horrors of Amin’s regime, he must awaken also to his own complicity in it–he cared for Amin, as a doctor and as a friend–and to the knowledge that he is both a traitor to his own country and a prisoner in his new one. By turns comic and chilling, Giles Foden’s The Last King of Scotland is a masterful debut from a remarkable talent–a riveting history of “blood, misery and foolishness” that lingers in the mind long after the last page is turned, and a profound meditation on conscience, charisma, and the slow corruption of the human heart.

“‘Much more than a biography… It is a portrait of an entire epoch.’ (Hans Rudolf Vaget, Smith College)”