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The award-winning author of The Battle of Bretton Woods reveals the gripping history behind the Marshall Plan—told with verve, insight, and resonance for today.

In the wake of World War II, with Britain’s empire collapsing and Stalin's on the rise, US officials under new secretary of state George C. Marshall set out to reconstruct western Europe as a bulwark against communist authoritarianism. Their massive, costly, and ambitious undertaking would confront Europeans and Americans alike with a vision at odds with their history and self-conceptions. In the process, they would drive the creation of NATO, the European Union, and a Western identity that continues to shape world events.

Focusing on the critical years 1947 to 1949, Benn Steil’s thrilling account brings to life the seminal episodes marking the collapse of postwar US-Soviet relations—the Prague coup, the Berlin blockade, and the division of Germany. In each case, we see and understand like never before Stalin’s determination to crush the Marshall Plan and undermine American power in Europe.

Given current echoes of the Cold War, as Putin’s Russia rattles the world order, the tenuous balance of power and uncertain order of the late 1940s is as relevant as ever. The Marshall Plan provides critical context into understanding today’s international landscape. Bringing to bear fascinating new material from American, Russian, German, and other European archives, Steil’s account will forever change how we see the Marshall Plan and the birth of the Cold War. A polished and masterly work of historical narrative, this is an instant classic of Cold War literature.

Black Oak Security is a crack team of private investigators led by brilliant, enigmatic Ethan Proctor. He is a careful man. Careful in what he says, careful in what he does, and very careful about which cases he takes. But when a letter arrives from a woman he once knew, begging him to investigate strange happenings in her town, Proctor is careless. He takes the case without knowing exactly what he's getting into.

Supers are spreading across the globe with no rhyme or reason. The governments declare war to keep the SuperVillains suppressed, but they don't stop there, fearing even those with good souls. Devon is a dentist with some quirks who saves a mother and her daughters, only to have the military betray him. He awakes in the future, confined to Vault 12 with nineteen of his peers. The mysteries confound those around him, but Devon is not an ordinary Super. No, he's special and with Olivia—a lovely Super with a troubled past—at his side, they'll figure out their true purpose.

Life in the minor leagues of football, which NFL Europe has been aptly dubbed, can be funny, sad, profound and ludicrous all at the same time. At its heart, this six-team league is a short-stop away from either the glamour of the NFL or the bottom of the professional football scrap pile - a crossroads full of real-life drama where the joy of "making it" can be tempered by failure or injury with one misstep; where the difference between a multimillion dollar NFL contract and abject poverty may only be one play away.

On the fourth of July, 1942, four Allied ships traversing the Arctic separated from their decimated convoy to head further north into the ice field of the North Pole, seeking safety from Nazi bombers and U-boats in the perilous white maze of ice floes, growlers, and giant bergs. Despite the risks, they had a better chance of survival than the rest of Convoy PQ-17, a fleet of 35 cargo ships carrying $1 billion worth of war supplies to the Soviet port of Archangel - the limited help Roosevelt and Churchill extended to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to maintain their fragile alliance.

In The Second Rule of Ten, Norbu investigates the unexplained death of his former client, Hollywood mogul Marv Rudolph, and searches for the sister, lost during World War II, of wizened Los Angeles philanthropist Julius Rosen. With two cases and an unforeseen family crisis that sends him back to Tibet, Ten finds himself on the outs with his best buddy and former partner, Bill, who is heading the official police investigation into Marv's death.

Told in three distinct and uniquely compelling sections, Asymmetry explores the imbalances that spark and sustain many of our most dramatic human relations: inequities in age, power, talent, wealth, fame, geography, and justice. The first section, "Folly", tells the story of Alice, a young American editor, and her relationship with the famous and much older writer Ezra Blazer. A tender and exquisite account of an unexpected romance that takes place in New York during the early years of the Iraq War.

While the world has made encouraging strides in the fight against global poverty, there is a hidden crisis silently undermining our best efforts to help the poor. It is a plague of everyday violence. Beneath the surface of the world’s poorest communities, common violence—like rape, forced labor, illegal detention, land theft, police abuse and other brutality—has become routine and relentless. And like a horde of locusts devouring everything in their path, the unchecked plague of violence ruins lives, blocks the road out of poverty, and undercuts development.

The majority of mortals, Paulinus, complain bitterly of the spitefulness of Nature, because we are born for a brief span of life, because even this space that has been granted to us rushes by so speedily and so swiftly that all save a very few find life at an end just when they are getting ready to live. Nor is it merely the common herd and the unthinking crowd that bemoan what is, as men deem it, an universal ill; the same feeling has called forth complaint also from men who were famous.

Everyone in Moorvale believes the legend: The brave knight Tristan and the famed wizard Vithric, in an epic battle decades ago, had defeated the evil Nethergrim and his minions. To this day, songs are sung and festivals held in the heroes' honor. Yet now something dark has crept over the village. First animals disappear, their only remains a pile of bones licked clean. Then something worse: children disappear. The whispers begin quietly yet soon turn into a shout: The Nethergrim has returned!

Black Oak Security is a crack team of private investigators led by brilliant, enigmatic Ethan Proctor. He takes on cases that range from the normal to the unaccountably bizarre. Now one of his people, Sloan Delaney, has disappeared during a weekend getaway in the Cumberland Mountains. The last message he left - on Proctor's answering machine - was a tortured scream for help. Soon Proctor is heading into the Kentucky wilderness, following in Sloan's footsteps to a secluded backwoods motel.

In the wake of a global conflict, foreign forces occupy part of Australia, quashing all but a few pockets of local resistance. The tense stalemate ends in 2034, when Jack Dunne reignites the war. Dunne is an Outrider, one of the last elite special operations soldiers in the Resistance. As the enemy prepare to eliminate the freedom fighters once and for all, he is tasked with his final mission. If Dunne and his eleven-year-old son achieve the impossible, and survive, they'll secure their future across the border in Free Australia. But the road to victory will be bloody.

In stories like "A Night in the Cemetery," "Night of Horror," and "Murder," not only will Chekhov's dark humor and twisted crimes satisfy even the most hardboiled of mystery fans, but readers will again appreciate the penetrating, absurdist insight into the human condition that only Chekhov can bring. Whether it is the death of a young amateur playwright at the hands of an editor who hates bad writing, or a drunken civil servant who ends up trapped in a graveyard, these stories overflow with the unforgettable characters and unique sensibility that will forever make Chekhov one of the most fascinating figures in literature.

They are battered women, grieving parents, and burglarized homeowners who responded to criminal violence by taking the law into their own hands. Their cases have struck a deep chord in American society. Are they victims of a failing judicial system or criminals themselves? True crime writer Gary Provost examines the stories of ordinary citizens who have taken on the roles of judge, jury and - sometimes - executioner.

“Change” is at the heart of Christian life. As Christians, we are called to be disciples of Jesus, to actively follow his teachings and become more like him. But the church has lost sight of what has always been its center, Christopher A. Hall argues. In A Different Way, he reminds us that faith is not meant to be merely rigid and static and so guides us back to Christianity’s spiritual foundation, helping us reconnect with Jesus and live the life he calls to live.

In The Chamberlain Key, antiquities expert Timothy P. Smith reveals his decades-long quest to understand the complex messages he discovered in an ancient Hebrew manuscript of the Bible. This painstaking search involves adventure and mystery, but instead of consulting ancient maps to find buried treasure, Smith relied on the data calculation power of modern technology. His quest shows how Scripture is more amazing than we ever dreamed — and that it may even reveal the future of generations living today.

The circus has come to Collinwood. Tad Collins, a man haunted by an unhappy childhood, is rich, arrogant and so terribly lonely. Marie Olson, the tattooed lady, is haunted by a past that she has tried to escape. Naturally they hate each other. But when a mysterious and sinister clown breaks into Collinwood to steal a book on the occult, Tad and Marie have to work together. They don't realise, though, that the clown has plans for them both....

Adapted from the number-one New York Times best-selling adult novel, this inspiring true story of a man and horse duo who rose to the top of the competitive equestrian world is one of unstoppable hope, inconceivable dreams, and the chance to have it all, perfect for animal lovers and history buffs alike.

In electric prose T. C. Boyle explores myriad facets of society: greed and excess, parenthood and responsibility, the digital world and the way we understand our mortality. Roaming unrestrainedly through the present and near future, he inhabits his characters’ minds with a ventriloquist’s flair, skewering human motivations and revealing us to ourselves with empathy and wry humour.

Ryan Cawdor is a true warrior of Deathlands, fighting for survival in a bizarre, freakish world. But now, beyond the unseen perils, a new threat emerges: Invaders arrive from a parallel Earth where the nukecaust never happened. Ryan is abducted through a time corridor to the twin Earth, where he discovers a nightmare that makes Deathlands look tame by comparison — and a new plot for its grotesque destruction....