Lying on a cot in his cell with Alexandre Dumas's Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine open on his chest, Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter makes his debut in this legendary horror novel, which is even better than its sequel, The Silence of the Lambs. As in Silence, the pulse-pounding suspense plot involves a hypersensitive FBI sleuth who consults psycho psychiatrist Lecter for clues to catching a killer on the loose.

The sleuth, Will Graham, actually quit the FBI after nearly getting killed by Lecter while nabbing him, but fear isn't what bugs him about crime busting. It's just too creepy to get inside a killer's twisted mind. But he comes back to stop a madman who's been butchering entire families. The FBI needs Graham's insight, and Graham needs Lecter's genius. But Lecter is a clever fiend, and he manipulates both Graham and the killer at large from his cell.

That killer, Francis Dolarhyde, works in a film lab, where he picks his victims by studying their home movies. He's obsessed with William Blake's bizarre painting The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, believing there's a red dragon within him, the personification of his demonic drives. Flashbacks to Dolarhyde's terrifying childhood and superb stream-of-consciousness prose get us right there inside his head. When Dolarhyde does weird things, we understand why. We sympathize when the voice of the cruel dead grandma who raised and crazed him urges him to mayhem—she's way scarier than that old bat in Psycho. When he falls in love with a blind girl at the lab, we hope he doesn't give in to Grandma's violent advice.

This book is awesomely detailed, ingeniously plotted, judiciously gory, and fantastically imagined. If you haven't read it, you've never had the creeps. —Tim Appelo

A dark, comic tale of perverse sexuality and slacker culture in Iceland's trendy capital city. Hlynur Bjorn is an unemployed thirty-something loner, still living with his mum, who spends his days on the Internet, watching satellite TV, and gazing at girls in the pub. But Hlynur's cosy, unthreatening world is shaken when his mother comes out as a lesbian, and her Spanish girlfriend Lolla moves into their home. 101 Reykjavik is a first-person account of a blackly funny and bizarre love triangle, poking fun along the way at such foibles of our culture as CNN weather reports and porn videos.

CAN I GET A “RAMEN” FROM THE CONGREGATION?!

Behold the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM), today’s fastest growing carbohydrate-based religion. According to church founder Bobby Henderson, the universe and all life within it were created by a mystical and divine being: the Flying Spaghetti Monster. What drives the FSM’s devout followers, a.k.a. Pastafarians? Some say it’s the assuring touch from the FSM’s “noodly appendage.” Then there are those who love the worship service, which is conducted in pirate talk and attended by congregants in dashing buccaneer garb. Still others are drawn to the Church’s flimsy moral standards, religious holidays every Friday, or the fact that Pastafarian heaven is way cooler: Does your heaven have a Stripper Factory and a Beer Volcano? Intelligent Design has finally met its match–and it has nothing to do with apes or the Olive Garden of Eden.

Within these pages, Bobby Henderson outlines the true facts– dispelling such malicious myths as evolution (“only a theory”), science (“only a lot of theories”), and whether we’re really descended from apes (fact: Humans share 95 percent of their DNA with chimpanzees, but they share 99.9 percent with pirates!)
See what impressively credentialed top scientists have to say:

“If Intelligent Design is taught in schools, equal time should be given to the FSM theory and the non-FSM theory.”
–Professor Douglas Shaw, Ph.D.

“Do not be hypocritical. Allow equal time for other alternative ‘theories’ like FSMism, which is by far the tastier choice.”
–J. Simon, Ph.D.

“In my scientific opinion, when comparing the two theories, FSM theory seems to be more valid than classic ID theory.”
–Afshin Beheshti, Ph.D.

Read the book and decide for yourself!

This title includes a book and 2 CDs. A small volcanic island just south of the Arctic Circle, lceland is a place of fierce natural beauty and warmly hospitable people. Glaciers and fjords punctuate the coastline while geysers, waterfalls and hot springs dot the interior, harnessed by Icelanders to provide geothermal and hydropower energy. The island itself is composed primarily of basalt, or cooled lava. Icelandic retains ancient characteristics that today have been lost by most Western European languages. A North Germanic language related to Faroese, it is grammatically comparable to Latin or Ancient Greek, but is most closely linked to Old Norse. Written Icelandic has changed very little since the 13th century. Icelanders take the preservation of their language very seriously, and are immensely proud of the fact that the 800-year old sagas can still be read today. "Beginner's Icelandic" contains 14 lessons structured to help the student traveller gain ease and familiarity with this noble language. The dialogues follow a variety of practical situations such as shopping, transportation, discussing the weather, eating in restaurants, and renting a car or a room, while building on the grammar, vocabulary and phrases learned in previous exercises. The audio CDs follow the dialogues on the page, so that the student benefits from seeing the script while simultaneously hearing the pronunciation. A glossary of words and colloquialisms rounds out this remarkable introduction to a unique language.

In his first audiobook, Tony Hsieh - the widely-admired CEO of on-line shoe retailer, Zappos, explains how he created a unique culture and commitment to service that aims to improve the lives of its employees, customers, vendors and backers. Using anecdotes and stories from his own experiences and from other companies, Hsieh provides concrete ways that companies can achieve unprecedented success. Even better, he shows how creating happiness and record results go hand-in-hand. He starts with the 'Why' in a section where he narrates his quest to understand the science of happiness. Then he runs through the ten Zappos 'Core Values' such as 'Deliver WOW through Service,' 'Create Fun and A Little Weirdness' and 'Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit' and explains how you and your colleagues should come up with your own. Hsieh then details many of the unique practices at Zappos that have made it the success it is today, such as the philosphy of allocating marketing money into the customer experience, thereby allowing repeat customers and word-of-mouth be their true form of marketing. He also explains why Zappos's main priority is company culture and his belief that once you get the culture right, everything else - great customer service, long-term branding - will happen on its own. Finally, Hsieh explains how Zappos employees actually apply the Core Values to improving their lives outside of work - and to making a difference in their communities and the world

When the novel Brave New World first appeared in 1932, its shocking analysis of a scientific dictatorship seemed a projection into the remote future. Here, in one of the most important and fascinating books of his career, Aldous Huxley uses his tremendous knowledge of human relations to compare the modern-day world with his prophetic fantasy. He scrutinizes threats to humanity, such as overpopulation, propaganda, and chemical persuasion, and explains why we have found it virtually impossible to avoid them. Brave New World Revisited is a trenchant plea that humankind should educate itself for freedom before it is too late.

Aldous Huxley's tour de force, Brave New World is a darkly satiric vision of a "utopian" future&#8212where humans are genetically bred and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively serve a ruling order. A powerful work of speculative fiction that has enthralled and terrified readers for generations, it remains remarkably relevant to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying entertainment.