Bantam Books

In the last thirty years of his life Albert Einstein searched for a unified theory - a theory which could describe all the forces of nature in a single framework. But the time was not right for such a discovery in Einstein's day. Neither was the time right when, in 1988, Professor Stephen Hawking wrote A Brief History of Time in which he took us on a journey through classical physics, Einstein's theory of relativity, quantum physics and string theory in order to explain the universe that we live in. He concluded, like Einstein, that science may soon arrive at the long sought after 'Theory of Everything'. In this ground-breaking new work, Professor Hawking and renowned science writer Leonard Mlodinow have drawn on forty years of Hawking's ow n research and a recent series of extraordinary astronomical observations and theoretical breakthroughs to reveal an original and controversial theory. They convincingly argue that scientific obsession with formulating a single new model may be mispl aced, and that, instead, by synthesising existing theories we may discover the key to finally understanding the universe's deepest mysteries. Written with the clarity and lively style for which Hawking is famous, The Grand Design is an account of Haw king's quest to fuse these different strands of scientific theory. It examines the differences between past and future, explains the nature of reality and asks an all-important question: How far can we go in our search for understanding and knowledge ?

Do you have a taste for vivid, uncompromising crime writing? Do you like your crime fiction meat strong and flavoursome? If so, Simon Becket should be on your reading list. Chemistry of Death and Written in Bone laid out his stall

HBO s hit series A GAME OF THRONES is based on George R. R. Martin s internationally bestselling series A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, the greatest fantasy epic of the modern age. A FEAST FOR CROWS is the fourth volume in the series. The Lannisters are in power on the Iron Throne. The war in the Seven Kingdoms has burned itself out, but in its bitter aftermath new conflicts spark to life. The Martells of Dorne and the Starks of Winterfell seek vengeance for their dead. Euron Crow s Eye, as black a pirate as ever raised a sail, returns from the smoking ruins of Valyria to claim the Iron Isles. From the icy north, where Others threaten the Wall, apprentice Maester Samwell Tarly brings a mysterious babe in arms to the Citadel. As plots, intrigue and battle threaten to engulf Westeros, victory will go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel and the coldest hearts.

A NEW ORIGINAL SERIES, NOW ON HBO. Here is the first volume in George R. R. Martin's magnificent cycle of novels that includes "A Clash of Kings" and "A Storm of Swords." As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hailed as a classic, George R. R. Martin's stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction. A GAME OF THRONES Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom's protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens. Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

The eccentric detective Sherlock Holmes with the aid of Dr. Watson investigates strange and baffling mysteries.

Margrave is a no-account little town in Georgia. Jack Reacher jumps off a bus and walks fourteen miles in the rain, just passing through. An arbitrary decision, a tribute to a guitar player who died there decades before. But Margrave has just had its first homicide in thirty years. And Reacher is the only stranger in town. So the murder is pinned on him. As nasty secrets leak out and the body count mounts, only one thing is for sure: They picked the wrong guy to take the fall. Killing Floor" introduces Jack Reacher, the tough ex-military cop of no fixed abode. Trained to think fast and act faster, with an eye for the women, he is truly every thinking reader's perfect action hero."

The name Attila the Hun has become a byword for barbarism, savagery and violence. His is a truly household name, but what do we really know about the man himself, his position in history and the world in which he lived? This riveting biography reveals the man behind the myth.In the years 434-454AD the fate of Europe hung upon the actions of one man, Attila, king of the Huns. The decaying Roman Empire still stood astride the Western World from its twin capitals of Rome and Constantinople, but it was threatened by a new force, the much-feared Babarian horde. It was Attila who united the Barbarian tribes into a single, amazingly effective army and launched two violent attacks against the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire, attacks which earned him his reputation for mindless devastation, and brought an end to Rome’s pre-eminence in Europe.Attila was coarse, capricious, arrogant, ruthless and brilliant. An illiterate and predatory tribal chief, he had no interest in administration, but was a wily politician who, from his base in the grasslands of Hungary, used secretaries and ambassadors to bring him intelligence on his enemies. He was a leader whose unique qualities made him supreme among tribal leaders, but whose weaknesses ensured the collapse of his empire after his death.

Two small towns in Colorado: Hope and Despair. Between them, nothing but twelve miles of empty road. Jack Reacher can't find a ride, so he walks. All he wants is a cup of coffee. What he gets are four redneck deputies who want to run him out of town. Mistake. They're picking on the wrong guy. Jack Reacher is a big man, and he's in shape. No job, no address, no baggage. Nothing, except bloody-minded curiosity. What is the secret the locals seem so keen to hide? A hard man is good to find. Ex-military cop Reacher is today's most addictive hero. Now he pulls on a tiny loose thread, to unravel conspiracies that expose the most shocking truths. Because, after all, Jack Reacher has nothing to lose.

Late at night, in a New York cafe, Jack Reacher orders coffee in a cup made of foam, not china. He owns nothing, carries less. He has never met a woman who said no or a case he couldn't solve. But now Reacher faces a new case so disturbing that the truth eludes him. He has to sweat the details and work the clues.

Matthew Hervey of the 6th Light Dragoons is urgently summoned to the Cape Colony when he learns that the Zulu warrior King Shaka is about to wage war. Soon Hervey, his old friend Eyre Somervile and their escort of dragoons and mounted rifles are riding north. When they arrive at Shaka's kraal it is a horrifying place. The sentinels at the gates are corpses, and it quickly becomes apparent that he has slaughtered thousands of his subjects - warriors and women alike. When Shaka is killed by his own people, and the region plunged into civil war, Hervey and his men find themselves in the midst of terrible danger. Yet worse is to come. Separated from his troop, Hervey must lead Shaka's queen across a hostile land where sanctuary has never seemed further away...

Two small towns in Colorado: Hope and Despair. Between them, nothing but twelve miles of empty road. Jack Reacher can't find a ride, so he walks. All he wants is a cup of coffee. What he gets are four redneck deputies who want to run him out of town. Mistake. They're picking on the wrong guy. Jack Reacher is a big man, and he's in shape. No job, no address, no baggage. Nothing, except bloody-minded curiosity. What is the secret the locals seem so keen to hide? A hard man is good to find. Ex-military cop Reacher is today's most addictive hero. Now he pulls on a tiny loose thread, to unravel conspiracies that expose the most shocking truths. Because, after all, Jack Reacher has nothing to lose.

Interplanetary intrigue, hyperspace pursuit, and future technology combine with a desperate search for the planet Earth.

The fifth novel in Asimov's popular Foundation series opens with second thoughts. Councilman Golan Trevize is wondering if he was right to choose a collective mind as the best possible future for humanity over the anarchy of contentious individuals, nations and planets. To test his conclusion, he decides he must know the past and goes in search of legendary Earth, all references to which have been erased from galactic libraries. The societies encountered along the way become arguing points in a book-long colloquy about man's fate, conducted by Trevize and traveling companion Bliss, who is part of the first world/mind, Gaia.

George Bernard Shaw was the greatest British dramatist after Shakespeare, a satirist equal to Jonathan Swift, and a playwright whose most profound gift was his ability to make audiences think by provoking them to laughter.In one of his best-loved plays, Pygmalion, which later became the basis for the musical My Fair Lady, Shaw compels the audience to see the utter absurdity and hypocrisy of class distinction when Professor Henry Higgins wagers that he can transform a common flower girl into a lady—and then pass her off as a duchess—simply by changing her speech and manners.In Major Barbara Shaw spins out the drama of an eccentric millionaire, a romantic poet, and a misguided savior of souls, Major Barbara herself, in a topsy-turvy masterpiece of sophisticated banter and urbane humor. His brilliant dialogue, combined with his use of paradox and socialist theory, never fails to tickle, entertain—and challenge.

The Cocaine industry is worth billions of dollars a year to the drug cartels who spread their evil seed across Western society. Its usage causes incalculable misery, poverty and death. Slowly, gradually, inexorably it is spreading...it is a blight which must be stopped. One man, Paul Devereaux, intellectual, dedicated, utterly ruthless and ex-CIA special ops, is given what seems like an impossible task. At his disposal, anything he wants - men, resources, money. He will not stop until he has completed his mission. Up to now the drug trade has been used to world governments attempting to prevent them plying their trade. But up to now, those governments have played by the rules. That is about to change. The rules no longer apply... and a dirty war is about to get a whole lot dirtier...

He watches. He waits. And then he takes what isn't his. The new Jack Caffery bestseller.