NCW Libraries

This history of practitioners of "service magic" in medieval and early modern Europe reveals the central place they occupied in everyday life and how they helped soothe the anxieties of both commoners and nobles. "It's the year 1600 and you've lost your precious silver spoons, or maybe they've been stolen. Perhaps your child has a fever. Or you're facing a trial. Maybe you're looking for love or escaping a husband. What do you do? In medieval and...

"As Ukraine is embroiled in an ongoing struggle with Russia to preserve its territorial integrity and political independence, celebrated historian Serhii Plokhy explains that today's crisis is a case of history repeating itself: the Ukrainian conflict is only the latest in a long history of turmoil over Ukraine's sovereignty. Situated between Central Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, Ukraine has been shaped by empires that exploited the nation...

Twenty years ago The Clan of the Cave Bear became a blockbuster, launching a bestselling saga. Beginning April 30, 2002, its success will reach all - new heights, with Crown's hardcover publication of the fifth volume in the story, The Shelters of Stone. The new hardcover, paired with Bantam's spring mass market repackaging and repromotion effort, will ensure that a whole new generation is introduced to this incredible epic. Summer delivers trade...

"The epic battle over a mathematical concept that shook the old order and shaped the world as we know it. On August 10, 1632, five leaders of the Society of Jesus convened in a somber Roman palazzo to pass judgment on a simple idea: that a continuous line is composed of distinct and limitlessly tiny parts. The doctrine would become the foundation of calculus, but on that fateful day the judges ruled that it was forbidden. With the stroke of a pen...

The peoples who inhabited Europe during the two millennia before the Roman conquests had established urban centers, large-scale production of goods such as pottery and iron tools, a money economy, and elaborate rituals and ceremonies. Yet as the author argues here, the visual world of these late prehistoric communities was profoundly different from those of ancient Rome's literate civilization and today's industrialized societies. Drawing on startling...

After being cast out of the Clan that had adopted her as a child by the new leader, Ayla shares a lonely valley with a herd of steppe ponies, harnesses their power, and discovers speech and love with Jondalar, a member of her own race.

When the lights go out one night, no one panics. Not yet. The lights always come back on soon, don't they? Surely it's a glitch, a storm, a malfunction. But something seems strange about this night. Across Europe, controllers watch in disbelief as electrical grids collapse. There is no power, anywhere. A former hacker and activist, Piero investigates a possible cause of the disaster. The authorities don't believe him, and he soon becomes a prime suspect...

"The National Book Award-winning historian's "vivid and moving" eyewitness account of the fall of France to Hitler's Third Reich at the outset of WWII (The New York Times). As an international war correspondent and radio commentator during World War II, William L. Shirer didn't just research the fall of France. He was there. In just six weeks, he watched the Third Reich topple one of the world's oldest military powers-and institute a rule of terror...

The sequel to The Mammoth Hunters finds Ayla and Jondalar on their long journey returning to Jondalar's family. Returning humankind's earliest days, the fourth novel in the Earth's Children series. Courageous heroine Ayla and companion Jondalar leave the Mammoth Hunters and travel into the dark, spectacular lands of an unmapped world-always driven to reach a place that they can finally call home.

High Warlock Magnus Bane learns that a demon-worshipping cult, the Crimson Hand, is wreaking havoc across Europe, threatening more than just his romantic getaway with new boyfriend, Alec Lightwood.