The historic hotel in Boonsboro, Maryland, has endured war and peace, changing hands, even rumored hauntings. Now it's getting a major facelift from the Montgomery brothers and their eccentric mother. As the architect of the family, Beckett's social life consists mostly of talking shop over pizza and beer. But there's another project he's got his eye on: the girl he's been waiting to kiss since he was fifteen...

"He was history's most creative genius. What secrets can he teach us? The author of the acclaimed bestsellers Steve Jobs, Einstein, and Benjamin Franklin brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography. Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo's astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo's genius was based on skills...

Walter Pater (1839-1894) attained a B.A. degree in Classics from Queen's College, Oxford, followed soon after by a M.A. degree from Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was made a Fellow in 1865. That same year Pater toured Italy, where he discovered what would become a lifelong passion for masters of the Italian Renaissance like Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Michelangelo, among many others. In 1877 he published "The Renaissance: Studies in...

In 1120 A.D., the heir to the English throne dies when the royal ship burns at sea. The King calls on his subjects to accept his daughter Maud as ruler until her son comes of age, but the church backs his nephew Stephen. Squire Bartholomew pledges his loyalty to Maud and is thrown in jail, leaving his daughter Aliena and son Richard alone. Maud goes raises an army in France and attacks Stephen. Meanwhile, Tom Builder is destined to construct a cathedral...

"The award-winning children's book author confronts a new world when faced with his daughter's illness in this frank, moving, and beautiful memoir. Elisha Cooper spends his mornings writing and illustrating children's books, his afternoons playing with his two daughters. The phrase he hates most is "throw like a girl," so he teaches them to climb trees and play ball. But when he discovers a lump in five-year-old Zoe's midsection as she sits on his...

Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized Americab2ss rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair's brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country's most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who,...

Accusé de subversion politique, Dostoïevski fut à l'âge de vingt-huit ans condamné aux travaux forcés dans un bagne de Sibérie. Il fit dans ces Souvenirs le récit de cette terrible expérience dans la maison des morts qui allait transformer sa vision du monde et du peuple russe et le « ressusciter ». « Je me sentais un peu souffrant ces jours-ci, et je lisais la Maison des morts. Je n'en avais gardé qu'un souvenir incertain et j'ai...

Coast Road. Where life's greatest gifts come to us by accident. Rachel Keats and Jack McGill were artists, deeply in love when they married, until the rush of life took its toll. After ten years of marriage, they divorced and went their separate ways. Jack stayed in San Francisco. Rachel moved with their two young daughters to Big Sur. Six years later, an alarming middle-of-the-night phone call demands that Jack put aside his own busy life and career...

"Allison Moore is making it. Barely. The Seattle architecture firm she started with her best friend is struggling, but at least they’re free from the games played by the corporate world. She’s gotten over her divorce. And while her dad’s recent passing is tough, their relationship had never been easy. Then the bomb drops. Her dad was living a secret life and left her mom in massive debt. As Allison scrambles to help her mom find a way out, she’s...