The dark is rising
Susan Cooper
On his eleventh birthday Will Stanton discovers that he is the last of the Old Ones, destined to seek the six magical Signs that will enable the Old Ones to triumph over the evil forces of the Dark.

by Kevin Cahill with Rob McMahon (2009)
You don't have to be a student of geography or cartography to have an interest in the world around you, especially with globalization making our planet seem smaller than ever. Now you can IM someone in Alaska, purchase coffee beans from Timor-Leste, and visit Dubai. But what do we really know about these lands? WHO OWNS THE WORLD presents the results of the first-ever landownership survey of all 197 states and 66 territories of the world, and reveals facts both startling and eye-opening. You'll learn that: --Only 15% of the world's population lays claim to landownership, and that landownership in too few hands is probably the single greatest cause of poverty. --Queen Elizabeth II owns 1/6 of the entire land surface on earth (nearly 3 times the size of the U.S.). --The Lichtenstein royal family is wealthier than the Grimaldis of Monaco. --80% of the American population is crammed in urban areas. --The least crowded state is Alaska, with 670 acres per person. The most crowded is New Jersey, with .7 acres per person. --60% of America's population are property owners. That's behind the UK (69% homeownership). --And much, much more! With its relevance to contemporary issues and culture, WHO OWNS THE WORLD makes for fascinating reading. Both entertaining and educational, it provides cocktail party conversation for years to come and is guaranteed to change the way you view the U.S. and the world.
Susan Cooper
On his eleventh birthday Will Stanton discovers that he is the last of the Old Ones, destined to seek the six magical Signs that will enable the Old Ones to triumph over the evil forces of the Dark.
Hester Blum
From Sir John Franklin's doomed 1845 search for the Northwest Passage to early twentieth-century sprints to the South Pole, polar expeditions produced an extravagant archive of documents that are as varied as they are engaging. As the polar ice sheets melt, fragments of this archive are newly emergent. In 'The News at the Ends of the Earth' Hester Blum examines the rich, offbeat collection of printed ephemera created by polar explorers. Ranging from ship newspapers and messages left in bottles to menus and playbills, polar writing reveals the seamen wrestling with questions of time, space, community, and the environment. Whether chronicling weather patterns or satirically reporting on penguin mischief, this writing provided expedition members with a set of practices to help them survive the perpetual darkness and harshness of polar winters. The extreme climates these explorers experienced is continuous with climate change today. Polar exploration writing, Blum contends, offers strategies for confronting and reckoning with the extreme environment of the present.
G. P. Taylor
The sequel to the #1 New York Times bestseller Shadowmancer.In this thrilling, much-anticipated sequel to the runaway hit Shadowmancer, G. P. Taylor once again takes readers on a gripping journey. Kate and Thomas have barely escaped the evil sorcerer Demurral, and are sailing to London to make a fresh start. But someone knows they are coming, and is lying in wait to lure them into the darkest heart of the city. Meanwhile, Raphah, who has had a narrow escape of his own, sets out on a terrifying journey to find his friends, all the time haunted by a shadowy beast. Eventually, the friends' paths meet on a cursed street, hidden from the world-a place where fates are decided and old enemies seek revenge. They thought it was over . . . but can evil ever be destroyed?
Joyce E. Chaplin
For almost five hundred years, human beings have been finding ways to circle the Earth -- by sail, steam, or liquid fuel; by cycling, driving, flying, going into orbit, even by using their own bodily power. The story begins with the first centuries of circumnavigation, when few survived the attempt: in 1519, Ferdinand Magellan left Spain with five ships and 270 men, but only one ship and thirty-five men returned, not including Magellan, who died in the Philippines. Starting with these dangerous voyages, Joyce Chaplin takes us on a trip of our own as we travel with Francis Drake, William Dampier, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, and James Cook. Eventually sea travel grew much safer and passengers came on board. The most famous was Charles Darwin, but some intrepid women became circumnavigators too -- a Lady Brassey, for example. Circumnavigation became a fad, as captured in Jules Verne's classic novel Around the World in Eighty Days. Once continental railroads were built, circumnavigators could traverse sea and land. Newspapers sponsored racing contests, and people sought ways to distinguish themselves -- by bicycling around the world, for instance, or by sailing solo. Steamships turned round-the-world travel into a luxurious experience, as with the tours of Thomas Cook & Son. Famous authors wrote up their adventures, including Mark Twain and Jack London and Elizabeth Jane Cochrane (better known as Nellie Bly). Finally humans took to the skies to circle the globe in airplanes. Not much later, Sputnik, Gagarin, and Glenn pioneered a new kind of circumnavigation -- in orbit. Through it all, the desire to take on the planet has tested the courage and capacity of the bold men and women who took up the challenge. Their exploits show us why we think of the Earth as home. - Jacket flap.