Thursday, April 3, 2025

iTunes Store: Top 25 Books in Science & Nature 2025-04-03

Brian Clegg - Before the Big Bang artwork Before the Big Bang
The Prehistory of Our Universe
Brian Clegg
Genre: Astronomy
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: August 04, 2009
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC

According to a recent survey, the most popular question about science from the general public was: what came before the Big Bang? We all know on some level what the Big Bang is, but we don't know how it became the accepted theory, or how we might know what came before. In Before the Big Bang , Brian Clegg (the critically acclaimed author of Upgrade Me and The God Effect ) explores the history of this remarkable concept. From the earliest creation myths, through Hershel's realization that the Milky Way was one of many galaxies, to on-going debates about Black Holes, this is an incredible look at the origins of the universe and the many theories that led to the acceptance of the Big Bang. But in classic scientist fashion Clegg challenges the notion of the "Big Bang" itself, and raises the deep philosophical question of why we might want to rethink the origin of the universe. This is popular science at its best, exploratory, controversial, and utterly engrossing.



Alexandre Jardin - Les #Gueux artwork Les #Gueux
Alexandre Jardin
Genre: Science & Nature
Price: $4.99
Publish Date: March 27, 2025
Publisher: Michel Lafon
Seller: Interforum, S.A.

Ce hashtag unit les colères des maires et des citoyens méprisés. Depuis le 1er janvier 2025, si votre véhicule est trop ancien, il vous est impossible de circuler dans les " zones à faibles émissions " des grandes agglomérations. Et tant pis si vous n'avez pas les moyens de changer de voiture ! Mais quand 40 % de la population vit en milieu rural, ce sont plus de 20 millions de Français qui sont bannis des villes. Traités comme des #gueux, on dit NON à cette rupture d'égalité qui nous écrase. Ce hashtag unit les colères des maires et des citoyens méprisés. Jamais la ségrégation sociale n'est allée aussi loin. Et si les #gueux devenaient la voie de la reconnexion ? Une vague non partisane et républicaine, pour une écologie non violente et un retour à l'humanisme.



Yoshihiro Ishihara, Ana Montero & Phil S. Baran - The Portable Chemist's Consultant artwork The Portable Chemist's Consultant
A Survival Guide for Discovery, Process, and Radiolabeling
Yoshihiro Ishihara, Ana Montero & Phil S. Baran
Genre: Chemistry
Price: $12.99
Publish Date: March 11, 2013
Publisher: Apple Publishing Group
Seller: Phil S. Baran

This is a chemistry book like no other. This is your virtual consultant. If you work in any chemical company, our aim is to make this your survival guide. This is your portable consultant, available 24/7, and offering advice that cannot be obtained by cursory use of search engines. This consultant doesn't charge an hourly rate, has no ego, and is being constantly updated and improved upon. At no additional cost. In Part 1, The Portable Chemist's Consultant places particular emphasis on heterocyclic chemistry since this is the bedrock of society-shaping materials such as medicines and agrochemicals. Beautiful interactive graphics are designed to rapidly solve your problems by being both immersive and rapidly absorbed. In Part 2, a broad coverage of solutions to the most encountered problems and issues of industrial chemists is presented. We call it "speed consulting" - an amalgamation of dozens of commonly encountered problems and their best current solution. Finally, it features an extensive appendix with interesting topics for more advanced or specialized readers. All of the content is searchable with a built-in search engine. As alluded to above, The Portable Chemist's Consultant contains information that cannot easily be gleaned from online search engines and features objective advice to help navigate the ocean of data facing today's chemist. Our inspiration comes directly from the popular magazine Consumer Reports, run by a non-biased and non-profit organization to provide useful advice to consumers. In a similar vein, this book aims to save practicing chemists time, money, and frustration with simple advice often given in a rapidly absorbed graphical format. Advice is given with one sole criterion in mind: What would we do when faced with a similar problem? It is based on an extensive study of the literature, hands-on experience, and feedback from a decade of consulting in several sectors of industry such as pharmaceutical development, radiochemistry, medicinal chemistry, and agrochemistry. At the same time, this is an educational textbook based, in part, on a class in Heterocyclic Chemistry taught at the Scripps Research Institute for several years. Embedded videos from this class can be found throughout. This book was carefully created exclusively for the iPad featuring interactive figures, videos, and extensive hyperlinks to the literature. It will be suitable for both seasoned practitioners and newcomers alike. Best of all, it will be continually updated with new multimedia content, additional chapters, and tips even Google will not find. This book was designed with the reader in mind, and therefore comments, feedback, and suggestions for future updates to the book are most welcome. For more information, visit our website at www.portablechemistsconsultant.com



Manly P. Hall - The Secret Teachings Of All Ages artwork The Secret Teachings Of All Ages
Manly P. Hall
Genre: Science & Nature
Price: $0.99
Publish Date: April 21, 2016
Publisher: Books Pub
Seller: KONSTANTIN FAMARSKII

A classic since 1928, this masterly encyclopedia of ancient mythology, ritual, symbolism, and the arcane mysteries of the ages is available for the first time in a compact "reader's edition." Like no other book of the twentieth century, Manly P. Hall's legendary The Secret Teachings of All Ages is a codex to the ancient occult and esoteric traditions of the world. Students of hidden wisdom, ancient symbols, and arcane practices treasure Hall's magnum opus above all other works. While many thousands of copies have sold since its initial publication in 1928, The Secret Teachings of All Ages has previously been available only in oversized, expensive editions. For the first time, Hall's celebrated classic is now published in an affordable trade paperback volume. Literally hundreds of entries shine a rare light on some of the most fascinating and closely held aspects of myth, religion, and philosophy from throughout the centuries. More than one hundred line drawings and a sixteen-page color insert reproduce some of the finest illustrations of the original book, while reset and reformatted text makes this edition of The Secret Teachings of All Ages newly accessible to readers everywhere.



Michael Corballis - The Wandering Mind artwork The Wandering Mind
What the Brain Does When You're Not Looking
Michael Corballis
Genre: Science & Nature
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: April 15, 2015
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC

Rooted in neuroscience, psychology and evolutionary biology, this study explores what happens when we stop paying attention and the effect on our behavior. If we’ve done our job well—and, let’s be honest, if we’re lucky—you’ll read to the end of this description. Most likely, however, you won’t. Somewhere in the middle of the next paragraph, your mind will wander off. Minds wander. That’s just how it is. That may be bad news for me, but is it bad news for people in general? Does the fact that as much as fifty percent of our waking hours find us failing to focus on the task at hand represent a problem? Michael Corballis doesn’t think so. With The Wandering Mind , he shows us why, rehabilitating woolgathering and revealing its incredibly useful effects. Drawing on the latest research from cognitive science and evolutionary biology, Corballis shows us how mind-wandering not only frees us from moment-to-moment drudgery, but also from the limitations of our immediate selves. Mind-wandering strengthens our imagination, fueling the flights of invention, storytelling, and empathy that underlie our shared humanity; furthermore, he explains, our tendency to wander back and forth through the timeline of our lives is fundamental to our very sense of ourselves as coherent, continuing personalities. Full of unusual examples and surprising discoveries, The Wandering Mind mounts a vigorous defense of inattention—even as it never fails to hold the reader’s. Praise for The Wandering Mind “[A] conversational, sincere and amusing book about the tendency of our minds to stray from whatever it is we are actually supposed to be focusing on. . . . [An] engaging exploration of the subject.” — Times Higher Education , Book of the Week “Michael Corballis, the scientist, takes you by the hand and weaves through an avalanche of information from psychology, literature, history, and more to elucidate my favorite mental state—mind wandering. His high capacity for erudition, lucidity, and warmth have never shined more brightly.” —Michael S. Gazzaniga “ The Wandering Mind is a pleasure to read—a lively book that will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers.” —Thomas Suddendorf, author of The Gap



Crosbie Cotton - Mauled artwork Mauled
Lessons Learned from a Grizzly Bear Attack
Crosbie Cotton
Genre: Nature
Price: $14.99
Publish Date: October 18, 2022
Publisher: RMB Rocky Mountain Books
Seller: eBOUND Canada

An inspiring true-life survival story set in the remote backcountry of the Canadian Rockies. In August 2017, 32-year-old Jeremy Evans endured multiple ferocious attacks by a protective female grizzly bear while hunting in the Alberta wilderness. Jeremy’s injuries were massive, his scalp and face destroyed, an eye and his jaw dangling down. The tendons on one leg had been fully severed during the mauling. His hands were damaged where he had physically fought the bear. It was more than a dozen kilometres to where he had parked his truck in darkness early that morning and absolutely no one was near. Thoughts of his wife and their eight-month-old daughter consumed Jeremy as he stumbled and crawled for hours back to his truck, before driving himself several kilometres to a backcountry lodge for help. All the while, Jeremy thought of his young family and the upcoming sixth wedding anniversary that he feared he might never be able to celebrate. Mauled carefully details what happened deep in an Alberta forest where few modern humans tread. Jeremy’s miraculous recovery and life lessons learned when so close to death show that human determination can defy the greatest of odds, and that setting small goals along the road to recovery can lead to remarkable achievements. Despite the traumatic stress the encounter produced, Jeremy holds no animosity toward the bear and still enjoys spending time in the backcountry. To him the grizzly was doing what the best parents do: protect their young.



Wednesday, April 2, 2025

iTunes Store: Top 25 Books in Sci-Fi & Fantasy 2025-04-02

Rebecca Yarros - Iron Flame artwork Iron Flame
Rebecca Yarros
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Price: $16.99
Publish Date: November 07, 2023
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC
Seller: Macmillan

Discover the instant #1 New York Times bestseller! TV series now in development at MGM Amazon Studios with Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society. Accolades for Fourth Wing Amazon Best Books of the Year, #4 • Apple Best Books of the Year 2023 • Barnes & Noble Best Fantasy Book of 2023 ( Fourth Wing and Iron Flame ) • NPR “Books We Love” 2023 • Audible Best Books of 2023 • Hudson Book of the Year • Google Play Best Books of 2023 • Indigo Best Books of 2023 • Waterstones Book of the Year finalist • Goodreads Choice Award, semi-finalist • Newsweek Staffers’ Favorite Books of 2023 • Paste Magazine's Best Books of 2023 “The first year is when some of us lose our lives. The second year is when the rest of us lose our humanity.” —Xaden Riorson Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College—Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky. Now the real training begins, and Violet’s already wondering how she’ll get through. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders’ capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is–unless she betrays the man she loves. Although Violet’s body might be weaker and frailer than everyone else’s, she still has her wits—and a will of iron. And leadership is forgetting the most important lesson Basgiath has taught her: Dragon riders make their own rules . But a determination to survive won’t be enough this year. Because Violet knows the real secret hidden for centuries at Basgiath War College—and nothing, not even dragon fire, may be enough to save them in the end. The Empyrean series is best enjoyed in order. Reading Order: Book #1 Fourth Wing Book #2 Iron Flame



Rebecca Yarros - Fourth Wing artwork Fourth Wing
Rebecca Yarros
Genre: Fantasy
Price: $16.99
Publish Date: May 02, 2023
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC
Seller: Macmillan

A #1 New York Times bestseller • TV series in development at MGM Amazon Studios with Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society • Amazon Best Books of the Year, #4 • Apple Best Books of the Year 2023 • Barnes & Noble Best Fantasy Book of 2023 • NPR “Books We Love” 2023 • Audible Best Books of 2023 • Hudson Book of the Year • Google Play Best Books of 2023 • Indigo Best Books of 2023 • Waterstones Book of the Year finalist • Goodreads Choice Award Winner • Newsweek Staffers’ Favorite Books of 2023 • Paste Magazine's Best Books of 2023 "Suspenseful, sexy, and with incredibly entertaining storytelling, the first in Yarros' Empyrean series will delight fans of romantic, adventure-filled fantasy." — Booklist , starred review " Fourth Wing will have your heart pounding from beginning to end... A fantasy like you've never read before." ―#1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from #1 New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Yarros Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders . But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant. She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise. Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret. Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die . The Empyrean series is best enjoyed in order. Reading Order: Book #1 Fourth Wing Book #2 Iron Flame



Robert Jackson Bennett - A Drop of Corruption artwork A Drop of Corruption
An Ana and Din Mystery
Robert Jackson Bennett
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Price: $16.99
Publish Date: April 01, 2025
Publisher: Random House Worlds
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

The eccentric detective Ana Dolabra matches wits with a seemingly omniscient adversary in this brilliant fantasy-mystery from the author of The Tainted Cup. “Wonderfully clever and compulsively readable . . . another winning blend of fantasy and classic detection.”— Publishers Weekly In the canton of Yarrowdale, at the very edge of the Empire’s reach, a Treasury officer has disappeared into thin air—vanishing from a room within a heavily guarded tower, its door and windows locked from the inside. To solve the case, the Empire calls on its most brilliant and mercurial detective, the great Ana Dolabra. At her side, as always, is her bemused assistant Dinios Kol. Ana soon discovers that they are investigating not a disappearance but a murder—and one of surpassing cunning, carried out by an opponent who can pass through warded doors like a ghost. Worse still, the killer may be targeting the high-security compound known as the Shroud, where the Empire harvests fallen titans for the volatile magic found in their blood. Should it fall, the Empire itself will grind to a halt, robbed of the magic that allows its wheels of power to turn. Din has seen his superior solve impossible cases before. But as the death toll grows and their quarry predicts each of Ana’s moves with uncanny foresight, he fears that she has at last met an enemy she can’t defeat.



Sarah J. Maas - A Court of Wings and Ruin artwork A Court of Wings and Ruin
Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Fantasy
Price: $19.99
Publish Date: May 02, 2017
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Seller: Bookwire Gesellschaft zum Vertrieb digitaler Medien mbH

The epic third novel in the #1 bestselling Court of Thorns and Roses series by global phenomenon Sarah J. Maas. Feyre has returned to the Spring Court, determined to gather information on Tamlin's actions and learn what she can about the invading king threatening to bring her land to its knees. But to do so she must play a deadly game of deceit. One slip could bring doom not only for Feyre, but for everything-and everyone-she holds dear. As war bears down upon them all, Feyre endeavors to take her place amongst the High Fae of the land, balancing her struggle to master her powers-both magical and political-and her love for her court and family. Amidst these struggles, Feyre and Rhysand must decide whom to trust amongst the cunning and lethal High Lords, and hunt for allies in unexpected places. In this thrilling third book in the #1 bestselling series from Sarah J. Maas, the fate of Feyre's world is at stake as armies grapple for power over the one thing that could destroy it.



Sarah J. Maas - A Court of Mist and Fury artwork A Court of Mist and Fury
Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Fantasy
Price: $19.99
Publish Date: May 03, 2016
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Seller: Bookwire Gesellschaft zum Vertrieb digitaler Medien mbH

The seductive and stunning #1 bestselling sequel to Sarah J. Maas's spellbinding A Court of Thorns and Roses. Feyre has undergone more trials than one human woman can carry in her heart. Though she's now been granted the powers and lifespan of the High Fae, she is haunted by her time Under the Mountain and the terrible deeds she performed to save the lives of Tamlin and his people. As her marriage to Tamlin approaches, Feyre's hollowness and nightmares consume her. She finds herself split into two different people: one who upholds her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court, and one who lives out her life in the Spring Court with Tamlin. While Feyre navigates a dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms. She might just be the key to stopping it, but only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future-and the future of a world in turmoil. Bestselling author Sarah J. Maas's masterful storytelling brings this second book in her dazzling, sexy, action-packed series to new heights.



Sarah J. Maas - Throne of Glass artwork Throne of Glass
Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Fantasy
Price: $19.99
Publish Date: August 07, 2012
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Seller: Bookwire Gesellschaft zum Vertrieb digitaler Medien mbH

Lethal. Loyal. Legendary. Enter the world of Throne of Glass with the first book in the #1 bestselling series by Sarah J. Maas. In a land without magic, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She has no love for the vicious king who rules from his throne of glass, but she has not come to kill him. She has come to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three murderers, thieves, and warriors in a competition, she will be released from prison to serve as the King's Champion. Her name is Celaena Sardothien. The Crown Prince will provoke her. The Captain of the Guard will protect her. And a princess from a faraway country will befriend her. But something rotten dwells in the castle, and it's there to kill. When her competitors start dying mysteriously, one by one, Celaena's fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival-and a desperate quest to root out the evil before it destroys her world. Thrilling and fierce, Throne of Glass is the first book in the #1 bestselling series that has captivated readers worldwide.



iTunes Store: Top 25 Books in Humor 2025-04-02

Erma Bombeck - The Erma Bombeck Collection artwork The Erma Bombeck Collection
If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?, Motherhood, and The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank
Erma Bombeck
Genre: Humour
Price: $2.99
Publish Date: May 21, 2013
Publisher: Open Road Media
Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC

Three hilarious books in one from the #1 New York Times –bestselling author on marriage, motherhood, and the absurdities of suburban life.   If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? is Erma Bombeck’s timelessly witty look at the hidden side of married life. Motherhood captures one of the toughest jobs on earth with humor and heart. The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank is Bombeck’s take on the unforgiving frontier of American suburbia.



Bathroom Readers' Institute - Uncle John's Greatest Know on Earth Bathroom Reader artwork Uncle John's Greatest Know on Earth Bathroom Reader
Curiosities, Rarities & Amazing Oddities
Bathroom Readers' Institute
Genre: Humour
Price: $15.99
Publish Date: September 01, 2020
Publisher: Portable Press
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

Uncle John is back with another spectacular show—and it’s right here in front of you! Uncle John’s Greatest Know on Earth Bathroom Reader is bursting with the latest oohs and aahs from the worlds of pop culture, history, sports, and politics. Dazzling facts, jaw-dropping blunders, and astounding lists of trivia will make your visits to the throne room more entertaining than ever. Articles range in length from a single page to extended page-turners, so there’s always something to suit your needs. With Uncle John as the ringmaster for the 33rd straight edition, this Bathroom Reader is sure to be a crowd-pleaser!  



Messie Condo - Tidy the F*ck Up artwork Tidy the F*ck Up
The American Art of Organizing Your Sh*t
Messie Condo
Genre: Humour
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: May 28, 2019
Publisher: Racehorse
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

Even you can get your sh*t together! Tidy the F*ck Up is a funny, down-to-earth parody of Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up , where you’ll be handed the most useful tools for keeping your crap clean and organized without all the pressure.    In this book, you’ll discover useful ways to figure out what to do with your sh*tpiles in an approachable, care-free way, and you’ll say farewell to the hair-pulling stress of marathon cleaning. Tossing all your junk in a closet doesn’t make it any less of a clusterf*ck, but approaching it little by little and making use of some helpful hints can do a world of wonders for all your sh*t, the comfort of your space, and your general sanity. With this hilarious guide, you’ll learn how to: • Become a decision-making bad*ss • Get rid of the sh*t you don’t need and keep the sh*t you do • Live life after a clusterf*ck! • And more! With a lighthearted tone that the finest sailors would admire, Tidy the F*ck Up will help you make your house a f*cking home .



David Sedaris - Happy-Go-Lucky artwork Happy-Go-Lucky
David Sedaris
Genre: Humour
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: May 31, 2022
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Seller: Hachette Digital, Inc.

David Sedaris, the “champion storyteller,” ( Los Angeles Times ) returns with his first new collection of personal essays since the bestselling Calypso Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes.   But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. To cope, he walks for miles through a nearly deserted city, smelling only his own breath. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how sex workers and acupuncturists might be getting by during quarantine.   As the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger’s teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own, and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone’s son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America: people weary, storefronts empty or festooned with Help Wanted signs, walls painted with graffiti reflecting the contradictory messages of our time: Eat the Rich. Trump 2024. Black Lives Matter.   In Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris.



Steven D. Price - Gut Busters and Belly Laughs artwork Gut Busters and Belly Laughs
Jokes for Seniors, Boomers, and Anyone Else Who Thinks 30-Somethings Are Just Kids
Steven D. Price
Genre: Humour
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: August 05, 2014
Publisher: Skyhorse
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

Although no one has ever said that growing old is a zany laugh riot, humor certainly eases the path to and through one’s golden years. And here is a heaping dose of jokes and anecdotes (anecdotes for one’s anec-dotage, you might say) to lighten and brighten the day of anyone who’s reached that certain age. You and the special senior in your life will laugh at jokes about a wide range of subjects, including . . . One-Liners: “I’ve learned that life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.” —Andy Rooney Memory: A senior citizen driving on the highway received a cell phone call from his wife. “Herman, be careful! I just heard on the radio that there was a madman driving the wrong way on Route 280!” The husband replied, “I know, but there isn’t just one—there are hundreds!” Sex and the Senior: An eighty-two-year-old man went to his doctor for a physical. A few days later the doctor saw him walking down the street with a gorgeous young woman on his arm. Several days later the doctor spoke to his patient and commented, “You’re really doing great, aren’t you?” The man replied, “I’m just doing what you said, Doc—‘Get a hot mamma and be cheerful.’” The doctor said, “I didn't say that. I said, ‘You’ve got a heart murmur. Be careful.’” Belly Laughs is a “lode” of fun for the young at heart of all ages, especially the golden age. Remember this bit of sage advice: “If you laugh a lot, when you get older your wrinkles will be in the right places.”



Dolly Alderton - Everything I Know About Love artwork Everything I Know About Love
A Memoir
Dolly Alderton
Genre: Humour
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: February 25, 2020
Publisher: Harper
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

New York Times Bestseller Like Bridget Jones’ Diary but all true— a wildly funny, occasionally heartbreaking memoir from the funny, sharp British journalist and podcast host, who Elizabeth Gilbert calls “a sparkling Roman candle of talent.” “The older you get, the more baggage you carry. When you date at twenty-five, everyone walks into the bar with a very neat, light carry-on. When you date from thirty onwards, get ready to meet someone absolutely brimming with history, complications and demands.” When it comes to the trials and triumphs of becoming an adult, writer Dolly Alderton has seen and tried it all. In her memoir, she vividly recounts falling in love, finding a job, getting drunk, getting dumped, and that absolutely no one can ever compare to her best girlfriends. Everything I Know About Love is about bad dates, good friends and—above all else— realizing that you are enough. Glittering with wit and insight, heart and humor, Dolly Alderton’s unforgettable debut weaves together personal stories, satirical observations, a series of lists, recipes, and other vignettes that will strike a chord of recognition with women of every age.



iTunes Store: Top 25 Books in History 2025-04-02

Gordon Thomas & Max Morgan-Witts - The Day the Bubble Burst artwork The Day the Bubble Burst
A Social History of the Wall Street Crash of 1929
Gordon Thomas & Max Morgan-Witts
Genre: History
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: July 01, 2014
Publisher: Open Road Media
Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC

The New York Times bestseller that tells the story of an overheated stock market and the financial disaster that led to the Great Depression of the 1930s.   A riveting living history about Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929. Captures the era, the intoxicating expectancy, the hope that ruled men’s heart and minds before the bubble burst and the black despair of the decade that followed.  



Jan Grabowski - Hunt for the Jews artwork Hunt for the Jews
Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland
Jan Grabowski
Genre: History
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: October 09, 2013
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC

A revealing account of Polish cooperation with Nazis in WWII—a “grim, compelling [and] significant scholarly study” ( Kirkus Reviews ).   Between 1942 and 1943, thousands of Jews escaped the fate of German death camps in Poland. As they sought refuge in the Polish countryside, the Nazi death machine organized what they called Judenjagd, meaning hunt for the Jews. As a result of the Judenjagd, few of those who escaped the death camps would survive to see liberation. As Jan Grabowski’s penetrating microhistory reveals, the majority of the Jews in hiding perished as a consequence of betrayal by their Polish neighbors.   Hunt for the Jews tells the story of the Judenjagd in Dabrowa, Tarnowska, a rural county in southeastern Poland. Drawing on materials from Polish, Jewish, and German sources created during and after the war, Grabowski documents the involvement of the local Polish population in the process of detecting and killing the Jews who sought their aid. Through detailed reconstruction of events, “Grabowski offers incredible insight into how Poles in rural Poland reacted to and, not infrequently, were complicit with, the German practice of genocide. Grabowski also, implicitly, challenges us to confront our own myths and to rethink how we narrate British (and American) history of responding to the Holocaust” ( European History Quarterly ).



Sheron Wyant-Leonard - I Will artwork I Will
How Four American Indians Put Their Lives on the Line and Changed History
Sheron Wyant-Leonard
Genre: History of the Americas
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: July 20, 2021
Publisher: Arcade
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

A unique portrayal of four members of the American Indian Movement--with fascinating full-color images created by Leonard Peltier ! In  I Will , Sheron Wyant-Leonard weaves the personal recollections of four members of the American Indian Movement--Leonard Peltier, Dennis Banks, Dorothy Ninham, and her husband Herb Powless--into a unique narrative to expose their trials and tribulations over the course of two decades.  When the last gunshots of the Indian Wars of the nineteenth century faded away, a dark and desperate time began for Native American people. Poverty, neglect, and hopelessness hung over the land. But as the seventies dawned, a powerful movement for change by newly urban Indians was born with the words “American Indian Movement.” This story includes a brief look at their childhoods as told by the people who lived it, including their government boarding schools, reservation life, the fight against termination, and the founding of their resistance with building takeovers and government saboteurs, a prison escape, including the largest FBI manhunt in history. They walked the line between courage and fear and changed the direction of Native history forever.  



Robert Kanigel - On an Irish Island artwork On an Irish Island
Robert Kanigel
Genre: European History
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: February 07, 2012
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

On an Irish Island is a love letter to a vanished way of life, in which Robert Kanigel, the highly praised author of The Man Who Knew Infinity and The One Best Way , tells the story of the Great Blasket, a wildly beautiful island off the west coast of Ireland, renowned during the early twentieth century for the rich communal life of its residents and the unadulterated Irish they spoke. With the Irish language vanishing all through the rest of Ireland, the Great Blasket became a magnet for scholars and writers drawn there during the Gaelic renaissance—and the scene for a memorable clash of cultures between modern life and an older, sometimes sweeter world slipping away.   Kanigel introduces us to the playwright John Millington Synge, some of whose characters in The Playboy of the Western World , were inspired by his time on the island; Carl Marstrander, a Norwegian linguist who gave his place on Norway’s Olympic team for a summer on the Blasket; Marie-Louise Sjoestedt, a Celtic studies scholar fresh from the Sorbonne; and central to the story, George Thomson, a British classicist whose involvement with the island and its people we follow from his first visit as a twenty-year-old to the end of his life.   On the island, they met a colorful coterie of men and women with whom they formed lifelong and life-changing friendships. There’s Tomás O’Crohan, a stoic fisherman, one of the few islanders who could read and write Irish, who tutored many of the incomers in the language’s formidable intricacies and became the Blasket’s first published writer; Maurice O’Sullivan, a good-natured prankster and teller of stories, whose memoir, Twenty Years A-Growing , became an Irish classic; and Peig Sayers, whose endless repertoire of earthy tales left listeners spellbound.   As we get to know these men and women, we become immersed in the vivid culture of the islanders, their hard lives of fishing and farming matched by their love of singing, dancing, and talk. Yet, sadly, we watch them leave the island, the village becoming uninhabited by 1953. The story of the Great Blasket is one of struggle—between the call of modernity and the tug of Ireland’s ancient ways, between the promise of emigration and the peculiar warmth of island life amid its physical isolation. But ultimately it is a tribute to the strength and beauty of a people who, tucked away from the rest of civilization, kept alive a nation’s past, and to the newcomers and islanders alike who brought the island’s remarkable story to the larger world.



John G. Neihardt - Black Elk Speaks artwork Black Elk Speaks
The Complete Edition
John G. Neihardt
Genre: U.S. History
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: March 01, 2014
Publisher: Bison Books
Seller: The Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska

Black Elk Speaks , the story of the Oglala Lakota visionary and healer Nicholas Black Elk (1863–1950) and his people during momentous twilight years of the nineteenth century, offers readers much more than a precious glimpse of a vanished time. Black Elk’s searing visions of the unity of humanity and Earth, conveyed by John G. Neihardt, have made this book a classic that crosses multiple genres. Whether appreciated as the poignant tale of a Lakota life, as a history of a Native nation, or as an enduring spiritual testament, Black Elk Speaks is unforgettable. Black Elk met the distinguished poet, writer, and critic John G. Neihardt in 1930 on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and asked Neihardt to share his story with the world. Neihardt understood and conveyed Black Elk’s experiences in this powerful and inspirational message for all humankind. This complete edition features a new introduction by historian Philip J. Deloria and annotations of Black Elk’s story by renowned Lakota scholar Raymond J. DeMallie. Three essays by John G. Neihardt provide background on this landmark work along with pieces by Vine Deloria Jr., Raymond J. DeMallie, Alexis Petri, and Lori Utecht. Maps, original illustrations by Standing Bear, and a set of appendixes rounds out the edition.



Annie Jacobsen - Surprise, Kill, Vanish artwork Surprise, Kill, Vanish
The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins
Annie Jacobsen
Genre: Military History
Price: $16.99
Publish Date: May 14, 2019
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Seller: Hachette Digital, Inc.

From Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen, the untold USA Today bestselling story of the CIA's secret paramilitary units. Surprise . . . your target. Kill . . . your enemy. Vanish . . . without a trace. When diplomacy fails, and war is unwise, the president calls on the CIA's Special Activities Division, a highly-classified branch of the CIA and the most effective, black operations force in the world. Originally known as the president's guerrilla warfare corps, SAD conducts risky and ruthless operations that have evolved over time to defend America from its enemies. Almost every American president since World War II has asked the CIA to conduct sabotage, subversion and, yes, assassination. With unprecedented access to forty-two men and women who proudly and secretly worked on CIA covert operations from the dawn of the Cold War to the present day, along with declassified documents and deep historical research, Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen unveils -- like never before -- a complex world of individuals working in treacherous environments populated with killers, connivers, and saboteurs. Despite Hollywood notions of off-book operations and external secret hires, covert action is actually one piece in a colossal foreign policy machine. Written with the pacing of a thriller, Surprise, Kill, Vanish brings to vivid life the sheer pandemonium and chaos, as well as the unforgettable human will to survive and the intellectual challenge of not giving up hope that define paramilitary and intelligence work. Jacobsen's exclusive interviews -- with members of the CIA's Senior Intelligence Service (equivalent to the Pentagon's generals), its counterterrorism chiefs, targeting officers, and Special Activities Division's Ground Branch operators who conduct today's close-quarters killing operations around the world -- reveal, for the first time, the enormity of this shocking, controversial, and morally complex terrain. Is the CIA's paramilitary army America's weaponized strength, or a liability to its principled standing in the world? Every operation reported in this book, however unsettling, is legal.



Tuesday, April 1, 2025

iTunes Store: Top 25 Books in Fiction & Literature 2025-04-01

Elin Hilderbrand - The Perfect Couple artwork The Perfect Couple
Elin Hilderbrand
Genre: Fiction & Literature
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: June 19, 2018
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Seller: Hachette Digital, Inc.

Now a Netflix limited series, from New York Times bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand, comes a novel about the many ways family can fill our lives with love...if they don't kill us first. * New York Times bestseller* It's Nantucket wedding season, also known as summer-the sight of a bride racing down Main Street is as common as the sun setting at Madaket Beach. The Otis-Winbury wedding promises to be an event to remember: the groom's wealthy parents have spared no expense to host a lavish ceremony at their oceanfront estate.   But it's going to be memorable for all the wrong reasons after tragedy strikes: a body is discovered in Nantucket Harbor just hours before the ceremony-and everyone in the wedding party is suddenly a suspect. As Chief of Police Ed Kapenash interviews the bride, the groom, the groom's famous mystery-novelist mother, and even a member of his own family, he discovers that every wedding is a minefield-and no couple is perfect. Featuring beloved characters from The Castaways , Beautiful Day , and A Summer Affair , The Perfect Couple proves once again that Elin Hilderbrand is the queen of the summer beach read.



Akim Gagnon - La dèche artwork La dèche
Akim Gagnon
Genre: Fiction & Literature
Price: $16.99
Publish Date: March 17, 2025
Publisher: La Mèche
Seller: De Marque, Inc.

À la caisse d’un Dollarama pour y acheter chandelles et ballounes pour l’anniversaire de sa nièce, Akim découvre que son compte bancaire a été saisi par Revenu Québec. La réalité de ses nombreuses dettes accumulées ne peut plus être évacuée : Akim est cassé, et doit faire faillite. Or, par chance, un chèque oublié lui offre un ultime cadeau avant le Great Reset : 2000 $ qu’Akim entend dépenser comme il se doit, c’est-à-dire dans tous les plaisirs dont il raffole. S’ensuit une course effrénée pour se libérer du joug de l’argent qui entraîne notre héros débonnaire à Toronto, à Paris, dans l’atelier d’un peintre célèbre, sans oublier ses savoureux souvenirs familiaux. De fil en aiguille, Akim affronte certaines de ses peurs, dont la plus paralysante : voyager. Poursuivant son œuvre truculente maniant humour et émotion, Akim Gagnon offre avec La dèche un formidable cri du cœur pour la liberté et le bonheur de créer.



Clare Leslie Hall - Broken Country (Reese's Book Club) artwork Broken Country (Reese's Book Club)
Clare Leslie Hall
Genre: Fiction & Literature
Price: $14.99
Publish Date: March 04, 2025
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK | A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “ Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall is an unforgettable story of love, loss, and the choices that shape our lives…but it’s also a masterfully crafted mystery that will keep you guessing until the very last page. Seriously, that ending?! I did not see it coming.” —Reese Witherspoon “Stirring and mysterious…fires directly at the human heart and hits the mark.” —Delia Owens, New York Times bestselling author of Where the Crawdads Sing A love triangle unearths dangerous, deadly secrets from the past in this thrilling tale perfect for fans of The Paper Palace and Where the Crawdads Sing . “The farmer is dead. He is dead, and all anyone wants to know is who killed him.” Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident. As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become. A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, Broken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.



R. F. Kuang - Yellowface artwork Yellowface
A Novel
R. F. Kuang
Genre: Fiction & Literature
Price: $14.99
Publish Date: May 16, 2023
Publisher: William Morrow
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK “Hard to put down, harder to forget.” — Stephen King, #1 New York Times bestselling author White lies. Dark humor. Deadly consequences… Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn’t write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American—in this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from R.F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel.  Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I. So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree. But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves. With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media. R.F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable. 



Shelby Van Pelt - Remarkably Bright Creatures artwork Remarkably Bright Creatures
A Novel
Shelby Van Pelt
Genre: Literary Fiction
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: May 03, 2022
Publisher: Ecco
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

A New York Times Bestseller Soon to be a Netflix Film A Read With Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! “Remarkably Bright Creatures is a beautiful examination of how loneliness can be transformed, cracked open, with the slightest touch from another living thing.” -- Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here For fans of A Man Called Ove, a charming, witty and compulsively readable exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope that traces a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova. Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late.  Shelby Van Pelt’s debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.



Kristin Hannah - The Nightingale artwork The Nightingale
A Novel
Kristin Hannah
Genre: Historical Fiction
Price: $12.99
Publish Date: February 03, 2015
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Seller: Macmillan

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK A #1 New York Times bestseller, Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year, and soon to be a major motion picture, this unforgettable novel of love and strength in the face of war has enthralled a generation. With courage, grace, and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of World War II and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women's war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France—a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime. Goodreads Best Historical Novel of the Year • People's Choice Favorite Fiction Winner • #1 Indie Next Selection • A Buzzfeed and The Week Best Book of the Year