Thriller writer Beth Rivers, who recently fled her home in St. Louis after being kidnapped and tortured by an unidentified assailant, is still living in a halfway house for low-level female felons in the small town of Benedict, Alaska. The appearance on the home's doorstep of two little girls, mute and covered in mud, throws Beth's new life into turmoil. When Benedict police chief Gril Samuels, Beth's friend, arrives to take charge of the children,...

A curated collection of the New York Times' travel column, "Footsteps," exploring classic authors' relationships to landmarks and cities around the world.

"Silvia Ferrara leads a code cracking mission to decipher the hidden truths and histories of our greatest invention--the art of writing"--

"The sentence is the common ground where every writer walks. A good sentence can be written (and read) by anyone if we simply give it the gift of our time, and it is as close as most of us will get to making something truly beautiful. Using minimal technical terms and sources ranging from the Bible and Shakespeare to George Orwell and Maggie Nelson, as well as scientific studies of what can best fire the reader's mind, author Joe Moran shows how we...

Addie Byler may be Apple Creek's resident wallflower, but she knows she has a lot to offer--and much to be grateful for. Raised by her loving grandmother, she lives a life filled with good friends and hard work. Wary of romance, Addie assumes no man will look beyond her glasses and her tendency to talk to her rescue donkey, Snickers--until the day she finds a note from a secret admirer. A prank, most likely. But then, a second note arrives... It's...