From Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo, a landmark work of narrative nonfiction that tells the dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the twenty-first century’s great, unequal cities.
 
In this brilliantly written, fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human.
 
Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. With a little luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter—Annawadi’s “most-everything girl”—will soon become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to the good lives and good times they call “the full enjoy.”
 
But then Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the imaginations and courage of the people of Annawadi.
 
With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects human beings to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century’s hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget.

Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2012: Katherine Boo spent three years among the residents of the Annawadi slum, a sprawling, cockeyed settlement of more than 300 tin-roof huts and shacks in the shadow of Mumbai’s International Airport. From within this “sumpy plug of slum” Boo unearths stories both tragic and poignant--about residents’ efforts to raise families, earn a living, or simply survive. These unforgettable characters all nurture far-fetched dreams of a better life. As one boy tells his brother: “Everything around us is roses. And we’re like the s**t in between.” A New Yorker writer and recipient of a Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur “Genius” grant, Boo’s writing is superb and the depth and courage of her reporting from this hidden world is astonishing. At times, it’s hard to believe this is nonfiction. --Neal Thompson

When Audra Grace Shelby and her husband felt God calling them to minister in the Middle East, she was fearful--how would she raise her children in the heart of conservative Islam?

Armed with prayers and a faith that always seemed too small, the family made the move to Yemen, enduring deadly illness, uncertainty, and the unnerving experience of being Christians in an Islamic culture.

Yet God was at work, and Audra was invited to see what few Christian women have seen: behind the veils of Muslim women. Here she shares about the friendships she forged, about the opportunities to minister when her new friends' hopes shriveled and their own religion faltered--and how the grace of God touched lives in the midst of an enemy stronghold. With humor, passion, and honesty, she shows readers glimpses of life deep in the heart of Islam and the yearning heart of our loving God.

"The Power Behind The Throne gripped me from start to finish. Would make a fantastic film. Keen to meet." Malcolm Craddock, Producer & Chief Executive, Picture Palace Productions, makers of 14 acclaimed Sharpe films, based on the books by Bernard Cornwell.

"You have certainly written a big international thriller in the grand tradition of a Ludlum or a Forsyth, and I congratulate you on that. I look forward to seeing you on the bestseller lists." Sue Fletcher, Deputy Managing Director, Hodder & Stoughton.

"The Power Behind The Throne gripped me from start to finish. Would make a fantastic film. Keen to meet." Malcolm Craddock, Producer & Chief Executive, Picture Palace Productions, makers of 14 acclaimed Sharpe films, based on the books by Bernard Cornwell.

"You have certainly written a big international thriller in the grand tradition of a Ludlum or a Forsyth, and I congratulate you on that. I look forward to seeing you on the bestseller lists." Sue Fletcher, Deputy Managing Director, Hodder & Stoughton.

An airborne Boeing 747 is headed to London when, without any warning, passengers mysteriously disappear from their seats. Terror and chaos slowly spread not only through the plane but also worldwide as unusual events continue to unfold. For those who have been left behind, the apocalypse has just begun. A repackage of the New York Times best-selling novel Left Behind.

An airborne Boeing 747 is headed to London when, without any warning, passengers mysteriously disappear from their seats. Terror and chaos slowly spread not only through the plane but also worldwide as unusual events continue to unfold. For those who have been left behind, the apocalypse has just begun. A repackage of the New York Times best-selling novel Left Behind.

I’LL BE WATCHING YOU

Walking home on a dark night, you hear footsteps coming up behind you. As they get closer, your heart pounds harder. Who is closing in with dangerous intent—a total stranger? Or someone you know and trust? The answer is as simple as turning around, but don’t look behind you . . . run. Ann Rule, who shared her own nerve-jangling account of unknowingly befriending sadistic sociopath Ted Bundy in The Stranger Beside Me, chronicles other fateful encounters with the hidden predators among us in this riveting collection, fifteenth in the bestselling series drawn from her personal files. First in line is a stunning case that spanned thirty years and took a determined detective to four states—ending, finally, in Alaska—where he unraveled not one but two murders. A second case appears to begin and end with the hunt for the Green River Killer, focusing on a Washington State man who was once cleared as a suspect in that deadly chain of homicides. But the millionaire property owner believed he had successfully buried his own murderous past and the awful truth behind his young wife’s disappearance. She vanished soon after she left for a day at the Seattle World’s Fair, and her three small children grew up believing their mother had abandoned them. But one amazing witness remained—the missing woman’s best friend, who heard her last words in a frantic phone call—“He’s coming!”—before the line went dead. Only since Robert Hansen’s suicide has the monster within been revealed. In another true story, a petite woman went to a tavern, looking only for conversation and fun. Instead, she met violent death in the form of a seven-foot man who had seemed shy and harmless. You’ll feel a chill as you uncover these and numerous other cases of unfortunate victims who made one tragic mistake: trusting the wrong person—even someone they’d known intimately, or thought they knew.

A heart-stopping tale of obsession and desire that is dazzling both in the skill with which it is crafted, and in its seamless interweaving of exquisite sensuality and unrelenting suspense.

Rashida, an Indian Muslim woman with a questing spirit, falls for an author whose sensitive romantic stories she loves, although she's never laid eyes on him. She refuses other suitors, to the horror of her large, loving family. After years of political turmoil have convulsed India and the author's fate has been unknown, he suddenly appears at her door. Rashida marries him at last, and sees him for the first time on the wedding night. His physical repulsiveness, slovenly habits, vanity, and ultimately, his treachery, throw her emotions and her family's life into chaos. She begins a scandalous affair with a handsome teacher, defying her culture and destroying her family's honor. Rashida's story unfolds against a sweeping panorama of Indian history and culture, and a vivid sensuous portrait of a changing India.

Rayford Steele and Cameron “Buck” Williams find themselves pressed into service for the man they believe could be the Antichrist. Nicolae Carpathia takes over the United Nations, signs a peace treaty with Israel, and begins to lure the nations of earth together to form one global village. As believers band together following the Rapture, their peaceful world is destroyed again when global war erupts. A repackage of the New York Times best-selling second book in the Left Behind series.

Take a pound of apocalyptic suspense, add a dash of conspiracy, a little romance, and you've got a recipe for publishing success.

When authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins first imagined Left Behind, their goal was to create "...the first fictional portrayal of events that are true to the literal interpretation of Bible prophecy." Left Behind began as a sleeper, starting slowly and building steadily, selling by word of mouth. Eventually the book became a bestseller and LaHaye and Jenkins discovered that the story would take more than one book to tell, so they continued the tale in Tribulation Force.

Set against the backdrop of the Rapture, in which Jesus has returned as promised to gather his followers and remove them from this world, the characters in Tribulation Force must confront life without their loved ones, struggle with evil unleashed on the world, and ultimately embrace God's truth for themselves.

Pilot Rayford Steele, his daughter Chloe, journalist Buck Williams, and pastor Bruce Barnes band together to study the Bible, pray, and support one another through this time of terror and uncertainty. They realize that Nicolae Carpathia is the prophesied Antichrist, as they watch him consolidate his power. Buck and Rayford find themselves employees of Nicolae, keeping their faith in Jesus secret so that they can continue to work and share their faith unhindered while secretly fighting the Antichrist with the other members of the tribulation force.

The authors have drawn a story of intrigue and adventure set against a cataclysm of global proportions. Readers captivated by Left Behind will certainly want to read Tribulation Force.