The Fabled Realms

Thrifty Readers Unite! An Epic Secondhand Book Score

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You know that giddy, kid-on-Christmas morning feeling of waking up and immediately rushing to unveil your presents? Well that’s the exact same gleeful rush I got when I arrived at my local thrift store to find a beautiful bounty of books just waiting to be scooped up – and ALL of them were 50% off! I practically sprinted through the aisles, deliriously tossing rock-solid titles into my cart like a bookish Santa stuffing a sack. Classics like The Great Gatsby and Animal Farm? Thwump Into the haul they went! Beloved sci-fi gems like The Lost World and the iconic Cosmos? You bet they were coming home with me. Thrillers, fantasy epics, survival guides for inevitable zombie uprisings – I was raiding the shelves left and right like a kid scoring the greatest literary toy box ever assembled.

By the time I reached the checkout counter, breathlessly presenting my teetering tower of literary treasures, I had accumulated a soul-stirring 15 books for the thrifty grand total of…drumroll…$7.75! That’s less than paying for a fancy coffee and one of those old, crispy muffins. For the combined cost of a Venti frappuccinos, I now had enough amazing reading material to keep me happily occupied for months. I could barely contain my giddy smiles as I carefully packed up my fresh-to-me new book babies for their journey home. Let’s just say the thrift store hit the jackpot with this elated customer today!

Animal Farm

George Orwell’s timeless and timely allegorical novel—a scathing satire on a downtrodden society’s blind march towards totalitarianism.

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned—a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.
 
When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.

Bleachers

High school all-American Neely Crenshaw was probably the best quarterback ever to play for the legendary Messina Spartans. Fifteen years have gone by since those glory days, and Neely has come home to Messina to bury Coach Eddie Rake, the man who molded the Spartans into an unbeatable football dynasty.

Now, as Coach Rake’s “boys” sit in the bleachers waiting for the dimming field lights to signal his passing, they replay the old games, relive the old glories, and try to decide once and for all whether they love Eddie Rake – or hate him. For Neely Crenshaw, a man who must finally forgive his coach – and himself – before he can get on with his life, the stakes are especially high.

Blood Work

When Graciella Rivers steps onto his boat, ex-FBI agent Terrell McCaleb has no idea he’s about to come out of retirement. He’s recuperating from a heart transplant and avoiding anything stressful. But when Graciella tells him the way her sister, Gloria, was murdered, Terry realizes he has no choice. Now the man with the new heart vows to take down a predator without a soul. For Gloria’s killer shatters every rule that McCaleb ever learned in his years with the Bureau-as McCaleb gets no more second chances at life…and just one shot at the truth.

Born in Death

Lieutenant Eve Dallas struggles with the end—and the beginning—of life in this thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling In Death series.

Just as Eve Dallas begins to investigate the grisly double homicide of two young lovers—both employees of the same prestigious accounting firm—her friend Mavis need a favor. One of the moms-to-be in Mavis’s birthing class has gone missing. Normally, such a case would be turned over to Missing Persons. But Mavis wants no one else on the job—and Eve can’t say no.
 
Now Eve’s trying to track down the missing woman, while simultaneously unearthing the deals and double-crosses hidden in the files of some of the city’s richest and most secretive citizens, in a race against this particularly vicious killer. Luckily, her multimillionaire husband Roarke’s expertise comes in handy with the number crunching. But as he mines the crucial data that will break the case wide open, Eve faces an all too real danger in the world of flesh and blood.

Contact

The future is here…in an adventure of cosmic dimension. When a signal is discovered that seems to come from far beyond our solar system, a multinational team of scientists decides to find the source. What follows is an eye-opening journey out to the stars to the most awesome encounter in human history. Who—or what—is out there? Why are they watching us? And what do they want with us?

Cosmos

Cosmos is one of the bestselling science books of all time. In clear-eyed prose, Sagan reveals a jewel-like blue world inhabited by a life form that is just beginning to discover its own identity and to venture into the vast ocean of space. Featuring a new Introduction by Sagan’s collaborator, Ann Druyan, full color illustrations, and a new Foreword by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos retraces the fourteen billion years of cosmic evolution that have transformed matter into consciousness, exploring such topics as the origin of life, the human brain, Egyptian hieroglyphics, spacecraft missions, the death of the Sun, the evolution of galaxies, and the forces and individuals who helped to shape modern science.

Die Trying

Jack Reacher is an innocent bystander when he witnesses a woman kidnapped off a Chicago street in broad daylight. In the wrong place at the wrong time, he’s kidnapped with her. Chained together, locked in the back of a stifling van, and racing across America to an unknown destination for an unknown purpose, they’re at the mercy of a group of men demanding an impossible ransom. Because this mysterious woman is worth more than Reacher ever suspected. Now he has to save them both—from the inside out—or die trying….

Double Sin

Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot both make appearances in Agatha Christie’s Double Sin and Other Stories, a sterling collection of short mystery fiction that offers double the suspense, surprise, and fun.

In one of London’s most elegant shops, a decorative doll dressed in green velvet adopts some rather human, and rather sinister, traits.

A country gentleman is questioned about a murder yet to be committed.

While summoning spirits, a medium is drawn closer to the world of the dead than she ever dared imagine possible.

In a small country church, a dying man’s last word becomes both an elegy and a clue to a crime.

These chilling stories, and more, cleverly wrought by master Agatha Christie and solved by the inimitable Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple.

The Great Gatsby

Enter the dazzling world of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a tale of wealth, ambition, and the elusive American Dream. Set in the opulent 1920s, the story follows Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire, who pursues his unattainable love, Daisy Buchanan. Amidst extravagant parties and societal excess, Fitzgerald weaves a narrative of love, betrayal, and the dark undercurrents of the Jazz Age. Through vivid prose and complex characters, the novel explores themes of disillusionment, class divide, and the relentless pursuit of an idealized past. With its timeless exploration of human desires and the consequences of unchecked ambition, “”The Great Gatsby”” remains a literary masterpiece that resonates across generations.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

It is a universally acknowledged truth that high school sucks. But on the first day of his senior year, Greg Gaines thinks he’s figured it out. The answer to the basic existential question: How is it possible to exist in a place that sucks so bad? His strategy: remain at the periphery at all times. Keep an insanely low profile. Make mediocre films with the one person who is even sort of his friend, Earl.

This plan works for exactly eight hours. Then Greg’s mom forces him to become friends with a girl who has cancer. This brings about the destruction of Greg’s entire life.

Night Passage

Robert B. Parker introduces readers to police chief Jesse Stone in the first novel in the beloved mystery series—a New York Times bestseller.

After a busted marriage kicks his drinking problem into overdrive and the LAPD unceremoniously dumps him, thirty-five-year-old Jesse Stone’s future looks bleak. So he’s shocked when a small Massachusetts town called Paradise recruits him as police chief. He can’t help wondering if this job is a genuine chance to start over, the kind of offer he can’t refuse.

Once on board, Jesse doesn’t have to look for trouble in Paradise: it comes to him. For what is on the surface a quiet New England community quickly proves to be a crucible of political and moral corruption—replete with triple homicide, tight Boston mob ties, flamboyantly errant spouses, maddened militiamen and a psychopath-about-town who has fixed his violent sights on the new lawman. Against all this, Jesse stands utterly alone, with no one to trust—even he and the woman he’s seeing are like ships passing in the night. He finds he must test his mettle and powers of command to emerge a local hero—or the deadest of dupes.

The Scions of Shannara

Three hundred years have passed since the death of the Druid Allanon, and the Four Lands are sadly changed. The Elves have vanished, and the Dwarves are enslaved. The Southland is under the totalitarian rule of the Federation, and magic is forbidden. Now the spirit of Allanon returns to the Scions of Shannara and shows them a bleak future in which the evil Shadowen have destroyed all life in the Four Lands. To prevent that, he orders the Scions to recover the long-lost Sword of Shannara, bring back the vanished Elves, and find the long-hidden Druids. But the forces of evil are already mobilizing against them . . .

The Lost World

It is now six years since the secret disaster at Jurassic Park, six years since the extraordinary dream of science and imagination came to a crashing end—the dinosaurs destroyed, the park dismantled, and the island indefinitely closed to the public.
 
There are rumors that something has survived. . . .

Tripwire

Ex military policeman Jack Reacher is enjoying the lazy anonymity of Key West when a stranger shows up asking for him. He’s got a lot of questions. Reacher does too, especially after the guy turns up dead. The answers lead Reacher on a cold trail back to New York, to the tenuous confidence of an alluring woman, and the dangerous corners of his own past.

The Zombie Survival Guide

The Zombie Survival Guide is your key to survival against the hordes of undead who may be stalking you right now. Fully illustrated and exhaustively comprehensive, this book covers everything you need to know, including how to understand zombie physiology and behavior, the most effective defense tactics and weaponry, ways to outfit your home for a long siege, and how to survive and adapt in any territory or terrain.

Top 10 Lessons for Surviving a Zombie Attack

1. Organize before they rise!
2. They feel no fear, why should you?
3. Use your head: cut off theirs.
4. Blades don’t need reloading.
5. Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair.
6. Get up the staircase, then destroy it.
7. Get out of the car, get onto the bike.
8. Keep moving, keep low, keep quiet, keep alert!
9. No place is safe, only safer.
10. The zombie may be gone, but the threat lives on.

Don’t be carefree and foolish with your most precious asset—life. This book is your key to survival against the hordes of undead who may be stalking you right now without your even knowing it. The Zombie Survival Guide offers complete protection through trusted, proven tips for safeguarding yourself and your loved ones against the living dead. It is a book that can save your life.


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