Chef Maurice Mysteries - Book #2 in series In the rarefied world of wine collecting, murder isn’t exactly a barrel of laughs… An invitation to dinner at the home of renowned wine collector Sir William Burton-Trent soon finds Chef Maurice in the middle of an all-too-real murder mystery party, when Sir William is found dead in his own wine cellar. The guests are acting all innocent, but which one is only playing the part? The pushy Californian film director? The seductive French winemaker? Or could it be, against all narrative decency, the butler who did it? With the help of food critic friend Arthur Wordington-Smythe, a large kipper sandwich, and the newly formed Cochon Rouge Wine Appreciation Society, Chef Maurice must get to the bottom of matters before events turn decidedly sour…

Chef Maurice Mysteries - Book #1 in series “They say one should never trust a thin chef. By this measure, Chef Maurice was very trustworthy indeed.” Take one sleepy Cotswold village, mix in one Poirot-esque murder mystery, add a larger-than-life French chef with an appetite for solving crime, and season with clues and red herrings galore . . . It’s autumn in the Cotswolds, and Chef Maurice is facing a problem of mushrooming proportion. Not only has his wild herb and mushroom supplier, Ollie Meadows, missed his weekly delivery—he’s missing vital signs too, when he turns up dead in the woods near Beakley village. Soon, Chef Maurice is up to his nose in some seriously rotten business—complete with threatening notes, a pignapping, and an extremely well-catered stake-out. Can he solve Ollie’s murder before his home-made investigation brings the killer out for second helpings?

Skunk Corners is a pretty miserable place when the Ninja Librarian moves in. It's just a dirty, tough town in the dirty tough hills. Folks there aren't too friendly, and they don't see much need for highfalutin nonsense like schools or libraries. But from the moment the unassuming, white-haired gentleman steps off the train and into these tall tales, the changes in Skunk Corners begin, in equal parts exciting and bewildering to Big Al. The Ninja Librarian uses wisdom, patience, book-learning -- and a few well-placed kicks and jabs -- to change the town and Al, forever.

"In the course of fund-raising for civilian victims of World War I, Edith Wharton assembled this monumental benefit volume by drawing upon her connections to the era's leading authors and artists. The unique compilation forms a 'Who's Who' of early 20th century culture, featuring poetry, stories, illustrations, music and other contributions from scores of luminaries. ... Much of the text is presented in both English and French. Includes an Introduction by former U. S. President Theodore Roosevelt."--

During the Cold War, freedom of expression was vaunted as liberal democracy’s most cherished possession—but such freedom was put in service of a hidden agenda. In The Cultural Cold War, Frances Stonor Saunders reveals the extraordinary efforts of a secret campaign in which some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom in the West were working for or subsidized by the CIA—whether they knew it or not. Called "the most comprehensive account yet of the [CIA’s] activities between 1947 and 1967" by the New York Times, the book presents shocking evidence of the CIA’s undercover program of cultural interventions in Western Europe and at home, drawing together declassified documents and exclusive interviews to expose the CIA’s astonishing campaign to deploy the likes of Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Robert Lowell, George Orwell, and Jackson Pollock as weapons in the Cold War. Translated into ten languages, this classic work—now with a new preface by the author—is "a real contribution to popular understanding of the postwar period" (The Wall Street Journal), and its story of covert cultural efforts to win hearts and minds continues to be relevant today.