While it takes the form of a fairly conventional murder mystery show, Castle delights in misdirection, red herrings, and character interaction. When other shows focus on forensic evidence or legal maneuvering, Castle tells the story of the victim: how they got to the point at which someone else felt compelled to snuff out his or her life. A crime novelist shadowing a police detective for three years requires some suspension of disbelief, but the trust Beckett shows in Castle, and the value he lends to investigations, makes it plausible. Castle also excels at blurring the lines between its fictional universe and the real world. It's not unusual for a modern television show to set up the occasional Web site as a promotional tool, but Castle doesn't stop there. Male lead Nathan Fillion is a Twitter star with well over a million followers, but his character Richard Castle also tweets regularly-though the latter can claim only 72,000 followers, as of this writing.

ABOUT THE BOOK Richard Castle is a mystery writer who has developed writers block after killing off his main character. When a copycat killer starts murdering people based on Castles books, he is investigated by NYPD Detective Kate Beckett. Beckett happens to be smart and beautiful, as well as a good cop, so Castle is intrigued by her, and comes up with an idea for a new series of novels about a character based on her. Initially, Beckett is not receptive to Castles request to shadow her so he can give his books more realism, even though she is secretly a fan and has read all his previous books. It takes Castles use of some high-placed connections, including the mayor of New York, to get permission, but he finally joins the team. MEET THE AUTHOR Nicole has been writing since she could make letters with a pencil, and has been making a living at it for more than ten years. She has gone back to school too many times, studying archaeology, folklore, writing and visual art. She writes fiction under several pen names, and also does printmaking, book arts, and photography. She's an avid amateur natural historian with a particular fascination for things that fly, whether it's birds, bats or insects. And if it's possible to be both a luddite, with a love for the low-tech, and a technophile, with a fascination for everything new and shiny, Nicole is both. She reads too many books, plays too many video games, and watches too much anime. EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK Where season one was an introduction to the characters and their unusual partnership, season two delves more deeply into their interactions and relationships. Castle is still, in many ways, a murder-of-the-week show, or a police procedural, in which the focus is on solving a murder, but it also has more depth. At the end of season one, Castle and Beckett were estranged because Castle interfered too much in trying to help Beckett with the mystery of her mothers murder. So as season two begins, the first thing he has to do is reconcile with her. At first Beckett doesnt want him around at all, but a murder investigation brings them together and she decides to allow him to help as long as he agrees to leave her alone afterward. But the time the investigation has concluded, Beckett has to admit that she enjoys having Castle around. CHAPTER OUTLINE Quicklet on Castle Season 2 + About Castle + Andrew W. Marlowe, Castle's Creator + Castle: A Summary of Season Two + Castle: Season Two Episode Guide + ...and much more Castle Season 2

E. H. Gombrich's Little History of the World, though written in 1935, has become one of the treasures of historical writing since its first publication in English in 2005. The Yale edition alone has now sold over half a million copies, and the book is available worldwide in almost thirty languages. Gombrich was of course the best-known art historian of his time, and his text suggests illustrations on every page. This illustrated edition of the Little History brings together the pellucid humanity of his narrative with the images that may well have been in his mind's eye as he wrote the book. The two hundred illustrations—most of them in full color—are not simple embellishments, though they are beautiful. They emerge from the text, enrich the author's intention, and deepen the pleasure of reading this remarkable work. For this edition the text is reset in a spacious format, flowing around illustrations that range from paintings to line drawings, emblems, motifs, and symbols. The book incorporates freshly drawn maps, a revised preface, and a new index. Blending high-grade design, fine paper, and classic binding, this is both a sumptuous gift book and an enhanced edition of a timeless account of human history.

There were eccentric characters in the hotel. The Paris slums are a gathering-place for eccentric people—people who have fallen into solitary, half-mad grooves of life and given up trying to be normal or decent. Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behaviour, just as money frees people from work. Some of the lodgers in our hotel lived lives that were curious beyond words. There were the Rougiers, for instance, an old, ragged, dwarfish couple who plied an extraordinary trade. They used to sell postcards on the Boulevard St Michel. The curious thing was that the postcards were sold in sealed packets as pornographic ones, but were actually photographs of chateaux on the Loire; the buyers did not discover this till too late, and of course never complained. The Rougiers earned about a hundred francs a week, and by strict economy managed to be always half starved and half drunk. The filth of their room was such that one could smell it on the floor below. According to Madame F., neither of the Rougiers had taken off their clothes for four years.

Catherine Lloyd Burns's The Half-True Lies of Cricket Cohen is an outlandish tale of a grandmother and her granddaughter whose us-against-the-world friendship teaches them both about what it means to tell the truth. Cricket Cohen is not a liar. She just enhances the truth. Often. Cricket is a natural-born storyteller. She is also a part-time geologist, a Greek professor, and a certified brain surgeon with a thriving private medical practice. Yes, her patients are all stuffed animals, but the work is still very demanding. Despite her busy schedule, Cricket always has time for Dodo, her equally imaginative grandmother. And one Manhattan weekend when Cricket finds herself in hot water with her teacher and thoroughly fed up with her controlling parents, she and Dodo hit the pavement. What could possibly go wrong when two people with a habit of confusing fact and fantasy take off looking for adventure? Lots, it turns out, and eleven-year-old Cricket finds herself face-to-face with some hard truths about love, family, and getting home again.

The fourth of the five Richard Hannay novels by John Buchan. Here we find our hero Richard Hannay living a quiet life in the countryside with a wife and young child but his past comes back to haunt him and he once more must face up to an arch-enemy.

IF NOT YOU, WHO ELSE? As the mighty alien fleet from the latest computer game thunders across the screen, Johnny prepares to blow them into the usual million pieces. And they send him a message: We surrender. They're not supposed to do that! They're supposed to die. And computer joysticks don't have 'Don't Fire' buttons . . . But it's only a game, isn't it. Isn't it? The first book in the Johnny Maxwell trilogy.