From pranks gone wrong to sexual abuse and murder, these stories will motivate readers to reflect on their own lives. In one case, 14-year old twin girls rob a bank in a desperate bid to save the family home, while another tale tells of a mother who makes a horrifying decision for her pregnant daughter. These people share their personal trials and tragedies in the hopes that others can learn from their experiences. Includes a 16-page color photo insert.

From love triangles and cheaters to summer romances, these stories will touch every teen’s heart. One seventeen-year-old’s story talks of her sweetheart who joined the Army and was sent to the Middle East, and how his love letters kept their romance strong. In another, one girl learns (the hard way) how playing the field can only lead to heartache. Whether the ending is happy or sad, there is no doubt that love has changed these teens’ lives forever.

A tense, powerful thriller from the bestselling author of Six Four 1985. Kazumasa Yuuki, a seasoned reporter at the North Kanto Times, runs a daily gauntlet of the power struggles and office politics that plague its newsroom. But when an air disaster of unprecedented scale occurs on the paper’s doorstep, its staff is united by an unimaginable horror and a once-in-a-lifetime scoop. 2003. Seventeen years later, Yuuki remembers the adrenaline-fueled, emotionally charged seven days that changed his and his colleagues’ lives. He does so while making good on a promise he made that fateful week—one that holds the key to its last solved mystery and represents Yuuki’s final, unconquered fear. From Hideo Yokoyama, the celebrated author of Six Four, comes Seventeen—an investigative thriller set amid the aftermath of disaster.

Eleven girls share their stories about facing tough times—and coming out stronger. Want some major motivation to dream big and take on your next challenge? Inspiring True Teen Stories brings together some of the most moving reader stories ever printed in the pages of Seventeen magazine. These eleven girls reveal how they faced life’s most difficult obstacles—and came out stronger. One girl shares how she overcame a terrifying injury, while another explains how she confronted head-on the racism in her town. One reader describes what it’s like to go to rehab even before you’re out of high school, while another tells the story of rescuing a drowning victim. Each of these compelling accounts will inspire you to face life in a whole new way.

From the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending and one of Britain’s greatest writers: a brilliant collection of essays on the books and authors that have meant the most to him throughout his illustrious career. • "[A] blissfully intelligent gathering of literary essays." —Financial Times In these seventeen essays (plus a short story and a special preface, “A Life with Books”), Julian Barnes examines the British, French and American writers who have shaped his writing, as well as the cross-currents and overlappings of their different cultures. From the deceptiveness of Penelope Fitzgerald to the directness of Hemingway, from Kipling’s view of France to the French view of Kipling, from the many translations of Madame Bovary to the fabulations of Ford Madox Ford, from the National Treasure status of George Orwell to the despair of Michel Houellebecq, Julian Barnes considers what fiction is, and what it can do. As he writes, “Novels tell us the most truth about life: what it is, how we live it, what it might be for, how we enjoy and value it, and how we lose it.”

Cameron Leon is a newly-hired worker for the Forster Foundation, a world-wide charitable organization led by a reclusive billionaire. To get the job, Cameron has to join a church. However, Cameron, still mourning the recent death of his brother Peter, decides he will only pretend to get saved. In the process, he impersonates not only a Christian, but on occasion his brother. Cameron continues to receive tearful phone calls from Peters widow, Cecelia, who wants to hear her late husbands voice. Cameron, a born mimic like his brother, flawlessly impersonates him but feels the need for a personal kind of cleansing. In the end, Cameron discovers not only how many faces he has, but how many there are among the people around him. In the end, he finds he has been impersonating someone - or Someone - all along. According to Thornton, BRILLIANT DISGUISES grew from a longing to see the inner life of a Christian in a fictional setting. But the only way to make such a familiar setting appear unfamiliar to Christian readers was to have the story told by someone posing as one. Thornton says, Probably anyone who has attended an evangelical church, or any church for that matter, has a story of someone who volunteers for everything, is there for every service, has been a model of prayer and devotion for what seems like generations. It could be the Sunday School director or the lady who helps out in the kitchen or the organist. Then one Sunday, they come forward during the dedication and announce that theyve never felt they were saved. I wondered how that could happen, and I figured it would help if we were dealing with a character who was a born mimic.

Booth Tarkington's wildly successful novel Seventeen satirizes the vagaries of American adolescence. Though 17-year-old protagonist William Sylvanus Baxter is awkward, tactless, and often less than likable, Tarkington's insightful -- and hilarious -- take on teenage life and love is sure to please readers who appreciate top-notch humor writing.