In this lavishly illustrated, first-ever book on how spider webs are built, function, and evolved, William Eberhard provides a comprehensive overview of spider functional morphology and behavior related to web building, and of the surprising physical agility and mental abilities of orb weavers. For instance, one spider spins more than three precisely spaced, morphologically complex spiral attachments per second for up to fifteen minutes at a time. Spiders even adjust the mechanical properties of their famously strong silken lines to different parts of their webs and different environments, and make dramatic modifications in orb designs to adapt to available spaces. This extensive adaptive flexibility, involving decisions influenced by up to sixteen different cues, is unexpected in such small, supposedly simple animals. As Eberhard reveals, the extraordinary diversity of webs includes ingenious solutions to gain access to prey in esoteric habitats, from blazing hot and shifting sand dunes (to capture ants) to the surfaces of tropical lakes (to capture water striders). Some webs are nets that are cast onto prey, while others form baskets into which the spider flicks prey. Some aerial webs are tramways used by spiders searching for chemical cues from their prey below, while others feature landing sites for flying insects and spiders where the spider then stalks its prey. In some webs, long trip lines are delicately sustained just above the ground by tiny rigid silk poles. Stemming from the author’s more than five decades observing spider webs, this book will be the definitive reference for years to come.

For ten years, the White House, assisted by allies in London and Rome, brushed aside the law in a relentless quest to support Saddam Hussein. What were the forces that shaped this persisting embrace of a dictator whom George Bush would eventually compare to Adolf Hitler? How did Washington and its NATO allies nurture a frequently illicit rapport with Saddam, and what was the real story of why it became necessary to mount Operation Desert Storm? How did the governments led by George Bush and Margaret Thatcher seek to cover up their past dealings with the Iraqi leader after Desert Storm finally drove him from Kuwait in 1991?

A classic from the original queen of mystery: Agatha Christie.

"Gradually, a faint brightness appeared in the east, and the air, which had been very warm through the night, felt cool and chilly. Though there was no daylight yet, the darkness was diminished, and the stars looked pale. The prison, which had been a mere black mass with little shape or form, put on its usual aspect; and ever and anon a solitary watchman could be seen upon its roof, stopping to look down upon the preparations in the street . . . By and by the feeble light grew stronger, and the houses with their sign-boards and inscriptions stood plainly out, in the dull grey morning . . . And now, the sun's first beams came glancing into the street; and the night's work, which, in its various stages and in the varied fancies of the lookers-on had taken a hundred shapes, wore its own proper form - a scaffold and a gibbet . . . " (The Complete Works of Charles Dickens, Harper & Brothers, New York and London, Barnaby Rudge, Vol. II, Chapter XIX, page 164. ) Dickens describes an activity which takes place in the early morning hours, just before sunrise. As the day begins and people start to go about their business and get ready to watch the hanging, the hangman is ready with the gallows.

Two novellas of rare energy, "The Spider's Web" and "Zipper and His Father" are filled with Joseph Roth's surprising political foresight and compassionate sensitivity to the tremors of a world on the brink of collapse. "The Spider's Web" paints a chillingly realistic picture of the conspiracies that paved the way for the rise of Hitler. "Zipper and His Father" chronicles the progress of a father and son through the febrile world of German cinema in the 1920s.

An international best-seller by Chaim Eliav. It's a riveting, can't-put-it-down novel that takes place on two continents, in two generations, and has more gyrations than a roller coaster! It starts when Jairo Silverman answers the phone in his plush Sao Paulo law office and hears that his friend Alberto is dead . . . or murdered. Then he learns that but let us not spoil the fun. Don't miss this book!

The Memory Festival is a celebration of recollections and loved ones through crafts. But when a local cop is wounded by a mysterious sharpshooter who seems to have a vendetta against the police, Benni fears for "her" loved ones, especially her police chief husband.