Cundill History Prize Finalist Longman–History Today Prize Finalist “Meticulous environmental-historical detective work.” —Times Literary Supplement When Europeans first arrived in North America, they faced a cold new world. The average global temperature had dropped to lows unseen in millennia. The effects of this climactic upheaval were stark and unpredictable: blizzards and deep freezes, droughts and famines, winters in which everything froze, even the Rio Grande. A Cold Welcome tells the story of this crucial period, taking us from Europe’s earliest expeditions in unfamiliar landscapes to the perilous first winters in Quebec and Jamestown. As we confront our own uncertain future, it offers a powerful reminder of the unexpected risks of an unpredictable climate. “A remarkable journey through the complex impacts of the Little Ice Age on Colonial North America...This beautifully written, important book leaves us in no doubt that we ignore the chronicle of past climate change at our peril. I found it hard to put down.” —Brian Fagan, author of The Little Ice Age “Deeply researched and exciting...His fresh account of the climatic forces shaping the colonization of North America differs significantly from long-standing interpretations of those early calamities.” —New York Review of Books

Nebula Award–winning author Elizabeth Moon makes a triumphant return to science fiction with a thrilling series featuring Kylara Vatta, the daring hero of her acclaimed Vatta’s War sequence. After nearly a decade away, Nebula Award–winning author Elizabeth Moon makes a triumphant return to science fiction with this installment in a thrilling new series featuring the daring hero of her acclaimed Vatta’s War sequence. Summoned to the home planet of her family’s business empire, space-fleet commander Kylara Vatta is told to expect a hero’s welcome. But instead she is thrown into danger unlike any other she has faced and finds herself isolated, unable to communicate with the outside world, commanding a motley group of unfamiliar troops, and struggling day by day to survive in a deadly environment with sabotaged gear. Only her undeniable talent for command can give her ragtag band a fighting chance. Yet even as Ky leads her team from one crisis to another, her family and friends refuse to give up hope, endeavoring to mount a rescue from halfway around the planet—a task that is complicated as Ky and her supporters find secrets others will kill to protect: a conspiracy infecting both government and military that threatens not only her own group’s survival but her entire home planet.

Only in the last decade have climatologists developed an accurate picture of yearly climate conditions in historical times. This development confirmed a long-standing suspicion: that the world endured a 500-year cold snap -- The Little Ice Age -- that lasted roughly from A.D. 1300 until 1850. The Little Ice Age tells the story of the turbulent, unpredictable and often very cold years of modern European history, how climate altered historical events, and what they mean in the context of today's global warming. With its basis in cutting-edge science, The Little Ice Age offers a new perspective on familiar events. Renowned archaeologist Brian Fagan shows how the increasing cold affected Norse exploration; how changing sea temperatures caused English and Basque fishermen to follow vast shoals of cod all the way to the New World; how a generations-long subsistence crisis in France contributed to social disintegration and ultimately revolution; and how English efforts to improve farm productivity in the face of a deteriorating climate helped pave the way for the Industrial Revolution and hence for global warming. This is a fascinating, original book for anyone interested in history, climate, or the new subject of how they interact.

Today, he’s a high school dropout with no future. Tomorrow, he’s a soldier in World War II. Kale Jackson has spent years trying to control his time-traveling ability but hasn't had much luck. One day he lives in 1945, fighting in the war as a sharpshooter and helplessly watching soldiers—friends—die. Then the next day, he’s back in the present, where WWII has bled into his modern life in the form of PTSD, straining his relationship with his father and the few friends he has left. Every day it becomes harder to hide his battle wounds, both physical and mental, from the past. When the ex-girl-next-door, Harper, moves back to town, thoughts of what could be if only he had a normal life begin to haunt him. Harper reminds him of the person he was before the PTSD, which helps anchor him to the present. With practice, maybe Kale could remain in the present permanently and never step foot on a battlefield again. Maybe he can have the normal life he craves. But then Harper finds Kale’s name in a historical article—and he’s listed as a casualty of the war. Is Kale’s death inevitable? Does this mean that, one of these days, when Kale travels to the past, he may not come back? Kale knows now that he must learn to control his time-traveling ability to save himself and his chance at a life with Harper. Otherwise, he’ll be killed in a time where he doesn’t belong by a bullet that was never meant for him.

Cundill History Prize Finalist Longman–History Today Prize Finalist “Meticulous environmental-historical detective work.” —Times Literary Supplement When Europeans first arrived in North America, they faced a cold new world. The average global temperature had dropped to lows unseen in millennia. The effects of this climactic upheaval were stark and unpredictable: blizzards and deep freezes, droughts and famines, winters in which everything froze, even the Rio Grande. A Cold Welcome tells the story of this crucial period, taking us from Europe’s earliest expeditions in unfamiliar landscapes to the perilous first winters in Quebec and Jamestown. As we confront our own uncertain future, it offers a powerful reminder of the unexpected risks of an unpredictable climate. “A remarkable journey through the complex impacts of the Little Ice Age on Colonial North America...This beautifully written, important book leaves us in no doubt that we ignore the chronicle of past climate change at our peril. I found it hard to put down.” —Brian Fagan, author of The Little Ice Age “Deeply researched and exciting...His fresh account of the climatic forces shaping the colonization of North America differs significantly from long-standing interpretations of those early calamities.” —New York Review of Books

A poignant and non-didactic exploration of difference, self-acceptance, the power of friendship, and inner strength. Milo is a penguin who, unlike the other penguins, does not like the cold. When he takes a chance and goes on a trip to a faraway place where it’s warm, he finds friends who accept him, and with their support he learns to accept himself. When he returns home, he is even able to befriend others who are different. The Penguin Who Was Cold is an endearing tale of a young penguin named Milo who does not want to dive into the icy water of the pack ice to catch fish. Unlike his comrades, he stays put, standing alone at the edge of the ice and contemplating the cold sea. When a whale appears and offers to take him on a trip, Milo readily accepts. It is the beginning of a fabulous journey. In the faraway South Seas, Milo is amazed by the colors, the warmth of the water and the air, and most of all the friendly welcome he receives from the tropical animals who accept him for who he is and then give a precious and symbolic gift.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOKS OF 2010 Jennifer Egan's spellbinding novel circles the lives of Bennie Salazar, an ageing former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the troubled young woman he employs. We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist's couch in New York City, confronting her longstanding compulsion to steal. We meet Bennie at the melancholy nadir of his adult life - divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed-up band in the basement of a suburban house. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other's pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in many places. With music pulsing on every page, this is a startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption. Breathtaking work from one of our boldest writers. 'Irresistible. Fiction of the highest quality' Sunday Times 'Egan's precise, calm underwater prose is a persistent pleasure' Daily Telegraph 'Stories that defy narrative convention' Financial Times 'A must-read' Sunday Times