Graphic Gift Ideas

Archie Marries...

The eternal love triangle that has been the cornerstone of Archie comics for almost seven decades is finally untangled in this seven-part story written by Michael Uslan and illustrated by veteran Archie artist Stan Goldberg. The journey begins when Archie finds himself strolling up Memory Lane, and marries the wealthy and cultured Veronica Lodge. Later we see what happens when he strolls down Memory Lane and marries the wholesome, peppy girl next door, Betty Cooper.

This pivotal series of seven issues is bound in hardcover, encased in a double diecut slipcase, and packaged with a reprint of a classic Archie comic. The book includes all-new material created especially for this edition, including script outtakes, never-before-seen sketches, annotations, vintage covers, and exclusive interviews with the creators.

The Walking Dead, Book One
This hardcover features the first 12 issues of the hit series along with the covers for the issues in one oversized hardcover volume. Perfect for long time fans, new readers and anyone needing a slightly heavy object with which to fend off the walking dead.



Havoc

Getting into the sinister comic-book world of Malice is just the beginning. Getting out of it is much, much harder -- as it surviving while you make your attempt.

Part novel, part comic book, all thrill -- welcome to Malice.

Spawn Origins: Deluxe Hardcover 2
This deluxe, oversized and slipcased hardcover presents 25 previously released and sold-out issues of classic Spawn stories in an all-new size and format!

Signed and numbered copies are also available for order.



Troublemaker, Book 2
There's no smooth sailing for Alex Barnaby and Sam Hooker in the second volume of bestselling author Janet Evanovich's graphic-novel adventure, Troublemaker. Barnaby, Hooker, Rosa, Felicia, and Beans the St. Bernard set sail to the Florida Keys in order to find the wooden body of Baron Samedi that matches their recently acquired - and stolen - wooden hand. But in the world of petro voodoo a hand for a hand and a Baron for a boat is fair play. When the Happy Hooker disappears from its mooring in the Keys, Barnaby and Hooker have to find a way back to Miami with the stolen body of Baron Samedi. Ransom notes for the Happy Hooker, a sack of snakes, and a ticked-off chicken, leave only one place safe enough to hide a body... Hooker's mom's house - a situation that makes the sack of snakes look like chump change. (Troublemaker, Book 1 is also available.)

One of Cathy's Favorites:

And the Pursuit of Happiness is beloved artist and author Maira Kalman's yearlong investigation of democracy and how it works. Energized and inspired by the 2008 elections, on inauguration day Kalman traveled to Washington, D.C., launching a national tour that would take her from a town hall meeting in Newfane, Vermont, to the inner chambers of the Supreme Court.

As we follow Kalman's wholly idiosyncratic journey, we fall in love with Lincoln alongside her as she imagines making a home for herself in the center of his magisterial memorial; ponder Alexis de Tocqueville's America; witness the inner workings of a Bronx middle-school student council; take a high-speed lesson in great American women in the National Portrait Gallery; and consider the cost of war to the brave American service families of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The observations she makes as she travels charm and inform, and-as we have come to expect with Kalman-the route is always one of fascinating indirection.

Kalman finds evidence of democracy at work all around us. And the cast of characters we meet along the way is rousing good company, featuring visits from Benjamin Franklin, Eleanor Roosevelt, and many others. And the Pursuit of Happiness is a remarkable tribute to our history and a powerful reminder of the potential our future holds, from a true national treasure.

TC Tidbits: 14 Women Authors, One Great Blog

Check out The Lipstick Chronicles.

National Book Award Winners

For Young People's Literature:

Mockingbird
In Caitlin's world, everything is black or white. Things are good or bad. Anything in between is confusing. That's the stuff Caitlin's older brother, Devon, has always explained. But now Devon's dead and Dad is no help at all. Caitlin wants to get over it, but as an eleven-year-old girl with Asperger's, she doesn't know how. When she reads the definition of closure, she realizes that is what she needs. In her search for it, Caitlin discovers that not everything is black and white--the world is full of colors--messy and beautiful.

For Poetry:

Lighthead
n his fourth collection, Terrance Hayes investigates how we construct experience. With one foot firmly grounded in the everyday and the other hovering in the air, his poems braid dream and reality into a poetry that is both dark and buoyant. Cultural icons as diverse as Fela Kuti, Harriet Tubman, and Wallace Stevens appear with meditations on desire and history. We see Hayes testing the line between story and song in a series of stunning poems inspired by the Pecha Kucha, a Japanese presenta­tion format. This innovative collection presents the light- headedness of a mind trying to pull against gravity and time. Fueled by an imagination that enlightens, delights, and ignites, Lighthead leaves us illuminated and scorched.

For Non-fiction:

Just Kids
“Terrifically evocative and splendidly titled...the most spellbinding and diverting portrait of funky-but-chic New York in the late ’60s and early ’70s that any alumnus has committed to print....This enchanting book is a reminder that not all youthful vainglory is silly; sometimes it’s preparation.”
-New York Times Book Review



For Fiction:

Lord of Misrule
At the rock-bottom end of the sport of kings sits the ruthless and often violent world of cheap horse racing, where trainers and jockeys, grooms and hotwalkers, loan sharks and touts all struggle to take an edge, or prove their luck, or just survive. Equal parts Nathanael West, Damon Runyon and Eudora Welty, Lord of Misrule follows five characters -- scarred and lonely dreamers in the American grain -- through a year and four races at Indian Mound Downs, downriver from Wheeling, West Virginia.

Horseman Tommy Hansel has a scheme to rescue his failing stable: He'll ship four unknown but ready horses to Indian Mound Downs, run them in cheap claiming races at long odds, and then get out fast before anyone notices. The problem is, at this rundown riverfront half-mile racetrack in the Northern Panhandle, everyone notices--veteran groom Medicine Ed, Kidstuff the blacksmith, old lady "gyp" Deucey Gifford, stall superintendent Suitcase Smithers, eventually even the rulled-off "racetrack financier" Two-Twi and the ominous leading trainer, Joe Dale Bigg. But no one bothers to factor in Tommy Hansel's go-fer girlfriend, Maggie Koderer. Like the beautiful, used-up, tragic horses she comes to love, Maggie has just enough heart to wire everyone's flagging hopes back to the source of all luck.

The Importance of Small

What is Small Business Saturday^SM?

More than a dozen advocacy, public, and private organizations are joining American Express OPEN, the company’s small business unit, in declaring the Saturday after Thanksgiving as Small Business Saturday. This year, Small Business Saturday is November 27, 2010.

How can I get involved in Small Business Saturday?

There are a number of ways for you to get involved. First and foremost, it’s about helping raise awareness about the importance of small business to our communities. For example, you can visit www.facebook.com/smallbusinesssaturday where you can "like" Small Business Saturday and syndicate news feeds about the day to your personal, virtual networks. There, you can also spread the word about the day and your favorite businesses by giving a shout-out to your favorite local shops and restaurants via Facebook and Twitter.

You can also support Small Business Saturday by patronizing the local, independently owned small businesses in your neighborhood. That could mean anything from having dinner on your way home from the mall during the holiday shopping season or reserving a part of your holiday gift budget to spend at a local small business.

Why should I get involved in Small Business Saturday?

The goal of Small Business Saturday is to inspire you to support the local small businesses that mean the most to you. Supporting small business is all about supporting our communities.

Small business is the heartbeat of local communities and the engine of the US economy. Over the past two decades, small businesses created 65 percent of net new jobs. In addition, for every $100 spent in locally owned independent stores, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll, and other expenditures.

Click here for more information.

TC Tidbits: A Great Blog for Cozy Mystery Fans

We are the characters--major and minor--who inhabit the pages of some of your favorite cozy mysteries. We're coming out from between the covers and welcoming you into our lives. So grab a nice cuppa, settle in, and learn what happens when our authors aren't looking.
Go to the blog.

Stephen King's Latest

"I believe there is another man inside every man, a stranger . . ." writes Wilfred Leland James in the early pages of the riveting confession that makes up "1922," the first in this pitch-black quartet of mesmerizing tales from Stephen King. For James, that stranger is awakened when his wife, Arlette, proposes selling off the family homestead and moving to Omaha, setting in motion a gruesome train of murder and madness.

In "Big Driver," a cozy-mystery writer named Tess encounters the stranger along a back road in Massachusetts when she takes a shortcut home after a book-club engagement. Violated and left for dead, Tess plots a revenge that will bring her face-to-face with another stranger: the one inside herself.

"Fair Extension," the shortest of these tales, is perhaps the nastiest and certainly the funniest. Making a deal with the devil not only saves Dave Streeter from a fatal cancer but provides rich recompense for a lifetime of resentment.

When her husband of more than twenty years is away on one of his business trips, Darcy Anderson looks for batteries in the garage. Her toe knocks up against a box under a worktable and she discovers the stranger inside her husband. It's a horrifying discovery, rendered with bristling intensity, and it definitively ends "A Good Marriage".

Like Different Seasons and Four Past Midnight, which generated such enduring films as The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me, Full Dark, No Stars proves Stephen King a master of the long story form.