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Peter Pan (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Peter Pan first flew across a London stage in 1904 , overwhelming audiences with its tale of a magical boy who never grows up, who lures young Wendy and her brothers to Neverland where they meet pirates, Indians, fairies, and the Lost Boys. Following the play’s astonishing success, J. M. Barrie revised and expanded the story and published it as this novel, originally titled Peter and Wendy when it appeared in 1911. For children, it remains a marvelous mix of fantasy and adventure, featuring unique, imaginative characters, who frisk and frolic in an enchanting land. For adults, the story of Peter and the Lost Boys works on a much deeper level , speaking to them about the inevitable loss of childhood and the ability “to fly.” The climactic duel between the “proud and insolent youth” (Peter Pan) and the “dark and sinister man” (Captain Hook) is both a swashbuckling romp and a moving metaphor for the complex, poignant strug...

  The Guardian newspaper about the Neapolitan Novels in 2014.   Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay , the third book in the series, was an international best seller and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Its author was dubbed “one of the great novelists of our time” by the New York Times Book Review . This fourth and final installment in the series raises the bar even higher and indeed confirms Elena Ferrante as one of the world’s best living storytellers. Ferrante’s story is even more piquant than that of Harper Lee; nobody knows precisely who she is . The reclusive author has refused to promote her books, will provide only written answers to questions from journalists, won’t accept awards or attend writer’s conferences. Her books, she argues, should speak for themselves . Here is the dazzling saga of two women , the brilliant, bookish Elena and the fiery uncontainable Lila. In this book, both are adults; life’s great discoveries have been made, ...

“If life is a movie most people would consider themselves the star of their own feature. Guys might imagine they're living some action adventure epic. Chicks maybe are in a rose-colored fantasy romance. And homosexuals are living la vida loca in a fabulous musical. Still others may take the indie approach and think of themselves as an anti-hero in a coming of age flick. Or a retro badass in an exploitation B movie. Or the cable man in a very steamy adult picture. Some people's lives are experimental student art films that don't make any sense. Some are screwball comedies. Others resemble a documentary, all serious and educational. A few lives achieve blockbuster status and are hailed as a tribute to the human spirit. Some gain a small following and enjoy cult status. And some never got off the ground due to insufficient funding. I don't know what my life is but I do know that I'm constantly squabbling with the director over creative control, throwing pr...

Brian Grazer, photographed (with a nod to Phil Stern's 1955 portrait of James Dean). Photograph by Sam Jones. VANITY FAIR Profile: Brian Grazer, Oscar-winning producer of A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, The Da Vinci Code, Arrested Development, and countless other movies and TV series, is most recognized for something else: But when you're an award-winning Hollywood producer, people do everything they can to get a meeting with you. But for the past 35 years, Brian Grazer -- who co-founded Imagine Entertainment with friend and director Ron Howard -- has been the one chasing face-to-face meetings with people he's curious about. Famed movie producer Brian Grazer aims to show people how curiosity -- even more than innovation and creativity -- can be the force that drives success at work and in life. Article by Connie Guglielmo via CNET  Charles Fishman is the author of The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water, the bestselling book on w...

"Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall is a startling achievement, a brilliant historical novel focused on the rise to power of a figure exceedingly unlikely, on the face of things, to arouse any sympathy at all . . . . This is a novel too in which nothing is wasted, and nothing completely disappears."—Stephen Greenblatt, The New York Review of Books   In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political power. England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king's freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a c...

Over two decades ago, Neil Gaiman introduced another bespectacled teen boy with a magical destiny, Tim Hunter ; an unassuming English kid with glasses obtains a pet owl, and takes up his preordained destiny to enter a secret world of magic hidden in plain sight—brought to you by one of the world's most successful fantasy authors. That thumbnail summary of course describes Harry Potter , J.K. Rowling 's hit series first published in 1997, which is still a massive pop-culture phenomenon today. The Books of Magic , though largely forgotten, the series foretold much of pop-culture's current (and seemingly insatiable) appetite for the superhero and fantasy genres. Harry Potter's Forgotten Predecessor by Noah Berlatsky via The Atlantic A quartet of fallen mystics dubbed the "TrenchCoat Brigade" is introduced in this first collection of the adventures of Timothy Hunter. John Constantine, the Phantom Stranger, Dr. Occult, and Mister E take Hunter on...

"You're never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read with a child."   The National Education Association is building a nation of readers through its signature program, NEA’s Read Across America . This year-round program focuses on motivating children and teens to read through events, partnerships, and reading resources. And what about the little ones? With a little help, they can enjoy National Reading Month too. Research findings outlined in a recent report of the National Early Literacy Panel highlight the fact that literacy skills begin to develop at birth. The panel identified a number of early skills that are related to—and may even help predict— a child’s later success with reading and writing.  So, even young children who are not yet reading can join in the celebration of National Reading Month . While each child’s developmental journey has its own pace. This Article Section describes how you can help foster these important ski...

  "What you do to children matters. And they might never forget."  In news that amounts to at least an 8 on the literary Richter scale, Knopf has announced that it will publish Toni Morrison’s 11th novel in April 2015. At that point, book world luminaries will hurriedly convene to invent new prizes, because the 83-year-old author has already won all the old ones. What we know : Full Article by BrowBeat Spare and unsparing, God Help the Child (Signed Copy) is a searing tale about the way childhood trauma shapes and misshapes the life of the adult. At the center: a woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life; but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love until she told a lie that ruined the life of an innocent woman, a lie whose reverberations refuse to diminish . . . Booker, the man Bride loves and loses, whose core of...