Sam Taylor

"Paris, 1806. The renowned botanist Michel Adanson lies on his deathbed, the masterwork to which he dedicated his life still incomplete. As he expires, the last word to escape his lips is a woman’s name: Maram. The key to this mysterious woman’s identity is Adanson’s unpublished memoir of the years he spent in Senegal, concealed in a secret compartment in a chest of drawers. Therein lies a story as fantastical as it is tragic: Maram, it turns...

"Seventeen-year-old Leo is sitting in an empty playground at night, listening to the sound of partying and pop music filtering in from the beach, when he sees another, more popular boy strangle himself with the ropes of the swings. Then, in a panic, Leo drags him to the beach and buries him. Over the next 24 hours, Leo wanders around the campsite like a sleepwalker, haunted by guilt and fear, and distracted by his desire for a girl named Luce. Meanwhile,...

"When Myriam, a French-Moroccan lawyer, decides to return to work after having children, she and her husband look for the perfect nanny for their two young children. They never dreamed they would find Louise: a quiet, polite, devoted woman who sings to the children, cleans the family's chic apartment in Paris's upscale tenth arrondissement, stays late without complaint, and hosts enviable kiddie parties. But as the couple and the nanny become more...

"As a thirteen-year-old de Rosnay read and reread Rebecca, becoming a lifelong devotee of Du Maurier's fiction. Now de Rosnay pays homage to the writer who influenced her so deeply, following Du Maurier from a shy seven-year-old, a rebellious sixteen-year-old, a twenty-something newlywed, and finally a cantankerous old woman."--Provided by publisher.

"In striking, virtuoso graphic style that captures both the immediacy of childhood and the fervor of political idealism, Riad Sattouf recounts his nomadic childhood growing up in rural France, Gaddafi's Libya, and Assad's Syria--but always under the roof of his father, a Syrian Pan-Arabist who drags his family along in his pursuit of grandiose dreams for the Arab nation. Riad, delicate and wide-eyed, follows in the trail of his mismatched parents;...

"In the fourth volume of The Arab of the Future, little Riad has grown into a teenager. In the previous books, his childhood was complicated by the pull of his two cultures -- French and Syrian -- and his parents' deteriorating relationship. Now his father, Adbel-Razak, has left to take a job in Saudi Arabia, and after making a pilgrimage to Mecca, turns increasingly towards religion. But after following him from place to place and living for years...

"In 1991, South Korea is preoccupied with its first democratic elections in thirty years. But in a village in Daegu, five fathers are facing their worst nightmare. Five young boys went on a romp in the mountains and never returned. At first, the media is too caught up with the elections to cover this as news, and the local police treats it as a runaway case—until it attracts attention on a TV show. Soon the 'frog boys' become national news. But...

Though he dreams of being a big man on campus, the freshman's careful plans inevitably go hilariously awry, be it on the football field or at the Fall Frolic. But he gets a climactic chance to prove his mettle, and impress the sweet girl he loves, in one of the most famous sports sequences ever filmed. This crowd-pleaser is a gleeful showcase for Lloyd's slapstick brilliance and incandescent charm.