This book is nonfiction and was edited by June Hall McCash. It was published by The University of Georgia Press. Here is what the back of the book says... " The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women is one of the first volumes exclusively devoted to the role played by women as patrons in the evolution of medieval culture. The twelve essays in this volume look at women not simply as patrons of letters but also as patrons of the visual and decorative arts, of architecture, and of religious and educational foundations."

Here is what the inside cover says: "A mysterious circus terrifies an audience for one extraordinary performance before disappearing into the night, taking one of the spectators along with it... In a novella set two years after the events of American Gods, Shadow pays a visit to an ancient Scottish mansion, and finds himself trapped in a game of murder and monsters... In a Hugo Award-winning short story set in a strangely altered Victorian England, the great detective Sherlock Holmes must solve a most unsettling royal murder... Two teenage boys crash a party a meet the girls of their dreams - and nightmares... In a Locus Award-winning tale, the members of an excusive epicurean club lament that they've eaten everything that can be eaten, with the exception of a legendary, rare, and exceedingly dangerous Egyptian bird... Such marvelous creations and more - including a short story set in the world of The Matrix, and others set in the worlds of gothic fiction and children's fiction - can be found in this extraordinary collection, which showcases Gaiman's storytelling brilliance as well as his terrifyingly entertaining dark sense of humor. By turns delightful, disturbing, and diverting, Fragile Things is a gift of literary enchantment from one of the most unique writers of our time."

This is the first book by these authors that I read, and it is still my favorite. Here is what the cover says: "A civilization that thrived a thousand years ago and then mysteriously vanished ... a people who built roads but did not have the wheel, who dotted the harsh landscape of the American Southwest with cliff dwellings, lighthouses, shrines, and planetariums that modern archaeologists still do not fully comprehend. This is the historic background for the new adventure story from the bestselling authors of The Relic and Riptide - a novel of adventure, revelation, and human courage put to the ultimate test. Thunderhead. Archaeologist Nora Kelly is adrift in her career and her personal life when a violent, inexplicable incident leaves her in possession of a mysterious letter. Written by her father, who vanished sixteen years ago in the remote desert, the letter reveals the location of a legendary site hidden in the redrock canyon country of southern Utah: Quivira, the Anasazi Indians' wonderous lost city of gold. Convinced that her father truly had found Quivira, Nora puts together an expedition and takes a team up Lake Powell to the mouth of Serpentine Canyon. In the stark labyrinth of canyons and slickrock desert she will find the answer to both her greatest hopes and her deepest nightmares. For hidden in the shadows of the sunbaked cliffs are untold treasures, the solution of the greatest riddle of American archaeology - and implacable, suffocating death. From the colossal fury of a savage desert storm to sunlight penetrating a mass grave for the first time in a thousand years, Thunderhead is a tale for anyone who has ever searched for clues to the past. In the masterful hands of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Thunderhead becomes an epic tale of discovery, human deceit, and a desperate struggle for survival in a place that has guarded its extraordinary secrets for centuries - and will not let go without a devastating fight."

This is the first book in a four book series (2. River of Blue Fire, 3. Mountain of Black Glass, 4. Sea of Silver Light). Here is what the cover says: "...Otherland: City of Golden Shadow. This first volume in a mesmerizing story takes us to our own near-future when a global conspiracy at the highest levels threatens to sacrifice our Earth for the promise of a far more exclusive place - Otherland, a universe where any fantasy can be made real, but which is ruled by Earth's wealthiest and most ruthless power brokers, The Grail Brotherhood. Otherland. Surrounded by secrecy, it is home to the wildest dreams and darkest nightmares. Incredible amounts of money have been lavished on it. And somehow, bit by bit, it is claiming the Earth's most valuable resource - its children. Only a few have become aware of the danger. Fewer still are willing or able to take up the challenge of this perilous and seductive realm. But every age has its heroes, and unusual times call for unusual champions: Renie Sulaweyo, a teacher and the backbone of her family, proud of her African heritage, has fought all her life simply to get by. She has never wanted to be a hero. But when her young brother is struck down by a bizarre and mysterious illness, Renie swears to save him. When people around her begin to die, she realizes she has stumbled onto something she is not meant to know, a terrifying secret from which there is no turning back... !Xabbu is a Bushman, come to the city to learn skills which may save the spirit of his tribe. With the heart of a poet and the soul of a shaman, he will journey with Renie on this quest into the heart of darkness... Paul Jonas is lost, seemingly adrift in space and time. As he flees from the bloody battlefields of World War I to a castle in the sky, and onward to lands beyond imagining, he must not only evade his terrifying pursuers, but solve the terrible riddle of his own identity... Fourteen-year-old Orlando is also the invincible barbarian Thargor, but only in his imagination. However, youth and frailty are not enough to get you excused from saving the world... And Mister Sellars, a strange old man on a military base, a prisoner of both the government and his own body, may be the greatest mystery of all. Is he part of the Grail Brotherhood? Does he oppose them? Or, as he sits like a spider at the center of a vast web, does he have ambitions of his own? The answers will only be found in Otherland...".

This is one of my favorite Christie novels. Here is what the back cover says: "Agatha Christie is more than the most popular mystery writer of all time. In her career that spans over half a century, her name is synonymous with brilliant deception, ingenious puzzles, and the surprise denouement. By virtually inventing the modern mystery novel she has earned her title as the Queen of Crime. Curious? Then you're invited to read ... The Seven Dials Mystery. Reclusive tycoon Sir Oswald Coote and his melancholy wife, Lady Coote, have hit upon the ideal plan to spice up their quiet lives. They'll host a lavish weekend party at Chimney's, their isolated estate, and invite only 'bright young things.' But the festive mood is clouded by doom. A pratical joke involving seven clocks and a sleeping guest has ended in accidental death - and cause for alarm. For the guests may not be all that they appear. And as whispers of a strange club called Seven Dials echo through the halls of Chimneys, all hands will be pointing to murder...".

This was the first Christie book that I read. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to try and read all of her books. Here is what is written on the back of the book... "'By and large, I haven't done badly out of marriage,' said Ruth Van Rydock. Jane Marple thought Ruth was putting it mildly. Ruth had been married three times, to extremely wealthy men. Every one of her divorces increased her bank balance without dampening her good humor. 'Of course,' said Mrs. Van Rydock, 'I've always been tough. I've not expected too much of life - or of men - and I've done very well out of it, and no hard feelings. That's why I want you to visit Carrie Louise - she's always had a tendency to marry cranks!' So that's how shrewd Jane Marple came to visit Carrie Louise and Stonygates. Two-hundred-odd juvenile deliquents were no problem at all, compared with the half-dozen members of a wealty family who were intimately connected with murder!"

From the back cover: "During a crowded service at a cathedral in Germany, armed intruders in monks' robes unleash a nightmare of blood and destruction. But the killers have not come for gold; they seek a more valuable prize: the bones of the Magi who once paid homage to a newborn savior... a treasure that could reshape the world. With the Vatican in turmoil, SIGMA Force leaps into action. An elite team of scientific and Special Forces operatives under the command of Grayson Pierce and accompanied by Lieutenant Rachel Verona of Rome's carabinieri, they are pursuing a deadly mystery that weaves through sites of the Seven Wonders of the World and ends at the doorstep of an ancient, mystical, and terrifying secret order. For there are those with dark plans for the stolen sacred remains that will alter the future of humankind ... when science and religion unite to unleash a horror not seen since the beginning of time."

This is the first book of Rollins that I read and I have to say I loved it so much that it convinced me to read his other books as well. This is a SIGMA Force novel. Here is what the back of the book says... "Lady Kara Kensington's family paid a high price in money and blood to found the gallery that now lies in ruins. And her search for answers is about to lead Kara; her friend Safia al-Maaz, the gallery's brilliant and beautiful curator; and their guide, the international adventurer Omaha Dunn, into a world they never dreamed actually existed: a lost city buried beneath the Arabian desert, where something astonishing is waiting. A covert government operative hunting a dangerous turncoat - his former partner - is being drawn there as well. But the many perils of a death-defying trek deep into the savage heart of the Arabian Peninsula pale before the nightmare to be unearthed at journey's end - an ageless power that lives and breathes, an awesome force that can create a utopia ... or tear down everything humankind has built over millennia of civilization."

Also published as Muder in the Calais Coach. Here is what is on the back cover ... "En route to Paris, Belgian detective Hercule Poirot has booked winter passage on the fabled Orient Express. Among the curious assortment of fellow passengers, one wealty American holds a unique distinction: He has been found dead of multiple stab wounds in the night compartment of the Calais coach. By dawn, thirteen travelers, each bearing a secret, will find themselves suspect in the most ingenious crime Poirot has ever solved...". With a surprise twist at the end, this is one of my favorite Christie novels.

This is the first book by Fairstein that I read, and I really enjoyed it. Here is what is on the back cover of the book ... "In the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exquisite Temple of Dendur, a monument to an ancient world, a very modern debate is raging at a gala dinner: a controversial new exhibit is fiercely opposed by many among the upper echelon of museum donors. Alex Cooper steps into this highly charged ring of power players only to make a much more troubling discovery: a young museum researcher has been murdered, her body shipped to the Met in an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus. Together with cops Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, Alex must penetrate the realm of the city's cultural elite to find a killer intent on keeping some secrets buried for eternity."