Need to seize a country? Have enemies you must destroy? In this handbook for despots and tyrants, the Renaissance statesman Machiavelli sets forth how to accomplish this and more, while avoiding the awkwardness of becoming generally hated and despised. "Men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be...

"Friends and pranking partners Miles and Niles face a tough challenge when their favorite goat and nemesis, Principal Barkin, is replaced by his stern, no-nonsense father, Principal Barkin Senior, who turns the school into boot camp"--

"A bossy child who lives under a white cloth near a tree; a schoolgirl who keeps doll's brains in a desk drawer; an old man with two shadows, one docile and one rebellious; a diplomat no one has ever seen who goes fishing at an artificial lake no one has ever heard of. These are some of the inhabitants of People From My Neighborhood. In their lives, details of the local and everyday-the lunch menu at a tiny drinking place called the Love, the color...

Fourteen-year-old Mia, who is trying to lead a normal life as a teenage girl in New York City, is shocked to learn that her father is the Prince of Genovia, a small European principality, and that she is a princess and the heir to the throne.

Trollope's most "subversive" novel, this is a wide-ranging condemnation of group morals, collective prejudice and the devastating power that conventional values have upon well intentioned individuals

Whittington, a feline descendant of Dick Whittington's famous cat of English folklore, appears at a rundown barnyard plagued by rats and restores harmony while telling his ancestor's story.

Mrs. Yonkers, the computer teacher, is the nerdiest teacher in the history of the world. She can type with her feet! She buys foam cheeseheads off eBay! She even puts a Webcam on a turtle! Is she trying to take over the planet?

Based on eyewitness accounts and his own unlimited access to the Emperor Hadrian's Imperial archives, the scholar Suetonius wrote a sweeping account of the lives of twelve of Rome's most powerful emperors. From the empire's most shining examples of ruling competency, such as Julius Caesar and Augustus, to the most depraved and doomed rulers, such as Nero, this ancient and colorful biographical work presents a vivid and accessible picture of these...

First published in 1516, Saint Thomas More's Utopia is one of the most important works of European humanism. Through the voice of the mysterious traveler Raphael Hythloday, More describes a pagan, communist city-state governed by reason. Addressing such issues as religious pluralism, women's rights, state-sponsored education, colonialism, and justified warfare, Utopia seems remarkably contemporary nearly five centuries after it was written, and it...