Written in the middle of the 14th century as the Bubonic Plague decimated the population of Europe, "The Decameron" is a satirical and allegorical collection of stories by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio. Constructed as a series of "frame stories," or stories within a story, the narrative follows seven young women and three young men who take refuge in a secluded villa outside Florence in order to escape the Black Death. During ten evenings of their...

A remarkable journey into the hearts and minds of two canine heroes, Snitter and Rowf, fugitives from the horrors of an animal research center who escape into the isolation--and terror--of the wilderness.

In a dark future, when North America has split into two warring nations, fifteen-year-olds Day, a famous criminal, and prodigy June, the brilliant soldier hired to capture him, discover that they have a common enemy.

Catastrophes and misfortune continue to plague the Baudelaire orphans after being sent to live with fearful Aunt Josephine, who offers little protection against Count Olaf's treachery.

In this twist on Edgar Allen Poe's gothic short story, a wealthy teenaged girl who can afford a special mask to protect her from the plague that decimated humanity in the mid-1800s, falls in love, becomes caught up in a conspiracy to overthrow an oppressive government, and faces the threat of a new plague.

"According to veterinarian and journalist Mark Walters, we are contributing to--if not overtly causing--some of the scariest epidemics of our time. Through human stories and cutting-edge science, Walters explores the origins of seven diseases: Mad Cow Disease, HIV/AIDS, Salmonella DT104, Lyme Disease, Hantavirus, West Nile, and new strains of flu. He shows that they originate from manipulation of the environment, from emitting carbon and clear-cutting...

In this chilling historical mystery, young girls go missing from a medieval English village and Lord Oswald de Lacy must find the killer before tragedy strikes again. Oswald de Lacy was never meant to be the Lord of Somerhill Manor. Despatched to a monastery at the age of seven, sent back at seventeen when his father and two older brothers are killed by the Plague, Oswald has no experience of running an estate. He finds the years of pestilence and...

The plague first sailed into San Francisco on the steamer Australia, on the day after New Year?s in 1900. Though the ship passed inspection, some of her stowaways?infected rats?escaped detection and made their way into the city?s sewer system. Two months later, the first human case of bubonic plague surfaced in Chinatown. With stunning narrative immediacy fortified by rich research, Marilyn Chase transports us to the city during the late Victorian...