The characters' lives are linked to each other by acts of generosity or cruelty. A daughter in early 20th century Chicago; a hobo during the Great Depression; an office girl in 1950s Manhattan; the young man reveling in 1960s San Francisco, then later tends to dying friends as the AIDS pandemic hits; as the new century opens, a man who has lost his way finds a measure of peace in a photograph he discovers in an old box-an image of pure and simple...

"How can we explain both cruelty and kindness? To award-winning psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen, the explanation for cruelty is low levels of empathy, and the explanation for kindness is high levels of empathy. In The Science of Evil, Baron-Cohen draws on decades of research to develop a new, brain-based theory of human cruelty and kindness. He explores the social and biological factors that can influence our empathy levels, explains the key distinction...

"The Unwilling is the story of Judah, a foundling born with a special gift and raised inside Highfall castle along with Gavin, the son and heir to Lord Elban's vast empire. Judah and Gavin share an unnatural bond that is both the key to her survival -- and possibly her undoing. As Gavin is groomed for his future role, Judah comes to realize that she has no real position within the kingdom, in fact, no hope at all of ever traveling beyond its castle...

Some true crimes reveal themselves in bits and pieces over time. One such case is the Florida School for Boys, a.k.a. the Dozier School, a place where--rather than reforming the children in their care--school officials tortured, raped, and killed them. Opened in 1900, the school closed in 2011 after a Department of Justice investigation substantiated allegations of routine beatings and killings made by about 100 survivors. Follow this story of institutional...

Presents the life of the animal activist, describing his work in nineteenth-century New York to bring attention to the cruel treatment of animals, the intial opposition that he faced from the public, and his founding of the ASPCA in 1866.

A Southern folktale in which kind Blanche, following the instructions of an old witch, gains riches, while her greedy sister makes fun of the old woman and is duly rewarded.

For fans of Ben Winters and Sarah Pinsker, this mind-bending and thought-provoking novel pushes the limits of fiction, questioning the violence sewn into our DNA. Violence is a thing of the past--but do new horrors lie in wait? Imagine a world devoid of violence--a world where fists can't hit, guns don't kill, and bombs can't destroy. In this tantalizing novel of possibility, this has--suddenly and inexplicably--become our new reality. The U.S. president...

Imprisoned for a murder he did not commit, fourteen-year-old Alex Sawyer thinks that he has escaped the hellish Furnace Penitentiary, but instead he winds up in solitary confinement, where new horrors await him.

Once you let them in the lights are on at the Singleton vacation home on Lopez Island, Washington, illuminating the horror within. Scott Singleton, former NFL star turned television evangelist, lies dead. The bodies of his wife and four of their five children are found on the second floor, bound, gagged, and stabbed repeatedly.

Now available in a Grove paperback edition, The Shrine at Altamira by John L'Heureux has the simple shape and powerful impact of Greek tragedy. When Maria Corazon Alvarez meets Russell Whitaker at a school dance, she sees his blue eyes and solid American name as a ticket out of the ghetto into a better life. They dance, they touch, they tumble into a love so strong and elemental it should last forever. But gradually the balance shifts; he loves her...