When Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile in 1821, he took to the grave a powerful secret. As general and emperor, he had stolen immeasurable riches from palaces, national treasuries, and even the Knights of Malta and the Vatican. In his final days, his British captors hoped to learn where the loot lay hidden. But he told them nothing, and in his will he made no mention of the treasure. Or did he?<br><br>Former Justice Department operative Cotton Malone isn't looking for trouble when it comes knocking at his Copenhagen bookshop. Actually, it breaks and enters in the form of an American Secret Service agent with a pair of assassins on his heels. Malone has his doubts about the anxious young man, but narrowly surviving a ferocious firefight convinces him to follow his unexpected new ally.

Their first stop is the secluded estate of Malone's good friend, Henrik Thorvaldsen. The wily Danish tycoon has uncovered the insidious plans of the Paris Club, a cabal of multimillionaires bent on manipulating the global economy. Only by matching wits with a terrorist-for-hire, foiling a catastrophic attack, and plunging into a desperate hunt for Napoleon's legendary lost treasure can Malone hope to avert international financial anarchy.<br><br>But Thorvaldsen's real objective is much more personal: to avenge the murder of his son by the larcenous aristocrat at the heart of the conspiracy. Thorvaldsen's vendetta places Malone in an impossible quandary—one that forces him to choose between friend and country, past and present. Starting in Denmark, moving to England, and ending up in the storied streets and cathedrals of Paris, Malone plays a breathless game of duplicity and death, all to claim a prize of untold value. But at what cost?

As a child, former Justice Department agent Cotton Malone was told that his father died in a submarine disaster in the North Atlantic. But what he now learns stuns him: His father’s sub was a secret nuclear vessel lost on a highly classified mission beneath the ice shelves of Antarctica. <br><br>Twin sisters Dorothea Lindauer and Christl Falk are also determined to find out what became of their father, who died on the same submarine–and they know something Malone doesn’t: Inspired by strange clues discovered in Charlemagne’s tomb, the Nazis explored Antarctica before the Americans. Now Malone discovers that cryptic journals penned in “the language of heaven,” conundrums posed by an ancient historian, and his father’s ill-fated voyage are all tied to a revelation of immense consequence for humankind. As Malone embarks on a dangerous quest with the sisters, he will finally confront the shocking truth of his father’s death and the distinct possibility of his own.

This mesmerizing portrait of a proud man who, through three decades and successive repressive regimes, heroically braved persecution to bring books to the people of Kabul has elicited extraordinary praise throughout the world and become a phenomenal international bestseller. <i>The Bookseller of Kabul is startling in its intimacy and its details - a revelation of the plight of Afghan women and a window into the surprising realities of daily life in today's Afghanistan.

Want to know the most profitable, lowest-risk idea for your home business? It's selling used books online, which is growing 33 percent annually, according to a November 2005 study by U.S. publishers.<br><br>Here is the complete text of the most popular book about online bookselling of all time: The Home-Based Bookstore: Start Your Own Business Selling Used Books on Amazon, eBay or Your Own Web Site

Learn how to start your business part-time, then work as little or as much as you want. This step-by-step guide, written by one of the most successful and highly rated sellers on Amazon.com and eBay, includes everything you need to know:

-- Where to find books

Find books in your own neighborhood to resell profitably to a worldwide pool of ready buyers. Get the best sources for valuable used books at low prices.

-- Where to sell Learn

How to list your books to sell at the best price on Amazon.com and eBay, and even your own Web store. -- Which books to buy What to look for in fiction, nonfiction, and collectibles to resell at the highest profits.

-- Grading and pricing your books

How to describe and price your books. Learn what buyers are looking for.<br><br> -- Handling customers

Tips on handling online book buyers. See the author's time-tested scripts for responding to customer issues. Learn how you can get and maintain high feedback ratings.<br><br> -- Fulfilling orders<br><br>Easy-to-use ideas for storing, organizing, and shipping your books and handling returns.<br><br> -- Automation tools

Maximize your efficiency with these tips on automating your business. Automatically notify customers about shipments, and print postage to ship your books without leaving home.

-- Taxes and legal requirements<br><br>How to register your business to obtain the proper permits and be exempted from paying sales tax on your inventory.

-- Exclusive list of wholesale book distributors<br><br>Exclusive profiles and contact info for 32 wholesaledistributors of used and new books. Order inventory at up to 90 percent off retail, shipped right to your door.

About the author:

Steve Weber started his home-based bookstore as a hobby in March 2000. Two months later, he quit his day job to sell used books full-time on Amazon.com and eBay, using his one-bedroom apartment in Virginia as warehouse and shipping depot. In the meantime, he has sold more than $1 million of used books to buyers in all 50 states and 31 foreign countries. In this step-by-step guide, Weber tells you how he took $80 in savings to buy his first batch of books, then invested the profits to build a successful business, and how you can too.

Struggling in his role as a newly single father, former army medic Kevin O'Brien moves home to Chesapeake Shores. He wants a haven for himself and his toddler son, surrounded by the family he knows he can count on, and a future that's nothing like his past. But Kevin is suddenly facing a risk he hadn't anticipated, in the form of Main Street bookseller Shanna Carlyle.<P>Shanna immediately recognizes Kevin as a wounded soul—she's had way too much experience with the type. Still, this charming O'Brien man and his son are almost impossible to resist.

Then, just when the barriers are toppling, someone from Shanna's past appears. Confronted with a threat to their hard-won serenity, Kevin and Shanna face their toughest challenge—learning to trust again.

This book has everything you need to start your own home-based online bookstore and more. It covers: where to buy the books worth reselling, the various available online marketplaces and the advantages/disadvantages of each, how to price and grade your books, how to safely store your books with ease of locating them in mind, how to plan your business, the legal structures of online bookselling businesses, in-state retail sales tax and Schedule C tax issues, how to pack your books to minimize "escapees," thrid-party wireless lookup service, inventory management software providers, re-pricing tools, online postage services, websites & advertising, shipping methods & trade-offs, how much to pay for books, shipping material suppliers, an exhaustive list of wholesale & remainder book distributors, and much more. The author has included graphs to demonstrate how long you might expect to wait to sell a book with a given Amazon sales rank, histograms of profit distributions you might expect, tables of Roman Numerals, photographs of packing procedures & bookseller terminology, etc. With this book as your guide you are well on your way to being a successful online bookseller. Printed in Times New Roman 9 pt font.

In 323 B.C.E, having conquered Persia, Alexander the Great set his sights on Arabia, then suddenly succumbed to a strange fever. Locating his final resting place–unknown to this day–remains a tantalizing goal for both archaeologists and treasure hunters. Now the quest for this coveted prize is about to heat up. And Cotton Malone–former U.S. Justice Department agent turned rare-book dealer–will be drawn into an intense geopolitical chess game. <br><br>After narrowly escaping incineration in a devastating fire that consumes a Danish museum, Cotton learns from his friend, the beguiling adventurer Cassiopeia Vitt, that the blaze was neither an accident nor an isolated incident. As part of campaign of arson intended to mask a far more diabolical design, buildings across Europe are being devoured by infernos of unnatural strength.

And from the ashes of the U.S.S.R., a new nation has arisen: Former Soviet republics have consolidated into the Central Asian Federation. At its helm is Supreme Minister Irina Zovastina, a cunning despot with a talent for politics, a taste for blood sport, and the single-minded desire to surpass Alexander the Great as history’s ultimate conqueror. <br>Backed by a secret cabal of powerbrokers, the Federation has amassed a harrowing arsenal of biological weapons. Equipped with the hellish power to decimate other nations at will, only one thing keeps Zovastina from setting in motion her death march of domination: a miraculous healing serum, kept secret by an ancient puzzle and buried with the mummified remains of Alexander the Great–in a tomb lost to the ages for more than 1,500 years.<br><br>Together, Cotton and Cassiopeia must outrun and outthink the forces allied against them. Their perilous quest will take them to the shores of Denmark, deep into the venerated monuments of Venice, and finally high inside the desolate Pamir mountains of Central Asia to unravel a riddle whose solution could destroy or save millions of people–depending on who finds the lost tomb first.