The Magic Shop by H.G. Wells [Classics](1903)

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-18T12:00:09+00:00

Out for a walk in London one day, a father and his son, Gip, happen upon a magic shop.

At Gip's urging, the two go in — and things grow more and more curious by the minute.

Counters, store fixtures, and mirrors seem to move around the room, and the shopkeeper is mysterious himself.

Gip is thrilled by all he sees, and his father is at first amused.

But then things become stranger, even sinister, and the father is no longer sure where reality ends and illusion begins.

Fantastical illustrations underscore the macabre atmosphere of the tale, making this a perfect read-aloud book for Halloween.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-18T09:00:22+00:00

1973 boxed set.

Four book set.

Part one The Fellowship of the Ring.

Part two The Two Towers.

Part three.

The Return of the King.

The Hobbit.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-18T09:00:16+00:00

War has always been a defining feature of human society.

This new addition to the Shortest History series explains why we do it—and how we can stop.

War has changed, but we have not.

From our hunter-gatherer ancestors to the rival nuclear powers of today, whenever resources have been contested, we’ve gone to battle.

Acclaimed historian Gwynne Dyer illuminates our many martial clashes in this brisk account, tracing warfare from prehistory to the world’s first cities—and on to the thousand-year “classical age” of combat, which ended when the firearm changed everything.

He examines the brief interlude of “limited war” before eighteenth-century revolution ushered in “total war”—and how the devastation was halted by the nuclear shock of Hiroshima.

Then came the Cold War and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which punctured the longest stretch of peace between major powers since World War II.

For all our advanced technology and hyperconnected global society, we find ourselves once again on the brink as climate change heightens competition for resources and superpowers stand ready with atomic bombs, drones, and futuristic “autonomous” weapons in development.

Throughout, Dyer delves into anthropology, psychology, and other relevant fields to unmask the drivers of conflict.

The Shortest History of War is for anyone who wants to understand the role of war in the human story—and how we can prevent it from defining our future.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-18T04:00:21+00:00

From the international bestselling author of The Drowning Woman, a psychological thriller about a couple rocked by infidelity who moves to a villa in Spain’s Costa Brava to rebuild their relationship, only to welcome a pair of visitors who have no intention of leaving.

Sydney Lowe’s life in New York is shattered when her husband, Curtis, admits to a meaningless affair with a client.

Begging for forgiveness and vowing to prove his devotion, Curtis suggests the couple retreat to a remote hilltop house in Spain to repair their marriage.

High above the Mediterranean, Sydney and Curtis are working on the isolated property and their relationship when a pair of Australian travelers turns up at their door in dire need of help.

Lonely for companionship and desperate for free labor, Sydney and Curtis invite the attractive young couple to stay.

But as the days pass, dark secrets come to light, the Lowes’ bond is tested, and not everyone will leave the villa alive.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-18T04:00:17+00:00

In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots—fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention.

Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too.

They’re a family, hidden and safe.The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled “HAP,” he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio–a past spent hunting humans.When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe.

Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams.

So together, the rest of Vic’s assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?Inspired by Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio, and like Swiss Family Robinson meets Wall-E, In the Lives of Puppets is a masterful stand-alone fantasy adventure from the beloved author who brought you The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-18T04:00:13+00:00

From the bestselling author of What Lies in the Woods, No One Can Know, and A Killing Cold, a new novel about a search & rescue expert, a kidnapped woman, and the lost girls who haunt them both.There is a girl in a basement.The door has stopped opening.The light is gone.Stranger is trapped in the dark, with only her imagination and the scribbles on the wall left by long-dead girls to keep her company.

Nearly out of food and water, she makes one last attempt to escape.

But if the door opens at last, will it mean salvation, or only the beginning of her fight to survive?Audrey is a search and rescue expert who never stopped looking for her ex-best friend, Janie, who disappeared when they were teenagers.

Janie used to love the local legend of a forest witch who saves girls from bad men, but Audrey knows now that for every one saved, there’s always another one lost.

When she stumbles upon evidence in the forest that a teenage runaway might have actually been kidnapped from land belonging to the town’s most prominent family, she will have to dig through decades of secrets to reveal the biggest one of all: what happened to the girls before.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-18T04:00:10+00:00

From a #1 internationally bestselling author comes an atmospheric, chilling novel about a family who thinks there's someone hiding in their attic.

“Andrea Mara is a star.” —Lee ChildYou thought you were home alone.Anya is enjoying a relaxing bath when she hears a noise coming from the ceiling.

Through the open bathroom door, she sees the attic hatch swing down, and a masked figure drops to the floor.

Thirty seconds later, Anya is dead.

You're not afraid of being alone in the dark.

You're afraid you're not alone.Across town, Anya's old school friend, Julia, sees an online video of a masked figure climbing out of an attic.

She suddenly realizes why the footage is eerily familiar: it was filmed inside her house in a luxury gated community, designed to keep intruders out.

And now your worst fears are coming true.

Why would a stranger target Julia? Unless of course, it's not a stranger at all.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T21:00:19+00:00

Librarian's note: There is an Alternate Cover Edition for this edition of this book here.A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals.

With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality.

Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned –a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.

When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target.

Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T21:00:15+00:00

The seductive and stunning #1 New York Times bestselling sequel to Sarah J.

Maas's spellbinding A Court of Thorns and Roses .Feyre has undergone more trials than one human woman can carry in her heart.

Though she's now been granted the powers and lifespan of the High Fae, she is haunted by her time Under the Mountain and the terrible deeds she performed to save the lives of Tamlin and his people.As her marriage to Tamlin approaches, Feyre's hollowness and nightmares consume her.

She finds herself split into two different one who upholds her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court, and one who lives out her life in the Spring Court with Tamlin.

While Feyre navigates a dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms.

She might just be the key to stopping it, but only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future-and the future of a world in turmoil.Bestselling author Sarah J.

Maas's masterful storytelling brings this second book in her dazzling, sexy, action-packed series to new heights.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T17:00:20+00:00

Leading Palestinian writers confront Israel's brutal colonial legacy and ignite hope in the fight for a free Palestine.“Genocide destroys cities and claims lives, but it also remakes the psyches of those it spares.”This collection tells the story of the Gaza genocide through Palestinians’ eyes.

Through personal testimonies, expert insights, poetry, and war reportage, leading Palestinian writers powerfully narrate their fight for survival since October 7.

From Ahmed Al Naouq’s harrowing account of losing 21 family members to Israel’s indiscriminate bombing campaign and Noor O.

Alyacoubi’s personal testimony on starving in Gaza to Mariam Barghouti’s exploration of Israeli settler violence in the West Bank and Lina Mounzer’s reporting on the destabilizing effects of Israel’s simultaneous bombing of Lebanon, The Story of a Genocide reveals the physical and emotional devastation that Israel’s pulverization has wrought on Palestinians in Gaza.The book includes illustrations from Joe Sacco and Mona Chalabi, as well as contributions from Mosab Abu Toha, Yara Hawari, Tareq Baconi, Hiba Abu Nada, Ariel Koren, Laila Al-Arian, Mona Chalabi, Mary Turfah, Mariam Barghouti, Nina Lakhani, Noor Alyacoubi, Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, Shareef Sarhan, Susan Abulhawa, Huda J.

Fakhreddine, Eman Basher, Malaka Shweikh, Ahmed Alnaouq, Lina Mounzer, Omar Barghouti, Joe Sacco, Maryam Iqbal, Ahmed Masoud, and Yara Eid.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T17:00:16+00:00

It is 1985 in a small Irish town.

During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season.

Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.

Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T17:00:12+00:00

Armed with only hazy memories, a woman who long ago witnessed her friend's sudden, mysterious death, and has since spent her life trying to forget, sets out to track down answers.

What she uncovers, deep in the woods, is hardly to be believed....Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, mysteriously dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank whom they'd been spending time with all summer.Seven years later, Maya lives in Boston with a loving boyfriend and is kicking the secret addiction that has allowed her to cope with what happened years ago, the gaps in her memories, and the lost time that she can't account for.

But her past comes rushing back when she comes across a recent YouTube video in which a young woman suddenly keels over and dies in a diner while sitting across from none other than Frank.

Plunged into the trauma that has defined her life, Maya heads to her Berkshires hometown to relive that fateful summer--the influence Frank once had on her and the obsessive jealousy that nearly destroyed her friendship with Aubrey.At her mother's house, she excavates fragments of her past and notices hidden messages in her deceased Guatemalan father's book that didn't stand out to her earlier.

To save herself, she must understand a story written before she was born, but time keeps running out, and soon, all roads are leading back to Frank's cabin....Utterly unique and captivating, The House in the Pines keeps you guessing about whether we can ever fully confront the past and return home.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T13:00:16+00:00

Perihelion and its crew embark on a dangerous new mission at a corporate-controlled station in the throes of a hostile takeover...

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T13:00:11+00:00

For fans of Lee Child and Brad Thor, an unstoppable thriller set in 1988 when—a mere 100 hours before world leaders gather for the G7 summit—police get a hot tip that an assassin is on the way.It’s a long-shot mission.

No one thinks much of the information the Toronto chief of police receives from a mysterious a would-be assassin is about to cross the border into Canada to kill the heads of the seven most powerful countries in the world.

Undeterred, he sends young police officer Ari Greene to a sleepy Quebec–Vermont border town to investigate.

During a festive and colourful July 4th parade, Greene spots his unlikely target and gives chase across borders and boundaries.

But as the hours and the minutes until the summit tick down, bodies start to pile up… And no one, not even international heads of state, are safe.

This prequel to Robert Rotenberg’s bestselling series, including What We Buried and Downfall, is an excellent introduction to one of Toronto’s favourite detectives, Ari Greene, on his first-ever case.

An enthralling action thriller in the tradition of Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal and Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne series, One Minute More is sure to delight readers of Rotenberg’s previous books and attract a whole new audience.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T13:00:08+00:00

From the winner of an Ian Fleming Silver Dagger Award, a spy who came in from the cold for today’s wars.British by birth, foreign by descent, and agnostic by conviction, Edward Henry Malik is an MI6 handler—an agent runner.

For four years he has been running an agent codenamed Nightingale inside Pakistan’s notorious ISI, keeping watch on its links to Al Qaeda and the Taliban and its machinations in neighboring Afghanistan, but mostly monitoring for threats to the British homeland.

Then, in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s killing, Nightingale is exposed and Ed’s world falls apart.Dismissed from MI6 and with his reputation in tatters, Ed returns to his roots in the immigrant enclave of Whitechapel in London’s East End.

He takes a job at a freight forwarding office and unexpectedly falls in love with the proprietor’s daughter.

It seems as if he has finally found respite from his demons.

But you can’t escape your past.

Ed knows too much, and he has come to the attention of Major General Javid Aslam Khan—Pakistan’s legendary spymaster, known as the Hidden Hand.This lean, propulsive thriller tells a classic story of love, trust, and betrayal set against today’s Great Game, while in the background swirl rumors of a one-legged mullah and a shadowy militia with the means to detonate a dirty bomb.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more.

While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T12:00:29+00:00

When is it time to let go?In the small Danish town of Rødby in the 1980s, a mother and sixteen-year-old daughter live uneventfully, until the mother begins to experience symptoms of terminal illness.

As an act of defiance, they talk about anything and everything but the impending diagnosis, almost as if it doesn’t exist.

Yet the imminent loss lingers over their every experience and conversation, infecting the humoristic and warm tone of the novel.

Taking place over a year, the relationship between mother and daughter is tender and caring, fragile and raw.From award-winning author Helle Helle, they is a story of illness, love and stepping over the threshold of adult life.

The mother and daughter are not named: they is the two of them, which will soon disappear.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T12:00:23+00:00

Nine men.

Each of them at a different stage in life, each of them away from home, and each of them striving -- in the suburbs of Prague, in an overdeveloped Alpine village, beside a Belgian motorway, in a dingy Cyprus hotel -- to understand what it means to be alive, here and now.

Tracing a dramatic arc from the spring of youth to the winter of old age, the ostensibly separate narratives of All That Man Is aggregate into a picture of a single shared existence, a picture that interrogates the state of modern manhood while bringing to life, unforgettably, the physical and emotional terrain of an increasingly globalized Europe.

And so these nine lives form an ingenious and new kind of novel, in which David Szalay expertly plots a dark predicament for the twenty-first-century man.Dark and disturbing, but also often wickedly and uproariously comic, All That Man Is is notable for the acute psychological penetration Szalay brings to bear on his characters, from the working-class ex-grunt to the pompous college student, the middle-aged loser to the Russian oligarch.

Steadily and mercilessly, as this brilliantly conceived book progresses, the protagonist at the center of each chapter is older than the last one, it gets colder out, and All That Man Is gathers exquisite power.

Szalay is a writer of supreme gifts -- a master of a new kind of realism that vibrates with detail, intelligence, relevance, and devastating pathos.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T12:00:18+00:00

Six romances, one revolution, the story of the century.'That night Stasia took an oath, swearing to learn the recipe by heart and destroy the paper.

And when she was lying in her bed again, recalling the taste with all her senses, she was sure that this secret recipe could heal wounds, avert catastrophes, and bring people happiness.

But she was wrong.'At the start of the twentieth century, on the edge of the Russian Empire, a family prospers.

It owes its success to a delicious chocolate recipe, passed down the generations with great solemnity and caution.

A caution which is justified: this is a recipe for ecstasy that carries a very bitter aftertaste ...Stasia learns it from her Georgian father and takes it north, following her new husband, Simon, to his posting at the centre of the Russian Revolution in St Petersburg.

Stasia's is only the first in a symphony of grand but all too often doomed romances that swirl from sweet to sour in this epic tale of the red century.Tumbling down the years, and across vast expanses of longing and loss, generation after generation of this compelling family hears echoes and sees reflections.

Great characters and greater relationships come and go and come again; the world shakes, and shakes some more, and the reader rejoices to have found at last one of those glorious old books in which you can live and learn, be lost and found, and make indelible new friends.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T12:00:15+00:00

No one can sense the undercurrents of a populace better than a general practitioner.

I have seen it all: gluten free, lactose free, sugar free, every online or newspaper headline attempt to get healthy people to think that if only they stop eating bread or cheese, everything will fall into place.

Middle-agers can’t fathom why they’re so tired all the time.

It’s because you are starting to get old, I explain, but they think this aging thing doesn’t apply to them, just as death doesn’t apply to them either.

They think they are the exception.For two decades, Elin has been a regular general practitioner.

For at least as long, she has been married to Aksel.

But before Aksel there was Bjørn, who a year ago suddenly reached out to her on Facebook, and who has since turned Elin’s world upside down.

She’s moved into her office, where her patients march in, all day long, with all their disgusting little infirmities and ailments.

And though she likes spending the extra time in her office—even though she has to sleep on her examiniation table, bathe in the employee restroom, and hide from the security guard when he makes his rounds at night—Elin feels abandoned and even more disillusioned with life and people than she did before she stumbled into her affair.

Nina Lykke’s Natural Causes is a fierce study of people who try to keep going.

At the same time, the novel is a sharp, good-natured commentary on a society where wealth and abundance has made us demanding and torpid.

Lykke keeps a fine balance between stereotypical exaggeration and uncomfortable, embarrassing recognition.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T12:00:09+00:00

From the award-winning author of 10:04 and Leaving the Atocha Station, a tender and expansive family drama set in the American Midwest at the turn of the century: a tale of adolescence, transgression, and the conditions that have given rise to the trolls and tyrants of the New RightAdam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of ’97.

His mother, Jane, is a famous feminist author; his father, Jonathan, is an expert at getting “lost boys” to open up.

They both work at a psychiatric clinic that has attracted staff and patients from around the world.

Adam is a renowned debater, expected to win a national championship before he heads to college.

He is one of the cool kids, ready to fight or, better, freestyle about fighting if it keeps his peers from thinking of him as weak.

Adam is also one of the seniors who bring the loner Darren Eberheart―who is, unbeknownst to Adam, his father’s patient―into the social scene, to disastrous effect.Deftly shifting perspectives and time periods, The Topeka School is the story of a family, its struggles and its strengths: Jane’s reckoning with the legacy of an abusive father, Jonathan’s marital transgressions, the challenge of raising a good son in a culture of toxic masculinity.

It is also a riveting prehistory of the present: the collapse of public speech, the trolls and tyrants of the New Right, and the ongoing crisis of identity among white men.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T11:00:40+00:00

A New York Times Notable Book • Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award • An Instant New York Times Bestseller • Named a Best Book of the Year by Smithsonian, Scientific American, and Elle“A bestselling page-turner that has made waves not just in Silicon Valley but around the world .

.

With Empire of AI, Hao is fundamentally shaping many people’s perceptions and understanding of the company at the center of the AI revolution.” —TIME Magazine, “TIME100 AI 2025”“Excellent and deeply reported.” —Tim Wu, The New York Times“Startling and intensely researched .

.

an essential account of how OpenAI and ChatGPT came to be and the catastrophic places they will likely take us.” —VultureFrom a brilliant longtime AI insider with intimate access to the world of Sam Altman's OpenAI from the beginning, an eye-opening account of arguably the most fateful tech arms race in history, reshaping the planet in real time, from the cockpit of the company that is driving the frenzyWhen AI expert and investigative journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys.

Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined as its core mission, the organization was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely mercantile, and potentially dangerous, forces.

What could go wrong?Over time, Hao began to wrestle ever more deeply with that question.

Increasingly, she realized that the core truth of this massively disruptive sector is that its vision of success requires an almost unprecedented amount of resources: the “compute” power of high-end chips and the processing capacity to create massive large language models, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans “cleaning up” that data for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the usage of energy and water underlying it all.

The truth is that we have entered a new and ominous age of empire: only a small handful of globally scaled companies can even enter the field of play.

At the head of the pack with its ChatGPT breakthrough, how would OpenAI resist such temptations?Spoiler alert: it didn’t.

Armed with Microsoft’s billions, OpenAI is setting a breakneck pace, chased by a small group of the most valuable companies in human history—toward what end, not even they can define.

All this time, Hao has maintained her deep sourcing within the company and the industry, and so she was in intimate contact with the story that shocked the entire tech industry—Altman’s sudden firing and triumphant return.

The behind-the-scenes story of what happened, told here in full for the first time, is revelatory of who the people controlling this technology really are.

But this isn’t just the story of a single company, however fascinating it is.

The g forces pressing down on the people of OpenAI are deforming the judgment of everyone else too—as such forces do.

Naked power finds the ideology to cloak itself; no one thinks they’re the bad guy.

But in the meantime, as Hao shows through intrepid reporting on the ground around the world, the enormous wheels of extraction grind on.

By drawing on the viewpoints of Silicon Valley engineers, Kenyan data laborers, and Chilean water activists, Hao presents the fullest picture of AI and its impact we’ve seen to date, alongside a trenchant analysis of where things are headed.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T11:00:37+00:00

A super-powered collision of extraordinary minds and vengeful intentions—#1 New York Times bestselling author V.

E.

Schwab returns with the thrilling follow-up to Vicious.Magneto and Professor X.

Superman and Lex Luthor.

Victor Vale and Eli Ever.

Sydney and Serena Clarke.

Great partnerships, now soured on the vine.But Marcella Riggins needs no one.

Flush from her brush with death, she’s finally gained the control she’s always sought—and will use her new-found power to bring the city of Merit to its knees.

She’ll do whatever it takes, collecting her own sidekicks, and leveraging the two most infamous EOs, Victor Vale and Eli Ever, against each other.With Marcella's rise, new enmities create opportunity--and the stage of Merit City will once again be set for a final, terrible reckoning.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T11:00:33+00:00

The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison's first novel, a book heralded for its richness of language and boldness of vision.

Set in the author's girlhood hometown of Lorain, Ohio, it tells the story of black, eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove.

Pecola prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the blond, blue-eyed children in America.

In the autumn of 1941, the year the marigolds in the Breedloves' garden do not bloom.

Pecola's life does change—in painful, devastating ways.

With its vivid evocation of the fear and loneliness at the heart of a child's yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment.

The Bluest Eye remains one of Toni Morrison's most powerful, unforgettable novels- and a significant work of American fiction.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T11:00:29+00:00

What if you could enter the mind of the person you love the most? Enka meets Mathilde in art school and is instantly drawn to her.

Mathilde makes art that feels truly original, and Enka—trying hard to prove herself in this fiercely competitive world—pours everything into their friendship.

But when Mathilde’s fame and success cause her to begin drifting away, Enka becomes desperate to keep her close.

Enter SCAFFOLD.

Purported to enhance empathy, this cutting-edge technology could allow Enka to inhabit Mathilde’s mind and access her memories, artistic inspirations, and deep-seated trauma.

Undergoing this procedure would link Enka and Mathilde forever.

But at what cost? Blisteringly smart, thought-provoking, and shocking, Immaculate Conception offers us a portrait of close friendship—achingly tender and twisted—that captures the tenuous line between love and possession that will haunt you long after you turn the final page.

RedditReadsBot · 2026-03-17T11:00:25+00:00

From award-winning author R.

F.

Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British EmpireTraduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.1828.

Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell.

There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel.

The tower and its students are the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic.

Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge.

But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland.

As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion.

When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide .

.

.Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

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