Elizabeth Little

"Marissa Dahl ... travels to a small island off the coast of Delaware to work with the legendary--and legendarily demanding--director Tony Rees on a feature film with a familiar logline. Some girl dies ... Whatever the script is, her job is the same. She'll spend her days in the editing room, doing what she does best: turning pictures into stories. But she soon discovers that on this set, nothing is ... as it seems. There are rumors of accidents and indiscretions, of burgeoning scandals and perilous schemes. Half the crew has been fired. The other half wants to quit. Even the actors have figured out something is wrong. And no one seems to know what happened to the editor she was hired to replace. Then she meets the intrepid and incorrigible teenage girls who are determined to solve the real-life murder that is the movie's central subject, and before long, Marissa is drawn into the investigation herself. The only problem is, the killer may still be on the loose. And he might not be finished.

A Novel

Pretty As a Picture

After being released from prison on a technicality, Janie Jenkins tracks down the one lead she has on her mother's real killer and is startled by what she uncovers about her mother's past in a small South Dakota town.

Dear Daughter

Describes how linguistic patterns of a language provide insight into the country of origin, showing the importance and mutability of nouns, verbs, numbers, and modifiers and providing humorous anecdotes from the author's own attempt to speak in foreign tongues.

Confessions of a Language Fanatic

Biting the Wax Tadpole

Janie Jenkins hat alles: Ruhm, Geld und gutes Aussehen. Doch dann wird ihre Mutter ermordet – und alle Beweise sprechen gegen sie. Das Problem: Janie kann sich selbst nicht daran erinnern, was in jener Nacht geschehen ist. Als sie zehn Jahre später aus dem Gefängnis entlassen wird, macht sie sich auf die verzweifelte Suche nach der Wahrheit. Eine Spur führt sie in die kleine Stadt Adeline in South Dakota, wo sie unter falscher Identität Stück für Stück die Vergangenheit ihrer Mutter entschlüsselt. Warum musste diese sterben – und trägt Janie tatsächlich Schuld an ihrem Tod?

Roman

Mördermädchen

When Chinese shopkeepers tried to find a written equivalent of Coca-Cola, one set of characters they chose was pronounced “ke-kou ke-la.” It sounded right, but it literally translated as “bite the wax tadpole.” Language, like travel, is always stranger than we expect and often more beautiful than we imagine. In Biting the Wax Tadpole Elizabeth Little takes a decidedly unstuffy and accessible tour of grammar via the languages of the world—from Lithuanian noun declensions and imperfective Russian verbs to Ancient Greek and Navajo. And in one of the most courageous acts in the history of popular grammar books, she attempts to provide an explanation of verbal aspect that people might actually understand. Other difficult and pressing questions addressed in Biting the Wax Tadpole include: *Just what, exactly, the Swedish names of IKEA products mean *Why Icelandic speakers must decide if the numbers 1-4 are plural *How Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) was able to take an otherwise unexceptional pair of breakfast foods and turn them into literary fodder for generations *Why Joanie Loves Chachi was Korea’s highest rated television show ever *Why Basque grammar seems downright kooky to just about anyone who isn’t a native speaker

Julia Whelan

• Winner of the Strand Critics Award for Best First Novel • Nominated for the Barry and Macavity Awards for Best First Novel • Longlisted for the CWA John Creasy (New Blood) Dagger Award “Quick-witted and fast-paced, this debut mystery should be a hit with Gone Girl fans.” —People magazine "This is an all-nighter . . . The best debut mystery I've read in a long time."—Tana French “A really gutsy, clever, energetic read, often unexpected, always entertaining. I loved Janie Jenkins’s sassy voice and Elizabeth Little’s too. In the world of crime novels, Dear Daughter is a breath of fresh air.” —Kate Atkinson, New York Times bestselling author of Life After Life A sensational debut thriller featuring an unforgettable heroine who just might have murdered her mother Former “It Girl” Janie Jenkins is sly, stunning, and fresh out of prison. Ten years ago, at the height of her fame, she was incarcerated for the murder of her mother, a high-society beauty known for her good works and rich husbands. Now, released on a technicality, Janie makes herself over and goes undercover, determined to chase down the one lead she has on her mother’s killer. The only problem? Janie doesn’t know if she’s the killer she’s looking for. Janie makes her way to an isolated South Dakota town whose mysteries rival her own. Enlisting the help of some new friends (and the town’s wary police chief), Janie follows a series of clues—an old photograph, an abandoned house, a forgotten diary—and begins to piece together her mother’s seemingly improbable connection to the town. When new evidence from Janie’s own past surfaces, she’s forced to consider the possibility that she and her mother were more alike than either of them would ever have imagined. As she digs tantalizingly deeper, and as suspicious locals begin to see through her increasingly fragile facade, Janie discovers that even the sleepiest towns hide sinister secrets—and will stop at nothing to guard them. On the run from the press, the police, and maybe even a murderer, Janie must choose between the anonymity she craves and the truth she so desperately needs. A gripping, electrifying debut novel with an ingenious and like-it-or-not sexy protagonist, Dear Daughter follows every twist and turn as Janie unravels the mystery of what happened the night her mother died—whatever the cost.

Finché sarò tua figlia

Though we speak English as a nation, it's no secret that America is far from uniform. Spanish, in particular, has long been touted as the language that will figure into our national future; much has been written about the need to recognize it in our laws and schools. Yet billing America as a bilingual country is a gross misrepresentation. They speak Basque in Nevada, Hindi in San Jose, and Gullah in South Carolina. We speak European, Asian, and Native American languages, as well as hybrids like Creole and Spanglish. And Elizabeth Little's home--Queens, New York--is among the most ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse places on the planet. Small surprise, then, that Little felt a yearning to find the cultural and linguistic soul of the country. And she has done it in the most American way imaginable: on a road trip. This book is the result: a festive roadmap of the bounties of our country. We'll learn about the struggle of the French-speaking population of Maine to get along with the community around them; the traditional ways of the German-speaking Amish in Pennsylvania; and the rich history of the little-known African population of Nantucket. Elizabeth Little is a witty and endearing tourguide for this memorable and original trip.

Elizabeth Little

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