Anne always seems to find herself getting into scrapes! This easy-to-read adaptation of L.M. Montgomery's classic is guaranteed to hook beginning readers not yet ready to tackle the original.

    Whether addressing the smothered desire of suburban housewives, the white-collar despair of Manhattan office workers or the heartbreak of a single mother with artistic pretensions, Yates ruthlessly examines the hopes and disappointments of ordinary people with empathy and humour.Contents: Doctor Jack-o'-Lantern --The best of everything --Jody rolled the bones --No pain whatsoever --A glutton for punishment --A wrestler with sharks --Fun with a stranger --The B.A.R. man --A really good jazz piano --Out with the old --Builders --Oh, Joseph, I'm so tired --A natural girl --Trying out for the race --Liars in love --A compassionate leave --Regards at home --Saying goodbye to Sally --The canal --A clinical romance --Bells in the morning --Evening on the Cote d'Azur --Thieves --A private possession --The comptroller and the wild wind --A last fling, like --A convalescent ego.

    Ballard has been one of Britain's most celebrated novelists. From the beginning he has been equally admired for his distinctive and highly influential short stories, the first of which - "Prima Belladonna" and "Escapement" - appeared in Science Fantasy and New Worlds in 1956. Now, all of his published stories - including four not previously featured in a collection - have been arranged in the order of original publication, providing an unprecedented opportunity to review the career of one of Britain's greatest writers.A Washington Post Best Book of 2009, Boston Globe Best Book, Los Angeles Times Favorite Book, and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book.Contents:- Prima Belladonna [Vermilion Sands] (1956)- Escapement (1956)- The Concentration City (1957, variant of Build-Up)- Venus Smiles [Vermilion Sands] (1957)- Manhole 69 (1957)- Track 12 (1958)- The Waiting Grounds (1959)- Now: Zero (1959)- The Sound-Sweep (1960)- Zone of Terror (1960)- Chronopolis (1960)- The Voices of Time (1960)- The Last World of Mr. Goddard (1960)- Studio 5, The Stars [Vermilion Sands] (1961)- Deep End (1961)- The Overloaded Man (1961)- Mr F. is Mr F. (1961)- Billennium (1961)- The Gentle Assassin (1961)- The Insane Ones (1962)- The Garden of Time (1962)- The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista [Vermilion Sands] (1962)- Thirteen to Centaurus (1962)- Passport to Eternity (1962)- The Cage of Sand (1962)- The Watch-Towers (1962)- The Singing Statues [Vermilion Sands] (1962)- The Man on the 99th Floor (1962)- The Subliminal Man (1963)- The Reptile Enclosure (1963)- A Question of Re-Entry (1963)- The Time-Tombs (1963)- Now Wakes the Sea (1963)- The Venus Hunters (1963)- End-Game (1963)- Minus One (1963)- The Sudden Afternoon (1963)- The Screen Game [Vermilion Sands] (1963)- Time of Passage (1964)- Prisoner of the Coral Deep (1964)- The Lost Leonardo (1964)- The Terminal Beach (1964)- The Illuminated Man (1964)- The Delta at Sunset (1964)- The Drowned Giant (1964)- The Gioconda of the Twilight Noon (1964)- The Volcano Dances (1964)- The Beach Murders (1966)- The Day of Forever (1966)- The Impossible Man (1966)- Storm-Bird, Storm-Dreamer (1966)- Tomorrow Is a Million Years (1966)- The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race (1966)- Cry Hope, Cry Fury! [Vermilion Sands] (1967)- The Recognition (1967)- The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D [Vermilion Sands] (1967)- Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan (1968)- The Dead Astronaut (1968)- The Comsat Angels (1968)- The Killing Ground (1969)- A Place and a Time to Die (1969)- Say Goodbye to the Wind [Vermilion Sands] (1970)- The Greatest Television Show on Earth (1972)- My Dream of Flying to Wake Island (1974)- The Air Disaster (1975)- Low-Flying Aircraft (1975)- The Life and Death of God (1976)- Notes Towards a Mental Breakdown (1976)- The 60 Minute Zoom (1976)- The Smile (1976)- The Ultimate City (1976)- The Dead Time (1977)- The Index (1977)- The Intensive Care Unit (1977)- Theatre of War (1977)- Having a Wonderful Time (1978)- One Afternoon at Utah Beach (1978)- Zodiac 2000 (1978)- Motel Architecture (1978)- A Host of Furious Fancies (1980)- News from the Sun (1981)- Memories of the Space Age (1982)- Myths of the Near Future (1982)- Report on an Unidentified Space Station (1982)- The Object of the Attack (1984)- Answers to a Questionnaire (1985)- The Man Who Walked on the Moon (1985)- The Secret History of World War 3 (1988)- Love in a Colder Climate (1989)- The Enormous Space (1989)- The Largest Theme Park in the World (1989)- War Fever (1989)- Dream Cargoes (1990)- A Guide to Virtual Death (1992)- The Message from Mars (1992)- Report from an Obscure Planet (1992)

    This collection includes the revised and updated translations by Paul Roche of the Oedipus cycle, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone, as well as all-new translations of Ajax, The Women of Trachis, Electra, and Philocetes.

    Exploring many of the same themes as in his longer works, these small masterpieces move from the tender and romantic White Nights, an archetypal nineteenth-century morality tale of pathos and loss, to the famous Notes from the Underground, a story of guilt, ineffectiveness, and uncompromising cynicism, and the first major work of existential literature. Among Dostoevsky's prototypical characters is Yemelyan in The Honest Thief, whose tragedy turns on an inability to resist crime. Presented in chronological order, in David Magarshack's celebrated translation, this is the definitive edition of Dostoevsky's best stories.

    But when they start work on a Salinas Valley ranch things start to go wrong. A compelling tale that will haunt all who read it.

    But as both a writer and an African American, he is offended and angered by the success of We's Lives in Da Ghetto, the exploitative debut novel of a young, middle-class black woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days." Hailed as an authentic representation of the African American experience, the book is a national bestseller and its author feted on the Kenya Dunston television show. The book's success rankles all the more as Monk's own most recent novel has just notched its seventh rejection." "Even as his career as a writer appears to have stalled, Monk finds himself coping with changes in his personal life. In need of distraction from old memories, new responsibilities, and his professional stagnation, Monk composes, in a heat of inspiration and energy, a fierce parody of the sort of exploitative, ghetto wanna-be lit represented by We's Lives in Da Ghetto." But when his agent sends this literary indictment (included here in its entirety) out to publishers, it is greeted as an authentic new voice of black America. Monk - or his pseudonymous alter ego, Stagg R. Leigh - is offered money, fame, success beyond anything he has known. And as demand begins to build for meetings with and appearances by Leigh, Monk is faced with a whole new set of problems.

    The novels that followed established her as a master of Southern Gothic. "McCullers' gift," writes Joyce Carol Oates, "was to evoke, through an accumulation of images and musically repeated phrases, the singularity of experience, not to pass judgment on it." McCullers effortlessly conveyed the raw anguish of her characters and the weird beauty of their perceptions. Set in small Georgia towns that are at once precisely observed and mythically resonant, McCullers' novels explore the strange, sometimes grotesque inner lives of characters who are often marginal and misunderstood. Above all, McCullers possessed an unmatched ability to capture the bewilderment and fragile wonder of adolescence. In The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, an enigmatic deaf-mute draws out the haunted confessions of an itinerant worker, a young girl, a black doctor, and the widowed owner of a small-town café. Two shorter works, Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941) and The Ballad of the Sad Café (1943), use melodramatic scenarios and freakish characters to explore the disfiguring violence of desire. The Member of the Wedding (1946), on which the play and film were based, tells of a young girl's fascination with her brother's wedding and is perhaps McCullers' most moving and accomplished novel. In Clock Without Hands (1960), the story of a terminally ill druggist, McCullers produces some of her most forceful and indignant social criticism. Edited by Carlos Dews.

    Soon after his parents, German-speaking Jews, had perished at the hands of the Nazis, Celan wrote "Todesfuge" ("Deathfugue"), the most compelling poem to emerge from the Holocaust. Self-exiled in Paris, for twenty-five years Celan continued writing in his German mother tongue, although it had "passed through the thousand darknesses of deathbringing speech." His writing purges and remakes that language, often achieving a hope-struck radiance never before seen in modern poetry. But in 1970, his psychic wounds unhealed, Celan drowned himself in the Seine. This landmark volume includes youthful lyrics, unpublished poems, and prose. All poems appear in the original and in translation on facing pages. John Felstiner's translations stem from a twenty-year immersion in Celan's life and work. John Bayley wrote in the New York Review of Books, "Felstiner translates ... brilliantly."

    In "Pastor Dowe at Tecaté," a Protestant missionary is sent to a faraway place where his God has no power. In "Call at Corazón," an American husband abandons his alcoholic wife on their honeymoon in a South American jungle. In "Allal," a boy's drug-induced metamorphosis into a deadly serpent leads to his violent death. Here also are some of Bowles's most famous works, including "The Delicate Prey," a grimly satisfying tale of vengeance, and "A Distant Episode," which Tennessee Williams proclaimed "a masterpiece."

    Moving fluidly between the past and the present - between a young girl choosing which belt she'll be whipped with each night and her older self at the bedside of her dying father - it is an ultimately cathartic tale of hope, healing and forgiveness.

    Carter the Great—is a young master performer whose skill as an illusionist exceeds even that of the great Houdini. But nothing in his career has prepared Carter for the greatest stunt of all, which stars none other than President Warren G. Harding and which could end up costing Carter the reputation he has worked so hard to create. Filled with historical references that evoke the excesses and exuberance of Roaring Twenties, pre-Depression America, Carter Beats the Devil is a complex and illuminating story of one man's journey through a magical—and sometimes dangerous—world, where illusion is everything.

    Reviewing the work in The New Republic, James Wood wrote that this groundbreaking volume "represents a triumph of translating, editing, and publishing. Beautiful to hold, scholarly and also popularly accessible, it is an enactment of love." Considered one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, Isaac Babel has left his mark on a generation of readers and writers. This book will stand as Babel's final, most enduring legacy. Winner of the Koret Jewish Book Award; A New York Times Notable Book, a and Library Journal Best Book, a Washington Post Book World Rave, a Village Voice Favorite Book of the Year.

    This Nordic Prize-winning novel, a truly gripping epic, relates the lives of four generations of a unique and strange family with touching intimacy and surreal comedy.Traces four generations of a family marked by the untimely birth of Fred, a misfit and boxer conceived during a devastating rape who forges an unusual friendship with his younger half-brother, Barnum.

    + XXXVIII) ranges from Gorgias and Plato to Sigmund Freud and Mikhail Bakhtin. Each of the 147 contributions has a headnote introducing the writer and making connections to other critics, theorists and movements. An introduction surveys the history of theory and criticism.

    A college student visiting her brassy, unconventional aunt stumbles on an astonishing secret and its meaning in her own life. An incorrigible philanderer responds with unexpected grace to his wife’s nursing-home romance. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage is Munro at her best, tirelessly observant, serenely free of illusion, deeply and gloriously humane.

    Shy, afflicted with a stutter, and struggling with his sexuality, Will Parker comes to New York to escape the provincial western towns where he grew up. In New York, he finds himself surrounded for the first time by people who understand and celebrate his quirks and flaws. He also begins an unforgettable love affair with a volatile, six-foot-five African-American drag queen and performance artist named Rose. But even as he is falling in love with Rose and growing into himself, Will must watch as AIDS escalates from a rumor into a devastating tragedy. When a vicious riot erupts in a local park, Will seizes the chance to repay the city for all it has taught him, in a climax that will leave readers shaken, fulfilled, and changed. "In the City of Shy Hunters is so finely crafted ... you'll think you've been reading a modernist classic." -- Peter Kurth, Salon.com "Spanbauer's genius resides even in the asides ... teas[ing] out the genuine complexity of human love." -- Thomas McGonigle, The Washington Post Book World "Ambitious and compelling ... a mixture of the ghastly, the hilarious, and the curiously touching." -- John Hartl, The Seattle Times "In the City of Shy Hunters has the earmarks of a literary landmark ... Its importance and originality are unmistakable." -- Laura Demanski, The Baltimore Sun

    Against a broad historical canvas, the novel centers on the interplay between its female protagonist, Sun Meiniang, and the three paternal figures in her life. One of these men is her biological father, Sun Bing, an opera virtuoso and a leader of the Boxer Rebellion. As the bitter events surrounding the revolt unfold, we watch Sun Bing march toward his cruel fate, the gruesome “sandalwood punishment,” whose purpose, as in crucifixions, is to keep the condemned individual alive in mind-numbing pain as long as possible.Filled with the sensual imagery and lacerating expressions for which Mo Yan is so celebrated, Sandalwood Death brilliantly exhibits a range of artistic styles, from stylized arias and poetry to the antiquated idiom of late Imperial China to contemporary prose. Its starkly beautiful language is here masterfully rendered into English by renowned translator Howard Goldblatt.

     It's gonna be. I believe. The Giants win the pennant. The Giants win the pennant. The Giants win the pennant. The Giants win the pennant." -- Russ Hodges, October 3, 1951 On the fiftieth anniversary of "The Shot Heard Round the World," Don DeLillo reassembles in fiction the larger-than-life characters who on October 3, 1951, witnessed Bobby Thomson's pennant-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. Jackie Gleason is razzing Toots Shor in Leo Durocher's box seats; J. Edgar Hoover, basking in Sinatra's celebrity, is about to be told that the Russians have tested an atomic bomb; and Russ Hodges, raw-throated and excitable, announces the game -- the Giants and the Dodgers at the Polo Grounds in New York. DeLillo's transcendent account of one of the iconic events of the twentieth century is a masterpiece of American sportswriting.

    Stanton provides an intriguing look at Tolkien's fantasyscape that ultimately shows how all of these parts meld into a singularly compelling work of art that lives and breathes.

    But above all, Amis is concerned with literature, and with the deadly cliches–not only of the pen, but of the mind and the heart. In The War Against Cliché, Amis serves up fresh assessments of the classics and plucks neglected masterpieces off their dusty shelves. He tilts with Cervantes, Dickens and Milton, celebrates Bellow, Updike and Elmore Leonard, and deflates some of the most bloated reputations of the past three decades. On every page Amis writes with jaw-dropping felicity, wit, and a subversive brilliance that sheds new light on everything he touches.

    Included, too, are facsimiles of the memorable original illustrations for the Alice books by the eminent English artist, Sir John Tenniel. Tenniel's drawings won instant renown for their perfect integration with the text. Other illustrations in this richly satisfying collection are by the well-known artist, Henry Holiday.

    The Weary Blues announced the arrival of a rare voice in American poetry. A literary descendant of Walt Whitman ("I, too, sing America," Hughes wrote), he chanted the joys and sorrows of black America in unprecedented language. A gifted lyricist, he offered rhythms and cadences that epitomized the particularities of African American creativity, especially jazz and the blues. His second volume, steeped in the blues and controversial because of its frankness, confirmed Hughes as a poet of uncompromising integrity. Then in the 1930s came Dear Lovely Death (1931) and the radical A New Song (1938). Poems such as "Good Morning Revolution" and "Let America Be America Again" made his pen one of the most forceful in America during the Great Depression.

    As the title implies, this is certainly not a novel -- not in the general sense of the term. And yet a reader who follows the flow will gradually notice certain novelistic conventions insinuating themselves. Writer -- as the narrator refers to himself -- is tired of inventing characters and subjecting them to the rigors of plot development. Instead, historical personages from Dickens to Beethoven recur throughout the book: They re born, create, speak fondly or acidly of their own work and the work of others, and then die. (Death, in fact, is a major concern of Writer.) Works of art interlock and interrelate; diary entries, attributions, and critical comments jostle for position. But what at first appear to be random bits of historical trivia ultimately come together with a narrative logic: a beginning, middle, and end. So while Markson has jettisoned the standard conflict-and-resolution pattern of a novel, he nevertheless fashions a literary journey that gets somewhere. Indeed, the book s conclusion will come as an intensely moving surprise to those who reach it. Does Writer even exist in a book without characters? the narrator wonders. Passing through a period of aging and self-doubt, Writer looks deeply inside himself over the course of the book and worries about his very purpose. The real question hovering in the margins of this beguiling work is, Why do I write? Many an artist suffers under the burdens of posterity, the sinking feeling that words and works will fade with the passage of time. Eventually, though, this particular Writer answers in a qualified affirmative, for he realizes himself to be the main character in his own life. That which is not a novel, he implies, is life itself; creating art is what the artist does to live. In the end, out of a shared sense of mortality and its frailties and beauties, we can only agree. (Jonathan Cook)

    The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God gathers his daring and provocative short stories for the first time in English. Brief, intense, painfully funny, and shockingly honest, Keret's stories are snapshots that illuminate with intelligence and wit the hidden truths of life. As with the best comic authors, hilarity and anguish are the twin pillars of his work. Keret covers a remarkable emotional and narrative terrain-from a father's first lesson to his boy to a standoff between soldiers caught in the Middle East conflict to a slice of life where nothing much happens. Bus Driver includes stories from Keret's bestselling collections in Israel, Pipelines and Missing Kissinger, as well as Keret's major new novella, "Kneller's Happy Campers," a bitingly satirical yet wistful road trip set in the afterlife for suicides.

    A small child when he comes to England on a Kindertransport in the summer of 1939, one Jacques Austerlitz is told nothing of his real family by the Welsh Methodist minister and his wife who raise him. When he is a much older man, the fleeting memories return to him, and obeying an instinct he only dimly understands, he follows their trail back to the world he left behind a half century before. There, faced with the void at the heart of twentieth-century Europe, he struggles to rescue his heritage from oblivion.

    For Christians who are fans of Tolkien, Smith compares the tales of the Hobbits to those of spirituality, wherein God calls those that listen to embark on a journey.

    The heteronyms launch movements and write manifestos, and one of them attempts to break up Pessoa's only known romantic relationship. Also included is a generous selection from Pessoa's masterpiece, The Book of Disquiet, freshly translated by Richard Zenith from newly discovered materials. The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa is an important record of a crucial part of the literary canon.

    As television, video games, and the Internet threaten to distract young people from the solitary pleasures of reading, Bloom presents a volume that will amuse, challenge, and beguile readers with its myriad voices and subjects. Here are old favorites by beloved writers of children's literature, as well as exciting rediscoveries and wonderful works penned by writers better known for their adult classics, such as Herman Melville, Leo Tolstoy, Edith Wharton, and Walt Whitman. Encompassing the natural world and the supernatural; childhood, romance, and death; pets, wild animals, and goblins; mystery, adventure, and humor; the selections reflect the passion and erudition of our most revered literary critic. Arranged by season, Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages is a must-have anthology, sure to delight readers young and old for years to come.

    Honey for a Woman's Heart explores: * The wonder of words, language, and reading * What good books offer thoughtful readers * What makes a good book * The value of reading fiction * Best books in genres of fiction, nonfiction, spirituality, and poetry * How to enjoy the best of books: the Bible * The pleasure of sharing books with others * Something for everyone, no matter what age or reading experience * Recommendations for over 500 books to enjoy Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. Proverbs 16:24

    Andor Weér, a thirty-six-year-old writer, lives in a cramped apartment with his shut-in mother, Rebeka, who was once among the most celebrated stage actresses in Budapest. Unable to withstand her maniacal tyranny but afraid to leave her alone, their bitter interdependence spirals into a Sartrian hell of hatred, lies, and appeasement. Then Andor meets the beautiful and nurturing Eszter, a woman who seems to have no past, and they fall wildly in love at first sight. With a fulfilling life seemingly within reach for the first time, Andor decides that he is ready to bring Eszter home to meet Mother. Though Bartis’s characters are unrepentantly neurotic and dressed in the blackest humor, his empathy for them is profound. A political farce of the highest ironic order, concluding that "freedom is a condition unsuitable for humans," Tranquility is ultimately, at its splanchnic core, a complex psychodrama turned inside out, revealing with visceral splendor the grotesque notion that there’s nothing funnier than unhappiness.

    He wrote his poetry in Urdu and Farsi (1873-1938), and that bridged and encompassed the past many centuries of man's endeavours in the realms of thought and intuition. He emblazoned the high standards set by Mirza Asadullah Khan 'Ghalib', and glorified the literature in his own way. He was a scholarly personality, and wrote on various subjects, from philosophy to politics, from romance to emotions and so on. He wrote world famous poem 'sare jahan se acha Hindustan hamara' and many other such 'nazams' which are even today considered as great poetical creations. He was honoured with the title 'sir' by the British Government for his contributions to the literature.The present collection is a representative of Iqbal's Urdu poetry, which has been transliterated into English verses, with translation into Devanagari (Hindi) and Roman script. The English translation has been done by Khwaja Tariq Mahmood, who earlier translated the poems of Mirza Ghalib and Sahir Ludhianvi, and is now working on many other collections.

    1973: industrial strikes, bad pop music, corrosive class warfare, adolescent angst, IRA bombings. Four friends: a class clown who stoops very low for a laugh; a confused artist enthralled by guitar rock; an earnest radical with socialist leanings; and a quiet dreamer obsessed with poetry, God, and the prettiest girl in school. As the world appears to self-destruct around them, they hold together to navigate the choppy waters of a decidedly ambiguous decade.

    Their arch enemy Chauvelin and the Committee of Public Safety are never far behind, whilst back in England the beautiful Marguerite maintains her devotion.­

    “Every time my father went hunting he would bring back live baby animals. We fed them, took care of them, and brought them up ourselves. Each of us had our own special pet - one had a lively fox-cub, another a baby donkey and my youngest sister had a guinea-pig.” There are tales of a pair of wolf cubs, a deer, a donkey, a tiger cub, a fox, and a horse.

    This anthology provides extensive introductions to the plays and poems-offering discussion topics, sources for each play, and the stage history of performances.

    -- Presents the most important 20th-century criticism on major works from The Odyssey through modern literature-- The critical essays reflect a variety of schools of criticism-- Contains critical biographies, notes on the contributing critics, a chronology of the author's life, and an index

    The cry of the soul in love with God has never been more eloquently expressed than by the great Persian Sufi master Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273). Readers have thrilled to his ecstatic songs of divine union for more than eight hundred years. Now, here is the collection of the best of Rumi's poetry reissued as part of a new series with Pema Chodron, Thich Nhat Hanh, H.H. the Dalai Lama, and more. The Shambhala Pocket Library is a collection of short, portable teachings from notable figures across religious traditions and classic texts. The covers in this series are rendered by Colorado artist Robert Spellman. The books in this collection distill the wisdom and heart of the work Shambhala Publications has published over 50 years into a compact format that is collectible, reader-friendly, and applicable to everyday life.

    This full-length collection includes individual lyric poems as well as a previously published chapbook Sea Lyrics and a new collaborative piece "Dumb Duke Death" with illustrations by Jennifer Jarnot.

    Spanning more than a half century, from an impassioned essay on human nature, wartime atrocities, and their challenge to ethical beliefs, written in 1942 in the form of a letter to his friend Jerzy Andrzejewski, to brief biographical sketches and poetic prose pieces from the late 1990s, this volume presents Milosz the prose writer in all his multiple, beguiling guises. The incisive, sardonic analyst of the seductive power of communism is also the author of tender, elegiac portraits of friends famous and obscure; the witty commentator on Polish complexes writes lyrically of the California landscape. Two great themes predominate in these essays, several of which have never appeared before in English: Milosz's personal struggle to sustain his religious faith, and his unswerving allegiance to a poetry that is "on the side of man."

    T. S. Eliot, bowled over by Joyce's brilliant manipulation of a continuous parallel between ancient myth and modern life, called it "the most important expression which the present age has found ... [one] to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape."Ulysses depicts a world that is as fully conceived and vibrant as anything in Homer or Shakespeare. It has been delighting and puzzling readers since it was first published on Joyce's 40th birthday, February 2, 1922.It is, perhaps, a book whose pleasures you've always wanted to learn to savor but never quite worked yourself up to reading. And who can blame you? After all, Joyce himself famously boasted that "I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant!"This is where Professor Heffernan's lectures help. Whether or not you have read this book, you'll find that his lectures, the fruit of decades of distinguished teaching, make an excellent guide to the many-layered pleasures of this modern epic.Illuminating the dramatic and artistic integrity behind the novel's most notoriously challenging passages, he explains why this frank, pathbreaking novel was praised as a landmark and damned as obscene—even banned—as soon as it first appeared.

    Their juxtaposing stories—and those of others close to them—unfold against a volatile backdrop of oil-boom opulence, fear, hatred, lynchings that climax in the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, when whites burned the city's properous black community. Askew's award-winning first novel, The Mercy Seat, was praised for its astute diepiction of family bonds and the beauty of American landscape. Now she explores the American race story with the same perception.

    Cummings's affirmation of life resolved into serenity as he described himself as someone "whose only happiness is to transcend himself, whose every agony is to grow." This collection of Cummings reading his own poetry embodies this in an unforgettable way.While perhaps best remembered for his use of such visual devices as typography and punctuation, the sheer sound of Cummings's work imparts a greater, deeper understanding of how its cadences reveal its profound meaning. This rich sampling of his poems and lectures is rendered in what the great Robert Graves called Cummings "own beautifully modulated voice."

    An author whose works have appeared in many languages, Eco is also the translator of G?rard de Nerval's Sylvie and Raymond Queneau's Exercices de style from French into Italian. In Experiences in Translation he draws on his substantial practical experience to identify and discuss some central problems of translation. As he convincingly demonstrates, a translation can express an evident deep sense of a text even when violating both lexical and referential faithfulness. Depicting translation as a semiotic task, he uses a wide range of source materials as illustration: the translations of his own and other novels, translations of the dialogue of American films into Italian, and various versions of the Bible. In the second part of his study he deals with translation theories proposed by Jakobson, Steiner, Peirce, and others.Overall, Eco identifies the different types of interpretive acts that count as translation. An enticing new typology emerges, based on his insistence on a common-sense approach and the necessity of taking a critical stance.

    Popular author Rabbi Daniel Lapin digs into the "holy" Hebrew language -- which not only conveys data but, as linguists know, also contains it. On a fascinating treasure hunt, his book decodes eternal wisdom embedded in the ancient tongue on relationships, human pleasure, life's meaning, and more. With real-life anecdotes, drawn from his lifetime in the rabbinate, the author uncovers a wealth of insights intended for our enrichment and enjoyment. A practical, easy read which will fascinate, entertain, and instruct us in the awesomeness of the Lord's language.

    His work has up until now only been available in anthologies and short selections. This volume contains all his major poetic work including the prose poetry and some prose pieces. Trakl's models were Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Verlaine. His admirers include Rilke, Kafka, Karl Kraus, and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein who was one of his patrons. This is a bilingual edition with German/English on facing pages.

    A couple suspects their friends think them boring; a woman resolves to see herself as nothing but then concludes she's set too high a goal; and a funeral home receives a letter rebuking it for linguistic errors. Lydia Davis once again proves in the words of the Los Angeles Times "one of the quiet giants in the world of American fiction."

    The protagonist, Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, a Tamil boy from Pondicherry, explores issues of spirituality and practicality from an early age. He survives 227 days after a shipwreck while stranded on a boat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

    Hosokawa. Roxane Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening—until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers.

    LGBT Studies. One of SPD's bestselling authors, Kevin Killian's stories have had wide circulation among the avant-garde for many years. The poems in ARGENTO SERIES are loosely organized around the films of the great Italian/Brazilian filmmaker Dario Argento, whose take on the horror/thriller genre have made him arguably the most censored filmmaker in modern film history. But AIDS, and more specifically death, are as commonly the real subject of these poems, and Killian's ability to blend a light, transgressive, O'Hara-like wit with his sense of loss allows these poems to achieve something that is not mere sentimentality. For those who wonder how AIDS can be written about without indulging in cliches, Killian's book will come as a revelation and a gift.

    This selection of critical writings reveals a different side of the great writer--the deep and serious reader of literature and philosophy, and the eloquent and original thinker about society and art. This illuminating collection includes "The Portrait of Mr. W. H.," "In Defense of Dorian Gray," reviews, and the writings from Intentions (1891), including "The Decay of Lying," "Pen, Pencil, Poison," and "The Critic as Artist."For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

    Soon the backwoods are transformed into a parish and Joseph Becker, a woodcarver, is brought together with his future wife. Decades later when an architect plans a memorial to the Canadian dead in France, their grandchild Klara must use her family skills - to carve, and to create.

    His fiction and poetry burn with a passionate commitment to political justice, bringing to life not only Africa's troubled encounters with Europe but also the dark side of contemporary African political life. Now, in Home and Exile, Achebe reveals the man behind his powerful work.

    Book 1 in this new series introduces the reader to life in 18th Century England, where, despite being one of the freest countries in the world there were rumblings of discontent amongst the citizens and Jake Frake is no exception to this endemic restlessness. From an early age he has developed an independent mind and spirit, a trait that is not openly welcomed for someone of his lowly class. Fate and circumstance leads him to join a band of smugglers and he furthers their cause. Jack himself is sentenced to eight years of servitude in the Colonies and he embarks on a sea voyage aboard the Sparrowhawk, destined for Virginia.

    This acclaimed dictionary is an invaluable introduction to the theories and theorists in the field and will prove an authoritative resource for all students.

    It contains stories from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and The Hound of the Baskervilles.The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes:Comprising the series of short stories that made the fortunes of the Strand, the magazine in which they were first published, this volume won even more popularity for Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Holmes is at the height of his powers in many of his most famous cases, including "The Red-Headed League," "The Speckled Band," and "The Blue Carbuncle."The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes:Eleven of the best and most popular tales of the immortal sleuth include "Silver Blaze," concerning the "curious incident of the dog in the night-time"; "The Greek Interpreter," starring Holmes' even more formidable brother, Mycroft; and "The Final Problem," the detective's notorious confrontation with arch-criminal Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls.The Hound of the Baskervilles:Holmes and Watson are faced with their most terrifying case yet. The legend of the devil-beast that haunts the moors around the Baskerville families home warns the descendants of that ancient clan never to venture out in those dark hours when the power of evil is exalted. Now, the most recent Baskerville, Sir Charles, is dead and the footprints of a giant hound have been found near his body. Will the new heir meet the same fate?

    Together with The Beggar, The Thief and The Dogs, and Autumn Quail (published by Anchor in December 2000), these novels represent a comprehensive collection of Mahfouz’s artful meditations on post-revolution Egypt. Diverse in style and narrative technique, they render a nuanced and universally resonant vision of modern life in the Middle East.Respected Sir, “a latter-day Bleak House in Arabic” (The New York Times), revisits a familiar theme–vaulting ambition–in a powerful and religious metaphor. Wedding Song, “one of Mahfouz’s most enjoyable works” (The Chicago Tribune), is a psychological drama, focusing on how four very different kinds of minds apprehend and reckon with the realities that surround them. The Search is a powerful, lurid, and compelling story of lust, greed, and murder.

    But Briony’s incomplete grasp of adult motives and her precocious imagination bring about a crime that will change all their lives, a crime whose repercussions Atonement follows through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century.

    One of this platoon’s section commanders was a 20-year old regular soldier called Bob Kearney, who led a series of deadly patrols, operating in isolation and extreme danger ahead of the main Australian forces.

    What keeps him there? It could be his bright, sensitive daughter Tick, who needs all his help surviving the local high school. Or maybe it’s Janine, Miles’ soon-to-be ex-wife, who’s taken up with a noxiously vain health-club proprietor. Or perhaps it’s the imperious Francine Whiting, who owns everything in town–and seems to believe that “everything” includes Miles himself. In Empire Falls Richard Russo delves deep into the blue-collar heart of America in a work that overflows with hilarity, heartache, and grace

    Suddenly, this longtime church member and pillar of her small Southern community finds herself in the center of an unseemly scandal-and the guardian of a wan nine-year-old whose mere presence turns her life upside down. With razor-sharp wit and perfect "Steel Magnolia" poise, Miss Julia speaks her mind indeed-about a robbery, a kidnapping, and the other disgraceful events precipitated by her husband's death. Miss Julia Takes Over - Miss Julia has come to terms with her onetime rival, Hazel Marie, and is now the guardian of Little Lloyd. Now Hazel Marie has disappeared, and Miss Julia has to find her. With Little Lloyd by her side, she sets off across North Carolina, and encounters enough obstacles and adventures to tax even Miss Julia's amazing and ingenious survival skills.

    One reason she has become a timeless icon of mystery for many readers is that her developmental phases have not been clarified. In this exhaustively researched biography, Alfred Habegger presents the first thorough account of Dickinson's growth-a richly contextualized story of genius in the process of formation and then in the act of overwhelming production.Building on the work of former and contemporary scholars, My Wars Are Laid Away in Books brings to light a wide range of new material from legal archives, congregational records, contemporary women's writing, and previously unpublished fragments of Dickinson's own letters. Habegger discovers the best available answers to the pressing questions about the poet: Was she lesbian? Who was the person she evidently loved? Why did she refuse to publish and why was this refusal so integral an aspect of her work? Habegger also illuminates many of the essential connection sin Dickinson's story: between the decay of doctrinal Protestantism and the emergence of her riddling lyric vision; between her father's political isolation after the Whig Party's collapse and her private poetic vocation; between her frustrated quest for human intimacy and the tuning of her uniquely seductive voice.The definitive treatment of Dickinson's life and times, and of her poetic development, My Wars Are Laid Away in Books shows how she could be both a woman of her era and a timeless creator. Although many aspects of her life and work will always elude scrutiny, her living, changing profile at least comes into focus in this meticulous and magisterial biography.From the Hardcover edition.

    Ranging in scope from the short novels Hadj Murad and The Kreutzer Sonata to folktales only a few pages long, they bring us intimately into the world of the great Russian novelist.

    A far-reaching exploration of the idea of creation in Western thought, literature, religion, and history, this volume can fairly be called a magnum opus. He reflects on the different ways we have of talking about beginnings, on the "coretiredness" that pervades our end-of-the-millennium spirit, and on the changing grammar of our discussions about the end of Western art and culture. With his well-known elegance of style and intellectual range, Steiner probes deeply into the driving forces of the human spirit and our perception of Western civilization's lengthening afternoon shadows.Roaming across topics as diverse as the Hebrew Bible, the history of science and mathematics, the ontology of Heidegger, and the poetry of Paul Celan, Steiner examines how the twentieth century has placed in doubt the rationale and credibility of a future tense -- the existence of hope. Acknowledging that technology and science may have replaced art and literature as the driving forces in our culture, Steiner warns that this has not happened without a significant loss. The forces of technology and science alone fail to illuminate inevitable human questions regarding value, faith, and meaning. And yet it is difficult to believe that the story out of Genesis has ended, Steiner observes, and he concludes this masterful volume of reflections with an eloquent evocation of the endlessness of beginnings.

    With subjects ranging from history to baseball to crime novels, A Jacques Barzun Reader is a feast for any reader.

    Included are theoretical texts, aberrant journalism, and highly-wrought Symbolist poems; a practical guide to building a time machine; and the bizarre dramatic buffoonery that presaged Jarry's invention of his most famous character, Pere Ubu. Andre Breton had to devise his notion of "Black Humor" to adequately describe and account for the arcane absurdity of Jarry's work.

    Jimmy Santiago Baca introduces us to a man and woman before they are acquainted and re-creates their first meeting, falling in love, their decision to make a family, the eventual realization of each other's irreconcilable faults, the resulting conflicts, the breakup and hostility, and, finally, their transcendence of the bitterness and resentment. Throughout the relationship we are privy to the couple's astonishing range of emotions: the anguish of loneliness, the heady rush of new love, the irritations and joys of raising children, the difficulties in truly knowing someone, the doldrums of breakup, and so on. It is impossible not to identify with these characters and to recognize one's own experience in theirs.As he weaves this story, Baca explores many of his traditional themes: the beauty and cruelty of the desert lands where he has spent much of his life, the grace and wisdom of animals, the quiet dignity of life on small Chicano farms. This is an extraordinary work from one of our finest poets.

    

    And images of a fantastic idyll complete with falling stars, the sound of the sea, and beautiful countryside. In the hands of Surrealists, though, love poetry also includes gravediggers and murderers, dice and garbage, snakeskin purses and "the drunken kisses of cyclones." Surrealism, the movement founded in the 1920s on the ashes of Dada's nihilism, embraced absurdity, contradiction, and, to a supreme extent, passion and desire. From André Breton's battle cry of "Mad Love" to the quiet lyricism of Robert Desnos, Surrealist writers and artists obsessively expressed the permutations of that fundamental human state, love, and they did so with the vocabulary of natural and unnatural worlds, the explicit language of sex, and a great deal of humor.Surrealist Love Poems brings together sixty poems by Surrealists who charged their work with all forms of eroticism. Expertly and energetically edited by Mary Ann Caws, this collection seeks to demonstrate the truth of Breton's words, that "the embrace of poetry like that of bodies / As long as it lasts / Shuts out all the woes of the world.""Erotic, impassioned and necrophilic, the sixty works gathered in Surrealist Love Poems celebrate the idea of obsessive and transformative love. 'I want to sleep with you side by side. . . . Stretched out on your shadow / Hammered by your tongue / To die in a rabbit's rotting teeth / Happy' writes Joyce Mansour. . . . Caws places poems by major surrealist writers like André Breton and Paul Eluard, along with the poetry of Picasso, Dalí, and Frida Kahlo, side by side with fourteen lushly printed and alluring black-and-white photos by the likes of Man Ray, Lee Miller, and Claude Cahun."—Publishers Weekly

    - Comprehensive reading and study guides for some of the world's most important literary masterpieces- Concise critical excerpts provide a scholarly overview of each work- "The Story Behind the Story" details the conditions under which the work was written- Each book includes a biographical sketch of the author, a descriptive list of characters, an extensive summary and analysis, and an annotated bibliography

    Even if you already know your Hunter S Thompson from your Jim Thompson, you''ll still find it hard to resist a book which tells you which cult novel has been implicated in assassinations, which world famous novelist offered to throw himself off a train to prove his devotion to his literary idol and which cult poet and prose stylist inspired a Broadway musical and the Velvet Underground. There''s a critical guide to over 150 cult authors - from Kathy Acker to Yevgeny Zamyatin, including potted biographies, their must reads, and their surprising influences. Reviews of 100 cult novels - seminal works by authors who never quite achieved cult status themselves but still produced one classic work. Finally, there''s a cult collection - a feast of literary trivia which categorises writers by the diseases they suffered for their art, reveals 12 literary giants who wrote standing up, and pores over the little known fictional epics of Sarah Bernhardt and Benito Mussolini.

    This collection offers for the first time hundreds of Craddock stories told in his own words and a glimpse of his life.

    Book by Barbara Weiden Boyd

    This fascinating parallel biography of Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso as young men examines their greatest creations -- Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and Einstein's special theory of relativity. Miller shows how these breakthroughs arose not only from within their respective fields but from larger currents in the intellectual culture of the times. Ultimately, Miller shows how Einstein and Picasso, in a deep and important sense, were both working on the same problem.

    Lewis' wisdom, humor, and joy in life shines through on every page of the seven books that comprise The Chronicles of Narnia. He gave each of his many characters their own unique perspectives on life--and each of them has something special to say to all of us. In this treasury of excerpts and quotes from The Chronicles of Narnia, readers will find comfort, inspiration, and pleasure on every page. While certainly appealing to the many fans of Narnia, this book will also hold special significance for those who like to final meaning in parcel-sized bits of wisdom.

    Now this classic history is being reissued, with a new foreword byacclaimed biographer Arnold Rampersad.As Rampersad notes, Harlem Renaissance remains an indispensable guide to the facts and features, the puzzles and mysteries, of one of the most provocative episodes in African-American and American history. Indeed, Huggins offers a brilliant account of the creative explosion in Harlem during thesepivotal years. Blending the fields of history, literature, music, psychology, and folklore, he illuminates the thought and writing of such key figures as Alain Locke, James Weldon Johnson, and W.E.B. DuBois and provides sharp-eyed analyses of the poetry of Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, and LangstonHughes. But the main objective for Huggins, throughout the book, is always to achieve a better understanding of America as a whole. As Huggins himself noted, he didn't want Harlem in the 1920s to be the focus of the book so much as a lens through which readers might see how this one moment in timesheds light on the American character and culture, not just in Harlem but across the nation. He strives throughout to link the work of poets and novelists not only to artists working in other genres and media but also to economic, historical, and cultural forces in the culture at large.This superb reissue of Harlem Renaissance brings to a new generation of readers one of the great works in African-American history and indeed a landmark work in the field of American Studies.

    The Native American way of life has kept its people close to their living roots. To Become a Human Being--to rise to an expanded level of consciousness by living on the Earth as it was intended for us to live--captures the essence of Native American wisdom, in the words of Tadodaho Chief Leon Shenandoah, high chief among the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy, and revered spiritual leader.Using tapes of conversations made over a thirteen-year period, Wall recreates Chief Shenandoah's message in a unique free-flowing voice. What's more, Wall enhances the message with the dramatic photographs that have made each of his creations, including the bestselling Wisdomkeepers, not just books, but treasures.

    But just before his début, his parents -- his father a famous playwright, and his mother a renowned opera singer -- are exposed for their political indiscretions and held under arrest. With World War II on the brink, and fearing that his own entrapment is not far behind, Alexeï flees to the countryside, assumes the identity of a Soviet soldier, and falls dangerously in love with a general officer's daughter. What follows is a two-decades-long journey through war and peace, love and betrayal, art and artifice -- a rare ensemble in the making of the music of a life.

    From the expressionism of his early prose pieces to his very last work, JOSEPHINE, these stories cover the full range of Kafka's writing career, culminating in THE METAMORPHOSIS, which Elias Canetti described as "one of the few great and perfect works of poetic imagination written during this century." Kafka's stories, argues Borges in his foreword, are superior even to his novels, which is why this collection "gives us the full dimesion of this unique writer.' J.A Underwood's acclaimed translation gives the reader all the chilling atmosphere of Kafka's darkly comic universe, as reflected in the commanding precision of his language.

    Spanning the entire range of Roth's brief life (1894-1939) and showcasing the breadth of his literary powers, this collection features many stories just recently discovered. Roth's novellas and short stories will rank with Chekhov's as among the greatest of modern literature.

    Capturing the beauty and pain of two extraordinary love affairs separated by a gulf of 2000 years, this book explores true emotion, loss, and the healing power of forgiveness.

    What's less well known about Hughes is that for much of his life he maintained a friendship with Carl Van Vechten, a flamboyant white critic, writer, and photographer whose ardent support of black artists was peerless.Despite their differences — Van Vechten was forty-four to Hughes twenty-two when they met–Hughes’ and Van Vechten’s shared interest in black culture lead to a deeply-felt, if unconventional friendship that would span some forty years. Between them they knew everyone — from Zora Neale Hurston to Richard Wright, and their letters, lovingly and expertly collected here for the first time, are filled with gossip about the antics of the great and the forgotten, as well as with talk that ranged from race relations to blues lyrics to the nightspots of Harlem, which they both loved to prowl. It’s a correspondence that, as Emily Bernard notes in her introduction, provides “an unusual record of entertainment, politics, and culture as seen through the eyes of two fascinating and irreverent men.

    This celebratory volume, published on the occasion of the Nobel laureate's 90th birthday, brings together a selection of the more personal, reflective pieces that have appeared over the past seven years. They reveal a writer concerned as always with the human condition, with his own thought processes, and with the craft of writing, offering rare insights into the way a great writer thinks and works. The range and quality of writing is even more remarkable when one remembers that since a nearly fatal knife attack in 1994, the injuries Mahfouz sustained, combined with his failing eyesight, have made it almost impossible for him to write. But as a man who has devoted his life to the written word, Mahfouz now prepares his weekly articles through conversations with his friend Mohamed Salmawy, who has selected and gathered the pieces in this collection. Mahfouz fans and anyone interested in learning more about the life, times, and thoughts of one of the major figures of modern Arabic literature will find this volume an essential addition to their bookshelf.

    For the first time ever, ORWELL AND POLITICS brings this major work together with the author's other works exploring the nature of politics and the Second World War.

     Portrayed by actor Benjamin Bratt in the 2001 feature film Pinero, the poet's works are as rough and gritty as the New York City underworld he wrote about and loved. "So here I am, look at me / I stand proud as you can see / pleased to be from the Lower East / a street fighting man / a problem of this land / I am the Philosopher of the Criminal Mind / a dweller of prison time / a cancer of Rockefeller's ghettocide / this concrete tomb is my home." His depictions of pimp bars, drug addiction, petty crime, prison culture and outlaw life all drawn from first-hand experience astound the faint-hearted, as Pinero poetizes an outlaw vernacular meant to shock proper, bourgeois culture. This long-awaited collection includes previously published and never-before-published poems; ten plays, including Short Eyes, which was later made into a film and won the 1973-1974 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best American Play, The Sun Always Shines for the Cool, and Eulogy for a Small Time Thief. A co-founder of the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe, Pinero died at the age of 41, leaving behind a compelling legacy of poetry and plays that reveal the harsh, impoverished lives of his urban Puerto Rican community.

    Proposing models of hybridity, each of the book's major sequences develops a unique subject, rhythm, and form. Bringing to light the molten potential at the core of personality, the poems illuminate ways that language, as history read by anthropologists, discourse between lovers, gestures between parent and child, graffiti in temples, or even language as an event in itself (the very experience of words at play), incarnates presence. Addressing father and son relationships, and venerating erotic love, Gander's poems surge with vitality: the energy of active discovery.

    But Marisol's mother doesn't know if she can afford a party, and Magdalena became friends with two girls Marisol cannot stand while Marisol was away. Marisol wonders if her year in Panama changed her.

    Four Unexpected Prophets Who Shine Light into the Darkness

    The centerpiece of this collection offers a moving description of life on his son's cattle farm, capturing Brown's deep-seated attachment to his family and to the land. In other pieces, Brown takes readers inside the writing cabin he built, chronicles his attempt to outsmart a wily coyote intent on killing the farm's baby goats, and reveals his reactions to being constantly compared to William Faulkner, a writer inspired by the same geography. Threaded through each piece are warm reflections on the Southern musicians and authors who influenced his writings. At once entertaining and insightful, "Billy Ray's Farm" brilliantly illuminates how a great writer responds, personally and artistically, to the patch of land he lives on, providing a wonderful look into the mysterious sources of a writer's motivation.

    This complete collection of verse shows the bush balladeer at his very best with favorites such as "A Bush Christening," "The Man from Ironbark," "Clancy of the Overflow," and the immortal "The Man from Snowy River."A.B. Banjo Paterson was born in Australia in 1864 and wrote poetry and fiction from 1900 until his death in 1941.

    Tate seems both awed and bemused by small town life, with its legends, flights of fancy, heightened emotions, tragedies and small ruptures in the fabric of ordinary existence.

    3 cassette tapes (Unabridged: 3 hours, 42 minutes). This volume includes the following unabridged works with music and sound effects: THE OUTSTATION is the simple tale of two men who, locked in bitter enmity, must nevertheless somehow get along in a remote British colonial outpost in post World War I Borneo. Mr. Warburton is the classic Edwardian snob. His new assistant, Cooper, is a crude bully. As tension between the two men increases, tragedy lurks. This is one of the greatest short stories in the English language! APPEARANCE & REALITY is an amusing story of a wealthy Frenchman and his new mistress. He is quite proud of his new conquest until he discovers there is a catch to the relationship. THE THREE FAT WOMEN OF ANTIBES is an extremely funny tale of three very large women and their attempt to maintain dietary discipline in the face of an unexpected challenge. Friendships are strained to the breaking point. MR. KNOW-ALL displays Maugham's gift for humor with a subtle touch. A gadfly passenger on board a ship makes a nuisance of himself, but displays the supreme virtue of compassion in a situation that demands the ultimate in self-control and sacrifice. A masterpiece! FRENCH JOE is a very powerful tale of an expatriot Frenchman whose amazing adventures in life seem to count for nothing. His emotional death-bed confessions on a godforsaken South Pacific island are evocative and fascinating. But the wry conclusion is pure Maugham. MASTERSON, set in Southeast Asia, is filled with human compassion and poignancy. It is the story of a colonial whose search for a housekeeper lands him in an ardent attachment to a local native woman who wants more than he is prepared to bestow.

    Featuring a selection of Chandler's previously unpublished early writings - including a gripping piece about his combat experiences in World War I - and an abandoned profile of the infamous mobster "Lucky" Luciano, The Raymond Chandler Papers is a must-have for all true fans and an important contribution toward understanding the life and work of the enigmatic man Evelyn Waugh called "the greatest living American novelist."

    She draws on recently discovered material to shed new light on Wright's relationships with Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, and others, and on his self-imposed exile in France (widely blamed for his so-called decline as a writer). In this lively, finely crafted narrative, Wright -- passionate, complex, courageous, and flawed -- comes vibrantly to life.

    His characters, from the yearning Irina of Three Sisters and the vain, self-centered Arkadina in The Sea-gull to the crude but tenderhearted Lopahin in The Cherry Orchard, are riveting embodiments of the frailty of the human condition, presented with stunning clarity and naturalism, that have fascinated actors, playgoers, and readers for more than a century. As Kenneth Rexroth writes in his Introduction, "We accept these tragic comedies... the way we would accept life itself if we were gifted with sudden wisdom."Three Plays contains those works many consider the apex of Chekhov's dramatic achievement: The Sea-gull, Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard. Presented here in classic translations by Constance Garnett, these plays testify to Chekhov's enduring influence on the modern drama.

    As fresh today as when they were first performed, these stories are just right for entertaining the whole family!

    Illustrated with more than 100 photographs and boasting contributions from a team of internationally renowned scholars (including such noted Shakespeare authorities as Helen Vendler, Park Honan, and Jonathan Bate), the Companion has more than 3,000 entries that offer succinct, stimulating, and authoritative commentary on Shakespeare's life and times, his plays and poems, and their interpretation around the world over the last four centuries. All Shakespeare's plays--from As You Like It and All's Well that Ends Well to King Lear and Hamlet--are covered in major articles. There are concise descriptions of allusions in Shakespeare (Ajax, Agamemnon), well-known critics (Samuel Johnson, John Dryden), great Shakespearian actors (Richard Burbage, Lawrence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh), characters in the plays (Mercutio, Ophelia), figures of speech (metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron), and much more. Longer articles explore topics such as Shakespeare's birthplace, censorship, the Chamberlain's Men, film, and Shakespeare's reception in such countries as China, Italy, and the United States. Bringing its readers up to date not only with the latest in Shakespearian scholarship and controversy but with the plays' most recent incarnations on stage, film, and in international popular culture, this is the perfect companion to Shakespeare's works, covering everything from Aaron to Zeffirelli, and from Shakespeare in schools to Shakespeare in Love.

    Here, listeners can experience his riveting style both from his own voice and from one of America's most esteemed actors.The Snows of Kilimanjaro: Performed by Charlton Heston, I this is a classic story of a hard-drinking, ruthless and womanizing world adventurer who comes face-to-face with the one antagonist he cannot conquer: his own ignoble and imminent death.The Old Man and the Sea: Also performed by Heston and nominated for a Grammy, this recording of Hemingway's Pulitzer Prize-winning story is a perfect example of his literary I precision.Ernest Hemingway Reads: A rich sampling of Hemingway's brilliant, multifaceted writing which the Nation said "provides his readers the opportunity to listen for and appreciate the Hemingway wit. " Includes: The Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech; Second Poem to Mary; In Harry's Bar in Venice; The Fifth Column; Work in Progress; Saturday Night at the Morehouse in Billings, Montana.Read by Charlton Heston and Ernest Hemingway

    Anaguil, an Armenian girl taken in by Turkish neighbors after the death of her parents who now views the remains of her world through a Muslim veil; Sargis, a poet hidden away in his mother's attic, dressed in women's clothing, and steadily going mad; Lucine, a servant and lover of the American consul; Maritsa, a rage-filled Muslim wife who becomes a whore; and Dickran, an infant left behind under a tree on the long exodus from an Armenian village, who reaches with tiny hands to touch the stars and dies with his name unrecorded.Through the lives depicted in Three Apples Fell From Heaven, we witness the vanishing of a people. Together, the stories of these lives form a narrative mosaic--faceted, complex, richly textured, a devastating tableau.

    Now published in six paperback volumes (packaged in two attractive slipcases), the new anthology boasts slimmer volumes, thicker paper, a bolder typeface, and dozens of newly included or newly translated works from around the world. The Norton Anthology of World Literature represents continuity as well as change. Like its predecessor, the anthology is a compact library of world literature, offering an astounding forty-three complete longer works, more than fifty prose works, over one hundred lyric poems, and twenty-three plays. More portable, more suitable for period courses, more pleasant to read, and more attuned to current teaching and research trends, The Norton Anthology of World Literature remains the most authoritative, comprehensive, and teachable anthology for the world literature survey.