Jeeves and the Impending Doom


P.G. Wodehouse - 2005
    Penguin first published Wodehouse in 1936, a year after Penguin was founded, and this volume offers two of the comic master's most-loved stories. In these two stories Bertie Wooster finds himself on a losing streak and lands himself at the mercy of his aunts, Dahlia and Agatha, and only Jeeves is capable of extricating him from disaster.- Jeeves and the Impending Doom- Jeeves and the Song of Songs

Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories


Truman Capote - 1958
    And nice girls don't, except, of course, Holly Golightly. Pursued by Mafia gangsters and playboy millionaires, Holly is a fragile eyeful of tawny hair and turned-up nose, a heart-breaker, a perplexer, a traveller, a tease. She is irrepressibly 'top banana in the shock department', and one of the shining flowers of American fiction.This edition also contains three stories: 'House of Flowers', 'A Diamond Guitar' and 'A Christmas Memory'.

The Innocence of Father Brown


G.K. Chesterton - 1911
    "How in Tartarus," cried Flambeau, "did you ever hear of the spiked bracelet?" -- "Oh, one's little flock, you know!" said Father Brown, arching his eyebrows rather blankly. "When I was a curate in Hartlepool, there were three of them with spiked bracelets." Not long after he published Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton moved from London to Beaconsfield, and met Father O'Connor. O'Connor had a shrewd insight to the darker side of man's nature and a mild appearance to go with it--and together those came together to become Chesterton's unassuming Father Brown. Chesterton loved the character, and the magazines he wrote for loved the stories. The Innocence of Father Brown was the first collection of them, and it's a great lot of fun.

A Hanging


George Orwell - 1931
    Orwell recounts a hanging at a Burmese prison.

Bears Discover Fire


Terry Bisson - 1990
    It brings together nineteen of Bisson's finest works for the first time in one volume, among them the darkly comic title story, which garnered the field's highest honors, including the Hugo, Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon, and Locus awards.Contents:Bears Discover Fire (1990)The Two Janets (1990)They're Made Out of Meat (1991)Over Flat Mountain (1990)Press Ann (1991)The Coon Suit (1991)George (1993)Next (1992)Necronauts (1993)Are There Any Questions? (1992)Two Guys from the Future (1992)The Toxic Donut (1993)Canción Autentica de Old Earth (1992)Partial People (1993)Carl's Lawn & Garden (1992)The Message (1993)England Underway (1993)By Permit Only (1993)The Shadow Knows (1993)

The Cop and the Anthem


O. Henry - 1904
    An O Henry twist at the end of the story, foils Soapy's new plans.

Being There


Jerzy Kosiński - 1968
    It is the story of Chauncey Gardiner - Chance, an enigmatic but distinguished man who emerges from nowhere to become an heir to the throne of a Wall Street tycoon, a presidential policy adviser, and a media icon. Truly "a man without qualities," Chance's straightforward responses to popular concerns are heralded as visionary. But though everyone is quoting him, no one is sure what he's really saying. And filling in the blanks in his background proves impossible. Being There is a brilliantly satiric look at the unreality of American media culture that is, if anything, more trenchant now than ever.

Tales of the City


Armistead Maupin - 1978
    A naïve young secretary, fresh out of Cleveland, tumbles headlong into a brave new world of laundromat Lotharios, pot-growing landladies, cut throat debutantes, and Jockey Shorts dance contests. The saga that ensues is manic, romantic, tawdry, touching, and outrageous—unmistakably the handiwork of Armistead Maupin.

American Fairy Tales


L. Frank Baum - 1901
    In Boston, five magical bon-bons make an ordinary senator, an ordinary professor, an ordinary girl and her ordinary parents do the most extraordinary things! A young cowboy lassoes Father Time; the dummy in Mr. Floman's department store window comes to life; and a tiny beetle gives a New England farmer and his wife a pump which pumps not water, but gold!Author of the much-loved Oz books, L. Frank Baum transforms the familiar with his magical mix of humor and enchantment. Most of the twelve stories in this delightful collection are set in America where, so it seems, modern fairies, knooks, and ryls are always causing the most astonishing things to happen! These tales will enchant both young and old. When American Fairy Tales first appeared, Baum's reputation as a storyteller had already been established by The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written in 1900. The twelve stories in this collection were originally syndicated weekly in at least five newspapers during the first half of 1901. The first book edition, which this facsimile reprints, came out later that year.

Queen Lucia


E.F. Benson - 1920
    Lucas, Lucia to her intimates, resides in the village of Riseholme, a pretty Elizabethan village in Worcestershire, where she vigorously guards her status as "Queen" despite occasional attempts from her subjects to overthrow her. Lucia’s dear friend Georgie Pillson both worships Lucia and occasionally works to subvert her power.

Ajax Penumbra 1969


Robin Sloan - 2012
    Ajax Penumbra seeks a book--the single surviving copy of the Techne Tycheon, a mysterious volume that has brought and lost great fortune for anyone who has owned it. Late one night, after another day of dispiriting dead ends, he stumbles across a 24-hour bookstore, and the possibilities before him expand exponentially.

Going to Meet the Man


James Baldwin - 1965
    But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it." The men and women in these eight short fictions grasp this truth on an elemental level, and their stories, as told by James Baldwin, detail the ingenious and often desperate ways in which they try to keep their head above water. It may be the heroin that a down-and-out jazz pianist uses to face the terror of pouring his life into an inanimate instrument. It may be the brittle piety of a father who can never forgive his son for his illegitimacy. Or it may be the screen of bigotry that a redneck deputy has raised to blunt the awful childhood memory of the day his parents took him to watch a black man being murdered by a gleeful mob.By turns haunting, heartbreaking, and horrifying--and informed throughout by Baldwin's uncanny knowledge of the wounds racism has left in both its victims and its perpetrators--Going to Meet the Man is a major work by one of our most important writers.

The Torah Codes


Ezra Barany - 2011
    When an intercepted note connects the landlord to a secret society, and a detective ends up dead, Nathan must abandon his home and everything familiar to him, open his heart to a tarot reader he has never met, and trust her with his life--just as the ancient scriptures have foretold.

What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?


Frederick Douglass - 1852
    Having escaped from slavery in the South at a young age, Frederick Douglass became a prominent orator and autobiographer who spearheaded the American abolitionist movement in the mid-nineteenth century. In this famous speech, published widely in pamphlet form after it was given to a meeting of the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society on July 5th, 1852, Douglass exposes the hypocrisy of America's claim to Christian and democratic ideals in spite of its legacy of enslavement. Personal and political, Douglass' speech helped inspire the burgeoning abolitionist movement, which fought tirelessly for emancipation in the decades leading up to the American Civil War. "What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?...What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim." Drawing upon his own experiences as an escaped slave, Douglass offers a critique of American independence from the perspective of those who had never been free within its borders. Hopeful and courageous, Douglass' voice remains an essential part of our history, reminding us time and again who we are, who we have been, and what we can be as a nation. While much of his radical message has been smoothed over through the passage of time, its revolutionary truth continues to resonate today. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Frederick Douglass' What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? is a classic of African American literature reimagined for modern readers.

Spock vs. Q


Cecilia Fannon - 1999
    Q AN ALIEN VOICES® PRODUCTION STARRING LEONARD NIMOY AND JOHN de LANCIE Written by Cecelia Fannon As the end of the twentieth century nears, an asteroid is hurtling toward Earth. When it hits, the impact will result in the end of all life on the planet.Ambassador Spock travels back in time to subtly warn Earth's inhabitants of impending doom while calling into question humanity's priorities. However, before the truth is told, the all powerful being Q appears and reminds Spock that he is prohibited from interfering in Earth's history. Besides, Q doesn't see mankind as something worth saving.This initial encounter between the two legendary characters explodes into a battle of wits as Spock cleverly befuddles Q with his own words. As barbs are exchanged, and humanity's flaws and wonders are laid bare, Spock's logic just may convince Q that Humans are indeed a species worthy of salvation, but will he be too late?In SPOCK VS. Q, Leonard Nimoy and John de Lancie again bring their characters to glorious life in the most lively and entertaining debate since Nixon vs. Kennedy. Recorded in front of a live audience, SPOCK VS. Q is a stirring audio program that could only come from Alien Voices.