What happens when a man lives his life backwards, or a family owns a diamond as big as the Ritz Hotel?How can a boring girl become more popular, a careless young woman become more sensible, or a cut-glass bowl destroy a married woman's life?What does a young man do to save the girl that he likes from an evil ghost, or to forget old feelings for a woman when she marries another man?Read this collection of short stories by one of America's finest storytellers to find out.

    Wright interweaves familiar, coloquial speech with strikingly inventive language, leaving each poem a distinctive entity, yet interconnected by linked metaphors and images.

    Through richly detailed vignettes--by turns bitter, funny, and inspiring--he offers a stunning panorama of a neglected part of American history. 16 pages of photographs.

    The issues it tackled, from the failures of the drug war and criminal justice system to systemic bias in law enforcement and other social institutions, have become more urgent and central to the national conversation. The show's actors, such as Idris Elba, Dominic West, and Michael B. Jordan, have gone on to become major stars. Its creators and writers, including David Simon and Richard Price, have developed dedicated cult followings of their own. Universities use the show to teach everything from film theory to criminal justice to sociology. Politicians and activists reference it when discussing policy. When critics compile lists of the Greatest TV Shows of All Time, The Wire routinely takes the top spot. It is arguably one of the great works of art America has produced in the 20th century.But while there has been a great deal of critical analysis of the show and its themes, until now there has never been a definitive, behind-the-scenes take on how it came to be made. With unparalleled access to all the key actors and writers involved in its creation, Jonathan Abrams tells the astonishing, compelling, and complete account of The Wire, from its inception and creation through its end and powerful legacy.

     Wrapped in Love--Leah Atwood: Cara Scott doesn’t know why she stays in Weatheron. No career opportunities, no family, and no husband prospects. The only man who interests her, Jase McCade, doesn’t date, and hasn’t since a nasty breakup several years prior. Stuck in a rut, she contemplates leaving the only home she’s ever known. Jase McCade loves Cara, but a previous relationship leaves him hesitant to giveaway his heart. When he notices Cara has been down in the dumps lately, he knows he has to act soon or risk losing her. The annual Weatherton Christmas Extravaganza presents him with the perfect opportunity to show his love for her. Can a single weekend filled with Christmas charm change everything? The Heart of Christmas by Belle Calhoune: Christmas hasn’t been the same for Eden Lassiter since the death of her beloved grandmother four years ago. Gran was the heart of Christmas and Eden hasn’t embraced the spirit of the season ever since losing her. In fact, she’s lived a fairly reclusive life other than her job as a vet’s assistant at The Country Vet practice. When a stranger shows up at on Eden’s doorstep one stormy evening, she is shocked to discover the handsome man is none other than her childhood friend, Brady Shepard. He’s all grown up now and gorgeous. Now a veterinarian, Brady is taking over the practice for his ailing grandmother, Vicky Shepard, who happens to be Eden’s boss. As Eden and Brady begin to work together, Eden’s heart begins to open up to the spirit of the season…and to Brady. Moonlight and Mistletoe--Kristen Ethridge: Whitt Peoples knew this Christmas would be the worst holiday he could ever face, as he returned to Port Provident to say goodbye to his dying grandmother. He hopes to slip into town and back out without running into the family who turned their back on him when he was a kid. Samantha Spaeth isn’t afraid of anything, except the fact that she is running out of time to save one of Port Provident’s most historic landmarks. When Whitt asks her to navigate Port Provident’s history in order to help him discover the secrets from his own past, she accepts the challenge because she needs all the allies she can find to preserve the island’s heritage.Can a woman who lives for a love of the past make Christmas meaningful for a man who’s spent his whole life running away? Mistletoe Wedding Reunion--Danica Favorite: When Nate Higgins arrives for his best friend’s wedding weekend at a Colorado mountain lodge, the last person he expects to see is his old flame, Cordelia Blake. He’d always thought they’d be walking down the aisle as man and wife, not members of the same wedding party. When their unresolved past creates discord between the bride and groom, can Nate and Cordelia made amends long enough to save the wedding…and maybe find a way to have a wedding of their own? It Was You--Jessica Keller: Natalie Rhodes vowed she’d never return to King’s Cove. But after her business failed, she’s forced to go home. At Christmastime, no less. When Tanner Avery offers her a temporary job as a fill-in chef at the resort he runs, Natalie believes it could be her ticket out of town. However, growing feelings for Tanner along with a Christmas mystery end up making it more difficult to leave than Natalie ever imagined Forever Christmas Kiss--Jolene Navarro: Isabella Cortez is a small town librarian with a large family and has been in one too many weddings. This Christmas might be the worst. Not only is she still single, but she is standing in her twin brother’s second wedding.

    Here parody does not exclude the cri de coeur any more than seriousness excludes the joke. With surrealist volatility, these poems are the result of experiments that continue for the reader during each reading. Young moves from reworkings of creation myths, the index of the Norton Anthology of Poetry, pseudo reports and memos, collaged biographies, talking clouds, and worms, to memory, mourning, sexual playfulness, and deep sadness in the course of this turbulent book.

    ReeveThe biter bit / Wilkie CollinsMissing : page thirteen / Anna Katherine GreenA scandal in Bohemia / A. Conan DoyleThe rope of fear / Mary E. and Thomas W. HanshewThe safety match / Anton ChekhovSome Scotland Yard stories / Robert Anderson.

    Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

    Set in alluring Shanghai at the turn of the century, The Binding Chair intertwines the destinies of a Chinese woman determined to forget her past and a Western girl focused on the promises of the future.Beautiful, charismatic, destructive, May escapes an arranged marriage in rural nineteenth-century China for life in a Shanghai brothel, where she meets Arthur, an Australian whose philanthropic pursuits lead him into one scrape after another. As a member of the Foot Emancipation Society, Arthur calls on May not for his pleasure but for her rehabilitation, only to find himself immediately and helplessly seduced by the sight of her bound feet. Reforming May is out of the question, so love-struck Arthur marries her instead and brings her home to live with him, his sister and brother-in-law, and their two girls, Alice and Cecily. In Alice, May sees the possibility of redemption: a surrogate for a child she has lost. And it is to May that Alice turns for the love her own mother withholds. But when the twelve-year-old is caught preparing her aunt's opium pipe, she is shipped off to a London boarding school, far from the dangerous influence of the woman who will come to reclaim her and to control the whole family.The Binding Chair unfolds among scenes of astonishing beauty and cruelty, in a lawless place where traditions and cultures clash, and where tragedy threatens a world built on the banks of unsettled waters--from the bustling Whangpoo River to the lake of blood in the Chinese afterworld. By turns shocking, exquisite, and hilarious, The Binding Chair is another spellbinding literary triumph by the writer whose work Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times has called "powerful and hypnotic."

    From 1993 through 1998, NBC exploded every conventional notion of what a broadcast network could accomplish with the greatest prime-time line-up in television history. On Thursday nights, a cavalcade of groundbreaking comedies and dramas streamed into homes, attracting a staggering 75 million viewers and generating more revenue than all other six nights of programming combined. The road to success, however, was a rocky one. How do you turn a show like Seinfeld, one of the lowest testing pilots of all time, into a hit when the network overlords are constantly warring, or worse, drowning in a bottle of vodka?   Top of the Rock is an addictively readable account of the risky business decisions, creative passion, and leaps of faith that made Must See TV possible. Chock full of delicious behind-the-scenes anecdotes that run the gamut from hilarious casting and programming ploys to petty jealousies and drug interventions, you’re in for a juicy, unputdownable read.

    Short, sardonic, and dark, these six brief fiction stories and one non-fiction piece are consummate Vonnegut with piercing satire and an eye for life’s obscene inanity. Also available for the first time is an unfinished science-fiction short story, included in the appendix. These stories trace trivial human lives and mundane desires, which is precisely where Vonnegut’s inimitable perspective as a humanist shines, illuminating his alternating hopeful and dismal outlook, although undoubtedly focusing on the latter. Here as in his greatest novels, Vonnegut’s writing takes us to the darkest corners of the human soul and with wit and humor, manages to remind us of our potential to be something greater.

    She doesn't understand why her father leaves each night with a mysterious box or why her mama drinks so much. What Florence knows are sultry days spent with her grandparents, being cared for by their maid, Zenie, on the colored side of town.Tension builds during the summer of 1963. Mama bakes cakes at all hours to scrape by. And Zenie's niece Eva is in town, selling insurance to the blacks and stepping on Mr. Forrest's toes. When Eva is brutally assaulted, all hell breaks loose: Mama crashes her car, Florence's grandfather dies, a woman is murdered, and Florence finally gets a look in Daddy's box.Florence sees things that summer that she won't understand for years to come: her mother's disappearance, her father's racism. Years later, she'll face the truth and how she was caught in the middle of it. The Queen of Palmyra is rich in both setting and characters. It's an affecting tale of a girl who is loved yet lost, trying to make sense of the world in a tumultuous time, finally forced to confront the sins of her father.

    GIANT STEPS is Kareem on Kareem. The shy kid on the streets of New York... The angry spokesman for his race and religion... The man too sensitive, too outspoken, too big to fit the traditional mold of All-American athlete. It's Kareem coming to terms with himself and the inside game.

    

    Written with a commanding sureness of tone and linguistic precision, The White Album is a central text of American reportage and a classic of American autobiography.