This anthology includes the masterpieces Wise Blood. The Violent Bear it Away, and Everything that Rises Must Converge.

    In the grip of a midlife meltdown, Pick returns with his wife and son to a small North Carolina town, where he confronts the ghosts of his past in the form of the family matriarch and his boyhood nemesis, Mama Lucy. What follows is an extraordinary story within a story, as Pick uncovers startling truths about himself and about the role his grandmother played in the tragic General Textile Strike Of 1934A novel about family, love, and forgiveness, The Bridge explores how much we ever really know about others, and most important, about ourselves.

    Finally free from her mother’s demanding presence, this transplanted Yankee is finding herself for the first time, courtesy of the Deep South. And, much to her surprise, she likes it. A former International Dogwood Festival Queen, Donna Kabel once had cute male suitors chase her like hounds to the fox. But all that changed after a car accident left her with a huge facial scar. Now Donna works in the produce section of Kroger. But it seems that the scar that could have cost Donna her inner strength has actually spurred her to reinvent herself.Thirty-four-year-old Suzanne Parley, the chardonnay-alcoholic wife of a fifth-generation Selby neurosurgeon named Boone, longs to have the most exquisitely decorated house in the affluent Red Hill Plantation community. Childless and directionless, Suzanne suddenly comes up with a bold plan to make her bored husband love her again: she'll simply fake a pregnancy.On the eve of this year's all-important Dogwood Festival, the disparate lives of these three women will converge in a brilliant comedy of Southern manners like none other. With this funny and poignant novel, Ad Hudler joins Fannie Flagg and Adriana Trigiani as one of our best chroniclers of Southern life.

    They watch, they quarrel and they love, always beneath a hard, blue sky.

    But a new world has been discovered that has all the right ingredients to sustain human life. The vessel Seeder will travel four thousand years with its crew members and colonists to this new seed planet to ensure humanity lives on.But the stasis pods malfunction. When the crew is revived they discover they've been traveling for the past eighteen million years, and the colonists are all gone.And it only gets stranger. Book #1 of the best selling Seeder Saga (34 pages)

    The biggest game in town centers on a massive, deadly roller coaster that winds its way through the Strip’s most famous attractions. On the first Saturday of every month, twenty-four desperate passengers get strapped into the notorious ride and gamble with their lives in a twisted game of chance, to the thrill of webcast audiences worldwide. One of them will win, and one will die, but the other twenty-two will escape with nothing but their lives. Bets are placed as the ride begins, but in Vegas, the house always wins.The Ride by acclaimed author Aric Davis is a terrifying near-future vision of bloodlust-as-entertainment taken to a horrific extreme.

    In another universe, humanity is overrun by monsters so evil that their very presence dims the light of the stars. In yet another universe, humanity is drawn into an endless battle for dominion over the galaxy. This is not one of those universes. In this universe, humanity is in charge of the Galactic Peace Committee. In theory, the Committee is an unmatched force for good, bringing peace and prosperity to countless worlds and ensuring that conflicts between different races are settled with words and not planet-cracking weaponry or super plagues designed to turn everyone into goo. In theory. Jake Smith is a diplomat. He works for the Committee. This is his story – and it goes about as well as you’d expect. In other words, it doesn’t go very well at all. Can Jake survive petty aliens? Sure. He’s a diplomat. It’s all part of the job. What about angry aliens? Probably. He does have a killer robot for a secretary, and he’s not bad with a shock staff. How about a fleet of aliens out for blood? That… that might be a little bit trickier. The Galactic Peace Committee… keeping peace (sort of) throughout the galaxy.

    Some say the fabled giant tree was once a knee-high seedling brushed by the black boot of Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortez. No other tree along the entire coastal crescent from New Orleans to Apalachicola can rival its majesty or its power to draw people to it. In silence and with dignity, the Ghosthead has served as sentinel to the widow's family land for countless generations. It was a childhood friend and a spirit guide in troubled times. Her father is buried in its shade. So why would the widow walk into a biker bar and hire a man to fire his chainsaw and inflict fatal gashes around its trunk, ending in a few minutes what took five centuries to create? The Widow and the Tree is a tale of dark deeds committed with mercy in mind, provoking the reader to ask: Would I have done the same thing? This book is based on a true story.

    Henry, Jack London, and Stephen Crane. Includes multiple stories per author, their most famous short works, along with biographical notes.Complete contents:YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN, by Nathaniel HawthorneTHE CELESTIAL RAILROAD, by Nathaniel HawthorneTHE GREAT STONE FACE, by Nathaniel HawthorneETHAN BRAND, by Nathaniel HawthorneRIP VAN WINKLE, by Washington IrvingTHE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW, by Washington IrvingAUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF by James Fenimore CooperTHE DAMNED THING, by Ambrose BierceAN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK, by Ambrose BierceTHE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, by Edgar Allan PoeTHE CASK OF AMONTILLADO, by Edgar Allan PoeTHE PURLOINED LETTER, by Edgar Allan PoeTHE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, by Edgar Allan PoeTHE PREMATURE BURIAL, by Edgar Allan PoeTHE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, by Edgar Allan PoeTHE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP, by Bret HarteTHE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT, by Bret HartevHANDS, by Sherwood AndersonI’M A FOOL, by Sherwood AndersonTHE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG, by Mark TwainTHE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY, by Mark TwainTHE GIFT OF THE MAGI, by O. HenryTHE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF, by O. HenryTHE COP AND THE ANTHEM, by O. HenryA RETRIEVED REFORMATION, by O. HenryTHE DUPLICITY OF HARGRAVES, by O. HenryTO BUILD A FIRE, by Jack LondonAN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH, by Jack LondonLOVE OF LIFE, by Jack LondonTHE HEATHEN, by Jack LondonTHE PEARLS OF PARLAY, by Jack LondonTHE BRIDE COMES TO YELLOW SKY, by Stephen CraneTHE MONSTER, by Stephen CraneTHE BLUE HOTEL, by Stephen CraneAnd don't forget to search your favorite ebook store for Megapack to see the other great entries in this series -- covering science fiction, fantasy, horror, mysteries, westerns, children's literature, and much, much more!

    The time: December 1944. Although the fields of battle are far away, World War II has shaken the very bedrock of this close-knit community. Jake Tibbetts, editor of the local newspaper and the town's self-proclaimed conscience--who has been entrusted with the care of his young grandson while the boy's father serves on the front lines--is struggling to come to terms with the way "everything" seems to be changing, and the entire town finds itself uncomfortably straddling the threshold of a new era.

     A suspicious husband sets out to discover what his wife really does late at night in her shop. A man starts a new job guarding the entrance to a pier at night. An abandoned house hides a sinister – and disgusting – secret in its basement. A young girl waits for a message from her dead mother, and then she finds something stranger in the freezer. The Butcher's Husband and Other Stories features the new short stories The Butcher's Husband, Tongue, The Pier and The Butcher's Husband II, as well as revised versions of The Seagull and A Perfect Death, and a new novella titled Larry.

    In the centerpiece story, an eighteenth-century Eno Indian tells of the fiery fate of his adopted father, English explorer John Lawson. In the surrounding stories, the age-old conflicts between newcomer and old-timer play out as twenty-first century retirees, carnies, runaways, heartbroken women, and farmers stumble into new lives and new insights in Ambler County, North Carolina. "Hudson's prose is pure as birdsong," says novelist Doris Betts. "These fine stories of change and discovery are a field guide to the human species in transition."

    It is the story of Skeeter, a young boy growing up in a family poor in material goods but rich in the appreciation of their natural surroundings. The river they live on is the source of life—and death.

    Now, with his brilliant portrait of Luce, a young woman who inherits her murdered sister's troubled twins, Frazier has created his most memorable heroine.Before the children, Luce was content with the reimbursements of the rich Appalachian landscape, choosing to live apart from the small community around her. But the coming of the children changes everything, cracking open her solitary life in difficult, hopeful, dangerous ways.Charles Frazier is known for his historical literary odysseys, and for making figures in the past come vividly to life. Set in the twentieth century, Nightwoods resonates with the timelessness of a great work of art.

    Set in the hills and hollows of western North Carolina in the years around World War II, it tells of ten-year-old Jess and his family -- father, mother, grandmother, foster brother, and an odd assortment of other relatives -- who usher Jess into the adult world, with all its attendant joys and sorrows, knowledge and mystery.Jess's father is feisty, restless, and fun-loving. His mother is straitlaced and serious but accepts with grace and good humor the antics of the men of the family, a trait she learned from her own mother. Johnson Gibbs is the orphaned teenager who comes to live with them on their mountain farm. Life on the laurel-covered mountain is isolated and at times difficult, but for Jess it is made rich and remarkable through his relationship with his father and, especially, Johnson Gibbs.Visiting the farm from time to time is a gallery of eccentric relatives who are surely among the most memorable creations in recent fiction. Uncle Luden is a womanizer who left the mountains years ago for a job in California that "paid actual cash money." Uncle Gurton has a spooky way of appearing and disappearing without ever seeming to enter or exit, but it is his flowing beard, which he has apparently never trimmed and which he keeps tucked inside his overalls, that is of most fascination to Jess.Uncle Zeno is a storyteller. With the words "That puts me in mind of..." everyone around knows that he is about to launch into another of his endless tales. Uncle Runkin, who always brings his handmade coffin to sleep in whenever he visits, spends his time carving intricate designs into the coffin and trying to find just the right epitaph for his tombstone. Aunt Samantha Barefoot stops by for a brief spell, too. A country singer and cousin to Jess's grandmother, she is a woman of uncensored speech (Jess learns a lot from her) and honest emotions. Chappell tells the story of all of these characters in a series of chapters that range from fantasy and near farce to pathos. As notable for its lyrical descriptions of the rural settings as for its finely honed vernacular dialogue, I Am One of You Forever shows us a world full of wit and wisdom and the sadness at the heart of things. As one would expect from a poet like Fred Chappell, every line offers its own pleasures and satisfactions.