Psycho


Robert Bloch - 1959
    Exhausted, lost, and at the end of her rope, she was eager for a hot shower and a bed for the night. Her room was musty but clean and the plumbing worked. Norman Bates, the manager, seemed nice, if a little odd.

Aurora Leigh and Other Poems


Elizabeth Barrett Browning - 1856
    The texts in this selection are based in the main on the earliest printed versions of the poems. What Edgar Allan Poe called 'her wild and magnificent genius' is abundantly in evidence. In addition to Aurora Leigh, this volume contains poetry from the several volumes of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's published poetry from 1826 to 1862, including Casa Guidi Windows (1851), Songs for the Ragged Schools of London (1854) and the British Library manuscript text of the 'Sonnets from the Portuguese' (1846) which records her courtship with Robert Browning.

The Lake of the Dead


André Bjerke - 1942
    Ever since, it is said, anyone who stays at the cabin is possessed by Gruvik's spirit and driven to drown themselves in the lake. What's more, Gruvik's restless ghost has been seen by many of the local people, prowling the woods by moonlight.Bjørn Werner, a young writer from Oslo, ignored the old superstitions and rented Dead Man's Cabin as a quiet spot to finish his book. Now he has disappeared, and the evidence suggests he threw himself in the lake in a fit of madness. The police write it off as a suicide, but his friends are not so sure. Kai Bugge, Bjørn's psychiatrist, believes in the suicide explanation, while private detective Harald Gran thinks it's a case of murder, and Gabriel Mørk, an expert in the occult, is certain that darker and otherworldly forces are at play. They travel to unravel the mystery of their friend's terrible fate, but not all of them will return alive from their stay at the Lake of the Dead ...André Bjerke's The Lake of the Dead (1942) was voted the all-time best Norwegian crime novel, and its atmospheric 1958 film adaptation is regarded as one of Norway's best films. This new translation is the first-ever American publication of Bjerke's classic, which features an unusual mixture of murder mystery and supernatural horror that will keep readers guessing until the thrilling conclusion.

Selected Shorts. A Celebration of the Short Story: Timeless Classics


Symphony SpaceSteven Gilborn - 2006
    More than three hours of recordings in each collection capture the intimacy of live performance, with stories that are alternately exciting, poignant, and funny, making this the perfect accompaniment to any number of daily activities--driving, cooking, exercising, relaxing, or intently listening. Timeless Classics includes, among others, James Thurber's "The Night the Ghost Got In," read by Isaiah Sheffer; Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever," read by Maria Tucci; Jack London's "Make Westing," read by Steven Gilborn; D. H. Lawrence's "The Rocking Horse Winner," read by John Shea; Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," read by Marian Seldes; Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game," read by Charles Keating; and Raymond Carver's "Cathedral," read by James Naughton.

The House on the Borderland


William Hope Hodgson - 1908
    But a still greater horror will face the recluse - more inexorable, merciless and awful than any creature that can be fought or killed.A classic of the first water - H. P. Lovecraft

Giant's Bread


Mary Westmacott - 1930
    His sheltered childhood in the home he loves has not prepared Vernon for the harsh reality of his adult years, and in order to write the great masterpiece of his life, he has to make a crucial decision with no time left to count the cost. But there is a high price to be paid for his talent, especially by his family and the two women in his lifee - the one he loves and the one who loves him. Young Nell Vereker had always loved Vernon, loved him with a consuming passion that was alien to the proper social world in which she lived. But when Vernon sought solace in the arms of Jane Harding, a stranger and enigmatically beautiful older woman, Nell felt she could endure no greater pain. But Fate had only begun to work its dark mischief on this curious romantic triangle -- for before their destinies were sealed, one would live, one would die, and one would return from the grave to be damned…

To Kill a Mockingbird / The Agony and the Ecstasy / The Winter of Our Discontent / Fate Is the Hunter


Ernest K. Gann - 1961
    

Butcher's Crossing


John Williams - 1960
    With Butcher’s Crossing, his fiercely intelligent, beautifully written western, Williams dismantles the myths of modern America.It is the 1870s, and Will Andrews, fired up by Emerson to seek “an original relation to nature,” drops out of Harvard and heads west. He washes up in Butcher’s Crossing, a small Kansas town on the outskirts of nowhere. Butcher’s Crossing is full of restless men looking for ways to make money and ways to waste it. Before long Andrews strikes up a friendship with one of them, a man who regales Andrews with tales of immense herds of buffalo, ready for the taking, hidden away in a beautiful valley deep in the Colorado Rockies. He convinces Andrews to join in an expedition to track the animals down. The journey out is grueling, but at the end is a place of paradisal richness. Once there, however, the three men abandon themselves to an orgy of slaughter, so caught up in killing buffalo that they lose all sense of time. Winter soon overtakes them: they are snowed in. Next spring, half-insane with cabin fever, cold, and hunger, they stagger back to Butcher’s Crossing to find a world as irremediably changed as they have been.

The Fountainhead : A Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration


David Kelley - 1993
    Stephen Cox, professor of literatureat the University of California at San Diego, spoke on "The LiteraryAchievement of The Fountainhead" and David Kelley, executive director of TheObjectivist Center, discussed "The Code of the Creator." This commemorativemonograph contains the text of both lectures and other material about AynRand's classic novel.

The Bittermeads Mystery


E.R. Punshon - 1922
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

And Quiet Flows the Don, Vol 1 of 5


Mikhail Sholokhov - 2001
    

Riders of the Purple Sage


Zane Grey - 1912
    It is the story of Lassiter, a gunslinging avenger in black, who shows up in a remote Utah town just in time to save the young and beautiful rancher Jane Withersteen from having to marry a Mormon elder against her will. Lassiter is on his own quest, one that ends when he discovers a secret grave on Jane’s grounds. “[Zane Grey’s] popularity was neither accidental nor undeserved,” wrote Nye. “Few popular novelists have possessed such a grasp of what the public wanted and few have developed Grey’s skill at supplying it.”

Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights


Patsy Stoneman - 1998
    Opening with a chapter on how Emily BrontA's masterpiece was received in the nineteenth century, the "Guide" links together a selection of extracts that demonstrate the major critical developments of the twentieth century -- from humanism through formalism to deconstruction. Within this general framework, subsequent chapters focus on psychoanalytic readings, source studies, readings using discourse theory, work on dissemination, and political readings from Marxist, postcolonialist, and feminist points of view.

The River's End


James Oliver Curwood - 1919
    Curwood loved the outdoors and is known for his conservation efforts. Many of his books were made into movies as late as the 1990's. In The River's End two men who resemble each other physically lead very different lives. Conniston is a member of the Northwest Mounted Police. Keith is an outlaw. This physical trait linked these men together.

Lie Down in Darkness


William Styron - 1951
    William Styron traces the betrayals and infidelities—the heritage of spite and endlessly disappointed love—that afflict the members of a Southern family and that culminate in the suicide of the beautiful Peyton Loftis.