The Clean House and Other Plays


Sarah Ruhl - 2006
    In the award-winning Clean House—a play of uncommon romance and uncommon comedy—a maid who hates cleaning dreams about creating the perfect joke, while a doctor who treats cancer leaves his heart inside one of his patients. This volume also includes Eurydice, Ruhl’s reinvention of the tragic Greek tale of love and loss, together with a third play still to be named.Sarah Ruhl received the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2004 for her play The Clean House, which has been produced at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia, South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC. Her play Eurydice has been produced at Madison Repertory Theatre and Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

Butterfly


V.C. Andrews - 1998
    Fate made her a lonely orphan, yearning for the embrace of a real family and a loving home. But a golden chance at a new life may not be enough to escape the dark secrets of her past...

Man and Boy


Tony Parsons - 1999
    AND HE NEVER ONCE THOUGHT HE'D BE ON HIS OWN. Harry had it all: a beautiful wife, an adorable four-year-old son, and a high-paying media job. But on the eve of his thirtieth birthday, with one irresponsible act, he threw it all away. Suddenly he finds himself an unemployed single father trying to figure out how to wash his son's hair the way Mommy did and whether green spaghetti is proper breakfast food. This brilliantly engaging novel will tug at your heart as Harry learns to become a father to his son and a son to his aging father, takes stabs at finding new love, and makes the hardest decision of his life.

Euripides V: Electra / The Phoenician Women / The Bacchae


Euripides - 1922
    Over the years these authoritative, critically acclaimed editions have been the preferred choice of over three million readers for personal libraries and individual study as well as for classroom use.

Brave New World Revisited


Aldous Huxley - 1958
    Here, in one of the most important and fascinating books of his career, Aldous Huxley uses his tremendous knowledge of human relations to compare the modern-day world with his prophetic fantasy. He scrutinizes threats to humanity, such as overpopulation, propaganda, and chemical persuasion, and explains why we have found it virtually impossible to avoid them. Brave New World Revisited is a trenchant plea that humankind should educate itself for freedom before it is too late. Brave New World Revisted (first published in 1958) is not a reissue or revision of 0060850523 Brave New World. Brave New World is a novel, whereas Brave New World Revisted is a nonfiction exploration of the themes in Brave New World.

A Tale of Two Cities / Great Expectations


Charles Dickens - 1859
    A TALE OF TWO CITIES After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the ageing Doctor Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There the lives of the two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette. From the tranquil roads of London, they are drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror, and they soon fall under the lethal shadow of the guillotine.GREAT EXPECTATIONS A terrifying encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decaying Miss Havisham and her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella; the sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor- these form a series of events that changes the orphaned Pip's life forever, and he eagerly abandons his humble origins to begin a new life as a gentleman. Dickens's haunting late novel depicts Pip's education and development through adversity as he discovers the true nature of his "great expectations."This deluxe paperback edition features *French flaps *rough-cut high-quality paper *complimentary front- and back-cover designs highlighting each novel and including foil and debossing

Texas


James A. Michener - 1985
    Michener’s monumental saga chronicles the epic history of Texas, from its Spanish roots in the age of the conquistadors to its current reputation as one of America’s most affluent, diverse, and provocative states. Among his finely drawn cast of characters, emotional and political alliances are made and broken, as the loyalties established over the course of each turbulent age inevitably collapse under the weight of wealth and industry. With Michener as our guide, Texas is a tale of patriotism and statesmanship, growth and development, violence and betrayal—a stunning achievement by a literary master.  Praise for Texas   “Fascinating.”—Time   “A book about oil and water, rangers and outlaws, frontier and settlement, money and power . . . [James A. Michener] manages to make history vivid.”—The Boston Globe   “A sweeping panorama . . . [Michener] grapples earnestly with the Texas character in a way that Texas’s own writers often don’t.”—The Washington Post Book World  “Vast, sprawling, and eclectic in population and geography, the state has just the sort of larger-than-life history that lends itself to Mr. Michener’s taste for multigenerational epics.”—The New York Times

The Manning Grooms


Debbie Macomber - 2008
    Then a precocious girl named Carrie Weston decides to play matchmaker, introducing him to her mother, Charlotte. To his relief, Charlotte is as averse to marriage as he is. But Jason's feelings start to change once he gets to know his Bride on the Loose.James Wilkens was almost a Manning groom—because he almost married one of the Manning sisters. With that broken engagement behind him, he spends New Year's Eve in Las Vegas…where he meets Summer Lawton. She's just suffered a painful betrayal, and James promises her that in a year, she'll be over it. To prove his point, he makes a date to meet her in Vegas Same Time, Next Year. Except it turns out to be more than a date—it's a wedding!

False Impression


Jeffrey Archer - 2005
    It’s a young woman in the North Tower when the first plane crashed into the building who has the courage and determination to take on both sides of the law and avenge the old lady’s death. Anna Petrescu is missing, presumed dead, after 9/11 and she uses her new status to escape from America, only to be pursued across the world from Toronto to London, to Hong Kong, Tokyo and Bucharest, but it is only when she returns to New York that the mystery unfolds. Why are so many people willing to risk their own lives and others' to own the Van Gogh Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear? Jeffrey Archer, one of the greatest popular novelists of our generation, delivers a truly page-turning thriller.

The Crucible: Text and Criticism


Arthur MillerAldous Huxley - 1971
    Based on historical people and real events, Miller's drama is a searing portrait of a community engulfed by hysteria. In the rigid theocracy of Salem, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town's most basic fears and suspicions; and when a young girl accuses Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch, self-righteous church leaders and townspeople insist that Elizabeth be brought to trial. The ruthlessness of the prosecutors and the eagerness of neighbor to testify against neighbor brilliantly illuminate the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence. Written in 1953, The Crucible is a mirror Miller uses to reflect the anti-communist hysteria inspired by Senator Joseph McCarthy's "witch-hunts" in the United States. Within the text itself, Miller contemplates the parallels, writing "Political opposition...is given an inhumane overlay, which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilized behavior. A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence." The Viking Critical Library edition of Arthur Miller's dramatic recreation of the Salem witch trials contains the complete text of The Crucible as well as extensive critical and contextual material about the play and the playwright, including:Selections from Miller's writings on his most frequently performed playEssays on the historical background of The Crucible, including personal narratives by participants in the trials and records of witchcraft in Salem from the original documentsReviews of The Crucible, in production by Brooks Atkinson, Walter Kerr, Eric Bentley, and othersExcerpts from Jean-Paul Sartre's Les Sorcières de Salem, a "spin-off" of Miller's play, and three analogous works by Twain, Shaw, and Budd SchulbergCritical essays on the play, on Miller, and on the play in the context of Miller's oeuvreAn introduction by the editor, a chronology, a list of topics for discussion and papers prepared by Malcolm Cowley, and a bibliography

Long After Midnight


Iris Johansen - 1997
    She wanted to save lives.  The killer wanted to end hers.The first warning was triggered hundreds of miles away.  The second warning exploded only yards from where she and her son stood.  Now Kate Denby realizes the frightening truth:  She is somebody's target.Danger has arrived in Kate's backyard with a vengeance.  And the gifted scientist is awakening to a nightmare world where a ruthless killer is stalking her...where her innocent son is considered expendable...and where the medical research to which she has devoted her life is the same research that could get her killed.  Her only hope of protecting her family and making that medical breakthrough is to elude her enemy until she can face him on her own ground, on her own terms—and destroy him.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. B: The Sixteenth Century & The Early Seventeenth Century


M.H. AbramsLawrence Lipking - 1986
    Under the direction of Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor, the editors have reconsidered all aspects of the anthology to make it an even better teaching tool.

Four Plays: Come Back, Little Sheba / Picnic / Bus Stop / The Dark at the Top of the Stairs


William Inge - 1964
    His female characters especially are engulfed by the bathos of their lives, and Inge capitalizes on this fact in order to heighten dramatically the moment of personal crisis which comes to each of them. In his four major successes--Come Back, Little Sheba; Picnic; Bus Stop; and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs--the play carries the audience through the moment of crisis; and the final curtain falls upon a note of hope and fulfillment.'--R. Baird Shuman

Flags of Our Fathers


James D. Bradley - 2000
    Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America.In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at Iwo Jima—and into history. Through a hail of machine-gun and mortar fire that left the beaches strewn with comrades, they battled to the island's highest peak. And after climbing through a landscape of hell itself, they raised a flag.Now the son of one of the flagraisers has written a powerful account of six very different young men who came together in a moment that will live forever.To his family, John Bradley never spoke of the photograph or the war. But after his death at age seventy, his family discovered closed boxes of letters and photos. In Flags of Our Fathers, James Bradley draws on those documents to retrace the lives of his father and the men of Easy Company. Following these men's paths to Iwo Jima, James Bradley has written a classic story of the heroic battle for the Pacific's most crucial island—an island riddled with Japanese tunnels and 22,000 fanatic defenders who would fight to the last man.But perhaps the most interesting part of the story is what happened after the victory. The men in the photo—three were killed during the battle—were proclaimed heroes and flown home, to become reluctant symbols. For two of them, the adulation was shattering. Only James Bradley's father truly survived, displaying no copy of the famous photograph in his home, telling his son only: "The real heroes of Iwo Jima were the guys who didn't come back."Few books ever have captured the complexity and furor of war and its aftermath as well as Flags of Our Fathers. A penetrating, epic look at a generation at war, this is history told with keen insight, enormous honesty, and the passion of a son paying homage to his father. It is the story of the difference between truth and myth, the meaning of being a hero, and the essence of the human experience of war.From the Hardcover edition.

The Mulberry Tree


Jude Deveraux - 2002
    Then she got a real life.... For nearly twenty years, quiet, unassuming Lillian Manville has devoted herself to her self-made billionaire husband -- and enjoyed a luxurious life of splendid homes, trips, jewels, and clothes. But when James Manville dies in a plane crash, Lillian's grief is compounded by a shocking mystery: all that Jimmie has left to her is an old farmhouse in tiny Calburn, Virginia. Now, Lillian's unexpected circumstances are leading her to a made-over life in Calburn, an exciting businessŠand a sweet new love with a handsome local man. But will she have the courage to unveil the truth surrounding a past scandal and the loss of her husband? The answers may be as close as the mulberry tree in her yard -- and Lillian must dig deep within herself to Wght the secrets and lies that threaten to uproot the past she cherished and the future she treasures....This lush bestseller shines with the passion, intrigue, and warmth that is Jude Deveraux at her best.