To be published on the first anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut's death, Armageddon in Retrospect is a collection of twelve new and unpublished writings on war and peace, imbued with Vonnegut's trademark rueful humor.

    Since the 1950s Peter Matthiessen has written fiction and nonfiction of elemental power and moral vision, including the acclaimed novels At Play in the Fields of the Lord and Far Tortuga and works of naturalism and exploration like the National Book Award-winning The Snow Leopard.This stunning collection of short stories, available for the first time in paperback, spans more than three decades of writing by one of the most acclaimed literary voices of our time.

    G. Wells' The Time Machine. A lavish feast of exotica brought vividly to life with art commissioned specifically for this volume, The Book of Imaginary Beings will delight readers of classic fantasy as well as Borges' many admirers.

    . . . Mr. Thurber belongs in the great lines of American humorists that includes Mark Twain and Ring Lardner." --Philadelphia InquirerJames Thurber’s unique ability to convey the vagaries of life in a funny, witty, and often satirical way earned him accolades as one of the finest humorists of the twentieth century. A bestseller upon its initial publication in 1945, The Thurber Carnival captures the depth of his talent and the breadth of his wit. The stories compiled here, almost all of which first appeared in The New Yorker, are from his uproarious and candid collection My World and Welcome to It--including the American classic "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"--as well as from The Owl in the Attic, The Seal in the Bathroom, Men, Women and Dogs. Thurber’s take on life, society, and human nature is timeless and will continue to delight readers even as they recognize a bit of themselves in his brilliant sketches.

    This brilliant collection, often cited as the first of its kind, explores fundamental questions about ourselves and our treatment of the universe (and other beings) around us and ultimately what it means to be human.Contents: * Cordwainer Smith: The Shaper of Myths (1975) • essay by John J. Pierce [as by J. J. Pierce] * The Instrumentality of Mankind (timeline) (1975) • essay by John J. Pierce * Scanners Live in Vain [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1950) / novelette by Cordwainer Smith: meet Martel, a human altered to be part machine-a scanner-to be able withstand the trauma space travel has on the body. Despite the stigma placed on him and his kind, he is able to regrasp his humanity to save another; Fantasy Book #6 ’50 * The Lady Who Sailed The Soul [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1960) / novelette by Cordwainer Smith, Genevieve Linebarger; Galaxy Apr ’60 * The Game of Rat and Dragon [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1955) / short story by Cordwainer Smith; Galaxy Oct ’55 * The Burning of the Brain [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1958) / short story by Cordwainer Smith; If Oct ’58 * Golden the Ship Was - Oh! Oh! Oh! [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1959) / short story by Cordwainer Smith, Genevieve Linebarger; Amazing Apr ’59 * The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1964) / short story by Cordwainer Smith; Amazing May ’64 * The Dead Lady of Clown Town [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1964) / novella by Cordwainer Smith: get to know the underpeople-animals genetically altered to exist in human form, to better serve their human owners-and meet D'Joan, a dog-woman who will make readers question who is more human: the animals who simply want to be recognized as having the same right to life, or the people who created them to be inferior; Galaxy Aug ’64 * Under Old Earth [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1966) / novelette by Cordwainer Smith; Galaxy Feb ’66 * Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1961) / novelette by Cordwainer Smith; Galaxy Jun ’61 * Alpha Ralpha Boulevard [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1961) / novelette by Cordwainer Smith; Galaxy Jun ’61 * The Ballad of Lost C'mell [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1962) / novelette by Cordwainer Smith: the notion of love being the most important equalizer there is, is put into action when an underperson, C'mell, falls in love with Lord Jestocost. Who is to say her love for him is not as valid as any true-born human? She might be of cat descent, but she is all woman!; Galaxy Oct ’62 * A Planet Named Shayol [The Instrumentality of Mankind] (1961) / novelette by Cordwainer Smith: it is an underperson of bull descent, and beings so mutilated and deformed from their original human condition to be now considered demons of a hellish land, who retain and display the most humanity when Mankind commits the most inhumane action of all; Galaxy Oct ’61aka: Paul M. A. Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, Paul Linebarger, Felix C. Forrest, Carmichael Smith, Kordvejner Smit..

    Is it not so? Either to dream that what you seek is yours, or else to dream that what you hate is conquered. You drink to escape reality, and the irony is that even reality is a dream.'

    In Ninety-Nine Stories of God, she takes on one of mankind’s most confounding preoccupations: the Supreme Being.This series of short, fictional vignettes explores our day-to-day interactions with an ever-elusive and arbitrary God. It’s the Book of Common Prayer as seen through a looking glass—a powerfully vivid collection of seemingly random life moments. The figures that haunt these stories range from Kafka (talking to a fish) to the Aztecs, Tolstoy to Abraham and Sarah, O. J. Simpson to a pack of wolves. Most of Williams’s characters, however, are like the rest of us: anonymous strivers and bumblers who brush up against God in the least expected places or go searching for Him when He’s standing right there. The Lord shows up at a hot-dog-eating contest, a demolition derby, a formal gala, and a drugstore, where he’s in line to get a shingles vaccination. At turns comic and yearning, lyric and aphoristic, Ninety-Nine Stories of God serves as a pure distillation of one of our great artists.

    Nine stories: Profession; The Feeling of Power; The Dying Night; I'm in Marsport without Hilda; The Gentle Vultures; All the Troubles of the World; Spell my Name with an S; The Last Question (one of Asimov's most often requested stories); and The Ugly Little Boy (Asimov's own personal favorite).

    A stunning collection of the kind of fiction that has only one source--the unparalleled Ray Bradbury.

    They include supernatural tales, slices of life from Warsaw and the shtetls of Eastern Europe, and stories of the Jews displaced from that world to the New World, from the East Side of New York to California and Miami.

    Getting Even, a collection of his late '60s magazine pieces, offers a look into Allen's bag of shtick, back when it was new. From the supposed memoirs of Hitler's barber: "Then, in January of '45, a plot by several generals to shave Hitler's moustache in his sleep failed when von Stauffenberg, in the darkness of Hitler's bedroom, shaved off one of the Führer's eyebrows instead..." Even tho the idea of writing jokes about old Adolf--or addled rabbis, or Maatjes herring--isn't nearly as fresh as it used to be, Getting Even still delivers plenty of laughs. At his best, Woody can achieve a level of transcendent craziness that no other writer can match. If you're looking for a book to dip into at random, or a gift for someone who's seen Sleeper 13 times, Getting Even is a classic, with 316,000 copies sold to date.

    Here is a society as complex and troubled as any on our world, peopled with unforgettable characters struggling to become fully human. For the disgraced revolutionary Abberkam, the callow "space brat" Solly, the haughty soldier Teyeo, and the Ekumen historian and Hainish exile Havzhiva, freedom and duty both begin in the heart, and success as well as failure has its costs.CONTENT Betrayals Forgiveness Day A Man of the People A Woman's Liberation Notes on Werel and YeoweIn this stunning collection of four intimately interconnected novellas, Ursula K. Le Guin returns to the great themes that have made her one of America's most honored and respected authors.

    If I sit still and don't do anything, the world goes on beating like a slack drum, without meaning. We must be moving, working, making dreams to run toward; the poverty of life without dreams is too horrible to imagine."-- Sylvia Plath, from "Notebooks, February 1956"Renowned for her poetry, Sylvia Plath was also a brilliant writer of prose. This collection of short stories, essays, and diary excerpts highlights her fierce concentration on craft, the vitality of her intelligence, and the yearnings of her imaginaton. Featuring an introduction by Plath's husband, the late British poet Ted Hughes, these writings also reflect themes and images she would fully realize in her poetry. "Jonny Panic and the Bible of Dreams" truly showcases the talent and genius of Sylvia Plath.

    A short story about the universe and your place in it.

    The seven stories in this excellent collection demonstrate the author's ability to create memorable tales on themes of love and marriage, divorce, the experience of the artist, high society and its workings and other topics."Souls Belated," a tragedy of mores, focuses on characters overcome by the demands of convention, while "The Pelican" and "The Muse's Tragedy" both present women whose realities differ from their public personae. "Expiation" is a satiric, revealing story about the publishing industry, featuring a writer determined to increase the sales of her first novel. In "The Dilettante," a young man who prides himself on his ability to manipulate women must face ironic consequences when he introduces his fiancée to his supposed lover. "Xingu" is a witty satire on the intellectual pretensions of a group of rich women, while "The Other Two" presents a darkly humorous look at the consequences of divorce.Gathered in this inexpensive volume, these stories provide an excellent sampling of Wharton's masterly efforts in the short story genre, a form of fiction she felt especially suited to her talents and one that enabled her to achieve a focused and intimate realism.