Ariel


Sylvia Plath - 1965
    Her husband, Ted Hughes, brought the collection to life in 1966, and its publication garnered worldwide acclaim. This collection showcases the beloved poet’s brilliant, provoking, and always moving poems, including "Ariel" and once again shows why readers have fallen in love with her work throughout the generations.

House of Leaves


Mark Z. Danielewski - 2000
    No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth—musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies—the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and newly added second and third appendices.The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story—of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.

100 Selected Poems


E.E. Cummings - 1954
    Cummings is without question one of the major poets of the 20th century, and this volume, first published in 1959, is indispensable for every lover of modern lyrical verse. It contains one hundred of Cummings’s wittiest and most profound poems, harvested from thirty-five of the most radically creative years in contemporary American poetry. These poems exhibit all the extraordinary lyricism, playfulness, technical ingenuity, and compassion for which Cummings is famous. They demonstrate beautifully his extrapolations from traditional poetic structures and his departures from them, as well as the unique synthesis of lavish imagery and acute artistic precision that has won him the adulation and respect of critics and poetry lovers everywhere.

Sandstorm / Map of Bones / The Judas Strain / The Doomsday Key


James Rollins - 2014
    Lady Kara Kensington's family paid a high price in money and blood to found the gallery that now lies in ruins. Her search for answers leads Kara and her friend Safia al-Maaz, the gallery's curator, into a world they never dreamed existed. Evidence exposed by the tragedy suggests that Ubar, a lost city buried beneath the Arabian desert, is more than mere legend...and that something astonishing is waiting there. The two extraordinary women and their guide, Omaha Dunn, are not the only ones being drawn to the desert. Former U.S. Navy SEAL Painter Crowe, a covert government operative and head of an elite counter-espionage team, is hunting down a dangerous turncoat and the trail is pointing him toward Ubar. What is hidden below the sand is more than a valuable relic of ancient history. It is an ageless power that lives and breathes. Many lives have already been destroyed by ruthless agencies dedicated to guarding its mysteries and harnessing its might. The end may be at hand for Kara, Safia, Crowe, and all of the interlopers who wish to expose its mysteries, as it prepares to unleash the most terrible storm of all...

Othello (No Fear Shakespeare)


SparkNotes - 2018
    This No Fear Shakespeare ebook gives you the complete text of Othelloand an easy-to-understand translation.Each No Fear Shakespeare contains The complete text of the original play A line-by-line translation that puts Shakespeare into everyday language A complete list of characters with descriptions Plenty of helpful commentary

Two Serious Ladies


Jane Bowles - 1943
    Copperfield at a party. Two serious ladies who want to live outside of themselves, they go in search of salvation: Mrs. Copperfield visits Panama with her husband, where she finds solace among the women who live and work in its brothels; while Miss Goering becomes involved with various men. At the end the two women meet again, each changed by her experience. Mysterious, profound, anarchic and very funny, 'Two Serious Ladies' is a daring, original work that defies analysis.

The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide


Douglas Adams - 1989
    Plus, you'll find a perplexingly frank introduction by the author himself, giving a behind-the-scenes look at each book and the zany radio series that inspired them. But that's not all! You also get a ferocious giggle of a short story, starring the two-headed, three-armed, ex-president of the Universe -- Zaphod Beeblebrox. The saga begins and ends...The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy--Arthur Dent, mild-mannered, out-to-lunch kind of guy, is plucked from Earth just before it is demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Towel in hand, he begins his journey through space and time with his rescuer Ford Prefect, a traveling research for the Guide.The Restaurant at the End of the Universe--where the floor show is Doomsday and Arthur and Ford dine with Zaphod Beeblebrox, well-appendaged, ex-head honcho of the universe, and Trillian, his human girlfriend. The four friends begin their quest for answers to some of the most confounding questions challenging mankind. When will they finish eating? What is the question to the ultimate answer? (which happens to be 42).Life, the Universe and Everything--Everything important and then some is examined in this third book, when Arthur Dent and his companions find they must avert Armageddon and save the Universe for life as we know it (or think we know it!).So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish--Galaxy-weary space traveler Arthur Dent returns to Earth With his new voidoid gang to discover that it has been mysteriously reinstated. But more pertinent questions remain: Why did all the dolphins disappear? What is God's Final Message to His Creation? What really happened the day the Earth was demolished?And finally, in Young Zaphod Plays it Safe--the two-headed hero travels to the depths of the ocean floor to investigate the mysterious destruction of the ship that "could one hundred percent positively never crash." with the annoying assistance of the Safety and Civil Reassurance Administration, Zaphod learns some disturbing secrets...If you're just discovering Douglas Adams's galactic gangbuster of a series, don't panic--The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide is your chance to have it all! (Towel not included.)--jacket

Madness


Roald Dahl - 2016
    In these ten unsettling tales of unexpected madness master storyteller Roald Dahl explores what happens when we let go our sanity. .Among other stories, you'll meet the husband with a jealous fixation on the family cat, the landlady who wants her guests to stay forever, the man whose taste for pork leads him astray and the wife with a pathological fear of being late.Roald Dahl reveals even more about the darker side of human nature in the four centenary editions featuring his own stories: Madness, Deception, Cruelty and Lust.--back cover

The Assault on Tony's


John O'Brien - 1996
    Barricaded in a bar called Tony's while a riot rages outside, the characters that people The Assault on Tony's are united by their desire to drink to the end, no matter what the consequences. In this stark and darkly humorous novel, social alliances are forged and challenged as each member of this macabre party ignores his fears in favor of keeping his tumbler full to the brim. As time goes on and the liquor supply starts to dwindle, the novel reaches a gritty intensity as it exposes the highs and lows of the human spirit.

The Alchemist


Paulo Coelho - 1988
    This story, dazzling in its powerful simplicity and soul-stirring wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago, who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried near the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Romany woman, a man who calls himself a king, and an alchemist, all of whom point Santiago in the right direction for his quest. No one knows what the treasure is, or whether Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles in his path; but what starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of treasure within. Lush, evocative, and deeply humane, the story of Santiago is an eternal testament to the transforming power of our dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts.Illustrator: Jim Tierney

Someone at a Distance


Dorothy Whipple - 1953
    Apparently 'a fairly ordinary tale about the destruction of a happy marriage' (Nina Bawden) yet 'it makes compulsive reading' in its description of an ordinary family struck by disaster when the husband, in a moment of weak, mid-life vanity, runs off with a French girl. Dorothy Whipple is a superb stylist, with a calm intelligence in the tradition of Elizabeth Gaskell.

First Love and the Diary of a Superfluous Man


Ivan Turgenev - 1995
    His novels, among them Rudin (1856), Fathers and Sons (1862), and Virgin Soil (1877), and his many stories and plays pointedly reveal his opposition to the serf system and his profound insights into the lives, interests, and attitudes of the nobility and intelligentsia of mid-19th-century Russia.Two of Turgenev's best works of short fiction are the touching First Love (1860), a novella known to be partly autobiographical, and The Diary of a Superfluous Man (1850), a fascinating tale of an ineffectual Russian Hamlet. Both provide a superb introduction to the keen social perception, rich characterization, and narrative command of this Russian master. Both stories are presented here in acclaimed translations by Constance Garnett.

The Dice Man


Luke Rhinehart - 1971
    Because once you hand over your life to the dice, anything can happen. Entertaining, humorous, scary, shocking, subversive, The Dice Man is one of the cult bestsellers of our time.

Medieval Myths


Norma Lorre Goodrich - 1961
    Their influence on literature, philosophy, and folklore is apparent throughout the history of Europe, and they have deeply expressed the imagination and dreams of many peoples.Offering nine brilliant retellings of the great myths of the medieval world, this is the first collection to compare national heroes of a time when their cultures were emerging from barbarism into civilization. The stories of Beowulf, Roland, Tannhauser, Culchulain, and other mythic heroes are among the oldest of the western world, and their reverberations have deeply affected the ideals of the nations from which they came. These rousing sagas, so vividly presented here, are masterpieces of world literature that give modern readers new insights into the origins of European culture.

The Long Shadow


B.M. Bower - 2011
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.