Meet Magdalena as she prepares for the birth of her first child, knowing her family are in another country - but will her fiancé surprise her for Christmas? Share memories of treasured tree decorations and the stories they hold. Delight as Irene remembers her husband on Valentine's Day and fate finds a way to remind her of the love they shared. Cheer along with Sophie as she finally finds the courage to deal with a fairweather friend, and laugh as a grandmother receives a visit from her granddaughter - only to turn the tables on her and show her who is boss! Lose yourself in sublime storytelling - the perfect gift for readers everywhere.

    These 22 interlinked tales are narrated by characters raised on humiliation and government-issue cheese, and yet are filled with passion and affection, myth and dream. There is Victor, who as a nine-year-old crawled between his unconscious parents hoping that the alcohol seeping through their skins might help him sleep. Thomas Builds-the-Fire, who tells his stories long after people stop listening, and Jimmy Many Horses, dying of cancer, who writes letters on stationary that reads "From the Death Bed of James Many Horses III," even though he actually writes them on his kitchen table. Against a backdrop of alcohol, car accidents, laughter, and basketball, Alexie depicts the distances between Indians and whites, reservation Indians and urban Indians, men and women, and most poetically, between modern Indians and the traditions of the past.

    There, a bore is "a person who talks when you wish him to listen," and happiness is "an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another." This is the most comprehensive, authoritative edition ever of Ambrose Bierce’s satiric masterpiece. It renders obsolete all other versions that have appeared in the book’s ninety-year history.A virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay, The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary offers some 1,600 wickedly clever definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred and few are safe, for Bierce targets just about any pursuit, from matrimony to immortality, that allows our willful failings and excesses to shine forth.This new edition is based on David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi’s exhaustive investigation into the book’s writing and publishing history. All of Bierce’s known satiric definitions are here, including previously uncollected, unpublished, and alternative entries. Definitions dropped from previous editions have been restored while nearly two hundred wrongly attributed to Bierce have been excised. For dedicated Bierce readers, an introduction and notes are also included.Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary is a classic that stands alongside the best work of satirists such as Twain, Mencken, and Thurber. This unabridged edition will be celebrated by humor fans and word lovers everywhere.

    The tale revolves around three characters: two humans and one duck. Jim Dodge is the author of "Not Fade Away" and "Stone Junction".

    BoyleThe Best American Travel Writing edited by Andrew McCarthyThe Best American Sports Writing edited by Wright Thompson  Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. The special guest editor then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish.  This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected – and most popular – of its kind.

    The opening narratives feature adolescent or pre-adolescent boys struggling with their conceptions of manhood: making sense of an old hermit whose life seems to have left no mark, or coexisting with a repulsive great-uncle in a world with no other male role model. Later, the stories depict grown men who find that these same struggles of manhood never go away: a man out of place among hunters and fathers in search of a missing child, or a man fighting through a blizzard to prove his worth to his own wife. The landscapes and lakescapes serve as recurring characters in the book. The boys and men wander forests—sometimes finding tranquility, sometimes finding tragedy. They climb and descend dunes. And often, they encounter the Big Lake: Lake Michigan. The idea of a Third Coast figures prominently in the book, the lake and its horizon serving as a kind of world’s end, where things pass away or come to life.

    ....The world can be a scary place to navigate when you’re brain damaged. Even scarier when you aren't entirely sure what you might have done during a blackout while your alternate personality is running around in your body. My wife calls him ‘The other one’. If you can’t trust your own eyes or the people around you, sometimes it pays to take a leap of faith. I have, I stopped taking my little pink pill. I wonder what will happen?... Flynn was on a bus in London that was attacked by a suicide bomber. He lost his fingers in the explosion and gained left frontal lobe damage to his brain, leading to violent mood swings, blackouts, suicidal thoughts, and psychopathic tendencies. Flynn’s doctor determines that the left frontal lobe syndrome has left him with symptoms similar to schizophrenia, which develop a secondary personality during times of stress. Flynn and his wife refer to this secondary personality as ‘the other one’. However, after he is given a little pink pill by his doctor, an anti-psychotic pill normally reserved for schizophrenics, his moods level out to the point that he can function almost normally again, apart from the fact that the pink pill leaves him feeling emotionally numb. He is relatively content with his new life, after all, thanks to the pink pill, he can’t feel enough to care anyway. Until he decides to stop taking the pink pill in an effort to feel things again. He wonders if he can fool everyone around him into thinking that he is still taking the little pink pill, whilst in reality starting to live a double life. After a chance meeting with another patient during his hospital appointment, he befriends Sid, who also suffers with schizophrenia. The two embark on a sometimes humorous journey of twists and turns in an effort just to stay in what they believe to be a state of equilibrium. The only problem is, neither of them knows if what they perceive is real or not. Especially when experiments with LSD get thrown into the mix. Flynn also has a worrying eye on the news, as more and more people seem to be going missing, and he can’t be certain if he, Sid or any of their ‘other’ selves may have played a hand in it. Please note this novel contains strong language.

    Provides glimpses into the origins of Charles Simic's poetry

    Attempting to gain access to the papers, the property of Aspern's former mistress, he rents a room in a decaying Venetian villa where the woman lives with her aging niece. Led by his zeal into increasingly unscrupulous behavior, the narrator is faced in the end with relinquishing his heart's desire or attaining it an an overwhelming price.Inspired by an actual incident involving Claire Clairmont, once the mistress of Lord Byron, this masterfully written tale incorporates all those elements expected from James: psychological subtlety, deft plotting, the clash of cultures, and profoundly nuanced representation of scene, mood, and character. This volume also contains James's celebrated Preface from the New York edition of his collected works.

    PAUL PIONEER PRESS & DISPATCHBeautiful, but poor, Lisa Sarr, has always dreamed of making a splash in Palm Beach. With the aid of the gang queen of Palm Beach society, she may finally make it. And Lisa will show the rich, handsome, and powerful that they are no match for her guts street smarts, and determination to win--no matter what.

    But when Zeena's vivacious cousin enters their household as a hired girl, Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent.In one of American fiction's finest and most intense narratives, Edith Wharton moves this ill-starred trio toward their tragic destinies. Different in both tone and theme from Wharton's other works, Ethan Frome has become perhaps her most enduring and most widely read book.

    Award-winning and best-selling author Junot Díaz guest edits this year’s The Best American Short Stories, the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction.

    In The Tiger in the Grass, Doerr explores the magical power of memory as it harvests experience, bringing us a wealth of unforgettable characters--all captured in the web of life with all the richness and beauty that distinguishes Doerr's writing.

    Wolfe's brilliant first book -- a collection of essays that introduced us to the Sixties, to extravagant new styles of life that had nothing to do with the "elite" culture of the past.

    Sudden Fiction brilliantly captures the tremendous popularity of this new and distinctly American form.