FIFTEEN STORIES ABOUT THE MOST HEINOUS CRIME OF ALL…Of all the crimes humankind can commit, the act of murder—of cold-bloodedly taking another human life—is often the most shocking, and can tear couples, families, and even entire towns apart.Mystery Writers of America is proud to present this volume in the Classics series, featuring fourteen stories by acclaimed writers, all exploring the terrible crime of murder. From chill-master Robert Bloch comes a stor...

CRIME AND MYSTERY STORIES BY20 VENDORS OF VILLAINYMystery Writers of America is pleased to present this sinister volume of larceny, deception, and murder, brought to you by the very finest purveyors of perfidy.Donald E. Westlake tells a tale of a cheating wife who tries to turn the tables on her blackmailer, only to find herself caught in a bigger web of lies than she could have imagined. From Robert Bloch comes a story of a man whose ve...

London’s suspense thriller focuses on the fine distinction between state- justified murder and criminal violence in the Assassination Bureau—an organization whose mandate is to rid the state of all its enemies.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers...

A New York Times Notable BookThe Professor and the Madman is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary—and literary history.The making of the OED was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, was stunned to discover that...

The Well-Spoken Thesaurus is designed to help you improve your communication skills by expanding your vocabulary.The book includes over 200 words, arranged in easy-to-use categories, such as "positive emotions," "negative emotions," "intellectual terms," and "descriptive terms." Each entry includes a definition, synonyms, antonyms, and usage examples.The Well-Spoken Thesaurus is particularly useful for writers who want to improve the preci...

The thrilling Cold War masterwork by the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Gulag Archipelago, published in full for the first time."Solzhenitsyn's best novel. . . . A great and important book, whose qualities are finally fully available to English-speaking readers." —Washington PostMoscow, Christmas Eve, 1949. In this tense Cold War thriller, the Soviet secret police intercept a call made to the American embassy by a Russi...

**A New York Times Bestseller • A Washington Post Best Book of the Year • A New York Times Notable Book“[Pynchon's] funniest and arguably his most accessible novel.” —The New York Times Book Review**“Audacious, bodacious, entropic, synoptic, electric, eclectic, entertaining, hyperbraining, high-roller, tripolar . . . Buy Against the Day." —The Philadelphia InquirerSpanning the era between the Chi...

Eleven original stories about the different paths our world might've taken...Alternate history explores the many possible directions our world could follow if certain key events didn't occur at all or were changed in some crucial way. Is our Earth the only Earth, our reality the only one that exists? Or are there many parallel worlds and societies, some very similar to ours, some barely recognizable?What if...Lincoln had never become president, and t...

A guide to the art of personal writing, by the author of Fierce Attachments and The End of the Novel of LoveAll narrative writing must pull from the raw material of life a tale that will shape experience, transform event, deliver a bit of wisdom. In a story or a novel the "I" who tells this tale can be, and often is, an unreliable narrator but in nonfiction the reader must always be persuaded that the narrator is speaking truth.How does on...

The first graphic novel—a mesmerizing fictional chronicle of a universal American experience.Through a quartet of four interwoven stories, A Contract With God express the joy, exuberance, tragedy, and drama of life on the mythical Dropsie Avenue in the Bronx. This is the legendary book that launched a new art form and reaffirmed Will Eisner as one of the great pioneers of American graphics.

In 1930, Henry Miller moved from New York to Paris, leaving behind — at least temporarily — his tempestuous marriage to June Smith and a novel that had sprung from his anguish over her love affair with a mysterious woman named Jean Kronski. Begun in 1927, Crazy Cock is the story of Tony Bring, a struggling writer whose bourgeois inclinations collide with the disordered bohemianism of his much-beloved wife, Hildred, particularly when her lover, Vanya, comes to live with them in the...

Celebrated writers reveal surprising truths about the joys, challenges, and importance of finding the words, in this special fundraising anthology for PEN Canada.In Finding the Words, thirty-one well-known writers share deeply personal discoveries and stories that will surprise, delight, and stir the mind and heart. By turns inspiring, provocative, witty, and compelling, these diverse and original pieces explore home, exile, and the search for a place to belong; co...