This unique collection of lectures honors the pioneering work in Byron studies of Leslie Alexis Marchand, who has had an enduring influence on the appreciation and study of Lord Byron for sixty years. Generations of readers and writers have come to Byron through his biographies and his edition of the poet’s letters and journals. All admirers of Byron respond to the verve, dash, and immediacy of his correspondence, which lies at the heart of Marchand’s biographies and offers us a portrait b...

“Mr. Linney continues to be one of our most perceptive chroniclers of the folkways of rural America, finding humanity and nobility in the most remote of places.” –Mel Gussow, New York Times“Linney’s words do it all, summoning up vistas of scary beauty and passions of elemental force.” –David Richards,Washington Post“His output was dazzling in its variety and exceptional for its depth as well as its breadth of scope. Goering at Nuremberg, Lord Byron’s daugh...

Based on Ernest J. Gaines’ National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel, A Lesson Before Dying is set in a small Louisiana Cajun community in the late 1940’s. Jefferson, a young illiterate black man, is falsely convicted of murder and is sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, the plantation schoolteacher, agrees to talk with the condemned man. The disheartened Wiggins had once harbored dreams of escaping from his impoverished youth, yet he returned to his home town after university, to tea...

Look at the Birdie is a collection of fourteen previously unpublished short stories from one of the most original writers in all of American fiction. In this series of perfectly rendered vignettes, written just as he was starting to find his comic voice, Kurt Vonnegut paints a warm, wise, and often funny portrait of life in post—World War II America–a world where squabbling couples, high school geniuses, misfit office workers, and small-town lotharios struggle to adapt to ...

From the pages of America’s most influential magazine come eight decades of holiday cheer—plus the occasional comical coal in the stocking—in one incomparable collection. Sublime and ridiculous, sentimental and searing, Christmas at The New Yorker is a gift of great writing and drawing by literary legends and laugh-out-loud cartoonists.Here are seasonal stories, poems, memoirs, and more, including such classics as John Cheever’s 1949 story “Christmas Is a S...

The waters of renewal sometimes course through the unlikeliest of settings. In the short story, “FUBAR,” we’re taken to a desolate building in a drab industrial complex, where a lonely office worker gains a fresh perspective on life thanks to the intervention of his free-spirited new female assistant.“FUBAR” and the thirteen other never-before-published pieces that comprise Look at the Birdie serve as an unexpected gift for devoted readers who tho...

Willie North is a successful, hardworking pig farmer, known all around Muddy Fork as a kind man and a good neighbor. However, due to his weight and looks, Willie couldn't attract a woman, no matter how hard he tried. He was the only single man in Muddy Fork, so in an act of desperation, he pays $1000 for a mail order bride. When word spreads, the whole of Muddy Fork is at the train station to greet her. Will she turn out just as he imagined, or will he end up with a broken heart? A Muddy F...

Selected as the 2008 CBC Canada Reads Winner!"A dazzling display of fictional footwork. . . . The author has not written just another hockey novel; he has turned hockey in a metaphor for magic." Maclean'sPercival Leary was once the King of the Ice, one of hockey's greatest heroes. Now, in the South Grouse Nursing Home, where he shares a room with Edmund "Blue" Hermann, the antagonistic and alcoholic reporter who once chronicled his...

When he awoke by the side of the road, with a throbbing head and a lovely woman bending over him, he couldn’t even remember his own name. Morgan Slater, U.S. Marshal, simply accepts pretty Mariah Penny’s word that he is her cousin, Cain Law. And that he is part of the family's medicine show.Mariah has good reason for misleading Morgan. The hard-headed lawman is hell-bent on shutting down her legitimate business.Soon Cain is running afoul of the law he's sworn to protect, and M...

A historical mystery with “first-rate wartime Chicago atmosphere” and starring a ballplayer who **“**turns double plays and solves murders with equal grace” (Publishers Weekly).While the nation wages war against Germany in 1918, utility infielder Mickey Rawlings has been traded to the North Side of Chicago. He's batting a career high (a respectable .274) and the Cubs are in first place. For the first time in a long while Mickey is feeling ...

Can Flat Stanley save Christmas in this holiday-themed chapter book adventure?Santa Claus is not his usual, jolly self. In fact, he’s in a terrible mood. He doesn’t believe that children appreciate Christmas anymore. This year, he has decided that he is not going to deliver any Christmas presents!Luckily, his daughter, Sarah Claus, knows who to call for help at the North Pole. The Lambchop family! But can they convince Santa that there are still good children in the world? ...

This engaging prequel to Joseph Girzone’s bestselling series, which has sold more than 5 million books in the United States, describes Joshua’s early years and the first inklings of his destiny as a messenger of love in a troubled world.Millions of readers around the world have followed the story of the gentle woodcarver and carpenter who was first introduced in 1983 in Joseph Girzone’s beloved parable, Joshua. In JOSHUA’S FAMILY, Girzone travels back in time, painting a ca...