American Literature Collection

Ambrose Bierce brings to life the heart rendering stories of divided loyalties, splitting families, states, countries, and individuals. He writes of the glory in beginning and savagery in the doing. Here is a moving anti-war series of stories if ever there was one. A must read by all students of American History and Literature, though perhaps best understood by older adults.

This collection brings together the best British writing of the 20th century, narrated by a trio of beloved voices from the stage and screen. From the ghost stories of M.R. James to the intensity of D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, as well as the intrigue of Joseph Conrad’s spy thriller, The Secret Agent, these enthralling modern classics will delight every listener. These classic stories are read by The Jewel in the Crown’s Tim Pigott-Smith; legendary Shakespearean actor Sir Michael Hordern; and Sir Ian McKellen.

Korean immigrant Mina Pak Johnson is clearing out the last of her husband’s things when she finds a picnic basket in his closet—a long-forgotten wedding present from her mother. With it comes decades of memories—of her mother’s wishes for her to be happy and her own shattered hopes for her first child—and regret at never having used it. Pushing her husband’s ashes and a bottle of wine in a rusty old stroller, Mina is determined to re-create the picnic they never had. But with it comes something Mina never expected, illuminating a loving gesture her husband made years ago.

Contains all six A Miller's Pointe Christmas novellas.

In this eye-opening short story, a tech reporter’s mistake unites two women eight thousand miles apart. One in New Jersey, one in the Philippines. Same name: Sandra Guzman. Same job: content moderators for a mega social media website. What transpires between them is a friendship that changes their perceptions of each other’s privilege and challenges the power of the very industry they work for.

Ray Bradbury was one of the best-known writers and creative dreamers of our time. The many honors he received, which included an Emmy and Academy Award nomination for adaptations of his work, culminated in the 2000 National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, a 2004 National Medal of Arts, and a 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation. For many years NASA and the Disney Studio felt the impact of Ray Bradbury’s creativity, and his fiction has found its way into hundreds of anthologies, textbooks, and the National Endowment for the Arts’ Big Read program.

Even as our world has suffered through successive upheavals, Jesse McCarthy contends, "something was happening in the world of culture: a surging and unprecedented visibility at every level of Black art making". Who Will Pay Reparations on My Soul? reckons with this resurgence, arguing for the central role of art and intellectual culture in an age of widening inequality and moral crisis. McCarthy reinvigorates the essay form as a space not only for argument but for experimental writing that mixes and chops the old ways into new ones.

Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1st 1819, the third of eight children. At the age of seven, Melville contracted scarlet fever which was to permanently diminish his eyesight. At this time Melville was described as being 'very backwards in speech and somewhat slow in comprehension.' His father died when he was 12, leaving the family in very straitened times. Just 14, Melville took a job in a bank paying $150 a year that he obtained via his uncle Peter Gansevoort, who was one of the directors of the New York State Bank.

Beginning with several dozen new poems that have appeared in The New Yorker, among other publications, this volume is a tour through Cynthia Zarin’s five exquisitely made collections, beginning with The Swordfish Tooth, published in 1989. Zarin, a poet in the line of Elizabeth Bishop, allows the listener to experience human truths through a poem's shape and music, bodied forth through intimate images—the turn in the stair, a snow globe, naked birch branches, a vase of flowers—and a propulsive syntax.

The 1925 New York edition of Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time trails readers through the years before, during, and after World War I. The collection’s first two stories, “Indian Camp” and “The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife,” introduce Hemingway’s semiautobiographical character Nick Adams as a child. In total, seven stories portray the young man’s coming of age. All fourteen, including interspersed vignettes, embody the themes that Hemingway would return to throughout his career: alienation, grief, loss, and separation, as well as the regenerative powers of nature.

Here is the preface to twelve magnificent stories, originally part of The John Cheever Audio Collection, in which John Cheever celebrates - with unequaled grace and tenderness - the deepest feelings we have.

With heart-stopping stories by Zane, Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes, Joy M. Copeland, Robert Fleming, Terence Taylor, Francine Lewis, Brandon Massey, and 12 other established or up-and-coming writers, Dark Dreams is a must-have contemporary anthology for fans of the supernatural.

In the 14th edition of this seductive series, erotica's veterans and up-and-coming new writers join forces to explore how tantalizing crossing the so-called Lolita gap between youth and middle age can be.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Jane Smiley details a beautiful erotic interlude in an otherwise sordid real estate deal; Mary Gaitskill celebrates the unexpected ardor of one middle-aged couple; Steve Almond reminisces about the best one-man/three-girl Ecstasy party ever; Nelson George recounts the erotic escapades that befall a young man who accompanies a celebrity athlete when he picks up a gaggle of girls; and Carol Queen explores the joys of making love with summer fruit.

From Susie Bright, America's most outrageous and outspoken chronicler of the nation's sexual practices, comes this volume of the crème de la crème of erotic literature of 1999. Edited by Bright, whom the San Francisco Chronicle describes as "the X-rated intellectual" and The New York Times hails as "the voice of sweet reason and literacy", this sixth annual edition of a best-selling series is sure to satisfy old fans and leave newcomers begging for more.

This is the ideal collection for all lovers of first-rate erotic literature. Edited by Susie Bright, whom the Utne Reader calls "one of the leading thinkers and visionaries of our time", this fourth annual edition of a best-selling series brings together the most outstanding erotic writing of the year, including peculiarly dark and dangerous takes, as well as cutting-edge forays into the world of cybersex.

A blockbuster illustrated book that captures what Americans love to read, The Great American Read: The Book of Books is the gorgeously-produced companion book to PBS's ambitious summer 2018 series.

What are America's best-loved novels? PBS will launch The Great American Read series with a two-hour special in May 2018 revealing America's 100 best-loved novels, determined by a rigorous national survey. Subsequent episodes will air in September and October. Celebrities and everyday Americans will champion their favorite novel and in the finale in late October, America's number one best-loved novel will be revealed.

The Great American Read: The Book of Books will present all 100 novels with fascinating information about each book, author profiles, a snapshot of the novel's social relevance, film or television adaptations, other books and writings by the author, and little-known facts. Also included are themed articles about banned books, the most influential book illustrators, reading recommendations, the best first-lines in literature, and more.

Beautifully designed with rare images of the original manuscripts, first-edition covers, rejection letters, and other ephemera, The Great American Read: The Book of Books is a must-have book for all book lovers.

For this special edition, Susie Bright has gathered human sexuality in all its diversity: pleasure and desire in all its forms. Featuring erotic stories by: Bret Easton Ellis, Poppy Z. Brite, William Harrison, Michelle Tea, Aimee Bender, and Molly Weatherfield.

In The Best American Erotica, Volume 11, we learn about the very first penis in science-fiction hotshot Geoffrey Landis's bawdy fairy tale; Touré's breathless prose poem sets us up with an evening's worth of erotic visitors; and in Jerry Stahl's story, a man recalls his boyhood fascination with his mother's friends and their elaborate undergarments.

Seven great new erotic stories from Dante x: "The Navigator", "Thai Wife Shared with her Friend", "Black Man Fans Theme at the Swingers Club", "Thai Wife and Friends", "Dogging and Wife-Sharing with a Friend", "A Threesome with my Ex-Wife", "The Wife and the Driving Instructor".