Literary Works

Geoffrey Braithwaite is a retired doctor haunted by an obsession with the great French literary genius, Gustave Flaubert. As Geoffrey investigates the mystery of the stuffed parrot Flaubert borrowed from the Museum of Rouen to help research one of his novels, we learn an enormous amount about the writer’s work, family, lovers, thought processes, health and obsessions. But we also gradually come to learn some important and shocking details about Geoffrey and his own life.

From William Shakespeare and Jane Austen to Gabriel García Márquez and Toni Morrison, Writers explores more than 100 biographies of the world’s greatest writers. Writers introduces key ideas, themes, and literary techniques of each figure, revealing the imaginations, and personalities behind some of the world's greatest novels, short stories, poems, and plays. A diverse variety of authors are covered, from the Middle Ages to present day, providing a compelling glimpse into the lives of the people behind the page.

Barnaby Gaitlin was never a bad kid, but he was certainly doing his best to impersonate one. As a teenager, he developed a habit of breaking into other people’s houses. But he wasn’t interested in the valuable loot - he just liked to read people’s mail, peruse their family albums, and maybe pocket a few personal mementos. Now almost 30 and divorced, he finds himself working for Rent-aBack, which helps the elderly and infirm move furniture or take down their Christmas trees. It’s the perfect career for Barnaby.

Abdel Latif, an old man from the Aleppo region, dies peacefully in a hospital bed in Damascus. His final wish, conveyed to his youngest son, Bolbol, is to be buried in the family plot in their ancestral village of Anabiya. Though Abdel was hardly an ideal father, and though Bolbol is estranged from his siblings, this conscientious son persuades his older brother Hussein and his sister Fatima to accompany him and the body to Anabiya, which is - after all - only a two-hour drive from Damascus. There's only one problem: Their country is a war zone.

Formerly titled Slaughter the Animals, Poison the Earth. All new foreword by New York Times Bestselling author Steve Jackson. It is the extermination of the coyote—a shrewd, wily, solitary scavenger—that serves as the central theme of Jack Olsen's ragingly indignant, beautifully written and deeply moving book, perhaps the most gripping and important work of its kind since the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

Called “our finest black-humorist” by The Atlantic Monthly, Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Now his first and last works come together for the first time in print, in a collection aptly titled after his famous phrase, We Are What We Pretend To Be.

Called “the most influential Ukrainian book for the 15 years of independence", Field Work in Ukrainian Sex by Oksana Zabuzhko is the tale of one woman’s personal revolt. It provoked the top literary scandal of the decade. The novel was first published in Ukraine in 1996, unleashing a storm of controversy and propelling the author to national fame. It topped the bestseller list in Ukraine for more than ten years, making it the most successful Ukrainian-language book of the '90s in every regard.

A young man named Joseph Arillo sits in the parking lot and paints the pavement with flowers. And Andy Hollis steps in it. As the new art teacher at Santa Ana High School, he’s too curious about Joseph’s Flowers and unravels both of their lives in his pursuit for answers. He learns that it’s all part of a rite of passage, an absurd test started by Joseph Arillo’s father, the suspiciously world-renowned artist named only Tom. Which also connects to the drama teacher at Santa Ana High, Katie Bustos. Whose daughter, Desiree, may or may not be dating Joseph. Who is putting himself in danger from a local gang, the lot’s mysterious history, and the police.

Roscoe T. Martin, the son of an Alabama coal foreman, set his sights on a new type of power spreading at the start of the 20th century: electricity. It became his training, his life's work. But when his wife, Marie, inherits her father's failing farm, Roscoe has to give it up, with great cost to his pride and sense of self, to rescue the farm for the sake of his marriage and his family.

Eli Tremaine has had one great regret in his life. When she walks into his shop one day looking for a grave stone for her daughter, their long buried but unresolved past asserts itself amidst her grief and failing marriage. Eli, a stone mason, is sure of only one thing, a fundamental truth he has learned working stone: You can spend days or weeks whittling a block down toward the essence of what you want from it and lose it all at the crucial moment by giving in to the temptation of the quick and easy stroke.

Summer vacation on the island was supposed to be a restorative time for Kate, who'd lost her close friend Elizabeth in a sudden accident. But when she inherits a trunk of Elizabeth's journals, they reveal a woman far different than the cheerful wife and mother Kate had known. The complicated portrait of Elizabeth--her upbringing, her marriage, and journey to motherhood--makes Kate question not just their friendship, but her most fundamental beliefs about loyalty and deception at a time when she is uncertain in her own marriage.

Jonas Anderson might be an excellent teacher if he weren’t addicted to drugs. Instead, at age 28, he’s been fired from yet another creative writing position after assigning homework like visit a stranger’s funeral and write about it. Jonas needs to do something drastic and, as a dual American-Swedish citizen, he knows Sweden is an easy place to be a graduate student and a difficult place to be a drug addict. The year is 2015 when he arrives in Malmö, a city trying to cope with the arrival of tens of thousands of Middle Eastern refugees.

Peter Cunningham has been looking for inspiration for his novel - that is, when he isn’t teaching at the local women’s prison, walking his dog, getting high, and wondering whether it’s time to tie the knot with his college girlfriend. When Peter meets Leslie, a sexual adventurer taking a break from her fiancé, he gets a glimpse of what he wishes and imagines himself to be: a writer of talent and nerve. Over the course of a Virginia summer, their charged, increasingly intimate friendship opens the door to difficult questions about love and literary ambition.

Lovely and winsome May Seymour graduated from college with the world at her feet...and no idea what to do with it. A spontaneous mission trip to Africa brought great surprise - love - and a strong sense of purpose. But in loving others there, she encountered a severe tragedy that left her deeply wounded. She comes to heal at the farm of Claudius Borne - a sweet, kind old man who understands plants and animals far better than people. And his farm becomes May's home. There on the farm, May renews a friendship with an old college flame named Eli whose path has taken unexpected turns too.

A civil rights activist and key figure in African American literary history, Alice Dunbar-Nelson made her mark during the emerging Harlem Renaissance. Violets and Other Tales is her debut (included here in full, save for three stories later updated in The Goodness of St. Rocque). The collection includes poetry, short stories, and essays offering a varied examination of class differences, racial identity, oppression, intolerance, and women’s societal roles. The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories assembles 14 of Dunbar’s short works of fiction.

Nobody alive knew how the feud between Storn and Hammerfell had begun, but that didn't stop the fighting. When Storn's men burned Hammerfell's castle, his infant twin sons were separated, and each grew up thinking himself the rightful Duke of Hammerfell. Conn, raised in the mountains by his father's paxman, continued to fight the Storns. Alastair grew up with his mother in Thendara and planned to marry his cousin, Floria. But when Conn came to Thendara to seek King Aiden's help, and the twins encountered each other, it changed all their lives.

Widely known as the master of horror, Edgar Allan Poe has held the world enraptured for more than 150 years with his dark and powerful works. This collection will sweep you away into a world of literary brilliance.

In After the Fireworks, three of Aldous Huxley's lost classic pieces of short fiction are collected for the first time. In the title novella, Rome is the stunning backdrop where internationally famous novelist Miles Fanning is setting out on a walk down Via Condotti toward the Spanish Steps when he encounters the mysterious Pamela Tarn - a beautiful young American admirer of his work who shares a name, as well as conspicuous personality traits, with a character from his most celebrated book.

Working in a world where a college degree qualifies her to make photocopies and color-coordinate file folders, 24-year-old Girl is struggling to keep up with the essential trinity of food, shelter, and student loans. So when she finally lands the job of her dreams, she ignores her misgivings and concentrates on getting the job done... whatever that may be.

Meredith’s life has been measured in men. Some were a dash, a few were marathons, others she gave inches, and they took miles. But Sam was different. Neither of them could have known when they met all those years ago what loving each other would mean—like when you are so close to something so big, you can’t really see it at all. The tie that binds them is tested when Sam calls to cash in on a promise—for Meredith to take care of him while he’s dying.