Four friends come together in a hot contemporary erotic novelfrom the author of Chain Reaction. Meet the friends: Free spirited Jamie is not one to be tieddown—unless it’s in the bedroom. Caleb is Jamie’s sexuallyadventurous lover who has no desire to domesticate her. Mia isJamie’s naive friend whose sexual fulfillment has depended solelyon her first and only lover. Aidan thinks he knows what Mia wants.That’s because he’s the only man she’s ever gone to, to getit. This weekend, four best friends at the crossroads of theirrelationships have decided to do something different. But as sexualpartners shift, Jamie, Caleb, Mia, and Aidan will discover moreabout themselves and each other than they ever imagined.

In this, her first collection of nonfiction, Alice Walkerspeaks out as a black woman, writer, mother, and feminist inthirty-six pieces ranging from the personal to the political. Amongthe contents are essays about other writers, accounts of the civilrights movement of the 1960s and the antinuclear movement of the1980s, and a vivid memoir of a scarring childhood injury and herdaughters healing words.

In Naked, David Sedaris's message is pay attention to me.Whether he's taking to the road with a thieving quadriplegic,sorting out the fancy from the extra-fancy in a bleak fruit-packingfactory, or celebrating Christmas in the company of a recentlyparoled prostitute, this collection of memoirs creates a wickedlyincisive portrait of an all-too-familiar world. It takes Sedarisfrom his humiliating bout with obsessive behavior in 'A Plague ofTics' to the title story, in which he is finally forced to face hisnaked self in the mirrored sunglasses of a lunatic. At this soulfuland moving moment, he picks potato chip crumbs from his pubic hairand wonders what it all means. This remarkable journey into his ownlife follows a path of self-effacement and a lifelong search foridentity, leaving him both under suspicion and overdressed.

A treasury of Lewis’s thought, gathered from all of his morethan forty books and his uncollected essays, on subjects as variedas sin, hell and heaven, the Trinity, and love and sex. Edited andwith a Preface by Clyde S. Kilby.

Look at the Birdie is a collection of fourteen short storiesfrom one of the most original writers in American fiction. Thisseries of perfectly rendered vignettes, never before published inKurt Vonnegut’s lifetime, reveals a warm, wise, and funny portraitof life in post–World War II America—a world where squabblingcouples, high school geniuses, misfit office workers, andsmall-town lotharios struggle to adapt to changing technology,moral ambiguity, and unprecedented affluence. Featuring a Forewordby author and longtime Vonnegut confidant Sidney Offit, Look at theBirdie is an unexpected gift for readers who thought thatVonnegut’s voice had been stilled forever—and serves as a terrificintroduction to his short fiction for anyone who has yet toexperience his genius.

Freeman Dyson, renowned physicist and public intellectual, editsthis year's volume of the finest science and nature writing.

Narrated by a fifteen-year-old girl with a ruthless regard fortruth, The Last Life is a beautifully told novel of lies andghosts, love and honor. Set in colonial Algeria, and in the southof France and New England, it is the tale of the LaBasse family,whose quiet integrity is shattered by the shots from agrandfather's rifle. As their world suddenly begins to crumble,long-hidden shame emerges: a son abandoned by the family before hewas even born, a mother whose identity is not what she has claimed,a father whose act of defiance brings Hotel Bellevue-the familybusiness-to its knees. Messud skillfully and inexorably describeshow the stories we tell ourselves, and the lies to which we cling,can turn on us in a moment. It is a work of stunning power from awriter to watch.

Kenneth Trachtenberg, the witty and eccentric narrator of"More Die of Heartbreak," has left his native Paris for theMidwest. He has come to be near his beloved uncle, theworld-renowned botanist Benn Crader, self-described aplantvisionary.a While his studies take him around the world, Benn, arestless spirit, has not been able to satisfy his longings afterhis first marriage and lives from affair to affair and from ablissto breakdown.a Imagining that a settled existence will end hisanguish, Benn ties the knot again, opening the door to a flood ofnew torments. As Kenneth grapples with his own problems involvinghis unusual lady-friend Treckie, the two men try to figure out whygifted and intelligent people invariably find themselves aknee-deepin the garbage of a personal life.a

Tiny Patrick Henry College, a Christian school just outsidethe nations capital, grooms ambitious young evangelicals intotomorrows conservative elite. The future front lines of politics,entertainment, and science will be commanded by these idealisticgraduates, who plan to lead the battle in reclaiming a godlessnation. Hanna Rosins "superb work of extended reportage" (ChicagoSun Times)takes us into the halls and dorms and hearts of PatrickHenry, following students from the campus to the White House,Congress, conservative think tanks, Hollywood, and other keycenters of influence. Lively and evenhanded, her account revealsthe evangelical movement at a moment of crisis and climax, itsfuture leaders struggling to resist the temptations of modern lifeeven as they try to remake the world in their image. Hanna Rosinhas crafted a vibrant, insightful look at kids who may very well bein charge of our country someday.

As a young man Frank Oppenheimer followed in his famousbrothers footstepsgrowing up in a privileged Manhattan household,becoming a physicist, working on the atomic bomb. Tragically, Frankand Robert both had their careers destroyed by the Red Scare. Buttheir paths diverged. While Robert died an almost ruined man, Frankcame into his own, emerging from ten years of exile on a Coloradoranch to create not just a multimillion dollar institution but alsoa revolution that was felt all over the world. His Exploratoriumwas a "museum of human awareness" that combined art and sciencewhile it encouraged play, experimentation, and a sense of joy andwonder; its success inspired a transformation in museums around theglobe. In many ways it was Franks answer to the atom bomb. K. C.Colea friend and colleague of Franks for many yearshas drawn fromletters, documents, and extensive interviews to write a verypersonal story of the man whose irrepressible spirit would inspireso many.

1855: The Industrial Revolution is in full and inexorable swing,powered by steam-driven cybernetic Engines. Charles Babbageperfects his Analytical Engine and the computer age arrives acentury ahead of its time. And three extraordinary charactersrace toward a rendezvous with history—and the future: Sybil Gerard —a fallen woman, politician’s tart, daughter ofa Luddite agitator Edward “Leviathan” Mallory —explorer and paleontologist Laurence Oliphant —diplomat, mystic, and spy. Their adventure begins with the discovery of a box of punchedEngine cards of unknown origin and purpose. Cards someonewants badly enough to kill for…. Part detective story, part historical thriller, The DifferenceEngine is the collaborative masterpiece by two of the mostacclaimed science fiction authors writing today. Provocative,compelling, intensely imagined, it is a startling extension ofGibson’s and Sterling’s unique visions—and the beginning ofmovement we know today as “steampunk!” From the Paperb

From the early Soviet period, the impassioned short fictionof the great Russian-Jewish writer One of the most powerful short-story writers of the twentiethcentury, Isaac Babel expressed his sense of inner conflict throughdisturbing tales that explored the contradictions of Russiansociety. Whether reflecting on anti-Semitism in stories such as“Story of My Dovecote” and “First Love,” or depicting Jewishgangsters in his native Odessa, Babel’s eye for the comical laidbare the ironies of history. His masterpiece, “Red Cavalry,” set inthe Soviet-Polish war, is one of the classics of modern fiction. Byturns flamboyant and restrained, this collection of Babel’sbest-known stories vividly expresses the horrors of his age. “Amazing not only as literature but as biography.” —RichardBernstein, The New York Times “Marvelously subtle, tragic, and often comic.” —James Wood, The New Republic

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Readers of Jane Austen's sixgreat novels are left hungering for more, and more there is: themarvelous unpublished manu*s she left behind, collected here."Sanditon "might have been Austen's greatest novel had she lived tofinish it. Its subject matter astonishes: here is Austen observingthe birth pangs of the culture of commerce, as her country-bredheroine, a foolish baronet, a family of hypochondriacs, and amysterious West Indian heiress collide against the background humof real-estate development at a seaside resort. "The Watsons,"begun in 1804 but never completed, tells the story of a young womanwho was raised by a rich aunt and who finds herself shipped back tothe comparative poverty and social clumsiness of her own family.The novella "Lady Susan" is a miniature masterpiece, featuringAusten's only villainous protagonist. Lady Susan's subtle,single-minded, and ruthless pursuit of power makes the readerregret that Austen never again wrote a novel with a scheming widowfor its he

As soon as it first appeared in 1953, this gem by the greatSaul Bellow was hailed as an American classic. Bold, expansive, andkeenly humorous, "The Adventures of Augie March" blends streetlanguage with literary elegance to tell the story of a poor Chicagoboy growing up during the Great Depression. A aborn recruit, aAugie makes himself available for hire by plungers, schemers, risktakers, and operators, compiling a record of choices that isato saythe leasta eccentric.

This superb Pulitzer Prize-winning collection gives voice tofailure with a wry, deft touch from one of this country's mostengaging and uncompromising poets. In "Failure, "Philip Schultzevokes the pleasures of family, marriage, beaches, and dogs; NewYork City in the 1970s; revolutions both interior and exterior; andthe terrors of 9/11 with a compassion that demonstrates he is amaster of the bittersweet and fierce, the wondrous and direct, andthe brilliantly provocative. Filled with poems of "heartbreakingtenderness that go] beyond mere pity" (Gerald Stern), "Failure "isa collection to savor from this major American poet.

When Jane Alison was a child, her family met another thatseemed like its mirror: a father in the Foreign Service, abeautiful mother, and two little girls. The youngest girls fromeach family—one of them Jane—even shared a birthday. With so much in common, the two families became almost instantlyinseparable. Within months, affairs had ignited between the adults,and before long the pairs had exchanged partners—divorced,remarried, and moved on. As if in a cataclysm of nature, twofamilies were ripped asunder, and two new ones were formed. Twopairs of girls were left in shock, a “silent, numb shock, like acrack inside stone, not enough to split it but inside, silentlyfissuring.” And Jane and her stepsister were thrown into a state ofsilent combat for the affections of their absent fathers—a contestthat, for one of them at least, would prove tragic. Readers drawn to The Glass Castle will be moved by Alison’sstunning emotional insight as she recounts the intimatedevastations of family

**DEBUT FICTION** Mary Todd Lincoln is one of history's mostmisunderstood and enigmatic women. The first president's wife to becalled First Lady, she was a political strategist, a supporter ofemancipation, and a mother who survived the loss of three childrenand the assassination of her beloved husband. Yet she also ran herfamily into debt, held seances in the White House, and wascommitted to an insane asylum. In Janis Cooke Newman's debut novel,Mary Todd Lincoln shares the story of her life in her own words.Writing from Bellevue Place asylum, she takes readers from hertempestuous childhood in a slaveholding Southern family through theyears after her husband's death. A dramatic tale filled withpassion and depression, poverty and ridicule, infidelity andredemption, Mary allows us entry into the inner, intimate world ofthis brave and fascinating woman.

Here for the first time, the original, complete Star Warstrilogy in a special 25th anniversary collector's editionhardcover.Twenty-five years after the phenomenon was born, StarWars remains one of the greatest fantasy epics ever told. Here inone collector's edition are the original stories from the firstthree classic films -- Star Wars: A New Hope, Star Wars: The EmpireStrikes Back, and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi -- each a New YorkTimes bestseller with over one million copies in print. Read thesethrilling novels to see where it all began with Luke Skywalker, afarm boy looking for adventure in a galaxy far, far away....