**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.

Six years ago, Jack Till helped Wendy Harper disappear. But nowher ex-boyfriend and former business partner, Eric Fuller, is beingframed for her presumed murder in an effort to smoke her out, andTill must find her before tango-dancing assassins Paul and SylvieTurner do. The Turners are merely hired to do a job, though, andprefer to remain anonymous. When they find that a middleman has letthe true employer know their identities, finishing the job is nolonger enough. Their fee just went up. Full of masterful plottingand unnerving psychological insight, "Silence "is a mesmerizingthrill ride.

William J. Mann, author of the bestselling Kate: The WomanWho Was Hepburn, has now turned his attention to ElizabethTaylor, the quintessential movie star, and uses her biography toreveal the machinations of stardom and fame, from the studio era ofHollywood through the 1970s. How to Be a Movie Star isa totally fresh, brilliantly researched, and reported portrait ofElizabeth Taylor, as she became our first superstar. It isalso a fascinating revelation of cadre that got her there, from hermother to her managers, publicists, gossip columnists, and earlypaparazzi--and, not least of all, herself. Swathed in mink, sailing aboard her yachts, discarding husbandsnearly as frequently as she changed diamond earrings, Taylordominated the headlines for three glittering decades, rewritingrules, defying conventions, laying down the yardstick by whichcelebrity has been measured ever since. Focusing on the mostglamorous period in Taylor's career, Mann takes us inside herprivileged childhood in England to her schooling

It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzyof prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small NewEngland town, an aging classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forcedto retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. Thecharge is a lie, but the real truth about Silk would haveastonished his most virulent accuser. Coleman Silk has a secret.But it's not the secret of his affair, at seventy-one, with FauniaFarley, a woman half his age with a savagely wrecked past - apart-time farmhand and a janitor at the college where, untilrecently, he was the powerful dean of faculty. And it's not thesecret of Coleman's alleged racism, which provoked the collegewitch-hunt that cost him his job and, to his mind, killed his wife.Nor is it the secret of misogyny, despite the best efforts of hisambitious young colleague, Professor Delphine Roux, to expose himas a fiend. Coleman's secret has been kept for fifty years: fromhis wife, his four children, his colleagues, and his friends,includi

A teenage gang comes of age in the 1960s Bronx. Written whenthe author was twenty-four, this story was the basis for a majorfeature film.

At a time when her life seemed to be crumbling, KatherineRussell Rich took on a writing assignment in India, Where she wasseduced by the idea of learning to speak Hindi, the language sheheard swirling all around her. In a rash moment, she determinedshe’d go live and study in the Ancient city of Udaipur. Thatdecision lead to unexpected reclamation. In this beautiful and spirited memoir, she documents herexperiences, from the bizarre to the frightening to the full-outexhilarating. Seamlessly combining her courageous (and oftenhilarious) personal journey with reporting on the science oflanguage acquisition, Dreaming in Hindi offers an eye-openingaccount of what learning a new tongue can teach us about distantworlds and, ultimately, about ourselves.

Two classic plays translated by a Pulitzer Prize-winning poetinto English verse. In The Misanthrope, society itself is indictedand the impurity of its critics motives is exposed. In Tartuffe,the bigoted and prudish Orgon falls completely under the power ofthe wily Tartuffe. Introductions by Richard Wilbur.

Originally subtitled "An Adventurous Education, 1935-1946",this book is a key volume in Kerouac's lifework, the series ofautobiographical novels he referred to as The Legend of Duluoz. Awonderfully unassuming look back at the origins of his career--aprehistory of the Beat era, written from the perspective of thepsychedelic '60s.

First published in 1938, The Hobbit is a story that "grew inthe telling," and many characters and events in the published bookare completely different from what Tolkien first wrote to readaloud to his young sons as part of their "fireside reads." For thefirst time, The History of the Hobbit reproduces the originalversion of one of literature's most famous stories, and includesmany little-known illustrations and previously unpublished maps forThe Hobbit created by Tolkien himself. Also featured are extensiveannotations and commentaries on the date of composition, howTolkien's professional and early mythological writings influencedthe story, the imaginary geography he created, and how he came torevise the book in the years after publication to accommodateevents in The Lord of the Rings.

Everything is over for Simon Axler, the protagonist of PhilipRoth's startling new book. One of the leading American stage actorsof his generation, now in his sixties, he has lost his magic, histalent, and his assurance. His Falstaff and Peer Gynt and Vanya,all his great roles, "are melted into air, into thin air." When hegoes onstage he feels like a lunatic and looks like an idiot. Hisconfidence in his powers has drained away; he imagines peoplelaughing at him; he can no longer pretend to be someone else."Something fundamental has vanished." His wife has gone, hisaudience has left him, his agent can't persuade him to make acomeback. Into this shattering account of inexplicable andterrifying self-evacuation bursts a counterplot of unusual eroticdesire, a consolation for a bereft life so risky and aberrant thatit points not toward comfort and gratification but to a yet darkerand more shocking end. In this long day's journey into night, toldwith Roth's inimitable urgency, bravura, and gravity, all the waysthat

In one of his finest achievements, Nobel Prize winner SaulBellow presents a multifaceted portrait of a modern-day hero, a manstruggling with the complexity of existence and longing forredemption. Introduction by Philip Roth

"I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will muchlike," Jane Austen wrote, but young Emma Woodhouse, in spite of herweaknesses, has charmed generations of readers. Bossy, a littlespoilt, and too eager to control other's lives for what shebelieves is their own good, she creates misunderstandings withevery tactic she employs. But when her attempts to match-make goawry, she learns a hard lesson about life, love, and growing up.The world's greatest works of literature are now available inbeautiful keepsake volumes. Bound in real cloth, and featuring giltedges and ribbon markers, these beautifully produced books are awonderful way to build a handsome library of classic literature.These are the essential novels that belong in every home. They'lltransport readers to imaginary worlds and provide excitement,entertainment, and enlightenment for years to come. All of thesenovels feature attractive illustrations and have an unequalledperiod feel that will grace the library, the bedside table orbureau.