English crime novelist Charles Latimer is travelling in Istanbulwhen he makes the acquaintance of Turkish police inspector ColonelHaki. It is from him that he first hears of the mysteriousDimitrios - an infamous master criminal, long wanted by the law,whose body has just been fished out of the Bosphorus. Fascinated bythe story, Latimer decides to retrace Dimitrios' steps acrossEurope to gather material for a new book. But, as he graduallydiscovers more about his subject's shadowy history, fascinationtips over into obsession. And, in entering Dimitrios' criminalunderworld, Latimer realizes that his own life may be on theline.

Eleanor Cahn, a professor of literature, wife of a preeminentsurgeon, and devoted mother of two, is in Paris to present a paperon Anna Karenina. A chance encounter brings to the surface passionsshe has suppressed for years. As The Life Room unfolds, we learnthe secrets of her erotic past: ethereal William, her high schoolboyfriend; her role as muse to troubled painter Adam; her marriageto loyal, steady Michael. On her return to New York, Eleanor'scharged attraction to another man takes on a life of its own,threatening to destroy everything she has. Jill Bialosky hascreated a fresh, piercingly real heroine who must choose betweenresponsibility and desire.

This volume presents the major works of five poets George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell, Henri, Vaughan, and Thomas Traherne. While most of the selections are religious poetD', the important secular verse of Man,ell and Crashaw is also included. Eighty poems by Herbert have been selected from The Temple, and two early poems from lsaak Walton's Lives are also included. Crashaw is represented by sixteen poems from Steps to The Temple, Delights of the Muses, and Carmen Deo Nostro: Man,ell by eighteen selections from Miscellaneous Poems; Vaughan by forty-five poems from Silex Scintillans, Parts 1 and II; and Traherne by Twelve poems from the Dobell Folio, The Third Century, and the Burney Manu*. All of the texts have been freshly edited, and spelling has been modernized. "Textual Notes" specifies the procedures followed and gives the reasons for certain new readings. The poems are copiously annotated in order to clarify unfamiliar allusions and images. The Annotated Bibliography covers historica

Everyone's in love with vampires, and if his name happens to be Edward Cullen, then readers of the wildly popular Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer can't help but be crazy about him. For all those who adore Bella Swan, Edward, and the rest of the Cullen family and can't get enough, this companion guide is a must-read and a terrific gift. The series follows an unlikely couple: Bella, a teenager, and her boyfriend Edward, a vampire that has sworn off human blood. But their love is ill-fated--being a vampire, Edward must keep his passion in check, lest he is driven to suck Bella's blood. With legends, lore, and myths about everything from vampires to werewolves to immortality, a bio of the author, and a ton of insight into the four-book series, this companion guide will give millions of readers the information that they've been waiting for since book one.

This collection of 100 of O Henry’s finest stories is a showcase for the sheer variety of one of America’s best and best-loved short story writers。 The variety of the stories is amazing; O Henry is as at home describing life south of the Rio Grande as he is chronicling the activities and concerns of ’the four million’ ordinary citizens who inhabited turn--of-the-century New York。They are marked by coincidence and surprise endings as well as the compassion and high humour that have made O Henry’s stories popular for the last century。

Osama bin Laden pretends to be a selfless freedom fighter seeking to rid the Islamic world of Western dominanceóand the de facto leader of the Muslim faithful. This biography tells the story of a different man, one whose troubled childhood and adolescent excesses in sex, money, and alcohol, fractures his assumed moral superiority, and renders him more human than icon. Based on information provided by the bin Laden family, extensive independent research, and an insiderís view developed during his current and longtime residence in the Middle East, the author brings a thorough knowledge of the regionís politics and society to the story, and underscores the contradictions that make up the real Osama bin Laden. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Henry James's last completed novel，The Golden Bowl，is the story of two flawed marriages. The lives and relationships of Maggie Verver and her widowed American millionaire father，Adam，are changed and challenged by the beautiful and charming Charlotte Stant，who is the former lover of Maggie's husband，the impoverished Italian，Prince Amerigo. The narrative is underpinned by complex symbolism. The gilded crystal bowl with its almost invisible flaw is the vehicle which James uses to reveal past misdemeanours and make his characters face their own defects in this classic tale of redemption.

The product of more than a decade's continuous work (1598-1611), Chapman's translation of Homer's great poem of war is a magnificent testimony to the power of the Iliad. In muscular, onward-rolling verse Chapman retells the story of Achilles, the great warrior, and his terrible wrath before the walls of besieged Troy, and the destruction it wreaks on both Greeks and Trojans. Chapman regarded the translation of this epic, and of Homer's Odyssey (also available in Wordsworth Editions) as his life's work, and dedicated himself to capturing the 'soul' of the poem. This new edition includes a critical introduction and extensive notes, rendering Chapman’s extraordinary poetic masterpiece accessible to modern readers.

ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP A group of men set sail to solve the mystery of a sea monster in this amazing underwater adventure. EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES: A concise introduction that gives readers important background information A chronology of the author's life and work A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations Detailed explanatory notes Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appre

"The Story of the Stone" (c. 1760), also known by the title of"The Dream of the Red Chamber", is the great novel of manners inChinese literature. Divided into five volumes, of which "The Debtof Tears" is the fourth, it charts the glory and decline of theillustrious Jia family (a story which closely accords with thefortunes of the author's own family). The two main characters,Bao-yu and Dai-yu, are set against a rich tapestry of humour,realistic detail and delicate poetry, which accurately reflects theritualized hurly-burly of Chinese family life. But over and abovethe novel hangs the constant reminder that there is another planeof existence a theme, which affirms the Buddhist belief in asupernatural scheme of things.

A concise introduction that gives readers important background information A chronology of the author's life and work A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations Detailed explanatory notes Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.

An intense, vibrant debut novel set among the back roads of Pennsylvania's mining country Harley Altmyer should be in college drinking Rolling Rock and chasing girls. He should be freed from his closed-minded, stricken coal town, with its lack of jobs and no sense of humor. Instead, he's constantly reminded of just how messed up his life is. With his mother in jail for killing his abusive father, Harley is an orphan with the responsibilities of an adult and the fiery, aggressive libido of a teenager. Just nineteen years old, he's marooned in the Pennsylvania backwoods caring for his three younger sisters, whose feelings about him range from stifling dependence to loathing. And once he develops an obsession with the sexy, melancholic mother of two living down the road, those Victoria's Secret catalogs just won't do the trick anymore. He wants Callie Mercer so badly he fears he will explode. But it's the family secrets, the lies, and the unspoken truths that light the fuse and erupt into a series o

This is a book to be read by a blazing fire on a winter's night, with the curtains drawn close and the doors securely locked. The unquiet souls of the dead, both as fictional creations and as 'real' apparitions, roam the pages of this haunting new selection of ghost stories by Rex Collings. Some of these stories are classics while others are lesser-known gems unearthed from this vintage era of tales of the supernatural. There are stories from distant lands - Fisher's Ghost by John Lang is set in Australia and A Ghostly Manifestation by 'A Clergyman' is set in Calcutta. In this selection, Sir Walter Scott (a Victorian in spirit if not in fact), keeps company with Edgar Allen Poe, Sheridan Le Fanu and other illustrious masters of the genre.

The Wordsworth Classics' Shakespeare Series presents a newly-edited sequence of William Shakespeare's works. The textual editing endeavours to take account of recent scholarship while giving the material a careful reappraisal. About this book: Love, sex and death are the components of Shakespeare's classic story of the love of two young people which reaches across the barriers of family and convention. It encompasses great love, high drama, low comedy and a tragic ending. Romeo and Juliet is a pure tragedy of youth told in verse that is both youthful and intense. The loveliness and the music of the poetry make believable the otherwise commonplace afflictions of blighted love. The beautiful personification of some of the main characters has caused Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio and the Nurse to become part of the world's literary mythology. Love, sex and death are the components in this story of the love of two young people which reaches across the barriers of family and convention. It encompasses great love,

'The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself a gift of anight of wild love with an adolescent virgin' He has never married,never loved and never gone to bed with a woman he didn't pay. Buton finding a young girl naked and asleep on the brothel owner'sbed, a passion is ignited in his heart - and he feels, for thefirst time, the urgent pangs of love. Each night, exhausted by herfactory work, 'Delgadina' sleeps peacefully whilst he watches herquietly. During these solitary early hours, his love for herdeepens and he finds himself reflecting on his newly found passionand the loveless life he has led. By day, his columns in the localnewspaper are read avidly by those who recognise in his outpouringsthe enlivening and transformative power of love. The publication of"Memories of My Melancholy Whores" spearheads "Penguin's"celebration of Marquez's 80th birthday in 2007.

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is Lo Kuan-chung'sretelling of the events attending the fall of the Han Dynasty in220 A.D., one of the most tumultuous and fascinating periods inChinese history. It is an epic saga of brotherhood and rivalry, ofloyalty and treachery, of victory and death. As important forChinese culture as the Homeric epics have been for the West, thisfourteenth-century masterpiece continues to be loved and readthroughout China as well as in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.

Bellow evokes all the rich colour and exotic customs of a highlyimaginary Africa in this comic novel about a middle-aged Americanmillionaire who, seeking a new, more rewarding life, descends uponan African tribe. Henderson's awesome feats of strength and hisunbridled passion for life earns him the admiration of the tribe -but it is his gift for making rain that turns him from mere herointo messiah. A hilarious, often ribald story, "Henderson the RainKing" is also a profound look at the forces that drive a manthrough life.

When a troubled model falls to her death from a snow-covered Mayfair balcony, it is assumed that she has committed suicide. However, her brother has his doubts, and calls in private investigator Cormoran Strike to look into the case. Strike is a war veteran - wounded both physically and psychologically - and his life is in disarray. The case gives him a financial lifeline, but it comes at a personal cost: the more he delves into the young model's complex world, the darker things get - and the closer he gets to terrible danger ...A gripping, elegant mystery steeped in the atmosphere of London - from the hushed streets of Mayfair to the backstreet pubs of the East End to the bustle of Soho - The Cuckoo's Calling is a remarkable book. Introducing Cormoran Strike, this is the acclaimed first crime novel by J.K. Rowling, writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

Poor, plain spinster Bette is compelled to survive on thecondescending patronage of her socially superior relatives inParis: her beautiful, saintly cousin Adeline, the philanderingBaron Hulot and their daughter Hortense. Already deeply resentfulof their wealth, when Bette learns that the man she is in love withplans to marry Hortense, she becomes consumed by the desire toexact her revenge and dedicates herself to the destruction of theHulot family, plotting their ruin with patient, silent malice."Cousin Bette" is a gripping tale of violent jealousy, sexualpassion and treachery, and a brilliant portrayal of the grasping,bourgeois society of 1840s Paris. The culmination of the Comediehumaine, Balzac's epic chronicle of his times, it is one of hisgreatest triumphs as a novelist.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616) is acknowledged as the greatest dramatist of all time.He excels in plot, poetry and wit, and his talent encompasses the great tragedies of Hamlet, King Lear, Othello and Macbeth as well as the moving history plays and the comedies such as A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew and As Yon Like It with their magical combination of humour, ribaldry and tenderness. This volume is a reprint of the highly regarded Shakespeare Head Press edition, and it presents all the plays in the chronological order - as far as may be ascertained - in which they were written. It also includes Shakespeare's Sonnets and his longer poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.

Is it a gesture of good will or a sinister trap that lures Rupert St. Vincent and his family to magnificent estate? How desperate is Joyce Lambert, a destitute young widow whose only recourse is to marry a man she despises? What unexpected circumstance stirs old loyalties in Theodora Darrell, and unfaithful wife about to run away with her lover? In this collection of short stories, the answers are as unexpected as they are satisfying. The Queen of Crime takes bizarre romantic entanglements, supernatural visitations, and classic murder to inventive new heights. 作者简介： AGATHA CHRISTIE is the world's best known mystery writer. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in 44 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her writing career spanned more than half a century, during which she wrote 80 novels and short story col-lections, as well as 14 plays, one

"For Esme With Love and Squalor" includes two of Salinger'smost famous and critically acclaimed stories, and helped to establish him as one of the contemporary literary greats. Thetitle story recounts a Sergeant's meeting with a young girl before being sent into combat. When it was first published in"The New Yorker" in 1950 it was an immediate sensation and prompted a flood of readers' fan-letters. 'A Perfect Day forBananafish' is the first of the author's stories to feature the Glass family, the loveable and idiosyncratic family who wouldappear in much of Salinger's later fiction. A haunting and unforgettable piece of writing, the story follows the eldestsibling, Seymour Glass, and his wife, Muriel, as they embark on an ill-fated honeymoon in Florida. --This text refers to analternate Paperback edition.