50 Great Short Stories is a comprehensive selection from the world’s finest short fiction. The authors represented range from Hawthorne, Maupassant, and Poe, through Henry James, Conrad, Aldous Huxley, and James Joyce, to Hemingway, Katherine Anne Porter, Faulkner, E.B. White, Saroyan, and O’Connor. The variety in style and subject is enormous, but all these stories have one point in common–the enduring quality of the writing, which places them among the masterpieces of the world’s fiction. 作者简介： Milton Crane is Professor Emeritus of English Language and Literature at George Washington University and the University of Chicago. His is the author several books and articles on English literature, as well as the editor of the Bantam anthology, 50 Great American Short Stories.

Herodotus (c480-c425) is 'The Father of History' and his Histories are the first piece of Western historical writing. They are also the most entertaining. Why did Pheidippides run the 26 miles and 385 yards (or 42.195 kilometres) from Marathon to Athens? And what did he do when he got there? Was the Battle of Salamis fought between sausage-sellers? Which is the oldest language in the world? Why did Leonidas and his 300 Spartans spend the morning before the battle of Thermopylae combing their hair? Why did every Babylonian woman have to sit in the Temple of Aphrodite until a man threw a coin into her lap, and how long was she likely to sit there? And what is the best way to kill a crocodile? This wide-ranging history provides the answers to all these fascinating questions as well as providing many fascinating insights into the Ancient World.

Bestselling novelist Sheldon's memoir is reminiscent of his colorful novels, a rags-to-riches yarn replete with struggle, an indomitable hero and eventual glamour. It opens with a 17-year-old Sheldon preparing to commit suicide in Chicago in 1934. "[L]onely and trapped," he wanted to attend college but couldn't afford it. Thankfully, his father intervened, and the young man got a new lease on life. He went from being an RKO theater usher to a struggling songwriter, then a top-flight Hollywood screenwriter in a few short years. For the next 30-odd years, Sheldon wrote and directed films, meeting studio honchos and stars like Kirk Douglas, Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe. The author's impressive achievements include a WWII flying stint, a screenwriting Oscar for 1947's The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, a Tony for writing the 1959 Broadway hit Redhead, the creation of four classic TV series (including I Dream of Jeannie) and several bestsellers (Bloodline; The Sands of Time; etc.). Yet these accomplishments came

World-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a cryptic symbol seared into the chest of a murdered physicist. What he discovers is unimaginable: a deadly vendetta against the Catholic Church by a centuries-old underground organization -- the Illuminati. Desperate to save the Vatican from a powerful time bomb, Langdon joins forces in Rome with the beautiful and mysterious scientist Vittoria Vetra. Together they embark on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and the most secretive vault on earth...the long-forgotten Illuminati lair.

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.

No one conducts a more chilling, suspenseful, thoroughlyengrossing tour through the winding corridors of criminal behaviorand the secret chambers of psychopathology than Jonathan Kellerman,the bestselling “master of the psychological thriller” (People).Now the incomparable team of psychologist Alex Delaware andhomicide cop Milo Sturgis embark on their most dangerous excursionyet, into the dark places where risk runs high and blood runscold. It’s a story tailor-made for the nightly news: Dylan Meserve andMichaela Brand, young lovers and fellow acting students, vanish onthe way home from a rehearsal. Three days later, the two of themare found in the remote mountains of Malibu -battered and terrifiedafter a harrowing ordeal at the hands of a sadistic abductor. The details of the nightmarish event are shocking and brutal: Thecouple was carjacked at gunpoint by a masked assailant andsubjected to a horrific regimen of confinement, starvation andassault. But before long, doubts arise a

Translated with an Introduction and Notes by G. H.McWilliam

Tender and tragic, set against the turbulent backdrop of wartime Britain, The Night Watch is the extraordinary story of fbur Londoners: Kay, who wanders the streets in mannish clothes, restless and searching... Helen, who harbours a troubling secret... Viv, glamour girl, recklessly loyal to her soldier lover.., and Duncan, an apparent innocent, struggling with demons of his own. Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked-out streets, illicit liaisons and sexual adventure, to end with its beginning in 1941, this is an astonishing novel.

With this latest entry in a bestselling series that evokes all the passion and heroism of history’s most heartbreaking conflict–the war that was meant to end all wars–Anne Perry adds new luster to her worldwide reputation. Angels in the Gloom is an intense saga of love, hate, obsession, and murder that features an honorable English family–brothers Joseph and Matthew Reavley and their sisters, Judith and Hannah. In March 1916, Joseph, a chaplain at the front, and Judith, an ambulance driver, are fighting not only the Germans but the bitter cold and the appalling casualties at Ypres. Scarcely less at risk, Matthew, an officer in England’s Secret Intelligence Service, fights the war covertly from London. Only Hannah, living with her children in the family home in tranquil Cambridgeshire, seems safe. Appearances, however, are deceiving. By the time Joseph returns home to Cambridgeshire, rumors of spies and traitors are rampant. And when the savagely brutalized body of a weapons scienti

When the Cservanba Brothers Circus comes to Andy Moore's home town as part of its world tour, he's bind of underwhelmed. After all, he can go on the Net and tame tigers in veeyar if he wants to. But this is no ordinary circus, and its reality-based show is augmented by a virtual one where patrons can visit fortune tellers and freab shows weird enough to make anybody's hair stand on end. In fact, Andy becomes so entranced by this virtual Big Top - and ill particular the glamorous aerialist and lion-tamer Syeira - that he gets himself a summer job with the circus. But Andy's about to discover that behind the spectacle is a far darker and more dangerous world, where death is an ever-present reality...

This classic gothic novel was first con-ceived in a storytelling contest between Lord Byron ,Percy Bysshe Shelley ,and eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley,who imagined what might happen if a scientist created life witout considreing theconsequences .By stitching together body parts from various corpses, Victor Frankenstein assenbles a “monster”that he brings to life withelectuicity.The result is so horrific that he flees his home in terror,a bandoning the monster to survive on its own in an uncaring and hostile world. As Society enters the twenty-first century,with opportunities for human cloning within our reach,the questions raised bythis time-less novel seem more pertinent than ever:What are the consequences of creating artifi-cial life?What are scientists'responsiblities toward their work?And what happens if they go too far?In Frankenstein,Mary Shelley offers harrowing answers tothese questions-and a chilling tale that has endured for more than a century. 作者简介： Mary Wollstonecraft She

Magic abounds in this tall,deluxe pop-up carousel that brings Hogwarts School to life!Open the book and then tie the covers together with the purple ribbons for an impressive permanent carousel in your child's room...or fold it back up for easy reshelving.Children will adore identifying rooms and objects they remember from the beloved Harry Potter series,with plenty of flaps to lift and tabs to slide to unveil the ghosts and things that go bump in the night.You can even see where Harry Potter sleeps,and lift the lid of the trunk at the end of his bed!The carousel also features a sheet of punch-out cardboard characters from Severus Snape to Hagrid,so imaginative youngsters can move them around the school.Collectors and Harry Potter fans,rejoice!(Ages 4 and older)

These cruel words are .just the beginning. Constance's mother systematically abused her daughter, both physically and emotionally, throughout her childhood. Regularly beaten and starved, the child was so desperate she took herself off to Social Services and tried to get taken into care. When Constance was thirteen, her mother simply moved out, leaving her daughter to fend for herself: there was no gas, no electricity and no food. But somehow Constance found the courage to survive her terrible start in life. This is her heartbreaking -- and ultimately triumphant - story.

《穿普拉达的时尚女魔头》是根据是劳伦·魏丝伯格（Lauren Weisberger）自己根据自己的经历写的一部畅销小说。这部小说在在《纽约时报》畅销书排行榜上一连高悬了15个星期。 根据这部小说拍摄的同名电影，由著名好莱坞演员梅丽尔·斯特里普（Meryl Streep）、安妮·海瑟薇（Anne Hathaway）等表演完成。同名电影同样获得高票房、高收视。 Book De*ion A delightfully dishy novel about the all-time most impossible boss in the history of impossible bosses. Andrea Sachs, a small-town girl fresh out of college, lands the job “a million girls would die for.” Hired as the assistant to Miranda Priestly, the high-profile, fabulously successful editor of Runway magazine, Andrea finds herself in an office that shouts Prada! Armani! Versace! at every turn, a world populated by impossibly thin, heart-wrenchingly stylish women and beautiful men clad in fine-ribbed turtlenecks and tigh

#1 "New York Times" bestselling author Tami Hoag mixes mysteryand romance in this moving classic novel of a missing woman and thesearch that brings together the unlikeliest of lovers.... She was ablond goddess, a box office megastar. Every woman wanted to be her;every man wanted to bed her. But over a year ago Devon Staffordvanished without a trace. As a biographer, Jake Gannon had taughthimself to follow the clues of a person's life story like adetective. As an ex-Marine, he was accustomed to being firmly incontrol. But when his car died in a little town called Mare's Neston the Carolina coast, he had to admit he'd come to a dead end.There he met a .38-toting tow-truck driver named Dixie La Fontaine.She was no celebrity, but Dixie had an irresistible sex appeal allher own. What did this down-to-earth woman know about a missingmovie star? Surprisingly, quite a lot. And Jake was going touncover it all...if Dixie didn't end up shooting him first.

Deadeye Dick is Vonnegut's funny, chillingly satirical look atthe death of innocence. Amid a true Vonnegutian host of horrors-adouble murder, a fatal dose of radioactivity, a decapitation, anannihilation of a city by a neutron bomb-Rudy Waltz, a.k.a. DeadeyeDick, takes us along on a zany search for absolution and happiness.Here is a tale of crime and punishment that makes us rethink whatwe believe...and who we say we are.

She was a vision. She was a siren. She was a nightmare. Shewas dead. Now he needed her to disappear. And he knew just how tomake it happen. The Palm Beach elite go to great lengths to protecttheir own—and their own no longer includes Elena Estes. Once upon atime a child of wealth and privilege, Elena turned her back on thatlife. Betrayed and disillusioned by those closest to her, she chosethe life of an undercover cop, the hunt for justice her ownpersonal passion. Then a tragic, haunting mistake ended her career.Now Elena exists on the fringes of her old life, training horsesfor a living. But a shocking event is about to draw her back intothe painful vortex she’s fought so hard to leave behind. First she finds the body—a young woman used, murdered, and dumpedin a canal. Not just a victim, but a friend. As Elena delves intoher dead friend’s secret life, she discovers ties not only to theRussian mob but also to a group of powerful and wealthy Palm Beachbad boys known for giving each other a

Whilst awaiting trial for war crimes in an Israeli prison, Howard W. Campbell Jr sets down his memoirs on an old German typewriter. He has used such a typewriter before, when he worked as a Nazi propagandist under Goebbels. Though that was before he agreed to become a spy for US military. Is Howard guilty? Can a black or white verdict ever be reached in a world that's a gazillion shades of grey?

A rousing history of the world's first dominant navy andthe towering empire it built The Athenian Navy was one of the finest fighting forces in thehistory of the world. It engineered a civilization, empowered theworld's first democracy, and led a band of ordinary citizens on avoyage of discovery that altered the course of history. With Lords of the Sea , renowned archaeologist John R. Halepresents, for the first time, the definitive history of the epicbattles, the fearsome ships, and the men-from extraordinary leadersto seductive rogues-that established Athens's supremacy. With ascholar's insight and a storyteller's flair, Hale takes us on anunforgettable voyage with these heroes, their turbulent careers,and far-flung expeditions, bringing back to light a forgottenmaritime empire and its majestic legacy.

At the heart of Joseph Heller's bestselling novel, first published in 1961, is a satirical indictment of military madness and stupidity, and the desire of the ordinary man to survive it. It is the tale of the dangerously sane Captain Yossarian, who spends his time in Italy plotting to survive.