Louis L'Amour said that the West was no place for the frightened or the mean. It was a "big country needing big men and women to live in it." This volume presents nine of L'Amour's ever-popular short stories-history that lives forever. In "Riding for the Brand," Jed Asbury comes across a derelict covered wagon-the people and their horses killed-and decides to finish what the former owners had set out to do. In "Four Card Draw," Allen Ring wins a small...

Realistic fiction and as the most evocative portrayal of the opulent desolation of the American suburbs.

This story of theft, struggle, and solitude is the true story of a man who lived alone in a tent in the Maine woods for twenty-seven years, never talking to another person and surviving by stealing supplies from nearby cabins. In 1986, a twenty-year-old white man named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the woods. He would remain alone until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing...

Set in a Paris darkened by World War II, Sara Houghteling’s sweeping and sensuous debut novel tells the story of a son’s quest to recover his family’s lost masterpieces, looted by the Nazis during the occupation.
Born to an art dealer and his pianist wife, Max Berenzon is forbidden from entering the family business for reasons he cannot understand. He reluctantly attends medical school, reserving his true passion for his father’s...

"Following the death of his younger brother in Europe, journalist John Easley is determined to find meaning in his loss. Leaving behind his beloved wife, Helen, he heads north to investigate the Japanese invasion of Alaska's Aleutian Islands, a story censored by the U.S. government. While John is accompanying a crew on a bombing run, his plane is shot down over the island of Attu. He survives only to find himself exposed to a harsh and unforgiving...

Since its original publication in Paris in 1959, Naked Lunch has become one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. Exerting its influence on the relationship of art and obscenity, it is one of the books that redefined not just literature but American culture. For the Burroughs enthusiast and the neophyte, this volume—that contains final-draft typescripts, numerous unpublished contemporaneous writings by Burroughs, his own later...

West of the Tularosa: "Ward McQueen, foreman for the Tumbling K, is accused of killing a nearby rancher and he's going to need some help to prove his innocence"--Container. Home in the valley: "Steve Mehan can still recoup the money to save five ranches back home if only he can make it from Sacramento to Seattle on horseback and beat the steamer carrying some bad news"--Container. West is where the heart is: "Home is still more than two hundred...

When an earthquake hits Pakistan Sinan Basioglu, a devout Muslim and his family must depend on their American neighbors for survival. Sinan doesn't like this because his daughter and the American teacher's son are having a secret relationship and she is trying to escape Kurdish tradition.

Seven stories of the old West and the men and women who were able to come together to fulfill their dreams and hopes of a good life.

There's a place beyond this world, beyond the land of the living, where ghosts go to write their unfinished stories--stories that ended too soon. It's a place for unexplained phenomena: mysteries that have never been solved, spirits that have never been laid to rest. And there's only one way in or out. It's called the Library, and you can get there with a special key. But beware! Don't start a story you can't finish. Because in this library, the stories...