In this selection of stories and essays, Henry Miller elucidates, revels, and soars, showing his command over a wide range of moods, styles, and subject matters. Writing “from the heart,” always with a refreshing lack of reticence, Miller involves the reader directly in his thoughts and feelings. “His real aim,” Karl Shapiro has written, “is to find the living core of our world whenever it survives and in whatever manifestation, in art, in literature, in human behavior itself. It is then that he sings, praises, and shouts at the top of his lungs with the uncontainable hilarity he is famous for.” Here are some of Henry Miller’s best-known writings: an essay on the photographer Brassai; “Reflections on Writing,” in which Miller examines his own position as a writer; “Seraphita” and “Balzac and His Double,” on the works of other writers; and “The Alcoholic Veteran,” “Creative Death,” “The Enormous Womb,” and “The Philosopher Who Philosophizes.”

The flame never dies . . . Millie Cross knows what it's like to burn for someone. She was young and wild and he was fierce and even wilder-a Chaos biker who made her heart pound. They fell in love at first sight and life was good, until she learned she couldn't be the woman he needed and made it so he had no choice but to walk away. Twenty years later, Millie's chance run-in with her old flame sparks a desire she just can't ignore. And this time, she won't let him ride off . . . Bad boy Logan "High" Judd has seen his share of troubles with the law. Yet it was a beautiful woman who broke him. After ending a loveless marriage, High is shocked when his true love walks back into his life. Millie is still gorgeous, but she's just a ghost of her former self. High's intrigued at the change, but her betrayal cut him deep-and he doesn't want to get burned again. As High sinks into meting out vengeance for Millie's betrayal, he'll break all over again when he realizes just how Millie walked through fire for her man . . .

An old man, a shoemaker who once wore a pince-nez and carried a stick with a silver mounting because he wanted to look like a composer, tells the story of his life to six youn, beautiful women basking in the sun. One drunken thought triggers another. Amorous conquests alternate with sundry mishaps and in the exuberant telling acquire the same weight and substance as earth-shattering events. To say nothing of the historical perspective, which the self-styled "engineer of human feet" bends at random to suit his mood. Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age displays the inimitable Czech master at his playful best.

In the vein of Eat, Pray, Love, but for teens, this inspirational novel is set against the backdrop of Tennessee horse country as well as the historic cities of Italy and the Italian countryside. The story unfolds as three teenage girls, recently graduated from high school, plan the next phase of their lives while dealing with immediate life issues. McDaniel subtly explores the many types of love the girls experience--including love for one's family, one's friends, and intimate love--and the sacrifices they choose to make (or not) for each of them.

14 stories: Rain.--Red.--The letter.--Before the party.--The outstation.--The round dozen.--The hairless Mexican.--Guilia Lazzari.--Mr. Harrington's washing.--The human element.--The alien corn.--The vessel of wrath.--The door of opportunity.--Neil MacAdam.

In the third book of her hot and hilarious series, "New York Times" bestselling author Sandra Hill takes readers along on another wild ride with Jinx, Inc., where trouble is no match for a cagey Cajun matchmaker--and passion conquers all. When reporter Celine Arseneaux entered The Playpen, a Baton Rouge club for men AND women, she never expected John LeDeux to swagger up to her. Sure, the bayou's notorious bad boy was pure sex on the hoof. But even with her expose on the line, Celine will refuse to be his conquest left cryin' in her crayfish -- at least not again. Not for this man who doesn't even remember her! Detective LeDeux had always been too hot to handle, but now he was on fire as the cop posing as a gigolo to bust the Dixie Mafia. Joining Tante Lulu's treasure hunt seems a fine way to avoid the media ruckus--until Celine pursues her story deep into the bayou, stoking John's hazy memories of a sizzling night five years ago.... Original.

Gaspard Winckler, master forger, is trapped in a basement studio on the outskirts of Paris, with his paymaster's blood on his hands. The motive for this murder? A perversion of artistic ambition. After a lifetime lived in the shadows, he has strayed too close to the sun. Fittingly for such an enigmatic writer, Portrait of a Man is both Perec's first novel and his last. Written in the late 1950s, it was rejected by all publishers, and buried in a drawer. Perec himself told a friend 'it will either become a masterwork or will wait in my grave for a faithful exegete to find it in an old trunk...' An apt coda to one of the brightest literary careers of the twentieth century, it is - in the words of David Bellos, the 'faithful exegete' who brought it to light - 'connected by a hundred threads to every part of the literary universe that Perec went on to create - but it's not like anything else that he wrote.

Award-winning nature writer Diane Ackerman confronts the fact that the human race is now the single dominant force of change on the planet. Humans have "subdued 75 per cent of the land surface, concocted a wizardry of industrial and medical marvels, strung lights all across the darkness." We now collect the DNA of vanishing species in a "frozen ark," equip orangutans with iPads, create wearable technologies and synthetic species that might one day outsmart us. With her distinctive gift for making scientific discovery intelligible to the layperson, Ackerman takes us on an exciting journey to understand this bewildering new reality, introducing us to many of the people and ideas now creating--perhaps saving--the future. The Human Ageis a surprising, optimistic engagement with the dramatic transformations that have shaped, and continue to alter, our world, our relationship with nature and our prospects for the future.

Rachel Connery is on a seek-and-destroy mission, out for revenge against the mysterious, charismatic man who enticed millions of dollars from her dying mother and cheated her out of her inheritance. She wants retribution and is willing to use every seductive trick at her disposal to obtain it. But desire is a dangerous weapon that cuts both ways, and her trap could end up catching her in a nightmare of forbidden feelings.

The Shadow Club doesn't exist anymore.  The group of second-best kids used to play anonymous practical jokes on their rivals, until things spiraled out of control. Now Jared and the ex-Shadow Club members are having a hard time shaking their reputation. And when the new golden boy at school is the victim of a series of nasty pranks, everyone's convinced Jared is to blame.  Determined to prove his innocence, Jared soon becomes wrapped up in a nightmare worse than anything the Shadow Club ever caused.

A determined young Lancashire girl arrives in London intent on a stage career - this tale from the author of "I Capture the Castle" is told with the candour and authenticity that derives from Dodie Smith's own experience of the theatre world. Mouse never did fully suit her nickname. Tiny she may have been, but timid never. After less than twenty-four hours in London she had bluffed her way into an audition at a famous theatre, infuriated its forceful young stage director, and amused its kind if quite amoral actor-manager. She had finally landed not a part but a toehold as a junior secretary. During her involvement in the engrossing affairs of the Crossway Theatre she met her friends Molly, a baby-faced six-footer; and elegant, ambitious Lilian, who was fated to clash disastrously with Mouse. Later, there was also Zelle, rich, generous, enigmatic, and responsible for an outing to Suffolk village pageant which proved a turning point for them all. Life was always surprising the fearless Mouse: when she unexpectedly got to a chance to act she made an unforgettable impression, though not the one she had intended. However, nothing prepared her for the assault of first love, highly unsuitable, but welcomed by her in a way which was to have far-reaching consequences. Only when she looks back after a reunion luncheon does she realise the full effects of that shared summer on her friends and herself. A startlingly frank yet nostalgic read, this is a charming novel about coming of age and the healing effects of time.

Saint Maybe is the rich and absorbing story of a young man's guilt over his brother's death and his struggle to atone for the wrong he feels he has done. On a quiet street in Baltimore in 1965, seventeen-year-old Ian Bedloe lives with his family in an "ideal, apple-pie household," enjoying the comfort of family traditions and indulging in all the usual dreams of the future. Until one night, when Ian's stinging words to his brother bring tragedy -- and from that careless moment on nothing can ever be the same. Anne Tyler takes us along Ian's painful and poignant quest for forgiveness, from the Church of the Second Chance to Ian's gratifying, solitary work as a carpenter. Raising the three children that are thrust on him, he finds himself amazed, drowning in family and duty. Then, out of the very heart of the domestic clutter, a light begins to flash. From the Hardcover edition.

A part to kill for . . . Singing in a production of the Messiah and rehearsing her show choir for a holiday concert may be more than Paige can Handel. Not only does she have to contend with the overblown ego of world-renowned tenor David Richard, she now has to quickly revamp the show choir’s number, since not one but two other high schools are performing the same song for the quickly approaching competition season. The tempestuous tenor may have a voice to die for, but when he drops dead during rehearsal after drinking poisoned water, Paige has to compose herself and once again solo as a sleuth to find a killer who’s no choirboy . . .

Move over, Vanderpump Rules, there's a new reality TV show about to air this holiday season, and it's hotter and naughtier than ever. When it comes to raising his only son, who's on the spectrum, single dad Sheldon Truman will do whatever it takes to secure the best Christmas for his autistic child, even if that means marrying America's leading pop princess and starring on Newlywed Boot Camp to pay for it. After all, he doesn't believe in marriage, monogamy, or happily ever after, so what's there to lose? With a failing handbag line, a perfume brand that stinks, and a singing career gone flat, actress Neve Adele will do anything that her PR firm, Brill Inc., throws her way. So when she's cast alongside the hottest bad boy she's ever met, the cameras start rolling, and they're forced to share a bed. The psychological games the show puts them through stir up painful emotions from her past, a childhood filled with impoverished abandonment. Once the filming is over, the feelings that Neve's been faking toward Sheldon suddenly become a reality. Can she stop thinking about him and get her career back on track? Or will she give up her hunger for fame and get real with the Manhattanite who not only took her virginity but her heart?