When Why Are We in Vietnam? was published in 1967, almost twenty years after The Naked and the Dead, the critical response was ecstatic. The novel fully confirmed Mailer's stature as one of the most important figures in contemporary American literature. Now, a new edition of this exceptional work serves as further affirmation of its timeless quality. Narrated by Ranald ("D.J.") Jethroe, Texas's most precocious teenager, on the eve of his departure to fight in Vietnam, this story of a hunting trip in Alaska is both brilliantly entertaining and profoundly thoughtful.

She’s sweet, pure, and untouched, and she’s about to lose her innocence on camera. To me. Trust me, I’m no porn star, even if I do have the equipment of one. But when the Moretti crime family comes calling to collect on a debt I owe, they want it in trade. You see, there’s big money in dirty movies, and the more real, the better. Me? I’m already filthy, damaged goods from my time in Afghanistan. But then I meet Rose, my “co-star”, and my whole world shatters. She owes the Moretti’s too, but she’s too good for all of this. Too sweet, too beautiful - too innocent for this shit. And I’ll be damned if I let them steal that away from her. It’s wrong that she’s here, but it’s also wrong that she wants me to “teach her” things. It’s worse that I want to. But one taste of her lips, and I’m hooked. One touch of her soft skin, and I know Rose is going to be mine. Not the camera’s. Mine. The virgin with the debt, the ex-marine with the dick, and a porno for the mob. Welcome to Vegas, baby. *Please note that while a connected storyline, each of the Dirty Bad Things books are completely standalone stories centered around one couple, with no cliffhangers or spoilers. Dirty, filthy, and oh-so-sweet, with an utterly obsessed alpha hero, explosive insta-love, and enough kindle-melting steam to make you sweat. Get ready to get wrong in the right kind of way. HEA with NO CHEATING!

“The only one of my contemporaries who I felt had more talent than myself was James Jones. And he has also been the one writer of any time for whom I felt any love.”—Norman Mailer Paris. May, 1968. This is the Paris of the barricaded boulevards of rebelling students’ strongholds, of the literati, the sexual anarchists, the leftists—written chillingly of a time in French history closely paralleling America in the late ’60s. The reader sees, feels, smells and fears all the turmoil of the frightening social quicksand of 1968. James Jones (1921–1977) established himself as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century with his WWII trilogy, From Here to Eternity (National Book Award winner), The Thin Red Line and Whistle.

After years of working in the family business, Arcadia “Ace” Jones has become a renowned car thief. Trained from a tender age, it’s the only life she’s ever known. Longing for a future that doesn’t hold the promise of prison, she makes the decision to go straight and earn an honest living. But the Marchetti Organisation won’t accept her retirement, forcing her to complete a job so big it’s almost impossible. She’s on a tight deadline but an irritating biker dude keeps thwarting her attempts to deliver. Kelly Daniels likes to tinker with bikes and cars. He’s content with operating the car restoration business he owns alongside his partners, until an annoying little thief manages to steal a Dodge Charger right out from under his nose. He gets pulled into her treacherous scheme and they form an unlikely bond. When it becomes a race against the clock to pull off the heist of the century or end up behind bars, Ace and Kelly realise they have more to lose than their freedom—each other.

Two English brothers meet, after a long separation, in India. Oliver, the idealistic younger brother, prepares to take his final vows as a Hindu monk. Patrick, a successful publisher with a wife and children in London and a male lover in California, has publicly admired his brother's convictions while privately criticizing his choices. First published in 1967, A Meeting by the River delicately depicts the complexity of sibling relationships -- the resentment and competitiveness as well as the love and respect. Ultimately, the brothers' exposure to each other's differences deepens their awareness of themselves. In A Meeting by the River, Christopher Isherwood dramatizes the conflict between sexuality and spirituality that inspired his late writings.

The day Lutie Painter takes the city bus north instead of the school bus west, cutting class for the first time ever, her aunt and uncle have no idea what she is up to. They cannot prevent her from riding into danger.      That same morning, Lutie's pastor, Miss Veola, whispers as always, "This is the day that the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it."      A block from Miss Veola and up a hill in Chalk, Train Greene, thin and hungry, burns with anger. He has a decision to make, and he's running out of time.      A few miles away, among finer houses, Kelvin Hartley yawns and gets ready for another day at school, where he is a friend to all and makes an effort at nothing.      And Doria Bell, who recently moved to the South from Connecticut, walks to the bus stop, hoping the high school kids who live nearby will say hello.      All of these lives intertwine and—in surprising ways—become connected to Lutie's ancestors, who are buried in the cemetery in Chalk. Who would have dreamed that the long-dead Mabel Painter, who passed down the Laundry List songs to her great-great-granddaughter Lutie, had passed along a piece of American history that speaks to so many who feel lost and need hope. Big changes are in store for all, and things will never be the same.      In this luminous novel, Caroline B. Cooney delves deeply into a Southern community. Cooney reveals the comfort, inspiration, and hope its members draw from the power of faith, the glory of music, and the meaning of family. From the Hardcover edition.

Wisdom from a remarkable woman of many talents--a writer who captured America's heart on Inauguration Day. From the Hardcover edition.

The stories in this collection tackle great events and figures of history, myth, and literature in unexpected ways, questioning views on such basic concepts as justice, progress, wisdom, belief, and patriotism.

When she was a girl, Lisa See spent summers in the cool, dark recesses of her family's antiques store in Los Angeles's Chinatown. There, her grand-mother and great-aunt told her intriguing, colorful stories about their family's past - stories of missionaries, concubines, tong wars, glamorous nightclubs, and the determined struggle to triumph over racist laws and discrimination. They spoke of how Lisa's great-great-grandfather emigrated from his Chinese village to the United States; how his son followed him, married a Caucasian woman, and despite great odds, went on to become one of the most prominent Chinese on "Gold Mountain" (the Chinese name for the United States). As an adult, See spent five years collecting the details of her family's remarkable history. She interviewed nearly one hundred relatives - both Chinese and Caucasian, rich and poor - and pored over documents at the National Archives, the immigration office, and in countless attics, basements, and closets for the intimate nuances of her ancestors' lives.

Adrift after her sister Bailey's sudden death, Lennie finds herself torn between quiet, seductive Toby—Bailey's boyfriend who shares her grief—and Joe, the new boy in town who bursts with life and musical genius. Each offers Lennie something she desperately needs... though she knows if the two of them collide her whole world will explode. Join Lennie on this heartbreaking and hilarious journey of profound sorrow and mad love, as she makes colossal mistakes and colossal discoveries, as she traipses through band rooms and forest bedrooms and ultimately right into your heart. As much a celebration of love as a poignant portrait of loss, Lennie's struggle to sort her own melody out of the noise around her is always honest, often uproarious, and absolutely unforgettable.

-- ask me, Annie. Ask me what's the worst thing I've done. Ask, goddammit. Because then you'll know I'll never go beyond last night.Tonight, Annie is driving alone from North Sea to Montauk and back again, as she has every night since her husband, Mason, challenged what she believed about herself and about their marriage. Eating junk food and listening to talk radio, Annie tries to shut out her rage, her pain, but Mason's voice persists within her, as urgent as the voices of the anonymous callers who confess their misery to the radio psychologists. Once again, Ursula Hegi writes along that border where bliss and sorrow meet. Sensuous, funny, and mysterious, her new novel takes us into an exuberant and troubled friendship. Since early childhood, Annie, Jake, and Mason have had a special bond. When Annie's parents die on the same night that she and Mason are married, the three friends decide to raise Annie's newborn sister, Opal, together. Annie struggles to be both a sister and a mother to Opal, a wife to Mason, and a friend to Jake. Not surprisingly, their relationships, already entangled, grow dangerous, too close, on the line. One fateful night the three friends miss the moment when they could still turn back, and they goad each other to step across the line, with shocking, unforeseen consequences. Set on the East End of Long Island, "The Worst Thing I've Done" is an incandescent story of love, friendship, and marriage; of joy and betrayal;of an artist's struggle to reconnect with her work; and of how we can choose our mothers, our families. Beautifully written and brilliantly vivid, it explores the resilience in the protagonists' lives, and their courage to move forward despite an uncertain future.

Hailed as a literary masterpiece, Robertson Davies' The Cornish Trilogy comes to a brilliant conclusion in The Lyre of Orpheus. Available as an eBook for the first time. There is an important decision to be made. The Cornish Foundation is thriving under the directorship of Arthur Cornish when Arthur and his beguiling wife, Maria Theotoky, decide to undertake a project worthy of Francis Cornish– connoisseur, collector, and notable eccentric–whose vast fortune endows the Foundation. The grumpy, grimy, extraordinarily talented music student Hulda Schnakenburg is commissioned to complete E.T.A. Hoffmann’s unfinished opera Arthur of Britain, or The Magnanimous Cuckold; and the scholarly priest Simon Darcourt finds himself charged with writing the libretto. Complications both practical and emotional arise: the gypsy in Maria’s blood rises with a vengeance; Darcourt stoops to petty crime; and various others indulge in perjury, blackmail, and other unsavory pursuits. Hoffmann’s dictum, “the lyre of Orpheus opens the door of the underworld,” seems to be all too true—especially when the long-hidden secrets of Francis Cornish himself are finally revealed. Baroque and deliciously funny, this third book in The Cornish Trilogy shows Robertson Davies at his very considerable best.

Considered the most important work of modern Iranian literature, The Blind Owl is a haunting tale of loss and spiritual degradation. Replete with potent symbolism and terrifying surrealistic imagery, Sadegh Hedayat's masterpice details a young man's despair after losing a mysterious lover. And as the author gradually drifts into frenzy and madness, the reader becomes caught in the sandstorm of Hedayat's bleak vision of the human condition. The Blind Owl, which has been translated into many foreign languages, has often been compared to the writing of Edgar Allan Poe.