Eminent Shakespearean scholars Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen provide a fresh new edition of this powerful play that explores sexual hypocrisy and questions morality at all levels of society. This volume also includes more than a hundred pages of exclusive features, including: • an original Introduction to Measure for Measure • incisive scene-by-scene synopsis and analysis with vital facts about the work • commentary on past and current productions based on interviews with leading directors, actors, and designers • photographs of key RSC productions • an overview of Shakespeare’s theatrical career and chronology of his plays Ideal for students, theater professionals, and general readers, these modern and accessible editions from the Royal Shakespeare Company set a new standard in Shakespearean literature for the twenty-first century.

Over six Tuesday evenings a group gathers at Miss Marple's house to ponder unsolved crimes. The company is inclined to forget their elderly hostess as they become mesmerized by the sinister tales they tell one another. But it is always Miss Marple's quiet genius that names the criminal or the means of the misdeed. As indeed is true in subsequent gatherings at the country home of Colonel and Mrs. Bantry, where another set of terrible wrongs is related by the assembled guests—and righted, by Miss Marple.

Every fire begins with a little heat–and in Slow Burn, bestselling author Julie Garwood provides the spark, skillfully blending pulse-pounding action, intense emotion, and characters with grit and heart. The result is an electrifying novel of romantic suspense that will have readers burning through the pages. An unpretentious beauty who radiates kindness, Kate MacKenna doesn’t have a bad bone in her body–or an enemy in the world. So why are bombs igniting everywhere she goes? The first explosion brings her face-to-face with a handsome Charleston police detective. The second sends her into the arms of her best friend’s brother–a Boston cop who’s a little too reckless and way too charming for comfort. But Dylan Buchanan won’t let emotion prevent him from doing his job: Someone is trying to kill Kate, and Dylan is the only one standing between her and the monster who wants her dead.

Known for his meaty seriocomic novels–expansive works that are simultaneously lowbrow and highbrow–Tom Robbins has also published over the years a number of short pieces, predominantly nonfiction. His travel articles, essays, and tributes to actors, musicians, sex kittens, and thinkers have appeared in publications ranging from Esquire to Harper’s, from Playboy to the New York Times, High Times, and Life. A generous sampling, collected here for the first time and including works as diverse as scholarly art criticism and some decidedly untypical country- music lyrics, Wild Ducks Flying Backward offers a rare sweeping overview of the eclectic sensibility of an American original. Whether he is rocking with the Doors, depoliticizing Picasso’s Guernica, lamenting the angst-ridden state of contemporary literature, or drooling over tomato sandwiches and a species of womanhood he calls “the genius waitress,” Robbins’s briefer writings often exhibit the same five traits that perhaps best characterize his novels: an imaginative wit, a cheerfully brash disregard for convention, a sweetly nasty eroticism, a mystical but keenly observant eye, and an irrepressible love of language. Embedded in this primarily journalistic compilation are a couple of short stories, a sheaf of largely unpublished poems, and an off-beat assessment of our divided nation. And wherever we open Wild Ducks Flying Backward, we’re apt to encounter examples of the intently serious playfulness that percolates from the mind of a self-described “romantic Zen hedonist” and “stray dog in the banquet halls of culture.” From the Hardcover edition.

Sherman Alexie’s stature as a writer of stories, poems, and novels has soared over the course of his twenty-book, twenty-year career. His wide-ranging, acclaimed stories from the last two decades, from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven to his most recent PEN/Faulkner award-winning War Dances, have established him as a star in modern literature. A bold and irreverent observer of life among Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest, the daring, versatile, funny, and outrageous Alexie showcases all his talents in his newest collection, Blasphemy, where he unites fifteen beloved classics with fifteen new stories in one sweeping anthology for devoted fans and first-time readers. Included here are some of his most esteemed tales, including "What You Pawn I Will Redeem," "This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona,” "The Toughest Indian in the World,” and "War Dances.” Alexie’s new stories are fresh and quintessential—about donkey basketball leagues, lethal wind turbines, the reservation, marriage, and all species of contemporary American warriors. An indispensable collection of new and classic stories, Blasphemy reminds us, on every thrilling page, why Sherman Alexie is one of our greatest contemporary writers and a true master of the short story.

In Wyoming for a medical conference, Boston medical examiner Maura Isles joins a group of friends on a spur-of-the-moment ski trip. But when their SUV stalls on a snow-choked mountain road, they're stranded with no help in sight. As night falls, the group seeks refuge from the blizzard in the remote village of Kingdom Come, where twelve eerily identical houses stand dark and abandoned. Something terrible has happened in Kingdom Come: Meals sit untouched on tables, cars are still parked in garages. The town's previous residents seem to have vanished into thin air, but footprints in the snow betray the presence of someone who still lurks in the cold darkness--someone who is watching Maura and her friends. Days later, Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli receives the grim news that Maura's charred body has been found in a mountain ravine. Shocked and grieving, Jane is determined to learn what happened to her friend. The investigation plunges Jane into the twisted history of Kingdom Come, where a gruesome discovery lies buried beneath the snow. As horrifying revelations come to light, Jane closes in on an enemy both powerful and merciless--and the chilling truth about Maura's fate. Published in the UK as THE KILLING PLACE.

Since his first collection of stories, Descent of Man, appeared in 1979, T.C. Boyle has become an acknowledged master of the form who has transformed the nature of short fiction in our time. Among the fourteen tales in his seventh collection are the comic yet lyrical title story, in which a young man wins a vicious African cat in a bar bet; "Dogology," about a suburban woman losing her identity to a pack of strays; and "The Kind Assassin," which explores the consequences of a radio shock jock's quest to set a world record for sleeplessness. Muscular, provocative, and blurring the boundaries between humans and nature, the funny and the shocking, Tooth and Claw is Boyle at his best.

Danger wears many faces.... Ten years ago Rachel Grant's fiancé, Thomas, disappeared. His body was never found. Now there's a stranger in town, a man who could be Thomas's twin--or his ghost. His name is Adam Delafield. He's been watching Rachel for days. He has the locket she gave Thomas before he vanished. And he says he owed her father three million dollars. But there's no record of the loan—or a shred of proof that Adam is who he claims to be. And he's always nearby as accidents begin to threaten Rachel's life. Is he an innocent man who only wants to repay a debt? Or a figure from the past with a score to settle? Rachel must expose lies and unravel stories, find out who wants her dead and why...before the next attempt to kill her succeeds. From the Paperback edition.

Naomi Novik’s beloved series returns, with Captain Will Laurence and his fighting dragon Temeraire once again taking to the air against the broadsides of Napoleon’s forces and the friendly—and sometimes not-so-friendly—fire of British soldiers and politicians who continue to suspect them of divided loyalties, if not outright treason.   For Laurence and Temeraire, put out to pasture in Australia, it seems their part in the war has come to an end just when they are needed most. But perhaps they are no longer alone in this opinion. Newly allied with the powerful African empire of the Tswana, the French have occupied Spain and brought revolution and bloodshed to Brazil, threatening Britain’s last desperate hope to defeat Napoleon. . . . .

An examination of the roots of the Cistercian Order, founded in 1098, its development and waning, and the seventeenth-century reforms by the Abbé de Rancé, which began the second flowering that continues today. Throughout, Merton illuminates the purposes of monasticism. Index; photographs.

Recovering from a fall down the face of a three-hundred-foot dam in South American, Robert Corvus Strang, a self-educated foreman who works on giant dam projects, recalls his hard but exhilarating life.

Set within the 'corner-cafes' of Budapest and across the Great Hungarian Plain, a musician scores the preludes of loss in search of the woman who called herself 'atheist scorpion'...These are the journeys of Miel, the Keeper of the journal.The workings of heaven are shrouded in mystery and myth, leaving us to only theorize as to what awaits us when we pass. There are those among us however, that are special cases.These are good people that have committed a horrendous crime, such as murder.What makes their cases special however, is the fact that by committing these egregious acts, one could argue that they have made the world a better place. A heavenly court of Archangels is forced to consider these special cases, holding in their collective hands the fate of the souls that come before them, but only one among them, Rashnu, recognizes that these souls cannot be judged on just the outward details. Miel, the lowly angel assisting him is tasked with traveling the world to gather the real facts, facts that will hopefully lead to their salvation. The Miel Chronicles is a collaborative effort created by J.T. Lewis to work with other authors on a special project. Yolanda, coauthored with K.R. Jordan is the first of these stories!

Through the course of a day Freddie Jacobson relives a number of scenes from his life. Alone with his dog in the mountain cabin where he spent the now departing winter and where he embraces the rapidly unfolding spring, he finds himself shifting between his place in the present and the worlds of remembrance.On Halloween Night James is alone, while his parents are at a party. His parents never return home. The search for his parents and the truth for what happened on that Halloween Night begins. This short story follows James and the two detectives in charge of the search.

In this book, you get to meet a slightly younger and less wise Maddi and find out what happened at her old school (before she was asked to leave). Hope you enjoy this prequel to the BEST SELLING Diary of an Almost Cool Girl Series.Hi Almost Cool Girls and Boys, Some of you might have read Diary of an Almost Cool Girl- My New School. Did you ever wonder why Maddi had to leave her last school? What happened that could be so bad? In this book, you get to meet a slightly younger and less wise Maddi and find out what happened at her old school (before she was asked to leave). Hope you enjoy this prequel to the BEST SELLING Diary of an Almost Cool Girl Series.Almost Cool Kids Rock!

A book of Fifty 100 word storiesMany people think that the only good story is one that is voluminous. I beg to differ. There is beauty in simplicity. There is elegance in conciseness. This book is a compilation of 50 one-hundred word stories, dealing with a variety of topics, from day-to-day life to the great works of literature. I hope that these stories will inspire you and challenge your imagination in 100 words (more or less) in the same way a book three times its size might!