National Network for Equitable Library Service

From the pages of the New Yorker, Esquire, and the Paris Review, "Edward Hoagland's collected stories are dazzling" (Ann Beattie). Saul Bellow called him "one of the very best writers of his generation." Newsweek praised him as "a marvelous writer." Edward Hoagland, renowned travel writer and essayist, is also an extraordinary writer of fiction, as readers of his stories "The Final Fate of Alligators" and "Kwan's Coney Island" can attest. Assembled here are stories new and old, spanning from 1960 to the present.

A New York Times Notable Book: Darkly comic fables of modern life from a "major discovery" whose "writing gets in your bloodstream like a fever" (The Washington Post Book World). A housewife with a ravenous lust for the adolescent boy who mows her lawn swallows him whole. A woman nonchalantly hacks off her leg at a posh private club. A father babyproofs his house so thoroughly he never sees his wife and child. And a businessman passing through an airport risks it all to save a giant lobster from death.

A classic collection of American short stories about the lives of the late-nineteenth-century citizens of Maine. Sarah Orne Jewett's masterpiece, The Country of Pointed Firs is a short story sequence that celebrates what the author believed were the rapidly disappearing traditions, manners, and dialect of the natives of coastal Maine at the turn of the twentieth century. In revealing snapshots-a family reunion, the ghostly vision of a seaman, and more-Jewett presents honest portraits of individual New Englanders and a warm, humorous, and compassionate vision of the Northeast.

An action-packed collection of Conan the Barbarian's wild adventures. In this unparalleled collection from a literary mastermind, swordsman Conan the Barbarian faces powerful sorcerers, deadly creatures, and ruthless armies of thieves. With his character Conan the Barbarian, author Robert E. Howard single-handedly invented the genre that came to be known as sword and sorcery.

Two classic novels and a short story collection from the legendary Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author in one volume. This volume from an icon of the Golden Age of science fiction includes: City: In this International Fantasy Award-winning novel, millennia have passed since humankind abandoned Earth, leaving their most loyal animal companions alone. Granted the power of speech centuries earlier, the intelligent, pacifist dogs are the last keepers of human history. With the aid of Jenkins, an ageless service robot, the dogs live in harmony and peace.

A double shot of iconic Miami PI Mike Shayne-"one of the best of the tough sleuths" (The New York Times). Dead Man's Diary: Florida private investigator Mike Shayne's in New Orleans at the behest of a distraught wife whose war-hero husband, Jasper Groat, has gone missing-along with his diary, a harrowing soon-to-be-published daily account of being set adrift in a lifeboat with two shipmates. Rumor has it it's also an incriminating confessional.

Five thrilling tales of mystery, mayhem, and murder from an exceptional quintet of Edgar, CWA Dagger, and National Book Award winners. Crime and literature make strange and sinister bedfellows in this winning anthology of book-themed whodunits by five acclaimed masters of mystery and suspense. Multiple award-winning, bestselling authors provide the literary thrills and chills in this masterful collection of five ingeniously puzzling mysteries that belong in the library of every crime fiction aficionado.

Four timeless anthologies of cherished fables, fairy tales, and bedtime stories from aesop, Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, and Andrew Lang. The most enchanting stories of childhood are included in this sweeping collection. These are the classic tales-of princes and princesses, monsters and magic, enchanted forests and fantastic creatures-that have thrilled readers around the world for generations. aesop's Fables: In ancient Greece, a storyteller named aesop captivated his listeners with tales both beautiful and instructive.

Venture to a world of fairies and flowers in this nineteenth-century collection of stories and poems from the beloved author of Little Women. At the tender age of sixteen, Louisa May Alcott's imagination was already in full bloom. From tales she told her neighbor, Ellen, daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, she wove together stories and songs about fairies, elves, talking flowers, and animals.

From America's favorite storyteller: A rich selection of twenty-five tales by the author of "The Gift of the Magi." Writing under the pseudonym O. Henry, William Sydney Porter was an incredibly prolific and popular master of the short story in the early twentieth century. His stories are known for being witty, playful, full of plot twists, and marked by surprise endings. The author had a special fondness for New York City and a deep interest and appreciation for the ordinary folk who populate his timeless tales.