The Devil's Dictionary (1906) is a work of satire by Ambrose Bierce. Although he is commonly remembered for his chilling short stories on the experiences of Civil War soldiers, Bierce was recognized in his day as a leading journalist and humorist who spent decades ruffling feathers and drawing laughter with his witty opinion columns, poems, and definitions. Toward the end of his career, he decided to compile these satirical definitions into a book,...

The importance of Edgar Allan Poe to literary history can hardly be exaggerated; his genius and originality, both in terms of language and technique, influenced the French Symbolists of the late 19th century and thus changed the course of modern literature. Although chiefly remembered for his short stories, poetry was his first love, and this magnificently decorated edition presents Poe's complete poems in addition to his most important critical essays...

Once again, David Sedaris brings together a collection of essays so uproariously funny and profoundly moving that his legions of fans will fall for him once more. He tests the limits of love when Hugh lances a boil from his backside, and pushes the boundaries of laziness when, finding the water shut off in his house in Normandy, he looks to the water in a vase of fresh cut flowers to fill the coffee machine. From armoring the windows with LP covers...

"From the current phenomenon of drawing calligraphy with water in public parks in China to Thomas Jefferson laying out dinosaur bones on the White House floor, from the last sighting of the axolotl to a man who stops building plutonium triggers, Sight Lines moves through space and time and brings the disparate and divergent into stunning and meaningful focus. In this new work, Arthur Sze employs a wide range of voices--from lichen on a ceiling to...

Edna Pontellier has everything that a woman and mother should want - two wonderful sons, a husband, and good financial fortune. But still, she feels like something may be missing. While vacationing with her family, she meets a young man who shows affection and opens her mind to adventure and freedom. Edna’s desire for freedom and independence begins to fester in her heart, and she finds that she is increasingly disenchanted with the responsibilities...

In Jackson, Mississippi, in 1962, there are lines that are not crossed. With the civil rights movement exploding all around them, three women start a movement of their own, forever changing a town and the way women--black and white, mothers and daughters--view one another.

Born into slavery on a Maryland plantation, Frederick Douglass doesn't know the year of his birth. Separated from his mother in infancy, he sees her only a few times, always at night, before she dies. At the age of seven or eight, Douglass is sent to Baltimore where, for the first time, he is fully clothed and has enough to eat. His new mistress starts teaching him to read, until her furious husband forbids it. Douglass realises then that reading...