This story, set on an Indian reservation just after World War II, concerns the return home of a war-weary Laguna Pueblo young man. Tayo, a young Native American, has been a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II, and the horrors of captivity have almost eroded his will to survive. His return to the Laguna Pueblo reservation only increases his feeling of estrangement and alienation. While other returning soldiers find easy refuge in alcohol and...

A history of Mount Everest expedition is intertwined with the disastrous expedition the author was a part of, during which five members were killed by a hurricane-strength blizzard. When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. As he turned to begin his long, dangerous descent from 29,028 feet, twenty...

The mysterious death of an eccentric millionaire brings together an unlikely assortment of heirs who must uncover the circumstances of his death before they can claim their inheritance.

Meet Ignatius J. Reilly, a 30-year-old medievalist who lives at home with his mother in New Orleans, and pens his magnum opus on Big Chief writing pads he keeps hidden under his bed. Considered by many a comic masterpiece that memorably evokes the city of New Orleans and whose robust protagonist is a modern-day Falstaff, Don Quixote, or Gargantua; other are not amused by a fat, flatulent, gluttonous, loud, lying, hypocritical, self-deceiving, self-centered...

"At one time, Wyoming provided most of the ties for the nation's railroads. Knights of the Broadax, the Story of the Wyoming Tie Hack, recalls the period beginning in 1914 when strong men, mostly Scandinavians, were carving railroad crossties out of the upper Wind River mountains. Their only tools were their own brute strength, a crosscut saw, a broadax and a double-bitted ax. A good Hack could cut as many as 50 ties a day, with most destined for...

"The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance, and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then from the sisters to each other, the novel draws readers into the experiences of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery, and Sofia"--

A simple game of hide-and-seek turns into a thrilling and dangerous adventure, as four English schoolchildren step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia--a land enslaved by the power of the White Witch. But when almost all hope is lost, the return of the Great Lion Aslan signals a great change.

Twelve-year-old Hannalee Reed, forced to relocate in Indiana along with other Georgia millworkers during the Civil War, leaves her mother with a promise to return home as soon as the war ends.

A love story, an adventure, and an epic of the frontier, Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize winning classic, Lonesome Dove, the third book in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy, is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America. Journey to the dusty little Texas town of Lonesome Dove and meet an unforgettable assortment of heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers. Richly authentic, beautifully written, always...

Moving back and forth from Poland to Rego Park, New York, Maus tells two powerful stories: The first is Spiegelman's father's account of how he and his wife survived Hitler's Europe, a harrowing tale filled with countless brushes with death, improbable escapes, and the terror of confinement and betrayal, The second is the author's tortured relationship with his aging father as they try to lead a normal life of minor arguments and passing visits against...