How do you ever know the whole story? How do you ever know even part of the story? How do you find meaning when chance and coincidence could, just be chance and coincidence? Presenting connections and missed connections, this collection of stories is an inquiry into things ranging from flies and trees and books to sex, art, drunkenness, and love.

From his teenage years in provincial Russia to his premature death in 1904, Anton Chekhov wrote thousands of letters to a wide range of correspondents. This fascinating new selection tells Chekhov's story as a man and a writer through affectionate bulletins to his family, insightful discussions of literature with publishers and theatre directors, and tender love letters to his actress wife. Vividly evoking landscapes, people and his daily life, the letters offer revealing glimpses into Chekhov's preoccupations — the onset of tuberculosis, his dual careers as doctor and writer, and his ambivalence about his growing reputation as Russia's foremost playwright and author. This volume takes us inside the mind of one of the world's great writers, and the character that emerges from these pages is resilient, generous, charming and life enhancing.

Rogerson Biscoe, with his green eyes and dark curly hair, is absolutely seductive. Before long, 16-year-old Caitlin finds herself under his spell. And when he starts to abuse her, she finds she's in too deep to get herself out.

Fifteen-year-old Colie is spending the summer with her eccentric Aunt Mira while her mother travels. Formerly chubby and still insecure, Colie has built a shell around herself. But her summer with her aunt, her aunt's tenant Norman, and her friends at the Last Chance Diner and 150 teaches her some important lessons about friendship and learning to love yourself.

Phule gets on the wrong side of Barky the Environmental Dog by hosting a group of big game hunters who intend to bag a dinosaur on Zenobia, even though dinosaurs are not a native species. But cold, hard facts has never stopped a Phule.

For fifteen-year-old Haven, life is changing too quickly. She's nearly six feet tall, her father is getting remarried, and her sister and 150 the always perfect Ashley and 150 is planning a wedding of her own. Haven wishes things could just go back to the way they were. Then an old boyfriend of Ashley's reenters the picture, and through him, Haven sees the past for what it really was, and comes to grips with the future.

One of the great novels of American girlhood, Jean Websteras Daddy-Long-Legs (1912) follows the adventures of an orphan named Judy Abbott, whose letters to her anonymous male benefactor trace her development as an independent thinker and writer. Its sequel, Dear Enemy (1915), also told in letters, follows the progress of Judyas former orphanage now run by her friend Sallie McBride, who struggles to give her young charges hope and a new life. Full of irrepressible female characters that both recall Alcottas Jo March and anticipate the popular heroines of contemporary literature, Websteras novels are witty, heartfelt, and delightfully modern.

The New York Times Bestseller. A New York Times Notable Book. From the acclaimed master of mystery and suspense comes a thrilling novel about the illusion of film — and the reality of murder.

When a champion jockey disappears — right before a big race and the birth of his child — Investigator David Cleveland bets on foul play.

Halley and Scarlett have been best friends ever since they met. Halley has always been the quiet one, Scarlett braver and more outgoing. Halley has always turned to Scarlett when things get rough, and Scarlett has always known just what to do. It's the perfect setup. But everything changes at the beginning of their junior year. Scarlett's boyfriend is killed in a motorcycle accident; then Scarlett finds out that she is carrying his baby. For the first time ever, Scarlett really needs Halley. Now Halley has to learn how to be strong for Scarlett. It won't be easy, but Halley knows that she can't let Scarlett down. Because a true friend is a promise you keep forever.

When an eccentric millionaire dies mysteriously, sixteen very unlikely people are gathered together for the reading of the will... and what a will it is!

What happened in the house that Jack built? It all started with the cheese that lay in the house that Jack built. And then came the rat that ate the cheese and the cat who killed the rat. Caldecott Medal? Winning author and illustrator Simms Taback brings his distinctive humor and creativity to the beloved story of Jack and the house that he built.

On the day of his wedding, Conrad, heir to the house of Otranto, is killed in mysterious circumstances. His calculating father Manfred fears that his dynasty will now come to an end and determines to marry his son's bride himself despite the fact he is already married. But a series of terrifying supernatural omens soon threaten this unlawful union, as the curse placed on Manfred's ancestor, who usurped the lawful Prince of Otranto, begins to unfold. First published pseudonymously in 1764, purporting to be an ancient Italian text from the time of the crusades, The Castle of Otranto is a founding work of Gothic fiction. With its compelling blend of sinister portents, tempestuous passions and ghostly visitations, it spawned an entire literary tradition and influenced such writers as Ann Radcliffe and Bram Stoker.

This is the first volume of The Penguin Atlas of World History, which covers events from the beginning of world history to the eve of the French Revolution. A wide-ranging, chronological summary of the main cultural, scientific, religious and political events of the period is accompanied by detailed maps that clarify complex historical situations, and make this a useful reference book for students and for the home.

Long hailed as the grand master of adventure fiction, Clive Cussler has continued to astound with the intricate plotting and astonishing set pieces of his novels. Now, with a surprising twist, he gives us his most audacious work yet. In the final pages of Valhalla Rising, Dirk Pitt discovered, to his shock, that he had two grown children he had never known-twenty-three-year-old fraternal twins born to a woman he thought had died in an underwater earthquake. Both have inherited his love of the sea: the girl, Summer, is a marine biologist; the boy, himself named Dirk, is a marine engineer. And now they are about to help their father in the adventure of a lifetime. There is a brown tide infesting the ocean off the shore of Nicaragua. The twins are working in a NUMA(r) underwater enclosure, trying to determine its origin, when two startling things happen: Summer discovers an artifact, something strange and beautiful and ancient; and the worst storm in years boils up out of the sky, heading straight not only for them but also for a luxurious floating resort hotel square in its path. The peril for everybody concerned is incalculable, and, desperately, Pitt, Al Giordino, and the rest of the NUMA(r) crew rush to the rescue, but what they find in the storm's wake makes the furies of nature pale in comparison. For there is an all-too-human evil at work in that part of the world, and the brown tide is only a by-product of its plan. Soon, its work will be complete-and the world will be a very different place. Though if Summer's discovery is to be believed, the world is already a very different place...

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves — and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives — and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are. Whether puncturing the lies of politicians, wittily dissecting the English character or telling unpalatable truths about war, Orwell's timeless, uncompromising essays are more relevant, entertaining and essential than ever in today's era of spin.

Learning the alphabet is more fun when the setting is the Hundred Acre Wood. Familiar scenes from the Milne and Shepard classics introduce not only the concepts of letters and words, but also Pooh and his friends. This sturdy board book with an elegant, timeless look has been designed to attract the most discerning Pooh fans and to delight their favorite toddlers.

NOW A BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE FROM COLUMBIA PICTURES STARRING JOHNNY DEPP Based on Secret Window, Secret Garden, a novella in Stepen King's Four Past Midnight. Mort Rainey is a best selling author whose imagination thrills his readers to the core. But one of his stories holds a secret that comes to life. A secret that even he can't imagine...

«Originally published in 1969 but long out of print, Durrell's dazzling sequel to «My Family and Other Animals» is based on his boyhood on the Greek Island of Corfu from 1935 to 1939 and filled with charming observations, amusing anecdotes, boyhood memories, and childlike wonder.»