The “wise, wildly funny story” of a self-destructive writer’s lost weekend by a Pulitzer Prize–winning, New York Times–bestselling author (Chicago Tribune). A wildly successful first novel made Grady Tripp a young star, and seven years later he still hasn’t grown up. He’s now a writing professor in Pittsburgh, plummeting through middle age, stuck with an unfinishable manuscript, an estranged wife, a pregnant girlfriend, and a talented but deeply disturbed student named James Leer. During one lost weekend at a writing festival with Leer and debauched editor Terry Crabtree, Tripp must finally confront the wreckage made of his past decisions. Mordant but humane, Wonder Boys features characters as loveably flawed as any in American fiction. This ebook features a biography of the author.

“Petry is the writer we have been waiting for; hers are the stories we need to fully illuminate the questions of our moment, while also offering a page-turning good time. Ann Petry, the woman, had it all, and so does her insightful, prescient and unputdownable prose.” — Tayari Jones, New York Times Book ReviewThe Street follows the spirited Lutie Johnson, a newly single mother whose efforts to claim a share of the American Dream for herself and her young son meet frustration at every turn in 1940s Harlem. Opening a fresh perspective on the realities and challenges of black, female, working-class life, The Street became the first novel by an African American woman to sell more than a million copies.

When first published 'The Sound of the City' was hailed as "has never been bettered as the definitive history of rock" (The Guardian'). Now the classic history of rock and roll, has been revised and updated with over 75 historic archive photos. The text has been substantially revised to include newly discovered information and it is now "the one essential work about the history of rock n' roll" (Jon Landau in 'Rolling Stone').

In a narrative that captures all the tumult and liberating energy of a country in division and transition, Sweet Soul Music is the story of the birth of modern rhythm-and-blues. Guralnick records the rise and fall of Stax Records - the Memphis powerhouse label that produced a string of classics from the likes of Otis Redding and Booker T. and the MGs - and other labels such as Atlantic, as well as profiling such major artists as Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, James Brown, Solomon Burke and Al Green. A fascinating tale of a decade that produced some of the finest music ever.

A brilliant satire of mass culture and the numbing effects of technology, White Noise tells the story of Jack Gladney, a teacher of Hitler studies at a liberal arts college in Middle America. Jack and his fourth wife, Babette, bound by their love, fear of death, and four ultramodern offspring, navigate the rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. Then a lethal black chemical cloud, unleashed by an industrial accident, floats over there lives, an "airborne toxic event" that is a more urgent and visible version of the white noise engulfing the Gladneys—the radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, and TV murmurings that constitute the music of American magic and dread.