Service Alert
Delay in delivery of Direct to Player materials
You may experience a delay in delivery of Direct to Player materials. All requests for materials will be delivered as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.
You may experience a delay in delivery of Direct to Player materials. All requests for materials will be delivered as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.
Showing 1 - 20 of 63 items
By Samuel R. Delany. 1998
An alien race has settled among the leftover artifacts of humanity. One alien, Lo Lobey, faces trouble assimilating the mythology…
of Earth. Nevertheless, he presses on in the search for his lost love, Friza. 1967By Langston Hughes. 1995
By Anton Chekhov, Larissa Volokhonsky, Richard Pevear, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. 2004
Anton Chekhov, widely hailed as the supreme master of the short story, also wrote five works long enough to be…
called short novels, here brought together in one one volume for the first time, in a new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa VolokhonskyBy Washington Irving, Charles Neider. 1998
Sixty-one short stories by the prolific New Yorker Washington Irving (1783-1859), best known for "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend…
of Sleepy Hollow." The volume contains satires, ghost stories, and fables, many of them set in New York City and the Hudson Valley in the early days of Dutch settlement. Introduction by Charles Neider. 1975By Dylan Thomas, Trina Schart Hyman. 1985
By Barbara Robinson. 2005
The Herdmans are the worst kids in town, so when they take over the lead roles in the church's annual…
Christmas pageant, they cause quite a commotion. For grades 4-7. 1972By Herman Melville. 1985
This realistic novel recapitulates the ending of Typee (RC 9738), as a British whaler rescues Melville, an American sailor. He…
and the ship's doctor become fast friends and share many adventures in the South Pacific: mutiny, imprisonment, and a beachcombing existence in TahitiBy David Robertson. 2020
Acclaimed writer, David A. Robertson, delivers suspense, adventure, and humour in this stunningly illustrated graphic novel continuation of The Reckoner…
trilogy. Cole and Eva arrive in Winnipeg intent on destroying Mihko Laboratories. Their plans change when a new threat surfaces, and Cole has terrifying visions. Are these just troubled dreams or are they leading him to a terrifying truth? Will Eva be able to harness her powers to continue the investigation without him?By David Robertson. 2022
"With Cole barely clinging to life, Eva fearlessly takes the lead to investigate Mihko's horrific experiments. But where's Brady? After…
learning that Mihko reinstated the Reckoner Initiative, Cole and Eva confront Mihko head-on. But a vicious battle with Mihko's newest test subject leaves Cole close to death, and Eva must continue their investigation without him. With Brady missing and Cole in recovery, Eva is on her own. When Eva stumbles across Mihko's secret laboratory, she finds her worst nightmares come to life. What new terrors has Mihko created? And can Eva find Brady before it's too late?"--Back coverBy George Washington Cable, Michael Kreyling. 1988
By Charles W. Chesnutt, Donald B. Gibson. 1993
An early masterwork among American literary treatments of miscegenation, Chesnutt's story is of two young African Americans who decide to…
pass for white in order to claim their share of the American dream.By Susan Merrill Squier. 2004
Embryo adoptions, stem cells capable of transforming into any cell in the human body, intra- and inter-species organ transplantation--these and…
other biomedical advances have unsettled ideas of what it means to be human, of when life begins and ends. In the first study to consider the cultural impact of the medical transformation of the entire human life span, Susan Merrill Squier argues that fiction--particularly science fiction--serves as a space where worries about ethically and socially charged scientific procedures are worked through. Indeed, she demonstrates that in many instances fiction has anticipated and paved the way for far-reaching biomedical changes. Squier uses the anthropological concept of liminality--the state of being on the threshold of change, no longer one thing yet not quite another--to explore how, from the early twentieth century forward, fiction and science together have altered not only the concept of the human being but the contours of human life. Drawing on archival materials of twentieth-century biology; little-known works of fiction and science fiction; and twentieth- and twenty-first century U. S. and U. K. government reports by the National Institutes of Health, the Parliamentary Advisory Group on the Ethics of Xenotransplantation, and the President's Council on Bioethics, she examines a number of biomedical changes as each was portrayed by scientists, social scientists, and authors of fiction and poetry. Among the scientific developments she considers are the cultured cell, the hybrid embryo, the engineered intrauterine fetus, the child treated with human growth hormone, the process of organ transplantation, and the elderly person rejuvenated by hormone replacement therapy or other artificial means. Squier shows that in the midst of new phenomena such as these, literature helps us imagine new ways of living. It allows us to reflect on the possibilities and perils of our liminal lives.By Charles W. Chesnutt. 2002
Stay here beside her major I shall not he needed for an hour yet Meanwhile I…
ll go downstairs and snatch a bit of sleep or talk to oldJane The night was hot and sultry Though the windows of the chamber were wide open and the muslin curtains looped back not a breath of air was stirring Only the shrill chirp of the cicada and the muffled croaking of the frogs in some distant marsh broke the night silence The heavy scent of magnolias overpowering even the strong smell of drugs in the sickroom suggested death and funeral wreaths sorrow and tears the long home the last sleep The major shivered with apprehension as the slender hand which he held in his own contracted nervously and in a spasm of pain clutched his fingers with a viselike grip Major Carteret though dressed in brown linen had thrown off his coat for greater comfort The stifling heat in spite of the palm-leaf fan which he plied mechanically was scarcely less oppressive than his own thoughts Long ago while yet a mere boy in years he had come back from Appomattox to find his family one of the oldest and proudest in the state hopelessly impoverished by the war -even their ancestral home swallowed up in the common ruin His elder brother had sacrificed his life on the bloody altar of the lost cause and his father broken and chagrined died not many years later leaving the major the last of his line He had tried in various pursuits to gain a foothold in the new life but with indifferent success until he won the hand of Olivia Merkell whom he had seen grow from a small girl to glorious womanhood With her money he had founded the Morning Chronicle which he had made the leading organ of his party and the most influential paper in the State The fine old house in which they lived was hers In this very room she had first drawn the breath of life it had been their nuptial chamber and here too within a few hours she might die for it seemed impossible that one could long endure such frightful agony and liveBy Isaac Asimov. 1994
Arguably the greatest science fiction writer who ever lived, Isaac Asimov also possessed one of the most brilliant and original…
minds of our time. His accessible style and far-reaching interests in subjects ranging from science to humor to history earned him the nickname "the Great Explainer. "I. Asimovis his personal story--vivid, open, and honest--as only Asimov himself could tell it. Here is the story of the paradoxical genius who wrote of travel to the stars yet refused to fly in airplanes; who imagined alien universes and vast galactic civilizations while staying home to write; who compulsively authored more than 470 books yet still found the time to share his ideas with some of the great minds of our century. Here are his wide-ranging thoughts and sharp-eyed observations on everything from religion to politics, love and divorce, friendship and Hollywood, fame and mortality. Here, too, is a riveting behind-the-scenes look at the varied personalities--Campbell, Ellison, Heinlein, Clarke, del Rey, Silverberg, and others--who along with Asimov helped shape science fiction. As unique and irrepressible as the man himself,I. Asimov is the candid memoir of an incomparable talent who entertained readers for nearly half a century and whose work will surely endure into the future he so vividly envisioned.By James Weldon Johnson. 1995
One of the most prominent African-Americans of his time, James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) was a successful lawyer, educator, social reformer,…
songwriter, and critic. But it was as a poet and novelist that he achieved lasting fame. Among his most famous works, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man in many ways parallels Johnson's own remarkable life. First published in 1912, the novel relates, through an anonymous narrator, events in the life of an American of mixed ethnicity whose exceptional abilities and ambiguous appearance allow him unusual social mobility -- from the rural South to the urban North and eventually to Europe. A radical departure from earlier books by black authors, this pioneering work not only probes the psychological aspects of "passing for white" but also examines the American caste and class system. The human drama is powerful and revealing -- from the narrator's persistent battles with personal demons to his firsthand observations of a Southern lynching and the mingling of races in New York's bohemian atmosphere at the turn of the century. Revolutionary for its time, the Autobiography remains both an unrivaled example of black expression and a major contribution to American literature.By Charles Waddell Chesnutt. 1998
Outstanding, affordably priced volume presents a selection of 10 best stories by a pioneer in the development of African-American fiction:…
"The Goophered Grapevine," "Po' Sandy," "Sis' Becky's Pickaninny," "The Wife of His Youth," "Dave's Neckliss," "The Passing of Grandison," "A Matter of Principle," "The Sheriff's Children," "Baxter's Procrustes," and "The Doll." Redolent with wit, charm, and insight; essential reading for students of African-American culture. Edited and with an Introduction by Joan Sherman.By Tom De Haven. 2010
Since his first appearance in Action Comics Number One, published in late spring of 1938, Superman has represented the essence…
of American heroism. "Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound," the Man of Steel has thrilled audiences across the globe, yet as life-long "Superman Guy" Tom De Haven argues in this highly entertaining book, his story is uniquely American. Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in the midst of the Great Depression, Superman is both a transcendent figure and, when posing as his alter-ego, reporter Clark Kent, a humble working-class citizen. An orphan and an immigrant, he shares a personal history with the many Americans who came to this country in search of a better life, and his amazing feats represent the wildest realization of the American dream. As De Haven reveals through behind-the-scenes vignettes, personal anecdotes, and lively interpretations of more than 70 years of comic books, radio programs, TV shows, and Hollywood films, Superman's legacy seems, like the Man of Steel himself, to be utterly invincible.By Jad Smith. 2012
Under his own name and numerous pseudonyms, John Brunner (1934-1995) was one of the most prolific and influential science fiction…
authors of the late twentieth century. During his exemplary career, the British author wrote with a stamina matched by only a few other great science fiction writers and with a literary quality of even fewer, importing modernist techniques into his novels and stories and probing every major theme of his generation: robotics, racism, drugs, space exploration, technological warfare, and ecology. In this first intensive review of Brunner's life and works, Jad Smith carefully demonstrates how Brunner's much-neglected early fiction laid the foundation for his classic Stand on Zanzibar and other major works such as The Jagged Orbit, The Sheep Look Up, and The Shockwave Rider. Making extensive use of Brunner's letters, columns, speeches, and interviews published in fanzines, Smith approaches Brunner in the context of markets and trends that affected many writers of the time, including Brunner's uneasy association with the "New Wave" of science fiction in the 1960s and '70s. This landmark study shows how Brunner's attempts to cross-fertilize the American pulp tradition with British scientific romance complicated the distinctions between genre and mainstream fiction and between hard and soft science fiction and helped carve out space for emerging modes such as cyberpunk, slipstream, and biopunk.By Walidah Imarisha, Adrienne Maree Brown. 2016
Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction. Organizers and activists envision,…
and try to create, such worlds all the time. Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown have brought twenty of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. The visionary tales of Octavia’s Brood span genres-sci-fi, fantasy, horror, magical realism-but all are united by an attempt to inject a healthy dose of imagination and innovation into our political practice and to try on new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around us, and all the selves and worlds that could be. The collection is rounded off with essays by Tananarive Due and Mumia Abu-Jamal, and a preface by Sheree Renée Thomas.By Gabriel Garc a M rquez. 1991
Dejó muy claro Gabriel García Márquez que el periodismo siempre fue su principal pasión, la más perdurable y por la…
que quiso ser recordado: “No quiero que se me recuerde por Cien años de soledad, ni por el premio Nobel, sino por el periódico. [...] Nací periodista y hoy me siento más reportero que nunca. Lo llevo en la sangre, me tira”. Esta antología pretende ser la muestra más representativa de la tensión narrativa entre periodismo y literatura que recorrió toda su trayectoria como reportero. Cubriendo cuatro décadas, este delicioso viaje a través de medio centenar de textos muestra como “el mejor oficio del mundo” está en el corazón de la obra del premio Nobel colombiano. Con edición a cargo de Cristóbal Pera y prólogo de Jon Lee Anderson, este volumen contiene piezas tan indispensables como los reportajes escritos desde Roma sobre la muerte de una joven italiana, suceso que permitió al autor pintar un fresco incomparable de las élites políticas y artísticas del país en un marco de novela policiaca, crónicas sobre la vida tras el “telón de acero”, sobre la trata de blancas desde París hasta América Latina o apuntes sobre Fidel Castro o Pío XII. Encontramos también fragmentos tempranos en los que aparecen por primera vez las familias Buendía y Aracataca, junto con artículos que contemplan la política, la sociedad y la cultura bajo la luz sólida, profunda y experimentada de ese gran contador de historias que siempre será maestro de periodistas.