Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence-a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon.

As the treatment takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment appears to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance, until Algernon suddenly deteriorates. Will the same happen to Charlie?

The first fully comprehensive gardening guide from the legendary Martha Stewart in more than 30 years, with everything you need to know to curate a beautiful, thriving garden

Master the art of gardening with Martha Stewart's Gardening Handbook: an in-depth guide that will teach you the knowledge and skills to cultivate a flourishing garden. From understanding soil composition to learning about different types of plants and gardening methods, you'll discover the secrets to creating a stunning outdoor oasis.

Martha covers:

the nuances of careful planningsoil testingdrainagewatering and rainfallunderstanding plant hardiness zonesthe art of choosing the healthiest plants for your specific climate

Plus, all different kinds of plants like:

annuals, perennials, and bulbssucculents and cactivegetable and herb gardenstrees and shrubs

From designing your garden to selecting the right varieties for your region, this manual has every detail covered. Whether you're a green thumb or a gardening novice, this gorgeous book, filled with practical tips, stunning images (many from Martha's personal gardens), and detailed explanations, will arm you with the knowledge to help your garden thrive. As Martha likes to say, gardening is a never-ending opportunity for growth.

William Goldman's beloved story of Buttercup, Westley, and their fellow adventurers in a deluxe limited edition featuring sprayed edges and a new cover perfect for fans of the movie and the book alike.

A tale of true love and high adventure, pirates, princesses, giants, miracles, fencing, and a frightening assortment of wild beasts--The Princess Bride is a modern storytelling classic.

A tale of true love and high adventure, pirates, princesses, giants, miracles, fencing, and a frightening assortment of wild beasts--The Princess Bride is a modern classic, William Goldman's beloved story of Buttercup, Westley, and their fellow adventurers.

As Florin and Guilder teeter on the verge of war, the reluctant Princess Buttercup is devastated by the loss of her true love, kidnapped by a mercenary and his henchmen, rescued by a pirate, forced to marry Prince Humperdinck, and recused once again by the very crew who absconded with her in the first place. In the course of this dazzling adventure, she'll meet Vizzini--the criminal philosopher who'll do anything for a bag of gold; Fezzik--the gentle giant; Inigo--the Spaniard whose steel thirsts for revenge; and Count Rugen--the evil mastermind behind it all. Foiling all their plans and jumping into their stories is Westley, Princess Buttercup's one true love and a very good friend of a very dangerous pirate.

The Princess Bride was unforgettably depicted in the 1987 cult classic film directed by Rob Reiner and starring Fred Savage, Robin Wright, Billy Crystal, Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn, Cary Elwes, and others.

Here, archaeologically documented, is the story of the religion of the Goddess. Under her, women's roles were far more prominent than in patriarchal Judeo-Christian cultures. Stone describes this ancient system and, with its disintegration, the decline in women's status. Index; maps and illustrations.

NOW ON BROADWAY

The international bestseller and modern classic of adventure, survival, and the power of storytelling is now an award-winning play.

A story to make you believe in the soul-sustaining power of fiction.--Los Angeles Times Book Review

After the sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a wounded zebra, an orangutan--and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger.

Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi Patel, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with the tiger, Richard Parker, for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again.

The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them the truth. After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true?

Life of Pi is at once a realistic, rousing adventure and a meta-tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God.

Fueled by a passion for running dogs, Gary Paulsen entered the Iditarod--the eleven-hundred-and-eight-mile sled-dog race through the Alaskan wilderness--in dangerous ignorance and with a fierce determination. For seventeen days, he and his team of dogs endured blinding wind, snowstorms, frostbite, dog fights, moose attacks, sleeplessness, hallucinations--and the relentless push to go on. Winterdance is the enthralling account told by the best author of man-against-nature adventures writing today (Publishers Weekly).

Mary Oliver would probably never admit to anything so grandiose as an effort to connect the conscious mind and the heart (that's what she says poetry can do), but that is exactly what she accomplishes in this stunning little handbook.--Los Angeles Times

From the beloved and acclaimed poet, an ultimate guide to writing and understanding poetry.

With passion and wit, Mary Oliver skillfully imparts expertise from her long, celebrated career as a disguised poet. She walks readers through exactly how a poem is built, from meter and rhyme, to form and diction, to sound and sense, drawing on poems by Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and others. This handbook is an invaluable glimpse into Oliver's prolific mind--a must-have for all poetry-lovers.

I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf imagines that Shakespeare had a sister--a sister equal to Shakespeare in talent, and equal in genius, but whose legacy is radically different. This imaginary woman never writes a word and dies by her own hand, her genius unexpressed. If only she had found the means to create, argues Woolf, she would have reached the same heights as her immortal sibling.

In this classic essay, Woolf takes on the establishment, using her gift of language to dissect the world around her and give voice to those who are without. Her message is a simple one: women must have a steady income and a room of their own in order to have the freedom to create.

With a Foreword by Mary Gordon

The authorized, original edition of Virginia Woolf's masterpiece and one of the most moving, revolutionary artworks of the twentieth century (Michael Cunningham), with a foreword by Maureen Howard.

In this vivid portrait of a single day in a woman's life, Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of preparation for a party while in her mind she is something much more than a perfect society hostess. As she readies her house for friends and neighbors, she is flooded with remembrances of the past--the passionate loves of her carefree youth, her practical choice of husband, and the approach and retreat of war. And, met with the realities of the present, Clarissa reexamines the choices that brought her there, hesitantly looking ahead to the unfamiliar work of growing old.

From the introspective Clarissa, to the lover who never fully recovered from her rejection, to a war-ravaged stranger in the park, the characters and scope of Mrs. Dalloway reshape our sense of ordinary life and reshaped English literature as we know it.

Perhaps her masterpiece...Exquisite and superbly constructed...Required like most writers to choose between the surface and the depths as the basis of her operations, she chooses the surface and then burrows in as far as she can. -E. M. Forster

Italo Calvino's beloved, intricately crafted novel about an Emperor's travels--a brilliant journey across far-off places and distant memory.

Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else. In a garden sit the aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo--Mongol emperor and Venetian traveler. Kublai Khan has sensed the end of his empire coming soon. Marco Polo diverts his host with stories of the cities he has seen in his travels around the empire: cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and designs, cities and the dead, cities and the sky, trading cities, hidden cities. As Marco Polo unspools his tales, the emperor detects these fantastic places are more than they appear.

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel...Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. --from If On A Winter's Night a Traveler

Italo Calvino's stunning classic imagines a novel capable of endless possibilities in an intricately crafted, spellbinding story about writing and reading.

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is a feat of striking ingenuity and intelligence, exploring how our reading choices can shape and transform our lives. Originally published in 1979, Italo Calvino's singular novel crafted a postmodern narrative like never seen before--offering not one novel but ten, each with a different plot, style, ambience, and author, and each interrupted at a moment of suspense. Together, the stories form a labyrinth of literature known and unknown, alive and extinct, through which two readers pursue the story lines that intrigue them and try to read each other. Deeply profound and surprisingly romantic, this classic is a beautiful meditation on the transformative power of reading and the ways we make meaning in our lives.

Calvino is a wizard...There is no halting [this book's] metamorphoses. --New York Times Review of Books

Innovative and deeply poetic, The Waves is often regarded as Virginia Woolf's masterpiece. It begins with six children--three boys and three girls--playing in a garden by the sea, and follows their lives as they grow up, experience friendship and love, and grapple with the death of their beloved friend Percival. Instead of describing their outward expressions of grief, Woolf draws her characters from the inside, revealing their inner lives: their aspirations, their triumphs and regrets, their awareness of unity and isolation.

As his tale begins, Orlando is a passionate sixteen-year-old nobleman whose days are spent in rowdy revelry, filled with the colorful delights of Queen Elizabeth I's court. By the close, three centuries have passed, and he will have transformed into a thirty-six-year-old woman in the year 1928. Orlando's journey is also an internal one--he is an impulsive poet who learns patience in matter of the heart, and a woman who knows what it is to be a man.

Virginia Woolf's most unusual creation, Orlando is a fantastical biography as well as a funny, exuberant romp through history that examines the true nature of sexuality.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - THE CLASSIC BESTSELLER WITH MORE THAN 2 MILLION SOLD

[Merton] is an incredible source of light and comfort and humor. - Anne Lamott

The famous autobiography of one of the most acclaimed faith leaders and theologians of our time.

Credited as being the first major Catholic book to achieve widespread popularity in America, Thomas Merton's spiritual evolution has captivated millions since its publication. Based on Merton's personal journals, The Seven Storey Mountain tells of the growing restlessness of a brilliant and passionate young man, who at the age of twenty-six, takes vows in one of the most demanding Catholic orders--the Trappist monks.

At the Abbey of Gethsemani, the four walls of my new freedom, Thomas Merton struggles to withdraw from the world, but only after he has fully immersed himself in it. At the abbey, he wrote this extraordinary testament, a unique spiritual autobiography that has been recognized as one of the most influential religious works of our time. In this remarkable book, readers will gain insight into:

- How spiritual fulfillment leads to the deepest form of self-discovery

- The true redemption that comes from forgiving ourselves and past sins

- The sacred power of vulnerability and relinquishing control

- How to navigate our desires, discouragements, possibilities, and limitations

- How our cumulative lived experiences broaden our cultural acceptance

- What it truly means to be human in the world

Arriving on the heels of the devastation of WWII, Merton's compellingly passionate words touched a society longing for direction and a true sense of purpose. This work continues to inspire and motivate both present day believers and non-believers alike, through intimate discussions of the power of the human spirit during times of suffering and immense self-doubt. While Merton's story is uncommon, his experiences are universal - touching those of all backgrounds and identities. The immediacy of his words and reflections bring solace to an anxious world.

Translated into more than twenty languages and for readers of Jennie Allen, Brené Brown, and Flannery O'Connor, this spiritual journey towards enlightenment exposes the trials and tribulations that give our lives their ultimate meaning.

The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.

A fantastic book. --Steven Soderbergh

When psychologist Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds himself confronting a painful memory embodied in the physical likeness of a past lover. Kelvin learns that he is not alone in this and that other crews examining the planet are plagued with their own repressed and newly real memories. Could it be, as Solaris scientists speculate, that the ocean may be a massive neural center creating these memories, for a reason no one can identify?

Long considered a classic, Solaris asks the question: Can we understand the universe around us without first understanding what lies within?

A novel that makes you reevaluate the nature of intelligence itself. --Anne McCaffrey

An International Bestseller - This is a shattering work by a literary master.--Boston Globe

A city is hit by an epidemic of white blindness which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers--among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears--through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation, Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayal of our worst appetites and weaknesses--and humanity's ultimately exhilarating spirit.

This is a an important book, one that is unafraid to face all of the horror of the century.--Washington Post

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year