This book began as a ode to the oak trees of Gainesville. The city was so surrounded by these monsterous oaks it looked as if it sat in the lap of a forest. But as the city grew more and more the developers moved in and begain uprooting the trees. There was a hue and cry about saving the trees and keeping Gainesville green among the concerned. I took photos of the mighty oaks as a multi-media project, which I entiled Gainesville Green and repeated throughout the project:Mother nature made ...

Includes the story “Premium Harmony”—set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, MaineThe masterful #1 New York Times bestselling story collection from O. Henry Prize winner Stephen King that includes twenty-one iconic stories with accompanying autobiographical comments on when, why, and how he came to write (or rewrite) each one.For more than thirty-five years, Stephen King has dazzled readers with his genius as a writer of short fi...

This high-interest, low-vocabulary novella is intended for adult basic education (ABE) and English as a Second Language (ESL) readers. Kathy Brown suddenly wakes up. Was that a noise in the house, or part of her dream? In her dream, Kathy was about to kiss Michael, her high school boyfriend. Her husband, Jack, lies beside her, snoring. Michael is exciting. Jack is boring. When Kathy hears the noise again, she gets up. Then she hears whispers. Then she feels a gun at her head. Two men are i...

The classic collection of five deeply resonant and disturbing interconnected stories from #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King.Innocence, experience, truth, deceit, loss, and recovery are at the core of these five interconnected, sequential tales—each deeply rooted in the 1960s, and each scarred by the Vietnam War, which continues to cast its shadow over American lives, politics, and culture.In Part One, “Low Men in Yellow Coat...

Jimmy Winter is a born star on the baseball field, and Seth Barnam can only dream of being as talented. Still, the two baseball fanatics have the kind of friendship that should last forever. But when Seth experiences an unthinkable loss, he's forced to find his own personal strength--on and off the field.An ALA Best Book for Young AdultsAn ALA Best Book for Reluctant ReadersA New York Public Library Book for the Teen AgePennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Book of...

In this superbly crafted DC noir, hard-drinking Nick Stefanos is hired to find a friend's missing wife—if he doesn't hit rock bottom first.Nick Stefanos has given up his job in sales to tend bar at the Spot, where drinks and women are both a bit too easily available, and the routine is starting to feel as dead-end as his last gig.But things are about to change. First, his high-school friend Billy Goodrich asks him to find his wife April, who he says left hi...

Facing the Music, Larry Brown's first book, was originally published in 1988 to wide critical acclaim. As the St. Petersburg Times review pointed out, the central theme of these ten stories "is the ageless collision of man with woman, woman with man--with the frequent introduction of that other familiar couple, drinking and violence. Most often ugly, love is nevertheless graceful, however desperate the situation."There's some glare from the brutally bright light La...

Sometimes winning feels an awful lot like losing in this “comic caper” about a New York City cabbie whose outrageous mishaps “keep us smiling along in the backseat” (Booklist)Cab driver Chet Conway was hoping for a good tip from his latest fare, the sort he could spend. But what he got was a tip on a horse race . . . which might have turned out okay, except that when he went to collect his winnings Chet found his bookie lying dead on the living room floor....

Twelve-year-old Brent Mullen discovers that the new assistant hockey coach is teaching the defensemen on his team illegal moves to help them win at any cost.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTUREIn this striking debut from the author of the National Book Award winner Paris Trout, Pete Dexter chronicles a murder and its consequences in the fictional blue-collar Philadelphia neighborhood of God’s Pocket.Leon Hubbard makes other men nervous, talking to himself or anyone who will listen about the things he’s cut with his straight razor. So when he crosses the wrong guy on a South Philly construction site and winds up ...

Two small-town guys. Two different dreams. One hot summer night.Bobby is a musical genius. Reed is just the drummer.Bobby wants to chase a recording contract. Reed wants to head off to study pre-med.Before they make any decisions about their future, they need to know if they're more than each other's experiment."The First Dance" can be read as a steamy standalone male/male romance story with a happy for now ending. Expect some langu...

From the author of the New York Times bestselling Robert B. Parker’s Blind Spot comes a Moe Prager Mystery.It's 1967 and Moe Prager is wandering aimlessly through his college career and his life. All that changes when his girlfriend Mindy is viciously beaten into a coma and left to die on the snow-covered streets of Brooklyn. Suddenly, Moe has purpose. He is determined to find out who's done this to Mindy and why. But Mindy is not the onl...