One of the most important and blazingly original writers of his generation, George Saunders is an undisputed master of the short story. Unsettling, insightful and hilarious, this is his new collection. Exploring motivations and misunderstandings, Saunders scratches away at the surface of worlds shot-through with confusion, illuminating figures lost in a labyrinth of troubling preoccupations. A family member recollects a backyard pole dressed for...

Teens heading out to help with a charity event learn how to practice a variety of community courtesies in all kinds of public places. How do you act on public transportation, in a movie theater, in a restaurant, in a gym, at a laundromat, when shopping or as a guest? This video teaches teens that small courtesies can add up to big impressions anywhere.--Kanopy.

She makes you laugh . . . she makes you cry . . . she takes you to a world of hope and romance. The Shell Seekers and September, once again proves that she is a rare writer whose heartwarming stories are presented to readers like gifts of love. "Entertaining and wise . . . Each story is like a work of art."--Los Angeles Times Book Review. Martin's.

"A new tour de force from the bestselling author of Free Food for Millionaires, for readers of The Kite Runner and Cutting for Stone. PACHINKO follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan....

This brilliant satire of the women's rights movement in America is the story of the ravishing inspirational speaker Verena Tarrant and the bitter struggle between two distant cousins who seek to control her. Will the privileged Boston feminist Olive Chancellor succeed in turning her beloved ward into a celebrated activist and lifetime companion? Or will Basil Ransom, a conservative southern lawyer, steal Verena's heart and remove her from the limelight?...

Jean Rouch is known to many worldwide as a French anthropologist and innovative filmmaker. Much of his work is linked to the birth of cinéma vérité. However, Rouch's fifty-year involvement with a particular group of people in Niger shines a more personal light on his work - one of friendship and collaboration. Together with this group, Rouch made numerous ethnographic films and developed their own cinematographic style. These films have been termed...

In this comedy of early-Victorian life in a country town, Elizabeth Gaskell describes the uneventful lives of the lady-like inhabitants so as to offer an ironic commentary on the diverse experiences of men and women.

A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel tells with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha. Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. It begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old girl with unusual blue-gray eyes, she...

Washington Irving (1783–1859) was the first American literary artist to earn his living solely through his writings and the first to enjoy international acclaim. In addition to his long public service as a diplomat, Irving was amazingly prolific: His collected works fill forty volumes that encompass essays, history, travel writings, and multi-volume biographies of Columbus and Washington. But it is Irving's mastery of suspense, characterization,...

This Eliot novel tells the story of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, a pair of siblings who grow up together on a river in early nineteenth century England. While Tom’s reserved nature and Maggie’s idealism produce differences that strain their love in times of hardship, the two ultimately reconcile when confronted with certain death. A powerful work on individual tenacity in the face of oppressive circumstance, The Mill on the Floss remains one of Eliot’s...