The Crucible is a powerful drama written by Arthur Miller in 1953. It is set in Salem, Massachusetts during witch tests of 1692. The story follows a small puritan community that is consumed by fear and doubt when a group of young girls are caught dancing in the forest and accused of practicing Vichakrafts. To protect themselves, girls start accusing others in the witches village, causing a wave of domination and false allegations. In the heart of the play, John Proctor is a local farmer who tries to reveal the truth and stand against insanity. His personal conflict with crime, respect and redemption adds emotional depth to the story. Abigail Williams, a former servant at Proctor House, plays a major role in chaos, as he manipulates his profit, is partially inspired by jealousy and desire to take revenge. Arthur Miller wrote a drama during the McCarthi era in America, when people were being accused of communism without real evidence. In this way, the crucible is not only about the Salem witch tests, but also a powerful criticism of how fear and doubt can destroy life and justice. The play examines subjects such as integrity, power, prestige and mass hysteria, showing how dangerous it can be when people leave the cause and control fear. Crucible is one of the most important tasks in the American theater, known for his intense drama and timely message about the results of truth, courage and false allegations.

What if Shakespeare was a woman??1581. Emilia Bassano is allowed no voice of her own, but finds a way to bring her work to the stage secretly. Yet by paying a man for the use of his name, she will write her own out of history. His name? William Shakespeare.?Now. Playwright Melina Green is determined to see one of her shows make the stage, but it appears a woman’s voice is still worth less than a man’s. Women have long been written out of history, but what if they held the pen all along?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Rising above the devastation of World War I, a young half-French, half-American woman remains true to her own independent spirit in this powerful historical novel by bestselling author Danielle Steel. Alexandra Bouvier is born in Paris in 1900, at the dawn of a new century. From an early age, she is encouraged to think for herself by her enlightened family: her father, a French doctor; her mother, an American nurse; and her maternal grandfather a highly regarded newspaperman back in the Midwest. At age fourteen, Alex’s comfortable life is upended as war erupts across Europe. Her parents follow their sense of duty to the front, performing triage at a field hospital and confronting the horrors of poison gas and trench warfare. The merciless fighting, coupled with the fast-spreading Spanish flu, wreaks havoc on the continent, as well as on Alex’s loved ones. By the time she is eighteen, she has suffered unimaginable losses. With her grandfather’s support, she attends the University of Chicago and decides to follow his footsteps into journalism. As a newspaper intern she meets reporter Oliver Foster, who is covering the gang wars sparked by Prohibition. He too has known devastating loss, and the two are drawn to each other, though both fear any attachment. As it turns out, Alex has good reason to be cautious. Danielle Steel’s sweeping historical novel is a story of resilience and the courage to open one’s heart—no matter how many times it’s been broken—and believe in oneself.

"Diabolically clever."--New York Times "Horowitz dazzles with the brilliant third entry in his Susan Ryeland series . . . . [He is] is at the top of his game here, linking past and present in a virtuoso finale worthy of Agatha Christie."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) Murder links past and present once again in this mind-boggling metafictional mystery from Anthony Horowitz featuring detective Atticus Pünd and editor Susan Ryeland, stars of the New York Times bestsellers Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders. Editor Susan Ryeland has left her Greek island, her hotel and her Greek boyfriend, Andreas, in search of a new life back in England. Freelancing for a London publisher, she's given the last job she wants: working on an Atticus Pünd continuation novel called Pünd's Last Case. Worse still, she knows the new writer. Eliot Crace is the troubled grandson of legendary children's author Miriam Crace who died twenty years ago. Eliot is convinced she was murdered--by poison. To her surprise, Susan enjoys reading the manuscript which is set in the South of France and revolves around the mysterious death of Lady Margaret Chalfont, days before she was about to change her will. But when it is revealed that Lady Margaret was also poisoned, alarm bells begin to ring. The more Susan reads, the clearer it becomes that Eliot has deliberately concealed clues about his grandmother's death inside the book. Desperately, Susan tries to prevent Eliot from putting himself in harm's way--but his behaviour is becoming increasingly erratic. Another murder follows . . . and suddenly Susan finds herself to be the number one suspect. Once again, the real and the fictional worlds have become dangerously entangled. And if Susan doesn't solve the mystery of Pünd's Last Case, she could well be its next victim.

Master storyteller and international bestselling author of Redemption, Trinity, and Exodus, Leon Uris once again brilliantly interweaves historical fact with gripping fiction in this powerful novel of politics, family, intrigue, love, and the passions that rule human lives. Spanning the decades from World War II to the 2008 presidential campaign, A God in Ruins is the unforgettable story of Quinn Patrick O'Connell, an honest, principled, and courageous man on the brink of becoming the second Irish Catholic President of the United States. In an era morally unmoored, rife with armed separatists and fundamentalist zealotry, Quinn, the last great liberal of the Rocky Mountains, emerges as America's hope to reclaim its great past and its promises of the future. But Quinn is a man with an explosive secret that can shatter his political ambitions and threaten his life--a secret buried for over a half century that even he does not know.... Returning home at the end of World War II a decorated and wounded hero, Daniel Timothy O'Connell had moved his young wife, Siobhan, from the crowded streets of Brooklyn to the golden mountains of Colorado. Building a successful life as cattle ranchers, Daniel and Siobhan had everything they wanted--except a child. Desperate, they turned to the Church and adopted a beautiful three-year-old of mysterious parentage, a charming little boy they named Quinn Patrick. In riveting prose, Leon Uris unfolds Quinn's life as he matures from a restless youth into a brave Marine undertaking a deadly undercover mission, and finally, into an earnest, intelligent, and thoughtful leader willing take on the most vicious and malevolently destructive forces threatening the country. Here, too, are the two beautiful women who have always loved him--Greer, the lover driven by ambition and passion, and Rita, the sensuous, adoring daughter of his friend and mentor, painter and philosopher Reynaldo Maldonado. Through the years Quinn has made some powerful enemies who are determined to destroy him, including presidential incumbent Thornton Tomtree. A conservative computer mogul who built an electronic empire out of his father's Rhode Island junkyard, Tomtree is a right-wing pragmatist who will court the most dangerous and deadly elements of society and risk America s safety to achieve his own ambitions. From America's victorious past to its shadowed future, from the grandeur of Colorado's mountains to the enclaves of private militias hidden deep in the canyons of the Southwest's Four Corners, A God in Ruins races to a powerful, unforgettable conclusion. A sweeping novel of a man, a life, and a nation, it vividly brings to life memorable characters that will indelibly touch the heart and mind and illuminates the major crisis facing America at the dawn of a new millennium.

REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “A shocking story, made all the more stunning by the fact that it has its roots in true history.”—Jodi Picoult, author of By Any Other Name “A new generation of survival story . . . an extraordinary book that reads like a thriller, written with the care of the most delicate psychological and historical fiction.”— Vogue (Best of 2025 Preview) A young woman and her lover are marooned on an island in this “lushly painted” ( People ) historical epic of love, faith, and defiance from the bestselling author of Sam . FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE AMERICAN LIBRARY IN PARIS BOOK AWARD Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. That journey takes a unexpected turn when Marguerite, accused of betrayal, is brutally punished and abandoned on a small island. Once a child of privilege who dressed in gowns and laced pearls in her hair, Marguerite finds herself at the mercy of nature. As the weather turns, blanketing the island in ice, she discovers a faith she’d never before needed. Inspired by the real life of a sixteenth-century heroine, Isola is the timeless story of a woman fighting for survival.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE “One of the five best novels I have ever read, maybe the best. . . . It ranks with the greatest of American fiction." —Stephen King, The New York Times “An incandescent fiction. . . . Scintillates with more Rothian wit, paradox, eloquent tantrums, and absurd pitfalls than can be counted." —Los Angeles Times Book Review “The greatest of great American novels.” —Taffy Brodesser-Akner, The New York Times “Widely considered to be Roth's masterwork."—Esquire American Pastoral is an elegy for the American century's promises of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss. Roth’s protagonist is Swede Levov, a legendary athlete at his Newark high school who grows up in the booming postwar years to marry a former Miss New Jersey, inherit his father’s glove factory, and move into a stone house in the idyllic hamlet of Old Rimrock. And then one day in 1968, Swede’s beautiful American luck deserts him. For Swede’s adored daughter, Merry, has grown from a loving, quick-witted girl into a sullen, fanatical teenager—a teenager capable of an outlandish act of political terrorism. And overnight Swede is wrenched out of the longed-for American pastoral and into the American berserk.

✨ A SMALL LITERARY MASTERPIECE ✨ Enter the fascinating world of Stefan Zweig's Chess Story, where obsession, isolation, and inner struggle are visualized on the most intellectual of battlefields: the chessboard. ✏ This edition with notes and foreword includes: ▶️ A new translation. ▶️ Notes to help you better understand the text. ▶️ A brief prologue that will give you the main keys. ✍️ Immerse yourself in a sharp and captivating narrative. Zweig masterfully handles the suspense and psychological construction of the characters, offering a story that, beyond a game, reflects human tensions and the resilience of the spirit.

WINNER OF THE 2025 NOBEL PRIZE Now in paperback, the capstone to Krasznahorkai’s four-part masterwork, and winner of the 2019 National Book Award for Translated Literature Set in contemporary times, Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming tells the story of a Prince Myshkin–like figure, Baron Béla Wenckheim, who returns at the end of his life to his provincial Hungarian hometown. Having escaped from his many casino debts in Buenos Aires, where he was living in exile, he longs to be reunited with his high-school sweetheart Marika. Confusions abound, and what follows is an endless storm of gossip, con men, and local politicians, vividly evoking the small town’s alternately drab and absurd existence. All along, the Professor―a world-famous natural scientist who studies mosses and inhabits a bizarre Zen-like shack in a desolate area outside of town?offers long rants and disquisitions on his attempts to immunize himself from thought. Spectacular actions are staged as death and the abyss loom over the unsuspecting townfolk.

“Invites comparison with Crane’s Red Badge of Courage . . . Ithink this is an even better book.”—The New York Times When you read this novel about April 19, 1775, you will see the British redcoats marching in a solid column through your town. Your hands will be sweating and you will shake a little as you grip your musket because never have you shot with the aim of killing a man. But you will shoot, and shoot again and again while your shoulder aches from your musket’s kick and the tight, disciplined red column bleeds and wavers and breaks and you begin to shout at the top of your lungs because you are there, at the birth of freedom—you're a veteran of the Battle of Lexington, and you’ve helped whip the King’s best soldiers...

"Remarkable . . . The entire Vietnam experience [in] one epic narrative." The New York Times Book Review For Pete Bravado, the war begins with home and family in Brooklyn: his grandfather's broken dreams, his father's ice-hard heart, his mother's tragic affection, and his own disillusionment and delinquency. Raised against the grain of his true nature, Pete seeks escape in the army -- but instead of finding freedom, he finds a madness in himself that answers the madness of war. And when he comes home, a new struggle begins -- a struggle to see what the war has made him, so he can begin to remake himself.

From New York Times bestselling author Mark Kurlansky, a delectable novel following one Manhattan block as an ancient cheesecake recipe-and a conniving landlord-change the Upper West Side forever. West 86th Street knows its desserts. It's the 1970s, and poppyseed strudel, praline ice cream cake, and New York cheesecake are as integral to Manhattan's Upper West Side as clustered pigeons, suited doormen, and greasy diners. That is, until Cato comes to town. Cato the Elder, a Roman born in 234 BCE, is credited with the earliest written recipe ever found. A recipe for . . . cheesecake. No cream cheese, no graham cracker crust, somehow savory and sweet, the recipe is enigmatic-and suddenly, it's all anyone on West 86th Street can talk about. The Katsikases, a Greek cheesemaking family who immigrated to open a restaurant in New York, added Cato's pastry to their menu as a ploy to attract “upscale” diners. After a glowing write-up in the Times , the recipe becomes a neighborhood fixation-and the Katsikases' patriarch, Art, buys up as much of the block's real estate as he can. As the portentous pastry appears in the lives of the old-school residents Art is pricing out of their apartments, a sidewalk view of West 86th Street emerges: A high-profile family planning a high-pressure bat mitzvah, a painter's muse with a terrible secret, an eccentric art collector plotting revenge. Sometimes laced with green M&Ms, sometimes with sage, sometimes with spite, Cato's cheesecake heralds change as West 86th Street is transformed for good.

Experience the elegance and intrigue of classical Japanese literature with "The Tale of Genji" by Murasaki. This historical fiction masterpiece transports you to the opulent world of the Japanese aristocracy and court life. Delve into the lives and loves of princes and nobles, exploring themes of power, beauty, and the complexities of human relationships within a rich cultural heritage. "The Tale of Genji" offers a fascinating glimpse into a bygone era, revealing the intricate social customs and artistic sensibilities of historical Japan. A cornerstone of world literature, this enduring story provides a unique window into a captivating culture, offering timeless insights into the human condition. This meticulously prepared print edition allows you to immerse yourself in the beauty and artistry of this classic work. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Now in paperback! Winner of the 2025 IPPY Award for literary fiction. Longlisted for the National Book Award. Named a top debut novel of 2024 by Kirkus , and a Foreword INDIES Book of the Year finalist. In between the space of time when Ezra lights themself on fire and when Ezra dies the world of this book flashes before their eyes. Everyone Ezra's ever loved, every place they've felt queer and at home, or queer and out of place, reveals itself in an instant. Unfolding in fragments of memory, Ezra dissolves into the family, religion, desire, losses, pains and joys that made them into the person that's decided on this final act of protest. Told in lyric fragments that span both lifetimes and geography, Yr Dead is a queer, Jewish, diasporic coming of age story that questions how our historical memory shapes our political and emotional present. Visceral, propulsive, and at turns fluorescently beautiful and fluorescently tragic, Yr Dead is the electric debut novel from award-winning writer Sam Sax , one of our most dynamic and imaginative writers.

A historical fantasy re-creates the legend of the Sumerian demi-god and king Gilgamesh, slayer of monsters and master of unsurpassed treasures, who searches for the key to immortality. Reprint.

"Three generations of German Jewish family undergo the tumult, upheaval, and brutality of nineteenth- and twentieth-century history in this panoramic and skillfully nuanced family drama, rich with gossip and incident, capturing a Germany now lost to time. Gabriele Tergit's Effingers is a novel both epic and intimate as it chronicles the lives and fates of three generations of a German Jewish family. Beginning from 1878-the year after the narrative of Buddenbrooks ends-and ending in 1948, we follow the Effingers, a family of modest craftsmen from southern Germany, who are joined through marriage to two families of high-society financiers in Berlin, the Goldschmidts and the Oppners. The Effingers soon rise to prominence as one of the most important German industrialist families in Berlin, but with the outbreak of World War I, they fall on hard times, and must then navigate the tumultuous changes of the Weimar Republic. Full of parties and drama and the most delicious gossip, and featuring a kaleidoscopic cast of unforgettable characters, Effingers is a vibrant and keenly observed account of German Jewish life in all its richness and complexity. Tergit's journalistic precision and limpid prose dazzle in Sophie Duvernoy's elegant, fluid translation. Criminally underrated when it first came out in 1951, and only in recent years undergoing rediscovery, Effingers is a searching meditation on identity and nationality that establishes Tergit as one of the most significant writers of the twentieth century"-- Provided by publisher.