In Tom Wolfe's morality tale, his innocent heroine, Charlotte Simmons, is an earnest freshman at the fictional Dupont University. Charlotte is shocked by the campus goings-on--sex, drugs, rock & roll, and worse--and by the amoral, high-living students she encounters: her roommate is a snooty rich girl with no morals, and (in a graphically described scene) Charlotte loses her virginity to a caddish heartbreaker. A sexual scandal and a sports scandal concentrate the plot, as Charlotte endures a series of trials, at the end of which she emerges older, wiser, and in control. Wolfe's novel takes place entirely on the college campus, and most of the characters are students in a work that is quite different from his last novels--and one that is, inevitably, seen as a tour de force by a 74-year-old writer whose college days are far behind him and who has created, for the first time, a female heroine. A New York Times Notable Book for 2004.

A fictional "autobiography" of Elizabeth I, by an Elizabethan scholar.

Dr. Martin Luther King delivered the stirring "I Have A Dream" speech before the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963. The event was pivotal in the civil rights movement, and the speech is considered one of the finest pieces of oratory ever delivered in America. The following year, Congress passed a strong civil-rights bill, and King received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ira Ringold, a Jew from Newark (Philip Roth's home town), joins the communist party during World War II. Back home, he becomes a radio celebrity and marries an aging movie queen named Eve Frame. The marriage ends in disaster when Eve writes a book called I MARRIED A COMMUNIST, exposing Ira's secret life and making him vulnerable to the American anti-communist frenzy. Ultimately, he is destroyed. Like AMERICAN PASTORAL (1997), this novel is partly narrated by Roth's alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, and seems to be based on Roth's own troubled relationship with the actress Claire Bloom, to whom he was married for five years--and who had already written her own scathing book about the marriage. I MARRIED A COMMUNIST was a New York Times Notable Book for 1998.

This is a collection of five short stories.

Shelby Kay Tate leaves Star, Mississippi and her shiftless husband, Leroy, to try her luck as a country singer in Nashville. She waits tables at Sweet Willie's restaurant and puts her act together with the help of Chuck McGivern. Everything seems hunky dory until Chuck's jealous wife goes on a rampage and Leroy comes to Nashville to reclaim Shelby.

A memoir of life in Hollywood by the popular television and film actor. O'Connor describes his early life in New York, his wartime service in the merchant marine, his college years in Dublin, and the start of his career as an actor--which eventually brought him fame as the star of Norman Lear's long-running comedy show "All in the Family".

Jimmy Breslin's account of the surgery he underwent for a brain aneurysm in 1994 also includes flashbacks to his early life and reminiscences of his adventures as a newspaperman.

The lead singer of the rock band Lo/Rez wants to marry a computer personality construct, a decision that causes shock waves around the planet. A member of the Seattle branch of his fan club travels to Japan to determine whether the horrible rumor is true. However, can someone really marry a hologram? Is she real? And what does "real" mean anyway in the not-so-distant future?

Previously entitled IF ONLY IT WERE TRUE, this debut novel about the romance between the wandering spirit of a coma patient and the new tenant of her San Francisco apartment was a bestseller in France and was adapted into a 2005 film starring Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo. Severe head injuries from a car accident put Dr. Lauren Kline into a coma. But although Lauren's body remains at the hospital, her spirit is free to roam. Believing Lauren will never wake up, her mother eventually decides to rent out her apartment to Arthur, an overworked architect. He loves his new place, but is a little taken aback to discover a woman inside his linen closet who says the apartment belongs to her and insists that no one else can see, hear, or touch her. From this awkward beginning, the two embark upon a tentative and highly unusual romance, which comes under threat when Lauren's mother wants to take her daughter's body off life support.

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich offers a series of proposals that he thinks will improve the lot of the struggling middle class by involving government, business, and citizens in goals based on values and common sense.