Viking Penguin

All those times me and Skip tried to kill his little brother, Donny, were just for fun. I keep telling the deputies this, and they keep picking up their Styrofoam cups of coffee and walking away only to return a few seconds later and heave their fat butt cheeks onto the metal-topped table in...

OneNineteen ninety. On a perfect summer day in Montreal, local raspberries in season, two tickets to that night's ball game riding in my breast pocket, I went to meet some friends at a downtown bar I favored at the time: Woody's Pub, on Bishop Street. As I arrived, a solemn middle-aged man was...

Introduction WHEN ROBERTSON DAVIES DIED on December 2, 1995, the sad news circled the globe, inspiring obituaries in a dozen countries. All of the writers - and readers too many to count - mourned the fact that a unique, utterly distinctive voice had been stilled. It is true that the world will...

Pretace I first read the poetry of Sylvia Plath in 1974, when I was a sophomore in college. At once, I was struck by each poem's arresting emotion, by the sheer power of its language. Over and over that semester, I read the poems I admired most—"Morning Song," "Blackberrying," "Elm,"...

Nao Hi! My name is Nao, and I am a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well, if you give me a moment, I will tell you. A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be. As for me, right now I am sitting in a...