I was raised—not born—in a small town in northeast Pennsylvania (population 379), which serves as the setting for two of my novels. Since I was not bornin this community, I always felt like a bit of an outsider. Misunderstood and often overlooked. There is great isolation when growing up in a small community that’s barely on the map. But despite all this, I am drawn to rural life and its sometimes deceiving bucolic atmosphere. I believe that is why I both read and write suspenseful stories about not only small towns, but marginalized and outsider characters as well.
A gripping tale of greed, blackmail, betrayal, and multiple murders. Three men discover 4.4 million dollars inside a crashed airplane. No one sees them and no one knows that the plane has gone down. Why not take the money? What could go wrong? Everything.
Two of the men are brothers—one a successful businessman, the other mentally and financially challenged—that ultimately find themselves pitted against one another.
The beauty of A Simple Plan is how Smith pulls his characters deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole, causing the reader to feel with sinking dread that redemption seems impossible.
“Spectacular. . . . Ten shades blacker and several corpses grimmer than the novels of John Grisham. . . . Do yourself a favor. Read this book.” —Entertainment Weekly
Two brothers and their friend stumble upon the wreckage of a plane–the pilot is dead and his duffle bag contains four million dollars in cash. In order to hide, keep, and share the fortune, these ordinary men all agree to a simple plan.
This story was not only an inspiration to me but an experience as well. A classic tale of dreams, loneliness, and unlikely companionship.
George and Lennie are two displaced migrant ranch workers searching for job opportunities during the Great Depression. George is a small, intelligent man that dreams of independence and looks after Lennie, a large, imposing giant with a severe learning disability.
After Lennie commits an awful act that he can’t quite comprehend, Lenny is forced to take justice into his own hands.
Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith.
Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil.
Drifters in search of work, George and his childlike friend Lennie have nothing in the world except…
Shahrazad’s Gift is a collection of linked short stories set in contemporary Cairo — magical, absurd, and humorous.
The author focuses on the off-beat, little-known stories, far from CNN news: a Swedish belly dancer who taps into the Oriental fantasies of her clientele; a Japanese woman studying Arabic, driven mad…
A disturbing story of abuse, neglect, and poverty, yet the reader comes away with a sense of hope from the resilience of the main character.
Precious Jones, an obese, illiterate sixteen-year-old, is sexually and physically abused by both her mother and her father. After Precious becomes pregnant with a second baby by her father, she meets a teacher that drastically changes her life. Precious not only learns how to read and write, but more importantly, she begins on a journey of education and enlightenment as she learns not only how to write about her life, but how to make it truly her own for the first time.
A new 25th anniversary edition of the instant classic that inspired the major motion picture and Sundance Film Festival winner Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire, whose power and ferocity influenced a generation of writers.
Precious Jones, an illiterate sixteen-year-old, has up until now been invisible to the father who rapes her and the mother who batters her and to the authorities who dismiss her as just one more of Harlem's casualties. But when Precious, pregnant with a second child by her father, meets a determined and radical teacher, we follow her on a journey of education and enlightenment…
Charlie Gordon was born with an extremely low IQ, and that is why he was selected as the subject for an experimental surgery that scientists hope will increase his intelligence—a procedure that has been successful when tested on a lab mouse called Algernon.Charlie's intelligence grows at an alarming rate, but his new intellect comes with a great cost.
Flowers for Algernon studies the relationship not only between the intelligent and unintelligent but between the powerful and the weak. As Charlie traverses between these two worlds—going from intellectually disabled to near genius, and then ultimately back to intellectually disabled—he both experiences and participates in how people mock and intimidate their intellectual inferiors.
Nine Stories Told Completely in Dialogue is a unique collection of narratives, each unfolding entirely through conversations between its characters. The book opens with "God on a Budget," a tale of a man's surreal nighttime visitation that offers a blend of the mundane and the mystical. In "Doctor in the…
What's Eating Gilbert Grape is the story of a young man trapped in a dying small town, stuck in a menial job, and tethered by obligations to his dysfunctional family. The biggest event on Gilbert’s horizon is the eighteenth birthday of Artie, his mentally impaired brother, who is lucky to still be alive. Then Gilbert’s world gets turned on its head when a free-spirited girl arrives in town.
What's Eating Gilbert Grape blends poignancy, the bonds and challenges of family responsibilities, and the struggles of dealing with mental health, all told through the unique lens of the titular Gilbert Grape.
Gilbert Grape, a resident of provincial Endora, Iowa, endures the eccentricities of his family and neighbors--including his mother, who is eating herself to death; his Elvis-fanatic sister; his retarded brother; and his married lover.
In a small Pennsylvania town, a woman is found brutally murdered one winter night. Next to the body is Danny Bedford, a misunderstood man who suffered a tragic brain injury that left him with limited mental capabilities. Despite his simple life, his intimidating size has caused the community to ostracize him. After Danny is discovered with the body, it appears that his physical strength has finally become deadly. But in the long, freezing night that follows, the murder is only the first in a series of crimes that viciously upset the town order. With the threat of an approaching blizzard, the local sheriff and a state trooper work through the predawn hours to restore some semblance of order to Wyalusing.
Two years ago, devastated by the sudden death of his older brother, Hank Atwater went on a drinking rampage that ended in his being arrested. Since then, he has been working to rebuild his reputation in his hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina, with little luck. But everything changes after a…
Trapped in her enormous, devout Catholic family in 1963, Annie creates a hilarious campaign of lies when the pope dies and their family friend, Cardinal Stefanucci, is unexpectedly on the shortlist to be elected the first American pope.
Driven to elevate her family to the holiest of holy rollers in…
