When a zap from a Christmas lawn figurine transports Jenny back in time 500 years, she finds herself in a real fix. The only way to get back to the future is to get a shock during a time when electrical fixtures have not been invented yet. A hilarious comedy Madrigal dinner theatre loosely based on Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Blake Allmendinger's A History of California Literature surveys the paradoxical image of the Golden State as a site of dreams and disenchantment, formidable beginnings and ruinous ends. This history encompasses the prismatic nature of California by exploring a variety of historical periods, literary genres, and cultural movements affecting the state's development, from the colonial era to the twenty-first century. Written by a host of leading historians and literary critics, this book offers readers insight into the tensions and contradictions that have shaped the literary landscape of California and also American literature generally.

Few writers can create worlds so rich and fully-realized the reader immediately feels at home, even when the concepts have not yet been fully laid out. Fewer still can do so with language so rich and lyrical it is a joy to read, with details so rooted in the human experience that one cannot help but be absorbed into the story. Gabriel de Anda is such a writer. Whether delineating the struggles of a law firm dealing with the demands of an ex-partner --- about as ex as one can get --- or the dichotomy of rich and poor spreading out among the galaxies or even musing on the irrelevance of a classic icon which somehow makes it seem more relevant than ever de Anda nails it. Readers, you are in for a treat.

Armistead Maupin's uproarious and moving Tales of the City novels—the first three of which are collected in this omnibus volume—have earned a unique niche in American literature and are considered indelible documents of cultural change from the seventies through the first two decades of the new millennium. “These novels are as difficult to put down as a dish of pistachios. The reader starts playing the old childhood game of 'Just one more chapter and I'll turn out the lights,' only to look up and discover it's after midnight.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review Originally serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle, Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City (1978), More Tales of the City (1980), and Further Tales of the City (1982) afforded a mainstream audience of millions its first exposure to straight and gay characters experiencing on equal terms the follies of urban life. Among the cast of this groundbreaking saga are the lovelorn residents of 28 Barbary Lane: the bewildered but aspiring Mary Ann Singleton, the libidinous Brian Hawkins; Mona Ramsey, still in a sixties trance, Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, forever in bright-eyed pursuit of Mr. Right; and their marijuana-growing landlady, the indefatigable Mrs. Madrigal. Hurdling barriers both social and sexual, Maupin leads them through heartbreak and triumph, through nail-biting terrors and gleeful coincidences. The result is a glittering and addictive comedy of manners that continues to beguile new generations of readers.

With a Little Help is my first serious experiment in self-publishing. I've published many novels, short story collections, books of essays and so on with publishers, and it's all been very good and satisfying and educational and so on, but it seems like it's time to try something new. With a Little Help consists of 12 stories, all reprints except for "Epoch" (commissioned by Mark Shuttleworth).

For almost four decades Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City has blazed its own trail through popular culture--from a groundbreaking newspaper serial to a classic novel, to a television event that entranced millions around the world. The first of nine novels about the denizens of the mythic apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane, Tales is both a sparkling comedy of manners and an indelible portrait of an era that forever changed the way we live.

Culled from out-of-print puzzle books, and edited by the kings of crosswords, this collection contains puzzles of varying sizes and levels of difficulty. They have been revised and updated to satisfy the needs and knowledge of today's solvers. The pages are perforated for easy tearing out.