Conrad Richter

A Country of Strangers is a magnificent exploration of the psychological landscape where blacks and whites meet. To tell the story in human rather than abstract terms, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David K. Shipler bypasses both extremists and celebrities and takes us among ordinary Americans as they encounter one another across racial lines. We learn how blacks and whites see each other, how they interpret each other's behavior, and how certain damaging images and assumptions seep into the actions of even the most unbiased. We penetrate into dimensions of stereotyping and discrimination that are usually invisible, and discover the unseen prejudices and privileges of white Americans, and what black Americans make of them. The book makes clear that we have the ability to shape our racial landscape - to reconstruct, even if not perfectly, the texture of our relationships. There is an assessment of the complexity confronting blacks and whites alike as they struggle to recognize and define the racial motivations that may or may not be present in a thought, a word, a deed. The book does not prescribe, but it documents the silences that prevail, the listening that doesn't happen, the conversations that don't take place. It looks at relations between minorities, including blacks and Jews, and blacks and Koreans. It explores the human dimensions of affirmative action, the intricate contacts and misunderstandings across racial lines among coworkers and neighbors. It is unstinting in its criticism of our society's failure to come to grips with bigotry; but it is also, happily, crowded with black people and white people who struggle in their daily lives to do just that.

Two young Pennsylvania Dutch boys decide on a hot, dry July 2 to hide and watch Mary go over the mountain, because, according to the old legend, if it rained that day, she would not return and it would rain for forty days.

Sayward, a pioneer in Ohio's forest, helps clear and farm the land and watches the town develop.

Story of a storekeeper turned minister.

Aging author returns to the site of his childhood in search of his past and serenity, even though his hometown lies deep under a man-made lake.

The story of a pioneer family and the transition they have to make as urban areas begin to spread in the 1800s.

Continues the saga of Sayward Luckett Wheeler, who marries the educated New Englander, Portious, and bears him eight children. As pioneer, wife, and mother, she struggles to create a home in the wilderness for her family.

Tacey Cromwell moved to Bisbee's Brewery Gulch to find love and heartbreak.

St. Louis woman travels to New Mexico to wed rancher, only to find that his first love is "sea of grass" where thousands of cattle roam and open-range cattlemen fight against small-town farmers. "That lusty pioneer blood is tamed now, broken and gelded like the wild horse and the frontier settlement." From that first poignant line to the glowing passage at the end, this novel is a work of art, enchanting the reader by the beauty of its prose at the same time that it rouses him by its passionate drama. A love-story, full of tenderness and sorrow, it is also a picture of a time forever lost and a way of life that now exists only in the memories of garrulous oldsters. Here is the Southwest in all its bravado and brutality, its color and violence, eternally fascinating even when filtered through the tale of a woman who hated it. Mr. Richter in this book confirms the high promise of his superb short stories of the Southwest published last year in the volume called Early Americana. The tragic conflict is laid bare immediately when James Brewton, lord of the greatest ranch in all Texas, bold, inexhaustible, and merciless, brings to his lawless land the girl he will marry--a girl of incomparable loveliness, gentle, soft, cultivated. yet strong and willful in her own fragile way. The very morning of her arrival she witnessed an episode in the cruel battle between the herdsmen, led by her bridegroom, and the settlers, whole families of starvelings who had migrated to the virgin territory, led by a young lawyer driven half by ambition and half by gallantry. The lines were drawn then, and there could be no truce until time had cooled the blood and history itself resolved the war. But how much they lived through until that truce, how many sleepless nights, how many regrets, how much pain! The reader turns the last page secure in the knowledge that he, too, has lived through something profound in the unfolding of this story--and the emotion it has evoked will haunt him for more than a day.--Jacket.

What would an American football star do if he suddenly found himself an English lord? It wasn't something pro quarterback Brant Asher had ever bothered to think about --until the day he learned of his inheritance. He was now Viscount Asherwood, heir to an English estate, and a whole lot of trouble. Brant had inherited the obligation to marry Daphne, charitably described to him as an ugly duckling. This wasn't an attractive prospect for a man who enjoyed the pleasures of bachelor life--until he met the lady in question. Her reputation was obviously undeserved, because this was no ugly duckling; this was a beautiful swan.

Selections include: ... - [Young Goodman Brown]( by Nathaniel Hawthorne ... - [An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge]( by Ambrose Bierce ... - [A Pair of Silk Stockings]( by Kate Chopin - [The Cask of Amontillado]( - [Fall of the House of Usher]( - [The Glass Menagerie]( by Tennesse Williams