Signet book

A study of power and change in Washington, D.C. during the middle of the twentieth century.

Southern novelist and activist Lillian Smith (1897-1966) considered One Hour her best work of fiction. The novel, originally published in 1959 and long out of print, brilliantly depicts the destructive effects of mass hysteria on the people of a small southern town. The protagonist is an Episcopal minister who chronicles a series of tragic events set in motion when his closest friend, a gifted scientist, is unjustly accused of molesting a young girl. The novel's tensions culminate in an eruption of violence and hate that destroys the community. In a new introduction, Rose Gladney places One Hour in its historical context and highlights its enduring meaning for today's readers.

Scientific terminology arranged in dictionary form with a full page discussion of the history, root, and meaning of each word.

"The destruction of the American Indian, by his enemies and by his friends. This is the story of a proud, profoundly wise culture which now seems doomed to extinction. It is the story of the American Indian, who first had hi lands wrested away, and now is undergoing the final destruction of his identity. There are many actors in this drama, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and its strangling lover's embrace; the last great chiefs and medicine men [shamans], struggling to keep alive their ancient traditions ; the anthropologists and hippies, with their destructive invations ; the new Indian radicals, angry and divided ; and above all, the ordinary Indians, in the reservations and in the cities, marked by the white [whites, whiteman] spiritual death."--from back cover.

This book was first published against the advice of almost everyone who read it. I was told that it would do my ‘image’ no good; and I am sure that my belief that a favourable ‘image’ is conceivably not of any great human – or literary – significance would have counted for very little if I had not had a best-selling novel behind me. I used that ‘success’ to issue this ‘failure’, and so I face a charge of unscrupulous obstinacy. To the obstinacy I must plead guilty, but not to lack of scruple; for I was acting only in accordance with what I had written. My chief concern, in The Aristos is to preserve the freedom of the individual against all those pressures-to-conform that threaten our century; one of those pressures, put upon all of us, but particularly on anyone who comes into public notice, is that of labelling a person by what he gets money and fame for – by what other people most want to use him as. To call a man a plumber is to describe one aspect of him, but it is also to obscure a number of others. I am a writer; I want no more specific prison than that I express myself in printed words. So a prime personal reason for this book was to announce that I did not intend to walk into the cage labelled ‘novelist’. Aristos is taken from the ancient Greek. It is singular and means roughly ‘the best for a given situation’. [From the Author's Preface to the second edition of 1968, as reproduced in the New American Library edition of 1970]

First published under title The Decisive Wars of History; later, Strategy: The indirect approach.

Members of a neurotic Southern family gather to face the impending death of their patriarch, Big Daddy, and battle over the inheritance of his vast estate.

The author recounts the planning for his voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in an Egyptian reed boat and describes the voyage made by himself and his crew.

The year 2005 marks Ayn Rand's Centennial Year.The astounding story of a man that said that he would stop the motor of the world-and did. Tremendous in scope, breathtaking in its suspense, Atlas Shrugged is unlike any other book you have ever read.“A writer of great power. She has a subtle and ingenious mind and the capacity of writing brilliantly, beautifully, bitterly.”-The New York Times

When Jack Sheppey ends up dead in a beach hut in a wealthy town on the coast of the Pacific, his former partner in their detective agency starts a desperate quest to find his killer. But as private investigator Lew Brandon soon learns, this becomes a non-stop, terrifying and deadly hunt that will take him right to the heart of gangster territory.

Extensive portrait of Picasso written by a woman who lived with him for 11 years and was the mother of two of his children.

"Banned for many years by the Franco regime, Cela's masterpiece presents a panoramic view of the degradation and suffering of the lower-middle class in post-Civil War Spain. Readers are introduced to over a hundred characters through a series of interlocking vignettes, transforming this book from a social document into a towering work of inventive fiction. Filled with violence, hunger, and compassion, The Hive captures the ambitions and constraints of life under a dictatorship."--BOOK JACKET.

A gripping tale of men struggling against nature and themselves, Williwaw was Gore Vidal's first novel, written at nineteen when he was first mate of the U.S. Army freight supply ship stationed in the Aleutian Islands. Here he writes of a ship caught plying the lethal, frigid Arctic waters during storm season. Tensions run high among the edgy crew and uneasy passengers even before the cruel wind that gives the book its title suddenly sweeps down from the mountains. Vividly drawn characters and a compelling murder plot combine to make Williwaw a classic war novel.

After being drawn into the Second World War to command retreating German forces despite his anti-Nazi feelings, Faehmel struggles to re-establish a normal life at war's end by creating a rigorous routine for himself, which includes a daily game of billiards.

In Counter-Clock World Philip K. Dick expands on the idea of time reversal that was developed in the story "Your Appointment Will Be Yesterday", where deceased people get back to life and grow younger and history is wiped out of books. The story follows a relegious leader that comes back to life.