Books in Hemingway Library Edition series

Two ebullient young men are engaged in a passionate search for dharma, or truth. Their major adventure is the pursuit of the Zen way, which takes them climbing into the High Sierras to seek the lesson of solitude, a lesson that has a hard time surviving their forays into the pagan groves of San Francisco's Bohemia with its marathon wine-drinking bouts, poetry jam sessions, experiments in "yabyum," and similar nonascetic pastimes. This autobiographical novel appeared just a year after the author's explosive On the Road put the Beat generation on the literary map and Kerouac on the bestseller lists. The same expansiveness, humor, and contagious zest for life that sparked the earlier novel ignites this one. The novel is based on Kerouac's experiences during the mid-1950s while living in California, after he'd become interested in Buddhism's spiritual mode of understanding. One of the book's main characters, Japhy Ryder, is based on the real poet Gary Snyder, who was a close friend and whose interest in Buddhism influenced Kerouac. This book is a must-read for any serious Kerouac fan.

What do bald men in skirts, ancient geeks, pompous popes, and bickering bishops have in common? They all took part in shaping the calendar that hangs on your wall. Together with a host of famous and not-so-famous others, adjusted, fine-tuned, and tinkered around with what would eventually become the western world’s most popular tool for keeping track of time. When a crotchety, down-on-his-luck old man turns up as a temporary employee in Lindsie’s father’s bookshop, she and her friend Evan feel sorry for him. But after they follow him to his makeshift home, Mr. S. Kronos (aka Father Time) drags them on a wild ride through five thousand years of hilarious history, insisting they meet the calendar’s creators. Lindsie and Evan will never take the calendar for granted again.

The winsome Anne Shirley is grown, has been married to her beloved Gilbert Blythe for fifteen years, and is the mother of six spirited children. When a strange family moves into a nearby mansion, Anne and her family are drawn into a host of trials, schemes and triumphs. The Meredith family is comprised of two boys and two girls, a minister father but no mother, and a runaway girl named Mary Vance. The clever and mischievous Meredith kids join Anne's children in a private hideout to carry out plans to save Mary from the orphanage, to help the lonely minister find happiness, and to save a pet rooster from becoming a soup ingredient. In this, another of L. M. Montgomery's beloved books, the sun-dappled world of Rainbow Valley is always full of adventure and delight.

The heartbroken recluse... The hardboiled cop... The walking wounded telepath... And the serial killer. Russell Walker retreats from the shock of his wife's death by becoming a hermit in the woods of British Columbia. However, it seems the world won't let him escape so easily, for he finds himself thrust into a precarious role as intermediary between a telepath called Smelly--so sensitive he can't stand to be near most people--and Constable Nika, a skeptical police officer who needs Smelly's insight to track down a monstrous serial killer.

On the day of his wedding, Conrad, heir to the house of Otranto, is killed under mysterious circumstances. His calculating father, Manfred, fears that his dynasty will now come to an end and determines to marry his son's bride himself--despite the fact he is already married. But a series of terrifying supernatural omens soon threaten this unlawful union, as the curse placed on Manfred's ancestor, who usurped the lawful prince of Otranto, begins to unfold. First published pseudonymously in 1765, The Castle of Otranto purported to be an ancient Italian text from the time of the crusades and is a founding work of gothic fiction. With its compelling blend of sinister portents, tempestuous passions, and ghostly visitations, it spawned an entire literary tradition and influenced such writers as Ann Radcliffe and Bram Stoker.

Friendship isn’t always easy… Natalie is different from the other kids in Dreenie’s fifth-grade class. She comes to school in a wheelchair. She always wears a knitted hat. And she’s allowed to bring her puppy to class. The kids in the class call Natalie “Bluish” because her skin is tinted blue from chemotherapy. Dreenie is fascinated by Bluish—and a little scared of her, too. She watches Bluish and writes about her in her journal. Slowly, the two girls become good friends. But Dreenie still struggles with Bluish’s illness. Bluish is weak and frail, but she also wants to be independent. How do you act around a girl like that?

Twelve-year-old Katy Carr was always dreaming of the time when something would happen to make her famous. But when it does happen, it's not at all what she wants. This is the moving story of how Katy Carr overcomes her tragic accident and learns to be as loving and as patient as the beautiful invalid, Helen. Susan Coolidge's famous story, set in the small nineteenth-century American town of Burnet, has charmed generations of children all around the world.

These seven stories are based on Jack London’s youthful adventures as an oyster pirate. In the early 1900s, San Francisco Bay was plagued by oyster pirates who plundered in broad daylight. At sixteen, London’s common sense suggested he change sides. “The restraining of a felony was more to his liking and logic than the committing,” his wife said of him. “Surely it tickled his fancy too that the most lucrative employment in sight should be with the Fish Patrol service.” Thus he joined the Fish Patrol. Catching the rascal pirates satisfied even London’s appetite for adventure but more importantly gave us a record of these outlaw times captured by one of the world’s greatest storytellers.

Even as a child, Davy Crockett “always delighted to be in the very thickest of danger.” Better known to us as “King of the Wild Frontier,” Davy Crockett was not only a frontiersman but also a politician, who became during his lifetime a celebrity and folk hero. Here, in his own inimitable style, he describes his earliest days in Tennessee, his two marriages, his career as an Indian fighter, his bear hunts, and his electioneering. His reputation as a “b’ar” hunter sent him to Congress with an eye on the White House; but at the Alamo, he would cap off a legend that still holds Americans in its spell.

What do bald men in skirts, ancient geeks, pompous popes, and bickering bishops have in common? They all took part in shaping the calendar that hangs on your wall. Together with a host of famous and not-so-famous others, adjusted, fine-tuned, and tinkered around with what would eventually become the western world’s most popular tool for keeping track of time. When a crotchety, down-on-his-luck old man turns up as a temporary employee in Lindsie’s father’s bookshop, she and her friend Evan feel sorry for him. But after they follow him to his makeshift home, Mr. S. Kronos (aka Father Time) drags them on a wild ride through five thousand years of hilarious history, insisting they meet the calendar’s creators. Lindsie and Evan will never take the calendar for granted again.

At the heart of this novel is an enigma. How can a murder take place in a locked room, which shows no sign of being entered? Besides the crime committed in Paris against the daughter of Professor Stangerson, the novel is also about the rivalry to solve the case between a detective and a young junior reporter on a leading newspaper, Joseph Rouletabille, who reveals in the most dramatic fashion the identity of the real murderer. The Mystery of the Yellow Room combines the weird, creepy atmosphere of the nineteenth-century thriller, the meticulous logic of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and the techniques of early twentieth-century sensationalist journalism. In the hands of Leroux, the detective novel becomes the fictional equivalent of investigative journalism.