Books published by publisher Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc

The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal -- a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss. Written in 1952, this hugely successful novella confirmed his power and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Lewis wrote the novel after a conversation with J.R.R. Tolkien in which both men lamented the state of contemporary fiction. The story begins with Dr. Elwin Ransom, a philologist, on a walking tour in the English Midlands. As dusk falls, he seeks lodging and comes to a small estate that he later learns is called the Rise, belonging Professor Weston, a physicist. Weston's visiting colleague, as Ransom also later learns, is a gentleman from London, Mr. Dick Devine (later Lord Feverstone), whom Ransom discovers to be his former schoolfellow, a person whom he cordially disliked. At the front door of the Rise, Ransom hears shouting and struggling inside. When he hurries around back, he sees Weston ("the thicker and taller of the two men". Devine trying to force Harry, a dull-witted young man, to enter a structure on the property against his will. Ransom intervenes in the struggle, and Devine sees him as a better prospect than Harry for what he and Weston have in mind. With Weston's grudging consent, Devine offers Ransom a drink and accommodations for the night. After enjoying what he thinks is a glass of whisky and soda, Ransom realizes that he has been drugged. He tries to escape but is subdued by Weston and Devine ("slender, and apparently the younger of the two". When he regains consciousness he finds himself in a metallic spherical spacecraft en route to a planet called Malacandra. The wonder and excitement of such a prospect relieves his anguish at being kidnapped, but Ransom is put on his guard when he overhears Weston and Devine deliberating whether they will again drug him or keep him conscious when they turn him over to the inhabitants of Malacandra, the sorns, as a sacrifice. Ransom is put to work as cook and scullion, but appropriates a knife and plans to escape when he gets the chance.

Since major league baseball began in 1871, there have been roughly 30 million pitches thrown to batters. Only one of them killed a man. This is the story of Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians, a popular player struck in the head and killed in August 1920 by a pitch thrown by Carl Mays of the New York Yankees. Was it, as most baseball observers thought at the time, a tragic but unavoidable accident? Mike Sowell's book investigates the incident and probes deep into the backgrounds of the players involved and the events that led to one of baseball's darkest moments.