On his first day of college, farm boy Asa Hearthrug enthusiastically jumps out of bed - and discovers that his pajama pants are caught in the bedsprings. He learns that his dog has died, and his father, in an effort to soften the blow, tells an absurd story about a female bullfighter. Next, the freshman pays a visit to his high school sweetheart to say a heartfelt good-bye, but Lodestone La Toole is more interested in hamburgers than vows of devotion.

Including stories first published in Cosmopolitan and the Saturday Evening Post, this best-selling collection follows the romantic escapades of Max Shulman's famed collegiate Don Juan. Like most undergraduates, Dobie Gillis is a bit scattered - sometimes he's as quick as a whip, other times dull as a doorstop, and his major keeps changing from chemistry to law to journalism. But no matter what subject he should be studying, Dobie always has a girl on his mind.

The one thing that could be expected to disturb the peace of life at Blandings is the incursion of imposters. Blandings has imposters like other houses have mice. On this occasion there are two of them--both intent on a dangerous enterprise.

When a failed entrepreneur is temporarily left in charge of his aunt's huge gothic home, he knows he must be able to make a profit from it somehow. Murder, he decides, is the only way to do it. For Madingley Grange is the perfect venue for a 1930s murder-mystery weekend, and Simon Hannaford – with the reluctant help of his long-suffering sister – soon hatches a plan for money-spinning mayhem. From the conservatory to the claret cellar, the clues are carefully sprinkled. But when the guests arrive, it is obvious that the game won't be going as planned.

In 1889, satirist Jerome K. Jerome fully intended to write a serious travel guide when he and his two best friends embarked on a boating trip up the river Thames to Oxford. But his musings on landmarks and local history were soon hijacked by his own digressive, waggish voice. And so, what began as a peaceful and edifying two-week exploration soon floated upriver into farce - aided, quite naturally, by a portly ration of cheese, some very bad weather, and a dog named Montmorency.

David Small is the new rabbi in the small Massachusetts town of Barnard’s Crossing. Although he’d rather spend his days engaged in Torah study and theological debate, the daily chores of synagogue life are all-consuming—that is, until the day a nanny’s body is found on the rain-soaked asphalt of the temple’s parking lot.

What makes life perfect? Insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen knows the answer because he calculates everything down to the last decimal. And then, Henri is faced with the incalculable. After suddenly losing his job, Henri inherits an adventure park from his brother - its troubling financial problems included. The worst of these issues appear to originate from big loans taken from criminal quarters and dangerous men are keen to get their money back. But what Henri really can't compute is love. He meets Laura, an artist with a joie de vivre and erratic lifestyle that bewilders him.

Playful, seductive, irresistible - this best-selling masterwork of fatal passion and greed introduces Lawrence Sanders's most wickedly charming sleuth. Meet Archy McNally, a freewheeling playboy who specializes is "discreet inquires" for the rich and not-so-discreet. Beneath the glaring sun of Palm Beach - and behind the lowest crimes of high society - McNally is paid to keep family skeletons in the closet. But when it comes to sex and scandal, McNally has a few secrets of his own....

John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. This collection includes "Love of Life", "A Day's Lodging", "The White Man's Way", "The Story of Keesh", "The Unexpected", "Brown Wolf", "The Sun-Dog Trail", and "Negore, the Coward".

What if your daughter becomes your enemy? When barmaid, Rachel, discovers her soon-to-be-married daughter, Beth, pinned down by a stranger in the pub cellar, Rachel lashes out in panic, and the intruder ends up dead. In desperation, Rachel convinces Beth they should cover up the crime and go ahead with the planned wedding in one month’s time. Rachel, however, has her own reasons for not involving the police.

Soon-to-be heiress Betty Stanhope is a runaway bride, but not for the usual reasons - she didn't flee because of a change of heart. Reluctant about the wedding at the outset, the dutiful Betty reaches the altar to find that her groom is a different man altogether and someone she's dreaded most of her life! Before the wedding can proceed, she is taken to a room to recover from her fainting spell.

Michael Kind is raised in the Jewish cauldron of 1920s New York, familiar with the stresses and materialism of metropolitan life. Turning to the ancient set of ethics of his Orthodox grandfather, with a modern twist, he becomes a Reform rabbi. As insecure and sexually needy as any other young male, he serves as a circuit-rider rabbi in the Ozarks, and then as a temple rabbi in the racially ugly South, in a San Francisco suburb, in a Pennsylvania college town, and, finally, in a New England community west of Boston.

Winter 1919: Norma is summoned home from France, Constance is called back from Washington, and Fleurette puts her own plans on hold as the sisters rally around their recently widowed sister-in-law and her children. How are four women going to support themselves? A chance encounter offers Fleurette a solution: clandestine legal work for a former colleague of Constance's.

On the surface, everything is all right with Babbitt’s world of the solid, successful businessman. But in reality, George F. Babbitt is a lonely, middle-aged man. He doesn’t understand his family, has an unsuccessful attempt at an affair, and is almost financially ruined when he dares to voice sympathy for some striking workers. Babbitt finds that his only safety lies deep in the fold of those who play it safe. He is a man who has added a new word to our language: a “Babbitt,” meaning someone who conforms unthinkingly, a sheep.

An amateur production of The Tempest provides a colorful backdrop for a hilarious look at unrequited love. Mathematics teacher Hector Mackilwraith, stirred and troubled by Shakespeare's play, falls in love with the beautiful Griselda Webster. When Griselda shows she has plans of her own, Hector despairs on the play's opening night.