Pull up a stool and have a drink with the vacationing Father of Lies while he provides his unbiased take on topics like the truth, free will, and the seduction of the damned. It'll have you laughing, reflecting, and wondering about karma as the stories unfold and you see yourself within them.

Their Eyes Were Watching God, an American classic, is the luminous and haunting novel about Janie Crawford, a Southern Black woman in the 1930s, whose journey from a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance has inspired writers and readers for close to 70 years.

Dolores Claiborne is suspected of killing Vera Donovan, her wealthy employer, and when the police question her, she tells the story of her life, harkening back to her disintegrating marriage and the suspicious death of her violent husband 30 years earlier. Dolores also tells of Vera's physical and mental decline and how she became emotionally demanding in recent years.

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African-American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston’s "lost" Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales.

Conjure Women is a sweeping story that brings the world of the South before and after the Civil War vividly to life. Spanning eras and generations, it tells of the lives of three unforgettable women: Miss May Belle, a wise healing woman; her precocious and observant daughter, Rue, who is reluctant to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a midwife; and their master’s daughter, Varina. The secrets and bonds among these women and their community come to a head at the beginning of a war and at the birth of an accursed child.

In Tennessee, 17-year-old Breckinridge Wallace knew the laws of nature. When his life was in danger, he showed a fearless instinct to fight back. Killing a thug who was sent to kill him got Breckinridge exiled from his Smoky Mountain home. Brutally wounding an Indian attacker earned him an enemy for life....

Luke Ransom was just 18 years old when he answered an ad in a St. Louis newspaper that would change his life forever. The American Fur Company needed 100 enterprising men to travel up the Missouri River - the longest in North America - all the way to its source. They would hunt and trap furs for one, two, or three years. Along the way, they would face unimaginable hardships: grueling weather, wild animals, hunger, exhaustion, and hostile attacks by the Blackfeet and Arikara. Luke Ransom was one of the brave men chosen for the job - and one of the few to survive....

Arlen Blumhagen captures the feel of the western wilderness of the late 1800s in this story of one man's adventures across the American wilderness. Mount leads a simple life, using his skills to survive in his cabin on the side of a mountain. When circumstances require him to make a trip into St. Louis, Mount thinks it will be a quick visit to the big city and then home. What he isn't prepared for is the request of Andrew Worthington to lead his family through the wilderness and up through the Oregon Trail.

Secretly, however, if Jilly ever allowed herself to be completely honest about it (which she tried to avoid), there was one other man in Mourning Dove who always crossed her mind when the subject of the handsomest man in town arose. Yet there was no lingering on thinking of that man - no sirree! Not for a moment! And so Jilly just kept telling Jack that he was the handsomest man in Mourning Dove Creek. Besides, it was almost true - being that the other man lived outside of town and not right in town the way Jack did.

Christy Award-winning author Jennifer Erin Valent concludes her critically acclaimed Calloway Summers trilogy with this compelling gem. In the summer of 1938, the dreams of 19-year-old Jessilyn Lassiter begin to come true when her long-time crush falls for her. But their budding romance is interrupted when a young black doctor comes to her small Virginia town, capturing the heart of her best friend and attracting the racial hostility that’s been simmering just beneath the surface.

This award-winning, coming-of-age gem by Jennifer Erin Valent recounts one farm family's struggle against racial bigotry in Depression-era Virginia. When Jessilyn's parents begin raising her best friend as their own daughter, this kindness toward a dark-skinned orphan triggers threats and violence. While teetering on the brink of womanhood, Jessilyn must learn to be a shining light in a dark world.

During a winter storm a busload of weary travelers are forced to shack up at a roadside diner until morning. Inge was renowned for his in-depth character studies, Bus Stop is no exception and offers a warm play about the intersecting lives of eight ordinary people.

Alone again! Just like his orphaned boyhood. Those are Nevada's thoughts as he turns from the only home and happiness he has ever known. But it had all been a lie, at least on his part. He had been hiding his true identity from his best friend, Ben, and the woman he loved, Hettie. They knew him as Nevada, a man they care for and respected, when in truth he was a wandering fugitive gunman, notorious from Nevada clear to Tombstone, Arizona.

1893 is a tough year in Montana, and any job is a good job. When Big Red and Old Red Amlingmeyer sign on as ranch hands at the secretive Bar-VR cattle spread, they're not expecting much more than hard work, bad pay, and a comfortable campfire around which they can enjoy their favorite pastime: scouring Harper's Weekly for stories about the famous Sherlock Holmes.

In his mountain-man days, Elwood “Firestick” McQueen was practically a living legend. His hunting, tracking, and trapping skills were known far and wide. But it was his deadly accuracy with a rifle that earned him the Indian name “Firestick.” His two best buddies are Malachi “Beartooth” Skinner—whose knife was as fatal as a grizzly’s chompers—and Jim “Moosejaw” Hendricks, who once wielded the jawbone of a moose to crush his enemies in the heat of battle. Of course, things are different nowadays.

Their Eyes Were Watching God, an American classic, is the luminous and haunting novel about Janie Crawford, a Southern Black woman in the 1930s, whose journey from a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance has inspired writers and readers for close to 70 years.

Deadwood, late 1876. A rowdy and reckless undertaker’s delight. What better place for a killer to blend in? Enter undertaker Clementine Johanssen, tall and deadly with a hot temper and short fuse, hired to clean up Deadwood’s dead...and the “other” problem. She’s hell-bent on poking, sticking, or stabbing anyone who steps out of line. But when a couple Santa Fe sidewinders ride into town searching for their missing uncle, they land neck deep in lethal gunplay, nasty cutthroats, and endless stinkin’ snow.

On Gabriel's 12th birthday, he gets a new bike - and is so excited that he accidentally rides it right into the path of a car. Fortunately, a Black man named Meriwether pushes him out of the way just in time, and fixes his damaged bike. As a thank you, Gabriel gets him a job at his dad's auto shop. Gabriel's dad hires him with some hesitation, however, anticipating trouble with the other mechanic, who makes no secret of his racist opinions. Gabriel and Meriwether become friends, and Gabriel learns that Meriwether drove a tank in the Army's all-Black 761st Tank Battalion in WWII.

Sparky Sweets, PhD, and Wisecrack proudly present this outrageously funny, ultra-sharp guide to literature based on the hit online series, Thug Notes. Inside, you'll find hilarious plot breakdowns and masterful analyses of 16 of literature's most beloved classics, including: Things Fall Apart, To Kill a Mockingbird, Hamlet, The Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, Pride and Prejudice, and more!

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African-American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston’s "lost" Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales.

Alone again! Just like his orphaned boyhood. Those are Nevada's thoughts as he turns from the only home and happiness he has ever known. But it had all been a lie, at least on his part. He had been hiding his true identity from his best friend, Ben, and the woman he loved, Hettie. They knew him as Nevada, a man they care for and respected, when in truth he was a wandering fugitive gunman, notorious from Nevada clear to Tombstone, Arizona.

Visiting from Chicago, 14-year-old Clement is unfamiliar with the social customs of the tiny town of Money. Striding into a general store, he offends the white store clerk by not placing his nickel in her hand. This seemingly innocuous act leads to a horrific murder and a conflict drawn along racial lines.

Family is a stunning, often painfully graphic re-creation of the realities of slavery: black women raped by white masters; black children sold to sustain failing plantations - or to satisfy the whims of a petulant mistress; strong men humiliated, whipped, and beaten because of the color of their skin. But it is also the triumphant story of a mother whose loving spirit transcends the barriers of death and time, allowing her to watch over her children and her children’s children.

During the Great Depression, city-dweller Addie Cowherd dreams of becoming a novelist and offering listeners the escape that books had given her during her tragic childhood. When her father loses his job, she is forced to take the only employment she can find delivering books on horseback to poor coal-mining families in the hills of Kentucky. But turning a new page will be nearly impossible in Boone's Hollow, where residents are steeped in superstitions and deeply suspicious of outsiders.

Eugene O’Neill’s tale of Ephraim Cabot, greedy and hard like the stone walls that surround his farm, the family patriarch brings home his new young bride, Abbie. His grown sons dissaprove; one leaves but the other stays to fight for the family fortune. What follows is a tragedy of epic proportions.

Finding herself in over her head with a case involving a politician's infidelities, Memphis-born karate expert Detective Sergeant Savannah Reid is told that she must turn in her badge because she is overweight.

Ethan McOwen is an Irish immigrant whose endurance is tested in Brooklyn and the Five Points at the height of its urban destitution; he is among the first to join the famed Irish Brigade and becomes a celebrated war photographer. Marcella, a society girl from Spain, defies her father to become a passionate abolitionist. Mary and Micah are slaves of varying circumstances, who form an instant connection and embark on a tumultuous path to freedom. All four lives unfold in two beautiful love stories, which eventually collide.

When the seventh child of the Peace family, named Perfect, turns eight, her mother, Emma Jean, tells her bewildered daughter, "You was born a boy. I made you a girl. But that ain't what you was supposed to be. So from now on, you gon' be a boy. It'll be a little strange at first, but you'll get used to it, and this'll be over after while." From this point forward, his life becomes a bizarre kaleidoscope of events. Meanwhile, the Peace family is forced to question everything they thought they knew about gender, sexuality, unconditional love, and fulfillment.

Originally published in 1938, Uncle Tom's Children, a collection of novellas, was the first book from Richard Wright, who would go on to win international renown for his powerful and visceral depiction of the Black experience. Set in the American Deep South, each of the powerful and devastating stories in Uncle Tom's Children concerns an aspect of the lives of Black people in the post-slavery era, exploring their resistance to white racism and oppression. The collection also includes a personal essay by Wright titled "The Ethics of Living Jim Crow."

The lifeless bodies of Texas Rangers lay scattered on the floor of Bryant’s Gap. One man, wounded and left for the buzzards, comes back to consciousness and vows to bring the killers to justice. Now known only as the Lone Ranger, this man, his steadfast horse, Silver, and trusted friend, Tonto, set out to bring justice to the men who ambushed him and his fellow rangers.