Letters Literature

At once a powerful evocation of his early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice to both the individual and the body politic, James Baldwin galvanized the nation in the early days of the civil rights movement with this eloquent manifesto. The Fire Next Time stands as one of the essential works of our literature.

From the first time to the wildest time, from bedroom bouts to public performances, from torrid threesomes to lesbian liaisons, from wedding nights to sinful trysts, men (and sometimes women!) everywhere meet their match in wives, bachelorettes, and the girls next door who shamelessly ride the first tremor of desire to an explosion that rocks their world.

Kennedy steered the nation away from the brink of nuclear war, initiated the first nuclear test ban treaty, created the Peace Corps, and launched American on its mission to the moon and beyond. JFK inspired a nation, particularly the massive generation of baby boomers, injecting hope and revitalizing faith in the American project. 2013 will mark the fiftieth anniversary of Kennedy's untimely death, a milestone to be marked by an avalanche of new books on his life and importance.

When Helene Hanff makes an innocent inquiry about the possibility of purchasing hard-to-find books through Marks and Co., Booksellers, she begins a 20-year love affair with Frank Doel, the proper English bookseller who answers her letter and sends along her first order in the fall of 1949. They are two very unlikely correspondents.

Here, for the first time, is the private and most intimate correspondence of one of America’s most influential and incisive journalists: Hunter S. Thompson. In letters to a Who’s Who of luminaries from Norman Mailer to Charles Kuralt, Tom Wolfe to Lyndon Johnson, William Styron to Joan Baez—not to mention his mother, the NRA, and a chain of newspaper editors—Thompson vividly catches the tenor of the times in 1960s America and channels it all through his own razor-sharp perspective.

Spanning the years between 1968 and 1976, these never-before-published letters show Thompson building his legend: running for sheriff in Aspen, Colorado; creating the seminal road book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; twisting political reporting to new heights for Rolling Stone; and making sense of it all in the landmark Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.

This letter is the closest that Kafka came to setting down his autobiography. He was driven to write it by his father's opposition to his engagement with Julie Wohryzek. The marriage did not take place; the letter was not delivered.

Countess Amelia Amesbury has her work cut out. As well as balancing her alter ego—secret advice columnist, Lady Agony—and the blackmailer threatening to reveal her real identity, her sister has also announced she's getting married. It's joyous news, but places all the planning for a high society wedding firmly at Amelia's door. Luckily, her good friend and local vicar Mr. Cross has agreed to the expedited nuptials, so that's one less thing to worry about. Until Cross is found dead at the church. Now in between bridal arrangements, Amelia must follow the clues Mr. Cross left behind.

Salt Letters to a Younger Me is a tender correspondence between memory and tide—a series of lyrical letters written by a marine biologist to his younger self. Each letter drifts between science and solitude, salt and sorrow, tracing how the sea mirrors the human heart: its erosion, its return, its endless capacity to begin again. Through quiet observations of coral bleaching, migrating whales, and the hush of coastal dawns, the narrator learns that every loss leaves behind a mineral trace—something that glimmers even after grief recedes.

Sensing his mother’s failing health, a struggling teenager pours out his worries in a letter and drops it through the mail slot of an abandoned show house. He’s surprised when a response arrives, promising good fortune for the price of just one name: someone he hates. He’d give anything for his mother. But the true cost may be more than he’s willing to pay.

In the hopes of receiving some mail of her own, Paula writes a letter to her grandparents.

Third-grader Clementine constantly has brilliant ideas popping into her brain, but sometimes they get her into trouble. Only a few people really understand her - her parents, of course, and her favorite teacher, Mr. D'Matz. When he receives an opportunity to do research in Egypt, Clementine hatches a plan to keep him at her school - but as usual, it doesn't quite work out the way she wants.

After her mother, Brenda, passed away and her father sold the family home, broadcaster and writer Emma Kennedy found herself floundering, unable to make peace with the complex, charismatic woman who had been her mum. And then they found the letters. This heartbreakingly funny book about the impact of discovering lost letters is a celebration of correspondence; those lost acts of penned love, the vivid snapshots in time scattered back through a life.

Clementine has been taken by a creature of darkness. Dorin is a fiend in love who must find Clementine before losing her forever. While on his desperate search, Dorin pens eight dark and romantic monstrous tales, written only for Clementine.

Lt. Mellie Blake is looking forward to beginning her training as a flight nurse. She is not looking forward to writing a letter to a man she’s never met - even if it is anonymous and part of a morale-building program. Lt. Tom MacGilliver, an officer stationed in North Africa, welcomes the idea of an anonymous correspondence - he’s been trying to escape his infamous name for years. As their letters crisscross the Atlantic, Tom and Mellie develop a unique friendship despite not knowing the other’s true identity. When both are transferred to Algeria, the two are poised to meet face-to-face for the first time.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC-AD 65), also known as Seneca the Younger, was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist from the Silver Age of Latin literature. This edition of Seneca's Epistles includes all 124 of the letters in a single volume, with explanatory notes, an appendix, and an index of the names occurring in the text. The letters were written by Seneca during his retirement and sent to his friend Lucilius Junior, a procurator of Sicily.

When crime novelist Phoebe opens the post and receives an invitation to her own funeral, she’s horrified. Not least because the date of her death is marked as tomorrow. Deciding it’s nothing more than a prank from an enemy from her past, she determines to put it to the back of her mind. But the next morning, when her completely infuriating postman (who likes to think himself her no.1 literary critic) rings her doorbell, a parcel of poisoned pen-nibs explodes in his face. Forced to confront the fact her correspondence is more RIP than RSVP, Phoebe realises someone must want her dead.

Welcome to the Graveyard of Dead Letters, where evil silent letters, like the W of swords and the K of knives, are buried. Here they can do no harm. But the wicked Spellbinder has plans to revive the letters . . . and use them to create a fierce weapon that will challenge even the powerful Librarian!

Restless and ready for a change, Grace Stratton gladly accepts the opportunity to leave her remote parsonage home to serve as a wealthy spinster’s companion in the idyllic country town of Lindenfell. Its warm atmosphere and friendly inhabitants sooth Grace’s lonely heart. But when a mysterious stranger arrives, she soon discovers things aren’t always what they seem.

Priscilla, Devon, and Bailey haven’t been close in years, but when the sisters are forced to come together to settle their mother’s estate, they discover a secret. In an old trunk, they happen upon ownership papers for a house on the Amalfi Coast, along with a love letter to their mother from an anonymous man, promising to meet her in Italy during the summer of her 65th birthday. Now they’re questioning everything they knew about her history. In order to get answers about the woman they thought they knew, they’ll have to go back to where it all started.