Richard Thomas

When the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Bob Dylan in 2016, a debate raged. Some celebrated, while many others questioned the choice. How could the world's most prestigious book prize be awarded to a famously cantankerous singer-songwriter who wouldn't even deign to attend the medal ceremony? In 'Why Bob Dylan matters', Harvard Professor Richard F. Thomas answers this question with magisterial erudition. A world expert on Classical poetry,...

A collection of short stories from the transgressive fiction genre feature tales about taboo subjects from the horrific to the humorous with shocking imagery not soon forgotten.

Technological advances have escalated Cold War tensions to an all-time high, and undercover KGB operatives Elizabeth and Philip Jennings face the growing threat of discovery. As their assignments grow more deadly, their family is in more danger, and their loyalties are tested like never before.

It can be anything. A fanged monster that won't stay on the movie screen. Something ominous lurking in the basement. A malevolent force in a small New England town takes the shape of a clown, but It isn't clowning around. Instead, It terrifies youngsters with their innermost fears, bringing some to their untimely doom -- until a group of wily neighborhood kids fight back. Thirty years later the evil resurfaces: meaner, angrier, deadlier. And the friends...

Upon encountering the limping Ethan Frome, a visitor becomes curious about the striking man's back story. Using extended flashbacks, author Edith Wharton paints a picture of a man who continually sacrifices his aspirations in order to care for the needy people in his life. After abandoning his goal of higher education to assist his ailing parents on their farm, Ethan's return to Starkfield results in a loveless marriage of service to Zeena, an older...

Roots, adapted from the Alex Haley novel that traces his family's history from the mid-18th century when one of his ancestors was captured and sold into slavery. Follows the struggle for freedom that began with the boy's abduction in Africa to America and continued throughout the generations that followed. Roots, the next generations follows the Haley family from the post-Civil War era until the more contemporary but still turbulent time of the 1960s...