Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands

Joseph Heller

Catch-22

Catch-22 is like no other novel we have ever read. It has its own style, its own rationale, its own extraordinary character. It moves back and forth from hilarity to horror. It is outrageously funny and strangely affecting. It is totally original. It is set in the closing months of World War II, in an American bomber squadron on a small island off Italy. Its hero is a bombardier named Yossarian, who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he hasn't even met keep trying to kill him. (He has decided to live forever even if he has to die in the attempt.) Catch-22 is a microcosm of the twentieth-century world as it might look to someone dangerously sane. It is a novel that lives and moves and grows with astonishing power and vitality. It is, we believe, one of the strongest creations of the mid-century. Performed by Jay O. Sanders

Lao Tzu

Tao Te Ching

In 81 brief chapters, Lao-Tzu's Tao Te Ching , or Book of the Way , provides advice that imparts balance and perspective, a serene and generous spirit, and teaches us how to work for the good with the effortless skill that comes from being in accord with the Tao--the basic principle of the universe. Stephen Mitchell's bestselling version has been widely acclaimed as a gift to contemporary culture.

Elmore Leonard

The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard

Trust was rare and precious in the wide-open towns that sprung up like weeds on America's frontier - with hustlers and hucksters arriving in droves by horse, coach, wagon, and rail, and gunmen working both sides of the law, all too eager to end a man's life with a well-placed bullet. The New York Times best-selling grand master of suspense deftly displays the other side of his genius, with seven classic Western tales of destiny and fatal decision...and trust as essential to survival as it is hard-earned.