Nonfiction
Mistaken Identity by
A grief reversed. A hope deferred. Mistaken Identity tells the unprecedented story of Laura Van Ryn and Whitney Cerak: one buried under the wrong name, and the other in a coma being cared for by the wrong family. Five lives were lost in a tragic car accident, and the sole survivor was rushed to the hospital, where she remained in a coma for five weeks. Everyone believed that Laura Van Ryn was in a coma, and that Whitney Cerak had died in the crash--until Whitney woke up. This shocking case of mistaken identity stunned the country and made national news. Would it destroy a family? Shatter their faith? Push two families into bitterness, resentment, and guilt? In Mistaken Identity, the Van Ryn family and the Cerek family describe their ordeal and explore the bond sustaining and uniting them as they deal with their bizarre reversal of life lost and life found. Mistaken Identity weaves a complex tale of honesty, vulnerability, loss, hope, faith, and love in the face of one of the strangest twists of circumstances imaginable.
Publication Date: 2009
The Perfect Prince: The Mystery of Perkin Warbeck and his Quest for the Throne of England by
In 1491, as Machiavelli advised popes and princes and Leonardo da Vinci astonished the art world, a young man boarded a ship in Portugal bound for Ireland. He would be greeted upon arrival as the rightful heir to the throne of England. The trouble was, England already had a king. The most intriguing and ambitious pretender in history, this elegant young man was celebrated throughout Europe as the prince he claimed to be: Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the “Princes in the Tower” who were presumed to have been murdered almost a decade earlier. Handsome, well-mannered, and charismatic, he behaved like the perfect prince, and many believed he was one. The greatest European rulers of the age—among them the emperor Maximilian, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and Charles VIII of France—used him as a diplomatic pawn to their own advantage. As such, he tormented Henry VII for eight years, attempting to invade England three times. Eventually, defeated and captured, he admitted to being Perkin Warbeck, the son of a common boatman from Flanders. But was this really the truth? Ann Wroe, a historian and storyteller of the first rank, delves into the secret corners of the late medieval world to explore both the elusive nature of identity and the human propensity for deception. In uncovering the mystery of Perkin Warbeck, Wroe illuminates not only a life but an entire world trembling on the verge of discovery. From the Hardcover edition.
Publication Date: 2003
Lambert Simnel and the Battle of Stoke by Publication Date: 1987
Closed Ranks: The Whitehurst Case in Post-Civil Rights Montgomery by
On a chilly December afternoon in 1975, Bernard Whitehurst Jr., a 33-year-old father of four, was mistaken for a robbery suspect by Montgomery, Alabama, police officers. A brief foot chase ensued, and it ended with one of the pursuing officers shooting and killing Whitehurst in the backyard of an abandoned house. The officer claimed the fleeing man had fired at him; police produced a gun they said had been found near the body. In the months that followed, new information showed that Whitehurst, who was black, was not only the wrong man but had been unarmed, a direct contradiction of the white officer's statement. What became known as the Whitehurst Case erupted when the local district attorney and the family's attorney each began to uncover facts that pointed to wrongdoing by the police, igniting a year-long controversy that resulted in the resignation or firing of police officers, the police chief, and the city's popular New South mayor. However, no one was ever convicted in Whitehurst's death, and his family's civil lawsuit against the City of Montgomery failed. Now, more than four decades later, Whitehurst's widow and children are waging a 21st-century effort to gain justice for the husband and father they lost. The question that remains is: who decides what justice looks like? In this latter-day exploration of the Whitehurst Case, author Foster Dickson reviews one of Montgomery's never-before-told stories, one which is riddled with incompatible narratives. Closed Ranks brings together interviews, police reports, news stories, and other records to carry the reader through the fraught post-civil rights movement period when the "unnecessary" shooting of Bernard Whitehurst Jr. occurred. In our current time, as police shootings regularly dominate news cycles, this book shows how essential it is to find and face the truth in such deeply troubling matters.
Publication Date: 2018
You Can't Catch Me by
"The moment genteel Southern bachelor Tristram Heade arrives in Philadelphia in search of a rare book, a mysterious metamorphosis begins. He is mistaken everywhere for a man of whom he has never heard but soon comes to know fearfully well. His diabolical double is everything he is not: a high-living playboy and insatiable womanizer who goes by the name of Angus T. Markham." "The horrified Tristram Heade does his unsuccessful best to correct this macabre mistake - until an achingly lovely young woman comes to his hotel room to yield at last to Angus T. Markham's desire. Heade abandons all attempts to deny what is now his desire as well - and with this act, abandons his last hold on the guidelines of his past. He is in a time and place where all things are possible, and nothing is forbidden." "Tristram Heade follows the ravishing Fleur Grunwald into a world where pleasure and pain intermingle. Where the naked truth about her and her marriage is obscured by lies as intricately woven as the tattoos that cover her exquisite body. And where her startling shifts from outraged innocence to shameless sensuality make Tristram Heade stronger and weaker than he has ever been. He has become both her avenger and her slave."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Publication Date: 1995
The Innocents by
These are the faces and voices of the wrongfully convicted: fifty men and women who were imprisoned for years before proving their innocence with the help of The Innocence Project, which strives to transform criminal justice into a more equitable and reliable system. The personal testimonies of these victims of mistaken identity lay bare the paradox of innocence and imprisonment, the inability to recover the years stolen from them, and the state's unconscionable refusal to compensate them or ease their traumatic transition to civilian life. In full-colour throughout.
Publication Date: 2008
Mistaken Identification by Publication Date: 1995
Fiction
Twelfth Night, or, What You Will by
The acclaimed Pelican Shakespeare series edited by A. R. Braunmuller and Stephen Orgel The legendary Pelican Shakespeare series features authoritative and meticulously researched texts paired with scholarship by renowned Shakespeareans. Each book includes an essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare's time, an introduction to the individual play, and a detailed note on the text used. Updated by general editors Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmuller, these easy-to-read editions incorporate over thirty years of Shakespeare scholarship undertaken since the original series, edited by Alfred Harbage, appeared between 1956 and 1967. With definitive texts and illuminating essays, the Pelican Shakespeare will remain a valued resource for students, teachers, and theater professionals for many years to come. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Publication Date: ca. 1601-1602
The Comedy of Errors by Publication Date: ca. 1594
The Double by
Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is a history teacher in a secondary school. He is divorced, involved in a rather one-sided relationship with a bank clerk, and he is depressed. To lift his depression, a colleague suggests he rent a certain video. Tertuliano watches the film and is unimpressed. During the night, noises in his apartment wake him. He goes into the living room to find that the VCR is replaying the video, and as he watches in astonishment he sees a man who looks exactly like him-or, more specifically, exactly like the man he was five years before, mustachioed and fuller in the face. He sleeps badly. Against his own better judgment, Tertuliano decides to pursue his double. As he establishes the man's identity, what begins as a whimsical story becomes a dark meditation on identity and, perhaps, on the crass assumption behind cloning-that we are merely our outward appearance rather than the sum of our experiences.
Publication Date: 2002
The Importance of Being Earnest by
Oscar Wilde created his final and most lasting play, comic masterpieces of all time, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, in 1895. Considered one of the greatest THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST is a farce, playing with love, religion, and truth as it tells the tale of two men. Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, who bend the truth in order to add excitement to their lives. Jack invents an imaginary brother, Ernest, whom he uses as an excuse to escape from his dull country home and gallavant in town. Meanwhile, Algernon follows Jack's scam, but his imaginary friend, Bumbury, provides a convenient method of adventuring in the country. However, their deceptions eventually cross paths, resulting in a series of crises that threaten to spoil their romantic pursuits. Hailed as the first modern comedy in England, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST is Wilde's most famous work. This collection also features two other plays that Wilde penned earlier in his career, LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN and AN IDEAL HUSBAND, that also display his ability to convey warmth and wit through his hilarious characters and their outlandish situations.
Publication Date: 1895
City of Glass (with Ghosts and The Locked Room) by
First published in 1985-1986, "The New York Trilogy "("City of Glass, Ghosts," and "The Locked Room") brought immediate international attention to its author, Paul Auster, and elevated him to near-celebrity status, particularly in France. This trilogy and his many works since then (including "In the Country of Last Words," "Leviathan," "Mr. Vertigo," "Moon Palace," and others) have been translated into numerous languages and have brought him further world attention. Auster's trilogy broke ground in its mix of serious fictional techniques and detective and mystery genres. Geoffrey O'Brien of "The Village Voice "wrote: ""The New York Trilogy "are novels of desire: the desire to write a detective novel, to read one, to -inhabit it. . . . By turning the mystery novel inside out, Auster may have -initiated a whole new round of storytelling." This new edition will delight readers and collectors of Auster's work.
ISBN: 155713166XPublication Date: 1985
The Good Lord Bird (National Book Award Winner) by
Soon to be a Showtime limited series starring Ethan Hawke and Daveed Diggs Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction From the bestselling author of Deacon King Kong (an Oprah Book Club pick) and The Color of Water comes the story of a young boy born a slave who joins John Brown's antislavery crusade--and who must pass as a girl to survive. Henry Shackleford is a young slave living in the Kansas Territory in 1856--a battleground between anti- and pro-slavery forces--when legendary abolitionist John Brown arrives. When an argument between Brown and Henry's master turns violent, Henry is forced to leave town--along with Brown, who believes Henry to be a girl and his good luck charm. Over the ensuing months, Henry, whom Brown nicknames Little Onion, conceals his true identity to stay alive. Eventually Brown sweeps him into the historic raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859--one of the great catalysts for the Civil War. An absorbing mixture of history and imagination, and told with McBride's meticulous eye for detail and character, The Good Lord Bird is both a rousing adventure and a moving exploration of identity and survival.
Publication Date: 2013
An American Marriage by
A NEW YORK TIMES AND WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK A 2018 BEST OF THE YEAR SELECTION OF NPR * TIME * BUSTLE * O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE * THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS * AMAZON.COM OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB 2018 SELECTION WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION WINNER OF THE 2019 ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE WINNER OF THE 2019 NAACP IMAGE AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING LITERARY WORK--FICTION LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION "A moving portrayal of the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young African-American couple." --Barack Obama "Haunting . . . Beautifully written." --The New York Times Book Review "Brilliant and heartbreaking . . . Unforgettable." --USA Today "A tense and timely love story . . . Packed with brave questions about race and class." --People "Compelling." --The Washington Post "Deeply moving . . . thought-provoking." --Bill Gates "Epic . . . Transcendent . . . Triumphant." --Elle Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy's time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy's conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together. This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward--with hope and pain--into the future.
Publication Date: 2018
The Mating Season by
The Mating Season is a time of love, mistaken identity, and mishap for Bertie, Gussie Fink-Nottle and other guests staying at Deverill Hall-luckily there's unflappable Jeeves to set things right.
Publication Date: 1949
The Government Inspector by
One of the most famous comedies in world theatre, Gogol's masterpiece has lost none of its bite. In a small town corruption is rife, and the Mayor and his cronies have got it made. So when they learn they are going to be subject to an undercover government inspection they panic. Mistaking a penniless nobody for the inspector they swiftly fall victims to their own stupidity and greed. A dazzling blend of preposterous characters and familiar situations, Nabokov called The Government Inspector the greatest play in the Russian language. A production of this version of the play opened at the Chichester Festival in June 2005 starring the comedian Alistair McGowan.
Publication Date: 1836
The Talented Mr Ripley by
In a chilling literary hall of mirrors, Patricia Highsmith introduces Tom Ripley. Like a hero in a latter-day Henry James novel, is sent to Italy with a commission to coax a prodigal young American back to his wealthy father. But Ripley finds himself very fond of Dickie Greenleaf. He wants to be like him--exactly like him. Suave, agreeable, and utterly amoral, Ripley stops at nothing--certainly not only one murder--to accomplish his goal. Turning the mystery form inside out, Highsmith shows the terrifying abilities afforded to a man unhindered by the concept of evil.
Publication Date: 1955
The Scapegoat by
"Someone jolted my elbow as I drank and said, 'Je vous demande pardon,' and as I moved to give him space he turned and stared at me and I at him, and I realized, with a strange sense of shock and fear and nausea all combined, that his face and voice were known to me too well.
I was looking at myself."
Two men--one English, the other French--meet by chance in a provincial railway station and are astounded that they are so much alike that they could easily pass for each other. Over the course of a long evening, they talk and drink. It is not until he awakes the next day that John, the Englishman, realizes that he may have spoken too much. His French companion is gone, having stolen his identity. For his part, John has no choice but to take the Frenchman's place--as master of a chateau, director of a failing business, head of a large and embittered family, and keeper of too many secrets.
Loaded with suspense and crackling wit, The Scapegoat tells the double story of the attempts by John, the imposter, to escape detection by the family, servants, and several mistresses of his alter ego, and of his constant and frustrating efforts to unravel the mystery of the enigmatic past that dominates the existence of all who live in the chateau.
Hailed by the New York Times as a masterpiece of "artfully compulsive storytelling," The Scapegoat brings us Daphne du Maurier at the very top of her form.
Publication Date: 1957
Women Crime Writers: Four Suspense Novels of The 1940s by
Though women crime and suspense writers dominate today's bestseller lists, the extraordinary work of the mid-century pioneers is largely unknown. Their work, influential in its day and still vibrant and extraordinarily riveting today, is long overdue for rediscovery. This volume, the first of a two-volume collector's set, gathers four classic works that together reveal the vital and unacknowledged lineage that leads to today's leading crime writers. From the 1940s here are Vera Caspary, Helen Eustis and Elizabeth Sanxay Holding.
Publication Date: 2015
The Great Lenore by
Fiction. Winner of the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) Gold Medal for Best Fiction from the U.S. Northeast Region. The tale of a ravishing young Brit whose falsely-reported death provides her with an opportunity to begin a new life. Before she can disappear for good, however, she longs to know the reaction of her two-timing husband and his aristocratic family. To find out, Lenore enlists Richard—an outsider in the money-and-booze sodden landscape of Nantucket high society—to be her eyes and ears. As events unfold, Richard discovers the entanglements of Lenore's relationships are more intricate than he ever expected...more intricate even than the secrets within Lenore's miniature punt boat. This elegant debut paints an idyllic island surrounded by reflective seas and encased in a world where souls collide, mysteries thicken, and dreams unravel.
Publication Date: 2011
The Family Hightower by
In 1968 two boys are born to the same large family, both named after their grandfather Peter Hightower. One Peter grows up with his father in Africa, and ends up as a journalist in Granada, Spain. The other Peter, who goes by Petey, ends up as a wealthy drug-addled minor criminal, first in Cleveland and then in Kiev, Ukraine. In 1995, Petey runs afoul of his criminal associates in Kiev and disappears. The criminals track down the wrong cousin, and Peter in Granada finds himself on the run without any sense of why. On the run, he attempts to piece together his cousin's plan.
Publication Date: 2014
The Decoy Girlfriend by
A laugh-out-loud funny and whip smart romantic comedy from the author of The Shaadi Set-Up about a young woman who switches places with her celebrity doppelganger, and must fake-date the actress's sexy co-star boyfriend.
Publication Date: 2022
Lies by
An intricately wrought, multilayered novel, Lies ranges from the present to deep in the past. Told through two narratives, the stories are both brutal and exciting. Together these stories illuminate the importance of storytelling in shaping beliefs about families and their histories.
Publication Date: 2007
The Blue Last by
The City, London's famous square mile, is home to merchant bankers and brokers and maintains its own police force. Chief Inspector Michael Haggerty asks his old friend Richard Jury to do him a favor: prove that the granddaughter of the brewing magnate Oliver Tynedale is an impostor and that the real granddaughter was killed, along with her mother, in the London blitz when a bomb hit a pub called the Blue Last. The pub's location was the last bomb site in London and only recently bought by a developer. Excavation turns up two skeletons -- those of a young woman and a very young child.I don't get it, Mickey; you're a better cop than I am.Maybe. But I'll be dead.Mickey has incurable cancer.Mickey also has a murder to solve in the City: Simon Croft, a merchant banker and the son of the late Francis Croft, Oliver Tynedale's business partner and one-time owner of the Blue Last.To get eyes and ears inside Tynedale Lodge, where the nanny who purportedly saved the baby's life still lives, Jury asks Melrose Plant to take on the job and the guise of undergardener. I don't do floors, I don't do flowers, I don't know the difference between a hog and a hedgerow. He does it, of course, and is accompanied on his rounds by the irrepressible six-year-old Gemma Trimm and a resourceful twelve-year-old delivery boy named Benny Keagan and his dog Sparky.Questions remain: Is someone really trying to murder Gemma? She thinks so. Was Simon Croft shot because of something he discovered in the course of writing a book about the Second World War? Jury thinks so. And is the painting Marshall Trueblood carts around Tuscany -- dragging Plant with him -- really an original Masaccio? OnlyTrueblood thinks so. The Blue last is vintage Grimes -- crowded with eccentric characters and atmospheric, humorous, and hauntingly sad.
Publication Date: 2001
Youth and children's books
Westmark by
A boy fleeing from criminal charges falls in with a charlatan, his dwarf attendant, and an urchin girl, and travels with them about the kingdom of Westmark, and ultimately arrives at the palace where the king is grieving over the loss of his daughter.
Publication Date: 1981
Brixton Brothers: The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity by
National treasures, criminal masterminds, and...secret agent librarians? Steve Brixton wants to be a crime-busting detective--just like his favorite crime-busting detectives, the Bailey Brothers. Turns out, though, that real life is nothing like the stories. When Steve borrows the wrong book from the library, he finds himself involved in a treasonous plot that pits him against helicopter-rappelling librarians, has him outwitting a gaggle of police, and sees him standing off against the mysterious Mr. E. And all his Bailey Brothers know-how isn't helping at all! Worst of all, his social studies report is due Monday, and Ms. Gilfeather will not give him an extension!
Publication Date: 2009
Counterfeit Son by
Cameron Miller is pretending to be someone he isn't. When he began presenting himself as Neil Lacey, it was the only way he could think of to distance himself from what Pop had done, to finally climb out of his nightmarish existence. He thought it would be easy--playing the rich kid, sailing his boat--but he didn't count on Cougar. Now Cougar, his father's old accomplice, has tracked Cameron down and presented an ultimatum: Share the wealth or be exposed. Will Cameron give up his new identity to protect Neil's family? Or will he let his search for a new life destroy those around him?
Publication Date: 2000
The Truth-Teller's Tale by
This sequel to The Safe-Keeper's Secret continues the story of the mirror twins Adele (a Safe-Keeper) and Eleda (a Truth-Teller). When the twins are 17, a handsome dancing-master and his apprentice come to stay at the inn, and thus begins a chain of romances and mistaken identity.
Publication Date: 2005
The Book of a Thousand Days by
Fifteen-year-old Dashti, sworn to obey her sixteen-year-old mistress, the Lady Saren, shares Saren's years of punishment locked in a tower, then brings her safely to the lands of her true love, where both must hide who they are as they work as kitchen maids.
Publication Date: 2007
