"Based on a series of letters Mark Twain wrote from Europe for San Francisco and New York newspapers as a roving correspondent, The Innocents Abroad (1869) is a caricature of the sentimental travel books popular in the mid-nineteenth century. Mark Twain's fresh and humorous perspective on hallowed European landmarks lacked reverence for the past, and was as mocking about American manners (including his own) as it was about European attitudes. Twain...

Augie March is a Jewish-American boy growing up fatherless and poor in Depression-era Chicago. He seeks a "special destiny, " although his circumstances seem to position him for a uniquely disappointing life: his family consists of a simple-minded mother, a brother and "grandmother" who prove to be Machiavellian in their intentions, and an "idiot" youngest brother, Georgie.

A Tramp Abroad is a work of travel literature, including a mixture of autobiography and fictional events, by American author Mark Twain, published in 1880. The book details a journey by the author, with his friend Harris (a character created for the book, and based on his closest friend, Joseph Twichell), through central and southern Europe. While the stated goal of the journey is to walk most of the way, the men find themselves using other forms...

The new government in central Europe, called the Confederated Principalities of Europe, was formed by an alliance between Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, and the West Virginians led by Mike Stearns who were transplanted into 17th-century Germany by a mysterious cosmic accident. The new regime is shaky. Outside its borders, the Thirty Years War continues to rage. Within, it is beset by financial crisis as well as the political and social tensions...

King Gustavus of Sweden orders General Mike Stearns of West Virginia to go to Saxony and restore order. Gretchen has been arrested there and is likely to be executed. The revolutionary groups which she has been working with are not about to let that happen, and suddenly there's rioting in the streets and Saxony's ruthless General Baner is determined to suppress the uprising.

Part wartime political intrigue, detective story, psychological thriller, and religious mystery, Ben Pastor's debut follows a German army captain and a Chicago priest as they investigate the death of a nun in Nazi-occupied Poland. In October 1939 Captain Martin Bora discovers the abbess, Mother Kazimierza, shot dead in her convent garden. Her alleged power to see the future has brought her a devoted following; her work and motto, "Lumen Christi Adiuva...