Tales of love, sex, and relationships as only “one of the great . . . American short story writers” can tell them (The Washington Post Book World). A one-night stand begins a tragic journey that consumes a man’s soul in “Neither Your Jenny Nor Mine.” Afraid to interact with men who would condemn her as ugly, a young woman imagines herself living the love lives of every woman she sees until one daydream becomes a nightmare in “Mona at Her Windows.” On “A Path Through the Darkness,” a man struggles to understand his attraction to a cruel, morbid woman. Multi-award-winning author Harlan Ellison shatters the rose-colored glasses view of romance in these and other stories, coming to understand the elusive power of love about in terms of the primal passions and emotional onslaughts human beings engage. Insightful and devastating, these are realistic depictions of men and women desperate to connect and communicate, only to discover that love doesn’t conquer all. Includes: “The Resurgence of Miss Ankle-Strap Wedgie,” “The Universe of Robert Blake,” “G.B.K.—A Many Flavored Bird,” “Neither Your Jenny Nor Mine,” “Riding the Dark,” “Train Out,” “Moonlighting,” “What I Did on My Vacation this Summer by Little Bobby,” “Hirschhorn, Age 27,” “Mona at Her Windows,” “Blind Bird, Blind Bird, Go Away from Me!,” “Passport,” “I Curse the Lesson and Bless the Knowledge,” “Battle Without Banners,” “A Path,” “Through the Darkness,” “A Prayer for No One’s Enemy,” “Punky & the Yale Men”

A collection of twenty thought-provoking essays from “one of the most brilliant, innovative, and eloquent writers on earth” (Publishers Weekly). Harlan Ellison—master essayist, gadfly, literary myth figure, and viewer of dark portent—has been, for the greater part of his life, a burr under the saddle of complacency. In this collection, his former assistant and confidante, Marty Clark, has culled from hundreds of rare and un-reprinted works to select twenty wide-ranging essays—nonfiction writings ranging from travelogue to media criticism, literary exploration to personal musing—that demonstrate why the monstre sacre of imaginative literature won the prestigious Silver Pen award from PEN International for his journalistic forays.

Have you ever wanted to be an intellectual, without all that tedious work of getting an advanced college degree? Here’s your shortcut to the world of the well read. Just open this collection of 1,417 quotations from the mouths of the wildly famous to the painfully obscure, and voila!--instant erudition. It doesn’t take much to sound as if you know what you’re talking about. Just toss off some time-tested wisdom from Henry James or Plotinus . . . or, if you’re feeling daring, a line or two of poetry from Byron. In no time at all you’ll be sipping a glass of Madeira, sampling imported Gouda, and bragging about your collection of first edition Vonneguts. Just like an intellectual.