Like many ambitious New York City teenagers, Craig Gilner sees entry into Manhattan's Executive Pre-Professional High School as the ticket to his future. Determined to succeed at life—which means getting into the right high school to get into the right college to get the right job—Craig studies night and day to ace the entrance exam, and does. That's when things start to get crazy. At his new school, Craig realizes that he isn't brilliant compared to the other kids; he's just average, and maybe not even that. He soon sees his once-perfect future crumbling away.

Cat O'Nine Tales is the fifth collection of irresistible short stories from the master storyteller and bestselling author Jeffrey Archer. Ingeniously plotted, with richly drawn characters and Archer's trademark of deliciously unexpected conclusions, some of these thirteen stories were inspired by the two years Jeffrey Archer spent in prison, including the story of a company chairman who tries to poison his wife while on a trip to St Petersburg—with unexpected consequences. The Red King is a tale about a con man who discovers that an English Lord requires one more chess piece to complete a set that would be worth a fortune. In another tale of deception, The Commissioner, a Bombay con artist ends up in the morgue, after he uses the police chief as bait in his latest scam. The Perfect Murder reveals how a convict manages to remove an old enemy while he's locked up in jail, and then set up two prison officers as his alibi. In Charity Begins at Home, an accountant realizes he has achieved nothing in his life, and sets out to make a fortune before he retires. And then there is Archer's favorite, In the Eye of the Beholder, where a handsome star athlete falls in love with a three-hundred-pound woman...who happens to be the ninth richest woman in Italy. Jeffrey Archer is the only author to have topped international bestseller lists with his fiction, non-fiction, and his short stories. Cat O'Nine Tales is Archer at his best: witty, sad, surprising, and unforgettable.

Excerpt from Nine Humorous Tales It may be more than mere accident that in the history of modern literature so many men of talent have turned from the practice of medicine to the profession of letters. The physician's office is largely a place of confession and his mind a focus gathering the light of human experiences from every angle. These, if he is a man of imagination as well as of science, he is prompted to reflect through the lens of fiction. Though Anton Chekhov was a physician by training, (having been graduated from the Moscow University in 1884, at the age of twenty-four) he was a writer by preference. The wide knowledge gained from his medical studies and practice, coupled with the fact that his father was a peasant by birth and a city shop-keeper by occupation, must have contributed in great measure to the wide scope of his art. American readers are by this time fairly well acquainted with Chekhov as a writer of many-sided interests and the possessor of a style that has been called the best since de Maupassant. One phase of the great Russian's work, however, has thus far been largely neglected; his humorous vein. This is all the more surprising because the Chekhov of the humorous tales naturally prompts comparison with our own O. Henry, although it would be unfair to both writers to extend the comparison too far. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

From the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments—a thrilling, funny, and thought-provoking collection of stories that affirms Atwood as our greatest creator of worlds—and as an incisive chronicler of our darkest impulses. “Alphinland,” the first of three loosely linked tales, introduces us to a fantasy writer who is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband. In “Lusus Naturae,” a young woman, monstrously transformed by a genetic defect, is mistaken for a vampire. And in the title story, a woman who has killed four husbands discovers an opportunity to exact vengeance on the first man who ever wronged her. Stone Mattress is a collection of unforgettable tales that reveal the grotesque, delightfully wicked facets of humanity.

The "original, first-rate, serious, and beautiful" short fiction (New York Times Book Review) that introduced J. D. Salinger to American readers in the years after World War II, including "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and the first appearance of Salinger's fictional Glass family. Nine exceptional stories from one of the great literary voices of the twentieth century. Witty, urbane, and frequently affecting, Nine Stories sits alongside Salinger's very best work--a treasure that will passed down for many generations to come. The stories: A Perfect Day for Bananafish Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut Just Before the War with the Eskimos The Laughing Man Down at the Dinghy For Esmé--with Love and Squalor Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period Teddy