Adding some 20 percent to the original content, this is a completely updated edition of Steven Weisenburger's indispensable guide to Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Weisenburger takes the reader page by page, often line by line, through the welter of historical references, scientific data, cultural fragments, anthropological research, jokes, and puns around which Pynchon wove his story. Weisenburger fully annotates Pynchon's use of languages ranging from Russian and Hebrew to such subdialects of English as 1940s street talk, drug lingo, and military slang as well as the more obscure terminology of black magic, Rosicrucianism, and Pavlovian psychology. The Companion also reveals the underlying organization of Gravity's Rainbow--how the book's myriad references form patterns of meaning and structure that have eluded both admirers and critics of the novel. The Companion is keyed to the pages of the principal American editions of Gravity's Rainbow: Viking/Penguin (1973), Bantam (1974), and the special, repaginated Penguin paperback (2000) honoring the novel as one of twenty "Great Books of the Twentieth Century."

Tadpole loves his rainbow friend, the caterpillar, and she tells him she loves everything about him. "Promise that you will never change," she says. But as the seasons pass and he matures, his legs grow, and then his arms - and what happens to his beautiful rainbow friend? As he sits on his lily pad, digesting a butterfly, Tadpole little realises that now he will never know! Follow the predictable changes of a tadpole and a caterpillar to their natural conclusion in this award winning picture book.

In the spring of 1955, new-minted vampire Diana Chilton rejoins civilization after the Fae boot her out of her self-pity, and meets an old friend, Jack Garrett, who recognizes her as a vampire. Jack proposes that he and Diana start a secret magical group and use their training and powers to manifest political and social change--exactly what Diana had wanted to do for many years. With two other highly gifted magicians, David Hofstein and April McFarland, Jack and Diana form their coven devoted at manipulating and changing other people, using powerful magic and mind-altering drugs. As the years pass, April, David and Diana slowly begin to question the wisdom of what they're doing and whether they can trust Jack. After a devastating reality check in November, 1963, and with other interests calling each of them, the three quit the group. Coldly angry, Jack packs his things and disappears. Left on her own, Diana follows clues she has been collecting for ten years and tracks down a vampire now using the name Troy Stevenson, but born Edward Tillinger in South Kingston, Rhode Island. He has joined a small commune of people starting an organic farm in a sprawling farmhouse in Sheridan, Massachusetts. The group accepts Diana and she joins their family. For the first time in many years, she feels that she has truly come home. Over the next six years, hints and news trickle back to Diana that suggest Jack may be working alone on a scheme far beyond anything their coven had dreamed of. As Troy investigates reports from Brazil and the Philippines that he thinks may help them solve some of the mysteries of their vampiric condition, Diana realizes that she has unfinished business. She is forced to choose between accompanying Troy on his travels, and stopping Jack from an action that will change history and life as she knows it forever.

It's the first day of school, and Camilla discovers that she is covered from head to toe in stripes, then polka-dots, and any other pattern spoken aloud! With a little help, she learns the secret of accepting her true self, in spite of her peculiar ailment.

Gothiniad of Surazeus - Oracle of Gotha presents 150,792 lines of verse in 1,948 poems, lyrics, ballads, sonnets, dramatic monologues, eulogies, hymns, and epigrams written by Surazeus 1993 to 2000.

Moving to America turns H&à's life inside out. For all the 10 years of her life, H&à has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, the warmth of her friends close by, and the beauty of her very own papaya tree. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. H&à and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, H&à discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape, and the strength of her very own family. This is the moving story of one girl's year of change, dreams, grief, and healing as she journeys from one country to another, one life to the next.