Great Books for Men

Hailed as one of the finest novels to come out of the Second World War, The Naked and the Dead received unprecedented critical acclaim upon its publication and has since become part of the American canon. This fiftieth anniversary edition features a new introduction created especially for the occasion by Norman Mailer.

Written in gritty, journalistic detail, the story follows an army platoon of foot soldiers who are fighting for the possession of the Japanese-held island of Anopopei. Composed in 1948, The Naked and the Dead is representative of the best in twentieth-century American writing.

This story, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians, is the first new book with Mark Twain's name on it in nearly a hundred years, with readers saying they can't tell where Twain stops and Nelson begins: a story of adventure, wit and wisdom with Tom and Huck seeking true love while tramping through hostile Indian country, befriending Bill Hickman and Porter Rockwell, stealing from the United States Army, then on to face a gunfight and hangman's noose in Sacramento, California.

Author's Note: I discovered Mark Twain's unfinished story Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians when it was published in Life Magazine in 1968. I was in the Brigham Young University barbershop, reading part of the story before my haircut, and I read the rest afterward.

I was enthralled, hanging on every word as Huck, Tom and Jim joined up with the Mills family on the Platte River. A group of Sioux Indians befriended the family, then suddenly slaughtered the parents and older boys, and kidnapped the two girls and Jim. Huck and Tom joined forces with mountain man Brace Johnson to follow the Indians and rescue the girls. As they approached the Indian camp, getting ready for a daring rescue, the story suddenly ended, right in the middle of a sentence. I was so disappointed. Although Mark Twain wrote and published a number of books and stories after 1885, he never finished this one.

Early in 2002, while watching a documentary on Mark Twain on a local PBS station, I remembered reading the Among the Indians story in the barbershop. By this time I had published a dozen historical novels with settings on the American frontier, and realized I was probably as qualified as any other living author to finish the work begun by Twain. A little research on the web led me to those who controlled the copyright—The Mark Twain Foundation and the University of California Press. Contact was made, approval was granted, a contract was drawn up, and the following story is the result.

I have no idea how Twain intended to finish the story, and I reason that he didn't know either, or he would have done it. I just hope that wherever he is, he enjoys my conclusion as much as I enjoyed his beginning.

Originally published in 1854, Walden, or Life in the Woods, is a vivid account of the time that Henry D. Thoreau lived alone in a secluded cabin at Walden Pond. It is one of the most influential and compelling books in American literature.

This new paperback edition--introduced by noted American writer John Updike--celebrates the 150th anniversary of this classic work. Much of Walden's material is derived from Thoreau's journals and contains such engaging pieces as "Reading" and "The Pond in the Winter." Other famous sections involve Thoreau's visits with a Canadian woodcutter and with an Irish family, a trip to Concord, and a description of his bean field. This is the complete and authoritative text of Walden--as close to Thoreau's original intention as all available evidence allows.

For the student and for the general reader, this is the ideal presentation of Thoreau's great document of social criticism and dissent.

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