Thomas Berger's modern hero Carlo Reinhart is thrust into the strangest chapter of his life yetCarlo Reinhart's life has taken many turns. From his idealistic youth in Crazy in Berlin, to his entrance into adulthood in Reinhart in Love, through his uneasy tumble into middle age in Vital Parts, Reinhart has never lost his philosophical and even-minded disposition. Reinhart's Women finds Reinhart divorced and living with his daughter, Winona, a successful model. His newest hobby is cooking, and he has become surprisingly accomplished for an amateur. But when he asks a woman over for a homemade lunch, Reinhart's idyll is shattered. Adventures and misadventures conspire to put his nascent cooking skills to the test—and turn him into a postmodern celebrity. With Reinhart, Berger has created one of the great comic characters of the twentieth century—a man who beautifully represents, and parodies, his moment. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Thomas Berger...

Suburban regular guy Earl Keese confronts the yawning pit of chaos in the persons of Harry and Ramona, a younger couple who have just moved into the only other house on their dead-end street. Literally overnight, Earl's painstakingly controlled world is turned upside down. Soon he is engaged in guerilla warfare with his new neighbors, who seem to threaten the very fabric of his carefully constructed reality.

Once again, Thomas Berger brings a satiric and irreverent perspective to the human experience, evoking a world that most dare not even imagine and effectively dismantling all existing definitions of sex and gender.

A dozen remarkable short stories from the author of Little Big Man, offering an absurdist journey through the mind of one of America's great storytellersThomas Berger's first short story collection in almost thirty years showcases the author's acclaimed wit, intellect, and emotional sureness. His pages teem with larger-than-life characters: Dr. Poon, a Hollywood snake handler in way over his head during a film shoot in Southeast Asia; Charlie, an apartment superintendent who finds a peculiarly powerful plastic pistol; and Vernon, the confused owner of a talking puppy. No matter where Berger takes his readers, his world is full of oddities. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Thomas Berger including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author's personal collection.

A bitterly comic novel of middle-aged angst and middle-class American life in the 1960s, by the acclaimed author of Little Big Man It is the late sixties in suburbia, and Carlo Reinhart's life is a mess. He's fat, broke, middle aged, and unemployed. His anarchist son hates him, and his wife has taken a younger lover and thrown Carlo out of the house. In fact, the only one who doesn't consider him contemptible and ridiculous seems to be Carlo's adoring, overweight daughter, who is almost as pathetic as he is. Even his affair with a twenty-two-year-old nymphomaniac is strangely unsatisfying. Then, just as he's reaching his lowest point, the self-styled Ultimate Human Irrelevancy is offered a golden opportunity to grab a piece of the American Dream, thanks to the reappearance of his old school chum Bob Sweet. Bob, who has a gift for success, is inviting Reinhart to get in on the ground floor of his latest venture: cryonics. But while Carlo loves...

Jack Crabb is back with another gleeful romp through the Old WestJack Crabb is now 112 years old, and he isn't done spinning yarns. In this sequel to Berger's beloved novel Little Big Man, one of literature's wiliest survivors continues his breathtaking tall tales of the Old West. Crabb claims to have witnessed most of the great historical events of the western frontier: hiding behind a wagon after a drunken Doc Holliday provokes the shootout at the OK Corral; joining Buffalo Bill Cody and Annie Oakley on tour with their international Wild West show; even taking tea with Queen Victoria when she came out of seclusion after a quarter century. No matter where Crabb lays his hat, he keeps his wizened, wry, and sharp commentary at the ready. The Return of Little Big Man is a sidesplitting novel of surprising emotional depth. This ebook features an all-new introduction by Thomas Berger, as well as an illustrated biography of the author including rare images and never-before-seen...

Since childhood, Sam Grandy and Roy Courtright have been best friends. They grew up in the same prosperous community, went to the same prep school, and later entered the same university. After Sam's father died, Roy's father looked after him. At one point Sam dated Roy's sister, Robin. As best friends, they share a close and loving bond, often stronger than the relationships other men share with their girlfriends, siblings, or wives. But in the twenty years since their friendship began, their fundamental differences have become more apparent and their relationship has grown strained. More and more often they realize they are opposites -- one a womanizer, the other a devoted husband; one careless with money, the other frugal; one independent, the other needy. Do these differences threaten their friendship -- or are the dissimilarities what make it possible? Can they escape the ties of their past, or are they intrinsically bound until death? When Sam's health begins to falter, he draws Roy into his life again -- and into a chain of deceit, sex, delusion, death, and love such as only a best friend could. Thomas Berger has enthralled millions of readers for almost fifty years with his psychologically complex, sharp-sighted storytelling. With exquisite wit and insidious wisdom, Best Friends weaves a powerful tale about friendship -- and the complex loyalties involved.

Fed up with the sarcastic, opinionated, and disrespectful women he comes across, Ellery Pierce decides his only choice is to build the perfect woman. A technician at an animatronics firm, Ellery has the experience and tools ready at his fingertips. After years of experiments and fine-tuning, Ellery feels he finally has created an artificial woman who can pass as real -- Phyllis. According to Ellery, Phyllis is the perfect wife, fulfilling his every wish, from gourmet meals to sexual pleasure. Unfortunately for Ellery, he may have made her too closely in his image for his own good: Phyllis leaves Ellery with dreams of Hollywood. Soon she's a bona fide box office sensation. But then Phyllis sets her sights on the ultimate goal -- presidency of the United States. It's no surprise when Phyllis wins the election, but Ellery rightly begins to wonder if this time she's gone too far.From Publishers WeeklyProlific novelist Berger (The Feud, Little Big Man) updates the Pygmalion myth with this witty, dark comedy: instead of a lovely Galatea, the protagonist's manufactured dream girl becomes a Frankenstein's monster through her ambition. Ellery Pierce, a twice-divorced animatronics technician, can't find a woman devoid of sarcasm and opinion, so he builds a companion from synthetic skin, batteries and bolts. But Phyllis, his near-perfect female replica, learns quickly and, absorbing the mass media ideal for beautiful young women, runs off to pursue a career in show business. Rising quickly above a stint as a stripper, a phone sex operator and a smalltown actress, Phyllis evolves into a cinema superstar. But when the action movieâ€"going public tires of Phyllis, and the depressed Ellery comes back into her life, she sets her sights on international fame through another venue: the presidency of the United States. With her alternately colloquial and overly formal diction, and her too-faithful adherence to society's ideals, Phyllis makes for an amusing critique of contemporary American society. In his 23rd novel, Berger skewers modern foibles from reality and daytime television to the cult of celebrity and presidents with voracious sexual appetites. But the brilliance of Berger's critique is in its levity, and his fanciful plot will keep readers laughing throughout. With few weaknesses, such as the unexplained existence of other robots, this book is the literary equivalent of cotton candy: not filling but fun to digest. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistIn his twenty-third novel, Berger (Little Big Man, 1964) crafts a satirical look at the American pursuit of perfection. Technician Ellery Pierce, unable to sustain a long-lasting relationship, puts his skills to use building a robot to be his perfect wife. However, Phyllis quickly outruns Ellery's limited ambitions, taking all of a day to become a gourmet cook. She leaves him for a job as a phone sex operator, where her literal-mindedness is her undoing. She then lands a starring role in a nude version of Macbeth, which launches her career in mainstream action films. Meanwhile, Ellery, bereft at her desertion, tracks her down, and the two engineer a plan for her to run for the White House. Berger is technically adept here and quite amusing, even scathing, in spots, about the hypocrisy of male-female relations and Hollywood avarice, but his story is overly familiar, echoing the plot of The Stepford Wives and both the real life and the film roles of Arnold Schwarzenegger. A hit-and-miss affair, but Berger's name will draw some interest. Joanne WilkinsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved