Star-studded and with something for every sexual taste and curiosity

Famous for taking her readers to undiscovered places, Susie Bright has changed the rules for writing about sex. Erotica is no longer under-the-covers reading; it's thrilling literature that showcases the best writing around.

In Best American Erotica 2006, Bright chooses stories that toy with desire in excerpts from some of the most sexually charged and fearless writing of the year. John Updike's story recalls his narrator's first love and how they began to have sex. David Sedaris takes us into his strip poker card room. Tom Perrotta portrays a bored married man whose wife busts him as he navigates his Internet swinger life. Helen Walsh's diary shows a college student in England who drifts from a promis-ing academic career into the arms of prostitutes.

In Best American Erotica 2006, today's most popular writers add their voices to a collection for any reader — straight, gay, curious — seeking memorable sex and riveting storytelling.

Contributors

John Updike, David Sedaris, Tom Perrotta, Steve Almond, Lynn Freed, Maxine Chernoff, Carol Queen, Helen Walsh, Stephen Elliott, Rachel Kramer Bussel,Bob Vickery, James Williams, Will Heinrich, Peggy Munson, Sera Gamble, Salome Wilde, Bianca James, Donna George Storey, Mr. Sleep, Gwen Masters, Gaea Yudron, Kweli Walker, L. Elise Bland, and Sidney Durham

Since the series' inception in 1915, the annual volumes of The Best American Short Stories have launched literary careers, showcased the most compelling stories of each year, and confirmed for all time the significance of the short story in our national literature. Now THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES OF THE CENTURY brings together the best of the best - fifty-five extraordinary stories that represent a century's worth of unsurpassed accomplishments in this quintessentially American literary genre. Here are the stories that have endured the test of time: masterworks by such writers as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Saroyan, Flannery O'Connor, John Cheever, Eudora Welty, Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Carver, Cynthia Ozick, and scores of others. These are the writers who have shaped and defined the landscape of the American short story, who have unflinchingly explored all aspects of the human condition, and whose works will continue to speak to us as we enter the next century. Their artistry is represented splendidly in these pages. THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES series has also always been known for making literary discoveries, and discovery proved to be an essential part of selecting the stories for this volume too. Collections from years past yielded a rich harvest of surprises, stories that may have been forgotten but still retain their relevance and luster. The result is a volume that not only gathers some of the most significant stories of our century between two covers but resurrects a handful of lost literary gems as well. Of all the great writers whose work has appeared in the series, only John Updike's contributions have spanned five consecutive decades, from his first appearance, in 1959, to his most recent, in 1998. Updike worked with coeditor Katrina Kenison to choose stories from each decade that meet his own high standards of literary quality.

World famous salad dressings and their origins. All easy to make in your own kitchen.

Founded in 1980, Cook's Illustrated (formerly Cook's Magazine) has emerged as "America's Test Kitchen," renowned for its near-obsessive dedication to finding the best methods of American home cooking. Over the years, we've tested 80 recipes for chocolate chip cookies, more than 70 recipes for gumbo, 40 versions of the peanut butter cookie, and more than 20 versions of such simple recipes as coleslaw, roast chicken, and hash brown potatoes. The Best Recipe is a collection of the editors' picks from the pages of Cook's Illustrated. The recipes have been edited, organized, and annotated with in-depth descriptions of how we developed the "best" recipe. And they appear alongside dozens of equipment ratings and taste tests of supermarket foods, as well as more than 200 illustrations demonstrating the most efficient food preparation methods.

In The Best Recipe, we invite you into our test kitchen, where you will stand at our elbow as we try to develop the best macaroni and cheese or the best split pea soup. You'll discover how to make a foolproof yellow cake, a perfectly cooked prime rib roast, and homemade bread in under two hours. You'll find out how to solve the problem of watery coleslaw, overcooked turkey breast, acidic salad dressing, dull tomato sauce, sticky white rice, dry turkey burgers, tough scrambled eggs, and sunken birthday cakes. You will also find the secret to bakery-style high-rise muffins and the way to make that restaurant favorite, warm, fallen chocolate cake, at home, with only a few minutes of preparation.

The Best Recipe also gives you useful tips on purchasing cookware (based on extensive test kitchen evaluations), including pie plates, food processors, standing mixers, chef's knives, skillets, vegetable peelers, and Dutch ovens. We also explain the science of cooking (how to cream butter and why, how baking powder works, the difference between semisweet and bittersweet chocolate) and offer tips on purchasing canned chicken stock, canned tomatoes, flour, butter, and dried pasta.

The editors of Cook's Illustrated have performed thousands of hours of kitchen testing to bring you a cookbook that not only provides the best recipes but also tells you how they came to be that way. Let The Best Recipe become your one-stop cooking school and your favorite kitchen reference.

Mrs Beeton has provided practical advice and inspiration to generations in their first attempts at running their own homes. This collection brings together a selection of reliable, delicious, seasonal recipes, fully updated for the modern kitchen, that will encourage beginners and provide inspiration for more experienced cooks. Whether you need to coordinate an enormous family feast with all the trimmings, or you just want to make some spicy, decorated biscuits as gifts, you'll find everything you need to make Christmas cookery a more enjoyable experience. With helpful hints, freezing and microwave tips, menu plans and serving ideas, the techniques are easy to follow. Here you will find all the familiar favourites, with a wide range of accompaniments and extras including sauces, confectionary and beverages, as well as tips for table laying, menu planning and the Christmas countdown.

THE BOOK IS VERY CLEAN AND NEW, THE COVER HAS VERY SMALL WEAR. THE BOOK IS IN EXCELLENT CONDITION, THE COPYRIGHT IS 2004.

Divinity shown in desire, in human needs, resonates wonderfully through these pages; here belief in transcendence, in divine mystery, is possible even irresistible not in spite of, but particularly because of, the desire for belief, no matter how expressed. Here is an argument, in subtle, quiet, and gently elegant verse, for the paradise of the human.