Thomas Berger

Little Big Man (Panther)

A Novel

Sneaky People

Little Big Man

During the late 1930s in small-town America, the Beeler family of Hornbeck experiences a series of encounters, ranging from conflict to romance, with members of the Bullard family of nearby Millville

The Feud

Nowhere

Vital Parts

The Return of Little Big Man

The Houseguest

Il piccolo grande uomo

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.

Neighbors

A Legendary Novel

Arthur Rex

"Frightening . . . [the] domestic confessions as expressed by the accomplished satiric wit of Mr. Berger are certainly not to be trusted . . . wonderfully bizarre." — The New York Times Book Review Chuck Burgoyne appears to be the perfect houseguest. Between his impeccable manners and gourmet breakfasts, the Graves family is utterly charmed by him. He even rescues a family member from drowning in the ocean! But then one morning, Chuck does not appear. When he finally returns, he's no longer the affable lodger they once knew, but arrogant and abusive, terrorizing each family member in turn. Who invited Chuck to share their summer home anyway? Soon it becomes clear that Chuck isn't anyone's guest at all, but a stranger who has invaded their home. The well-heeled Graves family is too polite to mention their suspicions to Chuck. After all, they don't want to offend a man they barely know. Instead, they plot to murder him. That is, if any of them can muster up the courage to actually do it. "The quintessential weekend-houseguest horror story." — Publishers Weekly "A rare example of buoyantly irresponsible comedy. . . . At his best, as he is here, Thomas Berger can command attention solely as a lonely, insidious voice insisting . . . that fiction can be stranger than truth." — Time Praise for Thomas Berger "A writer of enormous wit and incisive wisdom." — San Francisco Review of Books "[Berger is] as brilliant a student of American talk as Nabokov or DeLillo." —Jonathan Lethem, bestselling author of The Fortress of Solitude "Thomas Berger is a magician . . . he never hits a false note" — Detroit Free Press "[Berger is] a compelling talespinner in his own right: a Tolkien for the worldly." — The New York Times Book Review "Humbling, eye-opening, and enormously funny." — Newsweek "One of America's most important comic artists." — The Boston Globe

Friedrich Hirzebruch

Rainer Jung

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the theory of elliptic genera due to Ochanine, Landweber, Stong, and others. The theory describes a new cobordism invariant for manifolds in terms of modular forms. The book evolved from notes of a course given at the University of Bonn. After providing some background material elliptic genera are constructed, including the classical genera signature and the index of the Dirac operator as special cases. Various properties of elliptic genera are discussed, especially their behaviour in fibre bundles and rigidity for group actions. For stably almost complex manifolds the theory is extended to elliptic genera of higher level. The text is in most parts self-contained. The results are illustrated by explicit examples and by comparison with well-known theorems. The relevant aspects of the theory of modular forms are derived in a seperate appendix, providing also a useful reference for mathematicians working in this field.

Manifolds and Modular Forms

The legendary Jack Crabb takes another riotous romp through the Old West in an acclaimed novel that’s “impressive and delightful . . . very Mark Twain” (Daily News, New York). Jack 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 documents from his personal collection.

The time is the 1930s. Buddy Sandifer, dressed in his natty white flannels, baby-blue shirt, striped tie, tan-and-white shoes, and coconut-straw hat with polka-dot band, is falling into one of his moods. Owner of a used-car lot and father of a fifteen-year-old son with a penchant for sex manuals, Buddy has decided to murder his wife and marry his mistress, Laverne, a robust blonde who cooks his favorite meal of fried pork chops, fried potatoes, and fried apples while wearing a short pink apron over black-lace step-ins and brassiere, long-gartered silk stockings, and platform shoes. The only problem is how to arrange the crime.

Crazy in Berlin

The astonishing reminiscences of an ancient and immodest Indian frontiersman form a witty, lusty, and highly impressive epic, a panoramic enlargement of the way of life in the Old West

DIVDetective Russel Wren takes a case in what just might be the oddest country on earth/divDIV/divDIV/divDIV A phone call warning of a bomb threat is all Detective Russel Wren needs to get out the door. He makes it to the next block before an enormous explosion destroys his entire building. Without his Manhattan office, Wren finds himself forced to accept a strange mission to the tiny central European nation of Saint Sebastian. /divDIV /divDIVSaint Sebastian is unlike any country Wren has ever seen, and as his stay there continues, its oddities merely multiply: blond-haired citizens are consigned to the underclass; rudeness is a capital crime; and the Ministry of Clams is the go-to for any problem that can’t be solved by the Ministries of Hoaxes, Disaffection, Irony, or Allergies. No matter where Wren finds himself, he stumbles upon something puzzling, hilarious, and extraordinary—all leading up to a stunning turn of events./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Thomas Berger including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection./div

Jonathan Lethem

"I envy your first encounter, if that is what it is, withMeeting Evil,one of Berger's most relentless and ingenious 'contraptions.'"--Jonathan Lethem, from the IntroductionMeeting Eviltells an adrenaline-pumped, genuinely frightening tale of malevolence that swerves swiftly and irrevocably to a catastrophic climax.John Felton meets evil late one Monday morning when the doorbell rings. Standing on the front porch is a stranger. He wears expensive running shoes and a baseball cap and calls himself Richie. He tells John his car has stalled and asks for help. An altercation at the gas station leads to a shocking crime as violence begets violence. At the end of this harrowing day, John returns home to find Richie ensconced in his living room, chatting up his wife. The evil has somehow seeped into his life. Thus begins the transformation of an unremarkable husband and father of two into a desperate man willing to go to any length to protect his family from the darkness that threatens them.This is an extraordinary masterpiece and a chilling portrait of mounting menace played out against an everyday world of domestic routine, personified in a protagonist of basic decency grappling with both the immediate and existential meaning of true evil.

Thomas Berger

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