This anthology is a thorough introduction to classic literature for those who have not yet experienced these literary masterworks. For those who have known and loved these works in the past, this is an invitation to reunite with old friends in a fresh new format. From Shakespeare’s finesse to Oscar Wilde’s wit, this unique collection brings together works as diverse and influential as The Pilgrim’s Progress and Othello. As an anthology that invites readers to immerse themselves in the masterpieces of the literary giants, it is must-have addition to any library.

Paulvitch still lived and sought vengeance against Tarzan. As part of his plot, he lured Tarzan's young son away from London. But the boy escaped, with the aid of the great ape Akut, and they fled to the savage African jungles where Tarzan had been reared.
There the civilized boy had to learn to meet the great beasts and face the dangers only his father had ever conquered. But he grew in time into Korak the Killer, almost as mighty as Tarzan. Korak found a friend in Meriem, whom he rescued from a raiding Arab band. Then he discovered that the dangers of the jungle were nothing compared to those devised by men . . .

• Novel by the author of Water for Elephants

 
Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani, and Makena are no ordinary apes. These bonobos, like others of their species, are capable of reason and carrying on deep relationships—but unlike most bonobos, they also know American Sign Language.

Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn’t understand people, but animals she gets—especially the bonobos. Isabel feels more comfortable in their world than she’s ever felt among humans . . . until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter who braves the ever-present animal rights protesters outside the lab to see what’s really going on inside.

When an explosion rocks the lab, severely injuring Isabel and “liberating” the apes, John’s human interest piece turns into the story of a lifetime, one he’ll risk his career and his marriage to follow. Then a reality TV show featuring the missing apes debuts under mysterious circumstances, and it immediately becomes the biggest—and unlikeliest—phenomenon in the history of modern media. Millions of fans are glued to their screens watching the apes order greasy take-out, have generous amounts of sex, and sign for Isabel to come get them. Now, to save her family of apes from this parody of human life, Isabel must connect with her own kind, including John, a green-haired vegan, and a retired porn star with her own agenda.

Ape House delivers great entertainment, but it also opens the animal world to us in ways few novels have done, securing Sara Gruen’s place as a master storyteller who allows us to see ourselves as we never have before.

Sara Gruen on Ape House

Right before I went on tour for Water for Elephants, my mother sent me an email about a place in Des Moines, Iowa, that was studying language acquisition and cognition in great apes. I had been fascinated by human-ape discourse ever since I first heard about Koko the gorilla (which was longer ago than I care to admit) so I spent close to a day poking around the Great Ape Trust’s Web site. I was doubly fascinated--not only with the work they’re doing, but also by the fact that there was an entire species of great ape I had never heard of. Although I had no idea what I was getting into, I was hooked.

During the course of my research for Ape House, I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Great Ape Trust--not that that didn’t take some doing. I was assigned masses of homework, including a trip to York University in Toronto for a crash course on linguistics. Even after I received the coveted invitation to the Trust, that didn’t necessarily mean I was going to get to meet the apes: that part was up to them. Like John, I tried to stack my odds by getting backpacks and filling them with everything I thought an ape might find fun or tasty--bouncy balls, fleece blankets, M&M’s, xylophones, Mr. Potato Heads, etc.--and then emailed the scientists, asking them to please let the apes know I was bringing “surprises.” At the end of my orientation with the humans, I asked, with some trepidation, whether the apes were going to let me come in. The response was that not only were they letting me come in, they were insisting.

The experience was astonishing--to this day I cannot think about it without getting goose bumps. You cannot have a two-way conversation with a great ape, or even just look one straight in the eye, close up, without coming away changed. I stayed until the end of the day, when I practically had to be dragged out, because I was having so much fun. I was told that the next day Panbanisha said to one of the scientists, “Where’s Sara? Build her nest. When’s she coming back?”

Most of the conversations between the bonobos and humans in Ape House are based on actual conversations with great apes, including Koko, Washoe, Booey, Kanzi, and Panbanisha. Many of the ape-based scenes in this book are also based on fact, although I have taken the fiction writer’s liberty of fudging names, dates, and places.

One of the places I did not disguise or rename is the Lola ya Bonobo sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They take in orphaned infants, nurse them back to health, and when they’re ready, release them back into the jungle. This, combined with ongoing education of the local people, is one of the wild bonobos’ best hopes for survival.

One day, I’m going to be brave enough to visit Lola ya Bonobo. In the meantime, in response to Panbanisha’s question, I’m coming back soon. Very soon. I hope you have my nest ready!

(Photo © Lynne Harty Photography)

DID YOU KNOW THAT 
• we have more hair follicles than a chimpanzee
• a male boxer in top condition can punch with the force of a thirteen-pound mallet swung at twenty miles an hour
• the best human endurance runners can outlast a horse
• one odor above all is sexually stimulating to the human male: cinnamon buns
• our home-building skills compare nicely with those of the bagworm
 
With dry wit and penetrating insight, science journalist Hannah Holmes casts the eye of a trained researcher and reporter on . . . herself. And on our whole species. She compares the biology and behavior of humans with that of other creatures, exploring how the human animal fits into the natural world. Holmes also reveals the ways in which Homo sapiens stands apart from other mammals (and all other animals) in ways that are alternately admirable and devastating. Deftly mixing personal stories with the latest scientific research, Hannah Holmes has fashioned an engaging field guide to that oddest and most fascinating of primates: ourselves.

DID YOU KNOW THAT 
• we have more hair follicles than a chimpanzee
• a male boxer in top condition can punch with the force of a thirteen-pound mallet swung at twenty miles an hour
• the best human endurance runners can outlast a horse
• one odor above all is sexually stimulating to the human male: cinnamon buns
• our home-building skills compare nicely with those of the bagworm
 
With dry wit and penetrating insight, science journalist Hannah Holmes casts the eye of a trained researcher and reporter on . . . herself. And on our whole species. She compares the biology and behavior of humans with that of other creatures, exploring how the human animal fits into the natural world. Holmes also reveals the ways in which Homo sapiens stands apart from other mammals (and all other animals) in ways that are alternately admirable and devastating. Deftly mixing personal stories with the latest scientific research, Hannah Holmes has fashioned an engaging field guide to that oddest and most fascinating of primates: ourselves.

After eluding a kidnapper in London, an unperturbed Amelia Peabody accompanies her unconventional family to Cairo once more—only to be ensnared almost immediately in a web of stolen treasures and bloodthirsty cults. Villainy is running rampant in Egypt this 1907 archaeological season, but the members of the intrepid Peabody-Emerson clan have already proven themselves to be formidable adversaries. However, when a mint-condition papyrus of the Book of the Dead falls into their hands, and the corpse of an unscrupulous dealer in stolen antiquities is found floating in the Nile, the Emersons' prospects for surviving this excavation season unscathed appear increasingly dim.

Named 1998 Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America, Elizabeth Peters is also a doctor of Egyptology whose mysteries have submerged readers in the vivid turn-of-the-century world of Amelia Peabody. In The Ape Who Guards the Balance Peters captures the immediacy of uncovering a new Egyptian tomb within the context of a tightly plotted murder investigation involving the entire Emerson Peabody clan. The characters, including Amelia's husband, Radcliffe Emerson, and her gifted son, Ramses, are meticulously drawn. As in previous novels the dialogue is reminiscent of The Thin Man. When a man calls out to passing suffragettes, "You ought to be 'ome washin' your 'usband's trousers!" Ramses shoots back, "I assure you, sir, the lady's trousers are not in such sore need of laundering as your own." Peters also toys with differing narrative perspectives, and Ramses emerges as a possible successor to his mother's legacy of crime solving.

The Ape Who Guards the Balance begins in 1907 in England where Amelia is attending a suffragettes' rally outside the home of Mr. Geoffrey Romer of the House of Commons. It seems Romer is one of the few remaining private collectors of Egyptian antiquities, and a series of bizarre events at the protest soon embroil Amelia in grave personal danger. Suspecting that the Master Criminal, Sethos, is behind their problems, the Emerson Peabodys hasten to Egypt to continue their studies in the Valley of Kings where they soon acquire a papyrus of the Book of the Dead. As with past seasons, however, their archaeological expedition is interrupted. The murdered body of a woman is found in the Nile. Ramses, Radcliffe, and Amelia all have their theories as to the origin of the crime, but their own lives might soon be at stake if the cult of Thoth and their ancient book is, indeed, involved.

Other Peabody mysteries include Seeing a Large Cat, The Hippopotamus Pool, The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog, The Deeds of the Disturber, Lion in the Valley, The Curse of the Pharaohs, and Crocodile on the Sandbank. --Patrick O'Kelley

Before you see the movie, read the original novel!

First published more than thirty-five years ago, Pierre Boulle’s chilling novel launched one of the greatest science fiction sagas in motion picture history, from the classic 1968 movie starring Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowell, through four sequels and two television series . . . and now the newest film adaptation directed by Tim Burton.

In the not-too-distant future, three astronauts land on what appears to be a planet just like Earth, with lush forests, a temperate climate, and breathable air. But while it appears to be a paradise, nothing is what it seems.

They soon discover the terrifying truth: On this world humans are savage beasts, and apes rule as their civilized masters. In an ironic novel of nonstop action and breathless intrigue, one man struggles to unlock the secret of a terrifying civilization, all the while wondering: Will he become the savior of the human race, or the final witness to its damnation? In a shocking climax that rivals that of the original movie, Boulle delivers the answer in a masterpiece of adventure, satire, and suspense.

If you've seen the progressively cheesier Planet of the Apes movies of 1968-1973, you may be shocked to learn the first movie was adapted from an intelligent, ironic, and literate novel. You'll be less surprised when you learn the original novel Planet of the Apes was written by Pierre Boulle, author of The Bridge over the River Kwai.

In the novel Planet of the Apes, the three Frenchmen making the first interstellar journey discover a remarkably Earth-like world orbiting Betelgeuse--Earth-like, with one crucial difference: The humans are dumb beasts, and the apes are intelligent. Captured during a terrifying manhunt, locked in a cage, and ignorant of the simian language, Ulysse Merou struggles to convince the apes that he possesses intelligence and reason. But if he proves he is not an animal, he may seal his own doom.

Like the first movie, the novel Planet of the Apes has a twist ending, but a twist of a different--yet equally shocking--sort. --Cynthia Ward

From "one of the world's greatest experts on primate behavior" (Desmond Morris) comes a look at the most provocative aspects of human nature-power, sex, violence, kindness, and morality-through our closest cousins. For nearly twenty years, Frans De Waal has studied both the famously aggressive chimpanzee and the egalitarian, matriarchal bonobo, two species whose DNA is nearly identical to ours. The result is an engrossing narrative that reveals what their behavior can teach us about ourselves.

Power, sex, violence and kindness: these four broad-spectrum categories encompass much of human behavior, so it's only fitting that they're also the primary subject material for Frans de Waal's (The Ape and The Sushi Master) book Our Inner Ape. The few (but deeply detailed) chapters are a mesmerizing read that spans biology, child psychology, postmodern theorists and fundamental morality, using tales of stern chimps, and sexy bonobos to examine humans' place between them. In the process, he examines why we need to know our place in the world, how our body language communicates feelings, and where the roots of empathy lie in mammalian life.

De Waal's respect for both his readers and his research subjects come shining through in the simple clarity he uses when describing both the endless sex of bonobo apes and the heartrending violence occasionally present in chimp hierarchal structure. By illustrating his points with a mixture of straight-from-research experiences and jokes at the expense of modern politicians, he keeps his ideas compelling for anyone with a basic understanding of evolutionary science without drifting towards the academic drone that could be expected of by a researcher of his experience.

You won't find specific conclusions concerning human nature, but instead a gentle, almost rambling look at two primate species with vastly different social networks and how, perhaps, humanity can learn from each to our benefit. A few of de Waal's lovely duotone photos (My Family Album: 30 Years of Primate Photography grace the end of the book, featuring close-up shots of the folks he's been writing about--chimps like Yeroen, Nikkie and Mama, and bonobo Kuif and adopted daughter Roosje are downright thrilling to see after reading such interesting stories about their lives. Jill Lightner