From the author of Son of the Morning Star and Mrs. Bridge comes a magisterial tale of a great and terrible campaign, recounting one soldier's experiences of the defining war of Christendom. God wills it The year is 1095 and the most prominent leaders of the Christian world are assembled in a meadow in France. Deus lo volt This cry is taken up, echoes forth, is carried on. The Crusades have started, and wave after wave of Christian pilgrims rush to assault the growing power of Muslims in the Holy Land. Two centuries long, it will become the defining war of the Western world.

This text features essays on the advances made in anthropology, archaeology, astronomy and linguistics, stories of the Anasazi, the old ones of the southwestern desert and tales of the great explorers, eccentrics, dreamers, scientists, cranks and geniuses.

Acclaimed author Evan S. Connell sends us through the complete experience of a man initially intrigued and then enslaved by art: a curious interest, a rapt fixation, and the becoming of a connoisseur. The Connoisseur trails the evolution of Muhlbach, an insurance executive on a business trip in Taos, New Mexico, who develops an obsession with pre-Columbian figurines after meandering through a curio shop. Entranced yet bewildered by his sudden affinity for a little figurine, Muhlbach succumbs to his intrigue and, thirty dollars later, begins his journey as a connoisseur.

With superb...

Custer's Last Stand is among the most enduring events in American history - 130 years after the fact, books continue to be written and people continue to argue about even the most basic details surrounding the Little Bighorn. Evan S.

Evan S. Connell is by any measure one of America's greatest living writers. His restraint, concision, and perfect pitch lend themselves stunningly to the short story form. He intuitively senses when to explain and when to let silence stand in speech's stead. His characters--among them, a wanderer back from Spain, the corpulent Mr. Bemis, Katia and her lion--ring true not because the stories are filled with monumental events, but because they center on seemingly insignificant experiences that remain in the mind, imbued with a meaning ever difficult to define. Often we are left to float in...

Praise for Notes from a Bottle Found on the Beach at Carmel

"A unique tour de force" --The New York Times Book Review

"One of the most remarkable books that I have read in a long time." --Kenneth Rexroth

"Mr. Connell's NOTES are what one intelligent, sensitive artist has been able to salvage from all experience as testimony to the rather pathetic integrity of the human species in the face of extinction. The book is no manual or tract, however, although its political meaning is unmistakable, but a work of art, even a work of high art." --Hayden Carruth

Karl Muhlbach, hero of Evan Connell's previous novel, The Connoisseur, has a new obsession--a beautiful, nubile girl-about-New York named Lambeth Brent, whose puzzling background and swinging activities lead Muhlbach into dark areas, causing new revelations of himself as a man to emerge.

The mysterious bonds between opposites come into sharp relief as we follow the course of Muhlbach and Lambeth's relationship. An uncomfortable visit to the ballet, an abortive country vacation, brief but sparkling happy moments, and Muhlbach's final, shocking discovery add up to a mosaic of vignettes,...