Charles Portis

"Ray Midge's wife, Norma, has run away with her creep of a first husband. She also ran away with Midge's credit cards and his Ford Torino--in place of which she left her lover's 1963 Buick Special, a compact car with 74,000 miles on it and a quarter-turn slack in the steering wheel. But Midge can track the lovebirds' escape once the credit card receipts start rolling in, and he sets off after them to get his car back. The route: from Arkansas through...

Lamar Jimmerson is the leader of the Gnomon Society, the international fraternal order dedicated to preserving the arcane wisdom of the lost city of Atlantis. Stationed in France in 1917, Jimmerson comes across a little book crammed with Atlantean puzzles, Egyptian riddles, and extended alchemical metaphors. It's the Codex Pappus - the sacred Gnomon text. Soon he is basking in the lore of lost Atlantis, convinced that his mission on earth is to

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Collected here in Escape Velocity, edited by Jay Jennings, is his "miscellany" †"†" journalism, short fiction, memoir, and even the play Delray's New Moon, published for the first time in this volume.  Portis covers topics as varied as the civil rights movement, road tripping in Baja, and Elvis' s visits to his aging mother for publications such as the New York Herald Tribune and Saturday Evening Post.  Fans of Portis's droll Southern

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Mattie Ross is determined to avenge her father's blood by capturing Tom Chaney, the man who shot and killed him for two pieces of gold. Just fourteen, she enlists the help of Rooster Cogburn, a one-eyed, trigger-happy U.S. Marshal with an affinity for drinking, and hardened Texas Ranger LaBoeuf to track the fleeing Chaney. Despite their differences, their ruthless determination leads them on a perilous adventure that can only have one outcome: retribution....

A rough-edged deputy marshall teams up with a strait-laced missionary to track down a band of murdering bank robbers. During the pursuit of the outlaws, a warm rapport develops between the rough-and-tumble lawman and the flinty reverend's daughter.