In this mesmerizing, funny, chilling novel, the setting is a small town in the 1940s Midwest, the subject the heart of a wounded and ferociously moralistic young woman, one of those implacable American moralists whose "goodness is a terrible disease. When she was still a child, Lucy Nelson had her alcoholic failure of a father thrown in jail. Ever since then she has been trying to reform the men around her, even if that ultimately means destroying herself in the process.

Everything is over for Simon Axler. One of the leading American stage actors of his generation, now in his 60s, he has lost his magic, his talent, and his assurance. His Falstaff and Peer Gynt and Vanya, all his great roles, "are melted into air, into thin air". When he goes on stage he feels like a lunatic and looks like an idiot. His confidence in his powers has drained away; he imagines people laughing at him; he can no longer pretend to be someone else.

At the center of Deception are two adulterers in their hiding place. He is a middle-aged American writer named Philip, living in London, and she is an articulate, intelligent, well-educated Englishwoman compromised by a humiliating marriage to which, in her 30s, she is already nervously half-resigned. The book's action consists of conversation - mainly the lovers talking to each other before and after making love.

Neil Klugman and pretty, spirited Brenda Patimkin - he of poor Newark, she of suburban Short Hills - meet one summer and dive into an affair that is as much about social class and suspicion as it is about love. The novella, the first book published by Philip Roth, explores issues of both class and Jewish assimilation into American culture. It won the National Book Award in 1960.

Letting Go is Philip Roth's first full-length novel, published just after Goodbye, Columbus, when he was 29. Set in 1950s Chicago, New York and Iowa City, Letting Go presents as brilliant a fictional portrait as we have of a mid-century America defined by social and ethical constraints, and by moral compulsions conspicuously different from those of today.

At 23, Nathan Zuckerman has already hurt his family with his autobiographical art and ruined his relationship with adultery and dishonesty. Visiting his reclusive idol (famed for his "blend of sympathy and pitilessness") in the Berkshires, the writer watches himself watching himself and attempts to confront his work and life. Events, however, have their revenge, weaving more out of control than even he can anticipate or ask for.

This deeply affecting memoir focuses on the time in the author's life when he learned of his father's terminal brain cancer. A remarkable portrait of a father and son, this work confronts death and fear, and, ultimately, extracts the truth of what it means to love and be loved.

In this epilogue to his Zuckerman trilogy, American writer David Zuckerman travels to Prague to retrieve the manuscripts of an unknown Yiddish writer. While there, Zuckerman embarks on an artist's odyssey through Russian-occupied Czechoslovakia. At times bawdy, often humorous, but always honest, this poignant tale explores the heart of the artist's soul with depth and grace.

Philip Roth is one of the most acclaimed American authors of the 20th century. His Zuckerman novels, based on the "fictional" exploits of emotionally conflicted Jewish novelist Nathan Zuckerman, are a splendid mix of comedy and tragedy. Zuckerman Unbound considers the problem of artistic triumph born of domestic upheaval. Roth's prose finds an extraordinary complement with George Guidall's robust narration.

It is 1951 in America, the second year of the Korean War. Marcus Messner of Newark, New Jersey, is beginning his sophomore year at the pastoral, conservative Winesburg College in Ohio. Why is he here? Because his father, a hard-working neighborhood butcher, seems to have gone mad.