Charles Portis

Jimmy Burns is an expatriate American living in Mexico who has an uncommonly astute eye for the absurd little details that comprise your average American. For a time, Jimmy spent his days unearthing pre-Colombian artifacts. Now he makes a living doing small trucking jobs and helping out with the occasional missing person situation -- whatever it takes to remain "the very picture of an American idler in Mexico, right down to the grass-green golfing...

When Lamar Jimmerson "comes across a little book crammed with Atlantean puzzles, Egyptian riddles, and extended alchemical metaphors," he's convinced that he is called to lead the Gnomon Society in the search for truth concerning the lost city of Atlantis.--Cover.

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. Marshall 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....

"Charles Portis is now recognized as a singular American genius, a writer whose deadpan style, picaresque plots, and unforgettable characters have drawn a passionate following among readers and writers. 'His fiction,' Roy Blount Jr. has said, 'is the funniest I know.' Library of America now presents the definitive Portis collection, featuring all five of his novels -- Norwood (1966), The Dog of the South (1979), Masters of Atlantis (1985), and Gringos...

In "True Grit," U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn helps a headstrong young girl find the man who murdered her father in Native American territory and fled with the family savings. When Rooster's employer insists on accompanying the old gunfighter, sparks fly. The situation goes from troubled to disastrous when an inexperienced Texas Ranger joins the party. In "Rio Lobo," a spectacular robbery of a Union pay train by Confederate guerillas leads to the train's...

A cavalry dispatch rider protects a widow and her young son from an Apache attack; two men share the task of ridding a town of a gunman; a girl hires the drunken, one-eyed, overweight marshal to find and kill the man who murdered her father and stole the family's money; a dying gunman becomes involved with a widow and her son; a wealthy cattle baron has trouble controlling his wife and daughter; the four sons of Katie Elder set out to avenge both...