<div>Writings on the South, Catholicism, and more from the National Book Award winner: &ldquo;His nonfiction is always entertaining and enlightening&rdquo; (Library Journal). Published just after Walker Percy&rsquo;s death, Signposts in a Strange Land takes readers through the philosophical, religious, and literary ideas of one of the South&rsquo;s most profound and unique thinkers. Each essay is laced with wit and insight into the human condition. From race relations and the mysteries of existence, to Catholicism and the joys of drinking bourbon, this collection offers a window into the underpinnings of Percy&rsquo;s celebrated novels and brings to light the stirring thoughts and voice of a giant of twentieth century literature.</div>

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Signposts in a Strange Land

<div>National Book Award Finalist: A lonely Southerner forges a surprising bond with a New York family in this &ldquo;brilliant&rdquo; novel by the author of The Moviegoer (Time). Will Barrett has never felt at peace. After moving from his native South to New York City, Will&rsquo;s most meaningful human connections come through the lens of a telescope in Central Park, from which he views the comings and goings of the eccentric Vaught family. But Will&rsquo;s days as a spectator end when he meets the Vaught patriarch and accepts a job in the Mississippi Delta as caretaker for the family&rsquo;s ailing son, Jamie. Once there, he is confronted not only by his personal demons, but also his growing love for Jamie&rsquo;s sister, Kitty, and a deepening relationship with the Vaught family that will teach him the true meaning of home.</div>

The Last Gentleman

<div>&ldquo;A modern knight-errant on a quest after evil; grotesque, convincing and chilling.&rdquo; &mdash;The New York Times Book ReviewFed up with the excesses of the 1970s, Lancelot Andrews Lamar, a liberal lawyer and distinguished member of the New Orleans gentry, is determined to stop the modern world&rsquo;s ethical collapse. His quest begins with his wife&mdash;an actress who he suspects has been cheating on him for years. Though he initially plans only to gather proof of her infidelity, Lancelot quickly descends into a fog of obsession. And as he crosses the line from sanity into madness, he will try once and for all to purify the world or destroy it in the attempt. Mesmerizing and unforgettable, Lancelot is a masterful story of one man&rsquo;s collision with the follies of modern culture, and a thought-provoking look at the nature of good and evil. </div>

Lancelot

<div>Now in one volume, two novels from the National Book Award winner that follow the life of a Southern man searching for love and connection. In The Last Gentleman, Will Barrett has never felt at peace. After moving from his native South to New York City, Will&rsquo;s most meaningful human connections come through the lens of a telescope in Central Park, from which he views the comings and goings of the eccentric Vaught family. But Will&rsquo;s days as a spectator end when he meets the Vaught patriarch and accepts a job in the Mississippi Delta as caretaker for the family&rsquo;s ailing son, Jamie. Once there, he is confronted not only by his personal demons, but also his growing love for Jamie&rsquo;s sister, Kitty, and a deepening relationship with the Vaught family that will teach him the true meaning of home. And in The Second Coming, now in his late forties, Will Barrett lives a life other men only dream of. Wealthy from a successful career on Wall Street and from the inheritance of his deceased wife&rsquo;s estate, Will is universally admired at the club where he spends his days golfing in the North Carolina sun. But everything begins to unravel when, without warning, Will&rsquo;s golf shots begin landing in the rough, and he is struck with bouts of losing his balance and falling over. Just when Will appears doomed to share the fate of his father&mdash;whose suicide has haunted him his whole life&mdash;a mental hospital escapee named Allison might prove to be the only one who can save him. From the New York Times&ndash;bestselling author of The Moviegoer, these novels have been acclaimed by Time magazine for &ldquo;irony, understatement, and compassion&rdquo; and praised by the New York Times as &ldquo;wonderfully good reading.&rdquo; </div>

The Last Gentleman and The Second Coming

<div>&ldquo;A mock self-help book designed not to help but to provoke . . . to inveigle us into thinking about who we are and how we got into this mess.&rdquo; (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Filled with quizzes, essays, short stories, and diagrams, Lost in the Cosmos is National Book Award&ndash;winning author Walker Percy&rsquo;s humorous take on a familiar genre&mdash;as well as an invitation to serious contemplation of life&rsquo;s biggest questions. One part parody and two parts philosophy, Lost in the Cosmos is an enlightening guide to the dilemmas of human existence, and an unrivaled spin on self-help manuals by one of modern America&rsquo;s greatest literary masters.</div>

Lost in the Cosmos

<div>A &ldquo;brilliant and hilarious&rdquo; novel of the end times in America and one psychiatrist&rsquo;s quest to save mankind, from a New York Times&ndash;bestselling author (Dallas Morning News). The United States seems to be on the brink of catastrophe. From the abandoned cars littering the highways (no one remembers how to fix them) to the endless hours spent on the golf course (now open twenty-four hours for those who can&rsquo;t bother to wait until daylight to putt) to the starkly polarized political and religious factions dividing the country (which are increasingly difficult to tell apart), it is startlingly evident that the great experiment of the American Dream has failed. The only problem is that no one has noticed. No one, that is, except Dr. Thomas More. Dr. More, an alcoholic, womanizing, lapsed-Catholic psychiatrist, has invented the lapsometer: a machine capable of diagnosing and curing the spiritual afflictions that are speeding society toward its inevitable collapse. If used correctly, the lapsometer could make anxiety, depression, alienation, and racism things of the past. But, in the wrong hands, it could propel the nation even more quickly into chaos. Hailed as &ldquo;vividly entertaining&rdquo; by the Los Angeles Times and &ldquo;profoundly moving&rdquo; by the Milwaukee Journal, Love in the Ruins is a towering, mind-bending work of satirical speculative fiction by the National Book Award&ndash;winning author of The Moviegoer.</div>

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Love in the Ruins

<div>A successful man&rsquo;s midlife crisis may just provide a twisted path to happiness in this New York Times&ndash;bestselling novel by the author of The Last Gentleman. Now in his late forties, Will Barrett lives a life other men only dream of. Wealthy from a successful career on Wall Street and from the inheritance of his deceased wife&rsquo;s estate, Will is universally admired at the club where he spends his days golfing in the North Carolina sun. But everything begins to unravel when, without warning, Will&rsquo;s golf shots begin landing in the rough, and he is struck with bouts of losing his balance and falling over. Just when Will appears doomed to share the fate of his father&mdash;whose suicide has haunted him his whole life&mdash;a mental hospital escapee named Allison might prove to be the only one who can save him. Original and profound, The Second Coming is a moving love story of two damaged souls who find peace with each other.</div>

The Second Coming

<div>From the National Book Award&ndash;winning author of The Moviegoer: &ldquo;These essays . . . have a way of quickening the spirit and cleansing the sight&rdquo; (The New Republic). Before winning the National Book Award for fiction in 1962, Walker Percy was an established scholar of science, philosophy, and language. Presented here are his strongest essays in those subjects, offering what he called a &ldquo;theory of man for a new age.&rdquo; Ambitious yet readable, The Message in the Bottle encapsulates the philosophical foundations of his groundbreaking novels, perfect for Percy fans and new readers alike. From discussions on the dislocation of man in the twentieth century to theories on why humans talk while other animals do not, thisis an enlightening collection from one of the South&rsquo;s most celebrated writers.</div>

The Message in the Bottle

<div>Percy&rsquo;s stirring sequel to Love in the Ruins follows Tom More&rsquo;s redemptive mission to cure the mysterious ailment afflicting the residents of his hometownDr. Tom More returns to his parish in Louisiana determined to live a simpler life. Fresh out of prison after getting caught selling uppers to truck drivers, he wants nothing more than to live &ldquo;a small life.&rdquo; But when everyone in town begins acting strangely&mdash;from losing their sexual inhibitions to speaking only in blunt, truncated sentences&mdash;More, with help from his cousin Lucy Lipscomb, takes it upon himself to reveal what and who is responsible. Their investigation leads them to the highest seats of power, where they discover that a government conspiracy is poised to rob its citizens of their selves, their free will, and ultimately their humanity. </div>

The Thanatos Syndrome

<div>Two fascinating philosophical inquiries from the &ldquo;dazzlingly gifted&rdquo; New York Times&ndash;bestselling and National Book Award&ndash;winning author of The Moviegoer (USA Today). Winner of the National Book Award for The Moviegoer, the Southern writer Walker Percy possessed &ldquo;an intellectual range and rigor few American novelists can match&rdquo; (The New York Times Book Review). In these two provocative works, Percy manages to be perceptive and playful as he more directly explores the philosophical foundations of his groundbreaking fiction. The Message in the Bottle: In these profound and passionate essays that &ldquo;have a way of quickening the spirit and cleansing the sight,&rdquo; Percy looks to language to answer the question of who we are as humans (The New Republic). He posits that the act of assigning meaning by naming things makes humans unique. Percy develops a theory of language through the example of Helen Keller being stimulated by the feel of water along with the sign for water, and explores questions such as why other animals don&rsquo;t talk and why humans in technologically advanced, materially comfortable societies are so sad. &ldquo;A delight . . . a pleasure to read.&rdquo; &mdash;Larry McMurtry, The Washington Post Book World Lost in the Cosmos: &ldquo;Charming, whimsical, slyly profound,&rdquo; Lost in the Cosmos is a one-of-a-kind mix of self-help parody and philosophical speculation (The New York Times). Filled with quizzes, essays, short stories, and diagrams, Percy&rsquo;s guide is a laugh-out-loud spin on a familiar genre that also pushes readers to serious contemplation of life&rsquo;s biggest questions, such as: &ldquo;Why is it no other species but man gets bored?&rdquo; and &ldquo;Explain why Moses was tongue-tied and stagestruck before his fellow Jews but had no trouble talking to God.&rdquo; &ldquo;A mock self-help book designed not to help but to provoke; a chapbook to inveigle us into thinking about who we are and how we got into this mess.&rdquo; &mdash;Los Angeles Times Book Review</div>

The Message in the Bottle and Lost in the Cosmos

<div>A pair of profound dystopian novels from the &ldquo;brilliantly breathtaking&rdquo; New York Times&ndash;bestselling and National Book Award&ndash;winning author of The Moviegoer (The New York Times Book Review). Winner of the National Book Award for The Moviegoer, the &ldquo;dazzlingly gifted&rdquo; Southern philosophical author Walker Percy wrote two vividly imagined satirical novels of America&rsquo;s future featuring deeply flawed psychiatrist and spiritual seeker Tom More (USA Today). Love in the Ruins is &ldquo;a great adventure . . . so outrageous and so real, one is left speechless&rdquo; (Chicago Sun-Times), and its sequel The Thanatos Syndrome &ldquo;shimmers with intelligence and verve&rdquo; (Newsday). Love in the Ruins: The great experiment of the American dream has failed. The United States is on the brink of catastrophe. Can an alcoholic, womanizing, lapsed-Catholic psychiatrist really save a society speeding toward inevitable collapse? Dr. Thomas More certainly thinks so. He has invented the lapsometer, a machine capable of diagnosing and curing the country&rsquo;s spiritual afflictions. If used correctly, the lapsometer could make anxiety, depression, alienation, and racism things of the past. But in the wrong hands, it could rapidly propel the nation into chaos. &ldquo;A comedy of love against a field of anarchy . . . Percy is easily one of the finest writers we have.&rdquo; &mdash;The New York Times Book Review The Thanatos Syndrome: In Percy&rsquo;s &ldquo;ingenious&rdquo; sequel, Dr. Tom More, fresh out of prison after getting caught selling uppers to truck drivers, returns home to Louisiana, determined to live a simpler life (The New York Times). But when everyone in town starts acting strangely&mdash;from losing their sexual inhibitions to speaking only in blunt, truncated sentences&mdash;More, with help from his cousin, epidemiologist Lucy Lipscomb, takes it upon himself to investigate. Together, they uncover a government conspiracy poised to rob its citizens of their selves, their free will, and ultimately their humanity. &ldquo;The Thanatos Syndrome has the ambition and purposefulness to take on the world, to wrestle with its shortcomings, and to celebrate its glories.&rdquo; &mdash;The Washington Post Book World</div>

Love in the Ruins and The Thanatos Syndrome

<div>A good local history is an excellent and agreeable thing. It pleases on two counts. It satisfies the curiosity of the inhabitants of a region, whether newcomers or old settlers, especially if no adequate history had existed before. It dispels myths, corrects old wives' tales. And, if the history is first-rate, it goes beyond a factual account of persons and places, the particularities of a region, and shows the significance of these human happenings in a larger scheme of things, in this case the emergence of a new nation. Ellis's history succeeds on both counts. It is a delightful and authoritative account of lore which not even St. Tammanyites may have heard of. Did you know, for example, that there was once a flourishing wine industry in St. Tammany Parish? That local vineyards produced excellent red and white wines, the red from Concord grapes, the white from Herbemont? Did you know that in 1891 a rice crop of 50,000 barrels was harvested, half the entire output of South Carolina? . . . Ellis has rendered this pleasant and authoritative history in a graceful and lively style and with a genuine affection for the people he writes about. Walker Percy From the Foreword</div>

Walker Percy
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Books By Walker Percy (11 Books)