In Anthony Burgess’s influential nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, a teen who talks in a fantastically inventive slang that evocatively renders his and his friends’ intense reaction against their society. Dazzling and transgressive, A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom. This edition includes the controversial...

"Ismael Diaz is on death row. As he sits in his cell waiting to die, he writes a diary that reconstructs his life and the circumstances that led him to commit murder. The reader meets a man who is a successful real estate lawyer in Boston until he trespasses on a neighbor's property to put out a "spring cleaning" fire. This incident sets off a chain reaction that results in the loss of everything that has made his life worthwhile. At loose ends,...