The Last Temptation Of Clarence Odbody

What if George Bailey wasn’t saved by his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody, on that snowy Christmas Eve in Bedford Falls? This reimagining of the beloved Frank Capra classic It’s a Wonderful Life (and the Phillip Van Doren Stern story that inspired it) tells the story of Bedford Falls and its inhabitants after the death of their drama’s central character. The Last Temptation of Clarence Odbody restores the dark undercurrent of the Van Doren Stern’s short story “The Greatest Gift” to the uplifting plot of Capra’s film, and explores how the familiar characters in it might respond to the dire circumstances created by George Bailey’s disappearance from their lives. The paths of an introspective cab driver, a ruthless henchman, and a wayward daughter collide nearly twenty years later in the town that defined their reputations for better or for worse.

Ficitionalized account of the history of the Screeching Weasels, with reflections on how memory affects that account.

George Pratt, depressed and contemplating suicide, is allowed to see what his community would have been like if he had never been born, in a hardcover reissue of the story that inspired the film It's a Wonderful Life. 100,000 first printing.

"[An] extraordinary book. . . . Mr. Gould is an exceptional combination of scientist and science writer. . . . He is thus exceptionally well placed to tell these stories, and he tells them with fervor and intelligence."—James Gleick, New York Times Book Review High in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago called the Burgess Shale. It hold the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived—a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history.