title: Thirteen Stories and Thirteen Epitaphs
author:  William T. Vollmann 
description: The settings for the stories in Vollmann's collection range from Las Vegas to Bangkok, but his protagonists share traits in common. They are the desperate, the haunted, those who have reached the end of their ropes and are trying to make sense of a world that has failed them. The prostitutes and pimps, the addicts and the skinheads, who are the subjects of Vollmann's stories are all engaged in larger journeys of self-discovery. The hope that the next fix, the next night of sex, the next trip abroad will finally lead them to an always allusive internal peace.
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  BY WILL DURANT
  
   _The Story of Philosophy_  
   _Transition_  
   _The Pleasure of Philosophy_  
   _Adventures in Genius_
  
  BY WILL AND ARIEL DURANT
  
  THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION
  
  1\. _Our Oriental Heritage_  
  2\. _The Life of Greece_  
  3\. _Caesar and Christ_  
  4\. _The Age of Faith_  
  _5._ _The Renaissance_  
  _6._ _The Reformation_  
  7\. _The Age of Reason Begins_  
  8\. _The Age of Louis XIV_  
  9\. _The Age of Voltaire_  
  10\. _Rousseau and Revolution_  
  11\. _The Age of Napoleon_
  
   _The Lessons of History_  
   _Interpretation of Life_  
   _A Dual Autobiography_
  
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  COPYRIGHT © 1967 BY WILL AND ARIEL DURANT  
  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED  
  INCLUDING THE RIGHT OF REPRODUCTION  
  IN WHOLE OR IN PART IN ANY FORM  
  PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER  
  A DIVISION OF GULF & WESTERN CORPORATION  
  SIMON & SCHUSTER BUILDING  
  ROCKEFELLER CENTER  
  1230 AVENU