Bücher veröffentlicht von Houghton Mifflin

In 1954 Mississippi, Jack Branch returns to his father s Delta estate, Great Oaks, to perform an act of noblesse oblige: teaching at the local high school.While conducting a class on evil throughout history, Jack is shocked to discover that his unassuming student Eddie is the son of the Coed Killer, a notorious local murderer. Jack feels compelled to mentor the boy, encouraging Eddie to examine his father s crime and using his own good name to open the doors that Eddie s lineage can t. But when the investigation turns in an unexpected direction, Jack finds himself questioning Eddie s motivesand his own.

In 1997, at the distinguished Siddons School on Manhattan's Upper East Side, the school year opens with distressing news: Astra Dell is suffering from a rare disease. Astra's friends try to reconcile the sick girl's suffering with their own fierce longings and impetuous attachments. Car writes unsparing letters, which the dirty Marlene, in her devotion, then steals. Other classmates carry on: The silly team of Suki and Alex pursue Will Bliss while the subversive Lisa Van de Ven makes dates with Miss Wilkes. The world of private schools and privilege in New York City is funny, poignant, cruel, and at its heart is a sick girl, Astra Dell, "that pale girl from the senior class, the dancer with all the hair, the red hair, knotted or braided or let to fall to her waist, a fever and she consumed."National Book Award Finalist Christine Schutt has created a wickedly original tale of innocence, daring and illness.

Marian Evans?who writes under the pen name George Eliot?has come to Venice on her honeymoon. It is 1880 and she is newly married to John Cross, twenty years her junior. She has come to this city of canals and bridges to start again, to forget the death of her longtime partner, George Henry Lewes?with whom she shared twenty five years of happiness and art. In this new marriage, in this intensely romantic place, can she give herself the happy ending that she provided for Middlemarch's Dorothea Brooke?A century later, sculptor Caroline Spingold takes us to Venice again. Scarred by her father's abandonment just after she and her parents spent a summer in the city, Caroline vowed never to return. But now her powerful, wealthy older husband has brought her back against her will, to celebrate their tenth anniversary.Told in alternating chapters subtly linked by themes of art, love, and the challenges of marriage, The World Before Her tells of two women, their surprising similarities, and the reckoning Venice will force them to make with their desire, their memories, and their very selves.

Set in Malaysia, this spellbinding and already internationally acclaimed debut introduces us to the prosperous Rajasekharan family as its closely guarded secrets are slowly peeled away. When Chellam, the family's rubber-plantation-bred servant girl, is dismissed for unnamed crimes, her banishment is the latest in a series of recent, precipitous losses that have shaken six-year-old Aasha's life. A few short weeks before, Aasha's grandmother Paati passed away under mysterious circumstances and her older sister, Uma, departed for Columbia University-leaving Aasha alone to cope with her mostly absent father, her bitter mother, and her imperturbable older brother. Beginning with Aasha's grandfather's ascension from Indian coolie to illustrious resident of the Big House on Kingfisher Lane, and going on to tell the story of how Appa, the family's Oxford-educated patriarch, courted Amma, the humble girl next door, Evening Is the Whole Day moves gracefully backward and forward in time to answer the many questions that haunt the family: What was Chellam's unforgivable crime? Why was Uma so intent on leaving? How and why did Paati die? What did Aasha see? And, underscoring all of these mysteries: What ultimately became of Appa's once-grand dreams for his family and his country? Sweeping in scope, sumptuously lyrical, and masterfully constructed, Evening Is the Whole Day offers an unflinching look at relationships between parents and children, brothers and sisters, the wealthy and the poor, a country and its citizens-and the ways in which each sometimes fails the other. Illuminating in heartbreaking detail one Indian immigrant family's secrets and lies while exposing the complex underbelly of Malaysia itself, Preeta Samarasan's debut is a mesmerizing and vital achievement sure to earn her a place alongside Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai, and Zadie Smith.

Phoebe Sharp has long red braids. She wears old beat-up sneakers and clothes from Goodwill. She lives with her father and brother on a small farm in Maine, where she reads fairy tales to her goats and snaps pictures with her Instamatic camera. Phoebe doesn't have a single friend, never mind a boyfriend?that is, not until she meets Melita. Melita arrives at the Sharps' farm in a see-through T-shirt and strappy platform sandals that show off her drawn-on ?tattoo.? With her caramel-colored skin, stylish clothes, and urban attitude, Melita seems as different from Phoebe as two teenage girls could be. Through the summer, the girls grow to know each other. As their friendship develops, confusing feelings also begin to emerge. Could their friendship be deepening into something more?

A memorable and mouthwatering cook's tour of today's China As a freelance journalist and food writer living in Beijing, Jen Lin-Liu already had a ringside seat for China's exploding food scene. When she decided to enroll in a local cooking school?held in an unheated classroom with nary a measuring cup in sight?she jumped into the ring herself. Progressing from cooking student to noodle-stall and dumpling-house apprentice to intern at a chic Shanghai restaurant, she finds poor young men and women streaming in from the provinces in search of a ?rice bowl? (living wage); a burgeoning urban middle class hungry for luxury after decades of turmoil and privation; and the mentors who take her in hand in the kitchen and beyond. Together they present an unforgettable slice of contemporary China in the full swing of social and economic transformation.

Four stories of comedy, deception, and revenge, including one previously unpublished, from the acclaimed author of Heir to the Glimmering World. Cynthia Ozick's new work of fiction brings together four long stories that showcase this incomparable writer's sly humor and piercing insight into the human heart. Each starts in the comic mode, with heroes who suffer from willful self-deceit. These not-so-innocents proceed from self-deception to deceiving others, who do not take it lightly. Revenge is the consequence -- and for the reader, a delicious, if dark, recognition of emotional truth. The glorious new novella "Dictation" imagines a fateful meeting between the secretaries to Henry James and Joseph Conrad at the peak of their fame. Timid Miss Hallowes, who types for Conrad, comes under the influence of James's Miss Bosanquet, high-spirited, flirtatious, and scheming. In a masterstroke of genius, Ozick hatches a plot between them to insert themselves into posterity. Ozick is at her most devious, delightful best in these four works, illuminating the ease with which comedy can glide into calamity.

Tommy Lasorda was one of baseball's larger than life figures. A former pitcher who was overshadowed by Sandy Koufax, Lasorda went on to a Hall of Fame career as a manager with one of baseball's most storied franchises. His teams won two World Series, four National League pennants, and eight division titles. He was twice named National League manager of the year and he also led the United States baseball team to the gold medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics. In I Live for This! award-winning sportswriter Bill Plaschke shows us one of baseball's legends as we've never seen him before, revealing the man behind the myth, the secrets to his amazing, unlikely success, and his unvarnished opinions on the state of the game. Bravely and brilliantly, I Live for This! dissects the personality to give us the person. By the end we're left with an indelible portrait of a legend that, if Tommy Lasorda has anything to say about it, we won't ever forget.

The Reader draws on Oz's entire body of work, loosely grouped into four themes: the kibbutz, the city of Jerusalem, the idea of a "promised land," and his own life story. Included are excerpts from his celebrated novels, among them Where the Jackals Howl, A Perfect Peace, My Michael, Fima, Black Box, and To Know a Woman. Nonfiction is represented by selections from Under This Blazing Light, The Slopes of Lebanon, In the Land of Israel, and Oz's masterpiece, A Tale of Love and Darkness. Robert Alter, a noted Hebrew scholar and translator, has provided an illuminating introduction.

That Little Something is the superb eighteenth collection from one of America's most vital and honored poets. Over the course of his singular career, Charles Simic has won nearly every accolade, including the Pulitzer Prize, and he served as the poet laureate of the United States from 2007 to 2008.His wry humor and darkly illuminating vision are on full display here as he moves close to the dark ironies of history and human experience. Simic understands the strange interplay between the ordinary and the odd, between reality and imagination. That Little Something is a stunning collection from "not only one of the most prolific poets but also one of the most distinctive, accessible, and enjoyable" (New York Times Book Review).

Women have been among the most dynamic and successful ministers in all Protestant denominations; but in divinity school, Sarah Sentilles discovered that some of the best and brightest were having trouble and even leaving the church altogether. What was happening? To find out, she entered the lives of female ministers ? women of various ages, races, and denominations ? and emerged with the first real portrait of what it's like to lead as a woman of faith today.Filled with humor, heartbreak, and triumph, the women's stories take us from calls to the pulpit through ordinations and service. Despite many churches' resistance ? conscious or not ? to re-imagining what it means to be a minister, many of these women are achieving remarkable transformations in their congregations. In their inspiring determination to perform the creative, life-giving work to which they are called, these women illuminate a way that the church can revitalize itself. What's at stake is nothing less than the future of the church itself.

It's the end of junior year, and summer is about to begin. The Summer of Passion, to be exact, when Jory Michaels plans to explore all the possibilities of the future-and, with any luck, score a boyfriend in the process. But Jory has a problem. A big problem. A curvy, honking, bumpy, problem in the form of her Super Schnozz, the one thing standing between Jory and happiness. And now, with the Summer of Passion stretched before her like an open road, she's determined for Super Schnozz to disappear. Jory takes a job delivering wedding cakes to save up for a nose job at the end of the summer; she even keeps a book filled with magazine cutouts of perfect noses to show the doctor. But nothing is ever easy for accident-prone Jory-and before she knows it, her Summer of Passion falls apart faster than the delivery van she crashes. In this hilarious and heartbreaking novel, Sydney Salter delivers a story about broadening your horizons, accepting yourself, and finding love right under your nose.

Current tactics can't solve today's complex global crises. The "bad boys of environmentalism" call for a bold and empowering new vision Environmental insiders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus triggered a firestorm of controversy with their self-published essay "The Death of Environmentalism," which argued that environmentalism cannot deal with global warming and should die so that a new politics can be born. Global warming is far more complex than past pollution problems, and American values have changed dramatically since the movement's greatest victories in the 1960s, but environmentalists keep fighting the same old battles. Seeing a connection between the failures of environmentalism and the failures of the entire left-leaning political agenda, the authors point the way toward an aspirational politics that will resonate with modern American values and be capable of tackling our most pressing challenges. In this eagerly awaited follow-up to the original essay, the authors give us an expansive and eloquent manifesto for political change. What Americans really want, and what could serve as the basis for a new politics, is a vision capable of inspiring us to greatness. Making the case for abandoning old categories (nature/market, left/right), the authors articulate a pragmatism fit for our times that has already found champions in such prominent figures as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. This book will hit the same nerve as What's the Matter with Kansas and Don't Think of an Elephant. But its analysis will reshape American politics for decades to come.

A wildly original debut,Maynard and Jennica is both a hilarious urban comedy and a captivating love story. In the summer of 2000, while riding the uptown number 6 train, the musician/filmmaker Maynard Gogarty first encounters the beautiful Jennica Green.Though their initial meeting is brief, when fate next brings them together a romance ensues, and as with most things in life, everyone has an opinion.Delson tells the story of this improbable love affair through the voices of Maynard and Jennica, along with their family, friends, and assorted characters (among them two attorneys, three journalists, and a rap star) pulled into their dizzying orbit.He brings to life a pair of lovers who are flawed, complex, at once eccentric and deeply familiar?and in whose story we continue to feel invested long after we've turned the last page.In the words of Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, ?this book is the reason we should all read first novels.?

Sixteen-year-old Penelope Yeager only wants a few things in life: get out of high school, get her driver's license, fall in love, forget what happened ten years ago, and see her mother happy. She s figured out how to get out of school a year early. If she can figure out the rest, maybe she ll actually be happy. Unfortunately, the rest isn t nearly as easy.

For all the talk of the Civil War's pitting brother against brother, no book has told fully the story of one family ravaged by that conflict. And no family better illustrates the personal toll the war took than Lincoln's own. Mary Todd Lincoln was one of fourteen siblings who were split between the Confederacy and the Union. Three of her brothers fought, and two died, for the South. Several Todds ? including Mary herself ? bedeviled Lincoln's administration with their scandalous behavior. Their struggles haunted the president and moved him to avoid tactics or rhetoric that would dehumanize or scapegoat the Confederates. By drawing on his own familial experience, Lincoln was able to articulate a humanistic, even charitable view of the enemy that seems surpassingly wise in our time, let alone his. In House of Abraham, the award-winning historian Stephen Berry fills a gap in Civil War history, showing how the war changed one family and how that family changed the course of the war.

Since his first voyage, as a sailor earning his passage from his native Holland to South America, Cees Nooteboom has never stopped traveling.Now his best travel pieces are gathered in this collection of immense range and depth, informed throughout by the author's humanity and gentle humor. From exotic places such as Isfahan,Gambia, and Mali to seemingly domesticated places such as Australia and Munich,Nooteboom shares his view of the world, showing us the strangeness in places we thought we knew and the familiarity of places most of us will probably never see.His phenomenal gifts as an observer and the wealth of his reading and learning make him an authoritative and delightful companion.Nomad's Hotel is a record of a world-class traveler's many discoveries and insights.

Frederick Kaufman offers a piquant sampling of American history by way of the stomach.Travel with him as he tracks down our earliest foodies; discovers the secret history of Puritan purges; introduces diet gurus of the nineteenth century such asWilliam Alcott, who believed that ?nothing ought to be mashed before it is eaten?; traces extreme feeders from Paul Bunyan to eating-contest champ Dale Boone (descended from Daniel, of course); and investigates our blithe efforts to re-create the plants and animals that we've eaten to the point of extinction.With outraged wit and an incredible range of sources that includes everything from Cotton Mather's diary to interviews with Amish black-market raw-milk dealers, Kaufman takes readers on a Bourdainmeets- Pollan tour of the American gut.

Francisco D'Sai is a firstborn son of a firstborn son?all the way back to the beginning of a long line of proud Konkans. Known as the "Jews of India," the Konkans kneeled before the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama's sword and before Saint Francis Xavier's cross, abandoned their Hindu traditions, and became Catholics. In 1973 Francisco's Konkan father, Lawrence, and American mother, Denise, move to Chicago, where Francisco is born. His father, who does his best to assimilate into American culture, drinks a lot and speaks little. But his mother, who served in the Peace Corps in India, and his uncle Sam (aka Samuel Erasmus D'Sai) are passionate raconteurs who do their best to preserve the family's Konkan heritage. Friends, allies, and eventually lovers, Sam and Denise feed Francisco's imagination with proud visions of India and Konkan history. Filled with romance, comedy, and masterful storytelling, The Konkans leaves us surprised by what secrets history may hold for us if only we wonder enough to look.

Cal Innes is fresh out of prison, working out of a gym closet as a private investigator, and trying to sever his ties to local gang lord ?Uncle?Morris Tiernan. But when Tiernan hires him to track down a rogue casino dealer who's absconded with a hefty chunk of cash, Innes is thrust into a cat-and-mouse game with Tiernan's pill-popping son,Mo?a game that turns ever more deadly as the case points north to Newcastle.With Tiernan's son on his tail and a Manchester cop determined to put Innes back on the spurs, Saturday's child definitely has to work hard to keep living.The explosive first book in a four-book series featuring the down-at-heels private eye Cal Innes.

How did Abraham Lincoln, long held as a paragon of presidential bravery and principled politics, find his way to the White House? How did he become this one man great enough to risk the fate of the nation on the well-worn but cast-off notion that all men are created equal?Here award-winning historian John C. Waugh takes us on Lincoln's road to the Civil War. From Lincoln's first public rejection of slavery to his secret arrival in the capital, from his stunning debates with Stephen Douglas to his contemplative moments considering the state of the country he loved, Waugh shows us America as Lincoln saw it and as Lincoln described it. Much of this wonderful story is told by Lincoln himself, detailing through his own writing his emergence onto the political scene and the evolution of his beliefs about the Union, the Constitution, democracy, slavery, and civil war. Waugh brings Lincoln's path into new reliefby letting the great man tell his own story, at a depth that brings us ever closer to understanding this mysterious, complicated, truly great man.

From the author of The Necropolis Railway, The Blackpool Highflyer, and The Lost Luggage Porter comes another thrilling mystery featuring railway detective Jim Stringer. It is winter 1909, and Jim desperately needs his anticipated New Year's promotion in order to pay for a nurse for his ailing son.Jumping at any opportunity to impress his supervisor, Jim agrees to investigate a standard assault in a nearby town. But when his train home hits a snowdrift and a body is discovered buried in the snow, Jim finds himself tracking another dangerous killer. Soon he is on a mad chase to find the suspect, trailing him to the furnaces of Ironopolis and across the country on a dangerous ride to the Highlands. As pursuer becomes pursued, Jim begins to doubt he will ever get his promotion? or that he will survive this case at all.

During the long farewell of her mother's dying, Patricia Hampl revisits her midwestern girlhood.Daughter of a debonair Czech father, whose floral work gave him entrée to St. Paul society, and a distrustful Irishwoman with an uncanny ability to tell a tale,Hampl remained, primarily and passionately, a daughter well into adulthood. She traces the arc of faithfulness and struggle that comes with that role?from the postwar years past the turbulent sixties. At the heart of The Florist's Daughter is the humble passion of people who struggled out of the Depression into a better chance, not only for themselves but for the common good.Widely recognized as one of our most masterly memoirists, Patricia Hampl has written an extraordinary memoir that is her most intimate, yet most universal, work to date.This transporting work will resonate with readers of Francine du Plessix Gray's Them: A Memoir of Parents and JeannetteWall's The Glass Castle.