Bücher veröffentlicht von Houghton Mifflin

This anthology of thirty works by some of our best contemporary American writers looks at our perennial American obsession: fat. It's everywhere, all around you, and maybe even on you. Now, America's consuming passion at last has its own anthology. From Andre Dubus's delicious story of a young woman more comfortable in her fat body than her thin one ("The Fat Girl"), to Tobias Wolff's tale of bonding over pancakes ("Hunters in the Snow"), Dorothy Allison's poem about food and love ("Dumpling Child"), Peter Carey's surreal tale of a fat-man revolution ("The Fat Man in History"), Wesley McNair's poetic celebration "Fat Heaven", and George Saunders's "The 400-pound CEO," this bountiful feast of fiction and poetry will ensure no reader ever looks at fat quite the same way again.Including stories and poems byDorothy Allison Frederick Busch Peter CareyRaymond CarverJunot DíazAndre DubusPam HoustonJill McCorkleGeorge SaundersTobias Wolff

Called to a gruesome crime scene, Inspector Javier Falcon is shocked and sickened by what he finds. Littered like flower petals on the victim's shirt are the man's own eyelids, evidence of a heinous crime with no obvious motive. When the investigation leads him to read his late father's journals, he discovers a disturbing and sordid past. Meanwhile, more victims are falling. While Falcon struggles to solve the case, he finds the missing section of his father's journal-and becomes the murderer's next intended victim.

To those who meet Jana Thomas, hers seems a perfect life, with a beautiful home, a successful career as an ER doctor, a loving husband, and a darling six-year-old son named Evan. But inside, Jana is crumbling. Evan's seemingly normal all-boy tendencies are escalating her motherly worry into something close to hysteria, threatening her job, her marriage, and even her relationship with her son. The real source of Jana's disintegration is a past she has kept buried for sixteen years. When that past begins to bleed into the present, Jana is forced to plunge into the emotional whirlpool she left behind-with results that are shattering, profound, and wrenchingly moving. Reminiscent of Sue Miller and Jane Hamilton, Cai Emmons's extraordinary first novel strikes a fine balance between keen psychological observation and page-turning momentum.

When circumstances compel her to start over late in her life, Candida Wilton moves from a beautiful Georgian house in lovely Suffolk to a two-room, walk-up flat in a run-down building in central London--and begins to pour her soul into a diary. Candida is not exactly destitute. So, is the move perversity, she wonders, a survival test, or is she punishing herself? How will she adjust to this shabby, menacing, but curiously appealing city? What can happen, at her age, to change her life? In a voice that is pitch-perfect, Candida describes her health club, her social circle, and her attempts at risk-taking in her new life. She begins friendships of sorts with other women-widowed, divorced, never married, women straddled between generations. And then there is a surprise pension-fund windfall . . . A beautifully rendered story, this is Margaret Drabble at her novelistic best.

The proprietor of a bowling alley whose artist daughter paints only phalluses. A ninth-grade girl who marries in haste only to be faced with her husband's impotence. A libidinous poet who learns the meaning of harassment. The life and loves of a professional lawn-mower. These are just a few of the distinctive stories that make up Mark Winegardner's remarkable debut short-story collection. Winegardner, whose rich and epic novel Crooked River Burning gave the much-maligned city of Cleveland a fresh and vibrant aspect, now returns to the Midwest that he knows so intimately and casts a piercingly compassionate eye on its denizens. The result is a kaleidoscopic picture of a people who are arrogant and humble, faithful and disloyal, driven and floundering-a people who are finally, America itself.

In this second novel of the Bruce Medway series, our hero, a go-between and "fixer" for traders in steamy West Africa, smells trouble when a porn merchant asks him to deliver a video at a secret location. Things look up, though, when he's hired to act as minder to Ron Collins, a spoiled playboy looking for diamonds in the Ivory Coast. Medway thinks this could be the answer to his cashflow crisis. But when the video delivery leads to a shootout and the discovery of a mutilated body, he wants out. Obligations keep Medway fixed in the Ivory Coast and he is soon caught up in a terrifying cycle of violence. Unless he can get to the bottom of the mystery, Medway knows that for the savage killer out there in the African night, he is the next target.

"A master American novelist." -Vanity Fair"A gripping international thriller" about a Foreign Service officer-and the son who turns to terrorism to spite him (Los Angeles Times). William North Jr. inherited his father's keen political instincts and passion for justice. But the last time Ambassador North saw his son he seemed like a stranger-and a hostile one at that. Now, just as North prepares to take a new post in Germany, reports emerge that Bill Jr. is aligned with a German terrorist organization. Suddenly, a private conflict between father and son escalates to a matter of national security. North is faced with a terrifying dilemma as loyalty to family and country are directly at odds. The American Ambassador is at once a riveting tale of suspense and a thoughtful meditation on the fragility of Western values in an age of terrorism. "Haunting and persuasive . . . Charged with authenticity . . . A splendid book that is both thoughtful and fast-moving." -The New York Times

Nora and Fern's relationship as mother and daughter is a tumble of love and distrust. To Nora, her daughter is an enigma -- at the same time wonderful and unfindable. Fern sees her mother as treacherous -- for busting up their family to move in with her lover, Jeanne. As their lives become complicated by the arrivals of a skateboarding boyfriend for Fern, a shadowy affair for Nora, a baby in need of a family, and by the failing health of Lucky, their beloved dog, this mother and daughter find their way onto a fresh footing with each other. "With sharp humor and perception" (O: The Oprah Magazine), Lucky in the Corner shows us the way a family reconfigures itself as unexpected changes come its way -- and how, no matter what shape it takes, it remains a family.

Snobbery is Epstein's deliciously readable (Harper's Bazaar) collection of essays skewering all manner of elitism. Filled with dishy detail, Snobbery takes up its subject in contemporary America, examining the discriminating qualities in all.

With The Playful Way to Knowing Yourself, the creativity coach Roberta Allen at last reveals a practical method for changing, or simply enhancing, the way you look at yourself -- and others. Employing her signature combination of verbal directives and visual cues, Allen has created a dynamic workbook that prompts you to look at yourself from angles and perspectives you would not otherwise see. When traditional barriers are broken down through these refreshing, unpretentious, and gently probing exercises, the results can range from subtle to astonishing. At the very least, you will get surprising glimpses of yourself. At best, you will have deep insights that lead you to action or to accepting yourself just as you are.Allen's "playful way" approach has elicited praise from all corners -- from graduate school professors to best-selling authors to therapists to high school teachers to hundreds of former students. Whether used as a journal or a keepsake or a serious self-help tool, The Playful Way to Knowing Yourself will take you on a delightful, illuminating, and inevitably fulfilling personal journey. In the end you will know yourself better than ever before.