"A master American novelist." -Vanity Fair "One of the most astute writers of American fiction" (New York Times Book Review) delivers the resonant story of Alec Malone, a senator's son who rejects the family business of politics for a career as a newspaper photographer. Alec and his Swiss wife, Lucia, settle in Georgetown next door to a couple whose émigré gatherings in their garden remind Lucia of all the things Americans are not. She leaves Alec as his career founders on his refusal of an assignment to cover the Vietnam War - a slyly subversive fictional choice from Ward Just, who was himself a renowned war correspondent. At the center of the novel is Alec's unforeseen reckoning with Lucia's long-absent father, Andre Duran, a Czech living out the end of his life in a hostel called Goya House. Duran's career as an adventurer and antifascist commando is everything Alec's is not. The encounter forces Alec to confront just how different a life where things - "terrible things, terrible things" - happen is from a life where nothing much happens at all. Once again, "Ward Just writes the kind of books they say no one writes anymore: smart, well-crafted narratives - wise to the ways of the world - that use fiction to show us how we live" (Joseph Kanon, Los Angeles Times).
Ahlème, a young woman living on the outskirts of Paris, is trying to make a life out of the dreams she brought with her from Algeria and the reality she faces every day. Her father lost his job after an accident at his construction site. Her mother was lost to a massacre in Algeria. And her brother, Foued, boils with adolescent energy and teeters dangerously close to choosing a life of crime. As she wanders the streets of Paris looking for work, Ahlème negotiates the disparities between her dreams and her life, her youth and her responsibilities, the expectations of those back home and the limitations of life in France. With the same laugh-out-loud, razor-sharp humor that made Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow an international hit, Some Dream for Fools shows Faïza Guène's evolution as a novelist and reminds us of her extraordinary talent as she explores what happens to people when a lid is put on their dreams.
This riveting war story introduces us to the beautiful Kate Zweig, the English widow of a German surgeon, and Claus Murphy, an exiled American with German roots two lovers with complicated loyalties.
Spanning the years in which Virginia Woolf penned her classic novel The Waves and worked on Flush, the nonfiction pieces in this fifth volume provide further insight into Woolf's creative genius and showcase her supreme stylistic capability. The far-ranging essays and criticism collected here include ruminations on the romantic and literary lives of William Cowper and Christina Rossetti and an introduction to memoirs by the Women's Cooperative Guild that reveals Woolf's signature feminism. This collection also includes the entirety of The Common Reader: Second Series, the sequel to The Common Reader.
Three warnings for readers who hate surprises: 1. Beware of slivers, 2. and gamblers, 3. and aces.Zebulon Crabtree found all that out the hard way back in 1849 when his mother and father shipped him off to St. Louis to apprentice with a tanner. Too bad he had serious allergies to fur and advice from his parents. Hearing the beat of a different drummer, Zeb takes up with a riverboat gambler who has some special plans for him, crosses paths with a slave who turns out to be a better friend than cook, and learns that some Indian medicine men can see even though blind. And then there's the Brotherhood?the one that Zeb can't seem to get out of . . . Lucky for us, the price of living in turbulent times is often a good story, and Zeb spins an unforgettable one.
On the eve of World War II, in a place called Half-Village, a young man nicknamed the Pigeon falls in love with a girl fabled for her angelic looks. To court Anielica Hetmanskahe offers up his golden hands and transforms her family s modest hut into a beautiful home, thereby building his way into her heart. War arrives to cut short their courtship, delay their marriage, and send the young lovers far from home, to the promise of a new life in Krakow. Nearly fifty years later, their granddaughter, Beata, repeats their postwar journey, seeking a new life in her grandmother s fairy-tale city. But instead of the whispered prosperity of the New Poland, she discovers a Krakow caught between its future and its past. Whimsical, wise, beautiful, magical, and at times heartbreaking,
One of our most enduring national myths surrounds the men and women who fought in the so-called "Good War." The Greatest Generation, we're told by Tom Brokaw and others, fought heroically, then returned to America happy, healthy and well-adjusted. They quickly and cheerfully went on with the business of rebuilding their lives.In this shocking and hauntingly beautiful book, historian Thomas Childers shatters that myth. He interweaves the intimate story of three families?including his own?with a decades' worth of research to paint an entirely new picture of the war's aftermath. Drawing on government documents, interviews, oral histories and diaries, he reveals that 10,000 veterans a month were being diagnosed with psycho-neurotic disorder (now known as PTSD). Alcoholism, homelessness, and unemployment were rampant, leading to a skyrocketing divorce rate. Many veterans bounced back, but their struggle has been lost in a wave of nostalgia that threatens to undermine a new generation of returning soldiers. Novelistic in its telling and impeccably researched, Childers's book is a stark reminder that the price of war is unimaginably high. The consequences are human, not just political, and the toll can stretch across generations.
A hysterical phone call from Henry Archer s ex-wife and a familiar face in a photograph upend his well-ordered life and bring him back into contact with the child he adored, a short-term stepdaughter from a misbegotten marriage long ago. Henry is a lawyer, an old-fashioned man, gay, successful, lonely. Thalia is now twenty-nine, an actress-hopeful, estranged from her newly widowed eccentric mother Denise, Henry s ex. Hoping it will lead to better things for her career, Thalia agrees to pose as the girlfriend of a horror-movie luminary who is down on his romantic luck. When Thalia and her complicated social life move into the basement of Henry s Upper West Side townhouse, she finds a champion in her long-lost father, and he finds new life and maybe even new love in the commotion. "
This is the story of John Devine - stuck in a small town in the eerie landscape of Southeast Ireland, worried over by his single, chain-smoking, bible-quoting mother, Lily, and spied on by the "neighborly" Mrs. Nagle. When Jamey Corboy, a self-styled Rimbaudian boy wonder, arrives in town, John's life suddenly seems full of possibility. His loneliness dissipates. He is taken up by mischief and discovery, hiding in the world beyond as Lily's mysterious illness worsens. But Jamey and John's nose for trouble may be their undoing and soon John will be faced with a terrible moral dilemma. Joining the ranks of the great novels of friendship and betrayal - A Separate Peace, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha - John the Revelator grapples with the pull of the world and the hold of those we love. Suffused with family secrets, eerie imagery, black humor, and hypnotic prose, John the Revelator is a novel to fall in love with and an astounding debut.
From a rising literary star ?in the tradition of Carol Shields and A. S. Byatt? comes this luminous story of a contemporary man's metamorphosis.Andrea Barrett and Michael Cunningham have lauded Stacey D'Erasmo for the beauty of her language and her ability to create worlds that leave a lasting impression. In her new novel, D'Erasmo reaches back to Ovid for inspiration in this tale of how the mythic animates our everyday lives. At thirty-seven, Gabriel Collins works halfheartedly as an obituary writer at a fading newspaper in lower Manhattan, which, since 9/11, feels like a city of the dead. This once dreamy and appealing boy has turned from a rebellious adolescent to an adult who trades in petty crimes.His wealthy, older boyfriend is indulgent of him?to a point. But after a brush with his own mortality, Gabriel must flee to Mexico in order to put himself back together. By novel's end, we know all of Gabriel's ratty little secrets, but by dint of D'Erasmo's spectacular writing, we exult in the story of an imperfect man who?tested by a world that is often too much for him?rises to meet the challenge.
A fascinating slice of true-crime history that unfolds in 1695, when law enforcement was unheard of and modern money was little more than a concept When renowned scientist Isaac Newton took up the post of Warden of His Majesty's Mint in London, another kind of genius?a preternaturally gifted counterfeiter named William Chaloner?had already taken up residence in the city, rising quickly in an unruly, competitive underworld. In the courts and streets of London, and amid the tremors of a world being transformed by ideas Newton himself had set in motion, Chaloner crosses paths with the formidable new warden. An epic game of cat and mouse ensues in Newton and the Counterfeiter, revealing for the first time that Newton was not only one of the greatest minds of his age, but also a remarkably intrepid investigator.
In this deft, masterly book, Amos Oz turns his attention away from his familythe subject of the internationally acclaimed "A Tale of Love and Darkness"and toward his profession, writing. The plot: eight hours in the life of an author. The setting: Tel Aviv, a stifling, hot night. A literary celebrity is giving a reading from his new book. And as his attention wanders, he begins to invent lives for the strangers he sees around him: here, a self-styled cultural guru, Yakir Bar-Orian Zhitomirski; there, a love-starved professional reader, Rochele Reznik; to say nothing of Ricky the waitress, the real object of his desire. One life story builds on another, and the author finds himself unexpectedly involved with his creations . . . "
"Night Navigation" opens on a freezing-rain night in upstate New York: the kindling gone, the fire in the woodstove out. Del s thirty-seven-year-old manic-depressive son needs a ride, but she s afraid to make the long drive north to the only detox that has a bed.
In Speaking Your Way to Success, Sheryl Lindsell-Roberts draws on 25 years of experience as a business communications expert to deliver straightforward guidelines for today's professionals on how to speak powerfully and effectively. Whether talking in front of a large group or engaging in a one-to-one conversation, this book will help anyone to speak up, speak well, and get noticed.Chapters include:-- Making Introductions-- Developing Listening Skills-- Using Politically Neutral Language-- Interviewing and Being Interviewed-- Speaking in Public-- Communicating Cross-Culturally-- Harnessing the Power of Today's Multigenerational WorkforceIn her signature no-nonsense style, Lindsell-Roberts shows speakers how to pay attention to their audience, support their words with body language, interject stories the audience will relate to and enjoy, encourage audience interaction, and more.This book is packed with specific suggestions that can be applied immediately on topics such as giving and receiving compliments, keeping a conversation going, asking for a raise, and cold calling. There are strategies for introducing yourself when you don't know anyone at an event, techniques for initiating conversation, and a checklist for rating your listening skills. Lindsell-Roberts also has a proven, no-fail attack plan for how to work a room.Stop lurking quietly in the shadows and start speaking your way to success!
George Gates used to be a travel writer who specialized in places where people disappeared--Judge Crater, the Lost Colony. Then his eight-year-old son was murdered, the killer never found, and Gates gave up disappearance. Now he writes for the town paper, stories of redemptive triviality about flower festivals and local celebrities, and spends his evenings haunted by the image of his son's last day.
In the tumultuous days after World War I, Herman Richter returns from the front to find his only sister, Liesel, allied with Lester Sutter, the "slow" son of a rival clan who spends his days expertly trapping lake turtles. Liesel has sought Lester's friendship in the wake of her parents' deaths and in the shadow of her own dark secret. But what begins as yearning for something of a human touch quickly unwinds into a shocking, suspenseful tragedy that haunts the rural town of New Germany, Minnesota, for generations.Woven into this remarkable story are the intense, illuminating experiences of German immigrants in America during the war and the terrible choices they were forced to make in service of their new country or in honor of the old. The Turtle Catcher is a lyrical, vibrant, beautifully wrought look at a fascinating piece of American history?and the echoing dangers of family secrets.
You'd think Polly Martin would have all the answers when it comes to love?after all, her grandmother is the famous syndicated advice columnist Miss Swoon. But after a junior year full of dating disasters, Polly has sworn off boys. This summer, she's going to focus on herself for once. So Polly is happy when she finds out Grandma is moving in?think of all the great advice she'll get. But Miss Swoon turns out to be a man-crazy sexagenarian! How can Polly stop herself from falling for Xander Cooper, the suddenly-hot skateboarder who keeps showing up while she's working at Wild Waves water park, when Grandma is picking up guys at the bookstore and flirting with the dishwasher repairman? No advice column can prepare Polly for what happens when she goes on a group camping trip with three too many ex-boyfriends and the tempting Xander. Polly is forced to face her feelings and figure out if she can be in love?and still be herself.
Bioterrorism has come to a small town in New Jersey. Two residents die of brain aneurysms within twenty-four hours and several teens become ill with a mysterious flu, leading the government to suspect that a terrorist cell has unleashed a deadly biochemical agent. With each glass of water they drink, the people of Trinity Falls are poisoning themselves.A world away in Pakistan, a sixteen year old computer genius working as a spy for the U.S. sees an influx of chatter from extremists about a substance they call Red Vinegar that will lead to many deaths. Can he warn the victims before it's too late?
An intensely emotional and redemptive memoir about a mother's mission to rescue her runaway daughters After a miserably failed marriage, Debra Gwartney moves with her four young daughters to Eugene, Oregon, for a new job and what she hopes will be a new life for herself and her family. The two oldest, Amanda, 14, and Stephanie, 13, blame their mother for what happened, and one day the two run off together?to the streets of their own city, then San Francisco, then nowhere to be found. The harrowing subculture of the American runaway, with its random violence, its horrendously dangerous street drugs, and its patchwork of hidden shelters is captured by Gwartney with brilliant intensity in Live Through This as she sets out to find her girls. Though she thought she could hold her family together by love alone, Gwartney recognizes over the course of her search where she failed. It's a testament to her strength?and to the resilience of her daughters?that after several years they are a family again, forged by both forgiveness and love.
A couple, long married, are spending an unaccustomed week apart. Ya'ari, an engineer, is busy juggling the day-to-day needs of his elderly father, his children, and his grandchildren. His wife, Daniela, flies from Tel Aviv to East Africa to mourn the death of her older sister. There she confronts her anguished brother-in-law, Yirmiyahu, whose soldier son was killed six years earlier in the West Bank by friendly fire." Yirmiyahu is now managing a team of African researchers digging for the bones of man s primate ancestors as he desperately strives to detach himself from every shred of his identity, Jewish and Israeli.
In the early 1970s, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, Jan Wong traveled from Canada to become one of only two Westerners permitted to study at Beijing University. One day a fellow student, Yin Luoyi, asked for help getting to the United States. Wong, then a starry-eyed Maoist from Montreal, immediately reported her to the authorities, and shortly thereafter Yin disappeared. Thirty-three years later, hoping to make amends, Wong revisits the Chinese capital to search for the person who has haunted her conscience. At the very least, she wants to discover whether Yin survived. But Wong finds the new Beijing bewildering. Phone numbers, addresses, and even names change with startling frequency. In a society determined to bury the past, Yin Luoyi will be hard to find. As she traces her way from one former comrade to the next, Wong unearths not only the fate of the woman she betrayed but a web that mirrors the strange and dramatic journey of contemporary China and rekindles all of her love for--and disillusionment with--her ancestral land.
A haunting tale of apparitions, a cursed manor house, and two generations of women determined to discover the truth, by the author of The Ghost Writer Sell the Hall unseen; burn it to the ground and plow the earth with salt, if you will; but never live there . . .? Constance Langton grows up in a household marked by death, her father distant, her mother in perpetual mourning for Constance's sister, the child she lost.Desperate to coax her mother back to health, Constance takes her to a séance: perhaps she will find comfort from beyond the grave. But the meeting has tragic consequences. Constance is left alone, her only legacy a mysterious bequest that will blight her life.So begins The Séance, John Harwood's brilliant second novel, a gripping, dark mystery set in late-Victorian England.It is a world of apparitions, of disappearances and unnatural phenomena, of betrayal and blackmail and black-hearted villains?and murder. For Constance's bequest comes in two parts: a house and a mystery. Years before, a family disappeared atWraxford Hall, a decaying mansion in the English countryside with a sinister reputation.Now the Hall belongs to Constance. And she must descend into the darkness at the heart of theWraxford Mystery to find the truth, even at the cost of her life.
When we bite into a steak's charred crust and pink interior, we bite into contradictions that have branded our nation from the start. We taste the competing fantasies of British pastoralists and Spanish ranchers that erupted in land wars between a wet-weather East and a desert West. We savor the ideas of wilderness and progress that clashed when we replaced buffalo with cattle, and then cowboys with industrial machines. We witness rugged individualism and corporate technology collide when we breed, feed, slaughter, package, and distribute the animals we turn into meat. And we participate?like the cattlemen, chefs, feedlot operators, and scientists Fussell talks with?in the mythology that inspires cowboys to become technocrats and presidents to play cowboy. A celebration and an elegy for a uniquely American Dream, Raising Steaks takes an "unflinching look at the ethical and environmental implications of modern meat ... yet leaves us with a powerful hankering for a thick T-bone grilled rare"--Michael Pollan
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