Title search results
Showing 1 - 5 of 5 items

Orbital
By Samantha Harvey. 2023
A slender novel of epic power, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men hurtling…
through space-not towards the moon or the vast unknown, but around our planet. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts-from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan-have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate. So are the marks of civilization far below, encrusted on the planet on which we live. Profound, contemplative, and gorgeous, Orbital is an eloquent meditation on space and a moving elegy to our humanity, environment, and planet
Creation lake: A novel
By Rachel Kushner. 2024
From Rachel Kushner, a Booker Prize finalist, two-time National Book Award finalist, and "one of the most gifted authors of…
her generation" (The New York Times Book Review), comes a new novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France - a propulsive page-turner of glittering insights and dark humor. Creation Lake is a novel about a secret agent, a thirty-four-year-old American woman of ruthless tactics, bold opinions, and clean beauty, who is sent to do dirty work in France. "Sadie Smith" is how the narrator introduces herself to her lover, to the rural commune of French subversives on whom she is keeping tabs, and to the reader. Sadie has met her love, Lucien, a young and well-born Parisian, by "cold bump" - making him believe the encounter was accidental. Like everyone Sadie targets, Lucien is useful to her and used by her. Sadie operates by strategy and dissimulation, based on what her "contacts" - shadowy figures in business and government - instruct. First, these contacts want her to incite provocation. Then they want more. In this region of centuries-old farms and ancient caves, Sadie becomes entranced by a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe, a mentor to the young activists who communicates only by email. Bruno believes that the path to emancipation from what ails modern life is not revolt, but a return to the ancient past. Just as Sadie is certain she's the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno Lacombe is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story. Written in short, vaulting sections, Rachel Kushner's rendition of "noir" is taut and dazzling. Creation Lake is Kushner's finest achievement yet as a novelist, a work of high art, high comedy, and unforgettable pleasure
Stone Yard Devotional
By Charlotte Wood. 2023
The new novel by Charlotte Wood, the Stella Prize-winning author of The Natural Way of Things and The Weekend.A fearless…
exploration of forgiveness, grief and the complicated beauty of female friendship.Burnt out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, finding solace in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Australian outback. She doesn't believe in God, or know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive existence almost by accident. As she gradually adjusts to the rhythms of her new life, she ruminates on her childhood in the nearby town, turning again and again to thoughts of her mother, whose early death she can't forget.But disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signalling a new battle against the rising infestation. Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who disappeared decades before, presumed murdered. And finally, a troubling visitor plunges the narrator further back into her past.'Both profound and addictively entertaining. I loved it'CLARE CHAMBERS, bestselling author of Small Pleasures'Beautiful, strange and otherworldly'PAULA HAWKINS, bestselling author of A Slow Fire Burning'Subtly powerful and utterly engrossing'CLAIRE FULLER, bestselling author of Unsettled Ground(P) 2023 Allen & Unwin
Stone Yard Devotional
By Charlotte Wood. 2023
THE NEW NOVEL BY THE STELLA PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE WEEKEND AND THE NATURAL WAY OF THINGSA book of the…
year for the Sydney Morning Herald and ABCA fearless exploration of forgiveness, grief and the complicated beauty of female friendship'Both profound and addictively entertaining. I loved it' CLARE CHAMBERS, bestselling author of Small Pleasures'A masterful novel of quiet force'GUARDIAN 'Beautiful, strange and otherworldly' PAULA HAWKINS, bestselling author of A Slow Fire Burning'The consistently brilliant Wood delivers yet again'SYDNEY MORNING HERALD 'It's remarkable. I'm still trying to figure out how she pulled it off. The best thing she's done'TIM WINTON, author of The Shepherd's Hut'Magnificent and radical . . . It gripped me from the opening line to the very last'AGE'No words can quite convey how much I loved this book'KAREN JOY FOWLER, author of Booth'Extraordinary . . . a stunning work of fiction from a major writer who keeps getting better'AUSTRALIAN'Subtly powerful and utterly engrossing' CLAIRE FULLER, bestselling author of Unsettled Ground'It extends and deepens Wood's already remarkable achievements as a novelist in powerful and often profound ways'SATURDAY PAPERBurnt out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, taking refuge in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Australian outback. She doesn't believe in God, or know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive existence almost by accident.But disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signalling a new battle against the rising infestation. Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who disappeared decades before, presumed murdered. And finally, a troubling visitor plunges the narrator further back into her past.PRAISE FOR CHARLOTTE WOOD'S THE WEEKEND A Sunday Times 'Best Book for Summer 2021'A Times, Observer, Independent, Daily Express and Good Housekeeping Book of the Year'So great I am struggling to find the words to do it justice . . . Wood is an agonisingly gifted writer. I am now going to read all her other books'MARIAN KEYES'A rare pleasure'SUNDAY TIMES'A perfect, funny, insightful novel about women, friendship and ageing'NINA STIBBE'Glorious . . . Charlotte Wood joins the ranks of writers such as Nora Ephron, Penelope Lively and Elizabeth Strout'GUARDIAN'Riveting'ELIZABETH DAY'Triumphantly brings to life the honest inner lives of women'INDEPENDENT'A lovely, lively, intelligent, funny book'TESSA HADLEY'These women are so alive on the page, it is impossible not to feel a kinship and intimacy with each of them'DAILY EXPRESS'Hypnotic and profoundly unsettling . . . Masterful'ROSAMUND LUPTON
Creation Lake: A Novel
By Rachel Kushner. 2024
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 BOOKER PRIZE* *LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD* *LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 PEN FAULKNER AWARD…
FOR FICTION* *AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* *NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2024 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE ATLANTIC, VULTURE, VOGUE, THE WASHINGTON POST, KIRKUS REVIEWS, NPR, THE ECONOMIST, THE CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY, VOX, and more* From Rachel Kushner, two-time finalist for both the Booker Prize and National Book Award, a &“vital&” (The Washington Post) and &“wickedly entertaining&” (The Guardian) novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France—a propulsive page-turner filled with dark humor.Creation Lake is a novel about a secret agent, a thirty-four-year-old American woman of ruthless tactics and clean beauty who is sent to do dirty work in France. &“Sadie Smith&” is how the narrator introduces herself to the rural commune of French subversives on whom she is keeping tabs, and to her lover, Lucien, a young and well-born Parisian she has met by &“cold bump&”—making him believe the encounter was accidental. Like everyone she targets, Lucien is useful to her and used by her. Sadie operates by strategy and dissimulation, based on what her &“contacts&”—shadowy figures in business and government—instruct. First, these contacts want her to incite provocation. Then they want more. In this region of old farms and prehistoric caves, Sadie becomes entranced by a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe, a mentor to the young activists who believes that the path to emancipation is not revolt but a return to the ancient past. Just as Sadie is certain she&’s the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story. Written in short, vaulting sections, Rachel Kushner&’s rendition of &“noir&” is taut and dazzling. Creation Lake is Kushner&’s finest achievement yet—a work of high art, high comedy, and unforgettable pleasure.