Service Alert
CD service concludes July 31, 2025
CELA's audiobooks and magazines are available in Direct to Player and downloadable formats. We no longer mail out CDs. Please contact us for more information.
CELA's audiobooks and magazines are available in Direct to Player and downloadable formats. We no longer mail out CDs. Please contact us for more information.
Showing 1 - 7 of 7 items
By Dolly Alderton. 2024
From the New York Times best-selling author of Ghosts and Everything I Know About Love: a story of heartbreak and…
friendship and how to survive both "One of the foremost 'it' writers of our time. . . . Whatever ails you, Alderton can fix it with her intimate wisdom. . . . There is no writer quite like Dolly Alderton working today." —Lisa Taddeo, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Three Women Andy loves Jen. Jen loved Andy. And he can't work out why she stopped. Now he is . . . Without a home Waiting for his stand-up career to take off Wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't looking Set adrift on the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. But Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story . . . In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable account of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today and the true voice of a generationBy Percival Everett. 2024
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man…
in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light. Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a “literary icon” ( Oprah Daily ), and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime, James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.By Kaveh Akbar. 2024
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants,…
guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum. Electrifying, funny, and wholly original , Martyr! heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction. NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR SO FAR FOR 2024 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND A TIME MUST-READ BOOK OF THE YEAR “Kaveh Akbar is one of my favorite writers. Ever.” —Tommy Orange, Pulitzer Prize–nominated author of There There “The best novel you'll ever read about the joy of language, addiction, displacement, martyrdom, belonging, homesickness.” —Lauren Groff, best-selling author of Matrix and Fates and Furies Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed. Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, othersBy Dolly Alderton. 2023
From the New York Times best-selling author of Ghosts and Everything I Know About Love: a story of heartbreak and…
friendship and how to survive both"One of the foremost 'it' writers of our time. . . . Whatever ails you, Alderton can fix it with her intimate wisdom. . . . There is no writer quite like Dolly Alderton working today." —Lisa Taddeo, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Three WomenAndy loves Jen. Jen loved Andy. And he can't work out why she stopped.Now he is . . .Without a homeWaiting for his stand-up career to take offWondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't lookingSet adrift on the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. But Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story . . .In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable account of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today and the true voice of a generation.By Álvaro Enrigue. 2024
"Enrigue&’s genius lies in his ability to bring readers close to its tangled knot of priests, mercenaries, warriors and princesses…
while adding a pinch of biting humor." --Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Los Angeles Times&“Riotously entertaining... A triumph of solemnity-busting erudition and mischievous invention that will delight and titillate.&” --Financial TimesFrom the visionary author of Sudden Death, a hallucinatory, revelatory colonial revenge story.One morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés enters the city of Tenochtitlan – today's Mexico City. Later that day, he will meet the emperor Moctezuma in a collision of two worlds, two empires, two languages, two possible futures.Cortés is accompanied by his captains, his troops, his prized horses, and his two translators: Friar Aguilar, a taciturn friar, and Malinalli, an enslaved, strategic Nahua princess. After nearly bungling their entrance to the city, the Spaniards are greeted at a ceremonial welcome meal by the steely Aztec princess Atotoxtli, sister and wife of Moctezuma. As they await their meeting with the emperor – who is at a political and spiritual crossroads, and relies on hallucinogens to get by – Cortés and his entourage are ensconced in the labyrinthine palace. Soon, one of Cortés&’s captains, Jazmín Caldera, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the place, begins to question the ease with which they were welcomed into the city, and wonders at the chances of getting out alive, much less conquering the empire. And what if... they don't?You Dreamed of Empires brings Tenochtitlan to life at its height, and reimagines its destiny. The incomparably original Álvaro Enrigue sets afire the moment of conquest and turns it into a moment of revolution, a restitutive, fantastical counterattack, in a novel so electric and so unique that it feels like a dream.By Percival Everett. 2024
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry…
Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • KIRKUS PRIZE WINNER • A LOS ANGELES TIMES BEST FICTION BOOK OF THE LAST 30 YEARS In development as a feature film to be produced by Steven Spielberg • A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times Book Review, LA Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, TIME, and more. "Genius"—The Atlantic • "A masterpiece that will help redefine one of the classics of American literature, while also being a major achievement on its own."—Chicago Tribune • "A provocative, enlightening literary work of art."—The Boston Globe • "Everett&’s most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful."—The New York TimesWhen Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim&’s agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.By Miranda July. 2024
A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEARA WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEARONE OF TIME MAGAZINE&’S…
TOP 10 FICTION BOOKS OF 2024 ONE OF NPR&’S &“BOOKS WE LOVE&” 2024NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY:THE NEW YORKER ● VOGUE ● FINANCIAL TIMES ● OPRAH DAILY ● VULTURE ● VOXThe New York Times bestselling author returns with an irreverently sexy, tender, hilarious and surprising novel about a woman upending her life&“A frank novel about a midlife awakening, which is funnier and more boldly human than you ever quite expect . . . nothing short of riveting.&” —Vogue&“All Fours has spurred a whisper network of women fantasizing about desire and freedom. . . . It&’s the talk of every group text."—The New York Times&“All Fours possessed me. I picked it up and neglected my life until the last page, and then I started begging every woman I know to read it as soon as possible.&” —The CutA semi-famous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to NY. Thirty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, checks into a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in an entirely different journey.Miranda July&’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July&’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman&’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.