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Leaving Tangier
By Tahar Ben Jelloun. 2006
Jelloun tells the story of a Moroccan brother and sister making new lives for themselves in Spain. What they find…
there forms the heart of this novel of seduction and betrayal, deception and disillusionment, in which the two are reminded not only of where they've come from but also of who they really areHope Leslie, or, Early times in the Massachusetts: Or, Early Times In The Massachusetts (American Women Writers Ser.)
By Catharine Maria Sedgwick. 1987
Set in seventeenth-century New England, Hope Leslie portrays early American life and celebrates the role of women in history. At…
the heart of the story is a cross-cultural friendship between Hope-Leslie, a spirited thinker in a repressive Puritan society and Magawisca, the passionate daughter of a Pequot chief. It challenges the conventional view of Indians, tackles interracial marriage and claims for women their rightful place in history. Adult. UnratedWest of the West: imagining California : an anthology
By Leonard Michaels, David Reid, Raquel Scherr. 1995
An anthology of short stories, poems, essays, quotes, and excerpts that explore popular California themes and the romantic image of…
the West. Includes selections by well-known authors such as: Rudyard Kipling, Jack Kerouac, Simone de Beauvoir, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Soto, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, Maya Angelou, and Amy TanA Feeling for Books
By Janice A. Radway. 1967
Deftly melding ethnography, cultural history, literary criticism, and autobiographical reflection, A Feeling for Books is at once an engaging study…
of the Book-of-the-Month Club's influential role as a cultural institution and a profoundly personal meditation about the experience of reading. Janice Radway traces the history of the famous mail-order book club from its controversial founding in 1926 through its evolution into an enterprise uniquely successful in blending commerce and culture. Framing her historical narrative with writing of a more personal sort, Radway reflects on the contemporary role of the Book-of-the-Month Club in American cultural history and in her own life. Her detailed account of the standards and practices employed by the club's in-house editors is also an absorbing story of her interactions with those editors. Examining her experiences as a fourteen-year-old reader of the club's selections and, later, as a professor of literature, she offers a series of rigorously analytical yet deeply personal readings of such beloved novels as Marjorie Morningstar and To Kill a Mockingbird. Rich and rewarding, this book will captivate and delight anyone who is interested in the history of books and in the personal and transformative experience of reading.The Cows
By Lydia Davis. 2011
Winner of the Man Booker International Prize"You read Lydia Davis to watch a writer patiently divide the space between epiphany…
and actual human beings by first halves, then quarters, then eighths, and then sixteenths, into infinity," says The Village Voice. Indeed, Lydia Davis is mathematician, philosopher, sculptor, jeweler, and scholar of the minute. Few writers map the process of thought as well as she, few perceive with such charged intelligence.The Cows is a close study of the three much-loved cows that live across the road from her. The piece, written with understated humor and empathy, is a series of detailed observations of the cows on different days and in different positions, moods, and times of the day. It could be compared to some sections of Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" or to Claude Monet's paintings of Rouen Cathedral.Forms of play: head butting; mounting, either at the back or at the front; trotting away by yourself; trotting together; going off bucking and prancing by yourself; resting your head and chest on the ground until they notice and trot toward you; circling each other; taking the position for head-butting and then not doing it.She moos toward the wooded hills behind her, and the sound comes back. She moos in a high falsetto before the note descends abruptly, or she moos in a falsetto that does not descend. It is a very small sound to come from such a large, dark animal.Taino: A Novel
By José Barreiro. 2012
"Written" by Guaikán, the elderly Taino man who, in his youth, was adopted by Christopher Columbus and saw history unfold,…
Taino is the Indian chronicle of the American encounter, the Native view on Columbus and what happened in the Caribbean. This novel, based on a true story, penetrates the historical veil that still enshrines the "discovery." Presently a senior fellow at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, José Barreiro is a novelist, essayist, and an activist of nearly four decades on American indigenous hemispheric themes. Barreiro is a member of the Taino Nation of the Antilles.The Red Coat: A Novel of Boston
By Dolley Carlson. 2018
Think Downton Abbey, set in the heart of Boston Irish domestic worker Norah King's decision to ask her wealthy employer,…
Caroline Parker, for an elegant red coat that the Beacon Hill matriarch has marked for donation ignites a series of events that neither woman could have fathomed. The unlikely exchange will impact their respective daughters and families for generations to come, from the coat's original owner, marriage-minded collegian Cordelia Parker, to the determined and spirited King sisters of South Boston, Rosemary, Kay, and Rita. As all of these young women experience the realities of life – love and loss, conflict and joy, class prejudices and unexpected prospects – the red coat reveals the distinction between cultures, generations, and landscapes in Boston during the 1940s and 50s, a time of change, challenge, and opportunity. Meet the proud, working-class Irish and staid, upper-class Brahmins through the contrasting lives of these two families and their friends and neighbors. See how the Parkers and the Kings each overcome sudden tragedy with resolve and triumph. And witness the profound impact of a mother’s heart on her children’s souls. Carlson brings us front and center with her knowing weave of Celtic passion – both tragic and joyful – words of wisdom, romance, humor, and historical events. Dive into Boston feet first! The Red Coat is a rich novel that chronicles the legacy of Boston from both sides of the city, Southie and the Hill.Mark Twain's Civil War: The Private History Of A Campaign That Failed
By Mark Twain. 2010
Had there been no Civil War, the eminent American author known as Mark Twain would likely have spent his life…
as Sam Clemens, the Mississippi River steamboat pilot. When the war came and the steamboats stopped running, Clemens served two weeks in the Missouri State Guard before he fled west to begin his career as a writer. After the Civil War dramatically altered the course of Twain's life and career, his thoughts and stories about the war were published widely. Mark Twain's Civil War marks the first occasion for readers to survey the full range of his Civil War writings in one volume. The book contains autobiographical pieces as well as fiction, appealing to both Twain enthusiasts and Civil War scholars.Jillian: A Novel
By Halle Butler. 2020
From the author of the 'great' (Dolly Alderton), 'terrific' (Zadie Smith) The New Me, comes a subversive, hilarious portrait of…
two colleagues, each more like the other than they would care to admit.'Wretchedly riveting' Jia Tolentino, New Yorker'Butler is an essential contemporary voice' Literary Hub'A master of writing about work and its discontents' The MillionsMegan is only twenty-four but her life feels like a dead end. Working as a gastroenterologist's receptionist and resenting the success and happiness of her friends, the only thing that makes her feel better is obsessively critiquing the behaviour of her colleague, Jillian. A grotesquely optimistic thirty-five-year-old single mother, Jillian's chirpy positivity obscures her mounting struggles - until her downfall is precipitated by the purchase of a dog . . .'Outrageous and amusing ... reads like rubbernecking or a junk-food binge, compelling a horrified fascination and bleak laughter' Kirkus'The funniest book I've read in a long time, but also one of the most important ones' The RumpusShadow Country
By Peter Matthiessen. 2008
Inspired by a near-mythic event of the wild Florida frontier at the turn of the twentieth century, Shadow Country reimagines…
the legend of the inspired Everglades sugar planter and notorious outlaw E. J. Watson, who drives himself to his own violent end at the hands of his neighbours. His son Lucius investigates the killing which has come to obsess him. In this bold new rendering of the Watson trilogy Matthiessen has deepened the insights and motivations of his characters, consolidating his fictional masterwork into a poetic, compelling novel of a monumental scope and ambition, with breathtaking accomplishment.WINNER OF THE RNA ROMANTIC COMEDY OF THE YEAR AWARD 2019'Such a funny, sparky book... An ideal read for anyone…
who is a fan of Christmas or dogs - or both!' Sophie KinsellaCharlie hates the holidays, and this year is shaping up to be her worst yuletide ever. Her boyfriend has left her for his personal trainer, her flat is out of bounds after a gas leak, and her mother has gone to spend Christmas in Melbourne with her fifth husband. Finding herself single, mildly concussed and temporarily homeless, Charlie hesitantly agrees to dust off her wellies and spend the festive season in Devon, looking after Cosy Canine Cottages, her cousin Jez's dog-care centre. However, her plans for a quiet rural Christmas with only the four-legged friends for company are dashed as soon as she meets Malcolm the deaf Great Dane, Hugo, his gorgeous (but engaged) owner, and Cal, the undeniably attractive but unbearably haughty and patronising local vet...'Fabulous romantic escapism' Heat* Not Just for Christmas is published as Mutts and Mistletoe in the US. *The Weekend: The international bestseller, shortlisted for the Stella Prize 2020
By Charlotte Wood. 2020
A #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER One of The Times books of the year: 'Ripples with wit, insight and vitality' 'The Weekend…
is 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'It was refreshing to encounter a novel that so profoundly sympathises with women on the forbidding cusp of being classified as "elderly". Wood ably conveys that older women didn't used to be old, and that the experience of ageing is universally bewildering'Lionel Shriver (Observer, Books of the year) 'Riveting' Elizabeth Day 'A perfect, funny, insightful, novel about women, friendship, and ageing. I loved it'Nina Stibbe 'Authentic, funny, brutally well-observed... As with the novels of Elizabeth Strout or Anne Tyler, these are characters not written to please, but to feel true'The Sunday Times 'Glorious... Charlotte Wood joins the ranks of writers such as Nora Ephron, Penelope Lively and Elizabeth Strout' Guardian'The Weekend triumphantly brings to life the honest, inner lives of women' Independent'A lovely, lively, intelligent, funny book' Tessa Hadley 'One sharp, funny, heartbreaking and gorgeously-written package. I loved it' Paula Hawkins'One of those deceptively compact novels that continues to open doors in your mind long after the last page' Patrick GaleSylvie, Jude, Wendy and Adele have a lifelong friendship of the best kind: loving, practical, frank and steadfast. But when Sylvie dies, the ground shifts dangerously for the remaining three.These women couldn't be more different: Jude, a once-famous restaurateur with a spotless life and a long-standing affair with a married man; Wendy, an acclaimed feminist intellectual; Adele, a former star of the stage, now practically homeless. Struggling to recall exactly why they've remained close all these years, the grieving women gather for one last weekend at Sylvie's old beach house. But fraying tempers, an elderly dog, unwelcome guests and too much wine collide in a storm that brings long-buried hurts to the surface - a storm that will either remind them of the bond they share, or sweep away their friendship for good.The Faculty of Dreams: Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019
By Sara Stridsberg. 2006
In April 1988, Valerie Solanas - the writer, radical feminist and would-be assassin of Andy Warhol - was discovered dead…
in her hotel room, in a grimy corner of San Francisco. She was only 52; alone, penniless and surrounded by the typed pages of her last writings.In The Faculty of Dreams, Sara Stridsberg revisits the hotel room where Solanas died, the courtroom where she was tried and convicted of attempting to murder Andy Warhol, the Georgia wastelands where she spent her childhood, where she was repeatedly raped by her father and beaten by her alcoholic grandfather, and the mental hospitals where she was interned.Through imagined conversations and monologues, reminisces and rantings, Stridsberg reconstructs this most intriguing and enigmatic of women, articulating the thoughts and fears that she struggled to express in life and giving a powerful, heartbreaking voice to the writer of the infamous SCUM Manifesto.The Dog Who Dared to Dream
By Sun-Mi Hwang. 2012
FROM THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR SUN-MI HWANG This is the story of a dog named Scraggly. Born an outsider because…
of her distinctive appearance, she spends most of her days in the sun-filled yard of her owner's house. Scraggly has dreams and aspirations just like the rest of us. But each winter, dark clouds descend and Scraggly is faced with challenges that she must overcome. Through the clouds and even beyond the gates of her owner's yard lies the possibility of friendship, motherhood and happiness - they are for the taking if Scraggly can just hold on to them, bring them home and build the life she so desperately desires. The Dog Who Dared to Dream is a wise tale of the relationship between dog and man, as well as a celebration of a life lived with courage. Translated into English for the first time, it is a classic from Sun-mi Hwang, the international bestselling author.Charlie hates the holidays, and this year is shaping up to be her worst yuletide ever. Her boyfriend has left…
her for his personal trainer, her flat is out of bounds after a gas leak, and her mother has gone to spend Christmas in Melbourne with her fifth husband. Finding herself single, mildly concussed and temporarily homeless, Charlie hesitantly agrees to dust off her wellies and spend the festive season in Devon, looking after Cosy Canine Cottages, her cousin Jez's dog-care centre. However, her plans for a quiet rural Christmas with only the four-legged friends for company are dashed as soon as she meets Malcolm the deaf Great Dane, Hugo, his gorgeous (but engaged) owner, and Cal, the undeniably attractive but unbearably haughty and patronising local vet...Read by Candida Gubbins(p) Orion Publishing Group 2018Shadow Country
By Peter Matthiessen. 2008
Inspired by a near-mythic event of the wild Florida frontier at the turn of the twentieth century, Shadow Country reimagines…
the legend of the inspired Everglades sugar planter and notorious outlaw E. J. Watson, who drives himself to his own violent end at the hands of his neighbours. His son Lucius investigates the killing which has come to obsess him. In this bold new rendering of the Watson trilogy Matthiessen has deepened the insights and motivations of his characters, consolidating his fictional masterwork into a poetic, compelling novel of a monumental scope and ambition, with breathtaking accomplishment.Kill Me Now: A Novel
By Timmy Reed. 2018
One of the Most Anticipated Small Press Books of 2018 (Big Other)"Timmy Reed writes like a whacked–out angel." —Amber Sparks,…
author of The Unfinished World and May We Shed These Human BodiesMiles Lover is an imaginative but insecure adolescent skateboarder with an unfortunate nickname, about to face his first semester of high school in the fall. In Kill Me Now, Miles exists in a liminal space—between junior high and high school, and between three houses: his mother's, his father's, and the now vacant house his family used to call home in a leafy, green neighborhood of north Baltimore. Miles struggles against his parents, his younger identical twin sisters, his probation officer, his old friends, his summer reading list, and his personal essay assignment (having to keep a journal). More than anything, though, he wrestles with himself and the fears that come with growing up.It's not until Miles begins a mutually beneficial friendship with a new elderly neighbor—whom his sisters spy on and suspect of murder—that he begins to find some understanding of lives different than his own, of the plain acceptance of true friends, and, maybe, just a little of himself in time to start a whole new year. When you're green, you grow, he learns. But when you're ripe, you rot.With tenderness and tenacity, Timmy Reed's prose—written in a confessional tone via Miles's journal—captures the anguish and grit of adolescence, and the potential of growing up.The Office of Gardens and Ponds
By Didier Decoin. 2017
A mesmerising fable with a difference, set in Japan over 1000 years agoFor readers of Alessandro Baricco's Silk, Patrick Süskind's…
Perfume and Takashi Hiraide's The Guest Cat.The village of Shimae is thrown into turmoil when master carp-catcher Katsuro suddenly drowns in the murky waters of the Kusagawa river. Who now will carry the precious cargo of carp to the Imperial Palace and preserve the crucial patronage that everyone in the village depends upon?Step forward Miyuki, Katsuro's grief-struck widow and the only remaining person in the village who knows anything about carp. She alone can undertake the long, perilous journey to the Imperial Palace, balancing the heavy baskets of fish on a pole across her shoulders, and ensure her village's future.So Miyuki sets off. Along her way she will encounter a host of remarkable characters, from prostitutes and innkeepers, to warlords and priests with evil in mind. She will endure ambushes and disaster, for the villagers are not the only people fixated on the fate of the eight magnificent carp. But when she reaches the Office of Gardens and Ponds, Miyuki discovers that the trials of her journey are far from over. For in the Imperial City, nothing is quite as it seems, and beneath a veneer of refinement and ritual, there is an impenetrable barrier of politics and snobbery that Miyuki must overcome if she is to return to Shimae.Sanctuary Line
By Jane Urquhart. 2010
Solitary, nostalgic Liz Crane returns to her family's now-deserted farmhouse to study the migratory habits of the Monarch butterfly. A…
rich family history - all the anecdotes and blarney of successful Irish immigrants - is now tainted with sadness. Her cousin Amanda, a gifted military strategist, has been killed in Afghanistan, a loss foreshadowed by the earlier disappearance of her charismatic father. Reflecting on the fragility and transcience of human life and relations - mirrored in the Monarchs' restless flight - Liz finds that love is there to be found where you least expect it.After moving to Long Island, New York, narrator Nick Carraway visits his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom. The…
Buchanans live lives of luxury, contrasting with Carraway's modest lifestyle. Carraway also meets his rich, mysterious neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Gatsby throws lavish parties for the well-to-do and famous. Carraway learns that Gatsby has loved Daisy Buchanan for years, and Gatsby hopes his parties will lead to a reunion. First published in 1925, this unabridged edition of The Great Gatsby compares new wealth to generational, inherited wealth and illuminates a cross section of American society in the 1920s.