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Double Feature
By Owen King. 2013
SAM DOLAN is a young man coming to terms with his life in the process and aftermath of making his…
first film. He has a difficult relationship with his father, B-movie actor Booth Dolan--a boisterous, opinionated, lying lothario whose screen legacy falls somewhere between cult hero and pathetic. Allie, Sam's dearly departed mother, was a woman whose only fault, in Sam's eyes, was her eternal affection for his father. Also included in the cast of indelible characters: a precocious, frequently violent half-sister; a conspiracy-theorist second wife; an Internet-famous roommate; a contractor who can't stop expanding his house; a happy-go-lucky college girlfriend and her husband, a retired Yankees catcher; the morose producer of a true-crime show; and a slouching indie-film legend. Not to mention a tragic sex monster. Unraveling the tumultuous, decades-spanning story of the Dolan family's friends, lovers, and adversaries, Double Feature is about letting go of everything--regret, resentment, dignity, moving pictures, the dead--and taking it again from the top. Against the backdrop of indie filmmaking, college campus life, contemporary Brooklyn, and upstate New York, Owen King's epic debut novel combines propulsive storytelling with mordant wit and brims with a deep understanding of the trials of ambition and art, of relationships and life, and of our attempts to survive it all.The Tell
By Hester Kaplan. 2013
An elegant and haunting novel of love and family,The Telldemands that we reconsider our notions of marriage—duty, compromise, betrayal, and…
the choice to stand by or leave the ones we love. Mira and Owen's marriage is less stable than they know when Wilton Deere, an aging, no longer famous TV star moves in to the grand house next door. With plenty of money and plenty of time to kill, Wilton is charming but ruthless as he inserts himself into the couple's life in a quest for distraction, friendship—and most urgently—a connection with Anya, the daughter he abandoned years earlier. Facing stresses at home and work, Mira begins to accompany Wilton to a casino and is drawn to the slot machines. Escapism soon turns to full-on addiction and a growing tangle of lies and shame that threatens her fraying marriage and home. Betrayed and confused, Owen turns to the mysterious Anya, who is testing her own ability to trust her father after many years apart. The Tellis a finely-wrought novel about risk: of dependence, of responsibility, of addiction, of trust, of violence. Told with equal parts suspense, sympathy, and psychological complexity, it shows us the intimate and shifting ways in which we reveal ourselves before we act, and what we assume but don’t know about those closest to us.A Flag for Sunrise
By Robert Stone. 1981
A Moment in the Sun
By John Sayles. 2011
It's 1897. Gold has been discovered in the Yukon. New York is under the sway of Hearst and Pulitzer. And…
in a few months, an American battleship will explode in a Cuban harbor, plunging the U.S. into war. Spanning five years and half a dozen countries, this is the unforgettable story of that extraordinary moment: the turn of the twentieth century, as seen by one of the greatest storytellers of our time.Shot through with a lyrical intensity and stunning detail that recall Doctorow and Deadwood both, A Moment in the Sun takes the whole era in its sights-from the white-racist coup in Wilmington, North Carolina to the bloody dawn of U.S. interventionism in the Philippines. Beginning with Hod Brackenridge searching for his fortune in the North, and hurtling forward on the voices of a breathtaking range of men and women-Royal Scott, an African American infantryman whose life outside the military has been destroyed; Diosdado Concepcíon, a Filipino insurgent fighting against his country's new colonizers; and more than a dozen others, Mark Twain and President McKinley's assassin among them-this is a story as big as its subject: history rediscovered through the lives of the people who made it happen.Zebra Crossing
By Meg Vandermerwe. 2013
Ghost. Ape. Living dead. Young Chipo has been called many names, but to her mother - Zimbabwe 's most loyal…
Manchester United supporter - she had always just been Chipo, meaning gift. On the eve of the World Cup, Chipo and her brother flee to Cape Town hoping for a better life and to share in the excitement of the greatest sporting event ever to take place in Africa. But the Mother City's infamous Long Street is a dangerous place for an illegal immigrant and albino. Soon Chipo is caught up in a get-rich-quick scheme organized by her brother and the terrifying Dr Ongani. Exploiting gamblers' superstitions about albinism, they plan to make money and get out before rumors of looming xenophobic attacks become reality. But their scheming has devastating consequences.The God of Small Things: A Novel
By Arundhati Roy. 2008
The beloved debut novel about an affluent Indian family forever changed by one fateful day in 1969, from the author…
of The Ministry of Utmost HappinessNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • MAN BOOKER PRIZE WINNERCompared favorably to the works of Faulkner and Dickens, Arundhati Roy’s modern classic is equal parts powerful family saga, forbidden love story, and piercing political drama. The seven-year-old twins Estha and Rahel see their world shaken irrevocably by the arrival of their beautiful young cousin, Sophie. It is an event that will lead to an illicit liaison and tragedies accidental and intentional, exposing “big things [that] lurk unsaid” in a country drifting dangerously toward unrest. Lush, lyrical, and unnerving, The God of Small Things is an award-winning landmark that started for its author an esteemed career of fiction and political commentary that continues unabated.Social Blunders: A Novel
By Tim Sandlin. 1995
One of five men could be Sam Callahan's father. Is knowing the truth worth the havoc he'll cause trying to…
find out? Laid low by divorce-the result of an endless stream of poor choices-Sam decides it's time he met his dad. But his quest to meet the men and discover the truth does more than just shake up the five likely suspects-it pretty much napalms the lives of everyone he meets.House of Earth
By Woody Guthrie. 1947
Newly discovered, and with an introduction by Johnny Depp, this is legendary American folk singer Woody Guthrie’s only finished novel:…
a compelling portrait of two hardscrabble farmers struggling during the Dust Bowl. Filled with the homespun lyricism that made Guthrie’s songs unforgettable, this is the story of an ordinary couple’s dream of a better life in a corrupt world. Living in a precarious wooden shack, Texan farmers Tike and Ella May yearn for a sturdy house to protect them from the treacherous elements. Thanks to a government pamphlet, Tike knows how to build a simple adobe dwelling from the land itself— a house of earth. But while the land on which Tike and Ella May live and work is not theirs, their dream remains painfully out of reach. A rural tale of progressive activism, HOUSE OF EARTH is a searing portrait of hardship and hope set against a ravaged landscape. Combining the moral urgency and narrative drive of John Steinbeck with the erotic frankness of D. H. Lawrence, it is a powerful tale of America from a great artist.The Kitchen Daughter
By Jael Mchenry. 2011
Julie & Julia meets Jodi Picoult in this poignant and delectable novel with recipes, chronicling one woman's journey of self-discovery…
at the stove. After the unexpected death of her parents, shy and sheltered twenty-six-year-old Ginny Selvaggio, isolated by Asperger's Syndrome, seeks comfort in family recipes. But the rich, peppery scent of her Nonna's soup draws an unexpected visitor into the kitchen: the ghost of Nonna herself, dead for twenty years, who appears with a cryptic warning--before vanishing like steam from a cooling dish. A haunted kitchen isn't Ginny's only challenge. Her domineering sister Amanda insists on selling their parents' house in Philadelphia, the only home Ginny has ever known. As she packs up her parents' belongings, Ginny finds evidence of family secrets she isn't sure how to unravel. She knows how to turn milk into cheese and cream into butter, but she doesn't know why her mother hid a letter in the bedroom chimney, or the identity of the woman in her father's photographs. The more she learns, the more she realizes the keys to these riddles lie with the dead, and there's only one way to get answers: cook from dead people's recipes, raise their ghosts, and ask them. Offering a fascinating glimpse into the unique mind of a woman suffering from Asperger's and featuring evocative and mouth-watering descriptions of food, this lyrical novel is as delicious and joyful as a warm brownie.The Financier
By Theodore Dreiser.
The War Between the Tates: A Novel
By Alison Lurie. 1974
When a wife reaches her breaking point and her husband begins an ill-advised affair, civil war breaks out within their…
family Erica Tate wouldn't mind getting up in the morning if she enjoyed her children more. Until puberty struck, Jeffrey and Matilda were absolute darlings, but in the last year, they have become sullen, insufferable little monsters. Erica's husband, Brian, is so deeply immersed in university life--and the legs of a half-literate flower child named Wendy--that he either doesn't notice his wife's misery or simply doesn't care. Worst of all, their pleasant little neighborhood is transforming into a subdivision. And with each new ranch house that springs up around their lot, Erica's marriage inches closer to disaster. Admitting she is sick of her family is only the first step. When the Tate household tips into full-scale emotional combat, Erica must do her best to ensure that she comes out on top. In this darkly comic tale, there is nothing more important than having a good exit strategy. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Alison Lurie including rare images from the author's collection.Imaginary Friends: A Novel
By Alison Lurie. 1967
Two sociologists infiltrate a cult from which madness might be the only escapeOnce the nation's most popular sociologist, Tom McMann…
has fallen out of style lately. Desperate for a last shot at relevance, he targets the Truth Seekers, an up-and-coming cult that seems destined for the big time. An irresistible mixture of New Age cranks and sci-fi nerds, they are ruled over by Verena, a beautiful young telepath who believes she has a hotline to another planet. The Seekers are isolated, committed, and eccentric, but most importantly, they're hiring. Assisted by his wide-eyed young colleague, Roger Zimmern, McMann infiltrates the Truth Seekers, hoping to see how the zealots respond if questioned by someone within their midst. But when Verena's babblings start to make a little too much sense, the researchers must choose between losing their minds and buying one-way tickets to outer space. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Alison Lurie including rare images from the author's collection.Alice in Wonderland (Third Edition) (Norton Critical Editions)
By Lewis Carroll, Donald Gray. 1897
Newly discovered letters by Lewis Carroll, an expanded selection of diary excerpts, and a wealth of new biographical materials are…
some of the features of this revised Norton Critical Edition. This perennially popular Norton Critical Edition again reprints the 1897 editions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass along with the 1876 edition of The Hunting of the Snark. Each text is fully annotated and the original illustrations are included. An unusually rich “Backgrounds” section is arranged to correspond with three clearly defined periods in Lewis Carroll’s life. Letters and diary entries interwoven within each period emphasize the biographical dimension of Carroll’s writing. Readers gain an understanding of the author’s family and education, the evolution of the Alice books, and Carroll’s later years through his own words and through important scholarly work on his faith life and his relationships with women and with Alice Hargreaves and her family. Reflecting the wealth of new scholarship on Alice in Wonderland and Lewis Carroll published since the last edition, Donald Gray has chosen eleven new critical works while retaining five seminal works from the previous edition. Two early pieces—an essay by Charles Dickens and poem by Christina Rossetti—take a satirical look at children’s literature. The nine new recent essays are by James R. Kincaid, Marah Gubar, Robert M. Polemus, Jean-Jacques Lecercle, Gilles Deleuze, Roger Taylor, Carol Mavor, Jean Gattégno, and Helena M. Pycior. The Selected Bibliography has been updated and expanded.Black Mountain Breakdown
By Lee Smith. 1980
The New York Times bestselling author of The Last Girls presents one of her most compelling novels, acclaimed by Anne…
Tyler, Annie Dillard, and more... Everywhere about her, from the traffic on Highway 460 to the river that's gone black with coal dust, Crystal Spangler sees a current flowing from the mountain town of Black Rock into the wider world. As a teenager, she is elected beauty queen, gets good grades, and-despite her many enviable qualities-manages also to be well-loved. Everyone knows that she is destined to leave town and do great things.And she does.But no one expects her return; drawn back home by some sort of memory, as if the current that had taken her away had changed its mind...Dodgers: A Novel
By Bill Beverly. 2016
Dodgers is a dark, unforgettable coming-of-age journey that recalls the very best of Richard Price, Denis Johnson, and J.D. Salinger.…
It is the story of a young LA gang member named East, who is sent by his uncle along with some other teenage boys--including East's hothead younger brother--to kill a key witness hiding out in Wisconsin. The journey takes East out of a city he's never left and into an America that is entirely alien to him, ultimately forcing him to grapple with his place in the world and decide what kind of man he wants to become. Written in stark and unforgettable prose and featuring an array of surprising and memorable characters rendered with empathy and wit, Dodgers heralds the arrival of a major new voice in American fiction.From the Hardcover edition.Life Times
By Nadine Gordimer. 2010
A stunning selection of the best short fiction from the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature This collection of Nadine…
Gordimer’s short fiction demonstrates her rich use of language and her unsparing vision of politics, sexuality, and race. Whether writing about lovers, parents and children, or married couples, Gordimer maps out the terrain of human relationships with razor-sharp psychological insight and a stunning lack of sentimentality. The selection, which spans the course of Gordimer’s career to date, presents the range of her storytelling abilities and her brilliant insight into human nature. From such epics as “Friday’s Footprint” and “Something Out There” to her shorter, more experimental stories, Gordimer’s work is unfailingly nuanced and complex. Time and again, it forces us to examine how our stated intentions come into conflict with our unspoken desires. This definitive volume, which includes four new stories from the Nobel laureate, is a testament to the power, force, and ongoing relevance of Gordimer’s vision.The Dream Life of Sukhanov
By Olga Grushin. 2005
Olga Grushins astonishing literary debut has won her comparisons with everyone from Gogol to Nabokov. A virtuoso study in betrayal…
and its consequences, it exploresreally, colonizesthe consciousness of Anatoly Sukhanov, who many years before abandoned the precarious existence of an underground artist for the perks of a Soviet apparatchik. But, at the age of 56, his perfect life is suddenly disintegrating. Buried dreams return to haunt him. New political alignments threaten to undo him. Vaulting effortlessly from the real to the surreal and from privilege to paranoia, The Dream Life of Sukhanov is a darkly funny, demonically entertaining novel. .When the Elephants Dance
By Tess Uriza Holthe. 2002
As the U.S. and Japan battle over the Philippines late in WWII, several families hide in a cellar where they…
glean hope from stories and folktales. These stories of love, survival, and family blend the supernatural with the rich, little known history of the Philippines, the centuries of Spanish colonization, the power of the Catholic church, and the colorful worlds of the Spanish, Mestizo, and Filipino cultures.The Fourth Treasure
By Todd Shimoda. 2002
Illustrated throughout with beautiful calligraphy, The Fourth Treasure is an original, surprising novel that weaves a suspenseful love story across…
and through two very different countries, cultures, and generations.Tina Suzuki has just begun her first year of graduate study at the UC Berkeley Institute for Brain and Behavior Studies. Born and raised in San Francisco by her Japanese immigrant mother, Tina knows nothing about the rest of her family, and very little about her cultural heritage. But when her boyfriend's Japanese calligraphy teacher suffers a stroke and loses his ability to communicate but continues to create magnificent calligraphic art, Tina knows she has stumbled across an ideal research subject. However, getting the sensei to participate in her study poses a series of uncomfortable obstacles for Tina: the jealous opposition of her boyfriend, the political and (romantic) minefield of dealing with her professors and fellow students, and the willful reticence of her ailing mother. It seems that the blank personal history her mother had always presented is in fact a tightly wound scroll full of scandalous secrets. In ways she could have never expected, Tina's studies will inevitably lead to revelations about her own family.Juxtaposed with Tina's story is that of the stricken sensei as a younger man, in Kyoto, and the history of the ancient inkstone he carries with him. The inkstone's history, and the sensei's art, reach back hundreds of years into a Japanese culture that no longer exists but that continues to reverberate on both sides of the Pacific.As the dual narratives unfold, they are enhanced by intriguing marginalia that illuminate both the sensei's Japanese calligraphy and Tina's studies of the brain. The result is a unique, unusually satisfying literary experience.From the Hardcover edition.The Sojourn
By Andrew Krivak. 2011
The Sojourn, winner of the Chautauqua Prize and finalist for the National Book Award, is the story of Jozef Vinich,…
who was uprooted from a 19th-century mining town in Colorado by a family tragedy and returns with his father to an impoverished shepherd's life in rural Austria-Hungary. When World War One comes, Jozef joins his adopted brother as a sharpshooter in the Kaiser's army, surviving a perilous trek across the frozen Italian Alps and capture by a victorious enemy.A stirring tale of brotherhood, coming-of-age, and survival, that was inspired by the author's own family history, this novel evokes a time when Czechs, Slovaks, Austrians, and Germans fought on the same side while divided by language, ethnicity, and social class in the most brutal war to date. It is also a poignant tale of fathers and sons, addressing the great immigration to America and the desire to live the American dream amidst the unfolding tragedy in Europe.The Sojourn is Andrew Krivak's first novel. Krivak is also the author of A Long Retreat: In Search of a Religious Life, a memoir about his eight years in the Jesuit Order, and editor of The Letters of William Carlos Williams to Edgar Irving Williams, 1902-1912, which received the Louis L. Martz Prize. The grandson of Slovak immigrants, Krivak grew up in Pennsylvania, has lived in London, and now lives with his wife and three children in Massachusetts where he teaches in the Honors Program at Boston College.