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One Thing Stolen
By Beth Kephart. 2015
Something is not right with Nadia Cara. While spending a year in Florence, Italy, she's become a thief. She has…
secrets. And when she tries to speak, the words seem far away. Nadia finds herself trapped by her own obsessions and following the trail of an elusive Italian boy whom only she has seen. Can Nadia be rescued or will she simply lose herself altogether? Set against the backdrop of a glimmering city, One Thing Stolen is an exploration of obsession, art, and a rare neurological disorder. It is a celebration of language, beauty, imagination, and the salvation of love.Nobody, Somebody, Anybody: A Novel
By Kelly McClorey. 2021
A moving and darkly comic debut novel about an anxious young woman who administers a self-made “placebo” treatment in a…
last-ditch attempt to rebuild her life. Amy Hanley has a job as a maid for the summer, but on August 25, she will take the exam to become an EMT (third time’s the charm!) and finally move on with her life. In the meantime, she doesn’t mind scrubbing toilets immaculately clean or tucking the sheet corners just so. In fact, she tells herself that her work is a noble act of service to the rich guests at the yacht club. Amy’s profound isolation colors everything: her job, her aspirations, even her interactions with the woman at the deli counter. And as the date for the EMT exam comes closer, Amy’s anxiety ratchets up in a way that is both familiar and troubling. In desperation, she concocts a “placebo” program—a self-prescribed regimen for her confidence, devised to trick herself into succeeding. When her landlord, Gary, starts to invite her over for dinner—to practice his cooking skills as he awaits approval of his Ukrainian fiancé’s visa—Amy makes her first friend since her mother’s passing. Alongside this unexpected connection comes a surge of hopeful obsession that Amy knows she must reckon with before the summer’s end. Tender and laugh-out-loud funny, Nobody, Somebody, Anybody explores the shadowy corners of a young woman’s inner world of grief, delusion, and self-loathing, revealing the creeping loneliness of modern life and our endless search for connection. Kelly McClorey captures the hilarity and heartbreak of American ambition.The Schlemiel Kids Save the Moon
By Audrey Barbakoff. 2024
A joyous modern-day twist on a Wise Men of Chelm folktale written by a fresh Jewish voice filled with humor,…
some juicy Yiddish terms, and smart, savvy kids brimming with innovative solutions."An enjoyable, rollicking read. Fun by the light of the moon—or anytime." —Kirkus Reviews Oy, Chelm. Long known as home to the &“wisest&” people in Yiddish folklore. But what is Chelm like today? What if the kids were more clever than the rest of the townsfolk? When the misguided adults of modern-day Chelm believe the moon has plunged into the lake, it&’s up to the Schlemiel siblings to convince the grown-ups that their fears of a fallen moon are unfounded. Join Sarah and Sam in this hilarious twist on a classic Yiddish folktale as they use teamwork, innovation and patience to save the day...and night! Here is a book that will expand young readers&’ knowledge of Jewish culture beyond holidays, history, and the Holocaust.A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond, as told to Percival Everett & James Kincaid (A Novel): A Novel
By James Kincaid, Percival Everett. 2004
Praise for Percival Everett:"If Percival Everett isn't already a household name, it's because people are more interested in politics than…
truth."--Madison Smartt Bell, author of The Washington Square Ensemble"Everett's talent is multifaceted, sparked by a satiric brilliance that could place him alongside Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison . . ."--Publishers Weekly"I think Percival Everett is a genius. I've been a fan since his first novel. He continues to amaze me with each novel--as if he likes making 90-degree turns to see what's around the corner, and then over the edge . . . He's a brilliant writer and so damn smart I envy him."--Terry McMillan, author of MamaA fictitious and satirical chronicle of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond's desire to pen a history of African-Americans--his and his aides' belief being that he has done as much, or more, than any American to shape that history. An epistolary novel, The History follows the letters of loose cannon Congressional office workers, insane interns at a large New York publishing house and disturbed publishing executives, along with homicidal rival editors, kindly family friends, and an aspiring author named Septic. Strom Thurmond appears charming and open, mad and sure of his place in American history.Percival Everett is the author of 15 works of fiction, among them Glyph, Watershed and Frenzy. His most recent novel, Erasure, won the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and did little to earn him friends.James Kincaid is an English professor at the University of Southern California and has written seven books in literary theory and cultural studies. These books and Kincaid himself have gradually lost their moorings in the academic world, so there was nothing left for him to do but to adopt the guise of fiction writer. Writing about madness comes easy to him.Sorry For Your Loss
By Joanne Levy. 2021
★ “A heartfelt and expertly written tale of loss, family, and friendship that will have readers blinking back their tears…Beautiful…
and sincere.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review Evie Walman is not obsessed with death. She does think about it a lot, though, but only because her family runs a Jewish funeral home. At twelve, Evie already knows she’s going to be a funeral director when she grows up. So what if the kids at school call her “corpse girl” and say she smells like death? They’re just mean and don’t get how important it is to have someone take care of things when your world is falling apart. Evie loves dusting caskets, polishing pews, and vacuuming the chapel—and on funeral days, she dresses up and hands out tissues and offers her condolences to mourners. She doesn’t normally help her parents with the grieving families directly, until one day when they ask her to help with Oren, a boy who was in a horrific car accident that killed both his parents. Oren refuses to speak and Evie, who is nursing her own private grief, is determined to find a way to help him deal with his loss. Praise for previous books by Joanne Levy: “Levy's narrative is spot on.”—Booklist review for The Sun Will Come Out “The story gives voice to the experience of Jewish preteens; chronic illness and disability are also sensitively tackled in this complex tale about difference, acceptance, and self-confidence. A heartfelt tear-jerker about love, friendship, and courage.”—Kirkus Reviews review for The Sun Will Come Out “Uplifting, gentle…Exudes inter-generational warmth, family love, and friendship.”—Association of Jewish Libraries review for Fish Out of Water “Though brief, this text masterfully connects the toxic masculinity to its roots in deep misogyny, making Fish a hero people of all genders can stand up and cheer for. All readers will appreciate this book’s nuanced messaging around gender roles and trusting yourself.”—Kirkus Reviews, review for Fish Out of WaterWhere We Live (The Lund Sibling Series #3)
By Karen Hofmann. 2024
The third and final novel in the Lund sibling series, Where We Live continues the story of four Vancouverites, separated in childhood,…
reunited and now middle-aged, as they navigate urban life, work, relationships, and parenting in the late 2010s. With their familial bond shaped by their divergent adult experiences as well as their shared early childhood in a rural West Coast community, the lives of these siblings cross, separate, and rejoin yet again, in paths informed by nature and by nurture. Subject to the pressures of their environment and remembered or forgotten family history each sibling struggles to realize their aspirations in their search for a true home.SLAY
By Brittney Morris. 2019
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019!&“Gripping and timely.&” —People&“The YA debut we&’re most excited for this year.&” —Entertainment Weekly&“A…
book that knocks you off your feet while dropping the kind of knowledge that&’ll keep you down for the count. Prepare to BE slain.&” —Nic Stone, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin and Odd One OutReady Player One meets The Hate U Give in this dynamite debut novel that follows a fierce teen game developer as she battles a real-life troll intent on ruining the Black Panther–inspired video game she created and the safe community it represents for Black gamers.By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and one of the only Black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of Black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the &“downfall of the Black man.&”But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, news of the game reaches mainstream media, and SLAY is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for &“anti-white discrimination.&”Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically Black in a world intimidated by Blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?Maggie In The Morning
By Elizabeth Van Steenwyk. 2001
The year 1941 was pivotal in U. S. history. It was a time of transition and a time of waiting,…
waiting for events to occur that would change many lives forever. For eleven-year-old Maggie Calhoun it was a time of waiting, too. She was waiting for her mom's new baby to be born and waiting for her dad to get a new job out in California making airplanes for the war that was coming. That's why she and her brother, Cooper, were spending the summer with Uncle Dick and Aunt Bess in Oquawka. But Maggie was also waiting for something she couldn't name -- waiting to discover a secret she felt was being kept from her by her own family, a secret that involved her past and her future. A secret that would help her understand who she really was. With warmth and humor, author Elizabeth Van Steenwyk captures small town life in the Midwest during a unique time in America's history. She also gently reveals one young girl's self-discovery and growth during a special summer.Naming the Stars
By Jennifer Johnston. 2015
Flora's father has been killed in the Battle of El Alamein, one of the many victims of the Second World…
War. For Flora and her mother, life will never be the same again. At least they have their memories, of the love he showed them, the Desert Lullaby that he sang, the legacy of the well-stocked wine cellar lurking beneath their cavernous home.Now, it's just Flora - and Nellie, the family's life-long housekeeper - left; to reminisce in old age, to float and drift over the joys, losses and mysteries of childhood. Flora's brother, Eddie, is also gone. Who, now, will believe the story of the grey silk dress, and of what really happened between Eddie and Flora at the end of that long Irish summer?Intimate, elegiac and profoundly moving, Naming the Stars is an exquisite story of love, loss and memory from one of Ireland's best-loved writers.The Invisible Worm
By Jennifer Johnston. 1991
It starts with a funeral. The great and the good have assembled: the President has sent a representative, and dignitaries…
are there in force. And Laura remembers those two terrible events. But was the tragedy out at sea an accident? Was the experience in the summerhouse cause rather than effect? With wonderful delicacy and economy, Jennifer Johnston has stripped bare the lives of a family overwhelmed by more than one of the deadly sins. The Invisible Worm contains greater power and passion than most novels three times its length.The Illusionist
By Jennifer Johnston. 1995
When Stella first meets Martyn, he's just a stranger on a train. She knows nothing at all about him. But…
very quickly she is won over by his charm and breathtaking illusions, and when he asks her to marry him, she agrees. However, as they begin their life together, Stella starts to feel uneasy. What exactly is the show-stopping illusion he claims to be working on, locked away in that room? Who are those men that visit the house at strange hours? And why are her questions never answered? As Stella realises that she barely knows the man she married, her thoughts turn to escape.How Many Miles to Babylon?: A Novel (Penguin Essentials Ser. #63)
By Jennifer Johnston. 2010
From a Whitbread Award–winning author: A WWI novel of loyalty and friendship &“graced with the immanent lyrical talent of the…
Irish writers at their best&” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Born to an aristocratic family on an estate outside of Dublin, Alexander Moore feels the constraints of his position most acutely in his friendship with Jerry Crowe, a Catholic laborer in town. Jerry is one of the few bright spots in Alec&’s otherwise troubled life. The boys bond over their love of swimming and horses, despite the admonitions of Alec&’s cold and overbearing mother, who scolds her son for venturing outside of his class. When the Great War begins, he seizes the opportunity to escape his overbearing mother and taciturn father, and enlists in the British army. Jerry, too, enlists—not out of loyalty to Britain, but to prepare himself for the Republican cause. Stationed in Flanders, the young men are reunited and find that, while encamped in the trenches, their commonalities are what help them survive. Now a lieutenant and an officer, Alec and Jerry again find their friendship under assault, this time from the rigid Major Glendinning, whose unyielding adherence to rank leads the two men toward a harrowing impasse that will change their lives forever.The Old Jest: A Novel
By Jennifer Johnston. 1993
Winner of the Whitbread Literary Award for Best Novel: In the wake of the Great War, a young woman&’s life…
is turned upside down when she befriends a soldier of the grisly struggle on Ireland&’s horizonNancy lives with her aunt and ailing grandfather in a seaside town not far from Dublin. Eighteen and about to go to university, Nancy has spent her summer consumed in part by unrequited thoughts of her first love, Harry, a man eight years her senior. Nancy&’s one haven is the beach, where she has discovered an abandoned hut and claimed it as her personal sanctuary. One day, she arrives there to find that her inner sanctum has been invaded by a grizzled and desperate-looking man whom she names Cassius. An IRA foot soldier on the run, Cassius becomes something of a father figure to Nancy, and in a pivotal moment she agrees to deliver a message for him—a decision that will change her life forever. A beautiful coming-of-age novel set against the nascent Irish Troubles, The Old Jest is an award-winning portrait of loyalty, loss, and of one fateful encounter that propels a young woman into adulthood.A Sixpenny Song
By Jennifer Johnston. 2013
From Costa prizewinning and Booker-shortlisted Jennifer Johnston comes a beautifully crafted, alluring tale of family and secrets.Not every death is…
a tragedy. Not every silver lining is intact.Annie's father is dead. She isn't sorry. A rich and domineering man, he was always more passionate about money than the happiness of his wife and child. And when his lovely, fragile wife Jude died in mysterious circumstances when Annie was still very young, her father sent her to school in England, and tried to ensure that Jude was never mentioned again.Now, at last, his days of tyranny are over. And so Annie leaves London and goes back to Dublin, to the house in which he lived and her mother died, where she makes the first of several startling discoveries: he has left her the house she hated. Now, just when she thought she was free of him, she is expected to make a new life in Ireland, and live as he would have wished. Does she dare to defy him one more time? And who will be able to tell her the truth about her mother's life, and death, before she has to decide?Such Kindness: A Novel
By Andre Dubus III. 2023
A working-class white man takes a terrible fall. Tom Lowe’s identity and his pride are invested in the work he…
does with his back and his hands. He designed and built his family’s dream home, working extra hours to pay off the adjustable rate mortgage he took on the property, convinced he is making every sacrifice for the happiness of his wife and son. Until, in a moment of fatigued inattention, shingling a roof in too-bright sunlight, he falls. In constant pain, addicted to painkillers at the cost of his relationships with his wife and son, Tom slowly comes to realize that he can never work again. If he is not a working man, who is he? He is not, he believes, the kind of person who lives in subsidized housing, though that is where he has ended up. He is not the kind of person who hatches a scheme to commit convenience-check fraud, together with neighbors he considers lowlifes, until he finds himself stealing his banker’s trash. Who is Tom Lowe, and who will he become? Can he find a way to reunite hands and heart, mind and spirit, to be once again a giver and not just a taker, to forge a self-acceptance deeper than pride? Andre Dubus III’s soulful cast includes Trina, the struggling mom next door who sells her own plasma to get by; Dawn, the tough-talking owner of the local hairdressing salon; Jamie, a well-meaning pothead college student ready to stick it to “the man”; and a mix of strangers and neighbors who will never know the role they played in changing a life. To one man’s painful moral journey, Dubus brings compassion with an edge of dark absurdity, forging a novel as absorbing as it is profound.Monsters We Have Made: A Novel
By Lindsay Starck. 2024
A poignant and evocative novel that explores the bounds of familial love, the high stakes of parenthood, and the tenuous…
divide between fiction and reality.Thirteen years ago, Sylvia Gray's young daughter, Faye, attacked her babysitter in order to impress the Kingman, a monster she and her best friend had encountered on the Internet. When the now twenty-three-year-old Faye goes missing, leaving her toddler behind, Sylvia launches a search that propels her back into the past and back into the Kingman's orbit. With the help of her estranged husband and a sister she hasn't spoken to in years, Sylvia draws dangerously closer not only to Faye, but also to the truth about the monster that once inspired her. Will Sylvia be able to reach her daughter before history repeats itself? Or will it be Sylvia, this time, who loses her grip on reality and succumbs to the dark powers of this monstrous fiction?Both literary and suspenseful, Monsters We Have Made confronts the terrors of parenthood and examines the boundaries of love. Most importantly, it reminds us of the power of stories to shape our lives.All the World Beside: A Novel
By Garrard Conley. 2024
From the New York Times bestselling author of Boy Erased, an electrifying, deeply moving novel about the love story between…
two men in Puritan New England.Cana, Massachusetts: a utopian vision of 18th-century Puritan New England. To the outside world, Reverend Nathaniel Whitfield and his family stand as godly pillars of their small-town community, drawing Christians from across the New World into their fold. One such Christian, physician Arthur Lyman, discovers in the minister&’s words a love so captivating it transcends language.As the bond between these two men grows more and more passionate, their families must contend with a tangled web of secrets, lies, and judgments which threaten to destroy them in this world and the next. And when the religious ecstasies of the Great Awakening begin to take hold, igniting a new era of zealotry, Nathaniel and Arthur search for a path out of an impossible situation, imagining a future for themselves which has no name. Their wives and children must do the same, looking beyond the known world for a new kind of wilderness, both physical and spiritual.Set during the turbulent historical upheavals which shaped America&’s destiny and following in the tradition of Nathaniel Hawthorne&’s The Scarlet Letter, All the World Beside reveals the very human lives just beneath the surface of dogmatic belief. Bestselling author Garrard Conley has created a page-turning, vividly imagined historical tale that is both a love story and a crucible.The Limits: A novel
By Nell Freudenberger. 2024
The most thrilling work yet from the best-selling, prize-winning author of The Newlyweds and Lost and Wanted, a stunning new…
novel set in French Polynesia and New York City about three characters who undergo massive transformations over the course of a single yearFrom Mo&’orea, a tiny volcanic island off the coast of Tahiti, a French biologist obsessed with saving Polynesia&’s imperiled coral reefs sends her teenage daughter to live with her ex-husband in New York. By the time fifteen-year-old Pia arrives at her father Stephen&’s luxury apartment in Manhattan and meets his new, younger wife, Kate, she has been shuttled between her parents&’ disparate lives—her father&’s consuming work as a surgeon at an overwhelmed New York hospital, her mother&’s relentless drive against a ticking ecological clock—for most of her life. Fluent in French, intellectually precocious, moving between cultures with seeming ease, Pia arrives in New York poised for a rebellion, just as COVID sends her and her stepmother together into near total isolation. A New York City schoolteacher, Kate struggles to connect with a teenager whose capacity for destruction seems exceeded only by her privilege. Even as Kate fails to parent Pia—and questions her own ability to become a mother—one of her sixteen-year-old students is already caring for a toddler full time. Athyna&’s love for her nephew, Marcus, is a burden that becomes heavier as she struggles to finish her senior year online. Juggling her manifold responsibilities, Athyna finds herself more and more anxious every time she leaves the house. Just as her fear of what is waiting for her outside her Staten Island community feels insupportable, an incident at home makes her desperate to leave.When their lives collide, Pia and Athyna spiral toward parallel but inescapably different tragedies. Moving from a South Pacific &“paradise,&” where rage still simmers against the colonial government and its devastating nuclear tests, to the extreme inequalities of twenty-first century New York City, The Limits is an unforgettably moving novel about nation, race, class, and family. Heart-wrenching and humane, a profound work from one of America&’s most prodigiously gifted novelists.Mania: A Novel
By Lionel Shriver. 2024
Set in a parallel yet all too familiar near past, a brilliant subversive novel about a lifelong friendship threatened by…
culture wars, from the New York Times bestselling author.In an alternative 2011, the Mental Parity movement takes hold. Americans now embrace the sacred, universal truth that there is no such thing as variable human intelligence. Because everyone is equally smart, discrimination against purportedly dumb people is "the last great civil rights fight." Tests, grades, and employment qualifications are all discarded. Children are expelled for saying the S-word (“stupid”) and encouraged to report parents who use it at home.A college English instructor, the constitutionally rebellious Pearson Converse rejected her restrictive Jehovah’s Witness upbringing as a teenager, and so has an aversion to dogma of any kind. Made impotent in the university classroom, she’s also enraged by the crushing of her exceptionally bright children’s spirits in primary school. Fortunately, she enjoys the confidence of a best friend, a media commentator with whom she can speak frankly about her socially unacceptable contempt for the MP movement. Or at least she thinks she can . . . until one day the political chasm between the two women becomes uncrossable, and a lifelong relationship implodes.With echoes of Philip Roth’s The Human Stain, told in Lionel Shriver’s inimitable and iconoclastic voice, Mania is a sharp, acerbic, and ruthlessly funny book about the road to a delusional, self-destructive egalitarianism that our society is already on.Rhapsody: A Novel
By Mitchell James Kaplan. 2021
&“[A] shining rendition of Swift and Gershwin&’s star-crossed love.&” —Therese Anne Fowler, New York Times bestselling author In the vein…
of the New York Times bestseller Loving Frank, this fascinating and compelling novel &“will have you humming, toe-tapping, and singing along with every turn of the page&” (Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author) as it explores the decade-long relationship between the celebrated composer George Gershwin and gifted musician Katharine &“Kay&” Swift.When Katharine &“Kay&” Swift—the restless but loyal society wife of wealthy banker James Warburg and a serious pianist who longs for recognition—attends a performance of Rhapsody in Blue by a brilliant, elusive young musical genius named George Gershwin, her world is turned upside down. Transfixed, she&’s helpless to resist the magnetic pull of George&’s talent, charm, and swagger. Their ten-year love affair, complicated by her conflicted loyalty to her husband and the twists and turns of her own musical career, ends only with George&’s death from a brain tumor at the age of thirty-eight.Set in Jazz Age New York City, this stunning work of fiction explores the timeless bond between two brilliant, strong-willed artists. George Gershwin left behind not just a body of work unmatched in popular musical history, but a woman who loved him with all her heart, knowing all the while that he belonged not to her, but to the world.