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Life Events: A Novel
By Karolina Waclawiak. 2020
One of Buzzfeed's 29 Books We Couldn't Put Down This Year“Every page of this novel is a point of no…
return; once you’ve read Karolina Waclawiak's Life Events, you will never see life, death, grief, and healing the same way.”—Saeed Jones, author of How We Fight for Our LivesA woman at a crossroads learns the only way to reclaim her life is to help others dieKarolina Waclawiak’s breakout novel, Life Events, follows Evelyn, who, at thirty-seven, is on the verge of divorce and anxiously dreading the death of everyone she loves. She combats her existential crisis by avoiding her husband and aimlessly driving along the freeways of California looking for an escape—one that eventually comes when she discovers a collective of “exit guides.” Evelyn enrolls in their training course, where she learns to provide companionship and a final exit for terminally ill patients seeking a conscious departure.She meets Daphne, a dying woman still full of life; Lawrence, an aging porn king; and Daniel, who seems too young to die and whom Evelyn falls for, despite knowing better, not to mention the exit guide code. Each client opens something new in Evelyn, allowing her a chance to access her own grief and confront the self-destructive ways she suppresses her pain. When Evelyn travels through the Southwest to an afterlife convention to further her death education, she must finally face her complicated relationship with her alcoholic father and reconcile her life choices.Sensitively observed and darkly funny, Life Events is a moving, enlivening story of the human condition: the doldrums of loneliness, the consuming regret of past mistakes, and the thrill, finally, of finding meaning—and love—where you least expect it.Breathless in Bombay: Stories
By Murzban F. Shroff. 2008
Shortlisted for the 2009 Commomwealth Writers' Prize Shroff's vibrant narratives in this concept collection of 14 stories set in contemporary…
Bombay feature a range of beautifully drawn characters in fascinating situations: from the laundrywallas' water shortage problems, to the doomed love affair of a schizophrenic painter and his Bollywood girlfriend, to the wandering thoughts of a massagewalla at Chowpatty Beach, to the heart-warming relationship of a carriage driver and his beloved horse. Each of these stories is richly crafted and arranged against the grand chaotic backdrop of life that is Bombay. Shroff's love for his hometown shines through, but so does his deep understanding of its challenges and problems. The reader is afforded an insider's view of this pulsating city, and through an unforgettable emotional and cultural journey comes to care for the characters presented in these stories.A Pagan Place: A Novel
By Edna O'Brien. 2001
A newly reissued edition of this haunting, poetic coming-of-age novel from “one of the great writers...in the English-speaking world” (The…
New York Times)“O’Brien’s evocative prose shows the chilling hold that history and the dead clamp on the living.” —Paul Gray, Time“O’Brien brings together the earthy and the delicately poetic: she has the soul of Molly Bloom and the skills of Virginia Woolf.” —Ray Sawhill, NewsweekIn A Pagan Place, Edna O’Brien returns to Ireland, the uniquely wonderful, terrible, and peculiar place she once called home. After leaving to join a religious community in Belgium, a young woman remembers her childhood on the western coast of Ireland. She reflects on the rituals of rural life, the people she encountered, and the enchanting beauty of the landscape.This is the Ireland of country villages and barley fields, of mischievous girls and druids in the woods. As the impressions of her former home intensify, her mind turns to the shocking event that led to her departure.Merge: Two Short Novels From Crosstown To Oblivion (From Crosstown to Oblivion)
By Walter Mosley. 2012
Walter Mosley's talent knows no bounds. Love Machine is one of six fragments in the Crosstown to Oblivion short novels…
in which Mosley entertainingly explores life's cosmic questions. From life's meaning to the nature of good and evil, these tales take us on speculative journeys beyond the reality we have come to know. In each tale someone in our world today is given insight into these long pondered mysteries. But how would the world really receive the answers?Raleigh Redman loved Nicci Charbon until she left him heartbroken. Then he hit the lotto for twenty-four million dollars, quit his minimum wage job and set his sights on one goal: reading the entire collection of lectures in the Popular Educator Library, the only thing his father left behind after he died. As Raleigh is trudging through the eighth volume, he notices something in his apartment that at first seems ordinary but quickly reveals itself to be from a world very different from our own. This entity shows Raleigh joy beyond the comforts of twenty-four million dollars...and merges our world with those that live beyond.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls: A Novel
By Ursula Hegi. 2020
"A joy to read." —New York Times Book ReviewFrom beloved bestselling author Ursula Hegi, a new novel about three mothers,…
set on the shores of the Nordsee, perfect for fans of Water for Elephants and The Light Between Oceans.In the summer of 1878, the Ludwig Zirkus arrives on Nordstrand in Germany, to the delight of the island’s people. But after the show, a Hundred-Year Wave roars from the Nordsee and claims three young children. Three mothers are on the beach when it happens: Lotte, whose children are lost; Sabine, a Zirkus seamstress with her grown daughter; and Tilli, just a girl herself, who will give birth later that day at St. Margaret’s Home for Pregnant Girls. After the tragedy, Lotte’s husband escapes with the Zirkus, while she loses the will to care for their surviving son. Tilli steps in, bonding with him in a way she isn’t allowed to with her own baby, taken away at birth. Sabine, struggling to keep her childlike daughter safe in the world, forms a complicated friendship with Lotte. But the mothers' fragile trio is threatened when Lotte and her husband hatch a dangerous plan to reunite their family, and Tilli and Sabine must try to find a way to pull them back to reality. As full of joy and beauty as it is of pain, and told with the luminous power that has made Ursula Hegi a beloved bestselling author for decades, The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls is a shining testament to the ways in which women hold each other up in the most unexpected of circumstances.At Last: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother's Milk, And At Last (The Patrick Melrose Novels #5)
By Edward St. Aubyn. 2011
Now a 5-Part Limited Event Series on Showtime, Starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Blythe DannerA New York Times Notable Book of…
the Year • One of TIME's Top 10 Fiction Books of the Year • Named One of the best books of the Year by The Telegraph and EsquireHere, from the writer described by The Guardian as "our purest living prose stylist" and whom Alan Hollinghurst has called "the most brilliant English novelist of his generation," is a work of glittering social comedy, profound emotional truth, and acute verbal wit. At Last is also the stunning culmination of one of the great fiction enterprises of the past two decades in the life of the English novel.As readers of Edward St. Aubyn's extraordinary earlier works—Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and the Man Booker Prize finalist Mother's Milk—are well aware, for Patrick Melrose, "family" has always been a double-edged sword. At Last begins as friends, relatives, and foes trickle in to pay final respects to his mother, Eleanor. An American heiress, Eleanor married into the British aristocracy, giving up the grandeur of her upbringing for "good works" freely bestowed on everyone but her own son, who finds himself questioning whether his transition to a life without parents will indeed be the liberation he had so long imagined. The service ends, and family and friends gather for a final party. Amid the social niceties and social horrors, Patrick begins to sense the prospect of release from the extremes of his childhood, and at the end of the day, alone in his room, the promise some form of safety...at last.Now a 5-Part Limited Event Series on Showtime, Starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Blythe DannerMan Booker–shortlisted Mother's Milk, the fourth installment…
in Edward St. Aubyn's wonderful, wry, and profound Patrick Melrose Cycle, sees Patrick as a lawyer, married, with a five-year-old child and another on the way. The novel shifts points of view from Patrick—furious over his mother's decision to sell their mansion in the South of France to a ridiculous New Age hippie—to Patrick's wife, overburdened by motherhood, to Patrick's mother, growing senile and despondent, and even to Patrick's young son Robert, who reflects with hilarious and disturbing clarity on the moments of his birth.The Gift of Fire: Two Short Novels From Crosstown To Oblivion (From Crosstown to Oblivion)
By Walter Mosley. 2012
In ancient mythology, the Titan Prometheus was punished by the gods for bringing man the gift of fire—an event that…
set humankind on its course of knowledge. As punishment for making man as powerful as gods, Prometheus was bound to a rock; every day his immortal body was devoured by a giant eagle. But in Walter Mosley's The Gift of Fire, those chains cease to be, and the great champion of man walks from that immortal prison into present-day South Central Los Angeles.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.The Next Step in the Dance: A Novel
By Tim Gautreaux. 1998
Bringing the same light and gentle understanding that he did to the story collection Same Place, Same Things, author Tim…
Gautreaux tells the tale of Paul and Colette, star-crossed and factious lovers struggling to make it in rural south Louisiana. When Colette, fed up with small town life, perceives yet another indiscretion by the fun-loving Paul, she heads for Los Angeles, with big dreams and Paul in tow. Paul's attempts to draw his beautiful young wife back home to the Cajun bayou, and back to his heart, make up a tale filled with warmth, devotion and majestically constructed scenes of Southern life, in The Next Step in the Dance.If I Told You Once: A Novel
By Judy Budnitz. 1999
In her utterly original novel about mothers, daughters, and love, Judy Budnitz gives the traditional folktale an electrifying twist as…
she follows four generations of women from an Eastern European village to the tenements of an American city. Elena, born into a family ruled by a formidable mother, embarks on an epic journey to the New World, met along the way by evil, magic, and good fortune. The daughter, grand-daughter, and great-granddaughter who follow each share her special powers of observation and, often, destruction. The result is a family saga unlike any other: a hilarious, heartbreaking story of family ties that bind.Tender: A Novel
By Belinda McKeon. 2015
A searing novel about longing, intimacy, and obsession from the award-winning author of Solace. When they meet in Dublin in…
the late nineties, Catherine and James become close as two friends can be. She is a sheltered college student, he an adventurous, charismatic young artist. In a city brimming with possibilities, he spurs her to take life on with gusto. But as Catherine opens herself to new experiences, James's life becomes a prison; as changed as the new Ireland may be, it is still not a place in which he feels able to truly be himself. Catherine, grateful to James and worried for him, desperately wants to help -- but as time moves on, and as life begins to take the friends in difference directions, she discovers that there is a perilously fine line between helping someone and hurting him further. When crisis hits, Catherine finds herself at the mercy of feelings she cannot control, leading her to jeopardize all she holds dear. By turns exhilarating and devastating, Tender is a dazzling exploration of human relationships, of the lies we tell ourselves and the lies we are taught to tell. It is the story of first love and lost innocence, of discovery and betrayal. A tense high-wire act with keen psychological insights, this daring novel confirms Belinda McKeon as a major voice in contemporary fiction, joining the ranks of the masterful Edna O'Brien and Anne Enright.The Hidden School: Return of the Peaceful Warrior
By Dan Millman. 2017
In the long-awaited conclusion to the international bestselling Peaceful Warrior saga, Dan Millman takes us on an epic spiritual quest…
across the world as he searches for the link between everyday life and transcendent possibility.Picking up where his journey ended in Way of the Peaceful Warrior, Dan Millman moves from Honolulu to the Mojave Desert, and from a bustling Asian city to a secluded forest, until he uncovers the mystery of The Hidden School. While traversing continents, he uncovers lessons of life hidden in plain sight—insights pointing the way to an inspired life in the eternal present. Along the way, he encounters remarkable characters and brushes with mortality as he explores the nature of reality, the self, death, and finally, a secret as ancient as the roots of this world. Awaken to the hidden powers of paradox, humor, and change. Discover a vision that may forever change your perspectives about life&’s promise and potential.The Incarnations: A Novel
By Susan Barker. 2015
New York Times Notable Book of 2015 Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of 2015 Finalist for the 2015 Kirkus Prize…
for Fiction Winner of a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize Hailed by The New York Times for its &“wildly ambitious...dazzling use of language&” and &“mesmerizing storytelling,&” The Incarnations is a &“brilliant, mind-expanding, and wildly original novel&” (Chris Cleave) about a Beijing taxi driver whose past incarnations over one thousand years haunt him through searing letters sent by his mysterious soulmate.Who are you? you must be wondering. I am your soulmate, your old friend, and I have come back to this city of sixteen million in search of you. So begins the first letter that falls into Wang’s lap as he flips down the visor in his taxi. The letters that follow are filled with the stories of Wang’s previous lives—from escaping a marriage to a spirit bride, to being a slave on the run from Genghis Khan, to living as a fisherman during the Opium Wars, and being a teenager on the Red Guard during the cultural revolution—bound to his mysterious “soulmate,” spanning one thousand years of betrayal and intrigue. As the letters continue to appear seemingly out of thin air, Wang becomes convinced that someone is watching him—someone who claims to have known him for over a century. And with each letter, Wang feels the watcher growing closer and closer… Seamlessly weaving Chinese folklore, history, literary classics, and the notion of reincarnation, this is a taut and gripping novel that reveals the cyclical nature of history as it hints that the past is never truly settled.West: A Novel
By Carys Davies. 2019
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Sunday Times (UK) * The Guardian (UK) * The Washington Independent…
Review of Books * Sydney Morning Herald * The Los Angeles Public Library * The Irish Independent * Real Simple * Finalist for the Rathbones Folio Prize &“Carys Davies is a deft, audacious visionary.&” —Téa ObrehtWhen widowed mule breeder Cy Bellman reads in the newspaper that colossal ancient bones have been discovered in the salty Kentucky mud, he sets out from his small Pennsylvania farm to see for himself if the rumors are true: that the giant monsters are still alive and roam the uncharted wilderness beyond the Mississippi River. Promising to write and to return in two years, he leaves behind his only daughter, Bess, to the tender mercies of his taciturn sister and heads west. With only a barnyard full of miserable animals and her dead mother&’s gold ring to call her own, Bess, unprotected and approaching womanhood, fills lonely days tracing her father&’s route on maps at the subscription library and waiting for his letters to arrive. Bellman, meanwhile, wanders farther and farther from home, across harsh and alien landscapes, in reckless pursuit of the unknown. From Frank O&’Connor Award winner Carys Davies, West is a spellbinding and timeless epic-in-miniature, an eerie parable of the American frontier and an electric monument to possibility.Mansions of the Moon
By Shyam Selvadurai. 2022
A Globe and Mail Best Book • A Guardian Summer Book Pick • A CBC Best Canadian Fiction Book of…
the Year • From the bestselling, award-winning author of Funny Boy and The Hungry Ghosts comes a breathtaking reimagining of ancient India through the extraordinary life of Yasodhara, the woman who married the Buddha.In this sweeping tale, at once epic and intimate, Shyam Selvadurai introduces us to Siddhartha Gautama—who will later become &“the enlightened one,&” or the Buddha—an unusually bright and politically astute young man settling into his upper-caste life as a newlywed to Yasodhara, a woman of great intelligence and spirit. Mansions of the Moon traces the couple&’s early love and life together, and then the anguished turmoil that descends upon them both as Siddhartha&’s spiritual calling takes over and the marriage partnership slowly, inexorably crumbles. Eventually, Yasodhara is forced to ask what kind of life a woman can lead in ancient India if her husband abandons her—even a well-born woman such as herself. And is there a path she, too, might take towards enlightenment?Award-winning writer Shyam Selvadurai examines these questions with empathy and insight, creating a vivid portrait of a fascinating time and place, the intricate web of power, family and relationships that surround a singular marriage, and the remarkable woman who until now has remained a little-understood shadow in the historical record. Mansions of the Moon is an immersive, lively and thrilling feat of literary imagination.Lady Tan's Circle of Women: A Novel
By Lisa See. 2023
*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!* From &“one of those special writers capable of delivering both poetry and plot&” (The New York…
Times Book Review) an immersive historical novel inspired by the true story of a woman physician in 15th-century China—perfect for fans of Lisa See&’s classics Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane.According to Confucius, &“an educated woman is a worthless woman,&” but Tan Yunxian—born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness—is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations—looking, listening, touching, and asking—something a man can never do with a female patient. From a young age, Yunxian learns about women&’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other&’s joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom. But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot slippers, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights. How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these efforts? A captivating story of women helping each other, Lady Tan&’s Circle of Women is a triumphant reimagining of the life of one person who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.My Happy Life
By Lydia Millet. 2007
At the opening of My Happy Life, the unnamed narrator has been abandoned in a locked room of a deserted…
mental hospital. She hasn't seen the nice man who brings her food in days; so she's eaten the soap, the toothpaste, and even tried to eat the plaster on her walls a dietary adventure that ended none too well. This woman's story, covering decades and spanning continents, is tragic, yet she is curiously at peace, even happy. Despite a lifetime of neglect, physical abuse, and loss, she's incapable of perceiving slight or injury. She has infinite faith in the goodwill of others, loves even her enemies, and finds grace and communion in places most people wouldn't dare to brave. Lauded by both critics and readers, My Happy Life consistently surprises and excites with its original vision of a unique woman whose rich interior life protects her from the horrors of external reality.The Square of Sevens: A Novel
By Laura Shepherd-Robinson. 2023
This &“intricately plotted, epic&” (The Times, London) international bestseller—in the vein of the vivid novels of Sarah Waters and Sarah…
Perry—follows an orphaned fortune teller in 18th-century England as she searches for answers about her long-dead mother.Cornwall, 1730: A young girl known only as Red travels with her father making a living predicting fortunes using the ancient Cornish method of the Square of Sevens. Shortly before he dies, her father entrusts Red&’s care to a gentleman scholar, along with a document containing the secret of the Square of Sevens technique. Raised as a lady amidst the Georgian splendor of Bath, Red&’s fortune telling delights in high society. But she cannot ignore the questions that gnaw at her soul: who was her mother? How did she die? And who are the mysterious enemies her father was always terrified would find him? The pursuit of these mysteries takes her from Cornwall and Bath to London and Devon, from the rough ribaldry of the Bartholomew Fair to the grand houses of two of the most powerful families in England. And while Red&’s quest brings her the possibility of great reward, it also leads to grave danger. &“Intricate, haunting, and magical by turns, Laura Shepherd-Robinson&’s tale is an absolute immersive read you won&’t soon forget&” (Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author).God on a Harley: A Spiritual Fable
By Joan Brady. 1995
The beloved modern classic about a woman who finds love—and herself—from an unexpected source.At thirty-seven, Christine Moore has an overwhelming…
case of burnout with a frustrating career, a few dead-end romances, and a less-than-perfect figure. Little does she know her life is about to change in a way she could&’ve never imagined. &“Come out of the shadows, Christine. You&’ve spent far too much time hiding in shadows.&” These words are spoken to her by a gorgeous man astride a 1340cc Harley-Davidson, mysteriously parked on a moonlit beach near her home. Inexplicably drawn to this stranger—who seems to know everything about her—Christine finds herself surrendering to his words. So begins her remarkable voyage of the spirit that sets her heart and soul free. Suddenly appreciating every precious moment of life, Christine discovers the six wonderous steps that lead to ultimate peace and joy. &“A whimsical tale of a journey toward spiritual fulfillment&” (Publishers Weekly), God on a Harley is the perfect gift for everyone who&’s had a broken heart but still believes in genuine happiness. Need a lift?Delphi: A Novel
By Clare Pollard. 2009
A Guardian Best Book of 2022 * &“Clever and surprising.&” —BuzzFeed * &“Brilliantly funny.&” —San Francisco Chronicle * &“Ingenious.&”—The Millions…
* &“Powerful.&” —Harper&’s Bazaar A captivating debut novel about a classics professor immersed in research for a new book on a prophecy in the ancient world who confronts chilling questions about her own life just as the pandemic descends—for readers of Jenny Offill, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Sally Rooney.Covid-19 has arrived in London, and the entire world quickly succumbs to the surreal, chaotic mundanity of screens, isolation, and the disasters big and small that have plagued recent history. As our unnamed narrator—a classics professor immersed in her studies of ancient prophecies—navigates the tightening grip of lockdown, a marriage in crisis, and a ten-year-old son who seems increasingly unreachable, she becomes obsessed with predicting the future. Shifting her focus from chiromancy (prophecy by palm reading) to zoomancy (prophecy by animal behavior) to oenomancy (prophecy by wine), she fails to notice the future creeping into the heart of her very own home, and when she finally does, the threat has already breached the gates. Brainy and ominous, imaginative and funny, Delphi is a snapshot and a time capsule—it vividly captures our current moment and places our reality in the context of myth. Clare Pollard has delivered one of our first great pandemic novels, a mesmerizing and richly layered story about how we keep on living in a world that is ever-more uncertain and absurd.