An expansive, eye-opening novel that captures the vibrancy of China todayPhoebe is a factory girl who has come to Shanghai with the promise of a job—but when she arrives she discovers that the job doesn’t exist. Gary is a country boy turned pop star who is spinning out of control. Justin is in Shanghai to expand his family’s real estate empire, only to find that he might not be up to the task. He has long harbored a crush on Yinghui, a poetry-loving, left-wing activist who has reinvented herself as a successful Shanghai businesswoman. Yinghui is about to make a deal with the shadowy Walter Chao, the five star billionaire of the novel, who with his secrets and his schemes has a hand in the lives of each of the characters. All bring their dreams and hopes to Shanghai, the shining symbol of the New China, which, like the novel’s characters, is constantly in flux and which plays its own fateful role in the lives of its inhabitants.Five Star Billionaire is a dazzling, kaleidoscopic novel that offers rare insight into the booming world of Shanghai, a city of elusive identities and ever-changing skylines, of grand ambitions and outsize dreams. Bursting with energy, contradictions, and the promise of possibility, Tash Aw’s remarkable new book is both poignant and comic, exotic and familiar, cutting-edge and classic, suspenseful and yet beautifully unhurried.Praise for *Five Star Billionaire “The ambition of the book perfectly reflects its subject. In one scene, we’re introduced to a ‘folk guitarist whose slangy lyrics spoke of urban migration and loneliness.’ Aw might be describing himself, except that his threnodies are set to sophisticated modern jazz.”—Pico Iyer, Time*“Tash Aw’s brilliant new novel focuses on four Malaysian immigrants, all determinedly on the make. . . . The unputdownable story of how these lives interconnect and touch upon the billionaire of the title, a shadowy avenging angel, is played out against the noisy, glitzy backdrop of a society on the cusp between abandoning old values and embracing a lifestyle as flashy as its neon glow.”—Daily Mail (UK)“Aw is a master storyteller and Five Star Billionaire can be read as The Way We Live Now for our times. . . . [It is a story] of lives lost and found, of the transience of material success and the courage required to hope and to trust again, to forgive oneself and to believe in the possibility of love.”—The Guardian (UK)“An innovative novel of the twenty-first-century immigrant experience . . . a new kind of immigrant novel.”—The Telegraph (UK)“Engrossing . . . seductive.”—The Observer (UK)“A must-read . . . Exciting plot twists and page-turning drama are aplenty. . . . In the end, the novel has a hopeful tone—when everything appears bleak there’s always a silver lining, and you are the only one who can take charge of your own fate.”—The Star (Malaysia)“Few people can write about a place with both the astute observation of an outsider and the deep understanding of an insider. When the place is Shanghai, and when that writer is Tash Aw, we get a novel that is as multifaceted as the city itself, in which stories of the old and the new, the rich and the poor, the dreaming and the disillusioned, are woven together by a master storyteller. Tash Aw is an essential voice for the global world we live in today.”—Yiyun Li, author of Gold Boy, Emerald GirlAmazon.com ReviewAn Amazon Best Book of the Month, July 2013: In his ambitious third novel, Tash Aw draws a luminous portrait of four new, disparate arrivals to Shanghai: a venerable business woman, a pop star, a factory girl turned socialite, and an inheritor of his family real-estate, all of whose fates are tied to an elusive billionaire. But Five Star Billionaire is as much about people as it is about place: Shanghai represents the booming economic growth of China. It's a city of over 23 million people--some trying to make a name for themselves, others just trying to get by (for comparison sake, that's nearly three times as many people as New York City). By the end, Five Star Billionaire doesn't feel so foreign. The characters don't find personal fulfillment, but they're finally moving in the right direction. Aw reveals that the American Dream isn't so uniquely American as it is a byproduct of capitalism. Or perhaps it's a byproduct of the human condition: money becomes a way to quantify one's worth, to cure one's unhappiness. In such a big city, everything that matters is inward. --Kevin NguyenReviewPraise for *Five Star Billionaire “[Five Star Billionaire] aches with grieving humanity as it follows the crisscrossing ups and downs of five migrant characters trying to make their mark on contemporary Shanghai. . . . Towering about them all is the theater of illusions that is the novel’s dominant character, Shanghai. Aw brings to its whirligig, cashed-up culture the hyperobservant eye and the sympathetic heart he displayed in The Harmony Silk Factory and Map of the Invisible World. Sometimes it seems as if he has ingested every last detail of rising Asia’s latest glossy magazines, yet never lost sight of the emptiness in the models’ eyes or the wistfulness in the lonely readers’ hearts. . . . As Aw orchestrates the overlapping of his lost souls, the story comes to acquire the mirrored complexity of its setting. No one knows who anyone is—not even themselves—and when one character reveals himself as a (real) celebrity, he’s taken to be the most shameless fake of all. And because Aw’s polyphonic structure shows us every character as they look to themselves, and as they’re seen by others, we teeter at every moment on the gap between reality and appearance. . . . As an evocation of a world in which friendships are business deals and people conduct virtual lives . . . Five Star Billionaire is hard to beat. . . . The ambition of the book perfectly reflects its subject. In one scene, we’re introduced to a ‘folk guitarist whose slangy lyrics spoke of urban migration and loneliness.’ Aw might be describing himself, except that his threnodies are set to sophisticated modern jazz.”—Pico Iyer, Time*“Tash Aw’s brilliant new novel focuses on four Malaysian immigrants, all determinedly on the make. . . . The unputdownable story of how these lives interconnect and touch upon the billionaire of the title, a shadowy avenging angel, is played out against the noisy, glitzy backdrop of a society on the cusp between abandoning old values and embracing a lifestyle as flashy as its neon glow.”—Daily Mail (UK)“Aw is a master storyteller and Five Star Billionaire can be read as The Way We Live Now for our times. . . . [It is a story] of lives lost and found, of the transience of material success and the courage required to hope and to trust again, to forgive oneself and to believe in the possibility of love.”—The Guardian (UK)“An innovative novel of the twenty-first-century immigrant experience . . . a new kind of immigrant novel.”—The Telegraph (UK)“Engrossing . . . seductive.”—The Observer (UK)“A must-read . . . Exciting plot twists and page-turning drama are aplenty. . . . In the end, the novel has a hopeful tone—when everything appears bleak there’s always a silver lining, and you are the only one who can take charge of your own fate.”—The Star (Malaysia)“Few people can write about a place with both the astute observation of an outsider and the deep understanding of an insider. When the place is Shanghai, and when that writer is Tash Aw, we get a novel that is as multifaceted as the city itself, in which stories of the old and the new, the rich and the poor, the dreaming and the disillusioned, are woven together by a master storyteller. Tash Aw is an essential voice for the global world we live in today.”—Yiyun Li, author of Gold Boy, Emerald Girl“A literary victory . . . Think of Aw’s third novel as an ingenious game called ‘How To Be a Billionaire.’ . . . The playing board is Shanghai, that twenty-first-century city of limitless possibility; the power broker is the epyonymous Five Star Billionaire. A quartet of players . . . are revealed one by one. . . . Aw moves fluidly between past and present, creating a multilayered narrative about chasing, catching, and sometimes losing elusive opportunities.”—Library Journal (starred review) Views: 16
Tish takes it upon herself to attend a coronation and save a kingA naive observer might not immediately see a connection between the newspaper accounts of a man found naked on a church steeple, a constable attacked from the sky, and a grocer assaulted by balloon bandits. But these stories are tied together by a single word: Tish, the nutty maid who has never let old age get in the way of a good time.When her nephew announces a trip to England to write about the Coronation, Tish demands to come along. Fearing a diplomatic incident, her nephew refuses, but Tish resolves to find another way. It's not long before she takes to the air—and the sky will never be the same.In these stories, Tish and her friends advise young lovers on bad haircuts, contend with fish in Florida and bears in the far west, and narrowly avoid confrontation with the waxworks at Madame Tussaud's. With her unwavering, destructive enthusiasm, this sprightly old spinster gives new meaning to the phrase... Views: 16
SWEET PASSION...
After a magical mishap that turned her uncle’s house blue, Miss Amelia Bourne was stripped of her powers and sent to London in order to be introduce into polite society—and to find a suitable husband. Handsome, rakish Sebastian “Fox” Stapleton was all that and more. He was her true love. Wasn’t he?
…OR THE BITTER TASTE OF DECEIT?
At Rawdon Park, the country estate of the Stapletons, Amy began to wonder. Several inexplicable events suggested that one sip of punch had changed her life forever—that this love, this lust, were nothing but an illusion. She and Fox were pawns in a mysterious game, and black magic had followed them out of Town. Without her powers, would she be strong enough to battle those dark forces? And would she be able to claim her heart’s true desire? Views: 16
Kaile lives in Zombay, an astonishing city where goblins walk the streets and witches work their charms and curses. Kaile wants to be a musician and is delighted when a goblin gives her a flute carved out of bone. But the flute’s single, mournful song has a dangerous consequence: it separates Kaile and her shadow. Anyone without a shadow is considered dead, and despite Kaile’s protests that she’s alive and breathing, her family forces her to leave so she can’t haunt their home. Kaile and her shadow soon learn that the troublesome flute is tied to a terrifying ghoul made from the bones of those who drowned in the Zombay River. With the ghoul chasing her and the river threatening to flood, Kaile has an important role to play in keeping Zombay safe. Will Kaile and her shadow be able to learn the right tune in time? Views: 16
Police detective Chad Detweiler is overjoyed to learn he's having a baby with Kiki Lowenstein. But when his estranged wife, Brenda, is found shot to death with bullets from his revolver, the proud papa-to-be finds himself up the creek without a lawyer. Meanwhile, Kiki and Dodie Goldfader are in for a surprise when an unidentified young woman bursts into their craft store claiming to have killed Dodie's son. Embarking on a memorial scrapbook project as a ruse to unravel the facts, Kiki can't stop herself from wondering if the man she loves is tangled up in murder. Views: 16
A book that will make you see yourself clearly for the first time.When Becky Randle's mother dies, she's whisked from her trailer park home to New York. There she meets Tom Kelly, the world's top designer, who presents Becky with an impossible offer: He'll design three dresses to transform the very average Becky into the most beautiful woman who ever lived.Soon Becky is remade as Rebecca - pure five-alarm hotness to the outside world and an awkward mess of cankles and split ends when she's alone. With Rebecca's remarkable beauty as her passport, soon Becky's life resembles a fairy tale. She stars in a movie, VOGUE calls, and she starts to date Prince Gregory, heir to the English throne. That's when everything crumbles. Because Rebecca aside, Becky loves him. But the idea of a prince looking past Rebecca's blinding beauty to see the real girl inside? There's not enough magic in the world.Defiant, naughty, and impossibly fun, GORGEOUS answers a question that bewilders us all: Just who the hell IS that in the mirror?Review"When I wasn't laughing out loud (which was often), I was wiping away a tiny tear." - Meg Cabot"Paul Rudnick is a champion of truth and love and great wicked humor, whom we ignore at our peril." - David Sedaris"[G]leefully wacky and irreverent . . . readers are treated to Rudnick's considerable talents as a satirist as he uproariously eviscerates our celebrity-mad, class-conscious, appearance-obsessed, reality-TV-vapid culture with puckish delight . . . a wicked good time, with moments both outlandish and touching. And as a summer beach read? Well, it's perfect." - Libba Bray, New York Times Book Review"Rudnick's first Y.A. novel is full of magic, snark, style, heart, and hilarity." - The Atlantic WireHuffington Post's Five Things We're Into This Week"Paul Rudnick's young adult debut, Gorgeous, is not a fairy tale. 'Because in real life, fairy tales always end badly.' What it is is a satire sharp as a stiletto heel that takes on celebrity culture, the fashion industry, consumerism, and princess stories. Oh, and it's wickedly hilarious." - Boston Globe"With writing that's hilarious, profane, and profound (often within a single sentence), Rudnick casts a knowing eye on our obsession with fame, brand names, and royalty to create a feel-good story about getting what you want without letting beauty blind you to what's real." - Publishers Weekly, starred review“Acute, wickedly funny observations on appearance and identity punctuate this sprawling, caustic fairy tale that cheerfully skewers the fashion and film worlds and their celebrity-culture spawn. . . . A Cinderella story with a difference, Becky's journey to reconcile her inner household drudge and outer princess starts where most fairy tales end.” - Kirkus ReviewsAbout the AuthorPaul Rudnick is a frequent contributer to the NEW YORKER and ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, as well as an Obie Award-winning playwright, and the screenwriter for ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES and IN & OUT. This is his first young adult novel. Views: 16
Set during the early years of the reign of the Mad Emperor Caligula,this first installment of the Leopard King Saga introduces us to Tullus, a gifted Roman Centurion who resigns his elite position in the Praetorian Guard to join a troupe of circus performers and learn more about his hidden magical talents. Along with his new partner, a magical Leopardess named Celestra, he re-invents himself as The Leopard King, the most famous entertainer in all the Roman Empire. But when Tullus' friend and Circus Ringmaster, Paullus Gabinius, is killed, Tullus and Celestra find themselves immersed in political intrigue and up against Paullus' killers. Their struggle to avenge Paullus will also cause them to cross paths with corrupt Roman politicians, who know Paullus' deadly secret-which has the power to destroy the Roman Empire. Views: 16
RetailWho is that hairy guy in the green Speedo? Rob Delaney is a father, a husband, a comedian, a writer. He is the author of an endless stream of beautiful, insane jokes on Twitter. He is sober. He is sometimes brave. He speaks French. He loves women with abundant pubic hair and saggy naturals. He has bungee jumped off of the Manhattan Bridge. He enjoys antagonizing political figures. He listens to metal while he works out. He likes to fart. He broke into an abandoned mental hospital with his mother. He played Sir Lancelot in Camelot. He has battled depression. He is funny as s***. He cleans up well. He is friends with Margaret Atwood. He is lucky to be alive.Read these hilarious and heartbreaking true stories and learn how Rob came to be the man he is today. Praise for *Rob Delaney*“A book as funny, sincere, weird, wet, and wonderful as Rob Delaney himself.”—Jimmy Kimmel“Rob Delaney has done it again! Actually, this is his first book, so he has not ‘done it again.’ Actually, this book is so good, I doubt he will be able to do it again. He’s peaked.”—Judd Apatow “Rob’s transition from tweets to book is like a gold medal sprinter winning the marathon the next day. I am jealous and angry.”—Seth Meyers “WARNING: This book may cause involuntary seepage. Some funny, funny, funny, funny s* from the most dangerous man on Twitter. The fact that he’s just as funny in long form makes me want to vomit with envy.”—Anthony Bourdain** “All it takes to be as funny as Rob Delaney is luck, good timing, deep compassion, reckless imaginative agility, a flawless grasp of the inner workings of language, and criminally vast quantities of mojo. What a jerk.”—Teju Cole, author of *Open City*** Views: 16
