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A collection of short stories by a world-renowned naturalist and author of My Family and Other Animals introduces an eccentric cast of characters including a prize-truffling pig in France and an aging Memphis belle. Views: 45
Bobbie Ann Mason burst onto the American literary scene during a renaissance of short fiction that Raymond Carver called a "literary phenomenon." Anne Tyler hailed Mason as "a full-fledged master of the short story." Mason's work, charged with a spirit of exploration, garnered both popular and critical acclaim.This reader collects outstanding examples of Mason's award-winning work from throughout her writing career and provides a unique look at the development of one of the country's finest writers. Patchwork contains short stories first published in the New Yorker and other leading periodicals; chapters from Mason's acclaimed novels, including In Country, An Atomic Romance, and The Girl in the Blue Beret; and riveting excerpts from Mason's eclectic nonfiction. Some examples of Mason's recent explorations in flash fiction appear here in print for the first time.Mason's writing glows with a nuanced understanding of the struggles and... Views: 45
A fantasy about a nobleman bisected into his good and evil halves. "Executed with brilliance and brio"(Chicago Tribune). Translated by Archibald Colquhoun. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book Views: 45
It's rare for someone to emerge in America who can change our attitudes, our beliefs, and our very culture. It's even rarer when that someone is a middle-aged, six-foot three-inch woman whose first exposure to an unsuspecting public is cooking an omelet on a hot plate on a local TV station. And yet, that's exactly what Julia Child did. The warble-voiced doyenne of television cookery became an iconic cult figure and joyous rule-breaker as she touched off the food revolution that has gripped America for more than fifty years. Now, in Bob Spitz's definitive, wonderfully affectionate biography, the Julia we know and love comes vividly -- and surprisingly -- to life. In Dearie, Spitz employs the same skill he brought to his best-selling, critically acclaimed book The Beatles, providing a clear-eyed portrait of one of the most fascinating and influential Americans of our time -- a woman known to all, yet known by only a few.At its heart,... Views: 44
'There is always in our minds the hope that we may find again those golden unhastening days and wake up and dream'In this beautifully nostalgic memoir, eminent author Angela Thirkell recalls in rich detail the three houses in which she grew up. Focusing first on 'The Grange', where her grandfather, the celebrated painter Sir Edward Burne-Jones, set the cultivated tone, Thirkell also reminisces about her parents' home in Kensington Square and the Burne-Jones' seaside retreat, where Angela's cousin, Rudyard Kipling, lived across the green.A tale of forbidden explorations, Punch and Judy shows, and adventures in the garden, Three Houses is beautifully evocative of the innocent quality of childhood. From the busy literary centre of London to the English coast, this stunning memoir is both reminiscent of the golden days of youth and an interesting vision of a writer and the early influences that informed her later work. Views: 44
Winter. 1942-3. The war is turning against Germany on the Eastern Front. The Americans land in North Africa. Meanwhile, in Bordeaux, Superintendent Lannes - himself an object of suspicion, with one son in Vichy and another with de Gaulle's Free French - investigates the murder of a woman. It looks like a crime of passion. His subordinate, Inspector Moncerre, calls it 'a pre-war crime', one which they may be allowed to solve. But the dead woman has been engaged in activities which have attracted the attention of the Vichy Secret Service, the Germans, and even the Resistance. The investigation will lead Lannes into dangerous territory. He has family problems, too, with his wife sinking into depression and his daughter in love with a boy of whose politics and ambitions he disapproves. His own disaffection is sharpened by Vichy's complicity in the deportation of the city's Jews. Things, he fears, will get worse before they get better, as divisions between Vichy and the Resistance threaten civil war. The third instalment in Allan Massie's acclaimed crime series continues the story of dogged detection in a world seemingly gone mad. And, by popular demand, a fourth title will follow - set in 1944, the year of the Liberation as well as the 'Épuration' of those who collaborated with the Nazis... Views: 44
SUMMARY: Julius Caesar's career, recounted by a Roman general awaiting death for treason. The narrator, one of the conspirators who killed Caesar, attempts to justify the murder on grounds that Caesar was a megalomaniac, with ambitions of being a god. By the author of Augustus. Views: 44
Brian Elme ekes out a livelihood making up stories about celebrities for a tabloid gossip column. When an angry Lady Julia Cressey spots one of Brian's stories about her, it looks like the end of his journalism career—until she sees how young and handsome he is. Overnight, Brian finds himself the star of society, charming everyone with his beauty and ingenuousness and growing accustomed to late night parties, decadent dinners, and eternal cocktails. As Brian finds himself led down the path of depravity by his new friends, will he be able to maintain his innocence?Beverley Nichols (1898-1983) was one of the 'Bright Young People', a group of socialites well-known in 1920s London for their drinking, drug use, and elaborate parties, and in this novel he satirized the set to which he belonged. Inspired in part by Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and an influence on Evelyn Waugh's novels, Crazy Pavements (1927) was a bestseller in its day and has lost none of its... Views: 44
The 20 stories in this collection, which have been freshly assembled from Sylvia Townsend Warner's archives, have never before been published in book form. They are, therefore, an exceptional and wholly unexpected treasure trove.In these stories the author of the classic Lolly Willowes is at her most witty and beguiling. Written over five decades, from 1929 to 1977, they are crowded with vivid, irrepressible characters -- from the nymph hunting chorister to the garrulous mother warding off her daughter's unwanted suitors -- and equally animated objects and incidents. There are tales of romantic love, of the mysteries of marriage, of gardens and houses, of possessions and those that fancy they own them. The centerpiece of the collection is a series of five linked episodes concerning one singular establishment, the Abbey Antique Galleries, its eccentric proprietor, Mr Edom and his erratic staff, clientele and wares.With a foreword by William... Views: 44
From the author of the national bestseller My Soul to Keep comes a riveting new novel of supernatural suspense — a gripping tale that brilliantly showcases a writer at the pinnacle of her astounding storytelling abilities.Jessica Jacobs-Wolde has somehow survived the worst that any mother or wife could ever endure: the deaths of her husband and first daughter. But now, four years later, not only is the nightmare continuing — it may have only just begun. Jessica has discovered the terrifying truth behind the legacy that her husband left to their second daughter, Fana...a legacy preordained a thousand years before her time and drenched in the powerful lifeblood that now courses through her veins. As young Fana begins to display unearthly abilities that are quickly spiraling out of control, she becomes the target of those who will stop at nothing to exploit her power — and the unwitting touchstone in an ancient supernatural battle whose... Views: 44
Bobby Gold is a lovable criminal. After nearly ten years in prison, he's no sooner out than he's back to work breaking bones for tough guys. His turf: the club scene and restaurant business. It's not that he enjoys the job-Bobby has real heart-but he's good at it, and a guy has to make a living. Things change when he meets Nikki, the cook at a club most definitely not in his territory. Smitten, he can't stay away. Bobby Gold has known trouble before, but with Nikki the sauté bitch in his life, things take a turn for life or death. A fast, furious, pitch-perfect story of food, sex, crime, and mayhem, The Bobby Gold Stories is Bourdain at his best. Views: 44
