There’s no guessing where a Beattie story will lead. And while one might intuit its catalyst––a “snake’s shoes,” a man who lost an arm, a vintage car, a wisteria pushing through a skylight, a crumbling stone wall around an old graveyard, a beautifully carved decoy––it feels as though Beattie herself is taken by surprise as each adroitly unsettling tale uncoils. Beattie made her mark as an audaciously understated yet resoundingly on-the-mark writer in the 1970s in the New Yorker, and it is testimony both to her unceasing artistic growth and the magazine’s unshakable commitment to exceptional short stories that the final works in this grand retrospective collection are as provocative as the first. Forty-eight Beattie stories appeared in the New Yorker between 1974 and 2006, and until now nearly half remained uncollected. This scintillating volume showcases Beattie’s stunning insights into the eternal isolation of individuals and each decade’s signature longings and conflicts. An incisive dramatist of family strife, marital discord, unconventional alliances, and the aftershocks of violence and death, Beattie portrays characters “numbed out,” wistful, or furious. Laced with ambivalence and irony and punctuated with unexpected reprieves, Beattie’s brilliantly structured stories are mordantly funny, haunting, and wise, making for a glorious collection. --Donna SeamanReview"As much as anyone in the past fifty years--you give me your Mavis Gallant, I'll give you my Frank O'Connor--Ann Beattie's slow-forming monument of a lifework defines what the short story can do, the extent of human life it can encompass."--Jonathan Lethem “It is a testament to [Beattie’s] unceasing artistic growth ... that the final works in this grand retrospective are as provocative as the first... This scintillating volume showcases Beattie’s stunning insights into the eternal isolation of individuals and each decade’s signature longing and conflicts. ... Laced with ambivalence and irony and punctuated with unexpected reprieves, Beattie’s brilliantly structured stories are mordantly funny, haunting, wise, making for a glorious collection.”—Donna Seaman, Booklist Views: 25
A portrait of New York City, drawn by describing the interconnected lives of dozens of people - bankers, chefs, bums, cabdrivers and others. Written in an impressionistic style, with vivid descriptions and bursts of overheard conversation, it has more in common with films than traditional novels. Views: 25
In 2003 Kevin Sampsell authored a chapbook memoir of the same title. It was written as a kind of “memory experiment,” in which he recollected luminous details from his childhood in independently amusing chapters. It functioned as an experiential catalogue of American youth in the 70s and 80s. In 2008 Kevin’s estranged father died of an aneurysm. When he returned home to Kennewick, Washington for the funeral, Kevin’s mother revealed to him disturbing threads in their family history—stories of incest, madness, betrayal, and death—which retroactively colored Kevin’s memories of his upbringing and youth. He learned of his mother’s first two husbands, the fathers of his three older, mythologized half-siblings, and the havoc they wreaked on his mother. He learned of his own father’s seething resentment of his step-children, which was expressed in physical, pyschological, and sexual abuse. And he learned more about his oldest step-sister, Elinda, who, as a young girl, was labeled “feebleminded” by a teacher. When she became a teenager, she was sent to a psychiatric hospital. She entered the clinic at 98 pounds. She left two years later 200 pounds, diabetic, having endured numerous shock treatments. Then, after finally returning home, she was made pregnant by Kevin’s father. Only at the end of the book do we learn what chance in life a person like this has. While his family’s story provides the framework of the book, what’s left in between is Kevin’s story of growing up in the Pacific Northwest. He tells of his first jobs, first bands, first loves, and one worn, teal blue suitcase filled with the choicest porn in all of Kennewick, Washington. Employing the same form of memoir as he did in his previous book, Kevin intertwines the tragic with the everyday, the dysfunctional with the fun, lending A COMMON PORNOGRAPHY its undeniable, unsensationalized reality. The elastic conceit of his “memory experiment” captures the many shades and the whole of the Sampsell family—both its tragedy and its resiliency. Kevin relates this history in a charming, honest, insightful, and funny voice. Views: 25
The Tower is Full of Ghosts Today by historian Alison Weir is an e-short and companion piece to the Sunday Times bestseller Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession, the second novel in the spellbinding series about Henry VIII's queens. Jo, historian and long-term admirer of Anne Boleyn, takes a group on a guided tour of the Tower of London, to walk in the shoes of her Tudor heroine. But as she becomes enthralled by the historical accuracy of her tour guide and the dramatic setting that she has come to love, something spectral is lurking in the shadows . . . Contains first chapters of Sunday Times bestsellers Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen and Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession, as well as the upcoming Six Tudor Queens novel about Henry VIII's third wife, Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen. SIX TUDOR QUEENS. SIX NOVELS. SIX YEARS. Views: 25
Now a major motion picture, Stephen King's brilliant and terrifying story of a marriage with truly deadly secrets. Darcy Anderson’s husband of more than twenty years is away on one of his routine business trips when the unsuspecting Darcy looks for batteries in the garage. Her toe knocks up against a hidden box under a worktable and in it she discovers a trove of horrific evidence that her husband is two men—one, the benign father of her children, the other, a raging rapist and murderer. It’s a horrifying discovery, rendered with bristling intensity, and it definitively ends “A Good Marriage.”About the AuthorStephen King is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Doctor Sleep and Under the Dome, now a major TV miniseries on CBS. His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller as well as the Best Hardcover Book Award from the International Thriller Writers Association. He is the recipient of the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. Views: 25
Hitching rides is an unreliable mode of transport. In temperatures of over a hundred degrees, you're lucky if a driver will open the door of his airconditioned car long enough to let you slide you in. That's Jack Reacher's conclusion. He's adrift in the fearsome heat of a Texas summer, and he needs to keep moving through the wide open vastness, like a shark in the water. The last thing he's worried about is exactly who picks him up. He never expected it to be somebody like Carmen. She's alone, driving a Cadillac. She's beautiful, young and rich. She has a little girl who is being watched by unseen observers. And a husband who is in jail. Who will beat her senseless when he comes out. If he doesn't kill her first. Reacher is no stranger to trouble. And at Carmen's remote ranch in Echo County there is plenty of it: lies and prejudice, hatred and murder. Reacher can never resist a lady in distress. Her family is hostile. The cops can't be trusted. The lawyers won't help. If Reacher can't set things straight, who can? Views: 25
High school sophomore Daisy Jones is just trying to get by unnoticed. It doesn’t help that she’s the new girl at school, lives in a trailer park, and doesn’t even own a cell phone. But there’s a good reason for all that: Daisy has a secret, unpredictable power—one only her best friend, Danielle, knows about.Despite her “gift” (or is it a curse?), Daisy’s doing a good job of fitting in—and a cute senior named Kevin even seems interested in her! But when Daisy tries to help Vivi, a mysterious classmate in a crisis, she soon discovers that her new friend has a secret of her own. Now Daisy and her friends must deal with chilling dreams and messages from the beyond. Can Daisy channel the power she’s always tried to hide—before it’s too late?Extra features include:• A short graphic novel illustrated by Alexis Seabrook, telling Vivi’s story• Danielle’s journal, revealing her deepest thoughts Views: 25
Precious Ramotswe learns valuable lessons about first impressions and forgiveness in this latest installment of the beloved and best-selling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi are approached by their part-time colleague, Mr. Polopetsi, with a troubling story: a woman, accused of being rude to a valued customer, has been wrongly dismissed from her job at an office furniture store. Never one to let an act of injustice go unanswered, Mma Ramotswe begins to investigate, but soon discovers unexpected information that causes her to reluctantly change her views about the case. Other surprises await our intrepid proprietress in the course of her inquiries. Mma Ramotswe is puzzled when she happens to hear of a local nurse named Mingie Ramotswe. She thought she knew everybody by the name of Ramotswe, and that they were all related. Who is this mystery lady? Then, she is alerted by Mma Potokwani that an unpleasant figure from her past has... Views: 25
"An overlooked masterpiece. It may still be undervalued as Malamud's funniest and most embracing novel." --Jonathan Lethem In A New Life, Bernard Malamud--generally thought of as a distinctly New York writer--took on the American myth of the West as a place of personal reinvention.When Sy Levin, a high school teacher beset by alcohol and bad decisions, leaves the city for the Pacific Northwest to start over, it's no surprise that he conjures a vision of the extraordinary new life awaiting him there: "He imagined the pioneers in covered wagons entering this valley for the first time. Although he had lived little in nature Levin had always loved it, and the sense of having done the right thing in leaving New York was renewed in him." Soon after his arrival at Cascadia College, however, Levin realizes he has been taken in by a mirage. The failures pile up anew, and Levin, fired from his post, finds himself back where he started and little the wiser for... Views: 25
THE HEIRS OF CAHIRA O'CONNOR SERIESBOOK TWOA line of women who would be warriors for truth"It is said that as Cahira, daughter of the great Irish king Rory O'Connor, lay dying of a wound from a Norman blade, she lifted her hand toward heaven and beseeched God that others would follow after her, bright stars who would break forth from the courses to which they are bound and restore right in this murderous world..."To Kathleen O'Connor, Cahira's story is nothing more than a charming legend--until her research divulges that several of Cahira's heirs did, indeed, leave the traditional roles of womanhood to fight for right. Stunned, Kathleen realizes she herself bears Cahira's mark. Is Kathleen destined to continue the legacy in the twenty-first century? To discover how the histories of these women relate to her own future, Kathleen must delve deep into the past to learn the truth about The Heirs of Cahira... Views: 25
The remarkable story of Roald Dahl's early years at school and with his family. Like his stories, Dahl's childhood tales are unmissable. This edition has a great new Quentin Blake cover and a new end section of facts about Roald Dahl. Views: 25
