Robert Ranke Graves (7/24/1895–12/7/1985) was an English poet, translator & novelist.
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In middle age, Annie Oh—wife, mother, and outsider artist—has shaken her family to its core. After twenty-seven years of marriage and three children, Annie has fallen in love with Viveca, the wealthy, cultured, confident Manhattan art dealer who orchestrated her professional success.
Annie and Viveca plan to wed in the Oh family's hometown of Three Rivers, Connecticut, where gay marriage has recently been legalized. But the impending wedding provokes some very mixed reactions and opens a Pandora's box of toxic secrets—dark and painful truths that have festered below the surface of the Ohs' lives.
We Are Water is an intricate and layered portrait of marriage, family, and the inexorable need for understanding and connection, told in the alternating voices of the Ohs—nonconformist Annie; her ex-husband, Orion, a psychologist; Ariane, the do-gooder daughter, and her twin, Andrew, the rebellious only son; and free-spirited Marissa, the youngest Oh. Set in New England and New York during the first years of the Obama presidency, it is also a portrait of modern America, exploring issues of class, changing social mores, the legacy of racial violence, and the nature of creativity and art.
With humor and breathtaking compassion, Wally Lamb brilliantly captures the essence of human experience in vivid and unforgettable characters struggling to find hope and redemption in the aftermath of trauma and loss. We Are Water is vintage Wally Lamb—a compulsively readable, generous, and uplifting masterpiece that digs deep into the complexities of the human heart to explore the ways in which we search for love and meaning in our lives. Views: 636
Kenneth Trachtenberg, the witty and eccentric narrator of More Die ofHeartbreak, has left his native Paris for the Midwest. He has come to benear his beloved uncle, the world-renowned botanist Benn Crader, self-described "plant visionary." While his studies take him around the world, Benn, a restless spirit, has not been able to satisfy his longings after his first marriage and lives from affair to affair and from "bliss to breakdown." Imagining that a settled existence will end his anguish, Benn ties the knot again, opening the door to a flood of new torments. As Kenneth grapples with his own problems involving his unusual lady-friend Treckie, the two men try to figure out why gifted and intelligent people invariably find themselves "knee-deep in the garbage of a personal life." Views: 636
Hazel Winbolt is a ten year old girl with a very sick mother. Her father sends her to live with her grandmother so she is out of the way. Hazel finds herself in a very old and mysterious house with a grandmother she has never met. Strange things begin to happen to Hazel when little animals start coming out of the little brown box she has from home. Are they good or bad? Only time will tell.Hazel Winbolt is a ten year old girl with a very sick mother. Her father sends her to live with her grandmother so she is out of the way. Hazel finds herself in a very old and mysterious house with a grandmother she has never met. As the days progress she is certain that something strange is going to happen. Floors creak and shadows travel up walls when there is nobody there. This is nothing compared to when small animals start appearing out of a little brown box she has. What do they want? It is up to Hazel to find out in the short time she has before returning home. Views: 636
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. Views: 636
"Timely and pressing . . .[The Kingdom of Sand] has the wit and keen, often biting observations of gay life that made me fall in love with Holleran's books all those years ago. [It] is Andrew Holleran at his best." —Jeffrey Masters, The AdvocateOne of the great appeals of Florida has always been the sense that the minute you get here you have permission to collapse.The Kingdom of Sand is a poignant tale of desire and dread—Andrew Holleran's first new book in sixteen years. The nameless narrator is a gay man who moved to Florida to look after his aging parents—during the height of the AIDS epidemic—and has found himself unable to leave after their deaths. With gallows humor, he chronicles the indignities of growing old in a small town.At the heart of the novel is the story of his friendship with Earl, whom he met cruising at the local boat ramp. For the last twenty years, he has been visiting Earl to... Views: 636
Dorothy Fane lived quite an average life: good grades, great boyfriend, family and friends that care. But when she shares an assignment with Eric Grant, it took a turn unimaginable to her being tied up in his closet. Through a bleak understanding, her sympathy caught the best of her as she slowly falls for him. She knows she's crazy and he knows she's crazy, but that doesn't stop either of them.Seventeen year old Lacey Hannigan knows that she's different from other people. Her ability to move things with her mind has made her an outcast, even in her own home. She hates the power that she has and wants nothing more than to be normal like everyone else. But when she is forced to run away from home or be sent to a hospital to be studied like some kind of science project, she has no choice but to rely on her telekinesis in order to survive on her own. She soon finds herself in more danger than she ever thought possible when she discovers that there are even stranger people than her in the world. Like Cole, a man with a deadly secret who has vowed to stop at nothing until he has her. And Jesse, who seems like the perfect man until she learns that he may not be who she thinks he is.The unbelievable becomes reality when seemingly normal people shed their human skin for that of fur and prowl the streets at night looking for their next victim. Will Lacey's power be her saving grace or her doom? Views: 636
A rainy-day ritual—a tea party between three little girls—becomes the framework of not only their friendship, but their lives.Blonde, curly-haired Zoe is openhearted, kind and free-spirited, and dreams of becoming a famous actor in New York City. Shy Emily struggles with mental health but has the heart and soul of a writer. And Shannon—tall, athletic, strong—has a deep sense of loyalty that will serve her well when she heads off to military college.As Zoe, Emily and Shannon grow into women—forging careers, following dreams and finding love—they'll learn that life doesn't always unfold the way they want it to, but through it all, the one constant is each other, and their regular tea parties. And when the unthinkable happens, the girls must come together to face the greatest test of all.A deeply moving novel about the family that raises us, the hearts that nurture us and the great friendships that define our lives. Views: 636
A bitterly comic novel of middle-aged angst and middle-class American life in the 1960s, by the acclaimed author of *Little Big Man*
It is the late sixties in suburbia, and Carlo Reinhart’s life is a mess. He’s fat, broke, middle aged, and unemployed. His anarchist son hates him, and his wife has taken a younger lover and thrown Carlo out of the house. In fact, the only one who doesn’t consider him contemptible and ridiculous seems to be Carlo’s adoring, overweight daughter, who is almost as pathetic as he is. Even his affair with a twenty-two-year-old nymphomaniac is strangely unsatisfying.
Then, just as he’s reaching his lowest point, the self-styled Ultimate Human Irrelevancy is offered a golden opportunity to grab a piece of the American Dream, thanks to the reappearance of his old school chum Bob Sweet. Bob, who has a gift for success, is inviting Reinhart to get in on the ground floor of his latest venture: cryonics. But while Carlo loves the taste of the good life that his friend has suddenly provided, he’s not quite certain whether Sweet wants him as a partner . . . or as a human popsicle.
The third novel in Thomas Berger’s acclaimed Carlo Reinhart Series, Vital Parts is a stingingly hilarious swipe at twentieth-century culture and mores. Unrestrained and unapologetic, it is a tour de force from a master satirist that stands alongside Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, and the novels of Kurt Vonnegut as a trenchant and funny comment on American life. Views: 636
The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon out of his life as a web-design drone, and serendipity, sheer curiosity and the ability to climb a ladder like a monkey have landed him a new gig working the night shift at Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. But Clay begins to realize that this store is even more curious than its name suggests. There are only a few customers, but they come in repeatedly and never seem to actually buy anything. Instead they “check out” impossibly obscure volumes from strange corners of the store, all according to some elaborate, long-standing arrangement with the gnomic Mr. Penumbra. The store must be a front for something larger, Clay concludes, and soon he has embarked on a complex analysis of the customers’ behaviour and roped his friends into helping him figure out just what’s going on. But once they take their findings to Mr. Penumbra, they discover the secrets extend far beyond the walls of the bookstore.
Evoking both the fairy-tale charm of Haruki Murakami and the enthusiastic novel-of-ideas wizardry of Neal Stephenson or Umberto Eco, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is exactly what it sounds like—an establishment you have to enter and will never want to leave. Views: 636
A tour de force of imaginative storytelling from the critically acclaimed author of City of Thieves and The 25th Hour and co-creator of the HBO series* Game of Thrones*
In * When the Nines Roll Over , David Benioff (The 25th Hour, City of Thieves*) uses humor and rich characterizations to explore the sometimes thrilling, sometimes pathetic emotional lives of a diverse set of characters. Over the course of eight stories, we are introduced to a host of young people on the cusp of discovery and loss. As he evokes the various states of agony and pleasure--humiliation, rebellion, camaraderie, and desire--Benioff displays a profound understanding of the transformative power of a single moment and how sadness can be illuminated by a humorous flip side. * When the Nines Roll Over * confirms the promise of a gifted writer emerging as a storytelling force. Views: 636
'Washington Square is perhaps the only novel in which a man has successfully invaded the feminine field and produced work comparable to Jane Austen's,' said Graham Greene.
Inspired by a story Henry James heard at a dinner party, Washington Square tells how the rakish but idle Morris Townsend tries to win the heart of heiress Catherine Sloper against the objections of her father. Precise and understated, the book endures as a matchless social study of New York in the mid-nineteenth century.
'Washington Square has long been beloved by almost all readers,' noted Louis Auchincloss. 'The chief beauty of the novel lies in its expression--by background, characterization, and dialogue--of its mild heroine's mood of long-suffering patience. Everything is ordered, polite, still: the charming old square in the pre-brownstone city, the small, innocent, decorous social gatherings, the formal good manners, the quaint reasonableness of the dialogues. . . . James was the poet of cities: New York in Washington Square.' Clifton Fadiman agreed: 'It has extraordinary charm, deriving from an almost Mozartian combination of sweetness and depth.' Views: 636
Widely respected in the so-called “mainstream” for her New York Times bestselling novels, Karen Joy Fowler is also a formidable, often controversial, and always exuberant presence in Science Fiction. Here she debuts a provocative new story written especially for this series. Set in the days of Darwin, “The Science of Herself” is a marvelous hybrid of SF and historical fiction: the almost-true story of England’s first female paleontologist who took on the Victorian old-boy establishment armed with only her own fierce intelligence—and an arsenal of dino bones.
Plus...
“The Pelican Bar,” a homely tale of family ties that makes Guantánamo look like summer camp; “The Further Adventures of the Invisible Man,” a droll tale of sports, shoplifting and teen sex; and “The Motherhood Statement,” a quietly angry upending of easy assumptions that shows off Fowler’s deep radicalism and impatience with conservative homilies and liberal pieties alike.
And Featuring: our Outspoken Interview in which Fowler prophesies California’s fate, reveals the role of bad movies in good marriages, and intimates that girls just want to have fun (which means make trouble). Views: 636
The brilliant, mind-bending return to science fiction by one of its most acclaimed visionaries
Below the neon skies of Dayzone – where the lights never go out, and night has been banished – lowly private eye John Nyquist takes on a teenage runaway case. His quest takes him from Dayzone into the permanent dark of Nocturna.
As the vicious, seemingly invisible serial killer known only as Quicksilver haunts the streets, Nyquist starts to suspect that the runaway girl holds within her the key to the city’s fate. In the end, there’s only one place left to search: the shadow-choked zone known as Dusk. Views: 636
American novelist Louisa May Alcott best known for her novel "Little Women" and its follow up sequels "Little Men" and "Jo\'s Boys". She based the characters in her novel on herself and her family. Where her heroin Jo was based on herself she never married. Growing up among many well know intellectuals of the day like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau she started writing for Atlantic Monthly. Serving as a nurse during the civil war her letters home became one of her less famous books "Hospital Sketches". Views: 636
