Set in San Francisco in 1956, The Broken Bubble traces the ups and downs and ins and outs of four characters who are not quite sure of the lives they're living. Jim Briskin, local radio DJ, his ex-wife Pat, the young married couple Art and Rachel Emmanual - all are acutely observed and sympathetically portrayed.
Briskin is suspended from his job for refusing to read a particularly repellant ad, while Art foolishly gets mixed up in a group of absurd would-be revolutionaries. As they all get entangled and not quite disentangled with each other, it becomes apparent they are seeking only - in typical Dick fashion - to live more or less happily - if not ever after, then at least for a while. Modest as it may seem, it is an ambition very difficult to achieve. Views: 1 181
44 SCOTLAND STREET - Book 5
The residents and neighbors of 44 Scotland Street and the city of Edinburgh come to vivid life in these gently satirical, wonderfully perceptive serial novels, featuring six-year-old Bertie, a remarkably precocious boy—just ask his mother.
Featuring all the quirky characters we have come to know and love, The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, finds Bertie, the precocious six-year-old, still troubled by his rather overbearing mother, Irene, but seeking his escape in the Cub Scouts. Matthew is rising to the challenge of married life with newfound strength and resolve, while Domenica epitomizes the loneliness of the long-distance intellectual. Cyril, the gold-toothed star of the whole show, succumbs to the kind of romantic temptation that no dog can resist and creates a small problem, or rather six of them, for his friend and owner Angus Lordie.
With his customary deftness, Alexander McCall Smith once again brings us an absorbing and entertaining tale of some of Scotland's most quirky and beloved characters--all set in the beautiful, stoic city of Edinburgh.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 1 181
The remarkable true stories in The Boy Behind the Curtain reveal an intimate and rare view of Tim Winton’s imagination at work and play. A chronicler of sudden turnings, brutal revelations and tender sideswipes, Tim Winton has always been in the business of trouble. In his novels chaos waits in the wings and ordinary people are ambushed by events and emotions beyond their control. But as these extraordinarily powerful memoirs show, the abrupt and the headlong are old familiars to the author himself, for in many ways his has been a life shaped by havoc.
In The Boy Behind the Curtain Winton reflects on the accidents, traumatic and serendipitous, that have influenced his view of life and fuelled his distinctive artistic vision. On the unexpected links between car crashes and religious faith, between surfing and writing, and how going to the wrong movie at the age of eight opened him up to a life of the imagination. And in essays on class, fundamentalism, asylum seekers, guns and the natural world he reveals not only the incidents and concerns that have made him the much-loved writer he is, but some of what unites the life and the work.
By turns impassioned, funny, joyous, astonishing, this is Winton’s most personal book to date, an insight into the man who’s held us enthralled for three decades and helped us reshape our view of ourselves. Behind it all, from risk-taking youth to surprise-averse middle age, has been the crazy punt of staking everything on becoming a writer. Views: 1 181
Hailed by The New York Times Book Review as “a master … who makes the ordinary extraordinary, the unnamable unforgettable,” beloved author Jim Harrison returns with a masterpiece—a tender, profound, and magnificent novel about life, death, and finding redemption in unlikely places. Slowly dying of Lou Gehrig’s Disease, Donald, a middle-aged Chippewa-Finnish man, begins dictating family stories he has never shared with anyone, hoping to preserve history for his children. The dignity of Donald’s death and his legacy encourages his loved ones to find a way to redeem—and let go of—the past, whether through his daughter’s emersion in Chippewa religious ideas or his mourning wife’s attempt to escape the malevolent influence of her own father. A deeply moving book about origins and endings, and how to live with honor for the dead, Returning to Earth is one of the finest novels of Harrison’s long, storied career, and will confirm his standing as one of the most important American writers now working. Views: 1 180
The Last Coyote: LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch is suspended from the force for attacking his commanding officer. Unable to remain idle, he investigates the long-unsolved murder of a Hollywood prostitute. Trunk Music: Harry returns to the force to investigate the murder of a movie producer with Mafia ties. Up against both the LAPD's organized crime unit and the mob, Harry follows the money trail to Las Vegas, where the case becomes personal. Angels Flight: The murder of a prominent African-American attorney who made his career suing the police for racism and brutality means that Harry's friends and associates have become suspects; and he must work closely with longtime enemies suspicious of his maverick ways to investigate them. Together for the first time, these three chilling, pulse-pounding novels chart the volatile, breakneck career of the sleuth the New York Post calls "the quintessential mystery book hero" and prove that "Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch novels are the most impressive body of work by any writer of crime thrillers now active" (Washington Post). Views: 1 180
Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person?
David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures. Whether covering the three-ring circus of John McCain's 2000 presidential race, plunging into the wars between dictionary writers, or confronting the World's Largest Lobster Cooker at the annual Maine Lobster Festival, Wallace projects a quality of thought that is uniquely his and a voice as powerful and distinct as any in American letters. Views: 1 180
The outstanding new novel from the #1 New York Times �bestselling grand master of adventure.
Husband-and-wife team Sam and Remi Fargo are in Mexico, when they come upon a remarkable discovery—the skeleton of a man clutching an ancient sealed pot, and within the pot, a Mayan book, larger than anyone has ever seen. The book contains astonishing information about the Mayans, about their cities, and about mankind itself. The secrets are so powerful that some people would do anything to possess them—as the Fargos are about to find out.
Before their adventure is done, many men and women will die for that book—and Sam and Remi may just be among them. Views: 1 180
In The Ugly Sister, Winston Graham returns to Cornwall, home to his classic Poldark series. The Napoleonic Wars have ended, the age of steam has dawned. he introduces us to a wealth of memorable characters as Emma Spry tells her fascinating story.
One side of her face marred at birth, Emma grows up without affection, her elegant mother on the stage, her father killed in a duel before she was born. Her beautiful sister, Tamsin, is four years the elder and her mother's ambitions lie in Tamsin's future and in her own success, both on the stage and off.
A shadow over their childhood at Place House, the family home of their uncle, is the bulky presence of Slade, the butler, an ominous man who has access to cellars not accessible to all.
Then there is Bram Fox, a predatory male, with his mischievous eyes and dazzling smile, who is a dangerous free-spirit and an ongoing distraction; Charles Lane, a skilled and visionary young engineer; Canon Robartes, in his draughty moorland rectory, relishing rebellion in the young Emma, her wit, her vulnerability, encouraging her natural gift for song.
Emma tells her story with a blunt and beguiling honesty, and no novelist has written more lyrically of Cornwall. The Ugly Sister is a joy to read. Views: 1 180
Greed. Envy. Sex. Property. In her subversively funny and genuinely moving new novel, Jane Smiley nails down several American obsessions with the expertise of a master carpenter.
Forthright, likable Joe Stratford is the kind of local businessman everybody trusts, for good reason. But it’s 1982, and even in Joe’s small town, values are in upheaval: not just property values, either. Enter Marcus Burns, a would-be master of the universe whose years with the IRS have taught him which rules are meant to be broken. Before long he and Joe are new best friends—and partners in an investment venture so complex that no one may ever understand it. Add to this Joe’s roller coaster affair with his mentor’s married daughter. The result is as suspenseful and entertaining as any of Jane Smiley’s fiction.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 1 180
The Sequel to the Beloved #1 New York Times Bestseller *The Friday Night Knitting Club*
The sequel to the number-one New York Times bestseller The Friday Night Knitting Club, KNIT TWO returns to Walker and Daughter, the Manhattan knitting store founded by Georgia Walker and her young daughter, Dakota. Dakota is now an eighteen-year-old freshman at NYU, running the little yarn shop part-time with help from the members of the Friday Night Knitting Club.
Drawn together by the sense of family the club has created, the knitters rely on one another as they struggle with new challenges: for Catherine, finding love after divorce; for Darwin, the hope for a family; for Lucie, being both a single mom and a caregiver for her elderly mother; and for seventy something Anita, a proposal of marriage from her sweetheart, Marty, that provokes the objections of her grown children.
As the club�s projects�an afghan, baby booties, a wedding coat�are pieced together, so is their understanding of the patterns underlying the stresses and joys of being mother, wife, daughter, and friend. Because it isn�t the difficulty of the garment that makes you a great knitter: it�s the care and attention you bring to the craft�as well as how you adapt to surprises. Views: 1 180
In his breathlessly paced new novel Jay McInerney revisits the nocturnal New York of Bright Lights, Big City. Alison Poole, twenty going on 40,000, is a budding actress already fatally well versed in hopping the clubs, shopping Chanel falling in and out of lust, and abusing other people's credit cards. As Alison races toward emotional breakdown, McInerney gives us a hilarious yet oddly touching portrait of a postmodern Holly Golightly coming to terms with a world in which everything is permitted and nothing really matters. Views: 1 179
Joyce Carol Oates returns with a dark, romantic, and captivating tale, set in the Great Lakes region of upstate New York—the territory of her remarkably successful New York Times bestseller The Gravedigger's Daughter.
Set in the mythical small city of Sparta, New York, this searing, vividly rendered exploration of the mysterious conjunction of erotic romance and tragic violence in late-twentieth-century America returns to the emotional and geographical terrain of acclaimed author Joyce Carol Oates's previous bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys and The Gravedigger's Daughter.
When a young wife and mother named Zoe Kruller is found brutally murdered, the Sparta police target two primary suspects, her estranged husband, Delray Kruller, and her longtime lover, Eddy Diehl. In turn, the Krullers' son, Aaron, and Eddy Diehl's daughter, Krista, become obsessed with each other, each believing the other's father is guilty.
Told in halves in the very different voices of Krista and Aaron, Little Bird of Heaven is a classic Oates novel in which the lyricism of intense sexual love is intertwined with the anguish of loss, and tenderness is barely distinguishable from cruelty. By the novel's end, the fated lovers, meeting again as adults, are at last ready to exorcise the ghosts of the past and come to terms with their legacy of guilt, misplaced love, and redemptive yearning. Views: 1 179
Published in 1913, this swashbuckling yet satirical adventure, set in the sixteenth century, tells of Agostino d'Anguissola, a nobleman raised in extreme piety by his devout mother. But Agostino finds himself exposed to the raw passion and deadly politics of the wider world upon learning more about his father's rebellious ways. Views: 1 179
#1 New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen weaves the unforgettable story of a man and a woman who come together under the spell of danger—and explosive desire.
Brody Devlin, a powerful stage actor, likes his life uncomplicated. That’s why he never forms attachments of any kind. But Brody doesn’t know what to make of the unique beauty and intriguing candor of the escort who shows up at his hotel room. When he discovers that she’s running from a threatening past, Brody feels an overwhelming urge to shield her—even if it means risking his own life.
When Brody takes a bullet that was intended for her, Sacha Lorian is determined to repay him. If only he would have listened to her and just walked away. But Brody is like a man possessed. He’s going to stay by Sacha’s side. He’s going to protect her. And he’s going to ignite her deepest passions. Views: 1 179
The whooping crane rustlers are girls. Young girls. Cowgirls, as a matter of fact, all “bursting with dimples and hormones”—and the FBI has never seen anything quite like them. Yet their rebellion at the Rubber Rose Ranch is almost overshadowed by the arrival of the legendary Sissy Hankshaw, a white-trash goddess literally born to hitchhike, and the freest female of them all.
Freedom, its prizes and its prices, is a major theme of Tom Robbins’s classic tale of eccentric adventure. As his robust characters attempt to turn the tables on fate, the reader is drawn along on a tragicomic joyride across the badlands of sexuality, wild rivers of language, and the frontiers of the mind.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 1 179
