Saint Maybe is the rich and absorbing story of a young man's guilt over his brother's death and his struggle to atone for the wrong he feels he has done.
On a quiet street in Baltimore in 1965, seventeen-year-old Ian Bedloe lives with his family in an "ideal, apple-pie household," enjoying the comfort of family traditions and indulging in all the usual dreams of the future. Until one night, when Ian's stinging words to his brother bring tragedy -- and from that careless moment on nothing can ever be the same.
Anne Tyler takes us along Ian's painful and poignant quest for forgiveness, from the Church of the Second Chance to Ian's gratifying, solitary work as a carpenter. Raising the three children that are thrust on him, he finds himself amazed, drowning in family and duty. Then, out of the very heart of the domestic clutter, a light begins to flash.
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 1 096
An eBook short.
What does “feminism” mean today? That is the question at the heart of We Should All Be Feminists, a personal, eloquently-argued essay—adapted from her much-viewed Tedx talk of the same name—by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the award-winning author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun. With humor and levity, here Adichie offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century—one rooted in inclusion and awareness. She shines a light not only on blatant discrimination, but also the more insidious, institutional behaviors that marginalize women around the world, in order to help readers of all walks of life better understand the often masked realities of sexual politics. Throughout, she draws extensively on her own experiences—in the U.S., in her native Nigeria, and abroad—offering an artfully nuanced explanation of why the gender divide is harmful for women and men, alike. Argued in the same observant, witty and clever prose that has made Adichie a bestselling novelist, here is one remarkable author’s exploration of what it means to be a woman today—and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists. Views: 1 096
A gripping reimagining of the drama, ego, intrigue, and madness at work during the World War I armistice negotiations
In November 1918, after four long years of murderous conflict, six men gather in a railroad car in a secluded forest outside Paris, France, to negotiate an end to World War I. A pacifist, left-leaning diplomat with no military knowledge or experience, Matthias Erzberger has been selected by the German high command to represent their surrendering nation, for reasons as baffling to him as to anyone. He is joined by France’s aging, vindictive Marshal Foch and Britain’s unbending Admiral Wemyss in an attempt to bring peace to a war-torn world. In these claustrophobic quarters the future is to be decided by men driven by ego, prejudice, fear, exhaustion, vengeance, delusion, and, in Erzberger’s case, conscience. But the well-meaning diplomat’s futile efforts to secure lenient surrender terms will have devastating consequences for Europe, the Fatherland, and Erzberger himself.
Renowned for his enthralling fictional accounts of historical events, award-winning author of Schindler’s List Thomas Keneally once again brings the heart-stopping human drama of history to life, as he brilliantly envisions the earth-shattering events that transpired in the forest of Compiègne, setting the stage for the Treaty of Versailles and the rise of the Third Reich. Views: 1 096
When Dawg Mackay made his four half-sisters part of his family, he vowed that he would care for and protect them with everything he had. But what happens now that the girls are all grown up? The Mackay girls are on the loose, and Somerset County will never be the same…
Lyrica Mackay has wanted tall, handsome Marine Graham Brock for as long as she can remember. Unfortunately, Graham only sees her as his friend Dawg Mackay’s “baby sister.” Or so she believes. The truth is, the fiery party girl stirs something in Graham no female ever has. But Graham, like everyone in Somerset County, knows that trouble stalks the Mackays like bears track honey, and when a Mackay runs as hot as Lyrica does, someone’s bound to get burned.
Then Graham discovers that Lyrica’s wild side is just a cover for a frightened and vulnerable woman who needs something true and genuine, something only Graham can offer. But surrendering his heart to Lyrica exposes them both to her shocking past—and a sinister secret that, once exposed, could destroy their only chance at happiness and shake the Mackay family to its core. Views: 1 096
The only trace of the first victim was his Shriner's fez washed up on the Miami beach. The second victim, the head of the city's chamber of commerce, was found dead with a toy rubber alligator lodged in his throat. And that was just the beginning... Now Brian Keyes, reporter turned private eye, must move from muckraking to rooting out murder, in a caper that will mix football players, politicians, and police with a group of fanatics and a very hungry crocodile Views: 1 096
On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener's hand is severed as "the dome" comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when -- or if -- it will go away.
Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens -- town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician's assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing -- even murder -- to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn't just short. It's running out. Views: 1 096
Thirteenth-century Wales is a divided country, ever at the mercy of England’s ruthless, power-hungry King John. Llewelyn, Prince of North Wales, secures an uneasy truce by marrying the English king’s beloved illegitimate daughter, Joanna, who slowly grows to love her charismatic and courageous husband. But as John’s attentions turn again and again to subduing Wales---and Llewelyn---Joanna must decide where her love and loyalties truly lie.The turbulent clashes of two disparate worlds and the destinies of the individuals caught between them spring to life in this magnificent novel of power and passion, loyalty and lies. The book that began the trilogy that includes Falls the Shadowand The Reckoning, Here Be Dragons brings thirteenth-century England, France, and Wales to tangled, tempestuous life.Review“A masterful picture of Wales in the thirteenth century . . . vividly pictured as grandly beautiful, its people volatile, stubborn, and mystic.” ---The San Diego Union“There is everything in Here Be Dragons but dragons: princesses held captive in stone towers, bloody wars, princes scheming to dethrone their own brothers, castles under siege, maidens in distress, power struggles for half of civilization, rampant infidelity, lusting, mead guzzling, wine drinking, love affairs that topple kingdoms---how did England survive the thirteenth century? . . . History and fiction bound up together in historical novels have always had their own uneasy alliance. . . . Penman deftly makes the mesh work.” ---The Washington Post Book World“Remarkable. . . . Her writing is faultless, deftly interweaving the threads of the various story lines into a glowing, living tapestry. . . . This is storytelling at its finest.” ---United Press International“With a fidelity to historical detail, a deep understanding of the period, a lucid, felicitous prose style, a sensitivity to nuances of character, and a sure sense of drama, the new novel by the author ofThe Sunne in Splendour is an engrossing tale.” ---Publishers WeeklyFrom the PublisherAs a publisher I have been lucky to be able to visit bookstores all over the country, independent and chain alike. What interests me first about these stores is what titles are being displayed in the 'Staff Recommends' section of the store. It is here that you can find treasured, beloved books quite dear to someone who works in the stores, someone waiting quite eagerly for the chance to hand sell their recommended titles.It is in these Staff Recommend sections that I kept on seeing our Penman's titles, HERE BE DRAGONS, FALLS THE SHADOW, THE RECKONING and also SUNNE IN SPLENDOUR and WHEN CHRIST AND HIS SAINTS SLEPT.It's funny, you can sell something for years before you notice that the author has been quietly making a powerful impact on people everywhere.I started with HERE BE DRAGONS and I have never looked back. Her trilogy of the decline of the Welsh kings ( DRAGON, FALLS THE SHADOW and THE RECKONING)is a holiday gift I give year after year, and I'm happy to say they have always been embraced and loved. From my 15 year old niece to my 70 year old mother and many ages in between, all readers are enchanted and transported to a land and an age gone forever. But Penman makes them live forever in our minds and hearts with fantastic, unforgettable characters and wonderful history. HERE BE DRAGONS is such a great title--medieval mapmakes would write those words across any part of the map that was unknown.. a wonderful metaphor for how little the Welsh and English knew of each other.SUNNE IN SPLENDOUR--Warning: This is not Shakespeare's Richard III. In this novel, Richard is a victim of circumstance and man vilified by the Tudors, but here presented as a decent and normal man, a man of conscience.AND he is not a murderer. Yes, those princes did die, but not by Richard's hand.WHEN CHRIST AND HIS SAINTS SLEPTAnother wonderful title, for it refers to the 15 years of England's darkest time-the civil war between the cousins Queen Maud and King Steven. England was deserted, for Christ and his saints were sleeping. I had never even heard of these royals. Queen Maud was the legitimate heir to the throne, but a woman, and there fore not fit to rule. She is also the mother of Henry, who later married Eleanor of Aquitaine . Pretty heady stuff, more incredible men and women, another book to get totally lost in. Although it has been years since all these books were first published, I can name 5 stores I have been in in the past 3 months that have one of these titles in the Staff Recommends section.-Alice Kesterson, Ballantine Regional Sales Manger Views: 1 095
The Champion of Garathorm is the second novel in the The Chronicles of Castle Brass series by Michael Moorcock and featuring Duke Dorian Hawkmoon and Ilian of Garathorm. It is a sequel to both Count Brass and to the Erekosë novel Phoenix in Obsidian, and is followed by The Quest for Tanelorn. Views: 1 095
In this collection of twelve dark, unerring and surprising short stories, John Boyne explores the extremities of the human condition in all its brilliance and brutality. The secrets we keep and the ways in which they shape us, the impossibility of shared loss, the lengths we will go to in order to protect our families and the distance we will run to protect ourselves.
Drawing on a host of enthralling characters – a farmer, a cuckold and a teenager exploring his sexuality; good parents, bad parents, writers and soldiers; a student, a rent boy and a hitman – Boyne examines the hopeful and the damaged without prejudice or judgement.
This, his first collection of short stories, is some of John Boyne’s finest writing to date. It includes ‘Rest Day’ which won the 2015 Writing.ie Short Story of the Year award in Ireland. Views: 1 095
The newest Palahniuk novel concerns Madison, a thirteen year old girl who finds herself in Hell, unsure of why she will be there for all eternity, but tries to make the best of it.
The author described the novel as "if The Shawshank Redemption had a baby by The Lovely Bones and it was raised by Judy Blume." And "it's kind of like The Breakfast Club set in Hell." Views: 1 094
In the third book of her hot and hilarious series, "New York Times" bestselling author Sandra Hill takes readers along on another wild ride with Jinx, Inc., where trouble is no match for a cagey Cajun matchmaker--and passion conquers all. When reporter Celine Arseneaux entered The Playpen, a Baton Rouge club for men AND women, she never expected John LeDeux to swagger up to her. Sure, the bayou's notorious bad boy was pure sex on the hoof. But even with her expose on the line, Celine will refuse to be his conquest left cryin' in her crayfish -- at least not again. Not for this man who doesn't even remember her! Detective LeDeux had always been too hot to handle, but now he was on fire as the cop posing as a gigolo to bust the Dixie Mafia. Joining Tante Lulu's treasure hunt seems a fine way to avoid the media ruckus--until Celine pursues her story deep into the bayou, stoking John's hazy memories of a sizzling night five years ago.... Original. Views: 1 094
From the author of the international bestseller Incendiary comes a haunting novel about the tenuous friendship that blooms between two disparate strangers---one an illegal Nigerian refugee, the other a recent widow from suburban London. Views: 1 093
From Bernhard Schlink, the internationally best-selling author of The Reader, come seven provocative and masterfully calibrated stories. A keen dissection of the ways in which we play with truth and less-than-truth in our lives. Summer Lies brims with the delusions, the passions, the outbursts, and the sometimes irrational justifications people make within a mélange of beautifully rendered relationships. In ”After the Season,” a man falls quickly in love with a woman he meets on the beach but wrestles with his incongruous feelings of betrayal after he learns she’s rich. In “Johann Sebastian Bach on Ruegen,” a son tries to put his resentment toward his emotionally distant father behind him by proposing a trip to a Back festival but soon realizes, during his efforts to reconnect, that it wasn’t his father who was the distant one. A philandering playwright is accused to infidelity by his wife in “The Night in Baden-Baden,” but he sees her accusations as nothing more than a means to exculpate himself of his guilt as he carries on with his ways. And in “Stranger in the Night,” an obliging professor becomes an accomplice—not entirely unwittingly—to the temporary escape of a charismatic fugitive on a delayed flight from New York to Frankfurt.
The truth, as once character puts it, is “passionate, beautiful sometimes, and sometimes hideous, it can make you happy and it can torture you, and it always sets you free.” Tantalizingly, so is the act of telling a lie—to others and to ourselves. Views: 1 093
As a child, Sherwood Smith was always on the watch for magic: no fog bank went unexplored, no wooden closet unchecked for a false back, no possible magical token left on the ground or in the gutter. In these nine stories, the impossible becomes possible, magic is real, aliens come visiting. How would our lives change?
Table of Contents
Mom and Dad at the Home Front
The Glass Slipper
The Princess, the Page, and the Master Cook’s Son | Curing the Bozos
Illumination
Finding the Way
The Love that Dolls Talk
And Now Abideth These Three
Faith Views: 1 093
In 1950, at the age of twenty-four, William Clark Styron, Jr., wrote to his mentor, Professor William Blackburn of Duke University. The young writer was struggling with his first novel, Lie Down in Darkness, and he was nervous about whether his “strain and toil” would amount to anything. “When I mature and broaden,” Styron told Blackburn, “I expect to use the language on as exalted and elevated a level as I can sustain. I believe that a writer should accommodate language to his own peculiar personality, and mine wants to use great words, evocative words, when the situation demands them.”
In February 1952, Styron was awarded the Prix de Rome of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which crowned him a literary star. In Europe, Styron met and married Rose Burgunder, and found himself immersed in a new generation of expatriate writers. His relationships with George Plimpton and Peter Matthiessen culminated in Styron introducing the debut issue of The Paris Review. Literary critic Alfred Kazin described him as one of the postwar “super-egotists” who helped transform American letters.
His controversial The Confessions of Nat Turner won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize, while Sophie’s Choice was awarded the 1980 National Book Award, and Darkness Visible, Styron’s groundbreaking recounting of his ordeal with depression, was not only a literary triumph, but became a landmark in the field.
Part and parcel of Styron’s literary ascendance were his friendships with Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, John and Jackie Kennedy, Arthur Miller, James Jones, Carlos Fuentes, Wallace Stegner, Robert Penn Warren, Philip Roth, C. Vann Woodward, and many of the other leading writers and intellectuals of the second half of the twentieth century.
This incredible volume takes readers on an American journey from FDR to George W. Bush through the trenchant observations of one of the country’s greatest writers. Not only will readers take pleasure in William Styron’s correspondence with and commentary about the people and events that made the past century such a momentous and transformative time, they will also share the writer’s private meditations on the very art of writing.
Advance praise for Selected Letters of William Styron
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“I first encountered Bill Styron when, at twenty, I read The Confessions of Nat Turner*. Hillary and I became friends with Bill and Rose early in my presidency, but I continued to read him, fascinated by the man and his work, his triumphs and troubles, the brilliant lights and dark corners of his amazing mind. These letters, carefully and lovingly selected by Rose, offer real insight into both the great writer and the good man.”—President Bill Clinton
“The Bill Styron revealed in these letters is altogether the Bill Styron who was a dear friend and esteemed colleague to me for close to fifty years. The humor, the generosity, the loyalty, the self-awareness, the commitment to literature, the openness, the candor about matters closest to him—all are on display in this superb selection of his correspondence. The directness in the artful sentences is such that I felt his beguiling presence all the while that I was enjoying one letter after another.”—Philip Roth
“Bill Styron’s letters were never envisioned, far less composed, as part of the Styron oeuvre, yet that is what they turn out to be. Brilliant, passionate, eloquent, insightful, moving, dirty-minded, indignant, and hilarious, they accumulate power in the reading, becoming in themselves a work of literature.”—Peter Matthiessen Views: 1 093
