Jenny Blake has a theory about life: big decisions often don't amount to much, but little decisions sometimes transform everything. Her theory proves true the summer of 1955, when 14-year-old Jenny makes the decision to pick up a penny imbedded in asphalt, and consequently ends up stopping a robbery, getting a job, and meeting a friend who changes her life forever.Jenny and Miss Shaw form a friendship that dares both of them to confront secrets in their pasts--secrets that threaten to destroy them. Jenny helps Miss Shaw open up to the community around her, while Miss Shaw teaches Jenny to meet even life's most painful challenges with confidence and faith. This unexpected relationship transforms both characters in ways neither could have anticipated, and the ripple effect that begins in the summer of the penny goes on to bring new life to the people around them, showing how God works in the smallest details. Even in something as small as a penny. Views: 55
Hilarious and heartbreaking, profane and profound, It Takes a Worried Man is the true story of a young husband and father whose life is changed forever by his wife's breast cancer diagnosis. Following Brendan Halpin's cranky, irreverent and lustful thoughts through the diagnosis and treatment of his wife, Kirsten, It Takes a Worried Man is an unflinching and raw look at how cancer transforms a family. It's also the funniest book about cancer you'll ever read. Views: 55
Read Cammie McGovern's posts on the Penguin BlogLike The Lovely Bones and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Cammie McGovern's breakout novel is at once a hypnotic thriller and an affecting portrait of people as real as our next-door neighbors. In Eye Contact, two children vanish in the woods behind their elementary school. Hours later, nine-year-old Adam is found alive, the sole witness to his playmate's murder. But because Adam has autism, he is a silent witness. Only his mother, Cara, can help decode his behavior for the police. As the suspense ratchets, Eye Contact becomes a heart-stopping exploration of the bond between a mother and a very special child. Views: 55
From the bestselling author of THE BOOK THIEFBefore THE BOOK THIEF, Markus Zusak wrote a trilogy of novels about the Wolfe Brothers: THE UNDERDOG, FIGHTING RUBEN WOLFE, and GETTING THE GIRL. Cameron and Ruben Wolfe are champions at getting into fights, coming up with half-baked schemes, and generally disappointing girls, their parents, and their much more motivated older siblings. They're intensely loyal to each other, brothers at their best and at their very worst. But when Cameron falls head over heels for Ruben's girlfriend, the strength of their bond is tested to its breaking point.We're proud to present these novels together for the first time, and to be introducing American readers to THE UNDERDOG, never before published in the United States. Fans of THE BOOK THIEF won't want to miss reading the novels that launched Markus Zusak's stellar career. Views: 55
The Slippage is a wry, wistful tale of marriage, lust, and disconnection from Ben Greenman, the critically acclaimed author of What He’s Poised to Do.William Day must confront some uncomfortable truths about his life and his future when his wife Louisa asks him to build her house. The take-it-or-leave-it demand becomes all the more difficult to swallow when he finds himself grappling with a past recklessness, an ex-girlfirend’s son he considers his own, and his own wants for what lies ahead.Sure to appeal to everyone who has ever been in love and had their heart broken, The Slippage shares uncanny truths about intimacy and modern relationships.Review“In The Slippage, Ben Greenman illuminates the strange, electric moments that lurk in the seemingly ordinary milieus of the suburban kitchen, the married bedroom. With compassion and dark humor, Greenman brings the absurdity and grace of marriage vividly to life.” (Laura van den Berg, author of *What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us* )“Ben Greenman’s The Slippage is a slyly funny and heartbreaking portrait of suburban American marriage, like an update of John Cheever in an age of smartphones and rampant corporate greed. This stellar novel asks whether it’s ever possible to see clearly-in love, life, or art.” (Luis Jaramillo, author of *The Doctor's Wife* )“With The Slippage, Ben Greenman proves what many of us suspected: he’s one of our best writers, and he can do anything...It’ll be the book of the year.” (Darin Strauss, author of Half a Life and *Chang & Eng* )“Ben Greenman’s relentlessly funny novel engages with the mystery whereby a seemingly sane man can take steps to simultaneously solidify and destroy his life. Greenman is a brilliant and wry stenographer.” (Karen Russell, author of *Swamplandia* )“Reminiscent of the greatest, elegiac work of William Maxwell, Greenman’s book is a reminder of the ways we fail, in love, and find grace in even that failure. This is truly a beautiful book.” (Pauls Toutonghi, author of Evel Knievel Days and *Red Weather* )“Ben Greenman’s The Slippage turns backyard barbecues and suburban playgrounds into tense and charged territory. . . . If Emma Bovary had lived in the ‘burbs, she would have left a story like this in her wake.” (Emma Straub, author of *Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures* )“The Slippage is a terrific novel, a wry and affecting depiction of an America adrift in its tidy cul de sacs of anxiety, lust, and disappointment. Ben Greenman writes crackling dialogue, brilliant characters, and sentences so sharp they hurt.” (Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins and *We Live in Water* )“Greenman’s style will appeal to those who appreciate literary fiction that succinctly yet eloquently dissects the contemporary American marriage.” (Booklist )“Greenman has a knack for chronicling the uncertain angst of suburban life. . . [He] has crafted one of the more surprising and remarkable opening scenes in this year’s bumper crop of contemporary realism.” (Kansas City Star )“Perceptive.” (Publishers Weekly )“Greenman’s latest shout-inducing (angst-ridden and damned funny) novel, The Slippage, [is] a wry, wistful tale of marriage, lust, and disconnection.” (PopMatters.com ) From the Back CoverWilliam and Louisa Day are a suburban husband and wife, with no children, confronting the question of what their relationship means to them and if and how it will survive. One day, after weeks of bizarre behavior—disappearing in the middle of parties, hoarding mail—Louisa approaches William with a stark request: "I want you to build us a house." Caught off guard, William is suddenly forced to reckon with his own hopes and desires, his growing discomfort at home and work, and, in the end, his wife's fight-or-flight ultimatum. The result is an emotionally powerful novel, marked by Ben Greenman's trademark blend of yearning and mordant wit. Views: 55
The life Dr. Dylan Reinhart saves may be his ownDr. Dylan Reinhart wrote the book on criminal behavior. Literally—he's a renowned Ivy League expert on the subject. When a copy turns up at a gruesome murder scene—with a threatening message from the killer-it looks like someone is taking a page out of his bestseller.Elizabeth Needham is the headstrong and brilliant NYPD Detective in charge of the case who recruits Dylan to help investigate another souvenir left at the scene—a playing card. When the killer strikes again, leaving a second card behind, he suspects that the cards aren't a signature, they're a deadly hint—and the next target may be none other than Dylan himself. As tabloid newspapers about the killer known as "The Dealer" fly off newstands, New York City descends into panic. With cops at a loss, it's up to Dylan to hunt down a serial killer unlike any the city has ever seen. Only someone with Dylan's expertise can hope to go... Views: 55
The year is 1827, and in a remote hut on the high plains of New South Wales, two strangers spend the night in talk. One, Carney, an illiterate Irishman, ex-convict and bushranger, is to be hanged at dawn. The other, Adair, also Irish, is the police officer who has been sent to supervise the hanging. As the night wears on, the two discover unexpected connections between their lives, and learn new truths. Outside the hut, Adair's troopers sit uneasily, reflecting on their own pasts and futures, waiting for the morning to come. With ironic humour and in prose of starkly evocative power, the novel moves between Australia and Ireland to explore questions of nature and justice, reason and un-reason, the workings of fate, and the small measure of freedom a man may claim in the face of death. A new novel by Malouf is a major event; The Conversations At Curlow Creek will confirm him as one of the greatest novelists of our time. Views: 55
In Troll Or Derby, fifteen-year-old Roller Deb is singled out by town bullies for both her skates, and for being different. When her popular homecoming queen of a sister is kidnapped by a scuzzy drug dealer, Deb must flee the trailer park in which she's grown up, and rescue her. Along the way, Deb becomes enmeshed in the magical realm of trolls and fairies, and the blood-thirsty version of roller derby at which these beings excel. But spending too much time among the fairies comes with a price. Will Deb choose to save her sister, with the aid of a mysterious troll? Or will she be lost to the lures of roller derby, and the blonde temptress April, forever?Review"Red Tash delivers again with this tale of rockin', rollin' and full metal fantasy! I love this damn book." ~Axel Howerton, author of Living Dead at Zigfreidt & Roy"You'll quickly become engrossed by Deb and Harlow's story. Once you start, it's hard to put Troll Or Derby down. At 262 pages in the paperback edition, it's the perfect length for an afternoon of summer reading. If you're down for roller derby, fantasy, action, and a cast of completely insane characters (in a good way), you should definitely read Troll Or Derby." ~Captain Painway, LikeItDerby.com"This book has it all. Prophecies. Destinies. Royalty, trust, revenge. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll are doused in humor and lit ablaze with quirky snark. I blew through this book incredibly fast because I couldn't put it down. If you want a solid, fun read, then pick up Red Tash's Troll or Derby." ~Mercedes Yardley, Shock Totem"Roller Deb is a sexy ass-kicking heroine and I can't help but adore the chick! All that unleashed power is both scary and fascinating, it feels like staring into the sun. And Harlow, with his swoon-worthy name, is the kind of troll you want to fall in love with. Overall the story is crazy exciting and so fast paced you'll just keep on flipping the pages." ~ Braine of TalkingSupe.com Book Reviews About the AuthorRed Tash is a journalist-turned-novelist of dark fantasy for readers of all ages. Monsters, SciFi, wizards, trolls, fairies, and roller derby lightly sautéed in a Southern/Midwestern sauce hand-canned from her mama's recipes await you in her pantry of readerly delights. Y'all come, anytime. Views: 55
A new work by a master of contemporary Australian fiction, highly regarded overseas, but little-known here. Giramondo's publication of Border Districts, and the retrospective volume Collected Short Fiction (early next year) is a collaboration with the distinguished New York publisher Farrar Straus Giroux.Conceived as Gerald Murnane's last work of fiction, Border Districts was written after the author moved from Melbourne to a small town on the western edge of the Wimmera plains, near the border with South Australia. The narrator of this fiction has made a similar move, from a capital city to a remote town in the border country, where he intends to spend the last years of his life. It is a time for exploring the enduring elements of his experience, as these exist in his mind, images whose persistence is assured, but whose significance needs to be rediscovered. Readers of Murnane's earlier work will recognise some of these images: the dark-haired young woman at a window; the... Views: 55
