B>A stunning, lyrical novel set in the rolling foothills of the Appalachians about a young girl and the family truths that will haunt her for the rest of her life./b>br>br>"A girl comes of age against the knife."br>br>So begins the story of Betty Carpenter. Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a white mother and a Cherokee father, Betty is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit in the rural town of Breathed, Ohio, is one of poverty and violence--both from outside the family and, devastatingly, from within. The lush landscape, rich with birdsong, wild fruit, and blazing stars, becomes a kind of refuge for Betty, but when her family''s darkest secrets are brought to light, she has no choice but to reckon with the brutal history hiding in the hills, as well as the heart-wrenching cruelties and incredible characters she encounters.br>br>Despite the hardships she faces, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters, and her father''s brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all to which she bears witness, Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write. She recounts the horrors of her family''s past and present with pen and paper and buries them deep in the dirt--moments that have stung her so deeply she could not share them, until now.br>br>Inspired by generations of her family, Tiffany McDaniel sets out to free the past by delivering this heartbreaking yet magical story--a remarkable novel that establishes her as one of the most important voices in American fiction.
Terrible, unspeakable things happened to Sethe at Sweet Home, the farm where she lived as a slave for many years until she escaped to Ohio. Her new life is full of hope but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.
Awe and exhiliration--along with heartbreak and mordant wit--abound in Lolita , Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America. Most of all, it is a meditation on love--love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.
B>The bold and boundlessly original debut novel from the Oscarr-winning screenwriter of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Synecdoche, New York.br>/b>br>b>LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE A dyspeptic satire that owes much to Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon . . . propelled by Kaufmans deep imagination, considerable writing ability and bulls-eye wit."--The Washington Postbr>/b>br>b>An astonishing creation . . . riotously funny . . . an exceptionally good [book].--The New York Times Book Review Kaufman is a master of language . . . a sight to behold.--NPR/b> br>b>br>NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND MENS HEALTH/b>br>br> B. Rosenberger Rosenberg, neurotic and underappreciated film critic (failed academic, filmmaker, paramour, shoe salesman who sleeps in a sock drawer), stumbles upon a hitherto unseen film made by an enigmatic outsider--a film hes convinced will change his career trajectory and rock the world of cinema to its core. His hands on what is possibly the greatest movie ever made--a three-month-long stop-motion masterpiece that took its reclusive auteur ninety years to complete--B. knows that it is his mission to show it to the rest of humanity. The only problem: The film is destroyed, leaving him the sole witness to its inadvertently ephemeral genius.br>br> All thats left of this work of art is a single frame from which B. must somehow attempt to recall the film that just might be the last great hope of civilization. Thus begins a mind-boggling journey through the hilarious nightmarescape of a psyche as lushly Kafkaesque as it is atrophied by the relentless spew of Twitter. Desperate to impose order on an increasingly nonsensical existence, trapped in a self-imposed prison of aspirational victimhood and degeneratively inclusive language, B. scrambles to re-create the lost masterwork while attempting to keep pace with an ever-fracturing culture of likes and arbitrary denunciations that are simultaneously his bête noire and his raison dêtre.br>br> A searing indictment of the modern world, Antkind is a richly layered meditation on art, time, memory, identity, comedy, and the very nature of existence itself--the grain of truth at the heart of every joke.
Orphaned at an early age, Jane Eyre, leads a lonely life until she finds a position as a governess at Thornfield Hall. There she meets the mysterious Mr. Rochester and sees a ghostly woman who roams the halls at night. What is the sinister secret that threatens Jane and her new found happiness? Step into Classics(TM) adaptations feature easy-to-read texts, big type, and short chapters that are ideal for reluctant readers and kids not yet ready to tackle original classics.
Spectacular.--NPR Uproariously funny.-- The Boston Globe An artistic triumph.-- San Francisco Chronicle A novel in which comedy and pathos are exquisitely balanced.-- The Washington Post Shteyngarts best book.-- The Seattle Times The bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story returns with a biting, brilliant, emotionally resonant novel very much of our times. NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE AND MAUREEN CORRIGAN, NPRS FRESH AIR AND NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review NPR The Washington Post O: The Oprah Magazine Mother Jones Glamour Library Journal Kirkus Reviews Newsday Pamela Paul, KQED Financial Times The Globe and Mail Narcissistic, hilariously self-deluded, and divorced from the real world as most of us know it, hedge-fund manager Barry Cohen oversees $2.4 billion in assets. Deeply stressed by an SEC investigation and by his three-year-old sons diagnosis of autism, he flees New York on a Greyhound bus in search of a simpler, more romantic life with his old college sweetheart. Meanwhile, his super-smart wife, Seema--a driven first-generation American who craved the picture-perfect life that comes with wealth--has her own demons to face. How these two flawed characters navigate the Shteyngartian chaos of their own making is at the heart of this piercing exploration of the 0.1 Percent, a poignant tale of familial longing and an unsentimental ode to what really makes America great. LONGLISTED FOR THE CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION The fuel and oxygen of immigrant literature--movement, exile, nostalgia, cultural disorientation--are what fire the pistons of this trenchant and panoramic novel. . . . [It is] a novel so pungent, so frisky and so intent on probing the dissonances and delusions--both individual and collective--that grip this strange land getting stranger. -- The New York Times Book Review Shteyngart, perhaps more than any American writer of his generation, is a natural. He is light, stinging, insolent and melancholy. . . . The wit and the immigrants sense of heartbreak--he was born in Russia--just seem to pour from him. The idea of riding along behind Shteyngart as he glides across America in the early age of Trump is a propitious one. He doesnt disappoint. -- The New York Times
The questions, discussion topics, and reading list that follow are designed to enhance your group's reading of Peter Mayle's delightful books about life in Provence, where he and his wife bought a two-hundred-year-old stone farmhouse nestled in the foothills of the Lubéron Mountains.
The New York Times bestselling author of The Tigers Wife returns with a bracingly epic and imaginatively mythic journey across the American West in 1893, in which the lives of a former outlaw and a frontierswoman collide and intertwine ( Entertainment Weekly ) In the lawless, drought-ridden lands of the Arizona Territory in 1893, two extraordinary lives collide. Nora is an unflinching frontierswoman awaiting the return of the men in her life--her husband, who has gone in search of water for the parched household, and her elder sons, who have vanished after an explosive argument. Nora is biding her time with her youngest son, who is convinced that a mysterious beast is stalking the land around their home. Lurie is a former outlaw and a man haunted by ghosts. He sees lost souls who want something from him, and he finds reprieve from their longing in an unexpected relationship that inspires a momentous expedition across the West. The way in which Noras and Luries stories intertwine is the surprise and suspense of this brilliant novel. Mythical, lyrical, and sweeping in scope, Inland is grounded in true but little-known history. It showcases all of Téa Obrehts talents as a writer, as she subverts and reimagines the myths of the American West, making them entirely--and unforgettably--her own. Advance praise for Inland A frontier tale [that] dazzles with camels and wolves and two characters who never quite meet . . . [Obreht] returns with a novel saturated in enough realism and magic to make the ghost of Gabriel García Márquez grin. . . . Will take your breath away. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) This is no boilerplate Louis LAmour yarn--there are ghosts, camels and other fantastical elements. -- Newsday (Best Summer Books 2019) The long-anticipated second novel from Téa Obreht transports readers to the Wild West through the juxtaposed stories of a frontierswoman whose husband and sons have gone missing, and of an outlaw on the run. -- Bustle
Remarkable stories of men, women, and families living on the edge--the eagerly anticipated first collection from the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls . A young woman trying to make it in L.A. takes a risk that forces her to confront the dangerous game she is playing. A father tries to medicate and control his fear and anger at his son's lifestyle and behavior. An aspiring actress feels herself turning hard and toward an ambition marked by a glittering coldness. In nine stunning stories, Emma Cline explores the menace and the shocking costs of the choices people make, the complicated interactions between men and women and within families, and the violence lurking at the edge of ordinary people's lives.
It's the early 1960s, and as the Civil Rights movement begins to reach segregated Tallahassee, the young, deeply principled Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to heart: he is «as good as anyone.» He is about to enroll in the local black college, but for a black boy in the Jim Crow South, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE The Testaments is a modern masterpiece, a powerful novel that can be read on its own or as a companion to Margaret Atwoods classic, The Handmaids Tale . More than fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge, with potentially explosive results. Two have grown up as part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The testimonies of these two young women are joined by a third: Aunt Lydia. Her complex past and uncertain future unfold in surprising and pivotal ways. With The Testaments, Margaret Atwood opens up the innermost workings of Gilead, as each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is, and how far she will go for what she believes.
B>b>A beautiful, arresting story about race and the relationships that shape us through life by the legendary Toni Morrison, in a stand-alone Knopf hardcover for the first time./b>/b>br>br>In this 1983 short story--the only short story Morrison ever wrote--we meet Twyla and Roberta, who have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only later to find each other again at a diner, a grocery store, and again at a protest. Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and at each other''s throats each time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them.br>;br>Another work of genius by this masterful writer, Recitatif keeps Twyla''s and Roberta''s races ambiguous throughout the story. Morrison herself described Recitatif, a story which will keep readers thinking and discussing for years to come, as "an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial." We know that one is white and one is Black, but which is which? And who is right about the race of the woman the girls tormented at the orphanage?br>;br>A remarkable look into what keeps us together and what keeps us apart, and how perceptions are made tangible by reality, Recitatif is a gift to readers in these changing times.
B>Now in paperback--the intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States, featuring a new introduction by Michelle Obama, a letter from the author to her younger self, and a book club guide with 20 discussion questions and a 5-question Q&A/b>br> br>b>#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WATCH THE EMMY-NOMINATED NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY OPRAHS BOOK CLUB PICK NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER/b> b> ONE OF ESSENCES 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS/b>br>br>In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America--the first African American to serve in that role--she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.br> br>In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her--from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the worlds most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it--in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations--and whose story inspires us to do the same.
When the van door slammed on Offreds future at the end of «The Handmaids Tale», readers had no way of telling what lay ahead. In this electrifying sequel, Margaret Atwood picks up the story fifteen years after Offred stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.
Dawn thinks she knows everything there is to know about dying. As a death doula she helps her clients fix what is left undone so they can peacefully make the final transition. But when her plane plummets from the sky, she is shocked to find that she isn't thinking of a road she strayed from 15 years earlier, when she turned her back on her PhD studies.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR From the National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids and M Train , a profound, beautifully realized memoir in which dreams and reality are vividly woven into a tapestry of one transformative year. Following a run of concerts at San Francisco's legendary Fillmore, Patti Smith finds herself tramping the coast of Santa Cruz. Unfettered by logic or time, she draws us into her private wonderland as a surreal lunar year begins, bringing with it unexpected turns, heightened mischief, and inescapable sorrow. In a stranger's words, "Anything is possible: after all, it's the year of the monkey." For Smith--inveterately curious, always exploring--the year evolves as one of reckoning with the changes in life's gyre: with loss, aging, and a dramatic shift in the political landscape of America. Smith melds the Western landscape with her own dreamscape. Taking us from California to the Arizona desert; to a Kentucky farm as the amanuensis of a friend in crisis; to the hospital room of a valued mentor; and by turns to remembered and imagined places, this haunting memoir blends fact and fiction with poetic mastery. The unexpected happens; grief and disillusionment set in. But as Smith heads toward a new decade in her own life, she offers this balm to the reader: her wisdom, wit, gimlet eye, and above all, a rugged hope for a better world. Riveting, elegant, often humorous, illustrated by Smith's signature Polaroids, Year of the Monkey is a moving and original work, a touchstone for our turbulent times.
B>b>A special edition of the poem "The Hill We Climb," read at the inauguration of the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden, on January 20, 2021/b>/b>br>br>On January 20, 2021, Amanda Gorman became the sixth and youngest poet, at age twenty-two,;to deliver a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration. Her inaugural poem, "The Hill We Climb," is now available to cherish in this special edition.
